Ill start with that I have never played any MP EL games so far. I did play quite a bit with this game. What you obviously seem to be missing here is how narrow your actual experiences are. Yes I assume you going to disagree... and that dispite what you seem to think with a game this fresh, and MP community so low, all players are indeed beginners. From what I have read on the MP section you play on the very same conditions and maps with probably mostly the same people. And then you are jumping to conclusions. You wrote it yourself that it happened to you "at least 4 times". I mean balance conclusions based on 4 times? Realistically you could say this:



"Based on the very few games I played with the very few different people, I can tell that in a fast game on a small map vaulters seems to be very OP"



That would be true. With a fast game you are basically skipping the part where vaulters are the weakest due to their notsogreat units, and I would assume on a slower setting they would be among the weakest as any other faction could rush them in with relative ease.



I know you will deny this as this was with AIs but I played slow games and in practically all of them vaulters were eliminated very fast with their lack of early game presence. I just want to point out that your experiences are relative and thats it. And yes, teleport indeed seems to be godly even without playing any MP games.



I dont want to deny what you say, I just want to point out that you need to place it relative to your experiences. Vaulters might be OP, but we know so little so far.



Let me tell an example. Back before the time of Noe, I have played starcraft on local server with a couple of hundred players. I was among the better players and I played night and day with basically the same 100 or so people. After half a year we considered ourselves good, veterans of hundreds of games, and were convinced that one faction (terrans) entirely sucks. There wasnt even youtube then probably but finally we saw some replays from some asian dudes who actually know how to play the terrain faction. Then some of us learned just within a few days how to play with that faction and the whole gameset changed for us. And the game itself didnt change a single bit, its just we who have learned.



There are also always trends in MP games. Vaulters are OP. Everyone picks Vaulters. Finally someone discovers a good counter/rush tactic against Vaulters what wipes them all the time. The so called "JoJo rush" spreads like wildfire and suddenly nobody wants to play vaulters. Within a week players are whining on the forums that necros are so freakin OP cause JoJo rushes in their vaulters all the freakin time and theres simply nothing they can do with lameass marines and nerf pls.



Youve got the picture.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- Carnassid, your argument to say that four games is not enough to conclude something about the Vaulters is formaly correct but if we need to found a judgement on a large quantity of games what is the right number ? 50 Games ? 500 games ?



- I prefer to found the judgement on the feelings. I emotionnaly and rationnaly feeled and experimented that Vaulters are overpowered. And I knew in myself that I should had said it in the forum. That is simply how I functionned. The most important for the exteriors persons, it's the arguments. If the players or the developpers feel the same thing that me when they readed the arguments, if they compare their own games experiences with my own experiences, and think the same things than me, it should be enough for the devs to said that something is wrong and should be changed.



-RinCevenT I have no time to play the game in multiplayer now I don't well understand what you mean. ^^

You are aware that the first rule of making an argument is to base it upon logic... not emotions... feelings are not an adequate measure of anything. You may have felt you had no chance to win, that doesn't make it a fact. Many people who lose games of any type in an unexpectedly one sided way immediately FEEL like they've been cheated, that doesn't make it true.

paperhero wrote:
So far I have only played as single player Vaulters, and that is because I believe they are OP. Maybe I am wrong, but I thought I would mention something about the Vaulters that I haven't seen commented on. If you set up a custom faction you will find these default settings:



Wild Walkers: 70/80 points

Broken Lords: 55/80 points

Vaulters: 105/80 points

Mezari: 105/80 points

Necrophages: 85/80 points

Ardent Mages: 56/80 points

Roving Clans: 80/80 points

Drakken: 75/80 points

Cultists: 90/80 points



My question is why does the Vaulters get 105 points when the Broken Lords only get 55? OK, so the traits themselves are not very well balanced, because if the factions are even close to be being balanced the traits are not. Why not try to balance them more? This balance is most important in MP so people can set up somewhat balanced custom factions. I understand most people play SP, but it is also useful in SP, because then it would be fun to experiment with different builds. I like the Vaulters, but don't think it is worth it to lose 25 points to change it to something different.

Just a thought but has it occurred to you that the point value of the individual abilities are entirely arbitrary. Points have no actual value. For example, on that list you can see ardent mages by your points = balance theory should be one of the worst factions, in truth they are one of the best factions. The point cost of their packages is almost irrelevant to balance because the points value of their abilities is based on what the cost should be on those things for custom factions. The points exist to prevent people from taking combinations of particularly powerful traits not as a representation of "balance".



I've had successful games with nearly every faction, The Vaulters are not one of them mainly because early on I was shafted, marines are infamously weak and I had trouble finding a local region with deposits of Glasteel (my chosen holy resource), my starting area as mentioned before had tons of science but limited production meaning I never emptied my city queues like I do with many of the other factions. Is it possible Vaulter's are OP, of course. Are they OP because of points, no.

This thread is tempting to use both levels of Slow Travelers and Anarchists on an industry focused custom-faction of Vaulters.



>.> I consider those to be the most detrimental negative traits to use on an empire. But. Maybe with Holy Resource buffs, Offense First/Optimal Defense, and Teleporting it will be doable!

So far I have only played as single player Vaulters, and that is because I believe they are OP. Maybe I am wrong, but I thought I would mention something about the Vaulters that I haven't seen commented on. If you set up a custom faction you will find these default settings:



Wild Walkers: 70/80 points

Broken Lords: 55/80 points

Vaulters: 105/80 points

Mezari: 105/80 points

Necrophages: 85/80 points

Ardent Mages: 56/80 points

Roving Clans: 80/80 points

Drakken: 75/80 points

Cultists: 90/80 points



My question is why does the Vaulters get 105 points when the Broken Lords only get 55? OK, so the traits themselves are not very well balanced, because if the factions are even close to be being balanced the traits are not. Why not try to balance them more? This balance is most important in MP so people can set up somewhat balanced custom factions. I understand most people play SP, but it is also useful in SP, because then it would be fun to experiment with different builds. I like the Vaulters, but don't think it is worth it to lose 25 points to change it to something different.

Can we stop the "I'm an expert player" stuff? There is no competitive multiplayer community for this game yet.

Also, saying that +50% tech bonus is also a 50% increase in power is inaccurate, as the bonus applies narrowly.

- I guess I said "approximately" +50 %. Your calcul looks better but I am not sure it is good. Anyway, even just +30 % can be very powered due to the initiative critical effect. It is possible that a unit is better with just +30% power and health, but with a big initiative bonus, than just with +50 %

Don't turn this into an MMO PvP forum where your personal experiences are all that matter in discussion.

- I turn nothing into nothing. I exposed arguments then I called for the feelings of anyone especially the multiplayer experienced people, and the developpers. I think if the arguments are not enough, it is important to use our feelings and intuition about a problem.



- To me, if a person who know the game well, who play it online on a competitive level, this person cannot don't see the bigs unbalanced situations in any game (in this case, all the super advantage of the Vaulters). What I say may look prematurate to some people, but I am sure one day or another if Devs concerned by balance works on balance, they will see the same things which I (and others) saw.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- Carnassid, your argument to say that four games is not enough to conclude something about the Vaulters is formaly correct but if we need to found a judgement on a large quantity of games what is the right number ? 50 Games ? 500 games ?

This isn't an issue of you trying to draw a line.



A sample size of 4 is statistically irrelevant. I'd try to produce a confidence interval for you, but math at 6am never works out quite how you want it to.



Also, saying that +50% tech bonus is also a 50% increase in power is inaccurate, as the bonus applies narrowly. A level 1 marine with a hyperium tier 3 longbow gains 140 attack and 91 damage on top of 38 attack and 34 damage.



That means the attack is 178 and increases to 248, a 39% increase , and the damage is 125 and increases to 170, a 36% increase. Averaged across the stats, the weapon grants 38% increase.



And that's for a level 1 unit with highest tier gear.



If we consider only Titanium for longbow, +31 attack +18 damage at tier 1, so 38 attack -> 69+15 -> 84 a 22% increase, 34 damage -> 52+9 -> 61, and a 17% increase, or a 20% total increase.



Averaged across "top tier" and "bottom tier", you now have a 29% average increase in a level 1 unit You can't even pretend that this is a 50% increase in overall power. As this bonus isn't conferred to any minor factions, you're stuck with applying these bonuses to what some consider weaker units. The marine is considered bottom tier to begin with, and then you look at the stats of the other two units and they're actually worse than the marine, so you're actually going to be using this bonus to shore up the difference, not soar ahead of the competition.



Don't turn this into an MMO PvP forum where your personal experiences are all that matter in discussion.

I was really shocked that it doesn't cost resources to teleport units. 5 dust + 0.5 unit of holy resource per unit per tech era (e.g. tech era 4 = 2 holy resource + 20 dust per unit teleported), 2 units + 10 dust per hero teleported per tech era seems good.

- Carnassid, your argument to say that four games is not enough to conclude something about the Vaulters is formaly correct but if we need to found a judgement on a large quantity of games what is the right number ? 50 Games ? 500 games ?



- I prefer to found the judgement on the feelings. I emotionnaly and rationnaly feeled and experimented that Vaulters are overpowered. And I knew in myself that I should had said it in the forum. That is simply how I functionned. The most important for the exteriors persons, it's the arguments. If the players or the developpers feel the same thing that me when they readed the arguments, if they compare their own games experiences with my own experiences, and think the same things than me, it should be enough for the devs to said that something is wrong and should be changed.



-RinCevenT I have no time to play the game in multiplayer now I don't well understand what you mean. ^^

"They got -1 food per hexagone, they got food ressources which just are a compensation of the mediocre agriculture but quicly become useless (because you dont plant some city due to bad approval at early or mid game). Proliferators is a bad unit, which create mediocre unit, which are not easy to use (and give an enormous dust malus when they are more than 4-6-8 in your army). To be simple : except the less expansive quarters and the good early rush necrodrones units, necrophages are nearly naked in feature compared to Vaulters !"



as we come Jojo ! !!! ( not only volters! Drakkens too!)

Why doesn't people gang up on the Vaulter players then? If people know they're so strong but have a weak-ish early, isn't their major disadvantage that everyone knows they need to be taken out before shit hits the fan?

Relatively to these observations : https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/14-multiplayers/thread/5424-multiplayer-faction-balance-observations-and-propositions



I writte here new observations (off course I speak of multiplayer games with good players, not with beginners, where factions balance is not important) :



- I am totally convinced that Vaulters are super overpowered. My experience proved it, and the following explanations may help you to have the same opinion.



- Multiplayer mid and late game is all about quality, and not quantity. You can have 4 army of 6 units, if your units have shit equipements your renforcement will be useless and wiped out. So, you need quality too.



- In mid/late game, all factions except Vaultiers, have few strategic ressources. Even if you got some cityes, some extractors, and you try to economis your ressources, you will be completely overproduced by Vaulters (especially if they got Silics villages).



- Even if you have enormous industry, hero fully equiped with all good artifacts, you will loose, because industry mean nothing if you don't have the neeeded ressources.



- So, what will happenned (and what happenned to me at least 4 times) it's you will face a vaulters with 2 or more stack of fully equiped units, and you, you will have not much ressources and will be very limited. You will loose. And even if you dont you will loose all your ressources, during this time (as there are more and more winters so more harvesting of sacred ressources) will have largely the time to fully resplenish his ressources.



- This situation make all mid/late game nearly unpossible to won vs Vaultiers, with any faction.



The Super Feature of the Teleport :



- As you know, more than the immenses bonus of Vaulters (sacred ressources, super harvesting and Technophile bonus, which give a HUGE bonus +50 % on all equipement, which give +50 % power approximately) to any vaulters army... they got the Teleport. Teleport is super overpowered. With teleport, you can expand as hell without any risk (compared to others civs who need strong garrison in all dangerous cites). You can too entirely basculate yours army in an offence movement. And if during the offence, you won a city of an ennemy, you can bring immediate renforcesments.



- You can do use teleport to protect sieged city and be teleport outside (absurd and super overpowered).



- You can off course, during the time you are on an offensive war, teleport where you want if needed. Teleport destroy an important dimension of the game : the risk of planting new city, the risk of multifront, the difficulty of moving fast yoru army (why bulding road, teleport are betters).



Conclusion :



- For all these reasons, Vaulters are fatally the most taken civ in advanced multiplayer games, and will be more and more because players will understand that there is no interesting to play others races if you want to win before all. In my opinion the Technophile promotion should be removed, sacred ressources is largely enough good like that.



- Teleport should be really different. For exemple, it could use dust (any spell of mages uses dust so why not teleport ?!). When I say dust it's some dust. Era 1 100 dust, era 2 250, era 3 400 etc. Teleport should be an emergency mesure for defending a city of the realm. Not an highway. You could too only teleport one army per city, per turn (no rush of 2 or 3 entire army...)



- Teleport should work in a sieged city, because it's the essence of the faction to be defensive, as dwarves in their montaigns.



- Teleport should cancel movement or attack for 2 turns, not one turn. On eturn is nothing. 2 turns is good because it let time for a surprise attack to be effective (but not if attacked need to face strong city defense).



- A last thing : units who are teleporting should be blocked 2 turns as I said, but not where they are teleported, but they are teleporting. By that, when units are teleported, they are immediately ready to attack or defend (more logical than when they cannot move at the distant city).





- A final argument, for people who think the game is balanced, all is normal, I have a bad mind to critics : just honnestely compare (or try playing in MP) necrophages (or drakkens) with vaulters : necros have no teleport, no special ressources, no power bonus. They got -1 food per hexagone, they got food ressources which just are a compensation of the mediocre agriculture but quicly become useless (because you dont plant some city due to bad approval at early or mid game). Proliferators is a bad unit, which create mediocre unit, which are not easy to use (and give an enormous dust malus when they are more than 4-6-8 in your army). To be simple : except the less expansive quarters and the good early rush necrodrones units, necrophages are nearly naked in feature compared to Vaulters !



Thank you to have read this bad english and very long test.

Gamgee wrote:
They are extremely overpowered.



Knowledge IS power. With their tech lead they can pursue ANY victory better than anyone.



/The End



I'm a new player to EL (but not to 4x) but I've noticed a trend. All my fellow new players pick vaulters. One of them has an incredibly cheesy custom vaulters faction as well. It's only going to get worse. Oh who's that around the mountain side? Oh a vaulter. Great. Who is on the island? A vaulter. Right.... last time I checked this game is Endless Legend. Not Endless Vaulters.

If you play custom factions, cheese is to be expected. Never do that in multiplayer if you want fair games.

They are extremely overpowered.



Knowledge IS power. With their tech lead they can pursue ANY victory better than anyone.



/The End



I'm a new player to EL (but not to 4x) but I've noticed a trend. All my fellow new players pick vaulters. One of them has an incredibly cheesy custom vaulters faction as well. It's only going to get worse. Oh who's that around the mountain side? Oh a vaulter. Great. Who is on the island? A vaulter. Right.... last time I checked this game is Endless Legend. Not Endless Vaulters.

I'm not too convinced Vaulters are OP.



1) They have good research bonuses at start yes, but often spawn in ice -or tundralike enviroment with little production to profit too much from it. Other races with better production can often fast undertake the tech lead with for instance an early Public Library.



2) Archers are severly nerfed (rightfully so), and marines are perhaps the worst archers in the game, and are beaten severly on range and initiative by the rangers. They are pure fodder for all other race's starting units, if the terrain is not extremely favourable for archers.





3) Their starting hero is perhaps the weakest overall of all starting heroes, and in for instance MP games, you seldom (never) see people fight to recruit Vaulter heroes first.



4) Holy Resource and + 1 to strategical resources are strong, but you still need to expand to get these resources in the first place, and Vaulters are perhaps the weakest faction to expand fast with, due to the huge chance for terrible production in their spawn province, and weak starting units compared to all other races after the archer nerf.



5) When it comes to teleport a strategical resource need to be activated, and I think teleport is a good synergy to give the Vaulters, since no faction has a harder time defending versus a rush with their starting units and production, and a hero that need many upgrades before it get any direct military bonuses. Teleport is mostly a defensive trait, and being defensive and turtling is supposed to be the Vaulter strength.



To get the holy resource bonus effecting your units when needed, very carefull planning is needed.



I must say it's hard for me to see how the Vaulter traits are so supreme compared to all the other good traits other civilisations have, their starting hero potential and their units. One of my last games was played as the Drakken, and I killed my Vaulter neighbour with ease thanks to my supreme life/hitpoints, my fast upgraded hero with instantly usefull bonuses for combat, and heal.



Vaulters are good for carefull players staying out of conflict by no aggressive expansion toward neigbours, preferably in a corner of the map. Then you can slowly build up, and be able to utilize your research over time by gambling on not building too many units, for that you can not afford (later on you can upgrade your small army to a small high quality army). This is a though balance to achieve, and you can easely get in troubble if you arent carefull and defensive enough, especially when it comes to what provinces to colonize, and your city placements (preferable placements that are easy to defend with archers). Vaulters are not those that can easely afford settling aggressively toward others. You also need to be a good long term planner to succeed.



This is a playstyle I myself like alot, since its full of suspense especially in multiplayer. After all, I am the player that has made Jojo_Fr get the impression Vaulters are so OP in the first place, and I'm the best (no modesty required) Vaulter player I have seen after countless hours of multiplayer (game name: NQ-Luckystrike). I seldom see other Vaulters players make it to the endgame, and I'm sure I'm the only Vaulter player that has ever beaten Jojo, and that in two games in a row.

- Sorry I have not save game. I understood it could help but it is not a necessity to see these balance problems and work on them.



- A guy said that the Vaultiers players in MP are betters than the others. It's true. But a good vaulter player (or a good ardent mages/stun super op spell) will very probably kill any others races players, except versus an exceptionnal situation (as a 2 players vs him, or an early rush, before mid game).



- I don't think I have something more to say about Vaultiers. I think what I say is obvious to any experienced MP player, and I think soon or not soon, the beta testers or the developpers should go in the direction I proposed to nerf them (not to buff the others, but to nerf Vaulters because it's not just overpowered but broken feature, for the mains sources of pleasure of the game, as I demonstrated it).

BlackW3 wrote:
Activating the strategic resource is not cheap, especially if you want to use the same resource to upgrade your equipment.

Actually, vaulters get +1 strategic resource income per mine (aka, double at early game unless/before mining rights and silics).

I too agree with some of the points you made, but not with others.



When I first started playing this game I played almost exclusively as the Vaulters and found them very difficult to play. Somehow I always fell behind (even after 40-50 hours). I found that the Drakken and WW were a lot easier and less punishing of mistakes. But once you learn the game, and learn to play the Vaulters well, they are beasts in mid but more so late game.



What I think needs balance is the teleport, more specifically being able to teleport to a besieged city. Its just too easy to plant one army in any city as a defending army, and leave your borders open because that army can be anywhere in the same turn. Making it so you can't teleport when a city is already besieged I think will bring some balance to teleport. I'm just never in fear of my borders with the Vaulters, which isn't the same with any other faction, even with WW.



All there other faction buffs I think are fine, especially the technolover and the holy resources, and especially with the ranged units getting that nerf recently. Its almost impossible to defeat minor fractions with your starting army, even with a 3rd marine. Activating the strategic resource is not cheap, especially if you want to use the same resource to upgrade your equipment. Also almost all their unique buildings require the very same strategic resource, putting an even bigger strain on it. So by no means do you have an endless supply of your holy resource.



I think the main issue you're having is that most Vaulter players, just play well, because to me its a very complicated faction to play well with. But are very weak in the beginning especially against say WW or BL. From what I've seen and played to use the holy resource well you have to save it in the beginning. Then when you're ready you upgrade, boost and go on the offensive. Most of the time if the Vaulter player is the one attacking, he's got you outgunned.



Having access to strategic resources early on is also important. And if you start off in a region with no strategic resource or your immediate expansions don't have them, it can be crippling.

taltamir wrote:
You missed the biggest thing about vaulters. the tech bonus. which allows them to open a gap

Also, their main units are ranged, which are superior to non ranged units

I think another thing that should be looked at is the marines, maybe i am wrong, but i don't think they got the 30% damage decrease in the last patch.

You missed the biggest thing about vaulters. the tech bonus. which allows them to open a gap

Also, their main units are ranged, which are superior to non ranged units