Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

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Darmani
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Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Darmani » 14 May 2018, 04:34

I just wrote up a long post on the Ironfist forums explaining why I believe adding the Wait button was a mistake, and why there will be no Wait button in Ironfist.

I expect this to be a very contentious issue, and also something that many people here would be interested in reading, so I'm copying it here as well.

Original: http://heroes2.forumactif.com/t623-why- ... n-ironfist
There's been a discussion running on this forum for a while: should Ironfist support the Wait button?

Today, I would like to announce the final resolution: Ironfist will not support the Wait Button.

The first reason is simple: doing so would require rebalancing all the creatures, and probably also all the existing maps.

But the second reason is: I've become convinced that the Wait button as seen in HoMM III is actually a bad idea, gameplay-wise.

This is something I've changed my mind on recently. I used to think it was a no-brainer that the Wait Button was a good idea. It's something that gives the player more choices. More choices means more tactics and more feelings of control, which means more fun.

What happened? I played a bunch of HoMM III. Specifically, I replayed the Armageddon's Blade campaign last month. And this time, I had a very different perspective: it was my first time playing HoMM III since I studied game design in college.

It was quite amusing to see how there were so many things (spells, buildings, creatures) that had the exact same stats in HoMM III as they did in HoMM II, even as everything around them had changed. I saw a lot of indications that the developers had prioritized adding more stuff over making sure said stuff was well-designed.

I've become pretty convinced that most of the game mechanics changes between HoMM II and HoMM III were mistakes. I have a couple pages of notes on this. I know there are many who disagree with this, and I would love to discuss it more over a metaphorical tea on a sunny afternoon, but am not really interested in getting into a heated Internet discussion over it, especially since this is a HoMM II forum and adding schools of magic is not on the table.

So, why is the Wait button a mistake?

I'll get the small reason out of the way: it slows down the game. People ask "is there ever a reason to not Wait?" Having the first round of a battle consist of trying to do nothing for as long as possible is not ideal for making a game fast and fun, to say the least.

But the bigger reason is: It reduces the variety of creatures seen in the game. For me, one of the best things about HoMM II is how every creature feels different, even though most of them have no special abilities,

But how does the Wait button restrict creature design?

Let's look at some numbers:

The strongest creatures in HoMM II are the Tier 6 creatures. Their speeds range from Average (Giant, Bone Dragon, Green Dragon) to Fast to Ultra Fast (Phoenix). There is 1 faction where the fastest unit is Tier 6, 3 factions where the (upgraded) Tier 6 unit is tied for fastest, and 2 where the Tier 6 unit is not the fastest.

After them, the strongest creature is the Hydra (Very Slow). It serves as a powerful tank unit, a reason to be afraid to cross the battlefield, and the best use of the Teleport spell.

In HoMM III, the strongest creatures are the Tier 7 units. Their speeds range from 5 (Hydra, Fortress) to 21 (Phoenix, Conflux). Pretty good variety.

But, comparing within a faction, a different picture emerges.

In 6 of the 9 factions, the upgraded Tier 7 unit is the fastest creature.

In 1 of the 9 (Tower), the upgraded Tier 7 unit is tied for the fastest creature.

And only in 2 of the 9 (Fortress, Stronghold) is the upgraded Tier 7 unit slower than the fastest creature. In Stronghold, this is only because of the decision to make flying creatures not cross the screen, meaning they needed to bump up the speed of the Thunderbird.

Going down a level: The slowest upgraded Tier 6 creature in HoMM III is 7, which corresponds to Fast in HoMM II.

So, it sees that, in HoMM III, creatures become faster the higher-level they are. As a result, there's less variety in how creatures feel.

What happened to the slow tank units? What happened to the fast raiders? So why didn't the developers just add more strong and slow creatures, or weak and fast creatures?

Because of the Wait button.

The core reason is simple.

In HoMM II, you could have units that were good for attacking early, such as to disrupt enemy shooters, as well as good for attacking late, defending against units that crossed to your side. The former could be given higher speed, and the latter lower speed. Hence, units such as Gargoyles and Hydras.

In HoMM III, the units that move first are also the units that move last. Hence, the units that are good for attacking first....must also be the units that are good for attacking last.

No design decision exists in a vacuum. There are a number of related design decisions, such as the larger battlefields, that make this more of a problem in HoMM III than in HoMM II, but the core reason is the above problem of role confusion.

So really, the core problem is not the Wait Button itself, but the combination of the Wait Button with how creatures use a single stat to determine both how far they move and when they take their turn.

So, it is possible to create a game that has a Wait button, but doesn't have this problem. King's Bounty: The Legend is a good example: it has both a wait button, and strong/slow units. But it makes them viable through a host of other game design changes, such as having separate speed/initiative stats, a smaller battlefield, and the Running ability (a once-per-battle speed boost).

HoMM III has none of these, and hence the Wait Button comes with a host of problems that make the game worse. We will not be bringing these problems into Ironfist.


Yours,
Jimmy "Darmani" Koppel
Executive Producer, Project Ironfist

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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Pitsu » 14 May 2018, 07:34

For me the main reason not to be a fan of the wait button is that it allows significantly more abusive battletactics. It can make PvP more interesting, but at the same time it greatly reduces the challenge from PvE. A much improved AI and/or changes in battle system are required to "fix" it. H5 had it better than H3.
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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Pol » 16 May 2018, 09:16

Generally it's ok to have it. WAIT exist in normal world, so makes sense to have in the game too. That's actually main reason why it was added to H3.

What is the mistake, is that AI cannot handle it. So from the point of better AI it shouldn't be here - as long as you are not able to learn it how to use that. And there were come to a dead end, as I don't know anyone able to.

So having it or not? Better not as AI cannot deal with it.

That imply that you should check all scenarios where WAIT is necessary in maps or campaigns and fix them. What these could be, btw?
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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Bandobras Took » 16 May 2018, 17:54

That's a well-presented argument.
I've become pretty convinced that most of the game mechanics changes between HoMM II and HoMM III were mistakes. I have a couple pages of notes on this. I know there are many who disagree with this, and I would love to discuss it more over a metaphorical tea on a sunny afternoon, but am not really interested in getting into a heated Internet discussion over it, especially since this is a HoMM II forum and adding schools of magic is not on the table.
I'm interested in this; is there any way to get a copy of those notes? I promise not to argue with you; I just liked your reasoning on the wait button and want to see where else that reasoning leads.
Far too many people speak their minds without first verifying the quality of their source material.

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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Bersaglio » 17 May 2018, 20:30

Wait button was first introduced in HoMM II. It was fully implemented... but disabled just before HoMM II release in 1996. And it can be easily turned back on. Details in adjacent topic. :-)

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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Darmani » 18 May 2018, 03:30

Yep; I think it says something that they chose to disable it. Although, it could just be that they didn't have time to implement the AI for it.

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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby Bandobras Took » 18 May 2018, 12:54

Thank you very much.
Far too many people speak their minds without first verifying the quality of their source material.

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Re: Was the Wait button in HoMM III a mistake?

Unread postby cuc » 02 Nov 2018, 13:32

If you may, I'd like to see those notes too! There's a good chance I'd agree with most of them.


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