Faction Balance

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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Corribus
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Faction Balance

Unread postby Corribus » 06 Aug 2007, 16:00

I've played all of the factions now (I love the dwarf faction) and I was wondering what you all think about faction balance. Is there a faction (post-patches) that stands out as poorly balanced (too good or too bad)? It's hard for me to evaluate because every faction is so unique. What do you think?
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Unread postby Mirez » 06 Aug 2007, 16:15

I think they should make gating like it was before, inferno isn't that good alleready cuz they only have 1 shooter and 1 teleporter
treants are dendrosexual 0_o

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Unread postby Cem » 06 Aug 2007, 16:22

I think haven rules since HIII

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Unread postby Corribus » 06 Aug 2007, 16:30

I didn't get the game until recently. How was gating in earlier versions?
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Bahototh
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balance

Unread postby Bahototh » 06 Aug 2007, 16:35

Well, I think Academy can be a bit tough to play in early games, if you dont have tons of money coming in...

Also, I seem to get beaten by inferno heroes alot...

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 06 Aug 2007, 16:52

I think, overall the balance looks good - on "balanced" maps.
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Unread postby Corribus » 06 Aug 2007, 16:55

What about tactically? Given 3 weeks worth of troops and standard hero builds, is one faction's troops better (or worse) than all the others?
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Unread postby Alamar » 06 Aug 2007, 21:55

A lot of things depend on the maps themselves.

To me I feel that Necros [my preferred faction] are too strong compared to other factions on heroic difficulty / Large maps. Honestly this is to be expected though with the way Necromancy works .... Perhaps I feel that they are too strong because I almost never have creeping problems with the faction.

I haven't tested enough but I would think that Inferno could have some problems depending on if the AI ignores gated units and charges at your mainline troops.

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A couple of hotseat games played against yourself with each of the factions should give you a fair idea of how well your playstyle lends to playing those factions.

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Unread postby Elvin » 06 Aug 2007, 22:39

Three and four week armies are ok, the point is that some have better creeping and may be better prepared as necro or academy. Below that magic may gain an edge and above that we have upgrades that can cross the battlefield in one turn - then the balance shifts. Because if archangels and champions charge with retribution and maybe luck magic may not be enough to keep them back.
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Unread postby Banedon » 07 Aug 2007, 00:20

Corribus wrote:What about tactically? Given 3 weeks worth of troops and standard hero builds, is one faction's troops better (or worse) than all the others?
I don't have Hammers of Fate, but I can answer this question.

No - given 3 weeks worth of troops (on Hard difficulty) and standard hero builds, some factions will completely and utterly destroy another. Example: Sylvan is grossly weak early-game and any kind of magical rush will annihilate them. 3 weeks is not a long time and more than enough for Deleb to power her way through a map (in fact she should arrive in 2 or even 1 week, unless you're playing a large map). A battle in the third week between a standard Academy Army and a standard Sylvan army will result in a rout; Sylvan's forces cannot stand their own at that time because the Academy force will toss spell after spell and destroy the Master Hunter stack, wherupon the rest of Sylvan's forces fade. However, given 3 months worth of troops Sylvan (which in my opinion comes full flower in late-game) will annihilate Academy, because by 3 months time the Sylvan hero will probably have Magical Immunity, Deflect Missiles, a large stack of Master Hunters, Emerald Dragons in play (which can block Ranged stacks) and so on to safeguard his damage.

As in all Heroes games except Heroes 4, a Might hero will gain in strength as the game goes on while the Magic hero will be less powerful. Since there're Might and Magic factions in Heroes 5, so too will the factions be unbalanced. Sylvan's task early-game is to survive while Academy's will be to win (or build up a huge castle advantage for example); if Sylvan achieves that task they will have a stronger force late-game.

PS: I think Sylvan is the weakest race still by the way.
I haven't tested enough but I would think that Inferno could have some problems depending on if the AI ignores gated units and charges at your mainline troops.
The AI always does now but it's not that bad. Since they hardly ever destroy Gated units, those units will continue to deal full damage. It's bad to some point and not so bad in another.

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Aug 2007, 06:09

My opinion is that ultimately the faction wins that can dominate with their racial special. Three weeks is not enough to develop something like that, even though you might tempted to say that Dungeon is likely to dominate due to the high destructive potential of their heroes in relation to the low HPs an army will consist of, but at this stage a Warlock won't have too many mana which then is the problem, especially when facing an Inferno hero.
With Sylvans this faction special is - deliberately, I'd like to think if I look at their luck affinity - based on luck and chance. If you happen to HAVE the right favored enemies for your opponent a battle may be decided by a lucky hit on a favored enemy, so I'd say that the Sylvans are something like a joker faction: they may lose unspectacularly and fast, but they may win spectacularly just as well.
So I think that everything can happen - which is supposed to be a balance, ìsn't it?
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Unread postby Mirez » 07 Aug 2007, 14:04

Corribus wrote:I didn't get the game until recently. How was gating in earlier versions?
you could select where you want the creature to gate instead of random
treants are dendrosexual 0_o

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Unread postby PhoenixReborn » 07 Aug 2007, 14:49

haloswift wrote:
Corribus wrote:I didn't get the game until recently. How was gating in earlier versions?
you could select where you want the creature to gate instead of random
It isn't random. It never was. There was a joke by DL saying that it would be random in the upcoming patch. Wasn't true.

The only difference now (from earlier versions) is that the unit that gated, it's turn comes faster. Because the gated unit doesn't come in very fast shooters and flyers are still going to decimate your normal troops.

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Unread postby Corribus » 07 Aug 2007, 15:03

@Banedon

Speaking of balance in general, I think to be considered balanced you only need to be referring to a time-average. By which I mean the following. If you pick a point along your time axis, it is ok if some factions are better than others, as long as, if you consider all time points things average out. For instance, one faction can be really strong in the early came, as long as it is comparably weak in the late game. Actually I think this sort of "dynamic balance" is much more interesting than "static balance" where all factions are evenly matched under all circumstances.

Heroes II had dynamic balance, actually very good dynamic balance. Some factions (Knight, Barbarian) were VERY good in the early game and in small maps, and could kick the crap out of wizard and warlock in such circumstances. But in longer games, Wizard and Warlock were clearly much better. So while at any given time certain factions might be advantaged, averaged over all times everything was pretty balanced. On the other hand, H3 had static balance. Just about every faction was equally good at whatever time you pick, and for whatever type of map, at least it seemed that way to me.

So when you say that Sylvan is very weak in early game, that does not ruin the balance in my mind as long as they are comparatively strong in the late game. It's when one faction is abnormally strong at all times that things become unbalanced.

Oh and by the way you should get HoF. I absolutely love it. The campaigns are - IMO - much better than those of the original game, the dwarf faction is awesome and the new terrains, particularly the underworld ones, are really nice.
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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 07 Aug 2007, 17:12

Yeah, it's balanced by making sure that some always win on certain maps and others on other maps... ;| :|
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Unread postby Mirez » 07 Aug 2007, 17:16

[quote="PhoenixReborn"][quote="haloswift"][quote="Corribus"]I didn't get the game until recently. How was gating in earlier versions?[/quote]

you could select where you want the creature to gate instead of random[/quote]

It isn't random. It never was. There was a joke by DL saying that it would be random in the upcoming patch. Wasn't true.

The only difference now (from earlier versions) is that the unit that gated, it's turn comes faster. Because the gated unit doesn't come in very fast shooters and flyers are still going to decimate your normal troops.[/quote]

dammit I stopped playing inferno for that :|
treants are dendrosexual 0_o

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Unread postby Corribus » 07 Aug 2007, 17:17

@TT

No it's about recognizing and playing to the strengths of your faction. In H2 if you were the knight playing the warlock, you could not afford to sit back and let the warlock come to you. You had to be aggressive and fight for an early encounter. The warlock needed to bide his time and avoid confrontation until he was developed. The game was still balanced very well though because no one faction was universally better than another.
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Unread postby PhoenixReborn » 07 Aug 2007, 21:13

haloswift wrote: dammit I stopped playing inferno for that :|
You should take it up again!

I just had a match where I was inferno, against sylvan. I had dark magic and the book of dark magic and I thought for sure I had an easy win, but I got screwed over by magical immunity. Oh well, I think the balance is still pretty decent.

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Unread postby Alamar » 07 Aug 2007, 23:56

I admit that a "dynamic balance" can be quite fun but I think that something closer to a "static balance" is best for serious strategy games. [Whether HoMM qualifies as a serious strategy game is another matter ..]

My point is that if I start out with a fairly well balanced MP map it would be nice if it was my skill that determined victory as opposed to me just happenning to get exactly the right faction to match this specific map's quirks.

I do think that some variability is good .... Please don't misinterpret me. I do think though that H2's variations were a little too large ....

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Unread postby PhoenixReborn » 08 Aug 2007, 00:01

In all of my games, win or lose, I think there is enough variability to have provided a different outcome if I had played a little differently...it's mostly about tailoring your strategy to your specific opponent, and once in the major combats doing your spells in the correct order.


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