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3 Cunning
3 Order magic
1 Eager
And my next intention was to get magic resistance. According to the chart that should be fairly easy, since the only skills I'd be given are impressive, chaos magic, magic resistance, learning, taxes or combat training. So a 33% chance each level up to get it (since it chooses 2 at random).
https://soc.th.gl/wielders/LadyElisaHammond
I got to LEVEL 15 and never once got magic resistance (5% chance, so certainly possible). And of course, once I fought the main enemy I was beaten by mass destruction magic which I had no counter for.
I mean....that's just a pure garbage system, flat out. The fact that magic resistance gives you 75% immunity, which STACKS with other effects, means that its pure luck whether you get crushed by magic or laugh it off.
There is something deeply flawed about a game where one RNG skill can even do that; in HoMM3 the similar skill resistance maxes to 20%(!?). Clearly the dev team realized how obnoxious a full magic-damage build was which is why they introduced a skill to negate it, but again I just get to level up and get garbage skills again and again (seriously "impressive" and "taxes" are just garbage on your main wielder).
If you're going to make skills that are practically mandatory against certain builds, I think offering just 2 choices per level up (and only one choice if an existing skill isn't maxed) is clearly a terrible solution. In HoMM3 super-important skills like Wisdom and schools of magic were offered every few levels. Songs of Conquest would be like if you could just randomly never got wisdom on your mage because you just rolled the dice poorly.
I'm suspecting you're right, but its a shame because many the things I (and others on discord) pointed out aren't that difficult to fix.
Things like increasing vision range across the board, or not giving away all hero artifacts on loss, or having the losing hero gain XP as well, or removing/curtailing momentum, are trivial to fix. It just seems like a lack of will or refusal to even consider PVP at all.
Like they copied Heroes of Might and Magic 3, arbitrarily changed a couple things (oh fog of war would be cool! Oh lets get rid of heroes retreating!) without thinking of the implications, and are now busy churning out DLC. I predict in a year this game will be completely dead; without a healthy PVP community people will get bored of the campaign or fighting the ai.
And that sucks! It's a great game with a lot of potential. So I hope we're both wrong :) .
So, while it wasn't what SoC is, HoMM3 did have FoW mechanics in it as well as other things to manipulate vision, like the Disguise spell.
That aside, I'd argue that those "next fight" sites are the built in "comeback mechanic" or rather what the Devs were intending for it to be used for. Enemy has unit/level advantage on you? Skirt around and stack a bunch of +stats for next fight and attack the enemy, since they can't see you have all those +stats, they are taken by surprise and devastated. Though, I agree it cuts both ways and becomes a "win more" feature as well.
As for Momentum... you already know why it is a mechanic; to counter 1 unit/small stacks. The way "mana" works in this game makes 1 unit stacks extremely viable/strong with certain setups. Magic is nearly as bad in SoC as HoMM because of this, e.g. as Lolth you can easily nuke armies within the first 1-3 turns of combat. Personally, I do not like like the magic system in SoC and I'm on the fence about Momentum.
All that said, the one thing I do completely agree with is Retreating being an option. In HoMM, you can Retreat to preserve your Hero/Artifacts and either 1) forfeit your army or 2) pay a ransom to the enemy to keep your army as well. I think this was a huge deal, especially in close matchups or artifact advantages. I do think you should lose everything if you lose a fight, artifacts included. Your Hero was defeated/killed after all. However, not having a Retreat option causes this to become an issue since, as you said, you lose a fight and it's basically over. (Tho Retreat was abusable in HoMM, suicide run a Hero with Arma blade or whatnot with high initiative, cast nuke -> Retreat -> Repeat)
TLDR: Basically, I disagree except on the point of Retreat being an option to preserve Artifacts. Personally, I dislike the "Essence" system in SoC and a few other notable things and generally still prefer HoMM3 or 5... I think SoC is solid and tried to bring "balance" to something that is inherently imbalanced. I don't think it accomplished it as there are, IMO, design/balance problems with SoC but such is the nature of these types of games. I'd rather have something imbalanced than something that is so finely balanced it become predictable.
For that reason in HoMM you aren't going to get suddenly ganked by a speedy ai that rushes out of a previously explored area into the middle of the map. By the time the FoW is relevant you would need to be near the enemy town, so it's actually a DEFENSIVE FoW. As well, it's trivial to spend 2500 gold and hire a hero to go peek around (or use a spell as you described). Disguise spell (which is almost never used as well) just shows your stacks as highest level units of your town. That isn't at all relevant to what I'm talking about.
It would be like if you said "units in HoMM3 do not generate mana like in SoC, and I like that" and I piped in with "no that's not true! Familiars generate mana with their ability if the enemy hero casts a spell!". Like, I'm technically correct but I'm not serving to inform the reader about the major differences between SoC and HoMM3, nor is the disagreement relevant to the mechanical discussion.
"Next Fight" sites are a terrible comeback mechanic for multiple reasons. First, the winning player can more easily afford to throw away a wielder vs the defending player, who is down a wielder by default and probably more than one. As well, usually these game-ending fights will happen in the middle of the map, over the central town. The losing player CANNOT afford to be on the defensive, wasting time visiting sites and waiting for the enemy. They need to go out and reconquer what was lost. In fact the enemy is the one with that luxury; they just won a fight and the loser will need at least a few turns to spawn, regather an army, pick up crappier artifacts from secondary wielders, and then march out. In this time the winning hero can afford to stop by a few locations to prepare for the crushing second battle.
Maybe If these sites only worked for a few turns after visiting, or they only worked in a certain distance from themselves, then your argument would have merit. As is nothing about these locations makes them a comeback mechanic, and it veers towards being the opposite.
Again I understand what the developers were doing with momentum... I just think it's a terrible idea and the consequence (each fight becomes a win-more afair where the loss of a few stacks starts to snowball the rest) are much worse than the intention (to punish rolling with a small stack).
The irony is that if your Lolth opponent is truly nuking your army, the 10/10 boost if you manage to kill their stack (a boost which does NOT improve magic resistance!) is probably not going to help you very much. It's a medicine that's much much worse than it's cure. If someone is relying on generating mana but playing with very tiny stacks, that's actually fair easy to punish by pushing them with ranged attacks, nuking their tiny stacks with your own spells, or of course boosting magic resistance and crushing them while laughing off their useless tiny stacks that are now a liability. There's really no reason for this mechanic to exist, I truly feel it makes the game much worse.
I agree the essence system misses the mark quite a bit, but my intention is to try and provide feedback that's actionable and improves the game. They can't redesign the whole magic system, but It is NOT that hard for them to remove the ridiculous "donate all artefacts when you die" mechanic. They could fix that in an hour or two. Nobody is asking them to redesign the entire game, just rethink some very poor mechanics, many of which were half-copied from HoMM without really thinking about why the other half was important.
The game already has serious "unstable equilibrium", "winner get way stronger", "loser harder come back" or "snowballing" issue.
While the current magic system is not perfect, I think is a smart one, just need better balanced.
There is no perfect solution here. I remember the situation in Heroes 5, when you defeat a bot at the cost of huge losses, and he simply runs away from the battlefield with all the artifacts, and since his unit growth is many times greater, he will quickly return. So this does not solve but aggravates the snowball problem.
That's not really what snowballing means here. If you beat the ai and just sat around waiting for them to return, then you deserve to lose. HoMM wasn't just about beating your opponent on the battlefield; it included taking advantage of your win to secure victory. You're advocating making the game much easier.
In exchange, the "donate artifacts" mechanic makes everything after that first fight completely pointless. Even if you're outnumbered, you just took all the opponent's items and you'll easily win the rematch.
I honestly think a lot of the games lacking player base is due to annoying AI behavior. I get it, we all want a thriving PvP environment, but most players introduction to the game will be against the AI. If that experience sucks then they're never going to graduate to PvP, they're just going to stop playing the game. Currently, an AI match feels like a game of whack-a-mole rather than an intense back and forth between two military powers. This needs fixing before multiplayer balance can even be considered.
Edit: I did want to mention that I agree with most of your points fundamentally though. The game is too snowbally with too many silly mechanics (one time buffs are bad design) which exasperates AI nonsense and limits PvP appeal.
(This doesn't actually make your points any less important)
I'm definitely not saying that I disagree with any of the points presented here, just that I also am not sure if these problems are problems in the eyes of the developers or if they're working as intended.
Like I can understand that it's difficult to think of an elegant solution to the "one big fight and done" problem. Lanchester's square law is always going to incentivize making sure you keep a fat doom stack together to definitively beat the other guy's fat doom stack, and when one of those stacks gets toppled, the loser will have lost so many rounds worth of resources versus the winner probably gaining a bunch of resources (or at least space) that recovery will never be able to happen quickly enough to prevent them from being crushed by the rolling snowball.
But when you consider all of that and then add on the consideration of how there are SO MANY other design elements of the game to add mass to the snowball once it starts rolling, it feels less like "oopsie whoopsie we accidentally made the problem worse" and more like "we actively want the game to be this way". At least that's what I would hope, because otherwise it's... Not a very good look for the game's design process.
It is when my overall point was that there was vision manipulation in HoMM and how that affect your tactical options/strategy. This is why I went on to mention Disguise and Scry/Farsight spells. While there may not be as significant vision option in SoC, vision still is a big deal. The major divergence in SoC is that movement is far easier to increase and becomes a much bigger problem.(I'd like to see Disguise or something in SoC since it might make for more dynamic play)
I'd say that even with no FoW in SoC... it wouldn't matter since movement is such a big deal and easily increased, from skills to artifacts to visit sites. You may not like FoW mechanics but that doesn't mean it is bad design or needs to be changed.
Perhaps the disconnect is that you are speaking from the PvE experience, whereas I am using my generalized experience in both PvP and PvE. I agree that the plethora of Movement is an issue with regards to AI, since, as you said; it makes the AI fast and have an advantage. I'd argue that the AI needs such an advantage, even on lower difficulties, so it can actually have a chance against the player. Is it frustrating? Sure, depending on how you play and your skill level.
From a PvP perspective, no FoW means there is little risk once you scout your area or the enemy's. It devalues Vision artifacts and skills and steers the meta towards "damage" skills and artifacts. From my experience, you never have "Scout Heroes", you have your main hero and army jockies to resupply your main. Very rarely do you have multiple "battle" Heroes. FoW plays a role in helping diversity and tactical decisions. FoW actually makes getting "Scouts" worthwhile, or foregoing a damage artifact for a vision one. Is it good for SoC? IMO, hard to say because I am biased from competitive RTS and TBS games, and I think FoW isn't a core issue but is a contributor to larger balance issues. At least in a PvP setting.
I did say that they end up becoming a "win more" problem. I was merely pointing out that the Devs likely intended for them to play as a comeback mechanic. Which, they are, but you need to play around them. Your cherry scenario is an example of how it is a "win more" problem, which I already said is an issue. However, on the flipside, map layouts are a major factor, furthermore hero/enemy positioning is another. E.g. if I know I can't win in a straight fight and I can tell the enemy is coming... then I immediately begin retreating and go to stack up those visit sites. Now the enemy has to decide, do they hit up the town and cap it or go after my hero that is running away. Chances are they will hit up the town and raze it and move for my hero. That buys me ~1-2 turns to hit up more sites and turn on them.(or sneak in a scout hero to recap the town before it is completely razed)
Do I think they are a good "comeback mechanic"? No, obviously not since they can become a "win more" one. However, I do not think they should be completely removed. They are important for Early Game and become an issue mid to late game, but many, many things become an issue mid-late game.
It is what it is because the way the Devs went about tying "mana" to unit stacks.
As for my Lolth example... not if you have higher initiative. Good luck use "ranged attacks" or "spells" to kill my small stacks when I've already blasted them apart because most of my units go first and thus charge my Essence. This is also why Initiative is such an imbalanced thing and every competitive player goes for it in PvP. It's also, IMO, why Rana is generally OP in most situations. Easy access to high Initiative as well as Destruction Essence.
Right, which is why I'm not actually trying to debate you and simply voicing my opinions and disagreement with some of your assertions. Out of everything you've said, I completely agree that they need to implement a Retreat mechanic or something to prevent all artifact loss. Unfortunately, the core gameplay is snowball or lose... which isn't really any different to many other games in the genre. This is why I really enjoy the early game but dislike mid game.
TLDR: I agree but also disagree lol. I think I've said what I've intended to say on each of your opinion/solutions. Above all, I do think we need a Retreat option or something to preserve Artifacts to help curb the snowball. Honestly, I don't see the Devs really doing anything at this point since the game is released and they are working on DLC. Snowball or lose is the nature of these types of games, unfortunately. It'd be nice if we had more of a Age of Wonders 2/3 design philosophy; where a single fight doesn't decide victory or defeat.
Reading it, I found myself thinking: Why play against a Deadly AI if you don't want that level of unbalance? Why not play against an easier AI level?
For normal play against balanced AI, I like the swingy nature of some of the mentioned issues. In particular, Momentum. It makes aggressive combat feasible where otherwise turtling might be the only optimal strategy. It is a counter to the use of 1 stacks.
Some of the issues mentioned can already be solved by creating/playing custom maps since the player base has access to the same map editor the devs use (no Aurelia statues, no Essence Anomaly, no fog of war, etc).
Some of the other issues could be solved for players that are like minded down the road if the game were made fully moddable.