How open are you guys to an expansion/patch?

[shesycompany]

fix ballista bug =as dude said catapult will probably fix this .pud
equalize the upgrades at blacksmith = .pud
reduce costs of archer/troll to 400g, add +1 base armor= .pud
reduce costs and upgrade times of all ranger/zerker upgrades (3k for troll regen > 500g)=.pud
give sappers the armor upgrades from smith =.pud
reduce cost of dragons to 2k=.pud
reduce cost of unused spells, upgrade times and research cost (poly,unholy armor, exorcism)=.pud+exe
unholy armor overhaul, now vunerable to magic damage, but invincible to physical damage, lasts longer time, castable on sappers=.exe
increase cost of lust/reduce dmg multiplier=.exe .pud
reduce cost of heal + make it aoe=.exe and changes to say, exorcism its heal now lots of properties in this spell.


haste now increases movespeed of sapper=.exe (same as above)
remove cannon tower damage reduction at close range=.pud diff weapon type,my fireball canons wipe out anything in there path friendly and foe close or far, a demon fire would give it direct without splash etc.

equalize blizzard/death and decay damage=.exe (same as haste)could just give mages d&d
increase fireball damage, change damage path to the cast point=.exe or .pud to change weapon type.

---most def---
"opens up a lot of options, of course this would all need several beta tests and coders but would really make war2 a lot more dynamic"
i have to say i can fly seperating stuff into categories...but learning how it works is a little more challenge,and they are some wicked hidden stuff,that u need lambchops to find and tupac..salvadorc and swz is on different missions..ai and campaigns.

example im dying to make anything pop out  troll from the footman spot...looks like they would be alot of mirror code..saying hey this is barracks im a foot man..next in order im a elve..simple move elve to footman...but so far its not...so that means its a little standalone code in no order  not been thru all of it yet but most ..

ok what im seeing is,they are more custom maps to be made...the pud can balance also...exe is like for total conversions,really fixing the game when enuff of it is freed up(if theres a game to fix ie balance = no fun, it is all naught)

what id do for the new players is buff hp up so spells cant run you over,it would be a war3 feeling to the game.

[shesycompany]

maybe scorpions editor will work for you guys its a dos one but a good one.
its a unit editor,what i do is copy say gowbne and put it in a custom folder,open the original to edit then save it unto the copy.

im down to make some customs ...thought of another unit!!
archers,trolls that shoot canon!! maybe op now!

[Igognito]

Let me add my penny :-)

First of all I agree that War2 has a nostalgic feeling and we do not want to change that!

I also agree that Humans need something to be played more often.
Also I like the idea for introducing new tactics in the game :-)

I will use 3 notations to indicate where I suggest the change to happen.
(.exe) = A patch that will be distributed to all and becomes the new standard
(mem) = A memory hack tool that makes the choice optional
(.pud) = A change to mostly played .puds. We make a pud subfolder (war2.ru) and distribute the maps.

My suggestions:

About balancing:
Their is consensus about the ballista misfire. If this can be fixed, I think it should. (.exe)

Paladin vs Ogre-Mage
I have a simple fix for that. Increase the sight of the Paladin! This will automatically increase the ease of usage for exorcism. Still Humans pack less offensive power but you increased their defensive capacity. (.pud)
I also liked the idea of Heal becoming an area spell instead of target! To work like exorcism/coil but heal. That will improve significantly the usage. We could make a poll to see what the strong majority wants (.exe) or (mem).

The above changes, I think would solve the balance issues.
The different upgrade costs are manageable in most cases and sometimes the extra wood means an extra farm for Humans which pays of better at rush!

New Tactics:
The game has plenty of different tactics but there is 1 tactic that is not really supported! The hit and run.
For those familiar with sc, think the Vulture unit! This is how I believe the archers should be in War2! This means increasing the movement speed of the unit!

Archer Speed +1 (mem)
Ranger Speed = Knight Speed +1 (mem)

Make Footman/Grunts useful after knight/ogres!
2 ways:
1) Alter the base/piercing damages of knight/ogres so that the cause less damage to buildings!
2) Introduce an upgrade for Footman/Grunts at keep/stronghold to gain more HP.

Using Birds a bit more (reduce the cost to 2000) (.pud)

Make sappers/dwarfs a bit more usable (reduce creation time) (.pud)
In my personal opinion sappers/dwarfs are an amazing unit! But you have to wait to long to get them and after the first use players expect them...

Improving Some Other Spells
Slow, make it area? (.exe)
Polymorph, reduce mana cost to 150 (.pud)
Flame Shield, reduce mana cost to 50 (.pud)

Skeleton, make the skeletons as non up-gradable grunts (.pud)
Whirl Wind, reduce upgrade cost to 1000 gold (.pud)
Unholy Armor, reduce mana cost to 100 (.pud)
Runes, reduce mana cost to 150 as long as still each rune is 50 (.pud)

Adding a 3rd race! That would be interesting, but can it be done? You have to think that everything needs to be altered from dropboxs that let you choose to graphics and game mechanics.
If we can actually do that then I have plenty suggestions for a new race!

Cheers

[ibrockinsteve]

there is a mods database that has dwarves as a 3rd race

[mousEtopher]

was that the Polish version? "Rise of shadows" ? That one was wargus/stratagus based I think

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

#1 thing I suggest on a project like this is don't focus on "balancing" the races; they're already near mirror images, which isn't very interesting.  If you're going to put in the work to customize things focus on completely new ideas.  Units that behave ways that no current unit behaves.

Like, what if you gave skeletons very high damage, so that they could kill farms in maybe 5 hits?  But make them even slower, so they're this hard to get unit that lumbers around but can do huge damage?

What if you renamed rangers to "mystics," gave them a couple spells like whirlwind and made it so if you upgrade their attacks, you throw fire like a dragon?  They should die very easily though, so that they're a very powerful unit but one you need to hide behind melee forces.  That'd be an interesting wrinkle to add, a unique new keep-level tech worth pursuing?  It would also make sense that whirlwind is worse than D&D in this scenario, because they come at different tech levels.

Get creative with it

[shesycompany]

yes i second that idea,warcraft 1 remake!! still alot of work though and it wouldnt be 100% but it would still be best to stay away from war2.

u can do as many races as u want..u would just mirror the exes...say one exe is orcs humans original..2nd exe is orc vs undead and also human vs undead..so on and so on..just need a way to make exe more easily manageable. even though it isnt that hard.

but they cant be more than 2 races in a game.

[Igognito]

u can do as many races as u want..u would just mirror the exes...say one exe is orcs humans original..2nd exe is orc vs undead and also human vs undead..so on and so on..just need a way to make exe more easily manageable. even though it isnt that hard.

but they cant be more than 2 races in a game.

Then that would be only usable for campaign mode rather than multi-player mode. (Still interesting and fun)

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

More new unit function ideas please!  How about if in the dragon roost you could upgrade move/attack speed?

[shesycompany]

oh yeah forgot,we are down lambchops and we was just getting that dude turned on :/

[woofy]

i think we need to balance lust out with a human equivalent, e.g "supershield" where for the same length of time, or maybe even a second or two longer, have the paladins shield strength increase x4 to combat the lust

[The Legend of StarTale]

just give paladin's bloodlust too

[mousEtopher]

yeah but call it like "holy vigor" or something

[ibrockinsteve]

there is a site that has warcraft 2 mods  (third race, dwarves) and another site that ahs a moding program or something where you can build a cave that flying units cant get into. you should be able to google them if not ask me and i will send you the links

[mousEtopher]

ibrockinsteve, can you send the links please