The one change Dom2 really needs.....

[Graeme Dice]

Arryn said:
I agree that flying is what makes the SCs so dangerous, but the shoes are presently only 1A and 5 air. Zen doubled it. But it's not enough. I'd make them at least 3A and 20 air gems.

A pair of flying boots has far less impact than a single staff of storms, and this change would effectively limit flying to only the three air 3 nations.

[Arryn]

Graeme Dice said:
A pair of flying boots has far less impact than a single staff of storms

Generally true, but the boots are far cheaper also. And the boots are an "offensive" weapon (in that they enable certain strategies), while the staff is mainly a "defensive" weapon (in that it disables certain strategies). Overall, in Dominions, a strong argument can be made (and has been by some) that offensive strategies are more powerful than defensive ones.

Graeme Dice said:
and this change would effectively limit flying to only the three air 3 nations.

You expect flying from air nations, not from almost everyone. The air nations would have a far easier go at it than other nations, true. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Changing the cost of flying boots needs to be balanced out with changes to other items and nations. Everything in Dom is interconnected, everything has ramifications and repercussions.

[Soapyfrog]

I think these are steps in the right direction.

If clams/fetishes/blood stones were horror marked, this would be a good thing. This means even if you DO attempt to hoard you will suffer attrition. There should be no such thing as a free lunch.

HOWEVER I have noticed, and I am reminded becuase it just happened to me in an MP game, that horror marked hidden scouts are not killed by horror attacks.

You get the message of the horror attack, but if you attempt to watch the battle the game crashes with a "bad vcr header" error. Further inspection shows that the subject of the horror attack is still alive.

Note: I have only seen this bug occur with hidden, horror marked units (such as scouts with soul contracts).

The fact that the horror mark doesnt really work in this case kinda breaks soul contracts. Also I find horror attacks to be possibly a little bit too rare.

[Cainehill]

Ewww. I personally don't like the suggested new numbers / requirements for the gem-generating items; they're somewhat on the high side, imo, and cause problems for a number of nations that could previously make some limitted use of them.

IMO, not being able to have 2 clams / fetishes on the same commander probably provided enough counterbalance to the items. You now need to have more units to hold them (presuming that you're either going for massive clams or fetishes, and not both, which means more gold expense and/or more expenditure of death gems for each.

And, in any case, the jury was definately out on whether or not the clams and fetishes actually needed a fix, and I haven't seen anyone, ever, suggest that blood stones were broken.

Making some of the other items more expensive ( wraith swords, boots of flying, etc ) seems like a good idea though, albeit I'd think that most should have their required magic path levels stay the same, and only have the number of gems increased.

That way, the risk of upsetting balance by mucking up which nations can readily get what is eliminated, while still reducing the quantity of the items that will be used within a given game.

There's a couple of things I like about what Zen's proposed in this and the other thread. One is that rather than just complain, he's actaully got off his backside, thought through concrete proposals, and put them into a mod. The other is the focus on making un-regarded Pretenders and magic items more interesting.

But I think he's also given us an instructive example of why this process almost certainly cannot work. A few months ago everybody loved the VQ and it was nerfed as a result. Now a lot of people seem to have moved on to the Ghost King instead, and so Zen's proposal includes a nerf for that. If that proposal got into the next patch, I reckon that the majority of those players would agree on a new "best Pretender", and in a couple of months we'd be seeing nerf proposals for that. I'd like to make the following points.

1. There will always be a best tool for a particular job. The only way that can not be true is if all the tools are the same! Let's not kill the diversity that gives Dominions its unique flavour.

2. "I think that balancing these types of games when there is an active community is a matter of nerfing what people do a lot and then buffing what they do not use. And doing it in small steps." - Huzurdaddi. Sounds good in theory, except few of the actual proposals we've seen have been anything like small steps (Zen's Pretender changes excepted). Remove life drain! Double the gem cost and casting level of Clams! Such a process, if it had any chance of working, would require repeated, controlled testing, with detailed quantitative analysis of results. Any volunteers?

3. There's a distinct lack of argument based on evidence in these discussions. Does anybody even have numbers for how many games have been played and which nations have won them? How can we sensibly discuss play balance without that?

4. Generally "problems" or "broken tactics" are discussed as though they happen in isolation from the rest of the game, or in the face of purely passive opponents. Yes it's true that life-draining weapons are widely used; but anyone who unthinkingly uses them all the time is going to see their SCs killed by C'tis, Ermor, Pangaea CW or anyone else who has access to death magic (to name only one counter option).

5. Players follow fashions. I suggest that often a particular Pretender/Nation/Strategy is popular simply because everyone is talking about it, not because it's the only good one out there. They will also gravitate to what is cool. A Vampire Queen is cool; a human arch-mage on a horse is bleh. So just because it's popular, doesn't make it over-powered.

Now when we're talking about mods, all of that doesn't matter. Zen can freely disagree with me, write his mods, and find some like-minding players to play his Version of Dom2. Everybody's happy (ha! likely story...)

But lets leave the vanilla game alone. There are enough bugs and needed UI improvement for the devs to work on, should they be feeling generous enough to do so, without constant demands for nerfs to this and that "broken" feature. And should there be really be some sort of balance problem, let's see someone actually collect some evidence and present it to the community and the devs before they start the traditional wailing.

Mark

[Frosted Flake]

While i am not a big proponent of nerfing in general - this started out as a nerf lifedrain post by me- it seems warranted when only one stategy can work. The VQ is a good example. Its a viable god and cerain nations should/can take it. At previous cost you where a fool not to take it - thats the level that neeeds adjusting. I think LD weapons should cost more than they do. I'll still play dom nomatter what they do or dont do cause its my CRACK and I need to smoke a pipefull every day.

frosted flake

[Cainehill]

Amen. Not to mention that "nerfing what people do a lot, and buffing what they don't use" is ... stupid. People do what works, so, let's break what works. Next month, break something else that works. Oh, we've nerfed the VQ so much noone uses it? Time to beef it up a little."

Say - people build 1-11 PD a lot. Time to nerf it. People research things a lot - better half everyone's research points. Are we having fun yet?

And the clamming / fetishing? As I mentioned, there's no consensus on whether or not it's broken; there's a lot of people who claim that clams and clam hoarding is broken, sure. I haven't seen near as many people saying the same thing about fetishes, and none at all about blood stones.

I suspect that part of the reason is that generally speaking, people have a lot of other good ways to use fire and nature gems. Great forgings; solid summonings; good battlefield spells and global attack spells, Gift of Reason, etc, etc.

Which goes back to ... The theory that there just isn't enough to use water gems on. Very few of the summonings are particularly useful. Very few artifacts use water gems. Very few of the combat spells are useful / worthwhile, especially since almost all are either castable only in the water, or only out of the water, to the point where other areas of magic are more useful in an underwater battle (air) or close to it (fire, earth).

Instead of following computer gamings' ever-downward spiral of nerfing things for balance, just maybe water should be improved instead.

But I don't think that's something Zen can do in a mod, and while I'm dubious about some of the things proposed in his second big mod, I think his tweaks to the pretenders were great - largely because most were improved, with only a very few getting nerfs.

Thanks Zen!

[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.

[Huzurdaddi]

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.

I may actually DROP OUT of the games I am currently in to start games with your mod it looks *that* good currently.

SC's without life draining weapons?
A life without clams on big maps? ( again I think that they are ok on small maps )

Sign me up. Too bad my beloved GK was slightly nerfed I may have to think about other pretenders now ... no wait that's a good thing.

[Pickles]

Mark the Merciful said:

"1. There will always be a best tool for a particular job. The only way that can not be true is if all the tools are the same! Let's not kill the diversity that gives Dominions its unique flavour."

This seems to be self contradictory. If people always pick the ghost king there is no diversity. And arguably there are at least 17 jobs in dominions being pretenders for the different nations. So it would be nice if they used different chassis. (not that I have seen that many Ghost kings so I am not sure it needs tweaking. It is I think the best in a particular role - high level rainbow but then something has to be as Mark says.)

"2. (snip tweaking) Such a process, if it had any chance of working, would require repeated, controlled testing, with detailed quantitative analysis of results. Any volunteers? "

Actually there are a bunch of people blitz testing the pretender mods it seems. I expect they will get more testing than many of the original chassis will have (he speculated wildly)

"3. There's a distinct lack of argument based on evidence in these discussions. Does anybody even have numbers for how many games have been played and which nations have won them? How can we sensibly discuss play balance without that?"

The game is more about the journey than the destination. If the same familiar faces keep coming up in every game it gets boring it does not matter who wins (which will ultimately depend as much if not more on diplomacy)

"4. Generally "problems" or "broken tactics" are discussed as though they happen in isolation from the rest of the game, or in the face of purely passive opponents. Yes it's true that life-draining weapons are widely used; but anyone who unthinkingly uses them all the time is going to see their SCs killed by C'tis, Ermor, Pangaea CW or anyone else who has access to death magic (to name only one counter option)."

The situation is that there are undead & constructs and there is everything else. I have fought more undead than anything it feels like but even against them the life draining weapons are not dramatically worse than the other choices for bashing hordes of rubbish. The berserk from the hellsword can even be useful. There are better choices of course but that still only gives two different strategic situations in one of which life draining weapons are the best by far.

"5. So just because it's popular, doesn't make it over-powered."

This is true and is why I prefer buffing to nerfing as it seems less like stitching someome up.

It should mean that good counter strategies come out too as lots of people will play against these popular races/strats. Do we see that?

"But lets leave the vanilla game alone. There are enough bugs and needed UI improvement for the devs to work on, should they be feeling generous enough to do so, without constant demands for nerfs to this and that "broken" feature. And should there be really be some sort of balance problem, let's see someone actually collect some evidence and present it to the community and the devs before they start the traditional wailing."

This is not a whiny thread.

The basic game is not going to change.

If it were my solution to too much sub par stuff would be to cut out the 75% of the stuff that is and then add it back under controlled circumstances a bit at a time as it was tested. Then the devs would only have to worry about 1/4 as much content and could do a good job on those failing aspects. I still think less is more.

The game is far too small time to have proper deep testing such as warcraft etc will get so we willl be stuck with impressionistic views. But that applies to what we already have - to assume it is best because it is like this now is just knee jerk reactionary.

Pickles

(apologies to the thousands of playtesters out there!)