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Heroes Community > Heroes 7+ Altar of Wishes > Thread: Why didn't Heroes 4 kick in like a bomb & Wishes for Heroes 5
Thread: Why didn't Heroes 4 kick in like a bomb & Wishes for Heroes 5 This thread is 2 pages long: 1 2 · NEXT»
Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted September 28, 2002 03:26 PM
Edited By: Nidhgrin on 28 Sep 2002

Why didn't Heroes 4 kick in like a bomb & Wishes for Heroes 5

Since I'll have broadband internet soon, this week I installed heroes 3 on my fastest computer.  I launched the game in order to check if it worked smoothly (it had been months since I last played) and BAM! I was hooked again.  Hours later, my eyes started to hurt so I watched the clock.  It was 2 a.m. and I had to get up at 6.30, ouch!  How did this happen?  With heroes 4 I atleast take time to go to the bathroom every now and then, watch the time every hour or so and go to sleep when I get tired (well not in the middle of a turn, but still...).  The next evening I played heroes 3 again and I started to wonder what was so different between heroes 3 and 4?  What makes heroes 3 more appealing/addictive to me than heroes 4?

Below you'll find my conclusions.  I think most people will agree with them, and I sincerely hope that heroes 5 (if that game is to be made) won't include the same 'flaws' the 4th version has.  I'm not at all saying that heroes 4 is a bad game, no.   I want to go over all the points where heroes 3 and 4 differ, and look if it can be considered as an improvement or a flaw.

1.  Music, sound: In one word great, a superb musical score that could directly come from a movie or a play.  Marvellous!  Sound effects are not quite that impressive, but not worse than sound effects from other games in the heroes series

2.  Fewer creature types, no upgrades! - greater difference between creature stats, every creature has its own specialty: Though I think it's a pity that there are so few creature types left and some of my favourite ones are gone (wyvern, gorgon, dread knight, lich, pit lord), I believe this is an improvement.  The creatures have more character and are much more distinct.  The removal of upgraded creatures is seen as a tragic event by many.  I don't think it's that catastrophical, upgrades were merely the same creatures with slightly altered stats and perhaps a specialty added.  Overall, I like what they did with the creatures in heroes 4.

3.  Monsters move on map, danger zone around monsters, map changing scripts - passive monsters, static map: I like the new map scripts that blow up rocks or other structures to reveal new passages.  On the moving monsters thing I'm not sure yet.  It could make exploring more exciting or dangerous.  I don't think it's a flaw, plus it can be turned off.

4.  Heroes take active part in battle, the artifacts they carry have in-combat effect, heroes can die, hero stats don't automatically carry over to creatures, creatures lose movement points together with the hero: In the beginning I disliked this.  Now I've come to the point where the building of good heroes is one of my favourite occupations during the game.  The new system of prisons and rescueing heroes is interesting and some artifacts give really special combat situations.  Disabling chaining was probably a good idea, the caravan system and automatic collection of resources from mills, ... cancels the need for mule heroes which is also quite nice.

5.  Heroes don't have specialties anymore, they all start the same.  Skills are now mastered at 5 different levels: The idea to master skills at 5 different levels is an improvement, the idea to let heroes start with one secondary skill + one subskill is not.  The whole new system is designed to allow more possibilities to create good heroes.  In Heroes 3 there were a basic set of secondary skills everyone wanted, so higher level heroes turned out to be very much the same.  They managed to create more diversity in heroes 4, but the result is that the heroes are much less personal.  When you encountered Crag Hack or Tazar in heroes 3, you already knew 'Trouble!'...  You met Bron and without looking to his army you figured 'Basilisks'.  Solmyr, Thant, ...  Every hero was unique in a special kind of way, even though the secondary skills of all heroes turned out to be roughly the same, they all had personality.  I would want to see this back in heroes 5, heroes 4 heroes have less personality.

6.  Towns have fewer buildings that in heroes 4, you must select between level 2-4 creature structures, daily creature production: The selection between  level 2-4 creature builders is very interesting, but together with the decrease in total number of creatures and the decrease to 4 different creature levels you remain with 5 potential units for your army.  That's not much!  I don't regard this as a disimprovement, but I don't applaud at it either.  The daily creature production is different, but not necessarily better.  One of the consequences of the choice you have to make between creature builders is that there are less buildings to construct.  In general there are just less buildings to create, the builder experience is a bit lost.  The importance of towns has dropped dramatically with the arrival of powerful heroes that in many cases may replace creatures, less income from city hall, easy to build mage guilds.  This is not cool for builder-players.

7.  No multiplayer feature: It was a big mistake to bring the game out without multiplayer.  The patch solves this now, months later.  But you have to download that patch and install it, update it if a new version comes out...  Multiplayer should have been with the game at the release.  I hope they decide not to do this for heroes 5.

8.  Graphics, animations, inside town view, isometric view: Though not all of the creature graphics and animations are bad, many are below average.  Behemoth look like overweight apes, Phoenix are fried chickens, Leprechauns *censored* *censored* ...   The spell effects are often not very impressive and the animations are way too fast and bumpy.  The positioning of buildings in the towns is equal for all towns.  This may be good for n00bs, but it's incredibly dull and it removes one of the most fantastic things in heroes 2-3: the homecoming feeling.  I'm not sure if other players have experienced this, but if I started with a town (any town) and I came back there to build something or recruit troops, I had the feeling of coming home.  Something like 'this is my headquarters', 'if I lose it I must have it back asap, even though I have other equally built out towns'.  This is completely lost in heroes 4.  The colors in heroes 4 are less vivid, anywhere in the game.  Looks more realistic, true.  But I liked the colors from H2/3 better.  I'm not fond of the isometric view either.  It makes things look weird, and the brilliant changing combat backgrounds are gone.  All in all, the graphics, layout decisions and animations are a disappointment in heroes 4.  They wanted to make the game look more real, more professional perhaps, more accessible to players new to the series.  But by doing so they have reduced the magical heroes 1-3 feel.

9.  Bugs, high hardware requirements: A game with bugs is a beta version.  In my opinion 3do has released a beta version of their game, that's not recommendable, even with later patch releases.  The hardware requirements are skyhigh when compared to heroes 3.  Most players don't care about flashy graphics, isometric views and all.  They just want to be immerged into a wonderful universe where they can only survive by using their strategical and tactical insight and skills.  I hope the requirements for heroes 5 won't be too much more than those for heroes 4.

When compared to heroes 3, heroes 4 is a good game, but the graphics could have been better, it shouldn't have been released before all the bugs were out and multiplayer included, plus the map editor (random generator) could also be improved.  Hopefully 3do realises these flaws, takes all the good from heroes 3, all the good from heroes 4 and some extra spice to make a really great, enchanting and fresh heroes of might and magic 5.

EDIT: Removed the rating and edited the final text.  After re-reading I figured that the text was breaking the game down.  This was not my original intention.  Heroes 4 is a great game and has much to offer on tactical and strategical level.  Heroes 4 strategy is even deeper and tougher than heroes 3 strategy imho.  But personally, I'm less addicted to heroes 4 than I was at the time heroes 3 had just come out.  I wonder why that is and tried to figure it out.  Still I don't know.  Multiplayer may change that, but having played neither of the two games online I can't say anything about that yet.
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tuapui
tuapui


Famous Hero
Poetic Psycho Baby BlackDragon
posted September 28, 2002 03:58 PM

Heroes 4 only got me playing for 2 weeks. All other games i played dragged me 2 months or more disappointing indeed.
Hope they make a super patch for heroes 4 that deletes the game and and replaces it with a heroes 3 clone.
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Kujo
Kujo


Known Hero
who loves to script.
posted September 28, 2002 04:11 PM

lol good one. u guys should try making maps if you haven't. it made it alot more fun for me to play, and ive played heroes 4 for atleast 6+ months
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Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted September 28, 2002 04:17 PM

Quote:
lol good one. u guys should try making maps if you haven't. it made it alot more fun for me to play, and ive played heroes 4 for atleast 6+ months

I'll try that, though I liked the map editor from heroes 3 better (and the random map creator...).  I hope multiplayer will change stuff, the last couple of weeks I find myself playing heroes 4 much less.  The game itself is great, I've been playing it up till now.  But since I booted up heroes 3 on tuesday...
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Odvin
Odvin


Promising
Famous Hero
posted September 28, 2002 05:24 PM
Edited By: Odvin on 28 Sep 2002

I don't know. I find Heroes IV as great and... let's say 'charming', as Heroes III were, although in many points its another game entirely. Those guys from 3DO simply saved Heroes series' popularity, and this is already a good job. Good job 3DO!
I don't know why so many players hate Heroes IV. Gameplay in H4 is new, and anything that is new cannot be perfect. Old H3 gameplay formed during seven years of game development. Compared to it, H4 seems buggy and uncompleted. But that's natural! You cannot release a perfect game with no similar games to be taken as a template.
My opinion is that NWC/3DO have done everything to make game better. That is: good music, good graphics (except some creatures), interesting enough story (although I think they didn't need to destroy Enroth), fresh look on the gameplay, and, finally, a scripting system for bored gamers.
Now these are joined by a multiplayer patch and an expansion pack (which is rather interesting as far as I know).
I remember myself in the first weeks after Heroes IV release. I thought, "That's a bad game! The gameplay is ****, the music is ****, everything else is ****". But in fact I just didn't want Heroes to become a new game. I didn't want to study new rules, I didn't want to adapt myself to Heroes IV. But now, when I've played and studied it a little, I understand that Heroes IV are much better than I first thought.
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Lith-Maethor
Lith-Maethor


Honorable
Legendary Hero
paid in Coin and Cleavage
posted September 28, 2002 06:03 PM

problems HoMM4 has at the moment...

lousy resource management (party because of Windows) and lack of Random Map Generator... in many ways the game is far better than HoMM3
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IYY
IYY


Responsible
Supreme Hero
REDACTED
posted September 28, 2002 07:14 PM

I agree with Lith, H4 is a good game but on my old computer it's way too slow and that makes it a lot less fun. I hope that H5 is gonna be a better H4, with tons more creatures and a better engine.
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tuapui
tuapui


Famous Hero
Poetic Psycho Baby BlackDragon
posted September 28, 2002 08:13 PM

its not that homm 4 sucks its just that the rest of the homm series dont suck as much... homm 4 is quite "no strategy involved" kinda thing. Don't need to think. Everything is laid out for you. You wanna melee, u choose this this and this. You want ranged, you choose this this and that. Good thing at least they know the worth of dragons. They should have as much dragons as homm 3 though. I miss the azure, crystal and reds, but i like the faerie makeover. The old one tends to make me avoid them. (Looks like my grandma!) Anyhow i dun mind homm 4, i just prefer all the other in the series.
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Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 29, 2002 01:46 PM

Quote:

1.  -

2.  I don't miss the upgrades but they could have made more creatures.

3.  Exploring is better. I don't see this as a problem in H4. It's one of the things that's been improved. Swamp terrain has become duller, but many other things are better.

4.  While Heroes in armies is good, one of the great flaws in H4 is that Heroes tend to develope alike or developement is a result of Luck rather than choice from the player. (And this is all the result of over-reliance of Combat. nearly all Heroes have combat plus one more skill, and they never really get the time to develope anything else. They should also redo the XP level-up schemes. Level should bot be decided by how many Trees of Knowledge the Map maker places on the Map.) Agree on chaining and caravans, but there are still room for some improvement in these areas.

5.  Heroes are very similar in the beginning and tend to develope the same way. One skill + combat, and then the game is ended on small/medium maps. There's alot of room for improvements here:
- Increase the requirement for attaining advanced classes.
- Give 4-5 skills to new heroes. 2-3 skills in one skill group (decided by base class), and 2 skills in another group (dependent on biofile.)
- Have Hero race specialities.
- Have Might/magic specialities.

The hero system should still strive for balance, but heroes needs to get more personal in their characters.

6.  It seems lately that a lot of players think choosing between the units are bad or that more units should be available in Towns. Do not players want to make a choice? There are less building in the city also for other builds. Late game players have an over-abundance of resources. Towns should have some builds that are high on resources that would be built late game, and not needed early on.

8.  The Town views have been lamented in many topics before. The most important for the town is the identity of the town. Terrain can matter but should do so to a lesser degree.

9.  Well H3 was also buggy when released if I recall correctly. Some bugs where no doubt present because the release was pressed out before the game was finished.

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Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted September 29, 2002 02:23 PM

I agree with most of what you write here Djive, except for the bug-thing.  Heroes 3 did have some bugs - extraordinary game situations brought these up.  But heroes 3 didn't have a memory leak or game crashes when I first installed it.  Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones where heroes 3 ran stable on my system, but as far as I know I never had to patch heroes 3 or AB.
Some more ideas...  In heroes 4 they've given the heroes a very interesting new turn.  As Odvin already said, 3do didn't have a template to base the new hero-system on.  Hence the problem that the heroes are less personal, and all share the same skill (Combat) plus one additional skill.  Hero race specialties are one way to break through that (e.g. skeleton heroes that would have the abilities undead and skeletal).  Might and magic specialties are another option with great potential.  An unmentioned possibility could be that creatures in the hero's army gain specific bonuses/skills as long as they remain under the hero's control.  Looking at it from a different angle, a hero could even learn certain skills/abilities from the creatures in his/her army upon levelling up (a separate skill eagle eye perhaps?).  I believe there are countless ways the hero system could evolve into.  Let's hope heroes 5 will allow players to create really personal and powerful heroes, as this is one of the key (and fun) parts of the game (and has always been).
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Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 29, 2002 03:43 PM
Edited By: Djive on 29 Sep 2002

A bug is a bug. H3 didn't have bugs on the same levelas H4, but there were a number of things that broke the game as in H4.

The first version of AB was stable. Most of the bugs in H3 had been removed when AB hit the shelves.

I've another idea for the defence/combat. Simply make the main increase of the Hero defence rating a part of level-up, giving +1 defence per level and starting up at a defence level of 15 (Basic Combat). At level 6, all heroes would have defence of 20 (Advanced Combat). At level 16, heroes have defence of 30 (Expert Combat) and if they have the GM Toughness with 100% then the barbarian would be roughly as tough as GM Combat Barbarian. This approach also makes armour a lot more desirable for all characters. An increase say from 30 to 55 (in defence) will stop a lot more damage than an increse from 60 to 85.

Combat could then have used the Toughness approach and increased hero hitpoints with say 20-100%. An increase of hitpoints is nice but it's not as necessary to get as the boost in Defence. With these changes the skill offerings could be made a lot more diverse in H4.

I believe they should offer Hero race speciality and hero race animations. Each sex & race should have an animation of a Mage, Thief, Warrior and Lord. Alignment may also affect animations but in a lesser way. (Could for instance change the colouring of the clothing and the general style, but the same basic animations can be used.) The alignment restrictions is there to reduce the number of combinations a bit. A colour change of an exisiting animation should be alot easier to do than doing another animation from scratch. H2 also used this to a good effect for creature upgrades.

The creature bonus is the might specialization bonus I generally think of.

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Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted September 30, 2002 12:49 PM

These two are very great ideas!  Changing Combat into a primary skill (like attack/defense/sp...) would make hero buildup much more versatile.  Hero race specialties has been mentioned before but nonetheless it's a superb idea.
What could also be implemented is weapon requirements.  Mages wielding greatswords should atleast be penalized on their spellcasting abilities.  As should warriors receive a smaller bonus from magical artifacts.
A totally different idea is one about magic retaliation.  I dislike seeing my spellcasters crushed by enemy spellfire while they're just standing there dying.  It would be nice if spellcasters retaliated with damage dealing spells when magical damage was inflicted upon them.  This could be made a hero skill also since giving it to all creature spellcasters might potentially unbalance the game.
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Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted September 30, 2002 02:25 PM

The minor artifacts and treasures do have penalties to other stats. Chainmails increases spell point cost and movement and so on. Warriors are penalized for using wands and so on since all the spells are cast using 100% efficency. The mage with the proper training will do more damage with the same wand.

Magic retaliation. Consider this:
your GM combat/melee/archery barbarian with good weaponry and knowledge of Magic Fist is targeted by implosion, and uses up the retaliation for the round by casting that spell.

Unfortunately for the barb he's then attacked by the rest of your creatures... And no retaliation left. Tough luck I say. You could get even more comical result if the opponent casts wasp swarm and you retaliated to that spell also. Barbarian loses the turn and retaliates with magic fist.

I'm not sure I'd want the retaliation even with the Mage. It could use up valuable spellpoints which I would rather use for another spell. And besides not all magic schools have damaging spells.

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Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted September 30, 2002 03:21 PM

That's why the magic retaliation should be a subskill.  You could choose to master this skill, or choose not to.  You're right, possibly the loss of spellpoints would be more a nuisance than the retaliation itself would be good.  But I sure would like to see the face of the enemy spellcasting hero that gets more damage back than he/she inflicted
To counter the loss of retaliation, another subskill could be involved giving a hero one (or more) additional retaliation(s) each turn.  That way, your barb could do minor magical retal damage, then retaliate at full strength melee or ranged.
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DonGio
DonGio


Promising
Famous Hero
of Clear Water Mountain Clan
posted October 01, 2002 10:18 AM

Kudos to Nidhgrin for achieving the "impossible":

Having a constructive debate about HOMMIV.

I think your initial post (only read it after the editing) was objective, distanced and fair. Perhaps a bit too fair, but nonetheless.

I agree with you on many things, and disagree on some:

Quote:
Since I'll have broadband internet soon, this week I installed heroes 3 on my fastest computer.  I launched the game in order to check if it worked smoothly (it had been months since I last played) and BAM! I was hooked again.  Hours later, my eyes started to hurt so I watched the clock.  It was 2 a.m. and I had to get up at 6.30, ouch!  How did this happen?  With heroes 4 I atleast take time to go to the bathroom every now and then, watch the time every hour or so and go to sleep when I get tired (well not in the middle of a turn, but still...).  The next evening I played heroes 3 again and I started to wonder what was so different between heroes 3 and 4?  What makes heroes 3 more appealing/addictive to me than heroes 4?


This, I recognize, and it's a good way of explaining how I (and others with me) feel about HOMMIV. You just don't forget time and place, there's something that doesn't capture you the same way that the preceding games did.


Quote:

1.  Music, sound: In one word great, a superb musical score that could directly come from a movie or a play.  Marvellous!  Sound effects are not quite that impressive, but not worse than sound effects from other games in the heroes series


Here I at least partially disagree. While the music isn't poor, it fails to live up to the standard that was set with the excellent score of HOMMII. HOMMIII was one step back, and HOMMIV four more, musicwise. The music is more generic, less distinct, more like muzak. I, for one, would love to see more of the HOMMII approach: Loan from famous composers, use a symphony orchestra and opera singers, make standalone music pieces.

You can take the HOMMII cd, put it in your stereo and just listen to it. You can't do that with III or IV (and I'm not talking about physically can't because the music is encoded now, I mean you wouldn't, even if you could).

Quote:
2.  Fewer creature types, no upgrades! - greater difference between creature stats, every creature has its own specialty: Though I think it's a pity that there are so few creature types left and some of my favourite ones are gone (wyvern, gorgon, dread knight, lich, pit lord), I believe this is an improvement.  The creatures have more character and are much more distinct.  The removal of upgraded creatures is seen as a tragic event by many.  I don't think it's that catastrophical, upgrades were merely the same creatures with slightly altered stats and perhaps a specialty added.  Overall, I like what they did with the creatures in heroes 4.


I don't know exactly why, but I sort of miss the upgrades. If nothing else, it presented a tactical dilemma (can I afford the money and time to upgrade this building versus building a new creature dwelling or a castle (HOMMIII)?).

Quote:
3.  Monsters move on map, danger zone around monsters, map changing scripts - passive monsters, static map: I like the new map scripts that blow up rocks or other structures to reveal new passages.  On the moving monsters thing I'm not sure yet.  It could make exploring more exciting or dangerous.  I don't think it's a flaw, plus it can be turned off.


This is definitely a good change in my book.

Quote:
4.  Heroes take active part in battle, the artifacts they carry have in-combat effect, heroes can die, hero stats don't automatically carry over to creatures, creatures lose movement points together with the hero: In the beginning I disliked this.  Now I've come to the point where the building of good heroes is one of my favourite occupations during the game.  The new system of prisons and rescueing heroes is interesting and some artifacts give really special combat situations.  Disabling chaining was probably a good idea, the caravan system and automatic collection of resources from mills, ... cancels the need for mule heroes which is also quite nice.


The automatic resource collection was inevitable, 'cause if there ever was an example of useless and annoying micro managment in a game, that was it! The heroes in combat thing, I don't know, really. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either, and altogether, the impression is more on the good side.

Quote:
5.  Heroes don't have specialties anymore, they all start the same.  Skills are now mastered at 5 different levels: The idea to master skills at 5 different levels is an improvement, the idea to let heroes start with one secondary skill + one subskill is not.  The whole new system is designed to allow more possibilities to create good heroes.  In Heroes 3 every hero was unique in a special kind of way, even though the secondary skills of all heroes turned out to be roughly the same, they all had personality.  I would want to see this back in heroes 5, heroes 4 heroes have less personality.


Yes, we must have the unique heroes back (and also that awful generic biography "Tazar woke up one morning under a blue sky. It was supposed to be red. Now he tries to get back to his home world." Ptui!!).

Quote:
6.  Towns have fewer buildings that in heroes 4, you must select between level 2-4 creature structures, daily creature production: The selection between  level 2-4 creature builders is very interesting, but together with the decrease in total number of creatures and the decrease to 4 different creature levels you remain with 5 potential units for your army.


Nothing to say

Quote:
7.  No multiplayer feature: It was a big mistake to bring the game out without multiplayer.  The patch solves this now, months later.  But you have to download that patch and install it, update it if a new version comes out...  Multiplayer should have been with the game at the release.  I hope they decide not to do this for heroes 5.


Nothing to say

Quote:
8.  Graphics, animations, inside town view, isometric view: Though not all of the creature graphics and animations are bad, many are below average.  Behemoth look like overweight apes, Phoenix are fried chickens, Leprechauns *censored* *censored* ...   The spell effects are often not very impressive and the animations are way too fast and bumpy.  The positioning of buildings in the towns is equal for all towns.  This may be good for n00bs, but it's incredibly dull and it removes one of the most fantastic things in heroes 2-3: the homecoming feeling.  I'm not sure if other players have experienced this, but if I started with a town (any town) and I came back there to build something or recruit troops, I had the feeling of coming home.  Something like 'this is my headquarters', 'if I lose it I must have it back asap, even though I have other equally built out towns'.  This is completely lost in heroes 4.  The colors in heroes 4 are less vivid, anywhere in the game.  Looks more realistic, true.  But I liked the colors from H2/3 better.  I'm not fond of the isometric view either.  It makes things look weird, and the brilliant changing combat backgrounds are gone.  All in all, the graphics, layout decisions and animations are a disappointment in heroes 4.  They wanted to make the game look more real, more professional perhaps, more accessible to players new to the series.  But by doing so they have reduced the magical heroes 1-3 feel.


I agree with your conclusions, but think you're way too easy on HOMMIV here. The graphics are awful. As simple as that. If the HOMMIV look is more realistic, then I live in some kind of sick universe, 'cause when I look out the window, I don't see that freaky and weird HOMMIV nature, it looks more like the beautiful landscape from HOMMIII (OK, maybe not exactly, but more so, still). Here are the graphic elements that annoy me the most:

1. Trees/forest - For me, this was probably the single most "cozy" thing about HOMMII and III. I especially loved the evergreens with snow on. It looked perdy.
In HOMMIV, they've only got single trees! "Yes, now I know, it looks so ridiculous when the hero is towering over the forest, why don't we make giant standalone trees, taller than mountains!MuhahahHAHAH!!"
In my opinion, the heroes and creatures are tokens, they're not supposed to be scaled in size (if you want realism, how about seeing the hero's army, instead of having him stuffing it in his pockets or saddlebags or wherever). It's more important that the rest of the world is in the same scale.

2. Towns - Like Nidhgrin points out, there's no homecoming feel. And as many others have pointed out, there's a bigger difference between a Life town on snow and on lava than a Life town and a Might town on grass. This is so utterly wrong, I gag on the towns of HOMMIV. It's not annoying with "random" placement within towns, it's fun and adds to the atmosphere.

3. Animations/units - My biggest peeve here is the units. In HOMMII, and to some degree in HOMMIII, the characters were drawn with care and artistic integrity (IYY, where are you, back me up on this!). In HOMMIV, it looks like they let some guy(s) with no expertise on graphics and design fool around with some 3D modeling program. The units have lost that personal touch, and they're ugly to boot.

4. Colouring - Rather than more realistic, I would say the colours went from being vivid and fresh to pale, sickly and fluorescent! I mean, is this Heroes of Axeoth or Chernobyl?

Quote:
9.  Bugs, high hardware requirements: A game with bugs is a beta version.
All true, I agree with you.

Quote:
When compared to heroes 3, heroes 4 is a good game, but the graphics could have been better, it shouldn't have been released before all the bugs were out and multiplayer included, plus the map editor (random generator) could also be improved.  Hopefully 3do realises these flaws, takes all the good from heroes 3, all the good from heroes 4 and some extra spice to make a really great, enchanting and fresh heroes of might and magic 5.


My final words: Bring the Magic back to Heroes of Might... (atmosphere, people, atmosphere!)
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Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted October 01, 2002 01:40 PM

"I, for one, would love to see more of the HOMMII approach: Loan from famous composers, use a symphony orchestra and opera singers, make standalone music pieces."

I might be misinformed but didn't they do just that? (Hired professionals to do the music sound tracks.)

"I don't know exactly why, but I sort of miss the upgrades. If nothing else, it presented a tactical dilemma (can I afford the money and time to upgrade this building versus building a new creature dwelling or a castle (HOMMIII)?)."

You have the similar dilemmas now. Unless the map is extremely rich you won't be able to afford everything. In H4 is was wasteful to upgrade all the dwellings in all towns, so often you used TP to transport yourself to the correct towns and then back just to do the upgrading. I believe they've eliminated tedious micromanagement which wasn't really necessary.

They could have included some form of upgrade but the upgrade would immediately affect all creatures in your army instead. This would be suitable as a town dwelling. Once you've built the building (probably with an artifact similar to the grail) then as long as you control the twon with the building all creatures you control have an additional ability. This could be something like giving a spell caster a new spell, or a improve the stats of a certain creature.

"Yes, we must have the unique heroes back (and also that awful generic biography "Tazar woke up one morning under a blue sky. It was supposed to be red. Now he tries to get back to his home world." Ptui!!)."

Actually having this type of short biofile is fine by me. As long as the option to change the biofile for a hero exists in the game. It's map makers and players that create true characters. The game makers should just provide the edit possibility for the characters. Normally, you expect the game makers to make special bios only for the campaigns and a few select role-playing scenarios and then only for the characters that need a special biofile.

Then it's another thing that the biofile should affect starting skills and the like, but unfortunately it does not.


"I agree with your conclusions, but think you're way too easy on HOMMIV here. The graphics are awful. As simple as that."

Well, I'm not agreeing with you on that.

1. I can't say I've really noticed the trees. They are symbols and melt in well with the landscape. It's different from H3 but this is not necessarily bad or good. Realism is not an issue here. I want to see the full army, not seeeing it represented as individual units. It would clotter up the adventure map screen.

2. No comment on this one. I agree.

3. Animations/units - I don't agree at all on this one. You get to like most of the units after you've played a while. Most people dislike at least some of the units in H4 but at least personally I have a number of creatures which were poor in H3. The creatures do have style but you need to continue to play the game for some time before you find out what that style is. (and that is a personal experience).

4. Colouring - I overall don't agree with your view on the colouring. I do feel that the darker background colour on the review screens were a lot better in H3. I prefer contrast between the objects. There aren't that many creatures that have flourscent colouring. Leprechaun and Venom Spawn are the only ones that comes to mind. Two creatures is not much, you could even argue that it creates some diversity. Or did you have anything else in mind when saying fluorscent? (Some of the environments are a bit brighter in colouring in H4.)

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DonGio
DonGio


Promising
Famous Hero
of Clear Water Mountain Clan
posted October 02, 2002 10:42 AM

Quote:
"I, for one, would love to see more of the HOMMII approach: Loan from famous composers, use a symphony orchestra and opera singers, make standalone music pieces."

I might be misinformed but didn't they do just that? (Hired professionals to do the music sound tracks.)


Of course, J. Van Caneghem didn't make the music himself, that's not what I meant. In HOMMII, you see, Paul Romero (composer, although not that famous) borrowed from amongst others Goldberg's variations on Bach and Brahms as well, I think). So that was what I meant.


Quote:
Actually having this type of short biofile is fine by me. As long as the option to change the biofile for a hero exists in the game. It's map makers and players that create true characters. The game makers should just provide the edit possibility for the characters. Normally, you expect the game makers to make special bios only for the campaigns and a few select role-playing scenarios and then only fo the characters that need a special biofile.


I'm not looking for the really intricate and complex bio's, I just think it would be nice if they at least held some reference to what race and class they were, instead of totally generic bio's. You must agree, it kind of spoils the atmosphere when one of your heroes die, and for some reason you can't get him back, so you buy another one, and he has the exact same bio!

The worst thing is, when you check in the map editor, the heroes actually have their own bio's, very much like the ones I requested, but the game refuses to use them in anything other than the campaigns. Is this just my game, or is it like that for everyone?


Quote:

"I agree with your conclusions, but think you're way too easy on HOMMIV here. The graphics are awful. As simple as that."

Well, I'm not agreeing with you on that.


Well, this mostly comes down to taste and preferences, I guess, although with all your talk of vibrant and vivid colours, I'm thinking maybe you've got a better looking version of HOMMIV than me

Now how about some wishes for HOMMV?

I wish they would ditch the whole 3D thing. It's not working. I liked the good old 2D.

Wish well
DonGio
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Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted October 02, 2002 04:37 PM

At first I didn't really want to post this here, but I guess it won't hurt.  I'll formulate them as wishes for Heroes V, but they're actually ideas from an online RPG I'm currently working on.

In heroes 4, powerful spellcasters can annihilate entire armies.  That's is cool, but it's too easy to create such a powerful spellcaster.  At the end phase of a map I usually only use creatures for defense purposes or for lower level hero support.  This idea is to increase the importance of creatures and might in general.

New magic system (based on the Heroes 4 one)

- step one: triple the amount of level 1 spells, double the amount of level 2 spells, increase the amount of level 3 spells by 50%.

- increase the cost for the building of a mageguild (eg 5000 gold and 5 of all resources).

- mageguilds contain no spells when you build them.  They have but two levels.  A fixed amount of town specific spells can be researched at level one and two of the mageguild (Academy library could increase that amount perhaps).  For example 8 possible level 1 and 5 possible level 2 spells.  Researching costs gold and counts for a build in that town for that day.

- map structures that learn spells are now by default heavily guarded (especially level 3-5 map-mage guilds).

- artifacts that grant the hero spells should become major or relic.

- some additional skills could be involved such as Eagle Eye.  At the basic level, a hero learns 5-15% of an enemy spell in combat (given the fact they can cast spells from that alignment) maybe twice that amount if they themselves are the target.  When they've learned it for 100% they're able to cast it.  At the advanced, expert, master and grandmaster level, eagle eye would make a hero learn spells faster.  A hero could also learn certain spells from his own spellcasting creatures through eagle eye.

- magic resistance should not be allowed up to 100%.  75% as a maximum is more oppropriate here.


This idea would imho make the building of magic-relient heroes much more interesting and challenging.  Now there's a search for treasure, experience and artifacts.  This idea adds searching for spells to that (and careful choosing/paying for the ones you pick in your mage guild).

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Djive
Djive


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
posted October 02, 2002 05:01 PM

Barbarians vs. Spellcasters.

The Barbarians do more damage in hand to hand combat than the Wizards can ever do with their spells. The Barbarians need some power-ups or good artifacts for this, but generally the Barbarians out-guns the Wizard in damage capabilities.

Also notice: Only Chaos Mages do this amount of damage. The best spells in the other schools are level 2-3, and thus a lot less damage. Only armageddon can compete with the barbarians damage but then that spell works only well if the enemy has divided up things in a lot of stacks and you don't.

I believe 100% Magic Resistance should stay. I don't see a reason why a Hero should have 0% chance to defeat 500 Genies and a good chance to defeat say 500 Ogre Magi. Even 75% Magic Resistance is way too little to deal with damage dealing creatures. They will take out any Hero at any level.

A level 25 Hero with a good spell-book and decent speed can defeat the 100 Ogre Magi. Without 100% Magic Resistance, the Genies are probably undefeatable.

There are adventure Map research structures where you can buy spells in the expansion. That's where I think they belong. Towns shouldn't research spells, instead players should learn to cope with the spells they get.

(Players will just research the same spells over and over again, because they perceive them as better than the alternatives.)
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Nidhgrin
Nidhgrin


Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
posted October 02, 2002 06:33 PM


Well, perhaps allow 100% magical damage reduced, but only 75% spell immunity.  It's not the damage spells that make spellcasting heroes so great, but the nasty enchantments they can cast.  Indeed, large stacks of genies could icebolt your hero with ease with less than 100% magical damage reduced.  Magic resistance could also be a primary skill such as ranged defense and melee defense.  Maybe the same spells would be researched in every game, I just thought making spells harder to find would make the game more intrigueing.

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