A different perspective conerning the release

[Stratigamo]

Let me start off by saying that I am in no way advocating the early release of the game. No RMG or editor, and the off kilter AI all comprise the reasons why this game is in "beta". However I have a totally different view on how to handle this situation.

And before i continue i don't want to hear people telling me that people like me are the reason why publishers and devlopers are able to release early products.

Simply put would you rather wait 2-3 more months for a near complete game, or be playing the compaign and scenerios while the game is patched? What i mean is: what is the use of delaying the game a few months? during which time you can't play AT ALL? The game in its current state is very playable in campaign and scenerio modes as is. All of you complaining out there should thank your lucky stars that instead of watching your favorite star trek episode you can sit down and complete the 30 campaign maps that are well done IMO. All i hear from people here is I WANT I WANT I WANT. Perhaps instead of saying you want, you should be seeing what you have right in front of you: HOMM5.

So the game is not 100% complete. Yes we all know that. So what? Play the game through and as you do, guess what? These things called content patches will be released and when you run out of campaign/scenerio maps to play you can download the patch(es) and start something anew.

Why should have we waited 2+ months to play a game that already has 50 or more hours of gameplay in it? Its not like your not going to get your money's worth, Nivel has already stated they are going to add what all you are ranting about. So lets take a chill pill and get back to playing the game. For now i will look over the one thing i do believe should have never happened: the spelling and gramatical mistakes. But hey, i bet it will be ironed out too.

[Vision_ToL]

The first paragraph/line had me thinking this was another "Wheres the Editor/RMG/<insert other want here>? Why is <insert stupid thing being complained about here>?

But on reading it fully, I agree 100%. However, if it was released 3 months ago (like it was planned) you would not even be able to do these things. Trust me when I say that the current release, although in need of bug fixes (which a patch is sure to come in the next few days, a week tops), this game is certainly playable and enjoyable even now.

[Lumaan]

True theres alot of gamehours in HMM5, but when the AI is SOOOO powerfull "cheating" is not good... Cos I see many either use "trainer" or total drop the game cos its out too soon...

What fun is there when your getting your a** kicked 10 *or more* times cos you dont have the right compo of skill/ability and have to restart from lvl 1 just to *maybe* get the right skill/ability... So I'ed say this game is only 90% done, and yes I'ed be more then happy to have waited 2-3 months before it went gold...

[Stratigamo]

Umm im assuming your talking about the actual Multiplayer AI. There is no AI in the campaign mode really, its just a bunch of scripts firing off. However....i do admit that some of the maps are REALLY hard!! I think the programmers where drinking too much coffee while doing preliminary testing on the AI and what bonuses it should recieve. Perhaps because of the caffene a programmer pressed 0 to many times in a given field, heh i don't know.

[Lumaan]

yeah I mean campaign mode.. *I just like to play it to get a feeling about the game*

[Cironir]

Simply put would you rather wait 2-3 more months for a near complete game

Yes.

The early release wasn't beneficial for the franchise and the reputation of the HoMM series.

[Grypheonheart]

http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/agreepost.gif

the bad first impression will decrease the sale of the game, which will eventually damage the whole Might and Magic franchise.

simply put it: "if you can't wait an hour, you will lose a life"

[Stratigamo]

Originally posted by Cironir:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Simply put would you rather wait 2-3 more months for a near complete game

Yes.

The early release wasn't beneficial for the franchise and the reputation of the HoMM series. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that many would disagree with you on that point. Many of us have played HoMM since the 2nd, even first installment. We know the reputation of the Homm series, and we know what to expect in the future from the devs. If they add the RMG and editor, along with fixing minior bugs and correcting the typos, what would be wrong with the game?

As for a first time player. They probly don't even care about the untimely release of the said features. They don't know what to expect from HoMM V as much as they would from any other new game, unless they came into these formus and listened to all the whiners complain about tardy features.

You all want HoMM V to be an outstanding game. It won't. You want it to be perfect. It won't. It is a good game, perhaps even a great game. It will never live up to vetern's expectations, ever. Why was HoMM III and its younger kin so great? Because they where new and we didn't have any previous notions on how the game "should" work. So lets all try to set aside how we think the game should work, and open up our eyes to something new.

Why was HoMM 4 concitered a "failure"? Because the devs tried something new and the vets disliked everything about it. Just be happy this game is more like III and has just about everything great about that game. Once the rmg and editor get implemented, and the AI hopefully fixed what will you whine about then?

[Cironir]

I've played HoMM games since the first installment, and, perhaps surprisingly, I even liked HoMM4. I still would have preferred to wait 2-3 months for a more finished product, even though patience isn't necessarily one of my strongest traits (I get better with increasing age -- now being mid 30s, I can actually wait a few months for games! *g*).

I also disagree that HoMM5 couldn't have been an outstanding game. The graphics engine is superb, a lot of work went into the artwork, sound and musical score are great, the basic HoMM concept is there, tactical combat looks good. All that it misses is a working AI, additional maps, the map editor, stable MP support. With a few more months of work, these could have been "fixed", added or improved.

So, why is releasing the game early bad? Most games, with few exceptions, sell the majority of copies within the first 4-6 weeks after release. That's when there is marketing hype, when a game is being talked about, when ads plaster magazines and web sites. Also, and that is a "recent" trend (started six or eight years ago), shelf place for PC games has become very limited (thanks to console titles), so stores will place only new releases in the prominent spots, or put them on the shelves at all. Poor word of mouth does result in lower sales numbers, and lower sales numbers result in stores, especially chains, ordering fewer copies and more returned copies. Retail outlets only order relatively small quantities and when these sell well, they order more, usually more than initially. If a game sells slowly, stores won't order more copies at all and will not keep a game stocked, let alone "visible" on the shelves.

Then there are the reviews, both from gamers and professional testers alike. Tom Chick, one of the best known reviewers, gave HoMM5 only 70%. And why? Because the game is unfinished. There are other media that are less critical, but even GameSpot, a site prone to in my opinion inflated scores, only awarded 82%. These scores are rarely, almost never, "updated" when patches come out. They stay around for years, and people who are curious about the game in half a year will still see 70% when they look up the review, even if the game may be of a 85% quality then. That does cut into sales. If people now look at forums, not just this one, they will read about all of these issues that we touched, and many of them will not buy the game right away (see above why that is bad), and some of them will just skip it altogether.

The vets are not the problem. They will buy HoMM5 anyway, just because it's HoMM. Like me. I pre-ordered the game even before I played the demo, and no, I don't regret it. I have a large game collection, buy 2-5 games a month, and I can wait for the patches. And if things don't work out, well, c'est la vie, it wouldn't be the first game I bought that ended up collecting dust. Most hardcore HoMM fans will likewise hang in and hope for patches and the expansion. But I, or the hardcore fans, simply are not representative of the majority of potential buyers of HoMM5.

Lastly, my concerns are the more objective issues of the game. I realise that fans and vets can get really worked up over tiny little details, and I sometimes am guilty of that also, but the small amount of maps, no map editor at release, the really poor AI, these just aren't small things. If they had taken 2-3 more months to bring everything in shape, I think it would resulted in more sales, better reviews, better word of mouth, greater happiness, and an overall boost of the reputation of the HoMM franchise. I mean, most people already do believe that the quality of a game series decreases with every new installment, and HoMM5 seems to prove that right. What, after a release like this, is the chance of a HoMM6?

I also worry that a "botched" release may result in Ubi/Nival dropping the support for the game sooner than they might have if more copies had been sold. I don't know how well the launch went, but traditionally companies work harder, and assign larger budgets, to projects that promise to make them money. The more money is on the table, the higher the motivation. (And I don't know how I can motivate them, because they already have my money.)

[Stratigamo]

I understand your reasoning. And i agree with you on many of your points, simply because they are fact. Its quite discusting what the PC gaming indrustry has become within the last six or so years. I like how the developers blame the complexity of the code as to why there are so many bugs, or why there are missing features.

There is another way to look at this though. I mean there isn't much one can do at the moment to address any of these problems on a 1 to 1 basis. So the only thing a gamer like you and me can do is believe that all the features that where mentioned will be implemented in various patches. Who cares what the reviews say if you happy a month or two down the road. Sounds self-indulgent i know. As long as you are happy and there is a community of homm players that see this light, then all is well. I can tell you with almost 100% accuracy that this game will fall into the catagory as one of the best HOMM games in a few months, after things are ironed out. Once people really get into the map making and multiplayer process it will stir long last memories of H3 (it has started to happen for some of us already).

Your right nothing will take away that stupid yahoo games review of 7/10 by Chick, and he had the right to give the game this score AS IS. I bet if he re-reviewed this game at a later date it could be 8.5-9.0. I just don't see anything wrong with the game concerning actual gameplay.

Im in it for the long haul, and i hope many other are as well. Im glad i have the game now, i don't regret paying 50 bucks for it. I have faith in the devs: seldom do devs not deliver on a promises they state offically. For the record the RMG and editor where never offically announced for release.

[Jolly-Joker]

I consider The initial H3 and even the AB release as buggy and faulty and missing a lot of things. The map editor was acceptable only with the SoD version (at least for me), and selling SoD as a complete game was not entirely a try to milk more money out of the customer, but simply H 3 as it should have been in the first place.
That didn't show in the ratings, though.
There is another point. You cannot delay a game too long - ONCE THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE AN ESTIMATED RELEASE DATE - and we had that: I/06, meaning 03/31/06 at the latest. Naturally, with the release of the OPEN beta it ws at THAT point when the interest in the game peaked. What happens, when you delay the game too long after that? The public (and here the newbies are meant, NOT the vets) loses interest and turns to other - newer - highly awaited releases. Even worse: it may generate rumors, that the game turned out to be unplayable: with potentially devastating effect.
That means, once the wheels are turning you are bound to put it out. And there are more things to consider: Soccer WCs, long summer holidays, hot weather.
So I don't think waiting longer was an option.

[Cironir]

Well, it's hard to say which would have been more damaging in the long run, waiting or releasing early. Since there are no other TBS games scheduled for release this year (Warlords 5 and Disciples 3 won't come out before 2007, or even later), so waiting until after the WC this summer would have worked for me also. But I guess these hypotetical ponderings are a bit tedious now, because the game is out and we'll have to make the best of it, or hope for the best. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Khelavaster]

Originally posted by Jolly-Joker:
I consider The initial H3 and even the AB release as buggy and faulty and missing a lot of things.

Lol.
For the record, I would have waited 6 more months gladly if that had resulted in this game being anywhere near HOMM3's quality and content at launch.

Khel.

[nanogasm]

Originally posted by Cironir:
...So, why is releasing the game early bad? Most games, with few exceptions, sell the majority of copies within the first 4-6 weeks after release. That's when there is marketing hype, when a game is being talked about, when ads plaster magazines and web sites. Also, and that is a "recent" trend (started six or eight years ago), shelf place for PC games has become very limited (thanks to console titles), so stores will place only new releases in the prominent spots, or put them on the shelves at all. Poor word of mouth does result in lower sales numbers, and lower sales numbers result in stores, especially chains, ordering fewer copies and more returned copies. Retail outlets only order relatively small quantities and when these sell well, they order more, usually more than initially. If a game sells slowly, stores won't order more copies at all and will not keep a game stocked, let alone "visible" on the shelves.

Then there are the reviews, both from gamers and professional testers alike. Tom Chick, one of the best known reviewers, gave HoMM5 only 70%. And why? Because the game is unfinished. There are other media that are less critical, but even GameSpot, a site prone to in my opinion inflated scores, only awarded 82%. These scores are rarely, almost never, "updated" when patches come out. They stay around for years, and people who are curious about the game in half a year will still see 70% when they look up the review, even if the game may be of a 85% quality then. That does cut into sales. If people now look at forums, not just this one, they will read about all of these issues that we touched, and many of them will not buy the game right away (see above why that is bad), and some of them will just skip it altogether...

Well worded. Couldn't agree with you more.

I work as an executive in business, so I thought I'd chime in on how these things work at the boardroom table level. Everything you say is very true, but there is a catch 22 at play.

It would start like this...

Ubi Soft would court various developers who had successful experience in the type of software they were looking to market. Nival was just one of several met with. All these developers would determine if they wanted to bid on the project. If they were interested, they would draft up their own budget. These would consist of development costs like salaries, hardware and research, plus of course a little extra for the fat cats http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif. Within this budget, costs would be two-tiered into fixed and variable. Fixed costs are things like hardware. One time costs. Variable costs, like salaries, are mulitplied by time as they are dependent on it. So the developer also presents an end-date of completion to provide a committment for their total costs to develop.

So Nival (and all the other developers invited to bid) would present their total cost to Ubi. Ubi then sifts through these costs, factors in developer reputation and excellence and selects a winner. Enter Nival.

Ubi, as with all publishers, takes the reigns on the finances of the project. The next step is for them to budget their own costing; the publishing side like marketing, administration, packaging, distribution logistics, sales, etc...

When all is said and done, Ubi combines their costs with Nivals and creates a total expense budget. They then merge this with marketing analysis on projected sales and come up with a magic number that = expected profit.

So now, in theory, we have a project ready to go. They just need money to fuel the engine to make it happen. Where does the money come from? Investors: private groups and banks.

Why do companies use investors and not their own bank accounts? Companies don't hoarde millions of dollars in the bank to fund projects. Bank interest sucks compared to re-investing it elsewhere. So companies redirect an earmarked amount of their profits back into their own corporation, as well as other investments with higher yields.

The catch is, investments are not liquid; they cannot be converted quickly to cash in order to fund projects at a guaranteed time. Even investors themselves don't hoarde loads of cash for the same principles. No one individual has liquidated cash just floating around. They lock it away in earnst of getting a maximized return.

So companies round up many individual investors and get them to buy-in. Individually, they often don't contribute a significant %, but collectively they fund multi-million (billion) dollar projects.

These investors are the key to your business operation, both now and tomorrow. If you piss them off, you impact your profitability the next time you are looking for money to be funelled into your next project.

Ubi Soft promised to their investors that this project will yield them X% for every Y dollar they invest. Furthermore, it will be complete by Z date so they can expect their payout then.

This deal is not taken lightly in business. It is a code and a promise that will hinge on future business with one another.

Likewise, when Nival inks the deal and says they will be done on X date, they need to abide by it. If the game gets delayed, the costs increase higher than budgeted. Software engineers, coders, writers, etc.. will expect to be paid. Even a couple of months delay can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for things like this.

To compound the problem, the publishing side has X amount of resources available. These resources are used to physically create the CDs, package them, distribute them, coordinate sale's and marketing teams to promote and sell. These resources are efficiently scheduled to be active on the agreed upon date. By extending the deadline, it throws off the distribution planning; the machines could very well be booked by then, or people assigned elsewhere. It reduces efficiency and can often force requirements to obtain third party mechanisms to make it happen, which fuels costs even higher.

The higher the cost goes above budget, the smaller the anticipated dividend the investor gets. Furthermore, investors provide money up front to the company. They aren't getting anything from it until the date they were told. So, not only does a delay tick them off because they are now calculated to get less of a return due to increased costs, but they also do not get any money until a later date. Every day your money is not invested means less of a % of return. If they were paid ontime they could redirect it to another investment sooner and start yielding more money again faster. But now they have to wait, which means lost earning's opportunities.

But as you said, IF the game is released early, it can impact sales negatively. Waiting can yield higher sales. But what about the costs? The salaries that need to be paid. The loss of interest the investors aren't getting because there money is still tied up in a no-return situation. Thus convincing them of this is an extremely delicate game.

Believe me, Nival and Ubi went through significant hoops of fire to appease the investors for an agreed upon extension. That alone is reputable in my books. With this in mind, I myself will be buying this game this weekend. I trust Ubi and Nival enough to know they will continue to work on it. They have money budgeted for ongoing development, they just need to bring in some money now to appease the investors who are standing at their doorstep.

Besides, the game MORE than appears to be complete enough to warrant 50 bucks. To expect polish is nice, but once you understand how the inner workings of development and publishing work, hopefully you can appreciate that Ubi and Nival are working as hard as they can to deliver the best. The software industry is a tough animal, filled with unpredictable measures because coding is in itself, unpredictable.

I'm not directing this post to the person I quoted. I think he/she is supportive of purchasing it as well. I thought I'd just chime in to help explain some of the dynamics behind the scenes as to "why". Supporting companies that you trust with money early, even though the game requires ongoing patches, will support the ongoing development of truly incredible software. In a sense, we are all investors ourselves. The game of money drives it all.

[Grypheonheart]

Great post nanogasm! Now I understand the situation much more clearly and it does make lots of sense. The hope is they will release the first patch which is supposed to solve many bugs as soon as possible, before the remaining significant gamesites to publish their reviews.

[minmaestro]

by the way, it seems like we have to wait for the first expansion for the RMG as fabrice said that editor will be a patch but RMG will be from an add-on.

id rather wait for a complete game, with good documentation and good ingame help like tooltips. the game right now is still good, but is far from refined. i believe with subsequent expansions that bring RMG and stuff, it will get refined.

[Revnger]

I totally agree with the initial post.

This game has the POTENTIAL to be the best game in the series, the graphics, the animations, the "Ultimate Ability", however, right now it is a half baked, 3/4s working right bug filled game. IF they take the money we gave them and put it into patches to make this game right, then they have resurrected the HoMM series and in a HUGE way. This is the first time I saw my Emerald Dragon fighting a Black Dragon and it was like, WOW, damm, those are two serious looking mythalogical beasties going at it.
However, if they don't, if they leave us with this, then this is the last nail in the coffin that HoMM 4 started nailing shut.

[nevermindspy]

I couldn't agree more with this post ,however thats in assuming that's really what going to happend - that they will keep patching game on and on till it improved dramatically , but the problem is we don't know what their intentions are and if that will be the case eventually and that fact is whoever bought the game already paid the money..

[Stratigamo]

Its nice to see some other people looking at this situation in a thoughtful manner. Most people simply look at the end product and are met with less than satisfied emotions. I really found nanogasm's post insightful and informative.

I, myself am a general manager for a large, multi-store chain and I know compeletly what he is talking about. Although im obviously still not quite on the highest level of the company i still understand why its SO important to deliver a product to customers ontime: its not just the customers we're trying to please.

With all this said and done however, I do believe that the entire stragety behind the development of games need to be changed, or atleast rectified in some manner. Instead of accepting a 1-2 year dev time perhaps extend it by just 3-6 months past what the dev thinks they will need. This way you can goto the investors and say you will get X amount of money on Y date, or even before (if the game is ready).
There is probly more marketing mumbo-jumbo that counter acts this proposal, but its a thought.

Like i said before i believe this game will be the best heroes, bar none. I don't think that ANY respectable company would go out and post OFFICAL info about the coming features/bug fixes and simply not deliver. Their rep would go down into the trash and no publisher would ever think about dealing with them again.

[p4eev]

well, there is one point missing.
HoMM were never bestsellers. like many RPG's (even such Great like Baldurs, Planescape etc.) were also not bestsellers (afaik). so this game, homm5, can not be sold in such ammounts like, example, GTA, by defenition. Relative low scores at review sites won't affect sales so much. Because people who like homm serie or this kind of games will buy it anyway, because homm5 shows good potential. people who dont play such kind of games - won't buy it, even if it was perfect.
and therefore Ubi can release in some ways unfinished game, can release game with _major_ bugs in multiplayer (beta-testers played only SP? or ...), can delay patch for several days and it won't affect sales too much. IMHO.

Jolly
if homm3 had problems at begin (it had not and all was ok with map editor) that means that homm5 should have them by defenition? if not, than there is no need to talk about homm3 in this thread.

[Jolly-Joker]

A lot of things were missing; rmg only came with SoD; difficulty settings for dampaigns anyone? The initial map editor was crappy and only the SoD editor was a (very) good one. Bugs like helll in the initial RoE release. AI was lame, camapigns were boring with a few exceptions.
The bottom line is that things were not so much different than they are now. The game is still under development (as it was with H 3 and with H 4 as well). It's still incomplete as long as a map editor is missing.
GalCiv2 is under development as well.
So most pc games are released in a well-playable-but-not-finished state - which is one reason because console games are sosuccessful.
It HAS something to do with the OS and the gazillion of possible configurations the games must run with.

[Khelavaster]

Originally posted by Jolly-Joker:
Bugs like helll in the initial RoE release. AI was lame, camapigns were boring with a few exceptions.The bottom line is that things were not so much different than they are now.

That would mean that HOMM3 must have shipped with the equivalent to artifacts with no descriptions; lousy optimization even in super-duper systems; strictly sequential, bug-ridden (including skipping maps), puzzle-based campaigns; cheating, boosted, braindead AI in MP custom maps and totally scripted in others, TYPOS EVERYWHERE, deplorable manual and in-game feedback, incomplete and cryptic (no eyecandies?) settings page, only a handful of maps with no allied setting, meaning coop hotseat must be implemented through a hack or goodwill; no score list or hall of fame, and a long etcetera; I'm not mentioning multiplayer connection issues (because I don't play MP) and let's stop here just before entering combat and its quirks (my favorite is the suicidal archdevils and the turn bar problems).

So no, I don't think it's anywhere near HOMM3. But you know this already.


The game is still under development (as it was with H 3 and with H 4 as well). It's still incomplete as long as a map editor is missing.

Only because of that? Actually given the state of the game the map editor should be low in the list of their worries (of course the few maps included don't help).


GalCiv2 is under development as well.

Yet it was a very polished product on launch. I think you're way off even trying to compare both games.


So most pc games are released in a well-playable-but-not-finished state - which is one reason because console games are sosuccessful.
It HAS something to do with the OS and the gazillion of possible configurations the games must run with.

Yet HOMMV has managed to underperform even in this context. In the strategy genre, it's probably the buggiest and clunkiest entry I recall in recent times - obviously after HOMM IV & Dungeon Lords (wait, that was an RPG).

That's because this is an Alpha. And they've been selling an Alpha version at $50 a pop.

The visuals and the music are nice though.

Khel.

[Stratigamo]

Khel, seems like you have a personal grudge agianst joker here http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/35.gif everytime he posts something you gotta come long and counter it. Did he steal your girl friend? http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

IMO everything joker just said was spot on. There was problems with H3 release.

Now galciv II is a great game, i must agree. Not only was the game pretty much good to go right outta the box(except for an over heating problem on some vid cards) it had some awsome features and great AI! However, there where still plently of bugs...go read the patch logs for the amount of bugs they had to fix.

Another thing about Galciv is its fanbase, ever read its offical dev forum? Its full of mature, even headed guys that know the dev well. The GCII fanbase and devoplers are really close, which is awsome. The fans request something in masses and what this? In a patch a month later that feature shows up?!

Nivel has yet to prove itself like this, and I don't think it ever will compare to the level of stardock. That being said, even if Nivel does repair 75-90% of the bugs that show themselves 10-20% of the time, we will be all good. And of course the map editor and RMG have already been promised....im not worried.

[Khelavaster]

Nice to meet you Stratigamo http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif

Well nothing against Joker in particular since I don't know him. If he seems to be the target is because he doesn't sound like a moron, yet his arguments are out there most of the time.

This may be due to the fact that he is or was getting paid, though I don't know if from Nival or Ubi.

I remember seeing him in the old 3DO boards defending the HOMM IV AI, however, so he might just be a VERY dedicated heroes fan - and thus oblivious to the games' flaws. That, however, doesn't mean they're not there.

Khel.

PS: On topic - I don't think HOMM3 was free of bugs. I can only say that I approach every game with the same mindframe, and HOMMV's bugs and problems stand out and hit me in the face, while HOMM3's didn't. From performance, going through AI to content included. Simple as that.

[Stratigamo]

Hes just jolly. Nothing wrong with that http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/53.gif

[Jolly-Joker]

Well, I DID defend the AI in H 4. It wasn't the fault of the AI that normal game sucked, it was the difficulty system with skyrocketing creature numbers FOR THE AI, too, that made the AI so bad in the first place. The silly thing was, the thought, let's make things more difficult for players by making harder stacks with each diff level - and then hand the AI that same difficulty which means, yes: let's make things more difficult for the AI as well. So for H 4, when humans play on impossible and get creature and experience numbers with the impossible numbers, the AI would have had the same stacks presented in easy numbers - THEN the AI would have been a LOT better without ever having to change anything.
But that's H 4.
As I've said, H 3 AI sucks, plain and simple. On the surface it looks ok, but under the hood it produces crappa heroes with crappy skills which is inexcusable with that simple skill system. If the AI in H 5 CAN produce decent heroes it will be ultimately more interesting because the AI in H 5 already produces competetive armies and towns - it gets more money, but who cares? As I said often enough now, the best cheat is not available for the AI: reloading. That means in my book, you can cry for a "pure" AI when you combine that with a no-reloads mode, but otherwise the pure AI has to put up with a cheating human opponent.
Every other thing is pretty simple: you don't HAVE to buy the game when it hits the shelf; you can obviously wait until the umptieth patch until you buy it.

[Khelavaster]

(I don't know if you remember Gus Smedstad, but he did admit in the end that AI in HOMMIV simply didn't know how to play. It was still playing HOMM3. Now if you want to argue that this is not the AI's fault but the new system's, well that's semantics to me. Whatever the case, the single-player game was broken and all the bad rap it got was justified.)

"Reloading" is not a cheat, Jolly. It's out of the equation, it doesn't happen in the field. When you're forced to reload, it can be viewed as a victory on the part of the AI. That is, unless you're forced to reload endlessly because you can't find the "trick" that will solve a scenario - like in HOMMV's lamely scripted campaigns. In fact, I can see the need for a lot more reloading in HOMMV than in HOMM3.

And as for getting your creatures & resources by artificial weekly boosting instead of playing by the rules, it does make a difference in that it also breaks the game. Hence the untouched mines, hence the pointlessness of taking mines out of the enemy.

Again you can say hey, it's good enough -which basically is your point. I'm saying not at all, and if this is the trend and a sign of things to come, it may be high time for me to migrate to another series and leave EtherHeroes to the new breed of fans.

I really, really hope it won't be the case, but so far the future doesn't look that good.

Khel.

[red_12345]

Sorry guys but this will be kinda off topic. I really do not know whether or not the game was released too fast, as the whole game is rather complete. I know that the AI lacks some aggressiveness (omg, what a word http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif), a few artifacts need descriptions and the game requires some serious skills/creatures/abilities revamp, as imho particular heroes/skills are plain overpowered compared to others.

Having said that, I only wish 3 things to happen.

The first one, and I think the most important, is that Nival should care to be present on this forum, as this is an official forum of HoMM5. Obviously I do not require them to be as good as guys from Bioware (NWN forums) or GalCiv 2, but at least they could mark they presence and write a few post concerning a patch, some anserws, etc.

Secondly, a fully-fledgeg CAMPAIGN editor should be released to allow map makers to create some great campaigns/maps which would keep the game alive.

Last but not the least, developers will have to give some 'insight' into game's code and how to mod things, as this is the other way to keep the game alive. Sometimes mere maps can't provide us with everything what we want.

As for a bottom line I will say one thing - this game has a potential, and a real HoMM feel, thus with good moddability / map creator, I am sure that the game might become one of the best of series.

[Jolly-Joker]

Originally posted by Khelavaster:


"Reloading" is not a cheat, Jolly. It's out of the equation, it doesn't happen in the field. When you're forced to reload, it can be viewed as a victory on the part of the AI. That is, unless you're forced to reload endlessly because you can't find the "trick" that will solve a scenario - like in HOMMV's lamely scripted campaigns. In fact, I can see the need for a lot more reloading in HOMMV than in HOMM3.

And as for getting your creatures & resources by artificial weekly boosting instead of playing by the rules, it does make a difference in that it also breaks the game. Hence the untouched mines, hence the pointlessness of taking mines out of the enemy.
Khel.
You are never "forced" to reload. You can play on and lose or start anew.
Playing by the rules for the AI is something that won't produce a challenging AI with a game like Heroes V. One simple reason (among a plethora of others) is that you cannot write "by-the-rule" combat routines for killing neutral stacks for the AI that can compare with the way a human is able to handle it. It's just not possible to do a AI that is able to react on each and every specific situation with the efficiency a human does it. Bottom line is, a "pure" AI will suck badly. It may play as good as a cpomplete newbie, but that's not enough to be a challenge.
To be a challenge, an AI player must have at any point of the game a hero that can be compared with the human hero in effeciency and a BETTER army, because it is not possible to make the AI as effective on the battlefield than a human player is. So to be a challenge the AI MUST cheat in Heroes. Why should "normal" difficulty means you get the same amounts of money and res than a computer player? It could mean, the AI starts with double the start amount and gets triple the income.
On another note, in a game like GalCiv with a completely fixed tech tree you can write a much better AI because you know what is there all the time. You can build a personality. You can set a fixed amount of tech spending, combine it with an optimized colonization strategy. You can develop "behavior", because the game basics and the situations are always the same.
That's not possible in Heroes, so it's a lot more difficult.
Which doesn't mean the AI couldn't be better. It just means, there is no way to produce an éffective AI without a certain amount of cheating.

[Khelavaster]

Ok, here's an extract from another thread in this forum:

St_Ghost:

"There was a post back a while ago that said how the AI would repeatedly use the water whirlpools to travel and thus sacrifice a lot of troops.

I made a scouting hero to watch that and what do I see? He takes the whirlpool up to 3 times in a row and loses NOT A SINGLE TROOP. Now thats called cheating.

Also in other posts I mentioned that the AI:
does not require resources to build
does not require resources to hire troops
sees the entire map and all your town stats as if it owned it
has some power form of diplomacy that can make it chose whether a troop joins or just flees even when their army is much smaller"

I'd say this is way beyond what would be "acceptable" cheating.

BTW. In the same interview Smedstad admitted to only one way the AI cheated in HOMM3 (besides the upfront bonuses in tough difficulties). It was that it knew where your heroes were at all times. That's it.

It's been done before.

The reason why HOMMV's AI isn't strong enough is not difficulty: more likely it has to do with less budget assigned to it or AI development taking place late in the project, hence its weakness and the need to protect it at all costs by messing with the game's rules.

Khel.

[p4eev]

Jolly-Joker
well, i have homm3, i played it without any patches, and it was stable. map editor was ok. i dunno map editor in SoD so i won't comment on this. u dont like homm3, that's ok, u think that homm5 is the best, ok. people can have different opinions. i agree that campaigns were lame. well, actually, good campaigns were only in AB (imho).

i agree that now most of released games need many patches etc. however, sadly, MP in homm5 is _very_ bugged, ubi server is sometimes very laggy and has some issues with connections. that's a shame and not normal. and they should be trying to fix these issues asap, but it seems they have different opinion.

i am not going to say "homm5 sucks". because i like homm5. but i dunno why the hell i can not write on official forums about issues this game has.

[Jolly-Joker]

But the AI in H 3 is not competetive. It's no challenge, or let me say that it's a challenge only on small maps with EARLY contact where that resource advantage will count. On larger maps the AI simply is no opponent. You cannot play a larger or even x-large mp-map in heroes 3 on even impossible difficulty and expect a challenge. You just won't get one. And even the so-called "advantage" of the ai being able to see all your heroes is explotable.
So, no, it hasn't been done before.
I don't want a non-cheating, crappy AI and I don't want cheating crappy AI. I want a cheating and challenging AI because I know I can get a non-cheating, challenging AI.

[Jolly-Joker]

p4eev, that's not the point of this thread here. This thread has been started by someone who says that there is nothing wrong with publishing a game that has some issues IF they are patched, instead of waiting the 4 months UNTIL they are patched (and having to do a patch nevertheless because you cannot get a game bug-free).
There are enough threads that cater for the bugs and stuff. So you can state the facts as much as you like, but that's not the point of this thread.

[p4eev]

Jolly-Joker
lol. ok, as u command. btw, comments about how buggy and lame homm3 was - is also offtop. ;D

[Jolly-Joker]

Originally posted by p4eev:
Jolly-Joker
lol. ok, as u command. btw, comments about how buggy and lame homm3 was - is also offtop. ;D
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif agreed.

[Stratigamo]

So people want a non cheating AI that on a "tough" setting is "tough"?! http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/88.gif

This isn't possible unless you take a great HOMM V player, transfer the data in his brain to a computer. Computers can't think like that. Even if nivel spent 2 years only developing an AI(and only an AI) this AI would STILL have to cheat to beat a good vet player. The computer runs on commands, and by default you can't command a computer to think like a human in all instances(unless you are the t-100 and have a special reasoning computer chip)

Setting this aside, the AI in homm5 on normal is pretty bad, not bad in a way that it can't beat you, but just the way its coded. There are improvements to be made yet. I think the devs are gonna take a serious look at the AI and make some tweeks.

The AI is a bastard, and wants to win, and obviously it will cheat to beat you.

With the reloading thing: I don't think a player should ever have to reload if he doesn't want to. In the early games, the save feature was implemented simply so you could come back at a later time to pick up your game. If the game had proper difficulty levels no one would have to reload ever(unless they get over their head and they like it). Some discrepencies exist like if your a new player and you just got smashed because you don't know how to play the game.