Battlefield spell + retreating?

[PvK]

I'm sure you're right, K. I'm not flipping out about any of it. Just saying I enjoy the option of modding different game balance, because I'm one of those players who enjoys the army combat and doesn't mind a "slow end game" especially because I like savoring long thematic single-player role-playing style games.

[Twan]

K said:
I've never seen them be a problem in MP. I've never heard of them being a problem in MP.

So raise you hands: how many games has anyone played where someone won the game because they could cast Mists of Deception or some other battlefield spell and then retreat?

I expect the answer is none. People tend to flip out over the theoretical rather than consider the practical.

None because using MoD + retreat is forbidden in 90% of games and players restrain themselves in the 10% others, knowing using this spell is a sure way to see a flame war and get a bad reputation on the forums.

It's why the only cases reported are accidental (or pretended accidental) uses in newbie games.

Tifone said
This thread is starting to go pretty nowhere ^^ BEs, and Mist of Deception in particular, are not allowed with retreating in the last MP games I checked.

Usual rules are :
- offensive BEs and retreating *immediatly* isn't allowed.
- BEs and retreating after 5 rounds (as last order of the script) is.
- BEs + MoD combo never.
- MoD alone is not absolutely forbidden, but using it and winning the battle has 90% to horror mark the player and summon an horror thread here.

[K]

Twan said:

None because using MoD + retreat is forbidden in 90% of games and players restrain themselves in the 10% others, knowing using this spell is a sure way to see a flame war and get a bad reputation on the forums.

It's why the only cases reported are accidental (or pretended accidental) uses in newbie games.

I think that's just the hype talking. The actual effect on games is completely minimal, but enough people are crazy adamant about the issue that other people capitulate because they want to find a game to play.

A year ago there were no games that had rules against battlefield spells or MoD, and giant games like the first Big Game with all nations ran perfectly fine without those rules.

Casting the big spells is hard, especially if you try to cast a spell like MoD with its Air6 requirement. Even the best armies with ideal nation choices won't be able to cast these magics in any meaningful way. It only works well in:
-isolated battles...
-against armies without mages...
-who are run by players unwilling to spend gems on offensive rituals or battlefield magic or summons suited to your enemy's tactics.

Basically, these magics are for thug and SC killing, and since thugs and SCs are a sacred cow of a select group of veteran DomIII players, all the hate is focused on them. Considering the crazy things that happen in the endgame when people get 6-9s in paths, I don't even know why people bother nerfing these effects because they are far less game-altering than most globals or high-end summons.

Seriously. People don't win games with this tactic, so nerfing it is just changing the game balance to favor SCs and thugs AND removing tactical diversity and complexity.

[calmon]

K, i can't follow your argumentation.

First, the exploit was detected a year or some more ago. So why should someone have rules againist it before this time? Nobody knew that MoD+retreat leads to an endless(turn limit) fight where you only can lose.

Second you argue its not a game breaking tactic. So how do you know this? All/most of the serious players consider it as exploit and would never use it. So its nearly impossible to say how much it can be abused and how game breaking it is.

Third the spell is really frustrating for every new player. Just see most of his army killed by... well nothing real. Sure there may be other frustrating fights. But at least there is a chance of doing something. The real army killing options are expensive in gems and equipment and this option is rather cheap, deadly and combined with one of the best spells cloud trapeze very flexible useable.

[Tifone]

Well it doesn't seem very good to me that from a combination of all legit and working-as-intended things (MoD+offensive BE+retreat) comes a totally unlegit and in the most cases unbeatable tactic. Or this tactic is legit, period, or one of the components needs to be nerfed down a bit to make this tactic not unusable, but so less effective to be accepted in game possibly - one of the tactics useful in niche situations.

I appreciate the work of the devs constantly patching the game to be always playable, and as i.e. the power of Tartarians has been nerfed down a little with the Shattered Soul trait, this problem seems even more needing a little attention.

Peace everybody

P.S. wouldn't it be easy and balancing to make the MoD spell require at least a mage on the battlefield to continue working? Or even just, it works 2 or 3 more rounds without a mage and then stops, instead of providing endless phantasms? ^_^

P.P.S. K, i think it's normal in the world of Dom3 that spells affecting an entire battlefield or the whole world, high-end summons and powerful Gods and fighters are "altering" to the game. Isn't it how mid and expecially late game works? Doesn't the tactic we're talking about seem just... wrong? ^_^

[llamabeast]

I think more important than whether the spell wins games or not is just the fact that it's really annoying, and has a feeling of unfairness about it.

[JimMorrison]

If you accept that it is not the intent from the devs that 1 mage, unsupported, can cast 2 spells and defeat an enormous force worth thousands of gold and hundreds of gems-

-then you must accept the fact that the SINGLE potential tactic that in fact gives this result, that is counterintuitive to the way the REST of the game works, is in fact exploiting an unfair glitch in the code.

Glitch = Bug.

Therefore, using a "Glitch" to defeat your enemies, is in fact Exploiting a Bug - or for short, "using an Exploit".

Hope that clears it up for you K. Don't know if you're just playing Devil's Advocate, I'm just shocked someone could be here for a year and a half and not grasp this yet.....

[chrispedersen]

calmon said:
K, i can't follow your argumentation.

First, the exploit was detected a year or some more ago. So why should someone have rules againist it before this time? Nobody knew that MoD+retreat leads to an endless(turn limit) fight where you only can lose.

Second you argue its not a game breaking tactic. So how do you know this? All/most of the serious players consider it as exploit and would never use it. So its nearly impossible to say how much it can be abused and how game breaking it is.

Third the spell is really frustrating for every new player. Just see most of his army killed by... well nothing real. Sure there may be other frustrating fights. But at least there is a chance of doing something. The real army killing options are expensive in gems and equipment and this option is rather cheap, deadly and combined with one of the best spells cloud trapeze very flexible useable.

I absolutely disagree. I was aware of the implications of using MoD the first time I cracked the manual. It wasn't perceived as a problem until significant numbers of people started using it as a counter to the prevailing wisdom of SC's.

I don't usually raise a fuss about limiting MoD, because I know I'll be outnumbered. MoD is no more breaking the game than SC's are. For a reasonable outfitting cost, a well crafted can prevail again and again: Mod + DoT have a per instance gem cost.

[K]

JimMorrison said:
If you accept that it is not the intent from the devs that 1 mage, unsupported, can cast 2 spells and defeat an enormous force worth thousands of gold and hundreds of gems-

I don't accept that. Have you ever heard of Master Enslave, Undead Mastery, or Arcane Domination which allows exactly just what you are trying to tell me the devs didn't want? How about Shark Attack? Unravelling? Solar Brilliance? Ever see what two turns of Shimmering Fields or Shadow Blast can do when cast by an extremely powerful mage? Have you ever seen an SC cast a battlefield spell and just sit around until the opposing army is dead? How about an SC with a damaging aura who doesn't even cast any spells or make attacks, but just sits there while a thousand unit army kills itself on the aura?

Yes, when someone is unprepared, the tactic pisses them off. But, by the same logic, we should outlaw SCs and thugs, all spells past level 4, summons, and rituals. Each feels unfair when you die to it, as anyone who's lost an expensive army to high level magic, SCs/thugs, summons, or rituals can attest.

When you consider that any decent end-game army can be destroyed in the first two turns of spells cast by mages, having someone take advantage of this tactic just means that the other player wasn't a good enough player to realize that he should strike hard in the first two turns, or he didn't have the resources to do so, and so doesn't deserve to win. He should have had a strong offense on the first two turns, something that not only would stop this tactic but actually causes him to win his battles with less losses. Letting people cast all their spells and then fighting it out like God intended is actually a terrible end-game tactic.

As for personal experience, I can actually trace the exact point when this topic came up for discussion: it was during the first big game when one of my opponents that I was warring with went to the boards and started a campaign against ALL of the tactics I was using by calling them unfair. He asked the devs to nerf them, mostly because I think he didn't like the fact that his SCs weren't taking a province a turn like he was used to. Before that, the tactic was known and no one cared because it was available to everyone, easy to counter, and it only harmed people who couldn't field the mages to stop it (and thus would have lost anyway).

As far as I'm concerned, it's just a way to clear chaff players who have all but lost anyway and are trying to play the "gold and resources" beginning game and midgame when the real players have moved onto the "mages and gems" endgame.

[calmon]

I think the discussion is senseless. The majority understand the difference, some people not.