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| Thread: How to balance Haste/Slow? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 13, 2018 10:56 AM |
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If you just consider the magic in H3, there really aren't that many options. There is the Wisdom skill for learning spells above L2 and there are the 4 magic skills for improving the spells of the respective schools.
If you make some Mass spells higher tier spells, then you also need FOUR versions of them.
Let's say Mass Haste is L3. Without Air Magic it may cost 15. and give +3 Speed.
With Basic it would cost 12 and give +3.
With advanced it would cost 12 and give +5
With Expert it would give... what?
Same with basic Haste.
Without Air Magic it cost 6. and give +3 Speed.
With Basic it cost 5 and give +3.
With advanced it cost 5 and give +5
With Expert it would give... what?
Also, with that system in place it would be a total BUMMER to get Haste and Expert Air, but not Mass Haste.
Compare Having Expert Air and Haste with just having Basic Wisdom and no Air at all but Mass Haste.
This would somehow beat the whole purpose of the system.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted July 13, 2018 11:03 AM |
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Yeah, JJ has a point. If we're going to have the Mass versions separate, the skills for the respective school of magic would need changing, since in H2 there was only Wisdom and in H4 it was a different system altogether.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted July 13, 2018 11:07 AM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 11:19, 13 Jul 2018.
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Quote:
Also, with that system in place it would be a total BUMMER to get Haste and Expert Air, but not Mass Haste.
Its already a bummer to have Haste in mage guild and not be able to learn Air Magic... in this case the reliance on such spells would be diminished, so the bummer would be lesser.
Quote:
Let's say Mass Haste is L3. Without Air Magic it may cost 15. and give +3 Speed.
With Basic it would cost 12 and give +3.
With advanced it would cost 12 and give +5
With Expert it would give... what?
Make it
Normally costs 16 and give +2
With Basic it costs 12 and give +2
With Advanced it costs 12 and gives +3
With Expert it costs 10 and gives +4
My answer to this question is just to change what Expert does, IE it keeps treducing the cost and increasing the effect, instead of disproportionally making everything mass spells (which also makes some things broken, like Enchanters on special terrains will cast mass spells)
Also, I would remove that mass haste and mass slow counteract eachother. You want to get rid of the curse? Use Cure or some such spell. You want to get rid of enemy's blessing? Use Dispel (another that would need a mass version, ass expert dispel is absolutely OP, making all accumulated blessings and curses useless for 4 mana)...
The lack of ingame information about "opposite and countering spells" tends to indicate to me this was thought as more of an "Ahá!" cool moment rather than the bread and butter of magical combat.
***
There is an alternative solution but harder to program. Just make that expert haste "anulls" expert slow instead of overwriting it (so, instead of swithing haste with slow, it will turn it into nothing), and viceversa; and that once one of these spells has anulled the other, none of both can be cast any more in that battle. This would make heroes waste at most two turns, and not most of them.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted July 13, 2018 11:27 AM |
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NimoStar said:
There is an alternative solution but harder to program. Just make that expert haste "anulls" expert slow instead of overwriting it (so, instead of swithing haste with slow, it will turn it into nothing), and viceversa; and that once one of these spells has anulled the other, none of both can be cast any more in that battle. This would make heroes waste at most two turns, and not most of them.
I really want this, also for Bless/Curse.
Not sure I agree with the second part though, there are 3 heroes that specialise in Haste and to ruin their special, just because the enemy decided to cast Slow seems a bit unfair. (Or maybe there should be no Haste, Bless or Prayer specialists?)
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted July 13, 2018 11:35 AM |
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Quote:
Not sure I agree with the second part though, there are 3 heroes that specialise in Haste and to ruin their special, just because the enemy decided to cast Slow seems a bit unfair. (Or maybe there should be no Haste and Prayer specialists?)
By that token their specialty is already ruined and even more than that :V . But maybe replacing the specialty is wise.
Perhaps a simpler way to adress this would have to add an artifact as "Pendant of Momentum" that forbids the Slow spell (which isn't anyone's specialty AFAIK, and earth magic is already very strong without it due to resurrection and town portal)
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vulcancolak
Famous Hero
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posted July 13, 2018 12:08 PM |
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Otuken
Famous Hero
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posted July 13, 2018 08:47 PM |
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Simple. They should not be counter magics against each other. They should just neutralize each other.
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FrothFrenzy
Hired Hero
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posted July 14, 2018 03:03 PM |
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Would it be a problem if expert specialty were to unlock the mass version of the spell in your spellbook? E.g. the Slow spell would still be level 1, but at expert earth you would have access to two instances of the same spell - the single target and the mass variant. This way you keep the same spell distributions, but the spell itself would need to be balanced.
Let's say the mass Slow variant becomes an area effect spell with a 10 (maybe 12?) mana cost, affecting the target hex and a 2-hex radius. This makes it possible to affect the 4 middle stacks out of a 7-stack army, assuming you are playing first or the opponent doesn't move their stacks. You can hit 3 stacks in a 6-stack army. This still makes it possible to hit crucial stacks, but would at the very least give the opponent an opportunity to respond. It would take at least two castings of the spell to encompass the whole army, which would take 2 turns, 20 (24?) mana and perfect positioning.
Neutral fights would become harder, but still fair, as it should be possible to herd the neutral stacks into a position where two casts of Slow should be enough to cover the whole army, assuming you're fighting a significantly stronger army which splits into 7 stacks. This would also make magic heroes shine a bit more, as might heroes can't afford to do this in the early game as often. Sometimes even a single mass casting would be enough due to terrain and AI tendencies.
I definitely think Slow is the biggest culprit here. Previously impossible fights become a breeze once expert earth + slow becomes available, something no other combination of school + spell can offer. I do think other level 1 spells should be balanced around the same area of effect idea. However, this would imply additional programming and AI tweaks.
In regards to slow vs haste and bless vs curse, regardless of what I wrote before, I'd make them not counter each other. Instead, make them dampen the effect of each other, similar to what others suggested, with both being able to exist on a given stack at the same time. Advanced/expert slow vs advanced/expert haste -> stack size indicator turns brownish, no effect on the unit until either spell fades off. Basic slow vs advanced/expert haste -> brown indicator, unit benefits from a basic haste effect. Basic curse vs advanced/expert bless -> unit benefits from +1 extra bless damage. This way you prevent the boring back and forth casting of the same spells, and allows for more variability of spells cast during combat.
EDIT: As far as heroes with specialties go, make it so their specialty effect outlasts the opposing spell. If a hero has e.g. a haste specialty, casts expert haste and then gets countered with expert slow, the unit would still benefit from the bonus of their specialty (whatever that might be). If that's too strong, make it so the unit benefits just from the basic haste effect.
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Zaio-Baio
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted July 14, 2018 10:59 PM |
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Make slow and haste single target only (no mass effect at expert).
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