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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 / NEXT»
Kayna
Kayna


Supreme Hero
posted September 21, 2015 06:04 PM

I am expecting either a stable multiplayer where we can play 1 full game without crashing, or a direct connect option. And it's very reasonable.

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kiryu133
kiryu133


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
posted September 21, 2015 06:13 PM

BUT ONLY ONE GAME!
____________
It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.

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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted September 21, 2015 06:57 PM

Doomforge said:
Honestly? I think most criticism is reasonable because they did it before, and I mean HoMM 5. The skill system of that game was (with some minor issues) spot on: large amount of faction-only skills that built an unique feeling towards the playthrough.

Similiarily, I think the HoMM 4 spell system (except , well, balance factor obviously ) was spot on, with many powerful spells for pretty much every school but death, making it just much more fun.

Unit-wise, I'd gladly take the HoMM 5 system again, with alternative upgrades. All I expect is that the units are fairly useful and not like in HoMM5 where some upgrades are clearly better than others by a large margin.

Content-wise, we have all the artifacts & adventure map objects from HoMM3, ready to be reused.

Honestly, most of the game is just done already. Just take the best parts of each HoMM game, and improve upon them. There is a lot of work to polish those systems, which is way better than creating another failed mechanics for a year and repeating HoMM 6's failure.

To be honest, I have very little faith in Ubi. They seem to ignore the fans' wishes way too much.

Exactly.
Though Ubi not only ignore, but also dismiss.
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Scream
Scream


Adventuring Hero
posted September 29, 2015 02:45 PM

Multiplayer is apparently a nightmare...

You still can't take your turn while your opponents are fighting. They basically just made a little screen to go over the combat so you can't see it.

You can still see the messages up top, so you can still gauge how well your opponent is doing.

Ranked play? Automatchmaking? Nah... that snow is for... every other successful strategy game?

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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted September 29, 2015 03:59 PM

Scream said:
You still can't take your turn while your opponents are fighting. They basically just made a little screen to go over the combat so you can't see it.

You can still see the messages up top, so you can still gauge how well your opponent is doing.

Why they couldn't leave you to your own, right clicking on the explored area of your map and planning your next turn is something I can't understand
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted September 29, 2015 04:09 PM

Storm-Giant said:
Why they couldn't leave you to your own, right clicking on the explored area of your map and planning your next turn is something I can't understand


Perhaps they thought that it was useless to plan anything? As the AI is dumb as rocks anyway .

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PROJ
PROJ


Known Hero
posted September 29, 2015 04:29 PM
Edited by PROJ at 16:42, 29 Sep 2015.

Storm-Giant said:
Scream said:
You still can't take your turn while your opponents are fighting. They basically just made a little screen to go over the combat so you can't see it.

You can still see the messages up top, so you can still gauge how well your opponent is doing.

Why they couldn't leave you to your own, right clicking on the explored area of your map and planning your next turn is something I can't understand

I think he's referring to sim turns, where before you could view all your opponents' battles?

that would be really disappointing.  

I guess I should ask for clarification since I won't be able to play it until after work this evening, but does that mean you can't take your turn at all during their combat, or does it only go to a little screen after you have ended your current turn and are waiting for them to finish theirs?

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Brukernavn
Brukernavn

Hero of Order
posted October 01, 2015 11:57 PM bonus applied by Elvin on 02 Oct 2015.
Edited by Brukernavn at 23:59, 01 Oct 2015.

Are we being reasonable in our expectations of the developers?

I think this is a very good question, though a subjective one. It depends on the actual expectations the individual had. Personally I did not want to expect anything from H7, since I still remember the experience from H6. Still, I managed to go from open-minded to positive, and eventually ended up apathetic to the whole game. This happened, I would argue, based on the expectations the developers themselves set up for me (but did not meet).

Q&A Aug 2014:
"Basically, our goal is to take the best out of the previous Heroes titles and build Heroes VII from there. Of course we're also bringing in new features or new ideas without compromising the spirit of Heroes, such as more interactions on the Adventure Map allowing more strategies. For now we won't delve too much into the details but we have brought in hundreds of small improvements which will help to perfect the formula."

Ubisoft shot themselves in the foot from the very beginning. They made vague promises without being specific. What is the best of the previous games? Well, that depends whom you ask. I will expect one thing, another might expect the opposite. They cannot satisfy both, and will likely end up disappointing both. They said what we WANTED to hear, and set the expectations high.


In the following period they made many promising announcements: 7 resources, return of primary attributes, traditional luck and morale, focus on map editor, etc. But on most points they continued the PR strategy of saying what we wanted to hear without being specific. All along promising more information right around the corner. For instance regarding the magic system:

Q&A Sep 2014:
"The magic system in Heroes VII will be very close to the ones implemented in Heroes III & V. Unfortunately that's all we can say at the current time but don't worry we will definitively talk about it as soon as we can! (We can confirm the return of magic guilds though )"

Even though the magic systems in H3 and H5 have some similarities, they are not the same. There is a difference in number of schools, grouping of spells, what advancements in a school actually does, wisdom or not, other skills effect on spells etc. The possible strategies were therefore very different.

I would grant that the H7 magic system draws from both the H3 and H5 systems, but the end result misses the advantages of both. They have more schools, but you can only specialise in a restricted number of them, as in H5. On the other hand the grouping of spells is more like H3, where each school has damage, buffs, debuffs etc. - making the choice of school basically irrelevant for your strategy; you can play almost the same way with all the schools.


In the same Q&A linked above they said skills would be a mix between H6 and H5 system:

"The truth is we discussed an option to implement randomization. But in the end we decided to let you choose what skills / abilities you want to unlock. So it will be a kind of mix between H6 (full control is in your hands) and H5 (skills are structured in a wheel). We will develop this point in the following months on our Shadow Council website to give you more details."

Most people thought this meant we would get something like the H5 skillwheel without the randomness. That is what caused the whole #GURS insurgence. When in actual fact they were planning to use something similar to the H6 system, only visualized like a wheel. While they gave the option of adding randomness later on, that was not what the community actually wanted. From the developers point of view this might be an example of fans having too high expectations. First they say they want random skills, we give them random skills, and then they want a new skill system altogether. But this was merely a result of withholding information for too long. Had they just added a few sentences regarding the skill system in September (instead of waiting until April 2015), they would have gotten more constructive feedback early enough to do something about it, without the disappointment that the skill system inevitable caused. And the continual promise of more information without actually giving any for months in a row proved frustrating for many.


They contiuned with vauge statements that were meant to create hype:
Q&A Jan 2015
"Philosophy: with Heroes VII, we really wanted to offer the best of Heroes experience, focusing on core gameplay strength of the series. To do so, our Game Designers spent months and months to identify what would be for H7 this magical recipe and how to really implement it in the game."


When the skill system was actually announced they made a blog post about the design philosophy defending their choices. Now the rhetoric was changed. The selling point of "taking the best from H3 and H5" was substituted with "we believe the H5 system was flawed" and "it's definitely not the same as H6". Now, these arguments and the others they made might have been completely acceptable had they not advertised something else from the beginning. When you are told something about a product, and end up getting something else you feel tricked and misled. They could have discussed the flaws of the previous games earlier and mentioned in what way they wanted to improve upon them. Instead the previous heroes games were glorified on the SC with tributes, HD remake and so on. They created expectations, but ended up making a game that was very different from their own "reference games".


Then you have the votes. The faction votes I think were OK. We were given a choice and the majority won. But the lineup votes unfortunately backfired. We were not only voting over creatures, but also design and play style (defensive, balanced and offensive). You were forced to sacrifice iconic creatures in all choices, and for the first votes two thirds of the voters did not get their pick. Even those who got their preferred lineup were not completely satisfied. It's like making you choose between either spaghetti and fish or salad and meatballs when knowing you would most likely prefer spaghetti and meatballs. What would be the point of such a choice, other than creating the illusion of control? What did they really gain from the lineup votes? I think the better solution would have been to present 10-15 creatures and give each person 3-5 votes restricted to x amount of walkers, x amount of ranged attackers and x amount of fliers. Then they would get a lineup that the majority of fans actually wanted. There have been other good suggestions as well, this was just one example.


The way they tried to sell the game in the beginning created different expectations for different people. For me it's mostly about gameplay, for others it might be more about atmosphere, art design, mythology, and so on. I could go on about other things, but I don't blame them for things like re-using H6 models, townscreens or anything that is lore related. Even though I might dislike things like race based factions, I don't believe they gave any impressions that we would get anything different. This game was created in the world of Ashan with its lore. That was to be expected. I do not question their ambitions, but unfortunately the developers themselves gave us expectations that they had no plans of meeting. Which is why I believe they have themselves to blame for much of the criticism they are receiving, but not all of course.

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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted October 02, 2015 12:04 AM

Thank you Brukernavn for this excellent summary.
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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted October 02, 2015 12:12 AM

QP material. Excellent post, Bruker
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Sleeping_Sun
Sleeping_Sun


Promising
Famous Hero
Townscreen Architect
posted October 02, 2015 12:23 AM

I agree, give him a QP and a cookie.
____________
"The age can be wicked to those who walk alone. When I look into the Mirror, I see myself as I might become..." -Freya

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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted October 02, 2015 12:26 AM

Agreed with the QP suggestion, well worth it .

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bloodsucker
bloodsucker


Legendary Hero
posted October 02, 2015 12:34 AM

Agreed .

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verriker
verriker


Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
posted October 02, 2015 12:35 AM

I concur with the QP nominations, well deserved for this brilliant laying out of the facts lol
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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted October 02, 2015 01:23 AM

Well deserved QP.

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PandaTar
PandaTar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
posted October 02, 2015 09:38 AM

Yeah, basically resumed my feelings from months ago, when I caught the trace that this game wouldn't meet my lowest level of expectation for something said to be 'new' or the 'best'.

QP requested for that post.
____________
"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted October 02, 2015 11:49 AM
Edited by Elvin at 11:50, 02 Oct 2015.

Very good post. It's like you said, they tried to imitate successful past features but missed the elements that made them successful. This is true for skill system, magic system, town level requirements, paper doll etc etc. While communication has greatly improved compared to earlier ubi times, by the time fans got more concrete information, the damage had been done. And the faction votes were badly utilized, focusing more on picking the lesser evil than picking what you actually want. We should have voted on actually important gameplay aspects like dynamic vs turn based initiative, random vs manual skill system, hexes vs squares etc.

Bad priorities all around which (imo) could and should have been prevented in the first place.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted October 02, 2015 12:13 PM

Brukernavn said:
Most people thought this meant we would get something like the H5 skillwheel without the randomness. That is what caused the whole #GURS insurgence. When in actual fact they were planning to use something similar to the H6 system, only visualized like a wheel. While they gave the option of adding randomness later on, that was not what the community actually wanted. From the developers point of view this might be an example of fans having too high expectations. First they say they want random skills, we give them random skills, and then they want a new skill system altogether. But this was merely a result of withholding information for too long. Had they just added a few sentences regarding the skill system in September (instead of waiting until April 2015), they would have gotten more constructive feedback early enough to do something about it, without the disappointment that the skill system inevitable caused.

A perfectly concise write-up of the situation, the quoted part nails the core problem absolutely perfectly.

Also, salad and meat balls.
____________
What will happen now?

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Brukernavn
Brukernavn

Hero of Order
posted October 02, 2015 03:49 PM

Thanks for the feedback, QP and cookie Looks like many of you shared my experience over the last year.

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AlHazin
AlHazin


Promising
Supreme Hero
النور
posted October 09, 2016 07:10 PM

Community partnership

Actually I'm wondering a bit about something.

Well I might be wrong, but seeing all the fan community that is present throughout the world, the remaining popularity of even the first versions of this game franchise, the astronomical (well, maybe not astronomical...) number of mods, add-ons, personnalizations and modifications, further enhancing an already unique gameplay and replayability... Since the fans seem rather disappointed, game release after game release (that's what I read in the forums and game critics), why don't the game programmers, or the developpers act accordingly with the fan community, incorporating them to the game realization process since they have a great knowledge of the game and have, we can say it, mastered it. I'm not speaking about making the fans vote for keeping features or dropping them (like keeping inferno or dungeon faction in heroes 7) and stuff, cause it's not, in my opinion, sufficient. An example of the best fans realizations is Horn of the Abyss, which proves how Heroes Community is a passionate and more importantly, a capable and qualified one in making a game better that he would rather be, maybe HotA had even more success than some of heroes official releases. The Community could play a greater role in the developement of the next games, making them better and so enlarging the size of the community again, so more innovative people could enter into play and be part of a next release...etc. That would be a virtual circle, making the game the conclusion of a worldwide work of cooperation. Not every famous game has known such a fate as Heroes series did, and the game would become an even better experience to everyone. Some players even thought of reviewing completely the magic systems, others the combat systems, the difficulties and the AI behaviours. I see that throught the years, fans made and are still making efforts in the improvement of the game giving each a new contribution, and that should be taken in consideration by the game developpers.

I'll make a parallel with architecture and urbanism. The italian schools are known throughout the world to be amongst if not the best in urban design and interventions. And that is because they make the local population participate to it. Rather than arbitrarily implementing projects here and there, then letting people deal with them, the authorities create a project, but let the people chose how it will be, how it will be used, you could even say : what it will be. And that in the end what makes the project work successfully for years.

That's all I had to say.

Regards.

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