What happened to this game? Worse than AP/CW in every aspect.
 

What happened on the development of this game?

I was expecting an epic game just like its ancestors, but I get more and more disappointed as I play.

I haven't finished the game yet (currently at level 52), but I can list MANY things that should have improved or at least kept the same way.

Minor spoilers below:

1- Crashes: As I do with most games, I waited a few months after the release, so the patches would correct almost every bug. I was mistaken, this game crashes A LOT, specially on big battles. Quite annoying having to start a massive/boss battle over and hope for the game not to crash again.

2- Difficulty: As with the other games from the series, I played on impossible. The challenge is fine until the big spider. After that, I get so much land to explore and collect leadership and money that everything gets easy. I remember that in AP I had a very hard time choosing which battle I should fight first, they were all classified as "deadly" or "invincible. In WotN I arrive at a new area and I get surprisingly easy battles almost every time. I also get to fly too early in the game, making it even easier to kite enemies and collect treasures behind them.

3- Money: too easy to get and too useless as well. I got over 6 million and nothing to buy. The things I do want can't be found anywhere in the game so far, such as some scrolls or set items.

4- Quests: mosts quests in this game are boring and pointless. Tons of uninteresting text that in 95% of the cases are absolutely useless. Quests rewarding ridiculously low. Getting 3000 gold as a reward for a quest that you complete at level 40+ is completely nonsense.

5- Quest items: I remember that in CW many of the quest items had a use apart from the quest itself, like trying myself some potion that is to be delivered and getting some bonuses for it. Now I don't even bother what they are, and consider all as a package that has to be delivered.

6- Balance: As soon as I got past the big spiders, I got myself an army of knights, paladins, archmages, rune mages and inquisitors. Never had to change my army. Right before the castle in greenworth became unavailable I also purchased every unit to keep these stacks in reserve (after all gold is so abundant that it wasn't even 20% of what I had). The enemy armies are also too weak at certain areas that just opened.

7- Bosses: The big spider AGAIN? Come on 1C, you should be good at creating boss battles. I saw 3 bosses so far (ONLY 3!! And I'm at level 52!) and 2 of them are from other games.

8- Enemy rating: anything rated strong/very strong/deadly/invincible should actually be challenging. My army can often manage deadly/invincible fights (even with an enemy hero) without losses on the first try. It doesn't seem right. Don't use the words "impossible" and "invincible" if the game doesn't even come close to that.

9- Achievements and titles: achievements should be given upon challenges that are an addition to the game, such as winning 100 consecutive battles without losses or getting all medals to level 3. Killing a demon that is mandatory (and not challenging at all) for the story and being awarded a title (for what?) and an achievement for that seems a little too much.

10- Power ups: not only the enemies are too easy, there are countless power ups to improve your army even more: talents, songs, valkyrie passives, valkyrie pre-combat abilities, pre-combat scrolls, criticals, medal bonuses. The impossible difficulty setting should have an impact on those.

11- Graphics: As far as I noticed, the graphics are exactly the same since the Legend. Not that I really care for that, it's the least significant of all issues from this game, but it would be nice to play something that doesn't look like just an add-on to a previous game.

That's probably enough for now. I hope that 1C takes these critics as a positive thing and use it on the next king's bounty. I got disappointed with this one but I think that 1C can and will make a better job in the future.

And don't forget the patches for WotN, there are still plenty issues to be fixed.

Amen.

Since I've been holding out for a physical release, it sounds as if I'm missing out on a lot of frustration.

Well said. Btw, the developers are on this board. I'm waiting for them to finally come out and tell us A: why this game is such a mess when it is built on an existing code, IE not much had to be changed, and B: when can we expect all bugs to be finally resolved? I honestly stopped playing after the 10th time the game crashed when I wanted to cast "Justice", and went back to play Crossworlds.

This is bad news - KB had bugs, sure, but never on this level, and they were all fixed eventually. KB was never like other TBS games that failed horribly of late -I'm thinking Elemental: War of Magic (or should I say Tragic?) that had a 500 MB patch released the DAY the game was released, and which had a terrible linear campaign you could finish in 8 hours, or Warlock: Master of the Arcane which was released as basically a sandbox, and a bad one at that - yes, I'm not kidding, for 25$ you got a (bad) random map generator game with no multiplayer or even a campaign. KB really, really shouldn't sink to this level. Especially now that Age of Wonders 3 is coming. While a different breed of TBS, it will certainly be a rival to not just Ubisoft's Heroes franchise, but KB too. 1C should really start taking itself seriously and not release something that is barely alpha-tested as a final game.

I mean, heck we have been basically alpha/beta-testing this game since 2012 Nov. Look at the bug thread - more then 110 pages. And look at the bugfixes thread. If anything, the names of those people who provided bugfixes should be in the next patch's credits.

Its not quite that bad; I think what happened is they made it very large - I think it is nearly twice as long as the first game; and this magnified the issues seen in the previous games and efforts it take to fix. Both previous games (legend and crossroad) had serious balance issues between start and end and minor gltiches that were mostly resolved.

With this game there is still at least one serious quest bug; and the balance is quite bad (similar to other games but magnified by additional length). There is also (and this is a personal opinion) the new mechanics are less interesting than the old ones (esp the lost in number of items you can use at one time).
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To be honest I like the first game from a story perspective best (most people seem to prefer the second). I do keep hoping they will fix the quest bugs and some of the balance issues though I have my doubts this will happen. I have no clue if this game sold well but I also suspect this one will kill the series :(


[Technically there were three gmes but I mostly consider AP and crossroad to be the same game - in case this is not obvious in the above text]

I think there will be no patches, whoever had to buy the game already bought it so developers took the money and ran away.

The game has been released way too soon, and is obviously not finished. So its not balanced. We cant even access part of Demonis or the Marsh. Probably not the devs fault, but the publisher.

On the bright side, i liked :
- the LoTR/pirates story line influences
-the Orcs dialogue/quests pretty comical (like the museum)
-the peacefull Elves and Dwarfs in the cities! good call! less combat, more adventure
-the Viking theme and units! especially Bersekers, Warriors Maidens, Soothsayers..

It just lack balance; like The Eric fights where you have to control troops of esch race.. good idea but too easy (played on hard). Not enough troops avalaible if you wanna switch after Guilford. I miss the Lizards and old units like Gorgons..ect.

Rezo tower fight was great.. but then he got like 25 archmages.. do i really have to use Sacrifice for every troops to get full stacks (and forced to learn Chaos magic). My game had 3 archdemons only. And not enough items to sell to get a full set ever or more choice. Glad i was Pal and not Mage, or i was in trouble. Balance again..

And the game has been slightly dumbed down; a mistake! it have to be hard to be interesting!

An Add-on could solve all this..

Overall i liked the game (dont forget to press F5 often). Like usual with King Bounty : once you start you cant stop playing!

Agreed.

Despite my disappointment with the game, I can't deny that it's still very addictive.

It would not be a bad game when compared to other strategy games, but it is waaaaaaay inferior than AP and CW in almost every aspect.

I wonder what happened in 1c to allow such a drop in quality.

I agree to most of OP arguments.

But i would like to point the best thing in KB series in my opinion: after Giant Spider boss fight when you lost all you army, and have to build from scratch in current area. I sooo would like this to happen in every area, to force to use units from every race. Or even to force use units like neutrals (crappy hyenas and stuff).

Now you know why many dedicated KB players (myself included, I must have clocked over 500 hours in it) who bought all the games since KBTL felt downright disappointed and maybe a little betrayed by this release. The game is utterly repetitive in the beginning, easy when you set up your ideal squad and boring towards the end.

I am so sorry for this franchise. After brilliant games that really put the player through hell like KBAP and KBCW, this successor looks like a poorly thought out offspring. I guess all we can do now is hope for it to return to its former glory.