moi-meme

Hero XP

Hero XP

I mentionned this in a previous post, but have now done some experiments.

It is difficult to level up heroes past level 12 for lack of XP. I started a new game and did an early fight against a bunch of skelettons.

- sovereign with militia, spearmen, sand golem: 12xp for sovereign, 5xp for trrops

- sovereign with militia and another hero: heroes 5xp, troops 2xp

- sovereign, hero, both troops and sans golem: as above

 

Since the sovereign has +10%xp, I guess the real figures are something like 11xp for the combat, divided by the number of heroes.

 

Now,, as I already mentionned, this explains why heroes cannot level up seriously to keep in line with the threat level. It is worth noting that the combat with both heroes and one troop is seriously more difficult than the combat with sovedreign and two troops. More generally, untill level 7 or 8, heroes are always hard pressed in combat. And that always remains true when you keep your troops up to date: current troops are always much more resilient than heroes.

 

I do not know why that XP sharing was set, but it's a bad thing. In particular, it makes having more than two-three heroes worthless, since additionnal heroes won't level up by sheer lack of XP, or they will drag down the XP gain for other heroes.

 

It also means that there shoud not be more than one hero in a given army : this limits the player's choices.

 

I remember that in MoM, it was possible to win by using a hero army, normal armies or a mix. It was usually more difficult to use a pure hero army (as opposed to accept losing replacable trained troops.) I belive that removing that choice is a bad thing, especially since, like on MoM, late game troops are not significantly weaker than level 20 heroes. Just different, with more raw power and less tactical choices.

 

Yves

 

 

75,036 views 58 replies
Reply #26 Top

Quoting AndyBarrett, reply 2
It would be nice to level Hero's a bit quicker as most of mine only get to about lvl10 by the end of a game.  I don't ever get them up to the more interesting abilities in their chosen path

 

Andy.

 

This ^ is me also. I get to lvl 12 running 2 characters in a stack and have more than 1 doom stack as I like reserves of nearly the same power so I can have one off adventureing and stomping butt and one protecting the homelands.

Also, here's an idea. Monsters always seem to run out for many players why not have regeneration huts that are invisible so that wildlife and regular run of the milll monsters keep activating on the map from time to  time? They should generate from some random pool that is within 5 levels of the faction they are closest to when spawning? This would certainly keep the human player on their toes for fear of losing one of their cities. They should also not generate while there are other wildlife and regular run of the mill creatures near or already on the map (don't want an overflow of creatures running around that the player and ai can't deal with).

Probably a lot of code work ^ but a decent idea to keep XP flowing within the game even at midlevel and highlevel and endgame.

Reply #27 Top

Quoting joeherbert48, reply 26
Also, here's an idea. Monsters always seem to run out for many players why not have regeneration huts that are invisible so that wildlife and regular run of the milll monsters keep activating on the map from time to time? They should generate from some random pool that is within 5 levels of the faction they are closest to when spawning? This would certainly keep the human player on their toes for fear of losing one of their cities. They should also not generate while there are other wildlife and regular run of the mill creatures near or already on the map (don't want an overflow of creatures running around that the player and ai can't deal with).

It's called random events and we can make them ;)

Reply #28 Top

Parrot Math-

 

How do you make random events? Are they mod-able via XML files? Is there a post you could link me to?

Reply #29 Top

While playing beastlord I've noticed that the tamed beasts do not get adequate XP for the work that they do.  An idle hero always gets about double.  Gaining XP is too difficult for all units.  What good is a level 10 sword if I can never reach level 10?

 

Reply #30 Top

Quoting davrovana, reply 28

Parrot Math-

 

How do you make random events? Are they mod-able via XML files? Is there a post you could link me to?

They are moddable via XML files. You need to fish through your steamapps\common\FE Legendary Heroes\data\English folder and you can find a file call
     corerandomevents.xml

This is where they keep most of the random events in the game.

They are basically quests... there is an editor for making basic or simple quests that you can use, but I just make my own .xml file.

Do not edit these files directly you can add your own stuff to it all you just need a file that has

<Quests>
    <QuestDef InternalName="YOURQUESTNAME_DIFFERENT_FROM_EVERYONEELSES">
         ...Put all the goodies of your quest here... use the corerandomevents.xml as a model for you new quest (copy one change the name and edit a few things to see how it works out...
    </QuestDef>
</Quests>

Once you finish doing this you can save this file into your mods folder in your documents area.

Enable mods through the options menu and you can play with your new random event or quests.

If you add any graphics pictures and stuff, it must be placed in the mods\gfx\ directory.

I know heavenfall made considerable progress to nearly creating a howto mod this game in a series of forum posts. Try it out see what you can make. You can look at my summoners mod for FE and it shows a little bit on making some quests.

https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/elemental_fallen_enchantress/24/

as well as adding units and traits to the game. In fact, my mods are designed to do about 1 thing in FE so it becomes a great tutorial to those that would like to piece together a lot of different things together. For example my snaking mod shows how to create snaking for any building... as I did with my river-bridge mod as an extension of that (also my swamp tiles). I created a new generic other person that you can add to a faction. I created armor for militia to show some of the features of limiting the art-defs to limit the ability for characters to choose that particular item.

I consider most of my mods a series of tutorials that people could use to make their own fun stuff... I even created 90+ buildings and added an entirely new building style instead of empire and kingdom... I have a kingdom -- tent style. For those with the desire to look at tents instead of huge buildings and the such...

Have fun modding, this is what Frogboy was hoping would happing with the modding community, but there just aren't enough people willing to get down and dirty with the creation of these things. Just remember there are limitations on what the game can do and don't get discouraged just because your 1 great idea didn't work... there are times work-arounds to these things and asking on the forums can get you a lot of good help... because if I don't know how to do it... I'm sure heavenfall knows how to do it (or if it is possible). There are some really good mods out there and we are just lacking on making a repository of quests for this game...

Reply #31 Top

Thanks parrotmath. I will play around. 

Reply #32 Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 27



Quoting joeherbert48,
reply 26
Also, here's an idea. Monsters always seem to run out for many players why not have regeneration huts that are invisible so that wildlife and regular run of the milll monsters keep activating on the map from time to time? They should generate from some random pool that is within 5 levels of the faction they are closest to when spawning? This would certainly keep the human player on their toes for fear of losing one of their cities. They should also not generate while there are other wildlife and regular run of the mill creatures near or already on the map (don't want an overflow of creatures running around that the player and ai can't deal with).


It's called random events and we can make them

I don't want to make them I want them already in the game. :P I also do not download or use mods. You don't know what yer getting when you download and use a strange file from a person you don't even know.

Reply #33 Top

Quoting joeherbert48, reply 32
I also do not download or use mods. You don't know what yer getting when you download and use a strange file from a person you don't even know.

 

Seriously?

Considering that Fall from Heaven and Third Age Total War have kept me playing their respective base games way past the expiration date, I find this sentiment baffling. Of course, to each his own, but modders have given me as much, if not more enjoyment than the original game designers, you're missing out dude.

Reply #34 Top

Quoting Gandalftheredskin, reply 33



Quoting joeherbert48,
reply 32
I also do not download or use mods. You don't know what yer getting when you download and use a strange file from a person you don't even know.


 

Seriously?

Considering that Fall from Heaven and Third Age Total War have kept me playing their respective base games way past the expiration date, I find this sentiment baffling. Of course, to each his own, but modders have given me as much, if not more enjoyment than the original game designers, you're missing out dude.

At least I'm not getting any nasty viruses. You don't know what you've loaded onto your computer once you download an install a mod. Might seem all peachy king while they are trojan horsing your vital information, watching where you go, who you talk to, how much you spend online and if you do any financial things online that too. Too chancy for me. Maybe when I get a 2nd computer setup for online stuff only and not vital information I might try one but nosireebobtater I ain't touching no strangers mod(s).

Reply #35 Top

So far as I can tell exp is a diminishing returns for lower level creatures.  This just means that the higher you get the less the low level things are worth which to me always seemed rather stupid.  Doesn't matter if its something easy to kill or not for someone specialized in killing something, ask a big game hunter who kills things that can kill them and they will tell you that you ca always learn something from each kill.  Basically I do not believe you should learn less from things lower level than you you should learn the same regardless if its higher or lower and just have static values to remove the exp variability problem and the slow levels.  I mean come on I killed a 228 attack troll group with just my sov and another hero and each got 19 exp.... and my sov was a wopping level 5 and the other hero was level 4.  I had two trained units with me (both died) but in the end it felt very unsatisfying for the amount of work done.

Reply #36 Top

Quoting joeherbert48, reply 34
At least I'm not getting any nasty viruses. You don't know what you've loaded onto your computer once you download an install a mod. Might seem all peachy king while they are trojan horsing your vital information, watching where you go, who you talk to, how much you spend online and if you do any financial things online that too. Too chancy for me. Maybe when I get a 2nd computer setup for online stuff only and not vital information I might try one but nosireebobtater I ain't touching no strangers mod(s).

I'd be happy to show you all the xml code that I use for any of my mods... they are just a text document in a particular grouping...I don't trust a lot of mods, but most of my mods are just .xml text files, with a few pictures (jpegs). I can even put it here in text and you can copy it into your own file (by typing it yourself) and you can trust the mod completely then...

Reply #37 Top

For me, what is the most fun in War of Magic / Fallen Enchanteress was the heroes and the RPG element - gaining loot, increasing skills etc.

I expected that "Legendary Heores" - as the name implies - would concentrate on heores and icrease this game aspect. However, it seems now its otherwise. The fame system gives me quite large number of useless heores (in FE I never used more than 2-3 heoes), now mid in game I have like 5-7 most of whom I have to keep stationed so they would not steal XP from the "main" heores. The heores themselves are less powerfull then before, and new AI targetting system that tends to concentrate on easies to kill units (mainly heores) makes them vulnerable in combat.

This is simply less than FE.

 

Darek

Reply #38 Top

Supply dand demand. fewer, better heroes makes each hero more valuable. More, weaker heroes means heroes are less valuable.

Reply #39 Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 36

I'd be happy to show you all the xml code that I use for any of my mods... they are just a text document in a particular grouping...I don't trust a lot of mods, but most of my mods are just .xml text files, with a few pictures (jpegs). I can even put it here in text and you can copy it into your own file (by typing it yourself) and you can trust the mod completely then...

 

I think that viruses can go in Jpeg files. Depends of course on the loopholes of the decoding software.

 

Yves

Reply #40 Top

If you're afraid of malware, you shouldn't be on forums, either. You need to never go on the internet to be sure. Even if you encrypt everything, hackers can steal your account or login to anything and get any data you've put on the internet ever. 

Mr I-don't-play-mods is just too important to be bothered with customizing his game. 

Reply #41 Top


Actually, I find that the issue with heroes isn't how easy it is to get them. Fame increases so slowly that it takes a lot of time to get any of them. The problem is, that it takes too much effort to make them any use.

 

To get them halfway decent equipment is going to cost a lot of gildar. Gildar that's being spent paying unit wages, treaties, and rushing improvements. Stuff you find isn't guaranteed to be of any use, so you've got to spend that precious gold to get them to a useful point.

 

And then, there's the fact that any useful skill is buried deep into levelling. Instead of getting a random draw of useful or useless abilities, I can see exactly where the stuff I want is. It's buried so far in the tree, that I'll need to get them to level 10 before they can start contributing to fights. Frankly, the effort it takes to make them useful just isn't worth the grind.

Reply #42 Top

I have to agree with the general sentiment in this thread, and I really wish this would be changed now, so that Brad can get the necessary AI work to adjust for this change (it would be huge)

 

The optimal way to play is to camp heroes in cities, just lvl up your sovereign, and pump out units.  Eliminating hero XP split would mean I actually get to use the legendary heroes and maybe get one or two of them useful.   If stack of hero doom is a problem, you can solve the problem by increasing XP to level at higher levels (the monster XP nerf for killing high level monsters is probably already sufficient to blunt a hero stack of doom without the current XP splitting system)

 

The current system of heroes is just dull and unfun.   I don't think stacks of heroes would be imbalancing like it was in earlier iterations of the game, due to swarming+ units, and the fact that heroes are roughly going to be equivalent between factions.

LH is a bunch of good ideas, but XP split went from a tolerable idea (I've been opposed to it from day 1, but it wasn't awful, just stupid) into a terrible,unfun idea due to the changes in LH.

I know before beta 1 of LH you considered dumping XP splitting, why did you change your minds last minute?

 

Does anyone actually like the current XP system in LH?  It seems to be the most universally disliked feature about LH in these forums.

 

 

Reply #43 Top

Trained units are a lot more powerful now, and heroes a lot less plentiful.  Why not give the no splitting a try?

Reply #44 Top

Quoting muminus2, reply 37

For me, what is the most fun in War of Magic / Fallen Enchanteress was the heroes and the RPG element - gaining loot, increasing skills etc.

I expected that "Legendary Heores" - as the name implies - would concentrate on heores and icrease this game aspect. However, it seems now its otherwise. The fame system gives me quite large number of useless heores (in FE I never used more than 2-3 heoes), now mid in game I have like 5-7 most of whom I have to keep stationed so they would not steal XP from the "main" heores. The heores themselves are less powerfull then before, and new AI targetting system that tends to concentrate on easies to kill units (mainly heores) makes them vulnerable in combat.

This is simply less than FE.

 

Darek

This is my position exactly as well.  FE is a lot more fun than LH and the heroes are more fun to play with.  The fame system is a disaster and completely unfit for purpose.  Fame should be a useful resource rather than just giving you yet another hero that can't be levelled.

There are several reasons why the game is less fun and why heroes level up more slowly.  The main one seems to be that there is a lot less experience given in each battle.  Quests rewards now seem to be orientated towards giving fame instead of experience as though gaining more fame was worth anything ... :annoyed:    We need much more experience from quests for the existing heroes not more fame to get even more useless heroes we can't level. Tireless March was nerfed beyond reason, it used to mean that a stack of heoes could move quickly and complete 2 quests per turn (some quests involve moving between 3 or 4 locations).  Then the new nerf on movement whereby battles end the move for the stack even if they started with 5 move points.   All these conspire to make the game much slower paced, propably half that of FE or if not less.

The key test for me is whether I have a bunch of interesting heroes by turn 250 (normal pacing) and in FE I often had several heroes at level 20 and my sovereign at level 25 or more.  In LH my sovereign is level 16 and 2 others are level 12... the others are lingering at the level they were when I recruited them.  that's not fun and hardly "Legendary"

Solution:  I think we need to be able to test if this current game is more fun when we can have a lot more experience from combat (but split between all heroes taking part) and also a lot more experience from quest rewards (where it is not split so all heroes can be levelled together) 

Why not add a button to the World options with options for a) current experience levels, b ) double current levels and c ) triple current experience levels and then that allow us Beta testers to try the game and see whether the impressions many of us have are correct.

 

JJ

Reply #46 Top

Quoting moi-meme, reply 7


 


It's for the precise reason that you listed that this XP sharing system was put into place. The stack of Doom is MoM was what broke the game. Pack all your heros into one large army, give them movement speed up the nines...and destroy everything...not fun.


If you did play MoM, you know it did not work that way. I remember clearly that capturing an air node stuffed with lightning dragons wouod usually lead to disaster with hero group, unless you happened to own the right spells and appropriate heroes. I usually had to keep a balance between troops and heroes, as that was the most efficient.


By having this split XP system, you are given a choice: Either fight with 1 hero and get the XP or fight with more than one hero and take an XP penalty. Yes, this will hurt your hero's delvopment...but honestly, if your hero is only doing HALF the work....he should be getting only HALF the XP.


The net result is that only on hero matters. It's then useless to handle all the other heroes : they are superflous and will never level up in a way that will make them even barely useful in late game. If we go that way, it feels better to entirely remove heores and keep only the sovereign, than have shadows of heroes hanging around.


Now, that's not to say there will NEVER be a situation where you'll group heroes. There may be a battle that you cannot defeat with a lone hero and you need to join forces in order to accomplish your goals. Imo, some of the RPG victory conditions SHOULD be hard enough such that this is the case. Sometimes it shoudn't be about the XP (numbers)...it should be about the story that's being told.


No ; in the current situation, only one hero can have enough power. Better to fill up your army with top notch trrops. In FE, the last time I finished the game by quest, only three troops did matter: a dragon which I had recruited, and two ranged trained troops that rained a hell of damage. Heroes stood aside of that epic fight, because they really were way too weak to compete...

 

Yves

 

You know you could put one hero per stack of troops. They tend to level faster that way. I usally play this way as I see the heros as beeing the "commander" of the stack.  I play this way in most of these types of games perfering this over the stack of doom. Never thought the Stack of Doom was fun to play with.

Reply #47 Top

On the subject of 'useless heroes', I'd like to see a better option for administrator type heroes - I wanted to try and make a couple administrator types last game, but found myself caught - ideally, an administrator type should be in a city, but unless he's out with the troops he gains no experience, making him worthless. Of course, he's an administrator - so if he IS out with the troops, he's worthless....  :)

 

I'd like to see some sort of mechanism to allow heroes (or maybe just administrative heroes) the ability to gain xp in cities. Maybe make useable scrolls/books that grant xp more common, or provide a training/administrative hall (or make it a trainable skill in the admin tree). I know this would have to be balanced carefully - if you make too much xp gain over time, you'll end up with silly-level administrators - but for me, right now, there doesn't seem to be a viable way of creating a hero designed for a city commander/administrator type position.

 

(Oh, and yes, I'm aware of the adventurer's guild building and the +xp effect; i'd like something buildable in more than one city tho, and perhaps with a greater effect on administrative types.)

 

Seems to me making viable administrators could add a layer of options to your heroes, and give you something to do with those 'extra' heroes you don't have an army for.

 

 

Reply #48 Top

Personally, I think the XP split is nice enough, but it appears that a)

--Most things not give a lot of XP in the first place

and b)

--Tough Monsters give a lot less XP than they used to

 

Is a bit too much.

 

I also second the extra skill thing for heroes, as well as perhaps lowering shop based item prices for heroes. A set of chain mail armour should not cost your empires entire treasury, especially if you have the resources available.

 

I think that the game is actually on a good road though, Fallen enchantress was too hero centric, now troops have been made a lot more fun and a lot more powerfull, while heroes got nerfed. Unnerf heroes a bit, largely by increasing the amount of available XP and available options, and the game will be much more interesting. 

Basically, buying a set of chainmail for a hero is not an option right now, since rushing a well designed unit is cheaper, and the unit will propably be a lot stronger. The only item I tend to buy for heroes are horses/wargs, because I value mobility quite a lot.

 

 

Reply #49 Top


I'd like to see settlements themselves give xp, scaled to level, along with an xp producing building or wonders.

 

Adding an xp spell similar to Alchemy would be helpful, also.

Reply #50 Top

I still don't understand why you can't pay in materials to put equipment on heroes. You pay in materials to put it on troops, why do heroes have to buy each piece at a steep gildar price when you have plenty of metal/crystal?

Seems to me buying the stuff in gold makes sense if you don't have the needed resources (you' paying the craftsmen to go get metal for you).

If I am swimming in crystal, my armorers could make champion gear for me. heroes would be more useful if this was implemented...