While most recent AAA games have betas and hours of play testing done to them to try and balance a mode of play with 100's of variables, there is always that one that seems to have been pushed out without an attempt to balance or play test it.
Take for example Age of Mythology, the four factions have radically different play styles with various strategies formed around them, with some working better than others. The one added in the expansion just makes this more apparent. The two factions that dominate the multi-player matches my friends and I play at school are the Atlanteans and the Norse.
The Atlanteans are the most broken, to the point where we eventually agreed no one can play them without everyone agreeing with it. Not only are all their units able to be upgraded to heros (really tough units that exceed at killing pretty much everything), their villagers are able to do the work of 5 villagers and don't have to keep returning to a stockpile to deposit their resources. They can use these resources to advance in ages quickly and with the right gods chosen can cripple anyone still in the third age with a Tartarian Gate. They can then simply spam Fanatic Hero units, who despite being weak against archers can easily dispatch Gastrophetes, one of the best ranged units in the game, with a few destroyers and destroy anyone else.
The Norse are broken just because of the way they build their bases. Their workers simply gather resources and their infantry build the buildings. They also have a cheap, tough, and neigh infinite supply of heros they can spawn called hesirs, who can also build buildings. Because their scout can also build town-centres a Norse player can easily grab up all the free population without sacrificing resource collection. Then all the player needs to do is build fortresses around the enemy base (since I believe there is no limit to how close your buildings are to theirs) and simply spam hesirs.
The fact that you could win the game with very little unit variation and unit spamming as well as the laughably weak defences one could produce to try and avert this is what turned me off the game and drove me to playing games like AOE3 (because we may be able to get it on the school computers) and Dawn of War 1-2, because you actually need proper tactics to win.
So what game in your opinion has the most imbalanced multiplayer experience?
Take for example Age of Mythology, the four factions have radically different play styles with various strategies formed around them, with some working better than others. The one added in the expansion just makes this more apparent. The two factions that dominate the multi-player matches my friends and I play at school are the Atlanteans and the Norse.
The Atlanteans are the most broken, to the point where we eventually agreed no one can play them without everyone agreeing with it. Not only are all their units able to be upgraded to heros (really tough units that exceed at killing pretty much everything), their villagers are able to do the work of 5 villagers and don't have to keep returning to a stockpile to deposit their resources. They can use these resources to advance in ages quickly and with the right gods chosen can cripple anyone still in the third age with a Tartarian Gate. They can then simply spam Fanatic Hero units, who despite being weak against archers can easily dispatch Gastrophetes, one of the best ranged units in the game, with a few destroyers and destroy anyone else.
The Norse are broken just because of the way they build their bases. Their workers simply gather resources and their infantry build the buildings. They also have a cheap, tough, and neigh infinite supply of heros they can spawn called hesirs, who can also build buildings. Because their scout can also build town-centres a Norse player can easily grab up all the free population without sacrificing resource collection. Then all the player needs to do is build fortresses around the enemy base (since I believe there is no limit to how close your buildings are to theirs) and simply spam hesirs.
The fact that you could win the game with very little unit variation and unit spamming as well as the laughably weak defences one could produce to try and avert this is what turned me off the game and drove me to playing games like AOE3 (because we may be able to get it on the school computers) and Dawn of War 1-2, because you actually need proper tactics to win.
So what game in your opinion has the most imbalanced multiplayer experience?
