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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 23, 2012 09:05 PM |
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I've still no idea what he actually wants. He seems to enjoy wise-cracking and doesn't seem to get what the point is - or that neither he or me is the game designer.
Also he's assuming a lot.
The whole utility function thing - the whole game is a utility function at every single point, but it's irrelevant when it's hard-coded, and in case of creature design and hero development it IS hard-coded.
So the question is, if there are significant differencces between races - and there are. Which means, if Destiny and Leadership are always at best half as good as the others, then you are at a disadvantage when you are FORCED to play with more of the lower value stuff, and that you are.
The actual mechanics are irrelevant, since we are not supposed to find an exact solution. The values are rough values to give an impression.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted January 23, 2012 09:50 PM |
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As I see it, you're both equally good at it, so please don't let this thread evolve into heavy trolling. I think there's a general agreement that Destiny is underpowered compared to Attack, and whether it's by a factor 3, 4 or 5 is not really worth biting each others' heads off for.
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What will happen now?
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DoubleDeck
Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
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posted January 24, 2012 07:22 AM |
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This thread has made for some interesting read, and the maths can get very mind-boggling to say the least.
One thing for sure though is that Luck & Morale are now part of the primary stats and Necro benefits from this with Morale being not applicable so it can focus on the other stats.
Anyway what is still bothering me: 1 point destiny = 1% chance of occurring?
I was playing a mutli map and went for Destiny I III and my luck was triggering very often. If 1 point = 1% chance, Destiny III finally adds up to 7 points extra(7% chance).....it just doesn't make sense and seems too low compared to the approx 40% chance that Destiny III "feels" like it's doing....
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odium
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 08:01 AM |
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Take into account that Destiny skills are not the only source for Luck. Creatures have innate values, it is also a hero's attribute which improves as you level up, there are various artifacts that improve it.
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DoubleDeck
Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
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posted January 24, 2012 09:52 AM |
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Yes, I am aware of all those destiny factors. I am talking just about levelling Destiny III and noticing this affect....
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hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 01:26 PM |
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Quote:
Yes, I am aware of all those destiny factors. I am talking just about levelling Destiny III and noticing this affect....
Why does that surprise you? You have 7 units. If they all make one attack per turn, you'd see an extra luck effect every other turn or so from having Chosen of Destiny III. If they make two attacks per turn (which they very well might considering retaliation and good morale), then you'd expect to see an extra luck effect every turn (well, 98% of turns anyway). You make a lot of attacks in Heroes VI. Small luck chances add up pretty fast.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 02:36 PM |
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I havent got time to read all of this. For now i can just say that the argument how strong is attack value in comparison to luck/leadership can be easily measured in following manner:
There was a chart some time ago that explained that 1 point off attack gives anywhere from 2,5%-5% increase in damage, depending on the current value. The more attack you have the more is added per additional point.
Since we know that 1 point of luck/morale gives 1% of it triggering, and its save to assume that the effect gives additional 50% of damage, it means that expected value from having 2 ponits in luck/leadership is 1% increase in damage.
Combining 2 of the above 1 point of attack is equal to 5-10 points of luck/leadership. Effectiveness of attack point in this case is 5-10 bigger. But this is true only for army using physical attack only. No army is made of the physical attackers exclusively. To get precise number then you need to count what percent of your troops uses physical attack and multiply that number by the effectiveness we counted before.
Concluding, this relation is different for each castle because castles have different number of magic/might oriented creatures. Its highest for stronghold because 6 out of 7 units uses attack there, and I believe lowest is for sanctuary, if i remember correctly.
The lowetst attack/luck ratio would be 4/7(sanctuary)*5 ~ 2,85
The highest attack/luck ratio would be 6/7(stronghold)*10~8,57
In reality it is somewhere in between. Hope my calculations are good.
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odium
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 03:00 PM |
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Edited by odium at 15:02, 24 Jan 2012.
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Exact numbers don't matter that much at this point since everyone agrees that Luck/Morale points are way less effective than the other attributes. Question is what can be done? Aside from creatures' damage might/magic attack or defense also influence abilities which makes it even harder to balance. I would say that it will be better to remove Destiny and Leadership as primary attributes.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 03:14 PM |
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Its not harder if you can easily count the equivalent, like i did above.
Only thing that needs to be done is to balance it properly. Since we have have glaring disproportions of the skill effects on the skill tree, I doubt if anyone actually took a closer look at units itself. When you think about it for a second it is mind blowing, how a serious developer can allow such mistakes, after this period of testings, betas etc. For me there is only one explanation, they dont care.
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odium
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 03:35 PM |
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Edited by odium at 15:46, 24 Jan 2012.
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Regarding creatures' damage, I've done the calculations with more precise numbers or so I believe. However there is a big problem which is not at all easy to deal with. 4 hero attributes (magic attack, magic defense, might attack, might defense) also affect hero abilities, while Destiny and Leadership don't. Actually magic attributes influences more abilities than might attributes so this should also be analysed. This discrepancy between Leadership&Destiny and the others is a BIG issue, essentially making them secondary attributes. I am not saying that it's impossible to balance but the system is not very logical and balance would have to be done in a highly empirical way. W/O changing too much, can we find a more logical system that should make balancing more simple?
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted January 24, 2012 03:50 PM |
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The whole thing you are talking about is secondary to the many greater balance flaws that have already been spotted and need fixing. Two pages dedicated almost solely to two passive "skills" which nobody bothers with anyway and the factions are still imbalanced (read - even if you don't take Destiny and Leadership into account, you still have more than 95% problems to fix and if you fix them, you won't care about Leadership and Destiny). Currently only two factions are heavily dependent on these attributes and if you need to address their needs, you need to fix their respective racials, not some third rate passive skills. Make the Haven gauge harder to fill - because it currently allows you to make some of your creatures invulnerable virtually every round in addition to the most durable turtle in the game - and give Inferno some other way to fill its own gauge besides Luck. The move to other obvious balance issues like the Glories' abilities, the Liches' damage, the Breeders' impotence (hm...) and so on. There are tons of other things to be fixed before you can begin focusing on some passive skills.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 03:51 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Yes, I am aware of all those destiny factors. I am talking just about levelling Destiny III and noticing this affect....
Why does that surprise you? You have 7 units. If they all make one attack per turn, you'd see an extra luck effect every other turn or so from having Chosen of Destiny III. If they make two attacks per turn (which they very well might considering retaliation and good morale), then you'd expect to see an extra luck effect every turn (well, 98% of turns anyway). You make a lot of attacks in Heroes VI. Small luck chances add up pretty fast.
Your mathematics seem to be ... wrong.
Destiny III gives 3 points of Destiny. That means, on average you get 3 MORE Luck triggers in 100 attacks/retaliations. The number of attacks per round depends, of course, but I think, even on a crowded BF, with opponent not concentrating attacks on few units, considering there is no ranged retaliation, it's difficult to imagine that you will make 100 attacks in less than six rounds, so 1 more Luck trigger every OTHER round would be a pretty good result - but not that noticable, I'd think.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted January 24, 2012 03:54 PM |
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Well one could take Luck/Leadership out of the primary attributes completely, but I think also if one made the increment in Luck/Leadership greater (say, you gain 3 or 5 points instead of just 1 if this stat is increased) but also less frequent (obviously, we don't want some classes ending up with 50 % Luck at level 20), it would be a good start. Increasing the gain would make them more comparable to Attack/Defence, and decreasing the frequency with which these stats are increased would make it less crucial to be exactly balanced.
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odium
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 04:18 PM |
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Edited by odium at 16:20, 24 Jan 2012.
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Removing Leadership/Destiny from the primary attributes and making them secondary attributes will solve this problem. On each level up only the primary attributes get improved with the current mechanics. Similarly, the secondary attributes get improved but not every level. Moreover, 1 point in Destiny/Leadership should not be equivalent to a 1% increase in chance but somewhere between 3-5%. Necro should have less points in secondary attributes or the points the hero gains in Leadership should be non-zero (morale does not affect Necro units and thus those points will have no effect). This is required to partially make-up for the huge passive bonuses the undeads have (mind immunity related).
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 04:24 PM |
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@ alcibiades
Exactly.
Also, since these things are used for creatures as well - and influence the "strength value" - a re-evaluation there may lead to a re-evaluation of other stats either. Either that or an increase or decrease in base production.
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hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 04:31 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Yes, I am aware of all those destiny factors. I am talking just about levelling Destiny III and noticing this affect....
Why does that surprise you? You have 7 units. If they all make one attack per turn, you'd see an extra luck effect every other turn or so from having Chosen of Destiny III. If they make two attacks per turn (which they very well might considering retaliation and good morale), then you'd expect to see an extra luck effect every turn (well, 98% of turns anyway). You make a lot of attacks in Heroes VI. Small luck chances add up pretty fast.
Your mathematics seem to be ... wrong.
Destiny III gives 3 points of Destiny. That means, on average you get 3 MORE Luck triggers in 100 attacks/retaliations. The number of attacks per round depends, of course, but I think, even on a crowded BF, with opponent not concentrating attacks on few units, considering there is no ranged retaliation, it's difficult to imagine that you will make 100 attacks in less than six rounds, so 1 more Luck trigger every OTHER round would be a pretty good result - but not that noticable, I'd think.
Try to keep up. Destiny's Chosen III requires and subsumes I and II. So buying Destiny's Chosen III costs 3 skill points and gives you 7 Destiny. There are other ways to look at it, but that is the way that Double Decker was talking about it, so that's the way I analyzed it.
An additional 7% chance of a luck event per attack would get you on average one additional luck event for every 14.29 attacks.
Note: that is extremely terrible. But for Duel heroes there is little reason to not take it anyway. You only need like 6 spells/warcries on your whole list. And while some of them cost more than one skill point (example: the Retribution Aura path costs 3), a lot of them are simply stand alone. Since Duel Heroes have no use at all for any adventure abilities, they literally have 18-24 skill points to flush into passive bonuses. Counterstrike II, Archery II, Cleave, and Rampage is only 6 points. There are a lot more left to spend, and sooner or later they might as well be spent on Destiny's Chosen even though that skill is terribad.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted January 24, 2012 04:33 PM |
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Wouldn't this be too much for Black Hole to handle? They're not showing any balancing genius so far, transforming a primary attribute into a secondary one and re-balancing the creatures after that (the impact on Inferno in particular will be very serious) sounds like too much of a challenge for them. I would expect an even bigger mess.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 04:47 PM |
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Quote:
Try to keep up. Destiny's Chosen III requires and subsumes I and II. So buying Destiny's Chosen III costs 3 skill points and gives you 7 Destiny. There are other ways to look at it, but that is the way that Double Decker was talking about it, so that's the way I analyzed it.
I'm not going to argue against that - but of course, if you are eligible to pick 3 tier 3 skills, you should have something better to pick than Destiny I-III, especially when you seemingly don't expect much of a result.
So I understood his post, that after picking Destiny III (not I-III, he felt that his luck had increased quite a bit.
I mean, who'd do that?
Anyway. No reason for further argument.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 04:51 PM |
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Quote:
Wouldn't this be too much for Black Hole to handle? They're not showing any balancing genius so far, transforming a primary attribute into a secondary one and re-balancing the creatures after that (the impact on Inferno in particular will be very serious) sounds like too much of a challenge for them. I would expect an even bigger mess.
It's also completely unnecessary. They can simply rebalance things. With skills not coming randomly anymore, it's a controlled environment anyway, so they should just assign other values and go on. There are indeed a lot more issues, and we are not only talking about changing what is, but about adding things that are not yet.
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hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted January 24, 2012 04:58 PM |
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Quote:
Wouldn't this be too much for Black Hole to handle? They're not showing any balancing genius so far, transforming a primary attribute into a secondary one and re-balancing the creatures after that (the impact on Inferno in particular will be very serious) sounds like too much of a challenge for them. I would expect an even bigger mess.
Well... yes. When you look in at the underlying numbers, the game is a complete mess. The damage calculation advances as the non-integer exponent of a non-integer increase. All that does is make it a real pain in the butt to figure out what is going on. I can only assume that they did something like that for the purpose of making it difficult to open up the math to determine what is "best". But it also just plain makes it hard to figure out what is going on period. All the way through patch 1.11, Luck wasn't working at all for a majority of units. But the math of the game is so obtuse that it was exceedingly difficult to demonstrate that was what was going on.
The only reason that there is general acceptance that Destiny is underpowered is that the damage bonus it hands out is about eighty percent lower than that of Might or Magic attack. That's a difference so tremendous that people can get an intuitive feel for it very quickly even if they can't understand the numbers. That it went to print like that makes me have very little faith in Black Hole when it comes to math.
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