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| Thread: Town Portals |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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jackson
Known Hero
Random Spirit Lover
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posted November 29, 2014 07:53 PM |
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Edited by jackson at 20:14, 29 Nov 2014.
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Town Portals
How do we want our town portals?
I think town portals deserve their own thread. They're a pretty important topic considering they can be implemented in many different ways and how they're implemented has profound implications for the rest of the game. I'd love to encourage constructive discussion on the subject and to hear from everyone their opinions and ideas.
I am not aware of how the Devs are planning to implement town portals in H7. I do not know if the system is already set in stone or if they're still playing around with ideas. Regardless, I think this thread is worth having - perhaps it can influence the system, or perhaps the nuances of said system, or perhaps have influence in the future.
Below I offer some commentary on what I think we should be aiming for with the town portal system and some ideas for how they could be implemented.
Some Points:
There are some people who are against town portals, claiming that they tend to weaken the strategic aspect of the game, and there are some people who believe town portals are vital, claiming that without them, too much time is wasted when traveling to distant areas of the adventure map, especially on larger maps.
I think both of these two sides have valid concerns and it's my impression that most people are somewhere in the middle, where they do want some form of town portal but they don't want it to be too easy.
It seems like there are a few things that most people can agree on:
1. Town portals should exist in some form to allow more maneuverability on large maps.
2. Town portals should be equally accessible to different factions in order to help create balanced competition.
3. Town portals shouldn't be overly accessible because the result of this is dumbed-down gameplay.
I do believe there are ways to meet the above points and to create a much better town portal system than the systems we've seen in the past.
Some Ideas:
Should Town Portal be a spell? Should Town Portals be buildings? Why? How so?
Here's one idea:
If Town Portal were a spell again, then while the Mage Guild's contents are random, perhaps adventure map spells such as Town Portal (there usually aren't that many adventure map spells anyway) could be an exception? How about if we keep the Mage Guild's contents random, but we have a separate building, some kind of Mage Guild Adventure Annex, in which the adventure spells are not random? This way all factions would have equal potential in obtaining the spell. However, Town Portal would belong to the highest tier, and each tier of the Mage Guild's Adventure Annex could only be built after the same tier of the main Mage Guild has already been built. This way the spell isn't too easy to obtain.
Furthermore, what if the spell is divided into two spells: the first spell is that your hero can cast it and return to the nearest town, and the other spell is that your hero can cast it and teleport from one town to another. This means that if your hero wants to go to a very distant town, it will take at least two turns - one to return to the nearest town and another to teleport to the distant town - and cost a lot of mana.
A similar, but slightly altered idea could be that the first spell returns the hero to the most recent town that they've visited (rather than simply the nearest one) and the second spell would operate the same, allowing teleportation from one town to another.
Anyway, that's just me brainstorming. Perhaps town portals should remain as a building one can construct in their towns. However, I am not in favor of having the same system as in H6.
Here's another idea:
Having town portals be a building one can construct in their towns is a simple way to make town portals equally obtainable for all factions - however, as it was in H6, using town portals became too commonplace and ate away at strategic logistical planning. To resolve this, perhaps, instead of functioning like in H6, the Town Portal buildings could function in a different way. This is, at present, my preferred solution:
Perhaps instead of being a way to dive into any other town that also has a Town Portal constructed, two Town Portal buildings by themselves do nothing... as in they are not yet activated, not yet connected to each other... instead, having two Town Portal buildings allows you to connect the two by constructing a dimensional bridge between them. This bridge would also be costly to construct. Maybe there could even be an upkeep cost for it. Therefore, you first have to construct two costly Town Portal buildings and then spend more resources to construct a dimensional bridge between them. Then and only then can you teleport between the two towns.
However, the dimensional bridge only functions between the two towns that are connected to each other, so if you have more than two Town Portal buildings constructed and more than one dimensional bridge constructed, you can't just teleport to any of the other towns. Each Town Portal building can only sustain one dimensional bridge, so it's only connected to one other Town Portal at a time.
So, in other words, first you have to construct two Town Portals, then you have to construct a bridge between them, but each Town Portal can only sustain one bridge and so you can only use it to teleport between those two towns. Other towns can be connected to one another, but not to the Town Portals that already have an existing connection. If you want to change a connection, you first have to dismantle the existing bridge, and then construct the new one, costing yet more resources.
Perhaps this would result in a fair and balanced system, but while still creating difficult decisions and encouraging careful planning?
What's your opinion of town portals? How do you think they should be implemented?
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted November 29, 2014 10:14 PM |
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Edited by Maurice at 22:17, 29 Nov 2014.
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I had another idea, that somewhat borders on your ideas. How about this idea?
The basic idea is that you need to construct a Town Portal in your town as a receiving station. In other words, it's one-way only. The portals from which you enter are portals scattered randomly throughout the game map (or placed in specific areas, all in the map maker's eye, of course) in remote areas. When you access such a portal, you get an overview of all towns you own with a Town Portal constructed. You can freely travel to one of those towns.
In essence, it's a one-way portal, with the destination inside your towns. That restricts the usability to the locations where the entry points are located, prevents abuse but still be available to you while in remote areas.
On top of that, your bridge idea is a nice one too. Perhaps they could be pre-set in a map, linking specific towns to one another. Your Town Portal building can be used from within the town to reach any towns linked to it, as long as that town also has the Town Portal building constructed.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted November 29, 2014 10:17 PM |
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I hate the second idea. It would be ok if all buildings could connect to each other but like this is a strategic mess, we would be better with just TP to the nearest town.
One thing I liked on 3 and 5 was the fact that Town Portal was related to heroes capacities and that is totally absent from your proposals.
I think I would prefer two town portals with no buildings, nearest town at 20 and any town at 40, for instance, would depend on heroes developemnt, of course. So, in very large maps where heroes could grow extremely powerfull there would be the chance for these monsters to return home, preventing a rival's aproach.
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kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted November 29, 2014 10:38 PM |
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I would like town portals to be limited in a radius. Being too far away wouldn't work ; in a map with plenty of towns it would require more than 1 portal to end up on the opposite side of the map.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted November 29, 2014 10:42 PM |
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One of my favorite HoMM 4 moments was to cast TP during battle. While the animation was cool, I never liked it only took me to the nearest town.
I like the idea that one can develop ones mage guild towards certain direction where certain spells are more likely.. or even ensured.. but for potential extra costs somehow (not gold or resources necessarily).
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Living time backwards
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted November 29, 2014 10:49 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 23:03, 29 Nov 2014.
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Be it like in homm3 where it required a few skills and to know the spell, like in homm5 where it required a certain level, or like in mmh6 where it required a few resources, I think one of the major flaws of town portal is that it can be cast by the hero anytime and anywhere on the map, making a such powerful feature too easy of access. In my opinion, it should not be a spell. The hero shouldn't be able to teleport himself by opening a spellbook, it is way too convenient. Now, if town portal is a building, it should imo be a very expensive one and only allow you to travel from a town to another one, and empty all movement points and mana of the hero, so he looses a full extra day by using it. You would therefore need to think well before using it (when, where, is it safe etc). Upgraded town portal could let you choose your destination while regular one would only take you to the nearest town -which would require that town to have the building as well of course. Maybe after some use the building would need to recollect energy, a few more days or so before you can use it again.
Maybe it could be nice to have a few (one or two) of those directly on the adventure map, as in homm3-wog, but this time inevitably severely guarded by a huge stack of neutral champions. I'm all for adventure map improvements. I also think the building process of a town portal in towns should take you more than resources and gold in order to use it. It should also depend on the hero level (as in homm5) and maybe it could take some time to build it too, like a week for example.
Town portal is not a bad feature, but its implementation is a real challenge. I don't know if my ideas are of any good, but the direction I'm trying to get at, is that such a reward should come only at the expense of valuable time, resources and hero power. I don't know if it is possible but to me the best way of TP implementation would be that it doesn't come at the expense of other valuable aspects of the game, such as secondary heroes or use of caravans, so it would enrich the possibilities of strategic decisions on larger maps instead of reducing them, enhancing the more logistics aspect of the gameplay in a way that it would reduce the boredom that can sometimes be experienced.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted November 29, 2014 11:11 PM |
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I didn't mind the H5 idea of having the adventure map spells a specific class where you needed a certain level to unlock them, but otherwise I think a building can work if it's sufficiently expensive and has some drawbacks - using all movement and all mana is a good idea, because this means that zapping back to defend a town will leave you vulnerable because you're at zero mana.
I actually think Jackson's idea #2 of having an established link between two towns and then having to pay a certain amount of resources and/or time to re-direct the portal to another target town is pretty interesting because it would once again put some interesting tactical elements into the town portal making it not just a complete free pass. Having the time it takes to establish the link depend on the distance between the towns could also be a good way to have a bit of balance introduced.
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What will happen now?
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 09:48 AM |
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My idea:
Hve town portal work similar than H5, where only thing you require is hero level, however, it would have cooldown - so essentialy you can use it once per week. This way using town portal can be risky, as you would have to w8 before using it again. It can be used to teleport to any town. Level requierment should be high enough so only your main ... and in long games maybe your second or even third hero can use it ... lvl 10 or 15 - this could be further balanced and teseted.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted November 30, 2014 09:55 AM |
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Zombi_Wizzard said:
My idea:
Hve town portal work similar than H5, where only thing you require is hero level, however, it would have cooldown - so essentialy you can use it once per week. This way using town portal can be risky, as you would have to w8 before using it again. It can be used to teleport to any town. Level requierment should be high enough so only your main ... and in long games maybe your second or even third hero can use it ... lvl 10 or 15 - this could be further balanced and teseted.
Problem with this is that it kills half the purpose of the town portal - which is being able to travel back and forth quickly. As I think the problematic part of the town portal is not the traveling forth again, but the fact that it allows you to travel quickly back if your capital is under attack, I think your suggestion would kill the good aspects of town portal but still retain the bad aspects.
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What will happen now?
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 10:20 AM |
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@Alchi - i see you'r point ... but at same time i feel that your capital should be hardest to capture - same goes for your oponents capital. It would be interasting to figure out which city to attack first ... you can maybe attack enemy secondary town to bait him to burn his TP for eg. Also cooldown could be increased ... so it's even harder to defend. or hero lvl ... if lvl 15 is required, then on small 1-on-1 maps with 2 towns it wouldn't even play a role.
regarding traveling back and fourth quickly, specialy on big maps - i think best solution is map teleports. Imo, Properly made map does not have problem with distances coz of that. If close to main town is one-way monolith or even two-way it's gg.
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fuChris
Promising
Supreme Hero
Master to the Speed of Light
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posted November 30, 2014 11:21 AM |
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Edited by fuChris at 11:22, 30 Nov 2014.
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Town portal should definately remain a spell unlocked in mage guild, useable at a high enough hero level but the hero should only be able to teleport to towns that have it built. The buildings cost should remain high like H3 Inferno TP(20k gold if I remember correctly) thus hindering you in building it in every town.
The spell cost should remain high(all movement points and 20-30 mana atleast) and maybe even cost extra depending on the distance to the town but should not cost all mana as it would handicap magic heroes greatly while only minorly affecting might heroes and that would a further unblance the already non-existing balance of the game.(Don't say "how can you know it won't be balanced?" None of the previous games were ever balanced....)
Also, maintenance cost is a concept however should never be introduced into the heroes series IMHO. Same with spell cooldowns. They belong in starcraft but have no place in heroes. If I am a mage and want to burn away my 250 mana in 4 turns with my mage then I should be allowed, but that is a different discussion.
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"Now I am become Chris, the destroyer of worlds." - Robert Oppenheimer.
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 12:09 PM |
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fuChris said:
The spell cost should remain high(all movement points and 20-30 mana atleast) and maybe even cost extra depending on the distance to the town
well if it costs too much - like 30 mana + extra depending on distance, which can ammount to very high costs - it would mean might heroes would not be able to use TP at all ... which would mean noone would play them, as TP is very powerfull spell. In H3, you rareley got it, but if i had it, most of the time it would mean a win. In H3, TP + expert earth was a win condition in most cases.
fuChris said:
Also, maintenance cost is a concept however should never be introduced into the heroes series IMHO. Same with spell cooldowns. They belong in starcraft but have no place in heroes. If I am a mage and want to burn away my 250 mana in 4 turns with my mage then I should be allowed, but that is a different discussion.
I only partly agree with you on maintenance cost ... sure i rather not have it, but if it improves on game itself im up for it. reason should be realy justified tho. Regading cooldowns ... in H6, and i belive in H5 on small scale also (could be wrong here), they are already present. A lot of unit abilities in H6 has cooldown... Also there were always Hero actions (adventure map actions) you could only do once a day (a cooldown).
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 12:26 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Problem with this is that it kills half the purpose of the town portal - which is being able to travel back and forth quickly. As I think the problematic part of the town portal is not the traveling forth again, but the fact that it allows you to travel quickly back if your capital is under attack
Our opinions couldn't diverge more. I think using scouts to fill your main with everything (or have him travel back and forth to refill himself) is bad but you shouldn't never be forced to lose your main town when you have a champion strong enouch to beat the oponent just because he is too far away. This was how I played Heroes 4, I never went to far away with my main army until I had a pair of heroes and some troops to start building the second one (another way of saying I could never find a way of leaving first town area before second month) and this was annoing.
I also agree with fuChris on this: if you take all mana from hero you are giving an unfair advantage to might heroes.
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted November 30, 2014 12:41 PM |
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How about making the mana cost variable? Cost not only depends on distance, but also on the number of troops. That way, you can't have Heroes roaming the map with a vast army, Town Portalling at will. But in a pinch, you could transfer most troops to a secondary Hero while your main Hero jumps back with a few select troops for necessary defense.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 12:49 PM |
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Maurice said:
How about making the mana cost variable?
Like it (but I think it can be tricked, with Intelligence for instance).
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 12:58 PM |
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Maurice said:
Cost not only depends on distance, but also on the number of troops. That way, you can't have Heroes roaming the map with a vast army, Town Portalling at will.
there's still problem with might vs magic heroes. Powerfull mage could transfer vast army, while might hero can only teleport few units coz of his limited mana. Might heroes would be realy underpowered here. If you could somehow bypass this problem, then this idea would be great.
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 01:01 PM |
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IF town portal is included as a spell i favour it being obtainable at a certain level, like in H5. I like the idea of town portal having a certain range and a mana cost dependent on distance travelled.
IF town portal s are buildings my preference goes to them linking only to other town portals. This way you keep the possibility to quickly move armies without the obvious drawbacks of the H6 system.
I do have to add that i find the idea of town porals somewhat rediculous. What prevents the enemy hero from using the same mechanism to quickly teleport to your town? For that reason maybe the best implementation would be indeed to create a link between two portals like Jackson suggested. Only i would not make it cost resources to build the link, only time (and mana).
An other option would be like the special inderno gate in H6, making it a one-way portal of which you can place the exit somewhere in the towns area of control.
Or of course make it possible to switch the town portal on/off for a cerain cost (mana/crystal).
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 01:14 PM |
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I think, that this is very simple, actually.
There is nothing wrong with a "Town Portal" in the sense of that name: a building that connects to a similar building in other towns you own. I would also say that this shouldn't cost any movement at all (or, in fact 1, to avoid endless loops of AI teleporting.
However, it's clear that such a building should be expensive - and that it needs an entrance and an exit; and there is no such thing as a portable entrance.
That would mean, once in town, you can go everywhere you invested resources into being able to go there, but if you are 3 days from yyour nearest town you are that far away, sorry. 
There might of course be a Logistics ability to allow kind of a faster home travel, that is, fall-back to your nearest town by Air Eöemental service or something like that.
Should cost a nice little fee.
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted November 30, 2014 01:28 PM |
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or maybe they could introduce army caps ... then TP can be as op as you want - problem solved
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fuChris
Promising
Supreme Hero
Master to the Speed of Light
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posted November 30, 2014 01:35 PM |
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Edited by fuChris at 13:36, 30 Nov 2014.
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JollyJoker said:
That would mean, once in town, you can go everywhere you invested resources into being able to go there, but if you are 3 days from your nearest town you are that far away, sorry.
That would defeat the purpose of the townportal. Why invest truckloads of gold into a building that insures you get a chance of defending the town with your army when you are not capable of using it when needed. This would, again, prioritize logistics above all other skills and I don't want to always choose logictics, I want custom builds on my hero.
Town portal basicallyworks as an insurance policy. You spend the gold on it instead of something else to get security and speed up exploration.
(BTW I hope we get something to spend gold on after we have already have everything built and all units bought)
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"Now I am become Chris, the destroyer of worlds." - Robert Oppenheimer.
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