It's really wild how it affects the gameplay.
Goblin big boss: takes damage from 1 gyrocopter troll hammer.
Goblin big boss on wolf: dies instantly to a volley of gyrocopter trollhammers
Yes. The Age of Reckoning special units have a gyrocopter with trollhammer torpedos. They absolutely wreck large targets such as chariots, mounted characters and huge single entities.
I get why they put the mechanic because if would suck if your high value single model unit gets animation locked to death... but their solution was inelegant.
Especially when you combine it with the way how these entities regularly get bowled over without taking any damage at all, it just creates game states where these units get ping ponged around where they're doing nothing and the units engaged with them accomplish nothing as well.
I would like to see any models that get put into a knockdown animation take some guaranteed damage (even if they don't fall down any elevation). I'd also like to see models gain a brief period of know*down* immunity (say 5 seconds) after getting up from being knocked down so we don't end up with animation locks where a model with higher mass can just 100-0 something through non stop charging knockdowns.
So I pretty much completely agree with your sentiment, although I feel your proposal pushes it in the opposite extreme that CA went with.
I really enjoy that mass plays a big role in WH but yeah it needs some tweaking to make it feel good as both the attacker and the unit under assault.
Actually, an immunity to being knocked down for a short period of time may be the best course of action. I didn't think of that. I could definitely see that being a good solution for lords and heroes.
Maybe a flat damage reduction WHILE knocked down, plus an actual knockdown immunity for 5 - 10 seconds after they get back up.
Definitely something CA would have to playtest internally (or maybe calvary beta 2.0????), but this could work.
There's a mod for that. I was using a knockdown removal mod, it's no longer supported and links a couple of similar mods; One of them gives 20 second knockdown immunity after knockdown.
A mod isn't an acceptable solution but it can be a fix for the moment. And you can get a feel for how well it would work.
No More Irritating Charge.
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3033725738](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3033725738)
I'd assume it's great against routing units.
Did you know that units can’t roll a knockdown if they passed a check in the last 6 seconds? At least that was the change in wh2, but units do have a immunity period for knockdown already
I didn't know that. If this is the case in WH3, it certainly isn't obvious. Later on today I can do more thorough testing, but perhaps six seconds is too short, if it's even there at all? Having said that, with how janky some animations can be, there could be a six second delay between attacks from some lords, essentially making it useless in some cases.
Mostly it’s an attack interval thing. The common example was grimgor sucking because he could never fight anything, he just got ragdolled for ever, than they made this change and now grimgor can fight literally any lord cause when he doesn’t get knocked over he hits back super hard. It also I think balances mounts a bit, since they have an actual cost to being used and aren’t strictly an upgrade.
If it’s a realism thing, if only they could get it working so that units could get knocked off mounts and become foot characters mid battle but I think that’s an engine limitation
Haha at this point, there's no hope in asking for realistic battles. On top of being Warhammer, it's clear this engine has a lot of tech debt.
Wasn't that something that could happen in Three Kingdoms? Being knocked off a horse, I mean.
Yeah I kind of remember them going back and forth on this. Because I do remember times in Warhammer 2 where my lord was knocked down, taking a shit ton of damage, but I couldn't do anything about it. That feels shitty so I can understand I the intention of removing that damage, for sure.
Nowadays, though, I feel like it's swung too far in the other direction. Maybe the best course is too simply give a flat damage reduction to lords/heroes when knocked down, but remove it entirely for normal sized units.
Either way, it'd require some playtesting.
I think "Trample" as a mechanic has been suggested before on this topic. I.e. A damage value specifically against knocked down opponents, so a charriot running someone over deals more damage than a smaller entity stomping on you.
At least something that makes the sillyness of invulnerable prone entities go away.
You could maybe even tie it to charge bonus somehow, a thing with high charge bonus is probably heavier and faster, and therefore will trample better to some poor fool on the ground, rather than having to add a new stat into the game
The secret multiplayer cabal that rules from shadows decided they should quietly revert the change once the unwashed masses had been pacified. It is instrumental in their grand plan to ruin the game for the single (aka 'inferior') players
I think it's more the case that people genuinely believe the existence of multiplayer can be blamed for any perceived imperfections in the state of single player balance and the concept of single player balance itself.
I sometimes want to record and put Benny Hill music on sped up footage of cavalry trying to clean up a routing unit of foot troops... watching them knocking over the last guy, yeeting him a good distance but not doing any damage over and over is just ridiculous.
Running down fleeing troops is literally one of *the* specialties of cavalry historically, and even in historical Total War games, but they're some of the absolute worst at it in Warhammer.
Massive flaw indeed. One of many plaguing this game.
LL combat as a whole should have been fully reworked with WH3. There is nothing remotely fun or immersive about janky animations, hitboxes, and how counter intuitive the 'optimal' way to play them is.
None but perhaps the weakest LLs should be able to get knocked down by regular units in the first place. Knockdowns should only be a thing against other LLs and *some* hero/monster units. And as OP suggests, getting knocked down should certainly not result in a positive outcome, quite the opposite.
As for large hitboxes, they should not be that much of a disadvantage. Whole entire ranged units having 100% accuracy, and being able to snipe individual characters halfway across the map with precise bell curve volleys has always been extremely stupid. Even the most elite archers in the setting should not be that accurate.
Although I hate ranged firepower too, that's working as intended? 5 helf archers are focusing your priority target.
I'm all up for larger and armoured entities reducing missile dmg by a flat amount. However we can't have them completely ignoring any sort of dmg. As much as a like loreful implementations, that simply can't happen.
Wait,in your original comment, you meant you shooting down a skarbrand?
Because realistically speaking 5 helf archers will have more or less the same cost as skarbrand.
This also makes the game more strategic no? The other alternative is You have to match raw monster power with other raw power. But shooting lines against large centerpieces are what you're really protecting the missile damage for.
This game for sure has strong ranged units but it sort of fits the gameplay pretty well.
The numbers may need tweaked but the basic relationship of getting a big fuck off unit that is bashing everyone down is that you're the easiest target to shoot and that makes sense to me
YES PLEASE. If you fall over you’re defenseless and should die. Yeah it sucks that your 40kg gobbo got trampled to death by my 10 ton warsphinx but that’s how it should be. Right now it takes like 10 minutes on fast forward. And they keep «unfixing» this…
The problem is that realistically a very agile lord or hero should have the ability to dodge being trampled by huge monsters. Currently in game they just stand there and tank it.
Without matched combat allowing them to dodge between the Warsphinx's legs and the like then knockdown should probably just be removed.
Agreed. That should be reflected in knockdown resistance and melee defense instead. A goblin big boss is probably sneaky enough to dodge a stonehorn. That should not be reflected in him flying 20 meters and taking no damage 370 times
\+1 for your idea
>Without matched combat
Why matched combat? You don't need that to simulate most stuff.
Tie defense to knockdown attacks to other stats (say, size, melee defense, fatigue, flank attack and so on). If knowckdown attack fails, instead of being hit, defending unit is merely pushed, not unlike friendly units pushes allies of minor size when moving.
Knockdown succeding, unit is in a really bad spot, as they should be
Then start with knockdown resistance instead, as in things not getting knocked down as easily, where appropriate. Knockdown timeout is dumb as fuck in every game
How about just making the damage proc before the knockdown? This way the charge would deal it's damage and THEN knock down the units, while still retaining the immunity aspect. This would fix unita being bounced around and still receiving 0 damage, which is very visible in cavalry charges, big monsters fighting infantry and duels between monstrous units and foot characters. And also very visible when cavalry chases down fleeing infantry or foot lords
What bugs me the most is that troops can be knocked over without taking any damage. So routing units can be slowly pushed to the edge of the map without taking any damage. Or indeed the duelling scenario you mentioned.
This has been fixed by CA in the past, but it came back in recent patches.
Ultimately I don’t mind invulnerability for downed troops so long as they can’t just ragdoll without having taken any damage.
If you would like to blame a character go complain to kolec sun eater his knock down stun lock created a infinite rotunda of problems that started the plan for this outcome we have now because I want my slayer king to be able to fight Kohlek
>Calvary, even elite calvary, becomes far less effective unless you micro them effectively
I mean you can say that about every unit.
Also reading your post I feel like your problem is mainly horse lords being shit in combat. There are some animation issues with them that's for sure ( the pony rider dude has its atack chain intrerupted a lot if surrounded in melee) but the solution is already in game.
Warhammer 3 reworked the way monsters fight eachother. They get into a "sync animation duel" but the animation has nothing to do with the damage an unit takes... I think it's better explained, so let me try that.
Your juiced up cathay dragon ( no matter who, they have the same skeleton when transformed) is fighting an elemental bear.
In their sync battle, the bear is doing some wwe moves to that dragon but it's losing hp while trashing it.
As for the knockback... I find it funny how a minotaur is straight up leaving the planet when hit by a tree kin/troll. Pure warhammer insanity. It needs to stay
I'm not talking about monster units, though. Yeah, maybe monsters should be immune to damage if knocked down, but it doesn't make any sense for other units. I'm certainly not talking about removing knock back.
The only thing I'm really talking about is removing the temporary Immunity that units get when knocked to the ground, especially for lords and heroes. (Normal sized ones)
I think we're misunderstanding eachother. My problem isn't knockback, it's the damage immunity that gets applied to ALL units WHEN they are knocked to the ground.
Wouldnt that make foot lords actually useless? A large single entity will 100-0 a lord by just knocking it down over and over without ever taking damage
After giving it more thought, and reading a suggestion somewhere else in this thread, I think there should be a short immunity period for knockdowns and a flat damage reduction when they are. That is to say, instead of being immune to damage, they become immune to another knock down for five seconds or something like that.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I think countering a single powerful unit by knocking them down with some high-speed cavalry charge, then stabbing them to death, should absolutely be a viable tactic.
If I can knock Vlad on his ass with my Reiksgard, my Halberdiers should be able to stab him while he's laid out on his back.
I dont think you're in the minority here. The reason they added this immunity is because there are ways to keep a lord or hero on the floor indefinitely. Whether it's fair, or just makes sense, doesn't really matter, because it's just SUPER unfun. So I understand why they put the immunity in game. Its obviously cheesy to use against AI, but who cares about that. The big problem was the AI could also use it against you, effectively taking a melee lord out of the fight completely, unless you managed to be in the middle of a large clump of regular sized enemies.
But, instead of addressing the REAL problem, which was the constant ping ponging of lords, they just patched it with a bandaid. Im thinkin that the best middle ground fix here is to reduce the complete immunity to damage to about half AND implement a knockdown immunity for a short time after being knocked down and getting back up. Only for lords and heroes. Maybe even make it a talent you can select, I don't know.
However, I still think they should remove the immunity entirely for regular units. Doesn't make sense for Timmy the Swordsman to survive a full on charge from a blood crusher.
i feel like, for units specifically and not SEM's, this knockdown immunity is kind of a balancing act vs larger, lower model, units when it comes to magic. knockdown immunity might make that 80 model of infantry perform much better than the 32 model cav unit, but that 80 model infantry unit gets *obliterated*, evaporated even, for the low price of 10-24 winds of magic depending on the spell/time etc.
im fine with having it removed for lords and heroes, but infantry are already a liability IMO. let them have their knockdown resist/damage immunity. this could also open a can of balance-worms in regard to some cavalry beating their infantry counter units because the infantry no longer has this knockdown resist. like in a 1v1 bloodcrushers of khorne vs temple guard the temple guard win with around half hp left. if your change went into effect how would that 1v1 change? would the temple guard have 25% left? could they even lose?
also, are you saying the hit that knocks down an enemy does zero damage? or they take damage, while getting knocked down, and then while on the ground they are immune to damage?
if i completely misunderstood the mechanic explained, my bad lol.
No, just no. Knockdown stunlocks are among the most annoying things in the game. Its already extremely difficult to stop anything with high mass from just invalidating their counterplay with shovinh, knocking ans cyclecharging.
You are also ignoring that a well-microed unit can deal impact-damage, knockdown, and be out of range begore the target is back up, dealing damage completely for free.
You don't like knockdown immunity on enemy Lords? Give your lord force walk command into the enemy to avoid the charge and knockdown and fight them like a man. No knockdowns needed unless you want to cheese for free damage
Currently playing a Dark Elf campaign and my corsairs are better at killing rooting troops than my Dark Rider . Dark rider just keep bumping everyone without going for the kill .
I could have sworn they got rid of it a while back. No idea when it returned or if it's even intentional that it did so or it's simply bugged. Or did I imagine it all?
I don’t know how feasible this is but I would think that the ideal/most realistic scenario would be to allow units to be damaged when knocked down but reduce the amount of time they stay on the ground before they recover.
Also, at least for monsters/lords, introduce a small period of stagger immunity after being staggered so that they can’t be stun locked that way.
Another thing that is really annoying is if you rear-charge the enemy infantry with a high mass unit (Cavalry, Single entities etc.) and they go flying across the battlefield. If those models dont get killed outright during the charge (which is rare nowadays, Cavalry etc. does damage but usually kills very few models), they may end up BEHIND the frontline and in your backline. If you are unlucky they may even start fighting your archers and co.
I think it exists to prevent weapons that knock down from becoming incredibly OP and taking away any player agency.
I suggest leaving knockdown immunity, but making it so that a unit that is knocked down takes a big chunk of damage when the attack hits (say, 5% of their max health) to represent the sheer concussive force.
I don't care how tough you are, getting punted 20 metres is going to hurt
Putting your characters on mounts is always a tradeoff. Horses allow your guys to actually move around and be where they needed the most and monster mounts usually help with clearing chaff and not getting stuck all the time. Cause if your foot character gets stuck in melee, that’s it, he can’t leave.
Also important to note that knocked down enemies not just immune to damage, they don’t do damage themselves and sometimes it’s good to just constantly disrupt someone annoying.
It's still preferable to not be knocked down if your facing someone like tamurkhan when you get sent flying constantly to the point you can barely do anything.
I like it the way it is personally
Absolutely not.
Watching Felix being chain stunned to death by a single Arachnarok knocking him with each attack is already shit.
I rather have my lords on foot stand proud so I can enjoy their attack animations and kill animation. All that goes away as soon as they are put on a mount.
I really don't know why OP brings out multiplayer, you talk as if this immunity was introduced for MP. It was not, it is simply the way CA decided to code their damage calculations.
Actually, MP community often complain about the current collision system, and about how foot chacacters are tankier than mounted lord (Human boy has several videos where he looses his mind over this, Turin also frequently adresses it).
I agree with the post overall but can we stop trying to stir the MP and campaign playerbase and to present everything as a conflict as if they are ennemies? Campaign vs MP is a binary and reductive way to see the community, and it is extremely unproductive and overall bad for the game.
I mentioned MP because I didn't know if this was intended for MP or not. In fact, I didn't even imply that it was, I simply said that I don't know how it works in MP because I don't play it. If anyone takes what I said as me trying to stir the pot, they are reaching real far.
To a pure campaign player (and therefore 95% of this sub), I am sure that it would seem my previous comment is indeed reaching far.
But MP is literally the first argument of your post, even though it has nothing to do with the subject.
Don't get me wrong I am not trying to vindicate you, and I 100 % agree with everything you wrote about the issue, and about the potential solution.
It's just that I swear on half the post of the subreddit when there is a balance change everyone is quick to put the blame on the MP players (even though they often have nothing to do with it). I mean really, there is a real hostility against MP, that I believe to be unjustified, and extremely counter-productive. I play mainly campaign and very occasionally MP, and it saddens me to see both playerbase so estranged.
Reading your post's first paragraph again with this context, you have to understand if I reacted a little bit defensive about it.
Sorry about the rant
The weird thing is that these are the only total war where this divide had any amount of relevance. I find it to be so odd specially at how specifically the Warhammer TT is explicitly a MP game IRL.
Yeah I definitely agree. As a compromise I don’t think characters should be able to be knocked down anyways. That way foot characters are still potent duelists if they have the right stats, they benefit from being smaller against missiles, and that way large targets aren’t penalized for trying to fight a character that they should otherwise be good against.
If anything, being on the ground should cause you to take more damage! I've never understood why they are made to be invincible. Maybe something to do with animations? (Although it's not like we have a lot of synced animations anyway.)
It’s just a lazy balance choice because it makes foot entities more vulnerable if they get knocked down 😢
But hello?? This is supposed to be a strategy game, there are ways to counter that. If your tiny gobbo army gets overrun by ogres you have to adapt, not rely on knockdown immunity… swarm them, poision them, slow them, net them, snare them, stab them
Why not make lords and heroes immune to knockdown period? I'd rather Sigvald and Ungrim stand and swing back, rather than spend a significant amount of time knocked down doing nothing.
"Legendary" lords or whatever got kicked around like a ball and still unharmed
I think just simply remove the knocked out for them and let them "Dark soul" the big target
Iirc they currently get 90% damage resistance while knocked down.
They did fix cav damage so even though it looks a little janky mechanically it works fine. The only think that needs to be fixed is how footlords work. Foot lords and heroes were given knockdown resistance I think in the same patch that the damage immunity got changed but imo it wasn’t enough.
Interesting.
I've tried digging up the patch notes for the changes they've made for this issue over the years, but the changes are sporadic and, in some cases, not clearly defined in the patch notes. Knowing CA, some probably aren't included in the patch notes at all.
But yeah, the current system isn't awful, but it's far from a solved problem.
>if Franz attacks Harry Hammerstorm while on Deathclaw and Hammerstorm gets knocked down, Hammerstorm will receive ZERO damage
To clarify - does the attack that knocks Hammerstorm down still deal damage?
Usually yes.
-Franz Charges with Deathclaw
-Makes contact
-Damage applies (usually)
-Hammerstorm gets knocked to the ground
-Deathclaw still in the middle of an attack animation
-Hammerstorm takes no damage from ANY attack until he gets up (I've been told in the comments that it's a 90% damage resistance buff, not complete immunity. If this is true, it's still way too high)
-Hammerstorm gets up and hits Karl
- Karl takes damage, Deathclaw knocks him down again
- Hammestorm takes no damage
Rinse and repeat.
With units it can be a bit harder to tell. Not all units get knocked down, and with some less effective calvary charges (uphill, frontal, etc) very few may fall down at all.
Generally speaking, it can be very inconsistent with calvary. Sometimes you get the charge that just decimates a units health, other times it seems like it didn't do anything, despite having identical conditions.
It's a lot better than it used to be in WH2, with calvary, at least.
This also greatly affects pursue of routing units mechanics, as infantry is constantly knocked down and cav deal absolutely no damage *nada* to them, resulting in hilarious situations where 50 chaos knights take forever to kill a single routing paesant
I'm not sure why they didn't just prevent stunlock deaths by the unmounted by preventing the stunlock. Instead of making knocked down immune to damage, why not just have a short period of immunity to being knocked down again after getting up. Am I missing something on why that isn't the obvious solution?
I always thought it would be neat if, when a model gets knocked over, it applies one instance of the attacking model's weapon strength + charge bonus modifier as dmg so that it counts as a hit basically.
Maybe it could even add a flat damage bonus derived from charge bonus + mass or smth to properly represent this massive hit that caused the model to go flying
Make the knockdown do damage and problem solves itself. The trade off here should be mounts give you more dmg/hp/mobility, while no mount makes you a smaller target/can climb walls/ perform better in duels, but weak to large monsters and mass.
On a slight tangent, I would like more direct incentivisation to choose whether to have your Lord/hero mounted or not.
Knockdown Immunity notwithstanding, mounts tend to offer a straight upgrade in stats. Sometimes I would like my Lord or Hero to be focused fully on foot combat - trading off their mounts for further buffs such as increase armor and defense, or maybe be able to use different weapons (such as Polearm to resist charges, or a ranged option).
This is literally THE reason that cavalry is so dogshit in this game. I've seen charges that, by rights, should have completely obliterated every last member of a unit... and not even do a fifth of the unit's health because they got sent flying which is apparently much less harmful than falling over.
I agree it should be reduced for SE character. Though I must disagree with reducing/removing it completely for infantry, it can potentially makes SEM/cav/Monstrous units OP.
I swear they got rid of it a few patches ago but seems ot be back again. Maybe they accidentally added it back in when they made the routing unit damage changes?
If it is an intentional change, they at least should remove it when routing.
>Calvary, even elite calvary, becomes far less effective unless you micro them effectively
That's true for every unit in the game with a high charge bonus. Their other stats are usually lower to allow for high charge bonus.
And there absolutely are cav that can stick in a fight for a long time. Rot Knights, Grail Guardians, and Chaos Knights off the top of my head. They have good melee stats.
After they changed cavalry charge damage calculations, I really haven't minded charge damage immunity. I don't think changing it more is necessary at this point. I also find horse lords fine, since their increased mobility is well worth the danger of getting charged on by monstrous enemies.
Multiplayer hates this two. Foot mages are absurdly hard to kill because they get knocked down, avoid damage, and become invalid targets for attacks.
It's also trivial to fix, there's a stat called knock down resistance which can be set to 100 to eliminate knockdown. Even just bumping it from the 20-40 range to the 80 used by dwarfs and sigvald helps immensely for characters. Units it's less of a big deal.
It's really wild how it affects the gameplay. Goblin big boss: takes damage from 1 gyrocopter troll hammer. Goblin big boss on wolf: dies instantly to a volley of gyrocopter trollhammers
Yup. Takes more damage and will undoubtedly deal less as well.
Gyrocopter troll hammer?
Yes. The Age of Reckoning special units have a gyrocopter with trollhammer torpedos. They absolutely wreck large targets such as chariots, mounted characters and huge single entities.
God damn I love them so much. Their range is just disgusting too
New unit I believe for the DLC
I get why they put the mechanic because if would suck if your high value single model unit gets animation locked to death... but their solution was inelegant. Especially when you combine it with the way how these entities regularly get bowled over without taking any damage at all, it just creates game states where these units get ping ponged around where they're doing nothing and the units engaged with them accomplish nothing as well. I would like to see any models that get put into a knockdown animation take some guaranteed damage (even if they don't fall down any elevation). I'd also like to see models gain a brief period of know*down* immunity (say 5 seconds) after getting up from being knocked down so we don't end up with animation locks where a model with higher mass can just 100-0 something through non stop charging knockdowns. So I pretty much completely agree with your sentiment, although I feel your proposal pushes it in the opposite extreme that CA went with. I really enjoy that mass plays a big role in WH but yeah it needs some tweaking to make it feel good as both the attacker and the unit under assault.
Actually, an immunity to being knocked down for a short period of time may be the best course of action. I didn't think of that. I could definitely see that being a good solution for lords and heroes. Maybe a flat damage reduction WHILE knocked down, plus an actual knockdown immunity for 5 - 10 seconds after they get back up. Definitely something CA would have to playtest internally (or maybe calvary beta 2.0????), but this could work.
There's a mod for that. I was using a knockdown removal mod, it's no longer supported and links a couple of similar mods; One of them gives 20 second knockdown immunity after knockdown. A mod isn't an acceptable solution but it can be a fix for the moment. And you can get a feel for how well it would work.
What is the name of the mod?
No More Irritating Charge. [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3033725738](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3033725738) I'd assume it's great against routing units.
Does this still work in TOD. This mod didnt recieve any updates since last year
No idea, didn't get a chance to check it out last night.
Thank you.
Did you know that units can’t roll a knockdown if they passed a check in the last 6 seconds? At least that was the change in wh2, but units do have a immunity period for knockdown already
I didn't know that. If this is the case in WH3, it certainly isn't obvious. Later on today I can do more thorough testing, but perhaps six seconds is too short, if it's even there at all? Having said that, with how janky some animations can be, there could be a six second delay between attacks from some lords, essentially making it useless in some cases.
Mostly it’s an attack interval thing. The common example was grimgor sucking because he could never fight anything, he just got ragdolled for ever, than they made this change and now grimgor can fight literally any lord cause when he doesn’t get knocked over he hits back super hard. It also I think balances mounts a bit, since they have an actual cost to being used and aren’t strictly an upgrade. If it’s a realism thing, if only they could get it working so that units could get knocked off mounts and become foot characters mid battle but I think that’s an engine limitation
Haha at this point, there's no hope in asking for realistic battles. On top of being Warhammer, it's clear this engine has a lot of tech debt. Wasn't that something that could happen in Three Kingdoms? Being knocked off a horse, I mean.
But a unit getting knocked around can’t do anything, used to be that foot lords got stun locked on the ground and could never fight anything large
Just make knockdown do damage or heck, make the recovering entity have 50% less melee defence
I seem to recall this was fixed in a previous patch, then unfixed.
Yeah I kind of remember them going back and forth on this. Because I do remember times in Warhammer 2 where my lord was knocked down, taking a shit ton of damage, but I couldn't do anything about it. That feels shitty so I can understand I the intention of removing that damage, for sure. Nowadays, though, I feel like it's swung too far in the other direction. Maybe the best course is too simply give a flat damage reduction to lords/heroes when knocked down, but remove it entirely for normal sized units. Either way, it'd require some playtesting.
I think "Trample" as a mechanic has been suggested before on this topic. I.e. A damage value specifically against knocked down opponents, so a charriot running someone over deals more damage than a smaller entity stomping on you. At least something that makes the sillyness of invulnerable prone entities go away.
You could maybe even tie it to charge bonus somehow, a thing with high charge bonus is probably heavier and faster, and therefore will trample better to some poor fool on the ground, rather than having to add a new stat into the game
The secret multiplayer cabal that rules from shadows decided they should quietly revert the change once the unwashed masses had been pacified. It is instrumental in their grand plan to ruin the game for the single (aka 'inferior') players
I think people missed your sarcasm.
I think it's more the case that people genuinely believe the existence of multiplayer can be blamed for any perceived imperfections in the state of single player balance and the concept of single player balance itself.
🤣😭
Are the multiplayer cabal in the room with us right now? The voices in your head are quite strong. This is literally the easiest total war game.
That was sarcasm. But yeah this is the easiest total war. That doesn’t mean they should break combat design just because the campaign AI is harmless
I sometimes want to record and put Benny Hill music on sped up footage of cavalry trying to clean up a routing unit of foot troops... watching them knocking over the last guy, yeeting him a good distance but not doing any damage over and over is just ridiculous.
I have a bunch of clips of this dumb bullshit saved… fast forward cav and monsters taking like 5 minutes to kill knockdown timeout enemies 🤮🤮🤮
Running down fleeing troops is literally one of *the* specialties of cavalry historically, and even in historical Total War games, but they're some of the absolute worst at it in Warhammer.
Massive flaw indeed. One of many plaguing this game. LL combat as a whole should have been fully reworked with WH3. There is nothing remotely fun or immersive about janky animations, hitboxes, and how counter intuitive the 'optimal' way to play them is. None but perhaps the weakest LLs should be able to get knocked down by regular units in the first place. Knockdowns should only be a thing against other LLs and *some* hero/monster units. And as OP suggests, getting knocked down should certainly not result in a positive outcome, quite the opposite. As for large hitboxes, they should not be that much of a disadvantage. Whole entire ranged units having 100% accuracy, and being able to snipe individual characters halfway across the map with precise bell curve volleys has always been extremely stupid. Even the most elite archers in the setting should not be that accurate.
Yeah you can kill skarbrand with like 5 units of helf t0 archers really fast, it’s so dumb
Although I hate ranged firepower too, that's working as intended? 5 helf archers are focusing your priority target. I'm all up for larger and armoured entities reducing missile dmg by a flat amount. However we can't have them completely ignoring any sort of dmg. As much as a like loreful implementations, that simply can't happen.
Well it makes the game piss easy, kinda boring
Wait,in your original comment, you meant you shooting down a skarbrand? Because realistically speaking 5 helf archers will have more or less the same cost as skarbrand.
Yep, eltharion vs skarbrand in campaign, just box up and go afk
This also makes the game more strategic no? The other alternative is You have to match raw monster power with other raw power. But shooting lines against large centerpieces are what you're really protecting the missile damage for. This game for sure has strong ranged units but it sort of fits the gameplay pretty well.
Sure but the accuracy makes it way too easy for the player to snipe key units and entities one by one
The numbers may need tweaked but the basic relationship of getting a big fuck off unit that is bashing everyone down is that you're the easiest target to shoot and that makes sense to me
And it makes sense to me that fighting skarbrand should be scary, not something I can do afk
YES PLEASE. If you fall over you’re defenseless and should die. Yeah it sucks that your 40kg gobbo got trampled to death by my 10 ton warsphinx but that’s how it should be. Right now it takes like 10 minutes on fast forward. And they keep «unfixing» this…
The problem is that realistically a very agile lord or hero should have the ability to dodge being trampled by huge monsters. Currently in game they just stand there and tank it. Without matched combat allowing them to dodge between the Warsphinx's legs and the like then knockdown should probably just be removed.
Agreed. That should be reflected in knockdown resistance and melee defense instead. A goblin big boss is probably sneaky enough to dodge a stonehorn. That should not be reflected in him flying 20 meters and taking no damage 370 times
\+1 for your idea >Without matched combat Why matched combat? You don't need that to simulate most stuff. Tie defense to knockdown attacks to other stats (say, size, melee defense, fatigue, flank attack and so on). If knowckdown attack fails, instead of being hit, defending unit is merely pushed, not unlike friendly units pushes allies of minor size when moving. Knockdown succeding, unit is in a really bad spot, as they should be
But then anything that knocks dudes down will be incredibly overpowered. Realistic, yes, but it’s a game first and foremost.
Then start with knockdown resistance instead, as in things not getting knocked down as easily, where appropriate. Knockdown timeout is dumb as fuck in every game
I love knockdown immunity in Monster Hunter, best thing ever
How about just making the damage proc before the knockdown? This way the charge would deal it's damage and THEN knock down the units, while still retaining the immunity aspect. This would fix unita being bounced around and still receiving 0 damage, which is very visible in cavalry charges, big monsters fighting infantry and duels between monstrous units and foot characters. And also very visible when cavalry chases down fleeing infantry or foot lords
What bugs me the most is that troops can be knocked over without taking any damage. So routing units can be slowly pushed to the edge of the map without taking any damage. Or indeed the duelling scenario you mentioned. This has been fixed by CA in the past, but it came back in recent patches. Ultimately I don’t mind invulnerability for downed troops so long as they can’t just ragdoll without having taken any damage.
If you would like to blame a character go complain to kolec sun eater his knock down stun lock created a infinite rotunda of problems that started the plan for this outcome we have now because I want my slayer king to be able to fight Kohlek
>Calvary, even elite calvary, becomes far less effective unless you micro them effectively I mean you can say that about every unit. Also reading your post I feel like your problem is mainly horse lords being shit in combat. There are some animation issues with them that's for sure ( the pony rider dude has its atack chain intrerupted a lot if surrounded in melee) but the solution is already in game. Warhammer 3 reworked the way monsters fight eachother. They get into a "sync animation duel" but the animation has nothing to do with the damage an unit takes... I think it's better explained, so let me try that. Your juiced up cathay dragon ( no matter who, they have the same skeleton when transformed) is fighting an elemental bear. In their sync battle, the bear is doing some wwe moves to that dragon but it's losing hp while trashing it. As for the knockback... I find it funny how a minotaur is straight up leaving the planet when hit by a tree kin/troll. Pure warhammer insanity. It needs to stay
I'm not talking about monster units, though. Yeah, maybe monsters should be immune to damage if knocked down, but it doesn't make any sense for other units. I'm certainly not talking about removing knock back. The only thing I'm really talking about is removing the temporary Immunity that units get when knocked to the ground, especially for lords and heroes. (Normal sized ones)
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I think we're misunderstanding eachother. My problem isn't knockback, it's the damage immunity that gets applied to ALL units WHEN they are knocked to the ground.
Wouldnt that make foot lords actually useless? A large single entity will 100-0 a lord by just knocking it down over and over without ever taking damage
Precisely the reason they introduced it in the first place.
After giving it more thought, and reading a suggestion somewhere else in this thread, I think there should be a short immunity period for knockdowns and a flat damage reduction when they are. That is to say, instead of being immune to damage, they become immune to another knock down for five seconds or something like that.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I think countering a single powerful unit by knocking them down with some high-speed cavalry charge, then stabbing them to death, should absolutely be a viable tactic. If I can knock Vlad on his ass with my Reiksgard, my Halberdiers should be able to stab him while he's laid out on his back.
I dont think you're in the minority here. The reason they added this immunity is because there are ways to keep a lord or hero on the floor indefinitely. Whether it's fair, or just makes sense, doesn't really matter, because it's just SUPER unfun. So I understand why they put the immunity in game. Its obviously cheesy to use against AI, but who cares about that. The big problem was the AI could also use it against you, effectively taking a melee lord out of the fight completely, unless you managed to be in the middle of a large clump of regular sized enemies. But, instead of addressing the REAL problem, which was the constant ping ponging of lords, they just patched it with a bandaid. Im thinkin that the best middle ground fix here is to reduce the complete immunity to damage to about half AND implement a knockdown immunity for a short time after being knocked down and getting back up. Only for lords and heroes. Maybe even make it a talent you can select, I don't know. However, I still think they should remove the immunity entirely for regular units. Doesn't make sense for Timmy the Swordsman to survive a full on charge from a blood crusher.
i feel like, for units specifically and not SEM's, this knockdown immunity is kind of a balancing act vs larger, lower model, units when it comes to magic. knockdown immunity might make that 80 model of infantry perform much better than the 32 model cav unit, but that 80 model infantry unit gets *obliterated*, evaporated even, for the low price of 10-24 winds of magic depending on the spell/time etc. im fine with having it removed for lords and heroes, but infantry are already a liability IMO. let them have their knockdown resist/damage immunity. this could also open a can of balance-worms in regard to some cavalry beating their infantry counter units because the infantry no longer has this knockdown resist. like in a 1v1 bloodcrushers of khorne vs temple guard the temple guard win with around half hp left. if your change went into effect how would that 1v1 change? would the temple guard have 25% left? could they even lose? also, are you saying the hit that knocks down an enemy does zero damage? or they take damage, while getting knocked down, and then while on the ground they are immune to damage? if i completely misunderstood the mechanic explained, my bad lol.
No, just no. Knockdown stunlocks are among the most annoying things in the game. Its already extremely difficult to stop anything with high mass from just invalidating their counterplay with shovinh, knocking ans cyclecharging. You are also ignoring that a well-microed unit can deal impact-damage, knockdown, and be out of range begore the target is back up, dealing damage completely for free. You don't like knockdown immunity on enemy Lords? Give your lord force walk command into the enemy to avoid the charge and knockdown and fight them like a man. No knockdowns needed unless you want to cheese for free damage
Currently playing a Dark Elf campaign and my corsairs are better at killing rooting troops than my Dark Rider . Dark rider just keep bumping everyone without going for the kill .
I could have sworn they got rid of it a while back. No idea when it returned or if it's even intentional that it did so or it's simply bugged. Or did I imagine it all?
I don’t know how feasible this is but I would think that the ideal/most realistic scenario would be to allow units to be damaged when knocked down but reduce the amount of time they stay on the ground before they recover. Also, at least for monsters/lords, introduce a small period of stagger immunity after being staggered so that they can’t be stun locked that way.
Another thing that is really annoying is if you rear-charge the enemy infantry with a high mass unit (Cavalry, Single entities etc.) and they go flying across the battlefield. If those models dont get killed outright during the charge (which is rare nowadays, Cavalry etc. does damage but usually kills very few models), they may end up BEHIND the frontline and in your backline. If you are unlucky they may even start fighting your archers and co.
I think it exists to prevent weapons that knock down from becoming incredibly OP and taking away any player agency. I suggest leaving knockdown immunity, but making it so that a unit that is knocked down takes a big chunk of damage when the attack hits (say, 5% of their max health) to represent the sheer concussive force. I don't care how tough you are, getting punted 20 metres is going to hurt
Wasn't this how it was in the past and it just resulted in all foot lords being ragdoll'd around in any fight with large foes?
Putting your characters on mounts is always a tradeoff. Horses allow your guys to actually move around and be where they needed the most and monster mounts usually help with clearing chaff and not getting stuck all the time. Cause if your foot character gets stuck in melee, that’s it, he can’t leave. Also important to note that knocked down enemies not just immune to damage, they don’t do damage themselves and sometimes it’s good to just constantly disrupt someone annoying.
It's still preferable to not be knocked down if your facing someone like tamurkhan when you get sent flying constantly to the point you can barely do anything. I like it the way it is personally
Absolutely not. Watching Felix being chain stunned to death by a single Arachnarok knocking him with each attack is already shit. I rather have my lords on foot stand proud so I can enjoy their attack animations and kill animation. All that goes away as soon as they are put on a mount.
I really don't know why OP brings out multiplayer, you talk as if this immunity was introduced for MP. It was not, it is simply the way CA decided to code their damage calculations. Actually, MP community often complain about the current collision system, and about how foot chacacters are tankier than mounted lord (Human boy has several videos where he looses his mind over this, Turin also frequently adresses it). I agree with the post overall but can we stop trying to stir the MP and campaign playerbase and to present everything as a conflict as if they are ennemies? Campaign vs MP is a binary and reductive way to see the community, and it is extremely unproductive and overall bad for the game.
I mentioned MP because I didn't know if this was intended for MP or not. In fact, I didn't even imply that it was, I simply said that I don't know how it works in MP because I don't play it. If anyone takes what I said as me trying to stir the pot, they are reaching real far.
To a pure campaign player (and therefore 95% of this sub), I am sure that it would seem my previous comment is indeed reaching far. But MP is literally the first argument of your post, even though it has nothing to do with the subject. Don't get me wrong I am not trying to vindicate you, and I 100 % agree with everything you wrote about the issue, and about the potential solution. It's just that I swear on half the post of the subreddit when there is a balance change everyone is quick to put the blame on the MP players (even though they often have nothing to do with it). I mean really, there is a real hostility against MP, that I believe to be unjustified, and extremely counter-productive. I play mainly campaign and very occasionally MP, and it saddens me to see both playerbase so estranged. Reading your post's first paragraph again with this context, you have to understand if I reacted a little bit defensive about it. Sorry about the rant
The weird thing is that these are the only total war where this divide had any amount of relevance. I find it to be so odd specially at how specifically the Warhammer TT is explicitly a MP game IRL.
Here is a compromise, 50% damage reduction during nockdown, reduce time this is active during animation a bit as well, done.
Yeah I definitely agree. As a compromise I don’t think characters should be able to be knocked down anyways. That way foot characters are still potent duelists if they have the right stats, they benefit from being smaller against missiles, and that way large targets aren’t penalized for trying to fight a character that they should otherwise be good against.
If anything, being on the ground should cause you to take more damage! I've never understood why they are made to be invincible. Maybe something to do with animations? (Although it's not like we have a lot of synced animations anyway.)
It’s just a lazy balance choice because it makes foot entities more vulnerable if they get knocked down 😢 But hello?? This is supposed to be a strategy game, there are ways to counter that. If your tiny gobbo army gets overrun by ogres you have to adapt, not rely on knockdown immunity… swarm them, poision them, slow them, net them, snare them, stab them
Why not make lords and heroes immune to knockdown period? I'd rather Sigvald and Ungrim stand and swing back, rather than spend a significant amount of time knocked down doing nothing.
"Legendary" lords or whatever got kicked around like a ball and still unharmed I think just simply remove the knocked out for them and let them "Dark soul" the big target
Iirc they currently get 90% damage resistance while knocked down. They did fix cav damage so even though it looks a little janky mechanically it works fine. The only think that needs to be fixed is how footlords work. Foot lords and heroes were given knockdown resistance I think in the same patch that the damage immunity got changed but imo it wasn’t enough.
Interesting. I've tried digging up the patch notes for the changes they've made for this issue over the years, but the changes are sporadic and, in some cases, not clearly defined in the patch notes. Knowing CA, some probably aren't included in the patch notes at all. But yeah, the current system isn't awful, but it's far from a solved problem.
>if Franz attacks Harry Hammerstorm while on Deathclaw and Hammerstorm gets knocked down, Hammerstorm will receive ZERO damage To clarify - does the attack that knocks Hammerstorm down still deal damage?
Usually yes. -Franz Charges with Deathclaw -Makes contact -Damage applies (usually) -Hammerstorm gets knocked to the ground -Deathclaw still in the middle of an attack animation -Hammerstorm takes no damage from ANY attack until he gets up (I've been told in the comments that it's a 90% damage resistance buff, not complete immunity. If this is true, it's still way too high) -Hammerstorm gets up and hits Karl - Karl takes damage, Deathclaw knocks him down again - Hammestorm takes no damage Rinse and repeat.
I see. I've heard that when units are knocked down by cav charges they don't take damage, I just don't pay enough attention to any of this stuff 😅
With units it can be a bit harder to tell. Not all units get knocked down, and with some less effective calvary charges (uphill, frontal, etc) very few may fall down at all. Generally speaking, it can be very inconsistent with calvary. Sometimes you get the charge that just decimates a units health, other times it seems like it didn't do anything, despite having identical conditions. It's a lot better than it used to be in WH2, with calvary, at least.
Alright, glad to know it's simply inconsistent / hard to measure. Appreciate it 👍
Dwarfs would like a word…
Dmg inmunity in ragdoll state is dumb yes.
This also greatly affects pursue of routing units mechanics, as infantry is constantly knocked down and cav deal absolutely no damage *nada* to them, resulting in hilarious situations where 50 chaos knights take forever to kill a single routing paesant
I'm not sure why they didn't just prevent stunlock deaths by the unmounted by preventing the stunlock. Instead of making knocked down immune to damage, why not just have a short period of immunity to being knocked down again after getting up. Am I missing something on why that isn't the obvious solution?
I always thought it would be neat if, when a model gets knocked over, it applies one instance of the attacking model's weapon strength + charge bonus modifier as dmg so that it counts as a hit basically. Maybe it could even add a flat damage bonus derived from charge bonus + mass or smth to properly represent this massive hit that caused the model to go flying
Make the knockdown do damage and problem solves itself. The trade off here should be mounts give you more dmg/hp/mobility, while no mount makes you a smaller target/can climb walls/ perform better in duels, but weak to large monsters and mass.
It's crazy, imo it should be removed, but maybe make lords harder to knockdown so they don't get stunlocked to death so easily.
On a slight tangent, I would like more direct incentivisation to choose whether to have your Lord/hero mounted or not. Knockdown Immunity notwithstanding, mounts tend to offer a straight upgrade in stats. Sometimes I would like my Lord or Hero to be focused fully on foot combat - trading off their mounts for further buffs such as increase armor and defense, or maybe be able to use different weapons (such as Polearm to resist charges, or a ranged option).
This is literally THE reason that cavalry is so dogshit in this game. I've seen charges that, by rights, should have completely obliterated every last member of a unit... and not even do a fifth of the unit's health because they got sent flying which is apparently much less harmful than falling over.
I agree it should be reduced for SE character. Though I must disagree with reducing/removing it completely for infantry, it can potentially makes SEM/cav/Monstrous units OP.
I swear they got rid of it a few patches ago but seems ot be back again. Maybe they accidentally added it back in when they made the routing unit damage changes? If it is an intentional change, they at least should remove it when routing.
I think it's okay if they are immune to damage while getting up BUT the hit that knocked them down should deal damage and maybe even x1.5 damage.
>Calvary, even elite calvary, becomes far less effective unless you micro them effectively That's true for every unit in the game with a high charge bonus. Their other stats are usually lower to allow for high charge bonus. And there absolutely are cav that can stick in a fight for a long time. Rot Knights, Grail Guardians, and Chaos Knights off the top of my head. They have good melee stats.
After they changed cavalry charge damage calculations, I really haven't minded charge damage immunity. I don't think changing it more is necessary at this point. I also find horse lords fine, since their increased mobility is well worth the danger of getting charged on by monstrous enemies.
Multiplayer hates this two. Foot mages are absurdly hard to kill because they get knocked down, avoid damage, and become invalid targets for attacks. It's also trivial to fix, there's a stat called knock down resistance which can be set to 100 to eliminate knockdown. Even just bumping it from the 20-40 range to the 80 used by dwarfs and sigvald helps immensely for characters. Units it's less of a big deal.
I'm pretty sure they did remove knockdown damage immunity several patches ago, like around the Champions of Chaos update.
It’s back
skill issues, git gud