The one change Dom2 really needs.....

[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!)

[Cohen]

IMO Fever Fetish are too costy in that mod, probably they're alredy fine since Fire Gems are most used to overpriced remote spellcasting (well at least Fires from Afar is overpriced, it should cost 5 F.Gems)

The heavier effect are Blood Stones, for what regards the gem generating item. This prevent a Nation like Abysya to come to Hammers.
Blood Stones are forged by a Warlock + Earth random pick, to get E2, and then E.Boots, so E3 -----D Hammers
This is a far heavier unbalance for that nation depriving it of her only way to reach hammers (except pretender).

After, about Clams, I'd make them W3. They're a source that allow you to exchange "nature" of gems. You need astral, so probably you're lacking astral. The gems used are always 20.

Staff of Storms, IMO it should be construction 6, and 4 Air, 40 air gems. This because an Air Mage to cast Storm in battle, should be A4. So to fill a staff with the power of the storms, it should be theorically able to cast the spell.

Flying Boots, A2, 10 gems it's good.

Draining Life Weaponry:
Wraithsword, D3S1 IMO and so 20 D.Gems and 5 Pearls.
Why S1? I've took idea from the Soul Drain (the D4S4 spell). And const-6. This make it difficult to forge too.
But even D3 is good.
Hellsword, it has the hindrance of berserk if wounded ... a bad stuff for an SC that perhaps get a scratch from an arrow. B3F1 20 slaves 5 fire gems.
Blood Thorn, this is more difficult to set, because it gives too 1 point in Blood. 2 Nature imo it's too much, perhaps B41N 40 slaves 5 nature is better. Or B31N.

If you made your Item mod with Blood Stones and Blood Thorn as you previewed here, Abysya will fall so down... losing bth items from their base forging range.

Many items indeed should be less costy, like Stone Idol, the Crystal matrixes, the Stone Sphere and such.

[Soapyfrog]

Maybe blood stones should be modded to not give an earth gem anymore. The +E is a nice benefit anyway. Halve the blood slave requirements and you are away to the races.

As for life-drain, surely it could be removed without any super harmful impact.

e.g.
- Wraith Sword could turn you ethereal instead
- Hellsword could have some appropriate hellish effect in addition to the berserk, like maybe a reverse flambeau, x3 damage vs sacred units/angels or some such.
- Blood thorn could be used for dominion push as it was meant to be and +B benefit instead of as freaking main weapons

At minimum Blood thorn needs to be nerfed. It's just embarrassing when a Golem equipped with a knife can tank 300 devils...

[Zen]

Pickles said:
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.)

I just wanted to interject here. The reason that the Ghost King was 'nerfed' was not because he was the best at what he did (sturdy rainbow), but that it was impossible to bring other Pretenders into the same line at a comprable cost. Like Human Pretenders, why would you ever choose a physically weak, no survival abilities, type of Human Pretender, however cheap, when you could take a supremely sturdy (almost SC), full slot, intrinsic ability laden, low cost Ghost King that autosummons Ghosts from time to time to act as a guard. Oh, and he's stealthy.

You see the connundrum

[Truper]

re: the change to Sabbath

I understand the logic of what you're saying, and its certainly not an earth-shaking change. The only problem I have with it is thematic; the use of Blood magic should always require the sacrifice of slaves - this is exactly what makes Blood what it is, and makes it different from the other paths of magic.

On the other hand, even when I'm playing a Blood nation, I never bother trying to use Blood magic of any kind on the battlefield, since none of it seems that effective anyway, and managing the slaves is a nightmare.

[archaeolept]

well, the actual use of blood magic will still require blood slaves, per se, as any blood magic spells cast by the communion master will still need slaves; thematicality is maintained, function is improved, and micromanagement is diminished.

[Huzurdaddi]

re: the change to Sabbath

Could be good. Maybe, just maybe, Mictlain may have powerful battle magics now. Could be interesting.

supremely sturdy (almost SC), full slot, intrinsic ability laden, low cost Ghost King

But ... but ... I love my GK! *sniff* I'll miss you most of all.

[PvK]

Huzurdaddi said:

As I discussed with Zen the cost effectiveness of all hoarding stratgies is almost completely dependent upon the size of the map. On a 100 province map with 5 players you would have to be insane to hoard.

On a 400 province map you are crazy not to hoard.

Sadly the engine does not support items costing different amounts on different maps currently.

My suggestion to base the total world clam income on the number of water provinces would automatically balance this.

PvK