Are Ghosts / Spectres TOO strong now?

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Alamar
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Are Ghosts / Spectres TOO strong now?

Unread postby Alamar » 17 Sep 2006, 13:15

Now that Ghosts & Spectres have seen a +100% and +58% boost in HPs are they now too strong?

What looks out-of-whack to me isn't the power of the Necros per-se [without the silly ghost farming "exploit"] but the strength of ghosts / spectres guarding mines.

A creature with 19 HP, good speed, decent init, with incorporeal is a NIGHTMARE to deal with. On top of that if you have to deal with a "hoard" [or more] of them during week one you're hosed if they are blocking a critical choke point in the map.

While I'm glad to see the Necros getting a quality creature in their lineup I think the game needs to put far, far fewer of these creatures in guardian locations.

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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 17 Sep 2006, 19:28

they're harder to get rid of now, but they do less damage as well.

necros needed a good defensive unit, and they got it; the perfect unit to defend those stacks of skellie archers.

meh, I'm pretty ambivalent about the change.

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Jolly Joker
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 17 Sep 2006, 19:40

Alamar, I think you are making a big mistake here. You are basing all of your balance discussions on HEROIC level. This is clearly wrong. Heroic level is not the "normal" play level.
So the basic consideration is NORMAL level, not heroic.
If you calculate on heroic, you'll always and for all towns find things harder than others. I don't think heroic is relevant for this. Heroic is meant to be impossibly difficult. Right?

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Meandor
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Unread postby Meandor » 17 Sep 2006, 19:56

For once i agree with JJ.
...

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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 17 Sep 2006, 20:54

There are imabalances between the factions in all difficulty levels. They are just more glaring in heroic.

Yes, heroic is supposed to be difficult, but it should be equally difficult for all factions, otherwise there is an imbalance.

Yes, I think they pumped up ghosts/specters too much. They are incorporal and have nice hit points too.

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Alamar
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Unread postby Alamar » 17 Sep 2006, 21:50

Jolly Joker wrote:Alamar, I think you are making a big mistake here. You are basing all of your balance discussions on HEROIC level. This is clearly wrong. Heroic level is not the "normal" play level.
So the basic consideration is NORMAL level, not heroic.
If you calculate on heroic, you'll always and for all towns find things harder than others. I don't think heroic is relevant for this. Heroic is meant to be impossibly difficult. Right?
I think that you obviously don't understand the point of the topic. If you fight the current version of neutral Ghosts / Spectres they are too strong of a guardian no matter what difficulty level you are on. The only thing that changes between difficulty levels is the relative size of the defenders.

Let's make an example. Incorporeal [IIRC] triggers 50% of the time. We've all had battles though where [due to random chance] it triggered about 70% of the time. If you are fighting a hoard of "random level 3s" and get Spectres that means maybe you are fighting 50+ Spectres that effectively have over 60HP because of incoporeal.

If you think the above is fair and OK then good. I on the other hand don't think that fighting a [potentially] 60+ HP level 3 creature is a good idea.

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Unread postby Arqane » 18 Sep 2006, 02:28

Alamar wrote:Let's make an example. Incorporeal [IIRC] triggers 50% of the time. We've all had battles though where [due to random chance] it triggered about 70% of the time. If you are fighting a hoard of "random level 3s" and get Spectres that means maybe you are fighting 50+ Spectres that effectively have over 60HP because of incoporeal.

If you think the above is fair and OK then good. I on the other hand don't think that fighting a [potentially] 60+ HP level 3 creature is a good idea.
Creature stacks are not chosen by level, number, and THEN type. They're chosen by level -> type -> number. That's why in the same stack, you may see 50 peasants, but only 25 sprites (both come under random L1 all the time at the first wood/ore mines).

Ghosts/Spectres were always very dangerous without the right units (hunters being the best). Now they're a bit different, they're more likely to get to archers because of the added HPs, but they do significantly less damage. Before, if they used to get to you by luck, they'd REALLY hurt. Now it'll average out a bit more, and you can expect damage from them, but they won't necessarily wipe you out.

Strictly speaking by the numbers, they're no more or less powerful than before. It's still up to luck for how well you will do against them. But yes, the best strategy against them has changed, now Furies, Deep Hydras, and Imperial Griffins will be better against them.

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Unread postby Adicto » 18 Sep 2006, 03:19

Ghost/Spectres were very weak creatures, with only 8 and 12 hit points respectively its usefulness in combat was a product of pure lottery. A single blow could annul them, but a evaded attack was allowing them to preserve their whole integrity, followed sometimes by a devastating retaliation... Their function in combat was diffuse cause of this; it was supposed that they were anti casters/shooters, but they were not good at it, were dying fast because they had a ridiculously low life combined with low speed and initiative.

Now they are good blockers cause they are numerous, relatively tough and hard to hit, even casters like druids or archmages are in trouble against them cause magic is no more the spectres´ weakness. They do now significantly less damage, but who cares? they are not "killers", but blockers.

Besides necro tiers 1-4 were very, very, very weak, even basic vampires are mediocre creatures, but now with this new ghosts/spectres necro have some power a the start.

Summary: Ghosts and spectres are ok, man!
I think that you obviously don't understand the point of the topic. If you fight the current version of neutral Ghosts / Spectres they are too strong of a guardian no matter what difficulty level you are on
Master Hunters make almost the same damage than vampires, they have 10 initiative, ranged attack, double shoot and warding arrows. If you are scared about a horde of spectres guarding a mine, a horde of master hunters must give you a heart attack, man.

It is like when one player got silly treants guarding a gold mine and the other player got frightiening pit lords, and nobody say: "are pit lords TOO powerful?"

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 18 Sep 2006, 05:27

Adicto wrote: It is like when one player got silly treants guarding a gold mine and the other player got frightiening pit lords, and nobody say: "are pit lords TOO powerful?"
True,no one said that.But everyone said "ALL casters are TOO powerfull".And they still are.

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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 18 Sep 2006, 05:38

But everyone said "ALL casters are TOO powerfull".And they still are.
*raises hand*

I didn't.

they weren't too powerful before, and they are definetly weaker now (meteor show does far less damage on pit lords, for example).

so count me out of the crowd, i guess.

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Unread postby MrSteamTank » 18 Sep 2006, 05:40

Adicto wrote:Ghost/Spectres were very weak creatures, with only 8 and 12 hit points respectively its usefulness in combat was a product of pure lottery. A single blow could annul them, but a evaded attack was allowing them to preserve their whole integrity, followed sometimes by a devastating retaliation... Their function in combat was diffuse cause of this; it was supposed that they were anti casters/shooters, but they were not good at it, were dying fast because they had a ridiculously low life combined with low speed and initiative.

Now they are good blockers cause they are numerous, relatively tough and hard to hit, even casters like druids or archmages are in trouble against them cause magic is no more the spectres´ weakness. They do now significantly less damage, but who cares? they are not "killers", but blockers.

Besides necro tiers 1-4 were very, very, very weak, even basic vampires are mediocre creatures, but now with this new ghosts/spectres necro have some power a the start.

Summary: Ghosts and spectres are ok, man!
I think that you obviously don't understand the point of the topic. If you fight the current version of neutral Ghosts / Spectres they are too strong of a guardian no matter what difficulty level you are on
Master Hunters make almost the same damage than vampires, they have 10 initiative, ranged attack, double shoot and warding arrows. If you are scared about a horde of spectres guarding a mine, a horde of master hunters must give you a heart attack, man.

It is like when one player got silly treants guarding a gold mine and the other player got frightiening pit lords, and nobody say: "are pit lords TOO powerful?"
As neutral stacks all ranged units are clearly broken. Particularly druids and hunters. Comparing these units to other non-ranged units is not really fair.

Imo hunters should get both a dmg nerf and an hp buff(like 1 dmg reduction which would be 2 factoring both shots, 3 hp bonus, and 1 defense boost would sound about right). Druids should not be doing more dmg the more stacks they are split into.

In general though I find a few units are still in broken territory. For example upgrading peasants to militia is a waste because militia suck and peasants at least have a use as walking money bags that can be emergency upgraded to archers on defense.

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 18 Sep 2006, 06:07

Sir_Toejam wrote: *raises hand*

I didn't.

they weren't too powerful before, and they are definetly weaker now (meteor show does far less damage on pit lords, for example).

so count me out of the crowd, i guess.
So,youll rather fight a bunch of druids then a bunch of djinns?Or colossi?

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Sir_Toejam
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Unread postby Sir_Toejam » 18 Sep 2006, 06:22

So,youll rather fight a bunch of druids then a bunch of djinns?Or colossi?
that entirely depends on the circumstances.

if i have a bunch of slow meatbags with no magic protection, druids are bad.

if i have a bunch of fast heavy hitters, like cerberi and nightmares, then druids are no problem; on the other hand, attacking an equal number of collossi with cerberi would be complete suicide.

they really don't do that much more damage than any other equivalent level critter, it's just that the magic bypasses defense.

there's several ways around that.

I've played every map in this game, and all the campaigns, and did not find any of the magic using critters to be overpowered.

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 18 Sep 2006, 07:25

You dont find the fact that 7 stacks of 1 druid do much more damge than 1 stack of 7 druids the least overpowered?You dont find the fact that if your initial mine is guarded by some ranged/catser unit you have to wait a lot,while if its guarded by some walkers you can kill them with a single runner the least overpowered?I peronally will rather fight 10 000 zombies than 10 mages,and Im sure lots of people feel the same.You dont find that overpowered at all?Im talking just the guardinas here.Race to race comparison is a completelly different thing.

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Unread postby Adicto » 18 Sep 2006, 07:33

MrSteamTank wrote:As neutral stacks all ranged units are clearly broken. Particularly druids and hunters. Comparing these units to other non-ranged units is not really fair.
The point is that Alamar said "If you fight the current version of neutral Ghosts / Spectres they are too strong of a guardian no matter what difficulty level you are on", and I have showed the hunters example to argue that there are more dangerous creatures.

Simply there are creatures that work better than others as neutral monsters. It always has been this way and always will be, but it has nothing to do with underpowered or overpowered, simply different kind of creatures: shooters, casters, tanks, meat-shields...

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Jolly Joker
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 18 Sep 2006, 08:02

I'm with Sir Toejam here.

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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 18 Sep 2006, 08:38

Adicto wrote:Simply there are creatures that work better than others as neutral monsters. It always has been this way and always will be, but it has nothing to do with underpowered or overpowered, simply different kind of creatures: shooters, casters, tanks, meat-shields...
Very true, that. And there's really not much to do about it either. This is also why Casters are so broken: they are extremely powerful in small numbers, quite Ok in medium numbers and underpowered in large numbers. If you're fighting shooters, you're quite OK if you take out 9 of 10 and block the remaining stack. When fighting spellcasters, you're still in for a lot of hurt. Spellcasters gets so big bonuses compared to shooter that they should be doing less damage, but they aren't.
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Unread postby asandir » 18 Sep 2006, 08:45

and I'm with GC .... but i guess that doesn't really matter since the game is what it is
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Unread postby Panda Tar » 18 Sep 2006, 12:10

About spectres, I think they should decrease a bit their evade rate. Or maybe -1 speed. But strangely, I had less headaches with them after that change. Was their damage so high? :?
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Jolly Joker
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 18 Sep 2006, 12:23

Damage was 3-7 for ghosts and 5-7 for Spectres.


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