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| Thread: Additional Upgrade System | |
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actionjack
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 14, 2006 05:46 AM |
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Additional Upgrade System
HoMM Additional Upgrade System
Basic:
It is an additional upgrade to the units that promote further customization.
After a creature production structure is build in the town, you get the option to build/purchase additional upgrades to that building, which provide additional improvement to that unit. There would be option of 2 to 4 choices on the upgrade, but building one will bar from adding other. You are only allow to build one upgrade for each creature per town, so it is only if you have two towns of same type will you be able to build the upgrade twice, and so on. The added bonuses are also universal, which will effect all same units in your army across the map.
The improvement will usually be that of stats, added abilities, and growth rate. What the improvement would be will strictly depended on what creature is it. Also it would apply to both the starting and upgrade creature.
As this is apply to all creatures in all faction, where the improvement should be balance (where one is not better than other), this should not throw the game off, nor tip siding it into favoriting any faction in any way.
The upgrades are suggested as new training facilities, or new equipments, or some type of enchantment.
Example*:
After building the Footman production building, you get the option to build one of the upgrade below (each costing 1000 gold and 5 wood)**:
- School of Defense: All footman/squire gain +3 in defense.
- Training Hall of Swords: All footman/squire gain the double attack ability
- Blessing of Warrior?fs Courage: All footman/squire gain +2 in speed and +1 in attack.
For Archer
- Recruitment Post: Increase growth rate by 3
- Piercing Arrows: +2 in attack.
- Target Practice: Gain ?gAim Shot?h ability.
For Vampire/Vampire Lord
- Feasting Hall of Blood: Gain 25% more hp back with life drain
- Corridor of Shadow: +2 in speed.
- Black Sword: +3 in attack and +1 in defense.
For Rakshasa Rani
- Lion?fs Dance: Gain War Dance Combo
- Enchanted Blade: +4 in attack.
For Hunter
- Point Blank Shooting Range: gain Precise Shot ability.
- Ranger?fs Arrow: gain Unlimited Shot ability
- School of Predator: Initative increase by 2.
Etc Etc.
*The number in the example should only be taken only as suggestions and example purpose. Further play-test and formulating is needed to determine the balance.
**The cost of building those upgrades will be different, depended of the creature and faction.
Purpose:
This concept of adding additional bonus and enchantment to a unit not a stranger in HoMM game, and appear in many strategy/RTS as well.
The main purpose is to allow player to further customize their units, giving them more say in the army build up to better suit each individual?fs playing tactic. One player might like to use his Squire for offensive purpose, while another might like them for their defensive capability. This would reflect in the choice of their upgrades. This give you more options in your choice of units, making the army that you have more unique, which will make the strategy more diverse, and the conflict more interesting.
Also this give the chance to add additional abilities (Without loosing the balance) to some units.
I don?ft think it would be too hard to implant too.
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Ted
Promising
Supreme Hero
Peanut Exterminator
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posted October 14, 2006 09:52 AM |
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Looks great, it would make the troops more unique, but what about neutrals they need could have those upgrades as well, but if they had a dsifferent one then well that would be annoying,
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 14, 2006 10:18 AM |
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I think this is a very interesting idea, that could add a lot of fun to the late game phase. I do think, however, that to ballance this feature, you have to walk a *very* narrow line - and I have some objections to your suggestions.
You very reasonably say that "the improvement should be balanced (where one is not better than other), and this should not throw the game off, nor tip siding it into favoriting any faction in any way." Based on this, I would like to point out that the double attack ability probably is *the* most powerfull special, and to provide a building at 1000 Gold and 5 Wood that adds this special feature is way off ballance. Also, increasing Archer growth might not be the best idea since most players actually find Archers to be way overpowered in their current form.
Another part I don't like is the fact that the improvements would be universal to all units across the land. I think that'll make it way to powerfull. I find the idea that units can be learned additional abilities very reasonable, but I'd say that a) The units had to visit the town with the building that teaches them the appropriate skill in order to make it apply to them, and b) The teaching process should cost money for each unit, just like a normal upgrade. Possibly, more powerfull skills should be more expensive - if that was the case, it'd be much more ballanced (so that, if teaching your Squires double strike cost you an additional 50 Gold for each Squire (which is a lot, considering their base cost of 130 Gold, but not unreasonable for this ability) you'd really think twice before doing this. This would also meen that teaching them several skills would meen they had to visit firstly one town, and then the other - which is a good thing, because it'll make you consider whether you'll want them to have several abilities (expensive and cumbersome) or the same skill (cheeper and less management, but of course not as powerfull).
This system could also be considered in terms of the H3 WOG system where units gained experience, which allowed them to have further special abilities. If one really wanted to restrict the power of this thing, one could say that the Squires could learn in the Defence School with only a little experience, Warriors Courage would require moderate experience, and the Sword Training would require a large unit experience. This would add yet another tactical aspect to the feature.
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted October 14, 2006 03:21 PM |
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This looks like an interesting feature that can add very much to the game if implemented right.I would like to point out two things that already has been raised here.
1) Balance - balance is very important and the cost of some upgrades should be bigger than the others. Moreover, overpowering abilities should be avoided at all cost, using actionjack's example, adding War Dance Combo to a Rakshasha (lvl6 unit with no retaliation ability) is imo very overpowered.
2) Range of the effect - two ways have been proposed: global and local. The global way is easy to implement but indeed could be very powerful and should be compensated by a very high costs or by making the upgrades less important. The local way is much more balanced but it creates another problem - what to do with two stacks of footmen, one with upgrade and one without? And if it's not two, but four stacks with different upgrades? True, upgrades are commonly used in strategy games, but in most of these games every creature is an independent unit and there are no stacks which makes upgrading, training and gaining experience a lot easier. (btw I haven't played wog so I don't know how the creature experience is implemented there).
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 14, 2006 05:12 PM |
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I second all your thoughts there, Geny. I would say, the two stacks of Footmen should be treated as separate units, and should go in two different slots. They might even have different names, for all I care (even though that will stress the imagination of the developers). Another solution would be to say, if you mix two different groups of creatures, they always have the abilities of the lower of the two - however, the game should "remember" that some of the creatures are upgraded, so that you only need to upgrade a part of the stack before all the creatures return as upgraded creatures.
In the WOG system, units gained Experience from battles, marked as ^'s - and each stack could have from 0^ to 10^ (the ^ just signified some relative value on a scale). Anyway, I don't remember the details, but I think that the units generally would acquire further special abilities when they reached a certain experience level - say, for instance that at 8^ your Naga might achieve double strike ability. If you mixed two stacks, say 5 Naga with 2^ and 15 Naga with 10^ you would end up with a stack of 20 Naga with 8^ (just the weighter average). Thus, you could take in untrained units, but with an overall loss of skill for the stack - however, the stack would not be reduced to 2^. I think this system worked pretty well (and in late game, your 10^ army would really kick ***).
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actionjack
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 14, 2006 05:46 PM |
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As said, there are several ways to do this.
I would think global-effect be the easier way. Of if necessary, make it local, but allow easy transfer (like magic spells, once two heros meet, will automatic "teach" all the units the upgraded abality/stats improvement. Same goes for town)
Upgrades could even have vary cost (with the better one costing more to build). I would think the cost of improvement for higher level units be more expensive.
Another thing that could be done with 2 differnce of upgrade between multiple stacks, is to have the Majority rule. The stat/change will follow what ever is the majority. (actually, there is a folly to this system now I think of it... can you pick up what?  )
Another idea that was consider is to have un-limited upgrade, but progressive staggering cost. So you could have all the upgrade, but would say the first one cost 1000g, next one cost 5000g, and third one cost 10,000g... something like that. (but I sitll like 1 upgrade per town control better).
Good thing I added that disclaimer. Hopefully the example server their purpose as... examples.. and people are not blinded by the unblance nature of it too much. (its hard to do on paper).
But I would say the power of those abalities should be situational, meaning they could be good in some situation, and not as good in other. Its the matter of the player on how they use them.
Ted actually have another good point, and I think it would be fun to have randomly-select upgrade automatically added to them (if they are on the field after certain week).
Thanks for the replies.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 15, 2006 03:19 AM |
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I still think you have to consider not only the building cost, but also add a cost per creature you want to upgrade. No matter how large building expenses are - 1000 Gold, 5000, 10.000 or 20.000 - if you have no dependancy on unit numbers, the cost will become negligable in the long run.
Secondly, you can't just make majority count. Consider this example: You have 20 upgraded units and 51 basic ones. You then split the basic ones into 3 sets of 17 units, and then add them into the upgraded ones. In this way, they will all turn into upgraded units, even though there was originally more basic units than upgraded. Therefore, you have to choose one of two solutions: Either: they don't mix; or: you have some parameter (call it experience or something else) from which you calculate a weighted average.
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actionjack
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 15, 2006 03:42 AM |
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Quote:
I still think you have to consider not only the building cost, but also add a cost per creature you want to upgrade. No matter how large building expenses are - 1000 Gold, 5000, 10.000 or 20.000 - if you have no dependancy on unit numbers, the cost will become negligable in the long run.
Secondly, you can't just make majority count. Consider this example: You have 20 upgraded units and 51 basic ones. You then split the basic ones into 3 sets of 17 units, and then add them into the upgraded ones. In this way, they will all turn into upgraded units, even though there was originally more basic units than upgraded. Therefore, you have to choose one of two solutions: Either: they don't mix; or: you have some parameter (call it experience or something else) from which you calculate a weighted average.
haha.. good catch. Yes, I thought of that "trick" too in the middle of writing the majority count idea.
Exp might be intersting, but I think would fit better in a system of its own.
I don't think the cost should be costly. Afterall, consider it not as just upgrade for one unit, but for all units in all factions. As everything take a step up, no one is left behind. (assuming the upgrade are done in a blance fashion).
Still undecided if the local or global is better. Will let the dev trouble with that.
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Oh, and feel free to put up what upgrades for what units you might like to see. What unit do you feel is "imcomplete", and could use addtional adjustment, or what unit could be better customized to the differnt strategies.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 15, 2006 03:50 AM |
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Sure, the upgrade cost only works on a local scale. As I see it, the best way to implement this would be to allow you to build a co-building to your dwelling that allowed you to upgrade the unit once more. Or a better term would actually be that you could teach your units new abilities. Thus, you Squires could gain Improved Defence (10 Gold / Squire), Battle Courage (30 Gold / Squire) and Double Strike ability (50 Gold / Squire), and you could choose to teach them one or more of these - however, each city can only teach one ability, thus theid have to visit several cities to learn them. It'd be cumbersome, sure, but that's only fair as I see it, as a part of not making this overpowered.
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted October 15, 2006 12:18 PM |
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I think alcibiades has convinced me that a local system would work much better. It's more realistic, requires more thought planning (i.e. should I go through my towns and upgrade my units or just rush in before my enemy gets any stronger), it significally reduces the usefulness of the summon creature spell because of different upgrades being different stacks (whether it's a good thing or bad thing I have not yet decided) and overall it just sounds more right.
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