also, in my opinion i think in endless legend you should place more emphasis on administrative heroes because the system is more complex than endless space and all heroes should be harder to pay for instance, more expensive, or maybe you could pay them with other items such as food or resources or maybe even land? also instead of all heroes requiring specific payment how about heroes work in tiers, i.e. lowest tier is the least valuable and is paid the least and is sort of the starting tier and highest tier is very powerful but more late game requiring a lot to earn. just my thoughts.

in endless space heroes could have a propaganda trait that adds happiness in a system, thats kind of like what you said but applies to your population.

Well i think The heros could have traits like Loyal or Family man in which case he fights harder or maybe even has less of a chance to get angry with the current goverment ( I don't know were i am going Hope you can make sense of this)

well they can still be injured which takes them out of action for quite some time

This gonna be interesting to play - Immortal heros with an interesting skilltree lol

Will heroes work the way they do in ES as in that they are set pre defined characters?



Mostly thinking about the "random profile" for the faction hero.



perhaps thats just me thinking in RPG terms, but i like creating at least the faction leader hero myself.

we really need some sort of uber hero class that is mid to late game but those heroes are the best in the game. also dragon heroes, i don't want to slay the dragon, i want to kill the good knight and gain an amazing dragon hero. just a thought for those diplomatically evil factions.

Hopefully us non-VIPs can provide some feedback as well.



Hero Skills:



I would really like to see the "signature" class of each faction. So lets say the dwarfs get a special tree for fighter that grants better benefits from fighting with a shield. This would A. Increase incentive to play to a races strengths, rather then just what is good. B. would fit their aesthetic better giving a cohesive image of that race. C. Provide counter play. If you are playing against said Dwarfs it might be worth while to have mages because they are able to bypass the fighter's defenses.



Also the prospect of the multi-classing interests me. It is obviously a after thought to setting up balanced trees, then refactoring for certain combos. Make some really solid base classes then as a sort of "prestiging" allowing them to chose to go to the top of the tree or take half of another tree. Allowing my oh so favorite arcane warrior, taking the buffs from a magical class and mixing it with the martial expertise of another.



Sundering the world. There needs to be ways for the heros of the world to change it. Whether leveling mountains or parting the sea, They need to be very real players in the world.



Starting Hero's:



Starting with your faction leader would be interesting when it came to custom races. Allowing you to be able to have your favorite class right from the start. It will make you invested in this hero and live vicariously through him in the world. You can say starting with a hero is too much, perhaps he is cursed and requires X amount of resource in order to free him.



Instead of just "here is 3 hero's and they just appear" why not make it more organic. You find a elven mage fighting off orcs. Neither side is going to win without your help, if you help the mage he might offer his services to you, if you help the orcs it could open a dialog with their leaders to ally yourself with them. What is your choice? Gives story, investment, and meaning to the world. All of which would be fantastic.



Just my 2 cents. I'm currently throwing my wallet at my screen and the money is still in it, WHY WON'T YOU TAKE IT! Love the work so far, your friendly neighborhood lurker.

if there is magic in endless legend shouldn't you be able to scry on your enemies?

I really woud like that all 'spy' abilities are for a real spy hero and not for army general. I don't see a general besiege a city and discreetly spy on them. It's two totally different things. I think Endless Legend need a spy/diplomat/saboteur type hero, distinct from the military one. A hero you send alone on an allie/enemy city to spy/sabotage/or just improve the diplomatic relations.

HERO DEFINITION

Like in Endless Space, the player can recruit and assign a hero to an army or a city garrison.

Assigned heroes provide bonus or capacities to their armies or cities and will spread out on the battleground to fight with their army or with their garrison units as a last resort if the city is under attacked. Each hero can be managed through 3 interfaces: Equipment, Skill Tree and the Hall of Heroes (ES Academy).



Hero Definition

Heroes are units with:

• A profile (unit class / portrait / description / specific attributes / capacities)
• A Unit Class (among: ranged, cavalry, melee, flying, support)
• More item slots available
• The ability to change items without Industry costs
• The ability to be assigned to a city or an army to give bonuses
• A skill tree
• They cannot die
  
  

Besides, by being able to generate names, we insure that each Hero is unique even if he can share the same profile with other heroes.





SKILL TREE



System

• Each time a hero levels up, a skill point is earned and can be spent immediately or later through the Faction Skill Tree to unlock one new Hero skill
• Some skills may have several upgrades requiring for each to spend one additional skill point
• As a tree, some skills may have some other skills to be unlocked first as prerequisites
• For skill prerequisites, only the first level of one skill is required to go forward through the Tree
• To spend a skill point, the Player can never go back through the Skill Tree
• Some skills are common to all Heroes, and some others can be available and visible only to one specific Faction or to one specific Unit Class
  
  

Structure Mockup









Skills

Various skills exist, impacting many categories of game elements:







HALL OF HEROES

The hall of Heroes is a screen listing all the Player’s Empire Heroes.



Hero States



Unassigned

• The Hero can be assigned immediately to an Army as General or to a City as Governor
  
  

Assigned

• The Hero is “Assigned” to a city as Governor, or to an army as General
• Once assigned, a Hero cannot be reassigned to a city or an army before a cooldown (in turns) is over
• This cooldown can be impacted by Hero skills, Hero Profiles or Equipment Items
  
  

Injured

• A Hero gets injured by being defeated in battle (all Life depleted and no surviving units)
• If the Hero was assigned at this moment, he gets unassigned automatically and is set as “Injured”
• When injured, the hero requires some time to recover automatically. Time of recovery can be impacted by Hero skills, Hero Profiles or Equipment Items
• The player can also decide to directly pay in Dust to get immediately his hero available again. The amount of Dust required is bound to the remaining time to recover
  
  

Getting New Heroes

Heroes can be obtained through different ways:



Starting Hero

• The player automatically gets, for free, one Hero, one army and one city when he starts a new game
• The hero, of the Player's faction, is randomly selected among existing profiles (depending on each Faction)
  
  

Exclusive Heroes

• Through the Market Place GUI, some elements are exclusive, meaning that they can be only seen and bought by the Player, like Exclusive Heroes.
• n Exclusive Heroes are available at the beginning of the game, this value can change with factions, traits or techs
• At any moment, the player can buy one of them. The Hero is then added to the Hall of Heroes, available. A new exclusive Hero then gets available to be bought
  
  

Price

• Heroes bought through the exclusive market have a price bound to their level and the number of heroes already existing in the player’s Hall of Heroes
  
  

Replacement Cooldown

• If an exclusive hero is not bought, after a cooldown of n turns, he is automatically replaced by a new one
• This cooldown can depend on Faction Traits and Techs
• The replaced Hero then instantly leaves the Private Market and is injected into the Market Place with a new price (to be detailed in another GDD)
  
  

New Exclusive Heroes

• Profiles of the new upcoming Exclusive Heroes are randomly selected among those existing for each Faction
• They get a level fitting with the current Turn. They also get pre-unlocked skills fitting with their profile and their level (1 skill by level)
  
  

Open Market Heroes

• Like other elements, Heroes can be bought through the Open Market Place as well
• Cost: such heroes have their price subject to the Open Market rules like any other elements (to be detailed in another GDD)
  
  

Quest Heroes

• Some hero profiles can also be obtained only as quest rewards of some quests
  
  

VIP FEEDBACK

• Starting heroes You can expect many heroes coming from the different Factions through the Exclusive and the Open Market Place.
• Hero Skills - each hero can potentially get more skills that go better with her faction gameplay, traits and affinity, thanks to her skill tree.
  
  

I agree with what you are saying Blitz about Heroes having specific bonus depending on their race.



DarkMeph

i think they should add a new mechanic for heroes, heroes of your species are most effective but alien heroes can have a special trait that makes them more effective. also heroes from other species should also have faction specific bonus abilities, i.e. ue heroes have extra money or sophons have extra science.

I 100% concur with the faction thing. If I'm a Horatio give me a vat cloned hero. If I'm a death lord give me a death lord hero. Especially in a fantasy setting it would just be bizarre to be an undead death lord and get a paladin hero, for example. At the VERY least make it somewhat challenging to get a hero outside of your realm. This would:



A. Open up more diversity as your faction's skill tree would be your only one unless you found a way to get a hero outside your realm.

B. Add a lot more flavor fluff to the game. The noble humans get noble human heroes, instead of the tricky elves getting a death knight and human and random dwarf. Why are dwarves even leading elves? It's that exact thing that just made me ... well not hate, but it was a pet peeve in the ES system. If I'm a proud Horatio why do I use an Amoeba hero?

C. Make sense.



The biggest problem was that ES lacked hero diversity. Every hero basically became a governor or a military leader. It didn't matter who they were, what faction they were from, or whatever. They were all soulless leaders who all worked the same way. An amoeba governor? Same as a Human governor. Horatio governor? Same thing too. You might as well have taken the pictures away completely since it didn't matter.

ColonelBogey wrote:
/cut/ but I think heroes shouldn't serve a kingdom they do not align with if that makes sense.

Aye, I concur with all my might.



I've always found this "recruiting open formula" in Endless Space quite weird and wasting this precious little lore twas in the game. I've always felt...uneasy... about recruiting a guy...say Dundub Lakai of Amoeba, just after I'd pillaged all the Amoeba' homeworlds as a proud Hissho. Sure, I know there are people like traitors or mercenaries; but then, recruiting 1) a peaceful and cooperative guy (according to the description) 2) by a warmongering race 3) that has just brought ruin to the hero's race 4) and should pretty much despise such a honorableness entity... seems pretty invalid.



Not to mention the situation, where I'm all alone in space, not knowing yet about any other races, yet still I can recruit Sophons, Cravers, Pilgrims, all those crazy people I can't (as a in-game leader) even name.



I can always add some RPG element of my own, deciding to omit some candidates as they seem unrealistic; or imagine some explanation by meself (using the example above - lets say, Hissho took him as a hostage to ensure the compliance of conquered Amoebas). Surely I'd prefer being granted those elements of realism instead of filling the gaps by myself.



So, I agree that some kind of alignment mechanism would do nicely. Even the simplest one, like "Good race - can have good and neutral; Evil race - can have evil and neutral; Neutral race - can have all". Or racial factors, say "I can recruit heroes from race I know about and I'm not at war with". Or sumthin like that.



I am aware of course, that would require some more work, like balancing the heroes stats. Still, I'd find the game with those additions much more gripping and reasonable.

"Administrator" heroes are quite rare in fantasy settings, and yet they fit very well. And the Faction section of the three is a great way to add personality to each race! Though i think it will be by far the trickiest to design of the three.

I think maybe it would be interesting to be approached for your deeds whether they are dire or grand by certain heroes. Instead of randomly gaining heroes, maybe you could try to gain the attention of certain heroes who have certain requirements kinda like DnD with their Lawful / Neutral stuff. I do not know if that would really work but I think heroes shouldn't serve a kingdom they do not align with if that makes sense.

giant dragon gets slayed, a new hero is added to your party. that would be amazing. or even better, looney the lunatic is slain, a giant dragon is added to your party.

Like in Endless Space can you research to have more heroes? Would better heroes come from quest awards? I mean will they be higher level or have more skills? I feel ones that are quest awards should be unique.



DarkMeph