Heroes of Might & Magic 7

[cvv]

snip

Lool, that necro map was maybe one of two or three I've really hated. You're just holed up in your town for weeks, pressing the End Turn button. I was so pissed I've just cheated through it lol. Apart from that almost all the missions were pretty neat.

Other thoughts:
- I didn't know about the atrocious launch, I've heard some murmurs but not much. I haven't had many bugs, the game crashed maybe 3 times in my 50 hours and there's this weird AI glitch where enemy melee units get all retarded when you cast Fire Wall on them - they don't advance at you, stay in the wall and get burned to death. Other than that it was smooth sailing
- Steam or uPlay never bothered me whatsoever, no idea why they should but whatever
- yeah, a lot of the diehard Heroes fans are III fanatics, I remember I said something like "III gameplay is very aged compared to King's Bounty or Disciples II" years ago and got some serious shit for that :D

 

[Gepeu]

HoMM7 is a good game, technical issues aside.

 

[visions]

Uplay is a major turn off. I have zero interest in making separate accounts on every developer's service because they think they're too good for having just Steam, or whatever the fuck. AAA developers who have their own compulsory crapware basically don't exist as far as I'm concerned, the inconveniece of having to make stupid accounts in order to play just one or two potentially decent games is simply not worth it.

I don't have a problem with Steam because Steam carries a wide variety of titles, but creating an Uplay account just because M&M X and HoMM 7 are supposedly ok games, is too much annoyance.

 

[cvv]

Uplay is a major turn off. I have zero interest in making separate accounts on every developer's service because they think they're too good for having just Steam, or whatever the fuck. AAA developers who have their own compulsory crapware basically don't exist as far as I'm concerned, the inconveniece of having to make stupid accounts in order to play just one or two potentially decent games is simply not worth it.

I don't have a problem with Steam because Steam carries a wide variety of titles, but creating an Uplay account just because M&M X and HoMM 7 are supposedly ok games, is too much annoyance.

Ok sure, then again it just takes what, 5 minutes? Plus I'm pretty sure you have dozens of accounts on all sorts of portals, services and webpages, just like vast majority of people today, it's just one more.

Also for what's it worth, uPlay is way more UI friendly, lighter and faster than Steam, plus I have like 20 games there so I use it often. But I get you, I feel similarly about Origins or Battle.net.

Ultimately tho let's be real - it'd be nice if there was just one portal for all our games but first, that could only come about through a government decree or some shit, and second it'd definitely lead to abuse. Steam is already pissing me off with its laziness, ugliness and slowness and they ONLY have the majority of the market, not all of it.

 

[CptMace]

inb4 a Game Platform Rationalisation Act.

 

[Thane Solus]

Man, it feels good to read stuff like this from time to time and be like maybe i'm not that crazy. I too think that the level design in the campaigns is very good, and maps are fairly different from one another. I especially liked the one from the necropolis campaign, when they'd throw you in a barren desert against 4 or 5 established factions set in rich areas.

I'll try to adress why the game got shit tough :
1) Probably the worst launch of the history of Ubi-M&M. And that's quite a feat after HoMM6. The game was incredibly broken, the low budget static briefing screen was even more static etc etc.
2) I think Uplay is still necessary to play the game, big deal breaker as well.
3) The heroes community is one of the worst I've ever read the forums from. I followed the development of H7, it was unbelievable how systematically negative the feedback was, even for some seriously benign shit like the color of a model etc. So even them didn't support the game (also it was arguably tailored fo them, I guess ?).

Now, the game is still p.bland imo. But I agree that it's way better than H6 and has enjoyable campaigns (also, for people who only play homm multiplayer, that's not a selling argument).

I own MM 10 on ubiplay, of course they are so awful, that i always played the pirated updated version. Ubisoft! Making you pay for a game that you have to pirate.... "Luckly" they destroyed all of their IPs, so there is no point for me to buy something from them.

 

[Rahdulan]

I forget, did they drop dynasty weapons for Heroes 7? Those were some goddamn shenanigans tied into always-online in 6.

 

[vota DC]

Game Is ok. They followed more homm 5 than 3. Homm 5 Is better in everything except one thing that Is having theme and creatures rather than races in town.
For example in homm 5 dungeon has 3 dark elves + 1 dark elf on lizard and that means only 3 creatures (minotaur, Hydra and black dragon). Now only 2 dark elves.
Fortress was terrible having 5 dwarves + 1 Dwarf riding a bear. Now just 2 dwarves.

Uplay is a major turn off. I have zero interest in making separate accounts on every developer's service because they think they're too good for having just Steam, or whatever the fuck. AAA developers who have their own compulsory crapware basically don't exist as far as I'm concerned, the inconveniece of having to make stupid accounts in order to play just one or two potentially decent games is simply not worth it.

I don't have a problem with Steam because Steam carries a wide variety of titles, but creating an Uplay account just because M&M X and HoMM 7 are supposedly ok games, is too much annoyance.

Uplay Is just an account, having to bother with password and login but It isn't the main problem. Uplay doesn't recognizes connection so only reliable way to play multiplayer Is hotseat.

 

[Jvegi]

Why would anyone bother with 5,6 or 7? HotA exists.

Seriously.

 

[Storyfag]

Why would anyone bother with 5,6 or 7? HotA exists.

Seriously.

I still claim V (with ToTE) was done very well, with a lot of interesting ideas, etc. But it just isn't possible to go back to after HotA.

 

[v1rus]

Yeah, HotA is great. Still waiting on Factory.

I still occasionally play HoMM4 or HoMM2 tho. Or rather, I want to play, but my main HoMM buddy wants only to play the third one.

Say what you will about fourth, but they tried to do something different. And i can respect, and enjoy that.

 

[vota DC]

Why would anyone bother with 5,6 or 7? HotA exists.

Seriously.

I still claim V (with ToTE) was done very well, with a lot of interesting ideas, etc. But it just isn't possible to go back to after HotA.

They did a very interesting necromancy system in V ToTE, no idea why they didn't keep It in the two sequels.

 

[Archibald]

I think they threw lots of shit away after V so it was probably not something specific against the necromancy system.

 

[vota DC]

I think they threw lots of shit away after V so it was probably not something specific against the necromancy system.

Only right thing they did with VI is changing iniziative system that in V was confusing and op with some units acting more than once during a turn and golem and zombies never moving.
The rest was a disaster, VII fixed only a part of that.

Magic vs might seems also a disaster. In V warcries worked well and had a purpose since stronghold heroes didn't have magic. Now inexperienced inner Fire Is as good as warcries (more Attack, only One unit but last 3 turns), invest to novice and you can do in an area. Same for storm arrow for ranged units against the warcry that helps ranged units.
Direct damage spells could be lame in V super late game, in VII you have implosion that can one shot a stack with 100 champion tier units.

 

[cvv]

The rest was a disaster, VII fixed only a part of that.

VI wasn't really a "disaster", a lot of people rejected it because the lore was completely new and the game had integrated uPlay functions as one of the first games ever, so the Steam-only people were forced to install uPlay. Oh and on release it was also buggy as fuck and they fixed two progression-stopping bugs only months after the release.

But if you play the game now - when the bugs are squashed, various QoL updates added and with an expansion plus uPlay is WAY more normalized - it's honestly not terrible. Not great ofc, HOMAM stopped being great with III, but not terrible.

It's actually p. similar story to VII - terrible reputation on release but when you play it now it's just your standard, average HOMAM experience.

 

[Archibald]

Nobody is interested in average HoMM experience.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

VI was a complete trainwreck and things like uplay integration weren't exactly the main pain points. The fandom loved the fact that V got back to the series original formula while adding genuine improvements and legit additions so VI being yet again full of stillborn "innovahsun" that literally no one asked for pissed people off even more than it would've normally. It also for whatever reason tried to shit on homm legacy as much as the frail french intestines allowed with things like some asian mmo faction in place of some iconic ones or changing the name to Might and magic: heroes or whatever that was, antagonizing people even more.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Daily reminder H6 reduced the number of resources to 3 and added that retarded mechanic where you couldn't capture mines without first taking over the local castle.

 

[cvv]

VI was a complete trainwreck and things like uplay integration weren't exactly the main pain points. The fandom loved the fact that V got back to the series original formula while adding genuine improvements and legit additions so VI being yet again full of stillborn "innovahsun"

Let me put it this way - "the fandom", meaning the hardcore III veterans, wasn't interested in playing anything but III. Never was, never will be. But I for one had more than my fill of the "original formula" after 100s of hours in I, II and III. And after games like Disciples 2 or King's Bounty came out it became clear that the only way forward for the series is a completely new approach. Not that VI delivered on that front, it was way too half-assed for that. VII was more courageous but by then it was too late. The genre was long dead, suffocated by the "original formula" that nobody gave a shit about anymore.

 

[karoliner]

I only ever played V plus its expansions and VI. VI was very boring and tedious, it didn't fix any of the problems V had and added some of its own. And the asian faction looked so dumb.

 

[Jvegi]

And after games like Disciples 2 or King's Bounty came out it became clear that the only way forward for the series is a completely new approach.

And then HotA came out and proved it's bullshit. The formula works great, you just need QoL improvements and some fresh ideas. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Is the genre dead? Who cares?

 

[Malamert]

Why would you ever bother with any other Heroes games when III and V exist? Forget about everything else and just play those two.

 

[Storyfag]

Daily reminder H6 reduced the number of resources to 3 and added that retarded mechanic where you couldn't capture mines without first taking over the local castle.

Suffer not the streamliner to live!

Why would you ever bother with any other Heroes games when III and V exist? Forget about everything else and just play those two.

II has charm beyond measure. IV has great music.

 

[vota DC]

Daily reminder H6 reduced the number of resources to 3 and added that retarded mechanic where you couldn't capture mines without first taking over the local castle.

Also Town conversion, creature pool, teleport from Town to Town.
They dumbed down the game a lot.

 

[Cross]

Why would anyone bother with 5,6 or 7? HotA exists.

Seriously.

H3/HotA perfected the core formula of Heroes (traveling the adventure map often feels like a chore in later Heroes games), but the magic system and creature abilities are underdeveloped. There are lots of useless spells and unremarkable creatures and the tactical variety of encounters is limited. HotA doesn't do much to address this besides implementing some of the improvements of H4 (e.g. Harpy's Strike and Return can be toggled on/off, so they can block shooters).