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| Thread: Ways in which Heroes of Might and Magic IV might have worked as a worthy successor |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Gandalf196
Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
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posted March 28, 2021 03:42 PM |
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Ways in which Heroes of Might and Magic IV might have worked as a worthy successor
- First and foremost, heroes in battles is cool and all, but it doesn’t fit the classic Heroes formula – it works really well in Master of Magic and Age of Wonders, but there are no stacks there. In my opinion, we have two main problems here: one, in the beginning and through the mid-game, heroes can be easily wiped by a stack of powerful units and two, when heroes get to the point that they can one-shot a stack of dragons, it just feels wrong. So, possible solution:
King’s bounty based leadership system: one hero is chosen by the player as the commander of a particular army. This hero’s ability to command troops is directly proportional to their leadership attribute. For instance, let’s suppose squires ‘cost’ 20 leadership and angels ‘cost’ 500 leadership. If the hero commanding an army has its leadership attribute equal to 1000, he can have no more than 50 squires and 2 angels in his army.
- Second, the skill system – the philosophy here is really interesting, ‘you are what you choose to be’. Well, it’s right in a certain sense, no doubt. However, once you realize that means a knight (a class that starts with leadership skill) is as strong as a cleric in melee combat, you come to the conclusion (right?) that something was missing here and, tell you what, I may know what’s not there and should be – innate talents, genetics, whatever. The point is, a knight choose that particular path, because he has potential to develop those skills further, which entails (doesn’t it) being physically fit, learning how to command troops, etc. So, in practical terms, I propose:
Attribute based system that is tied to starting class (it need not be the old attack, defense, spell power and knowledge), it could something very RPG-like (STR, DEX, INT…)
Therefore, a knight, for instance, may choose to learn life magic, but he will not be remotely as powerful as cleric, even if he has the same secondary skill levels.
- Third, but related to the second one – the advanced classes. This was a really interesting idea implemented in the laziest way possible. If I were to design them, I would not simply distribute + x, +y%, etc. bonuses. I don’t have a general principle to guide me here, but I’d like to illustrate my line of thought with examples:
Dark Priest (light and dark magic): ‘knowing life and death makes the hero a pariah to both living and undead’ – the hero loses some of his leadership and is no longer influenced by morale, but any time he casts a buff a random debuff will be applied to a random enemy and vice-versa;
Beastmaster (nature magic and combat): ‘a druid who spend his days studying the ways of nature and commanding beasts’: gives the hero the ability to bond with stacks of animals: the damage one takes is shared by both. Any beneficial spell casted on a bonded unit is casted on the other bonded unit too.
- The magic system: it is really good. Arguably, the best in the series, but, in my opinion, could be improved. For instance, the lack of damaging spells for life, death and nature can be frustrating. One simple remedy to this would be to include a sixth school of magic (named Arcane?), a ‘neutral’ school that could be learned by anyone with the new wisdom skill (yes, I think that heroes starting with a single secondary skill is a bad decision). A school with general-purpose spells, like magic arrow, dispel, etc. Life, death and nature are mostly fine. Chaos is not chaos for God’s sake. That is destruction. And order is everything but order (in fact, order could be the name of the life faction). I’d rename it as sorcery (or wizardry?) and rework some spells and all would be fine. Also, given the metamagic theme of sorcery, I would position them as the polar opposites of barbarians. That is, we are no longer talking about a circle, but a double cone: in the middle, at four opposite cardinal points there are Life, Death, Nature and Destruction. Barbarians are at the vertex of the top cone and Wizards (sorcery) are at the vertex of the bottom one.
These are the main pillars I’d change to build a solid game. Of course the atrocious graphics, the bad camera angle in combat (not to mention the ‘squares’), daily growth, beyond stupid siege combat would be reworked too.
Edit: I forgot to talk about heroes dying. I think it should have been scrapped entirely - the player chooses whether a hero will take part in combat a la heroes IV or a la heroes III. Should a 'fighting' hero fall in battle, he's brought back at the end of combat with 1 HP (if you win) or is eliminated (or captured, as in Heroes IV) if you lose. 'Spellcasting' heroes, on the other hand, cannot be targeted by attacks or spells, but can cast magic and will lose combat if no creatures or fighting heroes are present by their side.
Potions of immortality are another lazy implementation. Out with them.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted March 28, 2021 04:10 PM |
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Making Nagas look attractive yet again would be a first step.
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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 March 28, 2021 06:33 PM |
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IMO the lack of random map generator was a big deal when I was still interested about the game. I usually really wanted a "kill all enemies" type of scenario, so after playing a while there wasn't really options in that regard, and you just had to repeat playing the most solid ones, maybe simply changing color or faction, to at least get something new out out of the map.
Obviously, I also really wanted to see upgraded units, and still think it was a huge mistake by the developers to left out that feature. The towns would have become slightly more interesting, but not only that, but now there are also way less different types of enemies to fight with because no such feature ever existed.
Not a huge deal, but this is also something that bothered me in the past: they did put very low effort on the town screens: just google and see how they all go with the same "hill-oriented" view of the city, and there is basically no interaction between any of the buildings, they're just there, at best some sort of road connects them.
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The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
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posted March 28, 2021 07:28 PM |
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Creature abilities were also done almost perfectly, IMO. Every creature felt totally unique, but it wasn’t overwhelming, like in H6.
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iliveinabox05
Honorable
Famous Hero
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posted March 28, 2021 10:52 PM |
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Gandalf196 said:
Of course the atrocious graphics
Hourglass said:
Not a huge deal, but this is also something that bothered me in the past: they did put very low effort on the town screens: just google and see how they all go with the same "hill-oriented" view of the city, and there is basically no interaction between any of the buildings, they're just there, at best some sort of road connects them.
Graphics and townscreens can be easily replaced if one was so inclined 
To be more clear: generating the new stuff isn't easy, but actually converting them into H4 resources and getting them into the game is not.
Hourglass said:
IMO the lack of random map generator was a big deal when I was still interested about the game. I usually really wanted a "kill all enemies" type of scenario, so after playing a while there wasn't really options in that regard, and you just had to repeat playing the most solid ones, maybe simply changing color or faction, to at least get something new out out of the map.
Maybe one day.. I know it's probably too late at this point, but the ability to programmatically create a map file and put objects on it is already possible. It would just be coming up with the algorithms to create different areas based on number of players, etc. Not easy, but the groundwork is already done.
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zydar
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 28, 2021 11:25 PM |
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All NWC Homm games is great
For me the major drawback of Homm 4 is can't upgrade creatures, this is step down
The town building is restricted, you can't recruit all possible creatures from the same town, the merger betwen inferno & necropolis is bad idea
This make Homm 4 feel short of creatures variation, reduced, restricted, limited
The two expansion didn't add new town type, too bad
uniting town type/combining two realm in one town, is mistake
this make Homm4 like have no room to grow to add new town,
because possibility to add new town type is what make Homm3 life till now
But Homm4 still great game, all atmosfer, breath, NWC magical touch still there, and thats better than what Ubi did
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iliveinabox05
Honorable
Famous Hero
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posted March 28, 2021 11:43 PM |
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zydar said:
The two expansion didn't add new town type, too bad
uniting town type/combining two realm in one town, is mistake
this make Homm4 like have no room to grow to add new town,
because possibility to add new town type is what make Homm3 life till now
To be fair, you can add towns to HoMM 3 because there are so many more people that work on modding that game.
I'm confident that HoMM 4 would have the ability to add new towns and creatures if there were more people working together to mod the game.
The dll method should work just as well as it does anywhere else. I just have too much on my plate still to give this route a try.
I do agree with you on the upgrading of units. Definitely miss that mechanic.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted March 29, 2021 12:00 AM |
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You still can't really add new towns even in HoMM3, though.
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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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Jagulars
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 29, 2021 02:36 PM |
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Edited by Jagulars at 14:44, 29 Mar 2021.
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I agree with the leadership point system. Would make the game so much more interesting than just hoarding as much creatures as possible.
I disagree with direct spending of attribute points. Takes away that charm of indirect development of your hero. The issue with caster classes being as strong as fighter classes can easily be solved with equipment that suits one or the other, or simply by giving basic combat to every fighter class.
I agree that the advanced classes are rushed, horribly imbalanced and not always very interesting.
I think the magic system is fine. The fact that some towns are not focused on damaging spells is more interesting than every town being an all-rounder in spells.
I like the graphics. I have no problem with the small squares. The siege is also interesting.
About upgrading units, I think that the more a game relies on upgrades to be fun, the more shallow its mechanics generally are. A good game relies on interesting dynamics between features rather than simple "this is better than this so go get it". Why do you think mobile games have so much upgrades?
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Jagulars
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 29, 2021 02:40 PM |
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iliveinabox05 said:
To be more clear: generating the new stuff isn't easy, but actually converting them into H4 resources and getting them into the game is not.
)There is H4 Resource Editor, you know?
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted March 29, 2021 03:01 PM |
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Only I agree with random map generation and AI. But pornographic map picture and players create the victory theirself.
I planned creating a new impossible map and description says "very difficulty as other kingdoms and countries". I created Gen. Guile (HotA), now's Heroes 4 (WoG/ERA), then missing maps are H4 and SoD. But players want be XL size. I've not time now.
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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iliveinabox05
Honorable
Famous Hero
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posted March 29, 2021 05:22 PM |
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Jagulars said:
There is H4 Resource Editor, you know?
Yes, I'm the one who wrote the program 
I just meant that the hard part is now on the person creating animations, townscreens, or just the assets in general.
The H4 Resource Editor just makes it easy to get them inserted into H4 objects and into the game.
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Jagulars
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 29, 2021 05:41 PM |
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iliveinabox05 said:
I just meant that the hard part is now on the person creating animations, townscreens, or just the assets in general.
The H4 Resource Editor just makes it easy to get them inserted into H4 objects and into the game.
Yes, I thought that your comment was confusing. I wasn't sure if it was a typo.
Thank you for writing the program. It is the best thing that has happened to H4.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted April 01, 2021 09:38 AM |
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No heroes in combat would just not be H IV, it's what it makes the game unique, and lets you make hero parties fighting creatures, so no removing that for me.
Remove that and the one unique feature of the game that makes it stand is gone forever and H4 will be forgotten just like H6 and 7.
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Gandalf196
Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
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posted April 01, 2021 03:13 PM |
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NimoStar said:
No heroes in combat would just not be H IV, it's what it makes the game unique, and lets you make hero parties fighting creatures, so no removing that for me.
Remove that and the one unique feature of the game that makes it stand is gone forever and H4 will be forgotten just like H6 and 7.
I did not advocate for removing heroes from battle, au con·traire
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Dingran
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 05, 2021 09:33 AM |
- penalty applied by Galaad on 05 Apr 2021. |
Edited by Galaad at 09:37, 05 Apr 2021.
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I am a stupid robot.
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Baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted April 05, 2021 11:08 AM |
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Absolutly first. AI... IS STUPID STUPID TRAGICALLY STUPID! Its worst AI for H1-4. AI from H1 will make game 500% better.
Fighting hero destroing 5 dragons by one tourn. I like it opposite to a lot of players. We must feel hero growth! At lvl 1 only 20 sprites are danger but at lvl 25 you dont affraid 20 black dragons! You feel power growth. Its fantasy.
In my opinion worstest thing is that you must develop defence skill in all cases because if not your hero die in each battle. I think that givinig starting 200 hp for hero and 20 per lvl is possible even in present H4.
Skills. Very good system. It sholud be modyfied by reducing skill pack to 3 skills. Now we have 9 packs to poor. 3sk packs give us 12 options and more because we can develop necromancy diplomacy etc as new packs so we can have even 15 packs and more options.
Magic. Wonderfull system! Only more schools is needed. And only one guild per city! May be common guild with various schools.
Units. Maybe experience system. You can boost statistics you want. Each unit should have lvl bar to see how strong this unit is. Upgrades may be not. But more units!
Unit skills are very good.
Stats: att,def,luk,mor,resis,speed,initiative. To boost speed should be system that 10 points give 1 movement because speed numbers are too small for eg. boosting during 10 lvls.
Commanding points as Kings Bounty absolutly!
City. Of course castle siege in H4 is a great scandal. Absoltly towers catapult and rest must be! But plus gate destroing and unit shooting towers as in H4.
Castle buldings the same. Must be additional growth eg 25,50,75,100%. Income 500,1000,1500,2000 because better is if captuiring gold mine dont give 100% gold growth. Too much.
We can have 5 lvl unit system and it think that one building is enough but we must sign which unit we want. If city has 15 units we can have 3 units each level. Only one to recruit. 8 cities x 15 units 120 units is good number. And only 40 unit generators. After capturing generator or in city we can recruit unit which we want as nature portal works. Its very good solution. If we recruit all one unit we have 0 each unit.
Battlefield is horrible. No more isometric view! Units view like Heroes III and can be sprites. I dont feel in H3 that battlefield is weird and not natural looking. May be hexes. But most importat is possibility to calculate movement. We cant do this in HIV.
Map look in H4 is very good.
...
Im not H3 fanatic. But all H4 mistakes are sad. We want this game as new chapter for H4.
And alsolutly H5 graphic!
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TheUnknown
Known Hero
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posted April 12, 2021 12:19 AM |
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To me it is a more than a worthy successor, but of course there are things that could've made it a bit worthier.
- the AI, but this is for any game, not just H-IV
- very few of the visual designs like the Naga
- not having useless skills like seamanship on maps with no water/ships (or maybe have them with some alternate effect like seamanship on land getting bonus wood when capturing wood mines etc.)
- better advanced classes (the idea is great it's just that only few are powerful and many are useless)
- better handling of magic resistance (i understand reducing spells damage by 50% from wards and even from skills to a certain degree, but having full magic immunity or a chance to fully resist a spell is just too much of a gambling logic for me, like hey, lets make this hero immune to arrows or melee damage, just imagine 90% minotaur block or 100% if they have grandmaster)
I think equilibris did a very good job with the changes they did, I only don't fully agree with the additional bonuses per level approach for heroes.
Other than that, they made the game a lot more worthy.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted April 12, 2021 02:41 PM |
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@baronus
H4 AI isn't stupid. Yes H3, because H3 AI has bonuses, H4 AIs haven't bonuses and true hard strategy. If you create AI scripts, it does well. Your Event traps don't help you in H4.
A new map: Boar Festival, and also normal map but impossible AIs are coming. Who is player likes losing game from AI. Those for him/her.
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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Baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted April 12, 2021 04:37 PM |
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I mean that AI never attack and is sitting in city all game. If you want good AI try H1 and H2 and compare.
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