Messages

Honestly, game works fine as is. Otherwise you are trying to fix a d10000 to prevent the 1 from being rolled.

(for those that dont get it, I am basically saying a situation like this is 1 in 10000)

Ross, I appreciate that you are so open to suggestions to new players like me, but that being said, I'm new and probably have not tested the game enough so maybe let's see how it goes.

Diesbudt, I think you're much more experienced than me in this game, so I assume it's safe to assume that I really had some freak luck in that game (since you've never encountered it in all your games, and you estimated the probability to be 1 in 10000..... maybe I should go buy some lottery)

And judging from the forum posts over the years, I don't think other players encountered this problem (or felt this is a problem enough to raise an issue), so maybe it really is just fine the way it is.

Again, I said it could be an advantage, same as being first even w/o doing damage is an advantage (unit placement). Both have advantages, just very different in how they have an adantage. A lot of my duel wins, I did just ended the first turn. As I said, my secrets.

Again, it sounds like you ran into the worst case scenario. If you pick one of the MANY maps that are not starting so close, you solved that issue. Also, it takes tons of luck on the first turn, as I stated.

If you move your mage to a position however to allow a 1 turn kill, then that is a strategy fault of the player.

Honestly I, even myself playing, have yet to see a first first turn kill, since FM teleport assaulting was removed.

I'm not into statistics, but I have played less than 10 games and this happened.

Anyway, it just bothered me a bit that such a thing can happen in a game. I don't claim to be a strategy/board game guru, but in my humble gaming experience I've really never encountered such a potentially huge first game advantage.

Go has the Komi to balance and remove first-turn advantage.

Chess' white has a certain advantage, but you don't, say, lose 2 rooks in your first turn. (Further, Chess also disallow "passing", since your counter-strategy seems to be built around reacting the the first player's move. But Hero Mages do allow "passing" just by clicking "End Turn")

I don't wish to bring in a war on "this is a casual strategy game with certain elements of luck so it shouldn't be compared to Chess and Go", then consider even the widely popular Magic: The Gathering which certainly has an element of luck. The first player do not get to draw. Once again, this has been calculated so that the first-turn advantage is taken care of. Furthermore, no matter how lucky a player is, the 2nd player do not lose 7 Life points (out of 20) in the first turn too.

Just sharing my opinion by referencing these popular games...

Kenjun,

I think you have some valid points. The nature of some maps does (with lots of luck) allow for first turn mage kills, which, as you've pointed out, is incredibly detrimental to strategy moving forward - especially before you have any chance whatsoever to act.

This problem is even more prominent in 8-player FFA, especially on Circle of Slaughter, where your entire team could easily be wiped out before you have the opportunity to do anything.

I'm open to suggestions. Maybe there is a "first round" protection that keeps units safe or shielded in some way until that player has a chance to act.

Yes I was wondering about the starting positions of the 8-player maps too, but have yet to test them out. I was thinking were they restricted to only team battles? Or else I think it'll be pretty chaotic in FFA (and how to make it balanced for all players?)

As it is, I'm still progressively testing Hero Mages, starting from 2-player games to 3-player games etc... My 1st 3-player game got me to the 1st-turn kill...

And without looking for it I can guess what topic you are talking about.

That will be an issue, surely. Glad that it's been fixed.

First off you played on a map that allows first turn attacks on a Mage.

Secondly, since it requires a Mage to sprint to try and get in line of sight to attack said Mage (may not get enough sprint).

Third he must have the spells available to do enough damage in 1 turn. Which would be rare on the first 7 card hand.

Fourth, the dice would have to be very generous and luck would be big to do all 6 hp in 1 turn.

First player doesn't have near the advantage you believe. Being second can be just as advantagable, you just need to know how. You will have to just trust me on that, I don't give away all my secrets.

Hmm I have mixed feelings about a game's design whereby the mage (a crucial character) can be killed in the first turn. IMHO that will be too dependent on luck.


As for "... Being second can be just as advangtagable .... ", correct me if I' m wrong, can't the first player just click "End Turn"? Then he/she will become the 2nd player anyway. Not only that, he get to tune his starting hand discarding the unwanted ones.

Was testing a match vs. AI and my Mage was killed even before I get to play my 1st turn!

Map : Crystal Palace
No. of players : 3 (Me & 2 A.I.)
Teams : Free For All

The AI who went first has a starting position next to me (there's only 4 possible starting positions for teams, akin to 4 parties having a dinner around a square table). Its Sorceress rounded the corner, apparently sprinted, and blasted some spells at me, killing my Mage before I even get to start my turn.

Regrettably I was distracted and was forced to quit the game. I didn't manage to see clearly what was thrown at me, but what I was sure was that I have not even started to play. Didn't manage to capture the game log too. Yes losing your mage is not losing the game, but you must agree that the player who loses a mage face an uphill task, all other factors being equal. Furthermore, this is a case where I didn't even get to play yet.

Just wondering if anyone encountered this before? From what I observed so far there seems to be no 'balance' (negative incentive etc) for the First Player.
I read a thread dated 3 years ago discussing this, but I still feel the First Player has too big an advantage.

Thanks for the info. Will keep that in mind next time I test out the iPhone app. Somehow I find myself going back to the browser client, even though I have my iPhone within my reach.

Ah, I see it now. Yes I'm talking about the browser client. I think I'd been able to see them all this while but certain spells/abilities do not have the 'pop-up' showing for me, hence I was confused what was happening. Sorry for the confusion and my newbish statements.
(I guess it's the way we perceive things, if it's working and intuitive, we don't find anything wrong. If it's missing or broken, we immediately take notice. Furthermore, the abilities/spells flashes by quite fast, nothing wrong with that though, it speeds up the game)


Anyway, I tested around further on both the tutorial and in Multiplayer vs AI and these are the abilities/spells that don't show for me for now (ie. all I see is a flash of light on the target. I do see some animation from the caster)

1. Mana Surge
2. Scribe
3. Sleep
4. Song of Valor (inconsistent, the popup shows half the time. The other half of the time the bard can't wait to start playing her lute)

Will append to this list should I encounter more. Have yet to monitor this on iOS though.

Thanks for helping out.

Can you let me know what you mean by "... events... shown to me" ?
My dice are showing fine, so I'm only curious about how events are shown.

On time, yes I'm aware we can set to infinity, but that is not 'allowed' in multiplayer pvp against human opponents (as describe in the tutorial), so  I was trying  to familiarize myself by playing blitz too. I also read another article/post where Ross seemed to suggest that the short time limit per turn is by design, and intentional rather than a technical limitation. Although for certain games I play only asynchronously, I am open to the idea that Hero Mages is trying to encourage a short time-limit per turn (if i read the articles correctly and did not misinterpret Ross). It's like you may play Chess but sometimes you wish to enroll in a Blitz tournament, so you just respect the tournament rules.

Then again, in more recent threads I also read that Hero Mages is about to implement Async play. If the 2-min time limit is really a 'feature' of this game, maybe Ross can try to implement it such that it is Async but at the same time, when you 'synchronize' to the server on your side, your timer starts ticking. If that happens, I believe in my humble exposure to various iPhone async games, this will be the first async multiplayer game where a timer counts down during your async turn. Could be interesting!

Testing the game on the following:

Browser : Internet Explorer (somehow I experience difficulty connecting to the Multiplayer server using Chrome

I notice that even if I select "Show Both (dice and events)", only the dice roll are shown but events are not shown. All I saw was a flash of light on my units, and I have to click the Game Log to see what was cast on it. It doesn't help that this game encourages a 2-minute timer and we still need to click and read the small text in the game log.

Edit : I replayed the Tutorial's duel to check on this, and realized that even in single-player mode the events are not showing, so this should be moved to "feature requests" instead.

Just thought I will append the bug I found here:

Device : iPhone 4, iOS5.1

The Hero Mages app play sound effects even if your iPhone is in silent mode (by flipping the Ring/Silent switch on iPhone4). Think in terms of playing YouTube videos /iTune player that 'override' silent mode when you press 'Play' on the said song or video.

Hence I have to resort to go to the app's settings to turn off the sound effects and music. Naturally, when I subsequently change my iPhone to ring mode I will hear no sound/music until I go to the app's settings and turn them on again.