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Heroes Community > MapHaven Guild > Thread: [H3] The Mapmaker's Thread
Thread: [H3] The Mapmaker's Thread This thread is 17 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 · «PREV / NEXT»
Gravedigger
Gravedigger


Hired Hero
posted August 12, 2019 03:48 PM

I have question...
Im just regular user not a map maker not designer/programmer guy ...

Is it possible to edit artifacts effects, occupied slots etc ?
How much effort it required for that

For example in SoD you can't equip Angelic Alliance and Armor of the Damned at the same time ...
What i wanted to do is duplicate those artifacts with changed names basically make them standalone, and then change artifacts slots requirement (remove locked slots) that way i can Equip armor and Angelic at the same time

There is also other option
change effects of one of useless artifacts for those of armor and angelic alliance

Don't judge me I'm not looking for balance in my game

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted August 12, 2019 04:04 PM

Wog forum for modded game.

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SkullCrusher
SkullCrusher

Tavern Dweller
posted January 24, 2020 11:57 AM

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____________

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SkullCrusher
SkullCrusher

Tavern Dweller
posted January 24, 2020 11:59 AM

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kazmer
kazmer


Hired Hero
posted January 28, 2020 10:19 PM

story graph

What software do you guys and girls use for keeping track of the connections in the story?

I've started designing an rpg style map, but it turns out, that after 6-7 seer's huts and quest guards, it becomes impossible to keep everything in mind.

What's your method of creating a huge map for a single player?
I'd also like to keep the player's stats in check, so level they up slowly, meanwhile I'd like to present challenging, interesting, and/or funny battles.

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Biobob
Biobob


Famous Hero
the Bobler
posted January 30, 2020 02:52 AM
Edited by Biobob at 03:02, 30 Jan 2020.

For Quest-Progression I usually write everything important into the "Rumors" Section of the Map Specifications; you do not need to have it all in there, just the important bits where you would maybe otherwise think it to be an error after not looking at the map for one year. Also important: try to finish one chain of events during one session of map-making. What I mean by this: do not put a key artifact on the map thinking "I am gonna make the connection later" - you will forget about it (unless you make a very good written summary of what the plan is) and be confused later on yourself.

Regarding map creation: I tried out two approaches:
Approach one: Making and designing the map + story as it is played, test every once in a while and make changes as needed. I used that in ~Metataxer's Revenge~, worked pretty nicely. Only problem is making sure the engagement does not drop in later parts of the map. Also takes a ton of time.

Approach two: Design entire map layout first, then fill in battles and story and test it all individually. The result was ~Rise of the Sun King~, a buggy mess with severe problems (that robbed me of all my drive a few years ago) which I am now painstakingly trying to fix (while having forgotten about most kinks of the map since I did not keep a written guideline of sorts). At first I thought this would be a more time-saving method, but it just does not work out - at least for me. Probably also depends on the style of map you are making.

So my advice would be to keep a word file in which general progression and the solution to all important battles is written - a walkthrough if you like. Trust me, three years later you will not be able to remember a single interaction in your map

For keeping players stats in check, you could set Hero Levels to 0 - however, this also means you will lose out on many of the more interesting specialist heroes - however, it makes other heroes more interesting! Another option would be to use the "Hero Seeds" feature of H3Unleashed, however the map will then only be playable by users of SoD_SP.

Keeping stats in check is really one of the thing that disables many great battles within a map - there is just too much uncertainty. Either you go Level 0 - 100% control over stats, no specialties, or you go with negative stats events - 100% control over specialties, no primary stats (because you will want to keep them in the negatives all the time which will result in A0 D0 S1 K1) - you cannot have both 100% controlled (bar SoD_SP)... is this the uncertainty principle of H3?

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted January 30, 2020 02:42 PM

Well, using erm scripts divides the testing time by 100, no joke. All you have to do is walk from one hero to another, set troops with scripts until you are happy, write down numbers and so until the end of the map. Then set the final troops for everyone as you tested it, change the map from wog to sod (if no special graphics) and you're done. Now with Trainer mod is even faster, no need to use scripts at all.

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kazmer
kazmer


Hired Hero
posted January 31, 2020 12:23 AM

Biobob said:
For Quest-Progression I usually write everything important into the "Rumors" Section of the Map Specifications; you do not need to have it all in there, just the important bits where you would maybe otherwise think it to be an error after not looking at the map for one year. Also important: try to finish one chain of events during one session of map-making. What I mean by this: do not put a key artifact on the map thinking "I am gonna make the connection later" - you will forget about it (unless you make a very good written summary of what the plan is) and be confused later on yourself.



Text representation is the worst in my opinion.
I just downloaded yEd, a graph editor, and it looks like it fits the bill perfectly. You can insert images, for example screenshots of a small map area, a battlefield, or simply just the artifact pictures for a seer's hut. And you can draw arrows, mapping out which quest should follow which other event.
And the best feature: hierarchical layout of the graph. I can can see in an instanc which huts don't have quests yet, and which part of the story is accessible too early for the player. Compliment that with little placeholder boxes and some more arrows, the only thing left is for me to figure out what should fit into that placeholder.

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Barbuta
Barbuta


Adventuring Hero
posted April 21, 2020 09:06 PM

I have a qustion about month of double growth.

Is there any way to make sure that month of <creature> (double growth), that spawns creatures on the map can be disabled or at least avoided for a much as possible, when you are creating a map for SOD? In the very famous Chinese map - Ira the Mage if you set up the computer starting towns in a specific way that is given as an instruction by the author, that somehow avoids double growth months for at least the first several months. So somehow the author figured that out or changed the map in a specific way to do that. Does anyone have any information how that is possible?

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 21, 2020 09:38 PM

Barbuta said:
Is there any way to make sure that month of <creature> (double growth), that spawns creatures on the map can be disabled or at least avoided for a much as possible, when you are creating a map for SOD? In the very famous Chinese map - Ira the Mage if you set up the computer starting towns in a specific way that is given as an instruction by the author, that somehow avoids double growth months for at least the first several months. So somehow the author figured that out or changed the map in a specific way to do that. Does anyone have any information how that is possible?


Creature Months can be disabled in "Tools -> Map Specifications" in map editor.

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Barbuta
Barbuta


Adventuring Hero
posted April 22, 2020 12:27 AM

FirePaladin said:
Creature Months can be disabled in "Tools -> Map Specifications" in map editor.


Yes in Hota editor you have this option though if you save the map it becomes a Hota map and you can't play it with normal SoD. Maybe there is a way around that but I'm not aware. My  question was for SoD maps.

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 22, 2020 01:06 AM

Barbuta said:
FirePaladin said:
Creature Months can be disabled in "Tools -> Map Specifications" in map editor.


Yes in Hota editor you have this option though if you save the map it becomes a Hota map and you can't play it with normal SoD. Maybe there is a way around that but I'm not aware. My  question was for SoD maps.


It was just some kind of code thing, since it always happens. In any case, you won't be able to recreate it with 100% chance.

Anyway, you can't, unless you test the map 100 times.

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Mortarial
Mortarial


Hired Hero
posted April 22, 2020 01:27 PM

Barbuta said:
Is there any way to make sure that month of <creature> (double growth), that spawns creatures on the map can be disabled or at least avoided for a much as possible, when you are creating a map for SOD? In the very famous Chinese map - Ira the Mage if you set up the computer starting towns in a specific way that is given as an instruction by the author, that somehow avoids double growth months for at least the first several months. So somehow the author figured that out or changed the map in a specific way to do that. Does anyone have any information how that is possible?


New creatures can't be spawned on square with event on it, so you can place an event, that can't be triggered by player, on every free square.
To avoid the limitation download the object limit breaker.

[url=https://sites.google.com/site/biobobslaboratory/downloads/H3MAPED_infinite.rar?attredirects=0&d=1]H3MAPED_infinite[/url]

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted April 22, 2020 01:37 PM

Mortarial said:
Barbuta said:
Is there any way to make sure that month of <creature> (double growth), that spawns creatures on the map can be disabled or at least avoided for a much as possible, when you are creating a map for SOD? In the very famous Chinese map - Ira the Mage if you set up the computer starting towns in a specific way that is given as an instruction by the author, that somehow avoids double growth months for at least the first several months. So somehow the author figured that out or changed the map in a specific way to do that. Does anyone have any information how that is possible?


New creatures can't be spawned on square with event on it, so you can place an event, that can't be triggered by player, on every free square.
To avoid the limitation download the object limit breaker.

H3MAPED_infinite



Amazing. Never knew that.

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kazmer
kazmer


Hired Hero
posted April 23, 2020 12:55 AM

Barbuta said:
Is there any way to make sure that month of <creature> (double growth), that spawns creatures on the map can be disabled or at least avoided for a much as possible, when you are creating a map for SOD? In the very famous Chinese map - Ira the Mage if you set up the computer starting towns in a specific way that is given as an instruction by the author, that somehow avoids double growth months for at least the first several months. So somehow the author figured that out or changed the map in a specific way to do that. Does anyone have any information how that is possible?


I was digging around in the game's code for clues, but I haven't found anything useful yet.

One thing is the alignments. You can modify the Ira map in the editor to set the aligments to the specified fraction, and you'll get the same effect.

The other thing is the random seed. Basically, every time you start a fight, the random seed is set to a well-known value, which depends only on the map coordinates. But random events happen during battles, like morale and such, so the random seed will be almost truly random after each battle. Also, looking at the puzzle map somehow resets the seed. If a dungeon has a portal of summoning, that also modifies the seed.

I did some experiments with the random generator. There is a simple check for creature month, like rnd() <= 10 then it's a safe month, no creatures will be spawn. I've plotted this check against the number of rnd() calls, and there are no big gaps. This means, you can't preset the rng to a well known value, and make a large number of rnd() calls without avoiding it to go above 10.

So it's still a mystery for me. I also tried recreating this effect, with an almost empty map. Looks like it also depends on the number of towns, and maybe the development of the towns. Different aligments worked for me with my map. Somehow I managed to achieve no creature spawn until the 12th month. And it did not matter if I just press the end of the turn rapidly, or go around with the hero and fight everything.

Still, this does not mean the spawn event can't happen, because of all the random events during the game. Also, the rng seed depends on how long ago your PC was turned on.


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Barbuta
Barbuta


Adventuring Hero
posted April 23, 2020 03:58 PM

kazmer said:
Barbuta said:
Is there any way to make sure that month of <creature> (double growth), that spawns creatures on the map can be disabled or at least avoided for a much as possible, when you are creating a map for SOD? In the very famous Chinese map - Ira the Mage if you set up the computer starting towns in a specific way that is given as an instruction by the author, that somehow avoids double growth months for at least the first several months. So somehow the author figured that out or changed the map in a specific way to do that. Does anyone have any information how that is possible?


I was digging around in the game's code for clues, but I haven't found anything useful yet.

One thing is the alignments. You can modify the Ira map in the editor to set the aligments to the specified fraction, and you'll get the same effect.

The other thing is the random seed. Basically, every time you start a fight, the random seed is set to a well-known value, which depends only on the map coordinates. But random events happen during battles, like morale and such, so the random seed will be almost truly random after each battle. Also, looking at the puzzle map somehow resets the seed. If a dungeon has a portal of summoning, that also modifies the seed.

I did some experiments with the random generator. There is a simple check for creature month, like rnd() <= 10 then it's a safe month, no creatures will be spawn. I've plotted this check against the number of rnd() calls, and there are no big gaps. This means, you can't preset the rng to a well known value, and make a large number of rnd() calls without avoiding it to go above 10.

So it's still a mystery for me. I also tried recreating this effect, with an almost empty map. Looks like it also depends on the number of towns, and maybe the development of the towns. Different aligments worked for me with my map. Somehow I managed to achieve no creature spawn until the 12th month. And it did not matter if I just press the end of the turn rapidly, or go around with the hero and fight everything.

Still, this does not mean the spawn event can't happen, because of all the random events during the game. Also, the rng seed depends on how long ago your PC was turned on.




Thanks for the insightful information. One thing that the creator of the map, I mentioned, said is that, if you kill of an opponent the creature spawn rng could change as well.

It seem like that that my best bet for eliminating creature spawn as much as possible, on the SOD map I'm making, is to finish the map entirely and than find a correct town alignment by trial and error.
Well I've already spent a lot of time on the map and it is still no where near completed, so I might as well do that.

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sirironfist
sirironfist


Known Hero
King of the ogres
posted April 29, 2020 11:13 AM

Just a quick question: What exactly does the map difficulty do? Does it alter AI behaviour or is it just a marker to tell people how easy or hard the map is?

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avatar
avatar


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted April 29, 2020 11:15 AM

Just a marker.
____________

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Hourglass
Hourglass


Supreme Hero
posted April 29, 2020 11:35 AM

avatar said:
Just a marker.


In Hota thou, IIRC it affects the points you're given after the game.

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted June 12, 2020 12:15 AM
Edited by FirePaladin at 00:20, 12 Jun 2020.

Guys, what do you think? (Here's a clearer version)


____________
Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?

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