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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted December 26, 2014 03:48 PM |
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Poll Question:
Creature abilities
There has been several variants throughout HOMM games regarding creature abilities and Limbic is starting to reveal how it is going to be in MMH7.
If I understood it right, creatures will get mainly passive abilities.
For me, this is alright, as long as each ability is unique to the creature. For instance, stoning should be exclusive to Medusa, and I support what has already been mentioned regarding Piercing shot and Sweeping : Marksman/Apprentice and Rakshasa Raja/Landsknecht having the same abilities arguably lacks originality.
However, I’ve already read several comments wishing for a system which would rather be more focused on active abilities, such as Magi or Druids who could cast Fireball and Lightning Bolt in example.
My opinion is that we should get both (#3).
Meaning Medusa would have her strong stoning passive, while Apprentice would have his strong active destructive from spellbook.
Therefore, some creatures would be more focused on passive abilities while others more focused on active abilities. This doesn't necessarily means one option excludes the other, but that a creature is more focused on an option over the other one.
So...
What kind of creature abilities would you like to see in MMH7?
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Zombi_Wizzard
Famous Hero
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posted December 26, 2014 08:54 PM |
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Personaly I think abilites themselves are more important, than their passive or active nature. In H6 it was seen that even tho some creatures got a lot of active abilities, those were not always usefull.
What i mean is: abilities should have strategic value to them. And it is important to note that, same ability can have diferent meaning if it's applied to diferent creature.
Take for example Magic Immunity. It's passive, but, if you give it to core creature, that is rather weak, like gargoyle, it has litle strategical value to it. Now give that ability to Black Dragon, which is one of the strongest creatures in game, and you have strategy-altering ability. In H5 this was shown as you would prioritize summoning spells, when dealing with those enemies or switch to might build altogether ... If you have a weakly core creature with same ability, you wouldn't fell that you need to adapt your strategy at all.
Another example is Unlimited retaliation. If you had it on griffin (or on wolf, which is core), it dosen't mean much. But in H6's Sanctuary, there was an elite creature (don't remeber name), that made quite good use of it, since it had accompanying ability that reduces damage.
Another good category of abilities are abilities that create combos with other creatures. Such ability is Chebir's Repair. I would defenitley like more of those kind of abilities ... but even more general, but not too much, like Ressurrection, since it abolishes idea of combos at that point. For example if there was constructs in other factions also (hint: Dungeon). I would add atleast one construct in Necro aswell, since it's the hardest faction to mix with others, so it would be interasting to have an exception here for an alternate strategy maybe?
As far as H7 is concerned, so far abilities are a lot hit-or-miss. Some are good, but some not so much.
I know a lot of people miss spellbook, but i don't. Sure it was cool, but i don't see it as a great loss at all. Most spells were boring. Druid that can cast lightning bolt? He's ranged anyway. Some that were added later were better, like Lich that rises dead, or Shaman, that is a melee fighter and can sacrafice goblins to get mana and cast spells, which were not possible to cast for that faction.
Now if creatures could cast unique spells, that are unavailable to the hero ... or that only one creature out of all would have spellbook ....that would be another story.
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted December 26, 2014 09:23 PM |
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definitely passives. actives just makes them all spellcasters while passives means they get unique roles other than casting some spells sometimes and having different stats. for example, Justicars has double attacks and opportunistic retaliations (or whatever it's called) which means she can be used both offensively (helping in the spearhead attack by lending dmg to whomever she follows and utilizing her cleave) or defensively (keeping close to archers while punishing more directly with cleave).
h3 fortress is my favourite faction pretty much because of their abilities: almost every creature has it's own, unique role to fill: dragonflies keep enemies weak and debuffed and do so while being highly mobile and gorgons are very hard-hitting with their stare while basilisks can bring enemies out of the fight for some time. in a way they were all actives by activating on attacks, but you didn't need to press a button or think to much about them: they happened anyway and added a lot of depth without adding too much complexity.
actives can be good, but should without a doubt be limited to casters (a mechanic i'm not too fond of but that's for another time and place) as they add to much complexity without adding more depth than a similar passive might have.
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Gryphs
Supreme Hero
The Clever Title
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posted December 26, 2014 11:58 PM |
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I prefer a healthy mix of actives and passives. They both have a role and it allows for interesting tactics at times in my opinion. That being said the actives were often overpowered in Heroes 6 and I fear it may be the same in Heroes 7. I do hope they also make most abilities special to the units that have them unlike they are doing now.
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Greenlore
Known Hero
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posted December 27, 2014 12:35 AM |
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I also think a mix between the 2 is the best solution.
In H6 they kinda overdid with the abilities,with some units having 2 or even 3 active abilities(not to mention tons of passive abilities),so I appreaciate it that H7 gives the creatures less abilities and more passive ones(although there still seem to be active ones,like healing and resurrecting abilities).
I think one active ability per unit would be ok(if they have an active one at all)
However in H7 it looks like some creatures kinda lack in terms of abilities,like the marksman is just an inferior apprentice,I'd be ok with it if they made the abilities at least unique(I think in H6,the only creature from a town that had no unique ability were the harpies,since there were other hit&run creatures) and I'd like if the upgrade always came with an additional ability,that made it feel like it is really worth it in H6.
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Brukernavn
Hero of Order
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posted December 29, 2014 05:12 PM |
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I don't mind to much whether abilities are active or passive, as long as they are limited in number. On the mmh7-site I feel the majority want as many abilities as possible because it adds - they claim - more strategy. It sure adds more complexity, but I don't believe it makes the game any better.
If you give every unit several unique abilities a large portion of the time will be spent right-clicking units and reading about their abilities. If the descriptions are bad, you'll end up browsing the web for more detailed explanations. This takes away from my enjoyment of the game. Not to mention the impossibility of balancing them. On the other hand you could re-use many of the abilities, but then they just become superfluous.
I would like one, fairly unique ability for each creature - passive or active. And that's it.
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted December 30, 2014 12:07 PM |
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So far I hate the abilities they been shoving down our throats...
They are boring, repeative, uninspired and dull.
And every creature having 2 or less abilities sucks.
I'm more for active abilities, I hate passives (if there are too much)
but a healthy mix of the two would be best.
So far HOMM7 has the worst bunch of uninspired abilities of all the games i've played.
And I HATE autocorrect, I blame all the spelling errors on that.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 12, 2015 12:46 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 13:07, 12 Jan 2015.
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Damn I just noticed another thread has already been made on same subject some time ago.
I guess mine should be deleted or locked. Sorry fellow moderators I've missed that one.. 
In the meantime, I would like to suggest +QP to TDL for the consequent effort he did put there.
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