Round table

I'll respond here, as that's where the lengthy discussions are taking place.

For you personally, are all the new features found in the Warlords expansion completely unacceptable for implementation in SoD?

For me, as a player, absolutely everything that in any way affects the balance is unacceptable for SoD. First and foremost, the game mechanics.

Why do you call some of the new features from Warlords "Warlords-specific"?

You're right, most of the Warlords features are actually from the Trials expansion. And it would be more logical to call them that. But we should give credit to Asmodeus as a developer for creating fundamentally new features.

After all, they could have been called SoD features if they had been implemented in SoD earlier than in Warlords.

They can be called whatever you want! But definitely not SoD features! SoD is Shadow of the Death 3.2 – that's what SoD is! What the SoD developers created. Tying other things to SoD just makes it not SoD anymore. A mutant, a hybrid, a personal fantasy, "castles of my dreams," an add-on, mods, extensions, and other nonsense, but definitely not SoD. SoD is sacred, like the mother of Jesus.

Wouldn't it be easier to just treat them as new features? The HD mod with its new features in SoD seems to be working quite well at the moment.

You probably don't understand.

Quick transfer buttons don't change anything in SoD in terms of game balance. For example: if I split units into a stack in 2 seconds, then 6 stacks will take 12 seconds. If I need to do this with 5 heroes, it will take a minute. In HD, I can do all this in a few seconds. Compared to the original, the only difference is time.

That is, it will inevitably happen anyway, the question is only how much time?

Therefore, the HD mod speeds up the game and saves time, purely technically without affecting the game mechanics and without affecting the probabilities of different criteria (I think it's clear what I mean). And its use is acceptable for a "true SoD player."

Example

1. I play with the HD mod against someone who plays pure SoD. I will have a time advantage, but we will be playing the same game.

2. A person installs a mod that only has quick transfer/split buttons. We will again be playing the same game. Under equal conditions.

3. A person installs a mod, but it has a whole bunch of "cool new features." Including hero probability trees, full stacks, and level 2 units, and so on.

I'm sorry, but this is no longer SoD!

New features ended a long time ago, back in 2000, I think. And no new features are needed because it makes the game different. SoD is a conservative game.

If you want new features, or rather, a playground for experiments, call it "my_SoD_byR55Max" and do whatever you want with it, experiment as much as you want, no one is against it. Whether it will be better or worse is a completely separate topic and doesn't interest me at all. But when I want to play, and some fans of your creation turn on "SoD_byR55Max," I want my SoD or HD mod (with only quick buttons) to simply not connect with them. Because I don't need a second level that is always built, always 3 stacks, resources instead of units in the hives, and so on – a changed balance in the game. Thank you very much, but no!

(Yes, yes, I need 10 gnolls with a hero without built-up lizardmen. And I want this to be decided by random chance for both players.)

I want it to be similar to Warlords. If you want to play it, install it separately, turn off morality, turn on experience with a tax, and go ahead. No problems.

Maybe it would be wiser to discuss each point in detail, rather than making sweeping judgments and rejecting all ideas? After all, some of them have a grain of truth.

Returning to what we've already discussed. I am always happy to see new features that fix a grayed-out city or hero duplication, as this interferes with the game. But not the ones I wrote about above.

I think that's all.