|
| Thread: Why are there so many bad skill speciallists? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
|
bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
|
posted July 12, 2014 10:40 AM |
|
|
Why are there so many bad skill speciallists?
Does anyone knows why are there so many skill speciallists for skills like Eagle Eye, Mysticism and Sorcery and so relativly few for Offense, Armourer and Logistics?
I was trying to remind myself of all logistics speciallists (I was missing Kyrre but I knew they were 3) when it stroke me - u have close to one Eagle Eye speciallist for race but the Stronghold keeps all the Offense speciallists, who are far better.
Is there a theory to why 3DO filled the game with less usefull heroes and kept top skills rare?
|
|
heroes_player
Known Hero
|
|
posted July 13, 2014 11:59 AM |
|
|
Well maybe they didn't know what the best skills were  I have to admit that I never picked offense skill until I read this forum. I focused only on magic skills like wisdom, air and earth magic... And I thought that Solmyr was the best hero ever Still it is my favourite and I think it's still one of the best magic heroes, the only little flaw about him is the sorcery as the starting skill. I don't get it when some pro players say it is the worst hero ever when there are worse available.
|
|
bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted July 15, 2014 01:10 AM |
|
|
heroes_player said:
Well maybe they didn't know what the best skills were I have to admit that I never picked offense skill until I read this forum. I focused only on magic skills like wisdom, air and earth magic... And I thought that Solmyr was the best hero ever Still it is my favourite and I think it's still one of the best magic heroes, the only little flaw about him is the sorcery as the starting skill. I don't get it when some pro players say it is the worst hero ever when there are worse available.
I guess we all tought Solmyr was the best at some point, I know that Maretti shared that someplace here but I don't think he is worst then others, my vote for worst goes to Torosar BTW, is just that chain lightning is a lot of show of, not so efective if you're facing a hero with a strong army.
On the other hand, I don't like sorcery too but it's the magic equivalent to offense, so sorcery speciallists may be better then I think.
What I don't believe is that they didn't knew what they were doing, even if some people say the game is unbalanced it is balanced enouch for me to think they knew it exactly. But the propose eludes me.
|
|
DivineClio
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted July 15, 2014 05:08 AM |
|
|
Of course Solmyr is the best for newbie.When you don t know trick for foll the AI you go for roar! damage.For example when you was forced to fight 70+ zombie, you tought <<omg i need Solmyr for win>>, while now you think <<gimme ammo cart 1 ranged unit and 1 high speed unit and easy!>>.
When i saw for the first time forcefield i said <<wtf is this sh*t>>, now is my "top rate" of spell.
Btw i think the 3d0 messed up with magic low rateo about spell and secondary skill.
30% melee, 50% archery,15% armor are balanced for me.
15% isn t so bad, but when the the base damage is poor you can only laugh on 15% more 
Only with armageddon squad or chain light magic hero can be better. 20 SP/Defense.
|
|
Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
|
|
posted July 15, 2014 09:31 AM |
|
|
Actually, Solmyr is pretty strong for early creeping, when the creeps tend to come in 4-6 stacks instead of just 1 or 2. But he loses out fast later game. I, too, was once all in awe of Solmyr and he's still a favorite  - just no longer the number one I pick in my games.
|
|
bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted July 15, 2014 12:26 PM |
|
|
Maurice said:
Actually, Solmyr is pretty strong for early creeping
Yes, and his original town is Tower wich means very powerfull range attacks early game. You attack 4 groups before they move and then kill the remanings with the gremlins shots. It works well for a combat every two, three days, enouch to maintain the same exploration ratio AI keeps at 100/130%. Now, top players do something like ten times that...
|
|
BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 03:40 PM |
|
|
Actually, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the way the opening skill-sets are done. There are far too many heroes with the Scholar skill to begin with, but most don't start with Wisdom, which is the governing factor in learning spells.
Some heroes with artillery skills, don't get their war machine to start (like Ignissa), and the most irritating omission, IMHO, is having to buy a spell book. Why would any hero not want to have the use of magik at their disposal?
Even Soly isn't done right, IMHO. If he's going to have Chain Lightning as his specialty, it would be logical to have one of his starting skills be Air Magik, no?
Though there's probably a topic around here talking about the game's bias towards offense, as it relates to skills...why is the Offense progression 10/20/30, while Armorer is 5/10/15?
|
|
OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 04:00 PM |
|
|
It's my belief that there typically is a huge difference between making a game and be skilled at a game. Hence balancing issues are best solved by those who excel in the game.
____________
Living time backwards
|
|
Ebonheart
Famous Hero
Rush the rush
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 04:05 PM |
|
|
OhforfSake said:
It's my belief that there typically is a huge difference between making a game and be skilled at a game. Hence balancing issues are best solved by those who excel in the game.
Correct. However to let the best players balance it out is not always the best solution. The elite players play on such high levels that a balance from their PoV may be fine but for a newbie it might be disastrous. One example from another game might be from WoW TBC era when Blizzard only balanced based on the PoV from the top arena players, which did balance out the arena games but destroyed the battlegrounds and 1v1 fights.
I think the best method is to balance around both PoVs or split the two groups apart. Yet nothing is 100% flawless.
|
|
OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 04:16 PM |
|
|
I hadn't thought about it that way. My main thought was that easily exploitable things that gives a huge advantage to one side would be removed. Based on the idea that the game itself was sort of balanced already. Of course if e.g. in diablo, where the game can be divided in fighting monsters and fighting other players, if fighting other players were more balanced, the fighting of monster aspect could very well suffer. Especially if it was only balanced in regard to the best items and not standard items one could expect.
About your example, I've little knowledge of the game you mention, but you make it sound like there are several different games within it. I mean is arena games the same as battleground and 1vs1 games, only at a higher level?
____________
Living time backwards
|
|
Ebonheart
Famous Hero
Rush the rush
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 06:30 PM |
|
|
OhforfSake said:
About your example, I've little knowledge of the game you mention, but you make it sound like there are several different games within it. I mean is arena games the same as battleground and 1vs1 games, only at a higher level?
In WoW you had different kinds of "Pvp" (player vs player) and arena was the new epic thing in the game. It made 2 players face off vs 2 other players in a arena (It could be 3v3 and 5v5 aswell). Like the towns in heroes, there were many classes and "specs" (much like offense, armorer etc) and depending on the spec you became better in a certain area.
Before arenas you only had duels (1 player vs 1 player) and Battlegrounds (could be 10v10, 15v15 or 40v40 - since all players were random, little communication was done and it was a warzone mess).
Now in arena you got rating. Much like the Heroes WCL one. The more teams you beat and less games you lost, the higher the rating. The difference was that in these games the two players on each side used voice chats (like ventrilo for instance) to communicate and plan (much like a chess game) how to lockdown and beat the enemy team.
So Blizzard decided the pros should balance the game, and they did!, in arenas. But the Battlegrounds and duels went out of hand. Cause the entire game balance was made for 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 "commuincation fights" but 80% and more of the playerbase never really got to that level in arena and often prefered to play battlegrounds.
Now in the battlegrounds, things was a nightmare. Since you had no communication except for a chat (that no one had time to read or harkened to) certain classes and specs went out of hand.
A prime example would be a healing druid class. The druid was rather easy for a experienced team in arena to lockdown as only 2 players, since they know when to interrupt the spells the druid casted etc. But in battlegrounds there were no communication, and so a single druid could "tank" (being hit and survive) by over 6 players and even more. This lead to a lot of players crying out, stopped playing and so on because it felt hopeless to always be in need to be over 4 players to kill 1 healer.
Hopefully that shed some light on your question scorpi. 
|
|
OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 06:53 PM |
|
|
It certainly did, thank you very much for your very throughout answer.
I guess it compares to in heroes, letting skilled player balance things, but they only balance things while having 1vs1 maps of any size in mind, completely ignoring if e.g. people play 3vs3 or similar.
Quote:
plan (much like a chess game) how to lockdown and beat the enemy team.
Funny you should give that example, in one my chess games I do exactly that. http://www.chesspastebin.com/2014/03/17/unknown-unknown-by-ohfololo-14/
I'm white.
Notice at move 12, I let black decide, he can either win a pawn, or he can move his knight back to defend. He decided to take the pawn.
About 10 moves later, at move 23, black is 2 pawns up, but he has no meaningful moves to make (as such he chooses to remove a remote pawn that has little influence on the game at present time), black is facing a lockdown. 3 moves later the sacrifices starts to rain down on blacks position, 6 moves later again and black surrenders.
I don't remember the logic of the game anymore, and many of the moves don't make much sense to me now as it did back then, but I did run it through a computer that can match the best humans of the world, and while it did find errors, my plan was good enough (the lockdown). My errors were mainly I moved some pieces in the wrong order, allowing clever escapes for my opponent, but neither of us saw those and in the end the final result was the same.
I don't remember exactly where black went wrong though.. the pawn he grabbed at move 13 wasn't something he could keep, but I don't remember where he was supposed to give something back to equalize the position again.
|
|
BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted September 20, 2014 11:25 PM |
|
|
"It's my belief that there typically is a huge difference between making a game and be skilled at a game"
It's my belief that if those who create the game are skilled at playing it, the game will be a very good one. Most snafu's in a game are due to simply not doing enough (or thorough enough) play-testing, or simply not caring much about the product.....
"I guess it compares to in heroes, letting skilled player balance things, but they only balance things while having 1vs1 maps of any size in mind, completely ignoring if e.g. people play 3vs3 or similar."
True enough, but that doesn't explain some of the inconsistencies found in H3 heroes starting skills and how they might relate to their specialty. That inconsistency holds whether in player vs AI or in multi-player games, IMO.
|
|
Sal
Famous Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 01:04 AM |
|
|
I won't call them inconsistencies. Define.
Quote:
There are far too many heroes with the Scholar skill to begin with, but most don't start with Wisdom, which is the governing factor in learning spells.
This isn't inconsistency. Wisdom is hardcoded to be offered every 5 levels-up. So every class can learn it. On the other side, scholar isn't given to everyone so easy.
Quote:
Some heroes with artillery skills, don't get their war machine to start (like Ignissa), and the most irritating omission, IMHO, is having to buy a spell book. Why would any hero not want to have the use of magik at their disposal?
So what? Ignissa speciality isn't artillery, I don't see why she should start with ballista. Might classes start without spell book, is a legacy from Heroes I-II. Is a rather insignificant penalty for a class which is already much overpowered. For me it would look as inconsistency to have a barbarian or a knight with spell book from start. Remember that in might and magic sequels -the root of Heroes games-, knights have no access to magic at all.
Quote:
Even Soly isn't done right, IMHO. If he's going to have Chain Lightning as his specialty, it would be logical to have one of his starting skills be Air Magik, no?
Why? Does Cyra starts with air magic because she has haste? Does Deemer starts with earth magic? Or resurrect specialists, do they start with earth? Nope.
And again, magic schools are hardcoded to be offered at specific levels. If you play well, you can't miss them.
|
|
bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 01:28 AM |
|
|
Sal said:
Ignissa speciality isn't artillery
True, but Torosar is and he starts without both ballista and artillery.
I agree that there is no reason for Solmyr to start with Air and I even think Sorcery is an adequate skill, not the best but one that suits his speciallity. Now, why should Theodorus have ballistics? It should have been archery for sure, it's how it happens with the stronghold heroes for instance: the one with Haste has Tactics, the specialized in orcs has Archery, the one with Ballistics is speciallized in Cyclops (who can get a bonus from Ballistics).
As u said it yourself the might heroes are overpowered but isn't just that, the "might" races also have a lot of advantages (better skill tree, better inicial secs and so on). It's like they wanted speciallists to favour this races even if they appeared to be weaker when you were a newbie. And this was in my mind when I opened this thread, I don't get why they did these things the way they did but it looks they had a propuse. So I asked if anyone had an ideia what it was.
|
|
BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 04:48 AM |
|
|
"This isn't inconsistency. Wisdom is hardcoded to be offered every 5 levels-up. So every class can learn it. On the other side, scholar isn't given to everyone so easy"
I realize all of that, but...the ability to learn spells is tied to Wisdom, so to me it's logical that if a hero starts with the Scholar skill they should start with Wisdom, as well.
"So what? Ignissa speciality isn't artillery, I don't see why she should start with ballista."
Other heroes start with the Artillery skill and enter the game with the appropriate equipment (Pyre, for instance). As mentioned, Torosar is another that is not initially equipped properly. This, to me, is inconsistency. Either all heroes who start with the Artillery skill, whether it's their specialty or not, come equipped...or they all should have to purchase.
"Might classes start without spell book, is a legacy from Heroes I-II. Is a rather insignificant penalty for a class which is already much overpowered. For me it would look as inconsistency to have a barbarian or a knight with spell book from start."
A legacy from earlier versions...doesn't belong in H3. Do you play any hero without utilizing spells of some sort?
"Does Cyra starts with air magic because she has haste? Does Deemer starts with earth magic? Or resurrect specialists, do they start with earth? Nope."
That's certainly your opinion. Mine is that any hero that has a specialty tied to a particular school of magik, should start with that school as one of their skills.
"And again, magic schools are hardcoded to be offered at specific levels. If you play well, you can't miss them."
It's been my experience that this is not the case. What gets offered is dependent on what other skills you chose prior to level-up, and it's conceivable that a hero might not get a chance at a particular school of magik.
|
|
kicferk
Known Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 09:14 AM |
|
|
|
The only heroes that start with magic are conflux ones, and they are quite overpowered becuse of that. Ability to get expert magic in 2 lvl-up's, is just too good, especially if you start with air or earth. That's why I think no magic is fine for magical heroes, an I think it was kind of mistake to give conflux ones one school each.
|
|
maretti
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 01:02 PM |
|
|
Usefull yes, overpowered no. There are so many better heroes than elementalists.
____________
Crag rules, Orrin and Ivor suck
|
|
bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 02:30 PM |
|
|
maretti said:
Usefull yes, overpowered no. There are so many better heroes than elementalists.
I don't agree. Consider only magic heroes (we all agreed that might heroes are themselves overpowered) and name one that is more efficient then Luna and Ciele. Even Gridan that is a +350 hero starts with slow so there are high probabilities he has expert slow at level 4...
Conflux was consistently overpowered cause it was designed for the Master of Elements campaign where they needed an oponent to Tarnum/Dracon and his hability to turn mages in to enchanters. The problem occurs when it is simply migrated to SoD because Grove wasn't finnished and they wanted to lauch an expansion at all costs.
P.S. Well, I can name two: Dessa and Gundula. Wich brings us to the same question: why would 3DO put some many "eggs" in Stronghold?
|
|
Sal
Famous Hero
|
|
posted September 21, 2014 03:12 PM |
|
|
Luna is a show girl. She is impressive at first as she can do battles on first 1-3 days other heroes can't. But after first week she fades away, as every magic hero; having very low chances to get natural fighting skills and logistic.
Keep in mind that the outcome of a MP game is played by the way both heroes levelled up during 2-3 weeks, not on how fast one can kill slow monsters on days 1-3. Then probably Solmyr should win.
That's for the maps played today. For open and skirmish small/medium maps, magic heroes are still a must. Elementalists with 7-8 magic arrows in mana pool are a nightmare to fight so early.
|
| |
|
|
