New Mod Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Babies!

[jorko80]

Hello Matt!
I didn't had much time to play in the last two weeks, but I have some feedback now.
In general I cleared the pirate lands and the dwarven lands including the subterrains and Mechgard. The game is interesting ,but the challenge is definately not like impossible. The pirates were like normal and the dwarves felt like hard at best, so maybe some meat% increasing should be done or creature stats changed if possible.
The hero vs hero fights are really interesting,very good job . I liked Duke Sov fight very much, he was a real pain in the ass.
When James is killed you can go to the dwarven lands. So going in the upper and lower Haddar is good,but then when you get to Taron mines ,you can without any problem bypass the creatures and access the Dwarven King's palace and then his sons palace and that is too much. You get many things too easily. So this is solved in the GM-mod, by making one immobile guard in Taron mines,so you can't get past it without fighting and I like it a lot.
In the standard version of the game it is also possible to continue even further - descend from Taron mines to the zone where the Demon world entrance is and enter bypassing the guards. And in the demon world there are so many precious things and experience that it must be not so easily done also. So the decision is another immobile guard in front of the entrance.
Another thing is the Gremlin castle that you buy from the dwarven king. Entering there gives you access to at least 2 black dragon eggs,which are easy to get again bypassing the guards. And again there should be immobile guards to the eggs, otherwise getting 2 black dragons so early means devastation of everything.
Next point : my favorite theme - the Spirits . Zerock seems to be ok so far,not overpowered and usable,the same goes for Slime. But then comes Lina. The Ice thorns are nicely changed, I like them so far, the ice ball seems to be ok, but I didn't developed it much so I cant really say. But the Chargers are seriously overpowered. Being able to cast them every turn replenishes everything way too easy even with the mage and I suppose with fighters is easier. They should be nerfed a lot. At least a bigger rest and lower their number.
Scroll prices - I think they are too high , I've got too much money selling them,that means I can loose much army and replenish it easily. At least in impossible you should make them 3-4 times cheaper.
Trade skill is useless - you spend so much runes to get it to lvl3 and you can never sell so many things so that you can buy your runes back. So with so high scroll prices I just leave it to lvl1 ,keep my runes and still get much money from selling scrolls to be able to buy army and some runes.
Meditation skill is also not comparable to the other skills so it just stays to lvl1 ,maybe it must give something more to give some incentive to the player to spend the runes on it.
You have increased the mana needed to cast many spells and also increased the mana that the hero acquires by leveling and skills. I think it's well balanced with one exception. You left the artifacts that give mana the same and that makes them useless. For example there is a picture artifact that gives 20 mana and that was a major artifact in the original game, now I don't even consider using it, it makes almost no difference and it's not competitive with the other arts. It should give at least 40-50 mana to be competitive. And the other mana-arts should be increased respectivly.
The spell sheep is too powerful because of it's duration , I think it should be with at least -1 base turn duration. Now when I cast it I don't think for that creature too long, that's too easy.
Spell Fireball is a bit weak, in the center it does less damage then the flaming arrow and in general it is not so usable, it should do 20% more compared to flaming arrow ,it is quite expensive ,so more damage is required.The same goes for Fire Rain, it is also a bit weak.
Unit Canonner - there is no logic that it has no melee penalty.
The hero Big Pato - he is supposed to be a super dumb warrior and you gave him the ability to cast spells. He was very challenging before anyway. So maybe you should remove the spells and make his creatures harder or whatever you think fits,but no spells

Now some bugs I encountered :
-Another 2 heroes that dont appear in battle : Zombie Noric and Thorny Dog
-Red Beard tries to cast something,maybe it's phantom ,but it just gives a writing on the screen and nothing happens.
-Drammina has the shroud bug . I removed shroud from her spells and left her with the other two. One of them was the ghost blade I think, but it was strange that she didn't cast anything for the first 2 turns of the fight.
-The Archmage's Telekinesis is not working correctly or maybe you changed it somehow. Sometimes it works and sometimes not, I couldn't figure it out.
-The Royal Thorn's Entangle skill works on ghosts ,no logic in that.
-You added a decription to the Giants that says they can't be frozen, but the Lina's Ice thorns did freeze them.
-I cast 2 flaming arrows on the first turn and set on fire two creatures. When their turn comes ,the first one burns and playies and then the second one doesnt burn. It burns on the next turn with full burn damage if there is no creature that burns before it. That applies to poisoning also or any combination between them, just the first creature takes damage.

I like the changed mechanics for burning and poisoning that the creatures take half the damage and so on
This is what I can say so far.

Now about the mod you work on for Armored Princess. I have a proposal.
Armored Princess has so many mods already. So many creatures,so many changes, it is flooded. So my point is that you can do a mod for Warrior of the north,instead of giving your time and efforts on the Princess. It has a good potential and desperately requires a mod to make it more challenging and balance many things.The way it is in the moment makes it absolutely boring to be played for a second time and so on. Please consider it . If you do, I can give some feedback. And I don't understand modding so well, in case you ask "why don't I do this myself"

[Fatt_Shade]

Hello jorko80

Glad you stayed with this mod. As i said before enemy heroes fights are great part of this mod.

1) As for getting from Lucky James to dwarf king is how game is supposed to go, but after that is your choice what to do. Fight to free dwarf prince is hard to do below 10lvl hero, without losing 50% of army. And about kiting demon lands, it`s always players choice to do or not to do. But main game quests are locked with hard battles Free dwarf prince obligatory to continue, to gain access to Elven lands (Sonya, marauder hero in underground, wizard hero in entrance to valley of 1000 rivers), then clear undead lands (evil book hero, Mysticus(horrible), and couple others) then Karador battle (which is horrible in this mod) obligatory, after clear demons Baal battle (also big pain in ass) obligatory, and then it`s labyrinth 7 Haas battles and orc lands 3 hero fights there (main orc hero and lore keeper were tough). And ofc last battle vs army of 5th lvl creatures and high lvl hero. You can decide to go linearly and maintain story plot, but kiting is and always were players choice.
Comparing to Ap/Cw where you could kite with hero 1st lvl to Reha and get up to 17-20 lvl before first battle (if not counting training area) , the Legend is much better kite protected. because here are some battles thet you MUST do before going further.

2) Gremlin castle making it so you have to fight first before entering is good idea and i like it, which would make ppl wait before buying it. Because game is set so difficulty of item battles is determined on hero lvl in moment you buy/get item. This i figured out by accident when got 2 same items and suppressing them gave me different battle and different exp. So higher hero lvl = tougher item battle = more exp. So why buy gremlin castle as soon as you get to dwarf king, if you can w8 and get it 10lvl later and get bunch more exp for it, instead those 2 dragon eggs and some gold if you get it soon and kite around it.

3) spirits are better then in original game settings, i like them. But as you said some changes are due. I set some things weaker then in Mat`s settings and it`s not difficult, but if you`re not sure what you`re doing better ask for advice then make problem with game files. Making Lina chargers is fast and i could help you , or Mat could give you advice how to do it.

4) Trade skills/scroll prices etc ... Gold never was big problem in this game, and to me and i`m sure many other lvling trade is only because we want skills after it. But that particular skill really have low potential, and nothing better to do with it, so bear with it and lvlup other skills more useful.

5) items losing usefulness comparing to original game. I think this was main idea. Making you have kids with wife, instead telling her you should wait with family plans, and keep her as simple mule to lug items around. You can carry what ever you want in inventory, but leave your wife to rise children, and keep her busy And randomness with kids is great thing, you can get great pick, or you can have shi.y luck and get battle oriented kids with mage hero or opposite spell kids with warrior/paladin On this topic, what wife/kids you running in your build ?

6) spells, as you mentioned pure spell dmg is not main effect but burning/poisoning effects, and more attention is toward buff/debuff spells because here high intellect bonuses work as was described in original game but never implemented (blind,sheep,haste... all those spells work longer for high int bonus).

7) as for bugs
- Noric and Thorny werent there in original game either
- Red beard , Dramina it`s spells bug i`m sure it`s fixable
- had no problem with telekinesis so far
- since ghosts are ,<4 lvl units entangle works on them, but i`m guessing you mean they are incorporal units and entangle shouldn`t be able to capture basically air, but it`s hard to make just one unit unentangleable (?) , same as it`s impossible to make one unit unable to be frozen (giants) but possible to shock (lightning) or some other post hit effect.
- also hadn`t problem with more then 1 burn/poison effect per turn. Lets wait for Mats idea on this.

In end, Ap/Cw mod is under develpoment for a long time, and i know lots of work is done on it to simply skip it and go to WotN. As WotN is still buggy and with problems/crashes and Ap/Cw is fully functional i vote for working mod for Ap then hasty mod for WotN. Imagine working this mod, with parts of Red sands, so your/enemy units have bonuses from tomes,heroes,and based on game difficulty and more form unit personal experience (as they lvlup depending on location in game). I agree there are lots of mods already for Ap/Cw but that`s because that release was done with more attention then latest WotN and had less bugs/problems to fix.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Okay, I've inlined both @jorko80's and @Fatt_Shade's comments where appropriate and responded accordingly...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Hello jorko80

Glad you stayed with this mod. As i said before enemy heroes fights are great part of this mod.

That makes two of us!

Originally Posted by jorko80

Hello Matt!
I didn't had much time to play in the last two weeks, but I have some feedback now.
In general I cleared the pirate lands and the dwarven lands including the subterrains and Mechgard. The game is interesting ,but the challenge is definately not like impossible. The pirates were like normal and the dwarves felt like hard at best, so maybe some meat% increasing should be done or creature stats changed if possible.

I have some ideas to make the normal battles tougher, but I was saving them for AP / CW and then possibly roll them back into TL.

You know, when I play TL now, I do as much as possible without even fighting, I think the last game I played I got up to level 5 or 6 before I even fought my first fight.

There are quite a few quests that you can do before you go to the Western Islands without fighting - it sounds like you are also using this strategy.

When I first did my TL mod development, I was not nearly as good as I am now. Also, I didn't know how to edit the *.LOC files, etc.

Now that I've gained all this experience with not only modding and playing TL, I've got some even better ideas for making it harder.

So we'll see how it goes as I continue to work on AP / CW and eventually roll what I learn there back into TL...

Originally Posted by jorko80

The hero vs hero fights are really interesting,very good job . I liked Duke Sov fight very much, he was a real pain in the ass.

Thanks! This part of the mod works really well and you'll find that it is continuously challenging throughout the game.

The problem with the normal battles is that you simply have a huge advantage against them as they have no spell caster to help them.

Originally Posted by jorko80

When James is killed you can go to the dwarven lands. So going in the upper and lower Haddar is good,but then when you get to Taron mines ,you can without any problem bypass the creatures and access the Dwarven King's palace and then his sons palace and that is too much. You get many things too easily. So this is solved in the GM-mod, by making one immobile guard in Taron mines,so you can't get past it without fighting and I like it a lot.

I did not change this part of the game so everything is as it is.

Originally Posted by jorko80

In the standard version of the game it is also possible to continue even further - descend from Taron mines to the zone where the Demon world entrance is and enter bypassing the guards. And in the demon world there are so many precious things and experience that it must be not so easily done also. So the decision is another immobile guard in front of the entrance.

I do not currently know how to implement the immobile guards, but this sounds like a good idea. Although I think I'm a bit spoiled as I really enjoy running around everyone to get the goodies (plus it gives me a chance to get Gerda), but you are right about putting garrisons to make the game more challenging.

I'll have to learn how to affect the creatures movement paths as I have no idea on how to do this.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Another thing is the Gremlin castle that you buy from the dwarven king. Entering there gives you access to at least 2 black dragon eggs,which are easy to get again bypassing the guards. And again there should be immobile guards to the eggs, otherwise getting 2 black dragons so early means devastation of everything.

Wow, you know all the shortcut strategies. Immobile guards sounds like a good idea - looks like I've got more to learn!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

2) Gremlin castle making it so you have to fight first before entering is good idea and i like it, which would make ppl wait before buying it. Because game is set so difficulty of item battles is determined on hero lvl in moment you buy/get item. This i figured out by accident when got 2 same items and suppressing them gave me different battle and different exp. So higher hero lvl = tougher item battle = more exp. So why buy gremlin castle as soon as you get to dwarf king, if you can w8 and get it 10lvl later and get bunch more exp for it, instead those 2 dragon eggs and some gold if you get it soon and kite around it.

This is a really neat idea! I wonder how to do it, though...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Next point : my favorite theme - the Spirits . Zerock seems to be ok so far,not overpowered and usable,the same goes for Slime. But then comes Lina. The Ice thorns are nicely changed, I like them so far, the ice ball seems to be ok, but I didn't developed it much so I cant really say. But the Chargers are seriously overpowered. Being able to cast them every turn replenishes everything way too easy even with the mage and I suppose with fighters is easier. They should be nerfed a lot. At least a bigger rest and lower their number.

Your Charger mileage will probably start to decrease when it becomes more important to do damage than replenish mana / rage. Also, you don't get much experience for Lina if you use them a lot, so I think you'll find that the Chargers strategy will put you at a disadvantage later, with a lower level Lina (which you'll need for her to get some levels otherwise you'll be in big trouble later).

So think of them as candy - they taste really good now, but later you'll be regretting that you ate so much!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

3) spirits are better then in original game settings, i like them. But as you said some changes are due. I set some things weaker then in Mat`s settings and it`s not difficult, but if you`re not sure what you`re doing better ask for advice then make problem with game files. Making Lina chargers is fast and i could help you , or Mat could give you advice how to do it.

I think all the Spirit abilities now have a place in the game, but you'll find that sooner or later ones that you thought were really awesome are now not doing it for you and you'll move on to other ones.

But if you really want to change values, then they are in:

• ZEROCK.ATOM
• SLIME.ATOM
• LINA.ATOM
• DEATH.ATOM

Originally Posted by jorko80

Scroll prices - I think they are too high , I've got too much money selling them,that means I can loose much army and replenish it easily. At least in impossible you should make them 3-4 times cheaper.
Trade skill is useless - you spend so much runes to get it to lvl3 and you can never sell so many things so that you can buy your runes back. So with so high scroll prices I just leave it to lvl1 ,keep my runes and still get much money from selling scrolls to be able to buy army and some runes.

All the scroll prices I computed via formula, They are based on how much the spell increases per level and stuff like that. You probably haven't spent any money on Tibold's Runes, yet, and so you're rolling in the dough. But you'll find that you won't get enough runes to get all the skills you'd like and then you'll be wanting more income and wish you hadn't sold them before you got your trade skill up.

I'm always out of money at the end of the game, because I'm buying crystals and runes. So we'll have to wait and see if you have excess runes at the end of your game.

I did have quite a few extra Mind Runes at the end of my last Paladin game, but this was the first time that ever happened with my mod so I slightly tweaked the Paladin Rune level up. Made me wish I had implemented the AP / CW Rune Exchange system since I wanted another level in Dark Commander since I was running with Demons and didn't have enough Might Runes, but plenty of Mind Runes. I think I might know how to do this and was planning on implementing it some time in the future...

So keep playing and we'll see how you're doing when you want some more Runes...

If you're playing no loss, you really only need a very small amount of money to buy enough troops if you stick with them throughout the game.

I like to trade wives and switch armies a lot so I end up spending a lot more money on troops than normal to take advantage of the wife / kid bonuses...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

4) Trade skills/scroll prices etc ... Gold never was big problem in this game, and to me and i`m sure many other lvling trade is only because we want skills after it. But that particular skill really have low potential, and nothing better to do with it, so bear with it and lvlup other skills more useful.

This part of the game, I really didn't affect directly. I think the original TL you can get gobs of money, too, but can spend it on Runes really quickly as I mention above...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Meditation skill is also not comparable to the other skills so it just stays to lvl1 ,maybe it must give something more to give some incentive to the player to spend the runes on it.

Yah, meditation is a toughie to make useful, but the Runes aren't really that much, although I can see not putting much into it until you start using a lot of level 3 spells and find that you're low on mana a lot.

Originally Posted by jorko80

You have increased the mana needed to cast many spells and also increased the mana that the hero acquires by leveling and skills. I think it's well balanced with one exception. You left the artifacts that give mana the same and that makes them useless. For example there is a picture artifact that gives 20 mana and that was a major artifact in the original game, now I don't even consider using it, it makes almost no difference and it's not competitive with the other arts. It should give at least 40-50 mana to be competitive. And the other mana-arts should be increased respectivly.

Yah, well you can see that I left all the original items alone. You can actually get that artifact without fighting a single battle at the beginning of the game, so it is still useful early. You just out grow it quickly if you're a mage. It is still useful to Warrior and perhaps Paladin...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

5) items losing usefulness comparing to original game. I think this was main idea. Making you have kids with wife, instead telling her you should wait with family plans, and keep her as simple mule to lug items around. You can carry what ever you want in inventory, but leave your wife to rise children, and keep her busy And randomness with kids is great thing, you can get great pick, or you can have shi.y luck and get battle oriented kids with mage hero or opposite spell kids with warrior/paladin On this topic, what wife/kids you running in your build ?

Right! Now you want to have children so you can get better items for your mage...

I'll second the wife / kids question!

Originally Posted by jorko80

The spell sheep is too powerful because of it's duration , I think it should be with at least -1 base turn duration. Now when I cast it I don't think for that creature too long, that's too easy.

Well, you'll be cursing it when it's used on you and it lasts that long! Plus, you probably haven't noticed, but a unit's resistance affects spell duration. Cast spells on troops with magic resistance and the spell duration increases if it is a bonus spell or decreases if it is a penalty. Fire resistance affects the duration of burn, etc.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Spell Fireball is a bit weak, in the center it does less damage then the flaming arrow and in general it is not so usable, it should do 20% more compared to flaming arrow ,it is quite expensive ,so more damage is required.The same goes for Fire Rain, it is also a bit weak.

This is by design. Think about it, why would you use Flame Arrow if it does less damage than Fireball / Fire Rain to one target? Mana may be one reason, but usually this relegates use of the spell to the end of the combat when you are more trying to surgically weaken enemies for recovery.

The purpose of single damage spells / rage abilities is that they will do the most damage to a single target, this round. The multi-target damage spells like Fireball / Fire Rain are meant to do more aggregate damage to targets, possibly for this round (depends on the number of units you can target), but should provide more damage in the long run.

Also consider Fireball / Fire Rain - how should these spells be different? You'll note that Fireball damages the central target more than Fire Rain, but the periphery less. So you can see that Fireball is sort of a mixture of Fire Arrow and Fire Rain in a way.

Also you'll note that all the demon male enemy heroes use Fireball and demon females use Fire Rain!

So there is a lot more strategy to spell choice now as you have to consider whether you want to do more damage to a single target or spread it out and whether you want to maximize damage on this round or over many rounds.

Also, there is Greasy Mist that you can use as well to drop their resistance in hopes of doing more damage in the long run.

I think you'll find that there are a lot of subtleties like this that dramatically increase the strategy of how you fight a battle...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

6) spells, as you mentioned pure spell dmg is not main effect but burning/poisoning effects, and more attention is toward buff/debuff spells because here high intellect bonuses work as was described in original game but never implemented (blind,sheep,haste... all those spells work longer for high int bonus).

Right, I think you'll find that you're really going to crave intellect now. Remember what the description for a mage says at the beginning of the game? It says that the Mage's armies are much smaller and so you're going to find that this is actually the case, but your spells will be potent if you can get that intellect up. And so will the enemy mage hero spells with their high intellect...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Unit Canonner - there is no logic that it has no melee penalty.

I didn't change this - but I think I can understand the logic. The cannonball actually might do even more damage if you were in front of it!

I don't think I'd want to stand in front of a cannon!

I don't think Bugs Bunny can stick his carrot into the barrel and have it explode in the Cannoneer's face! Ha! That'd be funny!

Originally Posted by jorko80

The hero Big Pato - he is supposed to be a super dumb warrior and you gave him the ability to cast spells. He was very challenging before anyway. So maybe you should remove the spells and make his creatures harder or whatever you think fits,but no spells

That's what you think!

Big Pato has a skill tree just like you and he picked his level-ups just like you picked yours! So he decided to pick a couple of Mage School Skills and spent his hard-earned crystals on learning some spells!

So leave poor Big Pato alone!

Originally Posted by jorko80

Now some bugs I encountered :
-Another 2 heroes that dont appear in battle : Zombie Noric and Thorny Dog

Fatt_Shade is right here...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-Red Beard tries to cast something,maybe it's phantom ,but it just gives a writing on the screen and nothing happens.

I don't think I've ever fought Red Beard - let me check his spells and see if I can find the problem...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-Drammina has the shroud bug . I removed shroud from her spells and left her with the other two. One of them was the ghost blade I think, but it was strange that she didn't cast anything for the first 2 turns of the fight.

This is fixed now, right? Shroud should work now - I tested it out with Dirty Butory and Shroud worked fine. I'll check her spells...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-The Archmage's Telekinesis is not working correctly or maybe you changed it somehow. Sometimes it works and sometimes not, I couldn't figure it out.

I haven't had any trouble with it, but I'll check it!

Originally Posted by jorko80

-The Royal Thorn's Entangle skill works on ghosts ,no logic in that.

This shouldn't be as ghosts are floating and Entangle shouldn't work on any floating units (this should be Ghosts, Dryads, Sprites, Dragonflies, etc.). So I will check this...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-You added a decription to the Giants that says they can't be frozen, but the Lina's Ice thorns did freeze them.

It's Resistance to Cold, not immunity, but I see that the comment is in there for Geyser and Ice Snake. I didn't consider this for when I did Lina's Ice Thorns.

I probably should change the description as Fire Immune creates can't be burned, but Fire Resistance ones can.

Technically, there are no Cold Immune creatures in the game, but the Resistance to Cold was meant to act like immunity.

So I'll think about this some more, but probably make it consistent with Fire / Poison Immunity / Resistance...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-I cast 2 flaming arrows on the first turn and set on fire two creatures. When their turn comes ,the first one burns and playies and then the second one doesnt burn. It burns on the next turn with full burn damage if there is no creature that burns before it. That applies to poisoning also or any combination between them, just the first creature takes damage.

This is one of my listed bugs. The way it works is that if effect kills enemy unit, then if the next turn is another enemy unit, then the damaging (any, i.e. burning, poison, etc.) effect is not applied. So if burning kills an enemy stack and the next turn is another enemy stack with burning (or poison) then it will not do anything. If the enemy stack is not killed then it always works.

I tried really hard to squish this bug, but I think it is a bug in the game as I noticed that in AP / CW the amount of damage will always attenuate such that it never kills a stack.

I'll still try to squish this one, but I haven't found a way yet...

Originally Posted by jorko80

I like the changed mechanics for burning and poisoning that the creatures take half the damage and so on
This is what I can say so far.

I'm a huge fan of this system!

Well, thanks again for the awesome comments! These are very helpful!

Originally Posted by jorko80

Now about the mod you work on for Armored Princess. I have a proposal.
Armored Princess has so many mods already. So many creatures,so many changes, it is flooded. So my point is that you can do a mod for Warrior of the north,instead of giving your time and efforts on the Princess. It has a good potential and desperately requires a mod to make it more challenging and balance many things.The way it is in the moment makes it absolutely boring to be played for a second time and so on. Please consider it . If you do, I can give some feedback. And I don't understand modding so well, in case you ask "why don't I do this myself"

I hear you completely! I never played past the Spider in WotN because of all the bugs, and then I played a little last night and was fighting the Undead in the snow in Nordlig and it crashed after I fought 4 stacks and was going to go talk to Dorri (or whatever that drunk's name is that was accused of stealing the necklace). Sigh.

Well, with things the way they are with my current state of affairs of the too many tomes problem, it may actually be possible to mod AP / CW / WotN simultaneously.

It seems like there's going to be no more updates on WotN as far as I can tell and since I'm doing my best now to rename functions I modify (unlike TL where I just modded the original functions) and place them in new files it is easy to transfer them to a new expansion even if there are more updates.

I really like a lot of the game mechanics that I've added to TL and it has been a great learning experience. The developers have made the expansions a lot more robust with respect to modding in AP / CW (and hopefully WotN, too). For example, if you misspell a template macro in TL and highlight the item, the game just freezes! In AP / CW, the game says #NF so that you can go fix it!

So I'll see what I can do about modding WotN, too, but I've got to be careful not to spread myself too thin, otherwise I'll end up working on this forever and not get anything done!

It'll be great to hear your comments as you get further into the game - thanks!

And, as always, thanks to @Fatt_Shade's comments, too!



Matt

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

Just couple of my thoughts :

1) rename mod to Toddlers of Might & Magic for goofs

2) about cannoners, i forgot to mention my idea (i already did it in my game files). I changed their special attack, so it`s aoe like druid/necromancer`s range attack. It seemed logical since they shoot salve of cannon balls in certain direction, so they make dmg to area not just single target. Their usual attack is same as before, hit 1 target, but i made it so salve hit 7 hex area with full dmg to central, and 50% penalty to nearby. Looks like this :

  megathrow {
    dontusenearenemy=1
    class=throw
    distance=7
    reload=3
    base_attack=0
    mindist=2
    penalty=0.5
    animation=power/megatag/thtarget
    picture=BA1_CannoneerFire_
    picture_small=BA1_CannoneerFire_small.png
    throw=cannonround
    hinthead=special_rembo_head
    hint=special_rembo_hint
    framekey=x
    7in1=0.5
    damage {
      physical=18,30

Bold text is only thing i added. This is great help in item battles, since in this mod towers are horrible to destroy in item`s 4-5 lvl

3) after this discussion on spells and effects (burn/poison) , i remembered my old idea. Anything comes at your mind Mat about making spell for +poison dmg to units, like hell breath. Hell breath is great vs elves/undead since they have low tolerance to fire dmg, and giving hell breath to main dmg dealer is useful. So how about having similar spell to help against demons/dragons. I tried before to make new spell and just got lost in game files, since there is lots of files connected to spell mechanics.
So ppl pls vote spell you hate most to get rid off , and change it`s ingame settings to `venom touch` (my idea of naming it

I`m off

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Just couple of my thoughts :

1) rename mod to Toddlers of Might & Magic for goofs

Ha! That's funny!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

2) about cannoners, i forgot to mention my idea (i already did it in my game files). I changed their special attack, so it`s aoe like druid/necromancer`s range attack. It seemed logical since they shoot salve of cannon balls in certain direction, so they make dmg to area not just single target. Their usual attack is same as before, hit 1 target, but i made it so salve hit 7 hex area with full dmg to central, and 50% penalty to nearby. Looks like this :

  megathrow {
    dontusenearenemy=1
    class=throw
    distance=7
    reload=3
    base_attack=0
    mindist=2
    penalty=0.5
    animation=power/megatag/thtarget
    picture=BA1_CannoneerFire_
    picture_small=BA1_CannoneerFire_small.png
    throw=cannonround
    hinthead=special_rembo_head
    hint=special_rembo_hint
    framekey=x
    7in1=0.5
    damage {
      physical=18,30

Bold text is only thing i added. This is great help in item battles, since in this mod towers are horrible to destroy in item`s 4-5 lvl

I really like this idea! I'll implement it in my next update, giving you credit!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

3) after this discussion on spells and effects (burn/poison) , i remembered my old idea. Anything comes at your mind Mat about making spell for +poison dmg to units, like hell breath. Hell breath is great vs elves/undead since they have low tolerance to fire dmg, and giving hell breath to main dmg dealer is useful. So how about having similar spell to help against demons/dragons. I tried before to make new spell and just got lost in game files, since there is lots of files connected to spell mechanics.
So ppl pls vote spell you hate most to get rid off , and change it`s ingame settings to `venom touch` (my idea of naming it

I`m off

Yep, I like this one, too. Just need a picture for it (could possible modify something already existing...

Matt

/C\/C\

[jorko80]

I have some ideas to make the normal battles tougher, but I was saving them for AP / CW and then possibly roll them back into TL.

I like that

You know, when I play TL now, I do as much as possible without even fighting, I think the last game I played I got up to level 5 or 6 before I even fought my first fight.

There are quite a few quests that you can do before you go to the Western Islands without fighting - it sounds like you are also using this strategy.

Yes. I use that. Usually when I get access to a new area, I try to get what I can and then start fighting.

When I first did my TL mod development, I was not nearly as good as I am now. Also, I didn't know how to edit the *.LOC files, etc.

Now that I've gained all this experience with not only modding and playing TL, I've got some even better ideas for making it harder.

So we'll see how it goes as I continue to work on AP / CW and eventually roll what I learn there back into TL..

Sounds good

The problem with the normal battles is that you simply have a huge advantage against them as they have no spell caster to help them.

That's why the creatures should be stronger and bigger in numbers to compensate for your spells and spirits. And the player must think hard what ability or spell to use,not just throwing armies at each other.

I do not currently know how to implement the immobile guards, but this sounds like a good idea. Although I think I'm a bit spoiled as I really enjoy running around everyone to get the goodies (plus it gives me a chance to get Gerda), but you are right about putting garrisons to make the game more challenging.

I'll have to learn how to affect the creatures movement paths as I have no idea on how to do this.

Wow, you know all the shortcut strategies. Immobile guards sounds like a good idea - looks like I've got more to learn!

The immobile guards are a very important part of the game. You should fight your way to the goodies , not just get everything for free, it feels more rewarding. And also make you think : Can I kill those guys now,what will I lose, does it worth it ,what will I gain and so on...
While on the subject - the guards for the book of the Dead in elven lands are also easy to bypass and that opens the way to dragons ,runes and quests too easily. In GM there are 2 guards of each book - 1 in elven lands and 1 in death lands,both immobile, it is way more challenging.
About Gerda - you have no problem with accessing her earlier ,because she is in lower haddar and the immobile guard should be in a narrow area when you enter Taron Mines. So enjoy

Your Charger mileage will probably start to decrease when it becomes more important to do damage than replenish mana / rage. Also, you don't get much experience for Lina if you use them a lot, so I think you'll find that the Chargers strategy will put you at a disadvantage later, with a lower level Lina (which you'll need for her to get some levels otherwise you'll be in big trouble later).

We'll see about that

If you're playing no loss, you really only need a very small amount of money to buy enough troops if you stick with them throughout the game.

Ofcourse I try to play always with zero losses ,but thats not an ultimate goal, I like to make calculations : what if I kill that army now, I will lose something, but probably gain more, do I have enough money to buy my army again, is there enough army in the shops and so on...

I like to trade wives and switch armies a lot so I end up spending a lot more money on troops than normal to take advantage of the wife / kid bonuses...

About the life change : it's a bit annoying when I changed my wife in elven lands and then 40 battles waiting for new kids. The first time it's ok, but now it make my hero much weaker,the battles are harder ,but still it is boring to wait so long. And not knowing what bonuses I'll have makes me reluctant to change the wife. I did it just to see what happens ,but if I play 2nd time I probably will not do it. Feanora did gave me good bonuses. A proposal : make a list of the possible babies that the wife offers, so the player can make at least some estimation,if it's worth it to make the change. And reduce the fights needed from 2nd wife onwards to 5 combats per kid.

Yah, meditation is a toughie to make useful, but the Runes aren't really that much, although I can see not putting much into it until you start using a lot of level 3 spells and find that you're low on mana a lot.

Maybe adding +1 intelligence will help, that goes also to Scouting, it just stays to lvl1 and currently I will not spend more runes on it.

Yah, well you can see that I left all the original items alone. You can actually get that artifact without fighting a single battle at the beginning of the game, so it is still useful early. You just out grow it quickly if you're a mage. It is still useful to Warrior and perhaps Paladin...

That doesn't sound good. If it is too hard to change the arts don't do it, but if it's not, then it's a must, because you leave a part of the game useless. After all balance is the most important part of the game. At least 50% increase to the mana arts is needed.

Well, you'll be cursing it when it's used on you and it lasts that long! Plus, you probably haven't noticed, but a unit's resistance affects spell duration. Cast spells on troops with magic resistance and the spell duration increases if it is a bonus spell or decreases if it is a penalty. Fire resistance affects the duration of burn, etc.

I noticed that right away,no worries and I like it. Still it's too powerful. It was cast on me and that's not much of a problem, the problem is ,that the enemy can't react always to it and the neutrals can't at all, so my opinion is that it is way unbalanced in the moment. Base duration for Sheep should be at least -1.

I didn't change this - but I think I can understand the logic. The cannonball actually might do even more damage if you were in front of it!

I don't think I'd want to stand in front of a cannon!

You are not picturing this in your head clearly , there is no way in real fight that some swordsman army will sit in a row in front of the cannon and wait . All be involved in melee and it will be impossible for the canonners to operate the cannon ,henceforth the melee penalty.

I don't think Bugs Bunny can stick his carrot into the barrel and have it explode in the Cannoneer's face! Ha! That'd be funny!

That's what you think!

Big Pato has a skill tree just like you and he picked his level-ups just like you picked yours! So he decided to pick a couple of Mage School Skills and spent his hard-earned crystals on learning some spells!

So leave poor Big Pato alone!

It is a good fight again. But it is nice for a change to fight raw power and highly boosted units without magic. That's my point.

I really like a lot of the game mechanics that I've added to TL and it has been a great learning experience. The developers have made the expansions a lot more robust with respect to modding in AP / CW (and hopefully WotN, too). For example, if you misspell a template macro in TL and highlight the item, the game just freezes! In AP / CW, the game says #NF so that you can go fix it!

I think that is exactly what the game said when I fought Red Beard. Will recheck it later.

So I'll see what I can do about modding WotN, too, but I've got to be careful not to spread myself too thin, otherwise I'll end up working on this forever and not get anything done!

No rush needed . But WotN needs far more then just the things you've done to TL. The only part thats interesting and balanced are the 4 initial Islands and then when you kill the spider it gets messy,boring,ultimately easy. I hope you will have the patience to change it,I have many ideas. The russian top modders are so disappointed in it ,that don't want to do it and for now it's frozen .

Thanks for your time

P. S. Really like the idea of Fatt Shade about the spell with poison damage boost

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by jorko80

That's why the creatures should be stronger and bigger in numbers to compensate for your spells and spirits. And the player must think hard what ability or spell to use,not just throwing armies at each other.

I got some ideas here...

Originally Posted by jorko80

The immobile guards are a very important part of the game. You should fight your way to the goodies , not just get everything for free, it feels more rewarding. And also make you think : Can I kill those guys now,what will I lose, does it worth it ,what will I gain and so on...
While on the subject - the guards for the book of the Dead in elven lands are also easy to bypass and that opens the way to dragons ,runes and quests too easily. In GM there are 2 guards of each book - 1 in elven lands and 1 in death lands,both immobile, it is way more challenging.
About Gerda - you have no problem with accessing her earlier ,because she is in lower haddar and the immobile guard should be in a narrow area when you enter Taron Mines. So enjoy

Sounds like immobilizing the guards is the way to go - looks like I need to find out how to do this - is Grandmaster available for download somewhere? I can do a little comparison of the files to see how they did it...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Ofcourse I try to play always with zero losses ,but thats not an ultimate goal, I like to make calculations : what if I kill that army now, I will lose something, but probably gain more, do I have enough money to buy my army again, is there enough army in the shops and so on...

You know, I wonder how much the original King's Bounty factored into no loss for the new King's Bounty. I've read posts here where people complain if they can't do no loss.

But if you play HOMM, then you're losing troops all the time.

So it is kind of interesting how between KB / HOMM there are these two different paradigms...

Originally Posted by jorko80

About the life change : it's a bit annoying when I changed my wife in elven lands and then 40 battles waiting for new kids. The first time it's ok, but now it make my hero much weaker,the battles are harder ,but still it is boring to wait so long. And not knowing what bonuses I'll have makes me reluctant to change the wife. I did it just to see what happens ,but if I play 2nd time I probably will not do it. Feanora did gave me good bonuses. A proposal : make a list of the possible babies that the wife offers, so the player can make at least some estimation,if it's worth it to make the change. And reduce the fights needed from 2nd wife onwards to 5 combats per kid.

This was part of the game mechanics, but I'm not sure if you've noticed - you get higher level wives / children during the later game to compensate. For example, the wife levels are:

1. Rina / Zombie Rina - 1
2. Feanora / Frog Feanora - 2
3. Mirabella - 3
4. Gerda - 3
5. Orcelyn - 4
6. Diana - 4
7. Neoka - 5
8. Xeona - 5

And the children are the same level as their wife so you get better and better babies with the later wives.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Maybe adding +1 intelligence will help, that goes also to Scouting, it just stays to lvl1 and currently I will not spend more runes on it.

I like this idea and will consider +1 at level 2, and probably +2 or 3 at level 3...

Originally Posted by jorko80

hat doesn't sound good. If it is too hard to change the arts don't do it, but if it's not, then it's a must, because you leave a part of the game useless. After all balance is the most important part of the game. At least 50% increase to the mana arts is needed.

You know, I've been considering for AP / CW to change artifacts with -stats to either get rid of the -stat part or make them better so to your point, I probably should look at the original items and see if they can use a boost.

I think what I'll do here is if I make any changes to the AP / CW items I'll eventually roll those back into the TL items.

Originally Posted by jorko80

I noticed that right away,no worries and I like it. Still it's too powerful. It was cast on me and that's not much of a problem, the problem is ,that the enemy can't react always to it and the neutrals can't at all, so my opinion is that it is way unbalanced in the moment. Base duration for Sheep should be at least -1.

Well, unfortunately, Sheep duration is 1, 2, 3 - so it is already minimum with a minimum increase in duration for each level. Plus you're spending 22, 38, and 55 mana for affecting level 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4 troops. So a Warrior will spend 55 mana and if they are lucky, may get it up to 4 duration if they have 15 Intellect @Sheep Level 3. The Warrior's Mana pool is roughly half the Mage's (just like the Mage's Rage pool is roughly half the Warrior's) so expect them to have about 100 or so mana. At Level 3 Sheep, this would be 50% of the Warrior's mana pool for one Sheep cast. For mage, you can probably get it up to 6 turns if you get yourself to 45 Intellect and it would be roughly 25% of your mana pool. Don't forget that it is also adjusted by enemy magic resistance so it could get reduced if you cast it on an Elf troop (they usually have magic resistance), for example.

So I think you'll find that the cost / duration are appropriate...

Originally Posted by jorko80

You are not picturing this in your head clearly , there is no way in real fight that some swordsman army will sit in a row in front of the cannon and wait . All be involved in melee and it will be impossible for the canonners to operate the cannon ,henceforth the melee penalty.

Evidently not! Maybe I got hit in the head with the cannon!

Okay, all kidding aside, I didn't change this, but it sounds like you think that Cannoneers should have a melee penalty. So I will consider...

Originally Posted by jorko80

No rush needed . But WotN needs far more then just the things you've done to TL. The only part thats interesting and balanced are the 4 initial Islands and then when you kill the spider it gets messy,boring,ultimately easy. I hope you will have the patience to change it,I have many ideas. The russian top modders are so disappointed in it ,that don't want to do it and for now it's frozen .

Thanks for your time

P. S. Really like the idea of Fatt Shade about the spell with poison damage boost

Yah, that's the daunting task ahead of us for WotN - it needs a lot of work! I haven't even played it much, but I heard about Marshan Swamp and Demonis.

Okay, let me spill the beans on what is either under consideration or going to be implemented in AP / CW with respect to difficulty level changes.

• Difficulty Level Parameters:
  • rndrecharge - round at which enemy units automatically have their charged attacks recharged. I might make it round at which they gain +1 charge, we'll see... The roundehero/tower/boss will be additive to this. So if you're fighting normal stacks, their charged attacks will be recharged every 5 rounds, if they have a hero, every 10.
  • espelldur - number of rounds to add to enemy bonus spell / ability duration and subtract from enemy penalty spell / ability duration. For example, I think Hard will be +1 and Impossible +2. So if enemy mage casts Shield, then it will last 1 additional round on Hard and 2 on impossible. Conversely, if you cast Slow on enemy units, they will have that spell for -1 round on Hard and -2 on impossible. This will require some good playtesting to see if it ±2 is too much on impossible, but at least it is easily changed.
• eunit:
  • Will be additive to enemy unit's Critical Hit. Right now with it being a multiplier, it doesn't have much affect on a unit with 5% Critical Hit. So instead it would be +25% (on Impossible) + the map location difficulty modifier for a total of +50% at game end. When I was thinking of this, I thought that units on the harder difficulty levels should have a greater percent chance of critical strike, but the multiplicative modifier just wasn't doing enough...
  • I'm also considering making eunit be additive for resistances (right now it is multiplicative and so if you have 0% resistance then it is unaffected), but I think it probably will be way too potent. Can you imagine all enemies with +50% Resistance All at the end of the game! Yikes!
  • This modifier will apply to enemy hero spell power. So they will get base +25% power to spells on Impossible + the map location modifier. So it will be like they have a Destroyer-like Skill, but applying to all spells.
  • With espelldur above, I wouldn't need to modify duration, but if I don't implement espelldur, I could use eunit to modify spell / ability duration instead.
  • This will also apply to Boss damage / duration. So once again you'll get +25% Boss damage + map location modifier on Impossible and +2 effect duration.
• For normal stacks:
  • The most powerful stack will be the group leader (sort of like a mini hero) and will receive additional bonuses, possibly bonus spells, and I might see if I can make its representation 10% bigger so that you know they are the leader. This might make normal stacks more interesting. I may make it use eunit as a percent chance at getting certain bonuses. These won't be dispel-able most likely - we'll see...
  • I may use eunit + map location modifier as a percent chance that starting units receive a bonus and possibly your troops receive a penalty.
  • Totem-like bonuses to enemy stacks where a random negative spell is removed from them / a random positive spell is removed from your troops. Or I could have a certain percent to drop Shaman Totems on the battlefield to help enemy troops and hurt yours.

So these are some of the ideas under consideration. Hopefully this gets the juices flowing about what to consider for future implementation.

The idea is to expand eunit + map location multiplier to other aspects of the game (like the enemy hero spells and boss abilities) and make it more potent if it is having minimal impact on a certain aspect of the game. The trick is that right now enemy hero stacks are pretty much perfect, but normal stacks are too easy for the most part. You can't expect the normal stacks to be as hard as the enemy hero stacks, but some of the above might go a long way to making the normal stacks more challenging.

Okay, thanks again for the great comments!

Matt

[jorko80]

Sounds like immobilizing the guards is the way to go - looks like I need to find out how to do this - is Grandmaster available for download somewhere? I can do a little comparison of the files to see how they did it...

I attached the GM mod to this message.

You know, I wonder how much the original King's Bounty factored into no loss for the new King's Bounty. I've read posts here where people complain if they can't do no loss.

They do "no loss games",because thats a way to challenge themselves . But for me it's a boring way. The game should be made harder with mods like yours for example

But if you play HOMM, then you're losing troops all the time.

Actually I am not loosing any troops ,except some 1st level units,that are not so important in late game anyway.

And the children are the same level as their wife so you get better and better babies with the later wives.

I have noticed that. At least a list with the possible bonuses of the babies when you you hover the mouse over the wife would be nice.

You know, I've been considering for AP / CW to change artifacts with -stats to either get rid of the -stat part or make them better so to your point, I probably should look at the original items and see if they can use a boost.

I think what I'll do here is if I make any changes to the AP / CW items I'll eventually roll those back into the TL items.

Sounds good

Well, unfortunately, Sheep duration is 1, 2, 3 - so it is already minimum with a minimum increase in duration for each level. Plus you're spending 22, 38, and 55 mana for affecting level 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4 troops. So a Warrior will spend 55 mana and if they are lucky, may get it up to 4 duration if they have 15 Intellect @Sheep Level 3. The Warrior's Mana pool is roughly half the Mage's (just like the Mage's Rage pool is roughly half the Warrior's) so expect them to have about 100 or so mana. At Level 3 Sheep, this would be 50% of the Warrior's mana pool for one Sheep cast. For mage, you can probably get it up to 6 turns if you get yourself to 45 Intellect and it would be roughly 25% of your mana pool. Don't forget that it is also adjusted by enemy magic resistance so it could get reduced if you cast it on an Elf troop (they usually have magic resistance), for example.

So I think you'll find that the cost / duration are appropriate...

I still don't agree. Sheep's duration should be 1,1,2 or maximum 1,2,2 and with the intel boost it will go up and ofcourse one of the babies of Feanora which gives -14% magic resistance to enemies increases the duration further. And that particular baby is like level 10 ,compared to the others.

Evidently not! Maybe I got hit in the head with the cannon!

Okay, all kidding aside, I didn't change this, but it sounds like you think that Cannoneers should have a melee penalty. So I will consider...

Sorry about that. I initially thought that you changed this unit to have no melee penalty. Maybe I remembered it wrong from GM where it has penalty. But it's not a big deal anyway,so don't bother. Sorry one more time, I thought it's just a bug in your mod.

[*]I'm also considering making eunit be additive for resistances (right now it is multiplicative and so if you have 0% resistance then it is unaffected), but I think it probably will be way too potent. Can you imagine all enemies with +50% Resistance All at the end of the game! Yikes!

That will make the creature unbeatable ,so probably you shouldn't do it. Otherwise your ideas sound really good. I hope you will successfully implement them.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by jorko80

I attached the GM mod to this message.

Thanks - I took a brief look; there are a lot of files so it will take me a while to go through them...

Originally Posted by jorko80

They do "no loss games",because thats a way to challenge themselves . But for me it's a boring way. The game should be made harder with mods like yours for example

No loss is nice if that is challenging for the player, although challenge takes many shapes.

For me, I think, it is simply to make the challenging journey more fun and interesting. It is up to the player to choose how they want to play, but my hope is that it is at least more enjoyable than it was before...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Actually I am not loosing any troops ,except some 1st level units,that are not so important in late game anyway.

This seems more HOMM-like as you would be very judicious with keeping your higher level units from dying, while you didn't mind losing lower level units here and there...

Originally Posted by jorko80

I still don't agree. Sheep's duration should be 1,1,2 or maximum 1,2,2 and with the intel boost it will go up and ofcourse one of the babies of Feanora which gives -14% magic resistance to enemies increases the duration further. And that particular baby is like level 10 ,compared to the others.

Fair enough, but know this:

Sheep does not work on the Undead, Plants, and Golems (because the unit needs to be at least animal like and living, not dead; Undead were included in all Sheep normal KB (TL/AP/CW/WotN)) and is second only to Hypnosis in Mana / Crystals cost for a level 1 spell. Hypnosis costs the most because not only does it neutralize an enemy troop, but allows you to employ them directly against the enemy. So Hypnosis > Sheep, at least at Level 1.

Now with that said, I have a formula for determining the increase in spell Mana / Crystal cost that is based on the increase in spell power. So for example, if Level 1 Sheep is 1 round and affects through level 2, then if Level 2 Sheep is 2 rounds and affects through level 3 then I use that for determining the Mana / Crystal cost for the spell upgrade. To keep it simple, I simply average the increase in spell power and multiply that by the Level 1 values. So for Sheep we get 22 * [ average( 2/1, 3/2 ) = 1.75 ] = 38.5, flooring gives us 38. Note that I did not average the level increase, but just the max level (either way would be valid, i.e. 1-2 is 1.5 and 1-3 is 2, which is 2/1.5 = 1.33 - this would give a smaller rise so my preference is to consider max level since I think it is more about the max level affected, not the mean). The same holds true for Level 3 Sheep: 3 rounds, level 1-4 - 22 * [ average( 3/1, 4/2 ) = 2.5 ] = 55.

Crystals are always half the Mana cost (floored).

So the spells are "automatically balanced" so long as the initial Mana cost is accurate. Currently, this is a bit more subjective, but a simple ordering of Level 1 spells by their power can help with the initial Mana / Crystal cost and this is what I've done.

Whether they are balanced from another perspective, i.e. whether 3 rounds is too high for a spell duration of this spell type is more of opinion, although I think you'll see that I like to increase all statistics unless the spell goes mass. In that case, the jump from single to mass keeps all statistics even and as it turns out (since it is like casting it 5 times if you have 5 stacks) mass spells are 5 times the Mana cost. With that said, if I used the values you proposed, the Sheep Mana / Crystal cost would come down to compensate for the Level 2 and 3 variants and so therefore the spell is perfectly balanced versus its initial cost, whether the values I propose or yours are used.

Incidentally:

• Sheep Level 1: 1 Round, Units Level 1-2 - Mana / Crystals: 22 / 11
• Sheep Level 2: 1 Round, Units Level 1-3 - Mana / Crystals: 27 / 13
• Sheep Level 3: 2 Rounds, Units Level 1-4 - Mana / Crystals: 44 / 22

Those would be per your request, so if you would prefer those values then feel free to implement them in SPELLS.TXT.

I really like this system as it ensures that everything is truly balanced, since it is formulaic.

By the way, I used this system to balance the units in my Emperor of the Fading Suns Hyperion mod a long time ago and it was highly regarded by that community as one of the best mods developed for that game. EFS suffered from a serious imbalance in the units because (it seemed like anyway) that most unit statistics and resource requirements were haphazardly assigned. So I've had a lot of success using this approach in modding games before KB.

This touch is in a lot of the other areas of my mod as well, including skill abilities where I actually assign how much of the stat is increased by a Rune. For example, if a skill has +1 Attack, I usually require it to have +1 Might Rune for each point increase in Attack (+1 Defense / Mind Rune; +1 Intellect / Magic Rune). Once again this lends itself to automatically balancing it because every Rune is quantified.

This approach was mostly used in TL and I've been using it in the skill tree design of AP / CW.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Sorry about that. I initially thought that you changed this unit to have no melee penalty. Maybe I remembered it wrong from GM where it has penalty. But it's not a big deal anyway,so don't bother. Sorry one more time, I thought it's just a bug in your mod.

Okay, I'll leave them alone. In fact, unless a unit was seriously under-powered / useless I for the most part left them alone.

I did make changes to the Plants (they are now a lot better) and other units here and there that felt like they had certain under-powered abilities or there were notable gaps (like not being able to Resurrect Plants / Undead / Level 5 units). I also decided to drop the Ancient Vampire's Critical Hit avoidance to only 50% since if the enemy's Critical Hit is too high you could use invulnerable Ancient Vampires against them because of Death's Deception constantly avoiding damage.

Originally Posted by jorko80

That will make the creature unbeatable ,so probably you shouldn't do it. Otherwise your ideas sound really good. I hope you will successfully implement them.

Yah, you're probably right, although I am toying with an "experience system" except for the enemy units. It would really be more of a difficulty location system where this modifier possibly becomes more prominent. I'm kind of already doing this with the difficulty level + map location modifier so I don't know if I simply change the map location divisor if that would be the same thing, but it is just food for thought...

Thanks again for the great comments!

Matt

/C\/C\

[jorko80]

Hi Matt!
I finished the game today. As a whole it was a good experience and it was interesting,except those easy spots that I mentioned in my posts before. I will provide some more feedback and ideas,but first I will comment your last post a bit.

Sheep does not work on the Undead, Plants, and Golems (because the unit needs to be at least animal like and living, not dead

;

This is a good logic,but makes the undead and especially the plants unstoppable ,because there is no magic that can eliminate them. Blind works at least to undead but the plants sometimes are a pain. Anyway I can't decide yet if there should be a spell that affects these creatures.

So the spells are "automatically balanced" so long as the initial Mana cost is accurate. Currently, this is a bit more subjective, but a simple ordering of Level 1 spells by their power can help with the initial Mana / Crystal cost and this is what I've done.

You've said it yourself - the initial mana cost must be accurate. So that's the problem with the sheep-spell . Maybe it should cost more,because the effect it makes is supreme. And ofcourse that is directly connected with the accumulated mana and the mana-regeneration rate,which are both highly increased in your mode. Otherwise your formula seems to be very good and you have experience from modding other games(Emperor of fading sun - which I never played by the way, is it good ?). I understand your system and it looks perfect but the initial costs and the effect of the spell are things that are valued subjectively and considering that I appear to have more experience playing KB ,my final feeling is that the spell should cost 22,38,55 ,but with reduced duration. Ofcourse that's just my opinion

I did make changes to the Plants (they are now a lot better) and other units here and there that felt like they had certain under-powered abilities or there were notable gaps (like not being able to Resurrect Plants / Undead / Level 5 units). I also decided to drop the Ancient Vampire's Critical Hit avoidance to only 50% since if the enemy's Critical Hit is too high you could use invulnerable Ancient Vampires against them because of Death's Deception constantly avoiding damage.

These are good changes, I like them. I like a lot what you've done with the Ents,finally they are usable and competitive. But that makes me think ,that there are so many creatures that are too weak compared to others and they could be tweaked also. In my game ,at some point I decided to take some knights in my army,they are available in the late game, they have good armor and bonus dmg vs dragons. But they sucked completely ,they were incapable of killing a single dragon and also died pretty quick,despite their fire resistance, completely useless unit. And even worse is,that there is a special ability in the skill tree for them,which doesn't worth taking.

Yah, you're probably right, although I am toying with an "experience system" except for the enemy units. It would really be more of a difficulty location system where this modifier possibly becomes more prominent. I'm kind of already doing this with the difficulty level + map location modifier so I don't know if I simply change the map location divisor if that would be the same thing, but it is just food for thought...

Adding experience system would be great. That goes to the wifes,children,troops and enemy troops also. WOG comes to my mind. It was super interesting and challenging. The troops gained not just stats improvement,but also new abilities with levels.

Now for the last part of my game. Clearing the elven lands,death lands and demonis was not so hard, I guess 20% harder would've been better. The hero fights were good and interesting. Karador was amazing and Baal also. Xeona was a nice surprise with these ultra powerful demon gates. Then comes the labyrinth and the seven Haas dragons ,they were good, then Bagud was super. Haas was a good fight,which I successfully did in the first try. Karador and Bagud I reloaded twice, they were really good.

But as always I did kinda lost interest after entering the grey wasteland. After that there is not much to develop in your hero and also there are no new units to discover and so it is not so rewarding to play. It's just the story left,but once you know it ,the game loses replayability in the late part. And that happens even earlier in AP/CW . And I just kill some heroes and go straight to the final,leaving a lot of enemy armies untouched. Also the skill that provides additional experience is a bit useless,it stays always to lvl1. I was lvl28 when I fought Haas and it was enough to defeat him. So my idea is that there should be some more units coming when you kill Karador,then Baal and in the Haas' Labyrinth also. It will be definately rewarding and encouraging. The units that come to my mind will blend super in your mod,ofcourse I don't have the slightest idea,how hard it is to make them. So destroying the crystal of darkness should allow you to buy crystal dragons,destroying Baal leads to Rust dragons-born in the sulfur of demonis, and Faerie and Azure dragons should be available in the magical Haas' Labyrinth. And in the late game there should be some special skills available for example when you are a veteran 28 level hero,so the player will be stimulated to fight until the very end of the game. Maybe adding something in the skill trees will help and extending the level cap to lvl35. Ofcourse these things lead to the increase of the power of the armies and heroes in the Labyrinth and Murock, but I suppose that's easily done. I hope you'll like the idea. And AP/CW needs something like that even earlier.
Some more thoughts :
- The art Eye of the storm is currently useless with just -1 speed,compared to the speed bonuses you provided to the creatures,it should have at least -3 or -4 to be competitive.

- the enemy heroes throughout the game use the spell geyser too much. I was even bored, I enter a hero vs hero fight and nothing new - geyser,geyser,geyser . There are other powerful spells please.

- Sacrifice. I mentioned earlier,that it is unusable in the begining of the game. So my opinion stays the same about that. But the new part is,that it is way overpowered in late game with mage. I was able to ressurect 250% army . Example : Killing Baal was hard and it costed me a lot of units. Then I only needed one ordinary fight in which I restored my army completely ,not spending a single coin. Maybe a cap of 120% will be enough.
- Book of evil lvl3 casts something like sleep on the enemy,but when I attack the creature it is dispelled. So I think the effect should be the same as when the Beholders put someone to sleep. Otherwise it is completely equivalent with blind ,just the name is different. Ofcourse it should have shorter duration then blind.
- Rage draining is also too powerful ,it must have bigger rest.
- Chargers. I finished the game now and continue to have the same opinion. I was able to replenish my mana and rage after every battle,no matter how hard it was. They should give at least twice fewer points. Lina was lvl25 when I was in Murock , lvl24 entering the Labyrinth and it was more then enough for a mage hero. Your doubts that she will be weak were false. The time spirit was lvl35 and the other 2 were 20. That's a lot compared to the original game with a mage hero.

Some bugs :
- Evil book makes sheeps out of undead
- The phoenix looses a big part of it's attack when it's shot by a dispel arrow from the skeleton archer.
- Dragon Arrows ignore just resistance,not the defense as it says . It is very weak and unusable.
- In the fight versus Karador, the crystal of darknes raised my death stacks to his side and most of them were fine,except that it raised bone dragons from my black unicorns. That was awful ,because they were the same number as my unicorns were- 106 , and that was impossible army to kill. So I reloaded tried again,couldn't step on time on the unicorn body and it happened again. In the end I had to change the unicorns with different army. I think Bone dragons should be raised only from dragons. I don't know if that's a bug in your mod or in the game itself,but that's the first time I see it.
That is all for now.When anything else comes to my mind I'll write again. I will rest from KB for a while trying if Shades of Darkness is any good and then maybe I'll try your mod with a warrior or paladin.
Thank you one more time for your great work