Posts from Harmony - Troop Symmetry Auto-translated

Instead of one racial and five generally available skills, we could have one racial and six generally available skills (we'll need to redesign the hero window, perhaps putting the racial skill on one tab and the generally available skills on another). Adding one more generally available skill would already be a plus – six upgrade levels is probably enough; we shouldn't increase it further, and we naturally don't need to change the skill wheel.

Interesting idea.

So, there will be as many as 2(!) angelic tiers? And is that diversity?

And where did the mages and orcs go? Are they not part of the "symmetry"?

Friend, orcs and mages, by their very nature, do not have a dragon. It's like God for Christians, Allah for Muslims, and no one for atheists. Science. (Here, atheists are mages (and necromancers), and orcs... Well, orcs, it's clear, what gods do they have? For Humans, it's Askh. For Demons, it's Urgash, and Google can help with the rest).

If we design it for six skills, we’ll have to rework the hero window’s layout – here are some initial sketches:

If you design it for six skills, you'll have to rework the hero window's layout – here are the initial sketches:

Interesting, but in that case, you'll need to add one more new racial skill for each race.
But overall, this option would be the best.

Interesting, but in that case, each race will need to have one more new racial ability added.

Why?

Why?

To fill the available skill slots. Previously, I mentioned that when completing a single-player map or scenario at the Hero difficulty level, and with neutral armies, you often finish the game at levels 35-39. I'm speaking based on personal experience. In particular, our team is currently testing single-player maps: scenarios and campaigns, and I can say that we usually finish the playthrough at level 32, and sometimes at level 39.
It often happens that after level 32, there are no free slots because they are all occupied by skills and abilities. And it becomes less interesting to play - you level up, but you don't get a new skill.
Therefore, if an alternative progression option is offered with an increase in the number of free slots, for example, from 5 to 6, we will gladly implement it.

Well, isn't that what's depicted in the screenshot?
- The fourth tab in the hero window is the "skills" tab, which usually has 5 skills, and to the right of them are three slots for skills related to those skills. In the screenshot above, there are not 5, but 6 skills in this tab (racial skills have never been and will never be displayed in the "skills" tab), meaning that these 6 levels won't go to waste – three levels for the skill and three for the abilities (3+3=6).
- The third tab in the hero window is the "skills" tab – it displayed the hero's specialization, racial skills and abilities, and for some reason, also common skills, which are already displayed in the fourth tab – in my opinion, duplicating the same thing is useless.
- My question "why?" referred to the statement: "in that case, we will need to add one more new racial ability to each race" – so, I still don't understand why? We have three levels for the racial skill and three abilities to choose from, which can be seen in the skill wheel in the upper sector, and the fourth slot is naturally for the spell.
Therefore, the option proposed above does not require "adding one more new racial ability to each race" in any way

Am I understanding you correctly:

6 skills (1st tab) - 6 abilities, 3 per tab (2nd tab)

In the Hero tab: 1 slot for a racial skill (level 3) + 3 slots for racial abilities + 1 slot for a global skill. In total, that's 5 slots, as shown in your picture.

Overall, the situation is workable; I think this version is close to perfect. It's better than the initial version created by the game developers.

In the first tab, I suggest including only the racial skill and racial abilities, along with displaying the hero's specialization (as seen in the screenshot, Faidan's specialization is Avenger, with skills like Rain of Arrows, Enchanted Arrow, and Ruthless Arrows).
In the second tab, I propose including common skills and abilities, increasing the number from 5 to 6, meaning these are skills available to all heroes.

It often happens that after level 32, there are no free slots because they are all occupied by skills and abilities. And it becomes uninteresting to play – you level up, but you don't get a new skill.

The peak of interest in leveling up occurs somewhere around levels 15-20, in my opinion. This allows you to specialize and develop a specific build, rather than trying to do everything at once, while maximizing variety. If the games are so drawn out that leveling takes 32+ levels (as far as I understand, this is a consequence of the controversial modification of the leveling coefficient in the modified executable after level 24), wouldn't it be better to simply introduce an experience multiplier, for example, 10%? This is the most logical adaptation for "special" maps that require unrealistically long completion times. Although, on maps with such a large amount of content, I can't imagine what needs to be done to make offensive magic viable.

Let me give an example. Suppose you need to level up a mage on Chaos difficulty, and at levels 15-20, you have these options:
- Sorcery + Chaos + Luck
- Sorcery + Chaos + Defense
- Sorcery + Chaos + Second School
- Sorcery + Chaos + Education
- Sorcery + Chaos + Leadership (Empathy)
- Chaos + Leadership (Empathy) + Luck
- Sorcery + Chaos + Logistics
and so on.
See how many fundamentally different builds there are, and how many skill slots they take up.
But if you level up to 30+ levels, you can grab everything at once, and there is no variety.

6 skills (1st tab) - 6 abilities, 3 each (2nd tab)
In the Hero tab - 1 slot for a racial skill (level 3) + 3 slots for racial abilities + 1 slot for a general skill. In total, you get 5 slots. As in your picture.
Overall, the situation is workable; I think this option is close to perfect. It is better than the original, made by the game developers.

Unless it's for extremely long games, i.e., rebalancing for "incorrect" maps.

By the way, 6 skill slots are already implemented, but 1 of them is racial.
And it can be proven that, from the point of view of variety, this number is optimal.
For example, if you are leveling up a mage, the build can be a mix of 10 skills (attack and summoning skills are not needed; the remaining 10 skills have options for a mage). The same applies to a warrior; 10 relevant skills (Chaos and Summoning are unnecessary, and Sorcery can be useful for a warrior due to counterspell or distraction). And the maximum variety among 10 skills is achieved by groups of 5, which is exactly what we have: 5 slots for general (non-racial) skills. This is from a formal point of view; in practice, the most interesting builds consist of 3-4, rather than 5 skills, as they are more specialized and different from each other (see the example with Chaos above).

I decided to experiment a bit here:smile04: - GSC has an incredible size - with a large number of huge neural armies, a developed education, and the "Enlightenment Robes" set, I leveled up to 31 and got tired of crawling around the map:D - I agree with Nargott about the variability - access to a larger number of skills will allow you not to worry about choosing which skills to upgrade, but to take and learn them all - so, having found one universal upgrade option, others will not be used at all - the question is - why are they needed then?
It seems impossible to please everyone :) - there is logic and there are personal wishes - I am probably still against the unification in the upgrade and for greater specialization of heroes, but increasing the number of skills to be upgraded from 1+5 to 1+6 is not so critical (far from 1+10)

PS:
1 - racial skill
5, 6 - number of generally available skills

Added 7 minutes later
Many reduce the game to the goal of "leveling up an uber-hero," forgetting that the main goal is victory

Impressed by what I saw.

Test Subject Jarl.

If you want to implement six skills, you'll have to redesign the hero window – here are some initial sketches:

This is something new!

Where is the mod itself?

He's not ready yet – it's being assembled piece by piece. Also, I'm waiting for models from my colleagues, specifically for the Faceless Ones, Simurghs, and Desert Guardians (we also discussed options for reworking the Titan and Fire Dragon, borrowing models from Heroes 7). Currently, I'm working on textures for creatures and towns (yesterday, for example, I was creating an autumn variant for the Haven town). I'm also working on balancing (adjusting stats and abilities of units). It might be necessary to adjust the skill wheel again and recalculate spells – I've come up with one option for magic, and I'll rework some things later. Considering the time constraints, you can imagine – getting to the final version is like reaching China in a well-known pose :D