In an RTS game the best should win and not the luckiest. Monks conversions strongly turn the tide of battles.
As any fight between units, conversions shouldn’t be 100% predictable either.
Currently, monks convert most units with a 0.27 success rate for every “monk tick” (1.2 in-game seconds) and with a minimum/maximum of 4/10 ticks respectively.
So I propose to change the min/max ticks for conversion from 4/10 to 5/9, shortening the time window and variance of conversions and to compensate with a higher succes rate per tick (for example 0.40, which yelds approximately the same current mean conversion time of around 6.3 ticks).
Yes, there should be less RNG in monk conversions and I like this change.
There should be less RNG in monk conversions but I don’t like this change specifically.
No, leave monks as they are. They are fine.
0voters
Other cases like Teuton, First Crusade, Faith, Scout Line units, Buildings, Inquisition and so, can probably be left as they are, since they come into play more seldom.
I think this change is a buff to the Knight line
Monks work as a counter for Knights in Castle Age
What about introduce a new tech in the monastery that reduce the RNG a little?
Looking at the CDFs this particular change is pretty mild and wouldn’t have much effect except on the scout line where the average conversion time would drop by around 2/3rds of a tick.
So the scout line would probably need to have their conversion chance be 0 until the 9th tick just to maintain the efficacy of the scout line vs monks.
I think you might have missunderstood something, it’s not a buff nor a nerf. Let me emphasize that the change
so conversions should be more or less equally likely.
It simply reduces the variance of the probability distribution, which I don’t see any obvious reason why it should favor or disfavor conversion success nor any unit
as well as you wouldn’t be able anymore to “insta-convert” in 4.8 seconds units that could have ran away, which currently happens with a 27% probability.
It would for example also make conversions taking more than 6 seconds (5 ticks) 60% likely, whereas currently they are 53% likely. Again, this is summarized by the fact that mean conversion time remains unchanged. You can even re-adjust the distribution in many other ways.
I wasn’t of course aware of this however. Probably not so worthy discussing it if most believe monks are fine overall
Changing the variance does actually change the balance of the unit itself, though. Not everything is about mean conversion time. Suppose you went the opposite way, and there was a 50% chance of a 0.1 second conversion and a 50% chance of a 13 second conversion. This fundamentally changes how units interact with monks in a drastic way.
What would happen if instead of ticks and probability things, Wololo works as an flat attack that “damage” a convertion bar. When this bar reach 0 the unit is converted. The bar regen with a trickle, like Berserks HP regen…
All units have 100 convertion points and generic monks without upgrades make 25 “faith damage”. So, f.e 4 consecutive wololos convert a generic KT (which shouldn’t have any “faith armor”), but an scout-line should have, lets say, 15 “faith armor”, so would take 7 wololos to convert.
COuld be added a new Imperial monastery tech that lets you see the units’ convertion bar, so you can snipe the more easy to convert unit or put in cover yours
That would mean you can interrupt a conversion and resume it, and that several monks targetting the same target convert faster. That would be quite bonkers. Also does it mean there is no need to wait for faith anymore? Even more so then.
Yes, but if you lost sight of the unit you were converting and snipe a new one, is like start again. And remember that if units run away, their faith will slowly recover.
Just like now, but without the luck factor.
Monks targetting the same target could work as the builders, it means second monk do -50% faith damage, third -75% and so on in a logarithmic way. Result, yes, 4 monks will convert a single unit faster than 1 monk, but all of them will have to recover their faith. It would more effective to micro and target different units instead of a single one with a group o monks.
Why do you figurate that? I would work as now, after a successfully convertion a monk should recharge his faith…
Honestly, I always thought that this random factor on monks doesn’t fit with AOE. I mean, all these math on attack, armor, bonuses, etc work so nice, then, a monk appears and sometimes is insta-convertion and sometimes a single knight (the unit that monks suppose to counter) reach the monk and slaughter him… It is awkward…
Indeed, changing the variance changes the balance of the unit, though
I think the only thing that actually changes are the very long or very short conversions, which you never really expect and are very tilting. Monks should be used as always and be as strong as always
it is fine for even very competitive games to have a luck aspect to them, as long as the luck aspect doesn’t overwhelmingly jeopardize the core gameplay and prevents the better player from winning a good portion of the time. So imo Monks are fine, if you want a game with no RNG, there is chess in the end.
This is simply an over exaggeration to justify your point.
There is no other unit that is so heavily RNG based as the monk. Even the RNG hit rate on archers has a quantifiable outcome and can Ultimately be essentially removed with TR and Ballistics.
imo it’s too big of a change for the majority to accept. but if they did want it to work it could be that additional monks don’t increase the conversion rate. ie the rate is constant regardless of the number of monks converting. You want to do away with variance while keeping monks balanced, this is the cost.
I think the current mechanic doesn’t make logical sense anyway that somehow because a monk started converting a building It can suddenly insta convert a scout. so it does seem to make more sense that each unit has a conversion"bar" and switching targets essentially resets the conversion.
I would think the bar needs to be filled at a time that equates to slightly faster than the current mean conversion rate to make up for the loss in changing targets.
Yeah even though it was changed I would prefer to see it changed once more . At least 1 more tick on each end like you suggested
Yes, it is silly thinking something like this could be applied, but it is sad because could open the door to new interesting mechanics, imo.
Imagine a bonus or UT that able your monks make a 10% splash damage, that means that while you focus on convert a unit from a group, slowly make the others units easy to future convertions.
Another adding could be separate bonus for “faith armor”(Teutons) and faith recovery rate for units’ convertion bar.
You might not like RNG aspect of conversion, but RNG aspect of Monks actually make them stronger. For knight vs Monk combat situation, knight player can make a decision to engage or not, monks player can’t. More predictable conversion time means knight player can make a decision to engage in right situation. However, more unpredictable conversion time make knight player take more risk to engage.
That is what actually meaning for changing variance also change the balance of unit. Also, minimum conversion time more matter than maximum conversion time that maximum conversion time aren’t really matter in most case that monk will likely die in max conversion time or unit run away in that time.
It is complicated balance and just average conversion time remain same and reducing variance is overall nerf for monks. Lucky insta-conversion of scout is already removed and I don’t think minimum conversion time should be also increased for other unit as well.
