New Mod Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Babies!

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by jorko80

Hi Matt!
I finished the game today. As a whole it was a good experience and it was interesting,except those easy spots that I mentioned in my posts before. I will provide some more feedback and ideas,but first I will comment your last post a bit.

;

I'm glad you persevered and finished it!

Originally Posted by jorko80

This is a good logic,but makes the undead and especially the plants unstoppable ,because there is no magic that can eliminate them. Blind works at least to undead but the plants sometimes are a pain. Anyway I can't decide yet if there should be a spell that affects these creatures.

Well, for plants any burning spell (well I guess save Greasy Mist) works exceptionally well at taking them out: Flame Arrow, FireBall, Fire Rain, Phoenix, or Hell Breath. I think that's the list...

For the Undead, I'm not sure if you used Holy Rain, but it is very effective against them and so is Heal for that matter. Pygmy is also effective against everyone - not sure if you've tried that one.

Originally Posted by jorko80

You've said it yourself - the initial mana cost must be accurate. So that's the problem with the sheep-spell . Maybe it should cost more,because the effect it makes is supreme. And ofcourse that is directly connected with the accumulated mana and the mana-regeneration rate,which are both highly increased in your mode. Otherwise your formula seems to be very good and you have experience from modding other games(Emperor of fading sun - which I never played by the way, is it good ?). I understand your system and it looks perfect but the initial costs and the effect of the spell are things that are valued subjectively and considering that I appear to have more experience playing KB ,my final feeling is that the spell should cost 22,38,55 ,but with reduced duration. Ofcourse that's just my opinion

It is a really good affect, but there are still quite a few spells that are better at level 3 than Sheep and cost more. Also, Fear is a poor man's sheep in a way (although they can retaliate) and costs a lot less.

I'll revisit this for AP/CW/WotN, but I won't deviate from the formula for increases so I'll see if I can devise a better system for initial spell cost, then the level 2 and 3 increases will already be taken care of...

Originally Posted by jorko80

These are good changes, I like them. I like a lot what you've done with the Ents,finally they are usable and competitive. But that makes me think ,that there are so many creatures that are too weak compared to others and they could be tweaked also. In my game ,at some point I decided to take some knights in my army,they are available in the late game, they have good armor and bonus dmg vs dragons. But they sucked completely ,they were incapable of killing a single dragon and also died pretty quick,despite their fire resistance, completely useless unit. And even worse is,that there is a special ability in the skill tree for them,which doesn't worth taking.

I like what Fatt_Shade said here - all the units get great boosts from the wives / children and so if you find a unit that you'd really like to play, you'll have to focus on the wife / children to make that unit better. The wives give nice group unit bonuses and so you can always make a certain set of units better by getting that wife and sticking with her.

With that said, I've rarely played the Knights because by the time you can get them you pretty much have been everywhere and can hire any units you want.

I did increase the possibility of more Knights earlier in the game, but that is only probability. I got pretty good mileage out of Knights / Paladins in my first AP playthrough, although the Paladin's Resurrection proved invaluable.

Someone created a unit power chart on these forums and I really didn't touch the units that much, but it may need a hand to see if there can be some better balancing done here. I may need to leverage that chart and do some analysis to see if improvements can be made here and there to underpowered units...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Adding experience system would be great. That goes to the wifes,children,troops and enemy troops also. WOG comes to my mind. It was super interesting and challenging. The troops gained not just stats improvement,but also new abilities with levels.

Yah - there has been a lot of work done here by other modders and so it at least serves as a basis to learn how it was done and see if there is a place for it in my mod.

I never played WoG, but I did download it at one point many years ago with intent to try it out. They really expanded on the best game in the HOMM series.

I've actually thought about giving the units "difficulty level" abilities for the AI. It would actually be very easy to do as you can give them a new ability and then set it to disabled and then enable it if you are playing a certain difficulty level / map location level (this is how Dragon Arrows works - it enables the Dragon Arrow ability for the archer unit when you cast it on them).

Originally Posted by jorko80

Now for the last part of my game. Clearing the elven lands,death lands and demonis was not so hard, I guess 20% harder would've been better. The hero fights were good and interesting. Karador was amazing and Baal also. Xeona was a nice surprise with these ultra powerful demon gates. Then comes the labyrinth and the seven Haas dragons ,they were good, then Bagud was super. Haas was a good fight,which I successfully did in the first try. Karador and Bagud I reloaded twice, they were really good.

Excellent! Did you happen to fight anyone else (i.e. Sonya, the level 27 Necromancer)? What about the Evil Book? Sonya's not in every game, so maybe you didn't get her in yours. Possibly the same for that Necromancer.

Originally Posted by jorko80

But as always I did kinda lost interest after entering the grey wasteland. After that there is not much to develop in your hero and also there are no new units to discover and so it is not so rewarding to play. It's just the story left,but once you know it ,the game loses replayability in the late part. And that happens even earlier in AP/CW . And I just kill some heroes and go straight to the final,leaving a lot of enemy armies untouched. Also the skill that provides additional experience is a bit useless,it stays always to lvl1. I was lvl28 when I fought Haas and it was enough to defeat him. So my idea is that there should be some more units coming when you kill Karador,then Baal and in the Haas' Labyrinth also. It will be definately rewarding and encouraging. The units that come to my mind will blend super in your mod,ofcourse I don't have the slightest idea,how hard it is to make them. So destroying the crystal of darkness should allow you to buy crystal dragons,destroying Baal leads to Rust dragons-born in the sulfur of demonis, and Faerie and Azure dragons should be available in the magical Haas' Labyrinth. And in the late game there should be some special skills available for example when you are a veteran 28 level hero,so the player will be stimulated to fight until the very end of the game. Maybe adding something in the skill trees will help and extending the level cap to lvl35. Ofcourse these things lead to the increase of the power of the armies and heroes in the Labyrinth and Murock, but I suppose that's easily done. I hope you'll like the idea. And AP/CW needs something like that even earlier.

Ha! We must think alike because (I'm not sure which post it is) I reference all the dragons you mention earlier in this thread! That would be really neat to implement! I need an artist on here to take the 2-D HOMM3 unit pics for the dragons you mentioned and either alter an existing 3-D picture or create new ones for those dragons! Wouldn't that be awesome?!

I guess I could implement the units and then maybe someone can do the graphics for me! I think I can do all the programming - the Faery Dragons would be similar to the Evil Book for their spell casting function and the Rust Dragon attack can be easily coded.

That would be really neat!

For the rest of the stuff you mention it just sounds like you're so experienced that you'd need a new game or new content there.

Someone on here mentioned joining the AP/CW maps with TL. That would be neat to have a way to go back and forth between the two worlds...

Originally Posted by jorko80

- The art Eye of the storm is currently useless with just -1 speed,compared to the speed bonuses you provided to the creatures,it should have at least -3 or -4 to be competitive.

Okay.

Originally Posted by jorko80

- the enemy heroes throughout the game use the spell geyser too much. I was even bored, I enter a hero vs hero fight and nothing new - geyser,geyser,geyser . There are other powerful spells please.

I usually get more variability there - maybe its something I changed recently, hmmm...

Originally Posted by jorko80

- Sacrifice. I mentioned earlier,that it is unusable in the begining of the game. So my opinion stays the same about that. But the new part is,that it is way overpowered in late game with mage. I was able to ressurect 250% army . Example : Killing Baal was hard and it costed me a lot of units. Then I only needed one ordinary fight in which I restored my army completely ,not spending a single coin. Maybe a cap of 120% will be enough.

I'll look at this spell's increases from level to level and see what can be done here...

Originally Posted by jorko80

- Book of evil lvl3 casts something like sleep on the enemy,but when I attack the creature it is dispelled. So I think the effect should be the same as when the Beholders put someone to sleep. Otherwise it is completely equivalent with blind ,just the name is different. Ofcourse it should have shorter duration then blind.

I think all sleep spells are dispelled on attack, even the Beholder's. Note, though, that the attack is always critical when attacking a sleeping / unconscious unit.

Originally Posted by jorko80

- Rage draining is also too powerful ,it must have bigger rest.

Okay, will revisit...

Originally Posted by jorko80

- Chargers. I finished the game now and continue to have the same opinion. I was able to replenish my mana and rage after every battle,no matter how hard it was. They should give at least twice fewer points. Lina was lvl25 when I was in Murock , lvl24 entering the Labyrinth and it was more then enough for a mage hero. Your doubts that she will be weak were false. The time spirit was lvl35 and the other 2 were 20. That's a lot compared to the original game with a mage hero.

Okay, will revisit...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Some bugs :
- Evil book makes sheeps out of undead

Okay, I'll look into this as this shouldn't happen. I've been trying to set it up so that if I make a change to a spell it also affects units that use that spell, but it looks like I didn't get this one here...

Originally Posted by jorko80

- The phoenix looses a big part of it's attack when it's shot by a dispel arrow from the skeleton archer.

Okay, this is not supposed to happen, either. I'll check the logic here as I think the arrow does an automatic dispel...

Originally Posted by jorko80

- Dragon Arrows ignore just resistance,not the defense as it says . It is very weak and unusable.

You know, I really tried to make this spell much more potent. Did you know that it can be used when adjacent to enemies? You also get a heck of a lot of the arrows and they do Astral damage, which no one has resistance to.

I tried it out and it seemed plenty powerful at a certain point in the game, but did not try them at the end of the game. But I think you can get something like 6-8 shots if you have an archer unit and can shoot anyone with them no matter if they are next to you or not.

I'll revisit, but make sure you know these things. I think I can set it up to ignore defense - should I?

Originally Posted by jorko80

- In the fight versus Karador, the crystal of darknes raised my death stacks to his side and most of them were fine,except that it raised bone dragons from my black unicorns. That was awful ,because they were the same number as my unicorns were- 106 , and that was impossible army to kill. So I reloaded tried again,couldn't step on time on the unicorn body and it happened again. In the end I had to change the unicorns with different army. I think Bone dragons should be raised only from dragons. I don't know if that's a bug in your mod or in the game itself,but that's the first time I see it.

Okay, that's not right. I know I tested this out, but I've made Necromancy work such that it just needs big animal bones to make Bone Dragons out of them; however, it should be the same leadership, not same number if I'm not mistaken. So lets see it should have been 106 * 150 / 1300 = 12.2 = 13 (I'm pretty sure I ceiling this - maybe I floor it?).

So I'll look into this...

Originally Posted by jorko80

That is all for now.When anything else comes to my mind I'll write again. I will rest from KB for a while trying if Shades of Darkness is any good and then maybe I'll try your mod with a warrior or paladin.
Thank you one more time for your great work

Well, that is awesome! You've provided me with great comments and I'll revisit these areas when I return to modding TL.

For right now I've been playing WotN (it seems a lot better with respect to bugs than my first playthrough of the 4 Viking islands) so that I can get a feel for what needs to be modded there as I let the AP/CW development stew for a little while.

Matt

/C\/C\

[jorko80]

Hi again,

Excellent! Did you happen to fight anyone else (i.e. Sonya, the level 27 Necromancer)? What about the Evil Book? Sonya's not in every game, so maybe you didn't get her in yours. Possibly the same for that Necromancer.

Yes,Sonya and the necromancer were both present. They were good opponents ,but not really so hard. Maybe because of the chargers,I did ressurected my entire army and replenished everything and just continued on to the next fight with full rage and mana. The Phoenix is a bit overpowered maybe, with it I ressurect much and kill many enemy units without problems, but in the fights with karador ,baal,haas,xeona and possibly 2-3 more ,if it wasn't so powerful I didn't stand a chance. So I can't actually say what should be changed in that spell. Maybe reducing the chargers is enough. I think you underestimate some abilities in the game,because you didn't tried them much. My first 2 games were similar, I was always about trying to do damage with spirits and magics,but the other abilities are even more powerful. Lina for instance is not about damage. The Evil Book was a good fight also.

Ha! We must think alike because (I'm not sure which post it is) I reference all the dragons you mention earlier in this thread! That would be really neat to implement! I need an artist on here to take the 2-D HOMM3 unit pics for the dragons you mentioned and either alter an existing 3-D picture or create new ones for those dragons! Wouldn't that be awesome?!

Yes it would , sorry that I can't help. I can't even draw a dog.

For the rest of the stuff you mention it just sounds like you're so experienced that you'd need a new game or new content there.

No ,not so much. Just some more hero developing, so that I can fight everything till the end and feel rewarded about that. Did you played Heroes6 - once you get to lvl30 ,you stop developing ,and then there are more missions and you are just stuck to the same level, it was so boring.
Maybe one or two new skills in the skill tree will be enough. Maybe a "Dragon master" skill,which allows you to control more of the H3 dragons or something else. If you are interested in the idea , I can think more about some skills.

Someone on here mentioned joining the AP/CW maps with TL. That would be neat to have a way to go back and forth between the two worlds...

Not sure that this will improve the game. That means one ultra long game,that needs much more hero developing and units to keep it interesting.
I like them separated. They look a like, but at the same time offer much diversity.

I think all sleep spells are dispelled on attack, even the Beholder's. Note, though, that the attack is always critical when attacking a sleeping / unconscious unit.

The beholder's sleep is not dispelled no matter the number of attacks vs the creature. But anyway this is not such a big problem,so it doesn't require more time put in it.

You know, I really tried to make this spell much more potent. Did you know that it can be used when adjacent to enemies? You also get a heck of a lot of the arrows and they do Astral damage, which no one has resistance to.

I noticed the adjacent perk, but let me give you the example of my game, I had 150 hunters(the only shooter in my army) and I cast Dragon arrows and the hunters do the AMAZING 150 dmg to black dragons , then I noticed that without it ,the hunters do 250 dmg, because the spell doesn't benefit from attack bonuses. It did good damage to lower level creatures,but there are other spells that affect those creatures anyway. And the Dragons ,Archdemons ,Cyclopes and other 5th lvl creatures are hardly affected by spells, Dragon Arrows was one of the few spells that made difference, but now it is useless. Maybe some defense removal will be nice. It sounds even better if it is spell lvl related, like 25,50,75 % defense ignoring respectivly
or 50,75,100% but that may be too much.

For right now I've been playing WotN (it seems a lot better with respect to bugs than my first playthrough of the 4 Viking islands) so that I can get a feel for what needs to be modded there as I let the AP/CW development stew for a little while.

The biggest flaw in WotN is that after killing the spider you get instant access to 6 areas. 3 areas in Darion ,2 pirate lands and the elven lands. That pretty much allows you to have everything in your army even before completing half of the game. And the wings that you get so early,allow you to see everything and get everything. There were so many people in the forums ,complaining about the wings especially. There were many proposals to alter them in some way or even to completely remove them. Also the part in AP/CW where you have to usually fight a stronger army to get to a new island is really good and rewarding. It makes you think ,how can I kill them,what will I gain on the next island to help me complete the quests in my current position,what will I lose. It is really good. Nothing of that is present in WotN, except in the first 4 islands. Also the fact that there are so many undead armies to fight gets really boring. I know they are the most important part of the big story,but still their number should be seriously reduced in some areas. Even on my first game in WotN , I was sick fighting the same undead guys over and over again. Enough for now . When you decide to mod WotN ,we can discuss it more if you like.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by jorko80

Hi again,


Yes,Sonya and the necromancer were both present. They were good opponents ,but not really so hard. Maybe because of the chargers,I did ressurected my entire army and replenished everything and just continued on to the next fight with full rage and mana. The Phoenix is a bit overpowered maybe, with it I ressurect much and kill many enemy units without problems, but in the fights with karador ,baal,haas,xeona and possibly 2-3 more ,if it wasn't so powerful I didn't stand a chance. So I can't actually say what should be changed in that spell. Maybe reducing the chargers is enough. I think you underestimate some abilities in the game,because you didn't tried them much. My first 2 games were similar, I was always about trying to do damage with spirits and magics,but the other abilities are even more powerful. Lina for instance is not about damage. The Evil Book was a good fight also.

I think I know what to do on the Chargers - the rest needs to increase more for each ball power increase.

Right now, I have Rest +1 for each Rage increase, but if it became +1, +2, and +3 and then the Rest decreases were -1 and -2 you'd only be able to use the ability once every 4 turns once it was maxed out. This would mean that you'd only get to use it at full power once for normal battles and twice for hero / tower battles before the Mana / Rage gain reduction kicked in.

This would reduce its power if you tend to use it a lot, which it sounds like you either use it as often as possible once you get it leveled up or you let the enemy hang around and use it to pump up your Rage / Mana at the end of battles before finishing off the enemy. I hadn't thought of that strategy, I guess, for when it was maxed out as you'd still get pretty good increases in Rage / Mana even when the 1/2 gain kicked in. It still would not be very effective when at 1/4 (at least for rage gain) as it stands now, but if I increase the rest like I mentioned above I think it will work out okay.

As far as the Phoenix is concerned you can see why it is so expensive to cast / learn. I'll be revisiting the Summoning spells for AP/CW/WotN to see what I want to do about this. I actually really like the Phoenix and their Sacrifice ability for resurrecting level 5 units as it makes using Level 5's more viable and not as reliant on Gizmo. In WotN I'm noting that the Phoenix does a heck of a lot more damage than it did in TL/AP/CW.

What I did here (same for Evil Book as well) is have the spell power modify all the stats of the Phoenix, including their resistance. And then you see that certain skills also increase their stats including the Destroyer skill for increasing their damage. I like this approach and was thinking of implementing similar in AP/CW, but might reduce the resistance increase by 1/2.

We'll see...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Yes it would , sorry that I can't help. I can't even draw a dog.

That's too bad!

Originally Posted by jorko80

No ,not so much. Just some more hero developing, so that I can fight everything till the end and feel rewarded about that. Did you played Heroes6 - once you get to lvl30 ,you stop developing ,and then there are more missions and you are just stuck to the same level, it was so boring.

No, I haven't played any of the HOMM games since 3. I think my brother got me 4 and 5 through GoG so maybe I'll play them one of these days...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Maybe one or two new skills in the skill tree will be enough. Maybe a "Dragon master" skill,which allows you to control more of the H3 dragons or something else. If you are interested in the idea , I can think more about some skills.

I think the Skill Trees are pretty much filled up unless we modded an existing skill. It certainly sounds interesting...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Not sure that this will improve the game. That means one ultra long game,that needs much more hero developing and units to keep it interesting.
I like them separated. They look a like, but at the same time offer much diversity.

Perhaps you're right.

Originally Posted by jorko80

The beholder's sleep is not dispelled no matter the number of attacks vs the creature. But anyway this is not such a big problem,so it doesn't require more time put in it.

You know, I just looked at this in the code and I can't figure out where it's setting the unit to sleep. So perhaps this one is coded differently than the Dryad Sleep and other sleep abilities. So I'll look into this some more to better understand it as I had thought it used the same code as the Dryad's...

Originally Posted by jorko80

I noticed the adjacent perk, but let me give you the example of my game, I had 150 hunters(the only shooter in my army) and I cast Dragon arrows and the hunters do the AMAZING 150 dmg to black dragons , then I noticed that without it ,the hunters do 250 dmg, because the spell doesn't benefit from attack bonuses. It did good damage to lower level creatures,but there are other spells that affect those creatures anyway. And the Dragons ,Archdemons ,Cyclopes and other 5th lvl creatures are hardly affected by spells, Dragon Arrows was one of the few spells that made difference, but now it is useless. Maybe some defense removal will be nice. It sounds even better if it is spell lvl related, like 25,50,75 % defense ignoring respectivly
or 50,75,100% but that may be too much.

You know I just looked at this ability and for Archers and Bowmen the damage done with Dragon Arrows is higher, but when looking at Elves and Hunters it is the same as their normal damage.

I didn't change this part in the unit's abilities so it was like this in the original game as well.

Here is the Dragon Arrow ability for each unit compared to their normal attack:

• Skeleton Archers:
  • Move Attack: 1-2 Physical
  • Dragon Arrows: 2-3 Astral
• Bowmen:
  • Move Attack: 2-3 Physical
  • Dragon Arrows: 3-4 Astral
• Elves:
  • Move Attack: 4-5 Physical
  • Dragon Arrows: 4-5 Astral
• Hunters:
  • Move Attack: 8-10 Physical
  • Dragon Arrows: 8-10 Astral

So there is no damage increase for the Elves and Hunters. What I don't understand, though, is that it should be doing at least the same damage as their Move Attack since this is an enabled skill (the spell enables the skill and so technically it's not a spell) and since no one gets Astral Resistance, it should at least not be reduced by resistances. The Attack / Defense factor is set to 1 for this skill, but so is their move attack. The only difference is that the Move Attack has a chance to Critically Strike the target.

The Skeleton Archers get the highest percentage increase and then the Bowmen next. Now that I'm aware of this I'd probably just double the damage for their Dragon Arrow attack and set the Attack / Defense factor to 0.

That should make the spell equally useful for Skeleton Archers, Bowmen, Elves, and Hunters as right now it works the best on Skeleton Archers and then next Bowmen and not really so well with the Elves and Hunters (although you do get the shooting when adjacent bonus).

Originally Posted by jorko80

The biggest flaw in WotN is that after killing the spider you get instant access to 6 areas. 3 areas in Darion ,2 pirate lands and the elven lands. That pretty much allows you to have everything in your army even before completing half of the game. And the wings that you get so early,allow you to see everything and get everything. There were so many people in the forums ,complaining about the wings especially. There were many proposals to alter them in some way or even to completely remove them. Also the part in AP/CW where you have to usually fight a stronger army to get to a new island is really good and rewarding. It makes you think ,how can I kill them,what will I gain on the next island to help me complete the quests in my current position,what will I lose. It is really good. Nothing of that is present in WotN, except in the first 4 islands. Also the fact that there are so many undead armies to fight gets really boring. I know they are the most important part of the big story,but still their number should be seriously reduced in some areas. Even on my first game in WotN , I was sick fighting the same undead guys over and over again. Enough for now . When you decide to mod WotN ,we can discuss it more if you like.

Yah, I know what you mean - getting a bit tired of fighting endless hordes of Undead, but I'll finish it up then we can discuss ideas for modding WotN. I'm really not sure what to do about the wings, though, since you really need to get to those Jotun houses due to the lack of available units on the islands. It seems like the maps would have to be modded to allow you to get to them without flying. Or, I guess, Jotuns / Trolls could be added to structures where you don't need to fly to get to them. It might be too long, but you could get your wings after rescuing Regina. I wonder how to change that?

Well anyway, stuff to think about and I guess we should start a WotN modding thread to discuss it more fully...

Once again, thanks for your comments on my mod - I think you've given me some good stuff to think about and I'm certainly going to approach the AP/CW/WotN mod design slightly differently since I've learned a lot from this mod and everyone's comments.



Matt

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

About spells :
In Ap/Cw mage can easily go to 80+ intellect (highest in tL i got was 45). Phoenix will be indistructible with it.Same for evil book, it will be hard ot kill but also really hard to reload it`s casting in battle after using 3 on 3rd lvl. Some change in it will be needed.

Getting new unit in game, try to contact with bladeking77 who made Adventure mod for Cw, and got 3 new fully functional units in it : champion, azure dragon and archer.Maybe he`ll be able to help on this front.

Attacking any unit in sleep/snooze will woke it, i`m not sure what is happening in that item battle.

Changing rage skills is really thing of personal choice, and it can be optional. Since it`s not hard to mod them and set as player like. Make them anyway just functional. Rest is in our hands

Maybe one or two new skills in the skill tree will be enough. Maybe a "Dragon master" skill,which allows you to control more of the H3 dragons or something else

Well in Ap/Cw there is `Voice of dragon` which will be easy to set to -lds for dragons or something like that.

[Sirlancelot]

Sorry for the double post (I also posted on youtube), folks, but I want to reassure Matt read my congrat message:

Wow, I take my hat off, either you did something really remarkable here or are a marketing genius. Seriously Matt, I admire your perseverance and enthusiasm. It seems you did a GREAT job here.

Wish me a good journey, I'm gonna try your mod right away. I feel compelled to. Heck, in fact, why isn't it far more popular?

Hope my feedback will prove to be useful for you. Just one inmediate suggestion, though: rename to something more noticeable and self explanatory, along the lines of "King's Bounty expansion: X, Y & N, Z rebalance and miscellanea improvements." "Heroes of M&M 3 Babies" sounds nice but confusing.

By the way, I have to reply you in a thread I opened years ago.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Sorry for the double post (I also posted on youtube), folks, but I want to reassure Matt read my congrat message:

Wow, I take my hat off, either you did something really remarkable here or are a marketing genius. Seriously Matt, I admire your perseverance and enthusiasm. It seems you did a GREAT job here.

Thanks for the great comments!

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Wish me a good journey, I'm gonna try your mod right away. I feel compelled to. Heck, in fact, why isn't it far more popular?

The number of downloads is possibly misleading due to the fact that I remove the previous version and post a new one. So every release resets the counter.

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Hope my feedback will prove to be useful for you. Just one inmediate suggestion, though: rename to something more noticeable and self explanatory, along the lines of "King's Bounty expansion: X, Y & N, Z rebalance and miscellanea improvements." "Heroes of M&M 3 Babies" sounds nice but confusing.

By the way, I have to reply you in a thread I opened years ago.

You may be on to something with the name, however, I'm not sure if you've read why it is named as such.

But the "in" for me was the babies and having played HOMM3 all those years ago.

As I played TL for the first time I noticed that there seemed like areas that I could improve upon. I didn't really have much of an idea about what to call it, etc. until I had the breakthrough that the NPC wives of TL are the actual mothers of the heroes that you play in HOMM3.

So that's why I called it HOMM3 Babies, but maybe there's a better name? I'm certainly open to suggestions...

So as I started implementing it, I also thought of improving various aspects of the game that I had noted during my first playthrough. I spent a year on it before I released it here and as you can see, I've been sucked into the modding world ever since.

Coupled with the great comments I've received and the organic nature of modding, it seems like every time I play either TL or another game new ideas sprout.

I've also actually thought of doing more short videos to show gameplay that I'm working on or conceptual ideas, but just have not done it.

Anyway, thanks for the great comments...

/C\/C\

[MattCaspermeyer]

Okay, I've been making a lot of changes with my latest unreleased version of the mod.

Now you can talk to Drahha and he's convinced that there must be more Blue Dragons out there somewhere! By the way, he now exchanges Runes for Dragon Eggs!

So now that I've added Blue Dragon Eggs (they look just like the Sapphire Egg you get from Ultrax and cost $25k) I've also added Blue Dragons.

So I'm open to suggestions on abilities. Note that I'm going to use Drahha as the 3D model and may also use his picture for the 2-D representation or may alter an existing one. We'll see.

Here's what I have so far for stats:

Attack: 60
Defense: 60
Physical Resistance: 20
Poison Resistance: 5
Magic Resistance: 80
Fire Resistance: 80
Initiative: 8
Speed: 9
Critical Hit: 25%
Fire Damage: 120-140
Health: 880
Cost: 20k
Leadership: 3k

These are meant to be very rare Dragons and hence they should have the best stats. Plus, I'm thinking this is why the other Dragons don't like them very much. Right now, I have placeholder talents of both the Red Dragon and Black Dragon abilities. However, these are just meant to be place holders for actual abilities that we think of. Think of Drahha when thinking about abilities.

One idea that I'm thinking about is that they may have an "aura of fear". Units within 1 hex have a chance of fear or something like that.

Anyway, those are just thoughts.

Also I've added the ability (so far) to exchange Snake Eggs for Crystals with Witch Helga, Spider Eggs for Crystals with Old Chvakha, and Ent Seeds for Crystals with Lady Beaulla. All containers will be enabled to trade for Crystals or possibly runes with some NPC. I have to look to see which NPC's still talk to you after you're talked to them and completed their quests (a lot just bring up their shop afterwards and so these aren't an option).

So I'm looking for NPC's to exchange the following still:

Griffin Eggs (I can only think of Harl, but it doesn't make sense - maybe governor Thompson? Seems like his motives wouldn't be good, though)
Dragonfly Eggs (Possibly Bogis)
Coffins (Skeletons) (Possibly the Necromancer that has you fight the Book of Evil - does he still talk to you after you give him the book?)
Carved Coffins (Vampires) (Possibly the Necromancer that has you fight the Book of Evil)
Thorn Seeds (thought of Milk Woman, Wilma, but she had such a bad experience with the first batch that she probably wouldn't want any more - maybe need to convince her now it's safe or something or possibly Bogis)
Bone Dragon Eggs (someone in the Land of Death, maybe the Necromancer that has you get the Red Dragon Eggs if he still talks to you afterwards (can't remember)).

By the way, the rough exchange rate is $10k of containers for 1 Crystal and $100k of containers for 1 Rune. So about 8 Ent Seeds for 1 Crystal, for example, or 5 Black Dragon Eggs for 1 Rune (of your choice). You can see that with these rates that you'd only be able to get about maybe 50 to 100 more crystals in a game and maybe 4-5 of each Rune, depending, of course, on whether you decide to use them.

Also, now when you fight Dragonflies you have a chance to get more Dragonfly Wings (chance is square root of the number of Dragonflies and the number of wings is square root of chance). This way you have a chance to find more Dragonfly Wings throughout the game to trade with Maria. You'll probably find on average, as a guess, 20 to 30 more wings so that'd be another 60 to 90 Crystals.

I'm also open to ideas for exchanging Crystals or Runes for something. It may be nice to bring the Rune Exchange stuff from AP / CW over to TL. I could probably have Torn Digor's son do the Rune Exchange...

Anyway, I'm still working through debugging the spell AI, but I've fixed quite a few crash-to-desktop problems and so need to do some more checking before the release is ready. There are also quite a few changes to LOC files that require a restart (for example, all the Blue Dragon stuff added to shops will require a restart).

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

/C\/C\

[Sir Whiskers]

Some random thoughts on abilities for Drahha:

1. Summoning dragonflies. Perhaps dragonflies hang around dragons, scavenging from their kills. For whatever reason, they like blue dragons better and can be summoned to help in a fight.

2. Other dragons don't like blue dragons not just because they are different, but because they have trouble controlling their abilities. Give blue dragons an Armageddon-like ability that damages all stacks (50% damage to allies?).

3. A Last Hero ability that only works on the blue dragon stack. Last Hero usually doesn't work on L5 creatures, so this might be overpowered.

4. Since emerald dragons can add mana, perhaps something that allows a blue dragon to add rage? Or, if a blue dragon is in the hero's army, anytime a dragon stack is attacked, it generates extra rage - something like the Paladin's ability against undead and demons. Or simply having dragons in the opposing army generates extra rage automatically between rounds.

5. Other dragons hate blue dragons, so when fighting a blue dragon, their Attack increases 25%, but their Defense decreases 50%.

You indicate that other dragons don't like blue dragons, so it's a good bet that you'll lower their morale if a blue dragon is in the hero's army. Are you planning to increase the blue dragon's morale in that case, similar to giants and emerald dragons?

I like the ideas on crystals. At first I thought $10K was too high, but Tibold's prices quickly go much higher, so it works out. (Tibold sells the first crystal for $5K, then $7.5K, then $10K, etc.) And it's nice to have something to do with the extra containers besides simply selling them. For convenience, I'd suggest having all the locations in or around Greenwort. Otherwise, it may not be worth the time and effort to trade some containers.

I also like the idea of exchanging dragon eggs for runes, and the high price ($100K) for doing so. It's less important to keep this in a convenient location, since I'm guessing it won't happen often. Perhaps the dragon caves in Montero?

SW

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

Some random thoughts on abilities for Drahha:

1. Summoning dragonflies. Perhaps dragonflies hang around dragons, scavenging from their kills. For whatever reason, they like blue dragons better and can be summoned to help in a fight.

I really like this idea - and it might make sense, too, since Drahha hangs out near the Dragonfly area in Arlania.

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

2. Other dragons don't like blue dragons not just because they are different, but because they have trouble controlling their abilities. Give blue dragons an Armageddon-like ability that damages all stacks (50% damage to allies?).

This also sounds neat! But I'd have to be careful otherwise you'd end up just not using it.

Other thoughts here:

• Combine 3in1 with long attack 2 (so they could theoretically attack 6 targets: 3 hexes wide by 2 deep). I'm not sure if these two attack abilities would work together, though, so it might not be implementable.
• They leave a wake when they fly - this might be part of the trouble controlling their abilities that you mention above.

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

3. A Last Hero ability that only works on the blue dragon stack. Last Hero usually doesn't work on L5 creatures, so this might be overpowered.

Another interesting idea. I've been drawing somewhat on the dragon abilities from HOMM3 - Armageddon's Blade. Here there is the Faerie Dragon and here's its description:

"Some say they are invisible. Some say they can cast spells. Some say Magic Mirror is one of their natural defensive traits."

So I like the idea of them having some sort of spell capability as a natural part of them. Invisibility may make sense since that's why they're rarely seen. Perhaps as a natural response to being attacked they have a certain percent chance of becoming invisible.

Going with the Magic Mirror motif (has a chance to reflect bad spells to the other side in HOMM3) this may also make sense - a spell cast on an enemy has a chance of being reflected (if bad) or stolen (if good). This may be really neat, although I'd have to think about how to implement it.

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

4. Since emerald dragons can add mana, perhaps something that allows a blue dragon to add rage? Or, if a blue dragon is in the hero's army, anytime a dragon stack is attacked, it generates extra rage - something like the Paladin's ability against undead and demons. Or simply having dragons in the opposing army generates extra rage automatically between rounds.

Sounds interesting. By the way, in my current update EGD's mana burn if they don't have a hero now.

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

5. Other dragons hate blue dragons, so when fighting a blue dragon, their Attack increases 25%, but their Defense decreases 50%.

Another interesting idea. Hmmm...

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

You indicate that other dragons don't like blue dragons, so it's a good bet that you'll lower their morale if a blue dragon is in the hero's army. Are you planning to increase the blue dragon's morale in that case, similar to giants and emerald dragons?

Yah, I'll probably make it -2 Morale or something like that (or maybe different colors respond differently). It'll then be offset by Tolerance. In my latest unreleased mod, Tolerance offsets the Morale penalty between EGD's and Giants (but Giants don't get the bonus any more either since I guess they know they're not allowed to eat them - "not very happy that I can't eat my EGD for breakfast!").

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

I like the ideas on crystals. At first I thought $10K was too high, but Tibold's prices quickly go much higher, so it works out. (Tibold sells the first crystal for $5K, then $7.5K, then $10K, etc.) And it's nice to have something to do with the extra containers besides simply selling them. For convenience, I'd suggest having all the locations in or around Greenwort. Otherwise, it may not be worth the time and effort to trade some containers.

Great suggestion here - or a short balloon ride away. Just searching for the right NPC's. I think I'm definitely going to have Bogis exchange Dragonfly Eggs and I may also have him do the Thorn Seeds (or I've been thinking that maybe Wilma can get advice from the Royal Thorn on the seeds). Perhaps the Dwarf Alchemist in Marshan Swamp could use the Coffins for something? He does need a new assistant after all...

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

I also like the idea of exchanging dragon eggs for runes, and the high price ($100K) for doing so. It's less important to keep this in a convenient location, since I'm guessing it won't happen often. Perhaps the dragon caves in Montero?

SW

I haven't even thought about where these exchanges would happen in AP / CW, but the dragon caves in Montero sound good if there is an NPC down there somewhere.

Alright - thanks for the awesome comments!

Keep 'em coming!

/C\/C\

[Sir Whiskers]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I haven't even thought about where these exchanges would happen in AP / CW, but the dragon caves in Montero sound good if there is an NPC down there somewhere.

Oops, you're right - I was thinking of AP/CW, not Legend. Hmm, I know there's at least one place in the Elven lands where you can always buy dragons, so perhaps there will work.