Heroic: artefacts

[Groovy]

This topic was spawned from here.

Probably not as popular as town creatures, artefacts nevertheless present perhaps the greatest untapped opportunity for creative interplay between different categories of game objects. This topic introduces a fair amount of new terminology, so I will summarise it here for ease of reference.

The proposed game design features the following kinds of artefacts:
• Basic artefacts: artefacts that a hero can wear to enhance his attributes
• Forged artefacts: permanent combinations of basic artefacts that are equipped on the same part of the body
• Composite artefacts: temporary combinations of basic/forged artefacts that are simultaneously equipped on different parts of the body
• Basic monuments: artefacts that can be attached to town structures to enhance their function
• Composite monuments: temporary combinations of basic monuments that are simultaneously attached to different town structures
• Shards: creature items that can be forged into artefacts and monuments to further enhance their function
• Relics: boss monster items that enhance whole towns

Basic Artefacts

This is essentially what artefacts currently are, though I would like to restrict them to only be able to affect the basic attributes of the hero (attack, morale, etc) and his army (health, initiative, etc). This is to differentiate them from other kinds of artefacts that can do weird things. They can be bought, found on the adventure map, and so on.

Basic Monuments

Similar to artefacts, but used to enhance town structures rather than heroes. Examples would be Legs of Legion and Inexhaustible Cart of Lumber, which really belong in towns rather than on heroes.

Shards

Shards are fragments of artefacts that cannot be equipped on their own, but only as enhancements to existing artefacts (I got the idea from Titan Quest). They are sometimes dropped by groups of wandering monsters after being defeated in combat, or granted freely (when possible) in return for sparing their lives. They can have a wide range of unusual effects that correspond to these monsters’ special abilities (such as Regeneration and Fire Breath).

Shards can be attached to artefacts in a special town building called the Artefact Forge. For example, a hero can forge the Fire Lung shard into his torso armour to give Fire Breath ability to all breathing units in his army. Or he can forge the Aura of Righteousness shard into his helmet to cause all his troops to inflict additional combat damage on demonic units.

Composite Artefacts and Monuments

Composite artefacts are created by combining two or more basic artefacts that are worn on different parts of the body and that share a common theme. Composite monuments are created in a similar way.

Forged Artefacts

Like composite artefacts, forged artefacts are created from basic artefacts. Unlike composite artefacts, forged artefacts are not pre-designed. They are created on the fly by combining two or more artefacts that are all worn on the same part of the body. This is again done at the Artefact Forge.

The forged artefact has the combined properties of all the basic artefacts that were forged together. When two artefacts share the same property, their average is assigned to the forged artefact. For the purpose of inclusion in composite artefacts, the forged artefact counts as all the basic artefacts from which it was made.

For example, say that a hero has two weapons:
• Paladin’s Blade: +3 attack, +1 morale
• Club of Chaos: +5 attack, +10% magic resistance
An artefact forged from these two would have +4 attack, +1 morale and +10% magic resistance, and would count as both Paladin’s Blade and Club of Chaos.

Relics

A relic is a special monument that enhances a town as a whole. For example, it can be used to summon a territorial beast (boss monster) to serve as the town’s defender against a siege. This relic would have been found at the beast’s lair.


The goal of all these suggestions is to create artefacts that:
• Can be acquired and combined in a variety of ways
• Use simple and intuitive mechanics that generate complex effects
• Affect different kinds of game objects (I will introduce additional uses for artefacts in subsequent topics)
• Are useful during the entire game

[adam77]

Hello,

Good suggestions generally in my opinion, I would have a few remarks though:
Forged artifact: "When two artefacts share the same property, their average is assigned to the forged artefact."
Maybe assigning the higher value would be better (at least would be more logical to me at first). In your example if the hero has a third sword which gives only +1 morale, forging it together with Club of Chaos would result in a stronger artifact than Club of Chaos + Paladin’s Blade.
I am not sure about this (maybe forcing the player to think more and not forge everything together is good) but at least something to think about.
Shards: I do not see whether there is a limit on how many shards can be forged into an artifact. I would maximize it in let's say 3 shards/item. And I would make them not removable from the artifact (maybe you thought the same I just did not see it).

[Groovy]

Taking the higher value when forging artefacts was my original intention. I decided against it when I realised that it involves no tradeoffs other than the cost of forging. This way we’ll probably be left with some artefacts that are not suitable for forging, but that should be fine as long as there are other ways to make use of them. I’ll introduce two candidates in future topics.

Regarding shards, I was thinking of max 1 shard per artefact (worked well in Titan Quest), and allowing them to be removed. Not too sure which route to follow, though.

[AzureDrg]

The idea of the monuments sounds really good, so no more carrying all the legion pieces in a hero and grounding him in town!

Regarding shards, I think they'd make the artifact management overcomplicated - the game is not Diablio/TQ, where your focus/goals are item combos. I think the shards might be more interesting if they could just give benefits to actual unit stacks (relative to total stack power, e.g. 100 shards of NoRetaliation could be used in a 200 peasant, but not in a 10 dragon stack). And shards being destroyed at the end of battle relative to the units lost in a stack (0.5 shards per peasant, 30 peasants lost, 15 shards destroyed)

Regarding the forged artifacts, I'd disagree on partially averaging (e.g. Attack) and partially summing (e.g. morale + magic res) attributes. You could introduce sth like the horadric cube from diablo for crafted items: Item + shard this + shard that + some resources: some randomised artifact with similar/bit greater power related to the shards

Relics and composite items sound cool!

[Pitsu]

Artefacts are certainly a good way to make things more fun. Banning/allowing artifacts to have balanced multiplayer or fun singleplayer is usually easier to perform than (dis)allowing troops, spells or entire factions. While "common" artefacts should be balanced, a group of more specific ones can be made purely to enhance odds breaking tricks and fun maybe even at the cost of balance.

First question that IMO needs to be answered when talking about artefacts and their design is how do they work. Homm has had 2 systems. Since H3 there is paperdoll and backpack and before that each hero had simply a number of slots. While the paperdoll is more logical as you cannot get bonuses from 7 swords simultaneously, the introduction of paperdoll also introduced lot of micromanagment. In some cases it really is a choice whether to equip sword A or B, but as different situations prefer different gears one frequently only need to take the time to switch manually to optimal gear (e.g. boots of travel every end of turn, but skill enhancing boots every begin of turn). Introduction of backpack also removed the point of cursed artifacts (like tax lien). Therefore on one hand paperdoll is more logic, while to me it is not a clear winner over the old system. Now your proposal allows to merge artifacts. Wouldn't the outcome be close to the original HoMM system? You can in the end wear everything you find and have the effect of seven swords simultaneously? Just that due to merging the 7 swords look like one and seem more logical.

Growth and economy boosting artifacts could belong to towns and i certainly do not like that a hero needs to be garrisoned in a town for an artifact to work. Not sure if towns need their own artifact screen or can artifact carrying hero be set as governor for a town or the town captain (H2) has a hero style artifact screen.

I did like the artificier in H5 and creature artifact in WoG. Like AzureDrg said, the shards you propose could rather be a kind of creature artifacts affecting only a single stack, not entire armies via hero. Or they would affect hero stats, not giving a new special for everyone in the army.

[Pol]

Very interested in this topic and I promise that I will read it later. Actually four (4! ) units per town plus some neutrals should provide enough diversity. The interaction is the key and it's most clearly to be seen in Homm3. But by a wide margin not enough.

[Groovy]

Regarding shards, I think they'd make the artifact management overcomplicated - the game is not Diablio/TQ, where your focus/goals are item combos.

Could be. Do you think that this is something that we could manage by keeping shard numbers low? I was picturing finding shards as “Yey! I got a shard!” moments, something that happens on average only once every 15-20 battles with wandering monsters.

I think the shards might be more interesting if they could just give benefits to actual unit stacks (relative to total stack power, e.g. 100 shards of NoRetaliation could be used in a 200 peasant, but not in a 10 dragon stack). And shards being destroyed at the end of battle relative to the units lost in a stack (0.5 shards per peasant, 30 peasants lost, 15 shards destroyed)

The sheer volume of shards would give them a very different feel from discovering and handling artefacts. It makes me think more of resource management.

You could introduce sth like the horadric cube from diablo for crafted items: Item + shard this + shard that + some resources: some randomised artifact with similar/bit greater power related to the shards

It sounds quite similar to what I’m proposing, except that the forged artefact is also predefined, which makes it less interesting and easier to work with. Perhaps I’m overcomplicating things. Hmm...

[Groovy]

Now your proposal allows to merge artifacts. Wouldn't the outcome be close to the original HoMM system? You can in the end wear everything you find and have the effect of seven swords simultaneously? Just that due to merging the 7 swords look like one and seem more logical.

Pretty much. Merging artefacts would look more like the HOMM 3 system, but work more like the original HOMM system.

Not sure if towns need their own artifact screen or can artifact carrying hero be set as governor for a town or the town captain (H2) has a hero style artifact screen.

I would prefer a town monument screen as it makes it easier to appreciate which structures the monuments enhance and how/why they were combined into a composite monument.

[AzureDrg]

Could be. Do you think that this is something that we could manage by keeping shard numbers low? I was picturing finding shards as “Yey! I got a shard!” moments, something that happens on average only once every 15-20 battles with wandering monsters.

The sheer volume of shards would give them a very different feel from discovering and handling artefacts. It makes me think more of resource management.

That's true, but as you say fixable by keeping numbers low so you can keep and appreciate the "Yay! found one!" moment - it definitely shouldn't be resource management, as that would overcomplicate things imo.

One more note on something you touched on shards, but thought that it was very convenient was the "You're stronger - take a (few) shard(s) and leave us alone" option for monsters, which could give a much better reason to not pursue units rather than the current and past implementations! Also a diplomacy skill could be made more useful as well by increasing the chances of getting shards that way. Not mentioning the luck skill, which could provide sliiiightly better chances to, again, find shards. Or that could be a creature skill, and particularly a low level creature's skill "Increases chances of finding shards by 0.01 per unit". Ok I'm rambling - sorry, just really like the shard concept and all the potential synergies!

It sounds quite similar to what I’m proposing, except that the forged artefact is also predefined, which makes it less interesting and easier to work with. Perhaps I’m overcomplicating things. Hmm...

Letting a few things slightly random works perfectly imo - it's just part of the risk management. I didn't suggest generating predefined items, but selecting from a pool of predefined attributes. The artifact will heavily bias what attributes you'll get (e.g. +att? you'll definitely get +att), and any other stuff could bias potential extra attributes (each shard of "FireBreath" gives you a % more chance to get fire related item modifiers). Another example would be that resources put in could bias the selection of bonuses: more gems could increase the possibility of getting magic-related enchantments. Etc etc

[MattII]

The Monuments idea is interesting, I'd never really thought about sticking artefacts directly in towns before, well, except for the Relic/Ultimate Artefact (build a special building to house it). Makes sense though. How many monuments would be allowed per town?

I'm not sure about forged artefacts/composite monuments or shards, I feel they're making the whole thing a bit complex.

[Groovy]

Ok I'm rambling - sorry, just really like the shard concept and all the potential synergies!

I like rambling that gives me new ideas!

Letting a few things slightly random works perfectly imo - it's just part of the risk management. I didn't suggest generating predefined items, but selecting from a pool of predefined attributes. The artifact will heavily bias what attributes you'll get (e.g. +att? you'll definitely get +att), and any other stuff could bias potential extra attributes (each shard of "FireBreath" gives you a % more chance to get fire related item modifiers). Another example would be that resources put in could bias the selection of bonuses: more gems could increase the possibility of getting magic-related enchantments. Etc etc

Okay, I get it now. And I like it as well. A small amount of randomness could really spice up shard forging!

[Groovy]

How many monuments would be allowed per town?

I was thinking of having one monument slot per town structure, similar to having one artefact slot per hero’s body part. For example, attaching a Magic Tablet monument (analogous to Tome of Air/Water/Earth/Fire Magic) to the Mage Guild to make additional spells available, or attaching a Lamp monument to the Djinn creature dwelling to boost their growth. If all creature dwellings were enhanced in this way, their monuments could be combined into a composite monument that grants additional bonuses.

Not sure whether all town structures would have monuments to go with them. Might be excessive.

[AzureDrg]

attaching a Magic Tablet monument (analogous to Tome of Air/Water/Earth/Fire Magic) to the Mage Guild to make additional spells available, or attaching a Lamp monument to the Djinn creature dwelling to boost their growth

A monument slot per building sounds great, but I'd like to comment on the creature monuments: while all towns have magic guilds, so a "magic tablet" would be usable in all towns, a "Lamp" would be usable in only one specific building of one specific faction).
While this could increase the actual value of the objects, it will make them very circumstancial ( lamp in a game with no academy factions=no djinns=useless).
On the other hand you could have creature-dwelling-generic upgrades, such as items that boost creature growth of a Lvl1 dwelling by 10%, or reduce price of a Lvl2 dwelling by 10%. Which is more like the legion artifacts.

[Groovy]

True. I was actually relying on other mechanics for using artefacts (I’ll introduce them in later topics) to take care of monuments that we can’t exploit in towns on a particular map. But it’s something to keep in mind should these alternatives not be up to the task.

[Panda Tar]

Growth and economy boosting artifacts could belong to towns and i certainly do not like that a hero needs to be garrisoned in a town for an artifact to work. Not sure if towns need their own artifact screen or can artifact carrying hero be set as governor for a town or the town captain (H2) has a hero style artifact screen.

Second that. Pretty bad having to keep the hero stationary for that reason.

Regarding the way to stack or show artifacts in town, imho, that could be arranged by having a Hall of Trophies - a fictional building - to arrange monuments and spoils of war. Adding to the monument idea (which is a longing of mine for rather a while ), there are prizes people can praise, probably bringing more prosperity to a town, such as the Grail or Tear of Asha's building effect.

Strecthing this subject a bit, I think some artifacts could also be settled at mines. The example of the cart of lumber should work in a saw mill, and given that it was a common sort of artifact, you could have more than one and thus, place it at other sawmills. Of course, you could lose it anytime when the enemy got hold of your sawmill.

**
Regarding merging, I agree with Pitsu that it could end up bringing a funeling effect. In the end, it would mean almost the same as if having no choices but to add one upon another. The mentioned paper doll gives opportunity to have easier and harder times as will, and set-items had their glamour, right?

Speaking of shards, it reminded of the Wizard ability of artefact for creatuers in H5. I liked it, because it was the most close idea of what I hope to find in Heroes games, which was a place (name it blacksmith for instance) where you could improve your units as if upgrading particular features in them (not as a whole name upgrade, mind you), where you could slowly develop your units as well, accordingly to your town development. But this subject if not for this thread yet.

[Groovy]

Regarding the way to stack or show artifacts in town, imho, that could be arranged by having a Hall of Trophies - a fictional building - to arrange monuments and spoils of war.

Strecthing this subject a bit, I think some artifacts could also be settled at mines. The example of the cart of lumber should work in a saw mill, and given that it was a common sort of artifact, you could have more than one and thus, place it at other sawmills. Of course, you could lose it anytime when the enemy got hold of your sawmill.

That sounds like a good idea – more interaction with adventure map structures that doesn’t devolve into periodic visits.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

Regarding the way to stack or show artifacts in town, imho, that could be arranged by having a Hall of Trophies - a fictional building - to arrange monuments and spoils of war. Adding to the monument idea (which is a longing of mine for rather a while ), there are prizes people can praise, probably bringing more prosperity to a town, such as the Grail or Tear of Asha's building effect.

Actually, why not have the Hall of Trophies be an upgrade to the town. You can either pin a hero to the town for the artifacts, or you can build a structure to house the artifacts, thus freeing up the hero. It's the players choice.

[Panda Tar]

Actually, why not have the Hall of Trophies be an upgrade to the town. You can either pin a hero to the town for the artifacts, or you can build a structure to house the artifacts, thus freeing up the hero. It's the players choice.

That's a great idea, Q.Dragon-san. That can open possibilities whether housing that hero would be somewhat a difference in the effect over the artifacts than having them in that building.

[Panda Tar]

Another thing that came into mind yesterday while I was writing some ideas down the paper:

Faction-guided artifacts: but a better name would be history-guided artifacts of a faction. These artifacts could be taken as really important relics of a faction that are not known to others, so their bonuses are only applied upon specific towns, or only usable by certain heroes. To others, they would see the artifact as UNIDENTIFIED, rather useless, or with very poor results. The knowledge of them would be deeply rooted in a faction lore and history, differently from something famous.

[Groovy]

Do you mean faction-guided or race-guided?

Also, would you consider making them composite artefacts? And tying them to racial skills?