Let me preface this post with a little background. I play all civs but Thor and Isis competitively, and will get to those two civs when I have time. I am not anti-Norse, but seeing as nearly 50% of all games played are Norse I hear their arguments all the time about how they are not overpowered. Chances are that these comments are coming from a Norse player, since half games played are Norse. The Egyptian voice is not as strong having only a following of 18%. To put this in perspective, roughly 23% play Loki right now, more than RA/Isis/Set combined.
Anyway, I feel I need to stick up for the less defended cultures, mainly Egypt and to a lessor extent, Greeks. I enjoy all the civs the same. I like to play Odin Zeus and Set the most, all three coming from different cultures. After playing these civs on a competitive level, I see a big imbalance currently in favor of Norse, although not as bad as the imbalance of RA during patch 1.02. I also want to state that as a whole, the game is VERY FUN, and balance is “pretty good” right now, but it can be better. I also want to thank ES for their frequent patches. I am not Anti-ES. Keep this in mind when reading my post. This is the best RTS game available IMO, aside from the ESO interface and bugs.
This article was written partly as a response to Gx_jcl’s quote “The community hasn't balanced a thing as far as I know. I'm part of the community but I haven't been down to Dallas yet to balance the game.” This is not intended to start flame wars, but only to improve the game, a game that I currently like to play and wish to improve. But I would have written this article to stand on its own, even if it were not for GX_jcl’s comment.
ARTICLE:
I contend that ES needs to make very small balance changes in the future. They went way overboard with the 1.03 patch. Making a single, or at least a few substantial changes is easier to track and isolate, therefore it is easier to determine if that was the balance issue to begin with.
For example, if ES only made a change to mercs, and Rain in the last patch, they could more clearly determine if that was the main screw, or if more needed to be done. And if more needed to be done, then they could escalate the balance changes, or add new ones in the next patch. Making several changes in one patch to multiple civs is a mistake IMO, especially if you make econ changes at the same time as making military unit changes. That will change the balance of the game more than one could track effectively, with increasing effects that are difficult to predict. Also making changes to two cultures at the same time, such as making Egypt farming slower, Migdol units more expensive, along with making RC more powerful (thus more cost effective). Making these changes seems harmless if looked at on a case by case basis. But these seemingly small changes end up effecting the game in a HUGE way, that is more difficult to estimate. It is common knowledge that with more variables and changes, the game becomes more difficult to model, project and test.
I mean really, no one can tell you exactly what the problem with 1.02 RA was, for the simple reason that so much was changed with 1.03 RA, and Norse with RC. It *could* have been the mercs, the Roc, the archaic farming, the Migdol upgrades, the 20% empower bonus, the 20% Migdol unit bonus, the RC being slightly weaker at that point, etc. Maybe all that was needed was a Rain nerf and a Migdol unit nerf. It seems now that RC are slightly overpowered, along with Norse. I think a better approach would be to have just nerfed RA specific things like Mercs, Rain and RA’s Migdol units. Of course , bug fixes are always welcome, like the Loki spy bug. Water issues like the Kraken can be isolated and balanced in the same patch as land military changes. However, ES should really limit the amount of core econ and land military changes in each patch so they can isolate the balance problems more easily, and let the customers verify that indeed it was a balance problem that needed fixed to begin with. Even the best balance team can only do so much with its limited resources.
I can almost guarantee you that the whole abuse of Migdol units (except for elephants) would not have lead to the upgrade price hike if RA was not a civ in existence at the time. If the only two civs were Isis and Set, no one would have EVER complained about Migdol units. In fact, it is my belief that only RA’s Uber Migdol units were the “real” problem, along with Mercs and Rain. Of course, I cannot prove that point. The only way to prove it is if ES only nerfed RA, and not ALL EGGY MIGDOL UNITS. This is especially true of elephants. I wish I knew what thy were thinking with the elephant upgrade price hike. If it was proven that in spite of nerfing RA, Set and Isis Migdol units were still overpowered, further measures could be taken in the following patch. This is much more responsible and has a less shock effect, making it easier on the one civ players as well. They are not forced to change if they don’t want to. This doesn’t affect me but I think this was partly the cause of ESO’s declining numbers. Most people do not like to adapt. Change scares them.
It is my contention that all the testing from the ES balance team in the world cannot do as good of a job as the entire community. WE exploited mercs. The balance team didn’t. WE exploited the Roc. We exploited the cheap Poseidon cav. WE exploited Poseidon tower rush. Heck, even the Beta people didn’t exploit mercs AFAIK and mercs were the biggest screw in the game when released. In house testing is needed, but is not as effective as the community, as there is no better tester than the consumer. Any programming manager will tell you that you can never test as well as your customer base. You will never find out all the bugs or balance issues in house. In house testing can take you to a certain point, and is required, but at this stage of the game, consumer testing is more valuable. Therefore ES should leverage the consumer for balance changes, as they appear to be doing. The most effective way to do this is with baby step patches.
Another point that clearly supports my case is the fact that ES patches frequently. Because of this, I think they should concentrate on making ESO a more stable and better platform, and leverage their in house testing on making ESO better, while leveraging the community to balance the game. They can most effectively do this by making very minimal balance changes, instead of making radical changes to multiple civs that cannot be easily tracked as the balance problem or not, because so much was changed.
The argument against taking baby steps with regards to patching is that it will take longer to balance the game because many small changes will take longer to balance than fewer radical changes if the fewer radical changes were perfectly thought out (which is nearly impossible). I disagree, because many radical changes will just keep swinging the balance too far and it will be more difficult to gauge the effects of a single change, with so many changes. It is much better to take baby steps at this point as we are very close to a balanced game and since ES (very cool company) is willing to make so many frequent patches, I also think they would be better served to adhere to this strategy.
Sure, if ES only patched once per year, then yes they need to address many issues in one patch, but we have the luxury of knowing they will continue to patch the game on almost a monthly basis (hope this continues). BTW, I am looking forward to the patch, even if it does not address the problems I and other have outlined for the simple reason that it makes the game fresh each month which equals more fun for me! I really hope they don’t over-nerf Norse and take the character away from Odin as they did RA. I really hope RA gets at least something back. He has no character right now.
In response to gx_jcl’s comment, “Yes, I do think that the community plays a role in patching if not directly, then indirectly, and they don’t need to go to Dallas to do it!” It would be interesting to hear from ES to see if they do consider the comments on MFO, AOMH, PAOM and other boards. Maybe they don’t. I would think that they do. Who would not want free feedback for their product? It is a valuable resource a resource many companies PAY FOR!
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