u/Cheap-Blackberry-763

Just got into beef with local puppy yoga studio because I passionately advocate against them, but for whoever needed to hear this- puppy yoga is unethical. It encourages puppy mills to fulfill a constant need for new puppies, and while many studios push adoption the reality is not every puppy can be adopted when you're cranking them out at a steady rate. Those puppies end up at shelters where they're eventually put down.

Further, it can have a serious health effect on puppies who typically need long periods of rest- the constant disruption from each new class can be detrimental to their mental and physical health. Those puppies aren't falling asleep on you because it's cute, they're likely extremely exhausted after being exposed to the excitement of multiple classes in a row.

Puppy yoga is unethical and exploitative- feel free to look up many online takedowns of the industry. You shouldn't encourage these terrible businesses, they're literally killing puppies.

I always offered this tip to new players to the franchise- hop into a hotseat game, create one 'player' for each faction, pick a huge map, and play against yourself. No AI players, don't fight between heroes until you've fully explored the map, then have a battle royale tournament style clash at the end.

It's a great way to let you breathe and play each faction without pressure of AI, and by constantly swapping between factions the individual identities of each faction becomes more apparent over time. I do recommend you increase the strength of neutral enemies to compensate (I usually max them out to create lots of deadly fights).

As mentioned, this is probably the best HoMM has been in two decades, maybe ever when you remove nostalgia. In every way possible, the game's a triumph already and not even into full release. If you're on the fence, buy the game, you won't regret it.

But to be more critical, the game suffers in one area that HoMM has always suffered- hero skills are underwhelming, uninspiring, and boring. +10% and -10% melee damage. +1 attack, defense and spellpower. When enemy creature waits, friendly creatures gain initiative.

Faction skills aren't much better. Necromancy is probably implemented in the most balanced way it's ever been (refreshing). Righteousness and Murmuring are snooze fests. Triumvirate's strength is somehow even more boring. Communion is... so very passive and also boring. Summon Swarm is literally the only remotely exciting and interesting faction skill.

This isn't exactly out of line with previous HoMM titles, and that's the problem.

For comparison, look at Hero's Hour- which I can't recommend enough. Seriously, despite pixel graphics the game is amazing. Every time I roll random hero and faction I'm actually excited to see how different my game is going to play out, an excitement that does not exist in HoMM.

Look at the skills- Devour lets you eat a unit (even friendly ones) for permanent boosts to your hero. Warding gives units a chance to ignore attacks by larger units. A skill I can't remember makes it so war clowns rain down from the sky through a fight and random spells get cast.

Faction skills include ability to call animals onto the battlefield, another lets you collect various types of aether that you can use to cast empowered spells or trade in for stat bonuses, resources, or random creatures. Another lets you 'firegate' enemy creatures to anywhere on the battlefield, causing an explosion that sets them on fire on arrival.

And every major skill has 3-4 sub-skills that often have major effects, not small incremental bonuses. Learn water magic and you can get a subskill that gives your units a chance to encase enemy units in ice, freezing them in place temporarily. Learn earth magic and your units become heavier, more difficult to 'push', and gain increased defense.

Obviously being real-time, Hero's Hour can do more than HoMM ever could, but the point is HoMM has shown little to no creativity in skills since... well, last time I remember an interesting interaction was when your skill selection affected what type of class your hero became which did things like give them poison attacks or other combat abilities.