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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted May 09, 2020 01:59 PM |
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zmudziak22 said: IF we talk about War Machines:
Artillery(Ballista and Cannon), all specialists should have knowledge of these two an improve them. Make attack war machines scales damage as combo of attack + knowledge, like heroes 5 + it should increase health of ballista/canon up to 500 hp. Expert Artillery could make Ballista/Canon ignore 40-60% of enemy defense for better damage(also like heroes 5)
Tent:
Necromancers could have alternative tent called Plaque tent, which it would debuff enemy creatures(wyvern poision, zombie deseases, curse, weaksness etc)
Aid Tent - flat hp restoration, limited resurection uses(could be up to 3, each resurrection 100 hp like 1 Archangel)
Ballistics:
Catapult While you attack town walls, you have chance of hurting creatures close to walls(like accurate shots of Sea Dogs)
Ammo cart: not only would provide unlimited shots, but also give precision attack bonus and slighty increase damage
Such drastic changes will interfere with town balance or the way siege battles work.
I don't think Ammo Cart needs any buff. At a max it should provide a 5% percent Archery skill bonus instead of rendering the Precision spell less worthwhile.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted May 10, 2020 03:49 PM |
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There could be a quest to let you pass/get a reward only if you get there before a certain date (eg. quest lets you return only before month 2, and you reach that quest in month 1 and complete it. However, if you get there after month 2, the quest is failed and you can't pass/get the reward anymore).
Edit: Oh yeah, sorry, though it was possible only for "bring arts", "kill creatures", etc.
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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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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted May 10, 2020 04:39 PM |
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I think this is already possible, check "Has deadline".
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SandroCZ
Tavern Dweller
Lifelong Scientist
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posted May 11, 2020 03:23 AM |
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Edited by SandroCZ at 03:43, 11 May 2020.
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I was recently thinking about three proposals (Artillery, Ballistics and Combo Artifacts) and since there was recent discussions about War machines (Hourglass: I like your new possible ones for each race, btw), I have prioritized finishing the Artillery.
From my perspective, the uniqueness of ballista does not lie in dealing raw damage – that’s why units are here for. I think that even the real ballistas used during middle ages were supposed to wreck havoc, fear or disorder to enemy ranks. So I agree with Romanov77 that some sort of „effect“ would be desirable, I just don’t like recycling the existing ones (Death Stare or Accurate Shot). So here I’m proposing two variants and – as usual for my suggestions – the percentage numbers are a first guess that could be tuned later. Both variants does not touch cannon – just the ballista, and both variants removes ballista shooting twice just for easier scaling of the effect.
Here’s a gif of the two alternatives:
Stun ballista (I’m really missing this effect from Heroes IV): the stack hit by ballista might be by certain percentage stunned for 1 round: could not move, attack or shoot, but could still retaliate (basic Blind for 1 round to some degree).
Disrupting ballista: the stack hit by ballista will have certain percentage of its overall defense reduced (different from Disrupting Ray, which reduces defense by fixed absolute amount.)
I’m kinda short of time these days, but I can try to finish the Ballistics and Combo Artifacts proposals if anyone desires
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 13, 2020 08:34 AM |
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Before this topic gets too buried away I've done some thinking and I wanted to post my ideas for faction skills. Necropolis already has one and Inferno has already been discussed so I won't be doing them.
Castle - Empathy
This made sense to me for Castle because 1) they have some of the best units in the game anyway, so they won't be exploiting it as much as a weaker faction would 2) I think it fits the theme and Knights all start with Leadership now anyway (this would either make Leadership redundant or more powerful, depending on if they raise the morale cap) and 3) they have a hero they need to replace for lore reasons (Haart) and a perfect hero exists in H2 to replace him. As an Orc, it would make sense for Maximus to specialize in mixing different factions' creatures.
Basic: Can mix foreign tier 1/2 creatures without morale penalty
Advanced: Can mix tier 1/2/3/4
Expert: Can mix tier 1/2/3/4/5/6
Possible specialist: Maximus(from H1 +2) - Basic additionally covers tier 3 units, advanced tier 5, and expert tier 7. Replaces Lord Haart.
Rampart - Symbiosis
Rampart is supposed to be a faction that's at one with nature, and this ability turns a fairly forgettable mechanic into something worth planning for and paying attention to. One of the things I like about H3 over 5 is that you don't necessarily have to use a hero from your starting faction, so this skill applies to all units on their native terrain, not just ones from Rampart.
Basic: Native Terrain bonus increases attack and defense by an additional 2 for a total of 3.
Advanced: Native Terrain bonus additionally increases HP by 10%.
Expert: Native Terrain increases attack and defense by an additional 2 for a total of 5, and HP by an additional 5%
Possible specialist: Carlawn or some other Sorceress from H2 - Works like creature specialties normally do, except it applies to any unit fighting on its native terrain. Replaces Melodia.
Tower - Artificer
Tower is a faction about blending science and magic, and even their might hero is fairly magic oriented, so something to do with animating constructs made sense to me. Plus its always been a bit awkward to me that there are golems otherwise identical to the ones in Tower that have no faction affinity. It could be tricky to make this work since its already a very resource-heavy faction but I like the idea.
Basic: Hero can convert excess resources into Stone Gargoyles at towns and upgrade Iron Golems into Steel Golems.
Advanced: Hero can convert excess resources into Stone Gargoyles or Stone Golems at towns and upgrade Steel Golems into Gold Golems.
Expert: Hero can convert excess resources into Obsidian Gargoyles or Iron Golems at towns and upgrade Gold Golems into Diamond Golems.
Possible specialist: Milansai from H4. Reduces gold cost of conversion by 2% per level. Replaces either Iona or Thane. Alternatively, just give the specialization to one of them. Milansai's bio fits it better though IMO.
Dungeon - Empowered Spells
Dungeon has never felt as magic oriented to me as I feel like it should be, although I'm not sure why. I was hesitant to give this to Dungeon for that reason because that would mean all Overlords start with it too, but then I read that the official description for the Overlords describes them as "warriors who know the value of magic" although their skills, stats, and specialties don't reflect that.
Basic: Offensive spells have a 10% chance to deal +50% damage.
Advanced: 15% chance.
Expert: 25% chance.
Possible specialist: Alamar, who has the same specialty as Jeddite. Alamar specializing in empowered spells makes sense to me because he was the king of the Warlocks on Enroth. Gives a 5% bonus to the chance per level. (+5% of 25%)
Stronghold - Counterstrike
Adds to the attack theme of Stronghold, and works well with the concept of battle rage. I worry that this might be the thing that finally breaks Crag Hack though. I guess part of this could be that Offense doesn't apply to retaliations anymore, although I don't know if A) that makes sense to do from a balancing perspective or B) if that's even possible to mod in.
Basic: +10% damage for retaliations
Advanced: +15%
Master: +20%
Possible specialist: Gundula. In theory, she's supposed to be a magic hero (well, more of a mixed class I guess) so it seems weird to me that she has an offense specialty considering Crag Hack already has one in the same faction. This is basically just a weaker version of the offense specialty anyway. For the sake of balance maybe Gundula can keep offense and Crag Hack gets this but I'd be hesitant to mess with something so iconic.
Fortress - Herbalism
Since they're native to the swamp terrain it makes sense that Witches would obviously be familiar with the various healing properties of the exotic plants there, but I think it would be something Beastmasters know too considering they need to take care of the beasts. This keeps with Fortress's defense theme, although I'm not going to give numbers for this one because it could either be useless or overpowered depending on the values given.
Basic: Curses on your troops last for X fewer turns.
Advanced: Better than basic.
Expert: You get the idea.
For possible specialists, I'd say Verdish because it stays in the healing category. Alternatively, if the HotA team decides to buff First Aid enough for it to be useful, let Tiva be the specialist, or replace her with one. 1 fewer EE specialists never hurt anybody. How this specialization scales would depend on whether the base skill uses a fixed number or a percentage based number. Whatever you guys know how specializations work.
Cove - Plundering
Obviously, in a faction of pirates, it makes sense for the faction skill to be centered around stealing resources. Again, this one could be either useless or overpowered depending on how it's scaled, so no specific numbers. In fact, don't trust the numbers I give on any of the skills.
Basic: Hero gains X amount of gold after combat.
Advanced: Hero gains X amount of gold and possibly either wood or ore after combat.
Expert: Hero gains X amount of gold and possibly 1 of any other resource after combat.
A possible specialist could be Leena? I don't remember all the Cove heroes off the top of my head but IIRC they're all decent so I don't know who they'd change/replace. It should probably be a Captain though. +5% gold per level.
Conflux - Irresistible Magic
Ideally, this would instead be an Elemental Chains ability like in H5 but I don't think that's possible to mod so this is the next best thing. Although I'm not sure if this is possible either.
Basic: Spells can ignore 30% of a target's resistance.
Advanced: 50%.
Expert: 70%.
Possible specialist? Since I'm here, I might as well just fix the whole Conflux roster lol.
Fiur, Lacus, Erdamon, Pasis: Give them proper creature specs.
Thunar: Estates?
Ignissa: Artilery?
Kalt: Learning?(Like Kinkera)
Monere: It may be a bit strange since he's a might hero, but I think that as the Magic Elemental it would make sense for him to have the irresistable spec, especially since IMO Planeswalkers should be more of a mixed class than a might class. Alternatively, Monere can have an Interference specialty, which also fits his Magic Elemental nature.
Aenain, Brissa, Ciele, Inteus, Luna, and Labitha are fine as they are IMO.
Grindan: He's the other candidate for the irresistable magic spec, which would also make sense because he's a dwarf and his gold spec might not be needed anymore because of Thunar's Estates spec. The pattern with the former 6 heroes seems to be that each element has 1 hero specializing in an offensive spell and 1 in a defensive spell of that school. A slow specialist would be waaaay to OP, but I guess he could have meteor shower.
Gelare: This guy I REALLY want to be changed because Conflux has no proper water specialist since Ciele's Magic Arrow is all the schools at the same time. With her having Magic Arrow I have a couple of ideas for what they could do with Gelare: he could have a bless or prayer specialty, he could specialize in Cure if they buff it so it can res a limited amount, or they could do something where dispel doesn't remove buffs from your own troops/debuffs from enemy troops.
As for Factory, I have no idea obviously, but I'll think of something when it comes out and I've played with it a bit.
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Alyx182008
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 13, 2020 10:20 AM |
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I actually really like some of these ideas, while others I don't think would work or would be useful. My quick rundown on them.
Quote: Castle - Empathy
This made sense to me for Castle because 1) they have some of the best units in the game anyway, so they won't be exploiting it as much as a weaker faction would 2) I think it fits the theme and Knights all start with Leadership now anyway (this would either make Leadership redundant or more powerful, depending on if they raise the morale cap) and 3) they have a hero they need to replace for lore reasons (Haart) and a perfect hero exists in H2 to replace him. As an Orc, it would make sense for Maximus to specialize in mixing different factions' creatures.
Basic: Can mix foreign tier 1/2 creatures without morale penalty
Advanced: Can mix tier 1/2/3/4
Expert: Can mix tier 1/2/3/4/5/6
I think Leadership already fulfills this role well enough. Between it and morale artifacts, I don't see why I'd pick Empathy as a skill. Instead of Leadership becoming the redundant skill, I think this one is. At least Leadership has usefulness even if you don't mix creatures.
Quote: Rampart - Symbiosis
Rampart is supposed to be a faction that's at one with nature, and this ability turns a fairly forgettable mechanic into something worth planning for and paying attention to. One of the things I like about H3 over 5 is that you don't necessarily have to use a hero from your starting faction, so this skill applies to all units on their native terrain, not just ones from Rampart.
Basic: Native Terrain bonus increases attack and defense by an additional 2 for a total of 3.
Advanced: Native Terrain bonus additionally increases HP by 10%.
Expert: Native Terrain increases attack and defense by an additional 2 for a total of 5, and HP by an additional 5%
An interesting idea, I'm just not sure how this would play on in multiplayer matches, with people possibly trying to lure the opponent on their preferred terrain. Could either give rise to interesting tactics to how/when people fight, or create stale-mates, where both players refuse to attack each other on the enemy's terrain. Balance could also be an issue.
Quote: Tower - Artificer
Tower is a faction about blending science and magic, and even their might hero is fairly magic oriented, so something to do with animating constructs made sense to me. Plus its always been a bit awkward to me that there are golems otherwise identical to the ones in Tower that have no faction affinity. It could be tricky to make this work since its already a very resource-heavy faction but I like the idea.
Basic: Hero can convert excess resources into Stone Gargoyles at towns and upgrade Iron Golems into Steel Golems.
Advanced: Hero can convert excess resources into Stone Gargoyles or Stone Golems at towns and upgrade Steel Golems into Gold Golems.
Expert: Hero can convert excess resources into Obsidian Gargoyles or Iron Golems at towns and upgrade Gold Golems into Diamond Golems.
I think this one I like the least. Possible balance breaking depending on how rich the map is.
Quote: Dungeon - Empowered Spells
Dungeon has never felt as magic oriented to me as I feel like it should be, although I'm not sure why. I was hesitant to give this to Dungeon for that reason because that would mean all Overlords start with it too, but then I read that the official description for the Overlords describes them as "warriors who know the value of magic" although their skills, stats, and specialties don't reflect that.
Basic: Offensive spells have a 10% chance to deal +50% damage.
Advanced: 15% chance.
Expert: 25% chance.
Not the first time I've seen a critical damage for spells idea. I've played with Era mods that had this and it's quite fun and satisfying when it triggers.
Quote: Stronghold - Counterstrike
Adds to the attack theme of Stronghold, and works well with the concept of battle rage. I worry that this might be the thing that finally breaks Crag Hack though. I guess part of this could be that Offense doesn't apply to retaliations anymore, although I don't know if A) that makes sense to do from a balancing perspective or B) if that's even possible to mod in.
Basic: +10% damage for retaliations
Advanced: +15%
Master: +20%
This is actually my favorite of the bunch. I would't remove Offense effect from retaliations, just add this on top, although decrease the percentage a bit. Battles could be more interesting if people have an interest to get hit and retaliate instead of avoiding direct hits as much as possible.
Quote: Fortress - Herbalism
Since they're native to the swamp terrain it makes sense that Witches would obviously be familiar with the various healing properties of the exotic plants there, but I think it would be something Beastmasters know too considering they need to take care of the beasts. This keeps with Fortress's defense theme, although I'm not going to give numbers for this one because it could either be useless or overpowered depending on the values given.
Basic: Curses on your troops last for X fewer turns.
Advanced: Better than basic.
Expert: You get the idea.
This could be useful as a counter to mass slow I guess. Not a bad idea, but I assume it might be difficult to balance. Still, the idea of having a mass slow cast on me, and not worrying about it because it will only last 1 turn thanks to Herbalism, is quite fun.
Quote: Cove - Plundering
Obviously, in a faction of pirates, it makes sense for the faction skill to be centered around stealing resources. Again, this one could be either useless or overpowered depending on how it's scaled, so no specific numbers. In fact, don't trust the numbers I give on any of the skills.
Basic: Hero gains X amount of gold after combat.
Advanced: Hero gains X amount of gold and possibly either wood or ore after combat.
Expert: Hero gains X amount of gold and possibly 1 of any other resource after combat.
I like the idea, but have it work only when attacking enemy heroes and towns. Maybe on creature banks too or similar buildings.
Quote: Conflux - Irresistible Magic
Ideally, this would instead be an Elemental Chains ability like in H5 but I don't think that's possible to mod so this is the next best thing. Although I'm not sure if this is possible either.
Basic: Spells can ignore 30% of a target's resistance.
Advanced: 50%.
Expert: 70%.
Which type of resistance are you targeting with this? Dwarf type or golemn type? Both? I'm not sure there are enough creatures that are spell resistant to where this skill would be worth it.
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted May 13, 2020 11:21 AM |
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@Rimgrabber
Interesting ideas, so these would work just like the current secondary skills?
I like to Cove's speciality, and the Stronghold one is likely the best of the bunch, probably because it's the most effective one, and could also be "universal" secondary skill. I also feel Dungeon one is also on the line among the traditional secondary skills in terms of power. Artificer skill is powerful as well, but probably another limit than resources should exist, as this could easily be overpowered. Also, this would need some sort of building in tower to operate. (currently there's no interface for this kind of thing)
The rest are somewhat underpowered, I fear.
Emphathy - The point of Leadership is not just to raise your army morale to +3, it can also be used exactly like Empahty would.
Symbiosis - This is one is clearly better, and could make your creatures really tanky when you're still on your own area. However, eventually you have to move on from your starting zone, and it's very likely not to be an area covered with grass. After that, you would pretty much playing "without" one of your secondary skills.
Herbalism - Maybe this would protect against some debuffs done by some of the neutral creatures, but other than that, this would only be useful against another hero. And when you think about it, not many debuff spells are even used in PvP scenarios. It's mostly Slow, and maybe Blind. Now, being resistant to Slow is not nothing, but if the other player can mass Slow you for just two turns, it is usually enough to deal heavy casualities.
Irresistible Magic - There simply aren't that many creatures with resistances, I fear.
Btw, I remember the Inferno one, but what kind of ability you plan for Necropolis?
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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted May 13, 2020 05:27 PM |
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Why should HotA introduce a new balancing/maintenance burden?
Such stuff will be either of cosmetic nature or introduce a new WoG-mod-esque level of complexity requiring lots of future releases to get to a final gameplay state.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted May 13, 2020 05:47 PM |
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@Rimgrabber
Sorry, dude, but your suggestions are too exotic for HotA (even tho they aren't bad). Maybe you should create another thread for such suggestions, which could be introduced in WoG/VCMI or a very improbable years ahead open source-code HotA.
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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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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 14, 2020 12:16 AM |
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In the interest of not posting another massive wall of text I won't quote reply everything but this is mostly in response to Alyx182008 and Hourglass's feedback, which I greatly appreciate.
Re: Empathy - I'll admit this is definitely not top-tier as morale works now. When I started writing these down I figured that was probably okay considering how powerful Castle already is but considering the skills I gave to already powerful heroes I didn't do a great job of balancing lol. What I had in mind was that the morale cap would be raised to like 5 or 6, which was something that had been briefly discussed earlier. The idea was that this could stack with leadership by making it easier to get to max morale, which would be difficult to achieve otherwise. All in all though, I'll admit this is not a very well designed skill.
Re: Symbiosis - I might not have made this clear in my OP but this skill works with any creature in your army, not just Rampart ones. Rampart already has 2 heroes that are top tier regardless of what faction you're playing as - Kyrre and Mephala. The idea here was to make it so that Rampart heroes would have a unique ability that would make you consider them as your main if you found them in a tavern. Of course, there is the issue with stalemates, but this could also be used mainly as a town-defense skill like artillery often is.
Re: Artificer - I'm actually kind of surprised that people found this overpowered since Tower is already a very resource-heavy town, but I guess on really big maps that wouldn't really matter by the end game and a massive power stack of diamond golems would be pretty scary. I think like Hourglass suggested there should be a limit on how many creatures you could make per week or something like that, similar to Haven's skill in H5.
Re: Empowered Spells - Seems like nobody had much to add about this one, although perhaps it would need a lower damage boost to be balanced.
Re: Counterstrike - I'm glad people liked this one, but I'm worried that it would anoint Barbarians as the definitive best class even more so than they arguably already are.
Re: Herbalism - Seems like we all agree that the biggest issue with this is how to balance it. I have no idea lol someone who's good with numbers can figure that out if they want.
Re: Plundering - I don't think it's necessary for this to only work on big important fights. I envision it functioning similar to the skill in H5 where the amount of resources is scaled based on how much XP you earn from the battle. Maybe early game neutrals just give you like 200 gold, which isn't a lot but is still helpful on higher difficulties.
Re: Irresistible Magic - Another one I think I explained poorly. I was referring to Golem-type resistance rather than dwarf-type resistance, but I was also referring to magical immunities. You want to cast implosion on that Black Dragon? Go ahead, you can still deal 70% of the damage to it. Want to blind the Vampire Lords? Go ahead, it won't last the full duration but it will be enough to be worth the cast. I actually worry about this one the most considering how OP Conflux already is, but like the Rampart ability, I wanted to make Elementalists viable as a main hero. Magic heroes don't get much love I thought this skill + Dungeon's skill would make Warlocks and Elementalists at least worth considering.
Hourglass said: @Rimgrabber
Interesting ideas, so these would work just like the current secondary skills?
Btw, I remember the Inferno one, but what kind of ability you plan for Necropolis?
Necropolis has necromancy, silly. The idea behind this is to make all the classes have a feel of uniqueness like Necro heroes do, although I admit I probably just solidified Barbarians as the definitive best class in the game haha. But yes, all heroes belonging to a faction would start with their respective faction skill in their first skill slot, like how all Necro heroes start with necromancy.
FirePaladin said: @Rimgrabber
Sorry, dude, but your suggestions are too exotic for HotA (even tho they aren't bad). Maybe you should create another thread for such suggestions, which could be introduced in WoG/VCMI or a very improbable years ahead open source-code HotA.
Alas, you're probably right. When I'm done with my series of proposal threads for a potential H8 I'll make a thread for my H3 suggestions. I'd make a mod myself but I don't have the foggiest idea of how modding works. WoG/VCMI are just so overwhelming for me to get into lol I've just stuck with HotA for now. It would probably be worth it for me to learn the basics of the other mods though.
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted May 14, 2020 01:37 AM |
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I wanted to create a post that would have all my ideas in one place. Possibly this is something I would like to update every once in a while.
Also, this is kinda my way of showing how things would come together. The people who read this topic on regular basis may remember some of my earlier suggestions, but I may have changed some of them along the way.
IMO simply adding more stuff doesn't necessary make much sense. That affects on many thing after all. For example, if new spell is made and added to the mage guild, it would mean that there would slightly less % chance to get the existing spells.
That's why you see me mostly banning something that doesn't really have made an impact to the game in it's lifetime. By banning, I mean that the thing would still exist in the game's code, and players could put removed things back to the game with either map- or template editor. But in Hota campaings and scenarios, and all random maps those banned things would be off by default. Then, we simply replace the banned things with something better.
Ok so here goes:
New Warmachines and changes to the old ones:
Each town would have it's own unique war machine. I know some of you may seem these as radical changes, but hear me out: Hota planned long ago unique war machines for each town and I belive this topic is somewhat unused potential. Cove already has it's own machine, and Factory will likely get one, too. So IMO it only makes sense if even the old towns would also have unique war machines.
Trebutchet
Town: Dungeon
Type: Attack warmachine
Ammo: 12
Cost: 3000g
Deals fireball-sized AOE damage to enemies it hits. Can also hit your own troops. Unlike other warmachines, player has manual control over Trebutchet, even if he doesn't possess any kind of secondary skill. The Magog-like aimed shot is granted to the controller if he gets the related secondary skill. (I'll get into that later)
Deals similiar amounts of damage than the regular Ballista, but has fewer ammunation. Archery also boosts the damage accordingly.
Dungeon have had attacking war machine before, and IMO it doesn't make sense to change that. While this could deal splash damage, Dungeon wouldn't be any stonger/weaker in this regard than it was before.
Plague Tent
Town: Necropolis
Type: Tent (not available on siege battles on attackers side)
Cost: 1000g
Inflicts the same Disease that Zombies can apply. (-2att/def for 3 turns.) Can only target living resurrectable creatures. If player does not have the related secondary skill, Plague tent will be controlled by the AI.
This has been suggested by many before, and it totally fits the scheme. I've always found the healing tent unsuitable for Necropolis for multiple reasons.
Potion carry
Town: Inferno
Type: Cart (acts passively and never has a turn)
Cost: 1000g
Whenever an enemy stack is fully slain,
Potion carry provides +1 mana to your hero. This mana can never excess normal mana limits your hero has. If the carry is destroyed, no more additinol mana can be gained.
Inferno has a small magic theme going on with them, so a cart like this would be very helpful for them.
Magic Arbalest
Town: Conflux
Type: Attack Warmachine
Ammo: 8
Cost: 3500
Like Ballista and Cannon, deals damage to targeted enemy creature. Deals damage that scales normally with attack power, but if hero or allied creature cast a spell this turn, Magic Arblest deals bonus flat damage (magic!) on top it's normal damage. The damage bonus dealt depends from what level the previous cast spell during this round was. So, in order to maximize the dealt damage, hero should use high level spells each round. If no spells are cast by the hero or the creatures, only the normal damage is inflicted (which is weaker than the regular ballista would deal)
Magic Arbalest is controlled by AI, if hero doens't have the related secondary skill.
The fixed (magic!) damage should scale like this:
If the previous spell was lvl 1, +10 dmg is added.
If the previous spell was lvl 2, +20 dmg is added. etc.
If hero has the war machine related skill, this magic damage is increased.
Black dragons and Magic elementals are fully immune to the fixed dmg bonus, and goles take less damage according to their magic resist %. Normal (non-fixed) damage can be increased if hero has Archery.
As Conflux have had Ballista earlier, it should have an "attack war machine now as well. Something like this would benefit from the vast pool of spells Conflux has access to, and it also gives some meaning to upgraded elementals spellcasting.
Command tent
Town: Rampart
Type: Tent (not available on siege battles on attackers side)
Cost: 1250g
During it's turn can target one allied creature. Targeted creature loses all negative morale bonuses from "having creatures from different alligments." Also increases the dealt damage from lucky strikes by 20%. Effect lasts 3 turns. The tent is controlled by AI, if the player does not have the related secondary skill.
Rampart units is known of having Luck, so a warmachine that somewhat uses that theme is very fitting IMO. Something like this can also be seen as a "ninja-buff" towards the luck mechanic itself.
Weapon cart
Town: Stronghold
Type: Cart (acts passively and never has a turn)
Cost: 1000g
Creatures that hit a melee strike have their damage increased by 1. This bonus is lost when the cart is destoyed.
Very simple and straightforward, as it should be in Strongholds case. They have a slight barbaric melee attacking theme going on, and I think this kind of warmachine fits into that.
Castle would keep Ballista, Fortress the First Aid tent, and Tower Ammo cart. Their stats will be unchanged, expect First Aid tent's healing would no longer be ranged (1-25, etc), and would always heal the maxium amount. Normal ballista would be unchanged, but it would be way stronger if hero had the related secondary skill. The plan would be that the Ballista should outdamage Cannon in the long run.
New spells and changes to existing ones:
Protection from certain element spells are banned from mage guilds on normal maps. They can still be learned from tomes, scrolls and shrines as usual.
Magic Mirror is banned entirely from normal maps.
Disguise is not exactly banned, but it's not generated when a map with only one human player is created.
Magic Mirror and Disguise are currently not working against AI, and the Mirror would be really bad spell anyway. Protection spells presented like this are nearly useless.
Changes to Fireball and Frost Ring spells:
Instead of 15+(10*X) / 30+(10*X) / 60+(10*X) to 20+(15*X) / 40+(15*X) / 60+(15*X)
Both of these are have been really underpowered
Changes to Inferno spell:
Scaling with power is doubled to 20 from 10 on all levels.
Has been extremely bad lvl 4 spell.
Changes to Slayer spell:
No longer scales weardly depending on the creature type.
Instead it adds 8 attack on basic, 12 with expert, and becomes mass spell on expert.(still only effective against lvl7 creatures)
Has been really bad lvl 4 spell, with a weard scaling
New spells:
Protection from Temperature
Lvl 2 Fire&Water spell.
Cost: 10/8 mana
Adds 50/75/75% fire and water resistance on target allied troop. Targets all friendly creatures on expert level.
Protection from Altitude
Lvl 3 Air&Earth spell.
Cost: 15/12 mana
Adds 50/75/75% air and earth resistance on target allied troop. Targets all friendly creatures on expert level.
Protection spells are really bad, but they have some use occasionally. However, it doesn't really make sense to have 4 separate spells, having only 2 is much better.
Ignite
Deals magic damage to the targeted enemy unit at start of the creature's each turn.
Damage dealt is 20/30/30, and it becomes mass spell at expert level.
Level: 1
School: Fire
Cost: 6/5 mana
Debuff, so +1 duration is added per each Spell power.
There hasn't been a damage over time kind of spell in the game before and school of fire could use some love.
Empower
Increases hero's Spell power until the end of next spell cast by 3/4/5.
Level: 1
School: Water
Cost: 6/5
Duration: Until the end of next spell cast.
Helpful spell especially in the early game, could also help in the late game if hero runs low on mana.
Steal Enchantments
Removes all "buff spell" effects from target enemy creature, then gives them to the allied creature of your choice.
Basic: The duration of the spells are the same as they were when you stole them.
Advanced: Adds +2 duration to all stolen spells
Expert: Adds +4 duration to all stolen spells instead.
School: Water
Level: 5
Cost: 25/20
For some reason, School of Air had 4 lvl 5 spells, while water only had 1. It's only fair even the scales with this one. Not always the best possible spell to cast, but in the right circumstances it could give you a lot of value.
New secondary skills:
Following secondary skills are banned in normal maps:
Learning, Eagle Eye, Artillery, First aid and Ballistics are banned, but could accessed with either editor. They're on by default on all existing old maps.
Learning is replaced by a new skill Enlightment.
Basic Enlightment: Increases a hero's earned experience by 10%. Hero gets 2 different primary stats at random.
Advanced Enlightment: Increases a hero's earned experience by 25%.
Hero gets 3 different primary stats at random.
Advanced Enlightment: Increases a hero's earned experience by 50%.
Hero gets +1 of all primary stats.
So at expert, hero has +9 primary stats and +50% more experience. Basically, while the experience part is over 3 times bigger than the original desing, it still doesn't actually play a noticeable role in hero building. Actually, +50% experience is around +2 levels compared to a hero that doesn't have Enlightment, and even that is being generious. It's there only to allow hero to get slightly faster developement on secondary skill side.
I've myself and I've seen plenty of other people suggesting that Enlightment would work exactly like in Homm5, where on expert lvl, it gives a primary stat to the hero for every two levels. That would probably be fine as well, but that kind of desing is only good for your main hero. The secondary heroes/scouts who never gain many levels would not benefit from that kind skill at all.
Eagle Eye is replaced by a new skill Enchant.
Enchant - Just before battle is about to begin, cast a buffing spell effect to all friendly creatures. (think it like less powerful Angelic Alliance's Prayer-kind of thing) The duration of the effect is half of your Spell power, rounded up.
The friendly spells effect would not the same spells we currently have in the game, but rather something tinkered solely for this skill alone:
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Regeneration= At the end of the round, creature gets 20% of it's max HP back. (doesn't revive anyone, and maxium amount of restored HP is 50.)
Praise= +1 luck and +1 morale.
Perseverance= +2 attack and defence skill
Agility= During the creature's own turn, it has +1 speed. (therefore not affecting turn order)
Strength= Creature's maxium damage is increaced by 1.
Furious = Creature's retalition damage is increased by 10%
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Basic Enchant - Only Regeneration, Praise and Persevarence are available, and one them is chosen randomly and casted for free at the beginning of the battle, affecting all your creatures. Duration of the effect is half of your spell power, rounded up. These "spells" do not appear in the spell book. All effects can be dispelled.
Advanced Enchant - Same as Basic, exept all 6 "spells" are available.
Expert Enchant - Same as Advanced, exept two "spells" are casted.
I wanted to create something that would benefit from caster stats.
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Artillery, First aid and Ballistics are reformed into one skill - Warfare. It's the ultimate skill for any hero who wants to utilize his warmachines.
Basic Warfare
Gives you manual control over any war machine and arrow tower. Any destoyed war machine has 50% chance of being able to be repaired after battle.
Ballista: Increases highly the dealt damage.(Is straight out better than the original double damage)
First Aid tent: No changes to original. (exept the change I mentioned earlier.)
Cannon: No changes to the original.
Magic Arbalest: Dealt magic damage is increased.
Trebutchet: Can shoot aimed shots. Damage is increased.
Command tent: Further increases the damage dealt from lucky strikes to 30%
Plague tent: Disease is worse and gives -3/-3 instead.
Catapult: No changes to current basic ballistics.
Arrow towers: No changes.
Advanced/Expert: Damage is further increased, and you can basically guess how the others are going to scale as well. The chance of being able to repair broken war machine does not scale and stayes in 50%.
Now, while that's a lot happening with Warfare, I feel anything less would not get people interested about playing with war machines. I suggest that it would be the best if all warmachines work under one skill. If there where two - one for tents and one for the attack machines - the situation would not likely change at all from what we have now.
If there's only one skill, there doesn't have to be big changes to the warmachines themselves. Now we wouldn't need to talk about how durable the first aid tent has to be, or does it need to be able to resurect etc. The problem we see with current First Aid skill is, that if such thing exists, then the tent must be really valuable. With one skill system, the tent is not even half of all the utility the skill provides. Therefore, the tent (or any other war machine in that regard) doesn't have to be a some sort of MVP.
Changes to existing secondary skill:
Sorcery is buffed from 5/10/15% to 10/20/40%.
Sorcery has always been only bad because of really bad scaling. 40% seems like the sweetspot for me.
New heroes and changes to the old ones:
If old skills are changing, then the old heroes need some changes as well. Artillery, Ballistics, First aid, Eagle Eye and Learning are all banned, so heroes who earlier had them should change as well.
There are two heroes I would ban without obvious reasons: Melodia and Intenius. Melodia has Fortune speciality, while she also has Luck secondary skill. This combination is so extremely niche, that there just isn't any good reasons why it should exists in normal gameplay.
Intenius on the otherhand has speciality of Bloodlust. While one can of course lead heroes from non-native towns, the hero roster should at least somewhat be viable to the original town. While the speciality is really bad to start with, but Intenius fails even at failing: Phoenixes, Magic elementals, Energy elementals are completely immune to fire magic, and storm + ice elementals are shooters with melee penalty. So when everything is build, only troops to really benefit from this speciality are Pixies and earth elementals.
I also suggest changing some of the starting spells related to protection spells. If those spells are banned anyway, they don't really make sense as starting spells, either. Also, they're really bad spells to start with.
Castle
Sanya is banned by default.
Rion no longer specializes in First Aid, but in the tent itself.
Chistian has Warfare instead of Artillery.
Loynis has Enlightment instead of Learning.
Rose- Cleric
Speciality - Destroy Undead
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Enchant
Rampart
Gem no longer specializes in First Aid, but in the tent itself.
Melodia and Malcom are banned by default.
Ufretin has Warfare instead of Ballistics.
Aeris starts with Haste instead of Protection from Air.
Ruby - Druid
Speciality - Command tent (increases damage done by lucky strikes)
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Luck
Starting spell: Stone Skin
Juniper - Druid
Speciality - Enchant (doubles the duration of Enchant abilities)
Secondary skills: Wisom + Enchant
Starting spell: Empower
Tower
Theodorus has Warfare instead of Ballistics.
Serena is banned by default.
Kalindra - Wizard
Speciality: Land mine (land mine damage is increased by 50%.)
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Enchant
Inferno
Pyre has Warfare instead of Artillery.
Olema has Warfare instead of Ballistics.
Ash has Fire magic instead of Eagle Eye.
Calid has Enlightment instead of Learning.
Axsis starts with Ignite instead of Protection from Air.
Necropolis
Vokial and Ranloo have Warfare instead of Artillery.
Moandor and Xsi have Enlightment instad of Learning.
Nimbus is banned by default.
Nagash starts with Haste instead of Protection from Air.
Zam - Necromancer
Speciality: Plague tent (Disease has double duration)
Secondary skills: Necromancy + Warfare
Starting spell: Shield
Dungeon
Arlach specializes in Trebutchet instead of Ballista. Has Offence + Warfare secondary skills.
Darkstorn has Enlightment instead of Learning.
Geon is banned by default.
Sepinroth starts with Curse instead of Protection from Air.
Mephisto - Warlock
Speciality: Medusas
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Archery
Starting spell: Slow
Stronghold
Gurnisson and Zubin have Warfare instead of Artillery.
Yog has Warfare instead of Ballistics.
Oris is banned by default.
Roktar - Battlemage
Speciality: Enchant (Enchanted effects have double duration)
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Enchant
Starting spell: Stone skin
Fortress
Verdish no longer specializes in First Aid, but in the tent itself. Has Wisdom + Warfare secondary skills. Starts with Bless instead of Protection from fire.
Gerwulf has Warfare instead of Artillery.
Merist has Enlightment instead of Learning.
Kinkeria spesializes in Enlightment instead of Learning.
Tiva is banned by default.
Virva - Witch
Speciality: Teleport (first cast during battle allows two stacks two be teleported.)
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Scholar
Conflux
Ignissa, Pasis, Lacus, Thunar and Intenius are banned by default.
Kalt has Enlightment instead of Learning.
Monere starts with regular Conflux starting army.
Gaia - Planeswalker
Speciality: Pixies (Pixies and Sprites have +2 attack and +2 health.)
Secondary skills: Offence + Luck
Starts with 3 stacks of Pixies
Ventus - Planeswalker
Speciality: Air elementals (Air and Storm Elementals have +2 defence)
Secondary skills: Luck + Tactics
Starts with 3 stacks of Air elementals.
Bellum - Planeswalker
Speciality: Tactics (each lvl of Tactics have +1 hex row.)
Secondary skills: Tactics + Scouting
Arcana - Planeswalker
Speciality - Magic Arbalest (increases magic damage done)
Secondary skills: Warfare + Estates
Domenic - Elementalist
Speciality: Ignite
Secondary skills: Wisdom + Fire magic
Cove
Jeremy has Warfare instead of Artillery.
New map objects:
Librarian
Gives hero Spell book for free + random lvl 1 spell. Object vanishes after been picked up, even if hero already had the book and/or the given spell.
Bard
The reward given depends from your hero's gender.
If the hero is male, Bard sings about your courage and increases attack or defence by 1 and gives +1 morale until next battle.
If the hero is female, Bard sings about your wisdom and beauty and increases Power or Knowledge by 1 and your hero regains some of it's lost mana. Vanishes after been picked up.
Magic Depot
Sells Magic Abralest, Plague Tent and Potion Carry with normal prices to the visiting hero.
Siegemaster's Workshop
Sells Trebutchet, Command Tent and Weapon Cart with normal prices to the visiting hero.
New arifacts:
Sigil of Banishment
- Worn in other slot.
- Major artifact
No player can summon any elementals during battle.
Emblem of the Eye
- Worn in "other" slot
- Minor
Gives your hero a 50% chance to learn any 1-4 level spell used in combat.
Changes to the existing artifacts:
Charm of Mana 1 -> 3 mana regen per day.
Talisman of Mana - > 4 mana regen per day.
Mystic Orb of Mana -> 5 mana regen per day.
They're not currently useless, but I just wish they we're slighty less bad.
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Alyx182008
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 14, 2020 07:34 AM |
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Rimgrabber said:
Re: Plundering - I don't think it's necessary for this to only work on big important fights. I envision it functioning similar to the skill in H5 where the amount of resources is scaled based on how much XP you earn from the battle. Maybe early game neutrals just give you like 200 gold, which isn't a lot but is still helpful on higher difficulties.
My problem with gaining resources from fights with any wandering creatures is that you're gonna have plenty of them throughout the game, and the money will stack up very fast. If the first battles on a map give you 200 gold, that's already a lot, considering you're already fighting creatures that are guarding something, and thus giving you access to a reward already. WoG actually has this as a feature, where defeated monsters give you some resources, and I had to disable it because I found that things just grew out of control.
One thing I'd do maybe, is make it that fights with monsters give half the gold a fight with an enemy hero does. But I'm not sure if HotA could implement this.
Quote: Re: Irresistible Magic - Another one I think I explained poorly. I was referring to Golem-type resistance rather than dwarf-type resistance, but I was also referring to magical immunities. You want to cast implosion on that Black Dragon? Go ahead, you can still deal 70% of the damage to it. Want to blind the Vampire Lords? Go ahead, it won't last the full duration but it will be enough to be worth the cast. I actually worry about this one the most considering how OP Conflux already is, but like the Rampart ability, I wanted to make Elementalists viable as a main hero. Magic heroes don't get much love I thought this skill + Dungeon's skill would make Warlocks and Elementalists at least worth considering.
I was afraid you might mean immune creatures too. Reducing a Black Dragon to only 30% resistant to spells is way too much. I'd personally go with Diablo 2's approach at "breaking immunities". Let me explain. In Diablo 2, any monster with more than 100% resistance to an element is considered immune to that element. There are of course skills to reduce monster resistances, but once they reach immune status, these skills only work at 20% efficiency. So following these mechanics, your skill would only reduce Black Dragon resistances by 14% instead of 70%. You can tweak the handicap to skill efficiency for immune creatures, but I find it a lot more fair for this skill to not work as well for creatures that are not only resistant, but completely immune to spells.
As a side note, I'm wondering if this skill could work for Tower too. maybe the Wizards not only found ways to make Golems resistant to spells, but found ways to reduce resistances too. Considering how good Conflux is with Armageddon, maybe adding to that power, by making even immune enemies vulnerable, really isn't a good idea.
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted May 14, 2020 09:08 AM |
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Some very nice suggestions from Hourglass and Rimgrabber but you guys are very deep in, let's call it "WoG territory".
The ideas of Breaking Immunities and specialized Warmachines serves me as a good inspiration, thanks
A dedicated scripter could implement all this in a few weeks of work and it would give an acceptable result. But even if served you guys on a silver tablet you would probably not play it because this cannot be done based on the official HotA mod.
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P4R4D0X0N
Famous Hero
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posted May 14, 2020 08:02 PM |
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Yeah most of them are WoG... Soccery for example is quite okay at least if you PvP early game same goes for damage of spells, granted in month 3 or something its obviously useless.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted May 14, 2020 08:03 PM |
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P4R4D0X0N said: Yeah most of them are WoG... Soccery for example is quite okay at least if you PvP early game same goes for damage of spells, granted in month 3 or something its obviously useless.
Soccery... Hmmm...
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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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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted May 14, 2020 08:17 PM |
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RerryR said: Some very nice suggestions from Hourglass and Rimgrabber but you guys are very deep in, let's call it "WoG territory".
While I understand what you mean, it's not like Hota hasn't been "radical" in some areas. Basically an overwhelming minority "asked" for Spell research/Interference. Nowadays most players are fine with those changes, but it's pretty much only because we got used to them.
RerryR said:
The ideas of specialized Warmachines serves me as a good inspiration, thanks
You're welcome, glad if I can give some inspiration!=)
RerryR said:
A dedicated scripter could implement all this in a few weeks of work and it would give an acceptable result. But even if served you guys on a silver tablet you would probably not play it because this cannot be done based on the official HotA mod.
I'm not sure what you're exactly referring with "this cannot be done in Hota." To my knowledge there are multiple areas where they've done the "impossible."
Well, one shoulnd't be surprised if people want something for Hota especially. Switching to another platfrom would left people out of so many good things Hota offers.
P4R4D0X0N said: Yeah most of them are WoG... Soccery for example is quite okay at least if you PvP early game same goes for damage of spells, granted in month 3 or something its obviously useless.
I'm not sure how Sorcery is any good now? Note that if you have Sorcery, you don't have something else you would actually want to have.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted May 14, 2020 09:17 PM |
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"This cannot be done in HotA" means the guys simply won't do it. I spoke to some members in their team, and I have to say, they really won't change the game like that (or too much). Only quality-of-life improvements mostly, like Spell Research, and new exciting stuff only with new factions or just like it was with Interference. Chances for a new spell are also slim.
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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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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted May 14, 2020 11:20 PM |
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FirePaladin said: "This cannot be done in HotA" means the guys simply won't do it.
Well, what can I say. I made a bunch of suggestions, ofc there's not a chance that all of them would be included, if that's what you mean.
FirePaladin said:
I spoke to some members in their team, and I have to say, they really won't change the game like that (or too much). Only quality-of-life improvements mostly, like Spell Research, and new exciting stuff only with new factions or just like it was with Interference. Chances for a new spell are also slim.
I'm not sure what devs did you speak to, but even now, they're planning on changing multiple secondary skills, and according to the man himself, few of them will need big changes. Personally, I feel more skills are about to get the Resistance-treatment.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted May 14, 2020 11:43 PM |
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Yes, but they will still be very similar and all of that.
And as mentioned before, the Resistance treatment is an exception. After all, Interference is pretty similar as a concept.
Well, it's pretty late at me.
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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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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted May 15, 2020 12:09 AM |
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FirePaladin said: Yes, but they will still be very similar and all of that.
I actually belive that changes to some of skills will be quite big. And by big I mean the improved skills will introduce new mechanics, and those new mechanics will likely be the reason you actually will even consider taking them. For example, as Pathfinding is on the list, and we know it cannot simply be buffed by increasing the numbers, eventually it will get some sort of side ability.
Really looking forward how they're going to tackle the issues related to ballistics, First Aid and Eagle Eye.
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