Limitations of Wog

[Fosprey]

I don´t know if it´s ok to create a new thread about the subject, but i didn´t know where else to post it. i´m very happy i found today about this project. Since heroes 3 is my favorite game and used wog, but couldn´t enjoy it that much since it limits me on the things i wanted to change most. So i would like to comment them, and maybe it will help as data to know things that some modders wanted to change in wog and couldn´t. I know you know a lot of those things but several of the ones i´m gonna mention i don´t see mentioned too much.

1. One of my biggest limitations on WOG is that i wanted to change the battles a lot. Personally i would even use a Square based board instead of hex based one, but maybe it´s to much. In fact a lot of those changes i liked to do on wog were later present on HOMMV. I have to say that i dislike completly HOMMV. But there is one thing like more than heroes 3, and it´s the battles. Especially the turn, and more important how caster aren´t limited to 1 spell per turn, but it depends on caster.
   Also i would like creatues to have more skills in th sense of hommV where they have mana points, and use different skills.
   I also wanted to add fog of war.

Anyway while some of those changes were impossible on wog, some battle changes weren´t as impossible on wog. BUT it was so hard to make the script for battles for multiplayer games (i´m only interested in multiplayer games), because the IP command weren´t completly developed and you ended with desynchronizations all the time.

2. I always wanted To remake spells completly, spells like stoneskin i woulda prefer that the defense they add to be based on the spellpower and things like that, again it was kind of possible on WOG, BUT, again the desyncronization problems came aboard.

3. I wanted to limit the number of heroes that you could use in a map, but it wasn´t possible in wog without some weird , really weird setups.

4. Finally i was always worried on about the save system, in heroes is always possible to cheat by saving and looking at the save at other computer, and i didn´t like that.

I will say more if i remember.

[Tow_dragon]

1. One of my biggest limitations on WOG is that i wanted to change the battles a lot. Personally i would even use a Square based board instead of hex based one, but maybe it´s to much. In fact a lot of those changes i liked to do on wog were later present on HOMMV. I have to say that i dislike completly HOMMV. But there is one thing like more than heroes 3, and it´s the battles. Especially the turn, and more important how caster aren´t limited to 1 spell per turn, but it depends on caster.
   Also i would like creatues to have more skills in th sense of hommV where they have mana points, and use different skills.
   I also wanted to add fog of war.

Square based board is definitely something that would change battle mechanics too much. I don’t think it will be ever implemented. Regarding other propositions - we are going to make it possible through modding, much more powerful and user friendly than in WoG.

2. I always wanted To remake spells completly, spells like stoneskin i woulda prefer that the defense they add to be based on the spellpower and things like that, again it was kind of possible on WOG, BUT, again the desyncronization problems came aboard.

3. I wanted to limit the number of heroes that you could use in a map, but it wasn´t possible in wog without some weird , really weird setups.

It doesn’t seem to hard to implement, we’ll put it into our TOOD list. Of course, it’ll be just another modding possibility.

]4. Finally i was always worried on about the save system, in heroes is always possible to cheat by saving and looking at the save at other computer, and i didn´t like that.

We are aware of many cheating possibilities in Heroes III. We are going to implement multiplayer mode in which only host has all information about game (and he’ll be the only one who can cheat). It’ll minimize cheating as much as it seems to be possible.

[Fosprey]

First, thanks for taking time to reply. About the Square based board. I imagined that´s too much, because it almost means completly redo the combat system in so many levels that while possible would suppose an epic work, and i doubt there is much demand on such a feature, i myself don´t know if it´s that important, but for consideration i will touch the reasons for it and so you can see is not a merely whim.

I played a lot of heroes 3 in a competitive way. Even it was a little sad that the heroes 3 community was relativily small. Anyway the point is that heroes 3 for reasons that are hard to me to give, is the game i enjoy most. But there is something i never really enjoyed and is the battles. I personally feel there is no strategy or complex tactis to abuse on battles, i could figure out the move of each player before the battle even start, so it was more like an autocombat, a feature i would use more in heroes if it AI weren´t so stupid. Anyway i tried to figure ways to make heroes 3 combat system more interesting, and even i got a few ideas, the desynchronizations on battles in wog made all the work fall apart.

Ok, now one of the things i always thought , is that the hex system makes things harder. How is that? Well in a hex is hard to limit units or skill to go , or function in certain hex without looking so unelegant or make players have headhaches. In a square based board is easier to think the space a unit or spell , with space limitation, covers, than in a hex board. Imagine in chess, a hex board and how hard would be to think on the knight movement? You could look at ZAKITON wich is a shareware online game where you play battle in a chess board and units have different control zone, i think that game works better in a square based board. That´s the same reason that a lot of RPG tactic based games, choose square boards, It´s more elegant, and is easier for players to figure out the potential of their units without having headhaches.
It´s not coincidence that hex based strategy games don´t mess much with limitations of movements and zone control, if you look at games like wesnoth, fantasy wars, or very well ¨ heroes 3 battle system¨. They don´t mess up with zone control units or spells. In fact is heroes 3 the one that does it more, with spells like meteo shower, fireblast, and units like hydra. for example i imagine a skill were a unit does more damage if it attacks from the sides instad of back and forth. It´s easy to see that in a square based board, that unit will bring harder decisions to the table than in a hex based board. Ultimatly i just wanted to show that´s not a whim. I accept that if you are going to give the level of freedom you say, making an interesting combat system is well within reach and will probably will be done.

I would write more and correct the post but i´m in a hurry here, later.

Continue edit:
Something i was always very interested to be able to do with heroes is the ability to allow players to do SOME stuff while on the opponent´s turn, things like schedule buildings, buying creatures, allow players to choose the level up skill only on opponent´s turn, and some other stuff of the likes. i knew you will come with possible problems, but i have solutions in mind, just ask. i wonder if something as complex as that could be possible?

[Fosprey]

Battle system: One of my wills when tried to mod the battles was an idea that i would like to implement.

Spell casting:
Heroes can only choose the spell they can cast on the round at the start of the turn, and they will cast it whenever they want as they can do now in heroes3.
Variant: Players must choose and CAST the spell they want at the start of the turn AT THE SAME TIME.
Idea: Create a double blind system where you must figure out the choice your opponent will make and thus select the spell that will be better to counter his action or spell.

Spell power: As many know, spell power is the weakest stat of all in heroes3. One of the reasons is that enchantments on expert level are generally the better way. Enchantments power don´t change in a relevant way from 6 to 20, so a fighter with 6 spell power can , in practice, cast as powerfull enchantments than a spellcaster with spell power 20.
This has been the main reason why in competitive heroes, Might heroes were almost always a better choice than magic heroes.
I know that under certain conditions a magic hero CAN BE better, i even made a guide on magic heroes on the heroes community forum that was star awarded, BUT, even on those maps might heroes were good too, and in most maps might heroes are just strictly better.

So to change this i thought about the counter idea. When you cast a enchantmetn you put counter of that enchantment on that creature for each point of spellpower.
Say i cast stoneskin with spellpower 6. Then my creatuer have stoneskin with 6 counteres.
This counter MAY or MAY NOT reflect also the amount of defense the creature is given.
Every turn the enchantment lose one counter.
So what´s the porpouse of it?
counter magics.
Right now a Spellcaster with power 3 can counter the enchantments of a spellcaster with power 20.
Now:Spellcaster with power 20 cast Haste, spellcaster wtih spellpower 3 cast slow. Haste is countered, and now creatures have slow for 3 turns.
New: Spellcaster with power 20 cast haste, spellcaster with spellpower 3 cast slow. Now, haste enchantment that has 20 counters loses 3 counters, haste remains on creatures with 17 counters!.

If the reverse would happen, spellcaster with 3 spellpower casted haste and the 20 spellpower casted slow, then creatures would be left with a slow with 17 counters!

I hope in the future you give the tools so this is possible so the weakest side of heroes3 imo (the human interaction in battles) is stronger.

[Tow]

Welcome to the board Fosprey, thanks for sharing your ideas.

As for square tiles on battlefield I can’t agree with you. I think hexes are better for a few reasons. Firstly, moving from one hex to any neighbouring one has the same cost. It’s easy to count the tiles to change the range of units. If we have square tiles, then diagonal move by one tile takes ~1.41 of the horizontal/vertical move. Secondly, on the square tiles we can’t have good-looking circular/ring area effects. We’ll end up with a cross or square-like shapes.
But my opinion is not the problem, it’s the amount of changes needed to provide support for square-based battlefield.

Counters ideas is definitely interesting. I hope it’ll be possible to implement in our mod system (and surely it would be possible to hard-code).

Something i was always very interested to be able to do with heroes is the ability to allow players to do SOME stuff while on the opponent´s turn, things like schedule buildings, buying creatures, allow players to choose the level up skill only on opponent´s turn, and some other stuff of the likes. i knew you will come with possible problems, but i have solutions in mind, just ask. i wonder if something as complex as that could be possible?

We think about providing something even bigger - the simultaneous turns.

[Fosprey]

I hope if you implement that, that can be customizable, or something like that, for some maps, completly simultaneous turn would be a problem. In any case i´m happy you are working on it