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| Thread: I do not fully understand the logics behind the rating you get when playing Heroes IV | |
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Type-R
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 23, 2006 04:31 PM |
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I do not fully understand the logics behind the rating you get when playing Heroes IV
Heroes Of Might And Magic is my all time favourite game. I've played Heroes II and III a lot (and I mean a lot - it possibly contributed to my divorce a few years ago). I tried to avoid Heroes IV for many years, since I have a new girlfriend and don't want to risk anything, but now I have started playing it (about time, since Heroes V is ready for launch now).
On some scenarios I managed to get a Black Dragon-rating in Heroes II, and an Archangel-rating in Heroes III. After playing a scenario, and getting a certain rating, I usually immediately try the same scenario again, to try to complete it in fewer days - thereby improving the rating.
When I try to improve the rating in Heroes IV, however, I was confused. I tried one scenario (cannot remember the name of it right now, but that's not important here), and completed it in 75 days. I gathered my two strongest heroes in one stack, and combined with their army they became an unstoppable force. However, I found out that it was an overkill, since I met no significant resistance from any of the enemies.
Wanting to improve the rating, I split my two best heroes in two stacks or armies, one went to the east and the other went to the west. By doing this I shortened the time needed to complete the scenario drastically. I now managed it in 50 days - by playing strategically better.
Now in Heroes II and III, this would off course have resulted in a much better rating. But what happened here? I got a worse rating than when I used 75 days on the same scenario. All settings of map difficulty and so on was equal.
How could this happen? I register that there are more factors to the rating in Heroes IV than map difficulty/days used to complete, but still I cannot understand the logics here. I didn't have that much less money, and my best hero was still strong after completing the scenario for the second time (Best Hero and Money are two of the other factors that contribute to your rating).
Has anyone else experienced this with Heroes IV, and do you understand the logics? It has always been regarded a better strategy to complete the game as fast and effective as possible, in stead of just walking around wasting time, collecting money and getting an over-kill army. Is this no longer the case in Heroes IV? Why on earth not? I really hope to get some answers from some of you more experienced players here, although most of you probably have stopped playing Heroes IV by now.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted April 27, 2006 01:09 PM |
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Edited by Djive on 27 Apr 2006
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It was a long time since I played heroes 4, but the following could guide you to why you get better or worse ratings. Some of these things are from memory.
- The number of won battles and number of completed quests resets after each load. Thus if you reload a game late in a scenario that will really hurt your score since both won battles and completed quests contribute to your score.
- The XP (of your best hero only) is counted towards your score. (Thus splitting XP between many heroes may give a lower score.)
- Total army strength contributes towards the score. (Thus losing most of your troops in last battle will hurt your score.)
Also some factors tend to increase over time, like the XP of your best hero and the total army strength. I gather sometimes these may increase faster than the days taken will lower your score.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Type-R
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 27, 2006 11:01 PM |
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Quote:
It was a long time since I played heroes 4, but the following could guide you to why you get better or worse ratings. Some of these things are from memory.
- The number of won battles and number of completed quests resets after each load. Thus if you reload a game late in a scenario that will really hurt your score since both won battles and completed quests contribute to your score.
Ah, I think this might be the answer to my question. Thanks a lot for a very informative response.
In a way it's good that reloading gives a lower score/rating, since it prevents rewarding the use of the autosave-button every time one makes a mistake. But the bad thing is that one is being punished for saving for example a huge scenario. Some of the big ones in heroes 4 take several hours to complete - now one hardly dares starting on such a scenario, knowing that if one saves it half-completed to continue later on, the rating is ruined.
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted April 27, 2006 11:36 PM |
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I disliked the rating system is heroes 4 so much, part of why I stopped playing it even though I tried to like the game for other reasons. You aren't allowed to complete a map fast, because you won't have enough points in gold or experience and so you have to delay it to try to maximize the score. The map thing is big too, have to scout too much of it to get a good score and maps having underground destroys the score when they use too little underground and I really don't want to visit every little patch of sea. So when you realise you don't have another hour to play to where you think it would be most optimal to win you cuss loudly and walk away angrily because a save will totally ruin the score. There's a maximum points for days taken for completion too, no point in completing it too fast at all.
Highscores are fun and makes games last way longer for me. No way in **** I would play a game like arkanoid for hours on end if there's no highscore table in it. So let's hope it works just fine in heroes 5.
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Type-R
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 29, 2006 12:13 AM |
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Edited by Type-R on 28 Apr 2006
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I completely agree. Highscores are good fun. It made Heroes 2 and 3 last much, much longer than they would have without that aspect of the game. Well, I still think they last after all these years...
The idea of including armies and hero statistics in the high score, doesn't make sense. When the mission is to finish off your opponents, the high score should reflect how effectively you accomplished this mission. In Heroes 2 and 3, only amateurs wasted time on building over-kill armies, when you could accomplish the mission weeks earlier by risking to face the opponent with an equal or only slightly superior army. How could the makers of Heroes 4 do such a fatal mistake?
Personally I like Heroes 4 a lot, despite everyone saying it's inferior to its predecessors. It's got beautiful visuals, fantastic music, very fine artwork (I like the look of many of the monsters better in Heroes 4 than in Heroes 3, for instance) - hey, I even liked the concept of heroes taking part in the battle and monsters being able to walk about on their own. But this High Score-problem. It really, seriously messes the game up. It makes this incarnation of the fantastic Heroes-series inferior to its predecessors in quality. I too really hope that the forthcoming fifth edition will not have these kind of logical "faults".
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Type-R
Tavern Dweller
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posted May 06, 2006 11:51 AM |
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Edited by Type-R at 11:52, 06 May 2006.
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Another question, this time related to the High Score when playing the campaigns of Heroes 3:
I tried to follow the strategic advice described here: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/campaignqueen.shtml
However, I'm surprised that my high score wasn't as good as I had predicted. A friend of mine did this campaign in an "amateur way", spending several weeks on upgrading his army to an over-kill size. I, however, rushed immediately to solve the purpose of each scenario in the campaign, as described in the thread above. And I ended up with a high score only 15 points higher than my friend (960 as opposed to 945). I know that I spent weeks less fulfilling the mission than he did.
Do you know if there are any other factors that sum up the high score than days spent completing the mission? I know now that in Heroes 4 the number of days is less important. Like mentioned above her, there your total amount of gold, the statistics of your best hero, battles won etc also adds up to your high score. Compared with for instance Heroes 2, that means that Heroes 4 rewards "amateur playing" (meaning playing like an amateur, waiting weeks and weeks before you dare attack your opponents, and when you finally do dare, your army proves to be 10 times stronger than was actually needed). But to my knowledge, this is not the case in Heroes 3. Or is it? Does any of you know a possible explanation to my high score-questions?
PS! I have not had this problem when playing single scenarios in Heroes 3. There I have even managed an Archangel-rating when playing in Impossible-mode.
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted May 06, 2006 02:38 PM |
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Scores in heroes 2 are based on time only, you need a little more in heroes 3 though. Take all towns, defeat all enemies, find the grail and do it in a quick manner for a good score. Can't get max possible score that you think would be achievable because there's so few grails in the campaigns. If you were quick and skipped a lot, like letting an enemy live when the goal for the map is to take a town and he completely killed the enemy it equals out kinda. Time is still the most important factor, the trick is to kill a lot as much as you can.
The advice for that campaign is a bit iffy if you want to complete it in the fastest time possible, my record for the long live the queen campaign is 29 days. I did skip a lot there obviously.
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Type-R
Tavern Dweller
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posted May 07, 2006 04:10 PM |
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Thanks a lot for your reply. It was very helpful.
29 days is awesome. Respect.
I played it just now, two times. The first time I did it as fast as I could, completing it in 70 days. The second time, I waited around to kill off all heroes and enemy castles in addition to actually completing the mission. I did it in 110 days, and guess what; The total score of these two games were equal (960/Evil Eye).
I think it is sad that they have included so many factors in the total score, besides how effectively you actually complete the mission. It is almost as if it should have stated in the scenario information that "Flag all griffin dwellings to win. Oh, and don't forget to do a lot of other stuff irrelevant to this mission as well". 
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