Happy new year people I bring forth the new Night of Oblivion patch.
NEW MAP - Sandlock
Sandlock is a fairly large sized map with 8 bases per player. Its distinctive features are its narrow corridors in the diagonal path connecting the bases, and the destructible gates which complement them. Destructible gates initially act as ground unpassable terrain, but can be destroyed, creating a path.
The interaction with destructible gates comes as early as after the natural expansion is acquired. Two destructible gates on either side of the natural expansion determine the location of the third base.
In the mid game, depending on expansion locations, it can be wise to destroy some of the gates to better maneuver your army. Alternatively, if playing an air composition, leaving the gates untouched to minimize ground army movement is an option too.
Economy Balance Changes
One of the problems of late game skirmishes was that the economy took up a large portion of the total supply, which caused either maxed out armies to feel too small or the economy to feel too weak.
Rather than increase the maximum supply, I opted to make each worker mine at a faster rate. This is mainly because I wanted to adhere to Warcraft III's interface of being able to select only 12 units at a time. I thought that if I increased the maximum supply, armies would become doubly hard to control and it was better to take the approach of buffing workers.
Thus, workers now mine faster, but their training time is increased from 14 to 18 seconds, and players now start with 6 workers instead of 8. As an additional change to account for the early economy, starting resources have been increased from 50/25 to 100/50.
In addition, Town Hall construction time has been increased from 70 to 75, and its upgrades from 60/80 seconds to 75/90 seconds. This nerf is to better maintain the amount of economic damage dealt from upgrading a Town Hall from not producing workers.
Spellcaster Balance Changes
Spellcasters were revisited as many of their spells were clunky and awkward to use in practice. Spellcaster mana regeneration was also decreased across the board as they were able to use ultimate abilities in back to back skirmishes, which is not the intended frequency of use.
(Spellcaster spells are still largely a work in progress and I'll likely be changing these in the next patch as well.)
Curator spellcasters:
Gnoll Enchanter - Natural Energy, Rejuvenation, Elderwood Summoning.
Celestial Faerie - Faerie's Blessing, Nature's Grasp, Celestial Serenity.
Wildkin Oracle - Boulder Toss, Wildkin Slam, Oracle Cyclone.
Gnoll Enchanters can now summon Elderwood Treants directly without the need to sacrifice a Treant. Celestial Serenity no longer silences.
NEW ABILITY - Oracle Cyclone is an aoe dispel and randomly disables 5 units in its aoe.
Defiled spellcasters:
Naga Siren - Parasite, Frost Nova, Charmed Sleep.
Mur'loc Shadowcaster - Shadow Curse, Haunt, Shadow Bomb.
Revenant of the Depths - Magic Theft, Deconstruction, Takeover.
NEW ABILITY - Frost Nova is an aoe slow and damage spell.
NEW ABILITY - Charmed Sleep is a channeled tether which disables a target unit.
Parasites also only spawn 1 minion now. Poison Bomb renamed to Shadow Bomb.
Exalted spellcasters:
Priest - Concord, Neutralize, Holy Light.
Sorceress - Arcanite Attack, Enrapture, Polymorph.
Grand Magus - Blinding Light, Arcane Implosion, Light of Justice.
NEW ABILITY - Concord is a debuff which cripples enemies (decreases aspd).
NEW ABILITY - Arcanite Attack empowers the basic attack of Sorceresses.
Blinding Light was buffed and moved to the Grand Magus. Light of Justice now silences, slows and cripples instead of disarms to differentiate it from the Faerie's Celestial Serenity.
Fallen spellcasters:
Deceiver - Dark Flattery, Cripple, Trickster.
Necromancer - Raise Dead, Death Coil, Unholy Charm.
Harbinger - Death Mark, Death Foretold, Ruination.
Deceiver's supply was reverted to 2 as the unit was very underpowered at 3 supply.
Combat Unit Balance Changes
In addition to changes in combat statistics, I also changed the training times of many combat units according to a formula so they would be less arbitrary. The differences are mostly subtle so I won't go into specifics.
Curator combat units:
Buffed: Quillbeast
Nerfed: Jungle Stalker, Troll Priest, Chimaera, Harpy Queen
Defiled combat units:
Buffed: Cerulean Wyvern
Exalted combat units:
Nerfed: Swordsman, Elder Swordsman, Dragonhawk Rider, Crossbow
Fallen combat units:
Buffed: Infernal Contraption
Nerfed: Succubus, Death Wyrm
Adjusted: Wraith
Human AI Changes
Aside from the economy changes, the Human AI can now only benefit from two Hero Blessings instead of three. Blessings were supposed to provide the AI with a unique angle, but because there are only four heroes and the AI chose three, it felt a lot more like 'which blessing wont be chosen' instead.
So now they only use the Blessing from the first two Heroes.
Closing thoughts
This patch isn't super big in terms of the number of changes, but the economy changes will no doubt have a large impact on gameplay, so I'm hoping to see if those changes were in the right direction.
Next patch I'll be looking at structures and air units, which have been largely neglected in recent patches. As always, I'll also attempt to improve the AI to ever so slightly better simulate a PvP Noobcraft experience.
Anyways, thank you reading till the end, and see you next patch!
Comments