darkSpyro

Tonight is light on good television shows so I figured I would fill a gap in how we understand the way heroics from both Giants and SSA effect your stats in Swap Force. So I loaded Giants on the Wii on one set and Swap Force on another so I could quickly check back and forth easily to see what each heroic gives you. I noticed something that really should have stood out to me before even starting this project, whatever stat line the heroic gives you directly correlates to what will happen in Swap Force, for instance if you only do all the heroics that give speed your speed stat in Swap Force will go up by 3. For these tests I used a series 2 Whirlwind with a winged helmet on for the speed boost. I started doing the heroics from Giants first mainly because there are more of them but also because I prefer the interface they used in giants for the heroics better. In the end I found that you can skip 2 speed heroics both of which would be in Giants, both SSA and 1 Giants armor heroic, 1 SSA Critical % heroic,and the SSA elemental power heroic. Now that I think about it you don't necessarily have to skip the SSA heroics I just prefer it that way for the reasons I pointed out earlier.

Whirlwind started off with a 68 speed, after 2 speed heroics that went up to 69, after completing the 6th it went to 70 and after the 10th it had its final jump to 71. After the 10th there still are 2 more speed heroic rewards so you can skip 2 of the heroics that award speed if you are having trouble and you will end up with the maximum stat boost.

She started with 30 armor and gained her first point after the first heroic was completed to go to 31, after the 3rd heroic it went to 32, after the 5th it went to 33, after the 7th it went to 34, and after the 9th it went to 35 and it stayed there even after completing the 2 armor heroics in SSA so you can skip three of these and still hit the 35.

She started out with 21% crit. She gained her first point after the 3rd heroic to go to 22%, it took till the 8th heroic before she gained 23% and her final gain was at the 13th heroic to go to 24% and you need to go into SSA to get it, you do have 1 extra heroic to skip.

And finally the last stat you can get from heroics is elemental power and she starts out at 69 (I'm not sure how many air skylanders we have but the bonus is 42 and it stayed at this the whole test time). After her first heroic it goes to 70, she gains another point at the 3rd heroic to go to 71. She gains another point at her 5th heroic going to 72, another point after her 7th going to 73, another point after her 9th going to 74 and her final point at her 11th heroic ending up at 75 having an extra heroic to work with.

So to sum it up you have 2 speed heroics you can skip, 3 armor heroics to skip, 1 crit % heroic to skip, and finally 1 elemental power heroic to skip. And sorry for the length of this post, it took far longer to type out and research than what I had first anticipated.

Cool, thanks for this!

I may go through and add all the Heroics to every one of my figures for the heck of it

A bit back I saw someone asking about the "breaking points" for when you got stat gains from the heroics in Swap Force so I decided to do this little project Buuzer, I think most knew the end stat difference but what I wanted to give was a breakdown of how they were applied. So you can actually get away with skipping 7 of the heroics if you are just after the stat boost and still retain those same stats you would have gotten from doing all 50. It might not make much of a difference if you are only doing 1 or 2 figures but given that some people seem to do many many more than that you could potentially save yourself many hours by skipping those 7. Anyway just something I did in my free time and figured I would throw it on here if anyone else is interested.

Seems like a lot of time and effort for very little gain.

You would be surprised at the little effort it took and it was done in one evening so it wasn't really that time consuming either. If it saves someone some time or even helps people understand how they effect characters in swap force then it serves its purpose.

That eruptor just leveled up

Leveling a character only has an effect on it's hp I believe.

^This is correct

But my Slobber Tooth started very slow and it became faster as i leveled

This assumes that the displayed values on the stat screen are not being rounded/floored. Under the covers, you might be getting 0.192-?% crit or so for that extra Crit Heroic, no?

So the next test is to hit the dummy 1000 times and see how many crits you get. 10000 would give you better statistics though...

This was simple testing and not nearly in depth as to go for the 1000 hits on a dummy to judge on the fraction of a percent but more to give the people who were asking about the stat gains a list to where the full points jump up. The thing I found interesting is that the list is not at all linear as I would have assumed it would be, some stats gain points ever 2 heroics while others go from gaining a point at 2 then up to 5 heroics. Given that I would have to assume you don't get credit for the heroics that are not on stat breaks but it's just an assumption.

Quote: gta1134

This was simple testing and not nearly in depth as to go for the 1000 hits on a dummy to judge on the fraction of a percent but more to give the people who were asking about the stat gains a list to where the full points jump up. The thing I found interesting is that the list is not at all linear as I would have assumed it would be, some stats gain points ever 2 heroics while others go from gaining a point at 2 then up to 5 heroics. Given that I would have to assume you don't get credit for the heroics that are not on stat breaks but it's just an assumption.

I was teasing about the 1000 times

But it is interesting about the non-linear boost... That is where finding out about fractions of a percent count be interesting though

Yeah, so if at 13 crit heroics you get +3% crit, the crit bonus per heroic might be as low as 2.500 / 13 = 0.19231 if they are using rounding (since 2.500 would be the minimum that would round up to 3).

This works for the other thresholds you pointed out:
3 * 0.19231 = 0.57693 (rounds up to +1% crit)
8 * 0.19231 = 1.53848 (rounds up to +2% crit)
13 * 0.19231 = 2.50003 (rounds up to +3% crit)

So this is the approximate minimum if they are using rounding and the crit bonus is the same for each heroic completed. The max is a little bit trickier to figure out. The max could vary depending on if they are rounding or flooring to the last whole integer passed. The question of whether they are rounding/flooring for the stat screen only or for the actual bonuses applied during gameplay is a separate question.

Quote: Donatron

Seems like a lot of time and effort for very little gain.

You've pretty much summarized the disappointment of all those that really liked how stat mods were performed in previous games.

I have a feeling that with the new game we will get back to having the heroics and their true stat increases in game. The interview posted on here a few days ago that is with the guy from TfB he mentions heroic a lot, maybe I'm reading into it because these seem like a fun time sink for a few characters (at least it was fun with Whirlwind).

I've ranted on this a few times, so all I'll say is this: I sure do hope heroics return in the new game and that the time and effort I spent on them is actually rewarded. I hate slow characters, and Swap Force seems to hate giving out speed boosts with a fiery passion.

Quote: GhostRoaster

Quote: Donatron

Seems like a lot of time and effort for very little gain.

You've pretty much summarized the disappointment of all those that really liked how stat mods were performed in previous games.

The sad thing is that the bonuses you get from Heroics in SF is still better by virtue of being more useful than the meagre 75 HP bonus from completing Quests.

I spent a whole lot of time doing every possible heroic challange for every character, and halfway through, it stopped being fun. I'm hoping in the next skylanders game the HCs count for a little bit more. If nowhere else, at least during PVP games.

Definitely one of the more comprehensive threads I've read on DarkSpyro. Thanks to all contributors. Heroics were/are a pain, but I still miss them. Here's hoping for some manner of return (or at least a greater value) in Skylanders 4!

Quote: Arc of Archives

Quote: GhostRoaster

Quote: Donatron

Seems like a lot of time and effort for very little gain.

You've pretty much summarized the disappointment of all those that really liked how stat mods were performed in previous games.

The sad thing is that the bonuses you get from Heroics in SF is still better by virtue of being more useful than the meagre 75 HP bonus from completing Quests.

Sigh...yes. But isn't the reward of completing it a reward in of itself? (ducks the flying crowbars)...

It will always be an important aspect to Swap Force as it is something that works in the game.

Quote: GhostRoaster

Quote: Arc of Archives

Quote: GhostRoaster

You've pretty much summarized the disappointment of all those that really liked how stat mods were performed in previous games.

The sad thing is that the bonuses you get from Heroics in SF is still better by virtue of being more useful than the meagre 75 HP bonus from completing Quests.

Sigh...yes. But isn't the reward of completing it a reward in of itself? (ducks the flying crowbars)...

But- although this may be personal opinion and I've probably played the game a lot more than most people so I'm in a minority, I believe the points I have to say here hold objective merit- it doesn't feel rewarding (read: enjoyable in itself) to do Quests when

A. You've already gone through Quests on 100+ toys- replaying a game you've replayed dozens of times when upgrading your toys, over and over- and there is no variation besides one unique Quest for each Skylander within an Element, which means you will have re-done the same Quests that often involve replaying levels several times many times already,
and B. The bonus for completing Quests is really lame, making it feel pointless to do them over and over(unless you really enjoy that).

And having a bunch of them completed honestly doesn't feel that satisfying because the bonuses are so small and there's so little difference on each Skylander from having not done them. And the stuff you have to do for Quests is not fun, IMO. Replaying Twisty Tunnels over and over- beating Jungle Rumble over and over- grinding to get Spark Plugs done time and time over- resetting chapters to get counters for stuff like defeating certain enemies or getting Elementalist done- it's not fun when you've done it over and over and over and it takes ages and the boost for doing it is completely negligible. It feels worthless to have spent hundreds of hours on these Quests, when the bonuses from them are so small- imagine what else I could have done in that time. I'm only continuing at this point because I currently have every single figure so far maxed out, so I may as well get the remaining ones done. I don't even want to try the Quests replacement in Sky4 if it's going to be this bad. By the way, this has little to do with the topic(it's another discussion in itself), but the unskippable cutscenes between the game (as well as loading times, although those can't really be helped) really compound all of this too.

Why excuse Heroics? I'm not going to claim they're perfect. They're repetitive too. They get boring too. They have stupid unskippable sequences too(seriously TFB, just omit them of give us some way to turn them off for all future games, please). But the boost to stats at the end of them is more significant. The game is easy enough to sweep anyway using anyone, but the Heroics boosts are still huge in SA and Giants, and really do make your Skylander a lot stronger. And while they're mond-numbing after doing them as much as Quests they still aren't as boring as Quests, IMO, as the load times are a lot shorter so half your time isn't just spent waiting, you don't need to travel over many crazy places- you can get to all of them (sans the 5 SA-exclusives) from one menu in Giants- and since the boost to stats for doing them is more significant it helps alleviate that a little, because it feels a little more rewarding to have them done.

I could keep going on, but we've gone on about this topic so much already, I just feel like there isn't much to add and it just isn't fun to discuss Heroics and Quests over and over. It's already repetitive enough playing them in the game.

I haven't touched on more casual players (for lack of a better term) and Quests/Heroics but I don't really want to (unless more "casual" people come in to share their opinions) because that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms. Do those casual players buy all figures to unlock all Heroics to complete them only on their favourites, or just do the ones that they have access to? How many casual players are interested enough to come back and replay chapters multiple times to do Quests, and if so do they do it just with favourites or with more figures? Playstyles vary so wildly, as well.

The conceptual idea of doing something to your skylanders to customize them is something they should NOT have removed in Swap Force. I however think they can execute this BETTER, and I hope TFB brings something more meaningful, less repetitive, yet rewarding---not only for the game in question, BUT MANDATED that moves forward in FUTURE games.

I went on a lot in another post about my thoughts and feelings on this. Without the ability to customize my Skylanders stats, I no longer get the connection I do with other games, such as Pokemon. I love that game because you can pick your favorite six and train them to become better in both level and stats (plus I can catch them all for MUCH less money). Skylanders used to have this connection I could make with my Skylanders, training their stats and upgrading/leveling them. When they took away the ability to train them in their stat boosts (especially speed... how I despise how slow they are now) they disconnected me from the figures. I barely use Ghost Roaster anymore, one that I used for every speed run of each level. I even ended up just putting the whole game on the shelf for two months and didn't look at a single figure due to this disconnection. For me, heroics gave more than just the stat boost that I wanted to get anyway, it gave me a connection with my characters.

Here's to hoping the next game gives us back Heroics or some other option to boost the stats of individual characters. No more crappy +1 speed charms!

So were almost reaching a point of Heroics not appearing will be a make or break for some people on buying the 4th game.

I know based on the comments here I am in the minority, but I hated heroics, and I don't give a crap about quests. I would have been much much more happy if they would have given us the option of taking a bonus to either speed, armor or critical hit each time we leveled up because then everybody would have to decide what to do and you would have truly unique Skylanders. Given that every figure starts off the same and can max out to the same, who really cares if they changed the system?Everybody will have the same figures with the same stats, but this would make for a much more interesting dynamic and for those of us who would like to put a normal amount of time into this game and still feel like we are getting our $10-$15 worth per character I would be thrilled.

^

+1 to this.

Serously its just becuz he leveled up...

Quote: bilbobagins3

I know based on the comments here I am in the minority, but I hated heroics, and I don't give a crap about quests. I would have been much much more happy if they would have given us the option of taking a bonus to either speed, armor or critical hit each time we leveled up because then everybody would have to decide what to do and you would have truly unique Skylanders. Given that every figure starts off the same and can max out to the same, who really cares if they changed the system?Everybody will have the same figures with the same stats, but this would make for a much more interesting dynamic and for those of us who would like to put a normal amount of time into this game and still feel like we are getting our $10-$15 worth per character I would be thrilled.

This

Quote: Kevin16

Serously its just becuz he leveled up...

Would you stop being stubborn? Its been stated already that leveling up only effects your HP, and I can 100% confirm this. If you're so stuck in your belief its from leveling up, go reset a skylander and try it yourself.

Allrighty thennnn c:

He's simply trying to spark an argument and is upset his attempt is failing, just let him believe what he wants.

I'm not upset?

Ok, Here is Fryno, with and without all 50 Heroics.

NO OTHER CHANGES. There is NO play time between the two, no XP change, no level change, nothing.

Simply his stats without Heroics, then his exact same stats when the 50 Heroics are applied.





Make of that what you will. But this conclusively shows the difference from having no Heroics and having them with no other changes.

Quote: Zylek

I placed my maxed HC series 2 level 15 Terrafin in SSF and his stats were:

Max Health 775
Speed 38
Armor 23
Critical Hit 8
Elemental Power 66

I then put a brand new level 1 S3 Terrafin on the portal and his stats were:

Max health 310
Speed 35
Armor 18
Critical Hit 6
Elemental Power 32

I'm pretty disappointed as elemental power was the only HC stat which seemed to be quite boosted, the stats I really care about we're barely different than a brand new S3. Glad I wasted all that time on HCs! Grrrrrrr

I had posted this when SSF came out

What am I missing? How did Fryno get to do any Heroic Challenges?

He didn't and he can't. That's the point. I wanted to clear up the question of whether XP/levelling up or other in game acts changed the stats so I demonstrated a figure that was "artificially" given the Heroics. Look at the play time for the figure. You think I could complete 50 of them in 4 seconds?

It was just to show the stats change for heroics.

TLR,
I have Skylanders 4 already and it lets you play all 3 of the old games with any figures (HAHA< J/K, I kid I kid!)