The Stupid Week Thread

[cjlee]

I don’t really like most of the weeks nowadays, because of the distraction they provide to gameplay. I would rather have the weeks in the past when a week of the x creature just means the creature grows more and forms neutral garrisons blocking your roads.

Nowadays some of the weeks really mess up your game. Such as the week of cessation, where no creature can retaliate. There are also some weeks where small creatures cannot retaliate against big ones, or when ranged attackers cannot shoot, or the Week of the Living which really hurts the Necropolis faction.

There is a very irritating week that decreases the movements of all heroes. I just don’t see how that provides any meaningful challenge or point of interest for the game.

As a human solo player I don’t have much difficulty even with weird weeks, but the AI gets really messed up. I am strongly opposed to the week of cessation, because I can easily take advantage of the lack of retaliation while the AI is left standing in the dust. The Week of Frost is also a disaster for the AI which can’t make allowances for the decreased mobility. And I have no doubt that Necropolis players will totally hate the Week of the Living because it discriminates against their faction so badly.

Still, Limbic has retained some of the humour in the past. The week of the Hamster/ Berserk Combat hamster is still around. The week of Mercury (with the byline that Ashan folks haven’t learned how to use it) is still around.

This post would like to suggest a few possible weeks that a mapmaker could put into his custom map...

Week of Ubisoft
A week where everything is more expensive and nothing works properly

Week of Preordering Ubisoft Products
You pay for upgraded units, but don’t get your units or artifacts right away. They will appear in your inventory next week – as unupgraded units. Since this week is really for the fools, just leave the creatures in your castle generator and you’ll be able to hire them normally next week. IE wait a week to pay for, and get, upgraded units.

Week of Trump
A week where if you build walls around your town, your opponent will pay for it

Week of Putin
Attack +12 to all small green units (eg Troglodytes, Hunters). If your army consists only of small green units, AI will ignore you when you enter AI’s area of control.

Week of Racism
All units and spells do double damage to black and brown coloured units (eg Black Dragon, Legionnaires)

Week of Black Lives Matter
If your units kill any dark coloured units on an unprovoked attack (rather than via retaliation), game sound changes to BOO!

Week of Merkel
All garrisons and barriers are disabled for the week. All guarding armies permit you to pass and grab artifacts or claim mines.

Week of Political Correctness
All Dwarven units are renamed Vertically Challenged. Black Dragon is now the African American Dragon. Black Guards are now Melanin-Enhanced Guards.

Week of the Industrialist
All Sylvan units do half damage; Druid thorns and Entangle last only for 1 round. Sawmills double production.

Week of the Tree Huggers
All Sylvan units deal double damage. However, no sawmills operate during this week.

Week of Chinese Quality
War Machines can be bought for 10% the normal price. However, their stats and HP in battle are totally randomized downwards. Sometimes a damage of 1 will destroy your war machine. Sometimes War Machine just breaks down and vanishes from the battlefield. (Note there is already a Ubisoft bug that helps you do that).

Week of the Suicide Bomber
One stack, selected as the Bomber, can detonate itself in the middle of a battle dealing 2x its hp in damage to all adjacent units and 1x its hp to all units within 2 squares. The enemy never knows which unit you have designated as the Suicide Bomber.

Week of George Soros
Marketplace Exchange rates vary a lot within the same day; just check back later if you don’t like the current rates.

Week of the Tsunami
Tsunamis interrupt all battles taking place on seaside terrain

Week of Somalia
Sea Elf Pirates do 2x damage

Week of Food poisoning
Half your troops disappear from the battlefield due to diarrhoea; they come back after the battle. (Note that this effect already takes place often and is called a bug. Ubisoft still hasn’t solved it from v1.0 to v2.1 so we might as well accept that food poisoning is a realistic aspect of living in Ashan in pre-sterilization times. Maybe the bugs fell into the combat rations meant for your troops...)

[parcaleste]

You are on a roll, lol.

[Karmakeld]

Please keep 'em comming. I recently thought of adding some kind of week of to a H4 map, and I might just borrow some of your suggestions

[Antalyan]

What a perfect way to get my mood better

[wimfrits]

Very imaginative

[cjlee]

Actually it bothers me a lot that I seem to be the main content provider on the H7 forum now. I know game is bad (and my posts more often than not prove it, such as my thread on the bugs). But surely in the whole world there are some people who would not mind talking about or discussing H7?

I personally feel H6 is worse than H7. But some people have been comparing H7 unfavourably to H6.

In any case I'm just about done. Over the weekend I played some more H7 free skilling, and found that the game keeps forgetting my skills. IE my hard earned work leveling a hero often goes to waste because the selected skill or perk just doesn't get remembered. I don't know why there are still so many bugs, but as parcaleste said, game isn't worth playing because the bugs just make too much hassle.

[Antalyan]

@cjlee
You probably know I personally really love H7, inspite of all its (especially technical) problems and less care from developer than it deserves. But what to discuss about H7? Balancing patch has not been delivered yet, so speaking about the things like which creature or which town is the best would not make much sense. Also I guess people who like H7 are too busy with reporting bugs

[parcaleste]

It makes me really sad to read posts as this one. Sad and enraged.

Screw - bi Soft.

[Galaad]

I recall during the beta we ranted about those stupid nonsensical weeks. They answered that they wanted to keep them because "Heroes has always been like this".

Really hopeless. How to make people hate random, there you go.

[Karmakeld]

That's a vague reason, comparing some week of a creature to week of no artillery working or no magic resistance or what ever. Some of those weeks of, which cjlee listed, may sound interesting on paper, and one could imagine they could create new challenges or require new strategies for the week, but in fact it sounds more like they didn't bother test the effects of those weeks or listen to the feedback given, regarding those who didn't work. To some degree I think you could justify a week of reduced income or creature growth - either the workers put down work, some holy festivities prevents them from working or illness struck your town - it sucks but could be reasonable enough, but a week where you can't retaliate? Errr what? They'd might as well just have added a week of suicide or ragdolls' - a week where your troops just awaits to be cut down, without resistance.
Or to fit Ashan, week of the Dragons Feast, a week where all your troops leave, hoping to be eaten by a dragon, to gain the favor of their worshipped dragon god.

[parcaleste]

A week of the UPlayity (also known as DRM week) - a week in which garrisons from castles are stuck outside, digging the castle's trenches and cannot get behind the walls inside, because the governor is too busy... wanking, I guess.

[cjlee]

We can just name a week after Ubisoft.

Week of Ubisoft
(no byline or subtext offered)

Without overtly calling it a stupid, crappy week, I think most people will be thinking of the subtext 'stupid and crappy'. Because that's what I associate with Ubisoft. So their minds will automatically fill in the blanks below with "sure to be a very crappy week"...

[Antalyan]

Week of Ubisoft 2:
Everything seems to be perfect and nice at the beginning of the weak. The further the days pass, you can see more and more clear what the things are really like. On the last day of that week, you cannot prevent yourself from complaining about how much potential has been wasted.

[Panda Tar]

Week of anniversary

That's when it completes exactly 1 year in game, and you stop being provided of anything you have in the game. No more troops, resources or experience whatsoever. However, you may keep having bugs pestering you every now and then.

Week of Itold'yousoh

Every time you are about to accomplish something important in the game, a crash will happen. No matter what it is. It might even be a car crash on the corner of the street. But you can blame the game nonetheless.

[Pol]

Seems all these weeks are potentially dangerous.

[Panda Tar]

But really, some of those weeks, these that made your ranged troops rather useless, these effects could have been brought by implementing terrain and weather penalties, or even weather-like spellcasting, like Windstorm (making ranged attacks deviate from target etc.). There was simply so much potential ...

[Avonu]

Especially when there are snow and rain on some combat maps.

[cjlee]

But really, some of those weeks, these that made your ranged troops rather useless, these effects could have been brought by implementing terrain and weather penalties, or even weather-like spellcasting, like Windstorm (making ranged attacks deviate from target etc.). There was simply so much potential ...

Storm WInd/ Summon Blade Barrier/ Aura of Swiftness in H5, Blizzard/Fog/ Summon Wall/ Storm Arrows in H6, Storm Arrows/ Cyclone in H7.

H7 people basically focused on the useless things and didn't make the basic game work. If only BlackHole had put its foot down, and told Ubisoft to wait for one more quarter before going gold.