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Stormcaller
Famous Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 05:42 PM |
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I hope we'll more of boss battles as well in campaign, those are always interesting.
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted February 01, 2015 05:46 PM |
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Stormcaller said:
I hope we'll more of boss battles as well in campaign, those are always interesting.
What do you understand under Boss battles? Big set armies of enemy heroes, or something like in H6?
If it's the later, than I have some bad news.. H6 style Boss battles are not comming back.
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Stormcaller
Famous Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 05:48 PM |
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Not? Hm... didn't see that info. Yeah, i meant boss creatures with a lot of health. Makes battles more dynamic in my opinion.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted February 01, 2015 05:54 PM |
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Good riddance, imo. They were boring for me. On the other hand, scripted ones like Markal or Demon Sovereign from H5 were much more fun for me.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 05:55 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 18:03, 01 Feb 2015.
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War-overlord said:
You would think that. But the problem is that the derelict that was Heroes 6 needed to be cleared and the game needed to be built from the ground up. Before you start thinking about Heroes games with factions of 10 or more creatures, you need to get a Heroes game with 8 creatures in a faction done right.
And it does not matter when you add things, balance will be very hard to get right. And when you add anything, even a single unit, this has implications on everything.
Balance is adjusting numbers and how some mechanics work for the most part. And I don't think it's that hard to fix. One good Beta season and you'd have enough feedback to straighten out pretty much everything.
Articun said:
Now, as fore heroes VII, i really hoped for a 4/4/3 or a 5/4/3 of units system in towns. And by that i mean that you would be able to choose 3 between 4 or 5 core units, the same for elites and 1 for champion. There won't be any restriction between the units to be build, but you can have only 3 of each tier.
I also know that this will hugely increase the number of units and creatures per faction and the adventure map (which is fine and nice to us, as it adds more originality per map, better customization and strategic town building etc) but also the problems concerning balance, stats and abilities. Though to be honest, i don't really consider it that Utopian or impossible.
I've been thinking about this actually. It's true I myself would like to see this trend of having more than just 7 creatures to choose from. The 5-4-3 idea sounds good enough, but I would go with a 6-4-2 actually.
Fact is, the way things are now make that there is such a heavy incentive in amassing all your recruitable creatures in just one main powerful hero that the game feels more RPG in that sense than TBS. And then that hero becomes your most important focus point and dictates everything you do. You want to explore and conquer areas? - bring the main hero. Your town is in danger? - bring your main hero. Hire a secondary hero? - you have to split your army and endanger both. So question is, why should there be exactly as many creatures to be recruited as there are army slots on your hero? And why should your town produce the exact amount of income and resources to recruit all of them?
Think of this scenario: You have 6 Core, 4 Elite and 2 Champion dwellings available for building in each town of each faction. And you can have all of them built at a time, so no restrictions like in Heroes 7 where you have to chose between Champion dwellings. Your only restrictions would be resources and your town's economical output, around which you must plan. Your hero would be able to take a maximum of 6-7 creatures as per tradition. And now you can recruit more creatures than you can possibly take, and that opens a whole new world for strategic approach.
First off, when you start the game you paint a plan in your mind in broad strokes and you fine tune it as you progress. You select your hero class and subclass, and choose an approach. Unfortunately this is a medium sized map with not so many resource buildings, dungeons and zones to be explored, so you think that even though you can build all dwellings you don't want to because you can not sustain recruitment. So you would rather invest in just some dwellings and the focus on other aspects of your town like Magic Guilds for example. Now you see some creatures are preferable to others because they synergize better with the plan you have in mind as well as with the build of your hero. So you do this: you feel confident that you don't need too many Core creatures for early creeping, so you build only 2 dwellings there and rush for a fast Elite. In the first month you have 2 Core dwellings, 2 Elite and 1 Champion and you can sustain more. Now you still have 4 Core, 2 Elites and 1 Champion dwellings which you can build, but from the possibilities you identify that building another Champion is likely the best way to go, since it takes only one army slot and you can go all out on your enemy by the end of the second month. It also matches well against his strategy which is constructed to counter armies composed of many Core and Elite tier units.
Now, on bigger maps this feature shines. You can have 2-3 armies with decent units exploring zones and taking advantage of the map as much as possible. If you find enough resources and resource buildings, and dungeons like Utopias that renew each month, then you can build all dwellings and sustain more recruitment. So it essentially makes it an arms race where your much more mindful of things like build order, army composition, economy and having a good strategy. You aren't coffined in some arbitrary restrictions where you can only build this or that. You should be able to build all of them, so there's never a point where you could have unused excess. I think it would make the game more dynamic, involving more decision making and being all around smarter in your approach.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted February 01, 2015 05:55 PM |
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It was told in the twitch stream back in november
To be honest, only the boss battles in the DLCs and the Expannsion were fun. The others (Apart from Azkaal) sufferd under the bad designe of some mechanics.
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A8T
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 06:08 PM |
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I don't think you need boss battles, but perhaps you can get a few interesting challenging fights. The problem is (in the original H6 at least) once you have a big enough army you can trounce any boss. On the other hand it was irritating when you spend time building a large army for the battle, only for the game to say "NO, you can only use these units."
The best way I think to deal with it is have optional side objectives that you can use you main army for (like cutting off reinforcements, or destroy the magic shield generator) you can complete before the boss battle, and then get a limited army for the boss itself. You should however be able to have some say in which troops you use for this battle (kind of like way they limit the amount of units you have in the Heroes Online game... but only for the boss battles).
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted February 01, 2015 06:13 PM |
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Stevie said:
Balance is adjusting numbers and how some mechanics work for the most part. And I don't think it's that hard to fix. One good Beta season and you'd have enough feedback to straighten out pretty much everything.
Yeah, no. H5 took years to be propery balanced and only after extensive testing by top players. And even amongst the better players there were disagreements. Then there is the matter of tested setups, the combination between hero and army power, the classes, the skill combinations and so on. Change the setup by a few levels or one more/less week of army strength and the balance can be entirely different as seen in both H5 and H6.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted February 01, 2015 06:17 PM |
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Elvin said:
Yeah, no. H5 took years to be propery balanced and only after extensive testing by top players. And even amongst the better players there were disagreements. Then there is the matter of tested setups, the combination between hero and army power, the classes, the skill combinations and so on. Change the setup by a few levels or one more/less week of army strength and the balance can be entirely different as seen in both H5 and H6.
Elvin what is your opinion od Duel mode. We know you made your own map for it. Would you trust a duel mode made by the devs, whit no chance of customization? Or even better, you as an insider, do the devs ask you about this, is this a topic? Or will this particular field of the game be left for the Fanbase to create? (Which I think is a good option)
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A8T
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 06:26 PM |
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Balance seems to be a problem in nearly every game, and there are always complaints, and it always gets nerfed. In 'Balance' (see what I did there) as long as they get it close enough to this mystical state of balance then this is alright.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 06:39 PM |
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 07:05 PM |
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I personaly liked that initiative system. Dunno what was so wrong with the basic idea. Imo H6 went step back in this direction. I belive it should be improved upon and reintroduced, as it gave a lot more tactical dept. Specialy because you could rearange armies and even split troops or decide which ones will be left out of combat. And this with no tactics.
I know sometimes Sylvan player could kill almost your entire army even before you make your first move, but this was awsome. If this happened it means you didn't play well in strategical department.
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Stormcaller
Famous Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 10:18 PM |
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I liked boss battles. They had some challenge. Plus it's a plus when it moves away from standard army vs army, regardless of the hero who leads them.
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A8T
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 01, 2015 10:45 PM |
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Stormcaller said:
I liked boss battles. They had some challenge. Plus it's a plus when it moves away from standard army vs army, regardless of the hero who leads them.
Actually they had many boss battles in Heroes Online which (I feel) worked better than the H6 ones simple because they did not allow you to build up and huge army and one hit kill them.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted February 01, 2015 10:47 PM |
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Dave_Jame said:
Elvin what is your opinion od Duel mode. We know you made your own map for it. Would you trust a duel mode made by the devs, whit no chance of customization? Or even better, you as an insider, do the devs ask you about this, is this a topic? Or will this particular field of the game be left for the Fanbase to create? (Which I think is a good option)
I had considered to lend my hand in creating such a map from the beginning but it is doubtful, I just don't have the time  I don't know if the devs will make one but the return of duel mode is possible. The problem with duels is that they have their own balance and skills/stats are subject to change. Subsequent updates would be required, even if we have good balance from the beginning. And we still don't know how many non-combat skills there are. Classes that favour those could be in disadvantage when playing with random skills.
All in all, I consider duel mode as something you play for fun, without much regard to balance. It would take a dedicated and frequently updated map for a more competitive experience. Also duel mode misses out on the fun of acquiring new spells from libraries/towns, purchasing artifacts, does not take into account town special buildings and generally narrows down a lot the heroes experience imo. I like creating my hero from scratch and having to adjust my strategy according to the spells and artifacts i have available.
____________
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 February 02, 2015 08:31 AM |
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Stevie, you ARE aware, that you you are now at my point of view, that the HoMM 2 way of doing things - having more creatures than hero slots and a tight economy where you cannot make the money with one toen to hire out - is the way to go, actually, and that the economic limitations are enough of a balancer; are you?
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted February 02, 2015 09:11 AM |
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Stevie said:
Think of this scenario: You have 6 Core, 4 Elite and 2 Champion dwellings available for building in each town of each faction. And you can have all of them built at a time, so no restrictions like in Heroes 7 where you have to chose between Champion dwellings. Your only restrictions would be resources and your town's economical output, around which you must plan. Your hero would be able to take a maximum of 6-7 creatures as per tradition. And now you can recruit more creatures than you can possibly take, and that opens a whole new world for strategic approach.
Uhmm, no. Players will end up gravitating towards the higher end of the spectrum that way, which means eventually the 7 army slots on their main Hero will contain 2 Champions and 4 Elites and just 1 core. That means 5 Core units are redundant; at best, they're used on secondary Heroes. It doesn't do anything to alleviate the problem of using one (main) Hero.
The only way to handle this is by changing the dynamics of the game as a whole. Removing Town Portal can already alleviate the problem. The main issue that stems from removing Town Portal is that you cannot reply to a sudden threat far behind your frontlines, or intercept an enemy Hero that's making a straight line for the juicy components within your kingdom - but that's map design, not gameplay mechanics.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 02, 2015 10:00 AM |
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No, that's not correct. On every map you wil have to make an assumption of how much money you will be able to put into your main army, until the map is "done" - that is, you have your confrontation. Investments into creature dwellings AND buying that creatures are less likely to make sense the more expensive they are and the bigger the map part you have already explored.
You can't just forego the Cores and start with Elites - ast least not with a halfway reasonable starting amount.
Also, that "Capitol" nonsense should stop, because it's the main reason for turtling tactics and MP difficulties: 1 town is earning too much money with a capitol - you need to have more OUTLYING income sources, so that expansion is important.
Once you HAVE a reasonable army it becomes difficult to replace a stack by more quality. Say you already have a 100 Sentinels in your main's army, and all slots are filled; you want to replace the Sentinels with a higher quality unit. That means, you have to find
a) the gold and res to build another Elite;
b) the time until the Elites accumulate to such amounts that they are indeed stronger than the now 100+ Sentinels.
You will also lose, if you put too much gold into building high-tier dwellings, because then you won't have an army. It doesn't do to have your dwellings full of nice Elites and Champions when you can't hire them and your opponents waltzes over you with a sizable army of Elites and Cores.
The way Homm 3,5,6 work in that regard is actually pretty boring, because there is a really big broad avenue paved for the players what to do and what to build.
That Champion this or that decision won't change that.
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted February 02, 2015 11:17 AM |
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Another point for example is the size of the map.
H2 is an extremely unbalanced game, when you look at the creature lineups. But on the other hand, the balance is somewhat maintained in the economical part.
A) Whyle the weekly population of large castles like Warlocks and Wizards is stronger then that, of the small towns, specially the top creatures. Thanks to their higher cost, the player is incapable of buying these creatures. Even if he would dedicate all his income he would not be able to buy these super-creatures, not talking about the rest of his castles population. This forces him to expand, gather, explore and generally motivates him to play.
B) The size of the map also influences the balance. Smaller maps give advantage to "small" castles, like Knights and Barbarians. Their units may be weaker in direct confrontation. But thanks to their higher population and almost no need for rare resources gives them an edge in environments scars on them. On larger maps, "Big castles" may have the advantage in the long run. But on smaller maps, and early on even the "small" castles can stand a fight
H2, unlike later games managed to create something unique, a balance not based on numbers, but situation.
Also, H2's approache to neutral encuraged mixing of armies. In the first weeks, geting nutral creatures from external dwellings was more efficient then relaing on your forces alone. Later these units would become useless, so you also had a lower need to preserve them, and this allowed different tactics.
Since H3 we had this apprache od "All must have the same, but at the same time, they must not" (H4 excluded). This may be better for PvP. But doesn't have to be, and takes a lot of charm from the game. As streamlined gameplay homoginaze the faction and there uniquness blurs or fades away.
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted February 02, 2015 12:00 PM |
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@JJ
Capitol is ok imo. Only in H6 was it realy not good, because you could build it in first 4 days, and then it was gg. This is why building requierments are a good thing. In both H3 and in H5 you were in some tough decision: should I buy army and creature dwellings, which will allow me to explore and expand, or should I build capitol asap, but be vulnerable to rushes and/or fall behind scedule in collecting other rare resources.
H3 imo did it better than H5, as in H5 you could still rush capitol while building army. This was because capitol's only requierment was town tier. So you could raise your town tier by building dwelling buildings. This means in most situations (with notable exceptions ofc) you would use same "cookie-cutter" build order, that allowed you to go Capitol and still have siezable army. In H3 you needed to build non-dwelling buildings if you wanted to go Capitol, which pretty much ment, you would fall behind in resource collecting and become vulnerable for first ... well month of game realy (this depended on map and specialy map buildings/neutral dwellings a lot).
In H6 however you basicaly always rush Capitol in week 1. Week 2 were creatures and castle. This ment, you were almost never out of gold, and during first week starting army of 2 heroes was enough for most situations. Your window of vulnerability because of Capitol rush wasn't a month, but 2 weeks at most. This wasn't enough for rush player to take advandatage, unless very small map.
Imo bect scenario would be, if you would need, in adition to town level, atleast slightly more than full week's worth of non-dwelling buildings as a prerequierment to build capitol. This includes town and city hall, but does not include tavern. Also would be a good idea if Castle would be required for Capitol.
This was basicaly how H3 operated. If you wanna rush capitol, you would skipp a full week of dwelling buildings early on. And yes once you do it you quickly recover, but recovery time + catch up time to oponent, who opt for later Capitol, is atleast a couple of weeks in adition to a week you left out for building capitol.
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