So what's the final verdict on Heroes V?

[HOMMV_N00B]

What do you mean with mixed stacks? In HV their also battles where you have to fight against different units.

[PhoenixReborn]

H4 had...much reduced micromanagement due to less "constant running to the mill and the waterwheel etc" every week as the resources was given to the owner automaticly each week.

It's true that that part was less micromanagement but I feel that moving individual creatures is much more micromanagement than the resource thing.

[Saurus]

What do you mean with mixed stacks? In HV their also battles where you have to fight against different units.

In short, In HommV if you have a random stack of a unit, then only that type of creature will show up. For instance a stack of Golems.
There is not much strategy involved in such a fight.
Pressing the "attack"-button until shooters have killed golems is simply not fun and does not involve any kind of strategic depth.

In HommIV golems could appear alone but also togheter with mages or halflings (could be comparable to gremlings in HommV) or dwarves.
If they appeared togheter with mages for instance, then that changed the
strategic setting dramtatically. Suddenly bringing in ranged attackers was no longer the best option since they were easy prey for the mages for instance. (Actually the combination of mages & golems could be quite nasty)

In ToE, I have a few times seen something called an "army".
But I´m unable to dubplicate this with the mapeditor and do not see how random neutrals could be given this "feature"
If I create a map myself, or play a map created by someone else, then theese "armies" will not appear.

[Muszka]

Actually I don't really get, why a developer can't learn from mistakes of the past, and why can't bring the succesful features in the newer versions.

[Merx]

Maybe because a successful feature for you may be a not-so-successful feature for me or for someone else...

In my opinion Heroes 4 was the worst heroes ever... Specially because it came after such a fantastic game as Heroes 3...

Heroes 4 has some nice features though and those features stayed in heroes 5. (caravans and hero skill managing to name some)

Also the "constant running to the mill and the waterwheel" is a part of heroes those structures are meant to be like they are, else they would be no different from a mine...

[Mlai]

There are mixed neutral stacks to fight in the campaign maps of TotE. But maybe there aren't any in the random-gen maps.

[jeff]

Ok, I'll return to the topic on the verdict of H-V.

For me H-V is the worst ever, why well I’ll explain. Prior to H-IV I was strictly a player; I fiddled a little with the H-III editor, but really never did anything with it. So the games interest for me through H-III was primarily the maps supplied by 3DO and the releases came frequently enough. While I waited for the next one, there was a M&M or Wizardry or one of the Dungeons and Dragons series or Baulder’s Gate to play. With the release of H-IV all of those other series were on their last leg, so to stay interested, I turned to the H-IV editor which as I’ve stated before while not as powerful, is infinitely superior to the H-V editor in its ease of use. So for the last 4-5 years I’ve made maps, H-IV maps. I was very excited when it was obvious that H-V was to be released and I eagerly awaited the editor's release, and I waited, and waited; when it was released no campaign ability. That was ok as it was promised, but then I tried the editor and after trying the tutor off and on over the Christmas break of 2006, I realized I was not interested in relearning all of the scripting needed to make the complicated campaigns I like to make. As time passed and it became obvious UBI didn’t care about the disenfranchised mapmaking fans, so I lost interest in their game. The game has many merits, but like all games it has its flaws.

So why is it the worst in my opinion, its really simple H-V has reduced me to being just a player, I play only campaigns and it only takes a few days to play those supplied by UBI and a few days of play are not worth the cost of the game. Yes there are a lot of fan made maps, unfortunately most are glorified last player standing maps with little to no character development, storyline or depth. What do I mean by that well play Rakne Fe’s Robin Hood or the campaigns by Wimfrits, Zealot or any of those on Psychobabble’s list of best maps. Is it the worst game to play, that varies widely among the fans, but that’s not important to me, as I really don’t care if someone likes H-IV or V better. Those who are hard-line and intolerant or insensitive to others that disagree with them do not warrant my contempt. As for me my interest now is in creating and not playing and in that H-V is the worst failure in the Heroes universe.

[Jolly Joker]

I realized I was not interested in relearning all of the scripting needed to make the complicated campaigns I like to make.

You say that since because H4 was so bad that you lost interest in PLAYING the game you got to making maps, and now for you H5 is the worst game because it doesn't have the editor of H4 and you are too lazy to learn working with a new one.
As a reasoning this seems a bit strange to say the least.

[Humakt]

You say that since because H4 was so bad that you lost interest in PLAYING the game you got to making maps, and now for you H5 is the worst game because it doesn't have the editor of H4 and you are too lazy to learn work

Where did he said H4 is bad? If game would be bad there would be no sense to make maps for it. And yes, H5 editor is piece of crap compared to H4 editor.

I can work with H5 editor and interface is tolerable, but the "lag" it generates is very frustrating to say the least. And I even have pretty good computer. Also debugging scripts is worksome and you can't make as big playable maps as in H4 or H3 which is a signifigant loss.

[MistWeaver]

Few buildings to build in towns. No creature upgrades.

I dont agree that this one is "biggest problem". Actually I liked that concept in H4.
I think everything in H4 is great aside of strategy AI, balance and MP code.

You say that since because H4 was so bad that you lost interest in PLAYING the game

Yeah thats exactly what he said. Jeez...

[ThunderTitan]

I think everything in H4 is great aside of strategy AI, balance and MP code.

I'd also say that the "Heroes in combat" system needed some work. (and not just on the balance side either... )

"the practical adaptation of the means placed at a general’s disposal to the attainment of the object in view"

How do i explain this... hmmm... it means that if you have 2 hands (one of the means) and you play at a PC you adapt them to using the Mouse and Keyboard, but if you play at a Console you adapt them to using a Gamepad. Doing it backwards is impractical...

The point of my last post was to show that the conclusions you draw from the fact that your opponent is a particular faction, at the start of the game, is just a known situation and doesn't involve strategy : it rather just changes the game's rules.

No it doesn't... you can still play just like against Protoss when you're palying against the other 2 races... it's just not a very smart strategy.

Strategy is any overall plan, even if it's a losing one.

And it doesn't matter if the situation is known or unknown either... or if you're just copying the strategy or not. Lateral thinking is a skill, not a strategy... when Alexandre cut that knot his strategy was "use brute force", which was a new strategy at the time, thus lateral thinking... but that doesn't make "use brute force" any less of a strategy now, just not an original one.

Plus, isn't Boxer famous for coming up with new ways to play Terran vs the other 2 races? So there was a time when that wasn't a "known situation".


Your idea of strategy is obviously born out of participation in the SC community, which is why is skewed towards RTS's. Just like most people have a skewed opinion towards TBS's.

[MistWeaver]

Yes there are a lot of fan made maps, unfortunately most are glorified last player standing maps with little to no character development, storyline or depth. What do I mean by that well play Rakne Fe’s Robin Hood or the campaigns by Wimfrits, Zealot or any of those on Psychobabble’s list of best maps.

We dont have maps in H5 like those in Psychobabble’s Top for H4, not because ppl dont do that kind of maps, thats because it is impossible to do them in H5.

Good example is outstanding campaign "A Wind of Thorns" by mentioned Wimfrits. Ask anyone who played and finished it - if its possible to create that kind of adventure using what H5 offers.
The answer, of course, is - no. The actual reason, though, is not easy to find. I guess the ability to find a correct answer is what it takes to be a good gamedesigner.

To me, every well-done H4 map looks and plays different. While any H5 map looks and plays pretty much alike. I think people dont want to create or beta-test as many maps for H5 as for H4, because the strategy part of H5 cant fascinate you the way H4 can. The main part of H5 - is battles. Its all about them.

May be thats because of lack of adventure objects, though I incline to belive that the main error - is loss of scale. H5 looks exactly like RTS (Warcraft?), but not TBS. That tiny forest with several castles that we have in strategy part, just cant stick with that scale of wars in stories and battles. Its like playing two different games.

That, I think is one of the biggest problems with H5. Playing just for math part is not really for me. I can use chess for that. And from the fantasy TBS game, I want to have some imagery of the world I play in, as well.

[jeff]

I realized I was not interested in relearning all of the scripting needed to make the complicated campaigns I like to make.

You say that since because H4 was so bad that you lost interest in PLAYING the game you got to making maps, and now for you H5 is the worst game because it doesn't have the editor of H4 and you are too lazy to learn working with a new one.
As a reasoning this seems a bit strange to say the least.

You are one of the ones I was talking about. I never have said H-IV was bad, and you are well aware of it. The only flawed logic is yours but that is not new. I started making maps as there were no games out or on the horizon that interested me. After Heroes IV, Wiz 8 and MM9, the next game I bought was Heroes V. Ok I did buy Age of Wonders but never got into it. Heroes IV never caused me to lose interest, H-V did, I found the return to the H-III micromanagement of resources and ferrying of troops outdated and boring. Just because I don't have time or desire to relearn line by line scripting doesn't mean I'm lazy, just as your comments don't mean your a fool. Even if I did not like Windows doesn't mean I'd want to return to DOS.

[Muszka]

Maybe because a successful feature for you may be a not-so-successful feature for me or for someone else...

I meant succesful feature, for the community.

For me H-V is the worst ever, why well I’ll explain. Prior to H-IV I was strictly a player; I fiddled a little with the H-III editor, but really never did anything with it.

So why is it the worst in my opinion, its really simple H-V has reduced me to being just a player

It's a small interferance in those parts. If you were only a player in H3's case and you are only a player in H5's case, than why is H5 the worst? No offence, but I think you discovered the beauty of the mapmakeing with H4, and now when you look at the H5's editor, you feel that it failed your expectations to make new wonderful maps.

I don't say that there are no problems with the editor. It's mazey and hard-to-learn, and eats resources, but still, it might be good to something, if some can make maps with it, than you can too. It's sure, that it won't become fast and great over night, but with some time, it can.

All in all, to proclaim H5 the worst just because of the editor, isn't totally logical. If so H1 would be even worse.
To use your example, this would be like proclaiming Win 98 the worst, because of it's CD(DVD) operating bug, while MS-DOS has a very limited CD operating feature.

[ThunderTitan]

"the practical adaptation of the means placed at a general’s disposal to the attainment of the object in view"

How do i explain this... hmmm... it means that if you have 2 hands (one of the means) and you play at a PC you adapt them to using the Mouse and Keyboard, but if you play at a Console you adapt them to using a Gamepad. Doing it backwards is impractical...

Better explanation: You can just replace "adaptation" with "use" and the meaning would stay the same.

e.g. "the practical use of the means placed at a general’s disposal to the attainment of the object in view"

[jeff]

It's a small interferance in those parts. If you were only a player in H3's case and you are only a player in H5's case, than why is H5 the worst? No offence, but I think you discovered the beauty of the mapmakeing with H4, and now when you look at the H5's editor, you feel that it failed your expectations to make new wonderful maps.

I don't say that there are no problems with the editor. It's mazey and hard-to-learn, and eats resources, but still, it might be good to something, if some can make maps with it, than you can too. It's sure, that it won't become fast and great over night, but with some time, it can.

All in all, to proclaim H5 the worst just because of the editor, isn't totally logical. If so H1 would be even worse.

I’m happy to say you got most of it. Now I can’t defend or criticize the H-I, or II editors as I never used them, but software and computers have advanced since those days and an editor can be worse just by not progressing with the times. H-IV (WoW version) has an easy to use menu driven interface, that UBI in its (wisdom or stupidity, you chose) decided to abandon. Now being only a player is not necessarily a bad thing, but for me I now enjoy the creation of maps far longer than the playing of the campaigns supplied. If you do a search you’ll find that I have not released very many (one actually), but that campaign took me three years (ok some off/on time though not a lot of off time). I am working on a second and have been for almost two years. My initial plan was to convert my H-IV campaign to H-V, but I found that the first campaign could not be done (only 4 carryover heroes??? maybe that’s changed) without a massive rewrite to the story, which was over 300 pages of text. I was planning a simultaneous H-IV/H-V release of the second (the storyline text for the first H-V map was written before I abandoned it), I had even requested someone who was willing to do the H-V maps to partner the effort, but sadly there was no interest. Now, the current campaign is going to exceed the amount of text of the first one. So as long as my campaigns take adding months to write scripting that can be done in minutes just is not time well spent. Fabrice mentioned more than once the editor would be improved, but as we approach the second aniversery of H-V’s release we/I am still waiting.

To use your example, this would be like proclaiming Win 98 the worst, because of it's CD(DVD) operating bug, while MS-DOS has a very limited CD operating feature.

This was not the analogy I was thinking, it was more like just because Windows occasionally loses track of the shortcut when you click on the icon, doesn’t mean I want to go back to DOS and write a bunch of bat files to launch them.

[Muszka]

I knew the time I wrote my post, and I'm knowing it now, that if we take in those years, as a factor between H1 and H5 the H5 editor is the worst of them, since evoluiton should be on H5's part.

All these remembers me, when H4 came out. By that time I wanted to do some maps in H3, but as I got H4, I thought I rather do some for it, but I saw that it's way complicated than H3, so I had given up the idea.
Later I found out the possibilites in H4 editor and scripting.

As for the Dragons Fate. Congratulation. It's an awsome campaign. I liked it very much. I hope somehow you'll find a way to transform it in a H5 map.

[ProMeTheus112]

"the practical adaptation of the means placed at a general’s disposal to the attainment of the object in view"

Better explanation: You can just replace "adaptation" with "use" and the meaning would stay the same.

No ^^ There is a clear nuance, and this nuance is critical to the definition here. I see I'm not the one who misunderstood the sentence

And it doesn't matter if the situation is known or unknown either... or if you're just copying the strategy or not. Lateral thinking is a skill, not a strategy... when Alexandre cut that knot his strategy was "use brute force", which was a new strategy at the time, thus lateral thinking... but that doesn't make "use brute force" any less of a strategy now, just not an original one.

Which makes you come back to what I already said : if you want to give that plan the name of "strategy", fine, but you do realize that it takes absolutely no skill to use it (well, it would in Starcraft if the game was like that, because you would still need speed, which you don't need in H5 . In that case, what you wish to call "lateral thinking", which is obviously strategic thinking, is, this time, a skill, and my point is that there is next to none of that in H5. If H5 is only about using a rigid plan with no adaptation, then it takes next to no skill, hence my grudge about this stupid game that could be a lot better.

Plus, isn't Boxer famous for coming up with new ways to play Terran vs the other 2 races? So there was a time when that wasn't a "known situation".

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but Boxer was indeed famous for coming up with original game plans and overall great in-game improvisation.

You branch out from well-known situations (the first 5 minutes of a game) because the possibilities are very numerous and you can do strategic thinking depending on what happens. So yeah, before boxer did certain things, we didn't know it could be done efficiently and they weren't well known situation... So what ?

[Orfinn]

The graphics will fade in time.

Not if they're done well....

Like starcraft

[Muszka]

The graphics will fade in time.

Not if they're done well....

Like starcraft

Again?
But actually you don't play SC for graphics. Do you?
Whatever