Heroes V Impressions: Post yours here

[RK]

i don't think mage is line of sight, wizard's is line of fire

but yeah my biggest question so far on H5's factions is what IS inferno's weakness?!

[wimfrits]

Praytell, what is the significance of placing your armies on the tactical map, since you cannot hide your more vulnerable stacks from shooters and spell casters? Indeed, doesn't this make shooters and spellcasters much more powerful than melee units?

Could be.
Imo the game currently revolves for a good part around ranged units. A ranged stack guarding a mine can be a pretty significant setback if you lack the means of dealing with them. Blocking the enemy's way to your own ranged units is again a viable tactic like in H3.
On the other hand, ranged exploits are partly balanced by a not too large battlefield.

There is actually a unit for which it matters- mages, which shoots everything in their line of sight.

More like a laser-beam attack if you ask me. A line of sight by definition ends at the first obstacle. This beam does not.
Pretty interesting feature btw.

[Gaidal Cain]

More like a laser-beam attack if you ask me. A line of sight by definition ends at the first obstacle. This beam does not.
Pretty interesting feature btw.

The pont was more that there already is an algoritm halfdone for calculating what is blocking what. I didn't mean to imply that it was exactly like how LoS is supposed to be. And yes, it's an interesting feature. (and most laserbeams tend to stop at the first obstacle as well. Don't believe everything you see on Star Wars )

[wimfrits]

(and most laserbeams tend to stop at the first obstacle as well. Don't believe everything you see on Star Wars )

...another illusion shattered.

[Bad Wolf]

Hmm, I know I'm not the only one to be saying this, but doesn't anyone else get the feeling that Nival tried to copy Disciples system of town management and got it wrong?
I mean, I always thought that Disciples building plan system was very good, but now that I see how you can missuse it, I'm starting to regret they went this way.
And yes I know the whole planning screen and building structures part is not finished (as to the Open Beta) but still I hope they'll get it right.

Also, no offence to Nival but what's up with these stupid pre-requirements AND town points, I mean since when does Capitol, Citadel upgrades require buildings in the middle, and even if they do, why use the current ones they're using? (again, as to the Open Beta)
And it took me ages to finnaly figure out the new creature tire system, because of the town points, there just seems to be something really wrong here...
Or is it just me?

[Gaidal Cain]

Don't see much connection to the Disciples system (only Played D2 though, so not sure). And I think the points stystem is rather nice as it forces a slowdown and stops you from rushing for certain units too early. The downside is that most towns develop in a very similar way as long as the map is moderately rich in resources.

[Bad Wolf]

Oh also another really annoying thing, but this of course WILL be taken care of (I hope) is that you can build creature structures without a fort, but you can't click on the hire creatures button without it.
Now first of all I think a fort should be a pre-requirement for creature building as it was in H3, but even more important, make the button appear if you build a dwelling, not fort...
OMG so tired of rotating the stupid 3D castle looking for the damn creature dwelling I built just to hire lousy fearies...

Oh and also, if it was up to me, I'd leave the castle static, and only make the buttons control everything... like in disciples, there's no actual need for the structures to light up and be clickable at all... just a really good looking 3D town

[RK]

After playing hotseat mod extensively with Preserve, I noticed one thing.
The strange power ratio of caster stacks which seemed to be more bang for buck if you split it into smaller sized stacks.

My druids deal 50 ice bolt dmg per unit. This is amazing. Split them into stacks of 2s and have the rest of the army slot filled with shooters or what have you and we have a neutral killer army ready that is more than capable of dealing 300 dmg per turn.

I haven't seen a single use for War Dancers yet early game, even 2nd week doesn't require Unicorns, or any sort of melee power. If you need any sort of melee power, Treants are the ticket. 120 HP, root ability good speed. NOTHING can get close to your ranged units.

Another favorite strat I wanted to share is the hero's pick.
Every hero has a specialty. I go with Orris, the Hunter. Alright that might seem odd to you, why bother with Elf booster?

The answer is: That's not what I'm looking for. I look at his Basic Luck as a great leapfrog to Lucky Explorer which grants bonus to every resources picked up by him. It works even with chests gold. I can get up to 600 extra gold per chest. It's amazing. I didn't have problem getting Green dragon's dwelling up at the second week and my bank is flush with gold.

Another fav of hero of mine is Nadaur simply for her Ballista. Free dmg, worth 1500 g. What's not to like
Play on people ! ^^ Hero 5 has a bright future and power to the Nature

[csarmi]

Well, I tried the closed beta but I couldn't even play it cause it just wouldn't run on my system. Come on! Do I have to upgrade my computer to play a freaking turn based game? I can run world of warcraft (yea lags in Orgrimmar) but can't play heroes 5? Why the hell do we need graphics anyways? It's a strategy game, no?

[ThunderTitan]

We need graphics coz they're shiny, and people like shiny things.

[DaemianLucifer]

Didnt you hear?Ubi is going to make the game more appealing to new players - meaning theyll make it dumb with cool effects.

[ThunderTitan]

Like I said, SHINY!

[frozd]

My impressions after a few hours of exploring the game. I played necropolis ofcourse on that hot sit mode.

Allright... the first problem was figuring out on which resolution to play on. I have a decent computer with 1gb ram and i still had to put it on 800x600 and very low details. But it's fine since it's a beta version.

The town was kind of confusing at first, but i got a hold of it after building a fort and finguring out the tech tree which is pretty similar to disciples 2.

Combat wasn't that hard to figure out, but the initiative isn't a good heroes feature since speed is avalible. The battle field is indeed too little, but it works i guess. I must say the shooters are really very powerfull and I'm used to heroes IV tactics where you can meat shield your shooters from the enemy, took a little time to figure how to best deal with the enemy. The old retaliation system isn't good i don't like it one bit. I guess I'm too used to heroes IV.

The advanturing is exactly the same as in heroes III so i didn't have any problems there, it's just that the camera angle can be annoying from time to time. But I guess that's just the price we pay for having a 3d terrain.

All in all this game has potential, but i would really like to see some of the heroes IV features like tagging windmills, caravans, line of sight, daily creature growth and instant retaliation. Taking out initiative or speed is a must.

Those are my first impressions.

[ThunderTitan]

All in all this game has potential, but i would really like to see some of the heroes IV features like tagging windmills, caravans, line of sight, daily creature growth and instant retaliation. Taking out initiative or speed is a must.

To late for that. Way to late.

[Fallen Angel]

blah blah blah blah blah

I especially liked the part about how you presume to judge which features work, which don't work, and which should be added in order to turn this game into Heroes 4 after only a few short hours of play. Do you really think you're qualified to make such judgements after only a short time and with so little in-game experience?

[RK]

it is a first impression after all. why whine about it so much?
oh noooo this guy want H4 in this game. nooooo.
it's his opinion. no need to nit pick to sound wiser. i don't see any qualification needed to make a first impression.

i still see some reasonable changes he mused about.
collecting windmill cash is something that is so tedious to do every week, add in no caravan feature it's a step backwards. i got Bored of the beta and uninstalled it a week ago and hope they do something about it in the final game.

[frozd]

blah blah blah blah blah

I especially liked the part about how you presume to judge which features work, which don't work, and which should be added in order to turn this game into Heroes 4 after only a few short hours of play. Do you really think you're qualified to make such judgements after only a short time and with so little in-game experience?

Yes

[gravyluvr]

but yeah my biggest question so far on H5's factions is what IS inferno's weakness?!

Their appeal?

This game is taking a little while to get used to. For the strategists, I'd say I really great option would be a "flattener mode" which would allow users to play the game in 2D with objects displayed clearly but I'm sure that won't be done. It would allow older PCs to play the game AND allow for people to turn off the "shiny" objects after they have become addicted to the strategy side of the game.

The need to send the middle of the chain back and forth (like HOMM 1-3) is causing my turns to take too long since I tend to max out the heroes pretty quickly so that I can flip my chainback-and-forth to expand the empire in multiple directions, and so that I can cross develop two main heroes.

I've noticed that my patience for Betas is pretty thin so I haven't given it the time that I could have when I was younger and could devote fifty hours a week to gaming. I think I'll end up waiting and playing single player modes when the game finally ships.

Until then, I'll keep playing the golden oldies.

[Phoenix_1973]

Hi all ! It's my first post here , but I'm a huge HMM fan already 10 years.
Now I'd play open beta with my friends on hot-seat mode and want to say that HMM-V very probably will be the best from all in both graphics and gameplay .
The first - every faction has now it's own development way , nonlikable to all others . It will be no place for some earlier met <ultimate tactic> like in HMM - II plaing with a might hero and black dragons . Now the racial abilities are very different and all of them give a large advantage plaing exactly a native hero , not other one .
The second - Nival realised my own , may be , the best dream about magic system highly rise the DD spells importance in comparison with buffs and mind-influensed ones ( they were quite underpowered in all previous parts , especialy when the stecks became huge ) . The ideas of lucky spells , improved spells , invocation and elemental chains are also great , at least for me ( because I prefer play poker instead of chess ).
The third - I very like new ATB bar and lack of wait option , because I think the new one is more fair - the faster units still can act more often , but the slower ones aren't in off-side as they was with wait .

Of cause , there are many bugs in this beta ( any beta always has its ) , but I'm sure that the delay of realis would allow game disighners to fix as more as possible .

[Iswald]

Would it be fairly accurate to say that HoMM IV is basicly HoMM III with small gameplay changes at prettier (shinier) images?