H3SW: Creature Balance

You have a very important point here my friend The speed of many creatures was too low in previous mod version compared to the speed the creatures had in H2. This is the reason why I buffed speed of many classic H2 creatures to match their H2 speed better. This has been done by finding out how much bigger the H3 battle field was compared to the H2 battle field, and then multiplying creature speed from H2 with this value. These changes have been made to a lot of creatures and is especially noteworthy for units as the Phoenix as you mention (from 9 to 15 speed). I would though like to say that I do not plan to have the same aveage speed of our creatures in H3SW as in H3. This is because I want creatures to have their original H2 speed, just multiplied by the difference in battle field size, so that they are as fast as they was in H2 just on larger battle field. In my opinion H3 is other game than H2 and the creatures in H3 speed should not determine the speed of creature originating from H2

I did some interesting calculations on this to see how the numbers on average speed for creatures of the different games looked. I included all creatures (basic, upgrades and all neutrals (even the 4 mighty AB dragons from H3)) for each game.

Average speed:
H3 = 7,41844
H3SW (current balance proportion) = 6,375
H2 = 4,469697
H2 multiplied by difference in battlefield size between H2 and H3 = 5,770354

Our average speed is clearly a bit below H3, but it is also higher than H2 with the difference in battle field size taken into account. Though this cannot be said to be entirely true, because flying creatures could move everywhere and thus only used speed for determine when to act. I think we should try out with the speed I have found here, and then please report afterwards if any creature felt too slow or fast compared to how they used to feel in H2

Hmm I would like to see how creatures data are displayed actually in the game:
1/ order of stats are like your images or like original H2?
2/ screenshot of the creature pannel (with special abilities, if displayed in game)

I'm making H3SW pages, and so I wanted to know how it will looklikes in the game..)

Do you mean like this?

Yes! Thank you very much for theses 2 precious screenshots!  (and happy, it's H2 original order! )

Statistics for the city of knight look great. They are very much H2 style I have one question to Sir Albe. Do you plan to change the big background creatures  such as H1 ? On a small (in city) background it looks very good. The numbers are more visible.

The small portraits of creatures will look like the ones used in the balance proportion

I have 3 things to say.

1) I see why you would make the power level linear. However I think having more of an imbalance can make the game more interesting. Instead of having lvl 3<4 you could have a stronger lvl 3 and a weaker lvl 4. Or you could have weak lvl 5 but a stronger level too, or whatever. This way some towns may feel more distinct.

2)I think stats are overall too low. This depends on balancing of course, but you could end up in a situation where 3-4 points in attack give a massive advantage vs monsters or heroes.

3) minor nitpicks: I don't like the yellow background on the knight castle. I don't see any fields on the town screen( maybe they are on the updated one)...I don't know, it doesn't look pleasant to my eyes. Maybe because I'm colorblind and see things differently so take it with a grain of salt.

another nitpick. I think dragon should be stronger. The whole point of that creature ( at least for me,when playing heroes 2 as a kid) is just how stupidly strong it was compared to everything else. He is still strong, but I don't know if enough. Bump up stats to 20,dmg to 50,reduce growth to 1 and balance cost. Now that's a dragon to strike fear in my enemies' hearts !

Sir Albe wrote:

Abilities: Breath attack

Cyclops lost their 20% chances to Paralyse on attack?

And so, neutral creatures are Ghosts and the 4 elementals. Or there is more?

growth can't be reduced to 1, because of the castle that doubles the population.

Thanks for the comments guys.

@Robizeratul

1. The reason I went for a linear rise in power is because of several reasons. First of all it makes sense that you naturally get stronger creatures as you buy more expensive, higher level dwellings. There was not much sense in the previous version where the Dwarfs in the Sorceress castle gave more power than the Phoenixes each week. Because high level dwellings takes time, a lot of resources and requirements to get, then of course their creatures should bring more power. If not then we could just keep creatures of low leveles and done fine through the game.

2. Stats are for the most part lower than in H3, but a bit higher than H2. This is because I tried to match the stats from H2 as long as it didn't ruin the balance of the game. This was possible for many level 1-3 creatures, but the new creatures (Crossbowman, Satyr ect.) pushed the other classic H2 creatures one level up which meant many of them had to get a stat boost to keep up.

3. I am not in charge of the portraits, I just borrowed them from Feanor

Dragons shouldn't be stronger and as YhyJasne said their growth cannot be reduced any further since the value shown here is with the castle build built. Thus the base growth for the Dragons is 1 and cannot be lowered. If Dragons should turn out weaker than I expected I will find a way to buff them, but that will be clear once testing begins

@GodRage

Paralyze doesn't exist in H3 and thus we decided to remove that ability. We could switch it out with "Blind", but that would seem weird to me as it belongs to Unicorns. How embarrassing for me. Paralyze does exist in H3 and belongs to the Scorpicore of Dungeon. Also my first sentence didn't really make sense

Ghosts and Elementals as well as a surprise is coming soon

First change of stats in creature balance proportion

Since I posted the creature balance proportion you guys have given me your comments on the proposed balance. I appreciate every comment very much, so thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts. I have taken the comments into considerations and made the following changes:

Arch Mage
- Cost increased from 960 to 965 gold (A small correction was made)


Beholder
- Defense decreased from 6 to 5
- Health increased from 20 to 25
- Damage decreased from 5-10 to 4-9
- Cost decreased from 380 to 375 gold


Hydra
- Health increased from 85 to 90
- Cost increased from 840 to 865 gold


Treant
- Health decreased from 110 to 85
- Damage increased from 10-14 to 10-16
- Speed increased from 3 to 4
- Cost increased from 845 to 850


Wyvern
- Health increased from 80 to 100
- Chance to poison an enemy on attack decreased from 50% to 20%

Sir Albe wrote:

Paralyze doesn't exist in H3 and thus we decided to remove that ability.

"Even if science-fiction writer knows that there is no and couldn't be a specific type of transport or communication, he should invent it and he would be absolutely right if he does"

So, I wait for Paralyze ability to return. Maybe not in the closest new version however.

Good Wyvern. Like it.

Quote :

Paralyze doesn't exist in H3 and thus we decided to remove that ability.

It actually existed for upgraded Wyverns so I don't see any reasons for the Cyclopses to not have it.

Ups I forgot about it... I guess you mean Scorpicores. They of course had it in H3. It acts the same way as Stone gaze as far as I am concerned, except it is considered a level 4 spell rather than the Stone gaze which is considered a level 3 spell. I will implement it later today

So Cyclops will keep their 20% paralyse

GodRage wrote:

So Cyclops will keep their 20% paralyse

You guessed it! Also I must say that I am really impressed by what you did with the H3SW page on Lands of Enroth. It looks great

I will post a second change to the creature balance today. It contains almost only fixes to the cyclops.

Hehehe

Sir Albe wrote:

Also I must say that I am really impressed by what you did with the H3SW page on Lands of Enroth. It looks great

Thank you very much
I finaly didn't follow the design from the screenshots..
But I will wait the release of H3SW to work more on it. The page is in sleeping mode until then.

Balancing is always one of the most important aspects of modding. And it's arguably the hardest to get right without too much thought and testing.

To be honest I've played h2 and h3 (also wrath of gods and some other mods) for probably more than a thousand or two thousand hours each, many hours multiplayer too. (hotseat etc) And of course I do plan to  do the same on SW mod.

What struck me the most all those years, especially in my favorite game of the franchise (heroes 2), was how I was enjoying almost all classes equally, despite the fact of how imbalanced some things were.

Titans and Dragons always ruled supreme. You always had a huge advantage as a Wizard or a Warlock, especially in the endgame and in larger maps. Titans and dragons were simply too OP compared to all other lategame minions.

I admit the Knight was by far the weakest class. Defense did not really help unfortunately as much as other stats. It did not protect you from spells and it did not give you initiative dmg on your archers. Crusaders would have been amazing if they actually had some magic resistance, or a permanent Antimagic aura or something. Or just plain HP. At least 100. But sadly they always died to casters in so many sad & horrible ways. Not to mention the fact that you could simply blind or paralyze them and gg.

Sorceress was also always way too fragile in "total army HP" but some times could win games solely with a mass haste spell and the super speed of the entire army. Initiative was King. She could never compete with Dragons or Titans though.

Necromancer could win games simply due to absurd amount of skeletons acquired and the good old tanking lich with steelskin that absorbed everything. And of course Reanimation.

Barbarian on the other hand, could win games just by a fast early brutal game and a huge attack skill that made all the difference in even the weakest of Units. Attack skill in Homm2 was unbelievably powerful.

So much fun despite all those imbalanced things. The game was actually too good, to even attempt to nitpick on anything at that time.

All of this work here btw seems amazing. I simply can't wait for this to finish to test it and see for myself everything in action.

Balance is the hardest part though. I love the fact that you pay so much homage to the 2nd game of the series, especially the artwork which is so beautiful and nostalgic, but as for the stats they indeed need a lot of thinking per castle/minion. It's the hardest thing to do, if you want to make the game as balanced as you can. They will certainly need to be playtested a lot, to find the optimum choices.

Before I share my opinion regarding Unit details, I have an important minor question regarding calculations in combat :

Will the attack and defense calculations use the H2 Model or the H3 one? It's actually terribly important, because if you are using the H2 model, than every single point of attack/defense makes a HUGE impact in combat effectiveness. It's actually the main reason that Titans and Dragons were so powerful and sturdy in heroes II. And the reason that Units such as Minotaurs, Trolls & Archmages were so powerful. Or the fact that the Barbarian was amazing simply because of attack skill. Try a Titan or Archmage in a barbarian hero in homm2. It's bonkers, beyond broken. If you compare it to the H3 model, you actually needed double that number there, to have the same impact. So you had 30/30 instead of 14/14 etc. Definitely something you have already thought about, regarding balancing. And it makes balancing even more tricky depending on the model used. 10% extra damage per attack skill, instead of the 5% from homm3, is a big load of difference.

PS: All of this reminiscence about Heroes 2, just reminded me of how crazy we were back in the day with this game. We actually had learned all unit stats by heart, and calculated everything regarding each combat round in a heartbeat. The attack/defense/damage calculations. You always calculated before attacking anything. This would probably seem way too crazy to someone nowadays for doing it for a game. And I guess games have spoiled us now, doing all kinds of calculations automatically. On the other hand, games are much more user friendly now. So I guess that's a big plus.

It seems that the main skills system will be similar to this one known from H3 and also creatures statistics are going to be more balanced. Well, I am very curious how it will look in the upcoming release, because in the last closed beta fight was different from battles in H2 and H3. 7th level creatures were nerfed and I was lacking feeling of real power, even with black dragons in my army Probably old players will have to modify their typical tactics

After all, lack of balance in H2 wasn't a big deal for me, unless I was playing a multiplayer. Personally, I loved playing big maps, starting with Knight castle, fighting against Warlock. It was much bigger challenge than usual, forcing new tactics. And this beautiful chopping sound of Crusader's sword striking dragons down

I've never count how many creatures I will kill during attack. I just "feel" how many units in stack will die. I never liked HoTA's improvement of showing number of killed creatures and done damage It was always something you owe as a skilled player , factorising it is a violation

Quote :

I never liked HoTA's improvement of showing number of killed creatures and done damage

Horn of the Abyss (HotA, not HoTA) modification has a focus towards online gaming, rationally suggesting that the playing skill is not the calculation, but the tactics and knowledge of gameplay strategies. Moreover, the done damage indication is a feature of classic H3.

For me balance also plays the secondary role for now, because Heroes 2 never had any and there is no possibility to calculate it objectively simply because we don't have an army of professional online gamers. What we can do on the first place is to remove obvious flaws and exploits (classic Heroes games didn't even that).

Orzie wrote:

Quote :

I never liked HoTA's improvement of showing number of killed creatures and done damage

...Moreover, the done damage indication is a feature of classic H3.

In the classic H3, you are able to set it off when you choose "show no creatures stats". Please, just keep things this way.

Just a note.

Keep in mind that from a mathematical point of view and statistics, if you use the H3 mathematical calculation model in combat, while the stats of the creatures are closer to H2 stats, you will have the following results :

- Lower level creatures will be more powerful than supposed to because the higher defense stats from high level creatures, will not be defensive enough to block the attacks from the swarms. This is due to the 2% lower dmg percent per defense over attack (homm3), instead of the whopping 5% in heroes 2. That was the main reason that Knight Units, Dragons and Titans were so sturdy in homm2.

- Due to the previous point, higher level creatures will be much more fragile. And also less effective in terms of attack, because they will not get the 10% dmg bonus per attack skill over enemy defense. They will get only 5% per difference (aka heroes 3 model), which is not that much really, when we are talking about homm2 stats. Archmages/Trolls or other high lvl Units, will not be as powerful as they were. I guess this is not necessarily bad, it's just different. Makes gaming strategy and tactics also VERY different.

Of course, maybe you are already aware of all that, and have done other changes to alleviate it, or it was done on purpose, but I just thought I should mention it, since there is a reason that stats are so different in scale, between homm2 and homm3.

It's certainly something that should be in the back of our heads, when looking at balance and creature Stats, I believe.

I agree with most of what you guys say. I also love to play H2 even though it is not balanced at all, but that is also part of it charm. Like Uhm said, it is fun to try to win a map with the Knight class, since you have to fight harder for victory than if you played Warlock.

What I tried to do while creating this balance for the creatures is somewhere between H2 and H3. The game and units feeling like in H2, but also making changes to make sure that no class is worse on every point than others. The Knight class is for instance still one the "weakest" in the game, but it has received a great amount of changes. First of all, peasants are actually viable now with 3 hp and 24 base growth which gives you quite a horde early on. Their speed is also not quite as bad as in H2. Then you got the highest growth in the whole game for the other units along with buffs to swordsman, Jousting ability for cavaliers and buffs to paladin too. I dare say it is not impossible to win a game with these changes.

I can also say that I already thought about the attack and defense skill bonuses being halved in H3 compared to H2 (I worked on this for about 3 years    ). Let me just say that I already have taken this into account while making this balance proportion, but that I wouldn't mind if we switched to the H2 values at some point. During the last beta (which is quite some time ago) there was an issue with low level creatures ruling the game which you can see in the first bar plot in the "Background on the latest creature balance proportion" post. Just look at the Sorceress castle and you see the problem. That is one of the things I tried to fix by setting these creature' stats to, or at least closer to, their H2 values (see list in same post) and also if needed lowering their growth (see dwarfs and elves). This along with buffs to many level 5-7 units make the bar plot look very different as you can see in the second bar plot. Since we haven't begun the actual testing yet, there may be some flaws and obvious mistakes which must be fixed, but overall I would say this is a solid starting point

Sir Albe wrote:

During the last beta (which is quite some time ago) there was an issue with low level creatures ruling the game which you can see in the first bar plot in the "Background on the latest creature balance proportion" post. Just look at the Sorceress castle and you see the problem. That is one of the things I tried to fix by setting these creature' stats to, or at least closer to, their H2 values (see list in same post) and also if needed lowering their growth (see dwarfs and elves). This along with buffs to many level 5-7 units make the bar plot look very different as you can see in the second bar plot.

Yeah, no surprise there. Like I said, that's natural to happen. To make the higher level creatures really able to block swarm low level attacks efficiently, you would either need the homm2 calculation model (10/5% per attack/defense difference), or just use Unit stats closer to homm3 (where dragons actually have 30/30+ statlines to block the 5/5 swarms for instance). Or combination of buffing high level creature stats, and nerfing low level creature stats, like the approach you seem to have taken. However I do think that the latter, is the hardest of all to do while maintaining balance, and would require the most testing out of all these options.

Nice to hear that you've been working on that aspect of the game so much though. It's indeed hard to grasp and deal with, without upsetting the overall gameplay balance too much.

Still I have to note that the balance is a complicated thing and it shouldn't be considered as something which is easily done. I predict various changes and improvements even long after v1.0.