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| Thread: Am I the only one who thinks that HoMM3 is the best in the series? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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MaximB
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 01, 2013 01:30 PM |
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Am I the only one who thinks that HoMM3 is the best in the series?
IMO HoMM3 is the best in the series,
Yes it was unbalanced in some cases (Necro thant), but since then the series has declined.
HoMM4 was the worst, it's like a completely different team did it(but sadly, it was the same).
HoMM5 was good, they improved some things from H3 like upgrading buildings - but they snowed up on the skill trees.
HoMM6 was a major downgrade from H5, less towns, new (and worse) creatures, skills are more free (which isn't such a good thing imo).
I specially liked to play as Necro and Inferno towns in HoMM3.
The devils were awesome (and a bit op),
Now in HoMM6 they were completely removed and now every town has a "town portal".
The op "animate dead" spell was replaced with the animated dead skill which is a major downgrade.
The devils were already downgraded in HoMM5 and removed from H6.
Something in the new HoMM games just doesn't seems right.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted December 01, 2013 01:41 PM |
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Welcome! 
Thank you for sharing this with us. Though usually it's common practice to try to look for the answer yourself.. since it's the shared view among many here, I'm surprised you could not find it.
In any case, HoMM 3 does indeed rule!  If you think Thanth is op, try Galthran 
Though in general Necro is op, so it may not be very noticeable difference depending on who you play.
I really like the Devil creature of HoMM 3 as well! Definitely one of my fav. creatures. Very powerful and tactical unit, which has many qualities other level 7's do not.
Though if you really want to see the power of Inferno in action, Demon Farming is the way to go, usually
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Evaline
Known Hero
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posted December 01, 2013 01:46 PM |
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Edited by Evaline at 13:52, 01 Dec 2013.
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Re: Am I the only one who thinks that HoMM3 is the best in the series?
Welcome to the forums but the best in the series is HoMM2 (better balance, better graphics, absolutely best soundtrack, first implementation of 'Wait' function in battle, etc but WITHOUT PoL expansion with Ghosts).
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted December 01, 2013 01:51 PM |
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H2 was great, H3 is a legend. Have you played online both of them? How is H2 more balanced than H3? With one phoenix you could hit&run all the opponents, there is no counter to speed or movement reset upon recruiting hero-both fixed in H3-.
The fate of game was played at random races dices.
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Evaline
Known Hero
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posted December 01, 2013 01:58 PM |
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Edited by Evaline at 14:04, 01 Dec 2013.
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Salamandre said:
H2 was great, H3 is a legend. Have you played online both of them? How is H2 more balanced than H3? With one phoenix you could hit&run all the opponents...
This is a lie because Champion have the same speed as Phoenix so Knight heroes can hit and run any hero with Phoenixes.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted December 01, 2013 02:07 PM |
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Lie even..?
Isn't it the attacker who goes first if unit speed is equal? So if you've a phoenix you can indeed hit & run even knights (who also can hit & run you..).
Anyway, the champion unit was always my favorite unit in HoMM2!
Cheap & high speed. Meaning on poor as well as rich maps, this unit was awesome (at least for me..)
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Living time backwards
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted December 01, 2013 02:08 PM |
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Personally, I think H3 is the most complete Heroes of all them. It has nearly no flaws, in all aspects is either good, great or excelent - map editor, balance, gameplay, music, graphics, number of towns and creatures, spells, artifacts, map locations etc...
H3 took H2 core and improved it, with newer graphics, music and such. Some people like more H2 music and graphics, but that's just a matter of tastes, imo. And H2 lacks several features that H3 has.
Then, Heroes 4. I consider it a different game, to the point I find difficult to accept it as a Heroes game. A lot of people like it, more hate it. I think it isn't a bad Heroes, just very different. But can't put it near the level of H2/H3.
Heroes 5 brought a lot of improvements over certain aspects of the game (like skill system, town building trees, deeper combat system, sim turns, etc...). However, it had a lot of flaws too (performance, too much randomness, bad RMG, the art direction was a copy of warcraft -.-, there was also a very low variety of spells, artifacts and neutral creatures, the map editor wasn't very intuitive...)
Heroes 6 was just bad. Some may point that it has a few good features, but just by the # of bugs should not even be considered
To my eyes, H3 is the best. But have in mind Heroes fans have a lot of different opinions!
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted December 01, 2013 02:09 PM |
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Good luck at hit&run with a knight, without immunities.
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nizami
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 05, 2013 08:07 PM |
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Edited by nizami at 20:12, 05 Dec 2013.
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MaximB said:
The op "animate dead" spell was replaced with the animated dead skill which is a major downgrade.
The devils were already downgraded in HoMM5 and removed from H6.
In all sincerity, I never got the point of this spell: given the Necromancer's power (raising skeletons + self-sufficient vampire lords) providing him with a 3rd level spell that permanently restores undead troops seems to be redundant since its analogue for alive units was 5th level.
As many others I began playing HoMM with the 3rd part but later on when I discovered first and second Heroes I found them much more dynamic though hardly more balanced. At least the Necromancer was not so overpowered as he is in HoMM3.
Let's just see what he has in Heroes 3:
1. necromancy skill
2. vampire lords
3. liches inflicting splash damage (w/o hurting fellow undead troops)
4. necromancy amplifier
Points 3 and 4 were introduced in Heroes 3 and PoL and these were crucial mistakes IMO. How it can be dangerous to allow a Necromancer to have several Necropolises with amplifiers is obvious; but what about lich splash attack? Logically it's impeccable: a plague cloud cannot harm the undead.
But from the point of balance it's a huge drawback since similar abilities of dragons or phoenixes who also can attack >1 units don't make a distinction between allies and enemies and you need to put at least a small effort into their positioning. Dragons can roast their allies by a retaliation attack, so aif you put units unwisely this can have disastrous outcome.
In Heroes 2 when liches damaged all units including undead one had to be much more careful trying no to affect one's own units. In Heroes 3 the apparent "fixing" turned out as an unneeded, imbalancing simplification: 5th level shooter with a great damage and attack capable of covering two, three or even four units without any counter-balance.
===
Heroes 3 tendence of generalizing went further to upgrades. There are a lot of senseless upgrades giving miserable bonuses like +1 speed/defence/attack that are no more than a waste of time and resources, not to mention army slots. I really liked how in Heroes 1 I could join any monster without thinking "my gosh how do I upgrade a dwelling so I could merge two creatures". In Heroes II this problem appeared of course but the good point was that not all the creatures were upgradable (20 out of 36 town monsters) and most of their evolutioned forms were reasonable. Having almost identical upgrades for dendroids, demons, beholders, cyclopses etc make me cringe.
Cutting down the price of the upgrade itself is a big flaw. Having to hesitate over buying out creatures or waiting until you can upgrade their dwelling was a thing that was making you value basic creatures and not to rush into upgrading everything - since the price is a big money lump.
I suspect I can be somehow judgemental and too subjective in my opinion though.
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted December 06, 2013 10:54 AM |
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nizami said:
In all sincerity, I never got the point of this spell: given the Necromancer's power (raising skeletons + self-sufficient vampire lords) providing him with a 3rd level spell that permanently restores undead troops seems to be redundant since its analogue for alive units was 5th level.
Resurrection is actually a 4th level spell, but that as an aside. The point is that among the Undead troops, only Vampire Lords had a life drain ability. All the other Undead would be gone forever if killed in battle. Raising skeletons is nice but first of all, it only raises slain enemy units as skeletons (not your own units, which fell in battle) and furthermore, it only raises skeletons (unless you had the Cloak of the Undead King combination artifact).
I would consider missing this spell incredibly unbalanced towards Living factions, who have access to Resurrection, able to raise their fallen units of any level, not just level 1. You might consider it imbalanced though, that Animate Dead is a level 3 spell, as opposed to level 4 for Resurrection and that Animate Dead is permanent at any skill level, as opposed to Advanced and Expert Earth Magic for Resurrection, to keep the raised units after battle.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 06, 2013 02:41 PM |
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Wait command was introduced in 2, not in 3.
No HoMM is even nearly perfect. HoMM 3 left a lot to be desired. HoMM 3 with WoG is certainly one hell of a game - provided you take the time, work through all the options and customize the game to your likings.
But clearly HoMM 5 with the RPE full Mod package may even beat that one, although obviously HoMM 5 misses a town.
HoMM 4 has a lot of really cool stuff - if only the game was more like HoMM.
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nizami
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 06, 2013 07:38 PM |
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Edited by nizami at 19:49, 06 Dec 2013.
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Maurice said:
nizami said:
Resurrection is actually a 4th level spell, but that as an aside.
My fault: I kept in mind Resurrect True (5th level spell) in Heroes 2 as opposed to Resurrect (4th lvl) with permanent/combat only resurrection respectively.
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Raising skeletons is nice but first of all, it only raises slain enemy units as skeletons
The necromancer had and has excellent possibilities to slay enemies in sufficient numbers.
In Heroes 2 he had an capability to build bone dragons (lacking 50HP and magic immunity compared to regular dragons yet two times cheaper and decreasing the enemy's morale by 1) in the 1st, or at least, the 2nd week - all he needed is to build graveyard, mage guild 1st lvl and mausoleum. The single difficulty was that he must spend 15 sulphur on 5th and 6th level dwellings but it's incomparable to other magic heroes' expenditure.
In Heroes 3 he employs a pack of extremely deadly units - vampire lords, liches, dread knight and ghost dragons. Of course you can point at gorgeous Dungeon high level troops or Tower shooting & melee combo of magi, nagas and titans yet they lack a very distinctive, powerful bonus: they are not undead.
The most powerful and decisive spells are not those that inflict direct damage or help your units fight better but those can easily disable the enemy or turn it against allies with ease: blind, forgetfullness, berzerk. Suddenly an effective and elegant path is blocked and you're on much more harsher terms of using magic than if you were against an alive army. Abilities of many otherwise formidable creatures (unicorns, mighty gorgons, medusas, basilisks, scorpicores, wyvern monarchs) get useless, while there's no way how you could avoid DK's double strike, GD's halving HPs or VL's life draining.
Animate Dead is a luxury: before resurrecting this army, someone has to manage to inflict it high casualties.
P.S. Mea culpa: undead are subject to petrifying.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 06, 2013 10:51 PM |
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Edited by Fauch at 22:53, 06 Dec 2013.
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nizami said:
GD's halving HPs or VL's life draining.
what about elementals, gargoyles and golems?
Quote:
In Heroes 2 when liches damaged all units including undead one had to be much more careful trying no to affect one's own units. In Heroes 3 the apparent "fixing" turned out as an unneeded, imbalancing simplification: 5th level shooter with a great damage and attack capable of covering two, three or even four units without any counter-balance.
but in heroes 3, I think the death cloud deals only half damage on secondary targets. also I think no shooter had range penalties in Homm2. and they could play before most other creatures, especially if you attacked.
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Richard_Chen
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 09, 2013 11:31 PM |
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MaximB said:
IMO HoMM3 is the best in the series,
Yes it was unbalanced in some cases (Necro thant), but since then the series has declined.
HoMM4 was the worst, it's like a completely different team did it(but sadly, it was the same).
HoMM5 was good, they improved some things from H3 like upgrading buildings - but they snowed up on the skill trees.
HoMM6 was a major downgrade from H5, less towns, new (and worse) creatures, skills are more free (which isn't such a good thing imo).
I specially liked to play as Necro and Inferno towns in HoMM3.
The devils were awesome (and a bit op),
Now in HoMM6 they were completely removed and now every town has a "town portal".
The op "animate dead" spell was replaced with the animated dead skill which is a major downgrade.
The devils were already downgraded in HoMM5 and removed from H6.
Something in the new HoMM games just doesn't seems right.
Absolutely HoMM3 is the best!
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Richard Chen's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ricrvc/
If you like my video, please subscribe my channel^^
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Snatch
Promising
Known Hero
Proud Kappa
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posted December 10, 2013 07:42 PM |
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nizami said:
Heroes 3 tendence of generalizing went further to upgrades. There are a lot of senseless upgrades giving miserable bonuses like +1 speed/defence/attack that are no more than a waste of time and resources, not to mention army slots. I really liked how in Heroes 1 I could join any monster without thinking "my gosh how do I upgrade a dwelling so I could merge two creatures". In Heroes II this problem appeared of course but the good point was that not all the creatures were upgradable (20 out of 36 town monsters) and most of their evolutioned forms were reasonable. Having almost identical upgrades for dendroids, demons, beholders, cyclopses etc make me cringe.
Cutting down the price of the upgrade itself is a big flaw. Having to hesitate over buying out creatures or waiting until you can upgrade their dwelling was a thing that was making you value basic creatures and not to rush into upgrading everything - since the price is a big money lump.
I suspect I can be somehow judgemental and too subjective in my opinion though.
That's right and the biggest flaw of the game. It may be the biggest Heroes but it is also the flattest one. Upgrades for every creature (which in the end just means more content and not more strategic or tactical depth), more creature tiers in towns and balanced factions (all have flyers and shooters, all have a might and a magic hero, lesser differences in weekly creature costs, etc.) generalised the game a little bit too much. The distinction between the factions is more an atmospheric than a gameplay-based one as it was especially in Heroes 1, which had 4 clearly unique factions - one per main attribute (barbarian: cheap, aggressive, shooter-based; knight: cheap, defensive, melee-based; sorceress: fast, magical, shooter-based; warlock: expensive, magical, flyer-based).
Heroes 3 is the biggest part of the series with the most atmospheric towns and the best multiplayer potential but not by all means the best one overall.
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nizami
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 11, 2013 06:29 PM |
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Edited by nizami at 18:32, 11 Dec 2013.
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Fauch said:
Quote:
what about elementals, gargoyles and golems?
I assume that talking about Conflux as an average, playable town isn't quite appropriate. My point of an overpowered, immune to mind spells army suits it even better.
As for gargoyles and golems that's a nice but very particular detail: there are six other towns that don't have these units, and even then VLs can leech off greemlins or genies that are extremely plentiful and fragile.
Quote:
but in heroes 3, I think the death cloud deals only half damage on secondary targets
Nope, a test shows it deals full damage.
Quote:
also I think no shooter had range penalties in Homm2
That's true.
Snatch said:
Quote:
all have flyers and shooters
Regarding Inferno or Fortress shooters that's arguable.
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which had 4 clearly unique factions - one per main attribute
Partially this system remained in Heroes 3: there are expensive and slow-developing magic towns and two cheap and fast ones (Stronghold & Fortress) oriented on the quick building and onslaught with high level creatures in 1st week.
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Snatch
Promising
Known Hero
Proud Kappa
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posted December 11, 2013 11:04 PM |
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Edited by Snatch at 23:06, 11 Dec 2013.
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nizami said:
Snatch said:
all have flyers and shooters
Regarding Inferno or Fortress shooters that's arguable.
Snatch said:
which had 4 clearly unique factions - one per main attribute
Partially this system remained in Heroes 3: there are expensive and slow-developing magic towns and two cheap and fast ones (Stronghold & Fortress) oriented on the quick building and onslaught with high level creatures in 1st week.
That's both true but as you said it remained only partially. Stronghold (attack) and Fortress (defense, only one shooter) clearly resembling Barbarian (attack) and Knight (defense, only one shooter). But overall the differences are not as strong as in Heroes 1 and 2 anymore whereas Heroes 5 has unique faction heroes with unique faction abilities (necromancy, gating, creature artifacts etc.) to create unique faction feelings. Heroes 3 is in my opinion the most middle-of-the-road part of the series. Maybe that's one of the reasons why many see it as the best part but for me it makes the game a bit bland. It's surely great to have 8 (or 9) factions because it gives variety creature- and atmosphere-wise but gameplay-wise it's hard to make them all as unique as only 4 different factions could be. Especially with having two different and not very unique hero types per faction.
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alfred
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 12, 2013 08:12 PM |
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I totally agree that Homm3 is the best in the series. It is a certain culmination of experiences that were built up throughout the two previous instalments - Homm1 and Homm2, and reached its pinnacle here. The following games - Homm 4-6 are already a different genre, where the whole climate of the previous games was abandoned (mainly, but not only due to a new 3D perspective). They are good, especially Homm5, but they do not come even close to Homm3.
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Sandman
Known Hero
Fearsome Warrior
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posted December 14, 2013 01:58 PM |
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I think that heroes 2 is the best - not because it is the most balanced or the best graphics but because it was simply the most fun to play. Technically heroes 3 was better but my heart says heroes 2 was the best!
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xlnt
Known Hero
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posted December 19, 2013 09:23 AM |
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H3 is a re-do of H2 - it simply is what H2 would have been - if the team could have done it..
H3 is bigger, more worked on, more complicated, i dare say even tested (not enough )
I loved H2, i hates H3 when it came out - i played H3 for the last decade almost on a daily basis - that has to mean something..
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