How often your ultimate helped you ?

[Lyan]

I don't want to make another thread about the difficulty to get the racial ultimates. We all know how hard, long and random it is to get them. Indeed this difficulty make them imo more than casual, to speak straight considering all the games i played except the campains, only once i make some use of my ultimate. I tried em all, but generally either i ended killing some freakish neutral stacks while controlling my last AI opponent to gain the last necessary levels. Either i did it with a friend slaughtering his secondaries army while he was doing the same with mines poursuing a same goal. In either case when i finally grabbed the skill, there was usually nothing decent to fight anymore.

So here is the question I'd like you to answer :

Campains excepted, how many times did you make some real use of your racial ultimate ?

[okrane]

Never... voted never, although using Sir_Toejam's mod that makes them easier to get I got the ultimates a few times.
I would say that they are useful, but if getting them easier (see the mod's specifications)
Right now they are too hard to get to make a difference, I mean the game is over by that time

[Alamar]

I have never bothered with it outside of campaigns [except for testing purposes].

I usually play with random heroes && random alignments on heroic difficulty so I can't be wasting my first 20+ levels with suboptimal skill sets on the chance that I'll get an ultimate which may not even be worth very much.

Note: Maybe I'm just not a good enough player to fend off the AI if I don't try to build "for the now and immediate future" instead of building for L25+ .... [which I rarely get to anyway].

On the other hand I don't really care much either. I view the Ultimate Abilities as more of a tell-a-story type skill & goal as opposed to something that I want to make a powerful hero. Therefore leaving it effectively as a campaign or RPG map only ability is fine by me.

[Lyan]

in their actual form they are somehow too powerfull to be easyer to get, except maybe the knight's one. But protection, luck, gatting ... gives you such an advantage on your opponent... the finality of this is that they are simply useless actually. Making them easyer to get would simply be a mistake since everyone would be wanting to take em, thus each race would ve one "hero tape"
I think more "in between" special skill would have been just great. Some skills requiring like 12-15 skills points, maybe 2 or 3 defined skills. each race having 3 oh them. Less powerfull than the actual ultimates, but more usefull than the actual "mid range" skills". I'm sure than none of this will be made, simple bugs are not corrected, so they probably haven't even thought about it.

[Caradoc]

Outside the campaigns, I've only had the ultimates a few times, and by then the game was almost over. There is a map (Isles of Terra, I think) where you can get a prisoner who has the ultimate. Getting it early in the game without having to traverse the entire skill tree makes it very useful. Great map, by the way.

[winterfate]

The ultimates would be nice IF:

1. They rebalance the weaker ones over at Nival.
2. They were just a bit easier to get (average level to get ultimate 25 instead of 30+ like it is now).

[Angelspit]

I don't even bother with them.

Good poll by the way.

[Lyan]

Outside the campaigns, I've only had the ultimates a few times, and by then the game was almost over. There is a map (Isles of Terra, I think) where you can get a prisoner who has the ultimate. Getting it early in the game without having to traverse the entire skill tree makes it very useful. Great map, by the way.

Yeah :p this map is really nice, last time i played it as inferno and the infernal hero prisoner had it. The hero was indeed only lvl 10 or 12 but with the ultimate already aquired. I haven't played it from other starting point to check if they had also an hero in jail with the ultimate. Anyway this was a really good way to see the efficiency of this skill considering the map is really well constructed.

[DaemianLucifer]

Nevr bothered getting them in the first place.

[OliverFA]

in their actual form they are somehow too powerfull to be easyer to get, except maybe the knight's one. But protection, luck, gatting ... gives you such an advantage on your opponent... the finality of this is that they are simply useless actually. Making them easyer to get would simply be a mistake since everyone would be wanting to take em, thus each race would ve one "hero tape"
I think more "in between" special skill would have been just great. Some skills requiring like 12-15 skills points, maybe 2 or 3 defined skills. each race having 3 oh them. Less powerfull than the actual ultimates, but more usefull than the actual "mid range" skills". I'm sure than none of this will be made, simple bugs are not corrected, so they probably haven't even thought about it.

I completely agree. Some ultimate skills are too powerful, and having a hero with them equals to wining the game. But they come so late that the game is over anyway.

They should be easier to get, something calculated for the mid-game, or even for the 3/4 of the game. That would add a new strategic layer. If the player was losing he could try to get the ultimate to balance things.

But my other complain is that some ultimates are too lame. The knight ultimate is just a joke. It would not be worth wasting a single point on it even if it was easier to get.

[Sir_Toejam]

I'm the only one that voted for ultimates always being useful.

hmmm, I wonder why that is...

[Lyan]

in their actual form they are somehow too powerfull to be easyer to get, except maybe the knight's one. But protection, luck, gatting ... gives you such an advantage on your opponent... the finality of this is that they are simply useless actually. Making them easyer to get would simply be a mistake since everyone would be wanting to take em, thus each race would ve one "hero tape"
I think more "in between" special skill would have been just great. Some skills requiring like 12-15 skills points, maybe 2 or 3 defined skills. each race having 3 oh them. Less powerfull than the actual ultimates, but more usefull than the actual "mid range" skills". I'm sure than none of this will be made, simple bugs are not corrected, so they probably haven't even thought about it.

I completely agree. Some ultimate skills are too powerful, and having a hero with them equals to wining the game. But they come so late that the game is over anyway.

They should be easier to get, something calculated for the mid-game, or even for the 3/4 of the game. That would add a new strategic layer. If the player was losing he could try to get the ultimate to balance things.

But my other complain is that some ultimates are too lame. The knight ultimate is just a joke. It would not be worth wasting a single point on it even if it was easier to get.

That's true, i'll add to the knight's one the dungeon one, rage of the elements. The skill in itself is pretty good, but is any skill good enough to give up sorcery and/or destr when you play a sorcer ? I mean let's imagine a massive hot seat or multi play, on let's say, battle for adrona map (too large map, lot of neutral stacks...) where u know there's a possibility your main hero will get the sufficient level to get skill before it's all over. Will you agree with your sorcer hero to put all you skill points in luck, logistic, enlightment and warmachines ? i mean doing so it's more likely you will end up slaughtered by a more balanced hero at lvl 15... How those nival guys can expect you to discard all magic skills when playing a hero born for magic... that would be masochism... I agree that any final attribute in any game should be hard to get, but living a pain during 30 levels is maybe a little too much...

[ThunderTitan]

I'm the only one that voted for ultimates always being useful.

Coz you're the ony one that thinks that the game wouldn't be over long before you'd get one.

[DaemianLucifer]

I'm the only one that voted for ultimates always being useful.

hmmm, I wonder why that is...

It couldnt be because you are playing with the game with a mod that makes them easier to get longer than anyone else