UndeadHalfOrc & Darmani's Heroes 2 balance patch

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Increased Greater Druid health from 25 to 26 to make them much more resistant against hit-and-run lightning bolts from level 1 heroes: 25 damage not enough to kill 1, 50 dmg not enough to kill 2, 75 dmg not enough to kill 3. Normal druids remain unchanged.

This goes well with my previous increase of Swordsmen health from 25 to 26.

See conversation here
viewtopic.php?t=7484&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

[UndeadHalfOrc]

After a recent Warlock vs Wizard game on Beltway, Darmani (who played Warlock himself) suggested to lower the defense of Gargoyles and slightly increase the damage of Boars. I thought it was a good idea, and agreed. I reverted Boars' defense skill to their original value to compensate, giving them more of a "fast raider" role in battle.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Updated the original post, and reposted the recent updates; all the links should work again.

[Storm-giant]

I have only HOMMII PoL installed on my laptop, and this patch is truly great
The spell&flee attacks are less painful, and that's important.
And now titans&blackies are balanced(though they still rule )
Anyway, I have a suggestion to make peasants as a ''normal'' level 1 unit->give them two of life instead of one. Why? well, who a fairy or a halfling can be thoghter than a (human)peasant? And with two of life&the speed upgrade they would be a decent creature, really good for the early&midgames. Still would be necro food, but a little harder.
And congrats, this patch makes all factions much more equal
Cheers

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I have only HOMMII PoL installed on my laptop, and this patch is truly great
The spell&flee attacks are less painful, and that's important.
And now titans&blackies are balanced(though they still rule )

Glad you enjoy it.

Anyway, I have a suggestion to make peasants as a ''normal'' level 1 unit->give them two of life instead of one. Why? well, who a fairy or a halfling can be thoghter than a (human)peasant? And with two of life&the speed upgrade they would be a decent creature, really good for the early&midgames. Still would be necro food, but a little harder.

The problem is that I have no idea how to change the starting amount of peasants of Knights. If I bring them closer to normal Level1 unit stats, then Hero starting amount should be changed from ~42 to ~28, closer to goblins amount for Barbarians.

When you think about it, there isn't much of a disadvantage in having the weakest creature in the game, as long as that creature has very high growth. Unless you're up against Necromancer, but Knight already has a special ability against them (2x damage from Crusaders).

[Kristo]

Peasants serve an important purpose - they're the best way to defend a castle with only 100 gold. Incidentally, how did you arrive at the new cost and growth numbers for them?

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Peasants serve an important purpose - they're the best way to defend a castle with only 100 gold. Incidentally, how did you arrive at the new cost and growth numbers for them?

They still lose every duel with an equivalent force of a week's growth of other towns level1s, so as long as they lose, that means I didn't overpower them. I increased their growth by a small amount many times over.
A Knight player's accumulating starting peasant stack still die in droves once targeted - they just get more of a chance to deal some decent damage before dying now.

[Melanchior]

If anybody is still listening, I'd suggest one more balance fix, to change the growth bonus from wells from 2 to 1

[UndeadHalfOrc]

If I knew how to change that, I would...

[Captain]

May be, if it will be interesting to somebody, I wrote one program which show which heroes are located in comp' taverns:

http://slil.ru/26785632

I used such kind of analysis in offline tournaments...
when I read this topic I remembered how I captured Dragon' village on 7th day of 1st week on Impossible level (on Broken Alliance map)... nice times we had when we played in hmm2!

[Kristo]

If anybody is still listening, I'd suggest one more balance fix, to change the growth bonus from wells from 2 to 1

Yeah, you'd be a hero if you figured that out. IMHO, lowering it to zero would be even better. A decent approximation is to lower Dragons and Titans base growth to zero. You don't get the one that normally comes with the building and then you only get two per week with the Well. I tried that mod a couple of times on UndeadHalfOrc's map, Conscript Lake, with good results. As Wizard I had to be more careful with my Titans and I wasn't immediately unstoppable upon building the Upg. Cloud Castle.

[Resu]

Hey, big thanks to the balance patch and to the no cd crack. I like most of your changes.

But in my Opinion Dimension Door is overpowered even if it costs 20 mana points. There are so many wells in the map that you just have to reach the other well to go on teleporting. It is almost not possible to defend your castles against it If the hero have an advanced level. My idea is to increase the Cost from 20 to 40 or even more.

What do you think about it?

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Glad you enjoy it!

Yes, I have indeed considered jacking it to 30 many times... may be included in next update.

[Captain]

May be better way is use the MapEditor? simply delete wells from the map...

because lots of right maps have not wells on each corner

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Mr Captain here nailed it.... in fact, many of the Heroes 3 balance problems could be fixed simply by editing every single map:
- Removing Mullich
- Changing all neutral stacks from aggressive to hostile and/or removing Diplomacy on Cyra, Adela and Ryland

[Storm-giant]

UHO, still you think peasants with 2 life would be op?

[UndeadHalfOrc]

UHO, still you think peasants with 2 life would be op?

Only because we don't know how to change Knight hero starting amount... as I previously said. They start with almost double the amount of Barbarian hero's Goblins. If you ever find how, sure, I'll raise their HP to 2 and lower their growth.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Here are the raw, fully upgraded HP per week output of each town, before my patch and after my patch.

BEFORE
Knight----------902
Barbarian------1230
Sorceress------871
Necromancer--1202
Wizard----------1624 (!!!)*
Warlock---------1785 (!!!)*

AFTER
Knight------------1004
Barbarian--------1226
Sorceress--------906
Necromancer-----1172
Wizard------------1284
Warlock-----------1445



*(!!!) the black dragons and titans alone matched the Knights and Sorceress' entire HP output per week.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Oh , if anyone ever finds the offset of the damage multiplier for the spells: Fireball, Cold Ring, and Fireblast, i'll be eternally grateful. I wanna raise Fireball and Cold Ring to from 10 to 13 and Fire Blast from 10 to 15, just like I did for Heroes 3.

[Kristo]

Nice table. Just out of curiosity, can you add total cost for each faction, before and after? It'd be nice to see what you pay for the total HP output.