u/Gandalf196

I think Heroic Strike should not belong to magic heroes.

The main reason is that Heroic Strike is not just a generic “hero action.” It is clearly tied to the Might hero identity. Might heroes are the ones who get Combat, and Combat directly improves Heroic Strike. That creates a very clear loop:

Might hero → Combat → better Heroic Strike → stronger direct battlefield intervention

That makes sense. The Might hero is personally contributing through martial force, pressure, finishing power, or tactical strikes.

But if magic heroes also get Heroic Strike, the system becomes muddier. Even if their version is visually different, it still feels like they are being given a weaker or less appropriate version of the Might hero mechanic. A magic hero should not feel like a Might hero with worse physical scaling. Their core identity should be built around the spellbook, mana, spell tempo, and magical preparation.

This is especially important because Thaumaturgy already seems to be the magic-side counterpart to Combat. Combat improves physical hero intervention. Thaumaturgy improves magical action economy by allowing extra spellcasting under certain restrictions and mana penalties. That is a strong and interesting distinction.

So, in my opinion, the symmetry should be:

Might heroes:

Use Focus for Heroic Strike.

Combat improves Heroic Strike.

Magic heroes:

Use Focus for something like Meditation, Channeling, or Arcane Focus.

Thaumaturgy interacts with that system.

The magic hero’s action should not be another damage button. It should support spellcasting. For example, a magic hero could spend Focus to meditate, restoring some mana, reducing the surcharge on the next Thaumaturgy spell, or improving the efficiency of their next cast. That would make Focus relevant to magic heroes without turning them into pseudo-Might heroes.

Something like:

Meditation: spend Focus to restore temporary mana or reduce the mana penalty of the next additional spell this round.

Then Thaumaturgy could interact with it naturally. Basic, Advanced, and Expert Thaumaturgy could improve how Meditation affects the extra spell: lower surcharge, better mana recovery, more flexibility with school restrictions, or a small refund after casting.

This would also make the design cleaner thematically:

Combat governs martial intervention.

Thaumaturgy governs magical exertion.

That distinction is much more interesting than giving everyone Heroic Strike and then trying to make it fit every class. It also avoids the awkward situation where a magic-oriented skill or subskill ends up improving Heroic Strike damage, which feels like it belongs under Combat instead.

tl;dr: I think Heroic Strike should be exclusive to Might heroes. Magic heroes should have their own Focus-based combat action, probably centered around meditation, channeling, mana recovery, or spell tempo. That would make both archetypes feel more distinct and give Thaumaturgy a cleaner role as the magic equivalent of Combat.

Codex is a fucking beast, but 5x is way too expensive for me.

Actually, that undersells it.
Halon is a fucking walking thunderstorm with hero movement points.

Don't get me wrong, I like the role-playing aspect of it, but, boy, he's beyond busted. He clears stacks, specially early on, like no other hero. I mean, it's not even remotely close.

I'm sorry, he needs either reworking or a significant nerf.

I’m trying to decide what the best default value should be for Global Map Background Desaturation.

The current/default value is 0, meaning no desaturation. Higher values make the map background less colorful, which may help readability, but too much can make the map feel dull.

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I think Summon Avatar is kind of a band-aid solution to a real late game problem with magic heroes.

The problem is not that magic heroes need “a big unit” to stay relevant. The problem is that damage spells in Heroes games scale linearly, while armies scale way harder than that over the course of a match.

Most damage spells are basically:

damage = base + coefficient × spell power

That works early game, but late game stacks become gigantic, stats explode, and a single cast just cannot keep up anymore.

Battle Magic is honestly a much healthier idea than Summon Avatar because at least it tries to make magic stats relevant in combat again. But even that still partly solves the issue by converting Spell Power and Knowledge into normal army stats.

I think the actual solution may lie in the math itself.

What if high tier damage spells did not scale purely linearly?

Not full exponential scaling, because that would probably become absurd very quickly, but maybe some soft quadratic scaling on stronger spells.

Something like:

damage = base + a×SP + b×SP²

with a very small quadratic term.

That way:

early game stays mostly the same,

mid game becomes more interesting,

and late game magic heroes can still feel like actual magic heroes instead of needing a separate mechanic glued on top.

Because right now it sometimes feels like the game is saying:

“magic falls off late game, so here’s an Avatar.”

But maybe the better answer is:

“magic should not fall off in the first place.”

Feel free to explain why.

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One of the biggest problems with the subclass system in Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is that subclasses seem to become either:

a gamble,

or an optimal solved path.

Both are bad.

If the subclass you want depends on RNG, planning feels frustrating. If there is a mathematically best path, everyone eventually follows the same build.

I think the system should learn more from Heroes of Might and Magic IV.

H4 classes worked because they felt like a natural evolution of your hero, not a separate minigame. The game basically recognized your playstyle and rewarded it.

For example: A pure Cleric with Expert Daylight Magic + Expert Battle Magic could naturally become an Inquisitor.

Not because the player “forced” a prestige path, but because the hero already evolved into that archetype.

Then the subclass simply reinforces the identity:

bonus vs undead/demons,

morale aura,

stronger holy spells,

etc.

The important part is that subclasses should reward coherent progression, not dictate it.

A good subclass system should make players think: “Cool, my hero became this.”

Not: “I need a wiki to avoid ruining my build.”

As of now, the game has six difficulty levels, corresponding to the six classical chess pieces. However, the jump from Unfair to Impossible feels disproportionately steep. The game would benefit from a smoother progression and a couple of intermediate tiers.

Since the chess-piece system has been part of Heroes since at least Heroes II, it makes sense to extend it rather than replace it.

In 1929, Capablanca proposed two additional pieces for an expanded chess variant:

• Archbishop (Bishop + Knight), worth ~8 pawns
• Chancellor (Rook + Knight), worth ~9 pawns

These hybrid pieces naturally fit between Rook and Queen in terms of strength, making them ideal candidates for new difficulty levels.

Proposed difficulty ladder

• Pawn – Easy (50%)
• Knight – Normal (75%)
• Bishop – Hard (100%)
• Rook – Unfair (125%)
• Archbishop – Very Unfair (150%) (new)
• Chancellor – Extreme (175%) (new)
• Queen – Impossible (200%) (adjusted)
• King – Apocalyptic (225%) (adjusted)

Tinkering with the game files (`Core.zip`, in `DB/objects_logic/cities/*_city.json`, field `array[0].magicGuilds[0].rollChances`), I found that Magic Guild spell generation is configured **spell-by-spell**, but most faction identity comes from broad school weighting.

Temple favors **Daylight**, Necropolis favors **Nightshade**, Grove favors **Primal**, and Schism favors **Arcane**. Hive and Dungeon are broadly balanced, although Dungeon has some individual spell boosts. Necropolis also has explicit per-spell exceptions: `day_1_magic_healing_water` and `day_2_magic_sharp_edge` have weight `0`.

Town	Spell entries	Daylight	Nightshade	Primal	Arcane
Temple	60	40.2%	20.1%	19.6%	20.1%
Necropolis	72	18.0%	41.2%	20.2%	20.6%
Hive	72	25.3%	25.1%	24.6%	25.1%
Dungeon	72	25.0%	25.1%	24.7%	25.1%
Grove	72	20.3%	20.1%	39.5%	20.1%
Schism	72	20.2%	20.1%	19.6%	40.1%

Important caveat: these percentages are normalized from the whole raw Mage Guild roll list. The exact in-game chance for a specific Mage Guild level may be normalized only among the spells eligible for that level/rank.

Spell rolls are stored as individual spell IDs with weights | The game data is not just saying “roll Daylight at X%”. Each spell has its own `chance` value.

I feel the jump between those two is way too stark.

Source: `HeroesOldenEra_Data/StreamingAssets/Core.zip` from the Steam install; newest ZIP entry timestamp I saw was `2026-04-26 16:33`. The data below is from JSON, not manual testing.

Here it is:

https://pastebin.com/3S0jMG2P