Team-game Balance

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Team-game Balance

Post by zoom »

The purpose of this topic is to gather feedback on balance issues related to team-games, in the hopes of improving the EP team-game experience. Efforts to this end are being – and already have been – made, but I believe there is room for improvement, despite team-games being inherently unbalanced as well in partial conflict with one-versus-one balance. Unfortunately, constructive criticism is lacking. Fortunately, however, unlike the former obstacles, this is one that can be overcome.

If you have any opinions on what civilizations need buffing or nerfing strictly for the sake of team-game balance, it would be helpful if you shared them in this thread, along with a brief reasoning, as well as any potential suggestions. Please keep in mind to avoid changes that you think have a negative impact on one-versus-one balance.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Japan: Overpowered as fuck.
India: Good, not sure if it is op or just good.
China: Very bad in 2v2 because you can punish the ff, but decent in 3v3, people who call them op just don't know how to play well because the let them FI and send Hold Han... Oh well, Hold Han got nerfed, China is just bad now=> revert the nerf
Iro: Terrible, no eco, slow civs, bad late game
Aztec: Good, the ability to rush and take the map, to boom with 10 wp at 5:30 and still 5coyotes at 6:30 with of course full eco shipments. Decent late game as well with eagles, war dance and a lot of upgrades.
Sioux: Okish, you can really abuse the raiding advantage with brs and you can't get raided but on the other hand you have average units and a bad eco, good design in team imo.
Otto: Bad design and bad civ I'd say. Abus aren't op anymore so if you can't win in early game (which doesn't really happen), and have less than 5 tps, you're goona lose because you have bad units and a bad eco.
Spain: Not sure about this one, they're like brit with a TP boom or 5v/4v and have good upgrades thanks to the missionaries, a bit slower sure but better in late game, so fine I'd say.
Dutch: I don't know, still op I think, they got buffed imo but I haven't played them so...
France: Good civ, what we should aim imo.
Brit: Same, good civ.
Germany: A bit like sioux, you can mass and raid a lot, but you have a bad late game so you have to make something happen. Averagish.
Port: Op as fuck, the ff is just too strong and they can also win in colonial lol. The booming potential is huge.
Russia: Good.

So:
OP: Japan, Port
Good: India, France, aztec, brit, Russia, dutch
Averagish: Ger, Sioux, spain
Bad: China, iro, otto

We should keep it in two tiers which means nerfing port and jap (I don't know how sadly, maybe nerf yumis vs cav, that would be good for 1v1 too), and buffing China, iro and otto (revert the hold han nerf, or at least make it 75%, idk about iro, about otto, nerf the jans again and remove the abus nerf).
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by ramex12 »

China is not that bad, even in 2v2. You actually can play a bit colo now as I saw musket do very well
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Garja »

The strenght of each civ is totally dependant on the combination of civs of the team.
In general in 3v3 the civs with better late game are also the best one. In 2v2 the same is true but there is a lot more room for aggressive play.
I don't see any way to improve team balance indipendently than 1v1 balance. In my opinion the two things go together but team is just too complex to balance in general.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by lordraphael »

the problem is that 2v2 and 3v3 is already very different. I think balance in 2v2 is decent while in 3v3 tis pretty bad.
Easiest changes would be :
Port:- remove cheaper villagers for port and buff cassas, make hunts last longer for port.( dunno why people dont like the latter one its a very elegant solution imo )

-Japan: nerf yumi scaling ( nerf yumi upgrade card and pavillon for starters,maybe even nerf the way of the bow card becasue im not sure if yumis are supposed to have as much range as skirms , give ashi only 4 speed they are pretty annoying in teamgames)

Those are the relative easy changes imo.

Otto: Include the changes i proposed ( or sth along those lines ) in another thread. Otto can never be balanced via unit nerfs or buffs, they will always be either OP or trash if you only look at their units, their eco needs to be revamped completly.

Spain: no idea, ithink they are good in 1v1 but inherently a bad team civ, so they willl always be on the weaker side of the civs for team.

Germany: was never a good 3v3 civ imo but decent in 2v2. Hp nerf hurt them alot, they are trash in age 2, but still okay in age 3. Easiest fix for team : revert Hp nerf , youd have to compensate that by another nerf obviuously becasue it would make them top 1v1 civ again.I think ger just shows how hard it is to make both team and 1v1 balanced. Its actuallly impossible if you dont wanna make 16 clone civs. Even sc2 is nowhere near balanced in teamgames. In fact balance is utterly broken in sc2 if oyu play team. Because so much OP shit can be done there. ( Mass mutas, mass carriers, mass bc, mass tempest, mech and any toss combo is just deadly etc. )

Dutch: I would go back to 4 bank limit as a start. but kinda the same problems as ger, team and 1v1 balance just very different.

Sioux : Can actually still be pretty damn strong as ive seen from watching a streamed teamgame there. I think they only change i would do would be to give them 5 vills instead of 4.

French : Fre is fine. Just decent in all gamemodes.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by gibson »

The balance is really different between 2v2 and 3v3 as well. 2v2 balance is a lot more like 1v1 while 3v3 obviously isn't
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by momuuu »

I mean, in 2v2 especially but also in 3v3 you cant just judge balance per civ to a proper extend. India is a great 2v2 civ but they excell when teaming with a good cav civ. Or take dutch, a civ with a glaring anticav weakness that tends to be much better with a natural anti cav civ (sioux for example). Dutch sioux might be too strong yes, dutch aztec not so much.

Regardless, I think I can find myself in diarougas list I suppose. From past streams france and their lategame OP cuirs has seemed OP to me though.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by gibson »

Well franch is op of you get to the 80 vil factories eco ups point but only 1/30 team game that aren't in deccan and feature players higher than 2nd lt get there, either way jeroms right about the fact that it's inherently hard to balance team because it's largely dependant on the combination of civs rather than the strength or weakness of an individual civ, especially in 3v3
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Darwin_ »

Germany in 2v2 is really good. I havent played them on 2.0, but on 1.1, their twp batches of cav semi-ff was so fucking strong in 2v2 lol.
Japan will forever be good in team, but they have definitely gotten less OP on ES maps. Honestly there is very little we can do about them because what they are good at in team is also what they are good at in 1v1, jut in team it is a lot stronger. (maybe just nerf imperial Ashi upgrade to +40%)
Otto: Pretty decent. Going silk road with a few TP's is really strong, and with Jan's effectively being reverted in 2.0, they have some strong units. (Would maybe nerf silk road a little bit and make it team again).
Sioux: Very good, IMO, and still extremely strong vs. lower level players.
Iro: Pretty good, nothing too bad, but nothing too good. Toma rush is still quite strong in 2v2.
French: Nerf cuirs and you're fine. (make cuirs scale off of colonial stats)
Dutch: Boom is still a little too good, and ruyters a little too cost efficient, but other than that, pretty well balanced. Would just slightly increase Ruyter cost to 30f, 80c (from 30f 75c).
Brits: Poster child for well balanced boom-civ in team games.
Ports: Not as OP as some people say they are (from personal experience, ports are on of my most played civs). Goon nerf definitely helped, as well as original mam nerf. They are still top tier, but are easily accounted for and easily split for team games. Maybe remove one of their factory cards so late game isnt as strong.
Spain: Ehhh, their fine. Missionary buff helped a lot.
Russia: Fine as well, would've said on the weaker side a month or two ago, but with 2.0 they're pretty on point.
China: Fine, still not too happy about Old Han (would have nerfed it more) though.
India: Just strong. Elephants are a bit too good, and early skirm/goon is good, but over all they are fine.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by pecelot »

Darwin_ wrote:Ports: Not as OP as some people say they are (from personal experience, ports are on of my most played civs). Goon nerf definitely helped, as well as original mam nerf. They are still top tier, but are easily accounted for and easily split for team games. Maybe remove one of their factory cards so late game isnt as strong.

That's definitely not a way to go. :geek:
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by zoom »

I appreciate everyone's thoughts, but I would like to re-emphasize that team balance being inherently bad has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. In case you missed it, I noted this very fact in the OP. This thread is about providing constructive criticism (and debate) for making team balance a little less bad, without compromising one-versus-one balance.
Garja wrote:The strenght of each civ is totally dependant on the combination of civs of the team.
In general in 3v3 the civs with better late game are also the best one. In 2v2 the same is true but there is a lot more room for aggressive play.
I don't see any way to improve team balance indipendently than 1v1 balance. In my opinion the two things go together but team is just too complex to balance in general.
The two are closely related indeed, and for the most part balancing team-games independently is impossible (with certain obvious exceptions). However, improving team-game balance without worsening one-versus-one balance I find completely realistic.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by zoom »

pecelot wrote:
Darwin_ wrote:Ports: Not as OP as some people say they are (from personal experience, ports are on of my most played civs). Goon nerf definitely helped, as well as original mam nerf. They are still top tier, but are easily accounted for and easily split for team games. Maybe remove one of their factory cards so late game isnt as strong.

That's definitely not a way to go. :geek:
If they are, in fact, one of the strongest civilizations in general, and even stronger in team-games, I think reverting the buff is the logical first option, and then see whether they need another buff in its stead.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by pecelot »

I agree, just removing one factory card seems completely unreasonable for me, on which I put emphasize in the quotation.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Kaiserklein »

I agree with most of what diarouga said, except a few things.

China is not that bad, it's very decent, even in 2v2. They can even play colo because they have a mate to prod decent cav and/or anti cav, they have a good eco, and a good late game.
Germany (I know i sound biased but whatever, just ask other team players) is just bad. It's better in 2v2s than in 3v3s for sure, but regardless it's still bad. Since both uhlans and ww suck, your only good unit is skirms, but why would you pick germany to train skirms ? A bunch of civs actually do that much better than ger, eco and upgrades wise. So definitely not very interesting to pick. Their raids remain good ofc, but I don't think that's enough to make the civ interesting. When goons join the field, raids are not very relevant anyway, especially on esoc maps.
India is OP in 2v2 and good in 3v3 imo.
I think otto is very situational, depends on the map mostly. I think they are fine on heavy TP maps or low res maps. Otherwise nothing very interesting indeed.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Tlacateccatl »

In lower level games the civs that cause the most problems are: France, Japan, and Otto (followed by Russia with their oprichnik spam). For France just nerf gendarmes, either increase their pop space or scale them off of colonial stats. For Japan both yumi and ashigaru are somewhat overpowered. Decreasing the buffs they get from either their attack cards, daimyo, or the golden pavilion would help balance Japan. Otto's strength is dependent on the other civs, particularly when using abus, as abus are killed easily by cav, janissarys, however, are tough to kill and can best skirmsher type units if they don't kite. As far as oprichniks go their siege damage is ridiculous and it's not difficult for even a bad player to make a box and destroy your team's economy. I've seen plenty of 3v3s where one team will stall by fighting 3v2 while the other player spams opr in their opponents base.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Kaiserklein »

Ashis are not op though. They do have an op scaling because japan stacks a bunch of upgrades, but their base stats are nothing incredible. The 4.5 speed is nice, but 170 hp and 24 attack for 80f 40g is just pretty bad. If you compare it to sepoys (which are slightly cheaper, because they cost 90f 30g, and food gathers faster), which have 190 hp 25 attack, you instantly see that ashis get rekt. Pretty sure euro musks also beat ashis. I don't think the extra 0.5 speed compensates for that. And on top of that, ashis are just shit in melee mode, including against cav.
Yumis are OP though.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Hazza54321 »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:Japan: Overpowered as fuck.
India: Good, not sure if it is op or just good.
China: Very bad in 2v2 because you can punish the ff, but decent in 3v3, people who call them op just don't know how to play well because the let them FI and send Hold Han... Oh well, Hold Han got nerfed, China is just bad now=> revert the nerf
Iro: Terrible, no eco, slow civs, bad late game
Aztec: Good, the ability to rush and take the map, to boom with 10 wp at 5:30 and still 5coyotes at 6:30 with of course full eco shipments. Decent late game as well with eagles, war dance and a lot of upgrades.
Sioux: Okish, you can really abuse the raiding advantage with brs and you can't get raided but on the other hand you have average units and a bad eco, good design in team imo.
Otto: Bad design and bad civ I'd say. Abus aren't op anymore so if you can't win in early game (which doesn't really happen), and have less than 5 tps, you're goona lose because you have bad units and a bad eco.
Spain: Not sure about this one, they're like brit with a TP boom or 5v/4v and have good upgrades thanks to the missionaries, a bit slower sure but better in late game, so fine I'd say.
Dutch: I don't know, still op I think, they got buffed imo but I haven't played them so...
France: Good civ, what we should aim imo.
Brit: Same, good civ.
Germany: A bit like sioux, you can mass and raid a lot, but you have a bad late game so you have to make something happen. Averagish.
Port: Op as fuck, the ff is just too strong and they can also win in colonial lol. The booming potential is huge.
Russia: Good.

So:
OP: Japan, Port
Good: India, France, aztec, brit, Russia
Averagish: Ger, Sioux, spain
Bad: China, iro, otto

We should keep it in two tiers which means nerfing port and jap (I don't know how sadly, maybe nerf yumis vs cav, that would be good for 1v1 too), and buffing China, iro and otto (revert the hold han nerf, or at least make it 75%, idk about iro, about otto, nerf the jans again and remove the abus nerf).

Dutch and india in op and china in average imo, other than that I fully agree. Btw shipments like team urumi and also yumi scaling are easily fixed because they hardly affect 1v1 except long games vs japan and nerfing yunis would be a benefit to both game.modes
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Rikikipu »

Here you see how retarded are people. When you play a teamgame, they forbid you to play otto, but they agree if you play Japan...
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Rikikipu wrote:Here you see how retarded are people. When you play a teamgame, they forbid you to play otto, but they agree if you play Japan...

Hum, who does that? I'm curious, people who forbid otto also forbid jap lol.
If I forbid otto it's because I don't want to have him in my team xD.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by zoom »

Here are some suggestions for potential nerfs to Indians and Japanese that I expect would not make one-versus-one balance worse:

"TEAM 5 Urumi" home-city shipment cost increased from 600f to 750f.
– Zamburak ranged resistance decreased from 30% to 20%.

– Golden Pavillion wonder hand and ranged attack effects both decreased from 15% to 10%; "Paper Cartridge" improvement availability changed from Fortress to Industrial Age.
– Daimyo Kiyomasa, Masamune and Mototada cost increased from 350c to 500c (bounties recalculated accordingly).
– "Shogun Tokugawa" cost increased from 500c to 1000c (bounties recalculated accordingly).
– "Bakufu" home-city shipment no longer increases Daimyo and Shogun speed.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

1) What I would do instead is 5urmis=>4 urumis, which means 8 in 2v2, that's decent.
2) Do not nerf zamburaks, they are already bad, even with 2 upgrade shipments lol
3)Nice
4) Very nice one too
5) This shipment is already bad, why would you nerf it?
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by zoom »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:1) What I would do instead is 5urmis=>4 urumis, which means 8 in 2v2, that's decent.
2) Do not nerf zamburaks, they are already bad, even with 2 upgrade shipments lol
3)Nice
4) Very nice one too
5) This shipment is already bad, why would you nerf it?
TEAM 4 Urumi would arguably be worse than the 7 Urumi shipment in 2v2. While it is possible that would still be decent, it's unacceptable to have TEAM shipments be no better than the normal ones – in team games!

The Zamburak is the best non-mercenary light cavalry unit in the game, in my opinion. How is it bad!? Regardless, the idea is that this change would slightly nerf Indians in games where they make only this particular unit. Without directly decreasing its strength against heavy cavalry. Additionally, I don't see this change having a relevant impact on one-versus-one balance, since the unit is much less prevalent there and would still fulfill its role perfectly well.

The reason is that Bakufu, I understand, is broken in team-games, and irrelevant in one-versus-one.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

zoom wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:1) What I would do instead is 5urmis=>4 urumis, which means 8 in 2v2, that's decent.
2) Do not nerf zamburaks, they are already bad, even with 2 upgrade shipments lol
3)Nice
4) Very nice one too
5) This shipment is already bad, why would you nerf it?
TEAM 4 Urumi would arguably be worse than the 7 Urumi shipment in 2v2. While it is possible that would still be decent, it's unacceptable to have TEAM shipments be no better than the normal ones – in team games!

How would 7 urumis be better? And I'm sorry but 15 urumis is just too much

The Zamburak is the best non-mercenary light cavalry unit in the game, in my opinion. How is it bad!? Regardless, the idea is that this change would slightly nerf Indians in games where they make only this particular unit. Without directly decreasing its strength against heavy cavalry. Additionally, I don't see this change having a relevant impact on one-versus-one balance, since the unit is much less prevalent there and would still fulfill its role perfectly well.

Eh? It loses to every units in the game, even melee cav if you don't hit and run lol. It gets rekt by musks, by goons, of course by skirms, and one could even argue that they lose to canons so what the point?
We nerfed the goons because they were too good against the musks and the skirms, you simply can not fight infantry with zams. I don't even make zams in 1v1, or just 5 to deal with raids, sepoys are better.
On top of that, india is trash tier in 1v1, so no way we nerf them.


The reason is that Bakufu, I understand, is broken in team-games, and irrelevant in one-versus-one.
It's not broken in team? But yea since it's irrelevant in 1v1, you can nerf it idc.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by Garja »

Team Urumi card is only occasionally OP in 3v3 if timed well. Most of times it is probably just a waste of card (would rather send an upgrade in 3v3).
Zambs are great. They don't necessarily need a nerf tho, their multiplier vs cav has already been nerfed in past by RE. It jus happens that haveing goons in colo is great for team.
Pavillion techs to 10% is ok I guess, even for 1v1. Paper cartridge moved to industrial is not necessary, it's not like something that wins games in fortress for Japan.
Daymo and Shogun are already quite expensive, but I guess they're a bit cheaper than mansbdar units. Daymo should be 400g (double the cost of a Nagi) and Shogun 600g (double the cost of superior cav unit like cuir or dogsoldier). Shogun is arguably worth more than that (maybe 700-800g). This change is probably not needed tho.
Daymo and Shogun speed is one of the most marginal things to consider for balance imo. It's not intrusive tho.
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Re: Team-game Balance

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

A 15 urumi shipment is op as fuck lol.

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