First Strike on heroes

[Seravy]

I've been thinking a lot about this, and finally came to the conclusion that the overpoweredness of melee heroes is not really coming from the fact that they can kill top tier fantastic units in one hit, nor that they have so much armor that they can survive it, even multiple times unless said creatures are supported by a wizard and buffed somehow, in which case the hero should still be able to survive one hit, maybe two but not more...and that's exactly what happens, so the defense and attack power and mechanisms are fine.

Yet, in practice melee heroes kill any amount of any creature, even if those creatures are buffed, and take no damage at all why? Because of First Strike.
In my current game, my Paladin hero has 55 attack power, and +7 to hit, meaning it deals 55 points of damage. Nothing except Hydras have that much health in the game, and even if some extreme armor reduces the damage by 10, it STILL kills any creature. And I'm ignoring the fact the hero can pierce or ignore armor.
So you hit the monster, it dies, then you move the hero away so if there are any other monsters, they won't get to attack...and repeat next turn until they are all dead. And this is a problem. I mean, no matter how powerful a hero is, they should at least take damage and require some healing to kill a large amount of those creatures.

So what can be done?
Nerfing various sources of melee attack works but...that would make the heroes pretty useless for early and midgame so that's a big no. Nerfing To Hit or changing the mechanics is also possible but would break the balance in so many other parts of the game that it's not even funny. So these two are out.
Removing First Strike from the heroes that have it works, but...the ability is fun and is what makes those heroes special.
Giving all high end units Negate First Strike is another option...but it would look weird on them and I do like how a weakened sky drake with only a few points of health left can be killed safely with a mid level first strike hero. This enhances gameplay because you have to pay attention to which unit to use when you strike and you have to position it well to be able to do it.

And that leaves...the following idea :
Change First Strike to only take effect if the target figure (yes, figure, not the entire unit) has less than X health remaining. In other words, striking first against a small or wounded creature should be enough to kill it. Doing so against something very big and strong...should not. Yes, the creature dies, and you did hit first, but it should take some time to actually cut that huge dragon to pieces and it should be able to retaliate even if you're striking first. The difference between this and adding negate first strike to the dragon? You can still first strike kill the dragon if it was wounded below that much health.
So the question is, how much should X be?
I think 24 is a good number, it is high enough to allow killing all normal units with first strike, even if they have max level (but not
if they have lionheart), while most rare and better creatures will need to be damaged first to kill them this way.
This would also eliminate the problem that two such heroes don't kill each other but the one attacking wins without taking any damage...which is way too much of a gain since the AI will not try to be the first one to hit, nor is it capable of doing so usually.

[Nelphine]

24 health on a figure, is higher than everything except very Rares, heroes, and some extreme health summons. I'm not sure.

How many games do you actually have where you have 55 attack +7 to hit heroes, and you haven't already won?

Obviously you have more experience than I do but I feel like this is solving something that isn't a problem.

[Seravy]

24 health on a figure, is higher than everything except very Rares, heroes, and some extreme health summons. I'm not sure.

How many games do you actually have where you have 55 attack +7 to hit heroes, and you haven't already won?

Obviously you have more experience than I do but I feel like this is solving something that isn't a problem.

Since Create Artifact and Summon Champion are both arcane, and EXP is (was) too easy to get from neutral encounters which are zero threat to the hero if you know what you are doing, pretty often I'd say.
The real problem though, you don't even need the EXP. Even at level 4 (only heroism) that hero has like, 40ish melee and that's enough to one-hit kill everything except the 45 health monsters. (Assuming you do have the +7 hit, but with Lucky (+1), weapon (+3), Prayer (+1), Holy Weapon (+1) and Blademaster (+1 or 2 at lower levels), it's not too hard to do. )

Out of the three first strike heroes, one comes with super might, one comes with super blademaster and one comes with normal of both as guaranteed abilities. So depending on which hero you get, you might get away with either less hit, or less attack on your weapon.

You can have your hero at only level 4-5, with a weapon or accessory that has less than max attack, and you're still good enough to instant kill djinns, efreets, doom bats, etc., anything that has below 30-35 health.
Also, this is a self-escalating problem. Let's say your hero is still weak-ish and only first strike kills 30 health creatures. What will you get for doing so? Yes, more levels and items so next time your hero will be able to do 35 damage, and it costs nothing since the hero is not at risk even for a moment...

I expect the new experience rewards to help a lot but nonetheless, it shouldn't be possible to oneshot a great drake without taking damage just by casting heroism and having a +6/+3 sword and some nonzero attack accessory.

The 55 attack hero was enough to kill colossus buffed by lionheart, invunerability, and +2 To Defend from prayer and guardian. So at 40 an unbuffed colossus would still die.

So yeah, you only need to have access to life magic and have some semi-decent items or enough time and casting skill to make some, and you can have the unstoppable first strike hero. Not that taking damage would actually kill it if you have Life books but that's not really the point. The point is, 1 strong hero +8 random crap should not be beating 9 fully buffed colossus defending a capital while the enemy is throwing spells at you. Since the hero is not taking damage from attacking, and healing is enough to recover whatever damage might have been done from spells, as is, they can do that.

[Nelphine]

So, why not make those three champions require more books? maybe even make one ultra hero for each realm, although life gets to choose Theirs and it doesn't take 8 books to get, so that's life's advantage since they don't have first strike. That way you make the hero the capstone of the realm instead of something you can easily get by dabbling. (8 death for the black knight etc)

[Seravy]

So, why not make those three champions require more books? maybe even make one ultra hero for each realm, although life gets to choose Theirs and it doesn't take 8 books to get, so that's life's advantage since they don't have first strike. That way you make the hero the capstone of the realm instead of something you can easily get by dabbling. (8 death for the black knight etc)

There are nowhere near enough champions in the game for this. Specifically there are only 9. Reducing that number to limit some to specific realms is a bad idea. Also there is a normal hero with First Strike, the assassin.

[namad]

I think you might be wrong. I've literally never had more than 30 something attack on those heroes. You're better than me, sure, but you might also be better than a lot of players. Although I don't think your solution really has any problems, since I'll almost never be dealing 25 damage per attack anyways. That said I like to play wizards with at least 7 starting books and I like to accept mage heroes and reject non-mage heroes. There are a lot of heroes who don't have first strike, who I do ignore, and maybe they need to be improved somehow?

Create artifact might be arcane, but it's quite bad. The ai on extreme or impossible has the skill to cast it, but the player cannot afford to cast it at all ever, unless as mentioned above, they've already won. That's too many turns to be without magic.

Unless you're playing sorcery heavy and are using arcanus blessing and aether binding spells. Then you could afford to waste time on create artifact, but you won't necessarily have heroism or crusade or prayer or holy weapon at all. You will have invisibility and flying though, which are also good in their own way.

I don't object to this change, but I also do not think it will do anything at all to effect game balance.

[Nelphine]

I'm against it mostly due to the non intuitiveness.

[Seravy]

I think you might be wrong. I've literally never had more than 30 something attack on those heroes. You're better than me, sure, but you might also be better than a lot of players. Although I don't think your solution really has any problems, since I'll almost never be dealing 25 damage per attack anyways. That said I like to play wizards with at least 7 starting books and I like to accept mage heroes and reject non-mage heroes. There are a lot of heroes who don't have first strike, who I do ignore, and maybe they need to be improved somehow?

Create artifact might be arcane, but it's quite bad. The ai on extreme or impossible has the skill to cast it, but the player cannot afford to cast it at all ever, unless as mentioned above, they've already won. That's too many turns to be without magic.

Unless you're playing sorcery heavy and are using arcanus blessing and aether binding spells. Then you could afford to waste time on create artifact, but you won't necessarily have heroism or crusade or prayer or holy weapon at all. You will have invisibility and flying though, which are also good in their own way.

I don't object to this change, but I also do not think it will do anything at all to effect game balance.

Considering the fortress of AI wizards in the endgame is likely to be loaded with very rare creatures, I think this can be relevant to the game a lot more often than it looks like. At least in cases where attacking their fortress is unavoidable. If you can afford attacking each of their cities individually, not so much, but that is sometimes not an option. While artifacts are expensive, on medium or larger maps there are enough cities to support a high casting skill of 200-300 through Amplifying Towers, and if any enemy has Suppress Magic in play, casting high cost spells is the only option anyway, as everything else just fails.

This is more a generic design thing though, when I was considering the role of heroes, I pretty much decided on "Heroes (at high level and equipment) are the most powerful units that are pretty much impossible to kill through spells only, but very rare creatures are able to damage them and if they can outnumber a hero and/or are supported with spells, that should work." First Strike pretty much invalidates that by killing the creatures and not taking damage. Ranged heroes are probably ok because they have finite ammo, and their armor is generally not as good either.

Like, Crack's Call does 21 damage, a high level hero won't and should not die from it. Crack's Call after a Great Drake chewing on the hero should. Likewise, casting Doom Bolt on a a hero each turn will not kill it usually, since you can heal it each turn for 5, 8 or whatever amount of damage if you have additional casters. The same while the hero is actively fighting the Great Wyrms in the fortress should expose them to risk and possibly kill them if the player has insufficient healing capacity per turn.

Speaking of those creatures, it might be too easy to outrun them which could be part of the problem? Not that anything can be done against that with merging and teleporting and haste 10+ move heroes.

Maybe I'm overthinking it and ranged heroes are better? I don't know, I mean the enemy will never counterattack against them, but in exchange they usually have no blademaster, agility, constitution and armor slot, leaving them much more vulnerable to ranged attacks and spells, their base armor and health is often lower, plus their ammo runs out after killing at best 2-3 very rare creatures too, limiting their power. Ranged attack also gains fewer points from levels. Oh and the enemy tends to target them first with everything they have. I almost forgot, there are a ton of abilities and spells that neutralize ranged attacks too. (missile or magic immunity, elemental armor or warp wood, etc). Nothing can neutralize melee attacks.

Oh and one last thing to consider. If two wizards both have such unstoppable heroes, and the heroes meet each other, what will happen?
In the current system the human player wins and takes no damage because they will position their heroes (or use web, haste, mud, whatever) to make sure they hit first and 1 hit is all it takes. Meanwhile the AI has no way to understand something as complex as how to make sure their hero gets to score the first hit, or even comprehend they need to do so.
With the change, those heroes kill each other which is a much more reasonable outcome.
A hero has only 30-35 health at best, but the potential damage they can do goes up to 50+. So even a strong but not maxed hero beats a maxed hero if they get to hit first and that's totally unfair. A level 5 hero should not oneshot a level 9 hero without taking damage in melee combat, anyway.

[namad]

I'm not saying the issue doesn't exist, I'm just saying I'm not sure I agree with your numbers.
Again this is also an issue with life ai opponent's in fact almost entirely. Which I've already agreed are a bit too weak. You're already looking at other ways to improve them.


The last time I played as a pure lifemage was 2.42 and back then honestly the ai wasn't good enough about putting enough very rare fantastic creatures in their fortress, instead choosing to place rare fantastic creatures in all their cities/armies. IIRC you've changed their decision making a lot to improve that facet of gameplay since then.

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.

Maybe you should just give all heroes negate first strike and leave fantastic creatures alone? Alternatively, set the maximum to hit bonus to +7 or +8? Which would be a big nerf to life mages but no one else really gets above that point. Or set the maximum attack any unit can ever have to 40. These are all much bigger changes than the one you proposed, but if you're right about the problem (and I'm not sure you are) then I think a bigger change is needed to fix it (if it even needs fixed at all.)

[Nelphine]

I still think you're over thinking it. You're right it's not fair. but 9 great drakes would kill that hero, except for the movement. first strike has very little to do with that. And I know I used to get ranged heroes that could one shot drakes, though u haven't tried in Com. 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).