How does everyone feel about the current hero levelling system? The randomized bonuses just seem a bit... Silly. I'd much rather have a dedicated talent tree and the ability to pick one or two classes (maybe picking 2x mage will give you a mage tree and an archmage tree for once you fill out the mage one and the same for the rest?) rather than this current "roll not to suck" system.
If the game is so straight-forward and poorly design that there's only one optimised option for every single circumstance, then it's the game's fault.
Strategy games are meant to be, basically, you get the dice you have throw at you at the start of the game. You have a randomized land around you and you need to adapt to the circumstances of the land using your brains and tactical skill. With this game, it's pretty much "roll to get land now roll to decide if you can actually do something with that land".
There's too much randomness.
Pretty much what Cdr said. Even with the controlled randomness of HoMM, it's still a poorly designed system that would've been better with a proper talent tree (isn't that what they did later on anyway?).
Bump! This is a BIG issue.
Personally, I'd really enjoy talent trees with a small chance of picking up a rare/epic trait from time to time. But, if I had to give up random rare/epics for a true talent tree, I'd absolutely do so.
That'd work for me.
Optimising randomness has been part and parcel of 4X games since the beginning. Giving a choice of 6 feels about right with the amount of traits on offer as long as they are legitimate choices, and removing legitimate choice is where the rares let this randomness control feature down. There shouldn't be an option to choose between a +2 Strength or a +4 Strength. That is not choice, that is relying on dice to give you out-and-out better stats. As you mentioned, the rares are simply a better option almost all the time, giving you not 6 choices, but 1 or maybe 2.
All choices should be balanced, however rarer ones offer more specialised situations or more risk/reward. Instead of +2Str as Common, +3Str as uncommon and +4Str as rare, you can have something like +2Str, +3Str/-1Dex, +4Str/-2Dex. With something like this, the rare choice does give opportunity for a more specialised, hard-hitting character, but is still more or less competitive with a 'boring' +2Str for general characters. Rather than making a new path come with +8 stats (which makes the choice a no-brainer over anything else), simply give the path itself. You are giving a choice of future opportunity vs short term solid gains.
Rares should tantalise the player to consider the possibility of taking this character in a new direction, or push the character into risky territory, whereas commons should help the character stabilize and maintain their current role. I don't mind some of the other options of always giving a set stat gain or a limited choice of uncommons / rares, but I don't think the current system is as broken as some make out. If changing of rares and uncommons made each selection a hard choice between 3-4 out of the 6 for the current character, I'd be happy.
If it was me i'd just end up questing on and on until I got it. I mean, you've already decided on your specialization, so you're not going to start using your sov for combat at that stage just because you were forced to take one combat trait. If a player has an idea for a specialization why not let them pursue it? Doesn't randomization just encourage people to character spam more than they want to, and make characters a mediocre mush of unwanted, forgotten about and underutilised traits, themselves devalued by the fact that you have 30 of them?
Don't get me wrong, the player shouldn't be able to do everything he wants, but he needs to have a satisfying reason why he can't in order to enjoy the game. They need to be arbitrary, rather than random reasons. "I can't have cavalry because I was unlucky and didn't spawn near horses" is satisfying; "I can't cast fire magic because I rolled bad dice" is not. True, they ARE both based on random number generators ultimately, but there is a subtle distinction at play. The first scenario has it's basis in previous events that the player has already accepted, the latter does not.
Mage and warrior are both worthless compared to assassin.
Assassin helps you build up a ridiculous dodge such that enemies simply don't hit (while you crit for ridiculous damage ridiculously often).
My sov solos the whole map with assassin.
Just to counterpoint some of all this negativity. I think its fine as it is with the random choices. However some more rare options tied to an individual path would be nice.
It is a little too random right now. I posted some options for improvement here:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/416767
Notice the clear appreciation of Balder's Gate.
We want to drop a ton of items, but to really pull off a sense of excitement when finding a great item, there needs to be non-optimal items, both for your class, and in general. By specifically targeting stats at classes, we can reduce the amount of item overlap, diversify our item pool, and create a cleaner, more exciting itemization system.
Quote from the latest dev journal for Diablo III. It would seem to be somewhat relevant to this conversation that rares traits DO make the character a little more exciting when they drop, however I think the amount of times a rare comes up doesn't make them feel all that rare. I like how only some of my ~lv15 characters have multiclassed, but most have over half rare choices in their current skill set. In the Diablo III example, they want lots of options to increase the joy of finding a rare, but those options are scattered over many, many individual events. Having lots and lots of options all lined up at the same time doesn't really increase the excitement of finding a rare, in fact it detracts as I'll usually look for the quality first, then what the skill actually is, so you need 2 passes through the list to make one choice.
Personally I'd like to see more balance, but it's interesting to see Blizzard do an about-face on the topic.
On the topic of hero level ups, is it possible to do so via any other means than combat? I actually want to have some administrators, but sitting at home running the household doesn't do them any favours does it? They HAVE to go slaughtering to gain levels which doesn't allow any flexibility. It just seems wrong that a hero who has chosen the 'path of the governer' must still be a killer to gain levels.
Maybe there could be a variety of xp streams? Perhaps base xp requirements per level could be doubled, and a hero could earn double xp by performing the action that is associated with the 'path' they have chosen? No prob if they get another 'path' later and get double xp from both paths, I don't see that would be unbalancing.
Warriors/assassins/defenders could get more xp for dealing/taking damage as appropriate.
Casters could get more xp per mana spent and/or for damage dealt by spells.
Administrators could get xp per building built/unit trained, population ganied int he city they are overseeing.
@ Guryon given that mana is a limited resource and cliking the 'attack' button is not, I do not see this as a fair balancing mechanic. Also units and buildings constructed are limited, and I don't want to encourage the idea of repeatedly putting useless military units in queue to be disbanded for the purpose of leveling an administrator.
That said, I don't see why administrators couldn't come with a +x xp per turn while stationed in a city.
I think that hero's with an administrator perk should get 1 xp every 15 or 25 turns. that way they will level up over time even if you just leave them in your city to help with production.
1 every 15 turns.... so at turn 600 when the game should be over, the administrator will be level 2? On that note the 25% chance to get 1 xp is completely rediculous. This is the exact ammount it provides in fall from heaven, except the xp needed for next level was 2,5,10 and 30. The ammounts in this game are at least 10x higher. It seems like the people creating buildings are in a different team then those designing heroes, and aren't communicating with each other.
I generally like the current system/perks (and the randomness of it) - however, I don't like that the "path of..." doesn't restrict you at all. Does it make sense to restrict you to just 2 paths? This way you can have dual class but still makes it so your choice limits you somewhat.
Mozo
True, but it is only one way they could get XP. Also combat SHOULD be risky, so warriors gaining xp in combat would be risking their lives, whereas mages enhancing units and towns and cast overland spells at no risk. Perhaps this could be balanced more somewhat by having mana easier to gain but spells cost more to cast (giving them more xp per cast). Anyway, it's just an idea for alternative ways of advancing hersoes. The actual mechanics don't bother me as much as not having options.
Administrators don't have to remain in the same city. Once the one they have been managing is doing well they could move on to a new city that still has lots of buildings left to be constructed.
I think you should have seperate XP systems and seperate levels for combat, and adminstration... maybe magic too.
So, do some questing and you are now level 10 combatant (same traits as now)... but you are still a level 1 administrator. Administer a city though and you level up as an administrator. They two are just seperate.
Have the number of people in a city determine its administration XP, up to a cap determined by your current level (lower level admins learn slower if dumped in the capital) and where each city splits the admin XP between present heroes, so for ideal growth you want 1 admin a city. But moving high level admins into a city lets them all give bonuses while not going up in level.
Randomness does not allow for adequate character progression. I'll choose Evoker I and II, only to be offered strength and melee attack boosts in the future. Not only is this completely unintuitive from a character building perspective; it's also maddening in terms of planning strategically and building armies.
Randomness ought to be constrained. With a back-of-the-lines caster, there is always a trade-off between, say, spell damage and spell mastery. There is also a trade-off between either of those and initiative, for example. There is no functional tradeoff, however, between any of those and melee attack -- at least not for a caster.
The randomness I'm comfortable with is the kind found in recruited champions. This randomness meets my above criteria of intuitive (people come from all walks of life; it makes sense that their skills might not be so utterly specialized) and non-maddening because they are generally at least somewhat specialized (level 2 in some trait or another; sometimes level 3).
In summary: I for one, would very much welcome skill tech trees. If optimizing isn't your thing, by all means randomize the techs you research and the armors, weapons, and skills your units come with. Let me know how that works out for you. Alternatively, you could always choose random skills within tech trees. We're not stopping you!
Very interesting thread. Once again, we got a discussion about Randomization or Not. First of all, since this game is strongly supported in randomized elements, I find that applying it to hero development should be part of it. I understand that affects a lot the idea of designing the hero that the player wants to have. But this way helps in trying different combinations, and I see it as each hero has his own "personality", with its good and bad things. Aiming for the "perfect" hero (warrior, mage...) in each game is boring at long-term.
Remember too that this system allows to add new traits in the future (expansions or mods) easier, than if the upgrade tree was closed with determined options.
Now, the problem is that if the idea of randomization is good, at the end the different choices are not so big. Each path would beneficiate of some more upgradeable traits (those with I,II,III,,,,) that were related with the path. There are already some, but some more would increase differentiation. I mean, all assassins will have almosts the same traits, so what I guess was intended to give variety, results in an assassin that is 'brute' and other one that is 'impulsive', for example, and the rest of traits are more or less the same....
Finally, one of the things I really miss from old MoM, and I think it would give FE a little of more variety in Hero Upgrades, is the Stat Point that the player could assign to hero's stats. Now, each level gives 2 HP and I think +1 accuracy (correct me if I'm wrong): that is 3 stat points per level. I would change this. I think the player should assign at least 1 or 2 of those 3 points (lets keep the +HP untouchable if you wish). If the player could assign one stat point per level, that is 10 stat points at level 10. Not too much, but that would give a little of more control to the stats...
I disagree with SOLSOLSOL.
There are just some areas where i want stability over randomness, and when it comes to developing my heroes, i should not have to rely on randomness. When building a city, i do get to control what building and troops i make, right? I don't just set my archer and it comes out with random stats?
With heroes, this is an area of the game i want little to no randomness. I hate it when i finally get a level up and all 5 abilities are unhelpful, or not part of my build. Instead, i want to choose my promotions from a steady list of "what i meet prereq's for" like promoting troops in Civ.
Well, you can definitely mod that in. Might still get some random choices to fill out the five available slots, but your tree traits will definitely be on there.
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