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To be honest, while playing, many things didn't appeal to me. It lacks the atmosphere, somehow... Something just isn't right... I can't explain it in words... Of course, I'll still appreciate this game, at least because it brought my dream of a water race to life, and quite well, I might add. But... I doubt I'll buy the game. It's not captivating. Yes, it's beautiful, and all that... But it's NOT IT, it's not "Heroes"... And it's a real shame that I rushed to put it on par with the third installment, even though I wanted to...
codenameray
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By the way, I have the same feeling. The atmosphere is lacking – that’s a fact.
ОMEGA
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It’s a pity. It’s a pity because these aren’t the right Heroes. It’s a pity because the atmosphere is missing. It’s a pity because Adagio, who had been looking forward to and believing in the game, was disappointed. It’s truly a pity. I myself once waited for Allods Online, I know.
No, what are you talking about? :)
I just don't like the lack of atmosphere in the game. I have a biased opinion about the sixth installment. And even with that attitude, I couldn't feel that atmosphere. I don't know, maybe in the final version it will be there, but for now, it's a miss.
I wasn't disappointed. On the contrary, I expected that the more you wait, the more disappointing the final result will be. The game is not bad, on the contrary, it's quite decent. And everything would be fine if it weren't for the title, which it doesn't match in spirit. It would work as a standalone product, but as part of the "Heroes" series, it somehow stands out.
But, I repeat, I wasn't disappointed! :) I've already come to terms with the fact that without John, no one will be able to recreate the true atmosphere of the game. So, getting this result was expected.
Otherwise, I'm happy with the game, and the bugs should be fixed before the final version is released.
Дембель of Heroes
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A friend gave it to me too.
Very briefly.
The options don't change at all! It feels like Ubisoft is deliberately slowing down the player's view so they don't rush through the quest in two turns. Maybe it's not, but I got a good dose of enjoying the movement and traversing the map. And now I have a big question for myself... should I change the options back to the original? This is because in none of the previous games was the animation of shooting or swinging quite as good; it was all a bit toned down. It's nice that the gameplay of the battle has been improved; if there were shadows, it would be even better!
But the shadows aren't working:
About the atmosphere...
Not really, but I agree with the previous commenters. A noticeable improvement would be to have full-fledged animations instead of just text on the screen. It would take up more space, but that's not a problem. But let's not talk about that, because everyone would have a lot of ideas. The landscapes are good, but the maps are very small - you don't have enough time to enjoy them! And then you're immediately thrown into five hundred battles! You just keep fighting, fighting, fighting. But the experience you get from these battles is minimal! But the game looks fresh! Very fresh^-^
About magic...
The water magic is very disappointing, really, really disappointing!! The freezing ice (5th level of magic in Heroes 5) is the coolest thing compared to this. I didn't develop only 3 water magic spells, so I advise not to take it at all.
Light magic is almost the same as in Heroes 4, but in the style of Heroes 5. I was just a couple of thousand points short of getting the light elemental (3rd level of magic). What this creature of nature is, I don't know.
The vampires were a pleasant surprise. The swing is great, and the movement is too. I have to say that I was a little bit afraid of the vampires in the game, because they are fast, appear unexpectedly, and attack relentlessly, which caused me a little bit of excitement.
The orc shamans were disappointing. So much so that their characteristic can be described in just three words: "What is this?!" But the goblins throwing boomerangs got applause - a very worthy idea! The ability where a horse turns into a super-horse, which can gallop on water, is also a nice touch. Knights on horses, an orc with a club - just for the crowd, because there is nothing super or anything below average about them. Harpies and griffins - good.
But... the Naga race is noticeably weaker in battles than the human race!!
I also encountered something strange... I haven't even built a city yet, and 200 spearmen, 200 archers, 100 priestesses, sometimes 20, sometimes 40 of them, appear. They don't attack the castle, but I couldn't defeat them in the field, and I had to start over four times because of this strange detachment that appeared out of nowhere!! How is this possible at the beginning of the game?? I still don't understand where the undead race is (so I can play as them)? It turned out really well, and they aren't as easily defeated as the Naga. Respect to the developers for the undead, which I encountered on the map.
The elementals were a pleasant surprise; they are much better than in Heroes 2, 3, 4, and 5. This is what creatures should look like, not just a balloon.
There are a lot of cheap artifacts - it doesn't enhance the game. I understand when you almost lose your entire army in a quest for an artifact, but then all sorts of junk is lying around - take it or leave it! Also, there is no feature where artifacts gain additional abilities when you collect a certain number of them. Maybe the developers compensated for this by making it so that when you collect them, you'll be amazed. I don't know.
Overall, if 2.5 out of 5 is just average, then this game deserves a 4 out of 5.
Adagio
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By the way, in terms of architecture, Sanctuary is similar to the Sylvan faction from the 4th installment.
Ment
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Regarding the display of buildings: these buildings are, strictly speaking, separate objects that do not belong to the city, and mapmakers can place them on the map independently. It is likely that a special script is initialized when these buildings are constructed, which causes them to appear on the map.
There are some issues with the arenas. When playing as the dark-haired female hero for the Dungeon faction, there's an arena with Orcs near the castle. You can fight twice without leaving. At first, I fought once, then twice, totaling three times. Is this a bug, or is it intended? If not, how many times can you fight?
Where are the other companies? A frenzied squad attacked this hero and the castle. I defeated them all and continued playing, and when the last enemy hero remained... the game froze during the computer's turn. Is it designed this way, so you get two missions and then you're free? Or is there something else? By the way, I'm experiencing the same problems as Ment: after some time, the cursor is 1 cm below, and later, if I move the screen to the left or right, it stays there (in battle). In short, there are bugs, bugs, and more bugs.
Adagio
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There are some issues with the arenas. When playing as the dark-haired female hero for the Dungeon faction, the arena near the castle features Orcs. You can fight twice without leaving. At first, I fought once, then twice, totaling three times. Is this a bug, or is it intended? If not, how many times can you fight?
I think this is indeed a bug; otherwise, it doesn't make sense. People have already reported this issue on the official forum. And when another player enters the arena, you end up watching their battles endlessly. Because of this, I had to start everything over.
codenameray
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codenameray
So, here we go:
Before you is the holy of holies - the city building screen. As you can see for yourself, everything is simplified to the point of absurdity.
The first building in the list is the Town Hall, which then standardly upgrades to Magistrate, Prefecture, Town Hall, etc. Next to the icon there is a small red "up" arrow. That is the upgrade button. The next line is the first-level buildings. These include basic fortifications, three buildings for recruiting basic units, a market, and a tavern. Please note that the buildings are not depicted at all. There isn't even any concept of their appearance on the icons. Instead, the icons show the creatures we hire in these buildings. Accordingly, the market is now represented by a scale icon, and the tavern by a flag. What all these buildings look like, we might find out in the final version, if by then the developers have actually done something with the city window. The second line of the city is nearly identical to the first. Here is the same set of buildings, only of a higher level. The exceptions are the Town Portal, the Advanced Tavern, and the faction's unique building. For moving to the second level, by the way, upgrading the Magistrate is a mandatory condition. The Advanced Tavern is, in essence, also a unique undead building, as it allows you to hire heroes killed in battle for a certain period of time. Incidentally, Heaven has an Advanced Market instead of an Advanced Tavern. I haven't figured out its functions yet. Regarding the unique building. There are four of them, and if you look closely, you can see arrows for switching between them near their icons. That is, there are two unique building icons - one in the first row, the other in the second. But the icon has two buildings to choose from. Why this space-saving is needed in a rather empty building screen, I don't know. Perhaps, since this is a beta, we are not seeing all the buildings available in the game.
In this screenshot, people familiar with English can read the description of one of Necropolis' unique buildings. For everyone else, I'll explain: "Time Control" This building slows down time, affecting all enemy heroes and creatures except for the player's Necropolis heroes. If an enemy hero attacks the castle, their movement speed will be reduced, both on the adventure map and on the battlefield. All enemy creatures will suffer from a permanent initiative penalty.
Next...
In this screenshot, we see the city screen itself and its garrison. The unit information window is also open, in this case for Ghosts. Let's look at it in a bit more detail. Between the unit icon are parameters for damage dealt (60-140) and the unit's HP (green bar). Below the icon, we see the number of creatures in the stack. Below are the following parameters: Might Damage, Might Defense, Initiative (image of a chess knight piece), Magic Damage (here equals 100), Magic Defense, Luck, Speed/Range, Initiative, and as far as I understand, HP again.
Even lower, you see the unit's special abilities. Don't get your hopes up here, because there are actually fewer of them than you think. The fact is that the icons I circled in red are the same. I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, but both icons say: "Undead - immune to poison, mind spells, etc., etc. Not subject to morale effects, morale is constant." The icon I circled in blue says "Emotionless – not subject to morale effects, morale is constant." So, in fact, we have two identical icons and one that is semantically included in the other two. As far as I understand, this was done because, for example, there are elementals which are also Emotionless in theory, but are not Undead. Although why it was necessary to put this icon in this particular case is unclear. The remaining icons are: an active ability to revive part of allied units (available 2 times per battle), a passive ability to pass through obstacles (as far as I understand, though I may be wrong), and a passive vulnerability to Light Magic.
This screenshot shows that during battle you can also open the unit information window. Among other things, it will show spells currently affecting the unit.
Next screenshot...
This is the skill selection window. There are three main tabs: Might skills, Magic skills, and a tab for special racial abilities. These tabs are further divided into sub-tabs. For example, in the "Might" tab, we further open tabs named Tactics, Warcries, Defense, Offense, etc. In this case, the "Magic" tab is open. Here we see the schools of Air Magic, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Dark Magic, and Primordial Magic. As you may notice, the schools of Fire Magic and Light Magic are absent. The "Dark Magic" tab is currently open. There will be three levels of spells, arranged, like the buildings in the castle, in three rows. The first row contains spells such as Weakness, Reduced Morale, Decay (each time a creature moves, it takes damage), a passive Dark Magic bonus, and Life Drain, which the cursor is hovering over. On the second level, all these spells mostly gain a mass effect or some other bonuses and enhancements. Also, one new spell opens up. On the third level, we get three more new spells, one of which is Summon Dark Elementals, another is Mind Control.
The spellbook now looks like this. By the way, note that the building to the left of the spellbook window is the Observatory, which reveals part of the map. The treehouse is a thing of the past.
The Level Up screen. Now you are not immediately offered to choose new skills; instead, you are simply awarded points which you spend on learning them. It's up to you when to spend them.
Next...
Hiring a hero in the tavern. Nothing interesting. You can evaluate the hero portraits. As you can see, the tavern screen itself is in that same faceless window. News and rumors, which you could pay the innkeeper for in the fifth part, are gone. There is also no, not even basic, information about other players, which could usually be obtained in the tavern.
And lastly, a screenshot just to demonstrate the graphics at full camera zoom. IMHO - the graphics are far from the end of 2011 standard, unfortunately. Although it might not be so noticeable here, as the screenshot is small. Believe me, on a large screen you will immediately understand what I'm talking about.
codenameray
For my part, I will continue and finish my little review of the demo version and upload the remaining screenshots I took. I understand that most people have already downloaded the game and seen everything with their own eyes, but I think my material will be useful for those who haven't.
Here we go...
First, I want to show how the main menu has changed since last time.
Below you can see how the Orc castle on the adventure map changes its appearance as it is upgraded. To avoid taking up too much space with screenshots, I'll just post links to the screens.
Also note that Orcs have four creature recruitment buildings available at the first castle level, and two at the second. I don't know if this is an error or intentional. As far as I remember, Dreamwalkers are not considered "basic troops" but are "elite." Although that's not so important. All other factions have three types of "basic troops" on the first level and three types of "elite" on the second.
Below you see a building for recruiting creatures on the adventure map, in other words, a "Dwelling". In the sixth part, you won't actually be able to hire anyone from such buildings in the literal sense. When you capture such a dwelling, a small group of creatures available in that dwelling joins you, and then the building simply weekly increases the growth in your castle. There are three levels/types of dwellings – for "basic troops", for "elite", and for "champions".
In the next screenshot, you can see the open sub-tab Warcries of the main Might tab. The abilities I selected are "Passive Defense" (+1 to overall defense) and "Rush". "Rush" is a "Must Have!" class skill. That is, this skill is so necessary (in my opinion) that it should be a top priority. The skill itself allows a selected unit to significantly increase its movement range on the battlefield. Essentially, most units can cross the entire battlefield in one go and easily reach the shooters. I forgot to mention that the "Might" tab has 5 sub-tabs: Paragon, Realm, Tactics, Warcries, Warfare. Skills, many of which you know, are distributed among them more or less according to their names. I remind you that there are three levels of skills. Levels open at level 1, level 5, and level 15.
Below you can see an example of the "Rush" ability in action. Note that obstacles can now be destroyed. However, not all objects on the battlefield are active obstacles. Some serve a purely decorative role (e.g., a stump) and cannot be destroyed. Rocks, however, serve as cover. Units standing behind them will take less damage from ranged attacks.
Now before you is the "Magic" tab with the Light Magic sub-tab open. Notice that each race has tabs unavailable to them. For example, in this screenshot, "Heaven" lacks the Water and Dark magic schools. For Orcs, for instance, Light Magic is unavailable. Regarding magic in general, I can say that when choosing between a warrior-hero and a mage-hero, it is still preferable to take a warrior. No school of magic has impressed me so far, while the "Might" tab has very useful skills. Of course, nothing prevents you from taking them while playing a mage-hero, but you should remember that level 3 "Might" skills are unavailable to a mage-hero, just as level 3 spells are unavailable to a warrior-hero.
In the screenshot below, you can see that I actually found some boots. :)
And here is the hero's inventory. If you look closely, you can notice artifacts familiar to you from the fifth part. About 30% (or even more) of them have moved to the sixth part almost unchanged. While I remember, I'll say that the artifacts are generally well drawn, but their icons are very small and hard to see. It even upset me. Sometimes you can't even tell what epic thing you found.
Below is a screenshot of the artifact shop where you can purchase them.
Since I mentioned trading, here is the city market screen. It's quite confusing at first. As far as I understand, factions that have access to the Advanced Market can trade artifacts right in their city, without having to find a shop on the map.
And here is the reputation screen. As you can see, my hero is on the Tears path. The ability in the middle is the hero's basic ability. In this case, it's the already learned spell "Healing". Further on, depending on which path the hero takes, he will be able to unlock several more special abilities. It's unclear why, but I was never able to do this. If it means you need to fill the entire school, I can tell you that this is not the easiest task, because, as you can see, my hero is already almost level 16, and that, believe me, is a fairly high level.
Below - a fully built "Heaven" castle. Special, unique faction buildings are circled in red, two of which can be built in the castle. As you can see, upon construction, they are displayed on the adventure map. The Town Portal building will also appear at the spot marked with a white cross. It hasn't been built yet.
In the next screenshot, I captured the computer fighting Phoenixes. Since the Phoenix is a third-level creature, i.e., a "champion", the battle ended in a complete failure for the computer. The number of participants in the battle can be seen in the screenshot.
In the picture below, you can observe the computer assaulting a fort. In this case, the fort is of the "Necropolis" faction. Sieging a fort is no different from sieging a castle, except that there are no shooters on the two auxiliary towers. As we already know, you can and should now bring your own shooters into the main tower. By the way, the computer apparently called in rocket artillery support. :)
The same battle some time later. You can see that there is 1 enemy Fire Elemental in the tower. Notice how poorly designed the main tower of "Necropolis" is. It lacks any embrasures or windows. The unit is simply inside a hollow bone pillar and somehow shoots out of it. It reminded me of the riddle "a room without windows, without doors, filled with people." In our case, not people, but an elemental, and even then, only one is left. By the way, the correct answer is a cucumber.
Finally, a screenshot of what the aforementioned forts look like from the outside. This screenshot shows a fort of the "Heaven" faction. In the demo version, all forts are guarded by elementals. The screenshot also shows an artifact shop and a level 3 Orc dwelling.
IN CONCLUSION:
What do we have?
I understand that it's too early to make any judgments about the game itself based on the demo version, or, God forbid, to draw any conclusions in absentia, so remember that the discussion is specifically about the demo version, and the assessment is for it.
We have probably the most simplified part of the game in the entire history of the series. If I'm not mistaken, for the first time, the developers have gone not forward towards progress, but backward (to the roots?) towards something unclear. The word "casualness" comes to mind. And indeed, series fans will most likely be disappointed by the numerous conventions and simplifications. Instead of making the game deeper and diversifying the number of tactical and strategic options, the folks at Black Hole, without much thought, amputated a large part of what I consider very interesting ideas from the fifth part, and moreover, even touched upon the fundamentals that no one had dared to touch since the third, and perhaps even the second and first parts.
Specifically: The Ballista, First Aid Tent, and Ammo Cart are gone. Consequently, the skills for using them are also gone.
The developers decided not to develop the idea of the fifth part with alternate unit upgrades. The experiments with different development branches from the fourth part did not interest them either.
Three resources out of seven were abolished, resulting in the erasure of the individuality between races. Now everyone builds from the same construction materials.
The creature recruitment buildings were changed. You can no longer recruit creatures (and spend money on it) there. Now dwellings simply increase creature growth in castles. Accordingly, the caravan system was cut.
The racial skill system was, in my opinion, clearly reworked not for the better. I won't comment on this yet, as I haven't noticed any impact from these skills on the game so far.
The number of buildings in towns has been reduced, at least judging by the beta version. Four unique buildings cannot compensate for the rather meager set of buildings in castles.
The system of creature and spell gradation was abolished. Any level gradation, whether it be creature levels or castle building levels, now equals three. Three creature levels, three castle levels (on the fourth, the tear of Asha), three skill/magic levels, three types of dwellings accordingly.
The developers abandoned the random skill drops. In my opinion, it's a shame, as a bit of randomness added variety to the game, forcing you to adapt to the current situation and improvise. Now the choice of skills mainly follows the same, memorized pattern, since after 3-4 games you already know what to take and when, and the pattern naturally forms in your head.
The unique racial abilities from the fifth part were cut, such as "Machine Control", "Golem March", "Dead Man's Curse", "Silent Stalker", etc., etc. In general, the individuality of the races in this part has suffered quite a lot compared to the previous one.
The number of spells and skills seems to have been reduced.
It is also worth noting that the game has quite a lot of borrowings from previous parts. This applies to everything, from the music to the hero names. ______________________________________________
The saddest part is that the only things that might sweeten the pill are a few new ideas thought up by the developers, and even those, in my opinion, are questionable. It's unlikely that veterans will like the idea of converting captured castles, or that any fortification during a siege can be destroyed by any unit. Among the interesting ideas, perhaps only the Blood and Tears (and Sweat) reputation system is worth noting.
As for positives, I can so far highlight the quite high-quality and very interesting new unit designs, as well as the animation of most of them. And, of course, we should not forget about the new race, well-integrated into the world's history.
Unfortunately, at the moment, the game is not impressive, and in its current state, it does not justify five years of waiting. This is too obvious, even from the beta.
Added after 9 minutes Well, I'm done. Sorry for the length. I just wanted to give my comments on the screenshots and express my overall impression of the game at the same time. In the end, I combined everything into one post and got something like a review. I deleted the old posts with screenshots as they were no longer needed, to save space.
And when another player enters the arena, you watch their battles endlessly. Because of this, I had to start everything over.
And not just in the arena (or is it a bug?)! For some reason, in multiplayer, it shows battles of the computer. So, the thing is that he started over 3 times. How many RESUMEs can you do?:mad:
