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| Thread: Bored of the beta: a mini-review |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 11, 2011 08:11 AM |
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The tons of references to previous games were not placed as a distraction from the real problems. The lead level designer is to blame for his might&magic passion and of course the 25th anniversary 
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 11, 2011 08:12 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 08:13, 11 Jul 2011.
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I think Caneghem was initially invited but refused to join. By now he most likely no longer gives a damn about the series which have little to do with what he created back then.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 08:43 AM |
bonus applied by alcibiades on 12 Jul 2011. |
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However, we do not want to always play the same game, or do we?
Isn't the problem with sequels always the question what to keep and what to change? Isn't it always so that when there is no really staggering new stuff that immediately captures the attention, people are complaining about not enough novelty in the game, while when there IS some staggering new stuff, which comes on the expense of something old they are complaining about them missing the good old X and Y and hope things will return to good and true with the next installment?
There have always been a lot of people who felt that players should have more control over hero development.
It's clear that the old ways and the new ways are very different. With the old ways, there have been probabilities for Heroes being offered skills, and things had a good chance to become somewhat imbalanced as soon as heroes got access to improbable skills, something always possible with Witch Huts and stuff.
However, this could be tolerated as "improbable abberation". In Heroes 5, Sylvans are a pretty good example for really powerful stuff coming out of improbable skills - but since you can't do much except trying to maximize your chances for being offered them (which may lead to sub-optimal play up to the point of actually being offered sone of them), it doesn't necessarily influence the game, except when it "happens".
Now, it's clear that with freely pickable skills the balance must be better than that. WAY better, and nearly perfect, because otherwise the whole game breaks down into always picking the same stuff over and over again.
Our beta version is lightyears away from a satisfying balance, which is the problem because it doesn't allow a fair assessment. It would be the same thing, if with random picks the probabilities were off, always producing the same skills and abilities.
In any case I think that the system of picking your skills the way you like them deserved a chance to be tried, and it makes a lot of sense to wait and see how this will play, if and when the game is halfway well balanced, before we cry foul play.
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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 08:58 AM |
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Quote:
I think Caneghem was initially invited but refused to join. By now he most likely no longer gives a damn about the series which have little to do with what he created back then.
I doubt he ever gave a damn about anything he did over the last years  He abandonned Trion just before Rift was released and now he's burying himself in some obscure Command & Conquer project with EA *yuck*
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 11, 2011 09:03 AM |
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Quote:
However, we do not want to always play the same game, or do we?
Isn't the problem with sequels always the question what to keep and what to change? Isn't it always so that when there is no really staggering new stuff that immediately captures the attention, people are complaining about not enough novelty in the game, while when there IS some staggering new stuff, which comes on the expense of something old they are complaining about them missing the good old X and Y and hope things will return to good and true with the next installment?
At least that's what the developers seem to think - or fear. I'm not sure if it's actually like that in reality. Heroes 3 was about 95 % the same and 5 % new compared to Heroes 2, and was the most succesfull in the series. Heroes 4 was almost the opposite, with way more new stuff than old, and was on an overall basis if not a disaster (there are people who love that game) but overall very unsuccesfull. Maybe it was coincidence - but maybe it wasn't.
One thing is certain: When you try something new, you almost never get it (perfectly) right the first time. H6 skill and tier system is a perfect example of that. This means that if you want to change major things each time, you'll never get a game that's completely succesfull. I think Heroes 5 was a great attempt at changing some major stuff from Heroes 3. They could have taken the opportunity to polish that to make an exceptional game. But they didn't.
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What will happen now?
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 11, 2011 09:08 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 09:10, 11 Jul 2011.
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People seem to be disappointed from the execution of some ideas, not from the very ideas as far as I can see. While many will actually like the removal of the randomness from the skill selection, when it is done in an unimaginative manner like in the current beta build it just seems shallow. I doubt that someone will object against a similar concept which however involves unique skills for every faction, greater variety between Might and Magic, more unique skills (not, for example, the same +X to Y which is present in almost every skill tree) and finally - appropriate balance. While the latter still could be fixed and the skills could eventually be made more distinguishable from each other, the chances of the other two are much smaller because they are something "fundamental". I'll repeat myself once again and say that - with the quantitative reduction and changing for the worse of so many things that are considered essential, there is absolutely no excuse not to make the remainder of the game as close to perfect as possible. Which currently seems to be a rather remote possibility.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 09:53 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
However, we do not want to always play the same game, or do we?
Isn't the problem with sequels always the question what to keep and what to change? Isn't it always so that when there is no really staggering new stuff that immediately captures the attention, people are complaining about not enough novelty in the game, while when there IS some staggering new stuff, which comes on the expense of something old they are complaining about them missing the good old X and Y and hope things will return to good and true with the next installment?
At least that's what the developers seem to think - or fear. I'm not sure if it's actually like that in reality. Heroes 3 was about 95 % the same and 5 % new compared to Heroes 2, and was the most succesfull in the series. Heroes 4 was almost the opposite, with way more new stuff than old, and was on an overall basis if not a disaster (there are people who love that game) but overall very unsuccesfull. Maybe it was coincidence - but maybe it wasn't.
One thing is certain: When you try something new, you almost never get it (perfectly) right the first time. H6 skill and tier system is a perfect example of that. This means that if you want to change major things each time, you'll never get a game that's completely succesfull. I think Heroes 5 was a great attempt at changing some major stuff from Heroes 3. They could have taken the opportunity to polish that to make an exceptional game. But they didn't.
That's debatable.
Heroes 3 expanded Heroes 2 on a lot of fronts, which was what made it a success in the first place (but you wouldn't be able to produce a game that would expand on Heroes 5 today), but I think that the changes in the magic system, that were the only real change I can think about, were for the worse, compared with Heroes 2. Doesn't change the success, but magic was seriously flawed in H3, and that includes the availability of TP and DD.
However, it was exciting and looked elegant, and it was MORE and REFINED.
With H5, everyone I know said, ok, it's a H3 remake, and most people accepted that, but with a but: Now H6 should definitely be something NEW indeed.
That we will get.
And actually *I* at least do NOT want another H3 - nor a H5.
We'll see the state the game is in, comes the release.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 11, 2011 10:09 AM |
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Quote:
That's debatable.
Heroes 3 expanded Heroes 2 on a lot of fronts, which was what made it a success in the first place (but you wouldn't be able to produce a game that would expand on Heroes 5 today), but I think that the changes in the magic system, that were the only real change I can think about, were for the worse, compared with Heroes 2. Doesn't change the success, but magic was seriously flawed in H3, and that includes the availability of TP and DD.
However, it was exciting and looked elegant, and it was MORE and REFINED.
With H5, everyone I know said, ok, it's a H3 remake, and most people accepted that, but with a but: Now H6 should definitely be something NEW indeed.
That we will get.
And actually *I* at least do NOT want another H3 - nor a H5.
We'll see the state the game is in, comes the release.
H3 expanded a lot of things from H2, but it didn't change a lot. All creatures now had upgrades, instead of just some. More skills. Magic divided into schools - personally, I found H3 magic system to be pretty good (if poorly balanced); I liked H5 magic system even better, though.
I for one wouldn't mind H6 to be a refined version of H5. Make some features like Initiative more balanced, yes. Improve concept of alternate upgrades (more focus on dual roles, to make one not redundant (i.e. Master Hunter vs. Arcane Archer problem)). Improve magic system with more spells in each school. Improve skill system, for instance by making something akin to War Cries for might heroes to balance spells for magic heroes. Improve the concept of Ultimate Perks. Add dual hero classes. Of course adding new features like Tear/Blood is also cool (if implemented in a useful way). THAT for me would probably make the ultimate Heroes experience.
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What will happen now?
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 10:36 AM |
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That would definitely not be my ultimate heroes experience. For example, for towns I would prefer INDIVIDUAL building trees employing all features of all Homm games, combining them to an individual town. Like with Disciples.
Anyway, I pray that there will be no alternative upgrades this time, because, frankly, I think they would be wasted with Heroes 6.
Instead I hope for an alternative CREATURE for each tier, so that each town would have FOUR Core, FOUR Elites and TWO Champion units (but could built only 3/3/1).
Since that would probably unbalance everything then...
There will never be the ultimnate version of anything, thankfully.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 11:13 AM |
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I miss the randomness when levelling. Heroes 3 was a bit harsh but H6 is just blah, there's no excitment when you level really.
While this is an understandable matter of taste, I don't understand why so much fuss about this is made.
if you people lost majority of excitement because the level ups aren't random anymore, it seems to me you weren't playing for the game itself, but for the spike of adrenaline when level-uping. In other words, you played heroes a lotto draw once per few battles. If this is what turns you on, why the whole "heroes" addition? Why not poker? There's a lot of strategy to poker and a ton of randomness, I'm sure you'll love it.
Alternatively, if you want randomness, just put numbers to skills, roll a dice and pick between two. What's the problem? You need an implementation of randomness in interface to do this?
This way both sides can be happy, those wanting random and those not wanting random. It's hard to please both however if the system forces random, as I cannot make a definite choice using excel and random number generator
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 11:16 AM |
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Edited by Crayfish at 11:21, 11 Jul 2011.
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With H5, everyone I know said, ok, it's a H3 remake, and most people accepted that, but with a but: Now H6 should definitely be something NEW indeed. That we will get. And actually *I* at least do NOT want another H3 - nor a H5. We'll see the state the game is in, comes the release.
I'm fine with getting something new. As Zenofex pointed out, a lot of the ideas aren't bad in the basic concept, they're just badly or incompletely executed. It seems like the game needs another year of development to flesh out all its ideas.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 11:38 AM |
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That's the problem with what is called "beta".
I don't think the current "beta" is an accurate reflection of what the game actually is at this point.
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vaeledrin
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 11:39 AM |
bonus applied by alcibiades on 12 Jul 2011. |
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Why does it seem like people are clinging onto their idealized version of the game rather than working towards improving the current concept we're stuck with?
I see criticism mainly inspired from the past but very little about the current concept and execution. It's always 'Heroes 5' or 'Heroes 3' or what have you, which is all fine except we all do know that this is a reboot and that the devs are taking the game in a new direction.
So keeping a 'declinist' mentality just seems a bit backwards. I just think we should steer away from the comparisons to products of the past and just try to make the best of the current situation by working within the framework of Heroes 6 (and suggest realistic things not things that are complete overhauls).
I am really surprised to see comments like 'simplification is not the answer' when many simple games - that are easy to pick up and learn - are some of the most complex games on the planet (Go). People continually set up false dichotomies and dogmatic positions making it impossible to establish consensus or get anything going. In the end, you're left to wonder why we even bother to do this in this first place.
I also find that arguments about concepts such as random skills vs picking skills is polarized and unnecessarily so, not that it matters because we're not going back in this iteration of the series or reboot or whatever you want to call it. I wonder, again and again, why people refer to the previous games as if it has any relevance to the current state of affairs. Then people proceed to gleefully pick and choose traits of Y game and merge it with H6 without real regard to overall balance, function, and concept.
It is equally amusing and if not somewhat depressing that people continually suggest or even hint that innovation brings about disaster, point and case Heroes 4. Ultimately, as Zenofex points out, it's about the execution but not necessarily the idea and when they do go against the idea they do it unfairly without considering how it fits in with the whole system. For example, it's really just weird to ask for randomized skill sets with the current system of H6 which has streamlined most means of production. Well, whatever so much for that.
To add a bit of speculation I think that the devs looked upon H5 and said that whole world is up and done, sure we could polish it but that does not necessarily give us enough breathing room to explore new ideas.
Unlike some of the others here, I do feel that this game is more or less ready given some tweaks. I most likely feel this way because we have no real choice; the beta wasn't a real beta as we all have come to realize. Feedback may ultimately be different when it comes to actual net play and different maps and people playing on various settings. What's even worse is that we're still stuck with an old client, so much of our impressions now may be ... well all in vain.
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Crayfish
Known Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 12:10 PM |
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Edited by Crayfish at 12:12, 11 Jul 2011.
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Although it sucks they'd give us some weird ancient build for a beta, I really hope that is the case. It'd be awesome if the game does turn out to be light years ahead of the beta on release.
My wishlist for H6 is now, in this order:
- Faction and class-specific skill trees
- Might heroes have no access to magic, magic heroes have no access to might skills such as warcries
- Reasonable balance
- Full town screens
- Factions have access to one unique magic school
- No major bugs
- More adventure map objects
Actually, that makes it look not too far from completion. I'd be really happy with that game I think.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 12:23 PM |
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What's really fortunate however is that most of the game problems can be solved with number-tweaking, not mechanic change. Which means if they don't screw up, we should finally get a balanced HoMM game.
It's short on content atm, but I bet there will be expansions. Vanilla H5 also was rather short on content, compared to the state it's in after HoF and ToTe.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 11, 2011 12:34 PM |
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Quote:
Although it sucks they'd give us some weird ancient build for a beta, I really hope that is the case. It'd be awesome if the game does turn out to be light years ahead of the beta on release.
Forget about it. No matter how old this build is, it still has all the core features in it and what can be changed is mainly regarding the balance of skills, spells, creatures and factions. The "built-in" flaws are here to stay until the first expansion pack at the earliest. If they address most of the balance issues the game will be pretty playable and most likely even quite fun but still inferior to the previous games in some regards.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 01:04 PM |
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Says you.
Considering there are lots of people who would claim that H4 is the best game of the serious, I think that's a verdict that everyone will have to build for themselves.
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Ankhes
Hired Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 01:05 PM |
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The point is this game won't be balanced at least for a very long time. In current state balance is total mess - stats, growth, skills, spells, town conversions etc. You can't balance it with single patch and we are playing demo not beta. All things should be balanced slowly and we can't even help them since we are playing older version. Moreover HoMM is not Blizzard title which means we probably won't get 20 patches after the game release. I have high hopes though that as they stated the game will be very modable and great modding community will balance it themselves.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 11, 2011 01:08 PM |
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Have some faith in them. The whole private/public beta-testing was (according to what they wrote) something to allow them to balance the game. If they fail, I will lose my faith in the devs, since we gave them ALL the issues on a plate. We were also surprisingly unanimous when offering solutions to those. All they have to do is implement them.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 11, 2011 01:11 PM |
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@vaeledrin
I am glad we think alike. Btw the way I understand it, Nival did want exactly that, a polished H5 remake. But as much fun as I found H5 to be, I am thankful that we are taking some new steps and breathing new life into the franchise. Let's face it, there is absolutely no way for the devs to avoid criticism. At the very best they can hope to piss the least amount of people, can you imagine how that feels for them? Or to put it differently, how much interest would you find in spending a few years of your life into a game that is one of the same with just different units/spells? If there is no ambition it is easy for things to fall apart, you can tell when someone no longer loves what he does. It would reflect on the project. But at the same time you need to be aware of what your fanbase wants and that is what we are doing right now - giving them feedback. I wish the collaboration with the insiders had begun sooner and there was more involvement (and some extra budget  ) but now things are different. If there is something I can tell is that they are listening. Give them what they need to hear, don't drown them in complaints that cannot accomplish something.
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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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