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Heroes Community > Library of Enlightenment > Thread: What went wrong in Heroes of Might and Magic III
Thread: What went wrong in Heroes of Might and Magic III This thread is 9 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT»
Vancho1
Vancho1


Adventuring Hero
Learning
posted December 13, 2011 04:17 AM

Plus, these "amateur teenagers" are not that. They were a group of talented Russians that implemented a powerful scripting language- ERM - into the H3 EXE, and used it to create all sorts of things.

The WoGify scripts were made, not to be used all at once, but as interesting add-ons if you want to modify the gameplay. The MAIN purpose of WoG is, was, and always will be ERM, and the possibilities scripting adds to the game.

Now, with VCMI, the things we can do with heroes will become truly limitless.

Also, on the Troll discussion:

The Cat on the Dovrefjell is an old Norwegian folk-tale. There, the trolls take many different forms. All mythology has deviations. Vampires range from little more than blood-sucking ghouls, to a vastly superior group of undead. It's all about the writer.

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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 13, 2011 09:26 AM

Quote:
changes that should have been made in heroes 3 to improve the "bad" skills:


1) eagle eye - on expert level, should be a 60% chance to learn level 5 adventure spells cast by other heroes (per time the spells are cast)

2) first aid - on expert level, it should automatically restore full health to the top stack of all creatures once per round.  no tent required on expert level.

3) scouting - on expert level, it should allow the hero to dig 2 holes per day for the grail

4) learning - it should also allow heroes to reveal the grail puzzle more quickly

5) resistance - on expert level, should be able to cast expert level magic mirror twice per combat at no cost.

6) mysticism - on expert level, once per week should automatically be allowed to replenish all spell points at will

7) scholar - it should apply to level 5 on expert.  scholar heroes should be able to "demolish" a mage guild and rebuild it all over again if they are not satisfied with the spells given.


i believe the above changes would make some of these skills more balanced



Yeah, that's a good list.  I really like the scouting and first aide ones.  I'll also add that learning should scale to 50% at expert (make it worth someone's time to take it, since by itself it's utterly useless), and that maybe expert resist is just undispellable magic mirror.  I think expert archery should also either remove the distance or obstacle penalty, like it did in heroes 2.  


Quote:
1. "Stuck with a magic hero"
I'm not advocating that you should only have access to 1 hero type. More like something they've done in Heroes IV - you can recruit one of multiple hero types. Say you could start the game as Knight faction with a Knight, Barbarian, Sorceress or Wizard hero. There's no need to create 2 heroes for each faction.



Yeah, in heroes 2, you pretty much started a game hiring 3-4 heroes off the bat, so your 3rd or 4th hero would usually be a different class than your first two heroes.  So, a wizard usually got a knight/barbarian on day 1 if they wanted one.  Still, in cases where you don't do this, it would be nice to have a different option right off the bat.  I didn't buy anything after heroes 3, so I guess it's nice they fixed it.


Quote:
Yeah, we already agreed that Heroes III should have increased spell costs for "advanced" and "expert" spells. But you are still ignoring the fact that many of the 'different' spells in Heroes II were just 'mass' versions of the same spells. This is crap. heroes III was on the right track by actually making DIFFERENT spells and tying the 'mass'(and other variances) to skill levels, even if they missed details like increasing spell costs for the (generally)better versions.


Well, I think you're pointing out a consistent design flaw in heroes 3 - they added a whole bunch of crap (more creatures, more hero types, more town types, and more spells), and unfortunately a lot of it turned out to be just that - crap.  This is most evident in spells, because who in their right mind would cast expert mirth or sorrow (lvl 3 and 4 spells) if they have expert haste or slow (both lowly lvl 1 spells)?  In fact, an entire battle could be determined by timely casting of these two lvl 1 spells alone - they are that powerful.  The cape of velocity and Mr. Mulligan are also ridiculously overpowered for this reason alone.  So, you have these two extremely common lvl 1 spells basically outclassing 90% of the new spells added in heroes 3, essentially making them all crap.  Why bother with expert fire shield, when you have haste or slow?  Even the all-powerful blind is crap compared to these two spells.  In heroes 2, mass haste (lvl 3) and especially mass slow (lvl 4) were relatively rare, and very much sought after - mass slow was a gamebreaking spell, just like it is in heroes 3, only trumped by the mass-haste-counter or proper armageddon usage.  Mass cure, the only counter besides mass haste, was also a lvl 4 spell.  In heroes 3, build a lvl 1 mage guild, and level up earth or air, which most heroes can easily do.  You're done.  Mass cure?  Learn water.  Resource cost - 5 wood, 5 ore, 2000 gold.  All those nice ideas that they had for other spells, especially the lvl 3 and lvl 4 spells?  All crap (except berzerk).

Haste and Slow are TOO STRONG.  Maybe if they had a wisdom requirement too at the expert level along with your idea of increasing mana cost, it would balance things out a little, but that just messes up the framework they put into place.  It requires a lot more rethinking, in my opinion.  Maybe they got it right in the later installments.

All in all, I think the earth air fire water idea was really good but very poorly implemented.  They basically half-assed redesigning the spells - they added some changes but failed to consider what those changes would do to the existing framework, and ended up botching the whole thing.  Maybe if a lvl 4 spell at a basic level was more powerful than a lvl 1 expert spell and thus worth leveling the magic guild, but this is only true for direct damage spells (chain lightning basic completely overpowers magic arrow expert) - then we run into another problem...the effectiveness of direct damage spells was totally negated by the dramatic increases in creature HP/week...yet another unintended consequence of the changes they made.  Spell power is a joke in heroes 3, by far the weakest primary skill.


Quote:
Heroes II(that is '2', not '3') had the best music I think everyone agrees(I don't think I have ever seen ANYONE until you just now say that III had better music.).


Really?  I thought heroes 3 had great music, especially stronghold, by far my favorite.  Heroes 2 had opera, which was funky, lol.  Heroes 2 battle music was much better, I agree, but overall heroes 3 music is a bit better in my opinion.


Quote:
Finally let me say there's a nice open-source project to revive Heroes 2. It already runs on a bunch of small devices. I'm talking about fheroes2. Of course, it requires the original data from the game. I don't have many complaints about it, but it has a fatal (fixable) flaw: its AI is barely functioning. Programming AI is hard and the one they have at the moment makes Heroes 4 AI look smart.


You *almost* had me interested.  


Quote:
Better to have many factions each with their own "might" and "magic" hero types. Where H3 messed up was by not putting enough thought and effort into the development.


You know, on one hand they did.  The secondary skill priority chart is gigantic.  However, then you have things like alchemists having a very high probability of learning "learning", and having a very low chance of learning archery when tower has 3 ranged units, and you realize that tower class is even worse off than in heroes 2 in getting a decent might hero.

Oh well.  I guess there were a lot of reasons why I didn't continue on with the series.
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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 13, 2011 09:35 AM

Oh, one more thing.  This might not be in the right topic, but I really don't get the hype behind crag hack and tazar.  Expert Offense is essentially +3 attack skill (30% more dmg - does not apply to ranged dmg), and Expert Armorer is just +3 defense skill (15% less dmg).  If I read the descriptions right, Crag hack makes it +4.5 attack, and Tazar +6 defense.  That's nice, but not really game breaking.  I'd rather have a slam dunk tactics or logistics than just +1.5 attack or +3 defense, but maybe that's just me.
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Warmonger
Warmonger


Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
posted December 13, 2011 10:01 AM
Edited by Warmonger at 10:02, 13 Dec 2011.

Quote:
Now, with VCMI, the things we can do with heroes will become truly limitless.

It's not like once we decide to release it, all the possible ideas will be magically supported. Modding features and options will be added gradualy. Other things can be improved already at the moment.

I have a vision modding system which just allows adding creatures, artifacts and other objects to the game. Still, other people may wish to modify or add something totally different in a different way.
The best thing is to write the piece of code on your own or just provide a good project of what you want to add.
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The future of Heroes 3 is here!

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted December 13, 2011 10:21 AM

Quote:
but maybe that's just me.


Yep, because others usually read specialties descriptions before stating "a bunch of crap heroes was added".

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angelito
angelito


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
posted December 13, 2011 01:25 PM
Edited by angelito at 13:26, 13 Dec 2011.

Quote:
Oh, one more thing.  This might not be in the right topic, but I really don't get the hype behind crag hack and tazar.  Expert Offense is essentially +3 attack skill (30% more dmg - does not apply to ranged dmg), and Expert Armorer is just +3 defense skill (15% less dmg).  If I read the descriptions right, Crag hack makes it +4.5 attack, and Tazar +6 defense.  That's nice, but not really game breaking.  I'd rather have a slam dunk tactics or logistics than just +1.5 attack or +3 defense, but maybe that's just me.
I wonder where you have got your formula from. It doesn't seem to be correct you explained it.

Expert offense 30% more damage
For each attack point higher than opponent's defense points +5% damage
Therefore Expert offense = 6 points more attack
Crack doubles his offense skill at level 20, means he has +12 attack 60% higher damage that time!

Expert armorer 15% less damage
For each defense point higher than opponent's attack points - 2,5% damage
Therefore Expert armorer = 6 points more defense
Tazar doubles his armorer skill at level 20, means he has +12 defense 30% less damage that time!

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Warmonger
Warmonger


Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
posted December 13, 2011 01:37 PM

Defense & Armores bonuses are multiplicative, so there's no equaliy between the two.
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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 13, 2011 05:48 PM
Edited by cookiesareyum at 17:53, 13 Dec 2011.

Quote:
I wonder where you have got your formula from. It doesn't seem to be correct you explained it.

etc...dmg calculations



Ok, that makes a bit more sense then.  I was using the heroes 2 damage calculations, my bad.  I can't find the heroes 3 dmg calculations...but I'll take your word for it.

I take back what I said about spell power then, since attack and defense effectiveness were also halved.  That means each point of knowledge is really strong then, especially if you've learned magic specialties, and are thinking of pumping up intelligence or are happy with low level magic (if not pumping up intelligence).  It's very easy to be very happy with lvl 1 spells and expert earth/air.

I also see how crag and tazar can be effective then.    That's a much bigger tradeoff for guaranteed logistics or tactics.


Quote:
Yep, because others usually read specialties descriptions before stating "a bunch of crap heroes was added".


Well, it was that damned reading thing that got me in trouble in the first place.  

I thought "5% per level bonus" meant per level of offense, not per level of Crag hack, meaning total 45% dmg bonus from offense.

Also, when you have entire classes rendered useless (alchemist, witch) you have a big pile of crap, in my opinion.  I avoid playing tower when I can because the hero selection is terrible, even though I like the creatures and the relatively cheap un-upgraded building costs.
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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted December 14, 2011 12:53 AM

All Heroes are good if played the way NWC imagined-we have the original CD maps (or true random) to prove how balance was tested-. With years, template random maps - and custom- changed this pattern, therefore some Heroes are stronger than others, given the time.  We can't blame NWC for something they did not envisioned. Play any medium map from CD and you will see that even an alchemist can beat Tazar, not big deal. On open medium maps, warlocks or elementalists are very praised, launching 6 magic arrows at 40-50 damage before running away is deadly against any first week might, often even without magic book.

Myself I don't see the logic of closed maps, but it is like fashion. If I play against human, I fight human from day 1. If I want single maps, I play AI from day 1 until the end. Playing against AI for 20 days and vs human on 21th before game ends after that battle is a strange pick, IMO.

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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 14, 2011 02:24 AM
Edited by cookiesareyum at 02:28, 14 Dec 2011.

Quote:
All Heroes are good if played the way NWC imagined


I really doubt it.  It's evident from tower that a good amount of heroes 3 was just heroes 2 copied over it, even though the massive amount of adjustments warranted adjustments to tower as well.  Mage tower is the single most expensive building for its level and is more resource intensive than most level 5 or level 6 buildings, and the creatures aren't even that good - this is because it was a lvl 5 building in heroes 2 (second only to titans) and they didn't bother to change the resource cost.

When a might hero starts out with a terrible skill like mysticism (many alchemists) that has little to do with might and is undesirable even on magic heroes, you learn to stay away from recruiting them.


Quote:
Play any medium map from CD and you will see that even an alchemist can beat Tazar, not big deal.


That's not the point.  Anyone can beat anyone - this is a game of skill.  The point is, given similar skill levels, people will want to seek an edge.  Heroes like Tazar, Crag hack, and in my opinion especially Gunnar who has logistics and tactics day 1, are the edge that can determine victory or defeat.  An alchemist, with mysticism or scholar day 1, no archery, and 3 ranged units, is a handicap.  

Alchemists have the highest chance to learn "learning", a completely underpowered and generally useless skill that only serves to waste a secondary slot.  Most start with inexplicably mysticism and scholar - scholar without wisdom, mind you.  Supposedly this means you will be emphasizing your guild, which resource-wise, including the mage tower and library, at lvl 3 costs as much as a fully upgraded portal of glory - don't forget you will still need your 40 EXTRA gems for titans. Given that lvl 1 spells like haste and slow generally trump most lvl 2 and lvl 3 spells, and that most alchemists' starting skill set heavily favors magic over its excellent ranged creatures, you start out with a distinct disadvantage using an alchemist.

I think NWC intended tower to be the best long term class in the game, but

1) Necro is simply better
2) Logistics is too good - through extra movement your main hero will be able to kill more monsters, collect more treasure chests etc, than a hero without logistics.  Logistics conveys all the advantages that learning is supposed to convey, AND it is vital on the adventure map.
3) Higher level magic simply is not that strong given its cost AND it is random - your lvl 5 guild with library may have given you sorrow, counterstrike, inferno, and two summon spells, meaning that you will STILL be casting mass haste and mass slow nearly every fight after investing an ungodly amount of resources praying for good magic.
4) Tower might heroes are simply terrible.
5) Learning doesn't give any visible long term advantage, yet alchemists will more than likely be stuck taking this skill.  This is another design flaw in the game, because obviously learning would be worth sacrificing a secondary skill slot only if the experience advantage was noticeable and pronounced...it is neither.


Quote:
launching 6 magic arrows at 40-50 damage before running away is deadly against any first week might, often even without magic book.


1) You've just described a game that ends in one week, where the players are close enough that they can meet and fight before day 7.  This means that the strategy for the map is going to center on this one first-week fight.
2) If the game is going to end in one week, and a player using a might hero neglects to purchase a spell book, then you are talking about a ridiculously bad player.  This player will probably lose against any decent player no matter how many advantages they get.
3) If the game is going to end in one week, the game heavily favors using a magic hero, to do exactly what you described, magic arrow war.  Why even bother with a 2/2 knight who gives you a 10% dmg/defense bonus, when 300 hp worth of magic arrow will decide the game?  


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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 14, 2011 02:42 AM
Edited by cookiesareyum at 03:02, 14 Dec 2011.

Oh one more thing...

Armageddon.

Heroes 2 armageddon looks incredible.  Your entire screen glows blood red, violently shakes, what sounds like a nuclear bomb goes off, all for what seems like an eternity...and then your caster withdraws his hand - silence.  Everything looks like it returned to normal...except everything is dead.  Very dramatic, really cool to see.

I found this on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo2fkAtD_As

Heroes 3 armageddon looks like what elemental storm looks like in heroes 2.  It looks like it's raining tiny fireballs, and in heroes 3, it lasts for less than 1 second.  This is supposed to be the end of the world??  They even made a campaign centered around armageddon, and it looks like it's raining gumdrops??
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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted December 14, 2011 02:58 AM

Well, there are situations where even a very good player will not buy a magic book on first day, therefore main will not have it until days later. Some may think that mage build must be done on first day, but others may choose to upgrade archers, go for elves, upgrade pixies, for a fast experience gain-they will buy the book in first conquered town-. And if fights are done in the very beginning, this does not mean the game will last one week. May last several months, cuz it is very hard to take a castle if you never have more than one week army alive, due to skirmish.

Alchemists are not good heroes, but you can use another class when playing with tower. Building high level magic guilds should be as hard as getting the grail. On open maps it is. The randomness of spells: great thing. Sometimes you are lucky, others your aren't. That's the fun, I guess: every game has its strong part of unpredictable.

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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 14, 2011 03:13 AM
Edited by cookiesareyum at 03:23, 14 Dec 2011.

Quote:
Well, there are situations where even a very good player will not buy a magic book on first day, therefore main will not have it until days later. Some may think that mage build must be done on first day, but others may choose to upgrade archers, go for elves, upgrade pixies, for a fast experience gain-they will buy the book in first conquered town-. And if fights are done in the very beginning, this does not mean the game will last one week.


Yes it does.  If two players are so close to each other that they will be fighting before the end of the first week, this means that the game will be decided on that first week.  The result of this one battle will be that one player will have enough of a force to continue exploring and adventuring, or better yet, just take the opponent's castle and end the game right there.  The other play will be out of luck.  The other player can't run magic heroes to zap/retreat, because the heroes they recruit won't have any forces.  Also, more than likely both players will have been seriously strapped for cash in preparation for that one battle, meaning that the result of that one battle will have determined the game.

Let's say that instead of looking for conflict, one player builds up his fort into a castle.  Week one, the castle turrets are extremely formidable, so he won't lose his starting town for at least a week or two.  However, the other player foregoes this to build his lvl 7 dwelling week one, spends week two adventuring for resources until he can upgrade it, and then destroys the other's castle week three.  All the while, the other player who built up is castle is too scared to roam the map, because his opponent is already walking around with lvl 7 creatures.  Basically, the game was decided the moment the player built up his castle instead of building creatures.

If not, if they are as you say, avoiding the battle and building up forces, then both players are not playing the game to its potential.

In both heroes 2 and heroes 3, there are maps that can be easily beat within one or two weeks that most people take 3-4 months to beat, because they did not know how to play early game to its full potential.


Quote:
Alchemists are not good heroes, but you can use another class when playing with tower.


You are making my point.  By using the wizard class, you shut yourself out of your might class.  You may want to use a good might hero with tower, preferably one with archery to complement your creatures, but you can't.  Instead, you pray you get Solmyr.  This is a serious design flaw, in my opinion.  For tower to shun its own might class cannot have been what the designers intended.
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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted December 14, 2011 03:21 AM
Edited by Salamandre at 03:26, 14 Dec 2011.

When I say another class, I mean might class. Just pick another among the 6-8 usually first day recruited heroes. And you forget Neela also. Scholar may not be the best, but her specialty is the best. You also forget that the tower faction is about magic universe, unlike stronghold or fortress. They are weak physically but have access to improved guilds. I see few chances to look realistic if Tower heroes looked and leveled up as knights and barbarians. They also come with a bunch of gremlins, and getting <>100 shooters on first day is worth recruiting an alchemist. Perhaps they should have included some skill related to alchemy, but they botched it a bit.

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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 14, 2011 03:43 AM

Quote:
When I say another class, I mean might class. Just pick another among the 6-8 usually first day recruited heroes. And you forget Neela also. Scholar may not be the best, but her specialty is the best. You also forget that the tower faction is about magic universe, unlike stronghold or fortress. They are weak physically but have access to improved guilds. I see few chances to look realistic if Tower heroes looked and leveled up as knights and barbarians. Perhaps they should have included some skill related to alchemy, but they botched it a bit.


1) Forgoing all of your native might heroes is a big handicap, or at least it just highlights a design flaw.
2) Neela is not that strong for tower.  Tower units need archery mainly, not armorer.  Armorer can help golems and nagas soak up damage if the enemy gets that far, but it would be better still to get as much dmg as possible so that the enemy doesn't get that far in the first place or get that many hits on your melee forces.  Also she doesn't have tactics, so if wolf raiders get morale, neither scholar nor armorer will not help your pitifully weak master gremlins survive.  Tazar on the other hand is all about strong fortress units plowing over the enemy.  Armorer helps dragon flies and wyverns take hits until your gorgons and etc can inflict real pain.  Hydras are all about being in the middle of things...perfect for armorer.  Titans are all about distance between you and the enemy...perfect for archery, not armorer.  
2.5) Gad, I just looked at the chart again.  Alchemists have the LOWEST chance of learning archery out of all might heroes.  Inexcusable design flaw.
3) I'm not sure if you have read my full response.  High level magic is relatively weak in heroes 3.  Building guilds is generally not good strategy compared to getting your lvl 7 creature.  
4) Tower is not physically weak.  Titan is exceptionally strong, naga is the best lvl 6 unit, golems are very tanky, mages and genies do good dmg.  Genie special can be very useful for a high level army...one monster stack of titans, one monster stack of nagas, 5 stacks of one genie each to turn these monster stacks into magically enhanced destruction, with advanced bless, stone skin, shield, bloodlust, frenzy, mirth, fortune, precision, etc...  In fact, with genies, you don't need the high guild - they can do all the casting for you (except for the obligatory mass haste or mass slow - lvl 1 spells!!!).  Master grems and gargoyles are excellent week 1 units.  Tower creatures overall are excellent, in my opinion.  However, put an alchemist in front of them, and they will lose to overlords, knights, rangers, etc...

After all is said and done, we can then proceed to deconstruct witches, which in my opinion are another class that needs to be avoided.
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SAG
SAG


Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
posted December 14, 2011 10:55 AM

Quote:
Myself I don't see the logic of closed maps, but it is like fashion. If I play against human, I fight human from day 1. If I want single maps, I play AI from day 1 until the end. Playing against AI for 20 days and vs human on 21th before game ends after that battle is a strange pick, IMO.

the logic is the following: if you meet with opponent day 1 that means that game result is mostly determined by random luck factor. For example on day 1 one player will get 200 troglodites + Ressurection (Alamar+Shakti) and another will get 25 goblins (Yog+Gurnisson). On open map game IMO most likely will be finished during 2-3 turns...is it fun to play such unbalanced maps when your skill will not help you to win?
On closed maps such disbalance plays less role - player with 25 goblins have time to find good dwellings, hives, conservatories and good artifacts.
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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 14, 2011 06:50 PM

Quote:
Quote:
Myself I don't see the logic of closed maps, but it is like fashion. If I play against human, I fight human from day 1. If I want single maps, I play AI from day 1 until the end. Playing against AI for 20 days and vs human on 21th before game ends after that battle is a strange pick, IMO.

the logic is the following: if you meet with opponent day 1 that means that game result is mostly determined by random luck factor. For example on day 1 one player will get 200 troglodites + Ressurection (Alamar+Shakti) and another will get 25 goblins (Yog+Gurnisson). On open map game IMO most likely will be finished during 2-3 turns...is it fun to play such unbalanced maps when your skill will not help you to win?
On closed maps such disbalance plays less role - player with 25 goblins have time to find good dwellings, hives, conservatories and good artifacts.


Ok, now I understand what you mean by closed and open.

This isn't (american) football.  In football, you can score multiple times against your opponent, and your opponent can score multiple times against you.  Each touchdown (score) is generally incredibly hard to achieve, with multiple border skirmishes and passing attempts (you can call the former "might" and the latter "magic).  However, in heroes 2 or heroes 3, you only get one chance to score.  Once you or your opponent has pushed the other side to the limit, the other side loses.  There is no second chance to score.  

In football, you can have the vast majority of the game take place in the middle of the field, and then get that one play, that one key skirmish, that determines the outcome of the game.  Or, you can have each side continually destroy the opponent's defense in a very high scoring game.  In heroes 2 or 3, the latter is impossible, unless you play multiple games.  This is why it is so important to build up your heroes, to develop your economy, BEFORE you meet your opponent.
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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 14, 2011 07:25 PM

BTW, I think I have a solution for you.

I haven't played heroes 3 online, but I used to play heroes 2 online a lot, so I'm pretty sure the general strategy is very similar.

I think you'll like very small maps.  From my experience, the smallest maps can fit two, at most 4 players - if it's 2 players, then each player has at most one extra town that is positioned near them to take.  If it's four players, there are no extra towns.  If it's three players, usually the three players are fighting for one central location in the middle, which is usually an upgraded town or some other high-value target.

These very small maps essentially have a build-up time of one week or less.  If it's a free-for-all, it can last well over a week, sometimes up to a month, as each player knows that unless they can win without taking significant casualties, whoever picks a fight will be weaker than those who didn't fight.  If it's not a free-for-all, I almost guarantee you that the game will end within two weeks or at the very least the winner will be obvious.

Medium maps usually take about three weeks to a month, and then you add a month for each additional size (6 weeks to 2 months for large, 9 weeks to 3 months for extra-large).

I personally like larger maps.  Most larger maps are designed to build up to the conflict.  When you finally meet your opponent, every aspect of the game comes into play - armies, spell book, secondary skills, logistics (hero logistics skill and good chaining).  I've fought battles that have taken hours FOR JUST ONE BATTLE because of the level of complexity involved.  You are continually evaluating the battlefield even while nothing is going on...there is just that much to consider.  Usually the complexity arises from the timing of spell casting, and manipulating the order of movement for units (i.e., haste, slow, blind), and of course considering your opponent's counters to your strategies.

This is another reason why I prefer heroes 2 to heroes 3.  Heroes 3 added a lot more complexity to heroes 2, even though in my opinion heroes 2 was already complicated enough.  Or, you can say that heroes 3 is actually much simpler than heroes 2, because haste and slow, lvl 1 spells, are simply that powerful (advanced haste and advanced slow are already much more powerful than anything you will find in heroes 2, to say nothing about expert level).  If that's the case, then heroes 3 suffers from myriad design flaws, something from which heroes 2 suffers much less.  In heroes 2, you really can use just about every aspect of the game in a strategic fashion.  In heroes 3, you get a page full of rules because of the idiosyncrasies of the map generator, and numerous dead-end strategic paths mainly involving advanced magic.

Maybe heroes 3 would be good if you just stick to the stock maps that come with the game, or community-approved maps that have balance thought out beforehand.  Map making was quite a skill in heroes 2, and new maps were always very exciting to play.  From what I've read of the heroes 3 map generator, it seems to be more of a curse than a blessing - these things do take a lot of thought.


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SkeleTony
SkeleTony


Hired Hero
posted December 14, 2011 11:29 PM

Quote:
You could just say you don't like it. WoG is fan made, and it is not a mod but a modding platform. By making the most complete user manual ever they clearly gave the message about what is. The options are just advertising, to show capabilities. There can't be real developers because there is no salary. Hopefully, because we saw what real ones gives us.

Warmonger is right: H3 is the best possible for that time. Still today, it is massively MP played, while H2 is not, just in case you or others still think H2 was better. H2 died once H3 came out. H3 is still played while H6 is out.

Quote:
Most of what WoG does just screams 'Amateur teenaged game modders at work!'. And this does not even take into account the absolutely horrible campaigns and scenarios that come with WoG.


These people deserve respect for what they achieved, in their free time and because their dedication. I've seen often arrogant lurkers spitting on everything, while they are not capable to create a single pixel for Heroes games. So, before going so harsh, I suggest you do earn your opinions, so you can experience on the field what is needed. Are you a professional designer so you can safely affirm their work is horrible? A professional programmer maybe? Scenarist? Then I will listen to your carefully selected semantics.


Listen, for starters I have said repeatedly that Heroes III(that is '3') is better than Heroes II(that is 'Heroes 3 is better than heroes 2'). So why you are addressing this to me I cannot understand.

Secondly, criticizing WoG for it's flaws is not a personal attack against the people who worked on it, nor is it an assertion that they cannot program or some such. Get a grip guy.
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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted December 15, 2011 12:33 PM

Not a personal attack calling them "amateur teenagers"? You will not mind then if I call you "amateur" after reading your "critics".

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