Are there any HoMMs worth playing past the third one?

[Haplo]

HOMM3 Reinstalled.

Reinstalled? Never UNINSTALLED!

Why not? I mean we've had HoM&M V which is the best HoM&M game IMHO.

 

[ArchAngel]

HOMM3 Reinstalled.

Reinstalled? Never UNINSTALLED!

Why not? I mean we've had HoM&M V which is the best HoM&M game IMHO.

Burn the Heretic!

 

[pomenitul]

In all seriousness, though, are any HoM&M's worth it past the third instalment?

 

[Hellion]

6 and 7 are decent-ish. Same gameplay as 3 essentially but in a completely different setting (since Ubisoft dropped the entire established M&M lore in favor of a completely new, banal and generic fantasy setting, because reasons). At least for 7 they brought out a DLC that takes place in the world of HoMM 4. But nothing can still surpass the greatness that is HoMM3.

 

[Lacrymas]

I like 4 (heretic!, burn the witch! etc.). I might like it because it was my first HoMM game, but ehh. The Half-Dead campaign is the best written in the entire series. Gameplay-wise it's different and if you expect 3 you are going to be disappointed. It's also not very balanced, with vampires and especially genies being grotesquely overpowered. It's obvious that corners have been cut, but it's not as an abomination as people paint it as. 5 is so-so, I hate the new art direction and prefer playing 3 and 4 above it. 6 and 7 are betrayals to existence.

 

[pomenitul]

Thanks!

 

[Haplo]

Yes, IMO Heroes V really is the best.

It offers far deeper faction specialization via faction unique talents and heroes of each faction having static attribute foci (for example Sylvan Ranger always focuses on Defence + Wisdom, Dungeon Warlock always Magic + Attack). Also faction specific Hero Abilities, including some really cheesy and-next-to-impossible-to-get Ultimate Abilities. Makes for far greater faction differentiation.

Plus I really love the Initiative based combat system. In V it doesn't only affect turn order, but how soon each unit can move again. And there are tons of ways to influence it. For me it makes a lot of sense that a fast Blood Fury will move 3 times in the same time it takes one slow, wooden Ancient Treant to move once (but on the other hand he can retaliate and unlimited amount of times, bind enemies in place with his roots when engaged and has enormous health and defense).


Edit: I agree that 4 was okay, not as bad as people make it. I liked the Heroes actively participating in battle.

 

[santino27]

I like 2 and 3 by far the best. While story has never been the reason people played, the campaign plots in the last couple games read like bad fan fiction written by someone who was drunk and for whom english was a second language.

 

[Parabalus]

In all seriousness, though, are any HoM&M's worth it past the third instalment?

If you haven't played HoMM3 with Horn of the Abyss you should give it a go, it's better than the games after.

 

[existential_vacuum]

HoMM offtopic incoming.

In all seriousness, though, are any HoM&M's worth it past the third instalment?

HoMMIV just to experience the story. Gameplay changes made it, in some cases, really easy as you go the same tactic and win everytime. It's not as bad as people tend to make it look like just as Lacrymas and Maxie mentioned earlier.
As for the next installments. HoMMV tried to repeat history again by doing nearly vanilla HoMMIII with 3D graphics and several gameplay addition to the already familiar formula. Personally, I found it boring and slow.
As for VI and VII - don't even try. VI is shit with its gameplay dumbing down and fuckin' Conflux (UPlay, if you will), which fucks up save files and does all kinds of shit. VII was undercooked at release and again tried to replicate HoMMIII in gameplay terms with new mechanics. So far, it failed.

Honestly, I'm sticking with HoMMII, vanilla HoMMIII and HoMMIII:Horn of Abyss. Don't need any more additions to the series.

 

[Haplo]

HoMM offtopic incoming.

As for the next installments. HoMMV tried to repeat history again by doing nearly vanilla HoMMIII with 3D graphics and several gameplay addition to the already familiar formula.

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?
Note these were very potent, often game-changing, such as Imbue Ballista/Triple Ballista with Rain of Arrows allowing to cast 4-6 Implosions/other spells per turn on a Ranger with Favoured Enemy?
Nature's Luck making ALL attacks lucky crits?
Abilities like gating or bloodrage literally MAKE Inferno or Orc factions, which would be pathetic without them, but are immensely strong with them.
Fortress with their unique Runic Magic self-buffs?

Were heroes in III's factions always tied to Might OR Magic - or rather a static, specific combination of primary/secondary attribute (as opposed to heroes available with one of each foci)?

HoMM V is a huge development of HoMM gameplay systems. To claim otherwise is fallacious. Too bad these designs have been mostly scrapped in the trash that followed.

 

[existential_vacuum]

>>HoMMV triggered post<<

Here's the deal, all of the mentioned things were not in HoMMIII, yeah, I agree. Did they add certain depth to the HoMMV gameplay? They did.
But again, all of it was done on top of the familiar formula and arguing against it is pointless.

I respect your inclination to defend the game you think is the best in the series. For me personally, HoMMV was a let down being slow, boring and ugly in various aspects.
To each their own, lad.

 

[octavius]

HoMM V is worth it for the more complex and fun characters system, as mentioned by Haplo, IMO.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?

Did it need these? No.

 

[Haplo]

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?

Did it need these? No.

Maybe it didn't NEED them.
But they make for a far deeper experience and a more interesting game out of V.

Did Baldur's Gate 2 NEED levels 11+?

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?

Did it need these? No.

Maybe it didn't NEED them.
But they make for a far deeper experience and a more interesting game out of V.

HoMM isn't meant to be a deep experience, however. You're asking for features that make HoMM not HoMM. Thus, they are unnecessary changes. People who only like HoMM5 generally aren't fans of HoMM and HoMM fans tend to not like HoMM5 since it's a much slower game.

Did Baldur's Gate 2 NEED levels 11+?

Yes. You couldn't have made the game without them.

 

[Haplo]

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?

Did it need these? No.

Maybe it didn't NEED them.
But they make for a far deeper experience and a more interesting game out of V.

HoMM isn't meant to be a deep experience, however. You're asking for features that make HoMM not HoMM. Thus, they are unnecessary changes. People who only like HoMM5 generally aren't fans of HoMM.

I do consider myself a bit of a HoMM fan. I've played all titles up to V, starting with HoMM 1. Liked them all. Liked the inventions each new title brought to the table. But never understood the fixation with holy No. III. Perhaps because I didn't play them much competitively and very little custom maps.

Anyway, adding complexity and faction differentiation are good things in my book, if they are done well. They are in V, IMO.
Well, except the random nature of choose 1 ability out of 2 random ones on level up no longer works that great with the large number and complex network of pre-requisites for the more unique/ultimate ones.

 

[Haplo]

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?

Did it need these? No.

Maybe it didn't NEED them.
But they make for a far deeper experience and a more interesting game out of V.

HoMM isn't meant to be a deep experience, however. You're asking for features that make HoMM not HoMM. Thus, they are unnecessary changes. People who only like HoMM5 generally aren't fans of HoMM.

I do consider myself a bit of a HoMM fan. I've played all titles up to V, starting with HoMM 1. Liked them all. Liked the inventions each new title brought to the table. But never understood the fixation with holy No. III. Perhaps because I didn't play them much competitively and very little custom maps.

Anyway, adding complexity and faction differentiation are good things in my book, if they are done well. They are in V, IMO.
Well, except the random nature of choose 1 ability out of 2 random ones on level up no longer works that great with the large size of the ability pool and complex network of pre-requisites for the more unique/ultimate ones.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've never understood that argument. It actually triggers me.

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?
Have unit stats balanced with this in mind?

Did HoMMIII have faction-unique hero abilities?

Did it need these? No.

Maybe it didn't NEED them.
But they make for a far deeper experience and a more interesting game out of V.

HoMM isn't meant to be a deep experience, however. You're asking for features that make HoMM not HoMM. Thus, they are unnecessary changes. People who only like HoMM5 generally aren't fans of HoMM.

I do consider myself a bit of a HoMM fan. I've played all titles up to V, starting with HoMM 1. Liked them all. Liked the inventions each new title brought to the table. But never understood the fixation with holy No. III. Perhaps because I didn't play them much competitively and very little custom maps.

Anyway, adding complexity and faction differentiation are good things in my book, if they are done well. They are in V, IMO.
Well, except the random nature of choose 1 ability out of 2 random ones on level up no longer works that great with the large number and complex network of pre-requisites for the more unique/ultimate ones.

HoMM3 is the only one of the classic games that isn't badly crippled by the AI. In HoMM2 the amount of cheating going on with the AI gets infuriatingly gross at some times, and in HoMM4 the AI is so impotent it's sad (playing on hardest difficulties makes the game easier because the AI keeps wasting turns and units by trying to zerg stacks of enemies and losing).
HoMM3 isn't perfect, it has its problems. Fire school is pretty lame and Inferno is a woefully bad faction. But overall it is the most quality HoMM game made.

 

[existential_vacuum]

But never understood the fixation with holy No. III. Perhaps because I didn't play them much competitively and very little custom maps.

Maybe therein lies a problem. The first bunch of custom maps that I can think of for HoMMIII:RoE are Pride: Titanic Pride, Angelic Pride, Devilish Pride. The use of engine limitations as a mean to make player's life hard and force to look for a solution (which ties into the narative of the map) is great.
In HoMMII there are Nosferatu, Last Hope and THUNK (I guess that's correct) and, if I'm not mistaken, both Last Hope and THUNK were adapted for HoMMIII:WoG.
If I find a CD filled with maps for II-IV burned back in god knows what year I might even give more examples.

As for competitive play, there is HoMMIII: Tournament Edition or something, which edits a lot of stuff out of the game, speeds up the animation even more and makes some balancing tweaks. I don't know what has to be left of HoMMV for competitive play to make it appealing (and less time consuming).

 

[HeatEXTEND]

In all seriousness, though, are any HoM&M's worth it past the third instalment?

Homm 3: WoG ? :]

 

[Malakal]

I really liked how your heroes developed in IV, some campaigns were also cool. The game just felt half finished though. Still, it was something new and I liked it.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Did HoMM III do away with traditional Turns and have Initiative dictate the action frequency + order?

Thankfully it didn't, I hated that about V, acting first is already very important in HoMM, it didn't need varied action frequency (and the huge complexity boost that comes with it) on top of that.

Abilities like gating or bloodrage literally MAKE Inferno or Orc factions, which would be pathetic without them, but are immensely strong with them.
Fortress with their unique Runic Magic self-buffs?

For me it means the design of these units can't stand on its own and they need an overarching "theme" that pigeonhole you into specific skills and more uniform army composition. Which is not necessarily bad but not a clear-cut improvement over simpler design either. In 3 I can mix and match different units from different towns based only on their stats and how well they work with each other and my hero, and I will only suffer a morale hit for it, if I add a behemoth to my dungeon army in 3 it will not be less effective because my hero doesn't (and can't) have level 3 strongholding, it might be less effective because I might not have as much attack as a stronghold hero but that's a completely different story.

Anyway, I think both 4 and 5 are worth at least checking out. I haven't played anything past vanilla 5, so even my opinion on 5 is just based on that.

4 tried (and mostly failed IMO) to change the formula a lot and is worth trying just for that but overall the game is really frustrating to play (heroes in combat, weird, hard-to-read battlefield with no hexes, clusterfuck sieges, no clear tiles on the worldmap, weird balance, some horribly ugly art). There are some notable improvements over 3: no more running around to outside creature dwellings or windmills every week, better spell balance (I think?), the hero class and skills system is also much better than in 3. Worth trying but there's a reason a lot HoMM fans hate it.

5 takes the basic formula from 3 and improves it somewhat (mostly with things that 4 had already done so I can't give it full credit for that) but doesn't offer the simplicity and game speed 3 does. On top of that the factions, graphics and all that stuff are pretty bland. Also squares instead of hexes for some reason. It's a good game, if you're into all the little systems it added (like town special skills) I won't blame you for preferring it over 3, but it's not for me.

 

[thesheeep]

I think HoMM VII is a mandatory play*.
It will make you appreciate 3 even more.


*Note how I did not say purchase.

 

[Malakal]

I think HoMM VII is a mandatory play*.
It will make you appreciate 3 even more.


*Note how I did not say purchase.

Honestly at a certain point all this III rehashing gets boring. The series could do with some fresh ideas.

V felt like a clone of III with som extra abilities stacked on top. Either remake it with modern graphics or do something ne, if I wanted to play III I would play III.