Allow us to control stat placement on Heroes / Units.

It would be very nice if we were able to control the stat placement for our heroes.

Even if you dont give us control over stats for units, please make stats less random. Base it off what the units do a lot so they dont get points in useless stats (Archers who build melee).

Hegorn wrote:

It would be very nice if we were able to control the stat placement for our heroes.

Even if you dont give us control over stats for units, please make stats less random. Base it off what the units do a lot so they dont get points in useless stats (Archers who build melee).

Stats are random because we want to retain the surprise/anticipation element.

However, Archers SHOULD NOT get melee bonus and that is something that we can do.

You're probably seeing a bonus to melee on archers due to the research of masterwork weapons and those associated technologies. And while on that subject Rune, is there a reason another branch of military tech isn't available to increase missile, or would it be possible for the +melee tree to increase melee on light/heavy/cav while also increasing missile on archer/artillery?

RuneSlayer wrote:

Stats are random because we want to retain the surprise/anticipation element.

However, Archers SHOULD NOT get melee bonus and that is something that we can do.

Fair enough and thanks for the reply.

Are there any indirect ways to control how units/heroes get their stats? Like say if a hero has spent a level embedded with archers, he is more likely to get missile. If he spent a lot of time taking damage, endurance. That sort of thing?

Hegorn wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

Stats are random because we want to retain the surprise/anticipation element.

However, Archers SHOULD NOT get melee bonus and that is something that we can do.

Fair enough and thanks for the reply.

Are there any indirect ways to control how units/heroes get their stats? Like say if a hero has spent a level embedded with archers, he is more likely to get missile. If he spent a lot of time taking damage, endurance. That sort of thing?

The short answer is no, but your suggestion is a KILLER!

Here is another question for you / devs - Because some stats are hidden (like Missile Strength), it does not seem to get any improvement based on leveling up.

As I level up my units, archers are starting to feel like they do not scale up nearly as well as other units based on levels / gear. Could this be a reason why?

I had the same thought, heroes gaining stats based on the squad they level in. While it does add some SUSPENSE it also adds FRUSTRATION.

The biggest problem i have with it, is i dont really care if i get Melee or Strength or Endurance or Armor on my hero, those are ALL GOOD for what he does. I do care when he gets missile. If he gets a LOT of missile then i'll eventually stick him in an archer squad, but if a hero is half and half hes just going to under-preform.

One 'possible' solution would be to add units that DO benefit from melee and ranged equally. Right now im a little worried that re-speccing a hero might be a Gem thing, turn a jack of all trades into a master of one for a price.

Khor wrote:

I had the same thought, heroes gaining stats based on the squad they level in. While it does add some SUSPENSE it also adds FRUSTRATION.

The biggest problem i have with it, is i dont really care if i get Melee or Strength or Endurance or Armor on my hero, those are ALL GOOD for what he does. I do care when he gets missile. If he gets a LOT of missile then i'll eventually stick him in an archer squad, but if a hero is half and half hes just going to under-preform.

One 'possible' solution would be to add units that DO benefit from melee and ranged equally. Right now im a little worried that re-speccing a hero might be a Gem thing, turn a jack of all trades into a master of one for a price.

Not an easy thing to do, if we want to retain the suspense of levelling up a hero/unit.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Khor wrote:

I had the same thought, heroes gaining stats based on the squad they level in. While it does add some SUSPENSE it also adds FRUSTRATION.

The biggest problem i have with it, is i dont really care if i get Melee or Strength or Endurance or Armor on my hero, those are ALL GOOD for what he does. I do care when he gets missile. If he gets a LOT of missile then i'll eventually stick him in an archer squad, but if a hero is half and half hes just going to under-preform.

One 'possible' solution would be to add units that DO benefit from melee and ranged equally. Right now im a little worried that re-speccing a hero might be a Gem thing, turn a jack of all trades into a master of one for a price.

Not an easy thing to do, if we want to retain the suspense of levelling up a hero/unit.

I understand the benefits of suspense, but let me share my view on RNG and explain why random character stats may be detracting from the player experience of character progression.

Even if you want to keep the completely random nature of stats, there may be other ways to allow choice into character progression. I'll try not to turn this into a dissertation - no promises on brevity though.

TLDR in Orange.

===
There are definitely game mechanics where RNG is a good thing. It helps create elements of surprise and it is often the basis for unpredictable experiences that we as players have to overcome. Within bounds, that is a good thing in the world/environment that we as players live in and affect.

Where RNG becomes less of a good thing is when it detracts from meaningful choices that players make in self development. Meaningful choices is a key element in good gameplay - there is a lot of research in psychology that backs this up. It means that the player's choices actually have meaning and affect our future selves, the future environment, and thus future gameplay.

This is one of the big reasons why players felt frustration when regions were flipping sooo slowly - it felt like their choices and actions had little to no meaning on their environment. This is also why there was some backlash on how quickly items were breaking - players felt their choice in items did not matter enough. Balancing this is difficult, but really important for long-term fun gameplay. As a side note, bad F2P game designers prey on this balance his to monetize their game and I'm very happy to see that Agincourt's philosophy shuns that type of behavior.

Lets look at progression now. Full progression in this game is quite a grind - and thats not necessarily a bad thing. The gameplay of the "grind" is quite enjoyable overall. With the CP container changes there is more unpredictability on the map and player actions can matter more. In PvP, there is always a level of unpredictability and this helps keep experiences new and interesting.

But when looking at player progression, what choices do we as players make that actually change the experiences we will have in the game? What can we do to tweak our "build" when it comes to how our armies behave on the battlefield? Right now, there are 3 big choices that players have:

• Choice in what items we equip on our units.
  
• What units we select for our army.
  
• Players also had a big choice when they chose their race - a largely uninformed choice for most people though.

Beyond that, between any two players of the same race who have unlocked the same number of units, there is scarcely any difference between them.

Looking at the above 3 ways to differentiate yourself, they all have problems. I wont go into depth on all of them...

• Choice of Race. It is a single large choice that has a relatively huge affect on gameplay overall. Combined with the fact that it is largely uninformed for many players, and that is not a good thing. In general, the bigger the player choice, the more important it is that the player be in a position to make an educated choice, otherwise you risk long term frustration. The addition of a race reset helps alleviate some of that frustration.
  
  
• Choice of what items to equip. Item choice and stat choice is very closely related because they are essentially doing the same thing - improving certain aspects of your units. This is a meaningful choice that affects gameplay. "Do I want more defensive units? Do I want to sacrifice all defense and turn this unit into a hard hitting flanker? I'll need movement then!" The choice to build our units and specialize them is important.
  
  The problem right now is that the proportion of control/choice in that specialization is balanced completely towards items. In fact, the more I develop my units, the proportion of meaningful choice that I have over their unit stats diminishes (because items contribute a smaller and smaller proportion of the unit's stats as the unit levels up).
  
  I think most players would prefer to see a more even balance, or even tipping in favor of stat placement. Something to survey or uservoice in the future perhaps.
  
  
• Choice of army composition. This is a great choice for players and the basis for a lot of the potential to create an ever-evolving metagame that maintains a truly compelling endgame with high replayability.

Combining the ability to specialize unit's stats more, plus the choice of what units to field on the battlefield - that is where the player will be able to differentiate himself from others.

The more a player can specialize his unit's stats, the more likely he will want to develop other units that specialize in something slightly different. This in turn means that a player will have more options on the battlefield because he can build a bigger variety of armies. That is meaningful character progression that adds purpose to the grind without necessarily adding harmful power creep. In an environment that is constantly evolving, there will always be a new metagame to build towards. Players will want to try different tactics and different builds which means more units to develop.

===
So what ways are there to add meaningful choice to self development?

• Allow some form of control over unit stats. Direct control is one way. If the devs would prefer to maintain some suspense over stat placement, allow players to influence their chances of which stats will be improved upon level up. Show those chances in the UI somewhere so that players understand and can see that their choices are making a difference. That would keep some of the suspense, but also give players some choice in their own development.
  
• Allow greater choice in what units we research. For instance, instead of forcing players to unlock a single specific special unit when they learn the research "Platemail Armor", allow them to choose from a selection of 2-3 special units. Then perhaps when they unlock "Adamantium Armor" they can choose another special unit. Eventually a player may be able to unlock ALL units, but the order in which they unlock them will create a deep metagame. The units offered through Guild Warfare would also be a good way to provide this kind of development choice.

Okay, I've gone on long enough, but I hope this helps explain why too much RNG in character development can be a bad thing.

Ok going to add my recent thoughts to this ! Apparently not all heroes are created equally... Why not? O.o i thought they'd all be the same stat wise, or have the same amount of stats all-told. +5 endurance on a dwarf +5 str on a orc +5 melee on a demon +5 ugly on an elf etc. Apparently skeleton heroes stink, 160 stats total i think.. Dwarves have 170, Elf/Orc have 175.

Now its been said that not all stats are equal, since like endurance > armor or something. Yet a level could add +3 to each of these, its impartial ! So since we cant choose what stats our heroes get, maybe have some stats grow automatically, like 3 fixed stats and 3 random per level.
Elf gains 2 missile 1 melee a level (the archers, but skilled)
Dwarves gain 2 endurance 1 str per level (the tanks!)
Orcs gain 2 str 1 melee per level (the muscle! rawr!)
Undead gain 1 melee 1 endurance 1 armor per level (the...undead!)
Demons gain 2 melee 1 endurance per level (fierce !)
Humans gain 1 armor 1 melee and 1 missile per level (jack of all trades!)

Aside from that, can we ever expect to see passive/active abilities from heroes? Maybe thats why undead have lower stats, because they'll get good passives or something? Specialized hero classes, we'd love it

Also i noticed 'Magic' isnt a stat... Will we ever see Casters? :O