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Bluesky
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 01:14 AM |
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xerox said:
Differences between H3 and H5:
- Intitative system.
- Racial skills.
- Skill system.
- Magic system.
- Hero system.
- Creatures actually having abilites that are not "lol hates black dragons for whatever reason"
- Alternate upgrades (TotE).
It's totally the same game!
Some details are different,but the recipe is almost the same :
- you have 7 days and and the next week the creatures are produced ;
- you have the battlefield seen in sideways ;
- Town hall with 1000 gold/per day,2000 gold/per day and 4000 ;
- Creature upgrades with 7 tiers ;
- high quality music ;
- hero can't be hurt in combat ;
- similarities with heroes 3 skill system : luck,leadership and logistics are exactly the same (except for the secondary skills) ;
- skill system with maximum 3 upgrades (for example : basic defense,advance defense,expert defense) ;
- castle sieges are exactly the same : catapult versus 3 towers that shoot ;
- you have equipment in combat : artillery,first aid and ammo cart ;
- both games last very long once the AI is developed.
- some themes haven't changed at all (Haven has the same creature conformation as H3 had) ;
- only 1 hero in combat ;
- both are almost perfect games.
So as you can see there are many similarities here.I guess you can call H5,Heroes 3 older brother,because of the advanced graphics and new system.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 02:13 AM |
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Edited by MattII at 02:34, 02 Feb 2014.
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Storm-Giant said:
inb4 JJ replies: the economy was different in H3 compared to H2. Production too.
How big were the changes? I mean, we still used 7 resources right, and there was still one creature per tier right?
xerox said:
- Intitative system.
I'd forgotten that one.
Quote:
- Racial skills.
I would not consider this a separate change given the next issue.
Quote:
- Skill system.
The addition of perks (and of racial skills) does not change the system as much as H4 did, there are still only 3 levels of the basic skills, none of which require anything but the previous level.
Quote:
- Magic system.
New schools, but not a new way of acquiring or casting spells, accruing mana, etc.
Quote:
- Hero system.
That there is only one class per faction, or the way they interact in combat or what? You're going to have to be more specific.
Quote:
- Creatures actually having abilites that are not "lol hates black dragons for whatever reason"
You mean every creature having an ability, or eliminating a couple of rather badly explained abilities?
Quote:
- Alternate upgrades (TotE).
That's true.
Quote:
It's totally the same game!
I never said it was, I just noted that the difference between H3 and H5 were rather smaller than the differences between H5 and H6 (which saw a complete reworking of the entire economic, skill and spell systems, tier setup, etc. Plus Town Portals make travel easy, the zones of control makes raiding difficult, etc.).
Oh, and one thing you forgot to mention, the battlefields (H3 had hexes, H5 had squares).
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odium
Known Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 03:06 AM |
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Edited by odium at 03:20, 02 Feb 2014.
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Guys I think the focus of the discussion shouldn't be in arguing which installment was more different then another. Also, I believe that all members that posted here agree that we need changes for H7. The problem is on the way changes should be brought about. Some people say that they want changes just for the sake of changing things, while some believe that changes should be made in order to improve, to upgrade something that was not fine, optimal. Rest assured, both H3 and H5 have many many areas that can be optimized and bring sufficient changes that the installment should not be consider dull. Given the pattern that we saw with Ubisoft and the amount of investment they put into this franchise, most certainly we are to expect a pseudo-anonymous developer. While revolutionizing can come with great rewards, it is also prone to great risks. Revolutionary stuff from a small developer is too big of a hat. Considering that we are not in the position where H5 was a perfect game, far from it, it would be more beneficial and logical to have an iteration that improves/upgrades on the past and does not revolutionize. If I were to highlight what needs to be done, it would include (and I'm sure others can identify more elements):
- initiative system: IMO this was successful revolutionary element integrated into the game, albeit too random and maybe not perfect theoretically. In spite of this it brought a good vibe to the game. So, keep it but, but make the randmnosee in the beginning lower.
- magic system: while changed with respect to H3, I wouldn't say revolutionized (H6 revolutionized it, but it was a disaster). In H5 the spells were too random and spell schools maybe not balanced. So work on a system that will improve on this.
- skill system: great improvement (almost revolutionary). H5 added depth and strategy. The bad things were related to the fact that it was way too random and that not all skills/perks were as good as others. Work to balance them more and make it so that factions have more than 2 common good ways of playing. Maybe they could rely on a single core skill but the complementary ones should be multiple.
- AI basically a joke; sky is the limit on what you could do here.
- While a characteristic of the genre, gameplay is still to slow especially for multilayer (which is crucial for re-playability and for prolonged life of the game). Try to find some ways to improve this. H5 had maybe a good design point for this: make creatures to have high damage when compared to hit points amount. This also introduced some issues with some creatures doing too much damage from the start (H6 was opposite to this and in general the feel is of boredom when you have to do same actions over and over for 10+ turns). Find some system that keeps the pace quite alert (creeps battle duration, 2 at most 3 turns) but keep the 1st turn damage to a sensible amount. Hard job here!
- Multiple upgrades: good idea, but definitely far from perfect in H5. Think of ways to make them equally attractive, maybe coupled with the multiple skill system paths.
- Obviously, factions lineups and graphics are things that can always be improved and sometimes even changed for the sake of changing.
This is just on the top of my had. Certainly, approaching and solving all these aspects will not make H7 a boring game but it will move it, in a deterministic way, closer to "perfection".
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 08:56 AM |
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I swear to God, if I see another reboot in H7... But with JJ speaking for the community that's prone to happen! I dunno what's up with him or why he says the things he does. Maybe Ubi wants to stir the fanbase in a certain direction through them, cuz I cannot see ANY reason for him to say the things he says. Like, how can you not see the similarities between H3 and H5? It's so obvious, like H3 was the first brick and then H5 put another one on top of that (through adding initiative as a mechanic, racials, skillwheel depth, etc.). H4 simply smashed that brick and put another, H6 made the same mistake! That's why people see continuity in regards to H3-H5 and say that H4 and H6 were Reboots! And we're not talking about spin-offs or w/e, we're talking about a SERIES!
Now please, Heroes Community, tell me honestly, what in the world should I think of such people? I'm not trying to attack JJ, he's not the only one in that boat, but he's definitely the captain. He holds a lot of power over Ubi as an insider, and my fears are that with people like him speaking for us we'll get another Heroes disaster!
Sorry for blowing off steam like that, but my fears are justified. Which of you would like another fail game? That'll be the finishing blow for this franchise.
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natalka
Supreme Hero
Bad-mannered
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posted February 02, 2014 09:51 AM |
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Let`s put a voting round for insiders. We should have more people inside!
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 10:23 AM |
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alcibiades said:
Anyway, I have one major question for you. You say:
Quote:
The problem is, that people think they can change A FEW things AND LEAVE THE REST.
Isn't working. Forget it.
And I have to ask: Why not? Because I truly and honestly don't understand why that ISN'T working, because to me, history has shown that to work just fine.
On the contrary. I mean, what are we talking about, anyway? "Core HoMM game"? We have now 6 games in the series, and if it has shown one thing than this: if you "change" SOMEthing, it is necessary to "ADJUST" the whole game to fit the changes, because if you don't, the whole game suffers. We had a couple of examples, but here is one more: look at the development of the campaigns:
In HoMM 1 you had 4 connected strings of maps, that you would play with each faction - interesting in so far that you could compare your results; more or less just a different game mode with nothing special.
HoMM 2 expanded on that, introduced special campaign heroes, flexible map strings, campaign bonusses to pick from and special campaign elements (for example "Dwarven Alliance"). All "additions".
And in HoMM 3 came the critical CHANGE - the carryover hero(es). This feature changed the campaign play completely: from a string of loosely connected maps to basically ONE BIG MAP in a couple of portions. This had advantages and disadvantages, and the fact that there WERE disadvantages would have made ADDITIONAL changes necerssary to compensate. Because clearly, campaigns got - on one level - pretty boring: reaching the level-up limit for a map didn't feel right, especially when the map wasn't really finished. Levelling-up is one of the main drives of the game, and it's not right to reduce them.
HoMM 4 solved that specific problem, but HoMM 5 and even 6 didn't make it better.
So this is an example for a change: carry-over dampaign heroes, that SHOULD have led to more changes. For example: in campaigns heroes might have more skill slots (in HoMM 3 maybe 10 or even 12; or Learning might OPEN more slots; OR...)
But that's not important. Important is, that with most things, IF you change or even add something, this has massive consequences for the game, because the balance of everything fitting fluidly together, creating a game experience that is SUPERIOR, is VERY unstable.
Because that's another thing, right? The next game SHOULD be superior to ALL OTHERS. Because if it's not - why buy and play it?
What *I* am playing for some time now is HoMM 5 with the RPE Mod (and some associated ones as well), and that game is a lot of fun. But would it make sense to "redo" that game?
Not in MY opinion.
Because there won't ever be THE PERFECT HoMM Game, and if it was, that would be bad, because you could stop making sequels.
Be that as it may, what is NOT working, is simply picking what worked well, and mould that together, because it's not a question of mechanics, but more of timing. I gave an example already with daily/weekly growth: you can't say which one is better, because you do not need much imagination to see, that all things kept as they are, HoMM 6 should have come with DAILY growth (I explained the reasons elsewhere). If you just see the two features, then there will be those who say, they like weekly growth better, and there will be those who like daily growth better, but the real question is, what is fitting the game context better?
Which, to close this, means, there are primary game features/mechanics and there are secondary. It is of utmost importance to identify the primary ones from the secondary ones, that is, as a designer, you must 1) identify the mechanics you WANT; 2) check whether they fit; 3) check what have to change in secondary mechanics to make the primaries work.
The thing is this: HoMM 4 did that, which is the reason why the game is actually WORKING HoMM 5 did that also - but the game has some problems; HoMM 6 didn't.
THIS in turn means: EITHER HoMM 7 simply REMAKES HoMM 5, concentrating on ironing out the problems and shortcomings (but in that case HoMM VIII would have to become different); OR HoMM 7 gets a couple of new "primary mechanics" (examples: skill ladders which are different for every hero class; a magic system coming with the 7 Ashan schools in guilds; campaigns with carryover heroes without level-up limits on each map; a universal duel editor; adventure map spells; terraforming; more/different fortifications in town; 8 different creatures per town; different creature tiers for each town ....
so there is a long, long list possible with things that MAY ADD to the game, but also change the character in such a way that makes more changes necessary.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted February 02, 2014 10:40 AM |
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xerox said:
.... And these were no greater than the differences between H5 and H6, whose only real change in core mechanics was the removal of randomness in the skill and magic system.
Well this is where I disagree with you. Allowing you to convert castles, recruit creatures from a creature pool and - like you mention - the non-random skill system was, from my point of view, a lot more far-reaching changes than what was done from H3 to H5. And that is not mentioning stuff like changed tier system and resource system.
@JJ > I would like to try to answer your post, but I haven't got time now, so I'll try to return to that later.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 11:14 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 12:23, 02 Feb 2014.
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Your idea of "primary mechanics" is exactly what Stormy was talking about, the H3/H5 formula. I see now that you clearly knew that. Those are the things that should be found in any Heroes game, with certain tweaks to improve balance and blend with other features as you said. But the general idea should remain the same.
And I don't get it, what about more changes being necessary? That's how you make a good game. More content always requires more balancing and tweaking the old stuff a bit, that comes naturally and it shouldn't be feared at all! You won't get a perfect game, that's an ideal, one that every game should cling to because only then a series would deliver better and better games. Ups and downs will only stall things, and the downs came from changing your so called "primary mechanics" in that horrible way. That's not how you do it, you set those mechanics in stone! You only tweak them when balancing the game because of more content being added, but never ever change them entirely!
Best example of how NOT to do things is H6's skill system. The 2 wrongs that just jump at you are:
1. The free pick was a disaster because it makes things extremely linear and removes depth, that's terrible for replayability;
2. Spells are no longer spells that you learned from magic guilds but are more or less skills that you learn exactly in the same way as all the others. Whereas the system from H5 was superb, where there was a skill system and a spell one which intertwined at a point, but were definitely not the same --- now that's depth and replayability! And even so, as you said, there was still room for improvement.
Why didn't they go on that road? Why didn't they try to improve the skill and spells systems but simply ERASED them to start from scratch a system that was worse?
natalka said:
Let`s put a voting round for insiders. We should have more people inside!
Gonna ask a question here, does the community REALLY have a say in this? My impression is that it doesn't. Because if it did, H6 wouldn't have been the disaster that it was. And now we want a good H7? I can't see that unless several miracles happen.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted February 02, 2014 12:04 PM |
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MattII said:
Storm-Giant said:
inb4 JJ replies: the economy was different in H3 compared to H2. Production too.
How big were the changes? I mean, we still used 7 resources right, and there was still one creature per tier right?
JJ explained in one post on the "H7 faction potential direction" thread. Search there in the last pages.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 05:28 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 17:34, 02 Feb 2014.
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The all-pick system of Heroes 6 was a disaster but do we really need a return to the old way of acquring spells almost completely randomly through the Mage Guilds? Randomness is not good when it screws you over and getting all random spells in the Mage Guilds had the potential to do so. I think H4 did something right here, with the option to specialise or expand your Magic Guild. Now the all-pick problem of H6 must be avoided so maybe you could specialise your Magic Guild so that you don't get say all Fire or Destructive spells, but one more of them per Magic Guild level.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted February 02, 2014 06:10 PM |
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Stevie said:
Your idea of "primary mechanics" is exactly what Stormy was talking about, the H3/H5 formula. I see now that you clearly knew that. Those are the things that should be found in any Heroes game, with certain tweaks to improve balance and blend with other features as you said. But the general idea should remain the same.
Well maybe you are aware of this, but the problem comes when designating exactly what concepts are "core features" or "primary mechanics" or "heroes formula" or whatever we call it. Is the turn system a core feature? Or is that one allowed to be changed (as it was in Heroes 5 with the initiative system)? Is the mage guild a core feature? Is the randomness of the skills a core feature? Is the fact that Haven has an Archer as level 2 creature a core feature? Where do we draw the line? I'm playing devil's advocate here, but we need to acknowledge that what's core feature to one person may not be it to another, and that is obviously what caused a lot of aggravation with H4 and H6 (along, of course, with an actual desire to actively change whatever are core features).
@ JollyJoker (I'm not going to quote your long post since we don't have spoiler tags)
Most of what you write in your post is probably true - I won't enter the debate on campaigns, because those are for me just fluff, but obviously you have a point about a game never being perfect. However, when it comes to the issue of problems regarding balance and picking features for a next instalment, we have a different approach. As I read your post, your model is looking over all the previous games and picking good features from each and combining these into a new game. I look at things differently: I would rather pick up on one of the previous games - my choice would be H5 - and then develop from that stand point. That's not saying we shouldn't look to the other chapters at all (most relevantly H4 and H6 because I see H1-H3 included in H5), but Heroes 5 should be the starting point.
Now that may be an overly simplistic approach, but I don't see why that wouldn't be possible. Below, I'll give an example of how I would approach the task of making a new version of Heroes 5. I'm posting the below things not as much to initiate a discussion of the specific points as to give an example of how I think it's possible to develop and expand a game from an existing core.
Heroes 5 gives us a pretty solid core to develop from:
- We have a world and lore
- We have a number of factions
- We have a hero, skill and spell system
- We have a creature tier and upgrade system
- We have a combat system,
- Etc.
My approach would be to look to what things didn't work in Heroes 5. I don't know if I can go through all of the features here, but let's at least take some examples:
World and lore: Personally, I liked the H5 lore, so I wouldn't see any problems with continuing with that. Maybe have less focus on dragons, because that was the general feedback from the community.
Factions: Heroes 5 had as one of its major foci to make each faction unique and with a strong theme, so clearly there is a good base to work from here. Some factions worked well (Academy, Sylvan, Inferno, Stronghold), some factions could use a minor tweaking (Haven - new racial skill, Dungeon - less S&M, Necropolis - less neon lights), and some factions would need more or less complete rework (Fortress). Obviously each faction would need some renewal in units to make the game feel fresh.
Heroes: The idea of heroes having a class skill was a big step forward, but might and magic heroes for each faction was a big demand, so obviously this is something to target. H6 did a big work on the hero classes, so obviously one can look there for some does and don'ts. Hero actions on battlefield (direct attack) is another subject for tweaking, the fact that heroes easily became level-7 killer machines didn't work optimally, and one of my personal pet peeves were hero melee attacks working all over battlefield regardless of walls etc. I wouldn't mind making a H4/H5 hybrid with a hero actually having a location on battlefield which makes restrictions for where and whom he can target, but without the hero being a target himself like he was in H4. This would also open up some interesting possibilities for hero development (teach him new attack forms like ranged attack similar to how ranged units work).
Skill system: H5 skill system was one of the major triumphs of that game. There were issues with getting the correct perks for ultimate abilities, so one change I would do is make skills still random but let you choose your perks yourself once you have the required skill. The ultimate ability system clearly needs an overlook (Nature's Luck vs. Unstoppable Charge, lolwut?). Another issue for me was Heroes having only access to 5 skills plus the fact that levelling past 25 was virtually impossible, so that needed adjusting.
Spell system: The idea of having specialized schools was imo. a good one, but 2 spells per level was too narrow. Since several schools had more or less well-defined subschools (most significantly Destructive (Earth/Air/Fire/Water), but also the other schools had three subschools defined through their "master of" perks, it would make sense to have four clearly defined subschools in each school, and have one spell from each on each level, for a total of 20 spells in each school. The adventure magic school was probably a good idea, but the solution with no Town Portal didn't work at all for me. H6 didn't get that one right either.
Creature tier system: I reckon H6 tier system was an attempt to make away with "pesky useless low-level creatures", but imo. that's a misunderstanding. Low-level creatures should suck, otherwise why would you bother build higher-level creatures? H6 vanilla was a perfect example of this, you would go through entire game never using anything but your three core units. Don't know if they got that fixed later, but it goes to show that creature dynamics is not a bad thing. I liked the thought of thinking creatures in groups, but I think that could be done still within a 7 tier frame (1-2-3 was always a group of sorts, 7 was distinctively different, leaving 4-5-6 as a sort of group also).
Upgrade systems: Alternative upgrades was one of the flagships of H5(TotE). Was it completely successful? Definitely not. One of the major pitfalls were units serving the same role but one being superior - the default example being Master Hunter vs. Arcane Archer. But there were successful examples also, like the Elder Treant vs. Savage Treant. Obviously the key here was to have well-defined roles for each creature and each upgrade, and have the two alternatives serve different roles. Elder Treant obviously was defensive, while the Savage Treant was offensive. Assassin and Stalker was another prime example - Assassin was ranged (a very powerful attribute in itself) - but the invisibility of the Stalker made it a very worthy alternative choice. I think it's clear that H5 suffered from this feature not being part of the game from the beginning, and perhaps some creatures not being re-balanced when their alternative upgrades were added (War Dancer vs. Wind Dancer, lolwut), but with the experience drawn from H5, I think there was much better chance for having this work as a success.
Combat system: Personally I liked the initiative system, but I do agree with opponents that the impact was a bit too much (very low initiative units = useless) and that some random factors had too much significance (start ATB value). This could be solved through tweaking, however - for instance, if you shift all initiative values towards higher values by adding a fixed number (for instance, 8->28, 20->40) you get lower relative difference, and as such would have a system where variation was less extreme but still had the impact of high-value units acting more often and not just first.
Finally, the question one must ask is: Would changes in this scope, along with upgraded graphics, be enough to merit a new chapter of the game? For me, it certainly would. Is it realistic to make such work? I would say yes, because there is much that can be used from the old game and doesn't have to be designed from bottom.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 06:12 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 09:09, 03 Feb 2014.
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@ Xerox: Go read my post about magic in H7 Potential Direction, page 38. Tell me what you think about it.
At the moment my thoughts are that there should be a lot more emphasis on Magic. There is potential to make it somewhat of a very distinct mechanic, with depth and variability. Magic classes should develop their strategy a lot more on the magic side of the game.
@ Alcy: My thoughts on that point by point:
World and Lore - Don't actually care about it.
Factions - Agree here.
Heroes - " I wouldn't mind making a H4/H5 hybrid with a hero actually having a location on battlefield which makes restrictions for where and whom he can target, but without the hero being a target himself like he was in H4." --- I'm against this entirely. I don't want to see any hero on the battlefield ever again. And having it spared from any attacks makes the idea even more pointless. Not to mention I could use the hero to block one ranged creature in a corner and creep all the big melee creatures from the map. Definitely a no-no.
Skill system - There's a lot of talk in the Potential Direction thread and I'd encourage you to go read some pages (from bottom page 33). What I do agree with is this: bigger pool of skills to choose; at least 8 skills like in H3, with 5 mastery levels like in H4, and with the perk system from H5 with one perk per mastery level BUT with the perks learnable from a town building like a university, for a fee (SepSpring's idea). Also if there's gonna be an ultimate skill it should be achievable in more than just one way, cuz otherwise it's a no-brainer, for late games at least.
Spell system - My ideas on Potential Direction page 38.
Creature tier system - I'd like the 7 tiers back too.
Upgrade system - Alternative upgrades were clearly a good thing that made H5 unique. But certainly it needed more work, as there were indeed useless upgrades.
Combat system - Agreed, initiative as a mechanic was a great addition to the game, only it was a bit unbalanced (ever seen phoenixes with 30+ ini?)
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 07:28 PM |
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alcibiades said:
As I read your post, your model is looking over all the previous games and picking good features from each and combining these into a new game. I look at things differently: I would rather pick up on one of the previous games - my choice would be H5 - and then develop from that stand point. That's not saying we shouldn't look to the other chapters at all (most relevantly H4 and H6 because I see H1-H3 included in H5), but Heroes 5 should be the starting point.
Then we misunderstand us, because picking things from all games beforehand is definitely NOT my approach, because that works even less.
Your approach is the normal one, but the problem is, that the point isn't PERFECTING A CERTAIN CHOICE OF GAME MECHANISM. That is, it makes no sense to make HoMM 7 a better HoMM 5.
Instead, as a developer you will want to try something new, not because of doing so, but because you may haave a vision: Heroes on the battlefield, every hero class their own level-up tree, individual town-building trees, terraforming, a completely new magic system - WHATEVER.
Now MY point is, that the moment you do that, you cannot just take the game that you may pick as your reference game and leave everything the way it is with the exception of what you would like to change or add. INSTEAD, you basically have to check every aspect of the game and make sure that things still work with the changes - or whether other setups might work better. That's why I brought the example with HoMM 6 and DAILY growth: The way HoMM 6 was set up, the design team should have checked whether daily growth would have worked better (and should have checked in fact a whole lot more).
With HoMM 5 I can remember that the MAGIC system was heavily worked on until the last moment, since things were never that satisfactory.
Another example is the squared battlefield, 3D and the design goal to have differently sized units. 3d modelling basically needs circular units, so they can turn on the bf, which means hexes don't work properly, and 2x1 units can't move naturally on squares, so we have 1x1 and 2x2 units - clearly something that is not for the best, gamingwise.
There are a lot of ifs and whens involved, For example, here is something to think about: HoMM 1 initially had a different magic system: there were no secondary skills, so all 4 hero types could learn all spells from your 4-level mage guild. KNOWLEDGE then decided how OFTEN a spell would be in your spell book. So if you were a Barbarian with Knowledge 2 you might have the same spells than a Warlock or Sorceress - but each one TWICE ONLY; after that you'd have to fall back to A MAGE GUILD in order to stock up the spells there.
Now, true, the Mana system is somewhat more elegant and everything, but imagine HoMM 3 with that system: might well be that might and magic heroes would have been more equal with that setup.
This also means of course, that there basically is no "HoMMish" magic system you could rely upon: you can't just take anything and hope it's for the best there.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 07:48 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
JJ explained in one post on the "H7 faction potential direction" thread. Search there in the last pages.
Scanned back 10 pages and couldn't find the post you were talking about.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2014 08:02 PM |
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Page 1 of this thread, my first post, that is about economy-
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted February 03, 2014 11:36 AM |
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alcibiades said:
On bottom line, of all those you mention, only the Initiative system for me is an example of an actual change in Heroes 5 compared to Heroes 3. Coincidentally, it was also one of the features of H5 that caused most controversy. Personally, I think it was a step in the correct direction (albeit some tweaking was needed), but I respect others to differ from that opinion.
I agree, just not the fact that creatures got to act more often because they happened to be having a faster initiative. The good part as far as I can see is that it decoupled the moment a unit got to act from its physical speed. For melee units, the correlation may be fairly strong, but for ranged units, physical speed doesn't say much about how fast they can attack.
As such, I applaud the introduction of the concept of initiative, but then in the form as we see it in H6, not the form of H5.
JollyJoker said:
Another example is the squared battlefield, 3D and the design goal to have differently sized units. 3d modelling basically needs circular units, so they can turn on the bf, which means hexes don't work properly, and 2x1 units can't move naturally on squares, so we have 1x1 and 2x2 units - clearly something that is not for the best, gamingwise.
You can do it. The battlefield itself should perhaps not be as strongly defined as a grid, but a grid should still form its basis. Hexagons are actually best, in my opinion, because every tile adjacent to any given tile then shares a line, instead of either a line or just a corner.
The square grid approach led to ambiguity on how to place creature stacks around other stacks, in order to either maximize or minimize the damage it could get. This was especially important with 2x2 sized creatures, because it was far more efficient to attack enemy stacks through a corner, rather than from an adjacent tile (which could be used better by a 1x1 creature), since it was going to block the corner tile as well no matter how you placed it.
Based on the hexagonal grid, you can define circles that fit within specific sets of hexagons: 1, 3 or 7 hexagons are the most obvious circular symmetric shapes, but you could refine this further if you'd desire. And if you define the 'footprint' of a unit to be such a circle, you can still lock them to a grid, but have free rotation within that footprint. Note als that the circular surface area of a cluster of 3 hexagons isn't 3 times the surface area of a single circle in a hexagon and neither does that apply to a cluster of 7 hexagons.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 12:46 PM |
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Maurice, you don't get what this is all about.
A unit has to turn, and if a 3d-model turns, it must not turn into occupied spaces. The actually usable space of 3 hexes that can turn without overlapping into adjacent hexes is very small. So with Hexes only 7 is viable, while with squares it's 4.
We HAD hexes and we always had BIG creatures. When there were Hexes there were 1x1 creatures and 2x1 creatures. HoMM 3 Hex battlefield had 19x11 = 209 Hexes. faction with most 2x1 units was Fortress which used up 11 of those or abou 5 1/4 % of the BF.
We have a 12x10 grid in HoMM5/6 or 120 squares. Inferno uses up 19 of those squares or 15 5/6 % in HoMM 6.
Also, big creatures are double as big as in HoMM 3 AND HoMM 3 didn't have a racial like Gating.
So this example serves to demonstrate the connection between
a) what you want (different-sized creatures, 3d creature models on BF)
b) what you need (squares = better-suited than hexes)
but fails to really check the changed battlefield dynamics for consequences (keep also in mind that HoMM 5 BF was planned 8x10 at first).
The result is simply that HoMM 3 battles may visually be inferior, but as battles they blow the cramped HoMM5/6 deal away.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted February 03, 2014 02:52 PM |
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I'd love to see back hexes.
MattII said:
Storm-Giant said:
JJ explained in one post on the "H7 faction potential direction" thread. Search there in the last pages.
Scanned back 10 pages and couldn't find the post you were talking about.
Ooooops, sorry, I was studying and I remembered it was a recent discussion, but it was this thread
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted February 03, 2014 03:05 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
Maurice, you don't get what this is all about.
A unit has to turn, and if a 3d-model turns, it must not turn into occupied spaces. The actually usable space of 3 hexes that can turn without overlapping into adjacent hexes is very small. So with Hexes only 7 is viable, while with squares it's 4.
I guess I don't, although I can follow your dissertation about the size differences between the various games. Of course, when you would follow the suggestion I made, you'd have to balance out the battlefield as well and see what works and what not with regards to actual size.
But I don't get the thing with regards to turning. When a unit turns around, it can do so right at the center of the circle. In the case of a cluster of 3 hexes, there's not one hex that's right in the center (unlike the single hex and the cluster of 7 hexes). As a result, the center of the circle fitting within those 3 hexes will therefore be right at the cornerpoint connecting the 3 hexes to eachother. A unit would then pivot around that cornerpoint, not around a point in the center of any hex. A short while ago I calculated the surface area of possible circles and compared their sizes to one another to see how much they increased with each next larger circle. It was less than with a square grid, as expected.
With regards to the refinement I mentioned, you could also consider larger cluster sizes. The next size would be 12 hexes (no central hex) and then 19 (central hex). After that you get 27 hexes (no central hex) and 37 (central hex). Suppose your smallest tier creature would occupy 19 hexes, then you can have slightly larger creatures at 27 hexes. You don't have to increase the total size by a factor of 2 or 4 that way. The only side effect is that the grid becomes equally much larger, although the individual hexes themselves become smaller.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 03:42 PM |
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Maurice, the unit turns ON the BF - it must turn on the spot it occupies, and at no moment of its turning any part of it may overlap with space not currently occupied. Which means in the case of 3 hexes, that the unit will turn around the axis that runs through the centre point of the Hex-triple. This turnig, then produces a circle that must lie completely within the hex-triple, so the model would have to be very small, considering it would use up triple the space (inner circle versus outer circle). So if you have hexes with side length a, you could use radius (sqrt3)/2 of the hex for a single-hex unit and radius a for a triple-hex unit.
With squares you can use a model with radius a/2 for 1x1 and a model with radius a for a model with 2x2.
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