TheShermanator
Sergeant
In general, I am concerned about the extremes taken with balancing moves by the devs to this point. I get that the game is early access, and a lot of key things do need to be significantly altered to tighten balance and heighten the experience of cost-benefit trade-offs, blah, blah, blah - but, I also think the core game is basically good. On top of that, the basic game architecture makes all of the various currencies (influence, relations, prisoners, recruits by quantity, food, horses, other tradeable goods, party speed, money, fiefs, final military strength, etc.) largely interdependent. That is to say, inflating or deflating the value of one of those currencies impacts all of the currencies directly or indirectly. Thus, I for one would prefer to see balancing moves that alter the costs/benefits of actions in those various currencies by limited amounts, with carefully targeted cause-effect pathways, and a plan to measure results and follow up.
E.g. If one is concerned about influence bloat, maybe increase the cost of enlisting a party in army by 10-20%, then see how average player behavior changes, then maybe tune it up or down again. Or, change the cost/benefit of another player action that costs or generates influence by a similar small degree after observing the affects of the first change.
By contrast, what we have sometimes been seeing with recent patches are multiple large and stacking cost/benefit prices for player actions - a strategy that seems guaranteed to produce wild pendulum wings and thus huge unintended consequences. The example I have in mind: They've apparently have nerfed the influence value of donating prisoners by 90% in 1.4. That's not a misprint; 90%, not 9%. This will not just alter the influence economy - it's enough to alter the cost-benefit judgement of taking prisoners on the campaign map. Already, there is a cost/benefit tradeoff because the prisoners slow down the party/army substantially. If you are not sure that you can justify going to a friendly castle/city before a) running from a superior enemy army or b) advancing with the next attack, you might dismiss the prisoners anyway, even before patch 1.4. But in 1.4 (and if they keep it in main), most of the time it may not even be worth it to take the prisoners at all given the loss in party speed.
More or less concurrently, they've reduced the influence value of donating troops (by less) and nerfed Council of Commons by 90%, then 50% (which in itself was probably necessary).
Let's say, hypothetically, that they are still unsatisfied with the influence economy at the end of patch 1.4. How will the devs even know what to change? As in, how will they know which of the multiple changes they made in 1.4 were proportionally more or less responsible for the undesired outcome?
Also, even if they're right (and I think they are) about influence bloat as a problem, have they anticipated all of the ways that influence deflation of that magnitude would affect other parts of gameplay that currently work just fine? E.g. Will the player be forced to grind like crazy in solo-party mode and lead way less armies? Will player + AI reluctance to raise armies cause unacceptable settlement ownership stasis?
Really, the above is just an example - probably not horrifically game-breaking. The larger point is the pattern that it may reflect. I would hope that a balancing team would be basically allergic to a 90% nerf of anything ever. Even in beta, how could such a drastic change produce targeted, measurable balance info for their consideration? I'm concerned that, if they are fundamentally tolerant of such violent balancing swings, they could really mess some stuff up.
Edit: Rant over.
E.g. If one is concerned about influence bloat, maybe increase the cost of enlisting a party in army by 10-20%, then see how average player behavior changes, then maybe tune it up or down again. Or, change the cost/benefit of another player action that costs or generates influence by a similar small degree after observing the affects of the first change.
By contrast, what we have sometimes been seeing with recent patches are multiple large and stacking cost/benefit prices for player actions - a strategy that seems guaranteed to produce wild pendulum wings and thus huge unintended consequences. The example I have in mind: They've apparently have nerfed the influence value of donating prisoners by 90% in 1.4. That's not a misprint; 90%, not 9%. This will not just alter the influence economy - it's enough to alter the cost-benefit judgement of taking prisoners on the campaign map. Already, there is a cost/benefit tradeoff because the prisoners slow down the party/army substantially. If you are not sure that you can justify going to a friendly castle/city before a) running from a superior enemy army or b) advancing with the next attack, you might dismiss the prisoners anyway, even before patch 1.4. But in 1.4 (and if they keep it in main), most of the time it may not even be worth it to take the prisoners at all given the loss in party speed.
More or less concurrently, they've reduced the influence value of donating troops (by less) and nerfed Council of Commons by 90%, then 50% (which in itself was probably necessary).
Let's say, hypothetically, that they are still unsatisfied with the influence economy at the end of patch 1.4. How will the devs even know what to change? As in, how will they know which of the multiple changes they made in 1.4 were proportionally more or less responsible for the undesired outcome?
Also, even if they're right (and I think they are) about influence bloat as a problem, have they anticipated all of the ways that influence deflation of that magnitude would affect other parts of gameplay that currently work just fine? E.g. Will the player be forced to grind like crazy in solo-party mode and lead way less armies? Will player + AI reluctance to raise armies cause unacceptable settlement ownership stasis?
Really, the above is just an example - probably not horrifically game-breaking. The larger point is the pattern that it may reflect. I would hope that a balancing team would be basically allergic to a 90% nerf of anything ever. Even in beta, how could such a drastic change produce targeted, measurable balance info for their consideration? I'm concerned that, if they are fundamentally tolerant of such violent balancing swings, they could really mess some stuff up.
Edit: Rant over.
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