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| Thread: Following the HOMM Evolution |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted December 22, 2010 11:21 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 14:14, 27 Dec 2010.
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Following the HOMM Evolution
With the highly anticipated release of heroes 6 just beyond the horizon it is time to take another look at the evolution of the series and where it is headed. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of might&magic and interesting things are about to happen, you can bet there will be some surprises for the nostalgic fans like me  That said I only have the slightest clue about the might&magic series - with it falling under cepheus' domain, it would be enlightening if he made a similar overview. Perhaps it will put things into better perspective.
Heroes Chronicles is similar except more of an attempt at humour rather that a serious analysis. The evolution of magic has already been the focus in Secrets of Mana so I'll won't get much into it.
Now let's take a few steps back where it all begun..
Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest
The original heroes was created by Jon Van Caneghem of New World Computing, its origin inspired by King's Bounty. Might&Magic provided the setting and storyline but gameplay is mostly derived from the former, the concept of a hero navigating the adventure map, claiming treasures and hiring creatures to fight for him in turn-based combat.
In heroes 1 debuted with the four classic factions, the knights and barbarians representing the might side while the sorceresses and warlocks represented magic. Hero growth is defined by four stats that exist to this day, attack and defense favoured by might, spellpower and knowledge favoured by spellcasters. Each hero class starts with his own town, can build unique buildings and recruit his native units, fairly basic stuff. Having started the game after I'd played the rest, I found it amusing that knowledge here shows how many times you can cast a spell instead of defining your spellpoints What I really liked was the option to set a higher difficulty without handicapping your resources, a feature that sadly did not make it to the next installments.
Heroes of Might and Magic 2: The Succession Wars
Following the first game's success, a year later it was time for another installment. Back then it was a time where games were colourful, vibrant and fun, not plagued by gritty realism and woe-is-me dark storylines. Its aesthetics, art and music really gave this wonderful feeling that most of us remember with nostalgia, it had a soul.
The game was improved in both gameplay and storyline, the intro for instance was most immersive You could pick a side in the campaign, accept or decline missions, even switch sides!
Gameplay-wise it expanded as well. For one it introduced upgrades on certain units, even a triple upgrade for the warlock's dragons  Secondly aside from gaining stats with leveling, the skills were introduced, a now essential part of the series. Now spells could be cast according to your amount of spellpoints and you required wisdom skill to learn the higher level ones.
And of course who can forget the introduction of the wizards and necromancers? Both wonderful factions that have appeared ever since, gaining numerous fans. The game had a sequel called price of loyalty that introduced new spells, units and even new tracks for the existing towns.
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia
What many consider the cornerstone of the series, H3 was the second step in evolution, further improving the gameplay, adding more factions and units, a more coherent magic system, hero specialties and a more 'classic' non cartoonish look. Art, music, storyline went to another level. Not surprisingly when judging a new game of the series, most compare it to H3.
Now you could pick the campaign of your preference in any order you wanted and when you completed the starting ones further missions were unlocked. The story was more mature and added beautiful videos in the beginning of each mission. Each faction how had both a might and a magic class Opera did not make it to the soundtrack and it had a more epic feel instead of the H2 joyful tunes. Instead of digging up ultimate artifacts now we had the grail whose presence on the map gave an outstanding advantage Underground made its appearance for the first time, increasing the map's strategic options. New battlefields appeared like the echanted plains. Towns building plan became more complex. Armageddon's blade expansion introduced the artifact sets that combine into a super artifact
The core game added inferno and fortress that were soon to be joined by the elemental conflux. Amusingly the latter owes its existence to fan outrage at New Wold Computing's plans to introduce the Forge, a futuristic faction of cogs, wheels, and factories capable of creating fierce robot warriors that wield powerful hi-tech weaponry. While the forge still has a number of supporters the developers decided that it was not worth alienating the fans that were used to a fantasy medieval setting.
Anyway such good times, back when we had the syndrome of just one more round. At 3am. Countless hours spent that were totally worth it. Despite the changes the game played in much the same way while bring a lot of new content to the table. That said H2 was still more addictive
Scary.
Heroes of Might and Magic IV
The black sheep of the family, H4 gave mixed emotions to the fans. Some enjoyed the innovation it brought, others hated it but the truth is that it felt like a jumble of poorly implemented ideas thrown in together. Graphics and animations were criticized as plastic, video introductions for missions were cut aside from the stunning intro, balance was not all that good. But let's see what really changed.
For starters heroes could walk the battlefield! While probably not the best idea it was worth seeing it if once
Factions now had their own magic school. The random elemental system was dropped in favour of life, death, order, chaos and nature which allowed for new possibilities. Thankfully it was still possible to build an annex of 2 other types of magic so you were not restricted with just one. Also it was possible to mix nature with death magic and summon demonic creatures, man that felt good 
Skills were dumbed down - since skill mastery now had 5 levels, it took you 13 levels to get grandmaster of your ultimate skill. Which basically meant that you always took the same freaking skills even if you played a different faction since the effect was the same while under a different name.
Creature upgrades were kicked out in favour of a system that allowed you to pick between one unit or another. But considering that some units simply sucked or their dwelling's cost requirements were astronomical it kinda defeated the purpose. Let us not bring that up again.. Ever.
Did I mention the aberration that was the infernopolis?
Town economy was.. demolished. Just getting the city hall was absolutely nuts in terms of resources and it only added 250 gold to your income every day. Fortifications were outrageously expensive and didn't even boost creature growth. Which creature growth was.. daily. That was a good thing actually. If you sucked at planning ahead 
Heroes lost their individuality, no specials or different skills. Way to taking two steps back.
Simultaneous retaliation while fairer was more annoying than not.
Other features were caravans, flaggable windmills, potions, advanced hero classes, fog of war, town screen changing according to terrain and units allowed to move independently. With the exception of the latter two and maybe the potions I applauded the rest. Also while it lacked a random map generator it had a pretty kick@ss map editor.
Worth mentioning that its music and sheer campaign quality was simply outstanding Kudos to the people who wrote the storylines.
All things considered it was a fun game. If it were an independent game I feel people would have enjoyed it more, however being a part of the heroes series meant it had to meet certain expectations. Either way it was an interesting experiment.
Edit: Forgot to mention a major issue: Lack of random map generator!
Heroes of Might and Magic V
With the dissolution of New World Computing, the series begun slipping into oblivion. But then H5 was announced and heroes rose from their ashes once again, those were times of excitement and hope but also concern. It was a rocky start. Despite the save heroes movement its original release was.. flawed. Numerous bugs, a variety of technical problems, horrible balance. The patching process was slow and created almost as many problems as it solved. The first expansion while having some good parts, it suffered from lack of imagination and failed to bring something fresh to the table. Many fans were disillusioned. Then came tribes of the east to right the wrongs and redeem the series - which it actually did. It delivered originality, a satisfying amount of new content, improved balance and finally some campaign quality. It was not without fault but it brought the fun(and fans) back in the game.
But to get a better picture one must focus closer on the aspects and features of H5, one step at the time. Let's see the original failings.
- Ubisoft's first sin was poor AI with a large part of the fanbase being single player oriented. The AI showed no hints of intelligence, acted nothing like a human and cheated like there was no tomorrow. You had the feeling of fighting a cheating bot which was hardly my definition of fun. Even more annoying was that despite knowing where you(and the key locations of the map) are, massive discounts in building costs and possibly creeping bonuses it still had absolutely no chance against a semi-good player. Nival revealed in an interview that it was intentional because humans want to win instead of actually face a good challenge(...)
- Second major issue was the lack of a map editor in the release. They later added it though a patch but it was nor user friendly neither intuitive. Scripts offered a lot of freedom.. if you actually knew how they worked. Poor documentation did not help.
- Game balance was so bad it was unplayble for a long while after the release. Some DRASTIC changes in 1.3 suggested that Nival had next to no idea what they were doing.
- Because of balance, bugs, memory leaks and poor servers gaming in multiplayer was one sad story.
- Campaigns were notoriously bad. Gone was the old world, the good storytelling, the compelling characters, even the text boxes disappeared. What we got was poor animation sequences, no lip synch, a poorly told plothole-riddled storyline and an unevenly paced difficulty.
- Nival not only kept to the Russian forums, ignoring the rest of the fans but also made offensive remarks on occasion. Perhaps you remember oldboy. Ubisoft did little to pacify the fans since they were mostly absent from the forums.
- Game randomness was so high that it often rendered good strategy/tactics pointless.
- No might&magic heroes for each faction. Just one hero class per faction.
- Game felt too sluggish compared to previous ones..
Other minor complaints were lack of hero paperdoll which appeared later, poor interface design, dynamic balance, lack of female models, blatant warhammer rip offs, low amount of spells, weaker aesthetics than the previous games and the race themed lineups. Btw did anyone ever play ghost mode? Anyway things weren't all that bad.
The skill system was amazingly crafted, I consider it the best in the series. Each faction had a unique skillwheel and even a number of unique abilities. Its downside was that the amount of possible skills/abilities made leveling quite random, also some rare skills were often game-breaking. Racial skills was a brilliant move even if they could have been better implemented.
The initiative system added a new dimension to combat gameplay. It was a fresh and interesting change. Now you had to overview the flow of the battle instead of thinking on turns, required more foresight. Unfortunately its implementation was quite random.
The battles became a lot more interesting with a tactical depth not seen before. High amount of unit/hero specials in play, plenty of possible combinations.
Factions became a lot more distinctive than before, a decision that reflected on style, gameplay and visuals. Now each town played a lot differently than the rest.
The transition to 3D made the adventure map look more gorgeous than ever. If we exclude a few annoying cases like underground/trees obstructing your view I enjoyed the change immensely, can't imagine not zooming in or turning the camera around to admire the scenery anymore
Spell system had an interesting concept, new spells and some nice tweaks to returning ones.
Music was pretty decent though occasionally underwhelming. And artistic change, that's rather debatable. I think it was good to see a different perspective even if some concepts were not to my taste.
What did Hammers of Fate change of all those? Not much, basically added a faction, a few minor changes and a handful of adventure map locations. Oh and an random map generator that was way inferior to the one H3 had back in 1999. Fortress while an interesting faction gameplay-wise, was quite unoriginal, badly balanced and failed to strike a chord with most of the fans. Campaigns were nothing to write home about though decidedly better than the original game. But their maturity level could still use some work.
Edit: Long live simultaneous turns!
Tribes of the east on the other hand was a wave of change. Alternative upgrades, reintroduction of caravans, new spells, a totally reworked skillwheel that gave more freedom to factions, gave a duel editor - in short it made H5 seem like a new game! Most of the features had already been suggested by fans giving Ubi credit for listening, it was standalone and did not require you to install the previous titles and delivered a thoughtful, challenging campaign that was not for the faint of heart. The new faction, orcs, were immensely fun to play with and easy to pick up. Their bloodrage special enriched gameplay and allowed them to stand up to magic without having magic of their own which was quite a feat. That was not to say that rage was very balanced but it was mostly alright.
Drawbacks? There were a few, for one the alternative upgrades were not balanced with each other, in many cases you'd pick one 90% or more of the time. Many of them looked too similar to their originals. The skillwheel while more offering more freedom with builds, it made factions more uniform with many unique abilities now accessible to all. Also some paths became cluttered with useless abilities. Duel heroes remained as unbalanced as ever. Patch 3.1 not only took too long but also resumed the tradition of undocumented changes.. With Nival kicked out the promised 3.2 never came.
All in all when I look at H5 I see a lot of wasted potential, it was good but it could have been simply amazing with better coordination and a lesser amount of randomness. Despite claims of it being an H3 clone it really did have a lot of refreshing changes and was a worthwhile addition to the series. If only it had been given more time to develop and test..
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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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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted December 22, 2010 11:46 PM |
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Great Thread! Awesome, Elvin!
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SkrentyzMienty
Famous Hero
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posted December 22, 2010 11:47 PM |
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This is a great overview, Elvin
If no one minds I'll share my thoughts about the different games in general. I do not have time now, but for the moment the most apparent and disappointing changes as the series progresses (after H3) for me are:
- less and less factions
- less and less creatures
- a dumbed down magic system (with a decreased amount of spells in the first place)
- while atmosphere is great throughout all HOMMs, it's a common opinion that after H3 it lost quality.
- More emphasis on story (which isn't very good anyways) at the expense of creatures, heroes etc.
- introducing the race-based faction system (while some like it, evidently a bigger portion of players hate it. Not as much because the racial creatures themselves are bad, but they take places of more unique and interesting creatures)
- exclusion of some greatest iconic (not all, but that doesn't make them any less epic) creatures of HOMM: Medusa, Phoenix, Bone Dragon, Faerie Dragon, Beholder, Naga, the whole H3 Fortress lineup, Rocs/Thunderbirds (they could easily have replaced one of the monotonous generic Orcs in H6), Wyverns (same as Rocs), Behemoths, Efreeti, Nightmares, Gogs, Waspworts, Venom Spawns, to name a few.
- Not having male/female and magic/might Hero models (a result is that we have to endure watching Jhora from H5 Academy look like a little bearded old man with a turban smoking some stuff  .
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted December 23, 2010 12:26 AM |
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Magic system after H3 is hardly dumbed down, if anything they have been better structured and more balanced. Though the H3 imbalance mostly comes from a handful of totally overpowered spells and bad spell distribution across the schools Decreased amount of spells does suck though.
Atmosphere in H4 is very strong though I will agree with H5. I could say the same about the storyline.
Gogs, waspwarts and venom spawns iconic?
Will get to the race-based lineups later.
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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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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted December 23, 2010 12:29 AM |
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Good job Elvin, you have a knack for this "looking-back" stuff. Now I want to step back in time and start it all over again
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"Do your own research"
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Agent_00_BLeRD
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 07:27 AM |
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Ahhh...brings back memories. H2's Knight's town with upgrades for every level and the troops STILL being weaker than average. Wondering how the enemy managed to get 60 ogre lords and then cursing their 60 hp (40?). The awesome phoenix (with only 100 hp though). And those cheats listed on signboards through the campaign.
And to think when I first saw the name of this game, I thought it was just "some guide or walkthrough for the M&M series, listing the different characters in that game".
H4's campaigns were the best. The story was so, so, so captivating that it was a HOMM within a HOMM. I would skip turns so I could read the next part. And in most places, you actually lived through that story. I really wish there's something like this in H6. I would take text based awesome stories over a small cutscene any day.
Awesome thread Elvin!
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted December 23, 2010 09:04 AM |
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VokialBG
Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
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posted December 23, 2010 09:29 AM |
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Edited by VokialBG at 09:30, 23 Dec 2010.
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Short after H4 many fans returned H3. After H5 many returned to H3 too, it took a bit longer. After H6 it will happen the same.
What is needed for a good Heroes game?
- End of the comics graphics;
- Old heroes and story is back;
- Old towns and their creatures are back;
- Insert the best of H3.5, H4 and H5 to H3;
- Something new, but not radical (like commanders, third upg., new bonus buildings, new towns, map location, boosses, spells, etc...);
Done.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted December 23, 2010 09:37 AM |
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Thanks guys!
@Agent_00_BLeRD
Yeah pretty much agreed. Funny you mention ending turns for the text boxes, used to do that with heroes chronicles. I was playing faster than the storyline unfolded so I saved before finishing the mission to see what happens next
For those that haven't touched the chronicles I recommend the clash of dragons and the sword of frost. Will resume the review with the H5 installment later today, I think it is the most interesting addition to the series in that it was both a great success as well as a great failure depending how you look at it. H6 has been heavily influenced from its reception and corrected many of its flaws as you will see.
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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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MattII 
Legendary Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 09:59 AM |
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Quote:
What is needed for a good Heroes game?
- End of the comics graphics;
- Old heroes and story is back;
- Old towns and their creatures are back;
- Insert the best of H3.5, H4 and H5 to H3;
- Something new, but not radical (like commanders, third upg., new bonus buildings, new towns, map location, boosses, spells, etc...);
Done.
You missed out a couple of points:
- Well balanced factions and game mechanics.
- Computer players that take at maximum 20 seconds per turn.
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Agent_00_BLeRD
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 10:31 AM |
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Quote:
- Computer players that take at maximum 20 seconds per turn.
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VokialBG
Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
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posted December 23, 2010 10:56 AM |
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Quote:
For those that haven't touched the chronicles I recommend the clash of dragons and the sword of frost.
It's best to follow the story, one by one, or it's pointless...
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted December 23, 2010 11:06 AM |
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Not so. The rest are more like standalones that show bits and pieces of Antagarich lore. While enjoyable they were not as challenging nor interesting as the above nor did you have to play them to follow the story, in fact they had zero relation to the H3 current events at the time.
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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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SkrentyzMienty
Famous Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 11:32 AM |
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Quote:
Magic system after H3 is hardly dumbed down, if anything they have been better structured and more balanced. Though the H3 imbalance mostly comes from a handful of totally overpowered spells and bad spell distribution across the schools Decreased amount of spells does suck though.
Atmosphere in H4 is very strong though I will agree with H5. I could say the same about the storyline.
Gogs, waspwarts and venom spawns iconic?
Will get to the race-based lineups later.
When I said magic is dumbed down I was actually referring to what we know about H6  IMO the best magic system was in H4 actually, because every faction had their OWN magic school, all of them were pretty balanced and unique, and it further made them play distinctively different from each other. As for the amount of spells, H3 and H4 were very satisfying, in H5 it made me wanna cry.
Yes, in H4 atmosphere was really good and unique, while still it was different from previous HOMMs didn't make it any more magical and worthwile. I was really referring to H5 there. I actually think that, apart from graphics (which actually had something going for them and weren't that bad), and no unit upgrades, H4 would have been received far more positively because it DOES have great aspects. Take the awesome MUSIC in H4 for example, at times I found it better than H3 even .
If you look I said "some iconic creatures, and even if not, doesn't make them any less epic" . So, while obviously Gogs, Waspworts and Venom Spawns weren't ICONIC, as they only appeared in one title, they were GREAT designs, ideas. Personally, I would LOVE to have Waspwort back in Sylvan (seriously, how can such a great idea of a carnivorous plant not make it further than H4?), have Waspworts in e.g. Dungeon (they fit with the poison theme, or even in a H3 Fortress styled faction, as two places are free anyways because Hydra and Wyvern had left it ), and it's a shame Gogs didn't make it to Inferno in H6, could have easily taken place of the ridiculous Maniac.
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Agent_00_BLeRD
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 06:25 PM |
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Quote:
When I said magic is dumbed down I was actually referring to what we know about H6 IMO the best magic system was in H4 actually, because every faction had their OWN magic school, all of them were pretty balanced and unique, and it further made them play distinctively different from each other. As for the amount of spells, H3 and H4 were very satisfying, in H5 it made me wanna cry.
There were some common spells in H4 in different schools (fatigue/slow, snake strike/first strike, speed/haste). And order magic shined more than any other. With spells like displacement, teleport, town gate, mass slow, mass forgetfulness (it WAS order, right?), steal all enchantments, I don't think any other magic school came even close to being this awesome.
Quote:
Yes, in H4 atmosphere was really good and unique, while still it was different from previous HOMMs didn't make it any more magical and worthwile. I was really referring to H5 there. I actually think that, apart from graphics (which actually had something going for them and weren't that bad), and no unit upgrades, H4 would have been received far more positively because it DOES have great aspects. Take the awesome MUSIC in H4 for example, at times I found it better than H3 even .
The adventure map graphics were the most beautiful in H4, better than all the other series. They were lush and vibrant with color and...just made you want to play the game. After playing H2, I was very disappointed with the dull adventure map colors in H3 (and dull adventure map music). H4 rose to the occasion with a fantastic map and fantastic musical score. More good music in H4 than any other installment.
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Meskyn
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 06:56 PM |
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just awesome Christmas gift
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sunderlandbg
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 23, 2010 08:04 PM |
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It's great,thank you very much for this!
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einomida
Known Hero
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posted December 23, 2010 09:08 PM |
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Edited by einomida at 21:08, 23 Dec 2010.
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Awesome game
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SKPRIMUS
Promising
Supreme Hero
The One and the Prime
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posted December 24, 2010 10:11 AM |
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@Elvin: Nice how a good player like yourself actually played them all & campaigns as well
But no mention of degradation of AI after H3? (choices for computer player is probably too complex?, but still competence of AI is big part of game for me, having quitted H4 after a couple of single-player non-campaign games...& ofc others have mentioned the impossibility of playing large RMG 1 vs 7 AI in H5 )
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Hope defeats despair - "a blatant clue"
too many idiots in VW
"to lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose"
bashing orcus 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted December 24, 2010 11:21 AM |
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Edited by Elvin at 09:25, 27 Dec 2010.
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Good Lord I forgot one of the most crucial elements! I keep delaying that update, have been busy plus wanted to do it justice
Ready!
Edit:
Seriously guys nothing to add?
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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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