|
| Thread: The Swords of Night and Day (re-released as an Era 2.4 mod) |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
|
posted January 19, 2013 10:13 PM |
|
|
I dont want to engage with clear promise to do a map,but I think you would say "Read and practise,if you want to achieve mastery."
The excuse I want to write down is that I will be busy till end January...
I must admit that I enjoyed playing the maps of Salamandre,yours,
KingSlayer,and at the moment I play Chaser,so I am pretty much in debt to the mapmakers for the hours I played their maps.
So as a first step I write down my gratitude for their work,without which I would be very limited in my H3 experience and joy!
I would like to say "yes" a little bit later,when I am more confident and/or more focused.
____________
"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 20, 2013 03:50 PM |
|
|
Master, there is no hurry if you are having fun playing maps. I played Heroes I-III for about ten years before I thought of trying to make maps.
More variety: I am thinking of adding Dark Towers to the map. Wraiths and Vampires hide in them after coming north in the night of the dark moon, so they respawn every month. They would give the mage a chance to practice his spells, which are not allowed in the Arena. Also I might work on a chimera creature for the arena. Part of the time it would be a powerful melee fighter, and part of the time it would be a weaker shooter with a strong Air Shield. Or something like that.
|
|
alisapa1211
Famous Hero
|
|
posted January 20, 2013 04:20 PM |
|
|
|
So.... who can I defeat the Bull if he keeps healing to full HP even with the Poison Arrow? Also I notice sometime Leora can cast 2 spells if I use Wait or something, is this intended?!
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 20, 2013 04:40 PM |
|
Edited by JimV at 16:43, 20 Jan 2013.
|
As the message says at the start of the game:
"Leora can cast spells multiple times per round."
That is, she can cast again after the end of one of her fighter's turns (BG1). (If a fighter gets a morale burst, their turn has not ended. Also, if a fighter waits and the next turn goes back to it, BG1 may not have occurred. BG1 will always occur if another creature has a turn after the fighter waits.) You can use this to your advantage (especially by casting Quicksand againt the Minotaur).
The Bull does not always regenerate, and only regenerates a small amount. This was calibrated in testing so that you will probably have to hit the Bull as well as shooting it, three or four times. (Good luck.)
|
|
alisapa1211
Famous Hero
|
|
posted January 20, 2013 04:45 PM |
|
|
|
Hm don't know IIRC he feels back to full HP when he has only around 100 HP or something, but well probably try again.
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 20, 2013 05:07 PM |
|
|
|
You can right-click on it and check its experience screen to see that it has a 50% chance of regenerating 10 hit points. Poison wears off, however.
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted January 20, 2013 08:27 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Hm don't know IIRC he feels back to full HP when he has only around 100 HP
That's the poison going away effect.
____________
Era II mods and utilities
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 21, 2013 06:37 PM |
|
|
The map has been updated with additional features including all those previously discussed such as another clue, but mainly:
1) There are four Dark Towers where players can gain experience outside the Arena before trying to cross the Dead Zone. Each Tower has four levels, with increasing creature strength (and rewards) as you climb them. You can stop at a lower level and return later to try the higher levels. All levels are re-spawned at the start of a new month.
2) There are two new Wandering Monster types which will be selected randomly in the Arena: Chimeras, and Elemental Shape-Shifters. The Chimera nature varies among Dendroid, Vampire, and Ghost. The Shifter varies from a walking melee fighter to a flying melee fighter to a shooter.
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted January 21, 2013 09:53 PM |
|
|
Just an idea: store important locations as main town, arena, knu knu etc as in 300 spartans. It takes 4 days to go back to arena, 4 days where there is nothing to do while walking. Unless the time passing has effect on AI development, I think we should be able to teleport between already visited locations.
____________
Era II mods and utilities
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 21, 2013 10:42 PM |
|
Edited by JimV at 06:04, 23 Jan 2013.
|
There is some AI development: the growth of Red's army of Wraiths and Vampire Lords in the Red Town. Also Wraith attacks and Dark Tower armies get stronger (larger) each month. But fewer end-turns by Green could be balanced by increased growth rates.
Since there is already a portal system which is part of the story, I need to think about fitting in some other method, such as making the Equestrian Gloves and Boots of Speed (which are rewards for training) more powerful. And/or a Fountain of Speed and/or external Stables, or ... The Klingon artifacts from the Gauntlet could increase movement by 5% and 10% or so ... also the Necklace of Swiftness and Tim's Ring of the Wayfarer ... I would like to enhance the current reward system rather than introducing a new story element, if possible. (I don't mind new elements if they fit into the story, such as the Dark Towers.)
Update - current thoughts:
Supposing the Gloves give an additional +10% Movement Points, the Boots give +20%, the Necklace gives +5%, the Cape of Velocity gives +10%, and the Ring gives +5%, that would be a total of +50%, effective at about six weeks of game time. My Era playtest took 17 weeks and 5 days. Reducing the time after 6 weeks by a factor of 1/1.5 gives 13.8 weeks, so weekly growth of Wraiths and VL should increase by about 30%, and monthly growths should increase by about 50% (to wind up at the same totals).
While adding properties to artifacts, I might have the Klingon Badge of Courage give Basic Bloodlust to all troops in battle, and the Klingon Pendant of Courage give the ability to Town Portal to Woodshire (although I'm not sure how that fits with Klingons - have to think of something). (As with the Swords, these artifacts would not be allowed to be worn in the Arena.)
Making that many changes will require a full playtest (not just testing of individual scripts in test maps), so it could be a week or so before those changes are implemented. Plus I'll wait a day to see if there are any comments on them.
Last update - I have uploaded the changes. I am only halfway through a complete playtest but everything seems to be working.
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 06:13 AM |
|
|
|
Thanks for considering the ideas, I will re-start once update is up.
|
|
teslaptak
Hired Hero
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 12:30 PM |
|
|
i have problem with sequel- at monday nights game crashes often.
and catching gremlins makes game LAG
____________
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 03:56 PM |
|
Edited by JimV at 04:54, 25 Jan 2013.
|
Teslaptak, I am very sorry to hear that. If you can upload saved games which illustrate the problems I will try to figure out what is going wrong. I have played the entire game several times so unless it is something new it may be some combination of moves which I did not anticipate. The only thing I can think of off hand is that I always played it at Impossible difficulty, and if you played at normal difficulty the AI might work differently.
I expected the Bouncing Gremlins to be a bit frustrating at first. The key is either to make an attack very quickly if a Gremlin is close, or else wait until they bounce before moving. If they bounce while you are trying to move there is a lag. (This makes the Ice King laugh.) Once you get used to this behavior it can be managed.
Salamandre, thanks again for your comments. The first month of play will not be much different (except for the Dark Towers as an alternate way to get experience), but as artifacts are accumulated the game will speed up.
P.S. This is my Era setup for playing Hidden Spells. (For SND I would interchange SND and HS.)
(In the bad old days, each mod would be a separate Heroes 3 folder, with no interaction with other mods. Era 2 is much more convenient, but there can be mod compatibility issues - which is why Bersy has the Mod Manager.)
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 05:17 PM |
|
|
|
I just found an error in SND and have re-uploaded the map. When adding the Chimera and Elemental Shifter to the list of Wandering Monsters, I forgot to add them to the end-of-battle check. The current version has that corrected.
|
|
teslaptak
Hired Hero
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 11:23 PM |
|
|
http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/52417418/file.html
ok, but i don't think it will help, and i'm using ERA 2,4
____________
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 11:55 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Making that many changes will require a full playtest.
Why doesn't anybody listen to me (even myself)?
I just found another error, and uploaded a corrected version (again). I hope that is the last one - probably not.
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted January 23, 2013 11:56 PM |
|
|
2 days ago you wrote test will take up to one week, is the latest version already uploaded or only few changes?
____________
Era II mods and utilities
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 24, 2013 12:22 AM |
|
|
Good question. I've been uploading changed versions continuously, but have not finished the playtest - I'm about 2/3 done. It would be best to wait until a complete playtest has been done. Even then I might think some parts are too easy or too hard after playing them in context and want to tweak them.
One of things that has occurred to me is that it takes about five weeks of game play to get the Klingon Pendant of Courage which gives the Town Portal spell. It might be preferable to give Leora (Gem) that spell from the beginning - but then I need a different bonus to give the Pendant, otherwise it would not be a bigger reward than the Badge. I usually don't wear the Pendant in battles, in favor of the Necklace of Swiftness, but if I give the Pendant a better battle ability (try to say that fast three times, as we say), then the Necklace becomes useless. I will have to think about that some more.
Maybe an alternative would be to give rewards after 3 and 6 Gauntlets instead of 5 and 10 (and 4 and 8 for the Minotaur Labyrinth instead of 5 and 10).
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 24, 2013 01:18 AM |
|
Edited by JimV at 01:37, 24 Jan 2013.
|
Quote:
http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/52417418/file.html
ok, but i don't think it will help, and i'm using ERA 2,4
Thank you for the saved game. I have uploaded two game files for you in the Hidden Spells box.com folder.
One is HSprob.GM1, which is your AUTOSAVE renamed, and with a limit on the size of the army that attacks Woodshire each Monday.
The problem is that you are in the fifth month of gameplay, and I finished all my playtests in about three months, so I never tested the script past about month four - my mistake, sorry.
A couple of comments:
I always send out Vames and a few Mages with Leora and the swords, because Leora is much stronger than her nephew Calladan. I leave Jalery and the rest of the Mages and Warriors in Woodshire, to defend it - which they can do for the first couple months. This is the plan that the characters arrive at in their discussions at the start of the game.
It looks like you never visited the Hold of Travel. That should be your first priority, because it will give you a Lloyd's Beacon (Might and Magic reference) type of teleport system. I think this is the main reason your game has taken longer than I expected.
The second file is HSPT5.GM1, a saved game from just before I finished my 5th playtest. Leora has all the hidden spells and is ready to attack the Ice King. If you right-click on the Cast Spell (spellbook) button on the right side of the Adventure Map, it will bring up the teleport menu, so you can see what I am talking about.
Anyway, you should not get that crash anymore with the HSprob saved game. Thanks for reporting it.
Note to any other readers: this is referring to "SND II - The Ice King", aka "Hidden Spells", not to "The Swords of Night and Day" (SND).
P.S. I have also now uploaded a revised version of HiddenSpell.exe (self-extracting Era 2 mod) at the same site (with the army limit). I deleted the Era 2.41 DLL that was in that folder since it is no longer the latest version.
|
|
JimV
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted January 25, 2013 05:08 AM |
|
|
|
I have finished a successful playtest of the latest version (which is at the box.com download link). The changes proposed above have been implemented. The descriptions of the Boots of Speed and Equestrian Gloves were not changed (they already say "increases the rate of movement"), but the amount of their effects has been increased. The README has been revised in accordance with the changes.
|
|
|
|
