\'Heim nerf mod?
 

It seems like there is still a lot of strong feeling that Vanheim is still overpowered and not really fun to play against. So, as has been suggested a number of times, why don't we make a mod to slightly nerf them for MP play?

Nations that might need some amount of nerfing:

MA Vanheim
EA Helheim
EA Vanheim
EA Niefelheim (considered less of a problem apparently, but still miserable to try to stop early game to my mind)

Now, I'm not an expert on any of these nations, but I'd be happy to put a mod together, being as it's a tiny job once we work out what changes we'd like.

So, questions for the community:

- Is my list of races correct? (especially Niefelheim, perhaps there are good counters I never worked out?)
- Would people be happy to use a mod in MP?
- What changes would you suggest?

I'd be very much inclined to err on the side of subtlety, rather than ending up making these nations weak. These nations are after all meant to be strong bless nations. My goal would be to leave them strong, but make it such that players fighting would feel they had some chance if they were skillful and came up with a good strategy. So I'd imagine something like knocking off a couple of points of defence on the Vans, a couple of points of protection off the giants, or other small changes along those lines.

As I say I have very little experience with any of these nations, so I'm completely relying on the community to guide me. I expect there will be controversy - I'll try to take the average view!

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

Is EA Vanheim considered worse than LA?
The Vanheres seem inferior to Vans. I haven't played LA Vanheim much, but I know they still have Van (capital only now though.) Does the change in mages make that much difference?

I'd think a drop in defense for Vans and Helhirdings, maybe a cost increase as well.

What about making Vans capital only for MA?

Lowering the chill effect on the Niefel giants?

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

I would knock a few points off the chill effect of the giants. 13 chill is devastating. Normal troops get knocked out within two rounds of combat. Abysia's heat aura doesn't seem to have the same drastic effect, even though their Burning Ones have 6 heat each, and come two to a square.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

I'm not sure about how bad LA Vanheim/Midgard is, just because I don't think I've heard them mentioned as a problem. But I haven't looked at them, so they might well be just as bad as EA as far as I know.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

That would be a great option.

As a seperate question...
Has any server tested the switches lately to "turn off" a nation from selection? Does the --closed 15 switch work to turn off early_Vanheim? I meaning to test it but altho keep watching the conversations and the wins from the blitzes on my servers I really havent seen a reason to turn off any nations yet. But has anyone tested it?

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

Just so you know, modding that chill aura down will be a mixture of hard and impossible.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

You could mix in a heat aura to mitigate some of the worst chill http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

You know what the best nerf would be for the heims?

Give the new players or players who often get knocked out early 1st option on them when setting up a MP game.

This would also mean new players would be less likely to get knocked out early and have a better game. Thus more likely to play MP more in the future.

I think EA Vanheim, MA Vanheim, EA Helheim, EA Niefelheim and LA Ermor should all be offered to new players 1st.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

That's not a bad policy, but it sort of falls in the same category as banning them. It's a workaround, though one with the benefit of helping the new players.

I'd still like to see a balanced mod if possible. What was done to them in CB? May not really apply since so much else was changed, but...

Thing is, I like those nations. Van/Helheim particularly. I like the feel, I like the flavor. I like the magic they get, etc, etc. I even like the brutal cavalry. I'd like to see the sacreds nerfed enough that they're not the only effective choice. I like the EA all glamor troops idea and I'll play with that in SP. Later on the berserkers and skinshifters are very cool troops that rarely get used because it's easier and more effective to just build more blessed Vans.

I'm not sure what needs to change, but I'd love to see it done.

And I'm still puzzled that EA Vanheim makes the list and LA Vanheim doesn't. I would have guessed that EA was the weakest, at least for a bless strategy.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

Nerfs specifically to those nations in CB:

*Van sacred cavalry and Helhirdlings cost 90 gold
*Jotun Skinshifters cost 90 gold

That may not look like much, but keep in mind that in CB high (double 9s and higher) blesses are much costlier. If someone wants to abuse sacred troops to the max, the hits to the scales will make pumping those sacreds quite a bit more difficult, not to mention keeping up in the magic game. On the other side of the coin, nations without a huge bless get that much more out of their scales to help combat a bless rush.

I very much agree, I might call EA Vanhiem the weakest Van era, especially considering the power of the other EA nations. I'd also say Lanka is missing on that list.

I really recommend people finding bless abuse sucking the fun out of the game give CB a try. If you are daunted by the number of changes/size of the readmes and summary of the complete version, the Pretenders and Scales segment's changes are readily apparent by browsing pretender creation and help diversify the viable choices quite a bit.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

I would probably agree that EA Vanheim is the weakest Van era. Mainly because MA and LA have skinshifters(very, very nasty) and stronger sacreds although i might rate LA lower than EA depending on the situation.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

It seems that we already have a mod that addresses many of the imbalances of sacred units; namely CB.

If you nerf the stats of many of these units, they cease to be interesting. CB nerfs them by increasing their gold cost, and increasing the point cost of high blesses (which are used to make certain sacreds particularly irksome). Seems reasonable to me.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

But it does many other things as well. I would prefer a more focused change.

I'm not at all sure that all high bless strategies need to be made more costly. I think the problems are more narrow.

Obviously a total nerf to the stats makes them not useful, but there should be a point at which they're still good, but don't dominate.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

It might be possible to chop the van nerf out of CB (I havent looked at it). Or maybe Quantum will make pieces available as seperate mods.

The ability to mod is very important to us. The many MANY switches, map commands, mod commands, that Johan has written into the game allows us to not just gripe about things but to actually come up with changes and TEST THEM.

Possibly, part of the problem with getting the CB mods suggestions noticed is that it has so many changes in it which might be dependent on each other. The end result might be ok but we cant see if the whole package has to be accepted for it to work. Testing bits of it seperately would be good, I think.

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

In my mind they dominate with numbers, not stats.

If CB is not going to be used, consider using the CB prices for sacred units (at least the problematic ones) as a starting point, and then tweaking the numbers slightly to account for the greater ease of formulating strong blesses in vanilla.

In vanilla; Vans and Helherdlings could cost 110 gp, Jotun Skinshifters 90 gp, Shadow Vestals 45 gp, and maybe even the Mictlan jags could use a bump to 30-35 gp.

The only unit IMO that it may be preferable to nerf stat-wise as opposed to price-wise would be the Niefel Giant. And that is because they are already so bloody expensive. Decreasing their chill aura from +13 to +10 would probably be sufficient (maybe overkill).

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

I agree CB addresses all these issues, and in fact I think I like it overall, insofar as I know what it does (I've played one MP game with it, and I approved of the changes I noticed). But CB isn't used for all MP games for a number of good reasons, mainly to do with the fact that the large number of changes is confusing when we've all got used to the vanilla game.

So, I think a more focussed mod to fix specific issues is a good idea. We can probably learn a good bit from CB though - although we can't just take the changed units directly from CB, because they have been changed as part of a context of many other changes.

So, quantum_mechani, if you read this your opinion on what changes could be made to the units in question would be very much appreciated.

To answer another point, as I say it's important that the overpowered units remain strong - we don't want them to lose their interest. They just should be beatable with a good strategy, and recruiting other units instead of them should be a viable choice for the Vanheim/Niefelheim player.

Saint_Dude - again I don't really speak from experience, but I think I have heard players saying that even very small numbers of double blessed Vans can be almost unbeatable, in which case just increasing the cost might not be enough. I'd welcome more opinions on this.

Decreasing the cold aura on the Niefel giants sounds like a good idea - but as Sombre says that may not be possible (and Sombre knows his modding so I am inclined to believe him). I think perhaps a decrease to their protection might make it possible to cause them a bit more pain before your units pass out. Thoughts?

Re: \'Heim nerf mod?
 

D'oh! Somehow I missed your post quantum, don't know how I managed that.

Very interesting, thanks for that. I think I might well consider using the pretenders and scales part of CB in future games I run (I think I like the whole mod, but it can be a bit confusing and also many of the games I run are for newer players, and it would be good if the manual remained accurate for spells and forging).

I still wonder if it might be useful to have a specific anti-super-sacreds mod, usable if people don't want to use the modified pretenders and scales (I can imagine some people wouldn't like those changes). Adding Lanka to the list sounds like a good idea.

I will try to have a play with the nations in question tomorrow - not really had much of a chance yet.