Heroes 5 – by Azmadon (Izmail).

I'm creating a separate thread to discuss my mod. Here, I plan to post the results and progress, as well as the difficulties and interesting moments that arise during development/experiments. *The mod is not currently available to the public; it is more of a local mod – for me and those who play with me regularly. One of the reasons for this is that I don't know what the standards are for "normal" mods, and I don't yet know how to create unpackers/installers like some more experienced modders do. I make almost all the changes directly in the game files, and the rest is done using the "map-mod" principle. I give the file to my friends to "replace" in the game folder. We all play on the same version anyway. -- -- -- Further about the Mod -- -- -- -- -- Background -- -- After playing hundreds, if not thousands, of games since the original Heroes 5 was released, we, and I in particular, wanted some variety and replayability. In an attempt to make the game and the competition fairer, we already reached the point where we only played with random factions (choosing only the bonus). And, of course, after playing like that for several years, it's hard not to notice the balance issues with many factions/heroes and the game as a whole. Since we prefer the original game and don't like third-party mods, which often contain many questionable decisions (at least for us), we decided to do everything ourselves and base it on the original, rather than modifying someone else's mod to suit our needs. Initially, the mod was just a patch. These were ordinary edits to creatures that were objectively behind or weak, but later it went further. First, heroes, then cities, and now even skills and the addition of new creatures. The mod is currently designed purely for Multiplayer. Because some decisions make it impossible to complete the Campaigns and some Scenarios. This can be fixed in the future, and there are also ideas for implementing it in the Story mode. -- -- Main tasks and features of the Mod -- -- 1) Difficulty has been shifted: Now "Hero" is instead of "Recruit", followed by Hell/Nightmare and Torment. For now, this mainly affects the game conditions and the economy/balance of power. However, we are also interested in developing the AI itself. 2) Balancing of Heroes and Creatures/Factions. The main focus here is that everything should make sense or be playable. When you appear on the map with a random faction and hero, you should have the tools to develop, even with not the most favorable generation. I would also like to note that due to the changes to the creatures, not only their usability has increased, but also the difficulty on the map. 🙄 3) The Horde has been removed. Not everyone will understand this, but it was removed because of its weakness, not its overpoweredness. (This is a long topic for discussion; I may return to it separately later.) In the future, the Horde can be replaced with a new Faction, but I don't have enough experience and skills yet to do it "properly". 4) Implementation of various mechanics and game features. Developing the game, including as a strategy. In general, many of the changes are also influenced by how we play Heroes and what rules are considered normal. There is also a separate focus on Co-op, i.e., team multiplayer and interaction between players. *This may not be everything, but I have outlined the main points. --- -- Purpose of this thread on the forum -- --- Development of the mod, discussion, and possibly its release to the public in a more "polished" form at some point. And also, this is a way to group my topics and messages so that I don't write in all sorts of threads, whether it's appropriate or not.