Heroes of Might and Magic?

[KittenMagician]

I've been looking for somewhere to discuss HoMM but almost every forum I look at for it specifically has only sporadic or really old posts. Does any one here like this series and want to talk about it?

I'm mainly asking because I'm working on a passion project to make a similar style game that takes all the best aspects from the series and adds a few more thing and I want someone to bounce ideas off of.

Thanks for your time.

[veti]

Well, it's a pretty old franchise. It's not too surprising there's not much current discussion about it.

I liked HoMM 1-3, loved 4 (which most people didn't), then hated 5 so much that I abandoned the franchise and haven't really taken much notice since. I still dust off 3 or 4, very occasionally, for a few sessions, but I don't know if I could be of any help to you.

[factotum]

Pretty much agree with veti there--while HoMM4 is the one that seems to get a lot of hate, I liked that game a lot (apart from the occasional issues whereby an enemy stack with an instant kill chance attacked a hero who was vital to the current mission and thus resulting in an instant game over). HoMM5 just made the fact the AI was totally cheating so blatant (e.g. I have stacks guarding all the enemy's towns and somehow they still find troops from somewhere to attack my unguarded town) that I stopped playing it. Have no experience of the more recent games.

[zlefin]

I haven't played it in years; but it was great fun back in the day. Is there anything specific you'd like to ask about it? I've played 1-5; 2 and 3 were great, 4 and 5 were nice, each in their own way.

6 and on were ruined by the company iirc, so I didn't play them beyond checking a demo.

[Resileaf]

The first HoMM I played was 5 when I found out about it on Steam. Found it quite fun. Recently got into the mood to play the series after watching Spiffing Brit play them, and I played the first game. I found it to be incredibly charming, if a bit overwhelming in difficulty at times, and have since then played a little of 2 before the urge left. They're on my list to play through soon though.

[Iruka]

I've been looking for somewhere to discuss HoMM but almost every forum I look at for it specifically has only sporadic or really old posts. Does any one here like this series and want to talk about it?

I'm mainly asking because I'm working on a passion project to make a similar style game that takes all the best aspects from the series and adds a few more thing and I want someone to bounce ideas off of.

Thanks for your time.

I recently played through the HoMM 3 campaigns and enjoyed them a lot. Haven't tried the others from the series yet, except HoMM 1 I think, but I barely remember that.
Besides that I watch some competetiv games and puzzle maps for HoMM3 on Youtube.

If you haven't already done so, you might want to check out the HoMM3 modding community at http://heroes3wog.net/ and see what they changed and why. They have released several popular expansions so far.

[KittenMagician]

Honestly, I'm one of the people that found 4 to be really bad and am surprised that its the favorite of even a couple people.

For those that have played 1 or more of the games can you tell me what you liked about the ones you played, what you disliked, what made the one that is your favorite your favorite, and what you wish could have been added to the games to make them more fun/interesting?


A quick rundown of my project thus far, its primarily just in the idea stage:
-looking to do 10 factions for the base game, adding more for expansions
-have more layers to the map besides underground and above ground
-each creature from a faction town has 3 different upgrades with 2 of them being exclusive from each other
-7 levels of spells in 8 schools of magic with some spells being in more than 1 school
-2 different hero types per faction (like in 3)
-each hero type has its own mandatory skill (like in 5)
-subskills for skills (like in 5)

if you have questions about what I'm doing just let me know.

[factotum]

Hey, I never said HoMM4 was my *favourite*--3 takes that crown. It's just 4 was nowhere near as terrible as most fans of the series made it out to be, and I liked the way they were trying to fiddle with the formula after three very similar games (2 and 3 were really essentially the same gameplay as 1, but with improved graphics and some extra troops).

Regarding your description--TBH, it just sounds like the same as HoMM3 but with more of everything. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I can see it being an absolute pain to balance all those factions and creatures. Also, one of the issues that already existed in HoMM3 was that picking up troops from huts etc. on the map was often a royal pain because they'd be the non-upgraded version, whereas if you had the upgraded creatures in your army they wouldn't stack together--having 2 levels of upgrades for each critter just makes that problem worse, unless you have a potential solution for that which you haven't mentioned.

[Lord Torath]

I like the idea of multiple map levels. That could be pretty cool!

[KittenMagician]

Hey, I never said HoMM4 was my *favourite*--3 takes that crown.

I 100% agree. and sorry for making an assumption.

Also, one of the issues that already existed in HoMM3 was that picking up troops from huts etc. on the map was often a royal pain because they'd be the non-upgraded version, whereas if you had the upgraded creatures in your army they wouldn't stack together--having 2 levels of upgrades for each critter just makes that problem worse, unless you have a potential solution for that which you haven't mentioned.

HoMM5 added caravans that would transport troops from those dwellings on the map to your city and it allowed the creatures to build up in those dwellings and didn't reset each week. I intend to do this as well.

As for my upgrade system:
Building A can be upgraded to Building A2 or Building A3 (Hovels can be upgraded to either Guardhouse or Thieves' Den)
Creature A can be upgraded to creature A1 with either Building A2 or A3 (Peasants -->Citizens with both Guardhouse or Thieves' Den)
Creature A can be upgraded to creature A2 only with Building A2 (Peasants -->Guardsman only with Guardhouse)
Creature A can be upgraded to creature A3 only with Building A3 (Peasants -->Thug only with Thieves' Den)

each creature will have its own stats and abilities. I was also thinking that there would be skills/subskills or maybe an artifact that expands the number of creature slots available (7 base but expand up to maybe 10). this would allow for more diverse army builds and play styles.

also i want to avoid the major balance issues that HoMM3 and HoMM5 had (these are the ones I've played the most). HoMM3 had some major flaws with dead skills (eagle eye, scholar, etc) and broken as hell skills (diplomacy, necromancy, etc) while HoMM5 had issues more along the lines of subskills with some awful/bad subskills being forced on you (diplomacy being practically useless) and other skills/subskills being severely over powered (luck and soldiers luck)

[Winthur]

also i want to avoid the major balance issues that HoMM3 and HoMM5 had (these are the ones I've played the most). HoMM3 had some major flaws with dead skills (eagle eye, scholar, etc) and broken as hell skills (diplomacy, necromancy, etc)

Scholar, Scouting and a bunch of others are all solid skills specifically for secondary heroes to save time in the early game - sucks to retreat your main to the Mage Guild if you didn't build it Day 1, and it's nice to have a better view of your Day 1 surroundings to save some time. While they are rather dead in the final battle and not as overpoweringly useful as Necromancy or Logistics on the world map, only Learning and Eagle Eye were truly useless.

I like H2 and H3 the most I guess, but don't really dislike any game in the series.

[Sloanzilla]

My problem with 5 at the time was that there were only like 3 map options. So after you finished the campaign- which was OK- there wasn't a whole lot else to do. Maybe that has changed.

I loved the insane ability wheel thing for characters.

[KittenMagician]

My problem with 5 at the time was that there were only like 3 map options. So after you finished the campaign- which was OK- there wasn't a whole lot else to do. Maybe that has changed.

I loved the insane ability wheel thing for characters.

they added more with the expansions and the map generator wasn't too bad

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I liked HoMM 1-3, loved 4 (which most people didn't), then hated 5 so much that I abandoned the franchise and haven't really taken much notice since.

Mostly this; I was ambivalent about the gameplay in 4 but the vanilla campaigns had excellent stories. I think my favorite was 3, I never really got into 2 but the campaign letting you switch sides halfway through was cool and the music was excellent even if I still have a soft spot for the music in 1.

5 drove me away too; they dumped all the old lore, the system requirements were much higher than the previous games, monster design was terrible (for example, the dark elf units wore belts for armor and high heels into battle) and monster selection was repetitive (almost every town had a dragon as the top unit - where previous games got much more interesting things like Hydras, Behemoth, Phoenixes, Titans…). The AI was idiotic and cheated blatantly as factotum noted, and the main character for the vanilla campaign was an idiot. I also personally found the 3D interface of the towns in 5 to be a pain, but that might not have been so bad with a beefier computer.

[veti]

Ten factions sounds like a lot for the base game. I mean, good on you for generosity, but I wonder if coming up with all those critters and development trees is really the most cost effective use of your time.

More layers to the map is easy. Age of Wonders did it, with the Shadow Realm - and in principle I don't see why you shouldn't have as many different levels as you can come up with tilesets for. But I imagine too many would get very frustrating, quite fast.

What I liked about the series - good clean strategy game, gentler than most 4X games, but challenging. There are strengths and weaknesses, but it mostly avoids the overworn scissors-paper-rock type matching you so often find.

What made me like 4 best was the greater emphasis on the heroes, making it almost like a role-playing game at times. 5 was overly scripted - feels like one very long, and frankly very dull, railroad. And, as mentioned, it fails to disguise its cheating, which is fatal to any strategy game.

[Resileaf]

and the main character for the vanilla campaign was an idiot.

GRIFFIN ETERNAL! Casts random spell

[KittenMagician]

Mostly this; I was ambivalent about the gameplay in 4 but the vanilla campaigns had excellent stories. I think my favorite was 3, I never really got into 2 but the campaign letting you switch sides halfway through was cool and the music was excellent even if I still have a soft spot for the music in 1.

5 drove me away too; they dumped all the old lore, the system requirements were much higher than the previous games, monster design was terrible (for example, the dark elf units wore belts for armor and high heels into battle) and monster selection was repetitive (almost every town had a dragon as the top unit - where previous games got much more interesting things like Hydras, Behemoth, Phoenixes, Titans…). The AI was idiotic and cheated blatantly as factotum noted, and the main character for the vanilla campaign was an idiot. I also personally found the 3D interface of the towns in 5 to be a pain, but that might not have been so bad with a beefier computer.

i have decided that none of my factions will have a dragon at tier 7. there will be a dragon that is associated with each faction that will provide benefits that their respective faction might like/want/need but dragons will be powerful, expensive, and hard to get. I'm turning dragon utopias from just fight some dragons for wealth into fight some dragons for minor wealth and capturing the utopia which will be like a mini town that if you build the right buildings you can recruit different dragons from it.

Ten factions sounds like a lot for the base game. I mean, good on you for generosity, but I wonder if coming up with all those critters and development trees is really the most cost effective use of your time.

so far i have put 0 money into this project. i just work on it in my free time, at least until i find some more people who would be interested in collaborating. I already have strong ideas and themes for almost all the factions including expansion factions. for some of the factions i have their creature list fully flushed out already.

More layers to the map is easy. Age of Wonders did it, with the Shadow Realm - and in principle I don't see why you shouldn't have as many different levels as you can come up with tilesets for. But I imagine too many would get very frustrating, quite fast.

i was thinking 4 layers. above ground, underground, the deep (second layer of underground), and a sky layer (floating island/heaven-esque). was also thinking underwater zones that woulld be on hte same layers as underground and the deep.

What I liked about the series - good clean strategy game, gentler than most 4X games, but challenging. There are strengths and weaknesses, but it mostly avoids the overworn scissors-paper-rock type matching you so often find.

What made me like 4 best was the greater emphasis on the heroes, making it almost like a role-playing game at times. 5 was overly scripted - feels like one very long, and frankly very dull, railroad. And, as mentioned, it fails to disguise its cheating, which is fatal to any strategy game.

another guy i have been bouncing ideas off of also liked how heroes worked in HoMM4. There might be a way to implement some of it without it being dumb, ridiculous, or overpowered. i liked the prison you could build in your cities. im also a fan of how the heroes worked in HoMM5, where they got their own turn in initiative order and could attack or cast a spell but couldn't be attacked and didn't have health like a creature. maybe there is a happy medium between 4 and 5

[Kareeah_Indaga]

GRIFFIN ETERNAL! Casts random spell

Oh yes, I forgot about the immersion-shattering spellcasting animations interspersed throughout the dialog. Even if the plot had been good, that probably would have killed it.

[Sermil]

HoMM4 had serious problems with the AI, which was much less competent on the strategic map than HoMM3. The designers tried to work around that by turning it into a RPG-ish, but the mechanics didn't really support it.

HoMM4 also had the problem that Gus Smedstad, the lead designer/balancer, left right after the game was released, which meant there were no real balance patches.

HoMM4 tried some fresh new things, particularly heroes on the battlefield, which was great, but it needed more balance work, and maybe a second game to get all the kinks out. But the approach was abandoned when NWC shut down.

HoMM5 added caravans that would transport troops from those dwellings on the map to your city and it allowed the creatures to build up in those dwellings and didn't reset each week. I intend to do this as well.

HoMM4 had those as well. FYI

A quick rundown of my project thus far, its primarily just in the idea stage:
-looking to do 10 factions for the base game, adding more for expansions
-have more layers to the map besides underground and above ground
-each creature from a faction town has 3 different upgrades with 2 of them being exclusive from each other
-7 levels of spells in 8 schools of magic with some spells being in more than 1 school
-2 different hero types per faction (like in 3)
-each hero type has its own mandatory skill (like in 5)
-subskills for skills (like in 5)

if you have questions about what I'm doing just let me know.

As other people said, you may be biting off a lot more than you realize. Each new creature & each new skill needs its own battlefield AI, for example. Balance issues get worse the more creatures & skills you have -- each one is another chance to have an overpowered skill/creature/faction. You need artwork (portraits, animations, etc) and sounds for every creature as well. Everything needs to be tested.

I'm assuming you are mostly doing this yourself. That sounds like the size of game that a team of 20-40 people could do in 3 years of full-time work (maybe a bit less if they had an existing engine). HoMM4 had over 40 people working on it, most of them full-time since HoMM3 launched 3 years earlier. And, as many people have noted, it wasn't really in great shape at launch; the AI and balance were not up to snuff. Are you, personally, going to be able to make a game larger than those 40 people in any realistic time frame?

[veti]

Looking again at your plans, I'm wondering - have you played Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic? It's not the same, obviously, but there are a lot of common features.

It has three levels of map, up to 15 factions, and a bunch of domains, spells and hero types. I suggest you spend a few hours with it, see if it gives you more insight into how your ideas might play out in practice.

[zlefin]

Honestly, I'm one of the people that found 4 to be really bad and am surprised that its the favorite of even a couple people.

For those that have played 1 or more of the games can you tell me what you liked about the ones you played, what you disliked, what made the one that is your favorite your favorite, and what you wish could have been added to the games to make them more fun/interesting?


A quick rundown of my project thus far, its primarily just in the idea stage:
-looking to do 10 factions for the base game, adding more for expansions
-have more layers to the map besides underground and above ground
-each creature from a faction town has 3 different upgrades with 2 of them being exclusive from each other
-7 levels of spells in 8 schools of magic with some spells being in more than 1 school
-2 different hero types per faction (like in 3)
-each hero type has its own mandatory skill (like in 5)
-subskills for skills (like in 5)

if you have questions about what I'm doing just let me know.

I think 3 was my favorite; though 2 was quite nice as well, and 4/5 were solid.

The art was nice and interesting to look at. Solid music, and battle music, which I'm fond of listening too. Good strategy with lots of options. Trying to get into more useful specifics: I found 2's art style very charming, and its art is I think my favorite (been a long time since I played it, my tastes may've changed since my memories). 2 also had good music and was very strong on ambience. The effects/feel of the little popups when you visit a location, like the gazebos and such, just worked so well.

3 had great battle music; lots of good combat spells and buffs, as well as neat units to use. It had a lot of variety in playstyles, and quite a few maps which fit my tastes. It was also satisfyingly awesome to get a high level hero and just how crazy good your troops could get compared to neutrals. One of the balance flaws is that they underestimated just how powerful speed was; slow bruiser units were just too weak in play quite often.

4 had some great campaigns. Gauldoth half-dead is one of the best pragmatic villains I've seen.
It was nice to see castles that provided a good benefit for even late game armies, unlike some of the earlier games where castles might mean very little in the late game, depending on which army you were vs. It was also nice to see a solid variety of worthwhile builds that could each succeed in their own way; and that even the stealth hero option was reasonably viable. It did get a little silly when fighting a huge enemy neutral stack often came down to drinking 30 potions of immortality as my hero slowly whittles them down.

5 was nice, though I never played it near as extensively as the others. The hero skill choices at level up were nice, and well balanced, each with merits of its own. It did live up to its goal of being basically a homm3-like with better balance between the choices.


In general, one thing I sometimes wonder about is the effects of balance - while in multiplayer having good balance is important; in single player sometimes one feels better by finding the exploits/strategies to succeed and win more at high difficulties, even if they're not as balanced. Like in homm3 some heroes were much better than others due to having better specials, or better starting skills; like the ones that added a level-scaling bonus to useful skills.

[warty goblin]

I'd caution about too many map layers, as they can tend to make city management, and particularly army movement, kind of a pain in the butt. If you need to get an army stack from one layer to another, it can involve a lot of schlepping around the map between the access points, and every layer you add just magnifies the problem. This goes double for underground maps, since they tend to have very confined paths, so getting from A to B within a layer is slow. The original Age of Wonders remedied this a bit by giving some units the ability to dig new tunnels in dirt/soft rock, so you could in some cases build more efficient routes or bypass a chokepoint, but that too was slow.

In general, one thing I sometimes wonder about is the effects of balance - while in multiplayer having good balance is important; in single player sometimes one feels better by finding the exploits/strategies to succeed and win more at high difficulties, even if they're not as balanced. Like in homm3 some heroes were much better than others due to having better specials, or better starting skills; like the ones that added a level-scaling bonus to useful skills.

I think the orientation towards MP balance in general isn't great for singleplayer games. It just tends to remove the sorts of abilities that cam be used in weird or clever ways because it's impossible to balance. But the only balance a SP game really needs is that most non-insane troll logic strategies should be viable. Not necessarily equally viable, or viable in every scenario, but generally functional.

[Maryring]

I absolutely loved HoMM3. Even to this day I keep playing it from time to time. And like most people here, I hated 5. It had a few interesting ideas, but for me the killing blow was how incredibly slooooow it was.

In a game like HoMM3, you make a lot of actions in every particular combat. Attaching five seconds of animation to every action just makes the game feel cumbersome to play. (This, of course, coming in addition to the many other flaws in the game but I feel people have talked plenty about it already.)

That said. I did play 5, and from what I remember, the split unit trees did not work well. It didn't feel interesting, because very rarely was there a noticeable difference between them. And when there were, it was usually "this thing is better in 99% of use cases". It's your pet project of course, but personally I think your energy is better spent on better AI for fewer units.

Also, the game doesn't need to be perfectly balanced. I enjoy HoMM3 even though Necropolis stomps Inferno hard. Part of that is that if we need things to be perfectly balanced, we can always just play the same faction. And if things are modable, then balance mods show up all the time.

[Resileaf]

You know, I bet HoMM 5's story was the way it was because of Warcraft 3's success. There are clear parallels between both games that I feel HoMM 5 was, if not copying, then inspiring itself heavily on.

[Thomas Cardew]

You may also want to check out Hero's Hour as your competition / alternative take on a sucessor. It's very much inspired by HOMM3 with some big deviations biggest of which is the realtime combat. You can get a free demo at https://thingonitsown.itch.io/heros-hour or it just released on steam, https://store.steampowered.com/app/1656780/Heros_Hour/.

[veti]

I absolutely loved HoMM3. Even to this day I keep playing it from time to time. And like most people here, I hated 5. It had a few interesting ideas, but for me the killing blow was how incredibly slooooow it was.

Oh Urgash yes, I'd forgotten about the sheer tedious pace of 5.

With animations, less is more. I definitely want to see the pieces moving, both on the battlefield and the strategic map - it's the only way I have any idea what's going on - so a "no animation" option is not helpful. But if a single piece takes more than about a second to make its move - maybe up to 2s if it has to cross a very large area of map - I am going to get sooooo bored.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I absolutely loved HoMM3. Even to this day I keep playing it from time to time. And like most people here, I hated 5. It had a few interesting ideas, but for me the killing blow was how incredibly slooooow it was.

I think this (in addition to, as noted, having a lousy computer at the time) was a contributing factor to my ambivalence over the 3D town screens. With the 2D towns, it was click the building, click the number of units you wanted, click buy and you’re done. Everything fit into one screen, it was fast and efficient and you could get back to conquering the map in short order. In 5 you had to scroll around and rotate the city just to find the building you wanted. I don’t say it couldn’t be done well in 3D, but HoMM 5 did not do it well.

[factotum]

With the 2D towns, it was click the building, click the number of units you wanted, click buy and you’re done.

Certainly in HoMM3 (can't honestly remember if you could do this in 5 as well) you didn't need to click on the individual creature dwellings to recruit them, you could do it from the town hall/castle (I forget which one). So if you *could* do the same in 5 that would make the 3D town layout less of a problem.

[Grim Portent]

Certainly in HoMM3 (can't honestly remember if you could do this in 5 as well) you didn't need to click on the individual creature dwellings to recruit them, you could do it from the town hall/castle (I forget which one). So if you *could* do the same in 5 that would make the 3D town layout less of a problem.

In 5 there was a unit tab that showed, and let you purchase, every unit the city could produce, with a button to train everything available starting from most to least expensive.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

In 5 there was a unit tab that showed, and let you purchase, every unit the city could produce, with a button to train everything available starting from most to least expensive.

Must have forgotten that. I did not enjoy 5.