u/Any-Spinach-4155

Hive is by no means unplayable, but it clearly lags behind the other factions. This is primarily due to its very difficult early game. Even when playing optimally, we will suffer losses. A minor mistake can cost us as much as half our army.

The easiest way to fix this would be to buff level 1–3 units, but I think I have a better idea. Some Hive units could receive small bonuses when eggs are destroyed. Our insects would then go wild. For example, the Parasite and Locust would get bonuses to speed and initiative, and the Hornet to defense. Additionally, the Locust could have the ability to jump on eggs to break them and trigger effects.

We could play around with this mechanic more. For example, Hive Mothers could receive bonuses when eggs hatch, and certain upgrades could receive a debuff when eggs are destroyed.

I think this would add depth to the gameplay without significantly disrupting the balance. The player would have to decide whether to sacrifice eggs for valuable speed points to reach enemy shooters or to hatch the larvae instead.

I completed the campaign on the Temple side. I played on the hard difficulty (Bishop) and took my time. I often reloaded the game, tried out different strategies, and familiarised myself with the units and buildings.

It took me nearly 30 hours.

I’m not a particularly good player, but I’m not all that bad either. I completed the Factory campaign in HOTA. I must admit that the campaign in OE is quite challenging, although the difficulty level is poorly balanced. The final mission, for example, is very difficult the first time when you don’t quite know what’s going on, and child’s play on the second attempt. The Grove hero, who joins us, is totally OP, and I tried not to use him too often so as not to trivialise the gameplay.

I really enjoyed playing around with the game mechanics. It’s great that the campaign includes challenge maps with unlimited movement, city defence, and 1v1 duels. The game could, however, do a bit better at informing players about the rules of the map.

The storyline is quite good. It seems to be heading towards the dungeon elves wanting to summon Cthulhu to fight Satan, which is quite amusing. The end of Act 1 comes a bit too quickly, though; another mission at the end would have been useful to tie the plot together. Unfortunately, the dialogue between the characters is terribly infantile. Especially in the early missions.

Overall, my impressions are positive, but I’m hoping that Act 1, which is currently available, will be improved.

https://preview.redd.it/ga4pcqdjb50h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=9afd6e047fa340c8bf26b773106a40ff603d33bb

When you have a large number of artifacts, it can sometimes be difficult to find the items that make up a set. Simply highlighting all the artifacts in a set when you hover over one of them would greatly improve readability. The highlight color could also change depending on how many items from the set you currently own.

It would be helpful to have a menu or tab with information about the current map. While playing the campaign, I noticed that different rules apply on different maps. On some maps, faction laws are disabled, while on others we have unlimited movement points. The idea of modifying gameplay like this is great, but it can be a bit confusing at times.

It doesn’t matter much right now, but it will be very useful once there are many custom maps. Each map should be described by specific victory conditions and rules (one hero, locked spells, level cap, etc.). We should be able to review this information before starting the map and access it at any time during the game.

I wanted to focus here on some minor, easily fixable issues with clarity that I’ve noticed recently.

1. The arrow icon used during combat is a bit blurry. It’s hard to tell whether the arrow is straight or bent.

2. The small resource and stat icons that appear above a hero after visiting a building or collecting a resource are too small and disappear too quickly. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how much wood or gold we’ve just collected.

3. Units resurrected by necromancy should be displayed on the battle summary screen or in a separate window.

4. In the campaign, mission objectives should be automatically hidden when entering a city. When mission objectives are visible, they cover the city building screen.

5. In the campaign, information about the maximum experience points/maximum level that can be earned in a mission should be visible.

6. I open the city-building menu by clicking on the main building on the city screen. It’s incredibly annoying that you can’t click on buildings for a few seconds while a short animation showcasing the city is playing.

I’ve been watching videos shared by streamers for the past few days and I can’t wait for the launch. Compared to the demo, the biggest difference is probably the enlarged battlefield. Manoeuvring in combat finally matters. Good positioning of units allows you to defeat much stronger opponents. The introduction of spell cooldowns is quite controversial but makes sense. However, the balance will need to be tweaked, and perhaps the cooldowns on the weakest spells should be removed. It’s hard to judge at this stage, but it looks like mechanically this will be the best game in the series.

Unfortunately, I have concerns about the graphics. I’ve got used to the game’s art style, but I’m not a fan of it. However, after the improvements, most factions and units look really good now. I’ve even grown to like the Hive, which is probably the most controversial. My biggest issue is with the Grove. I don’t understand why this faction doesn’t include pixies and unicorns. Especially since they have wonderful models in the game. Grove is meant to represent the forces of nature, the elements and the forests, yet their colour palette consists mainly of reds and browns. It just doesn’t fit at all. Grove’s native biome is simply awful.

The city-building screen also needs fixing; it’s ugly and hard to read. A lot of information in the game isn’t properly highlighted either. For example, there should be clearer messages about how many units necromancy resurrects, what stats and bonuses we get from different buildings, and so on.

Apart from Grove, which I think needs a major conceptual overhaul, these are minor issues that will likely be fixed during early access.

The game is brilliant and has huge potential. I hope it will be alive for many years to come and that we’ll get dozens of expansions for it.