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| Thread: Wishes for various game-play alterations... | |
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted April 28, 2002 01:01 AM |
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Edited By: Djive on 7 May 2002
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Wishes for various game-play alterations...
OR... How I wish it would have worked instead...
I'm a bit disappointed in how the level-up system and hero Xp table and hero creature balance works in the game.
To address these issues I've written down some thing I'd like to have seen instead of how they did things. Of course, other things also needs to be addressed to make things balanced again but the below would be a good start IMO.
(And I don't seriously think 3do/nwc will consider my proposals, but I'm still free to make wishes.)
Of course, I can already see that some people would just hate these changes but for people who like better control in developing heroes and more strategical choices this idea might be a good one.
So this is what I suggest:
* I would reduce the importance of Combat Skill and let the Hero defence/attack skills level up much more smoothly.
* I would let Heroes reach higher levels and revamp the Xp level-up chart.
* I would revamp level-up options so characters can specialize better.
* I would add a hero speciality to tailor your hero and expanded benefits for the advanced classes.
* I would require a certain hero level for higher skill expertise. (And to be honest if I had had this constraint I'd probably want to throw out some of the magic secondary skills and replace them with better ones. The purpose with this and these skills are the same. To prevent low level heroes to learn 5th level spells.)
Combat
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Right now Hero specialization suffers because you're offered Combat so often and also because a fully developed combat hero becomes too strong too quickly.
My suggestion on how to change this
Let the level of the hero decide the basic defence value for melee and range. Heroes should start up a bit stronger than now, so about 15 would be appropriate. Then simply increase this value with 1 for every level the Hero gain.
The basic attack value for melee and ranged should work the same way. That is you get +1 per level, but for these you start with a value of 10.
The secondary skills for melee and archery would still allow you to do more damage to monsters as well as removing penalties. Grand Master should be toned down to something like First Strike, two Attacks and divide enemy values by 2, but not take them below 10.
Since the Combat no longer protects the Hero to the some extent I'd let the Combat skill influence the number of hit-points the Hero gains at level up. The increase is as follows:
Basic: +2 HP/level, Advanced: +4 HP/level, Expert: +6 HP/level, Master: +8 HP/level and Grand Master: +10 HP/level.
Also the bonus apply directly at the level-up. The bonus does not get recalculated when you increase the Combat skill, but you will enjoy the bonus when you level-up next time. This will give you more hitpoints if you develope your Combat skill early than if you defer it to later.
Xp table
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I guess all of you know which one is the real one. I've seen similar level-up tables in other games and I think they work well. An exponential level-up table on the other side doesn't work. The really big difference would be seen if you continued to show the Xp needed to reach a little higher level. It will take some effort to level up, but at least you don't need an insane amount of Xp. As you can see if a Hero would expect to reach level 25 before, the hero would now reach level 30 instead. It's difficult to get beyond level 25 in a scenario, but I guess it can be done if you keep playing. The really epic campaign would probably have heroes around level 50, and this without planting 20 Trees of Knowledge on the map.
1 0 0
2 500 1000
3 1500 2000
4 3000 3200
5 5000 4600
6 7500 6200
7 10500 8100
8 14000 10300
9 18000 12900
10 22500 16000
11 27500 19700
12 33000 24100
13 39000 29300
14 45500 35500
15 52500 42900
16 60000 51700
17 68000 62200
18 76500 74800
19 85500 89900
20 95000 108000
21 105000 129700
22 115500 155700
23 126500 186900
24 138000 224300
25 150000 269100 +12000 : +45000
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26 165000 322800
27 185000 387200
28 210000 464400
29 240000 557000
30 275000 668100
31 315000 801400
32 360000 961300
33 410000 1153100
Also: The game difficulty should not increase monster stacks and reduce Xp per monster. They really have to come up with something else for hard difficulty.
– Among the suggestions.
* Let the Ai take fewer losses when fighting neutral monsters. This can be done for instance by counting out the combat result twice and then select the result that is best for the Ai. Players RELOAD their games, so why not give the Ai a similar capability.
* Give the Ai extra resource and money. This ensures that the Ai developes better which is a big problem with the Ai for the moment. This was how H3 worked at higher difficulty.
* Rather than giving player less Xp, I'd suggest increasing the Xp computer hero gains for defeating monster. Everyone likes beating a high-level character.
Level-up Options
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My idea for level-up would be the following. At level-up, the heroes will get +1 Attack, +1 Defence, and +5 Health. They will also get the choice between the following (rough ideas). Not sure if all of these are balanced, so numbers may need some tweaking.
+10 additional Hitpoints.
+1-2 additional damage.
+5 additional spellpoints.
+5% on spell effectiveness.
+1 Movement on the overland map.
+1 Speed in Combat.
And in addition the Hero learns one Primary/Secondary skill.
Hero Speciality.
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My idea for a hero speciality is as follows.
Magic Heroes are offered to specialize in one spell of any level. They can cast this spell at half the cost. The spell is put in the Hero's spell-book and becomes available for casting when the Hero has the required skill to cast the spell. (Thus the spell may be of a higher level than 1. Do note that it may be a wise idea to restrict specializing in some spells. It will for instance not be possible to specialize in the Demon Summoning spells.)
Might Heroes are offered to specialize in one creature. These creatures gets an extra boost when in the Heroes army. Basically, the Hero works as if (s)he had all the Tactics skills at Basic level. If the Hero already has the Tactic skill, then it works as if the Hero had the skill on one level higher.
A few more rules to specialities which may be considered.
You may only specialize heroes native to the town where you recruit them.
Specializing a Hero is optional and will increase the recruitment price with 1000 Gold.
Expertise and Level
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In order to limit heroes from getting GM skills to early, the following constraints could apply to heroes:
A hero can't learn any skill at expert level before reaching level 10.
A hero can't learn any skill at master level before reaching level 15.
A hero can't learn any skill at grand master level before reaching level 20.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Jenova
Famous Hero
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posted April 28, 2002 06:04 AM |
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Edited By: Jenova on 28 Apr 2002
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I just wanted to say Heroes don't have enough HP, even at higher levels. They should at least give the might heroes more HP when they level up. That would make a bit more sense. A barb is still too frail.
Quote:
* I would revamp level-up options so characters can specialize better.
Me too. I hate being offered combat all the time with my non-might hero.
Quote:
* I would add a hero speciality to tailor your hero and expanded benefits for the advanced classes.
Agree completely. Although it may be hard for 37 advanced classes..
Quote:
* I would require a certain hero level for higher skill expertise. (And to be honest if I had had this constraint I'd probably want to throw out some of the magic secondary skills and replace them with better ones. The purpose with this and these skills are the same. To prevent low level heroes to learn 5th level spells.)
Oh no.. Not Diablo again. The low level hero who learns 5th level spells chose to 'specialize' in spells instead of spreading his experience over multiple skills, so he should deserve to learn spells faster than others. The way it is now offers more customization than needing level requirements.
Quote:
Right now Hero specialization suffers because you're offered Combat so often and also because a fully developed combat hero becomes too strong too quickly.
For this reason, I would like to see FOUR options available on level up. Two primaries and two secondaries. I get offered combat way too often, even when I don't want it. I want another choice so I don't have to waste it on some crappy secondary skill like Summoning.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted May 08, 2002 12:40 AM |
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"I just wanted to say Heroes don't have enough HP, even at higher levels. They should at least give the might heroes more HP when they level up. That would make a bit more sense. A barb is still too frail."
With the revamped combat skill the Barbaraians will get better hitpoints. In addition to what you get from the Combat skill, it could also be possible to give certain advanced classes (with combat as one skill) a bonus to hit points.
Quote:
* I would add a hero speciality to tailor your hero and expanded benefits for the advanced classes.
"Agree completely. Although it may be hard for 37 advanced classes.."
Actually, the speciality is on a per basic class basis. It will then follow the hero for the remainder of the game. So it works like gender and alignment in that way. This means only 11 specialities needs to be considered, since there are only 11 basic classes.
"Oh no.. Not Diablo again. The low level hero who learns 5th level spells chose to 'specialize' in spells instead of spreading his experience over multiple skills, so he should deserve to learn spells faster than others. The way it is now offers more customization than needing level requirements."
Well, the current system is not bad. So this one is the least important of the changes proposed. I was thinking of perhaps removing the spellpoints skill for each of the magic skills, since extra spellpoints can now be selected at level-up instead. But then heroes would level-up too quickly in the basic magic skill. It's probably better to replace the secondary spell point skills with entirely new skills. The effectiveness skills are Ok to include as prerequisites. They make sense to have separate skills.
Quote:
Right now Hero specialization suffers because you're offered Combat so often and also because a fully developed combat hero becomes too strong too quickly.
"For this reason, I would like to see FOUR options available on level up. Two primaries and two secondaries. I get offered combat way too often, even when I don't want it. I want another choice so I don't have to waste it on some crappy secondary skill like Summoning."
I agree on combat being offered to often. The best solution is changing the combat skill so hero survivability comes from high level (primarily) and not from the combat skill. The change I'd like to see is.
1. Combat is often with the same likelihood as other skills.
2. Basic classes, get two offers (if possible) in their main skill, and one offer for a new skill.
3. Advanced classes get one offer in each of the two primary skills and one offer in a third skill.
Four skills is a bit too much. You're not always guaranteed to be able to avoid skills which you don't like.
As I mentioned in another thread I'd like to get some options when visiting an Altar of Nature magic (or that the Altar works in a predefined way so you know which skill will get improved), and the same applies for Libraries (in which case I want options on which skills I may study there.)
Moderator's note:This topic has been closed, as it refers to an older version of the game. To discuss Heroes 3, please go to Library Of Enlightenment, to discuss Heroes 4, please go to War Room Of Axeoth.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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