Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-27200931-20170214212507/@comment-26347028-20170219002813

Gen. Grievous1138 wrote: Maltalidenta Kwuitidherali wrote: Gen. Grievous1138 wrote: AlteOgre wrote: Gen. Grievous1138 wrote: Strength of numbers is completely unfeasible to replicate in game. If Mordor Orcs were cheap enough to give them the strength Mordor would have had in lore, they would be around fifteen orcs for a single coin. High Elves, on the other hand, would be so incredibly rare that finding a hiring unit for one would be near-impossible. Even if elves are made so incredibly rare, the amount of Orcs it would take to make an army of decent strength would crash the game. Furthermore, people don't seem to get that once a unit hirer is found, they can get an infinite (theoretically) number of hired units from them regardless of lore. This is why alterations to lore for balance is necessary. It's absolutely unfeasible to just make something incredibly expensive because it's incredibly easy to get silver coins. No matter how expensive you make High Elves if you buff them to hell and back, people will still have overly large armies of them. Alterations to lore to accommodate the fact that this is a game must be made.

Gen. Grievous1138 (LOTR Mod Wiki Admin) comlink 13:29, February 18, 2017 (UTC)

I assume this in response to my hint in the preceding comment. If so, you appear to be exaggerating to make the potential added value of the mechanism I mentioned and you may not like look like nothing. I can think of ways to make many 'balance measures' that have been implemented look like utterly useless when exaggerating in a similar way*. Using terms like 'incredibly' and 'absolutely' to make your point doesn't help when you're using obvious exaggeration in your counterarguments. You either know damn well that what you insinuate what the point of the suggested mechanism is, is not in line with the arguments nor the concrete proposals that were actually made for it ... or you just don't know what the proposed mechanic encompasses and how it could turn out to work effectively, and you're only reacting from prejudiced / extreme assumptions (which to my opinion has become rather typical for a specific part of the community when discussing mechanics, balance, lore and realism).

* Example: "If it's so incredibly easy to get silver coins as you state, that mechanic just seems to be utterly pointless, so why the hell is that system used and is so much effort put in traders and items for that obviously so meaningless economy?". My answer to such questions would be: "That's not a meaningful question. Better focus on the objective on the mechanics, pin-point existing flaws, analyse them and come up with means to improve it or alternative/additional mechanics to improve the effective performance of said mechanics.".

''FYI: For 24 years I have earned a living from analyzing complex systems, their behaviour, mechanics and ways to control and improve their performance, and I've offered my help and thoughts to improve this mods gameplay, for free. If it's not needed I can live with that, but if I see opportunity for improvement and it's cast aside without clear argumentation, I must admit I can have a hard time to simply let go. :^) ''

~StubbornOgre

(No hard feelings!)

Nah, that was just in general. My point was that if numbers of NPCs in the mod were accurate to the lore, orcs would be ridiculously common and cheap - there were millions of orcs in Mordor alone, if I recall correctly - and High Elves would be ridiculously rare and expensive, as there were only several thousand left in Middle-Earth. The point wasn't to diss a strength in numbers aspect in entirety, but rather to point out that the extremes I have seen suggested wouldn't work for the game.

Gen. Grievous1138 (LOTR Mod Wiki Admin) comlink 00:01, February 19, 2017 (UTC) I think "millions" compared to "several thousand" is just a little bit of an exaggeration, Grievous, and I think you're also well aware of that...

It's likely that Sauron had millions of orcs. It's known he had at least ten thousand at the Pelennor, and Tolkien said that it was only a fraction of Mordor's strength. At the very least, it isn't out of the question, and I've always considered it to be the case.

As for the Elves, it was also stated that there "are few of that fair folk left still in Middle-Earth." Several thousand may even be generous.

Gen. Grievous1138 (LOTR Mod Wiki Admin) comlink 00:22, February 19, 2017 (UTC) And in the same way, ten thousand as a fraction could easily be a fifth, a tenth perhaps. "Few of that fair folk" is from a storytelling perspective, requiring context, and so on, but to be sure, there were many tens of thousands of Noldor that went to Middle-Earth from Aman, and in the same way, while many Sindar have clearly left, all the same, there are clearly enough to fill whole cities, and to make Lindon still exist as a kingdom, to allow Lothlorien to survive attacks, and so on. It's many more than "a few thousand".