My impression of Heroes 5 so far has been that it is decent, but not impressive (although I'm definitely looking forward to patches and expansions). Of the games so far, I loved Heroes 3, so I'm glad to so most elements from that game prevail. However, when considering what the greatest problem was for Heroes 3, I always think of the impeccable hero imbalance. You could basically get one hero to 40 attack and 40 defence and that hero's army would run over anything else.
I like to play long games with many power-ups, players, castles and resources, and this always ended up deciding my games in Heroes 3 as the AI didn't know to put all it's armies into one great hero (I remember one eight player map where I camped in one castle for most of the game, then got a good hero with a stack of titans and then just toured around the map once my hero was good enough, killing everything). Now with the hero partially removed from battlefield, I can see that the hero would not need it's defence skill, but I was expecting the attack and defence skills for Heroes 5 to be about how well the hero fought. Now I see that Heroes 5 might have the same problem as in Heroes 3: hero imbalance.
From my observations, every attack and defence skill point of the hero is added to the hero's units. That makes for incredibly powerful armies and bad game balance. At least, to limit the effect of this, I would like to see only the fourth of the effect. So, if a hero has 4 attack, only 0.5 is added to a units attack ability.
What are your take on this topic?
Hero imbalance resurfaced in Heroes 5
Hero imbalance resurfaced in Heroes 5
Last edited by Asjo on 27 May 2006, 02:18, edited 1 time in total.
Not really...heroes can also cast spell, but this is less unbalanced now as you need abilities to cast the group verison of haste and suffering and etc. Melee heroes can still whack your creatures, and at high levels they can take down a high-level creature (Devil, Angel etc.)HenL wrote:Well attack\defense boosting the creatures is basically all it does.. IMO heroes should play a big part in the game.
Btw, are you Asjo from various WC3 communities?
Yep, it's me. Back to the topic:
Oh, I thought it affected hero damage as well, like in Heroes 4, but may that's just decided by level somehow. The idea of having the heroes be a more normal part of the army and have their own defense and attack was great actually. Only, it ruined the gameplay as the AI would become predictable, always attacking the hero first (as it should) and you would lose the hero abilities, an important part of the game.
I don't think you can say "all it does is boost your creatures". It's a very big effect. A good hero can make a gremlin as strong as a dragon. How does that make any sense? Once one player gets a very strong hero it's over (assuming he's good enough to edge out victory over the heroes almost as strong as him). You can do almost nothing against a hero gap of 10 attack and defense.
Oh, I thought it affected hero damage as well, like in Heroes 4, but may that's just decided by level somehow. The idea of having the heroes be a more normal part of the army and have their own defense and attack was great actually. Only, it ruined the gameplay as the AI would become predictable, always attacking the hero first (as it should) and you would lose the hero abilities, an important part of the game.
I don't think you can say "all it does is boost your creatures". It's a very big effect. A good hero can make a gremlin as strong as a dragon. How does that make any sense? Once one player gets a very strong hero it's over (assuming he's good enough to edge out victory over the heroes almost as strong as him). You can do almost nothing against a hero gap of 10 attack and defense.
Those who break my heart by voting no, at least explain your choice. What justifies such imbalance? Is it that you like the effect and only play maps with few power-ups and limits to hero levels, so you don't fear it being deciding in your games? Or do you just always play short, goal-oriented games so that they never last long enough for the hero imbalance to become deciding?
Well, I can't say much about the Attack & Defence values, because I feel every hero has the right to them. It's mostly about how you play your cards with the hero.
However, hero specialities are a different thing. Some are better, some are worse. I think what justifies the imbalance in this case, is the colour it brings to different heroes. It does sacrifice some balance, but it makes the heroes unique in their own right. Frankly, I don't think the specialities can be of equal worth, seeing as they are quite fundamentally differing from one another.Asjo wrote:What justifies such imbalance?
It's easy ...
-Not everybody likes long games : My games take like a one month time and heroes have like 10 attack 10defence (well soemtimes 15 but never over 20)
And I want to see that this bonus gives something
-AI will never give u a great chalange . You can never make an AI that will play like human ... So your change will not make the ai play better.
-Ataack and defence boosts stats ... If You want to lower this boost you must also lower bonuses the spell power and knowledge gives ....
To simply put it your idea of limiting would make everybody play mages becouse knights or demon lords would become useless .
-Not everybody likes long games : My games take like a one month time and heroes have like 10 attack 10defence (well soemtimes 15 but never over 20)
And I want to see that this bonus gives something
-AI will never give u a great chalange . You can never make an AI that will play like human ... So your change will not make the ai play better.
-Ataack and defence boosts stats ... If You want to lower this boost you must also lower bonuses the spell power and knowledge gives ....
To simply put it your idea of limiting would make everybody play mages becouse knights or demon lords would become useless .
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Gaidal Cain
- Round Table Hero
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Attack and Defense are way stronger than Spell Power and Knowledge if the quantities goes up as it is. I'd rather have a hero with 15/15/10/10 than one with 10/10/20/20. Spell Power is somewhat balanced since most schools has some good spell with an instant effect where spell power matters (a 15 turns haste isn't much better than a 10 turn one), but the only spell that drains mana heavily is Summon Creatures.
You don't want to make enemies in Nuclear Engineering. -- T. Pratchett
I'm all for specialities and I like offence and defence providing a more natural boost to your creates, using their own numbers to make them better (ie. take 15% less damage compared to what they would have). Things definately need to matter, and lessening the hero imbalance wouldn't mean defence and attack were useless. Not even if they would only have one fourth the effect - attack/defence would still be worth it. There is no need to change spell power/knowledge. This doesn't mean that magic heroes are much stronger that fighting heroes. You are not often in a situation where you have to choose between a magic skill or a fighting skill for the hero.
val-gaav, as the AI uses its heroes way worse than we do, removing the hero imbalance would indeed give it a much better chance. The AI may be better at using it compared to Heroes 3, I don't know, but it still makes a difference.
val-gaav, as the AI uses its heroes way worse than we do, removing the hero imbalance would indeed give it a much better chance. The AI may be better at using it compared to Heroes 3, I don't know, but it still makes a difference.
Last edited by Asjo on 27 May 2006, 17:11, edited 1 time in total.
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opening_gambit
All the factions can use the heroes attack and defence skills to the same affect therefore its not unbalanced.
If you spent a lot of money building up a hero and the oponent could spend 2500 gold and get an equally powerful hero wouldn't you consider that more unbalanced and from what i understand thats what you seem to want.
But the heroes are at least slightly unbalanced in their special abilities and sylvan and necros seem to be more powerful than the other towns but the rest of them seem pretty balanced.
In the end, you can try to balance a game but in the end one faction will always be more powerful than another even in the slightest way. So dont whine
If you spent a lot of money building up a hero and the oponent could spend 2500 gold and get an equally powerful hero wouldn't you consider that more unbalanced and from what i understand thats what you seem to want.
But the heroes are at least slightly unbalanced in their special abilities and sylvan and necros seem to be more powerful than the other towns but the rest of them seem pretty balanced.
In the end, you can try to balance a game but in the end one faction will always be more powerful than another even in the slightest way. So dont whine
I don't feel that the heroes are unbalanced myself, mainly because they all have access to their hero skills but really need a good player behind a hero to make it go anywhere, even if it has an "unbalancing" skill.
In a way its more balanced if you compare it to III, as at least now the Melee heroes can directly attack instead of just being a booster.
In a way its more balanced if you compare it to III, as at least now the Melee heroes can directly attack instead of just being a booster.
I've been playing campaign for a while now. Campaign is not about the long gaming-style that some scenarios might be like. Already during campaign two my hero was beating everything with virtually no army. I was beating armies four times my size with "sheer strength" - funny, eh?
Later I thought about it and its effect. It actually felt pretty cool to run around beating everything with no army. Like you were powerful and special. Like some games where you always win with little means against overwhelming opposition. But I realized that this only applies to that one situatiton; when you are doign what could be called "hero missions". If you just want to play the game normally it overshadows the other tactical elements of the game too much, even in games that last 1-2 months to some degree.
I'm not sure if I have even played a heroes scenarion that lasted less than five months, though, so I admit I'm not the most qualified to speak on that point. If the question of removing hero imbalance comes down to the preference of short achievement-based games vs long experience-based games, then I feel it's necessary to find some kind of balanced middleground. I can see how a move to remove hero imbalance might seem a step in the direction of removing the primary skills alltogether, invalidating a big part of the gameplay. However, as I have said, I think the game has moved towards more refined ways of adding hero boneses, and only magic strength, not combat strengh ought to be controlled through the primary skills. As to not completely remove the use of attack/defence I earlier recommended reducing them to 1/4 of their current effect. I would like to hear what the people voting no thing about that, because I find the current use of attack/defence the "convient" or safe way of dealing with the problem (the strategic view remains the same that people are accustomed to from Heroes III) while I find the other the optimal.
Later I thought about it and its effect. It actually felt pretty cool to run around beating everything with no army. Like you were powerful and special. Like some games where you always win with little means against overwhelming opposition. But I realized that this only applies to that one situatiton; when you are doign what could be called "hero missions". If you just want to play the game normally it overshadows the other tactical elements of the game too much, even in games that last 1-2 months to some degree.
I'm not sure if I have even played a heroes scenarion that lasted less than five months, though, so I admit I'm not the most qualified to speak on that point. If the question of removing hero imbalance comes down to the preference of short achievement-based games vs long experience-based games, then I feel it's necessary to find some kind of balanced middleground. I can see how a move to remove hero imbalance might seem a step in the direction of removing the primary skills alltogether, invalidating a big part of the gameplay. However, as I have said, I think the game has moved towards more refined ways of adding hero boneses, and only magic strength, not combat strengh ought to be controlled through the primary skills. As to not completely remove the use of attack/defence I earlier recommended reducing them to 1/4 of their current effect. I would like to hear what the people voting no thing about that, because I find the current use of attack/defence the "convient" or safe way of dealing with the problem (the strategic view remains the same that people are accustomed to from Heroes III) while I find the other the optimal.
I think the biggest problem is that some heroes when they level naturally get atk/def very often while for instance academy heroes get knowledge more often than not 
Inferno heroes in my experience get atc/spell power, but since they can't really master spells like warlocks their spells are weak, and with almost no defense their troops get ripped to shreds. Its nice that they hit hard but since their troops are so slow they usually get attacked first and with no defense half the stack is gone byt he time you get to use that high attack power.
I wish there were different heroes in each faction that allowed for natural progression of different primary stats depending on what style of play you wanted ot go with.
Inferno heroes in my experience get atc/spell power, but since they can't really master spells like warlocks their spells are weak, and with almost no defense their troops get ripped to shreds. Its nice that they hit hard but since their troops are so slow they usually get attacked first and with no defense half the stack is gone byt he time you get to use that high attack power.I wish there were different heroes in each faction that allowed for natural progression of different primary stats depending on what style of play you wanted ot go with.
from what ive seen, they arent really that unbalanced. not to mention.. 1/4th of 4 is 1. not 0.5
anyhow, you cant really reduce thier strength as stuff like mass haste would then also be "overpowered" reminds me of the old days in starcraft and warcraft where newbies would scream when losing about "overpowered" units demanding the nerf stick would be used
yes. perhaps units could use a little bit of a boost to compensate, but reducing effectiveness of physical heroes is a bad idea as i dont think you understand the consequences you are suggesting.
anyhow, you cant really reduce thier strength as stuff like mass haste would then also be "overpowered" reminds me of the old days in starcraft and warcraft where newbies would scream when losing about "overpowered" units demanding the nerf stick would be used
yes. perhaps units could use a little bit of a boost to compensate, but reducing effectiveness of physical heroes is a bad idea as i dont think you understand the consequences you are suggesting.
well might heroes aren't that full of att and def as it was in h3 because only the heaven heroes have att and def as primary and secondary attributes;
sylvan and inferno heroes are semi might heroes as they have att/def as primary attribute but theyr sec attribute is knowledge; the other heroes are more magic oriented; and the game is made so that using a hero from different cityes aren't as effective as using heroes from your native town because of the hero specific abilityes are dependent on buildings
sylvan and inferno heroes are semi might heroes as they have att/def as primary attribute but theyr sec attribute is knowledge; the other heroes are more magic oriented; and the game is made so that using a hero from different cityes aren't as effective as using heroes from your native town because of the hero specific abilityes are dependent on buildings
I admit my idea of how to explain the situation didn't come out very eloquently - it slipped my mind between games and exam assignments. However, as has been suggested earlier in this topic, with equal armies, a hero with 15/15/10/10 will beat a 10/10/20/20 when armies are equal, provided that the opponent does have a mix of units and spells that are absolutely perfect to beat your army.
15/15/10/10 implies level 40 or so. 10/10/20/20 is even higher. Even with a ton of boosting structures on the map, that can't be much below 30. I'm still playing the campaigns, so I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge, but do hero levels and stats actually rise to these levels during normal play? Even in campaigns my heroes' levels seem to hover in the 20's (though they visit a ton of stat boosting structures over multiple maps).
A more interesting (and possibly relevant) face-off would be between a 7/7/2/2 hero and a 2/2/7/7 hero (which you can possibly get by level 10 or so, with boosters). 7 added to attack is significant, but hardly overwhelming (also, iirc, even *high* attack and defense have caps to dealt/taken damage). A spell power of 2 is almost useless for damaging and summoning spells. Even buffs don't last particularly long. And you can burn through 20 mana in no more than 4 turns or so. Meanwhile, the magic hero, though pummeled by superior troops (who do 25% more damage on average), can cast long lasting buffs, much more effective direct damage, and can probably not need to resort to direct attacks for the duration of the battle (unless he *wants* to against some level 7 stack where you finally get some nice damage). Over a long battle, all of those long-lasting buffs can start to add up quickly. Not to mention summons, which also even out the attack difference.
As a somewhat minor benefit, a high knowledge also insulates a hero from the effect of imps and familiars. -30 mana's inconvenient for a mage, devastating for a might hero.
I'd guess that in the matchup I refer to, one hero IS favored over the other, but I'm not sure it's obvious which it is, or if the effect is particularly noticable.
A more interesting (and possibly relevant) face-off would be between a 7/7/2/2 hero and a 2/2/7/7 hero (which you can possibly get by level 10 or so, with boosters). 7 added to attack is significant, but hardly overwhelming (also, iirc, even *high* attack and defense have caps to dealt/taken damage). A spell power of 2 is almost useless for damaging and summoning spells. Even buffs don't last particularly long. And you can burn through 20 mana in no more than 4 turns or so. Meanwhile, the magic hero, though pummeled by superior troops (who do 25% more damage on average), can cast long lasting buffs, much more effective direct damage, and can probably not need to resort to direct attacks for the duration of the battle (unless he *wants* to against some level 7 stack where you finally get some nice damage). Over a long battle, all of those long-lasting buffs can start to add up quickly. Not to mention summons, which also even out the attack difference.
As a somewhat minor benefit, a high knowledge also insulates a hero from the effect of imps and familiars. -30 mana's inconvenient for a mage, devastating for a might hero.
I'd guess that in the matchup I refer to, one hero IS favored over the other, but I'm not sure it's obvious which it is, or if the effect is particularly noticable.
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cornellian
- Conscript
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I agree that the Might department of Might and Magic completely overshadowed the Magic part this time, a serious oversight by Nival..
I find it very interesting actually, for I think, the way of Might is the 'harder at first, kicks serious butt later' way of the series, a role Magic always had before. We now have Magic slightly more powerful until lvl10, but later on Might simply steals the show; for, as it has been mentioned, you can have tier2 units with comparable stats to tier 7s and practically invincible armies. And as now pretty much all units can close in in two turns in combat, armies with might overrun those with magic. Yes, there are summon and resurrect spells but they don't hold up with the rate creatures get harder and harder to drop with a might hero...
... which is too bad, because in every HoMM, the games I most enjoyed were the ones that I got away with smaller armies by cleverly using my spells.
I find it very interesting actually, for I think, the way of Might is the 'harder at first, kicks serious butt later' way of the series, a role Magic always had before. We now have Magic slightly more powerful until lvl10, but later on Might simply steals the show; for, as it has been mentioned, you can have tier2 units with comparable stats to tier 7s and practically invincible armies. And as now pretty much all units can close in in two turns in combat, armies with might overrun those with magic. Yes, there are summon and resurrect spells but they don't hold up with the rate creatures get harder and harder to drop with a might hero...
... which is too bad, because in every HoMM, the games I most enjoyed were the ones that I got away with smaller armies by cleverly using my spells.
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