Heroes 3 creature editing

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
mr.hackcrag
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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 11 Jul 2006, 16:42

But the formula for the creature bonus would make a lot more sense if it actually did what the game desription said. To me, it feels like non-creature specialist benefit much more with their ability because it is linear progression of their level-up.

Crag Hack will always get about a 1% increase to his offense skill for each level-up.

A spell caster specialist will always deal the same percentage damage bonus depending on his level compared to the creature he cast it on.

However, a creature specialist bonus doesn't always get a bonus to its attack and defense for attaining every X amount of levels. (X depending on the level of the creature.)

It feels like they made the abilities of creature specialists imbalanced compared to other heroes, especially considering a creature specialist ability only affects one unit in the heroes army, where as an ability like offence, prayer, or chain lighting can effect the whole army of you or your opponent.

EDIT: Just to make sure that we are talking about the same thing, I want to clear up what I mean by "linear-progression" in case you haven't seen my other thread.

A griffin specialist for example, would have griffins recieve a +1 attack and defense for every level attained that is a multiple of 3. (Because a griffin is a 3rd level unit.) So on level 12, the hero would give his griffins +4 attack and defense. Or a naga specialist (level 6 creature) would give his nagas +2 attack and defense on level 12, and etc. The game doesn't do that now. The current formual doesn't make sense to me.

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Unread postby difool » 13 Jul 2006, 17:41

I think Sorrow and Mirth could both benefit from -3/+3 respectively (same
for Fortune/Misfortune). Consider that the official _calculated_ maxima/
minima are +/- 3 to begin with, and that people are often hauling stuff
around which makes thier luck/morale even higher than +3, and maybe
I'll cast Sorrow/Misfortune at -3. I know at -2 I'll cast just about anything
else because I know the opponent is likely harboring some "bonus" levels
of that sort, making the spell worthless, or almost so.

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 13 Jul 2006, 18:34

Yeah, I didn't take artifacts into consideration when I mentioned this. In retrospect, it probably would be better with -/+3. Personally, I like to mix creatures of different alignments when I play, so my morale is usually in the gutter anyway, especially if there are undead in the group. :ill:

I still think those spells would fit better in the schools I mentioned before though.

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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 13 Jul 2006, 19:07

Wow, quite a few responses on this thread since i last checked in... anyway.. ill put up the text file online today (and edit this post when i do). Hope ppl find it at least bearable if not interesting heh :)

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Unread postby Pol » 13 Jul 2006, 19:35

Hu, hu :tsup:
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 13 Jul 2006, 20:01

Since my server is down (just realised it), i have put the file on geocities (hope it works).

Download link is http://www.geocities.com/yasmiel/H3spellpatchv1.zip
zip file contains readme and sptraits text files.

As for the changes ill post it here (since i know noone reads "readme" files) :)

LIST OF CHANGES

Changes to magic school masteries:
-------------------------------------
Untrained (None) - TRIPLE cost (compared to basic cost)

---* note that most might heroes will be rarely able to cast any spells untill they recieve some knowledge and/or magic school training.
---* also knowledge is much more important now when casting spells from schools hero isnt specalised in.

Basic - Reduces cost to one third of Untrained
Advanced (SP dependant Spells) - Adds +3 SP to calculation!!!
Advanced (other spells) - Increased Effect
Expert (SP dependant Spells) - Adds +7 SP to calculation!!!!
Expert (other spells) - Mass and/or maximum efect

Many spells have more or less changed names to fit their new level/school or simply out of boredom :)
Also, many ingame spell descriptions have been upgraded with more info about the spell.

School Changes:
----------------------------------
Dimension Door - (Fire)
Magic Arrow - (Air)
Anti-Magic - (Fire)
Resurrection - (Water)
Disrupting Ray - (Fire)
Destroy Undead - (Water)
Remove Obstacle - (Air)
Dispel - (Air)
Visions - (Fire)
Mirth - (Fire)
Sorrow - (water)
Misfortune - (Earth)

Level Changes:
----------------------------------
Town Portal - from 4 to 5
Death Ripple - from 2 to 3
Magic Mirror - from 5 to 4
Sacrifice - from 5 to 4
Disrupting Ray - from 2 to 4
Berserk - from 4 to 5
Blind - from 2 to 3
Remove Obstacle - from 2 to 1
Haste - from 1 to 2
Slow - from 1 to 2
Frenzy - from 4 to 3
Slayer - from 4 to 3
Misfortune - from 3 to 1
Sorrow - from 4 to 3
Prayer - from 4 to 5
Force Field - from 3 to 2

Damage/Effect changes:
---------------------------------
Frost Ring changed from 10*SP to 15*SP
Fireball changed from 10*SP to 15*SP
Ice Bolt changed from 20*SP to 22*SP
Inferno changed from 10*SP to 18*SP
Death Ripple changed from 5*SP to 11*SP
Destroy Undead changed from 10*SP to 12*SP
Fireshield damage changed from 20/25/30% to 25/35/45%
Magic Mirror reflection chance changed from 20/30/40% to 25/50/75%
Disrupting Ray defense reduction changed from 3/4/5 to 4/8/12
Landmine changed from 10*SP to 14*SP
Firewall changed from 10*SP to 15*SP
Precision ranged atack bonus changed from 3/6/6 to 4/8/8
Slayer attack bonus changed from 8 to 10
Counterstrike changed from 1/2/2 to 2/3/3
Chain Lightning changed from 40*SP to 36*SP
Meteor Shower changed from 25*SP to 23*SP
Resurrection changed from 50*SP to 45*SP
Animate Dead changed from 50*SP to 42*SP
Hypnotise changed from 25*SP to 30*SP
Prayer effect changed from 2/4/4 to 5/6/6
"Protection from" spells damage reduction changed from 30/50/50% to 40/70/70%
Misfortune changed from 1/2/2 to 2/3/3
Berserk area of effect changed from 0/+1/+2 to 0/+1/+1

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 13 Jul 2006, 21:12

Thank you for the spell patch. 8|

You want to know what's funny? I was in the middle of playing a large map and my main hero specialized in ressurect. I had expert earth and my hero had 13SP and 4 knowledge. I had no problem winning battles, because I could cast ressurect enough times to see me through the hard times.

But now that I've extracted your patch, my hero couldn't even afford to cast ressurect once! A few turns later, I was ambushed by a powerful enemy, and my once mighty hero was annihilated because he lost his biggest advantage. :(

I was so excited about your patch and it ended up getting me killed. Ah well, it's still a good patch... guess I'll have to start that map over...

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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 13 Jul 2006, 21:14

you can always remove the patch, fight that battle then put the patch back :P

edit: if you think it severely hurts the game balance i might change it, but i think you should do well with spells from your curent school (earth) heh :)

maybe double instead of triple would do better :(

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 13 Jul 2006, 22:03

Not at all. I like it the way it is now. Don't take my little story too seriously, it's really no big deal. I just thought it was an amusing anecdote. Actually, I don't have any other useful spells except ressurect. (Which my hero started with.) I always play on impossible and I was building up three castles at the same time, so all my resources are going towards creature dwellings instead of mage guilds.

I like triple because it requires a hero to become proficient with a school of magic in order to be able to use it. It also gives a bigger distinction between might and magic heroes. I haven't played around with all the spells yet to know of any balance problems, but if you'd like, I'll give you my thoughts once I've played more.

One thing I read in the text document of the sptraits is that at mastery level, damage spells can do an additional 7xsp of damage! I haven't actually cast anything on expert yet to confirm how much damage it does and how much it costs, but 7 sounds like a lot... too much.

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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 13 Jul 2006, 22:21

Actualy, its not 7*SP, it adds TO the SP so if your hero has 10 SP spell will use 17 (10+7) instead. lower level spells get a decent boost, and most higher ones have been reduced to make this work (for example resurection is 45*Sp instead of 50*SP.
(note: its all mentioned in spell description once you right click on the expert spell)

To counter this, all fixed spell bonuses have been REMOVED!

to show how it works ill use implosion as example for a hero with 10 SP

before patch

basic- does 75*SP damage (750 total)
advanced - does 75*SP +100 damage (850 total)
expert - does 75*SP + 300 damage (1150 total)

after patch

basic- does 75*SP damage (750 total)
advanced - does 75*(SP+3) ... (975 total) ...75 more than before
expert - does 75*(SP+7) ... (1275 total) ..... 125 more than before

so overall, damage increase isnt as big as it seems on first look.

Of course, if time shows it is too much, then i was wrong :), but i was under impression that most players think damage spells are too weak.

And of course any feedback is welcome and maybe i'll even update the patch (so those that dont want to edit .txt files themselves can still get it)

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 14 Jul 2006, 15:25

Hi Ya5MieL, I'm just leaving a little feedback for you about your spells. Feel free to correct me if you disagree.

1) Hypnotize seems to be the most un-usable spell in the game. I'm not sure what the damage formula is, but with expert air and 13 SP (which would actually be 20 SP) I couldn't take control of 6 normal hydras. Then I fought a bunch of battles with all sorts of armies, and not one time could I ever cast hypnotize on any creature. I think it still needs to be made more powerful.

Since I've never been able to cast it in all the years I've played homm3, I don't know how long you can control your opponents creature, so I can't offer an exact solution as what changes need to be made.

2) The spell "dispel" would seem more fitting to me in fire

If you're wondering how dispel would be connected with fire, I was thinking about how the element of fire is asscociated with things like energy, vitality, power, etc. Fire has been traditionally used to cleanse the body of diseases from open wounds, sores, or even cancers. It makes me think of the quote, "And the white flame shall purify all..." which would explain why it dispel would remove all status effects... So that's my metaphysical reason.

Oh, and maybe dispel should be renamed "cleanse" and cure should be named "heal," considering the above, but the name is not as important.

3) I hate to bring issue back, but sorrow, inspiration, fortune, and misfortune should all raise/lower moral or luck by 3 at expert level. I know I said something different earlier, but now considering artifacts, visiting buildings, and stronger damage spells, you need more incentive to cast these spells.

Maybe more importantly, they should all be on the same level and cost about the same mana. I know someone might say, "Well isn't it more useful to raise your morale by 3 rather than lower your opponents luck by 3?" It might seem this way on the surface, but it's really hard to say considering all the possible situations.

What if you already have +2 morale and your opponent has +3 luck. Wouldn't it be more useful to neutralize the threatening luck than raise your morale by 1?

Or what if your opponent casts sorrow and lowers the morale of all troops by 3? You couldn't counter it by casting inspiration because on expert level, it only raises your morale by 2.

I think having all these spells raise and lower by the same amount, and having them all at least on level 2 would be better.

4) Maybe raise "re-animate" to level 4?

5) (This might be a VERY bad idea, but I'm just throwing it out for disucussion sake.)
Move "magic arrow" into fire school and fireball into air school.

I say this for the same practical reason that you probably seperated ressurect and re-animate, fly and gate, or cure and dispel. Air has two spells that target one creature and fire has two area of effect spells.

These spells would have to be renamed to fit their new school, but I don't how to solve the problem of the appearance of fireball when cast in combat in air school...

Well, that's it so far for spells. One new thing I've noticed about the game is that magic heroes are now definitely superior to might heroes. There are a few select heroes that you should definitely watch out for.

Luna and Ciele from conflux are amazing in the early game. Luna's firewall deals double damage bringing the damage at 30xSP! On top of that, she starts with basic fire so she can start casting it pretty soon. It's excellent to take control of those mines early on.

Ciele's magic arrow will deal 50% more damage, so she can really benefit from the +7Sp at expert level.

Then there is Loynis from Haven who is the only hero to start with the level 5 spell, angelic prayer! On top of that he casts it with increased effect so all his troops on expert level can gain an additional 1-3 bonus to speed, attack, and defense depending on the unit!

I think that if the problem/bug/crazy thing that prevents creature specialists from properly giving the bonus to their respective creatures was fixed, it could balance the game much more, making it more worthwhile to choose them. I've mentioned/complained about this is other threads, but no one seems to respond. Do you know how to fix this problem?

I know you wanted feedback about the triple cost system. I'm trying to think of pros and cons about it as I play, but I still need more experience. Personally I like it a lot so far. I'll let you know my thoughts in the future...

P.S. I was wrong about the +7 spell power. It seems to work pretty well so far. Although an alternative formula could have been to keep the damage of spells like meteor shower and ressurect at the original values and have +1Sp at basic, +3Sp at advance, and +5Sp at expert, so that it puts more emphasis on a heroes Sp as opposed to skill proficiancy. But you can ignore this because I wouldn't want you going back to make all those tedious changes. I'm sure it's very hard work.

P.S.S. Whew, so much writing...I hope this is helpful to you. Just out of curiosity, what is your favorite school of magic now, and which do you think is "the best." I think I like fire school most and I think water school is "best."

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 15 Jul 2006, 05:35

Here's a continuation of the above. Correct me if you disagree.

First off, here is a way to make Triple Cost more complete:

Triple Cost with no proficiancy: spells cost triple.
At basic, cost is reduced by 1/4 or 1/3.
Advanced, cost reduced by 1/2 or 2/3
Expert, cost is normal.

This way, mastering a school will effect both your SP and knowledge skills more equally.

Well, I've changed my mind about the +7 spell power again. I'll mention some of my experiences as to why it's too much.

Started a game with Alagar as my starting hero. I got expert water at level 7. My SP was 7 and thanks to an artifact, had 8 knowledge. My ice bolt dealt 308 without specialty bonus. It was week 2 and neutrals were no problem. About two months into the map, I had 80 evil eyes, 80 cerberi, 6 arch devils, 20 efreet, and not one of these units could deal more damage than my ice bolt.

Started a game with Solymer as my starting hero. I managed to get expert air on level 4. I visited two dwellings to raise my SP and Knowledge by 1. By the 5th day, my chain lighting was dealing 432 damage on the first strike not including the bonus he got from his specialty! Keep in my, he is only on level 4 with no artifacts! I played a month into the map. With one month worth of creatures, not one of them was able to match anywhere near the damage his chain lighting was dealing. Every battle was a slaughter.

Started a game with Septienna. By week 3 my death ripple was dealing 165 and hitting an average of 4 units, totalling to 660. Neutrals didn't last long, and heroes couldn't endure too many rounds either.

I think the biggest problem with the bonus is that you can deal a large amount of damage even if your hero doesn't have high spell power. In some cases, the bonus I recieved from expert mastery was more SP than my hero had! It's not difficult to master a school of magic early in the game, and this makes things really unbalanced because units can't withstand too many 300-600 damage attacks within the first month. And units also can't deal that much damage either. A magic hero will destroy a might hero without much trouble in the early game too.

Lower level spells benefit much more with the 7Sp bonus compared with the way things were before the patch. The implosion example you used before made sense only because the fixed damage was so much higher compared with lower level spells. But the theory falls apart when taking low level spells into consideration. The spells were so strong, that I didn't even have incentive to use any of the effect spells I had.

If you want spells to be more damaging, raise the base damage of the spell instead of adding the bonus to skill mastery. This will at least require the hero to gain a few levels to get his SP higher. Personally, I think all the spells deal good damage the way you have it now. I'm glad the fixed damage was removed, but the bonus with skill mastery is too strong on the lower level spells.

A possible alternative could be to restore spells that had their power reduced to the original and use the +1, +3, +5 at expert that I mentioned above.
EDIT: I've done some more testing. It seems that spells like thunderbolt, glaciel spike, magic arrow are the spells where the +7 or even +5 SP is too much. In other words, spells that only have 1 target, or more specifically, spells that have a high base damage compared to fixed damage. With these spells, a +1,+2,+3 formula would work better. Honestly, I think that this extends to armageddon, implosion, ressurect, and a few others too. Personally, I never really thought that these spells needed to be more powerful. It was all the spells like death ripple, fireball, frost ring, etc. that needed more power, and it seems these are the spells where +5 would be more fair. But for the sake of consistincy, +3 would be a better average if you want to consider the "whole." I'll try to do a some more testing later to get a better feel of things. I'll probably end up changing my mind again... :tired:

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 15 Jul 2006, 18:58

Still no reply Ya5MieL? I hope I'm not writing all this for nothing... Here are a few more spell suggestions.

Give "Berserk" an area of effect like fireball at expert level and move it down to level 4 and raise "armageddon" up to level 5.

It seems like some spells on level one should cost 1 or 2 points more. Casting mass shield for only 4 mana doesn't seem like enough. Although, if you did this, then you might also have to raise the cost of higher level spells respectively, and that would be a lot of work for you, so it might not be worth it...

Not really a suggestion, but a just a note: there is a pretty big gap between certain schools of magic in terms of the number of spells on a certain level.

For example, fire has 5 level 4 spells compared with earth which has 1. Might be another reason to put "reanimate" at level 4.

Or fire has 6 level 3 spells compared with air which has 2, earth which has 3 and water which has 5.

Level 1 & 2 spells are a little bit more balanced and air is the only school that has fewest spells on level 5, but that doesn't matter too much because you can only get one spell from level 5 guild anyway.

I guess my point is that it might skew the chances of learning a certain spell from a mage guild when there is so many more spells of one school compared to another. I don't have any suggestion to fix this yet because most of the spells seem to fit in the school and level that they are on now. I'll have to think about it more...

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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 15 Jul 2006, 23:22

Im curently on some 2-day music festival so i wont be able to read/answer much here but tomorow after i return ill read thru the whole and see what can i do.

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 16 Jul 2006, 01:44

That's good to hear. I was starting to get nervous. I hope you have a good time at your music festival.

Here are some more observations...

Haste and Slow only cost 20 mana without any skill development. According to the triple cost formula, they should cost 30, because with expert skill, these spells cost 10.

Slayer should be lowered to level 2 because according to your readme file, it raises attack by 10 on one unit. If you cast bloodlust at expert level, all your units will recieve +6 attack. Bloodlust is level 1 and costs very little, yet produces better results overall.

Or if you don't want to do this, you can raise the attack bonus slayer gives and keep it on level 3.

Weakness is on level 2 and should be lowered to level 1 because both bloodlust and stoneskin are at level 1 and they both increase attack/defense by the same amount that weakness reduces attack.

Or if you don't want to do that, you can raise bloodlust and stoneskin to level 2 to match up with weakness. But if you did that, you'd probably also have to raise shield to level 2 because in my oppinion, shield is better than all of these spells. But then you wouldn't have enough level 1 spells, would you?

That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll have more by the time you get back from your little vacation. Won't that be fun to read? (Yeah right!):mad: :devil:

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 16 Jul 2006, 04:57

Would it be all right to post the H3spellpatchV1 zip on Map Archive VI?

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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 16 Jul 2006, 13:06

Of course BB, though i will prolly make an update in few days so it might be better to wait for that ver :)

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 16 Jul 2006, 13:39

Hi ByteBandit! :D :-D

Here we go again...

-Shield should be raised to level 2. The +6 defense stoneskin offers at expert would only be a 15% damage reduction if we use the game's formula. Bloodlust's +6 attack would be a 30% increase in damage according to the formula, however you also have to take into consideration that these bonuses are dependant on the attack and defense of your opponent. If the +6 attack only puts your unit 3 attack over your foe's defense, then the bounus will only be 15% and visa versa. Shield will reduce damage by 30% regardless of attack or defense.

- Any reason why protection from air and earth are on a higher level than prot. from fire and water? I thought all schools had pretty good damage spells so it seems they would all be on the same level...

- This idea might suck, but I think the cost of casting mass spells should go up a little considering it affects all units. It seems logical that casting a spell at mass level would require more mana than casting on one unit...

That's all for now. Whew, I feel really bad. :S You were probably heading to your music festival in a happy and peaceful mood, but now that you have to deal with all of this craziness when you get back... :devil:

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 16 Jul 2006, 15:09

-Precision should be lowered to level 1 because the attack increase is +8 at expert compared with +6 with bloodlust, stoneskin, etc. Though the attack is more, it affects fewer troops, so I consider these spells about equal level.

- Forgetfulness should cost more mana to cast. I compared it with air shield which is on the same level (3) and found that at expert, air shield reduces damage by 50% from all enemy ranged units. Forgetfulness at expert makes all enemy ranged units attacks completely useless, yet these spells cost the same amount.

By the way, fire magic is so much fun! I was fighting Crag Hack who had 28 attack and the fight boilied down to his 24 ancient behemoths against my 32 chaos hydras. Naturally he would have won, but I blinded his behemoths and cast bloodlust, slayer, frenzy, and sunray the next couple of rounds. In the end, my hydras had well over 100 attack and his behemoths had 0 defense! You know the rest... I used to think that water school was strongest with support spells, but I might be having second thoughts.

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 16 Jul 2006, 16:04

Same hello back at ya hackcrag. :-)
Ya5Miel, if you belong to Map Archive VI, go ahead and post your release in the Trait folder if you like when you're happy with your next version. Thanks.


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