The one change Dom2 really needs.....

[Zen]

Whew, alot of replies and a very good mix of opinions on the subject.

I will try to address them.

Re Mark: I know exactly what you are saying that popular majority is no reasoning to adjust game balance. This is why my main focus has remained on a few things which, I may be biased so am not seeing the whole picture. They are:

A.) Lowering the End Game micromanagment
B.) Allowing the full sweep of options while retaining the variability of strategies.

An example of this (a concrete change I'm making, in a mod because I've tested it thouroughly) is Sabbath Slave. I don't know how many people have tried using Sabbath or having something resembling a Communion with Sabbath, but it is a nightmare to do, even with as few as 4 Slaves and a Master, consistantly.

The reason for this is because of the partially limited game engine and using "Gems" to cast spells, along with the fact that the Sabbath Slave spell casts a Blood Slave in order to cast. So every battle that you wish to try to use Sabbath, you have to pull a Blood Slave off your freight truck scout and put them on the Sabbath Slave unit.

Now to my mind, that is alot of annoying busy work for not alot of benefit and for the majority of the time I disregard a strategy around Sabbath because of the annoying amount of miromanagement associated with it unless I absolutely have to (with say a Mictlan or Diabolic Faith).

So a change would be setting the Fatigue cost to not include a Blood Slave to cast the required Sabbath Slave.

This doesn't impact the game overtly, opens up an entire realm of possibility that maybe was shut off not because of the game, but because of the unwillingness to micromanage every little detail.

You can also see this in the Pretender Mod. With the All-Father. I don't know how many times you have played Vanheim, but the All-Father was the single best pretender for that nation and it was a virtual gimme, that if someone is playing Vanheim, they are playing the All-Father. This, in part, has to do with the fact that he is a SC of the First Caliber, but also because his cost for filling other roles than a SC was not significant enough for the benefit of having a SC + Rainbow. So, he was changed to fit more in line with something that did what he was supposed to do well (beat things up and use Air and Death well) but it wasn't an instant choice every single time.

Now even with the Mod in place, will the All-Father get chosen quite a bit for Vanheim? I imagine so, he's a very good Pretender, has a host of good abilities and can provide you with an early expansion while not petering out as the midgame goes in terms of usability. But at least other pretenders that have the secondary Role (Rainbow) have a chance to be used.

Re: Cainehill

This mod isn't exactly for me. There is a suggestion on the QT3 Boards that would fix Clamming without requiring a cost adjustment. But there are some people who feel they have to micromanage in order to remain competitive (probably from their own feelings) or feel that your non-site gem income shouldn't overshadow your game balanced, magical site variability gem income.

I would be happy if Clams, Fetishes, etc didn't exist. I don't use them except in very rare doses in MP, and generally it's to create a supplement income of a gem type in order to fuel other spells (Fires from Afar, Teleport/Etc). This is why the Mod is still in the beta, because if there is not a happy medium to be found that allows both, then there is no reason to change the Clams/Fetishes (though I may release a Mod for those out there who just want them taken out so they can have their own games without having to create bizzare house rules) because it will just shift the bar and not change anyones commitment to micromanagement.

Re: Winged Boots. I think it's overkill to go 3A, 20 Air Gems, this would limit flying too much. But, if it goes to 2A, 10 Gems, then it's not a "every Tom, Dick, and Jane" has flying boots from a sage who happened to get lucky. You can see that another reason that Air is universally powerful is that they are very effective, but also seemingly excessively cheap (Staff of Storms is an example).

A FYI and something I didn't put in the snippit of information is that Staff of Storms will be changed to 4A, 6 Const, 40 Gems. While this won't stop every important battle from having a Staff of Storms or you getting Storm/Wrath'd all over, it will make the decision of actually giving *every* single squad of wrather's a Staff alot harder and less cost effective.

Re: Lifedrain Weapons

Kel, yes I am looking at things, and all it may be is that the cost would be adjusted to 20 Gems for a Lifedrain weapon. But because I have fallen into this mindset (of picking lifedrain over normal weapons) I have come to the conclusion that while some people might whine and throw a tantrum about Lifedrain, my rational consensus says that either there are not enough specific weapons for specific things or that the Lifedrain weapons are just so cheap that you *can* afford to always take Death on your Pretender in some form, search up 3 or 4 sites and provide yourself with more than enough Wraith Swords to give everything one, while bootstrapping some Blood and making Blood Thorns for the rest.

Edit: I also wanted to say everything is in the "OMG, that is so overpriced. Scale it back" stage I wouldn't expect anything to remain at it's current level with any certainty.