H3SW: Upgrade system

Intersting.
The genies... If we upgrading/train them... They get 20% chance to kill all the stack?


I think that The Knight Castle could have another "upgrade" system: Upgrading tier!
For example, Paysan could be upgraded into Ranger (the lvl2 unit).
With a special building in town, and accurate price, theses Humans can learn to hold a bow and to shoot.
I could easily imagine being able to train Paysans to be Pikeman too. (but clearly needs much more training than just shooting a bow)
I guess we can't give them an Horse because Paysan aren't "noble" enough.

Thanks for the interesting read. Indeed, H2 developers did have a some kind of vision towards "sentient" and "non-sentient" creatures, trying to disperse them properly in the faction lineups so that there would be more differences and unique features between factions. This is also reflected in their suggested asymmetrical playing style, which is going to be further enhanced in H3SW.

Yes, we have some exceptions to these rules, because H3SW is already more than H2 originally needed. In fact, H2 did not even need new factions, so I prefer thinking that we are making a some kind of extension/continuation of these ideas in a more 'modern' game, if that word can ever be used.

The Rogue upgrade for the Dervish was done to make this creature blend better to the Arabian theme, this is true. Original H2 Rogue is obviously European in exterior. If it was not for original Mister Kalu's ideas and my personal dream about the desert neutral faction in H2, I think I would not support the idea of the class, but at least we did what we possibly could to make it fit to the atmosphere.

Same for Medusa, because if you subtract Bandits and Medusa Queens from the Dervish's lineup, you will have no upgrades at all which is strongly against H2 principles. There should be upgrades. Anyhow, I think Ragoon has done a great job with Medusa Queen.

Yes, some more upgrades might have been added to the game. Sometimes it's just about drawing: honestly, it was a horrible amount of work already, including townscreen buildings and creature animations, and each new upgrade doesn't make things easier. Sometime, I think, we should have the Genie upgrade like many of the people suggested (and we probably even have some draft graphics for it). Concerning the Anubite upgrade - well, originally I intended this creature to have a de-upgraded version, but it turned out that it lacks detail and originality.



Making a name for another creature of this kind is also a big headache, so I'd rather not fiddle with it. Genies/Master Genies are a better candidate for sure. Note that the graphics are not final.



Mystic/Acolyte? Well... they kinda should have an upgrade, but designing the main form was already a big problem graphically. Maybe later, but I suppose we could decide it based on Dervish's gameplay routine, which routine is yet to be crystallized itself.

Same goes for other creatures mentioned in Sir Albe's post. Yes, they technically can have upgrades design-wise, but our resources/time are limited and the game is doing fine without them. The atmosphere doesn't suffer if we have non-upgradeable Death Knights. On the other hand, if we have too many upgrades, the game starts feeling different, like it was in older builds. It was not H2 for sure, and it didn't feel as a continuation of H2 ideas, either. It felt more like a recolored Heroes 3 with some kind of new atmosphere instead.

Feanor wants the Death Knight to be upgradeable to a creature named Cuisinart (this was the name of its original upgrade in Might and Magic VI), but this name is not intuitive enough and contradicts with H2 design, which we cannot afford (we already made a lot of exceptions with these new creatures). Also, we have a feature with Paladins/Crusaders being 'upgradeable' to Death Knights in the Skeleton Transformer, so that's that. I guess that upgrade can wait.