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Elvin 
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 14, 2013 09:57 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 21:58, 14 Oct 2013.
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@JJ
Nice post. Defense-based retaliation does makes sense though if you consider the difference it makes in gameplay. But it is also a fact that retaliating is just not the same as attacking. If you have received an attack your balance may be off, you may be stunned, you might not even have a clear shot at the target you would have aimed for if you had seized the initiative. In this respect a disciplined army should be able to deliver more accurate retaliations than a clumsy one. At any rate it's just an idea.
I don't quite care if inferno stays the way it is because you can bypass the Sheogh limitations with proper storytelling. For instance we could know more about the Sovereign's ascend to power and his machinations. Demon cultists can also open gates to Sheogh which does not require an eclipse. I would honestly prefer the demons to have a foothold in Ashan as the whole eclipse thing is getting old but my point is that you can include inferno in a campaign without involving an invasion. Nor does it have to take place on the surface of Ashan. What I am more interested in is the faction itself and its gameplay which can be a lot of fun if implemented properly. I'd like it as a high risk high reward faction with plenty of sabotaging abilities and raw destructive power, whether might or magic.
Some good posts around, a few shinies awarded for now  Next faction to come is stronghold!
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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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DoubleDeck
Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
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posted October 15, 2013 08:12 AM |
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Erwan: "Attack now, think later!"
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 15, 2013 09:06 AM |
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Elvin, it depends a bit on the concept behind it.
In HoMM VI with the different attribute set-up Might and Magic Power is only a damage modifier, not an "attack" value - there is no attack value anymore.
In that kind of system retaliation with defense/resistance makes no sense whatsoever, because the main thing is that a retaliation does damage, and that damage is done with the unit's damage value, modified with the respective damage modifier of the hero.
You know, however, that I think we should go back to the old system, the way it was in HoMM 5. ATTACK and DEFENSE (since it supports ANY attack it doesn't matter whether it's a might or magic attack). In THAT system we COULD talk about whether a retaliation attack is part of the defense or an attack.
Imagine a unit that would profit from counter-attacking with their defense value (supported by the hero defense value). How would a unit be BETTER in counter-attacking than in attacking - and what would that have to do with DEFENSE?
Any such unit would basically have a special ability: lure the attacker into overreaching themselves so that they would present an opening to exploit with their counterattack.
Example: Heavy Bull Infantry (upgrade). Special abilities: Armoured (damage from meleee attackers halved), Wrongfooting (retaliation doubled against melee attackers).
I think, that's what you mean, and that's obviously possible.
Counterattacking with the defense value would be a doubtful effect though - it makes sense only, if the defense value is significantly higher than the attack value, but in that case attacking with that unit isn't such a good idea anyway. Put defense spells on it and let it be attacked by the silly AI -> boring.
Conclusion: you must not interfere with the meaning of attribute values - defense is for avoiding damage, attack is for doing damage. Everything else is what unit abilities are for.
Of course the idea as such (with abilities) is rather sound; we need more PASSIVE abilities for creatures anyway, since the inflation of active unit abilities with cooldowns and limited uses sucks big time anyway; they are in parts a consequence of the might/magic differentiation in damage, but they lengthen the game, plus you need an animation for every silly active effect and you need to register them on the unit sheet plus it's a source of an infinite number of bugs.
What we need are nice automatic/semi-random passive unit abilities that illustrate and support their character.
Cooldowns are a silly concept anyway, especially with hero casting - how are you explaining them? You cast a Lightning Bolt, and while you can cast Holy Armageddon for 100 Mana next turn without the spell burning you to cinders, Lightning Bolt has to "cool down" now, before you can use it again, like it was a thing somewhere in the recesses of your mind too hot to touch now for 2 more turns?
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SepSpring
Known Hero
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posted October 15, 2013 11:30 AM |
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Quote:
how are you explaining them?
It could have been explained if there were other cool-down conditions. Like this.
Imagine we have 3 levels of spell complexity.
Casting level 1 spell lays down no cool-down conditions.
Casting level 2 spell entails a cool-down of 1 turn for all level 2 spells and no cool-down for level 1 spells.
Casting level 3 spell entails a cool-down of 2 turns for all level 3 spells, a cool-down of 1 turn for all level 2 spells and no cool-down for level 1 spells.
Of course, in this case the Ability Tree should contain some unique skills for magic heroes that will operate with cool-down conditions inflicted by their actions (such as "no cool-downs for level 2 spells" and the subsequent "no cool-downs for all spells").
The explanation for cool-downs in my example is the following: a wizard needs a rest after using extremely powerful magic (I don't think it's easy for non-godlike casters to invoke an earthquake, tsunami or something of that kind).
But I agree that "Heroes VI" concept of cool-downs is really quite silly.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 15, 2013 11:47 AM |
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Edited by xerox at 12:33, 15 Oct 2013.
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JJ said:
Cooldowns are a silly concept anyway, especially with hero casting - how are you explaining them? You cast a Lightning Bolt, and while you can cast Holy Armageddon for 100 Mana next turn without the spell burning you to cinders, Lightning Bolt has to "cool down" now, before you can use it again, like it was a thing somewhere in the recesses of your mind too hot to touch now for 2 more turns?
I think gameplay is way more important than everything being realistic. So cooldowns shouldn't be a question of "Are they realistic?" - very little in HoMM is - but more "Do they add to gameplay?". If the absense of cooldowns leads to players using the same few spells over and over again (like in H6 beta, where people spammed Heal and Petrification), then I'd argue that it might add to gameplay. As does Defense raising retaliation damage. It makes it more strategic and interesting by creating an incentive for the attacker to avoid hitting a tanky unit that will retailiate. In the same way, the tanky unit gets an increased incentive to get hit. Then you can complement that mechanic with active and passive abilities such as Taunt and Fierce Retailation (each retailation increased retaliation damage) for supporting it and No Enemy Retailation and stuns for countering it.
The division between Might and Magic damage and defense should stay. It gives flavour to the game but should be changed not to primarily reduce damage taken from creatures (as that risks creating imbalance such as why should I pick a Magic hero with Haven if its biased towards retaliation damage, which is boosted by Might stats), Attack and Defense should affect all creatures, but to counter magic from the enemy hero. Magic Defense should be it's own skill-tree commited to anti-magic rather than having something like TotE Shatter Magic instead (those could be shouts). MD. should not only decrease spell damage, but also reduce the potency of debuffs. Another ridiculous and inconsistent thing with the H6 damage system was how there was one source of Might damage and SEVEN sources of Magic damage.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 15, 2013 12:19 PM |
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@ SepSpring
Nice idea and worth putting to test, especially with the skill to get rid of it.
@ Xerox
Quote:
I think gameplay is way more important than everything being realistic. So cooldowns shouldn't be a question of "Are they realistic?" - very little in HoMM is - but more "Do they add to gameplay?". If the absense of cooldowns leads to players using the same few spells over and over again (like in H6 beta, where people spammed Heal and Petrification), then I'd argue that it might add to gameplay. As does Defense raising retaliation damage. It makes it more strategic and interesting by creating an incentive for the attacker to avoid hitting a tanky unit that will retailiate. In the same way, the tanky unit gets an increased incentive to get hit. Then you can complement that mechanic with active and passive abilities such as Taunt and Fierce Retailation (each retailation increased retaliation damage) for supporting it and No Enemy Retailation and stuns for countering it.
If a cooldown is necessary to keep people from spamming something, then the something isn't right - it's that simple.
Also, defense raising retaliation damage does not make it more strategic, it would just make defense more important IN GENERAL, since the defense value would have a bigger impact, and that is bad in itself, since the more important defense gets the longer the game takes and the more important defensive strategies become. It's all about AVOIDING retaliation as much as possible and maximizing ANY amount of damage done anyway.
Quote:
The division between Might and Magic damage and defense should stay. It gives flavour to the game but should be changed not to primarily reduce damage taken from creatures (as that risks creating imbalance such as why should I pick a Magic hero with Haven if its biased towards retaliation damage, which is boosted by Might stats), Attack and Defense should affect all creatures, but to counter magic from the enemy hero. Magic Defense should be it's own skill-tree commited to anti-magic rather than having something like TotE Shatter Magic instead (those could be shouts). MD. should not only decrease spell damage, but also reduce the potency of debuffs. What could go away is the differentation between various types of elemental damage. First, its more consistent with Might damage if there's one type of Magic damage and not seven. Secondly, it really only makes sense in a system with elemental schools of magic and I feel that the much more distinct and diverse H5 system was better.
I tend to agree with most of the analysis here, but I don't know about the consequence.
We agree about creatures going back to simple attack/defense, also because 7 are too many different magic damage types with the added difficulty that for example poison or acid isn't magical, but physical, but still associated with an element.
However, you want magic defense as an additional stat - Resistance - to work for or against hero effects.
If you wanted to do that, you wouldn't need a separate creature stat - all you would need is to modify the hero's spell power with the opposing hero's spell power. Creatures as such may simply have passive percentage resistance abilities that would do the same thing. Buff/Debuff effects could also be modified, but the system runs a bit against the wall when it's about casting an all-or-nothing thing, like Blind or Rage: it either works or it doesn't, and I'm not sure whether all these things should have a "base probability of 100%" which would be decreased via defense.
I think, it's possible to make things too complicated, and this is one.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 15, 2013 01:50 PM |
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Were hero spells cooldowns so bad? I thought that was a good idea to prevent "I cast Implosion/Frenzy every single turn" and force the players to use more spells
DoubleDeck said:
Erwan: "Make game now, think later!"
FTFY
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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted October 15, 2013 01:56 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 14:05, 15 Oct 2013.
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War-overlord said:
Would love to add my thoughts to this once I has the time.
I hope I didn’t get too many things completely wrong WORRIED SMILEY. I don’t know what happened, I started to write a short comment to interesting things in the thread and a dozen random thoughts later it ended up like it did.
DoubleDeck said:
Nice post Locksley 
I would liek to see H7 being post Dark Messiah with the story where Kha-beleth gets sealed forever with the destruciton of Skull of Shadows. That way no more eclipse-demon invasion story...
There would need to be a central theme that is evil (like a typical Tolkien story)...and demons do fit into this very well.
DoubleDeck said:
I remember in Dark Messiah though, the player had the option of using the Skull of Shadows to lock Kha-beleth away forever, or destroy the Skull and free him….maybe for H7, the Skull should be destroyed, so as to have a fresh storyline with no Demon Overlord trying to invade Ashan again. Let the storyline have the demons rebuilding a new Lord, the Dark Messiah, but for this to be a sub theme rather than the main one…
Your ideas here sound good. I haven’t played Dark Messiah so I’m no expert in the meaning of Sareth’s coices, but I read there were four choices with different meaning and perhaps, I’m just guessing, one of them would allow for no eclipse invasions but still a demonic presence and influence, perhaps via demon cultists?
That the Big Bad in order to break free from its prison needs help from Bad Apples among the free peoples makes it possible to all kinds of stories about betrayal and large scale wars to take form.Elvin said:
I don't quite care if inferno stays the way it is because you can bypass the Sheogh limitations with proper storytelling. For instance we could know more about the Sovereign's ascend to power and his machinations. Demon cultists can also open gates to Sheogh which does not require an eclipse. I would honestly prefer the demons to have a foothold in Ashan as the whole eclipse thing is getting old but my point is that you can include inferno in a campaign without involving an invasion. Nor does it have to take place on the surface of Ashan. What I am more interested in is the faction itself and its gameplay which can be a lot of fun if implemented properly. I'd like it as a high risk high reward faction with plenty of sabotaging abilities and raw destructive power, whether might or magic.
That also makes good sense.
@ gnomes2169
Well written vision of the End of all things! I’m not a big fan of void story and would rather see it as a threat that Sandro may come with, so that it’s necessary to win a more conventional war against him, but the scenario you picture is very playable and also makes Sandro's threat serious. Some of those “beings made of literally nothing and beings that come from places beyond time, space and sanity” should definitely appear as neutrals.Gnomes2169 said:
Haven: TANK TANK TANK + Buff (Do I actually have to say more?)
Inferno: DPS + Numbers (High damage, speed and attack swarms that drop like flies)
Necro: ZOMG NUMBERS + some revives/ debuffs (Basically a fusion of the H5 necromacy that bolsters troop count after battles and the H6 magic focus)
Dungeon: Burst DPS + Stealth (More destructive magic than in H6, but with the same general creature themes)
Stronghold: Diverse abilities + DPS (I'm thinking that fortress, while being physically powerful once again, could easily focus more on the diversity of their creature's abilities, to match the general diversity of their possible creatures.)
Sylvan: Burst DPS + Buffs (Like dungeon, the forest elves would likely be very powerful in the first round or two of combat before the enemy has a chance to really cut down on their numbers, but heroes would likely be more focused on improving their creatures through light magic than blowing up their enemies through destructive.)
Sanctuary: Battle tempo + Buffs (With their ice and light theme, Sancuary seems like the faction that would choose when and where their creatures engaged enemies on the battlefield, making them amazing tempo setters wile also giving them access to powerful defensive buffs.)
Fortress: Tanking + Formations (From what we saw in H5, the dwarves are a turtling faction with some decent offensive might in the form of light and runic magic, but beyond that they had the unique ability to be buffed by other creatures of the faction standing beside them on the battlefield, making formation synergy a massive boon to the dwarven faction. Likely, we will be seeing a return to this system if we see Fortress ever again, though this I hope that there are bonuses for different arrangements on the battlefield or follow up attacks to add tactical depth to the dwarves...)
Void: Global debuffs + Horrors/ lingering damage (The Void would basically be the best school for breaking down enemies in every way possible, from its nightmare-spawned lineup to possible magic schools, this faction would likely specialize in lowering the effectiveness of any army to astronomical lows and would probably rely more on poisons/ suffering to bleed their enemies dry than bursting damage or overwhelming creatures.)
Of course, these are just idle speculations... but I would not be surprised if I was right on at least one or two accounts.
I think you are close to spot on, however I’d also like to see a Haven that is rather good all round, capable of charging or standing their ground depending on skills and creatures. The different duchies, if there would be any, should focus on slightly different things.
Stronghold is perhaps more likely to be increasingly sacrifice- and shaman-oriented but relying on diverse abilities sounds interesting.
I think you forgot academy, I’d say their game play was well done in H5: a lot of magic for every situation, shooter oriented and with good technological understanding and artificial “upgrading”.
You have more good points about necropolis, inferno (just add gating), dungeon and especially the dwarves.
H6 Sanctuary were rather similar to H5 Sylvan in game play: good defence + massive charge. In you version they almost became opposites, nice.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 15, 2013 02:05 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 14:07, 15 Oct 2013.
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Storm-Giant said:
Were hero spells cooldowns so bad? I thought that was a good idea to prevent "I cast Implosion/Frenzy every single turn" and force the players to use more spells
That wasn't a problem in H5. Implosion had good damage but high cost. You could easily choose fireball or meteor shower according to the amount of targets and how tightly packed they are. Or even deep freeze for freeze bonus and physical vulnerability at the cost of less damage. Dungeon was like a symphony of destructive ^^
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 15, 2013 02:13 PM |
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Locksley said:
War-overlord said:
Would love to add my thoughts to this once I has the time.
I hope I didn’t get too many things completely wrong WORRIED SMILEY. I don’t know what happened, I started to write a short comment to interesting things in the thread and a dozen random thoughts later it ended up like it did.
Don't worry, Locks. That comment was meant in general. I would love to add my thoughts to this debate. It wasn't just directed at your post.
I was trying to say that those comments you made regarding the map were in many ways justified, but you were using an out of date map.
I don't know wether there are more up to date maps online.
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Vote El Presidente! Or Else!
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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted October 15, 2013 02:52 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 14:57, 15 Oct 2013.
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@ War-overlord
There's no immediate danger that my worries will ruin my day, one might even say that I exaggerated my worries a bit.
I just found a correct map:
There are quite big differences compared to the map I used in my post, and to what happened in Heroes 6.
When they became emperors the Griffin dynasty apparently moved to the imperial lands in central parts of the empire, and gave their old duchy to the Raven duchy that until then had been a small northern duchy.
In the new map there's no Falcon duchy which means that both the Wolf and Bull duchies are next to Heresh. Especially the Bull duchy seems to have taken over some Falcon lands.
It's interesting that there's no city called Falcon's Reach anymore, it seems to have been destroyed in the "Falcon's Last Flight" and Talonguard seems to be built to be the new capital when the Griffin Empire was founded.
The old map still looks nicer though.
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 15, 2013 03:05 PM |
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Well, one should consider that the Raven-dukes are a subsidiary branch of the Griffin Dynasty. The Ravens were Griffins, until the main branch of the Griffins became Emperors. They were not their own Duchy during the Falcon's Rule.
Just as the Stag-dukes were a subsidiary branch of the Falcons, who were left in charge of the Old Falcon Clanlands when Brian Falcon united the Human Clans.
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Vote El Presidente! Or Else!
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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted October 15, 2013 03:22 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 15:27, 15 Oct 2013.
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I see. So the Falcon Crest on the old map is in the wrong place, i.e. that wasn't the old imperial province? Where was Falcon's Reach placed?
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted October 15, 2013 03:38 PM |
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See for yourself.
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Vote El Presidente! Or Else!
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 15, 2013 03:40 PM |
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Elvin said:
Storm-Giant said:
Were hero spells cooldowns so bad? I thought that was a good idea to prevent "I cast Implosion/Frenzy every single turn" and force the players to use more spells
That wasn't a problem in H5. Implosion had good damage but high cost. You could easily choose fireball or meteor shower according to the amount of targets and how tightly packed they are. Or even deep freeze for freeze bonus and physical vulnerability at the cost of less damage. Dungeon was like a symphony of destructive ^^
Mmm true, in H5 this rarely was a problem. Between the low mana of heroes & high cost of spells, + some interesting effects in some spells (stun/freeze, deep freeze increasing damage...). But, if they had added more spells to each Magic School, don't you think we would end having a problem?
Oh, and you still haven't answered my question. Were the cooldowns a problem in H6?
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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted October 15, 2013 03:46 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 15:48, 15 Oct 2013.
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War-overlord said:
See for yourself.
Thanks, nice map. Falcon's Reach has returned to the Falcon Stag Duchy. And the only other notable changes have happened in the Bull and Wolf duchies.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 15, 2013 04:00 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 16:28, 15 Oct 2013.
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Storm-Giant said:
Oh, and you still haven't answered my question. Were the cooldowns a problem in H6?
Yes and no. I see them as a side-effect to poor design, there was little else they could do when they decided to introduce resurrection spells in the freaking earlygame. On the other hand, making each spell an ability that you can unlock in a level up, only to allow you to cast it every x turns was a major turn off. Not only was it annoying but in creeping it made people delay battles for their resurrection to recharge. That was some God-awful thinking there.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 15, 2013 04:11 PM |
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And don't forget the cooldown for the active creature abilities that you would also spam each turn, if possible, that were necessary to use them in a regular way also.
I consider it bad design if you give too fancy abilities to creatures and then try to mitigate the effect by putting a cooldown on. I mean, it's like selling cars with a massive turbo charger, but make the construction so that you can use them only 5 minutes every hour, because using them all the time would destroy the fuel economy to 20 gallons per 100 clicks or so. Just for the kick of being able to klick a button once in a while and say "wow"?
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 15, 2013 04:39 PM |
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Elvin said:
Storm-Giant said:
Oh, and you still haven't answered my question. Were the cooldowns a problem in H6?
Yes and no. I see them as a side-effect to poor design, there was little else they could do when they decided to introduce resurrection spells in the freaking earlygame. On the other hand, making each spell an ability that you can unlock in a level up, only to allow you to cast it every x turns was a major turn off. Not only was it annoying but in creeping it made people delay battles for their resurrection to reacharge. That was some God-awful thinking there.
I see. So you think that limiting spells by other means is better desing choice than cooldowns? Like in H5, where Ressurection/Reanimate Dead reduced the stack HP, where some direct damage spells had different effects (as mentioned above, deep freeze with xtra physical damage, lighting stunning, fireball making damage the next rounds and so on), etc...?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 15, 2013 05:52 PM |
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More or less. The only limits should be on how good the spell is compared to the rest and how much it costs.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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