Igromir news

[Pitsu]

Copy/Paste from Heroes Community:

Here some info from Igromir posted by LaBoule / Heroic Corner (translation):

1) The system of heroes abilities is completely reprocessed. Now there are no primary and secondary skills or abilities, aren't present perks, there are no separate spells. All abilities which hero can receive, now earning by "ability points". This system is similar to system World of Warcraft.

2) About magic I wasn't described: now magic is ability too, so magic spells are added as ability, instead of are learned in Magic guild or somewhere. (Accordingly, the Magic guild is eliminated).

3) Depending on reputation the hero can choose one of three directions: Life, Death and Neutral and to receive corresponding Advanced class. Initially in each fraction two classes of heroes: Might and Magic, then occurs a branching on Advanced class (3 possibilities), total it turns out on 6 various types of heroes Advanced classes in each race. These types are really unique, as besides racial abilities there are also Ťclass abilitiesť.

4) The Beta test will be obligatory, and Ťextending circlesť, gradually covering all most part of "fans". And these "circles" will start with offices Ubisoft to France and the USA, and also from Hungary (where Heroes are developed) and Romania (where they are "plentifully tested). At present still it is considered that game is at an alpha version stage as not still placeholders are replaced with real elements.

5) The Fourth race won't be divulged yet.

6) Dragons will disappear in Heroes VI as units of 7th level, but will appear in it as "bosses". It is made intend: too strong units dragons turn out but if absolutely to clean them from game � it turns out boringly (and doesn't match the game Universe).

7) The Damage magic will be strongly weakened, that the Magic-hero couldn't take out the whole army of Might-hero almost alone. The magic will play "a support" role along with another traditional abilities.

ALL WRITTEN ABOVE SHOULDN'T BE UNDERSTOOD AS TRUE IN LAST POINT. I HAVE WRITTEN THAT AS I HAVE UNDERSTOOD.

However, he lost in tranlsation one point:

The economic component of "Heroes" is simplified and done it on purpose: as heroes - not "economic simulator, and nothing to distract the heroes of the truly heroic Affairs (charging character, the selection of the army, fighting). Then followed the question: is not it too all of you simplify? Simplified the economy, introduced by simplifying the capture of Mines ("control points") and the hiring of monsters in the same skills can be traced a certain simplification, etc. Answer: The only simplifies learning course (the game easier to learn), but the game itself does not lose his wealth. For example: learn the rules of the game of checkers is simple, but to become a master of checkers - the years of work.

[Pitsu]

1) The system of heroes abilities is completely reprocessed. Now there are no primary and secondary skills or abilities, aren't present perks, there are no separate spells. All abilities which hero can receive, now earning by "ability points". This system is similar to system World of Warcraft.

Not sure about this. Are they really planning to merge MM and HoMM into a single game - MM with not grouped heroes in a third person view.

2) About magic I wasn't described: now magic is ability too, so magic spells are added as ability, instead of are learned in Magic guild or somewhere. (Accordingly, the Magic guild is eliminated).

Does not sound good, but may work well.

4) The Beta test will be obligatory, and Ťextending circlesť, gradually covering all most part of "fans". And these "circles" will start with offices Ubisoft to France and the USA, and also from Hungary (where Heroes are developed) and Romania (where they are "plentifully tested). At present still it is considered that game is at an alpha version stage as not still placeholders are replaced with real elements.

Like something they did with MMHKingdoms? That pissed me off quite a bit.

6) Dragons will disappear in Heroes VI as units of 7th level, but will appear in it as "bosses". It is made intend: too strong units dragons turn out but if absolutely to clean them from game � it turns out boringly (and doesn't match the game Universe).

Lore defining the gameplay? IMO one of the worst design decisions in H5 and possibly H6. Would prefer the opposite - gameplay allowing the mapmaker to define whatever lore he/she wants.

7) The Damage magic will be strongly weakened, that the Magic-hero couldn't take out the whole army of Might-hero almost alone. The magic will play "a support" role along with another traditional abilities.

I know that some find *lucky* empowered direct damage magic very strong, but I'd not say it is because direct damage spells per se. Additionally, if magic has only a supporting role and main work is meant for might, how different will might and magic heroes be? One boosts creature stats with passive skills, other boosts with spells? Even more, with the system where spell power does not exist and spells are learned as abilities, can their strength not be controlled precisely enough to not allow gamebreaking combos?

[parcaleste]

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Downfall.

[MattII]

1) The system of heroes abilities is completely reprocessed. Now there are no primary and secondary skills or abilities, aren't present perks, there are no separate spells. All abilities which hero can receive, now earning by "ability points". This system is similar to system World of Warcraft.

Never played WoW so I'm not quite sure what they're talking about here.

2) About magic I wasn't described: now magic is ability too, so magic spells are added as ability, instead of are learned in Magic guild or somewhere. (Accordingly, the Magic guild is eliminated).

That doesn't sound good to me, in fact it sounds like they're trying to reduce the number of spells even further than they already have.

3) Depending on reputation the hero can choose one of three directions: Life, Death and Neutral and to receive corresponding Advanced class. Initially in each fraction two classes of heroes: Might and Magic, then occurs a branching on Advanced class (3 possibilities), total it turns out on 6 various types of heroes Advanced classes in each race. These types are really unique, as besides racial abilities there are also Ťclass abilitiesť.

Okay, I'll roll with that till i know more about it.

6) Dragons will disappear in Heroes VI as units of 7th level, but will appear in it as "bosses". It is made intend: too strong units dragons turn out but if absolutely to clean them from game � it turns out boringly (and doesn't match the game Universe).

I'm not sure about this, I mean sure there were too many in H5, but to remove them all?

7) The Damage magic will be strongly weakened, that the Magic-hero couldn't take out the whole army of Might-hero almost alone. The magic will play "a support" role along with another traditional abilities.

Maybe make the stuff a bit more useful at the low end as well, so you don't waste all of your starting spell points taking out like 5 core units.

The economic component of "Heroes" is simplified and done it on purpose: as heroes - not "economic simulator, and nothing to distract the heroes of the truly heroic Affairs (charging character, the selection of the army, fighting). Then followed the question: is not it too all of you simplify? Simplified the economy, introduced by simplifying the capture of Mines ("control points") and the hiring of monsters in the same skills can be traced a certain simplification, etc. Answer: The only simplifies learning course (the game easier to learn), but the game itself does not lose his wealth. For example: learn the rules of the game of checkers is simple, but to become a master of checkers - the years of work.

Oh for the love of...We've managed with 7 resources until now, we don't need to 'simplify' things.

Overall, this new hero-advancement system is starting to look a little less rosy IMO.

[Derek]

This made me lose nearly all interest in the game. It really, truly, sounds like an oversimplification of a game series. I would go into more detail, but I do not particularly think it is worth my time any longer. I had thought this was a solid departure away from HV, but now it seems more and more to be something closer to that in terms of simplification(and as Pitsu notes, the lore trumping gameplay mechanics is just stupid).

I do not feel as though I am being unduly harsh, but the game feels more like they're trying to force the heroes brand into a standard RPG format--the overland adventure, character development and heroes seem to be pushed aside in favor of (currently)"traditional" RPG elements. This seems to be a shocking decision as it alienates long time fans--I feel alienated, anyways--and will not appeal to the so-called "WoW" generation.

At this point, foregoing some major revelations, I've written the game off. I might pick it up on steam like I did with HV(when it and all its expansions were $5). But even then, I feel as though the series has been eclipsed by designer indifference.

[LongDarkBlues]

All the changes sound intriguing to me - I love the idea of being able to specialize in individual spells as an ability rather than being stuck with the random 'Summon Air Elementals' from the Guild. It opens it up for a lot of strategy, and with the game's apparent focus on smaller, specialized armies it sounds like a good fit - imagine a hero who spends all his points increasing his Earthquake score, for example, and while it's his only powerful spell, it can level the opponent's walls in a single strike.

[Elvin]

Not quite, you can spend your talents to learn a spell or advance its native school but not keep adding your skill points into it till it's so broken that it's not funny. If memory serves that's one skill point per level so like it's always been except you can choose.

Also I think people misunderstand the part about destructive spells. It's not like they won't be strong, they'll simply not be enough to destroy whole stacks in one cast. Take dungeon, it could either be slaughtered in the first 1-2 rounds or nuke the hell out of the opponent in the same time, the battle often decided in the first few actions. If however it was not possible for a first wave attack to kill half your army before you can do anything neither destructive to pick off enemy units 1-2 at a time the game would be less chaotic with more depth and possibilities. When you play a 5 hour game would you rather the final battle end in say 2 minutes or 20? Random numbers but you get the idea.

[MattII]

Okay Elvin, is there going to be anything beyond the very basic gameplay elements (recruit creatures, fight battles, etc) that's the same as in the previous games?

[Elvin]

Depends how you look at it. You still build town, hire creatures, cast spells, creep, capture mines/dwellings so H6 is not so different in essence. The basic idea was that..

H5 was meant to be "safe", to demonstrate that Ubisoft and Nival could provide a solid, classic HOMM experience.

H6 will be more ambitious. Not "revolutionary" (in the sense of abandoning Turn Based Strategy for Real Time for instance, or putting the Hero back in action on the battlefield like in H4), but still eager to "boldly go where no HOMM has gone before"

Some micromanagement is gone, some features have increased in complexity just as others have been simplified to make the game play smoother, art has taken a different path and so on. Some changes may prove a miss than a hit but overall it looks alright, we're just moving forward. Remember that a lot of the changes were requested by fans, lots of them. Maybe not the resource reduction but that's just one thing out of many.

[Zenofex]

Also I think people misunderstand the part about destructive spells. It's not like they won't be strong, they'll simply not be enough to destroy whole stacks in one cast. Take dungeon, it could either be slaughtered in the first 1-2 rounds or nuke the hell out of the opponent in the same time, the battle often decided in the first few actions. If however it was not possible for a first wave attack to kill half your army before you can do anything neither destructive to pick off enemy units 1-2 at a time the game would be less chaotic with more depth and possibilities. When you play a 5 hour game would you rather the final battle end in say 2 minutes or 20? Random numbers but you get the idea.

I asked pretty much the same question on the HC boards, but it doesn't hurt to ask it here as well - what does "The Damage magic will be strongly weakened" mean? Weakened compared to what? If the base is level 20-25 Warlock from HoMM V with Empowered Spells, Warlock's Luck and half a ton Spell Power-ehnancing artifacts - cool, let it be weaker! But if it will be weaker compared to the capabilities of Academy (the next faction in line when it comes to spell potency) to cast desctructive spells - this will be way too much! I can't remember even the almightly Implosion - when cast by Wizard - doing more than 1000-1200 damage after 3-4 months of play and by this time it will kill one third of the enemy tier 7s at most (if not resisted...).
About the rest - I am somewhat struggling with myself to keep neutral and objective attitude, but so far their claims that the game is not becoming oversimplified seem to be completely unfounded. Words are not going to convince me otherwise - and they are choosing their words quite poorly among other things - so I'd prefer an actual demonstration how something seemingly simplified keeps the game as complex as before. Hopefully there will be some more detailed gameplay videos until the end of the year to address these concerns.

[Elvin]

You'll have to keep in mind that I do not work for ubi neither do I have access to damage formulas, I only have an idea of what they are doing. Likewise I'm not ubi's lawyer to defend their choices so if you are not convinced it's not my place to change your mind. I am only posting my personal thoughts.

Where H5 is concerned games beyond month 2 are unrealistic, in almost every map I have seen(even epic ones) you could have the battle week 5 if you were fast. In multiplayer if you played comfortably gathering your strength you'd be rushed by a high lvl hero and all the arties he picked from the rich areas. In the popular and more balanced maps the battle was usually week 4 and then destructive was pretty efficient. It could have been a LOT better if not for mass spells being cast at half the initiative and the presence of abilities like tactics, aura of swiftness, familiar ground and retribution. Take those away and watch what happens.

But this is all irrelevant with the topic, destructive power highly depends on the strength of might abilities. H5 offered a multitude of additive passive bonuses whereas H6 will not.

[Zenofex]

Elvin, I hope you are not getting the impression that I am blaming you or something, I am fully aware what is the difference between a VIP community member and a dev/publisher employee. What I'm saying is that the information released so far is often vague and where it isn't, it does nothing to reinforce the would-be players' hope that the game will not become too simple (and generally that Ubihole know what game they are developing). Heroes has never been simple game, not even HoMM I or II, and I strongly doubt that there will be more than a small number of newbies who would like to see it dumbed down. I am only asking for a clarification based on the info that you (and the rest of the insiders) have and can release. If you don't have certain information - no problem, but the official statements made by Ubi's staff do not become less worrying.
As for Heroes V - you are talking about a marginal scenario - a small map or generally a map for rushes. In this case - yes, direct damage spells normally are quite effective during the early stages of the game. The thing is that the on-line games on small/rush maps should not be the only consideration when balancing factions, spells, skills, etc - such approach will be disastrous! Likewise, a direct damage spell should scale in accordance with the hero development and target(s) durability to be efficient all the time. It will be preposterous to have a high level destructive spell which can't match the damage output of the weakest stack in one's army after certain amount of time (with normal population growth, no external dwellings, etc.) - which is quite normal after 2-3 months long game in Heroes V if your hero is not Warlock. As far as I remember, they promised XL maps and I don't expect the game to be decided in several weeks on them. I play HoMM III with some friends on-line on XL maps from time to time and it usually takes several days, 2-3 hours each day, to complete one game. When the final battle takes place at the end of month 3/4/5 (depening on the map), the direct damage spells have to be able to deal at least several thousands of damage to be prefered in comparison with spells affecting the stats of your own or the opponent's army (and of course Resurrection and the rest). I hope you see where I'm heading.

[Elvin]

Just figured I should clarify, you never know. And information is not so much vague as it is nonexistent Too small doses, too rare..

And it's no marginal scenario nor am I talking small maps. Most of the more balanced maps were large and week 4 was still the norm, underground or not. It's been tried, shorter duration maps gave an edge on warmachinists and magic heroes whereas on week 5+ maps the balance was shifting towards might races - though that's just a generalization. I'd have liked a linear balance like in H3 but that was not the case

That's what I am hoping above else for H6, that the balance does not change much as the game progresses.

[MattII]

Depends how you look at it. You still build town, hire creatures, cast spells, creep, capture mines/dwellings so H6 is not so different in essence. The basic idea was that..

Okay, let's lets have a look at these things:
Build towns - Massively simplified, barely any uniqueness left.
Hire creatures - Okay, looks promising, but this new three-to-a-tier thing definitely doesn't sound like anything we've come across before.
Cast spells - With what? We've just lost our whole skill system.
Creep - Okay, I don't actually know what this means, could you explain this?
Capture Mines/Dwellings - You automatically grab any owned ones in your area, regardless of who actually owns them, but you don't grab unguarded, unowned mines, where's the sense in that?

H5 was meant to be "safe", to demonstrate that Ubisoft and Nival could provide a solid, classic HOMM experience.

And it might have worked too if they've sorted out the AI and the balance.

H6 will be more ambitious. Not "revolutionary" (in the sense of abandoning Turn Based Strategy for Real Time for instance, or putting the Hero back in action on the battlefield like in H4), but still eager to "boldly go where no HOMM has gone before"

Actually, putting heroes back in combat would actually be less revolutionary than some of the changes they've already made.

Some micromanagement is gone, some features have increased in complexity just as others have been simplified to make the game play smoother, art has taken a different path and so on.

And as Derek said, it's looking more and more like a RPG.

Some changes may prove a miss than a hit but overall it looks alright, we're just moving forward.

The Work-Houses were seen as moving forward as well, by the people who ran them.

Remember that a lot of the changes were requested by fans, lots of them. Maybe not the resource reduction but that's just one thing out of many.

Okay, the dwellings feeding into the town and being able to change town types I can figure, but I find it hard to fathom how any fans could have asked for so many changes to the magic and skill systems

[Thelonious]

Lets just wait and see what UbiHole brews of this game. I doubt that at this stage they'll revise thinga like the magic system because the fans ask them to...

[ThunderTitan]

1) The system of heroes abilities is completely reprocessed. Now there are no primary and secondary skills or abilities, aren't present perks, there are no separate spells. All abilities which hero can receive, now earning by "ability points". This system is similar to system World of Warcraft.

Never played WoW so I'm not quite sure what they're talking about here.
=

WoW has like 2 type of spells, ones you buy with money, and other that you can put points into in the talent tree.

I'm guessing they're talking about the talent tree part...

So you'll have a skill tree, with some skills being passives while others are spells and spell-like abilities... see here: http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?c=Mage (although wow actually has very few spells that you learn from the talent tree)

Kinda annoying in HoMM actually...

The Beta test will be obligatory, and Ťextending circlesť, gradually covering all most part of "fans". And these "circles" will start with offices Ubisoft to France and the USA, and also from Hungary (where Heroes are developed) and Romania (where they are "plentifully tested).

Woot... too bad i no longer know someone who works for ubi here...

6) Dragons will disappear in Heroes VI as units of 7th level, but will appear in it as "bosses". It is made intend: too strong units dragons turn out but if absolutely to clean them from game � it turns out boringly (and doesn't match the game Universe).

Then i hope Dungeon isn't in... it's not the same without the Black Dragon.

7) The Damage magic will be strongly weakened, that the Magic-hero couldn't take out the whole army of Might-hero almost alone. The magic will play "a support" role along with another traditional abilities.

Great, like it wasn't useless enough when armies reached a certain mass... but i guess we won't be seeing big armies in this one either.

Seriously, making it scale with stacks (including doing less dmg to small stacks) would be a better way to make it balanced in all stages of gameplay...

For example: learn the rules of the game of checkers is simple, but to become a master of checkers - the years of work.

And yet chess is still more popular...

[Zenofex]

And it's no marginal scenario nor am I talking small maps. Most of the more balanced maps were large and week 4 was still the norm, underground or not. It's been tried, shorter duration maps gave an edge on warmachinists and magic heroes whereas on week 5+ maps the balance was shifting towards might races - though that's just a generalization.

It is a marginal scenario in terms of game balancing. One skill/spell/creature/faction/whatever should not be balanced only in accordance with the presumtion that the game will continue no more than, say, 2 months. The vast majority of the on-line games are either on small or on wel-known maps, where the players have certain strategy in mind even before the game begins. The exploration phase is practically out of the picture because there is either little to explore, or you know the positions of the interesting items/mines/dwellings/neutral stacks. Given this, you have pretty good idea when you will reach certain place on the map and when you will most likely engage the opponent. This makes the whole situation marginal.
Now, the good balancing of everything should take into acount that that the map could be very big - XL - or that the players do not know in advance where the other(s) is (are) - a RMG map. Or, in general, that the final battle could occur after indefinite amount of time because of whatever circumstances. This ensures against spells that become useless after some time because they can not cope with the greatly enlarged HP pools of the enemy stacks, against factions that become helpless in the late game, against such skills and so on. Heroes III managed to achieve this more than 10 years ago with relatively few flaws, I simply do not understand what makes it so difficult nowadays.

[Pitsu]

When you play a 5 hour game would you rather the final battle end in say 2 minutes or 20? Random numbers but you get the idea.

I understood that part of the diversity between factions is that for instant elves want to decide the battle as fast as possible with ranged attacks while necromancers try to prolong it as much as possible.

[ThunderTitan]

Heroes III managed to achieve this more than 10 years ago with relatively few flaws, I simply do not understand what makes it so difficult nowadays.

Nowadays they need to spend more time on the extra dimension they have...


But H3 hardly had "relatively few flaws"...

[Zenofex]

I am talking about long-term balancing between factions, spells, skills, etc. The obvious flaws are Necropolis and to lesser extent - Castle (Conflux is deadwood meant to replace Forge, not a faction), and some useless skills. The spells scaled pretty well which was never achieved in the next games. Don't get me started with the HoMM IV and V factions, skills, spells and so on - the topic is about something else.
The extra dimension is no excuse, the vast majority of the game mechanics are D-independent, so whether it will be 2D or 3D, the gameplay part lives its own life. 3D is for the shiny-lovers and if they use it as an explanation for in-game problems, then they have to re-visit the high school for some lessons on basic logic.