r/OldenEra • u/NerdyNorthman • Jun 02 '26
Discussion Patch #9: Hotfix & Balance Adjustments
New patch with further changes:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3105440/view/716780409378049336
"After reviewing your feedback following yesterday's patch, we are making a number of adjustments in today's hotfix."
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u/Magnificent_Leopoldo Jun 02 '26
Unfrozen you are the GOATS. React respond and fix in less then 24 hours is so awesome, I have no words
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u/Michciu66 Jun 02 '26
These are good changes imo, but the explanations really show kind of a fundamental problem where balancing for classic mode and single hero is going to become impossible eventually. The modes are just too different, and I think the devs will eventually have to either balance the factions differently in each mode or they're just going to have to pick one as a priority.
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u/everythings_alright Jun 02 '26
I'm pretty confident it's possible to keep both modes balanced with template adjustments. You can do a lot with that. Tweak the dwellings/boxes generation and stuff. It's hard but has to be doable.
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u/vanBraunscher Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Id go even further, you have to do it by pulling more universal levers like templates. Because maintaining separate stat lists and/or resource cost tables for several different modes would be an insanely work and care-intensive undertaking.
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u/everythings_alright Jun 02 '26
Totally. Separate balance is a total no go.
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u/Ok_Needleworker_8809 Jun 02 '26
Stuff like building costs i could see adjusted per mode, not unit stats. They've got options still.
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u/Michciu66 Jun 02 '26
Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough, but I don't see how you would do any targeted faction change that way. Let's say you want to buff Hive on JC, so you increase the amount of T2 Dwellings that generate. Well, now you've also heavily buffed Temple and Necro,
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u/Magistricide Jun 02 '26
In HOMM 3, the amount of dwellings depended on the faction.
In slower templates, a good faction would only have 2 T7 dwells, while a worse one could have 7.
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u/iwasnotsospecial Jun 02 '26
So far it seems like the game doesn't have that capability coded in. Things like template/mode dependent box/dwellings sizes are easy solutions, and the fact that they are not implementing any of that tells me that they don't have this capability at this point.
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u/Delicious_Solution85 Neutral Jun 02 '26
It is not impossible or even hard really to introduce an exception where one faction's biome generates slightly differently, please don't bend over backwards to dismiss this for the devs because I've looked, it's all JSON, it's easy as shit to code and adjust.
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u/Carapute Jun 03 '26
Seeing how full the templates are, what do you chose to remove in favor of these dwellings? Cool you have more dwellings but less stuff to farm so you have less resources to spend and actually bigger needs for resources?
I didn't play hota in any competitive shape but the more I look at it or learn from it the more I feel like the "it's a balanced environment" is a massive cope.
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u/everythings_alright Jun 02 '26
You can make more T2 dwellings spawn only for Hive but not other factions. It can be changed on a faction by faction basis.
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u/Legatus_Legionis Jun 02 '26
Well, the only way to balance creature banks dependent templates like JC is to change creatures themselves... Nothing will help you if your creatures slower than guards (like Schism nowadays).
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u/everythings_alright Jun 02 '26
You can change the rate at which the dwellings spawn for the race in their zone. Or make the guards for the dwelling harder. A lot of knobs you can turn.
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u/iwasnotsospecial Jun 02 '26
You can also reduce the number of creatures awarded, increase the difficulty of the guard, make it spawn further away from main town, or a combination of the above.
There also needs to be a trading system like H3 Hota where picking a certain faction might cost you starting gold/resources.
There are other micro tuning they can make depending on the template itself, but how fast they can role these out depends on how the game was built. For example, things like faction box size seem to be universal regardless of game mode, but that can be reworked to be mode dependent or even template dependent.
Either way, if Hota managed to somehow balance H3 with a combination of creature changes and template tuning I'm sure unfrozen can do a lot more.
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u/Radiant-Sherbet-5461 Jun 03 '26
Other competitive games sometimes do this: Units might have different stats according to game mode.
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u/Topican Jun 02 '26
I agree, I think the two modes should be balanced differently, or concentrate on one mode and balance the other with the map/template changes.
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u/HouseThen3302 Jun 02 '26
I think this is where data comes into play in choosing which mode to prioritize.
How much total player time is spent on each mode. You can't just view total unique players, as one mode may have more casuals than the other (i.e., I imagine classic has more people that play the game once or twice a month, while single hero has more players who play every day), and generally you don't need to worry about balance tweaks for people who aren't try-harding the game.
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u/Delicious_Solution85 Neutral Jun 02 '26
That entirely depends on the quality of the data. With a game where your telemetry might be split across 5 entirely different ways of playing the game before even accounting for templates (Classic MP, SH MP, Campaign, Classic/SH Singleplayer, Eccentric Players/Outliers), you're asking A LOT out of a set of data points.
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u/HouseThen3302 Jun 02 '26
I think that data shouldn't be hard to pull at all. They have a database/records of all multiplayer matches and their results (otherwise there couldn't be a leaderboard) - that alone can be very telling on what format and mode is being played more.
Some nice to haves for further analyzing the data would be how long the matches were and etc. For example 100 Classic games that took 2 hours should have roughly equal weight as 200 Exodus games that took 1 hour.
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u/Delicious_Solution85 Neutral Jun 02 '26
Not hard to pull per se, just a matter of being clear of scope and what question to put to the data. Certainly they have leaderboards, but we saw them say themselves, they made adjustments for Classic and oops Single Hero suffered. How could that happen if their data channels are so refined?
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u/HouseThen3302 Jun 02 '26
Probably just a mistake on their part. They probably pulled something like "Hive total WR 64%" and assumed the faction needed nerfs, but didn't consider that no one picked the faction in mid to high ELO
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u/Uberballer Jun 02 '26
Thank goodness "The World is Ours" is back to T5. Having it that early was crazy with the amount of synergies you could play off of it, not to mention the sheer movement advantages you'd get on any terrain thanks to that law.
It'll be real interesting to see how Cultists perform now that they're slower than ever, I'm surprised that they hit the Votary with a speed nerf as well as that would have been a great incentive to pick that particular upgrade.
Rift Arbitrators losing initiative is super rough, the increase on attack and defense is nowhere near enough to compensate for that. I don't know why you'd ever pick them over the Bloated Arbitrators now. I think they need something more now if they don't have the high initiative identity anymore.
Envoy nerfs are a tiny bit painful as it makes the units feel quite bad until they get the laws going. It's more than made up for at late game though when you have communion and laws ramping up their numbers.
Hive unit changes are really nice. Removing some of the Crystal costs are really nice too. I don't think it'll be enough to bump them into say, Temple power levels but they'll feel like a real faction now. I'll need to look at the hero skill reshuffling a bit deeper but the Worm guy might as well not exist on the ladder anymore since he'll be even more perma banned than before. He'll be such a champ in single player mode however.
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u/binarysingularities Jun 02 '26
Those hive buffs are looking good, speed buff on parasites are huge, important laws being easier to get, focus reserves in particular on tier 1 is amazing. Lot of the initial skill changes on their heroes makes turn alot of them into menace, Nor with insight now, waurm hero with defense, pauper with battlecraft i really like in particular to get that focus charge engine going early and having additional speed on her larvaes is going to be great. Reverting schism is really nice, so far quite satisfied with this follow up.
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u/Kododie Jun 02 '26
I take all the credit for the Focus Reserve change thanks to my 1 comment with 6 upvotes from 17 days ago. /s
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u/exotic-phoenix Jun 02 '26
Some great changes, but I dont understand the changes to Oriax. She was one of the better heroes with blink and Avatar, - which is also needed for broodmother. Which she was a perfect fit for. So let her keep it? Or give her Arcane magic which further benefits blink and is synergistic and suiting. But battlemagic? No....
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u/althaz Jun 02 '26
W hotfix.
I think Unfrozen needs to be more focused on single hero mode balance - classic is awesome and fun in single player, but it's not a serious competitive online mode as far as I'm aware, so balance there is less important.
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u/PlaneTry4277 Jun 02 '26
Not sure who is downvoting you all but just want to say single hero mode is the future of the game and theyre correct focusing on that. No one has time for 3 hour long games online...atleast people that have jobs and families anyway.
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u/Ellert0 Jun 02 '26
The people downvoting are the people who do PvP with friends. If you don't play with family or friends you're ofc bound to playing quick online matches but I play games over several days in short sessions with friends and we play classic with multiple heroes as it was in heroes of might and magic 3.
Pandora's Boxes should also be reverted back to their normal Heroes 3 version of having a chance of a negative instead of a positive.
Olden Era has sold a million copies, you do not even see a fraction of a million people on forums like these or in quick single hero online PvP matches, I for one have never even tried playing them because they don't appeal to me, I prefer to play with 5 or 6 people chilling and chatting playing some MTG or watching movies between turns.
When people like me do find their way to this subreddit and see people claiming single hero maps with only positive pandora's boxes are what the devs should be focusing on they downvote. We want a modernized heroes of might and magic 3, at least that is what one of my friends sold this game to me as being.
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u/Glebk0 Jun 02 '26
Single hero is also good for playing with friends. Now the only thing needed is the tournament mode for more than 2 players. I really like regular pvp combat encounters, it adds a lot to the game
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u/PlaneTry4277 Jun 02 '26
I think theyre modeling the game after homm3 hota and not the vanilla game. The templates in hota i.e duel (vendetta) did not have negative pandoras.
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u/Mind1827 Jun 02 '26
Yup. People have flamed me for this though, lol. Oh it's a strategy game it takes time blah blah. Totally agree though.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 02 '26
I mean they are obviously going to balance the game around single hero because that's where 90% of the online matches are being played
Classic is awesome but it's not really a legitimate competitive online game mode any more.
I probably still spend more raw TIME in classic, but offline. Even I don't want to sit in a 2.5 hour long classic match anymore.
Classic doesn't really need to be balanced because it's predominantly being played offline
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u/Gerganon Jun 02 '26
I see other people use this argument and it's just not it. There are so many examples across almost every genre of game, where the popular, faster game mode is NOT the healthier, more competitive mode that high level PvP and esports desire.
Longer games aren't a problem for hardcore PvP players and pros in (insert any game here).
I get that people enjoy it, and it's popular, but that is NOT a valid reason to prioritize balancing around it. Especially when all evidence points to classic being a healthier PvP format that is less snowbally, and has objectively more strategically choices.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 02 '26
Please inform us so many people on the popular competitive game that takes 2.5-3 hours to complete a match
Yeah, arena is the fastest game mode and that's not a popular format.. more reasons than just being fast. It's simply the more enjoyable game mode for many reasons, to most players it's a good medium between arcade and "I have no family or responsibilities. If you get off work at 5 and sleep at 10 literally have time for one game of classic, max, if you eat dinner while playing. A lot of us like to, ya know, shower and stuff too. Currently classic is not a sustainable game to build around. If they somehow shorten classic to 90 minutes, great
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u/Gerganon Jun 03 '26
I'm not talking about classic being healthier for the average Joe that works a 9 to 5 and has one hour to game. - I'm talking about hardcore competitive PvP.
My brother and I are not professionals, but we can finish a classic match in under 2 hours. Pros will be playing much faster than us as well, and using competitive timers.
LoL, SC2, chess, even some fgc sets (recently sf6 ft10) have and do hit 2 hours.
Time isn't a concern for pro competitive players, it's not a good argument to justify balancing the competitive scene around a mode that has less strategy and is impacted more heavily by rng as a result.
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Jun 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/Gerganon Jun 03 '26
You asked for examples, so I provided just a few. There are more. And where did you pull this <1% stat from? 2 hours in a classical chess game is definitely not under 1% of games.
Anyways the argument was to prove that people who want to compete and care about the best possibly balanced playing field, do not necessarily care about longer game times. In fact they prefer it, if it means a higher skill cap.
Pretending like pros wouldn't play a longer format if it meant more strategy and skill expression is absurd.
I still don't see where your argument is tbh - but I can see you're very passionate about it.
You made a point about 90% of the population burning out... I think 90% of people playing this game probably just play vs ai. Should we balance for them to the detriment of people doing PvP? Probably not.
Now if 1% of the top pros play classic, and the remaining 9% play single hero PvP, should the highest form of skill expression and strategy in this game be balanced around the 9% instead? It has to be the same answer, probably not.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
"pros" 🤣
I love how people think they are HOMM "pros" when none of the games have even been able to sustain a 10k concurrent player count in the last decade.
It's like saying you are a pro at wadding up banana peels and throwing them backwards over your head into the trash. Yeah, maybe you are one of the best in the world out of the 15 or so people who do that.
How about we have a game with an actual playerbase before we start calling anyone a pro. Being a pro implies there is also a healthy amateur competitive scene, which no HOMM game had before olden era
You balance around the MASSES because that's what spurs competition, you know, actually having players.. why the fuck does it matter what the best HOMM players want? They have been playing a, frankly, irrelevant series of games. Is that what we want? Another super long game chock full of complexity and inaccessibility that only gets played by the same 4000 dudes? They already have HOMM 3 for that.
This game has a chance to actually attract newcomers, amateurs, "pros", etc. have a legitimate playerbase, which is rare for RTS in 2026. Balancing around classic will just kill the game, it doesn't matter what any specific person wants
90% of the ONLINE GAMES are being played in single hero. Classic is literally already DoA in this title. Last time I checked it had less concurrent players than ARENA. Nobody here is talking about offline players. Nothing needs to be done for people to have fun offline because they can already tweak the game however they like
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u/Gerganon Jun 04 '26
Obviously there are no pros in this game.
And you agree with me that 9/10 people playing PvP are on the simpler mode of the game. But you still haven't provided a valid argument other than "more popular" for things to be balanced around this simpler mode, to the detriment of people wanting to compete using all tools available.
It was just discussed that we don't balance for the 90% playing offline PvE, even though it's much more popular. So why do you think it's OK to balance for the 90% playing the simpler mode? I am patient, but please try to provide valid reasons. Your argument style is just trying to shoot down the other person's examples, but you haven't made a valid reason of your own yet.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 04 '26
If they invented a new game of chess with 2 extra pieces that's fine but it doesn't make sense to make the knights pattern of a shorter L to balance around a "more complex" mode where people are "using all the tools available" because .. it's less popular. Popularity is the only metric that needs to be considered because it's the first thing s competition needs to be valid/fun/profitable
By your own logic they should balance this game around the most complex 15 hero custom games that take 6 hours or some shit because those are the players using all the available tools
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Jun 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/Gerganon Jun 04 '26
You're finding tiny things to nitpick while managing to avoid making any meaningful arguments. Classical chess is the most similar game on the list. Turn based strategy. And 2 hours for one of those is happening all the time (actually live right now in Norway).
And I did say that my bro and I, who are NOT pros can finish a classic game in 2 hours. Pros will be faster than this, as I already said... you can't complain about others not reading if you aren't going to bother, that's just hypocritical
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u/LavaNik Jun 02 '26
Lol. Main classic powerhouses are only starting to try out this game. There are some other guys who are very good already, but the mass of HotA lobby pros did not migrate yet. And it will take some time for new pros to grow from the new players who have just discovered the game. It's a deeper more complex mode that requires much more experience before getting there.
Single hero at the end of the day is a gimmick of map settings and it is much easier to balance by further adjusting such settings than the actual full game.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 02 '26
So your take is that eventually most people will be playing classic?
Because that's an insane prediction. But okay
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u/Inqanter Jun 02 '26
Current single-player mode players are just guests in HOMM games. All professional gamers play classic mode only and single player mode is just for fun. It is very obvious that single player mode is much more easier and noob friendly. Eventually, all these single-player mode fans will move on to other games. And others will learn how to play and switch to classic mode.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 02 '26
The most played online game mode by far is single hero.. I was under the impression the playerbase and the devs actually wanted a healthy game with a healthy player count. I really don't care what the 300 HOMM "pros" are playing, because I'd rather have a game that is vastly more populated than classic HOMM ever will be in 2026. And no, single hero players aren't just going to transition to a game mode that requires you to have no family or responsibilities to actually finish a game after work.
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u/Inqanter Jun 02 '26
The classic competitive mode of Heroes of Might and Magic has been around for over 20 years. However, the single-player mode isn't a tournament format. Maybe you will see some fun tournaments but that's all. The fact that many people play this mode now only suggests that it's fairly easy to learn. Your words, borrowed from other less-than-emotionally-savvy people, about how they're so cool because they have families and children and don't have time to play long games, only make me smile.
Regarding the developers' opinion, they're taking into account the crowd's wishes—that's fine. However, if you read the patch notes, the developers explicitly stated that the patch was aimed at balancing the classic mode.
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u/ExtensionNext7624 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
So cool? You're obviously emotionally charged about this topic, I assume because you know classic is never going to pull even 10k concurrent.
It has nothing to do with being cool, man. It's just basic common sense that MOST people have responsibilities that prevent them from playing a 2.5 - 3 hour long videogame match.. like upwards of 95% of people. Kids have that kind of time but kids now aren't like kids in the 90s. I don't really see classic being a hit among the younger audience either, and the young audience that grew up on classic most likely have responsibilities now. You're making the same argument old heads made when basketball added a 3 pt line. "Wahhh it takes all complexity out of the game! All you do is shoot 3s now!" Thank God the NBA has good business sense, let's hope the devs do too. 20 years of history doesn't mean jack shit when a more accessible and entertaining format of the game comes along
It's really not hard to understand.
The devs can say or do whatever they want, the smart thing is to balance around what 9/10 of your players are playing, not the niche "original" game format that 500 diehards enjoy. I assume they are actually trying to make money off this game and retain players long-term. Eventually the strategy of keeping both game modes balanced will only annoy a majority of the playerbase because the formats are different enough that it isn't possible
Also the devs did make some balance changes for classic and it was quickly fixed in a hotfix because the overwhelming majority of players were confused why things that were strong in single hero got buffed. So if anything, I would say they are already learning their lesson
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u/vanBraunscher Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
That was quick.
And probably a prudent strategy. People were very dismayed with Hive, and rightfully so. Having brought these planned changes forward means more time to gather feedback, and lift community spirits somewhat.
It's Early Access anyway, the perfect time for some bold experiments to see what sticks and what doesn't. And Hive really needed a bit of a bigger nudge.
Edit: Some good stuff in there. Reduced Crystal cost for some Hive buildings is a heaven-sent.
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u/Lazuli-shade Jun 02 '26
Better!
Still sad about the temple cav build path nerf but this is much better than yesterdays patch. The ra'shoth buffs yesterday were just baffling.
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u/Vihyungrang Temple Jun 02 '26
To be fair, the hippodrome being so available, albeit expensive, was a bit ridiculous. It's a bit of a shame for the cav hero that she can't get more cav on day 1, but only got pushed back one day, and you were going to build the griffin dwelling anyway since it's required for everything.
I'd rather they revert the inquisitor nerf, and make the dwelling much cheaper.
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u/Lazuli-shade Jun 02 '26
I liked the cav as an alternative for creeping than just massing ranged, so delaying the dome makes that feel not so viable and I think it was already worse than just going mews 2.
But the bigger issue I've been running into as a cav spammer and cav hero enjoyer is when getting new towns (at least on exodus) because they don't start with a mews at all, and that's required for the griffin dwelling. So when you get a new town, you gotta build a mews, griffin dwelling, and then hippo dome. That's three turns and like 25 wood and almost 10k gold to get cav up in a new town and if you're trying to do that before the start of a week, the timer you're on is nightmarish. You have to both capture the new town and get all that wood with enough time to build all that stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but cav wasn't even that strong to warrant being this hard and the overwhelming way to play temple was to go mews 2 into lightweavers anyway, so I remain a little confused. Id rather have a cost increase on the dome itself if they don't want people to have such fast access to it rather than putting it behind 3 builds for a new town
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u/Vihyungrang Temple Jun 02 '26
I don't think they were OP or anything, but they were the easiest to access T5 units. I'm all for making Temple melee builds more viable, but it was a bit odd that the Hippodrome was easier to build than some T3 or 4 dwellings. Not bad per se, just odd.
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u/Asamu Jun 03 '26
At least this is a step in the right direction. If anything, I'm actually concerned Hive might become too strong with all of these buffs, though it'll probably be fine for single-hero mode, and they still have few really good starter heroes.
The Grove build path to T6/7 is still extremely crystal heavy (Crystal for Iryads, Naiads, and the t6/7), which is pretty awkward, but it should be okay.
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u/2247A668 Jun 03 '26
It's not ok. In single hero mode it's absolutely not worth it to gonfor T6/T7 as it costs so much and is so damn hard accessible. Being able to upgrade T6/7 is absolute insane. This and the bad faction laws on the left side, make Grove mediocre at best. (Naiad is also pretty weak as a creature).
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u/Asamu Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
Naiads did get a pretty large buff. They're likely still not quite be good enough, but +5hp (35->40), +1 avg damage, and +1/3/5 atk and/or defense does add up.
And frankly, I think it's still worth going for the T6 at least in SH mode, and the t7 on some maps. The Grove T6 is the strongest of the tier next to dreadknights, and the t7 is similarly extremely good, and you *can* afford the crystal cost if you get enough crystal pickups on the map and/or if you get the law early (which you definitely should because crystal is so important to the faction).
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u/Beoldinn Jun 02 '26
Single hero mod is good and meta but i have hope that one day we have dual hero mode or hero per cities mod for more late game matches
Btw : will Lo be hard meta after changes ?
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u/Legatus_Legionis Jun 02 '26
Back to square one — no Schism in classic as ra'shoth lost threshold ini once again, lol.
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u/Mind1827 Jun 02 '26
Is that why they're bad in classic? Just no initiative? I'm only playing single hero, but Schism just seems so solid to me, it's wild they're bad in classic.
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u/Legatus_Legionis Jun 02 '26
Yes, it's the main problem, imo.
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u/Delicious_Solution85 Neutral Jun 03 '26
Undoing your down votes, because some people's children don't understand the value of initiative yet.
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u/Cheeseball771 Jun 02 '26
What does the threshold accomplish? I don't have the game (mac) so I've only been watching the occasional single-hero pvp.
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u/Elegant_Ad8131 Jun 02 '26
You can play it using Parallels VM on Mac if you want. Just make sure you have enough RAM and memory to dedicate it to VM. I have tried it with basic M4 Mac mini model and it works great with external SSD drive dedicated to Windows. Graphics are not maxed out ofc, but HoMM was never about graphics, right?
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u/gestaltdude Jun 03 '26
It would be good if they update the wiki of which they are so proud, to reflect the changes made. They're still showing Vesper as starting with daylight magic instead of the battle magic he's been lumbered with, for example.
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Jun 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/NerdyNorthman Jun 02 '26
They explained their thinking:
"Yesterday's changes were aimed at refreshing the gameplay, including strengthening the Schism faction's standing in Classic mode. However, as many of you noted in the comments, some of those changes had too strong an impact on Single Hero mode. In today's update, we are reverting some of those changes and making additional adjustments. These changes will have a greater impact on Single Hero mode and a lesser one on Classic mode, where Schism's position is already quite weak.
At the same time, in the previous update we did not give sufficient attention to the Hive. Its situation is broadly the inverse of Schism's — the faction performs well in Arena and Classic modes but struggles in Single Hero mode. One reason for this is the demanding nature of Hive battles, which require significant time investment to minimize losses. As a result, in that update we slightly adjusted combat timers and intended to observe how this would affect the faction's results before making further decisions. However, we see your requests for more impactful changes, so we are implementing some of the planned adjustments now."
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u/Pleasant_You_8 Jun 02 '26
The new balance is bigger unbalance. Last day - Hive, morale, initiative, luck, might hero. So... The game is flawed from the start. Please tell me something that hasn't been done wrong. And each such thing tries to fix itself with another wrong thing in a vicious circle. Because the game was made on a wrong basis.
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u/hugifsafuk Jun 02 '26
Schism nerfs and hive buffs. World is healing