Why in the WORLD are Burgs getting nerfed while Franks remain top dogs?

Hi I am just trying to understand the amount of delusion happening in the balance team these days? Is there some french fetishist running the show or what?

1v1 Burgs at 50.25% winrate, 1.15% pickrate. Meanwhile the Franks are boasting a 53.52% winrate with 8.37% pickrate? If we’re going to nerf either of them there is a 100% crystal clear choice on which cav civ is slightly overtuned. You’d have to be full on untethered from reality to think the Burgs are the ones who need an eco nerf along with a castle unit nerf. What the hell is going on? And to make it worse, the Franks have been in this state for YEARS.

Actually mind boggling how this is just being greenlit as the way things should be. Burgs barely scrape past 50% winrate with a dedicated player base? Nerf them quick! Franks remain top dog with a literally 7 TIMES the pickrate. What is going on dev team???

1 Like

don’t know where your stats are from but Burgundians playrate is over twice that, and winrate is closer to 54%. they are also absolutely a force in tournaments.

of the two, Burgundians is absolutely the stronger civ RIGHT NOW. Franks is easier to play, and still strong, and imo they should be nerfed as well, but Burgundians are absolutely nerf worthy.

7 Likes

Pros and the player community as a whole always defends Franks. And there is not a single pro that I know ever said Franks need a nerf despite the stats say otherwise. All of them defends Franks by saying Chinese, Hindustanis, Gurjaras or even Mongols can (easily!) counters Franks. So no nerf is required.

In reality, Franks have positive win rate against 34 civs losing only to 7 - Celts, Spanish, Slavs, Hindustanis, Bohemians, Turks and Chinese.

1 Like

Literally from Microsoft themselves. I sure hope we aren’t about to say the non complete data selection of other 3rd parties should be weighed higher.

hera gave them an honorable mention for top 5 nerfs recently.

you realize those stats are basically since the game (DE) released right? so it’s not going to show you how strong they are right now. it also doesn’t account for the fact that the first year and a half of data includes ZERO burgundians games. so that is going to drag the playrate way down.

why do you think Gurjaras, despite how strong and popular they are right now, have a 0.33% playrate?

https://www.ageofstatistics.com/statistics/criteria?period=p03_v08&filter=rm_solo_all

here you go. this data is literally all the data since the new civs were released.

you need to filter your data to account for changes.

for example - let’s take a look at burmese. since DE released they have been sitting at a sub 50% winrate.
now imagine we buff them with the next patch.
using the data you provided it would take around a year to even see the impact of that change.

your stats also don’t account for different skill levels. should we balance the game around 1k ELO people who continually make mistakes that cost them games for reasons not associated with balance?

considering that the data those 3rd parties use is actually up to date and not factoring in old data? yes we absolutely should.
heres why.

lets say civ X is busted and for the first 6 months has a 75% winrate and 10% playrate.
they get nerfed ina patch. due to the huge playrate and winrate, it would take a very long time to see the actual impact on that nerf with the data you use.

6 Likes

Because burgundians have completely over the top eco while franks eco is a joke in comparison. Franks are strong and possibly too strong as pocket on arabia but that’s the only setting they’d deserve a nerf for.

1 Like

If Franks are still boasting a massive winrate despite all this time I think that isn’t something we get to conveniently ignore. But even if we want to pretend that its fine that they are still one of the highest winrates with YEARS of data behind it, Franks are still way higher at all elos except like 2k+, where the sample size of games is going to be very low and much more is determined by the play of the players at that rank, not what they are playing.

And its not like Franks have stopped getting played either, so the point of small time frames where they are OP doesn’t really apply here. They are and have always been one of the most popular civs, if not THE most popular civ. More than enough games are being played to make years of data on them a completely accurate picture of the civ being broken for a long, long time now.

And no, the game shouldn’t be balanced solely around low elo, but like any game if the civ is at/near the top at ALL LEVELS OF PLAY then its probably overtuned as hell and can be toned down without making them super weak at high levels of play.

1 Like

and i already said they should still be nerfed. but they are not nearly as problematic as other civs.

question for you sir, how do you balance around 1k people who make mistakes left right and center and lose due to poor choices, and balance around 2.5k people who can use and abuse everything to the highest level?
let’s take archers for example - for your average player, archers aren’t all that great, but they are so strong at the highest level they just got nerfed.

i was using those as examples to point out why your stats ARE BAD.

except Franks aren’t super problematic at high levels. do they need a SMALL nerf? yes. but are they more problematic then the likes of Mayans, Burgundians, Gurjaras, or Hindustanis? no.

1 Like

So the way I see it. Even if franks aren’t top tier for pros, I would still nerf them to change up the dynamics of civ picking on the ladder

They’ve had a long reign, even with a nerf like removing berry bonus and nerfing chivalry (from 40% to 30%), they won’t suddenly become bottom of the ladder either.

And regardless of balance, i would nerf them simply to shake up the meta. Other games have done(and still do) this a lot to make it more interesting

1 Like

Forgive me as I’m not really a history nerd, but isn’t Burgundy… part of the French? 11

1 Like

Because Burgundians at 2k level became more problematic to deal with, on both T90 Titans and RMS cup they were a consistent pcik and ban on most games, and every time I saw them being used, they always were ahead in terms of eco, also showing how OP is in reality the Coustilier (too cheap, quick to mass, charge attack that one shot arbalests and villagers), most pros agreed they are broken and need a nerf.

Honestly even the upcoming nerfs aren’t near enough, Burgundians should totally lose access to eco techs one age earlier because only serve to give Burgundians an unfair advantage one age earlier. and eco upgrades costing less food is on its own a strong bonus.

But we are talking about pro level at 1v1 because in TG Burgundians aren’t problematic due to the absence of bloodlines, however in TG, especially on arabia I agree Franks are overpowered, they need to lose the cavalry HP bonus in feudal age (moved to castle age) and change the current OP Chivalry effect (change the 40% faster working stables to something not stupid).

And with Burgundians nerfed, I suspect Chinese will be the next one to be nerfed, at least something of the tech tree (Heavy camel or Blast Furnace) has to go.

that defeats the entire design of the civ though, less efficient units overall but backed with an insane economy. and no, 50% food savings isn’t really that strong on its own. in feudal you’d save a whole whopping 88 food on a normal build order (DBA/HC). wooh.

3 Likes

Oh yeah. Forgot that one. Should be in top 5 imo.

Increase the food discount to 60% then. Or take a middle ground, earlier techs are not cheaper anymore. So either have to research it with regular cost or get the discount later on.

That literally made it useless. do you remember when it was just earlier? they were complete crap and the bonus went completely unused.

so with 60% you save a whole…113 food. again not much. especially when you consider what other eco focused civs get (or heck, even not eco civs). for a civ that is supposed to be eco driven with inferior quality units you’re giving them the worst of both worlds.

1 Like

What? Are you comparing with current 50%?

Yeah, I do. You can only click DBA while aging up and that’s it. But if you had all eco techs cost 50% less food from the very start, I don’t think anyone ever ask to make them one age earlier as they are weak. All would ask to buff it to 60%. For example Vietnamese got their no wood on eco techs bonus earlier than LOTD. But I never saw anyone asked to make it one age earlier as Viet is still weak. Everyone was talking and still talking about elephant and Paper Money.

I personally find giving both earlier+cheaper to one civ is very lazy and bad design. You can always divide them into 2 civs. Especially when you have another one - early Cavalier with 50% discount which is okay (although still ugly in my eye) due to not having Bloodlines.

1 Like

Viet not only get fully-upgradwd archers, thosd get extra hp too. See the difference between them and a cav civ who lacks bloodlines yet?

That’s not a strong logic when Viet still needs buff and Burgandians still needs nerf. Also that’s post imp situation bcz in Castle you have the best knight at the cost of 50 gold and 50 second (50% cheaper Cavalier - Bloodlines) while one of the best eco behind it.

Removing earlier eco access won’t make Burgandians that bad. They will still have a positive win rate imo.

1 Like

Personally i think thats due to other things not related to unit quality.

Id nerf the stable discount to 33%. Now youre paying another 75 food snd 50 gold for husbandry + cavalier on top of a slightly weaker eco, n2m paladin is more expensive.

I doubt that. Look at where franks were with judt free farms and no other bonuses until castle.

Youd literally put Burgundians in that spot, but they have to pay for everything.

1 Like

Now that’s type of argument I want to see from you. This one is good.

50% cheaper food eco is less powerful than Franks free mill. The advantage will be +2 attack knight but you still need to pay. And later the relic food.

2 Likes

But you have worse paladins too. So whats the point? Youve made them a timing based civ without the eco to tske advantage of the timings

3 Likes