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Heroes Community > Heroes 7 - Falcon's Last Flight > Thread: Dispelling Effects
Thread: Dispelling Effects This thread is 2 pages long: 1 2 · NEXT»
Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted July 21, 2015 06:48 PM

Dispelling Effects

This is a crucial matter I would like everyone's opinion on. In the beta, dispelling spells such as dispel, cleansing and purge had practically no limitations. You cast it, the target spell is gone. Even if the target spell is the highest tier spell of a much stronger spellcaster than you are. Obviously, I'm not happy with that.

For starters, those are easy-to-learn spells that can completely bypass the opponent's spellcasting mastery. He might have spent a lot of levels to develop his skills, greatly improved spellpower, lots of magical artifacts. And there comes a nobody, casts a dispel. Everything you worked on, bypassed.

Secondly, this is a clear advantage for might classes. Time stasis? Dispel. Mass slow? Mass dispel. Face of fear?! Dispel. Agony?? Dispel! Anything the opponent throws at you, you can send it back where it came from. Hell, even his buffs and protections. None of his spells are safe.

Obviously it's not as simple as that but the way things are, I fear that playing a might hero with a dispel variant will become a dominant strategy.

To that end I would like to hear your suggestions. Here are some possibilities:

1) Make mastery matter more: If a spell is cast with tier 2 mastery, the dispel should not remove it unless it has tier 2 mastery or higher. A dispel at expert mastery should not remove spells cast on master.

2) Make spellpower matter more: More spellpower increases the odds of dispelling or weakens the spell more. Mastery could also improve those odds or dispel potency.

3) Make dispel partially effective: Allow it to weaken spell duration or spellpower if it does not fit the criteria to completely remove an effect.

4) Make number of stripped spells depend on spellpower and/or mastery.

5) Make its mana cost scale with the potency of target spell. Dispelling more powerful spells should cost more. Though it does not adress the problem of large maps overstuffed with knowledge artifacts and/or stat locations.

I'm looking forward to your feedback:

- Whether you acknowledge the problem.
- Whether you agree with the proposed solutions or not.
- Whether you have suggestions of your own.
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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted July 21, 2015 06:59 PM
Edited by Storm-Giant at 18:59, 21 Jul 2015.

Ez

1) Dispel/Cleansing should eliminate a limited amount of spells, increased by Spell Power. Something like:
Base: Dispels 1/2/2/3 spells.
Spell Power: Dispels an aditional spell for every 10/10/8/8 SP.

2) For the chance based, use this:


3) ???

4) Profit!

Overall Spell Power has been greatly underlooked throught the whole series, and it is my belief that SP should influence on every single spell, one way or another.
Something similar could be said about Knowledge, plain +10 max mana is boring. +5 max mana and +1 mana regeneration would work much better, imo
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Pawek_13
Pawek_13


Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
posted July 21, 2015 07:12 PM
Edited by Pawek_13 at 19:18, 21 Jul 2015.

I am generally for chance-based cleansing spells, like it was in Heroes V. In case of Purge and Cleansing Light I would also add Curse (no buffs can be casted on a target of Purge for n turns) and a respective effect for Cleansing Light, when a certain level of mastery of Magic of Darkness/Light is achieved.

Regarding Spirit (this is how Knowledge is called in Heroes VII?) - does each point in Spirit only grant +10 mana points, or does it also give your hero +1 to mana regeneration (again, like in Heroes V)?

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted July 21, 2015 07:29 PM

Not sure about spirit(sigh..) but purge does have a bonus ability that blocks a unit from receiving buffs for the next few turns. There is no purity effect that blocks incomping curses though. Probably for the best, I prefered the good old anti-magic mechanics. Blocking curses while allowing buffs is cheesy.
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Steyn
Steyn


Supreme Hero
posted July 21, 2015 07:34 PM
Edited by Steyn at 21:23, 21 Jul 2015.

All potent dispell spells are indeed a problem. All your solutions are good, but I like #43 the most. Of course that goes hand in hand with the requirement for spellpower to influence all spells, which I agree is by itself already a must have.
Pawek_13 said:

Regarding Spirit (this is how Knowledge is called in Heroes VII?) - does each point in Spirit only grant +10 mana points, or does it also give your hero +1 to mana regeneration (again, like in Heroes V)?

From playing the beta I was under the impression that spirit only influenced mana regeneration.

Edit: put in the wrong number
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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
posted July 21, 2015 07:36 PM

In HoMM 3 it's my experience that most of the buffed unit would usually get to use their buff before getting dispelled. Also dispel affected everyone once it was mass, and before that it only affected one target.

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Kimarous
Kimarous


Supreme Hero
posted July 21, 2015 07:40 PM

Speaking as someone who has not (yet) played the beta, I can't say as to how problematic the issue truly is, but it sounds overblown. Can it really be considered a consistent strategy when the oh-so-beloved randomness factor comes into play? There's no guarantee that the opposing side will even have access to a dispel ability, so fearing that "Might Heroes with Dispel will become dominant" sounds like absurd fear-mongering to me.

And from a personal standpoint, this affects me little since I often forego buffs and debuffs in favour of direct damage or instant effect spells (like Resurrection).

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Sleeping_Sun
Sleeping_Sun


Promising
Famous Hero
Townscreen Architect
posted July 21, 2015 07:55 PM

Before I post anything I would like to know is there resistance skill like in H3/H4/H5?

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Pawek_13
Pawek_13


Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
posted July 21, 2015 07:56 PM
Edited by Pawek_13 at 20:00, 21 Jul 2015.

Sleeping_Sun said:
Before I post anything I would like to know is there resistance skill like in H3/H4/H5?

There is none.

PS. Also, in case of Purge, if "minimum change" approach was undertaken, I definitely wish that instead of "Curse" it got a mass version, like the other cleansing spells.

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jhb
jhb


Famous Hero
posted July 21, 2015 08:41 PM
Edited by jhb at 22:17, 21 Jul 2015.

nice post elvin!

When possible, I always like when everything (or almost) have some kind of gameplay impact. I think it could be cool to go with option 2 mixed with 5 and luck(destiny) - particularly the perk Chaos Magic.

But I don't know if it might take too much effort to balance/implement, so using option 2 alone would be already good, I guess. But still, currently, Chaos Magic add luck rolls to only damage spells based on hero's destiny, so in this case, luck rolls could give a bonus to the odds of dispel, something like +destiny/2 as extra spell power?
But again, if it make things over complicated or hard to balance (Chaos Magic would be too strong?), we can skip it.

option 1: Looks like an easy way, but maybe too punishing for might heroes, it will depend on how strong mid-high level spells are.

option 2: For Dispel, I like the idea of dealing with odds, instead of just hit or miss.

option 3: This option looks like a whole new different defensive spell, I like it, but not for dispel. Maybe create a new perk or spell (sap magic/dampen magic) with similar effects?

option 4: I'm not sure if this option would solve the problem very well, might heroes would be more cautious and save dispel for strong spells/important moments. It adds a restriction on use, but I think we already have mana for this.

option 5: similar to option 4, but now with mana constraints, which can become trivial in large maps like you said. This alone would not be a good solution, but we could add this as another layer of restriction.

So, in the end, it would be something like the picture of h5 above, working with Chaos Magic perk and having mana as the limiting factor (potentially with option 5 added as an extra limiting factor).

Like Kimarous, I also haven't played the beta, so my opinion is mostly speculation.

EDIT: Thinking a bit more about the option 3, it could end up being an interesting effect for artifacts/sets, since we already have the 3x3 area skill perk.

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PROJ
PROJ


Known Hero
posted July 21, 2015 08:43 PM

First of all, percentage based dispels are terrible.  Don't do that.  I'm already annoyed that they have some abilities that trigger based on a percent chance.  Those kinds of things are way too random (the bad kind of random, not the good kind) and can totally mess up games that have been going on for hours because of a dice roll.  

It really depends on how the spells are tuned as to how effective dispels will be.  There are several ways around dispels as they currently stand, though:

1) Have the last creature to go in the turn.  Either through having the slowest initiative creature or the waiting with the highest initiative creature, you can wait until the very end of the round to cast a buff/debuff.  Then the following turn, you can cast another one before the opponent responds (assuming you are using the highest initiative creature).  Unless you really mess up, they shouldn't be able to dispel two buffs/debuffs at once.  

2) Use the AOE of buff/debuffs to your advantage.  The dispels are all 3x3.  Many of the buffs are currently 4x4.  That means it's very possible to position your troops in such a way that they literally cannot dispel all your creatures with a single dispel.  Even for 3x3 AOE buffs, you can cast them and then spread your creatures out, causing essentially the same situation.  

3) If you have several creatures move in a row, either through luck or initiative manipulation, you can simply buff them and have them act in turn before the opponent even has a chance to dispel them.  Likewise, with a debuff, you can attack a debuffed creature with your creatures before your opponent gets his turn.  

4) If you play academy, you can use the grandmaster metamagic talent to get more casts in a single turn.  Once again, you can't expect to dispel multiple buffs/debuffs put on in the same turn.  

This doesn't necessarily mean the dispels aren't too powerful, just that theoretically, there are several ways around it and it doesn't just come down to "dispels hard counter buffs/debuffs."  Personally I would like the opportunity to be able to cast more spells per round to begin with.  Like if I cast a particularly weak spell maybe I could cast a second spell at the end of the round, or be able to cast a second one at half spellpower or something.  It would need to be more fleshed out and I doubt it would be put in, but I think it would potentially make the battles more dynamic than just being able to use 1 spell/ability per round of combat.

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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted July 21, 2015 08:59 PM
Edited by Stevie at 21:44, 21 Jul 2015.

The mastery idea was mine and I think it's the best way to have a working system that is also balanced. Realistically, you cannot allow dispel to remove too much, because in a system where your casting is limited at once per turn that would be broken. You waste 3 turns worth of high level blessings on a creature just to get them removed by one meager dispel? I think not. Then, the reason why I advocated for safe removals, as in no % chance involved but a remove = yes / no binary, was because I value a lot the notion of reliability when it comes to magic. I don't really wanna go around casting spells that may have no effect. To me that spells for a static and boring gameplay. But, after thinking it over a bit, I think we can find ground for a system encompassing the best of both worlds.

Assuming the level of mastery is equal between dispel and the targeted spell, the chance of removal is 100%. However, if dispel's mastery level is inferior, the chance of removal is with 20% less for each mastery level constituting the difference. So for example, in our system with 4 masteries (unlearned (no mastery, or mastery 0), novice, expert, master; grandmaster is an ability / ultimate, not a mastery level), if dispel is at its most basic mastery which is Novice (check prime, light and dark) and the target spell was cast at master level, then the chance of removal would be 60%. Conversely, if the mastery level of dispel exceeds that of the targeted spell, the 20% for each mastery level constituting the difference would carry over in an attempt to dispel one additional spell. So if you cast a master dispel on an unlearned buff / debuff, your chance of removal is 100% for that spell and 60% for a secondary one. Of course, highest tier and / or mastery level spells are targeted first. Moreover, if dispel fails to remove a spell completely, it subtracts from its spellpower, percent being randomly determined between 0 and the removal chance.

What I consider advantageous with this system is the fact that it is both balanced and rewarding. You can dispel 0 or up to 2 spells, but nothing above that. And even when removal fails you still get a partial removal in the form of spellpower reduction for your cast turn and mana investment.

Spellpower scaling might be a better way of doing things tho. More room to work with, no arbitrary thresholds and an innate advantage for Magic classes. Anyway, this is my contribution.
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jhb
jhb


Famous Hero
posted July 21, 2015 09:13 PM

Good points PROJ and Stevie.
I just disagree with PROJ about dealing with odds, I think it add a bit of depth and is a fun part of gameplay. Dealing with these odds can spice the things up a bit, demanding you to be ready for some improvisation, which is good, imo.
The problem is if we overdo it, but if we keep it in a healthy and balanced environment, it's a good thing, imo.

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EnergyZ
EnergyZ


Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
posted July 21, 2015 10:08 PM

Kimarous said:
Speaking as someone who has not (yet) played the beta, I can't say as to how problematic the issue truly is, but it sounds overblown. Can it really be considered a consistent strategy when the oh-so-beloved randomness factor comes into play? There's no guarantee that the opposing side will even have access to a dispel ability, so fearing that "Might Heroes with Dispel will become dominant" sounds like absurd fear-mongering to me.

And from a personal standpoint, this affects me little since I often forego buffs and debuffs in favour of direct damage or instant effect spells (like Resurrection).


Don't underestimate the power of dispel.

Anyway, How about this: the chance to dispel a spell depends on the spell level. Say, with no mastery, you can dispel level 1 spells with 70%, level 2 with 50% and level 3 with 30% (the level 4 does not get dispelled at any chance). For each school of magic's skill (whether Light or Dark) one gets 20% more chance to dispel, meaning at Master level one can dispel level 1 and 2 spells flawlessly, level 3 with 90% and level 4 with 70%.

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EnergyZ
EnergyZ


Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
posted July 21, 2015 10:14 PM

Oh and yeah... isn't this one of the constant H7 spell threads, like "Save regeneration!" and "Save heal!"

Guess devs are too lazy to make a proper formula... or algorithm and leave things shallow.

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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted July 21, 2015 10:15 PM

Steyn said:
All potent dispell spells are indeed a problem. All your solutions are good, but I like #43 the most. Of course that goes hand in hand with the requirement for spellpower to influence all spells, which I agree is by itself already a must have.
Pawek_13 said:

Regarding Spirit (this is how Knowledge is called in Heroes VII?) - does each point in Spirit only grant +10 mana points, or does it also give your hero +1 to mana regeneration (again, like in Heroes V)?

From playing the beta I was under the impression that spirit only influenced mana regeneration.

Edit: put in the wrong number

Can't say I agree with this either, you want to keep all four primary skills (aka stats) as equally as possible. Giving only mana regeneration sounds weak in theory.
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted July 21, 2015 11:18 PM
Edited by Maurice at 23:20, 21 Jul 2015.

The way I see it, you need to somehow measure the potency of the spell being attempted to dispell and the potency of the dispell itself. This in itself requires a closer look at the available spells as they need to incorporate a specific component that can be compared. That could be spell power, Hero level, spell mastery levels or any combination of the sort.

This alone will prevent lowly Might Heroes from dispelling a powerful Magic Heroes' spells with just a flick of the wrist.

The other issue addressed is what should happen when a dispell lands. It could be binary: it either fails and the spell it tried to dispell remains intact, or it succeeds and strips said spell. Clearly, having a sliding scale in relative power between the spell in question and its dispell attempt means an automatic success is out of the question and likewise a binary solution doesn't seem practical. Yet, it's the first option that I see.

More refined would also allow for partial dispells and on the other side a critical success might carry additional benefits. This would define four ranges, each with its own percentage barriers; depending on relative power, not all four ranges may be present (a powerful Wizard casting a dispell may not be able to fail, while a lowly Might Hero might not be able to score a critical success).

Personally, I prefer this second option. Two ranges are obvious on what they do. Fail, and the dispell simply fizzles, the spell it aimed to dispell remains intact. Succeed, and that spell is gone, dispell did what it had to do. The other two ranges are tricky: partial success and critical success.

For partial success you can use the relative power concept. With a partial success, spell effectiveness is dropped by a certain percent. To avoid overly complex formulas and percentage ranges, I would suggest a partial success will reduce the spells' potency by 50% (making it also more susceptible to the next dispell).

Stevie suggests for a critical success to dispell more spells on the target. But what if there are no other spells on the target to begin with? Instead, I would suggest something else: have buffs and debuffs drain mana of the caster's mana reserve per turn. They may be cheaper to cast, themselves, but will provide a drain over time. When a critical dispell hits, it also hits the caster's mana reserve, draining mana from it. The amount of mana drained should depend on the spells' manacost, possibly an x-amount of its initial casting cost and/or maintenance cost. This in turn may mean the caster is unable to sustain other (de)buffs, because mana is running out. The caster should be able to actively stop (de)buffs by removing them at will.

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Sleeping_Sun
Sleeping_Sun


Promising
Famous Hero
Townscreen Architect
posted July 21, 2015 11:53 PM
Edited by Sleeping_Sun at 08:43, 22 Jul 2015.

I believe that dispel should be based on a chance. There are two outcomes: (1) the chance to dispel spell(s) and (2) the chance not to dispel the spell(s). The ration of (1) and (2) is the ratio of level + knowledge + luck of the two heroes (this is under the assumption that there is only one buff to dispel).

       | level | knowledge | luck |
Hero A |  4    |    1      |   2  | (caster of dispel)
Hero B |  4    |    3      |   0  | (caster of a buff)

Formula:
Hero A : Hero B
4 + 1 + 2 : 4 + 3 + 0
7 : 7

50% to dispel : 50% not to dispel upon casting of dispel spell

If there are two or more buffs on a single target on which dispel is cast, the ratio whether to dispel the rest of the buffs (not including the first buff) or not is dependant upon the ratio of level + spell power + luck of the two heroes.

       | level | spell p.  | luck |
Hero A |  3    |    1      |   2  | (caster of dispel)
Hero B |  3    |    3      |   1  | (caster of buffs)

Formula:
Hero A : Hero B
3 + 1 + 2 : 3 + 3 + 1
6 : 7

46% to dispel : 54% not to dispel upon casting of dispel spell

The first buff and the rest of the buffs are calculated at the same time. The possibilities are following:
1) 1st buff is not dispelled, the rest of the buffs are not dispelled
2) 1st buff is dispelled, the rest of the buffs are not dispelled
3) 1st buff is not dispelled, the rest of the buffs are dispelled
4) 1st buff is dispelled, the rest of the buffs are dispelled

For the calculations in the table, I chose random numbers...
This way knowledge and spell power are more important than before.
Although magic heroes are favoured a bit in this system (higher spell power and knowledge), it doesn't mean that might hero has 0% to dispel a buff.
Feel free to build upon this if you can.

EDIT:
EDIT2:
The first buff that that is calculated separately depends on the level of that buff, the higher level, the greater priority. If there are more buffs of the highest level on a unit, the first buff to be dispelled is chosen randomly among those of the highest level.
I came upon the idea that maybe there should be formula for each individual buff that is being attempted to dispel, according to the priority from highest to lowest, but then both knowledge and spell power would be involved:
Hero A attempts to dispel : Hero B caster of buffs
1st buff: level + knowledge + spell power + luck : level + knowledge + spell power + luck
2nd buff: (level + knowledge + spell power + luck)/2 : level + knowledge + spell power + luck
3rd buff: (level + knowledge + spell power + luck)/3 : level + knowledge + spell power + luck

or it could be

Hero A attempts to dispel : Hero B caster of buffs
1st buff: level + knowledge + spell power + luck : level + knowledge + luck
2nd buff: (level + knowledge + spell power + luck) - ((level + knowledge + spell power + luck) * (1/10)) : level + knowledge + spell power + luck
3rd buff: (level + knowledge + spell power + luck) - ((level + knowledge + spell power + luck) * (2/10)) : level + knowledge + spell power + luck
4th buff: (level + knowledge + spell power + luck) - ((level + knowledge + spell power + luck) * (3/10)) : level + knowledge + spell power + luck

EDIT3:
With this every buff that is not the first buff that you are dispelling will have -10% of your general or maximum chance to dispel it. Let's pretend that: level + knowledge + spell power + luck of Hero A is 10. Hero B has 7.
1st buff: 10 : 7 59% : 41% in favour to dispel the first buff
2nd buff: 10 - (10*(1/10)) : 7 9 : 7 56% : 44% in favour to dispel 2nd buff
3rd buff: 10 - (10*(2/10)) : 7 8 : 7 53% : 47% in favour to dispel 3rd buff
4th buff: 10 - (10*(3/10)) : 7 7 : 7 50% : 50% equal chance to dispel and not to dispel 4th buff

Let's try with higher numbers:
Hero A might hero casts dispel : Hero B magic hero caster of buffs.
level 20 + kn 5 + sp 4 + luck 4 : level 20 + kn 10 + sp 8 + luck 3

1st buff: 33 : 41 45% : 55% in favour not to dispel 1st buff
2nd buff: 33 - (33*(1/10)) : 41 30 : 41 42% : 58% in favour not to dispel 2nd buff
3rd buff: 33 - (33*(2/10)) : 41 26 : 41 39% : 61% in favour not to dispel 3nd buff
4th buff: 33 - (33*(3/10)) : 41 23 : 41 36% : 64% in favour not to dispel 4nd buff

I think that this is good in limiting might hero's chance of dispelling high level, but now I have another  thing to propose:
I'll use the same formulas but just for different purpose. We all agree that high level spells should be difficult to dispel, well these formulas allow just that:

Hero A is red colour who casts dispel : Hero B caster of buffs
A chance to dispel all level 4 buffs on a target:
(level + knowledge + spell power + luck) - ((level + knowledge + spell power + luck) * (3/10)) : level + knowledge + spell power + luck

A chance to dispel all level 3 buffs on a target:
(level + knowledge + spell power + luck) - ((level + knowledge + spell power + luck) * (2/10)) : level + knowledge + spell power + luck

A chance to dispel all level 2 buffs on a target:
(level + knowledge + spell power + luck) - ((level + knowledge + spell power + luck) * (1/10)) : level + knowledge + spell power + luck

A chance to dispel all level 1 buffs on a target:
level + knowledge + spell power + luck : level + knowledge + luck

This way there is a:
0% penalty to dispel level 1 spells
10% penalty to dispel level 2 spells
20% penalty to dispel level 3 spells
30% penalty to dispel level 4 spells

Good night!

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PROJ
PROJ


Known Hero
posted July 22, 2015 03:03 PM

Once again, I have to strongly disagree with any suggestion that brings in percent chance/odds to dispel.  I didn't really elaborate on that before, but it's important to understand why this is such an awful mechanic and should not be considered.

First of all, you have to realize there's more than one kind of randomness that can be added to a game.  You can think of it on a scale from "input randomness" on one side to "output randomness" on the other.  Input randomness is randomness that is added before actions take place.  It can be used to prevent games from becoming rote or solveable, and can be used to create more variety and also test heuristics rather than memorization.  Random map generation is a good example of input randomness.  The randomness at the beginning of combat in homm V is another example of input randomness, although clearly that was not balanced well as it's one of the big complaints about the game.  

On the other side of the scale is output randomness.  This is randomness that occurs after the fact from your actions.  Luck, morale, creature damage range are all examples of output randomness.  Generally speaking, output randomness should be avoided.  The problem with output randomness is that it almost never actually changes your strategy.  There is still a move you want to make, except now, sometimes that move dicks you over and you lose.  You still play for optimal moves, except now it's based on expected value instead of concrete outcomes.  Nothing really changes except sometimes the outcome is different than you'd like.  

Normally, output randomness is fine if you're playing a card game like MTG or hearthstone, or any other game where matches are short.  Randomness, managing that risk can be interesting in some cases and is part of those games.  The key point with these games, though, is how short they are.  You can quickly play a series of games if they only last 10-20 minutes.  With Homm, though, these matches can take multiple hours.  Having output randomness lose you the game through what is essentially a dice roll after a 4 hour long match is both infuriating and stupid from a design point.  Games like chess and go are great examples of games with no output randomness that still maintain a high amount of depth.  The idea that games need this kind of randomness to be interesting is, in my opinion, highly fallacious, and if true, means that the games probably lack a lot of depth to begin with, which is a much more serious problem.

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kiryu133
kiryu133


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
posted July 22, 2015 03:40 PM

Luck and morale in HoMM was never bad in their chance element. Quite the opposite, it added an element which you were aware off and could influence but never had any guarantees of happening. Basically these were good uses of your so-called "output" randomness. You could invest in them and they were more likely to happen but they were never powerful enough to be game-breaking. Sure, a match could be won or loss with them but that's what happens when you actually invest in them. It was high-risk strategy.

Luck has no place in dispel or any spell for that matter but both spellpower and mastery should influence effectiveness in some way, though i don't really know how. I like the idea of spellpower reducing the amount of turns buffs/debuffs might have when casting dispel and masteries decide how powerful spells can be dispelled/how many. Just try and keep it simple.

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