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| Thread: THE PERFECT BALANCE. |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 19, 2007 08:20 PM |
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@Towerlord: wow, you're indeed a very optimistic person, but what Doomforge say is true, nothing untill now will change that
I agree with TheDeath's idea, one man army is one of those imbalances, there is so much gap beetwen might and magic faction.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 19, 2007 08:21 PM |
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might hero with ballista&skills --> one man army (Deleb)
magic hero with destructive&skills --> one man army (warlocks)
Both can do it 
of course might "one man army" applies to creeping only 
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted April 19, 2007 08:23 PM |
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What about might heroes without War machines? (but with more might skills like Attack, Leadership, etc).
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted April 19, 2007 09:14 PM |
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hehe ... of course you cant gate devils , but you will still have 13 stacks (6 * 2 + devils ) ... you will be all over the battlefield ! he can blind some, puppet some , but by this time you already mass slowed suffering and also decreased the defense several times ! and your stacks will be killing his stacks sooo fast, especially because of huge attack.
it's never gonna be 100% protection mini artis, more likely it will be 70% and that means only -35% dmg(with exp irresistible) which is that much.
training one paladin right from the squire costs as much almost as an angel and power gap is really huge ! I wonder if you have ever tried training that many paladins.
its a rush .... so its gonna be more like 7-8-9 sp vs. 15-17, and the arrows shot by the ranger deal very good damage too , and you must add to that the fact that rangers troops are alot more damaging than warlocks' . it is a very close battle trust me, I tried it... maybe the warlock has a little more chances, but it's no way sylvan <<<<<<<<< rushes that you say. and the 450% dmg you are mentioning is a big stretch !!! you have to get lucky to do it , and you have to have the artifact... but sylvan player can have artifact too and maybe some spell power artifact too.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 19, 2007 09:43 PM |
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sure he "can have", but warlocks have the brilliant artifact merchant in town, which changes his stock as time flows; this way, they almost always end with what they want. Elves have to find things on the map, which is very random and I wouldn't depend too much on it. Of course there are external artifact merchants, but not all maps have'em.
Of course I've tried to train that much paladins, what kind of question is that?  It wasn't that expensive as you say, definitely easier than getting black dragons with their ridiculous crystal requirements.
Also, the majority of sylvan players admits Sylvan has an extremely hard time with rushes, I see you're the only one saying opposite, hmm? Someone is being too optimistic here
Yeah it can be 70% protection from arties, but -35% dam PLUS resistance arties PLUS elemental protection arties make a huge difference. Academy has artie marchant in town too :<
about inferno: 12 stacks, y, but most of them is highly inferior in dealing damage later on (demons, succubi).. if you don't use TA (and since you suggest using dark magic, you have no time for TA..), pit lords' damage becomes marginal too. THat leaves you with nightmares, cerberi and familars+their gated support against necropolis army, also boosted in numbers through necromancy and using your devils : ( And they can use mass suffering too.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted April 19, 2007 11:28 PM |
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Quote:
I'll just say this.
War Machines & Destructive magic & some racial skills (like Training) = PERFECT IMBALANCE, contrary to the thread's title.
War Machines work without an army. Destructive Magic works without an army. That is the root of the problem, in fact. Even if most don't realize it and want to remain that way to be unique or something, that's exactly what causes the imbalance. People will always find abuses on this, either rushes or anything else. Even if it's unique, it isn't balanced. Now the question is, do we really want this much unique stuff or more balanced and (for me) funner game.
What do I have in mind? Perhaps nothing.. but I was thinking about destructive spells requiring some army, like boosting some casters with some destructive spells. I dunno, or perhaps army giving SP? I know you'll say it sucks completely, but will probably balance it out (something similar with War machines as well).
Interesting post here, Death. I think this is a very controversal issue, and without being certain that I'm right, I'll go as far as saying that I think what you're saying is plain wrong.
Now, let me explain. You are very correct that Destructive Magic and War Machines form a means of making "one man armies", but there are some part of the equation that you need to include also. If your Hero loses his army - not counting War Machines - you will lose the battle, no matter how powerful the Hero is with spells, or the War Machines are. Thus, the Hero cannot focus on these only, he will need to have an army, and here comes the crucial point, the might Hero that have focused on other parts than, say, Destructive Magic, should have the upper hand on the unit vs. unit combat situation, helping him taking out the enemy stacks easier. In the ideal world, this would of course even out.
I'll take the step a bit further and say that there are currently (at least) 4 general approaches you can take in developing your Hero:
Might Passive: Focusing on skills like Attack, Defence, Leadership and Luck, this one focuses on boosting the power of your units. As the effects of these skills are directly dependant on the units in your army, these are typical late game pay-offs, i.e. this might leave you vulnerable to rushes.
Might Active: This approach covers basically the War Machines approached +/- Logistics, and is a more narrow approach, focusing on leveling up the War Machines quickly. This is a strategy that pays of very fast, because it is independant of the remaining army strength, and therefor will favor rushes.
Magic Passive: This covers focusing on the schools of Dark and Light Magic, that typically work with either buffing your own units or hampering the enemy ones. Like the passive might approach, this one will pay of in late game.
Magic Active: This covers the schools of Destructive and Summoning Magic, which favor spells that will work as substitutes for your army and will do direct damage themselves. Obviously, these schools will give you most benefit in early game, and again favors a rushing strategy.
If the game should be ideally balanced, each of these 4 groups should be - roughly - equal in both early and late stage of the game. Otherwise, any active approach will crush the passive approaches through rushes (Warlock, Deleb, Vittorio), whereas the passive ones will gain the upper hand in the long run (Haven, Academy, Necropolis?).
Now, there are two overall very different approaches you can take when creating skills: You can use the approach of absolute numbers, or you can use the approach of relative numbers. Prime examples of relative skills are Attack, Defence, Light and Dark Magic - these increase properties of your units by some percentage, and thus will have roughly the same effect in early and late game, because the effect will scale with army size. On the other hand, Destructive Magic and War Machines are good examples of skills dealing with absolute numbers, because Destructive spells will do some fixed amount of damage (depending on Spell Power, yes, which will scale with gaming time, so it is not absolutely absolute, sorry for the wording) - but a 2K Implosion will obviously be very powerfull in early game, whereas a 2K Implosion will be virtually worthless in late game.
Thus, in order to obtain ballance, somehow it is necessary to settle for either absolute or relative on all approaches such as to make it all equal. That would, however, be a bad solution (see examples below), but one could try to find some sort of common ground in the middle. Here are some exaples.
Might passive: This groups of skills are probably the ones related most directly with relative scaling of the army strength (Attack, Defence). I see no reason to tamper with these skills.
Might active: As discussed also in the Temple of Ashan thread on War Machines, there is a problem with War Machines being overly powerful in early game, but virtually useless in late game. This, for me, shows that the War Machines need to be changed so that they are moved more from the "absolute" approach towards the "relative" approach.
Currently, the Balista deals damage as ?-5 x (Attack + Knowledge), and this approach is fairly sound in terms of making it relative. There might seem to be a slight problem with the damage being too high in early game, and one might try to implement some further restrictions - such as saying Damage = ? - 5 x (0.5x(Attack + Knowledge) + Hero Level) which will reduce the early game damage and increase late game damage. Furthermore, one could reduce the inherent Ballista Attack and Defence value, which is currently only determined by the skill level, and apply Hero modifiers instead, which will reduce early game impact and increase late game impact and durability. The same with HP, which could be dependant on modifiers like the damage.
The First Aid Tent, from the same thoughts, could have its modifiers changed to shift the impact on game - suggestions posted in the War Machines thread.
Magic Active: The problem with the Destructive spells is that you really can't make them relative - or you could, but it is very much against the principles of everything we are used to. Imagine an Implosion killing SP x 2 % of the target stack. This would mean that a Hero with Spell Power 25 would kill 50 % of any stack with the Implosion spell. Not the best approach.  Therefore, I think it makes sense to keep Destructive the way it is now, but look into some of the spells for Light and Dark Magic.
Magic Passive: I've discussed this subject in the other thread where I suggest a new approach to Light and Dark Magic. The thing is, that there is currently no limit to the amount of troops you can affect with these spells - in contrary to the Destructive spells. This means that Puppet Master, Frenzy, Blind and also Mass Haste, Mass Slow etc. become incredibly powerfull in late game - and it does seem a little contrived to have a Hero with Spell Power 5 taking control of a full stack of 100 Angels or Devils. Therefore, my suggestion would be to introduce a limit to the stack size a Hero can influence, which is depending on Spell Power. This will bring the Active and Passive magic schools closer to each other. One can always discuss whether Destructive Magic is currently overpowered - this might be patched through increasing the mana cost of the spells - so that the Warlock will not be an unstoppable killer machine - but since this will perhaps strike a bit unfeair, one can think in other solutions as well.
All the above was not only to present my specific ideas on the subject - some of which are more "complete" than others - but also to explain why I think it's important to remember the full picture when considering these things. To say that Destructive Magic should be removed is a bad idea, the game should just be scaled so that a Hero choosing the "Might" approach will have other benefits to counter the benefits of the Destructive Magic.
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What will happen now?
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pomo
Famous Hero
The lone peasant
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posted April 20, 2007 03:23 AM |
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Quote:
If you're better, you will win by massing peasants.
All I have to say is...
Peasants + TA = FTW
Peasants + 5 SP eldritch arrow + hit'n'run = FTW
jk btw 
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted April 20, 2007 09:01 AM |
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Again i must remind you that we are talking about rushes... meaning first months, probably you won't even have the artifact merchant built, and if you build it you're gonna have only one one round of arties !
The only problem for sylvan is finding the right favoured enemies in such a short time.
If it is a map that allows long term development Sylvan + Light + Magic + Avenger totally washes the Dungeon Army.
I don't think I am the only one who thinks sylvan is not so weak as you say in rushes... I heard someone defeated even Deleb on Mystic Vale with Sylvan, so Sylvan has its chances even against the best rushers!
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 20, 2007 10:29 AM |
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I'm not that optimistic as Towerlord, but i can say that he's right, i'm one of sylvan lover long ago (before switching to dungeon then to inferno), and i remember that sylvan is not that weak againts rushes, creeping wihtout master hunter is easy, i found this because of playing on heroic with sylvan, first time i defeat heroic is with sylvan. But againts warlock, sylvan has some problem, but if that warlock doesn't wear arties, it will be far easier for sylvan. However haven, inferno and fortress are better than sylvan againts warlock rush. Sylvan problem is only their needs of woods, so that leave many sylvan player doesn't rely on hunter and master hunter early (week 1 until week 2). It's true that sylvan is the hardest town to creeping very fast, but they're not that slow.
About one man army of might vs magic, it's okay if the magic ones doesn't use retreat tactic, but that is one of their strategy, so we can't ignore that, and this makes very big gap beetwen might vs magic, sure what alci and Towerlord say is true, but againts hit and run, i can't say more.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted April 20, 2007 05:49 PM |
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I have few comments.
Academy vs Dungeon
At the beginning i would like to notice that Academy is pro anti dungeon castle. It has 75% macic proof creature. Another creature immune to nearly all elements. Parade of skills that cripple enemy magic. Although i support an idea to have good things against certain opponents, this is just too much. No other faction have so much counters to any other. Good side of all this is that warlock has its racial skill which you can use to decrease his resistance to max 50% and you still have some winning chance. Real problem in this matchup are 2 things.
First is mini artifacts.Im not going to say that mini artifacts are overpowered but if you combine them with second thing i want to mention: countersell , it is a explosive mix. There is no way dungeon can deal with this combo except for rush before academy has their artifacts. I think that counterspell ability is broken. With huge manapool of wizards it doesn't have any drawback. You totally shut off enemy casting with just one skill. Any casters on battlefield that can disrupt this process may be killed in 1 turn and dungeon players is left with his troops only. This fight is not fair however because academy player has mini artifacts and his creatures are much better than dungeons and the fight is over before it even begun.
About sylvan counter rush strategy. I know Towerlord that you are a good player but don't be kidding yourself , ive tried to do a destructive mage out of sylvan hero its next to impossible due to low spellpower. Ive noticed too that you always use "I think" when you speak about this. If you haven't tried it i think you should do it, you will see its not as easy as it may sound.
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted April 20, 2007 07:28 PM |
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I did try it ... just not on ToH . And it worked really well, in a ice bolty rain of arrows I destroyed all the favoured enemies on my list 3 week production (except for 1 deep hydra out of 6) ... after that i killed the rest of the stacks with imbued deadeye shot and troops.
I also used 1 splitted unicorn , placed right between my treants and my druids, for 45% total resistance. that worked really well because my treants resisted chain lightning and survived longer...
anyway ... Sylvan hero isn't as damaging as the Warlock, but Sylvan troops are much more damaging than the Dungeon ones and they benefit from Avenger... and that kinda balances the battle. druids are really powerfull in first weeks, hunters are always deadly , unicorns deal very good damage and provide resistance so sylvan isn't a sure victim if you play your cards right!
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 20, 2007 08:29 PM |
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@felun: no, Towerlord is right, the only way to counter rush with Sylvan hero is going with destructive, not to mention if you're lucky to get triple balista and imbued balista.
Sylvan with destructive is as powerful as with light, 3 or 4 sylvan meteor shower is stronger than warlock single meteor shower (normal), no arties, no booster, but i never test the empowered one.
Yeah sylvan maybe have low SP, but what is the use of arties, also, sylvan destructive portential is stronger than dwarf.
Playing destructive sylvan is so fun, 3 implosion, 3 meteor shower, full of fire works, 80% of my sylvan game always go with destructive, why? because light sylvan is too boring (almost the same as haven), and light sylvan is harder than destructive sylvan, and the most important reason, destructive sylvan use their racial potential to maximum power than light sylvan, sylvan racial skill is built for destructive, avenger, dead eye shot, rain of arrows, imbue arrows, all four of them compliment very well, like inferno's gating, hellfire, mark of damned, and consume corpse.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted April 21, 2007 02:36 AM |
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Quote:
Sylvan with destructive is as powerful as with light, 3 or 4 sylvan meteor shower is stronger than warlock single meteor shower (normal), no arties, no booster, but i never test the empowered one.
With this statement you revealed that you have no idea what are you talking about. Learn to play warlock , then you can discuss about them.
Quote:
anyway ... Sylvan hero isn't as damaging as the Warlock, but Sylvan troops are much more damaging than the Dungeon ones and they benefit from Avenger... and that kinda balances the battle. druids are really powerfull in first weeks, hunters are always deadly , unicorns deal very good damage and provide resistance so sylvan isn't a sure victim if you play your cards right!
Just don't tell me that you will use avenger in a rush game. Finding right creatures in 2 weeks is very rarely possible. (talking bout deep hydras and matrons, lizards aren't that popular too)When it comes to fight. After hunters and druids are dead (2 spells at most) your only creature force are unicorns. Sprites and dancers die like flies and treants are too slow to be a threat for a warlock.
And even if somehow you will manage to repeal warlocks rush you will be left with no creping force and in a week or so dungeon hero will come and finish the job.
Quote:
I also used 1 splitted unicorn , placed right between my treants and my druids, for 45% total resistance. that worked really well because my treants resisted chain lightning and survived longer...
This also revealed that your opponent didn't know how to play dungeon as well. Hitting a treant when you still got any other units is plain stupid. Not to mention that chain lightening is a poor spell.
You know i too had many wins vs sunday academy players as a dungeon. It still doesn't change the fact that when you face good player your chances decrease dramatically. Although that matchup is still way better than chances of sylvan in sylvan vs dungeon rush game
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Destro23
Promising
Famous Hero
Keeper of GrongGrong
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posted April 21, 2007 08:07 AM |
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Forgive me for not having the time to read the whole thread yet. I will tomorrow. But one thing I think would solve alot of the major imbalances with dark magic is simple. Each Faction that suffers heavily from Dark Magic is in fact a dark magic main school. and so I propose..
Devour Magic --- 2nd Circle Dark Magic
Untrained -- Devour Magic removes negative and positive buffs from the unit but decreases the stacks maximum health by 40%
Basic -- As above and reduces the stacks health by 20%
Advanced -- As Above and reduces the stacks health by 15%
Expert -- Removes Negative debuffs from the unit only, reduces stacks maximum health by 10%.
Cleansing at a cost.
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted April 21, 2007 08:07 AM |
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as I said the hard part is to get the right troops for avenger... anyway in 2 weaks and a few days you will surely find some creatures for the avenger. Of course this strategy is all about Avenger, Rain of arrows doesn't work without favoured, and also abilities like know you enemy, are boosting avenger!
Chain Lightning comes from guild instead of meteor shower ... it isn't as good, but it certainly works fine too. I had very few hunters (10 or so) , and the big stack of druids was indeed one of the first to die.
Creeping with this kind of sylvan hero is hero easy to do, 1 treant is enough to put down many armies, so your argument doesnt stand.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 21, 2007 12:45 PM |
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Yeah, but the warlock can return quickly and while your damagin potential (based on a severly crippled army) is reduced, his is still the same
I've won many games because of that, even though I lost my first fight. It's hard not to lose at times, if you don't rush.. and I'm not always in the mood for a rush.
Chain lightning is inferior to meteor shower, but if you were unlucky, this is your most powerful spell (given that arma is your level5). That kinda forces you to find dragon utopias quickly and develop some secondary towns before you engage in combat
But honestly it's not a terrible spell, just the damage is a bit too low (30+30*SP would be a bit more adequate, and master of storms should be re-balanced once more to make it not so worthless as it is now) Also, if I can't get the slippers, but I can get the trident, chain lightning beats implosion.
But, back to the topic.. I think Destro23's suggestion is a nice one! although for such skill, I'd like to see an additional effect too, since now it's just a very bad cleansing spell. And spell-like abilities should be in fact stronger than spells (see teleport spell and teleport assault skill). Maybe it should consume the mana points used for the dark spell and give it to demonlord.
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 21, 2007 03:11 PM |
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@felun: you're right, i forgot something as does the math is impossible for my statement, it was 7x meteor shower, and that's a bit hard because getting war machines with sylvan need very high luck. But, destructive mode with sylvan isn't too bad, if you love warlock you will also love their fireworks rather than the boring light sylvan, it's far more fun than light sylvan.
@Destro23: you have very great idea  , i hope the developer implement something like this, dark magic is very serious problem.
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Destro23
Promising
Famous Hero
Keeper of GrongGrong
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posted April 21, 2007 06:57 PM |
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My reasoning for making the spell less than ideal was to further balance the state of dark magic.
Imagine if you had full power mass cleansing, but also everything that dark magic has to offer.... oh wait.. you'd be haven.
Also in regards to making a spell equal in power level to cleasning would imo make light magic obsolete, I guess you still have teleport, and anti magic.. but still if you really wantedd mass haste or endurance you can go for those perks in your skills, or teleport assault. Yes the buffs and army helpers are great. But its nothing you can't do in reverse with dark magic is it? I was thinking about the spell last night after I posted, and perhaps rather than stack HP deteriorating maybe it could be cast at the cost of initiative ie Devour Magic consumes positive and negative debuffs on target creature, and also consumes 50% of its current initiative.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted April 21, 2007 07:15 PM |
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I don't remember if i posted it but Dungeon doesn't have dark magic and doesn't have light too so it wouldnt solve all the problems
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 21, 2007 08:01 PM |
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It's no problem for dungeon, they have destructive, if dungeon player fear dark magic, they will always leave their stacks that will become prey for very dangerous dark magic, and with that, dungeon problem vs dark magic already solved. But i don't know if late game dungeon vs dark magic, i think their destructive still can solve it.
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