HOMM3 Babies Mini-Expansion Beta now Available for Download!

[Sirlancelot]

Congratulations for the new creature!

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Well, we'll see what you think as you get later in the game. I haven't played Hard in a very long time, but there are still bonuses that the enemy units get. One thing currently missing that makes the game much harder is bonuses to talents. I have that in the current version I'm debugging and now the difficulty level bonuses apply to talent abilities as well (so for example, the +25% Impossible + map difficulty (up to another +25% on impossible) and it makes the game quite a bit harder.

To be honest, and generally speaking, I'm not very fond of "bloating" enemies in videogames because sure, it's a way to make toughter opponents, but, I think, a bit raw and unfair. Moreover, from my experience, sometimes just leads to lengthy -longer- battles, and not necessary more really difficult or stimulating ones. I prefer clever level and AI design along with randomness. The first doesn't goes against the notion of fighting under the same rules/conditions and on the other hand, improves realism, and the second keeps unpredictibility alive.

On King's Bunty: TL, however, I'm not totally against raising enemy stats due to its chess-like game mechanics and I concurr some measures were and are necessary to increase challenge but, according to my vision and preferences, I'd use a slightly different formula: something like a tiny fixed increment (let's say 3% Hard, 6% Impossible) plus a partially random amount:

+3/+6 % + map difficulty modifier + *, where * is a quantity between -4% and +20%:

-4 (2%), -3 (3%), -2 (5%), -1 (5%), 0 (10%), +1% (10%), +2 (10%), +3% (10%), +4% (10%), +5% (10%), +12 (5%), +14 (5%), +16 (5%), +18 (5%), +20 (5%)

, this means most creatures (60%) would have equal or simmilar stats compared with default, but some of them be notably more powerful. Concretely up to +26 on Impossible, which is roughly the same maximum as you planned, and Hard would be even Harder.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

You know I did not change Dryads one bit, but allowing them to be recruited early in the game, I can see that they can be pretty potent with their sleep ability. The Druid house in Verlon Forest has a chance to sell them, and you can start with them due to the randomized starting army. Even though in this case you wouldn't have many, all you really need is just one. Lately, I've been revisiting reloadable / charged attacks and the Gift spell and so I actually thought that it might be desirable to charge the Dryad abilities. Not sure about it, but something to think about...

Yes, I agree. Very potent indeed. I'd weaken them by nerfing Sleep to one charge, two turns. I think more than that is very exploitable. If it proves to be too much, the three turns duration could come back, although I suspect it wouldn't be necessary. In all my KB runs I have used crowd control abilities the most, even when playing offensively and rushing to the enemy. In some sense, after all, a paralized unit is an almost non-existant unit.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I've been on the fence with the Druids, Alchemists, and Ents to make their abilities charged instead of reloadable. I currently have the Druid Summon Bear set to 2 charges, the Alchemist potions are 2 charges, and so is the Ent Summon Plant in my latest version I'm debugging. Still undecided what to do here, although, making them charged now lends more to using Gift to recharge those abilities. It may even make sense to make the Royal Thorn's Summon Plant ability have 2 charges. More things to think about...

Yes, summoning is also very powerful. In fact, it doesn't matter so much what it's actually summoned, that's why walls of any kind, even fragile ones, can be useful as well.

Not sure about Alchemists, though.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

You know, I think about this a lot. I do have a lot of fun sneaking around troops in TL, but then I keep thinking that that troop should have seen me and should come after me! I have no idea how to change their speed - why are the (Evil) Beholder stacks so fast compared to the others? Hmmm...

I feel the same. It's a mini game on its own and an addicting one, very funny. Problem is, like any other game, it needs the challenge and randomness factors to really be great. Otherwise, after you have cleared the initial areas it eventually becomes a little silly.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

You know there actually may be a way to implement this. It wouldn't be renewable stacks as Fatt_Shade mentions above, but there may be a way to do it with an event. Have you ever pulled the amulet off the boy in the Verlon Forest village? If you do, half your army rebels and you have to fight them - I think this happens as a result of a dialog option. In the old King's castle in Verlon Forest, the Undead jump out of pictures. So I'm not sure if there would be a way to implement a function that does a random check and then a surprise fight. Fun to think about, though.

Hmm, maybe there's another instance where something simmilar happens, and the funny thing, it's also located within Verlon F; do you remember the old castle there filled with undead? I think is named Old Kingdom Castle or simmilar... anyway, as you sure recall, when clicking on the pictures inside sometimes (or some of the pictures), an encounter is triggered/trigger an encounter.

Obviously to set random encounters the object used as a trigger should be invisible and the "click" involuntary.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I guess you're talking about level 3 Scouting or do you mean giving the lower level Scouting skill a chance to accurately guess troops. As right now, you need level 3 Scouting to accurately determine numbers, but for Level 1 and 2 you receive less information. I'm not sure how to implement right now, but it seems doable.

Yes, exactly. What I find interesting would be a chance of failure of Scouting. At least a 15%, maybe even 20%. A fail stimation would lead to a wrong information, how wrong, being partially random; the higher the mistake, the less likely to happen (otherwise we could go mad xD )