UndeadHalfOrc & Darmani's Heroes 2 balance patch

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UndeadHalfOrc
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UndeadHalfOrc & Darmani's Heroes 2 balance patch

Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 01 May 2008, 23:43

New update: Darmani found the offsets for Fireball, Fireblast and Cold Ring damage, allowing us to increase their power by 30%. :-D

Some of the previous changes were toned town (primary skills advancement for spellcasting heroes).

Download it here:

Heroes 2 Price of Loyalty (v2.1). Should work with Heroes 2 gold as well.
http://pages.infinit.net/plague/h2_mod.zip

Heroes 2 Price of Loyalty (v2.1), No CD version
http://pages.infinit.net/plague/h2_modnocd.zip

Original Heroes 2 (Succession Wars), v1.3
http://pages.infinit.net/plague/succwars.zip


GOG.com users READ THIS: This is for the Windows version of Heroes 2. The GOG version is a modified DOS version. To make my executables work with the DOS version you need to use the no-cd version and some DLLs, I know a guy who managed to make it work that way. But since I have only ever owned the Windows version since 1996 I can't test anything, much less hack it.

Comments are welcome.

Heroes 2 Mod by UndeadHalfOrc and Darmani
Comments... anostf@hotmail.com


KNIGHT CASTLE
Increased Peasant basic growth from 12 to 26 (total 26+2+8=36)
Decreased Peasant gold cost from 20 to 15
Increased Peasant speed from Very Slow to Slow
Increased Archer/Ranger hit points from 10 to 11
Increased Pikeman/Veteran Pikeman hit points from 15/20 to 16/21
Increased Pikeman/Veteran Pikeman damage from 3-4 to 3-5
Increased Pikeman/Veteran Pikeman gold cost from 200/250 to 210/260
Increased Swordsman/Master Swordsman hit points from 25/30 to 26/31
Increased Swordsman/Master Swordsman damage from 4-6 to 4-7
Increased Swordsman/Master Swordsman gold cost from 250/300 to 260/310
Increased Cavalry/Champion hit points from 30/40 to 35/45
Increased Cavalry/Champion gold cost from 300/375 to 340/415
Increased Paladin/Crusader hit points from 50/65 to 60/75
Increased Paladin gold cost from 600 to 675
Decreased Cathedral wood cost from 20 to 10
Decreased Upg. Cathedral cost from 10 wood, 10 crystal, 5000 gold to 10 wood, 5 crystal, 3500 gold
Decreased Fortifications wood/ore cost from 5/15 to 0/10


BARBARIAN CASTLE
Increased Goblin basic growth from 10 to 12 (total 12+2+8=22)
Increased Orc hit points from 10 to 11
Increased Wolf defense from 2 to 3
Increased Wolf gold cost from 200 to 210
Decreased Ogre Lord hit points from 60 to 55
Decreased Ogre Lord gold cost from 500 to 475
Decreased Troll/War Troll gold cost from 600/700 to 575/650
Increased Cyclops hit points from 80 to 85
Increased Cyclops gold cost from 750 to 800
Decreased Pyramid ore cost from 20 to 10
Decreased Coliseum cost from 10 wood, 10 ore, 2000 gold to 5 wood, 5 ore, 1500 gold


SORCERESS CASTLE
Increased Sprite basic growth from 8 to 10 (total 10+2+8=20)
Decreased Dwarf/Battle Dwarf gold cost from 200/250 to 190/235
Increased Elf Attack skill from 4 to 5
Increased Grand Elf Attack skill from 5 to 7
Increased Elf/Grand Elf hit points from 15 to 16
Increased Greater Druid hit points from 25 to 26
Increased Upg. Stonehenge gold cost from 1500 to 2000
Increased Unicorn hit points from 40 to 45
Increased Unicorn gold cost from 500 to 515
Changed Rainbow's mercury/crystal cost from 0/10 to 5/5


WARLOCK CASTLE
Increased Cave ore cost from 0 to 5
Decreased Crypt ore cost from 10 to 5
Decreased Gargoyle defense from 7 to 6
Increased Griffin gold cost from 300 to 320
Decreased Hydra gold cost from 800 to 775
Decreased Green/Red/Black Dragon basic growth from 1 to 0 (total 0+2=2)
Decreased Red/Black Dragon hit points from 250/300 to 240/280
Decreased Green Tower gold cost from 15000 to 13000
Increased Red/Black Tower gold cost from 5000 to 6000
Increased Dungeon cost from 5 wood, 10 ore, 3000 gold to 5 wood, 10 Ore, 3500 gold, and 3/3/3/3 rare


WIZARD CASTLE
Increased Halfling gold cost from 50 to 55
Increased Boar damage from 2-3 to 2-4
Increased Boar gold cost from 150 to 155
Increased Roc defense from 7 to 8
Decreased Upg. Ivory Tower gold cost from 4000 to 3000
Decreased Giant/Titan basic growth from 1 to 0 (total 0+2=2)
Increased Giant hit points from 150 to 155
Decreased Titan hit points from 300 to 280
Decreased Titan gold cost from 5000 to 4500
Decreased Cloud Castle gold cost from 12500 to 7500
Increased Upg. Cloud Castle gold cost from 12500 to 16500
Changed Titan "Fight Value" from 22933 to 27000


NECROMANCER CASTLE
Decreased Skeleton gold cost from 75 to 70
Increased Zombie speed from Very Slow to Slow
Increases Zombie/Mutant Zombie defense from 2 to 3
Decreased Zombie/Mutant Zombie gold cost from 150/200 to 140/190
Increased Mummy/Royal Mummy defense from 6 to 7
Changed Upg. Mansion cost from 5 wood, 10 crystal, 10 gems, 4000 gold to 5 wood, 10 mercury, 5 crystal, 3500 gold
Increased Lich hit points from 25 to 30 but decreased defense from 12 to 11.
Decreased Lich/Power Lich gold cost from 750/900 to 650/750
Changed Upg. Mausoleum cost from 5 ore, 5 crystal, 3000 gold to 5 ore, 5 sulfur, 2500 gold
Decreased Bone Dragon hit points from 150 to 140
Increased Bone Dragon gold cost from 1500 to 1600
Increased Laboratory mercury & gold cost from 5 mercury, 10000 gold to 10 mercury, 12000 gold


COMMON BUILDINGS
Decreased Mage Guild Lv2 rare resource cost from 4 to 2
Decreased Mage Guild Lv3 rare resource cost from 6 to 4
Decreased Mage Guild Lv4 rare resource cost from 8 to 6
Decreased Mage Guild Lv5 rare resource cost from 10 to 8
Decreased Shipyard wood cost from 20 to 15


HEROES
(Attack/Defense/Power/Knowledge)
Knight Lv 2-9: No change: 35/45/10/10
Knight Lv 10+: No change: 25/25/25/25
Barbarian Lv 2-9: No change: 55/35/5/5
Barbarian Lv 10+: No change: 25/25/25/25 (manual incorrect, it's NOT 30/30/20/20)
Sorceress Lv 2-9: 20/15/32/33 from 20/25/25/30 from 10/10/30/50
Sorceress Lv 10+: 25/20/25/30 from 20/25/25/30 from 20/20/30/30
Warlock Lv 2-9: 15/15/40/30 from 20/20/35/25 from 10/10/50/30
Warlock Lv 10+: No change: 20/20/30/30
Wizard Lv 2-9: 15/15/35/35 from 20/20/30/30 from 10/10/40/40
Wizard Lv 10+: No change: 20/20/30/30
Necro Lv 2-9: 20/20/30/30 from 25/25/25/25 from 15/15/35/35
Necro Lv 10+: No change: 25/25/25/25

SPELLS
Increased damage multiplier of Fireball from 10 to 13
Increased damage multiplier of Cold Ring from 10 to 13
Increased damage multiplier of Fireblast from 10 to 13
Decreased cost of Fireball from 9 to 8
Decreased cost of Cold Ring from 9 to 8
Decreased cost of Fireblast from 15 to 14
Increased cost of Animate Dead from 10 to 15
Increased cost of Resurrection from 12 to 13
Increased cost of Holy Shout from 12 to 14
Increased cost of Chain Lightning from 15 to 20
Increased cost of Meteor Shower from 15 to 18
Increased cost of Elemental Storm from 15 to 20
Increased cost of Resurrection True from 15 to 20
Increased cost of Armageddon from 20 to 30
Increased cost of Dimension Door from 10 to 22
Last edited by UndeadHalfOrc on 05 Dec 2011, 01:07, edited 21 times in total.

ByteBandit
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Unread postby ByteBandit » 02 May 2008, 08:38

You know, I have just recently been playing H2 a lot lately. I still love the game even though I still play H3 a lot and H4 once in a while. I like your idea and have wanted to see some change for H2, as we have changes for H3 and H4 and I guess H5 (having Mods and all.)
Now, I have H2 Gold from the Platinum CD of H1, 2 and 3 by 3DO. Do I need both downloads if I wanted to play the original H2? Or can I play the original with your H2 PoL only as well?
I love the idea and I don't want to take away any of the changes you made. How about matching Spells as close as possible with each alignment? Much like how H3 spells are? Just a thought. (I feel Raise Undead in the Castle is kinda dumb.) An example of what I mean.
Would also be nice to change some of the properties of those useless Artifacts into more wanted ones perhaps. Just thought I would give you some ammunition to play around with. :)
I will give this a try here in the near future. And good work to you for your effort in a new H2, which is still great even without the change. But change is a good thing.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 02 May 2008, 11:44

ByteBandit wrote: Now, I have H2 Gold from the Platinum CD of H1, 2 and 3 by 3DO. Do I need both downloads if I wanted to play the original H2? Or can I play the original with your H2 PoL only as well?
I don't have Heroes 2 gold but I can pretty much guarantee you that my PoL version (2.1) will work for you. You can check by looking at the size of your executables and compare it with mine, it they're identical they will work (all I do is replace some bytes)
ByteBandit wrote: I love the idea and I don't want to take away any of the changes you made. How about matching Spells as close as possible with each alignment? Much like how H3 spells are?
How I wish. I never found spell damage modifiers, nor any kind of town/spell probability table like in H3. I did just that in my H3 balance patch, though.
ByteBandit wrote: Just a thought. (I feel Raise Undead in the Castle is kinda dumb.) An example of what I mean.
Agreed! Again I wish I could do so for H2. But you will be pleased to know that in my patched H3, Necropolis has pretty much 95% chance to get that spell in its guild now (making Thant not as vital) and 99% chance to get Death Ripple (which damage was boosted)
ByteBandit wrote: Would also be nice to change some of the properties of those useless Artifacts into more wanted ones perhaps. Just thought I would give you some ammunition to play around with. :)
Once again, I did do just that in my patched H3. Thanks to easily modded text data files. You can be sure that anything I did do in H3, I attempted in H2. But for H2, I have no clue how. I agree with you though. I made a recent H2 map using the yellow random artifacts placeholder, and for "Art2", many times it spawns a useless one like the book of summoning.
ByteBandit wrote: I will give this a try here in the near future. And good work to you for your effort in a new H2, which is still great even without the change. But change is a good thing.
I think H2's balance is Complete GARBAGE without at LEAST lowering Titan/Dragon growth to 0 (lowering 3 to 2 per week in effect) and this is the most significant change that everybody should do, no exception, even if you disagree with most of my small changes! :)
In the big 14 page "Heroes 2 mod" thread, everybody basically agreed to lower their growth from 3 to 2, it was pretty much unanimous.

I can't wait to try the roland/archibald campaign again. It will definitely change the "accumulate army" strategy quite a bit. You won't be able to finish the map with ~10 black dragons like you used to and will be actually forced to play the scenario the way it was meant: accumulate creatures from the towns from the path you chose. On the other hand, the final town/hero won't be nearly as tough, also due to reduced dragon growth.

Still, overall, this patch is nothing compared to my H3 patch. In the latter I changed basically anything I could think of: creatures, buildings, spell damage, spell cost, spell probabilities, sec. skill probabilities, sec. skill EFFECTS, (this required hex editing), artifact costs/class, hero primary skills, hero initial creatures...

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 02 May 2008, 21:20

We have yur H3 Mod patch up on ByteBandit 6. We even have a link in one of the Archives that takes you to download it and read about it.

I never thought about the Dragon/Titan growth. But yeah, it does seem a little high. I also thought the price for Champions was too cheap. They should cost a little more than what you pay for them without the patch. To me, one of the most powerful units in the game.
Also Growth rate of Ghosts should be diminished a little. They should not grow if they kill undead units and Golems. Only makes sense. Same goes for Vampires. They should not regenerate after killing undead units and Golems. That makes sense too. Again, just my 2 cents I see for improvement.

BAD23ro

Unread postby BAD23ro » 03 May 2008, 00:46

About your changes....seems pretty good, but to increase growth of peasants is nothing...I suggest increasing their stats to at least 2-3 health.
Last edited by BAD23ro on 14 Jul 2009, 07:19, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 03 May 2008, 02:08

I'm with you fellers. Would be nice to see you both collaborate on one project then. :D

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 03 May 2008, 02:48

Increasing the HP of peasants pose two problematic side effects:

1) Knights always start with ~45 peasants. A bit high if they are individually much stronger. Have you found a way to change peasant starting amount?

2) "Fight Value", (one of the first data field in the creature tables of both Heroes 2 and Heroes 3) will be way off base by doubling or tripling the HP of the unit. It can be changed, sure, but it's hard to predict effects and when I toy with it, it produces no constant and clear, defined outcome.

So by only changing their cost and growth I allowed them to increase their overall power _per week_ without having it affect anything else.

But yeah I would gladly welcome a way to change spells and skills like I did for Heroes 3. The VERY FIRST thing I would do would be to jack up the spell power multiplier of Fireball, Frost Ring, and Fireblast.

Can you also change spell appearance probability according to the 6 factions?
Last edited by UndeadHalfOrc on 12 May 2008, 18:02, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 11 May 2008, 22:00

One minor change to my mod - increased "Fight Value" of Titans. As they were, they were considered equal to Red Dragons.

Now, when two CPU heroes fight, Titans can win over Red Dragons (if everything else is equal).

I have considered tinkering a bit more with Fight Value, but it's a bit too unpredictable, and besides none of the other value seem blatantly wrong.

Why do I call it Fight Value? It's the name of that field in the Heroes 3 creature table.

Here are the original values:

Image

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Unread postby Darmani » 11 May 2008, 22:27

I just thought I'd mention that I've been playing a game on Broken Alliance on Hard difficulty with the Necromancer. Haven't had too much time to play it though; I'm only on the third week.

I like most of the changes with your patch on paper, especially the Mage Guild ones, as it helps balance out might heroes and magic heroes -- before magic heroes could only hope to equal might heroes on larger maps where the CPU has ample time to build a Level 5 Mage Guild right before you take the castle (or, god forbid, you sit around long enough to build one yourself). However, I feel that changing some of the primary skill probabilities neutralizes that effect somewhat.

Anyway, so far all that actual play has told me about the changes is that they disturb my intuition. For example, early in the game, I tried to rush a neutral stack of Zombies with some Halflings from the Halfling Hole aided by the Haste spell. I still won, but not by as much as I expected. Later, I was in for a rude awakening when I tried to rush my Knight neighbor (after some replays, I only managed to capture the castle by luring the main army away with a sacrificial hero and then defeating the remaining garrison). I suppose it's only right that a mid/end-game faction such as Necro would have difficulties rushing the early-game Knight faction...

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 11 May 2008, 22:40

Thanks for trying it our Darmani.

Unupgraded Zombies and peasants move 1 square further now, so yes, it can take you by surprise if you don't have anough archers since they actually have a chance to CROSS the battlefield now. :D

Broken Alliance by the way, will cause a hiccup: the warlock town in the center island won't be able to produce any red dragons. I had to change the map; added a well, and downgraded the tower to green.

Changing primary skill advancement certainly isn't the most elegant solution, (making everybody a warrior or semi-warrior) but it's the only one possible that still allows factions to use their native hero while still having a decent chance to win (ie.. Sorceress)

And yeah, I do think the designers initially intended the Knight and Barbarian to have a definite advantage early on.

Sure, Necro looks like it got shafted, but I look at it this way: they STILL have their 3 Bone Dragons per week, while the Warlock got only 2 now, so their town can definitely compete in the very-late game. One of my most bitter multiplayer game was me (Necro) vs a Warlock. We both built our towns relatively at the same speed. When we fought (relatively early since we were so close), his 10 or so Black Dragons crushed most of my 11-12 Bone Dragons (which I had managed to start producing on the FIRST WEEK, I might add) on the first turn... the rest of the battle went from bad to worse for me.

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Unread postby Darmani » 12 May 2008, 02:38

I don't really think changing the primary stats was necessary after the mage guild price changes. The way I see it, might heroes multiply the strength of their army by a small amount. Magic heroes with direct damage spells add to the strength of their army by a medium amount, which soon becomes relatively insignificant. However, higher-level, more expensive such as Dimension Door, Berserk, Paralyze, Blind, and even Disrupting Ray also act as multipliers, and can give a strong mage an advantage over a strong warrior. Of course, I play so aggressively that I never see those spells (save Disrupting Ray) until I've already conquered half the map. With the price changes, that's no longer true. Case in point: I have a special save that I use specifically for the purpose of checking what spells are in mage guild upgrades. Using that, I've learned that building another level in the Knight castle I just conquered would give me the Berserk spell, arguably the best in the game. I can and would do so, if only the Necromancer inside had more Knowledge.

Anyway, I'd say the Necro got anything but shafted. Before, the only Necro creatures worth anything other than cannon fodder were Skeletons, Campire Lords, and Bone Dragons. That's a little less true now.

By the way, I should mention that more than Zombies being able to cross the field is involved. I knew my Halflings weren't numerous enough to kill them anyway. Still, I expected to move the Halflings away using Haste to get a few more free shots. That didn't work real well; it was a lossy battle. I suppose it was worth getting the Gem mine though.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 12 May 2008, 03:27

Mage Guilds can be so random and give you the crap spells... sometimes even if I started with a level 5 mage guild for FREE I still would choose a Barbarian (given non-modded H2 values).
Darmani wrote:Case in point: I have a special save that I use specifically for the purpose of checking what spells are in mage guild upgrades. Using that, I've learned that building another level in the Knight castle I just conquered would give me the Berserk spell, arguably the best in the game.
Well, I never save the game when playing non-campaign maps. I never re-load either. What happens happens, and what's random is random!

Giving everybody more might stats means that in a hypothetical multiplayer situation, my level 10 Warlock will not be THAT penalized for getting nothing but crap spells in my guild if your own level 10 Warlock got Armageddon, Resurrection and Meteor Shower. At least not as much as before. I aimed to reduce the overall effect of the randomness of H2 mage guild. If I was able to actually change spells (like in Heroes3) that'd certainly be a different story.
Darmani wrote:Anyway, I'd say the Necro got anything but shafted. Before, the only Necro creatures worth anything other than cannon fodder were Skeletons, Vampire Lords, and Bone Dragons. That's a little less true now.
My main goal with them was to reduce the viability of the bone dragon rush, especially when it's done on the first week.
Darmani wrote:By the way, I should mention that more than Zombies being able to cross the field is involved. I knew my Halflings weren't numerous enough to kill them anyway. Still, I expected to move the Halflings away using Haste to get a few more free shots. That didn't work real well; it was a lossy battle. I suppose it was worth getting the Gem mine though.
With so many stat changes, it does kinda need a little bit getting used to.

Anyway, I'm waiting to see what BAD3ro will do with his spell and skill change.

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Unread postby Darmani » 12 May 2008, 11:55

Okay, those changes now make perfect sense from a non score-monger's perspective. :)

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 15 May 2008, 19:32

It would be nice if we could "adapt" it to the campaign that's being worked on for H1 - H4. But I will recommend it for use in the final credit text of the Campaign, when we finish it up.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 16 May 2008, 15:06

Now that I can modify the spell costs, I've been thinking about what spells could stand for an increase (or decrease) in spell points.

Suggestions?

I've been thinking about maybe increasing Elemental Storm, Meteor Shower, Chain Lightning and Armageddon by 5 points, and Dimension Door from 10 points to 20. This actually would make them closer in cost to their Heroes 3 counterparts.

I'd much rather be able to change spell power multipliers, though...

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Unread postby Muszka » 16 May 2008, 15:52

It's a good start. Your suggestions are good.
"Rage against the system, the system, what kills the human spirit."

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Unread postby BAD23ro » 16 May 2008, 20:15

UndeadHalfOrc wrote:Now that I can modify the spell costs, I've been thinking about what spells could stand for an increase (or decrease) in spell points.

Suggestions?

I've been thinking about maybe increasing Elemental Storm, Meteor Shower, Chain Lightning and Armageddon by 5 points, and Dimension Door from 10 points to 20. This actually would make them closer in cost to their Heroes 3 counterparts.

I'd much rather be able to change spell power multipliers, though...
You should the same thing that I did for Wog 3.59...I know that you don't like Wog, but Wog is the best by far from all versions because of the ERM...almost unlimited scripts and ideas ;)

So, here are my suggestions(a few examples):

Mass Slow to reduce movement to maximum 20%
Mass Haste to increase movement to maximum 2 speed
Blind to be level 3
Armageddon to cost 30-40 points..is too unbalance as it is now


... and so on...:)

You can do what you want, but you already started a balance mod, so that can spare me to do one in the future


:D

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Unread postby Darmani » 18 May 2008, 22:47

Okay, I finished my game on Broken Alliance. I did fairly pathetically -- took me almost 2 months. I think I really messed up my Sulfur supply. As a result, I don't feel like I can really comment on Necromancer balance in 1v1v1v1v1v1.

I then started the Roland campaign, and played through most of the first scenario. After taking the first enemy castle, I upgraded the Mage Guild to level 4. It felt weird (in a good way) being able to use what I considered "endgame magic" in subsequent battles.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 20 May 2008, 13:21

Did it feel weird to receive attack/defense points for your low level wizard? (if you did use your starting wizard)

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 22 May 2008, 15:02

Some tweakings were made today. I had originally made Vampire Lord building a bit too cheap and some spells, I increased the cost a bit too much. in a way this is a back-tracking tweak, closer to original H2 values.
Hey, I can be wrong sometimes! :)


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