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| Thread: Faction Laws in Olden Era: Brainstorming the potential and pitfalls |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Galaad 
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 16, 2025 09:27 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 21:40, 16 Jan 2025.
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Faction Laws in Olden Era: Brainstorming the potential and pitfalls
With the upcoming HoMM title introducing "faction laws," there's a lot to unpack. This mechanic, which seems to encourage players to stick to a single faction, could have significant implications for the game. As someone who loves the series' strategic flexibility and thematic richness, I wanted to start a constructive discussion about how this system could work, its potential upsides, and some red flags to watch out for.
Let’s dive in!
The Bright Side: Why Faction Laws Could Shine
Strategic Depth and Mastery
Faction laws could push players to fully explore the strengths, synergies, and mechanics of their chosen faction. With bonuses tied to sticking to a single faction, players might focus on perfecting their strategies, using faction-specific abilities and units to their maximum potential. This could reward mastery and deepen gameplay, especially for those who enjoy diving into the nuances of a particular playstyle.
Thematic Immersion
Playing a single faction could enhance the game’s immersive experience. Each faction in HoMM has a rich identity, and focusing on its unique lineup of units, abilities, and lore could amplify the feeling of "becoming" that faction. For example, an undead-themed faction could feel even more distinct if sticking to it unlocks powerful death-related bonuses or exclusive features tied to its identity.
Better Balancing Potential
Encouraging mono-faction play could make balancing easier. Mixed armies often lead to unpredictable synergies that are hard to balance, but faction laws might allow developers to fine-tune strategies within the constraints of a single faction’s design.
Faction Pride in Multiplayer
Multiplayer could benefit from stronger faction identities. Players might align themselves more deeply with their chosen faction, leading to rivalries, specialized strategies, and more engaging discussions about strengths and weaknesses. Faction loyalty could become a source of pride within the community.
Opportunities for Unique Perks
Sticking to a faction could unlock unique bonuses:
- Exclusive spells or abilities tied to faction loyalty.
- Economic rewards like reduced costs for faction units or faster construction of faction buildings.
- Visual upgrades to your army or hero, showcasing your dedication to a single faction.
Red Flags to Consider
Loss of Iconic Flexibility
One of the series’ hallmarks is the ability to mix and match units from different factions. Whether it’s recruiting creatures from a nearby town or using neutral units to cover strategic gaps, this flexibility is part of what makes HoMM so rewarding. Faction laws that restrict this freedom might alienate players who value creative strategies.
Risk of Repetition
If faction laws heavily incentivize mono-faction play, gameplay could become repetitive. Even with diverse factions, sticking to the same units and abilities might lead to fatigue over time, especially in longer campaigns or multiplayer sessions.
Impact on Neutral Units
Neutral units have always added strategic variety to the game. If faction laws discourage or penalize their use, these unique creatures might lose their relevance, reducing the richness of army composition.
Potential for Multiplayer Staleness
Faction laws could inadvertently create rigid multiplayer metas. If certain factions’ bonuses are stronger or more practical than others, competitive play might devolve into predictable matchups, with players gravitating toward the most efficient choices.
Alienating Series Veterans
Fans who have enjoyed the freedom and creativity of the series might feel restricted by faction laws. The ability to adapt your army on the fly -whether by mixing factions or using unconventional units- has always been a defining feature of HoMM.
Brainstorming: How to Make Faction Laws Work
Here’s how faction laws could be implemented in a way that enhances the game without compromising its core appeal:
Optional or Flexible Enforcement
Faction laws could provide meaningful bonuses for mono-faction play without outright penalizing players for mixing units. For example, players who stick to a single faction might receive boosts to morale, spell power, or economy, but those who mix factions wouldn’t face harsh penalties.
Dynamic and Unique Rewards
To make mono-faction play rewarding, faction laws could offer:
- Exclusive abilities or spells: Loyalty to a faction might unlock special abilities that align with its theme.
- Economic advantages: Reduced costs for faction units or faster building construction could incentivize sticking with a single faction.
- Hero upgrades: Heroes leading a pure faction army could gain unique traits, like enhanced abilities or visual distinctions.
Neutral Unit Integration
Neutral units should complement faction laws rather than being excluded. Perhaps neutrals could provide minor boosts or utility without affecting faction bonuses, ensuring they remain a viable and strategic part of the game.
Adaptability Across Game Modes
Faction laws could vary in impact depending on the mode. For example:
- Campaigns could emphasize thematic immersion, making faction laws more prominent.
- Skirmishes and multiplayer might prioritize balance, keeping the benefits of faction laws subtle to avoid disrupting competitive play.
Transparency and Player Agency
The mechanics of faction laws should be clear, intuitive, and balanced. Players should feel rewarded for sticking to a faction, not punished for experimenting. Regular updates and patches could ensure no faction feels overpowered or underwhelming, keeping the system dynamic and engaging.
Your Thoughts?
What’s your take on faction laws? Do you see them as a way to deepen strategy and immersion, or are you concerned they might limit the freedom and creativity that make HoMM special?
Etharil is reading, so any community insight can be helpful to Unfrozen!
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted January 16, 2025 10:06 PM |
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It depends entirely on how extensive the system is, since it's hard to have an opinion on something we know almost nothing about.
This isn't the first game to have an anti-crossfaction mechanic. Heroes III imparts a morale negative when you intermix factions. The more factions you mix, the worse the penalty becomes. Part of the reason why Griffin Conservatories are so strong is that the Angels you get negate their own downside. In my opinion, this is a bad mechanic. It's very static but doesn't do enough to discourage mixing the really good creatures. All it accomplishes is discouraging you from mixing weaker troops of different factions together, which lowers variety.
Ideally, I'd want this to be a system that rewards mono-faction armies, rather than one that penalizes you for crossing factions. From my interpretation, Faction Laws sounds like a system, maybe accessed through a dedicated building, where you can enact certain bonuses for your creatures and/or heroes. We already know that each faction has its own skill ala Heroes V, so maybe laws can enhance the way skills function or unlock additional effects. Something that benefits your own faction but doesn't effect other factions at all.
Ultimately, I think a good anti-mixing mechanic is healthy. If you don't have a way to stop that, then there's no reason why every endgame army won't just be a mishmash of all the best creatures you can find. You want alt upgrade choice to matter, you want creature synergies to matter. I think about dinosaur-age Yu-Gi-Oh, where every deck was an identical pile of all the best cards. That's boring. Forcing people into hand-crafted archetypes with variety is way more exciting and strangely allows for more variety.
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The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
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posted January 16, 2025 11:51 PM |
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I generally like Olden Eras direction, so I don't want to sound too negative, but I was expecting faction laws to further compliment a faction's theme and playstyle. It is surprising to me that the focus of them is to encourage players to stick to their own faction, at least according to the OE dev here. For me, this raises more red flags than green as we've seen this tried many times in past homm games and homm-like games, and I often do not like the result. I think it lessens replay value and takes away from what I consider to be a core mechanic of the series, which is mixing creatures from any factions and dwellings I capture along the way.
By default, it is already much easier to stick to your starting faction's army and build up from there in any Heroes game, with earlier access to those creatures and increasing their production. Mixing in another dwelling or faction is entirely by choice if the opportunity presents itself, and it often requires an investment. Plus, we have the morale system. All of this combined already encourages single faction use through normal play.
So, to add more "encouragements" I think is a slippery slope. Penalizing faction mixing can also be indirect. Players were not directly penalized in Heroes 6 for mixing factions, it was entirely possible, but there was no point since town conversation was always the better option by design. In Songs of Conquest, I can buy neutrals units, but after considering the strong direct buffs I can give my faction units through research, what is the point? It will be incredibly disappointing if mixing creatures becomes irrelevant on harder difficulties due to the strength of faction laws.
We'll see what they give us as they reveal more, but I was thinking faction laws would play into the hero's faction skill, while providing some sort of unique perks that complement the faction's theme. Sort of like the hero subskills from H5 that were unique to the faction.
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kesnarii
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 16, 2025 11:54 PM |
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I believe that strict faction laws as made in songs of conquest is a step in bad direction.
Rewarding mono-faction armies is certainly a welcome addition, but it should come with the possibility of having mixed armies and also imo with a niche reward system for mixed armies (i.e. some skill that makes creatures stronger when in mixed armies).
Rewarding mono-factions in terms of buildings is also a nice addition. For example creature growth could increase by the number of same-faction towns you have.
Finally, if we talk about a building that makes specific faction's units stronger, I would much more prefer mutually exclusive buildings that make different units stronger (i.e. a building that would either make the medusa or the minotaur stronger). This idea could potentially be used with the first point. A building that makes all racial creatures stronger for the player, regardless of the faction. For example a building that makes "elves" stronger, even if they come from the dungeon, the rampart or the arctic town.
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DIEGIS
Supreme Hero
power of Zamolxis
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posted January 17, 2025 01:29 AM |
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Edited by DIEGIS at 01:32, 17 Jan 2025.
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I believe it s just a pandora box and will destroy the Heroes game. Stick to the classics!
and btw, I dont care Etharil is watching, he doesnt answer to questions and we're not children anymore, when I was on this forum he wasnt even born or did he? 
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dacian falx behind you
-knowledge itself is power-
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ImaginaryNumb3
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 17, 2025 02:01 AM |
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I am perplexed. The Heroes games have always been hostile to integrating non-default units into your army and a whole new mechanic is being built to codify this?
This would actually be a neat idea if it was an optional skill-path which you can go down. Along with an alternative path which actually rewards mixing different units where possible.
In any case, this leaves more questions than answers. Because if you already go to the trouble to allow recruiting neutral creatures, or creatures from other cities, why make it a de facto non-option? It's dead weight and wasted assets.
And am I reading this correctly that this is on top of faction abilities? Again, it leaves more questions than anything else.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 17, 2025 10:48 AM |
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A good chunk of thoughtfull responses already 
The concept of faction laws certainly has potential, but balancing them will be key. While rewarding mono-faction play makes sense, it’s crucial to avoid penalizing cross-faction armies outright. Many players (including myself) value the creativity and flexibility of mixing creatures, so limiting this too harshly could risk alienating that part of the fanbase.
A system that rewards variety could coexist with mono-faction incentives. For example, introducing niche perks or skills for mixed armies could make certain combinations more viable. Imagine a system where mixing creatures from complementary factions offers unique bonuses. This could preserve the strategic fun of experimenting with different units while still giving players an incentive to lean toward mono-faction builds.
One idea could be exploring faction alignments. Instead of blanket penalties, some factions might naturally align while others are incompatible. For instance, Necro could be discouraged from joining Temple, but Temple might work well with Sylvan. This approach would maintain thematic consistency while encouraging thoughtful planning when mixing units. What do you think?
Faction alignments could even tie into the laws themselves, with different perks depending on how aligned or diverse your army is. Maybe mono-faction players get straightforward stat boosts, while mixed armies unlock synergies unique to their composition. Would this kind of balance offer the best of both worlds?
Finally, for those advocating more nuanced mono-faction rewards, mutually exclusive buildings could also be interesting. Players might have to choose between strengthening specific units or gaining broader benefits across their faction. These choices could add more depth to town-building strategies. But I might be going to far here, just brainstorming.
What other ways could we balance rewarding mono-faction play without making mixing obsolete? Could faction alignments or similar mechanics work in practice? Curious to hear everyone’s ideas!
DIEGIS said:
I dont care Etharil is watching, he doesnt answer to questions
He actually does... And insofar he made more posts than you in this subforum, you'd know if you could read.
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Star_mage
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 17, 2025 11:08 AM |
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Are we for real or for fake?...
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Neutral units have always added strategic variety to the game. If faction laws discourage or penalize their use, these unique creatures might lose their relevance, reducing the richness of army composition.'
Let s be honest here....neutral units NEVER added anything to the game but emotional edging. (am i allowed to say this?)
We must be highly delusional to say that neutral units played a significant role ever (or at least more than being an eye candy).
They were actually a pain in the a** because often times there was no room for them and you had to make tough decisions and sacrifice your own (perhaps) weaker stack of faction units. Perhaps the only time they were not annoying in that regards is early game/map when you haven t built all tiers yet.
They were very scarce and realistically had very small impact on the mechanics of everyday games. Only the maps that were specifically created AROUND them and campaigns were impacted significantly by them.
Mechanically they were never a good option, only a desired one.
Their decision to 'make things even' through Faction Laws is actually a good idea for me.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 17, 2025 11:32 AM |
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The early game is important, and as you mentioned getting higher-tier neutrals can definitely help here. Other instances can be situational, but that is part of the charm and flavor, no?
Star_mage said:
Their decision to 'make things even' through Faction Laws is actually a good idea for me.
I’m not sure what that means exactly, care to enlighten me? I think the main concern is the potential penalty for mixing factions.
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Etharil
Shaper of Lore
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posted January 17, 2025 03:33 PM |
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To quell the concerns I'd only like to note that Faction Laws will exist to encourage focusing on your starting faction - the way we have them currently implemented is that they don't penalise mixing, but act as subtle enhancers to your own faction. We'll talk about Faction Laws in higher detail later. =)
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ImaginaryNumb3
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 17, 2025 05:24 PM |
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Etharil said:
To quell the concerns I'd only like to note that Faction Laws will exist to encourage focusing on your starting faction - the way we have them currently implemented is that they don't penalise mixing, but act as subtle enhancers to your own faction. We'll talk about Faction Laws in higher detail later. =)
To me the question will be: is it viable to build non-default units into your army lineup? With maybe some exceptions, all past Heroes games this has simply not been an option.
Not strictly bound by your typical 7 units but able to incorporate other units that would be an interesting departure from past games. However, it will boil to the details how this is intended to be achieved.
From my own longstanding experiences of balancing games, trying to solve such things with via numerical tweaking is almost always doomed to fail. Players will figure out the most effective equilibrium and instead of different approaches, you have one optimal build along with several weaker flavour-focused builds.
In the end, it is a question of customization and how much room you want to give players to find their own playstyle. I still love H7 for its extensive possibilities of customizing your heroes, but there would also be vast potential to allow for different army builds.
I shall remain curious.
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The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
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posted January 17, 2025 05:47 PM |
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Star_mage said:
'We must be highly delusional to say that neutral units played a significant role ever (or at least more than being an eye candy).
I think this heavily depends on which Heroes game is being talked about. Ubisoft-Heroes has always dragged their feet in this regard and neutrals mostly did only serve as eye candy. There was no reliable way to add neutral creatures outside of diplomacy in heroes 5, 6, and 7. Only in H7 did they even make an attempt with adventure map dwellings for neutrals, but there was only one generic building for all of them and it was hardly included on maps.
If we're talking NWC-Heroes, which Olden Era is trying to fit in with...then neutrals do play a pretty big role both in campaigns and skirmish maps. Each one has their own unique dwelling on the adventure map which makes them much easier to include on maps and incorporate into the player's army. Sure, there are some duds that mostly go unrecruited like Trolls, Leprechauns, Boar riders, etc; but the possibility of finding the better ones is a huge part of what makes exploring maps fun in the NWC-Homm games, at least for me.
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LordCameron
Known Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted January 17, 2025 06:00 PM |
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Neutrals is something homm 2 nailed. Every single one is worthwhile in one way or another.
Songs of Conquest's worst feature (beyond maybe the unparseable art) is the restriction on faction mixing. I hope HOE is very cautious, because if you can't mix factions, it isn't Heroes. It is one of the core identity features.
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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LordInsane
Known Hero
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posted January 17, 2025 09:06 PM |
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LordCameron said:
Neutrals is something homm 2 nailed. Every single one is worthwhile in one way or another.
Songs of Conquest's worst feature (beyond maybe the unparseable art) is the restriction on faction mixing. I hope HOE is very cautious, because if you can't mix factions, it isn't Heroes. It is one of the core identity features.
Not all neutrals could be recruited in Heroes 2 originally (their dwellings were added in Price of Loyalty), though with the Ghosts that may have been because of how broken they were as recruits.
I will admit, encouraging keeping within a faction, even if subtly, doesn't seem that appealing here. It, for example, means you are disincentivised to recruit any possible dark elf neutrals as Dungeon.
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted January 18, 2025 01:37 AM |
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LordInsane said:
I will admit, encouraging keeping within a faction, even if subtly, doesn't seem that appealing here. It, for example, means you are disincentivised to recruit any possible dark elf neutrals as Dungeon.
I don't think there's any out-of-faction creatures that are neutral. The neutrals have been pretty obviously not themed to any particular faction.
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LordInsane
Known Hero
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posted January 18, 2025 06:02 AM |
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MurlocAggroB said:
I don't think there's any out-of-faction creatures that are neutral. The neutrals have been pretty obviously not themed to any particular faction.
We've seen gold dragons as potential neutrals, and given the lore those have a strong connection to Dungeon.
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted January 18, 2025 07:09 AM |
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LordInsane said:
We've seen gold dragons as potential neutrals, and given the lore those have a strong connection to Dungeon.
I thought it was a Rust Dragon.
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Syth1984
Hired Hero
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posted January 18, 2025 09:13 AM |
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I guess this faction laws is something like if you have Angels with Devils you get luck/Morale penalties and even some movement penalties (Which would be the real penalty) but angles with gold dragons are okay.
I don't think it will ban people having angel+devil armies.
That is just pure speculation though.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 18, 2025 02:52 PM |
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Thanks for the clarification Etharil 
I wonder if Faction Laws could enhance neutral unit synergies with specific factions, that could be interesting I think.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted January 18, 2025 05:59 PM |
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Syth1984 said:
I don't think it will ban people having angel+devil armies.
Nonsense! Retard player always thinks balance, rule, Earth etc Because too old baby-looking player.. 50yo banned his son to play victory?!.. Thus old-time brain model..
I felt I won all.. I think so!! Maybe my new motto.. 
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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