Also I don't think it's a problem if you can refuse until you get the best your fame allows when you have an empty roster. Empty roster mid-late game means you're suffering already, if nothing else but in number of items. So this can be countered by steeper reduction of hire chance per filled slot (say 1.6x instead of 1.4). This also makes summonnhero still count for slots 3 onward
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Heroes and abilities
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I'm inclined to agree that part of the problem is that summon hero is bad. Most likely, if I cast summon hero, I'll get a hero I don't want. (Even if I would be ok with 40% of heroes, that's still more likely to not get a hero I want).
Compare to summon champion, where almost all champions are amazing for anyone, any strategy. So the cost to cast both, when considering recasts, is actually pretty close to the same. So casting summon hero seems like a waste unless I REALLY need a hero right now. Otherwise, just wait till you get summon champion. If you've already got even 1 or 2 heroes, you probably don't need a hero badly enough to bother with summon hero. If summon hero could give you a choice of 2 or even 3 heroes, that would make it far more appealing. 
By the way are we happy with the fame requirements?
...the good news is, I see lots of free space so changing Summon Hero to have a choice is possible. I don't particularly like the idea of the spell summoning multiple heroes though - if it can do that, why can't the player keep them all? Hard to justify forcing a choice. The interface is also a problem. If heroes appear one at a time you don't know what else will be available and have to refuse to see the next. If you are given a menu, you don't see the hero's abilities or stats, only "Beastmaster" or "Golden One". Why not just reduce the casting cost so you can afford to not keep the first one summoned? 
In game, I honestly couldn't say what the fame requirements are currently. Makes it very hard to judge. It's so easy to jump several tiers very quickly. One game you get a given hero at 13 fame, another game, you might have 86 fame and have the same hero offer.
btw Fame is a problematic resource because it's map size dependent. Not only do you get more fame from Colosseums, but larger maps also have more combat and conquest, so overall fame/turn is higher.
For the troop maintenance cost reduction that's ok, probably even for mercenaries, but for heroes and items, not so much.
Re: summon hero.
If you decrease the cost too much, it becomes more efficient than summoning certain monsters. For instance, at 100, it would be a better choice than any common and even some uncommons. At 200 (which is the maximum where I could see arguing value per cast is good compared to summom champion), it's still better than uncommons if you have a few decent items found in treasure (nothing amazing, just things like +3 attack/armor/resist). In my opinion, it needs to still be a worse choice than an uncommon summon - you should be using summon hero to fill out your hero roster, not to summon throwaway units. So I think the cost needs to stay high, but you get some control. 2 possible suggestions: Show the list with the name - but when clicking on the name, it brings you to the stars stars page for that hero. Clicking ok on that page hires the hero, clicking cancel brings you back to the list. That may not be possible, so second option is to let the user pick the category of hero instead of picking from a set of particular heroes - you can choose warrior, leader, caster. You'd still only get one hero summoned. Some heroes (maybe just mystic-x?) Would show up in multiple categories.
Considering what a hero is capable of when summoned, the 250 mana cost sounds quite overpriced. Yes, heroes have the potential to be worth that cost or more, but not on their own, they either need you to buff them, or equip them or both...
Quote:For instance, at 100, it would be a better choice than any common and even some uncommons.That's the very definition of an uncommon summoning spell, which Summon Hero is - always better than a common, about the same as uncommons. (costs 1280 RP, appears during uncommons, is worth uncommon spell treasure) Note the slots are limited - even if summon hero is better than fire giant, you will have to use the giant after the 6 slots are full. Yes, if you only summon them to let them die that's a thing but even that has a limited supply - only 26 nonchampion heroes in the game. Also, even if you do have good items/artifacts, you would need them for the entire 6 heroes if you want to use that many. I've tried the item swapping technique and it doesn't really work. Eventually you are caught in a situation where both heroes get into combat the same (enemy) turn and whichever has no items, dies. Juggling one item set between 6 heroes is 6 times less likely to work... (not to mention the item transfer costs) What I'm more worried about is, if you are playing Famous/Warlord/Heroism, then you are getting way more value for your summoning. Albeit you do have to cast the Heroism (or pick the retorts) so in a way you already paid extra for that. Quote:Show the list with the name - but when clicking on the name, it brings you to the stars stars page for that hero. Clicking ok on that page hires the hero, clicking cancel brings you back to the list.This is doable but I'm going to go with a Histoire quote here. "I can do that, but it will take 3 years..." So I prefer the reduced cost, as that's a much more reasonable amount of work. Especially because that way you can accept and kill the hero to ensure it never shows up again. So let's try to summarize... -Summon Hero should probably cost less to cast (100-150?) -Generating a random hero for hire should be weighted (more chance for lower tier, less chance for higher tier), fame should affect this weighting (higher fame = chance reduction of higher tier reduced). Prisoners and summons should not be weighted this way. -Fame requirements and effects on heroes and items should probably scale by land size settings. -There should be more hero offers in general -Famous should have less effect on hiring chance, with the main focus being the hero tiers themselves (and their levels) - we want the hiring chance to be fair, playable and balanced with or without the retort. So we now need -New fame requiremenets for heroes -Weighting random hero based on fame and fame requirement -Equalizing fame by weighting proportionally through land size. -New hero hiring chance formula and item offer formula -To decide on Summon Hero cost -To decide how much already filled slots should reduce hiring chances So we need to answer these questions frst : -Does land size affect fame production roughly linearly? I'd say yes, something like Effective Fame = 6*Fame/(Land size+2) should be good enough -How many heroes do we want per turn to show up when there are no used slots yet? Probably about one every 10-15 turns? -How much weighting do we want on random hero offers? I'd say the next tier should be about 1/4 chance of the previous tier, but this chance should grow as effective fame increases. -How much do we want the hiring chance to decrease when there are already used slots? Probably significantly? -How much do we want Famous to increase hiring chance? I'd say 50% more? -How much do we want Fame to increase hiring chance? I'd say none at all, it should increase hero quality, not amount. -How much "effective" fame we want heroes to cost? Probably about 80 for champions? 40/20/10 for the other tiers? So double the current? For land size however, we can also say heroes are more powerful on smaller land sizes (you still get the same amount of them but need to conquer much fewer enemy cities and defend against fewer enemy stacks) thus fame being less available is fine as a balance mechanism (since heroes are more relevant on smaller maps, you get weaker heroes there). In this case however, Summon Hero and Prisoners will be more valuable on smaller land.
July 17th, 2018, 10:52
(This post was last modified: July 17th, 2018, 10:57 by teelaurila.)
I figured the summon hero change would be, by design, "you get one, and can refuse that to get another random pick that you don't know beforehand, which if you refuse you get nothing". It's clearly worse than a list of 2 to choose from, but still clearly better than just having one shot. Essentially you can guarantee you never get the worst pick (looking at you, barbarian) - or you can risk it if you want. Or if you really want a specific kind of hero (e.g. a caster, or melee/mage to use a specific item) you get double the chance.
As for "justification", while casting the spell you can sense who is coming just near the very end and can hastily change it ... with no guarantee to the result other than "not that one". In the end, the effect should be comparable to somewhat reduced cost (maybe 75%?), but maybe a bit more interesting.
Make number of prisoners based on land size. Summon hero can be better on small land size - that's already true for many spells.
I'm not sure famous should be a 50% increase. It's supposed to be increase in quality. 50% more heroes as well makes it sound mandatory to me. I'd say 25%. My point about cheap summon hero is that with 2 +2 items, that hero isn't an uncommon summon anymore. It's a rare summon. If it's cheap enough, like 150, you summon the hero, add the item, now it's as powerful as a rare, and you don't care if it dies. And if you win, you keep the items and can summon a new 'rare' unit. Summon hero and champion have to be far more expensive than other summons of the same tier due to that potential for item re-use allowing you to get effectively higher tier summons for the same cost forever. |