| Olden Era Playtest – Share Your Feedback & Impressions! |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted October 08, 2025 07:17 PM |
bonus applied by Galaad on 09 Oct 2025. |
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This isn't feedback from my gameplay, but from watching Noro's latest video on Olden Era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42LhAz-oG00
First is that the UI is terrible, I hope they can overhaul that. Reminds me of the worst parts of Homm IV V and VI. Tons of wasted space.
The town screen is really nice, it's been a while (since homm 3) that a game pulled it off properly. The buildings need to be more recognizable though, and I really don't like the build menu.
I'm disappointed by the emphasis on competitive style play and single hero play and so many creature banks. Even if this is just for the demo, it shows what they thought they should highlight.
Doubling down on tactics is very disappointing. Least favourite skill in the game because it slows down combat so much.
Combat itself is a bit too ability heavy and the UI once again is bad. Menus you have to exit out of rather than a simple right click means extra clicks for every action. The health bars are also clutter but I imagine (hope) you can disable those. Even if you disable them though, checking exact hp will be annoying because of the need to click out of the unit panel.
New Heroes developers keep trying to make Age of Wonders instead of Heroes of Might and Magic, and we already have Age of Wonders in the modern age, I wish they'd focus on Heroes' strengths instead.
I love that the hydras are back in the dungeon.
Not a fan of the art style. Way too busy. Too overdesigned and too warcraft. At least the idle animations are not just units breathing like the trap so many game devs have fallen into, but they bounce around a bit excessively, and the random stagger of animations is distracting when you split-stack. I don't think they really thought about why they were doing a bunch of things, and just did what everyone else did, even though Heroes of Might and Magic is exceptional because it is exceptional. It doesn't do what every other game does.
The mage guild screen is a mess.
Not sure I like the split of Initiative and Speed, but I can be convinced.
Subskills might be interesting, but also very hard to keep track of. Overall probably cool.
I'm already bored of combat by the start of the second fight. Hopefully that changes. It just looks like too much effort and I would see myself auto combatting everything, which defeats the point of the game. I think this is in part to the above problems with UI UX and tactics. The battles are also fairly slow. Not talking about animation but about the damage and speed relative to HP and size of the battle field.
The Stances look very fiddly. Maybe better to have one big change at the start of combat, or have the option be forced upon you at the start of each round in the middle of the screen.
Not a fan of the damage pop ups, not sure why. Don't know if it is there existence in general or how they look. I don't tend to mind the ones in Age of Wonders 3. Those are easily readable with a black background, maybe that is why?
The Law points are a neat idea, but the actual options are pretty boring, at least at the lower levels. It seems to be based on the Racial Governance from Age of Wonders, but it is neat in a Heroes game, because it encourages you to stick with your starting faction rather than abandon it for the best you can find in another faction. Still looks boring though.
The build animation is fun. That said, now that I have seen it a bunch of times, the timing seems off, too much delay at the start or something.
That battle preview screen with the garish VICTORY is incredibly ugly. Like enough to make me want to look away from the screen.
Again I am struck by the sheer wasted space everywhere. Everything is round or a hex, forcing tiny little icons when a simple square would allow for full portraits you could actually read.
I'm rather disappointed Dungeon is full of Dark Elves again. There needs to be a "One of each species per faction" rule for Heroes games. Except maybe for the knights.
I'm curious how the zones work. Is the entire game going full competitive cross style or can a custom map still handle zones no matter how you design it?
Advanced classes are a great idea to try to encourage heroes to stick to their lane instead of everyone taking Earth Magic every time.
Flag of Truce is fun artifact. Happy to see some good artifact design.
The Logistic sub skills look really fun. Combined with the Flag of Truce you could see different games having entire builds centered around them with totally different styles of play.
Why doe the gigantic hydras only take up one hex?
The spell descriptions are very complex. I understand wanting to get rid of the duration problem from Homm 3, but it becomes an information overload if every spell has different damage and duration scaling.
The separate unit window in combat (instead of just right clicking for information) gets worse the more I think about it, because it becomes very hard to compare units to each other. By the time you've done twice the amount of clicks that information has faded. No clicking back and forth easily and rapidly. 53:50 shows how Norovo has troubles comparing two units which would be trivial in Homm 3.
This bit of design is actually so bad I no longer believe the developers understand Heroes games. It is enough to make or break someone enjoying/buying the game.
In a game like Age of Wonders it is okay because the units are substantially different from each other, but in Homm units have upgrades which are a subtle improvement, and therefore finding those differences is harder and needs to be as easy as possible. It really seems like Unfrozen wanted to try their hands at an Age of Wonders-like rather than Heroes of Might and Magic.
The "Thousand Cuts" ability having two different effects on two different units is crazy. What is the point of keywords if you won't even use them? The entire description of abilities should just be written out if you won't use the space saving technique correctly.
The attack animation are decent enough. I bring it up because the Hydra's is not so good and it stands out when compared to everything else.
Changing upgrades for free is nice and probably necessary if you have two upgrades per unit.
If you are in the construction screen and you switch to another town, you should stay in the construction screen.
The stat increase buildings.... only increase your stats? Where is the old knight who agrees to teach you some of his skills? This mysterious stone which expands your mind? the HD mod found the perfect comprise to preserve both fairy tale and gameplay pace by putting the description in the Hero panel, but this UI doesn't allow for it and the game becomes a bit more a hollow arcade.
I already said I hated the combat preview screen, but that result delay is the cherry on the cake. If they must have a delay they need a "Flawless Victory" so you don't sit there for 30 seconds double checking that you didn't lose anyone. And Heroes of might and Magic has been doing it flawlessly since Homm2, why do they need to reinvent the wheel?
The schools of magic seem better than Homm3, I'd even like to see Hota use some of those ideas, like the speciality adding power to that school of magic instead of ridiculously upgrading the spell.
The cave dragons don't appear to have a moment animation. Is that because of early access or do they intend to have them statically hop?
Some of the special abilities in the game are really cool, like the thorns and the Remnant of Madness from the Kittenhorns. I think the game might actually be improved if they removed the less interesting abilities to allow the other ones to shine and to aid the player in trying to memorize what a creature does.
Making everything activatable, like the hydra multistrike and the dragon cone breath and the fire shield make the game much less 'exploitable'. As in, you can't use the unique properties of the creatures to make the fight more engaging. Freeing a blinded unit by attacking the hydra next to them, forcing your opponent to flame breath their ally, killing your Familiars against the fireshield to raise them as demons, that sort of thing.
Why alchemical dust? What did sulfur ever do to Unfrozen? Not a negative or a positive, just curious why they thought they needed a medium rarity resource.
I'm an hour 45 in and none of the music has stood out to me yet, which is crazy for a heroes game. Hopefully I've just not been noticing.
The flat icons for the Primary and Secondary abilities seem to very much fall into that oversimplification trends being seen in logos and video games, which is odd given how so many of the creatures are then overdesigned. Reminds me of Endless Legend or any other generic Unit Game trying to look fancy and corporate rather than have soul.
I think I said it already, but it is really crazy how many creature banks there are in this demo. Reminds me of the HoTA map "New Day Tomorrow" which I disliked for that exact reason.
Overall I think if they fix
1. The Battle Preview screen to not look so hideous and grant more information and remove that awful delay on showing the results
2. Right click not locking you into a separate window in combat to allow proper comparison
They will have a game which at least escapes being another failed attempt like VI and VII. It would take many more subtle changes to be a Heroes game I'd play, but even those two changes give it a shot a being better than Homm V.
If they additionally fix the UI and UX and make the game look less soulless and also easier to see what is going on and get rid of all their tiny oversimplified icons in tiny little hexes and circles I'd probably enjoy it as a curiosity that I don't play very often like Heroes Hour or Songs of Conquest.
Hopefully early access fixes those things, but I've rarely seen anything change as a result of early access/betas. It is more often an excuse to release an unfinished product and build hype.
I seem to have a character limit or something so Part 2:
The enchanted magic scrolls is a great idea and what I think scrolls should do already previous heroes games.
The radial menu whenever you click on a creature must be for mobile porting in the future. I don't like how it looks at all.
The spellbook bouncing up and down makes cuts way more noticeable and also seems to speak to the overarch fear to let things stand still.
The hero riding a bull is fun. I mention that mostly because I don't want everything here to be negative. There is some good ideas here for sure, it is simply buried under a lot of bad.
Alchemical dust mystery is resolved. They want a neutral resource to upgrade gear. I wonder how important they want that mechanic to be?
2:40:42 I'm disappointed in the chain lightning animation. No chain to be seen. Reminds me of how Heroes 3 gave up on having a rainbow touch a unit when they were lucky no matter where on the battle field they were.
I think Homm3 has the worst magic system in the entire series, but what it does get right is using the classic elements. It makes the game that much more familiar. "Nightshade" does not feel like a fundamental aspect of reality.
2:49:01 this is a great example of how hard the art style is to make out details, and additionally the very basic and bland UI on top of it. It is a weird choice and really looks like they originally wanted to make an Age of Wonders clone for mobile.
The griffin model looks great, probably my favourite model so far.
Why is it called "Stilled Voices" instead of Chapel of Stilled Voices. Stilled Voices doesn't make any sense as a building name. Typo?
Took me until quite late to realize it, but the battlefields are really small. Homm3 is 15x11 whereas these are 9x9? A common 'issue' with homm3 is how close everything is together relative to monster speed. I suspect they shrunk the battlefield to make combat go quicker after all their UX and activated ability decisions slowed it down.
They should remove the confirmation menu for swapping upgrade given that it is free. That would allow you to very quickly and easily compare the upgrades by rapidly clicking the swap button and not wasting your time.
To continue hammering on about activated abilities: Even if you keep all the extra powers which are activated by focus points, Homm is not a game of perfect control. Homm design would have the abilities activate if you had the focus points and not activate if you didn't forcing you to time and plan accordingly.
It bothers me just a little bit that you stand outside the map objects rather than on them. I think Homm V did this as well and confused me there as well.
Horizontal creature stats are harder to compare than vertical in my opinion, but that would matter more if the unit plus its two upgrades were side by side. _Which they should be_
3:49:00 Notice how Noro can't tell if a building is built or not in a town? Ideally it would be the town screen's job to solve that. But when every building is the same greek looking temple it is hard to tell them apart.
Dimension door not being able to skip over terrain is far more balanced, but it falls into a problem the other global spells in this game have. It is Heroes of Might and Magic, not Heroes of Might and Utility. They don't feel magical with arbitrary gameplay based restrictions.
And done!
If they fix the battle screen and the right click menu for creatures we'll have a game that looks like Unfrozen approached Ubisoft with their Age of Wonders 3 mobile game called Olden Era, and Ubisoft made them slap the Homm design on top of it. Which wouldn't be the best game, but would definitely be a game worth trying and with more polish in one direction or the other could become a decent Heroes game.
The Law idea is a great thing to take from AoWIII's Racial governance, and it fits the Heroes formula perfectly. It's just a shame that all of the options are so boring.
A lot of the creature abilities (especially the passives, another sign to get rid of the actives) are really cool and fit Homm combat, opening it up with new options.
The sub-skills are all over the place in terms of quality of design, but in general the idea is cool and worth exploring.
Given that Homm VII also had a lot of potential, I'm not sure I trust Ubisoft, but Unfrozen at least do seem to be trying, despite some very weird glaring errors and misunderstanding of what make Homm Homm. Hopefully most of that is early access.
Here's hoping for a great game for all to enjoy!
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted October 09, 2025 12:51 AM |
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Edited by Galaad at 00:52, 09 Oct 2025.
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Appreciate the detailed write-up — it’s clear you know the series really well, and that kind of thorough feedback is always valuable.
That said, I disagree with quite a few of your points. Many of your impressions come from watching gameplay rather than actually playing, and I think some of them might change once you get a feel for the pacing, flow, and logic behind the systems firsthand. For having played both games, I can assure you Olden Era isn’t trying to be Age of Wonders.
The team is aware of the UI/UX issues and has already confirmed that they’ll be changing it. The demo build isn’t final — it’s not even Early Access yet. Olden Era heavily takes inspiration from both HoMM III and HoMM V, while adding a few new touches of its own.
I do agree with you on a few things though — improving the battle result screen, building readability, and faster info access would definitely help. Hopefully Early Access will give them time to refine all that, as well as improve gameplay even further (which I already find really good).
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted October 09, 2025 04:13 AM |
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Yeah I think my two main issues can pretty easily be fixed, but I won't play the game until they are fixed so here's hoping.
I've been burned so much by "It's alpha/early access" not leading anywhere that I have troubles trusting it, but I hope I am wrong.
That said, there is clearly a bunch of good things there, and I hope you are right that it is better hands on than watching.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 09, 2025 08:33 AM |
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LordCameron said:
First is that the UI is terrible, I hope they can overhaul that. Reminds me of the worst parts of Homm IV V and VI. Tons of wasted space.
I don't like the UI but it's interesting that you say wasted space. According to the devs they made it this way to not waste space. And ok, H3/4 UI may be a bit dated but I found it so much more immersive and practical. I don't like seeing stuff all over the place like mobile games do.
LordCameron said:
Doubling down on tactics is very disappointing. Least favourite skill in the game because it slows down combat so much.
What do you mean?
LordCameron said:
The health bars are also clutter but I imagine (hope) you can disable those.
Is very useful though.
LordCameron said:
Not a fan of the art style. Way too busy. Too overdesigned and too warcraft.
Same. The team intentionally went for artists that have worked in wow and lol and it kinda shows. I don't hate it but it most definitely does not feel homm.
LordCameron said:
Not sure I like the split of Initiative and Speed, but I can be convinced.
It's a good thing.
LordCameron said:
I'm already bored of combat by the start of the second fight. Hopefully that changes. It just looks like too much effort and I would see myself auto combatting everything, which defeats the point of the game. I think this is in part to the above problems with UI UX and tactics. The battles are also fairly slow.
Depends on the units used. I think it's fast enough, considering that hexes make it harder to turtle like in H5 and that the battlefield is smaller. Also quick combat often gives no losses vs weak stacks which saves you a ton of time.
LordCameron said:
The Law points are a neat idea, but the actual options are pretty boring, at least at the lower levels.
A bit. Their pace seems fine but costs and effects early could use some revision.
LordCameron said:
That battle preview screen with the garish VICTORY is incredibly ugly. Like enough to make me want to look away from the screen.
Something about it rubs me the wrong way but not sure what. The mobile look? How it blocks the view of your unit victory animations? I don't know.
LordCameron said:
I'm rather disappointed Dungeon is full of Dark Elves again. There needs to be a "One of each species per faction" rule for Heroes games. Except maybe for the knights.
Yes :/
LordCameron said:
Flag of Truce is fun artifact. Happy to see some good artifact design.
What do you mean, this is broken xD This is effectively free town portal everytime you attack a neutral.
LordCameron said:
The separate unit window in combat (instead of just right clicking for information) gets worse the more I think about it, because it becomes very hard to compare units to each other. By the time you've done twice the amount of clicks that information has faded. No clicking back and forth easily and rapidly. 53:50 shows how Norovo has troubles comparing two units which would be trivial in Homm 3.
YES.
LordCameron said:
The stat increase buildings.... only increase your stats? Where is the old knight who agrees to teach you some of his skills? This mysterious stone which expands your mind? the HD mod found the perfect comprise to preserve both fairy tale and gameplay pace by putting the description in the Hero panel, but this UI doesn't allow for it and the game becomes a bit more a hollow arcade.
Agreed, same with chests.
LordCameron said:
Making everything activatable, like the hydra multistrike and the dragon cone breath and the fire shield make the game much less 'exploitable'. As in, you can't use the unique properties of the creatures to make the fight more engaging. Freeing a blinded unit by attacking the hydra next to them, forcing your opponent to flame breath their ally, killing your Familiars against the fireshield to raise them as demons, that sort of thing.
Yes and no. Hydras still have aoe that triggers on retaliations. Dragon fireshield still triggers on retaliations after they activate it. Etc.
LordCameron said:
Horizontal creature stats are harder to compare than vertical in my opinion, but that would matter more if the unit plus its two upgrades were side by side. _Which they should be_
Absolutely.
LordCameron said:
Dimension door not being able to skip over terrain is far more balanced, but it falls into a problem the other global spells in this game have. It is Heroes of Might and Magic, not Heroes of Might and Utility. They don't feel magical with arbitrary gameplay based restrictions.
Just defeat zone guardians and you can teleport to that zone.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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kesnarii
Hired Hero
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posted October 09, 2025 09:44 AM |
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Realy nice writeup LordCameron, I think your points can be categorized in two groups:
1) Those that have to do with little experience with the game
Having seen norovo's video (and following him some time now), I believe that some of the nuances of the game are not that apparent and it shows that noro hasn't actually played a lot of OE. Of the top of my head, one thing that certainly changed from older titles is that visiting object and gathering resources do not waste movement points. After spending some hours in the early build, I believe that some things click a lot better than just watching them.
But I believe this group covers just a minor portion of your points, because in the second group are:
2) Those that are utterly correct
Especially your comments regarding UI/UX and graphics style is spot-on. OE seems to be suffering from two different styles. On the one hand some aspects are overloaded with stuff (the units, mage guild, etc.) On the other hand some aspects are bare bones and uninspiring (the ui itself, the objects, the presentation).
Even worse is that most (if not all) of the conversations in discord regarding ui/ux end up with certain unfrozen members scoffing at the critique and counting clicks and measuring pixels instead of actually try to understand what the players are "feeling". I 've read above Galaad's comment that unfrozen will try to fix ui. Let's hope.
Overall I think that OE at its core has a great game. BUT there is a problem of inspiration. HoMM3 is still great both because it is a great game in terms of mechanics (of course with all the nuances of its time) and because it created an atmosphere, a narrative that the player can follow from when clicks the executable and hear the intro until he clicks the Quit button (with the necromancy icon!)
This is even more prevalent in HoMM4. Evidently not that good of a game, but the inspiration! WOW, from the intro to the presentation and the campaigns. Honestly, sometimes I install HoMM4 just for those things and then start playing and get bored immediately.
HoMM5 did good on both of those things, albeit in a different way.
(never played 6-7, but from what i read they fail miserably on both)
Unfortunately OE doesn't have the second part. The intro, the menus, the ui, the object, all are uninspiring. I don't feel that I am entering another world when I am playing, I feel that I am playing a game. Simple things, like the green tracks that the heroes follow when they move that remind me more of starcraft, the auto-battle being just some numbers in a blue screen. One thing that you mentioned I hadn't thought about, but somehow it was there in my mind all along. The objects themselves do not seem to have any contact with the world. Why is there a circus next to a black tower, next to an automaton that makes armour, all guarded by some troglodytes? The fact that those things do not have a sliver of lore shown to the player (like the knight and the stone you mention).
The good news is that the core is there. OE is a good game mechanically, it has the correct gameplay loop and the correct depth to draw you in. Let's hope that the devs have mostly left out the atmosphere due to the early build and they plan to build on it in the future.
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The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
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posted October 09, 2025 05:34 PM |
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Meh, I wouldn’t say OE has a great core gameplay loop just yet. It’s solid, sure, but far from great imho. I’ll expand on my thoughts a bit now that a lot more has been revealed.
Adventure map
Imho, this is OE’s strongest feature. But it also holds less weight in terms of gameplay since the adventure map features can be adjusted with the editor. But they did absolutely nail the angle and look of it all. It’s much closer to the NWC games than any of the previous titles. It’s a shame about the art style they chose.
Town Development
Townscreens return to being viewed from outside the castle, and it’s awesome, but the town development needs some fine tuning. While I’m glad to see there is no longer a “town level” , I find there are too few prerequisites for certain buildings and it takes away from the building experience. Most creature dwellings, even tier7s, are much easier to build than in previous games. Walls and income buildings are constructed like mage guilds, where you only need to buy the next level thing. This is an element where the gameplay affects atmosphere. I don’t feel like I’m building a castle where these creatures I’m recruiting actually live and I don’t feel much sense of accomplishment when the top tier buildings are so easy to construct. Homm shouldn’t play like an RTS game where you always just build what you need and go. If one ore two factions play like that, sure, but that shouldn’t be the norm.
I also don’t like how upgraded creature dwellings costs alchemist dust. Slows down and sometimes even prevents upgrades and is another encouragement to power stack a few units rather than build up your whole town’s army.
Hero building
It is decent, but also unimaginative. There are not many skills or subskills so far that have a lasting impression. OE’s skill system doesn’t have the large quantity of skills and perks + class combos like H4, there’s no fun subskill combos unique to the factions like in H5, and there’s no wild bonuses from mastering a skill like in H7. Overall it feels like a step backwards. In addition, I find subclasses to be a huge waste of potential and currently only serve as a RNG dependent game ending bonus.
If someone’s favorite skill system in the series is H3, I could see why OE might be enticing. But to me this is a low bar to meet, and I feel like the fun was stripped away for the sake of balance.
Combat
I’m still feeling mixed on combat. Yes, a hexagon battlefield is better than squares. But no, having a smaller battlefield is not an improvement. Overall movement of creatures is less varied and it’s noticeable. Having everything be the same size is also not an improvement. It’s weird to not include a feature that’s been present in 6 of the 7 previous games. It feels less like Homm as a result.
Spells haven’t been much of a standout either, but I play way more might than I do magic anyways but I do find the few number of summoning spells disappointing.
On the positive side, the focus mechanic is a great addition. Makes for some good choices between alt upgrades where one can be more passive and the other have more focus abilities. I also like the addition of short-ranged units. I wouldnt mind if they were a unit type found in each faction, alongside long-ranged and flying units.
New Features
The new stuff like faction laws and upgrading spells/artifacts leaves much to be desired. Some laws are great and I like the overall idea, but I really don’t like the ones that both increase growth + buff the faction creatures. That is exactly the kind of discouraging of faction mixing that I was afraid would come with faction laws. I shouldn’t be getting weaker versions and in fewer numbers just because I buy from a different faction.
Spell upgrades so far come off as a needless 3rd layer of upgrading spells on top of increasing spell power or picking one of the various hero skills that effects spells. The upgrades themselves are nothing special. Upgrading summon star child doesn’t become a new spell or anything….Im not at all convinced alchemist dust is a good/necessary addition.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 09, 2025 05:52 PM |
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LordCameron said:
Given that Homm VII also had a lot of potential,
It never had any potential because it got all key elements wrong.
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LordInsane
Known Hero
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posted October 09, 2025 08:38 PM |
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LordCameron said:
I'm rather disappointed Dungeon is full of Dark Elves again. There needs to be a "One of each species per faction" rule for Heroes games. Except maybe for the knights.
I would argue that in a continent that is supposed to have more dark elves than any single other race, it would be better to flip it and let there be multiple dark elves on a faction but restrict the humans. Granted, I also think it would have been better to have the "Knight" faction here be dark elven, but people expect underground dark elves despite MM8, so Dungeon it is.
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Ernsmk
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 10, 2025 01:56 AM |
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Note on Faction Laws:
Some factions have laws that buff THEIR faction's units, and some factions have laws that buff ALL Tier 1, 2, 7, etc. units.
So some (Hive) encourage a more monofaction army, and some (Dungeon, Schism) encourage mixing and matching.
Maybe this was obvious to everybody else but it took me a while to realize.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted October 10, 2025 05:46 AM |
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Elvin said:
I don't like the UI but it's interesting that you say wasted space. According to the devs they made it this way to not waste space. And ok, H3/4 UI may be a bit dated but I found it so much more immersive and practical. I don't like seeing stuff all over the place like mobile games do.
Look at the building screen for a great example. Lots of rounded corners and the building name is larger than the icon. The screen is about 50% background.
Another example is the unit icons being hexagons. Squares can touch each other, but the hexagons have wasted space from point to point. I assume what the devs meant was that the UI easily scales to any resolution.
Quote:
Doubling down on tactics is very disappointing. Least favourite skill in the game because it slows down combat so much.
Elvin said:
What do you mean?
Without tactics combat starts and you are moving your first unit. When you choose your order before every fight there is a bit of fiddling around every time.
LordCameron said:
Flag of Truce is fun artifact. Happy to see some good artifact design.
Quote:
What do you mean, this is broken xD This is effectively free town portal every time you attack a neutral.
I said fun, not balanced 
LordCameron said:
Dimension door not being able to skip over terrain is far more balanced, but it falls into a problem the other global spells in this game have. It is Heroes of Might and Magic, not Heroes of Might and Utility. They don't feel magical with arbitrary gameplay based restrictions.
Quote:
Just defeat zone guardians and you can teleport to that zone.
I think the point still stands on this one. It is a bit more "gamey", but DD was so broken maybe it needed to happen.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted October 10, 2025 05:52 AM |
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kesnarii said:
BUT there is a problem of inspiration. HoMM3 is still great both because it is a great game in terms of mechanics (of course with all the nuances of its time) and because it created an atmosphere, a narrative that the player can follow from when clicks the executable and hear the intro until he clicks the Quit button (with the necromancy icon!)
Really cool. Yeah, I guess what makes homm 1-5 so good in some way is that you just start living in the game. I started playing when I was 4 and never played a tutorial or read a guide.
I also think following Homm3 is sadly a terrible business proposition, because it is an amazing game which runs on anything, and it is dirt cheap. It's nearly impossible to beat it in 1 category, let alone all three, but if you don't, people may as well just play Homm3
kesnarii said:
Simple things, like the green tracks that the heroes follow when they move that remind me more of starcraft, the auto-battle being just some numbers in a blue screen.
Yeah! Something here felt weird. Homm3 had tracks like you were looking at a treasure map, OE is like looking at a video game.
kesnarii said:
The good news is that the core is there. OE is a good game mechanically, it has the correct gameplay loop and the correct depth to draw you in. Let's hope that the devs have mostly left out the atmosphere due to the early build and they plan to build on it in the future.
We can hope
The_Green_Drag said:
Adventure map
Imho, this is OE’s strongest feature. But it also holds less weight in terms of gameplay since the adventure map features can be adjusted with the editor. But they did absolutely nail the angle and look of it all. It’s much closer to the NWC games than any of the previous titles. It’s a shame about the art style they chose.
Agreed. It finally looks like a heroes game. Even 4 and 5 didn't do that, but the style is all off.
The_Green_Drag said:
he town development needs some fine tuning. Walls and income buildings are constructed like mage guilds, where you only need to buy the next level thing. This is an element where the gameplay affects atmosphere. Homm shouldn’t play like an RTS game where you always just build what you need and go.
You nailed it here.
The_Green_Drag said:
I also don’t like how upgraded creature dwellings costs alchemist dust.
The_Green_Drag said:
I'm not sure, it could encourage a more HommII style gameplay with less upgraded creatures for longer.
Overall movement of creatures is less varied and it’s noticeable. Having everything be the same size is also not an improvement. It’s weird to not include a feature that’s been present in 6 of the 7 previous games. It feels less like Homm as a result.
Yep.
The_Green_Drag said:
On the positive side, the focus mechanic is a great addition. Makes for some good choices between alt upgrades where one can be more passive and the other have more focus abilities.
I don't think I'll ever agree with you here, but it's not a deal breaker for playing the game for me. Probably.
Quote:
I would argue that in a continent that is supposed to have more dark elves than any single other race, it would be better to flip it and let there be multiple dark elves on a faction but restrict the humans. Granted, I also think it would have been better to have the "Knight" faction here be dark elven, but people expect underground dark elves despite MM8, so Dungeon it is.
Dark elf knight faction would be a cool way to respect the mythological variety and make the game their own.
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kesnarii
Hired Hero
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posted October 10, 2025 08:56 AM |
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[quote=The_Green_Drag]Town Development
Townscreens return to being viewed from outside the castle, and it’s awesome, but the town development needs some fine tuning. While I’m glad to see there is no longer a “town level” , I find there are too few prerequisites for certain buildings and it takes away from the building experience. Most creature dwellings, even tier7s, are much easier to build than in previous games. Walls and income buildings are constructed like mage guilds, where you only need to buy the next level thing. This is an element where the gameplay affects atmosphere. I don’t feel like I’m building a castle where these creatures I’m recruiting actually live and I don’t feel much sense of accomplishment when the top tier buildings are so easy to construct. Homm shouldn’t play like an RTS game where you always just build what you need and go. If one ore two factions play like that, sure, but that shouldn’t be the norm.
I also don’t like how upgraded creature dwellings costs alchemist dust. Slows down and sometimes even prevents upgrades and is another encouragement to power stack a few units rather than build up your whole town’s army.
I totally agree on this. I also posted that on discord the other day. The town building tree looks more like parallel lines than an actual tree. If you look at older games the building trees could be represented as graphs with a lot of interdependencies between the branches; e.g. upgraded estates requiring necromancy amplifier, * halls requiring various different things, etc.
In OE, there is the branch of economy that basically is a straight line, with just one dependency of just basic walls from some time on. There is a branch of units with some little interdependency between the tiers and maybe mage guild and that's that.
This takes a lot of strategic thinking out of the game, especially in higher difficulties with resource scarcity, interdependencies are what makes what to build a really strong question in the game.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted October 10, 2025 04:21 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 16:21, 10 Oct 2025.
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted October 10, 2025 06:25 PM |
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LordCameron said:
I started playing when I was 4 and never played a tutorial or read a guide.
I also think following Homm3 is sadly a terrible business proposition, because it is an amazing game which runs on anything, and it is dirt cheap. It's nearly impossible to beat it in 1 category, let alone all three, but if you don't, people may as well just play Homm3
I thought you were retired?
People never learn.
kesnarii said:
In OE, there is the branch of economy that basically is a straight line, with just one dependency of just basic walls from some time on. There is a branch of units with some little interdependency between the tiers and maybe mage guild and that's that.
This takes a lot of strategic thinking out of the game, especially in higher difficulties with resource scarcity, interdependencies are what makes what to build a really strong question in the game.
it should have been a mod..
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted October 21, 2025 06:01 PM |
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Finally gave Hive a try (yeah... Took me a while  ).
Really fun gameplay - they actually feel quite strong!
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