Game balance

[Catwalk]

I'd like this thread to be used to discuss game balance principles and concepts (as they pertain to MoM) in this thread. Knock yourselves silly!

[Iranon]

I'm currently working on a racial summary and balance overview that's going to be a few thousand words... i'm going to comment on that aspect once I'm done with it but let me say in advance that I think balance is a lot better than is generally believed.

[b0rsuk]

Magic Immunity breaks the convention. All other "immunities" are not complete immunities, but rather very high resistances. Weapon Immunity increases shields to 10 unless magic weapons are involved. Strong ranged units can punch through Guardian Wind and various missile immunities.

It would be more fair if Magic Immunity granted something like +10 crosses, and a node-like counter magic power, with more expensive spells more likely to work. In fact, reworking the resistance (crosses) to work like that could potentially unbreak the resistance spells. Crosses would increase the "counter magic" strenght, but mana spent on the spell would make it more likely to work.

[robinh3123]

I partly agree the buff vs. debuf arguments in b0rsuk's game balance article "What went wrong in Master Of Magic" in some other forum.

I have an interesting idea to weaken life spells:
How about make some buffing white magic, such as "Holy weapon", "Holy armor", ... etc. to be Combat only? It will make it even vs. those debuf magics counterparts.
To well-balace it, we may still allow global enchantment for some of the spells, to not over-weaken life spells. For example, keep Holy weapon as global and combat, but holy armor combat only.
Another way is to increase the mana required to cast global buffing spells, for example 3x of current value.

Another interesting idea to enhance death magic:
Death magic can always pass through "counter magic"! (Because death magic has sorcery immunity!) To be even, "counter magic" shall not lose 5 point of strength when a death spell is cast. Consider how it goes well for a human black-magic player to battle with Jafar!

[b0rsuk]

I partly agree the buff vs. debuf arguments in b0rsuk's game balance article "What went wrong in Master Of Magic" in some other forum.

That sounds like the Elemental forum. I've left some unfinished business in there, but I'm not going to stay and clarify.

I have an interesting idea to weaken life spells:
How about make some buffing white magic, such as "Holy weapon", "Holy armor", ... etc. to be Combat only? It will make it even vs. those debuf magics counterparts.

Or the other way around: why not allow casting weakening enchantments overland ? They are not lethal anyway, it wouldn't be more effective than overland buffs in most cases.

Some more analysis: with your proposal lairs and especially nodes would be most affected. I don't think pre-enchanting an army is a big deal in wizard vs wizard battles, thanks to Disenchant Area. Multiple enchantments are a problem early when Disenchant is not yet available, and you don't have enough skill anyway. Pure Life wizards are actually not that hard once you learn to wait and Disenchant (assuming no Invulnerability which used to be immune to dispel, and no Lionheart + ranged attack)

Let's consider the opposite, too: some enchantments could be overland-only. That way node and lair conquest wouldn't be affected (which I don't think is good), but it would have interesting implications against AI wizards. When there's no time pressure, player can easily outsmart AI by waiting a few turns until AI is out of mana and then cast enchantments. At certain point in the game AI will be casting Disenchant regularly when it notices 2+ enchantments. Which is exactly the point - if you wanted to pre-enchant your army, you'd run into the risk of AI casting Disenchant.

Yet another idea. How about making nodes cast weak Disenchant Area each turn, but in such way that it only affects spells which don't fit ? If you go into a Sorcery node with Life enchantments, some of them will likely be dispelled before the end of combat.
(Or make it one time Disenchant on entry, but this encourages save scumming.)

Another way is to increase the mana required to cast global buffing spells, for example 3x of current value.

I don't know. Pre-enchanting is already a bad idea against AI in mid game, this would make it worse. You'd still be able to use it for nodes, it just wouldn't be worth it when you only get mana as the reward.

Another interesting idea to enhance death magic:
Death magic can always pass through "counter magic"! (Because death magic has sorcery immunity!)

A bit contrived and too explicit for me (too much like M:tg). I still think Death magic, assuming the same effect (-2 swords Death spell vs +2 swords Life spell) is inherently worse. Overland, you are not just helping yourself, you're making the wizard easier to invade for others as well. In battle, even assuming no resistance (bad idea, the units you'd like to weaken the most are those who are the most resistant !), you'd need to fight 1 enemy with at least 2 units to make weakening spells better.
You can think about it this way: Master of Magic, at least partially, is a race game. A race to best spells, units, most cities or finally Spell of Mastery. If you spend your resources to harm someone, you lose resources and the target loses resources. Other players prosper. So you better be the 2nd when it comes to power ! Even then, by spending the resources on not helping yourself you make it easier for the rest to catch up.

A far-fetched idea that will NEVER make it into Master of Magic: Death magic just needs to use another resource type. Inspiration comes from Dominions 3 and Dungeoneer the card game. In Dominions3, some Death spells use unburied bodies as resource.
In MoM it could work like this: each wizard has kill counter. You can think of it as a sort of karma. The more kills you have, the worse for you. The kills you have could be used by other wizards to cast Death spells on you. This would be a completely separate resource, with different costs. For example one spell might cost 3 kills, while other would cost 5 kills (5 units killed). In MoM, wizards are always killing something, even raiders, rampaging monsters, nodes, lairs, each other.
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Assuming someone makes it to this part, I have an idea how to make ranged attacks more balanced while using existing game mechanics.

The way I see it, ranged units are perfect killing machines. Click, click, click - there goes an army. Shots are efficient and never wasted except (potentially) when you're killing the last figure. It's as if two bowmen never shot at the same target. Unrealistic, and makes ranged units unreasonably strong. (I regard melee combat as more interesting because it's more positional, you maneuver units to get into the right place at the right time, pull out wounded units and replace them. It has strategical implications, town healing, shamans, animists' guild...).

Long story short, I would like bows to have Fireball-like attacks. This means attack strength proportional to the number of figures defending unit has. Fireball/Immolation/Wall of Fire deals lots of damage initially, then less and less (diminishing returns). Effectively this would make bows good for initial few salvos for weakening the enemy, but bad finishers. You'd need combined arms.

[kyrub]

Long story short, I would like bows to have Fireball-like attacks. This means attack strength proportional to the number of figures defending unit has. Fireball/Immolation/Wall of Fire deals lots of damage initially, then less and less (diminishing returns). Effectively this would make bows good for initial few salvos for weakening the enemy, but bad finishers.

That is a truly intriguing idea. Very nice. I presume you'd leave the range factor in? And magic attacks would be untouched?

And we agree on Death realm assessment. It's a very poor strategical option to harm any unit or any city in such a vast game with so many units and cities. The opponents always have many other cities, units. - It would be nice to have a totally different spell mechanics, although dead bodies... I don't know.

[fwoop]

I imagine Death would be fine if you changed the numerical symmetry it currently has with White, in favor of Death. Make Death the more expensive, less persistent, but far more brutal opponent to White.

[b0rsuk]

That is a truly intriguing idea. Very nice. I presume you'd leave the range factor in? And magic attacks would be untouched?

Yes, range would still be a factor for normal ranged. Magic attacks - they would be like current fireball, without range factor. (Although I think "no range penalty" may be the single biggest flaw making magical ranged overpowered... perhaps they introduced it so as to not have to make good AI which waits until targets are in range ?)

The reason I think ranged attacks, regardless of strength, need another safety measure is that they allow multiple units to immediately attack another one unit. Melee units rarely can gang up on one unit so much - mostly flyers, and there are ways to stop them.

totally different spell mechanics, although dead bodies... I don't know.

The main point I was trying to make - don't use your resources, use somebody else's resources to cast the spell. Not literally dead bodies (in the sense from a specific area), but a global kill counter, why not ?

Of course, I have no illusion that such a mechanic could be coded into MoM.

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I almost forgot. Speaking of magical ranged attacks, spellcaster heroes have it too easy. Magical hero attacks are too effective, and you get at least 1 2/3 ammo per level ! Many heroes have 7 base spellcasting, so you get 2 1/3 ammo per level, without range penalty, immune to Warp Wood (Mana Leak is slower).

I would increase magical hero attack cost from 3 to 5 mana and see if it helps. This should be a simple change, no ? Just 1 number ?

Now look at "archer" heroes. They're specialised ranged units that can't cast spells. They're limited to 8 shots (many spellcasters get 9 on level 4, and it gets worse. They're made almost useless by a common spell. Range penalty. They don't help with overland spells.

[BecHa]

I agree that "archer" heroes are one of the wekest and useless and modifing normal ranged attacks will makes game more balancing.
But otherwise...
Have not you ever destroyed a full stack of Paladins? Or a full stack of Hammerhands and Warlords? Or any other? AI is the worst commander.
So I think that talking about the balance in the game only after several tens of multiplayer games where players will fight each other rather than against AI. Now the game offers the possibility of using different tactics and strategies for success and it is very likely that the options which allow you to confront with success the computer player is not amiss for a confrontation with a human.
All that, in my opinion, you can do now - to replace or reinforce the useless spells and units to further expand the range of possibilities for each race and the school of magic

[Iranon]

I don't see archer heroes as weak. They often have enough movement points to negate any range penalties, don't care about magic immunity and their 8 shots would amount to 24 mana. Alorra and Marcus can spend that elsewhere, B'Shan is a nice early hero anyway because of the guaranteed Noble trait, Shuri is also very useful for a low-end hero thanks to Pathfinding.