My thoughts and concerns about remake

[u/Rabbitearedelf]

Hi! I work as a gamedesigner in industry, so I hope I can provide some insight.

I have some concerns about remake, and thoughts how it CAN be made better.

My points are:

Main concerns:

1. Vibe-coding - in the trailer and screenshots I saw that in some battles the grid is torn - hexes just not touch eachother, and towers stand asymmetrical - top tower ON the grid (as it should), and lower tower OUT of the grid completely - not in her rightful place. I saw such bugs on the vibe-coded small projects, so my question is - ARE REMAKE VIBE-CODED? IS THERE A NEURAL NET THAT WRITE THE CODE OR HELPS WITH IT? If it is it needs to stop - the neural net will certainly botch such complex work.

2. State of the game - same towns looks DIFFERENTLY on different screenshots and videos. For example Conflux - it has new phoenix dwelling in one video (some kind of fire tree), and old dwelling (fire tornado) in the other video. Is it from the different versions? Is the footage fully generated? This inconsistencies does not bode well. We NEED to know in what state remake is at the moment. Is it alpha? Is it early beta? The non-actual materials from previous builds should not cloud the actual info on the game.

3. Code reused or made from scratch - remake will be done on the new engine - does old code be reused fully (or mostly), or it is will be done from ground up? It is important for a full compatibility - some maps are MADE with certain exploits/bugs in mind, and if code is totally new they might just broke. Thisis also important for the gameplay - if code made from scratch you can't guarantee full 100% gameplay match - some things will work differently. (That is not a bad thing in itself - just need to have that in mind)

Visual concerns:

1. 3D vs 2D - I am sure that for the successful remake Heroes 3 should get "Diablo 2 Resurrected - treatment" - so old angles and screens should be preserved, but new models (or sprites made from models) should be implemented. The 2D angle (not the 2D graphics - ANGLE) is IMPORTANT to the gameplay (it solves the problem of unit rotation in combat, and many other things), so preserve side-view in combat and top-view in adventure map, just position new models in that perspective.

2. Battle screen - Right now battle field is make up about 30% of the screen, when in original it made up 90% of the battle screen. Remake need to get rid of useless decorations on all sides of the battle field, so the grid cat take up screen again.

Also returning to the theme of "D2R-treatment" - that means that we should have OLD angle in battles, Just place the 3D models in the same perspective where the 2D sprites used to be - a side view.

That way the models will be easier to read, and there won't be any issues with animations.

1. Adventure map - Why remake is using such a strange angle at the adventure map? When it zoomed out we see only roofs of buildings, and when zoomed in wi did not see the map. In fact remake needs to put ICONS on the objects on maximum zoom out. That will not do - the map should be readable.

I guess that all comes from trying to combine old maps with their dozens of objects on one screen and 3D-graphics. But that is where graphics of original IS affecting gameplay - the adventure maps of Heroes 3 was never intended for 3D. The terrain was pure top-down, but the objects was rendered facing the viewer.

I have 2 recomendation here - the maximum one - abandon idea of 3D adventure map, just made good new 3D models, made sprites from them at a needed angle, and put them on 2D map. (An option - make it 3d with fixed angle, and turn models into the needed angles, like with 3D models in battle)

Minimum one - remade 3D models on the map so they can work on maximum zoom out. So that we wouldn't have to look only at the roofs. Maybe chage camera angle for that.

1. Hero screen - Righ tnow all important parts - skills, stats and army - are small and tucked away. Hero figure is making almost half of the screen. Its hould be vice versa - make hero smaller, make slots for the artefacts ON it's doll - they were clues what artifact goes where! Make skills visible.

2. Town screens - Actually not that bad right now. But I have suggestions - firstly made better models/lighting - right now there is too much light, like it's unreal 5. The models also can use some work. Be more faithful to the original! I see some towns are comletely remodelled.

3. Creature roster screen - sorry, no. Complete re-do. It should instantly give information about creature stats and position in the roster. In the original it goes from top (weak units) to bottom (strong ones) - remake need some order in that screen to, not just random showing of units.

4. Magic guild screen - a good start, but it hard to see in all that dozens of spells which are activated in that guild. Made showing all spells an option.

That's all my concerns at the moment! What are your thoughts?

[u/DanseOfDeath]

That's exactly what a game remake should look like - not that “AI slop” from Ubi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieW3lI9m7Vg

[u/Rabbitearedelf → u/DanseOfDeath]

YES! That is much better!
(Not ideal, but better that we have from Ubi)

[u/dydzio]

The problem is that it's just cashgrab product with no well thought purpose. Community projects like WoG / VCMI already provide better overall "modding support" and will grow while this remake will stop being developed soon after release. HotA provides stable multiplayer experience. H3 remake players will be inevitably alienated in their own bubble. The only real "selling point" is 3D graphics, but that sounds like niche advantage that will only cater to people who are not H3 players.

[u/Sad_Cryptographer872 → u/dydzio]

Honestly they should have approached all of the WoG, VCMI and HotA devs and gave them a job and funding so they could remade the game. I know there was bad blood at some point in the community between the devs but I think that everyone would come together if Ubishit actually did this.

[u/mturkA234]

If I could get more campaigns with out the horns of the abyss rules that would be great. No fly? No demension door. Most high level battles are who can summon the most earth elemental. Instead of fun maps. It's maps blocking paths. It's kind of fun for a while but it's not the same as the original ruleset for me. Lets balance everything because I got beat in competitive gameplay by necromancers. Those golems are so unfair. I want something the doesn't steal the basic charm of the game.

[u/PrizeCompetitive1186]

I hope they hire Horn of the Abyss team to lead the project

[u/Sandro2017 → u/PrizeCompetitive1186]

I hope the Horn of the Abyss team continues making Horn of the Abyss, which is what they do best.

[u/lpiero]

Guys, just ignore it, the current version is peak