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Raenus
Famous Hero
Grouchy curmudgeon
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posted August 29, 2015 08:25 PM |
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I managed to receive a key to the beta from a very kind benefactor and am pleasantly surprised by it so far (still not particularly good, just better than I feared).
Graphics: I actually kind of like them, the washed out colors appeal to me for some reason, especially alongside Haven.
Animations: Are, as some have already said, clunky and feel unfinished. Hard to put your finger on what exactly is wrong with them but they are definitely off.
Town Development: Is definitely a step up from 6 imo. It actually has some complexity and takes a little planning. Side note the cartoony town screens clash a lot with the washed out adventure map, they do not belong in the same game.
Spells: Are....... better I guess. Still bad and fairly boring. With the talent system the way it is you will end up playing through a game using 2 or 3 spells max.
Talents: Easily the worst part of the game. The notion that this system would allow anyone any freedom is ludicrous. I don't know if it is intrinsically flawed or do to very poor balancing, but there are a lot of snowy abilities with some OP ones thrown into the mix that obviously leads to the same build every single freakin game. Yay variety!
Bugs: Deserve their own personal section. Does anyone actually believe they can squash most, let alone all, of them before release.
Overall: In my opinion the skill system is so bad that it overshadows the few areas where they actually did a good job. I can't really get past it to say anything else. If they were to do something about it I would almost certainly get the game (after a few months of bug squishing that is) but as it is now I don't see myself sinking the money on it.
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Creature Quest: HaltWhoGoesThere
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nessich
Hired Hero
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posted August 29, 2015 08:26 PM |
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Hero specialties really suck. Also, diplomacy seems really OP since there aren't many different creatures and you can gather quite an army early in the game. Especially if you have a hero with the diplomacy special.
I really hate the strider/soulless. It just doesn't belong. Dungeon IMO is the most disappointing faction (out of the four playable currently).
But, the biggest disappointment is creature abilities. They feel so mediocre.
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Ankhes
Hired Hero
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posted August 29, 2015 08:30 PM |
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Edited by Ankhes at 20:42, 29 Aug 2015.
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To me Homm7 looks a lot like a cash grab. Honestly if you think about the differences between Homm7 and Homm6 they are very minor content-wise. Very similar graphics, 6 factions(some with reused assets), same map objects, similar UI. What we get is shuffle when it comes to faction lineup, promised sim turns and random map generator and 4-rare resource management system. And 2 champion units. It is heroes 6.5 not a full sequel in my opinion.
I really wonder what was the budget of Homm7 - we get similar content to Homm6 but they used Unreal engine which saved a lot of cost, they reused a lot of assets from Homm6. And on top we hear about speding a lot of money on "eye-candy" graphics. Well nice but I have played for ~ 8 hours and I haven't seen any eye-candy at all. Graphics is mediocre at best and I fail to see the major improvement over Homm6(I actually even think i preferred Homm6 graphics).
I miss good old days when sequel meant more and better not less and worse. In the past from Homm1-3 we were getting more factions, more artifacts, more spells, more adventure map objects + improvements in different game areas(introducing upgrades, 2 classes per faction, specializations). And after homm5 what we get? Going back from Homm5 with 2 expansions 8 factions a lot of content to 6 factions so few map objects, like 4 or 5 terrain types like what the hell. Now I feel it will be the same with Homm7...
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 29, 2015 08:55 PM |
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Ankhes said:
I actually even think i preferred Homm6 graphics
I never thought I'd say this, but I agree.
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted August 30, 2015 10:20 AM |
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I have seen people here discuss single/multiplayer, SIM turns, spell and skill system, Interface, animation and many more
Now to my favorite topic Localization.
You want to see a bug? You want to see a funny bug? You want to see a geambreaking bug? You want to see a bug that wasn't made by Limbic's coding?
Well fallow this link
What you will see is a fine example of what happens when you let a trained monkey translate your overly text filled game
In the picture you can see that the Sentinel's icon has been replaced by that of the Guardian.
This is due to somebody translating the words Sentinel and Guardian in both cases as "Strážce"
Result?
Yes those are all Guardians. If I buy them they will have all the attributes of the unit.
Yes the building that boost Sentinel population applies to Guardians as well.
Yes I have a population of 73 Guardians per week. (Please no virgin jokes)
No, I cannot recruit Sentinels anymore, only via buy all if I don't have enough gold for a Guardian.
And as you can see, this is a rather early game so you can think how it will continue... Guardian spam
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2015 10:27 AM |
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Dave_Jame said:
You want to see a bug that wasn't made by Limbic's coding?
 How was this not made by Limbic's coding?
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted August 30, 2015 10:35 AM |
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frostymuaddib said:
How was this not made by Limbic's coding?
IDK how you but I think nobody outside of CZ can reproduce this one. The bug is caused by bad translation. Localization is not Limbics work it is made by local representatives of Ubisoft. Or that s the case in CZ. Already started to contact them.
Some updates on the topic
Turns out that the 42 "Sentinel" guardians can not be recruited as such. When you recruit units from the slot it will buy units from the Guardin one.
I still can not buy Sentinels even if I ran out of Guardians, only with the Auto buy function.
The 21 population bonus still applies to both dwellings. Curiouse how the Sentinel boost building will work.
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2015 10:39 AM |
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It is problem with code if they reffer to units with their name strings. They should have some internal id/name that is unique and independent of localized names (including english).
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted August 30, 2015 10:48 AM |
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Bad code design is not a bug in my book if the code works as intendead. Still without that basis this bug would not even happen
Some more things
Switched to Window mode. game runs a lot better, smoother and faster, but I also encountered 2 crashes when engaging one particular battle.
____________
I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2015 11:00 AM |
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I refuse to believe that that was their intention.
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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted August 30, 2015 11:04 AM |
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Dave_Jame said:
Bad code design is not a bug in my book if the code works as intendead. Still without that basis this bug would not even happen
It might not be a coding bug, but a game design flaw which is far worse in my book since it's much earlier in the chain of developement and might imply far more and far worse bugs at a later point ... and it's still Limbic's fault, not the guy who translated the game
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2015 11:12 AM |
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Reason for most bugs is bad code design.
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted August 30, 2015 11:14 AM |
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frostymuaddib said:
It is problem with code if they reffer to units with their name strings. They should have some internal id/name that is unique and independent of localized names (including english).
Maybe the units are stored in a hash table and they use their name as the key itself and perhaps hash collision isn't handled well resulting in a rather awkward situation.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 30, 2015 11:23 AM |
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Ok, after having succesfully completely a whooping two games in the second beta (miracle, I actually did get a second game squeezed out of it after re-installing, restarting, veryfying, praying to spider gods, and restarting again), these are my thoughts about the game as they stand now. I will not address stability any further, because that has been discussed elsewhere already.
On a very fundamental level, I think the game is quite fun to play, it does give me the classic Heroes fealing, but in order to be a good game, it needs a more or less complete rebalancing from A to Z, and in order to be a great game, central game aspects need to be redesigned. I'll try to make a point-by-point list of central aspects of the game.
1) Battles: I actually like battles fairly well. Flanking doesn't seem to be a game-breaker anymore, it's been toned very much down. I think a major problem of battles is the fact that battlefields are very wide, which puts an unhealthy emphasis on ranged units. Ranged units were always (too) strong in the game series, but in this game, it seems worse than ever. In most battles, melee units would never get to cross the battlefield before they were being taken down by my Hunters or my Cabirs + Mages (I played as Sylvan and Academy). Melee units were almost universally reduced to being meatshields to protect my ranged units, although the Golems are surprisingly effective at dashing out massive damage early game.
2) Skill system: I still hate the skill system with a vengeance. There is too litle variation in the skills you can choose within each faction, with all three magic hero classes frequently specializing in the same school, which is downright stupid. The fact that you need to level up perks before advancing to next skill level is annoying and over-restrictive, because I frequently find myself forced to take perks I don't need until much later just to get to master or grandmaster level of a skill. I realize this is intended as a balancing act to prevent rushing to GM abilities, but that is a bad way of achiving this. There are way too many skills, yet many of them seem rather useless. Why would I ever want to waste skill points into taking Paragon skill in order to get 5 % extra experience? There are also way too many skills focusing on the governor. Both the Academy and Sylvan racial skill is extremely confusing and it's impossible to get an overview of the status of these skills during combat. Diplomacy skill is completely broken, and this cannot be emphasized enough. The fact that you can always walk up to an army, see exact composition and then walk away is a stupid feature in the first place, combine that with Diplomacy, and it's a gamebreaker. I don't know if it was toned a bit down compared to first beta, but it still makes game ridiculously easy.
3) Magic system: The fact that I only earn 6 Arcane Knowledge points from mastering a skill but need 8 points to learn level 4 spells is a disaster. The whole concept of Arcane Knowledge overcomplicates things imo., but this implementation furthermore is abysmal. I reckon this is yet another disastrous consequence of the 7 magic schools, and I can only say it again: They destroy the game! Deciding between the Magic schools seems like a toss of coin, it's impossible to determine easily which one will suite you best - I did get one game where I had Earth Magic which turned out mostly useless (but I did specialize late), another with Air Magic which was fairly broken; creeping with Lightning Bolt was ridiculously easy.
4) Creature balance: Core creatures seem too strong compared to Elites, like in H6. Maybe this was because I only played the small map (the others were unplayable because of AI lag), but in all (eh, both) my games, I relied on cores almost the entire game. Champions seem pleasantly strong but come way too late to play any significant part. Again, this might be different on larger maps, and also has to do with my next point. Creature abilities are a bit confusing and some creatures lack essential abilities like the magic resistance of the golems.
5) Town build: Town build plans are quite confusing and WAY too restrictive. Sylvans champion dwellings requires Mage Guild level 4 plus high level fortifications and some other stuff if I recall which was just plain stupid. Overall I felt very tighed up hand and foot in my town developement. It didn't help that many buildings seemed rather useless but had to be build to get up town level or to unlock other buildings. I dislike the new growth-boost system where each building has its own growth-booster.
6) Resources: The new resources are a classic example of don't-fix-what-ain't-broken. They are confusing and look too much alike, and one of them is hard to distinguish from ore on the map.
7) Aesthetics: This is a large point that covers many aspects. On the Adventure Map, I think the grass-maps look good, whereas the desert map looked really really bad. Underground is quite confusing, it's very hard to see what is decoration and what are actual objects. The same is partially true of overground, there are some decorative items that you expect to have a function (windmill, watermill) but turn out to just be decorative. Town screens are very bad, they are neither functional nor pretty. I ended up not looking at them at all which was a real pitty, I always enjoyed that in the games prior to Heroes 6. Creatures generally looked ok I think.
8) Other things:
- The mixed armies are really weird. I'll frequently find lumber mills or the like guarded by creatures from 2, 3 or even 4 different factions. Why? I think mixed armies are fine, but only on special items, and keep them within faction.
- Artifacts: The artifact sets were somewhat confusing. Some of them had five different robes which obviously you could not equip simultaneously, but then again, no bonus beyond 2-from-a-set was listed, so maybe that's just it?
- AI was horrible, but I only played on Normal difficulty, so maybe that was partially to blame (I hope ...).
- The fact that you could often see contents of treassure chests, spell shrines, etc. at a distance seemed stupid, but that may be bug.
- I hate the Town Portal system (Instant Recall). Also I couldn't teleport to a town above ground when my hero was below ground - bug or feature? Seems stupid.
Hmm, that was all I could think of for now.
____________
What will happen now?
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2015 11:30 AM |
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@LW
It would be strange choice to use hash tables, and even more stranger to use localized names for their key values. But in this case it would not be collision, as keys are the same.
If I recall, H5 used internal ids for each creature, and their stats were kept in xml database (in a way). You had a reference table where id is linked with xml file that contains creature stats.
Quote:
<Item>
<ID>CREATURE_PEASANT</ID>
<Obj href="/GameMechanics/Creature/Creatures/Haven/Peasant.xdb#xpointer(/Creature)"/>
</Item>
CREATURE_PEASANT was just a constant that had value of the id (1 if I recall). Any reference was through this constant. This enabled NCF framework for H5.
Sorry for offtopic 
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted August 30, 2015 11:36 AM |
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Well, in h3 creatures got an ID number too and their stats are read from a file. Anyway, that was just a supposition, I don't have access to h7 source code, so I can't know exactly.
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oakwarrior
Famous Hero
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posted August 30, 2015 11:36 AM |
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Stevie said:
But hey, they surely didn't have the credentials of game developers, so unarguably they must be wrong, lol.
Give me a break.
It doesn't mean their opinion is wrong. It's an opinion. And largely idealistic. Reality is different, that's all. And everybody perceives the situation differently. I would like to see someone who has worked through an entire game's lifecycle from start to finish in the same set-up as heroes (publisher + external dev), to try and bring counter-arguments. I can already tell you that there's just gonna be crickets chirping 
frostymuaddib said:
It is problem with code if they reffer to units with their name strings. They should have some internal id/name that is unique and independent of localized names (including english).
We don't. Unreal's architecture allows for far better comparisons than with strings
But it's an interesting bug you guys found and I will definitely pass it on.
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted August 30, 2015 11:45 AM |
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Is creature class inherited from ACharacter or APawn?
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted August 30, 2015 11:52 AM |
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oakwarrior said:
But it's an interesting bug you guys found and I will definitely pass it on.
And pretty damn funny.
Man, snow week of storms
____________
It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2015 11:54 AM |
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oakwarrior said:
We don't. Unreal's architecture allows for far better comparisons than with strings
But it's an interesting bug you guys found and I will definitely pass it on.
I thought so String comparison would be just, well, stupid I hope you find this bug and repair it
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This thread is pages long: 
