The "Mono Stacking" Problem

[aerothgow]

Don't be ridiculous, no one is talking about making low tiers "the best". Low tiers will still have low Status Res, meaning they are still highly susceptible to every type of debuff with little to no setup; won't have any specialized skills; won't have best damage.

This simply is no longer the case. The are too many cleanses these days that remove debuffs. You got too much power creep happening.
What are the best tomes ? Corruption, prosperity, calamity and tome of the archmage...3 out of 4 are dlc.

The best melee is the templar he beats all t5 1 on 1 or 5vs5 or what numbers you want.

With enough time and all enchanments you will do crazy dmg. And you will do even more in the future beause they wil release more tomes with more enchantments. Enchantments are the real thing that needs to be limited.

The more dlc come out with more tomes means more enchantments to stack. The power creep of getting more enchantments and more cleanses has shifted the balance of the game and bottlenecked the unit roster to racial non mythic t4.


And let's not even start with how dumb it is to have 5 types of damage on a weapon like ice and fire or how ugly mutants the races become after 4 minor transformation...

 

[Kitschy]

It's more about letting the culture you picked at the start of the game continue to mean something to your army comp instead of being totally blown out by tome units.

If all the units of said culture will have a standing chance you would do the same thing and have more units to play with instead of going on redundancy train of making everything T4.
Besides look at how culture rosters are designed, that is your fallback army or look at Empire skills like Rite of War/Astral Summon/Last Stand (last stand in particular) those are only useful if all the tiers have a chance.

This simply is no longer the case. The are too many cleanses these days that remove debuffs. You got too much power creep happening.
What are the best tomes ? Corruption, prosperity, calamity and tome of the archmage...3 out of 4 are dlc.

The best melee is the templar he beats all t5 1 on 1 or 5vs5 or what numbers you want.

With enough time and all enchanments you will do crazy dmg. And you will do even more in the future beause they wil release more tomes with more enchantments. Enchantments are the real thing that needs to be limited.

The more dlc come out with more tomes means more enchantments to stack. The power creep of getting more enchantments and more cleanses has shifted the balance of the game and bottlenecked the unit roster to racial non mythic t4.


And let's not even start with how dumb it is to have 5 types of damage on a weapon like ice and fire or how ugly mutants the races become after 4 minor transformation...

The thing is I agree with you about enchantment cap, was here from the start and I think it is the best possible solution for balancing tiers. So yeah, no argument there from me.
Everything else I strongly disagree with.

From saying that having a lot of cleanses in the game somehow makes low Status Res not a disadvantage. (if you are casting cleanses you aren't casting something else, plus you don't have to prep at all if your target has low Res naturally)
To arguing in favor of making game even more high tier centric. Absolutely not, we already had that in 3 with Manticore spam there is no need to repeat that horror again. (we are sorta moving with T4s in that direction already)

Also you understand that power creep is happening when it comes to new tomes and you aren't advocating for balancing said tomes? Instead suggesting to push the problem to encompass higher tiers, what do you think that will solve.

And about Templars, what is the expectation. All T5 are a large target, Polearms be it Templars or anything else have a bonus vs that. So what do you expect should happen there?
Don't get me wrong, Templars could (and imo should) get a look but not 'cause they are performing good vs things they are suppose to kill but instead 'cause they are overshadowing everything else.

 

[Knut Are Mykland]

Tier 1 units can beat tier 5 units if you get enough of a tech lead on enchantments, transformations and ranks. Templars are great, but they sure do take a while to level up.
Templars is one of the best tier 4 units in the game by far. +40% damage vs most important units and a repeating damage that can hit 3 units at a time.

Personally I like astral serpents. They are not large or cavalry. They are really easy to stack useful enchantments on. As summoning culture they can get 1 spell to give all units 35 temp HP+3 resistance and one strengthened from a single spell cast. They have a nasty speacial ability, that is really good when all astral serpents use that ability on the same turn. Free damage as you can not be hurt that turn.

 

[GloatingSwine]

If all the units of said culture will have a standing chance you would do the same thing and have more units to play with instead of going on redundancy train of making everything T4.
Besides look at how culture rosters are designed, that is your fallback army or look at Empire skills like Rite of War/Astral Summon/Last Stand (last stand in particular) those are only useful if all the tiers have a chance.

I'm not sure the design logic of how the rosters are designed bears out in real play because currently they just stop existing when you can consistently build T4s because the base power gap is too high and I'm not sure they thought that was what was going to happen.

Enchant caps would stop them getting quite so horribly blown out but in a game where you can only have 18 units in a battle you still need to pack as much power into those 18 units as possible because the consequences of losing a late game fight are really bad (if your ruler is wounded you're locked out of casting for a couple of turns and that means any other fights against people who still can are pretty much a no-go for you). The base bulk of T4+ is just too good as well.

Enchant caps stops Mythics getting blown out, it doesn't bring culture rosters back into the decisive part of the game they're still just the stuff you clear with to level your hero and economy then forget exist.

Culture T4s and a narrower power curve across tiers is what does that.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Tier 1 units can beat tier 5 units if you get enough of a tech lead on enchantments, transformations and ranks. Templars are great, but they sure do take a while to level up.
Templars is one of the best tier 4 units in the game by far. +40% damage vs most important units and a repeating damage that can hit 3 units at a time.

Yeah, and I can beat up Mike Tyson if they put him in a coma first. If you have a really serious tech lead it's because your opponent wasn't playing the game right (and was probably posting screenshots of them getting rolled by the toll of seasons when they've got 130 knowledge on turn 50 or something on Reddit).

 

[seperamos]

This simply is no longer the case. The are too many cleanses these days that remove debuffs. You got too much power creep happening.
What are the best tomes ? Corruption, prosperity, calamity and tome of the archmage...3 out of 4 are dlc.

The best melee is the templar he beats all t5 1 on 1 or 5vs5 or what numbers you want.

With enough time and all enchanments you will do crazy dmg. And you will do even more in the future beause they wil release more tomes with more enchantments. Enchantments are the real thing that needs to be limited.

The more dlc come out with more tomes means more enchantments to stack. The power creep of getting more enchantments and more cleanses has shifted the balance of the game and bottlenecked the unit roster to racial non mythic t4.


And let's not even start with how dumb it is to have 5 types of damage on a weapon like ice and fire or how ugly mutants the races become after 4 minor transformation...

There has to be a similiar amount of cleanses to debuffs, with factions being able to access one type or the other in certain paths. That gives players options to focus on debuffing or cleansing or mixing both.

On enchantments, I agree, there has to be a way to prevent infinity enchantments being possible. Factions should have the goal of being either mono or multiple affinity, with soft restrictions related to each either by upkeep or transformation paths.

Unit rosters should be expanded, yes. With that expansion, more combat strategies are possible and balance can be worked on as needed. I don't see transformations as ugly mutants, that was solved with visuals on or off.

Either there is a general "demigodir" transformation for the race that gains all strengths of enchantments and transformations without the visuals, or you simply don't pick the transformations/enchants.

Edit: I have never seen a fully enchant and transformed t1 unit take on a dragon, giant, or karagh single handedly. They are still too weak.

 

[Codyksp]

What this will give you is different tools and opportunities based on economic, strategic and availability situations or goals. From needing a specific class at a certain time and having low tiers as a fallback or just simply having a choice based on situation at hand. Like for example having a choice between Dark Warrior T1 and Dark Knight T3, both have different uses even tho they are Shock units. (in that particular example even if both would have identical EHP/Status Res and damage there will still be strategic niches for both and I am not even advocating for this only for EHP parity)

Dark Knight has 48 movement, a secondary ability and is weak to Polearms. But they always win.
Dark Warrior would also need an ability just to be somewhat equal. Trading movement for a weakness.

Unit tiers are not a problem for the most part, individual unit balance is all over the place though.
The issue lies in Knowledge being far too prevalent in this game, nothing has any time to shine.

Sure, the developers played 50 turns with like 200 Knowledge, but that's just them being bad at the game.
When it comes to optimising your gameplay, the number of viable choices shrinks dramatically.
There needs to be far, far, faaar more balancing done between units, cultures, tomes, and traits.

I have also yet to still see any movement whatsoever towards making unit class counters functional.

 

[Kitschy]

I'm not sure the design logic of how the rosters are designed bears out in real play because currently they just stop existing when you can consistently build T4s because the base power gap is too high and I'm not sure they thought that was what was going to happen.

Enchant caps would stop them getting quite so horribly blown out but in a game where you can only have 18 units in a battle you still need to pack as much power into those 18 units as possible because the consequences of losing a late game fight are really bad (if your ruler is wounded you're locked out of casting for a couple of turns and that means any other fights against people who still can are pretty much a no-go for you). The base bulk of T4+ is just too good as well.

Enchant caps stops Mythics getting blown out, it doesn't bring culture rosters back into the decisive part of the game they're still just the stuff you clear with to level your hero and economy then forget exist.

Culture T4s and a narrower power curve across tiers is what does that.

Yeap, and that should be addressed instead of ballooning the problem imo. Also yeah enchantment cap makes a ceiling that you can reasonably balance against, if there is no ceiling there is no tangible way to balance things. When it comes to low tiers my suggestion is giving heroes access to passives like Hero of the Meek and BST and at that point I would say it would be good enough.

Yeah, and I can beat up Mike Tyson if they put him in a coma first. If you have a really serious tech lead it's because your opponent wasn't playing the game right (and was probably posting screenshots of them getting rolled by the toll of seasons when they've got 130 knowledge on turn 50 or something on Reddit).

Lol, that was kinda funny thread tho. I think the dude was surprised that stack and a half with low level heroes was not enough. He even said "I was prepared this time" or something of the sort.

Dark Knight has 48 movement, a secondary ability and is weak to Polearms. But they always win.
Dark Warrior would also need an ability just to be somewhat equal. Trading movement for a weakness.

Unit tiers are not a problem for the most part, individual unit balance is all over the place though.
The issue lies in Knowledge being far too prevalent in this game, nothing has any time to shine.

Sure, the developers played 50 turns with like 200 Knowledge, but that's just them being bad at the game.
When it comes to optimising your gameplay, the number of viable choices shrinks dramatically.
There needs to be far, far, faaar more balancing done between units, cultures, tomes, and traits.

I have also yet to still see any movement whatsoever towards making unit class counters functional.

Yes, but then their cost and ease of production comes into play. I personally don't have a problem with low tiers not having active abilities, imo high tiers getting unique abilities is fair way of balancing tier progression without making low tiers obsolete. (DW having only a culture gimmick is good enough for T1, imo)

Agree about Knowledge being a big part of a problem, enchantment cap should somewhat remedy that tho. Also it still cracks me up that research progression was balanced after release. (and yes, Jordi explained it to me a couple of times by now, about how it happened but I still find it funny that it did happen)
And yes it would be great if there was more balancing done with all those systems.

 

[Lebkuchenhausmeister]

I hope they give enchantment/transformation stacking, and counters, another pass, like they did with other mechanics. This could lead to a substantial improvement of the game and would excite me much more than another content update that doesn't adress these issues.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

Enchantment caps, researching needing to be dampered down, cultural units becoming irrelevant...

Honestly, they really feed into each other, don't they?

Hear me out: First of all, research & enchantment caps. Instead of having a blanket enchantment cap that simply applies across the entire game, would it be that much of an issue to add in a new research, gained at let's say, Tier 2 & Tier 4 tomes, that increases the enchantment cap? This way, players will be given a choice. Do they want to focus on rushing through the tomes to get to the higher power enchantments, units and buildings first, or do they want to pick up an enchantment cap increase to try and empower their units up further? To take full advantage of all possible enchantments, you'll certinally need to pick up the enchantment cap increases at the end of the day, but the choice of when you pick it up to take advantage of it, won't just lower the power ceiling of units, but also generally slow down the pace of research and add a new strategic element when it comes to research.

The question of Race Tranformations vs Enchantments, or if lower-tier units have a higher cap/increase their cap quicker, are a bit outside of the discussion, but important to take into consideration.

Then, Cultural units vs Tome Units, and how that comes to Enchantments. Honestly, this could be easiest to implement. You know how cultural units have their cultural abilities, like industrial's bolstering or high's awakening? And how they have an enchantment that allows non-cultural units to have that enchantment too? Well, that would mean natively, they already have one more enchantment slot than tome units, thanks to not having any need or desire for that cultural enchantment. But say that isn't enough, and you think the cultural abilities aren't strong enough on their own to help the cultures stand on their two feet, and it just means the cultural enhancements won't be used? Well, just say, because the Cutural units are the race most tied to the ruler, either natives to the world in the case of Champions, or having followed their ruler into a new world in the case of the other rulers, they have a higher enchantment cap on top of the lack of need to pick the cultural enchantment, and I think it would help make Tome vs Cultural units more distinct with strategic pros and cons to either side.

I also very much support the idea of Cultural T4s, even if they can't be recruited normally like the Feudual Knight.

 

[aerothgow]

And about Templars, what is the expectation. All T5 are a large target, Polearms be it Templars or anything else have a bonus vs that. So what do you expect should happen there?
Don't get me wrong, Templars could (and imo should) get a look but not 'cause they are performing good vs things they are suppose to kill but instead 'cause they are overshadowing everything else.

Once again you are saying things that are simply not true. Templars beat all t5 because they get both enchantments and racial transformations. Not because of pike. You know how i know that? They can't beat them without enchantments.

Also war breed beeing a racial non mythic t4 also beats all t5 for the same reason. Enchantments and racials push it way above t5. Simply because you stack too much on them.

When you pay recruitment costs of t5 and t5 upkeep you get less then when you pay for a t4. And t5 are simply way more cooler not just a higher tier. Dragons, huge golden golem, a giant ancient tree, a very cool looking mobile shrine that smites it's foes....they need some love to bring them were they should be.

 

[Kitschy]

Once again you are saying things that are simply not true. Templars beat all t5 because they get both enchantments and racial transformations. Not because of pike. You know how i know that? They can't beat them without enchantments.

Also war breed beeing a racial non mythic t4 also beats all t5 for the same reason. Enchantments and racials push it way above t5. Simply because you stack too much on them.

When you pay recruitment costs of t5 and t5 upkeep you get less then when you pay for a t4. And t5 are simply way more cooler not just a higher tier. Dragons, huge golden golem, a giant ancient tree, a very cool looking mobile shrine that smites it's foes....they need some love to bring them were they should be.

What the what, are you seriously suggesting balancing on the basis of how the unit model looks. Lol, don't get me wrong they do look cool, but looks of a unit is the least important criteria when it comes to balancing.
Also what is the level "they should be" or I should say you be happy with?

 

[seperamos]

What the what, are you seriously suggesting balancing on the basis of how the unit model looks. Lol, don't get me wrong they do look cool, but looks of a unit is the least important criteria when it comes to balancing.
Also what is the level "they should be" or I should say you be happy with?

Well, if a unit has armor it should at least have some armor rating lol

 

[Jolly Joker]

*Sigh*
Yet again ... just have enchantments work only on certain tiers. Like, A T1 (coming from a T1 tome or being T1-T3 tech or whatever) enchantment should only work on T+x tier units. Period. That way, there aren't really many T4 enchantments. And there could be more T5 enchantments as well.

 

[Kitschy]

Well, if a unit has armor it should at least have some armor rating lol

Heh, to be fair tho most of them do have "some". Only mages and archers don't have any, even mystic pikeman in his pajamas has 1 armor.

 

[aerothgow]

What the what, are you seriously suggesting balancing on the basis of how the unit model looks. Lol, don't get me wrong they do look cool, but looks of a unit is the least important criteria when it comes to balancing.
Also what is the level "they should be" or I should say you be happy with?

English is not my first language but i'm pretty sure that's not what i was saying.

I gave plenty of reasons t5 should be the best units. I just added another reason based on coolness.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

*Sigh*
Yet again ... just have enchantments work only on certain tiers. Like, A T1 (coming from a T1 tome or being T1-T3 tech or whatever) enchantment should only work on T+x tier units. Period. That way, there aren't really many T4 enchantments. And there could be more T5 enchantments as well.

Except for the fact that it means we don't have the enchantment cap deal with both the research-speed issue, or the cultural-unit issue like I just suggested.

Plus, I fail to see the flavour reasons why your Tier 1 units can have electrified arrows and swords, but your T3/T4 units cannot.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Because the enchantment is "too weak".

In a halfway economically balanced game you could just make upkeep cost more, depending on unit tier and/or you could add "interference" mana cost the more enchantments you had on a unit, and while this would solve the issue for most players, it obviously not only won't for the best, but will also limit the available strategies further because you'd have to optimize for more.

In other words, the enchantments as such are too powerful a game element, because they are not really counter-balanced. Units are secondary (if at all); any unit will do provided you can slap a crapton of enchantments on them.

Anyway. You can either limit enchantments by theme. And since stuff like "this affinity doesn't work with that" are specifically out that basically leaves Tiers.

The other option is to limit enchantments by cap. This MIGHT be done by simply adding a slider X in the set-up menu for a map, X being the maximum number of enchantments allowed on any single unit.

If that's possible, that would probably best, because in that case everyone could do what they wanted (like you can set the number of heroes you are allowed to have in AoW 3 or the max level they can reach).
It would also make balance even more of an absurd thing, since balance is obviously pretty different for 2 allowed enchantments versus no limit.

 

[Kitschy]

English is not my first language but i'm pretty sure that's not what i was saying.

I gave plenty of reasons t5 should be the best units. I just added another reason based on coolness.

What are those reasons?
The one when you see rigid vertical progression as the balancing solution and don't think about that this approach dramatically cuts unit variety and then complain that there is not enough units in the late game.
Or the one when you are making a point about how there is too many cleanses and this somehow makes low Status Res not important enough or as you put it "no longer the case".
Or mb you are talking about the part when you are making an argument about balancing around upkeep and not around unit to unit interaction as a whole.

I am not even talking about balancing on looks suggestion, 'cause that does sound like a joke but you are saying that it is "another reason" when it is not a serious reason at all.
Also your language skills are clearly good enough so why are you bringing this all of a sudden, like c'mon dude.


Besides Mythics just got a blanket buff around WoW release, they absolutely don't need another blanket buff again. Some could still get a look, but those should be on an individual basis (that what should have happened instead of what was done). You mentioned Shrine btw, that thing don't need a buff in any shape or form. More Mythics should be pushed in the direction of how the Shrine is designed or something similar tho.

 

[Codyksp]

It's clear from how the DLC is created that balance is an afterthought, applied 1 month after release.
First you release something that is "OP" and "fun", this attracts new players and returning players.
Then, once engagement metrics begin to taper off, you can start balancing this for the long term players.

Tome of Prosperity and Calamity are currently still mandatory T4 tomes. You always want one of them.
The only time you don't (can't) pick them is if your build is focused on Astral/Materium affinity.

Giant Kings are entirely busted, both in combat and economically. They're the #1 ruler without doubt.
They do everything better than the other rulers, instead of being focused on a theme (like crafting).

I'll admit the 2 new tomes aren't as crazy. But that's because the underground still has problems.
For Geomancy specifically, the issue lies in depending on RNG terrain. This will never be competitive.


While I appreciate that Ogre Update gave some love to Battle Mages, it just isn't enough in the big picture.
Also, White Witch, Lightbringer, Watcher and Chaos Eater are still garbage. Especially Watcher makes me sad.
Tome of Teleporation should grant a 3 range Leave One version of Phase. That'd fix Chaos Eater immediately.

The next class that has huge issues is Ranged. There are 100 gap closers in the game these days, causing ZoC.
Not just that, but they cap out at T3 and are made of paper. They die quickly and are the victim of debuffs/CC.

Shock units suffer as well, they just get cancelled by Polearms or, even worse, friggin' terrain obstacles...


The game really needs to be reviewed at a higher level when it comes to the various unit roles and their purpose.
Rebalance the actual roles so that they can counter each other as intended. Fix that base first, then do other things.
There's no point in individually adjusting units and blanket buffing classes if the baseline design is still entirely broken.

Once unit class balance has been tackled, we can begin to talk about Mythic vs non-Mythic and Enchantments/Transformations.