MMH5.5 - Heroes of Might and Magic 5.5

In reality, I have a positive attitude toward the RPE mod, but I am merely emphasizing that not all decisions are unequivocally successful when viewed through the lens of different goals and values. For example, if one views the game as a strategy rather than an RPG.

Of the aforementioned criticism, the most constructive part — within the framework of RPE ideology — is to rework the % drop rate of skills toward greater differences than 8-12% for most skills. For example, on a gradation of 15/12/8/5/3 or 15/12/8/5/3/2.

Yes I agree with you. But it is inevitable. First we wanted to make magics stronger (and balance Dark). Occultism was introduced as magic boosting skill. But if we make magic stronger, there should be defense. So Shatters were introduced to some classes. Basically if hero cannot gain a magic school he can get a shatter. (Might heroes can learn only 1 school and always can shatter 3).
This made the skillwheel richer on skills. More skills equals lower distribution. Thus you have lower percentages.

There are also serious balance problems with former racial skills — counterattack and occultism. In the first case, there should be a truly high bonus, given the situational nature of the retaliation (for example +20/40/60/80% or even higher);

I couldnt understand exactly what you mean but I get it like this. You say that "Combat" skill should give much higher bonus becase it is weak skill.
Here is my response: Combat give this amount of bonus because in heroes V defense is much better than attack. Defense stacks exponentially while attack stacks in a linear way.

One attack point gives 3.33% damage.
One defense point gives 3.33% resist.

30 attack points more than defense give 99.99% damage bonus which is double damage for attacker. Damage increase maximum is 300% (4 times) which is reached when attack is 90 points higher than defense.
15 defense points more than attack give 49.95% damage resistance which is half damage for attacker. Damage reduce maximum is 90% (9 times) which is reached when defense is 27 points higher than attack.

Perks of "Combat" are also very strong as they scale with level and can be used cumulatively. We cant restrict the damage of the Hero hit by class because it is hardcoded so we had to keep this strong for might heroes.

As for the second, a bonus to the parameter is a good idea, but given the lack of chains, this is not enough — at least 2 units of parameters should be offered at once (for example, +1/+1 to sorcery and knowledge). From a strategist's point of view, the main criterion justifying the existence of a particular skill should be its attractiveness, expressed in the fact that by leveling it up, the hero receives substantial (rather than symbolic and situational) advantages.

Basically Occultism works like this. On expert you get:
- 50% magic penetration (this penetrates Magic resistance AND magic protection, tested and verified multiple times which is awesome!)
- 6 spell power
- Warlocks get 15% elemental damage bonus when using chains.

Perks are devided in 3 columns. Basically one can get either the middle one or one of the other 2 plus "empowered spell".
Column one (Consume corpse -> cultmaster) They are ment for heroes who has low knowledge and need mana. This is one way to have it :). Hero also get mages per week which is also magic related.
Column three (dark Ritual -> Pariah) Pariah increase the effectiveness of Dark spells by 5. Combined with occultism this makes dark spells 8 spellpower points more efficient which is big! The first perk "Dark ritual" is weak so it compensates for Pariah bonus. Basically this three is dedicated for Dark Spell users.
Column two (Magic heroes) (Empowred spell -> Excorcism -> Distract) basically Exorcism is weak because Distract and Empowred spells are very strong. This tree just adds average non specialization utility in case you dont know what enemy you will face.

Column two (Warlocks) (Empowred spell -> Elemental Vision -> Rage of elements) - For Warlocks this is pure destruction tree. It adds loads of damage.

Regarding the shatters, I note that the fundamental flaw in the design of these skills is that it's an attempt to hit one small nail with a bunch of different hammers simultaneously. It's fine when you take 1 or 2 counter-perks (which work on a "counter or nothing" principle). But when there are many such perks and all are effectively aimed at countering exactly one thing (and doing nothing else), this is a significant problem.

Such skills are practically impossible to make appealing as long as all these perks remain counters. Yes, you can add some elementals somewhere in the city as a bonus, but that looks like an attempt to save a hopeless skill that is essentially too specialized to be in demand.

Not far from thruth but have in mind the following things.
- In PvP you know who you will face because Tavern points to the type of hero of your opponent. Each Faction has 2 native schools so you can pick a protection against one of the two. In most cases magic heroes start with one predifined school so it is even easier to predict.
- Shatters protect against PvE spells. If you have a throng of Archamges guarding your portal, Expert shatter destruction will do a great deal of help preventing casualties. Difference between Might and Magic is that Might utilize creatures while magic utilize the hero. might heroes need to protect their army through the PvE so it can be bigger for the PvP. In PvP I always pick at least one shatter and the statistics says that in 90% of the cases it was the right one ( in the other cases the enemy just didnt pick school).
- You are right that elementals idea is just an attempt to make the skill a little bit more useful outside PvP. But despite it sounds boring actually it works pretty good. I think @Magnomagus reduced it on RC6 because it was too strong. Dont forget that every race has native elemental. The more shatters you have globally (between all heroes) the more native elementals you get.

At the moment, I see the best solution to the shatter problem as the simultaneous implementation of 2 points:

1) the shatter skill itself should be a counter (full) only at the basic level, while developed and expert levels should offer full combat bonuses to the hero without additional shatters (for example, +1/+2 to troop initiative); effectively, this removes 2 redundant counter-perks in favor of 1 more appealing counter-perk

2) the trio of shatter perks (containment, weakening, and corruption) should be in one branch (basic level 1 perk and 2 advanced level 2 perks stemming from it), while the other 2 bases should again be occupied by combat perks (like storm wind and secrets of light); effectively, this will provide more freedom to play a shatter school as a full-fledged combat school, where the focus is not at all on narrow specialized shatters

Otherwise, distributing shatters to all classes will most likely only annoy players, given the certain degree of randomness in skill acquisition (and the possibility of severely ruining one's build with bad rolls). After all, you can waste up to 6 levels on this nonsense, gaining almost nothing when fighting neutrals, and in the final battle, with bad luck (or poor scouting), absolutely nothing.

If shatters did what you want everybody would pick them. We were forced to reduce initiative of some skills/perks or just made them harder to get because stacking initiative breaks the game (works exponentially on creature usefulness).
Take for example Mumies, Zombies and Golems. It does not matter how strong they are because they are so slow that they are not useful.
As opposite example you can check Sylvan Dragon (initiative reduced by 1) and Titans + initiative creature artifact.

Quote:
Mass Spells will now reset ATB to 0.1
This is great, but why not to 0?

Not sure what was Magnomagus idea behind this.
Basically the default duration for blesses and curses is set to 1 turn + 0.1*spellpower. So with 30 spell power a bless will last 4 rounds.
I think the idea is a hero who has no spellpower to be able to cast the bless before it ends.

Quote:
while sorcery will give a 12% ATB boost per mastery level
Strange decision, previous figures of 10/20/30% sound more elegant and do not look weak (for magic-oriented heroes).

The problem with magic heroes was that in PvP it does not matter how strong they are. In full fledgded 7 creatures vs 7 creautres battle they act rarely and the battle is over quite fast before they can actually do something.The global idea for Magic heroes is to be much more active on the field than Might heroes.
This stacks very well with the new default durations for curses and blesses.
It also makes Destruction heroes more powerful on the end game as they can take more advantage from destruction spells perks (stun, freeze, defense reduction). Same goes for summoning in general.

Quote:
slave market selling price = 45% + 5% per marketplace.
Very little. Why not consider an idea where the sale of creatures is at a higher rate than the purchase? i.e., you build goblins, buy them out, sell them and come out ahead in money (but losing the ability to get those goblins into your army). For example, 100% + 50% per marketplace.

There was a possible abuse with Shatters and elmentals. With old settings one can sell elemetals for 800 gold each, make a lot of gold easily and swarm the enemy.
Have in mind that Stronghold heroes get levels much faster than other factions due to the experience gained from Magic Shrines. A player can easily make 6 heroes with 2 shatters each and swarm elementals in cities. Than he sells them and the game is more or less over ;).

Finally, 2 wishes.
Quote:
All creature abilities that have probabilities have now extended descriptions that give some useful examples for evaluating the actual strength of the ability.
This does not solve the problem of the inconvenient weak formula from the original Heroes V developers. In my opinion, the best solution would be to tie the chance of an ability triggering to the ratio of attack damage / total health of the target. i.e., if the attack kills 20% of creatures, then the chance of the ability triggering is 20%. Everything is simple and obvious. Of course, this may be very difficult technically, but if such a possibility is ever found, it would be magnificent.

The same applies to the calculation of unit sorcery. A linear dependence on number is highly desirable, rather than a failing logarithmic one. As a mathematician, I see no serious justification for applying complex non-linear formulas where they are simply not needed. The player should be able to evaluate the sorcery power of a unit without a calculator and external tables. Naturally, if this is technically possible.

We want those things too! But unfortunately they are hardcoded in the exe file.

Cheers!