New patch : No wonders balance!? Seriously?

[Kruos]

Wonders and Buildings:
• Holon Chamber provides 3 Science, 4 Energy (was 5 Science)

Is that all?

So after more than a month after launch, and all the negative feedback about how wonders are very poorly balanced, the dev did not judge usefull to tweak them. Having end game wonders which are nearly useless despite being expensive and needing geothermal ressources is OK!?

Am I the only one to think that there is a problem somewhere?

PS: Sorry for being negative, but I am very surprised (the bad way) by this balancing absence..

 

[SupremacyKing2]

You really expect them to fix everything in the first patch? This first patch was pretty massive. I would bet good money that the second patch will address wonder balance.

 

[Roxlimn]

Also, Free Tech. It looks like a 3-fer tech slingshot play to VC.

 

[Kruos]

You really expect them to fix everything in the first patch? This first patch was pretty massive. I would bet good money that the second patch will address wonder balance.

Considering the time taken to make this patch, I was hoping for a balance pass yes, including the wonders (which are so obviously useless for the late ones..).

/Off-topic
By comparison, the guys from Amplitude do a bigger and better patch in less time, with two free DLCs. It is why, given the time taken, I was expecting much more for this first patch..

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Considering the time taken to make this patch, I was hoping for a balance pass yes, including the wonders (which are so obviously useless for the late ones..).

I suspect the changes to trade routes took most of the time since they changed the secret algorithm that determines yields. They would have to spend time checking all the types of yields that different kinds of routes can give to make sure that there are no bugs.

I am still hoping for a second patch that enhances the wonders.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Also, Free Tech. It looks like a 3-fer tech slingshot play to VC.

Holon Chamber always had a Free Tech, they just forgot to write it into the tooltip. i was also hoping for better wonders, but considering how much they change it's understandable that they didn't focus on wonders. I have no doubt that there will be many more patches. This one was mostly about trade, affinity units and quests. I bet the next one will make some changes to wonders and virtues.

 

[Gort]

Luckily the wonders are one of the areas of the game we can mod. Check out "Empowered Wonders".

 

[Roxlimn]

Many of the Wonders are already quite strong. Institute is a building, but if you beeline Bionics, it's about as expensive as an early Wonder. Hammer cost is 310. The Panopticon is actually 250, and Ectogenesis Pod is 300. The question is, is it unbalanced to just give the free tech to the one player who makes it to Bionics? Is it necessary to make it a National Wonder when the benefit is one-time only anyway?

Institute right now is essentially The Great Library for everyone. Would it better as a one-time Wonder that you can possibly miss? Why? Why not?

I've said it before, but I think it makes more sense to say, "I don't know what this Wonder is for," rather than "I am the undisputed Master Of CivBE and I KNOW EVERYTHING, and therefore this Wonder is totally useless."

 

[Kruos]

Many of the Wonders are already quite strong. Institute is a building, but if you beeline Bionics, it's about as expensive as an early Wonder. Hammer cost is 310. The Panopticon is actually 250, and Ectogenesis Pod is 300. The question is, is it unbalanced to just give the free tech to the one player who makes it to Bionics? Is it necessary to make it a National Wonder when the benefit is one-time only anyway?

Institute right now is essentially The Great Library for everyone. Would it better as a one-time Wonder that you can possibly miss? Why? Why not?

I've said it before, but I think it makes more sense to say, "I don't know what this Wonder is for," rather than "I am the undisputed Master Of CivBE and I KNOW EVERYTHING, and therefore this Wonder is totally useless."

Yeah some wonders are OK, but a lot are not at all OK, espescially the late game one, and no need to spend 1000 hours in-game to reach that observation.

I am not used to whine about balance, espescially for complex 4x game, but considering the time taken to make this patch, it is clearly insufficient to me, and very disappointing. I think that the small content of this patch is more the result of a team reduction rather than some extended tests, as with the great balance mod which were already availables less than 2 weeks after release, the patch direction was quite easy to choose.

Considering this, I am really starting to fear that this Civ:BE is a dead game for Firaxis, and that the dev have already moved on another project. I hope I am wrong.

Anyway, I will continue playing with mods.

 

[Roxlimn]

Kruos:

It needed a VERY long time for people to value Wonders in Civ4. There was a very, very long time on the CivFanatics forums when Wonders were considered "newbie traps," and no one with any sense built at all.

Based on that history, I'm choosing to not say that they're categorically useless, and yes, I would say it might take more than 1000 hours of playing to uncover the uses of some of them, especially when people don't even take the time to really leverage their powers.

If you start out with a "Wonders are useless" bias, you're very liable to discover them to be exactly that, even when you're consciously trying to break them. That's called "confirmation bias." We all operate under it.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Considering this, I am really starting to fear that this Civ:BE is a dead game for Firaxis, and that the dev have already moved on another project. I hope I am wrong.

One day after they released a patch, the game is declared dead while Civ 5 received a patch just a month ago, over a year and a half after the last expansion's release?

Also, comparing the balance adjustments in the patch to a mod is thoroughly unfair - of course a modder is faster. He has to pass no playtest, can ignore QA, doesn't have to deal with filing individual reports, can completely disregard localisation efforts, doesn't collaborate with other designers...

A modder will always be faster than the actual developer as a single modder doesn't have to deal with the logistics of actually making a patch.

 

[Manannan]

I think it's safe to say wonders in general are an after thought in this game, solely being in the game because Civ games have wonders and not because they're a central feature. Makes sense they're going to be addressed later, not now.

That said I feel some early wonders have been indirectly "buffed" (for lack of a better term) by virtue of autoplants no longer being worth rushing. A lot more feasible to rush for a wonder like the ectogenesis pod now that there is one less thing of any particular importance to prioritize instead of it.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I don't think all the wonders are bad. The New Terran Myth and the Daedalus Ladder are the two big ones that need a rework IMO.

 

[Manannan]

Eh it's more than those two that need work. Any +health wonder probably needs to be reworked to give global health instead of local health for example. Several wouldn't be bad by themselves if they weren't in such god awful places on the tech web as well.

 

[Roxlimn]

I've actually tried building New Terran Myth. I confess that I do not get what it's for. Daedalus Ladder as well.

The issue with late game Wonders is that they're late game. By that point in the game, you're actively pursuing VCs. So the Wonders have to advance your VC outcome in a significant way or they're not really worth the detour. I can see where Holon Chamber can work with that. Not sure how New Terran Myth does.

 

[MattZed]

I see the Holon Chamber change more as a symbolic change than anything. A minor change reminds players "hey, you have this strategic option, maybe you should use it more, *wink wink*." Blizzard did it several times with Starcraft 2 when their devs thought the game was balanced, but players weren't finding the correct strategies. I think Firaxis is doing the same thing here with HC.

I've only logged 23.7 hours in Beyond Earth, so I can't speak for all of the wonders. I don't think most of the late-game wonders have been even attempted by the vast majority of players due to the nature of the tech web and the newness of the game. Yes, some of the bonuses for some of the wonders certainly look weak from where I'm standing, but that's not the most pressing balance issue at the moment, and it's going to be a while before Firaxis and the community know exactly what to do about the weaker wonders. Right now, most criticism of wonders isn't any more sophisticated than "wonders suck." If wonders are to be changed, there needs to be more of a critique along the lines of "this wonder is weak because it occurs at point X in the tech web, but any player who wants that wonder wouldn't be researching those techs."

 

[Gamewizard]

The wonders in the outer ring were better when Adept Blue was giving you a free random tech every so often. But now there is little reason to venture off your affinity tech line to grab a random overpriced wonder, unless you are PAC and you have built the Crawler and have the industry virtue that boosts wonder build time AND have the Knowledge virtue that gives wonders +7 culture.

 

[Breezin]

Is that all?

So after more than a month after launch, and all the negative feedback about how wonders are very poorly balanced, the dev did not judge usefull to tweak them. Having end game wonders which are nearly useless despite being expensive and needing geothermal ressources is OK!?

Am I the only one to think that there is a problem somewhere?

PS: Sorry for being negative, but I am very surprised (the bad way) by this balancing absence..

I admit the patch was disappointing with regards to the wonders. Obviously, the game was so broken that the Devs priority was to get the basic functionality going with this patch and hopefully, they'll tweak the wonders later.

I wonder how Firaxis views BE? The "brass" at Firaxis, I suspect, would probably be quite unhappy. The Steam numbers suck. The reviews are averageish. The game was/is still very broken. Certainly, not up to Firaxis' standards.

I would hope they do not put the same leads in charge of Civ VI. I think they need someone with more experience/maturity at the post for VI.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Putting them in the Definitely Bad/Possibly just situational/Ok-good categories

Ok/Good
Gene Vault
Panopticon
Stellar Codex
Ectogenesis
Drone Sphere
Markov Eclipse
Bytegeist
Master control
Promethean
Cynosure
Quantum computer
Memetwork
Precog project
Mass Driver
Deep Memory
Xenomalleum
Holon chamber

Possibly just situational
Nano Thermite
Human Hive
Archimedes lever

Definitely Bad
Ansible
Xenodrome
Armasail
New Terran myth
Crawler (since it only applies to this city... and other wonders are sort of poor)
Dedalus ladder
Xenonova
Resurrection Device
Tectonic Anvil

 

[JokerJace]

Putting them in the Definitely Bad/Possibly just situational/Ok-good categories

Ok/Good
Gene Vault
Panopticon
Stellar Codex
Ectogenesis
Drone Sphere
Markov Eclipse
Bytegeist
Master control
Promethean
Cynosure
Quantum computer
Memetwork
Precog project
Mass Driver
Deep Memory
Xenomalleum
Holon chamber

Possibly just situational
Nano Thermite
Human Hive
Archimedes lever

Definitely Bad
Ansible
Xenodrome
Armasail
New Terran myth
Crawler (since it only applies to this city... and other wonders are sort of poor)
Dedalus ladder
Xenonova
Resurrection Device
Tectonic Anvil

Don't forget that many wonders in BE are generally weaker by a certain factor that is based on how many beakers are lost for the research of it's associated technology. You don't get all wonders en passant and only choose whether you delay them or rush them. You have to pass entirely on something else to get them. Add this fact and many wonders across all categories are much, much worse. Especially if you consider the risk of still not getting them in the end. The only technologies I EVER research for their associated wonders are the ones that hold Gene Vault and Ectogenesis Pod. While Ectogenesis Pod is on a key tech anyways, which doesnt give it the malus and makes it even better yet again. Also it's raw benefit is better than the raw benefits of wonders that are on otherwise useless leaf techs and that cost more to build. How this kind of imbalance could make it into the game is beyond me...

Obviously many expensive last tier leaf techs are supposed to be researched for their associated wonders... Shouldn't THAT be the good wonders? Something went terribly wrong here...