I was a fool, I always thought that there were elves in the first part, and mages appeared only in the second. Thank you to the smart people, they enlightened me, the ignorant one.
I also didn't know that dark elves existed in HoMM before the fifth part.

See, how useful this forum is. I'm not talking about names and races, but about the ideological style of the faction. In fact, the Sorceress in the first part was the embodiment of light magic, and the Wizard was the embodiment of dark magic. Then the Sorceress faction split into Elves and Mages, and the Wizard into Necromancers and, well, Wizards/Warlocks. I don't care who is in the Warlock's castle - dark elves or centaurs, even if they are Cheburashka-ninjas, but in essence, they are still the same Warlocks!
The same goes for the Mages.
[QUOTE=Vayshan]The words "changed", "standard", "stylistic failure", "not classic" are constantly found - in general, it's clear, a typical old-school player, it's a matter of taste. No one has ever seen living orcs, undead, and so on, but stereotypical orcs are found in many other games, why put them in the new Heroes? Elves were probably left for the add-ons, as well as their dark counterparts (someone has to live in the Dungeon).

Alt-upgrades are not needed. It is still impossible to make them completely equal, in the fifth part you can find many similar examples. And in any case, an alt-upgrade is the same "stat boost +1 skill" only the stats differ by a couple of units and the skill is different, so the tactics will not suffer in any way.

Replacing units is not a cut. There were some, now there are others. That's all. In general, I am much more concerned about the diversity of tactics, ways to upgrade a hero, building a castle, the magic system - if all this is reduced to the level of some casual games for schoolchildren, then yes, Heroes will be a failure for me. And no sets of creatures will save the game in this case, so this is not the defining part of the game, IMHO.[/QUOTE]

1) I don't understand why cut races if there are 9 fully formed and ready-to-use races in the game, and if you try, you can identify up to 12. I understand that a couple need to be left for the add-ons, but still.
2) Alt-units are one of the best innovations in the fifth part. They differ precisely in skills, sometimes in stats for balance! This all gives diversity in tactics. At the moment, I am not taking into account the hero's magic and skills, I am taking into account the tactics based on the skills and characteristics of the creatures. Alt-units are equal, they just take different units for each tactic. There are failures, but there are not many of them.
3) Where do you see the replacement of units? There were 8 factions, 7 creatures in each, plus upgrades and alt-units. And also neutrals. As a result, 175 units. Here there are 5 factions, 7 levels (units, meaning), and upgrades. In total, 70, plus neutrals, let's say about ten, that's 80. A cut of almost half.

You know, elves in fantasy worlds were described by other writers before Tolkien, so he is not a pioneer in this area.

Enough with the empty talk, let's have facts, I don't believe it. Professor Tolkien created elves, Middle-earth, high fantasy, and the whole world in general, I saw it myself.