New Mod Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Babies!

[MattCaspermeyer]

Glad you did it!

I think you're playing warrior, right?

Enchanted Hero is a very important spell to cast due to its autocast capability.

Could you not afford the Ancient Phoenix? What about getting your Evil Book to Level 3 or Summon Demon?

Glad Poison Could worked! I made that ability significantly better than the original. Also, I think Zerock's Wall can work really good for a Warrior as well as Lina's Ice Thorns for blocking troops, returning damage, etc. I'm glad Gizmo bailed you out.

As far as Karrador is concerned, it is important not to destroy his original stacks, but weaken them significantly so that the Dark Crystal summons new Undead troops that don't have the difficulty level bonuses applied to them; otherwise, if you destroy the original stacks, the Dark Crystal will just reanimate them.

Back to Bagud, I've never really had any trouble with him, either.

It is possible that since I like to end the game with Xeona and her Demon troops that they are just more powerful than some of the other troops. The ArchDemons are really potent with their Amalgamation ability and no retaliation and then Demons are really good with their summon and unlimited retaliation.

I actually haven't tried any other troop combinations since I like to cycle through each wife, having the 4 kids and then immediately moving on to the next wife (this works great for debugging, too). I find that when you can get each wife, that the troops she gives bonuses to are well suited to the area of the game you are going through.

My most difficult fight (where I usually can't do no loss) is fighting Xeona with Neoka's Elves. I find that Elves vs Demons is a poor matchup due to the fire vulnerability of the Elven Troops, but usually I have enough Ancient Ents to push through and since I'm about to switch to Xeona's troops, I don't necessarily mind losing most of my Elven troops during that battle.

Hey, by the way, did you run into any of the issues @SlickDragon mentioned, especially with the spell casting. I've been going through some of the code and I've never seen any issues before, but it is possible that there are some bugs lurking in there still.

Let me know how your fight with Haas goes! Also, what is your Hero Level and Spirit Levels now that you're at the end of the game?

Matt

[Sirlancelot]

Yeah, I beat Hass yesterday night with the warrior. Another epic fight, although surprisingly a bit easier than the others thanks to two factors: one, the sword you get from defeating Dreddho the Dragon in the tournament (+50% attack vs dragons); second, troops I bought specially designed to exploit Cloud of Poison. I purchased Royal Snakes and Shamans, to pair them with the cyclops and cast Cloud of Poison upon them when surrounded by dragons. He he, devastating.

And of course Enchanted hero, Gizmo, and the Reaper power to kill X% units from a troop (don't remember its name) were key again. First I went for the Ogres, then the dragons (tons of them) and finally face the Ancient ents (another +30 stack)

Finished the game with a level 30 character, 41 Zerock , 33 Sleem, 39 Lina and 47 Reaper.

Honestly I don't know if suffered all the bugs that Slick Dragon mentioned, I'm just certain about the archmages inability to shock and the weird critical percent calculations. I mean, some skills stated your troops would receive +30% to inflict a critical but only shown little increments in their related fields (tooltips)

Now started Armored Princess. =P I want to go with a ranged specialist this time, with Alchemists, Archmages and so on. What class would suit me better? =P I guess you didn't designed another version of your mod to AP, right?

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Yeah, I beat Hass yesterday night with the warrior. Another epic fight, although surprisingly a bit easier than the others thanks to two factors: one, the sword you get from defeating Dreddho the Dragon in the tournament (+50% attack vs dragons); second, troops I bought specially designed to exploit Cloud of Poison. I purchased Royal Snakes and Shamans, to pair them with the cyclops and cast Cloud of Poison upon them when surrounded by dragons. He he, devastating.

And of course Enchanted hero, Gizmo, and the Reaper power to kill X% units from a troop (don't remember its name) were key again. First I went for the Ogres, then the dragons (tons of them) and finally face the Ancient ents (another +30 stack)

Finished the game with a level 30 character, 41 Zerock , 33 Sleem, 39 Lina and 47 Reaper.

Wow! That's pretty awesome! You got your spirits pretty high - for some reason, I try really hard to even out their levels.

That +50% attack vs dragons weapon is pretty awesome (I think you always get that from beating Dreddho, if memory serves).

I also presume you weren't able to do no loss - is that right or were you able to do no loss?

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Honestly I don't know if suffered all the bugs that Slick Dragon mentioned, I'm just certain about the archmages inability to shock and the weird critical percent calculations. I mean, some skills stated your troops would receive +30% to inflict a critical but only shown little increments in their related fields (tooltips)

Yah, I've fixed the Archmages problem - I biffed the implementation of a parameter when I added the Blue Dragons.

I also messed up the Priests / Inquisitors - they couldn't use their Bless / Holy Rage skills and I've now fixed that, too.

I have some other fixes coming, too.

I haven't made a new release, yet, but I want to try to play a little and see if I can discover if @SlickDragon's bugs that I haven't been able to find, yet are real. I don't know if I have the time or inclination to play all the way through, but if I can at least play and double check all the bugs he's mentioned then I can feel better about putting up a new release (not that anyone's playing anymore).

Also, I think the Critical Hit issues are with the descriptions not being clear. I need to go back through them and ensure that they are clearer. Typically a lot of them work off of base and so one might say +30% Critical Hit, but it doesn't mean that it adds, but rather increases it 30%, and usually to its base. If the base is only 5% than it will only increase it 2% (rounding up). So I think that's where the confusion lies. I think when I first created those bonuses, I didn't realize how low some of the unit's Critical Hit chances were and so bonuses seem small, but I do remember comparing them to other stock TL Critical Hit bonuses and a lot of them worked the same way.

In the expansions, they are pretty stingy on Critical Hit bonuses like +3% and stuff like that.

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Now started Armored Princess. =P I want to go with a ranged specialist this time, with Alchemists, Archmages and so on. What class would suit me better? =P I guess you didn't designed another version of your mod to AP, right?

Alas, I ran into a snag when I was working on my Tomes where I hit the limit of items that you can have in the game. With all the additional items they've added in the expansions, I don't have room for my additional stuff and so that took the wind out of my sails. Now I have no desire to spend a year plus working on a mod to that or any of the other expansions, because there is too much work play testing, etc. to iron out all the bugs.

There are still bugs in my H3B mod, apparently, and I've been working on that since 2010! 7 years is a long time, although I did take the last 3 years off away from King's Bounty.

I am going to try to see what I can do about fixing the current issues and would like to make things a little bit tougher for the Hard and Impossible difficultly levels.

Anyway, have fun with AP - I think it has a better engine than TL, but I still find that TL is my favorite!

Matt

[Sirlancelot]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Wow! That's pretty awesome! You got your spirits pretty high - for some reason, I try really hard to even out their levels.

That +50% attack vs dragons weapon is pretty awesome (I think you always get that from beating Dreddho, if memory serves).

I also presume you weren't able to do no loss - is that right or were you able to do no loss?

No, happily I couldn't. The mana and rage gain limitations work great against it. You really have to take money and supplies into account.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Yah, I've fixed the Archmages problem - I biffed the implementation of a parameter when I added the Blue Dragons.

I also messed up the Priests / Inquisitors - they couldn't use their Bless / Holy Rage skills and I've now fixed that, too.

I have some other fixes coming, too.

I haven't made a new release, yet, but I want to try to play a little and see if I can discover if @SlickDragon's bugs that I haven't been able to find, yet are real. I don't know if I have the time or inclination to play all the way through, but if I can at least play and double check all the bugs he's mentioned then I can feel better about putting up a new release (not that anyone's playing anymore).

Such are great news! Now that you're at it, perhaps might rethink about Gizmo. Its resurrection feature is really needed versus enemy heroes, but overpowered against regular armies. Remember it is even able to resurrect black dragons, cyclops and so on. (I hope this was intended!)

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Also, I think the Critical Hit issues are with the descriptions not being clear. I need to go back through them and ensure that they are clearer. Typically a lot of them work off of base and so one might say +30% Critical Hit, but it doesn't mean that it adds, but rather increases it 30%, and usually to its base. If the base is only 5% than it will only increase it 2% (rounding up). So I think that's where the confusion lies. I think when I first created those bonuses, I didn't realize how low some of the unit's Critical Hit chances were and so bonuses seem small, but I do remember comparing them to other stock TL Critical Hit bonuses and a lot of them worked the same way.

In the expansions, they are pretty stingy on Critical Hit bonuses like +3% and stuff like that.

Yes, that was my impression, too. The target of the bonuses is not clear enough. Where it goes and how applies. The way it works in practical terms. Hence the confusion.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Alas, I ran into a snag when I was working on my Tomes where I hit the limit of items that you can have in the game. With all the additional items they've added in the expansions, I don't have room for my additional stuff and so that took the wind out of my sails. Now I have no desire to spend a year plus working on a mod to that or any of the other expansions, because there is too much work play testing, etc. to iron out all the bugs.

There are still bugs in my H3B mod, apparently, and I've been working on that since 2010! 7 years is a long time, although I did take the last 3 years off away from King's Bounty.

I am going to try to see what I can do about fixing the current issues and would like to make things a little bit tougher for the Hard and Impossible difficultly levels.Matt

Balance out a mod like this is never easy. There're so many novelties and modifications to keep in mind. Bug fixing also requires unusual playtesting, as sometimes some bugs only appear under x circumstances, where x is not your usual playing route.

[Sirlancelot]

By the way Matt, may I ask you a little question concerning AP? Does the hero has no choice when level up? I mean, in TL you can develop him the way you want, but in AP seems you always receive something fixed, like leadership upgrades or whatever.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

By the way Matt, may I ask you a little question concerning AP? Does the hero has no choice when level up? I mean, in TL you can develop him the way you want, but in AP seems you always receive something fixed, like leadership upgrades or whatever.

Yah - that's something I didn't like about how in AP it was just the automatic give you stuff on level up rather than have you choose.

I think since they scaled the hero level to increase more rapidly, they figured people didn't want to be bothered with having to choose something.

I like the TL way better, but I think it was a game engine choice, so I don't even think it would be possible to modify it - not sure.

Matt

[MattCaspermeyer]

Hey, everyone, hope you're all doing well!

So I've been sitting on some changes to my mod now for almost 4 years, with most of the changes done about that time ago, but with King's Bounty 2 out, I've had the itch to go back and see what I've done and then I've been able to add some new features within the last month.

Unfortunately, I only have one day a week to work on it and I've had only enough time to playtest a current change to ensure that it works as intended.

I'd like to release a V1.0 of my mod, which would quite possibly be the last release I do, but I was wondering if anyone was interested in doing some play testing for me to see if there are no game breaking bugs.

So either post here, or PM me and I can send you an unreleased version if you are interested in trying it out.

Matt

P.S. I am playing KB2, but I only have time to play it once a week as well (and usually I have to alternate between modding or playing KB2). I'll post some potential changes in the change list post so that you can at least see what I've been working on...

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

No, happily I couldn't. The mana and rage gain limitations work great against it. You really have to take money and supplies into account.

I'm sure certain people can still do it no loss, but I'm glad it was a challenge for you as that was the intent!

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Such are great news! Now that you're at it, perhaps might rethink about Gizmo. Its resurrection feature is really needed versus enemy heroes, but overpowered against regular armies. Remember it is even able to resurrect black dragons, cyclops and so on. (I hope this was intended!)

Yep, resurrecting those creatures is the intent (I think I mentioned it in Gizmo's description that it can resurrect pretty much anything) and it focuses on level 5 troops first, since it "knows" that you cannot resurrect them.

The enemy heroes are much more powerful than the original TL and so I don't think it is possible to balance a non-enemy hero-led stack with an enemy hero-led stack (I have thought of the possibility of what to do with the gap since it widens as the game progresses), but I actually don't mind easier battles here and there since it helps take the pressure off and not make it so much of a grind and so the Spirit abilities (and Spell abilities for that matter) take in mind enemy hero fights (I treat them as Item fights) and so that is where the power comes from to help you push through those tough hero fights.

Plus, people will just kite around if things are too hard early (just like people do in the AP / CW / etc. and in WotN, I'd just fly around and snag all the goodies and purchase some good level 5 troops) and so it is nice that you don't have to do that too much (although it is nice to kite in Demonis the first time you get there to see what good troops and other goodies you can get).

I think with the mild increase in difficulty (actually hard is going to be closer to impossible, although not quite (say about 90% of what impossible currently is), and impossible is going to be about 25% harder than it is now) that the way I currently have things will work out - I'll see...

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Yes, that was my impression, too. The target of the bonuses is not clear enough. Where it goes and how applies. The way it works in practical terms. Hence the confusion.

Some of this comes from me inheriting the descriptions from the original game, in which some of them were poorly translated to English. I think I just need to read through them again (and since I haven't read them in years, it will be like reading them for almost the first time!) and make them clearer if they are confusing. Some of it, though, comes from having to be choosy with the wording since I don't have much room in the description as well...

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Balance out a mod like this is never easy. There're so many novelties and modifications to keep in mind. Bug fixing also requires unusual playtesting, as sometimes some bugs only appear under x circumstances, where x is not your usual playing route.

Yes, and sometimes when adding features, I break things accidentally, and although I do try to test to ensure that I haven't messed things up, sometimes I do miss things.

Balancing is tricky because it is different for every person. Make things too hard and then people don't want to play and the same with too easy. That's, of course, where the difficulty levels come in to play, but a one size fits all just doesn't exist and we, as humans, are very adaptable and often find strategies that are very effective compared to what the original developer intended.

So we'll see if I can squish some more bugs if I haven't found them, yet, and hopefully do a touch of refining, to what (in my biased opinion) is one of the best mods for TL!

Thanks again for all the comments!



Matt