Ple-Sen
2) Oh, those poor mages... the meta in the game is warrior-focused, and Avatar got buffed in patch 1.5, after which it fell into the gutter and is rarely played nowadays. Heroes has always had a severe imbalance between schools of magic; in the third game it was exacerbated by the movement system, which inflated the usefulness of Earth and Air even further. In OE they made a separate movement system (the fifth game did that too, but also nerfed the spells themselves and removed some), and also initially wove it into the template mechanics. So movement is no longer some kind of imba for casters of specific schools, but an integral part of tempo. Also, OE doesn't have universally available mass slow, haste, and domination, for which the developers deserve a huge thank you.
Well, so, as I said, they made the imba spells universally available, but introduced crutches. And now that's part of the expected gameplay. That's dubious, though.
1) It's possible that war machines will be brought back in the future. Not all mechanics are in the game from the start of early access. Neither machines, nor water, nor the underground were deliberately removed. They're postponed for later so that the rest can be sorted out first.
So far they haven't brought any of that back, and they haven't mentioned machines in their future plans.
4) The idea is that the hero defines the player's gameplay. That's why each faction has many imba heroes. More than bans. And again, mages currently lose to warriors in the meta. Even school specialists. Unfortunately, there are heroes with outright useless or too mediocre specializations, and that problem hasn't been addressed yet.
And it won't be addressed. And the salt I described is that:
1) This is a warrior hero, as it happens (yes, that dragon among the seventh-game elves, whom the game stubbornly passes off as Jadame's elves)
2) His school of magic focuses on utility spells and, perhaps, occupies the niche of Earth magic in OE.
Well, and... mages suffer, yes. Because of such specializations, yes. It's much harder to shut down a warrior.
5) It came from the uselessness of the Capitol in the third game. No one among pros ever built it. OE has plenty of templates for building up with a large number of towns, and even there, without resource banks, sustaining tempo is impossible. The economy is balanced by the conditions of a specific template. Exodus, for example, gives you up to six towns and many resource banks over the course of the game. But no one is trying to fit all seven tiers... it's not affordable. Apparently, the economy isn't that all-powerful.
In OE there are simply too many towns overall. Two or three times more than needed. And that also affects the economy. Never in my life have I had an experience where three towns fit on the starting screen — two of which I own from the start. And then OE came out.
6) Just like in the third game when taking meta land... The level there, by the way, wasn't needed.
Only in words. In reality, the hero needed Expert Earth and Advanced Wisdom. Which also had to drop. How often does that happen?
7) The main purpose of dust is to upgrade artifacts and spells. And you don't get to bathe in it often.
Tell that to people who have two laboratories right at respawn.
8) Hive presses unit buttons the least, because of the eggs. But it also doesn't have that many abilities. Everyone else presses them very often. Temple's self-buffs, all of Grove's awakenings and abilities (especially Grove), Necropolis ghosts rarely press, but coffins, liches, and dogs press constantly, Dungeon mostly uses stances, but even there, medusa escape, dragon fire shield, assassin ranged strike, and minotaur attack ignore are in demand. All situational. Neutrals usually have useful abilities too.
Focus only covers a small portion. Most skills (that summon for necros or their resurrection) are pressed 90% of the time. I'm even afraid to ask who activates the dragon shield and why. Not to mention prompting all Grove units at once. Many of the available abilities (yes, yes, those very self-buffs of Temple and some other creatures) are a dubious endeavor even without spending focus, since they force you to waste a turn. Focus doesn't add any tactical depth — it adds monotony.
9) Temple has been unlucky with its racial ability for ages. It'll probably be changed again soon. But the fifth game also had solutions like sworn enemy or overly expensive minics for mages. And runes and blood rage were from DLC and were complete imba. Necromancy, by the way, was reworked in the fifth game. Gating nerfed? It's never been as imba as in OE. Those larvae are terrifyingly effective and, together with T6 worms, form the strongest Hive tactic.
Those larvae don't even have time to hatch. And necromancy was reworked in the fifth game, yes. OE for some reason made its own version of fifth-game necromancy, but far less convenient. Even after the patch.