Blatherscythe said:
mindlesspuppet said:
Blatherscythe said:
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?
Bahaha, don't judge balance based on experience with friends. The Norse and The Atlanteans are simply better for entry level players, though that's not to say they are bad at high levels of play, they just have a significantly easier learning curve.
Egyptians were the most dominate back in the ESO days. They had the best scouting, their myth units were top tier, by far the best economy, not to mention the added benefit of being protected by their statues. That being said they were probably the weakest at releasing a Titan, but that didn't matter much since it was easy to stop others from raising theirs.
This would be like calling the Zerg OP because the ling rush is so easy to do and so powerful... until you meet someone that knows what they are doing.
Actually many of the Egyptian units are less powerful than the other races, but cheaper as well (at least that is what the guy who played them claimed), and on top of this they are the most gold heavy faction in the game. If an Egyptian player has no access to gold he will lose the match. Though their Rocs and myth units are a pain in the ass, I'll give you that.
I'd say he's right in terms of human units, as far as myth units are concerned not so much. Though, the thing about Egyptian units is they you can't simply mass them. An Egyptian army requires a good composition as their myth units tend to be more specialized than other civs. One well protected Mummy can change the entire course of a battle, while a few Avengers will make the Norse look silly.
Gold can be an issue, but if you're playing with the Egyptians you know this going it. Egyptians have free resource buildings and can cover the map in Obelisks, so there's really no risk in bringing a number of workers away from base to mine. Also don't underestimate the amount of gold caravans can provide, or selling food.
But this is kind of my original point. Egyptians are incredibly strong, but tricky to use. The Norse and the Atlanteans are easy to pick up and play with because of how they gather, the double edged sword to this is that it tends to cause their workers to spread out far from any protection; Atlantean workers are as good as dead if they are being chase, and as an aggressor I want the Norse to turn their workers into warriors and stunt their economy.
