Let me start off by saying the game is awesome thus far, i cant wait for the complete game to come out. So far I've enjoyed all aspects of the game, I'm an avid player of Endless Space and love what you guys have done with that game and Endless Legend seems to be on the right path to surpass E.S. in awesomeness



Now the one this i was wondering was the combat system in E.L. each unit has its own initiative, offense, defense, etc. Now when a unit is attacked by a unit of the opposing side they attack back, but only for the first time they get attacked. So if i have 3 pieces against 1 defended piece, only my first piece will get return damage. This is my only complaint about the game so far, to me this makes no sense, especially when you take into account these are units in hand to hand combat. No matter what there is going to be blood on both sides, even is its one unit repeatedly being battered by 2, 3, 4 or more. Now i also don't believe a unit being attacked multiple times should get its full return damage either that as well makes no sense. However i believe a diminishing amount of return damage per turn per attacked unit should be in effect. For instance I have 3 pieces attacking 1 piece, my first unit takes the full 10 return damage, the 2nd attacking unit would take 6 or 7 damage, and then finally the third would take considerably less say 3 or 4 damage. This would give a better representation of the hand to hand, blood and balls combat that you're trying to emulate.



This is all just my humble opinion and my desire to see the game reach its full potential, also if this has already been addressed i apologize. And once again cheers on the game thus far and keep them coming!!!







Berean

I believe the idea behind the current initiative and counter-attack mechanics is meant to allow you to deny the enemy his actions. Counter-attacking counts as the unit's action for that turn, so that if you throw a high-initiative unit at the enemy, he will not get to carry out his own plans (which is very much in line with the idea of seizing the initiative). A high initiative, high armor cavalry unit can deny the enemy a key unit.

However, I usually run into the problem that the same one or two units in my army go first in every battle, which results in them quickly grinding themselves to death on counterattacks unless I put them at the back of my line on Hold Position.

Reduced counter-attack damage seems like a good idea. Multiple counter-attacks per turn may also work, depending on the damage output of those attacks. Counterattacking several times at full strength would favor the defender too much.



There had also been a debate on whether or not damaged units should deal less damage. On the one hand, without the ability to directly control focus fire, you often take large amounts of damage from enemies reduced to 5HP or less. On the other hand, your own units can do the same.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
I believe the idea behind the current initiative and counter-attack mechanics is meant to allow you to deny the enemy his actions. Counter-attacking counts as the unit's action for that turn, so that if you throw a high-initiative unit at the enemy, he will not get to carry out his own plans (which is very much in line with the idea of seizing the initiative). A high initiative, high armor cavalry unit can deny the enemy a key unit.

However, I usually run into the problem that the same one or two units in my army go first in every battle, which results in them quickly grinding themselves to death on counterattacks unless I put them at the back of my line on Hold Position.

Reduced counter-attack damage seems like a good idea. Multiple counter-attacks per turn may also work, depending on the damage output of those attacks. Counterattacking several times at full strength would favor the defender too much.



There had also been a debate on whether or not damaged units should deal less damage. On the one hand, without the ability to directly control focus fire, you often take large amounts of damage from enemies reduced to 5HP or less. On the other hand, your own units can do the same.

I agree with the idea of reducing damage for counter attacks. The reason I think this is important is that it would add more value to the initiative stat. Right now (if talking melee vs melee) a low initiative but high armor or damage force will crush a high initiative one every time. High initiative on ranged units is already good.



I also think that the balance between damage, defense and HP needs to be adjusted so that units don't die as quickly as they do currently. This would improve the ranged/melee balance and also give us more of the battles which last longer than one turn. These ongoing battles were touted as a key part of the game during the early press releases, but the don't actually happen often at all with the current battle system. Units simply die too quickly.

After thinking about it for a while, I agree with you there. Right now, armies feel incredibly fragile, except maybe when you're ahead in tech and kit your units out with Mythrite, Hyperium, Dust, or Tier 3 Glassteel. However, it shouldn't take such a drastic tech advantage to make your armies feel survivable, especially with how long it can take a wounded unit to recover.



I'd take re-balancing the attack, defense, and HP values one step further, and turn either the base unit stats or the equipment bonuses into a multiplicative/percentile modifier, so that the basic traits of each unit don't get diluted by ever more powerful gear. Marines and Rangers in high-level gear are virtually the same, except that I think the Rangers get an extra tile of range.

I like the idea of making the bonuses multiplicative, i.e. + 20% instead of a flat +5 for instance. You are right that once the upgrading starts the initial stats begin to mean little alongside the gear based stats.



One of the things that I like most about this game is that the factions are very different from each other. Dynamic imbalance is a lot more fun, in my opinion, than a system where everyone has access to the same stuff. The current scale of gear bonuses vs base stats waters down this dynamic imbalance concept.

An interesting idea could be to lower the effect of different armor on stats and instead give out different capacities with iron being the base, like one type could give you a bonus to your movement and initiative but come with a slight malus to some stats, another one could give more out-of-combat advantages to a unit with little stat gain, another one could give regeneration with little stat gain and the last one could be a pure stat gain with no extra capacities.



It would make the choice of gear more versatile, have a slow unit you want to speed up? Give it that light material. Have a unit with little armor? Give it the stat boosting armor. Have a tank or low health unit? Give it that high tech gear that regenerates its health each turn. Etc and etc...



You could even have some unique armors for certain factions, like spell boosting equipment for an ardent mage hero, high tech equipment for the vaulters, regenerative armor for the broken lords and necrophages. The wildwalkers could have a "growing armor" that starts with low or normal armor at the begining and morphs into a heavier armor towards the end of combat.

I'm all in favor of armor (and weapons) having special effects. I had brought this point up in a different discussion before, saying that I think a reasonable way to balance iron armor with the armor that requires strategic resources would be to give iron a slightly higher stat boost (though not too much, since iron is not limited), while giving the gear created with strategic resources special effects, but that idea wasn't taken up for further discussion, except for some people claiming it would make iron the most powerful material.



Perhaps one of these days, I should just sit down with the description of the different materials and their properties, and write up a suggestion thread for special effects.

I like all these ideas, i just feel like the way combat works at the moment needs some help and i'm afraid it will either be overlooked or just given a bandaid and covered up

Question what do you guys think about this idea, say mounted units working less effectively in wooded tiles and more effectively on Plains or Desert tiles. You could have a unit sitting in a tile that is cut by a river and their "defenses" are less effective when defended against a unit coming from a Combat Neutral or Beneficial tile. You make the ground units are fighting on valuable as well.....makes positioning more important during the position phase and when the armies are moving around the map