Heroes of Might and Magic II Mod

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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chaosgorgon
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Unread postby chaosgorgon » 15 Apr 2007, 03:46

how can you put music from H3 or H4 on H2???, in towns and combat could be a nice idea, but if someone knows, please tell me, thanks
Tigrans forever!!!!meow!!!

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Kristo
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Unread postby Kristo » 15 Apr 2007, 22:13

chaosgorgon wrote:how can you put music from H3 or H4 on H2???, in towns and combat could be a nice idea, but if someone knows, please tell me, thanks
First, I'd recommend making a list of all the tracks on your Heroes 2 CD so you know what music to use for each one you want to replace. Then you need to create a mixed mode CD. On track 1 (data track), put all the files from your Heroes 2 disc. For the rest of the tracks (audio tracks), put whatever music you want. The Heroes 3 music files are already in mp3 format, so that would be the easiest.

I used this technique to create a Price of Loyalty disc that uses the town themes from the base game. Theoretically you could replace any track with any song you want. But, there are some very short (around 6 seconds) tracks used for things like the Magic Garden and Observation Tower; I'm not sure how the game would react if you put a full length song in their place.

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grobblewobble
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Unread postby grobblewobble » 16 Apr 2007, 12:35

New idea for the mod.

- make sure the well no longer increases growth
- give the well a price of 0 gold

The idea is to disable the well. This way has some advantages over just removing it altogether:

- you can still click the well to view available creatures this way
- this way doesn't interfere with the building dependencies of the knight
- this way, existing maps with prebuilt wells remain compatible

Disabling the well would have several advantages:

- bone dragon rush would no longer be so effective
- on larger maps, black dragons / titans would no longer be the only way to win
- magic heroes would become more powerful, because armies would grow slower
- lower-level creatures would no longer become obsolete once the higher-level creatures come into play
- neutral armies would become a bit more challenging

In short, it would solve all of the major balance issues with this game. I seriously think the well is a flaw in the design, and removing it would improve the game in many ways.

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danijel1990
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Unread postby danijel1990 » 16 Apr 2007, 18:05

Yeah, that's nice idea, although isn't better to make the stats of all units similiar,

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 16 Apr 2007, 23:33

I think well set to 0 would be nice for balance... even tho well set to 1 would be step towards balance as well.

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Unread postby Campaigner » 16 Apr 2007, 23:49

Yeah, setting the growthbonus of the well to 0 and making it cost 0 gold would be good enough.

Now we need to get along on what needs to be changed so we can start playing again quickly :-D

I think we all agree to the well change. Nerfing of B.Dragon and Titan to 200hp and a small boost to the peasant we also agree on?

How are things on the mageguild front?
5w, 5o and 1000 gold for lvl 1
1 of each resource and 2000 gold for lvl 2
2 of each resource and 3000 gold for lvl 3 and you know how the next step is going to look.

Is this agreed upon?
Last edited by Campaigner on 17 Apr 2007, 14:34, edited 1 time in total.

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 17 Apr 2007, 02:21

I've managed to pretty much find all the data mentioned before (building costs, creatures, spells)... however, finding a 2 from the well bonus might be slightly out of our league (that specific variable is nowhere near building data/costs)....

There is no need to wait for specific forum member, editing with this is pretty much easy once we agree upon changes to be made.

PS: I've checked all bytes with value 2 that are happening 36 (number of basic creatures) or 54 (number of basic+upgraded creatures) times in a row, and no change did affect wells in any way... i guess thats it from our part... searching for a hard coded byte doesn't sound very optimistic
Last edited by Ya5MieL on 17 Apr 2007, 02:58, edited 2 times in total.

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Unread postby Campaigner » 17 Apr 2007, 02:23

Then we have to hope that AngelSpit gets that info from the developers.
Last edited by Campaigner on 19 Apr 2007, 22:59, edited 1 time in total.

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 17 Apr 2007, 03:06

As for the changes, here are my suggestions(and by that i truly mean just suggestions :P)

Knight & Barbarian creature growth:
+4,+3,+2,+1,+1,+0
+4,+3,+2,+1,+1,+0

Necroman & Sorceress creature growth:
+2,+1,+1.+0,+0,+0
+2,+1,+1,+0,+0,+0

Stat changes:

All Knight Troops: +1 Defense
All Barbarian Troops: +1 Attack

Titan HP reduced from 300 to 200, gold cost reduced from 5000 to 3500

Green Dragon HP reduced from 200 to 150, gold cost reduced from 3000 to 2500
Red Dragon HP reduced from 250 to 175, gold cost reduced from 3500 to 3000
Black Dragon HP reduced from 300 to 200, gold cost reduced from 4000 to 3500

Mage Guilds:
1- 5w+5o+1precious
2- 5w+5o+2precious
3- 5w+5o+3precious
4- 5w+5o+4precious
5- 5w+5o+5precious

just a suggestion... :P

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Unread postby Campaigner » 17 Apr 2007, 14:46

Creature growth, definetly yes.
Statbonuses, sure.

Not sure about dropping the price of G.R.B. Dragon and Titan that much. After all, they're superunits that got all sorts of advantages (very fast, shooting, no melee penalty and best stats in the game). I'd say they'd have to cost 4000 gold but it's no biggie :)

Mage guild prices are fine to. The constant wood & ore needed will stop the Knight and Barbarian from getting good spells too quickly.

Is it possible to change growthrates? In that case, we can somehow balance out the well with additional growthrates for Knight, Barbarian, Sorceress and Necromancer but direct damage spells will lose a bit in effectiveness.

Sure hope those devs can help us....

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 17 Apr 2007, 14:53

Yes, creatures growth rates are easily changed.
As an additional change, building costs of dungeon and some other buildings can be changed as well.

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grobblewobble
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Unread postby grobblewobble » 17 Apr 2007, 15:44

Hi Ya5Miel, I see we have another good hex editor around!

So disabling the well is not an option.. Let's see if we can agree on a mod with the current possibilities.

Lord Belphegor already made a mod, and mailed it to me. I tried it out, to see the effect of the changes. Here are some of the changes he made, and how they worked out.

- dragon/titan growth reduced to two per week (base growth 0)
This helped a whole lot. It looks like warlock/wizard armies no longer completely dominate large maps. An army of only dragons or only titans in the hands of a might hero is a bit easier to deal with now.

- crusader/cyclops HP +10
This didn't seem to make a real noticeable difference, to be honest. I do think the gold costs should be increased a bit for paladins (600->650) and cyclops (750->800). Crusaders are expensive enough.

- peasant HP +1, speed +1
Whoa! Watch out for my peasants! Seriously, peasants are suddenly a good early game for the knight. You still get about 40-50 peasants with every new knight you buy, so they really shouldn't be boosted beyond this point. Also, a gold increase is needed, something like 20->25.

- zombie, dwarf and their upgrades -25 gold
This is really a nice improvement, you can now better afford to buy those pieces of cannon fodder.

- well 2500 gold, 5 wood 5 ore
Ouch! This really hurts the knight and the barbarian.

- dungeon cost 5000 gold, 10 wood, 10 ore
Overdone. I didn't build it any more, with 10 days just to get your gold back it takes too long.

- fortifications reduced cost
I don't remember the exact new price, 'cause since I rarely even build turrets, I didn't bother to build this one either.

About the costs of the mage guild: it is hard to say how much the costs should be reduced. But maybe a further explanation why I think it should be cheaper would help.

Say you are playing with a wizard castle. What do you build first? The cloud castle or the mage guild (up to level 5)? I bet most people start with the cloud castle and its upgrade. I bet a lot of people even trade non-gems to gems to build them faster. So what's next? You can now build up the mage guilds and attack with your wizard, who has probably already got expert wisdom. OR, you could use a might hero and attack directly. Since you have no or little precious recources at this moment, building a high-level mage guild would take quite long. Moreover, there's the risk you get the more uninteresting spells from it.

This practical example shows what I mean, hopefully.

Another suggestion for the mod: why don't we give might heroes 0% chance to learn wisdom? Belphegor said he had found the location of chances to learn skills..

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grobblewobble
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Unread postby grobblewobble » 17 Apr 2007, 16:14

Ya5MieL wrote: Knight & Barbarian creature growth:
+4,+3,+2,+1,+1,+0
+4,+3,+2,+1,+1,+0
Necroman & Sorceress creature growth:
+2,+1,+1.+0,+0,+0
+2,+1,+1,+0,+0,+0
While increasing growth rates of lower level creatures is a nice way to simulate the absence of a well, I have my doubts about those numbers. The knight & barbarian are getting a big boost and the warlock/wizard none.. they would dominate the smaller maps this way.
Stat changes:

All Knight Troops: +1 Defense
All Barbarian Troops: +1 Attack
Why?
Titan HP reduced from 300 to 200, gold cost reduced from 5000 to 3500
Possible, but I agree with Campaigner 4000 gold is better for the titan in this case. It makes sense they're more expensive than black dragons because they are ranged.

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 17 Apr 2007, 17:16

As i said, those are just suggestions...

I've made the mod myself as well, and I'm willing to share the offsets i found with anyone willing to help mod the game. However, we should keep things in perspective... one mod that many people will agree upon will be better than having a different mod for every person.

Another suggestion i have is to give the heroes unique primary skills progression table (i can do that as well), thus limitating the levels10+ table which pretty much flattens out the differences between heroes.

I.E. Knight has this distribution:
lvls 1-9 -- 35%-45%-10%-10%
lvls10+ '-- 25%-25%-25%-25%

I would like to replace that with unique table
lvls 1+ 35%-45%-10%-10%


Or maybe even more drastic change (this one is not serious suggestion, its just an idea) --> to introduce Primary and secondary attribute like tis done in H5 (each race would have 2 attributes as their default which would differ from other classes) -- note this would be interesting but could break the game balance.


AS for the changes, i wanted to rather nerf titans and dragons than boost all other creatures. Somehow i like peasant being 1 in all stats, he is like benchmark for other creatures :P

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Unread postby Campaigner » 17 Apr 2007, 20:04

About growthrates, perhaps we should just change the growthrates for Knight and Barbarians toplvl units? Like +2 or +3?

And if it's possible to change the growth to negative numbers, should we set Titan and G.R.B. Dragon growth to 1/week or keep it to 2? I think we should settle for 2 since the cloud castle and black tower costs a fortune.

Making it impossible for Knigts and Barbarians to learn wisdom is a big step. But the more I think about it, the more right it is. No more cheesy Berserk, Mirror Image and Dimension Door by heroes who don't know the first thing about magic :) To compensate, the manacost for those spells could be raised so the 4 magicheroes can't cast them so easily.

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 17 Apr 2007, 20:24

Growth can be anything between 0 and 255, but im not sure would 245 + 2 from well cause crash in game.

About adding growth for top level units, then they would make lower levels completely obsolete... 4 paladins with 5 swordsmen?

I would prefer boosting low level growth with nerfing of titans and dragons.

But my vote is just a one, if majority wants other solution, i wont complain.

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Unread postby Campaigner » 17 Apr 2007, 21:20

I'm not sure what's best. Right now in our suggestions it's like this for toplvl units?:

Knight: 4
Barbarian: 4
Sorceress: 2
Necromancer: 2
Warlock: 2
Wizard: 2

That looks good to me.

Ok, lets make our views clear on the suggestions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knight & Barbarian should not be able to learn wisdom - Agree
Mage guild cost set to 5w, 5o, 1000 gold, 1 rare. Next mageguild lvls increase in cost with 1 precious - Agree
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The primary attributes probability % on lvlup I don't know if they should be changed.

But what about spellcosts? You think lvl 3-5 spells should have their costs raised?


Is there anything else to discuss before we make the changes?

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Ya5MieL
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Unread postby Ya5MieL » 17 Apr 2007, 21:28

Dragon growth should be minimum 1+2 from well if dragon cities are to be of any use.
I wouldn't mint them staying at 3(if nerfed). After all H2 was balanced in a way that some factions should be strong at start and some in the end.

Now, if there is a change in primary skill percentages that would mean less knowledge and sp for might heroes - thus less chance to cast spells, which has same effect as raising spell costs.

There is no need to ban wisdom from might heroes, they can learn it, but it wont help them much if they have very few spell points.

I already have like 10 different mod.exe files in my h2 directory... a mess lol

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Unread postby Campaigner » 17 Apr 2007, 23:30

I thought the point of the mod was to balance the game. Having some towns dominate earlygame and some lategame like it's now goes against the purpose of the mod.

Altering with the probability % lvlup chances like that would really make the heroes diverse, I give you that! Just that a Knight or Barbarian with 15 Attack and 5 Defense and 2 SP and 2 K can still cast Berserk or some other highlvl spell that can determine the game. I'm mostly concerned about Berserk since it can be gamebreaking.

I don't know about those two suggestions....they will change the game in a monumental way....
What if we implement both? That way, a magichero can cast mass Slow and have time to blast the enemy to oblivion with damage spells as is his job. And a mighthero would fight tier 5 units with tier 2 troops on equal terms.

I still believe in banning wisdom from the mightheroes....even one round of Mass Haste/Slow can be devastating. could also increase the manacosts of some higherlvl spells such as Berserk (almost want to remove it completely).

I've thought of anohter suggestion. Linear increasing spelldamage.
Now spelldamage increses linear. 1 SP = 25 damage with Lightning Bolt and 2 SP gives 50 damage.
What if 2 SP would give 55 damage (+30) and 3 SP would result in 90 damage (+35)? Every lvl of Spell Power would increase the damage with 5. This would encourage Spell Power focusing which would result in more Wizards and Warlocks being played.

No way to boost Mysticism?
No way to make heroes regenerate mana per knowledge points?

Do you play it on WinXP? If yes, you got opera sound?

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 18 Apr 2007, 06:32

No offense, but it looks like you are on a good way to ruin a perfectly good game.
Maybe you should simply start with making a list of which things really have an influence on the balance of the game, like:

a) amount of starting money and res (i.e. difficulty level)
b) map size
c) building and creature cost
d) creature "power" (stats and numbers)
e) hero charecteristics
f) power of magic as a whole and their workings
g) map structure: rich, poor, creature rich (Necro)

You have to consider the changes in every respect. For example: Every nerfing of a very good creature in the game - like Titan and Dragon - will be a buff for the Necro. There must be creatures balanced so that you still can beat a Necro on a large map - and beating a Necro on a very large map might become very difficult when your Blackies or Titans just got nerfed to 200 HPs or 2 creatures per week.
The same is true for taking away higher magic from Knights and Barbarians completely - they will just be useless on a larger map because there is no way for them to D-Door anymore, for example, not to mention the many SP-maps that will get unplayable due to this.
And you don't want the factions to become too equal either.


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