Balance Research

[Xonok]

This thread is for figuring out the way WC3 was balanced. E.g - What methods were used, what stats and abilities can a unit have based on level and techtree rank.
In short, everything that would be useful to know for creating new races that would be balanced against the original ones.

Some points from the discussion so far:
*Balance has often been more important than thematics for units. (Damage types)
*Neutral and racial units have different mechanisms for balance, although they may overlap to some degree.
*Units added at different times can be vastly unbalanced compared to each other(RoC vs TFT).
*Heroes are designed to be an integral part of the game.(in other words: OP)

I will update this post as the discussion develops. Here is a page where everyone can document their research - Link.

 

[Kazeon]

If we are discussing how to balance Warcraft's gameplay furthermore, my suggestions would be:
- Reduce the game speed (includes animations, unit attack rate, build time, research time, etc.), at least should be twice slower. Currently it feels way too fast for normal human to handle. Especially because mostly we have to control more than 20 units at once, moreover, each has different abilities.
- That's being said, means there should be an auto-cast system for all abilities.
- Expand the selection group size, obviously.

That's all I can suggest for now.

 

[Xonok]

If we are discussing how to balance Warcraft's gameplay furthermore, my suggestions would be:
- Reduce the game speed (includes animations, unit attack rate, build time, research time, etc.), at least should be twice slower. Currently it feels way too fast for normal human to handle. Especially because mostly we have to control more than 20 units at once, moreover, each has different abilities.
- That's being said, means there should be an auto-cast system for all abilities.
- Expand the selection group size, obviously.

That's all I can suggest for now.

The idea was actually to discuss the balance as-is, but I suppose it's also valid to talk about how it could be better.
About the game speed, it is optimized for tournament players. It's true that it's hard for a normal person to manage so many units and abilities at a time though.
The other two points have been designed like this for a specific purpose - to make sure people micromanage things, instead of just sending a bunch of units at each other. If there was a decent autocast system for all abilities, most people would no longer micromanage abilities anymore. Having a small selection group is for the same purpose. It promotes grouping units for micromanagement, rather than to just deathball(SC2 has this problem).

 

[Ceday]

I clearly remember I already saw a topic about this

http://www.wc3c.net/showthread.php?t=93188

 

[Xonok]

The link that you posted is by far the most thorough that I've seen, but there are still some things to research, such as:
*Stats(Ex: How much is the neutral amount of health for a unit of specified role?)
*Ability design(heroes and normal units have different abilities because *reasons*)
*Various designs that were tried in earlier development phases, but didn't make it to the final build. (Why?)
*Neutral units deserve a special section due to being designed to be non-upgradeable and (usually) not used by players. Also, neutral boss units(the ones with abnormally high stats for their level).

There's plenty more, but this is off the top of my head.

 

[Shadow Fury]

Personally, I don't really feel Blizzard obtained a perfect balance between the races. Sure, it's not easy at all to achieve it and somehow the melee games feel quite balanced yet it is pretty arguable if the races are equally strong or not. Each race clearly has its advantages and disadvantages but the question is: "Do some of the advantages outweight the disadvantages compared to other races or vice-versa?"
I feel that each race has something too imba. Undead, for example, have the mighty frost wyrm. If they are able to spawn a few of them and there are no humans to train dragonhawks, the game is literally owned by that race. What about the humans? A paladin with a damn divine shield that lasts 45 seconds, a guy who can resurrect a dead army + heal is just too much. Add to this a dwarf called Mountain King and there you go with the unbalance. Orcs? Well, look at Shadow Hunter. That multiple healing + ulti just make the hero a too good supporter to the team. If you get two Shadow Hunters (one from you, one from your ally) at level 6 and they both cast the ulti, the whole army (including themselves) becomes invulnerable!!! WTF?? Night Elves, on the other hand, feel a bit underpowered since they don't have a real tank hero (no strength). Of course they got their strong points (Mountain Giant damn super tank unit) but still I feel they are a bit weaker compared to other races.

In melee games, after all, it depends mostly on the skills of the players and the ability to manage the races. I still claim Warcraft isn't impeccably balanced but I'm impressed how Blizzard managed to let the races seem equally strong.

 

[Xonok]

Well, if everyone is OP, then no one is.
About the night elves, they are actually one of the strongest races. Surprisingly it's the undead that are subpar. I don't know the exact reason, but most pros don't want to play undead.
Technically it would be possible for us to make a balance mod to fix stuff like blademaster being OP.

 

[Ceday]

In 1v1 tournaments undead is(well, was, since no tournaments anymore) subpar since their orc matchup is heavily orc rated and they were usually get knocked off by orc players.I am not claming anything about though, since Elves also had a significant lose rate against Undead but maybe they didn't cry enough.

Also you are missing a very very important key factor in balance, the maps.In wc3 favorited race of a matchup often depends on map.So just making a balance mod by nerfing or powering something won't be enough.

 

[Xonok]

It's a good point that the maps play a huge role. Many melee maps in the hive are designed to reduce these imbalances.
Still, what exactly makes orc vs undead so unbalanced? Blademaster? Grunts? Knowing what exactly does that could help with figuring out how to fix it on a basis that would not be maps.

 

[Ceday]

What I think,

Firstly, there is a fact that if you play 1 gold mine vs 1 gold mine all game against undead you will probably lose because undead units are very cost efficient.(undead player needs to have good micro)So other races usually tries to get an expansion at some point, and undead is hardest race to get an expansion.

Second,
-UD early T2 > Orc early T2(because lich frost armor)
-Orc T2 > UD T2(spirit links and enough dispels)
-UD early T3 > Orc early T3
-Orc T3 = UD T3

Results in undead players usually go for some kind of early tier2 or tier3 rush against orc.

Here is how an average undead vs orc game goes:

1)Orc player tries to creep his first hero(most popular is bm now) to level 3 until second hero(shadow hunter, or tauren) out.Orc player can can also creep solo with grunts and disturb Undead player's own creeping with blademaster+windwalk at the same time.(In melee you have global xp distrubution)

2)When both players at Tier 2 and orc player gets his level 3 hero, he leaves his army with his secondary hero to clear a gold mine to get an expansion, during this time blademaster constantly haras Undead.Blademaster constantly follows undead army so orc players always knows where undead is.Using dust doesn't help much because you can't catch a level 2 windwalk blademaster.

3)Here comes the biggest problem in matchup:Orc army is very flexible and orc player can seperate his army while undead player can't because without their heroes together undead army will fall apart(orc just uses speed scroll and gets away).Orc players carries scroll of tp and speed scrolls with his second hero and starts his expansion.
*If Undead player tries to stop expansion, orc player avoids fight and goes directly to undead base.
*If Undead player tries to chase orc army, well orc can just buy enough time by moving around and get gold advantage.
*If Undead player goes to orc base, orc player goes for base trade and orc always wins base trade because blademaster and raiders(siege damage, fast moving units), undead army usualy consists of piercing damage units.

 

[Xonok]

So basically orcs have extreme harass ability coupled with (effectively) permanent invisibility AND the ability to escape bad fights. The logical things to do seem to be:
1. Making wind walk not give speed or give less.
2. Change wind walk cooldown and/or duration to disallow spamming it(atm you can have pretty much permanent invis).

The question would be what effect these changes would have on other matchups. Making orcs the next "loser" race wouldn't really solve anything.
Also, these changes wouldn't fix the thing about orcs not needing a hero to creep. Fixing that is complicated though, because this ability comes from racial design(brutish units).

 

[VeljkoM]

Personally, I don't really feel Blizzard obtained a perfect balance between the races. Sure, it's not easy at all to achieve it and somehow the melee games feel quite balanced yet it is pretty arguable if the races are equally strong or not. Each race clearly has its advantages and disadvantages but the question is: "Do some of the advantages outweight the disadvantages compared to other races or vice-versa?"
I feel that each race has something too imba. Undead, for example, have the mighty frost wyrm. If they are able to spawn a few of them and there are no humans to train dragonhawks, the game is literally owned by that race. What about the humans? A paladin with a damn divine shield that lasts 45 seconds, a guy who can resurrect a dead army + heal is just too much. Add to this a dwarf called Mountain King and there you go with the unbalance. Orcs? Well, look at Shadow Hunter. That multiple healing + ulti just make the hero a too good supporter to the team. If you get two Shadow Hunters (one from you, one from your ally) at level 6 and they both cast the ulti, the whole army (including themselves) becomes invulnerable!!! WTF?? Night Elves, on the other hand, feel a bit underpowered since they don't have a real tank hero (no strength). Of course they got their strong points (Mountain Giant damn super tank unit) but still I feel they are a bit weaker compared to other races.

Can't resist to tackle this.

Undead; No I disagree that Frost Wyrm is overpowered, more like overrated. It is expensive, slow to produce, slow to react and if you had allowed enemy player in 1v1 (reasonably sized map) to spam them then of course you already lost if you allowed enemy to reach tier 3 and spam the most expensive unit. In team games Frost Wryms are a bigger threat but they aren't unbeatable, there is no reason why you shouldn't establish air dominance with cheap anti air units.

Human: While those two heroes are good, I don't think they are overpowered (except the 45 sec divine shield that is just wrong). Honestly I am more fearful of caster heroes than brute heroes. Humans anyway are honestly better than other races as they are Jacks of All trades with no real weakness. Got Anti-Air, Anti-Magic, decent magic, durable units... you name it and they got it. Except Agility Hero but you can buy one in the tavern if you really want a hero killer or just use mountain king.

Night Elf: I have no idea why would anyone call Night Elves weak. They are best hero killers with Demon Hunter (), Warden, Chimeras and all that range arsenal they are packing. Honestly Chimeras are more powerful than frost wyrms with the only down side of no AA but Night Elves aren't exactly lacking Anti Air units. And there is something wrong if you in tier 3 aren't making anti-air to gain air superiority with any race.

Orc: For Shadow Hunter it seems you are using a way outdated patch. Big Bad Voodoo simply can't effect Shadow Hunter, you can't even buy potion of invulnerability and use it. The only real OP thing that orcs have are Blademaster but if we remove him they are kinda lacking. Yeah Voodoo hero can heal but orcs lack any other early game heal and since he is agility hero he doesn't have that great mana.

 

[GhostThruster]

Can't resist to tackle this.

Undead; No I disagree that Frost Wyrm is overpowered, more like overrated. It is expensive, slow to produce, slow to react and if you had allowed enemy player in 1v1 (reasonably sized map) to spam them then of course you already lost if you allowed enemy to reach tier 3 and spam the most expensive unit. In team games Frost Wryms are a bigger threat but they aren't unbeatable, there is no reason why you shouldn't establish air dominance with cheap anti air units.

Human: While those two heroes are good, I don't think they are overpowered (except the 45 sec divine shield that is just wrong). Honestly I am more fearful of caster heroes than brute heroes. Humans anyway are honestly better than other races as they are Jacks of All trades with no real weakness. Got Anti-Air, Anti-Magic, decent magic, durable units... you name it and they got it. Except Agility Hero but you can buy one in the tavern if you really want a hero killer or just use mountain king.

Night Elf: I have no idea why would anyone call Night Elves weak. They are best hero killers with Demon Hunter (), Warden, Chimeras and all that range arsenal they are packing. Honestly Chimeras are more powerful than frost wyrms with the only down side of no AA but Night Elves aren't exactly lacking Anti Air units. And there is something wrong if you in tier 3 aren't making anti-air to gain air superiority with any race.

Orc: For Shadow Hunter it seems you are using a way outdated patch. Big Bad Voodoo simply can't effect Shadow Hunter, you can't even buy potion of invulnerability and use it. The only real OP thing that orcs have are Blademaster but if we remove him they are kinda lacking. Yeah Voodoo hero can heal but orcs lack any other early game heal and since he is agility hero he doesn't have that great mana.

time to tackle the tackler.

frost wyrms are overpowered in team games, regardless if they're beatable or not. there are also many reasons you shouldn't establish air dominance with 'cheap' anti-air units. for one, some of them are not cheap (e.g. flying machine has the highest cost-per-food ratio in the game). for another, most dedicated anti-air aren't cost-effective due to a lack of versatility.

archmage is probably the overall best hero in the game.

undead are best hero killers by far lol. night elves are probably the weakest race for mid-tier players (vast majority of rt players). this is because though they have good dps & versatile units (good against noobs that can't focus fire & aren't familiar with the meta), they rely on good micro to be able to be played well due to their lower HP & multitude of active single-target abilities. chims have higher dps than frosties per-food, but other than that, frost wyrms are superior in every way.

ensnare is op too. 12 second disable, and costs 0 mana.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The game was only roughly balanced. Although it did see some E-sport events, they never really took off with StarCraft I dominating E-sport RTS throughout the life of WC3.

Generally the issue seems to be related to hero choices. Some races seldom see one of their 4 heroes used. Most Tavern heroes are never used. Some heroes like Blademaster almost always see use.

 

[VeljkoM]

time to tackle the tackler.

frost wyrms are overpowered in team games, regardless if they're beatable or not. there are also many reasons you shouldn't establish air dominance with 'cheap' anti-air units. for one, some of them are not cheap (e.g. flying machine has the highest cost-per-food ratio in the game). for another, most dedicated anti-air aren't cost-effective due to a lack of versatility.

I mean relatively cheap compared to frost wyrms. I honestly would always use Dragonhawk compared to Flying Machine (I may be wrong to do it but I prefer them). I can't go without dragonhawks as humans and hippogrifs as night elves (proof that I don't play with night elves), and crypt fiends (is it just me or did these guys got nerfed hard in recent patches?) for undead if I suspect that enemy will go for heavy flyers. And still you say they are OP in team games but at least then they aren't that bad in 1v1 gameplay.

archmage is probably the overall best hero in the game.

Well I did say I fear caster heroes more. I always go with Archmage as human and never start with paladin or mountain king as first heroes.

undead are best hero killers by far lol. night elves are probably the weakest race for mid-tier players (vast majority of rt players). this is because though they have good dps & versatile units (good against noobs that can't focus fire & aren't familiar with the meta), they rely on good micro to be able to be played well due to their lower HP & multitude of active single-target abilities. chims have higher dps than frosties per-food, but other than that, frost wyrms are superior in every way.

Yeah I somehow managed to forget the dreaded Undead Hero combo Frost Nova-Death Coil-Impale/Carrion Swarm. That is a big oversight from me...

I still place Night Elves at least in second place or at least rivaled with undead for it. I refuse to believe that night elves are weak, hard to use ok I agree with that. I prefer Chimeras over Frost Wyrms even if Frost Wyrms are overall better units.

ensnare is op too. 12 second disable, and costs 0 mana.

Aren't ensnared units supposed to still attack/use abilities so at least it isn't bad as it could be. Not exactly always working though. Plus don't forget that Ensnare actually interrupts units and heroes so forget starfall.

 

[Ceday]

Problem with ensnare is it cannot be dispelled unlike other race units' disables.(No blood mage comment please)To rescue an ensnared unit you need to engage with orc or just tp out, and being able to choose when to fight gives an advantage.Orcs can do that open field whereas other races have to go orc base to force a fight by attacking burrows.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well I did say I fear caster heroes more. I always go with Archmage as human and never start with paladin or mountain king as first heroes.

Blizzard is very powerful late game and can be used to push enemies away. Mass Teleport is also very useful late game as you can protect expansions much more easily.

That said Paladin is probably the most powerful Human hero in WC3. Divine Shield Level 3 is insane with a 69% up time meaning that only 31% of the time you can even be attacked and the trivial mana cost makes sustaining this constantly very easy. At level 6 Ressurection can turn battles by refunding you up to 6 units at full health. Devotion Aura and Holy Light are fantastic support as well. That said against Undead who mostly destroy corpses with Raise Dead or Animate Dead he loses use of his Ultimate which in turn does weigh heavily on his usability.

Aren't ensnared units supposed to still attack/use abilities so at least it isn't bad as it could be. Not exactly always working though. Plus don't forget that Ensnare actually interrupts units and heroes so forget starfall.

The main strength with Ensnare is not physical but rather tactical. Ensnared units can still attack however if you are performing a strategic retreat the last thing you want to do is attack. As such casting ensnare on units either forces the enemy to stand ground (which they would hardly be retreating if they could win) or dooms units to death as part of a retreat. Let us not forget that it also enables the ground heavy orcs to attack air units effectively (having your air units whaled on by a Tauren is not good).

 

[MasterHaosis]

Personally, I don't really feel Blizzard obtained a perfect balance between the races. Sure, it's not easy at all to achieve it and somehow the melee games feel quite balanced yet it is pretty arguable if the races are equally strong or not.

I agree with that. That comes with uniqueness of WC3, every single unit between races and even workers are unique. So much uniqueness and differences, that is harder to balance.

Night Elves, on the other hand, feel a bit underpowered since they don't have a real tank hero (no strength). Of course they got their strong points (Mountain Giant damn super tank unit) but still I feel they are a bit weaker compared to other races.

I plaz with Undeads mostly. But I have to admit that Night Elves are one of best. I do not know if they are the most powerful, but for sure they have the most choice of tactics. Do not forget that Archers can be mounted to hippygryph, whatever is called that bird, Druid of storms can be transformed into aerial unit, druid of claws as bears, there are those mountain giants with war clubs, awesome healers with moon wells and Tranquality and rejuvenations.

So I agree with VeljkoM about Night Elves he has point. Except for Chimarea, I preffer Frost Wyrm over it. They can slow units down and freeze buildings, cancelling their production. Only that blizzard fucked up from pierce to magic, so wyrms cannot attack anti spell casters.

Most Tavern heroes are never used.

I am using them, that fire lord mostly. I am surprised why people are not using Tavern heroes since there are tons of choice.
And why the hell Blizzard did not included new heroes earlier, but in patch latter.
Some heroes such as Beastmaster should be thrown to Orcs
Pit Lord and Dark Ranger for Undead.
That Pandearn is also unused hero. I do not know about those goblins.

Some heroes like Blademaster almost always see use.

I wonder why Blizzard did not notice this and tried to rebalance. To empower unused heroes, and little reduce power of those overused and overpowered heroes.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I am using them, that fire lord mostly. I am surprised why people are not using Tavern heroes since there are tons of choice.

It is because you need to get to a Tavern in the first place to get one. By that time you could have trained one straight from your Alter. They might see use as second or third heroes but even then they are more expensive and not that more powerful.

I wonder why Blizzard did not notice this and tried to rebalance. To empower unused heroes, and little reduce power of those overused and overpowered heroes.

Patch after patch they did nerf him, just not enough by the looks of things.

 

[Shadow Fury]

It is clear everyone has different views about Warcraft, balancing and such stuff.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The main problem with WC3 was it being too luck based. I personally believe this stopped it reaching E-sport level and why balance is so poor at times.

If you look at games like SC2 all units deal fixed damage amounts per hit with nothing really being random. WC3 on the other hand was heavily random with everything from unit attack damage to the types of creeps spawned and what they drop depending on the RNG.

Although this is not unusual for RPG mechanics (Diablo III is a good example of such mechanics) it is for RTS and competitive games. In a match with two evenly matched players it eventually all comes down to the RNG. To emphasise, two identical armies fighting can result in 1 winning and the other losing which is decided by the RNG. People who lose can always argue that the RNG messed them and that the winner was just more lucky.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

RNG? I'm sorry, what is that? I can only think of range but that doesn't seem fitting.

 

[VeljkoM]

Random Number Generator (God), when something is determined by a random number or dice. Like in Warcraft 3 basic attack. Though creeps are usually set and not random and items have at least some system behind them.

Only that blizzard fucked up from pierce to magic, so wyrms cannot attack anti spell casters.

Magic attack is used because it gives extra damage against heavy armor because it is the only attack type to counter it. Besides the damn thing needs some weakness besides slowness.

 

[Xonok]

Hm, I wasn't aware that ensare can be used on ground units too. Sort of makes sense, but it's still strange and tactically very strong.
I do not consider paladin's divine shield to be very strong. It would be on most heroes, but not on the paladin, because he mostly needs other units to do his work. Instead, his power comes from the combination of holy light and devotion aura. This aura makes human armies able to stand up to orcs by sheer tanking.
Overall, humans have very good synergy within the race.
Blademaster was said to become OP when his wind walk was changed to allow moving through units. This ability to run faster than anyone and ignore blocking is unparalleled, making him hard to pin down and thus, a good harasser. Also, does anyone ever use mirror image? Seems like a pointless ability with a high mana cost.
@DSG I don't think being luck-based was really such a big deal for most people. Sure, it skews the tables for the pro scene, but for most people(and probably pros too), the most problematic was some matchups not really matching up(Orc vs undead?).

About tavern heroes, they have actually been used quite a lot. Pandaren brewmaster is VERY strong due to his passive's synergy with other defenses, while the Sea Witch was used by some night-elf strats(mass archers + sea witch first hero = high kiting and damage). Dark ranger fit well for the undead due to essentially being a reusable banshee/necromancer that also does decent damage.
About magic(as mentioned in the other thread), I have researched it somewhat. Basically holy light is wielded by those that think they are doing the right thing. It fits quite well with how Arthas lost his soul - At first he was desperately trying to do the right thing(The Culling), but eventually he realized what horrible things he had done. That's when he started to further develop the powers that frostmourne had granted him. Note that Arthas never became undead lore-wise. Also, strange fact - Before Arthas lost his soul, frostmourne did chaos damage.
Speaking of chaos magic, the reason why it's so unilaterally considered evil is that all magic is an expression of will. Light is for the just, arcane is generic power, chaos is for destruction. I challenge you to find even one chaos spell in WC3 that has a positive effect(shielding effects and such are neutral).

 

[Adarsh]

no one here thought about maps? most w3 pro players i talked to think that the balance of races is diferent on each map... for example, secret valley is a map good for orcs, lost temple favours humans etc. If you are interested in some more info on this, Grubby made a video (orc vs elf on ancient isles) that shows how a strategy might work on one map, but not on the others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcrVgAvYteY The strategy described in this video can be beaten quite easily if you know exactly what are you doing (it provoked some theorycrafting), but when Grubby used it for the first time many players thought orc is overpowered

 

[GhostThruster]

while rng is definitely bad for competitive games, you rarely ever see a game being won by rng in wc3. 99% of the time, it comes down to pure skill and match-up knowledge.

 

[VeljkoM]

It is because you need to get to a Tavern in the first place to get one. By that time you could have trained one straight from your Alter. They might see use as second or third heroes but even then they are more expensive and not that more powerful.

Wait doesn't this depend on the size of the map? You can anyway send worker before you even finish an altar. Of course you still must wait 135 seconds for tavern heroes to be available for hire, while regular Hero needs an Altar (60) and Hero build time (55) so Tavern heroes are 20 seconds slower to get. The increased cost for later heroes in tavern is 35 wood. As for why getting them well for novelty and surprise or to fill a role your race lacks or because you get one instant.

 

[Dr Super Good]

you rarely ever see a game being won by rng in wc3. 99% of the time, it comes down to pure skill and match-up knowledge.

That you know of. How much of units dying comes down to the RNG? Maybe with luck a unit would have died 1-2 hits sooner which could have meant a unit of yours died 1-2 hits later. This seems trivial but in the big picture could make the difference between winning a battle barely or losing.