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I read the discussion. Here are the thoughts that came to mind:
1) There are arguments, and there are non-arguments. The presence of the latter in a text casts doubt on either the author's intellectual abilities or their intentions, even if arguments are also present.
For example, all the considerations regarding fairness laid out in this topic are non-arguments.
Because there is and can be no fairness in the gameplay of Heroes; balance here is achieved differently — not by adjusting elements to each other, but on the contrary, by randomization, by the presence of an excess of everything. This allows more skilled players, who can see and account for more factors than their opponents, to win games and tournaments. This is how relative fairness of results is achieved with completely unfair gameplay.
And, by the way, the timer contributes very little here; typical draft irregularities are much more significant. For example, for Dungeon, you could easily trade half an hour from the timer for such an average irregularity as a single Griffin Conservatory under Castle and still come out ahead. And there are even bigger irregularities...
2) More generally — for games like chess, ГО, Heroes, etc., time limits stem from organizational considerations, not from game logic.
So, for example, an extra 100 seconds per turn (the ВТ timer) increases a game lasting a month by 1.5-2 hours. This is critical for club tournaments, so at CIS championships I always categorically insisted on a +400 limit, not +500. How this affects the gameplay — the players figure out for themselves.
Online tournaments are less sensitive because a fairly large amount of time is allotted for a game, which over time allowed increasing the standard control from 4 minutes to 8-10 in SoD and from 1800+300 to 4000+500 in TE/ВТ.
But there is a downside here — with a large time control, a game is difficult to play in one sitting; you have to play with adjournment, in 2-3 sessions. This all seriously affects the enjoyment of the game. And while a tournament game can be played with adjournment, for a fun game it's tedious.
This, by the way, is one of the reasons for the dominance of Jebus Cross in fun games — with a control of 4000+500, you can comfortably play for about 8-10 days an evening; more is harder. That's exactly how long a typical Jebus Cross game lasts. But on XL+U it averages 3 weeks, with games of 5-6 weeks being common.
3) For an objective view of the situation, it's often enough to look at it from the outside, through the eyes of a person without any habits or ambitions regarding the issue at hand.
So, for example, if you imagine the development of some new turn-based game, then regarding time control, the developers' first reaction to a proposal to differentiate the timer would inevitably be: "Well, what for?" And I'm not sure I could convincingly justify why...
Another option — try to imagine that Heroes was originally made with a chess clock and time in battles. What would the reaction of current players be to a proposal to make the timer like it is now in SoD? Probably a perplexed finger twirling at the temple... "kid, what's wrong with you?"
It's another matter who needs this objective view... as they say, "if the laws of physics were infringing on someone's political interests, they'd have been fixed by now" — a non-trivial factor.
4) People generally like to argue about tastes.
Therefore, it's naive to assume that some Oelm there will understand everything, repent, and publicly admit that it's time to stop stalling. There's a chance, but it's quite small, and it's for the case of one person, not a trend.
The thing is, by arguing about tastes, a person boosts their self-esteem, operates in a friend-or-foe coordinate system, and fills their life with socially active actions.
I encounter this at work quite often too. Although you'd think it's not a hobby like Heroes, but a quite pragmatic field, yet...
Debates usually stop when external pressure arises. For example, management's demand to submit the final project by tomorrow. Or a client's demand to show them a beta version, otherwise they'll turn to other developers. In such situations, people immediately start demonstrating expert skill in finding compromise, become interested in other people's points of view, begin to be guided not by the like/dislike criterion, but by the works/doesn't work criterion, etc.
This is also noticeable among Heroes players. So, for example, 4 years ago, when a patron from Yekaterinburg appeared on the horizon, wanting to sponsor a big club championship, the sluggish debates of SoD vs TE entered an acute phase, forced the development of TE-light, and formed that version of compromise rules that was ultimately implemented in Kyiv-2010.
And if, for example, Heroes were taken to WCG and a requirement like "game duration no more than 5 hours" were set, then the entire active Heroes elite would start playing blitz without any problem.
P.S. Can't read the "arguments" about Inferno with a straight face :)
1) There are arguments, and there are non-arguments. The presence of the latter in a text casts doubt on either the author's intellectual abilities or their intentions, even if arguments are also present.
For example, all the considerations regarding fairness laid out in this topic are non-arguments.
Because there is and can be no fairness in the gameplay of Heroes; balance here is achieved differently — not by adjusting elements to each other, but on the contrary, by randomization, by the presence of an excess of everything. This allows more skilled players, who can see and account for more factors than their opponents, to win games and tournaments. This is how relative fairness of results is achieved with completely unfair gameplay.
And, by the way, the timer contributes very little here; typical draft irregularities are much more significant. For example, for Dungeon, you could easily trade half an hour from the timer for such an average irregularity as a single Griffin Conservatory under Castle and still come out ahead. And there are even bigger irregularities...
2) More generally — for games like chess, ГО, Heroes, etc., time limits stem from organizational considerations, not from game logic.
So, for example, an extra 100 seconds per turn (the ВТ timer) increases a game lasting a month by 1.5-2 hours. This is critical for club tournaments, so at CIS championships I always categorically insisted on a +400 limit, not +500. How this affects the gameplay — the players figure out for themselves.
Online tournaments are less sensitive because a fairly large amount of time is allotted for a game, which over time allowed increasing the standard control from 4 minutes to 8-10 in SoD and from 1800+300 to 4000+500 in TE/ВТ.
But there is a downside here — with a large time control, a game is difficult to play in one sitting; you have to play with adjournment, in 2-3 sessions. This all seriously affects the enjoyment of the game. And while a tournament game can be played with adjournment, for a fun game it's tedious.
This, by the way, is one of the reasons for the dominance of Jebus Cross in fun games — with a control of 4000+500, you can comfortably play for about 8-10 days an evening; more is harder. That's exactly how long a typical Jebus Cross game lasts. But on XL+U it averages 3 weeks, with games of 5-6 weeks being common.
3) For an objective view of the situation, it's often enough to look at it from the outside, through the eyes of a person without any habits or ambitions regarding the issue at hand.
So, for example, if you imagine the development of some new turn-based game, then regarding time control, the developers' first reaction to a proposal to differentiate the timer would inevitably be: "Well, what for?" And I'm not sure I could convincingly justify why...
Another option — try to imagine that Heroes was originally made with a chess clock and time in battles. What would the reaction of current players be to a proposal to make the timer like it is now in SoD? Probably a perplexed finger twirling at the temple... "kid, what's wrong with you?"
It's another matter who needs this objective view... as they say, "if the laws of physics were infringing on someone's political interests, they'd have been fixed by now" — a non-trivial factor.
4) People generally like to argue about tastes.
Therefore, it's naive to assume that some Oelm there will understand everything, repent, and publicly admit that it's time to stop stalling. There's a chance, but it's quite small, and it's for the case of one person, not a trend.
The thing is, by arguing about tastes, a person boosts their self-esteem, operates in a friend-or-foe coordinate system, and fills their life with socially active actions.
I encounter this at work quite often too. Although you'd think it's not a hobby like Heroes, but a quite pragmatic field, yet...
Debates usually stop when external pressure arises. For example, management's demand to submit the final project by tomorrow. Or a client's demand to show them a beta version, otherwise they'll turn to other developers. In such situations, people immediately start demonstrating expert skill in finding compromise, become interested in other people's points of view, begin to be guided not by the like/dislike criterion, but by the works/doesn't work criterion, etc.
This is also noticeable among Heroes players. So, for example, 4 years ago, when a patron from Yekaterinburg appeared on the horizon, wanting to sponsor a big club championship, the sluggish debates of SoD vs TE entered an acute phase, forced the development of TE-light, and formed that version of compromise rules that was ultimately implemented in Kyiv-2010.
And if, for example, Heroes were taken to WCG and a requirement like "game duration no more than 5 hours" were set, then the entire active Heroes elite would start playing blitz without any problem.
P.S. Can't read the "arguments" about Inferno with a straight face :)
