|
| Thread: Outstanding balance issues |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
Kitten
Known Hero
Roar
|
posted July 06, 2011 09:26 AM |
|
Edited by Kitten at 09:33, 06 Jul 2011.
|
Quote:
Okay the Vestal's Pacify is completely broken. 
I had my lvl 11 Hero and played around with Lacerators, to see how they work. As I made my adventures across the land with my faithful Lacerators, I happened to stumble upon some Vestals. I with my 67 Lacerators Vs 3 stacks of 45 Vestals. the first 2 stacks where quickly oblidorated in 1 single shot each by the Lacerators. However when the last stack of 45 Vestals attacked, they attacked with the terrible power of Pacify!
45 Vestals completely locked my 67 Lacerators, making them totally unable to act whatsoever, and with that included my hero.
This is IMO clearly to powerful for a core units, however we must ask ourselves, do I have myself to blame for the situation? After all the simple counter to it, is just to bring more friendly stacks to the battlefield, something which I didn't.
Well, even so I still think it's to powerful, but of course some more testing is obviously needed...
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I have been playing vs myself Haven vs Inferno and have done lots of testing in everything regarding unit skills, unit strength and more, Pacify from Vestals never worked for me =/ I tested with lvl 1 Inferno hero with 20 Lacerators vs lvl 1 Haven hero 45 Vestals. The Pacify never did anything. I had the Lacerator on wait, move, attack but all the time Pacify never did anything. And I believe the Lacerators skill does 1.5 times its normal dmg while the Tormentor does 1.0, not 100% sure though.
I will write the result of most things later, but one thing no one has said is that Inferno has probably the best garrison of all 5 Factions, mostly due to their unique building Wake of Chaos. It summons a worm that swallows small creatures one by one; it's too broken. Infernos other unique building that is supposed to summon meteors does not work.
|
|
Knut_Are_M
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 10:20 AM |
|
|
Lets be honest it is not the hero healing that is the main issue.
it is the healing of ghosts/vestals/priestess. those units not only does the most damage of any core unit, they can also heal alot.
ghosts are great, easily the best core unit ever.
so let me remind everyone that this is an old beta build, given to the communitty mostly to show the people how the game mechanics work.
balance has most probably changed in the newest build. My only question to ubisoft is why they did not take atvantage of the community to do a real beta test with a modern build like blizzard did?
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 10:35 AM |
|
|
@Zenofex
I knew you would eventually question me in that regard, but no I am not a troll nor a figurehead of any kind. I am actually a newbie and have zero clue hence I preface everything I say with that as to make sure people don't throw any assumptions at me or take anything for granted when they speak to me (in this case write). That way, they can educate me (read: maybe I am lazy and need everything explained to me).
At this point quoting en masse becomes a bit bulky and then some, pardon me if something is lost in translation.
In discussing these issues I would like you to entertain the possibility that the community is the one who decides what competitive settings are. There is a possibility that people will want to run on 'fastest' rather than normal or even 'faster' not to mention that they will run their own custom maps most likely which will change the XP gain at any rate. So there is a distinct possibility that Might Tier 3 econ bonuses may come into play especially to speed up a snowball advantage (i.e. mass rebuilding a town or multiple towns / extra ore trade for gold or whatever else because things are expensive ). I am probably wrong on all of this but if I am , please correct me and explain to me why.
I would also like to say that in some cases such as Inferno with their Breeders can cause a good amount of mana drain making the whole purge/cleanse/res/heal game a bit shorter in which case you may want some might abilities and that might abilities scale with might stats just like magic scales with magic stats.
Outside of that case and directly dealing with your argument about how might tier 1 and 2 are lackluster (that is summarizing your conclusions, correct me if I am wrong and I apologize in advance) I would like to point out that Stand Your Ground , Rush, Ambush, Archery II, and Pressed Attack are all pretty competitive. I also don't recall if Mark of the Damned could be run on two or more creatures at the same time. Also, what spells/abilities are 'good' is somewhat determined by what build you're using. For example, someone using 2 elites/1 core (by the end of week 1) may value spells differently than say someone who was going week 1 champions or someone going for upgraded cores.
As for the marginal skills, I am pretty much stretched trying to figure out a use for them, perhaps they need to be buffed or they'll just be there for flavor purposes. Though there is the possibility that it should remain so people can make funny builds like a heroic strike death knight who after week 2 really doesn't need anything else (well, mainly because your creatures do all the work with... their uh... boosted stats maybe). I admit it is a stretch here, just ignore it if you feel like it, I am not going to hold ground on this issue.
As for argument about healers and the healing game I think that really only applies to week one on the current map (I play on faster xp gain though) since at week two you're running around with elites or champions (I also play Necropolis so I have vampires + necromancy) that take no losses or so very few in between (faction dependent really).
As for spell alternatives you already have them I would argue. You buffing defenses or debuffing morale and offense can greatly reduce the need for healing at all. However, yes, direct damage spells outside of ice bolt with the tier 2 passive are lackluster but I think that is due to a bug from the spells not scaling properly with the magic stat.
@ Knut
Well, is it the healing of the ghosts etc? or the fact that they're beefy high damage dealing core healers? If you nerfed their damage output, lessened their HP values and so forth would they still be an issue in your eyes (you could also increase the cost and thus decreasing the default amount you get per hero hire)?
And yes, this is a beta build that's outdated and somehow got a patch too (why did they bother patching and not just give us a newer client? Why is there DRM on that note. ) Which makes the entire discussion a bit silly in the end  but it's something worth talking about for fun.
-------------------------------------------------
My overall impression that is based mostly on 'experience' and 'feeling' is that might isn't that far behind or behind at all, they may lack a purge/cleanse device though but it is a very interesting position because of the possibility of Tears/Blood gain being tweaked which may make or break certain hero skill set combinations.
I also don't feel that nerfing healing directly is the only solution and there are probably better ways to deal with that issue such as nerfing the units associated with healing. In the end, I am not even sure if healing needs to be looked at since there are variables such as map, faction, etc.
____________
|
|
Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 10:39 AM |
|
|
Quote:
so let me remind everyone that this is an old beta build, given to the communitty mostly to show the people how the game mechanics work.
No, the betas are meant for bug cleansing and balance improvements. They are not supposed to show the mechanics per say, that's what the manuals and the tutorials of the released product are for (of course you will figure out how the things work during the beta but how does this fix the problems if the latter are found but not addressed?). Nobody wants a release version which is hardly playable not because of technical issues but because of bad balancing - this ruins all non-single-player games. It makes no sense to wait and hope for a patch that will resolve some issue after the game is released when you can do this before the release. You mentioned StarCraft II yourself - during its beta there was a constant balance tweaking and even though the situation wasn't exactly perfect after the release, it was certainly far better than during the earlier builds. That's what should happen here as well.
|
|
Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 10:54 AM |
|
|
Quote:
The Pacify never did anything. I had the Lacerator on wait, move, attack but all the time Pacify never did anything. And I believe the Lacerators skill does 1.5 times its normal dmg while the Tormentor does 1.0, not 100% sure though.
In a Haven vs Necropolis battle, I had 2x 80 Vestals keeping most of a Necropolis army pacified through a battle. First stack was keeping 15 Fate Weavers and 40 Vampire Lords pacified, second stack was keeping 80 Ghouls pacified and was helping on either the Weavers or the Vampires. Most broken ability ever ... About as bad as the 1 genie casting Song of Peace in H4.
Quote:
balance has most probably changed in the newest build. My only question to ubisoft is why they did not take atvantage of the community to do a real beta test with a modern build like blizzard did?
That's why I'm at a total loss and very angered since I read Marzhin's post. If they want us to give them feedback about balance, then they should give us the most fixed build or they should at least patch the current build instead of waiting for feedback based on utterly broken mechanisms.
I'm also very angered because this build is MORE bugged than the private beta. Not only, they haven't fixed the bugs we listed in the private beta but they even managed to add new ones. There are plenty of bugs that show that several (basic) mechanisms are still utterly broken and then we get told that all our bug reports are useless because "most likely already fixed" in the release build.
Quote:
I also don't feel that nerfing healing directly is the only solution and there are probably better ways to deal with that issue such as nerfing the units associated with healing. In the end, I am not even sure if healing needs to be looked at since there are variables such as map, faction, etc.
You're kidding right ? It's the biggest source of imbalance in H6 right now - the 2nd being growth. Only someone totally clueless could say that healing doesn't need to be addressed ...
Have you noticed that healing spells are SO strong that the Necropolis' racial is TOTALLY useless ? Why would I use necromancy and lose 70% of my revived troops at the end of the battle when I can just use Regeneration and Life Drain and save them all ?
I see 4 ways to fix healing :
- Lower the healing value
- Make it work like Necromancy and add a cap of max units that will remain alive AFTER the battle
- Make each healing cast lower the efficiency of the next one
- Make it work like Resurrection/Animate Dead in H5 by weakening the healed stack (lower max HP)
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 11:06 AM |
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
so let me remind everyone that this is an old beta build, given to the communitty mostly to show the people how the game mechanics work.
No, the betas are meant for bug cleansing and balance improvements. They are not supposed to show the mechanics per say, that's what the manuals and the tutorials of the released product are for (of course you will figure out how the things work during the beta but how does this fix the problems if the latter are found but not addressed?). Nobody wants a release version which is hardly playable not because of technical issues but because of bad balancing - this ruins all non-single-player games. It makes no sense to wait and hope for a patch that will resolve some issue after the game is released when you can do this before the release. You mentioned StarCraft II yourself - during its beta there was a constant balance tweaking and even though the situation wasn't exactly perfect after the release, it was certainly far better than during the earlier builds. That's what should happen here as well.
Whether it ought to or not is largely out of our hands. Ubisoft or BH or whoever is managing this whole 'beta' may have a different conceptualization as to what this is for. Some people think open public beta just means 'demo' . We already have a good clue as to what they think about the public beta when they did not release net play and forced us to use hotseat . We also have another clue in the fact that they do have a more updated client that they aren't releasing to us (as of yet).
The way one company does it (Blizzard) does not mean other companies will even if it proves to be successful. You can look at how they did balance/bug testing in Dawn of War II for example and it was pretty shoddy despite the beta.
____________
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 11:17 AM |
|
|
@ vaeledrin
Ask 100 people on what the balance should be and you will get 100 different ideas - or close enough ^^ Reaching a consensus is not easy and not all have the same level or perception or experience, even if you do reach a unanimous decision it would still be hard to agree on the means of balancing. It's not a simple mathematical issue either, takes a lot more than that 
Competitive settings can only be measured by trial and error. You must go beyond the 'standard' builds/solutions and break the game, go where the others haven't been yet. When you find a new excellent combination or a way to make something work that the rest have not managed yet the balance automatically changes, new patterns emerge. Balance just.. evolves
And no, nobody is going to choose normal, it is plain retarded. First and foremost this setting was never meant for multiplayer, it is slower than a snail because it wants to restrict campaign hero development. Fast(X3) is closer to H5 formula but still much slower until say lvl 20 after which point later levels are gained easier. And faster is.. much faster than H5  Which would not be an issue for those who like it except xp for chests is multiplied as well. So a 1500 xp chest would give 15000  That's an instant level 4 right from the start. The problem goes beyond that since the bigger the modifier gets the faster earlier levels are easy to gain and where first few normal levels might be alright they are faster in fast and ridiculous in faster. I expect that to change obviously.
Argh gotta run, busy!
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 11:24 AM |
|
|
Quote:
You're kidding right ? It's the biggest source of imbalance in H6 right now - the 2nd being growth. Only someone totally clueless could say that healing doesn't need to be addressed ...
Have you noticed that healing spells are SO strong that the Necropolis' racial is TOTALLY useless ? Why would I use necromancy and lose 70% of my revived troops at the end of the battle when I can just use Regeneration and Life Drain and save them all ?
I see 4 ways to fix healing :
- Lower the healing value
- Make it work like Necromancy and add a cap of max units that will remain alive AFTER the battle
- Make each healing cast lower the efficiency of the next one
- Make it work like Resurrection/Animate Dead in H5 by weakening the healed stack (lower max HP)
Aren't you being a little too hostile? Did you not read the preface to my posts? If it incensed you so much why couldn't you have ignored it? Is it really necessary to write such things? Either way, I find your comment a bit inflammatory thus unnecessary. You don't need to preface your arguments with belittling remarks. Please read over what I have written, sir.
First off, it's not universally agreed upon that growth is an issue outside of say architect being bugged and external structures giving more than they should.
Secondly, it's not universally agreed upon that healing is the issue. The units that heal, yes maybe. But healing itself? Questionable. It basically goes like this: By week 2 you're not taking losses either with or without healing for the most part. I can live without regen and play purely as a might hero and creep pretty damn well (at least as Necropolis)
Thirdly, either my game is bugged or the client is outdated (I am running 1.1) but I do not lose units after the battle ends with the Necro racial at all. Furthermore, I would like to point out that if you really wanted to abuse things you can heal and use the necro racial. So if your argument was that healing makes necro racial pointless how is having more healing somehow pointless than just having healing?
Fourthly, does it really matter that you can creep flawlessly? Isn't it a good thing that all races can and won't be gimped in that department so it can come down to skill in player versus player confrontation rather than predetermined death in some cases? How is healing going to be an issue when all sides have it or have ways of negating it?
For example, if I am reading this correctly, if I use purge you're not going to have life drain and regeneration and whatever else on key units and you won't be able to target them with beneficial spells (is healing a beneficial spell in the game's category?) And depending on what faction you're against you're also racing against mana (I heard Breeders drain 80 some mana a hit?) Are you going to be casting regen as your first spell or are you going to lock down certain units first?
So, to summarize, why are you taking this so personally and why are lashing out at me without qualifying your statements or reading your opponent's words? Can you please be somewhat respectful towards me?
____________
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 11:39 AM |
|
|
Quote:
@ vaeledrin
Ask 100 people on what the balance should be and you will get 100 different ideas - or close enough ^^ Reaching a consensus is not easy and not all have the same level or perception or experience, even if you do reach a unanimous decision it would still be hard to agree on the means of balancing. It's not a simple mathematical issue either, takes a lot more than that
Competitive settings can only be measured by trial and error. You must go beyond the 'standard' builds/solutions and break the game, go where the others haven't been yet. When you find a new excellent combination or a way to make something work that the rest have not managed yet the balance automatically changes, new patterns emerge. Balance just.. evolves
And no, nobody is going to choose normal, it is plain retarded. First and foremost this setting was never meant for multiplayer, it is slower than a snail because it wants to restrict campaign hero development. Fast(X3) is closer to H5 formula but still much slower until say lvl 20 after which point later levels are gained easier. And faster is.. much faster than H5 Which would not be an issue for those who like it except xp for chests is multiplied as well. So a 1500 xp chest would give 15000 That's an instant level 4 right from the start. The problem goes beyond that since the bigger the modifier gets the faster earlier levels are easy to gain and where first few normal levels might be alright they are faster in fast and ridiculous in faster. I expect that to change obviously.
Argh gotta run, busy!
This is a mathematical issue and there is a fundamental truth to all of it, but of course reaching it isn't going to be easy and will not be solved overnight. How do we reach it? Through dialogue, and by that I mean data mining. That's all I will say in regards to that.
At any rate, we already have a developing meta game, I may be incorrect but at first glance (take it as you will) people were complaining about the growth of cores, then knut (I think) comes along and shows the hilarity of 13+ elites or 1st week champions. JJ ends up concluding in a different thread that beyond external dwellings the growth issue is a very touchy subject.
There have also been people who have said inferno is UP at the first week, then suddenly people turn around and say inferno is pretty strong and could contend for the top (same goes for necropolis who struck one poster as 'unimpressive' in a different thread).
Right now I more or less got called 'clueless' when I spoke up about healing. There have not been many Player vs Player reports at all and there is a dearth of information regarding that (who would want to really play hotseat... I mean ew!) and in turn it is difficult to see what meta game will evolve from that and whether or not healing really needs a nerf. In the end it's about player vs player which has many aspects beyond 'creeping'. As we have seen many of the old tenets of HoMM have been tossed out; gone are multiple resources, gone are random skills, gone are random heroes from taverns.
So my question to you is, after all you are a veteran (figurehead too) and a competitive player, how would you frame the discussion about balance right now?
____________
|
|
Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 11:53 AM |
|
Edited by Zenofex at 12:10, 06 Jul 2011.
|
Quote:
In discussing these issues I would like you to entertain the possibility that the community is the one who decides what competitive settings are. There is a possibility that people will want to run on 'fastest' rather than normal or even 'faster' not to mention that they will run their own custom maps most likely which will change the XP gain at any rate. So there is a distinct possibility that Might Tier 3 econ bonuses may come into play especially to speed up a snowball advantage (i.e. mass rebuilding a town or multiple towns / extra ore trade for gold or whatever else because things are expensive ). I am probably wrong on all of this but if I am , please correct me and explain to me why.
You asked about Normal and I answered only about Normal. Haven't tried it on Fastest yet.
Quote:
I would also like to say that in some cases such as Inferno with their Breeders can cause a good amount of mana drain making the whole purge/cleanse/res/heal game a bit shorter in which case you may want some might abilities and that might abilities scale with might stats just like magic scales with magic stats.
That does not make the creature useful. You can't disable the healing with Sisters/Vestals this way + stats-wise the Breeder remains very inferior to everything else in the game. Everything from the Core to the Champion tier surpasses it by far. Thus the marginal effectiveness in cases where it drains the spell points of the opponent is an issue within an issue. It's disproportionally effective in a single situation and useless in all other. Respectively its effectiveness in the former case has to be reduced and in the latter - increased.
Quote:
Outside of that case and directly dealing with your argument about how might tier 1 and 2 are lackluster (that is summarizing your conclusions, correct me if I am wrong and I apologize in advance) I would like to point out that Stand Your Ground , Rush, Ambush, Archery II, and Pressed Attack are all pretty competitive. I also don't recall if Mark of the Damned could be run on two or more creatures at the same time. Also, what spells/abilities are 'good' is somewhat determined by what build you're using. For example, someone using 2 elites/1 core (by the end of week 1) may value spells differently than say someone who was going week 1 champions or someone going for upgraded cores.
All skills mentioned are accessible to the Magic hero. I didn't say that the Might skills are universally worse than the Magic skills but that the Magic build is generally more effective - and provided that the Magic hero can exploit it better - there you go. You can stack the effects of Mass Drain Life and Mass Burning Determination with a Magic hero and still have Stand Your Ground II or Archery II.
Quote:
As for argument about healers and the healing game I think that really only applies to week one on the current map (I play on faster xp gain though) since at week two you're running around with elites or champions (I also play Necropolis so I have vampires + necromancy) that take no losses or so very few in between (faction dependent really).
The necessity to nerf the healing creatures is not even debatable, this is a must. The thing that Healing spells in addition to healing creatures result in pretty immortal army. Moreover currently Heal is like an Implosion for creatures with Light Vulnerability and a large stack of Vestals - which are already hell of a pest with Pacify - can cripple the opposing army from a distance. No range penalty, no obstacles in the way, no damage reduction (I haven't noticed the Magic defense being applied in this case but it could be a bug). So essentially Heal is both Resurrection and direct-damage spell against two whole factions. Why should they be handicapped this way?
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 12:19 PM |
|
|
It has three turns cooldown.
It's not even that strong compared to racial spell of necromancers, too.
It costs a lot of mana which runs out after three casts usually (unless we're talking about magic hero with lots of relics).
No, I don't see a problem with healing spell. Vulnerability to light is a bit too hardcore, yes, but the healing spell itself is really close to becoming crap if you apply nerfs.
As for the creeping, I'm as stated previously against nerfs in that matter, as there will always be a faction that has healing. Nerf the healing ways, and the faction with the most healing will become THE creeper of the game (aka I win button on small map). Which we don't want. I'm not sure if we want to be restricted to dungeon, necro and academy again on small maps like in HoMM V.
I'm for balancing of some healer units, but they are imba mostly because they are ridiculously good damage dealers (AND healers), not because of their healing ability. In player versus player, the heal of vestals barely did any difference, in fact. Sure, it was a few creatures more, but with limited charges and not-so-awesome spellpower as it seems, it wasn't imba at all.
Unless you want players to lose units when creeping (minus necro, which has the amazing racial), which will slower the pace on the map (not good) and introduce creeping tiers (totally not good), I don't see a reason to nerf healing methods. If anything, I'd buff those factions that can't heal with a proper healing method (for example dreamwalkers). Creeping won't be so undemanding once Elite and champions are buffed, making them a considerable threat rather than a joke, and once external dwellings don't provide you with bajillion troops anymore, making your total damage considerably lower. In such an environment, healing is GOOD, not bad.
In fact, what destroyed me in player vs. player battling was mass vampirism, not wail of netherworld (of spectres).
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 12:32 PM |
|
|
Quote:
You asked about Normal and answered only about Normal. Haven't tried it on Fastest yet.
Well, if you have the time and patience, give it a spin on fast/fastest and see if your thoughts remain the same. I share Elvin's sentiments in that normal is kind of bleh at the moment.
Quote:
That does not make the creature useful. You can't disable the healing with Sisters/Vestals this way + stats-wise the Breeder remains very inferior to everything else in this game. Everything from the Core to the Champion tier surpasses it by far. Thus the marginal effectiveness in cases where it drains the spell points of the opponent is an issue within an issue. It's disproportionally effective in a single situation and useless in all other. Respectively its effectiveness in the former case has to be reduced and in the latter - increased.
I may be beating a dead horse at this point, and if I am and if you disagree with me I'll drop the point and concede, so here goes: What if we return to Knut's point that the problem is that Vestals/Ghosts are also high hit point/high damage creatures? What if we drastically reduced their durability? You can also change the AI to have it focus fire those first in terms of creeping too to ensure gradual bleed. Would changing their damage output and durability be an acceptable alternative?
Quote:
All skills mentioned are accessible to the Magic hero. I didn't say that the Might skills are universally worse than the Magic skills but that the Magic build is generally more effective - and provided that the Magic hero can exploit it better - there you go. You can stack the effects of Mass Drain Life and Mass Burning Determination with a Magic hero and still have Stand Your Ground II or Archery II.
They are accessible to a Magic hero but they aren't scaled as high because of different stat groupings. My premise is this: ultimately, items, and natural distribution of stats will determine which way you'll end up going. For Magic you're probably going to be picking up other skills such as Magic Affinity to get certain items which means you won't be investing in might skills as often.
What I am also trying to get at is looking at cast priority between a battle of a Might hero vs a Magic hero , sure they'll both be cross dabbling but if you graphed the two heroes there is going to be a certain point where they reach their peak of power. I am curious as to who catches up if at all and how big the gap is.
The thing that is bothering me the most is that we really have no reports about how tier 3 Might heroes are in comparison to tier 3 Magic heroes. I would like to see more reports regarding that before I decide and I hope you do as well. It's one thing to say it works on paper, but another to see it in action multiple times with different variables.
Quote:
The necessity to nerf the healing creatures is not even debatable, this is a must. The thing that Healing spells in addition to healing creatures result in pretty immortal army. Moreover currently Heal is like an Implosion for creatures with Light Vulnerability and a large stack of Vestals - which is already hell of a pest with Pacify - can cripple the opposing army from a distance. No range penalty, no obstacles in the way, no damage reduction (I haven't noticed the Magic defense being applied in this case but it could be a bug). So essentially Heal is both Resurrection and direct-damage spell against two whole factions. Why should they be handicapped this way?
It does not follow that from "necessity to nerf the healing creatures is not even debatable" you can conclude "healing must be nerfed". Thus, I would like you to help explore what other ways we can deal with the issue at hand. And besides, maybe it is a bug that magic defense isn't being factored in.
I would like to point to the reason why I am hesitating and not really wanting to give ground here and it's mainly because we have no idea how it plays out between higher level characters aside from theory craft. There is a lack of games between two highly skilled players fighting each other at level 15+ (Hotseat is so lame ) . I hypothesize that healing early on is an issue but as the game progresses it becomes less so as crowd control type spells are introduced (Puppet Mastery and so forth).
And also I think you could solve the whole problem by just lowering the ability of healers to survive and deal damage; lower their HP and damage reductions, increase cost, decrease growth, lower initiative, etc.
The problems we are currently having thus far have more than a few ways of solving them.
Anyways, apologies if my reply gets on your nerves for I am 'clueless' as one poster had noted.
____________
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 12:38 PM |
|
|
Quote:
It has three turns cooldown.
It's not even that strong compared to racial spell of necromancers, too.
It costs a lot of mana which runs out after three casts usually (unless we're talking about magic hero with lots of relics).
No, I don't see a problem with healing spell. Vulnerability to light is a bit too hardcore, yes, but the healing spell itself is really close to becoming crap if you apply nerfs.
As for the creeping, I'm as stated previously against nerfs in that matter, as there will always be a faction that has healing. Nerf the healing ways, and the faction with the most healing will become THE creeper of the game (aka I win button on small map). Which we don't want. I'm not sure if we want to be restricted to dungeon, necro and academy again on small maps like in HoMM V.
I'm for balancing of some healer units, but they are imba mostly because they are ridiculously good damage dealers (AND healers), not because of their healing ability. In player versus player, the heal of vestals barely did any difference, in fact. Sure, it was a few creatures more, but with limited charges and not-so-awesome spellpower as it seems, it wasn't imba at all.
Unless you want players to lose units when creeping (minus necro, which has the amazing racial), which will slower the pace on the map (not good) and introduce creeping tiers (totally not good), I don't see a reason to nerf healing methods. If anything, I'd buff those factions that can't heal with a proper healing method (for example dreamwalkers). Creeping won't be so undemanding once Elite and champions are buffed, making them a considerable threat rather than a joke, and once external dwellings don't provide you with bajillion troops anymore, making your total damage considerably lower. In such an environment, healing is GOOD, not bad.
In fact, what destroyed me in player vs. player battling was mass vampirism, not wail of netherworld (of spectres).
Sorry I fail at searching but can you summarize what levels your heroes were when they fought and what openings did you use? As well as what skill layouts?
I do recall that you're one of the few players who managed an actual 'skilled' match ( Why BH, why do you give us hotseat instead of netplay!?).
I would also like to ask you whether or not you have tried doing the 2 elite / 1 core at week 1 or the champion at week 1 builds vs the 'normal' zerg core build barring instances where the following week was double tier one growth or something obscene like that.
I know Elvin got like what... 9 Seraphims by week 2 or some such (with a bonus from the week) isn't that competitive even with core dwellings giving out the ridiculous numbers?
____________
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 12:46 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Sorry I fail at searching but can you summarize what levels your heroes were when they fought and what openings did you use? As well as what skill layouts?
We were both level 8 (played on "fast"... perhaps a better way would be to test it on "fastest" but we agreed on "fast" and later was too late to change it).
Skills... well mostly various spells to test them all. With necro my friend took a few dark spells, as demons I tried fire, orcs mixed fire and earth... and such.
Quote:
I would also like to ask you whether or not you have tried doing the 2 elite / 1 core at week 1 or the champion at week 1 builds vs the 'normal' zerg core build barring instances where the following week was double tier one growth or something obscene like that.
Well, we agreed on trying the "regular" progression of getting all cores first, then all elites, then finally getting the champion (which means all was done by the end of second/beginning of third week)/
Elvin has Elvin luck, so I'm not surprised he got those 9 seraphs at second week 
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 12:56 PM |
|
|
Clearly it's time to get to work then! Get your friend and play another match this time push against each other at level 15 or so and see what happens as well as try 'alternative' build orders and see what happens.
Thanks for the quick reply, Doomforge. I just hope we get a few more reports from higher tier players in regards to what this game is like when you're not playing against the AI. Though I guess it doesn't really matter since we're running on an old client apparently. Such a 'wonderful' beta.
____________
|
|
Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 01:19 PM |
|
|
Quote:
I may be beating a dead horse at this point, and if I am and if you disagree with me I'll drop the point and concede, so here goes: What if we return to Knut's point that the problem is that Vestals/Ghosts are also high hit point/high damage creatures? What if we drastically reduced their durability? You can also change the AI to have it focus fire those first in terms of creeping too to ensure gradual bleed. Would changing their damage output and durability be an acceptable alternative?
Could work but what does it have to do with the uselessness of the Breeder?
Quote:
They are accessible to a Magic hero but they aren't scaled as high because of different stat groupings. My premise is this: ultimately, items, and natural distribution of stats will determine which way you'll end up going. For Magic you're probably going to be picking up other skills such as Magic Affinity to get certain items which means you won't be investing in might skills as often.
For a well-developed hero there shouldn't be much of a difference, yes, but the issues is with the low-tier Might abilities in comparison with the spells from the same level anyway.
Quote:
What I am also trying to get at is looking at cast priority between a battle of a Might hero vs a Magic hero , sure they'll both be cross dabbling but if you graphed the two heroes there is going to be a certain point where they reach their peak of power. I am curious as to who catches up if at all and how big the gap is.
That's the point, there shouldn't be a gap. They have to be equally effective but in a different way so the "strengths" and the "weaknesses" could be dependent solely on the skills of the player.
Quote:
It does not follow that from "necessity to nerf the healing creatures is not even debatable" you can conclude "healing must be nerfed". Thus, I would like you to help explore what other ways we can deal with the issue at hand.
The two things are part of the same issue. Durable healers = more healing because you can't lower their numbers as fast as you want and they will keep resurrecting friendlies. Regarding the Vestals they can also incapacitate up to 2 stacks per turn each - one via direct attack and 1 more via retaliation and they can kill creatures with Light Vulnerability even before they have the chance to deal damage (except if they are shooters with higher Initiative). So - if the Healing itself remains the same, the majority of the stats will have to reduced, namely - HP, damage and Speed.
Quote:
. I hypothesize that healing early on is an issue but as the game progresses it becomes less so as crowd control type spells are introduced (Puppet Mastery and so forth).
Regarding the healing spells (except Drain Life) - yes, they are not that powerful when the game enters mid-phase. But that's the whole thing - they should scale appropriately and not being overly-useful at the beginning and inferior later. The healing creatures however need global balancing, not only during the early game.
|
|
Kitten
Known Hero
Roar
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 01:33 PM |
|
Edited by Kitten at 13:37, 06 Jul 2011.
|
I'm now done with Inferno and Haven.
Demented's ability Maniac Laughter that is supposed to drain the targets dmg and add too to his own is misleading. The target loses nothing but Demented gain a slight attack boost. Demented will keep gaining attack boost as long as it keep using attack only.
Also, the game sees the Inferno units as stronger than Haven (in total I did this, Inferno lvl 1 hero with tactic skill vs lvl 1 Haven hero with tactic skill( no hero strike allowed)
Units - 175 of each core, 50 each Elite and 20 Champions.
Being Inferno and looking at Haven, it said "severe" while being Haven looking at Inferno said "high" Then I battle and Inferno won with 10 Pit Lords, 140 Lilim and 50 Breeder Mother left  So Inferno do have strong units. Of course this is without spells and such, just equal amount of units vs each other on faction. Do note that Inferno also is weak to light but still won.
However, when they fix the griffins and sun paladins abilities, things might look different. Griffin dive and paladins charge attack will be great help
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 01:53 PM |
|
|
Quote:
So my question to you is, after all you are a veteran (figurehead too) and a competitive player, how would you frame the discussion about balance right now?
What do you mean? If it is about how I view the balance there are plenty of issues that I have mentioned all over the place Unless you wanted to know something specific?
Quote:
I know Elvin got like what... 9 Seraphims by week 2 or some such (with a bonus from the week) isn't that competitive even with core dwellings giving out the ridiculous numbers?
That was on easy so I could test the champion rush with 2 secondary heroes having architect 1, fort and week of champion that gives double growth. I think I also built marketplace for resource trading but I do not believe it was absolutely necessary. It should also be possible on normal difficulty but this map is very rich so that is hardly surprising. Secondly, architect should normally boost creatures from dwellings in the area of effect but not the town and only one should work per area of effect. So with that fixed, a week 2 champion rush would give 3 units (or 5 with week of champion).
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 01:54 PM |
|
|
By the way, guys - if you don't have a friend that is willing to play hotseat with you, try playing with yourself. Sure, it's a bit tedious to do double turns, but you're at least sure the players are on the same level
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted July 06, 2011 02:03 PM |
|
|
Quote:
try playing with yourself.
|
| |
|
|
