Hero balancing

[piranha]

I saw the other thread about speed heros. I decided to post some info about the heroes so you can talk about it and see what balance changes you think are needed.


Each level will give 10 points to the hero.

Cost for upgrades:

Command cost 35
Base STR cost 10
Move +1 cost 10
Critical strike +1 cost 1
Critical stack +1 cost 4
STACK BASED BONUSES
Open cost 20
Forest cost 15
Swamp cost 15
Hill cost 15
City cost 25
Attack cost 25
Defend cost 25
Anti air cost 20
PERSONAL BONUSES
Open cost 6
Forest cost 5
Hill cost 5
Swamp cost 5
City cost 8
Attack cost 8
Defend cost 8
Anti air cost 6

Negative stack cost 45
View radius cost 15
Learning +5% cost 1 (will multiply the experience points from battle) Start att 100%.

You cant get the bonuses that devil, archon, unicorn has, but perhaps from items in beta4.

Starting Heroes:

Valkyria:
Base STR 4
Move 16
Vision 4
Command 1
Critical strike 5

Dreadknight:
Base STR 8
Move 12
Command 1
Critical strike 15
Stack attack 1

Paladin:
Base STR 5
Move 14
Command 1
Vision 4
Critical strike 15
Learning 100%


Starting information:
We didn't have time to make a good system to buy start units and start city units without confusing new players so during beta3 it will work like this.
Each player get the same units, 3-5 units of different quality. You start with a for example 1200 gold and you get a option to buy a hero without allies on the first turn at 500 gold (price can be adjusted or used to balance heroes). You can skip hero if you want to.
Your starting city is empty so you can use the 1200 (-500 for hero) to buy your initial production.

[KGB]

Piranha,

Totaling up the initial bonus's each hero gets relative to each other (lowest number gets a 0 in that category):

Code: Select all

          V      P      D
Str      0      10    40
Mv      40    20    0
Vis      0      0      ?
Cmd    0      0      0
Ct Str  0     10     10
Stk At 0      0      25
XP       0     20     0


We get Valkryie gets 40, Paladin gets 60 and Dreadknight gets 75.

Clearly the Valkyrie starts at a large disadvantage. In fact I'd say the Valkrie is a useless hero.

My guess is I'm taking 'All Paladin, all the time'. The reason is his 100% XP bonus. So he gets XP twice as fast as the other heroes. So in effect he will probably get twice as many points to spend because of the that. So 2x as many points to spend makes him a no-brainer in my mind.

The Deathknight is a no-go for me for being too slow. The other heroes will run circles around him and be easily able to avoid his +1 stack attack bonus. At best he makes a late game hero when you can control when he gets to attack. As a first or second hero he is a bad choice due to being so slow that he'll be late to all the neutrals/ruins.

DLR had a questing skill which gave 2x as much XP to the Paladin. This was only for quests (not attacks so it's similar in nature in that it only functions some times to give the XP bonus) but it still made the hero level so fast that the XP tables for that hero had to be the highest for any hero (you have only 1 XP table I assume or did in Beta2 while DLR had unique tables for each hero).

I also have a question about the bonus in general. If you buy say a +1 stack attack bonus and you have elementals in your stack are they getting +4 or are they capped at 3?

KGB

[KGB]

Piranha,

Starting information:
Each player get the same units, 3-5 units of different quality. You start with a for example 1200 gold and you get a option to buy a hero without allies on the first turn at 500 gold (price can be adjusted or used to balance heroes). You can skip hero if you want to.
Your starting city is empty so you can use the 1200 (-500 for hero) to buy your initial production.

So if I understand you right, each player gets 3-5 units for free. The total and unit types are the same for all players (so if it's 4 units, and those units are a scout, elf, heavy infantry, pegasi then all players those same 4 units).
Then you get 1200 gold to spend. You can buy a hero for 500 gold or chose to go without.
Then what remains (either 1200 or 700) can be used to buy production in your capitol. You start with no production.

Is that correct?

If so, that seems quite reasonable to me. I'd like a little more initial gold to buy production as 700 is going to have everyone buying the same couple of initial units. 1500 (or 1000 after the hero buy) would be better. That would let you at least get a decent unit like a Spider or Minotaur in the capitol for all your gold. Or you could opt for a couple of mid range units instead with more movement like a Giant/Hv Cavalry or save the gold for another hero or whatever else.

KGB

[piranha]

Valkyria and Dreadknight are also 100% learning from the start so its basicly 1* XP from the start for all of them.

I've been changing them a couple of times and at the beginning they had the same amount of bonus but perhaps after all changes I made some misstakes. Anyway. Any ideas of what could make 3 different heroes?

My idea was the valkyria is a faster hero and better if you want to expand fast while the dreadknight is more power on his own and can move with a psider for example and be quite powerful early on.

[KGB]

Piranha,

Valkyria and Dreadknight are also 100% learning from the start so its basicly 1* XP from the start for all of them.

Ah. OK. That wasn't clear. I assumed they all had 100% and the Paladin had an extra 100% so he had 200% based on how you showed the numbers. You also didn't show a vision value for the Dreadknight so I assumed it was 4 but maybe it's not.

I've been changing them a couple of times and at the beginning they had the same amount of bonus but perhaps after all changes I made some misstakes. Anyway. Any ideas of what could make 3 different heroes?

My idea was the valkyria is a faster hero and better if you want to expand fast while the dreadknight is more power on his own and can move with a psider for example and be quite powerful early on.

Right now the Dreadknight gets a lot of extra bonus's thanks to the +1 stack attack (75 vs 40 for the Paladin/Valkrie). So the other 2 heroes need some compensation or the costs of the bonus's need to be redone.

You asked for some ideas. Here goes.

1) Flight (hero only, not stack). Make it 20 points and give it to the Valkyrie. That way she can fly over terrain/rivers etc in the early game to search ruins faster (and thus risk her life if she flies on her own) and/or aid several stacks quickly in heavy terrain. This skill would *always* make this hero vulnerable to the anti air defense skill.
2) Group Move (stack). I'd make +1 group move cost 10 points and change the individual +1 move to cost 5 points. That seems a better point cost.
3) Pillage. This would give extra gold from pillaging cities/looting ruins. Maybe 2% extra gold per point so 10 points gives an extra 20% gold.
4) Income. This would give extra gold from your cities as items in War2 did. Obviously you'll have such items in the game but there is no reason the heroes can't have this skill too and have it work in a cumulative manner. Maybe +2 gold per city for 10 points.
5) Medals. This would increase the medal chance (I know you don't have this yet but it can be for Beta4). Each hero can have a base medal chance to add to the chance of a medal. Then you can increase that by spending more points. Maybe 2% per point. A higher ranking in this value would be an excellent one to give the Paladin.
6) Engineering. This would decrease the cost of city wall upgrades. It works on an empire wide basis (so your hero doesn't have to be in the city itself) and is not cumulative using only the largest value on any hero (1 hero with 20% and another hero with 10% only gives 20%, not 30%). A 10% decrease in cost for 10 points. This skill also reduces the cost of rebuilding razed cities when you add that feature.
7) Production. Just like Engineering except it reduces the cost of buying new production in cities. DLR combines this + Engineering into 1 skill. You may want to do that as well if you think it doesn't make sense to separate them into 2 skills.
8) Move Bonus (terrain). Gives the movement bonus on the selected terrain. So you'd need Forest Move, Hills Move, Swamp Move, Desert Move. Each one would cost 3 points. As you add more terrain in the game you'll add more move bonus's.

Note: These basically came from and are staples of DLR/War4.

So back to your 3 starting heroes:

If you leave the Dreadknight alone I still would never use him due to the slow speed. He has to move 14 to make him useful. Even if that means his strength drops to 6 as compensation. Then he's on my radar. Especially if you give him a 10% pillage skill.
Just let the Valkyrie fly as I noted. That is plenty good enough for her and I'd use her. If you think she needs something else give her +1 view radius due to flying.
The Paladin really needs the medal skill. But unless you are adding that before Beta4 he needs something else. The only thing that makes sense is to drop his base movement to 12 and give him group move +2 (making him 14 and giving +2 to his group) OR give him the defend combat bonus (useless in the early game but valuable later on)

In reality it would be better to make the Paladin a Ranger for now and give him a forest terrain movement bonus and a Forest stack combat bonus (esp since no unit has this) 20% individual critical strike and the individual Anti-air skill (due to his Bow).

KGB

P.S. Your current lists don't have any desert bonus's for stack/individual even though you now have desert terrain. Please don't forget this unloved terrain

[Pillager]

The Dreadknight seems quite powerful, but 12 speed is ugly.

A starting hero has two functions; boosting army strength in city attacks (empire expansion), and grabbing up as many ruins as possible (foraging). The Dreadknight will excel at busting hard targets, but his 12 speed will slow your expansion (unless you start with spiders or catapults)...so he is a bit of a mixed bag here. From a foraging point of view, he is the worst hero ever.

If I began the game with spiders or catapults, and/or my capital was next to a dragon/devil/wizard city. I would seriously consider the Dreadknight.

I suggest bringing the Dreadknight's speed up to 14. But, make him gain experience more slowly . That is the dark side after all..sacrificing the future for immediate power (or maybe his brain is slightly rotten).

As for the Amazon, maybe bring her lethal strike up to par with the others, and up her view range...that would be good enough, I don't think she needs to fly.

Another power from warlords 3 is warding, which reduced assasination (critical strike). I'm not sure there will be enough critical striking going on in beta3 to warrant a power like that.... but protecting his followers is quite in theme for a knight/paladin type. Maybe +1 stack in defense would serve the purpose.

[KGB]

Pillager,

Just increasing the view range and critical strike on the Valkyrie doesn't help her much since she's clearly the weakest hero with the 4 strength. Plus it ends up making all the heroes really similar and the point was to make them different enough that there was a reason to chose one over the other.

Flight isn't going to make her overpowering because of her weak strength. She won't be able to capture any cities other than maybe ones with a scout/bat. Plus depending on how the ruins are done, she may not be much of a ruin picker either. In DLR, ruin combat was based on hero strength vs monster strength. In turns 1-5 you had 100%-5*(Monster Str-Hero Str)% chance to win. After turn 5 it drops to 85%-5*(Monster Str-Hero str) chance to win. Hero strength got a boost by +1 for each army in the hero stack. So a 4 Str hero may not live through many ruins if they don't bring a full stack because that 4 strength hero (on her own) meeting an 8 strength dragon has only 100-(8-4)*5=80% chance to live on turns 1-5 and 65% chance after than.

KGB

[Pillager]

I don't think that making the heroes vastly different is necessary. I suggest keeping it simple...

All heroes are 5 strength, 14 movement, 4 view, command 1.

Each gets a bonus...

Valkyrie: +2 movement
Knight: +50% learning
Dreadknight: +1 stack attack

The Valkyrie would be the best forager, the Dreadknight would be the superior city-buster, and the Knight would be the long-view option.

[KGB]

Pillager,

At +50% learning the Paladin would be the *only* option.

In fact I'd say my initial 10 points at L2 will always be spent on +50% learning regardless of hero. Possibly my 10 points at L3 to get me to +100% learning as well. Getting to L10 twice as fast thus getting twice as many points to spend it by far the best strategy.

KGB

[Pillager]

KGB,

According to the 'hero ability price guide', 50% learning is only 10 points, half the cost of +2 movement (20). +1 attack is sitting at 25 points.

I largely agree with your line of reasoning. If you are going to invest in learning, it makes sense to do so asap. I also think that learning is under priced, and the movement upgrade is overpriced. 5 points for +1 movement seems slightly more reasonable.

How much would learning have to cost before you considered alternative options?

What do you think of a configuration like this?
Valkyrie: +4 movement
Paladin: +50% learning
Dreadknight: +1stack attack, +50% pillage