Hi! I would like to make some speedruns for H3, but I find counting real-life time ridiculous. All offline tournaments aim to win a map within the lowest number of days and all of the records were always made this way. The in-game leaderboard is working that way! Maybe it would be a good idea to create an additional category "number of days", so more people would be encouraged to compete?

If you find timing a video game ridiculous, then you miss the main point of speedrunning. If you mean trying to time Heroes III rather than base off of 'in-game time', then I will try to compromise. If we based this game on in-game days, there would be players who would tie by endgame with videos of differing times. Using a timer ranks player's skills in relation to where they are in the same level.

That being said, I could opt to add in the in-game timer for runs and edit the rules to compensate, like this category in Rayman: http://www.speedrun.com/rayman_1#Any_Damageless. But I should not make this decision myself. If other players don't mind, I'll add it in, but you still need a timer like everyone else in order to count as a speedrun.

Many thanks for a quick reply! I agree, that combining these times would be a good solution. By ridiculoulousness I mean that Heroes series can't be estimated conventionally, because it's tactical and strategical elements are separated. You can just go through all of the mosters in the blink of an eye thanks to a quick combat and win within a minutes, but someone who will fight every time, to save more creatures for an end battle, will win weeks before contestants - unfortunately, this person will have a terrible real-time. Not to mention, that some of the best known tactical battles might last more than 30 minutes.

Hope i'm not too late to vote ''yes''? I'd love to see a run like that, and maybe you could get more runners interested this way. After all clicking fast isnt what homm3 is about

You could use timer like this

1001 hour meaning 100 days and 1 hour so people would get ranked both on in game time and real time

Hi there. I recall answering a question about allowing for the best amount of days for a campaign, but it seems the user who asked about it years ago deleted the thread, nor is there such a thread in the other HoMM games.

I approached this idea to the aforementioned link before: https://www.speedrun.com/rayman_1#Any_Damageless ; but now that link does not redirect to such a category anymore. I believe this suggests the mods there have redone their categories to timer-based speedruns only. I would like to take example and keep runs to equivalent categories, as is the theme of speedrun.com .

Another example why this idea wouldn't work for this game on this website is there's the chance multiple users would submit the same amount of days and suggests redundancy allowing the 'same' gameplay on the leaderboard, if that makes sense.

I hope this helps give an understanding of what is expected for HoMM III on speedrun.com.

That category is now here: https://www.speedrun.com/rce#Damageless

@HearnHearn
Thanks for finding that; didn't know you could request a new game page just for side-categories; sounds like a new feature. I'll ask the main mods if they could make a new page for in-game days.

Ok, left a request on the main forums. Will update when it goes through.

Hi there!

Been a long fan of the game and been interested in speedrunning this game for many years but honestly what turns me away everytime is the RTA timing of this game, I think the efficiently of moving your hero & building your town has a factor to play but similar to RCT it loses alot of flair picking efficiency over strategy. I am a runner who adimantly loves running exclusively RTA style games however I believe Heroes III is in a very unique position where it can stand out as a speedgame different from the rest. The day count formula works awfully similar to IGT like Goldeneye (eg: Dam Agent) a run can have up to 50+ tied wr holders however they could have advised switching to RTA to make it more competitive, however I believe by leaving the timing method as IGT it motivated the runners to think of new strategy and tech to help further push the Time/Days down (Which Dam Agent had and this game could possibly have similar results).

A good solution perhaps could be:
- Full Game Leaderboards are for Campaign Levels and use the RTA timing
- Individual Leaderboards are for All Single Player Scenarios and use the Day counting method to rank runners (could also include RTA/IGT aswell if it feels neccesary) I would say a key rule to have to prevent fraugelence is that runs can only be done in a Single Segment.

I'll try again to request a modification page for an In-Game Days leaderboards as a Category Extension. The main leaderboards here would get too cluttered with another category for the same maps and campaigns.

The other issue for ranking runs is whether to use the example provided by @Salut or if using milliseconds is sufficient; example is a run that is 01:15:16.050 for 50 days. I see issues using either method (basically an overflow of 999; can a run be submitted over 1,000 hours?), so I'll leave it up to runners to decide.
We can figure out the ruleset once the page is up.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to create a new webpage and then ask a site moderator to link it to this page. I think this worked differently in the past, which is why I hadn't done it back then.

Ok, the webpage is up. Please post on the stickied thread for a ruleset to agree on.
https://www.speedrun.com/hommiii_in-game-days

Hello!

I have read the posts in this thread, and I am personally very pleased to see the amount of rising interest of speedrunning this game. As of a few months ago, I worked on getting Heroes 3 to be accepted as a game to be ran at an event called AGDQ (Awesome Games Done Quick), because I thought it had potential.

It is nice to hear Saiyanz input to this, relating it to other games like Goldeneye (eg: Dam Agent). Not a juxtaposition I knew of.

I asked on the Heroes 3 section on Reddit a bit under 3 weeks ago about speedrunning: https://www.reddit.com/r/heroes3/comments/jrk43j/is_the_heroes_3_community_ready_for_speedrun/

It turned out to an interesting discussion with user's opinions about weather the community is ready for speedrunning the game. Not that Super Mario 64 is a game in any way similar, though I used it as an example as a game that is popular speedrunning.

To stay more on topic on the thread itself here, I support the idea of having In-Game Days leaderboards as a Category Extension. It seems like a logical way of measuring skill in Heroes 3.

Alright, my 10 cents:

To me basing timing off an in-game timer that isn’t relative to real time is counter-intuitive in a speedrunning sense. I feel weird by calling something where it’s fully acceptable and not punished to just take a break a speedrun.

It’s much more like a highscore run, which is awesome too, but is a very different approach to singleplayer competitiveness. They are incomparable, if you ask me, and will solve problems very differently - most obvious in the Greed scenario in Spoils of War. Therefore to me it does not make sense to rank by both RTA and IGT for the same submission, as previously suggested.

Not that one approach is better than the other; RTA might sacrifice min-maxing to gain time (as in Greed), but instead you constantly need to react to and make rushed, but good, decisions. It’s not just about “clicking fast” - although I’ll give you, when scenarios are easier and less AI-tricky they’re more trivial than harder ones.

But all in all I don’t see why not to give a fully IGT-based leaderboard a go - and a category extension seems like a very fitting place to do this. Worst case scenario no runs are submitted and we can just delete it again after some time - best case scenario more HoMM3-runners will join speedrun.com, which means a larger community and greater exposure for IGT as well as RTA within its target audience. There really is nothing to lose. But I do think they should be completely separate and no RTA-type measure used in the IGT-leaderboards and vice versa, even if it may bring a lot of tied WRs with it.

@Vegard_KristoffersenVegard_Kristoffersen Awesome that you submitted to AGDQ! Based on the way you wrote it I guess you didn’t get in, but cool nonetheless. Will you be submitting to ESA as well?

@MiklMaarMiklMaar Thanks for the reply! The time period when AGDQ were accepting submissions was from Sep 24th through Oct 4th.
I was visiting their page approximately some weeks before submissions were open, so I started studying Heroes 3 speedrunning videos on YouTube to prepare 6 ready runs of my own for the 2021 Event in January.
Because I believe it would be a nice learning for everyone, please take a look at what I could have done better in the way of formulating my "Run Description" on AGDQ Online Submissions.

Way to see it (please read the list chronologically):
-Go to the link in the last bullet point.
-When you have clicked the link, under "Legend", click the red button to the very left of total of 4 buttons.
-Now, change the default to show "50 Entries" to "Show All" (your system might have to load, there are 1,643 etries in this list).
-Then (On Windows 10, Command+F on a Mac), press on keyboard "CTRL + F" (Find on Page), then type "heroes of might and magic 3".
-After you have done this, while having the Find on Page bar active, press the Enter key.
-Finally, link to page: https://gamesdonequick.com/submission/all

I sent AGDQ Committee an email with question about if the runner are responsible for organizing having commentators in the couch that talk while the runner plays, and had my submissions been accepted, I would have to ask people within the Heroes 3 community to join me.

To reply to your question, @MiklMaarMiklMaar, I have checked ESA out and it seems that game submissions will be open on December 6th. I cannot give you an answer if I will be able to apply for it because of the exam period that I am in now. Though I am grateful for the share. Seems cool.

I've been asked by an admin to remove the In-Game Days category page for inactivity. I'll ask to add it again when some runners have agreed to a ruleset, and then submitted runs.

I think the thought of having a In-Game Days Category would be nice, that was the original idea of @woko_kijciwoko_kijci.

By the permission of the moderators, I would like to ask to please open up the Run Category once more.
I have some runs ready to go to submit to Speedrun.com.

If this would be possible, except me to subit them within a week or two. So there will be on inactivity on that category of H3.

I will make a double post, while I know it is not good for a forum.

The In-Game Days are running functionally now.

I looked at Salat's post and the solution to post days next to the hour in the In-game timer.

What happened when I attempted to submit my run there, is that the site wouldn't allow it. I got the message: This time is too high.
Using the idea of putting the days at the ms (milliseconds) instead of hour, it allows for that. It would be recommended to do that instead. Thanks to @adamdotpngadamdotpng that came up with it.

Everyone, feel free to post your runs.

I repost the link to the In-Game Days category for HoMM3: https://www.speedrun.com/hommiii_in_game_days

I agree that in-game days result it is some sort of "high score" and it's not about speedrunning. For the similar reason such game as GeoGuessr is forbidden on speedrun.com because winning criteria is very unclear and random.
Though if people want, I'm fine with such category (category extension, or game, whatever).

Following a link above, I was confused, because I see timed results in "in-game days" category which is really strange.
Time shouldn't be a criteria here.
Just write in-game days instead of time in format: month/week/day instead of hour/minute/second. Less days = better result.