Posts from Balance in HotA.

debatable claims. however, the magic balance in HotA is still better than in SoD

Do you even remember the last time you leveled up any magic while chasing the tempo? :D
In SoD, there is no balance of magics (or other skills). There are good skills, average (situational) ones, bad ones, and completely useless garbage. That's how it is, and that's how you have to play. In TE/HotA, they tried to balance the magics, but ended up with a mess where one school is top-tier and one is completely unplayable.

In HotA, a competent player in week 1 would almost always prefer earth over water, and at a later stage, the opposite. That is balance.

That's not balance — that's an indicator that earth is a situational skill, good enough to take the first Griffin Conservatory, which you could take with meat anyway. Balance, in my understanding, is when all elements are equal. I realize that's impossible to achieve because the element with Dimension Door will always be top. Although fire and earth were made fairly even. If they could achieve that for all schools, it would be great. IMHO again.

Let’s add damage dealers and teleportation to all factions!

Give Dimension Door and Town Portal to all schools!

By the way, such a proposal has already been made) Or even better, remove them from all schools entirely)

Many cite BT as an example. If the balance there is so good, why isn't it played more widely? And magic is already fine; if Dimension Door is only in Air Magic, nothing stops you from leveling it up—if they don't give it to one hero, then to a second or third. You still can't come up with anything better than the original; otherwise, it would just be a different game.

If the balance is so good, why isn't it played widely?

You can't come up with anything better than the original; otherwise, it will be a different game.

Should I cry or laugh?

Many people cite BT as an example. If it has such good balance, why isn't it played extensively?

Yes, it's indeed curious why WT faded away. I haven't been interested in Heroes for the past couple of years: there used to be a lot of people playing WT, but now there's no activity at all...

Should I cry or laugh?

I wanted to say that serious changes to the game are unjustified and will lead to nothing.

Perfect balance and mirror matches are only possible in chess... Everything else is meaningless.

We're waiting for The to be released: peka:

It was released and then removed; Vikk told me quite a while ago about the hot-team's position, I just didn't understand/didn't believe it right away.

He came and went; he told me quite a while ago what the HoT team's position was; I just didn't understand/didn't believe it right away.

What specific position? Are you sure you didn't take some statement by Vik as a position of the entire team?

Added 36 minutes later

The problem is specifically that these control scrolls exist. And on the Mirror map, they create even more imbalance. It's better to just remove them (in my opinion).

Well, they were introduced quite deliberately, and, as far as I can tell, they are doing a pretty good job with their task. They increase the number of ways to obtain control (i.e., they reduce the variability of availability), while not significantly lowering the threshold for obtaining it (for 15k value, there could have been a Pandor on the entire map, not just 1 flight). There are fewer situations of "full control against a naked hero," which is what was needed. So, I would say the opposite: the scrolls reduce the initial imbalance of control.

The Scroll of Control is often better than Pandora's Box for controlling the entire map. What is easier and more effective: to increase Wisdom, defeat Pandora's Box, and use it with one hero, or to defeat the Scroll of Control and use it with all heroes? And most importantly, consider all the timings (exits to the third tier, hero leveling). The earlier this scroll is obtained, the more effective it is than any Pandora's Box (in practice).
In the Mirror map, the game and luck (as a part of the game, of course) come down to finding these scrolls, which is already incorrect.

Currently, there are no plans to consider m200 when balancing the game. This format is intended for fun, similar to Anarchy, and it introduces too many complications if we try to balance it in terms of gameplay.

Well, the beginning of the game on any large map starts with a small area, and if you ignore that, you'll end up with the same old problems.

How can you develop something for large maps without testing it on smaller ones (for example, objects)?

Regarding the control and overall balance of magic, I already shared an idea, but it somehow went unnoticed. I'm not sure how atmospheric and classic it is; I'd like to hear Kot Hryu's comments on this. The idea is this: when building a certain level of the Mage Guild, not only do the spells of that level appear inside, but a button also appears, which, when clicked, offers to buy a scroll with a spell of that level. The specific spell is not shown; it is chosen randomly. This is an alternative to rebuilding, but much more elegant and natural from a game logic perspective. In general, this aspect seemed stupid to me even in the early 2000s, when I was just starting to play Heroes, that in the Mage Guild (a rather expensive building), a limited, fixed set of spells is given, which cannot be changed in any way. It's always incredibly annoying, for example, when the "Arrow" spell is not available at level 1. This especially applies to high-level spells; it's like, "we built and built, and finally we built it." And from the point of view of atmosphere and game logic, it's the Mage Guild, wise wizards sit there, a magnificent building was erected for them at great expense so that they could meet there and share their wisdom with the heroes who come to them. And they, for the sake of appearances, drew a few spells, put them in a prominent place, and went to the tavern to drink. Like, "we've done our job, go away." They need to be kept busy, after all, or the old men will get bored, and all the wisdom of the ancestors will be lost.

There were many ideas circulating regarding a reasonable redesign. This particular one wasn't among them, and it doesn't seem to be the most suitable of the proposed options, but let's still keep it in mind for future reference.

Regarding magic, it would be interesting to make Town Portal, Dimension Door, and Fly spells common to all schools, so that the player is not forced to take Earth and Air in every game. And the restructuring, in my opinion, is good the way it is currently done in SoD, except for the library in Tower.

Even if all other magic is left as in SoD, this immediately makes all schools usable. Slow doesn't play a fundamental role on Jebus Cross, and Bless with Curse are also good skills to start with. Air falls short a bit, since aside from Haste there is nothing else. Well, Fly could be left in Air. In my opinion, this would greatly enhance and diversify the game.