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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted May 15, 2015 11:44 PM |
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EnergyZ said:
As many times said: it is actually good to make more spell schools, IF they had more factions, more spells and more re-playing.
In other words, the game should be majestic, grand and epic to have that. Not like this.
There are limits. For instance, you can't have 12 Magic Schools if your heroes can only pick 6 secondary skills...
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted May 15, 2015 11:59 PM |
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That's a very long balance thread for a game that's gonna mostly be 2 players vs 2 computers with a snowty AI.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 12:07 AM |
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Hermes
Famous Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 02:36 AM |
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Now glad to see new spells and skills. Love the new Earthquake and earth spells in general, and Dark has finally become formidable without the Puppet Master!
Also those adventure map spells look really fun, and once again I support the skills which augment the spells.
Really looking forward to the beta now!!
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Hermes
Famous Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 02:37 AM |
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Also, well done on distinguishing between AoE of Mass Spells and Warcries. Mass spells affecting the whole army were always OP and didn't make much sense.
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Avonu
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Embracing light and darkness
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posted May 16, 2015 09:28 AM |
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Hermes said:
Now glad to see new spells and skills.
Which spells are new???
Because I don't see any new one. Granted, some of them first appeared in MMX, so they could be not recognize by many HoMM players.
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"When someone desires information, they come to me."
"Details are everything."
Pipiru piru piru pipiru pi!
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted May 16, 2015 10:21 AM |
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Edited by Pawek_13 at 10:23, 16 May 2015.
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Hermes said:
[...] and Dark has finally become formidable without the Puppet Master!
But Puppet Master is the essential Dark Magic spell! I completely do not understand why can't Schools of Magic have at least ten spells. In each of them two spells could be addedwithout any problen to increase variety, like Puppet Master in Dark Magic.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted May 16, 2015 10:27 AM |
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Stevie said:
Having many spells is rendered superfluous by the fact that you can only cast once per turn.
Nonsense. The point in having many spells is not to have them do the same, the point is to have different spells for different situations. H3 was very good in this regard, because it had a number of spells that you would only use extremely rarely, but which could shine under the right circumstances. Force Field was a great example of such a spell (I'm positive I can't be the only one who has taken on ridiculous amounts of Black Dragons by hiding my Titans between a Force Field for example). When you have a spell system with very few spells within each school and/or on each level, you can't afford having spells that are extremely situational, because then it will feel like a wasted opportunity when you get this spell.
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What will happen now?
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted May 16, 2015 10:40 AM |
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Force Field and Quicksand were some pretty OP spells in h3, provided you know how to use them.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted May 16, 2015 11:16 AM |
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LizardWarrior said:
Force Field and Quicksand were some pretty OP spells in h3, provided you know how to use them.
Exactly, but they were also pretty situational - the circumstances under which they actually were overpowered were quite rare. Which is good game design. But when you have fewer spells, you also need to make them more general, and imo. then you lose something from the game.
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What will happen now?
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 11:43 AM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 11:44, 16 May 2015.
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alcibiades said:
LizardWarrior said:
Force Field and Quicksand were some pretty OP spells in h3, provided you know how to use them.
Exactly, but they were also pretty situational - the circumstances under which they actually were overpowered were quite rare. Which is good game design. But when you have fewer spells, you also need to make them more general, and imo. then you lose something from the game.
Uh, no it isn't. If spell is situationally overpowered, even though it is quite situational by itself, that's a bad design.
That's the same if you try to balance some champion unit by making it a lot stronger than other champions but also increasing its cost by a big margin, and then we come to those situations where map is rich and cost doesn't matter at all, which just means that you have a champion that is a lot stronger than opponent's.
For spells to have a good design they need to be widely used but not as powerful and you need to have a choice between spells. If you make some spells situationally broken, then it is a no-brainer decision. When that situation occurs that one spell will be better than anything else, which is exactly the reason why it is broken in the first place.
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Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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cori14
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 12:28 PM |
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RMZ1989 said:
Uh, no it isn't. If spell is situationally overpowered, even though it is quite situational by itself, that's a bad design.
For spells to have a good design they need to be widely used but not as powerful and you need to have a choice between spells. If you make some spells situationally broken, then it is a no-brainer decision. When that situation occurs that one spell will be better than anything else, which is exactly the reason why it is broken in the first place.
Why would it be broken? It's useful in some situations, but not always, like a pistol in FPS games, you rarely ever use it but when you need it it's there for you to help win the situation.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 12:38 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Stevie said:
Having many spells is rendered superfluous by the fact that you can only cast once per turn.
Nonsense. The point in having many spells is not to have them do the same, the point is to have different spells for different situations. H3 was very good in this regard, because it had a number of spells that you would only use extremely rarely, but which could shine under the right circumstances. Force Field was a great example of such a spell (I'm positive I can't be the only one who has taken on ridiculous amounts of Black Dragons by hiding my Titans between a Force Field for example). When you have a spell system with very few spells within each school and/or on each level, you can't afford having spells that are extremely situational, because then it will feel like a wasted opportunity when you get this spell.
Maybe I came across as a bit unclear. Having relevant spells is a given, but the fact is that the more spells you have, the more your cast efficiency drops in a system with a limited cast rate. Had there been a sorcery skill, you could've improved your cast rate, making it more beneficial to have a bigger spell pool. You also have to keep in mind that you have to invest more levels in order to take more spells, as you need their respective skills. In a system where you can cast only once per turn, having 3-4 spell schools and 50 spells is worse than having only 1-2 and 25 spells and the rest of the level points invested in skills like Attack or Defense for example.
That said, I have to mention that I do not agree with the limited 8 spells pool of the H7's magic schools. I would've preferred 10-15.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted May 16, 2015 01:13 PM |
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RMZ1989 said:
Exactly, but they were also pretty situational - the circumstances under which they actually were overpowered were quite rare. Which is good game design. But when you have fewer spells, you also need to make them more general, and imo. then you lose something from the game.
Uh, no it isn't. If spell is situationally overpowered, even though it is quite situational by itself, that's a bad design.
Well I disagree. Imo. you can easily room skills/spells/creatures that are above average in power as long as their application is more narrow. General + weak is good, circumstantial + strong is also good, the problem comes when you have things that are general + strong (Mass Haste/Slow are prime examples of this) or things that are situational + weak (Magic Mirror?).
There is no such thing as universal balance. No matter what you do, there are always circumstances that will favor something over another thing. But that's what adds variation to the game. A game doesn't become fun just because it's perfectly balanced - H3 was a good example of a game that was incredibly poorly balanced but still was great fun. And you can throw everything off with poorly designed maps. If you make a H3 maps only with Gem mines but no Sulfur mines, Tower and Castle will rejoice and Dungeon will be screwed, but that doesn't mean we need to make every level 7 creature comsume the same rare resource.
Stevie said:
Maybe I came across as a bit unclear. Having relevant spells is a given, but the fact is that the more spells you have, the more your cast efficiency drops in a system with a limited cast rate. Had there been a sorcery skill, you could've improved your cast rate, making it more beneficial to have a bigger spell pool.
As I see it, these two things are completely decoupled. You can have all the Sorcery skill you want and still spam only a single spell over and over again - at least when it comes to direct damage spells. I can follow your point when it comes to buffs - if a battle only lasts 5 turns, you can say that there is no point in having more than 5 different buff spells (given duration is long enough), because after those 5 turns, you'll have cast them all. Still I don't think that's entirely true - granted, there are some spells that are always or almost always useful (Haste, Bless, Slow, etc.), but in a good spell and game system, there should be different game situations that give rise to different spell needs. Like I said before, when fighting against Black Dragons, a spell like Force Field can be awesome while spells like Curse and Blind are (obviously) useless - on the other hand, when fighting Titans, Curse is your friend, whereas Force Field is useless, etc. This is why I want a broad spell system - one that has room for both general and niche spells.
When that's said, I do feel that ~80 spells should be more than capable of rooming that. I just feel that spreading them over 7 schools instead of 4 leaves each school too thin.
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What will happen now?
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DierdreOfAmber
Hired Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 01:21 PM |
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About Paragon's GM.
I actually think it and the "Wisdom" abilities might prove very useful to the Achemists, provided they can learn at least 5 schools to the expert/master level. They are might heroes so, naturally, their willpower will be lower. But if they have 5 "Wisdom" abilities each increasing their Willpower by, let's say 7 (5x7=35), and paragon's GM would allow them to cast all the spells of 5 spell schools, they would have pretty op magic for a might hero.
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Athos
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 02:25 PM |
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Pawek_13 said:
Hermes said:
[...] and Dark has finally become formidable without the Puppet Master!
But Puppet Master is the essential Dark Magic spell! I completely do not understand why can't Schools of Magic have at least ten spells. In each of them two spells could be addedwithout any problen to increase variety, like Puppet Master in Dark Magic.
It's always possible that new spells could be added in expansion or dlc. Just a thought.
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted May 16, 2015 02:37 PM |
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Athos said:
It's always possible that new spells could be added in expansion or dlc. Just a thought.
doesn't make the base game any better
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It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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properkheldar
Famous Hero
Keeper of books
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posted May 16, 2015 02:44 PM |
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Athos said:
It's always possible that new spells could be added in expansion or dlc. Just a thought.
This! Ive been saying this awhile. They need factions, creatures, spells, perks (perhaps even faction specifik, cross requsite ones), artifacts, heroes, maps, RMG and other functions to include in future DLC or/and expansions. Its economy and marketing.
Although a balance has to be kept between saving" candy" for later, and making the vanilla interesting enough to warrant buying it. This remains to be seen.
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"Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future."
- Antoine Rivarol
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted May 16, 2015 03:05 PM |
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didn't think i'd have use of this so soon, but...
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It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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TD
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 16, 2015 03:19 PM |
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Once again the game fails to impress me. Both adventure-map spells should be higher than unskilled(and it would be nice to have adventure map spells of different ranks for variety even in general). They really they should also be race-specific IMO since they are named after the gods.
Earth magic:
The description at least outright lies about the spells after stamina part(or some spells aren't shown which I doubt).
The combat spells of earth seem ok.
Regeneration seems completely useless if it can't resurrect, being only of any use early on when you have champion or two(depending on how much it heals).
Entangle should either be AoE-spell or single target that immobilizes enemy. I mean if you tied enemy with roots and he runs away so they shouldn't effect you anymore.
Stone spikes is nice to see back again, but in general spells don't seem exactly impressive or that interesting.
The abilities of earth seem pretty straight forward and boring. Don't like the 4x4 personally, mass -effect would've been much better IMO. The 4x4 just enforces my image of this game having main strategy of staying at your end of map defending and shooting(turtle).
The GM seems completely off to me. It should be somewhere like in defense, certainly not in magic school(even if magic school is about life though mainly it actually seems to be of poison and death). Overall really disappointed that no summon spells and no obstruction spells(as in blockades) which I would've expected from earth especially.
Dark magic:
First thing I notice is iconic spells like vampyrism, curse of the netherworld and puppet master are gone. Also no debuffs at higher levels, only unskilled ones.
Fear I wonder if it still takes enemy turn as before to run. Purge might as well be unskilled IMO.
Agony I have no idea why it's such high class spell now.
Shadow image... Well I'm glad to see it back, didn't really see this as dark magic spell but ok.
Shadow cloak... A buff as best spell for debuff-school... Ok...
Abilities are again not that interesting and again with the 4x4s . The GM seems a bit insane with 4x4 in longer games. Also against neutrals it seems like champion killing skill if it always kills at least one(unless it actually calculates as damage instead of killing x% which might very well round up to ease the game)
I must say I never thought I would say this, but H6 actually had better spells IMO(and I thought they were bad). H7 spell-system seems extremely stale and lacking. Most if not all spells/abilities seem to have counter-part somewhere else to negate the effects(like double miss/double strike, aoe dmg/aoe heal/protection, move unit/move unit back, lower morale/increase morale, etc.
All spells also seem to be ones you can use anywhere, anytime just taking another strategic aspect away from the game. Before you had a lot of spells that were situationally very useful or required a lot of strategy/tactics to be useful(or they could even backfire on you). So far all 3 schools have had:
hinder movement/advancement, buff, single target dmg, aoe-dmg, dmg/turn, all lacked summons(I don't count shadow image as actual summon). There are differences, but in general they don't really feel all that different and they don't feel to have enough unique qualities.
It's nice to see couple new spells, but lack of some classic and iconic ones is just terrible. I don't really feel like earth and dark actually even present their own schools that well(while air I found presenting itself fairly well). I did read all spells are really from existing games already, but for MMH some are new at least. The schools do however desperately need more spells, they just feel completely lacking to me.
Overall the latest article was just another nail to the coffin from my point of view 
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This MEGA THREAD is pages long: 
