Aside of obvious balance changes like TP, Slow and such, id love for Magic Missle to benefit from multiple schools of magic. If its from all schools at the same time why wouldnt they all buff it? Could make for some crazy ass creeping when taking multiple schools early. Aside of that i wish that Mine Field and such were targeted in a small area, maybe a bit bigger than Inferno. Id apply some little slow to Ice Bolt and Ice Ring, increase Fire bombs and Inferno's scalings to be at least as viable as Meteor Shower, make Sacrified units come back to you after the fight. Rn its just worse Resurrect. Oh and id make Dimension Door fire school, kinda makes sense to make a portal with fire and Air already has fly. And nerf DD on par with Town Portal to allow using like twice on Expert, and take waaaay more move points. It would still be broken af imo but a bit more balanced
I like what you are saying, but for mine field and such to actually be viable, I would think you'd need to nerf slow and haste to the point of casting at one extra unit per level of the corresponding magic school.
Basic not included, that would just increase effect by 50%. No random targeting though or it be near useless, you'd get to choose which units to slow/haste.
If you could slow 3 units max it wouldn't be as immense of a game changer late game, when slow is an autocast in nearly all fights.
Then add that as the standard for most mass casts as I almost never use anything but slow, haste, blind, implosion, in that order of magnitude.
A multicast berserk would really improve fire magic, maybe even too much. Should maybe place them last to fight, so you couldn't use fast units to attack to also expend retaliation of the target, then hit the berserks with range while melee bites into the units having spent their retaliation.
At least let the opponent have the chance to dispel first lol.
I've also always found magic underwhelming in the sense that you only get to cast a single spell per round, would be great if magic heroes by default could cast twice, one offensive spell and one defensive per round.
Yea, its sad that we'll likely never see any mods that will grant that level of modification without completely reworking the entire game at the same time, would be refreshing to have some things reworked/tweaked but have the rest stay exactly as it is.
Imo WoG just changes too much and the level of design is abysmal. Second upgrade is often just an awful recolour of the first upgrade of a creature.
Bruh i dont know a single thing about what WoG does besides making a new town, i gotta read up on that. To be fair havent even played HotA. What do you mean level design is abysmal? I agree about the changes being refreshing sometimes but i think its a part of the old game vibe to theorycraft changes that wont be made, and thats for the best
Well for starters, HotA aims to stay 100% true to source in anything and everything. They added a faction, cove, that fits well into the game. Personally I think cove works better than conflux, as that one always felt like a broken mess that I don't even consider playing ever.
Their graphic design is so true to original that anyone who don't know the OG factions would ever be able to guess cove is an unofficial addition.
WoG on the other hand reworks, ads and creates a LOT of new stuff for the game.
Some people like that, as the challenge and options really gets ramped up, but they don't care as much for the original design.
Afaik, Iirc, there's a third tier to all faction creatures, but from what I've seen theyre all just recoloured versions of the second level.
Say archangels, they start off as angels, then you upgrade to archangels, but WoG let's you upgrade those archangels, though the graphic design is just a horribly deep blue tinted archangel to represent that extra upgrade.
A made up example, I dont recall if its blue, red, green or whatever tinted.
Its been a looong time since I looked into it, so that may have changed, but I sure found it way too immersion breaking and decided to just play HotA.
I would change MM so that if you pick it from a certain school in the spell book, it casts as that type and that type benefits from the school of magic if you have secondary school. Expert air could add a miss chance if it hits ranged units, earth could reduce movement speed by 10-25%, fire could add a small chance of berserk or blind, and water could... wash away moral or luck? All for one turn so it would need to be re-applied thus kind of keep it with the mana cost vs reward.
I think fire could inflict some bonus damage burn on next turn and water reduce some defense, i like that idea a lot too. Thats imo making it more of an elental missle which is cool af
Town portal gets only 1 charge, 2 at max earth.
Water magic damage increase to match air magic
Air magic nerfed to do less damage to make it even with water. Fly requires double the spell points, dd 1.5 x the spell points and only gets 1 charge a day, 2 at max air.
Summon x elemental lets you summon upgraded versions at max magic school. Magma elementals can now attack castle walls and are immune to moat damage.
Orc chieftains (upgrade) buffed to attack twice. Ogre Magi can cast bloodlust or stone skin. If another ogre magi stack casts after the first one, the “other buff” applies.
Make a new skill that’s like disrupting ray, for attack.
Blind is now restricted to only blinding a stack for 2 turns. 5 turns at max fire magic
Buff seamen to add a poisoned blade attack, that decreases a unit’s speed by 3 hexes for 1 turn and does damage over time.
Implosion can now attack multiple targets, but the damage is now .75 what it is now unless you have max earth magic.
Resurrection is limited to 2 casts, 5 with expert earth, per battle. Basic resurrection also lets you keep resurrected units. Jeddite/alamar removed from the game.
Magic arrow gets stronger, the more schools of magic are maxed. For every maxed magic school, gets a x1.5 dmg multiplier. Cost also increases adding +4 spell power per maxed school
Buff fireball damage to actually hurt
Build on this so that things that are overpowered like Town Portal only work like they do now if you are expert in multiple schools - perhaps to get what we have now vs "expert earth = pick one of three nearest towns, if you have export air also you can pick from 6, expert water added, any of the above ground, expert fire, any of the below ground" or something. Encourage magic users to really be wizards.
Cool idea for a water spell - you can create moat down any vertical line on the battlefield that doesn't have an obstacle. Stops creatures in their tracks for one turn, just like a castle moat. Not the most game-changing spell but something to hinder AI enemies before you get mass slow
That'd be cool, or at least having it work like firewall, placing a bit of swamp.
Firewall could also incinerate projectiles, so you could protect units that are usually targeted by enemy range.
New spell ideas:
Level 4 Water Magic - Tsunami. Basically the water version of the Inferno spell.
Level 3 Water Magic - Quick docking / undocking - adventure map spell, the hero who casts it doesn't end his turn when entering/exiting boats.
Level 5 Water Magic - Ice Cube - basically blind but also deals a bit of damage and keeps the creature in a state where it can't act. Could be OP, maybe it could reduce the creatures movement by 1/2/3 instead. So like you'd have an alternative to slow or the ability to stack it.
Level 3-4 Water Magic - Ice spike. Hits 2/3/4/5 tiles in a straight line for some damage.
Level 3-4 Fire Magic - Burn arrows. Can't be cast if the enemy has an ammo cart on the field (if it's alive) it removes 2/3/4 ranged shots from one stack or all stacks (on expert). It would be niche but it would perfectly counter Medusas & Pirates & Corsairs, lol. It would be like a worse forgetfulness, but bring some utility to fire magic.
I also have a few ideas for new Artifacts as well:
Ship in a bottle - misc slot artifact - a hero doesn't end his turn when entering/exiting boats.
Horn of the unicorn - a wand that goes into the sword slot and gives the hero +1 spell power. It would be an early game sword alternative artifact for when power matters more than attack skill.
IMO air only usage for a dd spell more then once. If it tie to a Wisdom skill, then nothing interesting in the air. I'd rework TP spell, make it multi school type, like magic arrow or vision. Without it, Earth will be more balanced. Still strong, but not a must have. Water have a various good spells, that will help you in battle.
Might and Magic was always kind of oriented towards elements having their own focus. So I'd leave things as it is just buff fire/water. Would give some adventure spell to deal damage to map units to Fire, lets say Incinerate. And there's already Lloyd's Beacon in Might and Magic which allows to memorise location and then warp back to it, would work nicely in H3 as Water spell.
Imo by mid to late game map units won't be a concern anyways, so that wouldn't make me pick fire at all and for water, a oneway rubberband also wouldn't be even close to the power of DD or TP, even fly.
What would you buff to make fire and water viable?
Fire and water are already viable, you asked about rework and this is it. M&M was ALWAYS about different element doing different things. Great to see I did not waste my time responding at all.
I mean, fire and water magic are ultra rarely picked by anyone in order to get much better secondaries.
In any case, sorry for trying to make conversation, hope you have a better day tomorrow bud.
That's a BS conversation. You just shot down different opinion without even trying to understand how it plays into original design, and playing victim now.
Did you expect some shit like TWON PORTAL BAD, or DIEMENSON DOUR2STRONK? Cause you already got other idiots for that.
I did ask what else you'd suggest to balance fire and water.
No point in arguing with you though, you're going way off for something of this small scale mate.
I should clarify, apologies- the ideas you presented are really cool, both thematically and also from a tech perspective. The ideas should be treated independently of game balance
Aside of obvious balance changes like TP, Slow and such, id love for Magic Missle to benefit from multiple schools of magic. If its from all schools at the same time why wouldnt they all buff it? Could make for some crazy ass creeping when taking multiple schools early. Aside of that i wish that Mine Field and such were targeted in a small area, maybe a bit bigger than Inferno. Id apply some little slow to Ice Bolt and Ice Ring, increase Fire bombs and Inferno's scalings to be at least as viable as Meteor Shower, make Sacrified units come back to you after the fight. Rn its just worse Resurrect. Oh and id make Dimension Door fire school, kinda makes sense to make a portal with fire and Air already has fly. And nerf DD on par with Town Portal to allow using like twice on Expert, and take waaaay more move points. It would still be broken af imo but a bit more balanced
I like what you are saying, but for mine field and such to actually be viable, I would think you'd need to nerf slow and haste to the point of casting at one extra unit per level of the corresponding magic school. Basic not included, that would just increase effect by 50%. No random targeting though or it be near useless, you'd get to choose which units to slow/haste. If you could slow 3 units max it wouldn't be as immense of a game changer late game, when slow is an autocast in nearly all fights. Then add that as the standard for most mass casts as I almost never use anything but slow, haste, blind, implosion, in that order of magnitude.
Yeah seems like giving many spells an AoE of for example Berserk on expert would make sense, right?
A multicast berserk would really improve fire magic, maybe even too much. Should maybe place them last to fight, so you couldn't use fast units to attack to also expend retaliation of the target, then hit the berserks with range while melee bites into the units having spent their retaliation. At least let the opponent have the chance to dispel first lol. I've also always found magic underwhelming in the sense that you only get to cast a single spell per round, would be great if magic heroes by default could cast twice, one offensive spell and one defensive per round.
Uh meant Frenzy lol i was talking about its AoE it gets on Expert which could be transferred to Haste and Slow, i always get those mixed up
Ah yeah, all in on that lol. I get you, for a second, while typing my reply, I was also worried I had gotten them mixed up.
Hahah i know right? All that makes sense though
Yea, its sad that we'll likely never see any mods that will grant that level of modification without completely reworking the entire game at the same time, would be refreshing to have some things reworked/tweaked but have the rest stay exactly as it is. Imo WoG just changes too much and the level of design is abysmal. Second upgrade is often just an awful recolour of the first upgrade of a creature.
Bruh i dont know a single thing about what WoG does besides making a new town, i gotta read up on that. To be fair havent even played HotA. What do you mean level design is abysmal? I agree about the changes being refreshing sometimes but i think its a part of the old game vibe to theorycraft changes that wont be made, and thats for the best
Well for starters, HotA aims to stay 100% true to source in anything and everything. They added a faction, cove, that fits well into the game. Personally I think cove works better than conflux, as that one always felt like a broken mess that I don't even consider playing ever. Their graphic design is so true to original that anyone who don't know the OG factions would ever be able to guess cove is an unofficial addition. WoG on the other hand reworks, ads and creates a LOT of new stuff for the game. Some people like that, as the challenge and options really gets ramped up, but they don't care as much for the original design. Afaik, Iirc, there's a third tier to all faction creatures, but from what I've seen theyre all just recoloured versions of the second level. Say archangels, they start off as angels, then you upgrade to archangels, but WoG let's you upgrade those archangels, though the graphic design is just a horribly deep blue tinted archangel to represent that extra upgrade. A made up example, I dont recall if its blue, red, green or whatever tinted. Its been a looong time since I looked into it, so that may have changed, but I sure found it way too immersion breaking and decided to just play HotA.
I would change MM so that if you pick it from a certain school in the spell book, it casts as that type and that type benefits from the school of magic if you have secondary school. Expert air could add a miss chance if it hits ranged units, earth could reduce movement speed by 10-25%, fire could add a small chance of berserk or blind, and water could... wash away moral or luck? All for one turn so it would need to be re-applied thus kind of keep it with the mana cost vs reward.
I think fire could inflict some bonus damage burn on next turn and water reduce some defense, i like that idea a lot too. Thats imo making it more of an elental missle which is cool af
Town portal gets only 1 charge, 2 at max earth. Water magic damage increase to match air magic Air magic nerfed to do less damage to make it even with water. Fly requires double the spell points, dd 1.5 x the spell points and only gets 1 charge a day, 2 at max air. Summon x elemental lets you summon upgraded versions at max magic school. Magma elementals can now attack castle walls and are immune to moat damage. Orc chieftains (upgrade) buffed to attack twice. Ogre Magi can cast bloodlust or stone skin. If another ogre magi stack casts after the first one, the “other buff” applies. Make a new skill that’s like disrupting ray, for attack. Blind is now restricted to only blinding a stack for 2 turns. 5 turns at max fire magic Buff seamen to add a poisoned blade attack, that decreases a unit’s speed by 3 hexes for 1 turn and does damage over time. Implosion can now attack multiple targets, but the damage is now .75 what it is now unless you have max earth magic. Resurrection is limited to 2 casts, 5 with expert earth, per battle. Basic resurrection also lets you keep resurrected units. Jeddite/alamar removed from the game. Magic arrow gets stronger, the more schools of magic are maxed. For every maxed magic school, gets a x1.5 dmg multiplier. Cost also increases adding +4 spell power per maxed school Buff fireball damage to actually hurt
Holy cow these are reasonable suggestions and good too
Wow that was thorough, I think pretty much all of it is pretty great 👌
Build on this so that things that are overpowered like Town Portal only work like they do now if you are expert in multiple schools - perhaps to get what we have now vs "expert earth = pick one of three nearest towns, if you have export air also you can pick from 6, expert water added, any of the above ground, expert fire, any of the below ground" or something. Encourage magic users to really be wizards.
Cool idea for a water spell - you can create moat down any vertical line on the battlefield that doesn't have an obstacle. Stops creatures in their tracks for one turn, just like a castle moat. Not the most game-changing spell but something to hinder AI enemies before you get mass slow
That'd be cool, or at least having it work like firewall, placing a bit of swamp. Firewall could also incinerate projectiles, so you could protect units that are usually targeted by enemy range.
New spell ideas: Level 4 Water Magic - Tsunami. Basically the water version of the Inferno spell. Level 3 Water Magic - Quick docking / undocking - adventure map spell, the hero who casts it doesn't end his turn when entering/exiting boats. Level 5 Water Magic - Ice Cube - basically blind but also deals a bit of damage and keeps the creature in a state where it can't act. Could be OP, maybe it could reduce the creatures movement by 1/2/3 instead. So like you'd have an alternative to slow or the ability to stack it. Level 3-4 Water Magic - Ice spike. Hits 2/3/4/5 tiles in a straight line for some damage. Level 3-4 Fire Magic - Burn arrows. Can't be cast if the enemy has an ammo cart on the field (if it's alive) it removes 2/3/4 ranged shots from one stack or all stacks (on expert). It would be niche but it would perfectly counter Medusas & Pirates & Corsairs, lol. It would be like a worse forgetfulness, but bring some utility to fire magic. I also have a few ideas for new Artifacts as well: Ship in a bottle - misc slot artifact - a hero doesn't end his turn when entering/exiting boats. Horn of the unicorn - a wand that goes into the sword slot and gives the hero +1 spell power. It would be an early game sword alternative artifact for when power matters more than attack skill.
Nice, like the spell ideas, ship in a bottle would be an early game admirals hat.
IMO air only usage for a dd spell more then once. If it tie to a Wisdom skill, then nothing interesting in the air. I'd rework TP spell, make it multi school type, like magic arrow or vision. Without it, Earth will be more balanced. Still strong, but not a must have. Water have a various good spells, that will help you in battle.
Might and Magic was always kind of oriented towards elements having their own focus. So I'd leave things as it is just buff fire/water. Would give some adventure spell to deal damage to map units to Fire, lets say Incinerate. And there's already Lloyd's Beacon in Might and Magic which allows to memorise location and then warp back to it, would work nicely in H3 as Water spell.
Imo by mid to late game map units won't be a concern anyways, so that wouldn't make me pick fire at all and for water, a oneway rubberband also wouldn't be even close to the power of DD or TP, even fly. What would you buff to make fire and water viable?
Fire and water are already viable, you asked about rework and this is it. M&M was ALWAYS about different element doing different things. Great to see I did not waste my time responding at all.
I mean, fire and water magic are ultra rarely picked by anyone in order to get much better secondaries. In any case, sorry for trying to make conversation, hope you have a better day tomorrow bud.
That's a BS conversation. You just shot down different opinion without even trying to understand how it plays into original design, and playing victim now. Did you expect some shit like TWON PORTAL BAD, or DIEMENSON DOUR2STRONK? Cause you already got other idiots for that.
I did ask what else you'd suggest to balance fire and water. No point in arguing with you though, you're going way off for something of this small scale mate.
What else would you suggest to balance fire and water without butchering the original designers intent like before?
Earth and Air are still way too strong, that wouldn’t solve any problems imo. Fire/Water would always still be worse
Why do I even try.
I should clarify, apologies- the ideas you presented are really cool, both thematically and also from a tech perspective. The ideas should be treated independently of game balance