I downloaded some cracked version because you have to preorder the game to just get into the beta test, and unlike a MMORPG beta test where the game really is already completed so you're sort of paying to get a chance to play the game earlier than anyone else, this really is a beta and a bad one at that. Most of the core abilities have placeholder for their actual value so you can invest in abilities that 'deals damage' or 'increase might by X' without knowing what X is. The interface totally sucks. The default UI doesn't display your army, so you got this game with heroes leading armies and you don't actually know what army you're leading at a glance.
They seem to try to make each unit last longer with higher HP but it just means you waste more time trying to figure out how to beat stuff without losing units because HOMM games are rarely beatable if you actually lose units at any point of the game besides the final battle. I think HOMM3 has it best where a single Archangel can demolish pretty much any number of neutral stacks (within reason), and that's fine for game balance since neutral stacks are equivalent of your RPG random battle and should not take much to get through. It also doesn't help that units now have a ridiculous number of special abilities. The Haven melee unit upgrade, Praetorian, has 3 special abilities (shield bash, shield guard, shielded). Beyond the fact that having everything being special makes them not very special at all, right now you can't see what an enemy's special ability is by right clicking them so chances are you'll fight something and it'll do some special ability that totally owns your guys because you've no idea what special ability it had unless you memorized the entire unit list. Some of the special abilities don't even have tooltips. I got this unit with "Aura of Putrescence", but what it does, I have no idea. I don't see enemy around it taking damage, and you can't see buffs/debuffs on the enemy. Presumably it does something useful, but I really have no idea if that's true.
The spell system got moved to talent points as opposed to just going to mage's guild, which seems to be in the game since HOMM5 (I didn't buy that one). I guess the point is that you don't instantly win the game (multiplayer or singleplayer) if you get Implosion, Town Portal, and Chain Lightning as your top level spells as opposed to say Magic Reflection, Slayer, and Prayer which aren't even worth casting over level 1 spells. However since the tooltip sucks (does damage isn't exactly very useful) I ended up just picking no spells, and it seems like the hero's basic attack is more useful 99% of the time anyway over casting a spell that may do something negative to the enemy. Spells in general in HOMM is either way overpowered or totally useless and I can see they're trying to address that but it really doesn't work out, and since the game is still closer to FFT than Starcraft, I don't think it's inherently wrong that you can mow down troops with Chain Lightning since by the time you get a mage's guild that high it's usually close to the end of the game.
At any rate this game is no way worth preordering for the beta. One time I hit this bug that made me unable to scroll my map and I quit the game immediately (just imagine try to play Starcraft without being able to scroll the map). It's probably not even worth the effort to pirate unless you're really into the series since it takes a nontrivial amount of effort to get past Ubisoft's online authentication. I noticed in multiplayer there are things call 'dynasty traits' that unlock as you play, so it sounds like if you play multiplayer enough you get to start with a beefier hero. I know a lot of games seem to be doing this lately to give you incentive to play the game more, but it just seems like a bad idea for a strategy game where the point is that, even if the game isn't balanced, you're suppose do start out in a balanced situation. The initial Dynasty traits are start with +5 wood/ore (enough to get one more building) or +2500 gold (you start with 10K) and presumably they only get better from there. If you have anything that's even comparable to say +5000 gold (and I suspect there is) it'd probably not be possible to beat someone of comparable skill as you if he started with that kind of advantage.
They seem to try to make each unit last longer with higher HP but it just means you waste more time trying to figure out how to beat stuff without losing units because HOMM games are rarely beatable if you actually lose units at any point of the game besides the final battle. I think HOMM3 has it best where a single Archangel can demolish pretty much any number of neutral stacks (within reason), and that's fine for game balance since neutral stacks are equivalent of your RPG random battle and should not take much to get through. It also doesn't help that units now have a ridiculous number of special abilities. The Haven melee unit upgrade, Praetorian, has 3 special abilities (shield bash, shield guard, shielded). Beyond the fact that having everything being special makes them not very special at all, right now you can't see what an enemy's special ability is by right clicking them so chances are you'll fight something and it'll do some special ability that totally owns your guys because you've no idea what special ability it had unless you memorized the entire unit list. Some of the special abilities don't even have tooltips. I got this unit with "Aura of Putrescence", but what it does, I have no idea. I don't see enemy around it taking damage, and you can't see buffs/debuffs on the enemy. Presumably it does something useful, but I really have no idea if that's true.
The spell system got moved to talent points as opposed to just going to mage's guild, which seems to be in the game since HOMM5 (I didn't buy that one). I guess the point is that you don't instantly win the game (multiplayer or singleplayer) if you get Implosion, Town Portal, and Chain Lightning as your top level spells as opposed to say Magic Reflection, Slayer, and Prayer which aren't even worth casting over level 1 spells. However since the tooltip sucks (does damage isn't exactly very useful) I ended up just picking no spells, and it seems like the hero's basic attack is more useful 99% of the time anyway over casting a spell that may do something negative to the enemy. Spells in general in HOMM is either way overpowered or totally useless and I can see they're trying to address that but it really doesn't work out, and since the game is still closer to FFT than Starcraft, I don't think it's inherently wrong that you can mow down troops with Chain Lightning since by the time you get a mage's guild that high it's usually close to the end of the game.
At any rate this game is no way worth preordering for the beta. One time I hit this bug that made me unable to scroll my map and I quit the game immediately (just imagine try to play Starcraft without being able to scroll the map). It's probably not even worth the effort to pirate unless you're really into the series since it takes a nontrivial amount of effort to get past Ubisoft's online authentication. I noticed in multiplayer there are things call 'dynasty traits' that unlock as you play, so it sounds like if you play multiplayer enough you get to start with a beefier hero. I know a lot of games seem to be doing this lately to give you incentive to play the game more, but it just seems like a bad idea for a strategy game where the point is that, even if the game isn't balanced, you're suppose do start out in a balanced situation. The initial Dynasty traits are start with +5 wood/ore (enough to get one more building) or +2500 gold (you start with 10K) and presumably they only get better from there. If you have anything that's even comparable to say +5000 gold (and I suspect there is) it'd probably not be possible to beat someone of comparable skill as you if he started with that kind of advantage.
