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| Thread: What is left for HoTA to "fix"? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 09, 2025 11:13 PM |
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At this point what I want is options. Settings that you can individually toggle on and off per preference, the same way you can toggle Tournament Rules, only to be granular and for single player-minded players, and also more ways for map makers to make innovative and interesting scenarios.
The first thing that comes to mind is let people make plugins for HotA. HotA runs and is co-developed with the HD mod, I don't get why this option is not present in the HD mod for HotA and only for the vanilla HD mod.
Some gameplay aspects I would like to see addressed, again with toggleable options so everyone can be happy, from purists to more experimental players - is the issue of playing whack-a-mole with the computer and towns. A lot of maps are designed with excessive amounts of castles on the map (too many to realistically build anything meaningful in them considering the resources on most maps as well), and if you have a large map with many AIs, each being able to field up to 8 heroes, at one point even if its obvious you've won you still have to play hunt the hero and flip towns for hours. It's this aspect which makes you feel like you always need Town Portal or other OP map traversal spells, because without them this exercise is just unfun. This plays into the magic school balance problems which everyone agrees exists.
A way to address this could be an option to limit the number of heroes that can be hired for all players and AI below 8 (I think 4 could work great), or have the option of demolishing towns after you capture them for a price, based on how built it is. I think this can be an interesting element for custom maps as well - creating specific scenarios where this can be a strategic decision that fundamentally changes how the map is played afterwards. Of course something entirely new can be done as well, it's a gameplay problem that can be fixed by many good design solutions.
The other thing I don't like are the different map objects that give you resources each week or external creature dwellings. Many maps, especially more challenging fan maps, expect you to gather all these every week so that you can be able to field specific army strengths by specific days, but in practice this means that there will be at least 1 hero that for the entire game is just cycling going through these map object, and much of the time because of their great quantity on the map (and the more there are of them - the greater the benefit for gathering them, and the greater the "penalty" for not) by the time you collect them all, you have to start doing it again for the new week. In practice this is another unfun activity that you just have to mechanically repeat. No one wants to do this when they sit down to play a game of Heroes, let alone every turn, but you have to because you lose on powerful benefits otherwise. I like what HotA did and now creature dwellings accumulate their creatures, so if you buy once in week 4, you don't miss anything prior, but I still don't get why I have to play the whole damn time, every single turn, running around the map in circles for this. It's not fun, it's not strategic, it's just busywork. Just let me buy/gather them both from the map object and from the town directly, or some other way that cuts away the tedious micromanagement. Again make it an option so everyone is happy and can play the way they like.
I personally am not particularly happy with hero specialties and secondary skills, not just the magic schools (even after 1.7.2). I think they can be differentiated more, but I suspect HotA Crew won't make any fundamental alterations because too many people would be pissed off. Magic schools obviously feel very bad and are very unbalanced compared to each other, and I would like to see some serious experimentation - try many things, keep what works and cut what doesn't. Remove Wisdom, make it so you can cast only Level 1 and 2 spells without a magic school secondary skill. Basic gives you Level 3 spells, Advanced Level 4, and Expert level 5. Or do something else crazy - just do anything.
Obviously mass spells should also be looked at, I like the Heroes II way of handling them, where they are an entirely different spell etc. I don't like Resurrection. This is a spell that make map makers lazy. They know that when they give it to you they can pump the numbers of enemy creatures like crazy, and still expect you to not have any major loses. That's all fine and good, but this makes the fight more sloppy, and adds a lot more tediousness, where you have to play the blind and Resurrect dance. I don't like this, there is no skill in it, both the higher creature numbers and Resurrect just make a fight take longer and to be a chore. I don't like Fly as it trivializes the design of the map. What's the point of having a carefully curated map with specific strategic instances of unpassable terrain etc. when I can just skip it with Fly and Angel Wings. This just removes a whole fun part of the game. It's a necessary evil because of the way the mechanics of the game work now, but it's just a sloppy workaround bandaid fix to a greater issue.
Yes these are things that the map makers can control for, but the fact that they exist in the state they do makes it that they either have to design their maps in a way that feel very restrictive or feeling like non-standard Heroes to many, or lets them be lazy and waste the player's time unnecessarily. It would be nice for these to just be fixed in the gameplay itself.
There's a lot of experimentation that can be done, but I doubt it will because too many people are too set in their ways and HotA Crew doesn't want to give people options so everyone can customize their experience to their presence, they want to keep things locked down and the game to be played how they want. I expect outside of the new town Bulwark we won't be seeing any major new changes in the coming years, and it's going to be mostly content like new towns, map objects, artifacts, campaigns, maps etc. - not mechanical and system changes.
As per other discussed points in the thread - the problem is not being able to remove unwanted skills. The problem still remains there are too many skills that don't bring any excitement, and the process of selecting the skills. IMO what should be changed is the stupid level up option where you can get two unwanted skills, or you feel pressured to take a skill you don't want now since you are afraid it won't get offered again alter so you end up with a bunch of Basic skills which are all good but weak, rather than having a few Expert ones which will be more helpful early.
As for Conflux I think the whole town is unsalvageable. The biggest thing I don't like about HIII is how they butchered the Sorceress town - the thematic fairy tale consistency of Pixie, Elf, Dwarf, Druid, Unicorn, Phoenix is perfect, as well as the atmosphere. They removed Pixie and Phoenix and gave them to a hastily cobbled together town full of ugly uninspired elemental units. And removed the Druid from the Grand Elf town with heroes with greater chance for Archery. Gave it isntead a drab British Isles weather and muted colour palette, with the most uninspired L7 creature in the whole game... What a disappointment.
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LordCameron
Known Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted March 10, 2025 12:24 AM |
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Wind_Falcon said:
I would like to see some serious experimentation - try many things, keep what works and cut what doesn't. Remove Wisdom, make it so you can cast only Level 1 and 2 spells without a magic school secondary skill. Basic gives you Level 3 spells, Advanced Level 4, and Expert level 5. Or do something else crazy - just do anything.
Bring back single use spells from Homm I! Live a little, see what happens 
Wind_Falcon said:
As per other discussed points in the thread - the problem is not being able to remove unwanted skills. The problem still remains there are too many skills that don't bring any excitement, and the process of selecting the skills. IMO what should be changed is the stupid level up option where you can get two unwanted skills, or you feel pressured to take a skill you don't want now since you are afraid it won't get offered again alter so you end up with a bunch of Basic skills which are all good but weak, rather than having a few Expert ones which will be more helpful early.
I'd argue that this is what makes the Homm series great and different from games like Civilization, Age of Empires, and Age of Wonders with all their build orders and micro; You never know what you are going to get and have to live with the hand you are dealt. It makes the game feel more like a magical adventure.
If there was a standardized build you could make every game, I think the magic would soon fade.
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 10, 2025 12:40 AM |
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I'm not arguing for standardized builds which you can always choose. If I was designing the skills I would make it so a lot more to be impossible to take for different classes for example, make class identity more pronounced etc.
I'm arguing that most skills are not fun, and being forced to take a crap skill isn't good game design. Make it so that you can re-roll but you have to pay for it, increasing cost with each re-roll. Or come up with something else. The current system is just uninteresting and unsatisfying.
The only reason people want to be able to choose skills or remove unwanted ones is because most skills are crap. If a choice was always good if not optimal, and more importantly - if it was always FUN even if unoptimal - I think that then people would be more happy with getting random skills and experimenting with something cool and interesting which you might not have otherwise picked if given a full choice.
This is not how the game is unfortunately. Wrong skill choice makes the game actively worse to play.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted March 10, 2025 07:32 AM |
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The only thing I want is a more powerful AI.. Faster to find the Grail, etc.. I use Human AI and Difficulty Mod, but it wasn't enough.. HoMM completely lacked AI, when HoMM AI strategy what? Unexplored area, I move there and AI attacks surprisingly. And AI crashes quickly.. So HoMM needs chess engine evaluation, database, etc.. But eats billions of bytes.. Not really a masterpiece, that's why they can't create a stronger HoMM AI.. Remember what? Think about it, the strongest chess engine has a +3640 rating, if you include the strongest human player +2830, it's in 223rd place..
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted March 10, 2025 07:53 AM |
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It's fun! When you get a checkmate in weird openings, funny clown tricks, etc You learn about AI, and you show your beauty to your friends.. So playing a normal level, I guess that hard level becomes MP level.. If HoMM engine is coming.. And AI grades level.. Strongest chess engine hasn't level, but always be maximum.. And without a chess database.. Thus no difficulty level..
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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Floribert
Hired Hero
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posted March 10, 2025 09:00 AM |
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More variety in creature banks.
new heroes for each faction.
Make some useless things usefull, as there are:
- some town buildings: the useless crap in Rampart (Mystic Pond and upgrade), Fortress (Glyphs of Fear and upgrade), Inferno (Brimstone Stormclouds - I had to google the name), Castle (Brotherhood of the Sword). Dungeon has wonderfull special buildings. It would be lovely if the mentioned garbage would be helpful for something.
- some artefacts: the Eagle Eye-crap and some pendants (of Holiness, of Dispassion, of Free Will, of Life, of Death) are usefull only for sacrificing. There is an inconsistency with some artefacts requiring a secondary skill and some not. Maybe it could be equalized.
-some spells: the Protection of Water, Fire, Air, Earth; Removing Obstacles, Misfortune and Fortune, Mirth are more or less useless. Other spells are (for non-specialists) to weak: Fireball, Death Ripple, Inferno, Destroy Undead. Magic Mirror is to expensive.
A minor thing: Allow evil heroes sacrificing artefacts on the altar of sacrifice. Does anyone sacrifice creatures? It is useless especially for Necropolis.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted March 10, 2025 09:50 AM |
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Edited by MattII at 10:02, 10 Mar 2025.
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Wind_Falcon said:
The other thing I don't like are the different map objects that give you resources each week or external creature dwellings. Many maps, especially more challenging fan maps, expect you to gather all these every week so that you can be able to field specific army strengths by specific days, but in practice this means that there will be at least 1 hero that for the entire game is just cycling going through these map object, and much of the time because of their great quantity on the map (and the more there are of them - the greater the benefit for gathering them, and the greater the "penalty" for not) by the time you collect them all, you have to start doing it again for the new week. In practice this is another unfun activity that you just have to mechanically repeat. No one wants to do this when they sit down to play a game of Heroes, let alone every turn, but you have to because you lose on powerful benefits otherwise. I like what HotA did and now creature dwellings accumulate their creatures, so if you buy once in week 4, you don't miss anything prior, but I still don't get why I have to play the whole damn time, every single turn, running around the map in circles for this. It's not fun, it's not strategic, it's just busywork. Just let me buy/gather them both from the map object and from the town directly, or some other way that cuts away the tedious micromanagement. Again make it an option so everyone is happy and can play the way they like.
Or maybe make the other resource locations flaggable.
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I personally am not particularly happy with hero specialties and secondary skills, not just the magic schools (even after 1.7.2). I think they can be differentiated more, but I suspect HotA Crew won't make any fundamental alterations because too many people would be pissed off. Magic schools obviously feel very bad and are very unbalanced compared to each other, and I would like to see some serious experimentation - try many things, keep what works and cut what doesn't. Remove Wisdom, make it so you can cast only Level 1 and 2 spells without a magic school secondary skill. Basic gives you Level 3 spells, Advanced Level 4, and Expert level 5. Or do something else crazy - just do anything.
I don't think you have to remove Wisdom, just don't make it the starting skill for every since magic hero. Spell schools do need adjusting though. As well as allowing you to learn level 3/4/5 spells in that school, damage spells need to be adjusted, so that an Expert-level vs an unskilled/Basic-level one isn't a couple of points of Spell Power.
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Obviously mass spells should also be looked at, I like the Heroes II way of handling them, where they are an entirely different spell etc.
That raises the question of whether the spells should be entirely separate, or links, so that is you know the single-creature spell you'll also know the mass spell, if you have the appropriate knowledge in that school.
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I don't like Fly as it trivializes the design of the map. What's the point of having a carefully curated map with specific strategic instances of unpassable terrain etc. when I can just skip it with Fly and Angel Wings. This just removes a whole fun part of the game. It's a necessary evil because of the way the mechanics of the game work now, but it's just a sloppy workaround bandaid fix to a greater issue.
Would you say the same about Water Walk and Dimension Door?
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There's a lot of experimentation that can be done, but I doubt it will because too many people are too set in their ways and HotA Crew doesn't want to give people options so everyone can customize their experience to their presence, they want to keep things locked down and the game to be played how they want. I expect outside of the new town Bulwark we won't be seeing any major new changes in the coming years, and it's going to be mostly content like new towns, map objects, artifacts, campaigns, maps etc. - not mechanical and system changes.
You never know, we got some big changes this last time.
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As per other discussed points in the thread - the problem is not being able to remove unwanted skills. The problem still remains there are too many skills that don't bring any excitement, and the process of selecting the skills. IMO what should be changed is the stupid level up option where you can get two unwanted skills, or you feel pressured to take a skill you don't want now since you are afraid it won't get offered again alter so you end up with a bunch of Basic skills which are all good but weak, rather than having a few Expert ones which will be more helpful early.
The ability to skip the skill selection (rather than having to pick one of two skills you don't want) on level up would be a nice addition.
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As for Conflux I think the whole town is unsalvageable. The biggest thing I don't like about HIII is how they butchered the Sorceress town - the thematic fairy tale consistency of Pixie, Elf, Dwarf, Druid, Unicorn, Phoenix is perfect, as well as the atmosphere. They removed Pixie and Phoenix and gave them to a hastily cobbled together town full of ugly uninspired elemental units. And removed the Druid from the Grand Elf town with heroes with greater chance for Archery. Gave it isntead a drab British Isles weather and muted colour palette, with the most uninspired L7 creature in the whole game... What a disappointment.
I agree that Conflux is essentially unsalvageable, and that Rampart isn't brilliant, but I don't think that Sorceress town is any better. My preferred lineup for Rampart would be Pixie, Wolf (as in Heroes 4), Elf, uncertain (a flyer of some sort), Druid, Unicorn, Treant. However, lineups aren't something on the table to be changed.
LordCameron said:
Bring back single use spells from Homm I! Live a little, see what happens
As an option for the Shrines, I could see that being a thing. If you're a low-level spellcaster, you buy (costs maybe 50 gold) a couple of "talisman of [spell]"s as one-shot spells that cost no magic.
They really need to do something about spell scrolls. If you can't find an Artifact Merchants or Black Market, your only way of getting rid of them is to pass them off to a low-level hero.
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 10, 2025 02:39 PM |
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Yes, my attitude towards DD is the same. Water Walk is generally fine imo. Most maps don't have too much water, and WW doesn't let you go over barriers in the water if present, you still have to go from land to visible land etc. so I think its OK. It's a cool spell that feels good to use when possible, but it's not game breaking.
I seriously think Wisdom should just not exist. Since Earth Magic is so powerful, every hero wants Wisdom - the only thing which it does is to be able to use your Earth Magic... Now that they are buffing more skills it also makes sense to open this slot for other ones. It's a prime example of a skill that's not exciting to take, but not taking it makes your playthrough actively worse. Horrendous game design.
Considering how drastically HotA Crew has changed the game already (for me HotA is not Heroes, more like a spiritual successor, kinda like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls), I don't buy that there is any change too great for HotA. Making it so AI can't rehire its strong heroes after defeat is a way bigger change than would be adjusting the roster and visual aesthetic of Rampart for example, but I agree I don't see HotA Crew doing anything like that. Anyway, my ideal lineup would be Pixie instead of Centaur, Druid instead of Treant (creature tiers could be re-adjusted as well), and Phoenix instead of GDragon.
More things I would want to see - split the artifact puppet into a combat and adventure map one. Now we have to exchange artifacts twice a day if we have a competing slot. Might as well just let us have two active sets, and the game will pick the appropriate one for map/combat. This will have zero impact on the gameplay, just cut back on tediousness and reloading if you forget to change them.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted March 10, 2025 07:28 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 20:46, 10 Mar 2025.
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Wind_Falcon said:
Yes, my attitude towards DD is the same. Water Walk is generally fine imo. Most maps don't have too much water, and WW doesn't let you go over barriers in the water if present, you still have to go from land to visible land etc. so I think its OK. It's a cool spell that feels good to use when possible, but it's not game breaking.
Okay, that makes sense. I suppose if you wanted to, you could tie those spells to specific, Relic-level artifacts, like how, without cheating, Titan's Lightning Bolt requires Titan's Thunder. Doing that would not only removed them from normal play, but you could even limit them to a lower level, so for DD, you could only ever cast it once per day.
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I seriously think Wisdom should just not exist. Since Earth Magic is so powerful, every hero wants Wisdom - the only thing which it does is to be able to use your Earth Magic... Now that they are buffing more skills it also makes sense to open this slot for other ones. It's a prime example of a skill that's not exciting to take, but not taking it makes your playthrough actively worse. Horrendous game design.
Wisdom allows you to cast all of the spells, but only at unskilled/Basic level. Outside of the damage spells that's pretty limiting.
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Considering how drastically HotA Crew has changed the game already (for me HotA is not Heroes, more like a spiritual successor, kinda like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls), I don't buy that there is any change too great for HotA. Making it so AI can't rehire its strong heroes after defeat is a way bigger change than would be adjusting the roster and visual aesthetic of Rampart for example, but I agree I don't see HotA Crew doing anything like that. Anyway, my ideal lineup would be Pixie instead of Centaur, Druid instead of Treant (creature tiers could be re-adjusted as well), and Phoenix instead of GDragon.
Changing lineups (and in the process removing Conflux) would mess with the campaigns. No way they're going to do that IMO. I mean, changing the occasional creature portrait/animation is one thing, but so fat the HotA team has seems to shy away from doing anything more serious than tweaking creature stats.
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More things I would want to see - split the artifact puppet into a combat and adventure map one. Now we have to exchange artifacts twice a day if we have a competing slot. Might as well just let us have two active sets, and the game will pick the appropriate one for map/combat. This will have zero impact on the gameplay, just cut back on tediousness and reloading if you forget to change them.
That would be a fairly big overhaul of the interface.
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 10, 2025 11:23 PM |
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The new puppet can be done like the backpack - click a button and it opens a window with the new puppet and allowed artifacts that you can equip, you put them on, close window and continue on.
Also, HotA already broke many legacy maps, so they don't care about that.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted March 11, 2025 08:36 AM |
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Normal maps are easy to edit, but maps in campaigns are much harder to fix.
As to Resurrection, maybe tie that one to an artifact too, and replace it with a lesser spell (Restoration?) that brings them back, but only for the current battle, so they still die afterwards.
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