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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 05:46 PM |
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Edited by Momo at 17:55, 05 Dec 2011.
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@JollyJoker:
now you're talking. That is a good post with lot of analysis and depth. I'll try to see which points sound convincing to me.
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If nobody denies this, than why did I read only comments like, "the liches are too strong"? Compared with what? In which respect.
This objection is quite trivial. Necro isn't overpowered in a vacuum, but compared to what the other factions have access to. I think you make many excellent points of what doesn't work with Necro's balance, even if you bizarrely did so to demonstrate that there is balance in Necro, instead. Let us see:
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Also, it's not me who has to make the point - the game is the way it is; if you don't like the balance and want a change, it's YOU who has to give reasons why.
In a debate, everybody has either to make a point or a counter-point. Hard to escape that rule.
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Anyway, Necro isn't simply overpowered, because it can creep well - the others can do just as well, that's at least my opinion. You cannot creep faster than fastest. It's just that Necro is very straightforward in its approach. Everything is geared to bringing all losses back that occur in a battle, and that seems to be necessary as well.
Creeping is what determines how good a hero with how big an army you will be able to muster when things are going to be determined in a fight against another, comparable army. While Necro can make sure they creep in an optimal way - fastest and with zero losses - if the others can do that as well, this constituates no advantage. So it would be up to you to prove that the others cannot creep as well.
This is a incredibly old debate that started with the first arguments over game balance. It always leads to the same conclusion, though: "A good player with Dan can beat a weak player with Akuma. But why should the good player not play Akuma rather than Dan?"
Necro has the most straightforward and efficient creeping method. Sure, the others can keep up to that with effort, but why should I make that effort rather than simply picking Necro?
To rephrase the point with a positive sentence, the thing is simply that there must be some sort of disadvantage in playing Necro and some advantage in playing Inferno. If not, then 2 out of 5 factions in the game are drammatically imbalanced.
I'll remind once again that Necro is a prime candidate for being imbalanced in every chapter of the series as its core concept is intrinsecally powerful as everything that meddles with the core rules of a game is; and to make things worse, the best thing in the game to mess with superior numbers is mind magic, and undead are intrinsecally mind-immune. Which way remains of balancing it? More on this later.
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In any decisive battle Necro is OP, not because NECRO would be OP, but because turtling in combination with 3 shooters and the racial is a superior defense strategy the game offers no solution for.
I am missing the meaning of this sentence. Necro is overpowered not because it is overpowered in itself but because it has access to an overpowered strategy? And how is that different from being directly overpowered, given that it is a strategy game what we're discussing? Please elaborate further.
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There is, for example, no good area spell that would really discourage a turtling strategy here. If you turtle around Liches and act defensive with any modicum of skill, you need superior forces to beat yourself trough - once you do, though, Necro will be fairly hard pressed, because Necro has a hard time boosting melee damage (no Inner Fire, no Heroism), which means that their melee units are fairly weak against "real" melee tanks. However, you will have to virtually stamp over their dead bodies to keep them from standing up again.
So once again, IF I have superior forces, IF I can deploy such a numerical superiority that I can withstand Lich/Spinners/Skellies fire and then trample the lich defenses, and IF I'm STILL having a force worthy of respect after such a bloodshed (let us just cast aside the case of Necro defending from a siege which would add turret fire and walls to the equation) and IF I also have the luxury to arrange movements so that I hinder necromancy while I do all that, THEN I have game vs Necro.
Which means if I'm not missing anything that a player with equal forces and skill that is not playing Necro should just forget it - incidentally, this is usually a trademark of imbalance.
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Note, that this situation wouldn't change when you doctored about NECRO units - it's simply necessary to expand the arsenal of skills and spells (and maybe even creature abilitie) with counter-turtling stuff: more effective area spells (that may work on creatures as well), allowing two damage two creatures in a row or add splash damage and so on.
In any case, no matter whether they do that or not, in reality Necro must be beaten stack by stack, and because of their racial workings (friendly losses add 3 times as many points than enemy losses), you actually have to think about your attacks very thoroughly. More than against anyone else you have to simply defend, if there is no GOOD attack.
You might say, that Necro is able to make best use of the game's weak points.
I still fail to see what you're saying that contradicts what I said. However this is the most interesting point you made.
See, there are only so many ways to keep Necro balanced:
- removing their ability to mess with numbers;
- removing their mind immunity;
- compensating their strenght by giving sub-par individual units a-la Zerg (still, that didn't work too well in HoMM3);
- adding some element in the game that messes with Necro's typical strategies;
The fourth way, which is what you are suggesting, is certainly the most appealing and interesting as it allows Necro to keep its trademark identity and play style while giving players a way to counter it. This idea of yours is good, I'd like to see that happen.
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In contrast, Inferno needs more effort. In the beginning stages the racial is standing somewhat in contrast of conserving-army tactics. The racial demands to have as many stacks as possible, since you need to trigger Luck for your racial to work. Also, the portal, once erected, is blocking the WAY, but not shooting.
In contrast to that conserving strategy wants to concentrate stacks - you don't want to take small losses on a couple of stacks, but just on one to be able to cast regeneration - if you want to go that way, that is.
Making use of the racial needs spreading them into as many stacks as poissble - enough, to say here, that best Inferno play will involve quite a lot of changing your army shape around, splitting, re-merging, splitting, and so on. (That's true for Stronghold as well, mind you.).
So once again you seem to be admitting that it takes more effort to make Inferno work. And once again I see no reason to take that effort, but at least the reasoning gets better as you go further:
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Later on, Gating is a devastating racial. A level 15 hero can summon 10% of his complete army strength at start with EACH of 7 possible gatings. Also it can be placed wherever you want it to be.
At last! Indeed this is a relevant point. If you manage a decent early game with Inferno, you end up with a very powerful racial late game. At this point, the question arising if is the advantage of a late-game Expert Gating outshines a late-game Expert Necromancy. But I can see the logic. I will test your idea in combat.
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However, Inferno is a somewhat and especially in contrast difficult to play faction, not only while creeping, but also in decisive battles.
Inferno doesn't excel in anything except the potential number of stacks on the battlefield, and to handle that one most effectively, especially against a human opponent, is a couple of leages above dealing with Necromancy (or the Sanctuary or Stronghold racial). It's a "chaotic" faction, especially in that sense that there is no generally sound strategy (other than with, of course, Necro).
I think they developers finally got what Inferno excels at, deduced from their chaotic aspect:
1. crippling effects (Imp's mana drain, succubus' charm, blade of hatred, Abyssal Worm and such)
2. troops appearing from nowhere (Devils used to summon Pit Lords, there's Abyssal Worm again, and Gating in general)
3. messing with movement on the map (since HoMM3 and even now)
These three aspect are distinctive enough and make Inferno a solid faction able of surprise moves. Unfortunately they seem to be afraid to make these too powerful so they keep these aspect weak and thus a weak Inferno. I think that with HoMM3 having decades of age, taking so much time just to finally figure some vision of how the faction should play (without executing it well enough yet) is a dissatisfying result.
Speaking of the Necro vs Inferno matchup, specialty n°1 is mostly useless because of mind immunity, mana being not so vital for a Magic faction, and such; specialty n°2 doesn't compare with Necro's numerical strenght; specialty n°3 isn't enough, alone, to grant victory, not counting that especially in HoMM6 being able to mess with map movement is a lot less advantageous because everyone has a degree of access to it.
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In theory, countering the Necro turtling strategy, would try to concentrate ranged and destructive power on killing the guarded Liches and then immediately summon something onto them - but in practise that won't work, since shooter power won't be enough to kill them, plus the hero must be able to summon something onto them immediately after killing them.
So, Necro still has access to an overpowered strategy and Inferno has little access to countermeasures. Again, what are you disagreeing with me about?
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There is also no good area spell (generally) - Poison Cloud might be one, but not against Necro. In short, MOST stuff that would work against Necro's turtling strategy, is rendered useless due to their mind immunity, while the no-moral disadvantage is of less consequence in a defense strategy. That includes some otherwise quite powerful creature abilities (Lilim, Vestals, for example).
So in practise you must break the wall around the Liches and deal with the Namtarus who are powerful as well.
I covered the problem with Mind Immunity earlier. I'm happy to see that you agree on this one too.
I think that a faction such as Inferno, with one core (cerberus) and one elite (breeder) pratically out of the picture, will have an ever harder time to trample defenses and get to liches in a timely fashion.
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On the other hand, finding the balance here game-wise is rather difficult, because it cannot be a matter of course either. It SHOULD NOT be easy to beat the best strategy of a town - it's just that Necro strategy is so obvious and unspectacular.
Yes, but the best strategy of a town shouldn't be so easily accessible compared to other towns'.
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Still, from a construction point of view, in any normal game, you need ARCHliches to really make the most of Liches turtling. Building Archliches, however, will completely cripple your building economy. You need 19 Ore and 16 Crystals for those (10.000 gold are less of a problem), which will be a massive strain for your economy. Especially with a view on Crystal needs for Champion creature basic building and Ore for Fortifications.
In contrast to that, Inferno is in a good position to come up with Champs early, forgoing Elites completely, depending on the map.
Another relevant point. Yeah, they pejorated Necro's economy which in turn meliorated the overall balance. I'm not sure that could make a difference in a close matchup, but I am looking to test that forward.
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So what I would much more like to see than weakening Necro to the point that they virtually HAVE to turtle and defend as a matter of course to even stand a chance of surving a battle, is a general strengthening of the anti-turtle weaponry available.
I'd like that too, definitely. But aren't you agreeing that Necro has balance problems once again, with this statement?
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Making Liches 2x2 creatures might have worked wonders here as well.
Sure it would make them a lot less defensible, but I like your first idea better.
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 05:51 PM |
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I have a question about the area spells in this game.
It seems strange to me that in this game, the area spells must be cast on an exactly open space contrary to what we usually see. What I mean is, say we have a 3x3 are spell. We can only cast that on a 3x3 area which has NO terrain obstecles in any tile.
Moreever you cannot squish the spells area in the corners of the battle map, to effect a 2x2 area only, the other tiles left outside of the battle map, which is something you can do on the majority, maybe all, of the strategy games.
Do you people think this is a bug, or an intentional thing? Cause it makes these spells even less efficient.
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forest001
Known Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 06:01 PM |
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@Nocturnal
i think(or hope) it's a bug
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 07:42 PM |
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@ MomoQuote:
Yes, but the best strategy of a town shouldn't be so easily accessible compared to other towns'.
See Momo, you didn't write a lot of points or a lot of structured analysis before you started going through my post. That's because it is way easier to divide a post into handy portions and write comments to those instead of making your own points freely. It's a defensive strategy that is reacting, not acting.
If your above point was right, you shouldn't have easy access to this kind of arguing strategy, right?
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Kivo
Famous Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 07:48 PM |
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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted December 05, 2011 09:16 PM |
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This is an excellent dialogue I'm seeing between JJ and Momo, actually.
I believe the point JJ is trying to make is that Necromancer isn't overpowered; it's that the other factions are underpowered. The Necromancer faction is exactly as powerful as a town of undead hordes ought to be - whereas Inferno, a faction of demon hordes, isn't nearly as powerful as you'd expect an invading force to be.
I think the resolution is probably two-fold: A) Necromancer units need to be less sturdy, so that although you're gaining units faster than other factions, you're also losing them more quickly as well; and B) The other factions need to be better at their respective roles.
When Haven uses their racial, your thought should be, "Damn it, now I have to fight through their insane defenses."
When Sanctuary uses their racial, your thought should be, "Aw man, now my magic is useless!"
When Stronghold uses their racial, your thought should be, "Crap! They're dealing more damage now! Get the healers ready!"
When Necromancer uses their racial, your thought should be, "Hey wait a minute! I was gonna resurrect that guy, but you raised him first! ...And now he's on your side!"
When Inferno uses their racial, your thought should be, "Uh oh. They're calling reinforcements. Now what do we do?"
The trouble is, currently only Necromancer pulls it off to any noticeable effect. But you don't yell at the one guy for making everybody else look bad. You tell the other guys to step up their game.
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x-ecutionner
Known Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 09:19 PM |
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Quote:
This is an excellent dialogue I'm seeing between JJ and Momo, actually.
I believe the point JJ is trying to make is that Necromancer isn't overpowered; it's that the other factions are underpowered.
... which makes Necropolis overpowered.
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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted December 05, 2011 09:27 PM |
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Perhaps - it depends on your perspective - but it changes the question from "How can we nerf Necropolis so that the other factions don't feel bad?" to "How can we make the other factions more competitive so that Necropolis isn't the only one having fun?"
A lot of what I've been seeing is outcries from people who want Necropolis to get hit with a nerf-stick, which I think is the wrong angle from which to approach the problem - it's the same concept that was used to justify the reduction in resources, the changes made to town portal and creature pools, and the skill system; that is, "This doesn't work the way we want it to, so we're just not going to do it at all."
I would like to steer the discussion away from "Let's make Necromancers suck more" and toward "Let's make everybody else suck less."
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x-ecutionner
Known Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 09:33 PM |
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Perhaps - it depends on your perspective - but it changes the question from "How can we nerf Necropolis so that the other factions don't feel bad?" to "How can we make the other factions more competitive so that Necropolis isn't the only one having fun?"
A lot of what I've been seeing is outcries from people who want Necropolis to get hit with a nerf-stick, which I think is the wrong angle from which to approach the problem - it's the same concept that was used to justify the reduction in resources, the changes made to town portal and creature pools, and the skill system; that is, "This doesn't work the way we want it to, so we're just not going to do it at all."
I would like to steer the discussion away from "Let's make Necromancers suck more" and toward "Let's make everybody else suck less."
The less random the game is, the more balanced the game is
=
the more competitive & the better it will become.
PS : The random factor from Previous Heroes was just one of its worst part and I'm glad we got rid of it. It was just goddamn terrible.
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 09:38 PM |
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We have 5 factions and 3 of them are balanced in terms of stregth. Necro is above this balance and Inferno is under it. So nerfing Necro and buffing Inferno seems a better solution than buffing all 3 already balanced ones and super-buffing Inferno. That would just be making things difficult and changing all the factions for the sake of one faction.
Changing Lich's range to "half", nerfing the racial and decreasing Ghoul production a little bit could solve the Necromancer issue. I haven' played as them but these are what seem to be the most mentioned points.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 09:41 PM |
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Apart from Necropolis isn't gaining units faster than anyone else anymore, it's a combination of things the worst one is, that all factions generally have no good counter against ANY type of turtle strategy, and Necropolis is just best suited for it.
You need to make TURTLING AS A WHOLE less attractive, so that everyone would have more and better options. You might have a skill for example that would REDUCE attack "efficiency" of troops too close to each other, say, "Fear of Friendly Fire" or that would lead to casualties the way the Marksman do it, "friendly Fire".
Or simply an area spell that would INCREASE in effect eaxch turn on units continually under it's local influence.
It's TURTLING that must be more difficult, not Necropolis weaker.
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 09:49 PM |
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Btw, when the Blood/Tears abilities were announced many people including me have found "For Whom The Bell Tolls" (what a nice song) very overpowered but I never seen anyone mention that. Is it not that OP as it sounds? Destroying the whole stack in a few turns? :/
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x-ecutionner
Known Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:02 PM |
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Apart from Necropolis isn't gaining units faster than anyone else anymore, it's a combination of things the worst one is, that all factions generally have no good counter against ANY type of turtle strategy, and Necropolis is just best suited for it.
You need to make TURTLING AS A WHOLE less attractive, so that everyone would have more and better options. You might have a skill for example that would REDUCE attack "efficiency" of troops too close to each other, say, "Fear of Friendly Fire" or that would lead to casualties the way the Marksman do it, "friendly Fire".
Or simply an area spell that would INCREASE in effect eaxch turn on units continually under it's local influence.
It's TURTLING that must be more difficult, not Necropolis weaker.
I should write maybe later a Tier list based on every cons / advs every faction got compared to each other, that is, if I play and put more time into this game, which won't occur before 1.2.
But let's compare them to other factions very quickly:
n°1) Racial building : Resurrect for +50 % price increase (-10% per building !) 4-8 days in. 5 Racial building means normal price creatures.
AGAINST
Racial building (other factions) : Powerful early/ mid-game artifact , absolutely meaningless late game. Random artifacts. Don't scale that much.
eg: +8 attacks against +50 troops supply for the Necro... or whatever you got the point.
n°2) (Arch)liches : No range penalties : +50 % damages. 80+ hit points (pretty tanky) and healing skillset. Champion unit. +5 growth ? Can't remember the exact number.
AGAINST
Centauress Marauder : No range penalties, dodge in-turn first melee attack to get in range. NO HEALING. Champion unit. same growth ?
And i take in order of comparison, one of the strongest shooter in the game (Centauress).
The only thing that is fairly balanced is the Elite (Tier 7) units in where everybody got a chance (slight advantage to Kirin/ Sacred)
To be continued (maybe later).
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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:04 PM |
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Edited by Momo at 22:07, 05 Dec 2011.
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Quote:
@ MomoQuote:
Yes, but the best strategy of a town shouldn't be so easily accessible compared to other towns'.
See Momo, you didn't write a lot of points or a lot of structured analysis before you started going through my post. That's because it is way easier to divide a post into handy portions and write comments to those instead of making your own points freely. It's a defensive strategy that is reacting, not acting.
If your above point was right, you shouldn't have easy access to this kind of arguing strategy, right?
I don't get why you keep provoking while I try to keep a courtesy and even appreciate your ideas. But, whatever.
As for the "defensive strategy" of mine, I should remind you that I made my point first; it was me who first said that I think an area where the game is somehow lacking is balance. Then you made your conunter-points and I tried countering them and so on. I think it's the standard procedure of a debate. As your counter-points grow in depth, so do mine.
Except in responses like this one where you happily skip everything I said for some arbitrary reasons.
I wasn't too explanatory at the start, I admit, but that's because I already said why I think Necropolis has some serious problem with the game (and not just this chapter of the game) and why I am dissatisfied with Inferno. And I said so more than once so I didn't feel like repeating myself.
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Apart from Necropolis isn't gaining units faster than anyone else anymore, it's a combination of things the worst one is, that all factions generally have no good counter against ANY type of turtle strategy, and Necropolis is just best suited for it.
You need to make TURTLING AS A WHOLE less attractive, so that everyone would have more and better options. You might have a skill for example that would REDUCE attack "efficiency" of troops too close to each other, say, "Fear of Friendly Fire" or that would lead to casualties the way the Marksman do it, "friendly Fire".
Or simply an area spell that would INCREASE in effect eaxch turn on units continually under it's local influence.
It's TURTLING that must be more difficult, not Necropolis weaker.
You can turn it in all ways you like. If some strategy is too strong and some faction is more suited to that strategy, then it is the best faction. If there is a clear, uncontested best faction, the game isn't balanced.
And while I agree that turtling is a bit too efficient nowadays, I must remind you that Haven uses and abuses turtling even more than Necro, thus nerfing turtling means a lot more nerfing Haven whose core unit are almost designed around turtling. It's no coincidence, I think, that the marksman can do friendly fire, it's probably a way to balance the faction's advantage in turtle-based creeping. So yes, Necro's turtling it's a problem, yet somebody else's turtling isn't as much. And while Necro doesn't have faster access to troops, it has the most efficient arsenal to reduce losses which in the end causes the same problem of HoMM3, just on a very smaller scale.
Water magic (or was it Air?) has a spell that damages constantly the same region, it's just not good enough to fully discourage turtling. Then again, just like Necropolis strategy of minimizing losses has the right to be viable, turtling has the right to be viable as well, as does turtle-hosing magic. No game dies because there are too many viable strategies. It's when there's no real reason to expand beyond one single, tested and true strategy, that the game suffers of imbalance.
I ask you once again, JJ: does the game offer a real reason to pick a faction in multiplayer that is not Necro? If you can't answer "yes" and support this statement, I am correct.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:05 PM |
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Geez so much debate when the answer is simple.
Buff dogs, breeders and gating big time.
Nerf ghosts by taking away their 50% invulnerability and nerf necrmancy 10-20%
There, necro is not an easy mode anymore , inferno gets what it needs the most, better lineup and racial.
In big equal battles i think that other castles can overpower necro without big problem even now. I think the only reason why necro is better then other castles is that they have easiest, strongest and fastest creeping which gives too much advantage. If some pro player master creeping etc with inferno or any other town he might take down necro even now. Thats not balance when on one side you get an easy mode and plenty room for mistakes and you have to be alfa and omega on the other to make the faction work.
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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:09 PM |
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Thats not balance when on one side you get an easy mode and plenty room for mistakes and you have to be alfa and omega on the other to make the faction work.
Exactly.
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x-ecutionner
Known Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:11 PM |
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Quote:
Geez so much debate when the answer is simple.
Buff dogs, breeders and gating big time.
Nerf ghosts by taking away their 50% invulnerability and nerf necrmancy 10-20%
There, necro is not an easy mode anymore , inferno gets what it needs the most, better lineup and racial.
In big equal battles i think that other castles can overpower necro without big problem even now. I think the only reason why necro is better then other castles is that they have easiest, strongest and fastest creeping which gives too much advantage. If some pro player master creeping etc with inferno or any other town he might take down necro even now. Thats not balance when on one side you get an easy mode and plenty room for mistakes and you have to be alfa and omega on the other to make the faction work.
This dude speaks the truth at last.
The problem should also be adressed that Stronghold / Inferno gets Earth Elemental earlier, to get a tanking unit, thus not getting casualties against creeps.
Because with Earth Elemental and all their bullsnow, Necro can attacks way too strong stack way too early.
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted December 05, 2011 10:23 PM |
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@Fel:
Did you have a bad experience with spirit form?  It's only in effect for the first round until the ghosts act. I don't see how it's such a huge deal for you. I've seen you mention this several times. Vestals are more dangerous than ghosts are with their pacify ability.
____________
"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:34 PM |
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It was bad experience, its too good for creeping. You defend with ghosts whole fight and suffer no losses. Check out my necro guide here on forums. Its not good for pvp if thats what you mean, its not relevant tho.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 05, 2011 10:54 PM |
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Quote:
I ask you once again, JJ: does the game offer a real reason to pick a faction in multiplayer that is not Necro? If you can't answer "yes" and support this statement, I am correct.
Of course. In 1.1.1 Necro isn't best faction.
However, the whole game leaves something to desire. IF everything was balanced, Sanctuary would be OP because of their water walking.
Necro isn't unbeatable. Inferno is no pushover. You can for example Kamikaze with Breeder Bombs stealing mana off a Necro. Necro is slow. You can do in fact quite a lot of things - you just have to give it some consideration.
It's not a matter of following mechanically roads, it's all about finding solutions. If you can beat challenges labelled as "deadly" consistantly, you are on a good way.
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This thread is pages long: 
