Hereos Online : The game is now available.

[Karmakeld]

WoS, I agree the risk is there, but then Again, I think it will depend on more matters, like the loss of troops and ofcourse how quickly you Progress (only story or also quests). So far I've have no time issue, other than losing 4 ghouls and having to wait for them to spawn as I needed 150, which was max when I first got them. I agree that the Growth is rather low, like 5 pr. hour, but how many play for +5 hours in a row? If you do, new creature will spawn or the available amount will have increased more by the time you re-enter the next day. There's also an xp bonus for days-in-a-row visits.

[Wizard of Soz]

Karmakeld - On second thoughts I may have been a bit harsh. I was playing the battles on expert rather than normal, thinking because I played other Heroes games this would be a walk in the park. I forgot that much of my success in previous games was though making use of save and reload which you don't in online games, so attrition and one or two bad fights was really doing a number on my units. So I went to the strategy of fighting on normal mode when my army is small and doing expert battles when I have more troops. Most enemies reappear on the map anyway so I can always go back and mine them. Because I don't really need a huge army at the moment seals are not too much of an issue but darn, I would really like to get a second character so I could try the Haven story as well.

[VMmage]

I'm up to level 15 now, and I'm liking the game more than I had expected. I'm playing a Haven Might hero, and if you play for quests/campaigns, the second and third chapters are for you -- quest upon quest, each trying to build on the story line. I'm still holding the "Free To Play" line, and Hero Seals are still a rare commodity (I have 381 right now). So if you want to play another hero and don't want to pay for the privilege, use another e-mail address for another Uplay account -- not as nice as having multiple heroes on a single account, but you can do it for free. Because creatures are cheap and you don't spend gold to build structures, I'm flush with gold (over 12,000 now) -- gold management in this game is easy as long as you don't buy many artifacts/runes/scrolls.

[mordredrs]

Does anyone know if it will have more factions?

[Aemaeth]

They never said directly that we will have more factions, but they don't eliminate this idea...
Follow maybe the dev blog to have more intels about it...

[Karmakeld]

WoS, I too wouldl like to try the other part, but good thing they added the 5-day-in-a-row bonus. Visit daily for 5 days and you get 5 hero seals, then you only have to revisit each day for 2 year + quest seals and you should have the 3999 seals needed for new character ;-) On the more serious matter, I'm actually quite liking it aswell. It seems to balance your opponents to your army stats (based on creature, artifacts and hero power). Quest objective also develops as you Progress (level up). Now I also like the team up part. Seems like you can do 3 or more player battles and parties to raid certain areas. I has quite a few interesting ideas, although I do think it seems rather expensive that each upgraded creature costs 1 crystal (which is the rarest of resources).

But it's a def. recommanded online-game.

Now playing the necromantic part, the story is so far well tied together with battles and quest.

Quest are diveded into severeal categories, daily, town, guild, story etc. Seems like you can have max. 3 of each at a time (except story quest), however if your guild completes the 3 quests, new ones can be accepted, without you having revieced the bonus. All members of a guild, can help complete the given quest. This is an interesting idea and help to quickly solve quests.

Along the way you're given different runes of certain powers which will last for normally 1 hour. You will soon fill your inventory with these runes and they can seem redundant at some point. Scrolls that grants you 5 min free autocombat is in my optic useless. This option would otherwise cost you 25 hero seals, but you'll most certain suffer a 5-10% loss of troops, so I see Little point in this option, myself. Wanting to replay a battle also costs seals.

Shrines last for 30 min. but will often take 18-20 hours to refill. Now there can be some minor issues with time but in general you're able to progress quite well, dispite the fact that everything has a 'cooldown' time. Spells also has cooldown time and certain spells has max usage, which means you'll have to think about what time during battle certain abilities are used. Can be annoying, but increases challenge.



Now I agree the seal system seems a bit redicules, in the regard that you need tons of seal and are only given few along the way. For the most part seals can open up some less important stuff, like 'hero presence related items, pets, new clothes colors, special World map weapons etc. but the fact that a new character cost nearly 4.000 seals is a def. downside. You can Exchange artifacts and tropps between your heroes, IF created in the same account.

Boss battles will also be set depending on wheter you fight alone or team up. New/stronger foes might be encountered if you fight 2 instead of just 1. There are advantages and disadvantages in teaming up.

You can team up with anybody you invite, you don't have to be in guild togher ot be friends. You can have up to 30 friends. Each time a friend level up, you can congratulate them and recieve xp for doing so.



I haven't yet finished the first chapter (being level 13), but I like how the game evolves. Personally I've found no reason to pay for seals, and I can do just fine without buying extra resources, artifacts, dyes, you name it.

It may also seem anoying that you can find 4 oblisk, all inactive. It's seem only 5-6 of 26 are active at a time. This will cause a lot of re-visiting, but the reward should be interesting.

Some quest objectives are very poorly described making it hard to figure out what caused you to complete it and how to complete it again (yes many quest can be complete over and over again). Both good and bad. One quest block your path in the early game, and I can be anoying to play the same siege battle over and over again (well atleast they written it into the story this way).

So far I've seen lot of interesting ideas and the enviroment is quite cool. Ofcourse a few downpart, the cost of extra character need to play the other story, being the biggest minus. Will post more comments/review as I Progress..
Edited on Mon, Oct 13 2014, 17:09 by Karmakeld

[Karmakeld]

I've reached 2nd chapter and lvl. 15. Having read some other tread and comments on how ppl. compare this to other heroes games I will add this:

There ain't that much strategic planning in the online game, as you don't have turns. So you don't get attacked by AI. Building/upgrading your town don't have the same importance, as you can do things in your own pace - meaning you decide which battles to fight, wheter on easy or Expert (can be anything from challeging to severe or quite simply deadly) and when to fight story battles. For those who think that's a must, I don't think you'll be hooked on this game. However the plus side is, that AI and battles are very well balance. Easy is easy, but choosing Expert battles Means that opponents will increase significantly compared to your army and you will suffer loses. Also AI play's rather well. I only encounter 1 issue with Unbound Stoneguards, standing still, but wheter or not they would have moved wouldn't have made any difference for them, so in that sense, it's more of an acceptence of the battle being lost. On easy, some stacks do have a tendency to want to flee, but overall I find the battles quite good. Esp. boss battles are quite interesting.

You can't see your opponents before battle, unless you spend hero seals or have a permit, which means you basically have no idea which kind of creatures you'll encounter or how they're placed on the battle field. It takes away some of the strategic planning but at the same time add some excitement and challenge to the game.

Hope my comments have been useful for those who sought to know more..