Gaidal Cain wrote:An extemely bad one. I could say something how you about shouldn't be here if you can't come up with something better, but I dislike such arguments...
Analogy is one of the better debating techniques available. It would be very hard for me to come up with something better, except maybe pointing a gun to your head and telling you to agree. At the end of the day, the analogy was that you are dealing with a limited resource (levels in H5, time in the analogy) and how you spend it shouldn't affect later decisions or rule out choices. The analogy chosen was designed to point out how patently absurd such a situation is.
The alternative analogy demonstrated, one of academic study, was an attempt to justify the current H5 method, but quite frankly it is just as flawed as the H5 system. In fact, two arguments to counter it were provided with the analogy. Being smart enough to do both would be akin to ta "Take Both" button, which nobody is suggesting. However, the "do them one after the other, even though it takes longer" is exactly the option that has been denied, that I am arguing for.
GC wrote:Of course. Part of the decision of going after the ultimate is that you pretty much give up adapting to the circumstances. It's a choice you make.
Yeah, because that is really strategic. Sod the map - I'm going for Ultimate. I should add that as a sig or somthing: "Ultimates: For when you really couldn't give a stuff about the map!"
No. The existance of an ultimate skill gives you the choice early on to strive for it, or to make a hero more suited to circumstances. It does not force you to go for it. Nor does it mean that you cannt start going for it, and at a later point decide that it's probably better to choose another set of skills.
For me, if the choice at a level-up is just about what I should get on my hero right now and don't have much implications for later, I find it much less interesting. It cheapens the choice I have if I know that I could pick the other options any time I want at a later time.
It does deny you the choice of doing something else, and then deciding to go for Ultimate however. Which would really be useful, because it would be nice to be able to compete on a map, and make sure I'm going to survive long enough to reach Ultimate.
Not to mention that as it currently stands, going for aultimate and then chaning your mind is really stupid, because most, if not all, of the skills and abilities required for the Ultimate are weaker than the rest of the bunch, and are apparently only justifed by the fact that they can lead you to the ultimate. In fact, in many cases, the only way that Nival could get anybody to take them is be forcing them to in order to get the ultimate...
If we're arguing sematics, it's a random number generator that chooses those, and not an AI.
Okay - I'll let you have that. But it's still determined by the computer...
Since tactics is such a good ability, it stands to reason that hving it will make you overall much more effective in a way that Power of Speed doesn't. It will allow me to fight more difficult fights easier and with less losses, and will thus have an effect that accumulates from the point I get it.
Techincally, the same applies to Power of Speed, and all the ohter abilities. The sooner you take it, the more often it applies, so the better it works. Since this is a universal factor, it cancels out, and should not be considered.
No. There are more options without limits. That is not the same as more choices- I have to choose between as many skills and abilities each level up in both systems. But without limits, my feeling is that each choice is consiederably less important.
Without limits, you still have the same number of options, because there are still the same number of skills and abilities in the system as before. However, without limits, you have more choice with what you can do with those options.
Of course. But I also won't have any way of making sure that those I don't want will never be offered to me again, and I won't be forced to make hard choices to decide which I want enough to use my valuable slot on.
UC having more pre-reqs matters enorumously. If the map is small, I Can safely say that Tactics is better. The larger the map, the more viable the other choice becomes- and the less meaningful the choice becomes with your system.
As it stands, there is currently no way to stop you from getting what you don't want offered to you over and over again, so this criticism is moot.
It seems that your definition of a "hard" and "meaningful" choice is based solely on what you lose and what you can't have. Yes, this would be lost under "my" system, but you can always punish yourself in this way by vowing not to take certain skills and abilities if you take others.
But for some of us, our choices aren't based on what we lose, but what we gain. If it helps our character now, we take it. If it doesn't, we won't. The "hard" and "meaningful" choices come from trying to decide which of the options will help us the most at this point in time, based on what we have seen from the map so far.
This is actually what happened when I played through the Inferno campaign. I never got offered Luck on a levelup, and couldn't get there.
It's part of the gamble for the ultimate. And No starting hero that I know of comes with three abilities, so I'll always be able to get tactics if I want.
Um, the point is that if the Hero has the wrong starting skill, they are denied the ability of getting the ultimate, and you don't have a say in that decision.
Of course. But I doubt that very many MP games will be played where you get to the levels needed for the ultimates anyway.
It's currently level 29 or 30 to get your ultimate. Even though there are no large maps at this time, there will inevitably be a map where you can get your heroes to ultimates. Quite frankly - as fun as the SP games are, the HoMM games tend to survive through multiplayer, and if you can't get ultimates in MP games, there isn't really much point in ultimates at all.
I could anyway. My hero was perhaps not exactly how he could have been, but for me, that's part of the fun.
I'm sorry, I forgot you were a masochist who's idea of fun involved "hard" choices and the loss of options. But I, for one, do not like having the option to go for the ultimate taken away from me by a bad level up or a dodgy Witch Hut visit.
Or I'm simply better.
In every case, all equal balancing factors cancel out, leaving those factors which are out of balance - be they luck, choice, strategy, army size, terrain, or whatever. In a situation where all other factors are equal, including player skill, a weak hero caused by poor abilities would lose.
The only time when the poor hero could win is luck, which is the only other factor that can be unbalanced without player intervention.
Believe me, I feel the same way. I just think that the abilities that it unlocks can be part of why you choose it.
Choosing an ability because it unlocks something else may be a consideration if you are rushing for the higher ability. However, choosing something on the basis of whether it locks out ohter options, however, should not even be a factor in balancing or choice.
Acutally, Navigation needs worth on land just because water travelling isn't a very large part of Heroes gameplay. As I said, I wouldn't be taking it even if it didn't lock anything else, simply because it costs a level-up.
This is actually a mapping flaw, not neccessarily a game system flaw. If there were maps where water travel and exploration WERE a large part of the game, then it would see more use. As it stands, even in the camapign maps, water travel just isn't important - it's just a natural barrier to segreate an otherwise land-based map.
The most water-based map I've seen was the final map for the Demon campaign, and even then, quite a lot of it involved island hopping via portals and underground tunnels...
THat's what I mean with thinking ahead. Not thinking ahead would be just choosing whatever you think is cool at a levelup. Taking something early on and then complaining that you really wanted something else isn't thinking ahead, and it isn't strategy.
But taking Navigation on a water-based map IS strategy. Yet, in order to do this, you have to sacrifice going for the Ultimate. Since the Ultimate is the Ultimate, there is no incentive to adapt, but rather stick to your gameplan of getting the ultimate and ignore the events in the game completely, until such time as you are denied the opportunity to gain your ultimate.
In lots of games, you take things early on because that's what you need early on. Then later on, as the game changes, you adapt and focus on that. This is not the casin in H5 with heroes development, where you are forced pretty much from the start to dedicate a hero to either the early game or the late game.
Part of strategy is adapting to the situation at hand. You need to be able to adapt, to be able to find and discover the opponent's weaknesses. H5 doesn't seem to do that at all - it's just a race to get your town and heroes levelled up for a final battle where luck determines the winner - because there are so many penalties for adapting.
Let me quote you again. I'll emphasise your complaining about bad documentation:
That's where we differ - it makes playing the game harder, because you have to know the system, and the map, and the AI, and all the other little factors of chance before you play. The system works if you have a fully printed out Skill Wheel, and complete walkthroughs for all the maps and the campaigns.
Maybe not half, but enough of it. And the game does allow you to adapt to things as you learn about them, but that depends on whether you foolishly spend your ability slots early on or wait until you know what you're up against.
And let me remind you and onlookers about the bits you didn't emphasis. You keep trying to convince me that better documentation solves the problem. But it doesn't - I can see this, because I have a copy of the skill wheel and the game still doesn't play any better.
How on earth would you gamble on not getting the ultimate? If you made the decision not to go for it, you don't go for it. If you suspect your opponent goes for it, try to catch him while his hero is in the middle of his development. It's all part of the game.
It's quite simple really, if you take the time to think about it. One of the main reasons a player decides not to go for the ultimate is based on their chances of getting it. Once you've made your choice based on that, you are gambing that your decision was the right one, which means that you are gambling that the other requirements for the ultimate will not appear.
Yes, you can manipulate this somewhat, but basically, your main gamble is that you won't get the skills required for the ultimate. If somehow you do get the skills anyway, you will be sick as a parrot if the only reaons you can't get Urgash's Call is because you chose Tactics rather than Power of Speed.
You may like this, but I'd rather be able to pick up another ability under Attack to be able to take Teleport Assault and get Urgash's Call on the following level, because I have all the other requirements.
