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  #1  
Old October 28th, 2006, 07:37 AM
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Zen - I hope you don't mind me commenting on these suggestions. Also, as Potatoman said, *applause*. I Wish you Luck on your quest. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon23.gif[/img]



Quote:
Potatoman said:[*]A 1001/1000 aged commander is just as likely to die as a 100/50 aged commander.

Actually, this isn't the case. A commander with 1000 maxage is less likely to die than a maxage 50 commander, regardless of how big maluses they get from old age. 10 000/500 commander is less likely to get an affliction than a 32/28 commander. Of course, the first might actually be close to dying from the age percentage malus to HP.



Quote:
FrankTrollman said:

Drakaina

Lord of War

Titan (Female)
Drakaina is a monster. In Dom3, monsters like Dragons and Drakaina get Dominion of only 1. So there's a reason for it, but the reason isn't enough to keep anyone from changing it if it doesn't work.

I'd like to see Lord of War as a Nataraja equivalent: 0 cost chassis, with perhaps 40-point paths. You could take ANY path, but not high. Water for defense and Quickness, or Earth for some protection and Earth Power/reinvigoration, etc.

Female Titan is an excellent warrior, with attack and defense of 15. This is very good. However, she actually has fewer hitpoints than other size 6 titans, both male and female. Her Owl is a nice addition, because Length 6 #bonus attack gives her a chance of Repel regardless of her actual weapons. However, she has Nature and Astral, neither of which are good paths for a warrior. Astral makes her weak against Magic Duel, and I don't think she's available to any non-Astral nations, while Nature only gives Regeneration, forcing her to Enchantment. If she had a (new) helmet called Magic Crown or Magic Tiara as a helmet, she'd only need some armor, and if she had Water instead of either Nature or Astral, or Astral 2/3 instead of Nature, she'd be better.

Also, even while it's true that it's easier to take high level magic with expensive pretender that starts with more magic in a path, levels 9 and 6 aren't always needed. For combat pretenders, another path at just 3-4 might be good enough, and for e.g. weak Air nation A4 is actually a very nice choice (see below).


Son of the Sun was also mentioned. The S1 version, at least, could benefit from beings S2-3 and 75 points instead of S1 and 50 points. If he had some other path instead of Astral, he could be used as a combatant, but Astral makes him vulnerable.




Quote:
PDF said:
1) Huhu, what about nerfing Horror Mark ?

2) Both Air boost items are now A4, it's really hard to have mages able to make them. It means you need base A4 to be able to progress, it's too harsh a requirement.

3) I have issues with Bless effects, but these aren't moddable...

4) About archers, it's not that logical that lowly goblinoids make as much damage with a bow that a human or better - after all the bow effectiveness is related to archer strength and skill, as well as bow quality isn't it ?

Thus the too-easy hordes of cheap archers will at least be less effective that better, more expensives ones.

Issue is that I'm not sure we can *add* weapons in mods?
1) Horror Mark isn't the problem, but Horrors with Horror Marking attacks, and the fact that Doom Horror attacks are currently too common. When weapons can be #cleared, I'll do a test mod which removes Horror Mark effect from all Horrors' attacks. I'll try if adding another #specialeffect or #specialeffectalways works, or if the horror mark effect of their attacks can be made resistable, or something.

2) There are two Air boosters that only require Air, and both are available at Constr 4. At that level, Water has one booster, Robe of the Sea. Fire has one, Flame Helmet, which isn't good in battles. Earth, Death and Nature have good and cheap boosters, but Earth has no boosters after that, and Nature only Treelord's Staff at Nat 5. Death has Skullface, which is good. Blood has access to three boosters at this point, but Armor of Souls requires Blood 5, Blood Stone some Earth and Brazen Vessel Blood 4.

In short, Air is different, but not much worse than other. One Air 4 mage can forge two boosters, and then even an Air 2 can forge more, and the hand slots are left free for a Dwarven Hammer if you can get your hands on one.


3) This is a very good point. Bless effects cannot be modded. While it's nice to throw ideas around, don't expect anything to happen via the Conceptual Balance mod.

4) Why would Goblinoids be inferior to humans? I think you mean Bakemonos with this. They are size 2, as humans, and some kind of lowly demons.
Dominions doesn't model hit locations, so archer's skill doesn't affect damage. Currently, Precision is the only stat that affects archers. It's good enough, of course, and Precision could differentiate different archers from each other, but why should independent human archers be made more viable instead of national ones?

Also, weapons can be added, but currently not #cleared. This means that weapons' damage can be changed, but it can be impossible to change some of their features, including #nostr.



Quote:
UninspiredName said:
With one Wish, you can get enough Astral Pearls to make it pay for itself with intrest.

Unless my calculations are wrong, in which case I apologize.
A Wish for gems gives amount of pearls that can be almost alchemized back into 100 pearls. 97 pearls and 1 gem in each of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Nature, Death. With two Wishes, you could alchemize it back into 200 pearls. It'd ONLY be profitable if you had Alteration bonus site.





Quote:
B0rsuk said:
1. Light cavalry archers

-prec to 10
- if I wanted archers with acceptable melee ability, I'd take indy archers 10/8, ones with shortbow, short sword, ring mail. 8 morale, but still.
- only advantage light cavalry has is speed, and speed is not THAT big advantage on Dominions battlefield. I think both flyers and heavy cavalry on flank are better for attacking commanders.

2. independent mages - Is it intentional ?

3. Slings (damage) aren't affected by strength. Why ? If slings were changed to be affected by strenth, perhaps Blood bless would be marginally more useful, althrough I can't think of a single holy unit with sling. Or are slings already too powerful ?

1 - Ligh Cavalry.
Their movement bonus isn't as good as it could be, because most archers of the various tribes have mapmove 2, and some of them have one or several terrain survival abilities. If all independent, non-mounted archers had mapmove 1, Light Cavalry would have some use.
There is more gold in circulation, so LC could be afforded when ANY archers are better than no archers.
LC should be better in battle than LI or archers. Light Lance would help, but that'd make Tien Chi LC weaker when compared to normal indy LC.

2 - Indy mages
Random picks were made more rare, and new paths from independent mages were made more rare. It's inentional.

3 - Slings
There isn't a #clear command for weapons yet. If there was, I'd mod slings so that they deal the same damage when used by str 10 units, more with higher strength, make normal slingers a bit cheaper, and make some slingers Elite with 12 gp cost and str 12, precision 13 (still lowered by sling's negative prec - they're hard to use properly). I'm still considering whether or not their range should be few grids more than for shortbows or not. I wouldn't mind my idea being incorporated into CB mod.
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  #2  
Old October 28th, 2006, 08:43 AM
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

My complaint about indy mages isn't that they're too weak, but that they're somewhat too expensive for what they do. I know they're meant to be weaker, but why make them so pricey ?

Crystal Sorceress (indy)
180 gold 5 res
shortbow, prec 14
mapmove 2
1A 1S 10% random
Other stats don't really matter, but generally lower (other than precision)

Gutuater (Marverni)
120 gold 1 res
1N 1H 100%random
prec 11
mapmove2 + forest survival
can perform blood sacrifices
Many stats, including attack, defence, morale higher than those of Crystal Sorceress

I'm fine with quality, but somewhat confused by price. Now they're not worth buying unless you really need some obscure item forged,
Hmm. I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.
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Old October 28th, 2006, 09:09 AM

Peter Ebbesen Peter Ebbesen is offline
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Quote:
B0rsuk said:
My complaint about indy mages isn't that they're too weak, but that they're somewhat too expensive for what they do. I know they're meant to be weaker, but why make them so pricey ?

1) Because they are ways for nations without access to the paths that the indy mages have to actually get access. Gaining access to paths that your nation is not "thematically" supposed to focus on has got to be expensive.

2) Because, if you already have national mages that can do what the indy mages can do, it is preferable from a game perspective, as well as more fun in the long run, if the "profitable" thing to do is to use your national mages. More differentiation between nations that way, when they don't all run around recruiting the same independents.

For both reasons it is without shadow of a doubt better that independent mages are both more expensive than equivalent (low-powered) national mages and less powerful than the powerful national mages. In other words, it is best if they "suck" in all situations but one: namely the one in which you really need their sort of magic.
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:09 PM

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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Quote:
B0rsuk said:
I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.
I do not think that is a good idea, I think luck is already to powerful of a scale. I do kind of like your idea though, and I think that it should be tied to the magic scale (which is lame)

Another thing I would like to see is ME Tien'Chi's conscription bonus for order territories be beter. I think it should give additional PD every season or year.
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:25 PM
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Quote:
upstreamedge said:
Quote:
B0rsuk said:
I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.
I do not think that is a good idea, I think luck is already to powerful of a scale. I do kind of like your idea though, and I think that it should be tied to the magic scale (which is lame)

Another thing I would like to see is ME Tien'Chi's conscription bonus for order territories be beter. I think it should give additional PD every season or year.
... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:34 PM

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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Quote:
... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...
And yet in Dominions 3 it's not an uncommon assessment.
Growth and Luck have real proponents in Dom 3. It's a whole new world.

-Frank
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:40 PM
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Quote:
FrankTrollman said:
Quote:
... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...
And yet in Dominions 3 it's not an uncommon assessment.
Growth and Luck have real proponents in Dom 3. It's a whole new world.

-Frank
Actually luck is even less common among vets than in Dom II. At least in dom II you have turmoil nations, in Dom III,you have ... AE Ermor. And that's it. If you want the most competitive edge possible in any MP, you should almost always be taking Order/Misfortune.
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:42 PM
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Luck is quite random. Sometimes you can take Misfortune/Order with minimal harm, sometimes Plague will hit your capital, followed by Indy Knight Revolution.
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:39 PM

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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

I'm certainly biased towards luck, because I'd play it often SP in Dom2 just because it's more fun. But the things that happen to me in Dom3 even at flat or light luck make me totally terrified of Misfortune. I really notice the effects on conquered Misfortune provinces. I just had Bogus drop in on a critical bottleneck province (with my first outside temple, even), cutting my empire in two and leaving my pretender almost alone facing Ermor. In Dom2 I got the feeling - notwithstanding my preferences - that Order was ohsogood and Turmoil was asking for it, while Luck/Misfortune was flavor. Now, I feel it's reversed.
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Old October 30th, 2006, 03:40 PM
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Default Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

Quote:
curtadams said:
In Dom2 I got the feeling - notwithstanding my preferences - that Order was ohsogood and Turmoil was asking for it, while Luck/Misfortune was flavor. Now, I feel it's reversed.

Order is still ohsogood, but now Misfortune is asking for it as well.
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