Hey, this is the post I saw for Heroes 4! And Heroes 5! And Fallout 3! And 3rd Edition D&D! And D&D 3.5! And 4th Edition D&D! And Civilization 5! And Middle Earth: The Balrog!
To summarize the wall of text:
Change=bad.
The new version of "x" has totally destroyed its spirit and flavor.
This is just a homogenous lump in the name of balance.
Balance has destroyed "x" mechanic.
No, really. You can read
the exact same kinds of complaints by going to the Wizards of the Coast 4th Edition board and looking at what people were saying then. And then you can read people quoting posts about 3rd Edition from 10 years previously using the exact same speech and arguments.
Really, the OP only needs to change the numbers to make it sound like he's bashing Heroes 2 after the original Heroes (changes highlighted):
HOMM 2 has the best graphics, of course. The units are well drawn, professionally drawn. The graphics are up to the standards of modern games. But it also feels dead, sterile. It doesn’t hook me. Generic fantasy in line with what is offered elsewhere on the market. The town window in particular comes across as something you could see in Blizzard’s (. . .) Warcraft.
HOMM 2 is different from past versions. But I don’t feel that it’s creative. I don’t feel that it is compelling and replayable. The heroes seem to be fundamentally variations of each other. The factions don’t have character or identity. I am having difficulty telling apart members of the (Barbarian, Knight and Warlock) factions especially. (Why are they all the same (cartoony art)? Why are (the large units all only two hexes)?
(. . .)
For one, upper tier units are no longer so important. They no longer have character. In past heroes games, you could have a (cute purple dragon). Because there were cute purple dragons, we had challenge, excitement, storyline. Stories are most exciting if there’s a powerful enemy to defeat, or if some purple big dragon wants to find the right food to eat (do you remember any maps from Heroes 1, off the top of your head? Really? Cool.). Heroes of Might and Magic is about getting thrills from overcoming adversity, finding ways to defeat the strong with the weak, finding ways around problems, etc. You are kept in the game because the game offers ways to be interesting.
In Heroes 2, upper tier means nothing. Units have become homogenized. You just amass the numbers, and your core owns elite/ champion units with ease. Angel? Didn't even exist until Heroes 3. Pit Lord? Ditto. I personally find it odd that this fan doesn't even bother to discuss units that have been there from the beginning. In the case of Pit Lords, they've just barely made it to an appearance in 50% of the Heroes games.
Some people think lower level units shouldn’t be so weak vs upper level ones. EG you need hundreds of weak little peasants vs a single purple dragon. But units are not equal, whether in fantasy or real life. 1000 riflemen can’t kill a stealth bomber, but a stealth bomber can definitely kill 1000 riflemen. 1000 lemmings pose no threat to an elephant...
Traditionally, the way small units were equalized to big ones was they weren't in Heroes 1 or Heroes 2. Perhaps "traditionally" is too strong a claim to be making. No, wait. There's no "perhaps" about it.
(. . .)
I find it ridiculous that in Heroes 2, upper tier units are so weak and numerous. Why should crusaders and cyclopes be weak and useless? What’s the purpose of being a ‘crusader’ and going upper tier? Of course big units should be powerful, and they should be hard to come by. Their dwellings should not be easy to build. Why is it that crusader cost less to make and some dragon buildings cost $5000?
Did you know that statistically, humans are outnumbered about 10 million to 1 by ants? Do you fear ants? Yes. If a swarm of ants decided to crawl into my nostrils and block my lungs, there wouldn't be a lot I could do about it before I suffocated. Do you think you could be killed by 30 starving rats? Yes. I've never studied kung-fu, and I'm sure 30 starving rats would kick my butt in a fair fight.
(. . .)
Why should you be able to kill a champion unit with just a week’s production of core units? Because the Champion runs out of hit points, duh. Don't forget, hit points realistically measure combat ability, and you fight at full strength until you lose that last one.
In my first battle vs. Ghosts, I was shocked to discover that the Ghosts increased in number whenever they killed an enemy unit, thus beating my level 6 creatures. Ghosts are not level 6, for crying out loud! There were only "lots" of Ghosts!
Do NWChole employees know anything of popular culture? Do they know that Cyclops wears a blue X-Men suit? Sure, they got the laser shooting from his eyes right, but still . . .
Necromancers in ALL fantasy literature raise dead. Except for Tolkien, where Sauron the Necromancer relies on magic rings and good old-fashioned orcs, trolls, and ring-slaves that haven't quite managed to die yet. That’s what a Necromancer is! Where’s the amass-the-undead-slave-army strategy in Lord of the Rings? It has been homogenized so that all factions have access to the same strategies. Like build creature dwellings to buy troops. I think that's what you did in Heroes 1 and Heroes 2, anyway.
What’s the point of creating fast, strong black dragons? Is that creativity? How does that tie in with Smaug, who spent most of his time sleeping? Since it doesn’t tie in, NWChole has removed cute pink dragons from the necromancer faction. Does it really insert a point of interest? If you like parodying popular culture so much, why not give the Cyclops unit a laser beam from their eyes? Oh, wait, they did that in Heroes 2.
(. . .)
There are so many examples by which I feel NWChole doesn’t really care about the game. The developers are making this game to make money, rather than because they want to create a game they like to play and which they know many people like to play. It's true! I think Jon Van Caeghem actually wanted to make money with Heroes 2! They come across as corporate executives who don’t care about popular culture, fantasy genres, or gaming in general. Hence I keep saying there is a professional, yet impersonal, feel to this game. I feel this even more strongly than from Heroes 1 where NWC never even playtested the game. I keep feeling that the game developers were not salivating over the idea of playtesting this game themselves - they just offered the beta key to some people and sat back in their chairs, impersonally surveying the game reports.
And so it goes on, and never changes. If we hadn't lost the rpgplanet forums, you'd be seeing the same statements about Heroes IV. You can still see them about Heroes 5. And as I've mentioned, you can go find a Civilization forum and see them about Civ 5. And Civ 4. And Civ 3. And pick your edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
Far too many people speak their minds without first verifying the quality of their source material.
