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| Thread: Did random maps/templates destroy h3 as it was? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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casihasi
Known Hero
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posted May 25, 2010 07:41 AM |
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Did random maps/templates destroy h3 as it was?
Controversial topic, but iam in the mood to toss something out.
For me they sure did, when looking back at those old times...
Reasons:
a) too many restarts. Sometimes i wasted a whole night and didn't even get to finish one game. You play 1 week, then suddenly your opponent/friends writes: Sorry but iam blocked in by a snowload of Titans who guard the sea hat. Can't do anything 
Awesome, 1h or more wasted. All plans you already made in your head for this game down the drain.
b) Too much time wasted in general on those maps. Yes stuff like Blockbuster was fun, a few timnes...until i realized that:
you usually end up in a huge desert. No pathfinding? Whatever, game has just gotten longer by ~2 weeks.
7 heroes is not enough to chain an army to the place you actually find at? Well snow, let's wait 1 week to make the troops you bring worth the effort...meanwhile...oh crap i lost some crucial critters vs a pack of Archdevils, damn i really needed reinforcements...
c) Necro not playable. Diplo. Some of the stuff that made for a nice change on good maps, where diplo wasn't overpowered, and where you cannot fight 2000 L1 to create a gazillion skellis.
d) Unbalanced starting territories. Of course everyone liked rampart now, that grasland usually looked like a paradise.
e) misplaced guards that you agree to fight anyway. Of course.
But it surely isn't the same...the feeling of breaking through something is totally lost, and i just think: why am i playing this buggy crap?
Ok now that i wrote this down, let's take a look at the common arguments of random lovers against pre-made maps.
Ok there would be..."you memeorized the map, that is why you got an advantage!"
Here is what i think: Err yea sure, i took a look...in almost every strategy game/shooter i know this is as standard as it gets. It would be impossible to filter out the good maps otherwise...
And part of playing skilled is to make plans for the map you will play. Oh, and part of the FUN too.
Then..."it is always the same!"
Well, play different maps...? There have been enough good ones out there, thanks to great mapmakers like JB239.
Besides, no game on a good map is the same. You have to adjust your strategys all the time, it is not like that you would see what is actually on the map (random monsters, artis etc) before the game...
Then..."i want to explore!"
Great...explore what? As if not everyone would have memorized what a certain template will create. First find the town...follow the road...break into area 2, with not so much good stuff but mines and woohoo another town...break into area 3, with better Artis...break into the treasure zone (desert, get pathfinding!!!) and dig for relics, topias, Panda boxes...
zzZZZzz...for me it was all over when this creed started.
People totally forgot how they (most likey) got into the game: by playing maps, and by making plans for them.
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SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
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posted May 25, 2010 08:58 AM |
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a) too many restarts.
play Jebus XL/Skirmish L/Balance L/true random L- on these templates you will rarely need restart
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You play 1 week, then suddenly your opponent/friends writes: Sorry but iam blocked in by a snowload of Titans who guard the sea hat. Can't do anything
Mostly on original XL templates with one-way monolith. In homm3 TE or WT versions this problem is fixed (all one-way monoliths work as 2-way)
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b) Too much time wasted in general on those maps.
play Skirmish L or Jebus XL. these are fast templates, require 3-6 hours per game. With sim-turns can be much faster, but sim-turns are not fully stable yet.
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c) Necro not playable.
you may set rules for SOD or just play on homm3 WT version, there you can play any town without problem
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d) Unbalanced starting territories. Of course everyone liked rampart now, that grasland usually looked like a paradise.
Depends on template and game version. For example, I would prefer Fortress or Stronghold for Jebus, Inferno for Marathon; on WT version you can play and win with ANY town - towns more balanced and small disbalances can be manipulated with gold bets. You just don't understand how good game is now because you never tried to play the new system.
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e) misplaced guards that you agree to fight anyway.
i don't understand what do you mean here. Anyway it's not a problem.
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arguments of random lovers against pre-made maps.
Ok there would be..."you memeorized the map, that is why you got an advantage!"
it was interesting for me to play fixed map like Desert War...maybe first 10-15 times...later it became boring. nothing new. all the same. if someone discovers new strategy, it becomes known to everybody and you don't need to use brains there, just "copy/paste" same moves over and over again.
In random maps you need to adapt to current situation, make quick decisions about priorities in game. For example: you have unvisited nagabank, tope, cons and hive, 5k gold and you need 12k gold to buy all troops. So you must think carefully which army you need for each object, calculate distancies to optimize route, calculate hero chain. Perhaps you will need to change plans if some of these objects will have max guards. On fixed map you don't need to adapt, you just know what to do.
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Then..."it is always the same!"
Well, play different maps...?
there are many maps, but why best skilled fix map lovers play mostly 2-3 of them?
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People totally forgot how they (most likey) got into the game: by playing maps, and by making plans for them.
what is your objective? to get more fixed players? no way, fixed maps players are like Apple in PC world - stable 5% of enthusiasts.
you wanna tell us that some time ago people played fixed map? we know that.
you wanna tell us that some time ago people loved fixed maps more? we know that. RMG was a secret and nobody knew how to generate interesting maps. But now things have changed. Also, WT version is optimized for random maps.
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I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
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liophy
Famous Hero
Bulgarian
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posted May 25, 2010 12:36 PM |
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Edited by liophy at 12:44, 25 May 2010.
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Its a matter of taste. Its pointless to argue what is better.
So, its good you said your opinion. If someone intend to offer you a game, he will know not to offer random map.
But again, there is no sence to blast the rmg-s. People wouldnt play it, if they didnt like it.
And without arguing, i will just point out why i like it.
For me half the pleasure is the thrill of the unknown. Thats why i play 99% full random. Its like a gift to get "good town" and "good hero". Than i like the things i discover in every new turn.If its fix map, this thrill will be gone.
Its like with woman. Even if you have the sweetest, sexiest, most wonderfull women in the world, after couple of years you will not have the same thrill.
Now, imagine you can be with a new girl every night. What man doesnt dream for this 
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I play Heroes 3 Online at: www.heroes-III.com
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 25, 2010 12:43 PM |
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liophy
Famous Hero
Bulgarian
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posted May 25, 2010 12:51 PM |
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And ask for a restart if her panties are not your taste.
Still its better than if she wears always the same panties
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I play Heroes 3 Online at: www.heroes-III.com
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted May 25, 2010 01:55 PM |
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zzZZZzz...for me it was all over when this creed started.
People totally forgot how they (most likey) got into the game: by playing maps, and by making plans for them.
I'm not sure that's a valid argument. It is not important how you got into the game, but what the reason was you still stick to it! And the random maps are the reason why still so many people play this old game.
And you shouldn't mix up 2 things here:
There are people who want to make a chess game out of H3 (all the same for both sides), and therefore make tons of rules, and on the other hand, there are people who just want to play that game and don't care that much about a loss, therefore are not interested in that many rules. If they lose, they start the next game.
But when I heard mostly russian players bet money on h3 games, I knew the fun of playing got lost.
I am sure, many (current) players, who play that game on a very high level (maretti for example), do not care about many rules. The typical gamebreakers should be ruled out (Diplo, fly, DD, carto, hillfort), same with bugs (fmg), and then you will have a good game.
No Zone, no Gamespy and no current H3-League (SAG) player would have brought up those horrible "restart" rules.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
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posted May 25, 2010 02:02 PM |
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horrible "restart" rules.
play 20-30 games on 2sm4d3 and 8mm6 and you will understand why people play with restarts. On other templates it's not so important.
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I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
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liophy
Famous Hero
Bulgarian
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posted May 25, 2010 02:11 PM |
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Edited by liophy at 14:11, 25 May 2010.
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Quote:
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horrible "restart" rules.
play 20-30 games on 2sm4d3 and 8mm6 and you will understand why people play with restarts.
Or simply dont play 2sm4d and 8mm6 at all
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I play Heroes 3 Online at: www.heroes-III.com
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maretti
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted May 25, 2010 03:06 PM |
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I played around 10 games on 8mm6 and i like the temp. No restarts or early finishes yet. 2sm is a hole diffrent matter.
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Crag rules, Orrin and Ivor suck
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted May 25, 2010 03:52 PM |
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Or simply dont play 2sm4d and 8mm6 at all
What he said!
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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ohforfsake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted May 25, 2010 07:14 PM |
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@liophy wrote:
Quote:
For me half the pleasure is the thrill of the unknown. Thats why i play 99% full random. Its like a gift to get "good town" and "good hero". Than i like the things i discover in every new turn.If its fix map, this thrill will be gone.
Well I agree with this, but not at all with your woman analogy and I think it's because I'm a place inbetween.
I prefer randoms, but when I play I don't want the sense of two people are fighting eachother in a strategic game like chess with different rules and better graphics. I want it to be really like the medieval spirit, a kingdom and a world to discover and conquer. I know heroes if far from that and that's probably one of the reasons I suck at it, but with random maps the illusion is at least less evident. (On the matter of that, I'd not mind at all, if one could fix their town and its sorroundings to a certain degree. Like you're a conquering (barbarian/knight/something) and from that you choose to settle down in a given country on specfic locations).
So I suppose I'd most of all be happy with some kind of mix of fixed and random. I just don't want to know everything about my enemy, likewise I'd at least like to know something about the kingdom I apparently have a hold on (it makes little sense that there's no information about the land around you.).
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Living time backwards
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pdesbois
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 29, 2010 06:16 AM |
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I can't answer the question in full, coz I cant see how one simple aspect of this game full of possibilities can ruin it.
I remember having played YEARS ago a couple of random maps... I was surely hating it. I personally like to play XL maps with many factions (preferably 8 of the 9), where you can replay them as another faction than the one u tried first time. Also, I want it to be more or less balanced (u cant achieve perfect balance...), so u dont have one faction favoured in specific means (although I agree the long term necro will be very hard to beat).
Yet the random ones can be fun sometimes - exactly, coz u have no clue at all about what is going to happen.
So, I really dont see myself playing random maps, actually I started in the past to change some maps (like Free for All that had 8 factions) to accomodate some aspects that fit my preferences (later, I developed me owns stuffs ). But I sure as hell dont condemn them.
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SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
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posted May 29, 2010 11:04 AM |
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I remember having played YEARS ago a couple of random maps... I was surely hating it.
looks like you have lost hell a lot of real fun just because you have no time or no intention to learn this game...
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Yet the random ones can be fun sometimes - exactly, coz u have no clue at all about what is going to happen.
normally you know all you need about random map (if you ever heard about "templates"). So you can make strategy and adjust it according to the map.
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I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
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casihasi
Known Hero
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posted May 29, 2010 02:02 PM |
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The excuses vs. pre-mades are funny, to avoid maps where real skill is needed.
Like open semi-poor ones where you need to think about how to equip your scouts, instead of simply sending them to collect free stuff in your own territory.
So SAG, so i should play Jebus? That template is a piece of snow, and everyone knows it. But thanks for your great suggestions.
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pdesbois
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 29, 2010 03:36 PM |
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Well, I was able to buy a comp again just a few months ago, so ive been out of gaming for an enormous time. I used the WoG 'random map' stuff weeks ago and saw u can choose how many factions, teams, etc... Again, I am not saying it is not worth it, just that many elements present on an elaborate map are not in 'random' - how could they?
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SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
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posted May 29, 2010 03:56 PM |
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So SAG, so i should play Jebus?
not really. There are many good templates like 8mm6A, 6LM10A, Skirmish, True random and few others.
If you like full-contact games, then you will like new template HyperCube:
http://www.forum.heroes.by/viewtopic.php?p=37103
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I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
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ohforfsake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted May 29, 2010 07:09 PM |
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@Casihasi wrote:
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The excuses vs. pre-mades are funny, to avoid maps where real skill is needed.
I would not call it excuses.
Excuses, to me, indicates that the person would agree that the given action should be done, but because something unexpected, either making it impossible for them, or a lower priority, they did not do the given action. That's clearly not the case here. Therefore I think preferences would be a much better word to use than excuses.
Also, there's no such thing as 'real' skill. Either it's completely random, or it's predetermined [by having all data], or it's a combination of both, at least for computer games in general. That means all you can really do is put likelyness upon the different possible ways of playing and in general find a best possible way in coherence with the given system. Neither random maps, nor preset maps gives completely random outcomes where no single method is superior to one another, thereby there's a level of skill in both.
It's just two very different games and people will have their preferences through their emotions in general, people don't choose what they find fun (though it can probably be heavily conditioned) and the reason online games are lacking so much is not because of there either being people prefering random games in general, or people prefering preset games, but because the game itself, heroes III, is not good enough to compete sufficiently to your requirements anymore, probably.
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Living time backwards
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted May 30, 2010 10:48 AM |
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The excuses vs. pre-mades are funny, to avoid maps where real skill is needed.
Yes...true...having a 112-19 record on ToH on Desert War really shows skill
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted May 31, 2010 08:26 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
The excuses vs. pre-mades are funny, to avoid maps where real skill is needed.
Yes...true...having a 112-19 record on ToH on Desert War really shows skill
..especially as those players used the wandering-monsters-upgrade bug to break through the giants early. Those were the crappiest players in these times.
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casihasi
Known Hero
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posted May 31, 2010 09:49 AM |
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Not talking about desert war, that was a crappy map too indeed lol...
Many played bad maps, then they played boring randoms.
But randoms been worse, at least on desert war i got a game without restarts or main heroes that are weeks away from the home town, and you just cross your fingers you find town portal somewhere.
For desert war it did depend on who you played with, it can be a fun game with honest players. On randoms i could play the greatest characters like Rychen or Midnight, and still fall asleep after two week. I'll admit that the first week or 2 was usually fun, but it just gets bad when you move away too far from your town.
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