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.
But not so fast!
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!
What about Olden Era?
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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