Posts from Ideas and suggestions.

There are known instances of harpies capturing current castles (with a speed of 6) on morale maps, without the 100-round limit.

It's also possible to capture castles with fairies on their native terrain. If you use the Moon spell, you can also use Wall to damage them during the cycle, which will speed up the capture and may increase the chances of morale dropping.

The Warlock's Laboratory on snow is an overpowered building.
The Tower already has the best Town Hall due to the Library.
And with the Warlock's Laboratory, it builds the Town Hall very quickly and makes renovations.
At least make the exchange rate 2 to 1.
This would be equivalent to the rate with 8 markets.
Or only leave it for the Wastes and remove it from the snow map.

Please make the wasteland color less harsh – it’s impossible to look at this landscape.

Nothing will change. I can only suggest adjusting the saturation/brightness on your monitor. On many modern displays, it is artificially set to an absurdly high level. Some systems also have the option to configure profiles for specific applications. The color of the landscape is as pale as it can be while still preserving its visual concept. Compared to its version from the April demo of the Factory, it has become significantly less saturated. This is even discussed in a separate article: https://vk.com/@h3hota-gryaduschee-obnovlenie-160. And if you put a screenshot from Heroes II next to it, the difference is even greater. At the same time, quite a few people still play the second part (and the H3SW mod), and no one has gone blind. I'm not even too lazy to post illustrations: demo > current version > second game.

The issue isn't about comparing it to the second game or comparing it to its earlier versions. It's about the fact that the original graphics of the third Heroes game are a masterpiece. And in comparison to that, both Highland and Wasteland feel underwhelming. It's simply a very difficult task, and in the current situation, the only way to address it, as is being done now, is to take a deep breath, overlook some things, and do the best we can. To fully solve this problem, extraordinary honesty and exceptional effort are needed. The chances of honesty are still somewhat realistic, but exceptional effort is only possible if we get very lucky and find someone who can see how it should be done and is capable of doing it. The chances of that are very slim – it requires an equally extraordinary stroke of luck for all of us. As for the three images, the progress is evident. It's clear that effort was put in, and it's better than what it was before.

The issue here is about setting priorities – everyone was waiting for a rebalance of skills and magic, water maps, and other things, but instead, we got some new landscapes and an unfinished new town. A small rebalance of skills was done, but in my opinion, it wasn't enough. I saw a comment somewhere that no one was planning to move property and mysticism into the top 5. My question is – why not move them into the top 5? The more strong skills there are, the more interesting and diverse the game becomes. Ideally, I think there shouldn't be any top 5 at all, so that all skills are strong, and in each game, we see our own, unique set of skills for the hero, and not the same thing in every stream. If we raised mysticism to 10-20-30 and property to 500-1000-2000, that would be much more interesting. As it is, they remain skills that no one will take. But in any case, thank you for what has been done.

The point isn't about comparing it to the second game or comparing it to earlier versions of itself.
It's about the fact that the original graphics of the third game are a masterpiece. And compared to that, both Highland and Wasteland look underwhelming. The task itself is very complex, and perhaps in the current situation, the only way to solve it is to take a deep breath, turn a blind eye to some things, and do the best you can.
To fully solve this problem, extreme honesty and extraordinary effort are needed.
The chances of honesty are still somewhat realistic, but extraordinary effort is only possible if you get very lucky and find someone who sees how it should be done and can do it. The chances of that are very slim – it requires incredible luck for all of us.
As for the three pictures, the progress is obvious. They clearly tried, made it better, and succeeded in making it better than it was.

It's quite amusing to read comments like these from users :) The HotA team consists of just as professional artists as the New World Computing team. This isn't an amateur project; it's a hobby project from developers with extensive experience in this field. And statements like "the original is a masterpiece, anything new doesn't measure up" are nothing more than a perceptual error, the power of habit. A habit developed over twenty years. That's a huge amount of time, and it's not surprising that some players find it difficult to accept something new. And, of course, you have to consider that not every user has a good artistic sense. It's noteworthy that the former members of NWC themselves believe that the new content in HotA fits in perfectly.

Everyone was waiting for a rebalance of skills and magic, water tiles, and other things, but they got some new landscape.

Don't confuse "everyone" with a specific group of the audience. There were anecdotal comments somewhere that improvements in the map editor are not needed at all. That is, people are seriously unaware that there are tens of thousands of users for whom these changes were the most anticipated. HotA is not a mod for an online game; HotA is the development and improvement of Heroes III in all existing directions.
For some reason, it's especially common on HW to find players who are convinced that their world is Heroes. Well, okay, it's all the more pleasant to meet exceptions.

As for the balance changes, they are introduced only when, after discussions and repeated testing, we have enough confidence in them. In 1.6.0, we chose the changes that were finally approved by the team and that could be implemented without delaying the release. This is just one of many blocks of rebalancing.

Regarding the property artifacts - you could also change the artifact classes: the purse to minor, and lower the bag to major.

Yeah, remove the bag as a relic from Dragon Utopia.

I'm happy with the update; I like everything so far.:smile54:

This is just one of many rebalancing blocks.

It's clear that further skill improvements are planned, but my main point was that properties and mysticism in their current form remain practically useless. I hope they will be improved more in the upcoming bug fixes. As I suggested before, 10-20-30 and 500-1000-2000 sounds quite adequate and constructive; they won't become overpowered, they will just become good skills.

It's clear that further skill improvements are planned, but my main point was that property and mysticism in this form still remain practically useless. I hope they will be improved in the upcoming bug fixes. As I already suggested, 10-20-30 and 500-1000-2000 sounds quite adequate and constructive; it wouldn't be an imbalance, it would just make them good skills.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. 500-1000-2000 finances would be completely broken on poorer maps, imagine a H3DM1 match where one player gets finance heroes and the other does not...

It's clear that further skill improvements are planned, but my main point was that Estate and Mysticism in their current form still remain practically useless. I hope they get buffed more in the upcoming bugfixes. As I previously suggested, 10-20-30 and 500-1000-2000 sounds quite adequate and constructive; they won't become overpowered, they'll just become good skills.

I agree, they still need a buff. But not too much.

When buffing Estate, remember that it stacks with artifacts that give gold. Right now they're useless, but if it's buffed too much, even just a Purse would mean 2500 gold out of thin air every turn (a new hero every day). And what if you have a couple of heroes with Estate? What if it's not a fast Jebus Cross with a finale on day 123 or earlier? If the game lasts several weeks and you've collected the Golden Goose? Then the game would become a bit of a farce.

IMHO, a maximum of 500/750/1150. We shouldn't focus exclusively on Jebus Cross games. Such skills shouldn't have a significant impact in short games.

But such a hero, if hired specifically for that, should also pay for themselves. If we take a 7-day finish as a baseline for various Jebus Cross maps. Then a hero with level 1 Estate would give 350*7 = 2450. So they wouldn't pay for themselves. You'd need to level them up, but for such maps that's too difficult and the hero would still be dismissed. But if level 1 gave 500, then 500*7 = 3500. If that seems like a lot, make it 400, so 400*7 = 2800.

It wouldn't be overpowered, because leveling a support hero up to maybe level 5 on Jebus Cross is questionable. I don't think that would be an overpowered winning strategy. But starting with a hero that has Estate (if level 1 gives 500 or 400) and engaging in more expensive bidding could diversify the game and the hero lineup! And it would force you to keep such a hero for 7 days, otherwise the strategy would be a loss.

If Mysticism is buffed too much, early-game battles would become almost meaningless, and 30 mana out of thin air in the late game would be too strong. IMHO, it's sufficient as is, people just haven't realized it yet. If you fight smartly, such a mage can avoid restoring mana by collecting respawns or, after waiting a couple of days without serious battles, restore the needed mana for breaching GO (without entering a castle or well).

Property and mysticism in this form still remain practically useless.

In short: that's exactly how it was planned. The goal is not to make the skill good, but to increase its usefulness from practically zero to situational.

If the participants of the NBA All-Star game believe that they are playing basketball, and the rest are just playing with a ball, there is nothing surprising about it, it is normal.

The comparison is completely incorrect. Firstly, in basketball as a game in this example, everyone plays, some as professional athletes, and others as ordinary amateur players. In absolute numbers, the latter are the overwhelming majority. It is thanks to them that professional basketball exists and develops, and it is with their money that the budget of basketball as an industry is formed, because merchandise/balls/accessories are bought by ordinary players and fans. That is, a similar analogy in the Heroes context is an insult to ordinary players and your own viewers on streams. But, to be honest, I am not surprised by such rhetoric, I have already heard from the team and the lobby administration about the level of self-esteem of the player with the nickname Lizard. I thought it was a rumor, but now I see it in practice.

Secondly, online gameplay is not the only possible option in Heroes, and not the "best" of the possible ones. There is a large group of players who play for their own pleasure - both on random maps and on fixed ones, and in story Campaigns. And for some, the gameplay of Heroes is not very important, but the atmosphere or aesthetics are important. For HotA, all these groups of players are equally important and equally a priority. Just as they were important for NWC. They are all not some other Heroes from an alternate universe, they are parts of one common community. And statements in the spirit of "NBA stars" and "playing with a ball" certainly do not contribute to uniting the community.

Thirdly, no matter how much individual players from HW consider themselves an elite, no matter how much they consider themselves Olympic gods (fortunately, here you often find users with a much healthier attitude) - even within the framework of online gameplay (which, I repeat, is not the only possible one), they are not identical to the list of the best players in reality. A few years ago, the percentage was higher and, perhaps, about 90% of the really strong players were on this forum. But times are changing, there are many players in the top 100 lobby who don't even have an account on HW. At the same time, the trend in the top is precisely towards an increase in new participants, including from the Polish part of the community. How representative can the lobby rating be? This is a question for a separate discussion, but it is unlikely that anyone will argue that in the last two years it has gradually acquired the features of a clear reflection of the player's skill. The process is far from over, but here you need to look not at the current point in time, but at the statistics. HW is just one of many platforms on which a rather large group of online players has historically formed. Most of the others have closed and died, and, in general, the audience interested in online play simply had no other choice.

Again, I perfectly understand why some players find it difficult to see the game as a whole, to evaluate it impartially and without bias, together with the entire audience of all formats, and also taking into account the factor of time. This requires time, it requires collecting and analyzing statistics. I think many are just too lazy to spend the effort. But for developers, this is necessary in order to correctly prioritize.

In short: that's exactly how it was intended. The goal is not to make the skill good, but to increase its usefulness from practically zero to situational.

Docent Picolan, increase the first level of Estates to 400. So that this situational usefulness exists even on Jebus Cross. Over 7 days (average game length), that would be 2800 — enough for one hero. It would make it viable to start with a hero who has Estates or not to dismiss a bought hero with Estates. More expensive bidding would become possible. There would be more variety right from the start. Meaningful variety, not just situational!

Currently, 350 — yes, it's more than before, but imo it's too little. That's 2450 gold over 7 days. It doesn't really motivate playing such a strategy. No one will level Estates to level 3 on Jebus Cross anyway. On larger maps, a +50 gold increase at level 1 also won't make much of a difference.

imagine a h3dm1 match where one player gets finance heroes and the other does not...

Mirrors are a separate topic; the balance issues there stem specifically from the heroes. The same can be said about Grindan, Labeta, Alamar, Solmyr, and other heroes – one player gets them, and the other doesn't. I've long suggested a system where players pick heroes from a list to form their own pool, so that the 8 chosen heroes appear in the tavern in order, but apparently, I wasn't heard, or Baratorcha simply didn't have time to implement it (he promised to create a mirrored tavern a long time ago).

In short: that's exactly how it was planned. The goal isn't to make the skill good, but to increase its usefulness from practically zero to situational.

Strange ideas about rebalancing. Balance is primarily about entertainment. Wouldn't you want to increase the entertainment value of the game? To do this, you need to ensure that there isn't a top-8 set of skills, so that each time a player chooses a skill when leveling up, they think about what to take, rather than clicking automatically. And besides, if there are many good skills, then in each game, the main hero will have a different set of skills, which also increases the entertainment value.

Property and mysticism were adequately buffed. The idea of balancing all skills is completely utopian and nonsensical, in my opinion. It's normal that there are top-tier skills and weaker ones - that's what the game is based on. Some utterly useless skills should be buffed (so Eagle Eye becomes at least somewhat usable, for example), and that's where it should stop. It's far more important to at least somewhat balance the towns, so that in the same Jebus Cross there aren't bans of under 10k. The Djinn Lamps work great for Tower, and they added individuality to that town.
There's also a suggestion at the "thinking out loud" level: in Jebus Cross, make it possible to optionally disable terrain penalties (except sand) - this would greatly balance things. Cove, Tower, and Swamp (although to a lesser extent) are weak largely due to the penalty. Similarly - on XL maps, allow all towns to build level 5 mage guilds.

And yes, I think Lizard is right, even if he put it a bit bluntly. I have nothing against casual players who have never played online, but it is the online community (not just ХВ) that is the driving force behind the game's development. Without online play, there would be no Heroes in its modern form.