Development Journal | Jan. 6 Balance Changes01/09/2022
Last week we shared our thoughts on and the direction we are going with balance changes in the previous Development Journal. And we are now rolling out a series of changes to some of the units, weapons, and runes in need of changes. This first batch will be going live on Jan. 6, 2022.
Jan. 6 Planned Balance Changes
I. Unit Changes
- Changes This Time
1. Axe Raiders
[Stats]
-Average damage taken: 531,100 (Ranked 1st among all units. 23.4% higher than the 2nd unit)
-Average damage dealt: 273,200 (Ranked 1st among all units. 15.7% higher than the 2nd unit)
-Picked Rate : 6.8% (Ranked 3rd among all units.)
The Axe Raiders currently has the most average damage taken and unit kills among all units, which far exceeds our intentions. That's why we are making changes to it while retaining the unit's unique design intact.
- Control effects (dazed, stun, knockback, knockdown, send flying) can now affect the Axe Raiders and they will no longer immediately recover from such effects.
- Currently when the Axe Raiders' Deadly Resolve is triggered, it is incredibly difficult for any hero or unit to retaliate during its 8-second duration, greatly reducing the effectiveness and value of other units. So, the Axe Raiders will now take 30% increased damage within 1 second of being affected by control effects (dazed, stun, knockback, knockdown, send flying). This should serve to tune down their currently overpowered passive defensive capabilities.
2. Modao Battalion
[Stats]
-Average damage taken: 395,200 (Ranked 4th among all units.)
-Average damage dealt: 157,800 (Ranked 9th among all units.)
-Picked Rate : 9.1% (Ranked 1st among all units.)
The Modao Battalion is a unit capable of standing against cavalry while in formation, but their damage reduction is overpowered while in [Battalion] formation. This had led to them being great at dealing with all types of units, and therefore an almost must-have unit at your disposal.
- Change: We are replacing the 20% damage reduction against all types of damage while in [Battalion] formation with a [33% damage reduction against cavalry, and 8% damage reduction against Infantry].
3. Northern Lance Cavalry
[Stats]
-Average damage dealt: 163,100 (Ranked 7th among all units.)
-Picked Rate : 0.2% (Ranked 62nd among all units.)
-Accuracy while charging: around 15% at 20m.
While being a highly unique cavalry unit, the Northern Lance Cavalry is fairly weak and not as useful as we would like. We hope to take them up a notch with a series of improvements to their mechanics.
- Changes:
1) Increasing the number of bullets shot and accuracy rate of their fire lances while charging, addressing the issue that they hardly ever hit enemies while charging.
2) Adjusting the damage hitbox of [Valour] so that the unit can hit enemies more accurately, reducing misses by 60%.
3) Increasing the buff the Northern Lance Cavalry gains from movement speed. They will now gain a boost to attack while moving: their damage increases with more movement speed, capping out at 15% extra damage.
4. Firearm Infantry
[Stats]
-Picked Rate : (Take Tercio Arquebusiers as an example)
1.9% (Ranked 14th) in Season Dynasty. 0.7%(Ranked 29th) in Season Tyranny.
-Accuracy and damage decay range: Around 20m. A range close enough to get dished out by Axe Raiders and cavalry.
As the damage and accuracy of firearm infantry declines at farther distances, they have a difficult time dealing burst damage in battles. This has led to some defensive-oriented units being hard to counter, and to less variety in unit usage.
- Changes:
1) Reducing the damage decay based on the range for firearm units. [20m] damage decay reduces to a maximum of 10% (down from 20%); [20-40m] reduces to a maximum of 18% (down from 30%); maximum decay range increases to 56m (up from 48m), leading to a minimum of 65% damage.
2) Increasing the overall accuracy of firearm units. Attacking enemies at around 30m has the highest increase of 15% accuracy.
3) Fixing an issue with incorrect sound effects for the shots of some firearm infantry.
5. Cataphract Lancers
[Stats]
-Picked Rate : 1.1% (Ranked 24th among all units.)
-Average damage dealt: 222,500 (Ranked 5th among all units.)
According to players' feedback, the Cataphract Lancers still don't work as well as expected after a series of changes, and their Follow Charge's damage is fairly limited. So, we're improving their Follow Charge again.
- We have changed the underlying AI of Cataphract Lancers and the skill should now feel better to use. When the Cataphract Lancers is near the commanding hero, the unit will slightly speed up while getting closer to the target.
6. Fortebraccio Pikemen
[Stats]
-Picked Rate : 0.2% (Ranked 62nd among all units.)
In Season Tyranny, there are 5 cavalry units in the top 10 highest-damage units. To form up a more reasonable relations between units, performance of units that can counter cavalry should be improved. To address this, we have increase Modao Battalion's ability when agaisnt cavalry. Meanwhile, as the unit with the longest melee weapon, the Fortebraccio Pikemen should be able to counter cavalry to a great extent, but that is currently not the case.
- Changes:
1) Increased the Fortebraccio Pikemen's damage to cavalry while using Brace by 15%.
2) Increased the damage of Brace based on enemy movement speed by up to 15%. Using Brace against charging cavalry will reach this number.
- Preview For the Future
Imperial Spear Guards
Right now, the heavy shield infantry units are at a confusing position in battlefields. They can neither take nor dish out enough damage. And It is rather difficult to utilize them well in battles; all in all, they can't really affect the outcome of battle to a satisfying degree. While we have started looking at how to change units of this category, these changes might require a bit of extra time for power and stability tests. We estimate that the Imperial Spear Guards' changes will be available on Jan. 27. We also hope they'll become a liked wall of shields!
II. Hero/Weapon Changes
- Hero/Weapon Buffs
We have noticed that some weapons are less used and have a lower win rate than the average. Our focus this time has been to make adjustments to these two lackluster weapons. We will naturally continue to make adjustments to other weapons where balance changes are required in the future.
1. Longsword & Shield
[Stats]
-Used Rate: 5.5% (Ranked 10th among all weapons.)
-Win Rate: 50.11%（Ranked 8th among all weapons.)
The Longsword & Shield is the only weapon that can heal, but its healing is currently too low to truly make an impact. It is often the case that you're killed before you can get healed up, and the weapon lacks in both offense and defense.
- Changes:
Triggering Mercy of Heaven will grant a 15% reduction to melee damage taken for 3 seconds. Also heals you for 5% of your health every 3 seconds during its duration.
2. Short Bow
[Stats]
-Used Rate: 5.8% (Ranked 8th among all weapons.)
-Win Rate: 49.84%（Ranked 9th among all weapons.)
The Short Bow is a highly mobile weapon, but some of its skills have too long of a cooldown, detracting from the experience. We want the Short Bow to be able to better combo together its skills and basic attacks.
- Changes:
1) Poison Arrow's cooldown reduces to 7 seconds (was 8).
2) Angry Hornets' cooldown reduces to 48 seconds (was 50).
3) Parting Shot's cooldown reduces to 25/23/20 seconds (was 30/28/25).
4) Wrath of Artemis' cooldown reduces to 48 seconds (was 50).
III. Seasonal Runes
We also analyzed the power of runes and their usage during the last season. To increase the diversity of picked runes, we are improving weapon runes whose picked-rate is below 10%, and nerfing those above 60%.
- Common Runes
- We are changing the effect of [Camel's Saddle] to "[Bandage]'s cooldown reduced by 50% and duration by 40%] (it previously reduced both cooldown and duration by 50%). This means it can now be used more times to make it more effective.
- Increasing the effect of [Camel's Stomp] to "Crit rate increased by 32" (was 24), and increasing its cost to 2 points (was 1 point).
- Increasing the effect of [Tortoise's Resolve] to "While in a flag area, damage taken is reduced by 12%" (was 10%).
- Increasing the effect of [Tortoise's Shell] to "Fall damage is reduced by 60%" (was 30%).
- Boosting the effect of [Tortoise's Calm] to "[Bandage] removes poisons and bleeds, and grants immunity to poison and bleed for 10 seconds" (previously granted immunity to poison and bleed for 5 seconds).
- Increasing the effect of [Ursa's Bravery] to "While in a flag area, stamina recovery rate is increased by 35%" (was 20%).
- Increasing the effect of [Ursa's Ferocity] to "Each 1 enemy hero you kill increases damage dealt by 12% for 15 seconds" (was 10% for 10 seconds).
- Increasing the effect of [Ursa's Bloodthirst] to "Each 3 enemy soldiers you kill increases damage dealt by 10% for 15 seconds" (was 10% for 10 seconds for each 5 soldiers killed).
- Increasing the effect of [Tiger's Ward] to "While in a flag area, damage dealt is increased by 12%" (was 10%).
- Increasing the effect of [Tiger's Wrath] to "Movement speed is increased by 8% while at below 40% health" (previously triggered while below 30%).
- Increasing the effect of [Tiger's Tail] to "Armor penetration increased by 45" (was 40).
- Weapon Runes
1. Longsword & Shield
- Increasing the effect of [Rapid Action] to "All damage increased by 100 while at above 70% health" (was 70). We have also fixed an issue where the bonus damage didn't trigger in some situations.
2. Shortsword & Shield
- Altering the effect of [Wargod Wings] to "All damage is increased by 10% while above 50% health, and damage taken is reduced by 8% while below 50%" (previously increased damage by 12% and granted 8% to all defenses).
- Increasing the duration of [Wargod Beak] to "For every 1 hero kill or assist, nearby allies have their damage increased by 10% and damage taken reduced by 10% for 12 seconds" (was 8 seconds).
3. Musket
- Increasing the effect of [Blazing Glory] to "Using [Fine Gunpowder] reduces the cooldowns of [Scatter Shot] and [Five Rounds Rapid] by 2 seconds" (previously reduced cooldowns by 1.5 seconds).
4. Bow
- Fixed a bug where the damage bonus of Hail of Arrows didn't match.
- Fixed a bug where the damage bonus of [Bone Piercer] didn't match.
5. Short Bow
- Increasing the effect of [Spectre's Hatred] to "The damage of poison is increased by 120% and its duration is decreased by 50%" (damage was previously increased by 100%).
- Altering the effect of [General's Fury] to "On every 3rd [Basic Attack], fire 3 arrows at 50% power" (was 40% power). The three arrows fired might not all hit their intended targets making the damage increase less obvious. So, we are increasing the damage of each arrow, making this rune more potent on medium distances.
6. Dual Blades
- Increasing the effect of [Mithras' Light] to "Restore 15% health for every 1 hero kill or assist" (was 8%).