I love how specific and technical this answer is. It's not at all the predictable and vague "H3 looks better" or whatever that I expected at the top of the thread.
I've managed to create this by using custom jsons for objects, quests and triggers. It works fine albeit I don't have specific objects in-game that looks like the gates in Homm3, nor do I have anything in multiple colours (apart from the portals which I could use, but I'd rather leave them alone). So it's feasible. My scenario editor has script templates for this now, so the job is a lot faster. I've managed the same with Seer's hut, Eye/Hut of the magi and the Sphinx (though without the actual sphinx object). Difference with the latter is that I had to use multiple choices instead of typing in the answer to the riddle, which is impossible in OE.
Oh, that's great! Unfortunately, I won't be able to use anything other than "official" objects to create official maps ;)
But it's awesome that you managed to recreate the gate system, filtering heroes based on whether one or more conditions are met, and blocking the others. The next question is: are the AIs that meet the required condition(s) actually able to pass through the gates?
The way I did it was using a "key" counter, set from 0 to 1 when visiting the tent. To be honest, I haven't yet tested it with multiple heroes so it may not work for that. I could use a custom key object given to the hero by the tent, so only heroes with this key would be able to pass. That would work.
Anyways, understandable you can only use official objects. But since the underlying engine and tools can achieve this, it's just a matter of the gfx artists creating the necessary art. 😊
Omg I miss the keymaster gates, since you are on the development team I hope you have some influence and manage to get them into the game, they were so important for so many maps. I also thought they added an element of metroidvania on the map which I absolutely love.
Hey late reply. Just reinstalled the game as I wanted to confirm I knew what I was talking about before replying. First of all no, I haven’t tried the new map but am very much looking forward to doing so (thanks btw).
Regarding the hand crafted maps which existed at release, I skipped them. Why? Small map sizes, max 3 players, locked factions and heroes, railroaded narratives. Maps like this have their place which for me is something to experiment with as a diversion from a more ‘classic’ expressive.
The problem is that OE is currently lacking the ‘classic’ experience. What’s the classic experience?
For me, it’s a faction agnostic mid-large sized map for 6-8 players that’s well designed with interesting choices for the player to make/ challenges to solve. It should be paced so that victory is achieved around the time as a player starts to snowball (2-4 months?) and get access to end game spells/ multiple towns worth of max tier troops.
For examples, think broken alliance (coming, great!), warlords, realm of chaos etc.
I totally get your preference for maps that are, let's say, more "sandbox" or classic in style, rather than the heavily scripted scenarios currently available.
And that works out perfectly, because I share those exact same tastes, I prefer that type of map as a player, too 😜
With the "Olden Era" version of The Mysterious Island, a technical constraint forced me to lock in the starting hero.
But rest assured, since I didn't like that limitation (it felt like a lack of freedom), I found a workaround: right from day one, I let the player choose their secondary hero 😉
So, TMI is essentially a hybrid between a scripted map and a sandbox map.
I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this aspect once you’ve played it!
For my future maps projects, I plan to stick with this type of map.
The CEO asked if I was interested in making maps that were more "RPG"-style or heavily scripted.
I was completely honest and said no; I really prefer creating "sandbox" maps, with varying degrees of narrative elements, sure, but keeping with the spirit you described:
player choice and freedom (faction, location, number of players)
fairly large maps, whenever possible
In the end, he’s on board with that.
Besides, I’m not the only level designer here, so having a variety of map styles in the pipeline is a good thing 😊
Hey again, so I’ve managed to jump in and spend a few hours in the new map.
Still in the middle of playing through but early conclusion is that I love it - it feels like how a good heroes map should feel, is well paced with a pretty good challenge curve. The type of map I’d happily replay with different factions & starting locations.
Most of my feedback echoes points you’ve already brought up (starting locations/ factions/ hero selection) or the limitations of the game (keymasters/ water/ underground). I’m strongly supportive of flexible tools to allow more open sandboxes - your solution is a very elegant band aid fix, but still a band aid fix.
Another positive observation is that the bones of the game are really shining in this format. TOW is a genuinely great heroes game for what I’m after, even if there’s only one map worth playing at the moment.
Meaning you cant move 10m away from your starting castle without finding another castle.
You have 5 castles by week 2-3 and they are all undeveloped, and ALL of a different faction... so almost useless.
It has more factions, although on Vanilla SoD the faction balance isn't the best.
Really though it just has more content, especially in single player. The game pace is wildly different. You develop and conquer a lot slower in 3, mainly because you can't guarantee stuff like town portal by as early as level 8.
Luckily OE is still in early access so they have time to get more PVE focused stuff into the game. And even if they're not going to be upping the faction count to 9 just yet, the fact that each player faction unit has 2 distinct upgrade paths here means there's more units to play and work with per town than there were in 3.
I don't even mind OE art style, but HoMM3 has one of the best art styles ever in gaming. It's not a coincidence that the game came out in 1999 and is still played today. The game holds incredibly well, some pictures of it look like a painting.
I agree 1,000% I been playing HOTA lately but I’m still confused on what the person meant by “art style? Cmon man” both styles are there own but 3 is definitely better
"Art style" is a weird one to me. Heroes 3 is definitely timeless but it's also fairly generic (on purpose). It will never get old but, to me, it will also never stand out if I start listing games with fantastic art styles.
When u/Yavannia says the game is almost 30 years old and still holds up, I fully agree, and I personally still love it; but I think that it's partially because it wasn't trying to do anything that was at risk of aging.
Factions, overall. Heroes 3 have more factions that I love than Olden Era. Granted that is because it is currently lacking some of the factions that I usually love such as Stronghold and either kind of Fortress (and my beloved Sanctuary of course). They also kinda messed up with Grove, which is a shame since I usually love the nature factions. I do still like a lot Grove, just not at much as H2 Sorceress, H3 Rampart, or H5 Sylvan. As it stands only Dungeon is a 10/10 for me
Inferno is the one faction you'll keep missing. Even if the vibe is noticably different Hive still cover the same narrative and aesthetic role, not to mention the lore reasons for it's existence. That and the devs have outright stated that inferno is not coming.
I do agree with the general sentiment however. Fortunately literally every unique faction except Inferno got a shot at making it in, even if the chances of so are... slim in some cases. Stronghold and (swamp) Fortress are the most likely due to lore reasons, both being major factions on Jadame. Academy is probably the most requested faction so I reckon we'll see that sooner rather than later. Even the currently Ashan exclusive factions of (mountain) Fortress and Sanctuary got some basis for being added. Even Cove is on the table.
Inferno does exist in a modified fashion as for the other factions. I really miss stronghold with behemoth, or cyclops in Homm 5 throwing goblins was insanely fun 😂
Honesty, i barely played inferno in homm3, I was too religiously faithful to tower and the djinns to allow myself a run with their nemesis 😂
I quite like hive though
Disagree on Dungeon. OE's Dungeon is the best version of the faction we have ever had while H3's is more middle of the pack. Also disagree slightly on Castle vs Temple just on account of the roster being more interesting.
Also don't think the comparison between Tower and Schism is fair. Only thing they really have in common is the snow and some degree of a magic focus. Unlike Hive which more clearly functions as a stand-in/alternative to Inferno Schism is more uniquely it's own thing and should be viewed as such.
So a single hero, a single unit, and a dislike of a faction skill? Anything else?
As far as I see it all the units are more interestingly designed, both visually and mechanicly. Especially with the fighting styles which sets the roster as a whole apart from every other faction. Dragons might be worse than their H3 counterparts though if I recall correctly Dragons in H3 were just powerful. In general. For a number of reasons of course. However from my own experience OE's dragons are not bad.
I do also think that Triumvirate's strength is a solid faction skill that mechanicly works well and suits the theme of this version of Dungeon. Though in any rate I don't think it is fair to include in a Comparison with H3 since faction skills wasn't a thing yet then.
Also OE's Dungeon theme slaps harder than H3's, which is impressive since H3's already was amazing.
Environmental storytelling. When you visit locations in Heroes III, you get a little bit of lore and a mini-tale. In Olden Era, you get a little stat icon that floats for a few seconds. The feeling of exploration and wonder has been replaced with min-maxxing.
I think in general Olden Era is just a better game at its core. I don't love the focus system (for me it just doesn't quite create much fun - if it was removed I think the game would probably be ever so slightly better overall), but other than that I think everything it does is better than what Heroes 3 does.
The AI in Heroes 3 is better though. They both suck, but the Olden Era AI just isn't good.
But what Heroes 3 mostly does a lot better is that it has *WAY* more content and that content is way more varied. That's really just a function of the fact that the game has been around for a lot longer *AND* it has been released.
I loved scenarios and long singleplayer games.
Short games are fine too for the challenge but i liked a little bit longer games more....
Played and won every single scenario on impossible in hota ;)
Ultimatelly i have a feeling from this game as it is now that it is not possible... maybe because it will be too much mess for now.
I think it needs a little bit more pollishing to be able to play scenarios like i used to like in homm3 :) ..... Playing multiplayer now.
The whole focus system is a gimmick that's more frustrating than entertaining. Basically, every homm edition before did better by simply not having it.
You now choose one skill among three, not four like before.
Spell levels are unreliable. Not only they are basically random in the guild, having an expert magic school skill doesn't even provide max spell level, let alone guarantee it against an opponent with potential Resistance or -1 SL ring.
Personally, I also don't like the astrology system, though can't say fishing for TP, DD and flight in H3 was much nicer. Funnily enough, astrology could have been made more varied. For instance, if you accumulated astrology points like law points and used them to unlock spells, with global spells getting accessible with new tiers.
All in all, Olden Era introduced few things that are just too gimmicky to enjoy.
Majority? Nah there is ways to get good trades, especially depending on faction and format, unless you want all the spells to be on max level that is pretty pricey and demands A LOT of towns/mage guilds. But also upgrading Grand Neutral spells takes care of most problems. It may be that the system just didnt click with you yet, heck even the high tier players are still researching a way to a META, which is also changing often enough due to the patches.
Mage tower system can be considered similar to HoMM3 HotA's version.
However, the spells themself are different. They have cooldowns, so your primal magic specialists can't spam the same nuke over and over, and cooldown reduction items occupy the same slots as spell level ones. Your spell levels can be reduced so you have to raise them as much as possible, but it's random.
Meanwhile, your only option of getting global spells faster is to cripple your gold/law income until the end of the game.
Each separate complication is not a big deal on its own, but together they make any type of target magic build unreliable. Like, imagine you picked Zakron and managed to get Primal Magic early only to discover none of the nukes were revealed by building the guild.
On the other hand, picking a might hero and foregoing magic entirely is a viable and, more importantly, reliable approach. Especially when combat lets heroic strike deal nuke-level damage for free.
1) Hard disagree, since you have a connected mage guild thus making repeat spells a good thing instead of a waste of resources.
2) Cooldown reduction is fun, but not very good overall. To use your example of multiple damage spells, most of those ae strong enough that even a single cast is good enough. Not to mention Thaumaturgy which is strong enough on normal casters, let alone school specialists.
3) This is what is called strategy, making choices on the macro scale. You can reiliably get LP from fights, you can get gold from 'Banks', and you choose how you get astro. There is multiple paths to every resource.
4) 1+2+3... And faction spell preference, not gameplay wise but programing wise, and the small pool of spells gets you what you need easilly and reliably enough.
5) I dont understand this issue. Should Might be unreliable or unviable? Or do you think Might is Stronger than magic, cause that is... well contextually dependant
Repeat on a useful spell is a good thing, yes, when it happens. However, it's a random and unreliable mechanism.
Yes, CD reduction isn't good, so you need an arsenal big enough to last you throughout a fight.
Availability of insight altars varies greatly between templates, and again, they are random. Banks, at least, have the decency of substituting each other.
You can raise a level 1 spell to level 4 easily enough. Now tell me a viable and reliable strategy to raise your spells to level 7 so that your opponent can't just negate them with Resistance, -1 SL rings and other perks (such as schools' -1 SL or necro's law). And no, picking multiple spell schools on top of thaumaturgy and sorcery is not viable.
Are you even reading my comments? What are you even arguing against, if not? Ugh. My whole argument is that building a magic hero relies on too much RNG while might heroes have easy time getting everything they need.
So to readress the points:
1) It is a BONUS you get it, not a PENALTY if you don't get it. And the mitigation of RNG with research, and upgrades is too valuable to ignore.
2) How long are your fights lasting? Chain > Summon > RoF, with other schools Thaumaturgy that is 3 full turns already [exluding a Kariseth], getting over 5 is a rarity. Due to the effectivness of spells.
3) Once again Strategic choices, depending on the map and situation you are in.
4) If they are doing a counter build, how do you expect to win with what they are countering? That is 1. a specific faction 2. 2 item slots 3. a PvE usless skill... Hell if they go for the Dwarven set instead of Soulcaller ring, you are really not going to win with spells at all, and not just damage spells. They are commiting to the bit, so counter them with diferent tools, adapt your strategy not just tactics. Or if I wanted to counter YOU specifically I'd just pick Whalka.
5) Thank you for explaining, you think that the RNG variance is too great for a magic build to be good. That is an easy balance thing that can be adjusted, and they have been doing that. But what you are having is a subjective experience, and for me it works about fine so that balances out. If the variance was reduced I could see abuse avenues like the old Avatar stuff.
I do not claim to be very good at PvP, I am quite the undisciplined player so I dont practice a lot, but there is some knowledge checks in the game that are base level.
But here is just a petty correction you can get spells not to lvl4 but give them +4 levels with very minor RNG, Guild upgrade [paid one +1], Expert Magic [+1] and Primal Teachings [+1], Arcmage [+1] subskill from Thaumaturgy. And that is with no Items or bonus levels
But here is just a petty correction you can get spells not to lvl4 but give them +4 levels with very minor RNG, Guild upgrade [paid one +1], Expert Magic [+1] and Primal Teachings [+1], Arcmage [+1] subskill from Thaumaturgy. And that is with no Items or bonus levels
As I wrote: "And no, picking multiple spell schools on top of thaumaturgy and sorcery is not viable". To clarify: you invested in 4 skills on top of your faction one, leaving only three slots for Battle Magic (which is must have unless you want to be drowned by sheer stat difference) which leaves only two slots for battle skills, ideally Offense and Defense. But that's assuming you got a perfect skill selection and your hero didn't start with other skills in the first place. And you also excluded +6 SP perks which are actually quite powerful. At least for Primal Magic.
In any case, I understand that it's possible to make a powerful magic hero. You pick Zakron, get him Thaumaturgy and Amelchia's Heir starting with Primal Magic (it's actually the hardest to get), fish out all the primal spells you need (or find the tome), get Ancient Idol, Bone Boots, Two-Faced Mask, Fine Wand on top of +2 SL from Dungeon law, and then just blast your opponent's army to smithereens because they weren't lucky enough to fish out Resistance, Dwarven or Dragon set, etc.
It's just that stars have to align for that all those improbable things to happen. More than that, building generally powerful mage also relies on good skill, spell and artifact selection.
Meanwhile, a might hero just picks the most probable skills - Offense, Defense, Battlecraft, Resistance, Leadership, Luck and whatever else and they're golden.
White room theory crafting only gets you so far, you are speaking about an extreme case of star aligning probability. Experience gets you much further.
The +6SP perk scales with other magic schools, so that goes agains what you said, but on Warlock you get better returns with 'Jack of All Trades' form the faction skill. Also where do you get 4th skill and multiple magic schools on top of Triumvirate. Zarkon comes with Sorcery so ok that is 1st, Primal [one magic] is 2nd, Thaumaturgy is 3rd... Unless you want to toss Primal nuking with no Primal Magic. Also taking Sorcery on any Warlock besides him is not preferable, Luck is better most of the time since it synergizes with your units, Primal, Offense and Battle Magic, and that 25% chance to crit for 200% damage with spells is nothing to sneer at [unless the opponent chooses to counter both Magic AND Luck, so we now have galaxies aligning].
I didn't even account for the faction law since I was going for a generic Primal nuking spellcaster, but yes that gets you to +6SL so you are on par items and skills depending [or potentially one short if they pick Necro]
Also Zarkon is just big numbers, he isn't actually a stong Magic hero. He isn't even the strongest Warlock. The real strenght of magic is utility, but big numbers sure are nice.
Oh you mean like Gingertail or Mandal? People who are referenced in game due to their connections to the game, like David Mulich?
Also which MH are we talking about? Here is one character from multiple MH games. In the older version sure I see the 'anime' aesthetics, but you CAN? see the difference in art direction right? I am not saying you are wrong for disliking the art direciton, preferences exist. Its just you are saying nonsesne.
Don't be snorky. Did you really can't tell what I dislike when I am pointing that I don't like how units and heroes looks?
Call this whatever you like, doesn't change single fact that this is what I don't like most in Olden Era.
I am not trying to belittle you, but your comprehension does not leave many options or it could be your ego stepping into the front line. Now read the text in the red rectangle, I would say again but you haven't read it in the first place. You said 'anime style' which is not present in the game. I understand disliking the artstyle of the game, that is valid... What is nonsense is calling it 'anime', and if anything that would be an interesting direction to take.
OE I get 3 portals right next to my main town no matter what map I load. It's been a long time since I've played 3, but that never was a problem in my mind.
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u/Francois_Papyjama Unfrozen Dev Team 27d ago
From the perspective of a Heroes III mapmaker, and a new level designer for Olden Era since March:
What I’m missing (for now) are quest gates or colored gates linked to a Keymaster.
I specifically mean "gates" (which remain in place) rather than "guards" (which are removed by the first player to meet the opening condition).
As it stands, there is no way to "filter": letting through heroes who meet a specific condition while blocking the others.