The Beta: Impressions

[Kalah]

Well, I'm not sure what it is that's not giving me the right "feeling". I think perhaps it's the angle of the camera; it should be positioned further up, to look down on the map. Further on, the objects are too small as has been said above. I'm still playing it, though, and the feel is starting to build a bit.

[Kalah]

I'm playing the bigger map now and after a few hours of play, the game has become inredibly choppy. When moving my heroes around, they "stop" every half-second or so before continuing. AI turns are now counted in minutes, not seconds.

[Rife]

Supposedly that's a known memory leak that is supposed to correct when you save and load... though that has not usually shown any noticeable improvement in my experience.

[Fuddelbaerentatze]

Im curious about the look of the underground - some screenshots would be nice

[Kalah]

I uninstalled the game after encountering a game-breaking bug; my main hero disappearing from the adventure map. That's the kind of thing that annoys me enough not to want to play anymore.

As for the underground, you can see it here.

[Romanov77]

I have to say that the whole game feels like a cheap Heroes 6.5, at least in the visual/art department, plus the horrendous performance.

Hope it will get MUCH better.

[Kalah]

Well, they're aiming for a September release, so the still have plenty of time to fix the performance issues.

[crees0921]

PROS:
- Gameplay does seem more consistent with H3 as was promissed
- Interesting new complexities: building out town requires choices and picking one means you don't have the other. Will be interesting to see if they provide a way to undue like they did with skills in the VI Shadows version. The new skill wheel and resoures - going from 4 to 8 - adds both complexity and time to learn
- Team play seems to be designed closer to the older. better versions too and there looks to be easy ways to structure and set up team than in VI
- This may be redundant with the 'gameplay' being similar to HOMMIII but it seems that VII will require greater emphasis on troup numbers than on artifacts (fewer slots for them) and a large number of spells per hero.
- The soundtrack - though we only get to only hear the Academy and Haven in the beta - is sounding really solid as we have come to expect from this series.

CONS:
- I did experience a tolerable number of bugs - it was actually far more stable than I expected
- Gameplay seemed much slower - not sure if this performance tuning or just how the game is being architected. Moving around the map, obtaining a much greater number of resources to build, battles, etc. I also found the AI turns long in the beta's large map having 3 AI opponents. I have a pretty peppy PC and video card an the turns took anywhere from 3 seconds to a minute per opponent.
- I did experience what seemed to be a memory leak that caused a crash. Could see it coming as the graphics were slowly getting choppier and slower leading up to the crash.

All in all, I was glad to have poked around in the beta and can envision how accessing and retaining access to the 8 resources could make for some new challenges we have not experienced in the series.

[Kalah]

Thanks, crees0921, that's a good list of impressions.

I moved your post here, to keep them in the same topic.

[Rife]

Okay, finished the game I was playing. Again, went with Academy Theodorus GM Air and Metamagic, even got some Destiny in.

1. AI didn't put up any challenge at all. Couldn't break out of it's area, didn't even pick up the loose resources or artifacts, reached all of level FOUR on it's best hero. Majority of troops just hung out in it's castle. I'm seriously hoping this is an isolated case.

2. Direct Air damage was the only thing I felt powerful with on my hero. Could not get Metamagic to work, didn't feel like artifacts did anything (except the movement boosts those seemed to work), weren't enough Elite/Champions to feel powerful with.

3. Secondary heroes actually feel useful and necessary, you want to build them for the great governor system perks and it looks like for longer games defensive heroes may be possible and desirable.

4. Bugs seriously hampered my ability to enjoy the game. Simurghs left a ghost image behind that made targetting attacks and spells next to impossible (and they seemed made of paper), even when castle gates were broken my rakashas could not pass them, scrolls did not work, cancelling a hero spell cast negated his action till next turn, moving a hero from castle garrison to visiting made him disappear when I went back to adventure map, etc.

5. Hero progression seemed a little uneven... getting certain skills and/or spells are clearly more powerful than others in my experience. Direct damage in Air (Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning) were much more useful than the spell that gave a unit an extra attack (even for 3 turns) or damage on all adjacent enemies. Balancing is needed, they should all be good... certainly better than it is now.

I'll try Haven next and see if things go better.

[Rife]

The patch improved many of the issues I had, including the resolution ones so that now I can enjoy a much improved (read smoother) experience at 640x480 though I can still hardly read any text. Artifacts show their bonuses properly too when equipped. AI turns even seem shorter.

[Rife]

Finished up the bigger map, playing Haven with a Main hero Tyris (Paragon/Diplomacy/Righteousness), later hiring secondary heroes Melisande (Exploration/Economy), and Minalsi(pure Water magic).

Hearing that Might had a huge advantage over Magic, I decided to go what I imagined was a weaker route by first taking a few Paragon abilities for the exp boost, then maxing Diplomacy and test how many recruits I could get off that. I think I hired at my town once for Tyris after building as many dwellings as I could in the first week. Then I set out and conquered the Haven Core dwelling and hired there exclusively while I built my town. I will note I built the structures that increase negotiation in town area of control and increased external dwelling boosts when building boosting structures in town. I also actively avoided all Haven troops until I had a army large enough to chance a diplomacy negotiation.

End result is that Diplomacy turned out to be super OP. Not only did I get a huge army for free (that ability that lets neutrals join without paying gold was a huge factor) I was able to easily recruit a full Academy faction army for Minalsi as well as a large Elemental/Haven army for my scout Melisande (who I highly recommend for any faction looking for a scout). Needless to say I steamrolled the enemy AI.

Speaking of which, I have to believe they gave us a beta with minimal AI enabled. I just have to, because if not there is not much future in the game. The enemy heroes always built wide, rather than deep which makes for much weaker heroes, they never pick up loose resources, chests, or artifacts and they just are not aggressive at all.

This second go round I found more enjoyable than the first thanks to the fewer bugs, but there were still some to be found. In particular if you merged stacks or otherwise manipulated either army while in the diplomacy join screen, one stack has to be left behind. It will not let you accept all creatures, which annoyed me to no end.

They have a few months, I hope the actual game is far ahead of where the beta is. It could be enjoyable, in any case they already have my money. I could get a refund yet, thanks to Steam's nice refund policy but I don't think I'm going to do that.

[Pitsu]

Speaking of which, I have to believe they gave us a beta with minimal AI enabled. I just have to, because if not there is not much future in the game. The enemy heroes always built wide, rather than deep which makes for much weaker heroes, they never pick up loose resources, chests, or artifacts and they just are not aggressive at all.

Thanks, Rife, for all you thoughts. The AI quality is something i'd like the other betatesters to comment too.

[mr.hackcrag]

I hope they change the strange camera angles in the upcoming beta. The unpleasant appearance of the adventure and combat maps and manipulating the views hurt the game experience so much.

[Panda Tar]

Second Beta Call today, Aug 26th to Sep 2nd. And a video trying to tease something.

[Rife]

Many optimizations since the last, it runs much better. Is there to be a separate thread for the second beta?

[Panda Tar]

Well, you could make one if you have already a list of your experience?

[Kalah]

Nah, just use this one.

You say it runs smoother - is the chopping (memory leak) fixed?

[Panda Tar]

In HC, people stated that AI was slow. Not really saying that slow was the increased time during AI's turn, although they said that 4 player maps AI took very long turns, nearly 4-5 minutes.

Also said that AI wouldn't conquer mines or pick up resources, even when standing beside them.

Also reported that AI had strange priority when targeting in battle. They would try damaging tougher units, not killing anything while they could easily kill some units from a weaker stack.

But the major complaint on these three examples was the time consumed during AI turn.

[mr.hackcrag]

Even the elves face palm at how this game turned out.






(Captured it from this guy's vid at 2:20).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlzrqIu2Quk