H3SW General Discussion

Hello boys,

I am very glad that I see the progress you are all making and that we are gonna have the SW mod in some time. However, I think that you really should reconsider your approach towards your audience. This forum is pretty much hidden to a lot of people. It's not that easy to find it and even here the news isn't presented as they could be.

I do not mean to offend you, I believe you put a lot of time and effort into this. I am just worried that your communication (especially on Facebook) is not what it should be. Your audience should always know what is being done, at what people work, how is the work being done. You don't have to announce deadlines, release dates or anything. Just keep us (or them ^^) know, how the project stands. It's ok to know that it will take some time, it's ok to know that nobody has time to work on the project, but it's really bad if people don't have any information.

I hope I might contribute this project in some way. I am more than willing to help you improve your communication so don't hesitate to contact me. I can also help with testing. I want to help you guys, it's just I can't do anything connected to graphics, design or scripting

Think of this only as about constructive critique and feedback from an interested fan. Good luck with everything and thanks for your time!

Hello and welcome to Forums of Enroth!

You are not the first to express a particular point of view concerning the promotion of our info sources. However, sometimes people just can see only things which are on the surface.

There is a particular reason why we don't promote (yet) this forum as well as other resources: we don't have a stable release. I don't have time for chatting like I did 3,4,5 years ago. If someone will be able to help with Facebook posts, it's good, but everything makes sense only after we have a game to play. For now, only the team does, and it's not yet ready.

In the nearest future, things will change.

Hope you understand my point. It's fun to read comments and stuff, but 99+% of modding projects are vaporware, meaning that they are just pretty images with positive comments. We are different, and this is why I'd like to save my time for the actual work.

The new update on Facebook should have been posted already, but unfortunately I am deadly busy until 9-10th of February, so I cannot start the closed beta test yet. After that time, the test will be started regardless if we fix the creature banks/dragon upgrades/dervish dwellings/heretic generation/whatever, pretty images included.

P.S. PhD education sucks.

Thanks for a warm welcome,

I completely understand this. I was part of several HoMaM and Warcraft III modding communities and I've invested quite some time in these projects.

That's why I believe I can understand how you are feeling about this, but also what you might be missing. It does not matter, that you do not have the release date.

The important thing here is to let people know, that project is not dead. The more you promote, the more people get interested, therefore new people might come and help you to finish the project or provide you with useful feedback.

Without any information, of course, we see things only on the surface. That is another helpful aspect of a good PR - you can explain your audience what is going on and why the project is at this particular stage of development.

As I stated above, I am more than willing to help you with your communication. You can PM me if you decide that you want to give me a try =)

P.S. Yeah, I can't imagine. Just my bachelor is giving me some hard time right now  
P.P.S. I want Czech Sorceress hero flag =( =D

Wayshan wrote:

P.P.S. I want Czech Sorceress hero flag =( =D

GodRage, my hero! Oh man, I freakin love you!!

YhyJasne wrote:

well... what is left to do before the beta?
also, the search feature doesn't work on the forums.

To call the beta stable, we need to fix the critical bug EIP = 0x220076F1, which also exists in older 2013 beta and is probably caused by some ERM scripts. Currently I am working on it.

Also, artifact effects and creature banks need to be fixed to some extent. The latter should be easy.
Also, there are the 3 Dragon upgrades (critical) and Heretic which still sometimes appears in the game (not that critical).
It is also very desireable that we have an install-and-play version of the mod, so the creation of the installer will take some time.

When it's done, the game is technically ready for the release.

I also need to provide the brand new design of the Dervish townscreen for promotional purposes. This will be my primary goal after we finally deal with the abovementioned crash.
I also need to finish the Mod Database design prior to the release with the help of GodRage.

So, these are the only things in plans for now. We could fix more, but we are exhausted, and I cannot improve Harpy or Toad without any help from outside because of that reason. So, probably, these fixes are postponed to v0.9. The game is more than playable even with the current situation anyway.

Orzie wrote:

I also need to finish the Mod Database design prior to the release with the help of GodRage.

I don't know what delay there will be between our "moddb css request" and their approval. I would say less than 1 week if they accept it directly. (but if they ask us to modify something... like "less images" or whatever.. )

Hey there Team!

I don't know who to thank but we've got a lot of publicity in past few months on polish gaming sites...

For example here:
https://www.gry-online.pl/S013.asp?ID=109226

or here:
http://polygamia.pl/moda-na-moda-geralt-jak-garrett-tygrysy-i-goryle-oraz-garsc-nostalgii/

and few others that I can't find now but rather all biggest polish gaming sites mentioned the mod

qlczas_PL wrote:

Hey there Team!

I don't know who to thank but we've got a lot of publicity in past few months on polish gaming sites...

For example here:
https://www.gry-online.pl/S013.asp?ID=109226

or here:
http://polygamia.pl/moda-na-moda-geralt-jak-garrett-tygrysy-i-goryle-oraz-garsc-nostalgii/

and few others that I can't find now but rather all biggest polish gaming sites mentioned the mod  

Wauw, that is really nice to see that people are looking forward to the mod. We really hit a large audience with the release of the new trailer. It has over 60.000 views at the moment!!!

I control all of the coverages by the current moment, with maybe the only exception of Facebook posts because it's hard to navigate.

Currently, I am amazed by the interest of Polish community, and will look forward to Polish translation of the mod prior to v1.0.

I also hope to engage more Czech and Hungarian users in future coverages, as well as Americans and people from the UK who sometimes show great interest too (unlike their media sources).

Orzie, count me in if there would be help needed with Polish translation!

For sure it will, so it's all good news. The translation will take a while and will require more people because we will need to paste all Polish texts to all maps (Heroes 1, Heroes 2, Heroes 3 maps + several our new maps). I still hope that Uhm will find time to translate his An Unexpected Visit map eventually for v1.0.

I would like to ask you if you know if there are any official Polish translations (localisations) for Heroes 1, Heroes 2 GOLD and Heroes 3 Complete Edition. If they exist, we could very well take the texts from them as well as, probably, Polish font from Heroes 2 resources, if it's drawn well enough.

Orzie wrote:

I would like to ask you if you know if there are any official Polish translations (localisations) for Heroes 1, Heroes 2 GOLD and Heroes 3 Complete Edition. If they exist, we could very well take the texts from them as well as, probably, Polish font from Heroes 2 resources, if it's drawn well enough.

If you know the filenames I can upload all you need. Just list the files and where to upload it. I have all Homm parts and should have also polish versions.

Orzie wrote:

I also hope to engage more Czech and Hungarian users in future coverages...

I would gladly help with any czech translations, if intended
Meanwhile, what has to be done to speed things up?

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I would gladly help with any czech translations, if intended
Meanwhile, what has to be done to speed things up?

What was intended is to provide more info support on more-or-less official Czech or any other info sources like webzines or gaming portals.
Since you probably come from Czech Republic, what you can definitely help us with is to inform us if there are any major gaming portals or web magazines out there. I am already aware of CDR.CZ since we had a coverage there. More info sources of that kind will come in handy.

Concerning the Czech translation, this will depend on the public interest from the Czech community. For now, only Russian and Polish translations are planned, and they will be worked on during the development of v1.0 release, which is postponed to later days. For now, the basic aspects of the game must be more or less finished.

Concerning the other kinds of help, they are listed in the respective thread here on the forum.

Orzie wrote:

What was intended is to provide more info support on more-or-less official Czech or any other info sources like webzines or gaming portals.

Yes, sir!

There are of course many czech portals for gamers, the biggest are hopefully in this list:
BonusWeb
Games.cz
GamePark
Hrej (means Play!)
EuroGamer
Zing
Doupě (means Lair)
Česká databáze her (means Czech game database)

Then there are two main "printed" magazines worth mentioning:
Score
Level


One friend of mine works as game reviewer PařanJarda. I will meet him this weekend, so it's ideal to talk to him about this project! He loves Homm3

Happy new year to all, i just wanted to pass by after a long time, and say a huge THANK you that you finally made it and released this gem of a game that me and my friends are basically waiting for, for at least a decade or so.

At some point we thought we would get old (ancient even) before this releases, but even as old buggers we would still probably play it regardless. It's our favorite alltime childhood game after all. After all this patience, it still seems worth it. I admire your dedication to see this through even if you had huge trouble in some development steps, finding the right people with the free time etc etc.

Now its just a matter of time, to perfect this with few fixes and patches etc and solve the most important bugs then it can actually be a super stable version of the game in the best state it has ever been. Not a small feat, if you consider how much heroes 2 and 3 has affected the strategy/rpg generations of 90s and 00s. For all i remember we had huge camps rooting for those two games and it was always a BIG "why" as to why the positives of each game cannot be melded into one game instead.

Once again thank you! Personally i will wait at least for the first 0.81 patch and then get on it, and maybe even persuade my friends to help you a bit on the testing phase for more bugs. Salute!

PS: This was easily the best Santa present ever.

I've posted this in Artifact System topic, but still want to mention it here.

Spell damage (especially Chain Lightning and Implosion one) has to be toned down. It's overpowered up to the point that a hero with 20 spell power will beat a hero with 40 attack-defense, unless the latter has units, immune to spell damage, or artifacts, which can protect you from spell damage. In fights vs. AI a player will, of course, find a workaround sooner or later, but in case of online games and for the sake of balance this is rather too important to neglect it.

The problem is affected by the fact that a hero can stack 5-6 Staves of Wizardry, for example, in misc slots.

Indeed it will. The Sorcery skill also adds fuel to the fire, but there were reasons to enhance its effectiveness. What can be expected in future is the discussed tweak of the artifact system and major adjustment to the magic system with regards for individual playing style for each faction, which is currently not equally good for everyone. The Necromancer is suffering the most in the debut stage of the game.

What is the team's stance on creature abilities?

Probably the only thing I liked about H4, H5, H6 and H7 was their devs' attempt at making combat more tactical by adding lots of creature abilities that would do all sorts of things (H5 had even gone too far with that)

H3 feels a bit bloated because of its highly symmetrical creature tiers and a large number of creatures lacking any special abilities.

With all those new creatures and factions added to H3SW, I'm afraid it might start feeling a bit too like H3.

So I thought it would be cool to do something unorthodox and give nearly every creature a tactical ability that would influence its playstyle.

Some good choices would be, at least in my opinion:

- Evil Eye for Beholder (20% chance to dispel all positive effects from the target stack)

- Ranged Retaliation and Poison Arrows for Upgraded Lizardmen (they can retaliate against ranged attacks and have a 20% chance of Paralyzing a Living enemy stack for 1 turn)

- Heal for Greater Druid (restores 2-4 points of Health per druid to the top creature in a friendly target stack of Living creatures, can be used for an inifinite number of times but consumes the Greater Druids' turn every time it is used; this is largely meant to preserve costly top-tier creatures from unnecessarily collapsing when facing low-to-average odds)

- Bloodlust for Tribal (+1 Damage against all other Level 1 creatures)

- Mobile Shooter for Centaur (can move after shooting or shoot after moving)

- Storm Shield for Acolyte (for just 1 turn boosts the target stack with 3 points of Defense plus 1 point per Weekly Growth of Acolytes in the casting stack; this ability can be used for an inifinite number of times but consumes the Acolytes' turn every time it is used)

- Ambush for Nomad (on the first turn of combat, Nomads always act first and can move up to 12 hexes; from the second turn on, they are reduced to their normal speed and initiative; any hero who has Nomads in his army thus gets the first turn; if both heroes on the battlefield have Nomads, the first stack of Nomads to act is the one from the attacking side)

- Terror for Bone Dragon with a meaningful increase in price (20% chance to force a Living creature stack miss their next turn and lose all retaliations)

- Rage for Boars (every time a stack of Boars is hit in melee, it receives a non-stacking +4 Attack bonus for their next action; the bonus inevitably wears off after the Boars' next action -- be it an attack, a retaliation or just walking or waiting; this would incite both the Boars' owner to favor melee over maneuvering and the Boars' opposing army to thin the Boars' numbers down with missile fire before engaging them in melee)

- No Melee Penalty for Orcs (well they're Orcs and they've got swords)

- Scouting for Rocs (any hero with a stack of Rocs gets +1 scouting radius and sees additional info about enemy creatures' numbers)

- Swarming for Wasps (any stack of Wasps receives +1 Attack per Weekly Growth of Wasps in it, so the more wasps in a single stack the higher the Attack bonus)

- Unstoppable for Golems (immunity to all sorts of 'rooting' and 'slowing-down' spells and ability effects)

- Giant Slayer for Halflings (+1 Damage against Hydras, Dragons, Titans, Cyclopes, Bone Dragons, Wyverns and anything that would be considered 'huge' or 'towering')

- Counterattack for Veteran Pikemen (they retaliate before being attacked, not after; still only 1 retaliation per turn)

- Block for Master Swordsmen, with a meaningful increase in price (20% chance to block 90% Damage from an incoming melee attack)

- Stand Ground for Battle Dwarves (not moving on a given turn grants a lasting +3 Defense bonus that wears off once the Battle Dwarves move again)

- Onslaught for Ogre Lords (+3 Attack against any stack of creatures whose sum of Hit Points is lower than that of the Ogre Lords' stack)

- Love for Toads (on command, they can say in a human voice "I love you!" but this doesn't affect combat or consume their turn)

...Or anything else you could think of. Creatures without abilities are super boring. This is something that wasn't great about H2 but grew so much worse in H3 after they added all the extra factions and creature tiers but forgot to give many of them individuality.

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Creatures without abilities are super boring.

Well... no.

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This is something that wasn't great about H2 but grew so much worse in H3 after they added all the extra factions and creature tiers but forgot to give many of them individuality.

A creature is not obliged to have an ability to be useful in the game. H2 design intends that there should not be so many abilities, with some kind of distinction between some creature types. The Wolf is weak physically, but it is very aggressive (as shown in the creature graphical design too) and serves as a fast and fragile damage dealer for the Barbarian. I guess no one questioned his double attack because it feels legit. However, not all of Heroes creatures really need abilities to be cool. The situation for the Witch can change in future.

It is also surprising to meet such an uncommon opinion about H3 lacking creature abilities. In that game, the amount of special abilities only increased after H2, and even Castle forces have a lot of them.

H3SW is currently following design solutions closer to H2. New creatures appeared too, and some of them have abilities, but not all of them. This creature ability mania should be left to other games with different concept and design. H2 was a pretty intuitive game, and simplicity is not equal to boringness.

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It is also surprising to meet such an uncommon opinion about H3 lacking creature abilities.

Many H3 creatures have abilities that do not influence the playstyle much... the tactics element is lacking even in comparison to H2.

And this is why creature abilities should not be added simply for the variety. They should either define the playing style of the faction (and help a creature to become useful), or do not exist, in most cases.

We transfered most of H2 abilities for the sake of tradition, but new abilities, if any, will be added very cautiously.

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And this is why creature abilities should not be added simply for the variety. They should either define the playing style of the faction (and help a creature to become useful)

Exactly.

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or do not exist, in most cases.

Not quite so... creatures without playstyle-defining abilities become a faceless mathematical function.

If you haven't already, give a try to the Heroes 5.5 mod (sic) and you'll see for yourself. The "bad" thing about Heroes 5.5 is that it has an overly complex ability / skill / spell / tactics system with a steep learning curve. You literally have to LEARN for hours how to efficiently play each faction. And it used to be a big part of Heroes tradition that it only took a few hours to get used to any faction, older Heroes games were more 'easy play' than 'pro gaming'

Heroes 3, to my taste, always felt too watered down -- too many creatures and factions added on top of Heroes 2 but very little 'playstyle individuality' gained. Heroes 4 and Heroes 6 are probably most balanced in this sense...

So I was hoping that you'd stay true to Heroes 2 manual which literally postulated an assymetrical power system for different factions at different game stages:

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The Warlock units are slow and expensive, but have high hit points and good Attack and Defense skills. Poor in the midgame, Warlock creatures are effective in the early game, and show their true colors in the endgame, where Dragons rule the battlefield.

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Barbarian creatures are generally slow, but have high Attack skills and hit points. While excellent in the early and midgame, the Barbarian creatures begin to falter towards the endgame. The early game advantage is accented in small and medium maps.

This individuality was largely lost in H3, but got ridiculously abused by H5 and never returned to the 'casual gameplay' level in H6 and H7.

So I thought that if you find it old school enough to add new creatures to H2 and use many of H3 gameplay mechanics... maybe you'd dare finding a 'sweet spot' between 'faction individuality' and 'steering away from the simplicity of classic Heroes titles'

In my mind, that means a 'no-no' for complex racial skills, perks and such like stuff introduced in the post-H3 era titles, but a 'welcome' to anything that makes the player think before using ANY creature. I'd even go as far as saying that for the sake of fun & diversity, at least one creature in each faction's lineup should have skills contrary to the faction's intended playstyle, while the rest of the creatures should stick with the faction's tactical agenda. My proposed ability additions are more or less in keeping with the factions' playstyles, but they were made up in literally a couple of minutes and should be taken as a crude example, not a viable idea.

Just saying... Tactics freaks can always play Heroes 5.5 or Heroes 5 TE, but since the much more simpler H6 and H7 are nearly abandoned (due to poor overall quality and bad modding support) there's a vacant niche for a more casual, classic-like Heroes game, just without the boring parts of H3. H3SW is so close to perfectly filling that niche, but it risks inheriting the blandness of H3 due to the factions / creatures bloat. IMHO the only way to avoid it is by carefully adding more playstyle-defining creature abilities... while keeping the rest of the game as simple as in H3, H2 and H1.

Well, some of the proposed abilities, mentioned above, are making total sense, like Giant Slayer for Halflings, No Melee Penalty for Orcs and won't be gamebreaking. Some of other ones, taken from Heroes4 and 5 mostly, might strongly impact overall balance and, in addition, might be very hard to implement since they have never existed before.

Shooting after move or move after shooting for Centaurs, for example. Can it be done with Heroes3 engine?