Strategic AI + memory leaks: worrying stuff

[Asjo]

Gaidal Cain, I think what makes the difference is the way you play the game and what you think of the genre. Some like the Heroes of Might and Magic series, while others like something else ... Heroes 4. It would be much easier for me to describe the difference in the football simulation series called Football Manager. The developers first made Championship Manager. The reason the games were so popular was because of the extreme detail and depth the had in simulating football. Many new players wanted purely cosmetic things such as, for instance, being able to build you own stadium, something that is completely irrelevant to both the essence of the spirit in the game when considering its core gameplay.

Then the developer split from its publisher Eidos. Eidos hired a new crew to make a Championship Manager 5 game, which was made from scratch. This game sacrificed all the depth of the game for speed. Football Manager was the continuation of the old Championship Manager games and kept adding good things to the game and improving the depth. The same kind of people who gave a lot of silly suggestions for the old Championship Manager series, newbies or superficial followers of the game, actually preferred the terrible Championship Manager 5 over Football Manager 2005. Their main arguement was about the speed of the game and a few cosmetic features that didn't made the game any better but made it look fancy ... Not apply this difference to Heroes 3 and Heroes 4

Whether or not you should walk around the map to pick up resources and creatures from dwellings is something that can be discussed endlessly. All I can say is that this is an integral part of the Heroes game and a part of the way you choose to build up your empire (and that way becomes part of players the game and part of the game's atmosphere, which is why some of us don't mind it). It's a free choice, really, and whether you do everything perfectly or not is up to you. It is a strategic choice as well: do you keep a main hero alone, or do you recruit several "small" heroes to maintain your empire at home? There are several complications involved with letting creatures "run around loosely", and I think using heroes to transport units alone is a more solid solution which gives a better overview.

You mention the random advantage of attacking first, one of the minor imbalances in Heroes 3 that did not really distort the gameplay overall. And Nival have improved this and added a initiative system, so nothing to complain about here.

As of now, I don't see any important problems that you can claim are unadressed. So, please, be specific, even if a big change in gameplay through patches is probably unrealistic to ask of Nival. The only huge problem I see is that hero imbalance, which ruined Heroes 3 for me after I had played it for a long time, is still in the game. I think keeping hero imbalance in the game seems the easy choice, even if the way Heroes 4 solved it was probably even worse, as putting heroes in combat really weakened the game overall (heroes were always the main priority to attack, making combat predictable, and hero effects were gone instantly when heroes died, making a big aspect go missing).

[Gaidal Cain]

Gaidal Cain, I think what makes the difference is the way you play the game and what you think of the genre. Some like the Heroes of Might and Magic series, while others like something else ... Heroes 4.

You claim it's something else. I say it's the same core gameplay with lots of tweaks. It's all opinions, which is why you shouldn't be calling people "true fans".

Whether or not you should walk around the map to pick up resources and creatures from dwellings is something that can be discussed endlessly. All I can say is that this is an integral part of the Heroes game and a part of the way you choose to build up your empire (and that way becomes part of players the game and part of the game's atmosphere, which is why some of us don't mind it).

I say it's a tiny detail. Heroes isn't really a resource management game. Heroes is a game about strategy and tactics, and I see nothing strategical about having to move three heroes around the map every day to get an edge. You don't need to go to mines every week to collect their income, no? They don't have to be flaggable as in H4, a solution where you automate heroes/caravans/whatever would work as well for me if the interface is sleek enough, but I don't want to spend much time on it.

You mention the random advantage of attacking first, one of the minor imbalances in Heroes 3 that did not really distort the gameplay overall. And Nival have improved this and added a initiative system, so nothing to complain about here.

For me it isn't a "minor imbalance". It's a huge imbalance, as whoever is fast and has high attack will be much better off than units who are slow with high defense. Nival has lessened the maximum relative speed and made Haste only add to initiative, whichs is good, but the underlying problem is still there.

So, please, be specific, even if a big change in gameplay through patches is probably unrealistic to ask of Nival.

I don't care if it's possible to adress in patches or not, as there will most likely be a Heroes 6, so here goes:
1. No individual movement points for creatures (not the same as creatures moving without heroes). Means that silly chaining is back. Has been partially adressed by Sumon Creature, which makes chaining from hometown less worth the cost.

2. Player 1 gets lots of advantages. He can attack other players on day 1, capture their towns, and recruit their creatures. He can buyy stuff at artifact merchants first and deny the other players the chance.

3. In combat, whoever gets to strike first gets an enourmous advantage due to non-simultaneous retal.

4. Knowledge, and to a lesser degree, Spell Power are much less useful than attack and defense in high quantities. Having a 15/15/5/5 hero is almost always better than one that is 5/5/20/20, if everything else is equal.

5. Sieges. Tower damage is fixed, making it very powerful early on but almost worthless later. Walker armies are largely useless for attacking towns.

6. I have to spend time scuttling level 1 heroes from dwellings to windmills to dwellings on the adventure map if I wish to make use of them. Unfun.

7. Lots of exploits were using a single unit stack gives you enourmous advantages.

[addicted]

2) Ok being as I have an "older" system, 2500+ & GF4 Ti4200 vid card, so set to very low detail, no bells and whistles, and the intro screen still looked ok, so I figure it a matter of not knowing what I'm missing. Went through the first few campaign missions (I'm guessing the "Queen" is basically your tutorial missions), did first 3 yesterday no problem, a tad on the tedious side (I now know why I stopped playing this series), but other than that no problem, get to the 4th mission and I don't know what the **** happened but the game occasionally comes to an extremely slow crawl for no apparent reason, just sitting on the map screen without doing anything other than moving the cursor around, ie nothing big graphically is happening! So... Ridicoluos AI, memory leaks... Im depressed.
I think that Nival deserve a good kick in *that place*...
And Fabrice...how could he let them do this mess?

On #2 get to the 4th mission) (my 1st problem so far), Same thing happening to me on maps #4.The Trap/#5.The King (the king map I am on now) of the 1st campaign; comes to a crawl, cursor jumping around in a very 'slow' crawl, cannot get control very easy, etc. in certain areas. (saved games at that point continues the problem, start over and get to that point and starts happening again so there is no escaping the problem; Diffidently a game bug(s), rather it be a camera bug, memory leaks, maybe not completely optimized, maybe some other bugs or all the above, that needs fixing immediately in the 2nd patch.. I personally feel this game isn't too user friendly either..

My system surpasses minimum requirements and should run without one problem so I firmly believe it is not my system but bugs in the game itself! My system is AMD Athlon 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 2 GB ram, GF6800 GT 256 ram video card, Resolution set at 1024x768 x60 hertz, cooling ok staying at around GPU core temperature 58C - 64C; H-5 game set to low detail.

I just hope they fix 'all' these known bugs immediately and get this game running smoothly.. I want this game to be successful and bug free.. But I am sorry to say, I have no faith left in Nival who seems to continue to ignore the english version players so if this game fails, I personally blame it on Nival.. (my personal opinion so please don't turn it into any arguments)...

[Asjo]

Ok, I'll try to be fair about your points, even if it's obvious that our priorities are much different.

1. Hero chain would only really be a problem in multiplayer. In single players, it's your own choice to use it or not, and the AI won't use it. In multiplayer, you could ban its use in tournaments (where it matters if you win or lose). Besides, I don't see it as any great problem. If a player finds that using some gold on heroes to get quicker supply and finds that it gives him a tactical advantage, I don't really see it as an abuse but a normal tactical choice. Individual creature movement speed could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I'm not really decided between the two. Having the hero decide it seems more practical if less tactical. We have to assume that every player will try to use all creatures from his faction together, in which case it's terrible always having creatures dragging your down. On the other side the armies that should be more swift (dragons only, for instance) don't get that advantage.

2. I'm not sure I understand your first point. If a player can attack another player on day one, surely the map is at fault. Are you complaining about map sizes? If so, I second that, but I suppose Nival just want to keep the biggest map sizes to have a plus for the expansion. Buying stuff at artifact merchants is a choice that doesn't necessarily benefit you. So, if a player chooses to prioritize that and thus deny others the chance, I don't necessarily see any great unfair advantage gained from that. Once again, part of the game, and doesn't cause too much of a crazy imbalance that multiplayer players would mind. In single player is would seem very insignificant.

3. Yup, part of the game and luck. Once again, this doesn't make for perfect multiplayer balance, but is part of how that game is played and doesn't make it worse. When talking combat tactics, it might not actually end up being an advantage when you factor timing position; moving first is always risky. It's all in how it plays out. Delayed reliation making attacking more tactical and gives a better overview of how the battle will proceed.

4. Maybe this would somehow be changed with the balancing of the game, but concerning strength/defence, I agree that the hero imbalance hero should somehow be fixed so that gremlins cannot ever be as strong as dragons.

5. This just means that the effects of towers doesn't ever get too powerful. Obviously, since a player's castle is something sacred to him, you are not supposed to have a good chance of taking it early game. And late game it makes a difference (especially against phantomed units), but not too much. I might be nice to have it depend on what unit you actually have the opportunity to recuit (and if none, then the lower level shooter), but I don't see how any greater difference than that could be beneficial to the gameplay. And that idea brings with it complications as well because of the very diverse levels of shooters for different factions.

6. I have already stated by take on this. As I have emphasised, whether you choose to do this or not is nothing game-changing on most maps.

7. Once again, a tactical choice. You only have seven units slots, so there's a limit to the impact on this. Everyone can do it.

[Ethric]

1) The Heroes 4 AI was basically non-existent. The fact that it stayed in its town for 80% of the game made it terrible for fight. The Heroes 5 AI actually has quite a good potential once the worst bugs are fixed, and as of now it at least is much more aggressive and uses more tricks than the Heroes 4 AI. I knowns better how to mix armies and build its castle.

I don't know if the AI in H5 has potential or not but I do know that last sentence isn't right. The AI in H5 is just as dumb as in previous games in regards to mixing various factions, including undeads, with no regard to morale. I have seen it myself. And sure, give the ai near-unlimited resources through cheating and it will build up the castle and recruit the creatures. That doesn't mean it has good decisionmaking algorihtms. Am not saying it would necessarily build unwisely with limited resources, but it isn't to easy to say what with the massive cheating.

Many so-called newbies and superficial hero players loved Hereos 4, where the hardcore games and true hero fans loved Heroes 3. What we want is more of the same, not a complete change of the game.

Many so called arrogant people elevate their own position to that of the True Path and label conflicting opinions as ignorant and inexperient. Those people may want to reconsider their attitude.

5) Heroes 4 had as many problems with tool tips and Heroes 5, and notice, with no chance of them ever getting patched.

Which problems are those? I know that in H4 you can, for example, click a creature, check what spells\abilities affect it and exactly what they do, which you can't in H5. And you can click on the ground in H4 and check what penalties to movement, if any, the current terrain has, and which factions if any has it as native terrain. No such feature in h5.

[Asjo]

Ethric, though I might have very clearly defined view on the Heroes games, I'm not saying those things in the name of arrogance. I'm simply defining what fits withing the spirit and gameplay of Heroes and what does not. I'm not defining right or wrong, but Heroes/something else.

When I say the AI builds its armies better I'm referring to the fact that it less randomly mixes all kinds of different armies together. Sure, it too often mixes heroes and armies of different alignments, but it doesn't as randomly take any creature on its road and mix it with its main army. It's as if there is more thought behind it Especially becuase of the insane morale penalties and was terrible how Heroes 4 armies always had a mix of four different alignments in each army on bigger maps.

Also, it is common knowledge that the effects of skills and many artifacts simply misinformed the player in Heroes 4. Even though the general level of information was better, it was terrible how you couldn't actually trust anything that the tooltips said about those things.

And believe me, there are several things I liked better about Heroes 4, but despite that I don't see any problems with keeping the rules of the Heroes 3 universe and adding the good things from Heroes 4 to it (I seem to recall magic plains in the landscape in Heroes ). I really wanted to like Heroes 4 and played it until my friend that I played hot seat with simple said stop. Nival seem to have had a good overview of things when choosing the system that are to dominate the game (skills, spells, initiative, etc.). The problem is simply that they released a majorly unfinished game.

[Ethric]

You equated liking H4 with being a newbie and superficial, whilst liking H3 equates to being a harcore and true fan. If you don't see that that is arrogant (at best), then I can't help you

But I'm a nice guy so I'll try: having a clearly defined view of how HoMM should be is perfectly fine. Assigning derogatory terms like newbie and superficial to those who do not share that view is Bad.

Sure, it too often mixes heroes and armies of different alignments, but it doesn't as randomly take any creature on its road and mix it with its main army. It's as if there is more thought behind it

So it often mixes different alignments but it doesn't do it *randomly*... well it still gets the morale penalty, so that doesn't really help. And having a morale penalty in H5 is much worse than having one in H4. In H4, no matter how bad your morale was at the end of the turn all creatures got their move. In H5, bad morale may mean creatures don't get to move at all, being shifted further down the sequence each time. So while the mixing in H4 could be quite stupid, the consequences wasn't as severe overall.

Also, it is common knowledge that the effects of skills and many artifacts simply misinformed the player in Heroes 4. Even though the general level of information was better, it was terrible how you couldn't actually trust anything that the tooltops said about those things.

Common knowledge, is it? I'm sorry but I don't think I am common, as I am not quite certain what you are referring to. I know a few artifacts were bugged and didn't provide the stated effects, but other than that the descriptions are quite accurate.

[ThunderTitan]

You equated liking H4 with being a newbie and superficial, whilst liking H3 equates to being a harcore and true fan.

OMG, i'm both a newbie and a HC "true" fan. Soon the world will end because of such a paradox. Now all i need is to also be a "real" fan and i'd have everything.

[DaemianLucifer]

Lets see,where to start?

These points seem a bit mindless to me. It's ture that Heroes 4 had more good things to it than what meets the eye, and that people mostly got a bad impression due to the non-existant AI. I find there's a chorus of growing numbers saying "Heroes 4 had this and that" and any opportunity. However, many things worked better in Heroes 3, something which the main proportion of the community seconds and which Nival have listened to.

Yet there were a lot of problems with HIII,that needed fixing.Something which the main portion of the community noticed,but it wasnt adressed by nival.

2) When Heroes 5 has an editor released this won't make any difference between the games. I could be a source of frustration, but not a point to somehow put Heroes 4 above Heroes 5.

Depends on the editor.If it stays like in HIII,then there will be a big problem,since the HIV editor was the best one so far.

3) The fact that Heroes 5 uses almost all the rules from Heroes 3 isn't a bad thing, but one of the things that helsp it be better than Heroes 4.

Actually it is a bad thing,because that system had lots of exploits that needed fixing.HIV fixed some of those,although it did create others.

I see no reason to use a derogatory term such as "clone" to describe it. Heroes 4 has many shortcomings (from the top of my head I can think of morale, siege, speel types), and by adopting the ideas of Heroes 3 instead, we are rid of those.

Whats wrong with morale and spell types in HIV?Spell system in HIV was the best one,and morale wasnt that powerfull as in HIII,which is a good thing.Morale in HV is the best one so far,IMO,but that comes due to the fact there are no rounds.As for siege,both sieges are bad.They shouldve combined the two:Towers from HIV and siege machines from HIII.Also,the gate should be breachable by all units.That way,if your catapult gets destroyed youre not dead meat with just walkers.

Many developers mistakenly think that they have to change an entire game to make a new one. That's why I'm happy that Nival actually understand to stick to what works and what was liked. Many so-called newbies and superficial hero players loved Hereos 4, where the hardcore games and true hero fans loved Heroes 3. What we want is more of the same, not a complete change of the game. Unfortunately, graphics have probably taken much of Nival's time, but it has added a new feel to the game. At least we get the same universe with potential for improvement in AI, factions, spells and creatures, with many nice new touches that Nival have added into the game to improve on the beloved gameplay of Heroes 3.

So Im a newbie?And so are many others that played heroes for years?Riiiiight.

5) Heroes 4 had as many problems with tool tips and Heroes 5, and notice, with no chance of them ever getting patched. If you are talking about the difficulties navigating around the adventure map, I must say that I had no problem overcoming this more or less over time.

And those problems are?Like Ethric said,HIV was the most informative game of the series.HV is behind even HIII in this.

Gaidal Cain, I think what makes the difference is the way you play the game and what you think of the genre. Some like the Heroes of Might and Magic series, while others like something else ... Heroes 4. It would be much easier for me to describe the difference in the football simulation series called Football Manager. The developers first made Championship Manager. The reason the games were so popular was because of the extreme detail and depth the had in simulating football. Many new players wanted purely cosmetic things such as, for instance, being able to build you own stadium, something that is completely irrelevant to both the essence of the spirit in the game when considering its core gameplay.

Then the developer split from its publisher Eidos. Eidos hired a new crew to make a Championship Manager 5 game, which was made from scratch. This game sacrificed all the depth of the game for speed. Football Manager was the continuation of the old Championship Manager games and kept adding good things to the game and improving the depth. The same kind of people who gave a lot of silly suggestions for the old Championship Manager series, newbies or superficial followers of the game, actually preferred the terrible Championship Manager 5 over Football Manager 2005. Their main arguement was about the speed of the game and a few cosmetic features that didn't made the game any better but made it look fancy ... Not apply this difference to Heroes 3 and Heroes 4

Somehow this fits better against HV than against HIV.HV is full of eye candy,with the focus on "speeding up gameplay" by removing useful information.

Whether or not you should walk around the map to pick up resources and creatures from dwellings is something that can be discussed endlessly. All I can say is that this is an integral part of the Heroes game and a part of the way you choose to build up your empire (and that way becomes part of players the game and part of the game's atmosphere, which is why some of us don't mind it). It's a free choice, really, and whether you do everything perfectly or not is up to you. It is a strategic choice as well: do you keep a main hero alone, or do you recruit several "small" heroes to maintain your empire at home? There are several complications involved with letting creatures "run around loosely", and I think using heroes to transport units alone is a more solid solution which gives a better overview.

I see the strategy in a choice to buy a hero to run around and collect resources or use that money on something else.But I dont see any strategy in havin to manually guide that hero over the same road over and over and over again untill your eyes bleed and your had cramps.Making every resource building flagable is the easiest way to adress this.Auotamting heroes by using waypoints is another,and better one IMO.

You mention the random advantage of attacking first, one of the minor imbalances in Heroes 3 that did not really distort the gameplay overall. And Nival have improved this and added a initiative system, so nothing to complain about here.

One of the major imbalances of HIII since it allowed for no lose battles even agains stronger foes.And nival did solve it pretty well.

As of now, I don't see any important problems that you can claim are unadressed. So, please, be specific, even if a big change in gameplay through patches is probably unrealistic to ask of Nival. The only huge problem I see is that hero imbalance, which ruined Heroes 3 for me after I had played it for a long time, is still in the game. I think keeping hero imbalance in the game seems the easy choice, even if the way Heroes 4 solved it was probably even worse, as putting heroes in combat really weakened the game overall (heroes were always the main priority to attack, making combat predictable, and hero effects were gone instantly when heroes died, making a big aspect go missing).

But there is a way it could be balanced.Here is how Id solve it,but thats not the only way,of course.

1. Hero chain would only really be a problem in multiplayer. In single players, it's your own choice to use it or not, and the AI won't use it. In multiplayer, you could ban its use in tournaments (where it matters if you win or lose). Besides, I don't see it as any great problem. If a player finds that using some gold on heroes to get quicker supply and finds that it gives him a tactical advantage, I don't really see it as an abuse but a normal tactical choice. Individual creature movement speed could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I'm not really decided between the two. Having the hero decide it seems more practical if less tactical. We have to assume that every player will try to use all creatures from his faction together, in which case it's terrible always having creatures dragging your down. On the other side the armies that should be more swift (dragons only, for instance) don't get that advantage.

If the AI doesnt use it,you using it spoils the fun,because you can use a strategy your opponent cant.But then again,AI cheats,which is something you cant use,and it spoils the fun even further.And though both players can chain in MP,it still spoils the fun because its tedious.

2. I'm not sure I understand your first point. If a player can attack another player on day one, surely the map is at fault. Are you complaining about map sizes? If so, I second that, but I suppose Nival just want to keep the biggest map sizes to have a plus for the expansion. Buying stuff at artifact merchants is a choice that doesn't necessarily benefit you. So, if a player chooses to prioritize that and thus deny others the chance, I don't necessarily see any great unfair advantage gained from that. Once again, part of the game, and doesn't cause too much of a crazy imbalance that multiplayer players would mind. In single player is would seem very insignificant.

GC was refering to the famous exploit in which if you played first,you could capture your opponents town and buy out his entire weekly population.Thats why weekly growth is very bad the way it is now.Daily growth is much better.

3. Yup, part of the game and luck. Once again, this doesn't make for perfect multiplayer balance, but is part of how that game is played and doesn't make it worse. When talking combat tactics, it might not actually end up being an advantage when you factor timing position; moving first is always risky. It's all in how it plays out. Delayed reliation making attacking more tactical and gives a better overview of how the battle will proceed.

Actually it does make it worse,since with sim retal this wouldnt be the problem.However,attack speed would be a much better solution.

5. This just means that the effects of towers doesn't ever get too powerful. Obviously, since a player's castle is something sacred to him, you are not supposed to have a good chance of taking it early game. And late game it makes a difference (especially against phantomed units), but not too much. I might be nice to have it depend on what unit you actually have the opportunity to recuit (and if none, then the lower level shooter), but I don't see how any greater difference than that could be beneficial to the gameplay. And that idea brings with it complications as well because of the very diverse levels of shooters for different factions.

When defending a city,it is logical that the defender will put his strongest archers onto the towers,so HIV towers are way better in here.Combine that with HIII catapult and youll get almost perfect siege.

7. Once again, a tactical choice. You only have seven units slots, so there's a limit to the impact on this. Everyone can do it.

No its not.There is nothing tactical in having 6 stacks of one ghosts to take the retaliation so the one huge can attack without a wory.

[Asjo]

Newbie means a beginner, someone who has only played the game for a short time. After a game series has existed for some time it normally happens that developers try to get a new group of customers added to the current ones by adding new appeals to the game. This creates a surge of new players that don't actually have any connection to the previous game, but like the new appeal. Those are often a part of the group that I have defined. When I say "superficial" it is obviously not a personality trait, such as you wrongly wrote it in your post. I said "play the game superficially", which just underlined what I said above. When you play the game superficially, you might not need the same values to sustain you love for it. Even if the gameplay is weaker, you might still like it due to certain things, among others added appeals such as graphics of speed, for instance. None of those terms are derogatory, but simply try to accurately define the gamer type in regard to the core gameplay of the series.

The bad thing about morale in Heroes 4 was that the creatures of the same alignment of the hero also had their morale effect by alignment combinations, not just the ones that did not fit in. So it had a comultative effect, which, as you state about Heroes 5, meant that the AI often didn't get to use its army at all at you always had the opportunity to make several attacks first. It overly affected damage as well, and thus created a big imbalance. I dare argue that the morale was a much bigger handicap for the AI in Heroes 4.

[DaemianLucifer]

Ethric, though I might have very clearly defined view on the Heroes games, I'm not saying those things in the name of arrogance. I'm simply defining what fits withing the spirit and gameplay of Heroes and what does not. I'm not defining right or wrong, but Heroes/something else.

Yes,you tell me what a "true heroes spirit" is

Also, it is common knowledge that the effects of skills and many artifacts simply misinformed the player in Heroes 4. Even though the general level of information was better, it was terrible how you couldn't actually trust anything that the tooltips said about those things.

Really?I never got confused with those descriptions.It was pretty clear."This skill gives your creature 50% more defense against ranged attacks".See,perfectly clear.Yet "Large shield" means absolutely nothing to me.

And believe me, there are several things I liked better about Heroes 4, but despite that I don't see any problems with keeping the rules of the Heroes 3 universe and adding the good things from Heroes 4 to it (I seem to recall magic plains in the landscape in Heroes ). I really wanted to like Heroes 4 and played it until my friend that I played hot seat with simple said stop. Nival seem to have had a good overview of things when choosing the system that are to dominate the game (skills, spells, initiative, etc.). The problem is simply that they released a majorly unfinished game.

And HV came out finished?Riiight.Also,notice the bolded part.Thats what I think shouldve been done.Thats what most of us "newbies that love HIV" think shouldve been done.Thats what more than half "true heroes fans" think shouldve been done.Thats what only nival and a hadful of blind fans think is bad,and thats why it isnt like that.

[ThunderTitan]

Yet there were a lot of problems with HIII,that needed fixing.Something which the main portion of the community noticed,but it wasnt adressed by nival.

No dude, we all know that if H3 was an overall better game then H4 then everything in H3 was better then in H4. It's an universal rule.

I see no reason to use a derogatory term such as "clone" to describe it. Heroes 4 has many shortcomings (from the top of my head I can think of morale, siege, speel types), and by adopting the ideas of Heroes 3 instead, we are rid of those.

You want a clone of H3, but don't want people to refer to it as such?! You also like Morale and Luck to be overpowered?

At least we get the same universe with potential for improvement in AI, factions, spells and creatures, with many nice new touches that Nival have added into the game to improve on the beloved gameplay of Heroes 3.

While keping all of it's flaws, just because H4 didn't sell well. And lowering the number of spells and having the same creature 3-4 times in different roles are improvements?

If you are talking about the difficulties navigating around the adventure map, I must say that I had no problem overcoming this more or less over time.

Yeah, with enough patience you can get used to everything, even getting tortures or eating feces. Doesn't mean it's not a problem.

It's a free choice, really, and whether you do everything perfectly or not is up to you. It is a strategic choice as well: do you keep a main hero alone, or do you recruit several "small" heroes to maintain your empire at home?

Strategy means both coices have advantages and disadvantages that make neither way better then the other. Not colecting those resources is clearly not a good choice, thus it's not a free choice, unless ur choice is to lose.

You mention the random advantage of attacking first, one of the minor imbalances in Heroes 3 that did not really distort the gameplay overall. And Nival have improved this and added a initiative system, so nothing to complain about here.

One of the major imbalances of HIII since it allowed for no lose battles even agains stronger foes.And nival did solve it pretty well.

Right, it's not like I can defeat a stack of 500 zombie with only a Sprite or Blood Fury and my hero without any loses. Low Init creatures are basicaly useless most of the time.

[DaemianLucifer]

Newbie means a beginner, someone who has only played the game for a short time. After a game series has existed for some time it normally happens that developers try to get a new group of customers added to the current ones by adding new appeals to the game. This creates a surge of new players that don't actually have any connection to the previous game, but like the new appeal. Those are often a part of the group that I have defined. When I say "superficial" it is obviously not a personality trait, such as you wrongly wrote it in your post. I said "play the game superficially", which just underlined what I said above. When you play the game superficially, you might not need the same values to sustain you love for it. Even if the gameplay is weaker, you might still like it due to certain things, among others added appeals such as graphics of speed, for instance. None of those terms are derogatory, but simply try to accurately define the gamer type in regard to the core gameplay of the series.

So after some 10 years of playing the game Im a newbie and superficial because I like the improvements one sequel made?

The bad thing about morale in Heroes 4 was that the creatures of the same alignment of the hero also had their morale effect by alignment combinations, not just the ones that did not fit in. So it had a comultative effect, which, as you state about Heroes 5, meant that the AI often didn't get to use its army at all at you always had the opportunity to make several attacks first. It overly affected damage as well, and thus created a big imbalance. I dare argue that the morale was a much bigger handicap for the AI in Heroes 4.

And this is bad because?Besides,the moral drops for all the units now,and it did in HIII as well,no matter what the aligment hero was.And notice that hero aligment affects your troops now,even though it didnt in HIII.32

[Asjo]

Happy to see that I somehow stirred a bit of debate, hoping at least to add a bit of nuance into the views offerend.

Depends on the editor.If it stays like in HIII,then there will be a big problem,since the HIV editor was the best one so far.

I don't really see any big problem here. Obviously, Nival will try to make it as good as possible. Hopefully, that includes keeping the brush from the Heroes 4 editor, among other things.

Whats wrong with morale and spell types in HIV?Spell system in HIV was the best one,and morale wasnt that powerfull as in HIII,which is a good thing.Morale in HV is the best one so far,IMO,but that comes due to the fact there are no rounds.As for siege,both sieges are bad.They shouldve combined the two:Towers from HIV and siege machines from HIII.Also,the gate should be breachable by all units.That way,if your catapult gets destroyed youre not dead meat with just walkers.

I think the catapult should be invulnerable, since it's indispensible during siege. I'm undecided on whether or not it's good to have units kick in the door, but as long as Nival make the catapult invulnerable, we can live without it.

Notice that I don't dislike the spell system of Heroes 4, but simple the fact that I didn't have speels such as dimension door and town portal, special artifacts such as Armageddon's Sword. Heroes 5 has added artifacts with very specialized effects, so to say, and has added the necessary adventure spells, while doing a good job of balancing their effects, which were seen as imbalanced.

More was bad because morale penalties were so big and affected you so badly that it was simply impossible to create an useful army consisting of creatures from different factions (with few exceptions where morale penalty wasn't as bad).

So Im a newbie?And so are many others that played heroes for years?Riiiiight.

I'm obviously not trying to say everyone who likes Heroes 4 is like that. I made a general assumption about the people who only sided with Heroes 4 gameplay. You and I more or less seem in agreement to add the best elements from Hereos 4, while keeping the rules of Heroes 3, except the ones that allowed for noteworthy imbalance.

And those problems are?Like Ethric said,HIV was the most informative game of the series.HV is behind even HIII in this.

Really?I never got confused with those descriptions.It was pretty clear."This skill gives your creature 50% more defense against ranged attacks".See,perfectly clear.Yet "Large shield" means absolutely nothing to me.

I have explained this is the above post. When 50% is actually 20%, it's quite confusing Otherwise, Heroes 4 made sure relevant information was always available, I don't disagree with that.

Somehow this fits better against HV than against HIV.HV is full of eye candy,with the focus on "speeding up gameplay" by removing useful information.

I have already said myself that it's unfortunate that Heroes 5 has overly focused on graphics, and it really scared me when I heard of this. The thing about speed doesn't apply to the heroes series, but was simply an example of how major unfortunate changes in the gameplay can happen to acheieve certain effects. I don't think Heroes 5 is removing useful information to "speed up gameplay".

I see the strategy in a choice to buy a hero to run around and collect resources or use that money on something else.But I dont see any strategy in havin to manually guide that hero over the same road over and over and over again untill your eyes bleed and your had cramps.Making every resource building flagable is the easiest way to adress this.Auotamting heroes by using waypoints is another,and better one IMO.

Waypoints might be a decent idea, but I stand by the system of manually having to get adventure map benefits. It feels good when you do, and doesn't hurt you too much if you don't.

One of the major imbalances of HIII since it allowed for no lose battles even agains stronger foes.And nival did solve it pretty well.

Only if you had a rediculously good hero and great artifacts. Otherwise, as explained in an earlier post, I don't think it necessarily brings that great an advantage. It's all on how things play out.

If the AI doesnt use it,you using it spoils the fun,because you can use a strategy your opponent cant.But then again,AI cheats,which is something you cant use,and it spoils the fun even further.And though both players can chain in MP,it still spoils the fun because its tedious.

I agree that it would be tedious to use. I think I forgot to add in my last post "if people really want to use their time to do this". As said, I don't think it's any great advantage, but more of a tactical choice, so I wouldn't mind my opponent doing it while I didn't. Like visiting windmills or using one creature in a slot, it's one of the small things that can give you an advantage if you really bother.

GC was refering to the famous exploit in which if you played first,you could capture your opponents town and buy out his entire weekly population.Thats why weekly growth is very bad the way it is now.Daily growth is much better.

Tough one. I loved daily growth, but I don't see the problem you mention and any great balance disturbed. After all, you still have to capture the town; if you do, reaping the benefits is fair enough. Daily growth might be more tactical since you can re-supply you lines more flexibly, but then again weekly growth means you have to be more calculated and that you don't feel urged to buy creatures for your army every day

When defending a city,it is logical that the defender will put his strongest archers onto the towers,so HIV towers are way better in here.Combine that with HIII catapult and youll get almost perfect siege.

Just because it's logic doesn't mean it the best gameplay. So, it doesn't really change my arguementation from above. Decent idea, but has complications. The current system doesn't have much of a weakness (serves it purpose at all times, especially to keep players from attacking each other too early in the game), even if a slight change might improve it.

No its not.There is nothing tactical in having 6 stacks of one ghosts to take the retaliation so the one huge can attack without a wory.

I think it's very tactical. You can use imps, ghosts, whatnot. You have to make certain it will have the effect you want. With smaller armies you have to make sure that it's worth it, and you have to make sure that the timing is right if you want to block the opponent, eat up retaliation strikes, etc.

I can see that the AI should perhaps be better at splitting its army, but otherwise I see no great problems with this. I can see how, in Heroes four, having fearies dragons use confusion on all opponents, and having one huge stack killed them all seemed too powerful. But there are many of those tricks, and you simply have to use your army as well as you can. If you have a huge army and occupy all slots with many creatures, that's your choice.

And HV came out finished?Riiight.Also,notice the bolded part.Thats what I think shouldve been done.Thats what most of us "newbies that love HIV" think shouldve been done.Thats what more than half "true heroes fans" think shouldve been done.Thats what only nival and a hadful of blind fans think is bad,and thats why it isnt like that.

As you will notice, I said Heroes 5 was released as a majorly unfinished game, hence my strong criticism to many parts of it.

[DaemianLucifer]

Right, it's not like I can defeat a stack of 500 zombie with only a Sprite or Blood Fury and my hero without any loses. Low Init creatures are basicaly useless most of the time.

Well it still is better than being able to defeat basically the same army with no loses with just a single spell.

[ThunderTitan]

The problem is simply that they released a majorly unfinished game.

And BINGO was his name-o.
And this is why I consider H4 an overall weaker game then H3, alot of the things wrong with it stem from it not being finished, thus inbalanced and having alot of thing implemented wrongly (heroes in combat always needing the Combat skill etc.). Not because it did X and Y different from H3.

That's why I get so defensive of H4, because people always go: "it sucked because it wasn't H3 with new graphics, spells and creatures". The game wasn't that different gameplaywise, it just had some major flaws that came with it being rushed, not with trying new stuff.

[Asjo]

ThunderTitan, I suppose you might be right that I am overdoing my general critizism of the gameplay and appeal of Heroes 4. I mean I played it a lot and I did like it and was greatly saddened that the AI ruined the game. My sentiments are triggered by people constantly saying "Nival ignored Heroes 4, they should have this, etc." refering to terrible things such as having the heroes in battle, the siege system, spells available, morale effects, retaliation system and a few other things that I cannot remember while writing this (I'm making food at the same time, so a bit distracting ) ... all terrible things that deviated from the nature of the previous Heroes games. The changes that Heroes 4 made cut in on many areas. Only allowed six players, for instance, is just horrible.

By the way, I think the thing you are quoting as actually about Heroes 5 ... But it applies to Heroes 4 as well, of course.

[Ethric]

Newbie means a beginner, someone who has only played the game for a short time. After a game series has existed for some time it normally happens that developers try to get a new group of customers added to the current ones by adding new appeals to the game. This creates a surge of new players that don't actually have any connection to the previous game, but like the new appeal. Those are often a part of the group that I have defined.

Heh. Lots of people, like me, who think H5 missed the target, have played HoMM for 10 years. And sure there are a lof of people who didn't start until H4. Their opinions are just as valid as someone who started with MM 1 20 years ago. Following your arguementation I could, from my belief that HoMM II is the best of the series, call those who favour H3 newbies who don't know what it's all about and just like the new stuff in H3. Like all those upgrades and having a paperdoll for artifacts, sheesh at those newbies that got drawn in by that new approach. But I don't do that, I respect anyone's opinions (also when I don't agree), if they extend me the same courtesy and don't try to write of my view as the ravings of a clueless newbie, or similar tripe.

When I say "superficial" it is obviously not a personality trait,

...which I never did. And the rest of your post is just you digging yourself further in with your glorification of the righteousness of your own opinions.

[Asjo]

I was in doubt about the town portal thing, actually, but didn't bother to check. I must have thought of another spell then. Still, I recall being pissed because the town portal to take you to a random town, instead of the nearest town as in Heroes 5.

You might want to edit your post and remove the excess unused quoting. Or did you simply press post too soon?

Edit: Oh, you deleted your post. My comment was to DaemianLucifer, if anyone is confused. He would now be finishing his post and reposting it, most likely.

Second edit: Ethric, are you saying that there are a great change of direction and gameplay between Heroes 2 and 3? I certainly don't think so.

And as should be obvious, I respect other people's opinion. I argue thoroughly through the responses to my posts in this thread. I just feel that many supporters of Heroes 4 want something different than what the gameplay of the series is all about, but yet want to change the Heroes games instead of playing something else.

In your previous post, you simply said "superficial" as if it was an adjective that applied to you as a person instead of an adverbial that applies to the verb 'to play'. So, you did seem to imply that, even if it wasn't on purpose.

[ThunderTitan]

I don't really see any big problem here. Obviously, Nival will try to make it as good as possible. Hopefully, that includes keeping the brush from the Heroes 4 editor, among other things.

I think the catapult should be invulnerable, since it's indispensible during siege. I'm undecided on whether or not it's good to have units kick in the door, but as long as Nival make the catapult invulnerable, we can live without it.

Invincible catapult?! Yeah, great ideea.

And even with that, the sieges in H5 are murder for walkers because of the moats. A High Init unit can use it to kill alot of walkers by going around in circles.

Notice that I don't dislike the spell system of Heroes 4, but simple the fact that I didn't have speels such as dimension door and town portal, special artifacts such as Armageddon's Sword. Heroes 5 has added artifacts with very specialized effects, so to say, and has added the necessary adventure spells, while doing a good job of balancing their effects, which were seen as imbalanced.

Town Portal was an Order Spell.... and DD at expert meant you won. And H3 added those artifacts in expansions, same thing for H4. Just because you started playing with H3 Complete or just don't remember how H3:RoE was doesn't mean you should dismiss H4 w/o expansions based on that.

And what specialized effect artifacts are in H5?

More was bad because morale penalties were so big and affected you so badly that it was simply impossible to create an useful army consisting of creatures from different factions (with few exceptions where morale penalty wasn't as bad).

And not having a unit move at all on that turn was a smaller penalty?

I have explained this is the above post. When 50% is actually 20%, it's quite confusing. Otherwise, Heroes 4 made sure relevant information was always available, I don't disagree with that.

As I recall H3 also had formulas that meant that 10% was more like 9% real chance, and changed with stacknumbers etc.

Tough one. I loved daily growth, but I don't see the problem you mention and any great balance disturbed. After all, you still have to capture the town; if you do, reaping the benefits is fair enough. Daily growth might be more tactical since you can re-supply you lines more flexibly, but then again weekly growth means you have to be more calculated and that you don't feel urged to buy creatures for your army every day

The problem with weekly growth is that if his hero buys all the creatures at the start of the week and leaves with them or most off them the town is defensless for the rest of the week. Taking the town on day 7 is like saying "Just one more day and you could have defended it, nyah, nyah, nyah...". Damn annoying. It also means that taking it on any other day you can buy creatures to defend it. So you either leave it open, weaken your hero or not move ur hero.

Just because it's logic doesn't mean it the best gameplay. So, it doesn't really change my arguementation from above. Decent idea, but has complications. The current system doesn't have much of a weakness (serves it purpose at all times, especially to keep players from attacking each other too early in the game), even if a slight change might improve it.

Except the fact that walkers sre screwed in sieges. And you only get the towers when you upgrade the town, so it doesn't prevent attacking oneanother too early, especialy with the town point system in H5.

Well it still is better than being able to defeat basically the same army with no loses with just a single spell.

Spell that depends on hero level. A sprite and a lvl1 Hero can kill a stack of 500 Zombies. It'll take you forever, but it can be done. Guess it's another feature that breaks the Rule?!