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| Thread: Is Attack/Defence Skill doomed to be boring ? | |
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eurasianbadger
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 13, 2011 09:47 AM |
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Is Attack/Defence Skill doomed to be boring ?
This is a somewhat philosophical post. It's a good idea to post it here because, traditionally, this is where "wishful thinking" posts belong. I will also talk about traditional Heroes of Might and Magic mechanics, the direction Heroes 6 takes ... and the alternatives.
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Some of you may not remember that Attack Skill, Defence Skill, Knowledge, and Spell Power were once called Primary skills. However, it soon turned out that they actually play the second fiddle to Secondary Skills.
Since their introduction as 3 stage skills in Heroes2, they continued to get more and more sophisticated and varied.
Spells always relied heavily on the last two stats. Sometimes in amusing ways, like Knowledge allowing you to cast each spell once in Heroes1. With 11 Knowledge you could cast 11 Armageddons and 11 Teleports and 11 Hastes and 11 Dispels. Spells are inherently varied, modular (easy to extend and come up with new ones), and affect all aspects of the game. They come in combat and non-combat varieties. As long as Spell Power and Knowledge are very important to spells, the last 2 "primary" stats are important.
But what about about Attack Skill and Defence Skill ? They are important for sure. If you don't agree, you should see Heroes2 Sorceress army ... led by a Barbarian. Monstrous attack skill combined with very fast shooters and ultra fast phoenix is so deadly it's not even funny. In my opinion, in long run Attack/Defence is better than combat magic. A/D is a multiplier, and army size grows in a linear fashion. When most people think "combat magic", they think "direct damage" and that grows with levels. That's logarithmic scale (the opposite of power), it slows down with time. You may say "but spells like Blind or Berserk are amazing and don't depend on army size !". The thing is, many such spells don't depend on Spell Power either. A Barbarian, or more likely a Knight can learn them and mess up your army. Cast Mass Slow, or Mass Stoneskin, and I will cast insultingly effective Blind (level 2 in Heroes 1-3). This forces the supreme archmage opponent to waste his skills on Dispel/Cure, effectively nullifying his advantage. Or my already superior army will gang up on less numerous enemy.
Spellcasters have lots of choices. Attack Skill/Defense Skill specialists get amazing troop effectiveness, but they're so passive to play it's boring.
Might classes are more tempted to learn some magic than magic classes desire Attack/Defence. It's sad, because the game is supposedly called "Heroes of Might and Magic". This implies duality, or at least a choice between the first, the second, and both. "Let's give spellcasters all the cool toys... oh, right, military characters are bad, so let's give them a X% bonus." Lazy ?
Skills like Mysticism, Ingelligence, Sorcery, and maybe some other spell boosters depend on effectiveness on your spells (on effectiveness of your primary stats !). Not the case for Armorer, Leadership, Luck, Offense, Archery. As long as a spellcaster has skill points and slots left, he can take it and he will still benefit a lot.
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Billion dollar questions:
Do Attack Skill and Defence Skill have to be boring in a fundamental way ?
Can you imagine a more interesting implementation of primary stats ? (I can, will post later)
Can Attack/Defence become more active and remain distinct from spells mechanic-wise ? (War cries and other warcraft/diablo mechanics don't satisfy this condition).
Can Heroes6 do no better than enable up to 1 spell per level ? (Slow, Slow, Slow, Slow, Slow... what an interesting battle !)
Tell us !
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A riddle ! What's the most famous mythical creature that never appeared in Heroes1-6 ? It's very well known. PM me.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 13, 2011 09:57 AM |
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In Heroes 6 things armewhat different, because the mechanics of Might hero attack and lots of might ailities are built on
MIGHT
which is the sum of might attack (called might POWER now) and might defense.
This is specifically listed in the hero department because it's important.
The same is true for Magic, mind you. There is also MAGIC attack (power) and magic defense, and Mana is a function of
MAGIC (the sum of a+d)
Magic hero attack depends on magic as well.
So things have become quite different now.
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted July 13, 2011 12:32 PM |
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Edited by vicheron at 12:35, 13 Jul 2011.
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They could introduce combat maneuvers and tactics, as well as creature abilities that require attack and defense skills.
For example, you could have creatures with special abilities that either improves based on the hero's attack and defense or can only be used if the commanding hero has a minimum amount of attack or defense. The same can be done for spell power and knowledge to make them more useful.
Heroes with a minimum amount of attack or defense can use special combat maneuvers like flanking where if you attack a single enemy stack with two of your stacks from opposite sides, your stacks gain a damage bonus. You could have military formations where you can have a stack sacrifice one stat to gain a boost to another. So for example, if your hero has 10 defense, then your creatures can take a defensive formation that sacrifices speed and initiative for damage reduction. Again, the same thing can be done with spellpower and knowledge where you can have formations that affect magic. For example, if you have 8 knowledge and 8 spell power, your creatures can take a magic amplifying formation that lets the stack receive extra bonuses from buffs but also makes them more vulnerable to offensive spells.
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eurasianbadger
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 14, 2011 12:11 AM |
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Quote:
They could introduce combat maneuvers and tactics, as well as creature abilities that require attack and defense skills.
For example, you could have creatures with special abilities that either improves based on the hero's attack and defense or can only be used if the commanding hero has a minimum amount of attack or defense. The same can be done for spell power and knowledge to make them more useful.
Heroes with a minimum amount of attack or defense can use special combat maneuvers like flanking where if you attack a single enemy stack with two of your stacks from opposite sides, your stacks gain a damage bonus.
I'm toying with a similar idea. Actually, that's the only thing my Attack Skill replacement would do. I think the difficulty is in making it differ from spells, so you can't just call it "spells cast with Attack Skill".
One way is to allow multiple maneuvers per turn, unlike spells. It would be easier to balance if they were with drawbacks, not simply +X damage buffs. Your flanking maneuver is good at first glance, because it has a cost - limits player movement.
My idea for a tactical maneuver: Feigned Attack. The stack pretends to attack, but backs off before the clash happens. This would mean the attacking stack deals 0 damage, but defender loses retaliation. A simple, but fresh idea ! It could as well be a creature ability in Heroes6, but I don't think anyone thought of that before.
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My Defence Skill replacement would be Leadership. A radical change. Each point of Leadership allows you to command 1 unit. It would mean Leadership 4 (usually) allows you to move 4 units independently. Want sophisticated maneuvers - train Leadership, or get a hero which gains a lot of it as he levels. To prevent heroes with poor Leadership from being completely screwed, there would be simple, broad orders for entire army, like "Move back !" "Forward and attack !" "Shoot closest". A novice spellcaster could use 1 such global order with Leadership 1, and cast a spell in the same turn.
Why so drastic ? Because I would like Attack and Defence skills (or their replacements) to be something that spellcasting heroes desire, or envy. In Heroes 1-3, with the classical system, you find yourself thinking "1 more point of Knowledge and I will be able to cast Blind X times". Or "I wish my stoneskins lasted at least 5 turns". The solution - improve Spell Power. Spell stats are important. I would like might stats to also be important.
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I will detail my ideas for new Knowledge and Spell Power replacement tomorrow.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 12:50 AM |
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might stats are important. maybe that stoneskin spell will give you +6 defense for 5 turns, but your opponent will naturally have 6 more defense points than you permanently. the only thing is they are passive.
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 12:56 AM |
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might stats are important. maybe that stoneskin spell will give you +6 defense for 5 turns, but your opponent will naturally have 6 more defense points than you permanently. the only thing is they are passive.
The TC isn't saying that they're not important, he's saying that they're boring.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 01:13 AM |
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The TC isn't saying that they're not important, he's saying that they're boring.
he said it :
Quote:
I would like might stats to also be important.
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted July 14, 2011 02:13 AM |
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Edited by vicheron at 02:15, 14 Jul 2011.
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Quote:
Quote:
The TC isn't saying that they're not important, he's saying that they're boring.
he said it :
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I would like might stats to also be important.
He also said:
Quote:
But what about about Attack Skill and Defence Skill ? They are important for sure. If you don't agree, you should see Heroes2 Sorceress army ... led by a Barbarian. Monstrous attack skill combined with very fast shooters and ultra fast phoenix is so deadly it's not even funny. In my opinion, in long run Attack/Defence is better than combat magic. A/D is a multiplier, and army size grows in a linear fashion. When most people think "combat magic", they think "direct damage" and that grows with levels. That's logarithmic scale (the opposite of power), it slows down with time. You may say "but spells like Blind or Berserk are amazing and don't depend on army size !". The thing is, many such spells don't depend on Spell Power either. A Barbarian, or more likely a Knight can learn them and mess up your army. Cast Mass Slow, or Mass Stoneskin, and I will cast insultingly effective Blind (level 2 in Heroes 1-3). This forces the supreme archmage opponent to waste his skills on Dispel/Cure, effectively nullifying his advantage. Or my already superior army will gang up on less numerous enemy.
Also, what's up with these new trolls showing up all of a sudden?
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted July 15, 2011 10:06 PM |
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Okay, I'll continue this thread from my old account. I've finally recovered the password - thanks mods !
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One of my pet annoyances with Heroes hero progression is that most classes, especially in Heroes3 (which added a lot of clutter) end up looking the same. As far as primary skills are concerned. A barbarian and a knight already played much the same (knight has slightly more magic). You just try to get the first strike and push enemies away from your archers.
Heroes2 and 3 have 4 primary stats. H2 has 6 hero types, H3 has 16 (!!) hero types. Nearly three times as much, without big changes to the system. No wonder it feels so bland.
Knight : ranger - 5% difference.
Knight : Overlorld - 5% here and there.
It gets worse after level9 - at least 4 classes have exactly the same stat distribution (25% each).
Even magic heroes are largely the same. There are initial differences. Wizard, Witch, and Warlock all spend 80% on spell abilities, and the amplitude is mere 10%. Either way, you typically cast a spell every turn. The difference is in the choice of spells - warlock tends to prefer direct damage, folks with lots of Knowledge will prefer SP-independent magic, like Berserk or Blind.
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Enough of boring stuff. Changes below are meant to make SP-centric and Knowledge-centric casters play differently.
(new) Knowledge: you can memorize one new spell per point of knowledge. Each spell gets its own slot and you can only cast it once per battle.
Spell Power becomes Focus. Each point of Focus allows you to repeat a spell, once.
Example:
Sorceress has 5 Knowledge and 0 Focus. She can cast up to 5 different spells, each once per battle (1x Slow, 1x Cure, 1x Bloodlust, 1x Stoneskin, 1x Haste). She can change her arsenal at magic guild (or outside battle, if the former proves too cumbersome). It would be a bit like HOMM1 except you wouldn't have to run back to a magic guild or shrine.
Warlock has 4 Focus and 2 Knowledge. This allows him to cast 2 different spells, let's say Lightning Bolt and Dispel. 2 points of knowledge allow him to cast Dispel once and Lightning Bolt once. Then he can spend the 4 points of Focus to cast any combination of Lightning and Dispel, up to 4 times.
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High level Sorcerer would have a wide array of spells, for every occasion. She would not be able to repeat any spell too many times, though.
High level Warlock would have a small array of spells, but would be almost unlimited in choosing between them.
If primary stats were this unique, different playstyles would emerge without secondary skills (which can be added later, but it's not the point here). Suppose each class has point distribution like this: (35%, 35%, 15%, 15%). Only the skills would differ. A Barbarian would have 35% in Attack and Defense, while a Wizard would have them in magic skills. Other combinations are possible - an Alchemist could raise mostly Focus and Defense (or its replacement). Based on this assumption, there are 6 combinations of 2 out of 4 primary skills. Binomial coefficient where n=4 and k=2. There could be a 7th class with 25% everywhere.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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polaris
Promising
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2011 11:17 PM |
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Okay, I'll continue this thread from my old account. I've finally recovered the password - thanks mods !
Who are you? I'm guessing eurasionbadger?
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Enough of boring stuff. Changes below are meant to make SP-centric and Knowledge-centric casters play differently.
(new) Knowledge: you can memorize one new spell per point of knowledge. Each spell gets its own slot and you can only cast it once per battle.
Spell Power becomes Focus. Each point of Focus allows you to repeat a spell, once.
Sounds basically like Knowledge and Focus are the same stat (they both let you cast more), just with an awkward restriction that makes Focus relatively bad if you don't have much Knowledge yet. I also have a feeling this restriction would frustrate players that have a hero with heavy bias in either Focus or Knowledge. Everyone would just want to homogenize their heroes to overcome this restriction:
-Until you get enough Knowledge to bring whatever spells you're likely to need in a situation, increasing Knowledge would always be better than increasing Focus (maybe a little debatable, but usually true).
-Once you have enough Knowledge for that, increasing Focus is always better than increasing Knowledge (obvious).
Also, what kind of factor is used for spells in place of Spell Power? I'm assuming it would be Hero level? That makes Might heroes even better, doesn't it?
Overall, I feel like this suggestion would reduce the differences in playstyles, which was the exact opposite of your stated objective.
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted July 16, 2011 02:48 PM |
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There is the additional limitation of the mage guild that you need to overcome.
Spells in the mage guild are random so focus casters are screwed if they don't get a spell that's good for multiple castings.
This would also force knowledge casters to upgrade the mage guild more often since they run the risk of having higher knowledge than spells.
Also, might heroes that have decent focus with one or two counter spells like dispel and cure will destroy knowledge heroes. The knowledge hero is going to be dependent on their wide variety of buffs and curses, the might hero will only need to keep dispelling them for a few rounds to get the upper hand.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted July 16, 2011 03:47 PM |
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Sounds basically like Knowledge and Focus are the same stat (they both let you cast more), just with an awkward restriction that makes Focus relatively bad if you don't have much Knowledge yet.
In a typical Knowledge/Spell Power system the only difference for me is that Warlock will like lots of Lightning. Sorceress will try stuff not dependent on spell power, mostly enchantments. I don't think that's interesting, or at least - I'm bored with that :-).
In a Knowledge/Focus system, Focus caster would likely be better for direct damage spells. But you could build a Knowledge caster with lots of direct damage, if you could find enough spells.
Digression - Cold Ring and Fireball are almost the same spell. The fact that you can cast it on empty spaces is not helping. I would change the 2 spells as follows:
- Cold Ring can only be cast on a friendly creature (it's empty inside, but I hardly ever see anyone use it like that)
- Fireball can only be cast on enemy creatures, not open spaces.
This would make their use more narrow, but also more distinct. A focus caster with lots of fireballs would try to avoid melee. A focus caster with lots of Cold Ring would go into melee as fast as possible.
Knowledge and Focus casters would be able to cast the same number of spells per combat. That's where the similarities end.
Knowledge caster would agonize over the choice when to cast his only copy of Berserk, or Antimagic. Focus caster would do the opposite - he would be trying to make the best choice which spells to take for a journey. Both types of casters would only be able to change contents of spell slots in a city (mage guild) or a shrine. (A minor flaw of Heroes2/3 system - you want as many different spells as possible in your guilds. Shrines are often "meh", when you find something you already have elsewhere. This is not the case in Heroes1, where they can be used to refresh your most valuable spells)
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I also have a feeling this restriction would frustrate players that have a hero with heavy bias in either Focus or Knowledge.
I think it would only be frustrating if you could affect it. Otherwise, you'd just choose the hero you're more comfortable with, or the one more suitable to situation.
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Everyone would just want to homogenize their heroes to overcome this restriction:
-Until you get enough Knowledge to bring whatever spells you're likely to need in a situation, increasing Knowledge would always be better than increasing Focus (maybe a little debatable, but usually true).
-Once you have enough Knowledge for that, increasing Focus is always better than increasing Knowledge (obvious).
And how do you do that ? In Heroes2 and 3 it happens automatically. After level10 all heroes advance almost the same way (25, 25, 25, 25). You have no choice over what artifacts you find, but they tend to dillute differences between classes too. A barbarian may find a randomly generated Major Scroll of Knowledge near his castle.
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Also, what kind of factor is used for spells in place of Spell Power? I'm assuming it would be Hero level? That makes Might heroes even better, doesn't it?
No spell power. Triggerhappy warlocks with Lightning would have more Focus, they could cast more Lightning spells. There could be a single passive skill - Sorcery - that increases spell damage by 20%. Spell Points (mana) would only be used to balance high-level spells, you'd get 10 per level. A new hero shouldn't be able to spam top level spells, and players should have reasons to abstain from highest level spells once in a while (save mana). There would be a passive Wisdom skill too.
As for army growth making direct damage spells obsolete - this is largely the case in classic Heroes anyway. I would try to handle it by introducing ... army upkeep. So after a while armies would stop growing, unless you have more cities, a big treasury, or gold mines. I think army upkeep is the only decent way of keeping direct damage spells relevant in late game.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 16, 2011 05:53 PM |
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Okay, I'll continue this thread from my old account. I've finally recovered the password - thanks mods !
Who are you? I'm guessing eurasionbadger?
Yeah, just to clarify on this, b0rsuk had lost his password, hence he was posting from the new account, but the password was recovered. Hope that clears the confusion. I'll read in on this topic later - seems interesting. 
Ok, let me try to share some thoughts on the subject - corrections, subjects - of this thread. I think there are several interesting points being taken up.
Let me start with the original topic - whether Attack/Defence skills are boring - and more generally, the playing of a pure might hero. And I agree the answer to that is yes, if your Hero has no magic skills at all, his playing will be very boring, because he only has passive abilities to rely on - in fact, in Heroes 1-3 your hero would not be able to act at all, whereas in Heroes 4-6 you'll have your direct attack, which admittedly is also pretty bland.
In a way, one can say that the game never really accomplished the split of Might from Magic they made with Heroes 3 - before, the game was Heroes of Might AND Magic (with might being your forces, magic being your hero), but from Heroes 3 it sort of became Heroes of Might OR Magic. And as you also mention here, the distinction was never really followed through, because while the Magic hero has his spells, what does the Might hero have? Not really anything.
So the logical step indeed is to give him some sort of "Might spells" - I'd call them Combat Techniques - and the tricky thing is to make them sufficiently distinguished from the normal "Magic spells". So how to achieve this? Well, I worked on such a system once (there was a long thread which has a lot of info on my ideas), I never really got the system finished, but some of the ideas I had was:
- Techniques counts on a property Stamina, based on a Hero primary skill Endurance - similar to how Mana works for spells and is based on Knowledge.
- The are separate schools for techniques, just like there are separate spell schools. The Might Combat schools would be Melee, Ranged, Mounted and Siege (which will replace normal War Machines skill!).
- Contrary to spells, the Techniques affects the (next) Hero direct attack or combat properties, by granting him various abilities similar to those units have and increasing damage. Examples of a partially full Might Melee Technique tree can be seen here.
- Siege Techniques would not affect hero but rather appropriate War Machine.
- Techniques are learned from a Warrior's guild similar to the Mage's guild.
While this would still reduce the Might hero to primarily do his direct attack, it would give him a much wider range of attacks to choose from - if he's surrounded by a lot of enemies, why not perform a Whirlwind attack? Or if he's facing a level 7 stack, why not add the effect of Vorpal Sword to his attack?
Obviously my suggestions refer to a Hero-in-combat system different from that in H5 and H6 - my suggestion would be closer to H4 (Hero actually is on battle field and has a limit to his range, movement, etc. - which would also count for Magic heroes spell range!) - but with the twist that Heroes can not be directly attacked and hence not killed (something that never worked well in H4 anyway).
On the other part of this subject - the changing of the Hero properties Attack, Defence, Spell Power and Knowledge - I don't really see the need of this. All of these are passive, and should be in my optics, so I don't see the relevance her in regard to the original topic.
Furthermore, I don't really like your ideas - particularly not for the Magic stats, which I think would severely limit the game rather than add to it. I think H5 already had an excellent mechanism of controling which spells you could learn (through appropriate magic school mastery), and I think a limit on how many times you can cast a spell is very much a regression to old times. In fact, I don't really like the cooldown limits added in Heroes 6 either, which seems more like a poor way of trying to balance overpowered spells rather than facing the real issue.
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What will happen now?
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