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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 12:00 PM |
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Quote:
As it stands H6 has least randomness and could be most competitive one to date.... and least fun for majority (majority being my opinion).
I doubt the lack of fun of H6 comes from its lack of randomness. It comes from the lack of soul of the game + poor/broken mechanisms + poor universe + uninteresting factions. It might play a role, but overall H6 is miles away from what a Heroes game should be.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 12:03 PM |
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What I miss in Heroes 6 is mostly content - with more castles, neutrals, artifacts and adventure map objects, it would be more interesting imho. I definitively like the removal of randomness, as competitive player.
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Mithrandir
Hired Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 01:51 PM |
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With all respect, Doomforge, I think you have skills in rhetorics and manipulation, and you are probably used to win dicsussions because of this, but no matter how hard you try, this is still only about your personal opinion. You prefer multiplayer with absolute control and no randomness, while many of us don't. There is no need to attack our arguments the way you do just because you can. I know this will sound weird and daring from a newbie to a mod, but I'm quite used to deal with "sophists" and I know one when I see one. It's really nothing personal, but try to step back and look on your posts and ask yourself, whether you weren't exaggerating a bit. Just a bit of respect for different opinions, thank you.
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English ain't my native language, sorry for any mistakes.
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Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
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posted July 31, 2011 02:53 PM |
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Quote:
What I miss in Heroes 6 is mostly content - with more castles, neutrals, artifacts and adventure map objects, it would be more interesting imho. I definitively like the removal of randomness, as competitive player.
Exactly, if they would be able to add more content,amke everything useful and differentiate the factions from each other,it would be a really good game.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted July 31, 2011 04:37 PM |
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Edited by B0rsuk at 16:51, 31 Jul 2011.
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Sometimes I wonder why do wannabe pro players want games to be completely free of randomness. After all, a better player will be winning more games, even in heavily random games like poker, dice or Magic: The Gathering. As if a single loss could permanently brand you as a bad player. This isn't Diablo, he's not going to cut your ear off and carry as a trophy. Maybe they're just insecure ?
It's not like sun explodes tomorrow. There's always time for another game. Assuming playing the game is entertaining for you. If winning is the only thing that matters, then, for example cheating should be okay. And, in fact, cheating is popular in professional gaming, tournaments etc. A player who's not very concerned about the outcome might just play for the sake of it.
The ultimate competitive sport is war. Olympics were created as a habit which would keep Greek citizens in good physical shape. No surprise that first Olympics only had war-related disciplines like wrestling, boxing (considered inferior to wrestling), javelin throwing, chariot races, running (often in full armour and with a shield). Plato himself was a wrestler, that's what this nickname means. But war is as macho as it gets.
One important thing that randomness provides is branching out of possibilities. If a Unicorn has 30% chance to blind in Heroes 4, then both cases are quite likely. It's wise to prepare for both. You may start to analyze both branches a few moves ahead. However, if other random elements are involved (other creatures with random abilities, luck, morale) then the number of possibilities can soon exceed human's capability for analysis. Most people will just make their best bet, press the button and see what happens.
In contrast, a Chess player may be happy planning one move for hours. There's nothing to throw a wrench into the mechanism. Unsurprisingly, Chess is not very exciting to watch. Matches are recorded as sequences as moves, not video footage of people thinking. Chess players seem happy thinking for very long periods - periods spent not interacting with the other player.
If Heroes 3 had no random skill advancement, people would take Logistics at level2 99% of the time. Having a free choice would limit the number of possibilities. Scenarios like Eagle Eye/Scholar at level 2 would be left mostly unexplored. They would be proclaimed bad skills, everyone would turn a blind eye on them, and proclaim Heroes 3 as a perfect game anyway. ("I heard a guy in Texas took First Aid at level 2 and won despite that ! Therefore, First Aid can be used well, it doesn't suck, you do, and the skill doesn't need an improvement.")
Why don't competitive Heroes players make a chance-free mod for themselves ? I mean, literally completely chance free.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 31, 2011 05:47 PM |
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Quote:
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How about when there's heavy rain and you rely on heavy cavalry versus the opposing side with crossbows ? Mud is for everyone, that's for sure. But who loses more ?
And how's that RANDOM? Do you randomly got a cavalry team and the setting screwed you up, or have you built your army around that and it's the tactician's fault?
You're confusing randomness (of heroes games) and bad decisions. One could foresee the possibility of rain and prepare accordingly. It's not like it could randomly start a meteor storm on the battlefield 
Actually, I find you to be wrong with your arguments about randomness, Doomforge. A point about whether is that you cannot predict it. Sure, you can call basing your army on cavalry a strategic failure if it becomes rain, but it might have been a strategic brilliancy if it had been draught, because it allowed you to move faster than the opponent (to give an example).
So yeah, in real life there are deffinitely elements of randomness, and no matter how brilliant your tactic might have been under the correct circumstances, there are always some unpredictable things that can happen to make it a fallacy.
But I think this is all I will engage in your discussion on that subject, like Mithandir said, it is very much a matter of oppinion whether one likes randomness or not.
And I can only recommend everybody to read the article b0rsur links to on previous page, it's brilliant and very enlightening on this subject. Here are some of the parts I found most interesting:
First of all, the article introduces a concept of Symmetry, which I find very intriguing in terms of some of the changes made to Heroes 6:
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Symmetry, at least in terms of starting position, is common, though not universal, in virtually all games that involve two or more players. In multiplayer games, players prefer to feel that they begin on a level playing-field, and the easiest way to ensure that they do is to start them off equally.
Symmetry is also a real danger in any game design. Symmetry can lead to a host of ills. Symmetry works in Chess and Go because these are games of enormous strategic depth, and symmetry is quickly broken by the moves or placements of the players. Contrast this with John Nash's Hex or Alex Randolph's Twixt (...) Given optimum play, the first mover wins. The problem with Hex is that it has nothing like the strategic depth of Chess or Go; symmetry never gets broken.
Games in which all players pursue the same strategy result in a win by the player who makes the fewest mistakes -- or, if none, by the player who has the player-order advantage. This is dull.
I think this is interesting, because what Heroes 6 does is very much to CREATE symmetry - all factions can pick (and I emphasize pick) the same skills, all factions need the same rare ressources (correction, ressource!), you have perfect control over which spells you want, etc. That is very much why I think a proper level or randomness is a good thing:
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In summary, adding a random element to any game creates a risk that the outcome will depend on luck rather than strategy; but it also helps to break open a symmetrical game, which is essential to prevent it from degenerating into strategic gridlock.
To those who think that randomness kills tactics, all I can say is read the paragraph on regression to the mean!
And finally, about the replayability of games:
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Rogue-likes are highly luck dependent (...) In exchange for accepting an almost perverse level of chance, Rogue-likes offer an almost unparalleled level of variety. Because they are randomly generated, no two play sessions are identical. (...) Despite the randomness of the game, the sheer variability it offers means that it is infinitely replayable.
Interesting stuff.
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What will happen now?
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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted July 31, 2011 06:03 PM |
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That's an interesting article. I'll have to read it when I have more time and am wearing pants.
Personally, my biggest beef with this game is the poor UI. If they could fix that, the rest of it wouldn't bother me so much.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 31, 2011 06:10 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 18:13, 31 Jul 2011.
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In H5 the least amount of hours you could spend on a multiplayer game(short of someone giving up) was 6 hours. Now, in duels where creeping and a good dose of randomness(week effects, imbalanced spells, artifacts) was not included, the highest ranked players would not believe that winning a best of 3 game was necessarily a sign of being better. And indeed, having played hundreds and hundreds of games I can confirm that. Unless you were ridiculously good compared to your opponent, pretty much anything could happen. Anything. I have seen too many games won or lost without deserving it. Too damn many. So if you up the randomness to a full game's level and have the game wasted by a ridiculously lucky or unlucky streak after 6-8 hours, no, it is not a lot of fun. Do you know what is the percentage of close games even between skilled players? It ranges from too low to not high enough let me tell you. Luck can make the same game an exciting match or a hopeless rape, just like that.
In other news my score with samiekl, a player better than I, says 4-1. I call bull.
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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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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 06:24 PM |
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What Elvin said addresses all "wannabe pro" accusations. I bet you guys don't care when a better player loses to a worse one because you play against AI mostly, but we (MP players) do. And while lack of randomness merely is an inconvenience to you (since the game is "not as awesome" anymore or whatever), it downright ruins the game for us. Yep. See the difference?
In MP, you play to have fun, but it's different "fun" : it's fun of winning. What B0rsuk just doesn't seem to understand is that the most fun in competing against others is... yeah, winning against them. Being better. That's what competition is about.
Can you imagine a boxing match between Vladmir Klitschko and some random bum, where due to a 0,0000000000000001% of a piano falling on the former boxer's head, the random bum wins and gets declared a champion? What "worth" such title has? None. Zero. In luck-free environment, the bum would be KO'ed after a second. Hence most sports do everything to equalize conditions for players. Well - e-sports too.
YOu can play in SP and have fun with or without randomness: we can't have fun competing against each other when the game is brought to a coin toss. We may as well throw the coin instead of playing and declare the winner already.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 31, 2011 06:33 PM |
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That's the term, coin toss. If you have at least outpaced your opponent in the adventure map and you win ridiclously easy you can savour a little satisfaction but if not.. You simply feel cheated out what should have been a good fight. Winning or losing like that, yeah so much for a strategy game.
That is not to say I am against randomness in general. Just the ridiculous amounts of randomness such as 50% chance for double damage, 0-25% starting atb extra or 2% chance yet indescribably awesome skills. You know, the ones that often win games by just having them.
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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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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted July 31, 2011 06:34 PM |
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Doomforge, do you think it's possible that the sort of randomness you and Elvin are referring to, the randomness that ruins a good multiplayer game, are really just poor implementation of chance-based mechanics?
Because I'll agree that it is damn frustrating to have your game hosed because, at level 21, your last open skill slot got taken up by Sorcery.
But the feeling of having some elements beyond your control is also nice sometimes, if executed properly. It adds a dimension of hopefulness and curiosity, a bit of "What's going to happen?" that you don't get when everything is exposed.
I'm not sure how I would implement it. I agree, too much chance makes the baby go blind, so to speak. In Heroes 5, at least, there were times when "bad rolls" could cause you to lose a game you were winning by a significant margin, and that's irritating.
But to me, the random generation of skills is part of what I like about Heroes. It's the idea of not knowing, but hoping, that you'll get the skill you need.
But really, more than that, I miss the mastery ratings. In fact, that's mostly what I miss. The ability to put more points into a skill to make that skill more powerful. I could do without some measure of randomness, if they implemented a better skill system.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 06:41 PM |
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@Aosaw
well yes, it is mostly due to a poor implementation of randomness. Too powerful effect with a 50% chance (like luck in H5) turns strategy into lotto. Imho this mocks the whole "strategy" part.
@Alci
Two things I'd like to address here:
1. I don't really consider war-based computer games and real life battles alike. I'd rather compare them to sports, because: there are rules, nobody takes it too serious (or at least shouldn't), nothing bad happens when you lose meaning you don't have to do really ugly things to win. Contrary to war.
2. On the whole rain issue: I of course agree you can't really predict it with 100% success rate, however not taking into consideration that it may actually rain is a bad planning, don't you think? It's not something that doesn't happen at all and it's not something that can't be taken into consideration when making a plan. 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 31, 2011 07:01 PM |
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Definitely bad implementation. For one units should not be able to play up to 25% faster, while it can introduce more randomness in combat it completely ruins any plans. Take stronghold vs sylvan. The barbarian hero, the ranger hero, the centaurs, the chieftains, the arcane archers, the high druids, shamans - each and every one of those can play before or after the others. When luck/morale has such a high cap and actual effect, who acts first makes a huge difference. If you but calculate the odds of that little scenario, without considering obstacles, week/artifact effects or skills, you can already tell it's a mess. Here's a very possible scenario: Centaurs play BEFORE chieftains and shoot on the druids. They get morale. Chieftains get them to play again instantly exactly because they got morale. Centaurs also kill arcanes. Alternatively, arcanes act first and kill all centaurs with a favoured/lucky shot. Or druids use channeling, empathy triggers and the ranger casts a tripple meteor with slippers that hits 2-3 stacks with their rage down, multiple times. Or the dragons get to attack the centaurs but get taunted and the warmongers retaliate with luck for x4 damage. I could tell you dozens of scenarios as I've played them all. The truth is that play the same battle 10 times, with different luck/morale/atb and it all be a different battle every time.
Similar was the case of rare skills and the levelling paths desperately requiring some common perks. If you missed vitality you would also miss power of endurance which hurt a lot. Some factions depended on battle frenzy and by extension retribution too much if they wanted to make the best out of their options. Etc. While I loved the random lvl up system, H5 did mess it up considerably too. Things weren't like H3 when you had 8 skills, now if you messed up just one it mattered. Even if you didn't but you were forced to pick a perk you did not want, it could ruin your strategy. H5 simply had too many prerequisites and whether you got warmachines in the first 5 levels of the game changed a LOT your game with some factions.
Same with mage guilds, in H5 there were the key spells you absolutely wanted to have and the rest. Missed haste? You were screwed in more than one ways. A lot depended on timing too. If you were a light player without empathy and the dark opponent played after you the game was as good as lost. Very high odds on that.
I would still rather get mage guilds but in a way that it's not just one spell or the other. Something like getting 3/6 spells roughly balanced with each other or so.. But I can appreciate the system not messing you up just because the mage guild hated you.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 07:07 PM |
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about rain... no terrain penalties during combats, contrary to H4?
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perathekojot
Known Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 07:43 PM |
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The truth is that play the same battle 10 times, with different luck/morale/atb and it all be a different battle every time.
So, if the opposite of this is that in 90% cases it will be essentially same game, what is more FUN?
Because in my eyes general idea is to have more fun, not more balanced / predictable game.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 07:50 PM |
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Quote:
what is more FUN?
All depends on what you find fun, I guess.
For instance, if you're playing a tourney, sure the game is fun, but winning is even more fun. Spirit of competition and stuff like that. Now, if you do things exactly the same 10 times and get different result, that means the result isn't exactly really connected to your choices, doesn't it? Meaning it effectively diminishes the impact of skill and ability on the final score. Which sort of diminishes the value of competition itself: since the beginning of mankind, competition of equal variety was meant to show which one of the competitors is the strongest, smartest, most talented... and so on. In an environment where the impact of skill is not enough to overcome the random events - it's more of a coin toss then a game of skill.
That's how I see it at least, hence more balanced game would be more fun to me - it makes it easier to train, to notice the impact of small decisions on gameplay - part of mastering your style. The more random it is, the harder it is to draw conclusions or even get remotely good at something.
I'd like to underline it here however that I don't disregard other people's opinion on that matter, however, things such as "multiplayer balance" are tightly connected to eliminating randomness. Guys, let's face it - the game's either balanced, or random. It can't be really "balanced and random". It's either of those two.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 31, 2011 07:52 PM |
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Quote:
What Elvin said addresses all "wannabe pro" accusations. I bet you guys don't care when a better player loses to a worse one because you play against AI mostly, but we (MP players) do. And while lack of randomness merely is an inconvenience to you (since the game is "not as awesome" anymore or whatever), it downright ruins the game for us. Yep. See the difference?
In MP, you play to have fun, but it's different "fun" : it's fun of winning. What B0rsuk just doesn't seem to understand is that the most fun in competing against others is... yeah, winning against them. Being better. That's what competition is about.
I hope you do notice that there are a lot of multiplayer gamers who actually don't share your point of view. Just because you talk as if your point of view inarguably means that we should find it ok that our interests are negated. Good for you that they made the game you wanted and not the game we wanted, but please don't come and say to us that we should be happy they did it.
Apart from that, I see an awful lot of arguments going about things that are 100 % courtesy of bad balancing and has nothing to do with randomness or not. Whether you like randomness or not is of course a free choice, but notice that bad balancing will be exactly as devastating for a game with free choice as it will for one with randomness and percent chances - perhaps even more. How large do you think chances are for there not being a cookie-cutter build for each faction that will be uncovered very, very fast? Very small, will I say. And then what's fun is there left in the game?
And how much must we cut away from the game to prevent anyone ever experiencing something lucky, and hence winning the game? Obviously, finding an artifact that boosts attack will be of great use to a Barbarian, while finding one that boosts spellpower considerably less so. Must we remove all artifacts from the game? And how about creeps, perhaps you are particularly lucky with what guards your mines, or particularly unlucky. Must we make all creatures identical? Where is the limit?
To me, the chance-based skill system was an integral part of the game that I'm very sorry to see go. I think it added a lot of fun, and I think it worked well. I agree that perks in H5 could be a nightmare, so personally I wouldn't mind making them pick-by-choice - but with UbiSofts history of (im)ballance issues, I very much doubt the new skill system will become something I'm fond of, not do I think it will add to the durability of the game. I might be proven wrong on the latter, and can hope for the former also.
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What will happen now?
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted July 31, 2011 07:59 PM |
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The issue of balance vs randomness was adressed by the creator or Jebus Cross template. He simply made it so rich that each player can access so many treasures it's unlikely to pick all of them. You will always get something very powerful in the end, yet you're limited with time - it's not likely to clear entire area, so it enforces choosing some pickables over others.
I must admit I like this approach. Would work even better with more random objects to choose from
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The future of Heroes 3 is here!
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 08:06 PM |
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something I notice about competitive game, is that players tend to stick to 2-3 different maps only, and always play them the exact same way.
so, in that way, it is also hard to say if a player is really skilled, or if he just trained a lot on that particular map and would just get owned on any other map.
also, it reminds me of the commentaries of the Team Fortress 2 devs about the map "Hydro" where they say that the map is divided into 6 parts, and only 2 of them are used each round, and they are chosen randomly, to make the game more exciting. well, when I played TF2, it was the least played map, possibly because of the randomness. I mean, in a game like TF2, it's mostly skill that counts, and a skilled player should be flexible enough to adapt to most maps, but it just seems like competitive players don't like if they don't know exactly what's going to happen even before the game is started.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 31, 2011 08:07 PM |
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Well, perhaps I haven't worded myself too well, to clarify: I have nothing against Single player, I don't believe in "multiplayer superiority", and I actually liked how randoms skills worked in Heroes 3 (but not Heroes 5, which went - imho ofc - too far with that). There were obvious things that were broken and made mapmakers life miserable (to ban those things every time), but it wasn't exactly the system's fault, more like the individual spell's fault. For instance the Town portal spell I mentioned a few times. There was literally no way around it, once you got it - you couldn't lose unless the situation was totally hopeless or the map was small. You could do mindgames, you could rally forces from all over the map, you could pressure the enemy into defensive stance while visiting all the stat boosting places and thus giving yourself a massive statistical advantage - there were literally hundreds of ways to utilize town portal. In heroes 2, they planned to balance it with the very, very small chance of actually obtaining the spell - but it only made things worse, the player getting this spell could be practically sure he's the only one with it. In heroes 3, it was popular in some towns and not getting it on any bigger map meant inevitable loss a painful lot of times.
To make long story short: I of course don't disregard players' sympathy towards random skills. What I was really going to point out in this discussion - which perhaps got a bit confusing as I continued to post - was that Ubihole expressed the will to make the game "balanced". And yeah, as I mentioned above, this means random levelups have to go for the "greater good".
On the brighter side, I'm sure players will like the fact that they don't need to pray for 2% skills to get their ultimate skill available now 
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