Dryads = Imbalanced

[taltamir]

some people have a moral opposition for fun... "all units must be the exact same, with no special abilities, no creative uses, and no extra powers"...
bah.

PS. And those people are even wrong, because they are wrongly focusing on the dryad as the ultimate unit, when it clearly isn't.

[Stepsongrapes]

Originally Posted by taltamir

some people have a moral opposition for fun... "all units must be the exact same, with no special abilities, no creative uses, and no extra powers"...
bah.

PS. And those people are even wrong, because they are wrongly focusing on the dryad as the ultimate unit, when it clearly isn't.

I'm with Sleepy on this one.

The attempts at simplifying the dryad situation to black-and-white as a defense are misplaced.

No, Dryads aren't the "ultimate" unit.

No, Dryads don't completely "break" the game, especially if you don't use them.

So? Dryads are still a serious example of being off the curve that is set by the vast majority of the other units in the game.

Good game design, especially in a game that has repeatedly demonstrated that balance is a factor (e.g., leadership system to balance units, level, rune, and crystal system to balance spells), still means balancing elements to a reasonable level.

Dryads could do with a balance tweak, and are probably one of the biggest examples of a needed tweak in the game.

Being single-player does not equate with not needing good balance. It may make things less urgent, but if the developers care about this being a well-designed game (which they obviously do), fixing unbalanced elements like the druid would go a long way towards that goal.

[taltamir]

Good game design, especially in a game that has repeatedly demonstrated that balance is a factor (e.g., leadership system to balance units, level, rune, and crystal system to balance spells), still means balancing elements to a reasonable level.

Yet, nobody plays any of the perfectly balanced games, but people rave about games with a wide variety of unit strengths. Why? because overly balanced games are BORING. If nothing actually CHANGES about a unit except its physical appearance the game gets boring really fast.

With the current system though, you get a wide variety of units with a wide variety of abilities and/or basic power level, and people are having fun.

[ShadowTiger]

I disagree that Dryads are so great. I use primarily ranged units and I found that I can usually kill the enemy with magic/ranged attacks. On the off occasion that a unit manages to cross the battlefield it is met with ice thorns or the ice ball which will give me the one extra turn to kill him. A unit like archmages can shock enemies often enough while attacking and doing damage to make him more valuable. Plus archmages have 90 hp so they won't die from a giant's stomp or a necromancer's attack. (i just got resurrect in the elf land so i was using inquisitor + gift until now...).

When the computer controls dryads it wastes several turns. they cast sleep & thorns, and only 1 or 2 of my guys are sleepable and the thorns get killed right away with fire rain, (kills 1000-1400 thorns with my lvl 25 warrior with max chaos magic).

Point is... dragons are nice because they are tough and fast, but dryads are not as mobile and and lose a few here and there too easily. So they aren't worth an artifact slot that could benefit my overall strategy instead of one unit only. (not worth sprites or lake faeries either).

[Stepsongrapes]

Originally Posted by taltamir

Yet, nobody plays any of the perfectly balanced games, but people rave about games with a wide variety of unit strengths. Why? because overly balanced games are BORING. If nothing actually CHANGES about a unit except its physical appearance the game gets boring really fast.

With the current system though, you get a wide variety of units with a wide variety of abilities and/or basic power level, and people are having fun.

You seem to have a very simple view of balance meaning identical. Starcraft, which is held to be one of the most balanced games ever, is extremely popular precisely because balance as achievable with extreme diversity.

Your whole premise of balance can only be achieved with identical stats is disproven by this very game. Nearly the entire roster is well balanced, despite being diverse.

It's precisely this good balance everywhere else that makes the dryad stand-out like a sore thumb in an otherwise balanced and diverse game.

Again, oversimplifying the discussion to black-and-white strawmen isn't helpful: balance can be achieved without being identical.

[taltamir]

balanced yet diverse? starcraft is not very diverse, this game however IS diverse.

And the good players are saying that dryads are not "all that"

[Stepsongrapes]

Originally Posted by taltamir

balanced yet diverse? starcraft is not very diverse, this game however IS diverse.

And the good players are saying that dryads are not "all that"

Pick your argument and stick to it. Do you fundamentally feel that balancing isn't needed in a single player game (as your previous posts stated) or do you feel that dryads specifically don't need it, but that balancing itself is fine to do?

By bouncing around, you come off as simply being stubborn rather than reasoned.

And frankly, you might also want to get out from behind "the good players" skirts as support for an argument.

[taltamir]

i am saying that balance is not needed AND that it just so happens that despite not NEEDING to be balanced, the dryads ARE balanced.

At least, balances with the SLEW of other "game breaking" tactics... things like using invisibility on a fast unit, mining mana with spring of magic to res everything, phantom/summons + sacrifice to finish a battle with MORE units than you started with etc etc etc...

People are finishing the game without loosing a single units. Dryad is definitely a "power unit", but there are much MUCH more powerful things in this game.