So is this game worth buying?

[cjlee]

Of course, it would be much better if they improved AI instead of waiting people to cast miraculous skills upon making maps. It would save much time for map makers dealing with things that weren't supposed to be their responsibility to begin with.

Ubisoft, producing an improved product?

It's as likely to happen as a Brazil without corruption

[Panda Tar]

Yeah, and it's almost always the harder path. ^^

[Erwinner]

Mapmakers of the past had many ways to solve this problem, so fear not:

Bigger Neutral Stacks

Powerful enemy heroes scripted to attack you nonstop

Periodic scripted events that take away your resources and give the AI free creatures or resources

Forcing you to pass certain gates that take away anything from experience to artifacts to creatures from the human player

Stacks programmed to be always hostile to you and always join the AI player

One way gates that force you to embark on costly quests or leave castle with minimal garrison, while AI player can just attack your castle anytime they like without you retaliating

yes these are all old and excellent techniques for rigging the adventure map AI, but they mean next to nothing if the combat AI is so bad it can barely even pathfind its way around obstacles to attack you lol

[Kalah]

Yes, that's a good point which I can make relevant to the topic in question:

I H7, the combat AI varies in intelligence. Usually, it makes attacking my shooters a priority, which is good. Sometimes, though, for no apparent reason, it can leave shooters and go for something else, despite the fact that it could have inflicted lowered morale on my units if finishing off a stack (it makes no distinction between undead/construct opponents and regular ones), or despite the fact that choosing to continuing the attack on my shooters would mean less retaliation damage to itself.
Sometimes, an enemy hero will use Armageddon or Chain lightning and absolutely hammer my units, then it will suddenly do something stupid instead (such as casting Lightning burst on its own units) when it could have finished me off (despite having enough mana). I have lost battles this way, only to experience the AI behaving less cleverly when I try the "fight again" option.

In summary, the combat AI in H7 is periodically a real challenge, only to suddenly do something silly and let the side down. If it would consistently play at its best, it would actually be very good.

[cjlee]

In summary, the combat AI in H7 is periodically a real challenge, only to suddenly do something silly and let the side down. If it would consistently play at its best, it would actually be very good.

That's incredibly irritating to hear.

A mapmaker can always make allowances for bad AI.

A mixed enemy army with a high level AI hero and good artifacts with scripts that prevent human player from gaining the artifacts after victory, is always a general challenge.

But an INCONSISTENT AI is very, very hard to make up for.

WTF man, looks like we have to wait until game is fully patched and stabilized before we can start figuring out the AI's decision making process.

[Pol]

I don't even begin to understand why Limbic keeps pumping out patches at the rate of 1 a week, when every patch brings out nearly as many problems as it solves. This is like an infinite series.

If they had focused on solving preexisting problems and left out the neutrals for an expansion, we won't be facing this problem.

@cjlee
Probably wrong strategy? They may use their chance with another Stand alone Add-On. Or must. The prime launch was wasted

[Galaad]

I'm having a serious H6 déjà-vu.

Besides, they already stated they won't rework skill and magic systems, which imo would be mandatory to salvage the game via expansion.

[gourley4p]

Besides, they already stated they won't rework skill and magic systems, which imo would be mandatory to salvage the game via expansion.

I find the magic system in VII to be much closer to V or III than to VI. What kind of changes would you like to see there?

[Galaad]

For starters there was NO magic system in VI, since spells were SKILLS. And didn't I say it enough times already? LESS SCHOOLS.

And I know you don't like HC but:

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=41430

or

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.p ... 8320#focus

[Avonu]

Actually nearly all spells are copied from Heroes 6, just like 7 Magic Schools system. Also one adventure map spell or ability per turn limit is copied from H6.
It's true, that we got Magic Guilds back but overall Magic System is taken from Heroes 6, however without cooldown "feature", which IMO was very bad idea.

The first problem with Magic System is that we got 7 Schools and not enough spells in each of them. With less schools we can get not only more spells per school but also each school can be more unique.

The second problem is that more or less each school have similar spells: buffs, debuffs, damage. There are some difference but overall each school seems to be like other one. Also some spells are essential for gameplay but only available in certian magic chools, which often are only available for certain factions.

The third problem and the most annoying one is that your hero can not learn not only all magic schools but also he can't learn magic schools outside his class pre-selected skills. This was changed however and now heroes can learn all spells from all seven schools (if they choose to focus on their magic skills) but they can't master them and in some cases they don't have enough magic skills to simply be able to learn the most powerful spells.

The fourth problem is that you can't make archmage hero archetype, who focus only on magic like in Heroes 2-5. Even if (s)he knows 3-4 Magic Skills, he can be Grand Master in two of them, max, and be Master in 2-3 next ones.

The fifth problem is with spells mastery. They don't get better when you achive higher level in skill like for example Stone Skin became Mass/AoE spell or you get Mass version of that spell - you need to pick up hero ability to get that. It's not a bad idea per se but combined with that you can only learn mastery in some Magic Schools at expert level, you often can't have a mage specialist, unless you choose that one class from that one faction, which can do this.

[cjlee]

Avonu I've been not feeling enthusiastic about the spells and skills, but your post really hit the mark.

The spells and abilities system is just downright poor. A rehash of the same loser skills from H6, often with the same graphics cut and pasted. I'm not raring to play a hero and watch him develop into a mediocre bore. It's not like getting Arcane Omniscience in H5, or a Grandmaster Archmage in H4, or having Expert Earth magic in H3. I suppose that's another big reason why I'm not keen to buy H7 even though game is now available for 15 Euros. I'm just content to talk shop and sit on the sidelines for now.

[Karmakeld]

Good points Avonu.
I might add that there are quite some similarities to MMHO, as not only did some of the creatures come from the online game, but the same spells/skills and -systems aswell. In MMHO you only got two factions, but they each had several spells which were quite similar. I do recall that some available skills (spells), would differ

[Panda Tar]

I would be happy with dynamic spellcasting, spells without schools influenced particularly by faction and hero expertise - something that always reminds of me of H2, when spells had no schools.

[cjlee]

I would be happy with dynamic spellcasting, spells without schools influenced particularly by faction and hero expertise - something that always reminds of me of H2, when spells had no schools.

Whatever you, I, or most old school fans are happy with, Ubisoft doesn't seem happy to deliver. Sometimes it seems they go out of their way to deliver stuff that they know the fans will hate, just to show that they are the ones in charge.

[mr.hackcrag]

The game seems like it was designed to be Heroes 6.5 - a second attempt at their first failure.

[Avonu]

I think it's caused by two things:
1) Very low budget
2) Low resources (not only money but also time and workers)

So in the end all what Heroes 7 team has at the start was probably Heroes 6 and instead of creating new game from scraps, only available option for them was to use Heroes 6 and try to somehow improve that game.
That's why IMO we got so restricted skill system - because you really can't do much with Heroes 6 bad design with so low budget and with so short deadline.

But maybe I'm wrong and Heroes 7 designers really thought that Heroes 6 is "the best" of Heroes of Might and Magic series?

[Galaad]

But maybe I'm wrong and Heroes 7 designers really thought that Heroes 6 is "the best" of Heroes of Might and Magic series?

That doesn't seem that far-fetched... Remember that we were told to "stop live in the past", "Heroes 5 skill system is flawed", "we do not represent the fan base", "Ashan is here to stay", "mistakes from Heroes 6 were learnt" and other sentences of the likes by officials themselves.

I know it's sad and upsetting but IMO no matter the budget and condition it seems painfully clear to me all decisions were assumed by the Team and they didn't work against their "vision", only against the community.
I mean, between Marzhin who told us this is "their" best-of and Gomaki saying they "don't do the game for us" I don't need to be Sherlock to deduce most of the blame falls on the current MMH Team along their spider leader, no matter initial budget and resources.

[Galaad]

Not to mention official statement from Ubi-Nox saying H7 received all the investment it needed to succeed down the blog.

Please take good note that we do not consider Heroes VII as under budgeted project and never mentioned this idea. Our devs are doing their best to deliver an amazing Heroes experience with quality gameplay and hours and hours of fun thanks to exciting Factions and tools. This is our vision. Even if 3D towns and unique mounts are great features, and we do not deny that, this shouldn't prevent us from doing a good Heroes game in the end. Exciting news and reveals are approaching so keep faith

So I can't see how anything else than incompetence, non-understanding of the franchise and lack of talent can be put to blame for this game's obvious failure.

Might & Magic Heroes VII is in the bottom 18.9% of games scored on OpenCritic.
12% of critics recommend this game.

[cjlee]

The game seems like it was designed to be Heroes 6.5 - a second attempt at their first failure.

Just saw an article, top 10 Games of 2015...

Not surprisingly, Heroes 7 was not on that list.

I wonder whether we will ever see a Heroes game that can make the top 100 Games of the Year.

[Panda Tar]

Well, if only 100 were made in the year, maybe it'd appear in spite of itself.