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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted September 29, 2020 07:10 PM |
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Edited by PandaTar at 19:11, 29 Sep 2020.
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Poll Question:
Reaction Abilities: Which one would/do you prefer?
Kudos! 
I was just wondering – while I was designing my waste-of-time proposals – what people usually think of this reaction mechanism. 
Back in the day, retaliation was sort of ... taken for granted. You attack and gets retaliated. 
Not long after that, I started playing Final Fantasy Tactics and reminding of its many jobs which your characters could pick, jobs also had a plethora of different ways to react to outside stimulus, and not only physical attacks. Which I immediately took a liking. 
Chemist's Autopotion would use a potion to heal themselves after taking damage. Monk's Hamedo would make them attack before being attacked and would cancel incoming attack. Samurai's Blade Grasp would make them block a physical attack, with higher odds when facing the enemy, and decreasing odds when attacks came from the sides or back. Lancer's Dragonheart would make your lancer self-cast Reraise when low on life. There was, of course, Counter as well.
The newer versions of Heroes have one and another different reaction, I think, which could be something that might add a bit more depth into strategy, without overwhelming. And reactions don't need to be reserved only against offensive actions taken by the enemy or directed to that creature either. There are many uses. 
Then, my question is: what would/do you prefer?  And, if not asking much, why? 
P.S.: It's mainly academic. 
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted September 29, 2020 07:18 PM |
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Interesting idea. I agree, it's somewhat taken for granted and feels weird not to be there for all in HoMM. However, in many other games, several reaction are there and work fine. I have to think about it.
...btw I think one thing that would be great IF such was in, would be Evasion - instead of striking back, avoid the damage.
Others could include:
-Retreat - allows oyu to take a move as reaction
-Blame/Spite/whatever name - instead of a strike, put a debuff on the enemy
However I'm still not sure if its not better with retaliation as standard, and the others as abilities of singular units.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 29, 2020 07:36 PM |
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Well, most of heroes unique abilities are tied to counterattacks  My favourite was H6 vigilance, a pre-emptive shot if you moved within x tiles. And then there was that ability where a unit would 'retaliate' on attackers that targeted a nearby ally. I also loved maneuver where the ranged unit would retreat when attacked, then retaliate from a little farther away. Oh, actually H5 had a couple of unused ones that were fun: Avenging flames that caused a fireball on death and frightful aura that had a chance to make attackers flee in fear before they attacked.
But sure, I'd love some new possibilities. Why wouldn't anyone?
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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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Alon
Known Hero
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posted September 29, 2020 08:26 PM |
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Unique reactions, please.
Explanation: vanilla retaliation, especially if it's almost always simultaneous, flattens the difference between attack and defense; in the limit, there becomes no difference between having 20% more damage and 20% more HP. If there is no retaliation then the difference becomes more important, because the value of first strike is high when damage is high relative to HP and low when HP is high relative to damage. And if there's no retaliation, it's convenient to add other reactions. So for example, my pikemen react with a normal attack and even get to go first, but that's unique to their reach weapon, and other units react differently, or even not at all for archers in lieu of a melee penalty.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted September 29, 2020 09:52 PM |
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Jiriki9 said:
...btw I think one thing that would be great IF such was in, would be Evasion - instead of striking back, avoid the damage.
Yup, one thing that comes into mind is a cloud of mosquitoes attacking a person. They annoy, and usually the human will retaliate. But when a human attacks mosquitoes, they won't stand firm and retaliate, they'll disperse, then group again. ^_^
Elvin said:
My favourite was H6 vigilance, a pre-emptive shot if you moved within x tiles. And then there was that ability where a unit would 'retaliate' on attackers that targeted a nearby ally. I also loved maneuver where the ranged unit would retreat when attacked, then retaliate from a little farther away. Oh, actually H5 had a couple of unused ones that were fun: Avenging flames that caused a fireball on death and frightful aura that had a chance to make attackers flee in fear before they attacked.
Yeah, these ones, but I din't recall in which installment they were present. I remember the centaur(?) had that maneuver-thing, which I found rather cool.
Alon said:
Explanation.
Nicely put!
I'm trying to add some reaction stuff based on the overall theme of certain creatures in those proposals. Still, a lot still passed unchecked because of that cemented default-retaliation idea.
For example, a creature that's known to be alert (or even the Vigilance Elvin exemplified) could react whenever an allied troop was being attacked from any flanks by alerting them, making those allies to actually turn and face their attackers, thus not suffering flanking bonus damage. These same creatures could have their own reaction, if they were the ones targeted, also, e.g., First Strike. That implies that creatures could have different reactions triggered by different events on the battlefield. And then, it would beg the question if a unit would be able to perform both reactions in the same round or not. Because forcing someone to react as a ruse, would also be part of the strategy, so they cannot react to another incoming move.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 29, 2020 10:24 PM |
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I've often felt that Pikemen should be able to reverse a charge bonus if hit from the front.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted September 30, 2020 03:29 PM |
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Would that ability only reflect Cavalier's charging damage or have any use against other units as well?
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted September 30, 2020 10:20 PM |
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Ok I have now voted for "other" and I have the following idea:
What if there are few possible basic reactions, and then abilities giving more, or elaborating the basics more.
Basic Reactions could be:
-Retaliate (as we know it)
-Evade (avoids part of the damage)
-Move (you get a free movement action)
-Take Advantage (you get a buff on initiative or whatever, so your next turn comes faster)
Possibly, these would be choosable, so you can decide, which unit shall use which reaction, either in the situation, or you can set it in the Hero Screen.
Then, there would be a lot of abilities like the following
-First Strike (Retaliation works before the enemy attack)
-Counter (Can evade AND retaliate)
-Ranged Retaliation
-Anger (When the unit takes advantage, it also gets a buff on damage)
-Vigilant (The unit has 2 extra reactions)
But there might also be counters, like.
-Precision (Enemy units have it harder evading this units ranged attack, so the evasion is less effective.)
-Pindown (A target cannot use the move reaction against this unit.)
...of course, a ton more abilities are possible.
It might also be a cool idea if the defense option gave an additional reaction instead of a def bonus.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 30, 2020 10:33 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 23:02, 30 Sep 2020.
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PandaTar said:
Would that ability only reflect Cavalier's charging damage or have any use against other units as well?
Any unit which receives a damage-pet-tile-travelled bonus to their attack.
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted September 30, 2020 10:35 PM |
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What is the difference between the evade reaction and just having more HP?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 30, 2020 11:25 PM |
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Evade possibly only works in certain situations.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 01, 2020 07:57 AM |
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And presumably not working 100% of the time nor preventing magic. Btw I once tried to use maneuver on a melee unit and it ended up retreating until it was precisely one tile away from the attacker or other enemies. Found that interesting.
Oh just remembered. H7 titans had a special that allowed them to absorb magic cast on them, making their next attack stronger. Lovely idea.
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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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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted October 01, 2020 01:22 PM |
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Jiriki9 said:
Basic Reactions could be:
-Retaliate (as we know it)
-Evade (avoids part of the damage)
-Move (you get a free movement action)
-Take Advantage (you get a buff on initiative or whatever, so your next turn comes faster)
Sounds nice!  (I might even try to see whether this would work in my designings to simplify some matters PUUUUUHOHOHOHOHO)
As an afterthought, these basic reaction classifications could be put like this:
* Offensive (reactions before taking an action or when already engaged)
* Defensive (reactions after taking an action and when defending)
* Idle (reactions when waiting or as observer)
I was wondering how it would work accordingly to when a unit would react, or if units would have some sort of role, basically classified as attacker, defender and supporter. It also would imply that a same unit could have more than one reaction. Just food for thought. What do you think? 
For example: You have the griffin. Griffin reaction is that of always retaliate. So, no matter when it gets attacked, it will counter-attack. Now, let's get a Treant. When engaging offensively, it'll react with a sweeping attack. If it's set to defend, it will mitigate some damage and root enemy on the spot. And if it's waiting as an observer and an allied gets attacked, it might reach out with some vines and pull that ally away from danger, for example. As it was waiting and was forced to spring into action (regardless its speed), it'll enter an 'offensive' stance and have its turn consumed; not sure if it'll still be able to perform an offensive reaction as means to compensate the fact that it won't act anymore in that round. Dunno, would need some thinking.  You could affect how waiting units would behave, either as a commander or as an enemy, which, I think, could broaden the strategies upon acting.
Quote:
Possibly, these would be choosable, so you can decide, which unit shall use which reaction, either in the situation, or you can set it in the Hero Screen.
You can add it to a hero's Tactics skill privilege.
Quote:
It might also be a cool idea if the defense option gave an additional reaction instead of a def bonus.
Yup, or the Wait option, where attacking a waiting unit could force it into action. Accordingly to your suggested layout, Defend option could trigger a 'Defensive Reaction', if you classify it in the way I suggested above. Either way, I like what you proposed here. 
Elvin said:
And presumably not working 100% of the time nor preventing magic. Btw I once tried to use maneuver on a melee unit and it ended up retreating until it was precisely one tile away from the attacker or other enemies. Found that interesting.
It certainly is. You really want to avoid more damage and it would not make sense getting your distance from one enemy troop only to get in range of another. I was designing one of the units in my proposal which, in addition to that, it actually tries to get to cover (of another friendly unit or obstacle), although I think getting to cover would be a different response when attacked by projectiles.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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veteran_player
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 09, 2020 08:24 PM |
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PandaTar said:
Kudos!
I was just wondering – while I was designing my waste-of-time proposals – what people usually think of this reaction mechanism.
I believe a little distinction is warranted. After a unit is attacked, it retaliates(usually just once). However, there are other stacks on the battlefield as well. If there are other defending enemy units within range, there could be organized self-defense. Like defending archers, or a broader magical defense. So that both might(melee and archers) and magic(heroes and casters) are integrated. HoMMV has already adopted some of these mechanisms. It could be built upon! The battlefield is a complex and consequential element of HoMM strgy!! The important thing for the franchise is that it evolves based on "Reason!" and the different levels of game-play - make sense!!
This is somewhat related to the integration between the different Core Elements of the series, a basic and fundamental one of which is having multiple - in role and function core-fighting-units.
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