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| Thread: Adding some features to less used abilities | |
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 10, 2007 03:22 PM |
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Adding some features to less used abilities
There are some abilities everybody loves, and some abilities that you simply try to avoid as much as possible... That is not very bad, but it would be better if all the abilities were to say the least "not making you feel like you wasted a level".
There are two types of abilities :
Basic Abilities - The ones that don't require other abilities, in order to be get them,
Advanced Abilities - The ones which have special prerequisites
I will focus on Basic Abilities for now, because the advanced ones seem to be more balanced...
Attack ( Archery, Battle Frenzy,Tactics )- all the abilities are usefull
Defense ( Evasion, Protection, Vitality) -
Protection seems to me very weak compared to Resistance, so it definetely needs something special...
Protection Extra
Casters in your army receive 50% Magic Proof.
Dark Magic (Master of Curses,Master of Mind, Master of Pain)
All's well.
Destructive Magic ( Master of Fire, Master of Ice, Master of Lightning) - all abilities are fine here... depending on what spells you get you will choose the right ability
Enlightment ( Arcane Intuition, Intelligence, Scholar)
Arcane Intuition should be the way it used to be... that's all.
Scholar could also be nominated but I think it is a huge bless for a secondary, so it is ok.
Leadership (Diplomacy, Estates, Recruitment)
Recruitment Extra:
Gives the hero a special combat ability, which allows him to summon on the battlefield 33% of his most powerfull stack!
Light Magic (Master of Abjuration,Master of Blessing, Master of Wrath)
Nothing here.
Logistics (Navigation, Pathfinding, Scouting)
Scouting Extra
An ability to cast a spell that allows you to watch the battle terrain, from a certain spot. This spell wastes 10% daily movement points.
This could give scouting a totally different flavour, and it would allow special planning of how to attack creeps or plan the final fight.
Luck (Magic Resistance, Resourcefulness, Soldier's Luck)
Resourfulness extra: +1 random resource/week
Sorcery (Arcane training, Magic Insight, Mana Regeneration)
Magic Insight extra:
Allows learning all lvl 3 spells and casting them at advanced level. This allows us to use it for more than just Phantom Forces learning.
Mana Regeneration extra:
The hero recovers mana in combat... Every time he gets a turn, he recovers 1 mana!
Summoning Magic (Master of Conjuring, Master of Earthblood, Master of Life)
I consider all these abilities underpowered, maybe except Conjuring, but I can't imagine a fix that wouldn't screw the system(+4 Sp added).
Maybe adding +4 Sp for Firewall from EarthBlood and +4 Sp for Wasp Swarm from Life could work.
War Machines (Ballista, Catapult, First Aid tent)
Catapult Extra
The Catapult joins the troops in normal combat too, and it does splash damage. The damage should be half the damage of the ballista!
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emilsn
Legendary Hero
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posted May 10, 2007 04:58 PM |
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Edited by emilsn at 17:01, 10 May 2007.
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Destructive Magic ( Master of Fire, Master of Ice, Master of Lightning) - all abilities are fine here... depending on what spells you get you will choose the right ability
Your right here, we just need to improve Lightning spells
Enlightment ( Arcane Intuition, Intelligence, Scholar)
Scholar could also be nominated but I think it is a huge bless for a secondary, so it is ok.
Scholar need a more usefull purpose, some dont use 2 heroes
Logistics (Navigation, Pathfinding, Scouting)
I like scouting, but Navigation needs a more usefull boost!
Sorcery (Arcane training, Magic Insight, Mana Regeneration)
Hmm! They sure do need a remake!
Summoning Magic (Master of Conjuring, Master of Earthblood, Master of Life)
when i get this skill, i have no idea to what to choose. Since they all are a bit weak.. Though i love Mines
War Machines (Ballista, Catapult, First Aid tent)
Catapult Extra
The Catapult joins the troops in normal combat too, and it does splash damage. The damage should be half the damage of the ballista!
No! Not a part of the troops - Just as it is now. And i think its fine skill
____________
Don't walk behind me; I may not
lead. Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow. Just walk
beside me and be my friend.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 10, 2007 05:20 PM |
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Quote:
Destructive Magic ( Master of Fire, Master of Ice, Master of Lightning) - all abilities are fine here... depending on what spells you get you will choose the right ability
Personally i find all those perks very weak, not useless but weak. Circle of ice doesn't work with full strength for couple tarets, fire works too short period and stun has just marginal effect.
For scouting id suggest to add ability to being able to look into building like mage vaults and see whats inside like you see number of creatures on the map.
I'd rate scholar usefulness along with destructive masteries, very weak but sometimes handy. Learning armagedon from vault and trading it to your little suicide bombers ftw
Arcane intuition should be fine when you will be able to learn spells from creatures.
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siinn
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 10, 2007 06:59 PM |
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Edited by siinn at 19:00, 10 May 2007.
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i agree (99%) with you general idea!
i think advanced skills should be buffed too because i have the strange feeling that in most case basic ones are better!
here is the 1%:
"Recruitment Extra:
Gives the hero a special combat ability, which allows him to summon on the battlefield 33% of his most powerfull stack!"
you must be joking! i agree recuitement is a bit weak but your proposal would be absolutely imbalanced
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Lesij
Famous Hero
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posted May 10, 2007 07:27 PM |
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About advanced abilities:
Defense
Preparation:
+50% dmg?
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Destro23
Promising
Famous Hero
Keeper of GrongGrong
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posted May 10, 2007 07:39 PM |
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Defense in my opinion is fine as is. The magic dampening effect is very much in the feel or armor. It prevents some dmg to your creatures. Adding a resistance here would be like suggesting luck should grant a chance to dodge physical attacks.
Destructive Magic I disagree with, all three of these abilities are pretty pitiful in comparison with the other perks. I think something to the effect of "duplicate" or "Boost" or something of that nature might be a handy perk, but alas things like that may make warlocks too strong.
Leadership and Luck --
I feel that both of these skills have such a huge impact on your armies and combat in general they do not need advanced perks to make them even better. These skills are perfectly fine stand alones, and most factions already have the option of advancing the soldiers luck perk further improving there creatures. Also the Advanced perks for leadership are very very good already.
Logistics again.. a huge impact on your game play and ability to perform faster than your opponent. Pathfinding is a perfect fit here. What I would like to see if Navigation offer no movement bonus at sea, but instead cut the board time of boats, so you kept the same movement bar. Scouting could be very powerful if you could as felunio said check into banks or utopias to see exact numbers.. or even just Pack pack horde type of information.
In regards to sorcery I agree with you on the mana regen idea, that would be good. And might actually be a nice bonus for those non undead trying to fight necromancers and there infinite mana pool.
As far as Magical Insight goes.. you must be crazy, offering any lv3 spell at adv level is WAY to powerful a perk for any skill. And besides.. how could you explain the wizard has learned to cast spells of the 3rd circle at adv level.. but can only shoot an untrained wasp swarm.
Summoning Magic is a tricky one, the perks are definately underpowered when talking about final human combat. Well Except conjuration, +4 spell power to a phoenix is quite good in shorter games. Master of Earthblood is an amazing perk if coupled with Fire trap early on in the game, you can creep using fire trap only, When your talking about a difference between 3 spell power and 7 for early battles its a big boost. Master of Life is too faction specific I feel to be a bottom row perk. Necromancers are really the only ones that benefit from this. I don't see fist of wrath as much of an offensive spell myself, and clearly other factions using raise dead do not require a boost in spell power. Necromancers can use both. At high spell powers with say arcane training, your fist of wrath targeting the Mark of the necromancer stack will net you + mana. More spell power to help with this is always welcome I suppose. And naturally you need to take it anyway if you enjoy the haunted mines perk.
As for war machines.. if you think that catapult is an unnessecary skill or underpowered... you my friend need to seige more castles 
The idea of placing a catapult on the battlefield with splash dmg beside a ballista is almost laughable. The cries and screams of imbalanced war machines heroes are blatant enough already.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 10, 2007 07:57 PM |
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As always Destro got whole covered
Talking about advanced skills on the other hand i'd nerf flaming arrows and boost some other crappy ones(dont want to mention them coz there are a lot of underpowered there)
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted May 10, 2007 08:04 PM |
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This has been discussed before, and I think it's a very interesting topic. I had some suggestions for Recruitement and Ressourcefulnes in this topic, and also wrote a lot of suggestions I could find halfway down this page: Abilities you least pick. I think my suggestions for Scholar and Arcane Intuition in that thread would work.
Quote:
Leadership and Luck --
I feel that both of these skills have such a huge impact on your armies and combat in general they do not need advanced perks to make them even better.
Also, I need to add, that though often used, this argument is faulty. In most games, you will not get to fill all your skill slots, and therefore, granting more or less good abilities to a skill neither makes the skill better nor worse - you will simply choose to put your skill points into another skill, if one particular skill has bad abilities.
Therefore, the usefulness of abilities is not a matter of balancing the skills, but purely a matter of the futility of having abilities in the game that no-one wishes to choose. Therefore, I think ALL abilities should be usefull - and balancing of the skills should be considered as a different aspect.
... and yes, Luck is too powerful ...
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What will happen now?
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sdfx
Famous Hero
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posted May 10, 2007 08:24 PM |
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Yeah, destuctive and summoning perks are somwhere inside a bad - pathetic continuum.
For example, master of wrath makes haste like 14 times more powerful - it affects up to 7 stacks and it's 2 times faster than regular haste.
So to make those perks more powerful:
1. Master of conjuration could improve summons' inititive by 1% for each level of a hero.
2. Master of earthblood. Earthquake could be reworked so that it makes a crack on a battlefield or something. Firetrap would put even more mines or make them do something like stun or ignite.
3. Master of life could additionally make raise dead use 0.9 multiplayer instead of 0.8. Fist could stay in the air after it punched so that it could punch again. Summoned fist would have 50 hp and it could be attacked by shooters, hero and flyers only.
4. Master of storms could be extended by some spellpower and and hero's initiative boost. Storm spells could get additional 1 spellpower per 4 levels of a hero and the stun multiplayer could be decreased by 2% per hero's level(so it's 0.5 when hero's level = 20).
5. Master of ice could decrease hero's ATB reset by 1% per each level. So, it would make hero's ATB reset to 0.2 and with expert sorcery it would reset it to 0.5.
6. Master of fire is not too bad but it could additioanlly decrease morale by 2.
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betruger
Known Hero
empowered mind
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posted May 10, 2007 10:42 PM |
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Interesting points, but I completly disagree with resourcefulness being underpowered. It's almost overpowered in my opinion.
Did you know resourcefulness hero always gets 500 gold more from each chest? Now multiply that by the number of chests on the map.
Same thing with other resources. It's usually crucial to have maximum amount of wood & ore to be able to build your town quickly, and with resourcefulness you get about 30% more resources from heaps (that's my feeling, I don't know the extact numbers).
Having or not having a resourcefulness secondary hero is a great difference.
I agree with scouting. I think it's quite useful now (depending on the map) but it'd be nice if it provided info about terrain, crypts, mage's vaults etc.
Protection is weak because the only faction that uses destructive magic is dungeon, so the effective damage reduction is only 10%. It could be nice in a match vs destructive academy, but that rarely happens, and you can rather expect academy heroes to cast light/summoning/both.
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Destro23
Promising
Famous Hero
Keeper of GrongGrong
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posted May 11, 2007 12:20 AM |
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I guess by advanced perks I meant more army increasing benefits.
The current luck and leadership perks are perfectly fine abilities for secondary heroes, just not for mains.
Support heroes regardless of wether or not you use them are part of the game, and a very important part.
Not EVERY skill or perk needs to be "Main worthy"
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emilsn
Legendary Hero
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posted May 11, 2007 09:17 AM |
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Navigation - 50% more speed on sea .
What if we buffed that, on a ship you got: A look out tower!!
My Navigation 50% more speed on sea, +2 to heroes range of view on sea.
This is a mix of Scouting and navigation, but i think its better! Now you can use ships as scouts and its not better then scouting, that gives +4 ranged view. And you will not be abel to see creature stacks and that. And if they just buff scouting this will seem like nothing compared to scouting.
____________
Don't walk behind me; I may not
lead. Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow. Just walk
beside me and be my friend.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 13, 2007 12:33 PM |
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I think that special perks that give +2 to a stat should be boosted to +3 or be given more significant bonus. Even enlightenment beats them the way they are now.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted May 13, 2007 12:36 PM |
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Quote:
I think that special perks that give +2 to a stat should be boosted to +3 or be given more significant bonus. Even enlightenment beats them the way they are now.
The thing is not the number - +2, +3, doesn't matter in the long run. The abilities should offer some minor but lasting effect also, otherwise they are a bit boring to me.
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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 May 13, 2007 12:41 PM |
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Yeah, not to mention there are several abilities that give +2 Spellpower or Knowledge (they differ only by some 1000 Gold one-time bonus)
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 13, 2007 12:46 PM |
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It might be boring but it sure matter, +3 sp for warlock is quite a lot.
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sdfx
Famous Hero
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posted May 13, 2007 12:57 PM |
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Or make those perks multiply total spellpower by 1.1 or something, so it's:
total_sp = sp * 1.1
or make it both add(+1 SP) and multiply(*1.05):
total_sp = (total_sp + 1)*1.05 SP
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emilsn
Legendary Hero
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posted May 13, 2007 02:59 PM |
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Quote:
Yeah, not to mention there are several abilities that give +2 Spellpower or Knowledge (they differ only by some 1000 Gold one-time bonus)
1000 g and 1000 exp one time bonuses Suck! I want 10000 for a one time bonus! Not silly 1000... a weird little thing they came up with.
____________
Don't walk behind me; I may not
lead. Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow. Just walk
beside me and be my friend.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted May 13, 2007 03:52 PM |
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You cannot give 10.000 because then if you pursue this skill very early, it's overpowered. The thing is it doesn't make any sense to make it a fixed amount. Give, say, 1000 x week number. Just like Blade Dancers increase with time for the Battle Commander skill.
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What will happen now?
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emilsn
Legendary Hero
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posted May 13, 2007 11:01 PM |
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Quote:
You cannot give 10.000 because then if you pursue this skill very early, it's overpowered. The thing is it doesn't make any sense to make it a fixed amount. Give, say, 1000 x week number. Just like Blade Dancers increase with time for the Battle Commander skill.
I said 10000 to mark my frustation over getting 1000 gold when i wanted more - But aside from that 1000xweek number is a bit tricky. If you get it early it sucks . getting it late you wont need it . middle game would be nice, but when is middle game? you never know ... But you could do it, but in some its still overpowered (?)
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Don't walk behind me; I may not
lead. Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow. Just walk
beside me and be my friend.
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