Heroes 6 wishlist (draft)

[astral76minor]

Kristo said:
As an example of what I mean, take a look at some of the early screens from Elemental. They seem to get it right.

Elemental - War of Magic is a game I look forward to. The news about Heroes is sparse. But Elemental might be the ticket we have been looking for. I will still wait for H6 and expect to be disappointed like usual. But Elemental brings a ray of hope....

At least we have something to play, and it appears to be better, plus they have fan support! Check it out! url=http://www.elementalgame.com/index.asp]Elemental[/url]

I continue to support Heroes in addition.

[Darmani]

Randomness is not at odds with being a strategy game. In fact, the random element can be said to make the strategy more complex. For example, in battle, you can still calculate, but it's a lot harder to, because, instead of simply having to track what would happen if players did various moves, you have to throw probability into the mix.

I will seriously argue that position....up to a point. The probability aspect does make some elements more interesting strategically. Here's one example: Say you rush your enemy and catch an enemy Warlock scout near his castle, and need to spend 7 of your 9 mana on Lightning Bolt to kill him before he gets a chance to move. You have two trolls remaining, which will prove invaluable in taking the castle due to their ability to absorb turret fire, but you have no Thieves Guild, and do not know how heavily defended the castle is, beyond the knowledge you appear to have caught him off guard, but would nevertheless be more likely to capture the castle with the mana. However, if you do not spend the mana to kill the Warlock now, you run the risk that he may have Cold Ray or Lightning Bolt, and would thus be able to kill your troll stack and flee, thus greatly increasing your chances of taking heavy losses trying to capture the castle. Should you spend the mana?

The above example is heavily contrived, but hopefully does illustrate how calculations can take probability into account, and become more complicated as a result. In some ways, that does make for a more tactical game. Similarly, having to use probability to decide whether it'd be worth it to chase after an artifact does make the game more strategic; making the game completely deterministic would remove the problem of having to balance the hope of gain against the risk of loss.

By the way, probability is much more innate to the game than just the random number generator. Players must use probability when taking unknown information into account, so, in that sense, having random elements in the game is no different than having hidden information -- if you want to remove probability, you'll have to reveal the map to both players from the start!

Okay, so I hope we can all agree that random elements can make the game more strategically complicated. But I do so *can* for an important reason. The examples mostly depend on decisions the player can control and plan for. If you think your opponent is in the northeast corner of the map but aren't sure [and looking at the map in the editor is verboten], you don't pour all your resources into rushing in that direction and preparing a chain of heroes to caravan reinforcements in mid-charge. You might scout the other directions and be ready to react if an enemy hero pops up from the southeast. However, things such as month of the plague have a great effect on the player without him being able to easily prepare for it. While other random effects might make Heroes more like chess with dice, month of the plague is more like chess where someone could pop it and take a piece of the board. I've read how this kind of thing can make the game more fun for the casual player (take a look at Settlers of Catan), but it certainly does not make the game more strategic.

[Artas1984]

1) Make it the same as Heroes 3 with updated physics and real time effects, but leaving the gameplay unchanged.

2) Release a development kit with custom command editor and no stupid hardcoded files. All the editing language must be available to edit with freeware programs and compressed into a universal format.

3) All the game structures and units must look smal or it's not Heroes for me. Don't use stupid eye candy or enhanced graphics, use the same graphics as in Heroes 3, don't let it be a kids cartoon.

4) Heroes 2 & 3 are the greatest TBS games ever. Heroes 4 & 5 are the bigest pieces of trash ever. Make Heroes 6 a Heroes game, not some fucking BS cartoon.

[ThunderTitan]

Heroes has always been a strategy game, but it is not now and has never been anything approaching "pure" strategy.

Because obviously being good at chess is better then being a good general in real life...

What you're talking about isn't pure strategy, it's pure math... that's why a computer can kick your arse at chess.

Now of course too much randomness will make the game nothing but luck, but that's why you only have some.

1) Make it the same as Heroes 3 with updated physics and real time effects, but leaving the gameplay unchanged.

NO!

[Sherpa]

Fast paced , something like homm2 or homm3 cos homm5 has to slow turns.

Keep almost all from homm 5 cos it was grat (personal opinion)

[klaymen]

Artas1984, so you want basically nothing but HoMaM3 with upgraded editor?
Oh, well....

[Bandobras Took]

Heroes has always been a strategy game, but it is not now and has never been anything approaching "pure" strategy.

Because obviously being good at chess is better then being a good general in real life...

Being a good general doesn't mean crap if half your army gets trapped by a late spring snowfall.

War in real life isn't pure strategy, either. Darmani makes a much more cogent point. I never said Heroes wasn't a strategy game -- but the claim that it's gone from being a pure strategy game to a minor strategy game with a few bells and whistles is clearly bunk. It's always had the bells and whistles, and the level of strategy has been fairly consistent through each iteration.

[jeff4815]

Text boxes and backstory like in H3 for greater immersion and humour.

[Darmani]

That's not being like H3 -- H2 and H4 had those as well (not sure about H1).

I could not agree more. The textboxes are an extremely important part of what flavors heroes. It's just not the same when texts like "You play a drinking game with some dwarves, where a mug is passed around, and whoever drinks last buys the next round. After buying every round, you don't feel bad about taking the mug." is replaced with "Artifact gained."

[Thelonious]

I don't get some people wanting better graphics...

I'd want a real story, a good editor and a decent engine and AI to make the game enjoyable to play > forget about the graphics I'd choose a pixalated fun game over a eye pleasing 'do I have to like this for the game or the graphics?' game.

So that means that I want what all the fans want... a real game worth it's money.

[Bandobras Took]

I don't get some people wanting better graphics...

I'd want a real story, a good editor and a decent engine and AI to make the game enjoyable to play > forget about the graphics I'd choose a pixalated fun game over a eye pleasing 'do I have to like this for the game or the graphics?' game.

I don't get people who assume that the graphic designers for a game are also in charge of AI programming, writing, and creating a workable map editor.

[JSE]

At this point I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in Ubisoft releasing a decent Heroes game.

Sure, I'm very hard to please. H2/H3 are perfect games to me due to a strong fun core; modern companies are too obsessed with bells and whistles and are NEVER committed to continue to improve game balance once the money is in their hands.

In many ways, 12 years later, H2 and H3 are STILL fresh and new in my mind. There are tons of maps I have not even started, tons of new strategies I have not even discovered.

What can I say, I'm not a profitable cash cow for them. lol


Screw Ubisoft, screw Nival. The older games are where it's at. Heck, Chess is thousand of years old and people still play it.

I'll only be interested in taking a curious glance if Ubifost hires JVC. Only he can revitalize the series.

That's exactly what I think!

My biggest wish for Heroes VI is that Jon Van Caneghem will have a major role in its development. Hiring him also seems to be the most reasonable move Ubisoft can make with regard to the series.

[lotusreaver]

The textboxes are an extremely important part of what flavors heroes. It's just not the same when texts like "You play a drinking game with some dwarves, where a mug is passed around, and whoever drinks last buys the next round. After buying every round, you don't feel bad about taking the mug." is replaced with "Artifact gained."

Agreed. More flavor text in general would be nice. I for one really enjoyed all the descriptions of events in H2 and H3. H4 removed a lot of it, but made up for it with paragraphs of exposition in its single-player campaign.

More story text in general.

[ThunderTitan]

I don't get people who assume that the graphic designers for a game are also in charge of AI programming, writing, and creating a workable map editor.

Ever heard of having a budget?

[theLuckyDragon]

I don't get people who assume that the graphic designers for a game are also in charge of AI programming, writing, and creating a workable map editor.

Ever heard of having a budget?

That's not an excuse... they can give more money to the dept in charge of AI/writing/etc. than to graphics.

[klaymen]

That's not an excuse... they can give more money to the dept in charge of AI/writing/etc. than to graphics.

Good point, but IMO today's games are sold by hyping graphics and a few "innovative features", rather than by deep gameplay and/or good story. Ubi wants to earn money, so I think they will just follow the trend.

[theLuckyDragon]

Yeah, I too thought about that while writing the post... I think I should add "theoretically" after "they can".

[Alamar]

Wishlist:

-- Bring back HOMM2 style opera

-- Make the game feel like you're leading an ARMY and not a band of creatures [overland map issue]

-- Ship a first-rate map / campaign editor at product launch. There should be lots of menu-driven / gui functionality. There should also be an advanced mode where you can "program" certain things if needed but the need for this mode should be quite rare.

-- Make sure the game is relatively well optimized ... I.E. it runs at least "OK" on a PC with the min. game specs and runs "quickly" on a PC with the recommended specs.

-- Make the game easily moddable with detailed documentation on what can be modded and how.

-- Implement the "best" [without cheating] Heroes AI we've seen to date.

-- Give players the option to allow the AI to "cheat" and allow the player [via sliders or similar] to determine what kinds of cheats and how much of a bonus the AI gets.

-- Don't do anything that ruins the immersion of the game itself ; is jarring ; or slows down the game without real benefit.

-- Keep && integrate some of the best features of all the HOMM games. For example I like H5's initiative bar && Skill system ; H4 had alternate castle build paths ; H3 had the mighty wait command ; H2 had an awesome atmosphere && music. There are tons of great things that can be found from the whole series that could be combined ....

-- I'm not looking for tons of "new" things ... I'm happy with refinements on some of the great ideas / features / atmosphere from prior entries in the series.

-- Concentrate on having a GREAT product on day one that has tons of after-release-support.

[Kalah]

I seem to remember our taking a list of the most wanted stuff from earlier games and sending it to Ubi while H5 was in development. If there are enough meaningful suggestions, and if we can be bothered, we might collect the most popular ideas from here and ship them off to some guys we know, who know some guys who know some guys.

[wimfrits]

Only some general wishes for me (a H5 legacy):

- decent testing and sufficient time/resources to make changes based on test results before first release
- user-friendly map editor
- campaign editor in first release
- remotely competitive combat AI