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| Thread: Creatures gaining XP, what do you think? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 21, 2016 05:18 PM |
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Ofc not, this is why mods exist. You do whatever you want with the generic things.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted May 21, 2016 05:48 PM |
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And it is so easy it to mod that. 
Just look for EA in Era Help and read Sal guide for adding habilities and you can do whatever you want. I once made Supreme Archangels have Attack All Around, cast Frenzy on enemy traget unit before hiting and Berserk all around after attack so the enemy target would take damage with zero deffense and then attack his own foes with Frenzied attack recieving again the retal over zero deffense, then the remaings of the other would attack him and so on. Another, made an object where you had to fight with just a single unit and that unit would recieve a "Guardian Angel" (summon once of SAs on the last !!EA slot).
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted May 22, 2016 02:03 PM |
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One issue I do see is that to make experience a real bonus, you'd have to rework the hero's primary skills to be knowledge and power, and two might-based skills that aren't straight attack and defence, because they also up the stats of the creatures. Morale and luck (as they appear in H3) don't work, because the skills have to be such that you can level up, but I really have no ideas for those skills right now.
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Homer171
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 22, 2016 03:15 PM |
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Something else.
I like the Heroes 3 creature specialist system. Could be skill system that could provide special bonuses to certain type/level of creatures when you choose skill at level up. More choices to make specified hero of your liking. Neutral wandering monsters could have some bonuses in cording their stack size or time on the map (more experienced ones).
Wog goes little too far with it's creature experience. It's nice addition but rather you play with out it. Could be just simple Rank system 1-2-3 stars on to give little more variation to creature stats and abilities, not much tough...
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted May 22, 2016 10:08 PM |
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@Homer171 What are you talking about? Random maps or custom maps? If it's a custom map there are many that have "special" specialties for certain heroes, like TDS.
One way to do it is to check every battle to see if a certain hero is present and in that case give a certain bonus (it also works with artifacts). One I would sugest is to increase their speed by one for each 15 levels.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 22, 2016 10:47 PM |
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You can balance xp from experience ranks with army upkeep cost. If no money, stack downgrades, otherwise having army improving from fights rises its upkeep. Then I would like to see armies used as work hand as well. Like assigning some army recruits to mines, to get better economy, upgrade materials and get more competitive structures and such things. This way you can support experienced army without going broke, yet you have to take daily hard decisions.
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dredknight
Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
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posted May 22, 2016 11:29 PM |
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MattII said:
One issue I do see is that to make experience a real bonus, you'd have to rework the hero's primary skills to be knowledge and power, and two might-based skills that aren't straight attack and defence, because they also up the stats of the creatures. Morale and luck (as they appear in H3) don't work, because the skills have to be such that you can level up, but I really have no ideas for those skills right now.
Yes. this is another thing. If you think in general all the features that are added to single monsters are already in the game and are owned by the hero to some extend.
If you want more sophisticated creatures it is inevitable to decentralize some of the hero features to them in the shape of abilties and/or stats gain.
On the other hand if one wants sophisticated creatures and monsters this will be great but unfortunately will make the game level of sophistication very hard to create, balance and not on the last place hard for the player to comprehend.
Actually the HoMM5.5 mod is the only one (to my knowledge) that has done this to the maximum effort. And this level of sophistication is hard to grasp even after a number of games. You can always find a new fun alternative tactics to get the PvEs or the opponent  .
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted May 25, 2016 03:12 PM |
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Salamandre said:
Then I would like to see armies used as work hand as well. Like assigning some army recruits to mines, to get better economy, upgrade materials and get more competitive structures and such things. This way you can support experienced army without going broke, yet you have to take daily hard decisions.
I like this idea, I bet u were thinking about your devils in TEW4. But Crystal and Diamond dragons in Heroes III and peasants in Heroes IV and V shouldn't be considered attempts on that regard? If so they didn't worked that well.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 25, 2016 07:30 PM |
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My point is more about late game, where you have a lot of things which are unused, as resources, heroes towns. I would like to always lack things, so there should be such dynamic features which are supposed to broke the player, for a reward.
For example, training could be expensive, but in order to train level 7, you should first train all sub levels, then once the cycle done, better monsters are created in dwellings, but also the next cycle of training will cost more. This way, there is always something to do with your money, therefore you will still try to make money end game, while now you just battle.
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dredknight
Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
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posted May 25, 2016 08:08 PM |
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Salamandre said:
My point is more about late game, where you have a lot of things which are unused, as resources, heroes towns. I would like to always lack things, so there should be such dynamic features which are supposed to broke the player, for a reward.
Agreed but this is easily fixable, just make a better town development.
I remember that in h3 once you build it all you get a lot of resources that just become more and more and you dont need them for anything.
I think there is another way to cope with this issue. Basically make each town you have count for the player. Very basic example - Each town has a building that improves certain skill.
For example in heroes 3 Necroplis amplifiers give bonus that stack with each aditional amplifier you have. Same goes in heroes 5 and actually in heroes 5.5 each faction has special buildings that stack and improve certain hero ability for each hero class. FOr example:
necropolis - ampifier for more raise undead
inferno - more gating for gaters, free cerberus per week per level multiplier for other inferno hero classes.
Dungeon - higher chain magic damage for Warlocks, +1 attack for other heroes per castle.
etc...
Another feature already implemented in some games/modes is town conversion - convert the town and develop it for more army. Currently on big maps in PvP at month 5-6 I am still out of resources due to the fact town conversion and town development path is quite long and requires a lot of resources (but it worths).
I Agree with you though that a lot of other improvements can be made to cope with this but (@bloodsucker) at the current game pace I dont think that assigning units to mines help. This is not a civilization type of game and each round which you dont have enough available army can be your last.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 25, 2016 08:17 PM |
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dredknight said:
This is not a civilization type of game and each round which you dont have enough available army can be your last.
It mainly depends on what features are conserved from previous games. In Heroes 2 or 3, not having all your army with you doesn't mean by any way lose game if main defeated. You just hit and run then recruit him again. Anyway, I like choices where you always lose something, for the benefit of something else.
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Era II mods and utilities
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dredknight
Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
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posted May 26, 2016 03:18 PM |
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I believe that first thing is to make some kind of upkeep for the army that one has. Where the cost starts from some point and increases exponentially. Each castle owned will increase the size of the army without upkeep (one will be able to hold 5-weekly populations without upkeep +1 for each castle, after that upkeep appears and starts growing based on formula). This way there will be cap noone will be able to pass at some point.
This solves several problems:
1.magic damage will be valid throughout the whole game because army cannot grow infinitely.
2. Employ various ideas for economy gains to counter the upkeep and maintain more army.
3. Make more meaningful owning of castles
4. Opens ideas for new buildings related to economic handling.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted May 26, 2016 04:02 PM |
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If upkeep is used it should be like in Phoenix mod, you pay for every single creature you have. Now, I always loved the economic aspect in Heroes III but I'm not sure how this should or would affect gameplay.
If like in Heroes III creature banks represent a large part of the loot, pay upkeep is a stand back but the worst part is: if upkeep starts after a certain army value and there are town buildings necessary to support it, you are in fact rewarding a go for economy first strategy and I'm not sure if this could be acceptable at high level playing. OTOH, is not unusual for an Heroes III competitive match to end with both players with a horde of level 6 units and at least one pack of level 7 without ever building at least one Town Hall, I'm not sure if this is good either.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 26, 2016 05:05 PM |
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In my opinion the discussion makes no sense. If you can make your creatures better via XP and must pay upkeep for it, then you don't need any creature dwellings - you are at AoW where you "build" creatures (instead of having growth, because adding creatures to your XP gaining units makes no sense).
Worse - you can't even pick: when you fight you gain XP automatically, yo you have to start paying upkeep for simply doing what you are supposed to do.
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dredknight
Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
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posted May 26, 2016 05:11 PM |
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I never played Phoenix mod but this approach does not affect the game in a good way. It just make both players pay no matter what you do. The one in Phoenix mod is more like tax. Taxes are linear while upkeep is exponential.
In the beginning of the game upkeep would not exist.
lets say each creature has a power value like in heroes 5 (you can take the XP in h3 for example).
Heroes can carry army for free as long as the total power value is less than 100 000 points.
If the total power value passes 100 000 hero will have to pay 5% upkeep. The calc will be 5% (Current_power_value - 100 000).
so this means for 105000 power of army you will pay 250 gold per week. For each 10 000 power upkeep will increase by 1% as well.
So we make the following table:
Army power Upkeep
<100k 0%
100k-110k 5% of Army power - 100k
110k-120k 6% of Army power - 100k
120k-130k 7% of Army power - 100k
130k-140k 8% of Army power - 100k
140k-150k 9% of Army power - 100k
100k-160k 10% of Army power -100k
...and so on.
For each castle owned hero will increase the base gap for which he does not pay upkeep - lets say each castle will increase it by 20k.
So the final upkeep formula becomes:
no_upkeep_threshold=(100 + 20*owned_castles)k
Army power Upkeep
<no_upkeep_threshold 0%
no_upkeep_threshold+10k 5% of Army power - no_upkeep_threshold
no_upkeep_threshold+20k 6% of Army power - no_upkeep_threshold
no_upkeep_threshold+30k 7% of Army power - no_upkeep_threshold
no_upkeep_threshold+40k 8% of Army power - no_upkeep_threshold
no_upkeep_threshold+50k 9% of Army power - no_upkeep_threshold
no_upkeep_threshold+60k 10% of Army power- no_upkeep_threshold
etc..
Basically with this formula there are a few exponential decisions that may come up.
1 - fight for a lot of castles to get high army threshold and more army.
2. Fight/upgrade more income sources (mines) to battle high upkeep later.
3. Early game (first 6 weeks?) there is no upkeep so one can play for fast rush if not playing for any of the above things.
Not sure if I gave very good examples but the idea here is that you have the choice not to pay for upkeep (by using small army) and use the money for anything else.
Which actually opens up a spot for adding other stuff to do with money besides castle building  .
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 26, 2016 07:17 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
In my opinion the discussion makes no sense.
Worse - you can't even pick: when you fight you gain XP automatically, yo you have to start paying upkeep for simply doing what you are supposed to do.
I thought either you design a exp from battle system, or a system where you upgrade directly in town, so each week that creature gets stronger, and more expensive too.
Than the upkeep pattern is not new, Phoenix mod (russian) uses it in Era and people playing are very satisfied with. Basically you have to pick the fights which will uncover resources so you don't become broke. Then of course some heroes can specialize in money income (economists). It is possible to have an expensive xp system if you, on the other side, allow new tactics for generating income and not only town structures/mines.
In Phoenix mod, even mines will exhaust after 28 days so you are forced to find other ways.
I can talk only about mods I worked on or tested, but anyway I am sure there are dozens of ways of supporting army upkeep, which will even allow for diplomacy reintroduction, and this time on safe bases. Upkeep could be supported partially by hero level, skills and stats (command points support), by the number of squares your faction controls on map, neutrals could drop resources -spoils of wars, and many other things, like possibly improved mines, armies having high morale asking for lower upkeep and so on.
Anything which modified the "best main, best army = win" concept into a "a team of heroes, a diversity of armies, a good economy, a complex yet enjoyable game"
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 27, 2016 08:49 AM |
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*Sigh*
Sal, it makes no sense! There is no need to repair anything in that area, since it's not broken, for a number of reasons.
Heroes is STACK-BASED. Stack-based makes sense only, when you can work to increase stack number; now look at hybrid mechanics, say Panzer (Fantasy) General (Corps): your single units consists of 10 elements each; the unit gains XP; losses can be replaced; the more "stars" the unit has, the more expensive are replacements; replacements are limited; money is limited; (you don't have a regular income); units as such are limited (you can field only a certain number); you can increase unit limits (to 11 and even 12).
Heroes works differently; you build towns; you get dwellings; you get an income; dwellings "produce" units, that you have to buy (which is why you have an income), in order to increase stack strength; unit upgrades are done via town buildings (you need money and resources and even time (to bring them back) for that); these upgrades gain units additional abilities and stats; unit strengthening is done via HERO experience which may also give (all) units more general strengths.
Lastly, H5 has a mechanism in place to make use of surplus RESOURCES in order to strengthen stacks (Academy).
And that covers ALL. Exhaustively. THere is no need whatsoever, to add more mechanisms, however, with a view back on H6 and H7 there is EVERY need to have a look into how things have developed and make changes to the existing mechanisms.
Unit XP is a cog that doesn't really fit into the existing clockwork.
Dead End. You'd have to change the whole game to something else to make that work, H4-ish.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 27, 2016 10:16 AM |
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There are many areas you too want to change, while they are not broken, for a majority of players. Personally I find middle/end game deceiving in heroes 2-4 so any micromanagement which could spice the game is welcome for me. A better usage of gold, resources, heroes. This is broken, in all heroes games.
Then the arguments "heroes is stack based" so couldn't work means nothing, as those exp or upkeep mods are already implemented in wog, I like them and already have ideas on how to improve.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 27, 2016 12:46 PM |
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It's an either/or mechanism (in WoG), changing the game completely, and not the end game, but the game right from the start.
We are not talking about CHANGING something (in a give-and-take way), we are talking about ADDING something, and adding something into army strength development. You want an additional - or better, an extended - layer, which is fine, just not over experience, because experience is already covered to the max.
If it wasn't clear before, H6 showed everyone that you cannot have a lot fights for fighting's (and in your case, experience gaining's) sake. Things become too much of a chore, just fighting through stuff. Either the fights must be substantially different from fight to fight or the fights must unlock something that will advance you.
That's why town-building and creature-upgrading works. Additional levels are definitely possible. If you consider the H5 Academy racial, for example, a somewhat more complex creature-artifact creating system would allow to burn surplus money and resources in more customized ways, giving not only stat increases, but also additional abilities, like additional retaliations or even tailor-made abilities. All possible, all fine - just not via XP-gain through battling.
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Homer171
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 27, 2016 03:09 PM |
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I'm on with JJ in this one. It's called Heroes for a reason. Hero skills that could further boost certain stats/abilities for creatures is welcome, like the H5 artificer. Wog banners could easily have that potential.
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