[Zen]

Chazar said:
First: I am sorry if you found my questions insulting, this was not intended, I was merely asking out of interest. I am a bit worried because I interpret your reply a bit harsh, but maybe you are just tired of defending your ideas... ...or maybe I am a bit tired and interpret you wrong. No worries in that case.

I don't think I was trying to be harsh, just quick. I haven't had alot of time to peruse the forum as of late and an actual feedback question in this thread is pretty uncommon So if it sounded harsh, I apologize and no you don't sound harsh to me.

Second, I am not that satisfied with the answers:
A) Ok, you say that AirElementals might be too powerful. I do not disagree with you on that. So they could be balanced by changing their stats. You choose a different way by leaving them as they are, but making their Fire/Water/Earth counterparts more accessible. Fine and diversifying. I was just not sure why you preferred the one way over the other...

This is an idea, but the only way to really do this would kill the theme of the Air Elemental AFAIK. I have thought about modifying the Air Elemental to not have flying, but it felt very wrong, I also modified their attack to be a "Force of Wind" like a air punch and I still ran into the same problem of having Storm Exploitable Air Elementals who then, had an unresistable normal attack. I'm sure I could come up with a way to sufficiently nueter the Air Elemental while allowing it to flying in Storms and gaining a bonus in storms but as of yet I haven't been able to find the time to wrangle it into place. Also I've had a slight issue with finding a proper balance for Communion, which I have fixed in the latest release of the Spellmod. Maybe I'll take the time over the next few days to design a new weapon/stats to fit.

B) I assume it is less diversifying, since it adds more symmetry, and symmetry is order, and an ordered system is less diverse in the sense that chaos is diverse. Example: Changing Abysia by turning fire resistance into cold resistance, heat aura into cold aura, fire picks into water picks, cold preferrence instead of heat preferrence would not add much diversity to the game, IMHO. Sure there would be further differences, since not every fire item or fire spell has an ice or water counterpart, which is due to the broken symmetry (i.e. diversity) of spells and items.

Possibly and I do see your point. However. If you take the case of the Ice Devil and break it down you have:

Lower Research
Super-Combatant Chassis
Lower Resources to Cast
Physically more Powerful than *any* other SC chassis except Lords of Hell and Possibly Air Queens.
Paths of Magic that provide a key component of a high end SC, Quickness/BoW the only other better path could concievably be Air.
One full Resistance (Cold) and no Vulnerabilities.

In balancing this unit you have to look first at what it provides for it's cost. Then you have to decide if there is an issue of this considered the "Best" or most efficent. If it is the "Best" or most efficent, is it limited or cost effective.

So based on this dynamic. The ID was nerfed to be in line with it's nearest counterpart, in-as-much if you had access to both spells, both were availiable and with the same amount of resources there would actually be a *choice* between the two instead of the logical decision being one.

Thus it was raised in Research (to stop the Rush), raised in Cost (for the choice) and given a vulnerability to counteract some of it's physically superior advantage over the Arch-Devil which in addition to it's own physically lower stats has a built in vulnerability. Forcing an ID to have a Fire Helmet, Charcoal Shield, or Hell Sword (common) is not actually much of a nerf in all actuality.

This is also the case with the Elementals: FireElementals are susceptible to Cold, but WaterElementals are not susceptible to Fire, hence effectively countering the one versus the other needs slightly different tactics than just replacing a water mage with fire mage. I like that, since most other games would have them symmetric in susceptibility, but not in Dom2!

Water Elementals are not susceptible to fire but Ice Elementals are. These are not Water Devils, but Ice Devils

Thus I was just wondering whether adding a fire suceptibility was the only way of establishing the balance (since I do agree that IDs where too strong in comparance), and whether you considered other ideas which were neglected in the end...

The fire suceptibility was half thematic and half balance. There were other ideas, but none of them seemed to really fit and they 'nerfed' too much I felt. Resistances can be modified with Equipment thus are overcomable, whereas lowering HP is not. If you have what you consider a better idea for an Ice Devil, I'd be more than willing to hear it.