Abyss Town revived!

Use Notepad++ to work on json files (it has syntax highlight and lights opening-closing (]) etc, it correctly works with unicode files).
If you have suspicions that somewhere in json file there are errors, you can use online json validator to check (just copy and paste contents of json to web form and press validate:

jsonlint.com/

The only bad thing is that it thinks comments (// text) are errors. So remove all commentaries before validation.

JSON doesn’t support comments so it’s valid behaviour.

Maybe, but VCMI supports:-)

JSON in VCMI closer to JSON5 (proposed extension).

Problem fixed! It was a hero description. Thank Poseidon it wasn’t some tiny word somewhere in the bigger files. Teaches me for not testing enough! I figured out how to find the problem while at work, but thanks for the heads-up!

By the power of awesome, misiokles also restored the old “abyssal murloc” (now dark one) as a neutral creature along with it’s and the original murloc (now deep one’s) dwelling. He is a cool dude like that. The both of them may get a power boost later to tier 3 to fit the new name better. This however, comes hand in hand with something important we need to discuss:

Balance.

We really need a discussion going on unit, hero and even building balance (getting tier 6 and 7 is way too easy). This is what makes or breaks a faction afterall.

if I don’t forget I will test the town today and suggest some possible ways to improve balance

Where the hell did you get these from. Jellyfish and Octopus are common words in English and in bestiary in general. Also it’s clear that both creatures are Jellyfish / Octopus and not something else.

Large number of H3 creatures are actually taken from D&D, like Basilisk, Gorgon or Beholder. So Yuan-Ti is a perfect match. Also, it DOES look like Yuan-Ti. Merrow is a word for Mermaid, not snake.

I get them from the English language, why thank you! :smiley:

The floating spire/sceptre is a placeholder name. I was incredibly confused when the jellyfish started shooting bolts of magic for no reason, so I wanted a name that explain it as a special type of jellyfish. Jellyfish, as explained prior, is extremely generic and dull (not to mention one of the english language’s silliest words) so I wanted to spice it up. If anyone knows of some odd creature name that fits and sounds cooler, sure, I will go for that. Same goes if jellyfish gets voted back in by a larger crowd.

The octopus is clearly a nautiloid creature due to the shell on the back. It was an obvious change. I mentioned this prior.

Merrows are not mere mermaids, actually. According to folklore (and this is the most awesome thing about them), males look radically different from females, being grotesque and monstrous. And as I mentioned before, they look almost identical to a fairly well-known illustration of a merrow male. Also, it made little sense calling them Yuan-ti, as those are normal snake people, not vaguely fish-like things. There is also the problem of the wizards of the coast being quite sue-happy about some creatures (like illithids, for example) and less so with some they set in the public domain (gnolls, for example).
You can get what I mean by simply googling merrow or merrow male. Again, I am open to ideas but as nothing but d&d properties use the word “yuan-ti”, I am kind of scared of using it.

Edit: Oh crap!

If more people want the names returned to their formers, sure. So far I haven’t heard another complaint, but I am open minded if anything!

My names are merely there to avoid confusion from new players, which is also how I have tested them. As always, constructive criticism is most welcome and will be heard!

I did a bit of testing, and I think I can provide some feedback about creature strength, and the ways how I would adjust some statistics (adjust can be done in several ways, units can be adjusted to be offensive or defensive, in many cases I made choice based on current stats)

Generally many units in this town are very strong, with fairly high price. You can adjust units to be worth their price but keeping all units “fairly strong” results in town with too good units and if player can afford the gold then the town makes player able to get stronger army than the other.

About particular units:

level 1 not-upgraded: I would keep it as it is for now, maybe add +1 attack, seems to be average unit
level 1 upgraded: Not overpowered, but extremely strong. 2-4 damage, 8 hitpoints and high speed. I think I would increase the cost to 90 and keep it as it is or decrease damage to “2-3” and add +1 attack point. If you do not want it to be another pikeman-like unit you can keep downgrading stats and cost
Generally level 1 abyss units should not have base growth bigger than 14 with their strength and cost

level 2 not-upgraded: Seems to be ok cost and balance-wise. Similar unit to dwarves.
level 2 upgraded: Seems to be a bit too overpowered with their damage reduction, 18 hit points and 2-5 damage - most among all level 2 units. The most intuitive adjust seems to be damage downgrade to 2-4, this unit has already huge defensive capabilities. I would also increase the price to 165, because of the damage reduction ability, even though dwarves have 20 hit points and 1 more attack and defense point and they cost 150.
Growth seems to be good. 8-9 base growth is safe range for this unit.

level 3 not-upgraded: pretty expensive units, average hitpoints, high speed, rest of stats very strong. I would add -2 hitpoints, -1 attack and defense, -1 max damage to make this unit more “average”, unless you plan to nerf other units more.
level 3 upgraded: same as not upgraded, speed of serpent fly, stats of griffins (or whatever their name is). And I would do same as for not upgraded: get current creature stats and add -1 attack and defense, -1 max damage, -2 hitpoints
Growth looks ok.

level 4 (both levels): Generally this unit does not need changes I think, weaker stats than mages / archmages, but lower cost, and can shoot while enemy blocks unit.

level 5: Hard to say, stats are rather good. I would not decrease cost for this unit.
level 5 upgraded: Here comes the problem, this town has already many good units and this one together with seahorses looks like best candidates to leave not too strong. 70 hitpoints is huge amount, and rest of stats is pretty good too. I would keep hitpoints at 50, maybe 55, and maybe give additional +1 attack point and keep the cost as it is. The unit can already hit all nearby enemies.

level 6: This is interesting unit. 16-32 damage sounds like another “original” value good to beat new unit level stat records but this unit seems to be interesting when it stays strong. I would give -1 attack and defense point and change cost to 1050.
level 6 upgraded: I would give -1 attack and -2 defense and keep rest as it is. Can also give 25% shooting damage reduction and increase cost to 1400.

level 7: This unit has pretty weird balance in my opinion. It has same damage range as giant (also same average damage as angel), and 20 attack and defense, what seems to be unnecessary, this unit can be strong if adjusted down and whole town becomes less likely to be overpowered. I need to consider that unit is pretty slow, my personal preference would be to make this unit more attack-oriented I would give it 20 attack and 17 defense, 40-55 damage and keep rest as it is.
level 7 upgraded: Here comes unusual stat change: damage gets boosted over value of any other unit, hitpoints become very high, but attack and defense stay at poor value. If the unit cost is not meant to increase then I would make damage 45-55, 24 attack and 21 defense with keeping the rest as it is

Another things I noticed:
“Deep ones” fight value is way too high
unit buildings take too much wood
resource silo resource does not match 7th level creature building & upgrade resource

I am going to consider your balance tweaks Dydzio, those are really good! I would love to hear additional feedback from others, but these are ones I am definetly considering, and misiokles (the guy doing the real dirty work) seem to agree!

Deep One & Dark One will be rebalanced to tier3 eventually. I would want some ideas on what the stats & abilities should be.

I am considering changing “nautiloid” to “Kraken”, if anyone is with me on that one, as I found my original name perhaps scientifically correct but hardly interesting. I know most would probably consider a kraken tier 6-7, but ogres, gorgons and other big meanies have been tier 5 previously, so it wouldn’t be completely out of place. Furthermore, it would help cement the faction as being a bit more… fantastical.

Balance changes will be in the next version, for now enjoy the holidays and have an update!

Changes:
-Fixed Sea Urchins to tier3 population booster (as seemed to be the original intention)
-Fixed Dark & Deep One icons to have the neutral background
-Removed Sea Urchins from town screen before being built
-Additional minor fixes and tweaks

I changed the original post to be less about me talking about what I would like to do and what we are actually doing. A lot has changed since then.

I am reworking unit balance now. Here is what I’ve considered so far:

tier1: Untouched. Due to it being flying (did we patch that in at some point?) I found the stats to be fine.
tier1upg: Lowered damage to 2-3 and increased attack to 6.
tier2: Untouched.
tier2upg: Increased price to 165 and lowered damage to 2-4.
tier3: Nothing so far. I was a bit confused by the word “add” and then “-” before the stats. :wink:
tier3upg: Same as base unit.
tier4: Untouched.
tier4upg: Untouched.
tier5: Untouched.
tier5upg: Hitpoints decreased to 55. Attack increased to 13.
tier6: For now untouched, I would like some confirmation if you meant increasing or decreasing as you used “-” but used the word “give”, Dydzio! :stuck_out_tongue:
tier6upg: Same as base unit.
tier7: Damage lowered to 45-55. Defense lowered to 17.
tier7upg: Damage lowered to 45-55. Attack increased to 24.

Dark Ones and Deep Ones: Reworked to tier 3. Stats are experimental at this point, but should be fairly balanced. I am trying to keep the stats akin of most non-boss neutral units; being somewhere between a base and upgraded unit in stats.

I am fixing the graphical glitch regarding the Sea Urchin right now. I have fixed most of the issue and hopefully it will be fixed entirely in the next release.
The Sea Urchin has been a constant pain in the backside, akin of sitting on one. Hopefully we will be done with this grief soon enough!

I have asked friends what they thought about the nautiloid being changed to Kraken. The response has been a big fat “yes!” so I will go for it… for now!

I am going to work on sounds. As always, feeback is not just welcome, it’s OBLIGATORY! :stuck_out_tongue:

About changing tier 3 and tier 6 units I mean decreasing the stats from the current value of that particular unit - when I talk about upgraded unit I refer to upgraded unit stats. Anyway, looks like upgraded level 7 is still too weak though, when looking at the cost.

Right, I will get to it! I will wait for specifics before I touch tier7 again.

You can use PMs in case you want to discuss technical details, as those can easily clutter a thread.

Hopefully I can get my brother interested in helping with balance, as that is his thang, it’s just hard to get him invested in modding.

New update! Here are the main changes:

-Fixed some of the graphical glitch issues with Sea Urchins. Still needs work but it looks passable.
-Implemented Dydzio’s balance changes.
-Deep and Dark Ones rebalanced for tier 3. Still WiP but should be balanced okay.
-Krakens! Krakens!?

Checking new version (12 days old). Noticed:

  • Oracle, Sea Lord hero classes
  • Was the town water always animated? It looks great.
  • “Kraken” name replacing “Octopus” is ok, but not really needed.
  • New creature names. What the heck are “Feelers”. “Charybdises” is way too long name. Also Murclos was much better than “Deep One”.

“Feeler” is a less commonly used term for an appendage. It’s archaic, so I thought it was appropiate over the to me way too literal original name. Again, it is placeholder until people vote for something else, if so the new name will take it’s place.

The Kraken name was mostly because I felt it anchored the faction more into the fantastical and less into Sea World. Oh, and Kraken also make them cooler for some reason, kind of like how “Winged Accountant” would make Angels less so.

Charybdis is a monster from greek mythology, the unseen beast that creates whirlpools, drags ships into them and eats them. “Sea worm” is a tree of not so very scary womy water-dwelling things. The name is long in plural, sure, and I am considering the proper greek form, which I believe is “charybdiae”. Hardly the longest, though.

And due to copyright reasons, I don’t want to return the murlocs. Since they are also so incredibly heavily associated with Blizzard, it wouldn’t feel right. It’s like throwing in the Uruk-hai from LOTR or Daedra from the Elder Scrolls. It’s out of place. If you have another name idea, I want to hear it! Public domain is the key!

Update!

-Gave Charybdis greek plural (Charybdiae)
-Due to misiokles being awesome, Verna is now a super badass extrordinaire as she can upgrade Hippocampus into Golden Hippocampus, otherwise unavailable in the world, not even as random monsters! This hero was previously “broken” as her special did nothing.

Keep in mind the Golden variant will require some tweaking in terms of balance (as do heroes still) so suggestions are very much appreciated, if not vital!

When I feel the mod is more or less complete, I will, if people want it, release an alternative version with all the original names restored. I feel that while I wasn’t satisfied with some names, others were, so the alternative will be available then. In the meantime, you can just go into the various files and restore them.

Download link at the first post is not working!

I think there’s no need to make alt version, but to make a submod with original names to easily switch between two versions.

Link fixed!

That could be achieved, however, I believe this subject will be further explored once we get there!