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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted October 11, 2014 05:56 PM |
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It brought about so many problems. Regular melee creatures became pretty useless in general. The bonus on ranged attack just increased way further. First strike spells became a must and so on.
Also berserkers, snow that suicide corps 
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DON'T BE A NOOB, JOIN A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.
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Lokheit
Known Hero
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posted October 11, 2014 10:13 PM |
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The turn system from HOMM5 was one of the things that I liked most from that game.
You can perfectly balance it if you take into account that each creature will have an specific attack rate. It made the initiative value important as in the other system, 1838128321821771717236555123889934959921 initiative is the same than 2 if you fight someone with 1 point of initiative.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 12, 2014 01:25 AM |
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JoonasTo said:
It brought about so many problems. Regular melee creatures became pretty useless in general. The bonus on ranged attack just increased way further. First strike spells became a must and so on.
Also berserkers, snow that suicide corps
Agreed. The smartest option would be to avoid as much retaliation as you could because you've lost the advantage of having higher initiative. Therefore picking on a creature after it's retaliation is used would become a lot more important, and finally how would that system work with the new flanking system? Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. It's a mess.
Sometimes I do get frustrated losing a lot of creatures before they get a chance to defend themselves but that's how Heroes works. You balance all of this out by stat, creature growth and cost manipulation.
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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cliff_nest
Hired Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 04:50 AM |
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Very intrigued by this post cover some interesting point. Remind me of some intense discussion. Could really benefit a better evolved H5 ATB in my opinion. Some line were imo hint of solution
Elvin said:
Four, playing first or second could decide the game depending on the magic you used. A light user playing right before a dark user was a recipe for disaster. Similarly, a dark user playing right before a light one was a horrible disadvantage. That might have worked better if each spell had a different casting time so that you could plan your atb positioning better. Also the spell design plays a huge role, especially if there are hard counters. Like haste overwriting slow, taking you from +40% to -40%. That's 80% initiative reduction!
Would you rather have them nullify each other or one simply weakens the strength of the other (ex : haste on unit A + 40% initiative. Slow on same unit A 20% reduction to haste spell increase. In the second case spell priority would have to rule out the outcome thus creating yet another problem with who goes first.
Lastly how would the cleanse spell come into play (remove debuff only or both buff and debuff)
Elvin said:
Two, the spells, luck and morale greatly amplified the already considerable impact of the initiative. Luck up to 50% chance for double damage, morale up to 50% chance for +50% atb, haste and slow at 40%.. Just crazy. I should note however that testing with tweaked values(luck at 50% damage, morale at 30% atb and haste/slow at 20%) gave far more balanced games.
You mention luck and moral combined to the H5 initiative mechanic is totally crazy witch I totally agree with (played H5 multiplayer with friend and one fight was completely wasted when everyone knew the odd was in my favor plus trashed him on all previous game. Slight advantage in army but defender had very very very frequent lucky roll  ). On that point I get the impression that moral and luck in MM7 start let say at 20% and then increase via skill, spell or artifact.
The difference it seems is that haven according to description in interview by op post specialize in moral. So my point is concerning the cap. Should individual faction have different cap value (Haven 40% Moral cap vs academy 30%? Not a fan of the 1/2 chance but number are just to demonstrate decrease) or going along with your testing should all faction have the same cap and just a decrease to the 50% cap. Witch one would in your opinion create the better gameplay.
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Hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 08:40 AM |
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The Heroes 5 system cannot be made such that people are happy. Taking more actions is worth so dramatically more than all other stats combined that to be even a little bit balanced the other stats on slower creatures would have to be so high that people would complain.
Can you imagine the outcry if Hydras had hit points and damage outputs that made them roughly balanced with Sun Deer if they had an ATB penalty and Bambi had an ATB bonus? If you made the math work out, the numbers would look completely insane.
It is not enough for Justice to be done. Justice must appear to be being done. Heroes 5's initiative system cannot produce balanced numbers that also look like balanced numbers. So it's not workable. You cannot avoid offending new players and players who understand multiplicative time series at the same time.
Heroes 5 initiative was an interesting idea, but it's an idea that should have been scrapped long before it actually made it into a game. It's an idea that is even more unworkable than Heroes' 6's exponent-based attack and defense numbers that cause there to be no strategic decision making at all in choosing attack over defense.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 12, 2014 09:10 AM |
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@cliff_nest
My preference would be that contrary spells like haste and slow would n't remove the other, rather work against each other. So a slow cast on a creature after a haste, assuming they were of equal spell power and nothing else affects it, would essentially put the initiative back to neutral. However in the case of a mass haste vs a single target slow, with both spell casters having the same spell power, the initiative would be in the negative due to the haste not being as strong in mass form.
Cleanse or dispel would probably be best off removing all magic buffs and debuffs. But perhaps even something like that could be scaled to spell power. So that way if the spell caster of dispel wasn't as powerful as the caster who placed the buffs/debuffs on the creature, dispel would only remove a percentage of the total instead of the whole thing.
For your final point on morale, luck and their value in that initiative system, as Elvin said you can tweak the numbers to work out what's best for gameplay
@hobo2 firstly, Hydras should never be balanced with Sun Doe! Champions all the way! 
The limited vote that we have strongly indicates that the H5 system is the favoured one. Obviously it's only a tiny player pool, but it isn't close so far. People do enjoy it, and as long as everything works and the game is fun to play then I don't think there would be an uproar like you're suggesting. The system is there, it just needs to be improved upon
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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Hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 10:15 AM |
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People say they want it fixed and improved upon. But they don't actually realize what that would require. A slow core zombie is going to need combat stats better than a fast elite minotaur. That would make people freak out as soon as they saw those numbers.
Plus, the number of ranged strikes it would require for a fast elven hunter to take down a slow zombie would have to be very very large. That's going to make actually playing the game pretty dull.
Yes, lots of people will say that they want the complicated option that has been somehow "made good," but if you actually show them the distortions that would have to be made to make the complicated option functional they'll cry foul. I mean honestly, how many people would vote for "The Heroes 5 Initiative, and you have to watch the hunter's shooting animation fifteen times to kill a zombie"?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 10:50 AM |
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LoL.
Really? Core zombie needs to be more powerful than Elite minotaur. Well you're right, I think none of us here realizes the need for that. What's the reason behind it? Because it's slower? So slow creatures have to be better in stats than creatures above them in tier?
You need to explain your position, because I can't see the "need" in slow Core zombies having to be better than fast Elite minotaurs.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 12, 2014 11:02 AM |
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Yeah. Um, wow
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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NamelessOrder
Famous Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 11:15 AM |
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I’m really surprised by the results of the poll. People voted for the failed H5 system instead of the tested, standard H6 one. I am afraid that some voters simply don’t like H6 so they vote for H5 action points system.
I’m with blob2 – the H5 system was irritating (at least I remember being irritated by it – but it was several years ago). Most games nowadays try to be rather simple to understand and as intuitive as possible. That’s exactly that H5 initiative wasn’t – it was very unintuitive. On the other hand H6 standard system was very easy to understand.
One can argue that it wasn’t a failed idea but a failed implementation. Elvin thinks that the H5 system is good and should simply be improved and he proposed some modifications. I remain skeptical. I have to presume that sb thought about the system for some considerable amount of time so I don’t believe that it will be easy to make it right by taking advices from forum guys who spent sth like 10 minutes to deliberate. It will require a lot of effort, time, dedication and probably even some glimpses of genius to polish H5 initiative mechanics. I don’t believe we can find those in Might and Magic team.
However I am open to suggestion and if they can make it right it’d be good for the game. I’m just saying that M&M team doesn’t have a reputation for attention to details and fixing the system may prove to become a daunting task while there is a tested and good system.
Sry for repeating in other words what others have said but I totally agree with JJ and others pointing out (obvious?) flaws of the H5 system.
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Uplay: ZergRusher | H6: Thoughts on duels | DoC: Cassa
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Hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 11:18 AM |
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Stevie said:
LoL.
Really? Core zombie needs to be more powerful than Elite minotaur. Well you're right, I think none of us here realizes the need for that. What's the reason behind it? Because it's slower? So slow creatures have to be better in stats than creatures above them in tier?
You need to explain your position, because I can't see the "need" in slow Core zombies having to be better than fast Elite minotaurs.
Yes. Really. And this incredulity is exactly why Heroes 5 initiative is doomed from the start.
First, let's talk about the Zombie as compared to a "normal" melee unit in core. It's slow, meaning that a normal unit of its type (melee bruiser, as it happens) goes almost twice as often as the Zombie does. Just to be balanced against the normal melee unit in head to head, it would have to have badassery almost double normal. But it also takes longer to cross the board, subjecting it to more archery attrition than a normal unit would suffer, which means that its resiliency needs to be higher still or it's still just a sucker unit.
Now let's talk about the Minotaur. He's elite, but he's also almost half again as fast as a normal unit of his type (still melee bruiser). He also crosses the board first and gets the first hit in, so if the normal elite melee bruiser is only half again as good, then the Minotaur is overpowered.
These required power differences are multiplicative. The Zombie needs to be substnatially more than twice as badass as a standard unit, and a standard unit needs to be substantially more than half again more badass than a Minotaur. The Zombie is core and the Minotaur is elite, but what's the badassery multiplier on that? If it's only x4, the Zombie needs to be no less badass than the Minotaur even though they are at different tiers.
If people can't accept those wildly crazy numbers of attack and defense, then Heroes 5 Initiative is unacceptable. And as we've just deomnstrated, people can't accept those wildly crazy numbers of attack and defense, so the project is doomed before it starts.
People simply cannot accept how big of a difference a better ATB number makes, and the associated changes to hit points and damage output you'd have to make to balance those out would in fact cause people to cry foul. In fact, they already have.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 01:02 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 13:03, 12 Oct 2014.
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You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. The scenarios you're presenting are invented, undefined "normal" core come almost 2 times as fast as a slow zombie. The power of your analysis is abysmal.
Sorry, I can't take you seriously. I don't see a reason for it, since you clearly can't comprehend basic elements like unit tiers and stats diversity.
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Hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 01:28 PM |
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Stevie said:
You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. The scenarios you're presenting are invented, undefined "normal" core come almost 2 times as fast as a slow zombie. The power of your analysis is abysmal.
Sorry, I can't take you seriously. I don't see a reason for it, since you clearly can't comprehend basic elements like unit tiers and stats diversity.
This attitude right here is why the people asking for Heroes 5 Initiative are bad for the game and should feel bad about themselves as human beings. If you won't agree to even consider a hypothetical average unit in a tier, how could you possibly hope to create balanced units over all? And if you are simultaneously asking for a force multiplier stat, whose effect is multiplicative rather additive on overall unit performance, you are asking for game balance to be an unmonitored roller coaster that is also on fire.
Changes in how many actions a unit is allowed to take are changes with very large impacts on unit performance. And you're going to need to compensate for those with very large shifts in resiliency and damage output if you want even a vague semblance of balance. And if you won't even consider the existence of a baseline to balance against, you've lost that fight before you've even begun.
People who won't consider baselines in balance discussions cannot even be trusted with separated hit points and defense ratings - let alone things that are actually complicated like action multiplier effects.
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NACHOOOO
Known Hero
Pessimistically optimistic
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posted October 12, 2014 01:42 PM |
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Stevie said:
You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. The scenarios you're presenting are invented, undefined "normal" core come almost 2 times as fast as a slow zombie. The power of your analysis is abysmal.
Sorry, I can't take you seriously. I don't see a reason for it, since you clearly can't comprehend basic elements like unit tiers and stats diversity.
I'm with you Stevie, I just can't argue with this. It's impossible to have a real discussion when people won't be realistic, or aren't willing to entertain an idea that's different to their opinion. It's the same thing over and over again. Read the previous posts in this thread people and you will see that the logic you are using is flawed.
Not one of you will talk about the problems that the H6 system has either that I've brought up multiple times. Read through all of the previous posts, address the problems, and then present to me why H6 is a better system using the merits of the system and not why you don't like the H5 system. I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall talking to you people.
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Magic Bird, only a working
title. Phew
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted October 12, 2014 01:47 PM |
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Heroes V system favors units with high initiative and Sylanna's Fury's units are supposed to be quick and have high initiative. Coincidence? I think not! Heroes V system is acceptable as long as those awful action points will be removed. They made the battle much less clear - abilities that were supposed to make an unit move earlier weren't working (although they were supposed to do so). So, no action points, "earlier move" abilities with explicit description that says about percentage possibility of earlier strike (not values of action points which were vague for most players).
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 12, 2014 02:07 PM |
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cliff_nest said:
Very intrigued by this post cover some interesting point. Remind me of some intense discussion. Could really benefit a better evolved H5 ATB in my opinion. Some line were imo hint of solution
Elvin said:
Four, playing first or second could decide the game depending on the magic you used. A light user playing right before a dark user was a recipe for disaster. Similarly, a dark user playing right before a light one was a horrible disadvantage. That might have worked better if each spell had a different casting time so that you could plan your atb positioning better. Also the spell design plays a huge role, especially if there are hard counters. Like haste overwriting slow, taking you from +40% to -40%. That's 80% initiative reduction!
Would you rather have them nullify each other or one simply weakens the strength of the other (ex : haste on unit A + 40% initiative. Slow on same unit A 20% reduction to haste spell increase. In the second case spell priority would have to rule out the outcome thus creating yet another problem with who goes first.
Lastly how would the cleanse spell come into play (remove debuff only or both buff and debuff)
Elvin said:
Two, the spells, luck and morale greatly amplified the already considerable impact of the initiative. Luck up to 50% chance for double damage, morale up to 50% chance for +50% atb, haste and slow at 40%.. Just crazy. I should note however that testing with tweaked values(luck at 50% damage, morale at 30% atb and haste/slow at 20%) gave far more balanced games.
You mention luck and moral combined to the H5 initiative mechanic is totally crazy witch I totally agree with (played H5 multiplayer with friend and one fight was completely wasted when everyone knew the odd was in my favor plus trashed him on all previous game. Slight advantage in army but defender had very very very frequent lucky roll ). On that point I get the impression that moral and luck in MM7 start let say at 20% and then increase via skill, spell or artifact.
The difference it seems is that haven according to description in interview by op post specialize in moral. So my point is concerning the cap. Should individual faction have different cap value (Haven 40% Moral cap vs academy 30%? Not a fan of the 1/2 chance but number are just to demonstrate decrease) or going along with your testing should all faction have the same cap and just a decrease to the 50% cap. Witch one would in your opinion create the better gameplay.
Curses nullifying curses instead of overwriting them sounds fair but.. not as much fun  I would prefer heroes to act once within the dynamic round but have the freedom to choose when to act(similar to the classic system) or let them choose when to act and start the atb timer after that - like Joonas suggested. To that we could introduce a limitation that the hero cannot play earlier than let's say 10 initiative units, so that he cannot mess with the really fast units before they act. A high initiative puppet master could prove disastrous in such situations, unless spells had a casting time. Or the system could be designed in a way that there are no hard counters to begin with..
There really are too many ways to balance this. As for cleansing(remove curses), it is a different spell from dispel(remove all spells) and there is even purge(remove blessings). All three spells exist in Ashan and they are part of light, prime and dark respectively. I see no problem with that, H4 had something similar.
I think it would be unfair if each faction had a different luck/morale cap. I think that luck/leadership should give you 20-25% chance, leaving room for other effects until you hit a 50% cap. But such effects should be limited so that reaching the cap would not be easy. Haven would probably have an easier time increasing their morale so it's fine.
NamelessOrder said:
It will require a lot of effort, time, dedication and probably even some glimpses of genius to polish H5 initiative mechanics.
Elvin stands ready 
Seriously though, battles in H5 became a lot fairer after tampering with the initiative/luck/morale values. Albolabris, one of our best players and a personal rival also did extensive testing with his mod and reached similar conclusions. Obviously, such a system cannot work perfectly from the very start but I have a good idea of what might or might not work in terms of values and effectiveness.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 12, 2014 03:32 PM |
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Elvin said:
Curses nullifying curses instead of overwriting them sounds fair but.. not as much fun
I disagree. Imo. curses nullifying curses is more fair AND more fun. When that's said, I wouldn't mind some sort of spellpower vs. spellpower check for success, so that a caster with lower power only has a partial chance to remove the spell from each creature, or perhaps one could simply work with a duration subtraction, so that the spell cast by the hero with the higher spellpower has its duration reduced by the amount of the spell of the lower power caster (for instance, if Hero A casts Expert Haste with duration of 5 turn and Hero B then casts Expert Slow with duration of 4 turns, the duration of Haste spell is simply cut down by 4 turns instead).
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What will happen now?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 03:46 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 15:47, 12 Oct 2014.
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No, Spellpower affects duration and it should be left at that.
My take on it is that opposite spells should not overwrite each other, as in remove. They should work both at the same time. And the difference is made by which caster has the highest specialty in the respective school. If both casters have the same amount of specialty, the spells should still exist but make no difference, meaning a return to basic initiative. OR, you could work with existing initiative not basic initiative, so if my creature has 10 initiative and I cast 25% Haste on it, when the enemy casts Slow it casts it on 12.5 ini, not 10, resulting in 9.375. And vice-versa. Though this might get some players angry.
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 12, 2014 04:04 PM |
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1. Units with high initiative act more frequently. In terms of the classic system it effectively means they have more speed, more morale points, and produce more damage.
For example, if a unit A has 5 speed points and moves twice before a unit B can act (A----A-B, "-" means other units' actions), it actually means the unit A doubles his speed, resulting in covering 10 squares of distance. Also, you can interpret this situation as if the unit A got a free "classic" morale. Finally, if the unit A decides to attack, it can inflict double damage on the unit B.
2. How do units increase their initiative counters exactly (accumulate their initiative points)? After every action?
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 12, 2014 04:46 PM |
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Stevie said:
No, Spellpower affects duration and it should be left at that.
My take on it is that opposite spells should not overwrite each other, as in remove. They should work both at the same time. (...)
Well this pretty much boils down to the same as my suggestion, with the only difference being that in my case above, after both having cast the spells, effective spell would be 1 turn of haste. In your variant of my example, we would have 3 turns of nothing (both spells active) and then 1 turn of haste. The latter seems a bit counterintuitive, also because it would prevent the first hero from casting haste again to prolong the effect (haste is already active), unless you allow the same spell being active multiple times at once, but then you'd get awkward balance issues with things like double-haste (+80% initiative, woot!).
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What will happen now?
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