8x10

[Arzang]

So your saying that HIV had too diverse towns?Not counting the demon necro.

If HIV had 6 instead of 7 stacks,it would bother me very much.But if HIII had 6,I wouldnt notice,since HII also had just 6 stacks.The more stacks you are able to bring into battle,the more diverse the combat becomes,and the number of tactics available increases,so more is better in this case.

HIV.. was a failure in many aspects. but the towns felt unique to some extent yes and the choices made in each town were kinda interesting. I won't say it didn't need anymore polish but what's the biggest choice you'll make in H3? the difficult choice of upgrading or not upgrading your gnolls?

and infernopolis was pretty diverse, at least to me. and it had a neat choice at level 3: either go for vampire and suffer from NO shooters or go with venom spawn and suffer from no vamp. personally I always went with vamps but the choice was there and theoretically each town could be very varied with each playthrough, even if some choices were very obvious..

and that last logic is not sensible to me. H4 needed the extra tactics gained from the seventh stack while H3 didn't because H2 only had six stacks? but hey, let's say you're right. more stacks=more tactics/strategy in battle.

how about outside of battle? you will need to leave some stacks at home, or with a secondary hero. one could leave the treant at home and not feel saddened since it has terrible speed, but what if it's extremely useful as sylvan fodder?

consider this and imagine only having 6 or even 5 stacks and one would have to really think some things through. which, to me, would be a better choice than the one present in Heroes 4. and that choice is IMO the strongest point in the entire game.

[Gaidal Cain]

So your saying that HIV had too diverse towns?Not counting the demon necro.

Come again?

If HIV had 6 instead of 7 stacks,it would bother me very much.But if HIII had 6,I wouldnt notice,since HII also had just 6 stacks.The more stacks you are able to bring into battle,the more diverse the combat becomes,and the number of tactics available increases,so more is better in this case.

That isn't necessarily true- with that logic, having 100 stacks would make it a wonderful startegy game, while in reality it most likely would be so cluttered and impossible to get an overview of that it just dissolved into bringing as much units as you could. And I wonder why you claim that one can only have 6 stacks in H5?

[DaemianLucifer]

and that last logic is not sensible to me. H4 needed the extra tactics gained from the seventh stack while H3 didn't because H2 only had six stacks? but hey, let's say you're right. more stacks=more tactics/strategy in battle.

It means that once you try out something thats better returning to the worse will be much harder.If they took underground from HIV it would cause quite a lot of negative thoughts,while no one would even notice if there was no underground in HIII.

That isn't necessarily true- with that logic, having 100 stacks would make it a wonderful startegy game, while in reality it most likely would be so cluttered and impossible to get an overview of that it just dissolved into bringing as much units as you could. And I wonder why you claim that one can only have 6 stacks in H5?

I never said that there will be just 6 stacks in HV.And 100 would be nice,but only if each stack has just one units.Its exactly what we have in rts games.

[Arzang]

It means that once you try out something thats better returning to the worse will be much harder.If they took underground from HIV it would cause quite a lot of negative thoughts,while no one would even notice if there was no underground in HIII.

Valid. but don't forget fanboyism. some people complain out of sentimentalism and nothing other than that.

I never said that there will be just 6 stacks in HV.And 100 would be nice,but only if each stack has just one units.Its exactly what we have in rts games.

nope it's not. stacks work differently. for starters, 7 stacks of one unit get orders assigned individually, one stack of 7 units get their orders assigned collectively.

in RTS games (maybe not Dune 2..) you can assign orders collectively AND individually. stacks don't require tremendous amounts of micromanaging, rts games do.[/quote]

[Sir William S Titan]

8x10!? What are they thinking!? I don't want a Quickie! I want something that I can actually play around with. I want to be able to move around, positioning myself right.

[Corribus]

I don't want a Quickie!

Quote of the day.

[DaemianLucifer]

[Corribus]

I don't want a Quickie! I want something that I can actually play around with. I want to be able to move around, positioning myself right.

Actually, read the whole thing out of context. It's hilarious.

Oh boy, what am I, in seventh grade?

[DaemianLucifer]

You sir,have such a dirty mind

[theLuckyDragon]

Someone forgot to quote the "8x10" part...

[DaemianLucifer]

Is that in inches or centimeters?

[Sir William S Titan]

Heh Well, it started with me thinking how quick each battle would be, since there was no room to move the creatures around in battle, which initiated the quickie idea. After that, the rest soon evolved.

[Corribus]

Heh Well, it started with me thinking how quick each battle would be, since there was no room to move the creatures around in battle, which initiated the quickie idea. After that, the rest soon evolved.

That's ok, Sir William. I'd rather have a longie than a quickie, too.

[ThunderTitan]

More people should think like that. I'm sure that would make a part of the population alot happier.

See Angelspit, not caring does ruin some very good things.

[Orfinn]

Heeeheee, quickie!

[Thelonious]

Is that in inches or centimeters?

milimeters

Anyway, what about the dreaded fodder armies - you can finish them quicker now..

[FatalTheRabbit]

This is absolutely disastrous. I find it hard to believe, and yet there is the screenshot right there. I hold out hope that this is little more than misinformation, and that screenshot is simply one of the battlefield sizes. I think anyone with an ounce of sensible logic will conclude that such a small battlefield only diminishes tactical depth, as it is simply a downgrade, and therefore can not increase, in total, the tactics available to a player. The blow to tactics is three fold as not only are there fewer squares within the grid and large creatures will occupy at least 4 squares limiting the amount of space available for movement, but they are just that; squares. The change to using squares as opposed to hexagons alone limits maneuverability considerably as each creature will have only 4 directions of action, as opposed to six. Reducing battle field size while retaining a hexagonal grid would be similar to retaining a medium field size with a quadrantal grid in regards to tacitcal options, and so one change or the other alone might be acceptable, but when you combine both simplifications it results in an abominable minimum of tactical maneuverability especially for a game that bears the title Heroes of Might and Magic. Fewer variables are fewer variables, and there are no two ways about it.

While indeed much remains to be seen as to the particulars of the game play mechanics of Heroes V one can still draw many reasonable conclusions about the quality of combat game play assuming that it is at all similar to past Heroes games, and so not all speculation is in vain.

For a developer that appeared early on to be concerned with ensuring that the fundamental characteristics of the heroes games, at their peak, were not compromised Nival seems to have made a very destructive decision that will alienate a lot of long time HOMM fans. If you're not a fan of turn based strategy, or the previous heroes games this game is not for you, and should not be diluted to suit your whims. Changing of scale one way or the other is not innovation, and in this case is merely a degradation of something previously brilliant.

[DaemianLucifer]

The change to a square as opposed to the hexagon alone limits maneuverability considerably as each creature will have only 4 directions of action, as opposed to six.

Actually,with squares you are able to use 8 directions.If you watch the movie of the battle,youll se that diagonal attacks are also awailable.

For a developer that appeared early on to be concerned with ensuring that the fundamental characteristics of the heroes games, at their peak, were not compromised they seem to have made a very destructive decision that will alienate a lot of long time HOMM fans. If you're not a fan of turn based strategy, or the previous heroes games this game is not for you, and should not be diluted to suit your whims. Changing of scale one way or the other is not innovation, and in this case is merely a degradation of something previously brilliant.

Maybe theyre just angry at ubi for buying the game that they want to ruin them completely

[Gaidal Cain]

While I don't think that a 8x10 battlefield bodes good, I remain optimistic. If it were really terrible, the beta testers would cause such an uproar that Nival would be pretty much forced to change it...Telling people that the game isn't for them at this stage seems very premature- wait till it has been released and reviewed, then recommend people to buy (or not to buy) it.

[FatalTheRabbit]

I wasn't telling "people" whether or not the game is for them necessarily. The point I was trying to make is that the fundamental mechanics of the game should not be altered for the sake of saving a few seconds, and appealing to those with an aversion to the sometimes time consuming and complex(as far as most strategy games are concerned) turn based combat of HOMM.

We don't know how long this change has been implemented(if at all hopefully!!!), or that it has been well recieved by beta testers, and testing is not altogether complete. There's still the open beta, and I suspect this will not be well tolerated by many unless there are some huge factors involved that we aren't able to account for in our speculations.