Getting owned on Easy? Do this:

[boho]

Before launching a map, go to Advanced Options and set Debug Mode: On. Also set Symmetrical Start to On. Finally, set the AI town to the town you’re going to play.

Start the map, access the new Debug menu, and reveal the entire map.

You can now watch exactly what the AI does every single turn and witness the choices it makes and when it makes them in a controlled environment identical to your own. You’ll see how it “cheats” (spoiler: it doesn’t until Hardcore).

Watch and learn what it’d do in your exact start, and you can improve on things from there.

[TheWashableBomb]

The people complaining don't want solutions. They want to force a change on the entire game permanently so then their feelings aren't hurt.

[boho]

Some do want advice at least. But yes, a large number are here just to complain.

[RegalKain]

The shear number of people who just say "AI Cheats" and try to shout down anyone who says otherwise, is all you need to know about them as people, they have no interest in getting better, they have no internet in learning the game's mechanics, they want to complain, just to complain, and look their complaints work, the Dev made Easy, somehow even Easier! Not sure if it'd be possible to lose Easy at this point, but I'm sure they will find a way to force more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ changes through to kill the game's difficulty.

[Saint Zach]

I'd also add in that the skirmish battles are a soft tutorial on unit management as well. I would hazard a guess that people losing on easy are also doing the bare minimum in the fights to direct the flow of combat. It isn't enough to just win. You have to win battles in ways you come out ahead. A lot of people are probably throwing away entire armies to secure a camp that isn't going to even pay off for another in game week.

Just about everything in this game has a steep opportunity cost for failure and I think that a lot of players aren't used to such game design. Honestly I wonder how much just giving players a free hospital and infirmary on easy mode would do in alleviating some of the bad player struggles

[Descending Minor Key Line Cliche]

Originally posted by Saint Zach:

I'd also add in that the skirmish battles are a soft tutorial on unit management as well. I would hazard a guess that people losing on easy are also doing the bare minimum in the fights to direct the flow of combat. It isn't enough to just win. You have to win battles in ways you come out ahead. A lot of people are probably throwing away entire armies to secure a camp that isn't going to even pay off for another in game week.

Just about everything in this game has a steep opportunity cost for failure and I think that a lot of players aren't used to such game design. Honestly I wonder how much just giving players a free hospital and infirmary on easy mode would do in alleviating some of the bad player struggles

Totally agree with you. I've seen so many people call this an auto-battler.... it's definitely not. You should be extremely involved in combat. Unless you are initiating a battle you were offered an option to skip, you should be making conscious choices not just on where each unit spawns, but directing them throughout combat.

For example, I wonder if people realize that they can use their fliers to flank and take out healers/mages, but that you can only do this if you purposely force them to. If you let banshees go into the fray, they're gonna die. You should be sending them around the sides to take out their most valuable targets.

[Schploopus]

I think there should be a super easy mode then. Or storymode or whatever they call it. I feel like easy difficulty should be damn near impossible to lose. Normal should be how the game is intended to be played. And hard should be very difficult but not impossible. When a game releases and it has an easy mode and a great many people find easy mode is to difficult, thats the games fault not the players. Nothing should ever be taken away from normal difficulty and beyond but easy should be easy for even the most simple minded of players.

[Ichthyic]

there is no "story" to make a story-mode entertaining enough though. The game expects people to have played turn based strategy games before, this being a tribute to the old HOMM games and all. I think the only thing needed is a tutorial map where people who have never played these kinds of games can have their hand held and patiently explained how to make decisions on a turn by turn basis. but that is a LOT of work. who is going to do it? you?

[コミクデケンタレンド]

This game is honestly not so hard lol, I don't get why people are complaining so much. I lost the first time I played on easy... yeah, but it's expected to you not know how to play the game in your first attempt. Then I lost in a hardcore match, yeah... it's hardcore. But I also won a lot of hardcore matches.
The issue with the people struggling is that they don't want to even read what the skills do. It's like going to Dota2 forum and say, "wow, this games is so hard that I don't even know how to attack, please put an easy mode, so I can watch the game play by itself."

[Ichthyic]

AFAICT, the only difference between hardcore and normal is that the AI gets more resources than you do, and is far more aggressive in taking enemy armies and towns, both other AI and your own. In normal, fast expansion is an easy win, but in hardcore, you need to turtle a bit more, and make sure you have a trained hero in reserve at your home town to fight off weaker ai probing enemies. In hardcore, games are often decided MUCH more quickly than in normal mode. In my current game for example, one AI dominated the other 2 and in less than 4 weeks had completely eliminated them both! On normal mode, the AI sides would do minor excursions for 6 months or more before one side finally started to finish off the others.

It's exactly the same difficulty changes that existed in the HOMM games. People always overcommit to a single big army, thinking they will steamroll everything, but on a big map, that is a bad strategy. you need to rely on the strength of your main hero so that they can have a SMALLER army. you can always town portal if you run into serious danger. you need to turtle in your starting area for two weeks, build up a bit, then send your main hero off exploring with *just* enough of an army to deal with most of the neutral stacks. leave the rest at home until you have an idea of where the enemies are and how they are moving.

The heroes you want to use on the front lines are the ones that call snowball their armies. Either by bloodshaping, creation, mind control, etc. meaning they can keep on making their own armies larger and larger without needing to go back to town (or making THEMSELVES larger and larger with things like devour or via sorcery/amplify magic). this is how you easily win games like this.

[WyrewolwerowanyRewolwerowiec]

How anyone can lose on Easy? I am not any pro, just average player and i can win pretty easy even on Challenging difficulty. No need to be Einstein to play this game properly.