H3SW: Artifact system

Now we present the new artifact system to be included in the next mod release.

The main point of this system is its hybrid approach, where we can see H3 character doll and a somewhat modified version of H2 backpack, now represented by 6 Miscellaneous slots. Any artifact is available to be put in the Misc slot, and certain artifacts also have their "official" places on the character doll.

Note that H2 artifacts don't follow the H3 artifact system where Breastplates give Spell Power and Helmets give Knowledge. Also, it is notable that this hybrid system is intended to allow players to devise more complex strategic builds for different game situations.

A new video is being prepared for the mod official YouTube channel showing the new artifact system in action.

Axes and swords in miscellaneous category? I was skeptical when I saw it for the first time but it seems to be interesting solution. Can we place the same weapon in both sections?

Not axes and swords specifically. What we thought of is that ALL artifacts could be placed both in their respective inventary slots and Miscellaneous slots too.
This is a somewhat reimplementation of Heroes 2 artifact system where you could carry a lot of swords or helmets to accumulate effect from them. So that you will be able to do that again in H3SW, but your ability will be limited. However, you will still have the Backpack so you will be able to carry around any amount of artifacts you want.

Perhaps an idea of making the inventory slot prevalent over the Misc slot (in terms of additional artifact bonuses) could also make sense.

This new artifact system will allow users to create their own artifact builds for different game situations.

What artifacts are gonna be in the mod? For me, h2 artifacts seem more interesting, but it's subjective. what about grail and ultimate artifacts?

Ultimate artifacts are going to be present. Not sure about the Grail, but the time will show.

Some new artifacts may appear in future.

would there be combos in SW?
I did some nice combos for my mod and ultimate creature bank with chance of ultimate combo, two lesser combos or a grail (you may get more than one grail structure on a map).

are you have already done the patch for 6th slot and optional placement? I believe Feanor helped here, so i would like to port it back to emerald 3

We currently have only 1 combined artifact - the Battle Garb of Anduran which replaces Titan's Thunder.

feanor will send you the sources you require. Be warned however, that they cause bugs with combined artifacts.

Hmm, but what about artifacts with negative power? They were the part of surprise in the system

Wydaje mi sie, że ktoś mówił kiedyś, że nie teraz, ale możliwe że w przyszłych odsłonach moda będą

Zaskoczyłeś mnie tym polskim XD W takim razie trzymam za słowo, to jedna z najpiękniejszych rzeczy w Homm II

I am thinking about a few things...

1)what if you reduced the number of secondary skills by 2,so u can only have 6. You could make them stronger and heroes would have a more meaningfull choice.

2)whats up with the emtpy place near the specialization ? You could add something there. This might sound crazy, but what if each hero could have 3 specializations? It fits right in. Besides the main and more powerful one you could have 2 weaker ones(or 3 strong ones for special campaign heroes)

This would set them apart a lot! Some ideas (remember each hero can have 2 of these besides the main one)

-starts with 2 bonus primary skills
-bonus movement speed
-no penalty/reduced penalty on certain ground
-starts with  bonus secondary skill
-can upgrade creatures
-srarts with spells
-multiple spell speciality

And so on. U can even make some heroes with a single strong speciality, or just 2.  Logistics is very strong so its fair for the hero to only have a total of 2...

Anyway, this might not be a perfect ballance but i think it could be a lot of fun... anyway i think fun is more important than ballance, this is not an esport after all...

robizeratul, this is very different from H3SW mod goal, so dont count on it.

About the ideas, if you or any programmer would have nothing else to do (what seems unlikely) then it might do for standalone mod.


//EDIT
In the old version that I do have, clicking on special skill will show effect description and clicking on "speciality" will show more lore-friendly description, like why does this hero have this abilities.
Dont know if it will be changed for v0.8

Oh, i see. Sure, its just an idea.

It would fix 2 issues(at least in mt mind). It would make heroes more balanced and reward your choices better. Some heroes have op specialities while others are almost useless...

As for the secondary skills, same applies. To many ate useless for both casual players and pro players, cutting the number to 6 and making some more powerfull might fix that.

I think that during beta we will be able to test the whole system and then will fix and balance things as well as add lacking content, graphics, animations, sounds etc.

But I agree, some are useless and could use some buff (eagle eye, I'm looking at you!)

robizeratul wrote:

I am thinking about a few things...

1)what if you reduced the number of secondary skills by 2,so u can only have 6. You could make them stronger and heroes would have a more meaningfull choice.

No. Personally I'd prefer increasing the amount of available secondary skills up to 12 or 16: we need lowering value of choice as in H2, not uplifting.

robizeratul wrote:

2)whats up with the emtpy place near the specialization ?

Just a place for specialization name, like in H3 vanilla (WoG placed there its crude icons for curses, blesses, and emissaries' bonuses)

rrravyn wrote:

Hmm, but what about artifacts with negative power? They were the part of surprise in the system

The "cursed artifacts" are going to be implemented in the upcoming v0.8 beta

Alongside the classic H2 artifacts which are to be present in the mod, we also have a few new assets which may be considered looking good enough to be included.

Here we can discuss the names, effects and text descriptions of these, if we are to put them even in the upcoming v0.8 release.

Shield of the Yawning Dead, Defense +3
Crown
Buckler
Hammer (I suppose Uhm got it somewhere from a H1 asset and we probably can find the source to make a 43x43 version too)

However, please note that if we are to add an artifact to the game, both 32x32 (adventure map) and 43x43 (hero interface, with and without colored background) versions must be created.
The artifacts then can be included in ARTRAITS.TXT replacing the artifacts having the most similar effect; so that feanor will adjust them accordingly.

P.S. What we really need for H3SW is at least a couple of new Boots and Cloak slot artifacts, perhaps even H3 clones like Water Walking boots, but that's for later I guess.

Just one thing. Isn't the buckler sprite from some other game? I remember you said some thing in the direction of it couldn't be used as part of the "Defense" secondary skill, because of that reason. It was somewhere on the old forum I believe.

No, it comes from Heroes 1, I cut it somewhere from an interface element and drew over it for a few hours. I think I was against using it for the Defense skill because we had other plans for the design by that moment.

I feel like there should be some kind of limit to the best artifacts in misc spots. I had triple Sword of Anduran etc. and could go further with collecting them /on random map/

At first we thought it's not a problem, but we just couldn't guess that people will be so eager to play H3 random maps for such a long in-game time.

The reason is partly in the fact that we have less artifacts than in H3 so they are duplicated more often, and so happens for ART4 too.

Anyway, we will need to limit the bonus to one-of-a-kind artifact in such cases. I guess this should solve the problem.

or maybe just make 2 slots special, and the rest should be normal misc slots. I think it's an elegant solution...

Completely agree with Orzie after Charity's inventory screenshot. Noticed it myself playing on XL maps: the problem is that you can stack too many powerful artifacts of one or two kinds, resulting in gamebreaking imbalance.

Limiting the bonus to one-of-a-kind artifact is a great solution. It will also solve another problem without having to tone down certain spell damage. At the moment Implosion, for example, is too imbalanced, cause heroes can stack Spellpower artifacts and reach 20+ values easily. Consider that most units in H3SW have less hit points, than in Heroes3, but spell damage somehow scales higher, than in Heroes3 (at least it seems so) so as a result you get a stack of, let's say, 150 Crossbowmen halved by one Implosion cast. Therefore, there is quite an imbalance between might and magic heroes in favor of the latter - the way that, say, 20 Spellpower skill easily beats 35-40 Attack skill in combat (cause spells like aforementioned Implosion and Chain Lightning frankly hit for way too much).

Well, the balance of earlier v0.8 builds is barely existent (like it was in vanilla Heroes 2). Indeed, the magic system cannot stay as it is currently, and future updates will have it somewhat altered, if not reworked/remade.

H3 Random Maps, of course, are the hardest moment for the current balance since they introduce a great deal of valuable artifacts, while on custom scenarios this rarely happens. With the v0.8.1 magics being insanely powerful, this leads to devastating consequences.

Many things are supposed to change in some way in the upcoming v0.8.2 update. I am myself not a fan of "munchkin-styled" gameplay, and I'd like to cut some motivation for the players to try to become too powerful for the game balance to handle. But, classic H3 random maps are generally like that in the original, too. People are just not supposed to camp for 7 months looting the underground, but some people tend to enjoy that kind of gameplay.

What is actually pretty stable is H1-H2-H3 flavor maps, especially H2 maps which are rather comfortable to play even now. The only problem for them is some objects in need of repair, like creature banks.