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| Thread: In-depth Acadmy review |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 07, 2007 12:54 PM |
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Oh, come on, drop that "power rating" thing, it completely doesn't matter in the game! Just because nival says the unit has X power rating doesn't mean that 58 m.gremlins are better/worse/equal to 1 titan. No theorycraft, please! 
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 12:58 PM |
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Of course they are not better/worse for THE SAME THING. They are different creatures. If you read my post carefully you'll see that what's about -- to have a "different" army that goes on better with each other to achieve the certain task. And that includes countering the enemy. For example as I said, against enemy if he has a Legion of Sprites you could use Master Hunters and Treants. Druids are always welcome for endurance.
Master Gremlins have repair, Titans have other things such as No melee Penalty. But when evaluating the "costs" of each creature I say it's more balanced if we use the power rating. You would not want 1 gremlin to cost 4700 while a titan 35 right?
But this idea is mostly about using your army for better outcome. And if it will be implemented, you'll see the tactic with marksmen can easily be countered with a corresponding army of the enemy. Besides if you can do the same stuff (if you're haven) then there's no imbalance. As I said the best counter is not marksmen vs marksmen, you'll see that by yourself. But first it has to be implemented.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted March 07, 2007 01:14 PM |
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I'm not sure about all this theoretical talk. There seems to be so many things to take into account. First off, the Power rating obviously is completely wrong, in the sense that it does not give you the actual strength of the creature - 1 Titan will easily take down 58 Gremlins. I don't know how many Gremlins will be needed to take down one Titan - I would not be surprised if you would need something like 150 Gremlins, which would cost the same as 1 Titan, roughly (150 Master Gremlins = 5250 Gold). I guess you could test the actual number, but seen from that perspective, pricing is probably not completely off.
Secondly, you have to take into account the fact that you will have the low-level dwellings earlier in game, meaning that you will potentially have more weekly growths of them, at least until late game, where this will level out. This means that theoretically, low level creatures should have a lower powergrowth, if you stick to the idea of all creatures providing same powergrowth in total in the long run.
Then there is the thing with external dwellings - a level 7 external dwelling will increase weekly growth by 200 % (+1 in town = +50 % and +1 in dwelling = +50 %), whereas a level 1 external dwelling will increase growth by only ~150 % (+1 in town ~0 % and +50 % in dwelling). Of course it's not really 0 %, but the +1 growth is much less important for low-level creatures. This will effectively make it impossible to level out powergrowth completely.
Finally, and perhaps more importantly, there is the fact that one strong creature is more usefull than several weaker ones. A good example is the Spectral Dragon, that, although it has essentially the same Damagegrowth and HPgrowth as the Black Dragon, is considerably less usefull. Using again the Titan and Gremlin example, this is also obvious, because dealing 90 % of damage to the Titan will still leave you with 100 % Titan after battle, whereas 90 % damage to a stack of Gremlins will result in roughly 10 % remaining.
With all this, I'm just trying to say that the concept of completely uniform powergrowth and cost of dwellings imo. dosn't make sense in terms of the game. You can match creature powergrowth such that the level 1 and 7 creatures get the same powergrowth each week. You can also match the power, so that equal amounts of power of the two creatures will be evenly matched in battle. That will, however, still make a certain power amount of level 7 creatures more usefull than the same amount of level 1 creatures, because their survivability is larger (in the sense that you need to deal more damage to kill the first unit in the stack).
That's not to say that one cannot adjust the current system, at least as an experiment - but completely ballancing it across the levels is not really possible - and I don't think it would be favorable for the game either.
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What will happen now?
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 01:28 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 13:51, 07 Mar 2007.
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@alcibiades: I get your point but I already explained in the last post.
Let's say 58 gremlins are the same as a Titan (it's only an assumption). Then a Gremlin Workshop gives only 20 per week. Clearly much less than 58, which means that the dwelling for the Gremlins gives you a smaller "power" by buying the entire population it gives than a higher-level one. A titan dwelling, on the other hand, gives you +1 to Titans, so it's more expensive as 1 Titan is clearly much better than 20 Gremlins.
What I was trying to say is, why not able to build another Gremlin Workshop if you so desire? That will add another 20 per week, so if you have 2 dwellings you'll have 40 Gremlins per week. Still weaker than a Titan, but the 2 dwellings are also cheaper. One also has to take into account that building 2 gremlin workshops requires 2 days, whereas the Titan dwelling only one day. And 40 Gremlins are still by far weaker than a Titan.
Now you could build another one again, so you get up with 60 gremlins per week. Now if we take into account our assumption, then finally you can recruit the gremlins and hope for a "titan-like" power in your army. (of course power is only theoretical, I'll explain later).
In conclusion you spent some resources on 3 gremlin dwellings and 3 days. You could have built a Titan dwelling and lose only 1 day, but I think it's still more expensive that 3 gremlin dwellings. It could be easy to balance this out: from second time onwards (except the first time) all the dwellings will have a more expensive cost. This is an example:
Archer Tower (1200 gold, 10 Ore) -> Marksmen Tower (2700 gold, 10 Ore) -> 2nd Marksmen Tower (4000 gold, 10 Ore, 5 Crystal) -> 3rd Marksmen Tower (4000 gold, 10, 5 Crystal) -> and so on...
of course it's only an example and not balanced I just put in some numbers. Building a low-level dwelling gives you certainly much weaker results (i.e 12 marksmen vs 1 angel). But you can build it multiple times to increase the growth.
Now here's why this is, at least in my opinion, useful. You can create different armies each time -- in a game you would base your strategies with lots of marksmen and squires. In another one you would base your strategies on griffins, angels and paladins. Why? Probably because you found out that the enemy has lots of shooters, so Griffins are very valuable. This increases strategies before the final battle begins -- you choose what to recruit. If you want more marksmen as the enemy killed all of yours in a battle (XL map) then place several marksmen dwellings and recruit them back -- this of course if you need their aid.
Why bother with this? As Doomforge said each creature is different. That's why. You make up your army depending on the enemy choices. For example Druids go badly against steel golems but good against tier 7s. If you find out the enemy has Titans, then you could increase your chances to win by recruiting druids -- when the enemy won't expect it. As the system is now, every army is predictable in the battle, there's no secret, there's no counter. Otherwise with this implemented you'll really have to think a lot about your choices and which dwelling to place, which implies using more strategy before the battle you will face 
In the end with this method you'll just have to know your enemy and expand on his weaknesses -- if he uses slow units, you use fast units. Likewise if he uses only shooters (alone) then use melee to block their efficiency. That's why it will be more strategic -- you will have different armies. Same as multiple-levels of upgrading creatures. You can choose between different upgrades and probably counter the opponents. Some creatures work better against others, and better with the hero. You have to select the best choices. But now the system is dumb, just use the "fixed" amount of external dwellings the map-maker put, and recruit the same stuff 
EDIT: For an example this is a quote from ubi.com about the enemy recruiting only blood furies this way (i.e instead of wasting money on other dwellings he chooses only furies). But if you're smart you can easily counter those furies, if you are allowed with multiple dwellings as he is (i.e instead of wasting money only on war dancers as the other player had, you build different dwellings for creatures to work better with each other). Here's the quote:
Quote:
Let's suppose you recruit only blood furies. The enemy, instead of wasting money on 2nd dwellings, could use Treants to entangle your furies and have his shooters protected. Once the furies are entangle (since they have to charge) the hunters will be in close range (or druids) and the furies will get whacked. Theoretically both armies are equally powerful, but practically the tactic the other player used is just countering the furies better.
If the dungeon player figures this out he may as well build other units to support his furies. That's exactly what this multiple dwellings will add -- more variety into your army.
If you go only for hunters then that's fine, but once they're blocked they do pathetic /4 damage compared to what they would've done at close range, and their survivability is ****. So, in conclusion, if you find out your opponent is using only hunters (i.e LOTS OF HUNTER DWELLINGS which will dry you of wood) then just use Dragons and fast melee units to counter them. He will have no chance.
Again both armies are equally powerful, but it depends how you use them. Hunters work poorly against dragons even if Protected. You use this to your advantage. Knowing the enemy army and disrupting his tactics with your own before the battle begins. This is called strategy.
Notice also that if the enemy hero had magic, some Unicorns could get very handy as well. That is strategic IMO
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ZombieLord
Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
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posted March 07, 2007 01:36 PM |
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Maybe that's why it's so boring to play a map with the enemy being the same faction as you You'll both have the same armies.
EDIT: anyway, this is not the thread about this but good ideas anyway, TheDeath, though it will be hard to balance but carefully it can be done
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted March 07, 2007 02:32 PM |
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I see where you are aiming, Death.
Well, for me there is two reasons why I think it's a bad reason.
The first one is fairly objective: That the ballancing of such a system will be difficult - you would have to completely rethink building costs and growth rates, and that would seriously increase the risk of throwing the game off balance. Consider, for instance, the Haven faction: Who would not choose to tripple Marksman growth? The Dwelling is fairly cheep, and even for the third or fourth upgrade, there would be limits to what you could charge for it, less it looses importance - and then, on the other hand, unless it's very expensive, it'll give Haven a huge advantage (think Training without the enourmous per-unit expences!).
Secondly, I'm against the idea for very subjective reasons. It'll radically change the game, something I feel should only be done after careful consideration. Furthermore, I think it'll remove focus from the high-level units in most cases, leaving you with an army consisting of only lower-level units. Again, think Haven before Training nerfing - how many players actually went for the Archangel? That, for me, is a bad thing, because it narrows down the variation in the unit line-ups, and makes some units lose importance in game.
I might be wrong, maybe it could be implementet in a good way, but seriously, how often do you choose your strategy from a knowledge of exactly one unit in your enemies army - like, how often do you plan a strategy from the knowledge that he has, say, the Druid? Not very often, I'd say - in most cases, you'd probably have to choose your strategy long before you actually get such detailed knowledge of which strategy he chose. You mention an example of Blood Furies: By the time you get to know that he focused on Blood Furies, it might very well be too late to choose your strategy, because that will give him many weeks head-start, which you cannot afford. Therefore, I'd be afraid that in the majority of the games, you'll end up focusing simply on the "safe" choices (increasing up Marksmen and Master Hunters, for instance) at the expence of the higher level units.
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What will happen now?
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 02:48 PM |
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Quote:
I might be wrong, maybe it could be implementet in a good way, but seriously, how often do you choose your strategy from a knowledge of exactly one unit in your enemies army - like, how often do you plan a strategy from the knowledge that he has, say, the Druid? Not very often, I'd say - in most cases, you'd probably have to choose your strategy long before you actually get such detailed knowledge of which strategy he chose. Therefore, I'd be afraid that in the majority of the games, you'll end up focusing simply on the "safe" choices (increasing up Marksmen and Master Hunters, for instance) at the expence of the higher level units.
Well yes casual heroes players probably won't be such strategic anyway, but for hard-core strategists like me, TBS is just meant to be thinked A LOT, and not only against neutrals (that's actually very straightforward). Since we're in multiplayer it would be nice to have you wait 20 minutes for your turn THINKING about the enemy moves instead of just taking out zombies with 1 sprite (and loses time). Actually for all strategy games I played, you just had to know the other player's move. That's why I think such addition would bring totally new options and strategies for hard cores like me
Right now heroes is all about developing your hero and creeping (aka leveling up). It could be greatly improved by strategies. Most duel heroes also have very "Strange" armies -- and truthly they are pretty balanced. Of course one duel hero is better against another, but poorer against another one. Not mentioning Deleb's supremacy though 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted March 07, 2007 02:51 PM |
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Maybe you'd like the recruitment to take days as in AoW and you choosing what to produce then! But it wouldn't be heroes.
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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 March 07, 2007 02:52 PM |
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Yes, that sums up my points very well as well: It would probably be a nice treat for a few elite multiplayer gamers. However, for the majority of the players, and on the majority on the maps, I think it would not be an advantage - rather, I believe it would narrow down game focus to fewer units. And for that reason, I'm against the idea.
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ZombieLord
Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
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posted March 07, 2007 02:53 PM |
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Oh yes, I'd like something like in AoW
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 02:55 PM |
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@Elvin: Thanks for the info, I forgot about AoW 
In fact, let's say hunters take 1 day to produce, and dragons 7 days. Is that not equivalent to 7 hunters per week and 1 dragon per week?
@Alc: Yes I never intended to make the game more complex on the classical mode. But my idea was for the next expansion to have a "complex game mode" (like the duel mode for example) that will allow such things.. And probably even more like 2 classes per heroes or multiple-levels of upgrading creatures 
That's why it's called complex mode
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted March 07, 2007 03:02 PM |
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As long as it's only an option, I will go for anything.
And please, then, bring back Heroes 3 Town Portal as an option!
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 07, 2007 03:17 PM |
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TheDeath ...it is a nice idea in essence , but actually it would be exactly as it is now , only that instead of having full lineups with few modifications , you would have only one or 2-3 units.
Sure in the beggining it would be interesting but very fast everybody would discover the best recipe to counter this and that and it would be the same thing... Also it would be very hard to balance and so on.
Just think about stracraft... i remember in the beggining everybody went for Carriers and BattleCruisers, Archons etc. , but after a little understanding of the math behind those troops , everybody switched to hydras , zerlings , zealots, dragoons , marines and tanks ! That would happen to what you want from heroes now !
In fact it actually happened with the haven training ... everybody was amazed by training paladins and everybody praised that , but after a while the community realised the best was mass marksmen and they went that way !
Your ideas would make people think new strategies for a while, but after that all the strategies would be known , and everybody would have a very well thought counter for everything, and you know why ? Because there are simply some numbers that can be combined in a limited number of ways. There was a age of discovery and inovation in h5 too , but after almost a year, strategies are going another way. It's obvious that things must settle down, and now even deeper strategies appear. Strategies that are not so easy to see and to appreciate.
In my last game I was forced to take Scouting and Silent Stalker Abilities, the other choice was simply worse  ... But I also had some boots of speed and Town Portal..... but also I didn't have enough money to upgrade all my dragons to emerald . So I decided to harass my opponent until i get the money to upgrade all those dragons and maybe even the unicorns. Having silent stalker was so great i could easily see his every move and i was able to stay away from battle for a long long time ! I even took his secondary town , and got myself another source of money. He was so annoyed about not being able to reach me , so he finally charged like crazy towards my town , without even taking his secondary back, so in the end i got enough money to have my emeralds upgraded , but i didn't for unicorns , so i upgraded the war dancers.
So there are plenty of strategies to discover and exploit , you just have to search for them!
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 03:25 PM |
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@TowerLord: I will just briefly discuss about the starcraft thing. Carriers and powerful units like that are very good because they fly. Hydralisks are extremely useful against them because they shoot in the air
With my ideas you won't be able to "learn a counter for everything" because you do not 'easily' know the opponent's choices in his army. Of course as I said I do not want to create imbalances, that's why I suggested some restrictions before you actually get a decent town level, or the other dwellings. Starcraft had much simpler mechanics than heroes.
As for the marksmen sure they were imba because the enemy didn't have training. And the obvious anti-marksmen tactic is not developing marksmen yourself, trust me. Actually if you think every game has counter that can be learned, no doubt about it, but with this option you will have greater choices and more difficulty in choosing which counter you know from the past against the specific approach of the enemy.
About the duels, it's clearly they have weird armies (i.e not on growth). Razzak fails horribly against Ossir for example, but beats other heroes which Ossir can't take. This is because the Steel Golems are different creatures so they have counters against other things. Shooters against golems is advised, but be careful to protect them strong!
Heroes is much more complex in hero development and the creatures have much more abilities than in Starcraft. Also for Starcraft remember that Hydralisks and stuff like that are easy prey for High Templars, while Carriers can do the job, even if lose against an outmassed army of Hydralisks. That's why it's adviseable to have different kinds of creatures in your army 
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 07, 2007 04:51 PM |
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what i am saying is that :
- this game is based on some math formulas , which can be exploited to a certain point where you discover some optimum
- implementing your ideas would be mean some new formulas which would be exploited and then the same limitation would appear
- personally i think the current formulas have plenty of hidden things and you should try those instead of asking for new formulas , which might bring new imbalances(99% probability that they will)
- if you want a game with everchanging strategies , then you should demand the usage of genetic algorithms and neural nets... only then the game will have endless possibilities ! Unfortunately almost no one is able to give you such a game yet , and also you might not like it!
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 04:58 PM |
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Genetic algorithms and neural nets? Is that about the AI? maybe he will be too dumb
Math formulas can be exploited and that's another thing I dislike. But personally I think that, with those multiple dwellings, even when you lose you shouldn't cry out to say something like this to Nival:
("IMBALANCED!!  NERF IT!!")
because it might be possible that you just got the wrong strategy on your shoulders. Besides if the enemy can rush you fast with this idea (though as I said requirements can still be applied) then why can't you do it? of course I will try to get as many good restrictions on that as possible, to disallow rushes with that kind of thing.
Even if hydralisks in starcraft exploited some math (i.e too cheaper and beat carriers to shreds), it didn't mean that you could do nothing against them -- as I said a handful of high templars whack hydralisks, because they're very effective against weak troops with their Psycho Storm.. the point is that there are many possibilities with this approach, and even if the other player exploits some math behind some units, you can still use other advantages over him (like the templar above). And creatures work better together than alone
of course this is not the right thread to talk about this as well
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 07, 2007 05:06 PM |
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TheDeath: All such calculations lead to "perfect" army headache. I mean, a combination of 3-4 units that buff each other so well that they counter everything. Say, bears+dryads from warcraft 3. Elven players do bears+dryads vs. every race, because these units together counter everything. And we really don't want such cheese to appear in heroes5.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 05:11 PM |
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You forgot that Heroes has much different creatures and abilities and.. well heroes.. that can act in battle too. Of course don't expect to always win if the other player does the same thing.
About Warcraft: And those weren't perfect counters, they had flaws: too expensive/army limit 
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 07, 2007 05:41 PM |
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Genetic algorithms and neural nets could be used for the AI too... but that's not what i was saying. These algorithms , based on a knowledge database can obtain some results. If in some way you could make an adaptive program , that develops new formulas (weakening some overused & overpowered troops or changing their price or other corrections little by little ) , based on the experience of the games played, it would solve your problems .
Cause you wouldn't need patches and patches over and over again to balance the game, cause it would be in auto-balance mode, and strategies would be changing every week depending on how people abuse . But giving a machine such powerfull brains is very hard , and very expensive ... probably impossible right now.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 07, 2007 05:43 PM |
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 lol
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