Forest Folk initial thoughts

[Nakaruru]

Been playing around with the new faction and been having a lot of fun with it. The new fairy is really useful but the low hp scares me a lot. I haven't lost one yet but figure it's just a matter of time. Not into the late game stages so no chance to try out the new unicorn yet. Over all the faction feels a lot like I remember it from AoE 3.

Started with the dryad ( love support casters ) the starting bear and some saprolings made for a very smooth start. managed to get a mage from an event which also helped. The one use mp restore from the fairy has been useful a couple of times and is a nice twist to mana management over just having meditation. Having chain lightning on top makes it very nice. Not exactly sure how a units cost is compiled but it seems like the fairy is very cheap for all the spells it has.

Only real complaint I have is that several of my units have been stuck waiting on evolve paths to open up. Dryad huntress being a major one.

Many thanks for getting the forest faction into the game, They are my favorite.

[Les]

I am glad you like it! We have put lots of work into Forest Folk while preparing for this update :)

Only real complaint I have is that several of my units have been stuck waiting on evolve paths to open up. Dryad huntress being a major one.

Can you please elaborate on that more? Is that experience problem or advanced units cama too late?

[Codex]

Originally posted by Les:

I am glad you like it! We have put lots of work into Forest Folk while preparing for this update :)

Only real complaint I have is that several of my units have been stuck waiting on evolve paths to open up. Dryad huntress being a major one.

Can you please elaborate on that more? Is that experience problem or advanced units cama too late?

His phrasing certainly implies the latter. I figure that he's just not seeing those advanced versions.
When i was playing i also ran into them very rarely, even in the forest stages.

[Nakaruru]

It has been that the units came to late so far. My fungusoid was waiting for a bit before I could upgrade to the elder. The parasitic version opened up earlier but wasn't a form I was interested in. My saprolings are pretty much maxed out but no ent upgrade yet. And dryad is in a similar position.

The dryad is an odd one, the huntress has little to no use for a bunch of the skills the normal dryad has so I want to upgrade it super early. But if I want to wait for the caster I'm fine grabbing all the skills. So I'm stuck on one upgrade path but not stuck on the other yet ( my dryad is close to maxed as well ).

Bear upgrade showed up pretty much right on the mark. And I didn't use the swamp ivy because I could already go into saprollings and fungusoids so I saw no need. Which means I don't know how well that evolve is timed.

The upgrades haven't been massively late so far (barring huntress) but it has been noticeable.

quick edit, played a few more fights and unlocked ents a little after my saprolings ran out of skills so the upgrade showed up more or less on time.

[Nakaruru]

Originally posted by Codex:

Originally posted by Les:

I am glad you like it! We have put lots of work into Forest Folk while preparing for this update :)



Can you please elaborate on that more? Is that experience problem or advanced units cama too late?

His phrasing certainly implies the latter. I figure that he's just not seeing those advanced versions.
When i was playing i also ran into them very rarely, even in the forest stages.

I have yet to run into a forest folk force, I have been hunting for them to try and grab some plants for cheap but I never see them.

[J.A.M.]

While Ivies have n obvious use, fighting the never ending tide of undead they can consume corpses to stop the enemy, they can heal from corpse feasting, have a small spit so they always get first hit, and have regrowth so you dont have to worry about losing them.

[Feli]

Ran into similar problems here. Actively searching zones I thought forest folk would spawn in and never saw them thinking that was the best way to trigger unit unlocks. All my units other than my hero had been maxed out for quite a while waiting on class changes, so I was mostly just training up duplicates to put on my bench while I waited for new unit unlocks.

This isn't entirely unique to the forest faction, as I've ran into similar problems with other factions too, but other factions are usually given access to their more relevant units near the start allowing them to make a fully functional team with what they have. Maybe it's a bigger issue because I play on death seeker difficulty? I don't know.

Particularly, not even the un-upgraded version of some key units have shown their faces. I was told I'd be picking between fairies and dryders, but I haven't seen even the basic dryder unit yet, and had fairies unlocked right near the start which seem to be my only source of damage. Meanwhile I was waiting on unicorns to use as flanking units, but as they never came I instead have been throwing fairies into the enemy backline to disrupt artillery units because they were the only units I had with any mobility.

The biggest problem is that I feel entirely dependant on fairies as my damage dealers. I'm running into battles against trolls where my team simply cannot kill a troll without dedicating 4 turns in a row to every single unit attacking a single troll. Any of unicorns, bears, or dryders would be great to give my team a little nudge offensively rather than depending on fairy chain lightning spam to kill anything but I have yet to unlock any of those. I did just get access to insectoids, but I feel they came a bit too late, as I'd only have interest in their upgraded versions at this point, which again I don't have access to yet.

I don't know if playing as other heroes unlocks some things sooner, but as a Saproling I just felt very limited in my options. I also notice that fairies seem to be the only unit in the faction capable of using steal which is odd because that means that you can't have steal and evil units at the same time without a big morale penalty. Of course, again I haven't unlocked dryders to know what their abilities even are, but they seem to refuse to show their ugly mugs around here.

That all said I could totally use bribe to obtain units from other factions to round out my team, but I wanted to stay in-faction for my first run as them.


Overall the units themselves feel good, fairies particularly are a unique experience being so tiny and mobile as a mage with mana regen tagged on, but I'd like to see easier access to at least the un-upgraded versions of some unit types as the faction feels too limited in the early game to deal with some things.

[J.A.M.]

Went through 10 Woods, 4 Swamps already, no Forest Folk found; instead enough undead to cover every forest in black blood and fill Deephole with bones of the living dead.

[Les]

Some design notes:

(i) Early game: Forest Folk are designed around regeneration and re-growth; before you get any decent ranged (e.g. Huntress and Sorceress), Forest units should rely on healing and regeneration, but don't ignore Fungusoids as they can do some serious damage with Poison.

(ii) Mid-game: Bears (heavy-hitter) and Insectoids (high-defence) are there to counter fire-based enemies. You should be replacing Ivies with better units but your ranged-firepower is still low. You should still deploy Dryads for their healing skills.

(iii) Late-game: Once you get Sorceress it's completely different game and you can actually do some damage from afar (or summon more animals). At this point you should have switched to either Driders or Unicorns which are both fast units suitable for flanking. Your front-line is the best served with Ents.

At least, that's how we imagined it ^^
The practice might way (as always).

Your own faction won't appear in early fights - this is to prevent exploit where you capture your own units early and thus remove all challenge from game - sorry ^^

[Les]

I have just patched game with the following changes:

(i) Huntress and few other units' types unlock earlier

(ii) Fairies should not be damage dealers per design so I removed Chain Lightning from them.

Take care,
Les