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| Thread: [Project] Heroes VI Community Patch |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 25, 2012 03:31 PM |
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Yes mass dispel is prolly a bit over the top, I thought of fixing it by removing the mass dispel to normal attacks and only give it to when they use their skill (which in return would not damage the glories, to balance it up).
I'm releasing the first version in a few days btw.
Highlights:
- Magic revamped; school-only masteries (Air Magic I, II, III, etc) will give a lot more school-only spellpower on the first rank and a lot less on the second and third; this allows to effectively use a magic tree with only 1 rank, to avoid the player wasting tons of points into masteries.
- Lich/Fate's damage down a bit, Skeletons get no range penalty, Dance of Decay becomes useful.
- Faction-only healing nerfed, spell-healing improved.
- Stronghold and Inferno on par with the other factions.
- Creeping difficulty for Inferno/Stronghold fixed.
- Passive skills giving Luck and Morale will give more, which in the end will make them more reliable like in H5.
- All skills and spells will at the very least tempt you to take them; no more useless spells/skills.
- Sun Striders/Stallions do less damage normally, but a lot more per tile walked: more tactics = more reward.
- Strong differences between Might hero and Magic hero: their respective unique skills (tier 3 might and tier 3 magic) are now more powerful.
- Both Tears and Blood will be valid alternatives for any faction/hero: no more "tears/blood is tons better than the other option".
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 25, 2012 05:50 PM |
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GOOD NEWS: The patch is ready and balances the game quite a bit.
BAD NEWS: All changes to abilities and hero skills revert back upon saving.
This means I can't mod the passive hero skills as I wanted, and make luck/morale more valuable.
Download
Heroes VI Community Patch 1.0
Changes:
Healing Balanced.
FACTION-ONLY healing was severely reduced while COMMON healing (spells) was improved.
This way everyone has the roughly the same healing ability (necro/haven still have a bit more than other factions) and those spells are valuable in late game too.
Stronghold Faction changes
- Greatly improved early creeping power in the form of no range penalty for Goblins.
- Fixed the issue where Cyclop's beam would deal low damage: it's now on par with other Champion creatures.
- Centaurs are now more valuable as attackers.
Inferno Faction changes
- Much better creeping due to improved defense & health for Cerberi.
- More health to other creatures to make them on par with other factions.
Necropolis Faction changes
- Dance of Decay deals more damage, making it valuable to switch to Fate Spinner depending on the situation.
- Upgraded Liches and Fates now deal a bit less damage.
- Skeletons have no range penalty; they are now more valuable to use and worth to defend.
- Upgraded Lamatsu have 10 more health.
Sanctuary Faction changes
- The damage of "Leap" has been reduced.
Sylvan Faction changes
- Arcane Archers now ignore 100% of the defense and their attack casts Empowered Meteor Shower with Extra Expert mastery on the target.
Number of meteors depend on the difference between the day of the week, level of the hero, multiplied by the mass of the sun and divided by the number of Battle Hamsters in your army.
Final notes
Now the game is pretty balanced, hope you enjoy it more, but due to the lack of modding ability beyond creature stats/skills I'm going back to H5 until something is done in this regard.
It'll prolly never happen as they are so terribly obsessed with pirates (which they fail to beat, while undermining payers in the process) that they prefer to lose valuable customers in an attempt to fight those who wouldn't be customers anyways.
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted February 25, 2012 05:56 PM |
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The ability of the Glories to dispel anything and everything just by attacking NEEDS to change. I honestly think they are the most overpowered creature in the game, primarily because of this ability.
Wrong, they have the ability to dispel anything by moving around. It affects everyone around them when they teleport, not just the ennemy they attack (least that's what I gathered).
How am I wrong if you're not sure yourself? They do dispel everything around them when they move (which is pretty much every time they attack since you're rarely going to corner them). However, they dispel all bad effects from your troops, and all good effects from your enemies. This is WAY to much!
Heroes and creatures get to cast 1 spell per turn. For a creature to dispel everything it should require a lot of effort. The developers instead did the worst thing possible and instead of it being hard to dispel, they attached this dispel mechanic to their attack. It takes no skill to dispel with the glories.
Well maybe you could make it so that power is only used when they're doing their blinding special. That plus making the losses from that ability permanent, and you have a powerful ability that relatively costs a lot. Lore-wise it goes with the theme too, self sacrifice for the cause. Martyr much? Sounds like something worshippers of Elrath would do.
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hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted February 25, 2012 07:16 PM |
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Is there something else you can do for the Goblins? The fact is that right now archery units that ignore range limits are way too common. There are two skills for reducing range penalties, and they only apply to Skeleton Spearmen, Breeders, and Goblins. In the entire game there are only 10 ranged attack units, and seven of them ignore range penalties (marksmen, liches, namtaru, succubi, pearl maidens, centaur, enraged cyclops). That's way too much. The whole range issue is supposed to actually matter, and it very nearly doesn't. Bringing the number of factions who have even a single unit that cares about range from 3 down to 2 is not a direction I think things should go.
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adriancat
Famous Hero
Protector Of The Peace
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posted February 25, 2012 07:44 PM |
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What Arcane Archers?What Sylvan? Sylvan doesn't exist in H6.
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted February 25, 2012 08:07 PM |
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What Arcane Archers?What Sylvan? Sylvan doesn't exist in H6.
lmao guess the joke's on you then 
nice-lookin' patch, I dunno about some of the changes, but it's gonna be worth a try. But only when I'll have finished the game for me (I wanna do the official game in all it's officialness 'fore I screw with it), so way later...
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted February 25, 2012 08:19 PM |
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What Arcane Archers?What Sylvan? Sylvan doesn't exist in H6.
It's a joke. He's being humourous.
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 25, 2012 08:24 PM |
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Quote:
Is there something else you can do for the Goblins? The fact is that right now archery units that ignore range limits are way too common. There are two skills for reducing range penalties, and they only apply to Skeleton Spearmen, Breeders, and Goblins. In the entire game there are only 10 ranged attack units, and seven of them ignore range penalties (marksmen, liches, namtaru, succubi, pearl maidens, centaur, enraged cyclops). That's way too much. The whole range issue is supposed to actually matter, and it very nearly doesn't. Bringing the number of factions who have even a single unit that cares about range from 3 down to 2 is not a direction I think things should go.
Range penalty was modded because I nerfed Liches and Fates, and furthermore because it makes Necro might hero an option.
On top of that, remember that now we can use (and even create) obstacles; that is why ranged penalty is rare in H6.
One of the good things about H6 is that it introduce new, more tactical mechanics for ranged protection rather than a simple passive "ranged penalty" malus.
@adrian
In version 1.1 I'll increase the joke-detection of your AI.
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adriancat
Famous Hero
Protector Of The Peace
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posted February 25, 2012 08:26 PM |
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Range penalty was modded because I nerfed Liches and Fates, and furthermore because it makes Necro might hero an option.
On top of that, remember that now we can use (and even create) obstacles; that is why ranged penalty is rare in H6.
One of the good things about H6 is that it introduce new, more tactical mechanics for ranged protection rather than a simple passive "ranged penalty" malus.
@adrian
In version 1.1 I'll increase the joke-detection of your AI.
Please do that quick
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted February 26, 2012 08:30 AM |
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Adriancat > Please take a moment to think before posting, and please don't quote long posts only to make a one-line comment that doesn't really add to it.
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What will happen now?
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 26, 2012 02:34 PM |
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shouldn't simply liches have a growth of 4 per week, like centaurs and yuki onna? breeders are 5 but have range penalty.
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 26, 2012 03:44 PM |
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shouldn't simply liches have a growth of 4 per week, like centaurs and yuki onna? breeders are 5 but have range penalty.
I haven't found a way to change creature growth yet, so I used the tools in my hands to fix the issue.
I think a damage change is better tho, because Liches are really squishy: if we decreased their numbers they would really be one-shot by any ranged creature I fear
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted February 27, 2012 03:53 PM |
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I am working on a video demonstration of what I mean about necros, but so far all I've managed to do is discover that I need to control all variables to get what I want. So I'll try doing a hotseat game with myself to set up an acceptable battle and give control of necros to the AI.
I got the video done, finally!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soPuC3cKdNg Reading down first might be a good idea. Might be. In doubt, just do it.
It is rather long, but it is essentially 2 things, which is why it takes so long. First part is a battle, between me as inferno versus the AI as the undead. This is more of a showcase of inferno strat than actual talk about balance, but I throw little tidbits in I think. The real talking about balance starts around the 25 minute mark. It's a little messy at the start, because the battle is still going on and it's distracting me, but it ends up fine eventually. And my explanation of what to do about necromancy also gets real messy, but I kinda talked about it in here already, so I guess I can live with it.
Don't think I do orcs justice though, so I'm just gonna write it down here, hopefully better than I talked about it.
Alright, so in the video, I mainly talk about the "personnality" of each faction, how each is supposed to work. Necro relies on powerful healing and a few key units, etc. And then, for the factions that I have played around with, I give ideas on how to modify them to balance it out, or make that personnality stand out more. For the orcs, I only talk about their personnality, but again, I don't think I do them justice, so here's a better explanation (I hope) :
Prelude : About the half range caracteristic, I proposed that it should be changed so that the range is actually the full movement range, and not half of it. Because as I understand it, half does not mean half the map, but half the movement, which makes it ridiculously small. It being the full movement range would make it more often than not half the map, save for fast exceptions, such as goblins, which throw even farther.
Let's see what they have : 3 powerful melee units (maulers, dreamreavers, panther guys, don't know how powerful they really are, but they should be , in theory), 3 and a half ranged guys (cyclopses, centaurs, goblins and harpies). The melee is the powerful part of all this, but it gets outnumbered somehow by the ranged firepower, which, if you read Falconian's patch notes, is not exactly their most damaging element.
One change I'd like to propose right here, 'fore moving on to their personnality (so I can integrate it to my explanation) : Make the cycopses to more damage, sure, but also make them have no melee penalty (if it's not the case yet) and have them in half range mode (if it's not the case yet).
So the way the orcs are designed to work (independantly of how well it actually does in practice) : the firepower is substancial. Not exactly lethal, but enough to force just about any army forward, safe for maybe necro (who have the most powerful ranged arsenal). The point, I believe, is for the orcs to get the ennemy moving towards them, and then strike at about mid-map, where they'll be stronger. The attack here rests on 2 things : superior-quality melee fighters, supported by a suddenly increased firepower, because the ennemy just entered the full range of 2/3 of your range attackers. Mid map is kind of the comfort zone for the orcs, where they are most likely to destroy you if you don't do something good, fast. Orcs don't have a whole lot to make a wall in the middle and stop you there, but pushing forward to tie up the archers isn't exactly the easiest thing to do for the ennemy regardless : centaurs are a pain to tie down (have to pin them in), and sure cyclopses are easy to tie down, but with the no-melee penalty, you just created yourself a fourth high quality melee unit to deal with.
And that, I believe, is how the orcs are designed to work. Enough firepower to bring the ennemy forward and support effectively your melee units, and just superior overall melee units, that's what's supposed to carry them. I haven't played around with them though, so I don't know how well that actually works in practice, and obviously from there neither have I ideas on how to make it work better, for I don't know what is wrong yet. However simply increasing their ranged firepower, while probably making them balanced, also erases their personnality (somewhat), which I don't like. T'would be better to find another solution, imo.
As for the video, feel free to jump straight into the balance talk, again it's at the 25 minute mark. The video is more or less, 35 minutes of more talking about balance (though it really only kicks off a little later, once I'm done with the battle and solely focus on balance talk), and at the beginning, say 25 minutes of a cool battle which kinda showcases what I think the demons' personnality is, which was the point of it too. If I may make a small comment about the battle, I'd say that I kind of mishandle it and don't fully showcase the strategy, in that I wasn't able to use gating effectively to keep the dogpile alive. So it's not the best showing this strat has seen, but it'll work for my purpose I think.
Enjoy the video!
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 27, 2012 04:58 PM |
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shouldn't simply liches have a growth of 4 per week, like centaurs and yuki onna? breeders are 5 but have range penalty.
I haven't found a way to change creature growth yet, so I used the tools in my hands to fix the issue.
I think a damage change is better tho, because Liches are really squishy: if we decreased their numbers they would really be one-shot by any ranged creature I fear
just like arcane archers?
the problem might be what Alcibiades said. with no range penalty it is easy to destroy enemy shooters. melee attackers aren't supposed to reach shooters anyway.
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 28, 2012 10:07 PM |
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Range penalty is a mere -50% damage reduction, it's not a panacea.
Modding creature's damage can decrease/increase damage more accurately than just slamming a range penalty, as you can try different setups to see how it works out.
Honestly though, it seems pretty clear in Semplicity's video that Necro's imbalance is the faction skill rather than damage: once they get melee'd they are easily destroyed.
I'd like you guys to try out a game or two with my patch and tell me how things work.
I'm busy playing H5 lately but I will test some more as well.
I really need your feedback!
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted February 29, 2012 12:12 AM |
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Range penalty is a mere -50% damage reduction, it's not a panacea.
Modding creature's damage can decrease/increase damage more accurately than just slamming a range penalty, as you can try different setups to see how it works out.
Honestly though, it seems pretty clear in Semplicity's video that Necro's imbalance is the faction skill rather than damage: once they get melee'd they are easily destroyed.
I'd like you guys to try out a game or two with my patch and tell me how things work.
I'm busy playing H5 lately but I will test some more as well.
I really need your feedback!
Ouch my name! 
Feedback! I was wondering if people watched it or not. Views are not very indicative, it counts the people that open it and close it immediately too. Woulda been sad, considering the effort it took to make it happen, for it to not get viewed at least once. Do you think I should write my ideas down somewhere in the forum, as well as making a video of it? I thought of it for a bit, but seeing how much text it took to explain just one faction, I thought the video wouldn't take that much more time to go through, if it even took more time.
As for my ideas, I showed that to be their strenght, not their imbalance . The difference is important. The strenght is what it's best at, while the balance (or lack thereof) relates to how well they perform overall. My point with this video was to point out what is supposed to be everyone's strenght, everyone's credo, with the goal of balancing it around that, that is to say balancing by amplifying the strenghts of the weaker factions while amplifying the weaknesses of the stronger, to reach a point of balance where everyone has a somewhat equal chance of victory (approximative, perfection is mostly never reached, but good enough can be reached) while retaining it's own distinct strenghts and weaknesses. It feels like this mod goes the other way, lessens the strenghts of the overpowered and reduces the weakness of the weak. While it probably also reaches balance, the point I was (vaguely) trying to push through was that this is the more boring (and more easily reached) version of balance. My version of balance is probably a little harder to reach, but I believe it to be a lot more fun too. That being said, I haven't tried the mod yet, nor will I be able to for a while, because I'm finishing my Let's play first, like I said. Maybe I'm just plain wrong about the mod. But I'm pretty sure I'm not. His balancing gives more durability to demons and more firepower to orcs (which does not enter into their "personnality", as far as I see it, and nobody has disagreed (nor agreed) with me yet) while reducing the healing of the Haven and Necro (toning down their own "personnality", again as I see it, with nobody approving or disapprouving yet. I fail at sparking discussion, apparently.)
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 29, 2012 01:32 AM |
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I sure watched your video (especially the battles, well played) but honestly I can't understand English very well, I can just read/write it.
Your suggestion seems good but a bit vague, I'm looking forward to hear your concrete ideas.
What would you change and what would you keep?
What would you add and what would you remove?
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted February 29, 2012 06:12 AM |
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I sure watched your video (especially the battles, well played) but honestly I can't understand English very well, I can just read/write it.
Your suggestion seems good but a bit vague, I'm looking forward to hear your concrete ideas.
What would you change and what would you keep?
What would you add and what would you remove?
Oh I hadn't thought about it that way. Well, time to write then. I'll structure it my own way though, if you don't mind. First off everyone's credo/identity/strenght/call it whatever you want. I think I'll stick to identity for the rest of the post. Then changes I was thinking about. Long post incoming.
Identity then, faction by faction (I think I'll include the orcs too, for the sake of having everything in one post).
Necropolis
They have outstanding strengths : best healing, best ranged damage. That is quite clearly their strenght. They have a trio of key units, ghosts-liches-fate weavers, with liches being the kingpins. All of them cause dark magic damage, which the lich boosts. Two of them have healing powers (ghosts/liches). Two of them are very powerful ranged attackers (liches/Fate weavers). Notice how the lich keeps popping up everywhere? That's why it's the kingpin. However, this great strenght is usually balanced out by great weakness in everything else. Usually but not in HoMM6, they forgot that part.
But let's look at the 2 previous necropolises' units for a second, shall we? (homm 3 & 5, in 4 necro was not necro in my book). In HoMM3, vampires are decent/good, liches are great, but being the only archer they also have a huge target on their head (so what else is new?  ), Dread knights are just one of, if not the best unit of their tier (and my personnal favorite). The rest varies between bad and worthless, with the possible exception of skeletal dragons being only subpar (skeletons in and of themselves were not OP, necromancy was, so what else is new ). In the 5th game, ghosts are decent/good depending on how their transluscency is feeling, liches are again very good (and very much targeted, what else is new?) and vampires are again good. The rest again varies between bad and worthless. Now if you jump back to HoMM6, you have this trio of wonderful units that can do whatever tricks you want them to do (as long as its healing or killing from afar), and then you have the rest. And the rest is, in my opinion, what is the current problem with necropolis, because it is quite simply too strong. Ghouls are great cores, and vampires and lamasus can be something of a pain to take down too.
Haven
On Haven, one thing you absolutely have to point out first-hand : Area of effect damage almost always gets balanced by doing less damage. You still end up doing more damage, but because you hit multiple targets. So with that said, what the hell is up with imperial griffins? Archers I'm fine with, their AoE is hard to use, does friendly fire, etc. But griffins? Their damage output is ridiculous.
But more on that later, this section is about my vision of the faction. My vision of Haven is most likely very unorthodox, I bet. But I'd like to point out one thing that I believe is key : the abilities of the core creatures are very impressive, to say the least. The archers, while being the only archers of the faction, can do tremendous amounts of damage if you manage to line your shots right. Praetorians reduce damage on everything around them by no less than half (spreads it really, but if you're using guardian angel on them, which is easy because it only requires lvl 1, then you actually reduce it), and vestals have surprisingly good magic powers, and I mean that in 2 ways : their healing, obviously, but also their attack. Not only is it a magic attack, ie it avoids what feels like the most common defense to use the usually less good one (I haven't verified that, there is no good place to get the stats of every creature that I've found), but it also does extra damage on loads of creatures, and pacification works as a unreliable no-retaliation, that is to say a no-retaliation that sometimes doesn't work because hero defense affects it. All 3 of the cores are powerful creatures, to be sure. The champion, him, is... I dunno, good? But not exactly extraordinary. Just good.
The elites, on the other hand. Griffins, if you take for granted that the dive has much less damage than it currently has, is a rather defensive creature with somewhat good offensive capabilities. The knights are a rather offensive unit with a somewhat good capacity to take damage. The glories have jacksquat for brute power (stats), but have powerful abilities that kinda make up for it, if you don't mind losing them (you shouldn't). Do they not feel kind of boring to you, compared to the cool cores? Felt like it to me. The way I see Haven, they have (or should have) ordinary elites, not bad by any means, nothing that'll really burden them, but kinda ordinary if you compare them to elites of other factions that rely on their elites a lot more. So yes, rather ordinary units, but cores with powerful abilities, and the difference maker for Haven, what will (should) give them the edge, is how well they can take advantage of those. That to me feels like the right Haven. One that relies on a good formation (the abilities of the praetorian and the archers are best used if you have good planning with where you place your units) and a good collective effort from everyone, with the emphasis on the small peoples. I don't know how better to explain it atm. But it feels so right. Currently it's not quite there though, elites are too powerful for that to be entirely true.
Sanctuary
I have a somewhat limited experience with them, so my description might not be the most detailed or anything, but I have a pretty good idea on them as well.
Sanctuary, as I see them, have 2 things running for them. Synergy, as Jollyjoker says, is their cup of tea. I would add to that, that they are the best faction at controling space, movement. Note, that they are (at least supposedly, but I suppose it depends on how you lvl up your hero) the water magic specialists. That means chilled effect all over the place, which means -1 movement all over the place. Add to that the snow maidens and the sharks, that reduce movement, the coral priestesses that reduce initiative, and the champions that litterally draw a line which the ennemy units cannot cross, or lose their turn doing so, and for the upgraded version, gives your units second turns. Kappas get to your archers like it was no problem, and the kenseis lockdown one of your units into being useful only against the tank unit, the kensei. Not sure yet what the spring spirits do... but they help spreading buffs apparently. And this whole time, they spam a defensive bonus. Not to mention relatively good, but harder to use healing. Their identity seems to reside in raw strenght, kind of like the orcs, except that for the orcs, the raw strenght is into the individual stats of each unit, while for sanctuary, it is in the abilities of each units, and how they interact all together, how you take advantage of the whole mess of buffs and debuffs and abilities to come out on top. I would have a hard time explaining it better without playing them some more, but I think you get the feeling at least. And since I was talking about them a moment ago :
Stronghold
I talk a bit about modifications to make, but overall it's still mostly about their identity.
quoted directly from my previous post, but with slight modifications, so read it anyways  (added some stuff to the last 2 paragraphs. Still essentially the same, but better explained I think):
Prelude : About the half range caracteristic, I proposed that it should be changed so that the range is actually the full movement range, and not half of it. Because as I understand it, half does not mean half the map, but half the movement, which makes it ridiculously small. It being the full movement range would make it more often than not half the map, save for fast exceptions, such as goblins, which would throw even farther.
Let's see what they have : 3 powerful melee units (maulers, dreamreavers, panther guys, don't know how powerful they really are, but they should be , in theory), 4 ranged guys (cyclopses, centaurs, goblins and harpies). The melee is the powerful part of all this, but it gets outnumbered somehow by the ranged firepower, which, if you read Falconian's patch notes, is not exactly their most damaging element.
One change I'd like to propose right here, 'fore moving on to their personnality (so I can integrate it to my explanation) : Make the cycopses to more damage, sure, but also make them have no melee penalty (if it's not the case yet) and have them in half range mode (if it's not the case yet).
So the way the orcs are designed to work (independantly of how well it actually does in practice) : the firepower is substancial. Not lethal, but enough to force just about any army forward, safe for maybe necro (who have the most powerful ranged arsenal). The point, I believe, is for the orcs to get the ennemy moving towards them, and then strike at about mid-map, where they'll be stronger. The attack here rests on 2 things : superior-quality melee fighters, supported by a suddenly increased firepower, because the ennemy just entered the full range of 2/3 of your range attackers. Mid map is kind of the comfort zone for the orcs, where they are most likely to destroy you if you don't do something good, fast. Orcs don't have a whole lot to make a wall in the middle and stop you there, but pushing forward to tie up the archers isn't exactly the easiest thing to do for the ennemy regardless : centaurs are a pain to tie down (have to pin them in), and sure cyclopses are easy to tie down, but with the no-melee penalty, you just created yourself a fourth high quality melee unit to deal with. And the harpies are only technically shooters, because really they're melee fighters when it comes down to it. So, the firepower brings the ennemy forward, but the shooters don't fall over and die, because they're either decent/good in a melee fight (cyclopses, harpies), or they're a pain to approach (friggin centaurs man). If the ennemy felt the heat mid-map, they shouldn't exactly be comfortable on your side either, with archers giving you a problem in melee range and melee fighters that are overall of great quality still attacking you.
And that, I believe, is how the orcs are designed to work. Enough firepower to bring the ennemy forward and support effectively your melee units, and just superior overall melee units, that's what's supposed to carry them. Raw power, on a stats level, not really on an ability level, though the abilities amplify the raw power they have (for example, double attack, or continued damage over time(cyclopses)). I haven't played around with them though, so I don't know how well that actually works in practice, and obviously from there neither have I ideas on how to make it work better, for I don't know what is wrong yet. However simply increasing their ranged firepower, while probably making them balanced, also erases their personnality (somewhat), which I don't like. T'would be better to find another solution, imo.
last but not least
Inferno
The underpowered faction if you ask anyone, me included. But, I've just made a video with them, the underdog faction, taking on the top dog faction, necro, with the intention of demonstrating that they are not so far behind as to be hopeless. They still needed help though, so yeah, still the most underpowered even in my book. The video also demonstrates something that has come to me in my sleep (no not really, but with the incredibly long time it took me to realize that, it felt like it) : the inferno has taken on the identity of homm5's sylvan. Yeah, they're the new elves, somehow. First sign, they're the luck masters now. That tipped me off, but I didn't fully understand until I noticed something else.
Their initiative is overall rather high, as is their movement. Rush tactics anyone? That eventually came to my mind, so I tested it a bit and showed you the end result : the demon dogpile. That's what I call it, it needs a different name because the rushy sylvans did it with grace. Demons, they just crash your party, big time. Plus, the gating lends itself to the dogpile too, because it just piles up the bodies even higher.
So the first thing to note is, I haven't actually seen the ravagers ever go second in a battle. Haven't seen them in every matchup, but I hope they're the fastest. Also, movement-wise. With tactics 2, 2 of your melee fighters can reach the other side already (doggies and pit lords) on the first turn. Add mass speed to that, and the only melee fighter that can't reach it is the demented. Not to mention that with mass speed, most of your units will play extremely early, their overall high initiative makes it so they don't need that great of a buff. So the rush is a dogpile, because you take for granted that they wont kill you outright, but they'll be in your face, burying you under luck strikes and morale boosts (btdubs, morale is awesome for demons too, not just Haven. Whenever morale pops, you just doubled your chances of getting a luck pop) and through them, of just more stacks that you gated in. I do a slightly poor job of showing the dogpile in the video, because they undead recover and break it a bit more easily than they should have, had I played perfectly and maybe had a bit more luck. Still, it's probably a good enough demonstration, and hopefully you bought it, because that's because their identity to me : the demon dogpile. Fits them so well too. I mean, imagine a demon army IRL, doesn't it feel in character to just have them charging straight forward and just crash in and try to power their way through from there? Sounds about right to me.
Changes
Finally the part your were asking questions about. Omg, my post is so long already, but this section should be shorter.
Few notes before I begin.
1- There are 2 out of 5 factions I have not played enough to propose changes for : sanctuary and stronghold. Wish I could, but I really can't. At least sanctuary is commonly thought of as balanced, I think, so at least there's that. Can't help stronghold though, not just yet.
2- The changes I throw out there assume they are doable, which for some of them I know and realize it's not the case yet. It's gonna happen eventually though (yes I have faith, you negative peoples around the world), so I'm throwing them out there anyways.
3- The changes I propose think of themselves as small, and probably not completely definitive. I doubt the balance can be reached on the first try. But these are ideas I'd start by testing out, and see where the balance is at after them, before we keep moving forward.
4- Some of those changes may seem really weird and maybe counter-intuitive? Just hear me out. Sometimes I have weird ideas. Like Haven identity for example (it's set of elite was polled the strongest, ffs, and here I come and shoot it down for some reason  ).
faction by faction again, why not. at least this time, I'm only going through 3 factions. Note that I have a few changes proposed in my description of the orcs, and I'm not gonna copy them again because this post is too long already, so you might wanna go back to see what I said about that if you don't range. The half range one touches necro and inferno, so that's pertinent.
Necropolis
I bet you saw me coming, but I'd modify everything outside of the trio. Except maybe ghosts. But let's take them one creature at a time.
Ghosts : I'd modify their healing wail. And I've already written down how, but I'll do it again, this time trying to be more clear. The wail currently has base healing, plus it heals for whatever the wail was able to drain from adjacent living ennemies (does it have friendly fire? likely to never come into play, but interesting little detail I suppose). I say remove the base healing, and have the entirety of the healing depend on the draining of the life of the ennemy. But then you need to increase the draining it does. I propose by 2 thirds of what the base healing was. Mathematically, that means that if you're draining from only one target, you're actually draining less, while 2 or more targets to drain, and it's actually something of a buff. Theoretically only though, because I am pretty sure (though I haven't tested it) that the draining part of the wail is affected by the ennemy hero's defense. I am not enough of a mathematician to calculate whether or not this means it's a buff or not (not to mention again that I haven't tested it), what I will say is that it would certainly make the healing more interesting (and small little tidbit, but you rarely ever have more than one ennemy next to the lich : the one that's tying it up. See what I did there? Subtle change, but I just made healing liches harder. Evil, I know . Goes against my rule too, but so little that I just felt I had to do it, for the sake of making micromanagement of battles harder. The harder micromanagement is, the more fun the battle is.)
As for the rest, it's all outside necro's Big Three.
Ghouls I'm kinda fine with, but I'd rather their strenght be based more on a quantity over quality concept, rather than the contrary, as it is now. So, I'd propose weakening their stats a bit, and increasing their weekly production (and reducing their cost, I suppose). Theoretically, they should have the same efficiency, but not once you've cut down their number. Not much of a change really, but it would feel more undead-ish. As for skeletons, let's just say they already don't rate very high in my heart. They can stay as they are.
The elites are the ones bothering me the most. Namely, vampires and lamasus. Vampires are plentiful, somewhat cheap, and a pain to kill. 3 ways to go about dealing with that : reduce their damage output, reduce their capacity to take damage, or a bit of both, with a prerequisite on all three that you tone down a tad bit their ridiculous production. I don't really have my heart set on either of the three, but I do have my heart set on the need to have them feel like a "meh" creature. As for lamasus, I am thinking of something a lot cooler. Weaken their capacity to take damage, noticeably. Right now, they have an annoying propency to not die when you want them too. And then increase the power of the debuff. Kind of a lot. My vision of it was, make the aura do both of it's debuffs (the health aura debuff, and the atk/def vomit debuff). Have the aura debuff, for example, by 2 atk/2 def and 5% HP. Have the vomit be a stronger version of the aura, but that temporarily disables the aura(for numbers, let's say for example 6 atk/def, and... 12.5% hp? (1/8). Just throwing numbers out there, the idea of the change however is to make their debuff stronger (making them a target) and their defenses weaker (making them die faster). The ultimate goal, making them a "meh" creature, is then reached by an indirect manner : by making them cerberii 2.0. Powerful creatures (this time debuff machines, not damage machines), but only if you can keep them alive long enough, which should be hard because their debuffing power makes them a target, and their stats a rather easy one. Subtle, I think, which is why I like it, a lot.
Does it feel like I'm not nerfing them enough? Doing only small changes, like I said in note 3. You have to keep in mind that we are also going to buff the weaker factions. If balance is all on the back of the stronger faction, you're most likely to go overboard and make them weakest faction. Also, keep in mind that the Big Three, that I essentially haven't touched, are very targettable. Ghosts and liches are very killable, while the champion's power resides in it's ranged attack. Being a large creature, tying it up and out of it's strenght is no problem whatsoever. Personnally I would love to see how such and undead faction would work, with less reliable elites. I bet you'd be surprised. If it works like in my head you will be, at any rate.
Haven
Also very guessable what I'll be proposing for them ,if you read the first part. Toning down the elites a little bit, to make them good but somewhat unremarkable. Nothing extreme though.
Sun crusaders : Their function is doing damage. It's what they do. But they take damage relatively well. I say nerf that a little bit. No concrete number to propose, because my understanding of this game goes through feel a lot more than brute numbers, but they need to feel ordinary overall. Not a big change, at any rate. I would also like to modify their charge ability to make them trickier to use. Lower their base attack a bit, and increase their jousting bonus. I am not enough of a mathematician to give real numbers, but the point is to set it up so that the maximum damage stays relatively the same (you can let it be a little higher if it's a bother). The point here is to make them even more reliant on their ability to move around. If they can't, then they're just not living up to their name. That harder to use damage potential plus a slightly weaker defense should give them the ordinary feel I'm searching for.
Imperial griffins I've already talked about a bit : their dive damage is insane. Tone it down, big time. I'd say make it do 2 thirds of it's normal attack (talked about this before). Kinda of the same principle as with ghosts : hit one target and you did less damage than with your normal attack, 2 or more and you did a little bit, congrats. That alone tones down their offensive capacities. I'd go a little further and tone down it's damage also, but just a little bit, at least at first. That way it's a defensive and rather annoying to deal with creature (unlimited retaliation ftw), but it's damage is far from lethal (aside from annoying aoe damage every 3 turns). Feels like a rather ordinary elite? That's exactly what I'm searching for.
And then there's glories. I haven't looked at their stats. But I bet they're some of the worst of any elites. They do little damage. and they take damage rather poorly too (except on the first turn, good on them, then again the blazings can cross the field on the first move of the battle and get a free shot, which is maybe good, except that you totally screw her first turn protection over for it. Kind of a subtle trade-off, yes?). What makes them is their multitude of abilities. Strike and return, with no retaliation, makes their damage reliable, however small it may be. And then you have the dispell effect, and the blinding effect, both of which can be considered as somewhat OP. It's a good thing too, because toning them down will probably make them ordinary, which is what we(I) want. For the blinding perk, I'd make the losses permanent for a start, and maybe even increase them, but it wouldn't be by a whole lot. As for the dispelling, make activateable, like the blinding, as in it's an attack with added effect (don't put in taking losses too). And give a what, 3 turn cooldown? That sounds fair.
The hard part of all this is, you don't want to make the elites bad. They need to not drag down Haven. They just need to not be able to carry it, not give it the edge they need. It's a hard thing to reach. But that's how I'd attempt to weaken Haven a little bit.
Last again, but not least again :
Inferno
Where I proceed to make myself a liar. I said raising health was a bad idea. Well, that's not entirely true, I just wouldn't do it to everybody, that's all.
Who'd I give more health to, exactly? The demented. I bet you're confused. Ravagers, doggies, tormentors even? nah. Demented. Just because it'd go so well with what they do, concretely. They take retaliations relatively well already, and if they manage to survive in good enough numbers for a few turns, they start becoming annoying, with all the attack they stole. More health just makes them better at what they do. And that last part is the jist of what I propose for most demons : make them better at what they do.
For cerberii, you've probably seen me advocate it before, but no-retaliation is what they need. They need to do their damage without having to worry about counterattack. They don't need a whole lot more though. Maybe more weekly production. But even then, I'm not convinced yet. In my video, I managed to do all my creeping to get to that point while losing only 1 dog (normal difficulty map). And that was rather late, when lots of jaguar warriors charged into my face and killed doggies and tormentors and breeders (limited the losses to 1 doggie, 1 tormentor, and whatever breeders they felt like killing, because really, who cares about breeders. After the charge they kept on punching the breeders too, that was such a relief, and made my life so much easier with the damage control).
Ravagers are a problem, because they don't do their job well, which is being a tank. There's three ways to go about fixing that : improving their stats to make them better at it, make them cheaper to build and boost their weekly production, or a mix of both. Personnally I'd go for either making them more accessible, or doing a mix of both. I just can't get a good feel about demons having a really good tank. They'll deflect damage away from important damage dealing targets for a certain amount of time, hoping to win them enough time so that said damage dealers can pile up the damage high enough that the dogpile becomes successful. It implies that they eventually falter in their role, and die. That's fine, and works for me. Not if they're not plentiful/affordable though. I'd also like to add that it goes with the spirit of how demons work and go, and that if you consider the one big battle to be decisive in just about any case, them dying is not a huge issue insofar as you've just won the damn game, and you don't exactly need them anymore.
Succubi are fine. So are breeders. I know they're useless. That's fine. At least they don't die fast.If you ever want to tie down a large shooter creature, say for example fate weavers, gate breeders in their face. That should last just about 'till the end of time  .
The last tweak I'd like to throw out there is probably one of the weirder, and as such one that I like a lot. It's about tormentors. Currently, they receive one extra attack whenever they take a hit. I would like to change that so that it takes away 1 defense too. And then increase their defense by a somewhat significant amount. 4, 5 maybe? I don't know exactly. But significant. What that makes them is more resistant, but really only at the beginning. As they take more hits, they hurt you more, but they start dying more easily too. Personnally I think it'd be a cool way to give them a bit more resistance right when they need it, but essentially only when they need it, because it just goes away when the ennemy starts focusing on you.
And finally I'm done with this. Took over three hours to write the thing down. I hope you enjoyed it, for those of you who read it. If you want me to clarify some things, or discuss some of my ideas, I am of course open to discussion. Just throwing my long list of ideas out there, for those interested. (I would love to know how long you took to read it btw. Because I bet it took longer than the video. But then again, I bet I did a better job at explaining clearly my ideas. It's a tradeoff, I suppose. Like all things)
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 29, 2012 11:24 AM |
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Hmmm i agree with most of your points here - about faction personality - however, I don't fully agree about Vampire and Lemasu.
About Vampire i think they should be the "cerebrii" of the faction not Lemasu. They (vampires) to me feel like it should be shock-attackers - I personaly would make their defence or HP (or both) weaker (quite a lot). They come in large numbers - so make them hit hard but make them less durable - i think they should use their self resurecting ability instead of their defence.
Lemasu i think is good as it is - manly i would nerf it's dmg output rather than defence/HP. reason is i feel Lemasu is / should be more of a support / debuff unit on the battle, but not much usefull in attack. Shee should just stand there and use her aura and vomit - when confronted in melee she would not be able to fight back much. Her flying should in my book serve to deploy her in any part of battlefield and retreat if need be. Her buff shouldn't be stronger - but instead reliable and "weak" one.
Overall i realy like this comunity patch idea - you did awsome job so far Falconian - it's great !
Also makes me angry at Ubi that comunity must now-a-days make patches insted of the game developers themselves - lazy money grabing corporate.
I bet if ppl like you guys would make a Heroes game it would be much more playable. Who knows maybe in future these companies will just say: hey guys, want a new HOMM game? .... well make it yourself! 
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted March 01, 2012 05:27 AM |
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Quote:
Hmmm i agree with most of your points here - about faction personality - however, I don't fully agree about Vampire and Lemasu.
About Vampire i think they should be the "cerebrii" of the faction not Lemasu. They (vampires) to me feel like it should be shock-attackers - I personaly would make their defence or HP (or both) weaker (quite a lot). They come in large numbers - so make them hit hard but make them less durable - i think they should use their self resurecting ability instead of their defence.
Lemasu i think is good as it is - manly i would nerf it's dmg output rather than defence/HP. reason is i feel Lemasu is / should be more of a support / debuff unit on the battle, but not much usefull in attack. Shee should just stand there and use her aura and vomit - when confronted in melee she would not be able to fight back much. Her flying should in my book serve to deploy her in any part of battlefield and retreat if need be. Her buff shouldn't be stronger - but instead reliable and "weak" one.
Well that's certainly a different view on things. I'll have to disagree with you though, mostly on vampires but on lamasus too.
For vampires, your suggestion just goes against my principle. I'm not trying to redesign anything, I'm just making the weaker factions better at what they do, and stronger factions weaker where they should be weak. That applies on the creature level for me : you'll note, none of the changes I propose change the intended purpose of any unit, at least as far as I can see (you might contest that with the tormentor change, but really that just makes them more capable of taking advantage of the +1 atk bonus they get. It doesn't give them anything if they're dead). Your suggestion on vampires completely changes their purpose, from defensive to offensive unit. Personnally, I really don't mind the undead having a defensive unit, especially since all that ranged firepower they've got needs to be defended. Also, vampires never were particularly good at dealing damage, to be honest. Their life drain is a support, not their main function. Now that I've had a bit more time to think about them though, I have a better idea of what I'd change about them (I was vague previously, was hesitant to reduce their defensiveness because that affects their role directly, and their attack because it affects their tank role indirectly - through life drain). Reduce their ridiculously high production, for starters. And then reduce slightly their attack, but increase the efficiency of their life drain, so they don't lose out on it. That's be what I'd do about vampires.
Also, when I talk about "cerberii", I talk about the concept : A unit with a lot of power, that could be useful, if only it managed to stay alive. That does not necessarily relate to attack power per say. We do both agree on her function though : support/debuff. I'd like to note a few things before moving forward though, concerning it's damage output. One, it's already rather low. It's got nothing on nobody, except maybe vampires, breeders, and other crappy attackers. Second, it's already wasting a lot of it's turn debuffing rather than attacking (with the vomit). Third, and that's one point my suggestion changes, it takes damage rather well, which includes retaliations, making it capable of taking on just about anything, without too much fear of the counterattack. They are, in fact, perfect for taking counter attacks, because their debuffing ability (their main purpose) does not get affected by it. Another thing to note is that a unit that will only be useful if you manage to keep it alive (implying that it's hard) is an entirely different story when it is put in the faction with the best healling power in the game, rather than the worst healing power of the game.
And so really I'd just come back to what I said. Make them better at what they do, but fragile, so that other factions can deal with it if they really want to (right now feels like they'd have a problem doing it efficiently, considering they also have other priorities, etc). I'll add to that what I just kind of noted too, that lamasus with less defense have to be picky about who they fight : anything that can fight back is likely too much for them. That in and of itself focuses them a whole lot more on their real strenght, debuffing.
Another angle you can look at the lamasu change I propose : currently they are debuffing creatures. Their debuffs really takes a while to take effect. But they take forever and a half to kill, because of their defense and of the priority of other targets. My change makes them go (die) faster, but debuff the world around them faster. The end result is hard to compare, especially since nobody has modded it, but it might well be the same, just over a shorter period of time.
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"You r the shakespeare of heroes vi, in every single battle i say: "he is gonna to loss"." - Cumulo88
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