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Heroes Community > Library of Enlightenment > Thread: Heroes 2 better than Heroes 3?
Thread: Heroes 2 better than Heroes 3? This thread is 5 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV
b0rsuk
b0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted September 11, 2016 11:36 PM

Actually hit&run is much harder to do in Heroes2 on a regular basis. AI is another story because it gets resource bonuses on higher difficulties.

But even AI struggles buying heroes at 2500 gold when a fully developed city earns 1250/day. In HeroesIII it's at least 2000/day, 4000 for first city and the first city matters a lot because it's your earliest, and makes up a bigger portion of your total empire on smaller maps.

Also, HOMM3 maps, even vanilla ones, are much richer both in resources and towns. In HOMM2, 5-6 towns on a Large map is fairly typical! This has further implications for balance. For example, I recently played the Mountain King stock scenario, I had no more than 10 Spell Power and I looted the Elemental book from enemy hero. BOOM, 72 elementals from a single casting, far away from home and reinforcements. And level 4-5 creatures are quite something in HOMM2.

Instead of taking care of the late game "swimming in resources" problem, Heroes3 added resource silos and Treasury. I think every single town should have a late game resource sink like Artifact Merchant.

Having less gold than another player doesn't have to translate into smaller army - certainly not in HOMM3! In that game, it's quite common to buy out ALL units every week, even on day 1.

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Pollo2002
Pollo2002


Famous Hero
posted September 15, 2016 05:12 PM

Iīve been playing these days quite a bit of heroes 2 and quite a bit of heroes 3 both maps and multiplayer.

I came out with the opinion that Heroes 2 is the better game, even beyond the aesthetics parts here are the things that stroke me the most.

-Battle Size:
Heroes 3 battle is unnecessary large, itīs only purpose is to make the AI easier to exploit, Ive enjoyed a lot more playing the heroes 2 battlemap, which size seems about right.

-Wait button:
I know people like the wait button, but what is the real effect? Easier to exploit ai, and making speed even MORE important than what reallly is, does the AI need a nerf and the speedstars a buff? I donīt see why.
I think having to play on more confined options made it actually more interestign.

-5 stacks vs 7:
I think 5 stacks give a lot more interesting gameplay, not only you have to decide what to carry, as to be an actual decision (instead of....all you want), but also there is less awkward expoiting iwth 5 stack size, having 3 stacks of 1 centaurin all fights seems overkill and weird.

Specially the 3 combined make for a way easier to exploit AI. I never knew why multiplayer people feel smart when they kill a Horde of treants weak 1 with master goblins and an ammor cart. Once you know a little the ai is trivial.
In general specially since multiplayer is about who can abuse the ai stronger, i feel a lot in heroes 3 multiplayer doing chores finding the easy to abuse stacks (read slow tough monsters like Zombies)

While i only played singleplayer heroes 2 (i donīt know where there is peopel playing it if there is). i feel abusing the AI is a lot harder, fliers are harder to abuse beacause infinite range but even walkers, is hard because the battlefield is smaller and you have less 1ofs stack to use to make them look like idiots.

-Magic system:
In heroes 3 you build mage guild....oh there are levels, but i dont know why because all you want for most of hte game is level 1 spells.
In heroes 2 was a pleasure to build each level, there were always good spells comming. Infinitly more nice.

-Movement:
Not really sure why, if less fast roads or how movement with monsters work, but movement was a lot tighter in heroes 2. In heroes 3 quickly heroes can walk a third of the map in one day.

-Gold amount.
In heroes 3 I quickly reach 8 heroes cap. i realized quickly that is so foolish or imposible in heroes 2. Money is more tight and there are more decision on when to build, what to build, and how many heroes to buy.
I actually like hte idea of multiple money buildings in heroes 3 though.

Things I missed of heroes 3:
Not really heroes 3 really but playing without quick managment hotkeys in heroes 2 was a pain. I canīt do it anymore in heroes 3.

Specialties: I actually always liked specialties, or the concept, in heroes 3 is broken because more specialties are useless and make it so that only of handfull heroes specialty have any relevance.

Iīm pretty convinced that heroes 2 is the superior game. as to Why heroes 3 displaced it, i will tell my story because it did displace it on my circles too.

1. Connectivity: Iīm more of a multiplayer guy and for some reason it was always easy to setup multiplayer games in heroes 3 than in 2, up to this day , other than lan, setting up a multi in heroes 2 seems very hard as opposed to heroes 3.

2. Heroes 3 is numbered higher: People tend to want to progress bigger numbers, so they have a tendency to move higher, only when the barrier is too high they do not jump. As It happend ot me with heroes 4 (it was so not heroes soo weird, and imo so bad new mechanics), but heroes 3 is not MUCH worse than heroes 2, so the tendency of the higher number will quick in.

3. Heroes 3 had RMG and bigger moddable capabilties: The map editor of heroes 3 was great and it allowed me to do things that heroes 2 map editor didnīt allow me.


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b0rsuk
b0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted September 15, 2016 06:35 PM
Edited by b0rsuk at 18:42, 15 Sep 2016.

Not to rain on your parade, but Heroes2 also has ridiculous imbalances like Expert Archery granting... +50% ranged damage.

I kinda agree about 'Wait' button. It's okay in player vs player, but it makes writing good AI significantly harder. Against slower units on a large battlefield, wait can enable zero risk hit&run attacks.

As for multiplayer, people tend to use autocombat vs AI, and AI can't really abuse Wait against itself. Still, it's only because the AI isn't smart enough, not because the game doesn't have an exploit.

Battlefield size: I agree HOMM2 is about right. HOMM games never had any kind of Zones of Control. A unit can walk around and past other units and get right to the shooters. Combat pretty soon becomes "who attacks whom", because you can't stop a unit from attacking its chosen target.
On adventure map, lack of Zones of Control makes catching puny heroes with Logistics highly annoying. You may corner a weak hero flagging your mines, and guess what! He turns back and just runs past you.

H3 also displaced H2 because H3 has more creatures, artifacts, towns etc.

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Pollo2002
Pollo2002


Famous Hero
posted September 15, 2016 07:59 PM

Quote:
As for multiplayer, people tend to use autocombat vs AI

At least on gameranger and in my experience with own friends, people rarely play with autocombat vs ai.
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rafter
rafter

Tavern Dweller
posted September 16, 2016 11:27 PM
Edited by rafter at 18:23, 17 Sep 2016.

 Two players need to have  the same version of Heroes 2 to play Online multiplayer game.It is better to play with an Original full game. You may play at Gameranger.
 There is only one problem with Heroes 2 during multiplayer. It has NOT time limit for a turn/ day. So the game may become  much longer than Heroes 3.
 At Gameranger with Heroes 3, most of the players want to play at Large/L or Extra large/XL  map. But that game usually continue 4-8 hours and the player must have enough time. I usually play multiplayer at Heroes of might and magic, to see who is the better player. But at XL map, more important  is the Luck. Finding an artifact  is more important than the battles (that was the reason I play singleplayer- Heroes 2 on  H2 Succeson wars maps, removing all H2 Price of loyality artifacts and buildings).
 I find very boring playing with  a human/man more than  2 games.
 It will be better to play at a tournament in some country, in a big computer gaming club.
 At singleplayer, I may play 1 hour in the morning and after that  in the evening- 3 hours. It is much easier to find free time to play.
 That is a problem for all HOMM games. They consume too much time and it is difficult to play multiplayer.

P.S.: So I prefer playing at Small/S and Medium/M  maps during multiplayer game. Also, for a Fair- play, a tournament need judges in the computer club, who must see if players  do  something illlegally.

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Pollo2002
Pollo2002


Famous Hero
posted September 17, 2016 04:29 AM

One of hte goals of my mod is to downgrade the playtime to 2-4 hours.
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Humanoid
Humanoid


Bad-mannered
Known Hero
Rest in Peace Juvia (48-499)
posted September 18, 2016 01:43 PM

Quote:
Heroes 2 better than Heroes 3?

No
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8882
8882

Tavern Dweller
posted October 03, 2016 10:05 PM

I have not played HOMM2 in a while, but the game feels much different than Heroes3 for me. Why? Because it is a game where heroes are of both might and MAGIC.

In HOMM3 magic is much, much weaker: you can rarely win first encounters with it, chain lightning is a good spell, but rarely wins battles. In fact 99% of the time the "might" hero is better than the "magic" equivalent.

In HOMM2 a good hero can clean everything with spells. In HOMM3, spells are just an utility - you need to use troops.

Obviously not in every map and you rarely have the ability to use things like Chain Lightning.

I also love the HOMM2 style graphics (the house that gives +1 defense :-) ), some HOMM3 units are simply ugly (zombies...).

Obviously lack of "wait" button makes the game simpler.

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NimoStar
NimoStar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
posted October 05, 2016 11:06 AM

Reading the first page from 2001 with people complaining about Heroes III comouter requirements is like entering a bizarre time tunnel : P

Also I have almost never played Heroes II and never know if I will any more, but it's true many multiplayer guys of Heroes III abuse the limitations of neutral stacks to gain the upper hand over the rest of human players.

However, the game possibilities, complexity, visuals, and so on, more than make up for this. Also from what I have seen the towns are more balanced. Furthermore, Heroes II town screens were kind of... not fitting  amongst their elements. A pyramid and victorian town in Necro together? Alas, too cartoony. Air elementals were also funny but unconvincing. More like "compressed air blocks golems".

And I would have liked to see halving genies and converting ghosts make a comeback : P
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Gravorce
Gravorce


Adventuring Hero
posted October 05, 2016 02:27 PM

NimoStar said:
And I would have liked to see halving genies and converting ghosts make a comeback : P



No way dude that was the worst part of H2!

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NimoStar
NimoStar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
posted October 07, 2016 12:04 PM
Edited by NimoStar at 12:05, 07 Oct 2016.

Why? THey are just on a shipwreck IIRC, you don't have to attack them if you don't want to, and they make for a specific tactical challenge that no other monster has.
If they were an enemy recruitable troop, of course they would be bad. But this isn't the case, they are just optional neutrals.

Correctly balanced it would be a nice feature to have (H5 had converting vampires)
My H4 mod implements life-draining Ghost Sailors but they are weak lvl1 creatures.
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Never changing = never improving

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Avonu
Avonu


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Embracing light and darkness
posted October 07, 2016 12:51 PM
Edited by Avonu at 12:53, 07 Oct 2016.


Barrow Mounds: Allows you to recruit Ghosts for 1000 gold each.

...and now Peasants become very important creatures in game.
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X-ecutionner
X-ecutionner


Known Hero
posted November 23, 2016 01:29 AM

Yeah

I'm one of the very, very rare people to always have prefered Heroes 2 over 3.

Something in 2 that will never be matched: atmosphere/ campaign / ost/ graphics.

Heroes 2 is one of the most beautiful game I have ever seen. It's archaic graphically, but what lies within is just pure artist mastery.

The campaign, while simple, is so well presented I replayed it recently after not having touched it for 5-10 years.

However Heroes 2/3 are miles ahead of other heroes (although 5 is also good).


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bloodsucker
bloodsucker


Legendary Hero
posted November 24, 2016 01:31 AM

NimoStar said:
My H4 mod implements life-draining Ghost Sailors but they are weak lvl1 creatures.
That would work way better if they had first strike or no retaliation, if not the damage they suffer will basicly ware out any life they drain.

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PandaTar
PandaTar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
posted November 28, 2016 03:45 PM

Gravorce said:
Heroes 3 is a great game of that there is no doubt. There is something extra about Heroes 2 though, it's got this special feel about it when you play, the graphics, the creature designs, everything is fun and fantasy. It doesn't try to be realistic in scale or design, it is this feel that makes it better than H3 I think. I hope I'm making sense, it's hard to explain.


That's quite how I categorize too. H2 had this unbalanced and unique feeling about each faction, which was lost when all factions started having 7 tier units somehow matching in power, humans started having their own 'black dragon' called 'archangel', all units started having upgrades (when everything is special, nothing is), and other deciding factor I already enumerated somewhere. When it comes to feeling of replaying the game, H2 comes first.
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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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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
posted November 28, 2016 04:15 PM

That is a good point, while I want the games to be balanced in such a way that if you play against an opponent on your own level, you'll both have equal chance of winning no matter what town you pick, I would not mind if there was much more uniqueness to it.
Such as some units having more upgrades, others with none, some towns with more units and there being no strict tier system.
That would however also have been a much more difficult game to make successfully I believe.

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markmasters
markmasters


Famous Hero
Dragon of justice
posted November 28, 2016 04:16 PM

The 'well' probably ruins H2 the most for me .


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PandaTar
PandaTar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
posted November 28, 2016 05:15 PM

OhforfSake said:
That would however also have been a much more difficult game to make successfully I believe.


Perhaps, but I ponder if games could have design choices to it, rather a different layout for Single Player (not focused on balancing) from Multiplayer. Most likely things to toggle on and off here and there. All towns having a town-hall system is pretty damn odd, for example.
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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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LucPatenaude
LucPatenaude


Famous Hero
Owning all 7 Heroes games
posted November 28, 2016 06:00 PM

Pre-made maps were so challenging that you did not need a higher difficulty setting.

Quite a few maps were made by map makers whom enjoyed enhancing game play of those two titles by simply forcing the player to start one of the four corners of the said map with almost no troops to start with.

Now, that was awesome and, truly heroic on its own merit. I mean, having to raise a decent army that can take a well defended neutral village is, quite a respectable challenge.

Once the village was taken over, your hero was already experienced enough to take that small army and start the creeping of the mines necessary to really start developing your new home village in a busting city or, even a Capitol.


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