Spherical Maps and Triple Level Maps

International board General discussion
#1

I’m just going to throw a few ideas that I think would make the Heroes experience more interesting.

How much programming (or scripting) would be required to add support to have maps that could loop from edge to edge? Like if you moved your heroes against the far west edge of the map, and he would “teleport” to the far east edge, and the same with the north and south edges.

What about triple level maps? Having a third level in the clouds would be interesting.

#2

A map that wraps around should not be too hard, but would require a fair amount of work. Working with an arbitrary amount of levels isn’t difficult either, but could lead to problems with some objects. With two levels you get a binary relationship; if it’s not on the first level it’s on the second level, and vice versa. An object like the subterranean gate for example will transport you to the closest subterranean gate on the other level. With more than two levels there is no the other level, but a whole slew of them so you can’t tell which one to get transported to from a simple process of elimination. You’d have to work out a more generalized logic to replace for these kind of things.

#3

Interesting idea. Actually we could support maps that look like practically any compact two-dimensional manifold (even more complex than Klein bottle) by mapping border tiles (hero could travel between corresponding tiles). It wouldn’t be too hard to implement, but it’d change the format of a map, what we don’t want to do before we rewrite the mapmaker. A certain level of support for multilevel maps has already been implemented but as OnionKnight said certain objects won’t work well with it.

#4

I think all objects based on 0/1 levels should be ported to parity/odd levels
(so number of levels should be parity even if theres eg no need to more than 3/5/7 levels)

so if we need move over the parity/odd pair weshould need other object eg. of we want to move from level 1 to level 3 we could use two way monolith instead of subterrean gate

also i propose new object pair: stairup and stairdown - works as subterranean gate but have binded one direction from up/down

#5

A spell to travel in between levels would be neat. And possibly an earth spell similar to the air spell “Fly,” but which allows you to move through the walls of the underground.
A post game statistics screen would be a simple addition, also.

I’ve been watching this project for about 6 months, and it seems to be by far the most active Heroes related project, and might I say the most intriguing.

#6

Interesting, but how exactly should it work? You can travel between levels using advanced town portal (if you already have towns on different levels). The problem with “travel between levels” spell is where exactly your hero appears on the specified level. Certain positions may be blocked.

#7

You could make it like Dimension Door, with limited radius for increasing level distance.

#8

I thought of it like using a subterranean gate anywhere you want. Of course, the spell would have to “know” whether or not the place above or below you is a valid tile, and not a mountain or a throng of behemoths, etc, just as DD does.

#9

If the 3rd level is in the clouds, then perhaps Subterranean Gate would not be a problem because the object should probably not be available for that map level. I would allow have only some of the monoliths as teleporters to the clouds level. But that’s something to discuss when the map editor will be re-coded.

And I agree we need a spell which would allow us to teleport between levels (and that’s irregardless of the implementation of a cloud level). If we want to not touch the functionality of the OH3 Dimension Door, then perhaps we can have something like Magic Channel or Magic Gate.

#10

yeah and this spell would be unavailible in mage guilds
and to use it you need some new artifact
(something like titans thunder)

is it a good idea?

#11

Anything’s possible. We could also have it that we can receive the spell only from Scholars, Scrolls or Shrines placed by the map maker in specific locations.

Or if we talk about artifacts, we can also actually just develop an artifact instead of a new spell. The artifact would not give a spell, but would allow us to use Dimension Door between map levels. :wink:

#12

well…that’s pretty troublesome skill how will that work with ai for example ? And will it be still possible to catch x hero when you are nearby and he uses teleport up for example ? D:
Tho as special artifact or normal gate like place y/place x t it’s okay in random map but of course with possibility to change it as you wish. :slight_smile:

#13

n levels could work with those level gates, too. It’s just a little more complex than just teleport to the other level.

  1. Get closest gate on next higher level. Calculate distance (x, y).
  2. Get closest gate on next lower level. Calculate distance (x, y).
  3. Take the one with lower distance.
  4. On equal distance let the user choose (up or down). Or use random (like the teleporters).

Maybe let the user choose if the distance difference is lower than some threasold, else there might be maps where those gates are placed that silly that you can only move down or up.

Another thing related to this: In WoG there are quite some “caves”, which would be much more useful as subtypes of those subterranean gate. Although this is just visual sugar :slight_smile: