HoMM: Olden Era | Community Feedback #4: UI, QoL and Others!

In the last community feedback video, we shared the highlights and achievements of Olden Era’s demo and briefly talked about its contents. One more time we wish to thank you all for your warm reception of the demo — your continued support is invaluable here!

Thanks to that support and feedback, we were provided with a significant amount of information on what needs our care the most and today we would like to talk about some of the many changes that are coming with Early Access! If you prefer a video format of all the changes we’ll talk about here, you can check the video below:

UI adjustments

One of the earliest pieces of feedback that Olden Era has ever received was about its interface and its overly simple layout. It has been partially redesigned to be closer to the classic games to give you a more nostalgic look, including various visual enhancements. Our overall goal here was to make it look more visually appealing without losing its functionality and to keep the classic era’s style in. The new interface will be further improved throughout the Early Access as well. Here’s what it looks like!

Many of you played the demo and shared your thoughts on how the battlefield could be a little bit bigger. We took that feedback to heart and implemented it! Not only is it bigger now, We have also expanded the background to add more visual depth to it. On top of that, you can also zoom in and out on any object or creature present in combat. This change was done to enable more strategies (including some oldschool ones) but also to give a little bit more breathing room before the first clash between units takes place. You can see a comparison here.

Additionally, a lot of you found unlocking global spells to be unclear, unintuitive and hard to track. They have been reworked — now, your towns provide you with Astrology Points that earn you Insight that can be spent to unlock global spells, which have various unlock costs. The interface for the global spells has also been updated to make it much easier to access them. We believe that the new way to enter and to acquire these spells will make them much more accessible whilst giving us another method of balancing them.

Readability and Accessibility Adjustments

While playing the demo, some of you mentioned that you struggled with readability of objects and couldn’t be certain which ones can be interacted with. As readability is one of the key aspects that we pay a lot of attention to and try to implement as many solutions for it as possible, more settings have been added. Some of these are:

• Background Desaturation at 0%, 50% and 100%

A highlight that shows you what tiles the object can be interacted from when hovered on

• A custom highlight options for various types of interactables, allied and enemy heroes , visited objects and neutral squads on the global map. In addition to that, there’s also a setting to adjust combat camera position that can be freely switched anytime you want to.

Based on what you’ve shared on social media while playing the demo, it was pretty clear that hotkeys are an important part of the game to you. While they were already present in the game, now you can freely rebind them in settings. Some new hotkeys have also been added for various actions in the game.

Model Updates

You have also made it clear that some unit models could be improved. Previous examples include Dungeon’s Onyx Dancers or Temple’s Angels — which have already been updated — but you have also raised concern about Necropolis’ Dread Knights or Temple’s Cavalry. We’ve heard your feedback and have fully remade them. Some other models in the game have also received an additional visual pass to make them look better and more defined. We are also adjusting several Hive units in order to make them more unique. You have also mentioned that the Aqualotls are hard to recognise in combat so they have been improved and remade into Naiads, the water nymphs from Greek mythology. They have also kept a little piece of old design in their appearance. Here they are in their full glory:

Quality of Life Changes

Additionally, based on feedback received, We made a lot of quality of life improvements. Some of these are:

• Visual effects to various global map objects that previously did not feature them to make the map feel even more alive

• The ability to see more detailed information about enemy units on the global map

• Additional indicators on the mini-map

• A lot of additional in-game tooltips

• More visual cues in combat

• More comprehensive display of the requirements for unlocking hero skill subclasses

• An option to quickly finish an ongoing manual battle if the outcome is clear and to turn auto-combat on & off at will.

What’s coming with Early Access?

To sum it all up, here’s what you can expect in Early Access in addition to 6 factions total, the first act of the campaign and many other features: A much more visually appealing interface to interact with; An expanded battlefield to play out more strategies on; A more comprehensive access to Global Spells; More accessibility and readability settings; Custom hotkeys; Updated unit models based on your feedback; A wide range of Quality of Life changes;

For many years, feedback is what helped improve the Heroes series over time and it can be clearly seen thanks to how dedicated you all are to sharing it! There are many more things to come in Early Access, which we wish to share one thing about: it’s now closer than ever! Be on the lookout for our Social Media as we share more news! Until next time!

You can check the previous feedback video here:

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