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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 15, 2013 10:33 PM |
bonus applied by Elvin on 16 Oct 2013. |
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All right. Time to get it on.
I'm gonna be talking mostly lore here, since that's my strong point. Whenever I might dip into gameplay, take it with a pinch of salt.
So factions then: (It seems I might only get 2 factions done before my show starts, so I will do this in several posts)
Haven
Haven, good ol' quintessential loosly medieval inspired humans. What is there to say? They are always there and they're kinda boring.
But is it their fault, I ask? I say Nay. As bogstandard as knightly humans are, what Haven suffers from most is bad and indicisive writing.
Whereas Ubi tries to write them as being akin to the Holy Roman Empire of old, a fairly loose conferderation under an elective crown rife with infighting and intrigue, they fail in this respect. They come across as petty nobles under an absolutist monarch and the monarch is rarely more than a pawn in the hands of the church or extremely bland. Undoing the fact that the Imperial crown is hereditary would do much to add to the story-potential, seeing as politics would be a lot more lively when it is elective.
And then there is the Church of Elrath. A whole heapin' helpin' of bigotry, zeal and self-righteousness. Unfortunately, that is their one and only trait, as far as the writing is concerned. I greatly have the feeling that the writing staff has problems with religion they realy need to sort out. This aspect of Haven seriously needs more dimensions to it. Because now they are basically suicidebobmers without bombs.
As JJ rightly says, as a political entity the Empire has potential. But that is hardly reached by the writing. The different duchies, which are supposed to represent several European peoples/nations, do so only in the naming of their characters. Whereas such ideas have the potential to be so much more. Give the peoples of the several duchies differing attitudes, accents and more, say I. Making them differing factions, or upgrades (an idea I've been toying with in my mind) would be going to far, I think. But giving the players skins to plaster over the Haven units would be a good start.
Lastly, and I can hardly believe I am the one saying this, Haven needs less humans. I am all about the racial basis of factions. But Haven has always been overly human. Heroes6 tried to do this a bit, but Glories fail in that respect, as they are basically human lightbulbs.
Inferno
Here I have to agree with JJ. Agee with him a lot.
The way they are written they are little more than a seasonal natural disaster. The Demons are only interested in destruction and so when they are here they will do nothing else. But since they can only exist on the Physical world for a limited amount of time, they don't realy need to be fought at all. Just penned in and outlasted. As for the idea that shattering Sheogh would end the Demon reincarnation cycle, I have played with that idea myself. And the reasoning JJ gave is the same one I followed at the time. Allowing Demons to exist indefinitely, but make them mortal in the progress would force them to adjust their attitudes and start to think in the long term, or think at all.
One of the major flaws of the Demons is that Ubisoft tried to write them as "The M&M equivalent of the Burning Legion". Which not only was done before by Warcraft, but they did a bad job of it. As the concept of extra-dimensional invaders clashes with the rules they set for the Ashanian Demons. (The existance thing) Another flaw in the writing is that they immediately present a way for the demons to set things right once and for all at a precise point: The Dark Messiah. Making any and all cultist intrigue singularly focused. And as JJ rightly pointed out, since they started at the "end", most writing in the past on this subject is pointless as you know they will fail in the end.
Personally, I see only three ways out of the corner the demons have been written in. 1: The suggestion above, by JJ & me. Let the Demons escape, but make them mortal. And let them realise this a little late, making them throw away a large part of their former superior numbers. 2: A MAJOR retcon. Rewrite the rules, so you don't write yourself into the corner again. 3: Allow the Demons to destroy Ashan and pull a Heroes4.
More to follow in the near future.
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Vote El Presidente! Or Else!
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted October 15, 2013 11:02 PM |
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It is going to be wierd but I'm going to deffend the Demons.
H6 used demons as a background problem that is just conviently used for someones plan. We had a large number of prototipical boaring demons, like Kha-Beleth, Devoa, Arhiban, Veyer etc..
But we also got one Demon that for some reason glued into my mind, and his voice is even now giving me certain chills.. Azkaal
Azkaal is something i would call a "perfect nemessis". From his nature he was nothing more than a brute obssesd with destruction. But the time you were forced to get to know him gave him a different face. He was could, cunning, lustful. He was the kind of a badguy that sits in his leather chair, drinks burbon and makes a horrific plan how to kill you. Then he would take his broaken sword, fulfill this plan, and took your head as a trophy. But he would not do it from some kind of wierd mental order. He knew he could do this, and that was his only reason to do it.
Demons like Azkaal would be great to see as vilians as well as protagonists. He, similary to Xana, were free minded creatures who lived by there own rules, and there is no reason why, even with the current setting of demons, we could see an interesting use for them.
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I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 16, 2013 07:56 AM |
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Dave, I spent a lot of my years playing HoMM 3 with playing the Inferno. I've been really loving that faction, and I still remember fondly how I got a fit of laughing the first time I was seeing Imps moving on Haste.
You know, I wrote a series of short essays on HoMM 3 where I associated every one of the 8 regular factions with a certain drug - the Book of Erathian Drug Culture, which was pretty hilarious because it was all so fitting.
Why do I mention this? Because in Ashan the Inferno is no faction - Sheogh is a world upon itself, with different laws of nature, where the inhabitants respawn. For the other known 8 races they are like a virus that may come with every Eclipse, and that will simply become dormant again, once the Eclipse is over.
That works ONCE - in fact, once it's pretty workable -, and I don't think it's happenstance that the next M&M game paved the way for a radical change of the situation: it was planned for, and it would have been necessary.
Instead they went back in time.
Of course you can do that - but with the initial release planned only for 6 - and soon corrected to 5 - factions, clearly the Inferno should have been one of those being left out, because they couldn't deliver a new aspect here.
As long as that new aspect is missing, Inferno is pretty much dead as a faction, since it is none.
So Azkaal or not, as long as there is no way for Inferno to stay, to get out of Sheogh for good, we can do without them, especially since it would seem that the times we get the full amount of factions plus maybe even one more are over.
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jhb
Famous Hero
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posted October 16, 2013 08:44 AM |
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about the cooldown on spells.. don't forget we had the elemental chains in h5..
In h6, I think they wanted some "omg" spells, so maybe cooldowns were rly necessary there, spamming tsunami would be.. interesting 
I'm with elvin about no more early heal/res. I would also like to see mage guilds (could be another name, depending on faction) coming back. You could get the basic form of the spells from here, and then use the skills from the schools to improve it.
You get an ice bolt spell from the guild, and investing in water magic you can get mods like a longer chill effect, more dmg, chance to freeze, armor debuff, water magic debuff, maybe some little aoe like: the spell do dmg to 1 adjacent target for a fraction of the initial dmg, but just slow/freeze the primary target..
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 16, 2013 10:06 AM |
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That was a nice read, War-Overlord! I hope you add more factions soon
And I agree a lot on the Church of Elrath, is boring as ****. They better change this in the next game...
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 16, 2013 12:29 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
That was a nice read, War-Overlord! I hope you add more factions soon
Thank you very much. And believe me, I intend to.
But I have my doubts if I'll be able to do it today. Too much education things I still need to do. But I think I'll have time tomorrow.
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Vote El Presidente! Or Else!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 16, 2013 03:21 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 15:23, 16 Oct 2013.
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STRONGHOLD
Stronghold's core themes are frontload damage, high mobility, durability, magic-proof, poor support abilities, recklessness over tactics and surprise factor.
Stronghold's magic protection had a most impressive evolution from H5 to H6. Orcs used to be most vulnerable to crowd control which was partially solved by giving them high initiative/mobility units, an initiative-boosting rage and abilities like war fury(immunity to mind spells and morale reduction from the moment you deal damage). For the first time it felt like the orcs had an inherent resistance to enemy spells. Ubi found the way to make them playable against strong magic, without giving them a dispel! Even unfettered only shook off movement, initiative, morale and damage debuffs. And that is how I like it, having ways to endure or weaken magic instead of direct counters. Hopefully the trend will continue.
Doc also raised the importance of enrage and sacrifices. H5 had goblin sacrifices too but you could not feel the impact of the sacrifice, you'd never miss a few goblins. But it also had order of the chief that made the hero attack one of his stacks, to give it an instant atb boost. That makes sense for an undisciplined army and can actually lead to interesting decisions. Spells cost mana, warcries cost resources, orc warcries cost blood. Why not? And if it also makes the remaining orcs more enraged all the better!
 
 
The theme of surprise attacks is rather minor but could add some flavour with a relevant warcry, a suckerpunch ability or maybe an ambush skill.
 
I think that H6 pretty much nailed the fast and furious playstyle of the orcs though bloodrage was rather dumbed down from its glorious H5 implementation. It was not without flaws but it was dynamic and gave a feeling of momentum. Allowing individual rage bobuses for each unit made the battlefield more interesting.
Apart from the barbarians we also have shamans and Ubi willing, it would be great to have some unique skills/abilities tied to them. Rituals, totems, ancestor worship, Father Sky and Mother Earth..
 
 
Possible themes..
Blackskull tribe, slightly warped by their demonic blood. I find them rather hit or miss.
 
 
 
 
Sahaar(desert) orcs.
 
That might not be bad, though I care less about the orcs and more about the beasts that would accompany the lineup. H3-themed roc/thunderbird would be great in a desert theme but I didn't really like the new thunderbird. Probably because it was a recoloured and retextured phoenix  And besides, there is nothing more I would want than see the behemoths return. Other than that the pao kai have rather grown on me and the vulture riders might also make sense in the setting. Not sure how I feel about centaurs though H6 made me like them. If H7 finds a way to reinvent their gameplay as H6 did, I just might like them. A spellsmasher unit would also work nicely, keeping in with the theme of magic proof. I wouldn't like more than 2 orcs so if it was up to me I'd include a grunt and either a shaman or a spellsmasher. Or perhaps give the shamans some magic dampening powers.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 16, 2013 03:43 PM |
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I like Sahaar orcs more, much more.
As for the line up, overall I like a lot your proposal Elvin. I miss so much Behemonths
War-overlord said:
Storm-Giant said:
That was a nice read, War-Overlord! I hope you add more factions soon
Thank you very much. And believe me, I intend to.
But I have my doubts if I'll be able to do it today. Too much education things I still need to do. But I think I'll have time tomorrow.
No need to haste, I don't think Ubi is going to announce H7 next week 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 16, 2013 04:04 PM |
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Overlord's posts are always a fun read Some of those comments made me chuckle.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 16, 2013 04:31 PM |
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I've had a couple of thoughts lately, about really interesting Racials, and I was pretty happy with the one I came up with for Stronghold.
Of course it has to do with the Ancestors...
It would involve a unique case of unit experience (don't hit me) - but only for lost FRIENDLY troops. In reality it would work like the Altar of Sacrifice in HoMM 5 for Dungeon, except that it wouldn't increase growth but stats for every kind of Orcish troops (separately), in a semi-random way.
The optimum version would be something akin to the way the original Master of Orion handled research: basically all losses of a troop type would be collected in an "ancient's pool" for that troop type (so that there would be 7 pools), until a limit for the current level was reached - after that, each further loss would raise the probability that the next loss would increase a RANDOM stat (attack, defense, HPs, speed (low prob), Init, min damage, max damage, HPs) with probabilities and gained values depending on type and troop.
Example: For Goblins you might need half a week's basic production in losses to fill the pot, every single Goblin lost after that adding a 10% prob to trigger the gain. If that happened, a stat would randomly go up, say, 1 HP; from that point onwards, all Goblins would come with +1 HP.
The beauty of this concept is, that it allows RECKLESS play, since losses are compensated with a quality gain. The interesting thing is that in the speed and init departments (that would have lower probabilities), the quality gain might dramatically increase the use of a unit, if a critical value is reached (for example, allowing a unit to reach the other side with one direct move).
Of course this makes sense only, if we will not get the Res abilities served on a silver platter yet again, but will have to face losses.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 16, 2013 05:14 PM |
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I don't know about the specific implementation but a racial that is tied to your own losses is brilliant! I'd probably simplify that to kick in after a stack's size drops below a certain percentage of its original size and improve the bonus at certain intervals as your losses grow. That would work wonderfully
This also reminds me..
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 16, 2013 06:27 PM |
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I don't know whether you understand correctly, I would want to have the bonus for the whole game, not only for the battle.
I would want the stats increase for all that player's troops of that type, permanently.
I also think that would be fun - would transport the right Orcish feeling. I mean, if you went into a battle lossing, say a significant amount of Maulers, the next batch would probably become a lot stronger.
The mechanism would also prohibit that you got more than one stat increase from any single (desastrous), battle for one troop type. (Of course in case of a near complete loss, probably more than one troop type would profit, but still.)
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 16, 2013 09:14 PM |
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I did understand but this seems harder to balance so I made an alternative proposal. Then again we could find a proper bonus by comparing the current surviving troops with the ancestor bonus to total troops without it. That might actually work. That said, the other racials would probably have to be of a similar nature and directly accessible in combat, as active or passive.
At any rate, it would be entirely dependent on game design so..
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 16, 2013 10:49 PM |
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Ok, so I'm done a little early today. So I'm gonna see how far I come before my eyes get to tired.
And staying on subject, I'm gonna start with:
Stronghold
I may not surprise many, but I like Stonghold, a lot.
I consider Stronghold to be one of the better written factions of the game. The whole Orcs are half-Demons is quirky, but nothing more. No, the Orcs are true barbarian tribes. They live in harsh lands where the rule of Survival of the Fittest is the only rule. They are harsh and warlike, because their environs demand it of them. But they not unfriendly, since loners will not survive either. Orcs need to get tough or get dead.
So is it all good with Orcs then? No. Perfection is a goal, but it is also an unreachable goal. For one, Orcs and Stronghold in general chafe in the constraints of the system. Try and follow me here, if you would. We all know there are 7 units in a faction. Now lets say that 3 of those are Orcs, we need a racial basis after all. And there there is the quintessential Goblin. And then there are Cyclops. Which puts us at 5. What have we left? Centaurs, Harpies, Wyverns, Gnolls, those giant two-headed vultures, Ogres (have yet to be denied existence(And we had Ogre weapons in 5)), whatever that thing is that Akamas rides in the card, Behemoths(Marzhin said he had plans with them). The list goes on and on. And lets admit, we can do more with Orcs that the returning Warrior, Shaman, Big Warrior triad they've been doing for the past 2 games. Whatever happened to Orcs riding big beasties and Axehthrowers? The problem here is that Stronghold encompasses a lot of creatures, more than can fit into the 7 slot maximum. Stronghold suffers from an overabundance of cool creatures. It's perhaps not one of my stronger gripes, but I am sure that everyone can think of more than 7 they would like to see in Stronghold. And only one Orc is not an option. And it still leaves creatures by the wayside if it were.
And then there is the thing that there are indeed Three distinct kinds of Orcs. The Sahaarian desert-Orcs, the Ranaarian steppe-Orcs, and the island-Orcs. Four if you count the overly-corrupted Blackskulls. Like with Haven before, this could be solved by customisable skins. But....erhm. This is something more significant than just some heraldry, would you not agree.
Overall, Stronghold suffers from wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
Necropolis
And we come to Necropolis. The undead, the scary, disgusting, rotting corpses that come to haunt you. Or maybe not.
There are several things to complain about when we talk of Necropolis. For instance the fact that Ubisoft doesn't know where it stands from an architectural/aesthetic standpoint. Where in Heroes5 was going for a Frankensteinish-neogothic aesthetic, it was completely thrown around in Heroes6, where it is going for Babylonian-Egyptian-Book of the Dead thing. Preferences aside, that's quite the switch you made there Ubisoft. What's it gonna be next time? Huh? You don't know yet? Might be something entirely different? Make up your damn mind. Don't get me wrong here, I like both for different reasons and I don't think either doesn't work. But please, pick one and stick to it. And you better make damn sure it bloody fits! If you're going back to the magnificent snow Necromancers, like Sandro and Markal, go for the Neogothic. It works. (and have some moustache twirling in there) If you're gonna stick with the depressed, afraid of dying death-cult thing, stick with the Levantine theme. The you can have serious people like Arantir. (Why is it that they can write Necromancers & Orcs reasonably, but not anthing else?)
And with that, slightly disconnected segue, we come to the second point. The whole deathcult thing. Look, I get it. It's not that bad and thing to make Necromancers be. A cult who worships death, because they fear it (death) so much that they'd rather spend an etenrity in unlife. And I get that you want them to come across as: "Oooooh. Look at us, we don't have no emotions no more. Feeling things is for suckers."-yadayadayada. Fine. But then do it well. Make them uppity, snappy and hypocritical about it. Have them feel feelings, so they can deny them. Because they way they are written now, they come across as depressed. Which is exactly what you do not want them to be. Because if they were depressed, they would have welcomed the relief of death.
As far as line-ups goes. I'm ok with it. Let me state then, that I am glad that Zombies have been left by the wayside and replaced with Ghouls. Good riddance. And the rest makes sense. Mindless puppets and enslaved souls at the Core. Sentient Undead and great undead beasties on Elite. I'd always prefered the Bone Dragons over Namtarus, but it's not worth it to make much fuss about.
Lastly one more thing about Vampires. The way Ubisoft writes them is quircky, like Orcs. It's their way of making it their own. It doesn't change things too drastically to not make them vampires. Dracula- and Nosferatu-fanboys need to either lighten up or take a long walk off a short pier. Vampires are too small a part of the universe to make such a ruckus about.
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Vote El Presidente! Or Else!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 16, 2013 11:39 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 23:40, 16 Oct 2013.
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Yes, 7 units feels pretty restrictive for a lineup when there is such a wealth of options.. Right now there are too many iconic units that people expect to see and that leaves little room for creativity but if there are too many changes, people may feel alienated. I would like H7 to have a mix between alternative upgrades and alternative units to make each faction lineup more dynamic and diverse. You don't need many alternative units, just one per tier. For instance a choice between praetorians and swordsmen(defensive vs offensive melee), lamasu and mummies(sickness vs cursing) or behemoths and cyclopes.
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 17, 2013 10:29 AM |
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Well said Elvin.
There yet any need to ramp up the slots on towns and heroes, if you allow us to choose more than 7 units in our towns. Give us the room to pick 'n mix.
With the small addition that we should be able to go back on choices made, if not those made by us, then surely those made by other players or the AI.
The last thing we want is a return to Heroes4 were you would rejoice when you've conquered a town, only to be very dissappointed to find that it didn't pick the creatures you did.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 17, 2013 01:03 PM |
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The idea behind Alternative Creatures/Upgrades is nice. But I still it can be improved from what Elvin proposed.
What about choice creatures per tier? I will use an example to fully explain my idea. Let's go with H6 necropolis:
Tier 1 (Core) units (You can only build max 3 in one town):
SKELETON - SKELETAL SPEARMAN
GHOUL - RAVENOUS GHOUL
GHOST - SPECTRE
Tier 2 (Elite) units (You can only build max 2 in one town):
LICH - ARCHLICH
VAMPIRE - VAMPIRE LORD
LAMASU - PUTRID LAMASU
BLACK KIGHT - DEATH KNIGHT* (new)
Tier 3 (Champion) units (You can only build max 1 in one town):
FATE SPINNER - FATE WEAVER
BONE DRAGON - SPECTRAL DRAGON* (new)
Obviously, there is a lot of room for changes - like 3 elite creatures instead of 2, or fourth option in core level. But:
- I don't think there should be alternatives in core level, because is the core level lol. If it's supposed to be the backbone of each faction, then why allowing changes there. This would also help in balancing the early game a lot (or should I say adding a 4th creature in core level would make early game balance harder....). And allows to differentiate core level with elite tier (in h6 is just lower growth and higher stats).
- Elite tier is where you would have the freedom to choose, to make strategical choices. And it would give an extra slot (compared to h6) for a new creature. This will also create a problem as WO pointed - what if you conquer a town and the elite creatures doesn't match with your current setup? But I'll give an idea of how to fix it below.
- Champion tier. Just like in Elite tier, I'm sure anyone of you can imagine at least 2 champ units for each faction
Now, some more thoughts on this system:
- While my proposal is 3 + 2(4) + 1(2), there are other combinations: 3(4) + 3(4) + 1(2), 3 + 3(4) + 1(2), etc...but we must never forget game balance. In order to keep a good balance, we can't have many options on each tier, otherwise the lineup combinations would be insane. In my case is 1*6*2 = 12, still a reasonable number.
- About the question what if you conquer a town and the elite creatures doesn't match with your current setup? Well, I think a building demolish system could do the trick. Something in the line of "you demolish a building for half it's cost and next turn you can build the building of your choice"
And in my case, since from one town you'd have 3 + 2 + 1 = 6 stacks of creatures for you hero. Having the regular 7 slots per hero, you could add another type of creature with no problem, even if that means you will have less numbers on other stack. And it would also give room to mix up factions, something that has been lost in the last two iterations of the series
In all, a good "alternative/choice" unit system would greatly increase the longevity, strategy depth and fun of the game, imo.
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SepSpring
Known Hero
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posted October 17, 2013 01:30 PM |
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@ JollyJoker
Your idea of Stronghold's racial is undoubtedly excellent! Of course, it needs some balancing, but the basic concept is gorgeous!
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 17, 2013 01:34 PM |
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All nice and well, but I believe there are a couple snags.
The first one is, that I'm pretty certain that alternatives make sense only when they are bought with at least a reduction of upgrades.
The second one is, that alternative Champions sound nice and all, but in practice, for Champions they wouldn't HAVE to be alternatives, because they already are even when they are not: by the time you build the first Champion dwelling you have a lot of options how to burn your limited money: upgrades, creature buying, maybe building up another town, buying more heroes, building special dwellings the last mage guild levels, you name it.
Generally it's a lot more interesting when you can build MORE units than you have army slots, because the planning is more diffuclt (look to HoMM 2).
So what is ACTUALLY needed is the HoMM 2 building model, expanded to 7 army slots with individual building plans for each faction.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 17, 2013 01:48 PM |
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SepSpring said:
@ JollyJoker
Your idea of Stronghold's racial is undoubtedly excellent! Of course, it needs some balancing, but the basic concept is gorgeous!
*blushing* Thanks!
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This thread is pages long: 
