Hero Death

[Nevets]

After playing the demo do you still think there should be hero death?

 

I say yes, they were just too powerful. If you are using that much power you should risk losing it.

[Little.B]

Mh. If you look at the heroes "passive" features loosing them means loosing a lot of benefits. And I don't think they are that powerfull. You won't engage them that often in tactical battles if you compare the amount of units and the amount of planets. And at least if you want to benfit from their tactical abilities you have to leave them at your planets. So taking them into battles means, as mentioned above, loosing special benefits. I don't know if this is worth it very often. I don't think they we will see many heroes fighting except very important battles and there the enemy will have his heroes ready to engage yours.

 

But in the end we have to wait and see.

[Teradyn_pff]

I think that whether or not heros are lost permanently should be something that can be set at the beginning of a game.

[Darthscharnhorst2]

I voted yes but with the option to turn it off and on, that way everyone is happy.  The same can be said for ship and base repair. 

 

Gameplay reasons for hero death:

1: Acts as a counter to their super stats

2: Makes the player feel more attached to them and less likely to throw them around recklessly.

3: Adds realism and forces hard but enjoyable choices on the player.

 

Case in point, when I first played the *modified* demo I sent the Homeone and a large fleet into action.  During the battle, the Homeone was severely damaged by the empires planet defense gun which sent me into a panic since I thought I would lose it forever.  Had I had the option to withdraw in the demo, I would have immediately done so to save that ship.  However, since I could not, I watched in horror as a group of tie bombers finished her off.  Although I won the battle I immediately started to ponder how the loss of such a powerful ship would impact the rest of my campain.  However when entering the strategic map I noticed a ticker counting down to Akbar's return.  Instead of being happy I found myself ticked off as it completely ruined the the *feel* of the game.  Even worse when Akbar made his reserection he had a shiny brand new FREE Homeone to command even though I left its bombed out shell in orbit. 

 

Hence as a player I feel no consequence from throwing my "hero" units into pitched battles.  Additionally a large portion of strategy is taken away since the player does not have to weigh choices or react to the huge loss of a hero unit.  While it is fun to win a game, there is no need to replay something that you can't lose.  As a gamer some of my most enjoyable experiences have come from rebounding from a terrible loss, or *gasp* fighting a losing battle to the end because I have made some stupid decesions.  While I understand that some hero's are needed to preform a gameplay mechanic, R-2D2 for research and Luke for the Death Star run, there is no excuse for the immortality of the others.  Barring an overhall of the research mechanics, even these obstacles can easily be overcome. For example, R-2D2 does not need to be involved in planet invasions,thus he is not exposed to harm. As for Luke, let him respawn but without rouge squadron.

Edited January 23, 2006 by Darthscharnhorst2

[MiKl]

From playing the demo I think Han and Chewie aren't over powered on the ground, I mean they die pretty fast. Now in space the falcon is just insane, the invincible special ability lasts too long and recharges way to fast.

 

The amount of time it takes to respawn heroes should take at least 20 galactic days.

[jedi mike]

but if u loose skywalker then what u loose right?

[Darth Tyrant]

but if u loose skywalker then what u loose right?

 

Well, you loose the chance to destroy the Death Star if you are using the rebels. ;D

[SirNuke]

I voted, "Not Sure", but I should have picked "No".  The better solution is to increase the hero respawn time by a lot.

 

For the Falcon, I am 100% sure that Petro is still tweaking the unit balance (in fact it has probably changed significantly between when the demo was made and when it was released).

 

Red Squadron gets eaten alive by Tartens, so permanent loose would be a disaster for the Rebels.  People wouldn't use the heroes often if they were lost permanently.  The same thing goes with Boba Fett, since he is the only one that can 'neutralize' major heroes (the purchasable bounty hunters can only go after minor heroes).

[Dorkthehunter]

Heroes should not die!!! I killed Chewie on Tattoine to see what happened. Both Han and Chewie were out of commision(weird), but the timer was very long. I like it just the way it is. Way to go Petro!!!!

[Zarkov]

I think this should be easily moddable. There is a file called Hyperconstants.xml. It has the line Default_Hero_respawn_time. It's set to 5.0 now. (i'm guessing five days?) But I see no why it cant be changed to whatever you like.

 

Greets,

Zarkov

[Zarkov]

The heroes themselves are also easily tweaked and are located in a file called Namerheroeunits.xml. So it's not that big a problem to tone them down a bit if enough people want that.

 

Greets,

Zarkov

[Nevets]

Mh. If you look at the heroes "passive" features loosing them means loosing a lot of benefits. And I don't think they are that powerfull. You won't engage them that often in tactical battles if you compare the amount of units and the amount of planets. And at least if you want to benfit from their tactical abilities you have to leave them at your planets. So taking them into battles means, as mentioned above, loosing special benefits. I don't know if this is worth it very often. I don't think they we will see many heroes fighting except very important battles and there the enemy will have his heroes ready to engage yours.

 

But in the end we have to wait and see.

 

With how many heroes there are on both sides and them not killable, I think you will see atleast one side have a hero in every battle.

 

As for their special abilities, the only ones that really matter to gameplay that we know of is luke and the droids.

 

You solve this by the quickest way to get technology is by stealing it with the droids. But if you can't use them there should be a rebel research center that takes longer. More realistic, the rebels researched more tech than they stole.

 

For luke, he should be the only one that could possibly not die. But if he could there could be a death star trench run researched attack (think Rebellion) that you can send any squadron at the death star.

 

If you think about it the only reason Luke destoryed the death star is because Obi-wan died. If Obi-wan doesn't die you shouldn't be able to destroy the Death Star.

 

As for the Emperor and Mon Mothma what is the point of having both have the same power? Both sides are still in the exact same situation. Being able to kill one of them would give your side the advantage in the game. So 1) You are exhausting your forces to kill that hero 2) You are defending your hero like hell.

[Teradyn_pff]

Um, for one, luke destroyed the death star because he was able to maneuver since he turned off his targetting computer.  Now, Ben did help him, but without the stupid wingman, Vader could have gotten Luke anyway.

 

As for the Emperor and Mon Mothma, I think that alot of the campaigns (possibly all in the full ver) have losing one of them as losing the battle.

[Guest]

If you are using that much power you should risk losing it.

 

no offense but that idea kind of sucks, heros are all about using there power too much or else they wouldn't be heros

[Zarkov]

Hmm.. ill see if I can just tone down some of the hero abilities. The more I look at the problem I don't think multiplying the respawn time will solve the problem. Unless hero respawn time is changable per hero. I think R2D2 and C-3PO are derstroyed every time they steal a tech and thus have to respawn.

 

In the demo Bobba Fett has the same damage setting as a Mon-Cal cruiser which seems a bit excessive, but it shouldn't be a problem to tone this down a bit or change his speed.

 

But ill wait to see how the final game ballances out, before I start to do any edditing. I'm assuming the hero's will be alot weaker in the final game.

 

This is one of the main reasons why PC's are still my favorite (and only ) gaming platform. PG has designed a game that they like and towards a certain audiance, but with a bit of creativity and patiance I can change the game to whatever I like.

 

I plan to do some serious tweaking to the game files once I've finished the campaign games.

I.E. a lot slower on with far more expensive ships and only slightly above average heroes. If possible with larger space maps and more units for those with heavy duty pc's.

 

Greets,

Zarkov

[Darthscharnhorst2]

no offense but that idea kind of sucks, hero's are all about using there power too much or else they wouldn't be hero's

 

Yes, but hero's are not gods.  Many hero's have died preforming heroic actions.  Thats what makes many of them legends  ;D  If we could name ships in game *not just through text editing* I'd be happy to name my next ISD after a fallen hero.  But it seems like we won't and hero's cant die so the point is probably mute  :-\

[Frost1977]

perhaps there could be options to capture heros. similar to  rebellion.

[Darthscharnhorst2]

perhaps there could be options to capture hero's. similar to  rebellion.

 

I would hope that Bobba Fett could do this, but I doubt it since the rebels don't have an apparent answer to thwart imperial agents.  Additionally, if units could fail in missions you send them on or be captured after the loss of a space/land battle and subsequently be held on that planet, hero deaths might become less of a necessity.  I guess the Dev's felt this type of gameplay did not equate *fun*  .  Of course this could be changed for the final version or future patches/expansions.

[Nevets]

Boba Fett could capture heroes last I heard.

 

Hero death is an important part of star wars, it changes the course of the war, it inspire troops or it makes them fall into the gutter. Tarkin died because he was stubborn and arrogent, he has that power in the game since the fleet he is in can't retreat. Just he can't die from it, which I think is dumb, he should go down with the fleet.

 

I'm not saying everyone should be forced to have hero death, but to me and from the sites I have posted a similar poll it looks like most would want an option for this.

[Otto von Bismark]

I believe that heroes should die, but come back to life, like in AOE III and BfME(you have to buy them again though).

[jedi mike]

Yep thats a good idea that u have to buy the heros back to use them

[Darthscharnhorst2]

I believe that heroes should die, but come back to life, like in AOE III and BfME(you have to buy them again though).

 

I could work with this idea if they also factored build time in as well as cost into certain hero's death like Ackbar and the Home One.  Or better yet, allow the hero to return but without the ship.  ex. You get Solo back to do smugler runs, but the Falcon is gone for good