Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Tomes Alpha Mod Development for CW

[MattCaspermeyer]

As I've continued my playthrough of CW, I've made some more observations...

There are a lot of other Astral Damage units in the game, and so I'm thinking that either I'd have to change them all or simply change the Goblin and Blood Shamans back to using Astral Damage for their special attacks. I'm thinking that Astral Damage, now is considered the same as other types of damage. In lieu of this, I'm thinking of making "resist all" spells / skills / bonuses apply that resist to Astral as well so that "all" means all!

This means that certain spells may have to be changed or amped to handle the increase in Astral Resistance, for example, Ghost Sword (which relied on 0 Astral Resistance to perform its damage).

It also opens the door for why aren't more units doing Astral Damage? Maybe Ghosts should be considered for a change to Astral Damage? The Phoenix will have its fire damage split into half Fire and half Astral like I did in TL (since it's flame is so hot).

Also, I noticed that the Ice Orb features are broken (I've had this problem before in my modding - the descriptions are misaligned so when cursor over them, it shows the wrong description). Also, the Ice Orb damage is really low, so I'm going to have to do something about that...

Cyclops are going to get a boost so that they have a chance to either stun, knock a unit unconscious, etc. with those rocks they're throwing!

I've updated the Gizmo AI and will provide that in an alpha update soon. It doesn't resurrect yet, but it at least more "intelligently" attacks enemies / heals your units.

A new idea that has germinated is that I'm going to assign the unit with the greatest "power" as a leader for enemy stacks that don't have a hero leading them. This unit will get a boost in its abilities and it may even have rudimentary scroll use abilities (i.e. cast level 1 spells) - this is a new idea and so I'm just beginning to flesh it out.

Obviously, mana / rage gain will be implemented as I hate using it now to beat enemies with no loss when you can just infinitely regenerate mana.

Also, the mana restriction on Higher Magic is either going to be dramatically increased or removed - makes no sense to limit what you can cast as mana is meant to be the limiter.

I'm starting to get very itchy playing the game and making notes before I restart and start implementing new features, but I must play through the entire game and try to catch as many bugs as I can (i.e. I didn't know about the Ice Orb bug with is descriptions - and I don't think anyone ever reported it in these forums).

By the way, here's something that's a bit embarrassing, but for the life of me, I could not find Agvares in my AP playthrough and finally found him in (the cave - duh!) Shetarra. Most of the companions will get buffs (or I like the training that the Elf companion undergoes and am thinking about creating companion levels - i.e. they upgrade to better abilities after a certain number of battles or they simply gain experience and better abilities the longer they travel with you - hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to implement this down the road...).

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

About astral dmg, there are allot of units with that type, but also items/spells/medal with astral resistance so it evens out i a way.

I vote to leave phoenix pure fire dmg, and chaos dragon to change 50-50% fire/astral. Just my thought.

Nice work with gizmo improvement. Your changes in gizmo in KB-tL HoMM babies mod were great. Maybe lower heal/resurrect amount but add bonus res when hit ally units. It already act as fit of energy spell for +1 action, so would it be possible to add low lvl divine armor for 1 turn or something ?

Ah, same as HoMM babies, no more 100+ turn battle with mana/rage inflow

As for upgrading companions look for Trigger and his improvement for ranged units crit%, or Elenhel counter for wanderer spell scrols. It`s nice idea to get better bonuses from companion after 10/20/30/40 battle something like wives in KB-tL, and more reason to keep him with you, instead just kick him on the curb when better comes along

[MattCaspermeyer]

In playing CW, I noticed the Brontor's "Spikes" feature description:

"Enemies receive damage from the sharp horns, if they attack the Bronto when he is dug in and unresponsive."

However, the "Spikes" work when the Brontor is both above and below ground (by the way, I'll fix that spelling error, i.e. "Bronto").

So either this description was never updated or the Brontor's "Spikes" are meant to work only when they are below ground. This seems to make sense from a strategic game standpoint as the Brontor can't retaliate when it is buried, but it can via “Spikes”. However, I could see from a visual standpoint, that if you attack the Brontor from one of the 3 hexes in front of it, that an attacker might have to deal with its horns, but not from the 3 hexes behind it.

Strategically, I think it makes sense to remove the "Spikes" ability from their above ground form (plus its easy to implement) and have it conform to their description or change the above ground form to either work directly in front or the 3 front hexes of the Brontor (this is harder to implement). I'll most likely implement the former unless I see some good reasons to leave it as is, in which case I'll implement the latter’s restrictions.

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

Brontors did some strange things when i fought them before : if it`s burrowed Spikes work vs every melee unit attacking them. If they are above ground they will retaliate 1 time vs melee with no spikes, but if any other unit attack them during that turn and since thay already retaliated spikes will trigger and hit unit that attacked them. Try it out, maybe I just had weird situation. But as it goes from what i saw, spikes work every time brontors cant retaliate - borrowed , or already retaliated in current turn against some melee attacker.

Also i read somewhere on forum that brontors can retaliate against their own ally or enemy units if pet dragons rage skill lightning ball attack them, while burrowed and some unit is on hex near them. This is a bit tricky to replay, but it`s possible bug, i`m not sure.

[MattCaspermeyer]

I've been thinking about bonuses to the attack and defense attributes similar to intellect and here are some ideas.

I'll use TL values as the initial starting values and may use the same for AP / CW - we'll see.

For attack, every 7 points increases a unit's base critical hit chance (krit) by 1% (this is additive, so if you have 7 attack and the unit's krit is 5 then it will be 6 or if the unit's krit is 15 it will be 16). For every 15 points maximum damage possible increases 100%. Note that the maximum damage is actually only 200% right now (see my forum topic here). So if you have 15 attack, then you'll be able to do a maximum of 300% damage instead of 200%.

For defense, every 7 points increases a unit's resistance to all damage types by 1% (once again additive so if a unit has 0% resistance, it will then have 1%). For every 15 points, the damage reduction decreases by the next integral value. So for example, damage reduction is limited to 1/3 (33%), if you have 15 defense then damage reduction is 1/4 (25%), for 30 it is 1/5(20%), etc.

This will encourage getting higher attack / defense values if you are a Warrior / Paladin due to the increased krit / maximum damage and increased resistance / damage reduction.

The values are probably going to be my first cut for now, but we can always update them if these initial values prove to be not right (i.e. maybe for every 15 attack the bonus is +50% instead of +100%, etc.).

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

So far situation was : lets for expl take knight unit , your attack = enemy defense, you make nominal 100% dmg = 16-18 physical. Your att higher 10points then enemy def = (16-1*(1 + 10*3,3%) = 21-24 phy dmg, etc. So on 30 bonus att you make 100% more dmg = 200% total, and on 60 bonus att above enemy def it`s 200% bonus = 300% total dmg of nominal value, 48-54 phy dmg for our knight expl. And that part is clear, and OK.
Why i asked bladeking77 in that post i referred you to, is this is to simple compared to intellect stats formula (1 game i played in CW i got 2 Belt of Victor and with it my dragon army had basic def 150+ def, and with stone skin/magic spring red dragons got to 284 def, and all of it useless due to limit to 66% dmg reduction, and with this implemented in calculating att/def at least my red dragons got more resistances). And i wanted to see can it be made interesting, to make players to think before equipping some items, about bonuses they will gain/lose with +4att compared to +5int or something like that. Expl : should i take +att/def items, or spend runes on frenzy/prayer sills, or lvlup divine armor/stone skin . . . It will make player choose between way of developing his hero/army.
Bladeking77 did it, and it`s pretty simple formula in arena.lua file, and it works great. BUT i didnt think about active att/def bonuses in battle. Int is constant value during game, in and out of battle so spell dmg is calculated for it`s value. Att/def on other hand outside battle have some value, and in battle can have completely different - stone skin/magic spring/berserk spells, or frenzy skill, trolls malevolent, goblin zeroing in . . . How will this get implemented with this formula ? I dont remember now did it work OK or were some problems. Or red sands bonus to exp lvl`s for units, outside battle normal stats, and in battle higher stats due to lvl`s not connected to hero items/skill. I would try this, but currently my graphic card is fried, so no game for me for some time (i`m operating on ancient geforce 4400
So if you can try, implement this bonus into your file, and see does unit crit% and ress change during battle with stone skin spell (should give bonus ress to all dmg types +nominal ress from spell itself to phy dmg. or take frenzy and kill some weak stacks with 1 unit and check it crit% after each frenzy bonus).

All this bonuses make your army stronger, but also does to enemy and if you get in CW your mechanics to enemy heroes and AI late game could get very interesting in this mod

And Q: does it give bonus after hero`s att/def or from 0 ? I ask this looking black dragon stats, he have att 70 and crit%=17. When this formula is implemented in game, will he get nominal crit%=27 due to +10% from units att, or will only hero stats effect his crit% ?

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

So far situation was : lets for expl take knight unit , your attack = enemy defense, you make nominal 100% dmg = 16-18 physical. Your att higher 10points then enemy def = (16-1*(1 + 10*3,3%) = 21-24 phy dmg, etc. So on 30 bonus att you make 100% more dmg = 200% total, and on 60 bonus att above enemy def it`s 200% bonus = 300% total dmg of nominal value, 48-54 phy dmg for our knight expl. And that part is clear, and OK.

Your wording is correct!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

And Q: does it give bonus after hero`s att/def or from 0 ? I ask this looking black dragon stats, he have att 70 and crit%=17. When this formula is implemented in game, will he get nominal crit%=27 due to +10% from units att, or will only hero stats effect his crit% ?

No - all unit stats are the way they are without including hero stats. So Black Dragon gets 17% krit with its 70 attack - those are its nominal values. A hero's stats are then additive to the unit's base and so if your hero has 14 Attack, then you'll add 2% to the Black Dragon's krit (17 + 2 = 19%). I know that seems like a small increase, but I think it is a good starting point because remember that this is double damage we're talking about. The other way would be to have increments of 10%, i.e. 14 Hero attack would be 20% greater than before, which could be 17 * 1.2 = 20.4 = 20% (rounded down), but a peasant has only 5 krit and so 5 * 1.2 = 6% (whereas if it was additive it would be 5 + 2 = 7%). So one way is better for units with lower krit and the other way is better for units with higher krit (crossover point is at 10 base krit).

The idea behind using Hero attack to determine krit before battle is that the Hero's attack / defense is static, whereas a unit's attack is dynamic during battle as you mention. That's where I thought increasing the damage cap for every 15 attack would be a great way to incorporate the dynamics of battle - as your unit's attack is typically increasing (say Frenzy) then instead of +200% total, they could do +300%, +400%, etc. of total based on your hero's attack at the start of the battle. I could also do it incrementally as well instead of big jumps (i.e. increase cap 100/15 per attack), but kind of liked treating it like Intellect's duration jump.

This discussion clearly demonstrates that there are a lot of things to think about with respect to this, but I think that my original idea is a great starting point and then we can go from there. I may also augment the krit and resist all by the hero's level - we'll see...

By the way, I'm thinking that at the end of the game seeing as I just finished my game with 70 Intellect is to target a player getting 70 for their primary stat. So that would be (using the orignal values) +10 to a unit's krit and +600% damage cap for a Warrior and +10 resist all and 1/7 maximum damage reduction for a Paladin. These sound pretty reasonable to me. If I augmented the krit and resist all by the hero's level, we could assume level 60 as the hero's max level and then that would be another 1.6 of those values, i.e. +16 krit / +16 resist all. This wouldn't be too bad either and maybe is better than the other way.

By the way, whatever mechanic is picked, will also be used by the enemy heroes...

/C\/C\

[Christop55her]

I can add an informative message, though, to indicate that it's working.