1st impression of Heroes 6 after almost 1 year

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
ywhtptgtfo
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1st impression of Heroes 6 after almost 1 year

Unread postby ywhtptgtfo » 28 Aug 2012, 05:13

I got a 50% off coupon on Crag Hack's DLC, so I decided to get it as a show of support. I played 5 minutes and decided to go to bad. A few comments:

1. UI is still not very polished with mouse coordinates not completely matching menu/button triggers

2. Uplay credits don't work properly. I had 4000 gold coins stashed from last year (from winning campaigns? I forgot) and can't use any of it. Getting heroes also seem to cost an obscene amount of gold coins, so I'd imagine Ubisoft expects people to buy coins with real money (no thanks).

3. Opening narrative is too wordy.

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Heroes VI

Unread postby E7 » 29 Aug 2012, 04:05

While were complaining, I found the game play to be dry and instead of lavishing the game with more immersive art story and characters they just decided to go with a very stale unoriginal uninspiring crap story. The art is practically a rip off of WoW, and suffice to say, Warcraft's art is generally very uninspired and the whole WoW game looks like a nerd amusement park. It looks like Ubisoft decided to take HoMM in that direction. How, from the makers of as cinematic and captivating as Assassin's creed's art and style is do you get the Heroes V, and VI, steaming pile of superficial horseshit. The games keep very little of the original content and destroys the whole concept of exploring the map. It is in complete lack of the original characters personality and style that you find in the 3DO versions.

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Unread postby Naki » 29 Aug 2012, 20:07

While the story may not be stellar, it is:
1) Better than the one in Heroes V.
2) Presented much better, I liked the cutscenes + small dialog scenes + small dialog windows from own hero very much.
(* Cutscenes are similar to the ones in Heroes V.
* Small dialog scenes are small texts + speech, but no video, and take just a small part in the center of the screen. They have at least 2 speakers - your hero and someone else, and often have 3 or more participants/speakers.
* The small dialog windows with hero's own words (sometimes, rarely from others too) are at the top of the screen.
May the Implosion be with you!

E7
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Ubisoft's HoMM

Unread postby E7 » 29 Aug 2012, 22:44

Both Heroes V and VI are pretty bad. They have some good strategic elements, but they wear you out just doing one slow battle after another. Yes VI is better than V in many ways, story included, but ultimately it takes it farther away from the original MM games, which is where the true unique setting and story comes from, and the art that has made the old games so visually entertaining even with inferior graphics. The design used to be so creative. Didn't anyone else enjoy the mixture of mythology lore and fantasy creatures based in tradition more than the new heroes which simply take the strategic elements and more or less leave the artistic senses and overall continuity and style of the games in the dirt? The dirt where NWC crumbled. Besides I liked exploring the maps and finding new unique experiences in each scenario like Heroes II, as well as the endless amount of maps and a good number of campaigns. And Heroes III had this vibrant life to it and really presented the MM world in a very inspiring fantasy style that looks majestic.

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Re: 1st impression of Heroes 6 after almost 1 year

Unread postby Mozared » 30 Aug 2012, 18:45

ywhtptgtfo wrote: 1. UI is still not very polished with mouse coordinates not completely matching menu/button triggers
This is a windowed mode error that also used to show up when you alt-tab. Play full screen and don't tab out and it should work normally.

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cjlee
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Re: 1st impression of Heroes 6 after almost 1 year

Unread postby cjlee » 30 Aug 2012, 19:50

Mozared wrote:
ywhtptgtfo wrote: 1. UI is still not very polished with mouse coordinates not completely matching menu/button triggers
This is a windowed mode error that also used to show up when you alt-tab. Play full screen and don't tab out and it should work normally.
Ridiculous! SO many problems!

I just typed a post on my thread "Things are getting from bad to worse" where I mentioned my friends who used to play Heroes (H2-5) at work. They did a lot of alt-tabbing. Now, thanks to the ridiculously poor quality of Heroes VI, even if they subjectively liked H6, they can't play it.

That's what I mean by H VI having objectively low quality.

I played H2, H3, H4 on computers that were at least 2 years old by the time they came out, and never had long waiting times. H VI's resources took forever to load on my 5-month old 2011 computer. I had no such problems playing Starcraft 2 and CC4 on my 2008 computer.

How can Starcraft 2 perform better on a 2008 computer than Heroes VI on a 2011 computer? Is it because 2008 technology is better than 2011 tech? Or is it because Blizzard's guys are better than Ubisoft's guys?

-=-=-=-=

Here’s something someone said on the official forum. He speaks for me. Sometimes I wonder if us critics are simply jealous of Ubisoft’s ability to get paid for a really trash product. Really, if I started a company to sell rubbish, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to make any money or have the likes of hellsgenes and CloudriderX to defend me:

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/71 ... 64ce8bc819


Just hands down... why? I mean... WHY???? Why there are such people that still donates such an arogant company and allow this company to cheat us all?

I think I should start my own business and to offer some rotten fruits or vegetables from my local shop's rubbish to such people... With promises that some time in the future those vegetables will be good and perfect?
I don't understand why such people don't buy broken things in their daily purchases, but they still think that a broken product in the IT sector isn't a robbery but a good deal...

Kojote
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Unread postby Kojote » 20 Oct 2012, 14:21

So a first impression, huh?
I was really waiting with buying H6 after reading all those discussions before the game even came out. And naturally I also waited for the major bugs to be weeded out.
In fact I'd love to buy a game at release and support the developers, but they won't get my full support for doing crappy - read: bugged - work. So I got it for about 15 to 20 Euros some weeks ago and didn't touch it for a while. I recently rediscovered Birth of the Federation and have been busy... :D

Now I finally started and I have to admit: I like the game play. It's not like H3 and H5, which I also liked. Neither like H4 which I didn't even play through.
The influence zones are interesting and the graphics are really good. The combat systems works in my favor and the units are partially really cool.
Some of them are strange. I didn't play the campaign with those shark men and toads yet, but I wouldn't have needed units that strange. At least not when loosing other I really liked in previous HoMM's. But that's the way it goes.

So the game is good. I'm going to buy an upcoming expansion. (But since it'll be standalone I'll see what the community says about bugs and then wait for the price I deem appropriate.)
What I don't like is this uplay-thingy.

When I start the game I can almost smoke a cigarette until I'm finally there in my savegame. That's a bit long for a game from past 1995.
I'm okay with having this uplay as an option. I'd most likely use it for those dynastic features and stuff. That's cool. I like that.
What I don't like is being forced to use something that has absolutely nothing to do with the game I play. And what I also don't like are lines like 'the cd-key of this game will be linked to your account FOREVER'. So I can't even bequeath the game without also handing over my uplay account? Isn't that illegal somehow?

Anyway...
I think I like H6. I'll never again buy anything from ubi for the full price until they stop loaning games the way they do with mechanisms like uplay instead of selling a copy to me that I can use on- and offline on all my computers the way I like and sell if I want to. But I'll buy further games of the franchise. Or at least have a close look at them.
Gamewise this isn't a loss at all in my book. It's pretty cool, actually. Good story so far and nicely done. With not as much bugs as I expected to encounter in version 1.5.

That's my first impression.

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Unread postby gregthanatos » 22 Oct 2012, 00:24

I bought this game the day it came out and was very exited.

I liked some of the artistic designs that I had seen in screenshots. The orcs looked better than they ever have in any heroes game and I really liked the Aztec theme.

I have played every game and most expansions since heroes 2 and I never made maps, played other peoples maps, or even played against strangers online. I either played hot seat games with friends or did solo campaigns.

I had liked heroes 5 a lot and would have been happy with more of the same with different units, artifacts, factions. So unlike a lot of other fans, my standards were not all that high.

I started playing 6 and I hated it. The drm was a pain and the game loaded very slow for a modern game. So I was already annoyed by the time I started playing. The campaign maps looked worse than in 5 (graphically the same but artistically even more generic), there was no town screen, and too many units looked alike and moved alike.

Recycled is the best way to describe the aesthetic of the units. For instance when I played as a barbarian I loved the look of the Goblins. I didn't like the corresponding inferno and undead units that shared the exact same model. Cheap and lazy are the words that come to mind. When I played sanctuary I found that 2 of their units were almost identical to each other and I couldn’t even tell them apart on the battlefield.

In playing the game I found that the differences in the factions had been erased. Everything that had made factions unique, like the undead always growing through reanimation, had been toned down or done away with. The heroes were all alike because all options were available upon a hero leveling up. I built every hero the same and their unique power hardly mattered.

The mega artifacts that level with heroes seem pointless. It was much more fun to find a high level weapon on the map. I don’t remember half the bonuses they are supposed to give because I didn’t write them down when I leveled them up.

As many other people have complained the top units don’t seem a lot more powerful than the base units. There is no feeling of game changing power as you get the top units.

When a hero dies they can be bought back for almost nothing. This is annoying in the campaign because if the enemy has more castles they can relentlessly assault each week with the same guy, but if your main guy dies its game over.

The writing and plot is bad. I don’t care about that stuff in games unless its in my face bad. Seeing things on load screens like “ors don’t fight to live, orcs live to fight” just pisses me off.

I have 5 friends that I played Heroes 5 with. All of them have tried heroes 6 at my place and they all said it sucked. None of them bought it themselves.

I took heroes 6 off my computer a month after it came out. Recently I heard that there were patches that fixed major problems so I went to steam and re-downloaded the game. I didn’t read patch notes but noticed that now there are town screens. They look pretty good too. I didn’t notice any other changes myself and I am taking the game back off the computer.

I have had fun with every heroes game from heroes 2 until this one. I honestly started blaming myself for not liking it. I was a high school kid when I started playing heroes games and now I am a 34 year old, married, lawyer. I am a different person now in many ways and not the type of person games are designed for. But then I thought of all the other games I have liked in the last couple years.

I don’t find this game fun. My few friends who still play games didn’t find it fun, I cant imagine many people do.

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Unread postby Ryder » 17 Jan 2013, 23:46

After trying to play again after a long absence I have come to the conclusion that H6 is no doubt, the worst game in the series by a long long way.

Loved 1
Loved 2
Loved 3
Loved 4
Liked 5
Hate 6

Raelag84
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Unread postby Raelag84 » 25 Jan 2013, 20:25

My biggest complaint about six is that the factions are too easy to master.

In heroes five I could spend years learning the nuances of a faction, but not in Six. Its just too easy.

Zareth
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Unread postby Zareth » 24 Apr 2013, 21:55

I guess the patches and the DLC haven't made this game any more amusing then it used to be?

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hellegennes
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Unread postby hellegennes » 25 Apr 2013, 01:08

After more than a year, my opinion of the game is high. At start it had too many problems but many of these were fixed through patches. It now runs brilliantly in my old PC, unless I alt-tab. Loading and quitting don't take too long, now. I also bought both DLCs.

Having played all games, since 1995, with H1 being my first, I personally rate the games, from best to worst, in this fashion:

2 was simply brilliant
4 was really good if somewhat unfinished, with very poor AI
1 was very good in its simplicity but doesn't compare anymore
6 is very good with some excellent new ideas but with many flaws
3 was good but it essentially was an H2 copy with minor changes and more content
5 was good but really simplistic, with very slow gameplay which only became decent after the two expansions. As was the case with H3, the developers took absolutely no risks and made no changes, based on a winning format.

Yes, I rate Heroes 6 higher than the third instalment in the series, because the devs dared to make gameplay changes, whereas H3 was really polished and superb but didn't deviate from its predecessor. If H4 and H6 were to spend a year more in development, they would probably top my list. As it stands now, the ballsiest, more polished, more fun game is H2. Also, no other game in the series compare to it in terms of music. It's absolutely flawless.

Zareth
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Unread postby Zareth » 26 Apr 2013, 00:38

Yea, I was thinking of buying the DLCs so I wanted to know how much things had changed. But from what I've been reading, the more annoying problems are still around.

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Kalah
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Unread postby Kalah » 26 Apr 2013, 07:06

@Zareth: Yes, so far they still are - I would wait until the last patch is released and see if that fixes the major issues. Check back here in a couple of weeks and you'll have the answer. :)
In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill.

Zareth
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Unread postby Zareth » 27 Apr 2013, 03:57

They've set a date on the last patch they'll release for this game? o.O

ywhtptgtfo
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Unread postby ywhtptgtfo » 05 May 2013, 03:48

I can't believe Ubisoft still trips over itself 15 months after the release of Heroes 6. I just bought the expansion today found out that I couldn't play it! So I had to go to Google and found out that I am actually supposed to download another 2.2 GB patch in order to play.

While it's not a big deal, this makes me wonder who the fuck did these guys hire as QA, production, and project managers? UPlay sucks, installation process is not streamlined, and the game is rumoured to be loaded with a mess of critical bugs.

It's not like they have to reinvent the wheel to develop an expansion.

Edit: Already encountered several crashes. Can these guys do anything
right?

Edit 2: The game is unplayable now. I get black screens every other battle and I've already updated my drivers. Limbic, Blackhole, and Ubisoft are all jokes.

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Unread postby Xdarkon » 06 May 2013, 00:28

The still town screens made me cry

ywhtptgtfo
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Unread postby ywhtptgtfo » 09 May 2013, 03:36

It seems like the A.I. still cheats like hell. Crushed several enormous armies in Dungeon campaign scenario 4 and they bought back like nothing happened.

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Unread postby Magelord » 09 May 2013, 07:35

Two comments from someone i.e. me that I consider unqualified to comment about and there for will anyways.

I am the lone gamer in the Universe who loves Heroes V!

Now then the two reasons why Heroes V is better than Heroes VI

Reason 1. (and it is a big one!) I can actually play Heroes V!
Reason 2. No DRM!

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Unread postby Metal Wolf » 22 Jun 2013, 09:55

Magelord wrote:Two comments from someone i.e. me that I consider unqualified to comment about and there for will anyways.

I am the lone gamer in the Universe who loves Heroes V!
You're not :) . I think that Heroes V is a great game, far from perfect in terms of balance, yet very fun and true to the series due to the amazing and unique feel/atmosphere it has, And I say that as an oldschool fan who played Heroes I and who thinks that Heroes II is the best computer game ever.

Heroes VI, on the other hand, is not worthy to have a "Heroes" title. The developers should be TRULY ASHAMED of what they've done.


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