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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»
Ale_Z
Ale_Z

Tavern Dweller
posted December 16, 2011 10:30 PM

I want to get HoMM 2 now with those GoG deals and since there aren't that many HoMM 2 threads i'll post my questions here.

-How well does it run in Vista?

-Is Sandro good in this?

-Will i enjoy this if i liked HoMM 3?

I'm pretty new to the series and i want to play some of the other titles in the series.
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Cepheus
Cepheus


Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
posted December 16, 2011 10:42 PM
Edited by Cepheus at 22:42, 16 Dec 2011.

There are no hero specialties nor anything else to define each individual hero in H2 other than their portraits, so sure, Sandro's as good as any other Necromancer.

I can't tell you if you'll like the game. It's up to you to find out, but it's a lot more like H3 than any of the other games in the series. It also happens to include much, much better official standalone maps than any in the rest of the series (and we can blame Corribus for that ).
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B0rsuk
B0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted December 16, 2011 11:20 PM

Quote:

-How well does it run in Vista?



I play from Linux so I can't check, but it should run well considering it's a GOG game.

Quote:

-Is Sandro good in this?



I'm not sure what you mean, but there's a custom scenario "Revolution" where you, as Sandro, start in the middle of the map. You have to quell an uprising and destroy all enemies who are allied against you. Also, Death Wave and Death Ripple are comparatively stronger spells because there's less HP per week.

Quote:

-Will i enjoy this if i liked HoMM 3?


It would be easier to tell if you said what you liked about Heroes III. The game's visual style should make it feel fresh for you. Music is very good in some places, some very nice castle themes and terrain pieces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OOpglmeXOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zxb-RFOklg

But in general Heroes III is a faithful continuation of Heroes II, so you should like it. It was a best seller for a year in some parts of Europe, particularly on the east.
Some things are done better in my opinion, like spell level balance. Spellcasting heroes are viable longer. A youtube video or two might help you decide, check this out (note music is somehow broken in this video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGLlee75Orc&feature=fvst



I'm pretty new to the series and i want to play some of the other titles in the series.


Some of them are funny in unexpected ways. For example in Heroes 1, only one enchantment can be active on a creature at a time. You can remove Bless by casting Slow on it. And Knowledge 11 allows you to cast 11 Armageddons. And just look at these animations!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cowyllTqkV0

This forum is, in theory, about all games from Heroes of Might and Magic series.
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cookiesareyum
cookiesareyum

Tavern Dweller
posted December 17, 2011 07:48 PM
Edited by cookiesareyum at 20:01, 17 Dec 2011.


I've played all Heroes games and still don't get your point. Heroes II is better because there are top tiers with vastly varying health and weekly growth? Heh, this makes Heroes IV possibly the best game in the series then - you have everything from 150 to 400 HP and 1 to 4 weekly growth for the best creature of each faction. Disprove that!


IF what you say about heroes 4 is true, and IF they actually balanced the lvl 7 creatures out properly through some other means than to give all of them similar hp levels per creature, then ON THIS ONE POINT ALONE heroes 4 may be better designed than either heroes 2 or heroes 3.  I haven't played heroes 4 at all, so I can't vouch for whether or not it is "the best game in the series".

The entire point was that variation added to what made heroes 2 a better game - it gave each faction its own unique perspective and playstyle.  I think in heroes 2 it wasn't balanced properly...knights get 4 crusaders whereas warlock gets 3 black dragons...260hp vs 900hp per week.  One ogre lord (a level 4 creature for barbarian) has as much hp as a knight's lvl 2, 3, and 4 creature COMBINED.  In heroes 3 there's balance, but not necessarily much variety.  I personally think that heroes 3 did balance the factions quite well with creatures...my beef is mainly that they botched up magic and hero selection in the process.  To me, this was not "heroes of might and magic" but "heroes of magical warriors"...i.e. spellcasting is far second to might.  In heroes 2, the creatures were not balanced at all, no question...but that spellbook was crucial to victory or defeat, and that spellbook could contain just about anything.  You can say that a 12-2 atk/def barbarian with expert wisdom is as broken as anything in heroes 3, but a 12-2 expert wisdom barbarian will not be casting dmg spells, and will be praying for a quick victory.  In heroes 3, unless you have implosion specifically, dmg spells simply don't seem very damaging...and what you lose in building that guild up is pronounced.  In heroes 2, building that guild up yielded a bunch of secondary spells that were extremely useful, especially at lvl 2...in heroes 3, you are either literally praying for a handful of key spells amidst a pile of crap, or just sticking with the overpowered lvl 1 spells and save your resources.

I have to repeat again that mass haste and mass slow as level 1 spells are broken, but to have mass haste and mass slow at DOUBLE THE STRENGTH at lvl 1 and no wisdom is a serious design flaw.


Quote:
It's about what went WRONG because I'm the topic starter. I chose this topic. It's by definition.
Quote:
Yeah, sure, you can start any topic you like - but shouldn't you live with the answers you get and accept them, especially when you chose to ask a question which for most people is simply not applicable?



The only answer I have seen repeated is "heroes 3 is better because it is better."  That's not really much of an answer.  Borsuk is raising valid points, and has found people that agree with them.  It's fine that you disagree, you're free to your opinion...but people will only respect your opinion if it has some valid reasoning to substantiate it.  A lot of people unconsciously bandwagon...in fact that is the entire point of bandwagonning...that doesn't mean they are right or that what they believe is valid.


Quote:
NOTHING went wrong with H3 - but some things might have been done differently.


Translation: 1+1 DOES EQUAL 3...but maybe in reality some things might need changing, and 1+1=2.


Quote:
But H5 had even more marketing, but players still playing H3, how do you explain? Even today the amount of players playing daily H3 online is twice the one playing H5.

It is about experience online. Once you get the game you like and improve at it, you won't change for a worse sequel. Back in time, we were in awe in front of H2, still when Vesuvius built TOH, every MP league around came in, and everyone stopped playing H2, because H3 answered to most of our complaints.


This is a clearcut case of bandwagonning.  You state that heroes 3 addressed all the issues of heroes 2 and thus became a better game...what are the issues??  Where is the substance in your argument??  The entire point of this thread is that there are various issues with heroes 3 that were non-existent in heroes 2, but your argument doesn't address point at all.

From what I've read, I think people stopped complaining about heroes 3 when they saw heroes 4.  That doesn't necessarily mean that heroes 3 is not without substantial flaws and balancing issues, and that perhaps in many respects, heroes 2 was better.


Quote:
The wait button

Is not a clear cut advantage. It decreases the importance of stack positioning. I never had to understand stack positioning very well to win in Heroes 3, but I had to understand it well to win in Heroes1 and Heroes 2. I'm glad fheroes2 made it an option, not a part of the game.

Quote:
lol? It boosted the possible battle actions by 1 million. Try vs human, not AI, and see how is used.



About the wait button, no question it added a very deep level of complexity to the game, but in my opinion borsuk's point about stack positioning is still valid.  Also, "wait" added even more to the importance of haste and slow, and weakened blind by quite a bit (if that is possible).  Heroes 2 was mostly all about the second turn...heroes 3 even more so, with a chance to have your entire army double strike by manipulating wait, and using of course the ubiquitous lvl 1 spells haste and slow.

In this sense, the wait button contributed to making lvl 1 spells even more ridiculously overpowered, and perhaps contributed to making the game overly complex and thus redundant - they added a bunch of new material, but actually simplified the prioritization of optimal strategies.

To illustrate how powerful haste is:

Compare two magic strategies, one centered around haste, and another berserk.  Cost requirements:

Haste:
Lvl 1 guild
Expert air
Hero lvl 4 minimum

Berserk:
Lvl 4 guild
Expert Fire
Hero lvl 6 minimum (advanced wisdom required)

Effectiveness:

If haste hero has initiative, he casts mass haste.  He gets in the face of his opponent and utilizes initiative to position his troops to minimize berserk effects, rendering mass berserk mostly useless.

If berserk hero has initiative, he casts mass berserk and cripples his opponent.  However, if the opponent casts mass haste afterward, then haste hero regains initiative, rendering mass berserk mostly useless again.  If his army survived round one without substantial losses, then the hero with no wisdom and a lvl 1 guild will retain control of initiative.  Such a hero will probably be a might hero, whereas the one with berserk mainly magic, meaning that toe-to-toe, with similarly strengthed armies, might would easily win over magic.

Also, the haste hero can anticipate the berserk hero's strategy by positioning his stacks accordingly, putting his fastest and second-fastest stacks far away from each other and thus mitigating mass berserk (given that he has cure or dispel).  The mass berserk hero doesn't really have a solid counter for mass haste.

The key here would then be if there are any other magics the berserk hero would have while building up his guild that could tip the balance in his favor.  Sorrow?  Mirth?  Air shield (which is ridiculously underpowered compared to shield, a lvl 1 spell)?  Oh...I forgot, the magic user only knows expert fire, so none of those would be mass effects and thus severely underpowered compared to mass haste.  So, Fireball??  Land mine?  Misfortune??  Lvl 3 is like no-man's land for spell-casters, whereas in heroes 2, you had the chance to get mass haste, mass bless/curse, mass dispel, along with cold/frost ring, fireball, and teleport at "expert" level in your lvl 3 guild.  Something really went wrong in heroes 3 here.



Quote:
Constructive criticism is applicable to something that makes sense. Your posts [have, not are] yet to fall into that category.
/reading comprehension


1) No constructive criticism here.
2) You are trolling Zenofex.  GTFO.
/learn proper grammar
/put up or shut up


Final point:

For me, heroes 2 was all about theme, and they got it right.  The campaigns helped to focus on the theme and story, and it just so happened that multiplayer was very good as well - not perfect, mainly because they sacrificed balance for theme, but certainly very enjoyable.

Heroes 3 was all about balance and complexity.  What then strikes me is that in heroes 3, there are various unaddressed balancing issues - I have my points as stated in above comments, but I think by far the biggest issues are the ones that surface from competitive play, i.e. the massive amount of rules necessary to play online.  This, along with my initial reaction to heroes 3, made (and still makes) heroes 2 better in my eyes.

You can tell from listening to the music.  I think the "grass theme" is the "core" theme in the heroes games since you're probably going to listen to it most, and in heroes 2, it was chipper and adventure-y.  In heroes 3, it is sophisticated...not quite chipper, and not quite free-spirited - the mental image I get listening to the two are that in heroes 2, you're just strolling through the grass, and in heroes 3, you're not sure if a lion is going to pop out and eat you.  The castle theme is also not some glory piece like the stronghold is...i.e. angels are not necessarily all they're cracked up to be (thematically speaking).  This is great conceptually for balance, but in my opinion, in many respects heroes 3 falls far short in several aspects regarding balance that heroes 2 got right.

Heroes 2 and 3 weren't the only games at the time that had issues like this.  Master or Orion had something similar happen from 1, 2, to 3, where 3 got so ridiculously complex that the most prominent feature of the game was the (failed) AI that you were forced to rely on to manage the complexity.  Heroes 3 is much better than Orion 3, but still failed due to similar issues.

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zsa
zsa


Famous Hero
posted December 30, 2011 12:41 PM

The main thing that Heroes 3 improved over H2 was the MULTIPLAYER experience. I'm surprised nobody has argumented this before.

How is H3 better than H2?
The RANDOM MAP GENERATOR. This alone makes H3 a MUCH better multi game than H2 will ever be. I don't even need other arguments. H2 is a steaming pile of dung compared to H3 just because H3 has the RMG (from a multiplayer perspective).

But there are also OTHER reasons, some of which have previously been mentioned:
- The WAIT button. You have not played Multiplayer Games vs human opponents that are decent if you think this is not a big addition to the game.

- The Factions are more balanced. I don't know about you, but it's much more important for me to have playable factions than to have different growth\ hitpoints variability for units of the same level. What B0rsuk wrote for lvl 7 creatures is actually a very big point in H3's favor. The fact that all lvl 7 upgraded creatures have HP in the range 200-300 does not say much about how diverse the creatures are. Take for example The chaos hydra and archangel - they both have the same growth and hit points, but they are VERY different creatures, and the way you use them varies a lot. The special abilities of the units make them very different from each other, but it's not as retarded as in H2 where a fully upgraded warlock\wizard town would just trash a knight\barb counterpart. If that's what you want H3 to have, then you don't play multiplayer.

- Hero specials. I'm sorry, but wasn't B0rsuk advocating for more diversity in the game? Again, this is an area where H3 wins WITHOUT competition. The fact that every hero is different from the next adds a lot of variation from game to game.

- Flyers\Ranged Units  changes. Do people disagree that these were good changes?

- How is it a bad thing that you have more hero classes?  Yes there are definite similarities between might classes (obviously), but there are also differences. These differences can be broken down into three cathegories:
1) Primary Skill Distribution
2) Secondary Skill Distribution
3) Special Hero Ability + Starting Secondary skills.

Guess what? Heroes 3 has much more variety in terms of hero choices. In Heroes 2, you have 6 heroes. THAT is ALL. Heroes of the same class are identical. In heroes 3 i have 18 hero classes, each with 8 individual heroes.

You say it's more clutter. I say that's stupid - not a personal assault on you, but it just is. Let me explain.

Let's say you have a color palette. And you have either access to 8 basic colors, or to 256 shades. Would you say that the 8 color palette is better because there is less clutter?

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B0rsuk
B0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted December 31, 2011 05:55 PM
Edited by B0rsuk at 18:29, 31 Dec 2011.

Quote:
I've played all Heroes games and still don't get your point. Heroes II is better because there are top tiers with vastly varying health and weekly growth? Heh, this makes Heroes IV possibly the best game in the series then - you have everything from 150 to 400 HP and 1 to 4 weekly growth for the best creature of each faction. Disprove that


Disclaimer: I cherry pick this bit because of time constraints and because I've found it particularly tempting. I haven't forgotten about this thread, I want to reply to some even fairly old stuff like troll and cyclops.
--------------

I'm not going to even attempt to disprove it. Because I agree with that point ! This is one of things I really like about Heroes IV. Heroes IV is not a better game overall just because of that. Similarly, bigger stat variance of level7 creatures in Heroes 2 does not cause H2 to be a better game than H3... but in my opinion it contributes to H2 being a better game.

Stuff like "unique ability for every single creature" is needed only if base stats are not enough to provide variety. Of course, it's nice to have creatures with interesting abilities, but it's not always possible to come up with them.

You seem to start with an assumption that I just want to promote Heroes 2 in this thread. No, I'm trying to highlight the point that Heroes of Might and Magic is more than just H3, and there are some things done better in H2, H4, even H1. Speaking of H1, its spellcasting system has one fun feature - you run out of spells and have to revisit guild to replenish them. No mana at all ! But, shrines are just as good ! This makes shrines in H1 perhaps the most important in the series, which is refreshing because they are of little value in Heroes 3. Even Heroes 2 gives them more importance, because level2 and 3 spells can be very good. Yes, in Heroes 2 a hero with wisdom can get level 3 spells (like mass haste, paralysis, mass bless, mass curse) without building the guild.
Now I don't remember how exactly it worked with spell scrolls in Heroes 3, but I think it didn't require wisdom. Which can be considered bad.
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Drakon-Deus
Drakon-Deus


Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
posted February 16, 2012 11:57 AM

Nothing. Except Conflux and Necro and red rush and Fly and TP and DD and lots of other things that make us play with so many rules that it's worse than Fizzbin.

BUT I LOVE IT!!

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SkeleTony
SkeleTony


Hired Hero
posted February 16, 2012 09:39 PM

Quote:
The main thing that Heroes 3 improved over H2 was the MULTIPLAYER experience. I'm surprised nobody has argumented this before.

How is H3 better than H2?
The RANDOM MAP GENERATOR. This alone makes H3 a MUCH better multi game than H2 will ever be. I don't even need other arguments. H2 is a steaming pile of dung compared to H3 just because H3 has the RMG (from a multiplayer perspective).


Cookiesareyum makes a VERY strong case which I won't attempt to add to or contest but I do want to say something about this point.

Yes, the RMG is an extremely strong point in favor of Heroes 3. I think it is the most important factor for why most still play Heroes 3 over heroes 2(myself included, though I now have to concede that Heroes 2 is probably overall a better game). But this alone cannot override all the reasoning put forth by Cookies' and others here for Heroes 2. If Daikatanna(or if you think that an unfair comparison then insert Quake or some such) had an RMG would it be better than Duke Nukem 3D?
Yes the RMG gives H3 unlimited re-playability which Heroes 2 does not and cannot have but this alone does not cancel out the factors in support of H2 such as graphics, theme, music better balance in the magic system etc.

Quote:
But there are also OTHER reasons, some of which have previously been mentioned:
- The WAIT button. You have not played Multiplayer Games vs human opponents that are decent if you think this is not a big addition to the game.


A strong point and one of the points I give to Heroes 3 over Heroes 2. But again...

Quote:
- The Factions are more balanced. I don't know about you, but it's much more important for me to have playable factions than to have different growth\ hitpoints variability for units of the same level. What B0rsuk wrote for lvl 7 creatures is actually a very big point in H3's favor. The fact that all lvl 7 upgraded creatures have HP in the range 200-300 does not say much about how diverse the creatures are. Take for example The chaos hydra and archangel - they both have the same growth and hit points, but they are VERY different creatures, and the way you use them varies a lot. The special abilities of the units make them very different from each other, but it's not as retarded as in H2 where a fully upgraded warlock\wizard town would just trash a knight\barb counterpart. If that's what you want H3 to have, then you don't play multiplayer.


I don't personally care about MP but you do make good points here for H3. I don't know if this is enough to counter all the points in favor of H2 though. Also these creatures are not as well balanced as you make them out to be. An army with 10 archangels will own an army of 10 chaos hydras every time.Castle will own fortress every time because of better/more useful creatures and a 4th level mage guild.

Quote:
- Hero specials. I'm sorry, but wasn't B0rsuk advocating for more diversity in the game? Again, this is an area where H3 wins WITHOUT competition. The fact that every hero is different from the next adds a lot of variation from game to game.


Agreed.

Quote:
- Flyers\Ranged Units  changes. Do people disagree that these were good changes?


I agree with this as well.

Quote:
- How is it a bad thing that you have more hero classes?  Yes there are definite similarities between might classes (obviously), but there are also differences. These differences can be broken down into three cathegories:
1) Primary Skill Distribution
2) Secondary Skill Distribution
3) Special Hero Ability + Starting Secondary skills.

Guess what? Heroes 3 has much more variety in terms of hero choices. In Heroes 2, you have 6 heroes. THAT is ALL. Heroes of the same class are identical. In heroes 3 i have 18 hero classes, each with 8 individual heroes.  


You are correct, at least in theory but these were also not well implemented(a lot of the time) in Heroes 3. They should have put more effort into the design by doing things like having 'max spell levels' for Might heroes(i.e. a Ranger should not be able to cast 4th and 5th level spells), perhaps by disallowing the 'Wisdom' skill for Might heroes. And 90% of the spells should have been completely re-written. As it stands now every RMG game is just a race to get Town portal and DD(with 'Fly' being a temporary substitute for DD) and in combat you have haste, slow, sometimes teleport, sometimes blind...and not a lot else being useful.
And many(most?) of the individual heroes are undesirable, if not completely worthless(i.e. the 'Eagle eye' specialists etc.). I am always going to take Thant over the necro-hero whose special is giving bonuses to wights or skeletons or whatever.





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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted February 16, 2012 10:08 PM

Quote:
Castle will own fortress every time because of better/more useful creatures and a 4th level mage guild.


You should add, for safety, "in my humble opinion of beginner who never played a MP game". Because statistics show very different results. What "I play 10 min on saturday only" heroes players fail to see and understand is how those unique creatures lead to a different game development, each faction using its own strategy. It is not about 1:1 in a final fight mostly, but how various creatures abilities help your hero to develop slower or faster.

While we all agree that archangels are top creatures, hydras and gorgons allow exploits which archangels can't do. And vice-versa. You admitted that you don't care about MP much. Then on what your results are based, against computer which is poorly programmed? It can't see the flaws and bonuses of complex battle moves.
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c0ldshadow
c0ldshadow


Known Hero
ig chr0meice91
posted February 16, 2012 11:16 PM

here is something else that went wrong that is not logical or fair in my opinion:

magic heroes can be ruined by might hero with red orb. yet, no such artifact exists that lets magic heroes have a big advantage over might heroes.  therefore, i think an artifact should exist that:

1) disables the offense and defense secondary skills in combat and makes both heroes in a fight have 0 for attack and defense primary skills

i also don't think it's logical that fortress only has level 3 magic guild.  how can "witch" heroes( witches one would think should be the best of magicians) only have a level 3 guild?  castle should have level 3 guild.  fortress should have at least lvl 4, or level 5


peace
-c0ld
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SkeleTony
SkeleTony


Hired Hero
posted February 17, 2012 01:58 AM

Quote:
Quote:
Castle will own fortress every time because of better/more useful creatures and a 4th level mage guild.


You should add, for safety, "in my humble opinion of beginner who never played a MP game". Because statistics show very different results. What "I play 10 min on saturday only" heroes players fail to see and understand is how those unique creatures lead to a different game development, each faction using its own strategy. It is not about 1:1 in a final fight mostly, but how various creatures abilities help your hero to develop slower or faster.

While we all agree that archangels are top creatures, hydras and gorgons allow exploits which archangels can't do. And vice-versa. You admitted that you don't care about MP much. Then on what your results are based, against computer which is poorly programmed? It can't see the flaws and bonuses of complex battle moves.


If Heroes 3 was MP only 3DO and NWC would have gone bankrupt before it was released. MP is more of an 'Oh yeah and you can also do this...' feature for turn-based strategy games that were released 10+ years ago. ALL Heroes players play single player though. There were a lot more MP players for Warlords III than there ever were for ANY Heroes game, which surprised me at the time(I was playing MP in both games back then and it was hard to find a good opponent online for H3. Usually I ended up playing a lot of hotseat games against my RL friends(never lost one).) so Warlords was kind of an exception to the rule.
My point being that MP should not be the sole means by which you measure the game's quality(or even a primary reason). When I did manage to find an online opponent for H3 I NEVER ONCE saw one that chose Fortress for his starting town. Usually they cheesed it with Conflux or, like me chose the Necropolis or one of the other decent towns.

I know how to play Fortress guy. I am well aware of the uses for Hydra and gorgons and dragonflies.

But yes...my posts are just MY opinions and should not be taken as law. I will try to remember to include that bit for those who might think I am giving divine mandates here, in the future.

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted February 17, 2012 02:05 AM

No, MP is  where people learn to play a game, because the opponent is doing logical things, not AI like. Poker is a good example why a game is worth nothing alone, and starts shinning when two or more. So is Heroes.

See yourself, you think castle has only good creatures because you never meet day 2-3 someone who comes at you with wiverns or behemots while you have 25 pikemans. AI will not show you that.
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SkeleTony
SkeleTony


Hired Hero
posted February 17, 2012 02:11 AM

Quote:
here is something else that went wrong that is not logical or fair in my opinion:

magic heroes can be ruined by might hero with red orb. yet, no such artifact exists that lets magic heroes have a big advantage over might heroes.  therefore, i think an artifact should exist that:

1) disables the offense and defense secondary skills in combat and makes both heroes in a fight have 0 for attack and defense primary skills

i also don't think it's logical that fortress only has level 3 magic guild.  how can "witch" heroes( witches one would think should be the best of magicians) only have a level 3 guild?  castle should have level 3 guild.  fortress should have at least lvl 4, or level 5


peace
-c0ld


Solid points. Those points apply also to "Battle Mages" and, to lesser extent "Clerics".

I would say that the limiting of mage guilds in towns was a monumental failure in the Heroes 3 design. They should have limited Might heroes' ability to use magic/cast spells while similarly restricting magic heroes ability to fight/boost combat ability of their units.

Also they should have made for greater distinction between magic heroes in terms of what spells each class could learn & use. The 'four elements' based system was stupid. At the very least they should have included the 'Mind', 'Body' and 'spirit' as well as 'Dark' and 'Light' types of magic from the M&M(6-8) games. Heretics should have been all about 'Fire' and (secondarily?)'dark' magic. Necromancers about 'Dark' and (secondarily?) 'Spirit'. etc.

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SkeleTony
SkeleTony


Hired Hero
posted February 17, 2012 02:14 AM

Quote:
No, MP is  where people learn to play a game, because the opponent is doing logical things, not AI like. Poker is a good example why a game is worth nothing alone, and starts shinning when two or more. So is Heroes.

See yourself, you think castle has only good creatures because you never meet day 2-3 someone who comes at you with wiverns or behemots while you have 25 pikemans. AI will not show you that.


Where are you getting this stuff man?! I don't play Castle but if I did and I ran into an opponent who had Wyverns and behemoths when I only had pikemen(week one?!) I would not conclude that Fortress was better than castle! I would conclude someone is cheating or at least taking advantage of knowing a map I never played before.

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted February 17, 2012 02:31 PM

Fortress can get wiverns day 2, stronghold can get behemots day 3, when human played. Hence the various advantages one faction or another have, there is no "castle is better". One exception still for tower, it is powerful town but very long to build, longer than the actual MP games, which mostly finish before 4th week usually.
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zsa
zsa


Famous Hero
posted February 17, 2012 05:41 PM

Quote:

Yes the RMG gives H3 unlimited re-playability which Heroes 2 does not and cannot have but this alone does not cancel out the factors in support of H2 such as graphics, theme, music better balance in the magic system etc.


a) I like the heroes 3 graphics better than heroes 2.
b) The theme - I do not know what you are referring to exactly - theme of the different factions or campaign theme - but that is also very subjective.
c) Same with music. That is purely taste based. I also customized my own music - i've added whatever music I wanted to every castle - and during battles. So you can actually get the heroes 2 music mp3 files and just add it to heroes 3 (i don't know if it works the other way around)
d) The magic balance is better in heroes 2 I agree, they blundered that in H3.  

However, the towns are completely unbalanced in H2. H3 is much more balanced in multiplayer than H2 - and yes multiplayer is the ONLY place where balance really matters. I'm not saying that single player is worthless; balance however is a non-issue in single player.

Quote:

I don't personally care about MP but you do make good points here for H3. I don't know if this is enough to counter all the points in favor of H2 though. Also these creatures are not as well balanced as you make them out to be. An army with 10 archangels will own an army of 10 chaos hydras every time.Castle will own fortress every time because of better/more useful creatures and a 4th level mage guild.

You are wrong about this. A castle army is not always superior to a fortress army. There are many other factors that you need to consider. Fortress can go toe to toe with castle on most maps and templates actually. It's a very strong faction and I love playing with it.


Quote:

You are correct, at least in theory but these were also not well implemented(a lot of the time) in Heroes 3. They should have put more effort into the design by doing things like having 'max spell levels' for Might heroes(i.e. a Ranger should not be able to cast 4th and 5th level spells), perhaps by disallowing the 'Wisdom' skill for Might heroes. And 90% of the spells should have been completely re-written. As it stands now every RMG game is just a race to get Town portal and DD(with 'Fly' being a temporary substitute for DD) and in combat you have haste, slow, sometimes teleport, sometimes blind...and not a lot else being useful.
And many(most?) of the individual heroes are undesirable, if not completely worthless(i.e. the 'Eagle eye' specialists etc.). I am always going to take Thant over the necro-hero whose special is giving bonuses to wights or skeletons or whatever.

Agree with this as well, they messed up secondary skills as well, there's several useless heroes - with starting eagle eye or mysticism. However, I still think the H3 system is much better than H2. In H2 you have 1 - ONE hero per faction.





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B0rsuk
B0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted February 20, 2012 07:18 AM
Edited by B0rsuk at 07:30, 20 Feb 2012.

The only thing about heroes that I like more in Heroes 3 than Heroes 2 is that each one starts with different secondary skills (Wisdom and Ballistics). This is what truly matters. Specializations in Heroes III are often pointless or change very little.

Heroes II had only 1 hero type per castle type ? I like it. Because each hero type is distinctive, I mean primary stat distribution. That can't be said about Heroes III ones. There are many, many very similar heroes, for example Overlord and Barbarian, Knight and Ranger, Cleric/Alchemist/battle mage/...

There are only 4 primary stats, only so many combinations of them can be made. Heroes II had 6 hero types. Heroes III - 16, 18 with Conflux. You can prepare 18 different dishes from just 4 ingredients, but I would rather try 6.

Admittedly, with artifacts and +stat adventure map locations (heroes II introduced :< ) all heroes start looking similar. This is a flaw in all Heroes games. But I think it could be fixed. For example, each hero would have a primary and secondary stat, then tertiary stats. Artifacts wouldn't give arbitrary stats, but rather bonuses to primary, secondary, tertiary. Then you could have something like this:
+2 to Primary stat (treasure, cheapest artifact)
+2 to Secondary stat (minor artifact)
+2 to tertiary stat(s) (major artifact)

Sometimes it adds to the game when you decide to quickly rush for an artifact that covers your weaknesses. But more often than not, you collect everything on the way. A high level hero becomes a 20/20/20/20 formless blob.

----------------

But we focus too much on Heroes III vs Heroes II. There are some aspects of Heroes I that I really like:

- magic system is blissfully simple. It's trivial to remember how many spells you have left. 6 wisdom - 6 * Paralyze, 6 * Curse, 6 * Armageddon even.
- Only 1 enchantment can be active on a creature ! This has both bad and good sides. Bad, because stuff like Dispel and Cure is rarely used, you can just override a Bless with a Curse, or even Bless with a Slow ! Good, because you can't spend 15 turns stacking buffs on some creatures, dragging the fight forever. Good, because there are tradeoffs involved. You can first enchant Ogres with Haste, and later, when they reach the enemy, opt for Bless instead. But that will cause them to lose the initiative in next round !
- Because of the primitive knowledge system, shrines are really important. They can replenish your spells over and over, and sometimes battles are fought for access to important shrines like Lightning Bolt, Blind, Teleport...
- the game plays fast, because there's relatively little to build
- stuff is EXPENSIVE, only 1000 gold per castle ! And yet that 1000 gold is enough to make you want to build up your 250 gold villages. You run out of money much more easily, and you have to choose your expenses.
- I like the visual style. It has its charm, like a good drawing.
- I like the campaign, because it allows great freedom. Almost any of the scenarios can be tried with any faction. Compare to Heroes III, where (in single player at least) factions can be considered part of levels, because they don't exist independently. You can rarely try different factions in a map.
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SkeleTony
SkeleTony


Hired Hero
posted February 20, 2012 08:38 AM

BOrsuk,

I disagree with you on this one. Not that they did a great job of implementing the 'Might' and 'Magic' hero classes, no. They should have put a LOT more work into the whole game, this aspect included. But they were on the right track by having all these iconic 'classes' from the genre in a way that made sense within the 'Might & Magic' theme.  
Even keeping with the '4 primary stats' model there are a million and one ways to make each class play differently and  feature something that no other class can claim. I would have made some secondary skills exclusive to some classes and cap the 'levels' of skills to class. For example a Ranger who(like all 'Might' classes in my hypothetical) cannot learn 'Wisdom' or 'Fire Magic' or 'Mind Magic' but can learn Archery(in fact has highest % upon level up) to 'Grandmaster' level, etc., etc. Make 'Might' classes increase 'Attack' and/or 'Defense' at a MUCH faster rate than they will learn 'Knowledge' and 'Power' and vice-versa. And that is only scratching the surface.

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angelito
angelito


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
posted February 20, 2012 07:48 PM

Quote:
Specializations in Heroes III are often pointless or change very little.
I'm not sure you will find many H3 players who will agree with this statement....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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Drakon-Deus
Drakon-Deus


Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
posted February 20, 2012 09:32 PM

Yes, pointless? You haven't played this game for more than 5 minutes if you claim that

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