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Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Modders Workshop > Thread: [MOD] Might & Magic: Heroes 5.5
Thread: [MOD] Might & Magic: Heroes 5.5 This Popular Thread is 436 pages long: 1 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 ... 396 397 398 399 400 ... 436 · «PREV / NEXT»
magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted November 08, 2019 01:24 PM
Edited by magnomagus at 13:32, 08 Nov 2019.

Quote:
- The town management have an additional option of buying balista shoots, and if the ballista runs out of them it no longer shoots during the battle.


Ok before people start to invest too much time in working out crazy ideas, let me first take a lot of steps back and let you try to see this from the perspective of how I once started this project:

-Most H5 starters migrate from HOMM3, still top10 best selling game on GOG, recognize this for the sake of revitalizing H5
-As a conceptual idea, MMH55 is more of a modernization of what a traditional HOMM looks like if it was truly balanced.
-MMH55 never fixes something that isn't broken
-MMH55 is not made for hardcore H5 players, its for all H5 players
-The obligatory gameplay needs to fit in what people traditionally expect from a HOMM game, so for example H55 will not have transforming terrain, not because it is bad, but because it is not Disciples. (also note that the most groundbreaking additions TC and Governors are not obligatory and have at least been in some less popular versions)
-In tradition of KB,HOMM2,HOMM3 you really do not want to add pointless layers of micromanagement to the game like army upkeep, ballista upkeep, creature experience, constantly modifiable creature stats etc. The eccentric parts of WOG never took off like the very traditional HOTA mod did. I can add such features to the optional script settings but core features like WM have to 'stay HOMM'
-You also don't want every skill to be complex mathematical structure that then needs to be explained to the player with a long complicated desc, for example I was about to post that in theory to buff vitality properly you should add a different number to every tier, but then remembered that from perspective of casual players you need skills that offer a very short desc with a simple mathematical problem to think about. This is also a bit related, why I want that stupid +10% boost from chain attack gone, it is just unnecessary complication and text space.
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frogo
frogo


Adventuring Hero
posted November 08, 2019 01:43 PM

@magno

agreed, the game should always stay intuitive. I dont like the ressource approach (or even finite shots for ballista).
If you want to weaken ballista (which i dont see as necesarry, but i dont mind it either), then just weaken ballista itself or flaming arrows.

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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted November 08, 2019 02:22 PM

Flaming arrows extra damage nerf sounds right, but Ballista is otherwise fine.

I can also vouch for Vitality +3. Pluses minuses considered, it would definitely make Defense a more viable skill for Stronghold and Necro

By the way, I wonder if there is a way to make the number of times Tent acts depend on the hero level...

Another idea I've had was to change the places of Engineering and Ballista in the skillwheel. To begin with, it makes more sense, as Ballista is a specific war machine where as Engineering is a more generic perk that works with all war machines.

Further, this way,

1) WM heroes start with Engineering as opposed to Ballista. Engineer class properly starts with Engineering. Makes sense to me.

2) It's possible to get Plague Tent with Engineering which adds to the usefulness of Plague Tent.

3) It's possible to get First Aid Tent and Catapult along with Engineering, which amounts to a good conqueror build.

4) It makes it impossible to have FAT, Catapult and Ballista in a single hero, which combined is very powerful, maybe too powerful (double hit points plus repair after combat for all war machines).





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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted November 08, 2019 04:33 PM

I once made a mod with 10 turn tent, but anything above 3 just causes 'combat dragging'.

Plague tent was being experimented with behind the scenes

I never felt locked into the 3 standard perks and to me this looks natural since they correspond to the 3 war machines.
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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted November 08, 2019 06:05 PM

magnomagus said:
I once made a mod with 10 turn tent, but anything above 3 just causes 'combat dragging'.

Plague tent was being experimented with behind the scenes

I never felt locked into the 3 standard perks and to me this looks natural since they correspond to the 3 war machines.



No, not 10 turns, but something like 5 turns for a level 40 Hero, 4 for level 20. That's the extent I had in mind.

About the Engineering perk though, you are in total denial  
What I suggested makes perfect sense...


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frogo
frogo


Adventuring Hero
posted November 08, 2019 06:17 PM
Edited by frogo at 19:19, 08 Nov 2019.

Quote:
in theory to buff vitality properly you should add a different number to every tier


not that this is anything we consider right now, but i still have to disagree here.
I love battle frenzy for example, exactly because its not a percentage of units DMG. This makes it a strong early game perk while still being a perk that buffs army, unlike most other early game perks that buff the hero/WM. Same could be the case with vitality, if its +3hp.
Adjusting towards tier (probs in an attempt to make it equally strong in relative gain) would basically turn it into what the offense skill is right now.

@Gryphn

1) makes sense i suppose. I dont really care though

2) I like this point. It feels like a nice way to make plague a little more viable to me.

3) Sounds like some PvAI stuff, cant say anything good or bad about that.

4) Here i got to agree with magno, i ve never felt like i was forced into these 3 or that it would be to strong. Generally ppl go for Tent+Ballista+Engeneering and no catapult in there. The catapult bonus itself is underwheliming and not losing your cart after battle is neat, but nothing you really need. If you are worried about losing your cart, give another one to your squiere hero.


bottom line:
I dont see anything against it and i like point 2), but im not sure if such minor gain justifies a change.


regarding tent uses to scale with hero lvl:

healing power already scales with hero lvl.
Making #uses scale with lvl again seems like unnecesarry complexity.
If you want to buff tent, make scaling higher (given that tent is picked by nearly every might hero, i m confident no buff is needed).
Obviously tent gets weaker towards the late game, but thats as it should be for a early game powerhouse like tent is.
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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted November 08, 2019 07:33 PM

Quote:
not that this is anything we consider right now, but i still have to disagree here.
I love battle frenzy for example, exactly because its not a percentage of units DMG. This makes it a strong early game perk while still being a perk that buffs army, unlike most other early game perks that buff the hero/WM. Same could be the case with vitality, if its +3hp.
Adjusting towards tier (probs in an attempt to make it equally strong in relative gain) would basically turn it into what the offense skill is right now.


yes my not-proposed proposal deserved to be further bashed into the ground, but +2 vitality already boosts both might and magic durability of t1 creatures by +40%/+33%. perhaps battle frenzy should just be +1 instead of +1+1. currently creeping is very focused on low tier creatures so should they be boosted further? If you are right fast t6 is not viable, then maybe for more gameplay variety it should be.

@war machines:
I forgot this also moves manual control to 2nd rank, intuitively the standard perks are about taking control, which I hate to change

theoretically: eng+control->2sh->3sh could be something, but then I don't like the icons anymore
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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted November 08, 2019 11:16 PM

magnomagus said:

@war machines:
I forgot this also moves manual control to 2nd rank, intuitively the standard perks are about taking control, which I hate to change

theoretically: eng+control->2sh->3sh could be something, but then I don't like the icons anymore


Standard perks are about control?? You just made that up Plus, why does it have to be the control of the Ballista and not the Tent?

Consider this again, please. Engineering at the core makes it so that you have three viable tracks after that: Ballista track, Tent track and Catapult track, with two perks on each. It is so much more intuitive than now...

What's wrong with the icons??
On the Tent track, two tent perks in-line, with two tent related icons,
On the Ballista track, two ballista perks in-line, with two ballista related icons,
and similar for the Catapult track.

I mean, come on, it doesn't get more intuitive than this.

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted November 09, 2019 12:23 AM

Quote:
why does it have to be the control of the Ballista and not the Tent?


?? the tent standard perk also takes control, it has been that way since homm3, the skills being primarily about taking control, I'm not teasing you i mean this very seriously

There are already more than 3 viable tracks: triple ballista, 3x standard, and anything that goes with tent.

Quote:
What's wrong with the icons??


i was talking about hypothetical situation were new skill is created that combines ballista control with engineering

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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted November 09, 2019 10:07 AM

magnomagus said:
Quote:
why does it have to be the control of the Ballista and not the Tent?


?? the tent standard perk also takes control, it has been that way since homm3, the skills being primarily about taking control, I'm not teasing you i mean this very seriously




I'm not talking about that, duh, of course I know this.
I'm talking about the fact that you want to keep Ballista control, which is very specific, as the starting perk. I was teasing you with why not start with Tent control.

What I'm ultimately suggesting is that the starting perk should be Engineering, which is a nonspecific WM perk.

PS: Oh these miscommunications

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frogo
frogo


Adventuring Hero
posted November 09, 2019 10:47 AM
Edited by frogo at 11:32, 09 Nov 2019.

Quote:
perhaps battle frenzy should just be +1 instead of +1+1


I feared you would say this Please dont take away the only early game perk that buffs army instead of hero/WM. Battle frenzy is a perfectly balanced perk i think. Its strong early game, but not overpowered and it gets weak in late game.

Quote:
currently creeping is very focused on low tier creatures so should they be boosted further? If you are right fast t6 is not viable, then maybe for more gameplay variety it should be.


Its natural that early game you have more lower tier units and anything buffing those will be a strong early game perk.
Creeping with T6 is possible in general.
On ARMG it can never be possible, as games end before t6 creeping could come in effect. On maps that take longer, creeping with t6, or better t7, is a valid option.

I m confident nerfing battle frenzy is the wrong way to approach the balance between vitality and battle frenzy. vitality is a mostly unused perk, battle frenzy is used, but far from being a must (as it should be).

_______________________________________________________________
regarding WM:

I think for an engineer, it would be nice if the starting perk didnt already specify on one particular war machine. Engeneering being the only perk that buffs WM in general makes sense to me as a starting perk. Also it being first row makes sense to me, so you can better combine it with the other WMs.
I think the layout would still be very intuitive, with each arm having 2 consecutive skills for each type of WM.
You indeed lose the first row=control attribute,
but i think its not to big of a deal.
It stays intuitive and becomes more flexible.
So i agree with Gryphn here.


In the end i dont mind either option, but keep battle frenzy alive

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tzening
tzening


Adventuring Hero
posted November 09, 2019 11:40 AM
Edited by tzening at 12:12, 09 Nov 2019.

Was the strategy of 6 stack of Warlords speed buffing the stack of Untamed Cyclops nerfed in here? I tested out the theory with only 14 Cyclops but the enemy is still faster then I was as I could only get a single hit in before getting wrecked. Was there simply not enough troops for it to be effective?

EDIT: At the final scenario of the Stronghold campaign, the huge neutral stacks meant that I can’t advance properly, having to constantly backtrack for troops. I also lacked War Machines skill. Any tips?

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Bulya
Bulya


Adventuring Hero
posted November 09, 2019 12:39 PM

Quote:
currently creeping is very focused on low tier creatures so should they be boosted further? If you are right fast t6 is not viable, then maybe for more gameplay variety it should be.


The reason fast t6 is not a viable way to go on ARMG maps and many other PvP maps is because its too slow for a might hero to go for.

Magic heroes can go without waiting for t6 no matter how good the might skills are, and the same goes for some heroes based on war machines. While those war machines heroes are about to be nerfed with the flaming arrows nerf, it won't weaken magic heroes.

If we want to maintain the balance of might vs magic and make fast t6 creeping viable we'll have to either nerf early game magic abilities, or give might heroes a boost in the late game and go back to how it was when might was weak early on but way stronger later on and magic vs might was about whether the magic one can do it early enough or from the might perspective whether the might one can survive long enough. I don't really think we want to take this route, as it is interesting how it is now where magic and might are quite balanced on both small maps and large maps. On ARMG maps magic heroes lack wells sometimes, which is why might is stronger on them, at least early on (but then magic has a problem to catch up).
But on a map like Deadly Environment I think that magic and might have good chances even though the map is bigger then say Lets Fight!, another map where it can be done with both, magic and might.

How well Magic vs Might can go is also dependent on the map, but at least it doesn't dependent on how big the map is.

If we tweak the balance toward t6 creeping by weakening the existing ways of creeping for might, magic will become too strong vs both strategies. And we'll have to nerf magic as well. I think it will be too complicated to balance it then.

Might is already being nerfed with the stun nerf and the flaming arrows nerf. Nerfing it further can be dangerous.

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted November 09, 2019 12:45 PM

@tzening:

This strategy never crossed my mind, so it's unlikely i nerfed it

@WM:

You guys really make me rethink this over and over, which is good

but i can really only find additional layers of sucking,

both the catapult line and the resurrection boost have in common that they are not really for 1v1 human games, but more for 1vs5Ai games were you have to wreck 10 towns and beat a whole string of main heroes.

the ballista is the generally useful wm, the others are situational. the healing tent doesn't benefit much from initiative, you frequently need it delayed anyway. In fact if you have engineering you must have at least ballista, since otherwise the skillpoint won't pay off.

also if you already have brimstone rain do you really think it is better to add +2 initiative to it, then have a fully functional ballista that can be further improved with flaming arrows and ring of machines? No chance in hell

also if you want to double down on 'vs army dmg' with plague tent you also better spread your odds with ballista then +2 ini the tent which is easier to destroy by the enemy.

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Quantomas
Quantomas


Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
posted November 09, 2019 03:52 PM

dredknight said:
Btw, Q, this type of thinking can be used by the AI to estimate AI strength and progression as well. What do you think?

In principle what you guys are doing is static balancing, i.e. adapting the rules to benefit the gameplay to work on any map reasonably. Magno is right in his analysis that with this approach, given the complexity of H5, there will always be maps that are skewed in favour of specific skills/perks. There is no perfect solution unless you want to make everything equal. The fun is actually in not everything being equal.

The (new) AI can do dynamic balancing. I didn't say anything about it so far, as it is hard to fathom that this can work reasonably without knowing the details or seeing it work. If you like I can say a bit more here.

Regarding WM, please correct me if MMH55 has changed this fundamentally, the ammo cart supports the army by supplying unlimited ammo, thus boosting ranged troops. The catapult is a device that is designed to do limited damage to the walls/towers over time, giving the walls substance and thus an advantage to the defender, which could be used strategically. The tent delays taking damage somewhat, slowing the battle, whereas the plague tent accelerates it. But if you add buffs/debuffs (removing negative effects, or adding these) it has a structural impact on the battle, like having a perk like magic resistance.

The ballista is mostly just a tool to dish out damage, with the exception of the burning status. Together with the hero action it provides a base damage output that prevents stalemates, accelerates the battle, and can be exploited with high ini/speed creatures. This base damage output changes the flow of the game if the armies are weak, mostly at the beginning of a game, for a time that depends on the map, more significantly if the map is poor in gold/resources/mana.

The most significant aspect here is that the ballista and hero actions serve the same purpose, which matters on maps where the base damage output of these two make a significant difference for creeping and thus development speed. If the map further impairs the hero action of specific classes, for example no mana wells, the classes that have more limited access to WM/ballista are at a disadvantage.

As said above, that's not necessarily a problem. But the situation could be somewhat improved if the hero action and ballista are seen together and balanced for a larger variety of cases. For example making the ballista more useful for magic hero creeping, but not as powerful as magic hero creeping with sufficient mana. It is also possible to tie the use of the ballista and the hero action closer together.

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frogo
frogo


Adventuring Hero
posted November 09, 2019 04:17 PM
Edited by frogo at 16:21, 09 Nov 2019.

Quote:
In principle what you guys are doing is static balancing, i.e. adapting the rules to benefit the gameplay to work on any map reasonably. Magno is right in his analysis that with this approach, given the complexity of H5, there will always be maps that are skewed in favour of specific skills/perks. There is no perfect solution unless you want to make everything equal. The fun is actually in not everything being equal.


This is rather obvious and i dont think anyone will speak against it.
But right now we are far from havng a static balance. It is more about things not being OP in basically every situation (like current chain/stun) and also things shouldnt be completly OP in any general situations (for example WM shouldnt completly dominate every small map).
Given all the factors that go into how strong a skill is (creeps, hero, enemy hero, mapsize etc.) a perks strength will always depends on the current situation and trying to find what perks/combinations are strong in your current situation is part of the fun.
I dont think we are at any risk of losing this.

I dont think turning magic heroes into WM heroes for maps without wells is a good option. Lore aside, I dont see why i would go for a magic hero here in the first place. If i want a strong tent/ballista, i ll just pick a might hero. Making magic heroes viable on a map via adding wells certainly doesnt turn it into a static balance. It just makes more heroes playable.


Generally the approach should be to try and balance things as good as possible. The diffrent nature of skills/perks/WM/magic will create a non static balance on its own.
Actually you are at a higher risk to create a static balance by not trying to balance things anymore. The more balanced your options are, the bigger effect a slight change in the situation has on what is the optimal solution.
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Quantomas
Quantomas


Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
posted November 09, 2019 04:30 PM
Edited by Quantomas at 16:46, 09 Nov 2019.

Well, yes, you choose your faction/class/hero after looking at the map (or what you know of it).

If you are content that some maps are mostly featuring contests between certain types of factions/classes it's fine.

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frogo
frogo


Adventuring Hero
posted November 09, 2019 04:36 PM
Edited by frogo at 16:57, 09 Nov 2019.

I am not sure if i quiete get you here.
My point exactly is to try and balance things so that a variety of factions/classes can be played. (For example i am in favor of adding wells to ARMG maps(or that outpost thing magnu suggested) and nerfing chain/stun).

I suppose you could say i could just give WM and chain/stun to all heroes so they all can be played on any map where these things are superior, but the variety you create there is an empty bubble. You may be able to choose from a big pool of heroes, but only because they all play the same. You still cant go for magic or the likes.
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Quantomas
Quantomas


Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
posted November 09, 2019 04:48 PM

That's why I suggested to see WM and hero action as one unit.

Maybe there are smart solutions. Like WM and hero sharing ini, or something entirely different that approaches this balance creatively.

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted November 09, 2019 04:57 PM

Quote:
The (new) AI can do dynamic balancing. I didn't say anything about it so far, as it is hard to fathom that this can work reasonably without knowing the details or seeing it work. If you like I can say a bit more here.


I'm not sure what you mean, but here is what I would currently consider dynamic balancing: with regards to neutral resistance i made some additions to growth curves so that if the chosen map is bigger and/or there are more towns per player on it, the growth will be faster, therefore balance will adapt to the kind of map being played.

Quote:
Regarding WM, please correct me if MMH55 has changed this fundamentally,


MMH55 hasn't, for reasons stated in my post on top of this page

Quote:
For example making the ballista more useful for magic hero creeping


it is exactly the other way around since, wm is might skill, so used by might heroes as alternative to destruction magic. In the end it is about the visual immersion of the player. As in an rpg were a barbarian fights with axe and mage with staff, they still get the same results, dead enemies.
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