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Sigmaverik
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 11, 2025 12:46 AM |
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I understand its been announced 3 months ago and they showed a lot but a little info after a couple of months would be good. Even though I am not totally a fan of the level 2 unit , I really dig the whole town overall as for the rest of the units.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted March 11, 2025 02:32 AM |
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Sigmaverik said:
I understand its been announced 3 months ago and they showed a lot but a little info after a couple of months would be good. Even though I am not totally a fan of the level 2 unit , I really dig the whole town overall as for the rest of the units.
Remember that Factory took 5 years. Hota moves slowly and carefully.
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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Sigmaverik
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 11, 2025 02:56 AM |
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Yeah I know but they seem to update it a bit faster lately
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 12, 2025 07:25 PM |
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I have a question for Tevye.
You've said that HotA Crew is working on bringing the original campaigns to HotA, but is your aim to bring them exactly as they are, with differences coming only from adapting to the HotA introduced changes to global mechanics, artifacts etc., or do you plan on remaking them entirely?
IMO for example all campaigns in RoE are wholly mediocre and not worth a play-through today (I did replay them not too long ago and was very disappointed and bored by them), the only scenario worth a look at all being Steadwick's Fall, but by modern standards it's not anything particularly special either. I don't see the point of playing the original campaigns under HotA if they will be mostly the way they are under the vanilla game - they can already be played with the HD mod just fine, and when you can play the significantly higher quality HotA ones instead (or more of them if the effort went into creating more rather than bringing back the old) it doesn't make much sense going back to them.
On the other hand, I love Forged in Fire. I'm playing it on Impossible on 1.7.2, and by no means am I a particularly good player but I really love it. Maps like the first one are among my favorite kind (I love Small maps, reminds me of a different spin on maps like Adventures of Jared Haret or The Imp). I like how well paced the second map was. HoMaM are great games, but at this point for me there is no point in playing the standard gameplay which mimics a multiplayer game, where everyone has a balanced start, hires multiple heroes, chains and plays the game like a regular skirmish. That gets old fast against the AI, and I've been playing the games since Heroes II, I'm tired of that standard gameplay loop. I'm all for these adventure style maps that use restrictions in order to give you a curated tailor made experience that reflect the sensibilities and artistic vision of the map maker. You can experience novel things with these maps in a way you can't with the standard skirmish free-for-all style gameplay after playing that for years.
With all that in mind - isn't spending time on bringing the original campaigns to HotA a misuse of HotA Crew's time (I mean outside of improving the map editors)? Part of why Forged in Fire works so well is because it's build around the new mechanics of the Factory town, and we all know that Factory has a significantly higher amount of faction unique mechanics and gameplay compared to the vanilla towns. Without some serious reworks and additions to them, the original towns can't support a campaign in the style and quality level of FiF. Do you plan on such changes to the vanilla towns in the future? At some point the differences between the HotA towns and vanilla ones will just be too big gameplay-wise (it already is IMO).
As an additional comment - I hope you don't let comments that hate on Forged in Fire get you down or change your plans for future campaigns and their style and difficulty. I watched some videos on YouTube by such complaining players, and virtually all their frustrations came from them not being very observant and thoughtful, not from the campaign itself. I would love to see more high quality single-player content from HotA, more campaigns/maps in the style of Forged in Fire, including the difficulty on Impossible, and especially more interesting Small maps.
That being said - from what's been shown from Bulwark for the moment - I don't like any of it. I don't like the angular and boring stone look of the town (both how the town looks on the map and in the town screen, even the arrangement of the building looks like it came from Heroes IV). Compared to the art deco fantasy western blend of Factory, Bulwark looks like it comes from an entirely different team and mod development era. It just looks significantly lower quality than Factory, and I understand that what's shown is WIP. Same goes for the unit roster - I nether like them visually in terms of what you are trying to go for each of them in terms of looks, nor do I like the specific selection of units for the roster. I hope by the time it's released it will be on par with Factory, but as it stands the only town it looks better than now is Conflux, and that's the lowest of bars to clear.
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Sigmaverik
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 13, 2025 01:47 AM |
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I like Bulwark better but there is still a lot of work for the units final look, I don't like the hunch look of the yetis prefer them standing upright and the shaman maybe make it more obvious it is a snow elf . As for level 2 I believe an all new unit doing the same role envisioned by hota team . My pick is a werewolf it would be amazing. This is also addressed to Tevye
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Tevye
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 14, 2025 05:13 AM |
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Edited by Tevye at 05:25, 14 Mar 2025.
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Regarding adding the original campaigns to HotA.
Over the years, we'd heard a ton of opinions on this matter. Like it or not, the allure of having these original campaigns in HotA for most players lies in experiencing them exactly as they were back in the day, only with the QoL changes added in HotA. For us, the issue here lies not in adapting the maps themselves (that would be a fairly quick and easy affair really), but in implementing the tools that would make it all possible. On the other hand, reworking these campaigns to fit the current-day HotA gameplay approach would pose a monumental challenge that would take months or maybe (likely!) years of meticulous work to implement and would then probably render these campaigns more or less inaccessible for those who simply want a trip down the memory lane (and these people constitute the majority of the public who want them in our project). So, there. Deeply reworking the OG campaigns would be a massive endeavor that would hardly garner enough appreciation to make it worth our while. We would much prefer putting our energy in our original content, of which there is no shortage to come. We are always happy to hear from people who appreciate what we do in terms of single scenarios and campaigns, and I can promise they will surely get their fix of new challenges in due time.
Regarding the Bulwark's lineup and news about the town's development.
All I can say, I recommend that you wait and see. It is a process. Something fresh to show might come up in a while, but don't expect quite the detailed coverage Factory had received back in the day (preparing those posts alone used to strain our resources more than you can imagine). All I can say, what you have seen in the teaser is old news by now, visually at least (in fact, it somewhat was old news at the moment of the teaser's release already, but it is a process and there are time constraints and other caveats), and the town view bits are there just for building the general mood; I don't believe anyone familiar with HotA would think a sweeping, broad-stroke, blatantly 3d visualization of that ilk would be indicative of the in-game look we are aiming for. Conceptually, however, we are confident in what we are doing, or we wouldn't be doing it. It is entirely up to you to place your confidence in us, given our track record, or not.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 14, 2025 07:45 AM |
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@Tevye Could you ask someone with knowledge of templates and the RMG Template Editor to take a look at this thread http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=45526
I'm almost sure no one reads the other threads
Thank you
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 14, 2025 11:50 AM |
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Thank you for the answer. I personally don't see any value in playing the original campaigns in HotA, but if you say there is great demand for this I can't argue with that, especially if it wont take too much effort beside the editor improvements (which will benefit everyone).
I just wanted to know as well what is the stance of HotA Crew regarding making changes to the original towns (roster, mechanics etc., I know there have been some changes to the buildings). Obviously I'm not asking for anything committal or a promise of any kind, rather is this a red line that the team has decided not to cross ever, or is it something that if at a point in the future you decide its a good idea you might consider it on a case by case basis as the need/motivation arises?
Obviously the point regarding the disparity between the original and HotA towns will be becoming more and more pronounced with time, so it will be good to know the general attitude of HotA crew regarding this.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted March 14, 2025 12:12 PM |
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I just wish there were more choices and options with HotA and you were'nt force fed everything... 
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Sigmaverik
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 14, 2025 01:34 PM |
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Thanks a lot tevye for the answers I will be waiting what it takes for this faction and the other updates that are coming along , personally your team has my full trust .
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted March 14, 2025 03:03 PM |
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Wind_Falcon said:
I just wanted to know as well what is the stance of HotA Crew regarding making changes to the original towns (roster, mechanics etc., I know there have been some changes to the buildings). Obviously I'm not asking for anything committal or a promise of any kind, rather is this a red line that the team has decided not to cross ever, or is it something that if at a point in the future you decide its a good idea you might consider it on a case by case basis as the need/motivation arises?
Me personally, I appreciate the stance that the team has taken so far as to not alter the original factions drastically (roster, general use of faction specific buildings etc.) and only tweak some numbers here and there if deemed necessary. I think that original content should never be eliminated from the game.
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Greucoco
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 14, 2025 04:52 PM |
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Password protected saves in HoTA
Hey all,
I've been playing HoTA multiplayer with 3 of my friends and we regularly have problems loading saves :
- Sometimes the saves are not password protected but upon loading the game tells us the passwords are wrong
- Sometimes the saves are password protected but upon loading the game tells us the passwords are wrong
- Sometimes if we load a game in which a human player was eliminated, the game tells us the passwords are wrong
Are there known bugs or do we not use the feature as intended ?
What should we do in order to avoid these issues that cause 50% of our games to be unloadable.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted March 14, 2025 05:31 PM |
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Tevye said:
Regarding adding the original campaigns to HotA.
[T]he allure of having these original campaigns in HotA for most players lies in experiencing them exactly as they were back in the day, only with the QoL changes added in HotA.
Gem's campaign would make way more sense with the new HoTA changes from just the First Aid buff alone. The campaign makes out the First Aid Tent to be the greatest invention ever, but I won it with Grand Elves and Diplomacy.
If they had started you with a War Unicorn maybe it would have made more sense.
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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Sigmaverik
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 16, 2025 03:10 PM |
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questions for tevye
You said you are looking to improve inferno , is something like lowering the cost of archdevils and upping his damage in your thoughts. Also the pit fiend could bring normal demons and the pit lord horned demons and last do you think about changing the grail as it is the weakest by far ? Lastly on the neutral creature front you are looking to add mermaid which is good , are lycans and sphinxes in your team's mind ?
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EccoTheDolphin
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 17, 2025 03:36 AM |
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Wind_Falcon said:
Thank you for the answer. I personally don't see any value in playing the original campaigns in HotA, but if you say there is great demand for this I can't argue with that, especially if it wont take too much effort beside the editor improvements (which will benefit everyone).
The way I see it, the original campaigns are part of the game. HotA has many wonderful balance changes that I think make the game much more fun, even from a casual experience (first aid being useful, monster buffs). Also, I think it's important to remember not everyone playing HotA has experienced the main game before, or even HoMM3 in general. If ported to HotA, I bet it would be many people's first chance to play the campaign, more than you'd expect. Many people check out the game because they know its popular on GOG. Remixing the old campaigns to use HotA content is a fun idea but I think best reserved for fans to add once the editor is able to make such campaigns, not for the main HotA team.
The biggest benefit to having the main campaigns playable in HotA is so that HotA can be called the definitive version of HoMM3. As it stands currently, you can say its the best way to play, you can say its better than the old campaigns, but you can't say its definitive because its missing the classic campaigns. When I recommend it to newcomers, I have to add the caveat of "But you can't play the campaigns of the main game first so you'll have to switch between Complete and HotA whenever you want to try content made for one of the other versions."
I get why it's low priority, but I hope we'll eventually get to see the three campaigns together with the HotA campaign all on one screen. Once that happens, there'd be little reason to return to Complete over HotA.
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 18, 2025 07:28 AM |
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I don't buy that people who have never played Heroes are interested in HotA. In general people who are not enthusiast fans of a game know nothing about its modding scene, even most regular fans of a title don't dabble in modding. Most new players also want to experience a game vanilla before jumping into mods.
The OG Campaigns are pretty low quality and not worth playing at all, regardless if you are new or have played them in the past.
The changes HotA makes to balance are a point against playing the original Campaigns under HotA - you are not getting the original vision, you are not going to be reliving the original experience and nostalgia of playing them like back then, and HotA's buffs will make the already pretty easy Campaigns trivial.
HotA is so far removed in some things from Heroes that it makes it impossible to be the definitive version. At this points it's closer to a total conversion. Some things it straight up improves, some are sidegrades, some things that make MP better make SP worse, etc. etc. It's definitely not the definitive Heroes III experience - at this points its too far removed and introduced too much that's HotA unique and not feeling like something NWC would do. At this points Heroes III is like Demon's Souls and HotA is like Dark Souls. Two similar but totally separate games (and I think HotA is even more dissimilar to vanilla Heroes III than DaS is to DeS).
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EccoTheDolphin
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 19, 2025 02:10 AM |
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Wind_Falcon said:
I don't buy that people who have never played Heroes are interested in HotA. In general people who are not enthusiast fans of a game know nothing about its modding scene, even most regular fans of a title don't dabble in modding. Most new players also want to experience a game vanilla before jumping into mods.
I think you're vastly underestimating people. PC players know what mods are. Most people who play older games they get on gog usually know the first thing to ask when they install a game is "are there any mods I need to install"? People know to check out the HoMM3 HD+ mod (hence why they sometimes get confused by the Steam version.) HotA is the most well-known mod for Heroes 3 that many people will be playing.
Wind_Falcon said:
The OG Campaigns are pretty low quality and not worth playing at all, regardless if you are new or have played them in the past.
That doesn't make them without merit, and you're being far more critical than the average casual player will be. Casual players aren't wanting to do 50 resets and resurrection spam and exploiting niche mechanics to complete a 10 month map. They want a fun romp and the campaigns provide that well enough, especially on a first-run playthrough when you're not an MLG Heroes 3 player.
And even if they weren't, they're still an official part of the game and still of interest.
Wind_Falcon said:
The changes HotA makes to balance are a point against playing the original Campaigns under HotA - you are not getting the original vision, you are not going to be reliving the original experience and nostalgia of playing them like back then, and HotA's buffs will make the already pretty easy Campaigns trivial.
Yes, that's the entire point, wanting to play the original campaigns with the updated HotA mechanics. Being able to turn down Witch Hut skills, or having secondary skills that aren't complete trash, is actually pretty fun. Most people aren't playing Heroes 3 for hardcore challenges, they just want to have fun, use interesting monsters, and do wacky spell shenanigans.
I feel like the initial reception of the Forged in Fire campaign should've been a sign that, yes, there are many casual HotA players who aren't playing to do competitive Jebus Cross but just like the updated mechanics and new features. The idea that these people don't exist and that things they would be interested in are pointless just seems very off-base.
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Wind_Falcon
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 19, 2025 02:47 AM |
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I'm into the modding scenes of several games, and what strikes me as strange all the times is the amount of people that come on the various forums, claim they are lifelong mega fans of X, and then say they didn't even knew mods for X existed decade(s) after the heyday of mod popularity for that game. Many times after this they just play the single most well-known mod for the game (like HotA for Heroes III) and don't touch any of the other ones. This is the case for DooM and Ancient Aliens, Quake and Arcane Dimensions, Thief and T2X/The Black Parade - people stop at the biggest name and don't play anything else, even if there are many better offerings from the community out there. We see the same phenomenon with Heroes where virtually no one plays anything other than HotA, even though we have WoG/Era/VCMI and hundreds of mods for those as well. Even Tomb Raider games - where there is a whole mini industry of YouTube channels revolving around the TR games, most of the creators being obvious mega fans from the 90s, yet almost all of them have not touched any of the amazing mods for those games, despite the many years time they could have cheeked them out.
Most people when they ask for mods before their first playthrough usually mean fan patches that fix bugs and technical problems (stability, fps, widescreen), not total conversions/new content etc.
HotA's Campaigns are new content that's pretty easy as well on the lower difficulties. And just straight around better quality wise than the vanilla campaigns. I don't think difficulty is the issue. And like I said - the OG Campaigns play perfectly fine with the HD mod. Most people that haven't played Heroes recently but want to play the OG Campaigns again won't bother with HotA - they will just play them in the vanilla game, rather than having to re-learn every change HotA has made. And most new players will just play without mods for the same reason - learning the base game first (though if we are serous new players will be trying Olden Era now first before any of the older games).
I'm pretty sure most people that are clamoring for playing the OG Campaigns with HotA mechanics won't even finish a single Campaign after they re-familiarize themselves with their quality, let alone every single one of them from the 3 expansions (well vanilla game + 2 exp). This is something people want because it feels good to see the OG Campinas in the HotA main menu, but very few will actually play them in any way.
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Floribert
Hired Hero
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posted March 19, 2025 08:57 AM |
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Wind_Falcon said:
I'm into the modding scenes of several games, and what strikes me as strange all the times is the amount of people that come on the various forums, claim they are lifelong mega fans of X, and then say they didn't even knew mods for X existed decade(s) after the heyday of mod popularity for that game. Many times after this they just play the single most well-known mod for the game (like HotA for Heroes III) and don't touch any of the other ones. This is the case for DooM and Ancient Aliens, Quake and Arcane Dimensions, Thief and T2X/The Black Parade - people stop at the biggest name and don't play anything else, even if there are many better offerings from the community out there. We see the same phenomenon with Heroes where virtually no one plays anything other than HotA, even though we have WoG/Era/VCMI and hundreds of mods for those as well. Even Tomb Raider games - where there is a whole mini industry of YouTube channels revolving around the TR games, most of the creators being obvious mega fans from the 90s, yet almost all of them have not touched any of the amazing mods for those games, despite the many years time they could have cheeked them out.
Most people when they ask for mods before their first playthrough usually mean fan patches that fix bugs and technical problems (stability, fps, widescreen), not total conversions/new content etc.
HotA's Campaigns are new content that's pretty easy as well on the lower difficulties. And just straight around better quality wise than the vanilla campaigns. I don't think difficulty is the issue. And like I said - the OG Campaigns play perfectly fine with the HD mod. Most people that haven't played Heroes recently but want to play the OG Campaigns again won't bother with HotA - they will just play them in the vanilla game, rather than having to re-learn every change HotA has made. And most new players will just play without mods for the same reason - learning the base game first (though if we are serous new players will be trying Olden Era now first before any of the older games).
I'm pretty sure most people that are clamoring for playing the OG Campaigns with HotA mechanics won't even finish a single Campaign after they re-familiarize themselves with their quality, let alone every single one of them from the 3 expansions (well vanilla game + 2 exp). This is something people want because it feels good to see the OG Campinas in the HotA main menu, but very few will actually play them in any way.
I like Hota a lot. Why should I leave it? I played WOG as it was new. But since Hota came out, I play Hota. Only a few times I switched back to SoD for some special maps.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted March 19, 2025 09:48 AM |
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Edited by Ghost at 09:53, 19 Mar 2025.
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I don't know.. But only I play Heroes since 1999, and a very few games were Doom2, Doom3 + expansion, Settlers 2-3, Monopoly, Chessmaster 7000 and 9000, some Quake, and then Spear of Destiny.. So I always come back to Heroes.. I play the most 1. WoG/ERA 2. Heroes 4 Complete and/or HotA and 3. Heroes 3 Complete.. So WoG 3.58f wasn't a cool, thus bug, etc but today WoG/ERA 3.9.21 is a very cool.. I recommend you install Launcher, so cool that automatic update.. Better graphics, etc Today I play Abandoned Colony (my WoG map) against AI with zounds of Phoenixes, horde of Sacred Phoenixes, throng of Firebirds, throng of Crystal Dragons, horde of Faerie Dragons, etc 3rd strongest opponent AI by Difficulty Mod + Human AI.. I'm 4th i.e. throng of Crystal Dragons, zounds of Sorceresses, throng of Arch Devils, throng of Black Dragons, and horde of Hell Barons.. Yup 6 players, and guess what? No year but only 3 months, and game started middlegame or endgame.. Funny! HotA creatures are so good/nice.. Ok for me.. When different Secondary skills, etc No worry that Lych XVIII (my HotA map) is coming..
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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