HEROQUEST - COMPANION APP discussion

[Niro90]

@manamail: I want to make a review of your general algorithm of how to move and attack with monsters, but I will need much more time.

Your basic ideas for "spell casters" make totally sense. Generally start with "Summons" and only "Firestorm" when not many monsters in the room are left (or leave with the monsters outside the room and then firestorm). I also had the situation where caster firestorm kill his own troop.
For "Command" I like the idea of "fewest minds points", but best algorithm would be "highest damage" and "fewest mind points", but simply most of the time on the "barbarian" if he has not a special high mind points boost. In special case, as I remember, when the spell caster can only be harmed by a special weapon, use "Command" (also "Fear", etc.) on the person with the special weapon, if the character not already has such an effect applied. This is a great strategy of the spell caster, which can only be harmed by a single weapon.
Rest of your ideas for spell caster make sense.


@Kurgan: How to get to the Avalon Hill discord. I "googled" for it already because I read about it on the last pages of this thread, but do not found any discord invite link. Would be great if I can get there.

[Kurgan]

@manamail: I want to make a review of your general algorithm of how to move and attack with monsters, but I will need much more time.

Your basic ideas for "spell casters" make totally sense. Generally start with "Summons" and only "Firestorm" when not many monsters in the room are left (or leave with the monsters outside the room and then firestorm). I also had the situation where caster firestorm kill his own troop.
For "Command" I like the idea of "fewest minds points", but best algorithm would be "highest damage" and "fewest mind points", but simply most of the time on the "barbarian" if he has not a special high mind points boost. In special case, as I remember, when the spell caster can only be harmed by a special weapon, use "Command" (also "Fear", etc.) on the person with the special weapon, if the character not already has such an effect applied. This is a great strategy of the spell caster, which can only be harmed by a single weapon.
Rest of your ideas for spell caster make sense.


@Kurgan: How to get to the Avalon Hill discord. I "googled" for it already because I read about it on the last pages of this thread, but do not found any discord invite link. Would be great if I can get there.

Avalon Hill official discord: https://discord.gg/5JtUkBGwYH

other fan communities:

Mentor's Study: https://discord.gg/Bg9z9rwwA5

HeroQuest Master Edition (TTS): https://discord.gg/D5eFp3PWkj

HeroQuestFans: https://discord.gg/2R9pEP4cty

[Kurgan]

Michael on Avalon Hill discord said the fastest way to pass along bug reports and feature requests is to @ him on that discord. I had him pass along some requests while at GenCon:

Put itemized list of changes in each patch version (like a changelog)
Allow to edit the profiles of Mercenaries to change their names (like the heroes)
Allow Mercenaries to "use special" (mainly for the ROTDM elven mercs, but could be all and just use the honor system)

I forgot to mention an "undo" feature for Mercs (for when they pass through rock and you pull your finger back too soon and they die instantly)

Hello. Could you please send them the changes I suggested to the monster AI to see if they can improve it? I don't have Discord, and my English is very poor. I'm actually writing this using Google Translate. Thank you very much.

I'm adding some improvements to the AI for evil spellcasters to see if they can be reported as well:

The evil spellcasters, often cast spells that aren't appropriate at the time. I think evil spellcasters need the following improvements:

- If they have the spells "Summon Undead" or "Summon Orcs," they should be the first spell cast on their first turn.

- "Command" should be cast on the hero with the fewest minds points.

- "Fear" should be cast on the hero with the most attack dice.

- Sometimes the first spell an evil spellcasters casts is "Firestorm," which almost certainly kills all the monsters in the room. This spell should be cast as a last resort when there are few monsters left or the mage feels truly threatened, since if it's cast early (as the APP's AI often does), the spellcasters himself will kill all his minions.

- Often, when casting "Rust," the evil sorcerer casts it on the wizard (if you have the option to have monsters attack weakly), which makes no sense. This spell should always be cast on the hero with the most attack dice or defense dice.

I think they are on a 1-2 week vacation but I messaged him directly with these items. Good idea!

[manamail]

Hello. Here's a summary of everything I think would improve the AI. I've redid it compared to the previous one, since if the heroes carry ranged weapons, some things wouldn't work since the app doesn't know what weapon each hero is carrying. I've also sent this to Hispazargon for them to report, but if you could report it here, we'd put more pressure on them.

Advanced Goblin AI

When advanced goblins are activated, they move, attack, and move again. So if there are several advanced goblins and other monsters in a room, it's logical that the goblins attack, move, and leave the gap for the rest of the monsters to attack. However, what the application does (if, for example, you're outside a room at the door and there's only one gap) is attack any monster (never the goblins), and since they have no gap to move, they move randomly around the room without being able to do anything.

The problem would be solved if the monster activation order were as follows:

- Advanced goblins should move first, attack, and move to leave a gap.

- Then the monsters that can do the most damage should move.

- Finally, the rest of the monsters with the ability to attack should occupy the remaining gaps.

Regarding monster AI in general:

-Advanced skeletons should always attack diagonally to free up horizontal or vertical spaces for other monsters to attack.

-If a monster has attacked and hasn't moved yet, and there are other monsters in the room that can move and attack (but don't have a space to do so), the attacking monster should move to free up space for another monster to attack.

Regarding evil spellcasters

Evil spellcasters often cast spells that aren't appropriate at the time. I think Evil Mages need the following improvements:

-If they have the spells "Summon Undead" or "Summon Orcs," they should cast them on their first turn.

- "Command" should be cast on the hero with the fewest minds points. Command should be prioritized over spells that deal direct damage, as it's more optimal for an evil spellcasters to control a hero and turn them against their friends than to deal any damage.

- "Fear" should be cast on the hero with the most attack dice.

- Sometimes the first spell the evil spellcasterscasts is "Firestorm," which almost certainly kills all the monsters in the room. This spell should be cast as a last resort when there are few monsters left or the wizard feels truly threatened, since if it is cast early (as the APP's AI often does), the wizard himself will kill all his minions.

- Often, when casting "Rust," the evil spellcasters casts it on the wizard (if you have the option to have weak attacking monsters), which makes no sense. This spell should always be cast on the hero with the most attack or defense dice, since logically, they are the ones with the best equipment.

Regarding optional app improvements

- Since the quest books always include a blank map at the end so you can create your own quests, these should be able to be loaded into the app. The app should have a quest editor so you can play the quests people make at home with friends. This would give the game much more life without hindering the purchase of expansions.

- For a complete app experience, the voices should be dubbed into multiple languages. If this isn't possible, it would be a great addition if the audio files could be edited so the community could put them in the language they play in.

[manamail]

For "Command" I like the idea of "fewest minds points", but best algorithm would be "highest damage" and "fewest mind points", but simply most of the time on the "barbarian" if he has not a special high mind points boost. In special case, as I remember, when the spell caster can only be harmed by a special weapon, use "Command" (also "Fear", etc.) on the person with the special weapon, if the character not already has such an effect applied. This is a great strategy of the spell caster, which can only be harmed by a single weapon.


The biggest problem is that the app doesn't know which weapon each hero is carrying, so it has to be made to work as best as possible in all cases.

[Niro90]

The biggest problem is that the app doesn't know which weapon each hero is carrying, so it has to be made to work as best as possible in all cases.

This is correct, I forgot about it. Thanks.

I wanted to make some app suggestions on Discord, but I should probably wait until Michael is back.
It's also a bit confusing there, as there is no direct channel dedicated to apps. App-related topics are discussed in an active HQ channel along with many other HQ-related topics. I scrolled back through the last few months and saw some ideas/bug reports for the app, but unfortunately there is no indication of which ones have already been implemented (or are on the to-do list) and which ones have not been accepted.
Perhaps we could suggest a new, better-structured channel for app suggestions and app bugs to Michael later. Discord also allows subtopics in a channels and supports features to better structure it.

@Kurgan, do you know which country the Avalon Hill app developer team and Michael are from? It's not important, but I'd be interested to know.

[Kurgan]

Avalon Hill is headquartered in the US and I'm pretty sure they're all Americans (the guys and gals we see at GenCon each year). Other offices in other countries are much smaller.

There is no dedicated channel for app trouble shooting. Again Michael said best to send it direct to him on discord.

Regarding not knowing what weapon, you can adjust the "attack" value in the profile of each hero character in play, and that's the best you can do. So if you don't, before Zargon's turn, how will he know? Exactly. And the App can't tell the difference between a longsword and a crossbow in your inventory, just sees the number that's it. But I would tend to say adjust it to the strongest weapon you happen to have (or artifact weapon as the case may be), same with your defense dice.

[manamail]

An interesting addition to the app is the definition of each hero's weapon and the ability to save their stats between missions (something that can't be done now). This would allow for better programming of the monsters' AI based on whether the hero is using melee or ranged weapons, or if they're carrying an artifact.

[Kurgan]

Thanks for Virg's suggestion... I used the APK to install 6.0 on Bluestacks5.

Seems exactly like v.5.1, just with CoPD added. All the alternations for CoPD match the booklet so far as we've seen. I do like that it uses the iron/wooden entrance/exit doors though as the original did, in the app graphics. Green fog (like the GS, KK, ROTWL, etc).

Dread on the Horizon (online quest 004, demoed at GenCon; presented as a prelude to First Light, but teases Wizards of Morcar!) has not yet been added, unfortunately.

Minor spoilers... in "Use Special" they added "use mouse familiar" (graphics shows a spell scroll card with the text).

None of the new artifacts appear in the "use special" menu for artifacts however (which means just follow the physical card's instructions).

Was Spell Scroll lightning bolt in the old version? Because it's not here now.

[HispaZargon]

LB spell scroll card was shown on page 27 of the old questbook of CoPD.