Balance opinions

K · #1 December 14th, 2007, 10:37 PM

Considering that the learning curve for Dom is measured in years, and any "unbalanced" thing is basically available to anyone, CB mods are a waste of time.

I find that CB mods are for tinkerers who find that their play style is not a winning style, and they want to change the game to fit themselves rather than learn to adapt.

quantum_mechani · #2 December 14th, 2007, 11:19 PM

The argument goes both ways. In a similarly inflammatory spirit, it could be said people who have found a simple set of strategies that effectively deal with almost any situation in the base game are too lazy to learn to adapt to more options.

It also seems that as far as I can tell, few CB supporters are new players, but rather Dom2 veterans that have in fact tried most the options dominions has to offer.

DigitalSin · #3 December 15th, 2007, 12:09 AM

I played a bit of Dom2, then got Dom3, and thats when I actually started to learn. I find that the balance mod is really quite useful in balancing everything, and is most likely what got me into the magic system of Dominions. So I say keep going and balance 3.10, you aren't hurting people who dont want it, just helping people who do.

Kuritza · #4 December 19th, 2007, 07:28 AM

I chose 'but conceptual balance mods makes specific changes that outweigh any improvements'. I believe we had a talk at Mirc about magic crafting changes - making boosters more expensive and thus only available to certain nations reduces diversification possibilities, which is a bad thing. Not only does it mean that many nations are stuck with semi-useless astral 2, less strategic options means less fun. And buffs to the least used spells etc dont compensate for that loss, no way.
Which is a shame, for I liked some of your changes. Jaguar warriors being more expensive, for example.

Morkilus · #5 December 19th, 2007, 01:51 PM

"Reducing diversification possibilities" was one of the major changes from Dom2 -> Dom3. This was just taken further by the CB mod. If you consider it a bad thing, it's your opinion - I like playing SP with a huge magic diversity, but I understand why it was done for this mod. In any case, with empowerment and alchemy there's always the possibility to expand to other paths.

DrPraetorious · #6 December 19th, 2007, 02:02 PM

Some restriction on the ability to diversify into other magic paths is good - if everyone gets all 8 paths, everyone is the same.

On the other hand, this does not mean that more restriction on diversification is always an improvment.

By the end of the game, everyone is going to diversify into every path - this does not mean that everyone's access to every path will be *equal*, or that all paths should be equally hard to diversify into, etc. etc.

But isn't this a moot point as the increases to booster item costs are gone?

KissBlade · #7 December 19th, 2007, 07:12 PM

Right, like I said earlier, keep in mind CB mod is a continuing evolving project. Changes to site searching, booster increases were negatively received and most likely will make future appearances of cbmod. The main great thing about cb mod is essentially it updates itself a lot quicker than patches will, not to mention is able to receive feedback a lot quicker than the current version updates.

KissBlade · #8 December 15th, 2007, 01:52 AM

Quote:

K said:
Considering that the learning curve for Dom is measured in years, and any "unbalanced" thing is basically available to anyone, CB mods are a waste of time.

I find that CB mods are for tinkerers who find that their play style is not a winning style, and they want to change the game to fit themselves rather than learn to adapt.

Quite the opposite actually. Most people who play with cb mods are just simply tired of abusing the crap out of the game and eager to see some variety.

On that note, qm, you know my opinion on old chinese wizards. =P

Ironhawk · #9 December 15th, 2007, 02:27 AM

I only ever play with CB Mod. As Kissblade says above, playing vanilla is just asking for exploits to be brought into play which always ruins things for me.

I'm surprised to find that people feel there is a "learning curve" to the balance mods tho? I mean, you just plug it in and go. Do you seriously memorize every unit from every nation and every spell? It seems a better strategy to me to just abstract your knowledge of dominions - what values make a unit or spell good/bad and then you are ready to play any game with any mod. Just glance at the units and spells that fall into line with your strategy and you are good to go.

Jazzepi · #10 December 15th, 2007, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Ironhawk said:
I only ever play with CB Mod. As Kissblade says above, playing vanilla is just asking for exploits to be brought into play which always ruins things for me.

I'm surprised to find that people feel there is a "learning curve" to the balance mods tho? I mean, you just plug it in and go. Do you seriously memorize every unit from every nation and every spell? It seems a better strategy to me to just abstract your knowledge of dominions - what values make a unit or spell good/bad and then you are ready to play any game with any mod. Just glance at the units and spells that fall into line with your strategy and you are good to go.

I'm not sure what "exploits" exist in vanilla that don't in CB.

The learning curve comes from these sorts of things...

"What gets me are the dozen or so "gotcha's", like when you forget that a key path booster has jumped a level and you can't reach it anymore. Or when a key unit is changed enough to be strategy-changing. They come up very infrequently, but they are frustrating when they do."

What ends up happening is that you have to forget everything you knew about the races in vanilla, and learn them new in CB. Even changing one level path on a nation's mage can make a huge difference in the strategies that are viable with that nation.

Jazzepi