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Balance opinions
Since it looks like I will finally have some time to start updating the Conceptual Balance mod again, I thought it might be useful to get some general feedback from the community. In particular, I'm interested in knowing how many people are interested in balance mods, but are deterred by specific changes, lack of transparency, or simply being unaware of them.
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Re: Balance opinions
Having played a few SP games and one MP game with CB mod up, I was generally pleased with the unit (and pretender) stat/cost changes and displeased with the magic/forging changes. The former felt like fixes and adjustments, while the latter often led to major strategic changes.
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I clicked "...but outweigh any improvements" but I only meant that for items and nations mods. The others are great! I was debating whether to click the last or second to last one.
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I don't play the CB mods because of the amount of changes and the learning curve.
I finally feel fairly comfortable with vanilla Dom3 MP. The thought of playing CB where almost every stat/spell/monster has been changed is too much. |
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That said, it does make a great many changes, but I don't think the vast majority of these increase the learning curve. Very few people have memorized, for instance, the costs of units and spells not widely considered viable in MP, and that is where almost all the changes lie. |
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Jazzepi |
Re: Balance opinions
This was actually another issue I had in mind with the poll, that I should have separated out from the better documentation option. Or perhaps it is a better fit with 'specific issues' since I get the feeling that most people with this opinion have tried it, found a particular strategy that is made more difficult by CB, and then become intimidated by the list of other changes. The way CB should work, however, is that anything viable base game should still work, with any additional strategies made viable being tried out at one's leisure. A few changes (such as the one to dwarven hammers), have perhaps gotten away from this and that is the sort of thing I am looking to polish.
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Re: Balance opinions
I chose "...too much hassle" for the reasons given above: too many changes to absorb. I'm not worried about most of them; I don't mind the minor changes, and I like the boosts that encourage variety (eg, I like being able to use the drakes).
What gets me are the dozen or so "gotcha's", like when you forget that a key path booster has jumped a level and you can't reach it anymore. Or when a key unit is changed enough to be strategy-changing. They come up very infrequently, but they are frustrating when they do. I would also like better documentation, but the current docs aren't too bad. |
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That sounds like the specific changes sort of issues. I think I will likely do a follow up thread to pinpoint those issues better, I already am aware of several like hammers, boosters (those changes were actually already removed in a previous version), and indy commanders.
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I should add as a follow-up that one reason I find these changes hard to assimilate is that I just don't play that many games. I am usually in 1-2 MP games and 0-1 SP games at any given time. Not a lot of time to get familiar with vanilla, never mind big mods.
That said, the smaller, more easily digested chunks of CB (scales, pretenders), I do like. I am a big fan of variety, and I fully support the goal of making all the choices more useful. |
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Well the fact that lots of the non-viable MP strats have changed is a bit intimidating. I can sorta now identify strategies and counter strategies to certain builds/nations/plays - the fact that CB includes a bunch more viable alternative strategies (and counters to existing ones) means I would have a lot to learn. That said I do think CB is more balanced than the vanilla game and well done. I just don't have the time to play/learn it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif |
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I do like a lot of the changes from casual observation, as we used CB mod in one game I played in, and I got rushed by a nation of demons and I was able to build several of those demon killing chimes. Which made /way/ more sense than the chimes being level 8 construction. Jazzepi |
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Considering that the learning curve for Dom is measured in years, and any "unbalanced" thing is basically available to anyone, CB mods are a waste of time.
I find that CB mods are for tinkerers who find that their play style is not a winning style, and they want to change the game to fit themselves rather than learn to adapt. |
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The argument goes both ways. In a similarly inflammatory spirit, it could be said people who have found a simple set of strategies that effectively deal with almost any situation in the base game are too lazy to learn to adapt to more options.
It also seems that as far as I can tell, few CB supporters are new players, but rather Dom2 veterans that have in fact tried most the options dominions has to offer. |
Re: Balance opinions
I played a bit of Dom2, then got Dom3, and thats when I actually started to learn. I find that the balance mod is really quite useful in balancing everything, and is most likely what got me into the magic system of Dominions. So I say keep going and balance 3.10, you aren't hurting people who dont want it, just helping people who do.
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On that note, qm, you know my opinion on old chinese wizards. =P |
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I only ever play with CB Mod. As Kissblade says above, playing vanilla is just asking for exploits to be brought into play which always ruins things for me.
I'm surprised to find that people feel there is a "learning curve" to the balance mods tho? I mean, you just plug it in and go. Do you seriously memorize every unit from every nation and every spell? It seems a better strategy to me to just abstract your knowledge of dominions - what values make a unit or spell good/bad and then you are ready to play any game with any mod. Just glance at the units and spells that fall into line with your strategy and you are good to go. |
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The learning curve comes from these sorts of things... "What gets me are the dozen or so "gotcha's", like when you forget that a key path booster has jumped a level and you can't reach it anymore. Or when a key unit is changed enough to be strategy-changing. They come up very infrequently, but they are frustrating when they do." What ends up happening is that you have to forget everything you knew about the races in vanilla, and learn them new in CB. Even changing one level path on a nation's mage can make a huge difference in the strategies that are viable with that nation. Jazzepi |
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As for relearning the entire game, I have a very hard time imagining this, CB is designed with the goal of keeping all base game strategies viable. There are actually very few nerfs, and any of them I'm open to changing given some convincing. EDIT: I think what Ironhawk means by exploits are simply strategies veteran player find it difficult to not apply at every opportunity, being so universally applicable. A good example might be spamming crossbows with Marignon. Even in CB this remains a default strategy, but at least now there are other options worth considering in specific situations. |
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I don't play CBMs because (in order of importance to me):
1 I like the game the way it is, more or less 2 "unbalanced" is subjective and therefore anyone elses attempt at balance will be unbalanced to someone else. 3 the learning curve and lack of documentation |
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I have several issues with CB.
1) Too many changes that don't do any good. For example, the increased cost of indie commanders. The problem this is meant to address is legitimate (you hardly ever use your national commanders), but as QM himself has admitted, boosting the price of indie commanders doesn't actually acheve this, but it *does* penalize you for fielding large armies - it also has an effect on bloodhunting, and attaches a larger economic penalty to a failure to properly micromanage a blood economy. This particular example may not be the best as QM may change it back in the next version. Now, I've had this argument with QM many times on IRC - QM doesn't see what's "special" about the default values or why I would want to keep changes to an absolute minimum. I think Jazzepi has already expressed my opinion on why change should be avoided where not absolutely needed; QM may not agree but I'm certainly not the only person who feels this way. 2) Too much nerfing. I think you get very little objection to making presently non-viable, and fun/cool, strategies more viable. So if CBM improves units, makes units cheaper, gives more spells and units, this is broadly acceptable, especially with weak/underdeveloped nations people will accept the learning curve for a buffed nation relatively easily. Playing a game and discovering some option is non-viable is a very different play experience that people won't tolerate. Also, in general, people *know* how to play the stronger nations (there's something to know) - few people know how to play Marverni well. It's more possible than you might think, but.... Also, it can be difficult to nerf a (supposedly overpowered) strategy in such a way that you don't ruin it entirely, which is undesirable. 3) CBM is over-optimized for blitz games. The game has many 4X strategies so I am generally a defender of the proposition that strength in the early game translates to strength in the late game. But this has limits, and you really test the extremes of those limits on the blitz maps for which CBM seems to be optimized. In order for me to use a CBM mod, it would need to fit the following philosophical criteria: a) Minimal changes. If a change does not clearly and successfully address one of a small number of major issues, leave it out. b) Extra-minimal nerfing. Even if a change *does* clearly and successfully address a major issue, if it's a nerf, only keep it if the issue it addresses is really critical. Half-measures that minorly inconvenience a strategy (like raising the death gem cost of a tartarian) are an example of something I just won't use. c) Nothing that raises micromanagement requirements, *even if it fixes a critical flaw*. Turns take too long already - anything that punsihes a strategy which is easy to script, or which adds overhead to manage an existing strategy, is a non-starter. I don't want to come across as over-critical, however - I have been unable to make a mod that meets the criterion I've described, so I can hardly fault QM for failing to make a mod that he doesn't even want to specifications which I can't myself achieve (although I have hopes for the new spell modding engine.) But since you ask, this is why I don't use CBM myself. |
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Indy commanders are actually an example, along with boosters and hammers, of nerfs I've been convinced to retract or reduce.
I'm well aware of the great backlash that often generated by nerfing, so believe it or not I have employed it quite sparingly (certainly much less than IW would have had they focused more on balance, virtually all of the balance changes from dom2 to dom3 were nerfs). Further minimization is always open to consideration though. As for drastically reducing the number of total changes, that is much less likely. The end goal is to bring all options into viability, and in a lot of cases that means incrementally improving them until they hit a usable but not abusable level. So, if there are useless boosts, I could easily be convinced to increased them, but not remove them. |
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I wouldn't call myself a veteran, I wouldn't call myself an above average Dominions player. But I've played with CBM on Dom2, and I play Dom3 with CBM on.
And just a couple of points I'd like to make: 1) What I like about CBM is that it improves weak strategies. The nerfs to successful strategies are a bit less welcome. I like it this way because I often find myself thinking "I'd really like to do X, that sounds like fun and seems really cool, but I can't because it just won't work.". I suspect that the desire for nerfs comes more from a way of thinking that is foreign to me - "I'd really like to do X, that sounds like fun and seems really cool, but Y is better so I won't." 2) Changes to items - bleh. Changing boosters is a sin. Changing hammers is bad too. In general changing the costs of items sounds like a bad idea to me, because they are geared so certain mages can use them. I'm not saying that changing the costs of items is always bad, but that generally the changes should only be in lowering costs of weak items. 3) My opinion on changes to magic paths is identical to those on changing items (and, well, to point 1 as well) - boost the weak, don't nerf the strong. And of course - thank you and keep up the good work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif |
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DrPraetorious, I have a really hard time understanding your position on nerfing. You seem to rule it out as an option almost entirely, but if such an approach is taken, it results in an out of control, neverending boosting cycle for everything where a single nerf would fix the issue. I've seen compelling arguments for this and no valid arguments at all for NOT nerfing.
That said, and on the basis of the Dom2 CB mod where I was fairly involved (I haven't tried the Dom3 one, no time), most changes were actually boosting really crappy units such as drakes enough to make them viable and tweaking too expensive or otehrwise suboptimal stuff so that it became viable. Nerfs were few and far between and I expect things to remain so by and large. CBM may or may no be more optimized for blitz games, but I do not expect its balance changes to be detrimental on large maps. I intend to take a good look at it at some point and when I do, it will likely become a permanent addition to my games though I am likely to change some things to get a version more to my own liking. I've also grown attached to the BI mod, which isn't too compatible with the CBM because of the design premises. |
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I'm a huge fan of CBM, as people probably already know. If I could I'd play every single game with CBM turned on, but for the sake of people who play my mods, I have to test stuff in vanilla as well. That isn't to say that I don't like vanilla and it's a chore to play,.. that isn't the case at all. It's just that I agree so wholeheartedly with the /spirit/ of CBM; increasing the number of viable gameplay paths through stat tweaks.
When you have a spell or unit this is so weak no-one is using it and when it is used it's basically like throwing gems away, well that annoys me, because there's so much stuff in the game that is like that, but in terms of artwork, concept,.. flavour, whatever,.. well it kicks ***. The spirit of CBM is to allow you to use Bog Beasts and Shades and cavalry and light infantry and slime in situations where it makes sense, instead of just ignoring it because it's too weak or overpriced to actually be effective at the task it was designed for. Without these tweaks it's too easy to just throw away 90% of the stuff in the game. Now initially CBM just seemed too huge for me to get into. I didn't understand what the broad goals and changes of the mod were - but after a little research I got right into it. In that respect, it's like Dom3 itself. You take a little leap of faith and you start to notice all the cool stuff. My only problem with CBM is that sometimes it doesn't take things far enough, such as with summoning spells. There are so many summons in basegame that just aren't worth the gems most of the time, while a handful of summons are simply amazing. It's annoying because in MP you're effectively punished for straying from the beaten path, while in SP the AI is getting the ****ty end of th stick because it will insist on casting stuff more or less at random, thereby often picking overpriced options - another handicap it doesn't need. So instead of just making a general complaint, I've posted up a big list of suggested changes to summons. I don't expect QM to follow them or anything (unless he agrees on all of them), but hopefully it will help highlight some tweaks that can be made to improve balance. |
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I agree wholeheartedly with Sombre. Dominions 3 has insane amounts of cool stuff that no one in their right mind would actually use.
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* eventually altering the effects of some really over/underpowered spells I've nothing against ; as long as levels/paths/schools listed in manual aren't changed ps : also I'm not an huge fan of dominions 3 magic philosophy ("a nation must remain weak in non national schools forever" ; "magical economy is an option for a little number of gifted nations only") compared to dom2 one ("all nations start with strengths but can developp any magic with some effort", "in end game the norm is to have a magical economy allowing to use the most expensive -and fun- spells/summons often" ), and my impression is balance mods goes even further than vanilla dom3 in the restricted magic tendancy (which forces them to change more things for balance, as some nations won't be competitive in end game against the gem/blood economy powers without big boosts of other paths or nerfing more clams etc... ; then these paths risk to be overpowered before end game, or magical economy nations to be underpowered before too late game ; then other changes have to be made to avoid this ; etc....). |
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Well I don't rule out nerfing entirely, its far too easy a route that all game developers go down. Problem? Remove it or lower the stats. Its also done over and over again, so you don't end up with just one or a couple of nerfs to the game you end up with dozens over a period of time. Seemly in response to when someone who has only played the game for a short time, says isn't such an such overpowered. Quote:
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I fully agree with Sombre.
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In my opinion, the way to fix things is do whatever requires the least amount of tinkering, that runs the least risk of breaking something else on the way. Thus if something is overpowered, maybe take it down a notch or a half, or maybe make it more expensive or something that slightly reduces the gap between it and everything else. If the change was not good, you can always reverse it and then tweak it further. It is for these reasons that nerfing is actually the most common and usually the correct way to fix things, but in doing so, judgment must always be used. |
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I think there's a world of difference between increasing the cost of something and increasing the path. A path increase to an item or mage changes the fundamental nature of what they can do. A mage with an additional path could open up the use of 10 additional spells, that synergize with the existing 20. Changing the requirement on an item can ruin your whole game if you didn't know about that requirement ahead of time. It makes you re-memorize what a potential enemy can and cannot do to you.
Changing the cost is different. For instance, increasing the cost of Tartarians seems to me like a reasonable change to consider because they are ridiculously powerful and cheap. When you try to compare the cost of something like a Tarrasque to a Tartarian, you can see just how good a Tartarian is. It's also a pretty safe bet that the player trying to summon the Tartarian isn't down to his last 10 gems. On the other hand, early in the game sometimes you really are strapped for gems. Changing the cost of a Dwarven Hammer could totally wreck your well laid plans. I've had plenty of games where I've only found a single earth site by the time I wanted a hammer, so even an increase of 5 gems would equate to an unexpected 5 turn delay in my plans. I can see both sides of it. There are situations where you definitely want to make some nerfs because it's easier and more prudent than boosting everything else in the game up to that level. Generally though, nerfs should be reserved for situations that occur later in the game, where they have a smaller effect on the fundamental identity of a nation. |
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If something is drastically broken, it is better to nerf it than to upgrade absolutely everything else.
But the example I keep coming back to is Shadowfist (which is an excellet game, by the by.) They hardly ever nerfed anything - any underpowered card would get minor flavor advantages until it was competitive. In dominions, there are a huge number of relatively minor advantages you can give that would actually enhance the flavor of units, and you can balance them to the most robust, useful members of their type, rather than taking that unit and nerfing it. I think this is preferable even if it introduces more changes, especially if it only introduces changes in stuff people seldom use. For example - pretenders. The Prince of Death, the Wyrm, the Dragons, the Cyclops and a a bunch of bless chassis (esp the Oracle), there is a general consensus, are better than the other base pretenders. It is easier on the learning curve to boost all the other pretenders than it is to nerf those dozen which people with carefully refined strategies actually use, even though this is more changes. That way, I don't even have to look at the mod, I can show up with my unmodified prince of death strategy and keep using it without even learning the new and improved abilities of the Titan (who can hurl lightning at 5% of enemy units at the start of combat, or something.) You can do the same thing with nations - give them national spells (or, if absolutely needed, boost their troops) until they are competitive. Personally, I don't think that units within a nation need to be particularly balanced against eachother. If a unit is actually useless, this is a problem, but I think it's actually *important* that some units (likewise spells, but obviously not whole nations) be niche, useful only in specific circumstances, while other nations and spells are more robust and broadly useful. All of this is also a lot more work, of course. |
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If by 'nerf' we mean a tweak to reduce the power of something, I believe they are just as important and desirable as 'boosts', or tweaks to increase power. As Edi and many others have pointed out, if you have 100 units all costing 10 gold and 4 of them are hugely better than the other 96, it probably makes more sense to nerf the 4 than boost the 96. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but I think the sacred cavalry of the glamour nations was a good example - they were far and away the best units in the game and were so good at what they did that they took away a lot of the rock/paper/scissors/chainsaw/apple/ladybug/fhtagn strategy of countering and using 'combined arms', with different units playing different roles.
Not that I want to start that argument again ;P CBM is more about boosts than nerfs for 2 major reasons. 1. People instinctively prefer boosts to nerfs. 2. Boosts allow for more modding creativity than nerfs, because boosts can come from a plethora of abilities and mod commands, whereas nerfs have a smaller pool of drawbacks available. 1 is clearly more important than 2. Personally I wouldn't mind more nerfs - almost an equal nerf to boost ratio is fine by me, as long as the nerfs are sensible (ie increase variety and use of strategy rather than just being something like copystatting some random averagey medium cavalry to overwrite Vans). |
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The key thing with nerfs is to not actually disrupt strategies, just bring them into a better cost/benefit ratio. Making a pretender chassis or recruitable unit cost a little more does not break any strategies as long as it is not overdone. Nerfs that change a option's functionality or accessibility are the ones that have to be really carefully examined. So those are what I've tried hardest to avoid, but sometimes the constraints of thematicness and modding tools make it difficult.
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I would like to give CBM another go. To me the massive turnoff last time were the changes to dwarven hammers and boosters. Unlike with spells, you can't see the requirements for items until you can actually make them, so you can spend ages trying to empower e.g. an E3 mage so you can make a hammer, only to find you can't! Quite upsetting. To my mind there should be no nerfs to items at all, since there's simply no way at all of seeing the problems coming.
The other thing I didn't like was the lack of 'overview' documentation. I don't desperately need a load of documentation, but it didn't say anywhere what the overall thrust of the changes were - that would be really appreciated. With a bit of explanatory documentation and no item nerfs though, I'd be really keen to give CBM another go (I have actually been intending for some time to try it, with the item changes off). I very much agree with Sombre that there's no end of interesting stuff in Dominions which is not feasible to use, and it would be amazing if it was. |
Re: Balance opinions
I think that most issues brought up against CBM was one of the first versions made for Dom III where it was somewhat still untuned and untested. If anyone played the dom II final cbm draft, I really have a hard time picturing how anyone can not support cbm over base. I think the best idea is just to think of cbm as a "patch" of sorts since it generally requires a few drafts before it comes into it's own.
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KissBlade's totally right on that. The Dom2 CBM is the one that should be looked at as the template here. Look at how that developed (starting with just the pretenders and then expanding from there). Dom3 is an order of magnitude bigger due to all the new nations, so it will take a while to settle. The Dom3 CBM is also cycling through drafts much slower than the Dom2 one. Give it time, people.
The DB wasn't built in a day and this is a far more ambitious project because instead of just listing stuff, it requires detailed knowledge of every aspect of the game and analysis of what each change entails as well as testing. |
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Point well taken Ironhawk.
I am likely one of those minorities, but last time I tried cmb I felt it was no more or less balanced than the standard game. If it pleases most people I say hurray, I still will only play it when i must for an MP however. |
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I pretty much only had issue with the path cost changes for boosters as well. It's by far the most complicated part of the game for me, and the manual is always open to that page - if I had a new boosting chart (yes, I'm lazy blah blah) I would be more likely to use it.
I was initially turned off by the MA Ermor priest nerf, but I realized once the "huge army of skeletal cavalry" strategy was better than, well... anything else, I couldn't agree more with it. It is instinctual to hate nerfs. |
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A better solution would perhaps be to reduce the number of undead horseman reanimated from 5 (currently I think for a lvl3 priest), to 2 or 3 if this is possible. |
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I'm almost certain reanimation isn't moddable, and that would affect the other reanimating nations as well if you could do it. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but I've tried it and Ermor seems to work on the same level as they did in Dom2. With recruitable Shadow Vestals, you could hardly call them weak.
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Using a #makemonster "Longdead Horseman" for unholy priests may do the trick if needed (don't have an opinion on this). They simply would have to use "summon allies" instead of "reanimation" for them.
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That would work, but this is one of the other nerfs with which I simply disagree - I've never found the undead horsemen to be so overpowering that it needed nerfing.
Now, MA Ermor *can* use those undead horsemen to propogate an already strong position - if you can get away with losing the research. But there are lots of nations that can exploit early strength in a similar way. |
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Edit due to inaccuracy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif
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Umm... you don't lose population when you reanimate longdead. What else were you doing?
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Reasons I don't play CBM, in addition to the "gotchas" mentioned above, are a few balance and theme disagreements.
Things I don't care for are the hoof attack for light cavalry, the nerf to the Dagon, and the fact that the one thing that should be de-nerfed--the VQ--is not de-nerfed enough. |
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I don't think Dragons need to be nerfed either since they were more or less the early expansion chassis for crappy early game nations. Light cavalries really really sucked though without the hoof. Heck they're not even that great with it ...
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Re: Balance opinions
He said Dagon not Dragon (dragons are untouched by CB).
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