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| Thread: [Official Thread] HoMM 3: Horn of the Abyss - Ideas and Suggestions |  This Popular Thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 ... 40 80 120 160 200 ... 205 206 207 208 209 · «PREV |
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Thallasmourne
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 14, 2025 03:51 PM |
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Grails ideas:
1) Castle
Grail gives constant +3 morale to all player's units unstead of +2. Moreover, player's morale can't go lower than +1 no matter what.
Why: This change is aimed to make such a hard thing to get (Grail) viable enough to at least consider its installation in Castle in comparison to just finding Pendant of Courage.
2) Rampart
Same as Castle, but it's a Luck bonus instead of Morale.
Why: same reason as stated in Castle.
3) Tower
Let it keep its "map hack" but instead of very situational Knowledge Siege bonus, make it so that if the Grail is installed in Tower, every hero visiting a Mages Guild is offered to buy an "upgraded" Spell Book which makes all spells cheaper (let the devs decide actual mana discount). BUT there is only ONE special Spell Book available, so player should choose a recipient wisely.
4) Dungeon
Option 1: If the Grail is installed in Dungeon, every hero visiting a Mages Guild is offered to buy an "upgraded" Spell Book which makes all spells ignore any kind of magic immunity.
Option 2: "upgraded" Spell Book allows random uncontrollable double casts from a strict list of minor spells (for balance sake). All uncontrollable casts are mana-free.
For example: A hero chooses to cast an Implosion on enemy unit, then automatically and uncontrollably casts Bless on their random ally unit or Weakness on random enemy unit.
In any of these 2 options there is only ONE special Spell Book available, so player should choose a recipient wisely.
5) Stronghold
The Grail offers a bonus which allows to boost your Offense and Archery skills beyond normal restrictions (basically works like Soul Prison). Let the devs decide how strong that bonus should be (from +5% to 10% or more).
6) Fortress
Same as Stronghold, but with Armorer and Interference instead of Offense and Archery. Let the devs decide how strong that bonus should be (from +5% to 10% or more).
Why: Changes of these towns' grails are aimed to replace insanely situational Siege bonuses, which are outdated from my humble point of view, while a half of other towns get much more flexible bonuses.
7) Inferno
Grail boosts demonology allowing Pit Lords to raise demons from enemy corpses too. Let the devs decide if any necessary balance tweaks are needed in this case. I believe demon raising from enemy corpses should be x1.5-x2 weaker than normal demon farming formula.
Why: From my humble point of view, original Grail tried to boost demonology too, though it was designed for quite long game sessions to accumulate its effect. My variant is a speed-up option.
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SirIronfist
Known Hero
King of the ogres
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posted April 16, 2025 06:58 PM |
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Wouldn't it be a great idea to have some sort of a yearly map making contest? The reward for the best three maps could be for them to become part of the HoTa canon. They could even get their own little icon in the map menu. I feel like there's a lot of wasted potential in the map making space, where so many people are silently creating things that end up disappearing among thousands of other maps in various archives.
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 17, 2025 07:40 AM |
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Neutral Creature Resistance: Neutral creature clearance is a bit dull and not risky at the moment. And almost always you have better outcomes than auto combat. With increasing difficulty level neutral creatures should have neutral resistance added to their stats.
at Hard Difficulty [+%5 resistance]
at Expert Difficulty [+%10 resistance]
at Impossible Difficulty [+%15 resistance]
This would cut down mass spell usage and reliance of some overpowered tactics. Imagine 1 of out of 6 blind spells you cast is a misfire. Or 1 stack does not get mass slowed down out of 6 stacks. You would have to adapt to changing situations which should be what a strategy game all about. There would be more risks involved in fighting or not fighting.
It could be toggle on/off at the start of the game which wouldn't bother other players if they don't want this extra thing like tournament rules.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted April 17, 2025 08:40 AM |
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Grell said:
Or instead, the mass spells could work with a radius area. Similar as Berserk or Inferno works.
Basic: target 1 unit.
Advanced: All creatures in a 3 hex radius affected.
Expert: All creatures in a 4 hex radius affected.
With this, even tactis would have a different aproach in the strategy of the battles.
Berserk is a single-stack spell, and Inferno is a damage spell, so neither quite fits the bill. A way it could be done would be to make all such spells single target only, but allow the player to cast them 2/3/4 times per round for Basic/Advanced/Expert proficiency in that school. You could also make it so that Sorcery allows you to cast them an extra 1/2/3 times per round as well.
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted April 17, 2025 05:39 PM |
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MattII said:
Berserk is a single-stack spell
Berserk becomes an AOE spell at advanced or expert level.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 17, 2025 07:04 PM |
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Yep and that's the best and only real reason to choose Fire Magic.
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gnollking
Supreme Hero
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posted April 17, 2025 07:14 PM |
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Phoenix4ever said:
Yep and that's the best and only real reason to choose Fire Magic.
Mass Curse is also excellent.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted April 17, 2025 07:25 PM |
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Mass curse is good but it's definitely the weakest of the level 1 mass spells. Which is a pretty common theme of fire magic. It's nice to have but it's pretty rare for it to be preferable to air or water magic.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted April 17, 2025 10:44 PM |
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MurlocAggroB said:
Berserk becomes an AOE spell at advanced or expert level.
Ah, okay. Still, this isn't really ideal for most mass spells, as it would undoubtedly affect both your own and enemy units at the same time.
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LordCameron 
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted April 18, 2025 06:50 AM |
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SirIronfist said:
Wouldn't it be a great idea to have some sort of a yearly map making contest? The reward for the best three maps could be for them to become part of the HoTa canon. They could even get their own little icon in the map menu. I feel like there's a lot of wasted potential in the map making space, where so many people are silently creating things that end up disappearing among thousands of other maps in various archives.
Could just cut out the middle man and put gnoll king's maps in.
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 19, 2025 12:11 PM |
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MattII said:
MurlocAggroB said:
Berserk becomes an AOE spell at advanced or expert level.
Ah, okay. Still, this isn't really ideal for most mass spells, as it would undoubtedly affect both your own and enemy units at the same time.
You could easily say that only "friendly" creatures are affected.
The idea is not to make it "better", it should be more "balanced".
I support mass spells having berseker template it would help a lot.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted April 19, 2025 08:30 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 20:34, 19 Apr 2025.
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Syth1984 said:
You could easily say that only "friendly" creatures are affected.
The idea is not to make it "better", it should be more "balanced".
I support mass spells having berseker template it would help a lot.
How is that more balanced than what we have now? Because mass spells will affect fewer stacks at once? If you're going to the trouble of reworking how units are selected (and you're assuming that area-spells like Berserk can even be programmed to differentiate friend from foe), why not go whole hog and make mass spells entirely separate from single-stack ones?
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 20, 2025 10:48 AM |
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MattII said:
Syth1984 said:
You could easily say that only "friendly" creatures are affected.
The idea is not to make it "better", it should be more "balanced".
I support mass spells having berseker template it would help a lot.
How is that more balanced than what we have now? Because mass spells will affect fewer stacks at once? If you're going to the trouble of reworking how units are selected (and you're assuming that area-spells like Berserk can even be programmed to differentiate friend from foe), why not go whole hog and make mass spells entirely separate from single-stack ones?
This opens more strategic options than seperating the spell into single/mass spell.
It is more balanced since you cannot effect every single creature on the battle map. Positioning and clustering becomes important while casting; As an example you wouldn't be casting slow on two seperate creatures on different parts of the battle map. Or you would have to put your "haste" effected creatures together to get the max of it while making them open for area effect spells as well(which is a strategic trade off).Or while fighting neutrals you have to lure them into a cluster to get the best out of slow. So many possibilities and it promotes player skill and strategy.
In conclusion yes it is more balanced and it would be more balanced than having mass spells as different spells actually.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted April 20, 2025 10:04 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 12:13, 21 Apr 2025.
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Syth1984 said:
This opens more strategic options than seperating the spell into single/mass spell.
Really? How?
Quote:
It is more balanced since you cannot effect every single creature on the battle map. Positioning and clustering becomes important while casting; As an example you wouldn't be casting slow on two seperate creatures on different parts of the battle map. Or you would have to put your "haste" effected creatures together to get the max of it while making them open for area effect spells as well(which is a strategic trade off).Or while fighting neutrals you have to lure them into a cluster to get the best out of slow. So many possibilities and it promotes player skill and strategy.
In conclusion yes it is more balanced and it would be more balanced than having mass spells as different spells actually.
You still have the issue of a fixed cost for a variable effect. This doesn't fix that, it just reduces the problem slightly. As for the other stuff, great, great, provided the battlefield actually allows that.
My own idea for 'mass spells' is not to make them mass, but to allow them to be cast multiple times, depending on the skill the hero has with magic of that school.
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 24, 2025 09:21 AM |
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MattII said:
Syth1984 said:
This opens more strategic options than seperating the spell into single/mass spell.
Really? How?
Quote:
It is more balanced since you cannot effect every single creature on the battle map. Positioning and clustering becomes important while casting; As an example you wouldn't be casting slow on two seperate creatures on different parts of the battle map. Or you would have to put your "haste" effected creatures together to get the max of it while making them open for area effect spells as well(which is a strategic trade off).Or while fighting neutrals you have to lure them into a cluster to get the best out of slow. So many possibilities and it promotes player skill and strategy.
In conclusion yes it is more balanced and it would be more balanced than having mass spells as different spells actually.
You still have the issue of a fixed cost for a variable effect. This doesn't fix that, it just reduces the problem slightly. As for the other stuff, great, great, provided the battlefield actually allows that.
My own idea for 'mass spells' is not to make them mass, but to allow them to be cast multiple times, depending on the skill the hero has with magic of that school.
Cost was never the mass issue here duration and reliability is. You cannot escape from "slow" but you could escape from meteor shower or mass berserk by positioning (partially I mean).
Multiple casts is an interesting choice. True that it would increase the spell cost which is welcome. But I am not sure this version is quite there yet.
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 24, 2025 09:30 AM |
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MattII said:
Syth1984 said:
This opens more strategic options than separating the spell into single/mass spell.
Really? How?
Quote:
It is more balanced since you cannot effect every single creature on the battle map. Positioning and clustering becomes important while casting; As an example you wouldn't be casting slow on two separate creatures on different parts of the battle map. Or you would have to put your "haste" effected creatures together to get the max of it while making them open for area effect spells as well(which is a strategic trade off).Or while fighting neutrals you have to lure them into a cluster to get the best out of slow. So many possibilities and it promotes player skill and strategy.
In conclusion yes it is more balanced and it would be more balanced than having mass spells as different spells actually.
You still have the issue of a fixed cost for a variable effect. This doesn't fix that, it just reduces the problem slightly. As for the other stuff, great, great, provided the battlefield actually allows that.
My own idea for 'mass spells' is not to make them mass, but to allow them to be cast multiple times, depending on the skill the hero has with magic of that school.
Cost was never the mass issue here duration and reliability is. You cannot escape from "slow" but you could escape from meteor shower or mass berserk by positioning (partially I mean).
Multiple casts is an interesting choice. True that it would increase the spell cost which is welcome. But I am not sure this version is quite there yet.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted April 24, 2025 02:18 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 13:16, 25 Apr 2025.
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Well with my idea, you'd have to have either the relevant Magic school secondary skill, or Sorcery to be able to cast a spell at more than one target, and either one would only allow you four castings, even at expert, (though expert of both would allow you a full seven castings). Yes, you don't get it limited to one area, but I don't like the idea of an 'area' spell that only works on one side or the other. Area damage spells and Berserk hit everyone, regardless of faction, which is how area spells should be IMO.
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purerogue3
Known Hero
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posted April 25, 2025 05:15 PM |
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LordCameron said:
When I rebalance spells in my own modded version I like to change how the schools scale.
So water stays about the same
Fire scales with school, so expert is way higher than basic in terms of damage
Air scales with power so school is less important but high power will give you crazy strong lightning bolts
Earth starts strong, but scales slower with both schools and power.
My thoughts:
water is fixed damage, +x for spec.
spell power reduces COST instead (halve cumulative per 10SP)
earth is SP*n dmg, +x for spec
air is SP*n, *x for spec
fire is SP*n, -x mana cost for spec
this basically utlities the gamut of mathematical possibilties
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