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| Thread: Opinions - which randomness is good and which bad in HOMM ? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted August 06, 2011 10:08 PM |
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Opinions - which randomness is good and which bad in HOMM ?
Since this topic incites a lot of controversy, I think it deserves its own thread. There's a lot of talk about randomness in Heroes. Since it's largely a matter of taste, an aesthetic, there's no ultimate right or wrong. Just opinions.
I know there are many people who think no randomness should ever occur in a strategy game, and all maps should be mirrored. Even in semi-real-world games like Civilization. If that's the case, this thread may not be for you.
An insightful article about randomness in games:
http://playthisthing.com/randomness-blight-or-bane
Which randomness do you like and which dislike ? What are examples of good and bad randomness ?
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My take.
Good:
Spells in guild (in principle; getting Mass Slow or Berserk at level 4 is good. Meteor Shower is good if gotten relatively early, packs of level 7 creatures at most. Problem is with with individual spell balance. Fireblast at level 4 or Hypnotize at 6 is ridiculous).
Luck/Morale. I actually like it, it makes battles somewhat unpredictable and you have to adapt and have backup plans. I prefer Heroes4 implementation of morale, though. With H3 system, a morale strike might double a unit's movement speed, or make them bypass a moat which I dislike. Extra move + Luck can have disastrous effects. In Heroes4, units with high morale merely acted before those with no high morale. Yes, you could have peasants acting before titans if titans had no morale. But morale triggered at the start of a combat round, not after move of a individual unit. This made planning easier.
Random guards. It keeps things from getting stale. You don't charge blindly after recruiting 4 halflings and 5 boars, you have to scout. Sometimes difficulty of creatures from the same level varies too much, though.
Random weeks - I like it especially when new neutral creatures spawn. A map is no longer sterile and supply chains are in danger.
Bad:
Rarely mentioned... Random teleporters, glowing liths etc. It can be infurating when teleporters are on swamp or desert. It's like "insert random number of movement points to continue". It adds nothing to the game, unlike random spells.
As said above, I don't like it when morale makes a melee unit double its movement speed. It messes up planning too much.
Random heroes to recruit. I like experimenting and using strange strategies. If I have to recruit 6 heroes in a row to finally get a barbarian, it's frustrating. I want to have a good shot at recruiting the desired class of a hero.
Chance-based magic resistance. Especially Heroes 3 Resistance skill. I don't care too much when a dwarf resists a mass spell, since the law of big numbers means I will get mostly predictable results. I will enchant most or all of the dwarves if it's just dwarves, or know at least the other units will be enchanted for sure (enemy hero). But a single target spell on dwarves ? No way ! Spend a turn, spend spell points, and have a chance of getting NOTHING for it ?
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 06, 2011 11:07 PM |
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Yeah, interesting discussion. My oppinions:
Spells: [This refers to old spell system obviously.] Randomness is ok for me in mage-guild, but I think it would be nice if you could know in advance which spells you'll get, or which spells you'll get on the next level, so that you won't waste too many ressources on building it and then get crap spells (or just not those you needed). Alternatively, being able to tear down the mage guild for retun of ressources wouldn't be bad either.
But one could also go in another direction, and have you actually "research" spells in the mage guild. This would be intersting, because you could then have a fixed set of slots in the mage guild - perhaps Haven level 4 guild lets you research 3 level 4 spells from Light or Dark schools (to use example from H5). Then you could assign which spells you want to research, and there might perhaps be a chance of failure (so you don't get the spell you want, or perhaps even no spell at all). This would be great fun, you could put ressources into researching spells, you could have skills affecting this, etc. Interesting. 
Skills: Yes to randomness in skills, no to randomness in perks. I liked the random skill offerings, I think they were a great part of the excitement of building your Hero! But I agree that H5 was just too complicated, and I think perks in particular were a nightmare - sometimes you needed a specific offering of 3 available perks, and the right one never showed up. Very frustrating, and devastating for your build. So I say random skill offerings á la H5, but once you've learned the skill, you select the perks within the skill for yourself.
Luck/Morale: I think getting to know in advance is actually good, because it lets you plan on it. Sometimes Morale would be wasted because you'd have done something completely different had you known, and that's pointless. I liked H5 morale, i.e. +50 % ATB, I think in lack of Initiative system, I think H6 was is also reasonably balanced. H5 Luck seemed overpowered, so yeah +50 % damage like H6 is probably more reasonable. Should one know before performing the attack - again, why not? But that could also be a skill. 
Heroes: Never thought too much about that. I think it makes sense to have mostly native Heroes in town, and then perhaps a couple of randomly selected outside Heroes?
So overall, I think some randomness is nice, it allows for unexpected things to happen, which increases replayability for me.
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What will happen now?
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted August 07, 2011 08:51 AM |
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I think spells in guild wouldn't be such a big issue if there was no crap like Set X Guardian, Hypnotize, Protection From Fire, Water... Heroes 3 improved some of the old spells, but also added such a number of situational ones. Water Walk ? I can't remember using it successfully even once. If you were to get either Shield, Bless, Bloodlust, Haste, Slow at level 1 I think any would make you happy. They're all good level1 spells.
How does H6 luck/morale system work compared to Heroes 3 or 4 ? I only played H5 at a friend's house, and not much.
About skills:
I think Heroes 5 failed in this department because it required you to get X skills in order to get access to another skill. Thus, you had to rely on luck.
A minor complaint about Heroes 3 system: sometimes I don't care about having a skill develop up to level 3. Wisdom is a good example. If I'm a Beastmaster, all I care about could be the Teleport spell so I can move them to enemy shooters at the start of combat. But if I take Basic Wisdom, it consumes one of my 8 skill slots anyway. Even if I don't plan to develop it further. This applies to all skills which do something different instead of scaling the numbers. I understand Heroes5 had and H6 will have a lot of these.
It could be interesting to have 8 (slots) * 3 (levels) = 24 skill slots and just put whatever skills you like in there. With obvious limitations, like Advanced Offense requiring Basic Offense.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 09:11 AM |
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It's not a question of WHAT is random at all, but instead how big is the difference?
BAD randomness i all randomness that all by itself can decide a game.
"Place random artifact" is therefore bad randomness, since the possible difference is too big.
Danage range is generally a good thing, but 13-31 is bad - escept if you make that a defining character of a faction as such, then you can accept it, knowing, however, that this may sometimes be decisive (as can every racial speciality be decisive under the right conditions).
Luck isn't a bad thing either, except when the effect is too big.
Random spells are good as well - provided the spells are all equally useful.
And so on.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 07, 2011 10:08 AM |
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Quote:
How does H6 luck/morale system work compared to Heroes 3 or 4 ? I only played H5 at a friend's house, and not much.
Not sure if you ask for H5 or H6, but here they are:
- H5: Morale means your unit only uses 50 % of its ATB - or said in other words, it'll get its next turn 50 % sooner. Luck means unit does double damage.
- H6: Morale means your unit gets an extra turn (like H3) but with only half movement and damage. You get to know this before the unit has its first (normal) turn. Luck means unit does 50 % extra damage. You are only told this after attack is chosen, like in previous games.
Quote:
It's not a question of WHAT is random at all, but instead how big is the difference?
BAD randomness i all randomness that all by itself can decide a game.
"Place random artifact" is therefore bad randomness, since the possible difference is too big.
Danage range is generally a good thing, but 13-31 is bad - escept if you make that a defining character of a faction as such, then you can accept it, knowing, however, that this may sometimes be decisive (as can every racial speciality be decisive under the right conditions).
Luck isn't a bad thing either, except when the effect is too big.
Random spells are good as well - provided the spells are all equally useful.
And so on.
Indeed, randomness is obviously only going to work if things are at least moderately balanced. Sure, there is no such thing as absolute balance, but there were cases where you had a 50/50 toss where one thing was (slightly) overpowered and the other (slightly) underpowered, which suddenly made the difference between the two huge. Arcane Armor vs. Summon Phoenix is an excellent example, cf. recent discussion.
Damage range is not an issue for me, because it also opens for some features like Bless / Curse (Divine Strength / Weakness) spells, etc. It's not necessarily a problem either to have a faction like Inferno which was characterized by huge damage gap. Problem came when this faction had very hard access to Light Magic, making it very vulnerable to Weakness spell without a decent counter. On the other hand making Light Magic more available was not a good choice either - getting Light Magic with Inferno deffinitely mend a significant balance shift in your favor. Clearly that was a balance issue.
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What will happen now?
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 10:20 AM |
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Quote:
Indeed, randomness is obviously only going to work if things are at least moderately balanced. Sure, there is no such thing as absolute balance, but there were cases where you had a 50/50 toss where one thing was (slightly) overpowered and the other (slightly) underpowered, which suddenly made the difference between the two huge. Arcane Armor vs. Summon Phoenix is an excellent example, cf. recent discussion.
Damage range is not an issue for me, because it also opens for some features like Bless / Curse (Divine Strength / Weakness) spells, etc. It's not necessarily a problem either to have a faction like Inferno which was characterized by huge damage gap. Problem came when this faction had very hard access to Light Magic, making it very vulnerable to Weakness spell without a decent counter. On the other hand making Light Magic more available was not a good choice either - getting Light Magic with Inferno deffinitely mend a significant balance shift in your favor. Clearly that was a balance issue.
Don't you think that the 1st paragraph is contradicting the second? Getting Light Magic or not is a yes/no thing with massive consequences, and that's because damage range is too big (which makes Curse/Bless too important. Balance means that damage range is not big enough to make having Curse/Bless too important a thing.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 10:39 AM |
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Spells - I'd rather see a guild than spells as skills. I'd rather be able to pick them though. Randomness is too game breaking if we keep the "classic" homm game breakers like frenzy, puppet master and so on. and the game wouldn't be quite the same without those.
Skills - I'd rather pick them myself rather than being offered some. Why? because it's safe to say Ubihole won't create a perfect environment where every skill (and perk) is viable. I'd rather pick the good ones myself rather than wait till I get them offered to me, being fed with First Aid and Mysticism in the meantime.
Morale/Luck - It's okay that it's random, after all I can't really imagine it working otherwise, since it's ... well... LUCK.  But, no gamebreaking effects please, +100% was too much. +50% is okay.
Heroes - we can pick the first hero, so I don't mind if the rest is random as long as they don't come with super overpowered secondary special.
Good randomness: adds some spice and unpredictability to the game, meaning you can't play every time in exactly the same way
Bad randomness: Changes the choice between good spell/skill/perk/situation and a horrible one into a coin toss. Solves the battles on its own i.e. the players, re-loading and trying again with the same exact moves will get a different winner.
To sum up: I prefer to be able to pick a strategy myself rather than relying on random level ups and/or guild, but implement it in a random (yet balanced) environment so I have to adapt it a bit in every game to the situation.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 07, 2011 10:40 AM |
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The randomness problem is not a problem. Do you hear Maretti complaining he got a bad dice roll and lose several games in a row?
He is still on top of rankings. Which proves that randomness has no major impact, but how you adapt to different rolls. Removing it will certainly make the game more tributary to only skilled players, but also will lower the re-playability, thus the game life.
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Era II mods and utilities
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 01:29 PM |
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What I didn't like about the old H2/3/5 skill system was the inability to refuse a skill you didn't want, if they'd fixed that I think a lot less people would have wanted something else.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 07, 2011 01:37 PM |
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If you can refuse, then all in the end will have same skills which proved being best. If you always have same abilities and powers, what's the point in re-playing the game? At least in Heroes 3 you could refuse one by choosing the second, and people knowing racial specificities and percentages knew how to provoke an "almost" fixed path.
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Era II mods and utilities
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 07, 2011 01:47 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Indeed, randomness is obviously only going to work if things are at least moderately balanced. Sure, there is no such thing as absolute balance, but there were cases where you had a 50/50 toss where one thing was (slightly) overpowered and the other (slightly) underpowered, which suddenly made the difference between the two huge. Arcane Armor vs. Summon Phoenix is an excellent example, cf. recent discussion.
Damage range is not an issue for me, because it also opens for some features like Bless / Curse (Divine Strength / Weakness) spells, etc. It's not necessarily a problem either to have a faction like Inferno which was characterized by huge damage gap. Problem came when this faction had very hard access to Light Magic, making it very vulnerable to Weakness spell without a decent counter. On the other hand making Light Magic more available was not a good choice either - getting Light Magic with Inferno deffinitely mend a significant balance shift in your favor. Clearly that was a balance issue.
Don't you think that the 1st paragraph is contradicting the second? Getting Light Magic or not is a yes/no thing with massive consequences, and that's because damage range is too big (which makes Curse/Bless too important. Balance means that damage range is not big enough to make having Curse/Bless too important a thing.
Indeed, I think the example of Inferno damage range exactly showcases why it can be so difficult - if not even impossible - to find the "right" solution. But obviously the case with Inferno digs deaper than that. Inferno is - was - a faction with fast units with low durability but (potentially) high damage output. This means that Light Magic is a perfect fit for this faction - not only because of Divine Strength, but also because spells like Haste and Righteous Might will improve their chance for a first strike with massive damage, whereas Endurance will improve durability.
So the solution is not necessarily to remove damage range, or even to remove wide damage ranges, but to make this a feature of another faction with other inherent characteristics. For instance, if you gave Necropolis (slow creatures, defensive properties) a wide damage range, it wouldn't really matter quite as much, because Necropolis simply doesn't have the playing style where a potential massive damage output is the decisive element (at least not in the short run). But that also means that giving Necropolis a wide damage range would be pointless.
So I think there was a point in giving Inferno a high damage range - it works well with their other attributes. So how to balance it? Increasing Light probability is not really the best way to go, because a (much) increased chance for Light would make the faction imbalanced. But there could be other options: One could say that the chaotic nature of their demonic inheritance gave them a chance to resist Dark Magic spells, but also an equal chance for Light Magic spells to fail when applied to them. This would make the faction less vulnerable to spells like Weakness and Slow (which can otherwise be very devastating for them) but will also mean that the chance of succesfully applying Divine Strength and Haste (which can break the faction) is decreased. So if you balance one extreme (damage range) with a reduction in likelyhood of another extreme (mass Light/Dark), the two things can balance each other out.
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What will happen now?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 01:50 PM |
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Quote:
If you can refuse, then all in the end will have same skills which proved being best.
This is some sort of taboo for many players I see is it necessarily so bad to have a personal strategy? I mean, in a perfect situation you can try another, equally good one if you're bored of the first one
or you can number them and roll a dice yourself. There you go, randomness at its best. Do we really need an in-game implementation of it? random number generators are rather easy to come by
I see it this way: I play (and re-play) the game because it's fun, not because I have 20% att skill and next time I have 20% def skill because those are just soulless numbers to me I enjoy battles and don't need different visual every game to keep my attention span from ending abruptly
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 07, 2011 02:24 PM |
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You play because it's fun, you said it. Thus you seem to enjoy the randomness, being part of your fun.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 03:42 PM |
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It's not a big part of the game. I mean, sure, one game you can go 20% farther, in another you have +20% offense but in reality this doesn't affect how the game is played that much, it's just background mechanical buff to your armies (talking about H3 here).
It wouldn't bother me if it was random or fixed (and it doesn't)
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 04:18 PM |
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Edited by Fauch at 16:40, 07 Aug 2011.
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I think you are mostly talking about competitive multiplayer, and from what I know, those players aren't very fond about experimenting. usually, when a strategy was proven to be efficient, they stick to it. eventually they'll change some minor things, but rarely in a serious game, a player will experiment some completely new crazy build.
it's quite funny that "good players" often don't like to have to be flexible. they always play the same map, with the same strategy, and then claim they are good. and if you want to draw them to play on another map, good luck. they are too afraid to face someone on a map they haven't practised for hours and hours.
about the subject :
Spells : It is quite exciting to not know what you will get, though in H5, with school affinities and the low number of spells, it could be quite predictable. in another hand, quite frustrating to not get the spells you want. maybe that happened less often in H4, even if you had no good spells in your main school (very unlikely) you could still easily buy a caster specialised in one of the 2 secondary schools. seriously, if you managed to end up with no useful spells...
Luck/Morale. average. it adds some spice, but they are very powerful a lucky strike is as satisfying when you inflict it as it is frustrating when you receive it. good thing that there are ways to increase and decrease the probabilities. maybe there should be more ways to decrease them.
Random guards. it's cool. but now that there is only one precious resource, I'm not sure. before, if your most important mine was guarded by arcane archers for example, you could still capture the 3 other ones and do some trade. in H6 you would just be screwed?
Random weeks. never really thought about it. though +5 tier 6 / 7 was extremly powerful, if it happened early, you gained a huge advantage.
Random teleporters. very annoying indeed. even more if they are guarded.
Random heroes to recruit. never thought about that. I think if you could choose, it would make some abuses possible.
Chance-based magic resistance. not sure. maybe the effect of the spell could be decreased instead.
Chance based creature abilities : I think it's quite fine, especially in H5, where the probabilities depended on the ratio between the strength of the 2 stacks. but it would be good to avoid super imba abilities such as the deadly strike from H3 / H5 dread knights or aging from H3 ghost dragons.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted August 07, 2011 05:01 PM |
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Quote:
Spells - I'd rather see a guild than spells as skills. I'd rather be able to pick them though. Randomness is too game breaking if we keep the "classic" homm game breakers like frenzy, puppet master and so on. and the game wouldn't be quite the same without those.
I can only post ideas that won't be implemented, but how about this:
- spells available to you at the next level of Mage Guild are revealed one level sooner. This means with no guild you know what level 1 spells will be. With level 2 guild you know what level 3 spells will be. Then you could make a decision to pay resources for these spells or not.
- rumors at the tavern. "They say the level 5 spell in Sorpigal is really Mirror Image."
Quote:
Heroes - we can pick the first hero, so I don't mind if the rest is random as long as they don't come with super overpowered secondary special.
No, no, there's more than that. I'm heavily into experimentation. For instance Olema the Heretic could be lovely in a Fortress town. She starts with Wisdom and Ballistics. Fortress needs Ballistics. Why Heretic ? Because Fortress heroes can't learn Fire magic.
I would like to select heroes from any faction, not just my own.
Quote:
Bad randomness: Changes the choice between good spell/skill/perk/situation and a horrible one into a coin toss. Solves the battles on its own i.e. the players, re-loading and trying again with the same exact moves will get a different winner.
It's been a while since I played Heroes 3, but in 2 the results are indeed identical, as long as you move exactly the same. Reloading won't help you unless it's to try a different tactic.
About skills: I dislike HAVING to choose a new skill to learn. I don't remember Heroes 3, but in 2 I'm currently playing I can get a choice between Eagle Eye and Navigation. I would rather improve one of my existing skills. By the way, Eagle Eye is not bad in single player on large/open maps. There may be good spells in your guild but your heroes are busy guarding important passages. Like in last scenario of Heroes 2 campaign, long distances and you can't afford to step away from a well and allow Warlocks recharge their Dimension Door.
Maybe 3 skill choices would make the game better.
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted August 07, 2011 05:08 PM |
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If you want to know why I enjoy huge randomness, read "Regression to the mean" paragraph for that essay. If there's a large amount of independent random factors, in the end game retains its balance, though many unexpected situations may occur => fun.
If there was no randomness at all, slightly better player would win 99% bpercent of times, or more. How could that ever be enjoyable if you always know what happens next?
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The future of Heroes 3 is here!
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 07, 2011 05:16 PM |
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Quote:
or you can number them and roll a dice yourself. There you go, randomness at its best. Do we really need an in-game implementation of it? random number generators are rather easy to come by
Please stop saying this. It's just plain silly. 
The good thing about being offered random skills was exactly not rolling the dice, but picking your skills so that you maximized your chances to get what you want. For instance, in Heroes 5, if you maxed out all the SKILLS you had, you would be offered two new skills on level up, instead of one known and one new, effectively doubling your chances. Taking high-probability skills will make low-probability skills more likely to show up. So yes, there's still a huge element of luck in it, but it's also about knowing how to work the game to your most favorable. And then there is an excitement at being offered a rare skill which is not there if you just pick freely.
Quote:
About skills: I dislike HAVING to choose a new skill to learn. I don't remember Heroes 3, but in 2 I'm currently playing I can get a choice between Eagle Eye and Navigation. I would rather improve one of my existing skills.
This argument is frequently offered by Heroes 3 players, but fact is that Heroes 5 pretty effectively eliminated this issue. By reducing the number of skills to only 12 (plus racial), there were not really any "bad" skills like Eagle Eye or Navigation left - these were now perks. While that didn't mean that all skills were equally favorable to you, or that you would always get the skills that you wanted, the chance of you getting a downright useless skill was very low.
Unfortunately getting the perks you needed to achieve synergy frequently was a nightmare, which is why I'm opting for random skills but free perk selection.
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What will happen now?
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Karanshade
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 07, 2011 06:10 PM |
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Randomness is bad, maths are evil . Take away ALL randomness and I m happy. Only your choice (an opponent's) should affect strategy. Unexpected '10% event triggering twice in a row' making me lose a battle just spoils my fun sorry. As for luck and morale , if you have 20% chance of event , they should be then for one in 5 creature turn , and announced a turn in advance to both player on the atb bar (like 2 luck or morale event out of 10 stack turns and again after 10). The stacks affected will have to stay random  but that s just because of the (bad) game mechanics of those and avoid OPness.
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Elvin 
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted August 07, 2011 06:53 PM |
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Quote:
it's quite funny that "good players" often don't like to have to be flexible. they always play the same map, with the same strategy, and then claim they are good. and if you want to draw them to play on another map, good luck. they are too afraid to face someone on a map they haven't practised for hours and hours.
That is indeed a funny thing to say. Because I knew many good players who were anything but rigid.
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