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| Thread: Bored of the beta: a mini-review |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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kusosaru
Hired Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 07:30 PM |
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1)I agree that the H5 random skill options were frustrating for competitive play. I'd much prefer a skill tree with everything possible. This better enables you to get what you want, as well as select options that you think might be a good counter to your enemy.
2) I also agree that having some faction specific skills would make it more fun. And any hard-line no access to a tree is not good either. As has been stated before, it should just be easier for a Might hero to obtain more Might skills, but a Magic hero should have some possibilities within the Might tree too.
One thing I don't like about the current state of the beta is that they just removed the skill trees that were one of the better additions in H4/5. Right now it's just some skills that are randomly categorized and do not require any proficiency in the category they are in.
2) One of the things I really loved were that each faction's hero played differently I didn't even mind that there was only 1 kind of hero per town, because as of right now you're probably going to be limited to 1 type (might or magic) per town anyway (because the other choice will most likely end up being far from optimal).
I also liked the whole idea behind stronghold (no spells, rage <3) and right now it feels like the towns play too similar.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted July 15, 2011 09:26 PM |
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Here are some issues I find with the skill situation at the moment:
No mage guilds has pros and cons. Mage guilds were a drag, in my mind, because (...) B) they were random so you could invest the resources and turn of building in a new mage guild upgrade and be severely disappointed by the spells
There's a way to have both random spells and planning. Imagine you could examine a city and see half of spells which will be available in its guild. In this way you would know in advance if it's worth to invest in this city.
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It takes forever to level up and to get mass Slow you have to spend an entire level learning Slow and an entire other level learning Mass Slow, at which point you only have 3 other spells in your book AT MAXIMUM
Maybe we should look back at Heroes2. In Heroes2, there was no basic/advanced/expert magic schools. Mass Slow and Mass Haste were separate spells. There was just Wisdom, Knowledge and Spell Power. It was more flexible.
Back to roots...
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I think this "specialization" brings me to another problem I have with the skill tree: your choices don't have a lot of consequences other than each choice is the spending of a skillpoint.
Skill trees are prone to this. Heroes2/3 skill system is also a special case of a tree. More loose systems allow you to choose perks separately. Then each perk has to be valuable on its own, rather than just be a stepping stone.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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odium
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 10:38 PM |
bonus applied by alcibiades on 17 Jul 2011. |
Edited by odium at 22:40, 15 Jul 2011.
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The problem with Heroes 6 skill set is that is flat by comparison to Heroes 5, and it will most probably allow for Jack of all trades, and pay attention to this, that are also master of all. In truth, no matter how much developers will change, redesign, shift etc the skills of Heroes 6, some particular set will always prove to be better, in general or specifically for a particular faction. Let's say that from a list of 30 skills, 6-10 will always turn to be optimal for our race X.
What I miss from Heroes 5 and its skillwhell is the fact that some particular skills (which more often than not are those 6-10 skills)had prerequisites. Let's call these optimal skills for our particular race X1,X2,..,X6. Prerequisites should be designed in such a way so that in a normal game (a decently long game, in Heroes 5 standards the game finishes with heroes having level 18-21 on most maps) a hero should not be able to have all skills from x1 to x6. Usually this can be achieved by making those uber-skill have a large number of prerequisites. For example if x1,.,x6 had each 6 prerequisite from the pool of the less important skills (the other 24) than a level 18-21 hero will at most be able to achieve 3 of those 6 uber-skills. Why is this important? Because now the game becomes strategical. You have to think in advance which combination of the 3 uber-skills will you chose and, what's more, your choice will also depend on what your opponent is choosing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm for leaving all paths open. I do not want for a particular faction to not be able to take a particular skill. I am merely an advocate for a more hierarchical skill-tree for the factions.
Ubihole tried to compensate a bit for the flatness of the skill-tree with the introduction of a very slow leveling. At the moment, a hero seems to reach something like level 10-13 in a normal length game. This by design will restrict you choice from 20 something skills to only 10. They also added a superficial structuring of 3 levels (level 1 skills, level 5 skills and level 15 skills). I see that many more people agree on the fact that currently leveling is very slow. Well, if they change leveling speed they actually change their design principles.
In any case, I believe that a more hierarchical skill tree with faster leveling has a more positive psychological impact on the players(be they competitive or otherwise).
And, as a side-note, a hierarchical skill-tree has nothing to do with randomness. H5 skill-tree was random and hierarchical, while H6 at the moment has a flat and non-random skill-tree. Personally I don't like randomness in skill trees (there is enough randomness with luck, morale, damage margin and artifacts that can make a game pretty interesting and different) so I would like a hierarchical and non-random skill-tree system.
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Jabanoss
Promising
Legendary Hero
Property of Nightterror™
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posted July 15, 2011 11:03 PM |
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Edited by Jabanoss at 23:06, 15 Jul 2011.
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There's a lot of awesome ideas in this thread. 
The skill system and leveling in Heroes 6 really needs to be overlooked and fixed. As it is of now, I don't care when I level because it's not even funny to choose any new skills as they are so damn weak. There is obviously a lot of balancing that needs to be done, but still I feel that they should increase the overall strength of all skills, making it really worthwhile to choose skills. So that it adds that feeling that you will have a significant boost after picking your skill.
I also agree that magic heroes have it a bit boring when they have to sacrifice many powerful passive skills in order to pick spells.
I think it would be clever of Blackhole to look at Diablo 3 for inspiration.
As it is of now, in Diablo 3 the player will choose spells and abilities separately from the passive skills. Allowing the player to always have a certain number of slots which he then freely chooses what spells to fill these slots with.
So I think there are a lot of interesting ways out there to fix this problem. I also support the idea with "might, magic and common"-skill trees. 
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"You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
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Austere
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 16, 2011 01:15 AM |
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Completely agree with odium.
Certain spells and abilities will ALWAYS be better than others. Even if there is a checks and balances in the gameplay provided by player interaction (I.E. I should get Mass Cleansing because he'll likely get Mass Slow or I should get Mass Earth Armor because he's a Might-oriented Stronghold hero) it doesn't prevent "cookie-cutters." In fact, neither does the random offering of skills provided in H5. You can choose a different path, or perhaps you weren't offered the best talents this time around, but that doesn't mean something else isn't generally / on average a better choice.
Indeed, it is virtually impossible to prevent cookie-cutters because something has to be the best. If balance is kept well, it essentially means that a bunch of similarly powerful "best" strategies compete with each other relatively fairly.
I think it would improve gameplay, though, for those "best" strategies to require a more significant investment than just the skillpoints to acquire them, and certain choices preclude others. Since most skills are gained at the cost of only 1 or 2 skillpoints, if I want Really Awesome Skill A and Really Awesome Skill B, I need only get an extra level or two and I can have both. Another level after that and I can have Really Awesome Skill C as well. Having the preventative measure to this being a slow and difficult leveling process works, in a way, but in my opinion it works poorly. Players want to level and develop their heroes and they want to see the biggest and baddest spells (even if by getting Puppet Mastery they can't also get Circle of Winter on this particular playthrough) and they shouldn't have to commit to two days and many many hours of play in a single game just to see them. This time restriction is also why I feel the 20 crystal cost of champion dwellings (at least the Haven one) needs to be looked at.
The one pitfall of hierarchies and trees is that players are often forced to spend skill points on skills they don't want just to climb the tree. This is also bad and hard to manage. It is unfortunate when a player has to get the relatively crappy Recruitment just because they want Divine Guidance. But I don't think it's always bad. The current H6 skill system circumvents this issue, but by doing many of the lesser skills will simply never be chosen by anyone. Skills like the Architecture line spring to mind.
One thing I found out: there is an option you can use to change the rate at which heroes level. I'm not sure if Faster or Fastest is more appropriate, yet. Fastest might be too quick, your hero is level 5 or higher just from clearing a few of the creeps immediately around your town for mines and dwellings. It is useful, though, to play on Fastest in order to experience a lot of the skills available and test them out more easily.
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 16, 2011 04:04 AM |
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Don't confuse 'useless' or 'sub-optimal' with skills that clearly have a place and a very specific usage, case and point architect. In its current format it can make or break builds alone, that and it's always useful to have on your secondaries who are probably either mine saboteurs or part of a grotesque chain or resource gatherers.
I am very surprised, in a somewhat negative fashion, that you just discovered the faster/fastest setting. But here's something else, don't forget the 'powerful secondary heroes' option and then you can have a hilarious blast by having your first hero take the xp shrine and then all the subsequent heroes you pop out will start at level 5 on fastest. Anyways, bugs aside, which make CREATURES/UNITS pointless (since a level 5 hero in 2-3 combat turns can reach 1k damage) it's pretty hard to tell what will happen in release and what your/other peoples' ideas will have in terms of impact.
The real goal is to not have lesser skills, or skills you'll bypass. You want every level to make some kind of impact. The current system , conceptually, is pretty perfect just that the skills need brushing up. However, this really branches out into the larger issues of the game like core/elite/champion balancing + resource balancing + external dwelling balancing + chaining + blood/tears etc. Basically, if you make the tier one skills all equally competitive depending on playstyle you're ultimately going to have to look at the balance of everything else.
Also keep in mind that you don't need to spend points at all, you could just save them until the later tiers.
Anyways, really, you kind of do need to experiment around because it just appears that you haven't done your research or really played at all. Some people (myself included) can easily get champions and whatever else week one depending on settings and a bit of luck (like what creeps are guarding what sections and whether or not crystals pop up in campfires).
The goal in the end is not to prevent cookie cutter strategies, that's rather stupid, instead the goal is to provide room for a brilliant and constantly evolving meta game which will promote longevity and in turn earn Bhole some money or something because you can't stop cookie cutter builds from happening.
Ultimately, many of you people are just jumping the gun and blowing wind, to be nice, with the exception of a few who have had actual player vs player experiences in H6. However, that comes with the caveat of 'sample size is too small'. When retail hits and people start slaughtering each other then we'll see exactly where the 'pitfalls' are or maybe not, maybe people will still be comparing this game to H3 or H5 or whatever else.
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Austere
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 16, 2011 04:43 AM |
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Also keep in mind that you don't need to spend points at all, you could just save them until the later tiers.
Yes, I was aware. I did it on my first attempt, in fact, to upgrade the Stunning effect and get Lightning Bolt both at level 5.
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Anyways, really, you kind of do need to experiment around because it just appears that you haven't done your research or really played at all. Some people (myself included) can easily get champions and whatever else week one depending on settings and a bit of luck (like what creeps are guarding what sections and whether or not crystals pop up in campfires).
Yes, I completely agree with this. I certainly do need to fool around with it more. I'd love to understand some of the benchmarks people are reaching in H6, that's always fascinating to me. I would never have thought some of the stuff people managed in H5 was possible had I not heard about it. I still questioned some of the boasts I'd heard until I was able to approximate them slightly myself.
I'm curious, champions under what circumstances? What kind of starting resources etc.?
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Ultimately, many of you people are just jumping the gun and blowing wind, to be nice, with the exception of a few who have had actual player vs player experiences in H6. However, that comes with the caveat of 'sample size is too small'. When retail hits and people start slaughtering each other then we'll see exactly where the 'pitfalls' are or maybe not, maybe people will still be comparing this game to H3 or H5 or whatever else.
Yes, it's true. In the end, any one of us throwing ideas out there, backed up by lots of experience or not, will likely not come remotely close to rivaling that offered by the larger community post launch.
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 16, 2011 05:07 AM |
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For first week champion rushing + whatever else, it's easily doable on normal/fastest. However, on hard/fastest it should be achievable and we're talking about Necropolis champion which takes just as much money and then crystals.
Like I said right now the game is just buggy in all hilarious ways which makes the game utterly, well, hilarious.
This is my basic newbie formula, since I am not a tactical genius like some of the people here (said slightly with sarcasm and with reverence mind you): Broken Alliance, Normal/Fastest, Powerful Secondary Heroes (Optional) with gold dynasty bonus. Position 1.
Day 1: Tavern , rush hero out to shrine (this is best for powerful secondary heroes) get to level 5 (on fastest) and hire two other heroes and split one for crystal mines and the other for either lumber or ore depending on which is the limiting resource. Heroes are generally specced with one level of architect and Archery II (if this is fastest) and economist, then one point in whatever I feel like (usually logistics).
So you figure out the most efficient creeping pattern from there and go around but at some point transfer most of your creatures to your main hero and have him or her break out of the starting area around day 3 or day 4. Doing so will ensure that you get whatever resources you need.
Now the reason why I play on fastest is because ALL factions can pretty much do this and you get to see what's it like to have no creep restrictions (more or less) or having to suffer from too much attrition or go through the tedium of playing the defend/regeneration game to ensure zero creep loss.
Anyways, that's just a rough outline, you can figure the rest on your own depending on your situation and probably optimize it regardless of what settings. But just know that other people on hard difficulty have done a champion rush but it's just too tight on some factions (and requires luck) and you're better off blitzing elites (again faction dependent, for example I wouldn't bother doing this with inferno ... that is going elites first).
And note architect is broken just like archery II in a sense, for it stacks currently. So some people have been lulzing about with just buying heroes with architect + highest fortification and then getting 30+ champions by the end of week 4.
Anyways, try it out. It might not be your flavor but it may open your eyes to different solutions and different perspective on matters like how map settings make for hilarious balance.
Oh, and on the subject of balance it's going to be a bit hazy as well until Bhole figures out what kind of standards they want for ladder play and then there are also external tournaments that will decide for themselves what is balanced and what isn't. So it'll be certainly very interesting to see what ends up happening but I hope all the ideas are COOPERATIVE in the sense that they open up options rather than restrict and take away like many people have been suggesting here. The point really is to broaden the franchise , by franchise I mean competitive players, which means that ultimately the skill sets and factions should appeal to builders, conquerors, diplomats, and saboteurs alike if possible.
Anyways end rant.
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 17, 2011 05:25 PM |
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Edited by Crayfish at 17:59, 17 Jul 2011.
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The goal in the end is not to prevent cookie cutter strategies, that's rather stupid, instead the goal is to provide room for a brilliant and constantly evolving meta game which will promote longevity and in turn earn Bhole some money or something because you can't stop cookie cutter builds from happening.
Ultimately, many of you people are just jumping the gun and blowing wind, to be nice, with the exception of a few who have had actual player vs player experiences in H6.
I have reviewed all of your posts in this thread several times and I'm afraid I remain utterly foxed as to what your points may be regarding the skill tree. If you could please clear up how you would personally like to see the game develop I would appreciate it.
Are you saying that unique faction skills will prevent a good meta game? That all factions must have identical skill access for a good meta game? That you like cookie cutter builds? That it's essential to have player vs player experience to realise that all factions have identical skills?
What would you personally like the skill tree to look like? You said previously that you disagree with all of my suggestions (and I gather you also disagree with others who you consider to be "blowing wind") but you have not made it clear what you would like to see instead. Do you dislike completely the idea of any unique faction skills? Did you disagree with the H5 system?
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There should instead be a great deal of interaction between Might and Magic heroes allowing hybrid type builds and adversarial type builds. It really should be a meta game of its own on top of the faction/creature game.
Please could you explain what you mean by this in more detail? What is a "hybrid type build"? What is an "adversarial type build"? what would you do to promote more "interaction between Might and Magic heroes"? Do you mean that you'd rather the Might and Magic distinction was removed altogether?
You did allude previously to a wish for skills that would target heroes rather than creatures. I'm not absolutely against this concept, but I personally struggle to think of interesting skills for this paradigm. Your suggestion of a spell that decreases the might attack of an enemy hero seems redundant. This skill would have an identical effect to the spell mass weakness, it would just be less nuanced in terms of counters.
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 17, 2011 05:30 PM |
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Edited by Crayfish at 17:51, 17 Jul 2011.
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1. Skill trees are faction specific; there are some shared skills but also a good number of unique faction skills.
Yes, obviously. There are currently a gazillion available skills, and leveling is almost impossible. They could easily take some of the existing ones out to make more difference - and please add some faction specific ones.
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2. Might heroes do not have mana, they have another statistic. Warcries are buffed to balance spells.
I suggested the very same thing here: Stamina.
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3. Might heroes have no access to magic. Magic heroes have no access to Might skills.
Hmm, I don't think 'no access' is good, I don't like restrictions so hard. But I like the idea of three trees: Might, Magic and Common. All have acces to common skills (Logistics, Pathfinding, "Realm", perhaps others?). Might heroes only have access to level 1 and 2 magic (like now), but also they are shifted, so that they need level 5 to have first rank of magic, and level 15 to pick second rank of magic.
Conversely, Magic heroes only have access to rank 1 and 2 might skills (Warcries, Attack, Defence, perhaps also Leadership and Luck - they could also be common), and again, they cannot access them before level 5 (rank 1) and level 15 (rank 2).
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4. Magic schools are either (a) unique to each faction or (b) reduced to 2 or 3 schools per faction.
No thanx to unique schools, that's again too restricted, but less schools per faction is good. 3 schools per faction seems like a good choice. Oh yes, and I would have wanted less magic schools overall, but guess it's too late to ask for that.
Thanks for your constructive comments alcibiades.
Three schools per faction seems to suit a few people. I appreciate your comments regarding restrictions, maybe there are better ways to increase diversity without excessively removing freedom of choice.
I missed your previous proposal about stamina, but it seems we're in agreement there. Considering your comments about restriction, would you rather stamina was added as an additional trait to all heroes? Or that it replaced mana in Might heroes? (If so what happens to magic access for Might heroes?)
I'm in favour of your ideas about common skills as well as might and magic, perhaps the idea of shifted level requirements would work too.
Finally, it seems we fully agree on the need for unique faction skills / general skill tree differentiation between factions.
An additional unrelated thought that came to me while playing the beta today:
The spell "heal" has a significant cool down. How about adding a cool down to creature heal abilities? I am finding creeping without losses easier every time I play. This definitely needs to be made more difficult somehow.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 17, 2011 05:56 PM |
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The problem with Heroes 6 skill set is that is flat by comparison to Heroes 5, and it will most probably allow for Jack of all trades, and pay attention to this, that are also master of all. In truth, no matter how much developers will change, redesign, shift etc the skills of Heroes 6, some particular set will always prove to be better, in general or specifically for a particular faction. Let's say that from a list of 30 skills, 6-10 will always turn to be optimal for our race X.
What I miss from Heroes 5 and its skillwhell is the fact that some particular skills (which more often than not are those 6-10 skills)had prerequisites. Let's call these optimal skills for our particular race X1,X2,..,X6. Prerequisites should be designed in such a way so that in a normal game (a decently long game, in Heroes 5 standards the game finishes with heroes having level 18-21 on most maps) a hero should not be able to have all skills from x1 to x6. Usually this can be achieved by making those uber-skill have a large number of prerequisites. For example if x1,.,x6 had each 6 prerequisite from the pool of the less important skills (the other 24) than a level 18-21 hero will at most be able to achieve 3 of those 6 uber-skills. Why is this important? Because now the game becomes strategical. You have to think in advance which combination of the 3 uber-skills will you chose and, what's more, your choice will also depend on what your opponent is choosing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm for leaving all paths open. I do not want for a particular faction to not be able to take a particular skill. I am merely an advocate for a more hierarchical skill-tree for the factions.
Ubihole tried to compensate a bit for the flatness of the skill-tree with the introduction of a very slow leveling. At the moment, a hero seems to reach something like level 10-13 in a normal length game. This by design will restrict you choice from 20 something skills to only 10. They also added a superficial structuring of 3 levels (level 1 skills, level 5 skills and level 15 skills). I see that many more people agree on the fact that currently leveling is very slow. Well, if they change leveling speed they actually change their design principles.
In any case, I believe that a more hierarchical skill tree with faster leveling has a more positive psychological impact on the players(be they competitive or otherwise).
And, as a side-note, a hierarchical skill-tree has nothing to do with randomness. H5 skill-tree was random and hierarchical, while H6 at the moment has a flat and non-random skill-tree. Personally I don't like randomness in skill trees (there is enough randomness with luck, morale, damage margin and artifacts that can make a game pretty interesting and different) so I would like a hierarchical and non-random skill-tree system.
This post has so many things I agree with! It almost blows my mind just how many wrong decisions I find UbiHole to have taken with the skill/spell-tree. They've removed the hierarchical structure, i.e. no more tactical choices (if I pick this, I will be excluded from that). There's no longer any syngergy between skills at all. We now have to pick spells similar to passive skills and abilities, which means fewer spells, hence fewer options in game. To add salt to that wound, they've added cooldown to spells, so even what few spells we have, we can't use freely.
And the whole idea of level-requirements (1-5-15) in order to get higher level spells is just plain wrong in my optics, that means getting the good abilities is no longer a case of specialization and planning a strategy, but simply a matter of waiting your levels out. And if you wait long enough (and play on an XP rate that allows you to actually get to high levels), you can get as many powerful skills as your points allow, and combine them in whatever way you feel like. Ironically, then, you'll probably be stuck with a lot of low-level skills/spells that will then be useless (which was why you were allowed to pick them in the first place).
It just seems wrong in every single way.
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I missed your previous proposal about stamina, but it seems we're in agreement there. Considering your comments about restriction, would you rather stamina was added as an additional trait to all heroes? Or that it replaced mana in Might heroes? (If so what happens to magic access for Might heroes?)
I see it as an additional trait. The way I would suggest it today (which is a bit different from the old thread), Heroes would have 6 primary stats:
ATTACK > Increases unit attacks
DEFENCE > Increases unit defence
ENDURANCE > Fuels Stamina (Stamina = 10 x Endurance)
SPELLPOWER > Increases spell effects
RESISTANCE > Decreases enemy spell effects or adds magic resistance
KNOWLEDGE > Fuels Mana (Mana = 10 x Knowledge)
Thus, both Might and Magic heroes would have both Mana and Stamina, but obviously Might heroes would favor Stamina, and Magic heroes would favor Mana.
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An additional unrelated thought that came to me while playing the beta today:
The spell "heal" has a significant cool down. How about adding a cool down to creature heal abilities? I am finding creeping without losses easier every time I play. This definitely needs to be made more difficult somehow.
Why not just balance "Heal"?  I mean, since when was it possible to have 'Resurrection' at level 1?
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What will happen now?
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 17, 2011 06:13 PM |
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Edited by Crayfish at 18:51, 17 Jul 2011.
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Odium's quote below has been compressed to highlight relevant points.
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What I miss from Heroes 5 is the fact that particular skills had prerequisites. Let's call these optimal skills for our race X1,X2,..,X6. Prerequisites should be designed so that in a normal game a hero will at most achieve 3 of those 6 uber-skills. Why is this important? Because the game becomes strategical. You have to think in advance which 3 uber-skills will you choose and your choice will also depend on what your opponent is choosing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm for leaving all paths open. I do not want for a particular faction to not be able to take a particular skill. I am an advocate for a hierarchical and non-random skill-tree system.
I agree with the majority of this post, with the exception that I heavily favour having a good proportion of faction specific skills.
I recently skimmed the H5 skill wheels for a Knight and a Demon Lord. I counted 23 skill choices that were available to one of these hero types but not the other. Furthermore, when considering the skills present in both skill wheels, there were large differences in both prerequisites and the chance of being offered particular skills. I'd like to see this level of variety again.
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 17, 2011 06:23 PM |
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Edited by Crayfish at 18:26, 17 Jul 2011.
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Heroes would have 6 primary stats:
ATTACK > Increases unit attacks
DEFENCE > Increases unit defence
ENDURANCE > Fuels Stamina (Stamina = 10 x Endurance)
SPELLPOWER > Increases spell effects
RESISTANCE > Decreases enemy spell effects or adds magic resistance
KNOWLEDGE > Fuels Mana (Mana = 10 x Knowledge)
Thus, both Might and Magic heroes would have both Mana and Stamina, but obviously Might heroes would favor Stamina, and Magic heroes would favor Mana.
I like this idea. However, mana is presently something like (Magic attack + Magic defense * 10) and there is no such thing as knowledge. It would make sense for stamina to be (Might attack + Might defense * 10).
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The spell "heal" has a significant cool down. How about adding a cool down to creature heal abilities?
Why not just balance "Heal"? I mean, since when was it possible to have 'Resurrection' at level 1?
Yes, limiting the resurrection capability of heal would do the trick. However it's done, lossless creeping needs to be much more challenging than at present.
Sorry for the flurry of posts, I've been busy for the last few days and I'm just catching up on replies.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 17, 2011 07:14 PM |
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I like this idea. However, mana is presently something like (Magic attack + Magic defense * 10) and there is no such thing as knowledge. It would make sense for stamina to be (Might attack + Might defense * 10).
Obviously, if you go by Heroes 6 mechanics, yes.
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What will happen now?
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castiel_789
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 17, 2011 11:05 PM |
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I agree that leveling right now happens way too slowly. You can finish a 3 or 4 month 6 player multiplayer game and be below level10 it seems! I can understand a slower level progression in single player where you keep your hero each new map with their previous benefits, but in multiplayer where you're level 1 at the beginning every time, you should be able to climb the ranks and access the skills you desire more quickly.
There is an option to increase the rate of xp you gain in multiplayer game you can take normal fast or faster if i remeber correctly
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 18, 2011 12:10 AM |
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That's true, but it's weird that you have to pick 'faster' to level at a normal sort of speed. Why isn't it slow, normal and fast? Why bother with the slow option at all, I can't imagine anyone actually choosing this as it's really boring.
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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted July 18, 2011 12:19 AM |
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That's true, but it's weird that you have to pick 'faster' to level at a normal sort of speed. Why isn't it slow, normal and fast? Why bother with the slow option at all, I can't imagine anyone actually choosing this as it's really boring.
Probably for the same reason Broken Alliance is labelled as an XL map when it's medium or for the same reason that you have to click on Fog of War ON if you want to remove it 
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 18, 2011 12:38 AM |
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I have reviewed all of your posts in this thread several times and I'm afraid I remain utterly foxed as to what your points may be regarding the skill tree. If you could please clear up how you would personally like to see the game develop I would appreciate it.
Depends on which personality you ask, but for the most part at Heroes Community it's always 'Wait and see before demanding change'. There isn't really enough data available yet.
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Are you saying that unique faction skills will prevent a good meta game? That all factions must have identical skill access for a good meta game? That you like cookie cutter builds? That it's essential to have player vs player experience to realise that all factions have identical skills?
Of course unique faction skills do; there is a difference between unique and affinity, I prefer the latter for things of flavor and the like. One of the things that influences this thought process is how Magic the Gathering works. There's affinity, both soft and hard, in terms of how the cards work with one another (soft being the ratio between color/lands and hard being the requirement of colors etc.)
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What would you personally like the skill tree to look like? You said previously that you disagree with all of my suggestions (and I gather you also disagree with others who you consider to be "blowing wind") but you have not made it clear what you would like to see instead. Do you dislike completely the idea of any unique faction skills? Did you disagree with the H5 system?
Like I said before, I would like more information and I would like time before making any speculative jumps. Some of my posts are already too speculative and I dislike those too.
I don't disagree with the H5 system because it works in the H5 context. I dislike most suggestions for H6 because no one has established what the H6 context is or really have discovered what the context of H6 is. Again, data, need more of it.
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Please could you explain what you mean by this in more detail? What is a "hybrid type build"? What is an "adversarial type build"? what would you do to promote more "interaction between Might and Magic heroes"? Do you mean that you'd rather the Might and Magic distinction was removed altogether?
Adversarial would be might vs magic, hybrid means might and magic with affinity to either might or magic or true hybrid.
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You did allude previously to a wish for skills that would target heroes rather than creatures. I'm not absolutely against this concept, but I personally struggle to think of interesting skills for this paradigm. Your suggestion of a spell that decreases the might attack of an enemy hero seems redundant. This skill would have an identical effect to the spell mass weakness, it would just be less nuanced in terms of counters.
The difference is it wouldn't take up a turn as mass weakness would. So, in essence you're not only directly destroying the enemy might by targeting hero and then later with mass weakness targeting units. It's sort of like saying that Deirdre's banshee is redundant with mass weakness or whatever else. Generally, it's additive and comes from a different source for stacking purposes or whatever else. Factor in cool downs and what not, you may have a more in depth system without having to railroad players.
Either way, it's something I am not too willing to defend because the bottom-line is that I want more information on our current system. Who knows how retail is going to turn out and most of our suggestions are utterly worthless given how the timeline is. By the time the game comes out we'll have multiplayer + new maps and a larger community which means the meta game will shift no matter what. When that happens and all the initial bugs are ironed out, we can have a more meaningful discussion on skills, for you see, map settings and dynasty bonuses etc as well as blood/tears will have a rather large impact on that discussion. Right now we can even see the effects of blood/tears because the gain is so small and that's something they will most likely fix.
However, I will say that I personally prefer a game that heads towards the direction of affinity rather than restriction which is where it seems to be going at the moment. I also prefer, when either working on something or discussing about something, to stay in context and within the game's framework. A lot of suggestions by various people fall out of that category and I feel it is less realistic to implement those currently but that is not to say that such suggestions are meaningless, they do have a place for expansions and what not.
Side thought: Why do people even bother with comparisons to the previous Heroes games in terms of balance? It's rather silly considering they've tossed everything out the window and this requires a NEW balance paradigm. Am I missing something?
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 18, 2011 12:41 AM |
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That's true, but it's weird that you have to pick 'faster' to level at a normal sort of speed. Why isn't it slow, normal and fast? Why bother with the slow option at all, I can't imagine anyone actually choosing this as it's really boring.
Probably for the same reason Broken Alliance is labelled as an XL map when it's medium or for the same reason that you have to click on Fog of War ON if you want to remove it
You know what's funny and only tangentially related?
When you play Starcraft I or II , no one plays at normal settings either and definitely not 'normal' on ladder.
We'll see come retail what the other maps look like , maybe BA is actually XL!
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Jabanoss
Promising
Legendary Hero
Property of Nightterror™
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posted July 18, 2011 12:47 AM |
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The problem is that faster and fastest leveling is flawed as well in my opinion.
If you have Faster or Fastest, you level way too fast in the beginning and still too slow, or just perfect in the later game. So I think they should balance that more.
But maybe it's just me...
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"You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
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