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Heroes Community > Heroes 7+ Altar of Wishes > Thread: Winterfate's Wishes/Thoughts/Ideas for HOMM6
Thread: Winterfate's Wishes/Thoughts/Ideas for HOMM6
winterfate
winterfate


Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
posted October 04, 2010 04:44 AM
Edited by winterfate at 07:28, 08 Oct 2010.

Winterfate's Wishes/Thoughts/Ideas for HOMM6

Well, hi guys!

I decided to write up a list of things I wish for this newest installment of the Heroes of Might and Magic series.

To be honest, I've only been following the developments loosely, so I apologize if some of my suggestions are not doable based on the current setup:

First off, I want to suggest a Sylvan faction for HOMM6. They obviously have to be around (we are on the same planet after all; aka. Ashan. ).
Whether they're actually released at launch or not is another matter, but I'll be darned if they never get released.

Now, to satiate the people who loathe Dragons, I'm going to make the faction's Champion (they took the Core, Elite, Champion system of Clash of Heroes if I'm not mistaken, right?) not be a Dragon.

Before I start, you'll see that the general stat section is pretty vague. Well, it's because I have no idea what stats they're going to use.

Consider it a comparison to a "perfectly average unit of the same category". So, if I say a Core Unit has medium attack, then he/she/it has the same attack as an average Core Unit.

So, here's my line-up:

CORE

Sprite

This is a returning favorite. I can't envision a nature faction without some sort of Fey/Fairy, so let's go with what was already established several games ago.

Abilities: No Enemy Retaliation, Flutter (ability to fly over low obstacles and magical traps, but not Walls)
General Stats: Medium attack, low defense, above-average speed.

Dryad (Sprite Upgrade)

When you upgrade Sprites, they gain the ability to link symbiotically to any friendly unit. While thus linked, they cannot move, but heal the linked stack for an amount equal to the number of Dryads present in the link. You get a chance to break this link each time your Dryads would act. It goes without saying that if all Dryads in the link perish, it breaks.

Note: Not sure whether to make it a repeatable ability, or a once-per-battle thing.

Abilities: No Enemy Retaliation, Flying, Symbiotic Link


Hunter

The quintessential Elf archer. He's been around for about as long as the Sprite has, and since I love Elf archers, he's obviously in as well.

Abilities: Ranged
General Stats: High attack, low defense, average speed

Sharpshooter (upgrade)

When the Hunter is upgraded, it gets several abilities, including Preemptive Shot. This allows Sharpshooters to take the first shot in battle, but costs them in the next turn (they attack last on the second turn of the battle).
Abilities; Ranged, No Range Penalty, Preemptive Shot


Bear

Introduced in Clash of Heroes as part of the Sylvan faction, I can think of no better way to make the Sylvan faction a bit less about the elves and a little more about nature per se.

Abilities: None
General Stats: Medium attack, high defense, low speed

Silvertip Bear(upgrade)

When upgraded, the Feral Bears get some abilities. Ferocity allows the Feral Bear to attack harder the turn after it has suffered attacks itself (this idea is straight from King's Bounty...I'll admit it.)
Sprint allows the Feral Bear to move double the distance, at the cost of being able to only move 1 space the next turn (so can only attack an adjacent target the next turn, if lucky.

Abilities: Ferocity, Sprint

ELITE

Druid

Another classic unit. I'm thinking the Druid should return to its roots as a ranged unit primordially. That's not to say that we can't give him some cool abilities.
Abilities: Hindering Strike (a successful range attack by the Druid reduces the target's Speed by 1 for 2 turns), Ranged
General Stats: Low attack, Low defense, high speed

Grove Keeper (upgrade)

When you upgrade the Druid it gains some neat activated abilities.
Abilities: Ranged, Hindering Strike, Nature's Wrath (the Grove Keeper skips his turns to reduce the Speed of all enemies by 1), Nature's Zest (the Grove Keeper skips his turns to increase the Speed of all allies by 1).


Pegasus

I say it's about high time we get this unit back in the game!
Abilities: Flying, Magic Damper (Spells cost 10% more to cast. Unit casters have an additional 10% penalty if there's a stack of Pegasi 3 or less squares away from them.)
General Stats: High Attack, Medium Defense, High Speed

Hippogryph
Not much to say about this upgrade. For once I'll just make it a vanilla upgrade (more stats, but no new abilities. )
Abilities: Same as regular Pegasi, but higher stats.


Unicorn

The other pony of the Sylvan army is back. But, to be fair, it really never left (was around in HOMM5 and Clash of Heroes; in the latter, it had the most broken ability of the entire game).
Abilities: Aura of Radiance (grants 20% magic resistance to self and all adjacent friendly units)
General Stats: Medium Attack, Medium Defense, High Speed

Emerald Unicorn

On upgrade, the Unicorn gets its trademark blinding strike and an activated ability to reduce the damage adjacent friendly units suffer from physical attacks.
Abilities: Aura of Radiance, Blinding Strike, Aura of Protection (adjacent units suffer 20% less damage from physical attacks).


CHAMPION

And the champion is...

*drumroll*

Green Dragons

Seriously now:

Glade Protector

In appearance, Glade Protectors are stockier and more burly as compared to HOMM5 Tree-ants (yes, I did that on purpose. ).

Abilities: Stoicism (immunity to non-Mind spells with stun and/or snaring effects that would prevent this unit's movement), Take Roots, Giant (weak against units with Giantslayer; ability to walk over low obstacles), Entangling Roots (units attacked by this unit are snared, unable to move, but still able to attack adjacent units)

General Stats: Low attack, super high defense (perhaps the highest defense of all unupgraded Champions?), low speed (slow is low is slow. )

Glade Guardian

When you upgrade the Glade Protector, it gains a new ability that makes it even more indestructible.
Abilities: Stoicism, Take Roots, Giant, Entangling Roots, Leeching Spines

Leeching Spines (requires that this unit has Take Roots active; does damage to target equal to half of the Glade Guardian's regular damage [100% life drain] and snaring it until the Glade Guardian attacks or uses this ability again [defending/waiting does not unsnare the victim, to clarify]. The target must either be within 3 squares of the Glade Guardian or in a straight line with it. The Glade Guardian is still considered to be Taking Roots if this ability is used.)

Example:

+ + + + + + + +
+ + + + X + + +
+ + G G + + + +
+ + G G + + + Y
+ + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + Z

In this scenario, the Glade Guardian (represented by G) can Leech X and Y, but not Z. X is adjacent and Y is in a straight line path with the Glade Guardian, but Z is on a diagonal path and more than 3 squares away.

Well, those are my thoughts for the HOMM6 Sylvan faction. Thanks in advance for any comments and constructive criticism.

I might be back soon-ish to add more suggestions.

UPDATE: Thanks to MrDragon for the tweaks to the Druid and the Champion and to Fool and odium for the feedback!

____________
If you supposedly care about someone, then don't push them out of your life. Acting like you're not doing it doesn't exempt you from what I just said. - Winterfate

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odium
odium


Known Hero
posted October 04, 2010 12:05 PM

I like very much your line-up. Especially with the addition of the Pegasus and the replacement of the Green Dragon with the Ancient Tree. I am not that sure about the bear but it's reasonable.

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Fool
Fool


Hired Hero
posted October 04, 2010 01:52 PM
Edited by Fool at 13:53, 04 Oct 2010.

Good idea with promoting the treant to champion level, it does fit a nature faction.

I'm not so sure about bears though... I think a better unit would be a tiger (like in H4). Fits Slyvan's offensive playstyle.

I'm not a fan of pegasi either...I found them rather bland in H3. Slyvan does need a flyer though if you're removing the dragon.

Will you be making hypothetical line-ups of other factions as well?

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MrDragon
MrDragon


Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
posted October 04, 2010 02:19 PM

I am an elf hater and I approve of this line-up.
It's a good mix of units, nothing to bland and about the bear...
I like the bear, sylvan needs at least 1 tough-guy unit to get by and chew hits while they wait for their champion to get rolling, you can't have a faction be just paper-thin offense.

Lets see the game-play side of this line-up.

Core
Sprite/Dryad
Light weight offensive unit with useful ability, gets a tiny bit of staying power through it's no-retaliation ability.

Hunter/Sharpshooter
Bread and butter archer unit with a very original and interesting ability when upgraded.
I like it.

Bear/Feral Bear
I have the idea more can be done here but overall, exactly what the faction needs, a blocker, can soak damage and paw to death people that get close with decent attacks.

Elite
Druid/Grove Keeper
More ranged offense, with a decent ability to shore up for not being a caster anymore.
The upgrade however is already against their design philosophy, they have already explicitly stated units will not lose abilities in upgrading.
Overall, I'd prefer a caster over a shooter here but it's a nice unit anyway.

Pegasi/Rampart Pegasi
Brings nice utility and makes for a well rounded flyer to round out the basics.

Unicorn/Emerald Unicorn
An interesting mix of defensive abilities and offensive stats, the heavier of the elites but still fitting the Sylvan/Rampart aggressive speedy gameplay.

Champion:
Glade Protector/Glade Guardian
Great big burly tank, counter intuitive to the faction but the upgrade fixes that when no longer hindered by it's speed to attack enemies.

Unfortunately, a weakness I can see here is that the champion is completely un-interesting to attack, unlike the Heroes V treant which you didn't want to attack and had to avoid because they snared you, forcing you to attack them, without a similar mechanic these guys are just going to dish out mediocre damage while their buddies get slaughtered and then get wiped out later when most of the offensive pressure of the rest of the faction has been dealt with.
By Champion tier everybody has ranged/speed options to use so the role of early game blocker/defender is a lot less attractive.
Give him some kind of snaring mechanic something that makes him "worth attacking" because currently, whilst cool, he adds little to the faction.

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winterfate
winterfate


Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
posted October 05, 2010 12:43 AM

@odium: Thanks for the feedback! As I mentioned in the line-up, I thought about the bear due to the fact that it was part of the Clash of Heroes line-up. If you can come up with a more appropriate animal/beast/natural monster, I wouldn't mind hearing it, and swapping if I like it.

@Fool: I'm not sure. I went for Sylvan as it's my favorite faction. I've always enjoyed playing "the faction with the elven archers in it", which happened to be:

HOMM2 - Sorceress
HOMM3 - Rampart
HOMM4 - Nature
HOMM5 - Sylvan



I might do hypothetical faction line-ups for the other races, but I'm not sure yet.

@MrDragon: Aww, but Elves are awesome.

*sulks, leaves in a stomp*
*comes back*



Seriously though, there's different tastes for different people. I love Elves myself, but in 3 out of the 4 games they have been present, they've been a small (but integral) part of a nature-based lineup. HOMM5 actually turned the Nature faction into an Elf faction (like it turned Dungeon into the bondage-inappropriate-for-kiddies Dark Elf faction).

Anyways,

Quote:
Druid/Grove Keeper
More ranged offense, with a decent ability to shore up for not being a caster anymore.
The upgrade however is already against their design philosophy, they have already explicitly stated units will not lose abilities in upgrading.
Overall, I'd prefer a caster over a shooter here but it's a nice unit anyway.


Oh, I didn't know!
Although, it does make sense (losing abilities to gain others would be more of an alternate upgrade thing...if they ever decide to do it in HOMM6).
Given that the Grove Keeper is an either/or deal (you either attack at ranged or you stay stationary, not taking turns to use a mass activated ability), I can just add the ability back in. Shouldn't matter much anyways.

Quote:
Champion:
Glade Protector/Glade Guardian
Great big burly tank, counter intuitive to the faction but the upgrade fixes that when no longer hindered by it's speed to attack enemies.

Unfortunately, a weakness I can see here is that the champion is completely un-interesting to attack, unlike the Heroes V treant which you didn't want to attack and had to avoid because they snared you, forcing you to attack them, without a similar mechanic these guys are just going to dish out mediocre damage while their buddies get slaughtered and then get wiped out later when most of the offensive pressure of the rest of the faction has been dealt with.
By Champion tier everybody has ranged/speed options to use so the role of early game blocker/defender is a lot less attractive.
Give him some kind of snaring mechanic something that makes him "worth attacking" because currently, whilst cool, he adds little to the faction.


I can see what you mean. I'm going to add Entangling Roots to both units, and tweak the Leeching Spines of the upgrade to entangle as well (you'll see what I mean by the Spines when I edit the main post)

Thanks for the feedback guys! Glad you liked the faction!
____________
If you supposedly care about someone, then don't push them out of your life. Acting like you're not doing it doesn't exempt you from what I just said. - Winterfate

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MrDragon
MrDragon


Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
posted October 05, 2010 09:02 AM

You've obviously given it some thought and have a decent grasp on what a creature-line-up should look like, as well as what rampart's overall battle feel has been through the years.
It's a nicely designed piece of content and I hope the Rampart line-up (if present in the game at all) will be something like this.
Glad my feedback helped.

About he druid, maybe he could keep the shoot + slow but have an ability where he doesn't shoot but hastes the entire friendly faction speed as you suggested, that gives you the tactical choice of damage + slow 1 versus no-damage + haste all.
Hasting friendly units is a very Rampart thing to do, allows your stuff to reach the enemy on turn 1 for quite a number of them and be able to pick better attack angles.
Also synergizes well with the otherwise slow treant.

Keep up the good work.

I'm currently doing a concept for a possible jungle-based faceless line-up purely to show that while we can guess (and I'm a supporter of) the Naga theory, we shouldn't write off other options yet.

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zazu1
zazu1


Adventuring Hero
Makes Sense
posted October 07, 2010 10:50 PM

I like this

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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted October 07, 2010 11:47 PM

Pretty good, althought I'd suggest changing Feral Bear to Silvertip Bear (AKA Grizzly Bear, Silvertip a less well known name), and Rampart Pegasus to Hippogryph, unless you already have the hippogryph in use elsewhere. Oh, and it's good to see The Dendroids/Treants getting boost, I mean, come on people, they're the size of houses and made of pretty-much solid wood, why shouldn't they be at tier 7 (in the old measure).

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winterfate
winterfate


Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
posted October 08, 2010 07:27 AM

@zazu: Glad you like it!

@MattII: Oh, thanks for the name suggestions! I was at a loss on what to name those two and just went with whatever came to mind first. I'll go change that up right away!
____________
If you supposedly care about someone, then don't push them out of your life. Acting like you're not doing it doesn't exempt you from what I just said. - Winterfate

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odium
odium


Known Hero
posted October 08, 2010 08:21 AM

Quote:
and Rampart Pegasus to Hippogryph, unless you already have the hippogryph in use elsewhere.


The hippogryph is a trademark creature (under the name griffin) of Haven faction.

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MrDragon
MrDragon


Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
posted October 08, 2010 09:18 AM

Quote:
Quote:
and Rampart Pegasus to Hippogryph, unless you already have the hippogryph in use elsewhere.


The hippogryph is a trademark creature (under the name griffin) of Haven faction.


No a Hippogryph is a different (though highly similar) mythical creature.
It is not a Gryphon, it is infact, according to the original myth, the child of a Gryphon and a mare, as odd as that may be.

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odium
odium


Known Hero
posted October 08, 2010 09:47 AM

Quote:

No a Hippogryph is a different (though highly similar) mythical creature.
It is not a Gryphon, it is infact, according to the original myth, the child of a Gryphon and a mare, as odd as that may be.


Yup, you are right. However the differences are so small between them that I don't think they are to be different creatures in game. An interesting option might be to have the hippogryph the upgrade of the griffin since in mythology it is said that they are faster and stronger than their fathers the griffins.

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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted October 08, 2010 09:13 PM

Quote:
Yup, you are right. However the differences are so small between them that I don't think they are to be different creatures in game.
There's a lot less difference between an elf and a human than a gryphon and a hippogryph (morphically at least).

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