your opinion on Raise Dead & Ressurect in 1.3

[Naskoni]

This discussion sounds rather theoretical in my opinion.

What you posted after this introduction is just as theoretical as well

In game practise the raise to 9 spell points has a lot more importance in the initial fight-the-neutrals phase than the reduction of HPs when you cast it, since you won't have the mana to cast it more than 4 times.

So making it a lv3 would have introduced the very same effect + making it harder to get for non-necro players (needed specialization or special ability)? And casting it 4 times - funny as Necro start with 10 mana, so to cast it 4 times you need 3 more knowledge and this is something that Necros are hardly likely to get just like that from a purely statistical point of view (and my personal observation playing them as well).

...
Lot's of strictly "non-theoretical" assumptions here...
...

So other than the increased cost of the spell it can be spammed just as well? Funny - I thought that Nival wanted to avoid just that...

I have to say I like this rule very much. It introduces a new tactical element, that makes things rather interesting, forces Necros to think VERY hard about the right point to use that spell, and all in all you will see Necros use a lot more spells than before.

The increased mana cost (as in making it lv3) for the spell would have had the very same effect, isn't it? Then again if you make the spell even more useless you can be pretty sure that Necro wouldn't even think about using it at all and thus ensure that they will be using only other spells, which should make you even happier I guess

[MistWeaver]

2Jolly Joker

You see .. my problem with RD is not actualy about its influence on game-mechanics (but I think its bad as well), rather how it is designed.
I think its not appropriate to compare H5 rules with poker. 'Couse poker is just set of rules and nothing more, while H5 is rules AND a picture of world where we play, so it must contain at least basic logic in it.
If cavalier would be slower than archer - thats unlogical and that would affect gameplay for me. So much like RD does.
I know that much of the real world's logic is sacrificed to gameplay - and Im ok with it until it is the only way. But Im quite sure that there is another way to weaken RD.[/b]

[DaemianLucifer]

Reading such posts, where people trying to cover nival's f*ck ups, really amuses me.
Furthemore your's "explaining" itself is even more ridiculous that the initial one.

Mark this day people,for I am the one covering for nivals mistakes today!

So if Im a might-orientied hero with low spell & knowledge params, I still can put whole legion of troops amost to death in few turns ? That is you logic ? And moreover .. why then I cant do that with my enemy's troops ?

Sure you can.Use decay or curse of the netherworld The thing you just said doesnt mean that raise dead is faulty in its current form,but that spell system is too limmited and more spells are needed.

Intresting, what knowledge hero must possess to cast raise dead zillion times.. ?

Oh come on!A level 20 wizard will easily have 20+ knowledge.Add an artifact or two,arcane training and erratic mana,and you can easilly cast 30-40 raise dead in a single fight.

And continuing your logic, nival should make fireballs (and other direct damage spells) to make 20% less damage each time they are cast, 'couse some academy hero can use it zillion times on enemy troops. And he can just kill them all even without a move! Forking nonsense!

No,because fireball has no defence and requires you to mind your troops as well.Raise dead enables you to use just one single stack to win the combat.True,youll loose that stack in the end of the combat,but you would still win.For fireball to be spammed without your enourmous casulties the enemy would have to stand still for the entire combat.

[ThunderTitan]

The video game market is less developed there, standards are more traditional, and even the "crappy" storyline is actually of a very high standard to them.

Hazawhat?! That's the stupidest crap i ever heard.

[Cyrox]

Hi all, I voted it was the correct decision.

At first I was like wtf? They nerfed my dear magic? But then thinking about it it sounds pretty good balancing though.

Like necromancers can no longer spam raise dead, and no more of those talk of "casting empowered implosion on skeleton archers is useless because the next raise dead will raise them all."

And trust me, I always play warlock, but I play necronmancers now and then only because I find it so easy to win with them and impossible to lose.

I've played them on 1.3 on hard, and they're still unstoppable. Now they just cant get the upgraded undead as quick as b4.

And. I always get about 200++ mana by the time of mid game(With necromancer and warlock). Mana regeneration and arcane training really cancel out your mana woes. You will never ever run out of mana, let alone taking Intelligence from Enlightenment. Plus those knowledge points you get on the map and items too.

Necropolis has low knowledge is just a crappy excuse.

Now the new system works fine IMO. You can resurrect all of ur killed skeleton archers, for example. But in return I get to kill more of them. And the more you resurrect the easier it will be for me to kill them. Plus, there is also a small advantage such that because your unit's hp is reduced, u get to resurrect more as well.

Frankly, nothing to complain about, unless you are one who revolves around casting raise dead over and over again. I only use raise dead/resurrect at most 1-2 times in combat(Long battles, like town siege). If I adopt a good strategy, I wouldnt lose much. And most of the time my hero casts a spell it's something else.

My two cents.

[MistWeaver]

So if Im a might-orientied hero with low spell & knowledge params, I still can put whole legion of troops amost to death in few turns ? That is you logic ? And moreover .. why then I cant do that with my enemy's troops ?

Sure you can.Use decay or curse of the netherworld The thing you just said doesnt mean that raise dead is faulty in its current form,but that spell system is too limmited and more spells are needed.

It seams you've played h5 even less than i did.. may be that explains things.
Stack of 100 archangels, WEAK caster casts decay on them during 3 rounds. Spell will last about 2-3 rounds more after last cast. In a result we would have 1-2 archangels dead.
Now the same with (possible) offencive raise dead. In the result we would have 100 archangels with 40% of their initial health.

Now do you see the diffrence ?

Oh come on!A level 20 wizard will easily have 20+ knowledge.Add an artifact or two,arcane training and erratic mana,and you can easilly cast 30-40 raise dead in a single fight.

Ok, then opposite wizard can kill ressurected ones with direct damage. The only question is which wizard is stronger. It seems fair to me

No,because fireball has no defence and requires you to mind your troops as well.Raise dead enables you to use just one single stack to win the combat.True,youll loose that stack in the end of the combat,but you would still win.For fireball to be spammed without your enourmous casulties the enemy would have to stand still for the entire combat.

First of all, if you are not a necro and at the end of combat you have only ressurected troops - youll loose as well. As for fireball vs Raise dead - Ive allready mentioned. Stronger wizard will win. But now Raise Dead has no use in that situation.

[Naskoni]

Here is what I think would be better for Raise Dead. Before people start screaming and such I do not propose nor hope for this to ever enter an official patch so nobody is (at least me) is trying to shove this down your throat.

At the moment Raise Dead looks like this:

Level 2 Summoning Magic (9 Mana Cost) -20% HP per stack per cast

120 + SPx15 for anybody

160 + SPx20 for basic Summoning Magic

200 + SPx25 for advanced Summoning Magic

240 + SPx30 for expert Summoning Magic


What I think would be better is this:

Level 3 Summoning Magic (9 Mana cost) no HP penalty per cast

60 + SPx10 for anybody

120 + SPx15 for basic Summoning Magic

180 + SPx20 for advanced Summoning Magic

240 + SPx30 for expert Summoning Magic


The goal here is the following:

- if all Necros get the spell now with the proposed changes they will have the spell efficiency almost halved in the beginning phase and unless they get Summoning Magic it won't get that much better anyway

- non Necro heroes will have to get Summoning Magic in order to learn it in the first place (or get Magic Insight) thus it won't be used by just anybody - without specialization it won't do much anyway.

- it would still make Vlad a valid choice as he will cast it better at the beginning than anybody else but will not spam it more often as unlike the guy above I hardly have (always at that) 200+ mana by "midgame".

I cincerely think this solution is better than Nival's. I also think that it would be adequate the move the spell to Dark Magic as well.

Needless to say Ressurection should get rid of the -10% thingy as well.

If I could make the mod myself I would have done it but for the time being I cannot find where the new -20% HP is defined...

[Cyrox]

Hehe, 200+ is achievable but less often for me for mid game, but by end game I usually get 200+, and normally, mid game I get around 150+ or more.

Maybe I should say something more reassuring instead of quoting estimated figures:

I never ever run out of mana after the early stage of the game. And I still have plenty to use. (Warlocks and Necronmancers)

I get this huge pool of mana cuz of Intelligence. And with the skills which comes with sorcery, they make me use up my mana slower.

Plus knowledge on the map and items which add to knowledge too(I dont sacrifice other attributes or bonuses for knowledge though, so I did not get my high mana by wearing all knowledge items).

Yea...so mana is never a problem for me =).

[Naskoni]

Ok, did a mod according to what I proposed above - changed Earthquake to lv 2 instead of Raise Dead to fill the hole. On to some testing now and if there are no problems I'll upload it for whoever likes it this way.

By the way at the moment both Ressurect and Raise Dead have identical efficiency at expert levels of Summoning and Light Magic respectively - should Ressurect be more powerful considering it is both a lv5 spell and after the patch costs 15mana?

EDIT: Mod tested for bugs and sent for uploading in the Mod section. Comments and suggestions welcome.

[Alamar]

Fixing Raise Dead has a lot of factors that you must consider. One of the big things is that not only do you have to make the spell balanced BUT you also need to make sure that the Necro heroes are balanced against each other ... IMHO this limits your reasonable options.

Because you need to balance the spell and the heroes it [IMHO] makes a lot of sense to do the following:

1. Allow all Necromancers to cast Raise Dead from day 1. This makes sure that Vlaad / Nadir / etc. don't have a HUGE starting advantage over other Necros.

2. Keep the spell at level 2 [in order to make 1 above make sense]

3. Change the mana cost to 10. This will prevent early spamming by making sure you can cast it only once or twice early.

4. Because this is a L2 spell it shouldn't be "too good". It needs to have some downside to balance it vs. spells at its level. [Mana cost isn't enough] I would propose that any creatures that are raised come back with only 1 HP. The only thing to decide is when more damage is applied to the stack is it applied to the raised creatures FIRST, LAST, or somewhere in the middle.

Applying new damage to the raised creatures FIRST [IMHO] would be too much of a penalty.

I think the right thing to do would be to do some playtesting to see if it's best to apply damage to raised creatures LAST OR [a modification to what Nival did] is to average HPs of the raised creatures [each with 1] against the current HP of the living stack.

Ex: Lets say we have 100 skeletons at 5 HP each. Now lets says that they take 250 HPs of damage. There are just 50 creatures left with a total of 250 HPs. Now lets say a Necro has the power to raise "500 HPs" of creatures. After they cast Raise Dead the stack will have 100 creatures. 50 creatures have 5 HPs ... 50 creatures have 1 HP. The average HPs of the stack would then be 3HP. Now lets says that the stack takes another 150HP of damage. That kills 50 creatures. You raise the creatures back and now you have 100 creatures again ... 50 creatures have 3 HPs and 50 creatures have 1 HP. The average HPs is 2 per creature ..... Repeat as necessary

Ex #2: Lets say that you have 1000 skeletons at 5 HP each. Now lets say that they take the same damage as above [250 HP]. Now you raise them all back. You have 950 creatures with 5 HPs and 50 creatures with 1 HPs. This means each creatures has average HPs of 4.8 which is much kinder than the 4 HP each of the Nival solution.

If it turns out that having raised creatures come back with only 1 HP is too few then you could base the HPs on the Summonning skill of the caster:

No skill == raised creatures have 1 HP
Basic skill == 1 HP + 1/9 of original HPs [round fractions down]
Adv skill == 1 HP + 2/9 of original HPs [round fractions down]
Exp skill == 1 HP + 3/9 of original HPs [round fractions down]

[DaemianLucifer]

It seams you've played h5 even less than i did.. may be that explains things.
Stack of 100 archangels, WEAK caster casts decay on them during 3 rounds. Spell will last about 2-3 rounds more after last cast. In a result we would have 1-2 archangels dead.
Now the same with (possible) offencive raise dead. In the result we would have 100 archangels with 40% of their initial health.

Now do you see the diffrence ?

I never said weak caster.And the difference between offensive and defensive magic is that offensive magic is being resisted(by the force of will),while defensive isnt.So why your troops willingly let you drain their lives,opponents resist that,and you cannot force them because you arent trained enough.However,I wouldnt mind if there was a similar spell that could be cast on opponents on higher levels(meaning DD spells get a lot of boost with high power).

Ok, then opposite wizard can kill ressurected ones with direct damage. The only question is which wizard is stronger. It seems fair to me

But you arent always going to fight a wizard.What if you fight a strong might hero that has no magic skill whatsoever?

First of all, if you are not a necro and at the end of combat you have only ressurected troops - youll loose as well. As for fireball vs Raise dead - Ive allready mentioned. Stronger wizard will win. But now Raise Dead has no use in that situation.

Again,you dont always fight casters.And even if not necro,you can always use one extra stack to sit behind and wait while your pounders pound the enemy.I did win a battle once by just raising my single pitfiend three times.Its very easy.

[Sir_Toejam]

EDIT: Mod tested for bugs and sent for uploading in the Mod section. Comments and suggestions welcome.

I haven't received confirmation yet; if you don't see it appear by monday, send me a PM and we'll figure out how to get it in there.

[sezerp]

You guys keep forgetting, that this is a European game for a European market, and as such it's not designed for American emphesis on multiplayer balance. Their chief concern is single player, and whether the CAMPAIGNS are balanced the way it should be. The majority of THEIR audience only plays the campaigns, and most are not even able to do that. The video game market is less developed there, standards are more traditional, and even the "crappy" storyline is actually of a very high standard to them.

OMG, how could we forget that Europe is still in early XIXth century and doesn't have Internet and MP games. Bah, they surely don't have a running water there, you now. That you see so many posts from there (including this one, written in Gdansk, Poland) is obviously a dellusion. Get some sleep, NOW! And maybe cut on the alcohol...

And those European storytellers - Homer, Shakespear, Tolkien - what a crap

[Sir_Toejam]

OMG, how could we forget that Europe is still in early XIXth century and doesn't have Internet and MP games

LOL

[MistWeaver]

I never said weak caster.

But I did. Thats the point. Pay attention please.
The unlogical moment is that weak spellcaster can do such ultra powerfull deed.

And the difference between offensive and defensive magic is that offensive magic is being resisted(by the force of will),while defensive isnt.So why your troops willingly let you drain their lives,opponents resist that,and you cannot force them because you arent trained enough.

Not exactly. Most types of units know nothing about how magic works (conscripts, griffins & other beasts etc. ) So they aint paying any of their will to whats happening.

But you arent always going to fight a wizard.What if you fight a strong might hero that has no magic skill whatsoever?

Dude, do you know what game we are talking here about ? Its Heroes of Might & Magic Might as well as Magic has its strong sides.
What diffrence if might hero troops would be killed with fireball or using a ressurected dragon ? If you remember genies from H4 their icebolt did the same amount of damage as it gave HP to Illusions. Yet Illusions could be disspelled - and thats the way nival should be going.

[DaemianLucifer]

But I did. Thats the point. Pay attention please.
The unlogical moment is that weak spellcaster can do such ultra powerfull deed.

Again,its not a powerfull deed,its a powerfull blunder.Maybe it should be decreased with proficency in summoning magic,but decreaseing the hitpoints of your allies when buffing them is a blunder.

Not exactly. Most types of units know nothing about how magic works (conscripts, griffins & other beasts etc. ) So they aint paying any of their will to whats happening.

They all grew up in a world where magic is common,so its normal theyll have some natural subconceous ressistances.Its something like music.While music you like wont ruin your concentration while you are doing something(for example learning),music you hate will surelly annoy you.

Dude, do you know what game we are talking here about ? Its Heroes of Might & Magic Might as well as Magic has its strong sides.
What diffrence if might hero troops would be killed with fireball or using a ressurected dragon ? If you remember genies from H4 their icebolt did the same amount of damage as it gave HP to Illusions. Yet Illusions could be disspelled - and thats the way nival should be going.

A knight with attack,defense,logistics leadership and luck is no magic hero.

But I do agree that HIV magic works the best.

[MistWeaver]

A knight with attack,defense,logistics leadership and luck is no magic hero.

Yes he is a might hero and as well as other wizard can destroy ressurected troops with fireball, knight can do the same with his might bonuses.

But I do agree that HIV magic works the best.

True. Nival made f*ck up here too. Neglecting almost all good that H4 had, was stupid design move.


As for magic, I belive we just have diffrent points on that matter

[DaemianLucifer]

True. Nival made f*ck up here too. Neglecting almost all good that H4 had, was stupid design move.

Almost?As far as I remember,I counted three features that are like in HIV,and one was bad.(I remember that heroes without towns was one of those,but forgot the other two)

[mr.dna]

You guys keep forgetting, that this is a European game for a European market, and as such it's not designed for American emphesis on multiplayer balance. Their chief concern is single player, and whether the CAMPAIGNS are balanced the way it should be. The majority of THEIR audience only plays the campaigns, and most are not even able to do that. The video game market is less developed there, standards are more traditional, and even the "crappy" storyline is actually of a very high standard to them.

*Snicker*

Actually H V is distributed as a table top game in many parts of Europe.

[Angelspit]

EDIT: Mod tested for bugs and sent for uploading in the Mod section. Comments and suggestions welcome.

I haven't received confirmation yet; if you don't see it appear by monday, send me a PM and we'll figure out how to get it in there.

It's in my inbox. I will upload it today.