H3SW: Creature Balance

This thread is meant for discussing the stats and abilities of creatures present in H3SW. Everyone is welcome to give their input to the discussion

I have personally spent the last years working on the creature balance of H3SW. It is a very interesting topic for me, since the new creatures add to the H2 balance and a lot comes down to keeping the balance as close to H2 as possible, while also taking the new features of H3SW into account. First I will present some of the stuff I have worked on for the last couple years that shows how my calculations have been made. Then I will present the creatures in H3SW v0.8 along with their stats and abilities.

Background of creature balance calculation

This is background knowledge on how the current creature balance was calculated. The actual creature balance overview will be in the next post. You only need to read this if you are interested in knowing how the numbers behind the creature balance has been found.

Formulas
Since the end of 2013, I have been working on and off with balancing our creatures, their stats, growths and costs. Since then, my major development has been creating formulas that calculate the value of the creatures. I will not go in details on how they work, but I will show you the basic process of calculating the value of a creature. The process from a creature’s stats and abilities to its price goes like this:

1. All stats (Attack, Defense, Health, Damage, Speed and eventually the number of ammunition) are used to find the value of the creature.
   
2. Then, if the creature has any special abilities, they are used in the calculation of the value as well. Examples of special abilities are everything from the ability to fly to “No enemy retaliation” to “Immune to magic”. The special abilities have their own values and are not equally strong. “Life Drain” is for instance better than “Immune to Curse”.
   
3. Then the values are multiplied by a factor to find the value’s cost in gold.
   
4. Lastly, the value in gold a rounded to a real number, for instance from 51,251 gold to 50 gold.
   

Power equals gold cost
A very basic rule of balancing most games is:

This means that no two creature should be equally strong and then have different prices. It is actually a very simple principle, but it is very important for the game balance. For instance if you have 2000 gold and spend it on one type of creature, then another player could acquire similar power in creatures with the same 2000 gold. One thing to notice is that the principle doesn’t mean that the two players will have a fair fight. If the one player chooses to buy 20 archers and the other player chooses 1 phoenix, then the player with the phoenix would most likely win. However, this is not because the game is unbalanced, but because some creatures fight more efficiently against certain creatures and not so efficiently against others. The archers would for instance perform a lot better against slow zombies.

Stats as close to H2 as possible
Last time I got constructive criticism on making creatures to similar and not keeping them as they used to be in the original Heroes of Might and Magic II. I have tried to use this constructive criticism and hopefully improved on this topic. I have done this by looking at stats of the original creatures in Heroes of Might and Magic II and try to see if any of our creatures could be more like their H2 versions without running the balance (it would be stupid to set peasants Health back at 1 hp). That way the creatures feels almost as in HoMM II.

Remember that I have only given the creatures their exact stats as in H2 if it didn’t ruin the balance, so that is why not all creatures doesn’t have the same stats as in H2. Another thing I did to make the game feel like H2 was looking the Damage/Health ratio.

Damage/Health ratio
I looked into the difference between the damage and attack potential and the health and defense potential of the creatures. In the H3SW October beta the combat felt a bit slow and battles turned out to take long time compared to H2. This was likely because the damage/health ratio was lower than in H2, which meant creatures needed to deliver more hits to take out an enemy. It was mostly because the balance changes in the previous version of the mod tended to give health and defense more than damage/attack. This can be seen from the table below.



As seen not all classes go towards their H2 value, but that is because of necessary balance change (for instance the peasant has a D/H ratio of 1,00 in H2 to 0,33 in the H3SW, because of the Health increase). Also the new creature in each of the classic castles might be more attack or defense oriented than the average and thus pull the Damage/Health ratio in the opposite direction.

The Speed problem
One difficult problem of this balance proportion has been finding the value of creatures’ speed. This is hard, since speed is more important to skilled players rather than to more unexperienced ones. Speed of creatures for the “pro player” is important because:

• It determents the movement points of the hero on the adventure map.
• It is important when using “creeping” tactics.
• Speed often determents which side of the combat will attack the first and then gain an advantage.
• Speed can give you the first turn of the combat meaning you will be able to cast a spell first.
• Highest speed means that the creature will have the latest turn, if it waits, which allows for a quick two-turn use.

The points above are just some of those I could think of (I am no pro   ) and there sure are many more, but the point is that speed is very valuable for these “pro players” and not so much for casual players. To solve this problem I found out I had to take the middle way between making speed not so important and super important, so its value is reasonable, but not extreme. This is a pure question of the game design. By this decision the more skilled players will be rewarded when making tactical use of speed and less skilled players will find potential in becoming better to see the importance of this stat.

Importance of creature growth
Another thing I have done this time is looking at power of the whole faction in creatures multiplied growth. I have multiplied the value of each creature by its growth, which becomes a measure of the power it provides every week. This is makes sense, since creature cost is equal creature power as said before. This is an important parameter to look at, since it shows whether a castle have the opportunity to requite many creatures of high value (=power) in the early stages of a game to get a large army and thus being able to defeat more monster than other players. This way the player will be able to get more treasure and resources and come ahead of the others. This is what I call an unfair advantage and I have tried to balance this the best I could (though it shouldn’t be eliminated completely, since you for instance want the Barbarian to have the opportunity to rush early game). The goal is to create about equal values of power ( growth of creatures* their cost (which is the same as value)) for each level so no castle has an unfair advantage. Another important thing to secure, is that the avarge power rises with creature levels. By this I mean that stronger creatures should deliver more power every week than weaker ones. This is important, so that you can’t just have you level 1-3 units and be as strong as a player with higher level creatures. I felt that some of our lvl 2 and 3 creatures ruled the mod during the October 2013 beta, which is proved by the graph below, that showes the avarge cost of a creature and its upgrade multiplied by their growth. Please note that the data is from the October 2013 beta and by that is highly outdated.



The teal column of the Knight represents the average cost of swordsmen and master swordsmen multiplied with their growth when the castle is built, meaning it is the double of the base growth. In practice, it works like this:



You can see that we get 3000 power measure in gold which is also what the column in the graph shows. Notice that units like the dwarf (2nd level, red column) in the Sorceress’ castle gives a greater amount of power than the phoenix (7th level, dark blue column). This means that you can get about the same strength measure in power per week from building the dwarf dwelling compared to if you built the phoenix dwelling. That is of course not intended and that is why I made changes also to the creatures’ growth to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
This is the current graph after my balance changes:



As seen the power almost rises every times a higher level of creature is built. This ensures that it is worth building the expensive high-level dwellings. In addition, the different creature levels are more equally balanced between the different castles than before. When the steady rise of power by creature level seems to break it is often because of growth boosting buildings, which is all included in the graphs above. That is why the Pikemen and Veteran Pikemen (Knight level 3, green column) is higher than the Crossbowman and Marksman (level 4, purple column) and why the Druid and Greater Druid (Sorceress level 5, teal column) is a bit higher than the Unicorn (level 6, orange column).

I don’t follow these norms and rules to the letter. I only follow them, as long they don’t ruin the balance or feeling of the game. The most important thing is that the game feels right and that no creature seems overpowered or underpowered compared to its level or purpose.

Thank you for reading this background knowledge on the creature balance of H3SW. I hope you found it interesting and useful. If you have, any questions or constructive criticism, then feel free to ask me. The actual creature balance overview is in the post below.

Creature balance of H3SW

Below is a graphical presentation of all the creatures along with their stats which is in the current development version of H3SW. All stats are shown as well as special abilities.

Stats from version v0.8.1+ (development version)

Knight creatures
For the Knight creatures the biggest change from the 2013 beta has been the removal of the Peasant upgrade, the Brute. This has resulted in the Peasant getting a great boost to its growth to make up for the absence of the upgrade. I found it possible to keep its attack, defense, and damage at 1, while not making them too weak by having their health at 3 and speed at a medium 4. By this I went for the H2 feeling where you have lots of Peasants, but they are still the weakest creature in the game. While Peasants might seem as weak as in H2 they are a lot stronger in H3SW with tripled health and more speed. Their extremely high numbers are what makes them strong and not to be underestimated. The new creature for the Knight, the Crossbowman/Marksman, remains almost like in previous version expect the upgrade now follows the tradition of Knight creatures by receiving +5 health and a speed increase, while there is no increase in damage, attack, or defense. Apart from these changes it was possible to set a couple of stats to their H2 value without making something unbalanced. These changes were made to the Archer/Ranger damage and the Pikeman/Veteran Pikeman defense. A buff has been given to Swordsman/Master Swordsman and Paladin/Crusader to help them keep other with the other creatures on their level. They are still individually in the low end of their level, but are large in numbers.

Knight creatures:

Sorceress creatures
Many Sorceress creatures was very underrated by both price and power in the old beta. This was especially true for Sprites, Unicorns and Phoenixes which all needed big change to avoid breaking the balance. All these creatures were very cheap compared to their power and abilities taken into account and also gave much more power per weak that other castles. Sprite's damage range from 1-3 was especially powerful in a Sorceress army where the hero has access to the Bless spell by default. The level 4 creature switched from the previous Owlbear to the Satyr. The Satyr is a more offensive and skirmishing unit compared to the Owlbear, but is also not too tanky. Another problem with the previous Sorceress balance was the the Dwarf and Elf created way too much power in the early game compared to the other castles. Only some small changes could be made to bring them closer to their H2 stats, thus a decrease in growth was necessary for both dwarfs and elves.

Sorceress creatures:

Wizard creatures
The Wizard has moved his Golems to the level 4 spot to make room for the Gnome. The Gnome is thought as a offensive and fast creature, but very fragile at the same time. His role is thus to finish off enemy creatures without taking damage himself. Golems revived a buff due to the promotion from level 3 to level 4 creatures. Mages and Arch Mages was too cheap compared to their relatively good stats, but their damage hadn't followed their increase in health making them less offensive than in H2, thus they received an increase in damage.

Wizard creatures:

Necromancer creatures
The Necromancer has like the Wizard switched the new creature around with a classic one. The Vampire is moved to level 4 as a very strong creature of its tier, while making room for the new Death Knight to enter the level 5 spot. The Death Knight is like early Necromancer creatures a bit slow, but his skills in combat are not to be underestimated. He has a particular focus on damage dealing with high base damage plus his Death Blow ability which can cause a lot of damage. The Zombie and Mummy was both overpriced compared to their not so good stats and average abilities. The Zombies produced way too little power and also needed a growth increase. Liches had, like Mages, not increased their damage along with their health, meaning they had a lower Damage/Health ratio than in H2. The Bone Dragon was under priced and my guess is that the price from H2 was simply used. I actually think the price in H2 is just as unbalanced as it was in the previous version of H3SW. Thus the Bone Dragon got more expensive and a little stat boost to help it keep up with the other level 7 creatures.

Necromancer creatures:

Warlock creatures
The Warlock has by the hands of the creative genius Agar manged to create Beholders to fill the missing spot in his line-up. The Beholders are offensive shooters meant to aid the strong melee forces of the Warlock. The Gargoyle gave too much power per week, so its growth got decreased. The Griffin also was too powerful, but I didn't want to lower its base growth below 6. Therefore it received a stat decrease. Like all other classic H2 level 7 creatures the Dragons got their original attack and defense values back. I also made their speed closer to H2 by increasing it by 2 for each Dragon.

Warlock creatures:

Barbarian creatures
The Barbarian troops were generally too expensive and some creatures needed an increase in stats. The Harpy from previous stays with the Barbarian as his only flying warrior, but it has lost it upgrade meaning the basic Harpy got stronger. Ogres and the Cyclops was the most overpriced Barbarian creatures. Even with stat boosts these creatures still is cheaper than before. The stats of Orcs and the Wolf has been set closer to H2 values.

Barbarian creatures:

Witch creatures
Since the Witch is a new class for H3SW, the style of game-play for the creatures had to be decided. I went for a mixture of some of the strong, slow defensive powers of the H3 Fortress which the Witch is inspired by, but I also added some of the speed seen in Serpent/Dragon Flies and Wyverns from H3 Fortress. Lets start from the button with the level 1 unit. The Tribal is a defensive and slow level 1 unit with a large damage range of 1-3. He has the best defense and health for a level 1 unit, but his growth is similarly low. The level 2 wasp in the opposite end of the spectra, since it is an aggressive fast flying creature with great damage and speed, but little health meaning it can only survive little damage before perishing. It has like the Tribal a large damage range of 2-5. The next creature is the Lizardman/Lizardman Warrior which has been risen from level 2 to 3 since last time. It is a ranged creature with both good offensive and defensive skills. It do though suffer from its slow speed meaning it will need its high health and defense to eventually take an arrow before firing one itself. The Toad is a flying unit with both decent offensive and defensive capacities. It is a quite fast creature and the "Flying" ability makes it rather mobile. The level 5 creature is the Mantis which is a more aggressive flying creature than the Toad. It is a flying creature with good speed and great damage. The level 6 creature of the Witch is the extremely tanky Treant. The Treant is equally slow, but is very hard to kill and is also able to root enemies on its attacks which makes it great at "taunting" the enemy units. The level 7 creature for the Witch is the Wyvern. It is a fast flying creature with good offensive strength and the ability to poison enemies on its attack. The Wyvern's base growth is 2 meaning it is individually a weak creature, but when the growth is considered it is actually an above average level 7 creature.

Witch creatures:

Dervish creatures
The previous Gipsy is now known as the Dervish class. Since the Gipsy days a couple of things has happened: Old creatures like the Kobold, Ghost and Ettin has be removed and instead the Acolyte, Manticore and mysterious Anubite has taken their place. The Medusas has also been lowered from level 6 to 4. The general mood of the faction is a bit similar to the Barbarian. The creatures of the desert are offensive, but not so endurant. They differ from the Barbarian creatures by being faster and having far more aggressive ranged creatures and more offensively/defensively balanced tanks than the Barbarian. Some of the Dervish creatures also have a strong special ability. Let me go over the Dervish creatures really quick. The Rogue is the most offensive level 1 creature in the game and with his "No enemy retaliation" he can dish out damage without receiving any. His upgrade the Bandit is even more offensive and has a 1-3 damage range as well as more speed to make sure he attacks first. The Acolyte is a fragile and a bit slow ranged creature, but he deals great damage. Acolytes do best assisting the melee troops from afar. If he is attacked then his chances of survival are low. The Nomad is a very fast skirmishing creature that can both take a hit and deal one. The Medusa is a quite offensive melee walker with the ability to turn enemies into stone for 3 turns. She is a bit squishy for a level 4 creature though. The Medusa Queen receives a bow and is able to perform ranged attacks. She has though not forgotten how to fight in close combat, since she has "No melee penalty" and her ability to turn enemies to stone still applies on her melee attacks. The Manticore is a good skirmish flying unit which is a bit more offensive than defensive. The Anubite is a strong level 6 creature completely immune to mind spells. He is balanced when it comes to his offensive and defensive powers. The Genie is the level 7 creature of the Dervish and it is a very offensive flying creature. To compensate for its offensive power the Genies has very little health. The Genie possesses the ability to age enemies which reduces their health by 50% while the effect is active.

Dervish creatures:

Neutral creatures
Not all neutral units have entered the Dervish castle. Left are Ghosts, Elementals and... a Pirate?

Neutral creatures:

Very interesting topic, Sir Albe! You did a great job

Sir Albe wrote:

to keeping the balance as close to H2 as possible,

For me H2 creatures is very unbalanced... I used to patch the french 2.0 game to rebalance, and after asking people in french community, I conclude that the only way to make everybody is happy is to make 2 patchs : one for keeping the H2 style of unbalance (crusaders 65hp, titans 300hp), and one to balance the game (all lvl6 ~300hp).
I fear that we will need also this "2 styles"...

For me, the H3 style balance (all lvl6 ~300hp) is a need because of magic spells ; we all already experienced loosing crusaders easily because of too few HP... Attacking a lvl1 Hero and loosing 1 crusader because of a lvl1 magic spell... hahaha... what a joke...

Sir Albe wrote:

1. All stats (Attack, Defense, Health, Damage, Speed and eventually the number of ammunition) are used to find the value of the creature.
   
2. Then, if the creature has any special abilities, they are used in the calculation of the value as well. Examples of special abilities are everything from the ability to fly to “No enemy retaliation” to “Immune to magic”. The special abilities have their own values and are not equally strong. “Life Drain” is for instance better than “Immune to Curse”.
   
3. Then the values are multiplied by a factor to find the value’s cost in gold.
   
4. Lastly, the value in gold a rounded to a real number, for instance from 51,251 gold to 50 gold.
   

The 1st point is the most important!
For point 5, one   or one   (or so) equal how many   ?

Quote :

Importance of creature growth

You are an expert!  

Sir Albe wrote:

Creature balance proportion

So, it's really H2 style balance.

Also, question/proposition
what formula of damage calculation (e.g.: bonus from att-def difference) should we have? H2 or H3?

Marksman ability, afaik, ignoring defence; gnome - aura of magic vulnerability; mirth casting kinda sucks, so maybe let satyr go?

Thank you GodRage for commenting (I thought I scared people away with these long posts) My proportion should be quite balanced actually. What seems to worry you is the difference between power of level 7 creatures and it is at some point as in H2: Paladin/Crusader is still the lvl 7 creature that gives the lowest amount of power per week and Green/Red/Black Dragon (and then Giant/Titan) gives the most, but the weaker level 7 creatures have been buffed quite a lot. If you think about it Paladin/Crusaders can deal quite the damage with 12-24 combined with "Strike Twice". Their speed is also greater along with their buffed health. Remember that you also gain twice as many Paladins/Crusaders than Giants/Titans. I actually had to buff Giants/Titans to maintain their position as strong level 7 units. I can tell you that the Knight's power of level 7 units, that is as shown in the diagram above, is 4900 gold each week, while the Wizard's power from level 7 units is 6850 gold. That is a considerable difference, but remember that the Wizard must pay a lot more to built the actual dwelling. Therefor I believe it is quite balanced, but test will of course show

I calculated that each rare resource is equal to 500 gold. That has of course been taken into account (so total value of Titan is 4700 gold).

Another thing to remember is that nearly half of all units has been kicked up one level, so many classic H2 creatures now in level 5,6 and 7 had too receive buffs to account for the new level 4 creature (most of the time it is a level 4 creature).

Thank you very much for your kind words. I have been quite nervous to put this out, since I worked on it for so long, so your words are much appreciated

Feanor is assumed that we used the H3 attack/defense value, but I wouldn't mind H2 values instead

I just asked Orzie about the abilities some time ago, so they might have changed. I gladly change the creatures for different abilities, so lets just find out what abilities we want our creatures to have

Also I hope you don't mind me using your creature portraits as graphical representations. If so, please tell me.

Thank you for your reply Sir Albe! (I'm colorblind,I hope it's the right color for your name )

The point that worry me a lot, is that everybody can get direct damage spells    and cast them on enemy creatures. Where the titan will loose 20% of his HP, the crusader will loose 100%.

For me, the first step of balancing creatures is about magic spells direct damage, especially level 1 hero damage. Does lvl1~5 hero will kill a lvl7 in the first turn of the fight with 7points of mana? +,+):
So first step is HP... in fact I would say that top tier creatures should have between 250 and 300 HP.
HP is the only link between Might and Magic.

But mah, it's maybe because I prefer maps...

Quote :

If you think about it Paladin/Crusaders can deal quiet the damage with 12-24 combined with "Strike Twice".

yeah... with so few HP he won't stand long... in my opinion

About production... having twice crusaders is just because each crusader is twice weaker than others lvl7... Take 4 crusaders, 2 titans, it's titans who wins... titans have more everything.
In the fight, a will kill a crusader and then make the stack less offensive, while if titans get the , titans stack will be still at 100% of its starting offensive power.

The gold comparaison is wrong for me. (but probably right for everybody else! lol)
edit: I mean it's wrong time to compare prices for me.  
I prefer to buy 1 Titan rather than 4 crusaders can with magic I can manage to make the titan surviving while killing crusaders. But I don't know, maybe usually people play without magic?... Or they use only slow and haste... lol

It's like saying that 45 paysans = 1 crusader... crusader will wins because he has more HP.

Price of the building is same as price of the monster, it should be balanced ON the creatures power... So in H2 we can say that prices of creatures and buildings are balanced, because weak creatures are cheap and over powered creatures are expensive.
And depending on the maps, buildings can already be built in the castle...
And depending on the maps, we can have a lot of extra money, then prices are all same: we can buy everything!...

I am not saying you are doing wrong (not at all!) but I think that the HP is the starting point of the balancing; bad balance of HP will make the game like H2...

In few words, when I play the H2 Price of Loyalty, I sometimes say "Heroes of Magic II".


edit: And thank you for posting all these stuff, it's really interesting!

Thanks again dear friend (And yes you got the color right )! I appreciate your comment very much.

I am sure you played H2 more than I did and you got a point that it is very important for a creature to survive spells from the enemy hero. That is partly why Crusaders don't have 65 hp, but 85 hp instead. It is not equal to the massive amount of hp for the Wizard ((85*4=340)<(300*2=600)), but there is a reason why I haven't just given all creatures the same health. It would destory their Damage/Health ratio. If I then had to adjust the damage to fit the original Damage/Health ratio, then all level 7 creatures would have basically the same stats which is not ideal for me. I just tried out some of your experiments in the mod version with my stats and I can tell you so much that if you have 50 Titans and the opposing hero buy Crusaders for the same amount (174 Crusaders) the hero with the Crusaders will win (even though the little difference in speed give the Titans an advantage):

You do need to take my word for it for now

With the other example it is correct that 1 Crusader can take out 45 peasant (the same cost in gold as 1 Crusader), but if we multiply the numbers by 10 the situation is different:


This is the classic example of the strongest creature not losing any of its power, since it doesn't fall in numbers (as you also talked about). This is important to remember when balancing creatures.

The prices of the buildings should in my opinion reflect how strong the creature you get is. That is why the upgraded Mansion (Vampire dwelling) is so expensive. That would also mean that the Knight should and would have access to Paladins/Crusaders before the Wizard could get Giants/Titans assuming they have the same amount of resources and so on. That would make great sense for me, since the Knight then is ahead of level 7 creatures for a time, but when the Wizard get Giants/Titans he will grow stronger than the Knight in some time and thus be better late game, which the Wizard should also be for me (together with the Warlock of course ).

Still you point with health holds and I guess we will have to see if it makes the proposal unbalanced.

Thank you for sharing your passion for creature balance with me

Your exemples are good but, no magic. A new...Heroes of Might II ?
I wonder how you can get 50 titans and still have no magic spells!

But so, outside magic, yes it's maybe a good way to balance.

10 crusader -vs- 450 peasants without magic, it depends who hit first I guess.

I totally agree with your "price of building" way!
But for me, it's after; I think the balance order is:
1/ HP (versus magic power)
2/ others creatures stats
3/ creature price
4/ building tree
5/ building price

(maybe the 0/ is magic power.. lol)

But so, a hero lvl1 at day1 with a magic arrow, how many turns he need to kill a lvl6 (lvl7 in h3sw)? (artefact guardian for exemple..)
By the way I am not sure how much damage does magic spells in H3SW, so I used the H2 magic damage in my mind until now.


ahhh I was going to forget lol... In late game, the 300hp creature will have less die than 85hp ones. (fights over fights, 300hp can tank 299 damage without dying, crusaders 84damage)
So, endgame will be with less crusaders than mathematically expected. (at least in pve or so... Maybe in pvp players can manage to never loose ANY of creatures... without magic  )


But mahh I don't want to make you unsure about how to balance H3SW!
But something I really appreciated with HeroesIII, it's the balance of the creatures. The top creatures of each castle has same amount of HP, so same vulnérability against magic! And so using magic needed more smartness... It made the game more interesting, whatever the factions on each side of the battle!


Hehehe i'm very happy to talk about creature balance with you! ^^
It's too much important in Enroth, I think! ^^

Honestly 90% of the games I played on H2 was Magic ones, Wizard mainly, sometimes sorcerer (maybe to increase the difficulty lol... but giving up my phoenixes as soon as I find a 300hp one).
People I knew was also playing wizard or warlock only mainly.
Also, having crusaders in my army will make any IA casting damage spells on it, I'm sure we all experienced that.
Mahh all these things make me thinking differently about HP..

I never said you wouldn't have spells, when you got 50 Titans, but that actually makes no difference. If you plays as a Wizard and have 50 Titans you will most likely have lots of spells, spell power and Knowledge, but your opponent, the Knight, will also have lots of attack and defense ect. This comes down to a whole other balance area, the balance of skills.

The point is, that if you have the exact same heroes fighting and they both have certain damage spells as the ones you talk about, they will do equally good no matter if one has Titans and the other Crusaders. The reason for this is, that just as you can kill Crusaders, say with a Lightning Bolt, so you can kill Titans. The difference is just that a single Titan requires more damage to be dealt than a single Crusader. If you use the previous example I showed you with 174 Crusaders vs. 50 Titans the outcome would be mostly the same if both heroes had damage spells.

Another point to make clear is that health is not a more important stat than say damage. It is very true, that you can kill of creatures with low health easier, than the ones with high health, but if those creatures cost the same (equally strong), then the one with high health will have lower numbers in other stats, for instance damage. This means that the creature with low health have higher damage than the one with high health. You might then say "Well that only makes the creature with low health be even more focused, since it deals more damage". That is true, but the reason you focus this creature is because of his relatively low health and high damage. Why wouldn't you focus the creature with high health since it has more of this better stat? Because it is not a better stat than damage. By having high damage and low health a creature becomes very dangerous for you as an opponent, and if you don't take care of it, you could be punished badly by its high damage. What I try to tell you is that health and damage go hand in hand in terms of power.

It is true that, the more health a creature has, the less creatures is lost when they are dealt damage, and thus they are still strong, because they didn't loss many creatures in their stack. The same can be said for damage. The more damage a creature can deal, the less damage it receives by retaliation (or even not triggering retaliation if the attacked creature is killed) or by surviving creatures on their turn, thus not losing so many creatures, thus being stronger.

This is why I don't agree with your way of balancing. Note that this is just my way of doing it and balancing can be done in a numerous of ways, but this is the style I think suites the mod the best

Going back to your H2 experiences (I am even more concerned you played it much more than I did ). When you fought against neutral creatures for instance, you used mainly damage spells along with ranged creatures and others I assume. Your experiences tells you that, creatures with low health (more attack oriented) are easy to deal with, because they just need to be dealt a fair amount of damage to be taken out. That is assuming you will have the first turn, but what if the neutral creatures has the first turn and is able to attack your creatures first? Then you will take losses, but maybe take out the creatures when it is your turn. Now what if these neutral was more defensively oriented, but still had the first turn? You would still lose some creatures, but not as many as in previous example. You do though maybe need more than one turn to take out the neutrals, which gives them a second turn where you would lose creatures again. Attack oriented and defense oriented creatures can both be harmful for your creatures.

This is not easy for me to explain, especially not by text, but the point is that I believe these stats are deeply connected to each other to give the creatures true power. Damage might seem the only important stat for ranged creatures, but what if they are hit by a spell or attacked by a fast enemy creature or attack by another ranged creature? Then you want your ranged units to survive and his chances depends on his defensive stats. For tanky creatures meant for defending health might seem to be the only important stat, but what if your creatures deals almost no damage to the attacks on his retaliation? Then the attackers keep most of his creatures in his stack and can deal almost the same amount of damage to you again.

I hope this has been enough examples of my thoughts. When I came to these thoughts myself, I fell almost in love with the combat system The fact that all stats for a creature are so important is amazing to me. For that I believe I used so much time on these calculations. Thank you for asking me these questions GodRage. I am glad that share this passion of mine with somebody as you I will continue with uploading the missing creatures for now.

Sir Albe wrote:

I never said you wouldn't have spells,

Yeah but on screenshots I saw only Knights Heroes portrait, so I thought it was lvl1 knights battle hahahaha

Sir Albe wrote:

when you got 50 Titans, but that actually makes no difference. If you plays as a Wizard and have 50 Titans you will most likely have lots of spells, spell power and Knowledge, but your opponent, the Knight, will also have lots of attack and defense ect. This comes down to a whole other balance area, the balance of skills.

The knight Defense won't affect the magic power of the wizard...
The Magic Ressitance skill is the opposite of the Sorcery...

Yes at the contact the Knights troops will make more damage than the wizard's troops. This is of course, but so... If I want to play the knight castle with Gem? I will die...
So what about playing a Wizard/warlock castle with a Knight/Barbarian hero? It will make the strong troops even stronger. mahhh it's no match. I've a friend who recorded some Homm2 playing on youtube, he always recrut the knight/barbarian hero and makes him his Main hero. (in the case he can get knight/barbarian in first(s) day(s)! ^^)

But mah, it was H2, now it's H3SW... differents mechanics and balancing.

Sir Albe wrote:

Another point to make clear is that health is not a more important stat than say damage. It is very true, that you can kill of creatures with low health easier, than the ones with high health, but if those creatures cost the same (equally strong), then the one with high health will have lower numbers in other stats, for instance damage.

Having titans make the magic way more powerful. Having a ~100hp monster make it lower.
direct damage spells, cure, resurrect... Sometimes I wonder why magic castle have the most Mighty creatures!
Imagine each turn a then a ... End of each turn: Crusader:-1, Titans:-0
Mahh I know it's not something that will happens often anyway.

Sir Albe wrote:

This means that the creature with low health have higher damage than the one with high health.

In this paragraph, it make the reader thinking that having hight damage makes a wreature powerful, but also having low HP makes a creature more powerful.

Sir Albe wrote:

This is why I don't agree with your way of balancing. Note that this is just my way of doing it and balancing can be done in a numerous of ways, but this is the style I think suites the mod the best

Yeah don't worry I know that there is different ways of balancing, I think for HoMM there is mainly 2 ways (as I said in my first reply finally ^^): H2 way and H3 way. ^^

My H2 experience... Recently I don't play it anymore (because of this unbalanced creatures mainly.. ). Even if I played H1 and H2 during Zounds of hours!
Yeah I agree with you. ^^
So, fight vs neutrals.... If I have a 300hp tank I will probably loose nothing (if I use magic, 95% sure I don't loose any), if I have a 85hp tank... even versus paysans with magic I will loose some...

Sir Albe wrote:

... ranged creatures, but what if they are hit by a spell or attacked by a fast enemy creature or attack by another ranged creature? Then you want your ranged units to survive and his chances depends on his defensive stats.  

You can replace the "ranged creature" by "walking creature"... What if the lvl 7 walking creature never reach enemy troops because no HP?
But anyway I agree, everybody wants their ranged to be able to shoot at least twice before being in contact. ^^

Sir Albe wrote:

For tanky creatures meant for defending health might seem to be the only important stat, but what if your creatures deals almost no damage to the attacks on his retaliation? Then the attackers keep most of his creatures in his stack and can deal almost the same amount of damage to you again.

Hmmm I'm not sure to understand... I feel you wanted to explain something deep, but we need to use more "real" exemples, where is the titan? where is the crusader?

The skills of the crusaders, attacking twice... but taking a retail between... and the "cannot be cursed"... I thought it was a joke from the dev team.
Cyclops can paralyse, attack over 2 hexagones, it's way much better in my opinion...
Mahhh in HeroesII, crusader -vs- unicorn... I often saw unicorn winning... the Blind 20% make it usually
I sometimes thought about a "valable" low hp crusader... imo, it should have (instead of "no-curse") a 10% cancel spell (kind of holy intervention xD) (a little like the dwarfs finally). But mahhh anyway I must first try the Albe balanced H3SW before talking too much!
'cause... Even with unbalanced H2, I played it long!!

Sir Albe wrote:

I hope this has been enough examples of my thoughts. When I came to these thoughts myself, I fell almost in love with the combat system The fact that all stats for a creature are so important is amazing to me. For that I believe I used so much time on these calculations. Thank you for asking me these questions GodRage. I am glad that share this passion of mine with somebody as you I will continue with uploading the missing creatures for now.

Yes there is many ways of seeing the balancing (1 way / person ? xD) That's why it's always interesting to talk about the balancement (balancing?) !
You did a very good job in the balancing. ^^
I just hope that the "H2 balancing style" you chosen will be good and tasty to play.
It's a pleasure to talk with you Sir Albe !

This looks very impressive. I'm really looking forward to playing with these new stats, because obviously the game will be very, very different. And I hope for the good.
Once 0.8 is out, I will gladly test your new stats and leave some commentary .

Thank you buffkaz. I hope the game will be more balanced and that creatures will feel more like their H2 versions than in previous mod version I will like to hear what you think when v0.8 is finished

I would not be so dead serious about the first developments on the balance without a properly implemented magic system, which is planned for v0.9.
So that, gentlemen, let's leave it to Sir Albe for now, because we need at least something to start with.

This is beautiful, but there are several things that caught my eye:
*Let's look at 8 growth creatures


All of them those creatures have comparable damage, but their hp is. I know this is made on purpose, but beholder's hp is a little too low for me, could be 25-30 and wouldn't hurt the game. I think they could be more defensively oriented and have something like no retaliation and melee penalty, but with lower damage and higher hp. maybe even 35.
Also, satyr looks like a crap unit. 35 hp could be nice too. I know he casts spells and has really good damage, but, at least how I see it, health is what matters the most on the battlefield. And he even looks a bit tanky.

*Zombie with 5 speed? hydra has 3! 4 would be okay imo. Not sure, but hydra could also get a bit more health with all of the buffs left and right. on 15 hex battlefield she's gonna be hit hard before the engagement. in h2 it's 75 don't know why the old version has 65. I see something like 95 or even 100.

*Harpy Hags look like a bad unit. I wouldn't upgrade them for the cost of 100 gold per unit.

*Vampire lord could get 8 speed, necro has nothing that is comparably fast at their level.

*I don't see the gnome moving with 9 speed ;d

*Comparing creatures that grow 4 per week:

Cyclops seems really cheap even with crystal cost included, simply because crystals are usually easier to find at the stage of the game you get them. Usually there is a crystal mine or two that gives you enough resources, while gold is still desired and needed.

In my opinion gnomes are too fast. Beholder doesn't look good and doesn't have enough HP (ranged-distance flyers in H3:SW makes Warlock town weaker), I think Lizard from old beta was more H2 style graphic. Please don't remove Ettins from Gypsy lineup. H1 backgrounds are great.

about witch faction:

*In my opinion tribals should be special about being tanky (6 hp and maybe 4-5 def) but shouldn't about such low attack (2) and speed (make it 5 like the others)

*I don't think lizard warriors deserve such low speed and such high health. They should be quick as crossbowmen and be fragile like elves. Their damage is too high too. 4 and 6 speed would be better along with 15 hp I think.

*Toad totally deserves 40 hp with this sprite. and why 7 speed? gorgons with their hooves should be faster than a giant fat frog that pretends to fly. I would replace 5 with 7 speed of gorgon and toad and adjust the rest of stats.

*Treant can't take place of hydra in terms of tankiness and slowliness. Like I said earlier hydra needs to be tougher and treant can't have 3 speed as a second level 6 creature. Hydras are unique and special

*80 hp on wyverns is a mistake? Edit: Okay I see what you meant with this number. I suggest giving wyvern roughly 100 hp I think this way the castle will be balanced and has something strong and the we would have a creature with 100 hp which doesn't currently exist.

If you want, I can readjust the stats of witch faction creatures and make my own proposition for them. And then discuss what who thinks, because I don't like the witch creatures for now.

Quote :

In my opinion gnomes are too fast.

Don't judge too quickly.

Quote :

Beholder doesn't look good

Beholder's graphics are not final.

Quote :

(ranged-distance flyers in H3:SW makes Warlock town weaker)

Lolwhat?

Quote :

I think Lizard from old beta was more H2 style graphic.

Lizard's graphics are not final.

Quote :

Please don't remove Ettins from Gypsy lineup.

There is no Gypsy anymore, as well as Ettins.

YhyJasne wrote:

about witch faction:*I don't think lizard warriors deserve such low speed and such high health. They should be quick as crossbowmen and be fragile like elves. Their damage is too high too. 4 and 6 speed would be better along with 15 hp I think.

No, it's nicer to have the Lizardmen not resembling the elves who are fragile and allowed to shoot twice. There is certain logic to make the Lizardmen much tougher and have another ability, like shoot back or retreat after being hit in melee. Currently discussing.

Witch playing style should be more defensive-like.

YhyJasne wrote:

*Toad totally deserves 40 hp with this sprite. and why 7 speed? gorgons with their hooves should be faster than a giant fat frog that pretends to fly. I would replace 5 with 7 speed of gorgon and toad and adjust the rest of stats.

*Treant can't take place of hydra in terms of tankiness and slowliness. Like I said earlier hydra needs to be tougher and treant can't have 3 speed as a second level 6 creature. Hydras are unique and special

There is no problem in some low-level creatures moving faster and having some (not all) stats better than some high-level creatures.

YhyJasne wrote:

*80 hp on wyverns is a mistake? Edit: Okay I see what you meant with this number. I suggest giving wyvern roughly 100 hp I think this way the castle will be balanced and has something strong and the we would have a creature with 100 hp which doesn't currently exist.

Agreed on that point, 100 hp is something more significant and Wyverns should be more massive than Paladins and Cyclopses.

YhyJasne wrote:

If you want, I can readjust the stats of witch faction creatures and make my own proposition for them. And then discuss what who thinks, because I don't like the witch creatures for now.

You will get used to them.

Okay, after a thought I can say I like lizardmen (something was too strange, because I thought they're level two creatures), but I still don't understand high speed of toad. I thought people decided for it to be slow, at least not faster than gorgon by 2 speed.

I don't like how treant is taking place of hydra making them really similar and treant tankier by 25hp!

Quote :

I don't like how treant is taking place of hydra making them really similar and treant tankier by 25hp!

Don't treat these numbers like final. We just need something to start with.
Moreover, the Treant is not like Hydra. It's 1-hex creature with the H3 Dendroid ability, while Hydra is 2-hex creature, has no retaliation and ability to attack every adjacent creature.
I guess, according to the Hydra's design, we still need to make Hydra more massive in terms of hit points. It doesn't look logical otherwise.

Thanks for the comments YhyJasne, KingRobsom and Orzie

Let me go through them to answer some of your questions:

About the Beholder:
It is true that the Beholder is very offensive in its current form and I think about decreased the damage a bit while increasing it health as suggested. The reason for the Beholder being this aggressive is that I wanted it first and foremost the be somewhat offensive, because the Warlock doesn't have an aggressive ranged unit that can support all the melee units with dealing damage. The Warlock line-up isn't missing a solid shooter, but rather just some ekstra damage (the other Warlock units generally have a low Damage/Health ratio as seen in the Tabel in second post). For this reason I will not be giving the Beholder more than 25 health. Another issue with changing the Beholder as suggested is that it becomes to similar to Marksmen stat-wise. I will figure out what to do here, but Beholder will probably be change a little bit.

About Mutant Zombies having 5 speed:
There is a very good reason for this. I would like to remind you that Zombies when upgraded in H2 goes from a speed value of 2 to 4. Now since the battlefield is large in H3SW I changed speeds from H2 to match the same value in H3SW. That means that the 4 speed is increased to 5, just as basic Zombies have their speed changed from 2 in H2 to 3 in H3SW.

About Harpy Hag being a bad unit:
Here I would like to remind you that Harpies receive the "No enemy retaliation" ability when upgraded to Harpy Hags. This combined with a damage and speed increase is actually a quite good deal in my opinion.

About Vampire Lords having speed changed to 8:
It could be changed, but then I would have to decrease some of his other stats. The Vampires already is the level 4 creatures that gives most power per week. I would like Vampires to be a bit faster also, but I will have to see if I can do something smart here.

About Gnome having 9 speed:
The Gnome has this high speed because of his role as a melee finisher. I think it relays more on the animation rather than the balance how it will be looking good.

About Cyclops being cheap:
Like other level 7th creatures that cost rare resources the price of the Cyclops in gold is not as high as if he didn't cost any crystals. That is just how H2 decided it to be. There is not much for me to do here I guess. Also I guess your access to crystal is quite map dependent.

KingRobson wrote:

(ranged-distance flyers in H3:SW makes Warlock town weaker)

I don't quite follow you here. Would you care to elaborate what you mean?

About the Tribal:
The Tribal has both great defensive powers (6 health, 5 defense) and a good damage range (1-3). It sounds to me like you want him to be even stronger offensively which I must deny doing. The Tribal is already a overall very powerful level 1 unit and if his stats are improved more he moves towards being a level 2 creature and will need lower growth (which I will not do either, since 10 is the minimal limit for the base growth of level 1 creatures) and an increased cost. As with better offense and speed increase is also not an option for me. Why would you like to make him more like the other level 1 creatures? That challenge for me with making new creatures is making something that is balanced in all ways, but is not too similar with existing creatures.

About Lizardmen:
Again you tell me to make Lizardmen more like Elves and Crossbowmen. Why would you do that? The inspiration for this unit is of course its H3 version which has great defense, but slow speed and offense for a ranged creature. I see you found out they have been moved from their level 2 spot to level 3, so I won't comment on the rest

About Toad and Gorgon:
Why should a bull made of metal be faster than a flying toad? I don't personally thinks that makes sense, but from a game play point of view it is quite logical to give flying units more speed than walking ones. The Toad needs it when flying/jumping over a castle wall in a siege. The Gorgon doesn't have that ability. The Toad is though as a offensively and defensively balance unit, but with good speed.

About Treant:
I understand you want the Hydra to keep its position as the level 6 creature with highest health and slowest speed. I understand that, but the the Treant is not of the same stats and certainly not of the same abilities as the Hydra. I may change the Treant's speed to 4, lowering his other stats, but there is no doubt that the special abilities of the Hydra is far better than the one of the Treant. I cannot boost the Hydra more, since it is where it can be in terms of power, but if I decide to give the Treant 1 extra speed they will at least be more different on that point. The Treant's role as a tank will not be removed though. It is not forbidden to have creatures in the same level having the same roll as long as they are different enough from each other. Just see the Mage and Lich for instance.

About Wyverns:
The reason which Wyverns seem weak is because of the 50% change to poison enemies. This procentage is extrem and I also want to lower it myself. If lowered I can give the Wyvern more health. I agree on that and will very likely change it.

About dissatisfaction of Witch creatures:
You are welcome to make your own proportion as I have done. I personally think that it is interesting with a class of some slow defensive creatures on one side and then some fast creatures on the other side of the spectrum. Also the creatures do (hopefully) not fill out roles that is already assigned to existing creatures.

Orzie I think Ettins could be a neutral units with statistics similar to Ogre or Ogre Lords. They look really well and I believe remove them is a loss. I think they could be defend gold and artifact in Catacombs (object on map looks like beta 2013 bulding from Desert castle) on desert territory.

Ettins will be removed for a numerous reasons. As far as I know their graphics are "Frankensteined" of classic H2 creatures which is not very good and shows a lack of professionalism of the team. Further more, both game play and the lore of Ettins doesn't fit H3SW.

I know very litle about balancing, since through my whole life I was never calculating strenght of monsters and playing only instinctively, but one thing that is striking my eyes is slowness of the fastest and the slowest units. I would said that this values are great for a smaller battlefield (13x10) that I was always voting for , but for standard H3 it unnecessarily slow down the fight. In H3 we were having only 12 creatures with speed smaller than 5 (counting only upgrades without neutrals and Inferno) while now we have 19 (counting upgraded units and non-upgraded when there is no upgrade). There're only four creatures with speed higher or equaling 10 in SWMod (Genie, Wyvern, Phoenix, Dragon). In H3 there was 10 (of course upgraded). In H3 the quickest creature (phoenix) has the speed equals 21. Now phoenix is only 15. I don't know if it can be circumvent because of H2 specific, but for me, the low speed was the biggest issue in the old beta