1.3 Academy

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 20 Sep 2006, 07:33

Mytical wrote:Well JJ, as I said before all I can do is base it on MY experience, not everybody elses. I've played the map many many times since 1.3 came out. Just to see how correct you were in the resource balancing. Sorry but I seem to be playing a different map then you, though i did play it on 'easy'. Sad to say academy really was the most pathetic of the towns. Maybe on heroic things do change, could not honestly tell you. However, don't just dismiss my findings just because they don't fit into your world. I worked hard to actually take what you said into consideration, the least you could do is do the same. With all things being equal, regardless of setting, all towns should have an equal chance. I have not found this so. And if you put the AI on academy, then it becomes even easier...which I find a little odd. I would have to test on heroic to see how accurate you are, and believe me I will. For now I will trust your findings, but I can honestly say...on easy things are NOT balanced. Beginning players try things out on easy usually before anything, and if you want to get more players, you have to balance things on easy. Die hard fans, like myself, maybe able to defeat the computer on heroic, but what about the new people? Just ignore them? they don't matter? I think a readjustment should be made, you think it's ok. Lets agree to disagree. Not everybody will see things your way, or my way either.
Actually,you need to balance it on all dificulties.

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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 07:55

So where does that leave Academy? In a very good situation, I'd think. You have lots of possibilities and chances. You may pick resources at start which will give you additional Gems; even if you play with random heroes you may get Havez. You may have a nice destructive spell in the guild (but Stone Spikes and Mark of the Wizard don't work together). You may get 5 Sulfur one way or another. At least you have a chance to go for your level 4 in week one.
No, I don't think Academy is bad.
I played the same map with Academy but in Hard difficulty and I think the weakest point about them is that their hero has hardly any attack defense and spell power skills. Everything goes to knowledge which without many resources it's just plain useless(because you can't create the trinkets needed to make up for the weak skills). I even took Enlightment which made me have 17 knowledge at lvl 12 or so(but still 1 attack and 1 def). So he just has a huge mana pool but I find hist spells not very game-breaking. The low output of DD spells makes that you can't only rely your attack on them and as you lack resources high level spells are much difficult to get.
To balance Academy I believe it should have a little decrease in resource cost or redo the spell system: more damage to DD, or more usefulness to other schools.
What happened to H3 Wizards whose only skills were the magic ones and with them you could have creeped the whole map (just by using Solmyr's Chain Lighning for example)? They had also bad attack skill scores... but their spells made them feared. Here, it's another game. I never took destruction nor summoning magic because of the low SP, and light and destruction magic are not that effective when having a small army.
I think havez's ballista is more useful in the begining than any spell...

But as you said... this is just what I have experienced...
ok, so after all the whining about academy, how hard does anybody think it would be to simply modify the data files to change the building requirements?

it took me one day to figure out how to modify and calculate the formulas for all the skill trees necessary to change how gaining ultimate specializations work, and I posted the mod today over in the mods section.

I've never tried to mod h5 before. It was friggin' easy.

less whining, more work, people!
About modding...

First of all I believe it would be kind of weird of someone developping a mod while the produces still work at the game. A new patch made in parallel with the ipothetical mod would confuse people, not to mention compatibility issues. The reason why Equilibris and Wake of gods were great is that the game was already finished and they got the chance to "polish" it a little.
Secondly if Nival would consider user's feedback more we wouldn't be having this conversation because a mod would not be needed... at least not yet.
And finaly if we'd like to get to work we should either: mod the game, but in an organised fashion (meaning a team making a single mod, not a ton of mods made independently in which everyone would empower their favorite race), or create a list of changes we believe are in order for the game to be balanced and give it to Nival. But this would mean that they give a damn about fans and that they understand what "user feedback" means in English (as I see they're having a bad time with this language).

I'm sorry about being rude, but I'm getting the feeling that all the talking we're doing here won't be put to any use... I believe H5 is a rather interesting game: it has potential, but it must be balanced and improved.

And one last thing: would a native English speaker please redo all the tooltips and correct all the spelling errors... and give the list to Nival... because frankly... beyond any bug and imbalance this is what stresses me the most: gramatical and spelling errors and the fact that I can't ******* understand what they meant when they try to explain something.

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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 20 Sep 2006, 08:30

there's no need for overarching mods to address little things like resource issues for the academy.

if most think it takes too much sulphur to build the mage building, then it's quite simple to reduce the requirements to meet what most want.

it takes Nival MONTHS to make patches. whining about what is wrong with the game, when it is easily fixed in minutes is a complete waste of time.

the time in this thread would be more productively spent coming to an agreement on exactly what needs to be done, resourcewise, to improve academy early development, from what I read of the majority of comments here.

example:

would reducing the sulphur requirements for the mage building to 5 be sufficient?

what else SPECIFICALLY?

then I (or anyone) can make a quick mod and have it up in the mods section tommorrow, for anyone who wants to use it.

if Nival released patches on a more regular basis, yes, there would be little reason to suggest this.

but, they don't. and based on the drastic changes in the last patch, I think having mods available that actually FIX resource costs specific to fan desires would be a GOOD thing.

and yes, as a last note, it would have been a good thing for UBI to spring for some decent translators.

...not that i haven't actually seen worse.

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 08:40

@Myst and okrane
Basically my long post was an answer to the claim, the changed resource demands would give Academy more of a problem then before - not an answer to the claim, Academy was behind in general and no matter the difficulty or building.
The developers did say, when questionned, that the order of the campaign was a mirror of the difficulty involved in mastering the towns which transfers to Academy being the most difficult to grasp (that doesn't mean it's unbalanced, it does mean it's difficult to play only). So for a beginner it would be the wrong town to start with.
First something about Hero edvelopment. The manual states the following probs for Wizard: Knowledge 45%, Power 30%, Defense 15%, Attack 10%. So in theory a level 21 hero should look like 2 3 8 12 from hero development alone, Artifacts, location visits and abilities excluded. This should make a hero development like okrane had a freak thing.
For Academy more than for any other town it is a big difference on what difficulty level you play. If you play on easy, you start with 50 W/O, 20 C/G/M/S and 40000 money. Buildings you don't need (early) are Town Hall and Market; since guarding stacks are few you don't need to scrap every available creature immediately. What you need to get in the first week is the first 2 mage guild levels and Mages, the rest depends on what level the town starts and what is possible to get and what is needed in terms of the map. If you start with town level 3 or higher go for the Genies on day 7. Don't bother with Town Hall in week 1.
What you need to do is making your Knowledge, your spell power and your racial skill count. Later on, having artifacts on the creatures you have is more important than having Titans instead of Colossi or Radjas instead of Ranis! In fact, having (better) artifacts on your stacks is more important than having a few Colossi! Spells and artifacts are your assets; the creatures alone will lose because your hero is the weakest in the might department, ergo: spells and mini-arties.
The second thing is: the might hero will support the stats of his creatures in an advantageous way no matter his initiative. The magic hero won't. So a Wizard must strive to get Sorcery. This will enable him to get more turns and make the power of his spells feel and will put his knowledge to good use by casting, casting, casting.
Have a look at the skills and abilities: Logistics offers pretts good abilities, for example: March of the Golems and Teleport Assault are real cool abilities. You need a coherent strategy.
Lastly. On easy level you have to be ruthless in pursuing the neutrals. One last. The dangerous magic creatures can easily be squasehd with (upgraded) Gargoyles, Ice or Lightning Bolt or even arkane arrow, Mark of the Wizard and enough Spell Points.
To sum this up. Logic says this: If you assume that all towns are equal in terms of creatures alone (good balance) , Academy will lose against them all, if Academy plays a might-based game because the Wizard will have the lowest might stats. That means you must utilize your magical superiority (mage guilds) and your racial (artifacts); if there is a conflict in interests, you have to favor racial and magical most of the time because without them you will lose for sure.

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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 10:25

@JJ
I totaly agree with you... each town and hero has a unique way of dealing with the game. But I still feel that due to the weakening of spells, magic heroes are having a bad time... and on a high difficulty i found it very hard to face a rushing Haven of Sylvan hero, even with Jhora... which had a ton of sorcery... simply put with a 60dmg Magic Arrow/ 80dmg lightning you can't hold off a big army.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong... I'm not a pro, but I'm no beginner...

Anyway... all the posts here about this "imbalance" prove in somehow that there is a problem.

I checked H3 spell damage list for example... and I must say that they were stronger... in a game where creature HP have stayed mostly the same...

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 10:37

As a Wizard you won't win with Lightning Bolt, whether you have spell power 2 or 10 (albeit with 2 it gets difficult anyway, due to spell duration). Note that the system for destructive magic is the same as with the damage dealing magic creatures: a high spell power value is not the solution. For Destructive magic the abilities will do much more for effectiveness than sheer spell power. However, Wizards should go for what their Mage Guild will give them in abundance: Summoning and Light. Phantom Image is still a great spell, simply because it will happen rather often with a high level caster that an attacking unit will miss. Elementals, albeit nerfed as well, will bring additional troop power. A Phoenix is pretty tough and Arcane Armor onto the Genies... well. The same for Light.
Destructive is more the way of the Dungeon with their empowered spells and their lucky spells.
So an Ice Bolt will allow you fighting neutrals rather effectively in connection with mark of the wizard, but later on that tactic won't suffice.

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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 10:45

IMO DD spells, for wizards, are good in the begining... for those annoying stacks of druids or mages that rip your army to shreads in a single cast...and until you can get proficiency in magic schools i.e. in the begining of the game i find they are the spells to use(like you said ice bold + mark of the wizard).

But what happens if you get rushed? A heavy army with a might hero can't be beaten with Lighning (that's what I was saying earlier)...
Academy is expensive => few creatures
Artifacts are expensive => low quality few artifacts
Hero has weak spells in the begining => get owned

Am I wrong?

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 10:57

When and at what level and with what army? "Rushed" implies at an early stage. Playing against the AI on Heroic might bring you defeat with every town at any (earlier) time. Catching you in your town may not be so easy a fight for the rusher. On higher diff level you will be extremely vulnerable against the wealthy AI, so you must be extremely careful not to get surprised, but that has nothing to do with the town as such. You'll be dead meat with every town.

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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 11:14

Just an example...
On hard difficulty (haven't played heroic yet) on week 3 got attacked by a large Sylvan army. I was with Academy.... and he came directly at my castle... I had only citadel built and I barely managed to beat him... with major losses.
On the other hand with Haven, on the same map, I was beating the dragon Utopia on week 4-5... had 200+ marksmen... not to mention 6 cavaliers.
In the same week... with academy I was recuperating from the fight I just mentioned...

Now imagine 2 human players facing each other... that's the real thing...

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 11:37

Were you attacked with Haven in week 3 as well by a large Sylvan army?

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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 20 Sep 2006, 12:07

look, it's simple. heroes based on attack/defense have an early advantage over spell based heroes. you can easily rush 3 weeks worth of trained troops from haven and wipe out academy.

you could do this from square one, sans patches, and it's worse now as the low level academy units are harder to build (especially if you play on hard, with the 5 fewer rare resources).

gold is plentiful early, rare resources not so much, so haven has the obvious advantage (in the first week, they can train a busload of archers if there are a decent number of peasants about).

all the discussion about academy in this thread has centered around the early build phase, which HAS become harder.

AFAICT, it seems most people get hung up on the sulfur issue for building mages.

if that's the case, why don't we start figuring out if reducing the sulfur cost by 5 would help or not?

what else, resource wise, would make most folks happy to play academy again?

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 12:32

What has the fact that Haven might try a rush in week 3, to do with Academy? You don't want to tell me, that a third week rush attempt will fail against all towns but succeed against Academy?

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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 20 Sep 2006, 12:38

as it stands now, yup; not necessarily fail against all other towns, but it most certainly would be easiest against academy.

try it yourself and see.

you talk a lot, but methinks you don't actually spend much time playing.

you are simply wrong about how the academy works early on.

the idea about "creatures don't really matter", and creature artifacts making up for numbers early on is just ludicrous.

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 12:55

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since when is patch 1.3 out? 5 days? 6? So how often did you rush an Academy in that time or got rushed? Hm? How many times have you tried to play Academy since then? And, yes, of course is everything I say ludicrous because Sir toejam just can't wait to put a mod out that will satisfy the whole community making Academy playable at last.

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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 20 Sep 2006, 13:05

Jolly Joker wrote:To sum this up. Logic says this: If you assume that all towns are equal in terms of creatures alone (good balance) , Academy will lose against them all, if Academy plays a might-based game because the Wizard will have the lowest might stats. That means you must utilize your magical superiority (mage guilds) and your racial (artifacts); if there is a conflict in interests, you have to favor racial and magical most of the time because without them you will lose for sure.
Problem being the wizard can't build up his mage's guild or use his racial artifact special until too late. Artifacts come very late. You cannot skip creature dwellings or mage's guild for them. Especially with the 1.3 patch warlocks became the kings of magic. Their empowered spells with luck are simply terrifying.
Jolly Joker wrote:However, Wizards should go for what their Mage Guild will give them in abundance: Summoning and Light. Phantom Image is still a great spell, simply because it will happen rather often with a high level caster that an attacking unit will miss. Elementals, albeit nerfed as well, will bring additional troop power. A Phoenix is pretty tough and Arcane Armor onto the Genies... well. The same for Light.
Destructive is more the way of the Dungeon with their empowered spells and their lucky spells.
So an Ice Bolt will allow you fighting neutrals rather effectively in connection with mark of the wizard, but later on that tactic won't suffice.
Your advice about taking both summoning and light magic is good. A wizard absolutely must have both now. Nerfing mark of the wizard, summon elemental, phantom forces, and the master gremlin has hurt the academy very much. Not to mention more difficult early buildings.

Summon elementals will almost never be a good spell to cast (unless you happen to get it as your random artifact on day 1) though it is a level 4 spell. The elementals have poor initiative and cannot be stacked any longer. In comparison to the level 4 spells from other schools it is quite weak now. Firewall can be useful when facing AI walkers since they will walk through the fire instead of taking another path.

Arcane Armor on the genies is not a good idea IMHO. Your spell is better spent elsewhere.

As you mentioned, a wizard must also take sorcery. Though you can only have onwe mark of the wizard at least now it works with sorcery (undocumented change.) When going against the superior spellcasting warlock he will undoubtedly have sorcery too however. Taking magic mirror can be helpful against him however, if it happens to work when you need it. Counterspell will not work so well against him though unless he takes his turn before the matriarchs.

A wizard should also take enlightenment. He needs whatever boost to spellpower it brings.

Your suggestion of logistics is good though I find myself more not taking it now since so many other skills are must have. The wizard may wind up with teleportation anyways.

So a wizard's optimal skills will look something like this:

Artificer
Sorcery
Enlightenment
Summonong
Light
Attack (for archery-you have three shooters.)

An ability I wish was more accessable to the wizard is refined mana(light magic tree.) It would help him with early expansion since the mages would be able to cast more spells.

Overall HOMM5 is a great game. However, more balancing is needed for the academy.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 20 Sep 2006, 13:08

Jolly Joker wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but since when is patch 1.3 out? 5 days? 6? So how often did you rush an Academy in that time or got rushed? Hm? How many times have you tried to play Academy since then?
But somehow you already know everything about how the Academy plays just coz you read the change logs over a month ago.
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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 20 Sep 2006, 13:14

Jolly Joker wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but since when is patch 1.3 out? 5 days? 6? So how often did you rush an Academy in that time or got rushed? Hm? How many times have you tried to play Academy since then? And, yes, of course is everything I say ludicrous because Sir toejam just can't wait to put a mod out that will satisfy the whole community making Academy playable at last.
For crying out loud!People actually managed to finish the whole game in a month!Twice!!When someone does 10 tests in a day they are to see an inbalance if it is there.You arent talking about guys that never played anything but FPS before,but hardcore heroes fans!You need just a single in game month(28 turns) in order to sniff out every posible strategy with your favourite town.Repeat that 10 times,and you already know how to beat 70% of human opponents.One reason I hate online tournaments is actually this one.While you set up your economy and gather basic army,you are dead when playing against a pro.

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Unread postby LordErtz » 20 Sep 2006, 13:33

So where does that leave artificer on heroic JJ?


Seems to me if you're deficient in at least 1 resource you're limited to the # of bonuses you can add to your creatures...and even so, you may only get one artifact max if you're low in general.

AND that doesn't "limit" you to not getting 7th tier...it prevents you.

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 13:46

@ Lord Ertz
Exactly. That's why they made resource demands more balanced: cut down Ore by 10 (early demand), Gems by 10, Crystals by 13 and increased Sulfur by 2 and Merc by 5. This includes the reduced Mage Guild cost which is another thing in favor for Academy.
@Grumpy
Nice post, good read.

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Unread postby Alamar » 20 Sep 2006, 14:02

DaemianLucifer wrote:
Mytical wrote:Sorry but I seem to be playing a different map then you, though i did play it on 'easy'. Sad to say academy really was the most pathetic of the towns. Maybe on heroic things do change, could not honestly tell you.
Actually,you need to balance it on all dificulties.
I agree 100%. Any decisions for balancing should take in consideration all difficulty levels.

As for starting with a "naked" town there are a fair number of maps that start that way but, even on heroic, I don't like to start with a naked town and I think the building considerations should take into account that I may want to start with a L3 or L4 town.

A Village Hall, Tavern, and Fort is a combination that I'm sure a lot of people would like to start with. This happens to be the exact starting conditions for "Rise to Power". Using this map for a starter will tell you a LOT.

In BOTH of the 6 way hotseats that I've played so far not being able to build mages [Devil's Advocate -- the guardian stacks for sulfer both times were HARSH] -- and thus not being able to build Rakshashas hurt the early and mid game development.

BTW: I do find Dungeon's late game difficult because it's so crystal heavy that your top tier creatures hit the field kind of late.

EDIT: Starting with a Fort [with it's current cost structure] may help other factions too much. If you want to start with a L1 creature, L1 Mage Guild, Marketplace, etc. that would be fine with me.


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