Luck and expirience

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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DaemianLucifer
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Luck and expirience

Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 26 Jan 2006, 14:15

In HIII luck affected the attack,and in HIV it affected the defence.So why does it affect just attack again?Why doesnt it affect both?If a defender gets lucky,it receivec just 50% damage,and if the attacker gets lucky,it deals 100% more damage.If both get lucky,damage dealt is normal.

Can someone please tell me why it is so hard to implement stack expirience?The simplest way would be to add 1% to every stat of the creature for every level it gains,and make no limmit to its expirience.This way weak creatures would get their levels up quickly,but would receive just a small bonus(+1 to attack every 10 levels),while strong creatures would level up really hard,but each level would give them a mayor bonus.Is that really that hard to implement and balance?

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Re: Luck and expirience

Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 26 Jan 2006, 15:21

DaemianLucifer wrote: Can someone please tell me why it is so hard to implement stack expirience?The simplest way would be to add 1% to every stat of the creature for every level it gains,and make no limmit to its expirience.This way weak creatures would get their levels up quickly,but would receive just a small bonus(+1 to attack every 10 levels),while strong creatures would level up really hard,but each level would give them a mayor bonus.Is that really that hard to implement and balance?
No, that's not hard. The problem is that it isn't very interesting... Stack experience should, IMHO bring something else besides a stat bonus. And then it becomes hard to balance. I'm not opposed to it, I just think there could be other things that the same effort could be better spent on.
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Unread postby Corribus » 26 Jan 2006, 15:48

WoG has stack experience, and I feel the results are mixed. Even if it is properly balanced (which I don't think it quite is, although they've done an admirable job of getting it close), it makes things too complicated. Essentially ever creature gets ten experience levels and with each level the creatures get new abilities. But it's just too much information to remember so I constantly am clicking on each creature to see what their special abilities are and try to assimilate that into my strategy... and then I get sick of it and so ignore it and then I'm not efficient. There comes a time where there is TOO much complexity. I think stack experience crosses that line.
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Unread postby DarkAngel » 26 Jan 2006, 16:10

I think it has something to do with the concept of the game as well. It is not called Creatures of might and magic, but Heroes of might and magic. So creatures are just like spells or artefacts, they are not meant to have anything to say or do unless the hero command them to. Do spells have experience points? no, they don't, so why stacks would have some?

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Unread postby Arzang » 26 Jan 2006, 16:15

if they implement stack experience they should seriously simplify it.

and maybe just limit it to 1 or 2 stacks?

and as cain said: stat experience that only results in stat boosts equals a big fat yawn.

and thirdly: a big part of the charm in heroes for me is stacks. if stack experience is implemented it shouldn't drastically change how you utilize your stacks. stacks are more important to game play than experience IMHO.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 26 Jan 2006, 16:31

I don't think i'd like stack experience. Kinda overcomplicates things.
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Re: Luck and expirience

Unread postby umfridus » 26 Jan 2006, 18:26

DaemianLucifer wrote:In HIII luck affected the attack,and in HIV it affected the defence.So why does it affect just attack again?
It's bloody obvious actually. Everything associated with Heroes IV is bad and symbolizes failure so that the developers shun it at any cost. You must be nuts by suggesting not going back to the Heroes III roots on this one, too. :devil:

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 26 Jan 2006, 19:43

Yeah man. I don't belive you forgot the golden rule. :slap:
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Unread postby Mutare Drake » 26 Jan 2006, 20:21

Luck isn't (and hasn't been) the biggest deal to me. It makes sense, and it certainly can be a wonderful thing when it works for you, but personally I don't care what it affects.

As far as stack experience...it makes sense, and would be neat, but I think it may be best to drop the idea (for now). As Corribus said, too many specialties make it hard to remember what troop has what, and as Gaidal Cain said an increase in stats is a bit boring. And we do have upgrades, which can be viewed as stack experience in a way.

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Unread postby Corribus » 26 Jan 2006, 20:36

Yes if you wanted to do experience, I would suggest that troops are changed automatically to their upgrade after so many victories.
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Unread postby Mutare Drake » 26 Jan 2006, 20:40

That's not such a bad idea. It could even be an option...build the extra structure in your town to upgrade, or wait 'till it happens on its own. The former is costly, but quicker; the latter is cheap but takes a while (and requires that you don't lose the troop before it happens).

Only problem I'd see...Say you have 3 hydras. It takes 5 battles for them to upgrade. After battle 4, you buy an extra hydra that's never fought before. So in another battle, will 3 be upgraded and 1 not, or will all 4 upgrade, or none? The problem might arise that you end up with too many stacks.

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Unread postby Corribus » 26 Jan 2006, 21:30

Mutare Drake wrote: Only problem I'd see...Say you have 3 hydras. It takes 5 battles for them to upgrade. After battle 4, you buy an extra hydra that's never fought before. So in another battle, will 3 be upgraded and 1 not, or will all 4 upgrade, or none? The problem might arise that you end up with too many stacks.
Of course. In WoG this problem is solved by "averaging" the experience points of combined stacks. I.e. if you mix a stack of level 10 creatures with an equal stack of level 0 creatures, you get a combined stack of level 5 creatures.

If this was done where there was only the basic form and an upgrade, you could either just say that whenever you put new creatures in the stack, the experience goes back to zero (not very realistic) or you could do some sort of internal averaging. I.e. if it takes a defeating a total of 5000 HP of creatures to promote one of your creatures. Then you can just "average" the experience when new recruits join the ranks. The disadvantage here is, of course, that you'd never know how close you were to the upgrade unless it was displayed somewhere.

There could even be special upgrades that cannot be bought normally and could only be achieved through experience.
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Unread postby IceCold2000 » 26 Jan 2006, 22:23

Stack experience looks WAY too complicated. And it will confuse the vast majority of players who will then crash in the game. Hero experience is fine enough as it is.

And for Luck, I prefer the offensive kind of luck (in Heroes I - III) rather than defensive luck (in Heroes IV). It just makes more sense.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 26 Jan 2006, 22:53

IceCold2000 wrote: And for Luck, I prefer the offensive kind of luck (in Heroes I - III) rather than defensive luck (in Heroes IV). It just makes more sense.
How?
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 27 Jan 2006, 00:32

Stack expirience is not complicated at all.The idea I gave was just to show how simple it can be.

Yes,it is stupid to have both upgrades and xp,thats why Im for just xp.Yes,the game is heroes of might and magic,but why do then heroes need creatures to go around the adventure map?And how many times have you draged those poor pikemen through 90% of the game,just to ditch them because they arent usefull any longer?This way,theyd still be usefull,not just like fodder,but as a fighting unit

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 27 Jan 2006, 10:04

DaemianLucifer wrote: Yes,it is stupid to have both upgrades and xp,thats why Im for just xp.Yes,the game is heroes of might and magic,but why do then heroes need creatures to go around the adventure map?And how many times have you draged those poor pikemen through 90% of the game,just to ditch them because they arent usefull any longer?This way,theyd still be usefull,not just like fodder,but as a fighting unit
Or they could be given certain usefull abilities that would work even in late game.

Having both stackable units and stack experience seems kinda iffy. I never liked having exp in RTS games, so...
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Unread postby Thelonious » 27 Jan 2006, 10:48

DaemianLucifer wrote:Stack expirience is not complicated at all.The idea I gave was just to show how simple it can be.

Yes,it is stupid to have both upgrades and xp,thats why Im for just xp.Yes,the game is heroes of might and magic,but why do then heroes need creatures to go around the adventure map?And how many times have you draged those poor pikemen through 90% of the game,just to ditch them because they arent usefull any longer?This way,theyd still be usefull,not just like fodder,but as a fighting unit
No.

No, no, no, it can be simpel, I know. But no. Pikemen will be useless during the end. But no amount of experiance can help that. Decrease the amount of creature levels, decrease difference between these levels. Make 1's have stack bonusses - like per 50 level 1's gain extra attack point, extra defence point. No experience. It's just silly. It's what Fabrice wants you to want. So next thing you'll know there is an army of level 3 pikachu's running around the adventure map.
Grah!

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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 27 Jan 2006, 12:57

DaemianLucifer wrote:Stack expirience is not complicated at all.The idea I gave was just to show how simple it can be.
Yes, it was simple- but it also weren't very interesting. There needs to be more to a Stack Experience system to make it interesting- and then it can quickly turn complicated.
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 27 Jan 2006, 14:14

Gaidal Cain wrote:
DaemianLucifer wrote:Stack expirience is not complicated at all.The idea I gave was just to show how simple it can be.
Yes, it was simple- but it also weren't very interesting. There needs to be more to a Stack Experience system to make it interesting- and then it can quickly turn complicated.
Not really.Just turn off the upgrades,strip units of most of the abilities and give them gradually with levels.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 27 Jan 2006, 14:20

DaemianLucifer wrote: Not really.Just turn off the upgrades,strip units of most of the abilities and give them gradually with levels.
But how many levels? And when you add 20 lvl zero creatures to a lvl ten stack of 200 creatures how many levels does the stack drop?
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