1.3 Academy

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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Jolly Joker
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 20 Sep 2006, 14:20

@ Alamar
No matter what structures are already build in a town, the big difference is whether you start with level 1/2 or with level 3. If you start with a town that is level 3 already, it means you are level 9 at day 7. This in turn means that on day 7 in each town some more dwellings will be available, allowing one critical build.
So the game will play very different then, because the building aims are different.
For Academy you'll want not only Mages, you'll want Genies as well - not easy.
Immediate winners are Inferno who can build the Succubi and will start the 2nd week with 10 of them, Dungeon who will get the Raiders in, Necropolis with the Vampires and Sylvans with Druids.

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okrane
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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 14:33

Are there developers from Nival posting on this forum?
It would be interesting to hear their opinion... if they can expess it on English...
So how can we hear a word from the creators?

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Gaidal Cain
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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 20 Sep 2006, 14:33

Sir_Toejam wrote: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.
If that's so, then the Academy is in real trouble, as Might heroes will have even larger advantages later on. For spells were duration Is the only thing dependant on Spell Power, their power is increased sub-linearly with each additional Spell Power point, just because most battles are over in a few rounds. Knowledge suffers from similar problems, though it has gotten better.
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okrane
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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 14:40

Gaidal Cain wrote: For spells were duration Is the only thing dependant on Spell Power, their power is increased sub-linearly with each additional Spell Power point .
I don't think hero spells are sublinear... they are linear if the information in the manual is correct. For example lightning does 11 + 11*SP. But the factor is much too little... if we compare it to H3 where the formula was 10 + 25*SP both for no proficiency in that school of magic. and creatures' HP remained mainly the same

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Gaidal Cain
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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 20 Sep 2006, 14:54

Read my post again, and please take note of exactly which class of spells I discuss.
You don't want to make enemies in Nuclear Engineering. -- T. Pratchett

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okrane
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Unread postby okrane » 20 Sep 2006, 17:42

yeah... got it now :D

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Arqane
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Unread postby Arqane » 20 Sep 2006, 20:51

The problem I still see with people complaining about Academy now is that they're stuck on one strategy, and it's mostly similar to their old strategy. If you're stuck with the idea that there's one best strategy for every single game, that's part of the problem right there.

As far as balancing for all levels, that's debatable. I'd actually flip that around and say that the levels should be balanced on the factions. The fact that you have normal, hard, and heroic levels don't give the game any character at all. Having a faction that starts weak but becomes strong does. It's true that Academy is rather weak on Heroic, which everyone likes to play because the AI is weak, and Heroic is rather easy to win. That's because you start as normal, but have a hard time building up, which makes it even harder for Academy.

Still, I'm having alot harder time with Dungeon compared to what they used to be, than Academy, even on Heroic. The Blood Fury/Deep Hydra kill everything combo is too expensive now, but my Golem rush works as well as ever.

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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 20 Sep 2006, 21:41

How many times have you tried to play Academy since then?
it's really not hard to set this up, or did you forget the console?

I've tested all factions on two different maps at least 3 times already since the patch came out, which was actually over a week ago now.

you?

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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 20 Sep 2006, 21:47

still waiting to see some numbers here.

doesn't anybody have a specific suggestion as to what resource requirements to change for academy to make it more palatable?

seriously, it would take me all of 30 minutes to rework all of the resource requirements for the academy.

However, I'm not even going to bother until there is at least some suggestion of what precise changes most here think need to be made.

again, as an example, would most here think reducing the sulfur cost for building mages down to 5 to be a good idea?

more? less?

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Mytical
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Unread postby Mytical » 20 Sep 2006, 21:51

As I said, the changes are not horrible, just get rid of the +rare resources and it will be all good ;). Keep everything else the same, but get rid of all races +rare resources change from last patch. Just 0 it out if nothing else. Think this would make all towns about equal..could be wrong though.
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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 20 Sep 2006, 21:58

just get rid of the +rare resources and it will be all good
so how about a 40% reduction in rare resource costs for creature buildings 1-5?

so that would mean 4 less sulfur for the mage building, for example.

would that be sufficient?

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Caradoc
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Unread postby Caradoc » 21 Sep 2006, 04:44

Speaking of balancing mods, I have one about ready that attempts to get Academy back into the game, among other things. The radical changes that 1.3 brought are making me reconsider (and retest...sigh) some of the modifications. But here's what I have in mind for Academy:

Gremlin: cost 1
Master Gremlin: Repair ability (unlimited)
Obsidian Gargoyle: Attack/defense +1
Steel Golem: Dash ability, Speed/initiative +1
Mage: Deflect arrows spell
Archmage: Fireball spell, Deflect arrows spell
Genie: Random Dark/Light spell, Defense +3
Master Genie: Slow spell, Forgetfulness spell, Ice bolt spell, Defense +3, cost +1 gem
Raksasha: Dash ability
Rasksasha Ruhk: Summon elemental, Antimagic, Blind, Meteor Shower, cost +1 crystal
Giant: Toss Boulders (2), cost +1 gem
Titan: Lightning spell, Chain lightning spell, health 380, cost 9000+2 crystal

Before you say I have now made Academy overpowered, consider that other factions are getting some boosts as well. Noone gets nerfed around here.

My goal was to make Academy better at magic by giving spellcasting abilities to the Master Genie and Rukh. The Archmage gains a basic Fireball and the Titan has lightning magic.

In closing, I might note that the options available for creature modding are quite limited. Nothing can be done about intrinsic abilities, only spells and stats.
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cornellian
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Unread postby cornellian » 21 Sep 2006, 04:54

You haven't made Academy the strongest town just in HoMM V, but in every single HoMM out there. Go easier on the abilities I'd say.

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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 21 Sep 2006, 04:59

overall, i found from experience in modding NWN, that it's better to focus a mod on one particular thing, then have separate mods for different things.

this not only makes things easier to keep track of, it allows for other folks ideas to be able to be overlapped without too much difficulty.

try breaking your mod up into some sort of functional parts system, that can easily be interchanged or replaced.

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Unread postby Arqane » 21 Sep 2006, 06:34

And Caradoc, do try to note when you're modding Academy's creatures that they are intentionally weaker than average. The Artificer ability makes the current ones slightly more powerful than average even in the mid-game. If they were already as powerful and then you added +2 speed/+25% initiative/+75% magic resistance to all of those, it would get crazy.

Razzak's Steel Golems are already 20ish attack/defense, 9-10 initiative, 9 speed, 5 leadership and ~32-35hp each by the time I get to the mid-late battles. Do you really want to add Dash to that and more init/speed for 100-150 golems? With Haste, they're already my superpowered Blood Furies that don't die.

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okrane
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Unread postby okrane » 21 Sep 2006, 10:48

yeah... he got a little carried away...

I agree with restoring the infinite repair ability of Master Gremlins (maybe at a lesser power) because a single shot repair is not very useful, and maybe genies should have the possibility to cast certain spells.
And of course some resource decreases...

The rest I think it's ok...
oh and the spell system should be a little diversified/empowered

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Caradoc
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Unread postby Caradoc » 22 Sep 2006, 21:08

Arqane wrote:And Caradoc, do try to note when you're modding Academy's creatures that they are intentionally weaker than average. The Artificer ability makes the current ones slightly more powerful than average even in the mid-game. If they were already as powerful and then you added +2 speed/+25% initiative/+75% magic resistance to all of those, it would get crazy.

Razzak's Steel Golems are already 20ish attack/defense, 9-10 initiative, 9 speed, 5 leadership and ~32-35hp each by the time I get to the mid-late battles. Do you really want to add Dash to that and more init/speed for 100-150 golems? With Haste, they're already my superpowered Blood Furies that don't die.
Thanks for the feedback. I will pull back on the Golems. However, in general I don't want to design around hero specialties. Razzak deserves a bonus comparable to, say, Klaus.

And Sir T, I appreciate your advice about trying to accomplish too much, but the the goal I have here is not to strengthen Academy per se but to better balance the factions level by level. As I said I have in mind some boosts for the other factions as well.
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Arqane
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Unread postby Arqane » 23 Sep 2006, 04:42

Well yes, part of why golems would be too powerful is that Razzak doesn't give them their only bonus. Not everyone takes the particular skills, but +2 Speed/Initiative and Leadership affecting Golems is available to everyone, as well as artifacts.

They're rather hard to balance because of that, they're still decent tier 3 critters, but can get MUCH more powerful if you focus on them.

Still, all the rest of Academy's creatures are tough in mostly the same way. +2 Speed/+25% Initiative/+75% magic resistance (the appr. stats for 25 knowledge) is very possible in almost any game if Academy actually survives to the last few players at least.

For safety's sake, I would assume 15 knowledge and 3 choices for all the creatures when trying to balance them as a nice average. That's a choice of (-2 Def/Hit, +4 Def, +15% Initiative, +4 Health, +2 Luck, +58% Magic Resistance, +2 Morale, +4 Attack, +2 Speed). There's really no reason why someone couldn't get those if they were trying at all.

EDIT: I keep saying Magic Resistance instead of Magic Protection. While I know the difference, for English they should change it to Magic Evasion and Magic Defense. Would be a bit more clear which is which :P.

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Grumpy Old Wizard
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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 23 Sep 2006, 04:54

Arqane wrote: For safety's sake, I would assume 15 knowledge and 3 choices for all the creatures when trying to balance them as a nice average. That's a choice of (-2 Def/Hit, +4 Def, +15% Initiative, +4 Health, +2 Luck, +58% Magic Resistance, +2 Morale, +4 Attack, +2 Speed). There's really no reason why someone couldn't get those if they were trying at all.

EDIT: I keep saying Magic Resistance instead of Magic Protection. While I know the difference, for English they should change it to Magic Evasion and Magic Defense. Would be a bit more clear which is which :P.
A racial skill should give a faction some sort of an advantage at some time in the game. For example, a warlock gets empowered spells and warlock's luck for his spells. Does that mean that the warlock should do less damage with his spells than everyone else until those skills kick in and then only as much as everyone else after he has them?

What advantage is there to the wizard's racial skill if he plays almost the whole game on a very big map with underpowered troops and then his expensive racial skill only makes histroops average?

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Arqane
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Unread postby Arqane » 23 Sep 2006, 05:15

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote: What advantage is there to the wizard's racial skill if he plays almost the whole game on a very big map with underpowered troops and then his expensive racial skill only makes histroops average?

GOW
Well, that's not exactly what I meant. I just meant that you shouldn't make them easily as powerful as other factions right off the bat. While some racial skills are nice, adding potentially +3 speed, +30% initiative, and +76% Magic Protection to anyone else's base troops would have people screaming bloody murder.

So basically I was saying to make them just slightly weaker, so that the 15 knowledge artifacts will make them a little more powerful (instead of ALOT more powerful) than normal troops of other factions. Face it, 15 knowledge is nothing since everything is factored in, including artifacts which you can buy. Most wizards will have that by L10 (week 3).


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