Is Sylvan Town too Strong ?

[mctronic]

Hi I was just looking at Ranger skills and units of the Sylvan Town from my point of view, this town looks a bit stronger (and perhaps too strong) than other towns. What do u guys think ?

[Bandobras Took]

We're going to have to wait and see. I'm personally terrified of the some of the things Necromancers can to do to random joiners. Also, since nobody has any clue how elemental chains work, we can't be sure of the strength of the Dungeon.

And if you level up in training with the Haven, you have the potential to upgrade your peasants all the way to Paladins. It will depend on the size of the map and the resources available.

[sqeecoo]

We shall, of course, have to wait for the final version of the game to be able to determine whether any town is overpowered or not. I have some confidence in the developers, and don't think any town will be grossly overpowered.
On the other hand, the sylvans seem by far the most straightforward town. You place your two great archers around the unicorns to protect them from magic, with the treants protecting the feeble hunters, and use the rest of your high-initiative troops for fast strikes at exposed units, letting the enemy come to you. Your hero can deal a lot of damage, and can, with light magic, dispell any harmful effects on your troops, or buff them.
The faction seems pretty beginner-friendly, but I doubt it will be overpowered at high player skill levels. Necropolis is, I believe, the opposite in this respect: it will be hard to play well, but should be quite competitive with careful hero development (although it might still need some tweaking).
The only thing that might be overpowered, though, is the ultimate luck ability. No other hero ability can double the damage output of your troops, and it also allows your army to ignore spells and artifacts that lower luck (that necropolis seems to have an abundance of).

[theGryphon]

In a map with abundance of resources or in large maps Haven will be just unbeatable IMO. In a large MP game that opponents meet relatively late, others may be shocked to see hundreds of Paladins marching

From now I can see that Haven will be banned in large MP games, along with Necros possibly (as usual)...

[Bandobras Took]

Don't overlook a large Inferno Army with the Insta-Gate ability. Being able to field twice as many creature stacks in the final battle is not to be overlooked.

[DaemianLucifer]

So were left with dungeon and academy as the only races not banned in MP?

[Bandobras Took]

So were left with dungeon and academy as the only races not banned in MP?

Close; we're not sure how the Elemental Chain will work out, so we might have to ban the Dungeon.

Seriously, after looking at the skill trees over at Age of Heroes, the path to the ultimate abilities is long enough that most games will either:

1) Be essentially over by the time you get them; or
2) Give your opponent equal time to develop his own unique brand of nastiness.

Herald of Death+Diplomacy is just sick (pun intended). Not to mention that Howl of Terror given -6 morale to everything; under the dynamic initiative system that will make the undead move about three times to a Sylvan's once in the battle of ultimate abilities. If you're beelining for an ultimate skill, you're likely passing up a lot of expert levels of basic skills along the way.

Or picture an Academy army with ever single stack pumped not only by artifacts, but also by Cold Steel and Fiery Wrath. That's without the Wizard being able to cast every single spell in the game at expert level. If you want to talk about versatility, I think that ultimate ability wins.

It's possible that the Sylvan town will need to hit luck every time to remain competitive on larger maps. I don't know for sure. I just don't think we should jump to conclusions.

[DaemianLucifer]

So this will essentially turn the game into race towards the uber special?As far as I remember people say HV is going to be very diverse,with lots of different tactics.Well if each race strugles just to get the super special,there will be just six tactics,as far as I can see.Some say HIV is bad because you must have a tactician in your army.But here,youll just focus on your super special and on your creatures.No more town mixing.No more tactics that suits you best.

[Bandobras Took]

So this will essentially turn the game into race towards the uber special?As far as I remember people say HV is going to be very diverse,with lots of different tactics.Well if each race strugles just to get the super special,there will be just six tactics,as far as I can see.Some say HIV is bad because you must have a tactician in your army.But here,youll just focus on your super special and on your creatures.No more town mixing.No more tactics that suits you best.

Not necessarily. I was speaking here in terms of large maps; my first point was that some maps would be essentially over before you gather enough prerequisites to get the ultimate abilities. I also noted that you pass up expertise on basic skills if you're beelining. Taken together, that means that means judging with fine precision whether an ultimate ability is worth "going for." The Inferno ultimate ability can be nice, yes, but I might choose to develop my War Machines and Hellfire abilities instead, neither of which tie directly into the Instagating. Likewise, a Wizard might neglect the "all spells" in favor of a logisitics approach. It will do no good to be pursuing an ultimate ability if you're caught with your pants down four or five levels before you get it.

[asandir]

Judging by what has been written above, and by my beta and demo playing i would suggest that there is a liklihood of some inbalance in the final game, the nature of that inbalance is very debatable as we do not yet know all the factions strengths .... while double damage every time seems excellent and perhaps unbeatable, the advantages of some of the other factions point to negating factors - there is IMO a very small chance that the game will be really well balanced - simply because the abilities seem to diverge so much; having said that however, i think that the inbalance is not going to make any faction unplayable, just as the fortress was playable (even enjoyable in some cases), though underpowered in most peoples eyes

as said before, a waiting game til the full game is seen

[Bandobras Took]

Fabrice in an interview has seemed to take a balance patch as a given. But the game will need public playing on the market before the truly unbalanced things can be brought to light. At this moment, it's pretty much theoretical on all sides.

[Gaidal Cain]

Not necessarily. I was speaking here in terms of large maps; my first point was that some maps would be essentially over before you gather enough prerequisites to get the ultimate abilities.

Let's not forget that you also need so many different pre-reqs that you might end up not getting the absolute skill at all even if you head straight for it, and then you're toast if the enemy has taken another approach. I don't see the ultimate abilities as being much of an option in MP.

[HealingAura]

Let's not forget that you also need so many different pre-reqs that you might end up not getting the absolute skill at all even if you head straight for it, and then you're toast if the enemy has taken another approach. I don't see the ultimate abilities as being much of an option in MP.

I agree with you - you are supposed to be level ~20 to get Howl of Terror so abilities like Chilling Bones and Herald Of Death can help you better than just trying to follow the Howl of Terror way. So abilities like Counterspell maybe be more common than Nature's Luck.

[Campaigner]

Well, I don't care one bit what people say about banning left and right, I'll play whatever I like, however I like!

And Sylvan is just newbiefriendly and as such will be extremely easy to make up great, efficient tactics with it (Unicorns aura, treants high def shielding the shooters).

But in time, competent players will learn to use the elemental chains, miniartifacts coupled with Gremlins & Golems to devastating effects causing all the newbies to cry like little children about "inbalance".

I hate banning factions talk....it sounds like people would settle for a boring Heroes III remake and ignore all the good innovations just to have it "balanced"

[BenchBreaker]

yeah i don't get the ppl who complain about balance when the game hasn't even been realeased, most of these balance issues/exploits are discovered after the game, and you can be sure there will be patches after patches

[DaemianLucifer]

I hate banning factions talk....it sounds like people would settle for a boring Heroes III remake and ignore all the good innovations just to have it "balanced"

Unfortunately most people are like that.Thats why we have none of the great HIV features.

[Phoenix_1973]

Sylvan is true overpowered in demo duel cause the hero has two huge shooter stacks and a golden bow artefact , ignoring a distance penalty . On usual maps , I think , it will be not so overpowered , only absolute luck may be imbalaced on XL maps .

[Bandobras Took]

I hate banning factions talk....it sounds like people would settle for a boring Heroes III remake and ignore all the good innovations just to have it "balanced"

Unfortunately most people are like that.Thats why we have none of the great HIV features.

I would argue that the skill systems has much more in common with Heroes IV than III.

[Ethric]

The skillsystem is H5's one good point, IMO. A further developement of the good work done in H4.

[DaemianLucifer]

I would argue that the skill systems has much more in common with Heroes IV than III.

Now,it has the same amout of HIV,HIII and new elements.And thats the only thing it has,partially,like in HIV.What about flagable windmils,separate movement,dweling acumulation,FoW,or daily growth?