Replying to PATCH 1.4 RELEASE SOON!

Charlies posts about the orks were mostly right though.

At least they have an opinion.. They can vote in it. They're experts in the raw gameplay of THE GAME and their feedback is invaluable. Still.. I general list would be drawn up and voted on. Simple.

Are you referring to DoWpro or Lordy's balance mod? Or one of the ones from the relic forums?

Also, pro players have a lot of different opinions as well. Foree (chaos) and Eclipser (eldar) say it's mostly balanced. There have been a few SM players in the top 10 as well. When Charlie was in the top 10, he'd constantly complain about Ork balance.

Or resurrect a good DoW Balance Mod like we had going early this year!

WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT! At least I would have a good choice of pro-player recommended balance changes vs Relic's boardroom meeting ones!

We need that BALANCE MOD from the community going. It has some terribly good gameplay tweaks and it fit nicely into our AI seamlessly.

Maybe im wrong but i observed the chaos vanilla ai own everything in sight of any enemy ai in its path. Is it that good of an indicator?

For one thing the DoW community couldnt agree to any one point needing fixing for the whole period after 1.3 was released. Thats why its so hard to get a patch together for Relic as theyre probably trying to follow suggestions etc but dont exactly know who to listen to.

Unless the DoW community presents a clear list of changes required all patches will probably break more than they fix. Lets wait for WA and see how the tech tree changes look in battle though first.

Excedrin, what I'd like to see then, as I alluded to earlier in a separate thread, is SM vs Chaos where you let Chaos start making defilers...at least 2..then defeat them.  That's the situation I've been trying to beat them at without success.  Once I see a defiler, it makes a mess of my rocket squads, plasma squads don't do much against it, and they go toe to toe vs. dreadnaughts pretty well too (though the dread will win but not by much, and not against 2).

The situation is dire...I want to see a replay where you have no problem with defilers.  Not that I'm doubting you, I just need to see how you handle it.  Please let me know! 

difficulty:  INsane
map:  meeting of minds
Sm (player) vs. Chaos
Standard difficulty; normal resources

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's a couple problems with this, one, just "letting" someone build whatever units they want doesn't happen in serious games. If I did that, and then stomp them with dreads and rockets, it won't really help either since a (good) human will micro defilers and sorc better.

The other issue is that defilers typically pop out around 8 minutes and chaos will have only 1 of them. It's usually possible to kill the first one without taking too many losses (CC with hero while AV infantry shoot it). The 2nd one should die to your vehicles plus remaining infantry.

Regarding AI vs AI matches, some strats require better micro to pull off than others. Even mass marines is not as simple as selecting them all and hitting attack move and a target. A human will do things that the AI can't do, like scouts set on CC to tie reapers while marines kill guardians. Reaper mass vs mass marines isn't balanced without small touches like that. The AI plays some races much better than others.

Also, I agree that general balancing for all play types would be ideal, but consider the "sudden death" win condition. Eldar have the best tier 1 troop (maybe not in 1.4), the ability to build turrets anywhere, and cheaper LPs. In a fight where you don't capture any SPs unless they're well defended, that's a huge advantage over all of the other races. In Assassinate, they can hide FS in a webway and pop out to cast spells every time it recharges.

I dislike Relic's "temporal" balancing where Ork/SM (almost) have to beat Chaos before Defilers to win and SM/Chaos have to survive the Eldar tier 1 while teching, but it's still a reasonably balanced game.

Here's a replay where I let it get a few defilers (it's tricky to "let" it do stuff, if I forget to let it uncap, I win by T&H, if I play too aggressively, it never gets vehicles, if I let it go too long I have to go tier 3 for preds, etc):
http://dow.lerp.com/...0907.231433.rec

Persistent bodies and decals!!! Woohoo!! 4v4's will truly feel like war!

Excedrin, what I'd like to see then, as I alluded to earlier in a separate thread, is SM vs Chaos where you let Chaos start making defilers...at least 2..then defeat them. That's the situation I've been trying to beat them at without success. Once I see a defiler, it makes a mess of my rocket squads, plasma squads don't do much against it, and they go toe to toe vs. dreadnaughts pretty well too (though the dread will win but not by much, and not against 2).

The situation is dire...I want to see a replay where you have no problem with defilers. Not that I'm doubting you, I just need to see how you handle it. Please let me know!

difficulty: INsane
map: meeting of minds
Sm (player) vs. Chaos
Standard difficulty; normal resources

Note that AI vs AI matches are a very poor indicator of balance.

Are u nuts? Using AI is a good way to balance as its a level playing field of micro'ing. It showcases equal talent. You can easily see what works and doesn't at a low to mid level. Higher level stuff requires pro playing from irrational thinking human chess players.

Still. how can you say v1.30 is remotely balanced anyway? Just spam Defilers = done. Brightlances, sure.. if you know he's coming with Defilers. Even then Defilers eat em for breakfast and sh*t them out for supper. heheh. Nothing should be that god-like even if pro-players know how to defeat it. General balancing *for any play-type* should be the rule of the day. Makes for a healthy franchise.

In 1.3, as Ork, I have problems with defilers (mainly because of sorc), but as Chaos (without defilers) or SM or Eldar, I have no problems with them.

Brightlances are very good vs defilers, especially since they don't have morale. SM can spam dreads easier than before, and they always had skullprobes.

Recently, I've seen some high level replays where tankbustas with rockets killed defilers. I think they should work better than sluggas/shootas because of higher hitpoints (they don't die to one cast of chains and doombolt).

Anyway, 1.3 is pretty balanced and it looks like 1.4 will be better, even if Chaos was nerfed a bit too much (should have increased sorc hitpoints or something maybe).

Note that AI vs AI matches are a very poor indicator of balance.