HoMM6 gameplay discusion

[Akul]

We have enough topics about fitire faction wishes, but not many of you seem to care about the only important factor: gameplay machanics.

Discus here:
-SKILL SYSTEM
-MAGIC SYSTEM
-CITY TREES
-CREATURE MECHANICS
-HERO DEVELOPMENT AND USE
-STRATEGY (adventure map gameplay)
-BATTLEFIELDS
-CAMPAIGN SYSTEM
-FACTIONS
-OTHER

Here is how you should post your idead and replies. Always write under this titles so that we don't get lost if we talk about different parts. This should keep the other (hopefully)

---SKILL SYSTEM---
IMO, the skill system should upgrade the H5 sy<stem because it is almost perfect. However, there should be skills which, when you choose, you can't choose another.

---MAGIC SYSTEM---
This should be the upgrade of the H4 system: every city has its own set of spells, but they are gotable by other towns as well but the aligned faction should have more spells.

The new element in this system I would add are the rituals. Rituals are special spells that are examined in cities (not castles) and their use wasted resources and/or population lives. Rituals are powerful spells that happen on adventure map (like in Disciples).

---CITY TREES---
There should be 4 kinds of settlements:
1. Castles - they should be specialized for armies - they have the highest level units, more upgrades and stat increases
2. Cities - specialized in economy - they create weak units, but give you many resources and all mines in their territory* can be upgraded to give you more resources.
3. Villages - specialized in nothing. For gold, they can be upgraded into either city or castle
4. Capital - the most important settlement. It has all that cities and castles have and more. Only they support grail buildings. Losing the capital and not geting it back in a month means: YOU LOSE! When enemy controls it, it is worth nothing to him until the enemy is destroyed. Once he is destroyed, an allied player is created who controls the capital and three settlements you give to him.

*Every city settlement has its own teritory. Uncontroled teritory is called "No mans Land". As city level grows, such do their borders expand on neutral lands. Mines and dwelings under your teritory can't be flaged.

Every settlement has population lists. There are two lists:
Races - % of every races number in cities. This is important for unit geting
Rank - nobility, peasants, etc. Important for units as well.

---CREATURE MECHANICS---
There should be 2 kinds of units: militia and creatures.

Militia are units made of factions race (elves, humans, orcs, etc.). Their dwelings can be constructed in every city and castle. As they fight, they gain experience which allows theme to upgrade later on. Upgrades can be into higher tier unti or stat upgrade, depensding on level/choice.

Creatures are units you get from external dwelings. Every faction can use theme but some factions have special upgrades for theme (example: humans can upgrade griffins till 4th tier, while undead can use only use tier 1).

---HERO DEVELOPMENT---
There should be 6 kinds of heroes:

-Hero - this unit is given to certain stack of creatures. Hero gives the ctack a masive upgrade but dies if tehstack is destroyed.
-General - this heroes try to stay out of battle. Their skills are upgrading stats of all cratures on battlefield.
-Thief - they don't fight in armies. They walk on adventure map to scout, steal, spy and assasinate.
-Governor - this guy takes care of the city/castle development. As the city develops in levels and time, so does this hero.
-Mage - he acts like general, but besides upgrading units, he casts spells.
-Lord - this is you. On begining of the map/campaign, you create your lord, give him skills and look. He is ALWAYS 3 lvels hugher then nirmal hero and starts at level 5. If lord doesn't level up, so won't lesser heroes. Should the lord be lost and not saved from prison in a month, the game is lost. Lord has skills of general, governor and mage.

Heroes are buyed from special building is settlements.

---STRATEGY---
There should be FoV again. It increases the realism and strategy element of the game and gives a use to scouts. However, there is no FoV in your teritory (read under CITIES what that means).
For more, read under CITIES where I explain how city teritories work.

---BATTLEFIELDS---
-battlefields should be larger then H5, that is for sure.
-heroes are in battles, but their lives depend on their stacks. Should the stack be destroyed, hero is defeated. Defeated heroes decrease moral of your army dramaticaly.
-should the hero flee, the battle continues, but moral of your armies is decreased. If the battle is won, half of army will desert.

---CAMPAIGN SYSTEM---
Ye good olde H2 systenm whould be returned! On begining you choose which faction you wish to play. The campaign should have more then 1 ending but the REAL ending is showed only after you end the campaign first time.

---FACTIONS---
I'lll live this discusion to others.

[Mytical]

Ok scrap what I had here before. I have an idea, but I doubt many true HoMM fans would enjoy this..so here goes.

Customizeable heroes. Skill trees where you assign the points (think diablo like) and also have a buy back feature in case you set it up wrong. More skills also. Now I can't drawl the hero stat sheet, but it would be set up like this (imagine your character just got their first level and has yet to assign points.)

Attack - 0, Defense - 1, Knowledge 2, Spellpower 2. Points to spend 1.
(You get 1 stat point per level (sometimes 2) and for each 1 point you spend your stat goes up 1).

Skills :
(followed by all possible main skills and how many 'points' you have in each).

Secondary skills : can only be selected if proper main skill has appropriate points.

Special Skills : Unique to the Town/Class

Each level you would get 1 point to spend, but you can choose.

I know, I will now be lynched...let the hanging commence.

[winterfate]

Well, I like the idea Mytical (means we'll get lynched together ).

As for ideas...I'm kind of dry at the moment.

However, I've got a little something for the adventure map section:

STRATEGY:

How about having each faction have some type of adventure map skill (like a rogueish hero using snares, or a wizard placing land mines). Then if someone walks in proximity, the ability triggers causing whatever effect it can. I think it would add some complexity to the adventure map (Heroes IV had spells, but IMO, the factions should be more defined between might and magic for 6, kinda like in 3).

[Akul]

STRATEGY:

How about having each faction have some type of adventure map skill (like a rogueish hero using snares, or a wizard placing land mines). Then if someone walks in proximity, the ability triggers causing whatever effect it can. I think it would add some complexity to the adventure map (Heroes IV had spells, but IMO, the factions should be more defined between might and magic for 6, kinda like in 3).

I think that every faction should be both Might and Magic. Making it oriented on just one of thiese makes it...well...cliche.

[ThunderTitan]

I think that every faction should be both Might and Magic. Making it oriented on just one of thiese makes it...well...cliche.

Nope, there should a mostly magic faction (wiz), a mostly might one (barb) and everyone else should be both.

[sezerp]

---CITY TREES---
There should be 4 kinds of settlements:
1. Castles - they should be specialized for armies - they have the highest level units, more upgrades and stat increases
2. Cities - specialized in economy - they create weak units, but give you many resources and all mines in their territory* can be upgraded to give you more resources.
3. Villages - specialized in nothing. For gold, they can be upgraded into either city or castle
4. Capital - the most important settlement. It has all that cities and castles have and more. Only they support grail buildings. Losing the capital and not geting it back in a month means: YOU LOSE! When enemy controls it, it is worth nothing to him until the enemy is destroyed. Once he is destroyed, an allied player is created who controls the capital and three settlements you give to him.

*Every city settlement has its own teritory. Uncontroled teritory is called "No mans Land". As city level grows, such do their borders expand on neutral lands. Mines and dwelings under your teritory can't be flaged.

Every settlement has population lists. There are two lists:
Races - % of every races number in cities. This is important for unit geting
Rank - nobility, peasants, etc. Important for units as well.

---CITY TREES---
It sounds like MedievalII :-)
Generaly nice ideas here, BUT:
- Heroes games never were about the economy - the difference btw. cities and castles should not be too big. Example: cities give more gold and have higher growth of low-tier creatures (because they have larger population) while only castles can give you 'elite' warriors (which means higher tiers upgrades, possibly also some 'special' units, like HoMM3 sharpshooters). But one still should be able to get decent army just from cities.

-Why should Grail be possible only in capitals? If I want to build a copy of Notre Dame de Paris in some small village in Alaska and have money for it , what there is to stop me ? (except for Greenpeace maybe)

- Special loss condition on loosing the capital: I guess that's OK.

- Seizing capital from your enemy SHOULD give you the benefits. It is the most developed city in the kingdom, whoever controls it. Just read the history books - opressing enemy's territory is the key in financing your campaign. And if you get to control their political and economical center it is much, much easier. Maybe not right away - you need to quell the possible rebels first - see the LOYALTY concept below.

- I don't like the idea of some AI controlled 'ally' getting the cites I've conquered, sacrificing my soldier's blood :-)

- Territory concept: don't like it either. If you want your mine safe, you need an army to watch it, period. (acceptable for me would be: you should be able to at least 'raid' mines on enemy's territory. By this I mean: you get one time resource bonus from the raid. Afterwards the mine belongs to no one and do not produce resources until certain time passes or until it is rebuild)

LOYALTY:
That idea kind of contradicts my previous statement that 'Heroes is not economy game'. Let's just say, that assuming Heroes should evolve towards more complicated economy, this idea could be considered.
Not that I'm sure it should

Here it is:
Each city has 'loyalty' or 'attitude' towards each player. This depends on, e.g.:

- factions (elves more likely to cooperate with other elves than humans and very unlikely to cooperate with demons and dark elves)
- time the city is controlled by player
- first owner or not
- first owner still in play
- size of army in city (perhaps also close to it)
The possible effects of positive attitude:
- resource bonus
- growth bonus
- better castle defence (e.g. extra troops, bonus to towers, etc)

Negative effects:
- resource and creature growth sabotages
- crippled castle defence, e.g. rebels joining the attacker, open gates, damaged walls and towers (especially if attacker is more liked by the people)

IMHO that could work nicely with your concepts: at first enemy's capitol would be hard to hold and not very benefitting, but with time you would start to benefit from it more and more. [/b]

[okrane]

em... one question here: has Heroes 6 been anounced? Is anyone working on it?... because I see there have been a lot of talking about this...

Or is it the fact that you got so sick of heroes 5 and decided that it sucks so badly that we should start rethinking the game all over again?

[Starbatron]

First, the other future wish discussion here was started by an apprentice here, so cut him/her some slack. I thought it was a well thought out idea for a first post. I do agree that game play should be included as part of a "future wishes" discussion, but there's not reason the creatures, town types, creature features, etc, shouldn't be included in a discussion of how the game play and development should work.

I like some of the ideas here, but not particularly the idea of "buying back" choices. You should have to stick with your decisions, for better or worse. The idea about certain options and paths making others unavailable is intriguing, though.

Sauron, there have been a number of games that use that kind of devleopment for heroes and creatures, such as LOM, AOW, etc. All that would do is make HoMM similar to many of those. The ideas are interesting, but would take away the "HoMM"ness, IMO.

[Akul]

---MISC.---

First, the other future wish discussion here was started by an apprentice here, so cut him/her some slack. I thought it was a well thought out idea for a first post. I do agree that game play should be included as part of a "future wishes" discussion, but there's not reason the creatures, town types, creature features, etc, shouldn't be included in a discussion of how the game play and development should work.

Who told that factions, creatures, etc shoudn't be discused? I just made a topic that is specialized in discusing mechanics, nothing else.

Sauron, there have been a number of games that use that kind of devleopment for heroes and creatures, such as LOM, AOW, etc. All that would do is make HoMM similar to many of those. The ideas are interesting, but would take away the "HoMM"ness, IMO.

I never played LOM and AOW so my ideas probably aren't similiar to those.
And "HOMM"ness would only be taken away if you add features without thinking a bit more about concepts. If I placed all my ides about a perfect TBS's, then this would look perfectly HOMM-ish.

Also, this is a discusion about how should HoMM6 look like. Rather then saying that a bit more complicated game would ruin the genre, say your ideas how tnext HoMM should be made or join the "detailed" discusion!

---CITY TREES---

It sounds like MedievalII :-)

The idea came to my mind even before I heard that M2:TW would have it

Heroes games never were about the economy

...unfortunately.

Code: Select all

Why should Grail be possible only in capitals?

To give capital morew meaning then the wussy +2000 gold bonus. Capitals are always special cities, in both history and fiction. Why would you care to lose your capital if it is the same as all other cities? Capitals are meant to be places from where the ruling lords get their powers.

- Seizing capital from your enemy SHOULD give you the benefits. It is the most developed city in the kingdom, whoever controls it. Just read the history books - opressing enemy's territory is the key in financing your campaign. And if you get to control their political and economical center it is much, much easier. Maybe not right away - you need to quell the possible rebels first - see the LOYALTY concept below.

Capturing your enemies city and giving it to a created AI player does give you benefits if the developer makes it posible to make diplomatical arrangments with AI. In history, captured teritory would always be given to a pupet vasal because it makes rebels quieter and makes your job easier.
This idea should be discused more, I agree.

- Territory concept: don't like it either. If you want your mine safe, you need an army to watch it, period. (acceptable for me would be: you should be able to at least 'raid' mines on enemy's territory. By this I mean: you get one time resource bonus from the raid. Afterwards the mine belongs to no one and do not produce resources until certain time passes or until it is rebuild)

I totaly agree with those raids. But settlement teritories would (if you sum it up) take only 50% of the map. 50% of objects should still need to be flagable.


BTW, I like your loyalty idea

[Starbatron]

The loyalty idea is interesting, though something similar has been done in AOW. It would certainly add some depth, though I am not completely sure how I feel about it being a part of HoMM.

[Akul]

Or is it the fact that you got so sick of heroes 5 and decided that it sucks so badly that we should start rethinking the game all over again?

Ah yeah, something more:

NO HOMM5 BASHING!!
OR HOMM4 BASHING.
OR ANY OTHER HOMM BASHING!!

If someone wants to flame, please flame somewhere else or I'll ask moderators to put the Police Dictation here!

[Starbatron]

I'm with you there Sauron (never thought I'd hear myself say that about "Sauron"). Each game has its own unique charms. There should be no bashing here. We need only constructive criticism...not that it gets noticed as much as it should.

[ThunderTitan]

Each game has its own unique charms.

For a clone. But then again i'm a masochists...


But the Question remains (even if DC killed Vic Sage, the bastards), why the H6 talk.

To give capital more meaning then the wussy +2000 gold bonus. Capitals are always special cities, in both history and fiction. Why would you care to lose your capital if it is the same as all other cities? Capitals are meant to be places from where the ruling lords get their powers.

No, it's usualy where they rule from and the biggest city... France survived Paris being under the english, so why can't your heroes?

[okrane]

Or is it the fact that you got so sick of heroes 5 and decided that it sucks so badly that we should start rethinking the game all over again?

Ah yeah, something more:

NO HOMM5 BASHING!!
OR HOMM4 BASHING.
OR ANY OTHER HOMM BASHING!!

If someone wants to flame, please flame somewhere else or I'll ask moderators to put the Police Dictation here!

well I wasn't bashing u know... I was just pointing out that right now
Heroes 5 needs our attention to improve it. Starting to talk about heroes 6 is like saying: "this one is hopeless(H5).... we need to remake it from scratch"...

[sezerp]

---MISC.---
To give capital morew meaning then the wussy +2000 gold bonus. Capitals are always special cities, in both history and fiction. Why would you care to lose your capital if it is the same as all other cities? Capitals are meant to be places from where the ruling lords get their powers.

I totally agree that capitals == special cities. But I would prefer to make them special by giving them more bonuses (growth, castle defence, money), not taking the options from the other cities. Besides:
- getting Grail building is hard enough already. I don't feel there's a need to make it even harder.
- player would probably want to give the grail to their 'native' city anyway. (I know that I do). And if capitol would gice growth bonus, you'll be very much encouraged to build Grail there, to get the synergy effect. You could then balance it against time needed to reach your capitol and maybe after all decide to build the grail elsewhere.
- I DO care if I loose my +2000 gold bonus and have to rebuild the capitol building

Speaking about capturing the capital:

I don't like giving it to the AI for practical reason: even if AI is much improved in HommVI, it will still probably suck compared to human player and it wouldn't do what YOU want it to do. So there would be no much incentive to go against AI controlled capitol in MP game for example, as you'll just take looses and in reward get ally, who will just mean cheap XP for your opponent. No thanks.

And, I mean no offence, but IMO your historical argument is flawed in two ways:
- to my knowledge, incorporating enemy's territory directly into the kingdom DID happen in reality
- basically, the whole feudal system was about having puppet lords managing villages and castles in the name of their liege. If we want to reflect that in the game, you should govern just the capital and nothing else.

But I guess we can put history aside. It's gameplay that matters in the end, isn't it ?

On the other hand, I had some second thoughts about benefiting from enemy's capital. The problem is in HoMM there are no that many cities, so capturing even one capital would perhaps affect the balance of power too much. So maybe in this regard, the system should remain as it is now - you can only have one capital. If you capture the second one, it becomes ordinary city/castle.

Similar problem exists for distinguishing btw. city and castle - if the differences are too big, then you'll never see certain types of settlements in typical games, when everyone starts with one city. Just like in H4, where nobody built Ogres because Cyclops where clearly better.

BTW, I like your loyalty idea

That idea floated in my mind even before H4 :-)

[Akul]

well I wasn't bashing u know... I was just pointing out that right now
Heroes 5 needs our attention to improve it. Starting to talk about heroes 6 is like saying: "this one is hopeless(H5).... we need to remake it from scratch"...

In that case, forgive me for my false understandings and I'll forgive you for misunderstanding me as that CERTANLY wasn't my message. In fact, I find H5 a decent game.

What I wish to discus here is what the community wants for future games: do we want just an upgraded game? Or do we want something made from the scratch but with similiar formula? Or does the whole serial need to be changed?

[Jolly Joker]

For different kind of towns I think the easiest and probably most versatile way would be
a) to allow to set a maximum town level number for each town and
b) to allocate a different number of town levels for each building while
c) still having some prerequisites whether the building of something would be possible or not.

Example (H V Haven, a town would surely be featured one way or another).
The Peasant Huts would have a worth of 1 level, just as Blacksmith, Village Hall, Market place, a level 1 Horde dwelling, a level one upgrade dwelling(s) and everything for level 2 as well. Town Hall could use up 2 levels, City Hall 3, Capitol 5. The Angel dwelling might use up 5 levels as well. And so on.

That way you could scatter the map with small outposts, Villages and so on, by simply limiting the allowed level (and there'd even be a possibility to invest in level-upping), still giving each player the opportunity to decide how to use-up the bulding levels.

[tumorbane]

If you have a game you like, why change it so dramatically? This is what has hurt the franchaise so much. HIII was so popular because it was just a natural progression/improvement of HII, not a radical deviation.

The problems with radical changes are: increased learning curve, loss of balance, AI issues, loss of things you liked about the previous series, etc.

I would love HVI to be just like HV other than maybe a new faction or 2, better/faster AI, more userfriendly mapbuilder--with cutscene capability, and minor tweaking of the skill wheel. It would be nice if the selection that keeps you on a path for the ultimate was highlighted.

[Starbatron]

I somewhat agree. I think the core of the game should remain the same; after all, that is what makes HoMM unique from other games. However, the interplay of skills (hero and creature alike), the magic system, things of that nature can be played with some without too much fear. I don't think we should look too far afield, though, and simply make HoMM a clone of some other series out there. Some of the ideas suggested so far have been used by other games, and feel a bit alien to what makes HoMM so good.

[ThunderTitan]

I would love HVI to be just like HV other than maybe a new faction or 2, better/faster AI, more userfriendly mapbuilder--with cutscene capability, and minor tweaking of the skill wheel. It would be nice if the selection that keeps you on a path for the ultimate was highlighted.

So basicaly you want an add-on?