Heroes VI Demo Now Available

[ywhtptgtfo]

Just finished a necro skrimish game. I have to say others are right about necro being way too good especially when you cast Mass Life Drain. Removing no range penalty from liches may help balance. OTOH, vampires are just crap.

[jerseys]

Thanks rdeford

[michiganjf]

I have to say I'm disappointed by the hero skill sets.



It seems to me there are really only two hero styles available in H6: might or magic... all the real sub-specialization is missing.



Within those two sets, every hero ends up virtually identical by the time a higher level is reached, having all the same might skills or all the same magic skills.



Unlike the claims made by some commenters here, I find very little in the way of customized game play....everything seems to boil down to one of the two available tacks, with almost no room for exploring very different and creative play styles.



In H3 or H5, for example, one could play successfully restricting their Hero's interaction exclusively to a particular school of magic, making for extreme variation in the ways battles played out... or one could play utterly defensively or utterly offensively, de-emphasizing magic almost completely.



H6 seems to have a skewed advantage for choosing one of ONLY two styles... aggressive offense without much emphasis on magic, or going for high damage destructive spells.



In H6, for instance, concentrating exclusively on Earth Magic alone, with no other emphasis, is doomed to fail against someone with powerful offensive skills or powerful destruction magic (by destruction magic, I mean any of the high damage offensive spells).



I really had high hopes for H6 and I think the graphics are stunning, but I'm highly disappointed by the apparent lack of appreciation by the developers of the extent to which players were able to customize gameplay in other versions of Heroes.



The development trees are simply far too linear in H6.



I really hate to say it, because TB strategy is my one love in computer gaming and Heroes is my favorite in the genre, but UBI may have killed HOMM utterly with H6. I hope not, but I predict ultimately poor fan ratings for this game... unless some serious changes are made in patches and/or expansion packs.



Knowing the developers really DID seek input from longtime Heroes afficionados, I feel like part of the blame must lie with LOUSY input from those who were tapped for their familiarity with Heroes games of the past. You really dropped the ball, guys, by not emphasizing skill customization for maximizing variety in play style.



I'm also quite surprised that the battlefield itself wasn't made far more interesting... something long overdue in Heroes games:



-Elevated terrain could play a role (with bonuses for archers or fliers, for example... bonuses could show over cursor when held over terrain squares, as in Elven legacy)



-Obstacles could be more common and offer better protection against ranged attacks (this might allow slower creatures to work their way up the battlefield before getting decimated)



-More squares of the battlefield could have been devoted to features that help or hurt creatures next to them (like bestowing spells on them, for example)



-more blocked squares on the battlefield, allowing for the creation of choke points (this would make combination armies important, made up of fliers, ranged attackers, and both offensive and defensive melee units... the mix would become important with more choke points on the battlefield)



-Treasures which can be collected on the battlefield, but waste a creatures turn to collect and expose them to enemy attack



Some of these features were introduced in the new King's Bounty games, and UBI should have taken the cue when developing H6... I'm astounded these kinds of things weren't included to a greater extent than throwing a rally flag in on the battlefield here and there. What a wasted opportunity to really expound on Heroes battles, considering today's computing capabilities!



I also expected the introduction of a complex and more involved mini quest sytem for winning some of the more powerful artifacts, perhaps taking players into whole special dungeons or locales, for instance. This would have been a great innovation, at least for single-player maps.



Oh well, I guess I'll be playing older versions of Heroes forever to get my TB strategy fix. Thank Odin for the fan created WOW version of H3! IMHO, that's the best version of Heroes yet, and at this point, I'll say it will likely never be surpassed in the genre.





BTW, I have a blazing fast computer and I'm getting some really glitchy graphics as well, even at lower graphics settings.



I also agree that some of the artifacts are WAY TOO POWERFUL for this game, such as the armor which makes creatures invulnerable to the first few attacks... there's no way you're going to lose a battle if you're the only one with this armor... at least, not if your army is anywhere close to the opponent's army strength. A LOT of balance tweaking is going to be needed in future patches of H6.
Edited on Sun, Aug 28 2011, 23:47 by michiganjf

[largo1234567]

@michiganjf. I agree with you. But as a highly anticipating fan, I also hope someone can prove you wrong.

[Panda Tar]

Thanks Panda a very informative and useful post.

Your servant.

*********

BTW, despite the complaints I am seeing on the forums, I am finding that the town portal in every town works just fine since there are enough limitations to keep it balanced.

There must be some balance here.

I said previously that the enemy that keeps himself at the castle after conquering other towns and forts, will end up winning without having to move. I did this against the AI. I got a caslte, then I got another. He would never get nearer where I was, so he tried to get to the other I wasn't while I was moving to conquer another town. Then, I got another town, got inside it, teleported to where my enemy was nearer, killed him, moved on. I mean...imho, this feature should either be completely redesigned or extinct.

There are some stuff that I got to tell after playing again. Perhaps I won't play anymore because I already got bored, you see.

SPELL

Besides everything that was spoken, there's something regarding spell casting of 1 turn. When a new turn happens, a bit TURN # appears on the screen. Spells that last 1 turn should be dispelled when this event occurred. Instead of that, the spell lasts the turn of that unit. So, if you cast a spell that lasts 1 turn on a creature of yours that still hasn't acted, that spell will fade just after that. This is not troublesome to all spells, I must add, but the Guardian Angel, for instance, that you intend to protect a tier of yours from harm might just fade when your enemies are still going to take action. There are some gaps of timing your spell casting that can actually ruin a bit of your strategy.

Just got the idea that the Haven priestess became a Necro-bane. Her imba cure damages undead.

MARKETPLACE

It's cool. You have a weekly offer (that turns out to be daily...) which might save you some resources, given you have only crystal to save your ass later on.

SKILLS

Starting to think that there are too few and some not so useful skills in that tree, in addition to the spells that we already talked about. For me, still, Heroes 5 "skill wheel" was better, although I cannot say those advanced classes were decent.

INFO IS MISSING

There are some glitches here and there that things are not displayed properly, like Artifact descriptions that are not completely shown when you are buying them. The Sun Rider are never retaliated although I don't see that ability being shown anywhere. So you have Glorious Chick and Sunny Bunny running wild being not counterattacked on the Haven side, eh?

UNITS STATS

The tiers of the same level (comparing all factions at once) are just too equal, damages are very alike, Hit points as well. They only get their differences through abilities, specially talking of Elite units. Core units get a bit more diversity on stats, but nothing too relevant.

BATTLEFIELD

Actually, items from the adventure map do have use on the battlefield. This is a nice feature. Must only need some diversity to them, if possible.

ADVENTURE MAP AND CLICKING

Here again. When you click on an enemy hero (which is always exactly 1 day from you, 1 step farer) and try to attack him, you walk to him and stop in front of him with an annoying message showing that you spent your movement points. NOW, if you click in front of that hero and see your path red, you get in exact the same point as before, but now you'll engage a battle. WTF means this?

Another feature that was taken that that was nice was the number of days shown on your cursor regarding the path you was taking, so you had an idea of how many days your travel would take. Now, you must pray to Dice God (the One that throws your luck) that you'll make it in time, since there must have some penalty on the detailed terrain.

FINALLY FOUND WHERE IT SHOWS CREATURE GROWTH! Down there, on the left corner of your screen, there's an arrow. It opens your Kingdom (say it's a kingdom, but you have just a hall, a couple of houses) Overview, and there it shows your creature growth.

HALL OF HEROES

The tavern will have Secondary Heroes for hiring always 5 levels below your main hero. If you turn on the feature POWERFUL SECONDARY HEROES, you'll be able to hire them with the same level as your main hero. And what it implies, ladies and gentlemen? Even the imba Mentoring skill comes to no use! Oh well, worst is the fact that you just stop having to care for your Secondary Heroes even more, because you'll focus on your main hero. When you level him up, just buy another hero and dismiss your older, weaker one and get on with it. Powerful Secondary Heroes? Sorry, now they just seem even more useless and less appealing than ever. I mean in the sake of having the savour of developing them. Even this feeling was resumed and taken from us.

[parcaleste]

One thing about the graphics/small icons - I found it really confusing that I have to mark something that I want to use in game (let's say "Powerful Secondary Heroes" ) with "x". It's goddamn confusing cause the "x" in general marks something that you want to DISABLE, the enable sign is usually that "v" like (we call it "seagull" here). This one looks to me like "the phenomenal" Disciples III inverted zooming decision. With such decisions you are not being innovative, you are showing yourself lack of actual ideas... and are confusing the hell out of the costumers.

Still I am not sure that when I mark something with "x" it actually means "turned on", cause I am pretty sure few times I marked something with the "x" and the effect was reversed (the "Replay Battle"/"Play the Battle Manually" option for example).

God, do I hate to load 10 times some game because of something that wasn't marked correctly, because of whatever reason (mostly developers).


And I am not sure if I said this before, but I also got bored after playing for several hours, no good...





PS Hey, does somebody manage to collect this "Moon Disc" or whatever it was artifact? I managed to find 3 pieces few times but never 4 or more. Also could not see if there is more than this one artifacts set, what a pity it would be...

[michiganjf]

Panda Tar:



I agree completely that powerful secondary heroes for hire is A BAD IDEA... it does indeed make Mentoring a pointless skill.



One of the most fun parts of any old Heroes game is trying to defend castle attacks with lesser heroes... these tend to be the most interesting and exhilarating battles in the game... and the most satsfying if you win against a far more powerful opponent hero! In fact, it is even fun just trying to get the extraneous artifacts from your main hero into the hands of your weaker heroes to give them a calculated edge when defending. Leveling new hires just a few levels by leaving a few treasure chests for them always seemed to be enough for me, and it was fun to do. For this reason, I ultimately stopped pursuing Mentoring for my main hero in H5... it detracted from the fun of struggling to defend castles in the absence of the main hero.



I'd also point out that fan-made Mods and RMGs have put in options to disable Town Portal, EXACTLY BECAUSE IT FORCES ONE TO DEFEND CREATIVELY WITH LESSER HEROES... this is quite simply one of the most fun aspects of the game, and obviously many hardcore fans have come to the same conclusion!



I think the skills system in H5 was really excellent, and I wish it had been roughly retained and simply expounded upon.



The new H6 skill system is a huge step BACKWARD from H3,4,5, IMHO. If we're ever again lucky enough to get another version of Heroes, I hope the H6 system gets utterly scrapped in favor of something more like H5, but vastly expanded. The way H5 skills linked to develop different uber skills for the different classes is AWESOME... take "Imbue Ballista" and "Retribution," for instance... or "Preparation" for the Dwarves.



The H5 skill tree did a GREAT JOB providing each different Hero class with unique uber skills which were well balanced against eachother. H6 shows a real lack of creativity in diversifying the classes, I'm sorry to say.



I also think the elimination of war machines was a mistake, as was the reduction of resource types. Mapmakers managed to make some very creative maps in the past based on the battle for resources... this conflict can't be emphasized much in H6. Even when I was short of a particular resource on a given H6 map, I always had more than enough gold to buy whatever I needed to make up for the shortage. Resources haven't been the least bit of a problem on any H6 map I've played, even "Tree of Plenty," which claimed to be a resource battle map in it's description... I didn't even bother collecting resources around the tree, as it wasn't necessary.



Thanks for your research PT... you've made some very good points, along with discovering some glitches. I just hope all the feedback comes to fruition in some way, with regard to future patches and/or expansion packs.
Edited on Mon, Aug 29 2011, 18:55 by michiganjf

[michiganjf]

Parcaleste,



I collected 3 of the 4 Moon artifact pieces, and before I could collect the fourth, the first 3 disappeared from my inventory without a trace!

[Panda Tar]

PS Hey, does somebody manage to collect this "Moon Disc" or whatever it was artifact? I managed to find 3 pieces few times but never 4 or more. Also could not see if there is more than this one artifacts set, what a pity it would be...[/i]

I did. I had 2 pieces, then, out of the blue, I got the whole thing settled after defeating a secondary hero. It enables you to summon the Phoenix into battle (pray it's good? No, actually. I could summon 4 at most - it seems its number is affected by some ominous X marked feature down there somewhere, hidden in the codes and waves of fortune).

@michiganjf

Thanks for your appreciation.

Reading people's posts again, I started dreading when reading too manys "They took this", "They took that", and too few "Added this (nice feature here)".

They got me.

I will buy the game. I just hope the alarming oddity of some still-to-fix stuff will come fixed upon the release.

I'm just slipping away from their grasp right now.

[supersanctus]

I like:



Graphics - character models are nice, more detailed and less cartoony than H5.



Adventure map is good, if not much different than H5



Battlefield combat is good, if not much different than H5.



General gameplay is the same addictive Heroes we all love.



New faction skills.



Blood vs. tears repuation and skills.



Nice selection of Artifacts (although I never saw a main-hand weapon artifact in 20 hours of play)



--------------



I don't like:



Necros cannot raise undead from fallen enemies? Their necromancy is just like the old Animate Dead.



Being able to buy all monsters from a single town.



Town Portal system is too complicated.



DMG magic doesn't scale enough as army sizes increase. An H5 problem that was not solved here.



Skill/Magic system makes it too easy for Might to use Magic skills and Magic to use Combat skills. It's a real step down from all previous versions of Heroes. I even like H5 skill system much better. At least make it so there is a level penalty for Might Hero to choose Magic skills, and vice-versa. so a Might hero would need to be level 5 to choose Magic skills that Magic Hero can choose at 1, level 10 to choose skills that Magic Hero can choose at 5, etc.



Battles take too long. Perhaps the upgraded version of each monster can have a substantial dmg increase? Same should go for the top-level monster tree.



A general elimination of flavorful art in favor of dry selection/option screens that are more like grids or tables. Examples:

non-paper-doll Equip screen

Town upgrade screen

Spell/skill selection screen

[parcaleste]

@Panda Tar, Phoenixes, eh? Not sure if it is mine kind of artifact than, heh-heh.

Something else I forgot to mention (and not sure if someone else scratched it) - shooters do not have limitation of their shots (which explains the missing of the Ammo Carts). So a shooter can shoot as long as you manage to save him from someone standing next to him. Why this should be so easy?

Really, I am playing some KB: Armored Princess right now to "taste the difference"... IT'S HUGE, and H6 fails miserably on the battle field. It's a shame the improvement there is close to none (like, let's say bonuses/disadvantages on different kind of terrains for different races/spells/etc.).

About resources - why didn't made some of the units to require wood or/and ore? Like Cyclops - they need wood for their HUGE bat. The Sun Riders may be in need for wood for their spears as well, the Centaurs for their arrows, the Lamasu may need ore to "build" one and etc. and etc. The key word here is DIVERSITY.

Everything is made to be easier in this new Heroes chapter. No good, guys, it kills the fun.

[Panda Tar]

@Panda Tar, Phoenixes, eh? Not sure if it is mine kind of artifact than, heh-heh.

For now, it seems it won't be anybody's artefact. If it was like previous Phoenix that was powerfully built upon your spell casting (meaning it wouldn't die for a whisper), then it would be really useful. Now you get a Phoenix with a low number of units, stats just like another Champion unit. But in spite of its tenderness (the unit does look willow, majestic and eerie, and it's not that big, more like a normal bird with big wings, giving it a bit of room to spread them, instead of trampling the whole thing into a 4x4 shape like the Kirin), the unit has no use. You know the Phoenix rebirths, right? This one does UNLESS it doesn't get completely wiped out in a single strike before you hit the ACTIVE ABILITY rebirth. Although having control over the rebirthing ability might amuse the thought, it would be more amusing if the Phoenix were strong and worth rebirthing. Being so weak, anything will kill it and rebirth won't even be an option. The only thing that will rebirth is your regreat of summoning it again - on another battle! Why only on the other battle? Because this is one of those spells you have 1/1 charge. If there's some miracle involving Phoenixes summoning in this game, it's yet to happen.

[Pol]

Still I am not sure that when I mark something with "x" it actually means "turned on", cause I am pretty sure few times I marked something with the "x" and the effect was reversed (the "Replay Battle"/"Play the Battle Manually" option for example).

Where's that option? I know where to disable Battle scenes (It doesn't work of course). Never succeeded in turning on Replay battle option. (Now, need to note that I imagine the battle being recorded and replayed - like in Starcraft fe. Not that I will just again replay the battle. )

And I am not sure if I said this before, but I also got bored after playing for several hours, no good...

Yes, no fun. Just horde playing. Amass your army and overtank the enemy. No the subtle resources balancing, battle strategy and no the feeling of victory hard gained. They should fix that or it will be (maybe) the best online game but thoroughly useless for offline (aka single player), thus my favourite playing style.

I still have hopes. Ubisoft can't afford the luxury of another broken game. This is game play issue. - Means fixable.

we call it "seagull" here

Nike. Here we say.

[CloudRiderX]

I really wished that the developers took some aspects of King's Bounty into account when making the game. Having to either move OR attack makes using ranged units a pain in the butt. Not to mention most melee units can cross the field in two turns - in previous games this was much less the case.



Another thing I notice is that picking up artifacts is very hit-or-miss. If you are building a tears hero, and you get a blood artifact, it just sucks. In the demo I played, my first three artifacts were two Carts of Ore and a blood artifact, which I found to be pretty lame.



Regarding the skill system, the main problem that I see with it is lack of depth. The longest trees are only three skills deep. Like everyone here notices, at high level, most heroes will be jack-of-all-trades. H5 had a very deep, commital, skill system that I really liked.

[Panda Tar]

Another bug: the game ate my artefacts.

After killing the topmost enemy, I got around 38 artefacts from him. I brought a secondary hero and started moving them from one to the other. After almost filling three lines of the backpack, I saw there was no scroll bar going down to place more, so I wondered if it would appear after filling the third line completely. Voilá. It appeared, so I could add more artefacts to a fourth line. On my original hero, three lines were almost empty, while there were like another 4 or 5 lines of artefacts in the backpack.

Then the Magic came.

Dunno what triggered it, but when I emptied three lines completely of my first hero, the scroll bar might have tried to fix itself for the current number of artefacts, perhaps vanishing with those empty lines, and it ended up vanishing with everything else in the backpack. Only some 20 artefacts, displaying two full lines completely filled with a blank ominous nada.

I closed the heroes window, and opened again, but nothing. Perhaps it's a Conflux thing. When I get online, I'll be able to visit Limbo and fetch them back.

[rdeford]

@ michiganjf at 2011-08-28 13:54 wrote:

I have to say I'm disappointed by the hero skill sets.



This whole post is fantastic!



I've been playing for about 30 hours now and find that every point you make is right on target.



I still like the game well enough to buy it, but I gotta hope Ubi and Black Hole are reading this forum and your post in particular.



EDIT: Oh and I hope you are posting this comment on the official Ubi forum.
Edited on Sun, Sep 04 2011, 20:55 by rdeford

[Panda Tar]

Yesterday I played it, just for the fun of playing with Necropolis for once, and I saw a funny error in spelling. The Necropolis dwelling was written as if: "Nercopolis". Some sexual content? Skeleton porn is not a very nice fetiche now, is it?

Anyway, there's something I couldn't make work if anyone have some idea: when I turned on the AUTOCOMBAT, I couldn't actually never replay myself when I wanted. Is there a certain requirement for that to become available or the feature is not available for Demo? I ended up playing with Necropolis but I couldn't really learn! I won the map by crossing my fingers, hoping against hope that my army could beat the DEADLY Haven army.

[Pol]

Feature seem to be disabled or misunderstood. I don't know. I liked the button here but it's always greyed out. Perhaps in another build..

[Covenant]

A tad worried when a downloadable demo asks for a disk to play it. Oops to ubi. But after playing for a bit (i am a very slow player) i like it. With the idea of buying all troops in one town, it will just be another strategy thing. No more letting the AI take your town, only to take it back the next day. I was very impressed when the AI in the first campaign tutorial did a runner right to my undefended town. I was in deep trouble and he knew that.



Anyone know if we will be able to pan around instead of just zoom? I can see that a lot of work went to the characters, but i can't see them!



I really like the tick marks on build commands and other items to confirm you want to do want you are about to. And so far no spelling mistakes!



Heal/resurect a bit powerful, but again, just more strategies to think about - basically i think the makers want people to develop stratgies to make these new ideas work. Oh and i love the heros special abilities that they can use as a free move. Then you can attack with hero or cast a spell. These heros do not stand around and watch - they participate.



okay - back to the game!