How does it work out in competetive games? If the damage is selected randomly, I could easily see a player losing a stronger unit vs a weaker one; or someone NOT killing an important hero due to bad luck (the hero would run away with few hp). How does the WC3 community take it? Were there any games that were decided by such "luck"?
There is a bit of luck in sc too, tanks/units dont have a 30% chance of missing when shooting up cliff, but it doesnt happen that often on the new maps (it would be specially noticable on maps with cliffable naturals when the players have few units; there are lots of maps with cliffs).
On March 16 2010 06:02 rererebanned wrote: How does it work out in competetive games? If the damage is selected randomly, I could easily see a player losing a stronger unit vs a weaker one; or someone NOT killing an important hero due to bad luck (the hero would run away with few hp). How does the WC3 community take it? Were there any games that were decided by such "luck"?
There is a bit of luck in sc too, tanks/units dont have a 30% chance of missing when shooting up cliff, but it doesnt happen that often on the new maps (it would be specially noticable on maps with cliffable naturals when the players have few units; there are lots of maps with cliffs).
well all wc3 units have a shitload of hp and most battles are decided by the spellcasters i think (druids preists etc) and most of the time they run away till a really key moment so i dont know how much lucky has to do with it..and most of the timet he 13-15(example) damage isnt a huge difference and since each races units have dif fhp and diff damage i dont think luck would factor in that much
I have played a lot of wc3 myself (including probably thousands of games). As I can recall, there was only once when the random spin on the damage played a significant role.
The biggest random factor in wc3 comes from item drop.
The random damage is part of the game. I myself had for exemple a Blademaster windwalk on me with 3hp left, becuase my death knight did from 46-53 dmg or something like that while laddering. Or a Demon Hunter getting to his base with 10hp and drinking moonwell juice to insta heal for 300. The bottom part is - it's all part of the game, you have to accept it. It's the charm of the game.
I've never heard of complaints about it. Sure people go like "damn", but no1 rage quits and no1 throws their monitor out the window. But that's in part what makes WC3 exciting. Seeing those moments and going "OOOOOOHHHH will he get away???"
The damage isn't the random factor that hurts the competitive scene. It's the sometimes ridicioulous drops from creeps. If someone gets EXP tomes, or wands of lightning shield, then it becomes a problem (Human worker lines are raped this way since they can't hide in burrows or arent protected/spread out like NE/UD workers). I forgot to add "Gloves of Haste" or otherwise known as gloves of GG. They add 15% increased attack speed. For agility heroes like the Blademaster or Demon Hunter it meant, really a lot more attacks. Take for exemple the maps "Gnoll wood" and "Twisted Meadows" where Orcs thrive, becuase of ... I think lv 3 creeps that drop Gloves of Haste, which are easily creep-able by an orc with a BM+1/2 grunts and the healing salves. Map imbalances go a long way in WC3. Some maps like gnoll wood are renamed by the commuinty to "orc wood". I've seen some hilarious games on that map, where pros switched their main race from X to orc, just for that map.
Remember that the randomness works both ways with damage. Sometimes they'll get away with a low hp hero, sometimes you'll get away. Were there upsets that happenned becuase of this? I don't know, haven't been following the scene closely since like forever, but probably yeah, but again, no1 raged, and no1 made shit up like "if this happened.... or that..."
On March 16 2010 06:24 Latham wrote: The random damage is part of the game. I myself had for exemple a Blademaster windwalk on me with 3hp left, becuase my death knight did from 46-53 dmg or something like that while laddering. Or a Demon Hunter getting to his base with 10hp and drinking moonwell juice to insta heal for 300. The bottom part is - it's all part of the game, you have to accept it. It's the charm of the game.
The scenario you described rarely happen to me. I guess I was lucky?
It is very rare. I must say it happened maybe 3 times, during the many years I laddered. Although in pro reps from ToD, Lucifer, Grubby (generally the 4King era) I saw it more often.
You usually don't notice the random damage on units, since it's not that big of a range, and since they'll attack so many times in a game it'll average out. The biggest random factors I would notice (and sometimes be annoyed by) are the blademasters critical strike (15% chance to do 2x, 3x, 4x damage) and the demon hunters' evasion (10%, 20%, 30% chance to avoid damage from an attack).
Basically, sometimes a blademaster could kill an enemy hero ridiculously fast due to a string of crits, and sometimes a demon hunter would seem invincible because you kept missing. That was part of the excitement of the game though.
On March 16 2010 06:29 Alphonsse wrote: You usually don't notice the random damage on units, since it's not that big of a range, and since they'll attack so many times in a game it'll average out. The biggest random factors I would notice (and sometimes be annoyed by) are the blademasters critical strike (15% chance to do 2x, 3x, 4x damage) and the demon hunters' evasion (10%, 20%, 30% chance to avoid damage from an attack).
Basically, sometimes a blademaster could kill an enemy hero ridiculously fast due to a string of crits, and sometimes a demon hunter would seem invincible because you kept missing. That was part of the excitement of the game though.
You do notice it, when an Archmage throws a firebolt at you for 21-27 damage, which after armor deduction on your DH becomes 15.54 - 19.88, but your fleeing DH has only 17 HP left.
As somebody above said, the problem with luck in WC3 comes from the item drops. It really is painful to see your favorite player get 2x +3 agi boots on their Death Knight or something while the other player gets insanely good drops T_T
On March 16 2010 06:38 FragKrag wrote: As somebody above said, the problem with luck in WC3 comes from the item drops. It really is painful to see your favorite player get 2x +3 agi boots on their Death Knight or something while the other player gets insanely good drops T_T
Getting +agil items on DK is kind of funny. Then again, 75g is not that bad.
In fights with several units the random damage normally equals out so it's not a problem. Of course seeing a hero run away or teleport with 2-3 hp is frustrating and it sure happens occasionally even in high level games, but this is part of the game and as someone already said part of its charm. However, what's really terrible is a blademaster lvl 3 with a few good items got by some lucky creep drops. Then this blademaster approaches your hero and lands 3-4 criticals after another... This really happens and it can be game deciding...
edit: your question about losing "stronger units vs weaker ones". Since wc3 employs a hard counter system you will always win if you have the counter units to your enemy's.
On March 16 2010 06:53 ggrrg wrote: In fights with several units the random damage normally equals out so it's not a problem. Of course seeing a hero run away or teleport with 2-3 hp is frustrating and it sure happens occasionally even in high level games, but this is part of the game and as someone already said part of its charm. However, what's really terrible is a blademaster lvl 3 with a few good items got by some lucky creep drops. Then this blademaster approaches your hero and lands 3-4 criticals after another... This really happens and it can be game deciding...
edit: your question about losing "stronger units vs weaker ones". Since wc3 employs a hard counter system you will always win if you have the counter units to your enemy's.
You are wrong. The critical hit mechanism is specially designed in a way that it won't happen too often in a row.
On March 16 2010 06:53 ggrrg wrote: In fights with several units the random damage normally equals out so it's not a problem. Of course seeing a hero run away or teleport with 2-3 hp is frustrating and it sure happens occasionally even in high level games, but this is part of the game and as someone already said part of its charm. However, what's really terrible is a blademaster lvl 3 with a few good items got by some lucky creep drops. Then this blademaster approaches your hero and lands 3-4 criticals after another... This really happens and it can be game deciding...
edit: your question about losing "stronger units vs weaker ones". Since wc3 employs a hard counter system you will always win if you have the counter units to your enemy's.
You are wrong. The critical hit mechanism is specially designed in a way that it won't happen too often in a row.
Yeah I remember reading a Dota article about how to set up crits/bashes/multicasts because the random engine wasn't really random.
Yeah i suppose that random damage is a bad thing for competitive games.. the main reason is taht you can't apply mathematich formulas to the game (is impossibile to predict 100% sure the battle) and it makes in part wc3 a luck baed game
Random damage is really hard to notice unless it's down to a couple of units, but just because you don't notice it, doesn't mean it isn't a big deal.
On the other hand, it's really noticeable when you have a demon hunter and you get a cloak of shadows, a cloak of shadows, a mantle of intel, and 2 tomes of intel (this happened to me in a game against a friend the other day... I still won, but talk about annoying).
As far as the blademaster goes, he already gets bonus damage breaking wind walk on an attack, and two criticals in a row after that isn't that out of the ordinary. Three is pretty uncommon though...
On March 16 2010 06:53 ggrrg wrote: In fights with several units the random damage normally equals out so it's not a problem. Of course seeing a hero run away or teleport with 2-3 hp is frustrating and it sure happens occasionally even in high level games, but this is part of the game and as someone already said part of its charm. However, what's really terrible is a blademaster lvl 3 with a few good items got by some lucky creep drops. Then this blademaster approaches your hero and lands 3-4 criticals after another... This really happens and it can be game deciding...
edit: your question about losing "stronger units vs weaker ones". Since wc3 employs a hard counter system you will always win if you have the counter units to your enemy's.
You are wrong. The critical hit mechanism is specially designed in a way that it won't happen too often in a row.
Yeah I remember reading a Dota article about how to set up crits/bashes/multicasts because the random engine wasn't really random.
Blizzard's War3 engine uses a PRD engine, it increases the % of the "random" event happening until it happens then it restarts at a rate below the labeled amount. Basically what it boils down to is that the advertised % isn't the actual %.
I think the best example of this in a map is the randomness associated with the item Vanguard in DotA, which is basically a damage block item in the form of :
Gives a 70% chance to block 40 attack damage if wielder is melee, or 70% chance to block 20 damage if wielder is ranged
That what the developer has it coded as such but I think the actual % (based on various long tests or simulations) is far below that % around 60% I think.
Also this is the reason why Ogre Magi's ultimate skill Multi-Cast in DotA was re-worked.
Now this becomes a major problem for Orcs in melee or ladder because on one hand you can pewpew some units to suddenly shift a fight in your favor but on the other hand you can't crit to save your life (Orcmirrorlulz).
EPT
