Forest Combat Changes

Loupi#8512

The current forest combat mechanics encourage forest camping and blobbing too much and should be changed to support more active playstyles like ambushes. Here are the main changes that should be made so that forests are more tactical and less obnoxious terrain features.


1. Forest stalker/forest spirit: The combat bonuses from these traits (+15%MD +50% accuracy) should be removed and replaced with +15% speed and an improved version of stalk.
2. Forest strider: Combat bonuses to MA and MD should be removed and replaced by +10% speed and +10% Charge bonus.

Forest stalker/spirit/strider units would also have no forest penalties.

4. Guardian of the Wildwood (Wildwood rangers forest buff): The effect (+12BvL and charge defence in forest) should be changed to: +5LD, +12BvL when a fear/terror causing unit is nearby (~15m), without the forest condition.
5. Large units should only receive a speed penalty in forests and possibly charge bonus (currently they have a 20% MA and 20% speed debuff in forest)

These 5 changes would effectively eliminate any incentive to blob in a forest since no units would gain a combat advantage and no large units would take combat penalties, so spear boxes in a forest wouldnt be as bad for cavalry. It would encourage using forests just for concealment, improved movement and abushes, while large units would still have to be a bit careful about not getting caught in the trees.


6. Forests should be burnable (by flaming missile/breath attacks)
7. Forests should be less dense or have better visability


These 2 are most likely not going to happen in game 2, but would be really nice changes to consider for game 3. Being able to burn trees (with appropriate debuffs for anyone inside) would give players a way to force any stubborn forest campers from a forest and would just be fun.

Disposable Hero

I wish!

BovineKing#8781

If they only had smaller maps I’d be fine with it. My preference for maps is small flat with no terrain. The massive maps just encourage artillery camping and in turn other player will typically forest camp cause no one wants to mutually agree to move towards each other.

AWizard_Lizard

BovineKing said:

If they only had smaller maps I’d be fine with it. My preference for maps is small flat with no terrain. The massive maps just encourage artillery camping and in turn other player will typically forest camp cause no one wants to mutually agree to move towards each other.

I agree with smaller maps (or rather remove or reduce-size for the really big ones, fortunately there are plenty small maps) but why no terrain. That'd be boring.

Disposable Hero

I disagree about smaller maps, I think the larger maps (where also the distance between deployment zone and the white line becomes larger) are much less influenced by the white lines (corner camping, white line kiting etc.

Larger maps feel much more tactical than small map 20 stack rushes etc.

WojmirVonCarstein

These are great ideas!

I would just add one more thing!

Units emerging from a forest keep their "forest bonus" for some short amount of time, thus ambushing from a forest would be even more nasty (not by much, 10% CB and 10% speed isn't huge).

WojmirVonCarstein

Disposable Hero said:

I disagree about smaller maps, I think the larger maps (where also the distance between deployment zone and the white line becomes larger) are much less influenced by the white lines (corner camping, white line kiting etc.

Larger maps feel much more tactical than small map 20 stack rushes etc.

Maybe make larger maps but move deployment zones away from edge of map. So that camping is a bit harder because you physically have to move there.

Also, some maps have an area behind/to the sides where you can deploy vanguard units and other maps you can only do so in the corner. I wish all maps were the former where you are allowed to surround your enemy.

But at the very least, give some indication in army build screen if deploying vanguard units behind enemy deployment zone is possible or not.

Loupi#8512

WojmirVonCarstein said:

Disposable Hero said:

I disagree about smaller maps, I think the larger maps (where also the distance between deployment zone and the white line becomes larger) are much less influenced by the white lines (corner camping, white line kiting etc.

Larger maps feel much more tactical than small map 20 stack rushes etc.

Maybe make larger maps but move deployment zones away from edge of map. So that camping is a bit harder because you physically have to move there.

Also, some maps have an area behind/to the sides where you can deploy vanguard units and other maps you can only do so in the corner. I wish all maps were the former where you are allowed to surround your enemy.

But at the very least, give some indication in army build screen if deploying vanguard units behind enemy deployment zone is possible or not.

I agree with moving deployment zones further from map edges but its not relevant to the topic really.

WojmirVonCarstein said:

These are great ideas!

I would just add one more thing!

Units emerging from a forest keep their "forest bonus" for some short amount of time, thus ambushing from a forest would be even more nasty (not by much, 10% CB and 10% speed isn't huge).

yeah that could be reasonable if its a very short time, maybe 10-15 seconds would be alright

BovineKing#8781

My issue with terrain is often can absolutely favor 1 player over another. High ground damage is incredibly strong and easy to have on certain maps right now.

Bastilean#7242

BovineKing said:

My issue with terrain is often can absolutely favor 1 player over another. High ground damage is incredibly strong and easy to have on certain maps right now.

Starting your battle at the top of a hill is called skill.

mightygloin#2446

Loupi_ said:

6. Forests should be burnable (by flaming missile/breath attacks)

Yes yeeeees it's long overdue 🔥

mightygloin#2446

BovineKing said:

If they only had smaller maps I’d be fine with it. My preference for maps is small flat with no terrain.

Lol how boring is that..



Not bad for a soccer match i guess.

AWizard_Lizard

BovineKing said:

My issue with terrain is often can absolutely favor 1 player over another. High ground damage is incredibly strong and easy to have on certain maps right now.

At least they can be made symmetric like all the MP games I can think of e.g. Dota. But a flat map? I can't even think of a scenario where such a thing might be seriously considered by the devs to be honest. Sure they can and should improve terrain, but taking terrain out all together? Nah.

another505

A pure flat map just to do game test would be nice. I know theres a few close candidate already.

To op, i like those suggestions

BovineKing#8781

When I say small I mean make deployment zones smaller and closer to each other. Some maps likely this already exist but others like blue river MP has no right being in 1v1.

Bastilean#7242

mightygloin said:

BovineKing said:

If they only had smaller maps I’d be fine with it. My preference for maps is small flat with no terrain.

Lol how boring is that..



Not bad for a soccer match i guess.

Great now I want a multiplayer soccer match game mode. Total Blood Bowl when? CA could work on their collision mechanics. Also, CA you do you

Work_Safety_Officer

Look CA, I am just gonna be honest with you: NO ONE LIKES TREES BECOZ U CAN'T SEE SOOT! Being a top player myself, I have had many incidences where my opponents camp in the forest and force me to engage there. The previous change to allow units shooting from the forests is definitely illogical and promotes this kind of ABUSIVE play. As a result, I have tried this strategy against others and it's not fun for me either! Because it's juz two big blobs smashing together and you don't know what your units are engaging due to the low visibility and the fact that most units are clumped up together. Seriously WTF GET IT FIXED MAN

Lotus_Moon#2452

Also cut tree vegetation by 50% but leave the forest areas the same.

Bastilean#7242

On table top generally we had a different forest floor but very few trees and it worked great. You always knew what the boundary was.

If CA is concerned about the visuals for advertising, the visual experience, and photo opportunities, an option in the space bar menu might double or quadruple back down on trees for 'thick' photos.

yst#1879

The trees r pretty bad in this game really, just make it lots of TALL GRASS instead of trees

User_Clue

Just have a visual effect that cuts trees down to the stump. Getting rid of the leaves isn't good enough. I don't think you need to change the density as long as the tress themselves don't get in the way of what you're looking at.

Also does forest strider give a stat bonus or does it just remove the stat debuff??

Pippington#5795

Strong agree on points 1-4 (though what happened to point 3?).

On point 5, less sure that I agree... I think at least, if you do that you need to make symmetrical adjustments to shallow water. I don't think on principle that it's wrong to have a terrain type that favours one type of unit over another - that has a lot more opportunity for interesting tactics and is inherently more even-handed than a terrain type that favours one faction over another.

That being said, speed penalties are already pretty significant, so there's no reason to be precious about keeping the MA penalties either. A halfway house might be to switch the MA penalties to a CB penalty, so that you keep the idea of the terrain type being a bad place for its disfavoured unit type to take engagements, but it's less significant for long grinds. It would make some intuitive sense too - a cavalryman charging through a forest is liable to be taken out by a low-hanging branch, and an infantryman charging through a bog is likely to fall face-first in the mud (though I've never understood why CA thinks boggy ground isn't a hazard to horses too...)

Burnable forests would be amazing, but I feel like that might be something they'd be keen to show off in the showcase battle if they'd implemented it.

I'd also add that the projectile grace period they added is way too long. It should only be long enough to clear a tree trunk directly in front of the model that's shooting, to compensate for the individual models in the unit not being able to stray out of formation to get a clear LOS. It shouldn't let a handgunner shoot clean through a mature oak tree 20 metres away from him.

Jman5#8318

Guess I'll play the devil's advocate here.

I think the source of frustration with these units have more to do with the fact that forest visuals make fighting in them annoying and unfun. Afterall, no one seems to have an issue with the identical effect shallow water terrain has on small units. Also, the way some people will camp in them and try to force you to come to them can lead to boring stalemates.

However rather than nerfing interesting terrain effects, we should address those root issues: Better visuals so you can see more clearly, and disincentives to camping in forests or elsewhere.

I would really like to see some sort of award or incentive for map control. Perhaps this could be in the form of capturing and holding key areas of the map which would confer some sort of bonus.

Witchblade

100% agree with Loupi and Lotus. All forest modifiers should be changed to speed/CB/stalk rather than MA/MD to promote ambushes rather than forest blobbing. And forest visibility should be much better, especially when you enable Hide Foliage. That currently barely does anything.

TheShiroOfDalton

Jman5 said:

Guess I'll play the devil's advocate here.

I think the source of frustration with these units have more to do with the fact that forest visuals make fighting in them annoying and unfun. Afterall, no one seems to have an issue with the identical effect shallow water terrain has on small units. Also, the way some people will camp in them and try to force you to come to them can lead to boring stalemates.

However rather than nerfing interesting terrain effects, we should address those root issues: Better visuals so you can see more clearly, and disincentives to camping in forests or elsewhere.

I would really like to see some sort of award or incentive for map control. Perhaps this could be in the form of capturing and holding key areas of the map which would confer some sort of bonus.

It's more that there's barely any maps with shallow water, but plenty of maps with at least some trees on them.

Bastilean#7242

I would also like to add there is no reason for night battles to be so hard to see. CA even dims the illumination of the banner icons. I believe this design philosophy by CA is currently intentional, and it's just an awful experience. I mean, I would rather be in an actual night battle experientially because it would be less confusing and disorienting than play one in Total War.

TheShiroOfDalton

Bastilean said:

I would also like to add there is no reason for night battles to be so hard to see. CA even dims the illumination of the banner icons. I believe this design philosophy by CA is currently intentional, and it's just an awful experience. I mean, I would rather be in an actual night battle experientially because it would be less confusing and disorienting than play one in Total War.

3K has UI elements projected above scenery and has an option to give units behind obstacles a bright colored rim outline, so they full-well know what the problem is, they just refuse to fix it in Warhammer for whatever reason.

Loupi#8512

Jman5 said:

Guess I'll play the devil's advocate here.

I think the source of frustration with these units have more to do with the fact that forest visuals make fighting in them annoying and unfun. Afterall, no one seems to have an issue with the identical effect shallow water terrain has on small units. Also, the way some people will camp in them and try to force you to come to them can lead to boring stalemates.

However rather than nerfing interesting terrain effects, we should address those root issues: Better visuals so you can see more clearly, and disincentives to camping in forests or elsewhere.

I would really like to see some sort of award or incentive for map control. Perhaps this could be in the form of capturing and holding key areas of the map which would confer some sort of bonus.

noone has issues with shallow water combat penalties? since when? Just because forest combat is bad doesnt mean everyone loves shallow water. Shallow water shouldnt give combat penalties/bonuses either, just movement and charge modifiers.

Loupi#8512

Pippington said:

Strong agree on points 1-4 (though what happened to point 3?).

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shhh point 3 is secret haha

Sarmatianns#6760

I think forest are getting unnecessary hate to a large degree.

They're a terrain feature, available to all participants, and when you're building your army, you should be aware of terrain features of the map.

Not that I would mind a redesign, but biggest issue for me is lack of visibility in the forest. This is not about hidden units, even when they're eventually seen, it is hard keep track of what's happening. If I could know what was going on, I'd have far less issues with forest.

Sure, forests may influence tactics, but the same is true for shallow water, hills, ridges, obstacles and all other map features. I don't see why forests should be singled out.

hanen

Loupi_ said:

Pippington said:

Strong agree on points 1-4 (though what happened to point 3?).

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shhh point 3 is secret haha

Point 3 is hidden in the forest 😀