Achievements

[Blocks100]

I’ve always been a bit suspicious of Achievements, seeing them as more of a console thing. But after careful consideration, I think it would be pretty neat if HOMMVI tracked your stats, and maybe even give you some rewards for your efforts. Here are some examples:


Achievement name: “Dem Bones, Dem Bones!”

Recognition for : Recruited a Zounds! worth of skeletons in one game.

Reward: Minor % increase in chance for Week of the Undead occurring in all future games (skeleton growth doubles)


You Shall Not Pass

Successfully defended 20 towns during sieges.

Boiling Tar War Machine now recruitable from Blacksmiths. When equipped, enemy units receive additional fire damage when crossing moats.


“Oy! That’s my Ore!”

Occupy enemy mines for 50 turns (game lifetime achievement)

Cart of Inexhaustible ore artifact has higher % chance of occurring on world map in all future games.

Paint the town Red

Successfully convert 20 towns.

Conversion costs reduced by 10% in all future games.


Spitting Feathers

Kill 1000 Griffins

Hostility of Griffins towards player increases (%chance of random monsters joining Hero diminishes slightly)


Let’s All Join Hands

Recruit 2000HPs worth of units through Diplomacy skill

%chance of Diplomatic Sash available to purchase at Artifact Merchants increases slightly


Yellow Belly

Units under your control have frozen in combat 40 times due to Bad Morale

%chance of Crest of Valor available to purchase at Black Markets increases slightly


Let’s hear your ideas, keeping the rewards minor so they don’t break the game, and the Achievement titles snappy….

[Pitsu]

It is fine for maps that are within one campaign, but independent maps should not interfere with each other. Anyone who bothers to do a fake-map in editor and play it will gain bonus for all future multiplayer games? That is ridiculous. You said that you agreed with the idea after "careful consideration". Mind to elaborate it a bit more why do the positive sides overweight the negative in your opinion? I could see the positive in a game which always plays the same (about the same amount of creatures, same starting faction, RPG/strategy balance not different among maps etc.). For HoMM I can only see that every mapmaker will add a note "please reset all achievement bonuses before playing", like in HoMM5 the custom maps sometimes interfered with each other.

[jeff4815]

It's definately an interesting idea, but I think it'd work better for individual maps as opposed to a collective thing throughout various maps.

[Blocks100]

I think the whole idea of Achievements in HOMM stems from my desire to create some sort of 'persistent world' in the game. We've all clocked up countless hours playing HOMM, but every new game fails to register this. By tracking number of hours played, types of enemy defeated, greatest damage inflicted etc and doleing out minor rewards for the player, it'd create a sense that your actions are having a permanent impact on the gameworld.

If a player is retarded enough to make fake maps to ramp up Achievement points artificially, then their time spent soullessly repeating tasks would probably be punishment enough...and besides none of the 'rewards' should be powerful enough to unbalance the mutiplayer game, that’s the whole point.

Ideally, I'd like the Achievements to pop up in a mini-movie (think discovering new tech in Civilization) after a battle or some other convenient time.....

Davy Jones's Locker

Lost 3000 HPs worth of units after travelling through Whirlpools

Water Elementals in random monster stacks now have a greater (5%) chance of joining the hero’s army.

[Pitsu]

IMO one of the beauties in HoMM has been that there is no persistent world. Every mapmaker can create his or her own legend and they all are equal for the game engine. The same as i do not want the number of illustrations in a book depend on the number of books i have read in last year/with no resting/while walking backwards.
The price for spending hours with a game should be the feeling of satisfaction. Heck, when the reward is too pleasing simple satisfaction can turn into addiction, which has unpleasant side-effects.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

I think this would be an interesting idea. On the game creation screen, each human player would have a button to allow/disallow achievement powers in the game, as well as a button to see what achievements all players have earned. If all players agree to use them, then they are active. If not, then they aren't.
This would be useful in single-player mode so you could practice for tournament settings with the plain vanilla game (which I would expect tournaments to use) or you could play with your power ups.
For that matter, allow a player in a configuration screen to individually choose which bonuses to play with (like the WoG options for the H3 mod)

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah, no thanks....

The only acceptable achievements are those that reward the player from doing something they normally wouldn't, to play the game in a way they would not if left alone.

Unlocking stuff the more you play is nothing but a way to artificially increase play time, which we shouldn't accept.

[Elvin]

The only acceptable achievements are those that reward the player from doing something they normally wouldn't, to play the game in a way they would not if left alone.

My thoughts exactly.

[klaymen]

The less food for the achievement whores in game = the better.
"OLOLOL I haz moar achievements than u, u suck d00d!!1"

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah man, i mean you suck without any achievements there anyway...

Ok, it's his PC, he really needs to get a new one...

[Blocks100]

Sure, Achievements in games have negative connotations, but have you never thought it'd be cool if the game tracked your global stats, no. of battles fought/lost, units recruited, Windmills visited etc - all the activities you do in a Heroes game, and then gave you a GTA / Advance Wars style stat summary?

Heroes V did this in some fashion after completing a campaign map. Gold collected, resources, time taken. All I'm suggesting is that these stats reports are improved, and once x amount is achieved, gives you a small token trophy of some kind. If nothing else, it could be a useful match-making tool in multiplayer, helping you avoid experienced ( stat heavy) players until you’ve reached a similar level of game time.

[Pitsu]

A nice hall of fame and scoring system would be great. The word "optional" is magic and hard to argue against, but i am not sure why should optional features require certain playing hours before they become available...
If you want to discuss how a map score should be calculated (H3 vs H4 system etc.) then it is another topic.

[ThunderTitan]

Tracking your stats is way older then achievements... and a completely different thing.

[Kristo]

Stats are a fine idea, but achievements are largely a function of how long you've played and on what maps. We already have a mechanism for comparing your skill level against others - multiplayer.

[King Imp]

A nice hall of fame and scoring system would be great.

I couldn't agree more!

It was so anticlimactic beating a map in Heroes 5 to receive nothing for your efforts. Either Nival was A) too stupid or B) too lazy to implement a scoring system that we've had in previous Heroes games so I hope this new company brings it back.

[ThunderTitan]

It was so anticlimactic beating a map in Heroes 5 to receive nothing for your efforts.

The playing in itself should be reward enough... the score screen should be more informative then rewarding...

[Corlagon]

It was so anticlimactic beating a map in Heroes 5 to receive nothing for your efforts.

QFE. Anecdote time: as a child, I was rather pissed off ten years ago after spending hours beating H3's Song for the Father and Seeds of Discontent only to discover there was no prize to be had aside from the ending video.
I'm sure the H6 campaigns will be nowhere near as boring/bland as H5's, but they could still benefit from including some added incentive to keep short attention spans fuelled.

Like it or not, and whether HoMM fans welcome the idea or not, Joe Public is generally looking to be (virtually) rewarded for his efforts, and will be more inclined to continue playing if there's a token bonus implemented.

[OliverFA]

The only way in which I see achievements having some sense would be if they unlocked things like specially difficult maps. Let's say, if you are so good that you win 20 games with the h¡Haven daction, then you get access to the "Haven Challenge" map which is a very difficult (and supossedly funny) map centered around Haven that only a hardcore Haven player could win and enjoy. And the same for the other factions.

But ever then, I have my doubts.

I would have nothing against "Kings Bounty Armored Princess" style of achievements. If within a map you manage to get an achievement, you receive a bonus. Because this, more than achievement, is another way to track experience. For example, in KBAP your priests get more effective after you use their bless spell enough number of times (and get an "achievement" medal to show it on the hero screen).

PS: I hope Katauri develop their HOMM clone one of those days

[King Imp]

It was so anticlimactic beating a map in Heroes 5 to receive nothing for your efforts.

The playing in itself should be reward enough... the score screen should be more informative then rewarding...

I have no problem with that as long as there is an actual score screen. There was no reason for that to be taken away in Heroes 5.

There was a board member who shall remain nameless who would defend every Nival action and in this case he tried to convince us (or maybe he was just trying to convince himself as he had his lips firmly on their ass) that because of the H5 mechanics, it was impossible to implement a scoring system.

Really? You mean the same mechanics that we also had in H3 and H4 where amazingly they didn't have a problem putting in the high score system?

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah man, but it's 3D... so it might be a bit harder to implement.