Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[PDF]

Ozymandias said:
I just discovered that indy Crystal Amazons have defense 19 sacred flying cavalry, so Van and Helhirdling aren't the only sacreds with that kind of defense. I'm starting think that a modest price increase for Helhirdlings and Van of both eras is sufficient.

Maybe but these are indies, and rather rare ! Noone will base a double-bless strat on *possible* Crystal Amazon encounters, so they are just a "bonus" if found and you happen to have a good bless, nothing more...

[Corwin]

They also have low defense, and die to arrows easily. And since they are flying they can be always targeted by "fire at flyers", unlike cavalry, which can be masked with any other cavalery, with cavalry being much more common than flyers.

[Ozymandias]

I agree that they are certainly not something anyone would plan for. I was just mentioning them because when I listed other sacred national cavalries nothing had as high a defense as Van. I think the ability to hang out at the furthest back edge of the battlefield and still close instantly does tend to mitigate their arrow weakness quite a lot though.

[Epaminondas]

Graeme Dice said:

He doesn't and it is. Gandalf approaches every single post in this forum from the fanboy position that the game is perfect in whatever form the devs have currently built it and that any problems people have are problems with the people, not the game.

I have to agree with you on Gandalf as a long-time lurker, even before I started posting. According to him, there are no units that are more powerful/useful than others, nor units weaker/less usesful than others (see the thread on redundant/useless units I put up).

It's really an intellectual malady. Some people just have an intellectual framework where every position or argument or thing is valid or just as good as one another, and Gandalf seems to be the representative of them.

On the topic at hand, I agree that Vanheim/Hellheim are noticeably stronger than their competitors. And while I do agree that it's impossible to perfectly balance everything in a game of this nature--and one nation has to be top and one has to be the worst--Vanheim/Hellheim may be too far above other nations to have a fair, workable MP game within them if the map is small.

[Epaminondas]

tombom said:

Every single person in this thread has agreed that Vanheim is overpowered, even the people arguing against a change.

He's obviously clueless. The stubborn idiocy of some posters is just obtrusively obvious.

[Epaminondas]

Edi said:
Gandalf, with the exception of you and NT Jedi, there seems to be a consensus that Vanheim and Helheim are overpowered. Some of those in the consensus for some reason or another do not mind the current situation, but 90+% of the rest think it should be addressed. Sounds like agreement to me.

Edi

It's just Gandalf; I think even NTJedi seems to agree that Vanheim/Helheim are overpowered.

Gandalf probably thought the "Coalition of the Willing" v. Iraq was an even fight, and it was Saddam's generals' unwillingness to exploit their many advantages that cost them the war

[curtadams]

Just a note for people dumping personal criticism:

You do know that personal criticism reduces attention to and acceptance of your claims, especially when the target was involved in the Dom3 project?

[Epaminondas]

curtadams said:
Just a note for people dumping personal criticism:

You do know that personal criticism reduces attention to and acceptance of your claims, especially when the target was involved in the Dom3 project?

1. While I am loath to make "ad hominem" arguments as a rule, in some cases they are valid.

And honestly, I find most of Gandalf's posts on threads of this nature worthless, because you know exactly what he will say and he rarely even tries to make "arguments."

And please note that I made criticisms regarding the type of arguments (really "assertions") he makes, rather than making comments about his mother or directing graituitous epithets at him.

2. Who cares if he was a beta tester or even more heavily involved in the development of Dom III?

There are tons of people in this world who are "involved" in projects but are in reality deadweights contributing nothing to those projects. I suppose we should take Dan Quayle seriously when he discourses upon geopolitics because he was the VP?

Besides, even if Gandalf really understood the game inside-out, the acid test is still to translate that "knowledge" into persuasive--or at least intelligible--arguments. Bromides like "every side has its advantages and disadvantages" do not make intelligent arguments.

[Corwin]

Why don't we all cool down a bit?

Gandalf has been very valuable member of Dom community for as long as I remember, which goes back to Dom2 beta days. (when I was actively lurking on this forum) Yes, sometimes he takes position that I personally think is incorrect, which sometimes may correspond with original dev visions. Like in this case of Helheim/Vanheim issue. But this is understandable, since he was part of this vision and had certain influence on it. However calling all his posts worthless is totally uncalled for - he contributed a lot to the Dom community.


Also devs do listen to us MP players. In the latest patch for example, they reduced cost of vastly underpowered Oni demonic troops - something that me and other MP players have been vocally complaining about. (granted, the current price reduction didn't go nearly far enough unfortunately, but it is certainly a step in right direction) It shows that they do care and they do listen.


Personally I am reasonably sure that devs will do something about Helheim and MA Vanheim in the next one or two patches. These 15 pages long thread clearly shows that there is a overwhelming general consensus among MP players (which I support) that units of those two nations are currently too good for their price/stats - on these 15 pages only two people posted any objections.


However making personal attacks does nothing to help your cause, quite an opposite.

[Cainehill]

Baalz said:
I like PDF's suggestion about removing the van's sacredness, but I'd take it a step further and suggest that you just wipe out the sacredness altogether.

Given that it seems that only reliable way to beat _any_ nation that has decent sacreds troops and a double blessing is .... to have your own good sacred troops and a strong blessing, I'd love to see sacredness wiped out altogether, for all nations. Maybe leave sacred commanders (mainly since I can't see have priest powers on a unit that isn't sacred), but a mod that wiped out all sacred troops and replaced them for balance would be great.

At least until Illwinter does something about the blessing mess they've made.