Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era News

Devlog #5: Game Modes pt.2: Arena

Recently, we discussed two game modes: Classic and Single-Hero. But we have one more mode up our sleeve, which has seen the light of day because of the community requests. It brings all the players to the fast-paced, dynamic battle: Arena.

Why did we do this? you might ask. There are 2 points to be made here!

The first one, due to long working hours, and many responsibilities in their lives, not many people have the time to allocate to longer templates that have been the classic experience in other HOMM games. The second, to put it simply, arena modes are just very popular, and very entertaining templates to play. We want to not only improve on this idea, but bring you the best possible iteration of it! No traditional map exploration, no castle building, no resource gathering. Just. pure. battle.

The player picks the hero, their artefacts, spells, troops, and jumps into the single fight that determines the outcome.

[h2]But not so fast![/h2]

Arena is not our unique invention. Its predecessor first appeared as a full-fledged mode in HoMM 5 and was called Hot Seat Duel Mode (as if your seat is not hot enough…..). The concept was simple: a quick battle between two preset heroes. The settings weren’t extensive, but the mode still became a hidden gem for those who wanted to dive straight into battle without spending time gathering armies and developing cities.

Hot Seat Duel Mode in HoMM 5 featured 18 preset heroes from different factions, each with unique abilities and equipment. But the choice essentially boiled down to one thing — picking the hero.

But players still missed the option to customize their hero, skills, and armies, so the community created alternatives in other Heroes games — sometimes makeshift (but inventive!). In these Arenas, players could level up their hero — for instance, by gathering everything from Pandora’s Boxes. Some Arenas relied more on luck, others on thought out choices. All were united by specially created maps.

However, modders couldn’t add a fully-fledged new mode to the game. The maps always had to be custom, and this created an issue with finding the templates to begin with, as well as not being very popular, so it was hard to find opponents. It was always very specific ideas, that belonged to individuals, without much balance to it. And so we want to change that!

[h2]What about Olden Era?[/h2]

For starters, we’ve always enjoyed these Arenas! Our team is no stranger to short sessions whenever you want just a quick break. So, we added that to Olden Era as a separate game mode that doesn’t require special maps. On one hand, it’s a format familiar to fans, but on the other, we’ve reworked and adapted it to be approachable to the new audience.

Our Arena is a classic draft. As a player, you're offered a choice of one of three heroes. Then you select their skills (again, one of three, with multiple level ups), artefacts, spells, and army. In other words, you assemble and customize your build, but it’s very fast-paced — the entire draft takes around five minutes. You may choose to fight the other player, or the AI. After all the preparations are done – to battle!

Making this mode was not without its challenges, for sure.
There were questions like ‘what do we do with skills or spells that are only useful on the adventure map (like Logistics or control spells)?’ or ‘How do we use the heroes who specialize in them?’. Not to mention that heroes in the Arena start with an empty skill pool (unlike the regular map, where they always have two or three skills to start) — which means that specialist heroes don’t always get their key primary skills.

So we took it step by step.
We’ve started with improving the balance. Specialist heroes have an increased chance of learning their corresponding skills, and mages always start with a basic spell.
The leveling process has also been simplified — you receive the 2nd level of a skill from the start (the level that allows you to immediately choose a subskill). Additionally, artefacts and skills now influence the magic offered.

We ensure that the draft is fair: if you get a rare artefact, your opponent will be offered an equally powerful one, both players being offered artefacts of the same rarity. But grabbing everything won’t work — it’s crucial how you use your resources, so be mindful of the combinations.

And of course! The same goes for units. Tiers and upgrades will be similar, so we ensure the battle is as close as possible without giving the same choices to players.

Our goal is to preserve the uniqueness of every fight, as well as balance, so that it will always bring a new challenge.

We see Arena not just as a new ‘format’. Quick battles, allowing the player to jump in with minimum preparation and take maximum action, are a good starting point for those who are not very familiar with the series, as well as for those who want to enjoy the game on their lunch break. We hope this will be a great opportunity for both the newer, and the more experienced players, to enjoy the Arena mode, even when they don’t have the time for hours and hours of gameplay. This also brings a way for everyone to very quickly understand and improve their knowledge about the game.

Leaving the best for last, the Arena mode will not only be a quick, and accessible template to play, but it will also have its own separate rating system, and matchmaking, just like the Single-Hero and Classic modes. This will bring a difficult, new challenge, to even the most competitive players!
You will learn more about what kind of competitive aspects this will bring, in one of our future devlogs about the ladder system!

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Devlog #4: On Necromancy and the Necromancers' Guild

There can be no necromancers without necromancy, that much is a fact. Throughout the franchise’s history this unique school of magic has gone through multiple transformations, much like humans’ concept and belief of death. From raising simple skeletons, to awakening liches, dragons and vampires, necromancy has been one of the most controversial abilities that’s been considered extremely powerful if not outright overpowered by most players. In Heroes III it was possible to obtain a powerful set to further empower it, whilst in Heroes V it was limited by Dark Energy.

[h2]How does it work in Olden Era?[/h2]

We wanted to preserve the feeling of power and grandeur raising the dead gave you in the previous games, whilst at the same time trying to ensure it doesn’t get too crazy too quickly. In order to do that, we made it so that necromancy affects ALL of your units - however, it can only raise units that you already have in the army (so no farming peasants to get vampires during the first week) and the amount of units raised is based on the total health pool of enemies slain in combat. We hope that by introducing these checks and balances on Necromancy both the Necromancer and the potential skele…We mean, the enemy player will enjoy facing each other off. We’ll definitely keep an eye on it and adjust it should there be any concerns in the future.

That is not all, though. Whilst uncovering this knowledge for you, we’ve come across an arcane page from our scholarly friend’s lexicon where he records a conversation with his dark but rather friendly acquaintance. Here’s what it says:

Kelarr: Many legends and rumors surround you and your kind. Some call necromancy “the magic of death”.

Khel: True in a way, but the more precise term would be “the applied science of death”. The art of necromancy has its roots in alchemy even more so than in magic, though darker magical practices are certainly important as well. We study death and what happens with the spirit after death. Necromancers strive to perfect the process of resurrecting the dead, to remove any limits to it that traditional spirit magic might have, and achieve immortality.

Kelarr: And you have been working towards those goals for a long time now — in Jadame and elsewhere.

Khel: Indeed, necromancy began centuries ago. Among magicians and clerics there were those who sought to peer beyond the veil of death, to master it, which would allow them to avoid it as well as gain more power and knowledge. One can say that such studies coalesced into what is now known as necromancy when a mage first came back to life as a lich in the west — in Enroth. But many students of death made important discoveries separately from each other, as it oftentimes is with various fields of science.

Kelarr: And yet eventually you “death scientists” became quite organized.

Khel: It was only natural for practitioners of an art like ours to form an order that would help us share knowledge with colleagues, coordinate research efforts and protect ourselves. But although the Necromancers’ Guild operates worldwide, its branches across different lands and continents are quite autonomous. The ways they operate also vary. Here in Jadame, necromancers don’t have a solidified ruling body — the Guild acts more like a support network. While in Antagarich, for instance, Guild members rule a feudal monarchy called Deyja, the kingdom of death. And in Enroth, our colleagues are subjects to the crown and the Mandate of Heaven, though not easily accepted by the populace.

Kelarr: From what I gather, there is actually more than one chapter of the Guild in Jadame alone.

Khel: The most well-known and currently strongest one in terms of military is based in the Shadowspire region of eastern Jadame, as you are well aware. But there are indeed others. it is much more a land. I myself belong to a different branch operating in the isles of the Ifarine Sea. Though we do work closely with the Shadowspire Guild, and I visit those parts rather frequently and with pleasure.

Kelarr: And your reputation as a researcher does precede you… That reminds me. My apologies, but which spelling of your name is correct?

Khel: *chuckles* I know a genie who has been asked the same thing. I prefer “Khel” a bit more, but “Kehl” is also an acceptable way to spell my name.

Kelarr: Thank you. Regarding Shadowspire, while it is an important stronghold of necromancers today, and has been in the past, it is actually ruled by vampires.

Khel: I would say this is rather simplifying it but they do hold sway there, yes. Although the relations between us necromancers and the children of the night have not always been easy (or peaceful), we have enjoyed fruitful cooperation with vampires for several centuries now. Our cultures are indeed separate, but they are intertwined — both in Jadame and other lands. The Necromancers’ Guild itself is rather young by vampire standards. Our history began during the first several centuries after the Silence, and they have been around since millennia before that. Having similar powers and their own brand of immortality, they sometimes help us in our studies, also learning much themselves.

Kelarr: I suppose the fact that the current head of the Necromancers’ Guild in Shadowspire is a vampire certainly helps.

Khel: Oh, yes! Lord Thant doesn’t hail from Jadame, but has made quite a name for himself here. A powerful practitioner and researcher of Nightshade Magic, some of his creations have done much to help his vampiric brethren in their endless struggle with the sun, gaining Thant favor with the legendary Nosferatu Korbu himself — and Thant is certainly a highly talented necromancer himself, an asset to the Guild.

Kelarr: And not only that. As far as I know, his policies actually helped bridge the gap between necromancers and common people.

Khel: Also true. Many living people that dwell alongside necromancers (or under our rule) in various towns and regions of Jadame entrust us with the remains of their dead. While those sanctimonious priests from the Temple of the Sun constantly blame us for “interfering with the passing of souls” and whatnot, at times the funeral rites we perform actually help the spirit ascend.

Kelarr: However, it should be noted that this is not the only reason Sun clerics and others revile your kind. They say necromancers prey upon life itself, much like vampires drink blood. To restore life the way you do, you need to get life energy somewhere.

Khel: Practicing our art does require such sacrifices.

Kelarr: Sometimes, quite literal ones…

Khel: True, but many necromancers are beginning to shy away from ritual sacrifices. They prefer to draw life from the land, and use more subtle, slow ways.

Kelarr: We’ve talked about the Sun worshippers, but the Moon Temple is no less relevant to the necromancers…

Khel: The twin Churches of Sun and Moon have competed for the hearts and minds of people across the globe for so long now, sometimes clashing openly. While our order is separate from the Church of the Moon, we naturally prefer them over the Sun clerics, and many Moon clerics practice necromancy and employ undead in their armies. Those in our Guild who are more religious actually practice either the Moon faith or its offshoot called the Path of Dark. I myself am more of an agnostic when it comes to powers that be.

Kelarr: While I agree that the Necromancers’ Guild has been rather peaceful for a long time, there are some necromancers and vampires who may disturb that peace. Like the certain someone I’m sure you have heard about…

Khel: Ah, Galthran. Freshly bitten, and very young by vampire standards, he does indeed seem rather ambitious and warlike. Galthran’s experiments with skeleton transformation are both admirable and risky. I have been privy to many talks among our leaders regarding what should be done about him, if anything at all. He seeks to gain power separately from the Guild. While he has every right to try and do so, he could get himself and others in trouble that way.

Kelarr: I only hope that the people of Jadame will not have to suffer from that.

Khel: Time will tell.

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Necropolis Faction full reveal (Happy Halloween!)

🌹 Roses are red🌹
Violets are blue
🩸We still haven't fixed the blood issue (oh we know) 🩸
But here's the Big Necropolis Faction Reveal just for you!

Happy Halloween!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Devlog #3: On Lore and Subjectivity

Franchises require a very special approach to lore when you’re not the original creator. As a fan, you want to add something to the world you love that is faithful to its spirit, but meaningful enough so that it doesn’t feel like gushing fanfiction. This becomes even harder if a franchise is old (like Might and Magic) and has a complicated history (like Might and Magic).

Heroes of Might and Magic as a series is a spin-off of the Might and Magic franchise and partially shares a world (MM6-MM8) with it — up until HoMM3, that is. Then an eschatological event happens, and HoMM4 takes place in a new world, as do the following games. Some inhabitants of the original Enroth escape to Axeoth from HoMM4, but HoMM5 is, in terms of grand cosmology, a kind of pure fantasy soft reboot of the setting in the world of Ashan.

It is, of course, irrelevant to us as HoMM:OE is a return to Enroth. But the soft reboot happened for a reason. And that reason was, the HoMM community is very… split on the franchise’s origins.

[h2]Are Demons Space Aliens?[/h2]
This is because the Might and Magic universe isn’t fantasy — it’s space techno fantasy about powerful high-tech races and ancient creatures terraforming a world that only looks medieval. The Might and Magic series explores this in full detail, but the Heroes of Might and Magic sub-franchise conceals this aspect. Of course, it’s not like the original creators considered HoMM to be separate from MM lore-wise — quite the contrary. But the fact remains, in all of the Heroes games the sci-fi aspect was never ever made explicit. You wouldn’t know that the devil Kreegans from Inferno are actually a race of spacefaring aliens (a few hints in the campaigns notwithstanding), unless you search external sources, like the Might and Magic games or Internet sites, for this information. So a lot of players fell in love with Heroes without knowing about its roots.

Naturally, this split the community. Some people enjoy the techno fantasy aspect. Others treat it as a sort of easter egg! But there are also people who heavily dislike the “techno” part — they rebelled against the original (unreleased) Forge faction in HoMM3, which was meant to represent this more technological aspect. A significant portion of the Heroes of Might and Magic fans view it as pure fantasy. Which is one of the reasons the series moved to more traditional worlds in later installments.

Now, dear reader, we suspect you have an opinion on the matter, whether pro- or anti-techno element. Since the announcement we’ve read a lot of passionate discussions on the matter, with mutually exclusive points made from both sides. To some people, removing the techno fantasy aspect is removing the DNA of the series; to others, adding it dilutes the Heroes identity and makes the world less immersive.

Since we at Unfrozen are fans, our team is actually also split on the matter — some people enjoy the techno fantasy roots, others don't. And so the question is: how do we create a game that makes everyone happy? Is it even possible?

[h2]Here Come the Tropes[/h2]
Here’s a fun question for you: who writes unit or item descriptions in a game? More often than not, a sort of omniscient narrator/demiurg figure does — basically it’s the creators of the game saying, “This is the objective truth.” Games like Magic: The Gathering shift this tradition, utilizing in-universe quotes from characters for their flavor texts. And some games, like Hollow Knight, go even further — their artbook is presented as a bestiary written by an in-universe character who has a name and a story (and who can thus be mistaken — or at least has a clearly subjective view of the world).

The cool thing about Heroes of Might and Magic is that it’s a game about clashing worldviews. Factions are different on every level, from visual design to gameplay perks, and we emphasize that in Olden Era. So why not make their worldviews equally varied?

Different people of Jadame may have different ideas on where magic comes from. Or how the world began. Or whether gods exist and what they do. Or what the movement of stars means. Instead of giving a definitive answer, why not use conflicting interpretations to our advantage?

[h2]Subjective Narration[/h2]
In Olden Era, followers of the Temple believe that the Sun is a magic chalice where all good souls go after death. This is why they preach self-improvement: the better you make yourself in life, the stronger your soul becomes, feeding their central object of worship. This is also why templars hate necromancers so much, as they tie souls to mortal remains in an unnatural way, denying them this bliss and obligation.

Now, is the Sun actually a chalice? Do faithful souls really go there?

Do we need an objective answer?

https://youtu.be/M2anFK-Gwb8

From Rashomon to A Song of Ice and Fire, stories with multiple narrators, subjective and unreliable, have been a great way to show conflict where each side has their own truth and no one feels like an objective villain. To an Alvar dark elf, the conflict between Temple and Necropolis might look ridiculous because they know that the sun is just an orb of fire in the sky. To a Murmurwood satyr, it makes sense, as they are equally convinced that all souls are sucked back into the world after death, but the Temple’s desire to inflate them artificially feels unnatural. No one is “objectively” right or wrong here, it’s just different worldviews clashing — over things more fundamental than a piece of land or a powerful artifact.

We will, of course, mostly explore this in the campaign. But even in skirmishes or on the Arena, this trace of subjectivity is still present. All unit descriptions, for example, are written by an in-universe character, a scholar, who does his best to be impassive, but still comments on aspects of other cultures he finds questionable, and he can still be wrong.

And yes, it’s an old minotaur

In fact, New World Computing sometimes made good use of the “unreliable narrator” tropes. For instance, some people in Enroth think that VARN was a seafaring ship, or the whole deal with Kreegans being labeled as “devils” and their enslaved humans as possessed Demoniacs.

All that said, there are aspects of HoMM:OE’s world that aren’t open to interpretation — like Jadame’s people, their social structures and politics. Or pure geography.

WIP! This iteration of the map of Jadame is inspired by an awesome fan version by Markon Phoenix — although it has changed somewhat since then.

The largest volcano on Jadame is in Shadowspire, but it’s dormant. The ones to the south are active. These are undeniable facts. But it’s not necessarily possible to tell whether that was the cause of the new fiery power appearing in those parts of the continent (attracted and bolstered by the elemental force of the volcanoes, maybe?) or if the power boosted the volcanoes. Were the Wasp Nest insectoid inhabitants corrupted by this new force — or did they summon it voluntarily?

Some of these questions will be answered in the story. But others will remain open-ended. Because everyone has their own truth.

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Devlog #2: Game Modes pt.1: Classic and Single-Hero

Previously, we told you about the many ways to play HoMM and the modes that Olden Era will feature. Today, let’s delve a bit deeper into some of them.

There’s no existing statistic to show which modes are the most played in the series. It’s probably a toss between randomly generated maps and custom scenarios (especially since not all games in the series featured a random map generator at all). So instead of the most popular modes, we’ll start from the most all-encompassing: the ways we approached randomly generated maps and templates for both single- and multiplayer.

[h2]Classic Mode[/h2]
This is the basic way to play the game: hire heroes, explore the map, build your kingdom, conquer towns, defeat the opponent by extinguishing all their heroes and towns. In Olden Era, we recreate the classic gameplay loop familiar to lovers of the series — but there are some advanced considerations we’re taking into account.

Remember when HoMM just appeared in your local video game store? These were the times when players would slowly and meticulously explore the map, manage castles, and steadily gather massive armies. That took dozens of hours, and the final battles were spectacular. For all intents and purposes, this is how the game was “meant” to be played.

But over the years the way people play the game has evolved. This is, honestly, a fascinating phenomenon — worthy of analysing on its own merits. Diehard fans of Heroes, particularly of HoMM3, would look for ways to optimise their playthroughs — lose fewer troops, fall upon their opponent faster, defend a castle with a single unit. These strats, of course, are particularly important in competitive multiplayer (that also evolved into flourishing over the years), but even in singleplayer people found ways to topple much stronger opponents or juggle armies around the map in ways that were clearly unintended, but created new gameplay dynamics.

Let’s talk about a couple of such “strats” and important characteristics that we took into account when designing Olden Era.

[h3]Pacing[/h3]

A single match in “Jebus Cross” (the most popular competitive multiplayer template) takes no more than a couple of in-game weeks. You heard that right: modern competitive HoMM playstyiles are fast. It makes sense: fall onto your opponent before they have time to prepare, and you win.

Now, let us be clear: we do NOT think that all games of Heroes need to be this fast. There absolutely is merit to huge maps that take months of in-game time to explore, and we will support those.

But it would also be unwise to ignore this tendency for quicker matches, because it doesn’t just come from nowhere. For streamers, faster matches are better content (and we can’t just ignore this factor in 2024). For players themselves, it happens because faster strats are often simply the most efficient.

Our general approach to this issue is creating various systems that would support both faster and slower matches. For example, alternative win conditions that do not require you to capture all opponent’s towns are a good way to allow for faster matches. Alternative hero caps can change the pacing of even familiar templates. And more traversal options and ways to deliver armies make big maps more fun to play.

[h3]Hero Roles[/h3]

While you can buy a number of heroes in Classic Mode and nothing stops you from using them all in similar ways, people generally designate a “main” (the hero they’ll level up) and “supports” or “couriers” — heroes that just run around the map, collect resources, deliver armies and generally help around.

As we already mentioned, our AI uses these roles in its actions. We also kept this in mind when developing Hero Skills and specializations: some of them are meant to be useful for supports and not just mains!

Supports matter!

[h3]Hero Chains [/h3]

The next step after designating hero roles is… strategizing. Since the power of a hero often comes from their armies and artefacts, you can juggle those around, transferring from one hero to another and using various heroes as “mains”, which is exactly what competitive players do. This allows them to explore the map MUCH faster, but you need to make sure that every hero in your roster can reach the point you need them to reach (like another hero or a town) in time. This is called “hero chains.”

Hero chaining is very skill-heavy, so we intend to keep it in the game. For example, just like in HoMM3, in Olden Era the amount of movement points your hero has depends on the speed of units in their army (an important aspect of chaining). So hardcore players that want to play the game the same way as HoMM3, can do that — and can challenge their chaining skills.

But other players feel that chaining is tedious and requires too much micromanagement. For them, we created alternative ways to transfer armies and artefacts to keep their “main” well-supplied. One such way is a Remote Foothold building: you can place a hero’s army and artefacts in a Remote Foothold and then grab them from any other Remote Foothold on the map. Yay, teleport!

(You can just exclude these buildings from a template if you want the super-classic experience that fully relies on chaining.)

Another way to transfer forces immediately is the “Assemble!” spell. Casting it allows a hero to interact with another hero from afar, as though they were standing next to each other, to transfer anything they need (which is probably troops). So it’s kinda like a chain, but faster, less tedious, and its links are connected from afar like magic. It plays like a nice compromise between the classic chaining experience and the quick Remote Foothold approach.

[h3]"One-Unit Stacks" [/h3]

In HoMM, you often have to fight strong opponents with a weaker army. This is where "one-unit stacks" come in — single-unit troops that absorb counterattacks, shield ranged units, or lure the enemy to the far corner of the battlefield. Of course, you can’t win using only these troops. The main damage is dealt by "strike stacks" — strong units gathered into a large single stack. The combination of "strike stacks" with "one-unit stacks" allows you to fight very challenging battles with almost no losses. Proper troop distribution has become a real test of skill.

The first thing you need to use one-unit stacks is QoL (it’s tiresome to split single units from a stack manually) — we got that covered. But we also feel that it’s interesting to have systems that interact with this type of troop. An upgraded “Impending Fate” spell can kill all one-unit stacks on the battlefield, leaving your opponent’s shooters unguarded.

And keep in mind that one-unit stacks still have access to active abilities — and while some of them depend on the number of troops, the others do not. All enemies adjacent to a Thunder Qilin receive additional magic damage, and it doesn’t matter how many units there are in a stack — so how about throwing a bunch of one-units stacks of Qilins into enemy ranks and then casting Armageddon?

And that’s just the simplest thing that comes to mind. We want players to find many ways to exploit and counter-exploit one-units stacks.

***

The way Heroes are played today isn’t quite what was intended from the start — the developers of the classic games likely didn’t plan for hero chaining or one-unit stack abuse. But we can benefit from the many years of gameplay evolution that the Heroes community went through. We think it’s fascinating and want to preserve these “strats” in Olden Era (sometimes optionally) while making sure their tedium is alleviated for those who are more interested in more modernized gameplay.

[h2]Single-Hero Mode[/h2]

Despite the acceleration of gameplay, rounds can still take a lot of time, and hero chains require a great deal of micromanagement, which is appreciated by some (as it’s an opportunity to show skill), but tiresome to others. Over the years, the community has developed a different type of template that Olden Era supports as a full-fledged game mode (with a separate ladder and everything): Single-Hero Mode.

This mode is more straightforward and fast: the player has only one hero, and their death means defeat, which ends the game. Managing one hero requires significantly less time and effort and raises the stakes.

In Single-Hero Mode zones are explored more slowly, and the game takes more in-game days. Because of this, the map templates themselves differ from the classic ones. For example, some templates have more creature dwellings, and the methods for acquiring adventure spells for rapid map exploration are simplified — they may be available from the start. This mode is particularly suitable for first-timers as it is easier to manage a single hero.

We will devote another blog post about this mode later, scheduling it closer to the internal milestone.

We are proud to continue the best traditions of ‘Heroes’, however we’re keeping in mind how the gameplay has changed over time and how the community has adapted some features to their needs. In the next devlog, we’ll share some details of the mode we’re especially thrilled about: Arena.

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