Heroes 5.5 a new big patch RC17g with major changes to dark and light magic

Author: Liso1 March 3, 2023 0 Comments

Heroes 5.5 team released a new big patch RC17g, this version will bring major changes to dark and light magic, dungeon ritual pit and fixes lots of original game problems. The ARMG will be greatly improved in this version, overall creating more balanced zones with more useful objects and lower odds for useless duplicates. This version will also bring high quality new default female hero models for Sylvan, Fortress and Academy.

New Models

These models have been originally created by Zobr and Manulli and have had texture edits by Narron. In Heroes 5.5 default male/females use different color patterns, the color pattern of the default sylvan female was adjusted to the alternate upgrade line. Also an issue was fixed with Ebba model having hair textures colliding with the hat.

Magic

• changed instant travel spell to cost 20% movement instead of 15%
• buff and debuff spells on a single unit are now 33% more effective and scale faster with SP compared to the mass version, duration remains the same, does not apply to decay, cleansing, divine strength and weakness.
• a lot of creatures had a spell gone down one or two mastery levels to balance for the extra strong single spells
• added prediction text on divine strength, weakness and cleansing spells
• percent chance based magic resistance does no longer affect ‘non-damaging spells’ at all!, it can only trigger for damaging spells of any school. (Dark magic (and blind, hypnotize etc) had too many counters making it unreliable, still left: shatter dark, opposing LM spell, cleansing, teleport, magical immunity spell, immunity abilities & counterspell).
• fixed magic resistance not triggering for your own troops for Armageddon, Curse of the Netherworld and Word of Light spells
• fixed war machines not immune to “Curse of the Netherworld” spell
• added ‘partially resisted’ flyoff text when occultism is used to circumvent resistance or magic proof.
• increased base duration of regeneration by +0.5, but reduced base healing by 10%
• increased base duration of hypnotize by 0.2 turns
• increased frenzy base dmg by +10%
• shadow image, +1 tier base value, cost increased to 30, raised to level 5
• vampirism +5% base healing, lowered to level 4, cost lowered to 25
• increased base duration of vampirism, magical immunity, deflect, confusion, sorrow, suffering, righteous might, endurance by 0.5 turns (above level none) and duration scaling to 0.075 per SP.
• disruption spell is renamed ‘rupture’ and now a true dmg spell scaling with spellpower
• pit spawns have rupture spell and -2D
• hexing attack now casts confusion instead of rupture
• djinns cannot cast randomly decay and rupture, only debuffs
• reverted dmg nerf on rain of arrows
• flame lords inflict 1x dmg with flamestrike instead of 1.2x
• reduced gargoyle vulnerability aura to 33%
• staff of the netherworld gives +1 spellpower and -12% ini
• staff of the saint gives +2 spellpower
• neutral water elementals no longer have 70% spell dmg reduction in Utility.exe
• fixed empowered armageddon not hitting war machines in Utility.exe

Dungeon

• The Ritual pit is now much more powerful and central part of dungeon gamplay. It must be used early for optimum play!, even sacrificing some fodder from tavern, prisons and refugee camps will already give +3-4 extra creatures per week.
• Ritual pit thresholds for getting +1 growth are 30HP, 90HP, 270HP, 810HP, 2430HP, 7290HP, 21870HP… (for Minotaurs starting at 90HP).
• reduced cost of Ritual pit by -1000 gold and -10 sulphur and -10 mercury, increased cost of trade guild by +1000 gold, +10 sulphur and +10 mercury.
• increased growth of blood furies by +1 and assassins +2, adjusted their stats downward to keep weekly HP, damage, cost and exp the same, tier 1 however does a little bit more dmg per weekly growth.
• added stone spikes to shadow mistress and matriarch, blood mistresses have now much better rupture spell, this change is needed for countering WM in final fight, neutral AI doesn’t use stone spikes
• whip strike now triggers suffering instead of frenzy and is restored on blood mistress
• deep hydras have unlimited retal instead of no enemy retal.
• all riders +1D.
• unupgraded minotaurs +3D,-2A, minotaur guards +1A, minotaur taskmasters +1D
• changed sinitar special to 20% + 0.25% per hero level to make it much better early
• added to the dungeon trade guild description: also slightly increases daily gold income for every artifact bought, the increase is equal to 25,50 or 100 for minor, major and relic artifacts respectively. (this was already in the original game but never mentioned)
• fixed dungeon library spawning wrong flyoff msg
• fixed cheese-colored skin on blood maidens to natural colored skin

Economy

• Changed formula for DBC creature spawning to round up instead of down which increases early spawning by around 1 more for a lvl 1 mage guild.
• For xerxon DBC spawning is not rounded up, but rounded normally, there are no related text changes since the method of rounding wasn’t mentioned.
• all heroes with DBC spec now have +1 morale AND +1 luck when having the neutral creature in their army.
• kyrre and azar get 12 instead of 8 dbc at start.
• lowered resources at normal difficulty to 25,25,12,12,12,12,25000 and reduced dwelling conversion cost to 2 wood and ore.
• reduced cost of runic shrine by -4 ore and -3 of each special resource in total (runelore buff)
• changed cost pattern of runic academy and increased cost of guard post by +5 gems
• reduced cost of academy djinn treasury by -10 sulphur, increased cost of artifact merchant by +10 sulphur.
• nerfed logistics reinforcements by changing divisor from 10 to 12

ARMG and adventure map

• modified minimum power rating of hundreds of mixed army templates so that stronger creeps (mages, druids.. etc) appear likely later and weaker creeps (brawlers, orc warriors.. etc) appear likely earlier.
• ‘strong’ monsters power is decreased by 10% and very strong, impossible monsters by 12.5%, but weekly growth is increased by 7.5% at heroic/impossible difficulty.
• The template loopalpha is replaced with Loop-M and loopbeta is renamed to Loop-L, reduced town guard strength in zone 2 of Loop-L by 20%
• The ARMG no longer places cartographers, but places exactly one dimension door in every zone except in start zones with a size of around 3000 tiles, this creates space for additional objects in all zones.
• Templates with giant zones will have more dimension doors in those zones.
• Taverns are now reintroduced on ARMG maps, but are renamed ‘Casino’ and function as such. You can’t buy heroes at Casinos. Currently these objects only exist on ARMG maps.
• Casino’s allow making one bet per casino per player, the bet size increases by 500 gold for every next Casino you find. On maps with more than 10 Casinos the bet size increases by 250 gold. You cannot cheat Casino’s by reloading saves.
• Astrologer Towers are now much more useful, if a week is changed to ‘week of creature x’ the town dwellings and adventure map will still receive extra growth. Cost is reduced to 2500 gold and has weaker guards on ARMG. Descriptions are changed to indicate the object is changing current week not future ones.
• added new adventure object ‘Beast Cave’ for hiring Manticores and wolves on ARMG maps. Currently these objects only exist on ARMG maps. (credits: zahar)

Casino’s allow making one bet per casino per player, the bet size increases by 500 gold for every next Casino you find. On maps with more than 10 Casinos the bet size increases by 250 gold. You cannot cheat Casino’s by reloading saves.

added new adventure object ‘Beast Cave’ for hiring Manticores and wolves on ARMG maps. Currently these objects only exist on ARMG maps. (credits: zahar)

• Obelisks and Shantiri disks now also give +500 experience and this goes up by +500 for every next one.
• Sanctuaries no longer give xp, instead they give some refugees for free on first visit (tier1-3), the refugees are always of a different faction but adjusted to ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
• Runic Shrines are now renamed Shrines of Arkath on ARMG, and give 1x weekly growth of ‘the mage guild creatures you want’ in return for offering 1 Gem, an offering can be made only once per game, repeated visits will only boost movement and morale.
• on ARMG maps the eldritch spring now has the same effect as the magic well and is unguarded (creating space for more important objects)
• all minor boost buildings (fountains etc) now also give a little mana or movement to make visiting more worth it, clarified descriptions
• watering hole and oasis are reduced to +600 movement, because the bonus was never per day, but per battle, clarified descriptions
• stables adventure objects nerfed to give +400 once +200 movement per day
• lighthouse adventure object nerfed to give +300 movement per day
• reduced tier1 swarms in utopia level buildings
• hillforts increase attack or defense by +2 if the mapmixer setting is activated
• fixed buoy water objects functioning as battle sites
• fixed temple of shalassa not adjusting to playerrace instead of herorace
• reduced resource cost of temple of shalassa in month 1 and 2 (change was already in previous patch but unmentioned)
• added snowed versions of windmill, dwarven warren, school of magic, war academy, hillfort, fountain of youth and library of enlightenment to ARMG
• prisoner rewards now give a text message specifying the exact creature that was gained
• very slightly darkened textures of library of enlightenment
• added full description of Fortuitous sanctuary effects