What Needs to be Balanced

[atma6]

What aspects of the game do you guys think still needs to be balanced? I think, after it is fixed of course, Runes need to be balanced, as well as the Warlock Racial. My list (what I can think of off the top of my head) would be:

-Rune nerf
-Dungeon Racial add on (make it interesting like they did with Necromacy)
-Hero balance (make some heroes weaker and some stronger, no uber heroes that rule all!)

Thats all I can think of now. Of course when I post this I'll probably think of tons...oh well thats what edit is for.

[winterfate]

Hero balance (make some heroes weaker and some stronger, no uber heroes that rule all!)

It's a nice thought, atma6. However, the way I see it, the only way that'll truly happen is if we go back to Heroes 4 for the hero concept (no special abilities, all heroes of a same class are equal). See, the problem is that there will always been a uber hero or a hero that's exploitable in some manner or fashion. I'll admit that when I play Sylvan I tend to pick Ossir (the Hunter Hero). We can try to balance out the heroes (even though I believe it won't work). If it works though, the game will be better for it, IMO.

[atma6]

I agree it would be hard, but I think if they put a great deal of effort into it they could achieve it. For example (these aren't meticulously balanced they are just my ideas) whith the Necropolis.

Vladimir, Kaspar, and Lucretia are all great heroes. Assuming we were to buff other heroes rather than nerf them, they could be changed in the following ways.

Orson: instead of giving him the standard attack and defense bonus, why not give him a +1 to zombie speed for every five levels. That would actually make them far more useful, as at level 20 they would have 4 more speed.

Deirdre: instead of increasing the duration of Banshee's howl, they could increase the penalty to initiative by maybe +1 every two levels.

I don't have much experience with the effectiveness of Naadir and Zoltan so I can't comment, and Raven is 50/50 with me, and I don't have a good idea for improvement.

These are just two random ideas to make other heroes more viable and so you don't pick Orson for starting with Vitality and then get bogged down with his inferior skill, and so we don't see in MP games the same heroes over and over again.

[winterfate]

Let's see:

Deidre would be overpowered with that alteration; severe Initiative decrease is way more abusive than a longer duration.

As for Orson, that boost I agree with. What's the point of having 250 Zombies that can't act, and when they manage to act, they can't move either?

Here's to hoping Nival pays attention!

[okrane]

Well guess what? They are not...
Guess what is going to change? I'll tell you... nothing.

So stop wasteing your time people...

[winterfate]

You have a point, okrane.

However, thinking up new ideas is infinitely better than just sitting around and being force-fed all the changes Nival wants to implement in the game (whether they are good or not).

And fans can influence game companies; we just have to unite and stand together!

[atma6]

The chances of Nival fixing everything are as close to zero as they can be. Still...its better to see what people would like to balance than to just to accept that it will never be fixed.

[winterfate]

Exactly!

As for balance, I consider they also need to balance the artifacts for the Wizards.

It's too hard to get them early...which is making people rely more on the hero's spells than on his creatures (which will only get you so far in a game).

By the time you're able to get the artifacts, you're:

1. Dead.
2. Winning.

At least, that's the way I see it.

[atma6]

I think that the resource cost of an Artifact should be determined by Knowledge. So Wizards with little Knowledge would have to pay a lot less for their weaker Artifacts, but the higher level Artifacts would cost a lot more. I think this balances out better than cost increase being determined by the number of effects.

[winterfate]

I see...yes, that would be pretty good.

Then again, you would need to increase the cost for multiple effects because an artifact with +5 HP and +2 Speed is stronger than an artifact with only one of those two effects.

Hmm, let's see, what else could be balanced?

Sylvan's Avenger:

I love the Sylvan, but can't stand having to go back to town every few days just to switch favored enemies. On top of that, you can't even favor a whole unit type; you must favor it's upgraded or unupgraded version only.

That whole favor Gremlins or Master Gremlins (for example) thing is rather heavy on micromanagement. After 3 months or so, it becomes a moot point anyway (no sane person is going to use unupgraded units just to evade the Avenger bonus).

[gaspi2]

Well:
Deidre: -1 morale and luck per every 7 lvls? that would be not overpowered IMO.
Master gremlin - why not that they will be able to repair once more per every 5 lvls?
or Orson - wekening strike increase by 1/1 per every 4 lvls? that would be nasty.
or avenger - I would give:
basic: 1 favored enemy may be chosen from tier 1 or 2
adv.:second favored enemy, also tier 3 and 4 may be chosen
expert: third, from 5 and 6 tier, too
ultimate: 4th, tier 7 may be chosen

IMO that would make avenger a LOT more usefull
if that would be overpowered, just lower dmg bonus from 50% to 30% and it would be much more balanced

And necromancy: I would give: hero raises tier egual to tier killed + perk from necromancy that they would upgrade themself if hero is full, but upgraded ones would be less than non-upg.(just like on heroes3)
no dark energy(I personally think it's downfall:-/) - IMO that's advantage of necromancers that they can raise dead;)
- hm, and ultimate - what about ultimate that hero will raise with necromancy directly on battlefield?(e.g. 20 black dragons killed, 4 spectral dragons raised into stack, if no stack is present, then it would rise near killed stack)
...and a lot of tips I have, however it would be long to write it there:)

[Jolly Joker]

The problem is that different people are judging things differently.
For example I'd say that under the new Necromancy rules Orson is a great hero. I wonder if anyone has played with or against him (led by human, that is). You'd be surprised hwo nasty those Zombies can get.

[okrane]

IMBAAAA!!!!

[atma6]

Orson can be very very brutal and effective I agree, but he only has two advantages, and those advantages don't come into play for very long, or very often. For example starting with Vitality gives his Skeleton Archers more power, but this is only really useful at the beginning against ranged creatures, caster creatures, or hero fights, and even then you aren't likely to go up against casters, and heroes (although when you do it pays off), so what is left is an advantage against units such as gremlins, but this advantage is destroyed a few levels in where other Necros will have the ability to gain Vitality as well.

His other advantage is being on the losing side of a the deciding final battle. Enemies throughout the game will usually ignore Zombies, which allows for a larger stack to be gained. Coupled with the Enraged ability Orson has an advantage. In a losing battle, his Zombies can hold out long enough (as well as dealing damage), for Orson to severly disable the enemy army using spells. This seems like a major advantage, but often times, if you are thinking to win with this position you need to either have severly weakened them before with your other troops, or to hope your enemy has no heavy hitter to take down the Zombies.

These seem like good advantages, but puting it realistically he only excells for the first few turns in the beginning if you are going up against ranged units, and at the very last battle if you are on the losing side (or a very close battle). Other heroes on the other hand are useful for either the entire game, or have an extended use in the beginning or end. Kaspar has a huge advantage throughout the early game, although this is pushed aside slightly later its advantage is considerably more far reaching than Orson's. Now we could nerf the other heroes, but in my post I said that my suggestion was just theoretical and not refined and it was assuming that heroes were going to be buffed rather than nerfed.

All of that being said, giving Orson's Zombies a speed boost would give Orson a mid and late game boost, so that after he loses his advantage through Vitality, he will have the advantage of offensively minded Zombies.

[okrane]

Or give him the teleport spell dammit

[Starbatron]

I agree with many of the ideas given in this post; something needs to be done to balance the heroes out a little bit. Why have eight heroes when half of them (at the most) are clearly always the best choices? Obviously, what was used in HoMM IV, as far as leveling heroes, won't quite work so well and would be a far greater change than Ubival is willing to cede. But perhaps the specialization class system used in HoMM IV could be altered an included to make the less appealing heroes more attractive. For instance, depending on skill choices, some classes could modify hero specialties or add to those specialties, thus making what might seem an unattractive hero at first into a much better choice. Just an idea...