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| Thread: No chaining anymore? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted July 14, 2011 05:22 PM |
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I know that I enjoyed the having of an effective chain, but that was mostly because it minimized the amount of time spent carting troops to my main hero.
I didn't look forward to the chain, and I never once thought that the game would lose something by not having a chain. I mostly just didn't want to have to wait to go out and do stuff again.
That said, most of my frustration with what I'm seeing called "logistic folly" stemmed from the fact that when I click "End Turn", I used to have to wait for a minute or more while the AI completed the computer turns.
Now the AI's turns happen instantly. So the logistical problems aren't an issue for me.
I don't mind getting rid of chains. It's unfortunate to me that restrictions were warranted because of people abusing the system, but I don't see the limit on heroes as a bad thing. I see it as treating a symptom, where the symptom is chains of heroes being used in every single competitive game despite it being a profoundly unrealistic strategy.
As for the disease, I don't think they've quite pinned it down. I'm not sure I know what it is either. I don't play competitively, and I never intend to; personally, I think TOH is a waste of time that only serves to create elitism among its members and scorn from everybody else. But I also know that I never have to play with those players, so I'm more or less content.
A balancing mechanic might be the following formula, where X equals the number of towns you control, and Y is the number of the current week:
Number of Heroes = X + Y
So if it's week one, and you manage to have two towns, you can have a total of three heroes - one for each town, plus one for the first week. If it's week seven and you still only have one town, you can have eight heroes - which might be fine, and actually represents a very distinctive style of play.
And if it's week four and you have eleven towns, you can have fifteen heroes. One hero in every garrison, and then four more riding around the countryside collecting stuff.
Or if it's the beginning of month five and you STILL only have one town, you can still have eighteen heroes, and more power to you.
I think that formula might resolve some of the issues that they're worried about, while still allowing competitive players to keep their chains.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 14, 2011 05:40 PM |
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I don't play competitively, and I never intend to; personally, I think TOH is a waste of time that only serves to create elitism among its members and scorn from everybody else. But I also know that I never have to play with those players, so I'm more or less content.
I used to think so too when H5 came out. One day I asked destro for a game not knowing he was a toher and he suggested that I simply join, that my online inexperience was irrelevant and that I would learn the game faster if I played with human opponents. And you know what? He was right. I really had a blast, I had my share of early losses but I honed my skills fast and met great opponents as well as mentors with whom I keep in touch long after I quit toh. Most of the tohers are pretty decent and friendly, honourable people that just want to have fun and will happily accept any rules that you ask of them. And playing for ratings adds to the excitement of the game, win or lose you always learn something. Soon you start winning more than losing and your rating grows 
Obviously there are also some annoying people that care more about their points than anything else but frankly, I can't hold it against them either. Those people, like them or not, they can teach you a lot. You will no doubt stick with the more friendly people that only care about playing and having fun but multiplayer simply has them all. Following my H5 experience I'd heartily suggest that you give it a shot, I could even help you get to know a few things. Most 'outsiders' fear the place because they somehow expect cheaters or bot personalities but this couldn't be further from the truth.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 14, 2011 06:38 PM |
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Alci, that is a too simplistic view, I think. Even IF the goal is not winning, first and foremost, but playing, to reach that goal you have to avoid losing, because if you lose your game is over, and that is not what you want.
Well obviously I still want to win, that's not my point - in fact I hate losing - but I'm more of a builder by heart. For instance I hate rushing, even if I could win by a rush, because that doesn't give me from my game what I like: The joy of seeing my town screen fully build (oh no, wait, there's no longer any town screen ...), the excitement of managing my hero build until he is fully maxed out on skills (oh no, new level system is incredibly slow, so no chance of that anymore I guess), and the pleasure of exploring the map completely before taking out the enemy.
So in the end, the winning is more like a side-note to me. Yes, I don't want to lose, because that would prevent me from doing the things I want, but the winning comes in second priority. I guess that's why I don't really mind playing against the AI, as long as he's just moderately capable.
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What will happen now?
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mike80d
Famous Hero
Map Maker
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posted July 14, 2011 07:01 PM |
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I'm fine with no more chaining, as long as creature speeds don't vary too much (thus hindering their desire on the world map).
This could open up the door for more options too. I.e. new buildings for the map that can help logisitically in a variety of ways. Or has been mentioned, skills that can help logistically. I'm sure there's a way to balance it (homm4 actually had a lot of map objects that could increase movement for a few days, etc).
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 07:45 AM |
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Well obviously I still want to win, that's not my point - in fact I hate losing - but I'm more of a builder by heart. For instance I hate rushing, even if I could win by a rush, because that doesn't give me from my game what I like: The joy of seeing my town screen fully build (oh no, wait, there's no longer any town screen ...), the excitement of managing my hero build until he is fully maxed out on skills (oh no, new level system is incredibly slow, so no chance of that anymore I guess), and the pleasure of exploring the map completely before taking out the enemy.
So in the end, the winning is more like a side-note to me. Yes, I don't want to lose, because that would prevent me from doing the things I want, but the winning comes in second priority. I guess that's why I don't really mind playing against the AI, as long as he's just moderately capable.
You're being far too harsh on the current system that isn't really even current.
Perhaps beyond that there is a deeper problem, and forgive me if this is arm chair psychology, but perhaps it's because none of the Heroes caters to your play style.
If it did would winning still be a mere side-note or would it be something bigger in terms of emotional feeling and desire?
If so then perhaps there should be a 'snowball' like hero option or faction.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 15, 2011 08:51 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 08:54, 15 Jul 2011.
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The most popular multiplayer maps are rich maps. Not always true, but generally, in a competitive multiplayer environment, chaining is very possible.
Basically you are saying "chaining is possible on maps which are designed to make chaining possible". And I strongly disagree that these are the only "good" MP maps.
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Heroes IV is clearly not what i was referring to. Chains don't exist. How can you break chains that don't exist. Also, scouting and "timed counter-reactions" are basically a matter of being lucky enough to find your enemy at a convenient time. This also doesn't change the fact that you have to chain to be able to get to the point where breaking them is possible.
It is hardly necessary to chain every time when you want to break the opponent's chain. On small maps - yes, OK. On larger ones the map navigation becomes more difficult and the chains are easier to break. In any case, I despise the smallest maps because of the usually employed rush "strategies" which aren't fun to me at all, no matter if I rush or I'm being rushed.
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It's completely different. I have said this multiple times. In a chaining situation, I get my units where I need them. In a creature pool situation I get creatures from dwellings already built in a town. So if I have a completely upgraded army, and I conquer a town, but they only have say 5 creature dwellings built 2 upgraded, What do I do? Do I wait a day or two, switch out armies, camp and explore around and build up the castle? or just restock what I can and keep going on my merry way. Add to the the huge cost of town portals. which if you get both are about the equivalent of 6-7 heroes for one town alone. It's not even close to the same, nor nearly as broken.
Cost-wise it's the same - in one case you need to pay for heroes, in the other you need to pay for buildings (and even in the first case you have to pay for buildings at some point which makes it even more costly in the long run). If we are still talking about the "early chaining", then it's exactly the same - you find a neutral town of the same type (or convert it - 1 turn more), you conquer it, you build something, you buy everything which the said structure generates in all of your towns and you move on. In the early game the upgrades are not necessarily a priority, except where the basic version of something is considerably weaker than the upgraded. So there you go. In long games you can afford to build everything so it doesn't make much of a difference.
And what is this "huge cost" of the Town Portals? Currently both dwellings that you need come slightly more expensive than building some of your Elite dwellings. What's so huge about it? The Castle gate of the Heroes III Inferno which served somewhat similar purpose - now that was expensive, yes - but the new Town Portals are quite cheaper.
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Spending time carting units is not exactly exhilarating.
That it may not be, but making your army available in all parts of the map where you have towns is just an insult to the strategy.
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I have pointed out on several occasions how this creates more logistical questions and problems. For instance. The question of how to divide the army becomes bigger. The question of what to build where is amplified. Especially with creature growth being tied to upgraded dwellings. Town Portals are another issue for instance. Furthermore your hero's movement once again becomes important. Do you search for everything in your area. or quick get your mines conquer and then send secondaries, when you can get some, to pick of left overs, and trade extra gold for what you need in the mean time. Actually making the movement of your main matter is much more logistical that chaining.
You are making it sound much more complicated than it actually is. Nothing stops you from hiring the creatures that are not "present" in the common pool but only in an individual town due to lack of structure with a secondary hero or heroes. That's the point I'm making all the time - chaining is not gone from the new system. With 3 towns you'll have enough heroes to build a fairly effective chain. Add this thing Mentoring and guess what happens. The only thing that is introduced is the option to achieve similar results even easier which is just a legal cheating.
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There is already a mechanicism in place that allows only one additional hero per town.
That's why I said one additional hero for ALL towns, so it wouldn't matter if you conquer 1 or 6 towns during week 1.
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Games should take a reasonable amount of time to play. I would rather not have to spend countless hours of my life playing one multiplayer game of heroes. I love heroes, but to be honest, as a college student I just can't make the time commitment. Furthermore, the creature pool/town portal don't make the game any faster until the mid to endgame, and it is the heroes end game that really needs to be fixed. The heroes endgame takes forever for no reason. It can take 2 to 3 weeks for me to kill off the remnants of my enemy. I most frequently play hot seat with 2-3 of my friends. I know I won. They know I won. It's not a secret. It's over, we all know it. These things serve to drag out the game and make it boring.
I'm not staying in front of the PC for half a day to play games either. That's where the saves come handy. 
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odium
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 09:02 AM |
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Games should take a reasonable amount of time to play. I would rather not have to spend countless hours of my life playing one multiplayer game of heroes. I love heroes, but to be honest, as a college student I just can't make the time commitment. Furthermore, the creature pool/town portal don't make the game any faster until the mid to endgame, and it is the heroes end game that really needs to be fixed. The heroes endgame takes forever for no reason. It can take 2 to 3 weeks for me to kill off the remnants of my enemy. I most frequently play hot seat with 2-3 of my friends. I know I won. They know I won. It's not a secret. It's over, we all know it. These things serve to drag out the game and make it boring.
I'm not staying in front of the PC for half a day to play games either. That's where the saves come handy.
Loading a practically decided game, now that's thrilling 
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 15, 2011 09:07 AM |
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Loading a practically decided game, now that's thrilling
Why would it be "practically decided"? I never continue games where I'm more than 90% certain to win or lose. If somebody is very fond of the "you may have destroyed my army but I still have this one town that you haven't discovered and I'll not quit" approach, then it's his problem, I'll quit nonetheless, no matter that he may consider himself victorious then.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 15, 2011 10:18 AM |
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Edited by Elvin at 10:19, 15 Jul 2011.
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I have won plenty of games that my opponent never believed I could turn around H5 was too random to accurately judge how the battle would go, unless of course you have a good map advantage and the other is not very experienced. I hope H6 will avoid games looking set in stone but out of tactics complexity, not pure combat randomness
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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infinitus
Supreme Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 10:36 AM |
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It is time consuming and it isn't fun. But maybe it's fun for you.
To have a car is time consuming and expensive. You have to spend lots of time learning to drive. Many people die every day killed by cars on road. They destroy ecology. But ... Most people use them ... Are they evil, are they cheating ? Same with chaining. It's not about fun, morale or something. It's useful tool, it's enhance game experience. Maybe it's not perfect but were do you seen perfect things ? Sure noobs want simplicity, they want cars with automatic shift speed, autopilot ... But for formula 1 automatic shift speed is no good... Noobs go learn play game, enough talk
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Nothing's impossible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=loCSLJ6IodY
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 10:43 AM |
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Same with chaining. It's not about fun, morale or something. It's useful tool.
Sure. If the game allows it and if there are not better tools. H4 did not allow it, and the game plays well. Other games don't allow it either and play well.
H6 seem to aim on restricting it and give other tools to use, so that there will be something new to learn for everyone, which ounds lke a good thing. Formula One is changing the rules every year as well.
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infinitus
Supreme Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 10:50 AM |
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H4 did not allow it, and the game plays well.
Y, H4 plays so well that 3DO died ...
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Nothing's impossible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=loCSLJ6IodY
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 11:35 AM |
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They were dead in the water long before H4.
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Ankhes
Hired Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 03:49 PM |
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It was other rly bad games that made them go under like Crusaders of might & magic.
I agree with JellyJoker that it was often map that forced player to play one way or another. It will be still possible though very limited. I hate maps with tons of resources and easy creeps because I prefer to play maps where you can engage before u have like 20 of t7 and it is hard to fully build your town.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted July 15, 2011 04:28 PM |
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Edited by B0rsuk at 16:33, 15 Jul 2011.
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I'm currently playing Heroes 1 (campaign) and I would say there's no chaining.
I started as Sorceress. My first orders were to hire two helper heroes, to speed up gathering loot. Guess what ? There isn't much free junk lying around. You don't earn much, 500 with Tent and 1000 with Castle. Creatures are expensive, for instance dwarves cost 200 each, druids - 350, unicorns - 400 (4 per week), sprites - 50 (10 per week). Buildings are relatively expensive too. With income from 1 city, it's hard to build and recruit at the same time. I always felt like I had higher priorities than chaining. I blame rich maps. Heroes 1 maps seem somewhat barren. So, I think chaining is a heroes2-3 phenomenon.
This is strangely similar to my recent C&C: Tiberian Dawn* experience. Refineries are expensive, harvesters are expensive. "Build refinery first" is no longer a no-brainer.
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* Tiberian Dawn is the first one. You can download it legally from here http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/cc95p106/ . It contains the expansion pack, unofficial high-resolution patches, and is updated to work with modern Windows.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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lichking012
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 05:47 PM |
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It is hardly necessary to chain every time when you want to break the opponent's chain. On small maps - yes, OK. On larger ones the map navigation becomes more difficult and the chains are easier to break. In any case, I despise the smallest maps because of the usually employed rush "strategies" which aren't fun to me at all, no matter if I rush or I'm being rushed.
It's not really a matter of size so much as resource placement. If you have enough resources, and there aren't tons of islands, chaining is fairly easy. No one likes playing on poor maps. There is a reason Ubi's maps are never useed, in competitive heroes 5 multiplayer. They are poorer maps. Also, in an environment where chaining is adventitious, on any map in some capacity and on rich maps in large capacity, you have to use some degree of the strategy otherwise you are simply behind in terms of movement, resources and experience earned and areas explored.
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Cost-wise it's the same - in one case you need to pay for heroes, in the other you need to pay for buildings (and even in the first case you have to pay for buildings at some point which makes it even more costly in the long run). If we are still talking about the "early chaining", then it's exactly the same - you find a neutral town of the same type (or convert it - 1 turn more), you conquer it, you build something, you buy everything which the said structure generates in all of your towns and you move on. In the early game the upgrades are not necessarily a priority, except where the basic version of something is considerably weaker than the upgraded. So there you go. In long games you can afford to build everything so it doesn't make much of a difference.
And what is this "huge cost" of the Town Portals? Currently both dwellings that you need come slightly more expensive than building some of your Elite dwellings. What's so huge about it? The Castle gate of the Heroes III Inferno which served somewhat similar purpose - now that was expensive, yes - but the new Town Portals are quite cheaper.
This is much more strategy than chaining offers you. And you downplay upgrades, they now give you more troops so that's extra incentive to buy them sooner rather than later. It's not oh, I need to get vampires by the end of the week and upgrade my liches day one. Both yield a higher troop rate, so both are at least somewhat valid depending on your strategy, the army that your hero has, etc. Also, Advanced town portals cost as much as the capital,and have significant resource costs, much more than elite dwellings, I believe its 10 of everything or something like that. Add to the fact that we are comparing this specifically to hero cost, and we definitely see what is less cost effective in the long run.
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That it may not be, but making your army available in all parts of the map where you have towns is just an insult to the strategy.
This is a maximum of like 8 to 16 places per map, likely to be much much less on most maps. Its not exactly all over. Plus, the amount of your army you can get is extremely limited by how built up your towns are.
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That's why I said one additional hero for ALL towns, so it wouldn't matter if you conquer 1 or 6 towns during week 1.
I don't think that's physically possible in most scenarios, and besides that, I think having one hero to scout around collect artifacts, generally defend and do stuff around your town is valid.
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I'm not staying in front of the PC for half a day to play games either. That's where the saves come handy.
Saves are great for single player, but in multiplayer, they are more trouble than they are frequently worth. It's a pain to try and get everyone you were playing with together, and then get everyone back on track with whats going on in their kingdom. Saving games is next to impossible online, its better if your part of a group but if your just playing on servers its near impossible. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a 3-4 person hot seat game to last no more than 2 and half hours to 3 hours.
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polaris
Promising
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 10:32 PM |
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I kind of agree with the people saying chaining is good when there's a little bit of it, but it gets silly when there's a lot of it. I don't feel like it's unbalanced to get ~1 "free" days worth of movement from chaining, eg. using a hero in the town to bring the troops to the main hero, who is nearby. That just speeds the game up without altering player's strategies much. Moving an army halfway across the map in one day, though is a bit ridiculous and totally changes the strategies of the game.
Limitting hero count I think is the wrong way to handle it though, because that limits everything else you could do with those heroes and is not at targetted change to "fix" chaining (assuming it is to be "fixed"). It also inhibits your ability to use scouting heroes for claiming resources or as a sneak attack, etc. Maybe some of those wouldn't be viable strategies, but I like to imagine people would be able to find more uses for lots of heroes even if they couldn't chain troops.
In terms of "fixing" chaining, I always thought a simplification of the H4 model would be best. If heroes exchanged armies, then the hero with more movement would lose a little bit of movement. At worst, the hero with more remaining movement would have his movement set to the slower one's remaining amount, but the details of the adjustment would be open to tweaking.
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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted July 16, 2011 12:09 AM |
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Edited by Aosaw at 00:12, 16 Jul 2011.
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Requiring half of your remaining movements to perform a trade between heroes would be a good step toward balancing it. That might only exacerbate the problem, though, simply requiring the "chain-monkeys" to hire twice as many heroes in order to do the same thing.
EDIT: Hold on, did you say "2 to 3 hours"?
I can't do nearly as much stuff as I want to do in that amount of time. Are you sure we're playing the same game, here?
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted July 16, 2011 01:51 AM |
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Edited by AlexSpl at 02:19, 16 Jul 2011.
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I'm currently playing Heroes 1 (campaign) and I would say there's no chaining.
Try to play with human opponents Though, there are not so many players who still play H1 via Internet 
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DoubleDeck
Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
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posted July 16, 2011 09:58 AM |
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Heroes 1 was the classic! I remember getting a box set with 10 games in 1995 and one of them was Heroes 1....played it, didn't like it, then tried it again a year later and have been hooked ever since! Heroes 1 had simple and strategic moves in it so was closer to chess than the later heroes...
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