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Rejected New ability - "Deflect"

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Reason
The "Contact" skill has proven to be quite useless on melee units, which makes them mostly useless themselves.
Details
Name: Contact (X)

Description: The unit can always retaliate, regardless of the range. Against ranged attacks, the counterattack hits a random enemy within (X) tiles for half of the recieved damage.

Visual effect: The unit gets surrounded by a red transparent shield (akin to the ability Force Field) and shows its regular defend animation.

Example 1: A Samurai with Deflect (8) and Reactive Armor (4) gets attacked by a Rocket Troop from its maximum attack range (16 tiles). The Samurai takes 4 points of damage (because of RA) and deflects the attack to a random enemy within 8 tiles around him for 2 points of damage (e.g. a hidden Ninja 6 tiles away). If there's no enemy within the given range, then the counterattack won't hit anything.

Example 2: A Drill Ranger with Deflect (10) and Keen Eye (25%) gets attacked by a Nail Storm from an adjacent tile. The Drill Ranger takes 8 points of damage and makes a normal counterattack against the Nail Storm (since the attack wasn't ranged).
Balance
The ability to counter against any attack may be powerful, but it's also risky to use, since the unit needs to be near other enemies. A unit with Deflect wouldn't be able to stall out enemies endlessly, because of the limited range and the retaliation being based on the received damage.
Abuse Prevention
I don't think, that this ability would open up any ways for cheating or abuse.
Summary
Melee units from higher ages could get the new ability "Deflect" instead of "Contact", which gives them more opportunities to retaliate, without making them too powerful.
Have you looked to see if this has already been suggested?
Unit abilities are not listed in the DNSL, and I couldn't find any similar ideas.
The Augmented Samurai and the Drill Ranger have shown, that "Contact" doesn't make much sense on melee units. Both are totally helpless against ranged attacks, even from the heavy units of their respective ages.
Because of this, I propose a new ability called "Deflect". It allows a unit to retaliate against ALL attacks - but if the attack was ranged, then the counterattack would hit a random enemy within a limited area around the unit for half of the received damage.
I drew inspiration for this ability from scenes of various animes and movies, where a swordsman redirects incoming projectiles just with his blade.
 
This suggestion has been closed. Votes are no longer accepted.
interesting.... this would make having high attack values not necessarily an advantage, unless you also have the defense value to back it up. it would definitely hurt the glass cannon players :p
 

CrashBoom

Legend
interesting.... this would make having high attack values not necessarily an advantage, unless you also have the defense value to back it up. it would definitely hurt the glass cannon players :p
your defense value is useless in this idea
and you get punished for your high attack level

because
would hit a random enemy within a limited area around the unit for half of the received damage.
I hit with 8 damage. then I would get a damage back of 4

so as you can see: all values (like attack value of defender or defense value of unit that gets hit) except the damage taken are ignored

so even bad units which normally would make only 1 or 2 damage would suddenly make 4 damage

makes this idea totally imbalanced with the current damage calculation


or imagine:
you make a damage of 6. your AO increases it to 9
and the defender gets rewarded for your AO hit because then he hits back with 5 (4.5 rounded up) instead of 3 (half of 6)
 
Last edited:
First - thank you for the feedback ;)


you make a damage of 6. your AO increases it to 9
and the defender gets rewarded for your AO hit because then he hits back with 5 (4.5 rounded up) instead of 3 (half of 6)

Ah, I didn't consider the crit chance from the AO. Although I somehow find this idea quite hilarious :p But yeah, that would affect the ballance against many players.



Yeah... how about instead of half damage make it half of what retaliation would be for normal melee retaliation

That's one of the other ideas I had for the retaliation damage (together with a fixed value of 2 points per counterattack, but that didn't make any sense for me). I scrapped this one because I got stuck with the idea of redirecting the incoming attack. And the unit with Deflect would be weakened by the attack, which would make the halved retaliation even weaker.
 
But this is retaliation damage that otherwise would never have occurred without the ability in the first place

Have you played Egypt? Your ability essentially already exists.... very powerful ability

The Contact ability for the Camel Archers should be same as for MG Teams, AAVs etc, working only within the regular attacking range. Nubian Archers can attack them without retaliation. Deflect would work against any range, providing some chip damage (which, as you said, would be at least some damage instead of none ;) )
 

Emberguard

Emperor
it’s a decent idea as long as the retaliation damage is balanced properly. If the goal is to simply make Contact! more relevant to Range 1 units then it could go off the normal retaliation damage. No need to make it more powerful than what retaliation damage would already provide when retaliation occurs

However, there is one thing I’d like to address regarding contact. Always retaliates on melee units should still work on the units you mentioned for one simple reason: normally your melee units only retaliate once per round. If they have Contact! then that should lift that restriction which removes the strategy of focusing solely on one unit to avoid retaliation damage after the first hit

So what your idea of Deflect would accomplish if applied to a melee unit is allow it to be a hybrid between melee and ranged.
 

Fire Lord

Squire
Even if the deflect doesn't work all that well, it'd be interesting to see what concepts come out of that idea. I like the idea of bullets and laser beams just ricocheting off of the samurai.

Maybe instead of deflect we should call it plot armor, lol! I love the idea and am curious to see it in action!
 

zlobnyj bot

Squire
Because of this, I propose a new ability called "Deflect". It allows a unit to retaliate against ALL attacks - but if the attack was ranged, then the counterattack would hit a random enemy within a limited area around the unit for half of the received damage.
Why not call this ability "rage"? or "revenge"? or "berserk"?
Imagine that a unit always responds within its range with its normal attack, and when there is no one within range to respond, it moves towards the enemy that fired, approximately 1/4 of its normal turn every time it is attacked ... That would be quite interesting ...
 

Thunderdome

Emperor
"Deflect" in my definition has something to do with damage mitigation, not damage dealing, something that a defense type GB or building would play a part in.
 

Umbrathor

Baronet
While an interesting concept, a deflected attack always hitting another unit, and that unit always being an enemy player, seems cheesy. If it were changed to a CHANCE for any deflected damage to hit another unit, and that unit to be either ally or enemy, it would be more logical.

An ability to deflect should, in my opinion, do nothing else than having the CHANCE to do no damage to the unit.

Doing damage to enemy units after an attack already exists, and a unit could have both abilities: deflect and retaliate. No need to mix a retaliate ability into a deflection ability.
 
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