Re. Rebalancing....
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:05 pm
Just found the site, great idea, trying out the MP now....as far as balancing the 1.31 version I have some opinions, which as we all know, are as common as the venerated sphincter of bodily waste....
as someone who has played literally thousands of hours of this game, and who has worked professionally on game balance with SSG, there is a LOT of balance work that needs to be done - unfortunately. Wouldn't really matter except for the multiplayer (human) aspect....which ensures that the most effective combos will always be used. In fact, with the default options, I would hazard a guess and say you will only see 11 book starts in MP if they are allowed. But assuming that everything is viable...lets see....
Colors:
White is by far too powerful, I never use it (at start). The problem is mostly spell cost, i.e. heroism is too cheap, altar of battle too cheap, Torin too cheap, everything is cheap and powerful. EZ mode for sure. You could literally double the cost/research of most of the spells and it would STILL be the best magic school. Just compare lionheart to iron skin.....
Sorcery is also far too powerful, I never use it (at start). Its a different kind of power, instead of making your units omnipotent, it makes them untargetable and lets you bamboozle the AI into inaction. Flight and Invis and confusion and mind storm = free treasure/cities all day long with a SPEARMAN. A single spearman. And it has the absolute best spell in the entire game - word of recall. That lowly spell can easily win wars (take one city in enemy land and then teleport in the best of your units as needed....). As with life, the solution is cost - make sorcery expensive. The combat spells are not badly priced, but the overland/unit buffs are incredibly cheap for what they do (400-ish in buffs, and you have a flying, unkillable hero that is heavily protected from dispelling). Word of recall is easily worth 30 mana, and possibly more. Magic immunity and guardian wind should NOT be in the same school of magic, much less with spell lock. Magic immunity should not be enchantable either. Time stop should not exist. etc.
Death is balanced, but crudely. It has a handful of decent spells, a great number of shitty ones, and a couple of EXTREMELY good summoned creatures (wraiths and shadow demons). A smart player can wtfpwn with either of those 2 units (the SD's need some movement love though). But without either of those (or death knights), death is mediocre due to relying on resistance rolls getting missed, and flat out terrible against white magic. Just a all or nothing setup - either you get your wraiths and own, or you struggle like hell with your normal units and black prayer. I wouldnt mess with it too much except to fix the vampirism/wraithform weapon enchant so that it works, and maybe, just maybe, give ghouls or skeletons a bit more attack power. It is similiar to nature in that you are so reliant on summoning, which is an expensive habit.
Chaos is hard to play, because it requires a tremendous amount of both magic skill and mana to be effective. The best strat revolves around summoned beasts + chaos channeled units + warp reality. Much cheaper and more reliable than damage spells, esp. for high level combat. Just start with hell hounds, which are the BEST low level critter, and then gargoyles, then hydras. With WR on, most enemies cannot even hit them. Flame strike rocks, doom bolt rocks, all the resistable spells suck. I would be careful about lowering spell costs however.....maybe 5 on some but certainly no more. The creatures could be cheaper however, hell hounds are good but the rest are terrible for the price, until you get to the hydra. Its hard to give chaos anything when it is SO powerful at end game (armageddon is like time stop = game over usually, and you can weenie attack stuff with 1 unit + doombolt or flame strike very effectively). I think you could drop chaos channels down to 40 instead of 50 and maybe warp reality down to 40 as well, but its a pretty good balance right now. Its crappy at the start, but its very dangerous with 120-150 skill.
Nature is the gimp, as we all know. The lesser creatures suck, the buffs are terrible for the price - worst buffs/mana in game once you get past giant str/stone skin (you CAN use them on fantastic units however). Regen is quite nice, and the top-end critters are also very good, but very little to work with in the mid-game. What it needs is more freeze/crowd control (to combine with missle troops) or maybe a combat version of tranquility or just to lower the cost on iron skin and pathfinding....what it really needs is to get endurance instead of Life magic having it. I would take 2 books for endurance at the start every time. Sprites are 100 with 3 upkeep? that is laughable. Web/cracks call is the only decent combat spell, and it is woefully unreliable in a real fight (but GREAT for killing wyrms in ruins!). Make no mistake, Web is a fantastic spell (think of it as a 2 turn stun), but you are usually just delaying the inevitable. Aside from Gaias blessing to ramp your population/score up, there is nothing that nature magic does that makes it worth picking the books. Possibly the best selection of summoned units once you make it to gorgons, but 1 or 2 life books will get you way more "healing and durability" than triple the amount of nature books. And every school has some nice critters, so its weak when that is ALL you have.
as someone who has played literally thousands of hours of this game, and who has worked professionally on game balance with SSG, there is a LOT of balance work that needs to be done - unfortunately. Wouldn't really matter except for the multiplayer (human) aspect....which ensures that the most effective combos will always be used. In fact, with the default options, I would hazard a guess and say you will only see 11 book starts in MP if they are allowed. But assuming that everything is viable...lets see....
Colors:
White is by far too powerful, I never use it (at start). The problem is mostly spell cost, i.e. heroism is too cheap, altar of battle too cheap, Torin too cheap, everything is cheap and powerful. EZ mode for sure. You could literally double the cost/research of most of the spells and it would STILL be the best magic school. Just compare lionheart to iron skin.....
Sorcery is also far too powerful, I never use it (at start). Its a different kind of power, instead of making your units omnipotent, it makes them untargetable and lets you bamboozle the AI into inaction. Flight and Invis and confusion and mind storm = free treasure/cities all day long with a SPEARMAN. A single spearman. And it has the absolute best spell in the entire game - word of recall. That lowly spell can easily win wars (take one city in enemy land and then teleport in the best of your units as needed....). As with life, the solution is cost - make sorcery expensive. The combat spells are not badly priced, but the overland/unit buffs are incredibly cheap for what they do (400-ish in buffs, and you have a flying, unkillable hero that is heavily protected from dispelling). Word of recall is easily worth 30 mana, and possibly more. Magic immunity and guardian wind should NOT be in the same school of magic, much less with spell lock. Magic immunity should not be enchantable either. Time stop should not exist. etc.
Death is balanced, but crudely. It has a handful of decent spells, a great number of shitty ones, and a couple of EXTREMELY good summoned creatures (wraiths and shadow demons). A smart player can wtfpwn with either of those 2 units (the SD's need some movement love though). But without either of those (or death knights), death is mediocre due to relying on resistance rolls getting missed, and flat out terrible against white magic. Just a all or nothing setup - either you get your wraiths and own, or you struggle like hell with your normal units and black prayer. I wouldnt mess with it too much except to fix the vampirism/wraithform weapon enchant so that it works, and maybe, just maybe, give ghouls or skeletons a bit more attack power. It is similiar to nature in that you are so reliant on summoning, which is an expensive habit.
Chaos is hard to play, because it requires a tremendous amount of both magic skill and mana to be effective. The best strat revolves around summoned beasts + chaos channeled units + warp reality. Much cheaper and more reliable than damage spells, esp. for high level combat. Just start with hell hounds, which are the BEST low level critter, and then gargoyles, then hydras. With WR on, most enemies cannot even hit them. Flame strike rocks, doom bolt rocks, all the resistable spells suck. I would be careful about lowering spell costs however.....maybe 5 on some but certainly no more. The creatures could be cheaper however, hell hounds are good but the rest are terrible for the price, until you get to the hydra. Its hard to give chaos anything when it is SO powerful at end game (armageddon is like time stop = game over usually, and you can weenie attack stuff with 1 unit + doombolt or flame strike very effectively). I think you could drop chaos channels down to 40 instead of 50 and maybe warp reality down to 40 as well, but its a pretty good balance right now. Its crappy at the start, but its very dangerous with 120-150 skill.
Nature is the gimp, as we all know. The lesser creatures suck, the buffs are terrible for the price - worst buffs/mana in game once you get past giant str/stone skin (you CAN use them on fantastic units however). Regen is quite nice, and the top-end critters are also very good, but very little to work with in the mid-game. What it needs is more freeze/crowd control (to combine with missle troops) or maybe a combat version of tranquility or just to lower the cost on iron skin and pathfinding....what it really needs is to get endurance instead of Life magic having it. I would take 2 books for endurance at the start every time. Sprites are 100 with 3 upkeep? that is laughable. Web/cracks call is the only decent combat spell, and it is woefully unreliable in a real fight (but GREAT for killing wyrms in ruins!). Make no mistake, Web is a fantastic spell (think of it as a 2 turn stun), but you are usually just delaying the inevitable. Aside from Gaias blessing to ramp your population/score up, there is nothing that nature magic does that makes it worth picking the books. Possibly the best selection of summoned units once you make it to gorgons, but 1 or 2 life books will get you way more "healing and durability" than triple the amount of nature books. And every school has some nice critters, so its weak when that is ALL you have.