| Olden Era Demo – Feedback Thread |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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Abekat
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 13, 2025 05:29 PM |
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Edited by Abekat at 17:32, 13 Oct 2025.
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I just finished a long game of 'jebus cross'. I must say its pretty good. Until now I only watched videos, which made the game look way more dull than it actually is.
It feels good to be a n00b again - (almost) visiting every buiding on the map, look up every creature stat and abilities, artifacts, forgetting to spend law points, activating abilities, recycle artifacts etc..
For a demo it shows a lot of potential. Now I wait for more sounds, small fixes here and there and of cause new UI and content 
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 07:00 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
In a word, yes. Although you should know that while I've played H3 to death THEN that had more to do with how slick the game is than with the details of actual gameplay and mechanics (of which I find quite a few unsatisfactory). H5 is better, mechanically, but lacks a lot in "slickness". And I also DO like H4 which in many respects is a better game than H3, but never really got finished
Since you've played it, care to elaborate on what that slickness is?
(I've thought the morale system could be improved, but after much effort, it still stands.)
What unsatisfactory things - does OE address any?
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 08:04 PM |
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Most unsatisfactory thing in H3 is that a sizable part of the hero pool is subpar. Magic Heroes and magic skills are subpar.
That has many reasons of which OE addresses a lot.
In H3 I also don't like a) the 2 times 50% creature growth and b) that it's linked to the town defense buildings.
Creature growth adjustments work differently in OE - you get a special resource that you can use for all kinds of things, economic stuff as well as creature growth and creature strengthening - all that town-specific.
The slickness is a function of "click-and-play". Fast turns, fast battles, fast building, no waiting for screens loading, no long waiting for AI players and so on.
OE is like that, just even more so, with some modes, like 1 hero per owned town (reducing the logistics part, for example).
At this point I would characterize OE as having a ... simple ground level: very few building prerequsites, lots of waysto get gold (might still change), basuic creatures that are pretty good, especially the higher the tier is, many different spells in 4 schools plus a fifth general school for movement and so on.
However, there are levels above that where it gets interesting: Really diferent upgrades that again bring something to the table, but you need a very are resource for them (for which there are a couple of ways to get to it, but when you start a map you don't really know how easy it will be to get.
Then there are spells that not only come in 5 tiers, but also in 4 levels (you can upgrade spells in various ways). You can also upgrade artfefacts - again you need that resource for.
Then there are skills. As I menztioned, when you pick a skill on advanced or expert level you also get to picjk an ability. And the skills and abilities are actually pretty cool.
So the game is pretty slick, but it also offers a lot of DEPTH and possibly difficult decisions.
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 09:15 PM |
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Adding new stuff is alot harder than fixing something - even then it's alot of luck because the nuance is so fine.
Like I agree with basically no building pre-requisites, unless they are in the same quality. But when you de-link mage guides or blacksmiths it may become boring or generic.
And new content cannot be too different otherwise it becomes a different game, but I guess that's bound to happen.
But thanks for your thoughts.
edit:
JollyJoker said:
So the game is pretty slick, but it also offers a lot of DEPTH and possibly difficult decisions.
Yeah I noticed that.. but they have to have a purpose otherwise it's making you do a meaningless task
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 10:13 PM |
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No Blacksmith anymore. 
Not sure whether you tried the demo (you should).
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 10:19 PM |
bonus applied by Galaad on 14 Oct 2025. |
Edited by Syth1984 at 23:25, 13 Oct 2025.
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I played a couple of hours so here is my take and some suggestions along with it.
Pros:
-Faction laws are nice. I can even get behind creature availability increased by laws. This makes a faction benefiting their native castles/units more.
-Mixed Neutral creatures: Hell yes! That makes the combats far superior.
-Different ways to improve walls is nice. I especially like the reserve troops.
-I like morale effects creatures and soldiers differently.(They have different ranges)
-Treasury and Main building having different is nice to have.
-Creature Upgrades requiring alchemic dust is okay.
-I think they solved the town portal dominance which is good.
-I like abysall communion as a skill.
-I like necromancy and liches/graverobbers synergy with the units.
-I like most of the skills and their one time only bonuses. The game is great on this regard.
-I like most of the creature abilities.
-I like the spells.They are unique and understanble in a way.
-I had some fun with the weekly effects.But I have to see the whole list to have a good opinion about them. Still it is good at the moment. Week of plague is nice but there should be a week that drops dead a percent of recruited creatures as well.Week of disease all creatures in armies are reduced by %15. Some weaker plague weeks such as week of low births -%50 would be also nice.This unknow creates pressure.
-I liked the skills and subskills so far. I also appreciate the skills that give double bonus or have synergy with other skill sets.
-Creature power /tier ration is also good. 40 skeletons killed my Grim reapers and I was a bit shocked but okay.Seems to me that there will be losses in this game.
-I am okay with not having war machines I guess.Or I haven’t encountered them yet.
Some more niche thoughts
I like the graverobber.I like the doggy.(By my age you don’t remember the units by the names  )
Suprisingly I liked the slug rider. The guy in the throne floating( lvl6) is not my cup of tea though.He is mechanically okay I would say. Creatures raising creatures from the corpses of allied stacks is not my cup of tea either. It looks like deamon farming of inferno.
-Wraiths creating temporary units is nice. Skeleton transformer looks a bit overpowered. Maybe it should convert ½ of the stack to the stack in respective order.
Aesthetics of the castles are nice. I think the feedback during the process also helped.
Cons:
-Ascension is weird.You have to lose a stack to get the benefit.You could always split the stacks for cheesing but that doesn’T feel organic to me.Still I can live with that .
-Mage guild is not easy to navigate as graphically.Having no spellbook requirement is weird as well but I can live with that. I liked the random spells but this is a new game so what can you do.
-Night time graphically exists but it doesn’t affect the game at all which is a shame.One or two days out of 7 could have been night time. Night time could have effected portals or at least line of sight. You can have moon gates and sun gates that are open/closed day or night.
-Fog of war is not dynamic. Once open you can see all the places. I think some contraction of the perimeter each day would have helped the strategic aspects. One hex per day a very slow contraction would do the job. Maybe if you introduce night time days those days could be the only days contraction happens. Also scouting although seems good could have some more love at later stages of the game where everything is open anyway. Make it a tick mark maybe at the beginning of the game like single hero mode. I mean you have spell that opens fog of war(Clear Fog) that is level 4 spell with limited range. Or take spy network for example provides +2 line of sight around your captured buildings. If you like to have these kind of abilities to work the fog of war should be dynamic (A bit at least).
-Creature dwellings don’t have economic buildings as prerequisites. For example having marketplace not a requirement feels weird.
-No Rumors No thieves guild. I was expecting an improvement in this regard. The fluff is important. I saw an unclickable icon above but as I said it’s unclickable maybe it will come later.
-All special buildings requiring common resources is a bit boring. Make at least one building with alchemic dust(preferably high tier).
-Basic walls should be a prerequisition for some of high tier buildings especially dwellings for all factions in my opinion. Some low return buildings could be prerequisites for dwellings (defensive buildings mostly).Like swordsmen requiring brotherhood of steel. (Dreadknight wanna be has that at least basic wall as pre request). The castles have nearly the same layouts in the building section. I wouldn’t mind 2 distinctive additional buildings(Low level, low effect) that are prerequisite to some dwellings to give more character to the castles. I mean the cover of darkness is not a game changer but it is interesting or mystic pond is not deal breaker but it makes you happy from time to time. Also visually pleasing .Otherwise the castles are a bit too much alike. We had castles that didn’t had mage guilds for gods sake. You are almost there +2 or +3 different buildings and we have distinctive castles. It feels that way because artefact merchants has been a common building now. Look at h3 dungeon it has summoning portal, battle academy, mana vortex, artefact merchants. At least make advance wall a prerequisite for Treasury.
-There is no sense of alacrity while building(Lets say low not non existent). There is no citadel or castle to boost the availability so you don’t get stressed about it (which was nice if you are at the 7th day and completing castle). There is no such resource hungry buildings. Everything is very affordable. I get it it’s a new approach locking availability behind faction laws.There could be more bottlenecks.
-I played solo hero mode and there was a neutral castle that was empty. I literally walked into it. These should have more defences to it. A captains quarters from heroes II would do miracles for the solo hero mode I thinks(It should be available for other modes as well obviously). Another instance I just had to defeat lvl1 creatures. Capturing a second castle is an important event. Stakes must reflect this. Maybe with some time passing neutral castles can develop Wall level 1 as well.
-When I played the maps awfully a lot of my economy depended on the treasury raids. However I don’t know it they scale with difficulty level or not. If not they should be definitely scaling with difficulty level. Do treasuries also replenish after lets say 3 months?If not I would love them to be replenished with triple threat level but same reward. On another aspect treasuries showing exact number of enemies is a bit boring. I like taking chances with numbers. Its a gamble but sometimes it pays of.Some treasuries should hide the composition of the enemy by saying “pack of liches” or “few high level undead” .There is a fear and excitement about diving into the unknown. Maybe scouting skill can help with that.
-Creature banks seem to be rare in my occasion. Haven’t encountered them.Tjey should be very good balanced and should not lead to everybody steam rolling with angles/hydras/cyclopses
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draco
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 10:59 PM |
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Edited by draco at 23:09, 13 Oct 2025.
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Syth1984 said:
-There is no sense of alacrity while building(Lets say low not non existent). There is no citadel or castle to boost the availability so you don’t get stressed about it (which was nice if you are at the 7th day and completing castle).
Maybe I am misunderstanding your message, however the walls do in fact increase your unit weekly production, Walls 2 and 3 specifically each add 50%.
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Syth1984
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 13, 2025 11:23 PM |
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draco said:
Syth1984 said:
-There is no sense of alacrity while building(Lets say low not non existent). There is no citadel or castle to boost the availability so you don’t get stressed about it (which was nice if you are at the 7th day and completing castle).
Maybe I am misunderstanding your message, however the walls do in fact increase your unit weekly production, Walls 2 and 3 specifically each add 50%.
No my bad I didn't understand it was increasing the population since I was building them anyway. Thanks for pointing out. I shouldn'T play after work  it makes me unfocused.
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted October 14, 2025 12:25 AM |
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JollyJoker said:
Not sure whether you tried the demo (you should).
my hero died and I cannot hire anyone from the tavern, my eyes hurt (30mins) and that's it
why does the adventure screen un-focus by itself?
what am I supposed to be doing again?
I'm definently showing my age..
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 14, 2025 12:33 AM |
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LOL, the adventure screen unfocusses itself?
Anyway, you played one-hero mode. Since you cannot build a Tavern in that mode it's game over when you lose your guy. Try Classic mode.
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted October 14, 2025 12:48 AM |
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Stop gaslighting me
I tried again, classic, shamrock, dungeon, Sunny
pressed every button in tavern .. cannot hire anyone (he's there)
yes it unfocuses.. are you saying it's me or am is it a 'feature'?
more insights:
nothing happens that you can see when you build a building - are they expecting old players with a mental map of it already?
why does there have to be night/day animation when it makes visual problems more acute - what does it add?
not clear a child know how to play if you just put this in front of them
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 14, 2025 01:12 AM |
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Strange - my game works different.
Nothing unfocusses.
When you click on the construct button the view switches immediately to the townscreen and the building slowly comes into existance (or gets larger in case of an upgrade).
No idea what the hero thing is all about.
Night/day may get functionality later. Game is still in development.
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted October 14, 2025 01:48 AM |
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You need eagle eye to play this game
The only icon i knew what it meant was end turn - might as well use Russian it would be learnable after a few times.
It's kind of like they had the idea, must do this and that from X and Y but then forget that none of it makes any sense unless you played 10k hours those other games
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted October 14, 2025 10:35 AM |
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Edited by Galaad at 10:36, 14 Oct 2025.
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Syth1984 said:
-Night time graphically exists but it doesn’t affect the game at all which is a shame.One or two days out of 7 could have been night time. Night time could have effected portals or at least line of sight. You can have moon gates and sun gates that are open/closed day or night.
I actually really like your suggestion too.
Night affecting gameplay could add a lot of flavor. I had shared something similar on Discord during the closed playtest: basically making the day/night cycle dynamic by linking it to remaining hero movement points (either summed across heroes or tied to the main one), so the lighting gradually shifts from day to dusk to night as you move. I also find the map pretty beautiful at dusk and night, so it’d be nice to experience that more while playing. It’d add immersion and give a quick visual cue about movement left, while staying optional for players who prefer static lighting, and of course keep that satisfying feeling of the sun rising at the start of a new turn.
purerogue3 said:
You need eagle eye to play this game
The only icon i knew what it meant was end turn - might as well use Russian it would be learnable after a few times.
It's kind of like they had the idea, must do this and that from X and Y but then forget that none of it makes any sense unless you played 10k hours those other games
Appreciate you sharing your impressions, it’s helpful to read how it feels from a new player’s view. You’re right that the UI and feedback need to be clearer.
Hopefully later updates find the right balance. Thanks for giving it a go and writing such direct feedback.
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