The reason behind Tuskgor, Razorgor and Boar Chariot imbalance

RazeAndBurn

The problem is twofold:

1. Chariots deal damage with every entity model which also includes the mounts that tow the chariot piece. This is a long lasting issue that previously made HE Noble Chariot and Hellebron/Death Hag Cauldron of Blood broken in the past. I do not know the precise nature of how CA fixed it in the past I can conclude that it had something to do with base WS numbers.

To illustrate that this is likely the case, here are broken HE Noble Chariots with Wargor Tuskgor stats:

Nobles clip on top of each other
Nobles defeat Kholek

Therefore the only solution I can come up with: Do not set high value of WS onto spamable SE Chariots.

2. Tuskgor, Razorgor and Boar chariots have significantly reduced collision bellow 1.0 which enables them to stack on top of each other. This allows them to:
- Deal damage to a SE simultaneosly because of higher number of models in base contact with the victim
- Push through enemy blob easily because reduced collision means less bodies to push through


For this update following parameters were reworked in the table battle_entities Radius and Radii Ratio:

Old Stats vs New Stats
wh_main_vehicle_grn_boar_chariot 2,1 0,5 VS 1.9 0.75
wh_main_vehicle_grn_boar_chariot_articulation 3 0,43 VS 0.5 1

wh_dlc03_vehicle_bst_chariot_razorgor_blood 1,8 0,6 VS 1.9 0.75
wh_dlc03_vehicle_bst_chariot_razorgor_articulation 4,1 0,38 VS 1.3 0.5

And here's the Tuskgor chariot which did not exist prior the new expansion:

wh2_dlc17_veh_bst_tuskgor_chariot 1.9 0.75
wh2_dlc17_veh_bst_tuskgor_chariot_articulation 0.5 1

The first row is for the mount, the second "articulation" row is for the chariot piece itself.

I do not know the precise nature of how Radius and Radius and Radii Ratio interact but if we assume it's multiplication then we have following stats:

wh_main_vehicle_grn_boar_chariot 1.05 VS 1,425
wh_main_vehicle_grn_boar_chariot_articulation 1.29 VS 0.5

wh_dlc03_vehicle_bst_chariot_razorgor_blood 1,08 VS 1,425
wh_dlc03_vehicle_bst_chariot_razorgor_articulation 1,558 VS 0,65

wh2_dlc17_veh_bst_tuskgor_chariot 1,425
wh2_dlc17_veh_bst_tuskgor_chariot_articulation 0.5

Notice how the articulation is below 1.0. Now there's no indication whether being 1.0 is what allows stacking or just being bellow models' physical dimensions.

To test my hypothesis I restored the values to those of previous patch and set tuskgor to be equal to Ithilmar Chariot. The stacking no longer occures.

Broken

Wargors on Tuskgor Chariot
Tuskgor Chariots
Razorgor Chariots

Fixed

Wargors on Tuskgor
Tuskgor Chariots.
Razorgor Chariots

Now with a comprehensive set of balancing fixes:

Kholek wins against Wargors

Which includes:

- Radius and Radii Ratio set to Ithilmar Chariot values
- Weapons Strength adjusted to Noble on a Chariot values: Base, AP and Attack Interval



Now onto the saddest parts:

1. These are basic xml table editing and it took me literally 7 hours to research, implement and playtest. In other words - one day of work. How long has it been since the release of the Expansion? And we have no news of a hotfix...

2. The ultra small radius of chariots was most likely done to impove their ability to navigate through blobs of infantry and not get stuck. The stacking part is an "unforseen" consequence. I put this in quotation marks because in hindsight it is obvious and would've been immediately spotted if CA bothered to playtest.

Scartch that. Turin made a video raising the awareness of the issue before the Expansion was even released yet the issue was ignored before and after...

EDT: I have finally been able to publish the mod on steam. Link to workshop

Just be aware that HE Noble on a chariot is broken instead of Wargor.

Bastilean#7242

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Lotus_Moon#2452

Dear CA copy the values above and give us a chariot hotfix tomorrow that will take you 5min to do. Other stuff can be worked on and released next week, this will at least make it non toxic to play vs BM

Bastilean#7242

Lotus_Moon said:

Dear CA copy the values above and give us a chariot hotfix tomorrow that will take you 5min to do. Other stuff can be worked on and released next week, this will at least make it non toxic to play vs BM

Heard they are on vacation until September. That should take... until mid September assuming they drop what they are doing...

yst#1879

From a commercial standpoint, this is a low priority. Dropping off trailers for war 3 as promotion r better use of resources.

Afterall we just finish beta stage as war 2 ends. Still missing over 40% of the factions, we barely just past half of the game few months ago.

CA can easily add 8-12 more factions into the game from current 15s

Lotus_Moon#2452

yst said:

From a commercial standpoint, this is a low priority. Dropping off trailers for war 3 as promotion r better use of resources.

Afterall we just finish beta stage as war 2 ends. Still missing over 40% of the factions, we barely just past half of the game few months ago.

CA can easily add 8-12 more factions into the game from current 15s

Not if gaming magazines start picking]ng up the amount of bugs and how long they havent been fixed, it will give such bad PR that can lead to lots of $ lost

Disposable Hero

Aye, and the comp MP scene and content creators being largely on stand by for a very long time must have generated much less free exposure than they are used to.

littlenuke#9412

Good work!

ShevaTsar#8662

Lotus_Moon said:

Dear CA copy the values above and give us a chariot hotfix tomorrow that will take you 5min to do. Other stuff can be worked on and released next week, this will at least make it non toxic to play vs BM

But that's going against the will to make new stuff sexy unlike all other old chariots in game (bar GS, because GS needed those buffs).

Disposable Hero

They did try to buff turning speed in infantry the way I understood it, but this extreme reduction in footprint area must be a pure mistake. Its too big a change to have been intentional.... Also corpse carts.

The safe way to buff chariots is to just buff their mass a little since its the tug of war between chariot mass and collective mass of the infantry models being shoved. Changing the chariot mass changes only the chariot mass, but changing the footprint changes lots of other things like dps density, hp density and available contact area. Don't mess with it...

RazeAndBurn

ShevaTsar said:

Lotus_Moon said:

Dear CA copy the values above and give us a chariot hotfix tomorrow that will take you 5min to do. Other stuff can be worked on and released next week, this will at least make it non toxic to play vs BM

But that's going against the will to make new stuff sexy unlike all other old chariots in game (bar GS, because GS needed those buffs).

GS Boar chariot was changed because it shares Skeleton with Tuskgor chariot. Same as they changed Ancient Salamander along with Brood Horror.

HL230P45#1277

One question though. By changing those values have you made those chariots as useless as they were before the update, thus negating the improvement the CA advertised.

WojmirVonCarstein

Lotus_Moon said:

Dear CA copy the values above and give us a chariot hotfix tomorrow that will take you 5min to do. Other stuff can be worked on and released next week, this will at least make it non toxic to play vs BM

Also CA pay @RazeAndBurn for a day's worth of work or maybe even consider hiring him.

RazeAndBurn

HL230P45 said:

One question though. By changing those values have you made those chariots as useless as they were before the update, thus negating the improvement the CA advertised.

Which is worse useless or broken? I had made them useless while tinkering by not factoring in Radii Ratio at first and they would stop dead in their tracks on Blorcs. But adjusting to the previous patch values seems the most reasonable course of action on my part.

HL230P45#1277

RazeAndBurn said:

HL230P45 said:

One question though. By changing those values have you made those chariots as useless as they were before the update, thus negating the improvement the CA advertised.

Which is worse useless or broken? I had made them useless while tinkering by not factoring in Radii Ratio at first and they would stop dead in their tracks on Blorcs. But adjusting to the previous patch values seems the most reasonable course of action on my part.

I see. Useless is indeed better than broken but isn't there a middle ground?

Disposable Hero

HL230P45 said:

RazeAndBurn said:

HL230P45 said:

One question though. By changing those values have you made those chariots as useless as they were before the update, thus negating the improvement the CA advertised.

Which is worse useless or broken? I had made them useless while tinkering by not factoring in Radii Ratio at first and they would stop dead in their tracks on Blorcs. But adjusting to the previous patch values seems the most reasonable course of action on my part.

I see. Useless is indeed better than broken but isn't there a middle ground?

Yea just adding a little mass but not deviate from working footprints. 😁

RazeAndBurn

I've finally managed to publish the mod I used to test my hypothesis. Feel free to download and test for yourself. The link is in the description.

Guacc_

It's just gonna take them a few months more now surely ))

RazeAndBurn

UPDATE

Read the blog patch notes and according to them the articulation is not the chariot itself but rather a juncion point of mount and chariot piece at which the model bends... I fail to understand what enables the stacking if it's just a junction inside of the model... I guess I will have to play with each parameter individually to see what they represent, but for now it seems that the issue is the "articulation" radius and radii ratio.

RawSugar#1229

i dnt really care though, you offered a fix that is easy to implement and just as easy to undo if they find a better fix. its inexcusable to leave the game this broken for this long - even more when ppl keep handing them fixes and detailed bugtests and there's just 0 word...

Disposable Hero

Yes, exactly like the stag bug! If you replace the stag animations with the wild riders animations you fix stags without breaking infantry. (the riders gets very confused as to where their mounts are so it looks really funny, but it works )

Loupi#8512

Disposable Hero said:

Yes, exactly like the stag bug! If you replace the stag animations with the wild riders animations you fix stags without breaking infantry. (the riders gets very confused as to where their mounts are so it looks really funny, but it works )

I wish stags knew where their targets were when they charge :P the animations are so weird sometimes

RazeAndBurn

Loupi_ said:

Disposable Hero said:

Yes, exactly like the stag bug! If you replace the stag animations with the wild riders animations you fix stags without breaking infantry. (the riders gets very confused as to where their mounts are so it looks really funny, but it works )

I wish stags knew where their targets were when they charge :P the animations are so weird sometimes

how do you insert images?

Loupi#8512

RazeAndBurn said:

how do you insert images?

step 1: upload your image to imgur and copy the link
step 2: replace the link in the below 'code' before the .png with your link (quote to see the code)

RazeAndBurn

@CA_Duck I summon thee!!!

CA_Duck#1876

Like you have noticed, the issue stems from the changes to chariot articulation entities. Chariot macroentities have this unique behaviour, where the articulation entity is the only entity used for soft collision. So a tiny articulation entity makes the whole chariot have a small collision capsule, which causes a lot of issues. The fix for it is indeed to restore the old larger articulation entity radius.

Disposable Hero

CA_Duck said:

Like you have noticed, the issue stems from the changes to chariot articulation entities. Chariot macroentities have this unique behaviour, where the articulation entity is the only entity used for soft collision. So a tiny articulation entity makes the whole chariot have a small collision capsule, which causes a lot of issues. The fix for it is indeed to restore the old larger articulation entity radius.

While you're here and we're on the topic of chariot architecture, is there any hope preventing these macroentities from sometimes suffering double hits from projectiles with penetration? It would be awesome if you could clear this up a little, I am quite confused myself as to how frequent this is, and if there is also mixup from explosion damage coming in after the projectile, and/or just projectiles clipping multiple chariots in the same unit. How much of that is bugged and how much is just unfortunate (or models/entities being too penetrable)?

Loupi#8512

Disposable Hero said:

CA_Duck said:

Like you have noticed, the issue stems from the changes to chariot articulation entities. Chariot macroentities have this unique behaviour, where the articulation entity is the only entity used for soft collision. So a tiny articulation entity makes the whole chariot have a small collision capsule, which causes a lot of issues. The fix for it is indeed to restore the old larger articulation entity radius.

While you're here and we're on the topic of chariot architecture, is there any hope preventing these macroentities from sometimes suffering double hits from projectiles with penetration? It would be awesome if you could clear this up a little, I am quite confused myself as to how frequent this is, and if there is also mixup from explosion damage coming in after the projectile, and/or just projectiles clipping multiple chariots in the same unit. How much of that is bugged and how much is just unfortunate (or models/entities being too penetrable)?

or the weirdness of coldone chariot not being able to attack forwards or malekith chariot miscast issue

#568367

CA_Duck said:

Like you have noticed, the issue stems from the changes to chariot articulation entities. Chariot macroentities have this unique behaviour, where the articulation entity is the only entity used for soft collision. So a tiny articulation entity makes the whole chariot have a small collision capsule, which causes a lot of issues. The fix for it is indeed to restore the old larger articulation entity radius.

I hope several other things are fixed too. How AoE is calculated. The alarmingly bad campaign balance.


Beastmen campaign is atrociously unbalanced. Taurox is frustratingly overpowered that it doesn't even feel like a campaign anymore. Beastmen in general feel over tuned. Yet for some baffling reason Beastmen in campaign are still godawful and die in 10 turns.



I want my campaign to actually be fun. Being so OP that I can recklessly steamroll even LEGENDARY isn't fun. That's just bad design and powecreep.

I'm still waiting for you to do a balance pass over Ikkit's workshop, Groms insane cauldron buffs, Plunge into Anarchy, and all those other bs that are so OP they invalidate the entire campaign. Maybe expendable goblins shouldn't be punching down on Chosen.

saweendra#3399

CA_Duck said:

Like you have noticed, the issue stems from the changes to chariot articulation entities. Chariot macroentities have this unique behaviour, where the articulation entity is the only entity used for soft collision. So a tiny articulation entity makes the whole chariot have a small collision capsule, which causes a lot of issues. The fix for it is indeed to restore the old larger articulation entity radius.

thank you for the clarification,

can you also comment on the whole cav debate as well.

CA_Duck#1876

saweendra said:

CA_Duck said:

Like you have noticed, the issue stems from the changes to chariot articulation entities. Chariot macroentities have this unique behaviour, where the articulation entity is the only entity used for soft collision. So a tiny articulation entity makes the whole chariot have a small collision capsule, which causes a lot of issues. The fix for it is indeed to restore the old larger articulation entity radius.

thank you for the clarification,

can you also comment on the whole cav debate as well.

My take on it hasn't really changed. Infantry are getting too many attacks in on the charge, to a degree that I'd consider it to be a bug. Additionally, the mechanical balance between bracing and counter-charging is horribly skewed in favour of counter-charging. Finally there are also just issues with how easily cavalry gets tangled inside the infantry unit in a counter-charge situation, further making counter-charging into infantry a bad idea. So all in all, its a mix of issues that results in an unintended gameplay interactions.