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

And I also don't understand the need for necromancy for all the dark classes. Maybe it could affect morale and stats?

Yes, this is a very strange (debatable) decision. One thing is generally available counterspell or occultism, another is necromancy. I think the roots lie in Human-Undead heroes like Ornella/Markel.

@Nargott, the "Combat" retaliation bonus is an exponential skill. If a unit retaliates 8 times in battle (a completely random value), Might hero bonuses will increase it to 10-11. If each strike does more damage on retaliation, it will kill more enemy units, which will deal less damage. Thus, they will kill even fewer of your units, so they will survive longer and retaliate more often. "Combat" is chosen for retaliation when the player thinks it will add to their build. But if you consider the retaliation bonus for a shorter game (~6 weeks), then it is not that useful, and the skill will be mostly used for "melee" attacks. If interested, you can create a blitz version of the mod meant for smaller map sizes. We do not want to increase the current values as they will alter the mid and late-term balance on the battlefield.

And I also don't understand the need for necromancy for all dark classes. Maybe make it affect morale and characteristics?

This was necessary to increase the number of skills in the pool for Magic classes because the Might hero skill number was significantly higher due to the addition of "Shatters". Also, it is good to have skills that are not necessary; it adds to the luck factor when leveling up and does not make everything predefined as the players please. @battleredcat, thanks for the links! Now I have to convince Magnomagus that adding new models just for half of the classes would not make the mod look unprofessional :D.

@Nargott, "Combat" retaliation bonus is an exponential skill.

This word, like synergy, doesn't say anything specific on its own; it's too abstract.
Any bonus that takes effect at the start of combat is exponential (perhaps except for mana). But that doesn't mean that any bonus is good.
That is, even +1 to attack will have a greater effect in all respects (including exponentially) than +1 to the Combat skill. If a unit deals 30 attacks (direct and retaliatory) in a battle, should these +1 be counted as +30 to attack? ;)

The only thing that has a specific synergy is with the "Readiness" and "Defensive Stance" abilities, because these abilities support the combat style that relies on defense and retaliatory attacks (i.e., the proportion of retaliatory attacks increases compared to direct attacks, and thus the Combat skill is enhanced). This is what needs to be tested. But I would prefer to further weaken "Readiness" (which always comes with Skilled Combat), just so that Combat itself is appealing (and without Readiness).

If you are afraid of the Combat + Readiness combination, the gentlest way to enhance Combat is to give +1/+1 to attack/defense for each skill level.
Or, at least like this: +1/2/3 to attack (if the Attack skill is leveled up and there is no Readiness) and +1/2/3 to defense (if the Defense skill is leveled up and there is no Readiness).
If Readiness is leveled up, these bonuses should not be given (instead of a -2 penalty to attack).

In general, the point is this. You say that the balance is fine now, because Might heroes are already strong. Based on this, it is not worth further strengthening any military skills, including weak ones. But this is a dubious position, because you can formally make skills "+0" (which do nothing), and Might heroes will still be strong. And at the same time, the skill will be obviously useless.
I believe that all skills should be made sufficiently appealing, and if Might heroes often win in your (long) games, then compensate for this by strengthening the late-game spells of Magic heroes (increase the price of spells of level 4-5 and increase the effect). And when I talk about high prices, I mean prices of 50+ mana. Because, as I understand it, in a long game, mages do not have more than 200-300 mana. And if you have such expensive high-level spells, then those magical classes that sit on 45% Knowledge will play well (it is not necessary to put all sorcerers on 45% Sorcery).

And here is another question: has the technical possibility appeared to make mass versions of spells for, for example, x3 / x4 / x5 the price? (instead of x2). This could also increase the demand for Knowledge for heroes playing on the Light and Dark sides (because in these schools of magic, mass spells are quite comparable in strength to spells of level 4-5).

Also, after talking with other players, I can note that I am not the only one who does not like the weak skills in your modification (which give small bonuses to reduced characteristics). That is, there is objectively a balance problem. This means that you can make the game better if you rework the balance towards stronger skills (how to strengthen Magic heroes, I wrote above). Thus, they would be at least comparable to the Empowered Spells, Battle Frenzy, or Aura of Swiftness skills. The fact is that when a player levels up strong skills, he gets a big dose of pleasure from anticipating how strongly this will affect the game. But when he levels up something like +2-3% to overall damage and survivability, this does not happen. I would not like to argue or prove anyone's right here; ultimately, these are taste preferences, and whether you will take them into account or not is another question.

Your modification is very good in many aspects and deserves a high rating overall, but if you pay enough attention to correcting some shortcomings, you will be able to attract many more players.
At the same time, if you pay attention to developing all sorts of new things, rather than correcting shortcomings, this will be good specifically for those players who already like everything.
Choose for yourself which direction to develop in, towards supporting old players or new ones.

battleredcat,
The NHF mod team is currently working on developing unique hero models (both base and new ones). Psatkha is participating.
Unfortunately, NHF is unlikely to be compatible with this mod by default.

Perhaps it could still provide bonuses to Necromancy and Silence spells?

Perhaps I missed it... What program do you use to edit .exe files?

battleredcat,
The NHF mod is currently focused on developing unique hero models (both basic and new). Psatkha is participating.
Unfortunately, NHF is unlikely to be compatible with this mod by default.

It's actually very incompatible. The main reason is the hero classes.
But the models, with the authors' permission, can still be used ;)

I also don't understand why create so many classes when 2 per faction is enough. A larger number is no longer diversity, plus it reduces the uniqueness of the faction.
Although six factions would be quite enough) The developers had to come up with new rune and spell schools for the dwarves and orcs, respectively, so that they wouldn't seem like copies of parts of other factions.

The mod authors decided to use everything. It's better to not have junk from weak abilities than to have so many of them.
But if a large number of skills and abilities are strong, then that's great! That's what diversity is, not a tedious choice for a 10-20 hour game...

I also don't understand why create so many classes when 2 per faction is enough. A larger number is no longer diversity, plus it reduces the uniqueness of the faction.

I strongly disagree. Two classes, in my opinion, is very few and boring, especially it becomes obvious when I try to install some other mods after this one. For me, such variability is one of the main advantages.
And it's not difficult to add hero models from other mods manually).

The issue isn't the number of classes, but rather what I mentioned in the previous thread: 1) 24 classes require greater specialization than 8 classes; otherwise, there will be a lot of repetition. 2) Greater specialization means fewer core skills (6 + racial, instead of 8 + racial). 3) Fewer core skills lead to monotonous builds in a long game with levels 25+, and this mod clearly focuses on long games (even 6 weeks is considered fast here). Therefore, reducing the number of core skills is not an option. This means there will be repetition, but it can be reduced by addressing issues with some overpopulated niches (such as chaos + summoning + magic + occultism + education + SP 45%). However, this will require a major overhaul of the balance. Unfortunately, similar classes are not offset by different races, i.e., different units. Playing as any race, the player can hire a necromancer, druid, warlock, or elementalist with identical gameplay. If there was a restriction – not to hire heroes of other races – then yes. But such a restriction is impossible because the player is playing a strategy game where there are many cities of different factions on the map, and nothing prevents him from mixing units or hiring heroes from other factions. In general, as I understand it, the goal of 24 classes in this mod is to allow the player to fully play as a warrior, semi-warrior, and mage for each race, using only native heroes. That is, to give each race 3 different classes, rather than giving the game 24 different classes. As for weak skills, they are a problem, but their nature is unlikely to be related to the 24 classes. The main problem here is that instead of strengthening the mage in the late game, the focus has been shifted to weakening the warrior (both in terms of stats and skills).

All mages are useful in long games, except for those who study remotely.

I strongly disagree. Two classes, in my opinion, is very few and boring, especially when I try to install other mods after this one. For me, such variety is one of the main advantages.
And it's not difficult to add hero models from other mods manually.

There is no variety here. The factions are blurred. The classes are very similar to each other. In the original, the uniqueness of the classes = factions is noticeably greater in terms of percentage.
It's like having a green apple, a red apple, a brown apple, a yellow apple, a lime apple, instead of an apple, a peach, and an orange. The choice between the first and the second is obvious.

Nargott, I will try to approach this matter in two ways.
First, I will stop use the word synergy. It did not do any good to me so far...

Second, I will start posting some practical examples we can discuss on. Of course regarding "Combat" skill.

Here is the same battle played twice.

The first one - Level 4 Might hero fights overwhelming force. He has "Advanced Combat".
The second one - The same hero fights the same force but this time besides "Advanced Combat" he also has "Chain strike" and "Avenging strike".

Don't you think this kind of difference is worth 4 points of investment? What other combination of skills + perks can give such advantage at level 4?

Now the discussion.

Since Tote hero melee damage is increased by:
- vs tier 1 - 100%
- vs tier 2 - 100%
- vs tier 3 - 80%
- vs tier 4 - 77%
- vs tier 5 - 66%
- vs tier 6 - 55%
- vs tier 7 - 0%

These are considered base values for any further damage bonuses. With the introduction of "Combat" perk "Martial arts" the hero gains additional 50% damage (50% of time critical strike).
For example to compare it with ToTe for tier 1 this is now 200% damage increase.

Further more this damage can be increased by taking the "Chain strike" perk which allows another 10% critical strike damage for all hero hits.
In the second video above you can see the hero do critical strike damage for "166". He also kills 10 scouts with a normal hit due to critical strike.

Yes some skills and perks are weak at certain points of the game. It could be because the perk/skill is hardcodded or because the game mechanic is such it cannot be balanced or sometimes unwillingly (which we try to fix as much as possible). Such skills are put behind weaker ones so the choice actually becomes fair.

As you can see on the second videos those "Chain attack", "avenging strike" and "Retaliation strike" skills cannot be balanced because it depends on the formation of the units yours and not really the enemy approach. So very often the player can actually squeeze much more than the perk actually cost and this has to to accounted for when designing the skill tree.

@Nargott If you think "Combat" is weak I suggest to go and check what we did with "Puppet master" :P.

Regarding the mana increase of some spells to very high values. I don't think it is viable because any hero will have enough mana at least for one tier 5 spell cast and by making some not dependent that much on spellpower will break the balance sharply around month 3. For example if "Puppet master" is strong on its own you do not need a lot of casts to turn the tide especially against mage already weaker creatures.

Regarding mana increase for blessings. Dark and Light schools depend less on spellpower and they are widely available to Might and Balanced classes. They are already balanced through the value of spellpower as each point of spellpower increase spell effect and duration so even if Might heroes can cast a blessing it will last for about 2-3 turns and then it has to be cast again. Also a major point a want to say is that if we make blessings expensive the magic schools will become very unattractive for Might classes as their strength of casting other spells is already low.

It would be nice if duration for example could depend on Knowledge instead of spellpower but there is no such variable in the .xdb files.

Regarding gameplay dissatisfaction factor due to weaker skill incrementation. This is a talk I did with another game developer a few months ago. He was modding another multiplayer game and was very precise about balance. The problem was that despite the great effort he has put it and the good state of the mod it did not bring much coverage by players. We both agreed that balance does not bring publicity. For example Broodwar is not a great game because it is balanced. What made it great was the ability to custom scenario maps with friends. Same goes for Diablo 2. Everybody knows heroes 3 WOG even though multiplayer balance does not exists.

Actually 2 years ago when I poked @magnomagus about improving the RPE mod the initial idea was not to make it for popularity but just to improve our gaming experience with a couple of friends. We were just annoyed of some flaws. During the process there was some increased interest from the community so it was decided to start advertise it on moddb.
Of course this is our way of thinking I do not want to accept it. As I said I will be glad if any of you decides to make a blitz version of the mod. Different minds have different ideas so you can find some holes in our work that we have not think of.

Your modification is very good in many aspects and deserves a high rating overall, but if enough attention is paid to fixing some shortcomings, you will be able to attract many more players.
At the same time, if attention is paid to developing all sorts of new things rather than fixing shortcomings, it will be good specifically for those players who already like everything as it is.
Choose for yourselves which direction to develop in, towards supporting old players or new ones.

We try to fix both shortcomings and add new content both but both things are restricted to the ratio of the final product in comparison with the time spent working on it. We do this for fun and this is how we want to stay.
Actually there is a lot of positive feedback coming regarding combining mechanics and elements from all franchise releases (hero class system - heroes 4, governor system - heroes 7, new heroes - heroes 3,4,6 etc..) and making the game difficulty adjustable to anyones needs. Some people just like to explore other prefer to battle lots of T4 guarding their first wood mine.

There is also some criticism of course, more than a half of it is due to people not yet knowing how the game features work, the other is thoroughly discussed and I even can say the good one is already in the mod. I am pleased and somehow surprised that almost all of it is constructive oriented just like we do here :). It makes me feel very good for the M&M society as a whole :).

Maybe still give bonuses to necromancy and silencing?

Shatters already give additional bonuses. "Necromancy" skill for other mages provides utility benefits for secondary heroes. For example you can have secondary dungeon hero with destruction that clears some treasures and use necromancy to gain buffer army. I have used this combination multiple times and it works very well.

Maybe I missed this... What program do you use to edit the .exe file?

The best two that I know of are:
- Cheatengine - It is free and made for games. It has some very nice tutorials that explain all the basic and advanced operations. That knowledge is enough to make any of the changes we have accomplish but be warned as it takes a lot of time and often it goes unrewarded.
- AIDA64 - This is the ultimate binary reverse engineering tool. I am not familiar with it but I know from other people the hex wizards use it. With its help you can reverse engineer some binary operations to an actual code. It is not free.

Here is a little guide that I did regarding hex editing. I will further extend it when I have time.

Quote:
Message from Ment
battleredcat,
In the NHF mod, they are currently developing unique hero models (base and new). Psatkha is participating.
Unfortunately, NHF is unlikely to be compatible with this mod by default.
It is even very incompatible. The main reason is the hero classes.
But the models, with the authors' permission, can be used

Actually Psatka wants to integrate UHV with MMH55 but I do not know if he works on it or what is the progress.

I also don't understand why build a bunch of classes when 2 per faction are enough. A larger number is no longer diversity, plus it reduces the uniqueness of the faction.
Although six factions would have been quite enough) The developers for the dwarves and orcs, respectively, had to come up with new schools of runes and shouts so that they didn't seem like a copy of parts of other factions.

The initial idea was with 2 classes per faction but some specializations or starting secondary skills could not fit well neither Might nor Magic.

The mod authors decided to use everything. It's better not to have trash from weak abilities than to have many of them.
But if a multitude of skills and abilities are strong, then that's cool! That is diversity, not a tedious choice for a 10-20 hour game...

I like what you say. I believe a lot of what we did gets pass the border line for quality. I am not talking about balance - The time and effort put in the internal skillwheel by TheGryphn, the videos made by Belisarius, the visual improvements by Xuxo, new adventure maps objects by Magnomagus and time and patience he spend at listening to 20 people shouting left and right about classes initial skills and stats.

There is a lot we have not done because of quality reasons - Wright was not changed for Death Knight because the 3D model did not keep consistency with other faction creatures. We did not add new hero models because there just for some heroes and it would look bad if some races had nice looking heroes and other sticking to default.

In general, as I understand it, the goal of 24 classes in this modification is so that the player can fully roleplay a warrior, a semi-warrior, and a mage for each race, using only native heroes. i.e., to give each race 3 different classes, rather than giving the game 24 different classes.

Very nicely put! What I did not like in ToTe is that there is only one class per faction which restricts the player to use one stategy and because of that to buy just the preferable creature upgrade.
Now with three classes and creatures upgrades providing different tactical advantage (wherever possible) the replay value increased.

Well, weak abilities are an evil, but its nature is unlikely to be related to the 24 classes. The main problem here is that instead of strengthening the mage in the late game, the focus was placed on weakening the warrior (both at the level of characteristics and at the level of abilities).

Balance was achieved by reducing Might heroes and improving magic ones.
The reason was might was reduced is because the pace of the game became too fast. Here is the math:
- with 5% damage boost per primary skill if the difference between unit attack and enemy units defense is 30, this is 30*5 = 150% bonus damage.
This means 1 unit hits as hard as 2.5 units without a hero. Here I do not even add Offense, luck, leadership and other bonuses which can make this difference as high as 4 times.
In a scenario where both heroes have high attack and low defense the winer is the first army to hit/shoot because it will at least cut in half or one shot any of the opponent stacks.
Where is the strategy here?

Now lets discuss Might vs Magic heroes. In this situation Magic heroes will be on the losing side when it comes to frontal confrontation so they need to have their magic sharp.
But even if they have strong magic they need time to cast it. Magic heroes total damage output is equal to the sum of damage made in all rounds. The number of rounds depends on the survivability of his army. It does not matter how strong spells does the mage has unless he can cast for more than 3-4 rounds.

Detailed breakdown of classes (regarding differences):

Warriors, general template: attack + defense = 75-85%, spellpower + knowledge = 15-25%
- Offense
- Defense
- Luck
- Leadership
- Logistics
- War Machines
- Counterattack (Combat)
- Light / Dark
- Racial

(rare skills template: Education + 2 dampening)

Standard classes:
Ranger: Light 45/35/10/10 = attacking Light
Knight: Light + Dark dampening (instead of racial) 35/45/10/10 = defensive Light, no racial
Overlord: Dark + Light dampening (instead of racial) 45/30/10/15 = attacking Dark, no racial
Demon Lord: Dark 50/30/10/10 = attacking Dark
Death Knight: Dark 30/45/10/15 = defensive Dark

Interesting classes:
Engineer: Chaos dampening (instead of magic) 40/40/5/15 = neutral without magic
Chieftain: Education (instead of luck), War Cries (instead of magic) 55/30/5/10 = attacking cries

Conclusions:
1) almost all warriors are built according to one template
2) the differences lie in:
- a single school of magic - light or dark (or cries, or no magic at all - with dampening)
- an attacking or defensive distribution of parameters
- a racial skill (or none at all - with dampening)
3) Chieftain is interesting due to having education instead of luck
4) warriors can have either Light or Dark (but not both together)
5) Sorcery, Occultism, Chaos, and Summoning are unavailable for all warriors
6) Academy has no warriors

What I didn't like about the warriors: a single school of magic (no variety in magic) and the templated nature.
How it can be fixed:
- give several classes both Light and Dark simultaneously;
- give several classes accessible (not rare 4%) education;
- for several classes, move 1-2 standard skills from available to rare (4%), for example: DemonLord has rare leadership, Death Knight has rare luck, etc.

I will break down the other 2 types of classes a bit later. Preliminarily, I can say that they suffer less from templating and are more interesting.

Added after 34 minutes

Don't you think this kind of difference is worth 4 points of investment? What other combination of skills + perks can give such advantage at level 4?

I never claimed that active abilities in Combat are bad (and by the way, I liked the changes regarding hero attack damage). The point was that the Combat skill itself (without abilities) is very weak. Because of this, it's not profitable to spend 2 levels on Combat (Advanced + perk) for a small +1/+1 ability.

Added after 24 minutes

Balance was achieved by reducing Might heroes and improving magic ones.
The reason was might was reduced is because the pace of the game became too fast. Here is the math:
- with 5% damage boost per primary skill if the difference between unit attack and enemy units defense is 30, this is 30*5 = 150% bonus damage.
This means 1 unit hits as hard as 2.5 units without a hero. Here I do not even add Offense, luck, leadership and other bonuses which can make this difference as high as 4 times.
In a scenario where both heroes have high attack and low defense the winer is the first army to hit/shoot because it will at least cut in half or one shot any of the opponent stacks.
Where is the strategy here?

I wasn't criticizing the 3.33% parameters at all. That in itself is normal, specifically for long games.
The point was about small abilities. If in the original a good ability gives +2-3 parameters, then when converting to new characteristics, we should get +3-5 so that the abilities don't look worse. But in your mod, only +2 per ability is considered standard.
In short, in my opinion:
- parameters were weakened (from 5 to 3.33%) - this is OK (when calculating for a long game)
- abilities were weakened - this is not OK (since the "flavor" is lost)

Now lets discuss Might vs Magic heroes. In this situation Magic heroes will be on the losing side when it comes to frontal confrontation so they need to have their magic sharp.
But even if they have strong magic they need time to cast it. Magic heroes total damage output is equal to the sum of damage made in all rounds. The number of rounds depends on the survivability of his army. It does not matter how strong spells does the mage has unless he can cast for more than 3-4 rounds.

If magic is strong enough that 1 cast = minus stack (1 spell = 1 dead stack) (with sufficiently high spellpower), then these 3-4 rounds might be enough for a mage to turn the tide of battle (under sorcery, this is 5 dead squads out of 7 solely due to the hero).

Added after 41 minutes
Also, I'll give a general tip for your 3.33% characteristics.
At the start of the game, +4 to offense (for example) from an ability won't break the game. But +4 to spellpower might (because you didn't weaken spellpower, as far as I know).
Therefore, I would tie bonuses to spellpower and knowledge to levels, but never bonuses to offense and defense.

Examples of abilities giving bonuses:
1) +4 to offense - OK (a good, tasty ability, we'll level it)
2) +1 to offense for every 5 levels - definitely not OK (we want a tangible bonus immediately, not a measly +3% damage)
3) +4 to spellpower - possibly not OK (OP in the early game?)
4) +1 to spellpower for every 5 levels - OK (even +1 to spellpower is noticeable in the early game)

Added after 47 minutes
A couple more remarks appeared regarding the undead:

1) Retribution: for Necropolis heroes +2 to attack
2) Leadership: for Necropolis heroes +2/+4/+6 to attack

And what if I take an undead hero with living troops (another hero's)? Will I get additional bonuses just like that? From expert leadership +3 morale and +6 attack, and from retribution - +10% damage and +2 attack?

This is one of the reasons why I suggested moving retribution into leadership. And accordingly, exclude leadership from the progression for undead classes, including Death Knight.

Added after 7 minutes
By the way, regarding herds. If I take a Knight for a dwarf army and level up his herds, will he get his +2 to offense or defense in addition to the native effect of herds?

That would be strange.

Added after 41 minutes
Continuation of class breakdown, Balanced type:

General template: attack+defense = 50%, spellpower+knowledge = 50%
- Defense
- Luck
- Logistics
- Education
- 2 schools of magic

(Light, Summoning) Paladin = Leadership, Counterattack, dark dampening 15/35/20/30 = defensive Light+Summoning
(Light, Summoning) Warden = Paladin 15/35/25/25

(Chaos, Dark) Gatekeeper = Offense, Sorcery, racial 35/15/25/25 = attacking Chaos+Dark
(Chaos, Dark) Assassin = Offense, Sorcery, light dampening 40/10/30/20 = attacking Chaos+Dark

(Summoning, Dark) Reaver = Offense, racial, light dampening 35/15/20/30 = attacking Summoning+Dark
(Light, Summoning) Seer = Offense, racial, machines 30/20/20/30 = attacking Light+Summoning
(Chaos, Light) Runemage = Machines, Sorcery, racial 15/35/30/20 = defensive Light+Chaos

Strange class:
Shaman = Offense, Machines, Sorcery, Occultism, chaos dampening 15/25/35/25 (exception to the 40% on 60% rule)

Conclusions:
1) Paladin = Warden (almost completely)
2) Gatekeeper = Assassin (difference in racial and its absence)
3) other classes are better developed (no obvious repetitions)
4) no one has occultism (except the strange Shaman)

What pleases me: 2 schools of magic, less templated (compared to Might).
What doesn't please me:
- 2 pairs of duplicating classes (Paladin = Warden, Gatekeeper = Assassin);
- too even a distribution of parameters, without clearly expressed traits

Added after 54 minutes
Final part, breakdown of Magic classes:

General template: attack+defense = 20-30%, spellpower 40-50%, knowledge 25-35%
- Logistics
- Luck
- Education
- Sorcery
- Occultism
- Chaos (Destructive)
- Summoning
- Light / Dark

Sorcerer: Dark, racial 10/10/45/35 = dark caster
Necromancer: Dark, racial 10/15/45/30 = dark caster
Warlock: Dark, Offense 15/10/50/25 = dark caster without racial

Druid: Light, Defense 10/20/40/30 = light caster with defense
Flamekeeper: Light, racial 15/10/45/30 = light caster

Elementalist: Light, Dark 10/10/50/30 = archmage

Special:
Wizard: Light, racial, Defense (instead of occultism) = 10/15/30/45 (non-template parameters)
Heretic: Dark, Offense, Light dampening (instead of Summoning) = 30/15/35/20 (non-template parameters, do not correspond to Balanced)
Witch: Offense and Defense (instead of Chaos and Light/Dark), Necromancy = 20/10/40/30 (only 1 school of magic - Summoning)

Conclusions:
1) almost all mages are built according to one template
2) the differences lie in:
- which school will be the third alongside the Chaos+Summoning pair - Light or Dark (Elementalist has both)
- racial (or its absence)
3) but there are also unique classes that break the template (Wizard, Heretic, Witch)
4) logistics and luck are a universal pair of skills present in all Might, Magic, and Balanced classes
5) leadership and machines are absent from all Magic classes

What I didn't like: templates again; necromancy for living heroes; eternally high spellpower 40-50%.
How to fix:
1) put some classes on alternative magic trios: Light + Dark + Chaos/Summoning
2) remove education from some classes
3) remove occultism from some classes
4) put some classes on leadership (empathy)
5) remove necromancy from living heroes
6) balance the game so that classes with high knowledge (similar to Wizard) are viable and introduce corresponding classes

Added after 3 minutes
In conclusion: from the point of view of uniqueness, Balanced type classes were the most successful; they are not as one-dimensional as Might or Magic. However, there are overlapping classes there too.

I never claimed that active skills in Combat are bad (and, by the way, I liked the changes regarding hero attack damage). I was talking about the fact that the Combat skill itself (without any abilities) is very weak. Because of this, it is not profitable to spend 2 levels on Combat (Advanced + perk) for a small +1/+1 bonus.

Let's say we do this. Basic/Advanced/Expert give +1/+1, +2/+2, +3/+3. How are you going to tone down the "melee" perks? Also, how can you justify this with the Leadership for Necromancy, which gives only a +2/+4/+6 attack bonus (because they do not have morale)?

The majority of your points for adjusting the classes concern making more Magic skills available for Might and more Might skills available for Magic. How does this not make the classes even more generic than their current state?

The perspective of the Academy and the knowledge you provide is misguided.
The Academy has Might heroes; they are more geared toward the Magic department because of high Knowledge gain.
High Knowledge gain is deliberate for that race because they can invest Knowledge into creature artifacts, which give Might bonuses and compensate for the lack of Attack and Defense.
Knowledge itself is a very valid skill – it can grant you free units. For example, 40 Knowledge can grant you per week a creature of a tier or resource as follows:
- 3 Tier 7
- 6 Tier 6
- 10 Tier 5
- 13 Tier 4
- 20 Tier 3
- 26 Tier 2
- 40 Tier 1
- 3000 gold (per day)
- 20 of any resource

One hero can generate one creature, one resource, and a number of gold at the same time.
The only issue with Knowledge is that it is not as useful as other stats in the first month of the game because it does not benefit you in any way (besides increasing the mana cap).

Regarding class differences - There is no way you can have 24 completely different classes with just 4 primary stats. There are 3 class groups: Might, Balanced, and Magic, and each of them follows certain distribution criteria for primary and secondary skills.

The difference between classes comes from racial skills, Specialization distributions, and native magic schools (Magic heroes may have access to all 4 schools, but the Magic guild provides just 2), and faction creature profiles.

In conclusion: from the point of view of uniqueness, the Balanced classes are the most successful; they are not as uniform as Might or Magic. However, even there, there are overlapping classes.

Balanced classes lack the durability of Might heroes and the punching power of Magic heroes. Their advantage is the flexibility they have because of access to advanced secondary skills in the Might and Magic departments.

After reviewing the classes, I realized that the goal wasn't to make them unique. The aim was to tailor all the useful skills to each class, based on its characteristics. Plus, there are general restrictions on magic (one school - Might, two - Balanced, three - Magic).

There will be far fewer similar types than 24. Essentially, the differences lie in the Might, Balanced, and Magic categories, racial traits (where they exist), magic schools, and (for combat classes) a focus on attack or defense (based on parameters). Although there are a few unique classes (like Wizard or Heretic).

Added 4 minutes ago

Let's say we do this. Basic/Advanced/Expert give +1/+1, +2/+2, +3/+3. How are you going to tune down the "melee" perks? Also, how can you justify this with the Leadership for Necromancy, which gives only +2/+4/+6 attack bonus (because they do not have morale)?

I don't think "melee" skills should be weakened.
1) Regarding leadership for necromancers, I've already mentioned that this skill shouldn't exist in the first place.
2) +1/+1 ~ +1.7 (mixed) < +2
3) Completely balancing the skills is a dead end because even now, the Luck skill (the skill itself, without abilities) is noticeably stronger than other skills (for example, Attack).



Added 3 minutes ago

Majority of your points for adjusting the classes regard making more Magic skills available for Might and more Might skills available for Magic? How come this is not making the classes even more generic than their current state?

Yes, this will make Might classes more similar to the general Balanced group, but they will still have fundamental differences in their characteristics. However, there will be more differences between Might classes themselves.



Added 2 minutes ago

Knowledge by itself is a very valid skill - It can grant you free units. For example, 40 Knowledge can grant per week a creature of a tier or resource as follows:

Then why is there only 1 class with high Knowledge (40+)?

The only issue with Knowledge is that it is not as useful as other stats in the first month of the game because it does not benefit in any way (besides increasing mana cap).

This means one of two things (or both):
- either spells are too cheap (and mana cap doesn't matter)
- or mana regeneration is too slow (Knowledge doesn't increase it enough)

Added 3 minutes ago

The difference between classes comes from racial skills, Specializations distributions, and native magic schools (Magic heroes may have access to all 4 schools, but the Magic guild provides just 2), faction creature profiles.

I wrote about this above; it's all correct, except for the last point.
Creature profiles are not tied to the class because there's nothing stopping you from using heroes from other races. Perhaps you aimed to create self-sufficient classes so that players could play any strategy with their native heroes, but using non-native heroes doesn't negate this.



Added 11 minutes ago

Regarding classes difference - There is no way you can have 24 completely different classes with just 4 primary stats. There are 3 classes groups Might, Balanced, and Magic, and each of them follows certain distribution primary skill and secondary skill criteria.

These 3 groups were created artificially. You could have divided them into other groups.

For example, dividing them into groups as in the original game:

1) Attack + Defense (Humans and Orcs) = good when a combat class fights another combat class (army vs. army)

2) Attack + Knowledge (Demons) = good when a combat class fights a magic class (defense isn't needed here because the opponent kills with magic, but Knowledge is needed to have enough mana to neutralize enemy spells or cast Light/Dark spells); this combination is also good for machinists (playing with a ballista, whose damage depends on Attack + Knowledge)

3) Attack + Magic (Dark Elves) = good when the goal is to kill the opponent quickly (maximize troop damage and maximize magic damage)

4) Defense + Magic (Undead, Dwarves) = good when a magic class fights a combat class (defense - to survive, magic - to kill)

5) Magic + Knowledge (Mages) = good when a magic class fights another magic class

6) Defense + Knowledge (Elves) = good when a combat class fights another combat class and focuses on casting Light/Dark spells (focus on a drawn-out battle)

Plus, in each pair, you can highlight 2 directions, with an emphasis on the first characteristic or the second.
That's already 12 combinations.
But you decided to keep only the simplest of them: Attack + Defense and Magic + Knowledge.



Added 18 minutes ago
I would suggest diversifying the Might class with the following groups:

1) Attack + Defense (combat version, pure Might)
2) Attack + Knowledge (combat version with magic or machines)

Classes from this group always kill with troops (Attack) and never kill with magic (no Magic).

Mixed instead of Balanced:

1) Attack + Magic (tempo version)
2) Defense + Knowledge (defensive version with magic)

(In my opinion, there shouldn't be bland classes with even parameters; there should always be key parameters).

Magic:

1) Magic + Knowledge (pure Magic, as it is now)
2) Defense + Magic (magic against a combat class)

Classes from this group always kill with magic (Magic) and never kill with troops (no Attack).

But, of course, all of this seriously deviates from the current concept, so I offer it for consideration (as ideas for reflection), but I don't expect it to be implemented.