55 attack and +7 to hit? And you want to balance that out? I think if you've got a hero with 55 attack and +7 to hit, that means you did well and won the game. Go attack all the computer players and beat them with your uber-unit, then try the game again.
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First Strike on heroes
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Quote:The ai also never builds life/sorcery/famous/artificer. As far as I know the ai also never rejects a low tier hero to make room for high tier heroes.They actually do, thanks to kyrub. The hero has to be at least 4 below the first in the unit table for each hero slot already taken or something. This doesn't apply to heroes already hired and those coming from Summon Hero though. That means the Dwarf, Sage, Dervish and Barbarian will be refused unless they go into the first hero slot. Bard, Orc Warrior, Beastmaster, Healer are a no go if the second slot is also taken. Huntress, Thief Druid and War Monk are refused on the third slot. Warrior Mage, Magician, Assassin, Wind Mage are rejected if the AI only has 2 slots remaining. Ranger, Draconian, Witch and Golden One if down to the last slot. Ninja, Rogue, Amazon, Warlock, Unknown and any champion are always recruited. Quote:Alternatively, set the maximum to hit bonus to +7 or +8?That literally is the maximum. I mean, you can't have more than 100% chance to hit something, which is at +7. Quote:Movement is the issue and not one I'd like fixed (although you could, just reduce item movement bonuses to +1 max for most items, +2 for one item type (armour).Haste, Teleport and Merge says this would not help anyway, but I agree I don't want to go this way either. If anything I would rather make at least drakes faster but...idk about that. 4 is pretty fast against most units. 5 wouldn't help much on this and 6 would let them attack on first turn... Quote: And I know I used to get ranged heroes that could one shot drakes, though u haven't tried in Com.If you have an Illusion weapon, very high ranged power (35+) and very high hit, you can. Or haste but then you get half as many shots so the overall damage output is not higher. However those numbers are harder to get on ranged heroes because they almost never come with blademaster, and there is no +1 missle attack per level ability, that only exists for magic attacks so half the ranged heroes are out. Where this thing fails is, (aside form there only being 2 predefined staff weapons that have 3 hit and 6 attack, while there are at least twice as many melee weapons) if the enemy is immune to Illusions (or you don't have an illusion weapon) then you can't pierce their magic or missile immunity. I'm not saying you can't have such a ranged hero but it's way harder to build, and it's more limited in use (and more vulnerable) compared to the melee first strike hero.  (September 5th, 2016, 15:57)Seravy Wrote:Quote:[quote]Alternatively, set the maximum to hit bonus to +7 or +8?That literally is the maximum. I mean, you can't have more than 100% chance to hit something, which is at +7. I meant 7 or 8, not +7 or +8. Personally I call the base to hit chance +3. So, in your terms I mean +4 or +5 maximum, 70or80% maximum. This is why I said it would be a huge nerf to life mages. Which I do not think is correct, given that AI life mages are already the least scary. It would mean blademaster was still great, but not in combination with all those life buffs you get. My other idea though, just limit maximum attack power to 40? or heck 35? Or set maximum movement to 9? or 8? 9 makes sense? That way if a drake has 5 movement and the hero attacks once it won't be able to get out of counter attack range? Personally I think it is fine though. (September 5th, 2016, 19:07)Nelphine Wrote: I do think nerfing the movement makes a lot more sense than the first strike, as the movement is the underlying problem for a lot more things.True but how can one nerf movement in a game where teleportation items are possible? In two realms, even. (Also, Quick Casting relies on movement. If high movement is not possible, that ability will be much weaker)
Quick casting is still fine if the maximum movement is something like 8 or 9?
Merging and Teleport are good, so? Let them be good? If you have enough books to create an artifact of merging or teleport you're unlikely to have artificer and famous and enough life books to assure you to have raise dead or resurrection, although you'll probably still have prayer? I guess that's not entirely true, you could remove lucky from life mage's artifacting unlocks, they don't need a 3rd source of +to hit chance do they? You're starting to make me think 5life5sorcery is a cool build, although usually I have a couple more retorts than that (no room for warlord here). It was only one idea of mine though, I had others, I'm not sure which is best. I just don't think that many heroes deal more than 25 damage per attack that often in games people play, it seems like a very rare thing to have happen. It's much more common I think to have 10-13 movement than 25 damage, or over 50 attack, or +7 to hit or whatever.
September 6th, 2016, 06:17
(This post was last modified: September 6th, 2016, 06:19 by Nelphine.)
Yeah, 4 or 5 base movement, +1 per armour or misc item, +1 for endurance, and then make weapons the only item that an get more than +1 movement. That way, the hero has to give up some of the nasty weapon enchants if they want more than speed 8.
Similarly, make merging and teleport weapon only enchants. Other thing is to reduce how much +hit items can provide. (September 6th, 2016, 06:17)Nelphine Wrote: Yeah, 4 or 5 base movement, +1 per armour or misc item, +1 for endurance, and then make weapons the only item that an get more than +1 movement. That way, the hero has to give up some of the nasty weapon enchants if they want more than speed 8. This would help a little but not much. Haste would still double movement, and 8 movement is still enough to move next to the creature defending the city, kill it, and step back. Since they can't leave the walls, the hero won't get attacked. It would also mean the 8 teleport and 5 merging items would all need to be replaced since none of them are weapons.
September 6th, 2016, 06:47
(This post was last modified: September 6th, 2016, 06:48 by Nelphine.)
All of that might be true, but I think it does more for the problem than a change to first strike.
The other big problem there is the walls themselves. 9 great drakes in a city are completely wasted because they can't focus on the hero. Magic immunity plus healing is enough to kill that assuming the hero can survive one counterattack from the drakes. Means the only very Rares worth using for AI are colossus. I'd go so far as to consider banning AI from using city walls.  (September 6th, 2016, 06:47)Nelphine Wrote: I'd go so far as to consider banning AI from using city walls.They actually work pretty well for them usually, just not against heroes. We could set a threshold for the AI like "If defending army total power>X, StayBehindWalls=false" much like how they do that against Mana Leak and ranged enemies. How much X should be is a harder question. Or maybe we could just make the AI consider certain abilities, like if their own units have strong breath attacks or first strike then walls should be ignores? Or we can just specify units directly... Although, in my game it wouldn't have helped. The colossus were not moving because they were busy throwing rocks at my less powerful units. So I didn't even need to step back, I could just first strike kill two each turn. And this sentence made me realize movement has nothing to do with the problem of First Strike. If the First Strike unit is not the primary target of enemy attacks, it's free to just kill everything in 4 turns. And it won't be, since it has no ranged attack and it has probably the highest armor in the army so it's likely the last one they'll try to kill if everyone else is within range. Edit : I think I'm going to do the ignore walls if strong defenders thing, but based on specific unit types. Drakes, Death Knight, their own paladin hero, generally only top tier melee units that benefit from being aggressive a lot. Question is, how many of these units should allow ignoring the walls? I was thinking 3 or 4 but even one sky drake makes a big difference if it's not waiting to be slaughtered. On the other hand the 8 nondrake units losing the wall bonus could harm the AI more... ...actually I think I can do this on a per unit basis so the sky drake goes out and the rest stays in. Edit 2: Started writing the code, I believe these are the units that should be able to ignore the walls and attack anyway - if and only if out of ammo already. Quote:; Units that should not stay behind walls |