Posts from MMH5.5 - Heroes of Might and Magic 5.5 Auto-translated

With Lua you can create as many classes you like and assign them different set of skills.

You can create new perks but you are restricted to what Heroes 5 functions can offer.

I forgot to share this thread with you. This is where you can get in depth answers about scripts.

But if results will resurrect my dreams about modding, I will try.

There are so much things that can be done about Heroes V modding but it takes time and effort.
Here are just to name a few that we want to do:

- add Heroes 3 uber creatures like Azure dragon, Fairie dragon, Crystal dragon etc.. but I dont have the creature skin. If anyone is willing to make the textures I can take care of the rest - creature stats, skills, I know how to add them in special sites only and not appear on the map etc..

- Include ninth faction - Actually we already have the faction ready - it just needs some design polish - for example City is static and does not change when you build buildings. The author is working still on some improvements but it is a cumbersome job. Also a need for a very good hex editor /reverse engineer is required to make the ninth town possible.
Note: I know that Quantomas has the code for 3.0 which he edited and added the improved AI. I believe he can add 9th city but so far we haven't got any real work from him.

- Gather all existing NCF creatures - At the moment I am working on a new NCF package but I need all available NCf creatures that were ever made which I cant gather on my own. If anyone is willing to contribute they are welcome.

- Make quality NCF creatures - Any new creatures that are original in design and stats and abilities are welcome anytime.

There are probably a lot more stuff to do actually I believe people around here have a lot of original ideas probably pair up with someone one man cannot do it all :).

With Lua you can create as many classes you like and assign them different set of skills.

You can create new perks but you are restricted to what Heroes 5 functions can offer.

I forgot to share this thread with you. This is where you can get in depth answers about scripts.


There are so much things that can be done about Heroes V modding but it takes time and effort.
Here are just to name a few that we want to do:

- add Heroes 3 uber creatures like Azure dragon, Fairie dragon, Crystal dragon etc.. but I dont have the creature skin. If anyone is willing to make the textures I can take care of the rest - creature stats, skills, I know how to add them in special sites only and not appear on the map etc..

- Include ninth faction - Actually we already have the faction ready - it just needs some design polish - for example City is static and does not change when you build buildings. The author is working still on some improvements but it is a cumbersome job. Also a need for a very good hex editor /reverse engineer is required to make the ninth town possible.
Note: I know that Quantomas has the code for 3.0 which he edited and added the improved AI. I believe he can add 9th city but so far we haven't got any real work from him.

- Gather all existing NCF creatures - At the moment I am working on a new NCF package but I need all available NCf creatures that were ever made which I cant gather on my own. If anyone is willing to contribute they are welcome.

- Make quality NCF creatures - Any new creatures that are original in design and stats and abilities are welcome anytime.

There are probably a lot more stuff to do actually I believe people around here have a lot of original ideas probably pair up with someone one man cannot do it all :).

Time and effort... I don`t have much time, effort I absolutely have no. (Sorry for mistakes, I have school course of English).
Ninth faction - that`s my favorite wish. New faction with primary skill, abilities, specialisations...
Creatures are no interested for me.
I will try to learn to work with the scripts and possibly people will see new interesting mods.
Thank you for useful links!

Your English is good :). Good luck with modding !

"Heroes 5.5" mod review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BqaiXkxPvM

Thank you :)

I watched a review of the mod, and I liked almost everything related to the interface and visuals; great job! However, I also want to note what I didn't like (areas that could be improved), specifically in the skill tree: 1) 8-10-12% skills – there's almost no difference in the benefits gained; effectively, these are all 10% skills (plus or minus 2%), and they should be considered equally accessible (9 easily accessible skills per class). How to improve it: switch from 12-10-8-4 to a system like 18-10-5-2 or 16-11-6-2; this would create a much better difference between the specialized groups. Why this is important: you have 24 hero classes, not 8. If the skill profiles are not specialized enough, many classes will be too similar to each other. 2) Many similar classes, especially in the specialized group (chaos + summoning + spellcasting + occultism + education): Druid, Warlock, Elementalist, Flamekeeper. More attention should be paid to the fundamental differences between classes of different races. 3) I don't like the distribution of debuff skills to non-orc races, but that's a matter of taste. However, what definitely raises questions are the following perks in the debuff skills: - Celestial Shield in the Chaos debuff; - Fire Protection as a stepping stone to Storm Wind (in my opinion, it would be better as a final perk in the Chaos debuff); - Reflection and Resistance in the Darkness debuff – these perks clearly don't fit there. At the same time, why is Cursed Land moved to Darkness magic instead of the debuff? 4) "Attack" skill: - Fire Arrows don't fit (either move them to the machinery skill or remove them from the tree altogether), but what to give after shooting instead of them is a difficult question (maybe give nothing?). - Attacking Healer is too weak for dwarves; you could try increasing the Power of dwarven dragons by 3 times, which would allow you to get a good bonus around them, thereby strengthening the perk, but even better – remove this perk from the tree and come up with something else, not as boring as +2 to attack. For example, +1 to initiative (using scripts). - Ranged Attack, it is suggested to increase it to 25%. - The skill itself, it would be logical to increase it to 10/17.5/25%, similar to defense (the 5% step is too weak). 5) "Defense" skill: - Defensive Healer, the same as with the attacking healer, it would be best to give "Readiness" here (without penalties). - Master Smith, test the functionality and clarify the description; what kind of magic does the protection come from? As far as I remember, there is only one 15% perk for universal magic protection; the rest are more specialized (like protection from Chaos magic, protection from the Chaos magic of the enemy hero, or protection from magic only for orcs). In general, the magic protection branch is not very appealing; a perk like +10% to health would look better. 6) "Luck" skill: - Critical Hit should be renamed to Critical Luck and given a good bonus (instead of 1.66 x 1.1, give 1.66 x 1.2 = 2.0); otherwise, the perk is very weak. - Curse of the Dead: -1 to luck is too weak for a final perk; it would be better to have "Luck Stealer" +1 to luck. 7) "Leadership" skill: - Aura of Speed doesn't fit here; it would be better to move it to logistics. Instead, it would be logical to give the "Retribution" perk from the attack skill (but then you would have to come up with something for the attack skill). - "Battle to the Last" looks strange coming from "Prayer"; I would swap "Battle to the Last" with "Recruitment," and have "Inspiration" come from "Prayer." - Recruitment, it would be better to have something more useful in combat instead of this nonsense, and remove it from the tree (as an option, in my mod, I gave +X% to the size of the current army of the hero each day/week for this perk). 8) "Spellcasting" skill – 12/24/36% is too strong (on expert difficulty, the hero effectively casts spells 1/0.64 = almost 1.6 times more often! This is a lot and disproportionate to the bonuses to spellcasting). 9) "Logistics" skill: - There is not a single combat perk, except for the situational +3 to speed during sieges. I would rework logistics so that all its perks give combat bonuses related to initiative or speed, or penalize enemy heroes in initiative/speed, or some interesting activated abilities like stealing artifacts on the map (similar to stealth from Heroes 4). 10) "Combat" skill: - Thorns armor (+1 to attack and defense) is completely out of place; you need something else, or nothing at all. - Readiness: it would look better in defense, but in any case, the strange -2 to attack penalty raises questions; are you sure it's even needed there? 11) "Occultism" skill: - Distraction is too weak for a final perk (I would increase it to 20%). 12) "Gate Opening" skill: it will most likely be too weak in its current form, because the demon spends too much tempo on summoning reinforcements (75% of the turn) and summons too few (15-25%): - Master of Gates is especially weak (only +5%). 13) "Necromancy" skill: - Emissary of Darkness (weakening enemy Darkness) is not thematically related to Banshee's Scream; this is a filler perk for a place where there may not even be an additional perk. 14) "Master of Artifacts" skill: - The perks "Suppression of Light" after "Magic Mirror" and "Academic Reward" after "Absorption of Artifact" look out of place, and "Power over Machines" would be better in the golem branch. 15) "Knowledge of Runes" skill: - The "Runic Knowledge" perk (level up +2 knowledge) is not thematically appropriate here; in general, this type of perk should be a final one, not a stepping stone, because with sufficient late-game leveling, it allows you to have a very beneficial effect. 16) "Battle Cries" skill: - The "Tribal Teachings" perk (level up +2 knowledge) is not thematically appropriate here; it is more suitable for education, as it is related to level-ups. The next point is that many new heroes have been added to the game, but many specializations have become duplicated. In addition, most of the other heroes look ugly (portraits) or don't fit the visual style! In my opinion, more strict attention should be paid to the selection of icons for new heroes, as this could be a fly in the ointment for the beautiful visuals that were implemented in MMH5.5 for other things! It is better not to add a hero than to add a poorly drawn hero. Following the principle of "do no harm." Also, the author of the video review noted that spellbooks have become too large, and I agree with him – you should not change the scale of the original spellbooks.

Hello Nargott,

Here is a summary of the questions along with answers.

1) Question: Chance to get skills are similar?

Yes they are nearly similar but this does not mean all heroes will be build the same because there are no skills which overpower other skills.
It is true that secondary skill efficiency will varry depending on the race and hero primary stats distribution but remember that skill choices also depend on what hero the enemy have picked.
It is better to sacrifice player vs monster secondary skills for player vs player ones.

Also imagine the skill tree the other way around: There are 12 skills divided in 4 groups where chance to get skill from that group is 18%-10%-5%-2%. Every game that you play with that hero you will always get the first 6 skills as they are favored by 80% chance.
Wouldn't that remove the human decision from the hero build?

2) Question: similar classes, especially Druid, Warlock, Elementalist, Flamekeeper, no difference between classes.

Variation in Magic classes is a little less than the Might or Balanced classes because for dedicated spell classes:
- Starting primary points and %stats should be devided between spellpower and knowledge mostly and you cant have hero starting with 0 knowledge (unlike Might classes where heroes can start with 0 attack or defense).
- The pool of secondary skills is smaller for them as they do not have shatters or specialized might skills (war machines, combat).

What I have found out during playing the game is that the extra pinch of variation comes from the race specifics the hero is combined with.
The alternative upgrades help a lot in making different strategies that are aided in magic.

3) Question: Shatter skills for heroes of non-stronghold races is blasphemy.

I agree with you. Lorewise and feelwise for someone who has played the original game and especially scenarios is probably the biggest crap he can meet with in this mod. There is no reason to justify it.
The only thing I can do is to explain the thought process behind the change. You decide if it worths or not.

First, "Heroes V" core idea revolves around "Heroes 4" hero skill system. Each hero class has a unique starting skill which is considered his main strength.
(Note: There are 2 duplications in Haven and Necropolis factions - Knight and Death Knight, Heretic and Reaver, this are Undead versions of the living ones.)
Each hero within that class is considered unique by his specialization.
Primary skills are divided in two groups Might (attack and defense) and Magic (Spellpower and knowledge).
Secondary skills are divided in three groups Might, Magic and Utility (Luck, logistics, enlightenment). Some might skills are restricted to might class only, Some magic skills are for magic heroes only and utility skills are available to everyone.
Classes divide in 3 categories - Might, Balanced and Magic where each class primary stats gain rate is 75% for the favored primary stats group or 50/50% for the balanced class.
Some faction classes are a little tilted one side or the other depending on their lore.

Most of the heroes franchise games are one sided in choices once you know them. Heroes 3 players buy Craghack when they play castle or Orin if they play Academy just because the synergy between them and the races is so much better than any of the faction owned heroes.
This means if they are 2 players who do play perfect (I have heard Russian players are very good in H3) will hope on early game chance to be the winners at the end. Craig hack bonus damage is just enormous compared to most of the other heroes.
In MMH55 Heroes had to be balanced to some extent so first we had to balance the core Might vs Magic.
Primary stats change helped a lot, reducing attack and defense skills bonus from 5% to 3.33% slowed the pace of the battle so the casters actually had time to cast magic before the battle ended.
At this point when the magic is boosted enough to be a valid choice another issue arise that changes balance. Magic damage/effects cannot be countered. Attack can be countered with defense but spell damage is pure.
So what Magnomagus did is add the shatters into the pool of Might heroes secondary skill classes so they can counter Magic heroes and disrupt their game.
For example if you get a heavy Magic class with Destruction get sorcery, occultism, enlightenment, Luck + Caster's luck you can roll over everything. This is one of the easiest builds I propose to beginners that want to play magic.
When such Magic hero and Might hero fight the battle is over about half the time before the end because the Might hero relies mostly on his army. The smaller it gets the lesser the damage it do. On the other hand The magic hero damage potential is 100% throughout the whole battle so if both army are reduced proportionally it is the Magic hero who will win.
Thus the idea of Shatters is born. When you play PvP tavern scouting is essential to know what is the enemy primary hero and if it is magic class to figure out what magic does he has available.
You are correct that Magic classes are similar and have access to all Magic schools but each faction is bound to 2 schools and gets high tier spells only from them so this filters up a bit the Shatter choices you do.
It is not all good though, shatters help in PvP but slow down PvE. Also Shatters are not meant to be useful only in the end game this is why the perks you mentioned (Celestial shield, Storm wind).

For "Shatter Light", "protection from fire" is not the last one deliberately as Shatter Light is the weakest Shatter of all as the spells it negates do not cause direct impact to your army so we decided to give a little bonus for other school along the way. Also lorewise looks neat ;).
I believe something can be said for Shatter dark and "Resistance" and "Protection" but as there is no lore for shatters in their current form we decided to make our own versions of them.

Tier 3 "Corrupted soil" somehow fits very well in Dark Magic for me. Something like dark energy aura that goes with the hero that makes the enemy suffer. A matter of personal choice I guess.

4) Question: Offense skill and perk tree changes.

The new perk distribution in general is meant to branch skills thematically. Offense include three branches - Tactics, Damage and Archery.
Fire arrows in Offense because there is no way how to put it in War machines and still be useful with tripple balista (which everyone likes).
With the current distribution balista can get even stronger than before as due to the new perk path the hero can get triple shot balista with 13 initiative and Fire arrows which scales very well even at month 6. Of course it require quite some skill points investment.
Lorewise it is ok as it fits the archery branch.

Offensive formation - the maximum bonus that dwarves can get of this skill is +6 and when the difference between stack sizes and tiers is great. As this skill is not working on other races we decided to give 50% of that to the other heroes.
If you calculate the difference it is near the same as the biggest difference is +6 but not for all the units and not all the time. Some of them may have 0 so the discrepancy is neglectable.

- "archery" and "Offense" increased to 25% - They were reduced on purpose because the pace of the battle was too fast. As you said in a previous post "Offense" and "Defense" scale globally on top of all bonuses -> ( (creature_damage)*modifiers*(attack - defense difference))*OFFENSE
- Defense is stronger to make the battle last longer. This is under review actually and it can be reduced.

5) Question: Defense skill and perk tree changes.

Defense perk tree is divided in 3 categories - tactics, physical damage reduction, Magical damage reduction.

Defensive formation - The same as "offensive formation" answer
Magic reduction branch - The second skill is "luck of the barbarian". It is actually a bugged skill in TOE which does what it says now. [originaly it says - Luck of the Barbarian - The hero's army gets +5% Magic Proof for every point of Luck (only available to Barbarians). Provided by Magic Resistance.]
The total sum of reduction of both skills is 35% which is a lot! I had a game where I went full Shatter dark + damage reduction against full destruction hero and it went very well in my favor.
Also i got some easy battles against mages on the map :). It depends on what are you playing against and what do you need.

6) Question: Luck skill and perk tree changes.
Luck is divided in branches - Army luck, spell protection, spell utility.

- Critical strike name and bonus - Name is up to personal taste. It was magnomagus choice so nothing to say here. Luck was changed from 2x for good luck and 0.5x for bad luck to 1.66x and 0.6 to slow the pace of the game. The skill is just as strong as Offense for example.
Offense gives 20% damage. +3 luck is calculated to give roughly +20% damage to the whole army. (in 10 hits 3 will be with bonus damage. If damage is X. 7*x + 3*1.66*x =~ 11.98x which is 20% more than 10x.
Critical strike increase luck damage by 10% which increase the damage boost from 20% to 35%. You have 1 perk that gives the bonus of Advanced Luck.
- Curse of the Dead: -1 Luck - There are no final perks here. Just branches of perks. There are strong perks which are reached by getting weaker ones. Curse of dead is ok. It makes enemy Expert luck to Advanced. Meanwhile along the way the hero benefits from some nice magic resistances.
This is very good branch against any magician.

7) Question: Leadership skill and perk tree changes.

Leadership is Might class skill. It is a skill useful for main heroes but recruitment perk makes it one of the excellent choices for governors.
I call the branches - the pious leader (prayer + last stand), the warlord (middle one), the negotiator(Diplomacy + empathy).

Aura of speed vs Retribution - Leadership perk tree was made of what we could fit it. Retribution is a skill that lives on its own. All units have +2 default morale which retribution utilizes. Retribution gives damage so it goes to Offense.
Retribution in leadership will be way too powerful because it will overshadow the other perk choices. this skill path will give 25% bonus damage on its own without counting the morale effect!!!

The idea is the following. If a player wants to get that nice bonus he has to invest in both skills. He will get the damage but he will spend a lot of points thus making him not pick shatters or defense or both due to the build he do.
As I said there should be no best strategies in the game.

Lorewise, "Aura of speed" fits nice into Leadership. The hero inspires the army so much that the troops make an extra mile to be worthy. Leadership is all about inspiration ;).

Last stand - I cannot say if it is strage or not. This skill must not be tier 1 in any occasion because it makes creature grinding very easy early on.
get a stack of archers and make 6 stacks with 2 units each. Surround the archers with you units and it is possible that your arrows end before the enemy melee units can reach you.
My opinion for the lore is that the hero is devoted to the Dragon of Light that it grants his troops a second chance. But as I said this is up to a personal taste.
Recruitment - This skill is both useless and useful. For the main hero it is the weak perk towards the very strong "Aura of speed". For the secondary heroes it is awesome skill as it makes your castles produce more army.
Furthermore if the hero is governor, recruitment synergies with the governor creature bonus per week. Also there is an artifact that doubles the recruitment bonus.

Actually this is a part of the economics handling in the game.
Governor reference -> http://www.moddb.com/mods/might-magic-heroes-55/tutorials/mmh55-governance

8) Question: Sorcery is too strong 1.6 times often casting
Check the spell book and mana costs ask yourself what mana pool the hero needs to endure the whole battle. I have had fights where hero with 200 mana losses the battle due to being out of it.
Knowledge is just as important as spellpower. This is why there are a lot of knowledge perks here and there. If you want mana, you go and get them.

9) Question: Logistics does not have skills for battle.
This is utility skill. It is not meant to be useful in battle. Logistics win games before the battle itself. It allows you to get more stuff before the opponent - more castles, fight more creatures, gain more experience.
It actually allows you to fight the opponent player before he wants to fight with you. MMH55 have PEST mod integrated and everyone I have played (or I know that play) competitive uses it.
This allows 2 players to act their turn at the same time while their heroes occupy the same area. Logistics is really helpful here. It gives you the mobility to chase or run.
Scouting is very important in that matter as it help you see the enemy before he sees you.
The stealing of artifacts from the map is not possible due to using the 3.0 build and some of the 3.1 LUA commands does not exist.

FYI: Globaly (artifacts, skills, spells) initiative bonuses are very heavily reduced(or removed on some place) as they multiply all other bonuses (primary skills, offense, defense, it helps eat retaliations etc..) thus for example 10% bonus initiative provide is way higher than it looks.

10) Question: Combat skill and perk tree changes.
Combat - except the retaliation bonus that was part of the skill before this is completely new tree as a look and feel to the player. The idea of this tree is the make the Hero useful in combat as he was the 8th unit.

- Armor spikes - true this was made to fill in a gap.FYI each perk price is about 2 primary stat skills. Wherever a perk feels stronger it has a weaker one along thew way. If we find something better it will be changed.

- Preparation - "Combat" gives retaliation bonus and "Preparation" gives the units the ability to retaliate before the enemy hit. Defense or combat ? actually the same as both provide synergy but
unlike "Combat", "Defense" provides much higher synergy as it helps units survive longer thus retaliate more for way more damage. This make the perk cost way more than 2 primary skill points.
This way it is put in Combat under tier 3. The player now needs to invest 6 points in Combat, 5 points in Defense to get maximum efficiency. This renders him to spent a lot of points just for defense and not for other skills ( Magic, protection from magic, Offense, Utility skills etc..)
Even with that penalty it was still strong so this is why it has -2 attack nerf.

11) Question: Occultism - Distract can be buffed to 20%?

the whole "Distract" branch is very strong (you mentioned it at question 2)) as it favors very potent spell damage/efficiency(+50% damage of spells, Bonus spellpower - a total of +10 for summoning and +8 for destruction). It will be unwise to make it even stronger. If you go as high as there you either can get distract or some mana recovery perks, we have to keep the choice fair.

12) Question: Gating is weak, it summons too less troops?

This was very very heavily tested by a couple of players both against PvE and PvP. I mean full blown games on big maps from start to end and against different faction and classes.
Original idea of gating was very bad as everything seemed very static and fumble. You gate and once you do it the gated units appear and just wait and do nothing for some time. It does not feel like offensive race.
Also gating in heroes V was very strong if the opponent just sits and wait for the enemy to gate everything. Probably nobody really noticed it because it compensated to some extent the fact the Inferno was the weakest race.
It had terrible early game and just one good hero -> Deleb.

FYI:this is a list of all changes in the mod. Just take a look at Inferno changes they are all buffs.

Now gated units will act after 1.25 turns after gating compared to 2 turns beforehand. This is almost 40% increased acting time. This is 40% less time for the enemy to kill the units.
Also the units act immediately after they are summoned which gives even less time for reaction to the enemy. This also gives the ability to use the summons to get a lot of retaliations for free (because they are summons).
I have tested it and can say it is still very very viable strategy especially if mixed with some skills. Also the new tier 3 is very nice as it fits perfectly the chaotic nature.
Basically summons are cut exactly in half. All other bonuses from perks or bases follow the same path so proportionally it is the same strength buff to the skill.

13) Question: Skill "Necromancy" and perk tree changes:
- "Emissary of Darkness" is a stub and not really relevant to Necromancy - You are correct it was a stub we need to fill in. Before that we used the "Haunted mines" but it was very abusable in multiplayer game.
If we can find anything better it will be replaced.

14) Question: Skill "Artificier" and perk tree changes:
- "Suppression of Light" after "Magic Mirror" and "Academic Award" after "The Absorption of the Artifact" look nontematic - Same answer as for "Emissary of Darkness"
- "Power over Machines" better goes to the branch with golems - Actually this is really neat idea. Not sure why Magnomagus did it this way. I will suggest it for the next update.

15) Runelore skill and perk tree changes:
- Skill "Runic Knowledge" (+2 knowledge and free leve up) should be t3 for a possible abuse later - Actually this is why it is not tier 3. This skill is meant for heroes who need knowledge for a longer spell casting during combat. All perks should cost about 2 primary skill points and it already gives 2 knowledge. But as knowledge is a little less in power there is a bonus of level up to it. It is not meant for abuse.
You can try though but it is possible to mess your build. Also in MMH55 there will not be any way to unlearn skills. The Memory mentor will be replaced in the next mod iteration with a new special building.

16) "Shouting" skill and perk tree changes:
- Perk "Tribal teachings" (+2 and level up) is unmatched here - this is one of the skills that is meant to get for knowledge. "Shouting" is the only tree that relates to casting any magic for barbarians, they get just 10% of the time knowledge so it is good to have multiple choices for knowledge if you want to go that way.
Check the spellbook the Official manual. There are a lot of mana cost changes in the "Shout" department as well.

Most of the new heroes were taken from Heroes 6 and heroes 4. We are not designers so we cant make anything from scratch so we did our best. I know that to the keen eye it look really ugly but this is as best as we could push it for the smallest effort.
We are accepting anyone who want to contribute especially with design where we lack people and knowledge (credit to Xuxo, TheGryphn and Belizarius that gave a lot of their time). The ideal we follow is to make the game as close to an official expansion.
I believe you have a good eye for graphics and I am sorry it does not feel right.

Duplicate hero specializations are on a couple occasions and they relate heroes in different classes and factions, primary skills gain and starting skills.

Spellbook is too large ? - I am not sure if we have done such change (or at least I dont know of such one). can you point the time in the video so I can take a look?

All the effort thrown in this mod is enormous and done by a lot of people (probably around 50 contributers in different areas both from heroescommunity and heroesworld).
The mod is still in development but some things take a lot of time. Probably not so much if we do it on a full day basis but we all do it as a side thing in our free time which is scarce.

Thank you for your questions they were very on point. I enjoyed answering them and hope that I have provided enough information. Let me know if anything is not clear enough or want to elaborate further.

Cheers!

2dredknight

Also imagine the skill tree the other way around: There are 12 skills divided in 4 groups where chance to get skill from that group is 18%-10%-5%-2%. Every game that you play with that hero you will always get the first 6 skills as they are favored by 80% chance.
Wouldn't that remove the human decision from the hero build?

2% skill: up to level 21, the general chance to catch the skill is about 45% (0.65/0.67 ^ 20 = 0.55; 0.67 means that on average we have several skills filled with a total weight of 33%, i.e., 2% is chosen from the remaining 67%)
3% skill: about 60%
4% skill: about 71%
5% skill: about 79%
6% skill: about 85%
8% skill: about 92%
10% skill: about 96%
11% skill: about 97%
12% skill: about 98%
16% skill: about 100%
18% skill: about 100%

That is, starting from 5%, the chance to catch the desired skill is fundamentally high enough (over 80%), but still, with a significant difference in chances, there will be a noticeable difference in how quickly a skill is caught (at early levels).

- Starting primary points and %stats should be devided between spellpower and knowledge mostly and you cant have hero starting with 0 knowledge (unlike Might classes where heroes can start with 0 attack or defense).
- The pool of secondary skills is smaller for them as they do not have shatters or specialized might skills (war machines, combat).

1) All specified classes have about 45% spellpower and about 30% knowledge; it would be possible at the parameter level to give less spellpower (30%) but more knowledge (45%) in some cases
2) If wizardry is mandatory for all magic classes, then education is not (it could be moved to rare skills in some places); also, the summoning+chaos combination could be broken up by other schools of magic to reduce repetition

3) Question: Shatter skills for heroes of non-stronghold races is blasphemy.

It's not so much blasphemy as the fact that these skills are very specific/situational; it's difficult to make them attractive enough at the level of regular skills.

Magic damage/effects cannot be countered.

This is not true:
- there is magic resistance (15% chance to reflect a negative spell);
- there is reflection (15% reduction of magic damage);
- there are health bonuses (+X% to health)
- there are specialized items such as: seal of light, seal of darkness, weakness of darkness, elemental balance, banishment

If there is a problem with early adepts of Destructive and Summoning schools, it can be tried to solve differently: significantly raise the prices of top-tier spells of levels 3-5, so that they are oriented toward the late game (and require a lot of knowledge). Low-level spells deal less damage.

Fire arrows in Offense because there is no way how to put it in War machines and still be useful with tripple balista (which everyone likes).

What is not good here is that this ability actually requires upgrading war machines, otherwise it performs many times weaker. And on the other hand, when upgrading the ballista, it is very important to upgrade attack with archery/fire arrows, as the damage is multiplied. That is, it creates too tight a link between attack and war machines (ballista). However, it was like this in the original, so this is just a personal opinion.

Offensive formation - the maximum bonus that dwarves can get of this skill is +6 and when the difference between stack sizes and tiers is great. As this skill is not working on other races we decided to give 50% of that to the other heroes.
If you calculate the difference it is near the same as the biggest difference is +6 but not for all the units and not all the time. Some of them may have 0 so the discrepancy is neglectable.

+6 is the theoretical maximum (previously the maximum was higher, +10). Real bonuses will be around +1-2 on average. This is an unattractive skill; information has been verified and proven in practice (there is a special Random Tactical Arena format where players compete in builds, and no one wanted to level this skill because it performed poorly).

Magic reduction branch - The second skill is "luck of the barbarian".

Did you test this skill? In the original game, it worked only for orcs and did not protect any other creatures from magic.

Offense gives 20% damage. +3 luck is calculated to give roughly +20% damage to the whole army.

Luck is stronger, because expert Offence+Archery gives 20% damage (4 abilities), while expert Luck gives the same 20% for only 3 abilities.

Critical strike increase luck damage by 10% which increase the damage boost from 20% to 35%. You have 1 perk that gives the bonus of Advanced Luck.

With +3 luck - 20% to 30% (not 35%). With +2 luck (advanced) - 13% to 20%. The passing point is situational soldier's luck, which is not needed by everyone.

Retribution in leadership will be way too powerful because it will overshadow the other perk choices. this skill path will give 25% bonus damage on its own without counting the morale effect!!!

You weakened retribution from 5% to 2.5%; you could weaken it even further — to 2%, then the bonus will be between 4 and 10% (from +2 to +5 morale).

Lorewise, "Aura of speed" fits nice into Leadership. The hero inspires the army so much that the troops make an extra mile to be worthy. Leadership is all about inspiration

If it stays in leadership, there is an interesting idea to give +1 to initiative instead of speed. In any case, this is a "final" perk, i.e., ultimately strong (both with +1 speed and +1 initiative). Although you wanted to avoid "final" perks.
The downside of giving +1 speed is that it very strongly buffs rush tactics. Reach and kill on the first turn. +1 initiative strengthens the army overall well, but is not as useful for rushing as +1 speed. Finally, initiative is what the Leadership skill works with (triggered morale increases turn frequency, just like initiative).

Check the spell book and mana costs ask yourself what mana pool the hero needs to endure the whole battle. I have had fights where hero with 200 mana losses the battle due to being out of it.
Knowledge is just as important as spellpower. This is why there are a lot of knowledge perks here and there. If you want mana, you go and get them.

I know that Random Tactical Arena players in 100% of cases take wizardry at 10/20/30% in magic builds. That is, it is a mandatory skill that does not need strengthening. Even though mana may be insufficient (100-200), the skill still performs magnificently.

Added after 50 minutes

Combat - except the retaliation bonus that was part of the skill before this is completely new tree as a look and feel to the player. The idea of this tree is the make the Hero useful in combat as he was the 8th unit.

This skill is very, very weak. Its bonuses are effectively the same as those of Offence, but it triggers 4 times less often (since only 25% of melee damage comes from retaliation strikes).
Giving an additional +1/2/3 to defense would make it okay.
Alternatively, there is another option: before each battle, additionally grant +3/6/9 to the hero's level (numbers for example) for the duration of the fight (WarpHeroExp script). This will affect: damage from hero attack; specializations; the power of certain level-dependent spells, including calls. It will not affect the hero's parameters (even under education) or their abilities.

- Armor spikes - true this was made to fill in a gap. FYI each perk price is about 2 primary stat skills. Wherever a perk feels stronger it has a weaker one along thew way. If we find something better it will be changed.

+1/+1 to attack and defense is noticeably weaker than +2 to attack or +2 to defense.
A bonus distributed among several parameters is weaker than a bonus focused on one parameter, even if they are parameters of the same group (like attack and defense, spellpower and knowledge).
For example, if we have a warrior against a mage, a defense bonus isn't particularly needed. And if it's a mage against a warrior, an attack bonus isn't particularly needed.

Even with that penalty it was still strong so this is why it has -2 attack nerf.

Did you use readiness quite often? Are you satisfied with how it works in practice? In the original game, it was taken very rarely and without penalties (although there was an inconvenient tactics requirement there).

If you go as high as there you either can get distract or some mana recovery perks, we have to keep the choice fair.

In fact, distraction works effectively only against the enemy hero, but doesn't work much against neutrals. Moreover, if there is no wizardry or mass spells (0.1), it doesn't work at all. If there are mass spells (0.1), it works as 10%. If there is wizardry, then 12-15%. By the way, what motivates the pushback after mass spells to be 0.1 rather than 0?
Update: I remembered that distraction pushes the hero below 0, but only until the next unit's turn occurs (at that moment, the negative position on the scale is reset). So a 5-10% pushback happens anyway, even without wizardry / mass spells.

Now gated units will act after 1.25 turns after gating compared to 2 turns beforehand.

1.25 - with the upgraded basic skill, without perks? Ok, I misread the numbers (I was thinking of 1.75).
Fine, then what about the maximum percentage, why not just make it 25% at all skill levels instead of 15/20/25%? After all, expanding gating from tiers 1-2 to 1-4 and 1-6 is already a sufficient buff to the skill; 5% bonuses seem misplaced here. Especially since a 5% bonus is given by the gate master, who in the current implementation looks much weaker than simply leveling the basic skill.

But as knowledge is a little less in power there is a bonus of level up to it.

This is a design error. If you are extending the game to long durations (3 months or more), you must ensure that knowledge is as full-fledged a parameter as it is during normal durations (1-2 months). This is done by increasing the prices of top spells and/or increasing the rate of mana regeneration (which depends on knowledge).

I believe you have a good eye for graphics and I am sorry it does not feel right.

No, I don't really understand graphics — therefore, if some portraits repel even me, they might repel many other players.
All I wanted to say is to add only those heroes whose portraits clearly receive popular approval from 90% of people.
Heroes 4 or 6 have a different visual style, so just taking graphics from there and assuming everything is ok is not the best idea.

Spellbook is too large ? - I am not sure if we have done such change (or at least I dont know of such one). can you point the time in the video so I can take a look?

https://youtu.be/4BqaiXkxPvM?t=2971
https://youtu.be/4BqaiXkxPvM?t=3324

The stealing of artifacts from the map is not possible due to using the 3.0 build and some of the 3.1 LUA commands does not exist.

So the modification is based on 3.0? For what reason? There are problematic things, for example, in 3.0 "fire arrows" ignore 100% of the target's defense (imbalance), and some settings for 3.0 are missing compared to 3.1.

Thanks for the answers! Success in the further development of the modification!

So, the mod is based on version 3.0? And why is that?

The EE mod is included in the collection because it's based on 3.0 (since the author of EE only had the source code for 3.0).

Nargot, now knowledge determines skills in runes, leadership, and artifacts.

In version 3.0, "fire arrows" ignore 100% of the target's defense (imbalance).

Since fire arrows are already a very strong skill (a key skill) for combat machines, and they also ignore 100% of the target's defense instead of 50%, i.e., they are additionally enhanced, I insist that this is an ultimate perk! And, as I understand it, the developers tried to avoid ultimate perks. Therefore, it is better to remove it from the skill tree altogether (to compensate, increase the base damage of the ballista).
Or, in some way, prevent simultaneously upgrading the ballista with 2-3 shots and fire arrows (which further increase the damage by 2-3 times, although less effective against neutrals).

If we roughly assume that fire arrows increase the ballista's damage by 2 times, then the following picture emerges:
- ballista skill: increases the ballista's damage from 100% to 200% (2 shots), total +100% for the skill
- rapid-fire ballista skill: increases the ballista's damage from 200% to 300% (3 shots), total +100% for the skill
- fire arrows skill (with the previous 2 taken): increases the ballista's damage by 2 times, i.e., from 300% to 600%, total +300% for the skill!

In version 5.5, there is also intermediate engineering (+3 initiative), but it does not particularly affect the situation (+130% for rapid-fire ballista and +390% for fire arrows).

The situation around fire arrows in attack can be described as follows:
- if fire arrows are taken later, then: the skill "doubles" the ballista's damage and "doubles" the effectiveness of the already taken ballista skills (a skill that doubles many other skills - imbalance!)
- if fire arrows are taken earlier, then: the ballista skills increase the effectiveness of the already taken "fire arrows" by 4 times (3 shots with 130% initiative): a skill, the normal operation of which is increased by 4 times by other perks - imbalance!

As a possible solution to the problem, it may be possible to include fire arrows in combat machines instead of engineering; then the growth will look like this:
- ballista +100% = 200% (plus manual control and durability)
- fire arrows x2 = 400% (+200%)
- rapid-fire ballista x1.5 = 600% (+200%)

And engineering can be included as the base branch of the catapult, from which comes the catapult (a double shot is enough for it, sulfur rain can be removed). Or from the catapult - engineering, but then the bonus should be much higher, like +5.

Regarding which perk to give after shooting, you can try to incorporate Faidan's original special ability (pre-shot) here, if this is technically possible and will work. Or a simple skill like +2 to attack, if a filler is really needed. Or give an artifact - a quiver (+4 attack for archers and infinite ammunition).
Although all these options are not very good, in my opinion - it is better to leave shooting as a dead end. Dead-end level 1 perks are key to upgrading, as they significantly improve the chances of upgrading other branches from this skill. For example, we want to get retribution, but we are not given battle frenzy, but offered shooting and tactics (we have closed other skills with abilities). We take shooting - the next time, with a developed attack, we will be given battle frenzy or tactics, we take battle frenzy. Then we easily get retribution.
The 2-3-2 scheme (for all skills, except suppressions) looks beautiful, but not always what is more beautiful works better.

Nargot, skills in runes, leadership, and artifacts now depend on knowledge.

Apparently, this is not enough - since a person writes that knowledge is so weak that he still needs additional bonuses, such as levelup. Although levelup itself is already self-sufficient as a skill, without bonuses, if taken late.

2dredknight

2% skill: by level 21 the overall chance to catch the skill is about 45% (0.65/0.67 ^ 20 = 0.55; 0.67 means that, on average, we already have several skills filled with a total weight of 33%, i.e. the 2% is selected from the remaining 67%)
3% skill: about 60%
4% skill: about 71%
5% skill: about 79%
6% skill: about 85%
8% skill: about 92%
10% skill: about 96%
11% skill: about 97%
12% skill: about 98%
16% skill: about 100%
18% skill: about 100%

In other words, starting from 5%, the chance to catch the needed skill is basically quite high (over 80%), but with a significant difference in odds, the difference in how quickly you catch the skill (at early levels) will still be felt.

In theory all the math is correct but in practice things are a little different.
Lets say you play a game and get up to level 2 where you get "War Machines".
The skill by itself is completely rubbish you need to level it up and get some of the perks to start doing something.
It is better to level up "War machines" up to the desired point on the next few levels then to pick 3 new skills.
Why is it better?
Heroes V level up secondary skills mechanics works the following way. When a hero levels up he gets 4 choices to pick from.
- 2 of them are perks
- 2 of them are skills where one is upgrade of an known secondary skill and the other is a secondary skill the hero does not yet know.

So on level up you get proposed precisely one new secondary skill. The math on the example above works for the new skills exactly as you say.
But what is bothersome is how the second upgrade skill offering works. The one for the already picked skills.

The proposal you get for upgrade of the already existing skills does not care about the % distribution. The game always offers to upgrade one of the 2 latest picked new skills.
So lets assume you play "Engineer" class fortress and want to max out his starting skill "War Machines" early so the hero can defeat creatures on the map more efficiently.
Hero levels up to level 2 and gets proposed "Offense" as a new skill. Thats a good skill lets pick it.
Hero levels up to level 3 and gets proposed "Defense" as a new skill.Thats a good skill lets pick it.
The problem you have now is that on the 4th level up you will almost never get "war machines" to upgrade.

The same is valid for "Perks". Heroes get proposed perks from the latest learnt or upgraded secondary skill (if available).

So math does not work in the long run. Same rules go for skills like "Summoning" and "Destruction" in the mage department. They have to be maxed out fast for maximum mana/damage efficiency.
The reason why the % are so near is that even if you play the same hero class each game it is very likely the hero will get more than 1 or 2 choices for new skills on level 2. This is good because not all heroes in a class are fit to one "best" strategy for the class.

1) All the listed classes have about 45% Spellpower and about 30% Knowledge; it would be possible, at the stat level, to give less Spellpower somewhere (30%) but more Knowledge (45%)
2) If Sorcery is mandatory for all magic classes, Enlightenment is not (it can be moved into rare skills somewhere); the Summoning + Destructive pairing can also be split up with other schools of magic to avoid so much repetition

1) True. The easiest way to explain this is with the 3 classes - Might are the weakest in magic, Balanced is better in magic, Magic utilize the strongest magic.
Magic strength depends on Spellpower so the more Mage is the class the more spellpower.

But lets elaborate a bit more.
Might class has 2 main skills Attack and Defense and they are almost equally balanced at some point in the future when the big stacks come becouse damage caused and survivability gained is proportional.
You can have hero with 40 Attack and 0 Defense or the other way around and he will still do good enough.

Magic heroes does not care about the army though. Unlike army damage and army endurance they have Magic damage and Magic endurance.
Magic damage is the average damage/effect strength per cast they do.
Magic endurance is the average time they can cast magic through the battle.

Throughout the game if Magic heroes and Might heroes carry their whole army in PvE battles Magic heroes suffer more casualties because due to low protective skills their army take hard hits if they miscalculate.
This is why as a Magic play you carry only what army you need for the battle and rely on your spells to get the opponent.
Whenever you go out of mana your are done. You may still win but casualty number will be great.
Some builds and some battles (vs creatures) are a bit of gamble for the Magic heroes.

Getting back on the skills now. Knowledge and spellpower are not equally distributable as Attack and Defense. There are a few rules that are required to be kept in order Magic to be good enough.
Magic heroes of a certain level have to make more damage/impact per cast then their Might alternatives of the same level hitting with a sword.
This is important because Might heroes damage comes for free over time with the level. If the "hero melee" hit makes more damage than a spell the Mage will be forced to hit instead of cast which is not good however you look at it.
This is why we are forced to keep spellpower % gain high.

Let me explain this another way.
1 attack/defense stat gives 3.33% bonus for the whole game. But even if that stat does not increase for months it still gets better over time because the hero army stack increase with time.
On the other hand spellpower efficiency drops every week because all stacks globally become stronger (Players and map creatures).

So comparing plain numbers and % stats in here is very subjective because there are so many in game factors.
As a matter of fact I can say that heroes franchise may never be balanced, ever. Because the core hero and classes balancing anywhere (might and magic 3,4,5,6,7 etc) is very dependable on the map you play.
For example if you make a 2 player map where opponent castles are a week distance from each other without border guards Magic heroes would own 100% of the time.
Early on Might stats does not count for nothing because there is no army. Also hero melee hits kill like 2-3 tier 1 units which is nothing.
On the other hand Magic heroes will blast all their mana and after that their strength will be as competitive as that of the might hero because they will do the same damage per melee hit and primary stat difference will be negligible for the week 2-3 army size.
How hero development interacts with the maps and the zones inside is something very seriously taken in MMH55. Credit goes to Magnomagus.

I believe the ARMG is about 30 000 lines of code.

P.S. I want to add here that there is one Magic hero class with more knowledge than spellpower gain. This is the "Artificier" class.
Academy hero classes go as this "Balanced" "Magic", "Magic". This is how their primary skill distribution go as well - 50/50,25/75,20/80
They compensate for the Might skill loss by transforming the knowledge in Attack and Defense stats through the creature artifacts.

(About Might heroes with Shatters) It is not so much blasphemy as the fact that these skills are very specific/situational; it is hard to make them attractive enough at the level of ordinary skills.

That was we thought as well. Shatters were actually picked around the mid game when you start preparing for the PvP attack. It was really unpleasant that those skills offer no bonuses before the PvP.
Another think we thought about is that if you go shatters and do not pick magic schools the Magic Guild building becomes unusable.

This is how the idea about summoning prime elements was born. If a hero has an advanced (or higher) shatter he gets free elementals in all his castles at the begining of every week.
The number of the elementals is multiplied by the level of the mage guild. Also multiple shatters can be combined for a greater effect.

Some people were a bit sceptical about the usefulness of the new ability in PvP games but after trying it out it was actually overpowered!
We head Stronghold heroes with 4 shatters getting elementals and selling them on the marketplace for huge amounts of gold (I think one elemental costs around 800?) and their economy exploded.
Even if they don't sell the elementals they just stomped you over with them.
Now the current setting is still ok for PvP but not that empowering. There are also some common artifacts that further enforce the strength of that summoning so it is a viable strategy to use an elemental instead one of the six faction creatures.

Here is a good reply from Magnomagus as well.

Shatters are added to all factions to replace skills that were in TOE completely useless and didn't fit the class from a lore perspective. For example a knight cannot use summoning and destructive properly because it doesn't develop the required spellpower. It also just looks weird. H4 and H3 had generic spellschool defenses as spells, so it is just a minor step to make it skills, nothing new or blasphemy. A knight with destructive magic is blasphemy. A paladin with both light and shatter dark is perfect harmony.

That is not so:
- there is Magic Resistance (15% chance to reflect a negative spell);
- there is Magic Proof (15% reduction to magic damage);
- there are bonuses to health (+X% to health)
- there are specialized things like: Seal of Light, Seal of Darkness, Weakness of Darkness, Elemental Balance, Banish

If there is a problem with early adepts of the Destructive and Summoning schools, it can be addressed differently: significantly raise the costs of top-tier spells of levels 3-5, so that they are oriented toward the late game (and require a lot of Knowledge). Low-level spells deal less damage.

Lets say we exclude shatters and take the proposals above one by one.
- Magic resistance % and Magic proof - I am not going to discuss how they work but they are not enough. Occultism penetrates both plus they do not cover most of the Summoning or Light spells.
Also lets imagine they were good enough. It is not fair against the Magic heroes as the Might will spend 2-3 secondary skill points to protect against all magic.
Shatters make you invest in something. Also default shatter perks are not that useless anymore. The new battle scheme allows the battle to last longer thus Mage heroes cast spells (which are now more expensive too) more times during the battle.
Shatter perks make them either burn more mana, cut spellpower efficiency or make them cast less often. If you get one of those things correct in PvP you already make the opponent mage suffer.

High level spell costs are significantly increased. Also some high level spell efficiencies were modified appropriately.

What is bad here is that this ability effectively requires leveling War Machines, otherwise it performs many times weaker. On the other hand, when leveling the Ballista, it is very important to level Attack with Archery/Flaming Arrows, since the damage ramps up many times over. In other words, there is too rigid a link between Attack and War Machines (the Ballista). That said, it was like this in the original too, so this is just my personal opinion.

It will simply be too powerful if they were in the same branch. Tent and Catapult will never be picked. Basically here I can answer the same way I did for "Retribution" the synergy is too good.

+6 is the theoretical maximum (the old maximum was above +10). Real bonuses will be around +1-2 on average. This is an unattractive ability; the information has been checked and proven in practice (there is a special Random Tactical Arena format where players compete in leveling, and nobody wanted to level such an ability because it performed weakly).

the aim is to benefit the hero with around +2. This is how much all perks should give on an average.

Have you tested this ability? In the original game it worked only for Orcs and did not protect any other creatures from magic.

This was reported a long time ago. May be it is fixed in 3.1 I don't know. But I have tested it before and it works.
I will do another test when I have time the next few days and will get back to you.
Magnomagus for sure have tested it. He double, triple checks everything before it is included inside.

Luck is stronger, because Expert Offense+Archery gives 20% damage (4 abilities), while Expert Luck gives the same 20% with only 3 abilities.

True but luck is a chaotic skill. You can get luck for a hit with your weakest unit or a hit with your strongest damage dealer, you never know.

At +3 luck - 20% to 30% (not 35%). At +2 luck (Advanced) - 13% to 20%. The prerequisite is situational Soldier's Luck, which not everyone needs.

Those are different things, 10% luck strike damage modifier is not 10% average damage increase.
Luck strike damage modifier is x1.66 . Now multiply it by 1.1 and you get ~1.83.
Now if a monster hits 10 times with 3 luck and he gets 3 lucky hits the damage formula with critical strike is 7*X + 3*1.83*X = 12.49X compared to no critical strike 7*X + 3*1.66*X = 11.98
So the hero gets roughly ~5% damage for that perk.

You already weakened Retribution from 5% to 2.5%; it can be weakened even further - to 2%, then the bonus will be between 4 and 10% (from +2 to +5 morale).

True. A lot of the changes Magnomagus has taken from the ToE Tournament edition version. This one is from there too.
From what he said a lot of the changes in the Tournament edition were made after a lot of testing so he really keeps most of them.
Anyway I will bring the topic up to see if he has something to say.

If it stays in Leadership, there is an interesting idea: give +1 initiative rather than speed. In any case this is a "final" perk, i.e. ultimately strong (both with +1 speed and with +1 initiative). Although you wanted to avoid "final" perks.
What is bad about giving +1 speed is that it greatly strengthens rush tactics. Run up and kill on the first turn. +1 initiative strengthens the army overall well, but it is not as useful for rushing as +1 speed. Finally, initiative is what the Leadership skill works with (triggered morale increases turn frequency, just like initiative).

True but just because Leadership synergies with initiative we do not want to give extra +1. More initiative means Leadership will work even better. And if you get this perk this means you have +5 Leadership so that 1 initiative is even stronger that it is.
Speed is OK as there are very few in-game speeds boosts overall (boots of speed for +1 is the other boost I think). Also the aura of speed require 2 not so great perks before that so its strength is compensated but the weakness of the required perks.

Also the all in strategy is not justified because damage boosters are nerfed throughout the game and this strategy just does not work anymore like it did in ToTe.
When I tested the game we did a lot iterations of every PvP battle where different strategies were tested just to be sure if they work and how good they work.
Probably the only faction that may actually do it is the Stronghold because blood rage protects them to some extend. But that is what they are made for.

I know that in Random Tactical Arena, in 100% of cases magic builds take Sorcery at 10/20/30%. In other words, this is a mandatory skill and does not need strengthening. Even when mana may run out (100-200), the skill still performs brilliantly.

There is sorcery + occultism + a magic school. This is already 18 levels of skill points. Besides those Enlightenment is very good skill of magic heroes. Those are 24 level points. Yes the combination is strong but the opponent Might hero will be strong enough to go through your army like butter.
Plus what if he has the shatter for that magic school? You got to pick second there is no escape.

Added after 50 minutes
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(regarding Combat - retaliation bonus) This skill is very, very weak. Its bonuses are effectively the same as Offense, but it works 4 times less often (since only 25% of melee damage comes from retaliations).
You can additionally give +1/2/3 to Defense, then it will be fine.
Or there is an alternative option: before each battle, additionally give +3/6/9 to the hero level (numbers as examples) for the duration of the battle (WarpHeroExp script). This will affect: damage from the hero attack; specialties; the power of some spells depending on level, including warcries. And it will not affect hero stats (even under Enlightenment) or abilities.

What you say only refers to half of the skill. Combat main purpose is to make the hero hit.
In MMH55 hero damage is increased significantly(I don't remember how much check the default stats). The purpose of the skill is the hero to hit. Creature reatliation is just bonus. It is like the hero is on the battlefield and leads the formation.
all hero classes that start with combat always have the middle perk "Martial arts" which makes half hero attacks do double damage.
I have seen heroes kill 100+ Dwarves with a single strike or 10 Archdevils.
The other perks in this skill tree provide great battle tactics variation.

Chain shot can be combined with some of your high init creatures that will make the hero punish the enemy harder while "Avenging strike" will prevent the opponent use one of his 7 units or suffer penalty damage.
For example it is quite often that "Avenging strike" is cast on the most important enemy stack or the archer stack. I have played against players who do not attack with those units to prevent damage.

The retaliation bonus and "preparation perk" are meant to give the skill alternative usage with combination of Defense. Where the hero and his army become a moving stronghold where the hero prefers to be more defensive and cast spells instead of doing a melee hit.

+1/+1 to Attack and Defense is noticeably weaker than +2 to Attack or +2 to Defense.
A bonus distributed between several stats is weaker than a bonus focused on one stat, even if they are stats from one group (like Attack and Defense, Spellpower and Knowledge).
For example, if we have a Might hero against a Mage, then the Defense bonus is not especially needed. And if a Mage is against a Might hero, then the Attack bonus is not especially needed.

Correct, this is why the perk is in the end of the branch. Take it if need it. Also the perk give +4 primary stats which is double compared to the average perk bonus.

Have you used Preparation often enough? Are you satisfied with how it works in practice? In the original game it was taken very rarely even without penalties (though it had the inconvenient Tactics requirement there).

Before it was nerfed there was a Haven, Paladin build as follows - Expert defense + "Stand your Ground", Combat + "Preparation", Expert Light + all mass perks or the "Guardian Angel" tree.
Haven units in combination with so much defense were nearly unbeatable. Hero cast blessing and has available 2 resurrects - his own and the Angel one. Even "Puppet Master" was not doing good job because the Paladin units had high defense but low damage so hitting each other did not helped a lot.
Same strategy is valid for Fortress Might which also combine this with Runes and high magic resistance.

That was a lot of versions ago though and a lot of things change since then. Preparation is good as it is now.

In practice, Distract works effectively only against the enemy hero, but not especially against neutrals. Also, if there is no Sorcery or mass spells (0.1), it does not work at all. If there are mass spells (0.1), it works as 10%. If there is Sorcery, then 12-15%. By the way, what is the reason for the knockback after mass spells being 0.1 rather than 0?
Update: I remembered that Distract throws the hero below 0, but only until the next unit's turn comes (at that moment the negative position on the scale is reset). So a 5-10% knockback happens in any case, even without Sorcery / mass spells.

"Distract" alternatives are "Dark Ritual" and "Consume Corpse" they are nearly on the same level of usefulness.
0.1 ATB for the mass spells is because of the hardcodded issue. There is no way you can put 0 value. It crashes the game and 0.1 is the lowest possible.

1.25 - with the basic skill leveled, without perks? Ok, I misread the numbers (thought it was 1.75).
Fine, then what about the maximum percentage: why not make it 25% at all skill levels, rather than 15/20/25%? After all, expanding gating from tiers 1-2 to 1-4 and 1-6 is already a sufficient strengthening of the skill; the 5% bonuses look out of place here. Especially since Master of Gating gives a 5% bonus, and in the current implementation it looks much weaker than simply leveling the base skill.

I agree with you about the 15/20/25% bonus. I will pass that to Magnomagus. I believe the reason behind this is because it was like this in ToE so it was just suited for the mod the same way.

This is a design mistake. If you push the game into long time frames (3 months or more), then you need to make sure Knowledge is just as full-fledged a stat as it is at ordinary time frames (1-2 months). This is done by increasing the costs of top-tier spells and/or increasing the mana regeneration rate (which depends on Knowledge).

The problem with knowledge is considered a little less stronger than the other skills is that its beneficial effects cannot transform in direct gain. Especially in the early game high knowledge does nothing.
So heroes with Knowledge has slower development path.

Knowledge effects are accumulated over time through artifacts or the ability of excessive spell casting. Unlike other skills mana does not helps that much 100 and 500 mana does not make difference. What it matters is do you have enough or not?
Besides the +2 knowledge bonus for a perk there are some small gains so the hero can catch up with the rest.

Also the level up bonus is not a big deal later on because unlike ToE the level gain curve is modified to be more smoother.
Now it is possible to get up to level 40 on one big map.

No, I do not really understand graphics - so if some portraits repel even me, they may put off many other players as well.
All I wanted to say is: add only those heroes whose portraits clearly win public approval from 90% of people.
Heroes 4 or 6 has a different visual style, so simply taking graphics from there and assuming everything is ok is not the best idea.

I don't want to sound rude but this is the first complaint regarding graphics (that I know). I may be wrong however. I am not a graphical guy too ;).

Regarding spellbook this is a bug in Quantomas Exe file. I will explain it below where you ask about versions.

So the modification is based on 3.0? And for what reason? There are problematic things, for example, in 3.0 "Flaming Arrows" ignore 100% of the target's defense (imbalance), and some settings for 3.0 are missing compared with 3.1.

Modification is installed the following way. Install heroes V, patch it to 3.1 and put Quantomas Exe on top.
Quantomas exe is based on a personal source code with personal bug fixes with huge amount of improvement. You can consider it as 3.06 version. it has some bugs from 3.0, but also some bugs fixed from 3.1.
It doesn't recognize most of the script commands from 3.1, It has 95% widescreen implementation (only the spellbook doesn't work).

As you can see "Flaming Arrows" description says it ignores defense so it is ok. It is not that strong because in PvP if they see you with a kick ass pumped balista it will die after the first or second round.
Balista is good for an early game rush on a smaller maps but it can still be countered. After a few games you get to know what each class is capable of so you get prepared for some of the strategy approach.

P.S.

Response to the second @Nargott post about Balista

Balista is indeed very strong but it dies in 1-2 hits in PvP. It is very vulerable against Destruction, Dark + puppet can be used to kill it too.
War machines "Balista" perk is T1 for a reason. This way the hero can pick "fist aid tent" + "Balista" + "Engineering" or all three "War Machines" perks - "tent" , "Balista", "catapult".
You are correct that balista is the best with fire arrows but sometimes you don't want to invest so much points in balista. Also it is very important to know that unlike other war machines Balista damage depends on hero attack and defense skills.
So yes triple balista is strong but not with 5-10 damage. Especially in late game I have sacrificed Defense and spellpower just to have a kick ass balista for PvE and PvP.

Probably one of the best alternatives to balista is the Fist aide tent because along the way it makes your army snowball in size due to reduced losses. It is especially important early on when some might heroes have issues with gaining a momentum.

"Brimstone rain" is a stub yes. We really wanted to include it so by making it gives +4 bonus level to hero in the battle is good as it make the Might hero more offensive in sieges.
I admit I have never used it so far but I have two builds I want to try with it and seem pretty valid.

I get what you mean about the middle perk (battle frenzy). Actually middle perks has a little higher chance to appear than the outer one (Magnomagus did it. I dont know how).
there are a lot of stubs one can take to fill in spots. Lorewise it feels ok it give and it gives some bonus so why break it if we don't have anything better?

I forgot to mention that archer tower damage will be changed (if not already but I cant find it in any of the release posts so it is yet to be) following this formula
Main Tower Dmg = 40 + (TL^2)/8
Side Tower Dmg = 20 + (TL^2)/10

TL - Town level
So at level 31 the side towers will do - 116, the main tower will do - 160. This is 400 pure damage every 10 initiative time. This is more than twice increase in damage and due to the battles being longer than before will accumulate over time.

Nargott, Knowledge now affects skills in Runes, Leadership, and Artificats

Apparently this is not enough, since the person writes that Knowledge is so weak that it still needs additional bonuses like levelup. Although levelup by itself is already self-sufficient as an ability, without bonuses, if taken late.

Level up is not that of a big deal anymore. Please take a look at this page for more information.

Thank you for the answers! Good luck with further development of the modification!

Thank you :). There were a few nice points I have already forwarded to Magnomagus and it will be considered for the next release.

In theory all the math is correct but in practice things are a little different.

I agree, this is just a rough estimate with some assumptions, but it shows that the chances for 5-6% skills are quite high (around 80%).
And rare (2%) skills aren't supposed to be caught normally, only when you're lucky. They are rare, after all.

However, perhaps the mod authors believe that rare skills should also remain relatively accessible, which is why it's 4% there?
While 2/5/10/18 might seem harsh, the 2/6/11/16 option could at least work for testing. If it's already been tested, then it's ok.

So the hero gets roughly ~5% damage for that perk.

Correct (at +3). But normal Luck gives ~7% damage per perk.
If the bonus goes up to 200%, then it'll be around ~10% damage per perk (at +3) and ~7% (at +2).

Though, your Luck skill itself is significantly stronger than the standard "+2 ability". I would estimate it closer to "+3 Attack" (equivalent).
Since from +8-9 to Attack (at 3.33%), I will on average get a bonus close to +3 Luck (around +20% of total, not base damage).

If you want to equalize +1 Luck and +2 Attack (at 3.33%), I would recommend +50% lucky damage (instead of +67%). Increasing to +70% with a maxed Critical Strike.

the aim is to benefit the hero with around +2. This is how much all perks should give on an average.

The problem is that players won't level up this skill if it doesn't look attractive. Bonuses around +1-2 are less than a +2 bonus. I suggest testing the herds and making sure the average bonus looks definitely no worse than +2, considering the strength of the units receiving the bonuses. Because if it's +1 for important units and +3 for trivial ones, it won't be ok.

What you say only refers to half of the skill. Combat main purpose is to make the hero hit.

In other words, the skill is made very weak, but the abilities within it are strong enough to compensate?
In that case, the +1/+1 attack/defense ability is even less relevant, as it requires 2 levels immediately (one for the weak skill to unlock the ability, and a second for the ability itself).
+2/+2 is better in this regard, but then it should be given immediately, without waiting for level 20.

0.1 ATB for the mass spells is because of the hardcodded issue. There is no way you can put 0 value. It crashes the game and 0.1 is the lowest possible.

Interesting, because in my executable modification (not 5.5, but based on the old RPE with 24 classes), I use 0.0 ATB for mass spells and the game hasn't crashed yet. In what situations is the game supposed to crash?

It will simply be too powerful if they were in the same branch. Tent and Catapult will never be picked. Basically here I can answer the same way I did for "Retribution" the synergy is too good.

(regarding fire arrows)

Actually, the option I proposed to move fire arrows to siege engines should solve this problem:

As a potential solution to the problem, perhaps including fire arrows in combat engines instead of engineering; then the growth would look like this:
- ballista +100% = 200% (plus manual control and durability)
--- fire arrows x2 = 400% (+200%)
----- rapid-fire ballista x1.5 = 600% (+200%)

...Alternatively, from the catapult - engineering (instead of sulfur rain), but then the bonus should be much higher, like +5 to initiative.

Each new ability in this line gives only up to +200% damage (we conventionally took the effect of fire arrows as doubling the damage, this is a rough estimate).
Consequently, I can comfortably choose not to take the rapid-fire ballista or even fire arrows in favor of some other abilities of similar strength.

I agree, it's just a rough estimate with some assumptions, but it shows that the chances for 5-6% skills are quite high (around 80%).
And rare (2%) skills are normal and shouldn't be found often, only when you're lucky. They are rare, after all.

However, maybe the mod authors think that rare skills should also remain relatively accessible, so they set it to 4%?
While 2/5/10/18 might seem harsh, the 2/6/11/16 option could at least be used for testing. If it's already been tested, then it's okay.

It's okay. It's better to have greater variety. The group of people who played competitive PvP managed to come up with interesting builds, and no complaints have come forward. It turned out alright, so if it's not broken, we don't touch it.

Correct (with +3). But regular luck gives ~7% damage per perk.
If there's a bonus up to 200%, then it's about ~10% damage per perk (with +3) and ~7% (with +2).

Not sure what a 200% bonus means. Do you mean if the creature has a 200% bonus damage because of higher primary skills?

The problem is that players won't level up this skill if it doesn't look appealing. Bonuses of +1-2 are less than a +2 bonus. I suggest testing the perks and making sure that the average bonus looks at least as good as +2. Considering the strength of the units that receive the bonuses. Because if it's +1 for important units and +3 for minor ones, that won't be okay.

A point of primary skill is a 3.33% difference, not a big deal. Also, this debate is pointless unless someone creates a 6-month in-game army and comes up with real bonus numbers.
Also, this skill was very thoroughly tested a long time ago when we found out it only works for the Fortress. I can't come up with any numbers now, but I definitely don't lose sleep because of the difference.

In other words, the skill is made very weak, but the abilities in it are strong enough to compensate for that?
Then the +1/+1 attack/defense ability is even less relevant, since it requires two levels at once (one for the weak skill to unlock the ability to level up the ability, and the second for the ability itself).

Depends on how you look at it. Depends on the circumstances. The Avenger perk is unreliable as it depends on enemy maneuvers, which is why it's followed by this bonus.

Interesting, because in my mod (not from 5.5, but based on the old RPE with 24 classes), I use 0.0 ATB for mass spells, and the game hasn't broken yet. In what situations should the game break?

How did you do it? We really want to make it that way. I don't remember what the issue was anymore; it was done by Deflaktor.

Not sure what 200% bonus means. Do you mean if the creature has 200% bonus damage because of higher primary skills?

167% damage from a regular successful attack, and 200% damage – from Critical Strike (x1.2 instead of x1.1).

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3nCHmciaYd2M21rekk5MzBDcms
I put the exe file, as well as the settings and the patcher I used, here.
I didn't really test the game for stability; I just applied 0.0 settings, checked that there were no crashes in battles, and thought everything was okay.
Maybe I'm wrong, and there are really serious problems somewhere that I didn't notice?

0.1 ATB for the mass spells is because of the hardcoded issue. There is no way you can put 0 value. It crashes the game and 0.1 is the lowest possible.

If 0.0 causes problems, have you tried very small numbers like 0.01, 0.001, etc.?