|
| Thread: H3-style necromancy always unbalanced; new ideas | |
|
NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
|
posted October 09, 2018 05:20 PM |
|
|
H3-style necromancy always unbalanced; new ideas
H3-style necromancy will never be balanced.
Here's the factors:
- Exponential:
When you raise from the dead enemy creatures, you get a bigger army.
Also, you get more experience, which makes your necromancy even stronger (level or skill based).
Having a bigger army also allows you to defeat bigger enemies, which makes a bigger army, which defeats bigger enemies, which makes a bigger army... you get the point.
This generates a logarithmic curve whereas you are always multiplying your power by some factor, which allows your new power to be further multipled, etc.
In this way, Necromancy has the same problem as Diplomacy. But it's actuall worse, since:
a- Diplomacy fdoes not give extra XP since you don't fight the enemy, Necromancy does
b- Diplomacy gives you mixed types of creatures which don't let you have a coherent army and lose morale because of mixed types. Necromancy always gives your own type of Undead army, and can't have bad morale.
c- Diplomacy may cost a lot of money. Necromancy is always free.
d- Diplomacy only works to join neutrals, Necromancy turns your player and AI enemies which is much more useful in late game.
If the factor becomes very low, necromancy becomes nearly useless, as in HotA. Due to the exponential nature and the number of variables (such as map monster strenght and types), there is no middle ground.
- Random-dependent:
Necromancy depends on the monsters present on the map.
If these are unliving and can't be raised, necromancy is useless (In H4 at least it works that way, in H3 it always works since I remember).
If monsters have lots of HP/Experience/Levels, necromancy is powerfrul. If no neutral present or few or weak, Necromancy is weak or useless.
- Map-dependent:
Map designers may make a special map but give the player the option to change faction. Necropolis or equivalent with necromancy will always have to be made unusable in maps with lots of enemies to fight... this is not disabling a skill, but an entire faction. It should not be like that.
_________________
H6 made a Necromancy that raised your own creatures.
I think this was fine in balance, but the flavor is somewhat lacking. I do want to raise the corpses of my enemies 
_________________
So, this is my blueprint for a balanced Necromancy:
- Necromancy is the main Faction Skill of Necropolis
- Necromancy works with Raising Points.
- There are three numbers associated with it:
a- Current Raising Points
b- Daily Raising Points
c- Max Raising Points
- Increasing in level and Necromancy skill upgrades your daily and max Raising Points.
- Raising Points can be used in combat with the special Necromancy skill.
- They raise from the dead creatures from any stack, living, dead or undead.
- In the case it is used on the living, the raised creatures are a set type of Undead depending on the ex-living creature, with HP equal to the Raising Points invested.
For example:
Nonmagical humanoid Creatures make Skeletons
Horse Creatures (Nightmare, Unicorn, etc.) make Skeleton Horses
Spellcasting Humanoid Creatures make Liches
High-level Humanoid Creatures make Vampires
Riding creatures make Death Knights
Nonliving creatures (elementals, golems) make Gargoyles
Dragon creatures make Skeleton Dragons
Other non-humanoid creatures make Ghouls
Incorporeal creatures make Ghosts
Since this Necromancy depends exclusively on HP, it doesn't matter how strong or weak they are - it will always be auto-balanced
- At the end of the combat, you also get the opportunity to raise your own dead-undead with Raising Points.
- If you get more stacks than the allowed number, you can put those creatures in "reserve". They won't appear in combat but you can switch them for an active creature in the adventuiire map at any time.
This would be a general game mechanic, not necromancy-specific.
***
Why is this more balanced than the "old" necromancy?
1- Raised creatures are inherently limited by daily Raising Points. Having more enemies in map will not change the max raised.
2- Raising Points have to be replenished after use, much like spell points; but the only way to do it is slowly over time.
3- If you don't fight in some time, you get to the max Raising Points for your Necromancy skill and level.
4- Allows for Necromancy to be relevant during battle, by allowing you to rise in "real time" what is slain.
____________
Never changing = never improving
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted October 09, 2018 09:37 PM |
|
Edited by Elvin at 21:39, 09 Oct 2018.
|
What you're saying has already been done in H5 some 10 years ago. You just added daily raising restrictions and made the eternal servitude into an active skill(or just borrowed and tweaked H6 mechanics for that matter). H5 necromancy already allowed the raising of higher tier undead and had dark energy points as a limiter, maybe you didn't know?
PS you are wildly underestimating diplomacy that was a pretty broken skill in H3. It didn't always cost, the morale penalty didn't terribly matter because of morale artifacts not to mention that getting a snowload of extra troops IS a powerful lategame force. Whether for a destructive caster who doesn't care about morale or for a might hero that needs more meat to survive against the former.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
phe
Famous Hero
Life and Freedom
|
|
posted October 09, 2018 09:58 PM |
|
|
|
Necromancy can cost movement points...
|
|
NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
|
|
posted October 10, 2018 02:09 AM |
|
|
Quote:
PS you are wildly underestimating diplomacy that was a pretty broken skill in H3. It didn't always cost, the morale penalty didn't terribly matter because of morale artifacts not to mention that getting a snowload of extra troops IS a powerful lategame force. Whether for a destructive caster who doesn't care about morale or for a might hero that needs more meat to survive against the former.
I didn't say Diplomacy isn't unbalanced. Just that H3 necromancy is even more unbalanced than Diplomacy.
Also, Diplomacy isn't faction-specific,
when in contrast as I understand, only Necropolis heroes can normally learn Necromancy by leveling (not that they need to, since they basically all start with it...)
So, Diplomacy, like Offense or Learning, can be a very powerful skill, even unbalanced, but if everyone uses it, its not so unbalanced per se; and still keep the game varied with different factions.
Whereas Necromancy can only be "balanced" when everyone is Necropolis, which is boring, thus always banned.
Quote:
H5 necromancy already allowed the raising of higher tier undead and had dark energy points as a limiter, maybe you didn't know?
H4 already allowed the raising of higher tier undead and had limits per combat relating to hero levels, maybe you didn't know?
Anyways, no, I didn't remember that since there is over half a decade since I played H5...
But anyways, as my post says, I didn't imply nobody had done necromancy differently.
Just that H3 necromancy, and its revival in H7, could never be balanced properly, and a proposal for doing it.
BTW, being permanent is a very important feature, as is daily limits;
you could also say I "burrowed" the H4 Undead Transformer mechanics for turning some creatures into others specifically.
If you want to call my proposal "H5+H6+Undead transformer necromancy", I won't stop you. But ideas always burrow, decouple and combine concepts, and thus become different from every one of them that way.
____________
Never changing = never improving
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted October 10, 2018 05:32 AM |
|
Edited by Elvin at 07:54, 10 Oct 2018.
|
H5 really is pretty much the same, down to the part where peasants give skeletons, mages give liches, dragons give bone dragons etc. Only dark energy is refilled weekly.
I think I prefer l prefer a weekly cap only BTW. Maybe you will only have one big battle all week but with a daily cap you'd get less skelies than if you fought several battles throughout the week. Also it's easier to compare to weekly growth for the sake of balancing the numbers.
But it is for this reason that h3 style necromancy could work. You'd just have to determine to max skeletons necro could have without breaking the weekly balance. But raising and managing more undead types is more interesting. More diverse and adaptable army that way.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
|
|
posted October 10, 2018 08:17 AM |
|
Edited by Zenofex at 08:24, 10 Oct 2018.
|
|
The HotA edition of Necromancy is fairly balanced, provided that the map doesn't have Swarm stacks all over the place (and the typical random map doesn't). On big maps Inferno with demon farming can raise a more powerful force of Horned Demons than Necropolis with Vidomina or Isra as main heroes. Still it's far from "nearly useless" as you gain free creatures just by doing what you would normally do anyway - fight for experience. Don't forget that in Heroes III level 1 creatures are typically retaliation fodder and nothing else in the late game and Necropolis turns that concept upside down.
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted October 10, 2018 08:44 AM |
|
Edited by Elvin at 08:55, 10 Oct 2018.
|
Yes, it is hard to deny the appeal of an epic tier 1 stack in a game where high tiers kick ass. H3 necropolis had unconventionally designed tiers in general, with vampire lords/death knights being better than most in their tiers and wights/bone dragons weaker than most(all?  ).
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
| |
|
|
