I intend to make a mod that changes as little as possible and provides an increase in balance.



Part 1: Rearrange hero skills



I do not feel that most hero skills are particularly more overpowered than others but might need some rearranging to break up strong combinations.



For planetary heroes the 7 ability categories can be roughly arranged as:

• Food
• Industry
• Dust/Trade
• Science
• Approval
• Defense
• Vision
  
  

Current Distribution is: Administrator(Food, Industry, Approval, Defense) and Corporate(Dust/Trade, Science, Vision)



I suggest this distribution: Administrator(Food, Approval, Science, Vision), Corporate(Industry, Dust/Trade, Defense) & Adventurer(Approval, Dust, Defense, Vision)



Anyone have other/different suggestions?

Well, i already did a rebalance of hero's skills in Fair Fight; mostly i restored the original plans the devs had by returning skills where they originally were (at some points the devs shuffled the skills between classes and did the mess we currently have). I also found that there was more skills intended (because i found references to them in the localisation file), i created them whenever i could (added like 4-5 new skills). I also capped some common skills so only certain class could top them, that lower the max attribute each class can reach and create difference between class/combination of class. The most underpowered class currently is the Corporate one as it mostly boost trade (less useful if you are warlike), i plan on adding extra skills to it eventually, but that require localisation text . And last, i also added requirements to skills so the AI knows what skills to use or not depending on where the hero is used; Fleet or System (something missing in stock game).



As you can see i did a lot of ground work there lol.

In my opinion your mod does too much and fixes 'problems' that aren't problems. I like endless and many of the balance issues I see are ones of distribution/quantity not core mechanics.



The issues with the old hero classes is specialization was killing those players who did not receive heroes with the appropriate specialization, forcing suboptimal choices due to randomness when an obviously superior choice existed. The rationale for my new distribution is now:

[LIST=1]

Not all of a classes abilities are in one tree

Each 'system' class has abilities to increase production(food/industry) and research(science/trade)

[/LIST]



What I meant was any suggestions for a different distribution on abilities? Or see issues with the arrangement I suggested?



Additionally should Labor/Wit stay the same?

Kareal wrote:
In my opinion your mod does too much and fixes 'problems' that aren't problems. I like endless and many of the balance issues I see are ones of distribution/quantity not core mechanics.

Can't please everyone. I do think i made a more balanced ES with my mod, not just thrown in features for the sake of adding them (even though some of them are because i like it that way). As for problems it fixes, just my recent change to how expansion disapproval works just fix the BIGGEST problem the game has, namely that colonization rush is the only way to play competively in ES.

What I meant was any suggestions for a different distribution on abilities? Or see issues with the arrangement I suggested?

Well, for that i can't comment; i think the most optimal skill distribution is the one i use in my mod currently, and that distribution is what the devs had in mind long ago when they initially created the classes. Makes more sense when each class follow their descriptions rather than randomly get skills that don't match their theme (like in current ES).