Please don't take my toys away!

[Keir Maxwell]

The kids are with the neighbours so I was lying down to an afternoon nap when a horrible thought occured to me - what if misfortune did become like the old dom and increase chance of events? What if order does get toned down in terms of income?!

120 design points down the tube is what this would mean. Most race designs I have come up with for dom2 would be scrapped, not adjusted, tinkered, but scrapped. Minus the ability to take order 3, misfortune 3, most of my bless races are custard. For me the biggest improvement from dom1 to 2 is variety created by the bless effects and you can only just use them afford them - many races can't. Order3/misfortune3 is the engine that provides the necesary gold and design points.

So in a fit of selfish, self centered, egotism I cry "please don't take my toys away!"

If things are going to be changed lets make more things good not more things bad/mediocre - there may be many, many, options in dom but many of them are bad ones for MP.

Please lets not nerf anything. Lets concentrate on making idea's work.

Cheers

Keir

Please lets not nerf anything. Lets concentrate on making idea's work.
[/QB]

I'm not trying to combat your opinion here Keir, but if the rules change or things are adjusted to fit what you've already come up with and you cry *No!* for that, while at the same time stating in another thread "There is almost no other option but to take Order3 in competitive MP" then there is something intrinsically wrong.

That means you found a way to get the points for those high cost pretenders with multiple bless effects with an acceptable loss because you gain 30% Gold -30% events, +30% Bad events.

I would think you could just play with Misfortune on Rare events if you wanted to not have your pretender ideas rethought to apply to a new scale.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I'm actually with Kier, although not in the way you might think.

I would much rather see the events changed than the scales. This way, I can have rare events due to order, nice income, and extra pretender points.

There really are two ways to fix the "bad event problem." And I think fixing the events is the way to go.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
if the rules change or things are adjusted to fit what you've already come up with and you cry *No!* for that, while at the same time stating in another thread "There is almost no other option but to take Order3 in competitive MP" then there is something intrinsically wrong.

Er - what am I crying "No" to that has changed? I have come up with a whole range of races which I believe are new additions to competitve MP approaches and I'm concerned that they might be nerfed by a proposed rule change. They work with the existing rules. Somewhat different to the way you put it above which I don't entirely understand.

What I'm saying it that if you fix the order 3 misfortune 3 problem in a number of the suggested ways you kiss goodbye to alot of options this has opened up. If order/misfortune makes for awhole lot more options in MP then I would have to say I prefer the existing scales to the old ones - given other changes to the game. I would rather have to play order/misfortune than return to the narrower range of competitive MP approaches that existed in Dom1. I thing it would be very sad (and unlikely) if bless races were nerfed. Having gone to the trouble of creating the bless system I imagine that Illwinter are happy people like me are trying to make maximum use of it given that many vets wrote off bless effects.

Changes to game settings like events uncommmen will not change the problem of losing 120 design points as I have already calculated issues like that in (give me a little credit for taking account of the obvious Zen). Some race designs would take very little of a hit losing 120 design points (as long as everyone else does) - others simply cease to exist. Some race designs don't exist at random events commen and are killers at random events rare and visa versa. Its like slight changes in the worlds environment which do not affect some species but wipe out other ones that were already tenuous.

Improve turmoil (for some races/themes) don't nerf order. Improve luck don't nerf misfortune.

Thats what I'm saying. Otherwise I lose my toys and sorry Zen but I reckon thats a bad thing.

Ciao

Keir

I never said to change order vs misfortune. I was asking about your comments.

When there is a prevelance of a thing and you could make such a bold statement as to say "Only under extreme circumstances would you not choose Order 3, Misfortune 3 because of it's benefits" then there is imbalance.

Gamers seem inherently afraid that anything that changes is going to "Nerf" the good instead of balance the bad.

I believe the answer is to change the weight of the Luck events vs the scale itself and the Turmoil effects, you can add in Magic as well since I rarely do much than take Drain 2, but I am not a developer of Illwinter or a brother (damn family, Last name not Osterman) so I have only the input of a player the same as you.

In saying "I would rather have the Old Dom1 scales if you change the ones I use now" is as you stated; selfish. Which is fine, your enjoyment is part of the game, but so is balance.

I would hope if you feel the way you do you could help the devs find a solution that did not hurt your scales as some others have done.

Like I said; I didn't want to be combative, and I still think you are a good guy. Just approached a plea to the Devs in a less than optimal manner.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
In saying "I would rather have the Old Dom1 scales if you change the ones I use now" is as you stated; selfish. Which is fine, your enjoyment is part of the game, but so is balance.

Er - what? Did I said that? I don't think it - I don't think I said it?

Actually I was being humerous in my first post and trying to put a personal touch on things so that maybe people could empathise - man was I wrong! I don't actually think there is anything selfish in not wanting the game to change in a way that ruins a whole range of options made possible by the existing setup. I'm worried that the changes seeking balence will be horribly unbalencing so I really think you are missing the boat Zen.

As for balence I would suggest that what we are really searching for a dynamic balence built around the many imbalences in the game. The imbalence in order/turmoil combines with other imbalences to create the overall balence of the game which people are proposing to change. Balencing order/turmoil is by no means necessarily a good as it could imbalence the game badly. Not everything should be equal or fair - this is not chess and there is no reason pawns, for example, should have the same value. The skill of race design and play is utilising imbalences to generate more powerful than the norm effects. More like the real world by far than Chess or Go which are almost perfectly balenced. Even if you don't agree in theory you may as well concede in practice as Dominions is too complex for anything else to be true - despite the most dedicated search for perfect balence.

I think you have been unneceserily combatitive on this Zen and I also don't think you have read what I wrote very carefully - either that or I'm just confusing. Assumptions that I'm a typical gamer panicking over my favourite toy being nerfed are unlikely to be right considering Illwinter went to great trouble to invent these favourite toys and I am aware of this fact.

Damn humour gone caused trouble again can't win them all.

cheers

Keir

The game has been out 2 weeks in full Version; how can you come to the conclusion that it is drastically imbalanced when you haven't played it in all it's fullness on those settings enough to know. Theories are all fine and good; but I'd hope you have fact to prove it.

And you may not have said that; I do need to reread things more carefully; I got the wrong idea on what you said. You want to keep the scales now as opposed to the stricter MP balance that was in Dom1. But if Dom2 does anything it shows that they did recognize it and move away from it so I wouldn't think they would step back into the old scale system based on all the new changes. I would hope the faith in the developer to think ahead instead of behind would be prevelent with a company with such a good track record.

If I missed the boat, then I was swimming over here in the sea of irony that has alot of miscommunication of different culture/countries verbal usage and sentance structure.

But I always did like to swim.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
The game has been out 2 weeks in full Version; how can you come to the conclusion that it is drastically imbalanced when you haven't played it in all it's fullness on those settings enough to know. Theories are all fine and good; but I'd hope you have fact to prove it.

I don't think the game is drastically imbalenced. I'm arguing against the catastrophist approach that the scales need drastic fixing.

And you may not have said that; I do need to reread things more carefully; I got the wrong idea on what you said. You want to keep the scales now as opposed to the stricter MP balance that was in Dom1.

Thats right I perfer the new scales because they free up points for pretenders compared to the old scales to a total of 120-160. In the old days order 3 plus luck 0 or often +1 was the norm. The new norm is order 3 misfotune 3 - but that doesn't mean there arn't variations and hopefully Barbarian Kings will become another good turmoil option.

I see no reason why turmoil should be a good option for classic order races (Arco/Pythium), or even a balenced choice. Some choices suit some races better than others and so it should be.

If I missed the boat, then I was swimming over here in the sea of irony that has alot of miscommunication of different culture/countries verbal usage and sentance structure.

Hey thats cool man. I generally edit out all the juicy/confusing/ironic bits before hitting "add reply" but I do like to think people get a feel for me over time and will cut me some slack to play around with. Trouble when I keep it dry all the time is I can come across like a lecturer so its a hard balence to maintain.

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

Just what pretenders are thinking of that absolutely need to take advantage of the broken combination of Order and Misfortune in order to be viable? Perhaps you could provide some sort of concrete example?

As it stands now I'm completely unmoved and unconvinced: Order gives way too much benefit, and Misfortune has virtually no downside when combined with Order.

[SurvivalistMerc]

There is the downside of never getting the national heroes. But I agree with you...that is minor compared to getting rid of most of the catastrophic events.