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| Thread: FHeroes 2 Expansion Ideas | |
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LordCameron
Known Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted August 22, 2023 03:02 AM |
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FHeroes 2 Expansion Ideas
Okay here's me having fun and thinking out loud for a potential Homm II expansion.
Don’t re-balance skills and towns through stat tweaks. One of the charms of Homm 2 is the asymetrical balance achieved through the creation of the whole world, for instance, humans are the weakest town, but have access to peasant hunts, archer houses, foundry, and stables as world objects.
Likewise barbarians have hill forts, orc towers, troll bridges, and goblin huts.
(Of course warlocks get Dragon cities and caves, but the dragons are more useful to everyone than the other structures, and much harder to get besides.)
I also don’t think new upgrades should be added to every unit as that is a key component to the game (more on that later though)
So with that in mind:
Adding new buildings to every town:
Every town should get a new building. The warlock should get the weakest and the knight the strongest to help bring them in line. Here are some suggestions
Knight
A fancier well: The knights should be able to upgrade their Well into one of those fancy classic looking wells. Stone wall and little roof things. This would give them an additional +2 units per week and cost say 20 ore 5 wood and 2000 gold.
Sorceress
Magic Well: Instantly restore your spell points upon visiting town like a magic well. (Really plays into the ‘source’ element.) Requires Mage Guild and Well.
Barbarian
War Banner: +1 Attack to all Heroes as long as you hold this town. Stacks.
Wolf Pit: Can recruit wolf riders. Removes 1 Goblin and 1 Wolf from both buildings per 1 Wolf Rider.
Wizard
Resource Silo: +1 Gem per day. 5 Stone and 5000 Gold.
Necromancer
Skeleton Transformer: As per Homm3.
Warlock
Portal of Summoning: Click on building to open interface which chooses a hero. Hero can send any of their units back to the castle.
Learnean Swamp: Give defending hydras regeneration.
If two buildings were being given per faction I like
Castle Gate: Can send visiting hero to any other owned Town (Wizards)
Escape Tunnel: As per Homm3 (Barbarians)
Item or specialty which allows you to store one defensive building for yourself in the field Storm, Rainbow, etc.
SPECIALTIES
We all want specialties added to Homm2 but it has to be done carefully. Simply giving every hero a fun specialty a la Homm3 has two immediate downsides. One, the start of the game becomes easier, and so early game is made faster, throwing off the pacing of the whole game. Two, the choice of hero buying is no longer an elegant and simple (Key components of homm2) choice between which faction you want your hero from, but becomes all about the specialty.
To fix downside two, either the specialties should be factions specific (like Barbs giving bonuses to goblins and trolls) or should only be powerful enough, small enough changes, that they only distinguish between two heroes of the same factions. (If you see 2 barbs, you look at specialties, if you see a Barb and a Wizard you probably won’t bother)
To fix downside one is harder. One solution is to make specialties simple stat tweaks. Crag hack might start with one more attack and 1 less knowledge for a Barbarian. Or he might have a 15% higher chance to gain attack at level up over other stats. Another thing could be something like Maximus at every 3rd level (3, 6, 9) being offered 3 skills instead of 2, and one of them is guaranteed to be pathfinding as a nod to his barbarian roots.
Another options is to make specialties scale with the heroes level. This will still accelerate gameplay, but if they get +5 HP%/level to Cavaliers it won’t immediately through the game off, and could even be used to stat tweak weaker creatures without disturbing the core of the game.
Could even do stuff like “At level 8 Hydras have regeneration” or “Wolves and Crusaders get +1 Attack per 5 levels” (I really like that Foundry and Hill Fort work across many factions, and think the idea should be expanded upon)
The problem with the buffing creatures angle is it might make the game a “Send the creatures to X Hero” rather than a game of working with what you have or want to make work.
There is a third component to keep in mind. Even though a goblin specialty or an ability which grows 1% per level or whatnot, might appear to the solution to some of the problems outlined above (and were probably the conclusions reached by the homm3 team) they specialties also need to feel like homm2 not 3. Ugly stats and complicated math don’t belong here. The focus on wonder and whimsy is tantamount. You need to feel powerful (might) and truly magical (magic, duh). A 3.5% increase to the attack of all creatures with less than 4 move speed might give you an edge, but that nerd stuff is for homm3 and 5.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
You could also have specialties allow certain skills to go higher (master and grandmaster). Like Zom can take Necromancy up to Grandmaster. Thundax can take Logistics up to Grandmaster. Some skills could have more interesting higher levels than others:
Eagle eye: Becomes Guaranteed, Become guaranteed and can learn any level spell.
Navigation: Have 100 move left after landing or embarking, Have 1/2 move left after landing or embarking.
Sidegrades: You could instead have heroes treat skills or units differently with their specializations. Like maybe Flint’s units can’t fly, but all fliers now have +2 Speed. Or Maximus can turn peasants into Goblins (like Gelu) or Thundax can turn wolves into harpies (A way to add new units to a faction without a building, more on that later).
Or X hero might treat Logistics like real logistics and make it so slower units don’t slow down his army instead of giving him a speed boost. Or Gem might get gems from estates instead of gold. This idea is really interesting because the options aren’t necessarily better, and it is up to you if you want to grab the skills they change. A combination of either treating skills/units differently or the specialty being one which buffs a weak skill (like maybe Mandarb guarantees Eagle Eye succeeds) is also interesting.
MY SOLUTION
Personally, I think the best way to do it is to add a number of unique skills to the game, give them a fancy border (Red or purple or green, or maybe group them and have 2-4 colours) to show they are unique, and then only add 1 or 2 of each to each hero’s skill pool. (We already sort of have this in the game with Warlocks and Necromancers having exclusive access to Necromancy.)
NEW UNIQUE SKILLS
Healthy Boys: Your units gain 1,2,5 health. Mostly given to Sorceress, Knight, and Barbarian Heroes
Real Logistics: The slowest your hero can move is as if he had Slow, Average, Fast units in his army. Maybe don’t give any Warlocks this ability.
Resource Generation: Generate 1,2, (3+1 faction specific) random precious resources at the start of each day. Obvious Gem gets this as an option, but maybe 1 or 2 heroes from every faction should as well.
Initiative: Your units don’t move faster, but they get to go first as if they do (Win ties, win vs 1 faster, win vs 2 faster)
Tactics: Gain 1,2,3 Waits per round. Very good for Sorceress and Barbarian Heroes, at least a few should get this as an option.
Learning: Every time you take this skill, choose a primary skill to increase by 1.
Scholar: Same as Homm3, but maybe with cleaner values to match Homm2
Intelligence: Makes things better. Eagle eye become guaranteed, luck goes to 5, navigation gives you 100,200,300 movement upon landing.
Conqueror: Gain the ability to flag Mills, Leprechauns/Alchemist Towers, and Dwellings. Neutral dwellings go to new caravansary building maybe? And enemy heroes can remove flag by visiting.
(Some skills would basically just be stat increases if ported back from Homm3 Boring ones which might have a place? Caution against adding them, but showing that I thought of them.)
Offence: +10%, 20%, 30% damage with melee attacks? (Basically just +1,2,3 Attack, but only for Melee attack?) (Actually on the fence about this one. Melee is already super strong, poor archers)
Armourer: If armourer is to be included it would basically just be +1,2,3 Defence. Maybe give it to Flint.
Sorcery: Basically just +1,2,3 Spell Power
Intelligence: +25%,50%,100% mana.
A new neutral unit for every faction, which is allied with the factions even though they can’t build them.
Barbarians: Harpy
Sorceress/Warlock: Big ol Frog
Knight:
Outbuildings which upgrade some units beyond what they can be upgraded in towns or the wild. Even some neutrals can be upgraded. Shouldn’t be too many of these. Probably less than one per faction and max 3 for neutrals.
Militia Hall: Upgrades Peasants into Pikeman. Very powerful and useful building.
Hydra -> Learnean Hydra, gets regen, nothing else. Makes it a pseudo tier 6 probably.
BUFFING STUFF WITHOUT CHANGING THE THING ITSELF
EAGLE EYE
You know those annoying treasure guardians that are like “Only a true leader gets this artifact?” Add an event like “You could have sworn you saw a treasure, buried among the rubble, but it would take someone with an Eagle Eye to pick it back out in this mess”
Scrapped Ideas
First Aid Tent v1: City building which restores all your units to full health at the start of their turn during a siege (like a troll)
First Aid Tent v2: City building which allows you to purchase First Aid Tent Item which does the same, but in all combat. I prefer this one because it is stronger, but it means that anyone has access to this advantage once they take a sorceress town.
Stables: Automatically upgrades visiting Unicorns to War Unicorns and gives +400 movement for the week. War Unicorns are the same as Unicorns but are Very Fast.
Loading Bay: Boats in dock space can be embarked into/disembarked from without ending movement.
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baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted August 23, 2023 09:01 PM |
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First maybe simply stats growth cost etc. edition.  )))) Second add more depth if gamę is poor. Eg mode skulle as you said.
Undergrounds!!!!!
H3 skills...
I think best solution:
Attack,Deffence,Power,Inteligence 1,2,3 points to skill. Its simplest and proportional.
Of course new towns.
And the best add... full H4 game system!!!!! It may be armagedon in gameplay! Both has 5 unit army! Fighting Heroes! H4 on H2 engine!
I see its now the best engine which allow us repair H4 big fails! Especially completly stupid AI.
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LordCameron
Known Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted August 29, 2023 07:15 PM |
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baronus said:
First maybe simply stats growth cost etc. edition. )))) Second add more depth if gamę is poor. Eg mode skulle as you said.
Undergrounds!!!!!
H3 skills...
I think best solution:
Attack,Deffence,Power,Inteligence 1,2,3 points to skill. Its simplest and proportional.
Of course new towns.
And the best add... full H4 game system!!!!! It may be armagedon in gameplay! Both has 5 unit army! Fighting Heroes! H4 on H2 engine!
I see its now the best engine which allow us repair H4 big fails! Especially completly stupid AI.
100% with you on the undergrounds. And the +1,2,3 skill thing is kind of interesting. Gives you a bit more control over the hero at the cost of secondary skills basically.
Homm 4 alternate units would be interesting. Can't decide if it would drift too far from Homm 2 or not. At the very least, it would be hard to balance right, but could be very cool.
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baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted August 30, 2023 08:00 PM |
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I think that H4 system should by separate mode. Another game. So if you want H4 experience you simply select option.
I dont mean about rebuild H2 to H4! No! I think that H4like should be completly separate game. Modding H2 is another question.
Next idea.
3rd upgrade! To ballance dragons.
For castle archers pikemans swordsmans one upgrade
For barbarians and sorceres for each unit lvl 2-5 new upgrade
For wizards boar 2 upgrades titan no upgrades rest one upgrade
For necro upgrade for zombies mumies liches dracoliches
For Warlock gargoyle 2 upgrades dragon no rest 1 upgrade.
....
For 1 lvl units new growth building od upgrade?! It dan be discussed.
I think it will be fascinating army growth!
New units abilities! I think we have in H2 rather small number creature skills and a lot of simply melee units.
For castle especially we need abilities! but for ogres phonicses(Cure wounds) gargoyles minotaurs boars Rocs( thunder!) we need too.
And a lot more!
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