Initiative makes disbalance in the game. I cant say it would be better w/o it, I just think it is not well balanced.
Some races are just overpowering over the others. By playing I found out that Sylvan with its top Initiative and Speed stats can not be defeated in a high lvl hero fight.
Some races have advantage of quicker progress, but lack strength to win the battle on higher lvls. The artifacts, skills and special abilities that increase Initiative are also overpowered, +- 5-20% (skills and special abilities even more)rounded up is just too much if you use creatures of Sylvan and Academy units. Sylvan base initiative and Academy Artificer special ability combined with artifacts are way overpowering.
The fact that some units play 2x while other play 1x is absurd.
Also speed is very much a factor in the game. I have a feeling that some races with increased speed of their units would be much more powerful.

E.G. Crystal Dragon vs Untamed Cyclops the difference is brutal and absurd.
In theory everything works fine, Cyclops has range attack, can attack 4 tiles,... But problems start in practice, 14 base Initiative and 9 speed vs Cyclops 9 Initiative and 5 speed will not work. The fact is that by increasing Initiative by percentage rounded up, not even with best of artifacts and skills can cyclops match the crystal dragon. Every Initiative increase for sylvan means he will gain it more and more, while cyclops will never make that number with same or similar increase. Reduction of initiative would be more beneficial for lower initiative races, cause by subtracting percentage it would reduce more Initiative for creatures with higher Initiative, but there is so few abilities and artifacts that decrease Initiative. Now I know there are a few tricks with barbarian to increase ATB values of friendly units, but in that case speed of 5 and 6 will just make some turns go to waste, while Sylvan will in most cases attack in the first turn with most of his units.

I have a few simple solutions that you might consider for next patches or expansion.
1. Initiative should increase or decrease by fixed number, +1, -1, +2, -2,...
2. Average Speed and Initiative of all races should be the same number or +-1. If this can not be made so, there is a need for more items and skills that decrease initiative.

All in all this is a great game, I enjoy playing it and it is in my best interest that it becomes perfect. Ty for letting HoMM live.

I will agree that high initiative artifacts with sylvan and academy with artificered units can be over the top at times but you are wrong about the rest. Cyclopes can't defeat crystals? Yeah maybe in an XXL map with insane attack for sylvan, low defense for orcs, lucky hit and favoured. Normally this is unrealistic and the dragons are toast after that first charge, if not by the remaining cyclopes by the rest of the orcish army.

See initiative between individuals tells you nothing, you have to take into account everything on the battlefield to speak about balance. Including possible skills.

However I still believe that weeks or artifacts that give 20% bonus or penalty to initiative is a sign of terrible balance. If you get ring of speed and staff of netherworld you automatically win..

Initiative is a great feature and makes the game so much enjoyable but if it strays too far from its default position things get messy. I hope that in H6 there will not be an artifact that gives over 10% change or if higher then not to be able to stack.

Edit: One huge issue is the random starting atb that ranges from 0-0.25% bonus. I don't think I need to clarify more..

quote:

Originally posted by Elementalist.:
Cyclopes can't defeat crystals? Yeah maybe in an XXL map with insane attack for sylvan, low defense for orcs, lucky hit and favoured. Normally this is unrealistic and the dragons are toast after that first charge, if not by the remaining cyclopes by the rest of the orcish army.

Yes well played. This what seems to be disbalance on higher lvls is in most cases advantage of some races on smaller maps, lower lvls with smaller armies. I like to call this Time factor. If they can attack fast enough they have great advantage.

quote:

Edit: One huge issue is the random starting atb that ranges from 0-0.25% bonus. I don't think I need to clarify more..

Heres a line from the manual:
"For example, a Nightmare (Initiative 16) starting at 0 (worst case), would get his first turn before a Pit
Lord (Initiative 8) starting at 0.25 (best case). This means that the Nightmare will always go first, and often act twice
before the Pit Lord can act."
If I'm not wrong creature with 26% higher Initiative will always act first in combat regardless of the random starting bonus.

Speaking of time factor academy, sylvan, dwarves, haven are factions that get the most out of prolonging a game. I suppose orcs also fit in this category but the longer a map the harder it is to determine what shatter to take. Again in such a matchup initiative is king.

For instance I've seen sylvan with ring of speed and epic army defeat orcs on first-second turn or lose tragically with normal initiative and a bit unfavourable atb. Who plays first amongst arcanes, ranger, barbarian, centaurs, chieftain, ballista can start a chain reaction that will end up badly for the opponent.

Examples:

Haggash with that silly initiative bonus(plus +2 init from arties) has centaurs shoot emeralds with luck finishing them all. Chieftains make them act again killing the arcanes -> game over.

Chieftains make centaurs act first and kill arcanes with luck.

Or ranger acts first with rain of frenzy on half the orc units.

Or barbarian scares a key unit into coming in the open where orc units can reach and butcher it.

Or ranger has split arcanes and both units act one killing ballista, another half entaurs.

Too many possibilities that at this level can make or break your game.

Just a side note: Why would you have split Arcane Archers? I usually have half arcane half hunters. That way the arcanes handle long range and hunters grab the chargers when they're within range. Just curious as I like to play Sylvan.

Well master hunters are worse than arcanes in every single aspect around 95% of the time. Initiative and damage are simply higher unless you have unicorn bow and the opponent has low defense so that force arrow does not give you too much of a boost. I remember Ossir's arcanes in duel mode do more damage than master hunters and he has archer's dream set too. Of course there's warding arrows that is nice to have but with all that damage you can do you don't really need it.

Another issue you could address is that master hunters have two shots and therefore higher chances that one of them will be lucky. That is not true, I mean luck distribution for masters seems better but with max luck arcanes will score double hits half the time while masters will have both shots lucky 25% of the time.

While all that's true, the Hunters still get 2 shots at normal damage on close range while the Arcanes still only have one, which of course does slightly more damage. I think that's why 50/50 Hunters and Arcanes makes a good setup.