My guess on impact -- Inca play rate down to ~.5% -- Franks win rate up to 60%
Everyone considers it to be a massive success.
Overall for the game it was very good, but incas could use some love; The blacksmith upgrades for villagers should be dropped entirely and replaced by something to emphasize their versatile counter-play.A month and a half have passed, was it a right tweak? Are incas utterly weak now? Should the devs have given them something in return?
The other explanation is that all the people trying them to abuse the cheese strat and failing are no longer playing them.Since they received a pure nerf and no commensurate buff the only reasonable explanation for the increase in that elo range is a few high rated players going out of their way to use them attempting to justify the nerf after the patch.
I for one would be happy to read your explanation of this.If you don't know how to play Incas without vill rushing, that honestly says more about you than this incredible civ.
Elo range | Winrate in % | place/37 civs |
<1000 | 49,03 | 20 |
1000-1250 | 50,11 | 15 |
1250-1650 | 51,04 | 12 |
1650+ | 54,47 | 2 |
The other explanation is that all the people trying them to abuse the cheese strat and failing are no longer playing them.
I just mean that when a cheese strat like that is popular it gets people to play the civ and that tends to depress the winrate because they don't necessarily know the civ very well or practice the strat enough to perform it optimally. That stops after a huge nerf eliminate the strat, leaving only the people (like Degaussed I will assume) who are dedicated Inca players and therefore more likely to win with Inca than the average player at their elo.If it wasn't a broken strat I would agree. Either I am right and a few elite players went out of their way to attempt to influence the numbers, or you are right (and the strat stopped being utilized, since it wasn't as good as playing meta/straight,), and by extension, I am right.
I just mean that when a cheese strat like that is popular it gets people to play the civ and that tends to depress the winrate because they don't necessarily know the civ very well or practice the strat enough to perform it optimally. That stops after a huge nerf eliminate the strat, leaving only the people (like Degaussed I will assume) who are dedicated Inca players and therefore more likely to win with Inca than the average player at their elo.
Just because it wasn't a great strat didn't mean it wouldn't deserve a nerf. I don't have any stats but I think it's relatively safe to say that the vast majority of players thought it was complete garbage to play against. It was one of the most controversial strategies and it ruined games for a lot of people so in order to make the game better for (almost) everyone they decided to nerf it. Seems an acceptable reason to nerf something for me. I think, while very important, balance is not the end goal of aoe. It is to make a game that is enjoyable for as many people as possible.(It shouldn't have been nerfed in the first place since it was apparently not a great strat, according to the stats.)
I know that enjoyability is subjective, that's why I mentioned the majority of players instead of everyone.
Thats clearly not true, the only thing you can say from that is that Incas are seldom picked. But if people pick them, then they perform much better than a bottom tier civ, as you can see from the stats I posted above.but the utilization % speaks for itself. Inca's are a bottom tier civ.
I thought not being fun to play against was the more compelling justification for the nerf. I have no strong opinion on whether it was actually OP or not. That pros disagreed as you say suggests to me it wasn't quite as broken as the loudest detractors said. But things can be unfun and unhealthy for a game without strictly being "OP" so I think whether it was or not should not really be that important.If that's the case and elo actually increased it would formally disprove a major reason for the nerf in the first place, ie: that it was overpowered. Even high rated players like Nicov and Project Belgium openly stated this, while players like Daniel and Lyx openly disagreed.
Play rate is somewhat correlated with perception of strength but not perfectly. There are plenty of examples of niche characters in MOBAs that fit the playrate/winrate profile of 1650+ Incas. If the civ can be awkward to play in certain ways and doesn't distinguish itself (as you say they are overshadowed by the two meso civs) it is very plausible it would end up this way.I'm not saying I agree with the premise/conclusions, since I think the utilization rate is a far better metric of how the game perceives Inca's. Frankly, the answer is they don't -- since they don't play them.