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

[Codyksp]

You were the one that went to talk to me over just the fact that I had stated that multiplayer WITH MODS can muddle Triumph’s data gathering and then you went on an ongoing rant that MP players are superior to SP players and anyone that doesn’t agree with you 100% is just wrong.

To reiterate, people are free to play with mods all they want, specially when the studio supports a mod community. All I asked was for you to understand why proper data gathering needs to be without mods but I guess you have some past trauma that you can not let go anyone to disagree with you.

And I told you three times over that all of our feedback is based on vanilla gameplay.
Corroborated with 2 other, pure vanilla, communities and discussed at length.

So. What argument do you have left now? Let's hear the next reason why you disagree.

Cody, let's start with the simple things that can be fixed easily.

Whats wrong with fabled hunters?

With all due respect I am not going through the entire list of problematic items with you 1 by 1.
It will be a 5 page discussion of back and forth posting, especially with all these trolls butting in.
And that's just to answer this one question. Never mind all the other questions you want to ask.

I posted my list. I gave my background. I provided multiple videos with explanations.
If people won't take the time to do research and play some games, I can't help you.

I did my best, but when trolls constantly flood the thread we can't have a discussion.

 

[seperamos]

And I told you three times over that all of our feedback is based on vanilla gameplay.
Corroborated with 2 other, pure vanilla, communities and discussed at length.

So. What argument do you have left now? Let's hear the next reason why you disagree.


With all due respect I am not going through the entire list of problematic items with you 1 by 1.
It will be a 5 page discussion of back and forth posting, especially with all these trolls butting in.
And that's just to answer this one question. Nevermind all the other questions you want to ask.

I posted my list. I gave my background. I provides multiple videos with explanations.
If people won't take the time to do research and play some games, I can't help you.

I did my best, but when 3 trolls constantly flood the thread we can't have a discussion.

You mentioned fabled hunters as overpowered. I looked at all the faction traits, every one of the affinities have 2 combat+ traits. Fabled hunters is one of them for nature.

Why are they overpowered? Shouldn't every affinity get at least 1 good infestation clearing trait?

 

[Balthazar69]

With all due respect I am not going through the entire list of problematic items with you 1 by 1.

So I resume, you don't want to discuss points, nor even justify your lying remarks.

You treats us like trolls when :
It is not complicated... Find-me A moment where I say MP means nothing. You don't find ? So, no, the only troll here is you. You can't respond because I can tell you : that doesn't exist anywhere... Since yesterday I say the opposite : all the way to play must be considered.

Victimization ("I'm not allowed to debate," says the guy who despises everyone, then gets offended.), inversion of the situation, lying, distorted statements. Sorry, but no debate can be good with you. Now end of the joke, I lost enough time with that. (And obviously I block you now. I discover the ignore button !^^ Perfect)

 

[Codyksp]

You mentioned fabled hunters as overpowered. I looked at all the faction traits, every one of the affinities have 2 combat+ traits. Fabled hunters is one of them for nature.

Why are they overpowered? Shouldn't every affinity get at least 1 good infestation clearing trait?

You are viewing this in a much too simplistic manner. It doesn't matter what kind of category the trait has.
What matters is what the trait is giving you in terms of economy. All traits convert to economy somehow.
Being stronger in combat means you can take more fights, which means you can clear more of the map.
Healing faster also means you can take more fights, just like movement. It all translates into economy.

Economy is the driving force behind this game, everything comes back down to Production/Gold/Knowledge.
Mana is less important because you simply can't do as much with it as you can with the other 3 resources.
Food and Draft are even worse, as Draft is situationally required and Food just has very poor scaling.

So what does Fabled Hunters do?

• It grants you 5 HP regeneration, and a Ranged unit which means you can clear the map better.
• It grants you +75% resources from clearing Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders and Infestations.

What are you doing the entire time you play the game? You're clearing the map as much as possible.
Clearing the map grants XP and rewards, rewards grant economy, economy grants more/stronger units.
It also grants you more cities, or rather bigger and better cities. Which again translates to army power.
Knowledge/Gold/Mana/Production/Food/Draft all translate to more/better armies in one way or another.
I'll also mention Imperium as Ancient Wonders can grant this as a reward, and it will be multiplied too.

All the competitive players spend every single turn clearing multiple independent armies on the map.
These can be Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders, Magic Materials, Infestations or Guarded Pickups.

If you do the math for what +75% rewards means, multiplied by fights taken per turn, you'll understand.
The amount of raw resources you get is huge. No other trait can match this power, not a single one.
Even if the trait becomes a bit weaker late game, it's all about the snowball. Kick-starting your economy.

Try playing a match with any other trait, you'll notice a big difference in your economy and power.

 

[seperamos]

You are viewing this in a much too simplistic manner. It doesn't matter what kind of category the trait has.
What matters is what the trait is giving you in terms of economy. All traits convert to economy somehow.
Being stronger in combat means you can take more fights, which means you can clear more of the map.
Healing faster also means you can take more fights, just like movement. It all translates into economy.

Economy is the driving force behind this game, everything comes back down to Production/Gold/Knowledge.
Mana is less important because you simply can't do as much with it as you can with the other 3 resources.
Food and Draft are even worse, as Draft is situationally required and Food just has very poor scaling.

So what does Fabled Hunters do?

• It grants you 5 HP regeneration, and a Ranged unit which means you can clear the map better.
• It grants you +75% resources from clearing Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders and Infestations.

What are you doing the entire time you play the game? You're clearing the map as much as possible.
Clearing the map grants XP and rewards, rewards grant economy, economy grants more/stronger units.
It also grants you more cities, or rather bigger and better cities. Which again translates to army power.
Knowledge/Gold/Mana/Production/Food/Draft all translate to more/better armies in one way or another.
I'll also mention Imperium as Ancient Wonders can grant this as a reward, and it will be multiplied too.

All the competitive players spend every single turn clearing multiple independent armies on the map.
These can be Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders, Magic Materials, Infestations or Guarded Pickups.

If you do the math for what +75% rewards means, multiplied by fights taken per turn, you'll understand.
The amount of raw resources you get is huge. No other trait can match this power, not a single one.
Even if the trait becomes a bit weaker late game, it's all about the snowball. Kick-starting your economy.

Try playing a match with any other trait, you'll notice a big difference in your economy and power.

How do you propose to fix this trait to keep it to a similiar power to the other combat+ traits?

 

[Codyksp]

How do you propose to fix this trait to keep it to a similiar power to the other combat+ traits?

This one is simple, whether you will believe me or not is a different story of course.

The developers once lowered it from 100% to 75%, as they saw the issue as well.
This was a long time ago and the game has changed a lot since that moment.

Simply lower it to 50% and it will automatically settle in as a good, but not overpowered option.
I know because we've tested this in my community (performance comparisons before and after).
The trait is still picked quite commonly at 50% because it just solves a lot of economical problems.

In some cases the answer is simply +1 or +5, or -10%. You see this all the time in the patch notes.
My community has done the testing via modding and concludes that this is a good power level.

You can disagree, but then you have to go do your own testing and provide your own solution.

 

[seperamos]

This one is simple, whether you will believe me or not is a different story of course.

The developers once lowered it from 100% to 75%, as they saw the issue as well.
This was a long time ago and the game has changed a lot since that moment.

Simply lower it to 50% and it will automatically settle in as a good, but not overpowered option.
I know because we've tested this in my community (performance comparisons before and after).
The trait is still picked quite commonly at 50% because it just solves a lot of economical problems.

In some cases the answer is simply +1 or +5, or -10%. You see this all the time in the patch notes.
My community has done the testing via modding and concludes that this is a good power level.

You can disagree, but then you have to go do your own testing and provide your own solution.

I just want all faction traits to be feasible options for different playstyles. I grouped FH as a combat+ traits because if we're all going to be serious about balancing this game while still providing options for players who want to play a certain way, traits have to be organized into groups depending on what they do.

If nobody else here can give Cody and the rest of us a good counterargument as to why fable hunters shouldn't have their Resource output reduced to 50%, then this is an acceptable solution. Hopefully, the multiplayer community will be fine with this change so we can move on to more important subjects. Like Rulers and heroes.

 

[Codyksp]

While Fabled Hunters is the most oppressive Society Trait alongside Hermit Kingdom (if we ignore Cult and Marchers).
It is by far the smallest issue the game faces. Though that's no excuse to not just tweak the numbers next update.

The thing is that this thread specifically is about "P2W DLC", basically how new content is consistently better than old content.
General balance as well as the deeper problems are being discussed in the other thread, that I started over 1 year ago.

So, in a way, both threads have overlap. But I'd view this one as a balance thread and the other as focused on deeper issues.

 

[seperamos]

While Fabled Hunters is the most oppressive Society Trait alongside Hermit Kingdom (if we ignore Cult and Marchers).
It is by far the smallest issue the game faces. Though that's no excuse to not just tweak the numbers next update.

The thing is that this thread specifically is about "P2W DLC", basically how new content is consistently better than old content.
General balance as well as the deeper problems are being discussed in the other thread, that I started over 1 year ago.

So, in a way, both threads have overlap. But I'd view this one as a balance thread and the other as focused on deeper issues.

I have a feeling the cycle is impress players with new and amazing content, let them shell out the bucks for it, and then regulate the new content to a more standard version. I don't see this trend stopping anytime soon.

This game should emphasize asymmetrical balance, which i interpret to mean different affinities doing different things, within tiers and classifications and subsystems of power. The t1s are a perfect example, every culture should have useful t1s similiar in stats but varied in their applications.

The challenge is to keep this game interesting, but fair. Tome paths, faction builds, manual combat strategies and expanded choices on stack compositions should prevent lackluster gameplay during the quest for reasonable asymmetrical balance.

Regarding Cult of Personality, thats going to have to be banned for mp because it's a single player focused rpg sim. It's too popular to remove and I can't see a way to tweak it that would satisfy both SP and MP fans of the game.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Some people really need to pull their heads in.

May I remind people that the Code of Conduct includes:

...Remember that everyone can have a different opinion. It is okay to disagree as long as it is done with mutual respect...

...It is impossible to agree with everyone, but it is possible to disagree constructively to allow real discussions. There is no need to turn disagreements into heated arguments...

 

[Codyksp]

I have a feeling the cycle is impress players with new and amazing content, let them shell out the bucks for it, and then regulate the new content to a more standard version. I don't see this trend stopping anytime soon.

Well. My personal opinion is that this is trend that is harmful to gaming, especially in games with multiplayer.

This game should emphasize asymmetrical balance, which i interpret to mean different affinities doing different things, within tiers and classifications and subsystems of power. The t1s are a perfect example, every culture should have useful t1s similiar in stats but varied in their applications.

I don't think anyone ever argued against asymmetrical balance, but you've brought it up repeatedly.
What makes you think that I, or anyone else is aiming to remove this aspect of the current design?

My goal is always to tweak the numbers within the existing design of anything I'm looking at changing.
I will not propose any massive reworks. There's an entire team of developers that get paid to figure that out.
So, if anything is changed to a massive degree (like the hero rework) this will be Triumph's personal call.

 

[Xerberus]

You are viewing this in a much too simplistic manner. It doesn't matter what kind of category the trait has.
What matters is what the trait is giving you in terms of economy. All traits convert to economy somehow.
Being stronger in combat means you can take more fights, which means you can clear more of the map.
Healing faster also means you can take more fights, just like movement. It all translates into economy.

Economy is the driving force behind this game, everything comes back down to Production/Gold/Knowledge.
Mana is less important because you simply can't do as much with it as you can with the other 3 resources.
Food and Draft are even worse, as Draft is situationally required and Food just has very poor scaling.

So what does Fabled Hunters do?

• It grants you 5 HP regeneration, and a Ranged unit which means you can clear the map better.
• It grants you +75% resources from clearing Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders and Infestations.

What are you doing the entire time you play the game? You're clearing the map as much as possible.
Clearing the map grants XP and rewards, rewards grant economy, economy grants more/stronger units.
It also grants you more cities, or rather bigger and better cities. Which again translates to army power.
Knowledge/Gold/Mana/Production/Food/Draft all translate to more/better armies in one way or another.
I'll also mention Imperium as Ancient Wonders can grant this as a reward, and it will be multiplied too.

All the competitive players spend every single turn clearing multiple independent armies on the map.
These can be Resource Nodes, Ancient Wonders, Magic Materials, Infestations or Guarded Pickups.

If you do the math for what +75% rewards means, multiplied by fights taken per turn, you'll understand.
The amount of raw resources you get is huge. No other trait can match this power, not a single one.
Even if the trait becomes a bit weaker late game, it's all about the snowball. Kick-starting your economy.

Try playing a match with any other trait, you'll notice a big difference in your economy and power.

no dude, YOU are viewing it in a much too simplistic manner, hilarious that you startet with it. it does matter which affinity a trait is, because it matters for you build and for the empire tree progression and getting the required affinity points to being able to pick a higher tome you want.

"All traits convert to economy somehow" = WRONG, Correct: "All economy converts to Military / Combat Power somehow". at the end the military isn't there to improve your economy, but your economy is there to support and increase your military power, this isn't a pony farm simulator!

at the end i do agree with you that food isn't really so valuable in the long run, especially because you can use imperium to grow your cities amd food has a cap to its use and no good scaling into the lategame. but i heavily disagree with you that mana for example is less valuable. you can do with mana almost as much as you can do with gold, if you have the correct build or even somewhat going into that direction. not only can you use mana for enchantments and combat spells, you can use strategic spells which boost your economy and units, you can use it for summoning. for a summon build or semi-summon build your mana is as valuable as your gold for your army. when you get lower on gold you can just increase the amount of summons in your army, thus saving gold and using mana instead. mana and gold in terms of army capacity have somewhat the same value because you can build / upkeep an army with gold OR with mana.

"All the competitive players spend every single turn clearing multiple independent armies on the map.": 1.) there is nothing as "competitive players" in age of wonders 4, this is simply not a competitive game, nobody sees a bunch of random dudes no lifing AoW4 multiplayer als "competitive players", you can have your fun, enjoy it, but nobody takes you or any other person more serious because he plays the game in multiplayer, this isn't e-sport lol. 2.) EVERY player clears independent armies every turn if possible and tries to create some thoughtful routes to grow their army, has nothing to do with multiplayer, just how the game works lol. 3.) clearing "independent armies" doesn't always trigger the fabled hunters, because it only triggers with points that give resources and then only with those resources, not with items / equipment or other stuff given. mid to lategame those will be mostly all farmed and what you will be fighting is enemy armies from other AI Players or free cities that are hostile towards you. no reason gain there and no use of fabled hunters ... so worthless trait at that point!

Fabled hunters: +5 hp regen / world map turn isn't any out of the ordinary, you get it from a form trait and easily from a misc hero item as well as +10 hp regen from the champion / hero skill tree. an added archer isn't making that much of a deal, easy to draft. Now while +75% resources sound much, its ONLY "resources" and ONLY from CLEARING resource nodes, ancient wonders and infestations. Those are heavily limited in amount, while you will get a decent boost early on, mid to lategame this trait will become useless once most of the resource nodes, ancient wonders and infestations are cleared. then you basically have a dead society trait. meanwhile traits like corpse eater, ruthless raiders, talented collectors, seafarers, wonder architect, perfect artisans, great builders and many more traits give you resource bonuses permanently without running out quickly in the early game. they scale well into the lategame, fabled hunters is good for an early growth type build, but when you can't leverage that early power in an early rush to convert this into more power then you will lose in the mid and lategame.

this might work on a quick game on a small map in multiplayer 1v1 or 1v1v1, but on larger maps with several empiers (up to 9 in total possible) this strategy will lose, because its value lies ONLY in the very early game stage. meanwhile player who like to focus on enchantments get runesmiths, which not only make the enchantment research 40% cheaper, but also the upkeep for the enchantments 30% cheaper AND giving an extra shield or polearm unit. even reclaimers are better, they give you much more binding essence to craft hero items with, to power level your heroes, give them items that buff your armies and create synergies for combat on your own. powerful evokers that give +10% dmg, make your mage / support units give 5 battle casting points each and lets you start with another battlemage unit. combined with other casting point traits or stuff like deathcasting makes you able to cast longer in combat and doing more damage, CC or debuff the enemy with the right build.

bottom line is, there is so much more to the society trait system and what it offers than just a bunch of economy buildings. fabled hunters is one of the least picked society traits for me because it has ZERO scaling into the mid to lategame and its combat value is almost zero.

 

[Xerberus]

Well. My personal opinion is that this is trend that is harmful to gaming, especially in games with multiplayer.


I don't think anyone ever argued against asymmetrical balance, but you've brought it up repeatedly.
What makes you think that I, or anyone else is aiming to remove this aspect of the current design?

My goal is always to tweak the numbers within the existing design of anything I'm looking at changing.
I will not propose any massive reworks. There's an entire team of developers that get paid to figure that out.
So, if anything is changed to a massive degree (like the hero rework) this will be Triumph's personal call.

dude you tried to rip out 40% of the game in one of your earlier posts, removing stuff like umbral abyss, traders, a bunch of society traits, level pickups, giant kings, eldritch sovereigns and whatnot. don't make me laugh "my goal is alwas to tweak the numbers within the existing design" ...who are you kidding? removing big swathes of the game isn't "tweaking numbers", stop kidding yourself! you aren't adhering to your own goals.

the trend of implementing something that is slightly stronger and then nerfing it is a) nothing harmful and b) makes more sense than implementing someting too weak and then trying to make it worthwhile. thats a lesson learned by many in online games like moba. if you implement someting new that is too weak then a) nobody will get it (especially bad if its paid content), b) its easier to just nerf something slightly till it fits than trying to buff it till it won't suck anymore and c) something that is weak and uninteresting will be played by NOBODY, thus getting feedback on it will be so much harder than something that is slightly OP and popular.

 

[Codyksp]

At this point I am just going to ignore these posts entirely. They're just malicious and factually incorrect.
You should re-read the moderator warning. The tone being used here is entirely unproductive to all.

 

[Xerberus]

At this point I am just going to ignore these posts entirely. They're just malicious and factually incorrect.
You should re-read the moderator warning. The tone being used here is entirely unproductive to all.

nothing malicious here, just some factual corrections. there is nothing factual about your statements, you deliver no argument whatsoever, there is no discussion with you. all you do "remove x i dont like it", no point to your sentences. just simply pointing it out. compared to you i at least provide arguments for my statements.

 

[Xerberus]

My goal is always to tweak the numbers within the existing design of anything I'm looking at changing.
I will not propose any massive reworks. There's an entire team of developers that get paid to figure that out.
So, if anything is changed to a massive degree (like the hero rework) this will be Triumph's personal call.

<-- that is why you just called for the removal of mythic units, skirmisher, fighter and even battle mages 15 minutes ago:

The "Mono Stacking" Problem

Ever since AoW 4 launched, the gameplay has suffered from one major problem. Stacking a single unit class and using that to crush the map. First it was Hero stacking, and this remained true until the Wolf Update for Single Player. Meanwhile in...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Codyksp]

<-- that is why you just called for the removal of mythic units, skirmisher, fighter and even battle mages 15 minutes ago:

I don't know if you're just not reading half of the messages, or cherry picking a section to be negative about.
All I know is that I wrote out a thought process and concluded with "However, none of this applies to the current game".

So, if you are going to really flame me for writing out my thoughts, then I am correct to just ignore you from now on.

 

[Xerberus]

I don't know if you're just not reading half of the messages, or cherry picking a section to be negative about.
All I know is that I wrote out a thought process and concluded with "However, none of this applies to the current game".

So, if you are going to really flame me for writing out my thoughts, then I am correct to just ignore you from now on.

there is no fixing needed because nothing is broken.

and just because you somewhat still have the understanding that devs won't start ripping out half of their game, doesn't mean that the only thing you propose are a bunch of radical and simply unrealistic suggestions which would completely remove what makes the game fun and what the game series has become already several games ago.

mythic units and those roles already existed in the last couple games and they are fine. its your lack of understanding / awareness that might need some adjustment, or at least the simple understanding that you might have you opinion but that this is hardly "facts" as you try to spin them. just some ungrounded wishes without any argument. and when some people like myself raise some arguments you try to runaway / ignore them because of course, you aren't able to engage with them (because you have no counter arguments, all what you want is based off of belly feeling it seems).

 

[Codyksp]

there is no fixing needed because nothing is broken.

and just because you somewhat still have the understanding that devs won't start ripping out half of their game, doesn't mean that the only thing you propose are a bunch of radical and simply unrealistic suggestions which would completely remove what makes the game fun and what the game series has become already several games ago.

Age of Wonders III had almost no unit enchantments, there were a couple class related ones. Nothing to stack.
Classes as such were not present in the first 2 games and barely even a thing in the 3rd or Planetfall (just as tags).
Planetfall had a limit of 3 modifications per unit. It took 2 turns to change them, You had to pay Cosmite for them.

• Simultaneous unit and production queues are entirely new to Age of Wonders 4.
• Form traits are entirely new to Age of Wonders 4, these were always race inherent.
• Unit class definitions and templates were specifically added in Age of Wonders 4.
• Tomes and affinities are not entirely new but a major departure from all previous games.

Are you sure you played the previous games and understand the differences between all 6 of them?

While Age of Wonders 4 has done a lot of good things, it also went backwards in many ways, especially on launch.
The developers have since then performed many updates and often reverted back to the way of previous games.
They've also added new content that copies and/or reinvents mechanics from previous games, such as Dwellings.

Enchantment stacking IS a problem. Just because you choose to ignore it in your games doesn't make the problem go away.
Unit mono stacking IS a problem. Just because you build a random army doesn't mean it's the optimal way to play.
Tier lists for Cultures, Society Traits, Form Traits and Tomes ARE real. Ignoring them doesn't make the reality any different.

When people optimize the gameplay, regardless of SP or MP, these problems rear their head. Denying them helps nobody.
If you only intend to deny all problems and say "This game is perfect". Then say it once and kindly exit the conversation after.
I, for one, could do without your constant insults and absolute lack of respect to everyone who disagrees with you even slightly.

 

[isaacaderogba]

Age of Wonders III had almost no unit enchantments, there were a couple class related ones. Nothing to stack.
Classes as such were not present in the first 2 games and barely even a thing in the 3rd or Planetfall (just as tags).
Planetfall had a limit of 3 modifications per unit. It took 2 turns to change them, You had to pay Cosmite for them.

• Simultaneous unit and production queues are entirely new to Age of Wonders 4.
• Form traits are entirely new to Age of Wonders 4, these were always race inherent.
• Unit class definitions and templates were specifically added in Age of Wonders 4.
• Tomes and affinities are not entirely new but a major departure from all previous games.

Are you sure you played the previous games and understand the differences between all 6 of them?

While Age of Wonders 4 has done a lot of good things, it also went backwards in many ways, especially on launch.
The developers have since then performed many updates and often reverted back to the way of previous games.
They've also added new content that copies and/or reinvents mechanics from previous games, such as Dwellings.

Enchantment stacking IS a problem. Just because you choose to ignore it in your games doesn't make the problem go away.
Unit mono stacking IS a problem. Just because you build a random army doesn't mean it's the optimal way to play.
Tier lists for Cultures, Society Traits, Form Traits and Tomes ARE real. Ignoring them doesn't make the reality any different.

When people optimize the gameplay, regardless of SP or MP, these problems rear their head. Denying them helps nobody.
If you only intend to deny all problems and say "This game is perfect". Then say it once and kindly exit the conversation after.
I, for one, could do without your constant insults and absolute lack of respect to everyone who disagrees with you even slightly.

I disagreed with xerberus and I'm pretty sure he just went through my entire comment history and blindly clicked disagree on everything. That's who you're arguing against, so better off just ignoring him.