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| Thread: Heroes VII pre-release faults |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT» |
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 27, 2016 11:59 PM |
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Heroes VII pre-release faults
This isn't a thread about discussing about Heroes VII's good and bad points (and then bashing each other's heads to prove who's right).
Instead, we should recall about the choices Ubi has failed to execute, during the development of the game (not after its release). For if it ever happens once more they would start announcing details about any new game (be it MMXI or H8), at least to know what dark actions are they really plotting.
For even those that do like Heroes VII should've at least had some frustrations over that mmh7 site.
Well, in theory, the idea of a dev blog to announce news is good, but what turned out in the end was really, ah, grotesque.
Example - the votes, at the start of the blog, was to determine the factions and line-ups, where the latter was split into Offense, Defence and Balanced line-ups. In truth, the line-ups were actually "New", "Conservative" or "Mix between". Some may even consider the votes even split the community...
What do you think? I feel this is necessary to be written, considering how much lies and plots Ubisoft had thrown at communities (not just Might & Magic franchise).
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted May 28, 2016 12:49 AM |
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The two main aspects where they went wrong, I think, are these:
Have a vision of where you want to take the game.
Erwan LeBreton himself even said somewhere during the development of the game that the team didn't have a vision of where to go with the game, nor which aspects of Heroes games actually made Heroes games Heroes games in the first place.
If you lack these fundamental aspects, you'll never get anything to fruition. Then it's just a matter of haphazardly programming something and hoping all the elements will add up to something memorable. More likely, though, you're getting a mumbo-jumbo mess of various components that have little coherence, lacking depth and finesse. The Flanking mechanic and the Skill Wheel are two of the biggest eyesores in that respect.
As any artist knows, you first start with a rough outline, a birds eye view of what you want. In the case of Heroes games, this means concepts and aspects that define Heroes games for what they are. Then, you zoom in on them somewhat, see how they interact and how they can support eachother and shape those aspects. Then you zoom in further, add another layer of detail. As time passes, you flesh out details and set up the generic form and structure of the game. Once the fundamentals have been taken care of, you can start to consider making campaigns based on those fundamentals. You can still tune finer details at this point.
If you say you want to give players a voice, listen to it.
They announced they would work closely with the people who liked or loved the game. They would be open about development and openly discuss aspects and gain valuable insight and contributions from the fans.
In reality, though, the Shadow Council was nothing but a farce, a facade to act like a lightning conduit, as they summarily disregarded just about anything that was discussed. Even here, on these very forums, people participated in constructive discussions about various aspects. But as time passed, it became more and more obvious that whatever was discussed, fell on deaf ears. Weird or downright negative design decisions were pushed through and when people started to rile up about what they saw going off on the wrong direction, they were told to either have faith or even downright told they didn't see it right, in a rather condescending way.
Preciously little input by fans and players actually made it into the game, most of it was pushed through by the developers, no matter what. As it became more and more clear that the Shadow Council wasn't being used for the purpose they claimed initially, the VIP participation running into similar walls and stubbornness with regards to various awkward design decisions, a number of avid fans turned more and more acidic about the prospects of the game.
Given the sales figures as well as current player activity, those sour-turned fans were right in their pessimistic view of the game, prior to launch.
If they ever decide to go for fan participation again (probably not), they will have to make a serious effort to listen to what's being said, openly and in objective fashion discuss why some things won't work, as opposed to outright lieing and deceiving the people they try to glue on the new, upcoming title. You don't bite the hand that feeds you - and in this case, that hand belongs to the fans.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 28, 2016 11:57 AM |
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Agreed. One more, though.
It just feels like there is no actual connection between fans and developers. As if something was lost. For people that do not care much about fans (who only through outrage managed to achieve some results) don't have much experience in the matter. It is said because they want to develop games that are fun - but what's fun if only few people like it, when there could be many more people that would pay well for a well-developed game?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 28, 2016 01:04 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 13:07, 28 May 2016.
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Well, we are considered hardcore fans so the value of our opinions is somewhat lessened as a result..
As for pre-release issues:
- Repeating the same H6 mistake of not having both units AND the whole battlefield perfectly visible from the default camera view. To appreciate the details you must zoom in but if you do you will miss part of the battlefield.
- Almost every SC vote being inconsequential or guided and the updates leaving no room for fan feedback. The votes themselves were often about picking the lesser evil and never about something really impotant - like manual or random skill system. And whenever we were presented with news, it was too late to change anything.
- Not giving much thought to the hero specials or the way H5 skill system worked. The former has been the source of constant ranting since the beta and it has yet to be changed. The latter was a complete misunderstanding, where instead of building and improving upon the system's good points, they started with the hypothesis than it was too complex and it should be dumbed down.
- The terribly dull colours, thankfully fixed by now.
- The messed up unit scale and quality of textures, ranging from fine to absolutely terrible. It's like nobody had a look at it before shipping and it's not for lack of beta feedback. By all accounts those should have been taken care of before the release.
- The general guideline that H6 mechanics are to be corrected but without knowing in what way. Ok spells are back in the guilds but how do you create a good acquisition and learning system? Ok get rid of the tabs but how do you integrate that into a functional skillwheel? (The result being, split all those between 6 faction classes  ) Ok H6 had too many abilities but how few are too few? And so on.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 28, 2016 01:24 PM |
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Edited by EnergyZ at 13:24, 28 May 2016.
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Elvin said:
- The terribly dull colours, thankfully fixed by now.
Isn't that a matter of opinion? Some don't like the dull colors (I don't either), yet some complain the colors, when are saturated, give the game a cartoon-like feel (which is pointed in Heroes V). I don't share that thought, but I think it does show that there is no middle ground in the matter; the only solution would be to just have a slider in game options menu to change such saturation.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 28, 2016 01:29 PM |
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A matter of a lot of opinions that find that sucky vs few opinions who do not. It was by no means a popular decision. Also, no heroes game has ever had dull colours in the past which should have been an indication.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 28, 2016 01:33 PM |
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cleglaw
Famous Hero
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posted May 28, 2016 03:34 PM |
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-being too much stuck in the past and not refreshing gameplay.
-misreading what game needs. it need new gameplay with old atmosphere instead of new atmosphere and mixed gameplay.
-not studying games of similair genres. grand strategy+rts+turn based+rpg games... they simply didnt really learn anything from them.
-bad planning.
-using fans to promote game but not acctually listening to them... which equals lying to customer, which is a big mistake.
-having no real vision/love. if you dont listen your fans, at least have this to create something unique/good without fans help.
-terrible timing.
-no consistency with developing team. every new game has a brand new team.. which is making things harder. heroes has a great potential but it has high demands from its creators to live the potential.
-insisting on keeping faction counts lower then h3 had.
-tryhard of insisting on new lore/atmosphere change. h3 already had a great atmospheric feeling. wasted meaningless effort spent on this matter.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 28, 2016 03:49 PM |
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I agree with all the points, except these:
cleglaw said:
-not studying games of similair genres. grand strategy+rts+turn based+rpg games... they simply didnt really learn anything from them.
Fairly certain Erwan once mentioned he did play Starcraft. But what was made inspired from that game was adding color to the units per the color of the faction. Nothing wrong with that, but that's not exactly what was needed, either, since Starcraft has a more dynamic gameplay. Just saying.
cleglaw said:
-insisting on keeping faction counts lower then h3 had.
Heroes II, IV and V had six factions from the start and aren't necessarily bad games. It makes sense, though, since they did not have much money (How else do you explain the reused creature models from Heroes VI?). But yes, more money should've been invested to the project.
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CTPAHHuK
Adventuring Hero
krs.83@mail.ru
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posted May 28, 2016 05:51 PM |
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 28, 2016 06:00 PM |
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Edited by EnergyZ at 18:00, 28 May 2016.
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I don't know, the last time I heard the online multiplayer did not work.
Which leads to another mistake, how the devs had underestimated the power of simulation turns, probably due to their argument "it wasn't in Heroes III, either".
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Antalyan
Promising
Supreme Hero
H7 Forever
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posted May 28, 2016 06:08 PM |
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The only major failure in H7 development I see is budget.
Limbic did not get enough money to hire more people and also did not get enough time to finish the game properly with the amount of people they could afford to hire.
I am pretty sure if the game was released now or rather this september, you would look at it in a different way. I also bet the total profit, even with the additional development time, would be much higher.
Now they are in a very problematic situation and it would/will be a very difficult task to persuade people to give the game another chance, after datadisc(s). But it worked in H5 case so they can still do it even now.
As for gameplay, it is always very difficult task to design and always a lot of people are dissatisfied with the things which have been chosen.
H7 is supposed not to bring many news to series, btw. I really wonder which "fresh" features could be brought to game to satissfy the majority of players.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 28, 2016 06:14 PM |
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Antalyan said:
I am pretty sure if the game was released now or rather this september, you would look at it in a different way. I also bet the total profit, even with the additional development time, would be much higher.
Certainly. But there would still be some criticism, considering there would still be things that were set in stone (gameplay features, most designs of units, the townscreens etc.).
And that just proves the point they never should've gotten ahead of themselves and release the game in poor state. But who are we to speak, when Ubi's greed is beyond them and us? Besides, I don't think the dev blog would be operating "healthy" for two whole years, in a sense they'd release one article per week, just to satisfy curiosity.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 28, 2016 07:00 PM |
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Antalyan said:
The only major failure in H7 development I see is budget.
I could list all the major flaws that have nothing to do with budget but my signature says it all really.
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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted May 28, 2016 07:20 PM |
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Antalyan said:
The only major failure in H7 development I see is budget.
Limbic did not get enough money to hire more people and also did not get enough time to finish the game properly with the amount of people they could afford to hire.
We never said that the game was under budgeted. As for any project, you need to make choices with your constraints. We prefer to secure high quality level for core Heroes gameplay elements and gaming experience.
Please take good note that we do not consider Heroes VII as under budgeted project and never mentioned this idea.
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GenyaArikado
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
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posted May 28, 2016 10:51 PM |
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Considering that the company before Limbic went bankrupt making the game, im pretty sure Heroes is underbudgeted.
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TD
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 28, 2016 11:23 PM |
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GenyaArikado said:
Considering that the company before Limbic went bankrupt making the game, im pretty sure Heroes is underbudgeted.
They made a terribad contract though. They made a deal that they start getting good royalties after 1 million sales are done with full retail price...
And to get back to topic. The biggest fault in MMH7 was that devs didn't do real research on why some features were liked, what made certain games better. Thus they just randomly took bits and pieces creating the Frankenstein's monster of MMH7. Bad design decisions, bad ideas, unfinished realizations and such have nothing to do with budget really as it's just all bad planning all the way. If the budget was the problem in creating good game, they should've just made expansion to existing game rather than make at best a mediocre game by cannibalizing bits and pieces from other games.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted May 29, 2016 12:42 AM |
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Is this even necessary?
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Mageus
Hired Hero
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posted May 29, 2016 04:04 AM |
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I don't understand you : if you are still happy with either H3 or H5 why do even play H7? I know I can't play h3 anymore. I have tried repetively and get bored every time. TOE feels a bit better but that too now bores me, I spent too much time on it already. I'll still try thaét h5.5 version that was released recently but I don't have to much hope.
And sincerely if you feel playing H7 how I feel playing H3 wog I don't get how you find the energy to still comment here.
Since the topic is they messed up I will have a completely different opinion than you guys : I agree with most of the in game decision they make (or many at least) and the one, huge, problem I see is that the game will still be bugged as hell even after the first expansion. That they put one single guy to deal with the whole AI and it was clearly to much. Since we are speaking about Blizzard I don't think Blizzard would have even invite players for a close beta with a game with so many bugs. And why do I say it is huge? You create a hype and players can't play in multiplayers for months. When they eventually do play they see a campaing where the AI never buys any units (recently done the Dogwoggle one), they see creatures becoming intargetable, you see the least powerful spell regerating one legendary creature at minimum, you see ancient behemoths that don't act when control by AI or metamagic which just recently started to work as intended or dark elves having two attacks even after a retaliation. Briefly : things do not work as they should.
I'm lucky to have my favorite faction working well enough with a heroe that has a set of skills I am ok with. For all others and regardless of every thing and decision you mentionned here it is really hard to like the game in its current state. As for what you mention I don't think it would be any good for this would make it just a bugged remake of H3 and I don't think any one would really like it. Not bugged this way.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 29, 2016 09:55 AM |
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Storm-Giant said:
Is this even necessary?
Of course it is. It just goes to show the very first mistakes they did. Most of which are still in place. It's not just about the game itself, but some of the decisions revolving around the announcements, for example, from the dev blog. And look at them thread views.
So I do think it is important to document this information. Just to know what to expect if similar things appear in the next MM game - if they ever do, that is.
Mageus said:
I don't understand you : if you are still happy with either H3 or H5 why do even play H7?
Nobody says I played Heroes VII. But I think I'll have to play it sometime, for the sake of personal experience. Well, only if the size of the game is compact, how much did the patches increase the size of the game?
Mageus said:
Since the topic is they messed up I will have a completely different opinion than you guys : I agree with most of the in game decision they make (or many at least) and the one, huge, problem I see is that the game will still be bugged as hell even after the first expansion.
Have you ever been on the dev site (or any fan site that shared info about the Heroes VII before it was released)? A lot of news was being put into analysis - images, videos, texts, etc. And the interaction between devs (or community managers at least) and fans was basically severed off. Yes, they did reply to a lot of comments, but when there was -clearly- something the fans really wanted (to be changed), most of the time such desires were ignored, the only time I can think of is that vote of lich and vampire. Well, there's that Christmas wish as well that the devs promised a random skill system and it turned out to be gross for a lot of people.
Another example is the time when Necropolis faction was revealed, there was a lot of rage, yelling (could be even fighting in the real world). The officials did not care much and even posted that abysmal shop button, outraging people further at the idea of pre-ordering such a game. And when they did react, it was about that shameful article of the skillwheel.
All of this being said - do you not think the gameplay experience could've been a lot better, if the devs (and Erwan) made different, better choices?
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