A goodbye to HOMM! Heroes VI has ended my love for this game

[Yazman]

... Everyone already knows it's my opinion...

Which you are not trying to imply in any way on everybody here?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but like you said, it's just an opinion, everybody ALREADY KNOWS THAT BECAUSE I'M THE ONE WHO SAID IT! Your opinion isn't in danger of being monopolised by my own, it's just shit I said, why are you so bothered by other people having opinions? If you disagree then go ahead, I wasn't making an argument, but just saying some of the things I hated about HOMM5. If you disagree, then post why. But just posting inane, obvious bullshit like "That's just YOUR opinion" When everybody ALREADY knows that, is pointless.

Despite bashing THE GRAPHIC DESIGN of the units why not try to focus on them abilities in the game? The AWESOME skill system and racial abilities? The interaction between units from a race and the hero from the same race?

Because those are totally different issues that I wasn't talking about. I was talking about the design of the towns and the setting, because that's equally important to me.

Yes, the game is having it's flaws, but is still keeping me busy from time to time till this day on, so instead of bashing it with "Ooooh, this race is having too many elves, this one too much dwarfs, this Demonic one is too red, what the **** are doing these skeletons in the Necromancers army?" - and so on and so on, try to focus on the GAME itself.

The design of the setting and towns is PART of the game, but it seems you don't realise that. Furthermore, I was actually happy with the Necropolis and the Inferno, so you're just straight making stuff up.

"Keeping me busy" isn't really reason for me to like a game. There's games I hate that can keep me busy, it doesn't mean I'll give them a good review though. I have to enjoy the game, and for a game like HOMM, that means I have to enjoy the towns and the units. Especially when one of my favourite towns was changed into something that I have never liked in ANY setting, and they didn't even go for something unique.

To say the design of the setting/game world and the towns especially just doesn't matter... is RIDICULOUS! Because they DO matter. Quite a lot, to a lot of people. How the towns are set up and designed is a very important part of HOMM! All you have to do is look at HOMM 4 to see that many, many people didn't like it because of the way the towns were set up, and their creatures allocated. It's important to many and the creature & town design has consequences relating to the campaigns, etc. If I don't enjoy a town then that's an entire part of the game that I'll never be able to enjoy. Heroes 3, I like every town. Heroes 6, I like every town. So it's not a problem there.

Maybe you don't give a shit - and that's fine - but I do. We obviously just have different priorities. For example, I don't give a rat's ass about how the skill system works, as long as I can get the same types of abilities I've had in every other HOMM game - diplomacy, tactics, etc. It's not something I would ever concern myself with because to me it's a minor part of the game. But you seem to put a high priority on it.

And I'd rather be a "tool" than a stubborn poo poo doodie head. [/i]

lol, at least you have a sense of humour, unlike the other super sensitive babies in this thread. You > Them.

[parcaleste]

Don't put stuff in my mouth - I never said the design doesn't matter, I said there are other things that one should look in the game, instead of bi@tching that he/she is not playing that game because he/she is not liking the graphics or the design of whatever creature. For instance I hate the look of Manticores and Tiamats and berhaps a whole bunch of other creatures in Disciples 2 and Heroes III, but that never stopped me to play these games till this day on.

Heroes IV i never could get into it.

... I don't give a rat's ass about how the skill system works, as long as I can get the same types of abilities I've had in every other HOMM game - diplomacy, tactics, etc...

I think this conversation should end here, cause you OBVIOUSLY don't have any idea for what are you (we) talking about here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

About the HVI graphics I'll say it again - they may be one idea better than in HV (because are more natural) but the interaction between the units IS PAINFUL and insulting to my eyes. Not to say all the little tiny icons, fonts and stuff that is killing me, but I still play that game because of... THE GAME.

[Artas1984]

You forgot to include the option:

any game after Heroes 3 is a disappointment

[Metathron]

You forgot to include the option:

any game after Heroes 3 is a disappointment

[ywhtptgtfo]

You forgot to include the option:

any game after Heroes 3 is a disappointment

It's a bit true in a sense even though subsequent games have some redeeming qualities. And it's not really that we veterans have an unexpectedly high expectation for sequels, it's just they just really aren't that good.

[maltz]

I remember reading that the developers of VI wants to make the game less luck-based (hence more skill-based?). I think they have successfully tone down the luck element. Battles also generally drag a lot longer and the importance of healing shoots way up, which means a good ability repertoire and usage is likely to consistently prevail.

But in terms of skills... I think they are not as important as in V. The healing spells can now ressurect dead units, making most battles not challenging at all. Besides now one can always wait and wait to get a huge army to overpower a mission boss. I miss the days when Markal got butchered by Godric, or Findan got crushed by Nicolas...

[Mozared]

I remember reading that the developers of VI wants to make the game less luck-based (hence more skill-based?). I think they have successfully tone down the luck element. Battles also generally drag a lot longer and the importance of healing shoots way up, which means a good ability repertoire and usage is likely to consistently prevail.

But in terms of skills... I think they are not as important as in V. The healing spells can now ressurect dead units, making most battles not challenging at all. Besides now one can always wait and wait to get a huge army to overpower a mission boss. I miss the days when Markal got butchered by Godric, or Findan got crushed by Nicolas...

Exactly, the question is whether the improved 'heals' are a good thing for the genre. My problem with the balance of the game right now is that though no spells are useless, everything is so goddamn vastly inferior to healing spells. Not losing units is so ridiculously key that you don't get as much chance of playing around with different playstyles than simply spending ability points from level 1-15 on your hero on healing stuff.

You can't play an Orc army 'mass haste style' where you rush all your stuff in and attack (in melee) as much as possible, as soon as possible - retaliations cost you your units. You can't play a 'mass CC style' where you keep the enemy from every attacking himself (only Sanctuary can do this with a tears mage who has Tsunami). You can't play a 'mass damage style' where you just nuke everything as hard and as often as you can if you can't kill them before they get a chance or two to hit you. That's kind of a shame.

Of course in end-game it's possible to dabble in these styles, but you can't just decide "I want to play my Orc army ultra-aggressive" and pick skills that fit that idea from the get-go: you'll lose units and simply die because of that, whereas the "I want to play my X army defensively by spamming three kinds of heals" works in every situation.

[Bahototh]

I'm a bit sad to say that Heroes VI is the first game in the series that I don't expect anything from. I think you develop a tiny gut feeling for the games coming out, and based on the response so far, they seem to indeed have "dumbed" it down a level.

I'm still enjoying heroes V, and the multiplayer mode has a good replay value when there's human opponents in familiar maps.

Is this the time to say goodbye to a wonderful series?

[Ryder]

That was a fantastic opening post and it's hard for me to disagree with any of it.

This game just doesn't have the Heroes feel to me. Unlike Heroes 1 - IV, I dont find myself wanting to play it and if I do finally start it up I can easily turn it off. With the first 4 games I'd be up until the wee hours of the morning unable to stop to playing.

The Sanctuary town is the worst in the franchises history. Forge included.
The removal of the Mage Guild is the worst decision in the franchises history.
Where is my town screen?
Where have all my resources gone?
Why do I need to take over a town to take control of a mine?
Why can I recruit creatures in a town from another town 10 days walk away?

There are too many changes made that just make the game ordinary. I was playing the Necro campaign last night and levelled up to about level 9. I was trying to find a skill to use my point in and there was nothing there that I wanted to use. Nothing stood out to me, there was not one skill remaining that said, I will greatly improve your hero, choose me. What's the point of having so many skills when 90% of them are unappealing?

I am underwhelmed.

[Caradoc]

Ok, 8 pages later, here's my comment:

Disabling Conversion solves a lot of problems
-You limit scope of combined recruiting
-You encourage development of multiple heroes
-You encourage use of mixed armies
-You make town type a factor in setting objectives

Also, a mapmaker might:
-Limit hero availability
-Use Artifacts to develop main heroes
-Construct mixed army neutrals
-Utilized modded components

So despite some disappointments, I remind myself that the box maps always suck and that we have mapmakers who can save the day. Cheers.

[jeff]

So despite some disappointments, I remind myself that the box maps always suck and that we have mapmakers who can save the day. Cheers.

I guess the question then is this an editor where that will be true. I won't be one of them, as it seems unlikedly a campaign editor will be developed. So it's for the other mapmakers to decide; I wish you luck.

[Torur]

Always alot of people complaining and saying the game sucks and this is the worst ever and so on. And then all the yay sayers on the other side, arguing that it is a good game, haters gonna hate etc.
And somehow I feel drawn in the middle about this game. So far I've liked the game alot, when I play I usually have alot of fun and the campaign is challanging, which is nice for a change. Most games now aday do not even present a mild challange in SP. SP is just a small story add-on to introduce you to the game mechanics so you are ready to head into the multiplayer. Granted, Heroes is more about the multiplayer than SP, though a good SP campaig that provides a challange is always nice.
That being said, whenever I sit infront of the computer and I want to play a game, I have no interest in playing HVI. I find all my other games more appealing than HVI. I played the game yesterday and after 15 min I lost interest and turned it off.
And thats my problem with the game. I like it, but it doesent keep me hooked like the older versions and I have alot of other games that interest me more. I dont know, maybe I'll enjoy it more when its patched and fixed up more nicely.

[Toejam]

So despite some disappointments, I remind myself that the box maps always suck and that we have mapmakers who can save the day. Cheers.

I so disagree... from older heroes games i remember playing the box maps for years,after getting tierd of them and turning to user made maps...

[Casey]

Yes, you are right on a lot of points. But I quit playing Heroes V, and now with the new very nice graphics, I like to play again.
But for example, indeed, which kind of hero I take, there is only the difference: Might or Magic. And in each line each hero I play is developed the same way. Doesnt matter if it's Haven or Necropolis or whatever.
Also am I not happy with the Conflux system, especially while it is so many times down, and with the fact that the single scenario maps are copies of a part of the campaign maps.

As for Parcaleste:
it's quite obvious to me that you have only played HeroesV and not the former editions. All the things you mention were not new to HV but appeared already in former editions. I have been playing Heroes from the start and liked every version except V.

IV was completely different from III but also very nice. Develop a hero with nature magic, death magic and blue (forgot its name) magic, and you dont need an army...: blind, slow, sorrow, flight, haste, summon water elementals and fire elementals and poison.
III was especially nice for all the different heroes. Who of you tried ever to start with Ryland, basic leadership, basic diplomacy? I think very few, because it doesnt sound great. But if you level only these 2, within 2 weeks ALL stacks want to join you...
Ahhh, and those nice combinations you could make: attacking a castle? grap a stack of griffins, give them first strike and send them over the wall.... job done. ;-)

Well, I hope Ubisoft will learn from our complaints and change the game. Or maybe the individual mapmakers will come up with interesting creative findings.

At last some tips for people who are having trouble to win HVI:
first ability point into Resurrection, and get summon elementals asap. And if that is not clear enough: summon them not on your side but next to the enemies shooters. My favorite is summon water elementals.
And this makes clear that the whole story of Cjlee is true: there is no more strategic element in this game because with these 2 tips you can win everything.

[Variol]

I this a screw up, or a bizarre coincidence,

Everyone on this page joined the forum in '06!?

[parcaleste]

... As for Parcaleste:
it's quite obvious to me that you have only played HeroesV and not the former editions...

OK, I'll tell him.

[Pitsu]

[offtopic]

Everyone on this page joined the forum in '06!?

Not highly surprising as the boards opened 2006. Members and lurkers of the old board moved over depending on their activity some time in 2006.

PS. I was staff member and therefore joined few days before '06 [/offtopic]

[Kosh]

I'm somewhere in the middle in terms of liking/not-liking HoMM VI (I refuse to go by MMH VI or whatever).

Pretty much all sides of the argument have been covered in here so I need not repeat. I will say that some of the questionable simplifications they have done have made the game more appealing to one of my friends; particularly being able to recruit from any city rather than needing hero chains or TP. For me things like this are questionable, on one hand I didn't much enjoy the tediousness in prior games, but at the same time I don't really like the over simplification either. but in the end, things like that convinced my friend to give the series another try (he hasn't bought a HoMM title since IV). So in terms of sales, maybe you can call that a winning decision by the devs? I'm not sure.

However, the underlying truth of the matter is neither of us have seriously touched the game for weeks. And it appears that goes for many of you as well. The bugs and Conflux issues are definitely a big factor, but aside from the technical stuff there is just something incomplete or missing from the "feeling" of a heroes game. I don't know, maybe it's just the sheer amount of little and large changes made to make the game more 'accessible' to wider audiences that have eaten away at the essence of what we loved about previous heroes games.

It's not a bad game by any means. Maybe some more patching will help, that's what I came here to check out in the first place lol. We almost started up another game, but then it was like we both just realised we're essentially going to be just repeating the same choices we made every other game (ie skills, heals) and we basically started and finished a whole new game in our mind within seconds and decided to play something else instead :/

Anyway, as for the OP and poll: I dont think HoMM VI is a disappointment because I didn't have that high of expectations after the last few games. But it also doesn't give me that 'just one more turn!' syndrome either. So I guess I'm still neutral on the subject. In a couple more months (assuming the patches keep coming) I would change my vote, one way or the other.

[Mozared]

However, the underlying truth of the matter is neither of us have seriously touched the game for weeks. And it appears that goes for many of you as well. The bugs and Conflux issues are definitely a big factor, but aside from the technical stuff there is just something incomplete or missing from the "feeling" of a heroes game. I don't know, maybe it's just the sheer amount of little and large changes made to make the game more 'accessible' to wider audiences that have eaten away at the essence of what we loved about previous heroes games.

You've raised a personal issue that I've been walking around with regarding this. I've been going around the forums both attacking and defending HOMM6, though I've probably done more defending than attacking. Aside from the bugs, I really feel that HOMM6 is a game that's generally worth its money.

When I started off playing the Sanctuary campaign I really felt that compelling 'one more turn' feeling. Not only was the game fun to play, but I also really liked the lore, feeling of the race, and the way I had this 'defensive city' and was going out on an adventure, picking up creatures and completing quests along the way. The way everything was introduced felt pretty nice to me. The first Sanctuary mission really gave me a feeling that is up there with how I continuously felt while playing games like Warcraft 3, Mass Effect 2 and Portal 2 for the first time.

The problem however, is that as you pointed it out: I'm not playing anymore. The last time I've played Heroes 6 is about a month or so ago. I've completed the tutorial, Haven 1, Sanctuary 1-2-3, and Stronghold 1-2. I had great fun playing every map. But I'm still not playing anymore. A couple of years ago, I would stalk this up to 'not having enough time', but I think that in our heart we all know that if we really want to, we have time for whatever we want; we just don't want it badly enough if we keep using that same excuse. And this is sort of a shame. Even though I greatly enjoyed playing the game, I haven't gotten around to it lately. And to not cut around it: I simply enjoy other things I'm doing right now more than playing Heroes 6. While things have changed since the previous games, I didn't feel this way about Heroes 3, 4 and 5.

In a nutshell, it's a bit of a two-edged sword. On one end, Heroes 6 has given me that nerdchills feeling I've had in games that I personally rate as some of the best out there (and I'd be willing to name them 'art' too, for as far as that means something). On the other end, there's the undeniable fact that I'm not playing it, and that I can't really explain this in any other way than 'I don't like it enough'.

[hellegennes]

You forgot to include the option:

any game after Heroes 3 is a disappointment

It's a bit true in a sense even though subsequent games have some redeeming qualities. And it's not really that we veterans have an unexpectedly high expectation for sequels, it's just they just really aren't that good.

Errrr... what? In my humble opinion, H2 was a far better game than H3. In fact, I think H3 was the worst heroes games after HV. H3 is just a revised edition of H2, by addition of things in the mixture (more races, more artifacts, more this, more that). But overall, it had the suckier music, after the incredibly intelligent and delightful experience the H2 soundtrack was, it was much less balanced, was much more tedious in terms of graphics, had a far less interesting story with much more generic objectives, after the fantastic variety of H2 strategic options and it was generally a more polished version of a diamond, to the point it had its edges smoothed over (eg making all units have upgrades).

The main points are that it added absolutely nothing new, had an averagely interesting story and the worst music score, so far. If H2 wasn't its predecessor, these wouldn't even be considered. But after what H2 did to improve upon H1, it was a disappointment. When H2 came out, no one had ever dared make an operatic soundtrack for a video game. In fact, to this day, I am not aware of even a film that has dared to do that.

I am not saying H3 was a bad game. Not at all. I just haven't ever reinstalled it, after playing it for a couple of years. Something I have done for H1, H2 and H4. Probably, the reason why I haven't done that for H5 too, is that they tried to copy H3 with it.

The reason I'm saying all this is because I find that if you liked H3 more than H6, you obviously didn't play H2 before it or you are just comfortable in creating new games without any change whatsoever. New people to the series, will probably like H6 more than future incarnations. But the truth is that H6 dared change the gameplay and this is a good thing. Not all new ideas are bound to work, but rehashing the same things is stupid. I have already played H1-5, I don't want to play them again with different graphics. I can just play the original versions if I want to.