Posts from Плагин Fresh Mod для SOD

Funny discussion. Reading the posts of some people reminds me of the phrase: "Wisdom doesn't always come with age; sometimes age comes alone." :) In essence, a person is quite an egoistic being, so when performing any laborious action that benefits other people, they expect to receive something useful in return for themselves. Most often, this is money. But if not money, then something else – pure altruism is rare in our world. Therefore, to motivate a person to do what you need, first, you need to figure out why they are doing it and what they want in return. Based on the answer to this question, you can form your negotiation position. The negotiating position of a capricious child ("I don't like it, I won't eat it, I want candy") is a very weak position. Because in 90%++ of cases, it causes one of two reactions - either ignore the opinions of these people (if there are few of them) or completely stop trying to interact (if there are many such people or if they are very annoying). Diplomacy skill is overpowered not only in Heroes but also in life: rolleyes Regarding the list of changes, the question "why change anything at all" is subjective, so there is no objective answer; each person answers it individually. However, specific changes can be analyzed regarding their expected outcome. Here is my analysis (without claiming to be definitive): 1) Eagle Eye - nothing will change; the skill remains as useless as before. 2) First Aid - the proposed option was once discussed within HotA; it did not cause any particular negativity from anyone (as far as I remember). However, it wasn't the only promising option. 3) Diplomacy - this is the most complex issue because this skill is highly variable – it easily ranges from being overpowered to being worthless. Therefore, before starting to change anything, it is desirable to delve deeper into the reasons for its overpowerment. The overpowerment of diplomacy in the early game lies in the fact that you can join a pretty good army for free – various Loths and hordes of Goblins can already be joined by the end of week 1. And in the late game, the overpowerment lies in the fact that after taking several dungeons, you can quickly join large stacks of level 6-7 monsters; in the endgame on Anarchy, players' armies mainly consist of them. Therefore, to balance diplomacy, it is desirable to limit the overpowered situations without affecting the working ones. For example, joining only for money, joining only monsters of levels 1-5, etc. The second option was tested in a tournament, and it turned out that with such a restriction, Kirov is stronger than Roland as a starter. True, Kirov is an imbalance in itself, and he also gets Diplomacy periodically, but still, there is evidence that diplomacy can be balanced. You can also change the purchase rate – make the cost of joining higher than hiring. Or vice versa, do not touch the cost of joining, but join only part of the stack. Another option is to change the range of monster loyalties when generating. Currently, at difficulty 160%, loyalties from 4 to 10 are generated (1 - always joins, 10 - never joins); I don't remember the exact distribution, but it can be changed within the mod so that higher values appear more often, and lower values less often. Limiting joining by value is not a good solution because value does not correlate too well with the usefulness of the stack. Which of the options will work – I don't know, and no one knows (including those who beat their chests). Only tests, tests, and more tests will help, especially in tournament conditions. An approximate guideline for balancing diplomacy in the game is that this should be a skill not for a pro player, but for a newbie; that is, the pro player would level up using standard schemes, but players would try to level up the newbie-diplomat and explore the area for reserves to strengthen the personnel composition. P.S. Peace to all (c).

These are yesterday's and today's saves (there was another game, but today the bug where you can't continue when one player is killed repeated, no other bugs were found).
https://dropmefiles.com/r21uC

passwords
77
111222
123

Today, all the passwords were the same, but the first password changed to 33.

As it turned out, the second player had version 1.1. Today he changed it to 3.0.

Thank you! I'll take a look.

Added 1 minute ago

but the feature of Freshmod, as I understand it, is the desire of one player. That is, it is not required that both players connect the plugin and that it be the same version for them.

This is a feature of any plugin connected to HD Mod.

Moreover, people started writing about this in this thread immediately after the second Freshmod was released, but what happened next? Instead of solving this issue - which is extremely important for online play - the third Freshmod is released.

The issue was resolved by displaying a message about the connected version in the network chat.

Added 11 minutes ago
All versions have been updated to 1.2, 2.2, 3.1.
There is one change for all:
- The display of the message about the connected mod version has been reworked; now it is displayed when the game starts and when a save is loaded.

This is a feature of any plugin connected to HD Mod.

The issue is resolved by displaying a message about the connected version in the network chat.

All versions have been updated to 1.2, 2.2, 3.1.
The change is the same for all:
- The display of the message about the connected mod version has been reworked; now it is displayed when the game starts and when a save is loaded.

Good, at least it works this way.
Regarding any plugin: as far as I remember, HW ruls, when it was still used separately from HD Mod, simply didn't allow players with different rulesets to connect to each other. Ideally, all plugins should be implemented in the same way, and if not, HD Mod should somehow ban them.

join only a portion of the stack.

In my opinion, the most obvious way to quantitatively balance diplomacy is, perhaps, in combination with other methods.

3) Diplomacy is the most complex aspect because this skill is highly variable – it can easily range from being overpowered to being useless. Therefore, before making any changes, it is advisable to delve deeper into the reasons for its overpowered nature.

If diplomacy is even moderately viable, there will be situations where it can win the game, and others where it has no effect at all. Players will take it hoping for a positive outcome. Some will succeed, and others will not.

Or, conversely, leave the join cost unchanged, but only allow a portion of the stack to join.

This is how diplomacy works in Heroes 4 and the Inferno commander's specialty in WoG. The chance of joining is 100%, but only a certain percentage of the stack joins (e.g., 5-10-15%). The join occurs during the attack; a portion joins the hero, and the rest either engage in battle or flee. In this case, diplomacy would become a skill for a weaker hero, but it would provide a certain boost to the undead.

A rough guideline for balanced diplomacy in the game is that it should be a skill not for the main hero, but for a weaker hero, meaning that the main hero should develop according to standard schemes, but players would try to also develop a diplomat and use them to explore the area for reserves to strengthen the hero's forces.

We currently have a series with Gomunguls on the latest mod. It's too early to say for sure, of course, but in its current form, diplomacy on Jebus doesn't get in the way and isn't particularly OP. Because on tempo templates, it's not always necessary. There's hardly anyone to join in the center, and diplomacy still needs to be leveled up in the early stages of respawn. Maybe this 25K threshold is normal for Jebus, but a larger sample is needed.

Regarding Eagle Eye, I agree that it's not a particularly valuable skill, because in SoD there is still Curse of the Netherworld (CW). But for the finale, without strong magic of your own and in the absence of CW, you can take basic Eagle Eye if it's offered.

I was just watching Gomungulus' stream with Stinger – a great mod idea. I want to play with such a Jeb in HotA – I'm tired of endless Wyverns and Cyclops. The idea for Eagle Eye is simply excellent; otherwise, you're afraid of the endgame until you have Explosion/Resurrection and just run around looking for Earth. With such an Eagle Eye, the attacking player will think more carefully about whether to attack without bracers and which spells to use at the beginning of the battle – as a result, the overall game tactics and battles will change for the better! And such Diplomacy looks balanced – now, if there are few creatures in your town, there is an alternative way to get out of the situation. Take a diplomat and recruit 7 Wyverns for money, or build a chain to some town – an equivalent choice.

Since we're already messing with the skill's effects, why not do this: the basic Eagle Eye skill immediately adds spells from the opponent's spellbook of the first two levels to your own at the start of the battle; the advanced version adds spells up to the third level; and the expert version adds all levels (or up to the 4th level).
As for the First Aid tent, the basic version fully restores the HP of the selected unit; the advanced version also removes negative effects from the unit; and the expert version fully heals all your units and removes negative effects.

Once again, my opinion: there's no need to keep spawning versions of the game; it's very, very bad. Let SoD remain SoD and HotA remain HotA. If anyone needs variations where "extra" skills work, play VT. The Fresh mod in SoD already provides more than enough native units in banks (although even that is a poorly reworked idea from VT) and unit transfers in the city.

Since we're already playing around with the skill's effect, why not do this: the basic Eagle Eye skill immediately adds spells from the opponent's spellbook of the first two levels to your own spellbook at the start of the battle; the advanced skill adds spells up to the third level; and the expert skill adds all levels (or up to the 4th level).
As for the First Aid tent, the basic version fully restores the HP of the selected unit; the advanced version also removes negative effects from the unit; and the expert version fully heals all your units and removes negative effects.

This idea of removing negative effects from the tent is the most organic way to change the First Aid skill. But removing them from everyone at the expert level is too overpowered. What if, instead, it healed beyond the normal amount? For example, a simple Angel would have 240 HP after being healed (with a limit of no more than 2x the unit's HP, so the maximum you could heal a Centaur beyond its normal HP would be 20, and a Duck would be 140).

It’s nothing overpowered, you just need to destroy a tent.

It's nothing overpowered, you just need to destroy the tent.

And we'll give it 750 HP! :smile54:

I played as Serene, and the spells only appeared in the spellbook for the duration of the battle.

Yes, yesterday we played on the fresh mod 3.0 – according to him, during the battle, "Eagle Eye" granted spells, and after the battle, they disappeared from the spellbook. I'm attaching the save files; we played without passwords: https://dropmefiles.com/P6pva

Here's an idea for diplomacy: make it work not by joining forces, but by intimidation. For example, with basic diplomacy, weaker mobs (2 times or more) than the player's army would want to flee. With advanced diplomacy, mobs of equal or lesser strength would flee. With expert diplomacy, mobs up to 2 times stronger (and naturally, weaker ones) would flee. This would look like a real strategy, not some contrived idea – like specifically leveling up a diplomat and taking everyone along to make the governors in Might and Magic simply run away.