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Heroes Community > Heroes 7 - Falcon's Last Flight > Thread: Are we being reasonable in our expectations of the developers?
Thread: Are we being reasonable in our expectations of the developers? This thread is 11 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 · «PREV
Brukernavn
Brukernavn

Hero of Order
posted October 11, 2016 10:30 AM

That is exactly what they said they were going to do with H6, and even more with H7. For both games they had a fan VIP group with participants from the various heroes communities, including several from this community. The sad reality is that instead of using this group to understand what the fans really wanted, they tried to use the group to convince the communities about their own vision. It was used as a proof that they were making the games with and for the fans, but in practice the VIP input was largely ignored. With H6 they wanted to take the franchise into a new direction, so in part it is understandable that they would ignore some of the community input. But with the bad reception of H6 and the stated goal of going back to the roots with H7, it baffles me that they went down the same path yet again.

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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 11, 2016 10:59 AM

That's just not how the industry works, and that's not how it should work either. The developers should be qualified people to withstand the challenge they sign up for without any help from the community - that is the ideal. But regardless of that, the devs of Heroes 7 had the maximum community involvement they could possibly get and the game still turned out to be a flop. Let's not forget they did not only had the VIP group for quality feedback (which they ignored) and the shadow council and forums for statistical feedback (which they also ignored), they had some devs themselves being previous fans that got recruited for the team (Ramiro, Oakwarrior, etc.), so it was probably the best case scenario for the co-development idea. And it bombed.
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The Young Traveler

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted October 11, 2016 11:55 AM

The circumstances were good but they had no interest in diluting their pure vision. Or their lack of one. Everything suggests that they did not have a unifying plan but instead tackled everything individually, in a way that they thought would work in a satisfactory manner. And tbh, the skill system is not bad if judged independently. But compared to H5 it is a failure. But without any H5 experience how would they know
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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 11, 2016 01:16 PM

I think, the skill system is DEFINITELY bad, because it's so easy to see, how you can make their basic idea work - and what I sketch below I even suggested to them immediately after we got wind of the limited skill wheels with the 6 different heroes per faction, since it's so obvious.

I don't think, that it is per se a bad idea to have more hero types, and while I would rather see it the way H4 did it (heroes start as a simple paragon of their class and then develop to something according to their skill choices, instead of starting with a vast number of different hero types), the main idea of their six types seems workable.

What I didn't understand, though, is why they didn't design the skill wheels and the classes with more flexibility. You could simply define the classes with some restrictions, for example, by outlining what skills they can get a Grand Master in, skills they can get a Master in, skills they can get at most Expert in, and skills they cannot have at all plus special conditions, Heroes being able to get at most 3 GM skills plus another 3 Ms.
So for example, say, an Inquisitor was defined by:
1) Can get up to GM in Racial, Fire, Light, Warfare, Leadership
2) Can get up to M in Air and Prime
3) Cannot get Dark and Warcries at all
4) can get the rest up to Expert
5) special conditions: must never have a higher skill in Defense than in Offense; Light is the only magic school that, at any time, can have a higher skill level than Fire (for example).

Skill wheel would simply work with drop-down menu: click on an empty skill slot, and a drop-down menu opens with all possible basic skills. So if you had an Inquisitor starting with (and I don't even think all Heroes must necessarily start with a basic in their racial) Basic Righteousness and Basic Warfare, if you wanted a new skill you'd simply click on empty and get a drop-down listing all skills except Righteousness and Warfare, Warcries, Defense, Dark, Prime, Air, Earth and Water.
For random pick, you'd get a skill offer based on probailities, the way it is now, with the restrictions that you couldn't get up to GM with everything.

This is obviously a much better way to implement the basic idea behind their skill system, since it offers much more replay value due to having more freedom to build the hero.
Also, you could have had the same system for the whole game. And that is obviously the second reason why the skill system sucks - it divides the game in campaigns and "other".

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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 11, 2016 01:59 PM
Edited by Stevie at 16:30, 11 Oct 2016.

That seems more convoluted than necessary, but I get the context that at the time you were arguing within the limitations of H7's skillwheel, so basically trying to make the best out of a difficult situation. It just baffles me how they had all the material for reference already in place (H5) and all they had to do was document it and more or less replicate its finest points, but they failed.

My assessment with regards to H7's classes and skillwheels is this:
- too many classes right from the get-go, no feeling of progression from class advancement;
- tying one skillwheel to each class was a mistake which resulted in a ridiculous amount of skillwheels;
- the burden of executing good skillwheels on the devs' side is so high and costly that the very idea of it shouldn't have made it past the design sessions;
- susceptible to a load of balance issues, which happened so they had to readjust skillwheels many times over;
- completely unnecessary and broken ultimate skills (or GM);
- the burden of knowledge is overwhelming for the player, they can't draw any conclusion for comparison before memorizing everything, not even worth the effort;
- weak UI not user friendly at all, lack of communicating information;
- overall cripplingly convoluted when simplicity should reign.

Probably more to say but that should be the gist of it.
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AlHazin
AlHazin


Promising
Supreme Hero
النور
posted October 11, 2016 02:51 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if came the day where the community will start developping the game for itself. It began with small add-ons, mods, then WoG, then HotA... With the community being worldwide and composed of some competent members, if the conditions met, maybe it could happen. It would be weird, sure, but it would be either that or the end of series, unless they (Ubisoft) are making enough money from the games (Heroes series) the way they are.

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 11, 2016 04:17 PM

@ Stevie
If it had been me, I would have canned the idea immediately, simply because no one can memorize even the class names, not to mention what makes them what they are (their skill wheel), so the idea CANNOT be that great for a Heroes game in the first place.

However, how it went was, that I had been pestering them about magic and skill system right from the start, telling them it would be heart, soul and brain of the game and because of that the most important thing, and with 7 Magic Schools some real ingenious solution would be necessary to make it work. They declined to discuss it, claiming they would do it when it was time to go at that - and then we got the Christmas build with everything in place, no discussion necessary, thank you all.

So when I suggested, what I suggested, it was already in resignation of the fact that things were obviously screwed and wouldn't change a lot anymore. Suggesting something that would have needed only slight UI changes seemed a reasonable thing to do, but I could have saved myself a lot of effort.

Of course the system is BAD, and there are a lot of reasons. One is, the skill wheels are not offering enough freedom to develop, another is the skills make no sense with regard to the heroes; I mean, there are supposed to be an offensive, defensive and governmental hero class for both might and magic, but for one thing my understanding of an "offensive MAGIC hero" would involve "aggressive spellcasting": damage spell, damage buffs defense debuffs, while a defensive magic hero would be a healer/resurrection guy, casting stoneskin, and attack debuffs, summoning walls, that stuff.
An offensive might hero might have Offense and a Ballista, but no tent, something like that.
Which basically means, that the differentiation doesn't make sense.

A massive problem is the fact that it doesn't make sense to build a hero with exclusively magic skills and abilities. I haven't actually tried to verify it, but I'd say, no matter your hero, might or magic, the maximum number of magic school skills to pick is 6 99 out of 100 times. For a Might hero you'll probably pick between 3 and 6, depending on your artifact and spell finds, which means that they are not so different in skills, only in stats - which doesn't make sense at all, especially not with 6 "different" heroes per faction.

Add to that the boring Magic Guild system and it's just not cutting it.

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Kayna
Kayna


Supreme Hero
posted October 11, 2016 04:48 PM

The title of this thread hints that maybe Ubisoft's blunders is our fault. lol.

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EnergyZ
EnergyZ


Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
posted October 11, 2016 05:10 PM

AlHazin said:
I wouldn't be surprised if came the day where the community will start developping the game for itself.


VCMI has a close relation to that, I think. Quantomas is also working on something, but no word of him recently.

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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 11, 2016 05:29 PM
Edited by Stevie at 17:30, 11 Oct 2016.

@JJ,
It could've been so simple when you think about it. All they had to do was create two starting classes (might and magic) and give them a bit of class progression similar to that of Heroes 4, and everyone would've had access to the same skills to fill in brackets without any major restrictions or literal interpretation of the skillwheel UI. Differences between might and magic would be given by stats gains and with regards to faction by racial skills / abilities. And it would've been so much simpler and easier for everyone, both for the devs to code and balance and also for the player to learn and strategize around. But no, we can't have that for whatever reason.

Honestly, I don't know if the designers of H7's skillwheels were overly ambitious or just utterly lost and clueless. Probably both.
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The Young Traveler

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 11, 2016 06:36 PM

I haven't got a clue, actually, where that came from or what their idea behind it was. In the end there are 42 different hero classes (plus 3 neutral ones, but they are not even that different. I mean, a DEFENSIVE minded Stronghold Might hero? With their racial punishing waiting and defending? I don't think that makes a lot of sense.
So I think even within their own system it's unnecessarily uniform.

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GenyaArikado
GenyaArikado


Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
posted October 12, 2016 09:51 PM
Edited by GenyaArikado at 16:46, 13 Oct 2016.

It would have been cool if (along a different skill system),we had gotten something like a mix of H4 and 5 regarding hero class names. All towns have one type of hero (ie Academy: mage) but depending of what skills you master and that stuff you'd evolve into other classes (ie a mageblade, a sheriff, an artificer, etc) That would have actually justified the bunch of class names.

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 12, 2016 10:31 PM

Yup, developing classes seem more logical and interesting. And appealing, because it's a more interesting thing to do in-game than deciding before you start or leave it at random and get it served.

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted October 13, 2016 10:36 AM

H4 had a lovely concept for the advanced classes and if we got another heroes, it would be a good base to work on. Skill-based, without the extra abilities being overpowered.
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Map also hosted on Moddb

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