I am split on this. I really feel like insta kill on some very expensive myth units was over the top. And it made myth units with an insta kill ability largly favorable.
I also think that there could be a difference on the myth units you mention.
1: Cyclops are slow, they need to be melee and the animation of the ability takes quite a lot of time to run. I think it would be fine if they were able to insta-kill. It would perhaps lead to some fun early pushes.
2: Medusa is a ranged myth unit and is quite fast. I am fine with an insta kill mechanic as long as this does not work on other myth units. I suppose mummy is kind of the same here.
I highly prefer the direction the devs are taking with retold; its way better for game balance and doesnt force your opponent to literally not use his myth units. And besides; the new effects are a lot more interesting than just having 3-4 units each with the same effect in different flavors (one-hit kill).
Mummies deal great area dmg and can resurrect whole armies of undead now,
Medusa is an objectively better frost giant with range AND dmg on top (just think about this comparison for a moment and you will realize how OP the old special attacks were…and how gimped everything else had to be for a unit that carries said special attack).
Both atlantean units weren’t shown so far so we can only speculate, but it seems that the devs understand that being melee is a huge drawback and gave the Argus a very strong dmg-dealing attack that will probably kill most basic units (and has a low-ish recharge).
The same should apply to the Cyclops and Kraken; their specials should be on the stronger side while not being a generic oneshot vs everything. Its cool to onetap elephants but it prevents the devs from creating a balanced unit that doesnt only shine in some scenarios (enemy spamming very strong, slow high cost units).
While I’m starting to warm to the mummy’s new ability, I think the idea of “holding back your myth units” cos of your opponent has a Medusa isn’t a viable argument for getting rid of it. It just means you have to think a bit, target the Medusa and get rid of it. But I do hear what you’re saying.
But could you enlighten me a bit on the cyclops and kraken part? It wasn’t game breaking as these abilities couldn’t be used on myth, just petty and replaceable human soldiers. It was more a visual immersion and a cool little gimmick that really pulled a player into the game back in the day. You don’t remember the first time you saw that kraken lob that toxotes in the first mission? It was awesome, unlike anything I’d seen in a game. Hardly balance-altering
There’s also a new tech for Hera, granting free Myrmidons periodically from fortresses (which sounds pretty strong to me - enough so that I think Hephaestus will actually be much weaker, but may retain some situational use)
I do think that the Cyclops should probably have some more damage to its throw. I’m fine with it not one-shotting every unit it throws, but it felt a bit underwhelming to me (though I suppose it’s harder to feel the impact of the AoE damage).
Mummy seemed like it is now an AoE effect rather than an insta-kill (which is sometimes better, sometimes worse, but likely better overall - means more minions)
Thing with the cyclops though is that his throw had an AOE effect in the original AOM. Cyclops has had a straight up nerf with nothing to off-set it. One-shotting a single spearmen wasn’t balance breaking.
And with new Thoth and Egypt now allowing spammable elephants, the ability to just pick off one or two here and there with a cyclops is a good trade off, lest Egypt-Ele spam snowballs (though I could see why the cyclops ability wouldn’t work on elephants. But the rest of the human units? Certainly should)
I’m trying to be a civile as possible here but this is not a valid argument. I’ve been playing AoM for over 20 years. When you see a Medusa or a Mummy you focus fire it down with your ranged human units. Now it’s dead. Send in myth units. Boom, handled.
But now it’s even easier. Every civ has ranged hero units now. Which is a nerf to all ranged myth units.
For Cyclops and Kraken; I dont think it would hurt for those units to be able to oneshot low-hp/low cost units like hoplites or toxotes. But onetapping an elephant is too much imo - its a simple numbers game and denying a unit thats almost as expensive as the MU itself is just too much power. Thats why I think changing it from a oneshot mechanic to a damage dealing special attack is the correct approach. It just needs to be tuned perfectly.
Its the truth tho; these units will inherently make the usage of MUs much more difficult for the opponent. Thats not great game design when there is already a different set of units that should be responsible for countering MUs (heroes).
And as I outlined in my other post it will also help the devs to buff those units elsewhere, making them less one-dimensional in the process. Having your age4 premium myth unit die to a single dive-attack from Bellerophon was never fun for egyptian players.
It was balanced before. Now with the extra ranged heroes added they need their instant kill more than ever. They are now twice nerfed. Their ability is nerfed and the Heroes are more powerful.
Now that mass MU production is more viable than ever, and Microsoft is trying to make mass MU skirmishes one of AoMR selling points, insta killing any MU just doesnt make sense now, both in balance and their goal.
And I never liked insta killing anyways. I usually modded the game for them to work on only human units(made them also deal more bonus dmg to MUs to make them still viable, but anyway).
Thing is with the cyclops, what is the point of his special move now? It’s more beneficial to turn it off. The animation is slow, so while the cyclops does it he takes a fair amount of damage. But now the unit he throws doesn’t even die, deals area damage only (which it did in the original). The trade off for risking substantial damage to your cyclops for knocking off half-hp of a single infantryman seems hardly beneficial. The Cyclops may as well not even have a special ability, which defeats the purpose of focusing on MU’s and giving them all abilities
if cyclops wouldn’t be stuck for so long in its throwing animation it would already buff him.
by the way a visual question: i wasn’t able to test every myth unit and their upgrades → cyclops still have elder cyclops update, right? does it give them armor and a more badass club (cause mountain giants club looks way more intimidating and bigger - which is fine since MG is a heroic age unit but still… i think cyclops upgrade should give his club maybe some spikes or something. but maybe it does and i missed it then i’m sorry.
Still wouldn’t be that much of a buff though - damaging instead of killing is a straight nerf no matter which way you look at it. And the AOE damage was present in the original so that wasn’t even added to compensate.
So creating 2 Elephants at the same time (with the new Thoth upgrade) is fine, but allowing Cyclop to one-shot Elephant with his already slow ability is not?
Cyclop does need one-shot ability to be barely viable in mid or late game, he is slow and can be easily picked off by priest or pharaoh anyway, he already has a lot of weaknesses compared to most human/myth units, the shadow buff to myth units for every age-up is great but not enough.
The nerf to Cyclop’s one-shot ability makes no sense at all, in my opinion.
As I said above, this needs good tuning so its not lackluster on a slow unit like Cyclops. But comparing this to a tech thats not even released (and thus we dont know if its balanced or not) isnt a good argument.
I’m not arguing if the tech is balanced or not, I’m just saying that allowing Cyclop to one-shot elephant and other human units will not cause any harm to game’s balance.
This Cyclop’s one-shot ability has been there for more than two decades and no one complained about it being ‘too OP vs elephant’.
Exactly. No-one loses a game cos a cyclops threw an elephant.
Its bonus was against human units only. It was slow, which was the trade-off for one-shotting. But in no way did it decide battles and certainly not games.
It needs the one shot back to even be viable. Half-hitting a slinger, and losing half its own hp in the process, is the most lacklustre myth ability there is.
Idk to me it makes a lot more sense to have a numerical value on his special attack, even if that means Cyclops loses the best-case scenario of onetapping elephants. Give it a value that oneshots most basic military and speed up the animation value; maybe also add an AoE effect where the victim lands. Now you have a special attack thats less binary and the Cyclops itself can be buffed elsewhere in return.
Keeping the oneshot on his special comes with a cost (and makes the unit very lackluster in all but the best-case scenario) and you guys cant see that apparently.
What are you talking about? What can’t we see about how the one-shot makes the unit lacklustre…the cyclops has had an AOE damage since AOM, and his animation was slow so as to off-set the one kill. What’s the cost of his one-shot, that it’s a slow animation? It’s slow with or without the one-shot. Keeping his animation slow and getting rid of the one-kill is a nerf.
But you can’t see that apparently…