New nations extremely well crafted and enjoyable

[JimMorrison]

Omnirizon said:
I think the new nations benefit from the power inflation phenomenon (I just invented that term seen in all gaming...

In MMO circles, the term used is MUDflation, since in MUDs and MMOs you see the most rapid and blatant inflation, due to people devouring all the content, and then begging for more.

As has been stated above, the devs do seem to be doing a good job with the relative strengths, as in a game that has end points, there is no need to inflate the system at all. I'd wager that if in the next month or so the new nations start to win a suspicious % of their games, that there will be an alteration of their strengths/weaknesses to bring them more in line with the rest of the game. As it is, there's enough feedback I wouldn't doubt a small change already, but there may be hesitation to see how well they actually mesh in MP first.

I have to say, I took over LA Gath in KingMaker, and while I have interesting options and strengths to exploit, I cannot see how anyone could possibly call them overpowered. Ashdod is a little stronger in my eyes, but most nations look stronger to me in their MA incarnations. Hinnom is a beast, and I can see small changes being reasonable - but they really do pay for their early game advantage with a challenging struggle to the late game, due to difficulty exploiting research, difficulty effectively blood hunting while eating everyone, and difficulty having the scales needed for late game while gaining the bless desired for early game.

I think MOST (not all, just most) of the people who refer to Hinnom as "too strong", have mostly only seen them in the early game, and haven't seen how their weaknesses become more and more apparent as the game progresses.


And wow, this is sort of OT, grrrrr. I just wanted to express my own appreciation of the new content as well. The great thing - to me - about new nations, is you don't even have to play them in a game to benefit from the addition, as interacting with them as an opponent adds just as much to the variety and enjoyment.

<3

[Gandalf Parker]

Being a MUD admin almost from their birth I have some experience there. MUDflation is a well known phenomenon. To break down some of the many MANY discussions amoung MMO admins..
there tend to be 3 types of "fixers" in MMO gods. Additive (keep making more and bigger armor and euqipment, then fix that with more and bigger monsters). Subtractive (or nerfer) which goes the other direction. And Balance who tries to trim both top and bottom but can look like a person trying to make a perfect circle by cutting a piece of paper taking snips off until they end up with a dot (their balance efforts meet in the very bland middle).

The best results IMHO is that this is one subject where committee works. An MMO head who is willing to hire without giving in to personal feelings about additive, subtractive, and balancer. But is willing to hire them all and allow them to do continual "battle" in the code allowing the game to go up and down continually.

On the other hand I am AMAZED at how well this game does with so few developers. Not just because they are doing all the work, but because they seem able to not give in to being just one type of fixer.