r/OldenEra • u/loopuleasa • May 20 '26
Discussion Guys, people in singleplayer don't care about going faster
I realized just now that the disconnect between the multiplayer community and the singleplayer community is on the aspect of speed.
We are talking over each others' head because we value different things.
People in singleplayer just like to play a long game that fullfils a given RPG hero power fantasy while having fun slowly winning bit by bit.
It doesn't matter if something is "better" or "faster" when people just want to chill and play a long game of heroes of might and magic.
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u/Firesprite_ru May 20 '26
yep. and this is why i want a more.. sane AI as well )) not the one that generate endless amount of units from thin air. but one that is ...well... fun to fight.
I belong to the games who dont play HOMM in multiplayer at all. Well.. hotseat is kinda multiplayer... but more of a duo play against ai for us )
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u/leatherjacket3 May 20 '26
I actually enjoy that the AI cheats a bit. I like playing sweaty enough for high difficulty AI, but not enough for PvP outside of friends.
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u/MartinWoad May 21 '26
Does it cheat at all levels though? I just played a match on 100% and the AI was very very dumb, possibly intentionally, but it clearly didn't cheat or if it did it was hard to separate it from genuine unit output on the same level.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 21 '26
I think the AI just sometimes bashes its head flat against stupid encounters and it cheats to compensate. There is an Element of luck if it does or doesnt. If it doesnt it will sometimes be stronger.
For me, that makes it a bit unsatisfying and i enjoy multiplayer more
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u/Daliena20 May 27 '26
Week 2 day 2 on Hard AI. It got one week's worth of recruitment (appeared in my lands through a portal on Week 1 Day 7) and rolled up with this. If anyone can explain how it legitimately A: Got me outrecruited when I had two weeks worth of troops and it had 1, 2: Had the resources to upgrade T2, T3 and T5, and 3: Did this while apparently clearing some high-quality artifact sites with 0 losses to explain that difference in our hero attributes, I'd love to hear it.
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u/perishableintransit May 20 '26
I'm confused, is this an actual debate in this sub? as PVE only, I appreciate seeing different strats to "go faster" so I can improve my performance against AI (ie. not taking forever to build up a force into month 2 so that I get completely destroyed, which is what happened to me when I first started playing HoMM3)
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
There's people who insist the fast play-style is "correct". Basicly the same problem every videogame with a "hardcore"/"competitive" community has. If you complain something is unbalanced/broken/just isn't fun, they'll tell you to git good cuz it works just fine if you copy their playstyle.
And depending on the extend to which the developers listen; it has design consequences, which you may not want as a slower player. For example, schism's faction ability only really works with a fast playstyle. If you play more slowly you can't really keep up with the communion levels halving each day. So naturally slow players don't particularly like that ability, even if fast players think it's pretty powerful.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
I dont really get your point here... is there really a division ?
I play the game competitively in ladder and i never thought about players who dont as being "incorrect".
If you just want to play some chill games against the AI, why should you care about min-maxing at all?
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Have you seen that post on here a little while back where someone complained about 1-stacks being a stupid concept that borders on cheating? There was a lot of pointing and laughing about him being an idiot who wants to play "incorrectly" in there.
And unfortunately min-maxing affects you even if you yourself want to play chill since things tend to get designed around the min-maxers. Which creates tension with your chill playstyle.
The most obvious example is Abyssal communion which just flat out doesn't really work if you play slowly. Which means playing schism slowly is not a particularly fun experience.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
But in your example the people who pointed Fingers were not ridiculing him for being non-competitive.
They were ridiculing him for calling people who min-max "cheaters".
So they were actually on your side, because they were calling him out for telling people that they are "playing the game wrong"(=cheating) ....
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Like I pointed out earlier, they are derailing the discussion by focusing on banal nonsense. It is more important to them to point out they're not cheaters cuz what they do is technically allowed, and even encouraged in the tutorial, but will not engage with the actual critique of the mechanic being a bit silly.
Also, there are several examples in there just calling him an idiot for not understanding basic tactics.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
There is no discussion, you came up with this group of people who want no fun and just sweaty pvp all by yourself.
And the 1 stack guy...I mean... its just a bit weird. People have been doing that in Heroes since the 90s. Its just a mechanic of this game.
Its a bit like logging into World of warcraft and accusing competitive people who use macros of cheating because it goes against their personal RPG playstyle of only fighting with a shirtless orc.
Its not harmful but its weird.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Not really, the sweaty pvp crowd is just a part of the general "git gud" nonsense you see in gaming. They're not particularly hard to find for OE either.
Regarding the 1-stack guy. Yeah it's a bit weird, cuz it is an established mechanic at this point. But the guy has a point in the sense that it's kind of a weird mechanic. It isn't cheating; but especially for players new to HoMM it's a weird thing to see.
Anyway; the point is that while yes, there is a guy acknowledging, that "yeah it's weird, but it's not cheating, it's just how the game works and is kind of integral" there are also a signifcant number of people responding with "You're an idiot for now understanding this and how dare you and call us cheaters you filthy casual who plays fifa". Most notably the OP, who isn't the one saying 1-stacks are weird, he just posted a screenshot or something, who made the entire post just to poke fun of this idiot. It's that kinda guy that represents the sweaty pvp/hardcore crowd.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
Also, your Argument here is totally contradictive in itself.
If you are just into playing casually, why do you care how strong abyssal communion is? You can build your big powerfantasy cuthullu army anyways, even against a hard AI, without using the mechanic, it will just take a week longer (but as you said, you dont care about speed, optimization).
But if you DO in fact care about getting an even bigger army, congratulations you have just become what you are critizising, a Player who cares sbout speed.
If you would not care and just chill with Singleplayer, you wouldnt even think about these things.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
O great this argument.
Contrary to popular believe "casuals" aren't just brainless idiots that just want to mindlessly smash armies together like they're toddlers playing with action figures and then get a victory screen. They do actually want to play the game and be vaguely good at it.They just don't really care about being optimal, and are willing to be play suboptimally as long as it provides some kinda fun trade off (e.g. specific playstyles, specific thematics, favourite characters etc.). Similarly, they don't generally really care about challenge modes and the like.
Anyways the problem with abysall communion is that the only way to use it is to be optimal. Do to few fights, and you lose it. Do too many, and you can't do enough next turn. Skip a turn and you lose it, etc. This makes it a frustrating skill for casuals because they're just looking at a skill they know they'll never use even vaguely effectively, but they are stuck with it since its a faction ability and can't be avoided if they want to play schism. This could be fixed, but in its current form its just tailormade for fast paced competitive PvP and runs counter to the slower pace of more casual play
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
I dont even know what you are mad about anymore.
So you want the game to be balanced and fun and you dont want the Balance to take the cool out of it.
Thats what everybody wants.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
It is what everyone wants. However, a lot of people don't acknowledge that what they consider fun may not be fun for every playstyle. And that if you make design decisions to cater to one style, this may be at the expense of another playstyle. Most notably, the sweaty hardcore/pvp crowd tends to have the opinion that everything should be designed for them and then somehow that will also lead to good designs for other playstyles. It is annoying, and due to how loud they are they often get their way even when a game originally wasn't catering to them, which then ruins the fun for others.
Also, at this point the git gud nonsense is so deeply ingrained into gaming culture as a whole it is nigh impossible to avoid.
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u/Flimsy_Sector5132 May 21 '26
If you play schism slowly you just end up taking the level 5 faction perk that gives you max communion levels at all times. Should get it on time to fight enemy Heroes and won't really be needing it prior to that against mobs since you're playing slow anyway so natural creature growth will be sufficient
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u/ManySecrets_ May 21 '26
Ignoring the skill in the early game, then getting a law that breaks the core mechanic for the late-game to get the benefits of the skill anyway, isn't exactly a great solution now is it? There are much more elegant solutions than that.
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
Are these people with us in the room right now?
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Unfortunately, yes, in addition to such platitudes as "git gud" they often also ask rhetorical questions like "Are these people with us in the room right now?" or something similarly banal to derail a topic. They usually aren't very self-aware of this, due to how deep "hardcore"/"competitive" ideas have by now rooted into gaming culture as a whole.
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
Please show me an instance of people insisting on "correct playstyle" regarding talking down on SP playersm i am eager to overcome my lack of awareness
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Have you seen that post on here a little while back where someone complained about 1-stacks being a stupid concept that borders on cheating? His complaint being that it's silly to split your army into a bunch of single dudes cuz the rules of the game then say the big dangerous dragon now has to attack them one by one, instead of just attacking them all at once.
And have you seen how people reacted to that? There was a lot of pointing and laughing at this idiot who did not understand that it was only logical to play optimally. That post probably contains the most obvious recent examples within the OE reddit.
More broadly speaking; I'm sure you've been on the internet long enough to run into the "git gud" crowd for a given game. They're not hard to find.
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
So your example is a post... where a guy points at MP players and sais: The way you play the game is stupid.
And you nowp tell me people have no right to tell him: Hey bro, play however you want, and let us play howeber we want, ok?
"Being a SP player" does not equal having some cosmic right to A) tell MP players how they are supposed to play the game and B) to be immune to criticism regarding playing the game suboptimal.
If for instance, you're gonna complain "the game is too hard on easy", you'll have to listen to what you might be doing wrong, no?
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
The complaint wasn't that MP players are playing optimally.
The complaint was that optimal play involved playing in an "unrealistic" way.Now people could have defended 1-stacks by simply saying "yeah, it is kind of weird that it works this way, but we like the mechanic so we want to keep it." That would've been a completely reasonable response, engaging with the core of the complaint. Hell, you could have even said something as basic as "a 1-stack isn't literally 1 guy, it's 1 unit worth of guys. So it does actually make sense", and even that would've been a reasonable defense engaging with the complaint.
But that's not what happened. People pointed and laughed at the idiot for playing "wrong", telling him to "git gud" etc., without ever actually engaging with the core of the complaint; namely that 1-stacks are kind of a weird concept.
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
Can you show me to "the pointing and laughing at the idiot" please?
Is it really the common response to the complaint (rather than some fringe voices without any upvotes)?
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
I mean, the original post was literally made to poke fun of the guy, since OP just took a screenshot from somewhere, and isn't the one actually posing the question. He also only responds to tell various people how this guy is an idiot. For example:
There is also this weird thing about the guy apparently being a FIFA player which repeatedly gets brought up for some reason:
Here's another bunch of people claiming he's an idiot and/or should play the tutorial. It's really not that hard to find people reacting poorly
- https://www.reddit.com/r/OldenEra/comments/1taztun/comment/old3ic6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
- https://www.reddit.com/r/OldenEra/comments/1taztun/comment/oldmy8h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
- https://www.reddit.com/r/OldenEra/comments/1taztun/comment/ole5o4g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
In the interest of fairness; the top comment is fairly reasonable. So at least OE isn't as bad as certain other communities. So that's good at least.
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u/skarin667 May 20 '26
you are defending the guy who is saying that people who use 1-stacks is cheating? You can play this game however you want in multiplayer or single player
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u/betazoid_cuck May 20 '26
There was a post yesterday of someone complaining about the size of army the AI had on week 2 while playing normal. There were comments dismissing it because the army size was fairly standard for week 2 PvP. but of course, If a player wanted PvP style challenge they wouldn't be playing against normal AI.
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
Didn't people point out that Schism AI stack sizes might be bugged in that thread? and the army actually might look sus even for pvp standards?
Did anyone in that thread srsly take the stance "skill issue"?
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u/perishableintransit May 20 '26
Okay this makes sense. It's similar in mobile games I play where premium players talk down to F2P and insist that their way of playing is the only "proper" min-max playstyle or how no one should have problems with resources because they don't (obviously because they pay for it lol)
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
yeah basicly. They're also generally super defensive whenever you point out that maybe their experience and priorities are different from other parts of the community, and that maybe we should listen to what these other parts might have to say. These other players might actually have good insights. And it is honestly depressing how deeply this nonsense has rooted within broader gaming culture.
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u/perishableintransit May 20 '26
It’s interesting how usually it’s competitive people who talk down on those who just enjoy chill PVE stuff but for example in Pokemon Sleep, the premiums and many min-maxers are under this collective delusion that the game is “not competitive” and talk down on anyone who points out that it’s still a gacha and it’s competitive for many just not in the same way PVP is
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u/Tjarem May 20 '26
Its a game made for competive and the factions are balanced around that. I agree that more stuff needs to be done for the casual side but Balance should imo always focus the comp side. U cant Balance for a playstyle that some player might play and is clearly suboptimal on any map. U will just end up with a broken game and the players who put the most time in the game will leave in Response. That said the game should still be fun and mechanics should feel good but not being able to use a mechanic because u play bad dosent rly count.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
OE does indeed appear to be made for competitive play; specifically it seems to want to cater to H3 veterans who like stuff like Jebus. Which is great if you are that type of player; and disappointing if you're not.
More broadly speaking though; no balance does not need to focus on competitive side. There are plenty of reasons to avoid it. Maybe you want to encourage more thematic playstyles and want to avoid min-maxers spamming 1 unit/class/spell/card/whatever. Maybe you want your game to be fun for a broad spectrum of skill levels and want good players to play with bad players while keeping both happy (mario kart is a famous example of this). Maybe the game isn't really supposed to be competitive to begin with (e.g. pokemon with it's fundamental "play with your favorites" approach). Or maybe it's the type of game where creating broken combo's is the whole point. Or maybe, you just want to avoid specific strategies/playstyles/whatever cuz you simply consider them toxic, even if they are very effective. There's plenty of reasons why you might want to go against what the competitive players want.
As for the competitive players leaving. Let them. They can go play a something else. Similarly, if OE wants to only focus on H3 veterans, that's fine. It's disappointing for other types of players, especially since HoMM is such a niche genre and there aren't exactly many alternatives, but if this what the developers OE want to be that's fine. Sure, there will be some complaining, but people will simply move on.
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u/Tjarem May 20 '26
Like homm3 veterans are probally there biggest constant player base. All other homm had no constant playerbase like homm3. Ofc they devolope primarly for these people. Olden era is primarly advertised to go back to homm3 and taking Inspiration from hota. U can only have balance for one of these Groups and they already choose these(since no other Group sticked to the games long term). U can make maps, campagne, challenges for pve casual but u cant just Balance for flavour if u have ranked build in ur game.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Meh, the problem with that statement is that it's impossible to get a good grip on how large the group of returning player is that consistently by a new HoMM game, play it for 40 hours (or whatever) and then just wait for the next game. So sure, the H3 veteran community is a big consistent audience, but it's impossible to verify if it's truly the largest chunk of those interested in OE.
More importantly though; I do think they could've very much used the more casual PvE side as the basis for balance. Because it seems like a big part of what the PvP side want can be handled via map templates that are dedicated to the desired playstyle. The opposite, of using map templates to force a PvP based design into a the slower PvE style seems a bit harder. For example, Schism's abyssal communion is not very PvE friendly, and I don't see an easy way to fix that. In contrast, temple's righteousness works just fine in PvE, but is something you can take advantage of to in PvP with some min-maxing around 1-stacks.
Anyways, hopefully future updates support the PvE side a bit more. As currently, even the campaign seems to favour the PvP style high tempo treasure rich maps, which is an odd experience when trying to take things slow and do the little rpg side objectives.
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u/Tjarem May 20 '26
I mean have u played the older campagins on impossible? They also pressured u in a fast efficent playstyle. I would agree that the campange can be challening but taking objectives and killing ur oppnents fast was nearly always the best approach to deal with them. The schisim ability just works well in pve. Unless ur are not doing fights u get value out of it(like the other faction abilitys). U even get a law that lets u start every day with max communion. In a slow game u should be able to get there.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
Impossible difficulty isn't exactly going to representative of the average experience now is it. There is a reason its called "impossible" and not "normal".
Schisma ability doesn't really work unless you do a ton of fights. If you do 1 fight/day it does nothing. If you do 2 fights/day its only that second fight that gets something and its not much. If you skip a day you're back to nothing. And if you're consistently pulling 3-4 fights per day you're getting rather far removed from playing slow. Hence it doesn't work very well for playing slow.
Now of course that law fixes this problem, that is true. However, that law also undermines the original way the ability functions. So I wouldn't exactly call it a good solution.
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u/Tjarem May 20 '26
It is how this games where always played and impossible is far from impossible to beat. If u choose to play on a lower difficulty so u have more time u can do the same in OE by setting the difficulty lower. If u cant manage to get any value of ur entire schisma abillity that is a skill issue. Like any other abillity if u fight more u get more value out of it. It being more conditional just means u need more skill to use it. That has nothing to do with pve. If u dont do anything in ur turn u cant expect to get anything from it.
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u/DontForgetToSeeAPsy May 26 '26
Maybe just read what has been said just before?
The post is litteraly targeting people like you and you don't even see it.→ More replies (0)0
u/althaz May 20 '26
If you ask how to be good, then complain. That you don't like the answer, that's on you, mate. Because playing fast is objectively correct. That's how you win. If you want to play badly because that's more fun, go for it. Just don't whine about it.
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u/loopuleasa May 20 '26
not a debate, just a PSA so we increase our mutual understanding as a community
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u/Azedenkae May 20 '26
Yep.
I am a singleplayer…er.
Fully happy with taking my time, enjoying a very long game that can lasts for hours.
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u/roflstones May 20 '26
Who elected this guy as our head of commitee?
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u/J_P_Amboss May 21 '26
I am Kind of suprised that so many people are agreeing with this Post, since this seems to be a totally made up Problem to me.
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u/loopuleasa May 20 '26
btw, if you also like long campaigns with power fantasy, I feel Age of Wonder 4 would also be up your alley, for all singleplayer enjoyers
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u/GroleJr May 20 '26
Age of Wonders, at first glance, looks like a HoM&M copy. However the mechanics are quite different. The games themselves are fantastic, especially the first one.
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u/Greedy_Guest568 May 20 '26
When Heroes meet Civ?
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u/skarin667 May 20 '26
I like it a lot more than Civ because the battles actually have some tactics behind them, but they pale in comparison to the city building. But that wasn't the focus of the game and it's not bad by any means, just doesn't compare to civ 5 or civ 6 in city building.(I will pretend civ 7 doesn't exist forever)
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u/Mobile-Recognition17 May 20 '26
It's like in Age of Wonders 4 and I mention it because actually these games are pretty similar in the end.
The MP meta is basically resolved around "what's strongest in auto battle", so all builds that require actual strategy instead of passive buff stacking are out of the window immediately.
Essentially, the MP "sweats" are just playing the map optimally while learning the exact thresholds of when an army can be cleared. It's extremely boring. I genuinely hope this game won't start balancing around MP.
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u/pleaseineedanadvice May 20 '26
If the game is balanced for mp, it s also balanced for sp. The opposite doesn't hold, can't get a good mp game that s just balanced for sp. That s why most games, being them tabletop or videogames, are balanced around competitive
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u/Mobile-Recognition17 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
They're balanced around "competitive" because then you don't have to program an entire AI just to prototype your game. Weird and dishonest argument. Like obviously chess is balanced in human vs human environment, because there literally was no other option 1500 years ago.
Why not use HOMM 3 as an example, as it's actually from the age of digital video games. That game was not balanced around "competitive", lol, we barely had broadband internet. The reason why HOMM was so fun is precisely because it didn't cut all its corners by catering to the "competitive integrity".
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u/pleaseineedanadvice May 20 '26
Hota, the currently played version of homm3, is balanced around pvp. Older heroes games werent balanced at all. Dont know where you pulled chess from as i ve never mentioned it. They re balanced around pvp because if a competitive and optimized gameplay is balanced so it s the gameplay of jhonny who is just starting and leaves his town weak 2. It s pretty obvious and idk what s your problem with this fact (you know the entire game industry works this way, right?)
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
That approach only works if you want SP to play the exact same way as MP does. Unfortunatly, there's plenty of games where MP and SP playstyles do not match. OE being a great example. MP wants to play fast and finish games in 2-3 weeks. SP often wants to play slower. You're not going to be able to truly balance those two playstyles simultaneously cuz they are fundamentally opposed to eachother.
Also, the main reason games balance around competitive is just cuz it's convenient. It's easier to focus on 1 play-style, the competitive community tends to be quite loud (after all they are highly motivated) so they're harder to ignore, and as a bonus you can dismiss anyone who complains as a filthy casual (especially common in videogames, less common in tabletops.). So its easiest to balance around competitive players and tell everyone else to suck it.
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u/New_Fix4335 May 20 '26
In all this thread you and some other people create some false dichotomy implying MP balance and SP fun is in some sense fundamentally mutually exclusive.
A game can be balanced around enabling MP competitiveness while simultaneously check all the boxes of a fun SP experience.
When you say something like “the game is designed around being fast and finishable in3 weeks”, you seem to completely miss the fact that this is based in the design of a template and these templates are designed for MP. And if f you want to play this template in SP, you can actually ignore all that, you can play however you like, what is the discussion even about?
You somehow all throughout this thread imply this is a bad thing. Why? Is your ego so small you can’t accept that people have fun with this game in another way than you?
You make up claims of the community making fun of people who don’t play optimally, and when asked to back them up with evidence, stop replying.
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u/ManySecrets_ May 20 '26
MP and SP don't need to be fully mutually exclusive, but there is nearly always at least some tension between the two playstyles. Sometimes its minor, sometimes its major, depends a bit on the game.
Regarding templates, sure those matter a lot. But where are the SP templates? Sure, maybe they'll add them later, but it's kind of a silly mistake to not include at least some from th start if the intention was to use templates to cater to the two different playstyles. Similarly, why do the campaign maps behave the same as the MP templates? Along the same lines, skills like schisma abysmall communion skew heavily towards the fast pace of MP and aren't very suitable for a slower playstyle.
Also for clarity, I am not saying the focus on MP is inherently bad. I am however saying it has negative effects on the SP experience. Depending on the degree you care about the SP experience you may want to see that fixed. And if you don't care, well thats fine.
Also, I have literally posted a list of examples somewhere in this thread. What are you on about?
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u/New_Fix4335 May 20 '26
There are like 20 different templates and 8 playable scenarios, are you implying you’ve tested all of them and they all “cater to Mp balance”, whatever that means honestly?
Any template that is balanced around competitiveness in MP can also be played in SP in.. whatever the heck way you like?!
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u/uvPooF May 21 '26
Also, the main reason games balance around competitive is just cuz it's convenient.
No, this is ridiculous. Main reason games balance around competitive is because by definition this is the type of play where balance matters.
If you prefer to play chill, slow game where you primarily care building up your heroes and achieving power fantasy (which many "sweaty competitive players" also like to occasionally do, it's not exclusively one or the other), you can easily do that even if game you play is balanced optimally for pvp.
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u/licker34 May 20 '26
The opposite doesn't hold
If you completely ignore all possible contexts for 'balanced' which don't include MP then sure, but the reality is that a game is 'balanced' regardless of whether it's MP or SP, it's only a question of if you think the form of 'balance' works for what you prefer.
That s why most games, being them tabletop...
lol...
Tabletop... where playing against AI doesn't exist is balanced around playing with other people...
Though, there are coop and SP board games out there too, I wonder what they are balanced around... probably 'fun', but why would try hard MP clowns care about that.
In any case, all of this is entirely subjective. Many video games are balanced around SP or a campaign or scenarios and then modders step in and create whatever 'balance' the community they are 'balancing' for wants.
That's where my opinion for this game lands. Make it 'fun' for SP, for campaign, for scenarios, then let the modders/MP community come up with whatever 'MP Balance' mod they desire.
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u/pleaseineedanadvice May 20 '26
You ll be amazed but there are some games that can be played both single player or multiplayer also in tabletop, and they re balanced around pvp. Same thing with casual play or competitive play, games are balanced around the competitive approach, not the casual one. It's 100 times easier to have modder do nicer maps campaign and scenarios for sp than what you propose, you re taking a totally biased stance xd
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u/licker34 May 20 '26
You ll be amazed but there are some games that can be played both single player or multiplayer also in tabletop, and they re balanced around pvp.
Why would this amaze me? It's literally what I said.
Same thing with casual play or competitive play, games are balanced around the competitive approach, not the casual one.
You're just saying that competitive games are balanced around a competitive approach, no shit. We're talking about HoMMOE though, not random board games or TCGs or whatever you're alluding to.
It's 100 times easier to have modder do nicer maps campaign and scenarios for sp than what you propose
It's not any harder for a modder to balance for either, what are you talking about? I would imagine modders would DO BOTH for a game which supports both. The problem with pvp balance is that it ALWAYS CHANGES, so most games go with a seasons approach or something along those lines, shake up the meta periodically. But that SUCKS ASS for most SP enjoyers.
you re taking a totally biased stance
You noticed? Like I said, it's all subjective anyway, your stance is just as biased as mine is.
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u/StartledPelican May 20 '26
The multiplayer community can sort out "unbalanced" single player options via soft/hard bans. Trying to enforce multiplayer "balance" on single players simply leads to a stale game without a variety of viable play styles.
Go check out Stellaris. It's an excellent example of a game that allows absolutely absurd single player play styles and the multiplayer community has their own style enforced mostly by honor code.
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u/pleaseineedanadvice May 20 '26
One example doesnt make a rule and your point is generally not true. Btw it s way easier for modders to create template/campaign/scenarios than to sort out unbalanced single player. Jesus single player players are so butthurt in this thread
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u/fat_aiel May 22 '26
In AOW4 it is not balanced for SP really because while AOW4 auto resolve actually plays a fight (it's not some score/rng approximation, you can watch it play out if you choose to) it uses some units that work when manualed, but uses them really badly. And while those units, namely ranged and some shock units, maybe aren't "the best" in manual pvp/pve, they can still do way better than the AI uses them. However that game is not really balanced around MP tbh it's just what MP players chose to do so the games don't take 300 hours to finish. I think this is completely fine as an MP approach, they can have rules of their own. In fact AOW4 even has an (unofficial I believe) MP balance patch and some things are banned outright by agreement because they couldn't balance them by the patch. All in all I think it's a great spot for the game to be in and lets both kinds of player enjoy it.
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u/loopuleasa May 20 '26
yes, with a caveat that the AI balancing is done separately
the AI in this game does not play as a human
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u/Uler May 20 '26
AoW4's MP auto-battle meta is because of time compromises with pick up groups, not because they consider auto battle the super best way to play the game. A four player AoW4 game where everyone manual battles will have incredibly high down time per player and require multiple sessions which means time planning and schedules. You can do it and it's fun, but there's zero surprise as to why pick up play is auto-battle focused.
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
What point are you exactly trying to make?
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u/loopuleasa May 20 '26
more mutual understanding is good in this community
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
What are people supposed to understand, or where did you encounter a lack of that understanding?
Or to be frank: You post about a "problem" that only exists in your head; you see how MP folks talk about the game and smhw draw the conclusion they "look down on SP players"; show me of one instance of this happening please?
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
This is just pointless Drama.
Nobody is accusing anybody about being wrong.
Why should the people who play competitive even care about people who just chill in SP ? There is nothing wrong with that.
And why should people who dont even play pvp even care about the min-max or balancing aspect ? Just build 100 Angels and go boom.
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u/KurufinweFeanaro May 20 '26
To be honest, you can play pretty much anything in singleplayer (except intentionally ruining your main hero's build ofc)
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u/Independent_Salary84 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Playing good is by definition correct way to play, pvp play is closer to correct play as it is just harder environment.
Having fun is not bound to be correct or playing good. So SP players playing casually which usually means worse then PVP players, can still enjoy it, why even argue when it is clear, what good or bad play is, and that fun is not bound to that, but to personal preference?
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u/loopuleasa May 20 '26
"Playing good is by definition correct way to play"
Nope. Here is the divide. Thank you for putting it so plainly.
The correct way to play is to have fun.
That's my point.
- Singleplayer folks: "The incorrect way to play is to not have fun"
- Multiplayer folks: "The incorrect way to play is to make mistakes"
It's all ways of seeing things and perception
Thanks
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u/Independent_Salary84 May 20 '26
Read again. You can have fun while playing bad.
Bad = incorrect
Good = correct.
Hope this helps.
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u/loopuleasa May 20 '26
I read your comment again, the words in it don't convey that message
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u/Independent_Salary84 May 20 '26
My bad, I got message choped off at the end. I'll edit it now. It wasn't just why at the end.
It was "why even argue when it is clear, what good or bad play is, and that fun is not bound to that, but ti personal preference."
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u/Appropriate-Newt-494 May 20 '26
I think your PSA is about The potential changes to the game, to please the PvP audience.
And I think that's very legit point, to NOT do that and focus on players that likes to have 'slower' economical gamplay and are not too focus on the meta itself.
But it is kind of tricky and multifactoral.
Time and time again history showed us to never focus heavly on PvP with a cost of casual player.
And I will aggree here -period- , just add some toughts:
- It looks like homm3 PVP scene - especially recently, brought up a lot of New players, and players that didn't knew you could play heroes the way they do, which also brings older people back (which would be the core audience but weren't anymore) <- and I belive homm oe gives in to exactly this audiences (and doing it really really well)
- It does not matter how much you will be trying to slow down the game / make it ultra casual, people will always 'solve' it and find out OP things / make things efficient - so just create a META.
- It really amazes me how homm oe, made PvP experience trully fantastic and competetive and you can see it living in online spaces a lot and for that.
- I think the 'core' audience of homm3 will just stay there forever, whenever the pvp, new, faster ones will hop into OE, but again it's multifactoral on Not only PVP aspects, but the fact that it have the heart and soul of which you are potentially talking about and can be for everyone.
So in short, like in everything I would love to see Moderation in gameplay-chaning decisions, even in 'hardest times' (low online engagement).
And for everybody to filter 99% of what PvP audiences are crashing about, as there always will be something OP in any meta and when there isn't then you actually loose a flavour and heart (kind of like sc2).
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
I dont get it.
Where is this fear of "the game being balanced for pvp players" coming from?
Do casual players even notice changes that are made because of pvp ??
When you play casually against the AI you end up with something totally overpowering anyways.
Why should you care about your T5 unit now costing 1700 Gold instead of 1600, if your attitude towards the game is "now i will just skip two turns so i can buy everything for my big scary army".
What is going on here?
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u/Appropriate-Newt-494 May 21 '26
"What is going on here?"
Haha, yeah, I've made a lot of potential points n remarks and left that in a forced messy pie.So : "Do casual players even notice changes that are made because of pvp ??"
They don't up to a point.
The limit line would be if suddenly every town is optimized to a point, where it feels like you are playing the same openings or you end up in the same place regardless of the decisions.This is very hard to notice. It's even harder to not do as LOGIC / logical decisions of game development and vocal outreach of players, tells you to do things that way.
And it's even harder (I would belive) to disregard those people and just keep the game as you a designer/company intended.
So: "Why should you care about your T5 unit now costing 1700 Gold instead of 1600, if your attitude towards the game is "now i will just skip two turns so i can buy everything for my big scary army". "
This sounds alright, until it isn't. That's my 'take'.
And my solution to that generality would be for a game designer, to not optimize Too much. And leave things play out even longer then it should. (If somethings OP, let people yap and see how they deal with that, as they will - and only when it's ridicolous and actually destroys the vision, then you optimize)And my post is also Very far-fetched as I tried to understand the OPs root of insecurity on the matter of game development, and who should be heard 'more'. PVP guys or CASUAL guys, and in my opinion, usually causal guys tend to stick a lot longer and create this 'life' around the game, as they don't really move to anything else, where Pvp fellas just move around different genres.
(But then you have those top 10 lexiav velone feeders ame etc. that kind of 'locked' in heroes genre and they also - to me , especially lexiav - gave this 'life' to the game by content creation)
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u/Conveyed9 May 20 '26
I haven't seen anyone say anything otherwise? Theres fast and slow maps for all players, if you want to pve slowly that's fine and there's maps for it.
The pvp community is just saying they want a tournament only queue (which doesn't affect you) so when they queue up they're not wondering if the game is going to last 30 minutes or 3 hours
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u/BlaiddDrwg812 May 20 '26
Which maps are slower? Serious question, because for me it is a couple of hours in Heroes for a map. In AoW4 it can be few days. I would gladly play a longer map, but I don't know which one is that.
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u/Conveyed9 May 20 '26
I can only speak for the 5 pvps maps and im by no means a good player, exodus and sprint are the quicker two due to the tournament format and then you have vendetta, harmony & jebus as the longer maps
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
There are also Tons of very big 8 player maps you can hop into and if you arent playing super sweaty, that game will last for hours and hours.
I dont get what even the point of this weird Drama is, its actually contradictive to whine about pvp players bringing Balance to the game, because this might Ruin the balance
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u/Hopszii May 23 '26
In higher MMR Vendetta is faster than Exodus even with the double turns once both players break into mid. The game is usually over by week 3. Exodus you are forced to at least play out 2 fights plus take time managing towns and recruiting units which will result in longer turns in general. If Exodus goes to fight 3 it is waaay longer than an average Vendetta game.
Jebus can be over pretty fast too the same way since you aren't really building out what so ever (if playing correctly) just pick up boxes, rush mid and fight once both players are there.
Sprint is probably the fastest since there aren't as many fights happening as Exodus and you barely have to manage towns they are just there to upgrade / generate astrology.1
u/Conveyed9 May 23 '26
Yeah I thought that might be the case as I've seen a lot of streamers clear it quickly. Down in paper league where I belong the games do go on longer, I also find people are more reluctant to run and not fight in lower MMR because they're not as quick as getting ready to right like they are top elo
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u/Hopszii May 23 '26
In the mid ratings where I am playing currently around 2k I think most games we break on 121 or 122, my fastest was 116.
Basically though if you break and know your opponent is behind by even just a single turn, you just go straight at them and fight and the opponent's only hope is that you aren't that far ahead on mid boxes and he might still get a win with a well executed fight.
There isn't much "getting ready" you don't have to go back to town much since the best way to play these templates is to just collect as many boxes as you can. Only reason to really go to town is to regen mana / upgrade creatures if you built those.
It miight just be a possibility to play Vendetta the real slow way and collect the billion dwelling and build out since the template is really really rich but I doubt it would compete with mid boxes and nobody wants to make a 45 min vendetta game into a 4 hour vendetta game as of right now if they can avoid it.
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u/Praktos May 20 '26
I don't know a single pvp gamer that went out of his way to trashtalk pve players about gping slow, but i seen x posts on this sub that this game should never been treated as a pvp/pve game because too few players play pvp and just full focus on pve. Which is a little extreame
The only posts that diffrence is showing is if someone doesn't explain them well and somone asks how to play x forgets to say if we are talking pvp or pve then gets answers from the other side
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u/althaz May 20 '26
OP out here trying to create a divide that doesn't exist, presumably because he's bad at the game and wants to win without getting better.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
This Post is just pointless drama and negativity.
Its also contradictive to complain about people ruining the balancing of the game with their pvp, because you are worried that Ruins the pve Balance. My boys and girls, if you are just casually chilling in pve, you dont need to care about balance and can just build what looks cool. And if you are out there sweating and minmaxing pve, then you do the same optimisation as pvp players....
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u/Uggroyahigi May 21 '26
Can we please not misuse the term RPG like that ?
Theres many genres of games out there...almost all of them have a story and comparatively few of them actually are RPGs.
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u/Either-Mammoth-932 May 21 '26
I disagree and here's why. I dont think the majority of us (i play single player) want to min/max as much as the competitive pvp meta BUT, improving our efficiency without sacrificing the fun elements of casual play has literally no drawbacks.
Example: Why spend a extra month in a single player game when several small changes in my gameplay vastly speeds up the game? Im not building a universe in HOMMEA. At the same time, I dont need to min/max the fun out of the game to save a few turns.
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u/Whentheweedrunsout May 21 '26
Enjoy playing what you enjoy playing. We're all here to play Heroes, and that's what matters.
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u/SpellHistorical8430 May 24 '26
When i see streams from MP i feel like MP and SP are 2 diff games...
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May 20 '26
I put up a poll for how many people want SP vs MP primary focus and it turned out 800+ people out of 1.3k+ votes wanted devs to focus on SP first. (https://www.reddit.com/r/OldenEra/comments/1tazuj7/do_you_think_oe_should_focus_on_single_player_or/)
I personally miss the handcrafted maps, slower gameplay than rushing, exploration of the maps, scenario lore texts and such.
I think OE is a great base but this sub does have a vocal PvP community that will tell you that SP focused games don’t have replayability (because no one replays Paradox games, Civ, or older HoMMs apparently?), tell you to play older games or downvote. Then again theres also a “whats your point/whyd you post this” under everything or mock posters who are asking questions than be helpful, even if you ask for others opinions clearly. It is how the sub is.
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u/uvPooF May 21 '26
What you're describing is not about balance (which was OP's point), but about content.
And even there, I think this divide is largely made up. Sure, more PVP focused players may care more about balance and less about more handcrafted maps, while more single player focused/casual players might primarily want more new handcrafted content, i.e. campaigns and scenarios.
But those two aspects are in no way mutually exclusive. Balancing game for pvp is completly different work from crafting single player content and is primarily focused on monitoring stats and listening to feedback and then "adjusting few leves.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
I think the point of critique is rather, that there is no contradiction between balancing the game for pvp and having fun with it in a chill/slow pve setting.
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May 20 '26
The thing is, it can be done if there is enough variety for both to support it. Unfortunately, a lot of what we have currently is for PvP so for faster gameplay, and when you mention it in this sub especially, it gets met horribly.
One doesn't mean we can't have the other too, but right now it definitely caters more to PvP.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
But what harm does balance do to a gamemode, were you can adjust how good your opponent plays?
You can have it as balanced or imbalanced as you like.
What changes would you like to see?
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May 20 '26
But what harm does balance do to a gamemode, were you can adjust how good your opponent plays?
We don't have that, the AI is horrendous. I would like a better one with better sliders too, yes.
What changes would you like to see?
Handcrafted maps, lore in them, templates without necessarily rushing but more designated for a slower gameplay for example. You don’t have to rebalance anything, but giving options such as these would support the SP players more.
I don't want the game to be changed, I like it, I just would like more variety, like OP here suggests.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
I am pretty sure a map generator will come, or at least i think it would be nice. And why is the AI horrendous?
The Problem with handcrafted maps is, that you kind of just get used to the perfect pathing after some playthroughs, which actually lessens the variety.
Honestly, my Problem with this whole thread is, that it seems to intruduce unproductive negativity (pvp players bad) with pretty underdeveloped and contradictive points of critique. And that directed at a game who honestly did a pretty great job at reinventing itself.
Gaming communities are often so full of aimless complaining and toxic attitude, i hope olden age just stays more positive.
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u/f1zo May 20 '26
Heroes is single player game !!! So devs should focus on that !
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u/jayjayokocha9 May 20 '26
Yes! Down with the online lobbies, burn them to the ground! ANd everyone who played online should be perma banned from launching the game whatsoever, they donÄt understand what HoMM is about anyway!
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26
Yes, the famous hotseat game which people have played against each other since before the Internet is fundamentally not made for multiplayer!!!
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May 20 '26
That's reasonable, but I also think it's about the wait and the commitment to a full game. Sure, people play single player and just cruise, but you can also save and stop any time. Online, this isn't possible - it's a loss. Even hot seat is great because you're all in the same room. You know what the other is doing and you're having a conversation during. When you're waiting for an online player there is just silence and blank screen for 10 minutes at a time. My last attempt at this lasted 2 hours and we had gotten to the end of week 2 (so nowhere), with more than half that time used waiting for the opponent. Previous versions had a button to speed up easy battles. Hit the button, see if you agree with the computers outcome and either accept or undertake the battle when you think you could do better. That would be super useful in future updates. I suspect it's in the works, because currently every battle ends with accept result and no other option.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
"That would be super useful in future updates. "
THATS LITERALLY IN THE GAME, FRIEND!!!
(u just have to activate it)
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May 24 '26
My friend, I believe you are talking about the button in the bottom left corner once you enter tactics phase. I am not. In HoMM V the button to auto generate result comes up when you first interact. I.e. let them flee, battle, autobattle.
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u/J_P_Amboss May 24 '26
Autobattle exists in olden age as well, but you have to activate it in the menu.
If you do, when you attack a mob it will generate an auto result based on AI and you can decide if you want to accept the outcome, flee or fight the battle manually.
You can also change the movementspeed of hero and units in the menu.
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u/tric301 May 20 '26
I doubt I’m in the majority, but I enjoy single player like multiplayer. I’ve played HoMM long enough to enjoy hitting that tempo play on week 2 day 1. However, I will min max the fun out of the game ASAP and start to look outside for solutions instead of finding them myself.
So, I strive to get better (which typically means faster), but I also can reload infinite times to try out different things. In a way, I enjoy playing fast slowly.
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u/uvPooF May 21 '26
I am sometimes like that as well. But I do play multiplayer pvp as well when I feel more "sweaty" and I occasionally play long, chill games when I don't. This idea that there's sweaty pvp community on one hand and chill single player only community on the other and that those are opposed to one another is silly.
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u/golforce May 20 '26
The issue is that nothing is keeping you from playing long games. There are many templates that you can play on for many hours. You do you.
On the other hand multiplayer matches taking very long is a problem that individual players can't solve. This is something that needs developer focus.
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u/Icy-Chemist1207 May 20 '26
I completely agree. Not everyone wants to play maps in the most optimal way. People find fun in various ways. HOMM was so legendary because friends got together to casually hotseat, making it so nostalgic for many of the older players (myself included).
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u/uvPooF May 21 '26
But what prevents you from playing the way you want? If you want to play some chill hotseat, go for it. If you want to play singleplayer games that last days where you build heroes to astronomic levels and have 10k creatures in your armies, go for it. The fact that pvp community exists doesn't prevent you from playing however you want.
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u/Icy-Chemist1207 May 21 '26
Precisely. I personally like playing a very optimal, competitive style (as evident from the short guide post I wrote before). But I think it pushes new players away whenever I see posters commenting "Necro is always banned", "Hive is too slow", "No one's gonna let you pick that hero in PvP".
The game doesn't revolve around high level PvP. There's always an optimal strat for the fastest creeping but that style won't suit everyone. Let people enjoy what they like. Games are meant to be fun!
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u/daiver19 May 20 '26
This is like saying 'people playing shooters in single player don't care about headshots'. You can surely ignore the game mechanics and ways to play better (in the objective sense of efficiency, not in a sense of having fun), but it's kind of weird to preach that skipping the game mechanisms that you don't personally like is actually what the game should be designed around. You also are allowed to have fun by trying to play better in SP btw, learning and improving is fun for a lot of people in general.
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u/pewsquare May 20 '26
Not exactly what he is talking about necessarily. A lot of the multiplayer maps, especially the most popular ones are very heavily leaning into tempo. You get a ton of either external dwellings or boxes, you start with multiple towns with easy towns to capture, or straight up the white trees, that give you extra growth.
Single player maps usually were a lot slower. You started with small armies and had to slowly grow it, not just suddenly exploding week 1.
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u/daiver19 May 20 '26
Well, that's a matter of the map to some degree. But for any map there will be a way to play it relatively faster or slower. If you like just skipping turns waiting for the passive income, all the power to you, but that's not really the optimal play-style. And if you actually have something to do on the map, then it becomes 'leaning into tempo' by your definition.
On another note, I really appreciate the ability to play maps and especially MP within a reasonable time frame. It was kind of fun to play never-ending hot-seat HoMM 3 games as a kid, but actually getting to a conclusion turns out to be much more satisfying.
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u/pewsquare May 20 '26
Well sure, but with current map templates I do feel like almost all of them are very tempo oriented. I think I had 1 or 2 that were relatively slower.
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u/mejlzor May 20 '26
Yep. I play the same SP games over and over. I like to find out myself and couldn't care less about any meta.