Balance is out of wack - Devs please stop the pay 2 win DLCs

[lucaluca]

All the great work that you did on the siege rework and the giant lore was ruined by the overpoweredness of the new things, some examples:

- giant kings economy + forge + melee damage + summon + rock throw: who thought it was a good idea?
- special areas granting full dragon roster by just having 3 provinces adjacent?
- resonant blades passive applying freezing
- the crystal dwelling rewards are way too much, infinite knowledge/6 points of affinity?

Did not even play with dungeon yet. Plus food keeps being trash and nature keeps being tied to food, the nature rewards from the new events are laughable.

This one would be the best update yet but the DLC brought all sort of insane overpoweredness, please revisit the way you release DLCs, the fun comes from balance not from crazy stuff that dwarfs everything that came before.

 

[P5552]

- special areas granting full dragon roster by just having 3 provinces adjacent?
- the crystal dwelling rewards are way too much, infinite knowledge/6 points of affinity?

You realize all of these apply to every player in the lobby as long as the host has dlc, right?

How can a mechanic of dlc be P2W if it affects all players in equally, no matter if they own the dlc or not.

 

[nvc for the soul]

Some nerfs to Giant Kings are prepared for Ogre patch 1.2.
See the patch notes for the Open Beta on steam.

 

[Codyksp]

I wouldn't call it P2W, as you can indeed share DLC with other players by hosting a lobby.
But I will fully agree that since Primal Fury all of the new content has been blatantly OP.

What then follows is a 3-6 month period before any changes are applied (I'm surprised by the current open beta).
And even after all the changes have settled, 50% of the new content remains too powerful by comparison.

I can make a list for every DLC touching on the new content that was OP on release or still is.
Yet for the Free Updates I never have any such complaints, outside of maybe Mystic Culture.

Here are things that are still issues in vanilla multiplayer, as in they are too powerful or exploitable.
I am not asking specifically for nerfs or buffs. I am simply providing a list of what is oppressive.

• Giant Kings (too good at everything)
• Shops (RNG power boosts)
• Landmarks (RNG power boosts)
• Artifacts (instant power slingshot)
• Ancient Wonders (rewards vs defenders)
• Ritualist/Warrior (must-pick classes)
• Tome of Prosperity (dominates T4)
• Umbral Abyss (rewards are too good)
• Consecrating Firestorm (uncleansable Condemned)
• Corrupted Boon (due to -10 sunder)
• Mystic Summoning/Attunement (T3 Spirit rush / Infinite CP)
• Oathsworn Strife/Righteousness (Honor Blade + T3 units)
• Infecting / Status Effect Immunity (shouldn't be craftable)
• Industrious (insane economy)
• Balor/Reaper (far above all other T5s)
• Lesser Snow Spirit (the whole Cryomancy tome tbh)
• Damaging World Spells (exploitable in teams)
• Fabled Hunters (still too high at 75%)
• Hermit Kingdom (best trait, hands down)
• Swift Marchers (96 movement per turn..?)
• Runesmiths (amazing research and eco boost)
• Cosmoflux Elixir (huge power boost)
• Astral Empire Tree (the best, by far)
• Knowledge SPIs / Structures (utterly dominant)
• XP Banner pickups (too snowbally)

These are just off the top of my head, there are probably some other, more minor things I forgot.
I can probably make an even longer list of things that are underpowered, which is unfortunate.
There needs to be a serious look at balance to bring the low end and the high end closer together.

Now, a lot (or all) of these things are able to be modded. But it takes tons and tons of hours to do this.
And the more that we change in mods, the more maintenance this requires when the game is updated.
Furthermore, people would prefer to play vanilla if they could. This also creates a divide in the community.

 

[SunSpartan]

I wouldn't call it P2W, as you can indeed share DLC with other players by hosting a lobby.
But I will fully agree that every time a new DLC introduces new content, it's blatantly OP.

What then follows is a 3-6 month period before any nerfs are applied (I'm surprised by the current open beta).
And even after all the nerfs have settled, the 50% of the content remains untouched and still too powerful.

I can make a list for every DLC touching on the new content that was OP on release or still is.
Yet for the Free Updates I never have any such complaints, outside of maybe Mystic Culture.

Here are things that are still issues in vanilla multiplayer, as in they are too powerful or cheesy:

• Giant Kings
• Shops
• Landmarks
• Artifacts
• Ancient Wonders (rewards/defenders)
• Ritualist/Warrior
• Tome of Prosperity
• Umbral Abyss
• Tome of the Cleansing Flame
• Corrupted Boon
• Mystic Summoning/Attunement
• Oathsworn Strife/Righteousness
• Infecting / Status Effect Immunity
• Industrious
• Balor/Reaper
• Snow Spirit (the whole Cryomancy tome tbh)
• Damaging World Spells
• Fabled Hunters
• Hermit Kingdom
• Swift Marchers
• Runesmiths
• Cosmoflux Elixir
• Astral Empire Tree
• Knowledge SPIs / Structures
• XP Banner pickups

These are just off the top of my head, there are probably some other, more minor things I forgot.
I can probably make an even longer list of things that are underpowered, which is unfortunate.

Now, a lot (or all) of these things are able to be modded. But it takes tons and tons of hours to do this.
And the more that we change in mods, the more maintenance this requires when the game is updated.
Furthermore, people would prefer to play vanilla if they could. This also creates a divide in the community.

I agree that some things could use rebalancing... but are you really going to argue that half the game is too OP? Thats so many things you're listing. If everything is cheesy, then nothing is.

 

[Codyksp]

I agree that some things could use rebalancing... but are you really going to argue that half the game is too OP? Thats so many things you're listing. If everything is cheesy, then nothing is.

I just listed:

• 1 out of 5 rulers
• 3 features new to Giant Kings
• 1 feature from Eldritch Realms
• 2 out of 7 Hero Classes
• 4 out of 70 tomes
• 5 out of 20 (sub)cultures
• 2 out of many Item Forge infusions
• 2 out of 8 very obtainable T5 units
• One category of spells
• 4 out of 36 Society Traits
• 1 out of 3 Magic Material collections
• 1 out of 6 Empire Tree affinities
• 1 out of 7 of the main resources
• 1 out of many World Map pickups

So no. This is not "half the game" or even a quarter of it. That's precisely the issue at hand.
It's a small subset of game features that are highly oppressive and invalidate the rest.
Or they are features that are simply so random and strong that they swing games very hard.

Many of the things I named are so problematic that they warp the game around them.
Sure, you can ignore them in single player. it doesn't change the issue of their power though.
Many people, in both SP and MP, cannot ignore such things. Making the game feel boring.

As many strategies/builds as possible should feel relatively the same in their power levels.
This is clearly not the case when there's extreme outliers that are optimal every single time.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

What if I decide to play with a Warrior Giant King in a Mystic Summoning Faction of Fabled Hunters and Hermit Kingdom starting with Cryomancy Tome?
Am I automatically banned?

 

[P5552]

What if I decide to play with a Warrior Giant King in a Mystic Summoning Faction of Fabled Hunters and Hermit Kingdom starting with Cryomancy Tome?
Am I automatically banned?

If you play a Mystic Summoning Faction with Fabled Hunters then you are already cooking

 

[Balthazar69]

A lot of what you describe are not exclusive with other gameplay. Like XP pickups. Ok it is good, but that doesn't delete others options.

Sam for shops etc.

Hermit kingdom come with a big trade off and is not that good. He is very good but not OP.

Tome of prosperity is good but not OP.

 

[Sifer2]

Eh they probably will tone some of this stuff down. There is also pretty good stuff from the Ogre Merchants but also garbage you wouldn't ever buy. I noticed that Landmark that let's you recruit the Dragons too. I was like well Tome of Dragon's is obsolete on any map that spawns lol.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Eh they probably will tone some of this stuff down. There is also pretty good stuff from the Ogre Merchants but also garbage you wouldn't ever buy. I noticed that Landmark that let's you recruit the Dragons too. I was like well Tome of Dragon's is obsolete on any map that spawns lol.

Not necessarily, you might still want to transform your species into dragons.

 

[lucaluca]

Please don’t nerf everything to the ground like primal culture was just because of the tiny fraction of muliplayer focused users in the game. I like having and fighting against powerful units in my games relegating everything to bland copies of each other sucks

What units do these things they added guarantee you fight against other than the giants themselves? This is all for human players, the AI will almost never achieve the steps necessary to get the crazy stuff. And in multiplayer these are banned. So it basically only works for the human single player.

 

[Xerberus]

I wouldn't call it P2W, as you can indeed share DLC with other players by hosting a lobby.
But I will fully agree that every time a new DLC introduces new content, it's blatantly OP.

What then follows is a 3-6 month period before any nerfs are applied (I'm surprised by the current open beta).
And even after all the nerfs have settled, the 50% of the content remains untouched and still too powerful.

I can make a list for every DLC touching on the new content that was OP on release or still is.
Yet for the Free Updates I never have any such complaints, outside of maybe Mystic Culture.

Here are things that are still issues in vanilla multiplayer, as in they are too powerful or cheesy:

• Giant Kings
• Shops
• Landmarks
• Artifacts
• Ancient Wonders (rewards/defenders)
• Ritualist/Warrior
• Tome of Prosperity
• Umbral Abyss
• Tome of the Cleansing Flame
• Corrupted Boon
• Mystic Summoning/Attunement
• Oathsworn Strife/Righteousness
• Infecting / Status Effect Immunity
• Industrious
• Balor/Reaper
• Snow Spirit (the whole Cryomancy tome tbh)
• Damaging World Spells
• Fabled Hunters
• Hermit Kingdom
• Swift Marchers
• Runesmiths
• Cosmoflux Elixir
• Astral Empire Tree
• Knowledge SPIs / Structures
• XP Banner pickups

These are just off the top of my head, there are probably some other, more minor things I forgot.
I can probably make an even longer list of things that are underpowered, which is unfortunate.

Now, a lot (or all) of these things are able to be modded. But it takes tons and tons of hours to do this.
And the more that we change in mods, the more maintenance this requires when the game is updated.
Furthermore, people would prefer to play vanilla if they could. This also creates a divide in the community.

Dude honestly, if this would be the steam forum somebody would've already asked you if you try to clown- / jester-farm.

Guys like you want everything grey and able to be planned out, no RNG or unexpected circumstances because chance but slightly disfavor you.

you list basically half the feature list of the game, 99% of the stuff you listed i wouldn't even consider out of balance or outstanding compared to the rest.

Giant Kings were squishy stat-wise before and now their defensive stats are a joke and hurl boulder has a 3 turn cooldown which is way to long and makes it almost unplayable, skilling into an ability which you might only use once, twice at maximum in a fight but have to spend at least 3 skill points to fully utilize it is just bad. but the devs changed it because some crybabies hate new stuff. that's basically what you don't want, you don't want anything changing up the gameplay, sad thing is that those things make the game more interesting and replayable, but you don't seem to recognise that.

i also bet that this list doesn't include your favorite build, only what you hate playing against or hate getting used against you.

"Damaging World Spells", like c'mon ... is this a joke for you? this is a fantasy 4x game, it should have those spells, currently they are also quite a joke. at release they were stonger and somebody focusing his build on those skills should be able to do that. there is counter play like spell jammers and stealth and whatnot.

i am truly happy that guys like you don't dictate how the game looks, otherwise everything fun would be removed. like you basically want to remove EVERYTHING on the world map except the cities and resource nodes. no pickups, no wonders, no unique sites, no nothing... just an empty field with some mobs ...what a sh*tty game that would be.

i see absolutely no problem with anything on your list, those things also exist in Heroes of Might & Magic 3 since ancient times and nobody has had a problem with them. there are absolutely no issues with anything you listed. it really seems to be a personal issue, you seem to want a much simpler game with low content and low replayability, just some minor features to play with, so nothing out of the ordinary can happen.

 

[Xerberus]

I just listed:

• 1 out of 5 rulers
• 3 features new to Giant Kings
• 1 feature from Eldritch Realms
• 2 out of 7 Hero Classes
• 4 out of 70 tomes
• 5 out of 20 (sub)cultures
• 2 out of many Item Forge infusions
• 2 out of 8 very obtainable T5 units
• One category of spells
• 4 out of 36 Society Traits
• 1 out of 3 Magic Material collections
• 1 out of 6 Empire Tree affinities
• 1 out of 7 of the main resources
• 1 out of many World Map pickups

So no. This is not "half the game" or even a quarter of it. That's precisely the issue at hand.
It's a small subset of game features that are highly oppressive and invalidate the rest.
Or they are features that are simply so random and strong that they swing games very hard.

Many of the things I named are so problematic that they warp the game around them.
Sure, you can ignore them in single player. it doesn't change the issue of their power though.
Many people, in both SP and MP, cannot ignore such things. Making the game feel boring.

As many strategies/builds as possible should feel relatively the same in their power levels.
This is clearly not the case when there's extreme outliers that are optimal every single time.

that is false, builds should not feel the same in their power levels, there can be differences, especially in the curve of power leveling.

you also didn't justify why you think those points are "problematic", i just call your list a bunch of horse crap, there is nothing "Warping" about them. people have preferences in what they want to play, new things will get played more often for a while. so you will see giant kings prevelant right now...duh...that's what you can expect after a huge expansion adding those things.

especially the cultures are quite well balanced with strength and weaknesses, both in their unit lineup and in their economy. just listing stuff out of your behind because you don't like them is no reason why they should be changed or removed.

like exp / banner pick up, those are relatively rare and give you ONE simple level / rank up, you maybe manage to use one or two during a game, but you act like they are everywhere and its a race to collect them all. there are so many other ways to earn exp, chasing only those around the map would be idiotic. many people who focus on multiplayer and follow some youtubers like a religion and praying the gospel of "MP META" cry about everything anybody gets slightly annoyed by.

like you dislike a whole empire tree branch (astral), which is a good option for a magical summon / tactical spell focused build ... but the other options aren't less strong. order is the best for a diplomatic/ vassal / rally of lieges kind of build, nature for growth and healing focus, materium for economy/defense and crafting build. like materium tree is in my opinion the most OP of the trees because it has so much good stuff EVERYONE can use. tell me two things you wouldn't like to have from the materium tree branch every game in every build. astral not so much if you don't focus on magic origin units and spellcasting ....and even then some options are quite mediocre, like about half the options are strong, the other half isn't.

"as many strategies/ builds as possible should feel relatively the same" <--- THAT is EXACTLY what NOBODY in their right might want! strategies and builds SHOULD NOT feel the same, otherwise why have them! what you want is a completely symmetrecial, boring, greay, non-reaplayable, always repetitive game with no deviations or anything interesting happening. i would bet even you wouldn't like it if you would actually play the game that way. sorry but what you write is a complete bunch of nonsense.

 

[Astronlmo]

Eh they probably will tone some of this stuff down. There is also pretty good stuff from the Ogre Merchants but also garbage you wouldn't ever buy. I noticed that Landmark that let's you recruit the Dragons too. I was like well Tome of Dragon's is obsolete on any map that spawns lol.

You still get the transformation, cleanse/heal, nice siege project, wyverns and fire bomb, which makes any battlemage a pretty damn good caster. For the sake of it, that Landmark only gives out of tome Prosperity/calamity dragons and Gold dragonfor cleansing breath.

 

[Codyksp]

What if I decide to play with a Warrior Giant King in a Mystic Summoning Faction of Fabled Hunters and Hermit Kingdom starting with Cryomancy Tome?
Am I automatically banned?

Good luck picking Fabled Hunters. But to answer, you would automatically have a huge advantage over the other players.
Assuming mostly equal skill levels, you're going to win the match simply by those choices. Which is not fun whatsoever.
Why would I want to play with weaker choices and auto lose the game when my opponents are of the same skill level as me?

A lot of what you describe are not exclusive with other gameplay. Like XP pickups. Ok it is good, but that doesn't delete others options.

Say that again when you have 1-2 banners and your opponent has 4-5, purely based on the RMG RNG.
Now your opponent has Legend rank units and +3 Hero levels while you have Elite rank units at best.
People in MP will clear, but not take, the banners and use them all right before a major battle happens.

Sam for shops etc.

Shops can grant Demon Step, giving Warrior Heroes an obscene amount of power.
Or they can grant you mounts for your army, if you didn't pick one in the pre-game.
Considering what a mount trait costs, I don't think I need to explain the power it gives.

Hermit kingdom come with a big trade off and is not that good. He is very good but not OP.

There is no trade-off. You aren't hindered by not being able to link your domain between cities.
Imperialists is a weak trait to begin with and you can easily not play Materium with this setup.
Anyone who thinks an Outpost will just disable it has never played multiplayer with humans.

Tome of prosperity is good but not OP.

No other tome at T4 levels is better for a melee based army. Name one for me, if you will.
Lack of (good) options can also make something feel oppressive. The point remains.

Please don’t nerf everything to the ground like primal culture was just because of the tiny fraction of muliplayer focused users in the game. I like having and fighting against powerful units in my games relegating everything to bland copies of each other sucks

Primal culture was never nerfed. You also seem to be entirely missing the point of a balanced game.
Why would I play with the 75% weak options when I can just always win and feel powerful with the other 25%?
How does it make logical sense to leave this 25% OP and leave the other 75% to feel horrible by comparison?
I want to be able to enjoy a different play style without feeling like I just amputated my right arm to do so.

And before you say "just buff the 75%". You need to understand that this takes more time and effort than nerfing 25%.
If the developers could just buff everything to the same level, they would. But they clearly don't have the time to do so.

Dude honestly, if this would be the steam forum somebody would've already asked you if you try to clown- / jester-farm.

I invite you to play a couple of games against highly skilled human players who abuse everything they can.
Let's see how many matches it takes before you begin to understand the problems listed. I'm curious.

The same for your second reply. You clearly haven't experienced being crushed due to picking a "weak "option.
If you think all of the cultures are equally balanced, you've never been challenged by anyone at a higher level.
Saying Order is equal to Astral shows a deep lack of understanding of the fundamentals of the game from you.

You also very conveniently left out the quote where I said "the same in their power levels". Not in their play style.

 

[seperamos]

Just to add, dragons and giants RULERS are supposed to be stronger. They should be able to obliterate at least one stack of t1s.

Dragon rulers should have the advantage of flight or power and able to master any affinity magic. Giant rulers should have power and the use of giant weapons and/or specializing in elemental magic. It should take multiple low level stacks or multiple low level heroes to beat em. And even if a champ or wk are equipped with specific dragon or giant slaying items, it should still be a tough fight.

I think players want power behind their dragons and giants rulers, expressed in similiar and different ways. As they are now, they mostly fit that, but I don't know the precise stats they need to keep those themes of power mentioned.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

If you play a Mystic Summoning Faction with Fabled Hunters then you are already cooking

What's the synergy between the two of them? Or is it just that Fabled Hunters is that powerful?

Can someone explain to me why Fabled Hunters is considered so strong?

 

[Codyksp]

Just to add, dragons and giants RULERS are supposed to be stronger. They should be able to obliterate at least one stack of t1s.

Dragon rulers should have the advantage of flight or power and able to master any affinity magic. Giant rulers should have power and the use of giant weapons and/or specializing in elemental magic. It should take multiple low level stacks or multiple low level heroes to beat em. And even if a champ or wk are equipped with specific dragon or giant slaying items, it should still be a tough fight.

I think players want power behind their dragons and giants rulers, expressed in similiar and different ways. As they are now, they mostly fit that, but I don't know the precise stats they need to keep those themes of power mentioned.

This doesn't mean they should inherently be stronger than Champion/Wizard King/Eldritch Sovereign.
Because if that's the case, why would I ever want to pick one of the other 3 at the start of the game?

They all need to have some form of unique power, at some point in the game. One shouldn't eclipse the rest.
At this moment Giant Kings have the best personal power, army power and governor power.
Doesn't matter that Wizard King has spells and CP, they are weaker in every stage of the game.

The issue lies not in making them all equal and "boring" as people who misinterpret everything I say will claim.
The issue lies in making sure all options feel good to play and have similar power over the course of a game.

What's the synergy between the two of them? Or is it just that Fabled Hunters is that powerful?

Can someone explain to me why Fabled Hunters is considered so strong?

It's simple really. This game consists of clearing Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders and Infestations.
That's quite literally your gameplay loop for the entire game. It's how you obtain resources and XP.
Anyone who isn't focusing on these objectives will fall extremely far behind in terms of global power.

Fabled Hunters increases the primary thing you do in this game by 75%. What more need I explain?

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

It's simple really. This game consists of clearing Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders and Infestations.
That's quite literally your gameplay loop for the entire game. It's how you obtain resources and XP.
Anyone who isn't focusing on these objectives will fall extremely far behind in terms of global power.

Fabled Hunters increases the primary thing you do in this game by 75%. What more need I explain?

I mean, a lot of your resources also come from your cities and buildings? Don't get me wrong, nearly doubly the gold and mana and so on you get from clearing stuff is useful, allows you to rush stuff more easily and help accelerate your cities. But it doesn't exactly help much with upkeep you know?

Then again, I suppose unless your playing High Upkeep realms, that likely won't be an issue.