Gondor Faction Plan

I really like the idea of having map specific units from the Inn, as it would make many maps much more interesting and unique.

But I have to agree with Ectheldir, that it can cause a drastic difference in power levels depending on the map. In particular when they are important to the gameplay and not just nice to have. When factions have different gameplays and strength, the same unit added to all of them might have a different impact. As said above, one faction might have early pikes in the faction itself, while others get acess to them much later and therefore pikes at the Inn might be much more usefull. Also, if the good factions have stronger units on one map than the evil in the Inn and the evil have stronger units in the Inn than the good factions on another map. That can greatly disturb the balance.

My last point is, that the more important Inns are for players the more important it becomes for all players to have the same chances to get them. This can be a large restriction to maps from my experience.

I am not against the idea, because I can see it developping out really nice, but I'd like to see some consideration concerning possible problems.

Edited by FG15, 12 February 2017 - 05:49 PM.

Right, well when the concept if more or less finalized to where we like it, we'll have open a discussion on it then Right now lets try to keep this topic on the Gondor chat.

About Faramir, I've had some thoughts I'd like to share.

Lvl 1: Toggle bow/sword

Lvl 1: Captain of Gondor (leadership, gives +25% damages and 25% resistance to fear to nearby units)

Lvl 2: Wrath of Ithilien (shoots a powerful arrow that deal  50% more damages to monsters)

Lvl 4: Knight of Minas Tirith (can  mount a steed)

Lvl 5: VISUAL CHANGE: gains heavy armour, can be activated/ deactivated

Lvl  7: Valiant heart (Faramir gains a boost of 20% armour and 15% damages in melee, passive power)

The idea here is to make him more like he was in the books, a valiant captain loved by his men, but also to give him that determination and skills he has in the movies.

I'm not fully convinced of this as a complete concept for Faramir, because I'm missing a bit of interactivity. He has 6 abilities but only a single one has a real effect to be used in battle. I don't think I would enjoy that.

A ability that I am not really fond of is his Visual Change, which does nothing but change the visual. If there is a clickable ability I would expect an effect, which affects the gameplay and not just the design.

Also the concept includes 6 abilities, which is 1 too much. (Except if the stances have been removed and I haven't noticed that.)

A better way to include all this abilities would be in my opinion the following:

Ranger/ Soldier

Faramir toggles between being a Ranger and a Soldier. He has access to different abilities and weapons.

This ability would include his visual change, and should have a cooldown, such that he can't permanently toggle, but has to make a choice for some time.

As a ranger:

Wrath of Ithilien

Faramir shoots a powerful arrow that deals 50% more damage against Monsters

Toggle Weapon

Faramir toggles between bow and sword

Captain of Gondor (passive)

Faramir grants +25% damage and fear resistance to nearby Ithilien units

Removed the 25% infront of fear resistance, as fear resistance can either be there or can't.

Valiant heart

For 30 seconds, Faramir gains a +40% armour and +25% damages when attacking with his sword for 3 seconds

The boni is only given when he is actually fighting with his sword, so he is motivated to attack enemies. Also the ability is active now, but has greater boni.

As a fighter:

Wrath of Gondor

Faramir attacks his enemies with a powerful melee attack that deals 50% more damage against Monsters

The same ability just in a melee form.

Mount

Faramir mounts his horse

Captain of Gondor (passive)

Faramir grants +25% damage and fear resistance to nearby Gondor units

Valiant heart

For 30 seconds, Faramir gains a +40% armour and +25% damages when attacking with his sword for 3 seconds

Edited by FG15, 13 February 2017 - 08:07 PM.

Looks more convincing already!  

I think Faramir never had the respect he deserves! 

Updated with hero powers.

Erebor faction plan?

Soon.

Awesome! Boromir and Faramir are truly great captains  

I'm glad you take care so much about everybody's suggestions, to explain why it's sometimes not possible, or instead, to support news ideas!

Could you expand the hero powers on the first post a bit?

At the moment there is only the name of the ability in most cases. It might be obvious for most abilities, where only the name has changed, but there are same abilities, where I have no idea what it could be (or too many ideas).

Also Forlong isn't listed there yet.

And out of interest, is Denethors Palantir vision similar to Isengards palantir, or the old Ivory Tower?

Denethor sounds like he's going to be a controversial leader. Means his powers would both negatively affect the enemy and the allies as well.

Edited by Elessar_the_King, 01 March 2017 - 01:18 PM.

Could you expand the hero powers on the first post a bit?

At the moment there is only the name of the ability in most cases. It might be obvious for most abilities, where only the name has changed, but there are same abilities, where I have no idea what it could be (or too many ideas).

Also Forlong isn't listed there yet.

And out of interest, is Denethors Palantir vision similar to Isengards palantir, or the old Ivory Tower?

Yeah, the faction plans are rough write-ups that we update and flesh out as we go. We'll be more detailed later on. Forlong will be there.

I'm assuming it will be like Isengard's Palantir, though it hasn't been implemented yet.

@Elessar: yeah, 'His Rule Is Failing' will negatively impact everyone caught in the radius.

Isengards Palantir would be my prefered implementation, too.

Concerning the anti leadership ability, I think it would be better to make it a radial one, instead of one with a target cursor, because hardly any player would target allied units, if he can place the target area so, that only enemies are affected. Therefore players could avoid the negative effect in most cases, what would be a shame in my opinion.

Furthermore, I'd like to see a change to the upgrade ability. We had similar abilities included in the past, but removed them because they were really problematic. Players just tend to clump as many units together as possible, to get the maximized bonus. And reducing the radius doesn't work, because there can still be many units in a small radius. Even when we had a hero, who could only give peasants upgrades, one of the weakest units, there were player who started directly buying him, because this ability was so strong. 

If the ability stays this way, I'm afraid that it will be far too strong. What I want to suggest therefore is changing the ability to a passive one. Favor of the Stuart reduces the upgrade for forged blades and heavy armor for own units on the map by X% (something between 25 and 50). This has two advanteges. The player still has to buy the upgrades, and he has to research them first. And it will give Gondor a unique play pattern, waiting for Denethor to arrive and then upgrading the units. The differences between a permanent passive effect is, that Denethor won't be permanently available and therefore it might not be worth waiting for him.

Having used the power for SaF's Isengard faction, I can affirm that it's easily balancable and won't be a problem.
Besides our plan is to have the upgrade ability only usable once per summon.

Has there been any discussion internally about making the Oathbreakers non lethal? They routed their foes through fear if I'm not completely mistaken. However, I have no idea if this would work balance wise or make them useless as a high tier spell. 

Edited by Vidstige, 05 March 2017 - 12:29 AM.

Not really something we want to do, plus that would be hard to balance.

Greetings fellow humans,

I have a suggestion for Gondor, to improve the garrisons defending the structures.

Stoneworker:

Level 2:

"Defenders of the White City"

The selected building near the Stoneworker gets additional unit's defending it. If the Stone worker is destroyed the extra units will parish.

The ability could scale with the Stoneworker, so if you got a level 3 Stoneworker the selected building will get some extra citadel guards.

Blacksmith:

Level 3:

“Armor up the guards”

Select a building, the garrison defending that building will get all upgrades available for them.

I like the "Defenders of the White City" idea

It fits Gondor's defensive scheme quite well.

I suppose Frodo will be the ring hero?