Differences/Comparison With Hero Academy

[ArtNJ]

Saw the new article today, and laughed at the "oh shit" moment when Hero Academy came out, but the games really do sound fairly different, or at least different enough. I plan to try Outwitters, and get some of my buddies from the Hero Academy league to team with me. Anyway, just wondering about some of the key differences in the following areas:

(1) Hero Academy games average around 36 "turns," which is to say each player moves an average of 18 times. Games range from a minimum of about 16 turns to a maximum of about 65 turns (with exceptionally rare games of 80 turns not being totally unheard of, although I personally dont know I have ever had more than 60);

(2) Hero Academy has a luck element, in that the units and items you get from a fixed deck are randomly drawn. Does Outwitters have a luck element?

(3) Hero Academy has no official league, but I am the founder of a player run league that uses the ELO system. Do your Leagues use Elo, or how do they work exactly?

(4) Using an "K" value of 32 and a starting rating of 1200, the Hero Academy League has player ratings ranging from about 950 to 1610. What this means, more or less, is that the best players beat "new" players about 90-95% time, and that includes new League members (assigned a 1200 rating) that have practiced a lot on random opponents. Are you seeing that kind of skill curve in your beta?

(5) Do you have in game chat? Do you have the ability to privately chat with a teammate?

(6) Do you have "time controls"? (Hero Academy has none)

(7) What do folks think that have tried both games?

[N135]

All I can say is this: I haven't played outwitters beta yet, but I'm hoping that (like uniwar) there is some way to skip a player who is not playing after a certain amount of time.

I found it particularly annoying that hero academy did not have this. I have 15 games running, but only 5 of them actually have active opponents.

[Kamikaze28]

I'm not sure how much I am allowed to talk about beta insights, but there are some questions I can answer with public knowledge:

1. That's not a question.
2. OML stated in various articles, that you are 100% in control of your actions. You spawn units by spending wits - what units you are able to spawn is only dependent on how many wits you have available. In other words, as far as these articles go, there is no luck element in Outwitters.
3. No idea.
4. That's a question that only Alex could answer.
5. Based on this post, we can assume, that there will be a chat for opponents.
6. Any serious league system (even in the real world) has a forfeit due to inactivity mechanic, I'd hope Outwitters does too. Exactly for those reasons, N135 pointed out.
7. I deleted Hero Academy very quickly after installing it and playing a few games for multiple reasons, so I'm really not the one to make a detailed comparison. But from my personal opinion, I like Outwitter ∞-times more than Hero Academy.
   

[onealexleft]

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (1) Hero Academy games average around 36 "turns," which is to say each player moves an average of 18 times. Games range from a minimum of about 16 turns to a maximum of about 65 turns (with exceptionally rare games of 80 turns not being totally unheard of, although I personally dont know I have ever had more than 60);

In the 1v1 context, games can last as little as 7 turns to as high as 40-60. 2v2 is probably around then 15-50 mark, but haven't really looked into that data lately.

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (2) Hero Academy has a luck element, in that the units and items you get from a fixed deck are randomly drawn. Does Outwitters have a luck element?

Spawning units is purely under the control of the player. Yet, Outwitters has a 'Fog of War' element that introduces a slight element of luck, but as players get better it becomes less of a luck element as opposed to random items/units.

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (3) Hero Academy has no official league, but I am the founder of a player run league that uses the ELO system. Do your Leagues use Elo, or how do they work exactly?

We have a league and ladder system. Players are divided into separate 'tiers' of leagues. Within tiers you are competing against 99 other players of similar skill on a ladder called a division for ladder points. Each league has a range of skill ratings that encompass it. Your skill rating is hidden, and the system is not a pure ELO system but has some ELO elements to it to help drive the matchmaking.

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (4) Using an "K" value of 32 and a starting rating of 1200, the Hero Academy League has player ratings ranging from about 950 to 1610. What this means, more or less, is that the best players beat "new" players about 90-95% time, and that includes new League members (assigned a 1200 rating) that have practiced a lot on random opponents. Are you seeing that kind of skill curve in your beta?

In general, yes we have a pretty wide variety of skill and the better players can clearly dominate newer players 90+% of the time.

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (5) Do you have in game chat? Do you have the ability to privately chat with a teammate?

Yes and yes.

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (6) Do you have "time controls"? (Hero Academy has none)

Are you referring to games expiring after inactivity? Not yet in beta, but it's planned for release or very soon after.

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (7) What do folks think that have tried both games?

I haven't heard any comments from beta testers directly comparing the two. I've played Hero's Academy and thought it was an awesome game. Granted, I think Outwitters plays quite differently and if players bring in HA gameplay assumptions into Outwitters they may be disappointed in the results. Although I think strategy buffs will find something to love in both games.

[Solan]

I like very much that there isn't as much of a luck element. I feel like it's really stupid when you lose because of a random chance, even something like "X% chance to dodge". Kinda feels the best for me to lose because i did bad rather than the game was unlucky .

[phrenikos]

(05-10-2012 05:45 PM)onealexleft Wrote:  

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (6) Do you have "time controls"? (Hero Academy has none)

Are you referring to games expiring after inactivity? Not yet in beta, but it's planned for release or very soon after.

As a follow up question - does Outwitters allow a player to reconnect to a match for a small time frame if they disconnect because of bad data...wifi.... etc.

[ArtNJ]

Thanks Alex. The lack of a luck factor (fog of war doesnt count as luck imho), built in support for 2 v 2 and leagues are all very nice distinguishing features. I and many others like to know how rankings are calculated, but as long as its not a pure ladder in the traditionally idiotic form, and it sounds like its not with the Elo element, its all good.

As far as time controls, no I dont exactly mean games expiring after inactivity. Hero Academy has that, uncustomizable and its fairly useless. I mean something more like the system that the asynch card game Ascendancy uses, where each player has a clock that ticks when its their turn, and the player starting the match can create a game with total time on the "clock" of anywhere from 10 minutes (essentially a live game) to 14 days.

Ascendancy's total time method is handy. However, being able to set the time per move is handy as well. For example, being able to chose 1 day per move, 3 days per move, etc... This is your "time control" for the game.

The Hero Academy league I co-run uses a max of 5 days per move. However, this works only because we allow players to post how often they move when looking for matches, and players are expected (code of honor) to try and honor what they posted as far as how often they will move. We dont enforce the code of honor, we just tell folks dont play them again if your not happy. We also allow players to take more than 5 days if they announce a special situation. We have not had any real complaints using this system, but built in support for flexible time controls is far preferable.

[Solan]

getting to have a long time for moves like that other game sounds kinda fun to me... although i wouldn't mind if outwitters didn't have that.

[onealexleft]

(05-10-2012 09:16 PM)phrenikos Wrote:  

(05-10-2012 05:45 PM)onealexleft Wrote:  

(05-10-2012 12:58 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (6) Do you have "time controls"? (Hero Academy has none)

Are you referring to games expiring after inactivity? Not yet in beta, but it's planned for release or very soon after.

As a follow up question - does Outwitters allow a player to reconnect to a match for a small time frame if they disconnect because of bad data...wifi.... etc.

The game is played asynchronously, so if you have bad data/wifi you simply try to submit your turn again when you have a better connection.

[aaronINdayton]

I believe I read somewhere that you will not be able to try different things before submitting your turn in Outwitters, as in, once you move your elephant up one, there's no undoing that action. Is this correct? One of my favorite things about Hero Academy is being able to try my turn as many times as I'd like before submitting.