Nargott
Good afternoon!
Work is in progress, but without rushing. 
Just yesterday, we were discussing ways to develop the mod.
I consistently maintain the position that diversity must be preserved, and within the current framework, we should fine-tune the best balance. The opposing viewpoint is that everything should be simplified as much as possible because that will lead to a better balance.
I am fundamentally not going to reduce the number of units, their parametric diversity, or their abilities. However, there are certain limits to when this system works best.
For example, let's consider the classification of units by damage:
- normal: 33% damage to normal (i.e., it takes 3 hits to kill itself)
- damage dealer: 40% damage to normal, 50% damage to damage dealer (i.e., it takes 2 hits to kill itself)
- tank: 25% damage to normal, 20% damage to tank (i.e., it takes 5 hits to kill itself)
With these settings, we get quite good damage diversity, without excessively high or low damage. The difference between killing in 2 hits and killing in 5 hits is noticeable.
Additionally, if we add things like initiative (units with low initiative hit harder and live longer than units with high initiative) and speed (slow infantry is more powerful than fast flyers), we get that the range of possible damage in an exchange increases even more (from 50% for damage dealers up to 75%, if a powerful melee damage dealer attacks an initiative-based flying damage dealer). That is, this makes it possible to have very high damage, close to a one-shot kill. This is the price of diversity – when several factors work simultaneously, each of which is strong enough, it results in a particularly wide range, which may be beyond "normal".
But this only applies to units, and there are also heroes, and here too, we need to create diversity in parameters. There are combatants with strong physical stats and mages with weak physical stats. When this is combined with what was mentioned above, one-shot kills become quite real. For example, with a +6 stat difference in duels (the most offensive class against the most fragile), damage increases by 50%, and it can already be high.
In duels, I think it is normal when high diversity in units is added to the same strong diversity between heroes (and their physical stats – that is, attack and defense parameters).
For example, a hero with maximum physical stats performs at 80/20%, that is, the army works at 80%, and the hero himself at 20%.
And a hero with minimum physical stats performs at 60/40%, that is, the army works at 60%, and the hero at 40%. The army of such a hero is 25% weaker than that of the warrior above, but the hero himself casts spells twice as strongly and compensates for the lag.
I would like to point out that even in this case, in duels, the main contribution is made by the troops (60 to 40), and this is fundamental – the mod is built around units, and units are crucial here.
However, what will happen when we go beyond duels, when development is added to the heroes, higher levels, parameters, artifacts, and skills? Obviously, the gap in physical stats between mages and warriors will increase, and this is not good. As soon as the main contribution to the battle begins to be made by the hero, and not the troops, the "chess-like" nature collapses in favor of the gameplay that we would like to avoid (when troops stand in a tight defense as static elements, and the hero wins with magic, for example, by casting meteors). To avoid this, we should not increase the gap between heroes in parameters and skills. Thus, we come to the following conclusions:
1. The initial difference between heroes in parameters should be minimized. Let heroes start with parameters like 2/1/1/1, where the two will refer to the "racial" parameter (for a demon, attack; for an elf, magic, and so on). This difference is really minimal (but it is noticeable) and will be revealed as they develop further.
2. Artifacts should not be too strong (minor +1 stat, major +2 stat, relic +3 stat – this is a sample, in terms of the original, this is +2, +4, and +6 stats, respectively). Since a warrior may prefer combat artifacts, and a mage may prefer magic artifacts, the difference between them in physical stats may increase significantly if the artifacts are too powerful and/or if too many of them are worn. This means that artifacts should not be made stronger than they already are in Heroes 5 (and there will be no such powerful artifacts as in Heroes 3). The number of artifacts worn simultaneously by a hero should also not be too large – it is wrong when all of the hero's slots are filled with relics. Therefore, the game should end before the hero is "fully equipped".
3. Since we do not want to weaken the skills and abilities themselves (on the contrary, we want to strengthen them so that each level up is noticeable), and we need to limit their cumulative effect, it follows that the total number of upgraded skills should be small (closer to level 10 of the heroes than to 20 or 30). Here, there is a fundamental contradiction between the fact that it is most interesting to level up further (from the point of view of the interest of leveling up, level 20 is the best), but the quality of the battle begins to suffer greatly due to the increased gap. And since the quality of the battle is the highest priority, therefore, unnecessary levels will have to be sacrificed.
All of the above should ultimately lead to the fact that both in the real game on the map, heroes will be close to how they are in duels, that is, about 9/7/5/3 in parameters (and with a "moderate" difference between their maximum and minimum parameters, so as not to create too large a gap in physical stats). In addition to this, a small number of skills and abilities are added (about 12 at level 10). As a result, if a conditional mage with fully magical parameters builds a fully magical build (all skills for magic), then his 60/40% will turn into 40/60%, but no more. With such development, it is permissible that the hero will begin to play the main role, and not the army (this is a diversity of tactics), but only on the condition that the share of the army is not too low. If the difference in physical stats between the warrior's army and the mage's army reaches a twofold advantage (for example, 40% for the mage against 80% for the warrior), this is already at the limit – even greater distortions should be avoided, since such battles (a pure hero against a pure army) lose a significant share of interest.
Summarizing the priorities in the development of the mod: the emphasis is placed on strongly playing factors (parameters, skills), therefore, the number of factors working simultaneously in battle should be limited, otherwise the balance will become worse with strong distortions.