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Heroes Community > Heroes 7+ Altar of Wishes > Thread: THE PERFECT BALANCE.
Thread: THE PERFECT BALANCE. This thread is 5 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · NEXT»
Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted April 11, 2007 12:05 AM bonus applied.
Edited by Doomforge at 10:35, 11 Apr 2007.

THE PERFECT BALANCE.

Heroes 5 is far from being balanced, as we all know: not that it's not balanced well, but, still, it's annoying to see how obvious things destroy the balance over and over.

The major problem is quite similiar to the one of warcraft III: While the game offers us a decent balance overall, there are particular map&matchup advantages for certain factions that should never exist, because they are unfair.

Let me list them in no particular order, and possible ways to solve them:

Melee Dunegon problem

Dungeon is forced to go for magic most of the time since it cannot defend against dark magic. All the attack warlock has gets nullified by one suffering; all the battleplans for hydras and minos get destroyed with one frenzy: all the chances are lost with one puppet master on your raiders. That makes me wonder: why? Why dungeon is so horribly limited in it's melee ways? The warlock's high ATT and creature lineup somehow suggests that warlock is meant to go full offensive for both spells and units, but he can't because dark magic is an unstoppable counter.
possible solution: Give the alternative of shadow witches' upgrade the expert cleansing spell. Suffering will still cripple warlocks severly, but at least the faction will no longer be forced to watch how its own army kills itself helplessly.


Inferno<<necropolis
While inferno suffers from the same problem as dungeon (no means of cleansing), they can at least throw their own curses at puppet masters at enemy: since the enemy is not likely to have both dark and light magic at once (or to cast both spells at one time ), the matchups are mostly balanced.. with the sole exception of necropolis, which is immune to confusion, frenzy, blind and puppet master. In other words, inferno can only watch how necromancers take control of their devils and nightmares and use them to get another cheesy victory. Sure, puppet master has 50% chance of popping up, but blind&frenzy spells are also extremely annoing and uncounterable.
possible solution: - Can be same as above: an alternative upgrade that can cast cleansing at expert level. Or at least make devils mind-immune. They are expensive, anyway.


Academy>Dungeon
No big deal. Academy comes with units that strongly resist rushes due to their anti-magical nature (golems and gargs) and has its own destructive magic to repel warlocks; later, they gain access to mini-arties that give quite nice magic protection, and they have artifact merchant in town, so they can really protect themselves from magic well; they have counterspell and magic mirror available, finally, they have access to both light&dark magic, making their force stronger than might warlock's one and crippling the enemy with curses without any counter. It's too much, to be honest: Academy seems too potent here, capable of almost everything, with the best creeping system in the game, too (MMR). While it's acceptable against factions that can build their own melee strength later on (haven, sylvan etc.), it's not that much acceptable against dungeon , which cannot depend on might due to darkmagic and gets its destructive potential limited by kazilion of wizards' skills and abilities.
possible solution: Un-fixable. It lies deeply in game mechanics and is impossible to fix unless some major re-balancing would be implemented: we all know it's not possible.

Deleb problem
Magic creeping is the most potent way, we all know that, however, most of the factions that can't creep via magic effectively can do it other way. Inferno is kinda forced to do it through deleb. If the player doesn't want to take her, he faces horrible problems with many creeps (unbeatable neutral archmagi/druids), his creeping gets very slow, he gets very vulnerable to rushes, and with horrendous infernal buidlings' costs, he cannot match the opponent's speed of development and loses, either to rush, or to the fact of being out-massed.
Possible Solution:: Major inferno re-balancing. Hero specialities should be reworked; it can be also done by changing inferno's default magic to summoning rather than destructive, and give them more spell points rather than knowledge, so they can creep with summoming magic in similiar way to wizards.

Training problem
13 paladins per week is just ridiculous, hands down.. Paladins are already the strongest damage dealer in game (if they joust at full distance), the only natural 230+ dam/week dealer. And you can effectively get their numbers TRIPLED, with ridiculous haven heroes' skills and stats (easy retribution+attack, huge morale+luck, huge ATT/DEF, easy access to light magic..). Haven is meant to be the ultimate melee force, but it's somewhat too godly melee force now, in the endgame that is. But why the hell we must rush to have any chances? ~~
Possible solution:: simple, make training tier-based rather than number-based only.

Sylvan<<<<<<<Rushes
A mere rush crushes sylvan to dust: With pixies, dancers and hunters, all of which have <40% survivability (pixies have even NEGATIVE survivability :-X), any rush, might or magical, is an instant victory. A few druids or even corns can't turn it around.
Possible solutiopn:One of the most troublesome things: If I could describe sylvan power, I'd say it follows a recursive formula. So, any attempts of raising the earlygame power for sylvan would result in ridiculous imbalance at endgame. Nival would have to re-balance the faction, which is of course not possible. Bah.

Map imbalance
Like in every games that follows certain patterns and schemes, map imbalances occur. On some maps, haven and academy are unbeatable; on some, sylvan player may leave at start due to rushes; etc. Kinda reminds me of "human on lost temple" problem @ Warcraft3.
possible solution: un-fixable. Like in w3. Unless the map creators will create a lot of balanced maps, which will take place of the current ones, but I see it fairly impossible.

more to come.


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pomo
pomo


Famous Hero
The lone peasant
posted April 11, 2007 03:25 AM

Nice post Doomforge, I think you've got the nail pretty much on the head, and I agree with most of your proposed solutions. Personally I think the biggest imbalance problems are map related, such as number of towns, richness and the potential to rush - It kind of sucks IMO that some factions have to rush to win, while other factions can't survive in a rush (Sylvan). I'm not sure what game mechanic might be changed though to allow factions to be ~= strong in early-mid-late game though, or on maps with any number of towns. Maybe might AND magic heroes for each faction??? Please??

About the dark magic vulnerability of Inferno/Dungeon - what about allowing us to choose our spells when building the mage guild?? Then if you know you're facing a dark magic user - you can always have cleansing at least, even if you probably won't have the light magic to get mass cleansing.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see what other things you come up with - I'm trying to build balances to as many as possible of these into the map that I'm working on.

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Ted
Ted


Promising
Supreme Hero
Peanut Exterminator
posted April 11, 2007 09:50 AM

i agree with Pomo hear, although the thing is, there is NO perfect game, if you changed something say for example your devils, the AI may take advantage of that and have unforcen effects
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ChaosDragon
ChaosDragon


Famous Hero
posted April 11, 2007 06:29 PM
Edited by ChaosDragon at 18:31, 11 Apr 2007.

Agreed with all of those.

I hope nival hear those, this game is still very far from balance, Doomforge solution seems the best.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted April 11, 2007 07:02 PM
Edited by alcibiades at 21:17, 11 Apr 2007.

I will make a full comment on this later, but for now, I will just add that this is a great and really well thought out post, that really takes the right approach at how to solve the ballance issues of the game!




Quote:
Melee Dunegon problem
Dungeon is forced to go for magic most of the time since it cannot defend against dark magic. All the attack warlock has gets nullified by one suffering; all the battleplans for hydras and minos get destroyed with one frenzy: all the chances are lost with one puppet master on your raiders. That makes me wonder: why? Why dungeon is so horribly limited in it's melee ways? The warlock's high ATT and creature lineup somehow suggests that warlock is meant to go full offensive for both spells and units, but he can't because dark magic is an unstoppable counter.
possible solution: Give the alternative of shadow witches' upgrade the expert cleansing spell. Suffering will still cripple warlocks severly, but at least the faction will no longer be forced to watch how its own army kills itself helplessly.


I agree very much with your review, and I think some of the points can be extended beyond Inferno: Dark Magic is extremely powerful, and any faction will be blatantly in trouble when facing a Dark Magic master if they haven't got Light Magic for themselves. This is not so much an issue for Haven, Academy, Fortress and Sylvan, but for the Dark side - Dungeon, Inferno, Necropolis (and Stronghold!) it proves fatal. This, as I see it, is not only a problem with these factions, but also stands to prove that Dark Magic is perhaps too powerfull in it's all-out effect independant of Spell Power. I'm not sure I agree with all ZombieLord's suggestions for changes (too lazy to link right now), but for me it is certainly a problem that spells like Puppet Master and Frenzy will affect all stacks no matter the size, and Mass Slow is not much better. The video with 2 Cerbery vs. 300 or something Arch Devils come to mind (dig through the Temple archives).

I am not sure there are problems with the Dungeon units themselves as such. Grim Raiders and Black Dragons are excellent offensive units, and Hydras are fine tanks. Of course, the Warlock does not give them the Might back-up all units need not to be underdogs vs. a Might hero, and this brings up another point: We need two Hero classes for all factions, one for Might and one for Magic. If you want to play the "Might approach" for Dungeon, you will need to have a Might hero, because the Magic hero will not stand up to the Might heroes of the other factions.

Quote:
Inferno<<necropolis
While inferno suffers from the same problem as dungeon (no means of cleansing), they can at least throw their own curses at puppet masters at enemy: since the enemy is not likely to have both dark and light magic at once (or to cast both spells at one time ), the matchups are mostly balanced.. with the sole exception of necropolis, which is immune to confusion, frenzy, blind and puppet master. In other words, inferno can only watch how necromancers take control of their devils and nightmares and use them to get another cheesy victory. Sure, puppet master has 50% chance of popping up, but blind&frenzy spells are also extremely annoing and uncounterable.
possible solution: - Can be same as above: an alternative upgrade that can cast cleansing at expert level. Or at least make devils mind-immune. They are expensive, anyway.


Again, I have to add that I think Dark Magic is too powerful. Agreed, the Heroes 5 Hypnotize was pathetic, but the new one is too massive. Units that can cleanse will help, but is for me not a satisfactory solution to the problem - merely a patch to reduce the damage from the problem, instead of removing it.

Quote:
Academy>Dungeon
No big deal. Academy comes with units that strongly resist rushes due to their anti-magical nature (golems and gargs) and has its own destructive magic to repel warlocks; later, they gain access to mini-arties that give quite nice magic protection, and they have artifact merchant in town, so they can really protect themselves from magic well; they have counterspell and magic mirror available, finally, they have access to both light&dark magic, making their force stronger than might warlock's one and crippling the enemy with curses without any counter. It's too much, to be honest: Academy seems too potent here, capable of almost everything, with the best creeping system in the game, too (MMR). While it's acceptable against factions that can build their own melee strength later on (haven, sylvan etc.), it's not that much acceptable against dungeon , which cannot depend on might due to darkmagic and gets its destructive potential limited by kazilion of wizards' skills and abilities.
possible solution: Un-fixable. It lies deeply in game mechanics and is impossible to fix unless some major re-balancing would be implemented: we all know it's not possible.


Again, this rices the question: Is Magic a too important part of the game? This goes for Academy (Light / Dark cf. discussion above) and also for Destructive - no, actually I don't think Destructive is too strong, I think it's fair that the Warlock relies on it so much as he does, because he is the Magic hero after all. But Dungeon should be able to defeat Academy - yes, Golems and Gargoyles are resistant, but they are both pretty week units in late game, and Dungeon should be able to take them out with might and focus magic on Rakshasa and Titans. Again, the fact that Academy can turn this over only with Dark Magic is problematic.

Quote:
Deleb problem
Magic creeping is the most potent way, we all know that, however, most of the factions that can't creep via magic effectively can do it other way. Inferno is kinda forced to do it through deleb. If the player doesn't want to take her, he faces horrible problems with many creeps (unbeatable neutral archmagi/druids), his creeping gets very slow, he gets very vulnerable to rushes, and with horrendous infernal buidlings' costs, he cannot match the opponent's speed of development and loses, either to rush, or to the fact of being out-massed.
Possible Solution:: Major inferno re-balancing. Hero specialities should be reworked; it can be also done by changing inferno's default magic to summoning rather than destructive, and give them more spell points rather than knowledge, so they can creep with summoming magic in similiar way to wizards.


Amen to this! There have also been some suggestions to tweaking of Gating to make it more useful in creeping, and that might not be a bad idea also. However, one can always ask whether a player is supposed to be able to take out level 4 or 5 guards in week 1 and 2 - I don't necessarily think this should be so, but the fact that some factions can and others can't obviously is a problem. Equal for all - so improve Inferno, or patch creeping loops for others to make creeping more difficult for them!

Quote:
Training problem
13 paladins per week is just ridiculous, hands down.. Paladins are already the strongest damage dealer in game (if they joust at full distance), the only natural 230+ dam/week dealer. And you can effectively get their numbers TRIPLED, with ridiculous haven heroes' skills and stats (easy retribution+attack, huge morale+luck, huge ATT/DEF, easy access to light magic..). Haven is meant to be the ultimate melee force, but it's somewhat too godly melee force now, in the endgame that is. But why the hell we must rush to have any chances? ~~
Possible solution:: simple, make training tier-based rather than number-based only.


Yes, or add another limit of how much a weekly population can be increased (which is the same, basically) - I posted this several other places, and a constraint on maximum weekly increase (50 % or 100 %) would work perfectly if you ask me. Would force player to distribute Training over all levels.

Quote:
Sylvan<<<<<<<Rushes
A mere rush crushes sylvan to dust: With pixies, dancers and hunters, all of which have <40% survivability (pixies have even NEGATIVE survivability :-X), any rush, might or magical, is an instant victory. A few druids or even corns can't turn it around.
Possible solutiopn:One of the most troublesome things: If I could describe sylvan power, I'd say it follows a recursive formula. So, any attempts of raising the earlygame power for sylvan would result in ridiculous imbalance at endgame. Nival would have to re-balance the faction, which is of course not possible. Bah.


Yes, the problem with Sylvan is that the Treant is a hyper-Tank, and therefore all the low-level units are extremely vulnerable. The fact that the Hero is a Might hero who is totally incapable of using the factions second magic class - Destructive Magic - certainly doesn't help out! A Magic Hero might stand a better ground here - hint hint.

The Sylvan unit line-up is rather bizarre from many points of view, actually. It has too very powerful ranged units at mid-level, which means that the low-level units HAVE to be weak in order not to make the overall faction overpowered. An interesting twist, but this stands to prove that sometimes it's better to be conventional and play it safe: All other factions have units of same type, most notably ranged units, separated across the tiers, typically one shooter for every 3 levels. A more conventional Sylvan line-up would have read: Pixie - Hunter - Blade Dancer - Druid - Unicorn - Treant - Dragon; or maybe even swap Treant and Unicorn! The degrading of the Hunter to level 2 and changing into a less capable shooter would have allowed for beefing up the Blade Dancer into a much more durable unit. This, I think, would have given Sylvan an overall more ballanced army. Putting the Treant at level 5 might also have provided easier access to tankiness, which would have helped a lot for a destructive-oriented Sylvan (magic) hero (similar to Warlock + Hydra).

Quote:
Map imbalance
Like in every games that follows certain patterns and schemes, map imbalances occur. On some maps, haven and academy are unbeatable; on some, sylvan player may leave at start due to rushes; etc. Kinda reminds me of "human on lost temple" problem @ Warcraft3.
possible solution: un-fixable. Like in w3. Unless the map creators will create a lot of balanced maps, which will take place of the current ones, but I see it fairly impossible.


This is not a real game issue. As long as game is made so that factions with equal start conditions (similar mines etc.) are roughly equal, it still requires the map maker to make sensible maps.
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted April 11, 2007 07:17 PM

Thanks guys

I still have to add a few (usually minor) issues here, so it's not complete yet!

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted April 11, 2007 09:18 PM

So - added full comments above.
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Ted
Ted


Promising
Supreme Hero
Peanut Exterminator
posted April 11, 2007 09:30 PM

Sylvan, weak? i dont think so, i have just recently been playing with them and i found that they are unusally powerful, i simply had a really good spellpower (11) and knowledge (14 + intelligance + expert sorcery) combo, but oddly had about 11 attack, so i just cast imboe arrow any my troops just sit back and enjoyed the slater
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted April 11, 2007 10:42 PM
Edited by Doomforge at 22:50, 11 Apr 2007.

Ted: nobody thinks sylvan is weak, I guess. The problem lies elsewhere - their potential is not equal at diferent parts of the game. They are very weak at start and easily defeated via rush, and excessively strong in the endgame. While the second one is partially acceptable (we don't want weak factions), the first one is really bad, as it discourages ppl from playing this faction. Everybody knows of that and rushes, and it's technically impossible to stop Deleb, warlocks, or necromancers with a boosted lich-vampire army from smashing sylvan in third week over and over. And that's not ok.

Alci: great points overall. About dark magic, I would say it's kind of a weird situation: dark magic is very weak when playing vs. an opponent with light magic&cleansing, and very strong otherwise. I think it shouldn't be that much varied - from useless to overpowered. That screams for re-balancing, but no such rebalance can be done, to be honest.why? well.. that's how I see it.

1.Dark magic has powerful curses, weakening them would make dark magic worthless compared to light. To balance things out, both dark&light magic should get weakened, which obviously weakens the factions that depend on both light or dark in order to succed against truly melee factions (haven and the upcoming stronghold). By doing a re-balancing, it would create another imbalance: might hero dominance (and warlocks' dominance).
2.Weakening puppet master, frenzy and blind would make those spells worthless: These spells are specific: they have to look like that. Weakened even a tiny bit, they would become useless. Say, cutting blind duration would make the spell a very expensive 1-turn block, easily dispelable aswell. On the other hand, strenghtening blind would result in complete inability to use, say, lizards or devils for inferno and dungeon, since the duration would be too long for them to handle. What's the point? Well, the formula is balanced. The game mechanics aren't.
3. Giving cleansing to every faction (via units or hero) would make puppet master worthless; not giving it creates a serious problem for inferno and dungeon. Again, the whole concept of puppet master is the problem here, not the formula it uses.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted April 11, 2007 11:50 PM
Edited by alcibiades at 23:51, 11 Apr 2007.

Quote:
About dark magic, I would say it's kind of a weird situation: dark magic is very weak when playing vs. an opponent with light magic&cleansing, and very strong otherwise. I think it shouldn't be that much varied - from useless to overpowered. That screams for re-balancing, but no such rebalance can be done, to be honest.why? well.. that's how I see it.


There is no such thing as "no rebalancing is possible" even though I agree, it will not be easy. I have a few thought on that exact part which I will try to formalize and present soon, just to see whether it could work into something usefull.
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Plexus22
Plexus22


Known Hero
posted April 12, 2007 06:58 AM

Quote:
It has too very powerful ranged units at mid-level, which means that the low-level units HAVE to be weak in order not to make the overall faction overpowered.


How do you figure that sprites are weak? Theyre one of the best tier 1 units in the game. Battle dancers are killed easily, yes but I dont think theres anything to complain about with sprites.

BTW good points Doomforge. I agree with most of what you said...hopefully Ubi/Nival will put some serious thought into fixing specific imbalances in this upcoming expansion.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted April 12, 2007 08:59 AM

The Sprite is not a bad creature, it is fast and capable of dishing out considerable damage under the right circumstances, and will even not suffer retaliation - but it is weak. You cannot build an army with the Sprites as the back-bone, they will perish in an encounter with another Hero with a moderately varied army.
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feluniozbunio
feluniozbunio


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted April 12, 2007 11:45 AM
Edited by feluniozbunio at 11:47, 12 Apr 2007.

Very good article Doomforge good job.

I think problem with puppet master and other magic in the game wouldnt be that big if magic resistance were more common. At the moment there are too few things that grant magic resistandce (2 artifacts and 1 skill) Adding couple more would help, i guess.


If i may, i would add another problem.Primary and secondary stats. Only factions that take full advantage of those are Academy and Heaven. Strange kind of mix magic + might stat makes hero criple in both: might and magic. Factions that dont have +def are very vulnerable to any +init artifacts. (Destro23 gave example of his game where he had 32 attack with inferno but it was useless because he didnt even have his turn because every his creature was dead before first move)

Besides i think 5% per difference in att/def its too much. I think it was 3% in all heroes games (i might be mistaken but i think it was 3) and it would be much better. Now , when there is 10+ difference there is nothing you can do about it, but die.



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ChaosDragon
ChaosDragon


Famous Hero
posted April 12, 2007 01:21 PM
Edited by ChaosDragon at 13:30, 12 Apr 2007.

3%? i think they're also 5 %, like in heroes 5, but almost all previous heroes creatures are so durable, so a little different on atk is okay, however in heroes 5, creatures dmg and atk is not balanced with their hp, ex: Heroes 5 lv 7 cretures againts all previous heroes lv 7 creatures, low lv tier also fall to easy, and Heroes 5 battlefield is smaller than all previous heroes, so many creatures can strike directly to our very undurable creatures.

Well, that's just my opinion.


Back to balancing the game, it is not that easy to reach perfect balance, but at least if they hear all of these and try to balance it, it's a one big step toward perfect balance.

But looks like they want to balance the game by implementing alternative upg, they seems to lazy to rebalance things that already existed now, that's my feeling, but it's okay if the alt upg can balance many things that is still not balanced, however i have a little doubt.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted April 12, 2007 02:01 PM

Quote:
3%? i think they're also 5 %, like in heroes 5, but almost all previous heroes creatures are so durable, so a little different on atk is okay, however in heroes 5, creatures dmg and atk is not balanced with their hp, ex: Heroes 5 lv 7 cretures againts all previous heroes lv 7 creatures, low lv tier also fall to easy, and Heroes 5 battlefield is smaller than all previous heroes, so many creatures can strike directly to our very undurable creatures.


Yes, in Heroes 3, it was also 5 % when Attack > Defence, but only 2.5 % when opposite. See the excellent review by Ecoris in the Library of Enlightenment.

However, I think you raise too very interesting points in your post ChaosDragon. Yes, level 7 creatures now do relatively more damage compared to their HP [thus, most have unchanged damage when conpared to Heroes 3, but all have reduced HP considerably, some by as much as 30 %]. This will generally mean that many creatures now are more vulnerable to attacks, and those extra % of damage will eat a relatively larger bite of their health. And the new smaller battlefield certainly adds to the new offensive edge of combat.
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted April 12, 2007 03:27 PM

the level7s do even more damage than in the past (in hereos 3, the biggest damage per week value was archangels' 200, here black dragons are the strongest damage dealers (230/week), and paladins may technically score up to 238 damage/week, depending on the distance)

But they are much weaker than in heroes3: Much less HP, easily killed by hero attacks, with less powerful specials, much harder to get (dwellings, duh).

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ThE_HyDrA
ThE_HyDrA


Admirable
Famous Hero
The Leader of all Hydras
posted April 13, 2007 04:30 AM

Heroes 5 Game (Im)balance

Melee Dungeon Problem

Dungeon has always been magic aligned, and considering the distribution of the Warlock’s primary stats, favoured magic alignments and abilities + heroes such as Sinitar, it is obvious that Destructive Magic was made for them.

It’s also obvious that Dark and Light Magic cancel each other out, and when a faction such as the Dungeon, which does not focus on Light magic, comes up against a Dark-based faction (or does not have effective Dark Magic itself), the creature battle becomes one-sided. As has been previously stated, Dark Magic is either too overpowered (no Light Magic/Cleansing/Boost counter) or next to useless against someone with these Light Magic Capabilities.

Alcibiades makes a fair point in saying the problem lies within the fact that the spell affects the stack regardless of number. However, stacks have always been a part of this series, and any spells and spell effects have to take into consideration this fact when balancing. We can’t have spells affecting 55% of the stack because it somewhat defeats the purpose of having these stacks in the way they’re represented now, and also bypasses the splitting of stacks. While spells such as Puppet Master can be toned down (e.g. maybe removing the initiative bonus), the problem lies within the fact that the only counters to Dark Magic can be accessed by specific factions only. Aside from magic resistance, another ability offered could be something along the lines of “Defense - Strength in Numbers”, where the larger the stack is, the greater the chance of it resisting an enemy spell. This would certainly reduce the effectiveness of Dark Magic spells where they are most potent – the end game, and provide an available option for all towns. Additionally, it would favour the might-based towns, which increases the importance of Might in the game overall, and offers an alternative to always looking to a form of Magic counter. This is just one possibility, but I think exploring ways of adding new abilities to counteract the effectiveness of spells is a good route to take. (We can’t just have a single ability like this)

Warlocks are magic based primarily, but to ensure the success of their army, might-based paths must be taken, especially against other magic masters like Academy. There has to be an alternative route so that these stark inconsistencies and match-ups, as Doomforge says, are minimised.

Inferno<<Necropolis

Another strength-in-numbers type ability may help here. The idea of making Devils mind-immune is a good one. I think the match-up between Inferno and Necro is a close one, and depends largely upon the propensity for a Dark-Magic Necromancer to have knowledge of at least 1 of these spells, and indeed enough spell points to make use of them throughout combat.

Academy>Dungeon

As you say, this one was always bound to happen. The Mages with their unlimited knowledge and good spellpower, combined with their added accessibility to spells and being suited to almost all magic schools + their heroes’ orientation towards manipulating magic as well as golems and gargoyles, not to mention their racial ability and mini-artifacts, the whole nature of the race is to throttle other magic users and unleash with their own magic. This can be achieved not only through their heroes, but through their units – 2 spellcasters along with 2 magic resistant units.

I would have to agree with Alci here about magic being too much a part of the game, but hopefully that will be balanced out slightly with the advent of the “Horde” town and their anti-magic ways. With their new abilities may lie some of the solutions we have been after, or Nival may decide to re-balance some of the current problems as well. In any case, I think Might will play a larger role after the expansion.

Getting back to Dungeon, the fact that they don’t make the best of rushers (and Academy being fairly resistant to them) underlines their inability to get the better of the Academy before they develop their magical barriers. The only strategy against the Academy is to built up some sort of magic resistance themselves, drop the focus on Destructive Magic and put the experience into might-based skills primarily, with Light as backup if possible.

Deleb Problem

I think this one has become pretty apparent to H5 players. I think your suggestions are also very apt. Swapping Destructive and Summoning would do them good, because in essence they’ll never be as effective as Warlocks in the Destructive department (because of low SP), but there are certainly better possibilities for Summoning, due to their Gating ability, they will be able to swamp the battlefield, and also reduce losses against neutral, which is one of their weakest points at the moment. A slight SP would not go astray here either.
Hero specialties definitely need to be improved for the Inferno – unfortunate that Campaign heroes aren’t available. Maybe a specialty which focuses on Summoning spells or higher growth.

Training Problem

Perhaps a power-based Training system would be the most apt solution. Haven’s endgame power, of course due to a combination of factors including Light Magic as well as abilities, is almost insurmountable. Unfortunately decreasing the early game power doesn’t help as then they would get slaughtered by the likes of Necro. The Training problem can be fairly well contained with solutions suggested here anyway, which is good.

Sylvan<<<<<<<Rushes

Absolutely. Alci has got the analysis spot on here I think. The Sylvan’s defensive capabilities are focused in the mid-late game with their level 5-7 tanks, the most obvious of which is the Treant. The first 3 offensive units cause the problem, and the solution of swapping Hunters and Dancers is an excellent one in my book. I’d even go as far as to swamp Unicorns and Druids, so that the balance is even more congruous for the transition between earl-late game. They aren’t losing any end-game strength due to their level 6-7s, while the early-mid game has been strengthened significantly, but does not take away from their ability to deal damage. I think the Hunter should still be an excellent shooter as they are now, but Blade Dancers could be converted to a more defensive unit, not exactly in the mould of squires, but perhaps more like Blackbear Riders.
Treant at level 5 wouldn’t be too bad either, but I don’t think the switch of Dancers/Hunters would be enough to offset the early-game weakness entirely.

Map Imbalance

This is part of the game, and indeed part of the challenge with creating maps. The equal starting conditions don’t need to be adhered to overly strictly, but as long as each area has potential which plays to the towns strength, and even game can still be had. Of course there will be maps that’ll favour one town over another, and you’ll have to work that out over the course of playing it.

“2.Weakening puppet master, frenzy and blind would make those spells worthless: These spells are specific: they have to look like that. Weakened even a tiny bit, they would become useless. Say, cutting blind duration would make the spell a very expensive 1-turn block, easily dispelable aswell. On the other hand, strenghtening blind would result in complete inability to use, say, lizards or devils for inferno and dungeon, since the duration would be too long for them to handle. What's the point? Well, the formula is balanced. The game mechanics aren't.”

Some excellent points here. However it really depends in what way you’re talking about weakening the spell. As you say, it’s the mechanics that need to be adjusted to suit the power of the spell rather than the other way around. These spells are already next to nothing against a Light based hero, so weakening their effect too much will have no impact – the nature of the spell is such that it either works or it doesn’t. Having said that, when the spell is in effect, things like the target’s damage increase for frenzy could be decreased a little, but the difference wouldn’t be huge.

Point 3 is also good, but I don’t think it’s the concept of Puppet Master itself, it is the game in which it is set. Stacks of huge amounts of creatures make Puppet Master overpowered, as well as the small battlefield. With a larger battlefield, PM would not be as powerful. I’ve already given a couple of suggestions on how to improve this…

Oh, and Bonus applied.
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"Dragons may breathe fire, but Hydras have many heads." - The Creed of Hydras
"As the Dragon drew its breath, the Hydra pounced, swiftly but powerfully, and the Dragon was defeated.”

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted April 13, 2007 08:33 AM

Quote:
Alcibiades makes a fair point in saying the problem lies within the fact that the spell affects the stack regardless of number. However, stacks have always been a part of this series, and any spells and spell effects have to take into consideration this fact when balancing. We can’t have spells affecting 55% of the stack because it somewhat defeats the purpose of having these stacks in the way they’re represented now, and also bypasses the splitting of stacks. While spells such as Puppet Master can be toned down (e.g. maybe removing the initiative bonus), the problem lies within the fact that the only counters to Dark Magic can be accessed by specific factions only.


Admirable post as always ... Anyway, I will just address this point shortly. You are very right that the exact nature of the game means that the concept of "stacks" counting as one unit make it difficult to combine stack size and spell effects. However, I think there is a possible solutiong through making the spell not affect 55 % of the stack (as you mention above), but affect the whole stack with 55 % effectivity, in case of a large stack. That is basically the idea of this Light and Dark Magic reworking I for fun play around with in this other thread. Even though I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to implement such radical changes to the game through patches, I think it would actually address several of the problems mentioned in this thread. And sorry for invading the thread with other threads, but these are very related.
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feluniozbunio
feluniozbunio


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted April 13, 2007 11:26 AM
Edited by feluniozbunio at 11:40, 13 Apr 2007.

Quote:
The only strategy against the Academy is to built up some sort of magic resistance themselves, drop the focus on Destructive Magic and put the experience into might-based skills primarily, with Light as backup if possible.


Part with resistance is ok but i cant agree with the rest. Talking about light and warlock is out of the questions , he neither has ability nor spells. And might approach against academy isn't good either .I'll explain.

Lets start with grim raiders , they won't reach academy lines in 1st turn because he will put chump blockers before them. This gives academy at least 1 casting and 1 roud of shooting. In this round you either got hit by armagedon or motwed implosion. Shooters finish of remaining raiders. If you have dragons and attack with them as well hiss all units will focus them because all other your units will be far away and cant join dragons soon because of lack of speed/init.

Against properly played academy only hit&runs can win you the game.  


About sylvan

Quote:
Treant at level 5 wouldn’t be too bad either, but I don’t think the switch of Dancers/Hunters would be enough to offset the early-game weakness entirely.



With tanks on lvl 3 and 5 (like dungeon has) you will be lacking offense. There should be 1 tank in lvl 1-3 , lvl 5 is too late, unles its endame tank , but those are only needed by warlocks/academy.


What do you think about this puppet master.
"Gain control of target stack's next action. This spell cannot be dispelled or countered "
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ChaosDragon
ChaosDragon


Famous Hero
posted April 13, 2007 03:22 PM
Edited by ChaosDragon at 15:23, 13 Apr 2007.

It seems more powerful yet weaker, i can't decide

Quote:
However, I think you raise too very interesting points in your post ChaosDragon.  Yes, level 7 creatures now do relatively more damage compared to their HP [thus, most have unchanged damage when conpared to Heroes 3, but all have reduced HP considerably, some by as much as 30 %]. This will generally mean that many creatures now are more vulnerable to attacks, and those extra % of damage will eat a relatively larger bite of their health. And the new smaller battlefield certainly adds to the new offensive edge of combat.


Thanks alci.

With that, nival want to reduce the important role of lv 7 creatures, but they totally destroy lv 7 creatures.

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