Grade the campaigns

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
Sloanzilla
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Grade the campaigns

Unread postby Sloanzilla » 25 Sep 2006, 00:37

I'm sure this has been done before, but anyhow:

1. Haven- D-. I know it is the "tutorial" but that still just doesn't cut it. The "tutorial" scenarios for HOMM3 were still kinda fun. The Haven was basically two scenarios and way too many "Griffin Eternals"

2. Inferno- C+. Not a bad design, you just never really get a feel for playing demons. It was all either sylvan or cat and mouse.

3. Necromancer- B. Nothing especially great or terrible. I liked the opening cutscene. I hated finding out that shadow dragons suck.

4. Dark Elf- A. Very fun. Ok, the first scenario was a little weird, but it was an interesting idea. Scenario 3 was the most true to the feel of how the game should be. Scenario 5 was just fun.

5. Elf. A- Not bad at all. The Vampire Lord, again, felt like the old school game. Slight penalty for making me run through the same island map a second time.

6. Academy- D+. First scenario- lame, Second scenario- kinda fun repeat, Third scenario- OK, pretty cool, Fourth and Fifth- too fast and too easy. As plenty of people have said, it felt like an afterthought. Gets a passing grade only because the Kill Markal map was sorta fun.

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 25 Sep 2006, 00:45

Grade them by story or...? :devious:

Anyhow,heaven sucks.Completelly.And it doesnt teach you anything about the racial special,so F for this one.

Inferno had its moments,and the first three maps were fun(with map 3 being a true chalenge),but the last two maps blow big time,so C here.

Necro is kind of ok,although I didnt play the third map because of the bug,and I hear that there you are can convert cities.These four maps I did play deserve no more than C though.

Dungeon suffers from becoming bland and boring in the end like inferno,but its end map is more interesting,so Ill give it a B.

Sylvan is lame,and findans poetry doesnt help it at all.I didnt even have the will to finish map 5,so Ill give it an F.
Last edited by DaemianLucifer on 25 Sep 2006, 05:21, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby Sloanzilla » 25 Sep 2006, 00:48

Well, were it by story they'd all be F.
OK- Markal's opening scene and his death scene were the two only interesting cutscenes/storylines.

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Unread postby wayne » 25 Sep 2006, 04:15

Haven D
Inferno B
Necropolis D
Dungeon B
Sylvan C
Academy C

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asandir
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Unread postby asandir » 25 Sep 2006, 05:16

Haven was an F for me
Inferno was alright - a B
Necro sucked - F
Dungeon I quite liked B+
Sylvan I though was pretty good B+
Academy was a bit of a disgrace - D
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Unread postby NAG » 25 Sep 2006, 06:12

On a scale from 1- 10 (1 is very bad, 10 is best)
Haven 6
Inferno 6
Necropolis 7
Dungeon 7
Sylvan 8
Academy 5

I don't rate dungeon to high, it was al so overpowered. You were fighting neutral stacks of incredible size. Ofcourse the hero was also very strong...why not make them a bit less strong and a bit more in balance with the other factions.
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 25 Sep 2006, 06:24

NAG wrote: Haven 6

.
.
.

Academy 5
Academy worse than heaven?You almost tempt me to finish it to see how bad it really is.Almost though,just not enought :devil:

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Unread postby Killroyan » 25 Sep 2006, 06:35

So far,

Haven 5. The story is a bit strange/weak and the maps weren't that great

Inferno 8. This is mainly because of the huge challenge of map 3. I love it when I get a real challenge.

Necropolis 7. Hey who doesn't like every stack of undead joining you. I know I do :))) I especially liked the map with the converting cities. I never walked around with a hero with 40+ items. I hoped for the end boss to give me a better challenge in the map but in the end he still was just walking around with the same amount of titans as he was 2 months ago. Fighting 2k gremlins and 1k golems was nice with my 5k skeleton archers. Come on, admit it, it is plain fun those numbers.

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Unread postby maltz » 25 Sep 2006, 13:51

Here is my rating with regards to gameplay on heroic. I break it down to scenarios because some crap campaign still has its good moment.

Haven:

C1M1: Pretty good beginner tutorial. Simple enough! 8/10
C1M2: Teaches you about archery unit and abuses it to the end. The town only builds to lv 6 and resources quickly pile up, doing nothing. 5/10
C1M3: Final demon army is pretty good challenge for a tutorial campaign. Resources management is adequate. Had the chance to train 1000 peasants to archers on the last day, completely turning the odds. 9/10
C1M4: Finally priests and angels and spells. Completely-screwed experience management that the level cap is hit 1/3 into the game. The map was drawn quite well, though. The icon of boots has disappeard in patch 1.3; obviously the patch wasn't tested on a new campaign. 6/10
C1M5: Nice tutorial challenge with the endless stream of assaults. Isabell hits the level cap way too quickly. Removing the spell instant travel (since patch 1.1) is disappointing. Legions of Imps are fun. Quite a lot of strategic planning to ensure success. 8/10

Music: Very nicely done, especially the siege. 9/10
Story: It is fun to have an seemingly innocent heroine and grow her into some arse-kicker. Cutscenes were too slow-paced. On my very-low quality screen some characters don't even have eyes! (my fault, I know). 6/10

Inferno:

C2M1: Keep running away from Godric is quite fun but Godric loves to teleport to give me a free pass (major programming error). Quite nice introduction to getting used to Inferno tactics. Underground inferno nicely illustrated. 8/10
C2M2: One of the shortest scenario in the game. A very boring and short race. No matter how hard I try, I am 3 levels below the cap. This map should be redone (or expand at least 2 fold). 4/10
C2M3: Patch 1.2 finally restored the AI functions and raise the challenge level. Pretty nice map design and lots of strategy thinking (finally!). Too bad the AI were like idiot before patch 1.2. Silly thing to make Agrael use Sylvan army to win on higher difficulties. This is an Inferno campaign! 8/10
C2M4: Well the programmers seem to know that Sylvan army rocks, so they start to desert you. Similar map layout to C2M3. Nothing totally new here and it starts to get old fast. 6/10
C2M5: Plain boring, long adventure. That group of dogs underground make everybody's day, which is a little silly. 5/10

Music: Battles are pretty menacing. The map song is way too repetitive and my ear hurts. Had to reaplce it with the Haven songs. 3/10
Story: Starting as a refuge is nice. Some nonsense fighting in the end of C2M2, and Tieru's body movement throws me out of balance. The interaction with Agrael and Biara is interesting, until they suddenly forget about her until the end. WT... 7/10

Necro:

C3M1: Game-stopping bug still not fixed even in patch 1.2, which is one of the worst game quality controls I have ever seen. Patrols should be able to defeat once Markal is powerful enough. Adequate tutorial for Necro, though, as it tells you how nice raise dead can be. (What, they tone it done in patch 1.3? DOH!) 5/10
C3M2: Balanced map with a little of everything. Godric gives a lot of freedom of what to do. Less-confident players can choose to simply ignore him. The landing enemies create some great pressure from above. 8/10
C3M3: The expanded version of M2 with a lot more potential towns. The AI heroes are powerful and so does Markal's reinforcement and artifacts. One of the few epic scenarios in the campaigns! Too bad a lot of players are troubled by the 20 bone dragon bugs in the end (I didn't see any myself, though). 7/10
C3M4: Very boring 1-dimensional map, and since Markal never loses any army anyway there is little degree of accomplishment. It is beautiful, though. Markal only gains about 2 levels from it. Somehow after patch 1.2 Cyrus has 0 stats throughout (plus some artifacts, but that's still miserable). 5/10
C3M5: Patch 1.2 made it very hard at the end, requiring a particularly designed Markal. Adequte challenge and pretty fun to rush. One of the hardest missions now and shows the true potential of a never-stay-dead necromancer! 9/10

Music: Successfully delivers the ghostly feel. Can't say it is beautiful, but at least wacky enough. Personally I don't like pretending to be cool, though. 6/10
Story: The blend in of previous Haven heroes is great, as they don't steal away the shows. However, most scenarios took place in a very limited area, which is very dull. 6/10

Dungeon:

C4M1: "What can you do in one month" a nice idea. On higher difficulties you simply can't beat the crap out of everything. It is fun and tells you how much a few lv-4 spells can do. The idea of a chaotic arena in the end is good but poorly executed. They should have some mendary match system instead of the current "hide away first" tactics everybody likes to use. 8/10
C4M2: Giving you a nice town to start is a little weird, but otherwise this map is well-designed. The enemies are annoying enough and Shadya is good looking and competent enough, too. The introduction of Dragon Utopia makes learning light/dark possibly rewarding, hence extending the flexibility. 8/10
C4M3: Players get punished by not going for the warlock way. AIs can be very menacing early. Adequate challenge and a great party of spells. Way too many secret areas with stat boots making the end game extremely boring. Otherwise it is a very good, hard map. 8/10
C4M4: Another long journey, but this one is saved by the heroic feeling of defeating hordes after hordes without any use of army. The labyrinth is not annoyiny, which is good. 8/10
C4M5: One of the best maps. Tells you even a warlock has his/her limit, but if you've developed them with the forsight of this map... You will be amazed by how much they can accomplish. Very fun to charge the garrisons! 10/10

Music: This is the dungeon music I want! Mystery and lots of babies! 8/10
Story: A familiar setting to turn a nobody to a king. There should have been more interactions between Raelag and Shadya, but unfortunately that never got developed. The script writers for HoMM5 apparantly lacks in the creative apartment. 6/10

Sylvan:

C5M1: Terrible bug that prevents the finish of this map (fortunately never happened to me). Too bad the swap-garrison exploit is gone (but it is justified). Adequate challenge at the end since patch 1.2 (with enhanced Biara). Nicely-designed map except the mage guild is capped way too low. 8/10
C5M2: Things starts to get hard soon and lucky stats point distribution matters. Which town to go first? Can one take the first town as soon as possible? This one is quite fun. But agian why the heck do they still limit the mage guild? Possible minor bug at the end, too. 8/10
C5M3: Very large and empty (lazy) map, but the idea of constant siege is interesting, although appeard in C1M5 already. Rescuing hereos to be used later is a new idea and these 2 heroes were superb. Possible medium bug at the end. Challenging enough and watch the rainbows fly! 8/10
C5M4: SOOO many stat boosts makes this long journey the most rewarding among all. Except that nothing is new. 7/10
C5M5: The most epic and beautiful map of all 6 campaigns and your hard work all pay off. The programmers of this one must love to see countless frustrations because tons of Findans don't know what they are doing, Wahahaha! But too bad many players were actually troubled by bugs that they can't control, or definitely a full score. 9/10

Music: Nothing went wrong, but nothing went exceptionally good. 8/10
Story: My Findan didn't have eyes! And he speaks silly words. His interaction with Biara is so silly that it becomes funny. The final showdown is a great concept, and executed quite well. 7/10

Academy

C5M1: Academy hero without academy army and town. What's the point? It only takes 1 battle to grasp the concept of summon elementals and elemental replacement. The worst scenario ever. 2/10
C5M2: A very standard "one town to conquer all" map. Challenge is adequate. The SE Necro town is called "Undefined", which is a little annoying. 7/10
C5M3: Rescuing Godric in the deepest cave seems to be a cool idea. With a lot of previous heroes joining, the lack of academy army isn't that devastating. My first attempt of this map was bugged and I had to restart, DUH. 7/10
C5M4: Not Havens towns again! But other than that the map is quite nicely designed. The size of this map * the number of heroes makes visiting the stat boosts an agony. Raelag is coming for you, Isabel! 6/10
C5M5: Not really a scenario, but the usual ending fight. Balance was OK but could have been a little more elaborate. The battles can be far less repetitive. 4/10

Music: What is Academy music? I never remember hearing any. ??/10
Story: I was glad the story is finished, because it was so boring in the end. 4/10

Overall campaign:
Haven: 7
Inferno: 6
Necro: 7
Dungeon: 8
Sylvan: 8
Academy: 5
Last edited by maltz on 25 Sep 2006, 21:40, edited 2 times in total.

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 25 Sep 2006, 15:40

maltz wrote: C3M5: Patch 1.2 made it very hard at the end, requiring a particularly designed Markal. Adequte challenge and pretty fun to rush. One of the hardest missions now and shows the true potential of a never-stay-dead necromancer! 9/10
Before 1.3 this map is quite easy.All you have to do is learm mark of the necromancer earlier and raise skelies until you win.I wonder how it plays in 1.3 though.

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maltz
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Unread postby maltz » 25 Sep 2006, 15:49

DaemianLucifer wrote: Before 1.3 this map is quite easy.All you have to do is learm mark of the necromancer earlier and raise skelies until you win.
I happen to have some screenshots of how insane Godric can be (heroic, 1.2):
viewtopic.php?t=2263&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 25 Sep 2006, 15:51

DaemianLucifer wrote: Before 1.3 this map is quite easy. All you have to do is learm mark of the necromancer earlier and raise skelies until you win.I wonder how it plays in 1.3 though.
I only played on normal, but i defeted Godric by using Meteor Shower. I actualy had to repeat the fight because i wasted mana on Summon Creatures and didn't have enough for the second army. In the end i didn't need SC at all. Just kill his ranged units, the AI isn't very good at sieges (or wasn't, depends on what they did in the last patches).

@maltz

You did give him alot of lvls and good skills.
Last edited by ThunderTitan on 25 Sep 2006, 15:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby Angelspit » 25 Sep 2006, 15:52

Great post Maltz, I think I'll link to it from the news.

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Unread postby dragonn » 25 Sep 2006, 15:53

I've acomplished the campaigns a couple of days ago...

And I must say finishing them left no emotions in me :/ One of the most boring game campaign stories I have ever seen. Sure there were some interesting maps and ideas, but all-in-all the campaign was full of crap a nd loose ends that were left without explenation. The outro was a total mistake. And those dialogs, blah. The funniest word in the game was the reaction of Isabel about her future in the end of last map. I don't know how it sounds in english version, but polish was hilarious...

I don't say it's that bad, but it could have been a lot better. Overall some maps had a nice gamplay, and I liked building my heros skills, nevertheless it sucks...
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Unread postby NuWorld » 26 Sep 2006, 14:14

DaemianLucifer wrote:Before 1.3 this map is quite easy.All you have to do is learm mark of the necromancer earlier and raise skelies until you win.I wonder how it plays in 1.3 though.
Just finished it on 1.3, heroic. I decided to mop up the whole map to gather as many skellies as I could. Before I clashed with Godric, my army was: 20 dragons, 50 wraiths, 60 liches, 130 vampires, 400 ghosts, 600 zombies and some 4,5 k skellies. Troops were all upped. As it turned out, lifesaver was a kill of some high lvl wizard, which I recruited later, since Markal was a scholar, I got truckload of spells including Phoenix. It was the only spell I ever used in the final battle, besides 2 frenzy casts in the first 2 rounds and some slow/decay combo when I lowered the number of angels below 100. Godric had 220 angels, 100 paladins, 2,2 k footmen, 1,2 k archers and a handfull of priests.

In the left corner I put skellies and surrounded them with vamps, ghost and zombies. Right corner, liches, covered with dragons and wraiths. After 2 rounds of frenzy I had to deal with some 180 angels. Phoenix + skellies killed about 15 each turn. When I lowerd their number to about 80 (they couldn't kill Phoenix in one strike any more) I could aford to slow/decay them. Stupid AI behavior was that after he killed liches, dragons and wraiths, he took a shot at spectres and missed and then went for all war machines 8| allowing me have 4 free shots. I suspect I would win without them but I would have to use raise dead on stacks protecting skellies.

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Unread postby NAG » 26 Sep 2006, 19:33

DaemianLucifer wrote:
NAG wrote: Haven 6

.
.
.

Academy 5
Academy worse than heaven?You almost tempt me to finish it to see how bad it really is.Almost though,just not enought :devil:
Why do they create a wizard campaign and not give you any wizard towns except for 1 map? So far I have been mainly building undead and haven troops.
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Unread postby Nebs » 26 Sep 2006, 19:36

Sylvan and Academy the best. Rest pretty much bore me.

EDIT: Actually...map 4 of Academy was almost unbearable due to 10+ mins AI turns. So, just Sylvan is any good.


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