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| Thread: A Grand Project: HoMM III Tournament Patch |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT» |
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Maximus
Famous Hero
Bronzed God
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posted September 12, 2003 01:33 AM |
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A Grand Project: HoMM III Tournament Patch
Oki, first a little explanation as to what my intentions r here. Well is simple, to release a patch update that will fix some things in the current h3 game that were never fixed or balanced out b4, mainly aimed at the multi player tournament gaming. This is not intended to turn h3 upside down and create a new game, ppl looking for massive changes should check out WoG, as they have some powerful editors and ready made scripts already.
First i need to get input and compile a list of the game bugs and things that r totaly unbalanced,ie:naga banks, town view,conflux/necro town, spells etc etc.
Fact is, its very easy to balance out necro and conflux and bring them back into the tournament game.
Secondly, i want some ideas on maybe some simple changes that ppl may like to see in the game, again not crazy changes that will totally unbalance things, but stuff thats not to outta this world and will still keep the essence on h3. 1 idea i already tried and was fun is making both hand slots on a hero take a sword, so is possible to have a 2 sworded hero, obviously i didnt make it possilbe to wear 2 shields lol !!!
Here's some comments made in the other post, but hav re-located here since i deleted the other 
XARFAX POST:
yeah would be about time....
..some more interesting stuff can be done within seconds...like..
- putting all Heroes back into the came: Make for example witches to skill similar as knights...that would give lots of new interesting main hero possibilites.
- get conflux into the game: Make for example Lvl7 produktion down to 1 per week.
- make some towns less expensive: Well with new banks tower would be already better now, so maybe lighten a bit the building costs for rampart.
- change the building tree if needed for some balancing issues.
- get necromancers out of non-necroma-tavern and a higher possibility for them to occur in necroma town (makes sense in my opinion).
- change level of spells: Like make animate the lvl4 spell it is and other like Forgetfullnes for example a lvl2 spell (very interesting in connection with recanters).
...and lots and lots more stuff, which should be discussed before done. One main thing should be observed all the time: The balancing between the towns is almost perfect, so changes should only be made that dont ruin the balance.
Peeps thought that those seasons before wanted changes would take tooo much effort from the programmers, so that they wont do it (especially the naga bank thingie)...the truth is (un)fortunately that it could be done in seconds, even by a comp-blind-one like me.
So what is needed is opinions...as a patch like this needs bright acception by many players.
Opinions?
Xarfax1
PS: @Max ... great topic man...unfortunately peeps like more to talk about the colors of a forum.
@Nebuka ..nope wasnt in any patch
@Kitten...puh these colors are really gayish pain in the ass
RECHET POST:
posted September 10, 2003 11:39 AM
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I've been editing only the various text files, so I'm a bit limited in what I can do, actually. For example, I can't edit secondary skills.
Some of the ideas I've had:
-Remove the requirement that all towns create almost equal amounts of HPs per week that also cost almost equal amounts of resources and have (almost) equal statistics. More specifically:
Castle: Medium HPs per week, good statistics all around, costly units. Above average resource drain.
Rampart: High HPs per week, average statistics, average cost units. Recruiting all troops will be costly, otherwise average resource drain.
Tower: Medium HPs per week, very good statistics, very costly units. Extreme resource drain!
Dungeon: Medium HPs per week, very good statistics, very costly units. Extreme resource drain!
Inferno: Low HPs per week, poor stats for low-level units but great for high-level, cheap to expensive units. Low resource drain. Gazillions of Imps to be converted to Demons or to be used as fodder for the Sacrifice spell.
Necropolis: Low HPs per week, poor stats for low-level units but great for high-level, cheap to expensive units, low resource drain. Lots of low-level troops.
Stronghold: Medium HPs per week, very good offense statistics but low defense, low to average cost units. Average resource drain.
Fortress: Very high HPs per week, very good defense statistics but low offense, low to average cost units. Average resource drain.
-Introduce "out of level" units. For example, an Iron Golem should be comparable to most 6th level units, based on the RPG equivalent, while a Champion is "just" a human on a horse and should thus have lower level. Corresponding changes in statistics, number of creatures per week and/or structure building costs to maintain balance as necessary. Therefore, it may happen that some town types have a bias up or down in their average creature levels - this is of course reflected elsewhere, such as resource costs. (In fact, Conflux already has four creatures between levels 3 and 4 and no 2nd or 5th level unit.)
-Introduce roles for units. A "Defender" has lots of HPs and high defense value, but is slow and has only mediocre damage, while a "Berserker" is the exact opposite. "Tank" is good at everything but costly and rare, opposite being "Cannon Fodder". "Fliers" are relatively fast but fragile and "Shooters" do great damage but are utterly worthless to defend themselves. "Spellcaster" is utterly worthless on the offense and not very durable either. Please note that roles do overlap a bit - Pit Fiend is a spellcaster/berserker, Archangel is a spellcaster/tank/flier, Skeleton is a Cannon Fodder/Berserker and Iron Golem is a Defender/Tank. There might be other roles as well.
-Differentiate Might and Magic heroes more. Might heroes advance almost only on Att/Def, Magic heroes on SP/KN.
-Together with the previous, increase the mana cost of direct-damage spells (plus some others like Resurrection) while making them much more powerful. This is to counter-balance the fact that might heroes' boost to creature statistics quickly overshadows the damage output of a Magic hero and to avoid having might heroes boost their armies with "too much" magic on top of their already huge Att/Def bonuses.
-Rebalance spell usefullness. Reduce the effect of Haste/Slow while boosting "useless chaff" such as Hypnotise/Magic Mirror/Protection from X.
-Remove huge gap between Advanced/Expert skill level in elemental magicks by making the Advanced effect stronger than Expert when Expert grants mass effect. For example, Advanced Bloodlust could increase Att by +10 for one stack while Expert increases only by +6 but for all stacks.
-Increase general difficulty level and reduce the "snowball effect" (=a strong player becomes unstoppable if left to grow unchecked) by making the Citadel and Castle upgrades MUCH more expensive. This cuts down weekly creature growth and also helps to maintain the balance between Might and Magic heroes up longer.
More to come!
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RECHET 2ND POST:
posted September 10, 2003 03:02 PM
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Some more ideas:
-Make the upgraded units considerably better than un-upgraded versions, but with a steeply increased cost. Basically, this allows for better "Quality vs Quantity" strategic decisions, as the cost of upgrading units is rather negligible in unmodded HoMM3. Units that gain extra abilities with the upgrade such as double attacks need not gain much in statistics, though. Dwelling upgrades can be made rather expensive as well to further discourage rushing for upgraded units.
-In my personal opinion, having lots of unguarded resources just lying around waiting to be picked up kind of defeats the purpose of playing Impossible mode. Since I'm not too fond of the idea of modifying like 95% of all the maps out there (not to mention randoms), increasing building costs a bit would make the resource shortages a bit harder to manage. Of course, low-level creature structures (up to 3rd level) need to be made rather cheap to ensure reasonably fair base army buildup. On the other hand, "luxury" buildings such as Capitol upgrade, high-level mage guilds and 6th/7th level creature dwellings can be made quite a bit more expensive.
-Allow for a bit more flexible artifact placement. Two weapons or two shields should be possible, just as an amulet should be possible to wear in both Ring and Cloak positions. Some items in Misc slots seem also passable for various parts of the body - for example, Torso of the Legion as body armor.
-Further distinguish fast and slow armies. IMHO, the difference between 15 and 20 adventure map tiles per turn seems a bit narrow for a range to account for armies with dwarves/golems/dendroids and armies with Phoenixes only. A range between 12 and 30 (or something like that) sounds much better. Hauling those slow defenders with ones main army comes with a stiff penalty this time around.. and allows the stats of the defenders to be boosted a bit without having too great of an effect on the play balance. However, don't expect "armies" that can keep up speeds of 25+ to be very effective in actual combat all by themselves.
-(Optional) Reduce the importance of Gold in favor of other resource types. In other words, transmute a bit of the Gold costs into other resources. To make acquiring large armies of high-level units even tougher, adding resource costs for 6th and maybe even 5th level units should do the trick. For example, to counterbalance Towers (and Dungeons) otherwise overpowering armies, making Gargoyles cost ore, Golems mercury and Nagas crystal on top of the (accordingly reduced) gold costs should keep the resource requirements high enough. (I got this idea after I noted that most of my games ended with me having 100+ of each resource unless I transformed it all into gold to buy troops.)
-Raise the # of units placed on the adventure map. Most ppl play with "Strong" monsters anyway, so why not make it the "normal" setting instead and reserve "Strong" for masochists? Between 3-8 7th level monsters isn't going to hold much of anything for long, even if they do gain in numbers every week. (Surprise, so does the player armies, they just grow in two dimensions - both in numbers and via having a better hero to command them.) Of course one could set the # of units separately for every encounter, but this is VERY cumbersome.
*Rechet returning to more brainstorming*
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Jukka Mikkonen, a.k.a Sir Rechet
So, any1 with ideas, especially u vets out there, or any1 with hex editing experience or game mod'in or any1 that would like to b included in any capacity, either as testers or brain storming or what ever, plz feel free to post 
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Frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick !
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haile73
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 12, 2003 10:25 AM |
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I would like to see a "Swap Army" button, that exchanges 2 heroes' army with one click (instead of up to 14, like it is now).
Would shorten turns a lot!
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Titan_888
Known Hero
Wind of Change
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posted September 12, 2003 11:24 AM |
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Homm3 is perfect as it is!!... to spice it up... Design some great maps or/and design great competitive tournament!
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Aculias
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Pretty Boy Angel Sacraficer
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posted September 12, 2003 11:27 AM |
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Yea so Titans will come back  .
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Dreaming of a Better World
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Maximus
Famous Hero
Bronzed God
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posted September 12, 2003 11:51 AM |
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fisrt i need to make clear, i am not looking at making any sort of expansion, but rather to balance a few things that r already in the game, like necro, like conflux, like naga banks to give gems. i think most ppl that know a little bout how h3 works realise that infact all these things (and much more) can infact b done in 1 day !!!!!
the time consuming stuff is not the pysical programing in fact, it is setting the right parameters within the game and testing that the gameplay is balanced.
other things that hav been mentioned, ie things that r not in the game in any way shape or form like a toggle button to quickly switch an army or to enable locked saved games require programing the source code and creating graphics and such from scratch. that is a different ball game altogether, but not impossible.
even the making of the patch is stright forward, infact the patch complier is an automated process, and simply works by having 2 copies of h3, 1 un-modifed and the 2nd modified. compiler then notes the difference between the 2 and records ONLY the modified data in the 2nd edition (thus keeping the size to an absolute minimun )and auto makes this info into a patch.
@titan hehe, i take it when u say perfect designed maps u mean like leaving all the stuff off a map that can unbalance the game, like all fixed maps dont put on griffin cons or hives, or in randoms certain things r banned because they r unfair if both players dont get the same stuff and usuall the things that can give a big advantge to 1 player r weakly gaurded cause the original scripting of the AI has placed much too lower value on the object ( well infact it hasnt, its just that these objects in a tournament enviroment have much more vaule and worth ).
ps titan lol, stay in 1 place so i dun hav ta keep chasing ya all the message boards
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Frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick !
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thecastrated
Famous Hero
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posted September 12, 2003 12:32 PM |
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Also an option to throw All artifacts to another hero.
The 2 swords thing.. mayb we can make it simpler. the hero can hold 2 swords or 2 shields or mixed but just 2 slots. This will be cool
Also, Resurrection and animinate should b level 5 spells.
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Maximus
Famous Hero
Bronzed God
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posted September 12, 2003 01:28 PM |
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well i kept it to 2 swords as i thought this was resonible, but i'm unsure bout the 2 shields, i mean, what hero in a battle would go into a fight armed with just shields?
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Frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick !
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thecastrated
Famous Hero
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posted September 12, 2003 01:44 PM |
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Ermm.. shield your army to let them attack?
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Titan_888
Known Hero
Wind of Change
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posted September 12, 2003 02:22 PM |
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No Aculias... i not come back
i miss it yes, but no, my time more precious than to use on endless gaming!!
Life is game to play, if you lost, then do like in homm... start new game.. and beleive you will win... never give up hope!!!
@maxi: its not my fault you post in all messageboards btw.. you post also in bastards and HL ?
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hamsi128
Promising
Supreme Hero
tosser tavern owner
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posted September 12, 2003 03:12 PM |
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come back lol... i cant believe you cant continue your real life and heroes life together
if u have fun playing this game why you hurt yourself and block your desires
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted September 12, 2003 04:34 PM |
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seems like Maximus and me had the same idea:
Balancing the gameplay to have more fun.
After playing this game thousand of ours u surely will know more about balancing issues then the programmers or the program testers.
If u look into the game ull see that the programmers simply made a fault with the naga banks. Its just in the wrong line. Although h3 fans metnioned that fault from season 1 on the programmers were too dammed lazy to correct it ..well it tooks only 5 secs to fix it!!
I fixed it in my game and now tower comes back into the game, a real thread to castle or archenemy dungeon.
And good news for the randomers ..if uve 3.2 and your opponent has just 1.4 ..you just have to fix this fault on your side...the opponent will now get gems too...i tested it with Anachor (7place seasonI) and it works well.
Funny testing made Archangels resurrct 5 times ..of course i put it back as it was.
I also tried to rearrange the griff convs...like 1 giant for lowest, 2 devils for second, 3 angels and so on...unfortunately this does not seem to work..well i will test again.
@Although i think most players already know which programms to use we shouldnt mention them here, there is already enough cheating around, dont let us make them experts.
Another thing that worked was editing the possibilities for Heroes occuring in tavern. For example to get a necro as 3rd in tavern is more like a big toss..but u can edit them out. Same for the other way around..made higher possibilies for necro to occur in necroma town.
If player think about it they will agree that they will never use certain magic races as main. So some of them are more or less useless. So i made them raise like might heroes ...this give lotsa new strategic thoughts about using other heroes like a first aid specialist with dragons for example ..now that hes a might.
Next i will test if i can give heroes new starting secondaries ..like torosars with balista special but not having it as skill (and unlikely to get it)...he shouldve it as starting skill instead of mysticm and hell be another opportunity.
NOT A NEW GAME JUST ENRICH AND BALANCE
Xarfax1
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted September 12, 2003 04:42 PM |
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seems like Maximus and me had the same idea:
Balancing the gameplay to have more fun.
After playing this game thousands of hours u surely will know more about balancing issues then the programmers or the program testers.
If u look into the game ull see that the programmers simply made a fault with the naga banks. Its just in the wrong line. Although h3 fans mentioned that fault from season 1 on, the programmers were too dammed lazy to correct it ..well it tooks only 5 secs to fix it!!
I fixed it in my game and now tower comes back into the game, a real threat to castle or archenemy dungeon.
And good news for the randomers ..if uve 3.2 and your opponent has just 1.4 ..you just have to fix this fault on your side...the opponent will now get gems too...i tested it with Anachor (7place seasonI) and it works well.
Funny testing made Archangels resurect 5 times ..of course i put it back as it was.
I also tried to rearrange the griff convs...like 1 giant for lowest, 2 devils for second, 3 angels and so on...unfortunately this does not seem to work..well i will test again.
@Max: Although i think most players already know which programms to use we shouldnt mention them here, there is already enough cheating around, dont let us make them experts.
Another thing that worked was editing the possibilities for Heroes occuring in tavern. For example to get a necro as 3rd in tavern is more like a big toss if u r not necro..but u can edit them out. Same for the other way around..made higher possibilies for necro to occur in necroma town..i think that would make sense.
If player think about it they will agree that they will never use certain magic races as main. So some of them are more or less useless. So i made them raise like might heroes ...this give lotsa new strategic thoughts about using other heroes like a first aid specialist with dragons for example ..now that hes a might.
Next i will test if i can give heroes new starting secondaries ..like torosars with balista special but not having it as skill (and unlikely to get it)...he shouldve it as starting skill instead of mysticm and hell be another opportunity.
NOT A NEW GAME JUST ENRICH AND BALANCE
Xarfax1
PS: I also tried to fix this time problem. 2 Mins are to short for older comps and 4 mins may takes toooo long (best example are my turns )..so 3 mins would just be great ..so i tried to edit also that part, result was that it shows 3 mins and gives 4 mins .
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Maximus
Famous Hero
Bronzed God
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posted September 12, 2003 05:34 PM |
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i did try the time limit myself, and ya, the out come was same and i think u know why as i think we both looking at the same files etc here. to change time u need to use hex code on main exe, same with other stuff u tried ie the cons to give different critters other than angels or different critters to fight in a crypt, u cant change these only the amounts or put "none" as critter name.
btw, i have a complete version to try out and test now if any of u guys r interested?
just need to email and set up a time
things i changed:-
necro/conflux towns:- many changes both to the town build and critters cost/production/hp etc
rescource banks values, ( here i tried the 40-30-20-10 approach as i dun understand why the original settings r 30-30-30-10 ??) seems much more resonable to hav the weakest crypt hav more chance to appear than the maxed 1 !
some spells, changed the lvl of some, made some much more expensive to cast, took out for now dd and fly.
war machines, a bit of an experiment here, but basically altered the exfectivness of all the war machines and also there hit/strike ratio against walls etc, as well as also making walls and castle defenses a touch weaker, should make castle sitting not that great anymore lol
changed some of the heroes starting stats and abilites, made all heroes hav 6 points to share between the 4 prim skills, also in this version i hav just now, i am experimenting with being only able to get necro or dead heros from necro town tavern, and make dead heros appear less in live towns.
also the 2 sword thing is real cool and fun, there is much more u can do there, but same here as with cons, some things a controlled by main program and cant change, ie, u cant hav more than 1 balista, and u cant move the balista. the movement thing is actually cause there is no animation to do it, so comp goes into a frezy trying to move balista lol.
anyways, this is just a 1st attempt and i dont expect the game to b balanced after 1 go, but would like to play with these new settings if any1 is interested.
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Frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick !
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Nebuka
Promising
Supreme Hero
Save me Jebus!
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posted September 12, 2003 06:07 PM |
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I'm sorry there isn't much feedback from veterans of the game, mostly you Max and Xarfax give examples.
Anyway, you have my support, sadly, dunno that much the game to give advices.
Just one, 1 firebird per week seems too little...instead of 4, think 2 like for other towns seems ok.
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted September 12, 2003 06:28 PM |
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Quote:
Just one, 1 firebird per week seems too little...instead of 4, think 2 like for other towns seems ok.
..its like u said...the BASIC growth for every other town is 1 (means 2 with walls)..so he changed the conflux basic growth from 2 (means 4 with walls) into 1 (like all the other have) and to balance it he also changed the phoenix stats.
Xarfax1
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Nebuka
Promising
Supreme Hero
Save me Jebus!
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posted September 12, 2003 06:48 PM |
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Thanks for clarification.
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Attila
Known Hero
Young Warrior
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posted September 13, 2003 05:27 PM |
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i think this is a great idea max. I mean game needs some new stuff gets boring after awhile. i really like the idea of your bloodblust +10 to one stack at adv. but +6 to all on expert.
Is there anyway you could change like seconday skills like make eagle eye better somehow. just an idea.
@xar i agree i think that 2 total firebirds a wk be alot better will bring that town back into gameing.
attila
ps good work max
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¤¤¤ Attila ¤¤¤
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted September 13, 2003 06:52 PM |
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Hi Max,
thanks for sharing your prepared files with me , now ive a better view what is possible and what is not.
There are some very very good changes and ideas in, but also some things that are discusable or that i would totally disagree with.
Also there are already too much changes in it, so that we might will loose the overview and u dont have a list of your changes. Therefore i think will should start from the scratch and make a list here.
First we should define what our goals are. In my opinion its to ...
1. Fix existing balancing problems
2. Fix bugs and unfair gaming strategies
3. Get things out of the game that shouldnt be in for ONLINE gaming.
I think further changes to make this game a different shouldnt be made... i think someone who wants changes like this should play the good work from WOG team.
We should start the list with the essentials:
PATCH LIST 3.3:
1. Changing Nagabanks to Gems
2. Making Catapult undestroyable by giving them 99999 hitpoints. ("sad day for russian catpult destroyer emporers")
3. Take DD/Fly out of the guilds, and make them cost 9999 spellpoints cause of Air book.
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I think everyone would agree this 3 points. We can add some more, but as i think the way if or how to do it should be discussed point for point, to get best result which other players would agree with.
New suggestions should always be made with the eye one our 3 goals (if u agree with the goals of course)
Xarfax1
PS: Maybe i gonna meet Darksir Ditge in about 2 weeks. Hes part of the WOG team. I will ask him about our "Time" and "Spread" issues, if someone can help us with it.
PS: I gonna test if i can get the Harpie Bug out of the game by changing the AI or Fight Value for artillery.
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Maximus
Famous Hero
Bronzed God
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posted September 13, 2003 07:36 PM |
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THINGS TO DO LIST:
PART 1 :- TWEAKS TO STANDARD GAMEPLAY
1) Naga Banks:- to give gems (DONE)
2) Griffin Cons:- to take out angels and give resources ( ??? )
3) Hives:- to take out critters here also ( ??? )
4) Catapult:- to make undestroyable ( ??? )
( not sure here, maybe something like 5000 hit points is more a happy medium ? )
5) First Aid Tent:- make much stronger ( ??? )
6) Balista:- Make alittle stronger also ( ??? )
( here i tried 500 hit points )
7) 30-30-30-10 Ratio:- Suggestion to make more scaled to 40-30-20-10 so there is 10% to get maxed tope/crypt/con etc and 40% to get a smallest sized 1 seems to b more logical here ( ??? )
8) Spells DD/FLY:- take out of play ( ??? )
( not sure best way to do this yet, as values for lvl's ie 0 or 6 dun work, but maybe the massive high cost will suffice 
9) Balance Conflux Town:- to bring conflux back into game ( ??? )
( this is progress )
10) Balance Necro Town:- Same as above. ( ??? )
PART 2: ENHANCED GAMEPLAY
1) Duel Swords:- A hero can use both hand slots for a sword, so he can wear 2, but at the expense of no shield. ( ??? )
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Frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick !
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Maximus
Famous Hero
Bronzed God
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posted September 13, 2003 07:43 PM |
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oki, as u can see above, i'll post a ToDo List so we can keep track of changes to be made or that may be made so ppl can give there input and is easy for all to keep track of where the patch is going.
i'll also edit which changes hav been completed.
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Frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick !
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