Heroes of Might & Magic 4 Defense Thread

[thesheeep]

The series is dead now because they listened to "fans" and made the same game three times in a row

what the fuck even

Well, how often do you think you can make the same game in a row and still be somewhat successful?
With seven, they tried to go entirely back to the roots (and failed, of course). And the result was that only those still cared who actually played HoMM 3. And that's not enough.

Sure, it isn't the only reason Heroes 7 buried any chance of a new entry for many years to come, but I would put it among the top.

Even if HoMM7 wouldn't have been developed by hacks and would have been... well, a good game, even then it wouldn't have garnered much interest.
Only chance I see for the series is a new direction AND a good developer. But since it is in Ubisoft hands, chances are non-existent.

 

[Lacrymas]

6 is worse than 5 in possibly every way, though. It was so unfocused and the ability to hire all your troops from the same town destroyed any semblance of thought and strategic gameplay. I don't have an opinion on 7 since I uninstalled it before finishing the first mission, but people seem to be saying it's better. Getting a root canal would be better than 6, though.

 

[Darth Roxor]

please be into specifying how heroes 5 is exactly the same as heroes 6

or, even better, how 6 and 7 were exactly what the "fans" wanted

 

[thesheeep]

please be into specifying how heroes 5 is exactly the same as heroes 6

There are obviously differences between 5, 6 and 7. But nothing nearly as different as 4 was.
When you get to the core design, they are really very similar.

6 is worse than 5 in possibly every way, though. It was so unfocused and the ability to hire all your troops from the same town destroyed any semblance of thought and strategic gameplay.

I don't disagree with 6 being the worst of the bunch.
But the ability to recruit all troops from the same town is a minor one. Come on, having a side hero ferry troops from some town to your current main hub or hero is hardly something you can call "thought and strategic gameplay".
I'd call it a chore.

or, even better, how 6 and 7 were exactly what the "fans" wanted

I doubt anyone wanted that result with 7
But it is the result of the developer listening to "fans" and trying to appease them. And failing at that.
Don't ask me about 6. I have no idea about how its development went.
I followed the development of 7 closely, though. Remember that they asked the community about various topics and made it one of their main points that "this time" they are listening to the fans. It was quite obvious they had no ideas of their own, so they implemented what they thought fans wanted. A developer without vision, that is one certain guarantee of failure.

Of course, it is all relatively moot since both 6 and 7 were so shoddily developed and in such a terrible state that the design behind the wall of bugs barely mattered.

But ask yourself one question:
If a HoMM 8 came, and if it was "just like 3" but with modernized graphics, maybe some QoL improvements, etc. and if it was actually a finished product, released in a good state:
Would anyone even care?
HoMM3 was 20 years ago. Being "just like THAT game" means nothing to most gamers today if THAT game was decades ago.

Or would it be a better idea to do something entirely new with the series, a reboot if you like, and make that "we're changing everything" the main narrative of your marketing campaign?
Sure, the vocal minority of the fans refusing any change would hate it, but they are few.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a well-done HoMM3-like sequel, but I am sure that a sequel that completely shakes things up (and doesn't suck) would be a much, much better idea.

 

[Darth Roxor]

If a HoMM 8 came, and if it was "just like 3" but with modernized graphics, maybe some QoL improvements, etc. and if it was actually a finished product, released in a good state:
Would anyone even care? HoMM3 was 20 years ago. Being "just like THAT game" means nothing to most gamers today if THAT game was decades ago.

Xenonauts disagrees very strongly with your assumption.

 

[Lacrymas]

The troops from one town thing makes the map feel very linear and like a series of hubs you traverse, rather than a whole thing. It also makes the general deathball vs deathball gameplay worse, obviously. But eh, whatever.

I think we had enough HoMM3-like sequels. The general design of 5 to 7 is indeed "like" 3 with more bullshit and less thought put into it. I doubt a significant amount of people will care about an almost exact copy of 3, but in 3D. Who knows, though.

 

[thesheeep]

If a HoMM 8 came, and if it was "just like 3" but with modernized graphics, maybe some QoL improvements, etc. and if it was actually a finished product, released in a good state:
Would anyone even care? HoMM3 was 20 years ago. Being "just like THAT game" means nothing to most gamers today if THAT game was decades ago.

Xenonauts disagrees very strongly with your assumption.

Xenonauts is a product that sold even less than HoMM 7 despite actually being a good game. I'm not denying it was a success to the small team, but we're talking very different scopes here.
Plus, Xenonauts is/was an entry in an alive genre. Just a few months before it, XCOM: Enemy Unkown came out. And there were many (some good, some shit) entries in the genre over the years, remember those strange comic-look X-COM games?
That is a very different situation.
So depending on how you look at it, it is either unrelated to my assumption or even agrees with it.

But what other game like HoMM3 is there, if we don't count other HoMMs?
King's Bounty? And that's pretty much it. And that only has the battles, no city management IIRC.
The HoMM3 formula is simply old and doesn't have a strong pull anymore. And even a good entry could probably not top HoMM3 itself, so why even bother? Add to that the last two entries to the series, both commercial and critical failures, removed large amounts of people who still cared from the pool.
In that situation, a new game in the same vein? That would be madness.
Better to go new ways.

 

[Lacrymas]

Disciples is kind of like HoMM. And obviously Age of Wonders. They even sidestep the issue of the ever-growing army, which is probably my most disliked aspect of the HoMM games. This also causes the AI in the campaigns to cheat a lot by being provided with endless resources and a constantly expanding army that they can refresh every week, causing each hero they bring out to have twice as many troops as your main deathball. I'm currently struggling with this on Castle Slayer in HoMM1 and it's pretty annoying.

 

[thesheeep]

Disciples is kind of like HoMM. And obviously Age of Wonders. They even sidestep the issue of the ever-growing army, which is probably my most disliked aspect of the HoMM games.

Well, they are all turn-based games with turn-based combat and city building. If that is your condition, then yes, they are similar.
But within that turn-based genre, I think those games are all very different.

What you see as an issue in the HoMM games, the ever growing armies, is actually a feature to many.
And IMO makes HoMM really stand out - in what other game can you go as crazy with stack numbers?

It also leads to entirely different strategies and combat situations. A 6vs6 battle in AoW is down to unit tiers and composition only - player skill assumed equal - while a 6vs6 in HoMM is down to tiers, composition AND numbers.

Actually, those ever-growing stacks are one of those staples of the series I would put to a test in a new HoMM part.
Remove that, and you are sure to get attention - and the result wouldn't necessarily be negative as AoW, etc. show.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm all for removing the stacks. That places emphasis on the individuality and distinctiveness of each unit. It also makes it much easier to balance unit abilities because you won't have to worry about the stack hitting some critical mass and becoming unkillable or wreck everything. Make every battle a kind of turn-based RPG-style affair, have them have more HP and different units having different and more abilities and trying to outmaneuver each other. This is not a bad idea actually, someone should do it. Imagine it like a 6v6 PvP in an IE game, but turn-based.

 

[JarlFrank]

That almost sounds like Age of Wonders, which is a game that exists and has three games in its series.

 

[Lacrymas]

Kind of, but the units are more conservative in their abilities. I'm saying each unit having its own entire spellbook/ability list. Not as extensive as RPG characters, obviously, but much more than the generic units with maybe 1-2 abilities in AoW.

 

[Gerrard]

Simultaneous resolution combat > everything else > chess combat

 

[thesheeep]

Simultaneous resolution combat > everything else > chess combat

What do you mean with this?

That multiple people can have a battle at the same time?
Or that, in a battle, both sides act at the same time after both have given their orders for the turn?
Or something else?

 

[Jason Liang]

i guess they should have just kept making xpacs for HoMM3, Armageddon Blade was great, Conflux is best town

 

[Lujo]

i guess they should have just kept making xpacs for HoMM3, Armageddon Blade was great, Conflux is best town

Well, that's exactly what the audience wanted... Except they ran out of design space. Like, one game ago.

 

[Lacrymas]

Actually, Conflux was a secondary idea they had that wasn't developed very well. At first they wanted to finally incorporate the sci-fi elements of the mainline M&M games with the introduction of the Heavenly Forge, but fans demanded that Heroes was a fantasy game and they didn't want sci-fi elements, so they scraped together the Conflux in the last minute. It wasn't as straightforward as a cash-grab.

 

[Archibald]

But the ability to recruit all troops from the same town is a minor one. Come on, having a side hero ferry troops from some town to your current main hub or hero is hardly something you can call "thought and strategic gameplay".
I'd call it a chore.

Good thing that HoMM4 had a solution for that: caravans. Which HoMM5 later also implemented with some changes.

 

[curry]

or, even better, how 6 and 7 were exactly what the "fans" wanted

7 was disappointing but they had the right idea. I wish it had been done by a better developer.

 

[theSavant]

I'm all for removing the stacks. That places emphasis on the individuality and distinctiveness of each unit. It also makes it much easier to balance unit abilities because you won't have to worry about the stack hitting some critical mass and becoming unkillable or wreck everything. Make every battle a kind of turn-based RPG-style affair, have them have more HP and different units having different and more abilities and trying to outmaneuver each other. This is not a bad idea actually, someone should do it. Imagine it like a 6v6 PvP in an IE game, but turn-based.

Then you might as well make a blobber out of it. In fact a HOMM blobber, where each party member is a single monster of your specific faction would be awesome.
I would totally play that.

 

[Lacrymas]

Aren't the stacks technically blobs? Also, I doubt they'll make another blobber. I'm kind of enjoying M&M XL atm, so I'd want to see another one of those. Which leads me to -

7 was disappointing but they had the right idea. I wish it had been done by a better developer.

I don't think Limbic are a bad developer, as exemplified by M&M XL. Heroes 6 had a very strained and tortured dev cycle, with Ubisoft breaking their promises, not keeping their deadlines and changing major things halfway into development, which naturally made the process chug along disastrously. They still made a shitty game, though, so I'm not letting them off the hook entirely, but still, they showed promise with M&M XL.

I don't know about the development of 7, but as far as I can gather people don't like it because it's somewhat competent, but bland and doesn't really do anything interesting or new. They fell into the "democratic development" trap and based a lot of their decisions on polls on the forums (like which factions to include), which leads me to believe they also didn't have any unified vision, or any vision at all, for 7. Or they felt constrained and pressured to create something that will be received better by the public. I really don't know, but my point is that Limbic aren't that bad of a developer, but my only evidence is M&M XL, soooo make of that what you will. I'm not saying M&M XL is some great game that will blow anyone's mind, I'm just saying I think they have unrealized potential. Their willingness to go outside of the AAA genre comfort-zone by developing a blobber is commendable. They should get a better writer, though.

Who else would you propose to make a Heroes game? Triumph Studios? Sure, why not, but they are signed on with Paradox, so I don't know how anything works in that context. Firaxis? Maybe.

 

[Archibald]

Then you might as well make a blobber out of it. In fact a HOMM blobber, where each party member is a single monster of your specific faction would be awesome.
I would totally play that.

Then you should play Disciples and Disciples 2.

 

[theSavant]

No, not blobbers.

 

[AMG]

Heroes 6 wasn't made by Limbic, it made by Black Hole Entertainment who made a pretty decent Stracraft knockoff called Armies of Exigo before that. It also killed that studio in the process, there are probably still some juicy forum posts floating around the net from Black Hole people about how Ubi fucked em sideways durng H6 development.
Anyways, pretty sure that Ubisoft is done with M&M for the forseeable future and Limbic is back to churning out some shovelware, so it's not like any of this matters.

 

[Lacrymas]

Huh, I was mistaken. I actually wiki'd Limbic Entertainment before posting that it lists HoMM6 in their line-up. Ubi fucking them sideways is true, though, regardless of whether it was Limbic or Black Hole. I have Armies of Exigo installed right now, actually.