I disagree. My biggest difficulty in modding this game is drawing the darn icons.

I highly doubt the developers themselves would claim that. From what I have gathered from dev journals ect., Stardock does not have a large dedicated play-testing department. Without one, it is impossible to understand how the game plays with all the different combinations of settings and player preferences without getting feedback from a place like this one. Unfortunately, this approach comes with the drawback (among others) of trying to sift through noise (abundant and sometimes very shrill) for the signal they are looking for.

It could very easily be the case they could miss something important with something they thought they had put abundant effort in to, such as heroes and sovereign design/play. They have a wonderful customization system, face/clothing/body customizer, backstory maker, background choice, many interesting special abilities to choose from, ect. It may be surprising after all this work to hear that the whole thing is underwhelming from certain players (they will have to decide how significant this population is), not because the systems mentioned above are not excellent, but because of something that is primarily in data and how different populations of players enjoy the game. 

Altering the xp gains in ElementalDefs is indeed very easy. Altering the trait trees would not be so easy, but can be done with about 6-10 hrs worth of work if you know what you're going for and develop a good plan.

The point I'm trying to make is that the game is balanced in terms of certain design decisions the developers have made over the past few years.  Altering something so crucial as champion xp splitting at this point would unbalance the entire leveling process and would require many hours of paid labor to rebalance.  And in fact it's (imo) kind of silly, because there are ways around the issue at hand already in the game that you are not accounting for in your rants, such as properly using traits, commanders, spells, or henchmen (bards) to name just a few.  My hunch is that many of you are also calling for the removal of the Potential traits, when in fact these are exactly the traits you'd want to choose if you want to group champions.

I feel like many of you are frustrated because you don't want to believe that this is a strategy game at its core, which requires making tough decisions based on the circumstances you're dealt at the beginning of the match and as the game progresses, and therefore you're not willing to play the game as its meant to be played.  That's fine, but I'm afraid you're going to have to either make mods or wait until someone mods the game to your liking because your vision and the developer's vision on this matter are not the same.

@ mqpiffle

I am having a hard time imagining this, but I am really curious. Do you know something specifically? Because if being a game developer required someone to ask their friends for 20-50 hours or so of labor at regular intervals, I would think it would be the lonliest job in the world. But maybe I don't have the right picture.

The game is not meant to be played to fill all skills on both trees of your hero(es). Is not D1-D2-D3 in that regard where you replay content to get a bit more xp and get another skill etc. The purpose of the game is not to fill your skill slots left and right, is to explore, develop, and achieve victory (or fail) with several options on how to achieve that.

You can clearly see this from the design of game. It makes sense for example as a spellcaster to master one or two of the schools you're proficient with, then add some flavor (more damage, less spell resist, shorter casting time w/e) from the spellcaster tree. Oh you want all 5 spell trees and also fill all spellcasting stuff. How on earth? Maps are limited, the amount of XP on them is limited, number of opponents is fixed, sure you can spawn quests, but after a certain level you'll only get a good bump on XP from epic quests. There is no respawn on lairs and wandering monsters and apart ingame events (like skeletons invasion) when you clear an area it stays clear (except for enemy players). It wouldn't make any sense for me to clear a lair to settle a town and 20 seasons later a higher level lair to pop next to my city. Say what?

If you played heroes series (HOMM) it was no different, once you cleared monsters or killed AI's main army, it was all gone. Yes week of the X creature adding several mobs on map that would barely make your xp bar flinch. The games are not neverending quests, it's not a living world simulation or persisting world like MMO's. It's a set scenario, is a strategy game

Baldur's Gate (1&2) both had xp split among heroes. In order to even hope to get a hero at max level you would have to solo the game refusing any NPC to join your party to not share xp. I don't think anyone complained that you can complete the game (as intended to be played) with several mid level heroes or with a single one near or reaching the XP cap. And that was a pure RPG adventure with no strategic elements.

I have been modding this game for awhile. As I say there are some limitations in what can be easily done, most of what people want can be done. For dynamic cost of casting something, this can be done. The other part of editing core files, you can set this up by creating a senario in game. This will allow you to edit any of the core files and you set up a war between nations. Within game to set up random sovereigns and such may be a little difficult, but then you don't need the ingame editor and function players to set this up. Like other games and how you mod them you produce a front end that runs the game afterward.

The AI problems that you talk about can be fixed in other ways. For example, set up poor tatical decisions made by the AI to be bonuses. If you've played the game enough you know what the AI will do, it's not all that random, and the moddability of the game is there. I've made several mods and discovered there are loopholes in most of the system. Most of what OliverFA is wanting to try out may not be done directly, but there are systems in place that will produce basically the same effect.

It is not that hard to develop your own programs that will make a random map (better or the same as what the game has). When I say this is not difficult to do I really mean it is NOT difficult to do the modding. I've already on 2 seperate occassions posted a mod that removes the champion XP split from everyone. It is simply adding a line to every champion

<DividesBattleExp>0</DividesBattleExp>

It is a simple mod to create.

If you want to run a more linear scale when it comes to the XP bonuses create a spell like this

<Spells>
     <SpellDef InternalName="XPReductionReduced">
        <DisplayName>XPReduction</DisplayName>
        <Description>At the beginning of battle a bonus is applied from each hero to every unit in the stack.</Description>
        <Image>S_BlessingOfRestoration_Painting.png</Image>
        <IconFG>S_BlessingOfRestoration_Icon.png</IconFG>
        <CanStack>1</CanStack>
        <SpellBookSortCategory>Unit</SpellBookSortCategory>
         <SpellBookSortSubCategory>UnitEnchantment</SpellBookSortSubCategory>
        <SpellType>Tactical</SpellType>
        <SpellClass>Defensive</SpellClass>
        <SpellSubClass>Buff</SpellSubClass>
        <SpellTargetType>AllFriendlyUnits</SpellTargetType>
        <HideInHiergamenon>1</HideInHiergamenon>
        <IgnoreCastAnim>1</IgnoreCastAnim>
        <IsCastable>0</IsCastable>
        <GameModifier>
            <ModType>Unit</ModType>
            <Attribute>AdjustUnitStat</Attribute>
            <StrVal>UnitStat_ExpBonus</StrVal>
            <Duration>-1</Duration>
            <Value>75</Value>
         </GameModifier>
         <AIData AIPersonality="AI_General">
            <AIPriority>5</AIPriority>
        </AIData>
     </SpellDef>
</Spells>

Then attach this to every champion by giving an appropriate abiliy. This will then have every champion cast this at the beginning of every battle and since it can stack you will find that with 2 champions you get a 150% bonus, but if you do the math 100% exp divided by 2 gives 50% of the XP, then 150% of that XP 125% of the original XP. Mind you you get 175% of the XP in a battle with 1 champion involved. Thus, the reduction goes down by less than half. For 3 champions you then would get 33% of the XP but a 225% bonus, That means you get somewhere along the lines of 75% or little less than half when with 3 champions.

This will still reduce the XP, but you can have around 3 champions and still get decent XP for everybody in your army. This can be done from the mod folder.

For dynamic spell casting in tatical battles add the game modifier

<GameModifier>
     <ModType>Resource</ModType>
     <Attribute>Mana</Attribute>
     <ApplyToCaster>1</ApplyToCaster>
     <Calculate InternalName="Calc" ValueOwner="TargetUnit">
         <Expression><![CDATA[[Unit_GetLevel] * -10]]></Expression>
     </Calculate>
     <Calculate InternalName="Value">
         <Expression><![CDATA[[Calc]]]></Expression>
     </Calculate>
</GameModifier>

This will cost the casting unit 10 mana per level of the target. I'd call that dynamic and an upfront cost. Currently the strategic map casting calculations are broken which they are slowly fixing.

Editing the AI would require scripts to determine the functionality. Notice throughout that we have AI_General tag everwhere... There is an xml that can edit ALL of the AI personality and what choices they make. What priorities they will use and what they will try next. You can edit all of these files, I haven't editted them and I don't know of any of the modders who have touched these files. You can probably set up the numbers in such a way that you have effectively SCRIPTED an AI to do exactly what you want them to do, but that would take hours.

I could address all of these issues that people have listed in these pages, but I just don't have the time or more importantly the money to devote that much time to working with all the XML of these files and create a fantastic mod. There are some quirks and things that you want to have happen that just won't because the game engine is limited... I'm sure you can even get around the combat ends movement (I've got an idea that probably work).

I don't think XP split is the problem, I am developing currently a mod that will provide INFINITE monsters (or even near INFINITE). Provide a really slow but high level game. I'd even include a trait in the trees that will allow you to get around I cannot choose a trait bug on the level up screen.

With all due respect, there is a difference between "can be done" and "can be EASILY done". That's why I felt the need to make that little comment.

Other than that, I'd be extremely happy to be proven wrong when I say that something can't be done, because I have learned that this something can't be done because I tried to do for my mod, so if someone proves me wrong what it means is that it's good news for my mod. That's too much thread hijacking, so I will post some questions in another threads but just to mention two impossibilities that I've found and I find basic: I have not found a way to count the number of cities (I have a decent approximation but not the actual number) and I can't make a Pioneer cost food. And I really hope that's fruit of my incompetence and not of the engine limitations. 

I have read through all this debate, and one thought keeps coming to mind.

In the time it takes everyone else to grab Potential 1/2/3, I can have Lethal 1/2/3, Vital Strike 1/2/3, etc.  I will be three traits down the path to what I want while everyone else is still trying to get started, after grabbing things that offer NO BENEFIT for either the Tactical or Strategic gameplay.

Yes, with Potential they can catch up faster, but I already have the head start I need to get the big powers before you, and then use them against you.

Potential gives my Army, Champion, Kingdom/Empire no physical benefit, and is pretty much a wasted Level when I could be getting more Attack, more Spell Mastery, more Health, more Spell Resistance, more Spells, etc.

That definately sums up how I feel about this matter, as well.

If Stardock would announce plans to do another expansion after this with large amounts of content additions, I could care less what they do before release with this one. I just don't want this expansion to be it. This was a good expansion, but it seemed like it was mostly balance. The love they put in to balancing is awesome, but it would be sweet to get one more expansion or some dlc with new quests (so we don't get the same ones each game), deeper diplomacy, some new game modes or scenarios, more monsters, more spells and abilities, upgrades to graphics, UI, and special effects. Basically a meaty content expansion with as much as is possible.

There is another thread with a list of fixes that could be done before release, and there are plenty of other threads about balances and bugs. If the goal was to make the biggest impression before release, I think you could fix every bug and equal out every strategy and not make much of any difference on release impressions. Of the things that can easily and quickly be changed, people will notice how champions and leveling plays. If they play like well-balanced tools for winning the game, then people with rpg-expectations for a fantasy TBS game can easily be disappointed. Even if they went too far and they made them significantly overpowered, instead of being viewed as a bug, it will most likely thrill these same people. It's a tough call, because I would find it hard to argue from a pure strategy game perspective that it isn't the most interesting the way it is. I just don't know the numbers and whom the devs most want to please.

What about a dynamic xp slider such that when you have more than one person in a group the base xp is increased by 1.X amount such that when there are two people the base is increased by 20% so the final xp split is 60% instead of 50%.  For three people it would 1.3 times and a base of 43% instead of 33% and so on and so forth.  This would cushion the xp split but not make it overpowered to stack of doom things.

Fibonacci comes to mind, just divide XP through F(n):

1 hero   -  XP /1

2 heroes - XP /1

So the game would encourage you to use two heroes in your stacks who would "earn twice the XP" then. A new hero trait that doubles XP gain for any hero who fights alone in an army would fit in very well. Encouraging the use of two heroes also make sense as you could roleplay one for support (Healer, Commander) and one for offensive demands. Could spice heroes up a bit.

3 heroes - XP/2

4 heroes - XP/3

5 heroes - XP/5

...

That way, availiable XP would in fact be multiplied for hero progression with a sweet spot at two heroes, from three heroes per stack upwards you would in fact "waste" XP and slow hero development down and with more than five heroes (which is completely silly anyway) your heroes would end up  earning less XP than regular troops in the same stack.

Of course that would only make sense if we agree in two problems.

1) there is not enough XP avbailiable for hero progression at the moment  (heroes level too slow, trees are too long)

2) there is no "stack of doom" problem in LH regarding stacks of multiple heroes.

I for one think heroes should level faster and reach higher levels, so being able to earn twice the XP with two heroes at once seems worth a try for me. I also think that an additional company of regular troops adds a lot more punsh to any stack than another hero, so I don't see the "hero stack of doom" problem in LH.

Please excuse my bad french...