Sethai, rolling multiple dice produces bell curves. Only rolling a single die doesn't form a bell curve distribution. It's just a matter of semantics whether you call it rolling dies or using a bell curve.
Correct, but you misunderstand me. The issue is not just getting results to be more consistent, but when and how.
As far as I understand they are implementing a bell curve approach for all attack rolls. You can use a bell curve instead of a true random number generator if you want, but doing so is silly, because we already have a much more natural and less “under the hood” mechanic of producing better damage rolls. Multiple dice. This is already used by groups of units, who do not in reality have a damage of 100, but 5 guys doing 20 damage. This is why units are more reliable, yet never as effective as their high damage stats would suggest.
If you’re going to resort to fiddling the random number generator to produce more consistent, results, then what is the point of using multiple dice for units of multiple guys?
The distinction between units with big attack value and few dice rolls, and lots of guys with low attack rolls is important because it gives the two different types of units different strategic rolls. The big units do more damage against hordes of weak units with low defence values, but heroes and monsters with high attack values might be the only way of doing enough damage to special monsters. It also makes some units less predictable than others: a group of spearmen can be relied upon to do consistent damage, but a catapult might kill a monster with one blow, or it might miss completely.
If you just fiddle your random number generator by applying a bell curve to everything, you reduce randomness, but you’ll also make everything just as dependable as everything else. You’ll completely remove the distinctions I just mentioned.
However, if you make heroes and monsters behave more like groups, and roll multiple dice, then you’ll remove some of the frustrating randomness, but you’ll keep the interesting distinctions that make them tactically different, because you add a new variable: the number of dice. If a monster rolled two or three dice at once, the results will be better, but he’ll still behave very differently to a group of spearmen. And there’ll be no need to fiddle the random number generator. Likewise, if a hero rolled two dice at once (gradually increasing to around 5 through traits) then he’d be more consistent AND he’d be able to compete with units without having to inflate his attack stat to ridiculous highs. But he’d still retain his dragon-slaying uniqueness, because he’d only have 3 or four dice as opposed to a unit which would have 8.
Likewise, this will also reconcile the two completely different damage systems for units and heroes/monsters, and that’s of great value as well.
