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Heroes Community > Heroes 7 - Falcon's Last Flight > Thread: Heroes 7 pre-release review
Thread: Heroes 7 pre-release review This thread is 4 pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT»
The_Green_Drag
The_Green_Drag


Supreme Hero
posted September 13, 2015 04:56 AM

I've also followed the game since its announcement, been an active member of the shadow council and on HC (once I finally made an account ) I was also invited to test the alpha and got to meet Erwan. Unfortunately, with my current computer, I did not get to play as many hours of the two Betas as I would have liked. I played some maps just against myself to try out the factions, test the difficulty of the game, and see how it compared to the past titles.

Game Features
I agree with Stevie. They said 'Best of Heroes', and 'Back to the roots' and just didn't live up to the words. Maybe they tryed and failed, or maybe something else, either way I think most fans of the old games had some surprises both good and bad during the development phase and I only hope the worst is behind us.

Factions 10/10
I love H2. Realistically, These six factions are the one's I would have chosen if it was up to me. I'd fit Lizardmen fortress in there if I could (in place of Haven ) but its Ubisoft were talking about. So no problems here.

Creatures/Line ups 5/10
I think I've said it a hundred times and I'll say it once more, the line ups are mostly too similar with Academy and Necro standing out from the rest. I don't agree with every faction having its own elite shooter, and they're all basically at the same strength level (none of them are considered the faction's 'top' elite). I don't like the lack of fliers in the game, and again, practically none of them fill the role of 'top' elite, except for necro. I thought they realized how bad/boring it was going to three tiers, so making a strong core and elite unit sounded awesome. Then they go and defeat its purpose by making them all so similar. In the end, they don't feel very different from each other which kills the replay value imo. I expect interesting line ups that differ from these six when expansions come out.

As far as actual creatures go, I wanted more myth units and less humanoids. The more classic units the better, as limbic has done an excellent job in making the return of the Behemoth, Hydra, Wyvern, Gnoll, and others. I would like to see them make a Thunderbird and Phoenix

Class system/Skillwheel 5/10

I'll combine these because I think they go hand to hand. To put it bluntly, I do not like the restrictions, I do not like the ultimate abilities, and I do not like how strong faction skills are. I know the game is Heroes of might and magic but they put way too much focus on the heroes and their skills. Small bonuses is all they should be so that the creature battles do not become utterly predictable. The game's were always about everybody having access to everything so when they say 'Back to the roots' and give us this....

The balance is also off as I do not feel like all the skills are useful. Warcries are also a terrible idea.

Specializations 8/10

I know most of you despise the Hero specs but I think they're better than they look on paper. Yes, the creature growth is overused, and no, they don't really affect anything as far as the late game goes.

I think they make up for a part of the crappy skill/class system as it expands on a part of the game I actually do like: the creature growth options. Since we no longer get to boost the growth of every creature, having the hero who will boost the growth of X creature can really make a difference. I see it like this, I like my fliers such as the wyverns so maybe I want to get a snow load of wyverns in one game. I'll pick up the wyvern hero and get that extra wyvern building and start racking them up. And since their class system is so restrictive, if I don't like skills of the class for the wyvern hero i'll just use its spec and pick a hero class I do like for my main.

magic system 7/10

Haven't really looked into this as I rarely play magic heroes, even with academy. I miss spells like bless, shield, haste..etc The return of mage guilds is enough to give this a good rating for me. Less spell schools would be nice and more spells.

Combat 8/10

I think they've improved from H6 in this regard. The champion units finally stand out, the cores are not so powerful anymore (at least not the ranged ones ), and the battles were fairly difficult on the harder settings. I like the fort battles the use of warefare units in general. Obstacles in the battle maps are certainly welcome.

I wish some of the normal elite units were stronger and that they would have put more thought into the flanking. But I don't think its a game breaking feature.

I agree with Stevie on the camera angles. It's hard to even zoom in and get a good look at that visually stunning, hand crafted black dragon that we all love.

Adventure map 9/10

This part they actually did go back to the roots with More places to go, stuff to collect, things to fight. I also like the area of control aspect of the game. Overall improvement from H5 and H6. Mixed neutrals are chill but I would like to see more of a mix of units from one faction rather than just complete randomness.

Town levels 0/10

Doesn't add anything, takes away much. It's stupid, get it out of the game

Resources 7/10

I agree with Stevie again here. Change for the sake of change... I'm just glad there is seven rares so I'm not gonna let this bother me. Distinguish them and i'll adapt.

UI 8/10

I don't really have much of an opinion on this. I'd rather click my creatures to my army slots than click and drag but meh. Solid UI for the most part.

Unit skills 6/10

While I don't agree with all the repeated abilities, some of them are really sweet. Such as the Arcane eagles random debuff, the return of the dragon breaths, the sun deer's ability was very useful. As a big wc3 fan, I like them bringing in more auras to support other units.

With that said, they could have given us more unique ones. I don't like 5/6 top elites being melee walkers and 4 out of those 5 have some kind of no retaliation ability. In h3, tier 6 units had such a nice range of skills from double damage, reducing hp on attack, blinding attacks, fire shield, or just being ranged. This is definitely not a 'best of' in any regard.


Overall 7.1/10

Just so its not the exact same But really I think its pretty fair as the game is certainly a step up from H6, just not as big of a step as it could have been. The adventure map certainly shines in this installment and I love the music. I think they'll improve the skill system with expansions and hopefully add some interesting factions so in the end they all wont seem so similar. Adding creature pools would significantly improve the game and I think that is a realistic request.
I wasn't a big fan of H5 because of the line ups and art style so I think one will be my favorite Ubi Heroes to date.



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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted September 13, 2015 10:01 AM

Salamandre said:
A bugless, fabulous and amazing game is still prohibited if on best and bigger maps you will have to wait several minutes between turns. IMO all must be done to make the gameplay as fluid as possible, and only then correct bugs.

But it looks like I am the only one annoyed by this.

No you aren't. This was one of the big flaws that H5 suffered from also, even in its final stage, when game was otherwise very stable. But you can't take bugs out of the equation either when you have bugs to the extent that game crashes literally before you even start an actual game.
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted September 13, 2015 10:07 AM

This game can be 7/10 if they fix the glaring issues.
____________
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 September 13, 2015 10:43 AM
Edited by alcibiades at 10:45, 13 Sep 2015.

If I should give my own ratings, they'd come out something like this:

* Factions and creatures: 6/10
There are not a lot of surprises in the faction choice. I'd like Sanctuary to have at least made an appearance in the votes, but apart from that, most are solid choices. Academy is back, Haven is inevitable I guess ... Necropolis and Stronghold, neither are my favorites, but both are sound choices. Sylvan and Dungeon won the fan votes, and I think that's actually representative of the fan opinion, so that was good.

Creatures for me is somewhat worse. In some way they managed to be both unimaginative in their choices and at the same time exclude essential creatures like the Unicorn and the Griffin; even "modern" stables like the Faceless don't make a real appearance. Emphasis seems once again to be too much on cores when it comes to gameplay, but maybe that belongs to another point. They made a real mess of the line-up votes, and we are left with serious flaws in Sylvan and Dungeon line-ups for that reason. Necropolis has the horrible Spider, but at least we got the Lich and Vampire fixed. Haven suffered from the 400-HP Lansknecht which to me is a bad joke - if they wanted to pay homage to the H2 Paladin they could at least have made him different from the other champions in terms of growth and HP, but no. Creatures can no longer cast spells, which is very bad. Treants are now ranged, which is a bizarre twist, not only because it's weird, but also because this was one of the few units that's actually succesfully filled the role of a tank during the game history. And there's more to be said to this point.

* Class system and Skill system 2/10
This is definitely one of the critical areas of the game. Limiting the classes to a subset of skills is something I'm not fan of in the first place. The fact that each class has a preset of only three skills they can grandmaster seems to doom the game in terms of replayability. But the most bizarre twist: We get three might and three magic heroes of each faction, but in many (most?) cases, they share many of the same skill, particularly when it comes to magic heroes and magic skills. That's just downright stupid. It isn't very evident from the limited information given at game setup, but I didn't get the impression there was any difference between the three subclasses of might and magic of each faction when it came to primary attribute progression.

I hate the point that you are forced to select a perk before you can level up a skill. From the little game experience I got, I was constantly faced with the problem that I either had to take a perk that I wouldn't get any use of 'til much later because it was required to level up a skill, or I had to make a choice between perks at a point where I couldn't yet know which one would serve me best.

Skill synergy seems to be non-existant in the game. There are no cross-requirements for perks, and furthermore, the fact that you can pick all perks in a skill (and not just three) and that leveling seems to be somewhat slow seems to disencourage leveling in multiple skills at the same time.

Some skills are completely useles (I'm looking to you Paragon) and others are absurdly overpowered (*cough*Diplomacy*cough*), but I guess game can always be balanced post-release (right?).

The random skill option ... don't even get me started on that.

The only reason I give this 2/10 and not 1/10 is because at least we have both might and magic classes, unlike H5.

* Magic System 3/10
We have too many magic schools, resulting in too few spells in each school. Bizarrely, they all pretty much do the same, which defeats the point of having different schools in the first place. Arcane Knowledge is a snow idea that needs to be removed as soon as possible - or given a major make-over (but there's really no need for this feature, so better just remove it). On the positive side, I like the fact that you can choose a specialization for your mage guild, I just wish you could postpone the decision if you haven't made up your mind with regards to which school you'll choose yet.

* Combat System 8/10
I actually enjoyed combat quite a lot. There are some things that needs to be tweaked. The generally very wide battlefields put an unhealthy emphasis on ranged units. Cores seem too strong still, Elites are too weak. I would have kept the H5 Initiative system, but I can accept classic turns. Not a fan of flanking, but it didn't seem to break game for me either.

* Adventure Map 5/10
This is very hit-and-miss for me. The grass terrain and environment looked good, on the other hand the desert terrain looked downright bad. The underground is very hard to make out. There seemed to be an overall lack of adventure map buildings on the map I played - like, there's a windmill and a watermill and you think they'll give you resources like in previous games, but then they are just decorative elements - boo!

* Resources 4/10
We have again 4 rare resources - yay - but they have ridiculous names, are difficult to descern from each other, and come in way too large numbers on the adventure map (yeah, the latter is a balance issue).

* Towns and UI 3/10
Not only are most of the townscreens butt-uggly, the UI is also very cumbersome to navigate in, and the requirement lines on the build screen criss-cross and are impossible to make sense of. And speaking of which, *way* too many restrictions on build order and town levels - very bad for game. The build-screen gets 0/10 in terms of providing overview, way too many booster-buildings etc. scattered all over the place, and at the same times, it's very difficult to see when and whether a building can be upgraded. The UI on the adventure map isn't helpful either, the fact that towns are on the left is confusing, and the fact that you can't click on a town without having the hero move there is downright annoying.



Overall: 4.5/10
Can become a good game with some minor modifications, but needs major overhaul to become a great game.

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TD
TD


Promising
Famous Hero
posted September 13, 2015 12:09 PM

Factions 5/10
The factions that were picked are fine. Haven is the same old. Dungeon is stealth with not really stealthy units. Spiderpolis is spiderpolis... Sylvan with only 1 new units compared to h5. Academy essentially same as h5. Orcs are fine except for their beauty-pageant females which seems totally contradictory to the image of the faction. Overall they don't feel like anything special.

Units/line-ups 5/10
The amount of units is good. Line-ups however would need more diversity between factions. Also the fact that too many units don't feel unique/individual because the abilities got copied around way too much.

Class-system3/10
Simply put I hate it. Classes don't often feel like they represent their class that well with the skills they got. They restrict how you can play and some classes inside and between factions are too similar to each other.

Skill-tree 4/10
The system is mediocre at best. There is way too much overlapse between skills/spells/specializations/artifacts in the game. Feels a lot like h6 system and is in many ways even worse. Hopefully it gets at some point complete overhaul.

Specializations 3/10
Simply put they are plain bad. Most are utter rubbish, leaving only few viable ones as main hero per factions. I thought h6 had bad specs, but h7 did even worse as it combined them to specific hero/class, didn't offer any interesting specs and also lacked dynasty stuff that could've made them a little less bad.

Magic system 5/10
Return to guilds was a necessary change. Unfortunately good deal of old spells are missing. You also need abilities in schools to turn spells to be any different of similar spells in other schools. It greatly lacks variety because all schools have little bit of everything so they don't feel like you specialized in anything. More adventure map-spells was good, putting them all as level 1 was not. Pretty much all spells are also from h6 while missing some of the interesting ones.

Combat-system 3/10
As devs said they took it from h6... Which was huge step down from h5. They added flanking which didn't really add anything to game-play except stupid looking waltzes between units. Flanking would have been nice addition as ability for some units, but not as general system. The battles feel very much like h6 with added walking around for flanking.

Adventure map 3/10
It looks way too plain and makes concrete suburb seem like an interesting place... H6 had too deep/rich color-scheme, but at least it felt like fantasy. I also felt like I moved more in h6 which is not a compliment. The game feels very slow-paced as it feels like you barely advanced at all during your turn.

Towns 1/10
The town-screens are a joke. So far only one that looked any decent was dungeon. The screens completely lack logic with building placement and it makes it look like somebody just randomly placed them there. Buildings don't in general seem to represent the unit that much either nor their status as it's hard to even see what is champion building. Even h6 TSs looked better. The town builder is full of requirements that don't make any sense. It's very limited how you can build the town because of ton of requirements. The building-prices are also way too low so there is very little planning required when building the town. Optional buildings seem too much like no-brainers as to what you will pick. Ohh yeah and then there is town-levels to restrict town-building even more!

Resources 6/10
It's nice to see return to four rare-system. Changing the rare-names for lore seems another change for the sake of change with no gain. Also because of the low prices it becomes a bit of pointless change since h6 town-builder felt more challenging...

Designs 2/10
Very incoherent. Units are way over the top in terms of looks/design. Adventure map is way too plain and boring trying to be realistic. TS are cartoony. So many models taken from h6 with little work done to them. H7 is just big mish-mash of things graphically.

UI 7/10
It feels decent, but not that good at same time. I feel like it should be more fluid to change from hero inventory to skill for example. In game-menu a heavy back-ground of Ivans strategy-session looks very nice, but I prefer utility over looks. There were small improvements in match-settings for example between demo and beta so at least things are moving in right direction.

Overall 5/10
I feel like it's in many areas improved h6, but at same time it feels like a stand-alone expansion to it rather than full new game(like colonization was to civ4). I don't get the sense of fantasy and exploration when playing as the game feels very mechanical like h6 did. It's the 2nd game in series where I feel like putting quick-battles on just because of how boring and mechanical battles feel(like in h6). I do feel like the game has potential to become good game if it gets heavy modding. "As is" it feels completely mediocre game to me and it doesn't feel like it "peaks" the series in any way giving little reason to really play it. I think the price for this expansion should realistically be somewhere between 15-25€.

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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted September 13, 2015 01:13 PM

The_Green_Drag said:

Combat 8/10

the cores are not so powerful anymore (at least not the ranged ones )


I don't know what game you played, but I experienced something else . Especially as Sylvan, I was steamrolling enemy armies with the (Master) Hunters, while the AI focussed on my Dryads and Sprites. The battlefield size also meant stacks had to take several turns before becoming a threat, allowing my Ranged units to take them out before they got too close.

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The_green_drag
The_green_drag


Supreme Hero
posted September 13, 2015 02:23 PM

Maurice said:
The_Green_Drag said:

Combat 8/10

the cores are not so powerful anymore (at least not the ranged ones )


I don't know what game you played, but I experienced something else . Especially as Sylvan, I was steamrolling enemy armies with the (Master) Hunters, while the AI focussed on my Dryads and Sprites. The battlefield size also meant stacks had to take several turns before becoming a threat, allowing my Ranged units to take them out before they got too close.


Hehe yea I meant to say Except the ranged ones, it was late night  

Particularly dungeons and slyvans ranged cores. Those master hunters are insanely strong and only become stronger with an easy level in the archery skill. I'm don't have a problem with really strong creatures but they need to have less production and cost more. Stalkers just need an ability nerf.


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TD
TD


Promising
Famous Hero
posted September 13, 2015 03:56 PM

I don't even understand the devs train of thought on ranged units. They said they wanted to essentially nerf them, but their actions are the exact opposite. If you look at skills you got +2 dmg to ranged vs +1 to melee and on top of that they got no range-penalty as novice skill while in the past it was rare artifact that would grant that. And to top that off they got artifact like dwarven bow which gives + 4 dmg to ranged AND no range penalty. Just the split between ranged and melee in abilities seems pointless, let alone that ranged get the bigger boost. And in items I haven't seen anything as good for melee while they basically should get even better. Also the fact that they got stuff like +2 or +4 damage is insane because devs said they wanted to make core weaker compared to champs while the boosts I have seen in general are the exact opposite(with those +1-5 boost to hp/atk). Before that +1 even felt big to tier 1-3, now you are basically doubling your damage if not even more and the cores are even in general stronger
.
IMO there shouldn't be such skill in offense at all that takes ranged penalty away. Such thing should be specific racial OR equal to h5 ultimates. The dmg-boosts you can find in items/abilities shouldn't be more than +1 or +2 EVER unless they are percentage boosts or boost to higher tier(elite/champion specifically).

To me the 2nd beta felt like they had several people doing the balancing without communicating with each other properly and thus they actually managed to make core potentially even better than ever before even though they boosted up the champions. Really the champions felt good to me, but core boosts felt way too strong as it felt like champions are very hard to boost in any comparable way. By that I mean you can't boost their attack/defense for example as core can match their defense/atk via GM. You can get hp up, but same applies for core even more so. In damage core will easily beat champions and same happens versus strong elites too. I don't get why the "strongest" units end up least powerful the longer game goes on. IMO it should be the exact opposite, champions may at the very start be little less powerful(because you may have been able to mass cores), but as time goes by they should be the ones that overtake everything, they are CHAMPIONS for you race/cause for crying out loud! Why/how do the basic grunts overtake them???

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Kayna
Kayna


Supreme Hero
posted September 13, 2015 04:24 PM

Why are you guys rating the bloody town screen? It's just one, single screen. It's not worth it's own rating category lol.

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The_green_drag
The_green_drag


Supreme Hero
posted September 13, 2015 04:46 PM

They also said they wanted to avoid turtling tactics lol. They say a lot of things, and as the saying goes...actions speak louder than words

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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted September 13, 2015 04:52 PM

kayna said:
Why are you guys rating the bloody town screen? It's just one, single screen. It's not worth it's own rating category lol

Townscreens are part of immersion. Just as you enjoy exploring the adventure map, relax in town, enjoy watching your town building up or creatures in recruitment screen was also part of the magic.
I know some people are 100% gameplay and don’t care much about other things, but it doesn’t dismiss these for all that.
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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted September 13, 2015 06:22 PM

There are some things in H7 I really don't like, and one of those is the balancing of creatures which is extremely generic.

1 Champion (even with Asha's tear it keeps at 1) at something over 400 HPs
1x 2 Good Elites with 130-150 HPs (you can double growth)
2 x 5 weak elites with up to 50 HP
1 x 10 good Cores with up to 30 or so HP
2 x 20 bad Cores with 10-15 HPs depending

Also Attack values of creatures are fairly low, so hero makes even more of a difference.

For gaming purposes Core, Elite, Champion has not much use, except that it reduces the number of outside dwellings, but there are no skills/spells/abilities that somehow uses that distinction.

Bottom line is - we lost diversity of creatures for nothing. All Champions are more or less alike, additional growth is generally 100 % ... I mean, look at Sprites and Dryads. Why must they have so similar stats?

So I feel ROBBED here - no creature diversity whatsoever. BEST OF? NEVER EVER!
Especially considering that the town structure would allow a much more individual attitude.

I mean - just because it's simple: look at Hunters and Master Hunters. Hunter cost 100, MH cost 130 (WTF?). You have the basic building, you have a building that adds Growth and you have an Upgrade building. MH gets double shot (if the first kills something), +1 Init (+5%) and +2 HP (+ 13.33%). Gain factor is EASILY over 100%.

So what do we have here? If X is the basic Hunter population, then roughly spoken, the upgrade doubles worth, while of course the additional growth depends on how much the actual growth is. CURRENTLY, after building growth and regular Upgrade you are at 4X in strength - which is obviously too much, considering the general trend. Since double shot is not really debatable: CUT GROWTH. If you HALVE growth upgrade, you are down to 3X. In this case it makes sense, when both upgrades in addition cost double as much as the basic building.
And if Hunters cost 100, making MHs cost 200 seems a pretty easy thing to do.

Keeping that formula in mind (end at 300% with THREE creature dwelling builds), you can vary growth rates just fine.

Not to mention that I want SEVEN different creatures back.


So the current bottom line for creatures is - on my list - really, really not good.

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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted September 13, 2015 08:45 PM
Edited by Stevie at 20:46, 13 Sep 2015.

JollyJoker said:
Not to mention that I want SEVEN different creatures back.


Fill me in a bit on this one, are you dissatisfied with the Core - Elite - Champion system for some reason? As far as I can remember, it seemed to have some merits. Or are you saying that you want the 7 tiers added as complementary?

Or maybe you're referring to something else?
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler

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malax83
malax83


Famous Hero
Game ranger, HotA Player
posted September 13, 2015 10:09 PM

The_Green_Drag said:

I do not like the restrictions, I do not like the ultimate abilities, and I do not like how strong faction skills are



This..

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EnergyZ
EnergyZ


Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
posted September 13, 2015 10:23 PM

Stevie said:
JollyJoker said:
Not to mention that I want SEVEN different creatures back.


Fill me in a bit on this one, are you dissatisfied with the Core - Elite - Champion system for some reason? As far as I can remember, it seemed to have some merits. Or are you saying that you want the 7 tiers added as complementary?

Or maybe you're referring to something else?


I think it was meant as seven-tier system. Which I approve of.

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted September 13, 2015 10:27 PM

Stevie said:
JollyJoker said:
Not to mention that I want SEVEN different creatures back.


Fill me in a bit on this one, are you dissatisfied with the Core - Elite - Champion system for some reason? As far as I can remember, it seemed to have some merits. Or are you saying that you want the 7 tiers added as complementary?

Or maybe you're referring to something else?

For one the core-elite-champion division isn't game relevant. If you compare H5 town plan with H7 - not much difference in creature prerequisites.
For two - I don't want 2x2 units that are more or less stat-alike, except that one is a shooter and 1 a melee
Justicars - Abbots
Disciples - Djinn
Druids - War Dancers
Lamasu - Lich
Centaur - Wyvern
Strider - Medusa

So everyone has a shooter paired by 3 walkers and 3 flyers. Wow. And all with roughly the same stats. Wow. So why don't we have 3 Striders with 80 Hps and Wyvern with 70 and so on?

In other words - if it has no consequences in game to "bundle" creatures into 3 groups: WTF!

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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted September 14, 2015 12:11 AM

You can conceivably have more different stats and everything you mentioned above regardless of 7 or 3 tier systems, the problem doesn't necessarily stem from that. I do believe that the "bundle" being of no consequence or usefulness is just bad game design, but just from a theoretical standpoint isn't it preferable? Plus, since creature choice is something that caught on, how would you manage that within a system of 7 tiers? With pool options it's way simpler. Not to mention smoother stats/power curve, potential for abilities and specific effects, and balance?

I'm not convinced 3 tiers is a bad feature per se, just faulty implementation/usage.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted September 14, 2015 12:14 AM

I think the worst part of the core/elite/champion mechanism is the impact it has on core creature strength. In the old games, level 1 units were generally rubbish (either very low damage or very low durability), level 2 units were marginally usefull whereas level 3 units were decent. Now as frustrating as having a rubbish creature could be, this served to provide a dynamic during the game duration because you couldn't go the entire game alone with those "core" creatures because they quickly became obsolete after during initial creaping (at least as your main fighting force). This was why "elite" and "champion" creatures were important in those games.

In H6 suddenly all core creatures were decent units. While this looks like a good idea on paper, in reality it meant that you could perfectly well manage for a long time with only cores, making elites and champions lose significance. H7 partially rectifies this fault with it's 2-1 approach (2 mediocre + 1 decent unit in core), but numbers are still too close to H6 numbers: You get tiresome battles were large groups of cores will only kill a few units from a stack in each attack because they have too many hitpoints, and again you get the problem that cores fair much too well against neutral stacks of elites.
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What will happen now?

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Hunters11
Hunters11

Tavern Dweller
posted September 14, 2015 03:51 AM

My guess(all original)

[*] Factions - 9/10
H3 10, H5 8.5

[*] Creatures - 6.5/10
H3 8, H5 9.5

[*] Class system - 7.5/10
H3 8.5, H5 9

[*] Skillwheel - 8.5/10
H3 5, H5 9.5

[*] Specializations - 6.5/10
H3 9, H5 9

[*] Magic System - 8/10
H3 7.5, H5 9

[*] Combat system - 8.5/10
H3 9, H5 7.5

[*] Adventure map - 9/10
H3 8.5, H5 7.5

[*] Towns - 7.5/10
H3 9.5, H5 10

[*] Resources - 8/10
H3 9, H5 8.5

[*] UI - 7.5/10
H3 8, H5 8

[*] Replay features - 9.5/10
H3 7, H5 9


Overall Rating for Heroes 7 - 8/10
Heroes 3 - 8.25/10
Heroes 5 - 8.75/10

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted September 14, 2015 08:46 AM

I don't have anything against tiers - however the only effect the "bundling" has is easier outside dwellings (which isn't necessarily preferable to the H3 way of having separate ones for all, mind you, it's just less work this way) - so in this regard I don't like the fact that there isn't done more with regard to tiers.

But the main gripe is the generic feel stats and additional growth are slapped on. "Asha's Tear", mind you, is working only on original growth, so Champions do NOT profit (you are stuck with ONE Champion unit per week, without outside dwellings): Asha's Tears 50% growth gives: 0 Champ, 1 Elite+, 2-4, Elites, 4-5 Core+ and around 10 regular Cores, which isn't a hell of a lot, considering that it's a build and you have to pay for it.

It feels bland.

Not to mention that the "small Elites" feel underwhelming. Lichs are shabby - worse than what you know were Mages. Wyvern as well. Look fine, but are more like H2 Rocs. H3's T-Birds feel WAY more powerful.
And then you have those 400+ HP monsters. Really, Swordmaster?

Imo, the power/worth of creatures are easy to compute without the abilities, and with abilities toned down it should be quite easy for them to balance this with more variation.

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