UndeadHalfOrc & Darmani's Heroes 2 balance patch

[dudejo]

Basic Dwarves have 20 HP. And the same magic resistance percentage as the battle dwarves. The upgrade really only offers the speed increase.

oops, my bad. but uh...does that mean you agree with me or not?

But they are also extremely cheap considering their strength, compared to swordsmen and minotaurs. Until you get the upgraded Ogre Lords, their sole job is to protect the orcs and trolls, and they do that job well enough.

yeah, they pack a punch for their cost...assuming no one has a well. because they have enough growth and HP that nothing equivalent can kill them (assuming you go toe-to-toe with said equivalent units).

but throw in wells and it's a lot closer. it comes down to the heroes leading them.

minotaurs especially will kick some serious ass with a +5 growth.

that aside, while i agree with giving the magic-using heroes a larger balance towards might stats, i think their stat balance is a little too, eh, neutral.

i heard one of the later HoMM games has heroes that specialize in one Might stat and one Magic stat. considering HoMM 2 has few classes, i figured it would be a piece of cake to implement with the magic users.

for example, Sorceress could be focused on Defense and Knowledge while Warlock could be focused on Attack and Spell Power.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Bump

All links were updated on the first post.

I suspect the GOG.com version is completely incompatible with any of my patches....

The no-cd version might work, but campaigns still won't...

[Soronarr]

You just used a hex editor to mod this?


I want to give this a try. Heck, I modded more games than I can count already, what's one more?


Can you just give me the basics (what files am I looking for)?

I want to edit a few units..

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Simply click the sticky "Heroes 2 Mod" topic on the top of this forum.

it's 18 pages, but every offset, etc, is in there.

[dudejo]

i have a possible alternative to the 0 growth for Giant/Titan and Dragons

would it work to increase the purchasing cost by ~33% across the board for those units?

yeah, you'd still be getting them at 3 per week but the increased cost means you'd have to give up on something else.

for example, the Green Dragon's cost increases by 1000 gold. buying 3 of em means you abandon 3000 gold's worth of stuff. that would mean about 3-4 Hydras, 6-8 Minotaurs, 10 Griffins, 15 Gargoyles or 50 Centaurs. that's about 2 weeks' worth of units on average.

and 3 Titans mean you let go of 4500 gold's worth of stuff. overall, it's also an average of 2 weeks' worth of units you can't buy.

would that sacrifice also make it balanced?

[Kristo]

The problem with that logic is gold is not a useful balance factor once the game is more than a few months old. If a player has 4 or 5 castles to his name, he's likely earning so much gold that he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. Increasing the Dragon/Titan cost would delay the point where those armies become unbeatable, but it wouldn't balance the game. Lowering the growth rate decreases their numbers over time vs. the base game.

I can tell you from experience that 1 fewer Dragon per week does make a difference. You have to treat them differently. Your army is no longer automatically invincible and you can't replace them as easily. It's only at the very end (when you've basically won already) that they become truly overpowered.

[dudejo]

the way i see it, having economic supremacy pretty much means you're well on your way to victory.

being 10 Dragons/Titans short over time won't change that fact.

for what it's worth, i can tackle a group of 40-50 Cyclops or Crusaders with a stack of 10 Dragons.

even with 2 at a time, gathering those 10 dragons/titans is half the time it would take you to round up the other 40-50 units.

ideally, the units themselves should be nerfed. availability isn't that much of a factor because you can cover the missing unit with a bigger stack of something else.

if you pack the cash, you'll win anyway because you can afford everything (assuming, of course, you're competent at this game)

[UndeadHalfOrc]

ideally, the units themselves should be nerfed.

I lowered Black Dragon and Titan HP by 20. Not much, but I'm wary to do more since I already lowered their growth.

[dudejo]

one thing i've toyed with was increasing the Gold cost and dropping their defense skill by about 33%.

they'd be like upgraded Bone Dragons with a 2-hex attack.

i took on 10 such-nerfed black dragons with 20 Crusaders (modded with 15 defense skill and nothing else) backed by a level 1 Sorceress and a spellbook with Steel Skin and Bless.

the Crusaders lost but they managed to take 6 of the dragons down with them.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Massive update. Read the first topic on the first page!

Changes:

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

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

[Greengrass]

It's possible to set not "0" but "-1" growth rate to dragon tower and cloud castle? -1(building)+2(well)=1 per week?

Edit
Lol moneyback effect, i can buy "-1" dragon and they give me 3000g and 1sulfur

[Kristo]

Will the AI "buy" a negative number of creatures? If not, setting -1 growth on something opens up another angle for balance. You would have to then wait two weeks after building a Green Tower before you could put it to use. Obviously, a human player has to be trusted to not cheat in this situation.

[Pollo2002]

I dont play heroes 2 anymore, only 3, but im thinking about it and im surprised about the discussion around. I played MP quite a bit online back in the day and the Concensus was that barbarian are the best side BY FAR. (in certain maps Necro could be as good or better though) They can expand faster than any other side, specially their orcs are too good.

So im surprised to see even Warlock which was imo the worst side after Knight.

To me it was
Barbarian>Necro>>>>Wizard,Sorceress,Warlock,Knight.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

orcs are too good.

Assuming you're talking about Orc Chifetains, great bang for your buck, sure, but too good?
The computer always does very well with Barbarian castle, I'll give you that.

Barbarian castle didn't get that many buffs in my patch in any case, especially compared to Knight.
In terms of costs, the Wizard town is much cheaper to build now (and much easier to get Giants, a mediocre lv6 unit, quicker)

If any Warlock player didn't do good in multiplayer, the player didn't use them correctly. You have to aggressively get as many mines and resources as you can, then get dragons asap.
Neutral stacks are easily dealth with, no matter what type.
shooters:gargoyles+griffins, along with stacks of 1 centaur to draw fire
flyers: hydras, maybe minotaurs
heavy walkers: centaurs blocked by minotaurs+hydras, along with the occasional magic arrow/ice bolt/lightning bolt from your warlock
ghosts: hydras only

[Pollo2002]

In small, medium maps, Barbarians reach , attack and kill warlock before any meaningfull amount of dragons arise, probably by week 2.

In large and huge maps, necro is just so imbalanced that anything not necro shouldnt be talked about. I can give you that Warlock may be second best on large/huge maps, but who pick warlock over necro there?
It has been more than 6 years since my last heroes 2 online game, so maybe strats changed or whatever. But at least on the maps that people used to play it was pretty much that.

[Darmani]

I had the same argument to some extent back on Page 11 or so of the H2 Modding thread (I definitely agree on the Barbarian's strength on small maps). I'm interested in having this conversation still, but it belongs in a new thread.

/me goes to make said thread