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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted August 22, 2001 01:37 AM |
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Poll Question:
Poll: Hero Power
Well, to fill in the time before heroes actually comes out, it's time for... wild! unfounded! speculation!
Anyway, there seems to be a general feeling that heroes are going to be absurdly powerful in heroes 4, but I wonder if they won't actually be a little weaker. My reasoning:
-- no more 10,000 damage implosions - this suggests that magic heroes will be less valuable
-- other creatures now have spell books -- further diminishes magic heroes value
-- it has been implied that very high levels are needed before access to the more powerful spells is gained -- still weaker magic heroes
-- heroes aren't needed to lead armies -- both types of heroes lose value
-- since heroes can be killed, the bonuses they impart to the army can be eliminated by concentrating the attack on heroes -- leadership bonuses of both types of heroes diminished
-- although someone calculated in the heroes beta post that a level 99 barbarian can have something along the lines of 80 billion hit points, this might not be as unbalancing as expected since 1. without a map editor, I don't see anyone getting to level 99 and 2. heroes are stacks of one. Who hasn't had their brand new stack of 1 archangel killed by a relatively modest stack of dwarves or swordsmen?
So, which is it, will heroes be super powerful, relatively weak, or just right?
In a completely unrelated note - I seem to remember seeing a star axis in one of the screen shots. If spell power is no more, any ideas what this will actually do?
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Smiley
Adventuring Hero
King of All Smileys
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posted August 22, 2001 02:43 AM |
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Personally i don't think that heroes will be too powerful,because u have level3 and 4 creatures that are very powerful at the start. here are the stats for genie and titans as provided by Wyvern in his thread.
(good work again wyvern!!)
Genies
145 HP
24-30
6 Haste
30 Movement
15 Spell Points
0 Shots
Flying. Spellcaster
Titans
610 HP
100-150 Damage
6 Haste
22 Movement
0 Spell Points
16 Shots
No Melee Penalty. Chaos Ward
My speculation is that heroes will be considerably weak at the start but u can build them up as u play the game n they might surpass most creatures.
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malkia
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted August 22, 2001 03:45 AM |
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I voted for first - hero will be too weak.
I think that this thing with heroes playing in the battle - destroys lots of fun we got in Heroes3. Now heroes will be somethin' not that special.
What about the campaings - imagine you got your hero 12 level on the first map (which is about 500 hp? or somethin' like that) - now you got to the second map - and you can start getting the mines around without bothering having an army - because your hero is strong enough to take care of eveyrthing.
It's fun in Heroes3 in the begining to try to gather creatures (and built things in the town) - and took them to get your mines. It was part of the gameplay/gamestory. Now they've "delete" it. You just pickup your hero (about 50-95 hp at first levels?) and you can take mine which is guarded by 20 or 30 pikeys very fast - without any army.
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UnkaHaakon
Responsible
Famous Hero
happily tilting at windmills
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posted August 22, 2001 11:58 AM |
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Quote:
What about the campaings - imagine you got your hero 12 level on the first map (which is about 500 hp? or somethin' like that) - now you got to the second map - and you can start getting the mines around without bothering having an army - because your hero is strong enough to take care of eveyrthing.
Then it's up to the mapmakers to make sure that the challenge remains. I've long considered a good map to be the key to enjoying a Heroes game, whether it be H1,2,or 3. More than ever, we're going to have to rely on our curious partnership with the map makers to make sure balance is maintained.
Mara said she had a first level hero win a fight against some dwarves and halflings. However, that same hero going up against a Black Dragon is toast. So, it follows that in a reasonably well designed campaign, the challenge will ramp up as your hero increases in skills. We can only hope the mapmakers are up to the challenge.
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Some people say the glass is half full..Some people say it's half empty... I say "What're you asking me to drink?"
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malkia
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted August 22, 2001 07:07 PM |
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Quote:
Mara said she had a first level hero win a fight against some dwarves and halflings. However, that same hero going up against a Black Dragon is toast. So, it follows that in a reasonably well designed campaign, the challenge will ramp up as your hero increases in skills. We can only hope the mapmakers are up to the challenge.
Probably she meant at the begining/middle of the game? But once your hero has 1100 points (as the dragon) nothing will stop him. Simply put if you have CAMPAIGN with 10 maps, in 3 or 4 map you should be strong enough - to get any mines, anythin without worry. Of course on every next map mines can be made to be stronger guarded.
Say on 1 map you have mine averagely guarded by x200 points creature and you have 100.
Say on 2 map you have mine averagely guarded by x300 points creature and you have 230.
....
That's okay - but then you must use all this maps in linear order - most of the campaigns are like this - you took map 1, then map 2... But what if you are willing to skip a map, or change the order of playing them. Also what about the ENEMY - your enemy should start with beginner level each campaign - except few cases. Then his mines must be "tweaked" to be guarded by less creatures.
And what about the DWELLING spots you must flag? These will become much more easier to take in every next map on campaign you play - because your hero got stronger - and you don't even need army to get them. Also you may not use your main hero - but the others - who were on the previous maps - they also will be well developed.
The other solution i see for this is your hero to start every new map .... but reseting his experience to 0 - which will sux at all.
You were saying that mapmaker should be more careful about all that - well, I'm no mapmaker at all - but the more things get complicated, the more you feel that you are not doing them the right way - the more bad maps from mapmakers. Those are just humans - the mapmakers... and here is one idea i got... i'll post it
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niteshade
Known Hero
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posted August 22, 2001 10:49 PM |
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I don't have an opinion yet, but let me just comment on the original points.....
"-- no more 10,000 damage implosions - this suggests that magic heroes will be less valuable "
Agreed, and that's a good thing.
"-- other creatures now have spell books -- further diminishes magic heroes value "
Well, genies in H3 certainly didn't remotely diminish the power of magic heroes. Of course the new creatures will be better, but I doubt it will diminish the heroes importance too much. Usualy you would rather just have the genies attack anyway.
"-- it has been implied that very high levels are needed before access to the more powerful spells is gained -- still weaker magic heroes "
This may be true, but without knowledge of the spells themselves we can't comment. And the "after battle" magic skills tend to be extremely powerful. I'd take life magic just for grandmaster ressurection. So magic heroes will be extremely valuable just for these skills.
"-- heroes aren't needed to lead armies -- both types of heroes lose value "
If you don't have a hero leading your army they can suffer from numerous problems including having your enemy use diplomacy recruit your troops for his side, which would be pretty awful. So I don't see many heroless groups.
"-- since heroes can be killed, the bonuses they impart to the army can be eliminated by concentrating the attack on heroes -- leadership bonuses of both types of heroes diminished "
Hard to say how easy that will be. A hero in the back rank can't be shot at by arrows, and will probably take alot of effort to get to and kill. You might lose the battle because you lost so many troops trying to get at the hero.
"-- although someone calculated in the heroes beta post that a level 99 barbarian can have something along the lines of 80 billion hit points, this might not be as unbalancing as expected since 1. without a map editor, I don't see anyone getting to level 99 and 2. heroes are stacks of one. Who hasn't had their brand new stack of 1 archangel killed by a relatively modest stack of dwarves or swordsmen? "
Well, 80 billion hps would be rather unbalancing, but the actual number is more like 100,000. This is still alot though, even 100 black dragons would take a long time to kill this hero. But as you said I doubt we will see many lvl 99 heroes running around.
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Camelnor
Famous Hero
Also known as Blue Camel
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posted August 24, 2001 02:22 AM |
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honestly, i think it will be perfectly balanced. this is simply because when 3do or any company for that matter, makes a game - they play-test it to make sure its balanced. some companies do a poor job of this... but 3do's track record, i think you would all agree, is very impressive here... considering all 3 homms have kicked ass...
so i find it highly unlikely that it will be unbalanced.
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vesuvius
Hero of Order
Honor Above all Else
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posted August 24, 2001 03:08 AM |
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hehe
hehe, do you work for 3do? 
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Sha_Men
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Jack-Of-No-Trades
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posted August 24, 2001 06:23 PM |
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Camelnor...
I wouldn't ever call HoMM 3 "perfectly" balanced when looking it's balance between creatures/towns/magic/might and such.
Also what comes to "tech balance" it wasn't really good before the patch game out...
Maybe they make better job this time or not...
Somehow I have feeling that particular towns might hero will kick some rear end. Won't say which one. You have to speculate it...
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Catch the vigorous horse of your mind.
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niteshade
Known Hero
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posted August 24, 2001 10:45 PM |
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They seem to be a little more concerned with balance this time around, but who knows how well it will work in the end. Saying everything will be automaticaly perfectly balanced is rather silly though, especialy given past heroes. But we can always hope.
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