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Thread: What went wrong in Heroes of Might and Magic III | This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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SkeleTony
Hired Hero
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posted February 21, 2012 02:21 AM |
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Quote:
Quote: Specializations in Heroes III are often pointless or change very little.
I'm not sure you will find many H3 players who will agree with this statement....
Well, to be fair some specializations ARe pointless and irredeemably so. Specializing in 'Eagle Eye' or getting +350 gold per day(even if you are filling valuable hero slots with both of these heroes you are only getting an extra 700 per day, which is nice but nowhere near as good as some of the other specializations), etc.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 21, 2012 03:24 AM |
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Well, yes, watched from outside, some are pointless and never used. However all of them were at one moment or another used as main goal in one or another custom map, even eagle eye. The Armageddon blade campaign has one wonderful scenario where mysticism saves your back.
But most of them are just perfect, there are at least 16 which are always hunted by players. Depending on the map you play vs human, scouting can be a game break also. In all, it depends on such many factors, that it is impossible to say "this skills is completely useless", except for learning. In WoG we can have up to 12-16 skills at once, and I find myself looking hard for all 16, I need each one to optimize my development. And in regular Heroes, I just regret I can have only 8, but makes the game more challenging.
In all, I would say: there are skills for multiplayer, and skills for single player. In multiplayer, where things go super fast, you need raw force and all skills helping you on that. In single player, where exploration and story are overriding, the usage of the so called "useless" skills is adding flavor and stimulate the creativity of mapmakers.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted February 21, 2012 11:33 AM |
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What annoys me about specializations is that they tie heroes to castle types. I like being able to mix and match heroes and castles. Heroes II is great for that, except Necromancer. And I think your 2 starting skills (for example Tactics and Armorer) have a bigger impact.
You praise Heroes III for having 2 hero types per castle. How about having 5-6 hero types with no restrictions ? That's Heroes II.
Salamandre:
I'm sure you can make a scenario based around a +1 spell power artifact. Or around 1 gold piece, you need to find 1 gold piece to pay a quest guard. What does it prove ?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 21, 2012 11:41 AM |
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With such analogies, it only proves that you did not play much HoMM III, that's all. Stealing spells, see inaccessible areas, recover mana in impossible situations is no where close of praising 1 gold piece or a +1 artefact.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted February 21, 2012 01:37 PM |
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Specialization is what made H3 the defining HoMM game, and many more features that have been imitated by other games since. Not saying it was 100% original or anything, just well done save for the inevitable imbalances IMO
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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zsa
Famous Hero
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posted February 21, 2012 03:21 PM |
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Edited by zsa at 15:23, 21 Feb 2012.
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Quote: Well, yes, watched from outside, some are pointless and never used. However all of them were at one moment or another used as main goal in one or another custom map, even eagle eye. The Armageddon blade campaign has one wonderful scenario where mysticism saves your back.
But most of them are just perfect, there are at least 16 which are always hunted by players. Depending on the map you play vs human, scouting can be a game break also. In all, it depends on such many factors, that it is impossible to say "this skills is completely useless", except for learning. In WoG we can have up to 12-16 skills at once, and I find myself looking hard for all 16, I need each one to optimize my development. And in regular Heroes, I just regret I can have only 8, but makes the game more challenging.
In all, I would say: there are skills for multiplayer, and skills for single player. In multiplayer, where things go super fast, you need raw force and all skills helping you on that. In single player, where exploration and story are overriding, the usage of the so called "useless" skills is adding flavor and stimulate the creativity of mapmakers.
While you can build certain single player scenarios around secondary skills such as mysticism and eagle eye, they should have never been part of multiplayer in their current format. Skills like sorcery, eagle eye, mysticism, first aid tent should have never been part of MP in their current format.
The magic system could have also been designed much better. How is it that lvl 1 spells were always the most valuable and usefull ones? Lvl 3 spells were a joke, most of them were weaker than lvl 1 & 2 ones.
There were waay too many sh!tty spells, which in conjunction with mage guild costs, made developing your guild a game of dice. I've payed 10 of each resource for magic mirror? Or 8 resources of each for sorrow and fire shield? Joy
Magic heroes could have been much more viable in heroes 3 but they weren't because:
- The best spells after week 3 or so were lvl 1 spells which might heroes had just as much access to
- Magic heroes were bombarded with snowty skills like myst, eye, sorcery while might heroes would get offense, armourer, logistics
- Like Angelito mentioned, might heroes will get offered schools of magic at regular intervals
- The mage guild had too many useless or very weak spells especially after lvl 2.
- The cost of upgrading your mage guild was ridiculous.
That is definitely one area where I think they had tons of room for improvement.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 22, 2012 02:52 AM |
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The unbalances between magic and mights are provoked mainly by the MP maps and their configuration. Obviously, people like to play with might, have armorer/offense and strike hard. So they design maps to help that.
Before WCL tournament, ToH ran for several years on fixed maps, where a magic hero had same or even greater chances than a might one, and no one complained. No high leveling but skirmish, magic arrow battles, haste on basic level, not likely to get an hero higher than 6th level before the game finish. With such small stats, skills were picked more carefully. I've seen MP games where the fate was changed because eagle eye, as fun as it sounds. When you did not get useful spells in your only guild you will have for the whole game, pick it or you are dead.
Tazar at 4th level is a quick breakfast for Sepinroth at same level, but with 80 spell points.
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zsa
Famous Hero
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posted February 22, 2012 05:37 AM |
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Quote: The unbalances between magic and mights are provoked mainly by the MP maps and their configuration. Obviously, people like to play with might, have armorer/offense and strike hard. So they design maps to help that.
Before WCL tournament, ToH ran for several years on fixed maps, where a magic hero had same or even greater chances than a might one, and no one complained. No high leveling but skirmish, magic arrow battles, haste on basic level, not likely to get an hero higher than 6th level before the game finish. With such small stats, skills were picked more carefully. I've seen MP games where the fate was changed because eagle eye, as fun as it sounds. When you did not get useful spells in your only guild you will have for the whole game, pick it or you are dead.
Tazar at 4th level is a quick breakfast for Sepinroth at same level, but with 80 spell points.
Not really. Well to start, I was always an advocate of open maps and more open style random templates. It's true that playing on closed maps or templates enhances the difference between might and magic heroes ... but it's not only that.
Even if you play on more open or poor random map templates, you'll be much better off in the vast majority of cases to go with might heroes.
I also hope you're joking with the eagle eye example. I mean seriously, the fact that you can find a use for eagle eye in a very specific situation on a given specific map for a narrow timing window, means diddly squat. The skill is a joke, and 3DO was high when they included that skill in the game.
Back to the might vs magic argument. I agree with you that a lot of toh maps and random templates slanted the tables in the direction of might heroes. But even without those closed map styles, might heroes still have the upper hand in the vast majority of cases.
The fact that you can find very specific situations on very specific maps with very specific timings where magic heroes are better than might heroes means as much as your eagle eye example - pretty much nothing. And I've already outlined some of the reasons why magic heroes are a poor choice most of the time. If you think that is not so, please let me know which points you disagree with. Cheers
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 22, 2012 05:49 AM |
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No, I was not joking, I saw it in several games, and was the only solution sometimes. There was this scarce JB map, "one vs one" was the name I think, which was very much played (200 times a week?). It had two towns in all, medium map, no shrines, no artefacts >2, a few chests in middle and no way to develop until high levels. Therefore all the battles were done day 3-4-5 in the middle and between scouts, to get the few chests available. If you had not magic arrow or slow in guild, you were pretty screwed in scouts skirmish. Thus eagle eye was used sometimes to steal from first fight those spells, then distribute if possible. Also scouting was a great skill in, as seeing scouts before they see you, meant -2500 for opponent, which was huge gold on that map. On such maps, we were happy to get the hero with 350 gold bonus, Sepinroth or others.
But I agree, magic heroes are not suitable for multiplayer simply because cast = once, hit = once x number of stacks. And in single, all heroes are same after a while, no matter who you choose.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 22, 2012 08:13 AM |
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Come on, now.
There is no doubt that Heroes 3 is seriously imbalanced right from the start. You have to simply face the facts here.
BUT, it also speaks volumes, that the game has been and still is played so avidly, IN SPITE OF THAT.
You know, it's like with the beetle. Then, you could find a ton of flaws, this sucky, that ridiculous -, but it ran and ran and ran, and it sold and sold and sold.
So while the game COULD have made a lot better, the game also must have made an amazing amount of stuff RIGHT. Right?
So the bottom line is, that it makes really no sense to "barter", whether this skill may be good or not, or whether you can find a use for this and that.
It's enough to point out, that the game was captivating enough for ALOT of people to even try and "find uses" for useless things - something very telling.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 22, 2012 12:11 PM |
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Today in mapsforheroes comments, no joke
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 22, 2012 12:49 PM |
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Yeah, well, I made a single-player map that you will play EXCLUSIVELY with Walking Dead (no, not even Zombies). In the course of that map you WILL fight each and every imaginable foe, like, Titans, and in the end you will take a castle garrisoned by a sizable undead army (without Walking Dead) and a very good Thant.
That doesn't make Walking Dead competetive creatures.
It just means, that the SoD editor may just have been the best editor ever, making it easy to "play" with the game features, balanced or not.
By the way, the map is called Dawn of the (Walking) Dead, but it could have been also named "The Straker-Thant Contest", capitalizing on the fact that Hero specials are NOT equal, with Straker being an example for having a generally good special (example: Galthran) wasted on a generally bad creature.
It's also rather funny.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 22, 2012 01:35 PM |
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There is a slight difference between making a map around walking dead or a gold coin and making a master piece map around walking dead or a gold coin. I am favorable to all crazy ideas, as long as the result is blowing.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 22, 2012 02:15 PM |
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However, that's no function of the game, but of the map-makers and their creativity and skill.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted February 22, 2012 03:35 PM |
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In my map The Story of the Fool, Eagle Eye was required at one point to solve a puzzle. As a mapmaker, I liked having access to "bad skills" so as to get the player to think outside the box from time to time.
Just sayin'.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted February 22, 2012 04:46 PM |
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Remember the campaign "Eternal Love"? (I think the best campaign ever made by the way...)
In first scenario, you have to learn all spells during different fights from AI player to learn them to you main in the next scenario. Was great fun....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted February 22, 2012 05:18 PM |
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You think so? I could never learn all the spells and by the time I did my PC broke down
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 06, 2016 09:34 AM |
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One thing I haven't mentioned so far: power creep. It's a major reason why all the above flaws become so evident.
In HOMM2, you earn 1250 from a fully developed city (Warlock - 1750). In HOMM3, it's 4000 for the first city (Capitol) then 2000.
Stat artifacts:
In HOMM2, the highest are +3 Attack, +3 Defense, +4 Spell Power, +5 Knowledge. It's as if they already knew the system was falling apart because they valued magic stats less. Ultimate Crown (you need to dig for) is +4 to all stats, other ultimate artifacts give +12 or +6,+6.
In HOMM3, you have +6 stat artifacts as Major and you see them pretty often. Then there are relics which give +12,-3 to might stats and +10, -2 to spell stats. And those can be randomly generated. Lion's Shield of Courage, an equivalent of the Crown, is a Relic and you can also find +1, +2, +3, +5, +6 artifacts lying there! +4 to a stat artifacts are minor.
Naturally, HOMM3 also had to one-up itself, so combination artifacts were introduced.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted September 06, 2016 11:49 AM |
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I haven't read the thread (or if I have I can't remember), but regarding the latest post, I think one should have in mind that the damage calculation is slightly different in HoMM 3 compared to HoMM 2, effectively halving the A/D values in 3. So If you get +6 in HoMM 2 it'd be equivalent to +12 in HoMM 3, etc.
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 06, 2016 02:27 PM |
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