Hero balancing

[KGB]

Pillager,

5 points for +1 movement is also what I suggested. You should be able to get +2 moves when you level up. I suggested 10 points should give a +1 group move.

It's hard to know how much learning would have to cost before I would consider alternatives. I'd absolutely need to know the hero level up XP table. For example if every 10 pts of XP gave a level so that 100XP = L10 then learning isn't very useful since 100XP is easy to get. But if you need 200XP to reach L10 and the current XP calculation is fixed so don't get so much XP from a battle then Learning because much more valuable. So I need to know the XP table and how XP is calculated in Beta3. And yes, learning is probably undervalued. 1 point for 2.5% (or 10 pts for 25%) is probably more reasonable.

Valkyrie - 18 base moves for the Valkyrie might be too much of an initial bonus. I'd still rather see 16 moves and fly because I think that's better balanced.
Paladin - I need to see the XP table and XP calculation before I can figure out if the Paladin is OK. Hard to know at the moment.
DreadKnight - I think that's reasonable given his 12 moves but I'd say 20% pillage. I further assume he is 5 strength, not 8.

Overall though this means the Valkyrie is +30 points (-10 strength, +40 move) or only +20 points if move costs 5 for +1. The Paladin would be +10 points (or 20 if learning costs 2x as much as it does now) and the Dreadknight +25 points (assuming 5 strength) or +65 points (8 strength). So the Paladin might need something else since he gets fewer points or the costs of learning needs to be more.

KGB

[piranha]

I'm following the discussion even if I haven't replied yet. I have been working on various other things on the game.

The hero level table is obviously an important part of the balancing. This table is just something I wrote in there without thinking alot. I just thought: I'll take a look at this later.

0,1000,2000,3500,5000,7500,10000,13500,17000,22000,27000,35000,43000,56000,67000,81000,95000,112000,128000,144000,160000,180000,200000,220000,400000,700000,1000000)

These are the levels. We are using the same exp system as beta2 at the moment. I think we have talked about changing this but we haven't done anything about it yet.
So if you get 10 xp in beta 2 that would be 10*learning (100 default).

Many of the bonuses you suggested are good ideas but wont be in beta3 since it will take more time to get beta3 out. I'm expecting to make quite a lot of changing between beta3 and beta4 anyway, including items.

[KGB]

Piranha,

Until you post the XP point calculation any further discussion about hero levels/learning skill is pointless. So we'll wait until you do and then revisit everything.

KGB

[piranha]

Ok here is how the XP calculation works now.

A hero get 1 XP per STR from the enemy side. bonuses included, (except antiair bonus since its change through the battle).
The XP is the multiplicated with the learning skill which is starting at 100 (100%) for all 3 heros right now.

The levels look like this now:

BETA2
(0,0,20,30,40,75,90,105,155,175,195,10000);

BETA3
(0,0,1000,2000,3500,5000,7500,10000,13500, 17000,22000,27000,33000,39000,46000,53000,61000, 69000,78000,87000,97000,107000,118000,129000, 138000,150000,162000,1000000);

When you compare beta2 and 3 the difference is that 20XP on beta 2 is the same as 2000XP on beta3 (Or more if you upgraded the learning skill).
Beta 2 didn't include bonuses so you should get a bit more XP in beta3.

You also need to consider that with 3 levels in beta2 you would have +1 STR, +2 MOVE, +1 Command. In beta 3 you can get +1 command after 4 levels or +3 move for 3 levels or +3 basestr for 3 levels so there is difference there too.

Regardning the learning skill it need to be the obvious choice in the long run or it will be pointless. I think that getting bonuses early is not the bad compared to spending points on learning to be able to level faster in the long run. But it needs to be balanced of course and I'm not trying to say it is, jsut that in a multiplayer game there is a price when you wait for a bonus while others take the bonus and use it to expand. I think it will take a bit of testing and tweaking to get this stuff perfected, just like the units.

[Pillager]

One way to balance learning would be to lower the cost of movement (to 5). I doubt I would ever shell 10 points for an extra square of road movement. If movement remains at 10 points per, a 12 speed hero (Dreadknight) is not a viable option. Even if the cost of movement is reduced, a 12 speed hero is not very enticing.

Hero strength seems expensive too. Is there any point in increasing a hero's personal strength in this environment? Maybe as insurance during ruin grabs. I'm just not sure that the personal combat hero can work here. How strong would a hero have to be before he could reliably kill a stack of 3 str units? How many levels of investment would that take at +1 str for 10 points? How does that compare to the other options available?

On the topic of personal powerhouse heroes, what about '+1 wound' as a future hero upgrade? I could be wrong, but from battle reports it seems like you're working with a 2 wound system.

[KGB]

Piranha,

So basically the numbers are inflated by a factor of 100 and you can obviously exceed L10 now.

The question is, what kind of XP are you going to give for other things, like capturing a city or searching a ruin? Those used to give 2 and 3 XP (In W2) respectively and blessing 1 XP. Now are they going to give 200, 300 and 100 to be equivalent? If not, they are just total noise.

Also in Beta2, you only get XP when attacking. When defending it's reduced by like 90%. That sucks. It should be the same XP whether you attack or defend since you had to fight the same battle.

I also mentioned a long time ago that the combat XP should be adjusted based on the hero stacks numbers. For example a hero and 7 dragons killing 8 bats shouldn't give the same XP as a hero by himself killing 8 bats. One is a slaughter, the other a very tough fight. I suggested in another thread that the XP be multiplied by the ratio of the 2 stacks strength. I can go find/post the formula again if you need it. This way you get a reward based on how tough the fight was so that 50/50 fights award full XP while slaughters award very little and underdog fights award more than normal.

KGB

[KGB]

Piranha,

I agree that taking learning early is important. But if the early levels, say 1-5 were easy to achieve, then 5-10 starting having much bigger gaps and 10+ even larger gaps then you could delay learning because you may not need it to level up to L5.

The other part of the equation is that 99% of XP is coming from combat and almost nothing from ruins/bless/capturing a city. So in the early game what I find is my initial hero often takes 6-10 cities before I get to L4 because cities only have 1 defender. Meanwhile, once I start fighting an opponent, I can get a new hero and immediately kill an 8 stack and jump to L3/4. I find that to be a troubling issue that one hero took 20 turns to reach L4 and another 1 turn. I've literally had new heroes that happened to arrive on the front lines jump to L7 in 3 turns thanks to being near enemy forces and totally change the entire war. As much as I hate to say it, you should really limit the amount of levels a hero can gain from a battle to 1. This helps keep Learning in check especially early because at most you can go up 1 level. Thus even if your new hero kills an 8 stack and gets 5000 xp, he'd actually only get 1000 and be L2.

KGB

[kenc80]

Restricting heroes to one level per turn? That seems artificial to me. Ive had situations where a hero has been in the middle of a lot of action and leveled really fast too but was it unwarranted? I mean my guy was battling ally and hero stacks left and right. I felt like the levels were deserved. JMHO.

[KGB]

Kenc80,

OK, how about 1 level per battle then. So if you are in lots of battles you can get a level for each one.

My problem is that right now is that 95% of XP is battle based and only about 1% is ruin/city capture based. W2/DLR was no where near that ratio. And of that 95%, 90% comes from mid-late game play when there are oodles of armies in play. So you get heroes flying up levels in a couple of turns while other heroes who have lived 20-40 turns barely have any experience. Something is wrong with that model.

Now if the XP rewards are dramatically scaled down based on your stack vs enemy stack as I suggested then then the rapid XP problem may go away because most hero stacks end up as 4-1 or 5-1 or even 10-1 favorites so the XP awarded at 1/4, 1/5, 1/10 will address that.

KGB

[Pillager]

I'm with KGB on this one.

Having some new hero show up with a shwack of dragons/devils can decide a game. There is no reason to further reward that hero with scads of levels for the ensuing slaughter-fest.