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Nelphine · July 17th, 2018, 18:41

I know I don't get anywhere near 1/10 for items - I rarely store up that much gold. Personally, 1/10 is probably fine for items, so I think the item chance is fine.

Mercenaries I might reduce when non-Famous caps, but that would reduce Famous which seems too low. I'd like to see more mercenaries overall, so I'd probably change that to:
(Fame/10+1)% (Non Famous caps at 190), famous is 2.5 times as good (Famous caps at 70).

Heroes.. so you'll probably have a hero by end of year 3. 3 heroes in year 7. By year 1415, you should probably have 4, and will often have 5.
I'm not sure I understand how the reroll chance works, particularly when you have famous.

Seravy

Reroll chance works like this with Famous :

You have 20 fame. So you qualify for fame 0, 10 and 20 heroes.
You roll a random hero.
If hero is fame 0, you have a 50% chance to start over due to famous (otherwise you'd keep it).
If hero is fame 10, you have a 1/3 = 33% chance to start over due to 1-(20/10)/3 being 0.33.
If hero is fame 20, you have a 2/3 = 67% chance to start over due to 1-(20/20)/3 being 0.67.

However, the first tier has twice as many heroes in it so your chance of rolling it is double. Famous pretty much erases this effect and does nothing else, so it pushes percentage of fame 0 down and all others up.

"start over" rolls don't alter the ratio of the outcomes, only successful rolls are relevant for the result.
So without famous, we'd get 200 fame 0, 67 fame 10, and 33 fame 20 heroes. (out of 300 rolls, in percentage that's 66%, 22%, 11%, or a ratio of 6 to 2 to 1)
With famous we get 100 fame 0, 67 fame 10 and 33 fame 20 heroes out of 200 rolls. In percentage that would be 50%, 33% and 17%. (ratio of 3 to 2 to 1)

This is the txt file for the expected ratios for each fame value (normalized for a ratio of "1" on the highest tier) :

Code:
Fame :1.0 tier 2, 6.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 2, 4.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 3, 2.0 tier 2, 6.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 3, 2.0 tier 2, 4.8 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 3, 2.0 tier 2, 4.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 3, 1.7 tier 2, 3.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 2.0 tier 3, 3.0 tier 2, 6.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 2.0 tier 3, 2.7 tier 2, 5.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 2.0 tier 3, 2.4 tier 2, 4.8 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 2.0 tier 3, 2.2 tier 2, 4.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 2.0 tier 3, 2.0 tier 2, 4.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.8 tier 3, 1.8 tier 2, 3.7 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.7 tier 3, 1.7 tier 2, 3.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.6 tier 3, 1.6 tier 2, 3.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.5 tier 3, 1.5 tier 2, 3.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.4 tier 3, 1.4 tier 2, 2.8 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.3 tier 3, 1.3 tier 2, 2.7 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 4, 1.3 tier 3, 1.3 tier 2, 2.5 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.4 tier 4, 1.7 tier 3, 1.7 tier 2, 3.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.4 tier 4, 1.6 tier 3, 1.6 tier 2, 3.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.4 tier 4, 1.5 tier 3, 1.5 tier 2, 3.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.4 tier 4, 1.4 tier 3, 1.4 tier 2, 2.9 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.4 tier 4, 1.4 tier 3, 1.4 tier 2, 2.8 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.3 tier 4, 1.3 tier 3, 1.3 tier 2, 2.7 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.3 tier 4, 1.3 tier 3, 1.3 tier 2, 2.6 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.2 tier 4, 1.2 tier 3, 1.2 tier 2, 2.5 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.2 tier 4, 1.2 tier 3, 1.2 tier 2, 2.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.1 tier 4, 1.1 tier 3, 1.1 tier 2, 2.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.1 tier 4, 1.1 tier 3, 1.1 tier 2, 2.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.1 tier 4, 1.1 tier 3, 1.1 tier 2, 2.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.0 tier 4, 1.0 tier 3, 1.0 tier 2, 2.1 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.0 tier 4, 1.0 tier 3, 1.0 tier 2, 2.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.0 tier 4, 1.0 tier 3, 1.0 tier 2, 2.0 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 1.0 tier 4, 1.0 tier 3, 1.0 tier 2, 1.9 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.9 tier 4, 0.9 tier 3, 0.9 tier 2, 1.9 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.9 tier 4, 0.9 tier 3, 0.9 tier 2, 1.8 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.9 tier 4, 0.9 tier 3, 0.9 tier 2, 1.8 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.9 tier 4, 0.9 tier 3, 0.9 tier 2, 1.7 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.8 tier 4, 0.8 tier 3, 0.8 tier 2, 1.7 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.8 tier 4, 0.8 tier 3, 0.8 tier 2, 1.6 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.8 tier 4, 0.8 tier 3, 0.8 tier 2, 1.6 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.8 tier 4, 0.8 tier 3, 0.8 tier 2, 1.6 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.8 tier 4, 0.8 tier 3, 0.8 tier 2, 1.5 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.5 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.4 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.7 tier 4, 0.7 tier 3, 0.7 tier 2, 1.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.3 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.2 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.1 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.1 tier 1

Fame :1.0 tier 5, 0.6 tier 4, 0.6 tier 3, 0.6 tier 2, 1.1 tier 1

Famous halves the value in the tier 1 column. For example at 50 fame you would get 1 tier 4 heroes for each 4.8 tier 0 heroes (and whatever chance for tiers in between), but with famous, you get 1 for each 2.5 tier 0 heroes (with the chance for tiers in between being unchanged.)

One interesting consequence is, while Famous increases the level lower of tier heroes more, your chance of getting fame 0 is not as high as everyone else's. So the two effects work against each other.

Bahgtru · July 18th, 2018, 02:55

Oh the wind mage is a hero? I always assumed champion. Still, 250 skill is quite a big bet. I am happy with any caster and I can't remember the last time I used it.

Isn't the fame 10 initial layer too low? That makes just cause too powerful for me, AIs cast that on turn 2 in lunatic - and 5 if they need to research it.

Seravy · July 18th, 2018, 12:14

Considering it's only a 1 in 6 chance to get a fame 10 (tier 2) hero, and they aren't all that outstanding, I think that's ok.

Seravy

I'm trying to make sure each hero is appropriately powerful for their tier so I'm trying to standardize the value of each ability to be able to compare them. (Ideally, each ability would be equal but that's a dream. Let's face reality.)
No points given for being melee, or ranged, or both. They each have value for different playstyles and even if a hero is both it's not necessarily an advantage (can't melee before using up ammo for example).
Some points given if the hero starts above average on at least two of the three defensive stats (defense, resist, health), or on all stats. Super abilities are worth 1.5 the base amount. Resource producing abilities are worth half if the hero is in the last two tiers.

0.5 points : anything else, each level of MP pool
1 points : Web spell, Pathfinding, high starting DEF/RES, Healer, Leadership, Missile/Poison/Fire/Cold/Death/Illusion Immunity, Water Walking, Capacity, Armsmaster, Destruction, Battlemage
2 points : random ability, Might, Thrown, Breath, Noble, Logistics, Supply Commander, Sage, having spells with unique valuable high impact effects, Blademaster, Legendary, Guiding Beacon, Arcane Power, Divine Barrier, Ritual Master, Armor Piercing
3 points : Agility, Lucky, Soul Linker, Holy Bonus, Constitution, First Strike, Flying, Prayermaster
4 points : Charmed, Wind Walking, Invisibility, Illusion, Quick Casting

(I've used a similar system before but I'm pretty sure these numbers represent how much a hero is actually worth more than my old numbers)

This results in the following hero values :

Tier 1
Dwarf 5.5
Barbarian 4.5
Sage 4
Dervish 4
Beastmaster 6
Orc Archer 4
Healer 5.5
Druid 5
Bard 5
Thief 10

Tier 2
Huntress 6
War Monk 8.5
Warrior Mage 7.5
Assassin 8.5
Rogue 6

Tier 3
Wind Mage 11
Ranger 10.5
Draconian 11
Witch 13
Golden One 11.5

Tier 4
Ninja 13
Magician 10.5
Amazon 12
Warlock 9.5
Unknown 13

Tier 5
Illusionist 16
Swordsman 16
Priestess 19.5
Paladin 16
Black Knight 17
Elven Archer 12
The Knight 12.5
Necromancer 17
Chaos Warrior 15.5

So... the numbers roughly match what I actually was thinking about the heroes :

The Thief is way stronger than a tier 0 hero. I love to have one early but it's in no way balanced... I don't think we can afford keeping it that way, "yea but we made her cost a lot of gold to hire and maintain" can in no way justify a hero that's as good as a tier 3.

Some tier 0 heroes are still better than others - the healer is an obvious good choice but she is everyone's favorite hero anyway so I'm fine with that. She isn't a direct threat to balance, she basically does the job of a Shaman plus has a high MP pool. The Beastmaster is also above average but Soul Linker is situational so it's ok. Sage, Dervish and Orc Archer rank low here. Sage has Dispelling Wave which is worth a hero slot by itself in almost any phase of the game, and Sage is a very powerful ability to have early too. Dervish pays you free gold which actually isn't all that great now that we can't get one before turn 30 and gold is less important with sawmill changes. Still Logistics is a unique ability with a huge potential, so probably good enough as is. The Orc Archer, idk, Supply Commander is a very rare ability but it's not all that great. It's about as situational as Soul Linker, but this hero ranks too low instead of too high. I'm tempted to say this hero needs an extra random ability or some other bonus.

In Tier 2, the Huntress and the Rogue are both underwhelming - they could be tier 0 and no one would notice. We probably need to move one down to make room for the Thief and buff the other. However, the Thief is probably still a bit too strong for this tier - but here we might be able to get away with it considering the high cost (which we likely should increase even further)

Tier 3 looks roughly ok. The Witch might be too good for the tier though, mostly due to Charmed.

Tier 4 shows nearly the same numbers as tier 3. If we want the tiers to be distinct, one at 10 the other at 13 points, then the Witch and Warlock need to be swapped. I'm not sure the numbers represent the true value of these heroes though. Still, I'm tempted to say they are - Black Prayer and Mana Leak are more subtle, but overall probably better than Doom Bolt and Warp Lighting as it affects an entire army and can make a large difference in the right circumstances. However, swapping them makes Ritual Master better (it was ranked lower due to being too late) but even with that the total is only 11, suitable for the other tier. The Magician also ranks pretty low. I'm willing to accept Flame Strike is enough of a game changer to make up for that though.

Champions seem to average at 16-17 points, making most of them good as is, but the Elven Archer and the Knight are massively underwhelming, while the Priestess is above average. Considering the Priestess is almost entirely support that's probably ok. The Knight however has a critical flaw, it's full of abilities that are simply bad in the late game : Super Armsmaster, Super Legendary, and even Noble. It would be best if it wasn't a champion but a tier 4 hero, but we don't really have anything in that tier to swap with. It's also quite difficult to swap a hero with a champion, changing the fame requirement isn't enough, they actually need to be moved in the slot, all graphics, etc.
Technically, decreasing fame works for hiring them, but would still mean you can't find one as prisoner and require Summon Champion.
The Elven Archer is in better shape, she ranks low not because the abilities are not suitable for the tier, but because she does not have abilities. We have Blademaster (which even the tier 2 Huntress has), extra ammo (cool but even if I were to rank that ability higher she'd still be weak) and some fairly low impact spells. So here we need to add more abilities, or a high impact spell.

(this btw has good correlation with the AI resurrection priorities...while all other champions are 4 or 5, those two are priority 1)

teelaurila

A couple thoughts:

I wouldn't say charmed is that good, 3 at best. It's not that hard to otherwise raise resistance enough to be invulnerable to spells - armor is where it's at.

The witch and warlock are both very hard to keep alive, while black prayer sure is awesome. Actually, that applies quite well to all "pure mage" heroes who have a staff and 2 accesories. Therefore the ability to wear armor should certainly rank up points here I think, even if all weapon slots would be equal. Armor/accesory is less important for artificer, but trying to work with found items it's huge.

Seravy · July 18th, 2018, 14:29

If I were to add points for armor, I'd also need to add some for having a ranged attack (not doing melee means less need for armor). And that covers every hero.

Even if I were to rate Charmed 3, the heroes with too much points would still have too much points so it doesn't matter. I didn't bother with point differences less than 2-3.

(In a way Charmed is better than Invisibility and Illusion, both of which you can have in a single item slot while getting enough (8+) resistance takes at least 2, often 3 slots)

teelaurila · July 18th, 2018, 15:18

Ok, well, either way I generally agree with your conclusions. It's just my experience that unless I have some awesome defensive staves/accesories, witch/warlock/magician (and to a degree even priestess/necromancer) are great on paper but in the end useless because they can't be kept alive against direct damage spells. So taking them over say the warrior mage or the beastmaster is kind of a trap. The sage and the druid at least come early enough that they are likely face survivable flak for a while (and gain xp).

Nelphine

I disagree that ranged attack is anywhere near as good as armor. The thing that makes armor good us blocking ranged attacks, and particularly, blocking some spells.

It's simply amazing.

I was going to say the same thing about charmed being overrated - getting multiole resist items is easy.

Seravy · July 18th, 2018, 16:45

Well armor as a stat is good, yes, that's why Agility is worth more, but we weren't talking about that.
Armor as a slot type, not really. Yes, you are getting +4 defense compared to an accessory if you get a Plate Mail, but then you can't have a whole bunch of things on it that accessories allow. I've tried to make sure an Armor slot isn't that much better than an Accessory slot when designing item power limitations. (and honestly, you only really need that +4 if you ARE going to melee. Otherwise you're good enough with having Elemental Armor which is fairly common on found items. Even Bless or Resist Elements is worth the +4.)

It doesn't really matter how easy or not easy is to get resistance items. What matters is how much other abilities and stats you have to give up for it. Also, sure, you can find resistance items. But if the resistance isn't on an otherwise great item then you're wasting even more possible power (you can't use your better items until you get a hero that has Charmed or naturally high resistance). But as I said, I'm fine with counting Charmed as 3, it doesn't change the conclusions.

So the important questions...
Any ideas how to improve the Knight and the Elven Archer?
Do we agree on swapping the Witch with the Warlock?
Do we want to give the Magician some extra punch or are we ok with Flame Strike (and Destruction) being the selling points even though the hero has fewer total abilities than the tier would normally demand?
Which do we make tier 1, the Rouge or the Huntress? How do we buff the other?
Any specific ability to give to the Orc Archer or do we go with random?

I'll think about these myself but want to hear opinions.

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