|
|
The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
|
posted June 28, 2022 12:53 AM |
|
|
The irony is off the charts.
Galaad said:
The_Green_Drag said:
Quote:
I hate simultaneous turns
I like hotseat too but how can anyone hate sim turns ? It just saves time.
Also,
you took what I said out of context then proceed to ask me a question about it as if I said it this way? How did you become a moderator?
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 12:57 AM |
|
|
Sorry if I understood you wrong on that part, jeez just chill man.
For the moderator part I threatened Valeriy with the help of Kipshasz.
____________
|
|
dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 04:28 PM |
|
|
SoC is in the development for over 5 years. Devs intention was to make it single player game firstly, with hotseat multiplayer. They were apprehensive about online multiplayer since it seamed to them that its not something many people would want.
Online lobby was introduced during alpha as "home project" by one of the devs who wanted to play the game with a friend and he took his own free time to code it outside of work hours and it was used to test if factions have some creatures and mechanics that are just overpowered.
Not one Wielder, creature, spell or map entity was created with multiplayer in mind. Sure they want all factions to be somewhat similar in power but its not like they are laser focused to make them "Starcraft" competitive.
For months multiplayer lobby was just crude looking frame with basic functionality. It was "beautified" as part of the overall look overhaul just before EA.
Their "focus" on multiplayer is result of their observation both on user suggestion page and simple tracking of which modes people are playing most. Also this "focus" is only one 3 week sprint in their development cycle so its not like they are focusing all their power to make multiplayer work to the detriment of single player.
To add to this is what they all but promised, and I think it will show on road map, is that there will make 2 more campaigns for Loth and Barya. Also I'm pretty sure that they will add more neutral creatures and as I understood from before they have more than a dozen new factions they discussed about with at least 4 that were already in pre production phase when they realized that with time and budget its not feasible to be included in 1.0. But as it seams now they are either thinking of adding them right away or in DLCs.
Source: "trust me" and "I was there when it happened" 
|
|
The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 06:21 PM |
|
|
dark-whisperer said:
Not one Wielder, creature, spell or map entity was created with multiplayer in mind.
Why would deck building games be a point of inspiration for the magic system then? It seems to play a decently large role in the factions and how battles play out. Deck building is 99% Mp focused is it not?I'm genuinely curious.
But regardless, even if all that is true, I'm afraid it won't help me or anyone who has similar gripes with the game as I do. More factions and neutrals won't help make the current four and their troops feel better to play with or play against. Neutrals aren't even recruitable because of balance, so those won't help either. There is such a small bag of tricks that the troops pull from in terms of their abilities. Wielder progression feels lacking.
New content won't help these things. We'll see with the road map this week but if it's just a to do list of new stuff like factions and campaigns to add to the base game and doesn't touch the current factions, I think I'll be checked out.
|
|
dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 07:08 PM |
|
|
Im sorry if you talked about this somewhere before and I missed it but can you elaborate on how is magic system based on deckbuilders?
Current iteration of tiered spell system is fairly new and based on testers feedback in an attempt to diminish command skill value, but foundation was always the same in the sense that spells would depend on creatures composition. In developers minds that idea would lead to experimentation with many different creatures loadouts and variety of playstyles in an effort to avoid funneling factions to one best strategy.
I think that deckbuilding connection was unintentional but Im not sure what it actually means.
On the other hand I can understand that you feel that faction (creatures, spells, buildings and abilities) are too similar and that there is not enough faction defining moments and short answer for that is that they just do not have manpower, time and money to experiment with asymmetric town footprint, creatures or buildings since pixelart takes to much time and money for assets that might not be used. They put their effort into general feel of the faction and few defining creatures. I get that it might not be enough to many but its just what it is when you are not working with in house artist or larger team. Im not trying to defend game or devs, im just offering insight of their reasoning if I had one.
|
|
The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 08:42 PM |
|
|
dark-whisperer said:
im just offering insight of their reasoning if I had one.
I appreciate it. And the deck-building connection is just something I've heard and read in interviews with the game designer that stood out to me. The creatures and the spells they have access to do feel like picking the cards to a deck in a hearthstone game or something. It is a good system but it's disappointing they don't feel confident to branch out more and don't seem to have any plans to. There are definitely more options within one faction and that is great, but when they play similarly and with these strict limitations on what the spells and troop abilities can and can't do, it doesn't actually add much replay value imho.
Its hard to walk away from this game. There is so much potential. It doesn't need to be a heroes upgrade but its current state feels like Devs that are afraid to really step up to the plate and take a swing. I'd love to see them really go for it. Let the tinkerer construct or actually tinker with something. Let the frogs ignore height elevation when moving. Let the necromancers practice necromancy. Let the dragons fly...etc. WHile at the same time realizing that rats and frogs shouldn't share the stealth trait of ghosts, who share the buff trait of knights, who shares the shield trait of any troop holding any sized shield...etc
Idk, thats not making it heroes in my mind. Thats just asking for a fleshed out, single-player game. Anyways, thanks for the input from one who was on the inside much longer than me!
|
|
NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 09:33 PM |
|
Edited by NimoStar at 21:39, 28 Jun 2022.
|
Even if we assume the MP stuff being a good thing,
I should take the moment to remind, that not only SC/SC2 had features they deny while having been #1 competitive Esport (which even started the craze back in South Korea) m but also, things like DotA or LoL absolutely revel in crazy abilities which are very different for each creature/hero/champion. In fact, each hero in DotA (and DotA2) has four different abilities unique to itself, and there are like over 50 different heroes! And yet this is a balanced, competitive multiplayer esports (with "blesses, curses, revives, summons" and infinity more crazy stuff)
If 50 heroes can manage varied asssymetrical gameplay with creative unique effects, why can't 4 factions?
"Indie" doesn't even matter here, DotA was made as a free map by fans in their downtime...
Balance without variety means nothing, it is variety what gives meaning to balance.
MP just based on stale repetition is as bad if not worse than unbalanced game. People still played original H3 in MP decades later, despite being unbalanced. Hell, HotA itself is still deeply unbalanced with RNG offering you never-fixed trash skills, sometimes two of them at once; It's still fun, that's what matters.
____________
Never changing = never improving
|
|
dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
|
|
posted June 28, 2022 09:39 PM |
|
|
I understand now what you meant and I can't honestly tell you if inspiration for magic system were deckbuilders but I know for sure that mechanic was there from the beginning and its presented as one of defining aspects of the game.
There were many iterations of spell system but all had same core idea behind it.
I understand that some will feel that there is not enough colorful, unique and fun abilities and again I can only provide prosaic answer that those abilities require more coding both for simple game implementation and for integration with AI so it can use it properly and devs are very cautious when there is significant time drain. But that said I also know that there are abilities that are not implemented yet so keep an eye on the updates.
What I can also tell you that even if there are more than 30 people listed in end credits in various capacities most of them are hired to do specific job and are not actively involved in development entire time. Core team are only 5-6 people and everything they do takes time.
@NimoStar As I said earlier MP is just something devs found interesting after EA started. During entirety of the alpha phase number of testers has risen to over 500 and total number of online MP matches were under 50 for entire time. Neither us as testers nor devs saw this MP popularity coming. You can believe me or not but this is exactly what happened. So balance, variety, number of Wielders their skills or creature skills are made for single player.
|
|
Groovy
Hired Hero
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 06:08 AM |
|
|
dark-whisperer said:
What I can also tell you that even if there are more than 30 people listed in end credits in various capacities most of them are hired to do specific job and are not actively involved in development entire time. Core team are only 5-6 people and everything they do takes time.
That's fair.
dark-whisperer said:
@NimoStar As I said earlier MP is just something devs found interesting after EA started. During entirety of the alpha phase number of testers has risen to over 500 and total number of online MP matches were under 50 for entire time. Neither us as testers nor devs saw this MP popularity coming. You can believe me or not but this is exactly what happened. So balance, variety, number of Wielders their skills or creature skills are made for single player.
I'm curious, with that many testers, was the lack of variety and randomness not identified as a serious problem for single-player? I'm really surprised that the focus on single-player has resulted in what is essentially a multiplayer game. I would understand this if I were the only one who thought that the game lacked replayability in single-player, but this impression seems to be common-enough among HoMM players, who I imagine were the target demographic for SoC.
|
|
dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 02:55 PM |
|
|
Groovy said:
I'm curious, with that many testers, was the lack of variety and randomness not identified as a serious problem for single-player? I'm really surprised that the focus on single-player has resulted in what is essentially a multiplayer game. I would understand this if I were the only one who thought that the game lacked replayability in single-player, but this impression seems to be common-enough among HoMM players, who I imagine were the target demographic for SoC.
Can you clarify your claim that SoC is MP game since I have entirely different perception of the game.
For the second part, the question is what is stopping you from replaying same map several times? Why is there no replayabiliy in your case? Do you have problem with core mechanics that bore you enough to stop you trying same map with different faction or different creature loadout? What would you change (and I mean direct example) to make games more replayable.
EDIT:
clicky
Roadmap is out. So RMG, 1 more campaign, more spells, more unit traits and abilities coming 2022. This should help with replayability a bit IMHO.
|
|
Gandalf196
Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 04:57 PM |
|
|
I say meh, I'm sorry, it's been fun, but the hopes for this being Heroes III 2.0 were short-lived. Moving on, I hope the Master of Magic remake coming this year truly delivers
____________
|
|
The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 05:24 PM |
|
|
 I can elaborate on it in more specific detail, but imho it boils down to the heavy focus on balance, similar playing factions, and lack of RNG. And the only reason I can see putting balance in such high priority is if they don't want to upset players in PVP situations. Online or no. When an AI fight triggers too many luck rolls or trigger effects, you can re-load it if it bothers you that much. If it happens in PVP, it can upset the player on the losing end, or vice versa a winning player losing the fight because they got unlucky. Choosing to not have any form of that in the game at all points to wanting a more pleasant PVP experience (imho).
If the Devs truly see the game's design as only single-player this whole time, then that's what it is to them. My biggest complaint would be I find them boring then, to put it bluntly. I do agree with Groovy that they coincidently made a game focused on multiplayer (at least how I see it). There is not much to chew on for the single player. It could be due to their history of making mobile games for long, that might be a hard thing to shake off.
dark-whisperer said:
the question is what is stopping you from replaying same map several times? Why is there no replayabiliy in your case? Do you have problem with core mechanics that bore you enough to stop you trying same map with different faction or different creature loadout?
I'll try to separate categorize my issues a bit for clarity.
Adventure map: I find many of the adventure map buildings to be shallow and similar, which does not encourage me to explore every corner of a map, even if it is my first time playing on it. The lack of RNG buildings also limits my replay value. The RNG buildings we currently have consists of things like "will I get 500 gold, or 700 gold?", and not, "will I receive ore, wood, or a precious resource?".
There are many buildings that do similar stuff, like multiple iterations of gold income. There are multiple iterations of just gold in general (from 3-4 different "piles, bags, troves of gold" as well as 3 types of chests that have gold inside) There are multiple iterations of observatory towers. Yet not a single, simple "random resource" building.
The two creature banks in the game are cool, but they're not random battles with adjusted rewards. They're static battles with a random amount of gold + resources and a random (same tier) artifact. Thats the same as if it was just a regular troop guarding loot on the adventure map.
And over all there is just nothing to look for in the middle-to-late game. No high reward creature banks or strong neutrals to recruit. I often just quit around this time. More on that in the "core mechanics" section.
Would really like to see a larger variety of adventure map buildings and interactables in general, and with a focus on RNG rewards.
Factions & Troops: I do find them very similar which deters me from replaying a map as a new faction. Largely due to similar stats and abilities, but also from similar costs and dwelling costs. I think there is an over reliance on a troop's specific essence to differentiate the troops and factions. This makes playing as a "might" wielder very boring and makes creeping neutral stacks very boring (as they cannot use magic and do not get research bonuses, making it super easy to fight them later on). Troops should feel like chess pieces.
A problem I had with H6 line ups is present here. Tiers have been reduced and archetypes are re-used within the factions. Every faction has an "ogre" type, being the horned ones, brutes, scavenge bones, turtles, all with the same sort of power level. They all have the same kind of "high movement troop" with the same boring stat of 5 movement and similar abilities, with the knight, rider of the swamp, ghosts, and sassanids. 3 of the factions have a ranged large tier troop.
Because of things like this, playing a might wielder with a human arelon line up doesn't feel all that different from playing a might undead loth line up. The over-use of auras on every faction is another thing linking them all together.
As for the costs of troops and dwellings, I find there isn't any obvious differences besides one using the same amount of amber ore where another uses celestial ore, usually 5. There is no obviously cheaper faction with easier access to troops or a more expensive factions with stronger, but pricier troops. If they wanted a good look at variety done well they should have looked at Heroes 4 where a cheaper high tier would cost ore instead of a precious resource, for example.
What would help the most here is to have more variety with unit stats and abilities. Widen the movement range by default and stop re-using nearly every ability. Incorporate SoC's unique features within unit abilities. And add some RNG abilties.
Core Mechanics that effect both: I will prefix by saying I do like the magic system. I love opportunity attacks, stack limits, height differences, and move + attack ranged units. I don't even mind them removing defend and wait as a default option.
What I do not like is the stacking, on stacking, on stacking. Multiple auras, multiple spells, multiple momentum buffs, multiple song buffs/debuffs, and it just is not enjoyable over time. Their newest way of dealing with magic damage is now to stack more and more magic resistance.
No troop mixing lowers replay value tremendously for me. It also makes me quit a game as soon as I take an enemy town, because it is just convert the town or occupy, rinse and repeat after that. But no troop mixing also takes away from the adventure map exploration, as finding external dwellings is no longer cool or exiting, you pillage it and that just sucks. The multiple stacking upon stacking makes the stat gain from adventure map buildings feel insignificant; what is +1 or +3 supposed to do when you just kill two stacks and get +20, or buy two points of research and get another +20 of something.
And again, the lack of meaningful RNG moments.
Wishful thinking for all of this, but to help improve this I would like if most buffs/debuffs and effects DID NOT STACK. I want troop mixing to be a toggle feature (why is it not if the game is single player focused?).
And now after seeing the road map I think my hope in this game is also dead. They've shifted focus to multiplayer for the most part and I have little hope any new ability or spell they come up with will expand their little bag of tricks that every other ability and spell pull from. What a shame.
|
|
Groovy
Hired Hero
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 07:01 PM |
|
|
The_Green_Drag's answer is so detailed that I'm not going to post my much more modest one, but will instead try to sum it up.
The kind of gameplay experience that I'm after includes several moments of sheer excitement caused by the game presenting me with strategic possibilities that weren't there before. Heroes 3 can provide many such moments, and SoC could have added many more had the devs wanted to steer the design in this direction.
I stopped playing SoC once I'd tried out all the major strategies I could think of, and realised that I had no motivation to play any of them again, because subsequent playthroughs were going to be too similar to the ones before.
After seeing the roadmap, I share Gandalf196 and The_Green_Drag's sentiments.
|
|
dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 08:26 PM |
|
|
Ill steer Lord Querkious attention to The_Green_Drag's post. I have different opinion on many things in that post but I wont post anything that can influence his judgement if he reads entire thread. Maybe something valuable can come out of this conversation.
Cheers peeps!
|
|
Groovy
Hired Hero
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 09:01 PM |
|
|
The_Green_Drag said:
When an AI fight triggers too many luck rolls or trigger effects, you can re-load it if it bothers you that much. If it happens in PVP, it can upset the player on the losing end, or vice versa a winning player losing the fight because they got unlucky. Choosing to not have any form of that in the game at all points to wanting a more pleasant PVP experience (imho).
I think it would help to focus on increasing randomness in the game world instead of player actions. This would give players more time to respond to random events and formulate an effective strategy, and make it harder to argue that the opponent won because of sheer luck.
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 09:41 PM |
|
|
Gandalf196 said:
I say meh, I'm sorry, it's been fun, but the hopes for this being Heroes III 2.0 were short-lived. Moving on, I hope the Master of Magic remake coming this year truly delivers
Well, as said several times already, this game never aimed to be Heroes III 2.0. I still think it's a nice game, haven't played it much yet due to lack of time, but for what I've played I don't have any major complaints, at least yet. 
Fanstratics OTOH is the "official" Heroes III spiritual successor, so I'll be looking forward to that one, for that kind of expectations.
____________
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 09:55 PM |
|
|
There are random factors:
1) you can play with a random faction and/or a random wielder.
2) Damage works the same way as in HoMM; creatures has a range. As of now there are no spells that maximize or minimize these (decrease randomness), but since there are suppoed to be more spells, eventually, this might yet come.
3) Mystic Huts not only give random skills to heroes, that skill changes from hero to hero as well - visiting with one hero will NOT tell you what the next hero gets.
4) Hero skill offering works the same way as in HoMM - probability-based. Not all hero types can get all skills.
5) The game features random events.
6) There is a plethora of different map locations. Adding a map object like the windmill is no big deal.
7) Chaos Step spell paces your unit on a random hex.
8) Mostly random battlefields with varying unit placement.
9) Blacksmith gives random artifact
I'm very happy there is no luck - except I'd take the way luck works in HoMM 4. Instead of moral there is a boost when an enemy stack dies. Makes sense, a very good solution.
More creature banks? Yeah, well, that's supposed to make a difference between boring and not boring endgame? What makes it interesting is, in my opinion, the fact that you don't run around with one almighty hero, but have to use more than one.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted June 29, 2022 10:53 PM |
|
Edited by artu at 23:05, 29 Jun 2022.
|
Havent played this at all but if all factions are too much alike as they say, doesnt that defeat the purpose of having a random faction?
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 30, 2022 12:50 AM |
|
|
JollyJoker said:
There are random factors:
1) you can play with a random faction and/or a random wielder.
2) Damage works the same way as in HoMM; creatures has a range. As of now there are no spells that maximize or minimize these (decrease randomness), but since there are suppoed to be more spells, eventually, this might yet come.
3) Mystic Huts not only give random skills to heroes, that skill changes from hero to hero as well - visiting with one hero will NOT tell you what the next hero gets.
4) Hero skill offering works the same way as in HoMM - probability-based. Not all hero types can get all skills.
5) The game features random events.
6) There is a plethora of different map locations. Adding a map object like the windmill is no big deal.
7) Chaos Step spell paces your unit on a random hex.
8) Mostly random battlefields with varying unit placement.
9) Blacksmith gives random artifact
I'm very happy there is no luck - except I'd take the way luck works in HoMM 4. Instead of moral there is a boost when an enemy stack dies. Makes sense, a very good solution.
More creature banks? Yeah, well, that's supposed to make a difference between boring and not boring endgame? What makes it interesting is, in my opinion, the fact that you don't run around with one almighty hero, but have to use more than one.
If i've said there is no RNG i am obviously wrong, what I mean is there is not enough meaningful RNG. They have some great starts in some areas but miss the point in others. I read your list and think:
1. Random starting wielder and faction is true, but no random wielders offered after the game starts. You've access to all of them when you want to buy another, h6 style. And the randomness of other towns on a map is lessened to a degree when creature mixing isn't allowed, imho.
2. Damage range is good. I hope for damage min/max spells as well, but was met with "this isn't heroes" when I suggested it in the alpha. We'll see.
3. Mystic huts are great.
4. Random hero skills is also great.
5. The random events in their current state could use a lot of improvements. They never had an impact on me when I played. They could do more things and should affect the game world as a whole, as in, every player and not just one. If they wanted both individual smaller events for specific players, then sure. But some kind of random "world" event would go a long way; they could do things like spawn a random AI wielder on the map that holds some artifacts or a reward of some kind, or maybe a bounty hunter wielder that goes for the top player. Maybe something that effects resource income across the map. "all Shooting units have decreased range for 5 turns, impactful stuff like that which lasts more than one turn.
6. I hoped adding a windmill wouldn't be hard either.
7. Chaos magic would be great for RNG in general as its very chaotic by nature, and not just that one spell.
8. Battlefield IIRC are made based on the surrounding tiles of you and the hostile.
9. Blacksmiths are dope. Would love to see more like it.
And I will add...
10. I have no attachment to luck/morale and the way it was done in any specific heroes game, but it was still an RNG based mechanic that made for interesting moments in fights. Would be nice to have any kind of RNG mechanic in its place is all I'm saying.
11. Creature banks in general are fun when they have random degrees of strengths and rewards. The way they work currently in SoC misses the mark, but they did bring over the "ambushed" battle which is cool.
12. Camps and prisoners - are a cool bit of rng, but they feel like wasted potential without troop mixing between factions. These could have worked like mini recruitment camps, having moments of luck finding another faction's music troop for example, to add to your army.
|
|
Groovy
Hired Hero
|
|
posted June 30, 2022 05:35 AM |
|
|
JollyJoker said:
What makes it interesting is, in my opinion, the fact that you don't run around with one almighty hero, but have to use more than one.
This can be achieved in Heroes 3 through map design - by disabling adventure map mobility spells and creating a map with several fronts far enough apart that they can't be covered by a single army.
|
| |
|
|
This thread is pages long: 
