"MoD+Retreat" defeated w/o killing caster

[K]

I think that there is a misconception that casting Mists of Deception and then Retreating is an unbeatable tactic unless you can kill the caster in the two turns he has to cast and then Retreat.

Not true. If you can kill all the Phantasmal things before new ones spawn, the turn ends. They also die without magical leadership, so that helps.

Here are the turn files, both for the Mod caster as attacker or as defender.

[K]

And the other file.

[MaxWilson]

Very interesting, thanks.

-Max

[Darkstone]

I guess it's nice to see that whole 'MOD + retreat = instant win' has been debunked.

Thanks for taking the time.

[Ironhawk]

How is one victory against MoD equivalent to debunking it? I dont believe that anyone who advocates banning the spell has lobbied that it was literally impossible to defeat all the phantasms and thus the spell. Only that it was so hard as to be effectively impossible in most scenarios.

[chrispedersen]

This goes along with what I have argued -

For SC's - this spell *is* impossible to defeat. Similarly, armies with a few, slow units.

Question: Can't this spell be defeated by battlefield damage spells?

Cant this spell be (fairly readily) defeated by spells like Howl? The trick is to get widespread coverage - something that howl, and other similar spells do. I imagine that 3 mages, detailed to do nothing to delay and cast howl would take care of this issue.

[thejeff]

Problem is, they'll still only cast Howl five times max. It's unlikely they'll deal with it that quickly.

[MaxWilson]

Ironhawk said:
How is one victory against MoD equivalent to debunking it? I dont believe that anyone who advocates banning the spell has lobbied that it was literally impossible to defeat all the phantasms and thus the spell. Only that it was so hard as to be effectively impossible in most scenarios.



I certainly got the impression from the discussion that even if you killed all the phantoms, the battle would still continue, which would be a bug (on top of the BE retreat bug). Knowing that this is not the case is useful data to me.

-Max

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually MoD+Retreat might be the thing that makes "Fire and Flee" a usable action.

Something else I thought of is casting "Call of the Winds" on your own province, then setting the leader for "Attack Rearmost". Possibly with the other birds as Guard Commander.

If MoD+R makes other tactics viable then I would shift to being in support of it as is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[chrispedersen]

I like fire and flee in a variety of instances. Most especially if I have sacred archers with death weapons.

[Foodstamp]

I call B.S. It was very rudely expressed to me by several posters that this combination is unbeatable in any situation and that people like me were cheaters for even suggesting that someone find a way to defeat the tactic.

So there is no chance that you found a way to beat this tactic. And even if you did, a strategy that cannot be defeated by one fully con4 equipped SC should never be allowed in this game.

Take your lies, deceit and h4xors and please find a community that will tolerate your shenanigans.

/sarcasm off

I am really glad someone made an effort to figure out / explain counters to this spell. Tears never amount to progress!

[Endoperez]

I fully agree with Foodstamp.

[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's get killed on turn one of the combat. It's in a Cold 3 province.

[Edi]

The MoD bug description has been amended to reflect the discussions in this and the BF Enchantments & retreat thread.

[Tifone]

Good. At least I think I will finally understand soon if it deserves to be a fair tactic in MP or not. People seem very doubtful about all in these strange days... ^_^

[llamabeast]

I have to admit I'm sad that this has been toned down from a red to a purple bug. Regardless of whether it's counterable it's still a horrible bug to be on the receiving end of.

Any smart guy who plans to (ab)use MoD will only use it for the first time against a big enemy army. Few big armies are equipped to cope with it, so it's probably an insta-kill on that army at least.

I don't want to have to script all my armies for all time to cope with an MoD exploit. It's certainly at least non-trivial to counter. So as a bug it perturbs the game arguably far more than any other single bug,

[Edi]

I can make it red again, but we shall see. JK is on vacation, but I have asked him to look at the MoD issue and I expect he will sometime when he returns and I'll hear back from in due time.

In fact, I think it might still be better to put it in red because of the abusability due to the general BF enchantment & retreat issue. Domes are still in red, after all.

[Aezeal]

I Disagree with Foodstamp and Endo since it's been known for an enternity you can beat the spell but the fact remains that once the caster leaves the spell should end, it's an admitted bug by the makers too I think and if it's exploited it's enough reason to kick pplz in the nuts for it.

[Sombre]

I haven't changed my opinion of this at all. My problem with it was always that it was an incredibly lame/cheap tactic (yes I am willing to accept people will do things that are lame, but I still prefer them to not be in the game) and that it had been indicated by the devs to be a bad bug. On top of that you had several experienced players reporting that they had been able to successfully use it to trash other players with minimal effort, making it more effective that any legit tactic going. Stopping something like this in a test environment and stopping it in a real game are very different.

Battlefield enchants vanish when the caster dies and I see no reason they shouldn't vanish when he retreats. It's just an oversight.

I don't want to play mp with people dropping stuff like this so I'll stick to games where it's banned and hope it's fixed for the basegame.

[K]

Edi said:
I can make it red again, but we shall see. JK is on vacation, but I have asked him to look at the MoD issue and I expect he will sometime when he returns and I'll hear back from in due time.

In fact, I think it might still be better to put it in red because of the abusability due to the general BF enchantment & retreat issue. Domes are still in red, after all.



If he looks at the three games I've posted, I'll accept his judgments. I could create more representative games using different tactics, but I think the one's I've tested are enough to show the weaknesses of MoD + BE + Retreat, as well as everyone's potential ability to counter them in the endgame.

PS. The devs can feel free to email me at any time. I'd be happy to discuss this issue.

[Aezeal]

Well... if me and Sombre agree we must be right.. I think that settles it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[K]

llamabeast said:
Any smart guy who plans to (ab)use MoD will only use it for the first time against a big enemy army. Few big armies are equipped to cope with it, so it's probably an insta-kill on that army at least.



I view that as a newbies' conception of a "big army", rather than an experienced player's conception of a "powerful army." I think that I've shown that an army prepared to deal with SCs and thugs should beat MoD + BE, so I'm not sure if it's an important issue.

I mean, a powerful army is composed of diverse elements using several different "winning" strategies. The late game is about mastery of magic, and not about mere strength of arms.

Considering that I believe that this is the one of the PC games I think has "1-2 years" time to achieve mastery (or at least competence), I reserve my judgment to whether adding this complexity to the game is "fair".

[Sombre]

K said:
If he looks at the three games I've posted, I'll accept his judgments. I could create more representative games using different tactics, but I think the one's I've tested are enough to show the weaknesses of MoD + BE + Retreat, as well as everyone's potential ability to counter them in the endgame.

PS. The devs can feel free to email me at any time. I'd be happy to discuss this issue.



Would you please get your ego in check?

No-one cares whether you will accept the decisions of the devs, least of all them.

[Tifone]

I think the most proper thing to do would be just nerfing MoD down a bit, to make it lose its "unfairness" aura that many see, letting it remain a powerful spell if not properly countered, so making it more playable and enjoyable by everybody. But the 2 factions here don't move towards each other so we are not going anywhere together... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[K]

llamabeast said:
I have to admit I'm sad that this has been toned down from a red to a purple bug. Regardless of whether it's counterable it's still a horrible bug to be on the receiving end of.




The funny thing is that the same tactics that are effective against SCs and thugs are effective against MoD + BE.

Sure, every army doesn't need to be able to deal with these tactics, but isn't that the key decision to make? (Either make a reinforcing army to join a diverse army or make a stand-alone army)?

[calmon]

I downloaded your first example K and build up the exact same situation 2 turns later.

I saved it and run it 20 times and your outcome happens in exactly 2 cases! In all other (18 times) the lanka commanders were fled to adjacent provinces and only your berserking troops existing in the province. (BTW: A good player would try to prevent a sucessfull excape by conquering the adjancent provinces)

At least in your first example i'm sure you tried it more than one time to get this outcome and you know that it was just luck!

So even with the fact you build up a perfect situation for a defence against MoD+Retreat you fail!

[Tifone]

Dun dun DUUUN http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

[K]

calmon said:
I downloaded your first example K and build up the exact same situation 2 turns later.

I saved it and run it 20 times and your outcome happens in exactly 2 cases! In all other (18 times) the lanka commanders were fled to adjacent provinces and only your berserking troops existing in the province. (BTW: A good player would try to prevent a sucessfull excape by conquering the adjancent provinces)

At least in your first example i'm sure you tried it more than one time to get this outcome and you know that it was just luck!

So even with the fact you build up a perfect situation for a defence against MoD you fail!



Interesting. I ran it twice and since it worked I posted it. (And it was an individual battle example, and not a metagame example that considered overall war strategy).

Most importantly: where is your saved game? I'd like to check your results and see if you did anything wrong with scripting, unit placement, composition of units, etc.

That being said, the third game I posted is also a clear win using a completely different army composition and different tactics.

How many wins will satisfy the community?

[calmon]

Savegame Uploaded. Like i said. I just played another 2 turns of your game to fill up air gems to cast MoD and Storm (for Lanka) again. Nothing else changed so its exactly your starting position. I even gave more gems to the defending storm caster.

(The Mapfile is in K's first post package)

[K]

calmon said:
Savegame Uploaded. Like i said. I just played another 2 turns of your game to fill up air gems to cast MoD and Storm (for Lanka) again. Nothing else changed so its exactly your starting position. I even gave more gems to the defending storm caster.

(The Mapfile is in K's first post package)



My battle takes place in Friendly Dominion(+1 Morale). Your battles probably take place in Neutral(+/-0) or Enemy Dominion(-1). Considering that your pretender is closer, it probably is enemy dominion.

That explains why my guys Retreat earlier in your games. Two points of morale is a big deal in a long battle.

[Foodstamp]

Aezeal said:
I Disagree with Foodstamp and Endo since it's been known for an enternity you can beat the spell but the fact remains that once the caster leaves the spell should end, it's an admitted bug by the makers too I think and if it's exploited it's enough reason to kick pplz in the nuts for it.



For it being "known for eternity" the spell can be defeated there were a lot of people saying otherwise.

The very vocal argument was that after everyone fled the field, the spell would continue forever no matter the circumstances. As far as being an admitted bug, you guys convinced the developers that you had tested the spell and that it did last forever after a mage+everyone retreated off the field. I can see where they would call that a bug, but it seems now the spell does not work like you all said.

You guys want the spell gone, changed, fine. But from reading the MP threads on the issue, we lost atleast one player from the community because he was called a cheater and ridiculed for a couple of pages on an MP thread for using this spell. The sad thing being of course, the people pointing the finger had no idea how the spell really worked.

Next time let's check our "jump to conclusions" mat at the door.

[calmon]

K said:
My battle takes place in Friendly Dominion(+1 Morale). Your battles probably take place in Neutral(+/-0) or Enemy Dominion(-1). Considering that your pretender is closer, it probably is enemy dominion.

That explains why my guys Retreat earlier in your games. Two points of morale is a big deal in a long battle.



I can't remember any battle were Lanka fled because of morale. They retreat after reaching battleturnlimit!

And even if not it was neutral ground (which is 1 morale difference!), so please don't tell us the battles ran this way because your commanders had morale 20 instead of 19!

[Sombre]

Foodstamp said:
The very vocal argument was that after everyone fled the field, the spell would continue forever no matter the circumstances. As far as being an admitted bug, you guys convinced the developers that you had tested the spell and that it did last forever after a mage+everyone retreated off the field. I can see where they would call that a bug, but it seems now the spell does not work like you all said.




From the buglist:

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.

This is an 'admitted' bug and applies to MoD. Fixing this bug avoids any need to do anything special to MoD.

[chrispedersen]

by the way you could just as well do the same thing with
something like a handful of mages and and Wrathful skies.

just blink them around the battlefield.

[chrispedersen]

For the record,
I completely agree about the spell should end wen the caster retreats. But I think it should be fixed as part of the generic fix it for all BE, not as an especial case.

Just as a brain storm, by the way.. wouldn't a few mages blinking around with void eyes, ALSO resolve the issue?

[K]

calmon said:

K said:
My battle takes place in Friendly Dominion(+1 Morale). Your battles probably take place in Neutral(+/-0) or Enemy Dominion(-1). Considering that your pretender is closer, it probably is enemy dominion.

That explains why my guys Retreat earlier in your games. Two points of morale is a big deal in a long battle.



I can't remember any battle were Lanka fled because of morale. They retreat after reaching battleturnlimit!

And even if not it was neutral ground (which is 1 morale difference!), so please don't tell us the battles ran this way because your commanders had morale 20 instead of 19!



Well, having seen the effect of a single Standard, I'd argue that one point of morale is a big deal.

But, I did run the test ten more times this morning using your files and no other changes and I can't really account for your results. Even if I just hit Host, I keep getting consistent Lankan wins either by Seraph kills(2) or outfighting the MoD(8).

Are you running a mod? Are you patched to the latest version?

I did notice that the Seraph got killed in two of the games, which is interesting and I would have noticed with more test games. The False Horrors force him into melee and he's not casting his spells or retreating.

Look at the second game(same map and different set-up) or the third game I posted(Abysian army + Fire Storm vs. MoD + Storm + Wrathful Skies + Grip of Winter + Quagmire + Retreat). The third game actually ends pretty quick and is nicely impressive with fire, snow, and lightning pyrotechnics.

[calmon]

K, just take my save game and run it. I think you're not so stupid and count the victories, aren't you?

The outcome is always "lanka wins". The question is how they win. After battleturn limit lanka gets an autoroute! Most of the commanders and troops fled and just some few remains in the province.

[K]

calmon said:
K, just take my save game and run it. I think you're not so stupid and count the victories, aren't you?

The outcome is always "lanka wins". The question is how they win. After battleturn limit lanka gets an autoroute! Most of the commanders and troops fled and just some few remains in the province.



I guess I'm stupid.

Ok, I ran it five more times. In two there was a clear victory with no retreats, in two there was a victory and 1 or 4 mages ended up in neighboring provinces, and in the last one the seraph never go to cast because he was driven off.

What's your point?

I could alter the scripting like I did in the second posted game and there would be fewer retreating mages, but the three saved games I posted are all examples of outfighting the MoD. They are "proof of concept" games.

I could toss two more mages in and then have 100% repeatable games where no one retreats, but what would that prove? I've already shown the bare minimum needed to outfight a MoD.

Getting hit by any mage ambush involves losses. Hell, you should see what that same Seraph can do when scripted to cast Shimmering Fields and then Retreat. Watch the results of a powerful Beckoning or a Cold 3 Murdering Winter.

As far as I can tell, the essence of good DomIII play is taking a few gems and making your enemy lose more gems.

[calmon]

I did 5 tests in row with -d debug on. All 5 tests went 75 turns and end with an autoroute. The the complete logfile in the attachment. Search for 'turn 75'.

[Aezeal]

Would you please get your ego in check?

No-one cares whether you will accept the decisions of the devs, least of all them.


--> I agree with Sombre again.. must mean we are right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[calmon]

Sorry K for me you're no longer trustworthy.

You bring up a test with an output which happens only in a rare case.
You missed completely to upload the scenario BEFORE the battle so everyone can test it. I'm sure you knew its rare.
I disprove your so called "test" and you still argue round and round.

Well, i'm sure i can do 100 more tests and you still write silly answers with more or less lies in it. You recall me on one person in dom2 who also denied all facts and was immune to arguments.

[Micah]

Hmm, I just ran Calmon's upload 4 times and 3 of the 4 times it went to defender rout, just to add some more data points to the scenario.

Regardless, check out my post about the risk vs reward factor. Even if you have a 50% success rate at killing off the phantasms the MoD caster really isn't out much more than a few mage turns and gems for each attempt if you're unable to kill off the casting mage(s).

Beckoning costs 20 gems, Shimmering fields has crappy range, and murdering winter is 50. Much like some of your proposed counters in the other thread I'm getting a bit suspicious of the claims you're making, K...

[MaxWilson]

K said:

calmon said:
I downloaded your first example K and build up the exact same situation 2 turns later.

I saved it and run it 20 times and your outcome happens in exactly 2 cases!



Interesting. I ran it twice and since it worked I posted it.



FYI to Calmon and K both, the easiest way to run a battle multiple times is to insert some random militia or archer unit into it near the beginning of the battle (with Shift+U). That changes the random seed and gives new results without much affecting the battle itself. It's easier than saving the game and copying-and-running the turn twenty times.

-Max

[K]

calmon said:
Sorry K for me you're no longer trustworthy.

You bring up a test with an output which happens only in a rare case.
You missed completely to upload the scenario BEFORE the battle so everyone can test it. I'm sure you knew its rare.
I disprove your so called "test" and you still argue round and round.

Well, i'm sure i can do 100 more tests and you still write silly answers with more or less lies in it. You recall me on one person in dom2 who also denied all facts and was immune to arguments.



Wow. It's another thread that devolves into personal attacks.

I'll explain myself exactly once:

I put up a few test games to show that MoD could be beaten by killing the phantasms. That is proved beyond any doubt, and has caused the buglist to be altered to fit the truth.

I did not set up a fail-proof MoD counter for people to test and play with. I had no intention of doing so, which is why I ran exactly four games using four strategies and I posted three of them (the unposted one wasn't a win on the first try, so I ditched it rather than fiddle with the exact set-up I'd need to win).

I had no intention of dragging in the old argument of "is a BE + Retreat broken?" in this thread. I know that lots of people value it to an insane degree (much higher than I do) and they think it's an unbeatable tactic.

And I don't care anymore.

I've shown that small armies with a few mages can beat it. It doesn't matter if it happens rarely if you use the small army and a few mages in my test games and more often with a larger army and more mages.

It has been proved possible. My goal is accomplished, and fighting with you guys over whether you think BE/MoD + Retreat is broken is not worth my time because it's only a matter of opinion on both sides.

My only question is this: you can't disprove that it is not possible, so what exactly are you doing? At best, you can only prove that I should have used a few more mages.

[JimMorrison]

Personally I'd rather see a powerful late game army, than a small and intentionally crafted MoD strike force.

Take a nation and make a typical army for them. Not a fantastical dream of what you'd hope for on turn 100 if you got all the coolest sites and empowered your pretender to 9/9/9+ to cast all spells. A typical army, that you would have on say turn 40-50, with just one path at 9, and few others at 4-6. A couple end game summons, some other handfuls of whatever nice elite things.

Try not to pick a nation that you specifically think has an edge in this please. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Also, script them as if you expected to face an actual army of some kind. We are in agreement that attempting to defeat a residual spell from a fled caster, requires different tactics than needed in facing an actual combat force? Good, then if you can accept this challenge, please attach the previous turn file so that the setup and scripting can be examined and analyzed by those whom you intend to convince.


So far, all this seems like is you bringing in a video of a lion eating a guy with a rifle, to prove that lions are not endangered because they can defend themselves.

[K]

JimMorrison said:
Personally I'd rather see a powerful late game army, than a small and intentionally crafted MoD strike force.

Take a nation and make a typical army for them. Not a fantastical dream of what you'd hope for on turn 100 if you got all the coolest sites and empowered your pretender to 9/9/9+ to cast all spells. A typical army, that you would have on say turn 40-50, with just one path at 9, and few others at 4-6. A couple end game summons, some other handfuls of whatever nice elite things.

Try not to pick a nation that you specifically think has an edge in this please. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Also, script them as if you expected to face an actual army of some kind. We are in agreement that attempting to defeat a residual spell from a fled caster, requires different tactics than needed in facing an actual combat force? Good, then if you can accept this challenge, please attach the previous turn file so that the setup and scripting can be examined and analyzed by those whom you intend to convince.


So far, all this seems like is you bringing in a video of a lion eating a guy with a rifle, to prove that lions are not endangered because they can defend themselves.



I though that my Abysia game was a pretty good example of this.

The tactics are simple. Use mages. Focus on damaging magic with decent ranges. It's the same tactics I use on enemy armies unless some overriding tactical reason pops up.

I've attacked enemies on turn 40-50 with armies that had 20 mages and hundreds of elite troops. Is that what you want?

I don't think that that'll prove anything.


-----------

P.S Do you know how hard it is to craft a decent late game army that won't kill any single MoD-casting mages on round 1?

[JimMorrison]

Okay, let me refine the challenge.

You have repeatedly claimed that the best way to avoid being affected by this exploit is to kill the MoD caster before they can retreat. So that's what I want to see happen.

Obviously you will send him in the way you would if you were running the other nation seriously, with bodyguards and such, so he's not just an easy target.

Part of my problem with this claim of killing him first, is that you like to reference fliers, but in most cases your fliers are shock troops. I can't imagine a normal scenario where they would be scripted to attack, rather than hold+attack, else they'll fly up and get slaughtered before the lines meet. If they hold, obviously they won't just dart back there and defuse the bomb, will they? That's what I'm getting at here.

Once we've established that the scenario is based around what you're actually expecting the army to normally be facing, then I want to see you actually able to kill the MoD caster before he escapes.

Making sure that he lacks SR, and then using Thunder Strike, doesn't count. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[K]

JimMorrison said:
Part of my problem with this claim of killing him first, is that you like to reference fliers, but in most cases your fliers are shock troops. I can't imagine a normal scenario where they would be scripted to attack, rather than hold+attack, else they'll fly up and get slaughtered before the lines meet. If they hold, obviously they won't just dart back there and defuse the bomb, will they? That's what I'm getting at here.



Yeh, that's how you use fliers. You sacrifice them so that enemy mages end up affecting their own army with missed spells and sometimes you jack up enemy mages. If they are shock troop fliers that can stand a few turns of that, then even better.

[Aezeal]

NONO let's not go there

apperantly K wanted to let us know that MoD + retreat isn't a 100 % win, personally I knew this could theoretically be done (never bothered to try) and I guess some more did but he proved it since his file has shown it. Considering the reactions it seems it was news for a number of pplz. Ok let's thank K for the info he brought some. I'm sure K agrees it's not EASY to beat MoD + retreat so no need for more challenges.

After that the fact wether you think it's abusing a bug remains the same as in about a 100000 threads and posts in the past (personally I think the fact the dev's say it's a bug enough but whatever) and I would propose we don't repeat all those 10000 posts.

The thread has been informational and now it should be left to die.

[Sombre]

It's good that some people learned something from this thread.

[llamabeast]

Agree 100% with Aezeal, well said.

[Aezeal]

Well I'm known for my tactfull posts through out the net http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Foodstamp]

People get so passionate about this issue. I bet if a group of people were discussing this at Starbucks over a cup of overpriced coffee, someone would get stabbed.

[Jazzepi]

*stabs Foodstamp*

Jazzepi

[AdmiralZhao]

*stabs Foodstamp, who is now at -2 defense*

[Tifone]

*casts Mists of Deception + Wrathful Skies on the discussion group, then retreats* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[llamabeast]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Foodstamp]

The spinning plastic butterknife strikes The Foodstamp in the head!
It is mangled!
The Foodstamp's left ear has been slashed off!
The Foodstamp's throat has been slashed out!
The Foodstamp's neck has been badly cut!
The Foodstamp's brain has been mangled!
The Foodstamp is propelled away by the force of the blow!
The Foodstamp loses hold of the Iron shield.
The Foodstamp loses hold of the Iron mace.
The Foodstamp gives in to pain.
The Foodstamp falls over.

[llamabeast]

Is that Dwarf Fortress?

[Jazzepi]

Quick, someone throw Foodstamp's corpse in the moat. He's spreading miasma everywhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Jazzepi

[JimMorrison]

Fine, I will not press the issue if the general consensus is that continued conflict is detrimental in some way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I just felt that my own concerns were in no way resolved by this. I really wish JK and KO would just change MoD in a way similar to Twan's mod spell.

I've just been extremely uncomfortable with these repeated claims of how "easy" it is to stop the mage from even having the chance to cast twice and retreat.

Just as I am uncomfortable about this portrayal of flying units as "just useful chaff", when most nations have only rather expensive options to get any fliers that are worthwhile in the late game, and can't just go around securing more every couple of small battles the army has.

But, I am sure here is where I get told that my perspective on that is very n00bish and so I can't be expected to have a valid viewpoint to express. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Aezeal]

/me stabs Jim

[JimMorrison]

< Eats Aezeal's nose off. >

O.O

[Foodstamp]

JimMorrison said:
Fine, I will not press the issue if the general consensus is that continued conflict is detrimental in some way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I just felt that my own concerns were in no way resolved by this. I really wish JK and KO would just change MoD in a way similar to Twan's mod spell.

I've just been extremely uncomfortable with these repeated claims of how "easy" it is to stop the mage from even having the chance to cast twice and retreat.

Just as I am uncomfortable about this portrayal of flying units as "just useful chaff", when most nations have only rather expensive options to get any fliers that are worthwhile in the late game, and can't just go around securing more every couple of small battles the army has.

But, I am sure here is where I get told that my perspective on that is very n00bish and so I can't be expected to have a valid viewpoint to express. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Someone said it was easy to counter MOD+Retreat? Do tell.

I am pretty sure people have said it is possible.

[chrispedersen]

wish I could figure out Dwarf Fortress
I really really really want to like it ...

[Foodstamp]

Here is a link to the wiki, it has tutorials and guides on the very first page.

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

BTW, the game was patched a few days ago, so it is uber hotsauce in adventure mode now too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[JimMorrison]

In the other thread there have to be at least 3 seperate places where K directly stated "the easiest way to counter MoD+retreat is just to kill the caster".

Phrasing varied, of course, but I am only referring to places where the statement was that it was not hard to do if you are a "skilled" player. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

But it doesn't matter, as I've been asked to just let the whole thing die, and I agree that since we have an official stance on the subject, and agreement is nearly unanimous that exploiting a bug is unacceptable, then I don't care about the rest, people make wild claims every day.

[chrispedersen]

Jim,
I suck at things.. but if you get a moment, could you test an army with a bunch of phantasm poppers?

these would be something like shambler units, with chi shoes, and void eyes... perhps 5-6 in an army. Void Eyes are supposed to destroy phantasms in range, and blinking around the battlefied.perhaps will get you enough in range.

By the way - I tried a couple of games where wrathful skies cast on the same side as MoD - killed all the phantasms themselves...

[JimMorrison]

Chi shoes? The ones that give Kick? The Sandals of the Crane blink but they're an Artifact. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif I'd assume you just meant Winged Shoes, I wonder how effective that would be.

I wonder if a high movement cavalry unit with Stymphalian Wings would do better, getting more hops/turn so you need less of them?

I don't know though, it seems like a bit of a stretch. I mean, talking about not only a sizable investment of gems into a totally nonstandard tactic that you'd never use for anything but warding off MoD, but these guys actually have no other use at all.

[chrispedersen]

well, you could you make them mages, and just cast blink.

[Zeldor]

Just looks at progress page.

Enchantment now finish when caster leaves battlefield.

[Micah]

Aw, sadness, I liked that trick. Well, outside of MoD...

[llamabeast]

Well thank goodness for that.

[Foodstamp]

Micah said:
Aw, sadness, I liked that trick. Well, outside of MoD...



It's just a minor step towards making the game more conventional. There is still plenty of quirks to make the game stand apart from other strategy games... for now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

[Tifone]

Naah, Foodstamp. I think making all the spells counterable by a counter-spell, or perfectly balancing all the nations, or giving each path a strong late game summon to balance tarts (instead of giving to some paths good summons, other paths good battlefield spells, another ones good globals... as IMHO is now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif - though improvable maybe) would make the game more "conventional".
This is just fixing an issue that was maybe being exploited by some (a few surely, this game has a great, fair community), and being annoying to the majority http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Tifone]

Absolutely OT http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif - do you people think mentioning KO three times in a thread summons him, like the Burtonian Betelgeuse/Beetlejuice?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

It might. It works with me.
One of my morning routines is a search for gandolph, gandolf, and Gandalf in the last few days on all the forums with it showing the text of the posts.

Sometimes when Im jumping into threads I wasnt part of I will mention "HARK, I have been summoned by the use of my name!"

[Tifone]

Gandalf Gandolph Gandolf Gandhi Gran-Marnier Ganesh Gangaroo Gangrene Parker Parkour Parkinson Parking-kong Paratrooper Partial Partnership Parttimelovers

**I'm in your forum - distressing your morning perceptions** http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[JimMorrison]

Foodstamp said:

Micah said:
Aw, sadness, I liked that trick. Well, outside of MoD...



It's just a minor step towards making the game more conventional. There is still plenty of quirks to make the game stand apart from other strategy games... for now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.



Yes, it is a strategy gaming convention to remove egregious bugs that not only completely violate rules intended by the developers but also cheapen the spirit of the game, and fracture the community.

How dare they be so darned conventional?

[Foodstamp]

Yeah, this issue has really wrecked the community. I mean something like 3 whole people used the spell in MP games. Most (Really "most" is not even a strong enough word to describe it) of the pissing and moaning came from people who had never even faced the spell in MP.

A bunch of people listened to these people and the way they said the spell worked, they tried the spell in SP and omg the AI could not cope with it. Must be an exploit.

As far as this making the game more conventional, in a way it does. As a small aside, I felt like the "Voice of Tiamat" thing runs along this same ilk.

Some says "OMG voice of Tiamat can be used to make a check against a dome spell".

Rather than say "Cool, this is a neat little trick water casters can do." people said "OMG HAX exploits, the spell should logically work like this, not like that. If this were HOMM34304 the spell would not do that."

So the spell is changed. 6 months later the people who complain about these things leave to go play Spore, Civilization, or something else because they are tired of having to point out things that need to be fixed in this bizarre game. And then the players who love the quirkiness of the game are still here dealing with a vanilla game that has been drastically altered by a group of people who are never satisfied until they think everything is perfectly balanced, generic and expected.

[Micah]

Given that it wasn't in the rulebook as a condition for ending a BE I don't think it was all that bad.

[Edi]

I for one am happy that the BF enchantment issue and the two movement bugs have been addressed. Most of the quirky things are still there.

I have not seen attempts to get things into perfect balance, but to make the game behave according to the rules it is supposed to behave. If it's violating its own ruleset, it is not a good thing. The three aforementioned bugs were the worst offenders. We shall see where it goes now.

[Jazzepi]

Edi said:
I for one am happy that the BF enchantment issue and the two movement bugs have been addressed. Most of the quirky things are still there.




Addressed? My impression is that ritual of returning/retreat + BE was still working just fine.

Jazzepi

[JimMorrison]

Foodstamp said:
Yeah, this issue has really wrecked the community. I mean something like 3 whole people used the spell in MP games. Most (Really "most" is not even a strong enough word to describe it) of the pissing and moaning came from people who have seen many examples of bugs being abused in various multiplayer games, and have seen the damage that such exploitation can cause to the general enjoyment of the game, and to the livelihood of the community, through the actions of a few unscrupulous and inconsiderate players like myself



There you go, fixed your post.

I am very tempted to follow your lead and simply be insulting and self aggrandizing. But I see no need to debase myself to make you look like a fool, when you are doing such a great job yourself. Keep up the good work.

I think if you even paid the smallest bit of actual attention to the people you are surrounded by, you would not see me as some sort of ignoramus, or a "flavor of the month" kind of guy. Since you seem to want to portray me as such, it highlights how insulated you are from other people and their enjoyment, as opposed to yourself, and your own enjoyment.

It's okay if you want to live in your own little world, where the argument that "all programs behave as they were told, so regardless of intent, a completed project is finished and technically works as designed, which is always more important than working as intended". But it would seem that most of the people not only trust JK and KO to design the game in a logical and well considered fashion - and to agree with THEM, when THEY say that something is absolutely not working as intended, and to not only not abuse that bug, but to try to refrain from ridiculing and insulting those who feel that abusing an acknowledged bug is wrong, even when those who have a predilection for abusing bugs feel the need to ridicule and insult those who agree with the men who have actually designed this "quirky" and addictive game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Jazzepi said:

Edi said:
I for one am happy that the BF enchantment issue and the two movement bugs have been addressed. Most of the quirky things are still there.




Addressed? My impression is that ritual of returning/retreat + BE was still working just fine.

Jazzepi



Until the next patch.
http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html

[Sombre]

Nice.

I'm glad they've fixed it and made a definite rule on how these things work. BE spells will still be plenty powerful, you'll just have to put more thought into how you'll protect the mage.

Come to think of it, being able to control when a BE ends could lead to new tactics.

[Jazzepi]

Huzzah!

I hope "retreat" also covers ritual of returning, and the armor of virtue.

Jazzepi

[Foodstamp]

JimMorrison said:

Foodstamp said:
Yeah, this issue has really wrecked the community. I mean something like 3 whole people used the spell in MP games. Most (Really "most" is not even a strong enough word to describe it) of the pissing and moaning came from people who have seen many examples of bugs being abused in various multiplayer games, and have seen the damage that such exploitation can cause to the general enjoyment of the game, and to the livelihood of the community, through the actions of a few unscrupulous and inconsiderate players like myself



There you go, fixed your post.

I am very tempted to follow your lead and simply be insulting and self aggrandizing. But I see no need to debase myself to make you look like a fool, when you are doing such a great job yourself. Keep up the good work.

I think if you even paid the smallest bit of actual attention to the people you are surrounded by, you would not see me as some sort of ignoramus, or a "flavor of the month" kind of guy. Since you seem to want to portray me as such, it highlights how insulated you are from other people and their enjoyment, as opposed to yourself, and your own enjoyment.

It's okay if you want to live in your own little world, where the argument that "all programs behave as they were told, so regardless of intent, a completed project is finished and technically works as designed, which is always more important than working as intended". But it would seem that most of the people not only trust JK and KO to design the game in a logical and well considered fashion - and to agree with THEM, when THEY say that something is absolutely not working as intended, and to not only not abuse that bug, but to try to refrain from ridiculing and insulting those who feel that abusing an acknowledged bug is wrong, even when those who have a predilection for abusing bugs feel the need to ridicule and insult those who agree with the men who have actually designed this "quirky" and addictive game.



You pretty much did what you said you were not going to do in the very first line of your response. On top of that, you have made many more assumptions in this one post about my character and playstyle than I have about anyone.

It's a pity you think I am a cheater, self absorbed, and whatever other insult you said you were not going to stoop to. I am not going to try to qualify myself to you, someone I will never meet, and someone after that last post I could care less about on any level.

[Strider]

Do not continue with personal attacks. Anyone...