[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
That's a pretty silly opinion. It seems you have played too many MMORPGs.

Good lord. Given the choice between contracting the bubonic plague and playing MMORPGs, I'll take the plague. Thanks anyway, though.

If in a strategy game something is overbalanced ( as evidencied by most people doing it ) then it should be nerfed.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say "most people" are doing with regards to the entire VQ matter. Most people, on the other hand, build or summon units. Clearly, units are overpowered, right? Let's nerf units.

If VQs and Clams were the most powerful things ever, I'd be seeing EVERYONE with a VQ pouring out clams. Clearly, this isn't the case. Plenty of games are won by non-VQs without a sizeable clam hoard. For every game won by a clam hoarder with VQ , many other would-be clam hoarders and VQ drivers are gruesomely beaten to death by rushers before their clamming can give them anything useful.

To prove this point, I aim to find a game to pit myself against a would-be VQ clam hoarder and kill him without having the starting VQ or the clam hoard. Grah!

That being said I think that the VQ is overbalanced. Actually it's lifedrain that is overbalanced. It really allows for wacky stuf when it is on the SC chassis. By wacky I mean early expansion.

I don't really buy that story. While it's certainly true that there are pretender chassis that are very much subpar and generally considered to be dullards and never taken, and the VQ is certainly one of the best combat chassis options, it's not QUITE that powerful out of the gate, and doesn't really take off until some research, or items, can be slapped on. Oddly, none of these spells cast are native paths of the VQ, which further inflates the VQ's actual cost because you have to pay the moderate price for all these extra paths. To really go overboard with it, with the way *I* run one, costs 500 nation points: I've effectively expended the entire national allocation on chassis + magic...just to get a combat monster. I more or less forgo a useful bless effect or scales worth crap for this privilege.

Oh and Clams are pretty messed up. Something should be done, really. Don't know what. Perhaps just take the damn things out. Astral pearls are just very powerful.

I don't believe that clams are "pretty messed up", although I wouldn't mind seeing them bumped up in construction level, or raised in cost, as I've mentioned. However, I don't really care for whines or somebody else's funny little mods on the matter: If the developers feel it's real issue, they can do something about it in a patch. Then it'll be OFFICIAL. The role of clams ultimately doesn't change: The sacrifice of short-term use of income for a long-term investment, as opposed to a great deal of other stuff, which is "live for the minute" thinking. I tend to frown on this sort of thinking as a personal matter: Given a short-term solution, and a long-term solution with a better payoff, I'll go with the long-term solution any day. Patience is easy: a penny saved is a penny earned, but resources squandered today are squandered forever.

About clams making up for the rest of the water path

I never claimed clams "make up" for the rest of the water path. I merely said that water gems, except in special cases, are rarely useful: Once you have them, you have to do SOMETHING with them. Why not invest them so that someday, you'll actually get mileage out of them?

[ April 16, 2004, 08:03: Message edited by: Norfleet ]