Now that I have mapped most of the changes HD has made to the game, I can try to round up some of my conclusions:

On MiklMaar pointing out if Invite Hero would be build-in feature: Seems like Inviting Hero was a built-in feature in HD back in the day, now you just can turn it off if you want. This was referred from HD Google Site: "You can now invite heroes in taverns. -This feature is not considered as cheating or changing original game rules because it was also available in the original versions by loading the game multiple times till you get a desired hero; the only difference now is that with HD+ Patch you can do it faster and easier." And by my knowledge Tweaks were introduced later in the development, so I guess you couldn´t disable this back then.

About the overall ruling of speedrunning this game and rulings: I would agree with Adams idea to keep the game as vanilla as we can, but I think it is close to impossible at this point. HD has fixed many critical bugs, but also made many changes to the gameplay and I guess it could be considered the way to play today since the Ranked games are also played on HD+. The changes in HD are considered QoL improvement, but there is also built-in RNG manipulation and other major gameplay changes. Referred from HD+ google site: "Random game calculations, such as moral/luck proc, creature damage and their special abilities proc does not affect the course of combat anymore. This means that with the same conditions, actions taken by players on the same map, the course of the battle will go in the same way." The other change being replayable quick battle: If you aren't happy with the result, you can start the fight yourself, cast a spell and simulate the rest. As MiklMaar said, this is as non-vanilla that it can be.

So in my opinion IF we would want as vanilla as possible, then it should be played without HD+ and with either HD or completely original game. If we were to enable HD+ (which again has built-in non-vanilla features), then we should enable Invite Hero and other tweaks IF they do not break the game.

Maybe even have seperate categories for vanilla and HD+ with tweaks.

There is also possibility to add plugins, but I guess these should be banned. Not sure thought, didn't have time to check them out.

To clarify a bit more my thoughts, one option is to make seperate categories for Invite Hero enabled and disabled. This way we could see which one could be the main way to play. This could be good since the interesting part is how much can you gain from other campaigns with this mechanic.

EDIT: See my long post below to find newer information.

I understand the problem of adding new features to the game. HD Mod sure adds many unoriginal features to the game, including the army management, but the only thing you can control from the tweaks is do same creatures go in the same stack.

I guess it should be fine if we would play like we originally did, with the QoL upgrades from HD+, and decide about the Invite Hero mechanic.

The only problem I see with disabling Invite Hero feature is the time you can save with optimal Hero generation. It´s not like in some other games where you get good RNG and you save 10-30sec, it´s alot more. Only in liberations 1st mission the difference of safe strat and optimal hero strat is 4 minutes. You gain far too much time by getting optimal hero generation.

This wouldn't be such a big deal if I would run only Liberation, since I could easily just keep restarting the campaign until I get specific hero, but when running the whole campaign it will be a problem. Currently I have played 4 of the 6 campaigns in Restoration of Erathia and I know 3 missions (Around 5-6min gain) where I could gain time with good hero generation.

I guess we could think the Invite Hero mechanic this way: Do we want the speedruns of this game to be more original and luck based (Disabling Invite) or more technical (Enabling Invite). I understand if we want to stay as original as possible and I am totally fine with it since I have been playing my runs without Invite Hero mechanic, but I would prefer using it in the future runs. This is mainly because this way you can focus on the gameplay itself rather than getting good luck. It feels pretty overwhelming to get very good time in a long run, if you can save 3-4 minutes by getting 1 hero of the 122 available in one campaign.

Yeah, Gem is not disabled in Liberation and neither is Summon Boat. You just cannot get summon boat from any Mage Guild. And Gem is the only hero who starts with Summon Boat :D

I think it should be allowed to use Invite Hero and other tweaks as long as there are not any gamebreaking tweaks available .Currently I think there is none, or atleast I havent seen any. If one comes, then we should discuss this again.

If moderators could give us some kind of conclusion here?

Inviting a hero would make this game a lot better to speedrun. Currently bad rng with heroes in campaigns that require certain hero type or skill causes about 1/4 or 1/3 of my restarts. This has made routing the whole campaign very hard since most of the "fast" tactics require good RNG, and to make every mission work like intented requires amazing luck. This has discouraged me to come up with fast routes for the missions, since slow but consistent routes have worked out better in a long run.

I was wondering about the rules of using some of HD Mods features and I guess these need to be clarified. ATM the rules say that we can use HD Mod, updated to its latest version.

1.) So do we use HD+? It's an option in the launcher settings that fixes some gameplay bugs (mainly crashes) and makes some things easier (Replayable Quick Combat). I have been using it on my runs so far and I guess Long Live the Queens WR is made on HD+.

In my opinion HD+ should be enabled, since some of the bugs that HD+ fixes can easily ruin your run. The changes to gameplay are not that big in HD+ compared to HD, and you can't really use it for your advantage.

2.) Are we going to allow tweaking the game via launcher? Most of the tweaks change some options that can be found in the game also (e.g. Combat Auto Spells - Can be found in combat settings), so they don't have to be set during gameplay.

The one that I'm interested in is UI.Tavern.InviteHero, which I guess you cannot find in the game settings. Enabling this option from tweaks makes runs less RNG based and that makes some tactics more consistent.

For example in Liberation Mission 1, you can't get Summon Boat spell anywhere from the map, but hero named Gem has it ready. Using summon boat in this mission would save around 5mins. This tactic can only be considered by allowing Invite Hero mechanic, since it took me around 60 restarts to get Gem in tavern just with RNG based hero recruitment.

IMO using the tweaks or atleast Invite Hero mechanic should be allowed also, since Heroes 3 is already quite luck based game to speedrun and by being able to invite heroes you could make runs more consistent overall. Inviting heroes is still slower than getting it right away from tavern, but this mechanic would decrease the amount of restarts that runs require.

EDIT: Just wanted to make sure am I allowed to use these before I start playing with these settings.

Alright, thanks for advice.

Hi!

I found this old thread, and thought this would be good way to contact Heroes of Might and Magic III mods.

Any chances I could be one of the moderators of HoMM3? Im currently one of the few active players speedrunning this game, and would love to help others and moderate this particular game.

snDRY_

Could moderators create categories for Shadow of Death, Restoration of Erathia and Armageddons Blade?

And what would the rules be, is restartting single missions via menu screen allowed? This would allow manipulate getting better starting hero and other stuff.

Hey!

It's nice to see this game at speedrun.com. I was wondering would people be interested to see full campaign runs? (SoD, RoE, AB)

I could start practicing speedrunning this game but would prefer to do full campaign runs.