Heroes higher than level 10

AHA!

I found this in war3beta.mpq - 'units\miscdata.txt'

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MaxHeroLevel = 15
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This is from the original mpq, which is why the level is 15. I assume that it is also in war3betapatchmpq, and has been set to 10 (the maxherolevel never used to be 10, that was introduced in 1.10 I believe)

Presumably if you change this variable you can have a hero with a higher level than 10.

the file also holds the integers which show how much experience the hero must reach to advance to each level, so by editing that you can easily change the rate of how fast the heroes level up.

Im going to be digging into the war3betapatch.mpq soon to see if I can get this to work, but I thought you might like to know :-)

-Maeglin (Head of War3 at Ancilla)

it works :-)

you need to set the maxherolevel property to a higher value, and then add the experience needed to the list so that the hero will level up at the appropriate points. I managed to get my Demon hunter to level 28 by killing loads of ghouls in my rpg map.

The harder question is, will everyone who plays your map be able to get that high or will they have to change their mpqs as well?

The will unfortunately have to have the modified miscdata.txt, but that doesnt have to be in the mpq. It should be able to be put into the map file (the w3m), since it isnt an slk. If not, it can just be put into the correct path in their warcraft directory, and an installer can be made that will put it in then take it out when they dont want to play with the mod.

hopefully though it can go in the map, and then will only be used for that map.

Miscdata.txt holds a lot of interesting data, including the max foodcap for those who want a lower/higher cap.

Good work maeglin, my next map after the one I'm working on now is gonna be an RPG map, and I'll play with that some more ;)

The only real problem I see with higher than level 10 heroes now then is that there's no way in hell to fit all the skill buttons on there, especially for more than 4 skills. And there's still no way to change the level that ultimate spells are acquired.

Maybe you can work some more magic maeglin and figure out a fix for this? ;)

hmmm.... actually I just thought of something......

Create some kind of control building that is always selected instead of the actual hero. Then detect when the building (which will just be a base unit with a building graphic) is given an order to move, to put the order in a variable, cancle the order, and give the same order to the player's hero. Then as time goes on give the spells and stuff to the BUILDING, which should have alot more spaces avaialable.

Weird idea Dataangel, but it could work....

More Maeglin magic for you:

Changing the levels that ultimates are required for, thats in abilitydata.slk - there is a field which holds the level required for each skill - by default 1 for normal skills and 6 for ultimates, so you can change the skills as you like. You can also give ultimate skills levels like other skills, so you can have level 1 starfall, level 2 starfall, level 3 starfall etc.... could be pretty nasty :-). It also holds other data for each spell that is particular to that spell, for instance - how much damage mirror images do in combat (as a percentage of the casting blademasters damage). This is currently set at 0 (obviously, since they dont do any damage), but you could easily change it so that they do damage :-D

The problem with this is that of course whoever is playing the map needs to have the modified SLK, and it cant just be downloaded with the map since its loaded when the game is booted. Its fine for single-player mods, but for multiplayer you have to make sure everyone has it installed.

As for having more skills show in the buttons, thats a tough one. Im looking in to see If I can find a way to have submenus in the ui (like when you tell a peon to build, it goes to a sumbenu with the available buildings, and when your hero levels up and you select a new skill). It was possible in SC using Stargraft, and if it worked you could have submenus for all available skills, allowing you to have a lot more.

its possbiel, just change the position of the buttons

But is this possible in multiplayer map though?and can you chang ethe max level of a spell from 3 to say 5?

Cookie I know you can change the button positions, but that limits you to 12 - (the number of normal command buttons), which is normally about 6 max (since you have move, attack, stop, hold position etc). If you want to have more than that you need to have a submenu, which means you need to create a button that when it clicks takes new button positions for icons, the same way for when you learn a skill (since skills have 2 coords, one for where they are placed for use, and one where they are placed for learning). If you know how to do this id be interested to know :-)

submenu's are hard, as its been written in the gameae.dll (only build structure and train unit) has sub menu's

also, upping the skill to upgradeable to 6 times seems unussual (havent messed with it) because the data only allows three upgrade data

I think for the benefit of the mapping community it'd be good if a pack was made of altered files (custom slks, etc.) that would be updated with new versions as mappers requested new features, and just let become a standard so that enough people will have the files that any joe schmoe who joins your game on the net will be able to play your map.

Hey maeglin, have you actually tried putting it in the map file?

Cuz I've been fiddling with it for awhile now and I can't get it to work :(

Can anyone confirm this? Or, if you find you CAN go above level 10 with it in map file, can ya post yer map so I can see what stupid mistake I'm making? :p

Tryed adding miscdata to the map: FAILED
Tryed to set it on map init (war3map.j): FAILED

I think the stuff on miscdata is not readable by JASS. I guess Blizz will later on allow us to do that, coz if you open blizzard.j, you can see:

// Ideally these would be looked up from Units/MiscData.txt,
// but there is currently no script functionality exposed to do that
constant real bj_TOD_DAWN = 6.00
constant real bj_TOD_DUSK = 18.00

So maybe later on blizz "will script functionality exposed to do that".

I dont think you can put it in the map file - I havent tried it yet, but it works fine in the war3 directory structure. The problem is that it affects the whole of war3, so is loaded when the program is loaded, not when the map is loaded. For any maps I do im just going to write a little installation program that will put in the files in the correct place, and then remove them when they want to play a normal game.

As for having a skill upgradeable more than 3 times - im with cookie. The slk only has data for 3 upgrades, and adding in extra fields would probably not work. Still, ill keep looking. Somewhere there is an slk file which simply says what data there should be for each unit - hopefully theres one for abilities, and it can be modded to allow higher level skills.