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| Thread: Heroes Unique Skill, Troops, Abilities, Spells and Balance |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted March 25, 2007 01:40 PM |
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@Towerlord it thing it has something special. Havez creeps much swifter then other academy heroes and his ballista has better stats than usually.
Ive killed ballista few times, its not a problem,in long game. If you are lucky enough its possible in short too. But on week 3 day 2 it is very difficult to kill it with single spell and if u use 2 or more u will lose everything to his ballista + gremlins + also good magic
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 25, 2007 01:50 PM |
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Quote:
@Towerlord it thing it has something special. Havez creeps much swifter then other academy heroes and his ballista has better stats than usually.
It shouldn't have ... He doesn't specialize in ballista, but in MG ... So he shouldn't give any special bonus to it. It's just the huge knowledge of Wizards that makes ballista very powerfull for them.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted March 25, 2007 02:22 PM |
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His fast creeping-> higher stats, better artifacts -> higher ballista's damage
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dfortae
Known Hero
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posted March 25, 2007 02:58 PM |
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They should start by balacing Duel Mode since it would be an easier task. I've given recommendations on that. I HOPE someone from there listens to me, but I think that is VERY unlikely.
By the way, I agree that the changes to TRY to balance the game should be very small.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 25, 2007 03:33 PM |
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Hey, don't worry, dfortae. I have high hopes for the duel customizer. If they won't mess it up, it will be a great thing to play any battle you want! So, the "imbalanced" part won't exist anymore.
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ZombieLord
Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
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posted March 25, 2007 07:10 PM |
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And of course Academy is able to use all the spells... why wouldn't you use Mass Righteous Might or Mass Haste?
Why should you use the same spells as the enemy, when the enemy has higher att/def and you have higher spellpower which you waste? If you do this, you WON'T be able to win the battle unless you were lucky with artifacts/creeping. Why should you waste your spellpower on these spells anyway and not cast a destructive spell?
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Having these light and dark spells dependant on spell power would make knights use only Cleansing(or opposite spell to remove effect), not cast their own buffs, because those are simply worse, which is not very nice.
Not really. I don't think you won't want to cast the spells with a knight. Even with spellpower 0, Righteous Might still gives 9 Attack !!! That's the same at what it is now with Advanced Mastery... and seriously, when do you have 0 spellpower?
Anyway, I said that I made the spells as strong as now at SP 10, and SP 10 is achieved even with a knight from artifacts/map locations. So, the point is: Haven will have the same spells, but Academy and other high spellpower mages MUST HAVE stronger spells, otherwise, what's the point in casting them? Why not cast a cool Implosion, for example?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 25, 2007 07:15 PM |
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Motw+destructive is a bit too slow, and wizards can't break anti-magic, resistances and immunities like warlocks do. I'd say destructive is a nice toy in mid-game against/for rushes (for a wizard) and an addition to summoning for creeping purposes, but nothing more.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted March 25, 2007 07:15 PM |
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@Death , ups and downs , means levels which are more powerfull or less powerfull then the other towns balanced by other weaker or stronger levels! I don't want to see Black Dragons and Spectral Dragons having the same stats, same growth and only little different abilities to make the difference.
As I see it, we have to speak the same language before we can reach a common understanding. The above quote of TowerLord proves that very well, I think.
Now I agree with what Death wrote about ballancing, but of course TowerLord is right that the Black Dragon and the Spectral Dragon should not be completely equal - and that was not what Death said, either!
The situation can be seen from different "distances" or perspectives, with some examples being:
- Global Balance: Factions being balanced when you consider all properties - unit stats, abilities, growth, hero stats, skills, town buildings and costs, magic schools, etc.
- Absolute Balance: Factions being balanced in each of these properties, so that all have exactly the same costs, same unit strength, same skill strengths, etc.
- The middle way, where some groups of properties are ballanced, but not each individual group.
Now this is maybe a simplification of things, because defining these general groups for balancing is quite tricky, but TowerLord's example of balancing only stats for the faction is plainly an oversimplification. However, what one should try to balance individually of the other things would be something like total army strength - each faction should ideally have the same potential army strength, otherwise one faction will be the underdog.
Now notice, however, that total army strength does not only include the stats of the creatures. Total army strength would include a range of simple factors like: Creatures stats, creature growth and creature abilities (this is fairly obvious) - but other less obvious things like Hero class skill, because skills like Training, Necromancy and Gating will increase the overall creature growth of this faction. There is no denying that Necropolis will need to have a slight disadvantage on the base growth of creatures because Necromancy will add something. This, admittedly, makes the concept of balancing somewhat floating, because how do you evaluate the exact value of skills like Artificer and Avenger?
Never the less, I still think it has value to try to balance the game in certain areas, and then leave others independant. There is no reason to use costs as a tool for balancing, because it should be able to balance army strength by other means like growth and unit strength, and cost depends on the map. In fact, if one assumes that army strength is obtained, and accepts that all towns have the same building value (that is pretty much the trueth, as all towns have 7 dwellings, a fortification, and economical structure, a mage guild, and then a handful of racial special buildings), you can balance resource requirements individually - both building costs and costgrowth of creatures. This will ensure minimization of strength dependancy on the map.
Hero skills and abilities is another thing that is difficult to asses, but should be something that was balanced individually of the army strength. This s a very dificult feat, maybe even impossible, because balancing might skills with magic skills is truly difficult. However, not doing it will bring potential misbalance into the game. And obvious example: Knight vs. Warlock. The Warlock depends mostly on his spells, and will therefore thrive in a map where only few forces are obtained. The Knight, on the other hand, will perish in such a map, because he survives by enhancing the damage of his troops, not doing damage singlehandedly. That is not saying that the Warlock should lose his damaging spells, but the Knight needs way to counter these, such as Resistance and Light Magic, and should have his own abilities that are equally powerful.
Anyway, the exact details of how to do all that, if it is possible, lies beyong me at the time being. All I'm trying to say with this rather lengthy post is that just because one is not a supporter of global ballancing, one can still have all the variation that is in the game now. I don't think anybody want a game with only 7 different units. 
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What will happen now?
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ZombieLord
Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
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posted March 25, 2007 07:20 PM |
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Good points Alc
Here's what groups I think should be balanced amongst factions:
- building costs
- level 1-4 creatures group
- level 5-7 creatures group
- hero skills
- hero racials
Also, the GOD DAMN HEROES of each faction should be balanced, not having a faction like Inferno where most of Demon Lords are weak and Deleb is the Killing-Machine
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Plexus22
Known Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 09:34 AM |
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Edited by Plexus22 at 09:50, 26 Mar 2007.
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@Plexus22: Man, GLOBAL balance does NOT mean different abilities. It means that a certain faction has weak spots compensating for overpowered spots. and this is not balanced.
You should keep both "spots" at an average level, so no choices are better than others ALWAYS. Also remember that Global balance makes each faction strength vary between maps -- which is a bad thing. All factions should be equal in power in all maps, otherwise it means the game is imbalanced.
And one more thing: non-Global balance does NOT mean that all creatures are the same, etc.. it simply means that all creatures are average for their level. This also applies to spells.
Yes, I understand what global balance is. Thanks for the recap anyway. I never said or implied that simply having different abilities would constitute a global balance or that it would compensate for balance variations between factions due to global balancing. In fact part of my point was that simply having different abilites on creatures and heroes and everything else equal is NOT global balance and would make the game insanely boring
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so you say that 19 lvl 300 Havez's gremlins have worse stats than pathetic 50 assasin of dungeon? Warlock has better destructive magic, true but academy has resistance and Havez got Big Bad ballista which rips apart everyhing and wait, he has remote control too in case you get your ballista. im not even taking mini artifacts into consideration. only +health makes its gremlins twice as tough to kill.
Nope. Apparently you didn't read my post very carefully otherwise you would know that Havez was not mentioned anywhere in my post. I was trying to avoid turning it into a "this hero is better than that hero" type of discussion. I was saying that in general they are not that unbalanced. I agree completely that some heroes are more powerful than others in certain situations. In an early battle Havez's 50 or so extra gremlins are useful but in a later, say, week 5 or 6 battle they are negligible. Also, the only way you will have 300+ gremlins in week 3 even with Havez is if there is an ext dwelling or two in which case the Dungeon faction probably has one or two also and will NOT have only 50 assasins unless the player really sucks and got half of them killed. More like 80-90 or more and assasins have twice the hitpoints of gremlins plus poison so its not that mismatched. You exagerated a bit.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 10:26 AM |
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I was trying to avoid turning it into a "this hero is better than that hero" type of discussion.
But that is my point! The way i see it is that many things put together : additional gremlins, speciality effect , m.gremlins being best lvl 1 creatures with v.high growth, 2 war machines at start, access to remote control, efficiency of mark of the wizard earlygame, easy access to enlightenment to increase effectiveness of ballista(unlike other factions) and some more that i cant remind myself right now, make THIS hero way too powerful in comparison to any other hero. And its not just earlygame. Now, good players kill literally everything on week 3 and that makes late game not that late anymore.
Edit: oh right and there are also archery + flaming arrows on top of that to boost this already high damage even more.
Quote:
I was saying that in general they are not that unbalanced. I agree completely that some heroes are more powerful than others in certain situations. In an early battle Havez's 50 or so extra gremlins are useful but in a later, say, week 5 or 6 battle they are negligible.
I admit that general balance is not so bad at the moment.Some time ago when i was playing on lower lvl i thought that the balance is ok. Now i have seen enough to change my mind. When good players play, they exploit every possibility. Ill give example. Everybody noticed Deleb and his ballista right from the start. Her power is very visible. But in my opinion there are also other "broken" things that are not so visible for mediocre player and i think Havez is one of them. It is just that there are some things that are being abused by very good players and I don't like it. About the gremlins, sure on week 5 or 6 they don't, but he gets them week 1! This means he creeps much faster due to them. Besides lately i didn't even have a game that lasted 6 weeks. Even my 2 battle of honor games ended 5th week.
I'm not saying here that huge changes needs to be made. Even slight tweacking would be usefull to balance things out.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 02:48 PM |
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Yes, the general high level play is orientated towards short, powerful creeping followed by an agressive rush. Turtling around was never the best idea, and it never will be. ; )
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 26, 2007 04:33 PM |
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@feluniozbunio : Havez is a good hero indeed, but he has flaws too. For example he has only two starting secondary skills , instead of 2 and an ability or three... Also he starts with no magic.
The chinese people rank him 3rd Academy hero, after Nur and Jhora (which start with eldritch arrow).
For me Nathir and Havez are the best Academy hero, but I prefer Nathir... Against Deleb(and maybe Vittorio too) I think Havez might be a better solution due to easy acces to remote control.
Anyway creeping for Academy is very easy and fast with any hero, because Academy has many creeping options. As Academy you have high chance of War Machines with any hero, very much mana for spells, Gargoyles against casters, Master Gremlins which are the best lvl 1 and a shooter, the Golem/Master Gremlin combo which works very well against melee opponents.
So you will have the same problems against any other Academy hero, not only Havez because a good player will creep very`fast with any of them, maybe even faster than with Havez.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 05:20 PM |
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I have played like zilions games against academy and i know what i am talking about. Academy has other good heroes but they are still balanced ones. I know how wyp86 rank heroes and i know MMR. But this has nothing to do with it. OK i might exaggerate things a little bit but i have faced truly overpowered hero on week 3 day 1. I have played many rush games but this was just ridiculous. His balista buffed by flaming arrows + overgrown stats can kill instantly any stack you can produce in that much time and this is just the addition to his army and spells.
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 26, 2007 05:29 PM |
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I have played like zilions games against academy and i know what i am talking about. Academy has other good heroes but they are still balanced ones. I know how wyp86 rank heroes and i know MMR. But this has nothing to do with it. OK i might exaggerate things a little bit but i have faced truly overpowered hero on week 3 day 1. I have played many rush games but this was just ridiculous. His balista buffed by flaming arrows + overgrown stats can kill instantly any stack you can produce in that much time and this is just the addition to his army and spells.
this sounds like Ghasteater style  ... and if I am right, you should know it's not Havez that's overpowered, it is him who is a great player player, probably the best at ToH.
Anyway, any Academy hero can creep as fast and get War Machines + that Flaming arrow perk which denies the defense of your troops. Maybe a little less gremlins, unless Havez shows up in Tavern... I think the only difficult thing is getting the Attack skill which is not so common for Wizards as far as I know
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 05:41 PM |
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It wasn't him, but it was another great player but it doesn't really matter. I wrote all this just because i don't see any way some factions (don't mean warlock by the way) can beat that build and from my point of view that is overpowered. But ok i might be just not good enough but this is the way i feel about it
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 26, 2007 05:46 PM |
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It wasn't him, but it was another great player but it doesn't really matter. I wrote all this just because i don't see any way some factions (don't mean warlock by the way) can beat that build and from my point of view that is overpowered. But ok i might be just not good enough but this is the way i feel about it
Try this solution :
First Battle : 7 stacks of furys or assassins + Hero, aproach him on his way to your city... Implode or another very powerfull spell on his gremlins killing all of them, so he cannot repair ballista ... if first spells is not powerfull enough do this once more. His Gremlins should be dead now.
Second Battle(Third Battle) : First shot take out his ballista, and after that things should be smooth and the game should be yours. Focus your troops on Gargoyles if you don't have earth spells, or on Golems if you do have Earth spells.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 05:50 PM |
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Meh.. i just told you that its not about warlock vs academy because destructive magic + hit&run can do wonders. I'm talking about every other faction.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 26, 2007 05:55 PM |
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Hmm, don't tell me haven can't stop a single ballista
Haven>all might strategies
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 26, 2007 06:00 PM |
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Academy and Dungeon are the king and queen of rushes, so no other town can match them ... except Necro with MotN& MMR ,but only if he gets great spells in Mage Guild (Phoenix + Puppet + Frenzy ).
DoomForge haven is pretty helpless against rushes, except for Vittorio, but Havez can get Remote Control. My guess is that Deleb was the victim
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