HispaZargon's Difficulty Calculation Model (HZ-DCM)

[HispaZargon]

Well, the difference between both difficulty charts for Quests 9 & 10 of MoM actually is 5000 points aprox., and YES, I can confirm that such reduction is caused by the BPs reduction in the Ogres, from 10 to 5 BPs. Notice that those quests has up to 8 Ogres, which is big number of them so reducing their life to half is something quite relevant in the total difficulty of the quest. Thanks for your comment!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I would be interested in seeing the formulae behind your calculator, if you are willing to share? (although if it is quicker I'm particularly interested in the Monster difficulty formula specifically)

[HispaZargon]

I have plans to share all the method in the future, but not still prepared, unfortunatelly.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Not even a sneak peak at the formula for monster difficulty...in return for a free evaluation...?

[BakaMatt]

How does the new ATOH stack up in the model, given there are new stats and three more quests? Will there be updated charts?

[HispaZargon]

Yes, working on it right now, it will be posted soon...

[Kurgan]

There could be a lot of variance in ATOH (well beyond HZ's helpful model I'm sure) because the heroes can go to the arena and fight custom battles as much as they want between quests in this campaign... they also get the option to skip the first three tournament quests (and yet still reap the benefits of the purple treasure chests later on; though they miss out on 1,000 gold plus any additional treasure from the chests in the arena). Having 3 or fewer heroes and hiring the wolf to supplement puts them at a disadvantage vs. having four heroes, but they they could theoretically start hiring a single Ogre to accompany them on every quest after the first one if they have enough gold.

No instructions are given on using the Druid, but if we imagine the Rogue Heir of Elethorn lore card is consulted, only one Druid could be used in the party at a time (or none at all). The original quests were designed for the four classic character types, presumably to be played either after the original 14 quests or (story wise) after KK and ROTWL. But I digress... AH has a new suggested chronology now that incorporates many different adventures not just the European ones.

Playing half of Phoenix's version several years ago I found this a challenging expansion. Still curious to see what you come up with!

[HispaZargon]

Hi,

I have already analyzed the difficulty of Against the Ogre Horde remake's expansion using my preliminar model. BEWARE, MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD

I have estimated that Total Difficulty of the expansion is 93487 DPs (10 Quests). Here you have the results I obtained for the rest of official expansion packs under HQ21 rules, for comparison purposes:

- Prophecy of Telor (13 Quests): 55864 DPs
- Kellar's Keep (10 Quests): 56842 DPs
- Basic Game (14 Quests): 60012 DPs
- Return of the Witch Lord (10 Quests): 61980 DPs
- Spirit's Queen Torment (14 Quests): 62284 DPs
- The Crypt of Perpetual Darkness (10 Quests): 64954 DPs
- Rise of the Dread Moon (9 Quests): 114416 DPs
- The Mage of the Mirror (9 Quests): 136336
- The Frozen Horror (9 Quests): 169040 DPs

And here you have a chart where you can see how the difficulty is being increased through Quests of Against the Ogre Horde remake's expansion. Notice that the current model do not covert the special combat/aids rules of the Arena, so I have considered Quests 1, 2 & 3 like any other quest for Difficulty evaluation (For Quest 2 I considered the rest of the Defender team composed by 2 Orcs and 2 Goblins):

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_AtOH_Total_Difficulty_2024-03-09.jpg

Here you have another chart with the difficulty of all released HQ21 quests and expansions up to now, ordered in the official chronological order defined by Hasbro:

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_Quests_Total_Difficulty_Chrono_2024-03-09.jpg

And here you have a comparison between the remake's version of Against the Ogre Horde, and the difficulty numbers of the classic European version of 1991, the classic fanmade version performed by Phoenix according to American rules, and the fanmade version I defined in 2023 and shared for Conjunta FM3 with the Spanish Fans Community (more details described below the chart):

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_AtOH_Total_Difficulty_Comparisons_2024-03-09.jpg

MB stats: Ogre variable BPs rule is not considered by the model, however it instead considers the most probable BPs for the Ogres which are the Phoenix ones (see next). Rest of monsters have the official European stats.

Phoenix stats: The ones considered here as adaptation to the classic American game system https://heroquestbyphoenix.yeoldeinn.co ... s/AtOH.pdf .

HispaZargon stats: All monsters have the classic American stats except the following ones, to fit better with the Ogre BPs (5) defined in the 2022 remake of MotM by Avalon Hill, and with the rest of classic regular monster stats:

- Ogre Warrior: M6, AD5, DD5, BP5, MP1
- Ogre Champion: M6, AD5, DD5, BP6, MP1
- Ogre Chieftain: M4, AD6, DD6, BP6, MP2
- Ogre Lord: M4, AD6, DD6, BP7, MP5
- Fortress Gargoyle: M6, AD4, DD5, BP5, MP4
- Nexrael: M8, AD3, DD4, BP3, MP5
- Festral: M6, AD4, DD5, BP5, MP8
- Xenloth: M6, AD2, DD4, BP4, MP4

It can be checked that difficulty differences between the different versions of this expansion are not too high, even comparing with the classic European version of AtOH. The explanation for this is the oiginal classic version was already intended in 1991 to have hard quests, and the Ogres had more than 1 BP, something quite new at the time for a European regular monster since all them just had 1 BP. Additionally, the classic European version already added Chaos spells to the three chaos warlocks so it also become the classic expansion close in difficulty to the american contemporary ones, and all of this is covered by the model, so finally all the AtOH versions are quite close in difficulty terms.

Nevertheless, for those classic lovers of the game, it can be observed that the 2024 version of the expansion is clearly a bit more difficult than the classic Phoenix one, but in my opinion not too much.

And finally, as always I would like to remember that this Difficulty Model is still a preliminary version with lots of limitations, so its results may not be as accurate as we would like to.

The current version of this model only considers the number an type of Monsters and number and type of Traps potentially found by the Heroes in each Quest. This model does not still consider the rest of matters of the game which could affect to the difficulty, like very special events or abilities, if the heroes can visit the Armory before the quest or not, how many aids the Heroes find (hideouts, potions, artifacts, etc.), Wandering Monsters, how many gold the find, how powerful are the spells of each spellcaster (the model only accounts the number of spells), etc.

The aim of this model was only trying to give a quick idea of how difficult is each quest and quest pack in those terms, but always looking for simplicity (at least on this stage of the project).

Nevertheless, in my humble opinion I think the result obtained by the model for Against the Ogre Horde expansion are quite interesting from a comparative perspective, if we look to the results obtained for other quest packs, following the same criteria.

I wish you will enjoy this data.

[Kurgan]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting!

[HispaZargon]

Hi,

I have already analyzed the difficulty of Jungles of Delthrak expansion using my preliminar model. BEWARE, THERE ARE VERY EXPLICIT SPOILERS AHEAD

I have estimated that Total Difficulty of the expansion is between 92250 and 105949 DPs, depending which one of the 10 posible combinations of quests the Heroes choose, but all of them have 9 Quests in total. Here you have the results I obtained for the rest of official expansion packs under HQ21 rules, for comparison purposes:

1.- The Frozen Horror (9 Quests): 169040 DPs
2.- The Mage of the Mirror (9 Quests): 136336
3.- Rise of the Dread Moon (9 Quests): 114416 DPs
4.- Jungles of Delthrak (9 Quests): 99184 DPs (Average value of the 10 posible combinations of quests)
5.- Against the Ogre Horde (10 Quests): 93487 DPs
6.- The Crypt of Perpetual Darkness (10 Quests): 64954 DPs
7.- Spirit's Queen Torment (14 Quests): 62284 DPs
8.- Return of the Witch Lord (10 Quests): 61980 DPs
9.- Basic Game (14 Quests): 60012 DPs
10.- Kellar's Keep (10 Quests): 56842 DPs
11.- Prophecy of Telor (13 Quests): 55864 DPs

However, in terms maximum average difficulty per quest, the difficulty ranking of each quest pack would result in the following:

1.- The Frozen Horror: 18782 DPs/quest
2.- The Mage of the Mirror: 15148 DPs/quest
3.- Rise of the Dread Moon: 11442 DPs/quest
4.- Jungles of Delthrak: 11011 DPs/quest (Through the most difficult quests path)
5.- Against the Ogre Horde: 9349 DPs/quest
6.- The Crypt of Perpetual Darkness: 6495 DPs/quest
7.- Return of the Witch Lord: 6198 DPs/quest
8.- Kellar's Keep: 5684 DPs/quest
9.- Spirit's Queen Torment: 4449 DPs/quest
10.- Prophecy of Telor: 4297 DPs/quest
11.- Basic Game: 4287 DPs/quest

... and online official quests ranking:

1. Online Quest -1 - Rogar's Hall (1 Quest): 9480 DPs/quest
2. Online Quest 1 - Forsaken Tunnels of Xor-Xel (1 Quest): 6523 DPs/quest
3. Online Quest 2 - Into the Northlands (1 Quest): 5315 DPs/quest
4. Online Quest 3 - Knightfall (1 Quest): 5027 DPs/quest
5. Online Quest 0 - New Beginnings (1 Quest): 3719 DPs/quest

And here you have a chart where you can see how the difficulty is being increased through Quests of Jungles of Delthrak expansion. Notice that this chart only corresponds to the most difficult combination of quests within the 10 posible different paths that the Heroes may choose during the games:

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_JoD_Total_Difficulty_2024-07-24.jpg

The following chart shows a comparison of how difficult are the quests of Jungles of Delthrak expansion depending on which quests path the Heroes choose. Really interesting to see that Conclusion Paths A & C resulted in a cuasi-equal value of total difficulty, and only choosing Path B the final battle of the expansion is much difficult. Therefore, the most difficult posible path then resulted to be if playing Quest 3, Quest 7 and Quests 13 & 14 (Path B):

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_JoD_Total_Difficulty_All_Paths_2024-07-24.jpg

Here you have another chart with the difficulty of all released HQ21 quests and expansions up to now, ordered in the official chronological order defined by Hasbro:

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_Quests_Total_Difficulty_Chrono_2024-07-24.jpg

And here the same chart but also adding the missing legacy classic EU quest packs adapted to NA stats and rules (Wizards of Morcar/Zargon and The Dark Company):

HZ-model_v0100_HQ21_Quests_Total_Difficulty_Chrono_with_Classic_2024-07-24.jpg

Well, with all the postprocessed data in hand, I think the overall difficulty of JoD expansion can be considered similar to RotDM... but always having in mind that it will depend a lot about which quests the Heroes decide to play.

I think the different paths design has been well designed, playing Quest 7 instead of Quest 6 means a sensible difficulty increment for example, but if the Heroes success, it will give access them to play Quests 15 & 16 which are not as difficult as Quests 13 & 14 but will reward them quite well too.

As far as I have observed, the main new actual challenges that the Heroes will face in this new expansion of JoD are the Spawnlings and the sometimes big number of big creatures like Blighcrawlers and Serpents. Channel Dread spellcasters, like Blightweavers, when combined with Crystal Clusters will be also dangerous for the Heroes it they are in big groups. New minor traps like the hindering terrain tiles will be also a pain sometimes for the Heroes, I think. The rest of new additions I think are not so challenging... well, the VERY BIG CREATURE of Quest 14 could be a problem too of course, but its no Movement stat could give the opportunity to the Heroes of having good advantages in their tactics, especially if they bring good ranged weapons/spells.

And finally, as always I would like to remember that this Difficulty Model is still a preliminary version with lots of limitations, so its results may not be as accurate as we would like to.

The current version of this model only considers the number an type of Monsters and number and type of Traps potentially found by the Heroes in each Quest. This model does not still consider the rest of matters of the game which could affect to the difficulty, like very special events or abilities, if the heroes can visit the Armory before the quest or not, how many aids the Heroes find (companions, potions, artifacts, etc.), Wandering Monsters, how many gold they find, how powerful are the spells of each spellcaster (the model only accounts the number of spells), etc.

The aim of this model was only trying to give a quick idea of how difficult is each quest and quest pack in those terms, but always looking for simplicity (at least on this stage of the project).

Nevertheless, in my humble opinion I think the result obtained by the model for Jungles of Delthrak expansion are quite interesting from a comparative perspective, if we look to the results obtained for other quest packs, following the same criteria.

I wish you will enjoy this data.