I urge everyone to take a look at Maciek's Two Quizzes

[cjlee]

Some forum old-timers may recognize me as one of the most anti-Heroes VI guys around.

Since this is Chinese New Year, I have been taking time off to game... but guess what? I can't bring myself to play Heroes VI.

Even though I have tons of savegames (given by a friend) and can parachute into fighting any climactic battle I choose... don't feel like it.

Why? Because the lack of spells, the focus on one-faction armies, the similarity between heroes, the limited selection of game-breaking artifacts and potions to use in battle, the dependence on a same few abilities to win (e.g. I usually cast Reinforcement first round if I am playing Tears), the lack of truly useful creature abilities that can turn a battle around... all that has made Heroes VI a game with very little replayability.

That's why I urge everyone, especially those who do like Heroes VI, to take a look at Celestial Heavens' homepage where Maicek has a couple of quizzes.

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Yes, I know these are for Heroes IV. That's not the point. The point is that Heroes IV, for all its flaws, offers tremendous challenge and puzzle. They have infinite varieties of counters and combinations and battlefield challenges. Just look at the Quizzes and subsequent enthusiastic discussions. Everyone has good ideas and plausible solutions.

A game MUST be replayable to gain a following. This is something Ubihole totally ignored when they created Heroes VI.

Heroes I-V were replayable. You could really fight battles very differently using different strategies and tactics. The same hero build and army could be used very differently with a bit of artifact change, tactical shuffling, wait-strategies, etc. It was actually worth it to save games and replay battles again.

Heroes VI? Hah! I don't even feel like finishing most boss fights. Once you figured out a boss' weakness, the game is as good as over.

My prediction is that in 5 years, even with Ubihole continuing to support Conflux (albeit in their flawed way, such as using major international holidays to upgrade their servers) and Nobody supporting Heroes IV, the much older Heroes IV will still have a more enthusiastic following than Heroes VI.

Disagree with me? No problem. Just follow Maciek's footsteps and design a quiz for Heroes VI. In fact, let me help you by suggesting a quiz question below. You can always refine my question and submit it to the powers-that-be for inclusion on the homepage.

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Heroes VI is so poorly designed. If you're playing a high level hero who does NOT have tactics and you are facing a vastly inferior enemy army of Upgraded Toads with an army that the game automatically arranges to stand in the front row, you die. Absolutely ridiculous.

Quiz Question:
Assume you are a powerful hero. Level 20-30. Assume you do not have tactics. Assume you have only 2 stacks of champion or elite creatures (the big guys). You have about 20 per stack. How do you defeat an enemy army of 400 Kappa Shoya?

[Avonu]

Just summon some creatures in front of Kappas and they can't use their ability anymore (they need straight line to use Leap).
Also Time Statis, Blind, Petrification, Puppet Master spells or Intimidation war cry.

[Groovy]

Even though I have tons of savegames (given by a friend) and can parachute into fighting any climactic battle I choose... don't feel like it.

Why? Because the lack of spells, the focus on one-faction armies, the similarity between heroes, the limited selection of game-breaking artifacts and potions to use in battle, the dependence on a same few abilities to win (e.g. I usually cast Reinforcement first round if I am playing Tears), the lack of truly useful creature abilities that can turn a battle around... all that has made Heroes VI a game with very little replayability.

While I agree on the lack of replayability, I don’t think that the above list paints an accurate picture of the reasons why. Consider that chess is arguably one of the most replayable games in history while suffering from practically all of the shortcomings listed above. Another example is Ancient Empires II, a cell phone game that I played quite extensively when it first came out. It is ridiculously simple compared to Heroes 6. Units and heroes aren’t that interesting in their own right, there is only one faction with ten or so units, no artefacts or potions, hardly any spells (I can only remember one offhand), and only one resource. Yet the game offers enormous replayability. I finished the campaign and all the skirmish maps several times without getting bored with them. There is a chess-like quality to the gameplay. One has to think about the battle strategically by taking the terrain and castle locations into account when marshalling troops. The game makes this possible by enabling the player to plan very far ahead, which follows from each unit action having very few immediate consequences, so that it is the long-term picture that they weave together that holds the player’s attention rather than any singular unit action.

On the other end of the spectrum is Magic the Gathering, which doesn’t involve this kind of battlefield strategising (or a battlefield at all, for that matter), but instead depends for its replayability partly on chance and partly on the plethora of combos and special effects that the player can draw on.

[ThunderTitan]

Chess was before vector graphics... it's easy to be the most popular game when there's almost no competition...

Also, the AI could be pretty good...

[cjlee]

None of your suggestions will work. Once the battle starts, Upgraded Toads will do their Toad Leap and instantly eliminate both your stacks of Champion or Elite creatures.

I think a magic hero (since you mention spells below available only to Magic heroes) is more vulnerable. A might hero might survive the initial leap since he has more Might defense.
Of the Might heroes I think Inferno is most vulnerable since they have lowest defense and pit lords die too easily.

You'll need initiative-boosting artifacts if you want to move before Upgraded Toads. I don't think the slower Champions like Angels can be sufficiently boosted, but if you can get Kirin to open the battle, they might just close the gap. Tsunami is also quite fatal to the upgraded toads since it gives you 2 turns to wipe them out/ close the gap enough to reduce the damage from Toad Leap.

Just summon some creatures in front of Kappas and they can't use their ability anymore (they need straight line to use Leap).
Also Time Statis, Blind, Petrification, Puppet Master spells or Intimidation war cry.

[Maciek]

Thanks for advertising the quiz, cjlee.

I have come here to urge everyone to take a look at Ridureyu's two threads: this one and that one. Some questions and answers from the first one are really funny and asking about a favourite glich(the second thread) is a great idea too.