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| Thread: No chaining anymore? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted July 14, 2011 07:00 AM |
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Well, we should separate massive chaining which teleports entire army back and forth from so-called micromanagement which indeed involves creative use of heroes. I would like the second one more often.
Also, I would like to see more often complex battles against AI, where you don't hide between Forcefield or get enemy troops locked behing castle walls and shoot them for 50 turns. I would like to win because I am smart, not because game has holes in design.
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Razorphilia
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 14, 2011 07:04 AM |
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Haha. Salamandre, you make chaining sound beautiful and elegant with your words. I admit I oversimplified my explanation of chaining, but perhaps you have romanticised it a bit yourself.
There is certainly a degree of skill in deciding how to set up your chain. You want to make sure the middle heroes are not terribly vulnerable. You want to try and be able to defend your mines and towns. Considerations for your middle heroes are not that indepth though. Primarily, is the hero available for hire in a tavern? And if they have a resource producing skill, then lucky for you. The ends of your chain (it should really be called a web) have the same considerations as your generals would. Movement is less of a concern with chaining than without chaining, in my opinion.
I believe there is more emphasis on logistics without chaining though. You say that it takes planning ahead, but once the chain is set up there is little planning left. Without chaining, you must actually think about where you want your troops to end up and what path they take to get there. Let your reinforcements hero fight some of the neutrals your main couldn't with his starting army, or retire your main to a scout and replace him with reinforcement hero. Or get a strong spell and creep with a tiny army.
Edit: "...we should separate massive chaining..."
I hadn't thought about this. I certainly do use a couple reinforcement heroes so that my main hero can keep fighting without going back to town. I hadn't considered my 3 or 4 heroes to be chaining, but maybe they were... Oh no what have I done!?
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 07:19 AM |
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Shouldn't the emphasis be more on player-to-player interaction rather than painfully setting up a whole chain of logistics and then losing long before you even fight said player because you screwed up one portion of it?
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 07:32 AM |
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They could bring back prisons. Make it so that you get special bonuses when you capture enemy heroes like extra info in the thieves guild, map areas explored by the captured hero, etc. Basically all the features that the developers wanted to add in Heroes 4 to discourage the use of large numbers of weak secondary mine capturing heroes.
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eurasianbadger
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 14, 2011 08:00 AM |
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Another reason why chaining is ugly - it's very unthematic. The game is supposed to be about heroes. People, who change the outcome of battles. Not pizza delivery boys. How does it look to you when a town has 8 heroes out of sudden ?
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 14, 2011 08:03 AM |
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Also, I would like to see more often complex battles against AI, where you don't hide between Forcefield or get enemy troops locked behing castle walls and shoot them for 50 turns. I would like to win because I am smart, not because game has holes in design.
One word: Alexander.
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Era II mods and utilities
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 14, 2011 08:06 AM |
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Now,adding town portal was not a good idea because it does the same as as crap as chaining.It basically enables a camping noob to defend all of its castles.
I see things like "No town portals" already in front of my eyes.
I get what you're aiming at here, but problem with removing Town Portal is that it kills the option for playing those huge, epic, single player maps, which was always the kind of gaming I prefered. Having to use two weeks or more to travel back to main town and then having to use the same amount of time to travel back again obviously will kill this sort of game completely. That was pretty much what happened in Heroes 5 - sure, you could summon troops, but you couldn't go home to do other stuff.
So I whole-heartedly support some sort of Town Portal - and the option to disable it, if you want to play that kind of game.
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What will happen now?
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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 08:08 AM |
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Chaining doesn't require skill, chaining efficiently does though. Yet chaining is still an abuse of a game mechanics that NWC didn't plan and that they tried to counteract. If they really wanted you to be able to move your creatures through the whole map in one turn, they wouldn't have set a movement limit.
Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's a good thing, but well, that might just be the difference between a competitive player who only plays to win and a normal player who enjoys the game. I'm glad I don't have the competitive mindset and I'll stick playing with players who enjoy the game rather than people who think "you have to free all mines on day 1 else you suck".
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 14, 2011 08:31 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 08:36, 14 Jul 2011.
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Chaining down right creates a hierarchy. There are a lot of people who will never want to touch multiplayer because of extreme chaining. Also, it's not any cheaper than chaining much less so there are far more draw backs, and it is a lot less tedious. It shifts the focus of the game to other things, hero placement, army placement, city building, and heroes once again becomes more than a game of where should I place all of my heroes of the map. Town conversion isn't really anti-logical. Why should I, upon conquering something be able to make it my own faction type? Creature pools are no more illogical than chaining and additive movement.
You are saying it like it is always possible, under any circumstances, to make chains which is far from true. It is difficult or impossible on very poor maps. It is difficult or impossible on maps with very strong neutrals. It is difficult and becomes unnecessary at one point on maps where you don't have a lot of towns or their starting locations are too distant. And then you have combinations from the above. It could be tedious sometimes but it does require skill and does not feel like cheating.
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Also, there are no real mechanisms to break chains built into any heroes game so this idea that chains can be easily stopped is rather moot and doesn't change the fact that you would still have to use the same tactic to get to a point where you can break their chain. It is an incredibly centralizing game play strategy. Town conversion has a cost. I wouldn't be opposed to raising or even doubling it for castles. Heroes 6 has more game play variation in the beta on one multiplayer map than any competitive heroes 3 map.
What do you mean by "there are no real mechanisms to break chains built into any Heroes game"? Chains are impossible in Heroes IV, thus you don't have to break anything. In any other Heroes it is a matter of good scouting and timed counter-reaction.
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Town portals have MASSIVE resource costs. especially if you want to build both. It's hardly a simplification
How is this any different from hiring 6-7 heroes, 2500 gold each? And I'm not talking about the Town Portal buildings only but about the shared creature pool which basically acts like Town Portal for creatures and it is totally free of charge. Now I may actually accept a version where the pool becomes shared after you build Town Portals in the respective towns - at least it will make some sense and will add a degree of thinking.
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To be frank, I don't see how making the game go faster is a bad thing, especially given how long heroes game have taken in the past. Some stream lining, town portals, pooled creatures, to help minimize tedious micromanaging doesn't hurt the game.
Time should never be a consideration in a TBS, at least in my opinion. Long does not necessarily mean tedious. And yes, I think it does hurt the game because there are smarter ways to do it thank just make everything available everywhere which castrates much of the strategy. Once again, refer back to Heroes IV - it had a system that just needed to be improved.
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Making the game go faster does not equal simplification
Not always, yes, but in this case it does.
In addition, there are numerous ways to get rid of the chains without making a joke of the logistical system. Apart from making each creature have its own movement points, you can limit the amount of heroes who can be hired from the tavern in some way. For instance - one hero per week for ALL towns. Or every hero after the first hired from a tavern during the same week costs 3-4 times more. Or comes without an army and can't move during the first day after he/she's hired. Or can't be transferred any creatures for some time. Or various combinations and many other ways. Certainly the common pool is among the least intelligent solutions.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 09:50 AM |
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You are again wrong  . Chaining is not only how far apart and where are your heros, but takes in consideration the strength, movement and spells of each one, thus they will be able to succeed in their tasks. You have to deal with a lot of factors, and think 5-6 days in advance. It adds deep to the game and makes the difference between boring players and brilliant players. If it is removed, they have to find a damn good compensation, as I hardly see any Heroes veteran touching a H game without chaining.
Chaining is making a game dynamic. Take a look at Civilization, which is a great game. No chaining, no one is playing MP, too long and boring games. You move one step, end turn, then move again, end turn.
The advantage over Heroes is that you can have infinite units, so this replace the chaining. But in Heroes, with only 8 peps running around, it would very fast become tedious and without much action.
That is just talk, no analysis. What you describe is "maximizing the effects of overabundance".
That is exclusively the result of certain map set-ups in combination with the game difficulty. It has NOTHING to do with boring and brillant play, but only with maps and difficulty levels.
Your basic strategy is somewhat dictated by the combination of a) map difficulty and b) richness as in the average amount of lootable/usable objects per map square (which will be below 1 and above 0). Let's call Richness of map R here.
Also there are two "classes" of heroes a)Those that come WITH troops and those that come WITHOUT.
Now let's look at the possible situations.
Heroes that come with additional troops of your own faction are your first priority, no matter the map set-up. Even a poor map on high(est) map difficulty will favor the approach to get a second hero ASAP, because it doubles your options - if you have high creature strength you can need the additional troops, if there's low, you can go separate ways.
With only two heroes there can be no chaining, but there will be a certain amount of troop swapping. This, however, means that your two heroes have to keep within a certain distance which most of the time is not possible or useless. Also, picking up stuff costs time. Note that up to this point, the hero hired came with something - troops.
Now you have jobs to offer.
a) you need heroes as transports to lengthen the distance between your fighting heroes and still be able to swap troops fast, if necessary.
b) You need heroes to pick up stuff for your fighting buddies.
The 2nd hired hero comes with troops as well, so this one will be a no-brainer either, especially with the right map-setup and troop constellation.
But from then on, it's EXCLUSIVELY a question of whether the map pays for the jobs you offer or not.
If R isn't high enough, if creature strength is just a tad too high, if additional XP gained isn't allowing fast levelling to critical and vital abilities, then it does NOT pay, but will cost you money.
However, if R is high, if there's a lot additional XP to be gained, and if the basic difficulty is low, you have lots of money to begin with, and lots of money and XP to earn, so there can be only ONE successful strategy and that is ruthless expansion with as many heroes as possible, which includes the hiring of a full-troop hero on day 8 as a matter of course.
Which means, there are map set-ups that DICTATE your strategy, and the task of the player is only to enact that strategy as good as possible.
As opposed to that, the IDEAL map-set-up would offer a setup NOT favoring a specific strategy. That means, the combination of difficulty (as in starting amount), Richness and creature strength (which I call "economy" now) should NOT be so that there is an unlimited demand for "workers".
So maps would have to be setup with a MIX of easy and difficult troops, of fields with good pickings and fields with not so good, so that you CAN hire, but not MUST and not to the max, that it DOES matter whether a hero comes with troops or not. That it DOES matter whether you pick gold or XP from a chest and you cannot afford to auto-set on XP.
What you describe as brillant play, is in fact LEARNED play. It's the ability to execute a GIVEN winning strategy as perfectly as possible, in varying environments that all have the same characteristics, and it's highly dependant on training.
Brillant play is, however, to IDENTIFY the best possible strategy AND execute it as perfectly as possible.
That, however, is a matter of map-making. You cannot be brillant, if the map doesn't allow it.
As a last word on this, only looking at Heroes 5, if you look at NIVAL's mp maps and those who are played online, the difference is striking.
Nival's maps, played on sufficiently high difficulty need BRILLANT play to succeed. The maps are not rich, monster strength is big on most of them, you have to pick fights carefully, there is not much work for a lot of heroes.
Is that boring? Not in my opinion. You can't just DO something. Hire, fight, pick, buy. Not so. It has to be planned.
The thing is, playing competetively on those maps, more often than not a game will be decided by a player being TOO eager. It's like playing Black Jack. Drawing cards is all fine and well, but sometimes your chances are better when you pass on a card and let the bank draw itself to death.
Same there. Lots of "opponent has left the game". Why? Because opponent decided to take a risk, attacking a Horde of Imps, got 86 of them in 3 stacks, one of them familiars and lost, if not the fight, then at least a big part of his fighting strength, considering the game lost.
As opposed to that the user maps ARE rich. Lots to pick, lots of XP to gain. You MUST do things and do more things, because you CAN do many things, and you need heroes to do them.
Is that interesting and dynamic? Not necessarily so. Not if it more or less amounts to maximizing the amount of action, NO MATTER WHAT THAT ACTIONS ARE.
So I repeat, brillant play is possible only on a brillant map.
Overly rich maps on low difficulties are not brillant.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 14, 2011 11:12 AM |
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I think it's important to realize that there are different ways of playing the game. Some people like Salamandre plays on a very competitive level - to put it (too) simply, the goal of the playing is winning. For them, chaining has been a necessary tool, because without it, you would be greatly slowed down and would be very likely to loose. And no doubt using chaining to its maximum potential requires a lot of skill. They will probably even enjoy it, because it help them obtain their goal.
On the other hand there are players like myself, who don't really care too much about the competitive aspect - I don't play as much to win, as I do to play. For a player like me, chaining might seem tedious or even against the spirit of the game.
Now obviously, both of these viewpoints are perfectly legit and correct in their own right. So I don't think we should expect to reach an agreement on this matter, we can post our points pro and against, but on the bottom line, we're talking about two very different kinds of games, as I see it.
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What will happen now?
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 11:53 AM |
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Alci, that is a too simplistic view, I think. Even IF the goal is not winning, first and foremost, but playing, to reach that goal you have to avoid losing, because if you lose your game is over, and that is not what you want.
So even with "different playing styles", they must have all one thing in common, and that's avoiding loss.
The goal, no matter the playing style, is, on each map, to play in a way that gives you control in such a way, that no other "player" may be able to end the game without asking you first, so-to-speak.
That in turn makes it necessary to follow the road that leads to success. Whether this involves buying a plethora of heroes and win the map on day 8, then it's the fault of THE MAP allowing it, not a question of playing styles.
So the logical conclusion is, that if you favor certain playing styles over others, you simply have to avoid certain map types and difficulty levels and prefer others, that's all there is to it.
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lichking012
Known Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 11:56 AM |
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Now,adding town portal was not a good idea because it does the same as as crap as chaining.It basically enables a camping noob to defend all of its castles.
I see things like "No town portals" already in front of my eyes.
But it enables much less of a defense that chaining, and the trade off here is that you have more access to your troops as you go, so while sure their entire army may be at their gates, yours can be at theirs now too. All that the new system is is faster. Given the extreme length of a traditional heroes game, I don't see how this is a bad thing.
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You are saying it like it is always possible, under any circumstances, to make chains which is far from true. It is difficult or impossible on very poor maps. It is difficult or impossible on maps with very strong neutrals. It is difficult and becomes unnecessary at one point on maps where you don't have a lot of towns or their starting locations are too distant. And then you have combinations from the above. It could be tedious sometimes but it does require skill and does not feel like cheating.
The most popular multiplayer maps are rich maps. Not always true, but generally, in a competitive multiplayer environment, chaining is very possible.
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What do you mean by "there are no real mechanisms to break chains built into any Heroes game"? Chains are impossible in Heroes IV, thus you don't have to break anything. In any other Heroes it is a matter of good scouting and timed counter-reaction.
Heroes IV is clearly not what i was referring to. Chains don't exist. How can you break chains that don't exist. Also, scouting and "timed counter-reactions" are basically a matter of being lucky enough to find your enemy at a convenient time. This also doesn't change the fact that you have to chain to be able to get to the point where breaking them is possible.
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How is this any different from hiring 6-7 heroes, 2500 gold each? And I'm not talking about the Town Portal buildings only but about the shared creature pool which basically acts like Town Portal for creatures and it is totally free of charge. Now I may actually accept a version where the pool becomes shared after you build Town Portals in the respective towns - at least it will make some sense and will add a degree of thinking.
It's completely different. I have said this multiple times. In a chaining situation, I get my units where I need them. In a creature pool situation I get creatures from dwellings already built in a town. So if I have a completely upgraded army, and I conquer a town, but they only have say 5 creature dwellings built 2 upgraded, What do I do? Do I wait a day or two, switch out armies, camp and explore around and build up the castle? or just restock what I can and keep going on my merry way. Add to the the huge cost of town portals. which if you get both are about the equivalent of 6-7 heroes for one town alone. It's not even close to the same, nor nearly as broken.
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Not always, yes, but in this case it does.
Spending time carting units is not exactly exhilarating.
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In addition, there are numerous ways to get rid of the chains without making a joke of the logistical system.
I have pointed out on several occasions how this creates more logistical questions and problems. For instance. The question of how to divide the army becomes bigger. The question of what to build where is amplified. Especially with creature growth being tied to upgraded dwellings. Town Portals are another issue for instance. Furthermore your hero's movement once again becomes important. Do you search for everything in your area. or quick get your mines conquer and then send secondaries, when you can get some, to pick of left overs, and trade extra gold for what you need in the mean time. Actually making the movement of your main matter is much more logistical that chaining.
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Apart from making each creature have its own movement points, you can limit the amount of heroes who can be hired from the tavern in some way. For instance - one hero per week for ALL towns. Or every hero after the first hired from a tavern during the same week costs 3-4 times more. Or comes without an army and can't move during the first day after he/she's hired. Or can't be transferred any creatures for some time. Or various combinations and many other ways. Certainly the common pool is among the least intelligent solutions.
There is already a mechanicism in place that allows only one additional hero per town.
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Time should never be a consideration in a TBS, at least in my opinion. Long does not necessarily mean tedious. And yes, I think it does hurt the game because there are smarter ways to do it thank just make everything available everywhere which castrates much of the strategy. Once again, refer back to Heroes IV - it had a system that just needed to be improved.
Games should take a reasonable amount of time to play. I would rather not have to spend countless hours of my life playing one multiplayer game of heroes. I love heroes, but to be honest, as a college student I just can't make the time commitment. Furthermore, the creature pool/town portal don't make the game any faster until the mid to endgame, and it is the heroes end game that really needs to be fixed. The heroes endgame takes forever for no reason. It can take 2 to 3 weeks for me to kill off the remnants of my enemy. I most frequently play hot seat with 2-3 of my friends. I know I won. They know I won. It's not a secret. It's over, we all know it. These things serve to drag out the game and make it boring.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 01:53 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 13:55, 14 Jul 2011.
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Well I'm something of a novice as far as actually playing the game is concerned, but the current hard limit on the number of heroes seems just a bit daft really, given that the real issue is the number of heroes on the adventure map. IMO, the number of heroes should be one for every two towns, exempting those in defence of a town or fort. I believe this would more-or-less eliminate any chance of chaining (except to a stationary hero), but would at least allow players to execute multi-hero attacks, at least on a large map.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 02:38 PM |
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I think it's important to realize that there are different ways of playing the game. Some people like Salamandre plays on a very competitive level - to put it (too) simply, the goal of the playing is winning. For them, chaining has been a necessary tool, because without it, you would be greatly slowed down and would be very likely to loose. And no doubt using chaining to its maximum potential requires a lot of skill. They will probably even enjoy it, because it help them obtain their goal.
On the other hand there are players like myself, who don't really care too much about the competitive aspect - I don't play as much to win, as I do to play. For a player like me, chaining might seem tedious or even against the spirit of the game.
Now obviously, both of these viewpoints are perfectly legit and correct in their own right. So I don't think we should expect to reach an agreement on this matter, we can post our points pro and against, but on the bottom line, we're talking about two very different kinds of games, as I see it.
even though I'm definitively on the "competitive" side of players, I totally agree with this reasoning.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 14, 2011 02:43 PM |
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I don't care neither, I consider chaining like an art. I really saw incredible things at some players out there. I always played without any rule, so the outcome (win or loss) did not matter much to me. There is some unique flavour in each good player chaining strategy. There are absolutely not two similar "chainers".
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Era II mods and utilities
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 03:15 PM |
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The point of this thread, however, is basically the question whether the game will suck because there will be no chaining anymore.
First of all this is not correct, because not only chaining will be possible, sometimes it will even be necessary - although the changed rule will actually limit and somehow link this with the size of your empire.
What will definitely impossible is a chaining-fest right in week 1, which I consider a good thing. Not that I had something against it per se - I just think that it will hopefully lead to maps that will be poorer around the vicinity of the starting position, so that your task will be to find and get to the good stuff, instead of just picking it up economically.
Also, it makes maps easier to balance: no mtter the difficulty, the amount of troops and heroes is limited, therefore there will be less exploits.
Instead, chaining will become a more selective tool, which I consider a good thing.
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eurasianbadger
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 14, 2011 03:24 PM |
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Why is that some people cling desperately to the exploit of chaining ? It's possible to have implement mechanics which would replace it, remain flavorful, and still make sense.
For might heroes:
Engineering skill. Allows to, among other things, build roads. The advantage would be that roads stay there once built. The disadvantage is that enemy armies can use it against you. But it would speed up the game either way ! And that's what "competitive" players want, right ?
For magic heroes:
Spells. Enchant Roads. Fly. Summon Boat. I'm sure you can come up with more.
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The point of this thread, however, is basically the question whether the game will suck because there will be no chaining anymore.
I think Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic answers this question. I like it more than any Heroes game.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 14, 2011 03:54 PM |
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Is it important that Heroes keeps its unique features, which proved being so addictive. If chaining (which is unique to this game) is removed, and instead you import things from other games, it is over.
All that you propose is already used elsewhere, while chaining was specific to this game.
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Era II mods and utilities
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 04:07 PM |
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That's certainly a very exclusive minority opinion.
I mean, one way or another every HoMM-player (except with IV) makes use of chaining, but how many people actually RELISH it and LOVE the game because they can build chains of heroes?
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