Early game hero balancing

[Seravy]

First game is done. Won easily - not surprising on Hard with a strong early game.
The Myrran wizard had Pestilence - I suspect from a tower - if I this was a higher difficulty game I might have lost to that by itself, but they had no chance to stop my Efreets using their uncommon spells, and had far too few cities to matter. Game ended extra early, in 1413.

Here is the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a4mrpXm...e=youtu.be

Something probably has to be done with the unreasonable efficiency of heroes in the early game - no idea what though, if they are weaker, they can't survive until they become relevant. Also, even if they had lower starting armor, tactician, holy armor, etc are still there to raise it. It's not just the melee heroes either - a ranged or caster hero can deal plenty of damage and then. I might be overestimating Hard difficulty though, I suppose it's easy to beat it with anything anyway - and I don't think this hero problem exists on extreme/impossible where the AI can afford casting multiple fire bolts per battle and/or research good antihero spells faster.

One thing that worries me though - with the free sawmill, the player doesn't need to spend their gold on it, allowing them to hire a hero a dozen turns earlier which might be a problem.

Maybe "no heroes for hire before turn X" could be a good addition? I think there is an earliest turn for mercenaries too, for a similar reason.

[Nelphine]

Did you have any items on your heroes? While the buff spells matter, they are available for any unit, and for instance, a klackon halberdier (even a swordsmen or halfling swordsmen) has almost as much defense as a level 0-2 hero. And I wouldn't say they are problems. But you add in items and boom, heroes go crazy.

[MrBiscuits]

Perhaps the heroes cost more gold and/or more fame, which would stop them being such early game changers.

[zitro1987]

This is a large post, not sure whether to post it here (since we're talking about heroes) or in the main thread. Please don't kill my collective suggestions because I made a flawed observation somewhere (I'm bound to). This is a comprehensive analysis of early heroes and how we can finally solve this issue once and for all.

I come from the philosophy that the early game (first 3-4 years) has an extreme influence over the remaining parts of the game. If you start fairly poorly, strong chances are that you will never recover. Likewise, if you start strongly, it's hard to slip up - the advantage already carried over. 

Heroes, with the right combos, can have a ridiculous effect on the early game and given point above, can often help win games (catwalk was proving this over and over with videos). But heroes themselves are not necessarily overpowered. Let's not nerf their statistics. Let's nerf certain strategies. I'll divide them in 3 parts ... life spell combos (initial spells, then later spells with runemaster), cheap hire cost, and retort stacking (a lesser problem).

Issue #1 (major problem, difficult but possible solutions) - Life too hero-oriented with starting spells. Can't balance heroes without balancing early life. Holy Armor, Holy Weapon, Endurance, Heroism combo is too much.
*You have instant access to blocking approx 1.5-2.0 point of extra damage depending on hero, and increasing attack potential with holy weapon/heroism by approx 50-60% with these spells. *Early on, you don't generally even worry about dispel/disenchant
*some heroes have things like 'ritual master' that blow up your economic potential, also winning the game.
*Heroism and endurance are the biggest problems, and heroism breaks the notion of 'leveling up' your weak hero.
*I think it's easy to agree that we shouldn't remove these spells. We need to balance them in a way that remain powerful but specifically weakens hero strategies.

Possible solutions -
*heroism is broken with heroes. I still stand that the best solution is a 50/1 cost 1-unit 'crusade' effect .. allowing units to always have 1 more level, eventually reaching ultra-elite. This choice allows heroes to slowly grow into a level beyond commander faster (more gradual yet still A+ effect). Have crusade make spell obsolete, same as holy arms with holy weapon.
*endurance should be about speed, period! **too much armor synergy in life**. Please make it cheap and +1 movement, or move to 'uncommon' and +2 movement. The former can have great common unit usages, the latter is clearly expected to be a staple spell like wraithform.
*have heroes start with 2 fewer armor but 3-4 more hp, weakening 'endurance' (only if you're extremely stubborn about 'endurance' )
*Holy weapon and holy armor unchanged - we need these for early strong starts.

Issue #2 (major problem, obvious solution) - Heroes come too easy, are hired with just 100 gold, ridiculously high power/cost ratio compared to mercenaries and items. This is a balance problem and don't see any reason to resist bumping cost.

Possible Solution:
*Make hero initial cost +100 gold and maybe +2 upkeep. At 200 cost, it's not as easy hiring an early hero. That's as much as buying a sawmill or 2/3 as much as buying a settler.
*Heroes are stronger than original game, so higher +100 cost follows along.


Issue #3 - Retorts (minor problem, difficult solution) - Too many retorts directly benefit individual hero power (artificer, warlord, tactician, famous,etc) Tactician gives too much needed extra armor (+1, then +2 for heroes), which can then be abused with holy armor, endurance, heroism.

Solution:
*Change Tactician style of play. Instead of giving +2 of stats with a +1 armor on top to all, make it more army-oriented around heroes. Here's an idea:
Tactician: all units [including hero] in combat that are with a hero gain +1 melee/ranged/magic ranged, +1 armor, +1 resistance. Essentially an extra +1 holy bonus. If too weak, consider a + movement to all or add an extra point to resistance or attack.
*Why is this a solution? Heroes have a bit fewer stats this way. However, retort is now quite powerful overall, maybe even more so, and still greatly favor life strategies as you're more likely to have strong enchanted troops. However, your early hero is no longer indestructible against low to mid-tier units
*Fixing issue #3 but not #1&2 is not worth it. This is like the cherry on top.


Now let's talk about other early-starter strategies:
*summons? - fairly limited by low mana/gold income early in game, thus some units like ghouls, sprites, maybe bears can clear a lair and get you some mana loot for more effective strategies.
*combat spells? - generally the skill points are too low to make a huge impact
*Enchanted units? - too costly with the early units you have. a heavily enchanted swordsman can do some damage, but I'd rather summon 3 war bears.
*military units? - if you use an alchemist retort with a good race and mass-produce swordsmen/bowmen, you might clear something fairly easy, just like bullet above.

Conclusion - heroes need to have higher gold hiring costs, in the 200s range, to prevent a bit of early hero strategies associated with life.
               - heroism at +1 level of experience (micro-crusade) and re-imagining endurance as speed-only boost mostly eliminates indestructibility synergy.
               - Probably a tactician that favors holy-bonus stype army bonus instead of massive hero boost might also help.

[Nelphine]

Could make the endurance + to defend specifically not work on heroes, but leave the same on non heroes.

[zitro1987]

I'm not a big fan of the 'if hero do X if normal unit does Y ... not intuitive for players outside this forum' ... that's why I proposed speed-oriented solutions.

It's ok Nelphine, just trying to keep things as close to Seravy's philosophies as I possibly can (and he's very clear on what he likes/dislikes, mostly a good thing)

[Nelphine]

Fair, I was more going with a compromise if that was needed.

[Seravy]

Did you have any items on your heroes?

None at all. (well, eventually I got a +2/+2/+2 medal but by then I stopped using the heroes - only the Myrran Death wizard was left to fight)

I come from the philosophy that the early game (first 3-4 years) has an extreme influence over the remaining parts of the game. If you start fairly poorly, strong chances are that you will never recover. Likewise, if you start strongly, it's hard to slip up - the advantage already carried over.

I have been thinking the first few years are the problem as well. Before continuing to read, an obvious and simple fix that comes into mind is "no hero offers before turn 30". Mercenaries already have a turn limitation in the base game, I don't see why heroes do not.

- Life too hero-oriented with starting spells.

I would say this is part of the "life is too hero-oriented as a whole" problem listed as the problem of heroes being a Life magic only thing. I don't think we're ready to fix this problem yet and while starting spells are a big part of it, they aren't the only thing. Life also has uncommon and rare spells that support heroes very well while most other realms have nothing.

I still stand that the best solution is a 50/1 cost 1-unit 'crusade' effect .. allowing units to always have 1 more level, eventually reaching ultra-elite.

Not a bad idea but 1 level feels way too weak. (especially for the cost of 50 and for the "flagship" spell in Life)
If we want to go in this direction, it should be 2 levels...but that puts it way too close to the current effect of +3 for the first 30 EXP and +2 afterwards - even makes it better eventually.
Maybe 1.5 levels in the form of "the unit has an additional 100 EXP" could work for this idea. That makes a level 1 unit into level 3, but it won't be level 4 after the first 30 EXP, only after the first 80.
I also don't think "ultra elite" should be unlocked by a common spell - it's not a problem for power levels, but I prefer to keep that exclusive to the "big" options - Warlord and Crusade.

I don't want to change endurance. 1 movement is unimpressive - yes, sometimes it's worth it but ultimately it'll be a spell you only ever cast on your windwalker or ship. (there are rare cases when you want it on units but not often) 2 movement is far too good, we were against that when we wanted it as a Chaos spell so Life shouldn't get it either.

Less armor and more hit points is something I was thinking about too, it might be a good solution.

One more idea I had, if we changed damage/shield mechanics to include "and damage cannot be reduced by more than 90% through shields". This allows the heroes to still take 1-2 points of damage per enemy unit they fight instead of being invincible.
Since the only thing in the early buffs that causes problem is stacking too much defense, we can handle it through that as well.

Agreed heroes are way too cheap. If we don't do "no heroes before turn X" then raising their price should be the next best solution - even better actually, as it allows the AI to still hire them (they have more gold and we can increase the starting amount if needed).
The only problem is, gold in the early game is very random - almost impossible to get through taxes in large enough quantities, but clear a lair with 3 guardian spirits and you have 500.

I feel issue 3 is also related to armor - changing armor mechanics can fix this as well as life spells in one go.

There is one problem - if heroes are later (doesn't matter if it's a gold cost or a turn limitation), the easy neutral targets will already be cleared by summons and bowmen leaving the heroes with nothing to fight for EXP except wizards who'll kill them by that time if they're still level 1.

[zitro1987]

Armor mechanics is an interesting solution, even though it wouldn't fix the early hero problem at all. I think we have too many limitations if you're unwilling to drop or adjust the +1 to defend.

Nevertheless, armor mechanics that halve the armor effect after 15 shields is worth looking into.

[Seravy]

I think we have too many limitations if you're unwilling to drop or adjust the +1 to defend.

Adjusting...but it's not possible to adjust an integer value of 1.

I'm repeating myself again, but adjusting or removing specific spells solves nothing. There are other easy sources of + to Defend as well as armor and you can stack at least 6-8 of those effects in the early game. I posted that massive list last time - half of those you can get in the early game.

+to Def is already capped anyway - at best it can be worth 5 shields which is a lot but not as much as the top sources of extra shields, like finding any decent plate mail item, or having Super Agility. (and yes these are possible in the early game. A plate mail with nothing but max armor is worth around 1000 points, possible to find in fairly weak lairs and nodes.

I gave more thought about armor mechanics - the idea is good but it's not going to work here - this game uses far too small integer numbers. You can't have 10% of the damage "slip though armor" when most attacks deal less than 10 damage anyway. That doesn't mean we can't change it, but not this particular way.