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

[Codyksp]

I think if AOW4 wants to push it's PvP community that's the route to take. A MP centric mod with a clear league ruleset that establishes something akin to the Civ6 CPL: https://cpl.gg/

We already have a huge mod and house rules. But let me tell you, nobody enjoys a list of 100 rules.
Just like nobody enjoys disabling half the game because it's all single player focused stuff that's OP.

And I, for one, don't enjoy spending 100s of hours of my free time managing such a mod and community.
The more Triumph can do to remove this barrier to entry, the healthier the multiplayer community will be.

And it starts with proper balance.

... Weak isn't subjective though? If something is bellow par or never picked, then its weak. No ifs or buts.

There's no reasoning with him on this. Astronimo doesn't understand power levels in PvP.
He will just tell you to not play with X or Y if they are strong. Just handicap yourself on purpose.

Well, what if I enjoy the strong things because of their gameplay and not their actual power?
What if I enjoy something that's just very weak? Saying no such thing exists is utter nonsense.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

My friend, all you do is post negative replies and click "Haha" on every post. I don't exactly call that acting in good faith.
Sometimes the answer is simple and we don't need to spend 10 hours debating whether a change is required or not.

that’s because you have been quite funny and we are not arguing if a change is required or not, we are discussing what that changes needs to be and I am arguing that if the devs only use the input solely of MP that play with their mods then that input is “tainted” by the mods.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

How would you make conduits a more attractive pick?

I think it is more to make research posts cost something (gold or mana).

 

[Codyksp]

that’s because you have been quite funny and we are not arguing if a change is required or not, we are discussing what that changes needs to be and I am arguing that if the devs only use the input solely of MP that play with their mods then that input is “tainted” by the mods.

So answer these two questions then, because again you are just making assumptions and being biased because of it.

• Who said MP feedback was given from a modded PoV?
• Who said only MP feedback was used by the devs?

I will answer for you. Nobody. Not a single person here should be stupid enough to believe the devs only listen to MP.
And nobody said that people are giving feedback based on modded games. My community provides vanilla based feedback.

It's folly to claim that players who have been playing this game in MP for 2 years don't know what they're talking about.

 

[Dreepa]

We already have a huge mod and house rules. But let me tell you, nobody enjoys a list of 100 rules.
Just like nobody enjoys disabling half the game because it's all single player focused stuff that's OP.

And I, for one, don't enjoy spending 100s of hours of my free time managing such a mod and community.
The more Triumph can do to remove this barrier to entry, the healthier the multiplayer community will be.

You are exaggerating.
Civ6 is super comparable. As close as it gets.

They have a huge thriving compeitive community with just 2 main mods. Balance mod and better starts.

What stops the AOW 4 community from doing the same?

 

[$ilent_$trider]

So answer these two questions then, because again you are just making assumptions and being biased because of it.

• Who said MP feedback was given from a modded PoV?
• Who said only MP feedback was used by the devs?

You were the one bringing about the mods you and your group needs to play the game.

Let’s say your community plays 50% of the multiplayer games with the mods, then that means Triumph can’t reliably use the data from those games.

And I am arguing that it is not that your input is invalid, but you have been since almost first post making calls to authority against anyone that slightly disagrees with you (which is the part that I have found hilarious).
And I am not arguing that Triumph only uses MP data to decide about the game, again, I am arguing that if the majority of MP matches are with mods, then that gets “tainted”.

For instance, we have bunch of places that either abilities/traits/enchantments give static bonuses or a percentage bonus. And we all know that percentage bonuses are better because they may start weak but increase considerably on the long run. Then the question becomes, should we balance everything around percentage bonuses or should we balance everything around static bonuses?

 

[Codyksp]

You were the one bringing about the mods you and your group needs to play the game.

Let’s say your community plays 50% of the multiplayer games with the mods, then that means Triumph can’t reliably use the data from those games.

And I am arguing that it is not that your input is invalid, but you have been since almost first post making calls to authority against anyone that slightly disagrees with you (which is the part that I have been found hilarious).
And I am not arguing that Triumph only uses MP data to decide about the game, again, I am arguing that if the majority of MP matches are with mods, then that gets “tainted”.

For instance, we have bunch of places that either abilities/traits/enchantments give static bonuses or a percentage bonus. And we all know that percentage bonuses are better because they may start weak but increase considerably on the long run. Then the question becomes, should we balance everything around percentage bonuses or should we balance everything around static bonuses?

I said 2 groups play with mods yes. And in a lot of cases the mod changes overlap between us.
That should already point out that we all experience the same issues up to a certain degree.
We also play with mostly the same house rules, another indicator that there are global problems.

Now, do you really believe people who've spent 2 years in MP just throw out a change willy nilly?
Do you believe we don't constantly test out new changes and revert to vanilla on big updates?

We know exactly how vanilla functions and how it's full of completely broken mechanics that we can abuse.
We regularly check in on these things and they are unchanged. As proven by Guthuk's community as well.
The same for WinSlaya's community, another full vanilla group. We regularly speak with them and test stuff.

The argument that you as a single player exclusive player know just as much as MP is just unrealistic.
Even the developers have said they trust MP far more when it comes to game balance takes.

 

[lucaluca]

Weak is subjective though. One thing is when you get 10% more damage on unit A vs B, but the environment has it's own quirks, and another question is when unit B is 100% behind unit A.

Second case doesn't exist in the game. First case is what we have. Yes, some stuff should get a look, but even that stuff is totally playable against brutal AI.

Also, AI. Love how people like trashing it by abusing a specific logic it has. Like summon vines. And then they whine about game being boring. I tell them what, if you can't overcome minmaxing and exploiting, then you don't play the game at all. You play a visualized spreadsheet.

And in case if someone forgot, visualized spreadsheets don't sell well.

Weak is objective. It's a strategy game, made by math formulas.

Vines is a good example. They were bonkers initially, they are my fave spell and i hated that they nerfed them. But they are still strong, so at the end of the day, they did good even though it affected my fave spell. Or manticore spam in AoW3, never nerfed, made the late game ugly and dreadful against even AI warlords.

Guys don't be afraid your favorite toy will be taken away if they balance things, it will only make the game more fun for everyone. And the only way things can be balanced is by looking at the multiplayer community for advice, people like Cody, Winslaya and Guthuk who create content, mod, and manage communities and do an enormous amount of work for all of us.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

My point is, that flat "it's bad" never works. The issue might not be with the unit/tome/spell , but rather with something that interacts with it.

Dark is bad because its unique buildings countering negativity stability is basically worthless, Cull the Weak is too narrow to be off full use (and regeneration is not what I would expect from a name like that), and the extra use out of the Crypts and Prison Cells are too RNG compared to other cultures.

Great Builders is a bad social trait because the amount of gold it gives is pitiful, and SPIs aren't so difficult to build that the 50% decrease in production makes a meaningful difference. Talented Collectors can give you a decent start early, but otherwise is far too RNG-dependent to give your cities a meaningful boost to their economy. And Ancient Wise Ones is also too random to be of much use. -60% to a single research in a tome when you generally don't want every research in a tome can be frustrating, and its much better to just have a Research boost that you can control.

Do you want me to go on? Simple number boosts aren't always necessary, sure, goodness knows how long I have been shouting into the void that the Entwined Thrall needs to evolve into a Skirmisher rather than a Shield unit, despite the fact that OTHER units have been changed to address that exact same issue. But at the same time, if something is bad... its still bad. Regardless of if the fix is simple or not.

I think it is more to make research posts cost something (gold or mana).

Making Research have a cost would be a significant change... but we've seen stuff like the Hero Rework, and it would be easier to implement, so it is possible.

 

[seperamos]

I said 2 groups play with mods yes. And in a lot of cases the mod changes overlap between us.
That should already point out that we all experience the same issues up to a certain degree.
We also play with mostly the same house rules, another indicator that there are global problems.

Now, do you really believe people who've spent 2 years in MP just throw out a change willy nilly?
Do you believe we don't constantly test out new changes and revert to vanilla on big updates?

We know exactly how vanilla functions and how it's full of completely broken mechanics that we can abuse.
We regularly check in on these things and they are unchanged. As proven by Guthuk's community as well.
The same for WinSlaya's community, another full vanilla group. We regularly speak with them and test stuff.

The argument that you as a single player exclusive player know just as much as MP is just unrealistic.
Even the developers have said they trust MP far more when it comes to game balance takes.

You have to pick your battles and go through the game line by line, from data point to data point. We all want the game to be fun and fair, just dont twist it into an esports ripoff of other games that use parallel balance instead of the asymmetric balance we're used to in this game. The search for balance shouldnt just benefit the MP community, because MP is not the main focus of the game! There's no incentives for playing MP, and all these mods and house rules are not enough to encourage that section, without giving pantheon more of a purpose in multiplayer lobbies. Give us more reasons to play multiplayer and show off our custom rulers.

We want to help you and the devs make this game better. Stop attacking us for voicing our opinions and start with the most pressing problems. What is the most pressing balance issue right now? I don't want to hear how giant rulers should hit like halfling champions.

 

[Astronlmo]

Dark is bad because its unique buildings countering negativity stability is basically worthless, Cull the Weak is too narrow to be off full use (and regeneration is not what I would expect from a name like that), and the extra use out of the Crypts and Prison Cells are too RNG compared to other cultures.

Great Builders is a bad social trait because the amount of gold it gives is pitiful, and SPIs aren't so difficult to build that the 50% decrease in production makes a meaningful difference. Talented Collectors can give you a decent start early, but otherwise is far too RNG-dependent to give your cities a meaningful boost to their economy. And Ancient Wise Ones is also too random to be of much use. -60% to a single research in a tome when you generally don't want every research in a tome can be frustrating, and its much better to just have a Research boost that you can control.

Do you want me to go on? Simple number boosts aren't always necessary, sure, goodness knows how long I have been shouting into the void that the Entwined Thrall needs to evolve into a Skirmisher rather than a Shield unit, despite the fact that OTHER units have been changed to address that exact same issue. But at the same time, if something is bad... its still bad. Regardless of if the fix is simple or not.



Making Research have a cost would be a significant change... but we've seen stuff like the Hero Rework, and it would be easier to implement, so it is possible.

Sure, go on.
A need to know more intensifies.

 

[Astronlmo]

Weak is objective. It's a strategy game, made by math formulas.

Vines is a good example. They were bonkers initially, they are my fave spell and i hated that they nerfed them. But they are still strong, so at the end of the day, they did good even though it affected my fave spell. Or manticore spam in AoW3, never nerfed, made the late game ugly and dreadful against even AI warlords.

Guys don't be afraid your favorite toy will be taken away if they balance things, it will only make the game more fun for everyone. And the only way things can be balanced is by looking at the multiplayer community for advice, people like Cody, Winslaya and Guthuk who create content, mod, and manage communities and do an enormous amount of work for all of us.

I would not mind if that mp community would completely die off or move to another game. Perfect case would be a separate balancing, so they could shut up, finally, but it's not going to happen.

And if you still don't understand of why mp community know absolutely nothing about how to design the game or balance things, watch community council for SC2. And those guys earn money, just in case.

 

[P5552]

I would not mind if that mp community would completely die off or move to another game. Perfect case would be a separate balancing, so they could shut up, finally, but it's not going to happen.

And if you still don't understand of why mp community know absolutely nothing about how to design the game or balance things, watch community council for SC2. And those guys earn money, just in case.

MP community is usually made of the most dedicated players. If they complain, it means that they care. No matter what kind of game you are designing, you don't want to alienate the people who care about it the most, do you?

And to stay truthful to facts, many changes from the player-made balance mods got implemented into the base game by Triumph developers, meaning they perhaps know a bit of two about designing or balancing things.

Separate balancing for multiplayer and singleplayer sounds like a terrible idea too. You play a singleplayer map and your units, your faction, your buildings and your tomes work drastically different from what you are used to from multiplayer - and vice versa? Sounds like a terrible experience.

In all honestly, I don't quite see the point you're trying to make, and frankly, the tone you use is pretty disgusting. Please take other fans with respect, you aren't the only person here.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

Sure, go on.
A need to know more intensifies.

Hmmm, okay. Not going to go over every culture or trait. But instead... lets try the Empire Trees. Ranking from the best to the worst:

Arcane is fantastic. You get to cast more spells at a cheaper cost, your research is supported extremely well, and your summons get to be stronger too. Oh, and one of its rituals is free magic materials across the Empire. How broken is that?

The Materium Tree is solid from start to finish. Focused on Gold first, productivity second, and some bonuses to resilience to the units. There is not a single item I wouldn't want to take.

Nature is too heavily focused on Food for my liking, but there's no denying that its focus on food and expansion gives it some potent tools, both early and late. The touch of healing and movement in your domain has its uses too. I feel like Nature needs to lean a bit more into the mysticism and druidic side of Nature, though, not just the growth and expansion. Gives us a few more tools to help us gain mana, or be more efficient when using that mana in drudic ways, and I'll be happy.

Order is okay. Focused around vassals, free cities and Rally of the Lieges. Means that if you don't have free cities or rare free cities, its power is crippled. Plus, I just don't like the Rally of the Lieges system. Idk why, it just doesn't click well with me. Also, while the 'Order of X' stuff is kinda nice as a final ability, not all of the Orders feel that impactful, and they could do with some tweaks IMO.

Shadow, meanwhile, has some good things in the research boosts, Death casting, Regen in hostile domains and Whisper Stones. But it feels a bit all over the place. The Hero support comes way too late to be useful, Universal Camoflarge in my domain makes me laugh, and infinite sensing range and revealing the entire map? Again, by that point, I've likely explored everything I need, and it'll likely just cause my turns to take ages to finish as the AI do everything they need to do on-screen rather than off-screen (maybe I should click options to make those loading times quicker...)

Finally, Chaos, my least-liked tree. It's all about war and destruction. Killing things, pillaging provinces, razing cities... it's a hyper-aggressive playstyle which not only doesn't fit me, but doesn't scream chaos to me. Chaos is more than random acts of violence and utter destruction and death, you know? It gives me a bad taste in my mouth. You are playing Chosen Destroyers and nothing else; that's what the tree feels to me.

I would not mind if that mp community would completely die off or move to another game. Perfect case would be a separate balancing, so they could shut up, finally, but it's not going to happen.

And if you still don't understand of why mp community know absolutely nothing about how to design the game or balance things, watch community council for SC2. And those guys earn money, just in case.

... Annnnd now I wish I didn't bother. Wow.

 

[Astronlmo]

MP community is usually made of the most dedicated players. If they complain, it means that they care. No matter what kind of game you are designing, you don't want to alienate the people who care about it the most.
And to stay truthful to facts, many changes from the player-made balance mods got implemented into the base game by Triumph developers, meaning they perhaps know a bit of two about designing or balancing things.
Separate balancing for multiplayer and singleplayer sounds like a terrible idea too. You play a singleplayer map and your units, your faction, your buildings and your tomes work drastically different from what you are used to from multiplayer - and vice versa? Sounds like a terrible experience.

It doesn't sound as a terrible experience if you think about it. In single player you fight against somewhat stable environment. AI won't adapt to you, it will it's predetermined path (based on weightings). And it's up to player to exploit it or no. For obvious reasons, huge outliers need to be looked at.

Now, for mp. It's an asymmetrical 4x game, you can't have a balanced experience here no matter what. In addition to that, nobody is trying to fix the actual problem there, they only tweak numbers to counter symptoms. And guess what happens? Another cookie cutter emerges. But the problem remains, and that problem is the key difference between sweaty pants and single player enjoyer. Tech rush.

And from my personal experience, having x5 or so research per turn were the most enjoyable games. Point is to make research cost you something, fix the economy, slow down the game, make the war of attrition and actual strategy a thing.

You can't achieve that with the mentality of "nobody plays Culture X" or "why would I not pick rock giant?".

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

But the problem remains, and that problem is the key difference between sweaty pants and single player enjoyer. Tech rush.

And from my personal experience, having x5 or so research per turn were the most enjoyable games. Point is to make research cost you something, fix the economy, slow down the game, make the war of attrition and actual strategy a thing.

You can't achieve that with the mentality of "nobody plays Culture X" or "why would I not pick rock giant?".

... Why not?

Why can't people have the menatility of 'nobody plays Culture X' or 'The rock giant is OP' and also have the mentatily off 'Research is too strong and needs to be nerfed'? Didn't Cody specifically mention how Research SPIs, especially from DLCs, feel overturned and overpowered in this thread?

 

[Astronlmo]

Hmmm, okay. Not going to go over every culture or trait. But instead... lets try the Empire Trees. Ranking from the best to the worst:

Arcane is fantastic. You get to cast more spells at a cheaper cost, your research is supported extremely well, and your summons get to be stronger too. Oh, and one of its rituals is free magic materials across the Empire. How broken is that?

The Materium Tree is solid from start to finish. Focused on Gold first, productivity second, and some bonuses to resilience to the units. There is not a single item I wouldn't want to take.

Nature is too heavily focused on Food for my liking, but there's no denying that its focus on food and expansion gives it some potent tools, both early and late. The touch of healing and movement in your domain has its uses too. I feel like Nature needs to lean a bit more into the mysticism and druidic side of Nature, though, not just the growth and expansion. Gives us a few more tools to help us gain mana, or be more efficient when using that mana in drudic ways, and I'll be happy.

Order is okay. Focused around vassals, free cities and Rally of the Lieges. Means that if you don't have free cities or rare free cities, its power is crippled. Plus, I just don't like the Rally of the Lieges system. Idk why, it just doesn't click well with me. Also, while the 'Order of X' stuff is kinda nice as a final ability, not all of the Orders feel that impactful, and they could do with some tweaks IMO.

Shadow, meanwhile, has some good things in the research boosts, Death casting, Regen in hostile domains and Whisper Stones. But it feels a bit all over the place. The Hero support comes way too late to be useful, Universal Camoflarge in my domain makes me laugh, and infinite sensing range and revealing the entire map? Again, by that point, I've likely explored everything I need, and it'll likely just cause my turns to take ages to finish as the AI do everything they need to do on-screen rather than off-screen (maybe I should click options to make those loading times quicker...)

Finally, Chaos, my least-liked tree. It's all about war and destruction. Killing things, pillaging provinces, razing cities... it's a hyper-aggressive playstyle which not only doesn't fit me, but doesn't scream chaos to me. Chaos is more than random acts of violence and utter destruction and death, you know? It gives me a bad taste in my mouth. You are playing Chosen Destroyers and nothing else; that's what the tree feels to me.



... Annnnd now I wish I didn't bother. Wow.

And how exactly it proves your theory of "stuff X is unusable"? You exactly proved my point, that there's no extremes in the game, everything is useful in different situations. Surely, some tweaks here and there would be nice, like in the shadow I'd rather move hero XP earlier, though nerfing it to 30%. And for the sake of it, each imperium tree does their specific job. Which is focusing on what it's doing best. Order pushes vassals to the limit, chaos feeds the machines of war, allowing better forced march, experience, free low tier units and so on. Materium is based on your own internal economy, nature gives expansion, fast and clean. Finally astral is focused on casting and magic origin units, which fits it's tomes. Shadow is a bit all over the place, but hardly unusable.

 

[Codyksp]

Arcane is fantastic. You get to cast more spells at a cheaper cost, your research is supported extremely well, and your summons get to be stronger too. Oh, and one of its rituals is free magic materials across the Empire. How broken is that?

The only thing in this entire tree that I wouldn't want to click on is Rite of the Astral Summons.
Everything else is good, and a lot of them are too good like Focused Studies and Arcane Inspiration.

The Materium Tree is solid from start to finish. Focused on Gold first, productivity second, and some bonuses to resilience to the units. There is not a single item I wouldn't want to take.

Consolidated Industry and Provincial Architects are very bad for their cost and position.
Resourceful Vigor is also not really a great node, it should be reworked entirely.

Nature is too heavily focused on Food for my liking, but there's no denying that its focus on food and expansion gives it some potent tools, both early and late. The touch of healing and movement in your domain has its uses too.

Soiltenders, Expert Sailors, Wild Expansion, Natural Order, Druidic Care and Rangers are all very weak.
Especially Rangers is just total garbage, as you already hit minimum movement cost with Advanced Logistics.
I also believe Druidic Empire doesn't belong at the end, but rather near the middle of the tree instead.

Order is okay. Focused around vassals, free cities and Rally of the Lieges. Means that if you don't have free cities or rare free cities, its power is crippled. Plus, I just don't like the Rally of the Lieges system. Idk why, it just doesn't click well with me. Also, while the 'Order of X' stuff is kinda nice as a final ability, not all of the Orders feel that impactful, and they could do with some tweaks IMO.

I would say Justified Wars is very bad when compared to Destined Conquerors. That's the only real bad one.
Everything else is fine, but it's far too focused on Vassal gameplay, which makes Order affinity feel bad to get.

Shadow, meanwhile, has some good things in the research boosts, Death casting, Regen in hostile domains and Whisper Stones. But it feels a bit all over the place. The Hero support comes way too late to be useful, Universal Camoflarge in my domain makes me laugh, and infinite sensing range and revealing the entire map?

Shadow is decent, but for example Stolen Power is too weak and too late to be useful.
Dark Vigor feels very meh and all the Hero bonuses feel like catch-up mechanics.
Shadow Domain is indeed a joke, that one and Cryptblade are both an absolute joke.

Finally, Chaos, my least-liked tree. It's all about war and destruction. Killing things, pillaging provinces, razing cities... it's a hyper-aggressive playstyle which not only doesn't fit me, but doesn't scream chaos to me. Chaos is more than random acts of violence and utter destruction and death, you know? It gives me a bad taste in my mouth. You are playing Chosen Destroyers and nothing else; that's what the tree feels to me.

There are quite a few weak nodes in this tree. Impressment and Battlefield Looting are simply underpowered.
Lure of the Horde comes way too late to be useful, it should be giving T2/T3 units rather than T1/T2.
Rite of War is useless and Rite of Possession really feels like a joke. That one needs a huge buff imo.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

And how exactly it proves your theory of "stuff X is unusable"?

... Its not?

I never said 'stuff X is unusable' I said 'stuff X is clearly underpowered and weaker than the rest so it needs to be fixed?'

Please actually read and compherened what I am saying before replying to it.

Consolidated Industry and Provincial Architects are very bad for their cost and position.
Resourceful Vigor is also not really a great node, it should be reworked entirely.

I wouldn't say very bad... but yeah, underpowered, especially for the cost.

Resourceful Vigor meanwhile, I found to be quite useful. Maybe it could be reworked, but in general, increasing regeneration when standing around and doing nothing is very useful when you are busy pillaging or sieging.

But in general, we do seem to be in agreement? Arcane is best by far, Materium second, and then the others are far weaker and need to be improved?

 

[seperamos]

The imperium tree needs more nodes, and the nodes on the branches for each affinity need to be under a theme. That makes sense.

The questions are, how many nodes should each affinity branch have, should each branch have nodes organized in groups like affinity warfare or affinity economics, and how many builds can be done within each branch?

Such a system being implemented could lead to 3 possible builds for each affinity: imperial combat focus research, imperial economic focus research, and mixed imperial research that picks and chooses different nodes up to a set number within the branch.

This demonstrates clear limits and asymmetrical balance, each affinity being given the same number of choices while the choices themselves can offer a limited variety of benefits.