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| Thread: Heroes 2 better than Heroes 3? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 07, 2016 11:05 AM |
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 11:15 AM |
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And this is where my observation about magic being too strong compared to hit points comes in. A champion can be dispatched in one cast by a level 1 hero with a simple lightning bolt or cold ray. Winning with castle vs someone opposing you a horde of hit and run low level magic heroes is impossible.
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Avonu
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Embracing light and darkness
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posted September 07, 2016 11:20 AM |
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Edited by Avonu at 11:27, 07 Sep 2016.
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Besides, Champion/Pheonix in your army means that the first move is yours, so you can cast Lightning Bold/Cold Ray first... or slow down enemy or haste your troops.
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"When someone desires information, they come to me."
"Details are everything."
Pipiru piru piru pipiru pi!
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 11:27 AM |
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Most games online end week 2 at latest. If you need a specific artifact to survive (and is not even granted) then there is indeed a problem with HP repartition through the races.
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Gravorce
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 07, 2016 11:41 AM |
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@Salamadre I agree with most of what you posted but to me it is just as important how a game makes you feel when you play it as it is for how the game functions, also alot of people still play H2 as well. I do thank you for giving me your thoughts though you are a gentleman 
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 07, 2016 11:46 AM |
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Doesn't it occur to you that
1) MP play on 2) certain map sizes is just a small part of the game?
Also: if ONE side can hire multiple low level hit-and-run heroes, the other side can as well. Keep in mind, in H2 there is no law prohibiting you to hire the Heroes you want; you can, for example, simply hire a Necro and raise Skeletons like hell. There is a lot you can do, and if that's still not good enough, you have to make specific rules for MP play - that's what happened for H3 as well, if I'm not wrong.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 12:01 PM |
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Is not about map sizes, but interactivity. It is safe to have both players interact in early game or not?
So depending on the race they got, it is clearly not. If you need to choose a XL map to avoid that, I say there IS a problem. Note also that 90% of maps used online are medium. People don't like losing time and fighting against AI. Also by choosing XL map, you open the way to even bigger exploits, as dimension door + 1 phoenix is a nightmare for opponent. Allowing building full guilds in H2 can be game breaker.
Now, about both sides hiring hit-and-run heroes. Winning a game is not about winning battles, but killing key monsters until the other side has nothing big left. Without high level monster, you can't creep. Without creep, you can't develop hero. Without hero, you can't win.
Take a Knight faction. How many low level casters I need to kill his first week one integral production? 2-3 maximum.
How many you need to kill a warlock weekly production? 5-6 at least, and you will fail on dragons.
Then there is another important detail: movement reset. It doesn't. So if, as knight, you want to attack anyone else first week, all he has is use a fast creature, and with same hero, cast on you again and again until no army left. Which means 2-3 hits and run, totally feasible and within your first week economy.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Gravorce
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 07, 2016 12:07 PM |
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Edited by Gravorce at 12:08, 07 Sep 2016.
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I don't mean to cause offense but most of your arguments are multiplayer based, most of those problems would not be encountered when playing against computer or playing campaigns.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 12:16 PM |
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yes and I specified it.
I don't consider a game to be decently balanced -thus good/better/effective, when only playing vs bad coded AI is procuring me satisfaction.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 07, 2016 12:44 PM |
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Salamandre, if I'm not wrong you are saying that anything can happen depending on ...
Isn't the purpose of gaming
a) to define the key elements that things depend on;
b) decide them as early as possible and
c) play accordingly.
I think, that's called strategy. HoMM 2 is a very complex and ultimately volatile concoction that offers a lot of seemingly overwhelming stuff. There are a lot of "ultimates"; Black Dragons and Armageddon (or even "Elemental Storm), Skeleton Hordes, the advantage of going first with a speed-7 creature; low-level hero attacks, picking different heroes than the town-natives; having an Archer hut near your Knight town; finding lamps to rub in some godforsaken desert to halve stacks on attack - you may even place a lone ghost to join somewhere to see what players can make with that.
Then there is might - each point worth full 10 percent, but there is also Blind and Paralyze in the spell arsenal - and the mage guilds are godawfully expensive in resources (as are the L6 buildings for everyone) with a low income from towns.
In short - it's a different game.
When you really want to play H2 in MP your first task is to define the time frame the game offers roughly equal chances, which in turn depends on the availability of gold and resources and the difficulty of the terrain.
2 weeks of game is obviously not enough game time; 2 months is probably too much.
Remind me about the imba stuff of vanilla H3 SoD that had to be changed, modded, left out and agreed upon, by comparison, will you?
Plus, there is also single play, you know?
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 12:52 PM |
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Any of arguments you give can be equally applied to Heroes 3 as well. Is a complex game, too.
I consider SoD to be the Heroes 3 we speak about, the final touch. If we have to take in consideration RoE and judge it separately then we are clearly engaging in a long debate. Only then come other aspects I mentioned as wog/hota etc. Bonuses to original.
And of course there is single player. However, in a thread opposing H2 to H3, if someone says he considers H2 to be better than H3 because in single player he enjoys more, is logical that someone who enjoys H3 because in MP it offers fair satisfaction can also voice it.
After all, I can also ask "there is also MP, no?"
Then, Heroes 3 offer almost same alternatives and goodies as H2, when coming to single player. Maybe even more, if we consider the editor is clearly better. Also, for me at least, it adds to multiplayer a dose of fairness and worked out satisfaction. Heroes 2 had several game-play issues which could lead to extreme frustration -one of them being precisely the genies ability you mention, and this is what I recall the most.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 07, 2016 01:37 PM |
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You didn't make a list of the things of H3 SoD that were changed, modded, forbidden or agreed upon to leave out, though.
In my opinion NWC made the first real MP game in 1990, Spaceward Ho!, but in 1990 you need LAN connections for real MP play, and in 1995, when H2 was published, MP play wasn't all that easy. I've never played real MP with H2, but a lot of Hot Seat, but played a lot of real MP with H3, simply because it was a lot easier to do and find people who you could play with. For example, I was one of just a few with internet access in 1995, and that was via CompuServe.
In H2 there are a lot of things that will just completely baffle you. Genies are of course some kind of equalizer - you just have to make sure when you play REALLY competetively (and not a friendly match on any one map) that everyone has a DESERT with a couple of lamps to find somewhere in reach (you will need pathfinding, though, otherwise you will be stuck in the desert too long).
Now, Barbarian heroes start with Pathfinding (and on standard maps with non-random towns Barbarian towns often are on Baked terrain with a desert nearby); Barbarian also has great rush potential - but no flyer. Knights are pretty good when they have early access to water, on the other hand.
It's all very situational, of course.
Now, my actual point is this. Both games CAN be played in MP, but when you want to play them competetively in a meaningful way, so that you can really compare results and repeat them and so on, the difference between them is probably, that while you can change H3 so that this works, changing H2 would be pointless, because you'd have to make a different game out of it. You can either play it the way it is and accept that the game may develop in a way that makes it impossible for one side to win or leave it be.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 01:58 PM |
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You don't need to explain me why H2 is a great game, I spent 3 years playing it over and over, making maps and loose sleeping over. But you are wrong when you affirm that changing H3 but keep its core is possible while changing H2 would result in another game. Actually you don't need to change at all H3, in order to get a fair game.
The fact that there are tournaments who, NOW, add a lot of rules, is purely subjective and depends on the concept of the internetz democracy where a majority of people without online experience prefer to erase challenges instead of addressing them, and is mainly triggered by the user made templates which are now the common ground. But those templates have nothing in common with original templates, and they rather mutilate the game.
The changes on H3 those tournaments imposed is the major reason I quit the multiplayer, because I considered those rules to take away what exactly made the fun and the joy beside solving strategical puzzles, the randomness and the luck factor. They were certainly minimal, compared to Heroes 2, but were still a brilliant and addicting part of what I consider continuing a tradition.
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Era II mods and utilities
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted September 07, 2016 05:49 PM |
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Not sure why this thread was in the Tavern, so I moved it to the Library.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 07, 2016 06:41 PM |
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because only a drunk poster could claim that H2>H3.
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 07, 2016 10:52 PM |
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I've made lots of very good points for HOMM2 and against HOMM3 in this thread. They still hold true:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=36106
The bottom line: HOMM3 broke a lot of stuff, and has an uglier visual style that doesn't age as well.
HOMM3 has more units, spells and stuff. But a good painter won't paint a picture forever. If you put too much paint on a picture, it obscures the earlier layer.
HOMM2 didn't receive the attention HOMM3 got, because it was earlier (before community grew that much), it was superficially similar to HOMM3 and most fans considered HOMM3 is similar but bigger. But I'm sure HOMM2 would be easier to balance well than HOMM3 exactly because there are fewer pieces to consider. There are also no design trainwrecks like Earth Magic, Fire Magic, Water Magic, Air Magic.
Lower gold means less power creep and more interesting choices to make. You can't afford to spam scouting heroes or chaining right away when you have to spend 2.5 days of a city income for a new hero!
And for SP, HOMM2 has more intriguing campaigns where you have alternate scenario and alternate permanent bonuses to acquire, you can also betray your master and go to the dark/white side. There are few games which let you do that, another one that did it well was Sacrifice.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted September 08, 2016 06:00 PM |
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I prefer H2, then H4 and then H3.
H2 was, in its simplicity, way more interesting due its uniqueness and peculiarity. Of course, there were some elements in which is could result in bizarre unbalancing (ghosts were imba, some upgrades cost more when you had to upgrade already existing troops etc.).
Each faction had a very unique style (although heroes, per se, weren't unique as we had in following installments), there wasn't any 'forced' feel about tiers or upgrades or spells. You could face Dragons (3 upgrades) with Paladins and Crusaders (5 times less HP), because humans were, well, humans.
When they showed H3, I was certainly hyped by the number of factions, new units etc. But it lost that unique feel I used to prefer in H2. Now, every faction had 7 tiers which felt akin to each other. The 'balancing' issue I usually complain over Multiplayer feature which I hate, but that I had to adapt myself to. For a Single Player gamer, these new features and all upgrading units, well, it certainly brought a general feel about the whole game. "If I have, you have", and that's not what I appreciate.
Alas, it moved on. H4 brought back a bit that feeling of uniqueness, although the mixing of factions and the less number of factions was a downside factor (even having no upgrades took a bit long to get used to). But all in all, H2 still shines to me more than H3 as H4 does also.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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Pollo2002
Famous Hero
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posted September 09, 2016 12:36 PM |
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I've read the thread and I'm sad I missed this talk.
I will not answer all points because it would be too long.
Personally I think heroes 2 was better designed as a strategy game. I´m not even going to ignore the fact that aesthetically imo, is vastly superior.
However heroes 3 had more modding tools, and it was not that much worse than heroes 2 and even improved in some areas.
People talk how h3 is played after other heroes release, where h2 playtime was downgraded after h3 release.
That is because being the last have some weight, is just games after h3 imo were hugly terrible and unplayable, when the difference is that bad, being "the last" is not good enough.
The difference between h2 and h3 was a lot smaller, and when you add the capabilities for map making and RNG h3 had, h2 was easily crushed. Even me personally as a fan of h2, the only reason i stick to h3 is hte modding capabilties, if i had the same modding capabilities for h2, in a beat i would drop h3.
H2 was more elegant in it´s design and I agree with all points with the OP.
I want to make the distinction that I´m looking at each game from a multiplayer perspective, and not a singleplayer RPG.
Regarding to WOG. Yes most people (99%?) that used wog, including wog creators, did it so to create singleplayer experiences, and I don´t care enough for single player scenarios to judge it, but almost none did it to create a well focused multiplayer experience.
But all those mods are not WOG. Wog is an engine to modify h3, and at that it´s great. The fact that most mods are not designed with the intention of producing a multiplayer focused strategy game is not Wog fault.
I've tried, but sadly I´m not very skilled at scripting, and many of the things I think heroes need are impossible with wog or ridiculously hard to make.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 09, 2016 01:19 PM |
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lol no, modding with wog is not insanely hard to make nor impossible, is what you ask which is weird and impossible to make, no matter the game.
Tell me a single game where you can mod fog of war to reveal only certain objects while hide others, or take control of AI in the middle of a battle. There is no such. You don't want to mod Heroes, you clearly want to build a new game. What you need is a new engine, not a modding platform.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Pollo2002
Famous Hero
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posted September 09, 2016 01:30 PM |
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I think there is a thin line between a modded game and a new game. At what point a modded game is a new game?
If Heroes had FOG of WAR suddenly its a new game? is heroes with perpetual darkness a new game? That is in the wog options already.
I just find impractical that once shroud is added you have to remember how the terrain looked like.
Since when that is weird? Fog of war is natural in every srategy game done in the last 15 years.
I agree that to do what I want I probably need VCMI, which is what I sit too tight for years waiting for it. I decided to stand up because I felt VCMI development slowed so much, that by the time I will be able to do what i want it will be 6 years from now.
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