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Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:03 pm
by KingKaramazov
I agree for the most part, Nav, although I think that non-Asian cav actually isn't so bad atm (for the most part).

If any units need to have their base damage lowered and their multipliers increased, it's ranged infantry. If skirmisher units did 2.5 dmg vs HI but did a lot less base damage they wouldn't be so dominant (kind of like a lot of native Skirmishers...they have very low base damage, really high HP, and decent multipliers).

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:14 pm
by StrokeyBlofeld
This made me laugh. It just shows how some people don't really read posts properly. I posted this in a thread on AgeSanctury:

I'm looking forward to the patch as I am sure most players are. In my opinion, 3 to 6 months is fine between patches.

I know people moan from day 1 about this civ needs XXX or that civs needs XXX, and this civ is OP and that civ is UP.

But to patch straight away would be madness without collecting plenty of data, discussing what needs to be adjusted as a result of that data, then testing different adjustments, and deciding on a final set of adjustments and testing them before finally releasing a patch.

If 2 to 3 months of data is collected first, then that allows them a couple of months to create the patch. In my opinion that is reasonable.


And here is a reply I got quoting what I had written:


We knew withing the first few days Disciples were to OP
A quick patch to nerf them isnt to much to ask is it?


Like anything people consider to be OP after 2 days, you have to give it a chance for at least a short while. 2 days really isn't long enough to discover counter strats for certain civs or units.

I agree, small patches more regularly would be good, but initialy I think waiting a little longer for a larger patch after the game release to deal with the majority of issues and THEN patching more regularly with minor adjustments is a better way to do it. It's been 4 1/2 months since game release (in UK anyway) so it will be 5 months when this patch arrives. I find that acceptable to be honest.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:50 pm
by luukje
Well for a first patch, I agree that you need 2-3 months collecting data. The dominant strats for china, FF with disciples, hand mortar laming were only just being discovered by majority of players after the first month.

5 months is at least 1 month to long. If the patch is taken from the balance forum, Wacko updated the thing in december. That means they took at least 2 months for testing, just a little to much.

Well xbows might need a multiplier but then they need lower base damage and lower hitpoints, because I dont like the "hitnrun" style of play that some people favor, so cavalry actually counters it.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 2:46 pm
by KingKaramazov
Well, I think encouraging hit and run is fine because that's basic micro, and you want micro to matter in the game in order for it to be as competitive as possible.

Nonetheless, it's clear that long-ranged units are too dominant in the game, for the most part.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:03 pm
by luukje
Micro is Ok but killing cavalry with hitnrun is not. Micro with cavalry, pikes, cannons, goons should be equally important, but a lot of people just run around with a group of ranged infantery, shoot, run, shoot, run, thats not gameplay, thats just a trick.

So Ok to encourage micro, Not OK with hitnrun. Xbow is one of the units used most often for this, because of the high base damage, but also because you can get 10-15 of them very easy and getting 10 hussar slows you early on. So just be carefull with ranged units cause I find games where its two groups of ranged infantery shooting each other and running away all the time boring.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:52 pm
by kingchrisII
its funny how the 2 players with most used civ as china, dont want a big nerf for them hehe!!

i hope to see ports given a nice boost, and ther obvious things reduced, maybe cuirs nerfed, ashis, china, dutch, sioux, firepits, xounter system failing!

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:19 pm
by I__CHAOS__I
stop comparing one unit to another and called it unbalanced... look at the whole picture when talking about balance.
Otherwise we might just as well remove all uniqueness from the civs and play with 1 standard civ so everything is equal.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:27 pm
by luukje
Balance should be looking at the whole picture AND at stopping total lameness (cfr Sevastopol, 1 unit spamming civs such as fast halberds, ERK,...).

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:55 pm
by Soccerman771
[quote=""KingKaramazov""]Yea, I'm afraid of that as well, Nav.

At the most they should make Porcelain Tower only slightly weaker and make disciples more expensive and / or cost population.

Then maybe do something about Hand Mortars.

On top of that they should fix China's anti-cav...but I don't see it happening.[/quote]

Great idea. Disciples that cost pop space would help solve the 'problem'. For hand mortars, make them two pop spaces and reduce their range slightly..

For anti-cav make the swordsman better..

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:21 pm
by 36drew
It's really hard to release a quick patch when you have 10-15 civs (however many there are) and you have to think about how each civ will fair against it with a simple change.

As for particular issues, I think that the disciple limit should be nerfed and that hand mortars should have less range. Their counter (culvs) should not be outranged. LOL.

It will be interesting to see how this patch pans out. For example, I was looking at previous patch notes and noticed that at one point rods were also siege units that had 23 siege instead of the 10 they have now. ROFL. In this patch (with the exception of china) there don't seem to be as many HUGE things that need to be fixed, just LOTS of small things -- but we shall see.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:45 pm
by StrokeyBlofeld
[quote=""36drew""]It's really hard to release a quick patch when you have 10-15 civs (however many there are) and you have to think about how each civ will fair against it with a simple change.

As for particular issues, I think that the disciple limit should be nerfed and that hand mortars should have less range. Their counter (culvs) should not be outranged. LOL.

It will be interesting to see how this patch pans out. For example, I was looking at previous patch notes and noticed that at one point rods were also siege units that had 23 siege instead of the 10 they have now. ROFL. In this patch (with the exception of china) there don't seem to be as many HUGE things that need to be fixed, just LOTS of small things -- but we shall see.[/quote]

This my whole point on the testing period being so long. People don't seem to understand that you cannot just write down a list of things that are OP, things that are UP, change them and release a patch.
You have to change 1 thing at a time, and then test each thing against everything else in the game to see how it is affected, then you have to continue adding other changes and testing them and seeing not only how they are against everything else in the game but against other changes you may have previously made.
It's a very complicated proccess. You also have to remember that any extensive testing they do has to be performed by people who are reasonably good at the game and understand everything about the game and know all the stats.
It's not like there are 1000 people at ES testing the game all the time, it's a small number of people doing the testing, and that takes time.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:50 pm
by RascalJones
Heavengames forums, someone says Wacko says Patch Notes will be out on Monday.

I'm assuming this quote came from Wacko...
The patch notes turned out to be 9 pages long in RTF format so it is pretty extensive and thus took a little longer than expected. Visit AgeCommunity.com for more info as it's available.
I don't know their sources, though.

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/for ... 5806,0,365

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:53 pm
by luukje
Yes but the smaller the boost or nerf, the less testing is needed. Things like giving additional multipliers need to be extensively tested, but 1 more/less attack or 5 HP shouldnt make that much of a difference.

And, no matter how much testing is doen, you cant beat thousands of online players that will find every lameness there is and exploit it.

But I agree that you just cant go chance things around.

I just hope that in the enxt months we will see 2 or 3 minor patches released to fix small remaining balance issues.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:11 pm
by StrokeyBlofeld
If I remember correctly, it was like that with AOE3 and TWC. We had a large patch after 5 or 6 months, then the next patche came only after a few months.

Re: Patch soon?

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:36 pm
by 36drew
Keep in mind that the first patch usually includes a lot of things other than balance in it (like my tc and factory wagon that disappeared the other day LOL).