despite all the problems I do love wotn! anyone else agree?
 

it's still a great game really! so fun

Hands down best single player game ever despite my few gripes. Shame HoMM didn't work with these guys in making their game as good.

It is a great game, it is after all a King's Bounty game so it can't be unfun.

However compared to TL or AP, something is missing. It's as though they haven't put as much effort, thought and ingenuity in WoTN as they had in the previous installments. It feels a little bit cut-and-dried. It reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises - it's a new Batman movie, it's done by Chris Nolan and it's got all the features that made the previous installments legendary. I had a great fun watching it but it hadn't left me bewitched like The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger did. It was just another fun Hollywood blockbuster.

I've done maybe six playthroughs of AP. With WoTN I've done one so far, I'm gonna do another one, probably with Skald, and after that I suspect I'm never gonna come back.

To me I really hate the reverse progression. Game should get harder as it goes not the opposite.

I feel exactly the same. I finished CW and AP for more than 10 times each, but in Wotn something is missing. There are bugs which I guess will be ironed out in a few months, but I don't like that it gets too easy in the end (I can play without trying to get medals maybe it will be harder) and the fights are too repetitive. Too many undead and few mixed enemies. only 2 bosses (3 with the final fight)

I totally agree with the topic. I'm having tons of fun and right now despite some bugs and unfinished stuff, playing for many hours (much longer than in CW) and still didn't beat the game (impossible mode).

I guess all who disagree will just have to wait for some more patches, or even better, a CW-like improved version of WotN.

I would like a KB2, a true KB2. I hope it's in the works as we speak.

For me WOTN is better than AP/CW overall. I'd prefer TL story to any other KB game but the unit and class balance is much better in WOTN than the previous games (which is the most important thing to me).

There is some problem like the repetitive of the 1st 4 islands but it can easily be fixed with some mod, not huge game changing one.

Well, I forget the problem with the Valkyries, too. Because of the lack of slot some sets cant be complete or very hard to. I'd prefer armor bearer.

Maybe after the money cow is milked dry :)

My response to the topic is that I still enjoy WOTN but less then AP/CW because of some reasons. This are just my reasons.

- rage skills do not level up from the start and you don't even know the base XP of abilities in-game, or how much xp you do in battle with them unless you do the calculations.
- you get your wings WAY, just WAY too early in the game.
- AI is as poor as AP/CW and I expected some improvements after all this time.
- No harder difficulty despite me asking politely on KB's facebook to make a harder difficulty.
- The start of the game is a bit boring with all that walking around needlessly.
- The game score system is still based on TIME. I hate that. No game should force you to rush through the game, IMO.
- Overpowered things weren't fixed, in fact there are even more then before now.

This OMG This!!! Who the hell rushes through content, it baffles me how they can not see how stupid this is. They even put as a little disclaimer thing "if you have ideas how to make the system better visit forums."

Not much rages me but this does.

I disagree

AP was way more fun than this

I will finish the game for god's sake but it has so much les fun in it

WAY too much overpowered fights
and way too RNG luck based (for starters anyway)

the themes are away
the story line is really MEH?
after the spider boss everything get's way too easy
a shame only 3 bosses(AND AGAIN the spider already took him down in the previous installments, how many lives does that spider have)
some abilties are way overpowered (rune mage with unused might runes)
the big bounty of bugs
afaik no random heroes walking the land(like the previous installments, now only quest related)
being mostly stuck to crappy viking units in the beginning
valkyries(i prefer a companion for extra item slots)

what i did like

was the music
some old units getting new abilities
new rage abilities:D

I like the game a lot! You could look at this two ways, either you
a) impose harder challenge for yourself
b) have more flexibility to use armies that you normally wouldn't have used to win/play

Seems like a win win, no?

I'm a little sad you can't use demon, undead, or lizardmen armies though but ah well.

It could also use a bit more polish too as I think some units are broken, but again, you don't have to use them.

Map editor!

The story in AP is way more lame.
Bosses really dont matter.
I don't think map kiting is fun.
You still have a crap loads of human troop just like the previous game. They are still the best race in this game (not even counting Rune Mage).
Agree about the Valkyrie part.

It's awesome! I've had no problems so far. :)

Daniel.

I feel the same, I like AP way more then this game.BTW there are 4 bosses.Spider, Loki, Driller on Grotland ( depends on how you choose to solve a certain quest) and ofc lame Guilford in the end.

Yeah, I basically agree with the guys who have been on this forum since TL. WoTN is a fun game but it doesn't have the magic of the earlier games. I thought it'd be fun revisiting the areas from TL but in most cases it's just tedious. Not being able to go to Marshan Swamp makes me sad as well.

I have clocked 70 hours of this on Steam and I'm about 2/3 of the way through, so I'm getting a lot of play out of it, but it's too easy (Impossible Skald) except for a couple of boss fights (the one in Rezo's tower I had to do a few times to get it right).

I am going to have to disagree that wotn is the best in the series. I feel their copy pasting job with all the bugs and imbalance is making this series go downhill. If you tell them this is the best in the series the next game you get is going to have even more bugs and be more rushed then this was and this one was pretty bad. I still feel like The Legend was by far the best in the series and they need to go back and look at what they did before the game becomes too stale.

The Legend
-Games feels 100 percent complete
-Rage box I thought was the best pet idea(some may like the dragon better)
-Liked the idea of having wives
-Game length was very good for the money(very long game took me around 140 hours)
-Story was interesting all the way through(I actually read almost all dialogue in the first one, the rest I just skip through cause its boring and puts me to sleep)
-Game felt by far the most balanced(very important here the game had a nice smooth flow in difficulty and the units all felt balanced with each other)
-Lots of fun boss fights and a story that builds up to the boss fights

Armored Princess
-Game did feel 100 percent complete
-Dragon was a nice idea but felt the rage box was just a little better
-Companions replace wives which is fine basically the same thing
-Felt the story was kinda lackluster here started just skipping through it
-Game was only half as long cause it originally started as an expansion then they held it back and made a full game.
-Game still had good balance I thought
-Still good on the boss fights here too
-Overall did not regret buying this and had almost as much fun as The Legend

Crossworlds
-Game felt about 95 percent complete
-Game was extremely short with its 2 short campaigns and a little added feature to make you play Armored Princess all the way through again to get it see a tiny bit of content added.
-Felt the content was kinda a rip off for what they charged
-Felt like the orc add on should have been in the original Armored Princess and not made an entire game and charge us almost full price for it
-Kinda regretted buying this after I found out what it contained, kinda expected a full length campaign(but that is partially my fault for not doing a full check on it before buying)

Warriors of the North
-Game feels about 80 percent complete
-bugs,bugs and more bugs on this rushed and unfinished game
-Probably over 50 empty buildings that they did not finished and bother to put any npc in
-Entire maps not accessible cause of unfinished game
-Very bad balance on some of the new mobs causing basically huge exploits
-Story was crap and basically non existent, nor did any side quest have literally any story too it.
-Too very few boss fights and most boss fights crashed for most people randomly
-Mistypes, Spells that did not work right, things that were not explained properly, and just plain wrong item,spell or talent ability descriptions
-Valkyries were kinda lame imo and taking away the companion I thought was the wrong thing too do. Made a lot item sets not very accessible
-Kinda felt ripped off for anyone to charge money for the condition this game got released in
-Progression bugs for some making some people have to completely restart the game(this is very bad and makes a lot of people quit and never come back or buy another game in the future from this series)

I could go on and on about wotn but most people know and feel this was not the best in the series and a lot of hard core fans were very disappointed and I am sure this company alienated a lot of new customers. It really feels like the game needed another 6 months to get it ready and they choose to push it out 2 weeks before all the big name releases that come out in november. Everyone needs to stand together here and tell them this was a crap effort and they need to do better next time. Not tell them this was the best in the series after the condition they released the game in cause you just going to get another buggy crappy unfinished release again if you say this game was awesome.

I dislike many things in WotN.
- There is no real strategy early game, in spider boss my autocombat have better reasults then me
- You are forced to play with Viking units so long and then it switch just to human units...
- New units, spells, rage abilities are boring...
- Absolutly hate what they did to classes

What i would want to see
- end of infinite combos, why they are adding more and more of them?
- add units which i would like to play, Archangels
- better AI, seriusly is it so hard to do something more complex then random number generator?
- Most of talest to be off combat and not like now in combat...
- get back something like Rage Box from The Legend, you would kill some boss -> you get some cool rage ability from his spirit
- get back Navigation Maps from Armored Princess
- enemies like mages from Champion of the Arena

I agree with most of this and would like to add it too my opinion too.

Let me answer this one : because most people like them and it's all about money.
It's not hard but investing in AI lowers the total profit. Good AI require much money. And again, most people that buy the game find it hard on Normal difficulty. :D This is gold for the game companies, to have dumb customers.

I like the game. Already spent 150 hours in it. Some of the bugs do drive me crazy though!

I mostly agree with you, but I found AP to be better (subjectively) than KL. Beyond that, WotN definitely seems like a step in the wrong direction. In fact, it seems like it's an incomplete game. I'm not sure if they were under some pressure to release it early, didn't have the money to finish it, or what happened, but there are too many things that scream "unfinished". I'm sure eventually most of the bugs and bad text translations will be fixed, but there are so many instances of units and unit abilities that don't function the way they are described. So many bad balance issues. So many potential exploits to be taken advantage of. There are pacing issues, really poor map unlocking systems. Despite the fact that I enjoy the game, it a lot of ways it's a really poorly done game.

At the end of the day, I've got my money's worth out of playing it, but at the same time, it could have been a lot better than it's turned out to be.

Very good summation and I agree with 90% of what you said. Looking back now, I actually think Armored Princess is my favourite in the series (partly because the campaign was shorter). TL and WoTN are massive grindfests, but at least with TL it was new (I think I completed the game four times, which is a massive time sink of course). Don't get me wrong, I'm still playing WoTN pretty compulsively, and I certainly got my $27 value out of it already, but it's definitely a step back for the KB franchise. Unfortunately, this will be seen by most gamers as a 'B list' game where the potential is for so much more. Sad, but true. The best days of KB are in the past, it seems. Prove me wrong, Katauri. :cool:

Who said good AI cost much ? Look at HoMM3-babies mod for theLegend and you`ll see 1 man made great changes into how AI acts (it`s not perfect, but is MUCH better then what game devs implemented in original settings. All done by single person, without game studio, or professional programing skills.
And gold for gaming companies isnt having dumb customers, but to have lots of players. Just look at WoW(and similar games) success, millions of players for how many years already. Variety of choices (class, alliances, items, quests ...), functional game enviroment and just lots of things to do.
In KB series there is one way to go, and story is very linear and it`s cool. But at least in that placement let us have game that works what it`s supposed to do : no retaliation units except vs spider boss, bunch of broken quests/translations/ingame mechanics ... Not to list all of game problems (would take too much time), i love KB series so far but they made rushed release and there is just to much bugs/errors for this game to be called polished product ready for market.

I've put in about 70 hours now on the game. Some of that was working on mods and bug fixes. But not too much of it. I've been pretty exhaustive in working through every bit of the content, and I still haven't finished my first play through.

And... it feels like a grind. I don't FEEL like i've gotten very far, because I've only completely, thematically, 5 areas: One viking, one Human, One PIrate/Orc, One Elf, One Demon (And the Elf and Demon ones were very short compared to the others).

I've been trying to put my finger on the real core problem I've been having with the game compared to its predecessors. Yeah, it has bugs, but nothing game stopping for me. Sure the tooltips are off and the dialogue is weird... but that's just a mild aesthetic, and has been true in the past.

The issue? The real issue?

Pacing. 100 times this. You spend far too much of the game repeating roughly the same play pattern. The rewards are not paticularly well distributed over the play experience, and so some areas are a deluge of knew things, while others are completely monotonous and repetitive. At one point, I checked my awards, and I had 250 No loss fights, and 150 Undead armies slain. Considering 99% of my fights were no loss, this means about 40% of the game at that point had been versus Undead armies!

The difficulty range between Greenwort, merlessar, and the Isles of Freedom was very small, but the total experience gained takes you from like level 20ish to level 45! The only reason you do all that content is to be high enough level to do some of the huge Demon fights in Demonis/Hades. So you grind through a bunch of super easy fights, using them just to level up your medals/self/rage skills.

Further more, we've removed 2 entire races of units. Just to hit home the 'there is not enough unit selection woes', the lizardmen and undead are basically not playable. And wanderer scrolls are super rare.

The idea of making the Winged Horse appear early was terrible. I know this feels like "Give them their candy early", but in reality in trivializes so much of the layout of the levels. You have two pirate, three human, and one elf area to explore. If you are just scouring them for goodies, you could, if you wanted, spend HOURS doing nothing but picking up things via flight. Armored Princess introduced this only very late in the game, and after the point you could have investigated most islands. You should be using flight as a big bonus that lets you clean up the last few islands easier, not as a status quo that makes you wonder why they bothered making 'paths' for units.

Ugh. I'm not sure what happened, and I still wish 1C and Katauri the best... but something went really wrong with this game. It needs more Tender Love and Care before being truly palatable by the masses, and has all the earmarks of something rushed out the door before it is ready.

Release a game 3 months late, and it's late for 3 months.
Release a game 3 months early, and it's bad, forevermore.

I'm really enjoying WotN, but I think they should've kept the companions from AP/CW, they made building certain army compositions a lot more fun with the extra unique talents and item slots they provided. Also, it shipped with way too many bugs, which are luckily getting fixed.

Other than that, the game is more of the same from AP/CW, which is not a bad thing at all!

I agree with you here. The time I finished everthing in Darion, I saw the enemy in Isles of Freedom and Merlessar mostly weak, too much grind for little reward. But those stacks in Demonis are still deadly/Invincible by the time I finish them all. This can be fixed however.

I don't mind the lack of Lizardmen that much, never a fan of them. The lack of Undead I can understand but I still want to use some of them. In fact skeleton archer once save me in KB:TL when I fought Karador.

I think with luck people can get to the Temple of Love in AP even before starting a fight. The early flying horse is not really a big deal for me, at least.

This is why games sell like crap too. You think you going to make more and more profit with a crappy game or you going to make more with a game that gets improved every time. Not to reuse an example from another post but lets take for instance Skyrim. Skyrim is the fifth game in the series and they gave each game a new story and added new features as they went along and they they have one of the best selling single player games of all time. What if the game never added anything from Arena(the first Elder Scrolls game) which was pretty much crap. You think Skyrim would be selling 10 million copies with a copy paste of Arena? Of course not but as the game went on they made good improvements to it and improving AI was one of the big ones for the series. The AI they brag about in Elder Scrolls is called "radiant AI" but you do not have to put that much work into a game that is based on a hex grid.

You ever configured your characters tactics in DragonAge so they do what you want under certain conditions? It takes me a couple hours to fully configure every character in the game to do certain things when I want them too. That is how easy it is to program better AI for a game that is based on a hex grid system. This is not Skyrim that has infinite possibilities this is exactly what Ill say again "a hex grid game" extremely easy almost any one person could reprogram every units behavior in under a weeks time and have a way better AI.

I mean seriously when every unit blows their run right away as soon as you start combat how lazy is that? That too me is extremely lazy AI job and so basic a 5 year old could have coded that AI. At least change it so units do not use their run till they have an available target to attack. That right there is not rocket science and would be just a small improvement in the AI.

I could go on and give more examples but people know this is a copy paste job and a poor one at that. I doubt this game even sold 10000 copies on steam which is pretty poor sales imo(saw less than 1000 people playing on release day on steam usually players playing times 10 tends to get close to total units sold but is only apx) Look at the game FTL which came out about a month before it so simple 2d game that sold probably 100000 copies at least considering I saw over 20000 people playing it on release day.

Bottom line their copy paste job is not going to cut it in anymore and I hope the sales reflect that and they wake up and realize they have a pretty good game here and don't drive it into the ground.

Temple of Love, sure, but you also had to kill the high level Lizard army in the Dwarven Capital. That was a pretty sizeable thing to do. Also you had to kill the army on the bridge (though it is a pretty easy fight with good tactics).

My bad, I totally forgot those lizards

Of course, I've mentioned the run thing in another thread myself. Actually this is what makes possible to kills 7000 bears/orcs with 1 royal snake... the fact that AI is poor. If they kept the Run until they got close enough.. it would be impossible to abuse Bears like this.

There are many such improvements, that would quickly add-up, but as I said, there's just no incentive to do so as long as the target audience is a casual gamer whose submediocre mind would not ever wander about things like how is the Run ability wasted.

I was bashed by an old member/troll from this forum when I mentioned the Run. He said this basically: "of course it's a good idea to use their Run as soon as possible! Doesn't it make sense to try and get closer so that they can attack faster? " :mad:

Well, I for one did my part :lol:

That is not an AI, that is you giving the game instructions what to do in certain situations.
The computer controlled units in dragon age are not the slightest bit smarter than in KB.

I doubt that you have any programming experience, but if it is so easy to program an AI, you are welcome to try. If you succed i promise your job opportunities are endless ;)