Horde Strength discussion

[kaldar]

Here is a list of the NPC hordes as they would be during the Last Battle. Post your comments, concerns, suggestions so we can try to do something about it before the end of the age.

NPC % dmg Skill Skill
Trolloc 70 200% dmg 50 taint
Myrddraal 60 50 stun 50 dodge 50 taint
Darkhound 30 50 poison 50 taint 100% def
Draghkar 50 50 stun 50 taint 17 wound
Grayman 50 50 dodge 50 poison 50 taint
Gholam 60 100 dodge 17 wound
Jumara 50 50% health gain 50 taint 50-100 dmg
Guard Dog 50 50 FS 100 dodge 100% def
Wolf 60 100% def 50 acc 50 FS
Lion 60 50 FS 100% dmg 50 dodge
Capar 50 50 dodge 100% def 50-100 def
Bear 60 100% dmg 50 acc 50-100 dmg
Gara 60 50 poison 50 stun 100% dmg
blacklance 50 100 poison 17 speed
Soldier 50 100% dmg 100% def 50 acc
Merchant Guard 30 100% def 50% health gain 50-100 def
Whitecloak 40 200% def 100% dmg
Seanchan 60 200% dmg 100% def
Aiel 60 50 doge 50 acc 50 FS
Warder 60 50 acc 50 dodge 50 stun
deathwatch guard 70 50-100 dmg 100% def 50 stun
Grolm 60 50% health gain 200% dmg
Torm 45 100 dodge 100% def
Corlm 55 100 acc 100% dmg
Raken 65 100 dodge 17 speed
Lopar 50 100% dmg 100% def 50% health gain
To'raken 65 50 acc 100% dmg 17 speed
S'redit 60 100 stun 100% def
Wilder 60 100 FS 100% def
Mad Male Channeler 80 100 taint 150% dmg 50% dmg 2 self
Damane 65 50 FS 100% dmg 50 acc
Asha'man 65 50 acc 100% dmg 17 wound
Black Ajah 35 100% def 50 taint 17 speed
Aes Sedai 35 100% def 50 dodge 17 speed
Dreadlord 65 50 taint 100% dmg 17 wound
Bandit 60 50 dodge 100% def 50 poison
Dragonsworn 75 50 FS 100% dmg 50 poison
Darkfriend 50 50 dodge 100% dmg 100% def
Brigand 60 50 stun 100% dmg 50 acc
Mercenary 60 100 stun 100% dmg
Drunken Soldier 80 250% dmg 50-100 dmg 50% dmg 2 self
Wolfbrother 70 100 acc 150% dmg 50% dmg 2 self

[kaldar]

Alright, i'll start it out. Here is an example where I am fighting a horde of MMCs , they only need 2 turns to kill me. Generally against hordes you want to get as many turns as possible, so this battle is an optimal example because I get 3 turns to his 1 each time .... at level 80 his skills are at +38, so he has 76 taint and +114% dmg.

Again





Darkfriend attacks. The group of takes 156 damage
The group of is stunned for 9
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 89 damage
Darkfriend takes 152 taint damage
Darkfriend gains 1 health, but is injured and takes 8 damage.
Darkfriend has 0 health and The group of has 23266 health



Darkfriend attacks. The group of takes 152 damage
The group of is stunned for 4
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 54 damage
Darkfriend takes 152 taint damage
Darkfriend gains 22 health, but is injured and takes 8 damage.
Darkfriend has 100 health and The group of has 23511 health



The group of deals a respectable blow. Darkfriend takes 176 damage
Darkfriend's taint increases by 76
The group of takes 144 taint damage
The group of is injured in the attack and takes 67 damage
The group of has 23717 health and Darkfriend has 238 health



Darkfriend surges forward. The group of takes 182 damage
The group of is stunned for 4
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 96 damage
Darkfriend takes 76 taint damage
Darkfriend gains 1 health, but is injured and takes 9 damage.
Darkfriend has 414 health and The group of has 23928 health



Darkfriend launches into a surprising maneuver. The group of takes 208 damage
The group of is stunned for 9
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 63 damage
Darkfriend takes 76 taint damage
Darkfriend gains 1 health, but is injured and takes 10 damage.
Darkfriend has 498 health and The group of has 24206 health



Darkfriend surges forward. The group of takes 161 damage
The group of is stunned for 12
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 84 damage
The group of 's taint increases by 48
Darkfriend takes 76 taint damage
Darkfriend gains 23 health, but is injured and takes 8 damage.
Darkfriend has 583 health and The group of has 24477 health



The group of connects with a solid hit. Darkfriend takes 187 damage
Darkfriend's taint increases by 76
The group of takes 96 taint damage
The group of is injured in the attack and takes 71 damage
The group of has 24722 health and Darkfriend has 644 health



Darkfriend connects with a solid hit. The group of takes 157 damage
The group of is stunned for 14
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 63 damage
The group of 's taint increases by 48
Darkfriend gains 1 health, but is injured and takes 8 damage.
Darkfriend has 831 health and The group of has 24889 health



Darkfriend attacks. The group of takes 144 damage
The group of is stunned for 8
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 85 damage
Darkfriend gains 1 health, but is injured and takes 7 damage.
Darkfriend has 838 health and The group of has 25109 health



Darkfriend connects with a solid hit. The group of takes 113 damage
The group of is wounded for 8.
Poison wracks The group of 's body for 49 damage
The group of 's taint increases by 48
Darkfriend is injured in the attack and takes 6 damage
Darkfriend has 844 health and The group of has 25338 health



Obviously I don't have optimal gear, but I have decent defensive gear on to block some of his damage and there is nothing I can do about his taint.

This is just one of many examples I can show that with any stat at a really high level you don't really want to be fighting hordes of them ...

[rey]

I haven't come across one yet, but with the Wound changes Draghkar might need some tweaking

[kaldar]

go to the cities and find the horde quests ...

[King Richard]

Yeah, seems excessively strong. I liked it better when only SOME of the hordes were tough.

[Tim]

Was waiting for more input to come in, but figured I should weigh in here.

So is the consensus that ALL hordes/armies are too strong now at high levels, or just that MORE are? If it's the later, I can live with it, as there will always be Tormslayers and it will make hordes scarier. If it's ALL or MOST hordes though, I'll have to tweak something. Only solution I can think of that could be done at this point would be to cap stats of hordes so they wouldn't have such ridiculously high stats. Granted, players should be able to take advantage of these high stats too.

I don't know. Would appreciate more input/suggestions.

[Seitaarin]

start the last battle and pop a dozen random hordes so we can battle it out? Maybe up the drop rate of TA's for a couple of days first so we can kit out somewhat ... or not ... poor(ish) gear probably is good enough for testing purposes, although having a variety of gear to be able to bend stats to suit is probably better.

edit: LB hordes are good, only 2 turns per hit makes turns go alot further

[King Richard]

Sorry, been busy and haven't tested anything myself. I was just going off of what our professional tester/bug finder said. I'll try to test some soon.

[Jenlyn]

I slew a couple of armies and did not pay attention to the data. I was just playing.

[kaldar]

Was waiting for more input to come in, but figured I should weigh in here.

So is the consensus that ALL hordes/armies are too strong now at high levels, or just that MORE are? If it's the later, I can live with it, as there will always be Tormslayers and it will make hordes scarier. If it's ALL or MOST hordes though, I'll have to tweak something. Only solution I can think of that could be done at this point would be to cap stats of hordes so they wouldn't have such ridiculously high stats. Granted, players should be able to take advantage of these high stats too.

I don't know. Would appreciate more input/suggestions.

First of all, i'm disappointed at how few people even bothered to test anything in a "test" age.
Second, i'm disappointed that people seemed to ignore my suggestion that you could try out hordes by doing the horde quests. In other words, we don't really need LB to get hordes.

Third, answering Tim's question .....

Most all the hordes will be overpowered now. My shoot from the hip suggestion is this, and I think it is a pretty easy one to implement and try out, when you calculate the horde skill points just cut them in half from what the NPC would be.

In other words, if I am fighting a level 100 NPC and the skills come back as level 50, 50, 50 .. when I fight a level 100 horde take the returns and half them, so 25, 25, 25.

This will still make hordes challenging, while toning down some of their brashness .. hopefully, we will see.

[Tim]

It's not uncommon for a lot of players to take the test ages 'off' as otherwise it's easy to get burned out. I can't criticize as I've been doing it too. RL is the master of us all.

Testing is no one's 'job' so yelling at others for not doing so is counter productive.

Anyways.

I think I'll go that route Kaldar. Might start with cutting them to 75% strength instead of 50% first, as I DO want them to be tough. If that's still too high I can tone it down.

[Seitaarin]

however it is seems fine, fought hordes for

bandits
soldiers
Lions
Trollocs
Aes Sedai
Myrddraal
Warders
Guard Dogs
wilders
torm

and in my crappy gear I had little problem ... changed a madness piece off when fighting trollocs and then had no problem at all ... only real issue I see is the disparity in defenses I guess. 3 hitting a trolloc horde for the inconvenience of swapping one crappy piece of equipment for a random TA that doesn't kill me is and then going and hitting guard dogs for 1k-3.5k per battle, or Aes Sedai or torm, for even less is a little bit wonky, sure. But none of the hordes as they are seem to be threatening at all, dunno what the fuss is. Some just need more turns than others, but I don't have different damage types to test with, so results inconclusive there.

[Seitaarin]

I really hope hordes don't get 'rebalanced' to a point where they offer up so little fight that pure glass cannon is perfectly viable in all cases. Hordes doing just enough damage such that all defensive mechanics can be completely ignored and only offensive tweaking is required sounds pretty crappy to me. The repeat battle button is already far too I WIN for my liking.

[kaldar]

You hope hordes don't get rebalanced to a point where they offer up no fight, yet until now 75% of the hordes were effectively fighting with 0 skill points.

The point isn't just can you "beat" the horde with the current skill points, it is also a matter of will they be realistic to beat in the last battle when they start out with 400-600k points and get doubled to around a million ?

At 3k damage / battle , that would take around 600-700 turns to take down a single horde. And all the hordes that have healing as a skill ... yeah , double that to 1200-1400 turns.

Anyway, everyone will be at the same disadvantage so whatever you all want I suppose.

[Seitaarin]

Not everyone would be at the same disadvantage, not by a long, long way. Shadow can double a horde, but Light cannot double an army.

And yes, most of them were too easy, I thought that issue had been identified and corrected for the test age though? I'm not talking about hitting hordes in the last age.