Amplitude I love your games and all but PLEASE for the love of God drop the Repeating heroes feature in Endless Space two. For those of you reading who either need clarification of what this is or just have no idea what I'm talking about, what I am referring to is the feature that was inEndless Legend and which seems to be appearing in Endless Space 2 under different circumstances. Repeating heroes are, in essence, copies of heroes either you or another player has hired. These copies simply have a number represented by a roman numeral dropped next to their name (to designate some sort of relation I suppose) and are completely like the original other than said number. To me this heavily breaks my immersion, as the heroes I hire would no longer feel unique as they did in Endless Space 1. I understand that in the end product there will be somewhere around 52-54 heroes available, which is why I am concerned about repeating heroes. If it is a filler feature simply meant to be a placeholder for when the heroes of other factions can be introduced into the game then I'm fine with it. But if this 'hero cloning' as it were makes it into the final product, then I believe it may hurt gamplay. Those are my thoughts on the matter, I am welcome to hear anyone who knows more. Thank you.

Your concern seems legitimate, but raises many problems. Picture a 8 player game in an advanced phase; every empire has recruited 8 heroes, that means that there are 8x8=64 heroes around, witch alone is far more than the 54 heroes announced. Add to that the fact that the 54 have different specialization, but maybe to an empire some specialization doesn't interest: ex. a pacifist empire may not want to recruit admiral hero.

So the only solution would be to make a lot more different heroes (8x8xnumber of specialization), each one with different portrait and background. I think it's not reasonably possible...

Unless you start having unitque heroes to snatch from other factions (a bit like the new great people system in Civ) but that raises many balance considerations on it's own.

I must confess the hero system on the whole is one the least appealing aspect of the endless games to me. (I'd rather have armies/cities/systems thrive on their own merits)

Greedis wrote:

Your concern seems legitimate, but raises many problems. Picture a 8 player game in an advanced phase; every empire has recruited 8 heroes, that means that there are 8x8=64 heroes around, witch alone is far more than the 54 heroes announced. Add to that the fact that the 54 have different specialization, but maybe to an empire some specialization doesn't interest: ex. a pacifist empire may not want to recruit admiral hero.

So the only solution would be to make a lot more different heroes (8x8xnumber of specialization), each one with different portrait and background. I think it's not reasonably possible...

I mean in ES1 you'd rarely end up having that many heroes, so this might not be an issue.

Indeed.It was a massive immersion breaker in EL.You cant have 5 Darth Vaders in the game.

Till now its 21 - 22 heros (the one unlocked by pre-release subcriprions). It's 4 heroes/faction with 5 factions.

I agree with Blackbird, but you can get short of heroes. What I think they should do is: give each faction the most similar/convenient heroes first , by the sistem seen in the videos. As long as game progress, you're receiving heroes as unique, and at end you may recive someone who is completely different to your factions. Heroes won't be cloned (and two factions can't have the same hero), until they're all assignated, at this point if there's still a hero assigned to a fection, the game will start to randomly clone heroes. Past this point the colnes will be assignes to factions, in a way a faction wont have the same hero twice, but they can be cloned in another faction. The only circustance in which same faction will have same hero will be when this faction has all avaliable heroes, and system is already cloning them to other factions (I see very improbable having all 21-22 heroes.

This way the feeling of cloned heroes is not easily perceived, and the problem of going ot of heroes (which can occor rapidly with 8 empires) is also solved.

I much prefer game balance and player choice to insuring there are no repeats of individuals, so I can't agree. I want as many of x hero as it is possible or viable to get, if that's what my playstyle necessitates. This is especially important to consider for custom factions. In particular, I'm still kind of looking forward to a Horatio minor faction that lets you insure 'clones' start showing up in the academy :D

Greedis wrote:

Your concern seems legitimate, but raises many problems. Picture a 8 player game in an advanced phase; every empire has recruited 8 heroes, that means that there are 8x8=64 heroes around, witch alone is far more than the 54 heroes announced. Add to that the fact that the 54 have different specialization, but maybe to an empire some specialization doesn't interest: ex. a pacifist empire may not want to recruit admiral hero.

So the only solution would be to make a lot more different heroes (8x8xnumber of specialization), each one with different portrait and background. I think it's not reasonably possible...

That assumes that every faction should be able to get every specialisation. It doesn't have to be that way: let the best heroes go to the faction willing/capable of spending the Dust to nab them first!

UnderDarkLord wrote:

 I'm still kind of looking forward to a Horatio minor faction that lets you insure 'clones' start showing up in the academy :D

Dind't mentioned Horatio. I think they're and exception. Always liked this ability, and also make them feel more exceptional and fits theyr background. Was thinking about other factions: you can't clone unless you're Horatio, or Academy is out of heroes.

lo_fabre wrote:

Dind't mentioned Horatio. I think they're and exception. Always liked this ability, and also make them feel more exceptional and fits theyr background. Was thinking about other factions: you can't clone unless you're Horatio, or Academy is out of heroes.

Horatio were just something neat I thought I'd bring into a hero discussion, but overall I am still disagreeing. It's simply crazy, especially if heroes work how they did in EL where different racials make some species simply better at specific jobs, to basically tell players they can't get such a hero, because either it was bought out before someone else and no other copy will ever exist until possibly late game, or worse, that the hero ended up as one of the temporary 'unique pick' heroes for someone else who basically got it with no competition, and now you're locked out. 

My ideal is further enhanced by a number of facts, such as custom factions, where you could customize a faction to play very differently from their native group, and yet the computer is left to make some kind of decision re: most similar/convenient for you, rather than letting you choose for yourself, if they did what you want lo_fabre. Also what happens if half the players are playing the same race, or even just using a similar archetype (very possible with custom factions), but much fewer of the options for heroes fit those styles/races? 

Sure unique heroes are cooler, personally the way I'd fix that is to have a 'default' name, and then a name generator for each race with a dozen+ other options for those heroes when they're spawned, but ultimately I don't see it as legitimate to heavily restrict the access to all ability pools of heroes by any kind of system just to maintain uniqueness.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

lo_fabre wrote:

Dind't mentioned Horatio. I think they're and exception. Always liked this ability, and also make them feel more exceptional and fits theyr background. Was thinking about other factions: you can't clone unless you're Horatio, or Academy is out of heroes.

Horatio were just something neat I thought I'd bring into a hero discussion, but overall I am still disagreeing. It's simply crazy, especially if heroes work how they did in EL where different racials make some species simply better at specific jobs, to basically tell players they can't get such a hero, because either it was bought out before someone else and no other copy will ever exist until possibly late game, or worse, that the hero ended up as one of the temporary 'unique pick' heroes for someone else who basically got it with no competition, and now you're locked out. 

My ideal is further enhanced by a number of facts, such as custom factions, where you could customize a faction to play very differently from their native group, and yet the computer is left to make some kind of decision re: most similar/convenient for you, rather than letting you choose for yourself, if they did what you want lo_fabre. Also what happens if half the players are playing the same race, or even just using a similar archetype (very possible with custom factions), but much fewer of the options for heroes fit those styles/races? 

Sure unique heroes are cooler, personally the way I'd fix that is to have a 'default' name, and then a name generator for each race with a dozen+ other options for those heroes when they're spawned, but ultimately I don't see it as legitimate to heavily restrict the access to all ability pools of heroes by any kind of system just to maintain uniqueness.

I see what you're saying. as I understand strategy games, there are two ways to play, and some games are better to fit one or other:

• What I've got and what can I do to win sith it? This one fits better with hero uniqueness, as you won't have everyone to choose, and will have to deal with what Academy gives to you.
• What I want to do to win the game and what I need to do it? Of course this one fits very well with cloned heroes.

As i've got nothing against this two ways, I've always found more fun in the first one. Of course I like to plan ahed and in long term, otherwose won't be playing 4X, but there's still this feeling of: "Oh! s/he is not the hero I wanted, what can I do to make everything retur to may original plan?".

Anyway I understand your ideas, and if most of players want it that way, it is the one Amplitude should take. I'll be playing this game with or without cloned heroes, but I liked more the non-cloned option in lore and gameplay.

lo_fabre wrote:

I see what you're saying. as I understand strategy games, there are two ways to play, and some games are better to fit one or other:

• What I've got and what can I do to win sith it? This one fits better with hero uniqueness, as you won't have everyone to choose, and will have to deal with what Academy gives to you.
• What I want to do to win the game and what I need to do it? Of course this one fits very well with cloned heroes.

As i've got nothing against this two ways, I've always found more fun in the first one. Of course I like to plan ahed and in long term, otherwose won't be playing 4X, but there's still this feeling of: "Oh! s/he is not the hero I wanted, what can I do to make everything retur to may original plan?".

Anyway I understand your ideas, and if most of players want it that way, it is the one Amplitude should take. I'll be playing this game with or without cloned heroes, but I liked more the non-cloned option in lore and gameplay.

I also really like non-repeated heroes from a lore perspective, and I wouldn't mind implementing such a thing in single player. From a multiplayer gameplay perspective though, not offering repeats, especially with eight human players, can be clunky, or worse since some heroes are unique spawns to each player (assuming they keep that mechanic), can be a straightforward power advantage. 

I'm not sure the two methods you're talking about are legitimately separate in 4x, at least not in practice. Sure the second sounds like you can do it, but ultimately the planets and systems you have access to, as well as the players in your games, are going to affect those choices you made before the game even started (which you can presumably do if your goal is to win a specific way), and mess them up. I can't see any 4x really being anything but the first option by design, but part of that option is that you may identify partway through the game, a few ways to win, and that selection is going to be more limited if the hero pool is more limited by disallowing repeats. Without repeats, all heroes of specific functions could be gone, disallowing win methods entirely, or just neutering the support you need for some other method. Example: if the best industrial production heroes are gone, wonder victory is basically out, and military victory is actually much more difficult unless you've been aiming at it from the start, or have enough dust production to buy-out fleets entirely. With repeats, if one plan isn't working, it's easier for you to switch, or even to combine plans (military into expansion say). 

Basically my perspective isn't 'everyone should have every tool for everything, so that they can do whatever they want to plan from the beginning', my argument is 'everyone should have AS MANY TOOLS AS POSSIBLE so that they can adapt as quickly and powerfully as possible to changing situations, and even be able to pursue a combination of victory methods'.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

I also really like non-repeated heroes from a lore perspective, and I wouldn't mind implementing such a thing in single player. From a multiplayer gameplay perspective though, not offering repeats, especially with eight human players, can be clunky, or worse since some heroes are unique spawns to each player (assuming they keep that mechanic), can be a straightforward power advantage. 

I'm only playing on single. Don't know what to say about multiplayer.

I'm not sure the two methods you're talking about are legitimately separate in 4x, at least not in practice. Sure the second sounds like you can do it, but ultimately the planets and systems you have access to, as well as the players in your games, are going to affect those choices you made before the game even started (which you can presumably do if your goal is to win a specific way), and mess them up. I can't see any 4x really being anything but the first option by design, but part of that option is that you may identify partway through the game, a few ways to win, and that selection is going to be more limited if the hero pool is more limited by disallowing repeats. Without repeats, all heroes of specific functions could be gone, disallowing win methods entirely, or just neutering the support you need for some other method. Example: if the best industrial production heroes are gone, wonder victory is basically out, and military victory is actually much more difficult unless you've been aiming at it from the start, or have enough dust production to buy-out fleets entirely. With repeats, if one plan isn't working, it's easier for you to switch, or even to combine plans (military into expansion say). 

Well I think they are two abstract concepts, that in practice, of course are mixed. Just considering two ways of playing games and its impact in design.

Basically my perspective isn't 'everyone should have every tool for everything, so that they can do whatever they want to plan from the beginning', my argument is 'everyone should have AS MANY TOOLS AS POSSIBLE so that they can adapt as quickly and powerfully as possible to changing situations, and even be able to pursue a combination of victory methods'.

Not against it. Normally I have no probles in having some gameplay features that goes against common sense or game lore, as long as they're not so weird. discussed something similar in tech tree post. My idea is that you have to do a good gameplay, but without excessively breaking lore/immersion or making things excessively unreal (of course videogames always has this unrealistic component, but still). For that reason I'm not very found of having only copies of same hero (except playing Horatio, they're designed to do it).

On the other hand, I've been watching a few gameplay videos now that the press suppression is up for the EA build, and with the system in place I'm leaning a bit more toward non-repeating heroes than I was. While I'll still leave it up to the devs to build whatever is fairest in terms of providing players tools, the way in which three heroes are selected from at semi-regular intervals means non-repeats are easier to manage, at least in smaller games. I would personally lean towards non-repeats for smaller games (4 players or less, AI or human), and repeats with unique names for larger games (5+). This kind of system wouldn't be as artificial as balancing for MP and SP separately, so I think it would be a bit more viable, but I'll still take repeats over none, for balance purposes, if only one choice is viable.