Beta 4 Heroes

[Pillager]

So, if I understand the upcoming hero system....you get both skill and ability points when you level up a hero?

I think I understand most of the skills and abilities...but what is ambush?

Undead lore was an interesting way to go, curious to see how these undead ruin guardians work. Will there only be one guardian per ruin or multiple?

[piranha]

Yes you get both type of points when you level up.

Ambush and group ambush is the new name for critical strike / critical stack. There will only be group ambush to increase on heroes. Does it seem like an okay word to use?

The ruin will have a resistance lets say 10 and if there are skeleton guarding the ruin with STR 2 there will be 5 skeletons.

I'd like to make ruin level 1 about 85% chance to win for a new hero, level 2 ruin 65% level 3 ruin 40% something like that. But I think the undead lore should be able to increased enough to be 100% sure to win in a ruin.


There is also a limit so that a hero level 1 can only search level 1 ruins, and level 2 hero can search 1,2 ruins and level 3 ruins require level 3 hero so you can't search a level 1 or 3 ruin with allies too early.

[KGB]

Piranha,

Ambush and group ambush is the new name for critical strike / critical stack. There will only be group ambush to increase on heroes. Does it seem like an okay word to use?

It's not the word I'd use for that skill. Ambush made me think there was a way for units to auto-engage an enemy stack as it passed by you. That way you could control squares around your stack so that enemy units couldn't freely walk past.

I'd prefer Critical Strike over Ambush. Or even First Strike over Ambush.

I'd like to make ruin level 1 about 85% chance to win for a new hero, level 2 ruin 65% level 3 ruin 40% something like that. But I think the undead lore should be able to increased enough to be 100% sure to win in a ruin.

I agree that it should be possible to 100% explore a ruin without dying if you increase your undead lore high enough. A 40% chance to survive a L3 ruin is pretty low. Or do you mean 40% chance if you never increase your undead lore?

There is also a limit so that a hero level 1 can only search level 1 ruins, and level 2 hero can search 1,2 ruins and level 3 ruins require level 3 hero so you can't search a level 1 or 3 ruin with allies too early.

I'd make it L3 to search L2 ruins and L5 to search L3 ruins. Even better would be if those L3 ruins could *only* be searched as a quest reward or for visiting a temple (a new temple type , not one of the 2 existing ones). So that if you completed a quest / visited a temple you would get a single L3 ruin unlocked for you. This would be similar to how War2/DLR revealed hidden ruins as quest rewards/sages.

KGB

P.S. Incidentally now that Towers are coming into Beta4 and these will grant city walls bonus's the Ruins/Temples should no longer be classified as city terrain and give a +1 wall bonus. Instead there should be 2 new terrain types called ruin and temple. Ghosts would get +2 (or +3) combat in ruins since they are undead and Archons/Devils/Demons would get +1 (or +2) combat in temples since they are celestial.

[Pillager]

I don't think ambush is all that bad a name...I always saw the gnolls in DLR as masters of sneaky tactics.

Keys for level three ruins given as quest rewards could be fun. It would be similar to revealing a hidden ruin...but would be even more limiting, since the hero with the key would have to visit the matching ruin. Killing a hero and taking his key might also be fun. Of course, the reward at these ruins would have to be worth all the effort.

I actually kind of like the +1 wall bonus from ruins...it gives them some value after they have been looted.

[KGB]

Pillager,

Keys for level three ruins given as quest rewards could be fun. It would be similar to revealing a hidden ruin...but would be even more limiting, since the hero with the key would have to visit the matching ruin. Killing a hero and taking his key might also be fun. Of course, the reward at these ruins would have to be worth all the effort.

I think an actual key would add more complexity than needed. It should just allow any of your heroes to search that ruin. So rather than a physical key you got a magic password that any hero could use. Then on a mouse over/click of the ruin it would say 'locked' if you could not search or 'unlocked' if you could.

I actually kind of like the +1 wall bonus from ruins...it gives them some value after they have been looted.

It's fine in Beta3. But it invalidates the use of towers in Beta4. Why spend gold to build a tower for L1 walls when you get them for free in a ruin. With the added bonus that the ruin can't be razed/or have it's walls lowered on capture like a tower can when it is captured.

At the very least ruins should lose the +1 bonus after they have been searched.

Also ruins should regenerate over time as I've suggested. War4 used that model very successfully. Each ruin had a 1% chance to regenerate each turn.

KGB

[Pillager]

No actual key?! Well..i suppose that would be simpler.

I'm not sure that having ruins give a wall bonus invalidates towers. It's all about location. If a ruin happens to be in a useful spot, then I doubt most folks would bother to build a tower there. However, mapmakers often plop ruins in the middle of a patch of swamp (or some equally useless spot), where no tower building is likely to happen anyway.

I would actually like to see ruins crumble into a pile of rubble after they are searched. When you have a bunch of games on the go, it would be nice to be able to tell at a glance whether a ruin has been searched or not.... rubble probably shouldn't have a wall bonus.

As far a re-spawning ruins.... I didn't play W4 long enough to run into that, so it seems vaguely wrong to me. To me ruins are kind of a springboard to give players some initial momentum.

[KGB]

Pillager,

I would actually like to see ruins crumble into a pile of rubble after they are searched. When you have a bunch of games on the go, it would be nice to be able to tell at a glance whether a ruin has been searched or not.... rubble probably shouldn't have a wall bonus.

Having ruins crumble would make it much easier in speed games to see if a ruin has been searched as well without having to mouse over/click on it. Attached is an example of how DLR did it (bottom picture is what you saw when you clicked on the ruin, the map graphic is the top 2 images).

I am definitely OK with having unsearched ruins providing a defense bonus if searched ruins don't. As long as you don't always get a bonus there because right now it's a cheese tactic that I use, hopping from ruin to ruin on many maps so that I am effectively always getting a +1 city bonus. It's even more ridiculous when cities themselves aren't giving any due to low wall levels.

As far a re-spawning ruins.... I didn't play W4 long enough to run into that, so it seems vaguely wrong to me. To me ruins are kind of a springboard to give players some initial momentum.

This is actually a really nice feature. Especially in LONG games that run 40+ turns. You tend to run out of ruins around turn 15-20 in most games, especially in games with 6-8 players. Now over time there will be a few new ruins to search to give heroes other things to do.

Not sure why it feels wrong. After all the ruin is still there physically. If you use a time frame of a turn being equal to 2 weeks then having a ruin regenerate makes complete sense as over the course of months some other monster would take up residence there just as animals take up residence in unused burrows in real life.

KGB

[LPhillips]

So, I couldn't really comment intelligently on the previous hero abilities, because I hadn't had the chance to test them until recently. I read a lot about terrain and stack bonuses being useless. I would like to strongly disagree right here. I just won a game based on using those stack bonuses to break the enemy's back.

First hero: 20 points available, enemy is marching units through open terrain to reinforce his holed up Dreadknight, and I have floods of light cavalry vectored in every turn. I popped a stack bonus for Open on, allowing me to let my hero sit within easy striking distance of the enemy's hero with 6-strength light cavalry mopping up his reinforcements and leveling me. I handily annihilated his reinforcements each turn and sat in precarious safety on open tiles until my heavy-hitters arrived and I took out his hero/city.

Second hero is fighting the enemy's flood of temple-enhanced troops landing in my territory every turn. I see a particularly potent stack sitting on Hills, so I balance my stack carefully, give my Valkerie a +Hills stack bonus, and wipe them up, netting me 4 levels. I then get a command bonus with points left over, and sit her on another hills tile.

Third hero is establishing a beachhead on the enemy's southern front. I barely have anything going for her, and I really need a city. Quick +City stack bonus, hit with a few light units and a couple of Devils, and I'm sitting pretty with some upgraded walls and reinforcements just two turns away.

After that last turn, where I gained a total of 7 hero levels and killed a hero thanks to careful management of stack bonuses, my opponent retired. So, you may say useless, I say very useful to the clever player.

[Pillager]

Lphillips,

I know the discussion your last post is referring to, and this isn't that thread.

[LPhillips]

I believe it is relevant to Beta4 heroes. I would like to see the stack bonuses available again.