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Heroes Community > Heroes 4 - Lands of Axeoth > Thread: Are the factions balanced?
Thread: Are the factions balanced?
osmin
osmin


Hired Hero
posted April 06, 2020 02:56 PM

Are the factions balanced?

I'm revisiting this game after quite a few years, and with a new appreciation for several different things from the game. Among them, the six different factions and how they measure up to each other.

What comes to mind is the age-old question: are the factions balanced? I think they are, at least somewhat. Or to put it differently, isn't every faction potentially broken? Maybe. What do you think? Are there any factions of the six that stand out as either clearly better or clearly worse than the rest?

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 06, 2020 03:01 PM

osmin said:
I'm revisiting this game after quite a few years, and with a new appreciation for several different things from the game. Among them, the six different factions and how they measure up to each other.

What comes to mind is the age-old question: are the factions balanced? I think they are, at least somewhat. Or to put it differently, isn't every faction potentially broken? Maybe. What do you think? Are there any factions of the six that stand out as either clearly better or clearly worse than the rest?


I dunno, since I never played HoMM4 that much. For me, all of them have a somewhat OP part.

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Baronus
Baronus


Legendary Hero
posted April 06, 2020 04:51 PM

Hard to talk because you can play only heroes. Play using spells. Play using creatures. Yes rather ballanced but the problem is alternatives. Ogres vs cyclops. Champions vs angels etc. In fact only one unit is good choice.

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 06, 2020 04:57 PM

Baronus said:
Hard to talk because you can play only heroes. Play using spells. Play using creatures. Yes rather ballanced but the problem is alternatives. Ogres vs cyclops. Champions vs angels etc. In fact only one unit is good choice.


True. Btw, Shrek or Cyclops? Which is better? Shrek neutral armies destroyed me plenty of times in the late-early-game.

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Baronus
Baronus


Legendary Hero
posted April 06, 2020 07:38 PM

Cyclop ofcourse! Is possible to target 6 units by one shoot!

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 06, 2020 07:48 PM

Baronus said:
Cyclop ofcourse! Is possible to target 6 units by one shoot!


Ok then. I was thinking Shrek had a lot of HP and stuff for his growth... But I forgot about Cyclop's area attack.

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osmin
osmin


Hired Hero
posted April 06, 2020 11:44 PM

Baronus said:
Hard to talk because you can play only heroes. Play using spells. Play using creatures. Yes rather ballanced but the problem is alternatives. Ogres vs cyclops. Champions vs angels etc. In fact only one unit is good choice.


I don't think that is such a big deal. For one, certain choices are very much dependent on your available resources, and what tools you need for the job. For example, I consider the Titan the more favourable of the Order creatures, but what if you're tight on gems, especially after getting the Genies dwelling? What if you're going up against Death, who may reach your otherwise long-range yet somewhat squishy army? The Dragon Golem might be the better tool here.

In general, it seems to me that this is also partially balanced through having the "better" creature dwelling being slower, more expensive or more difficult to build than the less desirable one, also depending on which buildings are needed first. For example, I think most will agree that the Griffin is a more desirable creature than the Unicorn, but if you're in a hurry, the Unicorn Glade can usually be built sooner.

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osmin
osmin


Hired Hero
posted April 06, 2020 11:47 PM

FirePaladin said:
Baronus said:
Hard to talk because you can play only heroes. Play using spells. Play using creatures. Yes rather ballanced but the problem is alternatives. Ogres vs cyclops. Champions vs angels etc. In fact only one unit is good choice.


True. Btw, Shrek or Cyclops? Which is better? Shrek neutral armies destroyed me plenty of times in the late-early-game.


Any hero can beat any number of Ogre Magi if the hero has a little bit of Poison and the player has a good bit of patience.

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NimoStar
NimoStar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
posted April 12, 2020 12:41 AM

In my mod they are. I hope. If only I had mopre playtesters. Or playtesters at all (?)

I think new Inferno might be OP, I hoped to balance it giving them the worst heroes but turns out starting skills don't matter that much in the long run here...
____________
Never changing = never improving

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 12, 2020 12:51 AM

NimoStar said:
In my mod they are. I hope. If only I had mopre playtesters. Or playtesters at all (?)

I think new Inferno might be OP, I hoped to balance it giving them the worst heroes but turns out starting skills don't matter that much in the long run here...


Wait, is H4 The Greatest Mod your mod?

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Baronus
Baronus


Legendary Hero
posted April 12, 2020 09:19 AM

Maybe Titan and Dragongolem are ballanced but a lot of units not! Black dragon vs Hydra, gorgone vs minotaur. Vampire vs Ooze? Dont remember this unit. Etc. Factions are rather ballanced. Barbarian have 50% growth. Necromancers necromancy Nature have summonig. Order have money. Only Life and Chaos have no special bonuses.

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osmin
osmin


Hired Hero
posted April 12, 2020 12:59 PM

NimoStar said:
In my mod they are. I hope. If only I had mopre playtesters. Or playtesters at all (?)

I think new Inferno might be OP, I hoped to balance it giving them the worst heroes but turns out starting skills don't matter that much in the long run here...


I don't understand this mod. What is the idea behind it, and how is it better than the original game?

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osmin
osmin


Hired Hero
posted April 12, 2020 01:07 PM

Baronus said:
Maybe Titan and Dragongolem are ballanced but a lot of units not! Black dragon vs Hydra, gorgone vs minotaur. Vampire vs Ooze? Dont remember this unit. Etc. Factions are rather ballanced. Barbarian have 50% growth. Necromancers necromancy Nature have summonig. Order have money. Only Life and Chaos have no special bonuses.


Life Magic is underrated, and supremely powerful if you use it right. A tenth-level Priest with Expert Life Magic, Advanced Healing, Basic Spirituality, Grandmaster Combat and the right spells is arguably more powerful than a tenth-level Necromancer with Expert Death Magic, Advanced Occultism, Basic Demonology and Grandmaster Necromancy.

Under the right circumstances, both of these hero archetypes can be considered borderline broken even at this early point in hero development.

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Baronus
Baronus


Legendary Hero
posted April 12, 2020 06:02 PM

Maybe. But you have elixir of life and of health for all factions which gives your hero practically immortality. Its another bug or exploit.
H4 is still experimental alpha game. A lot of things are a good idea but weak realisation.
Nature magic with summonig is powerull. You can make second army in fact.
To much things to ballance
hero-town-unit-spell-potion
But this is all we loved in H4 and is not in H3. In H3 heroes are the same spells for all too... Town have the same line of construction. Units development too. Buy 7lvl unit so fast as you can!
So ballance in H4 is much much complicated as in H3 which is in fact only unit growth.

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TheUnknown
TheUnknown


Known Hero
posted May 01, 2020 03:04 PM

In general, the factions are balanced.

Not all but most of the things that seem unbalanced are because of the map that is used.

For example on small maps that have tough guards between you and your enemy, scouting is near useless, on open large maps its OP.
On maps with many neutrals, necromancy is OP, on maps without neutrals or only neutrals that cannot be raised, nearly useless.
Even ogres are better than cyclops if you want to rush thunderbirds and roam across the map before the guy that builds cyclopes.

I believe equilibris did a pretty good job on balancing and fixing most of the stuff out.

One of the rare things I didn't like was the magic resistance gain per level of all heroes to balance against heroes that pick the skill whereas I believe it should be nerfed or reworked just like they did with necromancy.

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moarbarmu
moarbarmu

Tavern Dweller
posted June 08, 2020 07:24 PM

Balance

In Equilibris, the balance is better, but in the original, I felt that Might was too weak compared to the other five factions. I would say that Chaos is slightly the strongest, but it is highly situational. When done properly, Chaos Magic is much stronger than Order Magic, but that is highly situational.

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arielpk
arielpk

Tavern Dweller
posted September 22, 2020 08:28 PM

Way unbalanced. Black Dragon, Minotaur, Vampire - these creatures are way too strong for their level.

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Red_White
Red_White

Disgraceful
Tavern Dweller
posted September 22, 2020 08:58 PM - penalty applied by Galaad on 25 Feb 2022.

arielpk said:
Way unbalanced. Black Dragon, Minotaur, Vampire - these creatures are way too strong for their level.


Try Equilibris and multiplayer game.

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Bulya
Bulya


Adventuring Hero
posted November 03, 2020 09:57 PM

Playing the Equilibris mod (ver 3.51) in the past several months with very strong players, I can say that on one hand the faction are far not perfectly balanced. But on the other hand, maps make them balanced. Or in other words, if you play on maps which were tested for balance, you get games where each faction can beat any faction.

Perhaps that faction that is kind of hard to balance is might, so some maps simply block might as its either under-powered there, and perhaps on others it can be OP. But there are maps that also make might as a faction that is properly balanced with the other ones, and perhaps games where one of the players i might vs a non might can make some of the more interesting games by many  means.

Regarding factions being OP, then part of the way things are balanced are by blocking the stuff that make factions OP. An example would be the Sanctuary spell that can make life magic users very powerful, at least in the end game fight.

Reading some of the discussion here, it seems like some people here don't really realize that just like other heroes games, in this game there are things which are strong for creeping and things that are strong for the final PvP fight. Perhaps if you only play PvE, then you can't really realize that, as I played only PvE for a long time. But once I started playing PvPs (not only in Heroes 4, but other heroes games) I realized quickly that what may seem powerful to creep the map, isn't powerful at all when it comes to the end game fight.

An example can be Vamps vs Venom Spawns. Both are strong creatures with little growth. Vamps are great for creeping, as apart for undead and elemental / mechanical they can creep through anything mostly by themselves. But at least on the equi mod they aren't strong at all when it comes down to the PvP fight, so if you commit to Vamps you either have to stop early and switch, or be way ahead of your opponent by other means. Which isn't easy with Vamps due to their movement on the advanture map.
On the other hand, Venoms can be very strong in the end game fight, way stronger then the Vamp, and decent enough to creep, so many times they are the favorites when it comes to PvP games, at least for the end game fight, and their weakness in creeping is actually the same as the Vamp's, so going for Venom Spawns is the better way to play a PvP game.

Similarly, Genies vs Nagas, the Genie is a creeping beast, but the higher the heroes get in levels the Genie gets weaker, while the Naga remains strong and getting stronger with hero levels, as the tactics skill effects it way more then the effect it has on the genie, same goes for the effect of the artifacts bonuses which make one remain the same and the other stronger.

It goes on and on. So its all about getting maps which were tested as making the factions balanced on those, as well as removing the few OP stuff that the mod still has. And in PvP games you may find many things aren't the way they seem to be when playing a PvE game. All of that is true for Heroes 5 as well, and Heroes 3 to a degree. I suggest not rushing into conclusions too early.

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yogi
yogi


Promising
Famous Hero
of picnics
posted November 20, 2020 08:12 AM

relevant Heroes Theory: Asymmetry & Balance
____________
yogi - class: monk | status: healthy
"Lol we are HC'ers.. The same tribe.. Guy!" ~Ghost

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