You find it nigh impossible to get the right abilities to?

[Campaigner]

I tried to get Urgash Call with Agrael but in 10 lvls time I gotted one out of 10 abilities that I needed but not the rest so now I can't get my ultimate....

Have you had similar experiences..?

Well, lesson learned. Get abilities A.S.A.P!

[vicheron]

It's really hard to get the ultimate. I've tried several times to get howl of terror but I keep getting offered two useless abilities that take up a requisite slot. In the game I just played, I was about 4 abilities away from howl of terror when I got offered navigation and master of pain.

[Blue_Camel]

i like it. i don't think you should be able to get ultimate abilities every time.. it makes it that much more special when you do get them.

[Continuity]

Yeah, it's really really hard. I almost never get offered the abilities I want.

[Gaidal Cain]

Well, considering that some of them means you're going with a rather bad combination of skills otherwise, I think there needs to be some ease in geting them. The fact that there are heroes that can't reach them at all due to bad starting skills syas to me that they might be a bit too hard to get to.

[Blue_Camel]

that's the great thing about it.. if you choose to go for the "ultimate skill" then it's a high risk/reward thing.. you risk the possibility of getting stuck with some crappy skill combination in order to get the ultimate skill.. or you can choose a surefire good skill combination and NOT go for the ultimate skill.. which is the more conservative approach. so, you have a choice, and the choice is not easy. whenever choices are not easy, that means the makers of the strategy game did a good job.

if some of the heroes have a slightly harder time getting the ultimate skill .. i don't see that it's any different than a lot of situations in past HoMM's.. for instance you most often wanted your main hero in h3 to have expert wisdom, but if you started with a magic hero who started with basic wisdom then it was obviously quicker and easier to attain expert wisdom with him than with a might hero. i dont think it's an "imbalance" or anything though.

[asandir]

i tend to agree bluecamel

if you could just get every hero to ultimate, it would probably lose its shine, not to mention the strategy part of the game

[Kalah]

As long as it's not the "being offered Combat 3 times out of 4" thing we saw in H4 I'm happy. How's that, btw? Skill offering seem random or at least well thought out?

[asandir]

seems fairly random to me

but i do get offered navigation and scouting a whole lot thou ....

[DaemianLucifer]

Seems random enough.It seems that there is no skill connection like in HIV(meaning that a priest is highly unlikely to get death magic).

[Gaidal Cain]

that's the great thing about it.. if you choose to go for the "ultimate skill" then it's a high risk/reward thing.. you risk the possibility of getting stuck with some crappy skill combination in order to get the ultimate skill.. or you can choose a surefire good skill combination and NOT go for the ultimate skill.. which is the more conservative approach. so, you have a choice, and the choice is not easy. whenever choices are not easy, that means the makers of the strategy game did a good job.

I think the risk of not getting enough levels to reach the ultimate ability, plus all the time you're spending with skills that aren't as good as they could be would be a big enough penalty in itself, without also having to run the risk of seeing the build ruined by bad luck in the skill draw...

if some of the heroes have a slightly harder time getting the ultimate skill .. i don't see that it's any different than a lot of situations in past HoMM's.. for instance you most often wanted your main hero in h3 to have expert wisdom, but if you started with a magic hero who started with basic wisdom then it was obviously quicker and easier to attain expert wisdom with him than with a might hero. i dont think it's an "imbalance" or anything though.

Bad example, as each and every hero was guaranteed to get offered wisdom somewhere around level 5-8...

Daemian: are you saying that every hero is as likely to be offered every skill? That's not really what I've observed so far, but you might be right. Haven't played enough yet to really judge it.

[Gundam]

The major problems is that ultimates are uneven, first you get some very wrong combo of skill for factions like Academy and Dungeon (wth do I need enlightment anyway? that is the most useless skill in the game) and ve have factions like Inferno and Sylvan that have kickass prerequisite for ultimate ( if you go wrong with the random choices, you can't go wrong with those skills, look at Sylvan heroes going for ulty, they are plain killing machines).
Second and most important, Dungeon, Heaven and especially Academy have the worst idiotical ultimate skill ever as oposed to Inferno, Necropolis and Sylvan that have cool prerequisites and their ultimate means GAME OVER for opponents.
All those shitty choices from the buildup were ok from my side of view if the ultimate would compensate for that, but it doesn;t for those 3 factions it totally sucks. The ability to cast imposion on expert level means nothing agains the ability to stun your opponents with destructive magic, or to cast mass area spells, Academy is basicaly ruined if it goes for the ulty. I reached ulty last night with Academy and I was tottaly dissapointed.

ps: they need to get things right with those ultimates, make them as powerfull for every faction


pps: elemental damage would be a good thing for dungeon , but it was nerfed from the beta versions, you only have one chain now and it is not a decisive element on battlefield, that elemental bonus doesn't justify the effort going for the ulty



sry for the long post, just my thoughts about the issue

[Dublex]

Well,

after playing around with a few sides on hotseat mode it seems as though the skill choice is more logical this time - magic heroes tend to get offered their prime branch (destruction, death or whatever the academy side uses) or other magic skills more often, while might heros get offered combat skills more often.

I've never seen "eh whaaat?" situations where Necros of Warlocks gets offered combat skills out of nowhere 3 times out of 4.

[DaemianLucifer]

Daemian: are you saying that every hero is as likely to be offered every skill? That's not really what I've observed so far, but you might be right. Haven't played enough yet to really judge it.

My heaven heroes were offered almost every skill equally.

[Omega_Destroyer]

I know I haven't had much success in the campaigns getting the ultimate abilities. I wasn't too thrilled to discover that in the Slyvan campaign you are given tactics right off the bat, while nullifies your chances for absolute luck.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

Well, I'm nearing the end of the Warlock campaign now, but I have all the skills for the ultimate ability lined up. I only need to have the ultimate offered. (uinfortunately, my next level is still 140,000 xp away. I think I'm going to have to go for the garrisons, since there are such huge armies in them- should be able to get 30k xp for each one :-)

I think that since you need to go so far to get the UA, it probably isn't worth it in general. If stand-alone maps are similar here as they were in H1-3 (including user-made ones), then I will rarely, if ever, gain enough levels to learn it, even with perfect choices offered. With the level caps, you have now chance to get them before the last mission in a campaign.