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| Thread: Is H4 succesful? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Totoro
Famous Hero
in User
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posted July 07, 2009 02:25 PM |
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People don't like it because they like H3, and when something is different than H3, they hate it. It's called devotion.
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BrennusWhiskey
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
The quickest H4 player
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posted July 08, 2009 12:52 AM |
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It's an obvious fail. It's so down hills... If there never was Heroes3, then HoMM4 would've been an average game. Disciples 2 and Age of Wonders 2 would've been great. Now we have HoMM3 as the ultimate best, so HoMM4 falls as a really weak game. The main fail is how dull the game is compared to HoMM3. You have more action in a HoMM3 one week play than in a whole game of HoMM4. Really weak map on HoMM4, few options for the map makers with this kind of map layout. The idea of the heroes on the battle field is also veeery dumb. The battlefield it's self is bad. I could go on.
You are really mistaken. You just don't know this game and you talking about just a "first look"; it is sad. No action? Ask campaign makers and online players about that. Weak maps? IMHO H4 editor is great. Heroes on the battlefield? Essential.
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 08, 2009 09:47 AM |
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I grade the game compared to other TBS - it was not only a fail - it was epic. It ended 3d0 and New World Computing, it kind of ended the whole Heroes saga.
I can and do play HoMM4 - it's just not a good TBS game, only below average.
Heroes on the battle field is really stupid and the map layout is awful. In HoMM3 you get the right proportions of everything and the map, even made by a random generator, is full of options - HoMM4 maps - even made by a great map makers are dull and empty and out of proportions. HoMM3 is miles ahead in terms of tactics and 1 on 1 fights.
And this is without pointing the awful looks of HoMM4.. understandable - J.V.G was not it's designer so..
Yesterday we had a go with a friend on the 'showdown' map, for four hours play we had lvl 7/7/4 heroes and just begun killing lvl 3 and 4 creatures. On HoMM3 for four hours of play we get half a xl + und random map done.
HoMM4 has really awful set of arties also. The rings that give immunities to spells and the one that removes wards = dumb. + xx% attack/defense = dumb. + 50% more elementals = dumb, the list goes on..
I know what i'm talking about - the hardcore 1 on 1 fighters, that loved HoMM3 know what i'm talking about.
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 08, 2009 09:57 AM |
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People don't like it because they like H3, and when something is different than H3, they hate it. It's called devotion.
Devotion is some sickness - i don't like HoMM4, because i'm not blind and i rate it. I'm not some religious idiot that can't use his own head.
Them sick religious ppl are devoted - not me. I use the product to entertain myself after work and to do something i like with the friends i made. I don't preach it to others in a special building - got it?
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TheUnknown
Known Hero
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posted July 08, 2009 07:14 PM |
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How long you two played a map depends on the map itself and your skills. You should hear more from the experienced players like BrennusWhiskey  Anyways the game didn't exactly end 3do and sold quite well (saw in other forums, not sure where), but for sure I've seen it has more points on some game review sites than heroes V (like gamespot).
I am sick of people just saying heroes on map without creatures is awful. Did you manage to get a good strategy in HoMM 4 ??? If you did you probably would realize that it is fair and very balanced, once you get used to it, turns go very fast. Also even if the turns may be a bit slower than in other games the pleasure afterwards is so much better (at least for me), the final battles I had with my friend on lan were epic, sometimes rarely there were epic fails cos of balance on map but I never regret playing the game.
Simultaneous retaliations is the best feature that happened to the heroes games I believe, caravan too, many other features(can go on if someone wants) 
The great autosave feature that they made in HoMM 4 to save on beginning on turn actually made AI weaker, imagine how much time you would've been saved in HoMM 3 if you had that (even whole maps sometimes), here we take that option for granted.
I cannot argue how much successful was it as I haven't seen how much money have been invested/earned from it and how many fans were chased/brought, but the game is definitely great and that's some kind of success.
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 09, 2009 08:39 AM |
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Hey there!
Never said there are not nice ideas in HoMM4 - there are. The simultaneous strike is one very good idea. The implementation of these ideas suxorz.
Of'corpse i can beat anyone on HoMM4 - i'm one of the world best Heroes players - i can come with a strategy that blows your mind, but this is so irrelevant. My point was that HoMM4 is inferior in terms of playability and diversity than HoMM3 and i stated some of my points above.
One week on Heroes 3 play has more action than a whole game of HoMM4. The only different battle you get in HoMM4's repetitive play is the final battle - which are epic - i agree. I wanted HoMM4 to be a nice game - i don't hate it. I just find it worst than the best TBS - that is all.
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TheUnknown
Known Hero
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posted July 09, 2009 11:02 AM |
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Well then I misunderstood you you sounded like one of those that put one glance at this game and think they know it all since they have exp in HoMM 3
It's ok for HoMM 4 to be disliked or non favored for anyone who honestly gave it a try
Anyway wandering monsters (even when you set stationary they have a 2-3 movement to get you if you get near them) makes the map bigger and makes recourse gathering hard, that's one of the changes that makes the game slower but I still think it's better as creatures can now defend some area and if you mapmake good you can make them guard only one place (placing them over the mine capture point for example, this option was disregarded in some maps which even made people exploit the bugs on gold and gem mine to be able to be captured without battle in some cases).
"The only different battle you get in HoMM4's repetitive play is the final battle." haha you got a touching subject  it's sometimes a problem of the game and I believe hero specialities are to blame (I do think they make the game more fair as any player can have any hero unlike HoMM 3 where only one could get Tazar, Sandro or others), they bring repetition of actions as hero choices when buying them are very low, only in developing they are great.
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BrennusWhiskey
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
The quickest H4 player
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posted July 09, 2009 10:28 PM |
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Quote:
Heroes on the battle field is really stupid and the map layout is awful. In HoMM3 you get the right proportions of everything and the map, even made by a random generator, is full of options - HoMM4 maps - even made by a great map makers are dull and empty and out of proportions. HoMM3 is miles ahead in terms of tactics and 1 on 1 fights.
IMHO H3 is awful especially becuse of graphic.
Quote:
Yesterday we had a go with a friend on the 'showdown' map, for four hours play we had lvl 7/7/4 heroes and just begun killing lvl 3 and 4 creatures. On HoMM3 for four hours of play we get half a xl + und random map done.
Just try an easier map. Showdown is a really hard in development.
Quote:
I know what i'm talking about - the hardcore 1 on 1 fighters, that loved HoMM3 know what i'm talking about.
You really don't know about you talking; just give me one game and I will give you hard lesson of h4 tactic.
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 10, 2009 08:53 AM |
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Edited by xlnt at 08:58, 10 Jul 2009.
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'Showdown' was the map we choose, based on previous experience - i.e. we tried to have fun on a bunch of maps, because we had this argument - i said order has the better chance than life. So we tried to have a good match on a fair map - Showdown is one of the best maps out there to me. Also this was week 3 - we had 2-3 lvl 4 creatures and were just to hit the gold mines. We had 2 towns with lvl 3 build and each had a lvl4 building out for some turns.
As you would know in HoMM3 week 3 is the week the game ends.. on a xl + und map... showdown is M + und...
The graphics is something to go with art, so it's personal - but if you want to make a poll and see how many ppl liked HoMM3 graphics better..
HoMM4 can't offer me the strategic match from last night - for a 3 weeks of play (3 hours real time) on the spider template we had dozens of scout fights and a big fight that was decided by the luck factor and was very close. In HoMM4 there are almost no scout wars.
my skype profile is xlnt2new if you want to consider a match between us - you're welcome.
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Barold
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 10, 2009 09:48 AM |
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In terms of financial success and reception the game was an unmitigated failure. And like everyone else I hated it when I 1st got it. And since I'd upgraded my system purely to meet the min specs of the game so wasn't happy at all.
Heroes in combat? *retch* as they die immediately.
Simultaneus attack and retaliation? *double retch*
However once I'd calmed down and played some more HMM3 I gave it a second chance and it was rewarded. There are huge possibilities there - try making an army of 7 heroes with combat and stealth skills. Entire army can walk past anything to get exp. I'm still not keen on the combat mechanics of attack and retaliation at the same time but I've gotten used to the rest of the game and rather enjoy it. The tactical choices in town building, hero free armies, caravans and everything else make it a very different game to the rest of the heroes series but it is a good game.
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Paulemile
Known Hero
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posted July 10, 2009 10:30 AM |
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I just finished to read this thread and I have to say : you guys made me feel I have to play Homm4 again
Well, I quit it long time ago but I remember playing it with friends and having a lot of fun... different from Homm2 and 3 but still fun.
Despite NWC and 3DO were dying, they put some real good efforts to make a great game, at least in theory. Here are the features I loved and I miss
The spell system : as said before by many other fans. Elemental magic replaced by some smart new schools, even if they could have keep the elemental too...
Hero classes : well, this is the best system ever created for Heroes. The one for HommV is good, but not as good as this one. Synergies between skills, a lot of classes, a lot of secondary skills. Nothing to argue against.
Daily creature growth : much more realistic and useful. I Homm3, just attack a town day 7 without defenses, then get the full new troops day 1...
Flagged mills, etc. : One the ways found to avoid boring hero travels, and it works.
Creatures able to move without heroes : another good way to let the heroes do something else than go somewhere, go back in town to get creatures, go somewhere else...
Artifacts : Homm4 introduced a nice artifact system, much more logical than Homm3's one (Armors giving power skill ?  ). The "normal" weapons add attack, the "normal" armors give defense, and magic ones give special abilities. I am still asking myself why such a logical system wasn't implemented before...
Adventure map objects : I don't remember well all of them, but for sure there were many more in Homm 4 than in Homm 5.
Terrain : Homm 4 introduced different levels of terrain. I mean, the ground wasn't a perfect flat surface like in Homm3 and previous ones, but with little passable mounds and holes.
On the other hand, too much mistakes (IMHO) have been done...
The combat system seems to work bad in some way, can't expain why... Is it poor creature sounds, animations... is it the new battlefield config... is it the heroes fighting among creatures (I like the Homm5 hero's fighting system better than other Homm here).
Factions : well, this word means almost nothing in this game, since you can get vampires mixed by demons, white tigers mixed with phoenixes... no comment. Homm3 wins the contest concerning coherent and charismatic factions (who whispered Conflux ? ).
I will finish this... hem... book with a word concerning music. There were some good songs in Homm 4, I prefer Homm 3 and 2 ones, though. But even in Homm 4, you can sit near a fountain, listen to the music and dream you are in an enchanted forest 
If one day I write my ultimate Heroes of Might and Magic wishlist, I realize that many features would come from Homm4... How surprising... or not
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 10, 2009 04:53 PM |
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Edited by xlnt at 16:55, 10 Jul 2009.
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Quote:
Artifacts : Homm4 introduced a nice artifact system, much more logical than Homm3's one (Armors giving power skill ? ). The "normal" weapons add attack, the "normal" armors give defense, and magic ones give special abilities. I am still asking myself why such a logical system wasn't implemented before...
The short line-up of HoMM4 (4 tiers) and the big difference in the stats of t1 and t4 units makes the arties really very stupid, because they are % based. HoMM4 has awful set of arties - no balance at all. The ring that prevents steal/dispel, the other ring that neglects wards... easy to get, low lvl items with disastrous power.
Heroes on the battlefield is tremendously stupid idea - but with this short line-up i guess it couldn't be avoided. The lack of development time and the rush to get the game out is really obvious here. 3d0 were in such bad shape back than - do you remember how awfully buggy the game was upon release? The massive memory leak it had, it was unplayable in 10 turns on a good machine. The 2 expansions were good, but the dmg was done. The game feels unfinished and un-designed.
Great ideas that were done very poorly - this is HoMM4.
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Humakt
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 13, 2009 06:10 PM |
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With Equilibris the only thing really wrong in HoMM 4 is the price of Immortality Potions and the AI. I don't like Death still but at least Venom Spawns are cool as always.
Quote:
The 2 expansions were good, but the dmg was done. The game feels unfinished and un-designed.
Great ideas that were done very poorly - this is HoMM4.
Two quality expansions? What are you smoking? The expansions H4 had made Shadow of Death of look like greatest thing ever since sliced bread (though Chronicles are still some of the lowest).
Personally I'd rate Heroes game thus nowadays:
First one I really never played, it is basically inferior H2 though.
Heroes of Might and Magic 2: 3.9/5. Good but really lacks tactical depth and variety.
Heroes of Might and Magic 3: 4.1/5. Excellent game but badly balanced (to name a few: Necropolis, Conflux and certain über spells like Dimension Door and Town Portal), lacking skill and spell system compared to later games.
Heroes of Might and Magic 4 (with Equilibris mod): 4.1/5. Shortcomings of this game I already said. Lots of good innovations with good spell and skill system and best map editor of series.
Heroes of Might and Magic 5 (with ToE). 4.0/5. Great game but it gets dull rather quickly nowadays due to lack of maps and boring AI. Map Editor is crappier than in HoMM 2 as well. Skill and spell systems are great though and there are lots of variety with creatures.
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted July 13, 2009 06:45 PM |
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In terms of financial success and reception the game was an unmitigated failure.
Speaking without bias, I've gotta say that's incorrect. Whatever rabid fans of the series think (yes, I'm one too), they don't affect critical opinion. Gamespot gives it an 8, IIRC, which is a great score, and based on the merits of the game rather than its failure to replicate the first three installments.
As for finance, if you're up to calling 3DO's official reports bogus then good luck to you, but even Devil May Cry would have had a hard time pulling 3DO out of debt in 2001, despite Heroes IV's good sales.
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 14, 2009 10:06 AM |
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Edited by xlnt at 15:52, 15 Oct 2009.
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The expansions removed some critical bugs - that's what i meant by good.
I didn't really looked at official reports - it's a presumption that they are bogus (all financial papers are), but i guess HoMM4 sold quite good. It was never deserved of course - the first installment of the game was hardly working and it even lacked multy.
Too bad we didn't get a simple upgrade of HoMM3, they had to go all new design and ruin it all. Imagine the nice ability and magic system in heroes 3 design - mmmm
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TheUnknown
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2009 03:59 AM |
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Too bad we didn't get a simple upgrade of HoMM3, they had to go all new design and ruin it all. Imagine the nice ability and magic system in heroes 3 design - mmmm
If you want an upgrade try looking for some mods of HoMM 3. New parts of games are meant to be different. Yes many games have parts that are similar to previous and are successful(famous first person shooters & strategies like Age of Empires) but there is a limit even for that, HoMM 3 was the limit, only little details were left to be modified so that that game could reach its maximum. Chronicles started making Heroes 3 legacy go down the stairs, that's all they could do with it without different design, imagine new stories.
Spell system in HoMM 4 is soo good. In HoMM 3 players had basic advanced expert and had 4 schools, to learn all the spells you just needed wisdom, in Homm 4 its very hard to learn many spells and that's good cos you can build many heroes and have them take different paths learning different skills and spells on your way, there are more spells, adventure ones aren't super imbalanced. Tons of summoning spells(summon that has spells, that's great too). Creature spells that can affect the creatures themselves(didn't you think it was moronic that 200 archangels in one stack couldn't cast resurrection on themselves if some died, it was pathetic, ogre mage that gives bloodlust to anyone but themselves). In HoMM 3 you didn't even need to have wisdom(high level spells) to be super effective caster for late game armies. Slow, haste, bless, curse, dispel, CURE, some of the best mass spells in the game could be gotten near after the second level with a bit of luck and lvl 1 mage guild.
Didn't get that part about abilities, I may have a word on that one too
Also I would add that I feel for Age of empires 2 just like you do for HoMM 3, it was legendary and it should be remade in new engine and some stuff may be repaired, but it shouldn't take a new part in the game series as it is way too original.
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted July 15, 2009 09:25 AM |
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Absolutely agree with you.
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BAD
Promising
Known Hero
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posted October 15, 2009 08:08 AM |
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Heroes IV is good game and has new unique ideas and this is a good thing.
The bad thing is the poor AI.
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Solipso
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 30, 2009 05:34 AM |
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Edited by Solipso at 05:35, 30 Oct 2009.
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I have completed 129 PC games, including expansion packs. I have completed 28 console games. I have tried, but not completed, an unknown number of other games. I have completed 57 RPGs, my favorite genre (this number excludes expansion packs).
I am posting this bit of braggodio here so my remarks about Heroes IV will have respect. If Heroes IV were the only game I have ever played, saying that it is my favorite game would mean little.
Intermittently I have been playing Heroes of Might & Magic IV for years, much more than I have played any other game. I am not sure if I have spent 1,000 hours with it, but I am sure I have spent over 500 hours. Some of the campaign scenarios, particularly for the expansion packs, are too difficult, but I have played and replayed all of the official stand-alone scenarios for the three main Heroes IV games. I have also played a number of user-created scenarios.
Typically I play a scenario of Heroes IV in between my plays of other games. For the last couple of years, I have also been playing Heroes III scenarios in this manner.
Using the criterion of time spent with it, I would have to consider Heroes IV my favorite game.
So at least for me, Heroes IV has been a solid success.
Of course, nothing is perfect. 
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Mitabrin
Famous Hero
k³oribaz to kutaspoci±g
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posted November 26, 2009 10:44 PM |
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Ok, I'd like to say something in this topic aswell, but before I'd like to say that I bought this game almost a week ago so I am not very experienced (but I am playing heroes like 12 years already so I am not a newbie).
The first thing that I noticed was the music, some tracks were ripped from other games (like Waarlords Battlecry) so I found it little annoying at the beginning, but after several days I found it quite stacking to H4 climate (which is imo like from a fable or something like that).
Towns are one thing that seems quite bad to me, it is nice feature that town look like changes depending on terrain, but backgrounds of all towns are so similiar that on the first look I can mistake Academy with Asylum.
The idea with heroes on battlefield is imo quite great, to tell you the truth I found that mostly heroes still are just standing in corner and casts magic, rather than going on a killing spree, but it made imo might heroes more useful (in H3 I was always plaing with Magic ones), because when thay have ranged weapons they can harm enemies too.
The battle itself I found even better than it was in H3, it is still very clear (well in town sieges I sometimes cannot see creatures that stand behind the wall, but it isn't very disturbing), I like the idea with ranged units counter attack and idea with simultaneous counterattack.
Creatures are still great, I found fact that even only 1 creature from other army is harming your morale very disturbing, but I can live with it. I found idea with "creatures without heroes moving" quite handy, in H3 I always had a hero that was transporting creatures over whole map. I didn't like idea with possibility of having more heroes in army at once quite stupid, because I always though that heroes are something special and now we cane have whole army of heroes.
And that's it for now, I must say that H4 is damn good game, and I can't belive that so many people hates it...
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I'm surgeon,not doctor - LizardWarrior
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