Balance mod

When it comes to Firebird/Phoenix, I believe the best way would be to make them about half as strong (half damage and HP) as other level 7 creatures, keep the double growth, and adjust their cost accordingly. That way, they would still have the uniqueness in being the only level 7 creature with double growth.

The problems I see with my solution are the quantities of neutral stacks appearing on the map, and that the town growth boost of external dwellings wouldn’t be as effective as for other factions. A solution is of course to double those.

If that solution isn’t desirable, I’d suggest to alternate between single and double growth on odd/even weeks, or to introduce the hoard as said above.

I think by now it is clear why the mod has to stay as simple as possible :D. Not that any of the ideas is wrong, it is just that people have different opinions on how to better balance things.

I will update the first post with all proposals shortly. (To have them on record)

I was going to do similiar mod myself, someday. Just don’t try to change every aspect of the game at onc,e there will always be people who disagree.

Disagree with these changes:

This is pathetic ability in game as it is, in fact I would even downgrade Vial of Dragon Blood from Major to Minor :stuck_out_tongue: They are useful only early game and you don’t care about HP as much as damage output, anyway.

It should be rarer than other gold artifacts that give 500 and 750, respectively. Mobile gold mine is always good to have!

Magic Resistance is still powerful ability.

Water movement is not useful often yet if you play random maps, but otherwise this artifact grants better movement penalty than Boots of Speed. I’d keep it Major and just try to play maps with more water content :wink:

Additionally, I’d downgrade Statesman Medal, Ambasador’s Sash and Diplomat’s Ring from major to treasure… or ban them altogether, I can’t remember one situation when they were useful, not even on custom maps.

When playing Necromancer, this artifact becames Relic:-) Imagine several thousands of skeletons. +1 to heath becames major improvement.

I very much like the idea of a minimalistic balance mod, krs. There’s some obvious flaws about the game that could be interesting to change in subtle ways.

Anyhow, about diplomacy. I feel it’s super overpowered If one player have it but the other player doesn’t. Who needs monster growth in towns when you can just keep picking up joiners and paid-for monsters in insane amounts? This is very unsatisfying to me.

I also very much don’t like how strongly it affects how likely monsters are to fight you or not. You can basically steal artifacts and thressures without even fighting the guardians that protects it. No risk, no reward, I feel. Lame.

I like how it reduces the surrendering cost and how you can get into Temple of Enlightenments earlier.

But it’s so hard to find a subtle fix to diplomacy. It’s just so fundamentally overpowered in a lot of ways.

Possible suggestions by not quite subtle means at all. I don’t know what else. :s

Ditch joiners completely and make it buy only? But that’s not enough, no. It needs to be in percentages, too. None = 10% of monsters you can buy. Basic = 15%, advanced = 20%, expert = 25%. Or something like that.

And strong (level) guardians should be too proud to choice to flee or being paid of.

This should all be in relation to how much a town can output of growth as they (the towns) don’t become irrelevant later in the game.

**

Random thoughts:

Should diplomacy depend on starting town/hero alignment? For example, evil alignment skeletons wont ever join our dear Sir Heart however rich or diplomatic he is.

I don’t like idea of changing Diplomacy skill.
Wisdom is also overpowered, if enemy doesn’t have it :sunglasses:

But I like idea that monsters will join depending on alignment.

1 way of doing things:
For example, if you play “good” alignment from start, than “good” units will join as they are now.
Neutral units will get +1 to hostility.
Evil units will get +2 to hostility.

2 way of doing things:
For example, if your hero is belonging to “good”, than “good” units will join as they are now.
Neutral units will get +1 to hostility.
Evil units will get +2 to hostility.

2 way will require more strategy: you’ll have to keep heroes of 3 alignments with diplomacy to maximize troops harvest.

PS And there can be made new artifacts, granting heroes change of alignment :sunglasses:

‘2’ is more consistent to how Alter of Sacrifice already works. It’s based on the hero alignments, not town. I also like ‘2’ better myself.

I think the difference between wisdom and diplomacy is how diplomacy can make towns largely irreverent and that makes the game less fun to me. I want to build up an army largely from towns, not wandering monsters.

Another thought

Instead of just scattering monsters that leave for free, some will now offer you to leave what they’re guarding for a sum of gold relative to their army value. With expert diplomacy it should perhaps not be a higher discount than maybe 50% of the monsters actual value to pay. So 100 Wyvern offers to leave for a fee. Hero has 50% discount from expert level. So 80000/100*50=40000 to pay. Heroes without diplomacy has no chance for getting offered this deal at all, of course.

Could depend on monster level, too.

Thoughts?

What if:

  • Free joiners is based on a percentage based on diplo level and monster level. Possible free-joiners level 1-5.
  • Buy-able joiners are also based on a percentage based on diplo level.
  • Based on alignment. High level monsters (level 6-7) will only offer an buy option if of the same alignment as the negotiating hero is.
  • Diplomacy doesn’t affect fight or talk calculation. See below.

How fight or talk calculation works (Credits = ‘AlexSpl’)

Ch = Power_Factor + Diplomacy_Level + Sympathy

if Ch < X neutrals will fight;

Instead it could be be a fixed value instead.

So,

Ch = Power_Factor + fixed-value + Sympathy;

This is to prevent heroes with diplomacy not having to fight monster at all much of the time if their army value is also of an appropriate size - which is too strong in a lame way.

I feel this would make diplomacy much more interesting and balanced (and still very strong). I also think its subtle because all of the core elements from the original would still be in the game. That’s scattering monsters, free joiners, buy-able monsters.

It’s important to note that without any free-joiners or buyable - at all - the ability to sacrifice monster for exp or gold will than become more useless. It’s also part of the use of the Skeleton Transformer.

Sources:

heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=28341

Having the option to put a limit on specific spells per combat/adventure map spells would be a great option to have for a balance mod (or any mod). Such an option could be used to prevent abuse and make the game more dynamic. Also, it’s important to remember that not all will want the same kind of balance, so options, options. I rather see a very flexible balance mod than a rigid one.

Mage classes are already too weak compared to might heroes of same level. To cut magic - to make them more weak. I would rather propose otherwise - to give hero 2 casts per turn, if he is magic class hero and have expert wisdom+intelligence, for example.

I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. However, abuseable spells like resurrections + blind tactics is just bad for the game. It slows everything down and it’s just lame. If there was a limit on resurrections then it becomes fine. If power/knowledge heroes are too weak then make them stronger in some other ways.

I think 2 spells per round is very OP. If a power/knowledge hero had a small chance to cast a extra spell like how ‘high moral’ works - and with a requirement of, say, ‘wisdom+intelligence’. That might be closer to something that would work out balanced. The extra spell cast might further be limited to a level 1-3 spell.

krs,

I understand you’re Russian?

Did you hear anything about World Tournament? heroeswt.net/

I am not Russian. But I do know about Heroes WT and I agree only partially with stuff there. That’s why I propose a minimalistic mod, that touches only the greatest unbalances in a straightforward and easy to comprehend way.

But WT and tournaments in general have rules for good reasons. So: above this balance mod, I see 2 other things (mainly for multiplayer):

  • a “graphic tool” that will allow you to individually disable stuff you do not want (artifacts, spells, map objects)
  • some sets of comprehensive rules as text, displayed in a form easily to visualize ( like a license agreement ). (some things should / cannot be disabled).

I am playing only randoms / multiplayer lately. 3 big things force gameplay into predefined patterns.

  1. Necro and Conflux are too powerful and Inferno too weak no-one is playing them. => More or less same factions face each-other all the time.

  2. Nobody plays magic or hybrid heroes.

  3. Everyone gets/aims for the same skills all the time.

Because of the above a great deal of H3 content is just never used. These cannot be fixed with the type of non-obtrusive patch I proposed above.

I think an acceptable solution would be to have 2 mods:

Balance level 1 (The mod proposed above - Phoenix thing)

Balance level 2 (This one will address faction imbalances, hero imbalances, skill imbalances, starting terrain imbalances)

I think spell damage also must be increased to make mages more efficient.

Mages aren’t efficient?
I almost always play as mage, and I consider it easiest way to win.

I think that summon elemental spells should be balanced. They’re far too weak for level 5 spells.

Let’s face it, unfortunately the heroes classes in H3 are totally broken and botched. Everyone who spent a few minutes to think about knows that might heroes are 1000 times better than any other class, and the differences between classes are inexistent, as everyone can learn any skill through many options.

Look how well are done Might&Magic 6-8, pure might has no access to magic, pure mage can’t learn heavy armor or armaster, nor master bow or sword. Therefore you have to think how to balance them.

Barbarians/beastmasters/knights should not be able to learn wisdom, nor any magic school. Wizards and warlocks should not be able to learn logistic, armorer, offense, leadership or archery. When players will find out that a might can’t anymore clean a map with mass slow they will have to think creative, especially in PvP.

I wanted to make such mod for WoG, but nowadays almost no one is still playing seriously the game, so I let it go. But I would certainly enjoy such mod for VCMI, if well tuned.

wtf, Crag Hack should be scared about Solmyr and right now he eats Solmlyr at breakfast.

Well, against computer at 200% you can start with specialist eagle eye or scouting, wait 2 months without moving and you still win. Against human player, he will eat you alive if you play magic class. How can you compare one spell/turn with 7 army attacks/round and might stats level up against crap for magic.

S-M maps rules Maggie. L-XL - warrior.

Through modding system you already can modify existing heroes classes and set 0 to wisdom for might heroes, for example.

The best balance with magic and might was in HoMM5 where hereoes were mixed . If somebody doesn’t know the mixed setting was due to the fact one hero advanced in attack and knowledge as main stats another in for example defense and spell power etc.

Most of the heroes there were both magicians and fighters (beside barberians and wizards which were alike to traditional h3 might vs magic)

  • mage guilds were a lot cheaper in hoMM5 which actually meant you might have build up to 5 level in mp games (which almost never happens in h3 multiplayer)

IMHO HoMM5 was the only heroes so far that had some kind of balance beetween might and magic so I think balancing it in any other way is hard or even impossiible if one consider how many factors have a meaning here (map size, number of castles etc. )