Leafcutter balance feedback and suggestions

Hello,
I played 3.1 and 3.2 a lot especially in insane, I tried a lot of strategy and I came up with some suggestions for balance to allow more strategy to be viable

1st let's sum up the main stats of the ants
minor:
HP:25/35/45
dmg:0.6/0.6/0.8
carry:7/8/9
media
HP:90/105/120
dmg:3/4.5/6
carry:15/17/20
major
HP:200/240/400
dmg:12/15/22
carry:16/16/16
total heal(taunt major): 20/25/30

some noticeable creatures:
Big mantis 900HP 80atk 500heal not stunnable
Big cricket 650hp 30atk not stunnable
medium cricket 500hp 25atk stunnable

taunt vs stun:
I think taunt is the better option as it seems to me to be always as good as stun or better and the level 3 passive seems better for taunt than for stun majors.
most threatening creatures aren't stunnable and vs small packs the taunt allow your major to save your media's life while remaining healthy.
the only advantage for stun majors is that it allow them to kill medium cricket without allowing them to use their AOE and as you can see medium cricket are nearly as powerful as big ones

minors:
I think minors are way too weak they carry only 7 leaf and they are slowed when they do it, anything can 1 shot them, they are only useful at the start and to build the nest/egg replacement, it is the least usefull class of ants sadly.
the upgrade aren't worth it you only get +1 to the capacity and they remain weak and slow anyway.
I suggest to buff minors and especially their upgrade, for example removing the slow from carriage at lvl3 and increasing their capacity to something like 7/13/19 would give them a lot more utility

Media:
lvl 1 Media is the strongest ant you can get right now, it's a decent fighter and the best harvester by far. However upgrading them isn't worth it IMO because you better build more of them instead to increase you harvesting power and snowball the game
I suggest to nerf the level 1 media carriage and maybe buff slightly the lvl 2 and 3 media carriage.

Major:
same harvesting power than a media, but a lot stronger for fighting, their upgrade lvl 2 isn't worth it but the lvl 3 upgrade is really good and balanced compared to just build more lvl1 Major because the stats gain is huge and they get a nice ability to tank for your precious media ants.

Army composition: I tried full media, full major, and mix with differents proportion for both 3.1 and 3.2 and the best strategy seems to build as much media as possible with a few majors to be able to kill what you need to kill which lead to around 10-20% major for 3.1 and 30-50% majors for 3.2
with full media you lose too much ressources while fighting
with full majors you lose too much harvesting power early on but you gain in efficiency, you spend less ressources in respawn overall and mantis can't heal off from your army. However Majors are big and bodyblock each others so without media you lose dps because media/majors do not bodyblock each other.

Last thing: it is a bit sad that the army ant in 3.2 is so weak in insane, the difficulty comes mainly from the OP bugs that become unfightable really fast, maybe it would be more enjoyable if running through the army ant was more challenging forcing you to get more food and a bigger army to defeat them. I often end up stacking my army on their spawn while waiting for the end of the day and then hide in the nest at night because the night bugs aren't contestable after night 3.

Conclusion: I think upgrades need a buff overall to compete with the startegy of just building more ants, minors need a big buff because they are nearly useless and this buff could be compensated by nerfing lvl 1 media which are way too powerful. A slight buff for stun major would be nice as well, like giving them increased dmg at level 3 to compensate for the lack of tankiness compared to taunt majors and the immunity to stuns from most threatening creatures.

Sorry if it feels focused on the downsides, theses 2 levels are crazy good and really really well made, thank you very much for your amazing work, i can't stop going back to play them over and over again!
 

pakitane16

Colony
19 without speed-drop will make minor straight up better than media in harvesting, they cost 60 to get to Lv3, and they have 380 speed while media cost 80 at Lv1 with 300 speed. In my opinion:
Change media carry to 14/18/22.
Change minor carry to 7/10/13 with speed-drop removed, so Lv1 media worth 20 more than Lv3 worker just for their combat ability.
Also, maybe change stunt major Lv3 effect from slow to have damage boost on non-stunable creatures.
 
In personal opinion, I think the media are too expensive, being worth 4 minors.
19 without speed-drop will make minor straight up better than media in harvesting, they cost 60 to get to Lv3, and they have 380 speed while media cost 80 at Lv1 with 300 speed. In my opinion:
Change media carry to 14/18/22.
Change minor carry to 7/10/13 with speed-drop removed, so Lv1 media worth 20 more than Lv3 worker just for their combat ability.
1 media has the harvesting power of around 3 minors because it carry 2+ time more and walk 2 time faster when it carry leaves, we're already close to the point where you invest 20 more for the same harvesting force. The fighting ability is worth more than 20 imo because you will have to defend the minors and kill the creatures anyway so you will lose the same amount of food by fighting with media/majors to secure the trails and you will lose additionnal food if you use minors because they insta die to anything. You will need more egg replacement workers as well by using minors to harvest.
right now i think minors are only worth to use in low difficulty for 3.1 because there are not many creatures to kill however you can always get away with full media as you don't lose too much harvesting power and you get an army that is stronger by a lot (to the point where I could consitently contest harvesting site in insane in 3.1). IDK about the exacts numbers to balance this but minors need either to be more efficent at fighting or at harvesting to be worth it and to avoid a difficulty drop, an eventual minor buff need a media nerf as well.
Also, maybe change stunt major Lv3 effect from slow to have damage boost on non-stunable creatures.
Good idea.
 

pakitane16

Colony
I have been thinking about this. Let's treat the time to go from nest to a plant as 1 min. All ants start at 300 speed, but minor have speed drop when they carry, I assume half their speed. So for one trip, 1 media carry 15 per 2 min or 7.5 per min, while 4 minor carry 28 per 3 min or about 9.3 per min, so by number minor are actually better than media with the same cost. And 1 major is cheaper for combat purpose than 2 media. I need to test if I can win 3.1 without using any media on hard. 3.2 need much more combat power that no media style cannot work. Insane player please try if you can win with the least media possible.
 
1 media has the harvesting power of around 3 minors because it carry 2+ time more and walk 2 time faster when it carry leaves, we're already close to the point where you invest 20 more for the same harvesting force. The fighting ability is worth more than 20 imo because you will have to defend the minors and kill the creatures anyway so you will lose the same amount of food by fighting with media/majors to secure the trails and you will lose additionnal food if you use minors because they insta die to anything. You will need more egg replacement workers as well by using minors to harvest.
right now i think minors are only worth to use in low difficulty for 3.1 because there are not many creatures to kill however you can always get away with full media as you don't lose too much harvesting power and you get an army that is stronger by a lot (to the point where I could consitently contest harvesting site in insane in 3.1). IDK about the exacts numbers to balance this but minors need either to be more efficent at fighting or at harvesting to be worth it and to avoid a difficulty drop, an eventual minor buff need a media nerf as well.
Good idea.
I like the composition. So in my eyes the leafcutters are a tactical army of ants. Minors get the base up and running and then change to a maintenance role. I need ants to help keep the base up to scratch and keep the medeas/majors spawning. At the start they are cheap and aren't a huge strain on resources if they die. So they are worth it; but I wouldn't have an army of them. I don't compare leafcutters to other colonies because they just have a different makeup with the roles the ants play.
I have been thinking about this. Let's treat the time to go from nest to a plant as 1 min. All ants start at 300 speed, but minor have speed drop when they carry, I assume half their speed. So for one trip, 1 media carry 15 per 2 min or 7.5 per min, while 4 minor carry 28 per 3 min or about 9.3 per min, so by number minor are actually better than media with the same cost. And 1 major is cheaper for combat purpose than 2 media. I need to test if I can win 3.1 without using any media on hard. 3.2 need much more combat power that no media style cannot work. Insane player please try if you can win with the least media possible.
You will lose without medea on insane if not hard. Again; if I treat the leafcutters as an adaptable ant colony. Think of the minors as a fill-in ant. Cheap at the start. Gets the base up and running. Then becomes a support ant. Medeas are the harvesting staple. One thing your formula doesn't account for is enemies. The slower you are; the more opportunity you have to come in to contact with an enemy. Especially since enemies path around the map. Also; medeas have enough hp to take a hit and can outpace most enemies therefore survive an encounter with combat turned off getting the food back safely. Time lost by minors from death blows their harvesting time out of the water - since they can't outpace an enemy if 1 minor gets caught they usually all die. And I wouldn't start stacking majors because they are a combat ant. They aren't worth the cost to make them as harvesters and the cost to replace them is too high to have them constantly in danger while harvesting.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
I like the composition. So in my eyes the leafcutters are a tactical army of ants. Minors get the base up and running and then change to a maintenance role. I need ants to help keep the base up to scratch and keep the medeas/majors spawning. At the start they are cheap and aren't a huge strain on resources if they die. So they are worth it; but I wouldn't have an army of them. I don't compare leafcutters to other colonies because they just have a different makeup with the roles the ants play.

You will lose without medea on insane if not hard. Again; if I treat the leafcutters as an adaptable ant colony. Think of the minors as a fill-in ant. Cheap at the start. Gets the base up and running. Then becomes a support ant. Medeas are the harvesting staple. One thing your formula doesn't account for is enemies. The slower you are; the more opportunity you have to come in to contact with an enemy. Especially since enemies path around the map. Also; medeas have enough hp to take a hit and can outpace most enemies therefore survive an encounter with combat turned off getting the food back safely. Time lost by minors from death blows their harvesting time out of the water - since they can't outpace an enemy if 1 minor gets caught they usually all die. And I wouldn't start stacking majors because they are a combat ant. They aren't worth the cost to make them as harvesters and the cost to replace them is too high to have them constantly in danger while harvesting.
My leafcutter strategy is to have group 1 being minor ants with combat turned off, group 2 being media ants with combat turned on, the rest of the groups are major ant groups (around 7 majors strong each).
I always send groups 1 and 2 to the same spot on the map to harvest while I have the major ants blocking the paths so the line cannot get attacked. Should an attacker still get near my harvesting line the medea will either kill that enemy or keep it just out of the line while a group of majors closes in to clear that enemy and my minor ants will just keep going. I also use the majors and media ants as a big group to clear harvesting grounds or kill strong opponents.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Unlike in other missions (2.1 is an example), in the leafcutter missions the environment spawns increase over time, food is not renewable, on insane difficulty the number of enemy creatures will jump through the roof after just a few days.

Also, in other missions the player's objective is to survive against the environment and/or spawned attack waves. In the leafcutter missions the player is fighting against the leafcutter opponent or the army ants, they too are hostile to the environment creatures. On insane difficulty the environment spawns will turn most parts of the map inaccesable after the first few days, all while leaf on the player's side is starting to run low. (Try battle arena mode, 100 lvl 1 majors vs 3 large crickets. Large crickets in groups will be everywhere after a few days.)

Insane difficulty changes the leafcutter missions from a struggle against the opponent into a race against time. Trying to beat the mission before the world is flooded with strong enemies. I think the game would be more fun if insane and hard difficulties did not make the environment more dangerous but instead focussed on making the leafcutter opponent or the army ant swarm stronger. (Think of being more agressive for the leafcutter opponent, or the army ants spawning more ants and being slightly less sensetive to losing ants.)
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Hello,
I played 3.1 and 3.2 a lot especially in insane, I tried a lot of strategy and I came up with some suggestions for balance to allow more strategy to be viable

1st let's sum up the main stats of the ants
minor:
HP:25/35/45
dmg:0.6/0.6/0.8
carry:7/8/9
media
HP:90/105/120
dmg:3/4.5/6
carry:15/17/20
major
HP:200/240/400
dmg:12/15/22
carry:16/16/16
total heal(taunt major): 20/25/30

some noticeable creatures:
Big mantis 900HP 80atk 500heal not stunnable
Big cricket 650hp 30atk not stunnable
medium cricket 500hp 25atk stunnable

taunt vs stun:
I think taunt is the better option as it seems to me to be always as good as stun or better and the level 3 passive seems better for taunt than for stun majors.
most threatening creatures aren't stunnable and vs small packs the taunt allow your major to save your media's life while remaining healthy.
the only advantage for stun majors is that it allow them to kill medium cricket without allowing them to use their AOE and as you can see medium cricket are nearly as powerful as big ones

minors:
I think minors are way too weak they carry only 7 leaf and they are slowed when they do it, anything can 1 shot them, they are only useful at the start and to build the nest/egg replacement, it is the least usefull class of ants sadly.
the upgrade aren't worth it you only get +1 to the capacity and they remain weak and slow anyway.
I suggest to buff minors and especially their upgrade, for example removing the slow from carriage at lvl3 and increasing their capacity to something like 7/13/19 would give them a lot more utility

Media:
lvl 1 Media is the strongest ant you can get right now, it's a decent fighter and the best harvester by far. However upgrading them isn't worth it IMO because you better build more of them instead to increase you harvesting power and snowball the game
I suggest to nerf the level 1 media carriage and maybe buff slightly the lvl 2 and 3 media carriage.

Major:
same harvesting power than a media, but a lot stronger for fighting, their upgrade lvl 2 isn't worth it but the lvl 3 upgrade is really good and balanced compared to just build more lvl1 Major because the stats gain is huge and they get a nice ability to tank for your precious media ants.

Army composition: I tried full media, full major, and mix with differents proportion for both 3.1 and 3.2 and the best strategy seems to build as much media as possible with a few majors to be able to kill what you need to kill which lead to around 10-20% major for 3.1 and 30-50% majors for 3.2
with full media you lose too much ressources while fighting
with full majors you lose too much harvesting power early on but you gain in efficiency, you spend less ressources in respawn overall and mantis can't heal off from your army. However Majors are big and bodyblock each others so without media you lose dps because media/majors do not bodyblock each other.

Last thing: it is a bit sad that the army ant in 3.2 is so weak in insane, the difficulty comes mainly from the OP bugs that become unfightable really fast, maybe it would be more enjoyable if running through the army ant was more challenging forcing you to get more food and a bigger army to defeat them. I often end up stacking my army on their spawn while waiting for the end of the day and then hide in the nest at night because the night bugs aren't contestable after night 3.

Conclusion: I think upgrades need a buff overall to compete with the startegy of just building more ants, minors need a big buff because they are nearly useless and this buff could be compensated by nerfing lvl 1 media which are way too powerful. A slight buff for stun major would be nice as well, like giving them increased dmg at level 3 to compensate for the lack of tankiness compared to taunt majors and the immunity to stuns from most threatening creatures.

Sorry if it feels focused on the downsides, theses 2 levels are crazy good and really really well made, thank you very much for your amazing work, i can't stop going back to play them over and over again!
Actually the carry numbers given are the amount the ants can harvest. They can carry more, a minor worker can carry a size 15 leaf.
Just an idea I want to float here:
An option for media ants to cut without carrying the leaf and an option for minors to carry without cutting. It would combine the strengths of both ants. The media ants do what they're good at, cutting large leafes. The minors have the vast numbers to carry everything back to the nest that is pre-cut.20190902155059_1.jpg
Note how one ant is carrying a much larger leaf than the others. It was picked up on the slope where a group of media ran into a fight and they didn't pick the leaf up again.
 
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Mr_Ced

Colony
Actually the carry numbers given are the amount the ants can harvest. They can carry more, a minor worker can carry a size 15 leaf.
Just an idea I want to float here:
An option for media ants to cut without carrying the leaf and an option for minors to carry without cutting. It would combine the strengths of both ants. The media ants do what they're good at, cutting large leafes. The minors have the vast numbers to carry everything back to the nest that is pre-cut.
Pretty sure they do this in nature too.
 

Zearin

Larva
I think the game would be more fun if insane and hard difficulties did not make the environment more dangerous but instead focussed on making the leafcutter opponent or the army ant swarm stronger. (Think of being more agressive for the leafcutter opponent, or the army ants spawning more ants and being slightly less sensetive to losing ants.)

THIS! +1
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
As of right now (version 0.2131), the leafcutters still play a bit differently as to how the info messages suggest you should play.
For example: "The leafcutter media are the staple harvesters of the colony. They can harvest twice the amount a worker can and are not slowed when carrying leaves. Their medium size allows them to walk over workers and under majors."
From experience I learned that using media alone is significantly less cost-effective than using minors for harvesting.

A rough approximation of the throughput of a trail is: numberOfAnts * averageWalkingSpeed * carrySize (Climb time is part of distance, and distance and cut speed are the same for minors and media, so they should be irrelevant.)
For 80 food in lvl 1 leafcutter media: 1 * 300 * 15 = 4500
For 80 food in lvl 1 minor ants: 4 * 300 * 7 * 0.5 + 4 * (300 - speedLoss) * 7 * 0.5 = 8400 - 14 * speedLoss
The speed loss from carry would need to be roughly 280 for the minor ants to gather at the same rate as they media does.

Media instead appear to be more usefull when harvesting alongside minor ants. With the minors in a group that has attack disabled, and the media with attack enabled. This makes the media pin down enemies attacking the trail, protecting the minor ants from danger and allowing the major ants to rush to the site of attack.


Edit:
This idea I have is to move some harvesting power away from minors to media by the following changes:

- Leafcutter minor ant:
* significant increase to slowing effect when carrying leaves
Role would change from being the main harvesting power to mainly being used for early harvesting.

- Leafcutter media:
* Significant increase to movement speed. (To something slightly above 560 - (14/15) * speedLoss)
Role would change to being the main harvesting power. The speed increase should make the income in levels highly similar to what it is now. The higher movement speed might make leafcutter media more interesting in some extra levels where they can be used too, as they can be used to get somewhere very quickly and pin down opponents.
 
Last edited:

Mr_Ced

Colony
As of right now (version 0.2131), the leafcutters still play a bit differently as to how the info messages suggest you should play.
For example: "The leafcutter media are the staple harvesters of the colony. They can harvest twice the amount a worker can and are not slowed when carrying leaves. Their medium size allows them to walk over workers and under majors."
From experience I learned that using media alone is significantly less cost-effective than using minors for harvesting.

A rough approximation of the throughput of a trail is: numberOfAnts * averageWalkingSpeed * carrySize (Climb time is part of distance, and distance and cut speed are the same for minors and media, so they should be irrelevant.)
For 80 food in lvl 1 leafcutter media: 1 * 300 * 15 = 4500
For 80 food in lvl 1 minor ants: 4 * 300 * 7 * 0.5 + 4 * (300 - speedLoss) * 7 * 0.5 = 8400 - 14 * speedLoss
The speed loss from carry would need to be roughly 280 for the minor ants to gather at the same rate as they media does.

Media instead appear to be more usefull when harvesting alongside minor ants. With the minors in a group that has attack disabled, and the media with attack enabled. This makes the media pin down enemies attacking the trail, protecting the minor ants from danger and allowing the major ants to rush to the site of attack.


Edit:
This idea I have is to move some harvesting power away from minors to media by the following changes:

- Leafcutter minor ant:
* significant increase to slowing effect when carrying leaves
Role would change from being the main harvesting power to mainly being used for early harvesting.

- Leafcutter media:
* Significant increase to movement speed. (To something slightly above 560 - (14/15) * speedLoss)
Role would change to being the main harvesting power. The speed increase should make the income in levels highly similar to what it is now. The higher movement speed might make leafcutter media more interesting in some extra levels where they can be used too, as they can be used to get somewhere very quickly and pin down opponents.
This is quiet apparent in Freeplay with waves as well. If you use media for attacking power, you most certainly will fail.
As of right now, I consider them a late game addition to the colony.
 

TheRexYo

Queen
Leafcutter Media is actually extremely expensive. That's the main reason it isn't doing that well. For almost the same cost as a Trap-jaw, it does poorly in combat. My suggestion would be to simply reduce its cost to 60, which correlates well with its replacement cost of 6.

Another idea would be to buff its carrying capacity significantly, which would give it a role again (especially if it becomes playable for Ereptors in freeplay or something).
 

Buffalo981

Queen
Extremely Helpful Person
Leafcutter Media is actually extremely expensive. That's the main reason it isn't doing that well. For almost the same cost as a Trap-jaw, it does poorly in combat. My suggestion would be to simply reduce its cost to 60, which correlates well with its replacement cost of 6.

Another idea would be to buff its carrying capacity significantly, which would give it a role again (especially if it becomes playable for Ereptors in freeplay or something).

I think both of those suggestions would make media op (especially your first one). If you buff them too much, then there won't be as much reason to build lots of workers and majors. Medias currently do have some useful situations, and I see them simply as an option the player can choose to use or ignore. They may be pretty bad for their cost, but it doesn't put leaf cutters as a species at a disadvantage, since leaf cutters then get majors, which are the most cost effective ant in the game. It might be unbalanced to give leaf cutters them two really good, cost effective units by buffing media. Think about what would happen in a skirmish against a black ant colony if leaf cutter media's price was reduced to 60.... and on top of that the leaf cutters would get majors late game.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
I think both of those suggestions would make media op (especially your first one). If you buff them too much, then there won't be as much reason to build lots of workers and majors
Essentially the idea is to make minor workers slower when carrying a leaf, and make media base movement speed significantly faster. There will not be a lot of reason to build minor workers for harvesting after getting started, instead giving media the investment return of minor ants to make them economically attractive.
Media will not receive any other buffs other than movement speed, so making major ants is still a must for most fighting. The only difference is that media become very mobile while major ants have a lot of staying power.

They may be pretty bad for their cost, but it doesn't put leaf cutters as a species at a disadvantage, since leaf cutters then get majors, which are the most cost effective ant in the game. It might be unbalanced to give leaf cutters them two really good, cost effective units by buffing media. Think about what would happen in a skirmish against a black ant colony if leaf cutter media's price was reduced to 60.... and on top of that the leaf cutters would get majors late game.
Media cost and combat stats would remain unchanged, so their combat strength should remain the same as before.

The only difference would be that instead of a lot of minor ants as economy, the player would have some more media than they do now. (Roughly 1/4 of normal minor ant numbers more media.) This does give the player some extra combat power in the field, but it is still not that much more.
 
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TheRexYo

Queen
I think both of those suggestions would make media op (especially your first one). If you buff them too much, then there won't be as much reason to build lots of workers and majors. Medias currently do have some useful situations, and I see them simply as an option the player can choose to use or ignore. They may be pretty bad for their cost, but it doesn't put leaf cutters as a species at a disadvantage, since leaf cutters then get majors, which are the most cost effective ant in the game. It might be unbalanced to give leaf cutters them two really good, cost effective units by buffing media. Think about what would happen in a skirmish against a black ant colony if leaf cutter media's price was reduced to 60.... and on top of that the leaf cutters would get majors late game.
If the Majors are so strong they make Leafcutters balanced just by existing, then they need to be rebalanced to be slightly weaker. The whole purpose of balancing a game is to ensure that everything has a role and place. I do agree that the Leafcutters are neither weak nor powerful as-is (in fact, they're currently balanced when compared to other ants), but they need to be rebalanced to make each of their ants equally as viable. Otherwise, the Media is just a waste of UI space, and all anyone will build is Majors. Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
 

TheRexYo

Queen
I think Leafcutter minors are supposed to be functionally identical to Ereptor workers, with the exception being that they can gather leaves. That being said, I don't think they should be modified stat-wise. Maybe the slowness effect could be increased, since that doesn't make them weaker or stronger than Ereptor workers in any way, since they get food from a separate source.
 
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