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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 11, 2014 05:50 AM |
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AlexSpl said:
Also, think about retaliation. How often units are supposed to retaliate with ATB? Once in a standard round (10 ticks)? How do you know if a unit retaliated yet or not?
Retaliation is reset for a creature after it has taken an action, and no it's not unfair because you don't have to have a 3 to 1 attack ratio.
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 05:58 AM |
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So, basically it means that faster units can hit twice, the second time even without fear of retaliation. Is it fair?
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 11, 2014 06:06 AM |
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Edited by NACHOOOO at 06:08, 11 Oct 2014.
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AlexSpl said:
So, basically it means that faster units can hit twice, the second time even without fear of retaliation. Is it fair?
Once again yes it is. Different creatures would be balanced by having different abilities and stats. Also for the millionth time, we're talking about a system where the highest initiative creatures would get 5 attacks for every 4 of a moderate creature.
What about the problems with the h6 system that I've mentioned previously? Discuss with me how you fix them instead of just claiming that this system is "unfair" over and over when I've demonstrated to you that it's not
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 06:21 AM |
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To be able to do the first strike is a sheer privilege already because only survivors can retaliate. When you have such an opportunity more than once in a round you're definitely a king  Your only blow can kill a weekly growth of opponent's creatures. You want to be able to kill even more every 4th or 5th round I buy slow units to fight, not to die under series of blows.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 11, 2014 07:28 AM |
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AlexSpl said:
To be able to do the first strike is a sheer privilege already because only survivors can retaliate. When you have such an opportunity more than once in a round you're definitely a king Your only blow can kill a weekly growth of opponent's creatures. You want to be able to kill even more every 4th or 5th round I buy slow units to fight, not to die under series of blows.
Your talking about very simple game mechanics without taking into account everything else. Look if you're not going to attempt constructive conversation then there's no point talking to you. You just keep going around and around and around and around. If you don't understand the concepts of what we're talking about now, then I doubt you ever will and this conversation will never evolve further than you complaining about "fairness"
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 07:38 AM |
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There are no benefits ATB can bring into the game. First, it's overcomplicated and not intuitive, you even cannot plan your moves without ATB bar. Second, it allows to do multiple strikes without fear of retaliation. Third, it was implemented for H5 only, the majority of active players even don't know about its existance.
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted October 11, 2014 08:16 AM |
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Edited by JoonasTo at 08:18, 11 Oct 2014.
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Yes. Pixies should be able to attack the treants without retaliation once after the 4th action of the treants. In reality treants will probably have relentless and pixies will have swiftness making it this irrelevant btw.
Slow units are not useless. They will never be the best offensive units ofc. They were never designed to be. Phoenix is the ultimate offensive unit. It has great attack, good damage and ridiculous init/speed. Treant is the ultimate tank unit. Slow speed, slow init, bad attack and damage.
Treant is, however, WAY better defensive unit. It has great HP and amazing defense coupled with good abilities in comparison to phoenix' laughable HP and bad defense. Just plant that sucker in defense mode and watch the enemy bonk heads with it untill your hunters, druids and/or spells make the enemy forces crumble to dust.
NACHOOOO said:
JollyJoker said:
Not possible.
The aim of all this information is to give an impression about what ACTIONS would change - that's what's everything is all about.
That was a great post before JJ. One of the things that you mentioned in there that I really like is that when good morale triggers it costs less of the creatures initiative allowing it to attack again sooner. This imo is a far better system than the half turn that was gained when good morale triggered in H6.
It's great for gameplay and it's great for the creatures too. Example is the Minotaur. It's a creature that generally has fairly poor initiative, however it has naturally high morale. Using the system that you demonstrated before, a Minotaur would get less turns than others, but due to it's good morale it would have a good chance for it's attacks to cost less initiative along the way allowing for more turns than it's initiative would indicate. That sounds awesome to me.
You were able to slide the ATB in H5 further than what was just displayed. I think that if you were to combine that with an initiative indicator as suggested by Stevie on a creatures portrait that system would work well. As far as showing the "gaps" however I think that would be a UI nightmare. For spells that affect initiative, if I was to hover my cursor over a creature before casting the spell I would also like to see where on the ATB they would go. I love that things would be dynamic, but I also want all the information I can have to make the best decision possible.
As for the hero, I'm not really sure. I kinda agree that once a heroes initiative hit the required amount you could wait and choose when to cast or attack, however what would happen to their initiative while you were waiting? Would it continue to accumulate? Would you be able to save up double the amount and then cast one spell after the other? I think it could still work but it may need some kind of a max initiative value that could be stored such as 150%.
In that scenario you could have an initiative indicator on the heroes potrait in say the bottom right of the screen. The potrait itself would be grey until initiative hits the required amount, and then would come to colour indicating the the hero is able to use a spell or attack during one of their creatures turns. However the initiative indicator wouldn't actually be full, and more could be collected, but only 50% more. This way you have some freedom for when you can cast your spells/attacks, but you can't abuse the system either.
This really isn't that confusing. Especially once it was in the game and you could actually see it all happening in front of you. The atb would show you all the info that you need.
Fellas I think that we've just done Ubi's job for them. This system sounds sick
The problem with showing initiative accumulated directly is that you might have ogres(85 init) in the ATB bar with 50 initiative units and harpies(115 init) with 40 initiative units. Yet the harpies would be going first. This is confusing to the slower/newer/lazier players.
If you hide the initiative itself and only show the time left for them to act you would now have ogres with 58 time units untill action and harpies with 52 time units untill action. With the harpies going first it makes perfect sense. There is no conflicting information, it's clear and simple.
Time left untill action also shows the gaps between units accurately. Now if you were to choose haste/slow or wait you would see the unit's new places in the bar, along with their modified time units left value.
How you present the time units left is up to you. Personally, I think a small bar approaching zero on the bottom of the unit icon in the ATB bar is the best way. You could just as well use numbers, a bar approaching full or a moon that grows. It's up to what you think looks best.
A small note about haste and slow also. Haste should be static numbers, say 10 in a system of 100 while slow should be percentages, like 10%. This will ensure that the spells are most effective where they should be. Haste will benefit slow creatures more than fast ones, ensuring no H5 furies with haste while still getting the treants to the fight. Slow will instead hurt fast creatures more than the slow ones, again ensuring no H2 hydras with slow, while still bringing down the phoenix to the level of an average unit.
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DON'T BE A NOOB, JOIN A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 09:28 AM |
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In my long post I already said that having INIT VALUE and CURRENT INIT POOL (accumulated initiative) of a unit displayed on the unit Icon would be more or less a must.
To make that clear, there are mainly two things that I like with the ATB Bar:
1) It allows a perfect implementation of the moral system
2) It actually allows to define actions using up different amounts of initiative for different actions. Example: Opportunity REtaliation: allows a unit to retaliate against attacks more than once, each retaliation costing X Init more than the last one (Current Init Pool must not become negative).
But if you think about what you actually want from the "ATB bar" you'll find that it's difficult.
The ATB bar is useless, if it doesn't show the "trend". So actually it would have to show ALL UNITS AT LEAST TWICE AT ANY TIME.
With a regular bar this were simply two turns.
Without real turns, it's still two "turns", but seen from the pov of the slowest unit.
Even witout additional units via gating or something, this would be 30 slots REGULAR with two heroes. Add to that the fact that a couple of units will act 3 times (or even 4 times) in the time the slowesrt gets 2. This trend may even increase due to spells and so on: if one side casts something like Mass Haste, has an Init Artifact and/or an ability, you might add a full 50%.
Of course, an ATB bar with 60 Slots would be unnecessary in a small tussle. Which ultimately means, there would have to be a VARIABLE ATB bar, simply showing what is necessary, no matter what.
I seriously doubt that this is possible without someone really invests something into it and comes up with an ingenious solution.
What I do NOT want is a system that perplexes the player because it's impossible to see what will actually happen. There are more ways to accomplish that - just heap enough abilities and effects onto creatures, like in H6 , but there is a reason why so many people meet at HoMM 3 and enjoy that, and that's the relative simplicity combined with a maximum of simple options which could be called elegant and intuitive.
So while an "advanced ATB bar" promises something, it will be a winner only if it allows players to extract all necessary info from it.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 11, 2014 09:39 AM |
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That's a fair call JoonasTo, at the end of the day as has been demonstrated by some previous comments in this thread you need to make this system easy enough to use by the lowest common denominator so they are able to understand what is going on. But as long as you can see where a creature would end up on the ATB by hovering over them with your mouse before initiating the action you could do away with the initiative bar being displayed on the creatures portrait. I still think it would be a good idea however to display it on the Heroes portrait as I previously discussed to allow for the display of excess init.
JJ my opinion is that adding multiple retaliations, and having retaliations that affect initiative would over complicate the system. I'd be more than happy with a retaliation that resets after a creatures action and does not affect initiative. Also you were able to move further down the ATB in H5, so you could reach a happy medium by showing the immediate 15 next turns on screen but allowing it to scroll out to 60.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 09:40 AM |
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AlexSpl said:
There are no benefits ATB can bring into the game. First, it's overcomplicated and not intuitive, you even cannot plan your moves without ATB bar. Second, it allows to do multiple strikes without fear of retaliation. Third, it was implemented for H5 only, the majority of active players even don't know about its existance.
There is the benefit of frequency.
Excess initiative accumulates to give you another strike, "overcomplicated" reduced to several words.
It is very intuitive, because you'd expect certain creatures to be more swift and agile than others, like Blade Dancer > Zombie.
Naturally, creatures with higher stats are supposed to have an advantage. It would've been more "unfair" if they didn't.
Even if the H5 argument is granted (which is ridiculous but anyway..) it's still irrelevant. Usefulness of a feature does not follow from popularity.
We're wasting time on your subjective opinion here. ATB adds action frequency. Period.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 09:59 AM |
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NACHOOO,
it makes no sense to create a "precision instrument" and the use it for wood-cutting. ATB bar HoMM 5 style offers, as I said, the opportunity to have different actions use up different Initiatve. In HoMM 5 this is already the case: SOME actions cost only halve Init (Mass spells and some hero abilities). MORALE TRIGGER is basically a special effect that halves the init cost of an action.
Taking that further is not only no problem, but also interesting. Example: Every Level of of a Magic skill over and above the one the hero needs to casts a spell reduces the initiative cost to cast it by 100.
Example: You need Basic Water to learn Ice Bolt. If you get Advanced Water, casting it becomes an action that costs only 900 Init instead of 1000. Casting it on Expert costs only 800.
I don't say, it should be that way, I just say, that this kind ofATB bar allows a completely different ball game that should be explored.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted October 11, 2014 10:01 AM |
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Edited by blob2 at 10:11, 11 Oct 2014.
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What you guys are talking about is over-f*ckin-complicating things. To what end? What is the point of changing a mechanism that worked so well for so many years? I see that your making Heroes your own playground, a game that you wish for, not a game that is true to it's roots. When I want sth else I try a different game. I come back to Heroes (H3, H4) for the same ol' mechanic that I loved for so many years.
Faster units should act more because it's their natural privilege? Then what's the point of slower units? Why not make an army of fast units picked up from each faction to gain an edge and overwhelm your opponent, discarding slower units in the process. Well, because Dragon Gods have created the world in such a way! I understand if those slower units would be tanks with maxed up defense, but it scares me just how much imbalance it would bring to the game (endless patching would kill the game once again)... What I'm saying is that those slower units would need to give something in return for being slowpokes, yet a Zombie was useless the whole time, even after the "Ultimate Form of Heroes V Tribes of the East" was released...
Besides, Heroes is TBS, the flow of time is not the focal point of such a game. A day (turn) can last for 5 minutes or 1 hour. Thus, you can imagine the battle not as a real-time event, but a sort of schematic of how the battle went (in terms of positioning, like on a battle plan). We don't know how many times those "Pixies" attacked in real-time, we only know that the effect was that in the flow of battle our army lost 50 Peasants because of their assaults. Their attacks and retaliations are only a visual representation of their interaction. My point is that the natural speed of units can be assumed, not represented in real-time...
PS: You guys forget about one little detail. Even if a unit does move first it will probably wait (if it can't move through the whole battlefield in one go), because ranged units will make sieve of it with their "full range" attack...
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 11, 2014 11:43 AM |
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Turns are so simple and inutitive that makes ATB look like an indomitable mess :[
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 11:58 AM |
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That's not the point: we already know exactly how the old system works and what it allows.
IMO, the naked HoMM 5 system was inferior, but the question is, whether the reason is the implementation.
GENERALLY spoken, a revised and improved HoMM 5 system would - or COULD - introduce a new dimension: acvtions could be diversified, with different actions allowing different "reentry" into the "action bar".
In HoMM 5 this was only sketched: For example, you'd use up only HALF an action to cast Mark of the Wizard, and then, say Arcane Arrow, casting two arrows for 1.5 actions instead of 2.
That principle could be broadened: you might for example have Skirmishers with light attacks for low init loss - they would be ideally suited to deal with weak blockers (single ceeatures).
HOWEVER: It makes absolutely no sense to do it "just because". It should have a purpose, it should be refined and smooth and it should give the game a REALLY new aspect.
Which means, it would need a crapload of work. Which needs time and money, and ultimately I doubt that there will be enough for Ubic to really do what would be necessary.
IMO, it might be something to base HoMM VIII upon: IF HoMM VII would be good, most things could be left as they were, the big change being a different Initiative system, because the changes that would come with that would be so massive that it was indeed a completely different game.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 11, 2014 12:21 PM |
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Blob2 I think you're over exaggerating. What we are talking about is the H5 initiative mechanic and how we can make it better than it was. What I would like to see from it is that it gives another dynamic to gameplay, not that you get creatures that run rings around others. By reducing the initiative of a creature to the point that it acts 4 times out of 6 compared to other creatures you are able to give it more character than what was seen in H6. You can't seriously tell me that in H6 you felt as though all the creatures in every faction played differently from one another and had their own identity? Cause I sure as hell didn't. Half the creatures in the game felt to me like they were clones of each other. Using an ATB, initiative becomes a lot more important, and therefore makes all stats and attributes that creatures have a lot more important. Because of this, the developers are able to tweak creatures a lot more than in the H6 init system and give them a lot more individuality. Otherwise why not just make H7 a civil war, with 6 different Haven factions all essentially a clone of one another. Obviously this is being a bit melodramatic but you get my point. To give a faction some character you need to do things that enable it to feel different from the others.
So apart from a lack of creature identity, I also feel that the H6 model is far from perfect in other ways. As I've mentioned earlier I'm not cool with my highest initiative creature having to wait for every other creature to have it's turn if I use the wait button. On the flip side I'm not cool with having my lowest initiative creature not having the use of the wait button at all, because it did little, to absolutely nothing for certain creatures in H6.
If a creature requires a certain value to attack, and using the wait function costs half of an attack, it means that you are able to use that same creature again in half the "normal" required time frame. Also, if when morale triggered it only cost half the normal cost, the same creature that would've been able to use only a half attack in H6, would be able to use a full attack once again in half the "normal" time. Imo I would much rather have that then a half attack and half movement points as was the case in H6.
JJ man, I agree with the statements that you are making too a point. If your hero is over qualified to use a spell like ice bolt then it absolutely should not use all of the normal required initiative to cast the spell. To that, I can accept that certain skills/abilities could be learnt by your hero that would allow for multiple retaliation strikes, but the precision that you're talking about I don't think is required for this game, at least not to the point that it affects every aspect of everything.
It may just be that perhaps I don't understand everything that you want to achieve in your mind. I personally think though that you can have this system, but have retaliation act independently, the only dynamic being destiny/luck. I don't agree that retaliation should affect initiative. Otherwise you would be able to pick on a particular creature until it had no initiative, and then time your attacks to continue to diminish it's initiative meaning that it may never get a turn. That's flawed to me
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 12:51 PM |
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The multiple retaliation wasn't meant as general ability for all, but as an example for a SPECIAL ability for ONE. Instead of retaliating or not, THAT CREATURE could retaliate as often as it wanted, provided it had enough Init to sacrifice.
Also - no need for the artificial COOLDOWNS anymore. Instead, the action would just cost more init, dropping you farther down the bar...
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 11, 2014 01:00 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
The multiple retaliation wasn't meant as general ability for all, but as an example for a SPECIAL ability for ONE. Instead of retaliating or not, THAT CREATURE could retaliate as often as it wanted, provided it had enough Init to sacrifice.
Also - no need for the artificial COOLDOWNS anymore. Instead, the action would just cost more init, dropping you farther down the bar...
Point 1: still think retaliation would be served best if it was it's own mechanic. Then creatures like the silverback would be able to retaliate as often as they want, but that particular ability would become more valuable as a consequence. Balanced through stat manipulation.
Point 2: Yup. Agreed. It's a pretty good point actually, H6 did have a lot of artificial spell cool downs.
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted October 11, 2014 01:10 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 13:13, 11 Oct 2014.
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@NACHOOOO
Yeah, you're right. Creatures in H6 didn't have that much identity. I really liked what they did with units in H4 (though lack of upgrades hurt), with each unit having a unique ability, which had it's own icon etc. Units in H6 have too many abilities. Not only it's confusing, it also was a bugfest with "null" values everywhere. Over-complicating things leads to disasters in terms of balancing. And we've seen the effects of adding "character" to factions in H5. Initiative+high attack+luck made Inferno superior to more defensive factions as speed and attack always win against defense (more tactical options, faster spell casting speed etc.)...
I don't think ATB bar will solve this problem. I think it's a system that will always favor only a group of units, making others suffer in the process, whatever mechanics they'll use, even initiative pools. In the end I still find H3 mechanics being the best, mixing simplicity with strategic deepness based on what role each unit could potentially serve. For instance Silver Pegasi in H3: it's fast so attack a ranged unit with it to neutralize the said archer, additionally enemy units will focus on it (which probably means it'll die), while slower units can close in on the enemy using Pegasis sacrifice.
In H3 you could win with every unit by maneuvering (like keeping the distance from stronger enemy) and using spells, while in H5 when you met a Hell Steed you could as well surrender cus it moved 3 times more often then you... units with more chances to move will always have an advantage in ATB based system...
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TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
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posted October 11, 2014 04:37 PM |
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I think h4 system is far superior to h3 just because speed/initiative should not equal movement range. Simplicity is good to an extent.
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 05:48 PM |
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I, personally, also like simultaneous attacks/retaliations in H4. The only issue is animation, it could be like in H3 but with the same effect as in H4. But again, it was implemented for H4 only, and the majority don't like it.
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