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#261
06-07-2013, 03:58 PM
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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 : Code:
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
 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
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#262
06-08-2013, 01:06 AM
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Good Ideas!
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Matt /C\/C\
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#263
06-08-2013, 07:10 AM
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Bugs Update...
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I also had a min_score for spell casting to remove spells with really low probabilities, but it looks like certain heroes have very low spell scores. So I set min_score to 0 and will rely on low probability instead. This will be in the next update... Quote:
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Okay, thanks for pointing out the issues here! For the ones I couldn't duplicate, just keep an eye on them and let me know if you see them again in the future... Matt /C\/C\ Last edited by MattCaspermeyer; 06-08-2013 at 07:21 AM. Reason: Added one more bug update...
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#264
06-08-2013, 01:26 PM
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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 Quote:
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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. Quote:
, 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.Quote:
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. 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
Last edited by jorko80; 06-08-2013 at 03:07 PM.
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#265
06-08-2013, 06:50 PM
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Very good points!
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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... Quote:
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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. Quote:
So I think you'll find that the cost / duration are appropriate... Quote:
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... Quote:
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.
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
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#266
06-09-2013, 09:03 AM
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#267
06-09-2013, 04:17 PM
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--"Kiting" was expected. The best strategy was to buy a boat, grab as many chests as possible (chests had upgrades to leadership, upgrades to spellcasting power, spell scrolls, and increases to your weekly income), grab the handful of artifacts and most importantly, get the maps to the other continents, so you could do the same on those. --The creatures you could recruit were more powerful on the later continents than the first one. So were the chest rewards. --Having a single really powerful troop was usually far better than a lot of low-level troops. --Troop morale, including the nasty morale effects of having undead/demons in your army. --Troops might be available in limited quantities, and they cost gold to recruit, so you couldn't ignore losses. That said, I rarely had problems finding enough of the troops I wanted. --Spells could make or break a combat. Some differences: --You army cost you money each week, essentially troop maintenance. Though you could amass a huge army, it might bankrupt you if you weren't careful. --Spells were important in combat, but army size and makeup mattered far more. --Some spells had uses outside of combat. I loved the Town Portal spell and wish there was a way to add that to the new KB. (Something like that might address the issue where players hate to lose troops, given how long it might take to go back and get more...) --The numbers tended to be hidden. For example, my dragons could take damage, but until one dies, I really don't know how badly hurt they are. --Only 8 artifacts, which were automatically equipped when found. To your specific question, I don't know anyone who played the original "no loss". Of course, that game came out long before the Internet was ubiquitous, so it's not like gamers could really compete for bragging rights back then.
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#268
06-17-2013, 08:30 AM
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Thanks for GM and great comments!
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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... Quote:
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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:
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. Quote:
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. Quote:
Thanks again for the great comments! Matt /C\/C\
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#269
06-20-2013, 05:19 PM
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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. Quote:
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. Quote:
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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
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#270
06-20-2013, 07:04 PM
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@joro80
About knights - they are great for wife Mirabela, as human units and if you get kids Katherine and Christian they get really interesting in big numbers. You had them on end of game with Xeona i`m guessing so not so much of variety in their stats. With Mirabela i had them lineup with warrior (check my post 101 in this tread) and i didnt even had kid specific for them. But with Mirabela and some of her kids you can have +5 moral for whole army and unit specific kids can give you swordman/guardman/knight/horseman in sick numbers and stats (post #225 here). So this mod is great for race/unit specific builds and in Ap/Cw it will be better because tomes wont be locked to companions and it will be possible to have tome for dragons and necromancers (just expl) if you lead dragon + undead army ... WoG (HoMM3) was great idea, and lots of fun play for me. But alas it was so much bugged and problematic to function. But in Red sands (Cw) i think they figured out how to make it work and it was fun to play. And in combination with this mod mechanics it will be great challenge As was said hero battles later in game are interesting. Some items really lost their purpose with this mod, but lets agree Mat did lots of work and some things had to come up as `could be done better`. I had some ideas for upgrading items, but as he said implementing to much items in game cause freezes/crashes so that idea went to trash Spells : Sacrifice i agree is to powerful , and for mage with high int on lvl 3 unusable (maybe if you want to create stack with to high lds and kill off enemy hero troops, and then leave that 1 easily controllable stack to revive rest of your army without worrying about enemy hero spells killing you anymore). And geyser is pain in ass, you just resurrected all you wanted and enemy hero had to cast it one more time before end of battle Karador - Crystal of darkness - necromancy. I agree here also. Had him in my game resurrect 1200 ancient vampires form my dead dryad stack. That was fun to watch 
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Linear Mode
