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Zeki
Supreme Hero
sup
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posted August 30, 2016 02:57 PM |
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Galaad said:
What Ubi has done is literally chasing away their fan base, I think only a few of them are customers today, (...)
That is true for me and my parents (who showed me this game when i was a kid). Earlier we would buy every part that comes out, as soon as it comes out. Even multiple times, in case a cd breaks we would have back up. H5 was the last one we did that with. (actually i'm the only one really playing even this one. Btw one of the reasons is that H5 needs comparatively many resources while H3 can be played on a potato.) When H6 was being produced my parents didn't even care anymore. I only have this game because it was on sale very early and i had hopes it would get nice later on. And now i don't even own H7 and i don't even feel as if i'm missing out on something and that is what makes me sad and lose hope for this franchise.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 03:12 PM |
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100% disagree. AoW 3 is a much better game than their very good predecessors. It's definitely NOT slow-paced. It takes 10 seconds to load on my laptop, and a savegame, depending on size, but I'd guess another 10 on average. Things as such proceed faster, because there is no hit probability anymore, so there are no misses, plus the extreme damage range is gone as well. In AoW SM it could happen that my Archer shot Miss Miss 2 damage, but it could also be 5 Miss 6. Now my Archer will shoot something like 3 times 4-6.
Most (but not all) live MP games in AoW 3 are played with Autocombat against the AI, and people want to finish a game in ONE session. Slow-paced? Nah.
@ Galaad
Look, I'm not defending Ubisoft or something. It's just that you do have to make some compromises when you want to sell games. You just have to make the RIGHT compromises and set the RIGHT priorities and that's something Ubisoft didn't manage.
Although - I think H7 does get good reviews with regard to its campaigns. Now, considering there is no balance - but you also don't need any for playing campaigns, it's probably not wrong to say that H7 vanilla was a campaign release; you see clear priorities here.
AoW 3 vanilla has only 2 campaigns. The afore-mentioned German magazine gave it an 82 with 60+ hours "solo game time". Go figure.
Being a casual gamer has nothing to do with being an idiot, but with playing for a different reason. I think, the casual gamer simply wants to be entertained. They follow some story, take in the scripted stuff, enjoy moments of success and wnat to have a good time WITHOUT HAVING TO GET OUT OF THEIR WAY. (Or what do you think these walkthrough solutions are for when playing adventure games and stuff?) And no one wants to hear, "play on easy, noob!"
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 30, 2016 03:54 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
a savegame, depending on size, but I'd guess another 10 on average.
10 seconds is an eternity, for those who try to design successful and epic maps/mods thus need dozens of reloads before each battle or AI testing, to achieve perfect tuning and setup. Your concentration will be drained, your goals will dilute by such constant and forced interruptions. A game can't survive without very high custom content, the only reason people still post and discuss about civ games, or about heroes games is that there IS such renewable content which ensure continuous replayability.
A game can be very well designed, have excellent mechanics, mesmerizing atmosphere, but paradoxically not pass the test of time because tedious accessibility.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 04:00 PM |
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 30, 2016 04:49 PM |
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Don't have to search far away.
OmegaDestroyer said:
After 545 hours, I have finally won a domination victory in Civ V with the Zulus. I will never try to do that again on a huge map. Took forever.
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Era II mods and utilities
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 04:58 PM |
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Salamandre said:
JollyJoker said:
a savegame, depending on size, but I'd guess another 10 on average.
10 seconds is an eternity, for those who try to design successful and epic maps/mods thus need dozens of reloads before each battle or AI testing, to achieve perfect tuning and setup. Your concentration will be drained, your goals will dilute by such constant and forced interruptions. A game can't survive without very high custom content, the only reason people still post and discuss about civ games, or about heroes games is that there IS such renewable content which ensure continuous replayability.
A game can be very well designed, have excellent mechanics, mesmerizing atmosphere, but paradoxically not pass the test of time because tedious accessibility.
That may be true for Civ and HoMM, but it's a lot less true for AoW 3, and for the following reasons.
1) The game has by far the best Random Map Generator you can imagine. You can customize everything, from the map structure as such percentage of each terrain you want to the amount of roads, the strength of defenders, the starting situation, the amount of victory conditions, loot, structures, sites, Heroes to hire, if any, and it's not like the RMG would put a patchwork together, the maps actually look like someone handcrafted them. For example, when you pick the Islands map structure, you can still set the terrain "Water" to something between 0 and 100%, with the 0 setting giving you basically a labyrinth of smaller Islands with very few water between them, while the setting 100% will give you a lot of water, big oceans and seas and a handful of bigger islands in them like, say, Earth with 6 Australia like continents (and every setting in between will adjust things accordingly).
2) The game has full mod support; making a mod is actually fairly easy, and making, for example, a new unit is a matter of minutes (if you don't have to make the graphics for it from scratch and can use game assets, that is)
That leaves making complex single player maps and campaigns - but strangely (and predictably) people are not really lining up for creating maps, because there simply isn't much need. There are, however, a lot of Mods around (also predictably).
I just loaded a Large 7-player map in 11 seconds. If that is too long for you, because you have to do it so often in order to achieve perfect tuning and setup of a battle then - no offense - for my taste you waste your time with entirely wrong things because for one thing there is this Luck possibility, and for another I don't like to play maps where you have to follow a certain script - that's like playing an adventure game.
That said, sure, a well-scripted event HERE AND THERE may not be the worst thing - but you know what? In AoW 3 units are not FORCED to attack you (and don't). They may decide to wait and let YOU attack (after all, you attacked them).
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted August 30, 2016 06:22 PM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 18:23, 30 Aug 2016.
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Related to the ongoing graphics/estranging the fan base discussion:
I do not think the graphics are to blame for this. You can have a Heroes game with H6/H7 graphics AND an optimized engine. How do other game developers get it done and Ubi doesn't?
If they had gone for H3 style graphics, I bet they would have lost an even larger part of their fanbase, myself included. 2D-styled combat and maps are simply outdated and cater only to a very specific retro gamer type.
JollyJoker said:
100% disagree. AoW 3 is a much better game than their very good predecessors. It's definitely NOT slow-paced. It takes 10 seconds to load on my laptop, and a savegame, depending on size, but I'd guess another 10 on average. Things as such proceed faster, because there is no hit probability anymore, so there are no misses, plus the extreme damage range is gone as well. In AoW SM it could happen that my Archer shot Miss Miss 2 damage, but it could also be 5 Miss 6. Now my Archer will shoot something like 3 times 4-6.
Most (but not all) live MP games in AoW 3 are played with Autocombat against the AI, and people want to finish a game in ONE session. Slow-paced? Nah.
This doesn't correspond at all to the experience I had with AoW3. I gave up on the game because the gameplay was slow as hell.
Finish a map in one session? Don't make me laugh. After 3 or 4 sessions and I was still stuck on the same map. And no, I do not think auto-combat is fun.
I don't know, maybe I played the game in a different way than it is supposed to be played. It is very well made, but the pace is completely wrong for my tastes.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 07:11 PM |
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Salamandre said:
Don't have to search far away.
OmegaDestroyer said:
After 545 hours, I have finally won a domination victory in Civ V with the Zulus. I will never try to do that again on a huge map. Took forever.
If you're trying to say that Civ 5 won't stand the test of time just because OmegaDestroyer from HC didn't like the pacing on big maps, then sorry mate but it's as far as it gets. The game still holds a huge player base and it will continue doing so for many, many years to come.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2016 07:14 PM |
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SoilBurn said:
If they had gone for H3 style graphics, I bet they would have lost an even larger part of their fanbase, myself included. 2D-styled combat and maps are simply outdated and cater only to a very specific retro gamer type.
This is wrong on so many levels 
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 07:25 PM |
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Most Live MP games are played with Autocombat except for the important battles I said, because the MP gamers want to finish in one session.
When you play simgle, since the AI is definitely classes above the H7 one there will also come the point when you will resolve the trivial stuff via autocombat, although I have to say I do so very rarely.
What IS making the game last longer is the fact that you don't have just one main army, but a couple of them, and in some turns you may have something like a dozen battles or so.
As with all games you can play the game more casual, and you can take things seriously. Since there is a PBEM mode as well, people playing that tend to take things VERY seriously, and in that case PLAYING takes time. You will count hexes in battle, check movement ranges, check damages (and you can, for example click on an enemy unit and then target one of your units and the game wil show you the damage the unit will do), check movement orders (you can move SOME with a unit, then act with another, then complete your move with the first), so battles are more complex, which is clear anyway, since a battle may involve up to 42 regular units (some spells may add more).
So the game allows deep immersion, but you don't HAVE to take things to extremes.
By the way, the AI is pretty merciless in taking advantage of openings you give it to kill units (you might say, if the AI is attacked, it knows it will probably lose and is determined to let you bleed for it as much as possible).
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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 07:55 PM |
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Edited by Momo at 19:55, 30 Aug 2016.
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Just so that you know, I went on CAN YOU RUN IT, the APP that detects if you meet the minimum requirements to run a software. Turns out I can run age of wonders 3 (which I'm very happy about because my girlfriend wants that) but that I cannot run HOMM7 due to the video. While my reasoning remains unaltered -if the requirements are this high, it is just unreasonable and not worth it- it should be noted that while the game didn't tell me that (as it should have) the absurd lenght of loading times is indeed the machine's fault, at least at the current state of patching.
It doesn't add much to the discussion, but just for the sake of being honest.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 30, 2016 08:47 PM |
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Stevie said:
because OmegaDestroyer from HC didn't like the pacing on big maps, then sorry mate but it's as far as it gets.
This looks more like indoctrination.
545 hours to finish a big map, when me and you (well, IF you ever finished a large map) know that in those 545, at least 200 is waiting for AI to finish. Is not about "Omega from HC", but about any player wasting half of his time to complete a goal, and when is done, the feeling, instead of being full satisfaction, is full frustration traduced by "I won't do it again".
A game where you can't finish when selecting the most challenging settings is a dead game. Civ 5 will be forgotten as soon as civ6 is out.
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted August 30, 2016 09:24 PM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 21:28, 30 Aug 2016.
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@JollyJoker:
I understand what you mean, this is why I wrote above that "maybe I play the game in the wrong way". I generally tend to check every possible detail that can give me an advantage in a tactical game (aka the perfectionist gamer), so this is maybe why I perceived AoW3 to be tedious. For the same reason I was never hooked to Civilization or similar games (and I guess for the same reason I am a HoMM fan).
And I absolutely agree with you that technically AoW3 is miles ahead of all Ubi Heroes titles from all perspectives (AI, technical requirements, speed of game engine, bugs/glitches etc.)
I still would pick H7 over AoW3 if I had to pick one of the two. But I am aware that the reasons for this are very subjective.
frostymuaddib said:
This is wrong on so many levels
Technical capabilities are right now light years ahead of what they were in 1999. There is a good reason why all major 4x strategy titles are released completely or partially in 3D.
Time to move on, son.
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted August 30, 2016 09:51 PM |
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SoilBurn said:
I generally tend to check every possible detail that can give me an advantage in a tactical game (aka the perfectionist gamer), so this is maybe why I perceived AoW3 to be tedious.
It's funny because I am pretty much the same as you in that respect, but it's rightfully because of the plethora of combinations you can have with your armies and within a given battle the order in which you move and attack with your units that give a lot of satisfaction in the min-maxing department. A bit like Sala likes to do, find the perfect movement order to maximize damage output while keeping damage received to an absolute low - preferably not suffering any losses at all.
Anyway, in the current day and age 3D graphics are much easier to make than 2D. But it's a moot point anyway; it's not whether a game is in 2D or 3D, it's in how the game is represented. All the extra bells and whistles that 3D can allow for doesn't mean they should be added. Simplicity is often the key; I guess the lure to go overboard is a lot stronger in 3D than in 2D, which gives us the latest few Heroes games.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted August 30, 2016 10:11 PM |
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Truth of the matter is Ubisoft has been changing the direction of the brand too much, of course the people who didn't play the old games or grew up with h5 (or h6!!) might not feel appealed by the former artstyle and 2d, but what I see is Ubi has lost its bet, sales of h3hd vs h7 just shows it, there is more people interested from the old days in this franchise than the newcomers, after 10 years of helming the brand that's insanely bad result, just stop trying to make this game another one already!
JJ said:
You just have to make the RIGHT compromises and set the RIGHT priorities and that's something Ubisoft didn't manage.
Agreed (finally!), although maybe not for quite the same reasons, there was no real reason to go 3d at the time of h5 when it was still in its early days for gaming, don't you agree that the loading times and radical change of view (from 2d to 3d with perspective projection) was definitely not a good compromise, knowing 2d games still weren't considered archaic by most at that time? They surely thought something around the lines of "we need new blood" but going at the expense of established customers was a clear mistake I'm sure you agree. At least we got the 3d townscreens, the Academy one IMO was very immersive, just imagine rotating 3d view inside h3's Inferno or Rampart, honestly I cum in my pants just at the thought of it. The infamous problem of the adventure map is that we need to see clearly everything, without being disturbed, yet being enchanted by the magical aura games like h1 to 4 have (speaking strictly of the map for h4, not the townscreens lol). If there is no connection with the upcoming games within this aura, something has been lost, something close to the soul of a game.
So a I think at that time a good compromise would have been 2d map, but make the most beautiful 2d art one can ever imagine with such precision in detail, with a 3d modelled character as a hero wandering the map, gorgeous 3d screens of each recruitable creature in the castle and external dwellings, and of course townscreens you can stare at for hours, spellbounded by the artistic beauty. I wouldn't even mind the pure high-fantasy setting if it was well-done, but again, drastically changing a full style is not really good compromise either, as that particular feel will be missing, as different than from the games that have their traces inside us. Can be forgivable if you don't put prostitutes in a monster based town. The thing I believe about art style is, you don't care about the popular trends and what teenagers want to see, you care about showing the most people possible the inherent beauty of your product, stand up for it, Heroes of Might and Magic is supposed to have a Sword and Sorcery feel AND a sci-fi BACKGROUND because it is its soul and blood. In marketing terms at Ubisoft this would have probably been called taking a risk, and a probably esteemed not wise decision, but at least you would have strenghten existing fanbase, then if not enough new people come, middle-grounds can be found. I doubt you disagree Ubisoft treated awfully Dungeon fans in example.
I would have seen a mostly 2d game with 3d models in it with rotating camera only in town, a healthy compromise because townscreens to lure, and unaltered point of view from the eyes of the used player. I, like most people in their thirties, was still a teenager when 3d games came out, so is not so disturbing for us, my bet is most people in their thirties can appreciate both 2d and 3d equally, because they are both immersive in their own way, the 2d is almost hypnotizing, while the 3d immerses you directly with the camera control. Also this way the game doesn't weight tons of gigabytes and more content can be added, the thing runs faster etc, going 2d would have been a good compromise, because of its extremely good benefits. And if you can't afford that risk for a niche tbs...
H6 was the big chance when you think about it, as h5 sold better than expected (that has been told to me personally by a Ubi-representative) there was more budget and all the mistakes of h5 could have been corrected this instant. Well, we know how that went...
Streamlining the mechanics is in the end what hurts the brand even more than bugs in my opinion, and I guess on the priorities we agree, first comes something that works -read that has no gamebreaking technical issues-, then how the game plays in itself, how is it fun in MP and test tons of maps from the start, campaign comes last of course, inspired by the huge process of pure game creation. I start a singleplayer map and... I'm hooked.
Saying Ubisoft didn't manage is quite easy on them, in my eyes they deliberately sabotaged the brand and alienated the fanbase by fiercly dividing it.
Quote:
2D-styled combat and maps are simply outdated and cater only to a very specific retro gamer type.
No, the graphics you saw from 15+ years ago are outdated, as for a specific type of gamers, we sorcerers are here.
Maurice said:
Anyway, in the current day and age 3D graphics are much easier to make than 2D. But it's a moot point anyway; it's not whether a game is in 2D or 3D, it's in how the game is represented. All the extra bells and whistles that 3D can allow for doesn't mean they should be added. Simplicity is often the key; I guess the lure to go overboard is a lot stronger in 3D than in 2D, which gives us the latest few Heroes games.
Yes all this is true, in our time and age there is no a reason a 3d Heroes game couldn't work if well-handled, but yes, strategy-style 3d, not rpg's, this is forcing against the natural curve of the brand.
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GenyaArikado
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 10:54 PM |
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Quote:
H6 was the big chance when you think about it
this. They really put effort promo-wise with H6. A shame
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted August 30, 2016 11:08 PM |
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SoilBurn said:
Technical capabilities are right now light years ahead of what they were in 1999. There is a good reason why all major 4x strategy titles are released completely or partially in 3D.
Time to move on, son.
Well, son, the artistic value and tecnical capabilities are two different things. Let us make parallel comparisons with movies. You have to agree that technical capabilities of today are much, much better than before, and yet most of the greates movies ever made were made decades ago. They didn't have technology so they were creative and did wonders. Now, there are good movies with good CGI today, but what we got with a good number of movies, is that CGI is shi**y and replaces everything because it is cheaper. In the end you still got crap, despite the technology.
Back to the games. Yes, you have 3D engines and stuff but that means nothing if you can't use it well, or, if the artistic value of your game is crap. Either way, you get a 'mandatory' 3D game that is not functional and is usually ugly. (H7 anyone?) Now, if you have great artistic vision, and you can create good looking assets, you can decide if you want 3D or 2D to go alongside your vision. And in the end, you can have a great game, and it does not matter if it is 2D or 3D.
My point is that if we have technology for 3D games, it does not mean that you need to use it everywhere (I'm also looking at you 3D movies  ). Also, if someone refuses to play a game just because it is 2D, and we have tech for 3D, is, to say politely, shallow minded. Hell, the best ubi game from Might and Magic franchise (not counting H5) is 2D game named Clash of Heroes: much better game than H6 and H7 combined.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 30, 2016 11:16 PM |
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Salamandre said:
Stevie said:
because OmegaDestroyer from HC didn't like the pacing on big maps, then sorry mate but it's as far as it gets.
This looks more like indoctrination.
545 hours to finish a big map, when me and you (well, IF you ever finished a large map) know that in those 545, at least 200 is waiting for AI to finish. Is not about "Omega from HC", but about any player wasting half of his time to complete a goal, and when is done, the feeling, instead of being full satisfaction, is full frustration traduced by "I won't do it again".
A game where you can't finish when selecting the most challenging settings is a dead game. Civ 5 will be forgotten as soon as civ6 is out.
Well first of all, I have more play hours that what you can see on Steam, which is without any exaggeration about a quarter of the time I sank into the game before purchasing it. I have finished more than 5 full epic games and literally hundreds of other ones of different proportions, including scenarios. And having done all that, I can say that what you're saying about 200 hours from 545 being the AI taking its turn is complete and utter bollocks. No feelings of frustration either.
Secondly, you're pulling things out of your ass and making them look overblown. If Civ 5 had such unbearable timings then the game wouldn't be played by 50.000 people daily, and that's a statistic you cannot contest.
So with all due respect, but your personal extrapolations aren't a solid argument. Will Civ 5 drop a lot of players because of Civ 6? Who knows, but I do hope so, because that would only mean Civ 6 is an amazing game to play. Will that dismiss all of Civ 5's achievements so far? Never.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 30, 2016 11:43 PM |
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Those statistics only prove there are out there 50 k players like you, which don't care about their time and will stare like pigeons at their desktop while waiting AI to complete its turns.
The fact that AI turns take up to 4-5 minutes on large map with 8-10 civs and after Industrialization is not an extrapolation, is a fact. Given that at after Industrialization, the game may continue for at least 100 turns, that makes ~400 minutes you stare at screen without playing. Almost 8 hours. This is tested by me, several times, until I realized this game is a black hole and put it away.
But why not, please record one of your "epic games" between turns/post Industrialization/10 civs to prove me I am a fool or just give up because you seem to not realize where the problem lies and you fanatically defend the indefensible.
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted August 30, 2016 11:43 PM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 23:45, 30 Aug 2016.
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frostymuaddib said:
[Hell, the best ubi game from Might and Magic franchise (not counting H5) is 2D game named Clash of Heroes: much better game than H6 and H7 combined.
Clash of Heroes, admittedly a fantastic game, was designed for Nintendo DS.
It has also been ported successfully to other mobile device systems, exactly for the same reason. Let's please not compare apples to oranges.
If a game is designed for PCs, on the other hand, then the developer of course wants to keep up with the current stand of technology. And the fanciest graphics for 4x strategy games are all based on 3D (as proven by the vast majority of frontline titles that were released in the last few years). And, to be frank with you, I do not see any advantages that 2D has over 3D if both are executed equally well. It's one less dimension to play with anyway 
All games that do not keep up with modern graphics (e.g. modern side platformers, indie games based on old engines etc.) might have an aesthetic appeal and become successful, but they mostly target a niche market. The same applies to old movies like you mentioned. Of course they are classics. But if they would hve been made in the same way today, very few people would notice them, except if they are outrageously exceptional (Sin City being one of the few films that comes to mind, and it did use modern FX mixed in its retro comic-y BW theme).
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This MEGA THREAD is pages long: 
