Ruins & Dead Heroes - Early game gamble problem?!

[kenc80]

I'm with Smursh and others. Against this proposal. It has to be a gamble.

[Finite]

So can someone explain to me how these figures add up? 1st level barbarian with a single scout. Why aren't the sides 7 against 5? And what would be lost if the game would display these as percentages instead of sides?

[Chazar]

@Finite:
Because for efficiency reasons, the game uses math to calculate an equivalent single percentage chance for a battle that would otherwise involve an arbitrary number of dice rolls, see Warpedia: Battle Calculations This warpedia page shows an example at the end, where a battle using die 20 is converted to single roll - pretty close to what you show above.

[Chazar]

Some people dislike uncertainty. But the whole point is the gamble. If we didn't want a gamble, we'd not have a dice system.

I agree that it has to be a gamble, that was not my point at all!

Like reducing the number of dice rolls in a battle, we could also reduce the game to a single roll of the die to determine the winner, but that would be boring, wouldnt it? The point is that the game consists of a lot of small gambles, and each player decides how many and how much risks he takes. All the gambles should be roughly "on par" with each other. However, I feel that Turn1 ruin explorations stick out by too much.

Restricting the search of Level 1 ruins to Level 2 and above Heroes would not take a away the gamble at all, it just prevents it to decide an entire game on its own.

[LPhillips]

You've missed the point of the gamble again, then.
1) It doesn't decide the game.
2) It's possible to hedge your bets and never lose by using the correct hero and support.

It's a small gamble, not an all-stakes gamble. Any time that is not the case, it is the product of bad management or bad map design, and seldom the second if ever. It's actually far more likely that one player getting Ragnarok and another getting ~600gold will determine the winner.

[Chazar]

It's a small gamble, not an all-stakes gamble. Any time that is not the case, it is the product of bad management or bad map design, and seldom the second if ever.

Bad management being rewarded is my point here:
Suppose I send my hero into the ruin at Turn 1. If the hero dies or find ragnarok, I just surrender; if the hero lives I have a headstart. Since a hero with UL8 ~80% chance of survival, about 80% of my games have this headstart. It makes sense for anyone playing a larger number of games, doesnt it? I think it is cheesy.

[Jeremy]

I dunno. In one game, I searched two ruins on turn 1, got 1000 gold for my efforts. Awesome.

Now, not quite sure how to capitalize on this. Immediately build Spiders? Get a second hero -- perhaps a Barbarian this time?

My point is, even a whole bunch of money on turn 1 doesn't feel wildly imbalancing. To me, it's always been primarly about the production capablity of all your cities.

[LPhillips]

Chazar, that sounds problematic in theory, but that isn't the way it plays out in practice. If you quit after losing your hero or not finding exactly what you want, then you're doing it wrong. If a single ruin reward makes one player the automatic winner, then that's bad map design. There does not seem to be any problem with the system itself.

[Chazar]

I dunno. In one game, I searched two ruins on turn 1, got 1000 gold for my efforts. Awesome.

Now, not quite sure how to capitalize on this. Immediately build Spiders? Get a second hero -- perhaps a Barbarian this time?

A second hero on turn 2 seems rather huge to me: It almost always doubles your expansion rate, and since growth works exponential in general, it can give you a pretty solid lead.

If you quit after losing your hero or not finding exactly what you want, then you're doing it wrong.

Well, I would not, but if other players would then they would benefit from such a despicable behaviour, provided that they play many ladder games - unlike me.

Whatsoever, I have raised the issue, we discussed it and apparently pretty much everyone disagrees with me that there is a loophole. A good sign that I am wrong, even though I do not accept the stated counter arguments (namely: "doing it wrong" does not prevent some people from exploiting loop holes in ladder games; and having +800 gold on 1st turn not being a big advantage). I can live with that, especially since I much prefer team games for many other reasons anyhow, and the issue being much less severe in team games.

[piranha]

We will balance the gold in the ruins in ver 0.9 to make than span smaller. Should help.