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Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Modders Workshop > Thread: [MMH5.5] Skill System Design
Thread: [MMH5.5] Skill System Design This thread is 14 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 · «PREV / NEXT»
Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted June 08, 2016 02:55 AM

Hey, all.

So, I personally saw/see some awkwardness within the Skill system still (though it is infinitely better than it was in Vanilla), and I shared some of my thoughts with magnomagus.  He clarified some things, corrected some of my errors, and pointed out some stuff I was suggesting that was impossible.  I've trimmed off those excesses and am offering a more curt version of that write-up here, with short explanations.  Would appreciate feedback.  Thank you.  ^_^


LIGHT MAGIC

Twilight - Only affects specific schools, but gives a bigger bonus.  Waiting till level 30 seems a tad harsh though for the extra bonus that only works with specific schools, and I'd rather stick with the typical level 20 extra bonus, whether or not we reduce that to +2.

Guardian Angel - Does this ability work as intended?  I feel like it doesn't, because it's quite drastically underwhelming:  the strongest group gets a wimpy resurrection of units, which I can then cut down instantly with the next hit.  Doesn't really accomplish anything.  What I actually expected from the ability is that the WHOLE GROUP recovers, which would seem more on the mark.


WAR MACHINES

My suggestion here is simply to swap Engineering and Ballista.  That way the First Aid Tent and especially Catapult will be more on par with a full Ballista load, which is unquestionably strong.


OFFENCE

Retribution - Description needs clarification.  Seems to suggest that you can get extra bonus damage on Morale levels above 5, even though Morale itself gets no additional bonus above 5.  Is this correct?

Offensive Formation - It occurred to me that it could be interesting for this to offer +1 Speed instead of its current bonus in order to blend with Tactics and make Tactics less of a circumstantial choice, as the +1 Speed trait from Leadership isn't available to Heroes that are not Might Heroes.  But, this could be too strong.


COMBAT

Retaliation Strike - Much like Vanilla, this doesn't activate reliably, making its usefulness really questionable, especially against a Human player.  It seems fair to give it the +3 level damage bonus because of this.  But moreover, because of its questionable value in general, I'd suggest that NO HERO should ever start with it as a trait, that way the player has more flexibility to pick useful choices if he/she should so desire.

Unstoppable Charge - Powerful, but because of Retaliation Strike's limitations, I don't see why other prerequisites are required to get it.  It's just fine without other prerequisites.

Preparation - Again, I don't see the need for other prerequisites here.  It's a really cool ability, but only activates when using defend (meaning you're not attacking and are potentially wasting turns), and it's not like your unit gets additional retaliations overall save a couple exceptions...so this ends up being in most battles a mostly non-useful trait with potential circumstantial uses.  I'd just remove the other prerequisites and it should be okay - but even then, I still might not choose it.

Avenging Strike/Chain Attack - I suggest moving the +3 level bonus from Chain Attack to Avenging Strike:  Chain Attack is way more reliable because its your own unit AND the ability offers Critical Strike, too, so that's two bonuses to one over Avenging Strike besides the +3 level bonus - it really doesn't need it.


ENLIGHTENMENT

First off, we need a clarification between the game's description and the skill wheel as to whether this is giving a bonus every 2 levels or every 3 at expert level.  Either way, even the 1 for 3 seems extremely powerful to me and I'd like to see it weaker, however 1 for 4 seems too mild.  A thought I had was to cap the bonus at 8 points maximum and leave it at that, or 10 or something.  But whatever, maybe it's fine at 1 for 3.  Thoughts?

STRUCTURE CHANGE - I suggest the following moves in the tree.

Intelligence-Graduate (Graduate gives free level instead of +1000 experience)
Eagle Eye-Scholar-Mentoring
Swift Mind-Arcane Exaltation

Now we have three themes that each work well together:  one gives the hero extra early punch and power; one gives the hero more spell points and knowledge; and the last enables the hero to learn more spells, teach those spells to others, and then give experience to others.  And the first of this last set (Eagle Eye) is actually useful to the main hero, unlike Scholar that has limited benefits.

Also, I suggest dropping the Mentoring bonus even lower, perhaps only to 5%.


DEFENCE

Stand Your Ground - I realize that this is a weak buffer for the skill coming after it, but even then this seems a bit too awful.  If defending can't also offer something like a Hit Point bonus from this, then I'd suggest increasing the Defence bonus it offers, as high as 60%.  If I'm going to skip my unit's turn and bank a skill on it, it had BETTER be worth it!


LUCK

This is just my observation, but Dead Man's Curse, while being useful, seems lacking somehow when one considers that the tree required to get to it is very defensive, whereas the two other trees in Luck are quite aggressive.  But I don't know what to make of it.


LOGISTICS

Mining - I suggest one extra resource per day at level 20.  Otherwise, seems kind of underwhelming on a Main Hero.

Otherwise, I suggest re-organization this tree a little.  Pathfinding is just too self-evident a choice for a Main Hero, and it warrants level 2 standing; it seems odd thematically that Scouting and Pathfinding should be separated; Battlefield Logistics seems kind of underwhelming especially when one could have Snatch, when in the right circumstances just offers so much maneuvering benefits that it outstrips Battlefield Logistics in most anything it could do; finally, the boat loading/docking of Snatch is crazy and really has to go.

Two thoughts on re-arranging this.

Idea #1
Estates-Mining
Navigation-Battlefield Logistics-Snatch
Scouting-Pathfinding

Idea #2
Estates-Mining
Scouting-Battlefield Logistics-Snatch
Navigation-Pathfinding

Or others.  In any case, the middle stream just offers a Main too much, and those particular 5 skills could offer more strategic options and balance.


LEADERSHIP

Empathy - One of the only skills that potentially offers a hazard, and the bonus isn't SUPER strong, so this is kind of stupid if you ask me.  I'd just drop the penalty half of it.

Recruitment - I'd rather see this working more like the Legion artifacts and giving the extra troops directly to the Hero instead of forcing the Hero to be in the town at week's end.  12 level 1 units after a whole month is kind of a bummer.


SHATTER LIGHT

Suggest swapping Fire Resistance with Mana Burst from Shatter Destructive.  Fire Resistance actually makes sense in Shatter Destructive because that's part of the whole point of that skill:  Mana Burst placed here makes the acquiring of such an optional skill in this tree actually useful.


SHATTER DESTRUCTIVE

Suggest swapping Mana Burst with Fire Resistance from Shatter Light, as explained above.

Also suggest swapping Celestial Shield with Protection from Shatter Dark - again, Protection makes sense in a Shatter skill that's concentrated on the Magic type that does direct damage, so Protection makes sense here.


SHATTER DARK

Suggest swapping Protection with Celestial Shield from Shatter Destructive as described above.  Celestial Shield also has more thematic use here, as the kind of spells you're trying to shatter are spells like Frenzy, where your troops are going to get hurt by other troops and you can't stop that by a direct damage magic reduction:  Celestial Shield could be used on particular troops to absorb some of the damage.


SUMMONING MAGIC

Master of Life - Is good for Necropolis, but otherwise pretty underwhelming.  I actually suggest that it would additionally do what Advanced Shatter skills usually do - summon elementals in towns.  This makes up for having extra spell power on a spell (Fist of Wrath) that I will probably never end up using again as soon as I have pretty much any other spell in the Summoning list.

Banish - I guess there's nothing wrong with this, but based on what it does, you'd expect to see it in Shatter Summoning.  Fog Veil could make an interesting swap, but it's fine the way it is, too.

Tremors - Sufficiently circumstantial and weak that I think the ATB reduction should be notably stronger, or the damage.


DESTRUCTIVE MAGIC

Cold Death - Honestly, pretty underwhelming; does all but squat on weaker enemies, and while useful on a tier 6 or 7, the difference just isn't that much.  In some sense, the +2 Spellpower is really all I'm getting out of it.  I think another +2 Spellpower when picked would put this on par with the other trees in this skill set, or a different effect altogether.

Secrets of Destruction - +4 Knowledge is okay, I guess, since one is probably going to aim for Empowered Spells if using Destructive Magic, anyways.  Nevertheless, the incredible bonuses offered in the Fire strand of the tree, and the obvious weakness of the Lightning bonus (only affects one unit and doesn't strike me nearly as good as the Fireball perk...), makes this skill unappealing.  Don't have a good suggestion for it right now, though.


DARK MAGIC

Dark Renewal - The relation to Sorcery to determine ATB value forces too much interdependence between skills.  I'd just set it to 0.4 across the board and leave it like that.

Suffering Strike - I'm trying to remember how often I've actually seen my Hero with this skill ever use it.  It's actually pretty worthless when you think about it, because you can already cast Mass Suffering, and your Magic Hero probably has better things to do than be making normal hits when he could be casting spells.  Only has any real purpose on a Might Hero who has taken Dark Magic just to use this trait in his normal attacks.  Very weird.


OCCULTISM

Cultmaster - The spellcaster recruitment is good, but the exploding corpse damage is garbage, besides the fact that the use of that damage is almost entirely circumstantial.  The explosion damage needs help.

Empowered Spells - Too useful to be level 1.  Swap with Exorcism.

Pariah - This ability just seems very strange and random.  Again, for the secondary bonus, I'd stay away from the level 30 stuff - +4 at level 20 is fine.  Anyways, it seems strange because it focuses on Dark Magic in particular for the initial bonus, which is useless if you don't have Dark Magic, and potentially too strong if you do.  I would just revise this entirely.


GATING

Swarming Gate - Typo here, "Luck" spelled as "Lick" in one instance...


NECROMANCY

Chilling Bones - Pretty underwhelming considering all the other things I could be choosing.  Buff to 10%.

Eternal Servitude - Some numbers on this skill's effects could be useful.

Unholy Crusade - First off, I don't even know what Swamp terrain is, because H5 doesn't have Swamp.  Secondly, pretty underwhelming for a 3rd-class ability:  I will sometimes get +1 Speed, and get bonuses from artifacts that I may or may not have or use.  Why would I pick this skill?  +7.5% Initiative to all Evil creatures in the Hero's army seems like where it's at:  global and useful.


AVENGER

Imbue Ballista - Any way to remove the bug that drops the Hero's ATB when the ability fires?  If not, this skill is pretty self-defeating.

Battle Commander - If there was no cap on the troops joining and I got another +2 attack at level 20, I might pick this.


ARTIFICER

There are weak links in this skill tree (March of the Golems is useful, but I think less useful than other choices; and Academy Award I'd aim for if it offered more money), I think just re-arranging the skills would offer more possibilities.

Consume Artifact-Magic Mirror
Academy Award-Remote Control
March of the Golems-Artificial Glory

You have to wait till level 2 for the really strong stuff now, and you only get to pick one of them.

Lastly, kill Arcane Omniscience.  :/


RUNELORE

Kill Absolute Protection, and I'm good.


SHOUT

Well whatever.


BLOODRAGE

Goblin Support - The value of this, as I can understand it, is to keep Goblins in the army at all times, which will feed Daughters and Cyclopes in case you happen to lose all your Goblins on a trip.  Useful, but very circumstantial, especially since the Goblin numbers aren't that high.  Throw in more Goblins, and I'm good.

Defend Us All - I guess I wouldn't want this on my Main Hero unless it had double the reinforcements - but a good 3-4 side Heroes with this who are level 15+ could make a good army.  I don't know.


SORCERY

I understand why Sorcery isn't reducing times for Mass spells, although I don't see why the effect couldn't just be *lower* - like 4/8/12 instead.  A thought.

Wisdom - Kind of boring as most spells gained here won't have any value anyways without the proper mastery.  Adding a free level-up when the skill is acquired seems appropriate.

Anyways, Sorcery inspires from me another comment, which is something I observe that I think would be helpful generally when thinking about casting.

This has to do specifically with duration spells in general, and even the AI more particularly.  We moved from a system where spells lasted a turn per power generally (making even a low spell power pretty much always sufficient for duration spells) to a system where spell power determines duration, but with less effect.  Overall, I don't think this is an improvement, but actually creates new and different problems.  Here's what I'm seeing.

1.  Non-Mastery spells suck worse than ever.  Of course not having Mastery in a spell school should mean that the spell isn't that good, but it ought not be worthless - at least in Vanilla, I could have a really weak spell that lasted a while; now, it isn't even worth bothering most of the time.

2.  This follows from #1, and is a very specific AI problem.  The AI generally seems to enjoy casting non-mastery spells if it doesn't know what else to do - I've seen countless times when the AI opts to Slow some random unit of mine, when I'm sure the AI could have done something better.  Now, this bad AI move sucks even more.

3.  This follows from #2 - not only does the AI's random non-mastery spellcasting suck more than usual, but because the duration of a low spellpower spell is so low, it RE-CASTS the spell more often, too!  Thus, I see perfectly good Might Heroes not using their standard attacks because they are relentlessly casting and re-casting spells that are utterly worthless.

4.  Even Magic heroes that are low-level and don't have a super high spellpower yet have problems making duration spells useful earlier on:  sometimes, I just can't justify using a duration with my Magic Hero, because it isn't going to last long enough to be worth it.  Contrari-wise, Magic Heroes (or even Might Heroes) with high spellpower later in the game have spell durations that are everlasting just like Vanilla, so that doesn't really change the end situation, which is what we were trying to avoid.

I realize that we want Might Heroes to be Might Heroes and Magic Heroes to be Magic Heroes, and this is a good thing, but I think we need to make concessions to the AI to keep it challenging, and that the design of this could be better anyways.  So, I have an idea.

I suggest generally static-duration duration spells, with a few exceptions (like Frenzy, Puppet Master, maybe others, but we can talk about that).  That is to say - spellpower will generally have NO EFFECT on the duration of the spell, but could have an effect on its overall power.  Spells need to be strong enough at no mastery to be worth casting, and weak enough at the best mastery to keep Magic Heroes working.  Finally, the idiot AI needs to have something in place so its stupidity is cut down to a minimum.  Here's a first idea, but please suggest others.

No Mastery - 4-turn duration, maybe 3
Basic - Also 4-turn duration
Advanced - 5-turn duration
Expert - 6-turn duration

So the best spells will last a while and likely a whole battle, but after a certain time, you WILL need to re-cast them (brings a bit more legitimacy to having Sorcery have minor effects on Mass spells as well), regardless of your Hero's spellpower.  Spells with no mastery will have a crummy effect, but at least you can count on it - and so can the AI.  Thus every spell is valuable at every level, but within set limitations.  What do you all think.


And that...is it!  The end of my presentation.

Cheers!  
-Gidoza

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 08, 2016 11:18 AM

Seeing as there is little reason to pick both light and dark, maybe twilight should be in a more neutral skill like sorcery or enlightenment.

Angel guardian value is probably hardcoded, would be nice if magno can improve it.

If memory serves retribution is also capped at 5 morale.

Preparation is pretty alright as it is, no need for shortcuts.

Stand Your Ground could have even been a basic perk, yeah. Some buffing might be appropriate.

Empathy used to be about equal to sorcery and it was just one ability. 5-6% is fine.

Dark Renewal is fine, dark users tend to pick sorcery anyway.

Imbue Ballista atb drop is not a bug but the imbue build is no longer relevant without destructive on rangers..

March of the Golems would be more useful if titans were made into constructs Canonically it wouldn't exactly be wrong either. As a plus, artificial glory would also become more useful.

Wisdom could also be improved by revising untrained t3 spell values. But I think that getting access to raise dead and regeneration from wisdom is fairly useful. If it got a buff I'd settle for some minor stat boost like +1-2 knowledge or maybe a free spell but a level up sounds too much.

Duration being tied to spellpower is the best solution imo. You just have to find the fine line so that might heroes do not have too much duration but are not limited to 1 turn effects either. As a rule of thumb, a base 1 duration plus one every 3-5 sp would sound good to me but I do not remember 5.5 individual spell values.
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dredknight
dredknight


Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
posted June 08, 2016 01:43 PM

Elvin said:
Stand Your Ground could have even been a basic perk, yeah. Some buffing might be appropriate.

Stand you ground is strong perk, it doubles the bonus (from 30 to 60%) when using defend command which is really useful.
Elvin said:

Wisdom could also be improved by revising untrained t3 spell values. But I think that getting access to raise dead and regeneration from wisdom is fairly useful. If it got a buff I'd settle for some minor stat boost like +1-2 knowledge or maybe a free spell but a level up sounds too much.
Wisdom is all right as it is.

Elvin said:
Duration being tied to spellpower is the best solution imo. You just have to find the fine line so that might heroes do not have too much duration but are not limited to 1 turn effects either. As a rule of thumb, a base 1 duration plus one every 3-5 sp would sound good to me but I do not remember 5.5 individual spell values.


Your proposal is incredibly OP. Just do the math hero with 10 SP will be able to cast blind for full 3 rounds which three full hero turns (without sorcery). Magno is currently fixing that anyway.

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 08, 2016 02:05 PM

I had forgotten about the stand your ground boost, 60% is more like it

And obviously I was not referring to high tier spells but low level buffs/curses.
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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted June 08, 2016 04:18 PM

From the looks of this you will like a lot of changes in next version but

-swift mind is a very strong skill must be L2
-pathfinding is weaker than 1 logistics level, must be L1
-shatter skills have on purpose perks that make them more generally useful
-cold death actually gives +7 SP on tier 7

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 08, 2016 10:52 PM
Edited by Elvin at 22:53, 08 Jun 2016.

Elvin said:
March of the Golems would be more useful if titans were made into constructs

After a test it seems that while golems get +2 initiative/speed, other mechanical units only get +2 speed. That would be great for the melee titans though a change into mechanical would also mean no regeneration/resurrection which would hurt academy.
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Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted June 09, 2016 12:29 PM

magnomagus said:
From the looks of this you will like a lot of changes in next version


Okay, cool.

Quote:
but -swift mind is a very strong skill must be L2


Fair enough, I guess the two I suggested could be swapped so the Power boost comes first.


Quote:
-pathfinding is weaker than 1 logistics level, must be L1


What???  Could you explain how?  I guess I need to know the numbers for terrain movement in general, and to this day I've yet to see them in any manual or description, and haven't been able to find details with internet searches.  So my best guess was to use H3 numbers - 175% movement on Swamp or 150% on Snow/Sand was brutal and made Pathfinding win over Logistics for those terrain types for sure.


Quote:
-shatter skills have on purpose perks that make them more generally useful


I guess I need some kind of explanation for this one - as I just don't see how Fire Resistance in Shatter Light is generally useful, or 20% damage reduction in Shatter Dark is generally useful.  I guess the reason I suggested some swaps is precisely because several things there are NOT generally useful, and potentially not useful at all.


Quote:
-cold death actually gives +7 SP on tier 7


I don't understand what this means.  I get +7 Spell Power against Tier 7 units?   Either way, I see nothing in the description about this...and whatever this might be, I don't see what it has to do with the ability?

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted June 09, 2016 12:53 PM
Edited by magnomagus at 14:49, 09 Jun 2016.

-pathfinding, based on the math, all terrain penalties in H5.5 are 25%.

-generally useful = not only useful for countering one and the same magic school.

-deep freeze has x40 multiplier, to kill an extra 200HP you need otherwise 5SP + 2 bonus
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Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted June 10, 2016 10:52 PM

magnomagus said:
-pathfinding, based on the math, all terrain penalties in H5.5 are 25%.


Ah this makes sense then.  Yeah Pathfinding level 1 is right on with these numbers.


Quote:
-generally useful = not only useful for countering one and the same magic school.


Fire Resistance is still generally useful in Shatter Destruction, or Celestial Shield in Dark, and so on.  Their usefulness isn't restricted to these.  The issue is that unless some of these are re-arranged, they are very much *not* useful where they are.  If on the other hand your plan was to have each Shatter set be able to "dip" into resisting other schools in some way as well, then I think that this could still be set up better than it is now.  Either way, I'm not very convinced at the moment.


Quote:
-deep freeze has x40 multiplier, to kill an extra 200HP you need otherwise 5SP + 2 bonus


Okay, I see where you're going here, though iit's still weak:  it means you need to target level 7 units or maybe level 6 units to get a benefit out of it, and otherwise are gaining little to nothing.  This is besides the fact that I find the value of Deep Freeze to be more in the physical damage increase than the DD from the spell - any reason I have to use the spell will mostly be for that.  If I'm not aiming for the DD bonus, then why am I not using Implosion?  Shall an entire skill tree be dependent on whether I'm holding the ice-boosting 50% Artifact?

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted June 11, 2016 12:30 AM

Quote:
If on the other hand your plan was to have each Shatter set be able to "dip" into resisting other schools in some way as well,


Yes that is exactly the plan
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Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted June 11, 2016 05:03 AM

magnomagus said:
Quote:
If on the other hand your plan was to have each Shatter set be able to "dip" into resisting other schools in some way as well,


Yes that is exactly the plan


Okay, that makes sense and I can work with that.  My issue is, that I don't think it does as good a job as you think it does...

For example, Fire Resistance (By the way, did you increase the power of this in the last version?  I don't remember its being this strong...)

So this is going to reduce Fire damage, right.  We'll find that on Fireballs, Armageddons, Hellfire, and a smattering of random units, and probably a couple other things that I'm not recalling at the moment.

Problem 1:  So if I'm a caster tempted to use Fireball, I will probably just shrug my shoulders and laugh at this.  If I have Fireball by means other than Destructive Magic, my Fireball isn't that strong anyways, and I'm probably not going to be relying on it too severely.  On the other hand, if I do have Destructive Magic, then the very fact that I can learn these spells naturally means that I have others that are either just as damaging or better, unless I'm extremely unlucky:  I'll be more than happy to cast Chain Lightning, Circle of Winter, Implosion, Deep Freeze, Meteor Shower, all of which I think do more damage than a Fireball anyways, and it's not as though I just cast Armageddon willy-nilly because I can.  Maybe a Destructive caster won't cast the spell he desired, but ultimately the result here will be that he shrugs his shoulders and picks something else that doesn't have a damage reduction.  No harm done.

Problem 2:  I don't know about you, but I don't exactly see the investment of 3 skills for Fire Resistance against Inferno to be a very good investment.  How many Inferno heroes do you know of that are regularly using Light Magic?  It can happen, but it would be ridiculous to bank on it and build a hero around it.

Problem 3:  Fire Resistance just to reduce a Dragon's damage output a little if it happens to hit a second target?  I don't think so...though it would be useful against a Summoner using Phoenix/Fire Elementals, which I think is the most useful thing I can come up with.

Essentially:  In theory, the idea  is really nice that it could affect other magic schools or have secondary effects, but practically speaking, the ability is almost completely useless here.  If I wanted to see it have meaningful effects of some kind, it would either need to be in Shatter Destruction where it would be adding insult to injury, or in Shatter Dark where it would still be mostly feeble, but at least have a chance of accomplishing something against a Demon Lord.  My point is, this isn't very convincing.


On the other hand, something like Celestial Shield could be absolutely anywhere at all and it would be useful - but here, using this as an argument that it has a secondary effect on other schools is then superfluous.

Protection in Dark Magic is more clear on its secondary status and one can't really give an argument against its being there if secondary status against some other school is the aim - and obviously, this one would be Destructive; though would be pretty unimpressionable against the other schools, hence why I raise the question, because the secondary status is very pointed in one direction.

Again, Mana Burst in Destructive Magic could really be anywhere just like Celestial Shield, so there's no reason to have it there in particular.

Now, if we look at Shatter Summoning - in fact, I can't even see anything there at all that would have any kind of meaningful effect on another magic school, though it *would* have an effect on Gating.

Skills like Fog Veil or Storm Wind could also just be anywhere because they have nothing to do with repelling particular schools.


Overall, I don't see what's wrong with "dipping" into resisting other schools; however, my issues with the idea are the following.

1.  It is bad thematically - I'm picking Shatter Destructive (let's say) to make a mess of Destructive Magic, not to randomly tinker with other magic school types.

2.  The effects that secondarily effect some other school are either completely useless or so generic that categorizing them doesn't make a difference.

3.  Shatter Summoning doesn't even attempt to follow the rules that you're trying to set out for the Shatter Skills, so any kind of pattern or system that could be ascertained from the current system certainly isn't obvious.


The way I see it, in order for the resistance "dipping" to be meaningful, it would require either changing the effects of skills or skill-swapping between the Shatter Skills anyways.  No matter what, we have some work to do, here.

All that said, in the end I'm willing to work towards a better "dipping" system if you insist on it, but ultimately I think a "hard counter" method really is the better way and makes much more sense.


Alternately - I might add that one of the more sad aspects of the Shatter Skills is that the 2nd and 3rd-tier picks are all connected to Corrupt, which greatly devalues Weaken and Detain in alot of situations.  I realize that the tree can't be tied to all three at once; nevertheless, I wonder whether an alternative structure of some kind (where the present 2nd and 3rd tier choices are split up in different 2-tier trees, or if Detain/Weaken became tier 2 somewhere, etc...) wouldn't offer more interesting strategic options and limitations that would be interesting to explore.


Thanks for the inspiration.  
-Gidoza

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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted June 11, 2016 05:31 PM
Edited by thGryphn at 17:38, 11 Jun 2016.

^ I think you're underestimating the usefulness of Fire Resistance.

Afaik, Fireball does more damage per spellpower to a single unit than any other spell, and it's typically the choice of a Destructive Magic caster. Couple that with the armor damaging effect of Master of Fire AND Ignite, you can see how fire spells in general are very effective. That is, without Fire Resistance

With Fire Resistance, you're taking all these away from the enemy caster. Sure, there are other Destructive spells, but still.

One perk nullifying 5 others (Master of Fire, Fiery Wrath, Ignite, Hellfire, Hellwrath) and partly Flaming Arrows, AND becoming a potential lifesaver against certain creatures with fire based attacks, is nothing minor in my book.




Edit: I don't think there needs to be a mission to make each and every Shatter skill to dip into others, and I see the point of asking Fire Resistance to be placed in Shatter Destructive instead. Add insult to injury

@magno, how about swapping Fire Resistance and Celestial Shield, both perks to be third in line in their new homes?

Don't worry about icon colors, I can make them fit in their new homes nicely

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted June 11, 2016 06:12 PM
Edited by magnomagus at 18:17, 11 Jun 2016.

Each shatter skill can already invest the max of 6 slots in shattering the school it is supposed to shatter, so there is no point in adding more perks that do that.

EDIT: shatter light+fire is great against fortress & academy, shatter dark+protection is similarly great against inferno & dungeon
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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted June 11, 2016 06:42 PM

magnomagus said:
Each shatter skill can already invest the max of 6 slots in shattering the school it is supposed to shatter, so there is no point in adding more perks that do that.



But it's all about choice, just like in other skills. Fire Resistance vs Detain, for example...

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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted June 11, 2016 06:51 PM

Quote:
Edit: I don't think there needs to be a mission to make each and every Shatter skill to dip into others


That is because you underestimate the risk of investing all 6 slots in countering one magic school in PvP multiplayer.

In the current setup every shatter is a more flexible counter to various factions.
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Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted June 13, 2016 01:50 PM

magnomagus said:
Quote:
Edit: I don't think there needs to be a mission to make each and every Shatter skill to dip into others


That is because you underestimate the risk of investing all 6 slots in countering one magic school in PvP multiplayer.

In the current setup every shatter is a more flexible counter to various factions.


Could you explain how?  It would certainly help.  As I described above - either I don't see it, or the abilities in question are generic enough that this isn't really that useful of a statement.

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dredknight
dredknight


Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
posted June 13, 2016 02:43 PM

The player is not obliged to sacrifice 2 skill slots for 2 different shatters.
For example - Fortress magic schools are light and destruction.

Hero can pick Shatter Light and Fire resistance perk. This way he will counter both schools to some extent if he is not sure what the opponent has picked.
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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted June 14, 2016 05:14 PM

dredknight said:


Corrupted soil says it does not affect marksman units which is not correct as it affects all moving non flying one. I deleted the part with archery stuff.
Quote:
Corrupted Soil - The hero calls upon forces of nature to affect enemy creatures. Any time a non-flying enemy creature moves, not per tile, it will receive 10*(Hero Level) damage.




I have a question about this: What happens a flying unit walks on the battlefield, instead of taking off and landing? If they're affected, we should change the description to

"Every time an enemy creature walks..."


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magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted June 14, 2016 06:02 PM

have you ever seen a flying creature walk?
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thGryphn
thGryphn


Promising
Famous Hero
posted June 14, 2016 06:05 PM

magnomagus said:
have you ever seen a flying creature walk?


Do I recall wrong about Griffins for example? Don't they walk when they're attacking an adjacent enemy from a different angle?

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