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| Thread: War Arena - Alternative structure for a Might Hero | |
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Malgore
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 19, 2009 12:47 PM |
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War Arena - Alternative structure for a Might Hero
Have read Weekly Altar lately and here a few thoughts.
All Heroes are generally either Might or Magic oriented. And as we all know Magic oriented Heroes are usually boosted by their Magic Guild.
What if Might Hero can develop lethal tactics and cutting-edge formations? Deadly strikes and combat techniques can be unlocked throughout campaign! All these wonders can become available at special structure named War Arena here.
Yet War Arena is not simple “mirror” of Magic Guild. It is not only granting Might Hero special attacks (similar to magic), but also provides bonuses for specific unit combinations (like Treeants and Pixies) or formations (Archers and Squires) or Warmachines (BTW in my opinion it should be an exclusive skill for Might oriented Heroes).
This leads to another distinctive feature of War Arena – while providing some general abilities (abilities that available to all factions) it will provide specific abilities for specific faction. This will provide distinctive combat style to Might oriented Heroes. At the same time it will further distinction between factions and Heroes.
The biggest possible problem is that such gameplay addition also requires either strict Hero classification or elimination of Magic Guilds for Might oriented factions.
As usual feel free to comment and critique.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted January 19, 2009 01:59 PM |
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I think this idea is excellent - I had exactly the same thought myself! 
My idea was actually to have a Warrior Guild, which you could build up just like the Mage Guild (to 5 levels) which would unluck special attack features for your Hero direct attack. This was supposed to be coupled to my other idea of a new Hero property "Stamina" which would mirror Mana so that different attack styles would consume different amounts of Stamina and your direct attacks would not be unlimited - just like spells.
The reason I did not post anything on this yet, apart from time, was the fact that I had a number of loose ends that were unresolved. The main one is this: Magic Heroes currently have to learn one of a number of skills to master the specific magic class: Dark Magic, Light Magic, Summoning Magic, Destructive Magic. Should we introduce something like this for Might heroes as well? That would provide us with 4 new skills, that could look something like this:
Melee Combat: Unlocks melee combat techniques (like Whirlwind combo, Cleave, Bash, etc.). Goes for high damage, but with the advantage that Hero has to be adjacent and will suffor retaliation - i.e. requires Hero on battlefield style of play!
Ranged Combat: Unlocks ranged combat techniques (like Area Shot, Piercing Arrow, Warding Arrows). Offers the advantage of ranged attacks, i.e. no retaliation, but range penalty.
Mounted Combat: Unlocks mounted combat techniques (like Trample, Charge etc.). Offers the advantage of mobility and high damage, but may be lost if mount is killed?
Siege Combat: Not sure about this one - but maybe War Machines would be a suitable candidate for the fourth stem of this tree? Can't come up with a better alternative, and it would make excellent sense, since War Machines skill is a bit of an abomination in the current skill tree anyway.
I think the above system would work brilliantly as counterpart to current Magic System. Each town could have a Warrior Guild that unlocks techniques at levels 1-5 just like current spells - and you need to master the skill to learn level 3-5. This would add a whole new dimension of versatility to playing Might Hero!
My main problem in my own H6 vision is that I have 6 Magic Schools, and can't come up with a suitable 6 Might Schools - and maybe that's too many anyway!? Hmmm ... that means I'll have to choose between 6 Magic Schools or 4 Magic + 4 Might Schools, and sacrifice my remaining 2 Magic Schools.  Oh well, let's see what comes up.
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What will happen now?
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lexxan
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
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posted January 19, 2009 02:12 PM |
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To be Honest, the Might Oriented Hero's strangth lies in the fact that he gives a HUGE stat boost to his units.
Units from Haven, Sylvan, let alone Stronghold can easily out match the units led by a Warlock or a Wizard (no matter from which town these troops are).
I fear that this proposal might Imbalance the whole Might side. I would say to leave it where it is. [/sceptism]
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
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posted January 19, 2009 03:03 PM |
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Love the idea, it always bothered me that some spells (especially Mass ones) are as good for a might hero as for a magic hero, just for the sake of balance probably. A Knight casts a Mass Haste with the same effect as a Wizard (except duration but that's already too high), which doesn't make much sense to me.
So a Warrior Guild to provide some abilities instead of normal spells is a great idea.
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Malgore
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 19, 2009 03:37 PM |
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Edited by Malgore at 15:39, 19 Jan 2009.
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Thanks for comments!
Quote:
My idea was actually to have a Warrior Guild, which you could build up just like the Mage Guild (to 5 levels) which would unluck special attack features for your Hero direct attack. This was supposed to be coupled to my other idea of a new Hero property "Stamina" which would mirror Mana so that different attack styles would consume different amounts of Stamina and your direct attacks would not be unlimited - just like spells.
The "Stamina" parameter is quite interested indeed!
As for Warrior Guild/ War Arena leveled structure - yes, in that way it is similar to Mage Guild.
Quote:
Should we introduce something like this for Might heroes as well? That would provide us with 4 new skills, that could look something like this:
My view on situation: 
Thus there are 6 specific skills per Hero "Class".
I suppose that Warmachines can be a good example of Skill for Might Hero. Also while Melee Combat (Swordsmanship?) and Ranged Combat (Archery?) are good and and have it's own logic, yet I can't see utility of Mounted Combat.
Thus I would suggest Tactics Skill that provides bonuses for formations and unit combos and Enchantment Skill that would provide bonuses for Casting Units (!). And of Course old Resistance Skill from HMM III should be added.
Quote:
I think the above system would work brilliantly as counterpart to current Magic System. Each town could have a Warrior Guild that unlocks techniques at levels 1-5 just like current spells - and you need to master the skill to learn level 3-5. This would add a whole new dimension of versatility to playing Might Hero!
Quote:
My main problem in my own H6 vision is that I have 6 Magic Schools, and can't come up with a suitable 6 Might Schools - and maybe that's too many anyway!? Hmmm ... that means I'll have to choose between 6 Magic Schools or 4 Magic + 4 Might Schools, and sacrifice my remaining 2 Magic Schools. Oh well, let's see what comes up.
Well I guess "sacrifice" may turn out to be a "tiny rework" and some spells turned to combat abilities. Just a thought.
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I fear that this proposal might Imbalance the whole Might side. I would say to leave it where it is. [/sceptism]
I guess that proper dose of sceptism is good!
Quote:
So a Warrior Guild to provide some abilities instead of normal spells is a great idea.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted January 19, 2009 06:10 PM |
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I would like to add a couple of remarks. First of all, I didn't imagine the Warrior skills or tecniques to exclude Magic skills and spells - just like you can master several magic schools, you should be able to multibranch.
I also understand Lexxan's concern for balance taking into account that Mass Spells are so strong, but I think the problem lies there, certain Mass Spells are rather imbalanced. Considering the impact of a Ring Of Speed (+20 % Initiative) the effect of Mass Haste (+40 % Initiative) is rather game breaking - even if there are counters. Same goes for Mass Slow, not mentioning the combination of the two of them. Still, that's just a matter of balancing things, and there are certain irregularities of current game that needs to be tweaked - both concerning Mass Spells (uses too little Initiative for one) and Hero direct attacks (does too much damage against high level creatures).
What I have in mind for skills is something like a 18 skill palette:
Common skills:
Offence
Defence
Leadership
Luck
Logistics
Strategy
Might skills:
Endurance (might equivalence of Enlightenment)
Combat (might equivalence of Sorcery)
Melee Combat
Ranged Combat
Mounted Combat
Siege Combat (aka. War Machines)
Magic Skills:
Enlightenment (only affects Magic stats)
Sorcery
Light Magic
Dark Magic
Summoning Magic
Destructive Magic
Haven't gotten any more precise layouts of the skills further than that however.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 20, 2009 08:46 AM |
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One thing that I'd like to mention is individual creature experience (at seen in WoG), which allows creatures to provide their own extra bonuses (techniques as well as stats). If this were implemented, a might skill could allow creatures to gain experience faster. a Might skill could also provide creatures with intermittent techniques (Bash, Acid Breath, etc.) an increased chance of such abilities activating.
Asheera also raises an interesting point, so perhaps it's time to re-evaluate spells as well, (eg, Weakness reduces maximum attack to x^y, where x is a coefficient based on the mastery of Dark Magic, and y is based on the the hero's spell power).
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stankelbenet
Adventuring Hero
bringer of nostalgia & darknes
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posted January 21, 2009 05:18 PM |
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warcries...
Crap... stronghold heroes shouldn't learn magic. Still it would be imba if they weren' able. What does ubisoft do? They make a copy of spells and name them warcries. In the end this may lead to "Warcry of hypnosis", since hypnosis is a strong spell that everybody should be able to have.
The thing they didn't think of were shamans. Primitive cultures still have those.
I don't like the idea of special abililities for might heroes. If they want to do anything they can cast spells. I think spells should be avaible for everyone. Magic-based classes like wizard sure should be better at it, so the might-classes wouldn't have so much reason. That's why we got primary skills. They make might-heroes better in the whole combat and make the wizards cast better spells.
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