Feature requests for modders and UBI

[Csimbi]

Hi all,
I did not find such thread below - I thought it would be good to post ideas about nice-to-have features or things that bug You most, so that UBI (ia a future patch) or an experienced modder (using a mod) can fulfill Your wishes someday.
Anyway, here are the things that I would like to have changed/improved:
- Camera mod. I am really disappointed about camera handling. Two major issues here: 1) I cannot turn the camera where I wish on the terrain view - I would like to view the terrain "more from the top" so I can click on those hidden items without having to turn the camera around every time. 2) When Your hero moves, the camera resets to the center. This is not disturbing most of the times, but it is very disturbing in the dungeon where the resources are often by the dungeon walls in a way that it is very inconvenient to click on them. When You pick one up, the camera re-centers to the hero, so I have to scroll again and again, and this is kinda pissing me off after a while.
- Combat camera enhancements. I would like to have the camera setting stored to that at the next battle it is restored so that I do not need to set up the camera again (like it is stored on the terrain view). Also, a camera mod would be nice here as welll to allow a "more from the top" view also in the battle - it's very hard to click properly sometimes without turning the camera.
- Treasure chests like HMM3. HMM3 was already intelligent not to ask You whether You want gold or experienced when You have reached the experience cap already. Lots of extra clicking needlessly...
- Hotkey settings. I would like to be able to change the hotkeys for battle/terrain movement/city building/purchases/marketplace etc.
- More dialog options. It is really disturbing how much extra clicks You need. I would like to see these kind of options: "Power overwhelming: always pursue/always let them flee" (to avoid clicking "pursue" or "let them flee" every time I attack a weak army), and stuff like that for a smoother gameplay - I got a feeling like it's a pop-up game.
- Tactics enhancement. It would be nice to be able to tell the game to save the formation used during a battle (or perhaps, set it up *before* the battle on the hero screen and have it stored) so that when I attack somebody, I do not need to go to the tactics screen every time, I can go to battle right away. Also, it would be nice if I could move the war machines around a little, just like the creatures - a single meteor shower takes all three war machines out. One more thing here - during the tactics phase it it very hard to click on the leftmost small unit - the hero itself covers it - would it be possible to move the hero a little back?
- Tactics skill enhancement. When You had the tactics skill in HMM3, You were able see the enemy loadout so You could arrange Your troops according to the enemy formation for a better combat. This is missing - makes the tactics skill useless.
- Rebalance creatures. I feel that the evil creatues are a lot stronger than the good ones. In HMM3 wizards could deliver quite a punch, but now they look like weaklings compared to the evil forces. Archangel cannot fly through the whole battlefield? Come on!
- Graphics scalability. I have a P4@3GHz, 1G RAM, with ATI card. The game is pretty slow. I took the graphics detail in the game all the way down step-by-step, but did not notice any changes in the game between the step - it seems to run the same speed on all settings. When I set it to low detail, I want the game to be fast(er).

This is it for now, perhaps more will come later.

Edit: here is one more.
- More convenient development path. I found the skill wheel. Very nice. I wonder if it would be possible to select the whole development route of the hero in advance so You do not need to remember all combinations by heart (and You would not pick up skills accidentally either), so a levelup would simply move forward in the pre-selected path automatically by picking the "right" skills.

[Gaidal Cain]

- Treasure chests like HMM3. HMM3 was already intelligent not to ask You whether You want gold or experienced when You have reached the experience cap already. Lots of extra clicking needlessly...

Actually, H3 wasn't intelligent here at all- it gave you the choice of money or XP even if you were maxed out. H4 on the other hand, just gave you the gold...

- Hotkey settings. I would like to be able to change the hotkeys for battle/terrain movement/city building/purchases/marketplace etc.

There's probably some file somewhere where you can do this yourself. A modder isn't likely to create an interface for it.

- Tactics enhancement. It would be nice to be able to tell the game to save the formation used during a battle (or perhaps, set it up *before* the battle on the hero screen and have it stored) so that when I attack somebody, I do not need to go to the tactics screen every time, I can go to battle right away.

Meh, just click "start combat" as soon as your in. If it wouldn't ask you to rearrenge, you'd have your units stuck half the time...

- Tactics skill enhancement. When You had the tactics skill in HMM3, You were able see the enemy loadout so You could arrange Your troops according to the enemy formation for a better combat. This is missing - makes the tactics skill useless.

Not useless. The extra line is great. with troops just barely able to cross in one turn. at least with this way, you can't position your troops be guaranteed to overwhelm the enemy.

- Rebalance creatures. I feel that the evil creatues are a lot stronger than the good ones. In HMM3 wizards could deliver quite a punch, but now they look like weaklings compared to the evil forces. Archangel cannot fly through the whole battlefield? Come on!

THe game has been out for little over a week. I think it's way to early to discuss deatils about balance right now. Besides, Sylvan is probably the strongest town right now. And I like the fact that no unit has the speed to reach any spot on the battlefield in one turn.

[Extrakun]

Regarding the camera:

Whether they can quickly release a camera mod (or whether it is possible) depends on how they render the 3d graphics and terrains. It is impossible to render the entire map at one go, so most 3d games use a technique to 'slice' the map into pieces and only render what you can see.

Some techniques means that some views will be extremely hard to render.

[Csimbi]

Well, this would be a starting point I guess:
HMM5\data\data.pak\Cameras\

Edit:
Above seems to configure the camera default settings for each screen.
The actual camera limitations seems to be set in HMM5\profiles\autoexec.cfg - gonna check this out.

Edit#2:
I found it and it works.
Here is how You hack the camera:
Open up the HMM5\profiles\autoexec.cfg in a text editor such as notepad.
Look up these lines:

Code: Select all

//For transparanet interface
mission_camera_limits 50 10 70 -55 -30 0 0
mission_camera_softlimits 50 11 69 -53 -32 0 0

and replace them with these new lines:

Code: Select all

//For transparent interface
//mission_camera_limits fov minDistance maxDistance minPitch maxPitch minYaw maxYaw
mission_camera_limits 50 10 120 -85 -5 0 0
mission_camera_softlimits 50 11 119 -83 -7 0 0

NOTE! It will not work if You load a saved game because these settings seems to be saved into the saved games, so start a new map (or restart ot advance a campaign map) and it will work.
This will allow You to pitch the camera from 5-85 degrees and allow You to zoom out more (120). Adjust it to Your needs if necessary.
Should You make the above (or other) changes, pay attention to these:
- mission_camera_softlimits: keep the original margins (+1 for MinDistance, -1 for MaxDistance, +2 for MinPitch, -2 for MaxPitch) or You might experience crashes.
- if You allow the camera to go very low, the whole terrain might come into view - slow machines might not be able to deal with this... Same considerations are valid if You allow zooming out to very high levels.

[Paradox]

Tactics in H5 seems only useful for protecting your shooters, since you cant see the enemy.

My quarm about tactics : when a battle starts, have the army laid out as the "Automatic" button would put them. I hate after entering a battle i have to click the auto layout button and then begin battle every freaking time!

or even an option to disable tactics.

Even in heroes 3 i always avoided getting tactics because it took what seemed like an eternity after a battle started to be able to click "begin game"

[Labyrinth]

There are several creatures that can *nearly* reach the opponent for a first-strike ath the beginning of a battle - without tactics. With tactics you CAN reach them. I think this is a great deal.

Yes, I'd wish to see the opponent as well, that's not the point. All I want to point it is that tactics *are* a useful skill.

[Gaidal Cain]

My quarm about tactics : when a battle starts, have the army laid out as the "Automatic" button would put them. I hate after entering a battle i have to click the auto layout button and then begin battle every freaking time!

I never use that one. The AI groups the units too much, and there's too many area effects for that to be smart.

[Capt_Tripps]

- Wait Button. A button in the combat interface for the wait command would have been nice. I understand that it is easily accessable by using the "w" key, but there is room for a button and it would have been nice.

[dragonn]

- Unicorns - mod that changes the Unicorns in final game from Gold --> Silver to Silver/White --> Orange/Gold (like in the beta). I've already tried to ask for help (no interest as for now), even tried modding it on my own but it doesn't work (I'm not good at modding).

It's the only thing I'm willing to change in the game...

[Paradox]

My quarm about tactics : when a battle starts, have the army laid out as the "Automatic" button would put them. I hate after entering a battle i have to click the auto layout button and then begin battle every freaking time!

I never use that one. The AI groups the units too much, and there's too many area effects for that to be smart.

Yeah, if your fighting against a hero with an army with possible creatures which have AOE attacks/spells, then you can arrange it yourself. but its usually best to just do automatic when fighting creatures on the map as it basically just guards your archers with your melee

[asandir]

tactics is pretty good, but could be better if you could see the enemies formation as well as reposition to take advantage of it, if both heroes have it then you don't get to see position ... this could be implemented by forcing the opposition to position first and then let tactics hero position last

[Caradoc]

I would like to see an art mod that does something about the donkey ears on the elves. They just look wrong. Elf ears are pointy, not floppy.