i think it would be gr8 if everything could have a 3rd upgrade like gremlin-master gremil-grand master gremlin or like shadow dragon-black dragon-
coal dragon or sometin like that

That's actually not a bad idea. It would force you to make a few more choices when upgrading your buildings. Either add some more unique buildings or more upgrades of the existing. It's kinda boring when your castle is fully upgraded after a month. Maybe there could be a limit to the number of 3rd level upgraded buildings, i.e. only two or three units could be of the 3rd level or something to that effect.

Interesting (though not unique - remember the Green - Red - Black Dragon line from HoMM II?), but on the other hand it will make the gap between the unupgraded and the upgraded creatures too big. Maybe if the third upgrade gives only a minor bonus to the stats, but some important new ability, it wouldn't make the balance a total mess.

You would just have to limit the growth rate, i.e. lowering 3rd level upgrades to 50% of 2nd level or something like that. And make them way cooler. Then you'd have to choose between quantity or quality. Choices are good.

Hmm.. first off i thought it was a third alternate upgrade.. which while a bit overdone would have been interesting..dunno about a third level actually.

Perhaps for the lower tier units to make them tougher.. or perhaps you can choose one tier to go for level 3 with.. thus letting you choose to make a sudden dash for power !

I find the idea annoying for the most part, making the game too complex is not good. And having a 3rd upgrade for ALL units is excessive.

No offence, but I find the idea silly. I agree with Elementalist. This is taking it too far, without adding much of worth to the gameplay. Alternate upgrades add enough variety to the game.

I'm in favor of most changes that'll prevent the game from going completely stagnant after 3 months.

The game has enough choices with the alternative upgrades. Also, I have no confidence that any developer could maintain game balance between the races after introducing this new layer of complexity.

If you develop a new game and do not add to its complexity we might as well have stayed in 1986 and played international karate.

To me there can never be too many choices in a game like HOMM, they just have to be well balanced of course.

But each to his own.

Erm well, no. Adding to complexity is good, yes, but making it superflously more complicated is definitely not. The notion of a 3rd level of upgrades falls in the latter category.

quote:

Originally posted by Moragauth:
Erm well, no. Adding to complexity is good, yes, but making it superflously more complicated is definitely not. The notion of a 3rd level of upgrades falls in the latter category.

Let's call that your opinion, shall we?

Let's call it an objective fact, shall we?

Nival could barely implement the alternate units without breaking game balance, how on earth can it be expected to implement a 3rd level? I prefer Nival worked on the alternates than on something which might make the game needlessly complicated.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Moragauth,

I introduced my brother to HOMM 3 last night. He had never played any HOMM game or even a TBS. If you want to appreciate how complicated this game is, find somebody who likes video games but has never played HOMM and try to teach all of the rules and strategy of building, exploring, and combat. If Ubi wants to attract new players (and it does), it will work on making the existing game playable (shorter computer turns; smarter, non-cheating AI; heroes that are not goofy) as opposed to deeper.

P.S. My brother loved it!

HoMM was never supposed to be a "simple" game, even the plain HoMM I, which is much poorer in options than HoMM III or V, is more complicated than the majority of the RTS games (for instance) and certainly requires hell of an adaptation if your only gaming experience was Super Mario. I don't think anyone expects to learn the game in a hour or two - those who doesn't like to get involved in detailed strategy/hero/town development and such usually skip this kind of games so noone's targeting them for buyers. The question is whether the rest want more details. I for one have nothing against the idea, if it could be implemented without totally ruining the balance.

Another thing to consider is this won't bring in as much new things as alternate upgrades, and have a higher chance of becoming obsolete except on higher tiers, where it can on the other hand become quite dangerous for an unfortunate person.

The main problem IMO is how to make a 3rd upgrade of some creature without turning it into a de facto higher tier monster - that'll be rather pointless. If the upgraded version is twice as strong as the unupgraded, it's the same as adding a new tier (8th for instance, or 2nd becoming 3rd, 3r becoming 4th and so on) to the list. The alternative upgrades show that this is difficult to balance - right now we have nearly useless Marksmen, Master Hunters, Horned Overseers, Nightmares, Arch Demons, Brisk Raiders and so on, becouse their "cousins" are doing much better work. So the implementation of such a thing will require some efforts, but I don't think it's impossible. And you can still keep the alternative upgrades too, just to make them available as a 3rd upgrade. Or to add alternative 2nd and 3rd upgrades, but that'll be too much.

You know there's another dimension with the problem. Remember the beta times where the hell charger's name changed like 3 times? Hell stallion->nightmare, nightmare->frightful nightmare and some such before we got the final version. Now imagine how nightmarish it would be if Nival attempted to find names for 5 creatures per tier Seriously that's a hard task on its own, imagine that coupled with Nival's unimaginative naming.

It isn't impossible, but knowing Nival it would likely just mess the game up. We'll see.

But hopefully we won't