The Demo thread

[ThunderTitan]

I agree that the info system is not the best, I would have rather seen the HP damage not only kills next to the attacked creature, not on the bottom line

how can I see which spells a creature is under the influence of ?

It shows the HP damage on the bottom of the screen.

And you pres once, then press again to see the spells that affect the creature. The Bless spell (divine might or whtever it's called now doesn't seem to work though)

[Fyl]

I agree that the info system is not the best, I would have rather seen the HP damage not only kills next to the attacked creature, not on the bottom line

how can I see which spells a creature is under the influence of ?

It shows the HP damage on the bottom of the screen.

And you pres once, then press again to see the spells that affect the creature. The Bless spell (divine might or whtever it's called now doesn't seem to work though)

that's what I said, I'd rather see the HPs next to the creature not on the bottom

the current way of retaliation is so dissapointing, sim. retal. was so much better

agree with Bless not having any effect ... why did they change the name anyway ?

[Angelspit]

I can't play the demo: my girlfriend is playing it...

[Llefser]

Familiars are now Inferno's non-upgraded level, er, tier one creature; when upgraded they are called imps. In Heroes III it was the other way around, but whatever. The tier one creature building in the Inferno, however is referred to as the Imp Crucible and it upgrades to the Familiar Crucible.

A minor problem, to be sure.

In the open beta the Bless spell boosted minimum and maximum damage rather than make all attacks by the blessed unit do max. damage, but I'm not sure that the renamed "Divine Strength" spell even does that.

At least two artifacts use the same magic wand image in the inventory screen, even when their name clearly implies that they are not wands: Emerald Shoes and Cloak of Shelwhatever.

The game sure does look purty, though, and it has clearly improved from the open beta.

[ThunderTitan]

the current way of retaliation is so dissapointing, sim. retal. was so much better
agree with Bless not having any effect ... why did they change the name anyway ?

Ups. Gotta read thing more carefully.

There are artifacts that don't have images yet, and they use the magic wand for them.

The Spell book tags are wrong. And the description for Divine Strenght says that it makes them inflict max damage, so i guess it's wrong if the spell only gives +1 to min/max damage.

[Aspiriins]

At least two artifacts use the same magic wand image in the inventory screen, even when their name clearly implies that they are not wands: Emerald Shoes and Cloak of Shelwhatever.

yes...I also noticed this problem

Hmm.. i guess Aspiriins is not a "fan" then.

darn - but You didn't know it as well, until someone wrote it here, in forum

[ThunderTitan]

But i'm not the one that made a big deal out of it. And i only seem fanatic anyway.

[Orfinn]

Have played the demo and it rocks!

First the weird negative things:

- icons, names on most creatures are not correct

-Some artifacts have eiter wrong icon or name. I got a staff but it said something like helm of the dead

-You cant split troops!! Neither in the tactics phase or in town or in your heroes stats window this needs to be included

- click and drag heroes and creatures from row to row is a bit akward, improve this too.

-Some creature sounds are just lame *cough* footman/knight *cough*

-The thing about the imp/familiar dwelling where I get confused who is imp and who is familiar, I guess its other dwelling and structures that are like this, FIX it!!

-The tags in the spell book is misplaced and makes it difficult to find the right tag.

-The date, day/week/year should be visible without holding your mouse over the exit town icon etc.

Good things and nice surprises

-A spell that you can summon creatures from your town without walking all the way back

-Mostly excellent camera functions I just miss to rotate the battleground all around

-Wonderful music, the inferno theme seems to be good enough it has a creepy atmosphere.

-Easy to find what you are looking for on the adventure map

-The tavern is the best of the series, lot of nice info about heroes events etc

-The siege field is maybe abit small but in any other ways nicely done

-The battlefield is great, still bigger may be better though.

-The A.I may not be completed but the demo shows that the computer can play fairly well, no worries for a H4 failure here again

Other things

Noticed that the spectres have changed? now they arent oozing green with red eyes but ghostly white with green eyes. The spectral dragon now has green eyes instead of red.

And about the demo missions.
How in the widest can you capture the town AND rescue Isabell in one week, it seems impossible! Well it would be nice if someone could tell me which way I should take to find her and huryy back to town before the week expires

[ThunderTitan]

-You cant split troops!! Neither in the tactics phase or in town or in your heroes stats window this needs to be included

And about the demo missions.
How in the widest can you capture the town AND rescue Isabell in one week, it seems impossible! Well it would be nice if someone could tell me which way I should take to find her and huryy back to town before the week expires

Use Shift to split troops!

Isabell is being held right next to the Castle, in the tower behind the Pit Fiends!

[SpiresJRH]

Five-month-old Dell XPS M140 laptop, maxed out, and I still can't play the custom or campagin scenarios.... GRRRRRRR!!! So much for "reasonable" system requirements.

[HodgePodge]

Wow! I gotta play catch-up in the screen shots department. Now that I'm planning on buying Heroes V, I must get the all.

[Derek]

Initial reactions....

The biggest thing I have noticed is that it runs much better. The lack of loading makes the whole thing so much better, bear in mind I have an Alienware( ). However, the battlefield still seems a touch small. Maybe a 1 increase on all sides and it would be fine, but then again I haven't fought any spellcasters yet so who knows.

Are there any crazy balance problems(Balors) here?

[Saurus]

After having heard about the high system requirements I never believed the demo would have run on my old computer in the first place.
(Athlon 1400+, 512 mb ram(sd-ram) with a 64 meg only videocard)

Somehow I still forced myself to give it a shot - and to my big surprise:
Soon enough the demo was running - and not only did the demo run perfectly, the graphics and animations was also displayed smoothly whitout any problems. No considerable loadingtimes, no flickering. Now this was a very very nice surprise. The demo was very playable indeed.
This means it may be fully possible this old piece of junk (my computer, that is) will run the full game also

My first impressions...I never tested the beta so cannot compare to that.
And it is yet too early to say how much I like what I see in the demo
Some things that can be said instantly:

I instantly fell in love with the new skill-system.

What I dislike alot is the lack of caravans. Now I'm just running back and forth all the time

Technicaly the demo seems stable. No crashes so far.

[Metathron]

I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting to all the different camera perspectives, but I find them interesting.

I like how the adventure map looks, the trees especially caught my eye.

The town building system is pretty confusing, I think it could have been done better. It still can.

I still need to learn the intricacies of H5 battle, I guess a little practice makes perfect, as with all Heroes games so far.

In a nutshell, I'm much more satisfied (or less disappointed ) than I thought I'd be.

[Sir Alock]

Five-month-old Dell XPS M140 laptop, maxed out, and I still can't play the custom or campagin scenarios.... GRRRRRRR!!! So much for "reasonable" system requirements.

What does the Dell XPS M140 laptop have for specs? I mean...you can buy a new laptop today & if it's got a "dog" of a video card...then, well...you're screwed.

My specs (non-laptop)

AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Winchester Core)
1 GB RAM
eVGA 6800NU (128 MB) AGP VC

My rig is over 20 months old & I'm playing @ 1280x1024 (Max Details) & not even a remote slowdown. Laptops "usually" aren't gaming rigs. Yes...You can bring them everywhere..But in the end, you're paying for that convenience.

Alex

[Llefser]

-The date, day/week/year should be visible without holding your mouse over the exit town icon etc.

The day of the week, at least, is always visible -- just look at the little bars surrounding the exit / next turn button. One bar for each day, so on day seven they're all lit. I thought this was both very helpful, and really clever. Knowing what month and year it is isn't nearly so important.

How in the widest can you capture the town AND rescue Isabell in one week, it seems impossible! Well it would be nice if someone could tell me which way I should take to find her and huryy back to town before the week expires

On normal difficulty, at least, it can be done easily by day three. Follow the road around the mountains and north to the castle. Instead of taking the castle right away, have Godric fight the pit fiends and rescue Isabel from the prison. Godric should have just enough movement left to trade his army for Isabel's three footmen. She can then take Dunwhatever.

[Salisa]

[quote=

You also have to free Isabel in 7 days. She's in the building behind the Pit Lord near the town.[/quote]

Thank you although I did find this out by finally finding her.. The problem is that the campiagn tells you that you need to secure the town in 7 days..

While it only says you have to keep the lady alive to finish the game.. not that you have to also find her in the first 7 days.. maybe I missread..

Anyway my other minus' still stand but I'm finding the game is enjoyable and that the music is acceptable in some area's..

okay are we getting a random map generator? If we do thats my buying point..but the maps look like no random generator could ever work... While I love using the mod's for 3 and 4 many of the map makers only make maps designed to make Fanatic players happy not an average player.. , so I use the generator alot along with the mod's..

I love playing Homm 3 and 4, they both have there problems, so, I'm sure I'll love 5 too.. It's really to bad you took out many of the great new idea's that were in 4... 4 didn't fail because of them, 4 failed because it was rushed it out the door with a terrible AI and a failure to listen to all the testers!

Map makers plz plz make some great maps that someone can easily play on normal, sometimes you just want to have fun an be like a (insert when you just want to break stuff word or uber over all word) Not sit down to a world that is next to impossible to beat! I can't tell you how many maps I've downloaded that I will never play good maps btw great in some cases but way more then I want to compete with... I'm sure there has to be alot of HoMM lover's that play to have fun and not to stomp on someone else..

[Echo_]

- click and drag heroes and creatures from row to row is a bit akward, improve this too.

No, actually its very easy. All you have, to do is drag the troop your moving and put it's top left corner so that it overlaps the lower right corner space of where you want to put it. Then let go.

I had difficulty with it at first but then found the solution. Try it and see if that works.

[theGryphon]

But doing this for each stack is painful. In castle screen, they should add a button to drop all stacks into the visiting army.

[Wildbear]

My father tried the game today and his reactions were to tell the interface is confusing, the creatures are too small to be distinguished (on both the map and battlefield) and the buildings are too hard to notice (I actually had to tell him what was the inferno castle). To sum up the game isn't intuitive enough to him. He dropped it after about 10 minutes on the single player map and launched H4.

I'd say it's a matter of experience on the buildings' side. On the other two points I'll agree with him, the GUI is terrible and creatures are so small I have to zoom to see them (and I hate when I have to).

A nice addition would be an option to make all those actors bigger (a simple multiplicator would be enough, probably around 1.5, something optional of course, it shouldn't be difficult to dynamically resize 3d models).

On a side note, he also said the town tree panel should disappear once something has been built, and I think it would be a good idea.

I gave it another try myself, still not convinced at all. I won't give much details but I think the game should show what the knight can train each troup into. I also find the in-game cinematics just as dumb as in most other strategy games. And finally I don't know if the AI is final in the demo but isn't it dumb for it to pass by a hero (with 16 bandits) without attacking him ?