Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era unveiled at Gamescon

[Pol]

New Hero Aeos has been introduced. It's not clear, if she's still human but she's The Saint.

[Pitsu]

So, Aeos represents the Church of the Sun? Will the fight between churches of the Sun and the Moon be part of the story?

[Pol]

Site Tag summing it up, now available.

@Pitsu
Asked.

[reeeload]

So, Aeos represents the Church of the Sun? Will the fight between churches of the Sun and the Moon be part of the story?

Did they even fight in Jadame? We saw their fights in Antagarich but in MM8 we learned that their main enemy was necromancers in Jadame.

[Pol]

Temple faction go on, involuntary hero Leon. This time he eats normally but does have a collar.

[raekuul]

So, Aeos represents the Church of the Sun? Will the fight between churches of the Sun and the Moon be part of the story?

Did they even fight in Jadame? We saw their fights in Antagarich but in MM8 we learned that their main enemy was necromancers in Jadame.

The Jadamean Necromancers are still considered part of the Church of the Moon, it's just they lean more towards the Mad Science side of the scale (and in MM8 are relatively benign compared to their Antagarician counterparts - they're more fighting a defensive war than an offensive one, it's just with both the Nightshade Brazier and the Skeleton Transformer they don't have to worry about defense quite so much...)

[Pol]

So, Aeos represents the Church of the Sun? Will the fight between churches of the Sun and the Moon be part of the story?

It's circulating in the lore thread, yet and likely purposefully, without any official reply.

To me, chance of Sun vs Moon is high. They promised earlier to keep in accord with Jadame (MM8) lore.

[Pol]

Beer is mana of any ordinary day.

[Pol]

In temple we trust, to enemey rush!

Keandra is likely combination of names Keisha (African, meaning "Favourite") and Sandra (Greek, meaning "Defender of mankind").

[Pitsu]

Light cavalry jousting? Does not sound like the best use for light cavalry. Anyway, while the hero biographies are nice to read, is there any information on game mechanics emerging? Like how skills and abilities actually work?

[Pol]

Not yet. But slow dosing of these info has been promised by Gromos.

[Pol]

All released heroes in so far are for skirmish mode. This bit of information, heh that sounds like token, was provided by alphyna.

Knowledge is everything, what you need to grasp in a momentum!


Once lost, forever lost, or ghost?


There are some new videos over YT, but it's hard for me to determine if they deliver some new information. Eventually this will come in english too.


Spell superseding "Implosion"?

[Pol]

[Pol]

Game summary done by mesignosis:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jE1 ... 2bmi7isk0c

[Pitsu]

The more I see, the more likely it becomes that I am not even going to give the game a try.

[Pol]

The more I see, the more likely it becomes that I am not even going to give the game a try.

It's either this or this.

It's too early. Although visibly there's not that soft touch, charm and attention to detail, when looking on heroes and units. I remain optimistic, much remains to be seen.


Everything Everywhere All At Once: Game Modes
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 3185873987

Hot something.

[Pol]

..you will be able to freely zoom in and out on strategic map for sure.
~Gromos

[Pitsu]

Everything Everywhere All At Once: Game Modes
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 3185873987

Some thoughts on the last Steam news

The good news is, we can do it all. Strategies in general and HoMM specifically are very mechanically robust. They have a lot of interlocking systems for players to experiment with. So if the developer hits the spot with the game’s core, it becomes a solid foundation for all modes. While both matchmaking and campaign require unique features (like an online lobby or an overworld hub), they don’t need different
mechanics— the game's core remains the same, and it’s there for all modes.

Simply put, we don’t have to choose between a single- and multiplayer focus. We intend to ensure that all kinds of players find what they’re looking for in Olden Era.

Yes, if the developer hits the spot with the game’s core, all modes are possible. Developers of Homm’ latest releases have, however, demonstrated that hitting the spot is not easy. Having it turn based and towns and stacks is apparently not enough. Having hexes instead of squares probably will still not be sufficient and that is probably not even part of the core.

Singleplayer
Campaign
Olden Era will feature a full-fledged single-player campaign. Note the singular: unlike the previous installments, we will incorporate all factions’ stories into a single campaign, structured somewhat differently than before. We’ll tell you more in our future narrative updates! For now, let’s just say it will be non-linear with player choices.

Sounds good, although whether the campaigns are separate or combined is somewhat secondary. In HoMM 1-3 I do not see the campaigns as the core of the game. The stories are generic good vs evil and if they are interesting then mostly because of underlying gameplay not because the story itself. Also the towns and armies were very generic fantasy, not specific to MM lore. Starting from HoMM 4 the lore and campaign started to influence significantly the game (e.g. Infernopolis). The campaigns and lore may have improved, but hard to say that it benefitted the gameplay. In my personal opinion it is the opposite. Not to mention that the way how stories are told (e.g. HoMM 5 cutscenes) may totally ruin them. In this installation we will have 2 towns (Infernal zerg and Xel’naga) out of 6 that seem to exist because of official lore, not because of gameplay. I hope to be proven wrong, and their gameplay also justifies their presence.

Random Maps
The bread and butter of HoMM single-player experience are random maps. You can create an endless number of unique maps to play against the AI by clicking a couple of buttons!

The Random Map Generator and the AI are already fully functional. This feature will obviously be available in Early Access, as well as to closed beta users.

RMG is the core of games like Civilization, Master of Magic, Age of Wonders… In HoMM I would still say that custom maps are more important. A very significant difference between most turn based strategy games and HoMM is that usually the maps are dynamic, not static. In most games the player can build new towns, roads, terraform. This gives the player the ability to convert even a bad RMG output into a decent gaming experience. Altering the map is part of the gameplay challenge. In HoMM the player has not been able to “correct” shortcomings of RMG and thus the quality of map matters a lot more. The adventure map spells and activities are certainly an aspect that could be developed much more in HoMM, but we are yet to see any indication that it happens in Olden Era.

Custom Maps
Another way to play the game against the AI are custom maps that are not linked to a campaign. Olden Era will launch during Early Access with several made by our team. More importantly though, we will share our map editor with the community and make sure you have an easy way to find player-made maps and share your creations.

Do I read it correctly that custom campaigns are not planned? If so, then unfortunate, although it can wait. In relation to custom maps and map editor it would certainly be interesting to learn how scripting/events are done and to which degree things can be modified. Later parts of the news hint that modding will be possible, which is good, but no info yet on the extent.

How to Balance for Both Single- and Multiplayer?
Here is a concern: in singleplayer, a lot of people enjoy developing “broken” builds and finding ways to “beat the system.” The game will become stale if a certain build is objectively better than the rest, but generally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with some things being unbalanced for PvE. It makes games fun!

For multiplayer, however, we need to ensure that most strategies have a place, so there is a concern that the game’s balance might become too “even” because of the multiplayer, with everything feeling too similar in power level and no rush of discovering an awesome build.

The short answer here is, it won’t. We don’t believe in “even” balancing and prefer the meta to have a bunch of different broken builds instead. We would rather buff things than nerf them. Hopefully this makes both the single- and multiplayer experience fun.

And just in case: some skills and objects are already balanced differently in the Campaign. If we feel that it’s required, we might extrapolate this principle further. As long as structure or unit identity remains intact, we feel that this is an acceptable solution as well.

In multiplayer one is going to need to chose between “a bunch of different broken builds”? Might actually be a good approach, but to be interesting it must fulfill a few criteria. First, each town needs to have more than one potentially overpowering build and towns should differ. Second, for each such build there must be a valid counter. Third, in order to not be totally luck based paper-rock-scissors model, the spy (thieves guild) system should allow hints (and possibly misinformation) to opponents.

Is Your AI Fun to Play Against?
When developing the AI, we analyzed how actual people play the game. For example, our AI separates its heroes into “main(s)” and “couriers”, with the latter collecting troops and resources instead of fighting — just like real players do. We hope this provides a genuinely fun experience in singleplayer and makes it challenging enough.

AI is certainly one of the biggest concerns. Vital for success and a big weakness in not just some HoMM games, but in most turn based strategy games. In real time strategy games AI beats human in multitasking and speed of decision makings. In turn based strategies AI has really no advantages, therefore against expert players it always needs to cheat. Too obvious cheating is not fun though, so a more subtle way must be found. Identifying how humans play is a good start, but it is questionable whether AI can and should try to mimic humans. The abovementioned “bunch of broken build” would in fact simplify AI life. The more nearly-equal abilities and factors there are either on adventure map on in battle, the more difficult decision making will be for AI, and the more likely it will behave unguided. Having predetermined aims for hero and town builds should make AI scripting easier. Adding machine learning and hard to notice bonuses, might end up with a decent AI.

[Pol]

@Pitsu
Hmm, that's probably a bit more complicated. Especially as they started with first releasing info for MP and for SP, we are still waiting.

Map Editor should be available from the beginning of Early Access.
RMG much the same.
And also RMG templates, are supposed to be available fresh (or almost) from the start but with configuration via .conf files, not with GUI. Like all popular Jebus Cross (https://heroes.thelazy.net/index.php/Jebus_Cross)

As of campaigns these should be supported, though it wasn't said, that from the beginning.

They are trying to multi-focus to MP features and SP too, with set of configurable options and some pre-sets. I never seen current version in action, so I can't comment how it will work.

Also, if you remember all that beta and alpha testing stages, the game can change a lot. We can discuss that (That is, if we are testers, which I'm not and usually within NDA closed forums.) but that's like all what we can do.

#1 - hitting the spot
It should be possible, if it will successfuly happen, is different question, which is too early yet.

#2 - campaigns with lore
I do love them, especially I like "The Fire Witch" from H3, there were texts aplenty and it was a fun. And ofc H4.

#3 - RMG
That should add longevity to H3 but we were lacking some templates tweaking and editor. With that, it's possible.

#4 - AI
Well, that's another big and important, and yet premature question.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

Custom Maps
Another way to play the game against the AI are custom maps that are not linked to a campaign. Olden Era will launch during Early Access with several made by our team. More importantly though, we will share our map editor with the community and make sure you have an easy way to find player-made maps and share your creations.

Do I read it correctly that custom campaigns are not planned?

It doesn't really say one way or the other, just that you can create custom maps in addition to the pre-made campaign maps.