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Heroes Community > Heroes 7+ Altar of Wishes > Thread: Management - a part of Heroes
Thread: Management - a part of Heroes This thread is 5 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT»
Raelag84
Raelag84


Famous Hero
posted September 24, 2011 04:01 PM

Quote:



One of my favorite aspects of the heroes games has been management. Both heroes, town, economy, resources, creatures and so on. Much of this aspect has been taken away in H6, or at least reduced or simplified, admittedly as a deliberate choice by the developers;
"we tried to reduce management, especially micro-management. We want the player to feel like a commander in battle and not like some town builder" (http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=34984&pagenumber=16)



Yeah I was disappointed to hear this too. I was hoping to have more management not less. I don't know much about game development. Why exactly is there a trade off between strategy and management? Would it add heavily to development cost to make it so you could have more options to develop your city?

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mcgriffin
mcgriffin

Tavern Dweller
posted September 24, 2011 10:03 PM
Edited by mcgriffin at 22:04, 24 Sep 2011.

I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but weren't the old way (H3) giving mapmakers more options? If you want all mines to be flaggable, replace gardens waterwheels etc by mines (including goldmines); if you want micro-management, include those weekly-collectable resource points. IMO, putting the discussion about whether micro-management is good or bad or whether it's strategic or repetitive aside, isn't turning all resources points flaggable giving us less options, which is always bad?
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B0rsuk
B0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted September 24, 2011 10:50 PM
Edited by B0rsuk at 22:51, 24 Sep 2011.

Less meaningful options is always bad in a strategy game. False options don't count. For example, in Heroes 1-2, Peasants are almost completely useless. Farm, the Heroes2 building that increases Peasant growth, is even worse. Would you ever take Peasants with you over another unit ? Number of slots is limited.

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Gweret
Gweret


Adventuring Hero
posted September 24, 2011 11:11 PM

@Raelag84
Quote:
Would it add heavily to development cost to make it so you could have more options to develop your city?

The most of previous functionality of buildings are merged or included in different way.
There are no mage guilds because there were merged to skill system.
"+ x" building were merged into upgrade.
There are no war machines, so there is no building for them in city.

Etc...

You might feel that there is less to build(because it is) but functionality of these building are still there. Previous Heroes games only gave you a feeling that you are really have something to build but in reality some of these building were simply bad game design.


@mcgriffin
Quote:
[...]isn't turning all resources points flaggable giving us less options, which is always bad?

You example is excluding alternative. This or that but not both.
As you said if map makers want to remove this micro-management they need to remove this problematic map object (for ex. water mills).


Currently we can't be sure if area of control and flaggable resources are better solution but I believe they are.


Also, I heard that map makers in H6 can disable area of control. Even if it is enabled some resources does not have to be under this new functionality.




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Avirosb
Avirosb


Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
posted September 25, 2011 12:00 AM

I love useless stuff in video games

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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted September 25, 2011 01:34 AM

Quote:
@Raelag84
Previous Heroes games only gave you a feeling that you are really have something to build but in reality some of these building were simply bad game design.



Sorry, but I disagree; this is nonsense. In my opinion, no Heroes of Might and Magic game had superfluous buildings, that was out of tone with the rest of the city.

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted September 25, 2011 01:57 AM

Well.. Blacksmith wasn't particularly useful in H3 and pretty much useless in certain towns. In H5 however it could even be essential to your plans.

But there is certainly a trend of incorporating elements together under a new category, one that started with H5. You could see that in the way they handled the magic and skill system. H6 took it to the next level for better or worse.
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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted September 25, 2011 03:51 AM

I always found an early FATent a great addition to my Rampart and Fortress armies (never played competitively though)

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DoubleDeck
DoubleDeck


Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
posted September 25, 2011 05:43 PM
Edited by DoubleDeck at 17:43, 25 Sep 2011.

Quote:
Example of bad "micromanagement" to me are :
- As you suggested, in previous any non-H4 HoMM, having to visit weekly resource buildings (while it's ok in the start, it becomes more of a chore than anything fun and even tends to be neglected after a few weeks),
- In H6, having to reposition your army on the battlefield every freaking battle ... (major fail)
- Having to move your army stack by stack from a garrison to your hero (I still don't get how they could miss that one ... seriously)


- I liked visiting leprechauns / watermills, it gave something for a 2nd hero to do!
- Reposition of army every time : fully agree with this!
- Moving army stack by stack : fully agree with this, very time consuming!

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gabor
gabor

Tavern Dweller
posted September 25, 2011 07:26 PM

Quote:

One of my favorite aspects of the heroes games has been management. Both heroes, town, economy, resources, creatures and so on. Much of this aspect has been taken away in H6, or at least reduced or simplified, admittedly as a deliberate choice by the developers;


My own thoughts exactly.

Quote:
Reduced resources
Actually this is not such a big deal for me. It takes away some of the "colours" of the game, but with proper maps it might add a lot of strategy.


This clearly makes it impossible to make maps with a recource missing. I remember playing such maps in HoMM3 (was it sulfur or mercury?) and some fan-made maps. Such maps added some variation to the game/campaign, as one had to (more carefully) plan/trade/prioritise and not only explore and fight; a refreshing break.

Quote:
Towns
As quoted above, the intent of the developers was not making us city-planners, but rather commanders of war. But actually, planning your city build has always been essential to success.


Having played demo, it seems the winning strategy is to rush for money-generating town upgrades, than the champion; and this can be achiveved within the 1st week, end result: creeping has never been so easy. Very dull and unimaginatieve, and as this works with every faction it seems so un-creative when compared with HoMM5; I mean one feels no difference between the factions.

The town conversion? Oh, this seems so cheap. Again why waste such was a nice feature? In HoMM5 campaign you needed a special artifact to convert: rare, unique, adds to the story. What strategy is to it now?

Quote:
Creatures

The shared pool is another simplification, leading to the reduction of strategic choices. There's no need to defend far-away towns as long as there are no two-way portals nearby. And even if there are, there appears to be an easy solution. In the 'Broken alliance' demo scenario I could safely leave my seconday hero close to the portals with most of the army and march forward my main hero with champions and core healers (or/and resurection spell).

Don't you feel the creatures are less diverse than before? All factions may be played almost in the same way. (In HoMM5 it was fun to take advantage of Dark Elves' fast creeping, and for this reason I struggled to get to like Dwarves even though they grew powerful later)

I miss the HoMM5 initiative. It was a good concept, which admittedly needed tweaking/balancing. Like with many other elements/features, I feel the makers of HoMMs chose 'getting rid of a problem' rather then 'polishing and streamlining' policy.

Quote:
[Heroes
Now your main hero can travel anywhere with town portals and the creatures (that are all of the same kind) are available everywhere. With this they have taken away much of the management aspect of the game, but still not addressed micro-management like chaining. You have one super-hero and several low level heroes instead of one strong and several fairly strong heroes.


Instant travel kills this emotional anxiey, 'Haven't I travelled too far from my castle?', 'Is my garrison/secondary hero strong enough to defend it?' Again there were some maps (quite fun) in HoMM5 campain which forced the player to use the hope-my-garrison-hero-is-strong-enough strategy.

Actually, your low-level heroes may not be so low level, if your main hero is around level 10, the freshly recruited one will be level 6(sic!), you can customise him/her - for free - to defend you castle.

Also, faction special abilities imo are another step back from HoMM5.

Quote:
I also hate the fact that your starting hero has a bigger portrait than the others, but I'm hoping this is just a beta-thing.


Hope so too; happened to me in previous HoMMs to change my mind which hero to treat as my main.

Also, I hope blood/tears will be available to all heroes. Regarding blood/tears, in one of my games my hero was accumulating blood as fast as tears, it was a chance he got promoted to tears (level1), this turned out un-reversable even if he continued the blood path all the way through since then (and no blood benefits). WAD?

Quote:
Conclusion
I felt the need to point out how much management actually has been taken away.  


It feels simplification was the goal/approach of the game creators. Does less mean better? Frankly, this does not appeal to me. The game has become largely a battle game (tactics more than strategy), and even in this respect, due to the lack of diversity between factions and open-ended, free-for-all skill tree, it's quickly grown repetitive.

Sadly, the demo left me disappointed. I remember the same feeling when HoMM5 was about to come out. Somehow TotE made the franchise into a (relatively) polished, enjoyable and replayable game. With so many of (my favourite) management features out, I can't force myself to be so optimistic about H6.
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted September 26, 2011 12:00 AM

Well said, Gabor. Very nice post, that I can agree with .

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Brukernavn
Brukernavn

Hero of Order
posted September 27, 2011 05:37 PM

And from the latest Q&A:
Quote:
While it’s true we streamlined some areas (most notably through the reduction of the number of resources,
recruitment system, and areas of control feature), other areas are much more complex (such as the ability system,
reputation, faction strategies, creature synergies…)
So Heroes VI is not “simplified”, the complexity has just been moved to other areas compared to previous games of the series.

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gabor
gabor

Tavern Dweller
posted September 27, 2011 08:59 PM

Quote:
And from the latest Q&A:
Quote:
other areas are much more complex (such as the ability system,
reputation, faction strategies, creature synergies…)
So Heroes VI is not “simplified”, the complexity has just been moved to other areas compared to previous games of the series.



As a disclaimer let me first state I base my observations on the demo. There is a promise of complexity in the areas you cited, true. But first, it saddens me the other areas got an axe. Second, it still is merely a promise.

Ability system: It even looks bad (I know it's a question of taste but I just could't resist), more worringly, with the way it is, a player will soon learn to create tailor-made heroes, pbly always the same (as there's no randomness), which is bad for replayability; also I find the very 'complexity' questionable since there's less 'interaction' between skills and abilities than in HoMM5, no ultimate, the system is not connected with the racial ability, in my view it's not more complex, it's simply open-ended (the very skills and abilities are similar to what we saw in previous games)

Reputation: I do like the concept, it's one of those things, which would add up so much to this new incarnation of Heroes, had other features NOT been removed; it could do with some polishing and balancing, like: secondary heroes should get reputation too, it might be more fluid if, say, one went one step up tears but then became a bloodthirsty warmonger this should be reflected somehow (a third path? reversing to neutral? or tear/blood might come with some penalties? dunno), also the extra abilities given by tears/blood should be play-tested more

Faction strategies: There's not so much new here, each faction in HoMM5 played and felt differently; in the demo I feel very little difference between the playstyles (is it due to strong core creatures?), the racial abilities are less engaging than in HoMM5, take the orcs, in HoMM5 blod rage affected each unit seperately, or necros, they literarily raised the dead, a haven player had to wait and calculate so as to use training to his/her advantage; what's more, racial skills had sub-skills (mark of the necro!); strong core creatures and healers make H6 creeping with no losses easy (in HoMM5 some factions had a really hard time creeping, there were some choices involved here); and the abandonment of the idea of initiative makes all the creatures look more uniform (initiative as it was in HoMM5 wasn't perfect but it opened up really new possibilities)

Creature synergies: Really, there's quite a lot of room for improvement here. Remember HoMM5 dark elves and their raiders (lizard bite!) or gremiln-gargoyle-golem combo? Haven't played that much but in H6 it appears with necro, haven and sanctuary you may use one uniform synergy: your champion (two stacks preferably) + healers will take almost anything (throw in regeneration spell if you like), after week 2 the rest is like decoration most of the time; inferno and stronghold may try a similar approach (champion + shooters + regeneration); not much variety really. All these creatures with intriguing abilities look fine but soon you'll find there are few that really count. I admit in HoMM5 many players felt some creatures were redundant (zombies, minotaurs, skeletal dragons, peasants), but in H6 there seems to be more of them. Also, magic schools choice does not alwasy go with the 'spirit' of the faction. As for sancuary I hear it was corrected in the beta, but in the demo the water cooling/freezing effects weakened enemy creatures to fire attacks... but sanctuary heroes could not learn fire magic. What was even odder, my magic sanctuary hero punched more with his physical attack than with ice bolt (sic!). And orcs that excell at magic seem sort of off too.

As a strategy player I do care about strategy aspect of the game, managing my realm is part of it. I'm more into EU Paradox series than TW one (with its tactical battles), and I see H6 heading the TW way (albait with less refinement). I shouldn't think I'll follow this path.
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DoubleDeck
DoubleDeck


Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
posted September 28, 2011 07:24 PM

@Gabor -> I hear what you say but throwing my opinoin in there to your comments:

Ability system: I think that there will be a multiple of tailor-made heroes to build per faction, class and reputation....so there won't be one common route like sometimes happened in H5 (haven -> attack with retribution, leadership), so there will be varierty.

Reputation: Skills/abilities are linked to blood or tears, so the reputation path you choose must be one or the other, as this affects your skill choices.

Faction strategies: Core creatures have been toned down for the final release.

Creature synergies: Magic heroes physical attack is not linked to the might power, but to the magic power, so even with low might power, their physical attack can be very damaging.

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dasher
dasher

Tavern Dweller
posted October 02, 2011 04:23 AM

Quote:
This clearly makes it impossible to make maps with a recource missing.

Actually, one rare resource makes it easier to create fair maps with an adjustable shortage of that resource. All factions are equally effected. All the same problems of coping with that resource exist.

I think the whole "I miss this I miss that" is irrelevant. This is a new game, evaluate it as a whole. Not in pieces.

Each faction gets his choice of two of four unique buildings. Some of these grant better defense, some offensive. Some even for income. You can get constant buff, a stronger local one or for defending your town only.

The champion troops are not as overwhelming strong as previously. Sure the champion in the first week will clear. But is it really the optimum strategy? You can do the same by upgrading core units. And in the case of a true crystal shortage, you may have to.

I think that the skills and spells take time to develop. Once your hero gets up to level 15-20 the faction differences are very apparent. Not every faction gets every type of magic. Tears vs Blood effects the duration of not only spells, but might abilities. Might vs Magic opens the third tier of one branch or the other. There are four different paths for the reputation abilites. Sure you can pick the same skills every time. But you'll be stronger if you work to the strengths of your faction and reputation. Or cover those weaknesses.

As for portals, remember they cut both ways. The current AI is weak and won't even build them if plenty of crystals aren't around. Hopefully, that gets better. But human opponents will use those portals too -- not only on defense, but to swing around for offense. I think it will lead to much more exciting encounters.

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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted October 02, 2011 08:45 AM

Quote:
I think the whole "I miss this I miss that" is irrelevant. This is a new game, evaluate it as a whole. Not in pieces.
This is a sequel, so it should also be evaluated in context to its predecessors (only one at this point since Ubisoft basically rebooted the series), which is apparently something you "ooh, it's a new game, it should be different from the old ones" people tend to forget.

Is this a good game? Yes, probably, provided it's well balanced.

Is this a good sequel? That's less certain, so much has changed, so much is different.

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B0rsuk
B0rsuk


Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
posted October 02, 2011 09:26 AM
Edited by B0rsuk at 09:28, 02 Oct 2011.

Until (and including) Heroes 3, all games in the series built upon their predecessors.

HOMM1 can be used as an introduction to HOMM2.
HOMM2 is a very good introduction to HOMM3 as well.

You have to re-learn a lot of stuff if you try HOMM4, HOMM5, or MAMH6.

You know - that's a good idea. Call it Might&Magic: Heroes 6 so that no one confuses it with Heroes of Might and Magic. If it's a bad sequel, the name should be changed. No reasons other than corporate greed to have a different game with the same name.
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polaris
polaris


Promising
Known Hero
posted October 02, 2011 09:42 AM

I don't really disagree with simplifying the game, I think H6 is interesting in a way which H5 never was. I haven't played too much of this new one yet, but it seems like a new game to explore. H5 always felt like a rehash from the first time I played it, and as a result I didn't stick with the game too long.

Quote:
One of my favorite aspects of the heroes games has been management. Both heroes, town, economy, resources, creatures and so on. Much of this aspect has been taken away in H6, or at least reduced or simplified, admittedly as a deliberate choice by the developers;
"we tried to reduce management, especially micro-management. We want the player to feel like a commander in battle and not like some town builder" (http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=34984&pagenumber=16)

Reduced resources
Actually this is not such a big deal for me. It takes away some of the "colours" of the game, but with proper maps it might add a lot of strategy. I don't think it works as it should right now, and I believe the best solution would be to somehow fix the shortcomings of the old resource system. I am holding off an ultimate verdict on this until I try a good map.

But it is clear that this was taken away to deliberately reduce management and focus more on battles;
"If games have many different resources are more like management games than strategy ones. For example the game Starcraft 2 has two resources. But such games as Civilization (32 resorts) and Settlers 7 (7 resorts) concentrate more on management." (http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes6/cheats_eng.php)


The worry I have is that if they're simplifying it to focus on just one thing (the combat!) they better damn well make sure that one thing is the best on the market. I have never felt that a Heroes game could get away with JUST being a combat simulator and from what I've played of H6 I don't think that it can either. So if the above analysis is correct then I am worried, but I have not played enough myself to say one way or the other.

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gabor
gabor

Tavern Dweller
posted October 02, 2011 11:16 AM

@DoubleDeck

Quote:
Ability system: I think that there will be a multiple of tailor-made heroes to build per faction, class and reputation....so there won't be one common route like sometimes happened in H5 (haven -> attack with retribution, leadership), so there will be varierty.
Possibly, but no more than in H5; so it's hardly an improvement. And the H5 skill system loked nicer and felt right, I mean the skills one might be offered (the probability factor) just suited the race concept. (Even though (with some heroes) some unique or experimental builds were possible: eg summoning elf, machines wizard, leadership/empathy warlock)

Quote:
Reputation: Skills/abilities are linked to blood or tears, so the reputation path you choose must be one or the other, as this affects your skill choices.
I realise this limitation. Still irl, if I'm nice for some time (tears) at the same time sneakingly concocting a plan to destroy you and then execute it, I'm blood not tears. But in general reputation is one of the few things added in H6 at all, how not to like it if its sth we players get extra (on top of all the stuff uniformed/removed from the game)?!

Quote:
Faction strategies: Core creatures have been toned down for the final release.
Good to hear.

Quote:
Creature synergies: Magic heroes physical attack is not linked to the might power, but to the magic power, so even with low might power, their physical attack can be very damaging.
But should it be really stronger than their magic attack? This makes the war cry giving two attacks (don't remember the name) a better choice to spend points than magic skills. (And a war cry costs just one point!)

@dasher
Quote:
Actually, one rare resource makes it easier to create fair maps with an adjustable shortage of that resource. All factions are equally effected.
Easier, true. More exciting? Dunno. I might miss 'the story'. But honestly, I can live with fewer resources. It just shows the trend. It sort of feels like the devs decided to have it an easy way, were pushed for time or were plain lazy.

Quote:
The champion troops are not as overwhelming strong as previously. Sure the champion in the first week will clear. But is it really the optimum strategy? You can do the same by upgrading core units. And in the case of a true crystal shortage, you may have to.
True. My worry is all this goes so fast. In H5 town development was a lengthy process. You could reach week 4 or 5 without a creature building or two and you had to creep with weak units (and creeping casters or shooter, or even fast walkers was a true challenge!). In H6 demo you may get, if not the champion, a strong elite and the right core and rush to clear the creeps with no issues.

Quote:
I think that the skills and spells take time to develop. Once your hero gets up to level 15-20 the faction differences are very apparent.
Agreed. But isn't it a bit too late to feel your hero's faction uniqueness?

Quote:
But human opponents will use those portals too -- not only on defense, but to swing around for offense. I think it will lead to much more exciting encounters.
Will work in multiplayer. what about single player mode?

@Polaris
Quote:
The worry I have is that if they're simplifying it to focus on just one thing (the combat!) they better damn well make sure that one thing is the best on the market. I have never felt that a Heroes game could get away with JUST being a combat simulator and from what I've played of H6 I don't think that it can either. So if the above analysis is correct then I am worried, but I have not played enough myself to say one way or the other.
I think you hit the nail on the head. H6 is a combat game (as I said trying to compare: more like TW series versus EUIII series). I'm not happy with this evolution of one of my fav titles. Worse still, I think it is a disappointing combat game. KB, for example, seemed to have much more to offer. Frankly, I ask myself if H6 will be more quest-driven, especially in the campaign, and thus even more like KB.
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DoubleDeck
DoubleDeck


Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
posted October 03, 2011 03:33 PM

Quote:
Quote:
Creature synergies: Magic heroes physical attack is not linked to the might power, but to the magic power, so even with low might power, their physical attack can be very damaging.


But should it be really stronger than their magic attack? This makes the war cry giving two attacks (don't remember the name) a better choice to spend points than magic skills. (And a war cry costs just one point!)


After level 10 or so, the magic spells damage start getting stronger than the actual magic hero's attack.

There is nothing stopping a magic hero from getting Pressed Attack (warcry) anyway.....

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