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WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

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WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby chaoticprime » February 27th, 2014, 8:25 pm

Okay, what this is is my attempt to reverse-engineer the logical structures in Heroquest. For the most part its been easy. here are my design goals:

> Analyze each of the 14 original quests to obtain and prepare data on game-play factors.
> Build a logical method of comparing Hero and monster abilities based off of their mean values.
> Do a lot of math that I don't want to talk about after having just done it.
> Use the information prepared from above to to create a method for determining the difficulty in the game.

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More later.


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby drathe » February 27th, 2014, 9:01 pm

I'll be following this for the results.

FYI, the Orc movement is incorrect. Should be 8.
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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby chaoticprime » February 27th, 2014, 9:32 pm

drathe wrote:I'll be following this for the results.

FYI, the Orc movement is incorrect. Should be 8.


Its already been fixed on my end. I got CnP happy, and missed an edit.


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby chaoticprime » February 28th, 2014, 2:23 am

I swear I developed all of this myself (with a little aid from uncle herb). I'll do my best to educate you all on my methods. I am only using information gleaned from the fourteen NA Quests. No monsters have been altered for this--I formulated algorithms to derive additional statistics--experience points, namely--from evaluated combat dice-roll statistics.

[Tool #1]: Combat Die Face Probability Generator
1172

[Mechanic #1: Mean Combat Die-Results]
Heroes' & Monsters' Mean Attack Roll = 3 combat dice (2 skulls) (rounded up to the nearest whole number from 15).
Heroes' Mean Defense Roll = 2 combat dice (1 white shield).
Monsters' Mean Defense Roll = 3 combat dice (1 black shield).


[Mechanic #2: Experience Quotients]
All monsters now have a new attribute called an 'Experience Quotient' (EQP). Each monster card features information on five attributes--movement value (MV), attack dice (AD), defense dice (DD), body points (BP) and mind points (MP). Additionally, there is a new attribute: various modifiers. The sum of these values is what makes up a monster's worth in experience.

Each attribute has a score that is expressible in-play by an equal number of combat dice. The actual value of each attribute I generated statistically based on their interactions in Mechanic #1.

EQP : Attributes Algorithms

Movement Value : EQP = '(((MV*2)-6)/6)-1'
Most monsters' MV is around the 6-8 range. Monsters that move slow have their EQP reduced by 1 on account of having inferior mobility.

MV = 1...4 -1 EQP
MV = 5...10 +0 EQP
MV = 11+ +1 EQP


Attack Dice : EQP = '(1+AD/2)'
Attack Dice make the biggest decision--accuracy to hit, and overall damage against monsters.

AD = 1, 2 +1 EQP
AD = 3, 4 +2 EQP
AD = 5, 6 +3 EQP


Defend Dice : EQP = '(DD/2.5)'

DD = 1, 2 +0 EQP
DD = 3, 4 +1 EQP
DD = 5, 6 +2 EQP


...to be continued.


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby knightkrawler » February 28th, 2014, 6:39 am

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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby torilen » February 28th, 2014, 10:06 am

So, really...I didn't get much beyond geometry and such, except for focused diff. equations in economics classes...
Where did these equations come from? How did you come up with them, as opposed to some other equation?

Not questioning what you're doing...I really am just curious about it. I know some games (supposedly MTG, for example)
use math equations in generating the final product, and I never have understood why such complex equations are needed.


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby Goblin-King » February 28th, 2014, 10:21 am

Are you planning on taking wandering monster and monster composition in rooms into consideration?

I mean 6 goblins in 6 different rooms are likely to all be killed without even getting the chance to strike.
But 6 goblins in 1 room, 2 of them would probably get a chance to strike a hero.

Just saying... Difficulty is much more than the isolated amount of monsters.


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby chaoticprime » February 28th, 2014, 11:20 am

Everything about game-play is math. I don't have an education--only highschooL--this is all self-taught. I'm seriously just very smart.

What is happening here, is that I am reverse-engineering the structure of the game and assigning arbitrary data values. The point is to find the way the device works, so really any set of numbers can do the job, its how they relate to one another that's important. The only problem I've encountered in breaking down this math is that I've basically ruined the battle axe. Statistically, its practically worthless, because you just do not need more than three attack dice. Totally not how it seemed before, but its really that way. There is barely any significant advantage in using four attack dice over three--you'll still produce the same unmitigated results. The battle axe It really comes down to enemy defense dice--which are basically worthless and practically do nothing (at 2 defense dice, and enemy has a better chance of you missing than himself defending). Three attack dice gives you a failure rate of 12% with an 80% chance to roll either 1 or 2 skulls, with a remotely 10% chance to roll 3. The battle axe takes away your shield (10%-15% reduction in defense) and reduces your failure rate by 6% while giving a 15% higher chance to roll 3 skulls (most enemies' do not have the BP to make this necessary, as 2 BP of damage is unlikely to be blocked by most of them). Forget rolling four hits, either, because you have only a 6% chance of squeezing it out, and even then an enemy would have to have 12 defense dice to even stand a chance of blocking it confidently.

What's the best weapon, you ask? I hope you all love the Spirit Blade, because she's it. Three attack dice is the most you'll ever need, and you get around the mummy's 50% chance to reduce damage by 1 point by hefting your attack dice up to 5 (5 and 6 attack dice are virtually the same, also). If you wear the helmet, shield and mail you will have five defense dice that give you a 1 in 3 shot of ignoring anything with less than 5 attack dice. You want your dice to come in odd numbers, as there are barely any real benefits from even numbered rolls comparatively (but those upgrades do cost money).

Each monster, in theory, is responsible for 1 BP taken from the Heroes per Quest. That's the deal.

Defense die, sadly, really comes down to how often you can reduce the damage you take by "one point". The whole "one point damage" concept is fairly ingrained, and seems to have been taken from the NA version to its detriment. It really is better, because statistically you are only going to take one BP damage from the majority of attacks. If I had to make an actual case for defense die, it would be: "to mitigate damage by 1 point or possibly more." It doesn't matter how many dice you roll, because attack dice statistically roll 1 success greater than defense dice--average damage basically indicates that successfully defending against an attack means that you only take 1 or fewer BP of damage. As far as monsters are concerned, for every 4 defense dice they get one hypothetical Body Point. 3 attack dice means that only chaos warriors, mummies and gargoyles can withstand you for very long.

Body Points are easy to place value on, because for each 1 that you have you basically get one chance at making it through an attack. The odds say that most monsters are going to suffer 1 without too much difficulty on part of the Heroes, so each BP past the first raise EQP by 1, though that begins to downscale once you get past 5 BP.

Body Points: EQP = '((BP+0.25)/1.5)'

I now understand how scary-powerful Mind Points are, and have always been in the game. They're basically the equivalent to the Saving Throw. They don't get used often, but when they do, they're usually pass/fail:life/death. The brevity of each Quest means that when you do play against Chaos Spells its vital to the effort to not suffer them. If you come across one spell, one time, across 14 Quests, you should probably not get hit by it. Firestorm, for example, is pretty bad news, but Lightning Bolt is worse--2 damage and no save to all affected.

Mind Points: EQP = '(MP/2.5)'

MP = 1, 2 +0 EQP
MP = 3, 4 +1 EQP
MP = 5+ +1 EQP


Beyond 5 MP you get no additional benefit from MP when it comes to breaking spells cast against you. You are practically immune to Command, Fear, Cloud of Chaos and Sleep.

Skeletons, zombies and mummies do not have MP. This is where that 'Var.' attribute comes into play. 0-MP monsters gain a +1 bonus to EQP that represents their immunity to spells that require them to roll based on their MP.
Last edited by chaoticprime on February 28th, 2014, 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby chaoticprime » February 28th, 2014, 11:21 am

Goblin-King wrote:Are you planning on taking wandering monster and monster composition in rooms into consideration?

I mean 6 goblins in 6 different rooms are likely to all be killed without even getting the chance to strike.
But 6 goblins in 1 room, 2 of them would probably get a chance to strike a hero.

Just saying... Difficulty is much more than the isolated amount of monsters.


Really?


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Re: WIP Quest Difficulty Modulator

Postby chaoticprime » February 28th, 2014, 11:32 am

Small redaction--I wrote that the Spirit Blade was good because it went from 3 to 5 AD. That was incorrect. The Spirit Blade is basically a broadsword--the extra die makes it almost unnoticably better against undead


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