There’s a lot of balance complaints here, but let’s keep a level head and consider earnestly: Is it THAT broken? It’s too early to tell, I would say.
Sure, there needs to be some sort of early game overhaul for Mongols and Rus, as well as map spawn fixes. I’m not saying that there is no balance issue. Mongols clearly have too big of an early game versatility.
But how much of the imbalance is caused by the game itself and how much is caused by the playerbase collectively not knowing how to play using optimal build orders, building placements, and making correct deductions through efficient scouting?
As to complaints of overpowered units (namely, fire lancers and horse archers), I read the comments I realize that the problem could have been fixed if the units were anticipated or scouted. If you are going against Mongols or Rus, why wouldn’t you anticipate mobile harass? It’s their strong suit. If you see firelancers on the field, why wouldn’t you press C and spread out, and hold position afterward instead of A+moving, clumping up your units? Even if you don’t have spears, spreading units out trades very well with firelancers.
I would like to use Starcraft 2 when it first came out as a point of comparison. For those who don’t know the game or don’t remember, people complained that Zerg was underpowered for like 3 months after release, including professional players. The devs just straight up told people that the players haven’t figured out how to use the race. Around half a year mark, professional scene and high-ranking ladders were dominated by Zergs. This change happened without much of a balance change. Better players started utilizing creep spread to get map control and exploit speed boosts.
Fast forward to Legacy of the Void, which had no balance change for over a year at this point, dominant ladder race keeps changing as meta shifted around.
Again, not saying that there’s no balance issue, but it’s too early to say “this game failed” nonsense.
Imbalanced but fixable. Not much more to say about it.
As frustrated as I am with the Mongol early game cheese, winning probably only a quarter of the games played against them (I main HRE), I think balance is very close. It’s worth remembering people didn’t figure the Mongols out until the third or fourth week after release! Things change.
A few tweaks and we’ll be there.
Sure, reading these forums makes it seem like it’s the end of all times. But it’s because, obviously, we’ll discuss about what’s wrong and not what’s right – that’s the only way we can fix it, and the only things worth spending time discussing instead of actually playing.
A little more communication from the dev team, though, wouldn’t hurt.
2 Likes
I don’t think the game is hopelessly imbalanced, although some design choices do make balancing more difficult: for example, having the same basic units for all civs when they are asymmetric (as any change you make to one unit will affect all civs). Still, balance is achievable.
The problem to me lies in the fact that the meta of the game evolves way faster than the drop of updates and patch fixes the devs seem to be eager to release.
Being a new game that was released in a buggy state and with kinda asymmetric civs and then update the balance every two or three months will guarantee it is never truly balanced or, in the best of cases, would make the balance be fall behind rom actual meta for a few months, every patch.
2 Likes
It is all fixable, but some game design choices and balance approaches and statements from the devs, together with the slow patch rate, let me doubt about a solid game in the near future.
It’s not that imbalanced
But it is imbalanced
Ie. On a scale of 1 to 10 it’s about a 6
The game is complicated enough that you can win with any civ BUT some civs have dumb cheat mechanics on top of being a normal civ
Mongol could have khan removed from game and would remain top tier
Rus could have the exploitable bounty stuff removed and still be a balanced civ
We just need some good balancing on a few key areas and fixes
-horsemen don’t have much of a role - this needs to be addressed somehow (anti siege ? Better harass? Idk)
-siege too strong aka the springald superiority meta plus how hard mangos counter ranged
-rus bounty cheese builds
-China op late came
-Mongol double production
Also water and hybrid maps need something done
Right now some civs aren’t competitive