Posts from Wind of Change

Hey there, heroes. I'll write in English first, then try to translate it into Russian.

[ENG]:
I think our beloved game needs changes. As it was said by Maretti a couple of years ago, the game became "Heroes of town portal, fly and dimension door". Now it is getting too annoying.
As for me it is discussable if there is any point in playing the game with such a big disbalance. The reason this disbalance is not standable now is because there has been a huge growth of skill, even in novices' gameplay. We can see many pointless hours spent on heroes where the result is determined only by getting Dimension Door in players' guild mages. It's frustrating if you feel you play a really good game but the result is actually determined before the start of the game.
I still have in my mind my games with Stinger and Caliban. I played well but I know that not even the computer algorithm making best moves would have had any chances to beat me on that map. It's a dark side of Heroes 3 which should be overcome finally.

My intention is to induce a discussion which will result in inevitable changes (at least to XL+U templates). I have a couple of proposals to discuss over:
1. One can obtain control spells only through special 6th level of guild mage. No control in utopias, no control in pandoras, warriors' tombs and any other sources except for guild mage. The control spells should have its own price and the player can decide which spell he chooses. Primarily: DD, TP and fly all cost 30 resources each.
2. Eliminate logistics and speed boots (especially on mirrors).
3. You can use dimension door once a day per hero only with expert water/fire/air.

These are only exemplary proposals. It wasn't deeply overthought by me – I want these sample changes to become bases for a bigger discussion.

[RUS]:
I think our beloved game needs changes. As Maretti said 2 years ago, the game became "Heroes of town portal, fly and dimension door". Now it's already too annoying.
In my opinion, it's debatable whether there is any point in playing Heroes when they are so unbalanced. The reason this imbalance is now considered unacceptable is the very high growth of skill among all players, even novices. You can see games that last many hours where the outcome is determined by getting DD in the Mage Guild. It only causes frustration when you actually played great but, as I already said – the score of the game was decided before it started.

I still have games with Stinger and Caliban in the team tournament between countries stuck in my head. I played well, but I know that not even the algorithm making the best moves in place of my opponents would have beaten me. This is the dark side of Heroes 3, and it's time to overcome it.

The point of my post is to start a discussion that will lead to inevitable changes (at least for XL+U templates). I have a few proposals:
1. Control can only be obtained through a special 6th level of the Mage Guild. No control in utopias, pandoras, tombs, or 5th-level MGs (does not apply to Jebus Cross). Control can only be obtained through the 6th level. These spells should have a fairly high cost — about 30 of all resources, and you have the option to choose one of the three control spells.
2. Remove logistics and speed boots from the game (especially needed for mirror templates).
3. You can use DD once a day per hero only if you have expert magic (fire/water/air).

These are just sample proposals for changes. I haven't thought them through deeply; I want these proposals to become the start of a big discussion.

Wojciech, what kind of grass were you smoking?

Voytek, what kind of grass were you smoking?

Lately, I've been playing Heroes a lot, and it's the worst one.

I wish I could play XL right now without CoolStoryBob interfering.

An alternative direction for multiplayer is custom-made maps.

I wish we could play XL right now without CoolStoryBob controlling everything.

Kostya, did you read my post? I didn't even suggest something like that.

I suggest renaming the thread to Dimension Door.

Otherwise, I like the direction of the ideas; just don't worry that we'll be thinking about it for a very long time.
In HotU, such perks will take ten years to get through, and SoD is useless regarding balance whether they are there or not. So, this topic is very difficult in terms of achieving a satisfactory result.
And multiply all this by the fact that balance-polishers are usually very lazy people themselves and are unlikely to program what they dream of; meaning the topic is difficult even in dreams, and as for turning it into reality, who knows how or when.
But I welcome the discussion; in my opinion, the problem does exist as well. Maybe we'll come up with something.

Voytek, here you go: heroeswt.net

Voytek, here you go: heroeswt.net ))

"News about the World Tournament

04/15/2013 - version 0.54 released"

Yeah, that's true. Playing a completely dead game is just what the doctor ordered.

Something else about HotA came to mind. I think that on many maps, the game would be better if it started with two stacks. On x3dm1, definitely not, as there are 6k guards, but on others, I would consider it.

Currently, the only way to improve the game balance is to generate and select a map for a third-party game.

Do you remember the WCL league? It banned air control, logistics heroes, necromancy, and Conflux. Where is it now? It has faded into oblivion.

I generally agree with Poleka's approach regarding everything, except for removing the 2D damage ability. I think the Air Expert should retain the 2D damage ability.

Lol guys, I probably wrote something incorrectly in Russian, so I'll explain:
These are a series of suggestions. And they are just examples. It's clear that I don't want to implement all of them at once. It's possible that we shouldn't implement any of these suggestions. The main goal of this post is to spark a discussion.

This game will not become an esport, no matter how hard you try, and is it even necessary? Leveling the playing field for gaining control and limiting its use is fine. But what about the number of objects? And what about hero leveling? Heroes is a fun game; strategically moving your units is enjoyable. Even if you were to twist things and balance everything perfectly, I think it would become a different game, and most people would simply stop playing it because it would be boring. Perhaps this is what happened with WCL, as Davos mentioned above. But it is truly frustrating when you get a map that is heavily biased towards a single player, with a path through a snowy, impassable area leading to an unknown location. The possibility of such map generation is truly disheartening, and I would like to see changes, as was done in HotA (or maybe not, that's what makes SoD more challenging). IMHO.

Added 22 minutes later
I'll add this. I recently played h3dm1, and by the end of the second week, none of the heroes I was leveling up had acquired Earth magic, which was very important because teleportation was given relatively quickly in GM (yes, I'm a noob – 3-4 heroes above level 10, giving fire, water, and air, but not Earth). The game turns into "if you don't get Earth magic, you lose!" But in SoD, on a mirror map, it's "find a Necromancer in the tavern." But there are many games where you can show off your skills by finding the right moment to attack, using the advantage of having more support units with flying creatures, and so on... in general, making the right decision at the right moment

The idea of making control acquisition or application more difficult has a fundamental flaw: it causes the game duration to increase, and it's already not short. Therefore, in Heroes, the main focus was on adding new control spells to Fire and Water, while leaving the existing ones untouched or slightly weakening them (e.g., making them slightly more expensive in mana or movement points, reducing the range of direct damage, or limiting the number of teleports per day, etc.). Another idea was to give wings a basic Fly ability instead of an expert one. In other words, the goal was to ensure that control is acquired within the same timeframe (or even faster), but that having control doesn't create such a significant tempo gap compared to those who don't have it yet.