H7: New tales incoming

[Aemaeth]

Dear Heroes,



After weeks of advises, Dev Team give some news about next Tales for Heroes VII. It seems players want more information about Naga and the Lotus Empire, The Griffin family, and Sandro, the famous Necromancer.



We now have to wait more income from the Spy Master



See more on <a href="/https://mmh7.ubi.com/en/blog/post/view/ ... our-choice" target="blank">Heroes VII Dev Blog</a>.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1433794612

[Kalah]

I do like that the devs take the time to write down all this stuff. Hopefully, we fans can gather it all in a single place some day, to read as a compiled story.

[Erwinner]

personally, I wish they would take the time to create a decent game instead lol

[Pitsu]

A new season of Family Guy coming? Frankly I'd see more of Quagmire than the Griffin family.

[hellegennes]

Erwinner, you wish writers would take the time to program, design or draw things?

[Erwinner]

Erwinner, you wish writers would take the time to program, design or draw things?

no I don't think this idea would be productive, may work better if the resources allocated to employing these talentless writers were allocated to programming, designing or drawing of things lol

[Kalah]

Great, thanks for raising the level of the discussion, Erwinner, that's lovely ...

[Galaad]

You can't blame him for telling the truth ... I understand people want to believe, but let's not kid ourselves, h7 will most likely turn out to be mediocre. Why?

- A broken random skill system: the whole design of the skill "wheel" was THOUGHT AND DESIGNED as free pick, and making it random with its current restrictions will cripple it, and how ironic, people -at least newcomers- will start to say Heroes is better played without it ... This is, I think, either manipulation from CEO and PR dpt to enforce what THEY want, or complete misunderstanding. Pick one, or both.
- Seven schools of magic, which obviously contribute to the random problem, and provide us few spells which moreover roughly cannot even be more substantial than damage, damage, damage, damage/buff, damage, debuff etc, but of course the problem is tied to the skill system. In fact, I am pretty sure the free skills pick is being favored BECAUSE of the magic system. We can add specs and classes restrictions to the skill system problem package, all is tied.
- Speaking of hero specializations, seriously, creature bonus growth? How is that better than what we had before? They seem to focus so much on this whole area of control thingy, with governor system (really, that's the best they could take from heroes 4??), plunder etc, when we had to drive ourselves insane just to bring back seven resources as they said themselves they considered was "stupid micro-management"? Who are we kidding here?
- Poor creatures specializations: not only we have not so many of them, but we get some duplicates, just great.
- Combat system seems to be awfully similar to heroes 6, thanks to the core/elite/champion tier system.

The very core of the game is done in a very questionable way from my point of view, and I am speaking about the decisions which were, I think, most likely set in stone from the beginning.

This is the biggest problems I see but they are many others, and I don't even mention immersion with a beta which looks like a browser game, and we get townscreens which can't beat the ones from the old games (aside the h4 military outposts) when they are in 2D made in 2015.
And the lore, of course, same good old Ashan with its cortege of absurdities and legacy problems, but wait, the old heroes are back, with a reskin made in order to fit this pooriverse, and I personally see that as an insult to our beloved heroes, but who cares about visuals when the gameplay seems to seriously lack replayability in the first place.

Won't be as bad as heroes 6, granted, but won't beat heroes 5, certainly not heroes 3, not even heroes 4 and 2. IMO

[mr.hackcrag]

^ Pretty relevant post and I foresee similar outcome - certainly not an elite game.

- cannot even be more substantial than damage, damage, damage, damage/buff, damage, debuff

Yeah, there wasn't that much distinction among schools. That's why I liked Prime most because it actually fostered a different gameplay experience than the others. I think each school should offer different way to play the game and the area they really could have taken full advantage of this is with the accompanying abilities that go with each school, but they dropped the ball there and the abilities are pretty uninspiring.

- Speaking of hero specializations, seriously, creature bonus growth?

I also feel like this was a missed opportunity for expanding on new and better gameplay mechanics.

[Kalah]

@Galaad: I don't blame him for his opinions, but I do blame him for calling the writers (who are only doing their job) talentless and unnecessary. That's what I call lowering the level of the discussion. Your post is more the kind of thing I like to see: thought through and well-argued, albeit personal opinion.

[Erwinner]

well maybe you can point me towards any notable example of Ubisoft's writing for Heroes that has been widely praised by the fanbase or critically acclaimed? or you could explain why long, elaborate lore blogs are in any way necessary to create a great TBS strategy game, such as Heroes 1-3 and 5? otherwise I totally stand by that remark lol

[Salamandre]

Umm, no; as I (and obviously Galaad too) understand him, he blames the developers to waste resources and money on writers while the game playability is less than decent. A story should always come as a bonus, not as an alternative to gameplay.

[hellegennes]

The cost of writing these tales is ridiculously small, even compared to the budget of animating a single creature. Hence the remark is irrelevant, anyway.



Also, if fans really viewed the story aspect as secondary, they wouldn't whine on a daily basis about Ubisoft abandoning the old universe.

[Kalah]

A good point by Hellegennes. Yet Erwinner's attitude is of the kind that annoys me. He can't use proper grammar himself yet he criticizes the writers as if he could do better. I am also increasingly annoyed with the so-called "fans" who seem to have nothing better to do than whine and find faults with every move new developers make. Nothing seems to please them so why don't they just move on?

[Erwinner]

The cost of writing these tales is ridiculously small, even compared to the budget of animating a single creature. Hence the remark is irrelevant, anyway.

Also, if fans really viewed the story aspect as secondary, they wouldn't whine on a daily basis about Ubisoft abandoning the old universe.

if you can cite a source for the salary Ubisoft are paying their Heroes writers I'd love to see it, not to mention that the writer of these blogs is on double duty as a level designer last I heard, maybe spend that spare time building us another multiplayer map instead to add to the nine or ten we'll probably get lol

I think any whining about the old universe actually is considered a secondary problem, Heroes 5 was pretty well received and enjoyed by all, despite its repulsive storyline and flawed atmosphere, because it was very playable lol

A good point by Hellegennes. Yet Erwinner's attitude is of the kind that annoys me. He can't use proper grammar himself yet he criticizes the writers as if he could do better. I am also increasingly annoyed with the so-called "fans" who seem to have nothing better to do than whine and find faults with every move new developers make. Nothing seems to please them so why don't they just move on?

even though I do use proper grammar when I am inclined to, and probably could write a better story for your dollar, I don't need to be a 5 Michelin Star winning chef to comment that a meal tastes horrible lol

I preordered Heroes 6 at full price, it sucked, now I express my unhappiness on the forums in hopes that they'll make an improved or at least playable product this time around instead of spending all their time focusing on garbage story fluff and bankrupting another developer,
they really reap what they sow in my opinion, I don't know why you characterise it as "nothing better to do than whine and find faults with every move new developers make. Nothing seems to please them"

you would see me pleased by a good product such as Heroes 3 or Heroes 5, maybe the complaining indicates less so that I am unpleasable and more that something's rotten in the state of Denmark lol

if you don't like what I have to say and want me to go away, you are empowered to ban me, but personally I do not think my opinions are breaking any forum rules, and a lot of the active community I've seen seems to be of a fairly like mind to mine so good luck there lol

[Kalah]

If I wanted to ban a forum member for expressing his opinions, rest assured you would have noticed long ago. Instead I offer my own opinion: that I do not care for the tone by which you offer yours.

Not that you're the only (or worst) one I've seen. There are many. I suppose that has something to do with my irritation; that I can't seem to go anywhere for a discussion about Heroes without negativity from so-called "fans" cropping up. This negativity inundates every forum both official and fan-owned and I'm getting a little tired of it.

[Erwinner]

Not that you're the only (or worst) one I've seen. There are many. I suppose that has something to do with my irritation; that I can't seem to go anywhere for a discussion about Heroes without negativity from so-called "fans" cropping up. This negativity inundates every forum both official and fan-owned and I'm getting a little tired of it.

yeah, but do you seriously think this pattern of negativity exists for no reason? lots of people are being negative just for a cheap laugh to be nasty ole party poopers, and not with any kind of cause and effect or justifiable thought process leading up to their stance? if so I must beg to differ lol

"fan" can be fan of the series, and it's a very old and very big series with lots of history, you can be a fan of specific games and visions in the series without having to lap up all contemporary developments in the franchise,
I don't see why cast No True Scotsman style shade on some fans as not being real fans if they do not always sing the praise of the latest games lol

[mr.hackcrag]

I complain because I'm passionate about this series and to me it has fallen very far from grace over the years. This is the last chance they have to heal the wounds before my passion turns to indifference and I give up on the series altogether. I sensed for a long time that as long as this series is in the hands of Ubi and co, it's unlikely it will ever rejuvenate. Each time we get updates, I just end up more and more devastated.

This was confirmed when I "got" the beta and uninstalled after about an hour or two.

- The combat system is not engaging at all and needs a total revamp, not a 99% clone from over a decade ago. It was 16 years ago guys, let it go and let it evolve. We can do better.

- The interfaces need to be much more intuitive, fluid, and more attractive.

- I don't understand what is the point of having a skill wheel in this game. In H5 it actually made sense to have a wheel based on how the system worked. In H7, it just looks like they're trying leech off the aura of an old idea without providing any of the logical mechanics of that idea.

- The camera and angles we can view are downright bizarre and it makes looking at the adventure screen and battle screen totally unpleasant leading to a lousy gameplay experience.

- The graphics and animation are very weak, which in part defeats the purpose of having a 3D world to begin with.

- A.I. should be called A.S. - artificially stupid. There's no excuse when Q has almost singlehandedly produced a better A.I. than every HoMM game UBI & Co have made.

- I can tell based on what I played that they are so far away from the work that needs to be done on this game to bring it up to par, that the September release date is going to be another catastrophic release scenario.

- Most importantly: Am I having fun? The answer is a resounding no. "One more turn" felt like a chore.

[Groovy]

yeah, but do you seriously think this pattern of negativity exists for no reason? lots of people are being negative just for a cheap laugh to be nasty ole party poopers, and not with any kind of cause and effect or justifiable thought process leading up to their stance? if so I must beg to differ lol

Generally speaking, I think that the negative stance developed as a result of Ubisoft's failures, most notably H6, but has, in some cases, become habitually negative. The kind of stance where, when presented with mixed information, one focuses on the negative, and when presented with incomplete information, one fills in the blanks with negative assumptions.

A good example is cjlee, who was overwhelmingly negative during the development of H6, but whose stance has softened in recent months to become more reasoned and occasionally positive.

[Galaad]

This negativity inundates every forum both official and fan-owned and I'm getting a little tired of it.

And I am getting tired of seeing any fan who dares to complain being labeled as toxic or a hater.