some new information (27. Aug)

[Mirez]

It appears Elvin at http://heroescommunity.com/ has kept a secret from them much like marzhin has done for us. In this topic he reveals some additional information.

*Creature dwellings will work as resource production buildings
Basically, when you first capture a creature dwelling you will receive a first batch of creatures that you can integrate straight away to your army. The building will then work as a resource building meaning that it will add creatures to your creature pool every week as a gold mine would add gold to your resources. These creatures will then be hirable via the cities and forts you control.

*Town / Fort / Creature dwelling conversion will be available

*2D animated town screens WILL be in the game

*Town unique buildings
2 slots, 4 buildings per town, each with a different ability (economy booster, creature production booster, gives a special ability on the adventure map or the combat maps)
Having several similar unique buildings in different towns improves their efficiency (a bit like the marketplaces).

*General principles of the revised RPG system
- Heroes can be male, female, Might, Magic
- Heroes have faction and class specific abilities
- Heroes gain skill points when they level up, that they can spend consciously on "general" abilities organized in skill categories – they have total control over their development – no more "probability-based" limited skill choices offered to the player
- Heroes can unlock advanced classes that will change their appearance and grant them an ultimate ability

*More variety in the combat arenas
- Specific topography (various sizes and shapes for the battle arenas)
- Dynamic topography (seashore battle with the tide flooding the arena turn by turn)
- Different combat objectives (hold your ground for X turns, defend this sacred shrine at the center of the arena, kill a specific enemy stack, etc.)
- Boss fights!

*Initiative system
Back to H3 mechanics but with a H5-like INI bar interface.

*Fixed camera angle
On the adventure map, to avoid rotating the camera to locate hidden items.
Easier to manage for players and map designers, feels like 2D navigation but with the benefit of 3D coolness

*No secondary / alternative upgrades

*The Artifact Sets
Nothing special – you collect them all and you get a bonus.

*The different tilesets
Jungle, Plains (Summer AND Autumn), Lava, Wasteland (Necropolis), Underground.

*Campaign structure
5 campaigns of 4 maps, 1 per faction, playable in any order, with an optional tutorial map and a mandatory prologue map.

*The Map editor
With Marzhin’s involvement the goal is to make it user-friendly and shipped before the game, or at least simultaneously with it.

*New tier system
Units are no longer divided in successive levels of strength, they fall under three categories: Core, elite and champion.
The former 2 categories have 3 units each and there is one champion unit. Take haven, the archer and the spear guy will be of comparable strength since they are both core units.

*Creature Siege Damage
Creature stacks can now damage the fortifications but are less efficient than catapults.

*Presence of critters on the adventure map
Turtles, dolphins, birds, etc.

[Tress]

Thanks for info.

- Heroes can be male, female, Might, Magic

About damn time.

- Dynamic topography (seashore battle with the tide flooding the arena turn by turn)

Dont think thats a good thing. Ai will probaly be ignorant of that, like in kings bounty wasp nests.

- Boss fights!

- they better realize that properly, since I don't think that works that well in strategy.

Back to H3 mechanics but with a H5-like INI bar interface.

Glad to hear- iniative was too powerful imo with spells like haste/slow.

*New tier system
Units are no longer divided in successive levels of strength,

Imo that's codename for 3 tiers of units like in homm4 four tiers.

[theLuckyDragon]

- Specific topography (various sizes and shapes for the battle arenas)
- Dynamic topography (seashore battle with the tide flooding the arena turn by turn)
- Different combat objectives (hold your ground for X turns, defend this sacred shrine at the center of the arena, kill a specific enemy stack, etc.)

Sounds interesting... hope they make it work well.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

*Creature dwellings will work as resource production buildings
Basically, when you first capture a creature dwelling you will receive a first batch of creatures that you can integrate straight away to your army. The building will then work as a resource building meaning that it will add creatures to your creature pool every week as a gold mine would add gold to your resources. These creatures will then be hirable via the cities and forts you control.

That's good, IMO. Now, if you capture a dwelling that is far from home, you don't have to worry about an enemy capturing it and taking the stocked up creatures. Although the H4/5 caravans could recruit from dwellings, it was still something you had to spend time on.

*Town unique buildings
2 slots, 4 buildings per town, each with a different ability (economy booster, creature production booster, gives a special ability on the adventure map or the combat maps)
Having several similar unique buildings in different towns improves their efficiency (a bit like the marketplaces).

This is interesting. If these structures are significant enough, then it will mean you need to choose between economy, military, and hero boosts ("builder, warrior, explorer", anyone?)

*General principles of the revised RPG system
- Heroes can be male, female, Might, Magic
- Heroes have faction and class specific abilities
- Heroes gain skill points when they level up, that they can spend consciously on "general" abilities organized in skill categories – they have total control over their development – no more "probability-based" limited skill choices offered to the player
- Heroes can unlock advanced classes that will change their appearance and grant them an ultimate ability

With total freedom, then I hope that the skills are balanced enough (no choices like eagle-eye vs. earth magic in H3). Weaker skills that lead to more powerful late skills are fine, of course, but nothing that is uniformly worse. The racial specializations also need more care here, since likelihood of skill choice (even forbidden skills, as H2/3 necromancy) is gone.

*Initiative system
Back to H3 mechanics but with a H5-like INI bar interface.

This is disappointing, as others have mentioned. Hopefully they will at least go to H4 style, where speed and movement range are separate stats.

*No secondary / alternative upgrades

If they couldn't balance these properly, then this is good. multiple upgrades for the sake of multiple upgrades is counter-productive.

*New tier system
Units are no longer divided in successive levels of strength, they fall under three categories: Core, elite and champion.
The former 2 categories have 3 units each and there is one champion unit. Take haven, the archer and the spear guy will be of comparable strength since they are both core units.

This sounds just like the Clash of Heroes system. Units within a tier are differentiated by their abilities more than their pure stats.
This also makes me curious if they will use another CoH idea, where elite/champion units are powered up by appropriate core units on the field- or even by formations.

*Creature Siege Damage
Creature stacks can now damage the fortifications but are less efficient than catapults.

This was definitely needed. None of the previous games did this well (if at all), so I hope they can do good by this idea.

*Presence of critters on the adventure map
Turtles, dolphins, birds, etc.

I assume they mean this as simple eye-candy. It's nice, but I hope that if this is the case, then it is something that (at least animation-wise) can be turned off, since my computer will probably be on the lower-end of the specs needed.
[/quote]

[konfeta]

So, wait, does this means the era of dumping tier 1 units is over? I am guessing "Core" units will be most efficient at fighting, "Elite" units will be defined by special abilities more than raw power, while "Champion" be the the super unit.

[Mirez]

I sure hope those critters are for decoration only. Can you imagine: it's day 7 and you are about to take the enemy's last (empty) castle. Your main hero suffered major losses the last battle so he won't be able to take on the new units available tomorrow. He moves on to take the town but then WHAM! a dolphin is lying in the way. Blocking you from getting to the town. The next day a hero emerges from the town and decimates your heroes' army. You try to flee but WHAM! the dolphin turned out to be shackles of war and not a dolphin.

That'd suck

[Anonymous]

Basically, when you first capture a creature dwelling you will receive a first batch of creatures that you can integrate straight away to your army. The building will then work as a resource building meaning that it will add creatures to your creature pool every week as a gold mine would add gold to your resources.

... negating the need for caravans in the process, and you don't have to micromanage. Particularly useful for superlarge maps with lots of dwellings. Like it.

*Town unique buildings

Sounds like it could open up for a great number of strategies, depending on the implementation.

- Specific topography (various sizes and shapes for the battle arenas)
- Dynamic topography (seashore battle with the tide flooding the arena turn by turn)
- Different combat objectives (hold your ground for X turns, defend this sacred shrine at the center of the arena, kill a specific enemy stack, etc.)

Sounds absolutely brilliant! Love it!

- Boss fights!

Sounds retarded. Don't like it at all.

*Fixed camera angle
On the adventure map, to avoid rotating the camera to locate hidden items. Easier to manage for players and map designers, feels like 2D navigation but with the benefit of 3D coolness.

Yess.

*The Map editor
With Marzhin’s involvement the goal is to make it user-friendly and shipped before the game, or at least simultaneously with it.

Excellent. What I really didn't understand about not releasing the map editor early with H5, was that people wouldn't learn how to use it until they got tired of the game. If the editor is released along with the game, players will immediately start using it and release a variety of maps to play, increasing the game's shelf life greatly. Then the expansions can come, and start the circle all over again.

*New tier system
Units are no longer divided in successive levels of strength, they fall under three categories: Core, elite and champion.

Say whaa ...?

[konfeta]

Well, the way he describes I think it goes like this:

There are 3 "Core" units, 3 "Elite" units, and 1 Champion unit per castle. The Core units are comparable to each other in strength, and the elite units are comparable to each other in strength. In effect, that means we have 3 tiers instead of 7.

This opens up many questions, naturally. Could be a great or terrible change depending on execution, but that goes without saying. I hope.

[Nelgirith]

3 tiers but still 7 kind of creatures per castle. Creatures of the same tier/category have similar stats but different abilities/roles. Each tier/category will have a shared "growth" pool.

Say if you can buy 100 "core" creatures this wek, a Haven player could choose any mix of 100 between archers/spearmen/swordsmen (be it 100/0/0 or 50/25/25, etc...). Ubisoft is working on a way to make each creature within a tier balanced so you won't be forced to go for extreme choices like ignoring 1 or even 2 creature per tier/category

[Kalah]

They way I read it is that creatures on the same tier have the same growth/cost levels ... but they still have different strengths and weaknesses, right? Otherwise, where would the flexibility and diversity go ...

[Elvin]

Yes they are meant to complement each other and promote various tactics

[Derek]

Jungle terrain? I would sure love to see a Lizard town.

Honestly, with Elvin helping on some level I can rest easy. You're such a good HOMM player, I figure you can talk some sense into those designers.

In any case, I like the news. I'm far more excited about this game than HV. Somehow, despite the changes, there seems to be a dedication towards making sure things feel right. Maybe I'll eat those words later, but for now I'm eagerly anticipating more information.

[MattII]

*Creature dwellings will work as resource production buildings

I like the sound of that, it always p***ed me off in H3 that you basically had to keep a secondary hero about to collect up the non-upgraded creatures every week.

*Town / Fort / Creature dwelling conversion will be available

I'm not quite sure I understand this, would it be possible to get some more info please?

*2D animated town screens WILL be in the game

Well at least we haven't lost town screens altogether, but I'd have preferred a 3D screen (ditch the fly-through, just rotate around the outside while looking in).

*Town unique buildings

Well good to see they're not gone entirely, but they sound a bit simplified for my tastes.

*General principles of the revised RPG system

Points 1 and 2 were to be expected. Point 3 sounds fairly good, if it's done right. I'm not sure about point 4, I'm not overly fond of the idea of a 'ultimate' skills, they just seem to change the game so dramatically so quickly.

*More variety in the combat arenas

Point 1 and 2 sound good. Point 3 could be interesting (I'll reserve judgement on whether I like it or not, for now), same with point 4.

*Initiative system

Oh gods, I hated this system in H3, why did they ditch it rather than just try to fix it?

*Fixed camera angle

They'd better give indications as to every object, because it's still going to be damned easy to miss stuff with the size of the scenery.

*No secondary / alternative upgrades

So, back to the old, fixed upgrades of H3 eh, what was wrong with alternative upgrades?

*The Artifact Sets

That's supposed to be news?

*The different tilesets

Well assuming that Plains is a stand-in for Grass I suppose I could live with it, though why the hell we lose Desert...

*Campaign structure

22 maps all out, what the hell? IMO they ought to boost it to 5+ maps per campaign at least.

*The Map editor

Not an overly big user of this myself, but every little thing helps.

*New tier system

Sounds promising, though I'll reserve judgement for now.

*Creature Siege Damage

They didn't, please tell me they didn't, please.

*Presence of critters on the adventure map

As eye candy (like we need any more of that), or as actual obstacles (a pack of wolves for example, or a pride of lions)?

[Elvin]

@Derek
No worries there is a pretty good team in there and believe me when I say they know of heroes

[Kosh]

Thanks for sharing with us It gives me great hopes that the Dev team really is making use of the community.

Elvin, can you clear one thing up for me: does a flagged creature dwelling within Castle A's area affect ALL other Castles' unit growth across the map, or only for Castle A?

Actually, does this even effect "growth" or are the # of units from that dwelling just able to be recruited at the start of the week from the castle, but will not "build up" (ie growth) over time if you do not buy them?

Kind of specific I know but I am curious

Thanks again for helping to keep the rest of the community informed I hope the feedback you all are getting is helpful!

[Elvin]

I do not know if they give the traditional +1 growth but it will add creatures to your creature pool every week in any town or fort that you control.

[Arzang]

Everything sounded good except for going back to the round based format, I quite liked the initiative system, and the short campaigns.

But maybe they will have more storytelling than just a short cutscene and text between the maps in the campaign, so it might work out fine.

I just hope it has more playable custom game maps than H5.

btw:

since it seems more and more similar to clash of heroes by every new revelation, I'm going to guess the five factions to be

Haven, Academy, Sylvan, Inferno, Necro.

[Mirez]

since it seems more and more similar to clash of heroes by every new revelation, I'm going to guess the five factions to be

Haven, Academy, Sylvan, Inferno, Necro.

I'm afraid it's gunna be Haven, Inferno, Necropolis, Sylvan and Dungeon

since the underground tileset has already been announced and no desert tileset has been announced (unless the mages decided to move to the jungle)

[vicheron]

Some of these are just features from old games.

The creature system isn't really a big change either. Instead of having 7 levels of creatures, there will basically be three level 1 creatures, three level 4 creatures, and one level 7 creature.

[Arzang]

I'm afraid it's gunna be Haven, Inferno, Necropolis, Sylvan and Dungeon

since the underground tileset has already been announced and no desert tileset has been announced (unless the mages decided to move to the jungle)

I know they announced 6 tilesets (2 kinds of plains) but I'm guessing there will be more. To me, 'plains', either 'summer' or 'autumn', does not sound the same as 'grass' but I'm guessing there will be a grass tileset. And a dirt, and rough.

Maybe that tileset theory will turn out true though, who knows. If it does, it seems a bit poor to me.

Some of these are just features from old games.

The creature system isn't really a big change either. Instead of having 7 levels of creatures, there will basically be three level 1 creatures, three level 4 creatures, and one level 7 creature.

Indeed. I won't say if it's better or worse but it's definitely very similar to the regular system. I'm guessing it's an easy enough way to make it seem 'fresh' and more in line with 'Clash of Heroes'.