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| Thread: Heroes 7 - Factions |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Minion
Legendary Hero
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posted March 11, 2014 03:07 PM |
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alcibiades said:
I think it's fine that there's variation between factions - for instance Necropolis, Inferno and Academy being factions specifically not tied to a race but rather to some other characteristics (being undead, being demonic and being ... animated in some sort, respectively) - because trying to force all factions into one mold will just kill diversity. The important part for me is that each faction should have a strong definition and seem coherent.
This 
In H7 a faction should be coherent, but they shoudn't destoy the uniqueness in units by forcing the into same colour code...
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 11, 2014 04:14 PM |
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I think, you are all simply overlooking the point Elvin and me tried to make:
THEN "Elves" were just that. There were Elves and there were Grand Elves, as there were "Dwarves" and "Battle Dwarves".
THEN there were "Orcs", and they would be tamed by Barbarians to fight with Ogres and Trolls.
NOW we have Orc Maulers and Orc Crushers and Orc Warriors of the Jaguar and the Panther and Orc Dreamwalkers and Dreamreavers and Orc Shamans - but we have NO Ogres, NO Trolls, NO Behemoths, NO Rocs, no T-Birds...
So I - and I suppose Elvin as well - would rather have Ogres, and Trolls and Behemoths and Rocs and just ORCS instead of having a ton of different Orcs, especially when the actual faction is made of Beastmen and Demonblood experiments.
In other words: having a coherent faction is fine, whatever that means. Having copies of the human faction, but with "Elves", "Dwarves", "Orcs" and "Dark Elves" is NOT.
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War-overlord
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Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted March 11, 2014 05:13 PM |
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Then you have clearly read Elvin's post wrong, JJ.
Read it again and you will see he advocates a balance between the two. Several Racial units balanced with Thematic units.
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JollyJoker
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posted March 11, 2014 06:08 PM |
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Read his first post again, about a faction with Dragons, and Minotaurs and Medusae and Manticores and Harpies being a winner.
That he's CONTENT with 2 or 3 "race members" in a faction is one thing - but don't forget the "mythological creatures".
I don't think we want a game called Ashan War of the Races.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted March 11, 2014 08:01 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 20:02, 11 Mar 2014.
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I don't think we need more than 2 units of the same race in a lineup(with humans and dwarves being a possible exception). I do like how the racial approach has better fleshed out the role and place of each unit in their society/clan/culture/etc but I feel this is better left to games like duel of champions. In heroes I prefer more unit variety instead.
Both can work but I feel that heroes should remain more a game about classic creatures than an exclusively Ashan-focused project. Sure, its units should have their own visual and lore identity but sometimes ubi goes too far. A number of doc artworks make you wonder wtf is that? And then there are things like liches being poisoned zombies that eventually turn into butterflies vampires, black dragons that glow with yellow lights and two-headed cerberi. Such things rub me the wrong way.
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JollyJoker
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 11, 2014 08:43 PM |
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We actually need NONE - it would be enough to have a HERO of a certain race to make a faction.
We are in Ashan, right? So think now: Haven and Dungeon of HoMM 6, are they the factions of Humans and Dark Elves - or are they the factions of Angels and Faceless?
And if you had a Faceless HERO leading a Dungeon army - then what?
The faction idea was nice in HoMM 5, and most or even all of them are indeed something special.
But HoMM 6 downgraded the faction ability to something mechanically trivial - even Necromancy was down to the Animate Dead spell.
That's definitely something I can live without. You'd be better off having different HERO RACES for a faction.
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Storm-Giant
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posted March 11, 2014 09:00 PM |
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Elvin said:
Both can work but I feel that heroes should remain more a game about classic creatures than an exclusively Ashan-focused project. Sure, its units should have their own visual and lore identity but sometimes ubi goes too far. A number of doc artworks make you wonder wtf is that? And then there are things like liches being poisoned zombies that eventually turn into butterflies vampires, black dragons that glow with yellow lights and two-headed cerberi. Such things rub me the wrong way.
Completely agree. It happens also on the official artworks - sometimes they are overdetailed and 'overloaded'
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War-overlord
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Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted March 11, 2014 11:43 PM |
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Personally, I think and have said many times that 3 is the best number as far as units of the main race is concerned. Humans may be allowed 4 as the exception. With the main race of a given factions supplying some variety of shooters, infantry, spellcasters, cavalry in all concievable manners and conscripted irregular units.
That is not to say that the mythological and fantasy creatures should be left by the wayside, but too many of them makes the faction feel ungrounded to me. As far as I am concerned, that grounding does not come from the hero. On top of that, I think that the overal majority of heroes should be of the faction's main race. Having one special hero that is not of the main race, as exception, is concievable. Having all heroes being of a different race than that of the army they lead is ridiculous.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 12, 2014 06:53 AM |
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I disagree with that.
You know, if we are talking about Heroes of Might and Magic here - and not M&M Heroes - the archetypical HoMM is 2 and that has been a fairy tale game; to me it has never felt like a game happening in some defined place. Instead it was having something like a dreamlike quality. And it was played for the moment, not for "history": you'd play a map, and on many maps towns could be chosen amongst all or randomly, and they were named after their HEROES: Rampart wasn't Rampart or Sylvans or Nature, but THE SORCERESS' TOWN. You'd play a map, and when it was done you might start over again with a completely different setup.
In THIS HoMM, it always felt like there were some uncharted areas right behind the next bend, fog-veiled, maybe with a portal to another strange plane. And out of that fog or through a portal, at any time a new would-be conqueror might emerge: a Demoniac, maybe, or a Beastmaster, with a horde of interesting critters, maybe even some horror in some metal ships, abducting critters and fusing flesh and metal.
That's HoMM for me.
M&M Heroes and Ashan delivers something else, but it doesn't do it convincingly. As I said, if you look at HoMM 6 - in my opinion the Dungeon could be seen VERY differently: as the FACELESS' TOWN. And if the Dungeon critters had a shapeshifting ability due to their Faceless hero, it was just as viable as the Necromancer's (HERO'S) ability in HoMM 2 to raise skeletons from the dead. Sure, could they have a unit called "Dark Elf Assassin" - but the RACE thing isn't needed to make it coherent.
In fact it was even better the other way, because I'm not interested in Fantasy Race Wars: if I want a melee, a ranged and a cavalry troop for each bloody race, I can play AoW Shadow Magic and get 15 of those.
What we have now is a pretty inflexible, frozen world with the same 9 "factions", repeated over and over again. Might&Magic is developing horizontally: Heroes, Heroes Online, Legacy, Clash of Heroes, Duel of Champions, Dark Messiah ... a Board Game and the canned Raiders; instead of vertically ADDING something, exploring new stuff.
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DoubleDeck
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Look into my eyes...
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posted March 12, 2014 07:00 AM |
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JollyJoker said:
THEN "Elves" were just that. There were Elves and there were Grand Elves, as there were "Dwarves" and "Battle Dwarves".
THEN there were "Orcs", and they would be tamed by Barbarians to fight with Ogres and Trolls.
NOW we have Orc Maulers and Orc Crushers and Orc Warriors of the Jaguar and the Panther and Orc Dreamwalkers and Dreamreavers and Orc Shamans - but we have NO Ogres, NO Trolls, NO Behemoths, NO Rocs, no T-Birds...
Agreed
I think H6 flooded each faction with similar creatures (especially Inferno, Stronghold). Dungeon was a good mix with only having 2 dark elves, the rest all different.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 12, 2014 07:19 AM |
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War-overlord said:
Having all heroes being of a different race than that of the army they lead is ridiculous.
And by the way, someone who calls HoMM 2, HoMM 3 and HoMM 4 ridiculous, isn't going to make any points with me.
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War-overlord
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Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted March 12, 2014 12:38 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
You know, if we are talking about Heroes of Might and Magic here - and not M&M Heroes -
The thing is, I am not. I am talking about M&M Heroes. The old style of Heroes died with 3DO's bankrupcy. And I have stopped mourning it the second I started enjoying Heroes 5. Heroes has a new style to it, a style I enjoy more than the old. A style that has proven imperfect, but one I suspect to be maleable enough to become good even great.
JollyJoker said:
that has been a fairy tale game; to me it has never felt like a game happening in some defined place. Instead it was having something like a dreamlike quality....That's HoMM for me.
And it was never that to me.
In the earliest days, it was a simple power-fantasy. Kicking @ss with overwhelming armies of cool fantasy creatures. Which was why I cheated levels and rescources, so I could outgrow my opponents easily.
That changed when I turned 15 (roughly). When I started to take interest in the story of things. And in the olden days, the gameplay and the story did not go particularly hand in hand for me. Especially in Heroes 4, gameplay was a barely enjoyable grind to get to the next bit of story.
This again changed when Heroes 5 was released. The stories were lesser, especially in the beginning. But the stories were far more consistent and the gameplay was never a grind to get to the next bit of eagerly awaited story. And the Marzhin-designed adventure packs even prove that stories can be told and told well through the medium of the games.
And even though Ashan stands for great improvement, I am glad for its consistency at the least. Revisiting the old games, the threadbare and jumbled interconnectivity, rubs me the wrong way.
JollyJoker said:
In fact it was even better the other way, because I'm not interested in Fantasy Race Wars: if I want a melee, a ranged and a cavalry troop for each bloody race, I can play AoW Shadow Magic and get 15 of those.
Make that Age of Wonders 3 and I intend to do so and enjoy myself.
JollyJoker said:
And by the way, someone who calls HoMM 2, HoMM 3 and HoMM 4 ridiculous, isn't going to make any points with me.
This was never about scoring points. And it was as much a sneer to 6 as to 1-4.
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Avirosb
Promising
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No longer on vacation
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posted March 12, 2014 01:12 PM |
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Quote:
I am glad for it consistency
They did go back and changed a lot of details between H5 and H6, did they not?
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted March 12, 2014 01:22 PM |
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Avirosb said:
Quote:
I am glad for it consistency
They did go back and changed a lot of details between H5 and H6, did they not?
Details, yes.
But they did not throw the whole world away and make a new one for each installment. (I know they moved continents between 2 and 3, but that was defacto the same)
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Avirosb
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No longer on vacation
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posted March 12, 2014 01:41 PM |
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In regards to Ashan as a setting I'm of the opposite opinion.
The eventual cataclysmic event can't come soon enough.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted March 12, 2014 01:50 PM |
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War-overlord said:
But they did not throw the whole world away and make a new one for each installment. (I know they moved continents between 2 and 3, but that was defacto the same)
They used Enroth planet for 6 titles  (Heroes 1-3, M&M6-8)
Avirosb said:
In regards to Ashan as a setting I'm of the opposite opinion.
The eventual cataclysmic event can't come soon enough.
+1, I'm tired of 'saving' the human empire for the seventh time or so
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted March 12, 2014 02:01 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
They used Enroth planet for 6 titles (Heroes 1-3, M&M6-8)
That may be, but that still does not change that the moves between the continents allowed the creators to rewrite all the rules as they pleased.
And as far as the cataclysmic end of Ashan is concerned, and I have said this many a times, I don't see one coming as long as Erwan LeBreton has any say in it. Ashan is his pet-project and I do not think he will allow it to die if he can help it.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted March 12, 2014 02:21 PM |
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War-overlord said:
Storm-Giant said:
They used Enroth planet for 6 titles (Heroes 1-3, M&M6-8)
That may be, but that still does not change that the moves between the continents allowed the creators to rewrite all the rules as they pleased.
They still did that for H6 so...
Quote:
And as far as the cataclysmic end of Ashan is concerned, and I have said this many a times, I don't see one coming as long as Erwan LeBreton has any say in it. Ashan is his pet-project and I do not think he will allow it to die if he can help it.
That doesn't mean one cannot wish for it to happen.
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War-overlord
Responsible
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Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted March 12, 2014 02:46 PM |
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Avirosb said:
They still did that for H6 so...
Not to the same extent.
Quote:
That doesn't mean one cannot wish for it to happen.
If one is satisfied to wish for things that are exceptionally unlikely to come true, be my guest.
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Avirosb
Promising
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No longer on vacation
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posted March 12, 2014 03:04 PM |
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Quote:
Not to the same extent.
Please elaborate.
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