forgotten adventure spells

[Pitsu]

No news from developers and the insiders keeping silence too. How about talking about adventure map spells? H5 had only few of them: summon boat, dimension door, town portal and summon creatures. IMO the DD was implemented wrongly, but other spells were fine. Yet Homm has had many more adventure map spells, some of which could add a lot to strategy. Here they are with my thoughts:


View earth/air/heroes/mines...
I remember that one of the H5 developers believed these spells to be something that no-one wants to have. Spying and intelligence gathering has never been a strong part in HoMM, but these are spells that could greatly improve it. They could act a bit more convenient though: highlight the locations on map (not a view window) and last for more than a turn.

Mire/pathfinding/terrain walk
Hero mobility is a crucial factor in this game (logistics specialists anyone?). There are artifacts, structures and terrains that alter movement. In H4 spells could do the same. Of course their effect, casting cost and availability has to be controlled so that it would not be a “must cast at the start of every turn”. These spells should NOT be worth casting in PvE situations.

Disguise/visions
Hiding and revealing army type and size has been in more than one game, but in partially broken format. Again I would recommend the effect to last for more than one turn.

Haunt
A spell that turns a mine back to neutral and places dangerous guardians to it. With area controls, this spell could be even more useful than in traditional games. Important is that the guardians have special strengths and cannot be beaten without high level troops.

Summon guardian
Splitting armies weakens you. Summoning (heroless) armies to adventure map would increase your chances to harm the opponent even when the summoned armies may not be incorporated into your main army. That would also mean more interactions/battle between players. On the other hand, this summoning should not allow you to cover entire map with friendly armies and the creature types/fights should have some variability. Possibly it could also cost movement points and depend on army size (so that secondary heroes are inefficient). The opponent will gain full(or more?) experience from defeating them and maybe some info about the structure of your real armies.



For discussion:
How important adventure map spells are in your opinion?
Are the "forgotten" adventure map spells worth a comeback?
If yes, then what is needed to make them actually useful and balanced?

[Tress]

I think adventuring spells is something that no part of HOMM handled well and in truth I dont really know if it's possible at all.
Things like fly/tp/DD just give too much of an advantage and are either banned altogether or they let to trivialize map, and even worse they sometimes make skills like earth magic mandatory.While rest of adventuring spells like view (earth/whatever), vision is used too rarely and pretty much pisses people of once they take valuable place in mage guild. Disciple rippof spells like mire also did not added to balance as they allowed to interact on game board unlike most schools.
Until now I think homm 5 dealt with it best, also adding summon troops skill was good thing to minimize hero chaining and dependency on returning to base. They limited DD and TP to high levels only and removed necessity for mandatory magic skills. Kinda bad though that they can only make handful of such spells, but hope they can add some more in homm6 without ruining balance.

How important adventure map spells are in your opinion?
Are the "forgotten" adventure map spells worth a comeback?
If yes, then what is needed to make them actually useful and balanced?

Apart from logistic ones, I believe not much. While playing homm2 I rarely bothered to guard mines, while system in homm 5 to have skill that automatically haunts and wards mines from scouts is interensting, need soem extra tuning tou. But since homm6 will use area of control system it doesnt matter that much now.
Divination spells like view/ vision is unnecessary imo.

[Metathron]

I would love to see some of those, Mire especially. Slowing down an enemy to either catch up to him or escape from him was a lot of fun.

Haunt/Summon guardian especially would make sense, what with the new mechanics of area control.

Two thumbs up for more adventure spells!

[Blocks100]

Rather than a 'water walk' spell, I'd like to see a 'Parting of the Waves' type spell where a hero can create a temporary dry land corridor across a lake/river so his troops can safely cross. Aesthetically speaking, it'd look quite good on the adventure map, and make more sense that your whole army suddenly donning Jesus boots....

Also, spells that affect the weather on the adventure map. Summon raid clouds that slightly cripple the pace of an advancing enemy army (unless the opposing hero has a logistics trait that means he can shrug off rain...)

Blizzard spells that reduce the visibility of rival heroes (increase fog of war). Or for really powerful artifacts, an equipped ability than allows you to summon lava eruptions when your standing on volcanic tiles. These could block the passage of rival units or clear a way through for your hero.

The introduction of weather on world maps would probably be quite tough on our specs though....

[Avonu]

I wish Haunt and Summon guardian spells would back. I missed them badly in H3 and next games. They were nice add to adventure map strategy (no more 1 unit army (re)takes your mines/dwellings) but also weren't unbalanced (large army can easy defeat them).
But if they back I think developers need to balance them not only to hero spellpower attribute but also to time of how long game is playing by moment when spell is cast - no more 8 ghost guards at 123th day of gameplay when you have hundreds of units in your main army.

About rest - I don't really know but I think more spells is always better then less even if you will use them once or twice in game.

[Mirez]

haunt is avalible in heroes 5 but not as an adventure spell but as a skill. However you need diplomacy to get it, and necromancer with diplomacy = fail

[Kristo]

I haven't used adventure map spells much in the past but I wish they would be more important. Here's what I think of the ones I can remember off the top of my head:

View Mines, Resources, etc.: underrated for early game at the higher difficulty levels. If you're trying to achieve a specific build order, it's important to beeline for the right mines.

Visions: limited use, but sometimes it's nice to have. I think it's worth a few mana in borderline cases (e.g., is that Throng 100 or 249?).

Summon Boat: really nice to have if circumstances take you away from your boat.

Haunt: never use it. If I have to deny a mine to the bad guys, I'm losing the game already.

Set Elemental Guardian: never use it. I don't care much about defending a single mine by the time top-level spells are available.

DD/Fly/TP: complete game-breakers normally, but so much fun in a campaign game when you're severely outgunned.

If I have forgotten anything here, they must not have been that important to me. ;-) Anyway, I wish they'd do more with this. I think it'd be cool to summon a snowstorm or something that makes major changes to the adventure map.

[Corlagon]

I too want these back and heavily expanded upon (not least because of their enormous strategic potential), and I've been trying to ram the idea "More Adventure Spells" down the developers' throats. All we can do is wait and see whether they'll heed the suggestion.

[Dragon Angel]

Regarding Adventure spells, I think Heroes V set a good path by separating them of battle spells. This way, a bigger part of the unbalance (adv spells being more/less useful than same level battle spells) is avoided.

Then, an arrangement in levels (and maybe a school lineup) should be put in practice in order to identify wich adventure spells are of similar power, and can therefore be pars in a random choice. The mague guild might offer 1 adv spell per level, along the battle spells.

I think the stronger adventure spells should cost a nice amount of movement points, much as DD does in Heroes 5. This way, overuse can be avoided. Also, lasting effects might need the mage to stay in place or nearby (this will require to use secondary, support mages for bending the map to your will).

[Pitsu]

I think the stronger adventure spells should cost a nice amount of movement points, much as DD does in Heroes 5.

As i said in starting post IMO H5 got the DD spell wrong. In H5 DD has very short range and high movement points cost. It is useful only for jumping over impassable walls/guardians. I think originally the idea of DD was not to allow passing impassable terrains, but to increase mobility. For balance they could not have cut the mobility, but the ability to teleport into unreachable areas. Perhaps there could be two different spells - one for mobility and other for mapmakers headache.

[Nelgirith]

A spell like DD (probably Fly or the Boots of Levitation too) are breaking the purpose of a "bottleneck" on a map. If a stack of dragons is keeping the access to a rich area, it has a purpose, no matter what penalty you can add to DD, the player who gets DD can gain an advantage on a player who doesn't and that's imo an unacceptable part of randomness in a strategy game. DD and Fly should be removed from the game.

A spell like Town Portal breaks the need for taking decisions on the adventure map. "Oh hey look there's a guy entering my territory, he's 2 days from my main castle. Oh I'm gonna keep moving away this turn, then I'll just TP the next turn !". One of the things I liked in Heroes game is when you got caught by surprise (or if you caught another player by surprise), lost your castle and had to battle to recapture it. If you lost your castle this way it was your own mistake, but a single spell like TP removes that aspect totally.

I liked a lot spells like View Artifacts, View Mines (to see my opponent's evolution - does he already have his gold mine or not ?). If they manage to make that Dragonblood a rare resource a spell like View Resources could be very useful again.

Summon Boat is really a great spell on sea maps (I hope there will be more of those in H6). I'll also add Scuttle Boat as a strategic spell.

[Pitsu]

@Nelgirith
If you have played MM, then you know that Lloyds beacon cannot be used to reach unknown areas, only to teleport between two locations where you already have been. The autopath finder in HoMM already determines where you can reach and where not. I do not think that a high level spell allowing instant travel between points where you already have been is so gamebreaking. Especially when limited casting per round and/or limited distance per casting.
With the rest you say, i totally agree.

[Tress]

I do not think that a high level spell allowing instant travel between points where you already have been is so gamebreaking. Especially when limited casting per round and/or limited distance per casting.

Well I often playing homm3 notice how game could be divided into pre getting dd/tp and after. With expert tp you can cardinally change your strategy by effectively covering all your castles with single main hero, and logistic to fill army with new recruits every week becomes trivial task, and if map becomes larger the more actual this rift becomes.
Undeniably there must be some adventuring spells but they must be three or even more time as careful when adding it to game when compared to combat spell. Also the more powerfull such spells are the more disadvantage might oriented factions get, and you cant compensate it with extar combat power, as you cant really balance overhead map strength with combat strength.

[ThunderTitan]

Going crazy with adv spells isn't needed, especially with the smaller maps 3D brought. But stuff like Mire and Summon/Scuttle Boat should be in, as should other utility spells.

And DD and Fly could just be limited to the campaigns... although i guess with the smaller maps they won't matter that much.


And do it half way like H5, make them be in a school of their own, but instead of getting them from any guild at certain levels and getting them all they should have their own level and separate tab in the guild, with you being able to learn them once you have the skill from any school.

And if you want to balance TP just make it take a whole turn to use (like you cast it at the beginning of the turn before you move, and it ports you to town at the end, or use it during one turn, but you only teleport at the start of the next one).

[Metal Wolf]

Here is something topic related I've wrote a few months ago in the HOMM6 wishlist thread:

... 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 spell. 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 (doesn't necessarily 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…
Maybe some terrain-deforming spells which will benefit the player in some way, or temporarily reducing an enemy's town growth and even destroying buildings (not dwellings but places like marketplace, defense towers and etc). Something like in Age of Wonders, but less influential on gameplay (it is HOMM after all).

[ecsunotos]

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 (doesn't necessarily 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…
Maybe some terrain-deforming spells which will benefit the player in some way, or temporarily reducing an enemy's town growth and even destroying buildings (not dwellings but places like marketplace, defense towers and etc). Something like in Age of Wonders, but less influential on gameplay (it is HOMM after all).

Interesting idea. Just wait for nice implementation from dev so that they won't give too much imbalance for the game.

[Dragon Angel]

As i said in starting post IMO H5 got the DD spell wrong. In H5 DD has very short range and high movement points cost. It is useful only for jumping over impassable walls/guardians. I think originally the idea of DD was not to allow passing impassable terrains, but to increase mobility. For balance they could not have cut the mobility, but the ability to teleport into unreachable areas. Perhaps there could be two different spells - one for mobility and other for mapmakers headache.

I think it is a 50/50. I guess, since the beginning DD was a mobility-focused spell allowing you to "jump" obstacles you had to go around otherwise. I agree going into "forbidden" areas or jumping wardens (but maybe not enemy heroes) was not a planned feature. On that sense, I think Heroes 5 implementation does not solve all the problems but gets them controllable. For extended mobility only, I guess a spell multiplying your movement points would have been enough, no need to meddle with the outer dimensions .

So I agree, we could have two different movement spells, or even more. Lloyd's Beacon has been discused so many times and never implemented, but would be a quite nice option (it would be interesting, as well, you could train level 5-10 magues to "set" beacons, and then lvl 15-25 magues to be actually able teleport to them) -> might make for interesting incursion tactics.

An improved "summon creatures", allowing to switch creatures with any town, or even between heroes (artifacts also, maybe), might also be interesting - mana and movement cost increasing with distance.

As a mapmaker tool and resource, I think it should be very useful to be able to set dimensional "barriers" limiting these spells (either use - i.e. "you can not launch DD or SC if you are here"; or travel itself "you can not cross this line with DD" or "you can only teleport to red regions from red regions". These "rules" and "barriers" could be made visible when casting the spell, making the set "work rules" easy to underestand, while not interrupting that much the normal gameplay.

[ThunderTitan]

... I'd like to see more adventure-map spells, which should be stronger and more impressive as well:

Making them stronger is probably not such a great idea... they should just make more of them but around the same power level as Mire, Haunt Mine etc.

Oh, and also keep the "summon units from town" one... but instead of making it take 1 mana/unit, no matter the unit just have it like drain all mana and movement instead and you could get all the creatures or something to cut down on the monotonous way H5 did it...

[mundane]

A spell like DD (probably Fly or the Boots of Levitation too) are breaking the purpose of a "bottleneck" on a map. . DD and Fly should be removed from the game.

A spell like Town Portal breaks the need for taking decisions on the adventure map. "

Summon Boat is really a great spell on sea maps (I hope there will be more of those in H6). I'll also add Scuttle Boat as a strategic spell.

Good game design can use dd/fly by making the players make strategic decisions. Do I spend x days and y units getting a spell to "cheat" my way around a guardian or do I lose y+z units and do it the hard way. If you restrict fly and dd to artifacts (including scrolls) then it shouldn't mess up game design.

Personally I like town portal but I do see your point. Would it be interesting if only the hero and 1 retainer were ported leaving the army behind as a 'flagged' army?

Why not make 'burn boats" an option rather than a spell? I don't see why a level 1 unskilled hero wouldn't be able to destroy a boat.

How about a 'calm waters and good wind' spell?
Or a trap resource spell, mines,boatyards,marletto towers,arenas,academies, towns, forts, etc spell (acts ike a whirlpool or a siren 10% of army lost but exp gained) .

[Avonu]

A spell like Town Portal breaks the need for taking decisions on the adventure map.

I think that go back to Heroes 2 TP spell system would be nice. There are two spells: Town Portal and Town Gate. On is for teleporting to the nearest city (like in H1, IV, V), the other allows you to choose destination.
So you can ban one of these spells if you want to play multiplayer map but also you can both of them if you want to play singleplayer map.

But first you need to have in-game option to ban special spells/artifacts/heroes in HVI (like WoG has). Banning them by map editor is not the best way to "balance" map.