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| Thread: Giving active uses to Might skills/heroes - a proposal and more | |
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NimoStar
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Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted June 06, 2021 01:47 AM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 04:41, 06 Jun 2021.
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Giving active uses to Might skills/heroes - a proposal and more
Something that strikes me as badly thought in most Heroes games is how Magic is very "active" but Might is too "passive".
Take the Magic vs Might distinction in the paradigmatic Heroes 3.
Magic heroes have, even with no skills:
- Spellbook
- Dozens of unique Spells
- Four magic schools to which spells are sorted
- Mage Guilds as several structures in each town
- Spell power increases the potency of spells
- Knowledge increases the number of spells you can cast
- Map mana rechargers such as Magic Well
- Charging daily spell points
- Special terrains which interact with spells
Might heroes have...
- Passive creature attack bonus
- Passive creature defense bonus
As you can see there is a clear imbalance between what can magic do and what can might do. And I don't mean that magic is stronger (might is actually stronger in late game), but rather, that Might does nothing interesting. In fact, in H3 a might hero without magic can do nothing but stand there. Hero actions are all exclusively magic use. So literally a Might hero doesn't do anything with its turns.
- H4 solution was flawed because tactics, offense, defense and leadership are still 100% passive skills. However, at least they could combat and shoot too.
- H5+ solution was flawed because they have basically only a single attack. However, it was closer to giving their turns a use compared to H3, and there was blood magic and skills that interact with hero might attack.
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Now, there are many possible solutions, but since it's called heroes of MIGHT and Magic, I propose giving might it's due share in game complexity.
My proposition is that much as Magic heroes have a Spellbook, Might heroes should have a "Tactics book". They could learn unique tactics and strategies from the Tactical Guild of their town, that works "like spells".
Instead of Attack and Defense (which really do nothing but change a number, and they anull eachother), Might heroes could be based on Resilience and Prowess.
Resilience would be the capacity of your hero to adapt the army to changing circumstances. Adopting new tactics in combat would use Resilience points. Resilience would be full before each combat.
Prowess increases the effectiveness of the Tactics (pseudo-spells) themselves.
Offense, Defense etc. would be like water/earth/fire/etc. magics, that is to say, secondary skills that each offer a number of Tactical arrangements (this would work analogous to post-H3 magic where you actually need the skill to "cast"). Your hero could learn Offensive, Defensive, Mobile, and Diversionary tactics much as they learn different magic schools.
How would this work in practice?
Well, it is quite simple: Your hero opens their Tactics Manual for the round and the chosen tactic is applied until the next round (or you can conserve the points for later by choosing no tactic). Applying new tactics costs Resilience points. If you are out of resilience points, all tactics stop working. You could see the current tactic of the enemy army, or if they have none.
Example tactics (assume hex grid combat):
Flanking (Mobile): Your creatures get +1 speed and deal +10% damage while attacking from the enemy's lateral sides (melee and ranged). Cost: 2 resilience.
Escaping (Mobile): Your creatures get +2 speed when moving backwards towards your side of the field. They receive -10% damage from ranged attacks. Cost: 1 resilience.
Dynamic archery (Mobile): Your ranged units can move and attack in the same turn. Cost: 3 resilience.
Backstabbing (Offensive): Your creatures deal +20% melee damage when attacking enemy creatures from the back. Cost: 1 resilience.
Savagery (Offensive): Your creatures get +1 morale and +1 luck, but attack the nearest enemy target (similar to Berserk but without counting allies as valid targets). Cost: 1 resilience.
Ruthlessness (Offensive): Your creatures deal +15% melee damage, but also take +15% melee damage. Cost: 2 resilience.
Entrenching (Defensive): Your creatures receive -15% damage except from the back, but receive a -2 penalty to movement speed. Cost: 1 resilience.
Shielding (Defensive): Your creatures receive -30% damage from the front, but deal -15% damage when attacking. Cost: 2 resilience.
Resupplying (Defensive): Your creatures get the Healing ability this turn. They will heal after their action. Cost: 2 resilience.
Surprise Assault (Diversionary): Your creatures get +3 speed when moving forward towards the enemies's side of the field, but also take 25% more damage this round. Cost: 1 resilience.
Flare Arrows (Diversionary): Ranged attacks 'mark' enemy targets. Marked targets receive +25% damage from other attacks. After attacked, mark on the enemy stack lasts the rest of this round and the full next round. Cost: 1 resilience.
Shock and Awe (Diversionary): Melee attacks by your creatures have a 20% chance of stunning targets for one turn. Stunned targets do not retaliate and skip their action. Cost: 2 resilience.
Stat changes as a result of choosing Tactics for the round would get a boost (say, +10% of their normal effect per Prowess point, and 5% less penalty) according to your Prowess.
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What do you think? Woudn't this make having a Might hero that much more dynamic? Woudn't it make battles more tactical instead of the army with the most OP ATK and DEF bonus from monster hero mauling all to the death without strategy or effort? I certainly think so.
Also, you can reccomend your own new Tactics and secondary skills for this. Hey; i can't invent everything myself  
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Never changing = never improving
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted June 06, 2021 03:20 AM |
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A well thought out solution to the problem.
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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted June 06, 2021 11:23 AM |
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Edited by Jiriki9 at 11:31, 06 Jun 2021.
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I am going to give a 2-part-answer on this, but beforehand: I like your idea.
But coming to the problem now, you left (secondary) skills out of your analysis, for simplifications sake probably. But I think that skills are a pretty important in this.
Let's take a look at this (note: I did not do it thoroughly before, so I am exploring it while writing).
There are 10 Might Skills, 8 AM-SKills, and 10 Magic Skills. Taking ot AM-Skills, there is an equal number of skills, now what do they do?
Might Skills
-5 Skills (Armorer, Archery, Offense, Leadership and Luck) ONLY give passive boni to your troops, mainly statwise. Luck and Leadership are slightly more complex by chance-based altering the potential of your troops (double vs. no turns; chance for Crits). Still, all these are not very complex.
-1 Skill (Resistance) gives you a chance to resist enemy magic. This is pretty more complex than the group before, imo, because a) it gives opportunity for a counter-tactic and b) it is not just stat-increase. Still, it remains passive.
-3 Skills (Artillery, Ballistic, First Aids) give you manual control of some War Machines (and strengthen them). Now this is much more interesting, imo. Because you basically turn a random-effect-giving asset into something like a unit. It did not work perfectly in H3, of course, because War Machines become less powerful in comparison to armies in endgame.
-1 Skill (Tactics) finally does a really interesting thing in H3: It opens a COMPLETELY new option, which is to place your units before battle. That changes the combat HUGELY, and is very interesting and active.
Magic Skills
-4 Skills (The Elements) are basically about increasing the power of spells. Thus, they'd be very boring - if not for the imbalanced effect of all-target spells at expert level, which, btw., to me is still not that complex, but a game-changer nonetheless.
-1 Skill (Wisdom) enabling you to learn skills. This I would count as a complex skill, beacause it opens up a more complex spell learning system.
-3 Skills (Intelligence, Mysticism, Sorcery) give boring passive bonuses for you to utilize in spellcasting.
-2 Skills (Eagle Eye, Scholar) give new ways of learning spells. They are certainly more complex than passive boni. But imho complexity is worth little if, like in this case, a skill is so weak you hardly ever choose it, because then it is just trash that won't be picked. So it is more of a theoretical complexity that hardly have makes the game more complex.
So in the end, I think that the complexity of skills is about comparable in H3. Maybe even a little in favor of might. EDIT: I have thought about it. Actually I think that the might skills are definitely more interesting than the magic ones in terms of what they enable you to do actively, except maybe wisdom opening up new spells. That of course is still not enough for making your point invalid at all, but I think it is worth to note. Because it should be considered in your idea, maybe.
In H4 and H5, also, I think that is not the case, because whilst there are more option for the might side, they are also there for the magic side. And the most interesting might skill (Tactics) of H3 is less grand in H5 because placing troops before combat is a standard feature.
Now to your proposal: as I said, I like it.
I might prefer different groups of tactics, though. I personally liked how H3 schools were flavor-based and not effect-based and I'd like that in tactic "schools" as well. So I would prefer something like "Savagery" (using brute force, but also classical "Barbarian"/"Horde" tactics), "Discipline" (sophisticated tactics, used by armies based on hierarchy and order), "Cunning" (all kind of tactics that are more clever than anything else) and "Comradry" (tactics of armies focusing on fighting TOGETHER) tactics. SO f.e., looking at your example tactics, they could be sorted (as an example only!) as follows:
-Savagery: Dynamic archery, Savagery, Ruthlessness
-Discipline: Flanking, Entrenching, Shock and Awe
-Cunning: Backstabbery, Surprise Assault, Flare Arrows
-Comradry: Escaping, Shielding, Resupplying
Looking at your specific concept though, a few more tactics ideas.
Marching (Mobile): Your units get +25% speed when moving, but not attacking.
Pursuing (Mobile): +3 Speed for your units moving to melee-attack an enemy unit who started they last turn next to your unit (is that even comprehensable?)
Taking Vengeance (Offense): Your creatures deal +30% damage against units who have damaged them in this combat.
Taking Trophies (Offense): After having killed enemy units, your units get +1 morale, but their next turn is delayed slightly.
Taking Cover (Defense): Your units receive -40% damage from ranged attacks while standing next to an obstacle.
Preserving Troops (Mobile): Yout units receive -50% damage, but they cannot retaliate.
Harrassing (Diversionary): Part of your units' damage is converted to a malus on morale for the enemy.
Haven't added costs so far.
...would there be Tactic Levels, as there are spell lvels, by the way?
Also, am I right assuming this proposal thinks of a very HoMM3-ish concept?
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted June 07, 2021 12:22 AM |
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First off, generally your anamysis is well thought out and the stuff about secondary skills is something valuable to tackle.
However, there are, I think, errors in your classification:
- Resistance is a Magic-adjacent skill, not a might-adjacent one. It only interacts with spells. It doesn't hinder your own spells so it is as valuable to magic users. But more importantly, it is only useful against a magic user.
- While Tactics skill is certainly a game changer and I did think about it, possibly as the example of the on1y "good", as in, "well designed" Might skill, there is also the thing about your own tactics anulling the enemy's tactics. So two heroes with expert tactics is the same as none. IMO this is a mistake and more than one hero should be able to use tactics at the same time. I believe this wasn't a design choice, rather a limitation of H3 engine designers needed to enforce, as two armies arranging at the same time could not be handled (they would also need to be mutually obscured so there is not an infinite game of changes to respond).
Now, about magic, I disagree that Magic schools are boring. There is much more about the level of expertise than making an expert Mass spell. For example, expert Earth is absolutely crucial for Town Portal. Expert Air is a game changer with Dimension Door enabled. Expert Water can summon boats much better, making them from nothing (boats are expensive and hard to get!). Each spell is also unique and each level of expertise changes the power and effect of over a dozen spell. If every spell is roughly as complex as an stat change skill (at minimum), then that means each level in Magic use gives the complexity of 12+ "stat change" skills like Armorer or Offense. For example, the spell Bless changing power is already like your dealing more damage, but also many other spells are changed, just for getting Adv. Water.
So, definitely besides being 11 magic (with Resistance) and 9 Might, the Magic skills are definitely mores interesting. Things like Artillery and First Aid would count for interesting Might skills, if they weren't so extremely irrelevant in any normal game*.
*I believe this last thing could be fixed by letting you stack Ballistae, for example. Buy one per week and it should grow much as your creatures do. First Aid Tents could be the same, except they would also need to revive creatures to stay relevant.
Now, about the arrangements... well, I do understand your thinking, but H4 magics were mechanic (Life defends, Nature summons, Chaos damages, etc.) - so it's definitely a matter of perspective. My point was to make them somehow different from magic, and closer to the pre-existing Might powers, without being so static, passive, and boring. So for example the Defensive tactics learning would replace Armorer. While with purely "flavor" based there is not so much structure.
However, this is subjective and there definitely should be more than one game to explore different arrangements (much as there was with the Magic of HOMM, while the Might kinda languished in being a shadow of Magic's complexity and fun during all these years)
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Never changing = never improving
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted June 07, 2021 05:22 AM |
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Resistance actually is a Might skill, not by effect, but by availability. Four of the Magic heroes in H3 outright can't learn the skill by levelling up.
And stacking siege is a good idea. In fact, if siege units were treated just like regular ones but without movement, I'd be fine with that.
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Jiriki9
Honorable
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posted June 08, 2021 03:37 PM |
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As Matt said, I would also definitely say Resistance is a might skill. Beside the mentioned choosability in Hero Classes, it is also working on your troops, not on your hero.
For Tactics...yes it definitely is flawed in H3...as are a lot of things. H3 has aged incredebly well to me, but there would be loads of opportunities for fine tuning such things. I still view it as a complex and, which is the most important, active skill.
Magic Schools...well I`d simply disagree that it's majorly the skill working into complexity and being interesting here, but it's the spells, imho. That may be a matter of perspective, though.
The thing of course is that H3's skill system is not the best anyway. It also depends on what "interesting" means here. I tackled it mostly from a "whick skill makes you more active(ly thinking) in battles" perspective. I did not mainly look at usability of the skills. Thus I kept the WM-Skills in the equation.
Making power-growth in War Machines happen would be a must for a new entry in HoMM, imo. Stacking is the most ovious and probably the most easily executable way. WMs getting XP or some kind of Tech Tree embettering them could be other options. I think I`d go with the stacking options, anytime, though. But this strays of the topic here.
For effect vs. flavor I think it is probably a matter of taste. H5 had effect-based schools as well and I am simply preferring flavor-based ones. One main reason for that is they feel more "natural" within the setting for me. I personally would also like tactic schools being flavor and skills being effect or vice versa. This would encourage for some mixing there...
One additional thing that came into my mind and that was thoroughly neglected in HoMM so far (afaik) is the combination of both: the leading of magic-capable units. It was hardly existent up to H5, though. But it should also be adopted into skill system and such, imo.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted June 09, 2021 07:59 PM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 20:45, 09 Jun 2021.
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Resistance actually is a Might skill, not by effect, but by availability. Four of the Magic heroes in H3 outright can't learn the skill by levelling up.
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Resistance actually is a Might skill, not by effect, but by availability. Four of the Magic heroes in H3 outright can't learn the skill by levelling up.
Availability is a metter of flavor, not mechanic.
Resistance is just like Sorcery, but instead of affecting your spells positively, it affects the opponent's spells negatively (this is more obvious with HotA's interference). In other words, it doesn't affect your troops, it only affects the enemy spellcasting. It only interacts with magic.
However, this discussion is mostly academic. Resistance mey very well be a grey area like the "skills that aren't magic or might". But I would class it as part of the Magic ecosystem. Anti-magic is still Magic interaction, not might interaction.
And well, the whole point of the thread is disagreeing that Might skills shoudn't affect your hero. In H4 and H5 they certainly can.
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Making power-growth in War Machines happen would be a must for a new entry in HoMM, imo. Stacking is the most ovious and probably the most easily executable way. WMs getting XP or some kind of Tech Tree embettering them could be other options. I think I`d go with the stacking options, anytime, though.
I think stacking is the simplest, but stacking doesn't preclude other forms like specialist heroes and skills, much as stacking creatures doesn't prevent specialization in creatures or skills that affect creatures.
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And stacking siege is a good idea. In fact, if siege units were treated just like regular ones but without movement, I'd be fine with that.
In H4 they are just regular units but they also have movement and take an army slot, and a town recruiting slot... this was a bit much for me, and I would go with H3 style, perhaps letting you change the starting location of your warmachines in your initial army layout (while still being behind your regulars), but keeping the Warmachine specialized slot and not taking a creature slot.
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For effect vs. flavor I think it is probably a matter of taste. H5 had effect-based schools as well and I am simply preferring flavor-based ones. One main reason for that is they feel more "natural" within the setting for me. I personally would also like tactic schools being flavor and skills being effect or vice versa. This would encourage for some mixing there...
My worry with flavor is tha lack of structure. There have been many complaints in H3 about how Fire magic isn't a very usefull skill compared to the others, and how Earth Magic is "indispensable" and reigns supreme (by having Slow, Implosion, Meteor Shower, Resurrection, Raise Dead AND Town Portal). Yes, those are all arguably Earth-Related effects, but flavor is much harder to balance than mechanics, and more susceptible to unconscious bias. By dividing for functionality and not flavor, there is more to make all tactic types a necessity to situation and playstyle, instead of some just ending up being "better" than others. That's just my reasoning, though.
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One additional thing that came into my mind and that was thoroughly neglected in HoMM so far (afaik) is the combination of both: the leading of magic-capable units. It was hardly existent up to H5, though. But it should also be adopted into skill system and such, imo.
Actually, the H5 spellcasting creature system is nearly identical to H4 one minus their non-linear scaling (which is bad in H5 IMO). Spellcasting creatures with variety in H4 included Genies, Water Elementals and Magi. H5 just used more of them. In my Greatest Mod I add spells to spellbook of 14 additional H4 creatures, from Satyrs and Leprechauns to Earth Elementals, Imps, Mermaids and Devils.
And you are right, there definitely is unexplored potential with hero interaction of creature spellbooks. For example, a skill that gives your spellcasting creatures +3/+6/+9 starting Spell Points at combat start, or other that increases the power of creature-casted spells. However, as you said in respect to warmachine stacking, "this exceeds the scope of the thread".
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Marching (Mobile): Your units get +25% speed when moving, but not attacking.
Pursuing (Mobile): +3 Speed for your units moving to melee-attack an enemy unit who started they last turn next to your unit (is that even comprehensable?)
Taking Vengeance (Offense): Your creatures deal +30% damage against units who have damaged them in this combat.
Taking Trophies (Offense): After having killed enemy units, your units get +1 morale, but their next turn is delayed slightly.
Taking Cover (Defense): Your units receive -40% damage from ranged attacks while standing next to an obstacle.
Preserving Troops (Mobile): Yout units receive -50% damage, but they cannot retaliate.
Harrassing (Diversionary): Part of your units' damage is converted to a malus on morale for the enemy.
Also I forgot to tell but I liked these tactics a lot, they are well thought out and give more tactical value to certain actions rather than being passive as in H3.
About levels, I thought about it, but having "tactics levels" would feel a bit too magick-y and not so flavorful. I think having the corresponding Tactics skill to use them and it upgrading the effects would probably be enough.
As for the "Tactic Guilds", this could be mobilized in a certain way - Instead of going "high" like Magic which at the same time includes all flavors of that level, they could go "wide" with the four different tactics being built separately. This way you still can build up to four, but horizontally rather than vertically.
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Never changing = never improving
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted June 10, 2021 02:16 AM |
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A few notes:
1. Letting war machines stack just turns them into regular units. I think it's great, like the H4 ballista, but it's something different.
2. It's fine for might and magic heroes to work differently. Might skills don't have to be like the Diablo 2 mana pool for barbarian skills and what not. Giving might heroes things to do should look more like the tactics skill, or maybe passive bonuses that make microing units on the battlefield more interesting, like the commander actions of Wargroove.
3. Is it interesting to have heroes do different things by town? I leaned heavily on that in the town contests: castle might heroes can split and combine stacks mid-combat, horde heroes can raid and retreat, academy heroes use the same mana pool to cast spells and move units so they can forgo one stack's action to double-move another.
4. Is it interesting to restrict magic heroes to just a few distinct actions, potentially compensated by having more than two classes per town? So if your class is cleric you can cast bless, healing spells, etc., but not fireball, dimension door, etc.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted June 10, 2021 10:59 AM |
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I started a google doc with a follow up post to my H7 essay basically laying out everything I'd change if I knew how. But honestly, not feeling too motivated lately.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted June 10, 2021 12:13 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 12:16, 10 Jun 2021.
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Alon said:
1. Letting war machines stack just turns them into regular units. I think it's great, like the H4 ballista, but it's something different.
Letting war machines stack would remove most of the issues with First Aid, Artillery and Ballistics.
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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted June 10, 2021 06:25 PM |
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Quote:
1. Letting war machines stack just turns them into regular units. I think it's great, like the H4 ballista, but it's something different.
Not necessarily, there could be other ways to differenciate them. Movement vs. No Movement, for example. You could also, potentially, have ballista be a unit and give the War Machines only supporting roles, and not the direct damage stuff.
...will answer more some other day, I have to finish writing pupil valuations today and that is quite some work in my field...
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted June 10, 2021 06:48 PM |
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What grade(s) do you teach?
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted June 10, 2021 10:01 PM |
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Stacking war machines I though about just like H3 but you "recruit" say, 3 first aid tents per week. The other stuff would still mostly be the same: War machines don't move, war machines stand behind your army, etc. Stacking is just the easiest way to scale to late game. Only additional change would be them not having to start always at the same place each combat, every combat, which makes for dull and predictable gameplay (ammo cart always shielding archer and so forth...)
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Personally I am not a fan of "exclusive faction combat mechanics" that radically alter the game and that's why I don't play h5+
About faction abilities like some splitting stacks mid-game I think that's potentially game and balance breaking. Factions shoudn't feel like you are playing different games. Imagine your enemies pikemen separating in seven stacks progressively mid game., each can absorb a retaliation, etc. This would no longer be an heroes-like game and giving access to some factions to this and others not is impossible to balance.
Plus those kind of things don't change the point of HERO-based actions.
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Never changing = never improving
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted June 10, 2021 11:21 PM |
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Hm, instead of allowing stack splitting, what about this idea I came up with years back?
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Jiriki9
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posted June 21, 2021 04:22 PM |
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I still like that idea a lot.
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Jiriki9
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posted June 21, 2021 04:32 PM |
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My worry with flavor is tha lack of structure. There have been many complaints in H3 about how Fire magic isn't a very usefull skill compared to the others, and how Earth Magic is "indispensable" and reigns supreme (by having Slow, Implosion, Meteor Shower, Resurrection, Raise Dead AND Town Portal). Yes, those are all arguably Earth-Related effects, but flavor is much harder to balance than mechanics, and more susceptible to unconscious bias. By dividing for functionality and not flavor, there is more to make all tactic types a necessity to situation and playstyle, instead of some just ending up being "better" than others. That's just my reasoning, though.
But are those issues not mainly those of execution, and not inherent to it being a flavor-based system? It may be harder to balance, but that's not impossible. Especially as a lot of the effectiveness in H3 stems from the before-mentioned superpower by having the Earth Magic Skill.
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Actually, the H5 spellcasting creature system is nearly identical to H4 one minus their non-linear scaling.
you are of course right. H4 had it as well.
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And you are right, there definitely is unexplored potential with hero interaction of creature spellbooks. However, as you said in respect to warmachine stacking, "this exceeds the scope of the thread".
Hmm, maybe, but it is close to it, imh, because it makes for Leading-Heroes (traditionally might), which are actually magic-focused.
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Also I forgot to tell but I liked these tactics a lot, they are well thought out and give more tactical value to certain actions rather than being passive as in H3.
Thank you. 
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As for the "Tactic Guilds", this could be mobilized in a certain way - Instead of going "high" like Magic which at the same time includes all flavors of that level, they could go "wide" with the four different tactics being built separately. This way you still can build up to four, but horizontally rather than vertically.
I'm not sure, this seems to very easily give you acces to every tactic out there...
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted June 22, 2021 06:17 AM |
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But are those issues not mainly those of execution, and not inherent to it being a flavor-based system? It may be harder to balance, but that's not impossible. Especially as a lot of the effectiveness in H3 stems from the before-mentioned superpower by having the Earth Magic Skill.
Effectiveness of what? Of people liking it?
Personally, I would try to not make some magic/tactic inherently more powerful than other. I am very much a "balance" guy in most cases. I believe in flavor but after all if a flavor is too strong, balance has to win out. I believe thepower of earth magic in H3 is definitely excessive and some of its spells should be nerfed, or even redistributed.
For example Town Gate could be more limited like using up all of your movement. And considering Air already has Fly, Dimension Portal could be Fire, thus giving at least one high level mobility spell to all magics (water has Water Walk and Summon Boat).
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I'm not sure, this seems to very easily give you acces to every tactic out there...
Not really, you should take into account I don't mean the Defensive Guild would give you access to all the Defensive Tactics,
But rather, you would have like 3 tactics of that type from a pool of 5 suited to your faction, with other tactics inother pools distributed into other factions, much like spell limits in H3 mage guilds. After all, people like this combination of randomization and consistency. As you say, why destroy a winning recipe? In that regard, I agree.
Alternatively, maybe something like HotA spell research could also be done, like "tactical research"; even instead of having default ones, just research up to three tactics of the chosen type for resources (Example: Shielding tactic costs Gold, entrenching tactic costs Stone). This is more strategic instead of being random, but means tactics have to be balanced even more carefully so players don't always pick the same ones in the same order.
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Never changing = never improving
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Jiriki9
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posted June 22, 2021 12:01 PM |
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Effectiveness of what? Of people liking it?
Personally, I would try to not make some magic/tactic inherently more powerful than other. I am very much a "balance" guy in most cases. I believe in flavor but after all if a flavor is too strong, balance has to win out. I believe thepower of earth magic in H3 is definitely excessive and some of its spells should be nerfed, or even redistributed.
For example Town Gate could be more limited like using up all of your movement. And considering Air already has Fly, Dimension Portal could be Fire, thus giving at least one high level mobility spell to all magics (water has Water Walk and Summon Boat).
Effectiveness of Earth Magic and THUS imbalance. I mean that a flavor-based system need not be imbalanced - you mentioned a few methods to change the imbalance. Another would be to have universal spells - like magic arrow.
For spell/tactic research .... I have contemplated that as well in the past, but I am not really sure it should really be part of an homm game. Haven't played HotA, though.
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted June 22, 2021 07:42 PM |
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H4 and onward moved away from the elemental system...
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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted June 22, 2021 09:16 PM |
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Yes, and all I say is I liked the elemental system better than those of H4 onward. But that really strays from the topic.
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