[Unofficial Expansion] The HOMM5 Role Playing Edition

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[Unofficial Expansion] The HOMM5 Role Playing Edition

Unread postby magnomagus » 09 Feb 2010, 00:04

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Hi to all HOMM fans!

Today I will present to you a new descendent in the HOMM series. The HOMM5: Role playing edition (currently version 0.9 Beta). This huge mod took me almost a year to build, but together with all the pre-work me and other people did the development took actually much longer. This mod is basically a redevelopment of the dual classes project that required to be restarted with a greater ambition. Extensive testing on the dual classes project proved me that it was impossible to implement might and magic classes in H5 in a balanced way without a complete revision of core parts of the game. Furthermore implementing new classes proved not only a question about classes, skill trees and development paths but also spells, AI, town guilds, war machines and even some creatures needed to be rebalanced. There were also many compatibility issues with popular mods that needed to be solved.This all made me decide to follow a more WOG-like approach to the project, by upgrading all aspects of the game, but give players at the same time as much as possible freedom to what functions to use and what not. I created a new framework that allows for 24 character classes, 999 NCF creatures, level 4-7 dwellings, RTMG and Tournament Edition scripts. I reconstructed the skill system from the ground up for 24 character classes and 96 multiplayer heroes (instead of 64). I also greatly improved the AI and interface texts. I added balance mods for spells, creatures, weeks, war machines, building prices (all these functions can be optionally installed!).

In the H5 Role Playing Edition fully working new character classes for all factions are finally a reality!

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The result is supposed to be the most advanced version of H5 today. Compared to H5:TOE, the H5 Role playing edition will add an endless amount of variation and new strategies by having might, magic and balanced classes for every faction. H5 RPE will give a much deeper game play experience. Formerly playing Dungeon was always a destructive spam fest while haven was always a might powerhouse with light magic. In H5 RPE on the other hand you can play ANY strategy with ANY faction. H5 RPE has the most challenging AI, many new skills and all the new content is supposed to fit in the Ashan world and lore. This mod will be very easy to play, i made many improvements to the interface to make many things clear from ingame.

Before I will continue on the details I first and foremost would like to thank all the people who have intentionally or unintentionally contributed to the creation of this project and I hope to be able to add more people to the list soon. Projects like this are never really finished and I hope many people will come, play and give comments. I am also looking for people interested in making better skins and icons.

Special thanks go to:

Kronos1000: For hex-editing the H5 exe to allow the creation of new classes.
BAD: For hex-editing the H5 exe to allow hero development above level 30.
Simonak: for his work on the NCF framework 3.1 and help with technical issues.
Sfidanza: for his work on the original NCF framework and the H5 manual.
TSoD: for creating level 4-7 dwellings and improved creature icons.
Marzhin: for his DM map that included some useful content.
Alcibiades: for his work on balancing buildings and always constructive input.
Cepheus: for his help with technical issues.
Moz: For the HOMM5 tournament edition that included many good ideas.
Mirthless/PvP: for his cool balance scripts.
Alexoff: for his cool AI scripts.
Spamm: for his text improvements.
Fiur: for fixing the refugee camp.
Fauch: for some great ideas.
Curio: for his cheating guide, that is actually my favorite modders handbook.
I also would like to thank Cleave, Willow & Vokial for their enthusiasm and support of my mods.

Features

-24 Character classes (22 full working with unique development paths and skill trees)
-might, magic and balance classes for every faction
-96 Multiplayer heroes (12 for every faction, 4 for every class)
-Many new skills, specializations and much better balanced skills.
-Hero Development above level 30
-The most challenging AI ever.
-Optional balance mods for spells, creatures, buildings, war machines & weeks
-Many interface improvements.
-Compatible with NCF Framework
-Compatible with 4-7 dwellings
-Compatible with RTMG
-Compatible with TE edition scripts & AI Scripts
-Compatible with Alcibiades building mod
-Compatible with xazardous mods but not: Xaz Backs and ingame skillwheel (wouldn't make any sense)
-200 page manual, with all skill trees and heroes

The New Class System

As the name already hints, this mod will involve a huge improvement of the role playing aspect of the game. Three games, which are largely popular among HOMM players, have been the main inspiration for the new class system design. These games are Kings Bounty: the Legend, HOMM3 WOG and HOMM4. Since people are often referring to these games when criticizing H5 I tried to create a ‘perfect blend’ of these games to greatly enhance the role playing part of the game.

Like the KB every faction will now have 3 classes, a might class, a magic class and a balanced class. For example Sylvan will have Rangers, Wardens and Druids. In H5: RPE factions will also be less black & white. Pretty much every faction has a class with a dark side to it, which is able to learn unique ‘bad’ skills. Since having 24 classes would mean an incredible amount of complex skill wheels, the secondary skill trees are redesigned in such a way that special perks always come after the same standard perks. That way the player doesn’t need any in game skill wheels but starts automatically memorizing the skill system from the first time he plays, just like he used to do when playing H3 or H4.
In H5RPE racial skills will no longer exist, because their nature would immediately steer the class in a certain direction. In H5RPE classes will be determined in the same way as H4. Every skill in the game determines a class. The following scheme shows the 24 skills in the game with their corresponding classes. Reavers and death knights are the death versions of knights and paladins, therefore they start with the same skill.

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When the skills are sorted out by faction, the scheme with probability factors for primary skills looks like this:


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The following scheme shows an example of how the secondary skill development for a single class is constructed.



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When the secondary skills and primary skills progressions are finished the only remaining task is to add 4 appropriate specializations to the class, because every faction will have 12 heroes (4 heroes per class). The followings cards shows all the details about the Ranger, the Warden and Druid. The manual in pdf format will contain all the cards for all classes (in HQ):



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Now let’s see how the concept works out in game. Before selecting your starting heroes, notice that the mod includes all the enhancements of the Advanced AI for 3.1 with many more options. The mod will also support the use of AI scripts created by Alexoff from the Russian community. Furthermore the AI will be able to play with all 24 classes and make better skill choices at leveling up. It will also less often leave artifacts on the adventure map. In the hero selection screen you will see both the class and specialization of the heroes. If you like statistics you will love the extended specialization descriptions.

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New Skills

The H5RPE has several new secondary skills that can be used by many different classes. The two most important ones are Combat & Occultism.

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Combat is a skill highly favorable by might classes and focuses entirely on improving the (non-magical) attack abilities of the hero. The Combat skill determines the Knight class, but death knights, barbarians, rangers, engineers and demon lords will most likely also pick it. Some balanced classes like Paladins can also learn it. The combat skill will make the hero attack a viable alternative for destructive magic in late game, especially in dealing with high level creatures.

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Occultism is a skill only favorable by classes with a very strong focus on destructive and/or dark magic. Occultism defines the Warlock class, but Sorcerers, Flamekeepers and Elementalists will often also pick it. The Occultism skill focuses on rituals and improving the destructive and dark magic capabilities of the hero. As you can see the skill is internally build from the irresistible magic skill but it has many new perks.

In the H5: RPE all secondary skills are constructed according to a 3+3+1 scheme. Why? first of all because there are not enough skills in the game to fill all skills to 3+3+3 and secondly because having the middle skill (in case of the defense: vitality) at the start of the game will maintain the possibility to get any of the special perks. In H5: RPE every branch follows a logical theme, for example a new branch is constructed in defense entirely based on magic protection: Armorer (gives 15% magic proof) => Forge master (gives an additional 15% magic proof)

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I swapped, some icons, names and effects to make skills more useful and fit in other secondaries:

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Magic schools

In H5: RPE the Sylvan Mage Guild gives: Light + Summoning Magic. The Dungeon Mage Guild gives: Dark + Destructive Magic. It was necessary to give dungeon a less spell power dependant magic school for the overlord and assassin classes. Summoning will better fit the nature theme of Sylvan.


Some more screens

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Downloads (50mb)

I made a self extracting 7z archive to make the download smaller.

HOMM5 Role Playing Edition

If you like this, please take time to post and help the development further!

System requirements

You will need patch 3.1 to use this mod
Currently the mod is in english only.

Known unsolvable issues

-You cannot generate maps with H5_RPE_Game.exe (issue since NCF3.0), just generate maps in the editor or H5_Game and reload.
-Witch huts don't give shatters to non stronghold classes, they don't give occultism or combat either. Just don't care about it, if a witch hut gives occultism to your overlord you would be screwed anyway.

Work that needs to be done

-Don't bother with the duel mode, it needs a redesign.
-Don't bother playing campaigns (makes no sense anyway)
-Some more unique skins would be welcome.
-Further balancing (as usual)

Buglist

-The manual description of wasp swarm spec is incorrect, it is 0,025 ATB per level.

original thread

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=32305
Last edited by magnomagus on 11 Aug 2010, 20:50, edited 2 times in total.

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Unread postby parcaleste » 09 Feb 2010, 06:46

Whoaaa. :| You sure put really a lot of work here. I've got to check this one as soon as I can.

One thing, though, I'd like to see is the Beastmasters boosting abilities, the beasties to get +1 speed and/or initiative like in H3. How do you think of that?

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Unread postby magnomagus » 09 Feb 2010, 12:54

One thing, though, I'd like to see is the Beastmasters boosting abilities, the beasties to get +1 speed and/or initiative like in H3. How do you think of that?
even though i don't know which class you are referring to (there are no beastmasters) i think i can already answer your question: it is impossible to program new specializations, it is only possible to change, rebalance, duplicate or rename existing ones.

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Unread postby parcaleste » 09 Feb 2010, 17:49

I was talking about the creatures specialists in general. ;)

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Unread postby Mirez » 09 Feb 2010, 18:20

very impressive, strange I never heard about it before

anyways, is this for h5 vanilla or also for Tribes of the east? I know you said something about a 3.1 patch however I saw the h5 menu in a screenshot.

it seems you also modded stronghold, so I guess it's tribest of the east or are there multiple versions?
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Unread postby magnomagus » 09 Feb 2010, 20:03

This works exclusively for Tribes of the East patch 3.1. The game must be run from the exe file included in the archive (H5_RPE_Game.exe).

The mainmenu is reverted back to the original because it is more representative. In the end I would like to have a new menu theme, but there are currently other things higher on my priority list.

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Unread postby Mirez » 10 Feb 2010, 09:16

I see, well you got my attention, I always thought it was stupid there were no might and magic classes within a faction. A simple split-up would have worked for me but the new skil classes look interesting.
I'll have a look
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Unread postby magnomagus » 10 Feb 2010, 15:31

A simple split-up would have worked for me but the new skil classes look interesting.
A simple split-up with racials was the original intention but it didn't work out. If you want some history and more info on the project you can visit the following threads:

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=29055
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=31206
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=32305

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 10 Feb 2010, 17:38

Heretic seems a bit out of place in Haven... Inquisitor or Grand Inquisitor (or even Templar or Crusader) might work better (they are about pain, so Dark Magic would work for them). Move Heretic to Inferno instead of the Gatekeeper.

Chieftain might work better as Warlord, and Veteran as Champion or Berserker.

And the Flamekeeper could use a better name, but i can't think of anything atm (Loremaster is too far from the concept i guess).

Looks good btw.
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Unread postby magnomagus » 11 Feb 2010, 11:12

Heresy = (the act of having) an opinion or belief that is the opposite of or against what is the official or popular opinion, or an action which shows that you have no respect for the official opinion.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 11 Feb 2010, 14:42

I think the more important definition is the one where heretics get burned at the stake by the people with the popular/official opinion... why do you think they put the class in the Inferno in HoMM3?
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Unread postby Corlagon » 11 Feb 2010, 19:00

Lorewise, in Ashan, I think Heretic is certainly best in Haven, being that almost the entire Empire sacreligiously turns against its god. This, moreover, doesn't occur in the Inferno, where only a Demon worshipping Elrath or something could fall under that term.

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Unread postby magnomagus » 11 Feb 2010, 21:46

Pretty much how I was thinking, the current idea is referring to the H5 campaign storyline with humans following a demonic church. In heroes 3 several inferno heroes were human. A demon as being 'pure evil' is basically part of an evil belief system itself and as such it cannot oppose it's own belief system.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 12 Feb 2010, 11:29

Who says only demons can be Inferno heroes?! As i said a million times, H5 lacks variety...

But logically a Heretic hero shouldn't be able to mix with the other heroes... but it's a minor thing, one can always justify it as gameplay over lore, changing the other names to better versions probably matter more (and Warlord already was in a Heroes game). :D
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Unread postby magnomagus » 12 Feb 2010, 15:18

UPDATE: If you want to use ncf creatures you need to download the new (fixed) framework v091!:

Framework Version 0.91
As i said a million times, H5 lacks variety...
Perhaps, but somehow people always liked my conservative mods more. About the other names I don't now, take in mind the names are connected to the skills for example: veteran => learning.

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Unread postby Metathron » 12 Feb 2010, 17:31

Wow, good effort. This might infuse HoMM with some new life.

What are ncf creatures, though?

And where to put the files?
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Unread postby magnomagus » 12 Feb 2010, 18:19

For NCF creatures check the following:

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.p ... genumber=1
And where to put the files?
Extract the archive to anywhere and read the included readme

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 12 Feb 2010, 20:00

magnomagus wrote: Perhaps, but somehow people always liked my conservative mods more.
This mod certainly doesn't seem conservative to me.

magnomagus wrote:About the other names I don't now, take in mind the names are connected to the skills for example: veteran => learning.
Yeah, i really should learn the H5 icons...

What about Sage then? Or Battle Sage (see, it's close to Battle Mage :D )!

Warlord should do fine, it's almost a synonym for Chieftain, just more war oriented.
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Unread postby magnomagus » 12 Feb 2010, 21:31

This mod certainly doesn't seem conservative to me.
Lol, yeah :D , but it is still a lot more conservative then rebuilding H3 in H5
What about Sage then? Or Battle Sage (see, it's close to Battle Mage smile_teeth )!
Do you really think those class names would fit a hero like Kragh?
Warlord should do fine, it's almost a synonym for Chieftain, just more war oriented.
Warlord is not bad, but chieftain or war chief is more tribal like the stronghold faction. Somewhere in the process I designed a Warlord class based on leadership for the fortress faction, but he didn't made it because it was to similar to the engineer.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 13 Feb 2010, 13:35

And Warlord isn't?! Some needs to watch more Xena. :D

But Chief sounds too colonial imo... and the Orcs are Mongol inspired, and guess who's got history with warlords: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord#Hi ... n_Mongolia
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