Heroes higher than level 10

Is it possible? I'd think blizzard would be smart enough to include some way to lower and heighten experience cap or something, but I also remember an assertion error back when gauntlet first came out whenever a hero went over level 10.

I'm thinking of possibly getting around this by turning off the normal way for a hero to gain experience and simply using the learn skill triggers and gold dropped by enemies. There are a few obstacles though.

However, the learn skill trigger requires you specify a specific skill -- as opposed to just giving the player a point to spend in one.

So then I get the idea of letting the player _purchase_ their skills at a goblin merchant. They go to the merchant, click the spell they want to buy it, and this generates some custom unit, and meanwhile you have a trigger checking for the spawn of this custom unit, and when it detects it, it gives the hero a point in that skill. So you'd just have a different custom unit setup for each possible skill. Sounds all nice and dandy.

But it's still unsatisfactory for two reasons:

1. Ranged heroes and those meant primarily for support get alot less gold than normal ones, because whoever gets the last hit gets the gold.

(Update: I thought of a solution to that. Have a location follow the hero, and if an enemy dies within that location he gets gold -- that way it's just like experience, it's about proximity instead of the last hit)

2. You can't get the icon right at the goblin merchant. You can make the custom unit icon look like anything you want, EXCEPT spells. And that plain just doesn't look as cool ;)

Now, I recently found out war3 maps are really just mini-mpq files, and I started browsing the .j file inside, and I got too wondering where exactly war3 stores the info for custom units. Because whereever it specifies the portrait, you could probably just change that to some value equivalent to chain lightning, and thus get the icon for it.

Anyone have any ideas?

I think u could use the learn skill trigger. When a hero becomes lvl 10 and then get max exp maybe u could make him learn a skill and then loose all exp, but he is still lvl 10 but with the lowest possible exp points, something like that. I dont know if u can make a event when a hero reaches an exact lvl. Maybe u could use variables but i dont know how to add a value to a variable only set.

errr.... just forget what i just wrote, it wont work

Well, I was suggesting throwing out the normal xp system altogether and using gold in my map instead. To indicate the hero went up a level I'd just have it print, "You gained a level!" or something ;)

Thats the easiest way to do things...it saves alot of uneccesary work and triggers....
Blizzard will hopefully add some more triggers....

Unforutnatly you can not give skill points to a hero, you can dictate what skills he learns (provided he has askill point to use) and give him items that give spells, but I can't think of a way to get around this as far as I can tell if you disable xp gain on a hero he just becomes a slightly more powerful then a footman type unit. (He is frozen at level 1 once you disable xp gain)

Hey. You guy just gave me a great idea to do something with that in my map! Thx

Wait, why can't you give heroes no skill with "learn skill?"

Well you can. Just that when you open unit editor and a hero you well see 2 type of abilities on the list.

Use the hero abilites to put in skill into the learn skill.
If you adjust the hero lv when that hero been placed.
double click it and adjust the lv to 1 - 10 and if you goto the skill section you can put points in the skill or just leave it so in game other people decide what skill they want.

If this ain't your answer someone pls delete this.

Eh, when I say "learn skill" I mean a trigger that actually puts a point into it. Lemme guess.... learn skill doesn't do that?

MAN blizz needs to add some triggers. First off, there should be something just like, "Level up Skill any" and "Level up Skill (insert specific skill here)". Because sometimes you just want to give them a point without them going up a level, and sometimes you want to force them to learn something specific.....argh....

First dark force please stop posting incorect things if you don't know what your talking about then stop talking about it!

Okay if they have a skill point then learn skill trigger will put a point into if he doesn't then learn skill trigger doesn't do it. You can't give out skill points. MY answer is make an item that gives spells.
But wait theres more!
Let say you want to upgrade the heros damage and armor when he "fake levels" (when you say he does)? Well remember that upgrade thing you discovered and I triggered? You can give the hero the ability to be upgraded by regular upgrades. But whats even beter is that regular 3 upgrades can be upgraded over a 3 times (I think 255 is the limit right now) So you could have it every time the hero levels you give him 2 manuals of health which are automaticly used (+100 hp) and an upgrade. So you could technically have over 10 levels...(bizare eh?)

Other cool stuff you can do.
Since were discusing hero tricks. You can disable and enable hero abilities! Now that sounds useless but lets say your making a necromancer like in D2 which had poison spells and necro spells and some other chain of spells. Well you can have some trigger unit goto Poison region and it disables all other spells and enables his 4 poision spells. It retains what level they were if you disable and then enable them for player so well I think thats very cool :)

How to work learn skill
Select the unit applies to (You should define what hero as a variable like do) then you choose what skill he uses but he must actually have that skill (like you can't give a guy who doesn't have the blizzard spell in his arsenal a point into blizzard.).

you cant get 255 upgrades 3 is max even if you put a trigger attackupgrade = 255 ..

Damn hopefully some guy will find a way around this

For hero levels above 10 - My good friend Availium (you might now him, since he is head of one of your affiliates, Ancilla) came up with quite an imaginative way of getting round this. Its not perfect but helps. Basically say you want to have a hero that can go up to level 20, you create 2 custom units, one for levels 1-10 and one for 11-20. When the first one levels up past 10, you delete him and create a new unit using the 2nd unit. The second unit of course starts off much better, and increments at the same speed.

problems. When the new unit is created he loses all abilities. The trick is you would need to make him high enough level to have the same abilities if you still want them, or you can give him completely different abilities. (this will more be more helpful when I find the ability script files since I can then edit abilities).

2nd problem - its tough keeping track of tomes (strength, intelligence, agility etc.) but it IS possible :-)

-Maeglin

(hopes this gives you some ideas)

You could use variables for tomes and stuff.