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A granddaughter tells her grandmother:
- Yesterday, Mom and I went to the store. They bought me such a beautiful dress! Guess what color it is? It starts with the letter "P"!
- Purple?
- No.
- Pistachio?
- No.
- Hmm... Pansy?
- No!
- I can't think of anything else. What is it?
- Plaid!
---
I've been meaning to bring up what I consider to be one of the most underestimated (even at the top level) spells in the game for a while. While even a beginner can quickly grasp the power of Slow, and control spells are constantly discussed, decide game outcomes, and look very flashy. To top it off, there are powerful combat spells like Implosion, Armageddon, Chain Lightning. And the cheesy Animate Dead has won who knows how many games. Amidst all this abundance, a simple View (Earth, and a bit of Air) for a modest one mana leaves few impressed. And that's a shame.
I remember when I first discovered Heroes streams, I was very impressed by the level of play. Seemingly impossible breakthrough fights, mile-long chain moves, the complexity of many turns, intricate schemes, calculations, flys, etc. All of this looked (and frankly continues to look) sometimes just cosmic. Yes, I was lucky to come across interesting broadcasts in general and strategically interesting games in particular (rather than another linear Jebus Cross), but Heroes definitely has something to watch.
The only aspect that evoked opposite emotions in me was View spells. Even in top-tier games, it was used (and continues to be used) quite sparingly, and sometimes even forgotten entirely. And there are certainly several quite logical reasons for that. A View spell is, by its nature, a purely strategic element. Not flashy. You won't get a cool artifact with it, you won't level up your hero, you won't gather an army, you can't win the game because of it, right? For each point, one could add a snide "supposedly". Yes, View formally does none of the above, but it can very significantly contribute to each, even the last, point.
When I say I consider View the most underestimated, I mean two aspects:
First - the cumulative impact on the outcome of a game on average. This concept is both abstract and subjective, of course; everyone probably has their own opinion. It's possible that at the current stage of Heroes development, View is the top-1 spell in this aspect. Those who bring Slow into this are likely looking at it somewhat superficially. Certainly, in a game between opponents of comparable strength, if one has Slow and Expert Earth from an early stage, and the other somehow doesn't even have it by the end of the game, the winner can already be named based on that data. But first, that's one in a thousand games, and second, the chance of getting a spell is not something directly related to the result in terms of skill application (if all adequate actions were taken to increase that chance, which is generally a topic for another equally lengthy post). To put it a bit more clearly: if you give two players of comparable skill the same scenario starting from the moment they get Slow and see how much the difference in their application of Slow affected the result, that difference wouldn't be that large. Especially at the top level. But with View, it's a completely different story.
Second - the unrealized potential. That is, how much can be extracted in a theoretical vacuum compared to what is achieved in real practice. And here, I think more people would agree with me. Sometimes you see how View completely overturns the entire current plan, and other times it's completely forgotten, even when possible. And another turn passes, and then another. And consequently, people didn't really bother much with the necessity of obtaining it. A huge, sometimes diametrical, difference.
The first aspect is mostly subjective. Tactical elements attract more attention, while strategic ones remain a barely noticeable background. It's largely a matter of perception. But for the second aspect, besides subjective ones, there is also a completely objective reason - the inconvenience of the functionality. And this is something that can be fixed, albeit only in theory for now.
---
What useful things can you actually see with a View spell?
- The entire road network (including possible bugged ones)
- All terrain, surface types
- All resources and mines
- All zones and connections between them (including possible bugged ones)
- With not 100% but very high probability, you can figure out where the opponent's main forces are, where they are moving, where they hold their chain, where they are scouting
The first points are used by the majority, but again not to their full potential. The last ones are used even by top players irregularly and sparingly. But that's not all. With View you can also:
- Calculate the exact* distance between any two points on the map and, accordingly, how many MP are needed to cover that distance
- Find the Grail
- Pinpoint possible locations of Utopias.
I'm far from sure that these are all the possibilities that View provides, but let's deal with those that come to mind for now. The topic of the Grail should be discussed separately, as it would inflate this post to an indigestible volume. In short: on L+U maps, after uncovering 3 obelisks, using View you can locate the puzzle piece on unexplored territory in 95%+ of cases. With some practice, this takes 5-7 minutes. On XL+U, it's essentially the same, but you might need to visit more obelisks, and the time to search visually without any aids would be much longer. We'll postpone the topic of Utopias for now, maybe we'll return to it later.
And now we move to the main topic of the post: calculating distances on unexplored territory using View.
Surely everyone has seen on streams, or even regularly encountered in their own games, a situation where you were running to take an opponent's town and were short by that famous one little step. Or you took the town but couldn't sit in it. Shit happens/Unlucky or your own mistake? It depends on how you look at it. Or in the late game, you tried to take the opponent's town with control. You leveled a support hero, buffed them, flew in with 2 Dimension Doors and were short a step. Maybe the Dimension Doors were not optimal and it could have been enough? Or was it truly impossible? In any case, a lost turn; had you known, you wouldn't have flown. Or you took the town but had no moves left for Town Portal, and you lose a support. Or even your main, and ultimately the game. Naturally, the higher the level of play, the more significant each mistake becomes, especially such a serious one.
Starting from a roughly intermediate level, most players probably calculate MP on explored territory. Perhaps only for short and key distances, with errors and inaccuracies, roughly by eye. The kind where straight is 1, diagonal is 1.5, and on an average road it's somewhat less, it should be enough, I think. And then you take your chances. On unexplored territory, inaccuracies increase, errors multiply, and basically, forget it. It's hard. Inconvenient.
And all because we don't have a bicycle. That grid. Not yet. For clarity, let's analyze a specific example.
Given the View: https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/ed2dc-clip-2389kb.jpg (click on the link; I couldn't hide the screenshot under a spoiler, and the file wouldn't fit in the attachments). The blue arrow marks an elevator, whose entrance we can see from the underground. The orange arrow marks the purple player's town, which we want to capture. As can be seen on the minimap, we haven't been in this zone yet; we can't see what's happening there. We only use View. We have a hero who can run to the elevator. We competently and accurately calculated how much MP he will have left when he reaches the elevator. The hero will have 1 Dimension Door, Expert Earth and Air, and Town Portal in his arsenal. Enough mana not to worry. We need to capture the town and cast Town Portal to a safe place. How much MP is needed for this?
If you're curious, you can try to calculate it yourself before reading further in the post. And then compare.
For convenience: Dimension Door and Town Portal require 200 MP with expert skill, a step on the road (average in this case) costs 65, diagonal 91. On grass, straight costs 100 and diagonal 141. Dimension Door can be cast up to a maximum of 9 tiles.
---
If I ended the post here, I think we would see many different numbers. Somewhere around 1000<=X<=2000 with some clustering in the center of the range. Or maybe none at all :-) But we continue and look at the second, main screenshot: https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/2fb88-clip-2365kb.jpg?nocache=1
Here we see a View of the same section of the map, but with a grid overlaid. Calculating MP becomes a matter of technique and some attentiveness. For verification, I'm also attaching three more screenshots of the already revealed map to confirm that our calculations based on the View are completely accurate.
https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/60c07-clip-2285kb.jpg?nocache=1
https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/392bb-clip-1970kb.jpg?nocache=1
https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/44f32-clip-2257kb.jpg?nocache=1
That's all for now. Join the discussion. Knowledge (Views) is power!
---
* - For pedants worse than me: we still can't make absolutely accurate calculations based on Views. Because Views don't show objects and guards. In the vast majority of cases, a minimal reserve will be sufficient. Having Fly or at least a powerful army almost completely negates this aspect.
- Yesterday, Mom and I went to the store. They bought me such a beautiful dress! Guess what color it is? It starts with the letter "P"!
- Purple?
- No.
- Pistachio?
- No.
- Hmm... Pansy?
- No!
- I can't think of anything else. What is it?
- Plaid!
---
I've been meaning to bring up what I consider to be one of the most underestimated (even at the top level) spells in the game for a while. While even a beginner can quickly grasp the power of Slow, and control spells are constantly discussed, decide game outcomes, and look very flashy. To top it off, there are powerful combat spells like Implosion, Armageddon, Chain Lightning. And the cheesy Animate Dead has won who knows how many games. Amidst all this abundance, a simple View (Earth, and a bit of Air) for a modest one mana leaves few impressed. And that's a shame.
I remember when I first discovered Heroes streams, I was very impressed by the level of play. Seemingly impossible breakthrough fights, mile-long chain moves, the complexity of many turns, intricate schemes, calculations, flys, etc. All of this looked (and frankly continues to look) sometimes just cosmic. Yes, I was lucky to come across interesting broadcasts in general and strategically interesting games in particular (rather than another linear Jebus Cross), but Heroes definitely has something to watch.
The only aspect that evoked opposite emotions in me was View spells. Even in top-tier games, it was used (and continues to be used) quite sparingly, and sometimes even forgotten entirely. And there are certainly several quite logical reasons for that. A View spell is, by its nature, a purely strategic element. Not flashy. You won't get a cool artifact with it, you won't level up your hero, you won't gather an army, you can't win the game because of it, right? For each point, one could add a snide "supposedly". Yes, View formally does none of the above, but it can very significantly contribute to each, even the last, point.
When I say I consider View the most underestimated, I mean two aspects:
First - the cumulative impact on the outcome of a game on average. This concept is both abstract and subjective, of course; everyone probably has their own opinion. It's possible that at the current stage of Heroes development, View is the top-1 spell in this aspect. Those who bring Slow into this are likely looking at it somewhat superficially. Certainly, in a game between opponents of comparable strength, if one has Slow and Expert Earth from an early stage, and the other somehow doesn't even have it by the end of the game, the winner can already be named based on that data. But first, that's one in a thousand games, and second, the chance of getting a spell is not something directly related to the result in terms of skill application (if all adequate actions were taken to increase that chance, which is generally a topic for another equally lengthy post). To put it a bit more clearly: if you give two players of comparable skill the same scenario starting from the moment they get Slow and see how much the difference in their application of Slow affected the result, that difference wouldn't be that large. Especially at the top level. But with View, it's a completely different story.
Second - the unrealized potential. That is, how much can be extracted in a theoretical vacuum compared to what is achieved in real practice. And here, I think more people would agree with me. Sometimes you see how View completely overturns the entire current plan, and other times it's completely forgotten, even when possible. And another turn passes, and then another. And consequently, people didn't really bother much with the necessity of obtaining it. A huge, sometimes diametrical, difference.
The first aspect is mostly subjective. Tactical elements attract more attention, while strategic ones remain a barely noticeable background. It's largely a matter of perception. But for the second aspect, besides subjective ones, there is also a completely objective reason - the inconvenience of the functionality. And this is something that can be fixed, albeit only in theory for now.
---
What useful things can you actually see with a View spell?
- The entire road network (including possible bugged ones)
- All terrain, surface types
- All resources and mines
- All zones and connections between them (including possible bugged ones)
- With not 100% but very high probability, you can figure out where the opponent's main forces are, where they are moving, where they hold their chain, where they are scouting
The first points are used by the majority, but again not to their full potential. The last ones are used even by top players irregularly and sparingly. But that's not all. With View you can also:
- Calculate the exact* distance between any two points on the map and, accordingly, how many MP are needed to cover that distance
- Find the Grail
- Pinpoint possible locations of Utopias.
I'm far from sure that these are all the possibilities that View provides, but let's deal with those that come to mind for now. The topic of the Grail should be discussed separately, as it would inflate this post to an indigestible volume. In short: on L+U maps, after uncovering 3 obelisks, using View you can locate the puzzle piece on unexplored territory in 95%+ of cases. With some practice, this takes 5-7 minutes. On XL+U, it's essentially the same, but you might need to visit more obelisks, and the time to search visually without any aids would be much longer. We'll postpone the topic of Utopias for now, maybe we'll return to it later.
And now we move to the main topic of the post: calculating distances on unexplored territory using View.
Surely everyone has seen on streams, or even regularly encountered in their own games, a situation where you were running to take an opponent's town and were short by that famous one little step. Or you took the town but couldn't sit in it. Shit happens/Unlucky or your own mistake? It depends on how you look at it. Or in the late game, you tried to take the opponent's town with control. You leveled a support hero, buffed them, flew in with 2 Dimension Doors and were short a step. Maybe the Dimension Doors were not optimal and it could have been enough? Or was it truly impossible? In any case, a lost turn; had you known, you wouldn't have flown. Or you took the town but had no moves left for Town Portal, and you lose a support. Or even your main, and ultimately the game. Naturally, the higher the level of play, the more significant each mistake becomes, especially such a serious one.
Starting from a roughly intermediate level, most players probably calculate MP on explored territory. Perhaps only for short and key distances, with errors and inaccuracies, roughly by eye. The kind where straight is 1, diagonal is 1.5, and on an average road it's somewhat less, it should be enough, I think. And then you take your chances. On unexplored territory, inaccuracies increase, errors multiply, and basically, forget it. It's hard. Inconvenient.
And all because we don't have a bicycle. That grid. Not yet. For clarity, let's analyze a specific example.
Given the View: https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/ed2dc-clip-2389kb.jpg (click on the link; I couldn't hide the screenshot under a spoiler, and the file wouldn't fit in the attachments). The blue arrow marks an elevator, whose entrance we can see from the underground. The orange arrow marks the purple player's town, which we want to capture. As can be seen on the minimap, we haven't been in this zone yet; we can't see what's happening there. We only use View. We have a hero who can run to the elevator. We competently and accurately calculated how much MP he will have left when he reaches the elevator. The hero will have 1 Dimension Door, Expert Earth and Air, and Town Portal in his arsenal. Enough mana not to worry. We need to capture the town and cast Town Portal to a safe place. How much MP is needed for this?
If you're curious, you can try to calculate it yourself before reading further in the post. And then compare.
For convenience: Dimension Door and Town Portal require 200 MP with expert skill, a step on the road (average in this case) costs 65, diagonal 91. On grass, straight costs 100 and diagonal 141. Dimension Door can be cast up to a maximum of 9 tiles.
---
If I ended the post here, I think we would see many different numbers. Somewhere around 1000<=X<=2000 with some clustering in the center of the range. Or maybe none at all :-) But we continue and look at the second, main screenshot: https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/2fb88-clip-2365kb.jpg?nocache=1
Here we see a View of the same section of the map, but with a grid overlaid. Calculating MP becomes a matter of technique and some attentiveness. For verification, I'm also attaching three more screenshots of the already revealed map to confirm that our calculations based on the View are completely accurate.
https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/60c07-clip-2285kb.jpg?nocache=1
https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/392bb-clip-1970kb.jpg?nocache=1
https://clip2net.com/clip/m223041/44f32-clip-2257kb.jpg?nocache=1
That's all for now. Join the discussion. Knowledge (Views) is power!
---
* - For pedants worse than me: we still can't make absolutely accurate calculations based on Views. Because Views don't show objects and guards. In the vast majority of cases, a minimal reserve will be sufficient. Having Fly or at least a powerful army almost completely negates this aspect.
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