@taldarus
Feature creep, after a certain point, becomes versatility. It is why I am still playing the 6.2 MW. There aren't enough features yet in Reborn.
Woah...Just realized the @taldarus felt totally hostile. Maybe it's cause I am waking up. Is that a thing? Cause I read your message and thought, "Hey buddy, get your @ outta my face!" O.o
Since I started the @'ing. Let me take back mine first.
But seriously, I am neutral on the feature creep. I was just trying to answer what meph would say. I've been reading up the last couple of weeks, and seen several times he mentioned avoiding feature creep. From a design perspective it's a good thing. As it means the factions SHOULD be significantly more diverse.
Let's take Bloodsteel:
Lots of factions used it, but because they all used it it made it blander.
Dwarves should have something like rocksteel (any boulder + any ore = rocksteel), because of there mastery of metalcraft. Rocksteel isn't as good as 'true steel', but is easily made (note: ANY ORE)
Orcs should get something totemic or shamanic so... (totem + leather = Totemic steel)
Necromancers should get something ritualistic Soul Steel (no materials, but ALWAYS kills the worker). Dwarves being the emotional tantruming babies would never EVER tolerate that.
Kobolds should get something haphazzard like Scrap Metal (er... a Metal called Scrap Metal). It definitely doesn't fit for Kobolds to get advanced, if any, metalwork. Bloodsteel never 'felt' right to me.
And that leads to another point of problem. Creep creeps, thats the problem. I ENJOY some feature creep (I like to play my dwarves more like Duergar), but I want dark 'evil' versions for ALL the factions. It's fun to me. But if all factions are dark, why make a necromancer faction at all?
skippable
Age of Wonders III is a good example. THERE ARE NO FACTIONS AT ALL. I sank close to a thousand hours into AoW: Shadow Magic, because each faction was fascinating and a different experience. AoW III doesn't have factions. I can't even play twenty hours of the game, because the customization has ruined the diversity. Customization in ANY game is just BS. Take Fallout 4 Automatron, you can create cool amazingly different robots, but at the end of the day. People 'make' a cool robot. Post it's picture to reddit, and then go back to using the robot that actually has good stats. Super customizable = bland boring gameplay. Spore, who actually went back and 'replayed' the earlier stages? Wasn't that supposed to be how it worked? But all the stages boiled down to this. Choose the best tactical option, and there is only one good choice. Bland and boring all of em.
Take a making a steak. I like a steak marinated in soy sauce and vinegar, but my wife LOVES it. So every time I cook steak she wants it that way. I get tired and want something else, maybe some KC masterpiece. If I make one steak that has the every spice a thousand different people want, the result would be disgusting. Don't believe me? Take every spice in a grocery store, and dump a little bit into a bowl of mashed potatoes. If you don't overload the spices, the result wont be 'bad' just bland.
Anyway, Meph is trying to give a cool unique personality to each faction, and I support that (He is seasoning it his way). At the end of the day though, I could add in creep (I will tweak it to MY taste, not a thousand different people). It is really quite easy. Maybe 5 minutes of modding.