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. 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 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.