Stealth and real life

[theraptscallion]

I want to start by saying that this is the only game I bother backing up when I change devices, and it's also the only game that's ever held my attention on Android for more than a month, so kudos to you guys for creating an engrossing experience with great story lines and depth of play.

That said, I think I've died close to 100 times because of the way the game handles stealth at the beginning of combat. I generally allow Tamilin to lead so my party has the chance to curse all the enemies and take the best terrain for Vraes to tank, but whenever either a) someone dies or b) I have to leave the app for some reason (a common occurrence for me) the combat starts with Vraes as the leader but Tamilin way out in front. Unfortunately, a tank she is not, so I frequently find myself watching helplessly as enemies shower her with attacks until her inevitable death, sometimes five and six times in a row before one of them misses an attack roll enough times to allow me to have a turn. It's especially aggravating when I've really made headway in an encounter but I have no choice but to take a phone call or respond to an email, only to return to the splash screen and the certain knowledge that Tamilin is about to be brutally murdered. Again. Is this an intentional punishment for dying/leaving the game or is it basically a memory management issue?

I think a potential fix would be to change the default leader so you could attempt the stealth roll every time the encounter starts over due to quitting or dying. I don't care much about my death tally (well over 200, so I'm still dieing frequently without this issue) but this is the only blemish on an otherwise flawless gem of a game.

[fallen]

theraptscallion - first, I am glad to hear you like Heroes of Steel! That's awesome. I hope you'll drop a review on the game

Second, sorry you're having this issue. One way to mitigate your case (b) is to avoid leaving the game on the first turn of combat. If that can't be done, leave the game by using the home button, and return when you can to play out that first turn.

I have added it to our list to see if we can address case (a). If you died on the first turn, we should be able to try to maintain your active character so that you'd come back into the game with Tamilin selected.

Thanks for the feedback and I hope you'll check out our other games too -- Templar Battleforce is a big evolution the Heroes engine that you might enjoy!

[slayernz]

theraptscallion first up, I'm really happy to hear that you have Tami as your scout - I love Tami - she's awesome, and I agree that sometimes the game hiccups and she becomes a pin cushion or a knife rack. I agree with fallen - if you have an encounter, but really have to go, exit to home menu rather than just turn off your phone. It should make a big difference.

[anrdaemon]

My tablet have a habit of rebooting when it thinks it is running out of memory.
And overall, if you turn application to the background with Home button, it becomes a candidate to kill for memory.
Since HoS doesn't use persistence service, the game session will be interrupted in both cases.

[theraptscallion]

The problem may be my android device (an HTC One m8 running Android 5.1) but the issue seems to happen when I just press the home button, complete some other tasks (like respond to an email or browse a Web page), then use the app switcher to return to HoS. It seems to usually regress two or three turns for me for some reason.

I will check out Templar Battleforce, as I enjoyed the original Templar Assault and I bet an update would make the original that much better.

If it helps, I purchased the app through Amazon, but if it would fix the issue, I can rebuy it through the play store. I can so supply logcats of the process if that would help in any way.

[En1gma]

The other important thing to note here, if I'm not mistaken, is if the game closes before the end of the first turn, you automatically forfeit the Stealth turn.

Again, assuming I'm not mistaken, this is so people can't exploit certain parts of the Turn sequence i.e. reloading so they can get a different spawn group or reroll the Stealth attacks.

Either wait until you come back from whatever it is you're doing to pull the next group, or at the very least, play the first turn (and end the turn!) then quit out using the menu buttons to save and quit the game.

[Cory Trese]

My daily carry phone is the M8 running Android 5.1 and I don't experience Heroes being purged by the OS -- the device certainly has enough memory.

Do you have any software installed that would interfere? Have you enabled any of the bugs under Developer Options? The one that comes to mind is "Don't Keep Activities" which will definitely cause Heroes of be purged from memory if you check your e-mail (not to mention reducing your battery life by 60%!)

[fallen]

Jan 29, 2016 5:48:25 GMT -5 anrdaemon said:

My tablet have a habit of rebooting when it thinks it is running out of memory.
And overall, if you turn application to the background with Home button, it becomes a candidate to kill for memory.
Since HoS doesn't use persistence service, the game session will be interrupted in both cases.

Yes, we cannot prevent your phone from killing the game. However, using the home button will have a far better performance than leaving the game with the menu button. That is all.

[matrim]

There is a work around for this on iOS and steam, so I assume it will work for android too. Like yourself, I find that I need to leave the app frequently and sometimes cannot avoid not playing out the first turn. You may notice that when you go back in, the default character highlighted is Vraes/Kincaid and then you will hear the "bark" noise and combat will start. You have about a second before that happens though and if in that second you quickly select Tamilin/Selen, the game with start the combat with their stealth roll, instead of Vraes/Kincaid (thereby giving you another chance at an opening stealth round. The assumption that the stealth round is lost is wrong, it is merely rerolled, but with Vraes in the lead you will never win the stealth roll). I first found out about this after randomly winning a couple stealth rolls with Kincaid in the lead and that gave me clues as to what was happening. Some may see this as cheating, I however see it as a work around to unavoidably leaving the game on the first round of combat.

[anrdaemon]

Jan 29, 2016 9:46:53 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Do you have any software installed that would interfere? Have you enabled any of the bugs under Developer Options? The one that comes to mind is "Don't Keep Activities" which will definitely cause Heroes of be purged from memory if you check your e-mail (not to mention reducing your battery life by 60%!)

I don't have any stupid "power savers" installed, if you are asking that question.
Android is pretty good at housekeeping since 4.0.
But if I open some overgrown app like Skype, or a navigator, it has a good chance of pushing everything in background out of memory. Even CoolReader, which has the lowest possible memory footprint.
It isn't a certainty, but it may happen.
What to the reboot, I only see it happening when tablet is on standby. I unlock it and see that it had rebooted. No idea the cause, I just presume it is memory related.