Looking Forward: Final impressions on H5 and a vision of H6

[Mlai]

I think there should be a wider selection of creature dwellings than a town can possibly hold. That way you need to make choices, and specialize towns/hero armies.

Why should there be only 7 creatures total, and every town can have 7 creature dwellings total?

[Qurqirish Dragon]

Mlai: You stole the thunder from my next post! Anyway...

Creatures and their related factions have a diverse history. Each incarnation of Heroes (except from 1 to 2) played the "creature shuffle" to some extent, moving units from one faction to another. While the move from Heroes 3 to 4, and then from 4 to 5 had the obvious justifications (new world, new creatures), this was seen in the Heroes 2 -> 3 transition as well. The big thing is to see where we will go from here.
H5, and TotE did not do much to alter the formula of minor shifts of units, choosing to rather introduce new units, and replacing old ones.

If we assume H6 to take place in the same world (possibly a significant time in the future or past of H5, to allow for changes), I see very little shuffling. However, a page could be taken from the H4 book to expand the dynamics.

H4's nature town had the unique aspect of being the only town to build 6 creature dwellings- the 6th one being the summoning portal. It could be argued that this was simply a re-envisioning of the Dungeon structure in H3, but I think it stands as a seperate entity. The fact that the structure could recruit 8 different types of creatures only increased its versatility. Thus, in H6, why not have some factions with 6 or even 5 creature types? Or ones with 8 or 9? Why not have a branched building structure like heroes 4, but where some towns can build multiple dwellings at a given level, while others can't?
Or, to take an idea from what I have seen posted here and elsewhere, how about allowing a town to build multiple copies of the same dwelling (possibly at the cost of not being able to build all 7 types as a result)

This would make racial theming easier and more cohesive. A town wouldn't have an apparantly arbitrary creature added to the roster, just so that it can have the same number of creatures as the other factions. Some towns could, and probably chould have an 8th creature (such as the death knight returning to the necropolis from its current neutral position).

Faction distinctions have already been addressed in several of my previous posts, so I won't address that directly, but hopefully from what I have said so far, at least some of it will make it through into the next heroes incarnation. I'm certain I have left out some aspects, and I will comment on those as I think of them. I have deliberately not mentioned about what I would like to see in new factions, as there are already 8 factions, and 3 more to come (if I recall correctly, there are 11 factions in the H5 world) Those with experience in Dark Messiah may have better insight to them than I do.

[Alamar]

Thus, in H6, why not have some factions with 6 or even 5 creature types? Or ones with 8 or 9? Why not have a branched building structure like heroes 4, but where some towns can build multiple dwellings at a given level, while others can't?
Or, to take an idea from what I have seen posted here and elsewhere, how about allowing a town to build multiple copies of the same dwelling (possibly at the cost of not being able to build all 7 types as a result)

This would make racial theming easier and more cohesive. A town wouldn't have an apparantly arbitrary creature added to the roster, just so that it can have the same number of creatures as the other factions. Some towns could, and probably chould have an 8th creature (such as the death knight returning to the necropolis from its current neutral position).

Faction distinctions have already been addressed in several of my previous posts, so I won't address that directly, but hopefully from what I have said so far, at least some of it will make it through into the next heroes incarnation. I'm certain I have left out some aspects, and I will comment on those as I think of them. I have deliberately not mentioned about what I would like to see in new factions, as there are already 8 factions, and 3 more to come (if I recall correctly, there are 11 factions in the H5 world) Those with experience in Dark Messiah may have better insight to them than I do.

I agree almost 100%. I was hinting at the same thing with one of my posts where I indicated that why [with a branching H4 system] do you necessarily have exactly 2 choices. Why not 1 choice [no choice really] or why not 3 [or more] choices at a given level.

Basically I think that any rule that enforces some form of uniformity between factions should be looked at and thrown out if it gets in the way of creativity / diversity / fun / etc.

While I'm not positive that I like the idea of building more than one copy of the same building it's exactly this sort of thinking that we should be doing to see if there is a better way to do things.

Along the lines of what you suggested maybe some creature upgrade buildings don't have to work the way that they do now. Instead of attracting a new creature type [Archers vs. Crossbowmen] maybe the building upgrade just attracts more of that creature type?? Maybe you should even be able to choose between attracting more creatures OR having upgrades in spots???

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Off topic: Would someone here be able to bring any good ideas that you / the board comes up with to UBI / Nival for consideration???

[ThunderTitan]

Oh, i just remembered something else that needs to be copied from H4... Male and Female models for each hero type.

[Corribus]

While your suggestions for H6 are good, Qqd, I would expect H6 to be much more of a radical departure from the Heroes formula.

As far as town development goes, I would be interested in a system where you don't choose you "faction" before hand, rather you choose your faction based on the build choices you make. That is, you start out with a generic town, and depending on what build options you choose, you guide your development towards a certain faction. Same with hero development. This would of course give the game a more RPG like feel, but more importantly, Hero and town development would be less scripted and formulaic, which would have interesting ramifications for multiplayer games.

Most importantly, the developers of H6 need to pay some serious attention to the map editor. They clearly have not yet learned the lesson that the main reason earlier incarnations of HoMM were as popular as they were, was because of user made maps. H4 is good example - the game itself was almost unplayable, and would have been a complete disaster, if it hadn't been for the active mapmaking community.

[Tobius]

(...) rather you choose your faction based on the build choices you make. That is, you start out with a generic town, and depending on what build options you choose, you guide your development towards a certain faction.
(...)
Most importantly, the developers of H6 need to pay some serious attention to the map editor.

For the first part you must concern the balancing issue here. If the player can choose everything he wants, it's simply impossible to balance it anyhow. There's no way to do it, because you get incredible high numbers of possible combinations. Why am I that sure? Well, I've already tried to create a concept that is similar to your suggestions. You can look it up here.

However, concering your second part I can totally agree with you. The map editor is almost as important as the game itself, because, as you already said, without a userfriendly editor there'll be no great maps in high numbers, thus the franchise could get really big problems (much bigger than unplayable XL-maps ).

[Alamar]

Most importantly, the developers of H6 need to pay some serious attention to the map editor. They clearly have not yet learned the lesson that the main reason earlier incarnations of HoMM were as popular as they were, was because of user made maps. H4 is good example - the game itself was almost unplayable, and would have been a complete disaster, if it hadn't been for the active mapmaking community.

Once again I continue with my "agreeable" spree .... I think that a powerful && user friendly map editor should be launch requirements even if that means the launch needs to be delayed solely to get the map editor in PRIME condition.

Personally I'd still prefer to see factions so-to-speak but I wouldn't mind looking at the proposal. An option so that your opponnents don't know what faction you CHOOSE until they find out that info via scouting or similar would be cool.

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Edit: I would have similar balance [and diversity] concerns as outlined by the prior poster ...

[Corribus]

For the first part you must concern the balancing issue here. If the player can choose everything he wants, it's simply impossible to balance it anyhow. There's no way to do it, because you get incredible high numbers of possible combinations. Why am I that sure? Well, I've already tried to create a concept that is similar to your suggestions. You can look it up here.

Well, I didn't exactly mean a free-for-all where everything is available and you can make any combination you want. More like the system a lot of RPGs use for character development. Meaning, you start out with a generic character, and gradually develop him/her through choices along the way, but obviously if you start making, for example, wizard-like choices, then the fighter-like options become inaccessible. Likewise, you start with a generic town, but once you start to build magic-like structures, might-like structures become darkened. Then you can start to subspecialize your magic town into, say, necromancer or wizard or warlock. In other words, there's one starting town with lots of branched builds.

[Jolly Joker]

But what about the creatures? Would you start aout with "generic" creatures as well then? And what happens when you build the first creature dwelling?

[Elvin]

There could be a migration option so it is inhabited by the faction of your choice next turn. Not sure I'd like the idea though.

[Mlai]

I dunno. It's like saying you start off with a generic race in Starcraft and depending on your building choice, you evolve into Terran, Protoss, or Zerg.

In gameplay and in plot terms, that just doesn't seem to work at all.

[Alamar]

Let's not jump on someone because we're not really wild about the idea from what little we've heard. If we do someone else may not feel like volunteering their potentially great idea because they don't want to catch any flak.

In general I kind of like the idea that based on your desicions certain options will become available or go away.

As to whether we can come up with a coherent system that makes sense in HoMM terms is different.

What I would like to see though would be:

At turn 1 if your home castle && starting heroes are "random" then you should be able to choose what faction you want to be after you take a look at the initial lay-of-the-land. I like this simply because if you're playing a MP game you get to choose what you want to play AND you also keep the other players from knowing your choice(s) ...

[Metal Wolf]

Towns:
- I strongly hope that we will be able to see creatures roaming at, and near, their dwellings - like in H1 (or like in the promotional wallpaper for the academy in H5) . While it didnt work out so well in H1 (was too repetitive), with today's modern technology it can be done much better. That will surely make the castles look way more lively and less static.
- The landscapes within the castles look good in H5, but eventually one stops enjoying them or even bother to look at them, and use the menues only instead. In order to make the town screen a bit more interactive, I suggest that whenever one clicks on one of the menu's buttons (marketplace, hiring creatures, etc.), The camera will quickly fly to that building/dwelling and zoom in.

Battlefield:
- I hope to see some terrain variation within battle screen itself, which will effect on creatures' movement/statistics - like mud, shallow water streams,quicksand, etc - each of these in accord to its "mother" terrain.
- I'd like to see the a battlefield which is not as flat as a wooden board, but one that has small barrows and pits (which may also slightly effect on stats of creatures).
- Role of geographic height: If one army attacks another that is stationed on top of a hill, the battle screen will be titled (to some extent, and again - not as a flat board) and the defender will have an advantage.
- While it is implemented in H5 to some extent, I would like to see even more objects on the adventure map (which are placed near the area where the fight takes place) to be seen at the background of the battlefield - shrines,nearby castles/dwellings etc.. Say, if a battle takes place very close to a portal - the whole battlefield will be surrounded by swirling columns and glowing lights. If it takes place near a mine, crystals will be scattered around the battle area.

Adventure map:
- It would be great to have different weather from time to time... A rainy day may bring a totally new aspect in terms of playing atmosphere, and greatly add to it. (maybe it can effect battles as well).
-As for the ares which werent explored yet - I think something better than just total blackness could be used... a dark area filled with stars, like in H2, looked much batter - an thats the most simple example. Being able to See the sky, as in the promotional pics of H5, would be nice too - if thats not too hard to implement.
- Water terrain : Im not the first one to say it - but one of the only few advantages H4 had was the interesting sea travelling, filled with creatures that roamed exclusively at sea. Bring back the sea-monsters, mermaids and pirates (along with the adventure-map objects related to them) back!
One more thing: The water terrain is, just like the battlefield's texture, too flat. I want to see it sway and move from side to side, like a real huge mass of water (like, say, in LOTR:BFME II).

Spells:
While the spell system in H5 is excellent imo (especially after some of the patches came out), I'd like to see more adventure-map spells, which should be stronger and more impressive as well:
Seems weird that the insanely strong magic-wielding heroes can cause so much havoc on the battlefield, but can do nothing outside of it, besides the typical old summon boat/summon creatures/teleport to town. Fot a start, the spell "haunt mine" from H2 and the spell that slows down enemy hero movement from H4 could be brought back.
I would like to see adventure-map spells that have bigger effect on the game, for example - an adventure-map spell that causes a wave barrier/tsunami (doesnt deal any damage, just prevents from passing through a few tiles) that will hold for only one day, but will give the player some advantage over an enemy which tries to hunt him down at sea?
Or maybe even some terrain-deforming spells which will benefit the player in some way...

*Another minor notion: I can barely feel the presence of the neutrals in H5...maybe dwellings for hiring and crypts/treasure caves where you can fight them exclusively (in order to get treasures) should be presented.

[Corribus]

Let's not jump on someone because we're not really wild about the idea from what little we've heard. If we do someone else may not feel like volunteering their potentially great idea because they don't want to catch any flak.

In general I kind of like the idea that based on your desicions certain options will become available or go away.

It's ok. I wasn't offended. It's just an idea - certainly it would take time and effort to work out the details.

As to whether we can come up with a coherent system that makes sense in HoMM terms is different.

I don't see why it couldn't be. In practice it could be made to be absolutely no different from the current system, if all the "branches" were kept totally distinct. The only difference in that case is that you would choose your faction once the game started, rather than before. Of course, I would like to see some intertwining for better faction customization.

At turn 1 if your home castle && starting heroes are "random" then you should be able to choose what faction you want to be after you take a look at the initial lay-of-the-land. I like this simply because if you're playing a MP game you get to choose what you want to play AND you also keep the other players from knowing your choice(s) ...

Another advantage as far as MP is concerned is that the other player wouldn't know what faction you developed until your first meeting. This would create a lot more in-game tension and increase the importance of strategic choices. I.e., the strategy would become more blind.

[Alamar]

Another advantage as far as MP is concerned is that the other player wouldn't know what faction you developed until your first meeting. This would create a lot more in-game tension and increase the importance of strategic choices. I.e., the strategy would become more blind.

That's basically what I was trying to get at. I was really trying to do 2 things:

1. I wanted to hide the choices that you make for faction, starting hero, and maybe even starting bonus from everyone else .... This would mean that scouting becomes vastly more important than before. [Of course making changes to Thieve's Guild and similar would be required for my proposal] ...

2. I wanted you to be able to choose your faction [assuming the map maker lets you by designating "random"] once you see the starting terrian and maybe the close-by creatures.