Heroes of Might and Magic Community
visiting hero! Register | Today's Posts | Games | Search! | FAQ/Rules | AvatarList | MemberList | Profile


Age of Heroes Headlines:  
5 Oct 2016: Heroes VII development comes to an end.. - read more
6 Aug 2016: Troubled Heroes VII Expansion Release - read more
26 Apr 2016: Heroes VII XPack - Trial by Fire - Coming out in June! - read more
17 Apr 2016: Global Alternative Creatures MOD for H7 after 1.8 Patch! - read more
7 Mar 2016: Romero launches a Piano Sonata Album Kickstarter! - read more
19 Feb 2016: Heroes 5.5 RC6, Heroes VII patch 1.7 are out! - read more
13 Jan 2016: Horn of the Abyss 1.4 Available for Download! - read more
17 Dec 2015: Heroes 5.5 update, 1.6 out for H7 - read more
23 Nov 2015: H7 1.4 & 1.5 patches Released - read more
31 Oct 2015: First H7 patches are out, End of DoC development - read more
5 Oct 2016: Heroes VII development comes to an end.. - read more
[X] Remove Ads
LOGIN:     Username:     Password:         [ Register ]
HOMM1: info forum | HOMM2: info forum | HOMM3: info mods forum | HOMM4: info CTG forum | HOMM5: info mods forum | MMH6: wiki forum | MMH7: wiki forum
Heroes Community > Heroes 4 - Lands of Axeoth > Thread: Very, very long post about an impossible dream
Thread: Very, very long post about an impossible dream This thread is 2 pages long: 1 2 · NEXT»
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 11, 2002 10:25 AM bonus applied.

Very, very long post about an impossible dream

The Ultimate Heroes of Might and Magic: The CLAN WARS

First at all, this is an exercise of imagination, not a real suggestion for HOMM5. Is directed to those imaginative gamers who have enjoyed every part of the HOMM games.

Let’s say you have the human and technical resources to develop an entire HOMM game with the only guide of your likes: the opportunity to configure the perfect game capable of getting you hooked during a long, long time. I personally would like to make a game mixing all the good improvements discovered through all the saga evolution and suppressing all the wrong steps. Cos all this decisions are quite subjective, I only want to show my preferences stating what will be my PERFECT heroes game. So, the debate about anyone’s preferences is open.

1.- STORY

Exploration of the unknown lands of Axeoth demonstrates that the Reckoning not only affected the continent of Antagarich, but also the distant realms of Enroth. Lots of enrothian creatures are discovered in hidden places, fighting for their right to live. This overpopulation produces a state of anarchy, and soon seems clear that there will be no space enough for many competing races. Anger grows everywhere, and the recently founded Axeoth towns disband in order to restore older alliances. As war becomes imminent, all towns congregate around three powerful factions: good, neutral and evil. Only one of them will rule the world.

2.- HEROES

I would use the complete RPG-oriented hero system shown in HOMM4. The new fighting heroes, with their subclasses and their skill learning trees, are for me a complete success, and probably the best feature of the fourth game. While mantaining this hero model, I would take the HOMM3 portraits, which in my humble opinion have a much more epic and realistic style (the new Sandro portrait really annoys me – it seems a dead clown). I would also restore the hero specialty feature. It fits nicely in the new hero system and makes all heroes slightly different, even when comparing heroes of the same subclass. In addition, every hero class would have its own animation.

3.- TOWNS

The nine HOMM3 towns are incredibly well designed for me (each one have its unique, asymmetric feeling), and they would be the backbone of this imaginary game: three good towns (Castle, Rampart, Tower), three neutral ones (Stronghold, Rampart, Conflux) and three evil ones (Necropolis, Inferno, Dungeon).

Every town would  have now room for up to TEN creature dwellings, including a mix of creatures of the four games and a little bunch of new ones I always wanted to have in my armies. The caravan system from HOMM4 would be incorporated and improved with batch tasks (“send every creature born in this dwelling”, for instance), and also would jails, governors and artifact shops. However, I would discard both the dynamic town terrain (it eliminate most of the town feeling) and the optional creature dwellings. To make room to this amount of buildings, each town would have an horizontal scrollable screen, twice the current width. This improved towns would also have space to mix decoration elements mainly from HOMM2 and HOMM3. Opera music would remain, but having such quantity of nice music at my disposal, I would attach two tunes to every town, setting an opera selection and an instrumental selection.

About siege combat, I would combine some features of HOMM3 (automatic catapult, automatic defensive towers controlled by ballistic heroes) and HOMM4 (tank troops battle through the walls if desired, two internal towers to place shooters in). I would also made main door destructable, but far more durable than the current HOMM4 door, if only to avoid the well known tactic “destroy his catapult and let the towers exterminate a far superior army”.

4.- MAGIC

After the hero development, the second big hit of HOMM4 is the magic system. I would keep it without changes, and I would add five “Ultimate Spells”, one per magic school and all of them movement-related: Town Portal for Order Magic (as the expert level in HOMM3), Fly for Life Magic (a kind of angel blessing), Water Walk for Nature Magic, Dimension Door for Death Magic (as a devil gift) and a new one called Paralyze for Chaos Magic (an enemy hero cannot move during the next turn). The last one is maybe a non-movement spell, and seems unbalanced at first sight, but it could be awesome for a hero-hunter.

This spells usually break down a map, but expert mapmakers have done really impressive maps with a wise use of them. They would simply be far more difficult to learn: they would be banished from magic guilds and map structures. When a hero reaches grandmaster level in three magic schools, he is offered to choose only one from three of these spells (corresponding to the three schoold he has graduated in). The chosen spell will depend on the type of map and the special movement needed. The distribution of magic schools by towns, planned to balance magic power in the three clans, will be the following:

1.- Castle – Life Magic
2.- Tower – Order Magic
3.- Rampart – Nature Magic

4.- Strongold – No Magic – Attack specialised town with HOMM4 Magic Dampeners
5.- Fortress – No Magic – Defense specialised town with Magic Weakeners (decrease effect of magic on creatures)
6.- Conflux – SuperMagic Town – All schools available to build

7.- Necropolis – Death Magic
8.- Dungeon – Chaos Magic
9.- Inferno – Nature Magic (summons imps, devils, etc., instead of elves, tigers...)

5.- CREATURES

Devastating war has raged through the new lands and no one remains truly neutral, so all the formerly neutral creatures have pledged alliegance to one of the factions. In fact, these factions have become almost fundamentalist and there’s no chance that a wandering creature of an opposite clan offer to join your army. Diplomacy, Charm, etc. will only affect creatures of the three towns forming your clan.

There’s NO CREATURE UPGRADES, most of them have their own specials and combat damage is produced simultaneously in attacker and defender. Level 10 dwellings can only be built in one of your towns (the CAPITOL of your empire), and only when you’ve fully built it and owned it during one entire month. So consider your nineth level creature as your main power.

Now an army is composed of 10 slots: all of them available for heroes or creatures according to the following line-ups: (The graphical design of this creatures is indicated in the following chart by the number beside the name. The ideal game will adapt HOMM2 and HOMM3 designs to the HOMM4 3D battlefield.)

CASTLE

01.- Peasant (4): Walker
02.- Pikeman (4): Walker, first strike
03.- Crossbowman (4): Shooter, two shots per round
04.- Royal Griffin (3): Flyer, unlimited retaliations
05.- Swordman (2): Walker
06.- Zealot (3): Shooter, can cast Bless and Heal
07.- Champion (4): Walker, charge bonus
08.- Paladin (2): Walker, strikes twice and does double damage against undead.
09.- Archangel (4): Flyer, +1 morale to army and can resurrect allies
10.- Azure Dragon (3): Flyer, fear ability, double hex breath and magic immunity

RAMPART

01.- Halfling (3): Shooter, giant slayer
02.- Dwarf (4): Walker, magic resistance
03.- Grand Elf (3): Shooter
04.- Silver Pegasi (3): Flyer
05.- White Tiger (4): Walker, first strike
06.- Sharpshooter (3): Shooter, no range or wall penalties
07.- Dendroid Guard (3): Walker, binding ability
08.- War Unicorn (3): Walker, blinding ability
09.- Gold Dragon (3): Flyer, double hex breath, immune to 1-4 spells
10.- Arcane Druid (NEW): Walker, can cast hypnotize on enemies during 3 turns.

TOWER

01.- Master Gremlin (3): Shooter
02.- Leprechaun (4): Improves luck
03.- Gargoyle (4): Flyer, animated creature immunities
04.- Gold Golem (4): Walker, animated creature immunities
05.- Arch Magi (3): Shooter, can cast poison and lightning bolt
06.- Naga Queen (3): Walker, no retaliation ability
07.- Ice Demon (4): Walker, freezing ability
08.- Crystal Dragon (3): Walker, animated creature immunities
09.- Titan (3): Shooter, no melee penalty
10.- Genie (2): Flyer, high chance to half enemy stack

STRONGHOLD

01.- Wolf (2): Walker, strikes twice
02.- Orc Chieftain (3): Shooter
03.- Berserker (4): Walker, double strike, always attacks
04.- Nomad (2): Walker, reduces terrain penalties
05.- Ogre Magi (3): Walker, can cast bloodlust
06.- Thunderbird (4): Flyier, lightning bolt effect
07.- War Troll (2): Shooter, area effect
08.- Cyclops (2): Walker, double hex optical beam
09.- Ancient Behemoth (3): Walker, reduces enemy defense
10.- Rust Dragon (3): Flyer, double hex breath, poison ability

FORTRESS

01.- Gnoll (3): Walker
02.- Boar (2): Walker
03.- Lizard Warrior (3): Shooter
04.- Dragon Fly (3): Flyer, weakness ability
05.- Greater Basilisk (3): Walker, petrifying ability
06.- Waspworth (4): Shooter
07.- Mighty Gorgon (3): Walker, death stare
08.- Wyvern Monarch (3): Flyer, poison ability
09.- Chaos Hydra (3): Walker, attacks all surrounding enemies and no retaliation ability
10.- Mantis (4): Walker, enemies bitten cannot act during three turns.

CONFLUX

01.- Fairy (3): Flyer, no retaliation ability
02.- Satyr (4): Walker, cast Mirth
03.- Water Elemental (3): Walker, can cast Cure
04.- Air Elemental (3): Shooter, can cast Lightning
05.- Fire Elemental (4): Shooter, can cast Fireball
06.- Earth Elemental (3): Walker, can cast Shield
07.- Magic Elemental (3): Walker, attacks all surrounding enemies and magic immunity
08.- Enchanter (3): Shooter, casts mass spells
09.- Phoenix (2): Flyer, double hex breath, resurrects part of his casualties
10.- Fairy Dragon (3): Flyer, casts offensive spells twice per turn.

NECROPOLIS

01.- Skeleton Warrior (3): Walker, reduced ranged damage
02.- Mutant Zombie (2): Walker, causes bad morale to enemies
03.- Wraith (3): Flyer, regenerates hitpoints and drains enemy mana
04.- Mummy (3): Walker, curse ability
05.- Power Lich (3): Shooter, area effect to non-undead troops
06.- Vampire (4): Flyer, reanimates his casualties sucking living enemies’ blood
07.- Venom Spawn (4): Shooter, poison ability
08.- Dread Knight (3): Walker, death blow ability
09.- Ghost Dragon (4): Flyer, aging effect
10.- Grim Reaper (NEW): takes -50% physical damage. Dead enemies are summoned as wraiths

DUNGEON

01.- Thief (2): Walker, gives enemy information
02.- Centaur (2): Shooter
03.- Bandit (4): Walker, can hide from level 1-3 creatures.
04.- Harpy (4): Flyer, no retaliation and gets back to its position
05.- Beholder (4): Shooter, cast random spell on enemies
06.- Minotaur King (3): Walker, blocking ability
07.- Medusa Queen (3): Shooter, stone gaze effect
08.- Nightmare (4): Walker, terror effect
09.- Black Dragon (4): Flyer, double hex breath, magic immunity
10.- Sea Monster: Walker, ability to entirely swallow a number of enemies

INFERNO

01.- Imp (4): Flyer, redirects enemy mana
02.- Magog (3): Shooter, area effect
03.- Cerberi (3): Walker, three hexes melee attack and no retaliation
04.- Horned Demon (3): Walker
05.- Succubus  (NEW): Shooter, fascination effect (attacked stack loses next turn)
06.- Scorpicore (6): Flyer, binding ability
07.- Pit Lord (3): Walker, can summon horned demons from dead allies
08.- Efreet Sultan (3): Flyer, fire immunity and fire shield effect.
09.- Archdevil (3): Flyer, teleportation and no retaliation.
10.- Hellraiser (NEW): Walker, (morgoth-style design) casts Armageddon affecting only enemy troops

6.- CAMPAIGNS – I will take that glorious BRANCHED design from HOMM2, where you not only was capable of  taking different paths, playing different scenarios and gaining different bonus, but also ANY FACTION (well, there only were two of them) COULD WIN. I also like their size (about 10 scenarios each), long enough to really get caught by the story and to develop main heroes up to their maximum. According to the story, there will be three main campaigns, each of them showing the story from the point of view of one of the clans: good, neutral and evil. This way you will really master the advantages and disadvantages of  the towns included in each alignment.

Campaign heroes would be our wide known main characters from the precedent games. Although the three campaigns would narrate the struggle to conquer the world of Axeoth, each one would have some specific elements as background.

1.- The GOOD campaign would continue the Ironfist-Gryphonheart dinasty, telling both the familiar reunion of Catherine, Roland and their son Nicolai and the rivalry between Gelu (now an outlaw accused of  unleashing Armageddon with his reckless use of  that damned blade) and Dracon (charged with the task of bringing Gelu to justice). Gem could try to mediate in this dispute, probably charming both of them and provoking a bitter fight.

2.- The NEUTRAL campaign would tell the difficult unification of two warrior clans (Stronghold and Fortress) forced by circumstances to team with their most opposite town, the town of magic (Conflux). Adrienne, as a magic user, will be the key piece of an unification process boycotted both by barbarian fundamentalists like Kilgor and some powerful elemental lords.

3.- Finally, the EVIL campaign will have an astounding subplot. Mutare and Sandro have seized power in their respective realms (the remnant forces of Nighon and Deyja), but the civil wars needed to accomplish this have weakened them. The Kreegans are also in low hours after their recent defeat. So the goal of this clan is to gain new enforcements. Mutare starts a quest to open the doors to the demonic plane the Kreegans came from the first time, while Sandro tries to reanimate his true an secret master: Lord Archibald Ironfist.

7.- ADVENTURE MAP & CONFIGURATION

1.- Kingdom Overview mostly based in the HOMM3 game, which I found far more useful . It allows you to purchase creatures all over your empire and brings access to every town and hero, even the garrisoned ones. The only thing it lacks is that world overview map showing the location of the town.

2.- Kingdom Diplomacy screen, to state diplomacy relationships between empires (alliance, commercial treatment, non-agression, alert state, war). Donations of resources or accomplishing of quests (kill that hero or take that town in my name) could vary this relationships

3.- Kingdom Statistics screen, with detailed briefings about casualties, heroes hired, battles won and lost, and a “Book of Events” where the story of the map is being narrated event by event.

4.- Automatic patrols to retrieve resources, control frontiers, etc.

5.- Shroud of war as a configuration option.

6.- HOMM4 has greatly improved the record system and now speed is not the only thing to focus on. I would add both enemy casualties (bonus) and own losses (minus) to this record system.

7.- External dwellings can be set (as a configuration option) to HOMM3 style (creatures don't accumulate and flagging increases town birthing rate) or to HOMM2-4 (creatures accumulate in their dwellings and must be recruited there or using caravans)
____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 11, 2002 01:16 PM
Edited By: Djive on 11 Sep 2002

1.- STORY

I don't mind much about story-line. It's mainly used to allow the designers to introduce new creatures and towns. I assume that Axeoth will be used for HoMM V, so assuming further conflicts the eay forward.

2.- HEROES

I would also use the RPG-system as a base, but I would like a number of changes to it. A must is to remove the reliance of heroes on the skill Combat. I would keep 5 levels of each skill and most of the exisitng skills, but would make some serious reshuffling of the skills.
(I'll edit post to add more later.)

Hero portraits would be all new. Perhaps taking the portraits HoMM2 style and then a smaller version to be used as a mini-icon.

Hero specialities.
I would start of Heroes with 4-5 skills. The Hero class would determine 2-3 of these while the other would vary between Heroes.

Might Heroes get an oppurtunity to specialize in any one creature of their own alignment, Magic Heroes can specialize in any one spell. This specialization is optional and costs extra. It must be purchased when the Hero is hired.

The XP required to advance would be revamped so the XP required to reach next level increases linearly and not exponentially. (Should not be required to visit a Tree of Knowledge to have a chance to advance normally within a reasonable time.)

One male and one female Hero of the native alignemt would be offered in the Tavern. You can still recruit only one Hero/week per Tavern. Tavern can be upgraded to offer Heroes of certain other alignments. Which alignments can be offered is selectable in the Map Editor, but would default to about the same selection as in H4 for the upgraded Tavern.

Every Hero race and alignment would have an animation for a warrior and a mage and possibly also for scouts and lord Heroes.

Which animation is used is decided by the current skills the character has.

3.- TOWNS

There would be 8-10 towns, they would have new names and reshuffled in the normal way.

Town views are assymetric and dwellings go into each other. Every town is distinct and gives a different feeling than the others.

The caravan system would be kept and enhanced. (I want to be able to caravan any of my 8 wandering armies to a city. Perhaps requiring that the wandering army has a remaining movement of 10 for the current day.)

You would have a docking option for towns with a ship-yard, guaranteeing that you will always be able to access boats that you build, and that you won't have to run around the town to find the boat.

Town graphics size would not increase, but dwellings would be built wall to wall with each other.

Citadel and Castle would also add to creature production.

New offensive builds to make arrow towers would be added. (The strength of the towers would grow over time, and would be reduced to zero if the towers are taken out during an attack. The town produces archers which are placed in the towers without the player having to recruit them.)

I would keep the walls undestroyed, but attackers would be allowed to climb over them. It would take two turns to climb them.

A catapult would target troops, towers or the drawbridge but not the walls. (Walls can't be targeted by attacks. I see walls as more or less indestructible.)


4.- MAGIC

I've not decided on this... But I would redo some things.

The towns would be able to build annexes of different types, however, the highest level spells that can be present in any one town would be limited by the relation between the town and the group of spells. A necropolis would be allowed to be build a life annex, but only spells of level 2 or lower would be available. The annexes should only give level 5 spells for the main mage guild, never for annexes.

5.- CREATURES

I'd keep the way Diplomacy/Charm works. Diplomacy only works on allied cretures. Charm works on any creature.

I'd keep no creature upgrades. Creatures would be around 80-100.


6.- CAMPAIGNS -

I will also take that glorious BRANCHED design from HOMM2. it seems to be the best and offers some good possibilities.


7.- ADVENTURE MAP & CONFIGURATION

1.- Kingdom Overview based on the HOMM3 game, but enhanced.

2.- External dwellings would work as in Heroes 4.

3.- Thieves Guild and Marketplace would work as in Heroes 3.

4.- Oracles/Obelisks would work as in Heroes 4.

5.- Marketplaces/Trade would work as in Heroes 3.

Oh, and a bit off-topic: Bonus applied.
____________
"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 12, 2002 09:32 AM
Edited By: sikmar on 12 Sep 2002

> Hero portraits would be all new. Perhaps taking the
> portraits HoMM2 style and then a smaller version to be
> used as a mini-icon.

What I most dislike of HOMM4 portraits is the excessive cartoonish style and its little size. HOMM3 ones were more realistic and almost every face has its own personality (well, except for those minotaur or troglodyte twins I never distinguished), and HOMM2 size is right for me. With the current resolutions, that size will make an impressive detailed portrait.

> Might Heroes get an opportunity to specialize in any one
> creature of their own alignment, Magic Heroes can
> specialize in any one spell. This specialization is
> optional and costs extra. It must be purchased when the
> Hero is hired.

It's a new point of view, but I still prefer the fixed and more varied hero specialty (affecting not only troops and spells but morale, luck, movement, secondary skill boosts, etc.) A mixed variant: A hero could start with a fixed specialty, but gain optional improvements of that specialty at certain levels (10, 20, 30...)

> The XP required to advance would be revamped so the XP
> required to reach next level increases linearly and not
> exponentially. (Should not be required to visit a Tree of
> Knowledge to have a chance to advance normally within a
> reasonable time.)

This is also a good point. It's a fact that the current HOMM4 experience system makes very difficult to develop a high level hero. Without level or skill boosting locations, it's almost impossible to develop to grandmaster more than two skill branches. Maybe if you could sacrifice that ton of useless parchments and potions...

> The caravan system would be kept and enhanced. (I want to
> be able to caravan any of my 8 wandering armies to a
> city. Perhaps requiring that the wandering army has a
> remaining movement of 10 for the current day.)

Yes. The game lose some points when you spend half of your gameplay in rutine operations like coming home.

> Citadel and Castle would also add to creature production.

Right now, and given the coward the AI is, building this structures is usually wasting your cash.

> I would keep the walls undestroyed, but attackers would
> be allowed to climb over them. It would take two turns to
> climb them.

Mmmm. If any attacking troop can climb your wall in two turns, a lot of the cunning tactics you can employ in a HOMM3 siege are lost. Maybe they could develop a new PRIMARY skill called SIEGE, with its adequate subskills: Ballistics (catapult eficiency and number of shots), Wallclimbing (the ability you proposed) and Armor (reduces damage from towers and enemy shooters). Or maybe wallclimbing could be an awesome special for some new creature.

> Oh, and a bit off-topic: Bonus applied.

Thanks, and also a bit off-topic, how can I automatically quotate paragraphs by inserting tags? Right now I do it manually and is a little amateurish...
____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 12, 2002 11:09 AM

Quote:
It's a new point of view, but I still prefer the fixed and more varied hero specialty (affecting not only troops and spells but morale, luck, movement, secondary skill boosts, etc.) A mixed variant: A hero could start with a fixed specialty, but gain optional improvements of that specialty at certain levels (10, 20, 30...)


My suggestion was actually mixed. The fixed part of the speciality was having a pair of additional secondary skills. These skills would be tied in with the biofile, and not be selectable.

Another thing I'd like is that the probability to be offered any one skill was on a per hero basis and not on a per class basis. (Of course, the offers would not vary all that much within a class, as between them.)

Could be done by alloting say 25% chance for any one skill to be offered to the Hero and not the class.

A Priest may have something like this:

Life Magic: 8
Order Magic: 3
Nature Magic: 3
Combat: 2
Tactics: 2
Nobility: 1
Scouting: 1
Death Magic: 0
Chaos Magic: 0
= 20 points.

Hero biofile then is favouring the Prophet/Scouting class so:
Scouting: 4
Life magic: 1
= 5 points.

Total of 25 points. (So each point is worth 4%.)


I forgot to mention: both the creature speciality and spell speciality was restricted to creatures/spells of your own alignment.

Quote:
> I would keep the walls undestroyed, but attackers would
> be allowed to climb over them. It would take two turns to
> climb them.

Mmmm. If any attacking troop can climb your wall in two turns, a lot of the cunning tactics you can employ in a HOMM3 siege are lost. Maybe they could develop a new PRIMARY skill called SIEGE, with its adequate subskills: Ballistics (catapult eficiency and number of shots), Wallclimbing (the ability you proposed) and Armor (reduces damage from towers and enemy shooters). Or maybe wallclimbing could be an awesome special for some new creature.


I don't see how it would change tactics. If you wanted to destroy the walls it would take roughly two turns with the catapult. With expert ballistics, you would be inside in 1 turn. Of course, if you focus on the towers instead, then walls will stand longer. Anyway, remember that you in addition have one turn's delay standing in the moat.

You do realise attacking something from outside the walls give the defenders a huge attack/defence bonus. Generally speaking I try to avoid this penalty at any cost during a siege. The times I accept it is for summoned creatures (or other creatures that I will lose at the end of combat.)

To quote, use the Quote Reply button on a post. The start tag and the end tag for a quote is in the beginning and the end of the post.

You can make several quotes by just inserting the quoted text within the quote-markers.
Start of quote: "quote" within straight brackets.
End of quote: "/quote" within straight brackets.
____________
"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 12, 2002 02:11 PM

Quote:
I don't see how it would change tactics. If you wanted to destroy the walls it would take roughly two turns with the catapult. With expert ballistics, you would be inside in 1 turn. Of course, if you focus on the towers instead, then walls will stand longer. Anyway, remember that you in addition have one turn's delay standing in the moat.


I was thinking as the DEFENDER of the sieged town. The are a lot of tricks that are very useful with the HOMM3 siege style, but would be out of order if creatures could climb the walls. Most of them deal with taking advantage of wall breaches to force the opponent to lose more and more turns:

1.- Destroy the catapult ASAP. Sometimes is very useful to turn it to pieces, even sacrifying your flyer stacks, if you manage to do it before any section of the wall is destroyed.
2.- Blind an enemy stack when it stands on the bridge (or in a wall breach) to block access to the remaining enemy stacks.
3.- Put some cannonfodder troops, or cloned ones, or summoned ones in the wall breaches, forcing enemies to lose a turn attacking them while your shooters fire again. I enjoy a lot to see them suffering in the moat as a price for their stupidity. ;-)
4.- Put some tough/binding creatures (dendroids, scorpicores, basilisks...) in that breaches. Climbing troops could avoid this tank troops and attack shooters first.

Surely there are more of them I can't recall. Anyway, HOMM4 has yet changed this, so I guess it's time to change my mind.

Quote:
You do realise attacking something from outside the walls give the defenders a huge attack/defence bonus. Generally speaking I try to avoid this penalty at any cost during a siege. The times I accept it is for summoned creatures (or other creatures that I will lose at the end of combat.)


Right. The general siege tactic in HOMM4 seems to be always the same: get rid of shooters and magic users ASAP (using the "lose turn" spells like Confusion to minimize damage), launch your cursing spells and start summoning temporal creatures till you're out of mana or have enough of them. Then launch your summoned troops and enjoy the battle. Of course this is one more fault of the stupid AI, who prefers to stay poisoned and dying inside its walls. Now that the MP patch seems imminent, we will face human oponents and discover a lot of bad surprises.

Regards, and thanks for the "quote" help.-
____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Tristan
Tristan


Promising
Known Hero
illegally insane
posted September 12, 2002 04:54 PM

First, just to let you know someone besides Djive is reading and enjoying this

I have to admit that the heroes seem a little blah!  They are all about their skills, I have yet to scroll through and pick a certain hero or even read the bio of anyone but campaign heroes (with exception of Bob, who is Calh in his bio )  Hero specialties would be a nice change, but might have to wait for H5

Siege combat:  I think I will have to wait and see what the the UAI comes up with once the multiplayer patch comes out.  I know I have managed to defeat forces in siege battles that I would have no chance against in the open, both as attacker and defender.  
____________
If you learn so much by losing, why am I so dumb?

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
thunderknight
thunderknight


Promising
Famous Hero
posted September 12, 2002 05:27 PM bonus applied.

Just fooling around on net.
Here are some very rough ideas:-

Heroes
- allow more customization including putting your own pic on hero protrait. If HC can, why not homm5
It'll be fun to kick others butt with "yourself:

- retain h3 hero specialties


Battle
- double damage to fliers by some specific shooters, more specific damage bonus e.g. troops with heavy armour take less damage from normal attack but suffer more from, say, thunder attack due to electrification.........so, every creature will have more than one way to counter.

- allow spy units (inspired by Thunder's "Battle of ....." thread )..... say, we can have some heroes assigned as spy and send he/she to enemy town. Next day, he/she appears in enemy tavern. If hired, the spy hero can send info about enemy kingdom. The longer the spy stay, more info can be revealed. The spy can also open the castle gate in town siege and carrying out other "secret missions".....

Ya, should have counters like detect spy spells or skill and if spy found, end up in execution. Also should impose limit on no. of spies can send.

- if allow wall climbing, also allow some tactics e.g. rock throwing on wall climbing creatures/units.

- also allow fire attack to towns,maybe some shooters have "fire arrow" specialty. If castle caught fire and not put out, can damage defending structures or even troops.

- in battle morale change say if your halflings successfully kill one enemy stack (doing the finishing touch), morale should +1.........

- allow one-on-one hero duel during battle if with certain skill, can propose a hero duel to opponent might hero (and might hero only). Winner morale +1, exp + ??? and loser can't move any more in that battle. Of course, you can refuse to accept the challenge......

Campaign
Agree with both of you.
H2 campaign is the best.
Maybe also allow some secret sub-map, i.e. if fulfill some quest in the given campaign map, can divert to secret map which will not affect final outcome but just for fun.

Just very rough ideas.

Well, with the reputation of "dendroidly" slow in game development, maybe 3DO/NWC will give us some surprise of homm5 after 3 years...........

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Lich_King
Lich_King


Honorable
Supreme Hero
posted September 13, 2002 01:51 PM bonus applied.
Edited By: Lich_King on 15 Sep 2002

My dream...

Mostly I agree with you sikmar.
I thought only about creatures and magic system:

I agree that there must be many of towns, but I think it is not very good idea to clasificate towns by good, evil and neutral. Town and aligment system is better in h4. And the 11th creature should be grail guardian, creature which can be recruited when grail structure is build.

Haven (Life)

01.- Peasant (h4): Melee, taxpayer
02.- Squire (h4): Melee, stun
03.- Crossbowman (h4): Ranged, no ranged penalty
04.- Pikeman (h4): Melee, negate first strike, pike
05.- Swordsman (h3): Melee, toughness
06.- Monk (h4): Ranged, spellcaster (Bless and Heal)
07.- Crusader (h4): Melee, strikes twice, death ward
08.- Zealot (h3): Ranged, no ranged penalty, death ward
09.- Champion (h4): Melee, first strike, jousting
10.- Angel (h4): Melee, flyer, resurrection
11.- Archangel (h3): Melee, flyer, +50% to death aligment creatures, death ward, spellcaster (Holy Shout,Mass Bless, Mass Fervor, Prayer, Resurrection).

Rampart (Nature)

01.-  Sprite (h4): Melee, flyer, no retelation
02.-  Leprechaun (h4): Melee, fortune
03.-  Elf (h3): Ranged, strikes twice, ranged first strike
04.-  Silver Pegasi (h3): Melee, flyer, power drain
05.-  White Tiger (h4): Melee, first strike
06.-  Griffin (h4): Melee, flyer, unlimited retelation
07.- Unicorn (h3): Melee, blinding ability  
08.- Gargantuan (h4): Ranged, No melee penalty, area attack
09.-  Gold Dragon (h3): Melee, flyer, breath attack, immune to Death and Order spells
10.-  Fairy Dragon (h4): Melee, flyer, magic mirror, spellcaster (Lightning, Confusion, Fire Ball, Fire Ring)
11.- Dryad (new): Flyer, shooter, spellcaster (Summon Sprite - Fairy Dragon, Mass Fortune).

Academy (Order)

01.- Halfling (h4): Ranged, giantslayer
02.- Dwarf (h4): Melee, 30 % magic resistance
03.- Gremlin (h3): Ranged
04.- Magi (h4): Melee, spellcaster (Poison, Magic Fist, Blur, Raise Skeletons, Curse)
05.- Gold Golem (h4): Melee, mechanical, magic resistance 80%
06.- Genie (h3): Melee, flyer, spellcaster (Ice Bolt, Create Illusions, Slow, Mirth, Song of Peace)
07.- Naga (h3): Melee, no retaliation ability
08.- Evil Sorceress (h4): Melee, teleportation, magic mirror, spellcaster (Banish, Mass Slow, Mass Cancelation, Implosion)
09.- Dragon golem (h4): Melee, first strike, negate first strike
10.- Titan (h3): Ranged, no melee penalty, chaos ward
11.- God of Justice (new): Melee, Chaos ward, +50% against Cahos and Nature aligment creatures, spellcaster (Hypnotize, Steal all spells, Pain Mirror).

Stronghold (Might)

01.- Wolf (h4): Melee, strikes twice
02.- Berserker (h4): Melee, double strike, berserker
03.- Orc (h4): Ranged, decreased area damage
04.- Centaur (h4): Ranged, no melee penalty, decreased area damage
05.- Nomad (h4): Melee, first strike
06.- Ogre Magi (h3): Melee, spellcaster (Bloodlust, Dispel)
07.- Goblin knight (h4): Melee, magic resistance 50%, negate first strike, stoneskin
08.- Cyclops (h4): Ranged, area damage
09.- Behemoth (h3): Melee, strenght
10.- Thunderbird (h4): Melee, flyer, lightning bolt damage  
11.- Ancient warlord (new): Melee, magic immunity, first strike, strenght.

Preserve (Might)

01.- Gnoll (h3): Melee, stuning attack
02.- Boar rider (h3): Melee
03.- Lizard (h3): Ranged
04.- Dragon fly (h3): Melee, flyer, weakness
05.- Greater Basilisk (h3): Melee, stone gaze
06.- Waspwort (h4): Ranged, weakness
07.- Mighty Gorgon (h3): Melee, death stare
08.- Wyvern Monarch (h3): Melee, flyer, poison attack
09.- Chaos Hydra (h3): Melee, multi-hex attack, no retelation
10.- Mantis (h4): Melee, flyer, binding ability
11.- Swamp monster (new): Melee, no retelation, blocking, duplicates after it's killed. (Something like giant maggot)

Conflux (Elemental)

01.- Ooze (new): Melee, elemental, insubstantial
02.- Will'o wisp (new): Ranged, elemental, flyer
03.- Gargoyle (h4): Melee, elemental, stone skin
04.- Earth elemental (h4): Melee, elemental, magic resistance 50%
05.- Air elemental (h4): Melee, elemental, flyer, insubstantial
06.- Fire elemental (h4): Ranged, elemental, fire resistance, fire damage
07.- Water elemental (h4): Melee, elemental, cold attack, cold resistance, spellcaster (Ice bolt, Fatigue, Weakness, Quicksand)
08.- Elementalist (new): Ranged, spellcaster (All Mass Wards (5), Mass Misfortune, Mass Slow)
09.- Magic elemental (h3): Melee, elemental, multi-hex attack, no retelation, magic immunity
10.- Phoenix (h3): Melee, flyer, breath attack, fire resistance, revive
11.- Greater elemental (new): Ranged, flyer, elemental, spellcaster (Fire Ball, Ice Bolt, Lightning, Meteor Shower).  

Necropolis (Death)

01.- Skeleton (h4): Melee, undead, skeletal
02.- Zombie (h4): Melee, undead, toughnest, plague (on one unit)
03.- Wraith (h3): Melee, undead, flyer, regeneration, mana drain
04.- Ghost (h4): Melee, undead, flyer, insubstantial, aging
05.- Mummy (h4): Melee, undead, curse
06.- Vampire (h4): Melee, undead, flyer, life dain, no retelation
07.- Power lich (h3): Ranged, undead, are attack, exept non-death creatures, spellcaster (Mass Curse, Lightning, Fire Bolt, Animate Dead, Unholy Song)
08.- Ice demon (h4): Melee, freezing ability, cold attack, cold resistance
09.- Dark champion (h4): Melee, undead, jousting, regeneration, terror
10.- Bone Dragon (h4): Melee, undead, flyer, skeletal, fear
11.- Grim reaper (new): Ranged, undead, insubstantial, spellcaster (Hand of Death, Mass Cancelation), expert Necromancy ((5 % from every Grim reaper) enemys after combat will be raised as ghosts).

Asylum (Chaos)

01.- Troglodyte (h4): Melee, immune to eye based spells
02.- Rogue (h3): Melee, scouting information
03.- Bandit (h4): Melee, basic stealth
04.- Harpy (h3): Melee, strikes and returns
05.- Beholder (h4): Ranged, flyer, no melee penalty, casts random harmful spells from Order, Chaos & Death magic.
06.- Minotaur (h3): Melee, blocking ability
07.- Medusa (h3): Ranged, no melee penalty, stone gaze
08.- Nightmare (h4): Melee, terror
09.- Manticores (h3): Melee, flyer, paralyzing
10.- Black Dragon (h4): Melee, flyer, breath attack, magic immunity
11.- God of fire (new): Melee, flyer, fire resistance, spellcaster (Fire Bolt, Fire Ring, Fire Ball, Inferno, Mass Misfortune)

Inferno (Infernal)

01.- Imp (h4): Melee, flyer, mana leech
02.- Magog (h3): Ranged, fireball attack
03.- Cerberi (h3): Melee, 3 hexes attack, no retelation
04.- Demon (h3): Melee, fire resistance
05.- Heretic (new): Melee, spellcaster (Fire Bolt, Fire Ring, Summon Imp, cerberi, Fire Protection)
06.- Corpulent (D2): Melee, first strike, special eats corpses and spits them out (side effect Plague)
07.- Pit lord (h3): Melee, summons Demon
08.- Efreet (h3): Melee, flyer, fire resistance, fire attack, fire shield
09.- Venom spawn (h4): Ranged, poison attack
10.- Devil (h4): Melee, teleportation, no retelation, summon Ice demon, life ward
11.- Kreegan (new): Melee, teleportation, fire resistance, spellcaster (Summon Imp-Venom spawn).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There could be new types of magic : Elemental & Infernal

Elemental Magic: All magic schools spells, exept: Mind spells, Most of Life spells, also some new spells: Fire Storm, Meteor shower, Earthquake, Lava river, Fire wall, Life ward and etc.

Infernal Magic: Mostly Chaos magic's damage spells and summon Inferno units + summon Ice demon.

That all for now...
____________

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 13, 2002 03:04 PM
Edited By: sikmar on 13 Sep 2002

Sorry, Lich-King. My Iexplorer crashed and sent only your quote but not my response, so I had to edit but I have not time to repeat my answer. Next monday I will comment on your post.
____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 14, 2002 05:10 PM

Skill wishes for Heroes 5.

Skills are divided into groups of three, each with 5 levels.

Total of 48 skills. Heroes are limited to studying eight skill groups.

For some of the slots, I'm sure there are better alternatives.

If not otherwise noted the skill works as in heroes 4.

Might skills:

Group 1. Attack
- Melee
- Archery
- Offence

Group 2. Defence
- Toughness (Increases hitpoints of hero)
- Blocking (An increasing chance for hero to block an attack.)
- Defence

Group 3. Other combat
- Ballistics (Allows the hero to control a war machine, and with increasing effiency. For instance a Catapult or a first Aid Tent. All War Machines must be purchased.)
- Magic Resistance
- Negation (Gives creatures in the army Magic resistance.)

Thief and Logistics skills

Group 4. Movement
- Scouting
- Pathfinding or/and Navigation
- Riding or/and Sailing

Group 5. Theft
- Stealth (In addition this skill also increases the hero's overland Map speed. The speed boost doesn't apply for any creatures in the army.)
- Spying (Provides Thieves Guild information. Also allows the Hero to visit enemy towns and recruit creatures if any are available, without fighting against the garrison. All assuming that the Hero is invisible to the garrison. The spy can visit the Mage Guild and use caravans to move purchased creatures out if these are available.)
- Theft (Allows Hero to attempt to steal items from wandering armies. Only items kept in backpack can be stolen.)

Lord/Merchant skills

Group 6. Production
- Nobility
- Estates
- Mining

Group 7. Tactics
- Tactics
- Leadership (improves morale of both creatures and heroes)
- Luck (improves luck of both creatures and heroes)

Group 8. Merchant
- Haggling (Gives hero discount on any purchases made by that hero.)
- Diplomacy
- Economy (Works similar to the Treasury in the Academy. The more money you have, the more this skill pays off.)


Magic skills

Primary skill: Also increases spellpoints and spellpoints regeneration.
1st Secondary: Corresponds to the second secondary in H4.

Group 9. Life Magic (Enhancing spells and healing.)
- Life Magic
- Healing
- Resurrection

Group 10. White Magic (Mainly protective spells)
- White Magic
- Spirituality
- Untouchability (Works similar to the sanctuary spell.)

Group 11. Chaos Magic
- Chaos Magic
- Pyromancy
- Desertion (Works as Charm, but you don't get to keep the creatures after combat. Hero does get the XP value for creatures that Desert as reward for using the skill.)

Group 12. Order Magic
- Order Magic
- Wizardry
- Charm

Group 13. Death Magic
- Death Magic
- Occultism
- Necromancy

Group 14. Black Magic
- Black Magic
- Demonology
- Corruption (As a pre-combat effect, allows the hero to corrupt living enemy creatures and turn them into imps or demons.)

Magic utility skills

Group 15.
- Sorcery
- Intelligence
- Mysticism

Group 16.
- Scholar : The Hero can make scrolls and parchments from spells made in shrines and mage guilds. Can also copy spells between hero spellbooks. Hero is allowed to have spells in the spellbook before being able to cast them.
- Summoner : The Hero summons creatures each turn. Which creatures depends on hero's alignment.
- Alchemy: Hero produces magic potions/artifacts.
____________
"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 16, 2002 10:54 AM

About Lich-King ideas

Quote:
I agree that there must be many of towns, but I think it is not very good idea to clasificate towns by good, evil and neutral. Town and aligment system is better in h4.


Well, the classic good-neutral-evil classification was only necessary for my clan-driven-campaigns. If there were a campaign for each single town type, it would be quite boring to spend many scenarios playing only one town. Anyway, these higher rank alliances can also be made using your classification: Life-Nature-Order against Death-Chaos-Infernal or against Elemental+Two Might factions. At last, both schemes are similar and it's a question of names. My goal was to have wider factions concerning three town types each and allowing great controversies and disputes within each faction, as in real life.

Quote:
And the 11th creature should be grail guardian, creature which can be recruited when grail structure is build.


Oh, Yeah! :-) That's a good point that was discussed some months ago in this forum. Are you thinking of an UNIQUE creature you can recruit only once in a game? If so, most of your 11th level creatures fits nicely (the Dryad, the Grim Reaper, the Kreegan Lord...) I would replace the Archangel cos we have angels already on level 10 (I prefer to have very different creatures on the same army) and it doesn't seem very unique...

Quote:
There could be new types of magic : Elemental & Infernal

Elemental Magic: All magic schools spells, exept: Mind spells, Most of Life spells, also some new spells: Fire Storm, Meteor shower, Earthquake, Lava river, Fire wall, Life ward and etc.

Infernal Magic: Mostly Chaos magic's damage spells and summon Inferno units + summon Ice demon.


Nice, and very easy to adapt to the current game. Simply made a seven peak star where immediate neighbours become "allied magic schools", next two neighbours become "neutral magic schools" and the two opposite peaks become "enemy magic schools". Of course spells should be rearranged to balance schools. One logical school order could be the following (interpret the list as a cyclic one, in which number 1 and number 7 are close neighbours)

1.- Nature
2.- Life
3.- Order
4.- Elemental
5.- Infernal
6.- Death
7.- Chaos

It makes sense cos Infernal and Death are enemies of Life, and also Chaos is enemy of Order.

That's all for now. It's a pity that 3DO don't pay much attention to the bunch of HOMM creative lovers in this forum.

____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 16, 2002 11:11 AM

About Djive ideas

I agree with you: HOMM4 has improved the hero system a lot cos if forces the player to CHOOSE how it wants its hero. Anyway, there should be many skills to learn, as you propose. Now a hero can study five branches out of nine, but it's rather redundant to get more than three magic schools, and if you're not aiming for an archmage maybe one or two of them are enough.

What I would like is many useful groups, and some of then being autoexclusive (if you get life magic you're not allowed to get death magic, etc.). I think your post nicely shows the advantages of this design.

An additional skill (to fulfill my old dream of having more stacks in my army) could be "COMMAND", giving up to five more slots at grandmaster. It would fit in any of the combat groups or maybe better in nobility or tactics. An excellent leader or a well-know nobleman could gather a larger army, etc.

____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Lich_King
Lich_King


Honorable
Supreme Hero
posted September 16, 2002 11:27 AM
Edited By: Lich_King on 16 Sep 2002

No it would go like six peak star with Elemental magic in the midlle (because elemental is combained with all magics)
then begin with:
1.Life
2.Order
3.Death
4.Chaos
5.Infernal
6.Nature

And hero clases would be:
Life + Order - Monk (Chaos ward)
Order + Death - Shadow mage (Blur)
Death + Chaos - Lich (Aging, skeletal)
Chaos + Infernal - Posessed (+ 10 % to fire based spells)
Infernal + Nature - Demonologist (+ 25 % to summon demons)
Nature + Life - Summoner (+ 10 % to summoning skill)

Life                      Speaker to Gods (don't know)
Order                     Ice Master (immune to ice based)
Death                     Death Ruler (in begin  
                         casts Mass cancelation)
          + Elemental -
Chaos                     Fire Lord (immune to desintegrate)
Infernal                  Hell King (immune to armageddon)
Nature                    Creature binder (immune to
                         banish, dispell or cancelation
                         (in case when destroies
                         illusions and raised creatures)
____________

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 16, 2002 11:51 AM

I'm not for making skills auto-exclusive. I thought of making it a bit more difficult to combine classes, but making it impossible is not good.

Basic classes should stay basic a lot longer. When you have 7-10 skill slots in selected skills then you could get an advanced class.

A basic class that includes white/life magic will not get an offer to learn/improve black/death magic.

An advanced class that includes proficiency this way may or may not allow it depending on what else is studied and what the new class is called.

Since there are even more skills to learn I'd propose a change of learning/tuition functions to this:

Tuition places will be able to tutor you up to Expert level, but not more than 1 level/week. Basic costs 1000, Advanced costs 3000 and Expert costs 5000. The tutoring of prerequisites is gone.


The COMMAND skill is already in the game in my opinion. It would match either Nobility, Summoning or the Charm/Diplomacy skill. Or how would you want it to differ from them?

Nobility increases creature production in a town. (More creatures flock to your banner!)

Summoning allows you to get creatures from a wandering Hero. (Broken out from Nature so that each Hero can get properly aligned creatures!)

In fact, you could also consider Diplomacy and Charm as COMMAND skills (and the new alternatives I invented Desertion and Corruption are also similar.)
____________
"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 16, 2002 12:34 PM

Quote:
I'm not for making skills auto-exclusive. I thought of making it a bit more difficult to combine classes, but making it impossible is not good.

Basic classes should stay basic a lot longer. When you have 7-10 skill slots in selected skills then you could get an advanced class. A basic class that includes white/life magic will not get an offer to learn/improve black/death magic. An advanced class that includes proficiency this way may or may not allow it depending on what else is studied and what the new class is called.


So skills exclusion only would work for basic classes, but an advanced hero would be intelligent enough to choose any knowledge branch, if offered. Fine tuning.

Quote:
The COMMAND skill is already in the game in my opinion. It would match either Nobility, Summoning or the Charm/Diplomacy skill. Or how would you want it to differ from them?

Nobility increases creature production in a town. (More creatures flock to your banner!) Summoning allows you to get creatures from a wandering Hero. (Broken out from Nature so that each Hero can get properly aligned creatures!) In fact, you could also consider Diplomacy and Charm as COMMAND skills (and the new alternatives I invented Desertion and Corruption are also similar.)


I didn't managed to explain my idea. As you say, there are many ways to improve the quantity of creatures your empire can employ (sometimes there are even too much of them, when your hero is charming, summoning and animating creatures at a time...)

What I was trying to define with the COMMAND skill is the ability to gain SLOTS in the army, NOT the creatures to fill them. A normal HOMM4 army is formed by up to seven slots, occupied by both heroes and creatures. A hero with basic command will have eight of these slots, and advanced command hero will have nine... and a Grandmaster Commander could carry with him TWELVE stacks of heroes/creatures. This way command doesn't affect the creatures the hero is able to produce, but the creatures he is able to lead in battle, and this could fit both in the combat or tactics group.

This skill will be a bad choice in maps where you have few creatures, or insufficent cash to buy a great army, but it will be a pleasure when you go towards a big battle with 9 huge stacks of creatures and three high-level heroes. It would also be a good choice for diplomatic heroes, which would have plenty of space to add new recruits to their army.


____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 16, 2002 04:26 PM

Basic and advanced classes:
It already works this way in Heroes4. The reason it's not really apparent is because Combat is offered too much. It would be nice with more choices at level-up.

1 choice for each of skills which is required for your currenct class.
1 choice in a skill you have outside your class.
1 choice for a new skill.

Paladins are for example never offered Death Magic. You will have to specifically tutor them in Death Magic to get that skill (and even then it will not be offered at level-up if there is another possible choice.)

COMMAND sounds like a skill that could be included in another skill, probably fits best as an additional benefit with Tactics or Leadership skills.

Regardless, I would want the possibility to have more than 7 army slots when defending a city.

Heroes 4 works overall nicely when it comes to slots. 5 creatures plus two Heroes makes seven slots.

If you want to be able to build for more than 5 creatures in a town then you will want one additional slot for each creature beyond 5. (To allow for Heroes in the army.)

And at the very least you want all the units that can be recruited in a town to be available for the town's defences.

One of the mistakes in H2 was five slots but six units in towns. So you could never use all creatures within a single army.
____________
"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Wub
Wub


Responsible
Famous Hero
posted September 19, 2002 11:52 PM

Quality thread

I mainly want to say that I find this an outstanding thread with excellent posts and great ideas. Keep it going!

But I agree that this dream seems to be impossible. I think that 3DO dooesn't want to include too many new features in Heroes 5 because of financial reasons and maybe they are afraid that all those creatures and skills are overwhelming for newbie heroes players. Too bad in my opinion, but let's keep dreaming!
____________

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 20, 2002 10:23 AM

Quality and Quantity

Quote:
I think that 3DO dooesn't want to include too many new features in Heroes 5 because of financial reasons and maybe they are afraid that all those creatures and skills are overwhelming for newbie heroes players. Too bad in my opinion, but let's keep dreaming!


I know financial reasons are really serious reasons, but that newbie reason is somewhat an excuse for me. Is HOMM4 far simplier than HOMM3? I don't think so: you have less creatures and town buildings, but hero classes and development are far more diverse, interesting and open to a wider range of strategic ways. At least, having a lot of creatures only adds fun. You don't need to master every town alignment to learn to play.

Let's suppose HOMM4 was designed to attract new people to the HOMM fandom. In that matter it has obviously triumphed. I don't know sale numbers but I've seen a copy of HOMM4 in every spanish games shop and almost in every spanish SUPERMARKET (In computer sections, of course). None of the precedent games had this overwhelming market presence. Is the first time I see HOMM like a wide-audience game (not at Warcraft or Counterstrike level yet, but in the right way)

So, if the audience has been increased by this game, why not make HOMM5 as a creature-massive and skill-complicated sequel, like Djive and some others had been commenting on this thread? The "attract-newbie" tactic is not necessary, and the fans that joined the saga playing HOMM4 will want more variety. The wisest idea for 3DO would be, if possible, to sharpen the AI performance for free (a final patch) and give more interesting improvements in the expansion. This way they will unite the new and the old fans in a reliable and wide fan basis.

My only hope for 3DO: mantain commercial greed at bay and refine the current game. Making fast expansions is bread for a day, but making HOMM4 a legendary game is like learning to grow wheat (well, sorry if this sound silly, it's difficult to translate popular expressions..)

____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
sikmar
sikmar


Promising
Known Hero
The Moonchild
posted September 20, 2002 11:19 AM

Quote:
COMMAND sounds like a skill that could be included in another skill, probably fits best as an additional benefit with Tactics or Leadership skills. Regardless, I would want the possibility to have more than 7 army slots when defending a city.


Yes, that's what I was thinking of. But maybe this great army dream is a particular obssesion of mine and the rest of players don't want many creatures. Another similar idea I posted before the HOMM4 arrival was to reserve this great army to an unique hero in your empire, your Main Commander. Maybe you should choose a hero for this task in the first week of play and prize it with some special advantages...

And, by the way, another thing that surprises me is the exclusion of the old "Tactics" skill in HOMM4. My ideal game will definitely have this skill, maybe somewhat lowered (you can position you troops to allow walkers to protect rangers but you can't position them half the way to the enemy lines)

Quote:
Heroes 4 works overall nicely when it comes to slots. 5 creatures plus two Heroes makes seven slots. If you want to be able to build for more than 5 creatures in a town then you will want one additional slot for each creature beyond 5. (To allow for Heroes in the army.)
And at the very least you want all the units that can be recruited in a town to be available for the town's defences.


It seems logical. If you were living in a town under siege, you'll probably work hard in its defense and you'll allow nobody to say "Sorry, there aren't slots enough for you to defend your home" :-)

Quote:
One of the mistakes in H2 was five slots but six units in towns. So you could never use all creatures within a single army.


Yes, that was annoying. In addition, HOMM2 was highly oriented to the "develop a super-hero and give it almost all your forces" tactic, and you were forced to leave one of your troop types at home. At least, in the Knight town the choice was always clear...
____________
This is my truth. Tell me yours

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | PP | Quote Reply | Link
Wub
Wub


Responsible
Famous Hero
posted September 23, 2002 11:59 PM

Quote:

So, if the audience has been increased by this game, why not make HOMM5 as a creature-massive and skill-complicated sequel, like Djive and some others had been commenting on this thread? The "attract-newbie" tactic is not necessary, and the fans that joined the saga playing HOMM4 will want more variety.



On second thought, I must say that I agree with you. Adding skills and creatures doesn't make it more complicating to understand the basics of the game, but it does give the game more depth. I initially wanted to point out that we hardcore gamers may have completely different wishes than more occasional gamers, but it indeed seems that both groups profit from what has been proposed in this thread.




____________

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Jump To: « Prev Thread . . . Next Thread » This thread is 2 pages long: 1 2 · NEXT»
Post New Poll    Post New Topic    Post New Reply

Page compiled in 0.1559 seconds