Posts from Heroes 3.14

Dear comrades, I dare to add some fuel to the fire of the everlasting topic regarding the improvement of our beloved game.

I've decided to slightly change the vector of the topic and have added a poll on HotA-hate for now.
List of innovations in HotA

We all waited for HotA, but in the view of many players, the resulting overpopulation of new objects on the map and monsters, the inappropriate redrawing of old ones, and the heretical new Castle offset its obvious advantages.
SoD is a classic, 21st-century chess, and does not require such things. On the other hand, the original was tailored for M-templates and less intense skill; moreover, years of PvP practice have exposed some rough edges that truly need to be filed down: ignoring Fire and Water schools, the heartache of choosing between Diplomacy and Ballistics, useless artifacts on respawn, etc. — none of this enhances the gameplay.

In general, I submit for your judgment my version of a pool of improvements with an emphasis on tradition — nothing radical, just tightening weak points to diversify the gameplay.
The exception is a few borrowings from the 5th part, which, IMHO, holds a distinguished second place on the Pedestal of Eternity of the Heroes series. I am mainly referring to negative luck and the properties of magic schools.

Let's start with skills:


- Ballistics turns into a strategic device for hunting big game!
- Demoralization of castle defenders at the sight of a catapult — isn't that an elegant move?
- Buff the mages!
- To hell with the Diplomacy ban!


- A couple more useless skills no longer clutter the slots!


- now this skill is only useless to a level 1 warrior.


- Abolishing a useless skill is not our method!


- Just a little more balance..


- and we can unban the Necromancer Amplifier!

Magic:



- Bloodlust, along with Weakness, should compete with buffs from other schools!
- When was the last time you used Magic Resistance? Now КЗ is not such an imba.


- Fire magic in all settings is characterized by increased damage. Why isn't it so in Heroes 3?


- Here it is, negative luck. For those unaware — a failed hit in the 5th part means half damage.


- "twice" is neither too much nor too little, but just right!


- Ice Bolt becomes a tactical alternative to Slow!


- also a feature from the 5th part

Artifacts:


- why not?


- A Ghost of Hope for a mage in the late game?


- i.e., taking into account the built-up Castle — four times! Now we're talking..


- Small things, but pleasant!


- Another feature from the 5th part..


- Similar to the corresponding skill.

I believe our specialists are up to this. All that's left is public interest.

P.S. The Heroes 3 library design was used from the venerable site HeroesPortal.net

Overall, I liked most of the suggestions, except for the -3 morale for ballistics (-2 is already overpowered, and we can stop there). Mana amulets should have the same value and restore the same percentage of mana; Arcomage doesn't need any buffs.

I was particularly amused by the annihilation of Knight and Sorceress. ))

In my opinion, the changes are too radical; I find mysticism and mana-based arts to be acceptable.

Most of the ideas are good:smile54:
If all of this were implemented, it would be magnificent.
I would add +1 to attack/defense/strength or knowledge for every 5 levels to the learning skill.
Armageddon shouldn't be changed (it's already the coolest spell in the game).
And the Legion artifacts seem a bit too overpowered. A collection of 2 times is okay, but 1.5 times for each individual artifact would be enough, I think.

Was the infinite number Pi chosen by chance? ))
Are we not going to change Town Portal - Dimension Door? Should we leave Earth-Air alone?

With all due respect to the author, this might seem interesting only to someone who hasn't played Might and Magic. Everything similar was already implemented there, but at a much deeper and higher level, taking into account years of discussions and opinions from top players.

-3 morale for Ballistics (-2 is already quite strong at Expert level, and you can stop there). Mana amulets have the same value and should restore the same percentage of mana; Armageddon does not require enhancement.

That's reasonable! Regarding fire, there's an alternative suggestion – again, borrow from Might and Magic V: Fire Strike reduces 50% of defense for 1 turn.

I would add +1 to attack/defense/strength or knowledge for every 5 levels to the Learning skill.
And the Legion artifacts seem a bit too overpowered.

- again, you can take it from Might and Magic V: the Education skill gives an additional +1 to the main characteristics for every 4th (3rd, 2nd) level.
- so you found the Head, brought it home with a chain, and got +3 horses next week (and there's still a loser in the city) – would you trade all this for a +5 club?

Was the infinite number of Pi chosen for a reason?

Yeah – the idea is to refine everything further without breaking the core mechanics.)

This might only seem interesting to someone who hasn't played War of the Triangle.

As far as I know, War of the Triangle has far more fixes than HotA; it's not "Heroes of Might and Magic 3.1..." but already a separate game: experience for stacks of monsters, daily salary for troops, etc.
The balance of skills is also overloaded. Take Ballistics and Artillery:
Artillery gives +5/10/15% to ranged attacks; at Expert level, you can buy a war machine, and artillery specialists also receive an additional 5% for each level to the percentage increase in ranged attacks.
Ballistics gives +1/2/4 cells for shooting without penalties; at Expert level, penalties for shooting through walls are also ignored.

The ideas are good. But in my opinion, even if they are implemented, it should be done gradually, with each change being tested over a long period of time to make sure it's not accidentally some kind of imba.

Also, there is a general problem with heroes — the different starting paces for different castles. I already suggested increasing the number of goblins and imps in heroes' starting armies to match the number of troglodytes and gremlins (the same could be done with gnolls, though there you probably need to raise them to the number of goblins).

Also for the Tower, it would be good, for example, to replace literacy for Nelka (there are so many literate ones that...) with pathfinding. Or, for example, give Theodore several mages at the start like Bron. In general, the question is how to increase the pace of the slowest castles so that rollbacks for them don't reach 5k on other templates and 7-10k on Jebus Cross.
Also, slightly nerf Necro, but in the sense of nerfing the converter. Because one of the tactics is to capture villages, plug in a converter, and have nearly 400 skeletons by day 131 even without necromancy, thus breaking Dragon Utopia. My proposal is this: the converter should take into account the HP of the unit being converted, and if the HP is less than 6, convert proportionally to HP as with necromancy (goodbye 300 skeleton conversion on day 121). Also, make Animate like Resurrection, acting constantly only under advanced Earth magic (goodbye imbatant, hello Claudius, old friend).

Well, enough daydreaming. Now the question is: who is going to analyze the assembly code and write the plugin? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?

If changes are to be made, they must be total—carried out to the end, with everything fully thought through for a specific project (mod, etc.), which is what was done with VT and continues to be done with HotA. Half-measures will lead to the creation of more "new games" (as some call them), which is not good at all. It's much better if SoD remains SoD, HotA remains HotA, and VT remains VT.

Here. Lizard finally formulated his thoughts. What MMO wrote is a draft. And what is this draft based on? Some individual ideas are great, but overall, the question remains: what is the main principle behind all of this? And accordingly, smaller questions arise. How was this particular set of changes chosen, and others discarded (as less important or by chance)? In some cases, even these changes raise questions – why exactly this way, when other options already exist? How were existing ideas from HotA and even from WoG ignored?

First, it’s necessary to eliminate the imbalance between different factions, fix bugs, i.e., address the obvious issues.
And if the game structure needs to be changed, it should be done very carefully.

And what exactly is the basis for this concept? How were existing ideas from HotA and even from WOT ignored?

The idea is not to create new "Heroes of Might and Magic," but simply to refine the obvious remnants of the classic game that lead to ignoring weak skills/magic/artifacts, which narrows the gameplay. And, if possible, to do this with minimal means, so that you don't have to learn to play all over again.
I don't know WOT and HotA very well, so I ask those who do to share their ideas, but within the stated concept.

..

The animation of the creature with advanced earth skills, and the HP converter – great! You can throw in an angel and get 33 skeletons))

Who will do it? I hope it's Baratorch. A budget is needed! I generally dream of maximum unification of SoD and HotA – so that a new castle, new objects, and other radical differences can simply be enabled with checkboxes.

The effect of animate with advanced earth, converter by HP - superb! You could even throw an angel and get 33 skeletons))

Nope. It applies to units that have less HP than a skeleton. If more - then 1 unit equals 1 skeleton. I meant the imbalance when it gives peasant stacks in the adjacent zone, and then the necromancer has a ton of skeletons out of thin air by the start of week 2.

It's just that I want a balanced necromancer, not tant -> necromancer with no losses with a cloak or converting tons of units from stacks -> cons -> Dragon Utopia on day 123.

Meo, can you imagine what +5 scouting is like? You're just trying to introduce another overpowered element. So that people will suffer later because of other issues. You simply buffed one thing without considering how it will interact with other things.

Meo, can you imagine what +5 to scouting is like? You're just trying to force another overpowered element into the game. So that people will suffer later because of other issues. You simply buffed one thing without thinking about how it will work in conjunction with something else.

But scouting is like that, it's not an overpowered element.