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Some things I have noticed


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#1 theslayer

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Posted 07 July 2010 - 05:35 AM

There are a couple of things that I have noticed through my recent play through of this mod. Mostly on the Men Of the East Faction, but on other subjects as well.

First off the Haradrim Lancers are a very weak unit right now. They may be cheap and may be able to get into massive hordes of up to 4 combined squads but that isnt simply enough to bring them up to speed with the other early game and late game units. All units should have some value throughout the length of a game and the Lancers lack that ability. They can only get banner upgrades and their health may be 250, more than most other units, they dont have the survivability in the middle and late game, and even early game in some cases. Their line of sight is horrible, even at a full horde their line of sight is 4x as worse as a Uruk-hai squad. Their ranged attacks do not go as far as other archer squads so having increased vision wouldn't make their ranged attacks anymore powerful I would assume. And their damage to units is screwed as well. At one point a full horde of them can take down a mountain troll, and then a minute later the entire horde gets killed by two orc archer squads because they do almost no damage to them, while the orc archers are doing full damage. There must be something array in the damage counters, or orc archers have a keen resistance to 6ft tall bladed lances thrown from an overly muscular Haradrim Lancer.

Secondly another thing about the Haradrim Warrior squad. Not the hitpoints or the damage but just the feel of them. They are suppose to be proud, ferocious warriors of the south ready to die for their king. But then they go into battle with the animation of a lazy Rohan peasant?? That not only throws off the feel of the unit but the seriousness and overall look of the army. An animation of the Gondor soldiers MAYBE but the ferocity of the Uruk-hai warriors animations would be a good one to test out.

Third on my list is in the campaign, the Good one of course. It was very cool how it started out with a over the shoulder look on the heros, although it was kinda tricky getting into those side passages. It went really good especially when the hall was completely filled with goblin warriors, was very true to the movie. But then it got the Balrog. I simply wasn't able to kill him because every time I would tell Gandalf to use the lightning blade, he would simply knock him over canceling his attack. His real life size is nice, but it makes it impossible to kill him.

Forth is the War of the Ring mode, while playing as the Men of the East. With this, its simply that you are unable to choose your side, therefore making everything cost 40% more leaving you at a very big disadvantage. Maybe in the War of the Ring mode you could simply choose Harad or Easterlings in the Race selection menu, or maybe have the choice pop up on your capital territory in the beginning.

Fifth, when a ranged unit is attacking another unit from the side, and the other unit is running the ranged attacks seem to simply disappear when they reach their targets usually doing no damage at all. I cant imagine why this is.

Sixth, the goblin warriors have shields now which is really cool I think, however I believe that the shields could have an added feature. In the movie and on the action figure, there is a sharp curved spike, that comes out of the upper right hand side of the shield. This is simply me being nit picky but if it was possible to add in that curved spike, maybe when you upgrade the squad with heavy armor, then it would look very authentic. In case you have no idea what im talking about, check out this link which should lead to Games Workshop Lord of the Rings section on goblins. It shows goblin warriors with shields very similar to what im talking about.
http://www.games-wor...amp;aId=5700003

Another goblin feature that would be very cool is if the Half-Troll swordsman had shields as well. Their animations seem to be free enough to be able to fit some sort of shield in there. Maybe make it an upgrade like the Rohan and Gondorian horseman have at the level 2 stables and instead call it Half-Troll shields or something.

Thats all for now, I will update this when or if I find more.

Great work so far, haven't gone back to regular Rise of the Witch King in years.


Edit #1

Alright so I played a game with goblins again. Some other things I have noticed which are mainly simple model and art suggestions to make the Goblins look more like..well..goblins. First the Goblin Archers should get helmets like in their picture. It always bothered me that the goblin warriors picture had no helmet, but the in-game models did, and the goblin archer picture had a helmet but the in-game models didnt. The Goblin pikemen are on my list as well. Their upgrades are all wacked out. The heavy armor dosnt actually appear on the model until poison blades are given. And then if they dont even have heavy armor upgraded their in-game models still get armor when you give them poison blades. And to make them feel more like goblins and to avoid that stupid Uruk-Hai animation that EA made for some god awful reason, besides kicking their targets and ignoring the giant halberd in their hands, I think the Goblin pikemen should use the Gondorian pikemen animation. When they move their hunched over, just like goblins, and when they attack, they actually use their weapons and are still in a hunched over position. Their idal animation may have them standing up straight but its like that already with the Uruk-Hai animation so there wont be much difference there.

Edited by theslayer, 07 July 2010 - 06:59 AM.


#2 {IRS}Athos

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Posted 07 July 2010 - 01:45 PM

Hey! I have absolutely nothing to do with the mod team, but I've played RJ religiously before and read around a bit, so I count myself qualified to answer your questions. You'll have to take these with a grain of salt: I could be completely wrong. Also, nice to see a new member with a propensity for writing walls of text! :mellow:

First question: I think that Haradrim Lancers are meant to be somewhat weak. Otherwise you wouldn't have Haradrim Archers and Haradrim Warriors to make up for their lack of both missile and melee abilities. Well, maybe you'd have both and not the Lancers. Anyway, their weakness is probably because of their transitionary role as jacks of all trades.

Second question: I'm not sure that you and the mod team envision those particular Haradrim Warriors the same way. Yes, Harad probably had a core force of proud desert soldiers that destroyed everyone without looking back or breaking a sweat, but, like most armies, they also most likely had a large amount of conscripts. As conscripts, the description of "lazy peasants" could apply to them quite well. Think of Sam's impression of the dead Haradrim in The Two Towers: not a loathing reaction to one of the enemy races, but a moment of empathy for a man who may have been lied to, forced into service, and killed far away from the deserts of his home.*

Third question: I agree completely. I was completely unable to take out the Balrog without both Shadowfax and Bombadil. The knockback may have to be fixed somewhat. And, by the way, the mission in RJ is much more epic than the original version in BFME I. *shudder* That one bored me out of my mind, even in Balin's Tomb. The ridiculous amounts of goblins in the hall were more fun to kill in this version than the twenty or so BFME I gave us.

Fourth question: I don't think the mod was designed for WotR compatibility. I remember reading several conversations in which several of the mod team assured other members that I was so. Or maybe I didn't... maybe it was just my imagination...

Fifth question: That's because the RJ mod decided to nerf archers somewhat by being more realistic. It's not as if every single arrow fired always hits in battles, and it's not as if every single arrow fired hits in a weak spot in the enemy armor. Missing is more realistic. :)

Sixth question: That does look kind of cool... :D

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my monologue. And I hope that I was right on at least a quarter of these counts...

*Maybe that's a bit too deep into the character of random mooks. :)
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#3 Dalf32

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Posted 07 July 2010 - 02:20 PM

The Haradrim Lancers are kinda strange, they work basically like ranged pikeman so that probably accounts for why they do such strange damage in some cases. They are far from useless though, considering how cheap they are and how quickly they build, you can amass a huge force of them very quickly and, when backed by just a few other units (to take out archers and whatnot), they are pretty dangerous. In the late game try switching to the other Lancer unit (can't remember what it's called, but the more expensive one), they're pricey but very, very powerful.

The Balrog battle is definitiely doable, after all there are plenty of people on here (myself included) who have been able to defeat it. It's really tough and it might take you multiple tries, but it's doable. You'll find that kind of difficulty in other missions of the campaign as well, so be prepared.

We are aware of the problems with WotR mode when using the Elves or MotE, but I don't know that we've come up with a good way to fix it.

As for the ranged unit attacking from the side, that's simply them missing. Archers miss from time to time, especially when their target is moving so this is normal.

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#4 Guest_Guest_*

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Posted 07 July 2010 - 10:27 PM

Ah I see what your talking about with the archers. I thought that at one point but archers ended up not hitting them for a good minute, and I thought it was a glitch beacuse at that point it was like "Yeah sometimes they miss but....they have to hit to".

Well I dont know if you guys have played with the Haradrim lancers recently but thier damage is realy kinda weird. Being able to kill a moutain troll efficently and not 1 orc archer sqaud not only dosnt make any sense but is very un-balanced. Like the situation I was talking about they had to be doing about 10 damage at the most to the orc archers. And as for the vision its so low that thier ranged abilities hardly com in handy at some points, simply making it larger and not touching thier lance range would make it much more....lets say...realistic I guess.

{IRS}Athos, your comment on having conscripts is true, and any sort of untrained militia unit in this game should use Rohan peasant animations beacuse it would fit well. But being teu to J.R. Tolkings work and being teu to his books, the animations just simply dont fit very well. More northern factions such as the Gondorians and the Orcs could have militia beacuse thier natural enviornment dosnt cut down thier supply of men and weed out the strongest and toughfest warriors. In Harad on the other hand the natural climate and envornment does. It kills the weak and makes the strong even stronger. Haradrim armies have no place to fit in an untrained and unskilled conscript army beacuse thier pool of warriors are hardened by the desert sun and made ruthless by the countless struggle between the tribes for even the simplest of resources. It may be hard to visualize but a Haradrim army is made up of small groups of trained warriors that use thier mumakil to thier fullest potential. In game my little lore splooge shouldnt effect health or upgrades beacuse having the Haradrim need a lvl 3 armory for heavy armor is a great way of saying that armor isnt the easiest thing to come by or make.

#5 theslayer

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Posted 08 July 2010 - 04:18 PM

Sorry about the top response it seems I wasnt loged in ><

#6 Devon

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Posted 10 July 2010 - 07:00 PM

Hey, I'm along the mod team as well as Dalf and I'm also one of the best Harad players around, so I feel somewhat qualified to answer your questions :crazed:

There are a couple of things that I have noticed through my recent play through of this mod. Mostly on the Men Of the East Faction, but on other subjects as well.

First off the Haradrim Lancers are a very weak unit right now. They may be cheap and may be able to get into massive hordes of up to 4 combined squads but that isnt simply enough to bring them up to speed with the other early game and late game units. All units should have some value throughout the length of a game and the Lancers lack that ability. They can only get banner upgrades and their health may be 250, more than most other units, they dont have the survivability in the middle and late game, and even early game in some cases. Their line of sight is horrible, even at a full horde their line of sight is 4x as worse as a Uruk-hai squad. Their ranged attacks do not go as far as other archer squads so having increased vision wouldn't make their ranged attacks anymore powerful I would assume. And their damage to units is screwed as well. At one point a full horde of them can take down a mountain troll, and then a minute later the entire horde gets killed by two orc archer squads because they do almost no damage to them, while the orc archers are doing full damage. There must be something array in the damage counters, or orc archers have a keen resistance to 6ft tall bladed lances thrown from an overly muscular Haradrim Lancer.


Believe it or not, this is actually for balance. They do specialist (pike) damage, which makes them effective against monsters and cavalry but not standard infantry. They are weak units, I use them primarily for killing creeps early and doing some scouting.


Secondly another thing about the Haradrim Warrior squad. Not the hitpoints or the damage but just the feel of them. They are suppose to be proud, ferocious warriors of the south ready to die for their king. But then they go into battle with the animation of a lazy Rohan peasant?? That not only throws off the feel of the unit but the seriousness and overall look of the army. An animation of the Gondor soldiers MAYBE but the ferocity of the Uruk-hai warriors animations would be a good one to test out.


I think the feel of them has something to do with the fact they go down so easily. They could be a little stronger for their cost, but I don't mind so much because the rest of Harad's units are incredible :p We could swap the animations, but it's not really a priority at the moment.


Third on my list is in the campaign, the Good one of course. It was very cool how it started out with a over the shoulder look on the heros, although it was kinda tricky getting into those side passages. It went really good especially when the hall was completely filled with goblin warriors, was very true to the movie. But then it got the Balrog. I simply wasn't able to kill him because every time I would tell Gandalf to use the lightning blade, he would simply knock him over canceling his attack. His real life size is nice, but it makes it impossible to kill him.


Were you on hard? Because, well, it's hard. If you get Gandalf to level four before the Balrog fight you can just mount shadowfax and it becomes quite easy, but that's kind of cheating :p What you want to do is run away. The balrog will attack just a little bit faster than you can cast lightning, so you need to be preemptive. Run until you get reasonably far away from him and use lightning on where you think he'll be. When he flies to relocate you can lightning his landing spot. Save before the battle starts! Otherwise you have to go through everything else again, and it usually takes a try or two to get the hang of.


Forth is the War of the Ring mode, while playing as the Men of the East. With this, its simply that you are unable to choose your side, therefore making everything cost 40% more leaving you at a very big disadvantage. Maybe in the War of the Ring mode you could simply choose Harad or Easterlings in the Race selection menu, or maybe have the choice pop up on your capital territory in the beginning.


Yeah, they don't exactly work in War of the Ring at the moment. Use Gondor, Rohan, Arnor, or Mordor for WotR. Isengard should be mostly functional too.


Fifth, when a ranged unit is attacking another unit from the side, and the other unit is running the ranged attacks seem to simply disappear when they reach their targets usually doing no damage at all. I cant imagine why this is.


Yep, they're missing, and as I recall we had just implemented archer accuracy and stuff in 1.06, so it may still be a little rough.


Sixth, the goblin warriors have shields now which is really cool I think, however I believe that the shields could have an added feature. In the movie and on the action figure, there is a sharp curved spike, that comes out of the upper right hand side of the shield. This is simply me being nit picky but if it was possible to add in that curved spike, maybe when you upgrade the squad with heavy armor, then it would look very authentic. In case you have no idea what im talking about, check out this link which should lead to Games Workshop Lord of the Rings section on goblins. It shows goblin warriors with shields very similar to what im talking about.
http://www.games-wor...amp;aId=5700003

Another goblin feature that would be very cool is if the Half-Troll swordsman had shields as well. Their animations seem to be free enough to be able to fit some sort of shield in there. Maybe make it an upgrade like the Rohan and Gondorian horseman have at the level 2 stables and instead call it Half-Troll shields or something.

Thats all for now, I will update this when or if I find more.

Great work so far, haven't gone back to regular Rise of the Witch King in years.


Edit #1

Alright so I played a game with goblins again. Some other things I have noticed which are mainly simple model and art suggestions to make the Goblins look more like..well..goblins. First the Goblin Archers should get helmets like in their picture. It always bothered me that the goblin warriors picture had no helmet, but the in-game models did, and the goblin archer picture had a helmet but the in-game models didnt. The Goblin pikemen are on my list as well. Their upgrades are all wacked out. The heavy armor dosnt actually appear on the model until poison blades are given. And then if they dont even have heavy armor upgraded their in-game models still get armor when you give them poison blades. And to make them feel more like goblins and to avoid that stupid Uruk-Hai animation that EA made for some god awful reason, besides kicking their targets and ignoring the giant halberd in their hands, I think the Goblin pikemen should use the Gondorian pikemen animation. When they move their hunched over, just like goblins, and when they attack, they actually use their weapons and are still in a hunched over position. Their idal animation may have them standing up straight but its like that already with the Uruk-Hai animation so there wont be much difference there.


Once again, not really a priorirty but we'll keep it in mind. Thanks for the feedback!





P.S. Use tier two units for Harad :p Guardians are incredible units and take down buildings with ease. Give them poison and normal units are done too. The fact that you can give all the better Harad units poison and forged blades is incredibly useful, and all their upgrades are only 250. Lancers are great raiding units as well, especially if you back them with the the mounted nazgul (J something I believe)

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#7 Dalf32

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Posted 11 July 2010 - 01:26 PM

Ji Indur Dawndeath or something like that :crazed:

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#8 Guest_Wizeacre621_*

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Posted 16 January 2011 - 04:11 PM

If only there were some way to make CaH a program outside the game...like you know the create a sim thing that you had for the sims?
It was seperate program that allowed you to create sims for in game(or something like that)

I really like CaH...Its me, in the game...I would definately miss it if it were axed...
If anything remove useless upgrades...
eg:The second stealth option for the elven archers(It makes no sense)
or the second weapon toggle for the evil men heroes(also pointless)
Or even add set powers to different heroes, but then add more hero classes, you see what I mean?

like have preset powers for shield maiden, captain etc.(the most useful ones)
but then add say an Ithillien Ranger hero with preset powers...or an elven swordsman with preset powers...
You get?
But still be able to customize the hero...how they look anyway...
thats just my thought.

#9 Guest_Guest_*

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Posted 16 January 2011 - 04:13 PM

whoops...I seem to have replied in the wrong topic...my bad!
:)




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