Battlefield spell + retreating?

[Tifone]

Hey all.

I'm a newbie gamer and new to the forum, maybe some of you have seen me around, I posted something in the Loldominions thread (that was funny, pity it's dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif) and in the recent thread where people complain or defend the price of the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

I am a real n00b, as I said, and I play only SP games now, so the problem I'm bringing your attention to, is not even a problem for me now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif possibly it will become when I try my first MP games?

Ok, let's make things short. I've seen around in the forum many people complaining about using Battlefield enchantments together with Mist of Deception and vortex of returning. Even using a mage for casting spells affecting the whole battlefield, and then retreating him from the battle, can bring to unpleasant situations, and is unlegit in many of the last MP games started, as I saw in the "Rules" section of the threads. Those two were at the top in the "Are these things an exploit?" thread too.

So. Does someone else think that if a mage leaves the battle in any way after casting such enchantments, these should end in the moment he goes? It seems logic to me, too.

I'd like to know the gurus opinion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif maybe this can be modded or changed in a future patch. I didn't want to discuss this in the bug thread as IMHO it is not a bug, it works exactly like intended but maybe if nobody likes the way it works, it should be changed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[lch]

Please let this not be a flamebait thread.


Tifone said:
I posted something in the Loldominions thread (that was funny, pity it's dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)


It is?? Praised be the Lord!
Ok, actually your stuff wasn't really Lolspeak and some things were kinda neat. As for others... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif


Tifone said:
So. Does someone else think that if a mage leaves the battle in any way after casting such enchantments, these should end in the moment he goes? It seems logic to me, too.


It would make it hard to protect fragile mages throughout the battle which you need to cast the spells initially with. Then your mages have to be equally powerful or actually even better than the Thugs that you're facing. If somebody blesses your troops, then you don't expect that effect to vanish when the priest leaves or even is killed, too. But I could actually live with the decision that as soon as a mage leaves the battlefield, his spells vanish.

[Ewierl]

"Battlefield enchantments not ending when caster leaves the battlefield" is on the bug shortlist thread here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=500257&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1) ; if you search for "#581510" that'll take you to the post.

So yes, it's considered a bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[K]

Ewierl said:
"Battlefield enchantments not ending when caster leaves the battlefield" is on the bug shortlist thread here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=500257&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1) ; if you search for "#581510" that'll take you to the post.

So yes, it's considered a bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



It's considered a bug by one of the moderators of this board who created and maintains the board buglist. The fact that four or five patches have dropped since it got onto the board's buglist is evidence that the game designers don't consider it a bug that needs to be addressed.

Though they can pipe up and set me straight. They read the forums.

[thejeff]

I'd prefer, though it is a little harder to justify, that spells that produce an immediate change on units (bless, luck, Protection, etc including the battlefield wide ones) leave the effects in place when the mage dies or leaves, while spells that have an ongoing effect (MoD, Storm, Wrathful skies, etc) stop with the mages death or retreat.

Which is, I believe, how it currently works when a mage is killed. That it doesn't happen when he retreats is the bug.

[Twan]

It would make it hard to protect fragile mages throughout the battle which you need to cast the spells initially with. Then your mages have to be equally powerful or actually even better than the Thugs that you're facing. If somebody blesses your troops, then you don't expect that effect to vanish when the priest leaves or even is killed, too. But I could actually live with the decision that as soon as a mage leaves the battlefield, his spells vanish.



I think he was speaking about battle enchantments only, not all spells.

And for battle enchantments it's a known bug.

Now, out of extreme exploits like combos with MoD, it may be considered in the same category as a reverse communion, a non expected feature everyone can use and not bad for the game (note that communion slaves able to cast is also something listed in the short list).

[Endoperez]

Re: K's post

Most of the bugs in the bug thread haven't been addressed since Edi put up the list, so that doesn't tell much about this spesific bug...

While it might not be a bug per se, it can be an exploit, and that means there should be some way of ending the spells even after the mage retreats.

[Tifone]

Hey all, 5 fast answers ^^

(Tnx 4 the compliment Ich, but the images stopped being in Lolspeak long before I even registered... ^_^)

Yeah I don't absolutely want this to become a flame war, I've read enough clones of the old "No Monkey Nation Will Ever Win A Game Because Of The Bad PD" thread XD

But as it was a problem that was being discussed around in the forum for a while, I just wanted to point it out in a specific thread and in a peaceful manner to see if the gurus and possibly devs think the problem should be resolved by mod or patch.
Of course I was talking only about battlefield spells and not all spells. It seems logic to me that a mage shouldn't be able to set i.e. Darkness during a battle on an entire battlefield and then run away to another province, making the spell un-dispellable.

It is not a bug as far as I know. Even tha manual says just "battlefield enchantments are dispelled if the caster dies" and not if he retreats, so it works as intended. But it seems strange and can be easily exploited.

Peace ^_^

[Tifone]

The thread is working it seems ^_^ since we already have 3 clear opinions, with thejeff and Endoperez being able to express everything I think better than myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif and Twan against.

IMHO Twan, if a battlefield enchantment (B.E. from now ok?) ends when the caster retreats or VoRs, this not only resolves the extreme exploits you talked about, but even makes perfect sense to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

But i take your point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Sombre]

Tifone said:
Yeah I don't absolutely want this to become a flame war, I've read enough clones of the old "No Monkey Nation Will Ever Win A Game Because Of The Bad PD" thread XD




You don't understand - THEY CAN NEVAR WIN!!1

Don't you get that?

Yeesh.

[Tifone]

Sombre said:
You don't understand - THEY CAN NEVAR WIN!!1

Don't you get that?

Yeesh.




now THAT was expected, but not so early ^_^

[Twan]

IMHO Twan, if a battlefield enchantment (B.E. from now ok?) ends when the caster retreats or VoRs, this not only resolves the extreme exploits you talked about, but even makes perfect sense to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif




The question for me is battlefield wide *instants* are actually more powerful when BE like Wrathfull Skies, Fire Storm etc... (and the concerned paths) are already subpar in endgame, mages allowed to flee or not.

I mean all these long-to-work enchants may end or not when the mage leave, Rain of Stones, and Master Enslave/other Mastery and Bone Grinding are the true game breakers for me, the spells making offensive armies worthless.

The bug of slow BEs not ending when the mage leaves is finally not really bad for balance as concerned paths (fire, air and nature I think) are the ones without the crazy good instants.

[Tifone]

Mmmh. Now this seems to me finally a good point. Possibly, because I'm not so expert to find counter-arguments to your one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif But as the *instants* you talk about are legit to me, being the game supposed to have high-end late game spells rendering big armies useless (a very nice feature of this game IMO) the problem of the BEs could in fact be a balancing issue - even because the paths you mentioned are surely less popular for late game than the astral, blood and death ones we always hear about.

Someone more expert than me can find a good answer? ^_^

[thejeff]

The only one widely considered to be a serious problem is Mists of Deception. The others can all be beaten, but once Mists of Deception is cast and the caster escapes, his side wins the battle.

"I win" spells are bad.

[Tifone]

So maybe shall we drop the entire BEs+retreating combo and just say that the problem is only, if Mists of Deception is cast, the phantasms need the caster to stay on the field, or they stop appearing? For me it's ok, and it should possibly be very easy to resolve ^_^

P.S. It seems to me there aren't so many "I win" spells. As far as I remember, Tartarians have been one of the main things people used to complain about, now they have the shattered soul trait and you must micromanage them a lot or after the insane turn they continue pillaging or heretic preaching or so. Master Enlave only works with large armies of low-MR enemies, MR can be boosted by Antimagic or so, and a SC can make short work of the casters of the Enslave... what else? I hope we don't get to the point that everything must be *perfectly* balanced in this game, or it will lose a lot of personality IMO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

[chrispedersen]

Hear hear.

I find the whole thing kind of funny.

Those that play tartarians/wish spamming complaining because MOD beats em.

PERSONALLY, I wish there was a high level Battlefield dispell, that first dispelled all extant spells and then protected the battlefield. Any succeeding spell would have to penetrate MR in order to be cast. Each succeeding cast would lower the protective value a small amount.

AND I wish there was a spell that allowed the supression of magic items for a time.

In combination, these would allow regular armies to be effective again.

[K]

thejeff said:
The only one widely considered to be a serious problem is Mists of Deception. The others can all be beaten, but once Mists of Deception is cast and the caster escapes, his side wins the battle.

"I win" spells are bad.



It's not an "I win" spell by any stretch of the imagination. It can be beaten by killing the caster before he retreats on round two. Battlefield spells like Earthquake, large area spells like Shimmering Fields, or just sending squads of flyers on Attack Rear are all perfectly viable counters.

Considering that you have two turns to kill the caster, it's actually less powerful than other battle-winning instant spells like Master Enslave.

[PvK]

Seems to me the issue is that the super-duper-powerful spells are so easy and cheap to cast, compared both to other options, and to what damage they can do to other strategies. These are currently balanced by research level, but that's a one-way barrier which costs nothing to maintain, which once passed, offers no barrier.

In other words, I'd increase the path requirements and gem costs of the spells that are superdeadly and obsolete other things. But that's just me - I prefer endless war to a rush to super-magic. And yes, another mod in that direction (in addition to my Price of Power mod linked below) is brewing in my arcane laboratory.

[Tifone]

I wouldn't like a Dispeller. IMHO it don't fit the mood of this particular game - huge national armies<<<<<spells and summons. A way to bring armies back from being obsolete, is not something I would.

This thread is starting to go pretty nowhere ^^ BEs, and Mist of Deception in particular, are not allowed with retreating in the last MP games I checked.
Here in this thread, many are saying that they are legit and a balancing issue with some other late game strong (and overused) strategies. So should they be allowed in MP games too? Talk, people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[K]

I've never seen them be a problem in MP. I've never heard of them being a problem in MP.

So raise you hands: how many games has anyone played where someone won the game because they could cast Mists of Deception or some other battlefield spell and then retreat?

I expect the answer is none. People tend to flip out over the theoretical rather than consider the practical.

[PvK]

I'm sure you're right, K. I'm not flipping out about any of it. Just saying I enjoy the option of modding different game balance, because I'm one of those players who enjoys the army combat and doesn't mind a "slow end game" especially because I like savoring long thematic single-player role-playing style games.

[Twan]

K said:
I've never seen them be a problem in MP. I've never heard of them being a problem in MP.

So raise you hands: how many games has anyone played where someone won the game because they could cast Mists of Deception or some other battlefield spell and then retreat?

I expect the answer is none. People tend to flip out over the theoretical rather than consider the practical.



None because using MoD + retreat is forbidden in 90% of games and players restrain themselves in the 10% others, knowing using this spell is a sure way to see a flame war and get a bad reputation on the forums.

It's why the only cases reported are accidental (or pretended accidental) uses in newbie games.



Tifone said
This thread is starting to go pretty nowhere ^^ BEs, and Mist of Deception in particular, are not allowed with retreating in the last MP games I checked.



Usual rules are :
- offensive BEs and retreating *immediatly* isn't allowed.
- BEs and retreating after 5 rounds (as last order of the script) is.
- BEs + MoD combo never.
- MoD alone is not absolutely forbidden, but using it and winning the battle has 90% to horror mark the player and summon an horror thread here.

[K]

Twan said:

K said:
I've never seen them be a problem in MP. I've never heard of them being a problem in MP.

So raise you hands: how many games has anyone played where someone won the game because they could cast Mists of Deception or some other battlefield spell and then retreat?

I expect the answer is none. People tend to flip out over the theoretical rather than consider the practical.



None because using MoD + retreat is forbidden in 90% of games and players restrain themselves in the 10% others, knowing using this spell is a sure way to see a flame war and get a bad reputation on the forums.

It's why the only cases reported are accidental (or pretended accidental) uses in newbie games.



I think that's just the hype talking. The actual effect on games is completely minimal, but enough people are crazy adamant about the issue that other people capitulate because they want to find a game to play.

A year ago there were no games that had rules against battlefield spells or MoD, and giant games like the first Big Game with all nations ran perfectly fine without those rules.

Casting the big spells is hard, especially if you try to cast a spell like MoD with its Air6 requirement. Even the best armies with ideal nation choices won't be able to cast these magics in any meaningful way. It only works well in:
-isolated battles...
-against armies without mages...
-who are run by players unwilling to spend gems on offensive rituals or battlefield magic or summons suited to your enemy's tactics.

Basically, these magics are for thug and SC killing, and since thugs and SCs are a sacred cow of a select group of veteran DomIII players, all the hate is focused on them. Considering the crazy things that happen in the endgame when people get 6-9s in paths, I don't even know why people bother nerfing these effects because they are far less game-altering than most globals or high-end summons.

Seriously. People don't win games with this tactic, so nerfing it is just changing the game balance to favor SCs and thugs AND removing tactical diversity and complexity.

[calmon]

K, i can't follow your argumentation.

First, the exploit was detected a year or some more ago. So why should someone have rules againist it before this time? Nobody knew that MoD+retreat leads to an endless(turn limit) fight where you only can lose.

Second you argue its not a game breaking tactic. So how do you know this? All/most of the serious players consider it as exploit and would never use it. So its nearly impossible to say how much it can be abused and how game breaking it is.

Third the spell is really frustrating for every new player. Just see most of his army killed by... well nothing real. Sure there may be other frustrating fights. But at least there is a chance of doing something. The real army killing options are expensive in gems and equipment and this option is rather cheap, deadly and combined with one of the best spells cloud trapeze very flexible useable.

[Tifone]

Well it doesn't seem very good to me that from a combination of all legit and working-as-intended things (MoD+offensive BE+retreat) comes a totally unlegit and in the most cases unbeatable tactic. Or this tactic is legit, period, or one of the components needs to be nerfed down a bit to make this tactic not unusable, but so less effective to be accepted in game possibly - one of the tactics useful in niche situations.

I appreciate the work of the devs constantly patching the game to be always playable, and as i.e. the power of Tartarians has been nerfed down a little with the Shattered Soul trait, this problem seems even more needing a little attention.

Peace everybody http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

P.S. wouldn't it be easy and balancing to make the MoD spell require at least a mage on the battlefield to continue working? Or even just, it works 2 or 3 more rounds without a mage and then stops, instead of providing endless phantasms? ^_^

P.P.S. K, i think it's normal in the world of Dom3 that spells affecting an entire battlefield or the whole world, high-end summons and powerful Gods and fighters are "altering" to the game. Isn't it how mid and expecially late game works? Doesn't the tactic we're talking about seem just... wrong? ^_^

[llamabeast]

I think more important than whether the spell wins games or not is just the fact that it's really annoying, and has a feeling of unfairness about it.

[JimMorrison]

If you accept that it is not the intent from the devs that 1 mage, unsupported, can cast 2 spells and defeat an enormous force worth thousands of gold and hundreds of gems-

-then you must accept the fact that the SINGLE potential tactic that in fact gives this result, that is counterintuitive to the way the REST of the game works, is in fact exploiting an unfair glitch in the code.

Glitch = Bug.

Therefore, using a "Glitch" to defeat your enemies, is in fact Exploiting a Bug - or for short, "using an Exploit".

Hope that clears it up for you K. Don't know if you're just playing Devil's Advocate, I'm just shocked someone could be here for a year and a half and not grasp this yet.....

[chrispedersen]

calmon said:
K, i can't follow your argumentation.

First, the exploit was detected a year or some more ago. So why should someone have rules againist it before this time? Nobody knew that MoD+retreat leads to an endless(turn limit) fight where you only can lose.

Second you argue its not a game breaking tactic. So how do you know this? All/most of the serious players consider it as exploit and would never use it. So its nearly impossible to say how much it can be abused and how game breaking it is.

Third the spell is really frustrating for every new player. Just see most of his army killed by... well nothing real. Sure there may be other frustrating fights. But at least there is a chance of doing something. The real army killing options are expensive in gems and equipment and this option is rather cheap, deadly and combined with one of the best spells cloud trapeze very flexible useable.




I absolutely disagree. I was aware of the implications of using MoD the first time I cracked the manual. It wasn't perceived as a problem until significant numbers of people started using it as a counter to the prevailing wisdom of SC's.

I don't usually raise a fuss about limiting MoD, because I know I'll be outnumbered. MoD is no more breaking the game than SC's are. For a reasonable outfitting cost, a well crafted can prevail again and again: Mod + DoT have a per instance gem cost.

[K]

JimMorrison said:
If you accept that it is not the intent from the devs that 1 mage, unsupported, can cast 2 spells and defeat an enormous force worth thousands of gold and hundreds of gems-



I don't accept that. Have you ever heard of Master Enslave, Undead Mastery, or Arcane Domination which allows exactly just what you are trying to tell me the devs didn't want? How about Shark Attack? Unravelling? Solar Brilliance? Ever see what two turns of Shimmering Fields or Shadow Blast can do when cast by an extremely powerful mage? Have you ever seen an SC cast a battlefield spell and just sit around until the opposing army is dead? How about an SC with a damaging aura who doesn't even cast any spells or make attacks, but just sits there while a thousand unit army kills itself on the aura?

Yes, when someone is unprepared, the tactic pisses them off. But, by the same logic, we should outlaw SCs and thugs, all spells past level 4, summons, and rituals. Each feels unfair when you die to it, as anyone who's lost an expensive army to high level magic, SCs/thugs, summons, or rituals can attest.

When you consider that any decent end-game army can be destroyed in the first two turns of spells cast by mages, having someone take advantage of this tactic just means that the other player wasn't a good enough player to realize that he should strike hard in the first two turns, or he didn't have the resources to do so, and so doesn't deserve to win. He should have had a strong offense on the first two turns, something that not only would stop this tactic but actually causes him to win his battles with less losses. Letting people cast all their spells and then fighting it out like God intended is actually a terrible end-game tactic.

As for personal experience, I can actually trace the exact point when this topic came up for discussion: it was during the first big game when one of my opponents that I was warring with went to the boards and started a campaign against ALL of the tactics I was using by calling them unfair. He asked the devs to nerf them, mostly because I think he didn't like the fact that his SCs weren't taking a province a turn like he was used to. Before that, the tactic was known and no one cared because it was available to everyone, easy to counter, and it only harmed people who couldn't field the mages to stop it (and thus would have lost anyway).

As far as I'm concerned, it's just a way to clear chaff players who have all but lost anyway and are trying to play the "gold and resources" beginning game and midgame when the real players have moved onto the "mages and gems" endgame.

[calmon]

I think the discussion is senseless. The majority understand the difference, some people not.

[K]

calmon said:
I think the discussion is senseless. The majority understand the difference, some people not.



I'd argue that a small and very vocal minority has dominated the discussion simply because the majority would rather make a few compromises and have lots of players in their games.

The polls that have been done are self-selecting, so only the people who are trying to make a point participate. I'd bet dollars to donuts that if you tracked SC use and beliefs on this issue, players would be sharply divided between people who focus on SCs and think it's "cheating", and those who use a wide range of tactics and consider it fair game.

[Tifone]

yeah, sorry but the difference is clear even to me, who surely I'm not here from an year and a half ^^

That's not the problem about one (cheap) tactic destroying an (expensive) one, or a lot of strategies would be unlegit.

This one just has this "feeling of unfairness" and "annoying" nature llamabeast talked about. A mage which comes, casts 2 spells, then goes away - and the spells continues to go on, undispellable, damaging every kind of army. No possibility of a lucky shot, and quite difficult ways to prevent.
I mean, I don't even know why am I arguing about this, it's so clear that all the current MP games decided this is unlegit. So why to defend this, you can't use it anyway, so wouldn't it be better if it gets nerfed down a bit in a way that even makes logic sense? This tactic would become possibly USABLE, why not, with a niche usefulness, adding one more to the many various strategies which make this game rich! Everybody happy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif as it is now, nobody can use it anyway

[Tichy]

Haven't the devs said that the MoD+retreat thing exploits a bug?

Shouldn't that end the argument?

Or has this become a discussion of literary theory?

[MaxWilson]

I count the spell "fair but annoying." I would personally prefer to play with the MoD mod, but I don't think it's unfair--merely jarring to suspension of disbelief.

-Max

[AdmiralZhao]

I don't accept that. Have you ever heard of Master Enslave, Undead Mastery, or Arcane Domination which allows exactly just what you are trying to tell me the devs didn't want? How about Shark Attack? Unravelling? Solar Brilliance? Ever see what two turns of Shimmering Fields or Shadow Blast can do when cast by an extremely powerful mage? Have you ever seen an SC cast a battlefield spell and just sit around until the opposing army is dead? How about an SC with a damaging aura who doesn't even cast any spells or make attacks, but just sits there while a thousand unit army kills itself on the aura?



Each of these tactics has many counters. The only counter that has been listed to MoD is to kill every enemy mage within one or two rounds of combat. (which I 'm pretty sure is the universal counter).

[K]

AdmiralZhao said:


I don't accept that. Have you ever heard of Master Enslave, Undead Mastery, or Arcane Domination which allows exactly just what you are trying to tell me the devs didn't want? How about Shark Attack? Unravelling? Solar Brilliance? Ever see what two turns of Shimmering Fields or Shadow Blast can do when cast by an extremely powerful mage? Have you ever seen an SC cast a battlefield spell and just sit around until the opposing army is dead? How about an SC with a damaging aura who doesn't even cast any spells or make attacks, but just sits there while a thousand unit army kills itself on the aura?



Each of these tactics has many counters. The only counter that has been listed to MoD is to kill every enemy mage within one or two rounds of combat. (which I 'm pretty sure is the universal counter).



Or sending in flyers to cut off their Retreat so that you can kill them later in the battle, or even just engage the mage in melee so he won't cast the spell.

Or moving your armies with magic or flight so that they don't know where know where to send the one or two mages who can cast the spell.

Or using small, elite armies that will Retreat after a few losses combined with cutting behind provinces so that you don't lose much to an MoD attack and their retreating mage dies as he has no province to retreat to.

Or casting MoD first.

Or casting spells that are always successful like Petrify or Claws of Coctyus so that they can't cast the spell.

Of putting up Astral Corruption so that any Cloud Trapeze chicanery starts eating their mages.

...and that doesn't even count the dozens of way of killing the mage in those first two turns.

------------
Pffttt. At the end of the day anyone focusing on MoD ambushes will lose so many mages and expensive Air items that whatever war they are fighting is going to be going badly for them very soon.

[MaxWilson]

AdmiralZhao said:
Each of these tactics has many counters. The only counter that has been listed to MoD is to kill every enemy mage within one or two rounds of combat. (which I 'm pretty sure is the universal counter).



It's that "or two" which makes the difference. MoD gives you twice as long to kill the caster if you're the defender, and infinitely more time to kill the caster if you're the attacker. You *can't* do MoD exploit on the first turn of battle, unlike Rain of Stones or Master Enslave.

-Max

[Jazzepi]

This thread is epic lulz.

Can't we just link to the old one where like two people tried to defend to the death how everything, no matter what, if possible using the game interface should be allowed? I think it was Foodstamp and K.

Jazzepi,
IN UR GAME,
FLOODIN UR INVENTORY WIF SLAVE COLLARS

[Tifone]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif Damn, I raelly don't understand why people didn't defend to the death the MoD+retreat tactic when it was made unlegit in all MP games, saying it can be countered so easily etc. etc. etc., but defend it NOW that, and at least it was my hope when I opened the thread, we could hopefully find a reasonable solution to make it less unbalanced and with its usefulness, by a mod or a rebalance in a future patch (I know devs patch what they want, obviously, but maybe driving enough attention around the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ...)

[K]

Tifone said:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif Damn, I raelly don't understand why people didn't defend to the death the MoD+retreat tactic when it was made unlegit in all MP games, saying it can be countered so easily etc. etc. etc., but defend it NOW that, and at least it was my hope when I opened the thread, we could hopefully find a reasonable solution to make it less unbalanced and with its usefulness, by a mod or a rebalance in a future patch (I know devs patch what they want, obviously, but maybe driving enough attention around the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ...)



In the 37 games I checked on the first page of the Multiplayer forum, I count 7 who banned "battlefield spell + Retreat in less than 5 turns" or MoD or "tricky stuff." Now, I only read the first set-up post in each thread which is where you put any rules or mods you are using, but the idea that "it's in all MP games" is clearly not supported by the available evidence.

The silent majority speaks volumes.

[Jazzepi]

Tifone said:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif Damn, I raelly don't understand why people didn't defend to the death the MoD+retreat tactic when it was made unlegit in all MP games, saying it can be countered so easily etc. etc. etc., but defend it NOW that, and at least it was my hope when I opened the thread, we could hopefully find a reasonable solution to make it less unbalanced and with its usefulness, by a mod or a rebalance in a future patch (I know devs patch what they want, obviously, but maybe driving enough attention around the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ...)



Someone already made a nice mod to make make it useful by replacing it with a less retarded spell. I think you can thank Twan. It basically just creates some clouds on the battlefield which do no damage, but spawn phantasmal warriors every round.

Jazzepi

[Tifone]

Oh, now THAT is good news http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif I hope if finds wide application around

[Niarg]

K said:In the 37 games I checked on the first page of the Multiplayer forum, I count 7 who banned "battlefield spell + Retreat in less than 5 turns" or MoD or "tricky stuff." Now, I only read the first set-up post in each thread which is where you put any rules or mods you are using, but the idea that "it's in all MP games" is clearly not supported by the available evidence.

The silent majority speaks volumes.


It might not be stated that it is banned, however when someone actually tried to use it in Capuchin then it effectively immediately ended the game as everyone left.

[K]

Niarg said:

K said:In the 37 games I checked on the first page of the Multiplayer forum, I count 7 who banned "battlefield spell + Retreat in less than 5 turns" or MoD or "tricky stuff." Now, I only read the first set-up post in each thread which is where you put any rules or mods you are using, but the idea that "it's in all MP games" is clearly not supported by the available evidence.

The silent majority speaks volumes.


It might not be stated that it is banned, however when someone actually tried to use it then it effectively immediately ended the game as everyone left.



While one game is anecdotal, that's not real evidence.

I would adjust my numbers to 8 out of 37, but Capuchin wasn't in the 37 I counted.

Also, what was the game like? Since you were obviously in the endgame, what was everyone's position and how strong were they? Were there a lot of SC players?

[Niarg]

Search for Capuchin and you'll find the game thread.

You seem to have missed the point of the post. The silent majority will complain a lot if this is actually used and certainly all of Llamabeasts games have an unwritten rule that you should not use it. Probably other hosts have similar unwritten rules.

[K]

Niarg said:
Search for Capuchin and you'll find the game thread.

You seem to have missed the point of the post. The silent majority will complain a lot if this is actually used and certainly all of Llamabeasts games have an unwritten rule that you should not use it. Probably other hosts have similar unwritten rules.



Well, the llamabeast game I'm playing in explicitly doesn't have those rules, so I think you are projecting your beliefs on others.

Also, unwritten rules against a certain player that pop up when he's winning don't get a lot of credit in my book.

[Tifone]

K, with respect...

are you sure you aren't playing the devil's advocate?
I dunno, it seems to me that you are defending the use of this tactic /against/ the vast majority of the scientific community http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif who posted in this thread, which I remember you is a specific thread about this.

I mean, the only time I saw something like this, it was on some Astronomy forum where flat-earth supporters started to claim the "evidence" of what they were saying (yeah, 4 reelz) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Take it as a wisecrack as it is plz http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/beerglass.gif

Anyway, as I came to know about the existence of this mod, the argument for me ends. I will play with it and /hope/ that MoD will be nerfed a bit in the basegame - with the mod implemented or something like this.

Bye byeeez http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[llamabeast]

I had intended to explicitly write a list of exploits - including the MoD one - which would be banned in my games (whether it's a fair spell or not K, you can't deny it upsets people, which is more important really). However I don't think I ever got around to writing it. Still, I think it is far preferable to win in a way which all other players also find reasonable and fun. A victory against a bunch of disgruntled people is a rather hollow one, I would have thought.

[K]

Tifone said:
K, with respect...

are you sure you aren't playing the devil's advocate?
I dunno, it seems to me that you are defending the use of this tactic /against/ the vast majority of the scientific community http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif who posted in this thread, which I remember you is a specific thread about this.

I mean, the only time I saw something like this, it was on some Astronomy forum where flat-earth supporters started to claim the "evidence" of what they were saying (yeah, 4 reelz) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Take it as a wisecrack as it is plz http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/beerglass.gif

Anyway, as I came to know about the existence of this mod, the argument for me ends. I will play with it and /hope/ that MoD will be nerfed a bit in the basegame - with the mod implemented or something like this.

Bye byeeez http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Hey, I just counted the games on the front page of the Multiplayer forum where people have rules against MoD or battlefield spells. That was 7 out of 37, which is around 19% of the games being played. The actual number of people in the community may be even lower considering that DomIII players are often willing to make concessions in order to get a game going.

If you want to start citing "unwritten rules" and anecdotal evidence as valid evidence, then you've abandoned the rules of logic, rules of evidence, and the scientific method and I can only say: good luck with that!

My point: there is a very outspoken minority that does not represent the community despite their belief that they do. This is not elementary school, so the loudest person is not the most correct.

Considering the number of people who seem exhausted by this argument, I assume that most people would rather play their own way rather than argue. Considering the number of games that don't address the issue in any way, the "pro-MoD/battlefield spells" majority are simply ignoring this debate and playing their games as they please.

[calmon]

Well K maybe you should count the games where this rule is in effect as a unwritten law!

[Saulot]

I'll begin by confessing I've never had this used against me, however I wouldn't think it was a bug simply because of some sort of shock value or perceived unfairness. KO and Johan have made some very conscientious and well thought out decisions to have things works in a particular way. How you can wish for certain things but not others, how prophets come back from the dead with more holy power, how mindless commanders pop, how certain spells use no saves or are unresistable, how immortality works, how vengeance of the dead eventually kills through a game mechanic, etc.

There will always be some parts of the game that don't work exactly as you'd have expected, or wanted, or would have designed if you were making it up. That seems to be part of the nature of the beast when talking about anything with tons of magic.

Personally, I find the fact that there are combo's in this game, that are far greater than the sum of their parts to be a very good thing. These are the things which promote creativity and why strategies are still evolving and being developed as we speak, and why no tome will ever contain the total collection of things you could encounter when playing a game of Dominions.

Until KO specifically speaks up and says this is a bug, I'd wish everyone would stop making that assumption.

[K]

calmon said:
Well K maybe you should count the games where this rule is in effect as a unwritten law!



How? Since it's not written, there is no way of knowing!

Even worse, there could easily be games where some of the players think it doesn't need to written and they are playing by it while the majority of players are playing as if there was no rule. That's not even counting the number of players who are OK with it, but have made concessions to the minority because they would rather play watered-down Dominions rather than no Dominions at all.

Considering that it takes seconds to write the rules down, I think the fact that 30 out of 37 games on the front page (meaning the most current games) don't have rules like that is pretty devastating evidence.

The community has spoken.

[llamabeast]

Questionable argument really. If I'd been more organised, I'd have written it down for all the games I set up. That's quite a few. I suspect many other game admins fall in the same category.

It's much the same as how a large proportion of the MP community consider NAPs binding, but that is rarely made explicit.

I do hope Illwinter are able to fix this bug soon anyway, so we can not have to worry about it further. It's probably the strongest "exploit" (depending on your viewpoint of course) left in the game, to my mind.

[Tifone]

(by the way and a little off-topic, mr. llama, are NAPs really binding? as i said i have yet to try an MP game, so I don't know how they are taken by the community, but i always thought that if a player wants to roleplay a bit and is playing crazy abisians lead by a moloch, it's not so strange to violate a NAP and attack his little neighbours of caelum before time to take them off-guard... and i wouldn't take it too badly if i was caelum, shame on me for having given trust to some insane flaming lil' bastards ^_^... but i ask to be sure)

[llamabeast]

Arguably unfortunately, NAPs are often taken as binding, and many people will get really quite upset if you break them. My recommendation is either not to break them, or to make it explicit at the start of the game that you will be roleplaying, and therefore it is possible that your character may not hold to treaties. I think people cannot get annoyed at you if you let them know in advance that you may not be dependable.

I think it would be good if more games were started as "Machiavellian", where the understanding is that all diplomacy may be reneged upon, as in real life. Having said that though, I've still never actually organised such a game myself. (Though these days I don't organise that many games myself and much prefer it if I just act as host and someone else organises and admins the games - I'm always willing to host if someone asks.)

[Xietor]

K is in law school!

Of course he plays the devil's advocate. All good law students do.

Unfortunately for K, Llamabeast did actually state in one the exploit threads that certain exploits were banned in all Llamaserver games.

But it is usually best when exploits can be spelled out on the game thread, as in Kingmaker's original thread, or in a stated set of rules like Velusion had.

Velusion's Rules, however, were so long, that I doubt anyone bothered to read them other than the few lawyers like myself.

I think a model for Llamaserver could be based quite simply on my post in the original Kingmaker thread, with whatever additions or subtractions Llamabeast feels appropriate.

But I think brevity should be a goal, as no one wants to read 4 pages of fine print before playing a game.

From Kingmaker:

Notable exploits banned;

1. If you capture Bogus and his friends, you can script those captured units to attack mages, but you cannot copy their "attack mage" orders to any other commanders or units.

2. You cannot cast battlefield enchantments that cause damage to enemy units, then retreat the casting mage before 5 rounds of combat passes. In other words, if you cast Wrathful Skies, you cannot order that mage to retreat before 5 turns has passed (your last available scripting order can be retreat). And this rule includes items that cast such spells.

3. You cannot overload someone’s lab with the purpose of maliciously filling it so they cannot receive or forge items.

*I consider VOTD to be a viable spell and working as intended. I know there are arguments to the contrary, but I would never remove a valuable SC killing spell from the game's arsenal of weapons. If you really hate VOTD so much, take an undead pretender, or put mr items on your pretender.

*Things like hacking files are so obviously outside the game's scope, that i would not even bother listing it as banned. Suffice to say if proof of a hacked file was presented, the player should not only be removed from the current game, but the community as well.

[Ming]

I don't play MP but I am intrigued by the discussion.

Xieter, does your rules mean that retreating on turn5 after MOD is allowed?

[Xietor]

Yes.

Otherwise, there would have to be a statement before the game started that a high level air spell was banned. What I did in Kingmaker was use a clever Mod written by Twan that made the spell have a fixed duration.

Absent the mod, I did not want to ban Mists of deception completely. But the mod is the perfect answer. Keeps the powerful air spell in the game, and removes the exploit completely.

[Zeldor]

Oh no, MoD is another category http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That 5 turn rule goes for Fire Storm, Wrathful Skies etc...

[Ming]

Thanks for the replies. I presume that the mod still gives MoD 30 turns or more - otherwise it would be somewhat weak.

[llamabeast]

I think the mod gives something like 9 turns at an increased rate of phantasm production.

I think Xietor's list is a good one, and I will probably add it to the FAQ for the LlamaServer soon. Games on my server will have such exploits banned, unless the game admin says otherwise at the beginning - this saves the admin having to remember every time. I will also add that you cannot script a mage to casts Mists of Deception and retreat, even after 5 turns. Having watched a battle where an army was killed in this way I just think it's so unfair that it should never happen.

I think/hope pretty much everyone except K will be pleased to have these exploits explicitly banned. Sincere apologies K. However you are always welcome to run games on the LlamaServer, and of course I assume that the games you run will un-ban the exploits.

[Tifone]

Xietor said:
K is in law school!

Of course he plays the devil's advocate. All good law students do.




Now, now, I am a Law University student, but when I'm talking about any matter, I don't make "style exercises" trying to convince everybody else of what they don't think simply to prove the strenght of my words ^_^ And I hope K is not doing that to us too or it would be quite disrespectful. But I'm sure he doesn't.

@ llama,

Thanks for clarifying the NAPs to me, and for your authority opinion in our discussion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

[JimMorrison]

K said:

calmon said:
Well K maybe you should count the games where this rule is in effect as a unwritten law!



How? Since it's not written, there is no way of knowing!

Even worse, there could easily be games where some of the players think it doesn't need to written and they are playing by it while the majority of players are playing as if there was no rule. That's not even counting the number of players who are OK with it, but have made concessions to the minority because they would rather play watered-down Dominions rather than no Dominions at all.

Considering that it takes seconds to write the rules down, I think the fact that 30 out of 37 games on the front page (meaning the most current games) don't have rules like that is pretty devastating evidence.

The community has spoken.




I don't know how this discussion got this far on just conjecture, especially with lawyers running rampant. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


MoD in in the bug thread, which you can argue is not maintained by a dev, but it IS checked often by the devs, and it has been there since February. Thus if the devs did not consider it a bug, they would have denoted so on the bug list.

MoD is in fact listed in red in the buglist, this says it is a BAD bug. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Utilizing the effects of a known and acknowledged bug, to gain advantage over an enemy is exploitation of said bug.



It seems to me that first, claiming the otherwise "silent" majority as your own supporters is beyond cheap as a negotiating tactic, but also that the fact this is NOT WAD, then your entire argument of community acceptance is moot - it is a bug, using it is an exploit. Unwritten rules about exploiting bugs exist because most reasonable people acknowledge that it is better to have a sense of harmony and camaraderie than to have the option to have full use of the little flaws in the dev's programming [i]that they consider flaws themselves, but have so far been unable to satisfactorily fix[i] in order to gain the upper hand on their foes.

Perhaps you were not properly congratulated, K, on discovering this bug and making it public. I'm sure when you first used it, you did not know or think of it as a bug, and just felt it was a brilliant use of mechanics. But now it is a known bug, and you just need to let go of the past. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Tifone]

Oh my lol, now everything makes sense ^_^

Ok, joking http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
This thread really seems to be close to its very and peaceful end now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif
That was the kind of ending I hoped for opening the thread: to understand how the community and expecially the most expert players were feeling about this. Accomplished! A mod solves the problem well IMHO and hopefully something will be implemented in the basegame as well. One million thanks to everybody who gave their contribution to the discussion, in one sense or another.
For me, I am satisfied and now call myself out and go seeking new docks to visit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[DonCorazon]

I'd like to see someone post a game file showing them stopping MoD.

I was the victim in capuchin. I had a huge army of Niefel giants and faced a single caster who had cast ritual of returning on himself and held the sword that causes heat from hell. All he did was cast MoD and the heat from the sword damaged him triggering the ritual of returning so he instantly vanished. Then my giants spent 50 turns fighting illusions and autorouted. Whole army decimated with nobody to fight. It sure didn't seem like the way the game was meant to function.

Look, if there is a counter to this fine. Good for you for being such a master that you are prepared to deal with this. Iwas a noob at the time so didn't even know if this was legit. Since then, I have faced all sorts of other endgame tactics like enslave, etc etc. and nothing ever has bothered me - all is fair in love and war, but this move did. Maybe its like porno where you just know it when you see it but this move just feels wrong.

I am not going to argue about it anymore but that is the story.

[Saulot]

JimMorrison said:
MoD in in the bug thread, which you can argue is not maintained by a dev, but it IS checked often by the devs, and it has been there since February. Thus if the devs did not consider it a bug, they would have denoted so on the bug list.

MoD is in fact listed in red in the buglist, this says it is a BAD bug. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif




Actually, that's not quite correct.

The bug shortlist is not a list of bugs, but a list of 'potential bugs', which is organized to prioritize the receiving of the dev's attention to either fix or declare WAD. Red simply means it requires the devs attention before other less serious matters.

As for it being on the shortlist for so long and not getting any attention from the devs, actually argues the case that it is NOT a bug.

I'll point again to my previous post which seems to have been lost in many quick replies to the thread.


Saulot said:
I'll begin by confessing I've never had this used against me, however I wouldn't think it was a bug simply because of some sort of shock value or perceived unfairness. KO and Johan have made some very conscientious and well thought out decisions to have things works in a particular way. How you can wish for certain things but not others, how prophets come back from the dead with more holy power, how mindless commanders pop, how certain spells use no saves or are unresistable, how immortality works, how vengeance of the dead eventually kills through a game mechanic, etc.

There will always be some parts of the game that don't work exactly as you'd have expected, or wanted, or would have designed if you were making it up. That seems to be part of the nature of the beast when talking about anything with tons of magic.

Personally, I find the fact that there are combo's in this game, that are far greater than the sum of their parts to be a very good thing. These are the things which promote creativity and why strategies are still evolving and being developed as we speak, and why no tome will ever contain the total collection of things you could encounter when playing a game of Dominions.

Until KO specifically speaks up and says this is a bug, I'd wish everyone would stop making that assumption.

[Twan]

Read the other threads on the subject, you'll find some KO posts on the issue.

[Gandalf Parker]

I would also have to make a nit-picky point about such lists.

Lists exist on 4 levels. Each of us listing the things that we feel are "wrong" with the game. A maintained list of such items in the public forums. The list of such items being discussed in the Beta Tester forum (which is not allowed to be posted or discussed in public forums or chats due to the NDA agreement each beta-tester signs). And finally the only real official recognized buglist which would basically be the alpha group (the devs talking between themselves). Please beware of listing things as being officially known and recognized bugs unless there is a post here by Johan or Kristoffer saying so. It is rare that such verification floats down to us and declarations of that type can serve the reverse effect of getting it worked on.

Personally I try to word all of mine as requests until the devs decide to call them bugs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[K]

I'll let this thread die semi-gracefully, but I'd like to summarize the main points on "battlefield spells + retreat" and MoD:

1.1 Is is a difficult/dangerous tactic to use? Yes.
1.2 Does it have counters that an experienced player can use and would likely be using as a matter of course? Yes.
1.3 Is it especially harmful to thug and SC armies and not others? Yes.
1.4 Does it anger players who fall for it? Yes. Like most effective tactics, it cheeses people off.

2.1 It it considered a bug by the devs? Yes, it does not work as they intended. The board moderator Gandalf Parker considers it a major bug, which is why it is red-listed in the Bug forum.
2.2 Is it important enough to the devs that they've addressed it in the last four patches? No.

3.1 Does the community as a whole believe it should be banned? Probably not, considering that only 7 of the 37 games running on the front page of the Multiplayer forum have any rules regarding it.
3.2 Is it an unwritten rule? There is no way to prove that, so that's an unfounded assumption. Since even the polls that have been done are self-selecting, getting valid data is extremely difficult. Final answer: the data says probably no because there is no supporting data other than conflicting anecdotal evidence.

4.1 Does it fundamentally alter game balance to keep it in? No, though it does take away some of the power of thug and SC armies and forces players to have a more balanced end-game strategy.

5.1 Is K a Devil's Advocate and/or argumentative jerk? Maybe. The jury is still out on both counts.
5.2 Is K a cheater who I can't trust to play with? No. I play by any rules that have been agreed upon at the start of the game. I do get very cheesed when someone who is in the middle of a war with me suddenly says "oh, we have these unwritten rules against the thing you're doing."

[DonCorazon]

Did you include AndeanZorro in your numerical analysis?


Omnirizon said:
Cheats: no using the cheap battlefield spell combos (can't recall them off the top of my head, but I will spell them out if necessary; most people should know what they are and know better any way.)

[K]

DonCorazon said:
Did you include AndeanZorro in your numerical analysis?


Omnirizon said:
Cheats: no using the cheap battlefield spell combos (can't recall them off the top of my head, but I will spell them out if necessary; most people should know what they are and know better any way.)






Yes.

[DonCorazon]

So you knew he was talking about MoD / retreating?

[Gandalf Parker]

A few points.

I dont maintain the sticky bug list on the forum. I think you mean Edi. I maintain the server list, the server commands wishlist, the map commands wishlist.

Importance isnt the best word when using the last 4 patches as evidence. What has been in the latest patches has been decided more by ease than importance.

I totally agree with you about hating unspoken rules. And I would be against any general decision that such unwritten rules carry much weight. It tends to require reading many different threads on a continual basis. I myself would be fairly likely to fail such unspoken rules.

[Gandalf Parker]

If anyone does wish to compile a list of unspoken rules then we can put them somewhere they can be linked to in the first post of game-starting threads.

[K]

DonCorazon said:
So you knew he was talking about MoD / retreating?



Yup. It was counted as part of the 7 out of 37.

[DonCorazon]

So I guess the point I am trying to make is that most people who have played the game know that MoD is one of the cheap battlefield combos Omni outlawed in Andean, as evidenced by the fact K read it and included MoD / retreating in that category when he compiled his stats.

IMHO MoD is part of the community knowledge, just as Omni referenced in his guidelines for Andean. But I think it makes sense to point it out at the start of a game cuz you never know who knows what and an MP game is a big time investment.

Also, I don't think people get cheezed at every effective tactic. On the contrary, i am always delighted to get schooled by effective tactics. I may lose a battle but it adds an arrow to my quiver for future games.

But if I were in a game where MoD-retreat was allowed, I would design my entire strategy to focus on it, including having a hard to kill pretender designed to teleport around and use that move. I don't think it would be fun and I guess the other guy would eventually use the same strategy.

Anyway, I am not going to belabor the point but I still look forward to someone posting a turn where they show how they stopped an MoD-retreat.

[Gandalf Parker]

I wasnt all that "ware" of MoD till this thread.

But wouldnt assassins be considered one answer for that?
Sure the same set of orders would kick in for the mage, but during an assassination isnt retreat equal to losing the battle?

[K]

DonCorazon said:
So I guess the point I am trying to make is that most people who have played the game know that MoD is one of the cheap battlefield combos Omni outlawed in Andean, as evidenced by the fact K read it and included MoD / retreating in that category when he compiled his stats.



I included it because it specifically said "battlefield spells" and I count MoD as a battlefield spell (The criteria I use is any spell that gets an icon on the top right of the battle screen when cast).

I was also being generous. For example, I included one game that said "no tricky stuff."

For whatever reason, only a small percentage of the community has a problem with it.

[DonCorazon]

K, It said "cheap battlefield" and I just don't understand how you can say only a small percentage of the community has a problem with it.
Most people who have been around the block know it is a game breaker.


Baalz said:
Yeah, as you can see from the sample in this thread there's a pretty wide variety of opinions as to what's fair game around quirks in the game, but the Mist of Deception exploit is pretty much about the only thing virtually everybody agrees is essentially cheating. Breaks the game and theres not really anything you can do about it....




Micah said:
The combo of Mists and a damaging battlefield enchant is pretty much just a flat-out bug exploit, and I wouldn't be keen on playing with someone that was abusing it as such.





vfb said:
Even just casting a battle enchantment and retreating the caster is exploiting a bug in the shortlist:

CBT Battlefield Enchantments Battlefield enchantments that affect the whole battlefield for the duration of the battle (e.g. Wrathful Skies, Darkness, Solar Brilliance etc) do not end when the mage who cast them leaves battlefield, even though they should.

Using this in combo with Mists of Deception is abusive, and it's explicitly banned in some games for that reason.




CUnknown said:
Yeah, cast and run is fine (even still I hope they change it), but it is fine for now.

But Mists of Deception is just plain sick and wrong!
It's just an exploit that needs to be fixed.




Jazzepi said:
I do agree with Tuidjy that Mist + whatever is a clear exploit. Personally I think that BE spells not ending with mages retreating/returning is a general exploit.
Jazzepi

[MaxWilson]

K said:
For whatever reason, only a small percentage of the community has a problem with it.



You used a rhetorical trick earlier and seem to have confused it into fact by this point. Quoted from earlier in the thread:


K said:

calmon said:
Well K maybe you should count the games where this rule is in effect as a unwritten law!



How? Since it's not written, there is no way of knowing!

*snip*

Considering that it takes seconds to write the rules down, I think the fact that 30 out of 37 games on the front page (meaning the most current games) don't have rules like that is pretty devastating evidence.

The community has spoken.



Therefore:


K said:
For whatever reason, only a small percentage of the community explicitly bans it, so I infer that only a small percentage of the community has a problem with it. But they could be like llamabeast and have an implicit ban--the only way to know is to poll the hosts of all 37 games.



Or would you prefer to continue begging the question?

-Max

[K]

Actually, the only way of knowing for sure is polling all the players of DominionsIII, both those playing in current games in the Multiplayer forum and those not. Just because the host of a certain game thinks it's bad doesn't mean that all of the players in that game think it's wrong.

That being said, based on the representative sample it is easy to draw a conclusion that the vast majority of players don't have a problem.

Arguing that there might be implicit or "unwritten" rules that support the opposite conclusion is exactly the same as saying "the available evidence doesn't support my opinion, but I'd like you to believe my position even though I don't have any evidence."

Heck, I'd be surprised if the majority of the players on llamabeast's servers even knew about his implicit rules, or are playing by them.

[sum1lost]

No, it is not easy. All you can draw from your sample is that most players have not explicitly expressed a concern, or it has not been brought to their attention.

[K]

sum1lost said:
No, it is not easy. All you can draw from your sample is that most players have not explicitly expressed a concern, or it has not been brought to their attention.



It's a little hard to imagine that roughly 4 out of 5 Multiplayer players are uninformed or unwilling to express concern. MP players tend to be better informed about the game, especially the ones that frequent the forums.

As I said before, all the evidence points to a loud and very outspoken minority who are attempting to dominate the conversation, and there is no credible evidence supporting their positions. When someone points out the flaws in every aspect of their argument, they get louder.

Having proved my point, I'll exit stage left.

[Jazzepi]

sum1lost said:
No, it is not easy. All you can draw from your sample is that most players have not explicitly expressed a concern, or it has not been brought to their attention.



I agree. Personally my feelings are that the games that don't ban MoD + BE exploit don't do so because the creator hasn't experienced the awesome *** kicking that it can be. Just for the record, I'm 99% certain that the combo was abused during the first Megagame.

I know Micah used a QoA equipped with armor of virture + Shimmering Fields + a golem with 100% lighting resistance against me in Dolphin. That was pretty frustrating, but I deserved to get kicked around, and if I had a proper army I could have killed the golem, and at least made the QoA retreat, thus ending the shimmering fields.

It's pretty silly for K to say that people who don't explicitly ban an obscure combo that breaks the game implicitly support its use. I would say the vast majority of people who don't ban it explicitly don't know about the sheer game breaking potential, or even that the exploit exists at all.

Jazzepi

[sum1lost]

K said:

sum1lost said:
No, it is not easy. All you can draw from your sample is that most players have not explicitly expressed a concern, or it has not been brought to their attention.



It's a little hard to imagine that roughly 4 out of 5 Multiplayer players are uninformed or unwilling to express concern. MP players tend to be better informed about the game, especially the ones that frequent the forums.

As I said before, all the evidence points to a loud and very outspoken minority who are attempting to dominate the conversation, and there is no credible evidence supporting their positions. When someone points out the flaws in every aspect of their argument, they get louder.

Having proved my point, I'll exit stage left.



You have still not proven your point. Your argument of a vocal minority apply better to you than to the individuals who disagree with you. There are more people who are vocal about it getting banned than who are vocal about keeping it. In no way does that mean the people who have not said anything agree with you. If they did agree with you, they are more than capable of speaking up without your assistance. It requires an enormous lapse in logic to suppose that because they do not explicitly take oneside, they must be in support of the other. Which they haven't explicitly supported either, BTW.
Think about it for a minute, instead of simply getting louder when someone points out the flaws in your argument.

[Jazzepi]

Great point, sum1lost. If you imagine that opposition, and support, for MoD was completely evenly distributed through the community you would see a bell shaped curve of distribution.

A few people would be really irritated on either end, but most people would fall in the middle.

Instead, you see one, maybe two, people defending MoD + battlefield enchantments, and a whole host of people saying it's clearly an exploit.

Talk as much as you want about the "silent majority", but examining where the tips of the bell curve are coming down is much more telling. It's clear that the bell curve of opinion regarding the usage of MoD + BFE is hugely shifted towards it being an exploit and not a viable tactic.

Jazzepi

[Gandalf Parker]

Isnt that a fallacy to define the split that way?
Those in favor and those against?

This forum is continually full of people learning the game. And many of the MP games include people just getting into MP. So while it might be true that the majority of the vocals are against it, I think that would be one side vs the many people who are unaware of it. And therein lies the discussion.

While I am not against someone saying something like "its generally known that is an exploit", that would be different than something like saying "you violated an unspoken rule" and trying to declare cheating or something. If the person running the game does not specify it as a rule, or does not have a link to something like "the standard rules in the games I run", then I wouldnt be big on unspoken rules. I cant think of any that I would consider default.

But then again Im not big on defaults in general. I think the mp games are getting too standardized just to create bragging rights, and are ignoring many of the games most interesting settings.

[JimMorrison]

Sorry Gandalf, if there was anything improper about that last post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

Judging by the number of items on the list that have cyan Dev text next to them, the amount of time it has been on the list, and my recollection of comments that KO made in the last thread I remember about MoD - it was all but written in neon. If it's not, I can only apologize for the misrepresentation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


In any case, Sum1 beat me to it. Since majority rules, those of us who are vocally against it, who greatly outnumber you, K, hereby claim the silent ones as supporters of our position, stealing them from you as their silence clearly shows that they disagreed with you co-opting their opinions.

7/37 game threads specifically ban the move, 0/37 specifically state that it is acceptable. How can you possibly claim that as devastating evidence that everyone who can't be arsed to post here, supports you?

This is fun. I like how when you talk circles around a lawyer (or law student), they continue trying to think that you are the one standing still. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

You points may be correct.
But I know that there are things on the lists that the devs consider important but the time consideration tends to decide it more. If it comes to many little fun things or one big unfun thing than the big thing can get unhappily set back. It doesnt make it not important.

On your other points, I was unaware that this had been discussed in the games thread. That does make a difference.

[Twan]

How have you counted the games using my MoD fix ?

I think if games like the current mega one and 2 others use modding just to change this spell (and it's the *only* spell which get its effects changed in the whole spell list) it show people are very reluctant to see the vanilla version used in MP.

[Gandalf Parker]

Good point. But I dont remember it coming up on my blitz server. So this would be something applicable to the larger longer running games?

On the other hand, are those games IRC driven? The IRC crowd tends to be an opinion group on its own.

[thejeff]

Your blitz games tend to be around 4 players, right?

I'd guess a lot of them are decided before the serious end-game strategies come into play.

[Gandalf Parker]

true. Do the other servers have rules or mods about it?
Velusion? Llamabeast? lch?

[lch]

Gandalf Parker said:
Do the other servers have rules or mods about it?


I don't have server rules, as I leave this to the game admins or the players. I just host. I haven't had an incident where people were abusive in any of my games that I know of, though.

[triqui]

Gandalf Parker said:
Isnt that a fallacy to define the split that way?
Those in favor and those against?



It is. Fallacy of the False Dichotomy.

[K]

JimMorrison said:
7/37 game threads specifically ban the move, 0/37 specifically state that it is acceptable. How can you possibly claim that as devastating evidence that everyone who can't be arsed to post here, supports you?

This is fun. I like how when you talk circles around a lawyer (or law student), they continue trying to think that you are the one standing still. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Since the position of "nerf battlefield spells and MoD" is a change from the baseline rules, that puts you in the position of meeting the burden of proving that your position is valid.

Considering that I've dismantled all your arguments and provided some proof (though not conclusive proof) means that I won this argument around four pages ago. You neither met your logical burden nor provided any proof. In a sense, I actually won this argument twice.

I don't have to prove that a majority support my position. The mere fact that there is no proof that a majority do support you is enough to defeat your proposition. The result of no explicit rules to the contrary is to support using the baseline rules, either explicitly or implicitly.

At this point you are stuck with the Conceptual Balance guys and the "nerf all gem items" guys: a recognizable minority whose position is understandable but completely unsupportable. It is the position of: "the game doesn't support my play style, so everyone should support a change that will."

[AdmiralZhao]

This thread makes much more sense if you assume that K is a time traveler.

It was probably a future-K who wrote this:


2.1 It it considered a bug by the devs? Yes, it does not work as they intended. The board moderator Gandalf Parker considers it a major bug, which is why it is red-listed in the Bug forum.




and it was probably some past-K who just wrote the above post about burden of proof. The above post doesn't make any sense in light of the bug status of MoD + Retreat, but since this was written by past-version of K, he isn't aware of that.


Now back to the _Time Traveler's Wife_ ...

[K]

AdmiralZhao said:
This thread makes much more sense if you assume that K is a time traveler.

It was probably a future-K who wrote this:


2.1 It it considered a bug by the devs? Yes, it does not work as they intended. The board moderator Gandalf Parker considers it a major bug, which is why it is red-listed in the Bug forum.




and it was probably some past-K who just wrote the above post about burden of proof. The above post doesn't make any sense in light of the bug status of MoD + Retreat, but since this was written by past-version of K, he isn't aware of that.


Now back to the _Time Traveler's Wife_ ...



Just because the devs consider it a bug doesn't mean that it adversely affects game balance and should become a rule people should follow. In fact, I consider it as an improvement to game balance because it reduces the importance of SCs and thugs.

The burden of proof is on you to show that people should follow this rule. I've given an affirmative defense (playstyles of MP players) and have dismantled all your arguments (see previous posts). Either would have worked.

[Zeldor]

I suggest a simple new rule for MP games:

"Player K is banned"

I am sure I wouldn't want to play with cheater. And as game admin I'd ban all cheaters.

[AdmiralZhao]

No, I've dismantled all of *your* arguments and have given an affirmative offense. Clearly, the burden of proof is on you to show that people shouldn't not disobey this rule.

[llamabeast]

K isn't a cheater Zeldor, that's not reasonable.

[Endoperez]

Zeldor said:
I suggest a simple new rule for MP games:

"Player K is banned"

I am sure I wouldn't want to play with cheater. And as game admin I'd ban all cheaters.



Behave!


If you were a game admin, your first responsibility would be to ensure that everyone would know what is considered breaking the rules.
If you failed to do that, the blame would be your own.

K is arguing about whether or not a house-rule is necessary. Has he said that he will use MoD and retreat even though it has been clearly prohibited in the game he is playing? If he hasn't, I think you should apologize.

[K]

Zeldor said:
I suggest a simple new rule for MP games:

"Player K is banned"

I am sure I wouldn't want to play with cheater. And as game admin I'd ban all cheaters.



Very mature. If you can't win the argument, attack the reputation of the person arguing.

Would you believe that I've never cast MoD in a multiplay game? Or that I always follow the rules set up in the game? In fact, I've never broken a NAP, traded unfairly, or lied in MP. Ask people who've played with me.

As an example, in order to clarify these issues I set up a game called DarkParadise on llamabeast's server with rules explicitly saying what is possible in order to promote fair play and protect everyone's reputation.

[triqui]

K said:

I don't have to prove that a majority support my position. The mere fact that there is no proof that a majority do support you is enough to defeat your proposition. The result of no explicit rules to the contrary is to support using the baseline rules, either explicitly or implicitly.



But he is way closer to find a majority than you are. He is basing his argument on the fact that 7/37 already agree with him, while a whole total of 0/37 agree with you. You act like if "I have not been defeated *yet*" is a proof that "I am winning", which is not. That's like a Goverment that faces a 10 million people demonstration in it's 40 million country against a law and defending that it's not a proof of the law unpopularity becouse "30 millions did not demonstrate". Then they are bassically assuming that those who did not demonstrate are not only not disliking the law, but they like it, which is a huge quantum leap in logic.

Bassically it's the same we have here. 7/37 are upset enough with the law as to demonstrate. And you claim that the 30/37 which arent upset as to demonstrate, actually like the law.

[K]

AdmiralZhao said:
No, I've dismantled all of *your* arguments and have given an affirmative offense. Clearly, the burden of proof is on you to show that people shouldn't not disobey this rule.



The burden of proof is on you because you are the one asking people to refrain from a certain style of play by playing by a houserule.

By the way, there is no such thing as an "affirmative offense." Since that's not your first logical error, I'm not sure you even know how to dismantle an argument because clearly that has not happened despite the fact that I clearly labeled them with numbers and everything.

So, if everyone is done with the personal attacks on me and my abilities, I'd like to let this thread die. I never imagined I'd convince any of the die-hards, but I wanted the arguments to be in the boards for posterity.

[K]

triqui said:

K said:

I don't have to prove that a majority support my position. The mere fact that there is no proof that a majority do support you is enough to defeat your proposition. The result of no explicit rules to the contrary is to support using the baseline rules, either explicitly or implicitly.



But he is way closer to find a majority than you are. He is basing his argument on the fact that 7/37 already agree with him, while a whole total of 0/37 agree with you. You act like if "I have not been defeated *yet*" is a proof that "I am winning", which is not. That's like a Goverment that faces a 10 million people demonstration in it's 40 million country against a law and defending that it's not a proof of the law unpopularity becouse "30 millions did not demonstrate". Then they are bassically assuming that those who did not demonstrate are not only not disliking the law, but they like it, which is a huge quantum leap in logic.

Bassically it's the same we have here. 7/37 are upset enough with the law as to demonstrate. And you claim that the 30/37 which arent upset as to demonstrate, actually like the law.



The argument was "everyone in MP plays by this houserule." That was one of the arguments that people were trying to use to support their position that it is a fair rule and everyone should play by it.

I don't have to prove that people agree with me. I just have to show with the evidence that this argument was flawed, which the data clearly shows.

[Zeldor]

Using exploits is cheating. Supporting the use of exploits is too. He is willing to use the biggest bug in that game so he is a cheater. Simple. I wouldn't want him in my game and have a risk of him finding a new bug and calling it strategy. Maybe he is even willing to support .2h file hacking and saying that if game creators didn't want it to happen they'd protect that files better?

K:
Yeah, right. I am sure attorney general and supreme court support you. They didn't say theu support us so it is logical they are on your side.

[llamabeast]

Zeldor, "using exploits is cheating" is only an opinion. If you feel that way, make sure to play in games where exploits are banned. Personal attacks are not acceptable.

In any case, K is a very honorable player. He just has a different attitude to exploits to many others.

[triqui]

I don't have to prove that people agree with me. I just have to show with the evidence that this argument was flawed, which the data clearly shows.


I disagree with the first part but agree with the second. You showed that particular argument is flawed. However, that does not proof at all that MoD is desirable, or balanced, or even liked by the community.

You are acting with an admirable logical refuting ability (which i happen to like a lot, being a logical-whore myself). But you look like the lawyer of O.J. Simpson: you arent looking to proof the innocence of your client, just trying to discredit whatever "proof" the attorney gives you. So in the end, you might "win" the "judge decision" and get a "non guilty judgement" , but no one will think your client is innocent. And that might even include your client's advocate http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[K]

Zeldor said:
K:
Yeah, right. I am sure attorney general and supreme court support you. They didn't say theu support us so it is logical they are on your side.



Ok, here's a quick lesson on the court system:
If you are asking the court to do something(give you damages, injunctions, convict someone, change law, etc.), then the burden of proof is on you. Usually, it is the plaintiff who is asking the court to do something.

If the plaintiff does not meet the burden of proof, or the defendant can show that the plaintiff does not meet the burden of proof(by disproving even one element of their argument, for example), then the court will rule against the plaintiff and the defense wins. It works that way in every court in the land (USA).

Now on to our problem: the community is being asked to do something(play by a houserule). Therefore, the burden of proof is on you and I only need to disprove elements of your argument so that you don't meet your burden.

Xietor can tell you all about it, if he cares to.

[Tifone]

Really, people, behave. Think about the other as a PERSON and not as MERE WORDS, ok? It is more difficult to act mean to people than to words.

I don't agree with K, and IMHO it is evident now he's using low-level logical flaws and the politicians' ways of talking to bring the right to his side. I may be wrong of course.

But really, there is no Orwellian psychocrime here. He can say and think whatever he wants, like everybody else can until hurting someone.

[triqui]

If the plaintiff does not meet the burden of proof, or the defendant can show that the plaintiff does not meet the burden of proof(by disproving even one element of their argument, for example), then the court will rule against the plaintiff and the defense wins. It works that way in every court in the land (USA).



That's how they proved O.J. Simpson cristal-clear innocence http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[K]

triqui said:

If the plaintiff does not meet the burden of proof, or the defendant can show that the plaintiff does not meet the burden of proof(by disproving even one element of their argument, for example), then the court will rule against the plaintiff and the defense wins. It works that way in every court in the land (USA).



That's how they proved O.J. Simpson cristal-clear innocence http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Yes, it is.:D

[JimMorrison]

K said:
...Considering that I've dismantled all your arguments and provided some proof (though not conclusive proof) means that I won this argument around four pages ago. You neither met your logical burden nor provided any proof. In a sense, I actually won this argument twice.

I don't have to prove that a majority support my position. The mere fact that there is no proof that a majority do support you is enough to defeat your proposition. The result of no explicit rules to the contrary is to support using the baseline rules, either explicitly or implicitly...



Ehh, the only actual "proof", as in factual evidence of anything that you have provided in the thread, supports the basic notion that people do not agree with the use of the tactic in question.

Apparently this is the way you have defied logic and won the argument twice - you won first by providing the only evidence available which supports your "opponents", and then you won again by declaring yourself the victor? o.O

You even ignore the fact that Llama confirmed to you that he does indeed have a personal set of rules that he has neglected to type up - which are focused on maximizing enjoyment of the players on his server - and that MoD will be included in that list. The sheer number of games that this effects, may well push the count from 7/37 over the halfway mark, to an actual majority.


And still, the most damning evidence of all, is that you have not a single vocal supporter. Not one material witness will stand in the defense of your position. You are a single man, lecturing to a mass on the correctness of your position, while they all try hopelessly to get you to listen to the fact that they all agree.

So if 90% of the people who post on this thread agree that MoD is an (unfair) exploit, then that is a pretty clear majority as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif You cannot claim a victory as a majority of 1. You also cannot claim victory on the grounds of silence - as your assertion that they consent due to the base existence of the spell, is more than balanced by my assertion that they silently agree that it is a bug that needs fixing.


If you want to continue to disagree about whether or not bugs should be exploited to win a game, that's fine, but I really think it just makes you look bad, as Zeldor is trying to point out.

[K]

JimMorrison said:
And still, the most damning evidence of all, is that you have not a single vocal supporter. Not one material witness will stand in the defense of your position. You are a single man, lecturing to a mass on the correctness of your position, while they all try hopelessly to get you to listen to the fact that they all agree.




How about the seven other players of DarkParadise who are explicitly playing a game that allows it (because I wrote the rules)? By the way, they happen to be playing on llamabeast's server.

Seriously. You've lost on the factual plane and the court of opinion. Accept that the vast majority of people could play the way you want them to, but only 7 out of 37 games care enough to spend twenty seconds to write those rules in. The fact that four or five people can't let go of this thread is only proof that four or five people agree with you.

I'm only in this because I don't like bullies or people who change the rules of a game when they start losing. Considering how quickly this devolved to personal attacks on me, it is no wonder that more people don't stand up to you guys.

The burden of proof was on you, and you've failed.

The end.

[Zeldor]

I think someone should close that thread. Deleting it would be more appropriate.

[calmon]

So you suggest we've to write all the exploits in our game rules, ban them seperatly to prevent discussions during game?

The lazier and easier and the standard way is just to trust everyone not doing cheesy actions!

[llamabeast]

It has become rather silly. K is immune to argument so it's probably best left here. I won't lock it though.

[triqui]

llamabeast said:
It has become rather silly. K is immune to argument so it's probably best left here. I won't lock it though.



But he won. Or at least, he thinks he won. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

I have not seen anything which I would consider to fall into "exploit" or a "rule". I agree that some things in the game might be declared off limits but if they are not so declared by the person running the game, or the host, then calling a "violation" would seem to be on shaky ground.

[Edi]

K said:
2.1 It it considered a bug by the devs? Yes, it does not work as they intended. The board moderator Gandalf Parker considers it a major bug, which is why it is red-listed in the Bug forum.
2.2 Is it important enough to the devs that they've addressed it in the last four patches? No.


I'll address these two points since they fall directly under stuff I deal with:

2.1 Yes, it is considered a bug. This has been confirmed by both KO and JK. The severity rating of the bug is my estimation of it as the modertaor in charge of managing bug reporting and the shortlist. Not Gandalf's. That obviously does not preclude Gandalf agreeing with me.

2.2 That's a false dilemma fallacy and a red herring. The devs consider it an important bug, but they have not fixed it yet for reasons known only to them. Perhaps it is a difficult bug to fix or perhaps there are other considerations. It is presumptuous of anyone on the forums to make unequivocal statements like that when they do not have access to all the relevant information. Even I do not (though I have access to more than is on the public forum) and I talk to the devs fairly regularly about stuff like this for obvious reasons.

[JimMorrison]

But you see, K's education is failing him right now, and he's not sure how to handle it, Edi, except soldier on. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

The forms of rhetoric that he is taught, are meant to bully and impression the 90 IQ members of a jury into believing him. They are never meant to directly address reality, but rather to operate in that grey area between reality and perception. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

He's just unwilling to admit that his jedi mind tricks won't work here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Also, he now must maintain that the primary reason the bug has not been fixed, is that our devs do not "consider it important enough", for if he capitulates on that point, his whole argument begins to deflate.


On the other hand, I claim unequivocal victory in this debate. You see, we have direct confirmation that MoD IS in fact a bug. Utilizing bugs for personal gain in considered exploitation - you are using something that is not working properly, to get results beyond what is intended. I think if you polled the Dom3 community on whether or not they support the exploitation of unfixed bugs in public MP games, your answer would be vastly, overwhelmingly, devastatingly -almost- unanimous. I would say it would be 100%, but you can vote however you like on the matter, K, it won't change reality, or anyone's perception of it. <3

[thejeff]

Personally, I suspect if you polled the Dom3 community on whether or not they support the exploitation of unfixed bugs in public MP games, your answer would be vastly, overwhelmingly, devastatingly -almost- unanimous: and the answer would be "Sometimes".

On MoD, you're probably right. On reverse communions, which are also considered a bug, the response would probably be the reverse.

[Edi]

Reverse communions are a bug that turned out to be a feature in the bigger picture. It is not working exactly as it was originally envisioned, but it is not really breaking any game mechanics or causing out of bounds errors, as it were. Plus it's available to absolutely everyone with astral magic.

But MoD, force marching, sneaking out of sieges with non-stealthy units, haven't really seen anyone but K advocating those as acceptable tactics. All three happen to be red or violet bugs.

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe its just semantics but isnt there a difference between non-acceptable tactics and cheat? I dont have a problem with people saying its rude, or its commonly not allowed. But until Dom3 doesnt allow it, or the rules of that game by the runner or the host, then it doesnt seem like a cheat.

It does bring up an interesting thought though. Rather than every host coming up with a list of "not allowed" it would be easier to bow to Edi's judgement. IF the game-starter or the host were to say right at the beginning "nothing colored Red or Violet on Edi's bug list are allowed to be used in the game". That would create a better source for validation than a generic expectation that everyone reads all of the threads (or lives in IRC).

[Edi]

Gandalf Parker said:
Maybe its just semantics but isnt there a difference between non-acceptable tactics and cheat? I dont have a problem with people saying its rude, or its commonly not allowed. But until Dom3 doesnt allow it, or the rules of that game by the runner or the host, then it doesnt seem like a cheat.


With MoD, we have a statement from the developers to go on that it is a serious bug. With the two movement issues, the game is actually violating its own rules due to incomplete validation of orders. In the force marching bug (first in the BHV section), units with a limited stratmove can move an arbitrary number of provinces, limited only by the stratmove and terrain limitations that affect the commander leading them. In the non-stealthy sneakers bug, units without stealth are actually moving according too rules that require stealth in the move phase, but they behave normally at the end of the move phase and trigger combat if moving to an enemy province.

So these three examples are all, in my opinion, clearcut cases.


Gandalf Parker said:
It does bring up an interesting thought though. Rather than every host coming up with a list of "not allowed" it would be easier to bow to Edi's judgement. IF the game-starter or the host were to say right at the beginning "nothing colored Red or Violet on Edi's bug list are allowed to be used in the game". That would create a better source for validation than a generic expectation that everyone reads all of the threads (or lives in IRC).


I'd not go that far. The above-mentioned three bugs are the only ones I consider outright cheating. The dome spells have a redlisted entry because stacking domes of the same kind is cheesy, but nowhere does it say that a province could not have more than one dome of the same type. It is, in my opinion, implied, but it is never stated directly anywhere, so interpretation of whether or not it's an issue may vary. I consider it an important issue, but not an automatic cheat like the others.

There is an easy answer to the MoD issue as an interim measure: mod the spell to be unresearchable, use that mod and you're good to go.

[Zeldor]

Isn't dome stacking as we know it already fixed?

[K]

JimMorrison said:
But you see, K's education is failing him right now, and he's not sure how to handle it, Edi, except soldier on. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

The forms of rhetoric that he is taught, are meant to bully and impression the 90 IQ members of a jury into believing him. They are never meant to directly address reality, but rather to operate in that grey area between reality and perception. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Actually, it's designed to convince judges who are trained in logical argument and have decades of experience.

But, it was unfair of me to hold random people on the internet to that standard. It seems to only enrage people.

My apologies.


JimMorrison said:
He's just unwilling to admit that his jedi mind tricks won't work here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Also, he now must maintain that the primary reason the bug has not been fixed, is that our devs do not "consider it important enough", for if he capitulates on that point, his whole argument begins to deflate.


On the other hand, I claim unequivocal victory in this debate. You see, we have direct confirmation that MoD IS in fact a bug. Utilizing bugs for personal gain in considered exploitation - you are using something that is not working properly, to get results beyond what is intended. I think if you polled the Dom3 community on whether or not they support the exploitation of unfixed bugs in public MP games, your answer would be vastly, overwhelmingly, devastatingly -almost- unanimous. I would say it would be 100%, but you can vote however you like on the matter, K, it won't change reality, or anyone's perception of it. <3



You see, that's a moral judgment with no basis in a logical argument.

The devs have no right to tell people how to play the game. I respect their work so much that I've bought this game twice, but it ends there. At the end of the day, they wouldn't be the first devs to not understand the intricacies of what they have cobbled together. Just because they created something they did not intent doesn't mean that changing it will improve gameplay or enjoyment. The fact remains that the "battlefield and retreat" tactic is a "bug" that only affects new players who don't have the foresight or experince to know that they should build balanced armies.

Considering the number of bugs that still exist in this game, everyone is guilty of benefiting from those bugs. Passing moral judgment on them is illogical.

And that is the crux of our disagreement. I've been making logical arguments and you've been making moral arguments. Logical arguments have winners and losers by determining who has the stronger argument, and moral arguments have two losers (since there is no criteria for strength of argument and which should prevail).

Thank you. This has been very helpful.

[MaxWilson]

K said:
And that is the crux of our disagreement. I've been making logical arguments and you've been making moral arguments. Logical arguments have winners and losers by determining who has the stronger argument, and moral arguments have two losers (since there is no criteria for strength of argument and which should prevail).




Logical arguments have the same criteria for "winning" as moral arguments: can you convince your audience? You're aware that there's no way to prove that a logical proof is correct without an invoking a shared metalogic. In practice nobody reasons about their metalogic, they just declare victory, as both you and Jim have done, or come to an understanding, as great men do.

One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going to separate the uranium. This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, so they'd ask me questions and talk about it. In these discussions, one man would make a point. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there is this other possibility that we have to consider against it.

So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally, at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best---summing it all up---without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed.

http://www.brics.dk/~danvy/lafb.html

-Max

[K]

MaxWilson said:

K said:
And that is the crux of our disagreement. I've been making logical arguments and you've been making moral arguments. Logical arguments have winners and losers by determining who has the stronger argument, and moral arguments have two losers (since there is no criteria for strength of argument and which should prevail).




Logical arguments have the same criteria for "winning" as moral arguments: can you convince your audience? You're aware that there's no way to prove that a logical proof is correct without an invoking a shared metalogic. In practice nobody reasons about their metalogic, they just declare victory, as both you and Jim have done, or come to an understanding, as great men do.



Actually, that's wrong.

Logical arguments are supported by evidence, and thus the weight of the evidence determines who wins. I think you are talking about philosophical logic arguments, which are just pure arguments divorced from the rules of evidence.

Moral arguments merely have persuasive power. They can't be proved nor disproved because they neither need nor accept the use of evidence or other objective criteria.

[MaxWilson]

K said:
Actually, that's wrong.

Logical arguments are supported by evidence, and thus the weight of the evidence determines who wins.



[raises eyebrows]

-Max

[Sombre]

Riiiiight.

I haven't taken part in this thread. I just want to state for the record that K is apparently taking that I consier MoD + retreat even without any other spells to inflict damage to be an exploit and a 'lame' tactic and I have no interest in playing against someone who uses it.

[K]

Sombre said:
Riiiiight.

I haven't taken part in this thread. I just want to state for the record that K is apparently taking that I consier MoD + retreat even without any other spells to inflict damage to be an exploit and a 'lame' tactic and I have no interest in playing against someone who uses it.



Then play in a game that explicitly has rules against it. There are seven out of 37 playing now, so you won't be alone. You are just in the minority.

Heck, I might even join you. I follow all rules set by the admin. For the record, I've never taken the position that people should violate agreements.

I just advise you to take a little responsibility and don't expect people to read your mind about what you consider "lame."

[Gandalf Parker]

Lame is a term I can accept. Which I would still consider different than cheat.

I recommend that games specify at the beginning what can and cannot be done. Even if its to refer to something such as "nothing in Red in Edi's buglist"

Some games such as Velusians used a MOD to make somethings unusable. Would it be bettr to take MoD completely out of a game?

[DonCorazon]

Well at least 1 out of the 30 w/o explicit rules against it (Alexandria) had implict rules against it, which we have just made explicit.

We confirmed that we were all playing under the assumption that MoD - retreat was an abusive tactic and not in the spirit of the game.

In the future it probably makes sense to clarify up front as you never know who is in the game.

Ironically, check Figment, looks like MoD just got banned there too.

K, you're data set is shrinking!!!

[Gandalf Parker]

Figment is what I asked.
It has a MOD in place and I think that a change can be made to it to remove MoD from the game and still allow the game to continue

[Sombre]

K said:
Then play in a game that explicitly has rules against it. There are seven out of 37 playing now, so you won't be alone. You are just in the minority.

Heck, I might even join you. I follow all rules set by the admin. For the record, I've never taken the position that people should violate agreements.

I just advise you to take a little responsibility and don't expect people to read your mind about what you consider "lame."



I don't remember asking for your advice. I probably won't be playing any games with you K, just based on the way you've acted in several threads I've read. It could happen we're in the same game though, where I'm sure we'd both follow the rules.

[K]

DonCorazon said:
Well at least 1 out of the 30 w/o explicit rules against it (Alexandria) had implict rules against it, which we have just made explicit.

We confirmed that we were all playing under the assumption that MoD - retreat was an abusive tactic and not in the spirit of the game.

In the future it probably makes sense to clarify up front as you never know who is in the game.

Ironically, check Figment, looks like MoD just got banned there too.

K, you're data set is shrinking!!!



And I think that's great. I'm sure that it's going to keep a lot of problems out of your game.

Now we're up to 9 out 37.

[K]

Sombre said:

K said:
Then play in a game that explicitly has rules against it. There are seven out of 37 playing now, so you won't be alone. You are just in the minority.

Heck, I might even join you. I follow all rules set by the admin. For the record, I've never taken the position that people should violate agreements.

I just advise you to take a little responsibility and don't expect people to read your mind about what you consider "lame."



I don't remember asking for your advice. I probably won't be playing any games with you K, just based on the way you've acted in several threads I've read. It could happen we're in the same game though, where I'm sure we'd both follow the rules.



Willing or not, you've all been part of my personal crusade to clarify this issue and make MP less contentious by having explicit rules (either pro or con is fine for me).

Considering how quickly and completely I've been personally attacked and demonized, I can now understand why no one has really been willing to draw out the relevant issue. I'll probably have to create a new account just to get people to play in MP with me again.

I'm actually really happy that several games have added these rules as explicit rules in their game as a result of this thread. It means that sacrificing my DomIII reputation was worth the effort.

[Strider]

Having multiple accounts is not acceptable. The Board rules are very clear about this.

[Saulot]

Gandalf Parker said:
Lame is a term I can accept. Which I would still consider different than cheat.



This is an important distinction, just as there are between things I find distasteful, and things which are illegal.


Gandalf Parker said:
I recommend that games specify at the beginning what can and cannot be done.



I agree completely.


Gandalf Parker said:Even if its to refer to something such as "nothing in Red in Edi's buglist"



Here I have to disagree, rules should be stated once at the beginning of the game, and at that point set in stone. By referring to a third party, which in this case, tends to be edited sometimes, you change the rules of the game after the fact. Suddenly the players gain responsibility for reading through the buglist in case anything's changed everytime they submit a turn. That's far too excessive.

Rules should never be changed after a game begins.


Gandalf Parker said:
Some games such as Velusians used a MOD to make somethings unusable. Would it be bettr to take MoD completely out of a game?



Why? The problem isn't with MoD, but with the game mechanic of battle enchantments staying up if a caster is no longer around. I know little of coding, but if there's a check to end a spell when the caster dies, shouldn't it be relatively straightforward to do a similar one for when the caster retreats?

[Donny]

What I think is, no matter what the rules says, it's always good manner not casting BE-retreat when you are able to do so, cuz it will cause conflicts.
It's unfair to say everyone casts this is bad, though.

Well, considering MoD I'd say that it's not a problem itself just like all the other GEs. BUT, it causes a serious bug, that's the difference makes all the opponents cry.
For example, in GhostBat i'm currently playing, DryaUnda (MA PY) and cipher (Agartha) had a battle. The MoD bug hit, crushing the game (even llamaserver failed to generate new turns correctly, llama fixed it though).
I really appreciate DryaUnda as he casted MoD without retreating, however he was beaten and his mage routed. But MoD was still there, causing bug making all the agartha's MOs disappeared.
Similiarly, I guess if two super SCs have a battle but can't kill each other will cause the same bug, not tested though.
MoD is a very possible way to causing bugs that's the reason it should be considered different than the other GEs and be banned until it's fixed.

[Gandalf Parker]

Saulot said:
Why? The problem isn't with MoD, but with the game mechanic of battle enchantments staying up if a caster is no longer around. I know little of coding, but if there's a check to end a spell when the caster dies, shouldn't it be relatively straightforward to do a similar one for when the caster retreats?


Possibly true. But a MOD can be changed now, by us. In fact, many of the games running have a mod-file as part of the game already which means that the fix could be added mid-game. Eventually there might be a patch to take care of it but that might be awhile.

[Endoperez]

K said:
Considering how quickly and completely I've been personally attacked and demonized, I can now understand why no one has really been willing to draw out the relevant issue. I'll probably have to create a new account just to get people to play in MP with me again.

I'm actually really happy that several games have added these rules as explicit rules in their game as a result of this thread. It means that sacrificing my DomIII reputation was worth the effort.



I haven't really payed much attention to this thread. Most players probably haven't. Also, while some people who HAVE read this thread might prefer not to play with you, it probably won't keep them from joining a game you also have happened to join, at least after a while, or if the retreat bug is fixed.

I don't think the reaction was about what you've argued for or against, but the way you argued. I don't know what started this argument about logic, and I'm not interested. It don't think it helped you, though. I take your point was that unless something has been clearly banned, there's no reason not to use it, even if it's regarded as a bug.

I fully agree with that.

There are lots of players who don't know that e.g. Storm continues if your mage retreats. A player may not be recognize it as a bug, and may not realize MoD will automatically cause the opponent to lose. It took years before the bug was discovered, after all. Accidentally discovering a bug that some other people know about shouldn't be punished. It should be prevented, by using the mod (very elegant solution) or by writing down the unwritten rules.

[Edi]

K said:
Logical arguments are supported by evidence, and thus the weight of the evidence determines who wins. I think you are talking about philosophical logic arguments, which are just pure arguments divorced from the rules of evidence.


You are correct about arguments and evidence. This is especially true in science and the scientific method.


K said:
Moral arguments merely have persuasive power. They can't be proved nor disproved because they neither need nor accept the use of evidence or other objective criteria.


This is not entirely correct. Moral arguments can be logical ones, but one must first define a premise for them. It is entirely possible top construct a logically ironclad moral argument complete with evidence, but that argument will rest on some premise that is accepted as true. If the premise is successfully challenged, the whole argument comes down. For example, if we take the premise that suffering is generally a bad thing, it is very, very easy to construct logical moral arguments against wars of aggression, torture, bullying and a large number of other things and objective evidence is not hard to come by.

The problem with the MoD + retreat discussion seems to be that you and the rest of the forum have very differing standards of evidence. I for example take Illwinter's word on how MoD currently works with retreat vs how it should work as very strong evidence that the mechanic is broken to the point of being an abusive exploit while you obviously do not.

[JimMorrison]

K said:

JimMorrison said:
But you see, K's education is failing him right now, and he's not sure how to handle it, Edi, except soldier on. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

The forms of rhetoric that he is taught, are meant to bully and impression the 90 IQ members of a jury into believing him. They are never meant to directly address reality, but rather to operate in that grey area between reality and perception. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Actually, it's designed to convince judges who are trained in logical argument and have decades of experience.

But, it was unfair of me to hold random people on the internet to that standard. It seems to only enrage people.

My apologies.



I wasn't aware that anyone was enraged. Frustrated perhaps. At any rate, the version of spin which you are offering us, will not hold up to any judge worth his salt, just as it does not hold up here. You are not, in fact, giving us facts. You are dressing up manipulated information to look like a potential fact, and then calling it a fact - as I pointed out, this does not coincide with reality.





K said:

JimMorrison said:
whether or not they support the exploitation of unfixed bugs in public MP games, your answer would be vastly, overwhelmingly, devastatingly -almost- unanimous. I would say it would be 100%, but you can vote however you like on the matter, K, it won't change reality, or anyone's perception of it. <3



You see, that's a moral judgment with no basis in a logical argument.

The devs have no right to tell people how to play the game. I respect their work so much that I've bought this game twice, but it ends there. At the end of the day, they wouldn't be the first devs to not understand the intricacies of what they have cobbled together.



This is not a moral judgement on my part, it is you stubbornly providing your own semantic spin on the situation.

It's quite simple, K - this is a detrimental bug. This is a simple evolution in gaming: bugged code ~> flawed game mechanics ~> player exploitation proves it exists ~> programmers acknowledge existence of bug (VERY important part) ~> exploitation of bug is banned by gaming community, pending a fix.

They are not saying how we should play the game. However, they ARE saying it is a pretty serious bug. At the end of the day, making deliberate use of a bug for your own gain = exploitation. Bug exploitation, in every gaming community I have been a part of, has been viewed with great distaste at the least, but more often than that with complete censure. Due to the nature of the bug, I will personally continue to support that sort of methodology, just as everyone else with an opinion has stated is their position - everyone but you. But it is your opinion that silent people agree with you, and it is a fact that people who care to post, agree with me.

You can say I am wrong all you want - but you know as well as I do that in court, at the end of the day it doesn't matter squat who is right and who is wrong - only who is more believable. Most of your arguments here, show that you care more about uninformed belief, than you do for the observations of those who are looking at your arguments with a critical eye.



As to your claim that everyone exploits bugs, apparently you are still willfully ignoring semantics, and continuing to just use words as they please you. Bug exploitation is a matter of intent, and any little bugs that have very widespread effects, will often go on the back burner because while things aren't exactly WAD, they're also not harming the gameplay significantly, once the net effect is reached. You can't avoid them if you want to. Exploiting a bug however, is quite intentional. You have to go far out of your way to abuse the MoD bug. The reason for the length of time needed to resolve the issue, is most likely tied to how hard it is to find the malfunctioning code. If you didn't have to go out of your way to commit the act, it would in fact devastate the game, and would have to be fixed immediately. However, there is absolutely no evidence that the devs don't care, the only public statement that either has made, was to call MoD a "bad bug". Not a good or benign bug, but bad.

Now, you can refer to the concept of bug exploitation as a "moral" stance, but it is not, in and of itself. It is in fact a philosophy of community gaming, where the desire is to discourage people from gaining their own enjoyment from ruining the enjoyment of others. Those people don't actually become "bad people" until they disregard the wishes of the community at large, and continue to abuse unaddressed and malicious bugs. If you felt I was passing a moral judgement on you personally because of your own beliefs, that is not exactly so - it was not until you decided to fight so rabidly for the objectionable position - and your flawed "logical" arguments that are the worst kind of disinformation and gross manipulation.


You're welcome, let me know if you need any more help.

[K]

JimMorrison said:
You can say I am wrong all you want - but you know as well as I do that in court, at the end of the day it doesn't matter squat who is right and who is wrong - only who is more believable. Most of your arguments here, show that you care more about uninformed belief, than you do for the observations of those who are looking at your arguments with a critical eye.



Actually, you are wrong here. Courts look at evidence that supports the arguments. Even if a jury believes you and provides a judgment for you, the judge can actually void that judgment if the weight of evidence doesn't support it, as can appellate courts and supreme courts.

You've been arguing persuasively, but not logically. There really is no logical counter to a blanket statement like "anyone that benefits from a bug is hurting the gaming community's enjoyment." It's the same class of moral argument as "gays are destroying America" or "Coke is better than Pepsi" in that it is both unsupported and unsupportable, relying purely on rhetorical power.

The "Battlefield spell + Retreat combo" and MoD are usuable by anyone, hard to set up, easily counterable by anyone, and only a small percentage of the community feels the need to make explicit rules banning it (for whatever reason). These are simple facts which support my position.

Newbs and players focusing on SCs and thugs get schooled by these tactics. These are the facts that support your position.

Everything else in this thread has been me attempting to counter what I thought were flaws in people's logical arguments. My mistake was thinking that people were using logical arguments rather than figuring out that they were making moral arguments. If I had recognized it, I could have exited earlier.

Again, my apologies.

[JimMorrison]

No, you're right, there is no logical counter to the claim that exploiting a bug is unsportsmanlike and dishonorable behavior, and disrupts the feeling of bittersweet enjoyment that one gets from being defeated by an opponent who respects you as a person.

I still do not buy your "easy to counter" rhetoric either. The layout and scripting for killing a lone mage far in the back, are FAR different from the scripts you want for killing actual armies. So the majority of instances that the MoD caster is encountered, there will be nothing you an do about it unless you have good Astral and are spamming Mind Slay or Enslave Mind starting on turn 1. But you're going to know your enemy, obviously you wouldn't want to try to exploit someone who was strong versus your chosen exploit, as it cuts into the efficiency.



Oh and before I forget - obviously it is well understood that judges like to look at and weigh proven facts - so I'd welcome you to present some that actually support your case. So far you've been proven very badly wrong on your 7/37 assessment, so what else do you have? I have about 8 people supporting me, you have none, the closest you have to a supporter is Gandalf, but his "now let's not be too hasty" interjections sound much more neutral than anything.


Don't get discouraged now, I'm enjoying this banter.

[Tifone]

MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE? A NEW, IMPORTANT QUESTION.

As someone talked about Twan's mod (link please?), which makes the phantasms from MoD appear for just 9 turns at superior rate, I want to ask:

Is in this way a legit tactic to MoD+BAttlefield spell+retreat?

In My Absolutely Humble Opinion, Yes.

PLEASE READ EVERYTHING.

In the elegant solution Twan suggested, MoD loses its annoying and (as "almost" everybody agreed) unfair characteristic to be an automatic win in many situations for the endless phantasms coming.

In this way, using the tactic which was previously an exploit, you now have a IMHO legit tactic to damage an army or an SC, which is maybe MORE effective than a Fires from Afar or a Murdering Winter or a Vengeance of the Dead, but even MORE risky and requires a BETTER mage to be done (as he needs to cast MoD, a battlefield spell, and possibly to teleport and to vortex of returning).

In fact, the countermeasures K and others suggested for the tactic are quite a must to be implemented in mid game - and it would be smart to implement them if you expect such a tactic.

So, this tactic becomes no more an *I win* one, but a risky tactic which takes you a turn of a good mage to be done, puts him at risk (for flyers, archers, earthquakes and the other counters previously suggested), but if it works it can seriously damage an army - like a Master Enslave or such.

Who agrees or doesn't? I'd like to hear something well argumented, please http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[DonCorazon]

K said:
The "Battlefield spell + Retreat combo" and MoD are usuable by anyone, hard to set up, easily counterable by anyone, and only a small percentage of the community feels the need to make explicit rules banning it (for whatever reason). These are simple facts which support my position.




K, This is the part of your argument that cracks me up.

1. Usable by anyone applies to anything in the game. Irrelevant. I could argue anybody can hack the game, that doesn’t make it right.

2. MoD plus retreat is not hard to set up. Its not like this is some cool tactical move that only a brilliant strategist can pull off. In Alexandria, I have numerous guys who could do it at this point and I never even planned for it. eg Air Queen, Armor of Virtue, Celestial Masters with Air/Astral etc. If something does not require any advance planning and I just stumble into being able to do it, then it is easy.

3. It is not easily counterable. Post me a game file where you stop an Air Queen in Armor of Virtue or any tough pretender decked out in MR gear from pulling it off. Or a mage in some decent gear. If you cannot stop it then the game essentially becomes a race to get that unit/item b/c once you have it you become invincible. Major battles will all be fought the same way - MoD + retreat. Doesn't sound fun to me.

4. Only a small percentage of the community feels the need to make explicit rules against "BF spell + retreat" because it is such an obvious exploit to most of us. We have implicit rules against it (aka common sense). I don't recall anyone who has been on the boards for a while supporting the BF + retreat. I provided quotes from numerous longstanding vets that feel MoD plus retreat is unacceptable (my expert testimony). I'd like to hear your supporting experts. There are no explicit rules against sending your opponents nasty messages, that doesn’t mean it is acceptable or that we should have to draft explicit rules for everything when common sense should be sufficient.

So I would say the default assumption for any games that don't explicitly outlaw MoD + retreat is that it is not allowed unless someone explicitly allows it.

[chrispedersen]

Well, I've been on the boards awhile. I'd like to be able to play some games where MoD is allowed. Just as I'm ok with games where it isn't.

There are a lot of easy counters to MoD. Where MoD is devestating is where you have a huge army decimated by it.
That situation occurs when:

You fight a race which has proficiency in air, and neglected to plan how to address it.

You stuck all your eggs in one basket - and allowed it to become a one fight issue.

You didn't develop assassins to target the retreating mage.

You didn't raid his army, causing him to blow air gems on inconsequential fights.

You didn't develop a SC or army capable of dealing with the issue - so instead of merely retreating, you were eliminated by a heat from hell, etc.

You neglected to raid, or strategically ally to cause others to gang up on the (readily) MoD capable opponent.

This doesn't mean I don't find MoD to be strong, even unreasonably strong. It also doesn't mean that I don't think it goes beyond what the developers intended. It might even be a bug. But the real issue is that defeating MoD is subtle and difficult - and doesn't suit the style of many players.

If SC's - and large armies are readily trashed by MoD's - then winning strategies will necessarily less involve SC's and large armies.

The game becomes a game of air gem (and air mage) management. Defense in depth, instead of set piece battles. How to get (interrupt) air gems to the front.

In short, I don't think its ruins the game - it just changes the nature of it, in a way thats currently unpopular.

[MaxWilson]

DonCorazon,

Be sure you don't confuse board vets with game vets. I'm a "Lieutenant Colonel" or some such nonsense on the boards but have less game experience than many "Sergeants." Instead of military ranks I wish they's just rate us "Talkative," "Gabby," "Garrulous," etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I understand that many of the "real" vets from the IRC channels and such don't even post on these boards. Of course I don't remember specifically which board vets you cited so perhaps these comments don't apply.

-Max

[triqui]

You didn't develop a SC or army capable of dealing with the issue - so instead of merely retreating, you were eliminated by a heat from hell, etc.




Unless i'm utterly wrong, that is not true. If i cloud trapeze onto your army/SC, cast the MoD and retreat, you will die regardless of anything. Your SC might as well be "inmune to heat, shock and frost". Or "inmune to death" and still would die. Becouse after 50 turns the attacker (that is, me) would retreat. As i dont have units, just the endless phantasmal warriors, fight would keep until turn 75, at which point everyone is destroyed.

Is not that the case?

[DonCorazon]

Good luck stopping my Air Queen with Armor of Virtue. Perhaps if you planned from day 1 just to kill me, then you'd be safe. Assassins just give me more experience, retreat paths are irrelevant with the ritual of returning, and at this stage in the game air gems are abundant. And I am playing LA TC - not known as an air nation. You better have casters with Rain of Stones ready to go everywhere b/c my armored telpeporting celestial masters with ritual of returning will be popping in wherever they see a troop buildup. And rain of stones will likely do a lot more damage to you than it will to my single kamikazee casters.

Anyway, it is personal preference and to each his own.

[Tifone]

not to be imposing, but would someone like to answer my question too? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Endoperez]

Yes, the mod fixes everything.

[Donny]

Sorry, chris, I totally disagree with your points.

Mod-retreating is a godmode. It might take some time to type in something like 'whosyourdaddy', and the others might be successful disurbing the typing process, but once it takes effort no one and nothing can beat it. I'd say, allowing anything like godmode in MP might be fun, but tragic.

[thejeff]

triqui said:

Unless i'm utterly wrong, that is not true. If i cloud trapeze onto your army/SC, cast the MoD and retreat, you will die regardless of anything. Your SC might as well be "inmune to heat, shock and frost". Or "inmune to death" and still would die. Becouse after 50 turns the attacker (that is, me) would retreat. As i dont have units, just the endless phantasmal warriors, fight would keep until turn 75, at which point everyone is destroyed.

Is not that the case?




No, at turn 75 the defender would retreat. Only those who cannot/will not retreat are destroyed.

Mindless, berserk, unconscious, immobile, etc units will be destroyed, but most will just retreat.

[Tifone]

tnx Endoperenz ^_^

[JimMorrison]

Tifone - by making the spell last only 9 turns, it is just one of the many spells that can be quickly cast to do some damage by a retreating caster. In fact, there are others that would work better. By putting a time limit on it, the 75 turn limit is never reached, and the other force is not automatically dissolved by game mechanics.

Chris - there is really no way around the concept that this is a glaring bug. Casting a BE and then leaving wouldn't be nearly as big a deal, because the battle would end. However, it was never intended that the constant autosummoned units from MoD would keep the fight going indefinitely. ie- you can NEVER make them stop coming, so you cannot win the fight. All Mindless units are forfeit, and if this tactic is used defensively, I'm pretty sure that defender keeps their units even if they're forced to route, but the attacker loses ALL units remaining on the field. Now you don't even have to kill them in the defensive use, you're just trapping them there to die uselessly.

[K]

In case anyone is still interested, a combat using MoD + Retreat can be ended (and won) by killing all the phantasmal units.

Attached games are in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=625078&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

[Jazzepi]

K said:
In case anyone is still interested, a combat using MoD + Retreat can be ended (and won) by killing all the phantasmal units.

Attached games are in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=625078&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1



Way to construct a ridiculously obvious straw man.

Nobody cast a BE that does damage, which is where 99% of the real abuse of MoD comes from, and the army fighting off the MoD cast a bunch of zero encumbrance, life draining flyers with magical attacks, via false horror.

I can't think of anything else that would nearly close to that effective. If you have regular flyers, they're going to get fatigued flying all over the place. *If* they can even fly through storms. If you don't have flyers in the army, then you can't zip around the map fast enough to kill the MoD phantasms.

I mean, really, K. I think you can do better. This is just embarrassing.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Err....

He came up with a tactic to stop MoD. It isn't easy, but it can be done.

How is "I can do the impossible, in certain cases" embarrassing? Even if it isn't perfect, it's better than what most people here thought possible.

[K]

Jazzepi said:

K said:
In case anyone is still interested, a combat using MoD + Retreat can be ended (and won) by killing all the phantasmal units.

Attached games are in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=625078&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1



Way to construct a ridiculously obvious straw man.

Nobody cast a BE that does damage, which is where 99% of the real abuse of MoD comes from, and the army fighting off the MoD cast a bunch of zero encumbrance, life draining flyers with magical attacks, via false horror.

I can't think of anything else that would nearly close to that effective. If you have regular flyers, they're going to get fatigued flying all over the place. *If* they can even fly through storms. If you don't have flyers in the army, then you can't zip around the map fast enough to kill the MoD phantasms.

I mean, really, K. I think you can do better. This is just embarrassing.

Jazzepi



I'm actually really surprised that this is what you take from these test games.

It's a proof that MoD is not bugged (spell can end before turn 75), and it's a proof of concept that MoD can be beaten with a small army and a handful of mages who aren't doing anything particularly special (it uses base units and base mages and no special equipment, as well as similar research levels).

It also means that if someone is casting a damaging BE, he would be killing half his own Phantasmal units each turn and actually making it even easier to counter.

In a very real way, it turns MoD from "godmode" to "something the runs the clock on very small armies, much like Quagmire or spamming summons."

This is just my very first attempt, and it shows that:
-A few all-unit spells like Rain of Stones can end it (and you can toss in a round 1 Army of Gold to protect all your units).
-A few battlefield-damaging spells can end it relatively quickly (your army doesn't even need to be immune since the phantasmal units are losing half thier number each time a BE spell's effect goes off, and some undefined number for being magical creatures without magical leadership, so it's a very few turns of exposure for your army).
-Many small squads of archers can end the spell, which is a tactic available on turn 1 of the game.
-A reasonably-sized and organized army can end the spell.
-Small Squads of flyers or fast units can end it, which means everything from summoning dragonflies or air elementals to setting up small squads of black hawks or even calvary.

That's not even counting exotic tactics like fast/flying thugs with void eyes or mundane tactics like having a decent amount of mages with good ranged spells researched.

[Tifone]

So you suggest to make MoD+Battlefield spell+Vortex of Returning legit and accepted in MP games? Just to understand http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

[K]

Tifone said:
So you suggest to make MoD+Battlefield spell+Vortex of Returning legit and accepted in MP games? Just to understand http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif



People can play any way they like. Some people play with mod nations or modded spells, and some people mod out (or make expensive) the gem-producing items, powerful globals, or certain nations.

That's their play style.

I'm just saying that "balance" arguments to forbid or nerf MoD don't seem very valid from where I'm standing. I ran just one test game and beat MoD, the ran another with less favorable circumstances just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. It's not like I tried a dozen things and this was the only one that worked. It was just the easiest to set up in terms of troops and research levels.

But, considering people's feelings on this issue I could probably show them a hundred saved games where MoD is a mere roadbump to different tactics and they'd still call me a cheater and refuse to play with me.

Peace out.

[Micah]

Alright K, excellent work on running some tests, I'm pleased to see that the bug isn't quite as bad as I thought. That being said, I'm still not overly convinced without Wrathful Skies being cast by the MoD nation. The success of your test seemed predicated on building up a huge amount of summoned units (many with stormflying) that never got whittled down by a BE. Wrathful also only hits 10% of the squares on the battlefield, making it unlikely that it would take out enough phantasms at once to end the battle, as opposed to the 50% figure you give, which only applies to fire storm (and I guess acid storm? I've never seen anyone actually cast it, though). Given that your short test ran for over 25 turns and the longer one until defender auto-rout I think that Wrathful would have had plenty of time to decimate the Lankan army.

Even beside the straight-up power of the spell the problem is that there is very little risk to the user in relation to the payoff. As long as the caster/casters can manage to skitter away from the battlefield with their booster items and their staff of storms after popping 2 spells they've burned something like 8 gems at most (down to 4 if they've got high A paths, 8 will keep even minimally pathed casters under 100 fatigue and ready to flee), plus another 6 for a double cloud trapeze, tops.

Without MoD dropping a damage BE requires the commitment of a blocker unit, which is generally covered in gear, or an army with suitable resists. Either of these represents a commitment of resources that the enemy army can destroy past turn 2 of the battle, bringing some balance back. Just because something is beatable doesn't mean it's balanced. I think this is the crux of a lot of the arguments against the use of the spell, not just the difficulty of overcoming it.

And finally: many of the counters you suggest are damn near useless. Rain of stones? Thanks for wasting gems and stoning your army, 3/4ths of the phantasms will be laughing at you after emerging from their etherealness. Army of gold/fire storm might actually work, but you'll be getting the snot pounded out of you by wrathful every turn now that you added shock vulnerability to your army. You're also burning at least 8 gems to get the combo off, which is the same or more than the MoDers. Archers...well, maybe, but they ran out of arrows in both the tests you have up, and don't do so well in storms.

Air elementals are actually a decent counter, being stormflyers, 100%SR and decent units against regular armies, except for the thing where you have to burn gems to summon them. Again, MoD+Wrathful only takes about 8 gems.

When the *best available* counter to a tactic requires burning more resources than the tactic being countered requires to be used it's generally safe to regard the tactic in question as abusive.

Anyhow, that's my take on the spell. I'm not one to balk at brutal tactics, but I love dominions because 99% of the time there is a reasonable relationship between risk and reward in the tactics available. MoD kind of blows that relationship out of the water.

[JimMorrison]

K said:
In a very real way, it turns MoD from "godmode" to "something the runs the clock on very small armies, much like Quagmire or spamming summons."



Ehhh, Quagmire kills small armies? Good to know..... o.O

I'm not sure anyone intended to actually claim that there was *no* way to counter MoD. However, NOT using a second BE in conjunction with the MoD (usually stated in the exploit rules that people use), kind of invalidates the test IMO. Maybe the second BE would kill some phantasms, but if it takes 25+ turns without significant losses to the other army, then imagine how hard it will be to counter, even if the other BE only kills 10% a turn? I think you'd find that after 5-6 turns, either the army lacks the punch to kill the phantasms, or the spells have caused plenty enough imbalanced damage already.

And not only is your "50% loss to BE" damage for the phantasms laughable, but often clever players would just use Heat From Hell or Grip of Winter anyways, so won't be killing many phantasms. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Of course, you would try to tailor that to your opponent, but still, the only thing you've even proven is that -some- types of summons -may- be able to stop the spell -if- they do not get killed by other effects first. Some nations, builds, and playstyles may not include Air or Death, and from there your options for things that will actually have even a remote chance of success, dwindles rapidly.


Apparently, someone has a very different definition of easy than most of the other people present.

[K]

Here is another saved game. It involves a small Abysian army with a few mages(one casting Fire Storm) and a few guys with Rod's of the Phoenix beating a defending MoD + Storm + Wrathful Skys + Grip of Winter + Quagmire. The Abysian army takes a few losses, and I had to make the Seraph Pretender immune to fire because I was afraid he'd get killed on turn one of the combat. It's in a Cold 3 province.