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| Thread: Heroes 7 pre-release review |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT» |
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 12, 2015 05:10 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 12:55, 02 Nov 2015.
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Heroes 7 pre-release review
First of all, let me start by saying that this is an honest and informed review. I've been following the production of the game since it was announced (and well before that). I've been a very active member on Heroes Community and also a prominent Shadow Councilor. Consequently, I've accepted an invitation from the M&M team to test their Alpha product and met a lot of interesting people, like VIPs and other fans, Limbic and Ubisoft devs, notable mentions being Creative Director Erwan le Breton and Lead Level Designer Julien Pirou, whom I even had the chance to interview (Interview: Erwan le Breton, Interview: Julien Pirou); I have also pre-ordered and played the closed Beta 1 and closed Beta 2 to death, currently holding over 170 play hours, which to my knowledge is #1 world. Needless to say, I'm a massive Heroes fan.
Game Features
I will readily admit that some design decisions are not on my taste, as I was expecting something different to lie under the banner of "best of Heroes" (way to go raising the bar), which was held high at all times during production. Nevertheless, the mix is not as glaringly bad as one may think. Still, it doesn't seem to hold the potential it could've easily achieved, and whether that's the fault of budget constraints or the team's vision is anyone's guess (although I strongly suspect the latter had more to do with it). However, some potential still exists and the situation can yet improve up to a foreseeable better end where you could really enjoy the game. And judging from the dedication of the team and with the help of the VIP group and the community feedback, I can only hope that this will eventually become a reality.
[*] Factions - 8/10
A Heroes 2 inspired mix of Haven, Academy, Stronghold, Necropolis, Sylvan and Dungeon. Not bad, but I would've liked it more if the dwarves were in there somewhere. Alas, the community decided by vote that the two elfish nations were more worthy, so there's that. I do wonder how Sanctuary was not considered to be a good candidate, because if there was one thing that Heroes 6 did well then it has to be that faction.
[*] Creatures - 7/10
The lineups are all around good. Some welcome returns of fan favorites, some good additions, but also some bad apples. I don't even know how they considered it appropriate to include generic creatures like Spiders or laughable mimes like Striders in the game. When I think of Heroes, I imagine for myself mythical and folklore creatures, and I fail to see how those two evoke any sentiment of the kind.
Some of the creature models are good, even great, but most of them are either mediocre, unfitting or outright bad. The thing I absolutely hate is how they reused assets from Heroes 6 instead of delivering new ones. "Asha (re)uses all" philosophy taken to the next level. Either way, it smells of cheapness. I'm not even opposed to the practice of reusing assets per se as it is just necessary sometimes, but to the fact that they reused the very ones that were glaringly bad or at the very least badly received. Fortunately, community outcry was enough to get developers to remodel at least two of them, and that helped indeed, but at the end of the day it's just not enough. One other issue with some models is that they're scale is off, most of the time appearing to be too small by comparison with other creatures (like dragons looking smaller than spiders). That cannot be left like that. Also, some creature abilities need rethinking. I'm not happy at all seeing how many of them end up sharing the same abilities. What happened with uniqueness?
[*] Class system - 6/10
If there was one word that would describe the class system, that must be restrictive. Basically, a class means you have a preset set of skills in the boundaries of which you have to build your hero. The reason for that was to answer some complaints over replayability, because players would end up building their heroes the same way every time and this was supposed to fix that. The effect, however, makes it that only certain heroes are good as main, while all the other (the vast majority actually) are either more fitting as secondaries or useless altogether. So the problem still manages to manifest itself even if in a different way and at a different level, because not only players will end up building the same hero, but now they are also limited at a few viable hero picks.
Of course, I'm all in favor of replay value and variety, but doesn't it feel that having only two heroes per class, sometimes even one, is just a total waste? I think classes should've been designed differently, not imposing restrictions on skill availability, but granting bonuses per hero build of player's choice. Free hero development provides a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience. Replayability should follow from the system's flexibility and the game's ability to provide different scenarios where some builds would be more preferable than others.
[*] Skillwheel - 6/10
Or more commonly known as the Skillpizza, is essentially tied with the class system as each class has its own, different in its set of skills from that of others. The concept stems from a fan made mod for Heroes 5, which combined the (needed) informational power with a holistic design. While I do approve of those two aspects, I cannot get behind what Heroes 7 proposes, which basically wants the Skillwheel to be the skill system itself. I find that inappropriate as it forgets the original idea of the mod, which was to simply provide an overview, and it's also a very big hindrance for good design. In fact, when I asked the devs about the low number of skills available to a hero, they said that having more than 10 (which is the lowest figure the series has ever seen) would prove problematic because optimally displaying it on the screen would be impossible. With the way Heroes did things before, working with brackets, this would've been a non-issue. Best they can do is replace the system for that of H3/H5 which was way more practical, and have the current design as a Heropedia entry.
Something else that worries me are the underlying mechanics of the Skillwheel. I must admit that I do not see any added benefit from restricting access to a skill's mastery level as that was never an issue before (there are 3, Novice, Expert, Master and a Grandmaster ability). I get that the fact that some heroes having only Expert, Master available to them is in line with class uniqueness, but I think that's a bit extreme and seems more of a pointless restriction than anything else. The prerequisites of one ability from a mastery required to advance to the next are rather odd, what if I don't like or need any but I still want to level my skill? This also impacts how the community requested random skill feature works as they hoped for a similar experience to that of Heroes 5. Speaking of which, I was rather fond of the thematic approach from before when it came to the abilities of skills, just because it appeared so logical and intuitive, and I'm sad to see it more or less missing from Heroes 7.
That said, a plus tot the system is the fact that the racial skill is not faction-based, but hero-based. That means that it works regardless the circumstances, so mixing different faction armies and heroes is somewhat encouraged.
[*] Specializations - 5/10
Simply put, worse than ever before. Not completely useless, but not that enriching either. There is a very apparent lack of good specializations, most of them being cookie cutters related to creature growth. Compared to the ones in Heroes 5, which were way more strategic and fun, the current ones seem awfully uninspired. What's even more of an issue here is the fact that the community was quick to give feedback to which the devs only provided excuses, not solutions. I mean, how hard can it be to make some new, worthwhile specializations?
[*] Magic System - 7/10
First things first, really glad to see they ditched the Heroes 6 model and returned to mage guilds. Personally, I would've preferred it if they had 5 levels instead of 4, but that's no big deal. The issue is that there are 7 elemental schools with only 8 spells each. That's a lot of schools and very few spells, making it quite difficult to get magic. In an attempt to solve this, the devs introduced the Arcane Knowledge system, which is more or less the Wisdom of Heroes 3, only it doesn't come as a skill, but more of a primary stat which you can accumulate, and from that you can get spells from all schools irrespective of your actual mastery. That makes spell acquisition easier indeed, but not only that, it makes it trivial, and it comes at the price of downplaying elemental schools. This measure seems to be more of an easy and convenient fix to a problem that shouldn't have been then in the first place had the magic system been designed properly, and I do hope it is just temporary measure because returning to obsolete Wisdom mechanics is just not the way to go. Fortunately, the alignment-based preference feature coupled with the guild specialization feature inspired by Heroes 4 seem to be the saving grace of the magic system by providing a decent answer to the problem of reliability of magic.
Spells themselves are mostly good. Very few of them replicated under different names across the magic schools or having the same effects. There are some problematic ones which need a deeper approach, like dispels and heals, but overall I'd say I'm pleased. One thing I would appreciate is if the spellpower primary stat, or "magic" as they call it, would play a more determinant role in the outcome of spells (they seem rather weak compared to how much masteries empower spells).
[*] Combat system - 7/10
Pretty good all things considered. I like the mixed neutral armies and how they make battles a bit more diverse and challenging. The combat layouts are more varied, ranging from small to big, sieges happen more often with forts and gates, and there are obstacles on the battlefield like tree trunks and whatnot. I would've preferred it if there were hexes, but I guess squares will have to do. The turn system is unlike that of Heroes 5, which is a shame as ATB provided more flexible and dynamic combats. It can get a bit repetitive after a while, but I'm sure devs will add more content and enhance user experience (I'm quite sure we didn't saw all there is with the betas). They already had a try by implementing a flanking system, but it's so crude and underdeveloped that it's just not a noteworthy addition. If they really want to improve it, they should try working on the prerequisites for landing a flank and also make it that positional gameplay becomes more strategic.
Other than that, camera zoom and angles are a real bother as they feel rigid and with an overview on eyecandy and environment rather than focused more on the battles themselves, but these should be easy to adjust. Cool cam and other such features I just immediately disable as they stand in the way of a fluid experience, but I guess some people might appreciate them for their immersion value. Also, I think speeding animation up to only 400% is still quite low, that should be increased more.
[*] Adventure map - 8/10
An improvement compared to Heroes 6 and even Heroes 5. Really glad to see they dropped the real size mentality and went for a more iconic representation, which feels to be truly the way to go. Liked a lot how you could see an entire region in Heroes 3 and it may just be my impression but Heroes 7 seems to try to follow in those footsteps. Camera angles are again pretty stiff as you can't rotate or anything, only zoom. Maps sizes vary, some being pretty big compared to how much you can cover with your hero's movement speed, which is too limited for my taste.
Visually, the map lacks a bit of color, but I like it more that way than how its predecessor went around about it. Though some objects really need to stand out more, you can't even tell for certain what they are.
[*] Towns - 6/10
From the very start I'll mention that I do not particularly like the art style used for the townscreens. Still, I can say that some of them are quite well executed, like Dungeon's, while others are just over the top ludicrous, like Necropolis. Ugh. No wonder the design got ridiculed by the community as "Spiderpolis".
Town development feels crippled by those rather restrictive level requirements which stand in the way of ingenuity. I really appreciate the visual display and the building paths which brings it closer to a Heroes 3 feel, but some prerequisites are just senseless. Building costs are cheap, too cheap for economy to pose any challenge. So overall a bit disappointing.
The governor feature borrowed from Heroes 4 seems to be a good addition. Expecting some interesting gameplay around it. The one thing that I do not like is that the majority of the bonuses are limited to the town's area of control, a feature which I personally don't like at all. So that means that your accumulated bonuses and also some of your special buildings are totally useless outside of it, which is most of the time.
[*] Resources - 7/10
The good part about them is that they're 7 again (hence the rating  ), and that's crucial. It's good to see the devs learning from their past mistakes. The bad part though is that they chose to make new ones which are totally forgettable. They're names are pretentious wordplays of "dragon", "steel" and "shadow" which no one will remember, and their visual representation is similar to one another, such that you cannot tell them apart save from their colors. The old ones were the best, visible and identifiable, with easy to remember names, so I can only hope they will make a comeback someday.
[*] UI - 6/10
Appears intrusive more than anything. I don't understand how the minimap is even needed in your hero screen or inside your town. Not really a fan of the tabs stamped over the adventure map that block your overview, complementary UI around the edges feels much more practical. I get they want something more new and fresh, but forgoing efficiency for the sake of aspect is just a bad idea.
[*] Replay features - 9/10
This is where the devs really stepped up their game. Top notch map and campaign editors with tons of customizable features; random map generator; duels; multiplayer with simultaneous turns. I mean, what more do you even want? Well, it would've been perfect if the game allowed not only map-based modding, but also game-based modding. But still, these were all features requested ever since Heroes 6 happened and I'm really glad (and also pleasantly surprised) that the devs took notes, learned their lesson the hard way and delivered this time around. With all this, life expectancy for Heroes 7 should be pretty high. Not even any DRM or Uplay shenanigans, you just need an one time activation and then you can play offline if you want. Great news all around for the community, which I believe will take its time enhancing this game with custom maps, scenarios, campaigns and other user generated content.
Overall Rating for Heroes 7 - 7/10
My impression of this game is mostly favorable, and I would recommend it especially to the unfamiliar players who are new to the series and don't have as high standards or expectations as old fans do. The game is enjoyable in spite of some of its flaws, which I hope they will be addressed sooner rather than later. I have a feeling that this is likely to be another Heroes 5 Cinderella story, where the game had a sluggish start, but then after two expansions ended up being one of the best, if not the best, games in the series. An ideal scenario, I know, but I don't find it that farfetched. The devs would have to dedicate themselves to the post-launch process, listen closely to community feedback, provide the necessary fixes and implement the right features if their ultimate goal is to really deliver a good Heroes experience.
Edit, 2 November 2015:
Consider the previously mentioned review outdated. In light of the severe technical issues plaguing this already mediocre entry, I cannot in good faith recommend this game. Therefore, after pondering things carefully, I decided to change my public impression of this game. I have disregarded the technical difficulties of the release in hope that they will get fixed relatively shortly down the road, but after over one month of patching, the game is still unplayable, bugridden, crashing and desynchronizing in multiplayer consistently. I tried to like it, I really did, but I think it was about time to face reality.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 12, 2015 05:22 PM |
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Practically, it isn't a bad game, but it isn't the best either, huh?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 12, 2015 05:28 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 17:29, 12 Sep 2015.
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted September 12, 2015 06:13 PM |
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TL;DR but i agree with the 7/10. And pretty much what energyz said. Not bad, but not the best. Because we are longtime fans,some of us are too strict. Names of the resources is a pretty trivial and silly thing to get mad about for instance. This community(as all communities) becomes a victim of trends. "Pretentious names", "butterfly dragons" (even the name sounds cool to me), "spiderpolis" (never played warcraft etc i really loved H6 necropolis and all of its creatures). And newest members trying to fit in, join the trend-train with bad results-.-
I know H6 scared us all deeply and anything close to it sparks fear and rage, but i think it s time to let go..
All in all i believe this game will do good and it will expand. We might get more heroes per class,a nicer random skill system(they did say they will work on it a little more).
As for the specializations I was mad about it too,but then i saw that i was looking at the class of the hero first and at what he/she experts/masters/grandmasters and then the specialization so it didn't bother me that much. But indeed they could have done a little better there and make each hero more unique. Some heroes of the same class are exactly the same now that specializations are not that big of a deal-.- i m so waiting to see if this game starts off better than H5/H6 
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 12, 2015 08:32 PM |
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Not close to a 7 from me, though ...
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted September 12, 2015 09:08 PM |
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7/10 from Fan nr 1, that translates nicely to the 3.5 H7 deserves. What a snowup.
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Friend-shaped
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted September 12, 2015 09:33 PM |
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That is too high, from my point of view. H5 would have 7/10 (without any mods). H7, more likely 4/10 based on beta.
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"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN
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Gryphs
Supreme Hero
The Clever Title
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posted September 12, 2015 09:36 PM |
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Edited by Gryphs at 21:37, 12 Sep 2015.
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7/10 seems fair if the games performance is rectified at launch to me though the beta I played I would certainly give a 4 or worse.
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"Don't resist the force. Redirect it. Water over rock."-blizzardboy
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 12, 2015 11:06 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 23:06, 12 Sep 2015.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 12, 2015 11:56 PM |
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All that is very nicely put, but not a single point about lack of optimization? The delay between turns, the delay while loading game, this is screwing the experience. Then don't forget one thing related to it, which Civ 5 taught us: even if editing tools are strong, the fact that you need several minutes to get into the game, test your script and fix it if need, is going to have a huge impact on your enthusiasm.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted September 12, 2015 11:59 PM |
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Salamandre makes a very good point. Loading time is way too long.
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"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 13, 2015 12:00 AM |
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To be fair, the delay was a deliberate thing in order to record how the AI behaves.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted September 13, 2015 12:04 AM |
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Sure, but the time they mentioned after optimization is still long iirc. And there are loading screens when entering battles, which are kind of boring.
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"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 13, 2015 12:18 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 00:23, 13 Sep 2015.
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I haven't included optimization, bug reports, broken features and balance issues because that was not in the scope of the review. What I wanted to do is give my impression over the chosen features of the game and how they're envisioned to work in their proper state. I think that's what people are most interested in.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 13, 2015 12:28 AM |
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A bugless, fabulous and amazing game is still prohibited if on best and bigger maps you will have to wait several minutes between turns. IMO all must be done to make the gameplay as fluid as possible, and only then correct bugs.
But it looks like I am the only one annoyed by this. 
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Era II mods and utilities
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 13, 2015 12:33 AM |
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Depends on the severity of the bug. They did good by fixing that save corrupting bug at the first beta. But yeah, optimization of AI's making the turn is also important.
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted September 13, 2015 12:39 AM |
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Edited by Kayna at 00:43, 13 Sep 2015.
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Man. Lucky you. If I could meet Erwan Lebreton in person like you did, I would smash a cream pie right in his face! BTW, is there a quick duel option like in Heroes 6 ?
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted September 13, 2015 12:48 AM |
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Kayna said:
Man. Lucky you. If I could meet Erwan Lebreton in person like you did, I would smash a cream pie right in his face! BTW, is there a quick duel option like in Heroes 6 ?
There is.
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Hunters11
Tavern Dweller
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posted September 13, 2015 02:20 AM |
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....
That is too low, from my point of view. H5 would have 7.5/10 (original). H7, more likely 8/10 based on beta
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dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
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posted September 13, 2015 02:36 AM |
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