nerf lakes

[buddy__1]

the eco boost from lakes is ridiculous

it seems to me the bf players are too excited about their new found op build order abusing the lakes so they only balance it with trying to give ~equal lakes or whatever

it reminds me of the old condos or even towers in HD (patch 4.8 never forget) where it was fun for a while

but eventually you have to give up on your delusions and face the harsh reality because the lakes are just simply broken; and this needs to be addressed in a serious way in a balance patch


so how can lakes be properly balanced?

 

[Modri]

Right, lets leave it to some retired spectator to dispel our delusions and help us face the harsh reality.

Executing a proper fish boom takes knowledge and practice. If done well, it puts you ahead economically in comparison to a pure land boom. If done poorly, it puts you behind. People who complain most about it and want it removed are always the ones who cannot execute it themselves but die to it when enemy does it right. It’s not a new build order or anything like that, we’ve been fish booming for years, we’re just constantly improving it. It’s not very relevant on other maps.

So to sum it up: it’s a skill. To make it fair, we’re lately enforcing equal number of lakes per team on our custom BF map. Learn to do it or accept your own shortcomings - that is the harsh reality of it.

 

[Paint]

BF does not really need to be perfectly balanced IMO. part of the charm is that you start with 5 boars sometimes and you get a insane boom, being able to abuse these advantages and maximising the boost you get from them is a fun skill to have and it's fine because ladder games don't matter so why care about balance.

 

[Hyperion]

Just don't play Black Forest.

 

[SlipperySteve]

Right, lets leave it to some retired spectator to dispel our delusions and help us face the harsh reality.

Executing a proper fish boom takes knowledge and practice. If done well, it puts you ahead economically in comparison to a pure land boom. If done poorly, it puts you behind. People who complain most about it and want it removed are always the ones who cannot execute it themselves but die to it when enemy does it right. It’s not a new build order or anything like that, we’ve been fish booming for years, we’re just constantly improving it. It’s not very relevant on other maps.

So to sum it up: it’s a skill. To make it fair, we’re lately enforcing equal number of lakes per team on our custom BF map. Learn to do it or accept your own shortcomings - that is the harsh reality of it.

well that was unnecessarily hostile. Is everything ok with you?

 

[PlusNomad]

Right, lets leave it to some retired spectator to dispel our delusions and help us face the harsh reality.

Executing a proper fish boom takes knowledge and practice. If done well, it puts you ahead economically in comparison to a pure land boom. If done poorly, it puts you behind. People who complain most about it and want it removed are always the ones who cannot execute it themselves but die to it when enemy does it right. It’s not a new build order or anything like that, we’ve been fish booming for years, we’re just constantly improving it. It’s not very relevant on other maps.

So to sum it up: it’s a skill. To make it fair, we’re lately enforcing equal number of lakes per team on our custom BF map. Learn to do it or accept your own shortcomings - that is the harsh reality of it.

So in summary:

1. It's fair to have it imbalanced because its skill based
2. Its not fair, so we play custom maps to balance it out

The Modri premium AoEZone post

 

[HeavyReynald]

You can't "balance lakes" without messing with water eco overall. Definitive Edition is full of cheesy defensive strats. You learn it or you get wasted.

 

[AkeNo]

You can't "balance lakes" without messing with water eco overall. Definitive Edition is full of cheesy defensive strats. You learn it or you get wasted.

u could remove shore fish from the lakes, that would probably nerf them a lot

 

[willdbeast]

u could remove shore fish from the lakes, that would probably nerf them a lot

removing lakes would also nerf them quite heavily

 

[Kamigawa]

I agree that it's a skill to master but how exactly can it put you behind having some extra fishing ship at the start of the game? I'm genuinely curious, unless u mean people that try to do 40 fishing ships but do it improperly

 

[King_Marv]

I agree that it's a skill to master but how exactly can it put you behind having some extra fishing ship at the start of the game? I'm genuinely curious, unless u mean people that try to do 40 fishing ships but do it improperly

You can be behind if you allocate your vills wrong and then miss the wood to built tc. You will Bank way too much food which you cannot spend.

Or else if you fail the BO you will much later up than usually and therefore fall behind.

 

[buddy__1]

Right, lets leave it to some retired spectator to dispel our delusions and help us face the harsh reality.

Executing a proper fish boom takes knowledge and practice. If done well, it puts you ahead economically in comparison to a pure land boom. If done poorly, it puts you behind. People who complain most about it and want it removed are always the ones who cannot execute it themselves but die to it when enemy does it right. It’s not a new build order or anything like that, we’ve been fish booming for years, we’re just constantly improving it. It’s not very relevant on other maps.

So to sum it up: it’s a skill. To make it fair, we’re lately enforcing equal number of lakes per team on our custom BF map. Learn to do it or accept your own shortcomings - that is the harsh reality of it.

Oh well in this case its my claim that the "retired spectator" is right, and I would interested to see if you are willing to explicitly make the claim that the fish as it currently is, is completely balanced

And I never said anything about it not requiring skill. Getting to 100 eco units with persia by min 22 or whatever the bench mark is, certainly is impressive

But well, it seems to me you can get 1000s of extra res (or whatever it is, should be easy to test) and a great power spike early imp (or quicker imp timings for example) with good build orders

As the game goes on after the power spike I understand the fishtraps to give about same food as farms so as game goes on it equals out. but well you still get 715 food for 100 wood (compared to farm without horse collar which gives 175 food for 60 wood)

Back when condos were OP or the towers, it also took "skill" to get the imp timings to properly abuse the power spike or play with the towers in a way that worked. But we knew what we were doing, and that it was really unbalanced

But well I see nobody complaining at all about the lakes. But maybe im just not around those cool clubs

Imo it would make for a more fruitful discussion to figure out how to balance them. Because they certainly add an interesting strategic dimension, which I think should be kept in place

Also there is an interesting dynamic in how with other eco units, if you are towered, you can generally move your eco to another location, or counter tower. But the fish is kind of stuck in there. its difficult to imagine a more impactful tower you can make then directly on a pockets pond in bf

 

[just_sum_guy]

Right, lets leave it to some retired spectator to dispel our delusions and help us face the harsh reality.

Spectator/fan shaming is an interesting strategy.

 

[GmanStreams]

shitpost

 

[otw_Da]

removing lakes would also nerf them quite heavily

bf is based on Schwarzwald. The real Schwarzwald has lakes! Ende der Diskussion - end of discussion!

 

[100Dragonstar]

 

[Modri]

Oh well in this case its my claim that the "retired spectator" is right, and I would interested to see if you are willing to explicitly make the claim that the fish as it currently is, is completely balanced

And I never said anything about it not requiring skill. Getting to 100 eco units with persia by min 22 or whatever the bench mark is, certainly is impressive

But well, it seems to me you can get 1000s of extra res (or whatever it is, should be easy to test) and a great power spike early imp (or quicker imp timings for example) with good build orders

As the game goes on after the power spike I understand the fishtraps to give about same food as farms so as game goes on it equals out. but well you still get 715 food for 100 wood (compared to farm without horse collar which gives 175 food for 60 wood)

Back when condos were OP or the towers, it also took "skill" to get the imp timings to properly abuse the power spike or play with the towers in a way that worked. But we knew what we were doing, and that it was really unbalanced

But well I see nobody complaining at all about the lakes. But maybe im just not around those cool clubs

Imo it would make for a more fruitful discussion to figure out how to balance them. Because they certainly add an interesting strategic dimension, which I think should be kept in place

Also there is an interesting dynamic in how with other eco units, if you are towered, you can generally move your eco to another location, or counter tower. But the fish is kind of stuck in there. its difficult to imagine a more impactful tower you can make then directly on a pockets pond in bf

Lakes provide an extra dimension to booming. They are hard but fun to use, they are often the objective of a sneak or succesful rush, lakes are often fragile and exposed, they are a clumsy long term food option (remaking fish traps in post imp is messy), they make the map even more complex and enjoyable than it already is. All good BF players would agree. We are playing on a map that features equal amount of lakes per team because having more lakes would definitely be an advantage if players know how to use them properly. What other balance is required? If you're in need for more answers, you're welcome to post your questions regarding lakes and anything BF related on RF discord, where more patient (and apparently less hostile) souls than mine will take their time to explain it in further detail: https://discord.gg/CkXEbmgXF6 .

 

[Hera_]

Based on my recent and very limited bf experience, i feel like lakes are actually quite balanced if its equal number per team. I found myself prefering to have no lake for myself, so that i can focus more on strategy, unit comp and push timings. That way one of my allies who is more experienced with fish boom can take advantage of the lake.

I also think pushing someone early whos trying to commit to a fish boom is often a great idea. Theoretically fishing undisturbed is broken, but u rarely get perfect scenarios in aoe, especially in a 4v4 rage forest game!

Overall i love the lakes and the extra boars, aswell as the different map spawns bf can offer. Every game feels very different and thats crucial longterm

 

[buddy__1]

Based on my recent and very limited bf experience, i feel like lakes are actually quite balanced if its equal number per team. I found myself prefering to have no lake for myself, so that i can focus more on strategy, unit comp and push timings. That way one of my allies who is more experienced with fish boom can take advantage of the lake.

I also think pushing someone early whos trying to commit to a fish boom is often a great idea. Theoretically fishing undisturbed is broken, but u rarely get perfect scenarios in aoe, especially in a 4v4 rage forest game!

Overall i love the lakes and the extra boars, aswell as the different map spawns bf can offer. Every game feels very different and thats crucial longterm

I think also lasers from space can be balanced, as long as both teams get it 11


I also like the additional strategic dimension, its something interesting to explore and I understand the bf people are getting all excited about their little lakes.

But it seems you agree untouched lakes is broken so this is where I think the discussion should start.

First thing is I think the bf map version on the ladder should probably be changed to follow the wisdom of the bf veterans and change to the best rage forest bf version or similar

Second I think it could be fruitful to consider the stats of the fishtraps:

how much food should there be in a fishtrap? 715? 500? 350?

How long build time? What should they cost?

Is there a function which can be added to the fishtraps?

Many creative avenues can be explored:

- upgrade to improve hp/armor of fish traps or fishing ships
- upgrade to add amount of food in each fishtrap similar to how the farms can be upgraded with horse collar or heavy plow
- different levels of gillnets to improve gather rate
- upgrade to deal (return) damage to enemy scouts or melee unit hitting fishingships or fishtraps when its attacked for extra protection

 

[Kellar]

I would just consider nerfing gilnets to 15 or 20%.

Fishbooming have a tradeoff of taking longer to pay off than farms, making u weak to certain timing rushes, or delaying ur imp if u fishboom too hard later in castle age. You also cant run ur fish, and usually a scout can kill several fishtraps.

A monk could destroy ur entire lake in matter of seconds by using the convert trick on all traps instantly.

A sneak from middle or other side can mess u up.

Although a big fishboom can look broken on paper as a spectator looking at pops, there are many other bigger factors to winning a bf game, unless u have most things perfected already.

Yes, lakes are good, but nowhere near as strong as you have made them up to be in your head.

I would pretty much always prefer to have a stronger player w/o a lake, than a slightly weaker player with a lake in my team.

Besides, there are bigger inbalances than lakes. Comparing them to lasers just proves your lack of understanding of bf. We are doing random teams, random civs and you can have 2 boars or 9 boars. You can be tatar flank with balvin pocket, or Bohemians pocket with lake + a good flank. Its a part of bf. If you want to play mirror map, everything completely balanced, ive heard starcraft 2 is a good game for that.

For important matches or tourneys, we have the Rage Forest 4 map, which uses a fair lakes system, and a civ draft.

 

[amazing_knight]

Let's not lose strategic variety for the sake of balance at all costs.

There is a reason why most Arabia maps play out as archers scouts vs archers scouts on both sides while BF games don't. BF offers more strategic variety compared to Arabia. And this strategic variety is made possible with extra lakes/boars, with sneaks, forwarding etc.

 

[Paint]

I would just consider nerfing gilnets to 15 or 20%.

This but increase the carry capacity of fishing ships after upgrading so it gets offset on Island style maps where you actually fishing in deep waters.

 

[AkeNo]

This but increase the carry capacity of fishing ships after upgrading so it gets offset on Island style maps where you actually fishing in deep waters.

or nerf gillnets just for fish traps. That way you don't affect any other water map really and nerf this particular case only.

 

[TD_Aragorn]

Here's my list of problems with BF.

1. You want to play a closed map with random civ selections
2. RNG decides if smaller openings (can stone wall) or larger openings (hard to wall)
3. Stray wolves in the path, boars randomly generated (can be closer to one team's pkt)
4. Now add lakes to this

Don't wanna go in detail with points 3, as that is only an annoyance if not more (Some extreme outlier cases, where a mongol or cuman pkt might get 9 extra boars allowing for an insane boom)

Random civ selections = problem. One team might get OP late game civs, other might get chinese or vikings

RNG for smaller and larger opening = by itself NOT a problem. Explanation: smaller opening = stone wall. Larger opening = play aggresive. cool.
But, combine this with random civs = potentially a problem. Explanation: flank randoms vil rush civ like lith or poles while other flank is huns and there is a large opening. Immediately worse position - both the hun and huns pkt get distracted by the vil rusher (and his pkt can freely choose to either full boom = great if mongols/cumans or sneak or fc kts or whatever he wants)

Of course, its a 4v4, so if a sneak can delay 3 players, its even better. Many times one flank on one team dies due to a 3v2 or a 3v1, while on the opposite team the other flank dies in a similar fashion, and the game stablizes in imp where they try to sling the dead players back, try to hold one side, push other, etc etc the usual stuff.

So far so good, and this is all without lakes, so you can skip till here.

Now, add lakes to this = MEGA PROBLEM. Explanation: so much RNG with civs and openings. You could have one team get mongols/cumans pkts with double lakes and smaller openings(and extra boars).

To this, you could potentially have the opposite flank get lake, in which case not only does one team get mongol pkt with safe fish, they could potentially have their flank play army and contest an unsafe lake (even if enemy pkt tries to take it, longer walking, unsafety)

It's all very RNG based, and you can't balance lakes on BF like this, when you have random civs pairing with safe lakes - and sometimes easy stone walls, sometimes not. Even from a strategy point of view, BF is such a map that a pkt might even ignore a lake to mind game (because other pkt and flank thinks he is fishing so they sneak or make army to kill it) while he just FC booms and makes TCs lol

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

bf is based on Schwarzwald. The real Schwarzwald has lakes! Ende der Diskussion - end of discussion!

I mean we have Atacama with ponds in the tournaments so that argument is invalid xd