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| Thread: Unit Upgrades |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 10:04 AM |
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Edited by MattII at 10:04, 09 Jan 2013.
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I see no reason why a Heroes game will be screwed if both are allowed to gain experience. Assuming there is some well thought balance about the process.
Here's one, experience improves certain abilites (eg, Eye of Gluttony or Pleasure in Pain), but not much else. Stuff like that would clutter up the hero way too much if you were to load them down with it (unless the hero's speciality was in reinforcing that particular creature), but would still be helpful.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 10:18 AM |
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It's just a question of knitting together the most fitting game mechanics.
The Heroes game allows theoretically unlimited unit stacks, which isn't realistic in any way (so realism is not a point; whether a unit "in reality" has 10 years XP or not is irrelevant). It is however, a quite simple method to make "production" count. All things concerning development of said unit STACKS (masses of units), are heaped onto their commander(s) (it could be more than one hero per army) - AGAIN a simplification that works fine. All experience gained flows into the hero, and there is no limit to how that experience may transfer into stats, skills, abilities, perks and whatnot, detailed or general.
Which works quite well, since it keep things simple - a look at the hero will show you what your units are capable of over and above the things they come with when freshly recruited.
Introducing unit XP DOES. NOT. GAIN.
This is simply, because EVERYTHING you want to accomplish by doing that, can be accomplished better by simply arranging things in such a way, that the things are accomplished by way of hero(es) levelling and gaining XP. That keeps it simple, but does the same job.
Simple example: Heroes 5 Offense perk Frenzy (+1 damage for all creatures in army).
In H 5, if a hero levels and gains that perk, it's for all intents and purposes the same thing as if each UNIT or CREATURE in the hero army would gain a level and with it the ability: Frenzy: your [X] just added +1 each to minumum and maximum damage.
The only difference to CREATURE XP is, that you can freely add or subtract troops, without changing anything, while changing the commander will, while if you have CREATURE XP, you make a mess out of adding and subtracting troops. Example: You have a stack with 20 Pikeman, all with 2000 XP. You pick up a stack of another 20 Pikemen with 0 XP. You combine the two stacks - you now have 40 Pikemen with 1000 XP each. You divide the stacks again - you now have two stacks, each with 20 Pikemen with 1000 XP each.
What happened? 20 Pikemen with 10 years of experience in the job just handed 20 freshmen 5 years experience in the job. Realistic? No. Messy and complicated? Yes.
In other words - not good.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted January 09, 2013 10:29 AM |
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 10:58 AM |
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Quote:
Introducing unit XP DOES. NOT. GAIN.
This is simply, because EVERYTHING you want to accomplish by doing that, can be accomplished better by simply arranging things in such a way, that the things are accomplished by way of hero(es) levelling and gaining XP. That keeps it simple, but does the same job.
Keeps it simple? You start adding in perks for individual stacks' abilities and I assure you, simplicity is the last thing you're going to achieve.
Now stop ranting that Stack XP will ruin heroes, they've never been played the same in any two games anyway, H2 introduced Secondary Skills, H3 introduced Spell Schools, H4 doesn't even need an explanation, H5 introduced Perks and Faction Skills, and H6 merged spells and skills into one system.
Oh, and this thread isn't even about Stack XP, so the last page or so has technically been off topic.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 11:04 AM |
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Salamandre, in all fairness - we are talking about a 15 year old game, so everyone STILL playing it DID play it to hell and back, with or without WoG. Which means, everyone of those does know the game inside out, and under that condition a feature like that is infusing the known routines with freshness and new avenues to explore. OF COURSE most of those who still play adore it - especially because you can toggle it off, if you want to play a regular game.
That doesn't mean, however, that it would be a good feature for a future Heroes title.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 11:09 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Introducing unit XP DOES. NOT. GAIN.
This is simply, because EVERYTHING you want to accomplish by doing that, can be accomplished better by simply arranging things in such a way, that the things are accomplished by way of hero(es) levelling and gaining XP. That keeps it simple, but does the same job.
Keeps it simple? You start adding in perks for individual stacks' abilities and I assure you, simplicity is the last thing you're going to achieve.
That comment just shows that our understanding of the game is too different for a discussion making sense.
Play WoG. Have fun. Thanks and bye.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 07:06 PM |
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That doesn't mean, however, that it would be a good feature for a future Heroes title.
Based on what, your own personal bias? People are still playing H3 because they have crap computers that can't play the more modern games, or because they don't like the buggy nature of more modern games, or because the top-down view appeals to them, etc.
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Play WoG. Have fun. Thanks and bye.
You know, if you're focussed on the heroes that much, maybe the regular Might and Magic games would be more to your liking.
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okrane
Famous Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 08:42 PM |
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I do agree with JJ. Stack experience is not a good game design element. If you like more level-ups in your army the best way is to again focus on the hero and introduce multiple hero armies with heroes on the battlefield just like in Heroes 4.
The problem with stacks gaining experience has many folds attached to it which make it a bad game design.
The first, as said here is about the stack in itself and the way the game works. The game is made such as creatures can be put together in a stack and every 1 creature is identical to another one in the stack. Adding XP complicates the game a ton by giving two opposite incentives which conflict too much: build a big army and build experience on creatures. It is a conflict impossible to solve properly.
The second issue is about the clarity of the game play. The game becomes very obscure in the sense that army strength becomes a much more complicated thing, hero progression routes as well as army recruitment will need extremely complicated spreadsheets to optimize (i.e. if there is only X xp left on the map, recruit only Y new creatures so they all get the level up before the big fight, etc) and there are a lot of weird choices to be made (i.e. the choice between merging your stack and keeping the initial creatures in place.
Creatures were never made to level up. Heroes were made to level up. This is the way the game was made and leveling up creatures is just too weird in a HoMM game.
I believe that those who enjoy creature leveling, actually like the system H4 put in place with Heroes on the battlefield. It's Heroes 3's version of HoMM4 Heroes in combat, which I believe was an extraordinary feature which added a ton of depth, but this is a discussion for another thread.
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BlueLore
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 09, 2013 09:47 PM |
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I think the unit upgrades should remain,it is simply a cool and iconic feature of the games and I think it was handled rather good in H6,where nearly every creature has a unique ability and usually gains a new unique ability when it upgrades(or it upgrades the onld one)
The upgrades are usually deservable(especially with the added population boost) and thus you have to make decisions what you want to build first,if you rather want to upgrade your current creatures or build buildings for new ones
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 10, 2013 07:33 AM |
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Quote:
The first, as said here is about the stack in itself and the way the game works. The game is made such as creatures can be put together in a stack and every 1 creature is identical to another one in the stack. Adding XP complicates the game a ton by giving two opposite incentives which conflict too much: build a big army and build experience on creatures. It is a conflict impossible to solve properly.
So adding more strategy choices is a bad thing? You should have said you wanted and PRG-Citybuilder.
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The second issue is about the clarity of the game play. The game becomes very obscure in the sense that army strength becomes a much more complicated thing, hero progression routes as well as army recruitment will need extremely complicated spreadsheets to optimize (i.e. if there is only X xp left on the map, recruit only Y new creatures so they all get the level up before the big fight, etc) and there are a lot of weird choices to be made (i.e. the choice between merging your stack and keeping the initial creatures in place.
The game is already plenty complicated,
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Creatures were never made to level up. Heroes were made to level up. This is the way the game was made and leveling up creatures is just too weird in a HoMM game.
Times change. Heroes never used to be able to select exactly the skill they wanted, now they can, that changes the whole dynamic, as does the new skill system. Spells now work differently than ever before too.
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I believe that those who enjoy creature leveling, actually like the system H4 put in place with Heroes on the battlefield. It's Heroes 3's version of HoMM4 Heroes in combat, which I believe was an extraordinary feature which added a ton of depth, but this is a discussion for another thread.
That was another thing WoG introduced, commanders to represent the hero in combat, so in that case they made it all work together, upgrades, stack XP, hero XP and heroes on the battlefield.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted January 10, 2013 08:33 AM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 08:35, 10 Jan 2013.
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So adding more strategy choices is a bad thing?
Hey, I'm not a human computer. I spend enough time checking up on stats as it is 
How do you stack XP, by the way? I never understood that.
A unit learns a new ability and are then combined with a unit of the same type with less XP and without said ability...
What then?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 10, 2013 11:10 AM |
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Creatures don't learn abilities through stack XP, that's left to upgrades. What you do get through stack XP is improvements to the creature's inherent abilities.
Say for example we take H5 Haven. Okay there's not a lot you can do with Taxpayer, but Bash can be given an increased potential to trigger, Scatter Shot and Precise Shot do an increased amount of damage, Large Shield blocks a bit more damage, while Enraged boosts damage by a bit more etc.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 10, 2013 11:25 AM |
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Edited by xerox at 11:25, 10 Jan 2013.
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I agree with JJ on this idea of creature XP. It also makes duels trickier and duels are a part of the multiplayer that I think should be enhanced and uplifted.
I'll change my idea to "Creature Reputation" since it's not the same thing as this.
I didn't know creature XP already existed in WoG so naturally, veterans associate it with that.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted January 10, 2013 11:29 AM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 11:32, 10 Jan 2013.
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Creatures don't learn abilities through stack XP, that's left to upgrades. What you do get through stack XP is improvements to the creature's inherent abilities.
Aha. But what happens to the XP if you divide a unit into two separates?
(Just to make sure we're on the same page here, with 'stack XP',
do you mean 'a unit stack's XP' or 'a unit's stacked XP'?)
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 10, 2013 11:41 AM |
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Edited by Elvin at 11:47, 10 Jan 2013.
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Never really liked the idea of unit stack xp, it was cool in age of wonders but less so in heroes. I'd much rather have the racial give abilities to units, much like H5 bloodrage worked. Besides it's all about how experienced the hero is no? Those unit specializations should return but in away that they improve the units in a meaningful way instead of just +1att/def per 2 levels or +x to growth.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 10, 2013 12:01 PM |
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Unit XP is a great thing when the "unit" is either a single thing as in AoW (or Eador) or a numerically limited stack as an Fantasy General. In those games there is a physical limit to the number of units a battle can have (in Aow, a battle cannot contain more than 56 units, in Fantasy General your command is limited as well). So the "increase" in strength isn't from quantity, but from quality, be allowing the individual units to get better.
On the other hand there are no "heroes" in those games that act as general strength multipliers as in HoMM.
The HoMM idea is pretty ingenious, in that units have a theoretically unlimited increase in quantity (with hard-coded increases in quality being possible via building routines and fixed upgrades), while the general quality comes from the Hero (initially: primary stat increase with direct effect on unit quality: In Homm II a good Barbarian's low level units like Wolves would do one hell of a lot of damage to tough guys due to the high attack value of a Barbarian.
So that means unlimited quantity and quality increase via buildings and, first and foremost, the hero.
No matter, how you see this, this extremely basic way to deal with things in HoMM are not to be dabbled with, because it will invariably come with plenty of downsides. Since you have in theory an unlimited and infinite amount of reinforcements for your stacks, quality increases should be the result of buuildings and/or hero development, and that includes abilities.
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yasmiel
Supreme Hero
Former Chessmaster
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posted January 13, 2013 10:05 PM |
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I think Jolly Joker nailed all the points i have here.
It would be a major concept shift to translate more power scaling from hero to units.
I prefer no unit XP.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 14, 2013 02:48 AM |
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I only read the 1st page so far, but creatures levelling up brought an idea. you could have 2 ways to upgrade a creature. either you just pay for it, or you make them fight and they eventually level up and become upgraded. first option is faster, 2nd one is cheaper.
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Or take the Vampires. In former HoMM games, the basic Vampire would just suck (not considering HoMM IV): you wouldn't want to recruit them, only after the upgrade so they could drain Life and restore their health. Here the problem is, that the upgrade is meaningful, but the basic unit is NOT.
lol what? the basic vampire could fly and strike without suffering any retaliation. in HommV they drain life and avoid retaliation, they are far from meaningless.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 14, 2013 09:18 AM |
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In H 3 they were meaningless and one of the most important upgrades in the game. Recruiting the basic version is something that wouldn't happen. In H 2 I can even Remember a map (don't know the name anymore though), where you HAD to upgrade your vampires ASAP in order to survive an early onslaught.
5 started to make things right in that regard.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted January 14, 2013 12:12 PM |
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Vampires began to suck once they stopped BLAHing < >
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