Greetings, Defenders

Work on Full Invasion continues, and we are fast approaching the release of the next preview build. This update focuses on hero powers, a new system which has been built from the ground up for Full Invasion: Osiris. The goal with our design is to make heroes much more interesting and for each one to be unique in some way. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and questions in the comments below or over on our Discord Server!

Before we begin, we would like to once again extend our thanks to the amazing community built around Full Invasion. We continue to receive great suggestions from our supporters and players on Discord that help shape our future projects. The mod would be in a much different place without your feedback and love, so thank you!

In the eyes of many players, heroes never felt unique. Sure, they looked nice in their iconic armour, but the only thing that makes them different is their frankly overpowered stats. Warband's combat system is a huge limiting factor when it comes to making heroes play differently or feel special. From a design perspective, our choices were super limited by this system, as the only way we can make hero units 'special’ is a large price tag and inflated stats to match. So, if the only thing that matters is the hero with the best stats (William Wallace), how do we encourage variety?

With Osiris being built from the ground up, we have the opportunity to step back and overhaul parts of the mod which we feel have always been lacking. We've already shown off some of these areas in articles and preview builds, but today is all about the changes coming to heroes.

Heroes in Osiris have two new mechanics working behind the scenes to really set them apart from one another. We believe this will make heroes feel much more unique, promote cooperation and teamwork, and just make the mod more fun overall. The new systems described in this article, as well as some additional changes, are available for testing in the latest preview build releasing today over on Patreon.

It's important to note at this point that everything showcased in this article is still subject to change. Heroes, stats, items, and abilities may be adjusted as development continues and we receive feedback from our Patrons during testing. If you have any suggestions for additions or changes of your own, please share them in the comments below!

Leadership Powers:

Leadership powers are passive buffs that heroes give to members of their subfactions within a 20m radius. These buffs vary in both type and intensity depending on the hero, The same buff does not stack when multiple heroes give the same bonus, and hero classes don't benefit from the buffs of other heroes.

When a player receives a buff, icons appear on their HUD to denote the type of buff and its intensity. Currently, there are 23 leadership powers which provide unique buffs that work dynamically throughout the session. Some examples of leadership powers include increased health, melee damage, ranged damage, reload speed, and damage resistance. The exact values for each buff a hero gives, along with what defenders they apply to, are displayed on the hero selection screen.

Heroes can be synergised to provide the best distribution of buffs for defenders, which we believe will promote a lot of teamwork between players (especially during events) — Gimli to buff dwarven defenders, Aragorn to buff Rangers (and smaller buffs for Gondorian and Arnorian troops), and the Witch-King to buff Black Numenorean defenders.

Aside from passive leadership powers, each hero has a toggleable ability which can be activated by holding the cheer key. These abilities are what truly make heroes unique in Full Invasion: Osiris, and what sets the system apart from those seen in other mods.

Hero Abilities:

Abilities are so wide-reaching in scope that it's hard to do the system justice with just a few examples. They range from personal bonuses like significantly increased damage for a short time, support abilities like group healing or summoning allies, crowd-control such as freezing invaders, movement abilities like teleportation, and quite a few unorthodox abilities thrown in.

Because of how powerful abilities are, there's a wave-based cooldown system to ensure they're not used too often. The length of this cooldown is directly related to the ability. Some abilities have immediate effects when triggered, while others last for a short amount of time like regen. Just like leadership powers, full explanations for each ability can be seen on the hero selection screen.

We'll be releasing an additional article in the coming weeks which will go into more detail about some current abilities, how they can be used to turn the tide of battle, and some fun ideas we've had for possible abilities in the future.

Now that heroes aren’t limited to overpowered demigods, we can be a lot more creative with our hero designs for each faction, tailoring their abilities and recommended playstyle to their thematic source.

Making Ymira a hero for the Calradia faction would make no sense in previous versions of the mod (without making her uncharacteristically overpowered) — would you pick the heavily armoured king, or the knife-wielding woman? With our new systems in place, we can make Ymira a legitimate consideration as a hero pick for the early game because, while she would thematically have poor stats, she can be given powerful healing or support abilities to justify her use and value to team.

We’re just scratching the surface with what these systems can do, so we're super excited to continue work on Osiris and see what we can come up with for the more 'interesting' factions (like Warhammer)!

If you have any suggestions for cool heroes, powers, or special items, please let us know on Discord or below in the comments. We would love to hear what you guys think, and most suggestions find themselves being used in some way or another!

As far as news goes, you can expect another article in the next few weeks (™) which will go into more detail about some interesting hero powers, items, and feedback we've received from our Patrons so far!