Will Reusable God Powers Break the Game? | AoM Retold
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- čas přidán 11. 03. 2024
- With reusable god powers on cooldown basically confirmed., I've put together a tier list of which god powers with work on a cooldown system and if any god powers will break the game and need some serious changes.
Leave any comments you have below about god powers on cooldown below!
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Article stating god powers with cooldowns: www.pcgamer.com/age-of-mythol... - Hry
What are your thoughts on reusable god powers on cooldowns?
I think it can work but with some major reworks
My initial reaction is skepticism, more than just balance I feel that the fun of most of the god powers is that they're so strong that it would break the game if they were reusable. Personally I like playing defensively, so if I just survived an Earthquake or Ragnarok push I want to have the satisfaction of rebuilding and then inevitably winning against the depowered opponent
@timonrein6113 I had the same feeling of a potential follow up ragnarok coming. If you don’t lose to the first there might be a round 2 coming 😂
Some powers such as lightning storm, implosion considering the increase in the population in the game would not necessarily break the game since with more population the impact is reduced, other powers such as earthquake, tornado lose strength as the game progresses therefore a high cooldown on these would make their impact not devastating.
Maybe using the godpowers could be connected to a favor cost?
Like, if you put a 10 or 15 min cooldown on something like earthquake, it's very unlikely it can be used more than once or twice per game. I think it's completely possible to balance it in a way that works
I think each god power will have a different cooldown time, as a way of balancing the ones within the same age. A good example is in classical of snakes vs shifting sands. Snakes can have a way lower cooldown. While powerful things like regenerate or flaming weapons will be more than 10 minutes of cooldown time, similar to mythic age ones.
Hopefully AoMR will explode the playerbase which will explode your channel. Youre doing a great job..So relaxing to liston to these. Id love you to make more tierlist style videos..would watch them all. Perhaps human unit, myth unit tierlist would be very, very fun.
in addition to a cooldown feature, maybe a feature where the power has to be bought with food/gold/wood and favors, or add a new building where you can sacrifice units that will allow to buy certain powers depending on the number of sacrifices
Maybe the first one (or few for Atlantean) are free and to reuse you need to pay favor in addition to the cooldown
Unit sacrifice would be cool mechanic if they make like Aztec civ
Maybe not all would be reusable or have a very limited ammount of charges (like plenty vault), maybe, and i supose most of them would be reworked to balance this.
Maybe just a favor for the use of god powers not gold food or wood
I think the cooldown on god powers takes away the strategic decision making of when to use it the best. For serpent plague or curse it should be fine but on the most other ones the cooldowns should be really long, somewhere in the 15-20 minute area when they can help to break a stalemate. Else it just becomes a no-brain god-power spam that takes focus from the other parts of the game
but it also removes the "too awesome to use" issue that can plague them with their single use nature, where you hold onto a power for the perfect situation to use it only for said situation to never show up
When I heard cooldowns, I was thinking 10-15 minutes each at least. I think the idea from the devs is that once you reach a late game that's a bit of a stalemate, it would be more fun to have power spikes that you can play for but I do agree though that the one-and-done style adds to the strategy. A solution could be something like an expensive new mythic age building (Or temple upgrade) that once built adds the cooldowns to the GPs; Similar to a titan gate.
Also might need to consider that they say they are increasing pop count - having an army twice the size of what we can have at the moment might make something like a lightning storm slightly less impactful than it is now.
I wonder what cooldown timers they’re thinking of. It’s going to be a big balancing topic for sure. The pop count change is a good point, that will change the impact of some of these powers. A late game building for god powers might be more balanced, but not sure how it would impact the flow of the game
As someone who always played AoM just singleplayer (campaign or against Bots), I just want the reusable powers to put the special "buildings" or units somewhere that looks cool xD
Here's a couple god powers I think could have really interesting reworks:
Meteors:
I think a cool rework of the meteors power would be that you get three charges with zero cooldown, and charges regenerate every 4-ish minutes. Each charge would summon a single meteor. That way you could use all three back to back to do a lot of damage to a single area but you would have to wait twelve minutes before you could do it again. Alternatively, you could use a single charge intermittently like a sort of mythic-age version of shockwave and you'd have a much shorter cooldown. Oranos shockwave is good for early-game raids, and meteors is good for dealing with late-game turtled defenses.
Spy:
I think it would be pretty straightforward to have a 1-minute cooldown, but when you use it you lose your previous spy. Just changes which unit you are spying from and doesn't create more spies.
Plenty vault:
Can be destroyed/deleted/captured and takes up 8 population. Currently, one plenty vault saves you about 10 population worth of villagers, so each vault gives you an instant boost in economy while being slightly more pop-efficient than vills. While spamming a bunch of them would give you a busted economy, it would really start restricting your ability to produce military past 3-4. If you spam them across the map, your opponent has a good chance to steal one or more of them from you. If you cluster them in one spot it would be really good for turtling but if your opponent gets in you lose your entire economy.
Ragnarok:
I honestly think this being a one-and-done power would work alongside all the other powers having cooldowns. It would make using ragnarok an even more of an all-or-nothing god power. It's a game-ending god power so it doesn't make sense to be used more than once. Perhaps (this would make it even more of a radical god power) it should disable building villagers for the rest of the game to make it even more of an all-in power while also making sense why you shouldn't be able to use it twice.
I really hope that they don't dumb down the god powers, it's one of the core aspects of what makes age of mythology mythology and I'd honestly rather have the game be more fun than more balanced.
One thing that would mitigate a lot of the issues you voiced would be, instead of cooldowns (or in addition to them), additional god power uses have to be purchased. Doing this with favor would be cool and add flavor, though would probably have its own balance issues. But it eliminates the more thoughtless spamming of powers like Flaming Weapons, Shifting Sands, Prosperity, etc. and prevents things like every town center having Sentinels just because you can. If you have to pay for it, there's a trade-off again. Powers like Healing Spring, Citadel, and Underworld can be limited to only allowing one active at a time.
With a system like this and some minor tweaks, pretty much all the god powers should be fine and not not broken. Even the mythic age god powers would just need their cost scaled appropriately (building a wonder level expensive) so it's a big investment to get them back instead of waiting out a timer, which I agree would be awful.
Basically, timer bad, purchase good. Idk why we're assuming these would be on a pure cooldown system (unless I missed something confirming that that's how they'll be) when that's probably the worst way to do it.
yeah Purchasing additonal ones for favour makes sense for me. Maybe the first 1 is free, e.g. gold mine - then the 2nd one costs. Because otherwise how much would Drarven Mine cost - 10 fav for 500 gold, 10 fav for 6000 gold, or it scaling through the ages?
And having the first one free might be good for specific ones - like being able to buy multiple Plenty vaults would be very powerful but would you really pay 50 or 75 favour for your first one?
Or maybe a RoN like system where the more you use it the higher the cost becomes?
My only concern again is team games but the favour issue should sort that if everyone is spending their favour on Great Hunt the other team may use theirs better on cyclops or boars
I always wanted god powers to be reusable, though many of them would need a long cooldown, the other ideas mentioned about a favor cost or being tied to wonders would be great!
Stuff like Heal Spring & Underworld Passage should on a timed life. I think the Age 4 powers should be kept at the current power level but give them a 30 min cool down. God Powers shouldn't block other God Powers aside from the peace one.
More than peace should; i mean, fimbulwinter does basically nothing at the age it becomes available in (the wolves are just too weak), and you likely already know where enemy bases are so the intel it provides is useless) except for blocking powers very effectively
I don't see a problem with the strong god powers having a cooldown. But more like 10-15 min.
If you use an earthquake, it's not going to break the game to be able to do another one 15 min later. Because you are supposed to have won already, or then it just wasn't impactful enough to start with. Especially considering your opponent would also something on cooldown.
- High impact GP (Earthquake, Cease Fire, Frost, Shifting sands etc): these are the easiest to balance. Part of the fun of these powers are the big moments they create. In order to maintain this feeling (but keep them balanced at the same time) these just need to have really long cooldowns. Maybe add a favor cost as well, like 50 favor per cast, and give the opponent a warning when the CD is close to being up, like the warning for Wonders and Titan gates
- Economic GP (Rain, Prosperity etc): Resources, tech advantage and army will always win more games than god powers, so it's dangerous to just allow one player to have more resources. So my suggestion is, these powers help the enemies too, maybe at a reduced (50%) rate. So using it has a risk.
- "Passive"/Boring GP (Healing fountain, Citadel, Dwarven Mine, Lure, Hunt etc): Maybe these should just be removed and new GP introduced, offering more active gameplay for both sides
- Actually breaks the game: Ragnarok (stupid design), Forest Fire: it is just "anti-fun" design to deny resources without any counterplay. There is also a world where Gaia forest could be used to lame the opponent golds by surrounding it with trees. Should be removed.
Honorable mentions: Plenty vault should be fine with a rework. In AoE2 the Portuguese civilization has a similar building (Feitoria) but it takes pop space, could be the same here. So it's only really good in super late game when wood or gold runs out, otherwise villagers are generally better at collecting resources.
I think some of the economic bonuses could be tweaked such that for every time they're used, the cooldown time increases (maybe doubles) so yes, you could use it early in the game and then again later, but you'd have to wait much longer for it the more you try to use it. Something like Plenty might need to be waaay more than doubling the time.
12:10 OMG i just realized that it's a globe being held in hands.😂😂😂 I always saw it as a cobra😂😂
If they do add new godpowers to replace the old ones that don't work with their cooldown system I hope they keep them in the editor at least.
Love me some first class AoM content.
Like I haven't even played a game with multiple ceasefires and no matter how they funk the duration I don't think there is ever gonna be a situation where it doesn't feel bad.
Either it feels bad to use because it has no impact or it feels bad because it destroys the flow of the game, the latter of which I am far more concerned with. I honestly think they might remove it from the game because it just runs so contrary to what an RTS is.
Similarly I think some of the god powers are just meant to be a one time thing and you can't really chang that without losing a part of what maks it unique.
My suggestion would there for be to have some god powers stay as a one time thing, but once you use them you get a secondary ability.
Similarly Hades ability could just resummon the guardians on their platforms instead of giving you a new set each time, alternatively maybe limit their use to once per town center?
For example Healing Spring gets its active one time use where you place it on the map and then you get a second skill on a cooldown that allows you to boost its healing output temporarily.
For Thor you could make it so each size goldmine can only be summoned once, so if you start using it in the mythic age for example you get 6000/3000/1000/500 gold and after that it just repeats 500 gold which shouldn't be a balance problem.
I whole heartedly agree on the breaks the game god powers, mythic age god powers are probably best left off as a one time thing or at least I would hate to see them nerfed in an attempt to capture some elusive "balance". Which frankly I am quite concerned about since they talked so much about professional players. No offense but I play age of mythology for age of mythology not to play the next starcraft with a new coat of paint, there for things don't necessarily need to be balanced as long as they are fun.
A secondary cooldown with a weaker effect could work, I like it. You still get the powerful one time use and introduces cooldowns. And good shout with the gold mine, I couldn’t think of a good way to balance it. It seems like one of the more broken reusable god powers for competitive aom
I think cooldowns are fine idea but with each tier ability it has to be increased.
For example tier 1 abilities would have 5min cooldown.
Tier 2 10min
Tier 3 15min
Tier 4 20min
Suggestions:
1. Lure - empowers farms to gather 10-15% faster.
2. Dwarves Gold Mine - Adds 500 gold to an existing gold mine.
3. Great Hunt - first use works as normal and then it gives you 4-6 random deer like hunt.
4. Gaia Forest - works as normal then after normal charges you get one every 5 minutes (placeholder time limit, adjust with balance).
5. Ra Rain works as normal on first charge and then 50% less effective on future uses.
6. Ceasefire - works normally once then is 50% shorter time.
7. Healing Spring - first is permanent but every spring after has health and can be destroyed. Limit to 2.
8. Forest Fire - sets the forest on fire slowly decreasing the total amount that can be cut down from those trees (but not removing them totally) and sets those trees on fire for a long duration. Does same damage to villagers. Maybe even blocks God Powers while being used?
9. Eclipse - works as normal then future uses don’t block god powers.
10. Underworld - works as normal, only get one at a time and then once destroyed it gets a cooldown.
11. Citadel - works as normal, can only have one, upon death it goes on cooldown.
12. Frost - works as normal but doesn’t freeze villagers.
13. Hespa Tree - first works as normal and then future uses can be destroyed, limited to two total.
14. Plenty Vault - one that can be destroyed and then you can use it after a 5 minute cooldown.
Ragnorok - first use normal and then further uses simply spawn a small group of Rag Heroes at a location.
For mythic god powers, make the first use normal and then subsequent uses becoming 50% less effective. So either causing less damage, or giving less health, or having a smaller AOE or lasting not as long. Make it a mini version.
I feel like you missed the opportunity to class powers by what sort of rework they'd need. I'd assume Sentinels and Citadel would replace the existing instance so the cooldown would just be there to allow you to move or rebuild, not just continuously compound. Son of Osiris could work similarly or could be a timed duration such that it loses the transform after a small amount of time, likewise with Nidhogg and Tartarian Gate. That could also be a way to work Underworld Passage so it wasn't an omni-present thing but temporary.
What I think might be necessary would be increasing cool down duration. The more a power is used, the longer until you can use them next.
I think the archaic through heroic god powers should be on a cooldowna but the mythic ones shoudl be on both a cooldown and a research. That way it not only takes away resources that could got to the army but also ties up a Town centre's production.
healing spring could be HP based and have a cooldown started after getting destroyed OR could be done just with the cooldown but old is destroyed after new built
Think that would be a good way to change it, and maybe remove the enemies from stealing it
Nice video, Moose! I am coming back to AoM and Retold seems promising
But I have to ask one thing: Isn't the combo of Freya's and Njord's GPs game breaking? Both gods are synergic and useful, specially on maps with tricky wood lines. Having a forest fire on back woods + walking forest at exposed woods seems absurdly good with cooldowns. Any thoughts?
Welcome back! I agree that powers essentially destroying resources on a short cooldown might be a bit problematic
It's not a problem. I like the idea a lot. It just needs adjustments. Balancing 1 use god powers is not easier, maybe even more difficult because if you can use something multiple times it will converge to a specific 'number/strength' right? I hope I am clear, but I'll try explain better. Let us say a certain god power has a strength between 3 (being the worst use of the power) and 7 (optimally utilised). If you can only use it once you may end up on either end of the spectrum (the extreme). However if you can use the godpower multiple times it will converge to an average of 5 right? Therefore balancing things out. Does this sound logical? It's just a matter of trial and error at the end of the day, to adjust the strength.
Im thinking it will probably be archaic powers on cooldown. Ie just your main god. This makes them more of a defining aspect of your main god/civ.
but even that could be too strong or useless. Odin, useless since hunting falls off later in the game compared to farming. Thor? Infinite gold at home.
Carnivora: honestly should be changed to be ranged, it doesn't ever do anything besides slightly slow down a push, and notably bad in the water form. The instakill is kept in check as melee range on an immobile unit.
Lure: to buff it and be more appropriate to the icon, it could also double or even triple the fattening rate of nearby herdables, would give Posideon a consistent strong start.
Sentinals: make them a bit stronger but also fewer of them and more spread out, so they're still a threat but they leave defensive holes, also they probably shouldn't be able to stack.
Gold Mine: I would put it in the broken tier, it mostly gets used immediately as the game starts to offset starting with dwarves for quick rushes, with multiple charges it could do that and be a lot of gold in the mid/late game. If the amount of gold was scaled back it could provide some flexibility without being busted.
Deconstruction: I really wish it could be nerfed to not be able to target docks, but it's fine and honestly it should only give half resources back.
Prosperity: should be toned down a bit, 80% is a supercharge and multiple is too much, but is fine.
Rain: yeah the blocking god powers is the strong part, but also Ra kinda needs that because weak egyptian early game and Ra is the most boomy egyptian, it could be changed to give a stronger boost but for a shorter duration. Don't forget it boosts everyone on the map.
Spy: competitively is pretty useless because it's easy for your opponent to tell what you've spied, should be changed to spawn an invisible unit that costs no pop and does nothing but give you map vision. Revealed if walks too close to TC, Tower, or fortress. Might be a little strong for targeting god powers, but Norse don't really have great god powers for that kind of thing.
Vision: Is already absolutely broken for enabling god power use, for example the classic ra/set shifting sands vil rush, but on the other hand isn't really good for anything else.
Ceasefire: just needs to be shortened a bit and it's fine
Undermine: would need more buffs even with multiple charges
Restoration: just make it so the units can't be in combat. All it ever gets used for is tanking the start of a fight, the enemy runs away or you win, and then the fight plays out. Could even make it a global effect.
Healing Spring: is great as it is and would be awesome with multiple charges. It's a decent defensive power, and it makes up for Trolls being so bad.
Shifting sands: it would be fine with multiple charges and affecting the enemy, just limit the teleport range. That removes all the cheese while still being useful.
Forest Fire: is one of the worst god powers in the game, even with multiple charges it couldn't deny the opponent wood, it should just cause a fire in a medium area that does more damage to units than buildings, like a counterpart to undermine. Resource denying is also lame.
Serpents: just make them controllable and they'll be great, like a classic age version of ancestors, they also both work on water, they did it with walking woods and now it's a fine power.
Chaos: should be buffed to not downgrade the unit because the power scales very poorly, also should have a mechanic where it affects your units as well and counts them separately from the enemy. Kinda like the tartaran gate dumping a bunch of hostile gaia units in an area.
Underworld: just limit how far the two holes can be apart. You could use all the charges to establish a chain across the map, but even a short passage is useful defensively or to skip over enemy walls.
Citadel: the defensive stats are pretty inconsequential and the extra pop looks nice, but it's only 10 more. The real cost is taking Sekhmet, because she offers nothing. Bone bow is cheesy but lowers the dps of chariot archers, slings of the sun is fun but doesn't turn slingers anti infantry, Scarabs are great units, especially if you get the relic, but Egyptians have the siege tower which is effectively the same thing and is more spammable. Sekhmet herself just needs a buff.
Herisperides tree: the only interesting part of the tree is blocking god powers, make it so that they need to be spaced out more and it's fine. Atlanteans use a whole god power to get what Isis gets for building monuments. Dryads are fine for what you get, but they're limited to 5 at a time across all trees and 150 gold a pop is more expensive than mercenaries.
Walking woods: I know it makes a lot of sense, but it shouldn't target actual trees. Just cast it anywhere. Now this is a situation where if a whole team picked both Freya and Njord, then you could deny one or two opponents all their wood.
Lightning Storm: the hp cap is actually pretty reasonable, just make it not target eco units and it's fine
Implode: mechanically broken god power, looks cool but doesn't do damage. It should be changed to be like SC2 mothership black hole ability, where it's less about doing damage and more about temporarily removing half the opponents army for a period of time.
Niddhog/SoO: yeah just have it be so you can only have one at a time, SoO is powerful enough that he does not need healing enabled, and honestly the Niddhog could use a buff since everyone but especially Norse have much better tools against flyers these days. Poor Niddhog can't Even take down a fortified TC by himself.
Ragnorak: is actually fine and AoM is actually the only game I've seen that has a revolution mechanic that actually works.
Plenty Vault: is strong by itself, it should logarithmically scale down the more vaults you control.
Fimbulwinter: does pretty weak damage and disruption, is fine for blocking powers and doing chip
Tornado/Earthquake/Meteor: should have a favor cost in addition to long coolsowns
Tartaran gate: is fine and not that strong, useful for locking down neutral TCs that you can't claim.
I think it's very likely that they will give entirely new GP to a few gods. Some are just badly designed or boring, in comparison to others. I expect the low impact powers (the economic ones, or the "passive" ones) to be removed or reworked.
As for the power levels, if you put a 10, 15 or even 20 min cooldown on something like earthquake, it's very unlikely it can be used more than once or twice per game. I think it's completely possible to balance it in a way that works.
Solution for team games: increase cooldowns by x minutes per each extra player in the team
I think its a good change. As much as I love the Atlanteas I always thought it was weird that they got special treatment in having God Powers that could be used multiple times.
Meanwhile you have ones like Zeus's Lightning bolt which most players will almost never use because, despite it being ridicilously strong, its only one use.
Having them each assigned a number of uses is best. Titans set up multiple God powers for the Atlanteans and they seemed well balanced.
Here is a quick thought on the number of uses for each GP along with cooldowns (stats could be slightly adjusted but I will try to imagine the GP as is)
- Archaic Age -
3 Bolts (6 min)
3 Lure (2 min)
3 Sentinals (7 min)
2 Vision (1 min)
2 Rain (7 min)
2 Prosperity (3 min)
2 Dwarven Gold Mine (2 min)
3 Spy (2 min)
3 Great Hunt (4 min)
5 Forest (2 min)
3 Deconstructions (4 min)
4 Shockwave (5 min)
- Classical Age -
2 Restorations (3 min)
2 Cease Fires (7 min)
2 Pestilence (7 min)
5 Plague of Serpants (2 min)
3 Shifting Sands (8 min)
2 Eclips (9 min)
3 Forest Fires (8 min)
4 Undermines (7 min)
2 Healing Springs (3 min)
4 Spider Lairs (4 min)
4 Valor (3 min)
4 Carnivora (1.5 min)
- Heroic Age -
2 Bronze (6 min)
2 Underworld Passage (9 min)
4 Curse (9 min)
2 Citadel (7.5 min)
3 Locust Swarm (8 min)
3 Ancestors (7 min)
2 Frost (7 min)
2 Flaming Weapons (9 min)
4 Walking Woods (3 min)
5 Traitor (5 min)
3 Hesperides (1.5 min)
6 Chaos (6 min)
- Mythic Age -
3 Thunderstorms (3 min)
2 Earthquakes (9 min)
2 Plenty Vaults (9 min)
2 Son of Osiris (6 min)
2 Hurricane (7 min)
4 Meteor (8 min)
3 Fimbulwinter (2 min)
3 Nidhogg (9 min)
2 Ragnarok (9 min)
2 Implode (2 min)
4 Tartarian (9 min)
5 Vortex (1.5 min)
I think giving healing spring a limited amount of life it regenerates and self-destructing after reaching it would be a solid way to make it reusable.
With restoration being reusable, one way they could balance it would be to decrease the healing while the units are in combat, while keeping the strong healing while the units are out of combat
unchanged i think a few of them will be broken. but i think all godpowers are reusable. with some fair cooldowns and rework definitly.
I'm thinking playing a new campaing if any, but not multiplayer since those powers breaks the game, plus the fact every town center is locked to a place.
Isn't lighting storm a better version of bolt? Having them both reusable in late game makes the first silly.
Maybe they should be free for the first use and cost an increasing amount of favour for subsequent uses?
I want link for download
See I never understood spy being useful because you can just kill the spied unit and make the power useless, but with a cooldown it could be handy
All powers are reusable if you know the words^^
Nah I have to disagree, less time on ceasefire is BS at least to a casual player. Give me that long cooldown instead. I do understand your viewpoint from a competitive standpoint especially where hotkeys strictly used and tailored to users preference.
There are just some powers that shouldn't have cooldowns lmao
I hope they include a classic mode style for people who enjoy that difficulty/decision making more.
I imagine if the game gets popular enough, they'd have to keep the powers in check with balance patches.
And a year down the line, the powers will probably not be the same as they were on release.
So having a classic mode will at least keep that original balance/nostalgia still available. Even if EE is still around.
lmao imagine playing LoL