#will customization lead to saminess?

3858 messages · Page 4 of 4 (latest)

fossil berry
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If I have 10 damage and 1 def, it's 9 damage. If I have 20 damage, it's 18, which loses me 2 damage instead of 1.

pine glacier
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as opposed to aow3 which was the opposite

fossil berry
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Therefore, affects higher damage numbers more strongly.

pine glacier
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:/

bold thicket
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You lose 2, but that was only 10% of your damage with 20, whereas the 1 of 10 is... also 10% of your damage.

fossil berry
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It's basically sort of equalizing units across tiers more.

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Yes, so the first lost more.

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Because he had more.

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Therefore, was more affected.

sonic trellis
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the percentage maybe the same, but the amount of damage reduced scales with the amount of incoming damage

pine glacier
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guys come on let's not get into these dumb semantics

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if you wanna argue this tell me how it affects your decisionmaking

bold thicket
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Man, aow3 affected lower damage numbers more strongly, since 11 defense would reduce your 10 damage to 9, whereas the 20 damage would go down to 19. One loses 10%, the other 5%.

pine glacier
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honestly i think pf's damage formula is probably more fair and results in more sensible decisionmaking but i loved how easy aow3 was to calculate off hand

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pf's also certainly isn't perfect

pine glacier
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it's harder to obsolete an opponent's damage the same way in pf

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theoretically

pine glacier
wet bronze
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Jordi stated that they had a new system for modifying models much faster

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Which i assumed was required to support all the forms and transformations

raven pebble
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It's not more levers than AoW3 had. AoW3 had race, class, specializations and racial governance.

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AoW4 has tomes, culture, traits and that affinity tree

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but AoW3 managed to have racial units as well ;d

bold thicket
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If you discount forms+form traits, society traits, and tomes? Yeah I'm sure there's more combinations then.

raven pebble
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from a quantity standpoint yes

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because tomes are little pieces of classes

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it would be like if AoW3 gave us the ability to research any spell/ability from any class

bold thicket
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Do we know how many tome tiers there will be? I know there's like 50 tomes

raven pebble
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probably 5 if they are like the units

modest cipher
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there are like 12 tier 1 tomes alone. so they're not just repackaged classes

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there might be 6 tiers, we don't know for sure that 5 is highest

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doubt it will go higher

raven pebble
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I don't mean 1 tome = 1 class, it's 1 tome = a little slice of a class

violet cedar
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Belated response to posts made while I was sleeping, as far as everyone loving the more distinct racial units added later in 3's lifespan - as someone who pushed for several of these "universally beloved" changes and against others, there was a marked difference between the changes that added some extra punch to otherwise strictly worse race/class combinations and the changes that were made with the intention of doubling down on a given combination's supremacy. I don't want things I pushed for in the name of achieving player freedom through better balance being used as an argument against player freedom.

raven pebble
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I don't think there's more customization in AoW4 than in AoW3 now that I think about it

modest cipher
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there is clearly significantly more

harsh cape
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AoW 3 classed had 35 that things to research each and specialization had 4 each(12 counting all three)

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So I would say it takes 6 AoW 4 tomes to equal a class

raven pebble
pine glacier
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:/

modest cipher
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sure it's more incremental over the course of the game

pine glacier
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players get more ability to fine tune their tech tree and roster makeup: "actually this is not more customization"

raven pebble
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what are traits supposed to "replace"?

pine glacier
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excited to hear the justification for this

raven pebble
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sure, you can tweak every little thing one at a time

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but that just seems myopic to me when AoW3 gave us so many overarching choices

violet cedar
pine glacier
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lmao

raven pebble
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what is the equivalent of racial governance?

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you could even get units from that

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what is the equivalent of specializations? :d

pine glacier
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everything has to be a 1:1 equivalence :d

raven pebble
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the impact of choices is smaller is what I'm trying to get at

bold thicket
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idk, if tomes have 50+ of them I'm not surprised if they take both the role of classes and specializations. Lmao

pine glacier
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you are describing a different thing

bold thicket
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"each of these 50 choices is 5 times smaller than these 6 choices"

(you'd still end up with more, and also more choices)

pine glacier
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now act confused about what i'm talking about again as you've suddenly lost the train of conversation

violet cedar
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I am fine if the equivalent of racial governance is things being balanced this time + less incentives to wipe out whole cultures tbh.

modest cipher
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weren't goblin tame trolls the only unqiue racial governance unit?

raven pebble
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I was thinking about them as well

pine glacier
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offhand i think so? there may have been 1 other but if so it escapes me

modest cipher
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you said "some of them gave you units" like it was a common thing

violet cedar
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I believe frostings get a yeti, though that could have been a site.

silk berry
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Some of them were also pretty useless. Yeah my razorbows need more melee damage, that was their issue.

modest cipher
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there's also the affinity tree, which isn't a 1-to-1 correspondence but gives you a whole bunch of choices in addition to tomes

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I guess if you decide a bunch of stuff in 4 doesn't count or is just "X from 3 repackaged" then 3 has more customization yeah

raven pebble
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it's not so much repackaged as all mushed together and given to us one bite at a time

violet cedar
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It has, in fact, been demushed. If you can only buy pickles in potato salad format, and taking them out of the salad gets you shot, then yes, the decision to put pickles on your burger is "more impactful". Because of the extra mush.

raven pebble
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kind of?

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instead of giving me the potato salad, it gives me the ingredients ;d

bold thicket
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So instead of 6 varied dishes, we get the ingredients of said 6 varied dishes and can make our own stuff too? Damn, you're making it sound even better

pine glacier
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salads are literally just the ingredients mixed in a bowl

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so yeah i guess

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if you are incapable of mixing it in a bowl then ok

violet cedar
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3 definitely gives you the whole salad. 4 caters even to the heretics who have a different potato salad recipe to mine.

raven pebble
bold thicket
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what makes you think that?

raven pebble
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general you

pine glacier
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dude salad is a perfect metaphor

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you literally jsut mix the ignredients given together

bold thicket
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No, what makes you think that we can screw it up that badly, in the game

pine glacier
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there's no screwing up salad

bold thicket
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do you think we'll have a lot of sub-optimal combos or...?

pine glacier
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unless you pick bad ingredients

raven pebble
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there's a big chance everyone will pick the same tomes because they are better than everything else

violet cedar
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If the caveat only applies if I'm not a master chef then there are no downsides. It's like how the idiom double edged sword is less reflective of the danger of double edged swords and more reflective of a uniquely incompetent swordsman leaving his mark on language.

pine glacier
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which will be much better than everyone picking sorcerer because it's better than everything else

modest cipher
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every game has unbalanced meta picks at launch, those with good developers will even things out over time so the power differentials are smallish and there is a good range of viable strategies

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I don't see why this is a concern specific to 4's system

raven pebble
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we'll see if what we are given amounts to what we were given in AoW3 I guess

modest cipher
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in some ways the modularity might make it worse, but in other ways better

pine glacier
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aow3 famously didn't have this issue at all no sir

modest cipher
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3 has no equivalence to the affinity tree, especially at launch

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(I mean I know you'll say it's racial governance but I actually think that seems unfair to 3 lol)

violet cedar
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Breaking things into tomes might, depending on how they are acquired, even allow you to readily pick new tech to counter meta picks if you see them coming.

modest cipher
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manging your imperium and balancing affinities for branch progression seems like it'll be a really interesting metagame

bold thicket
modest cipher
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Yeah. on one hand if something is overpowered it can be slotted into a bunch of strategies, on the other hand counters can be slotted into different strategies too

raven pebble
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affinity seems to be linked to other choices you make

modest cipher
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which is what makes it interesting!

raven pebble
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and the higher tiers of affinity will only ever be present with certain other specific choices

modest cipher
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do I double down on order to progress quickly to the high-level nodes or do I take some materium so I can dip into that and take a few perks?

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you might call that "customization"

pine glacier
modest cipher
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and even after you've made your affinity choices you still have to decide which nodes to spend your imperium on

raven pebble
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we'll see how it works out in practice

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it might be more passive or more active than we realize

pine glacier
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i wish "we'll see how it works out in practice" was a mindset lacrymas started with rather than coming to once exhausted of all possible contrived coutnerarguments

raven pebble
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it depends on what we are talking about ;d

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this, yes, because I don't know how the combinations will work out and what those combinations even are

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but lack of racial units is a big no no

proud nest
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"Race" isn't a concept in AoW4 in a traditional fantasy sense, so racial uniques aren't an option...

opal pawn
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Its hard to shake the feeling that when I saw the word "form" I suspected that this was made for modern audiences.

bold thicket
formal lodge
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It seems it is distinctly going in a direction of creating your own race mostly through choices in the game with tomes as opposed to racing having a strong starting theme that influences gameplay, bam, thread over please.

whole coral
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pay to 3d modelers, and they make any model you like. thats how video games work

crisp turret
low kestrel
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As for specific units, you have aow3, aowsm and aow1 for Orc units to choose from, and then going further afield you have orcs from other IP, and then coming back to the aow series, you have any number of planetfall units that can be considered "orcy" and thus adapted.

low kestrel
# formal lodge It seems it is distinctly going in a direction of creating your own race mostly ...

I wish it were create your own race. Like how in Dominions there is an extensive build your own leader system.

Something like that for races would have worked.

I think a bit part of the upset is that they are keeping the nomenclature and (seemingly arbitrarily) throwing away all the meaning attached to that nomenclature and also marketing the game based on nostalgia for this.

Many people want AoW4 because they played previous games.

If they'd gone for a full on race simulator, and completely gotten rid of the names Orc etc, I think this would have been better received.

As it stands the perception from some is that they have removed all the goodness from race and not adequately compensated.

That last part is key because it now puts alot of pressure on the tomes amd culture systems to carry the gaming goodness of what was races.

And some people are sceptical that the "it means whatever you want it to mean" system is going to result in the kind of game play decisions that they liked. That I'd a known weakness of modular systems. The flupside is that this is the entire idea of modular systems, and unsurprisingly some people see some huge potential here. Amd maybe there is. Certainly mathematically the combination numbers seem...high (but then again, if you ran the numbers in aow3 to include all the possible specialisations, that's also stupidly high)

You'd pick Orc whatever and try and match it with class whatever to mitigate weakness, compound strength or go sideways.

It made for some crazy fun stuff, like Goblin Sorcerors where you could both summon a tonne of creatures and also build a tonne of units. Or Goblin Dread where you were hoping machines would cover for your puniness.

I think it'd hard to argue that this kind of decision making is still in.

I don't really see how it can be in, unless TS have set themselves the task of iterating each of the 54(?) Tomes to have a cultural flavour

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(or more accurately, having each tome based unit that looks humanoid be culturally flavoured. It's safe to assume Fire Elementals don't care about your culture

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So the real question is whether the game as a whole is still fun and interesting with "just cosmetic races"

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I also don't think it's a case of "ong why do you hate choice" because the people arguing for form significance are specifically complaining about the (perceived) lack of meaningful choice.

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I for one am quite optimistic that race as we knew it is totally gone and that the synergies we liked are gone.

But also, that the other game improvements will make for a fun game nonetheless.

Would the game have been better with more constricted races, well that is a question that modders can and shall answer.

I know of at least 2 people, plus myself, bouncing ideas for just such a mod

uneven fulcrum
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Having been reading the discussion on this topic for a bit now, I think this is my favourite take. I'm very optimistic about the changes, but it'll all truly matter once we actually see how the systems feel together when we can all play it. That said, I think the nomenclature so far has been a bit confusing as you say, not just keeping the traditional race types as forms but now your "race" being the culmination of form, culture, society, and tome.

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And as you say, no doubt modders will do their thing regardless once it's out

raven pebble
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tiny frog people being the same as gigantic orcs is dumb and I hate it ¯_(ツ)_/¯

main cloud
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I'm just saying frogs are natural martial artists. Those legs are perfect for kung fu

low kestrel
bold thicket
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They have the same potential, that's different from being the same.

silver crest
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do you also go to a restaurant and order something you wont like just because its on the menu?

errant oriole
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partly yes partly no

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theres going to be meta builds

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people will use them

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but i think at least all civilizations iwll be played

silver crest
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thats not gonna happenif you play by yourself

errant oriole
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i gotta admit, it seems like racial units will take a nosedive

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as in, they dont exist

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and racial units DO offer a chance of some truly unique units

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PF had that definitley, with every race having a large roster of realy unique units

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i mean just look at the Siege crawler guy from the Assembly or the wild array of Shakarn units from the infiltrator to the Naga looking guy to the Firebrand

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that beeing said.

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AoW 3 bareley had racial units.

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all races had a variation of spear guy, archer, cavalry and priest

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the only two races that stood out were the Tigrans and Frostlings, because they were DLC races and had some more love poured into them

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so compared to AoW 3, i think it bareley matters and might even be a good choice

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because realy, the racial units in AoW 3 werer redudndant

raven pebble
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The whole "you choose to make them that way" rhetoric is missing the point

low kestrel
low kestrel
low kestrel
raven pebble
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It's about potentially having different gameplay by utilizing inherent racial variety ;d

low kestrel
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At this point, seeing as how the same points have come.up again and again, I would recommend evwryone just...idk...chill?

Wait and see.

Wait until your favourite streamer (which should be me BTW, give me all your moneyz :p) Has a chance to actually play it!

raven pebble
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They might achieve the same goals but will go about doing that completely differently

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F.e. their catapult might be a giant frog because it's not a good idea to have wooden catapults constantly drenched in water ;d

bold thicket
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They might be land toads

fossil berry
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Literally all toads need water to reproduce.

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And for the tadpole stage in their life.

bold thicket
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Cool, so they have bathhouses where they reproduce

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Or those tadpoles also evolved do landpoles

formal lodge
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There are frogs in arid Australia that burrow for months/years and come up to mate/feed on that rare occasion it does rain

low kestrel
formal lodge
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I don't think so, I thought the point was they can survive without water for long periods of time.

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#landtoad

torpid sonnet
# low kestrel I wish it were create your own race. Like how in Dominions there is an extensive...

We are still missing key information about how tomes will work in the end. But a quick count of spells and empire upgrades in AoW 3 indicates that a class with 3 specializations would have
a similar number of objects to research compared to 9 tomes (each tome seemingly having 5-6 spells/units/buildings). From a customization standpoint I also think a structure where you are
assumed to research 2 tomes of 1st-4th tier and 1 5th tier tome would make sense. My point here is that treating tomes as something similar to class + specialization is likely our best guess until more is revealed, both when it comes to the amount of content and when it comes to the tomes in-game role.

We know that culture provides your starting units, and the default units you can train in your cities. And my understanding is that the culture has up to tier 3 units (described as mid-game, if we are to believe the tier 3 Tyrant-Knight unlocked from a tome is also mid-game). This means culture seemingly matches quite well with the unit roster provided by races in AoW 3. The fact that we get 6 cultures in AoW 4 and we had 6 races at launch in AoW 3 also means they are similarly sized entities.

Considering my above reasoning, I think "the task of iterating each of the 54(?) Tomes to have a cultural flavor" should be a task in the same order of magnitude as giving racial flavor to the classes
in AoW 3 was. Summons obviously do not have to be culturally distinct, we are mostly talking about humanoids (though having a few unique constructs similar to the halfling Party Robot or the frostling
Frost Tank would be amazing).

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Now I think I will enjoy the game even if unique culture|tome units are missing, I did enjoy AoW 3 at launch. But I think unique culture|tome units would bring the game from good to amazing.

An example of what I hope for posted earlier would be for tyrant knights (and possibly other shock cavalry from tomes) to be customized by culture as follows: Dark gets a red glowing sword and life-stealing (modeled after dark-elf executioners), High gets turn undead (feeling more like a paladin), Industrious gets fire pistol, etc. Obviously some balance considerations have to be made here, but I would rather have the combinations feel unique and then stats be altered in a later balance patch compared to starting off bland (but more balanced) with later patches giving more diversity.

raven pebble
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A burrowing toad that hibernates under the sand would still structure its societies completely differently;d

low kestrel
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His specific point is that they are utterly dependent on water.

His greater point was that forms have dependencies.

Your example of a toad that has evolved to coincide with rarer water kinda shows that water relationship.

And so no, frogs/toads aren't the same!

BUT, I think relying on real life examples only takes you so far.

I find the gameplay arguments more interesting as opposed to appeals to reality

exotic reef
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Again you look at form like it's a race. It's not, it's part of the race with culture and traits and tomes

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You think of the orcs from the Age of Wonders world - while the AoW4 is about many different worlds and different orcs subspecies

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Good pint was made - will this be fun and honest answer is we don't know yet

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Yet somehow this discussion is going and going :/

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Another good point was that it's going because we want it to be great game because we all played AoW previous games. Is the reason why changes are met with people not accepting the new vision of the game because of childhood sentiment for those games?

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I decide to trust the Devs because they are doing great job, deliver great games, and pushing them to revalute those decision is alocating resources they could spend improving the game.

raven pebble
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It's simply depriving races of their uniqueness and disregards their physiological needs

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Even the staunchest communists wouldn't do this ;d

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

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And all that

pine glacier
raven pebble
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Since we are talking about video games, nothing of it is vital

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Including the game itself ;d

pine glacier
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this is all justification for why certain effects are glued to certain visuals. if you care about the form of the game and the decisionmaking tree, this matters not at all. if you care about the "feel" of the game greater customization is usually a point in favor fo that but it's much more subjective there

pine glacier
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i get that you don't want to meaningfully engage with counterarguments but you can also just like ignore them

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"i am building a house, here are my blueprints" "oh i see, well it looks like you're missing a vital central pillar" "well man look it's not vital that the house is built at all so back off"

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"dude are we talking about the house or not"

errant oriole
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i agree that the traits should not be changeable

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at least the pyhsical ones

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the mental traits changing im fine with

pine glacier
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why

errant oriole
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i can see desert orcs and swamp orcs

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But why would an orc have gills, why would a toad not be an amphibian

pine glacier
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because i'm a wizard and i made them that way?

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who are you to tell me orcs can't have gills

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i believe in my heart of hearts that orcs can have gills if they want

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anyways we're back here again wooooooooo

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this is the point where the divide is generally core enough to how a person approaches the topic that they are almost certainly impossible to convince

lucid quail
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Either way races have unique traits and changing them is considered an optional advanced feature, none of the pre-made AI factions even stray from the pre-defined traits.

pine glacier
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other arguments like game design can be argued one way or the other convincingly and because i make only excellent arguments obviously my chosen side is correct. but no matter the outcomes someone will fall back here and we reach the impasse

bold thicket
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Aquatic elves are more common than you think, or atlantis "humans". Why lock that behind toads, for example?

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There are so many differrent fantasies and permutations of different races out there that locking it will only limit player creativity in this regard. You have the base traits, you don't need to change them if you don't want to.

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Honestly, it seems like you just want a map creation option that hard-locks those things for everyone in that game to not be able to take non-trope options.

pine glacier
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this is the biggest mountain out of a molehill because the fantasy genre is just so oversaturated with Fantasy Race Essentialism that a franchise taking a step away from it is alien and alarming

lucid quail
bold thicket
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AoW3 already stepped away from it

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This is just another step

lucid quail
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AOW3 was all about the different race's differences.

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especially over time.

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What race you played significantly impacted what units you get and the type of bonuses they get.

bold thicket
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The class system meant that a lot of non-trope options were there

pine glacier
lucid quail
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Yes, I am agreeing with you.

raven pebble
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It is alarming not because it's new but because it can be used as a justification to start cutting stuff elsewhere

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PF already showed signs of this with the mangled hero inventory and lack of racial governance that both weren't compensated for elsewhere

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Now that racial uniqueness is off the table as well there's a pattern emerging ;d

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Oh and PF's terrible campaigns too, I'm almost certain they'll do it like that in AoW4 as well because hey everyone can be everything so we don't want to limit how the map looks like

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...lack of scenarios too and the inability to make custom ones

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So racial uniques are just the next thing on the chopping block

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None of these are vital to the game after all

pine glacier
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lmao if you're saying pf is dumbed down compared to aow3

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it was compensated for elsewhere but because there isn't a clean convenient 1:1 equivalence acting as a giant neon "you got this instead" sign you can't recognize it

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pf was a much more complex game in terms of detail in unit design and strategic map economy and considerations. the cost of this was other features that fit aow3 great but didn't fit pf didn't return, so more focus could be given in these other areas.

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it is, in fact, a new game. so things will be different with potentially a different approach

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the old games are still there

raven pebble
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Sounds like copium to me

pine glacier
modest cipher
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yeah there are legit reasons someone might prefer 3 but "Planetfall was dumbed down" isn't something I take seriously when I see it

low kestrel
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He didn't say dumbed down, he said cut content.

Entirely different argument.

Not that I agree with him but let's at least try and be accurate

whole coral
raven pebble
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Heritor for example is simply "spam heritor units... or don't" with little interaction with any race besides the final one I guess

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there are exceptions, like Syndicate + Promethean, but they are very few

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the mod system is also good in theory but bland in practice just because of how the game ultimately ends up being played

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you could theorycraft a lot, but it's all for its own sake when the best choices and what most people ultimately did was just go for the ones which gave straight up +% dmg

harsh cape
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I'd argue that Heritor is interesting for bring Action Point Reset to factions that don't have it (Shakarn/Assembly have it innately)

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I also think it's just great that your secret tech only provides 3/12 of your buildable units and that they are lower research and endgame power than your last few racial units

whole coral
harsh cape
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I do think it's true that when you want a ST combo to focus on race you only get like... the 100/150 research mod + the first 300 research unit from the ST itself and rest into Racial research

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but that's just natural because that's the most splashable part of the ST

raven pebble
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now that I think about it some more, I think @fossil berry is actually correct in wanting more explicit interaction between tomes and culture (and ultimately race when they inevitably backpedal on that)

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it's very easy for all of these things to end up separate like in PF

low kestrel
raven pebble
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that doesn't make it less true ¯_(ツ)_/¯

low kestrel
fossil berry
fossil berry
torpid sonnet
# low kestrel Yeah I don't *think*I this is going to happen

I think it can happen, and that we don't know enough yet to say one way or the other if it will happen. But also that the work required to make it happen is such that advocating enough for it now still gives the devs enough time to implement it sufficiently by release.

raven pebble
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I'd sacrifice the transformations to get unique races

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a lot of the transformations seem to veer into "this isn't even my final form" anime territory

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especially angels and demons * shudder *

modest cipher
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almost every combo in Planetfall has multiple viable strategies

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even adding the earliest ST mods onto a racial unit or the earliest racial mods onto an ST unit can change things substantially

sonic trellis
modest cipher
raven pebble
modest cipher
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not really. Celestian assembly will be substantially different from Synth assembly even if you only grab the first couple mods and ops for the ST

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just stagger resist is huge for Vorpals (and even Scavs to a lesser degree)

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also there's NPC factions as an additional variable. which were both less developed in 3 and less usable because they used gold and were a lot of work to build the infrastructure

raven pebble
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there are some exceptions like I said, but the trend is that race and ST barely interact and are generally separate

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void assembly is another one besides promethean syndicate

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you can stack a lot of evasion, teleport, life steal, stagger resistance, etc. on melee

low kestrel
raven pebble
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yeah, sweeping changes like this won't happen

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for release I mean

pine glacier
pine glacier
pine glacier
raven pebble
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yeah, you are right, I should've thought twice before voicing dissenting opinions in an echo chamber

pine glacier
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have you at any point reconsidered your assumptions and positions going into this conversation

raven pebble
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have you?

pine glacier
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yeah, here's a bit where i envisaged a world where forms had gameplay attached and what possible implementations of that i would find most meaningful while preserving what i enjoy about the current system

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my stance hasn't changed but i have taken time to reflect on my ideas and the new ones introduced

raven pebble
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oh about this particular thing

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since the counter argument is basically "I want to look pretty", no not really

pine glacier
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you are making basic like, grammatical errors like insisting an opinion you personally hold is in fact "the truth" and following up with "oops the problem here is i dissented into an echo chamber"

raven pebble
#

what is there to reconsider?

#

I want some unique gameplay attached to my races ¯_(ツ)_/¯

pine glacier
raven pebble
#

which part of it lol

pine glacier
#

do you want to make a redaction on some portion of it?

raven pebble
#

not really

pine glacier
#

ok so good question

raven pebble
#

but I don't know why you think I always have to preface everything I say with a disclaimer

pine glacier
raven pebble
#

yes

pine glacier
#

how is that "the truth"

raven pebble
#

because PF is indeed more bland than AoW3 with fewer and less impactful choices?

pine glacier
#

if i say it isn't bland, how does a person determine if you are right or i am right

raven pebble
#

take that up with Aristotle

pine glacier
#

how do we find "the truth"

raven pebble
#

I'm not here to argue philosophical positions ;d

pine glacier
#

ok, well, you have made a very convincing argument for your position

#

godspeed

low kestrel
# raven pebble yeah, you are right, I should've thought twice before voicing dissenting opinion...

I wouldn't quite call it an echo chamber.

You've voiced your opinion, provided your reasoning.

Ninjew has done the same.

As much as I obsess over racial stuff (god that sounds...bad!) I think the question posed in the OP has been largely answered.

The follow up question of whether you like it/hate it/ are okay with it remains to be answered (in 3 months!)

And right now it's (sadly) devolved into ...well, something!

pure sparrow
#

Yes we should continue this conversation and at the very least repeat all the same exact points 4 more times until we are done

whole coral
fossil berry
raven pebble
pine glacier
#

excited to come back to this 30 more times before release

#

the time between will be filled with bickering over claims that are true but also not provable

#

gonna be grand

fossil berry
#

Imma just gonna mod in what I wanted to be in vanilla.

exotic reef
#

That's the winning strategy tbh

wet bronze
#

i'm just gonna say i am impressed with lacrymas's dedication to muscle orcs

#

we are up to 3311 comments and half are about muscle orcs

#

yesterday in planetfall i was playing vanguard voidtech, which i always avoided because it seemed boring. but then from the outset i was echo copying the voidtech melee guy, suiciding it into the enemy, refreshing the original with a pug, then sending out another copy. that's the kind of thing i'm looking forward to with the tomes/cultures/society traits

raven pebble
wet bronze
#

ok that actually made me laugh irl

crisp turret
#

Muscle orcs is also the easiest way to exemplify race/species variance, like showing you a gorilla (orc) and a lemur (halfling) to explain why both aren't equally strong, should be quite obvious why unlike Human vs Elf.

exotic reef
#

Lets than hope that Devs will remain strong and keep their vision so we could have both 🙂

shut tangle
fossil berry
exotic reef
#

Because I know we don't agree on that but I choose to believe it's because we all just want AoW4 to be awesome game and we just care so much that we argue about that

fossil berry
#

I was mostly responding to your posts' implication that ONLY sticking with the current plan was an acceptable option.

exotic reef
#

Nah never meant it that way, that's my view on it and I know that we disagree. Dealing with absolute is simply put not acceptable in any form of discussion

primal citrus
#

I think doing it more stellaris style is fine. If you're already turning Orc's into frostings by finishing a level one tome, they aren't really regular orcs anymore are they?

Melee Damage doesn't always mean Strength. It can represent skill, quality of arms ect. Each map is basically a different dimension being invaded, so the settings and their orcs will already vary.

raven pebble
#

The orcs will vary, but not infinitely so, they still have their own unique qualities that will inevitably shape their societies in some way ;d

#

And in environments in which their unique qualities simply can't exist or are ill-fitted, the orcs themselves won't

proud nest
#

If this were true, wouldn't that also be true for the human species in real life?

#

Yet, the human cultures which have evolved across our world are extremely different

shut tangle
#

Yet there are a number of commonalities between all human cultures.

proud nest
#

And it's not like the only cultures which have been warlike, have had the strongest humans. The Aztecs, for example, were extreme warmongers and yet much smaller in stature than many other races

proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
#

Why would there be?

#

Physical traits do not determine culture

shut tangle
#

But they influence it.

#

And vice versa

proud nest
#

How so?

#

RL examples?

raven pebble
ivory raft
#

Well, an intelligent frogman culture would probably look a bit different than humans, what with laying thousands of eggs at a time and whatnot. This can of course be handwaved by all the bipedal races working more or less the same biologically speaking

exotic reef
#

New transformations confirmed

ageofwonders4-feature-6.gif
proud nest
raven pebble
#

I'm saying that there are things humans haven't done but is theoretically possible for different species

proud nest
raven pebble
#

They wouldn't be frogmen if that's the case

#

They are frogmen because of their unique characteristics

proud nest
#

So the definition of a frog is the way they reproduce? Hard disagree

ivory raft
#

Either way, the form system is an abstraction. I mean, there are Mongolian warlords and pygmies in real life - and yet both are humans, just one has +50 to being a big guy with a horse 🤷

#

Thus, pink magical orks can be a thing

proud nest
exotic reef
#

Only argument from the point of "race is pure aesthetic" view is that the quests and RP part of the game will be less rich in personalized towards players choices (but that has a potential to be and not necessarily will). Other than that I honestly cannot fathom why can't you just play premade factions if the idea of strong elves makes this game unplayable

#

That logic also then makes all elves culture high, all human culture feudal and orcs barbarian

shut tangle
# proud nest RL examples?

Influence of biology into culture:
Clothes: Humans have no fur, so clothing was needed for environmental protection, and as such clothing has become part of human culture in ways it wouldn't for say rat- or catfolk.
Spears, bows, swords: all these are adapted and expressed by the way human bodies work and to the strenghts of the human torso-shoulder-arm arrangement.
Dogs: Dogs exist because wolves can keep up in endurance with humans while also having additional capabilities and having weaknesses humans can compensate for. Same for most utility non-lifestock animals.
Colors: The human eye can discern colors and lacks the ability to notice others, jsut looka round to see the impact.
I could go on here, but to get into more specifics this would ttake a long while
Influence of culture into biology:
For much of human history, pale skin was a sign of nobility, wealth and status, so much that the term blue-blood for nobles comes from them being so pale that you could see their blood vessels. This was because humanity was agricultural and msot people had to work outside, getting tanned by the sun.
Nowadays most people have to work inside so having a tan is a sign you can affort to spend time outside, and being tanned has become a beauty standard in modern times. For a similar example observe the shift of male aesthetics towards a more bodybuilder-esque ideal over the past 50 or so years.

exotic reef
#

Because guess what culture is a part of creating the race, than you choose traits - so all orcs are evil, all humans are blah and elves are other two traits and no can play anything else to not destroy the archetype of those races

#

The creation part is optional, you can use it to your hearts content but don't have to.

shut tangle
#

To expand on that, there is a thypothesis, that neanderthals had higher physical strenght and thoughness than early homo sapiens and thus lacked the need to develop bows or other better ranged weaponrty

exotic reef
#

That's the whole point of that system. So I get that distinctions of races is important but (and that's my opinion) +1 melee DMG or -40% poison resistance wast that big of deal to me in AoW3 to make me be obsessed with that race uniqueness

lucid quail
shut tangle
exotic reef
#

Now its anthropology topic? XF

shut tangle
#

I was asked for examples from RL, i brought some up

lucid quail
exotic reef
shut tangle
shut tangle
lucid quail
#

even larger game if you wound it, it'll bleed to death long before it tires out.

proud nest
raven pebble
lucid quail
#

as their pretty much different species and not an actual race.

shut tangle
# proud nest I don't think most of your points would translate into game mechanics. Maybe I s...

For blight protection: alcohol. Alcohol is poisonous to humans, but mor epoisonous to most microbial life. As such drinking alcohol was safer for humans so we lliterally have a poison resistance organ 😛
Some animals have better ones due to their diet.

but going into specifics I could explain why Knights are a very human thing, but that would be a quite long text to explain the connections form basic biology to certain expression int he game mechanics

shut tangle
lucid quail
proud nest
proud nest
lucid quail
#

a bipedal frogman isn't just a human with different skin.

harsh cape
#

I think I read somewhere that human shoulder arrangement let's them actually throw things further than a silverback gorilla despite the latter obviously being physically stronger

lucid quail
#

For it to of evolved in to a bipedal frogman it would of had vastly different circumstances than a human, thus different physical features

ivory raft
tacit fox
#

How much different? Allegedly humans evolved from amphibious things after all.

lucid quail
harsh cape
#

So I could see non humans using blow darts or bolas for comparable early age distance

lucid quail
#

That doesn't mean a lizard is the same as a human

proud nest
proud nest
#

sorry, worlds in plural 😉

tacit fox
lucid quail
lucid quail
proud nest
#

In a fantasy setting, only the imagination is the limit. And I can imagine orcs who aren't the strongest, frogmen who aren't water-based etc.

#

So it feels right to me to be able to choose my own traits

tacit fox
lucid quail
shut tangle
shut tangle
shut tangle
proud nest
lucid quail
proud nest
#

So you are in a sense arguing that all races should have blight protection because of their livers...

proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
#

I asked how RL biological differences in humans could be reflected in game mechanics

shut tangle
#

Difference to what? Other fantasy races?
Have orcs be more structured like apes and bam you got the justification for melee damage

proud nest
#

My arguments were based on a lot of other people in this thread saying that the races in AoW4 should have mandatory, hard-coded differences because of biological and anthropological differences

lucid quail
#

This is a fantasy game with fire giants and magical dragons, not really an evolutionary sim.

proud nest
#

@shut tangle I think you're kind of missing the point here

lucid quail
#

You should give people the option to have desert orks or strong frost humans.

#

Just opens up a lot more fun stuff you can do.

proud nest
#

Yeah, the whole deal of this thread is that some people feel like you shouldn't be able to customize your form's (race's) physical traits.

#

We might have derailed 😆

tacit fox
#

Maybe it's supposed to feel wrong. The wizard kings are jerks.

shut tangle
proud nest
#

You are answering one of my earlier comments, and the setting for that comment matters

shut tangle
proud nest
#

So what exactly is the issue then?

shut tangle
proud nest
#

It's not, though. If you meet an AI faction which has orcs, they will have orc traits making them physically stronger. AI elves will have elf-like traits, probably magical/agile.

#

The only difference is that I, and other like-minded players, will be able to make factions where orcs and elves have other traits because we want that.

shut tangle
#

I am not wanting to deny you the option to adjust traits. I for one have been advocating unit variants as a solution to keep that feature:

#

However we are not talking just AI factions, but also player factions, especially in MP

proud nest
#

I understand the sentiment about MP for those who like traditional traits, I hope for your sake that there is an option to lock form traits in MP lobbies.

#

You should have that option imo

#

Just like I get my option to change traits

#

Only seems fair

shut tangle
#

Let us assume for a moment barbarian culture is melee-heavy and lacks ranged capabilities.
So you have an invcentive to take the physical form trait strong orcs ahve and not take the keen senses physical trait elves have.
Suddenly the choice between orcs and elves is either less so, because you are encouraged to change them to make them work better or to accept your aesthetic preferences be tied to a gameplay downside that for some people will lead to negativity.

And thus forms are jsut a cosmetic skin, that feels like a disservice to what makes these forms popular and iconic and all that,

shut tangle
# proud nest Just like I get my option to change traits

I think the option is good (because see above), but I also think that the result makes forms too generic.
That's why I would prefer something like unit variants or extra traits based on form (like say orc berserkers get warcry).

And I might be ameniable to having such variants tied to the traits instead

proud nest
#

Ironically, this argument works best for those who have less attachment to these "iconic forms". For those who really like the forms, it's a boon to be able to play their preferred form with any given strategy without getting an unfair disadvantage.

#

I like getting creative with my games, but I also like fantasy races. So I see it as a huge advantage to actually be able to play the different factions of my imagination.

#

If unique traits are locked to certain forms, then the whole system loses value. As long as an orc barbarian is in any way better than a toad barbarian, you will be playing at a disadvantage as the latter.

shut tangle
tacit fox
proud nest
shut tangle
shut tangle
proud nest
#

It's definitely a sort of trade off, but I see the negatives as very minor

shut tangle
proud nest
#

I only know AoW3 and PF, haven't play the earlier entries

#

But I have a hard time believing you had as much creative freedom or as many unique combinations in building your factions in 1 or 2, considering I've rarely seen that in a strategy game ever

#

(I can see now how I might have misunderstood you. My choice of words was confusing, sorry)

shut tangle
#

Building? not as much.
But every race ahs a partly unique roster of units and often slight differences even in similar units.

And to that you added the leader, which before 3 was a special unit and all the magic spells, summons and enchantments, varied by the choices in leader design.
The impact was more indirect, like the ability to give a unit fire immunity and then use AoE fire attacks, or flooding the map and enchanting it to swim.

AoW 3's empire upgrades and class-dependent non-summoned unitswere new to the series.

proud nest
#

The earlier concept of "race" has now been separated into physical traits, culture and society traits. Who is to say we don't still have that level of uniqueness?

#

From screenshots, it seems that barbarian support units use blight damage, for instance. You can build around that by getting traits that give blight protection if there are aoe blight spells, or maybe a tome which gives the ability to inflict blight weakness?

#

The way I see it, the only difference now is that the player has more control over these unique interactions

#

You need to seek out these interactions actively, rather than just being given the tools because hey, you decided to pick draconian sorcerer or whatever

shut tangle
# proud nest The earlier concept of "race" has now been separated into physical traits, cultu...

I am sure, in total, taking form, form traits, culture, culture traits, and the 6 or more tomes you choose over a gmae, we will have more unique factions.
And I like that a lot.

But using the term race for that, when race is usually used to mean basically what is now form and form traits is not helping making the discussion coherent.
The issue is that simply, what is now form, has practically zero impact, while carring a heavy burden in expectations, preferences, lore and usually gameplay expectations. Having those all sperated from it with nothing left, raises concerns of well, makign them lack what makes them desirable to include as part of the game and setting in the first place

proud nest
#

I firmly believe that it's unfair to say that the term race only implied what is now form and traits. In AoW3, all orcs were barbarians, all tigrans were mystics, all elves were high elves. This is no longer the case, and it gives an important elements of character, as well as gameplay, to your faction.

#

Secondly, form has a huge impact. It has a cosmetic impact, and that's important to some of us

tacit fox
#

Well, appearances can help keep things organized as a match develops, at the very least.

#

Seems like that will be important with how chaotic things are bound to be.

exotic reef
proud nest
raven pebble
proud nest
exotic reef
raven pebble
exotic reef
#

That means more choice by all means - discussion is (I think) more about the meaningfulness of those choices

raven pebble
#

those are different kind of choices

#

coherent lore and gameplay differences vs looking pretty

#

yes, technically both are "valid"

lucid quail
#

How is playing as a normal orc the same as playing a frostling orc or desert nomad orc?

exotic reef
#

You can play shadow and nature affinity which was not a class in AoW3 and was very limited choice in PF

#

By definition more choices mean ... More choices

proud nest
exotic reef
#

We have no idea what and how will they tell stories

#

Except that it's told by scenarios

raven pebble
#

by coherent lore I mean that frogmen aren't the exact same as humans ;d

exotic reef
#

No one says they are

proud nest
exotic reef
#

They are distinct even if only for their looks

raven pebble
shut tangle
proud nest
#

Orcs are whatever you or me want them to be. And that's the beauty of this design decision.

exotic reef
#

Aaaaand we went full circle again xd

raven pebble
proud nest
#

Yes, in a way

exotic reef
#

If any mod or staff are reading this - I love you and you do a god's work ❤️

shut tangle
proud nest
lucid quail
exotic reef
shut tangle
proud nest
shut tangle
exotic reef
proud nest
#

If you give them an identity, is that not the identity they have?

exotic reef
#

Since you know it's fantasy race made time and time again

shut tangle
proud nest
lucid quail
#

You can build the exact same house as the pre-built one if you want.

#

but the foundation is there for people who want to build something else.

proud nest
#

@lucid quail put it in much clearer words than I could, well done

shut tangle
#

they might not be real, but the hjave a fictional existence

proud nest
#

And they are vastly different in all the universes you just mentioned

#

They were given different identities

#

Except in AoW4, where you can attempt to construct any of the aforementioned orcs using the faction builder 🙂

shut tangle
#

And yet they have similarities too

proud nest
#

Yes, but only because the creators chose for them to have those similarities

#

I am free to write a book about orcs who are small, fish-like creatures

raven pebble
#

it won't reference any differences

proud nest
raven pebble
#

it won't tell stories about them

#

it won't contextualize them

shut tangle
#

If there is nothign to make orcs distinct, why not remove the models and instead add an option to make humans tall, green and burly?

proud nest
lucid quail
proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
#

You are free to use these as your faction's appearance, if you like

#

Because they look different and cool

raven pebble
proud nest
#

Exactly ^

raven pebble
#

you sacrifice setting identity, gameplay uniqueness, established conventions and so on just to look pretty ;d

shut tangle
#

But why choose a look associated with all those other fictional orcs and nto say crocodilefolk, which look different and cool too?

proud nest
#

Because I might want my faction to look like orcs...? Not crocodiles?

raven pebble
#

the cons far outweigh the benefits in this case

lucid quail
proud nest
#

I'm afraid I'm missing your point

shut tangle
proud nest
#

Because they look cool, why not?

raven pebble
proud nest
#

I might imagine a people that looks like orcs

shut tangle
#

So do crocodilefolk, those would make a great replacement

lucid quail
raven pebble
#

yeah, it's better now with racial governance

#

but we won't get that in AoW4 too ;d

proud nest
lucid quail
#

racial governance is now culture which makes more sense

#

Certain races might be more pre-disposed to a certain culture.

shut tangle
proud nest
#

Because I like orcs

#

I prefer the orc "canon" where their skin is green and they are taller than most other races

shut tangle
proud nest
#

Some might prefer other types of orcs, though

lucid quail
#

If you want AOW3 Orcs then just don't change their traits and take the respective cultural stuff.

raven pebble
shut tangle
lucid quail
proud nest
raven pebble
shut tangle
lucid quail
proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
#

Well, you can choose for the moles to never be like your orcs. Because the AI will not deviate from standard traits unless you allow that option.

#

So in your game, I get a sense that they will in fact be distinct

shut tangle
proud nest
lucid quail
proud nest
#

Just so it doesn't become monotonous

shut tangle
proud nest
raven pebble
proud nest
raven pebble
#

no

shut tangle
proud nest
raven pebble
#

there is no difference, they are empty shells

shut tangle
#

And I have a feeling you don't

#

But yeah, difference of opinion here

proud nest
shut tangle
raven pebble
proud nest
#

So you ant them to delete what I like just so you don't have to "think about it"

#

It's not like I can force my non-traditional factions into your game

#

Yet you want to force your traditional factions into mine

raven pebble
#

form-based mechanical distinctions literally do not exist

#

that's why we have this thread

proud nest
#

Yes, however lots of other mechanical distinctions do exist

raven pebble
#

and lots of other cosmetic options exist

proud nest
#

And for some reason, you do not find them valuable

proud nest
#

Which ones are purely cosmetic?

raven pebble
#

they've said every race has sliders and you can change their appearance

#

and you can freely customize your wizard

shut tangle
proud nest
#

So you agree there is a mix of purely cosmetic choices and choices which has gameplay significance?

#

@raven pebble

raven pebble
#

yes, but I don't agree with the lack of race-based mechanics and don't agree with forms only being cosmetic ;d

shut tangle
#

Yes, and I like all of them:
But I dislike that there is no distinction between forms, unless i force it

proud nest
#

Because I honestly feel like they've struck a pretty good middle ground

shut tangle
#

There are so many choices that have gameplay effects: form traits, culture, culture traits and tomes.
and one that has none: form

raven pebble
proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
#

There are plenty of purely cosmetic choices

tacit fox
proud nest
proud nest
tacit fox
proud nest
proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
#

I'll be heading out for a while now, so I wanted to round out my viewpoints for now.

The problem I have with the "traditionalist" point of view here, is that it is inherently restrictive. Especially so to those like me, who enjoy getting creative with games.
I feel like no one has truly answered my main argument, which is "Traditional races are possible in the game, and non-traditional ones are purely optional. Why is it a problem if it won't be in your game unless you choose so". The game is already catering to the traditionalists in this sense, since AI will conform to your views.

So I feel like it is wrong for anyone to force limits upon my possibilities in my game, when it has no influence on your game. If this way of thinking is brought to other parts of life, then it is the same as taking away people's religious freedom or people's freedom of speech. I know it's a bit of an extreme comparison, but maybe it helps you in understanding my point?

#

I'll be back 😉

exotic reef
raven pebble
#

why can't I get the mechanics of the dark culture but look like high culture?

#

why is only the form cosmetic

#

I want to have the angel mechanics but look like the frostling one

#

so in essence that argument has an arbitrary stop point

raven pebble
#

if I were to guess, I'd say it's an attempt to be politically correct

#

in the worst way possible ofc

exotic reef
raven pebble
#

because "race" is a no no concept anymore

#

and how dare you say the way you look shapes what you can or can not do

#

the writers behind the same D&D change outright said so ;d

exotic reef
#

Im not going there xd i feel like it's incorrect tho - seems like race has just been deconstructed into several choices (form, traits and culture). Not sure if it has any correlation to what you mean but you do you :p

raven pebble
#

your faction has been deconstructed like this, not your race ;d

#

they've made it explicitly clear that there are no races in AoW4

proud nest
proud nest
#

You might be correct that they chose to change the nomenclature from "race" to "form" in order to be politically correct. I personally do not see the problem with that, especially because the word "race" used in fantasy settings was never accurate in the first place. They mean "species" or "creature" or something along those lines.

raven pebble
#

I think it all hinges on it being politically correct

#

and I think that because they expressly chose the race to not have gameplay implications

#

they could've easily made culture the cosmetic option

#

and it would've most likely been less controversial

proud nest
#

Well, political correctness has value to some, if not most. Acknowledging the cultural evolution of our world in game design is a good thing imo.

dense nacelle
#

Its species, race is sub-species like dog or cat races.
Technically correct is best kind of correct 😄

shut tangle
# proud nest I'll be heading out for a while now, so I wanted to round out my viewpoints for ...

Alright, had to step out myself for a bit.
First I will ignore those other parts of life because a) rabbit hole and b) server rule of no politics

Now, from my point of view it is maybe more restrictive but also creates mroe freedoms.
Why is that? Because if each form brings their own elements to the table the number of ""races"/factiosn you can create in gameplay increases by a factor of 10. You have 10 times the variety of what you can get.
Is that not more creative?

proud nest
#

Are you suggesting that each race should have an additional trait that is locked, besides the two editable ones?

raven pebble
#

not only traits but whole mechanics I'd say

#

maybe even different resources

shut tangle
proud nest
#

I like more mechanics as much as anyone, but I'd prefer for them to not be locked, so that those same mechanics could be used with any form

shut tangle
#

I prefer unit varaints actually, because it allows to keep all these other customizatuion options free for players

proud nest
#

I am for more varied mechanics, I am against arbitrarily locking them to the cosmetic form

raven pebble
#

but we do have the cosmetics of culture locked to the mechanics

#

why

shut tangle
proud nest
proud nest
shut tangle
shut tangle
#

Teleporting unicorn cavalry? just don't use the teleport button

proud nest
raven pebble
shut tangle
proud nest
raven pebble
#

why race instead of culture

#

why not both

#

why not neither

proud nest
shut tangle
proud nest
raven pebble
#

I would be more open to culture being cosmetic rather than race

proud nest
boreal peak
#

I don't think decoupling culture mechanics from aesthetics would make sense.

proud nest
boreal peak
#

I don't really see a way to implement that.

proud nest
#

Me neither

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Or, it would at least be an astronomic amount of work

boreal peak
#

It would be a completely different system, and thus, a completely different game.

proud nest
#

To be clear, I'm not arguing that culture should be separate. It's an argument @raven pebble brought up.

boreal peak
#

Personally, I see culture as sort of "Race" from previous titles - it grants you a set of units you can build from the start of the game, and provides certain eco benefits.

#

Tomes and affinities can be considered similar to a "Class".

proud nest
#

Culture is definitely the defining aspect of your units and infrastructure

shut tangle
proud nest
#

Sure 👍

raven pebble
#

unique form-based mechanics now! rabble rabble rabble

boreal peak
#

I don't think it is realistic to except a change to forms so late in the development - the most realistic option is a lobby checkmark which prevents changing them, but then, again, as they currently are, the traits affect very little, so I don't think it is a big deal.

shut tangle
#

Well, I can tell you this discussion will return with release of the game from all the new palyer influx XD

#

But we might show it off in modding soon after

raven pebble
boreal peak
#

I doubt it can be done well using mods either. The way I see it, the game already has two main systems which affect gameplay - Tomes and Culture. Other things are very minor. To add a new major mechanic which affects gameplay in a meaningful way would require a lot of work, especially considering how many forms there are.

raven pebble
#

well, there is another problem

boreal peak
#

If you have two big mechanics which need to be balanced, you can only have AxB amount of combinations which drastically change gameplay. Adding a new major mechanic would make this (AxB)xC, which is much harder to account for.

shut tangle
raven pebble
#

it's not only the balance, it's also whether the system has design space for me

proud nest
#

Said mod will definitely not be balanced

boreal peak
shut tangle
shut tangle
raven pebble
#

here's my hot take: AoW has always* excelled at tactical gameplay but the 4X side has been rudimentary at best

#

so if I were to add unique form-based mechanics, I would do it on the strategic map

proud nest
proud nest
boreal peak
#

Honestly, I don't think it would make sense to tie-in the such a mechanic to a form. Culture seems like a more fitting thing for such an expansion.

shut tangle
shut tangle
proud nest
boreal peak
#

Traits can fit, but are traits really impactful enough to make each form feel really distinct? I don't really think so.

#

The logic is simple - if they are, it is hard to implement and balance them properly for every possible combination of other picks. If they are not, then the "issue" that different forms are different from each other in a very limited capacity will still be present.

raven pebble
#

it really depends on how many moving parts the game has

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if very little, then you do run into the situation where different mechanics affecting the same thing can be wildly unbalanced

#

look at Age of Empires 2 and its ridiculous number of civilizations

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the game doesn't have enough design space for civ-based bonuses, so the tiniest tweak makes a civ overpowered immediately

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or underpowered as was the case with the indians before the last dlc

boreal peak
#

Yeah, but AoE 2 civs are not really meaningfully different in most cases - they don't really feel distinct enough.

raven pebble
#

yeah, exactly

#

so the tiniest tweak somewhere makes them far worse or better than other civs

shut tangle
proud nest
#

If I present to you one glass of slightly cloudy water and one glass with literal mud, I'm betting you would drink the first one, right?

shut tangle
boreal peak
#

What is more impactful? Going from 30 % to 50 % fire resistance, or going from 90 % to 95 % fire resistance?

#

But, aside from balance considerations, advanced form mechanics would probably be difficult to even implement in the first place, considering how many forms are in the game.

raven pebble
#

both Gladius and EL have 10-11 factions that play completely differently, the genre has enough room for that ;d

proud nest
proud nest
#

If you prefer those, you are free to play them

#

Is it not more valuable for a different new game to be developed, rather than more of the same?

raven pebble
#

they still have tech trees and playstyles within them

proud nest
#

My point still stands, the design philosophy is just an entirely different one

boreal peak
#

Gladius factions exist in a vacuum in terms of combinations - most of the content development time can be spent on them, while in AoW 4 there are Tomes and Cultures which require a lot of time to implement and balance.

raven pebble
#

yeah, that's why I said that perhaps the game doesn't have enough design space for more

#

but we don't know how it plays yet, especially the strategic side

boreal peak
#

I suppose. There are also transformations in Tomes, which kinda partially work like rather impactful "Racial" traits

harsh cape
#

I'm pretty sure they're going to stick with aiming for a lightweight audience

boreal peak
#

"Lightweight"?

harsh cape
#

on the city building side 😛

#

but total playtime on a given map even with manual combat is many hours shorter than in a stellaris or civilization

boreal peak
#

Ah, if memory serves me right, they are implementing some of 4x changes which were in PF.

pine glacier
#

oh good someone set this ablaze again

#

have any new arguments been made

pine glacier
proud nest
#

For me personally, the sweet spot for game length is such that I can finish a game in one weekend with a moderate number of hours daily. So like 7-10 hours maybe?

ivory raft
raven pebble
proud nest
#

Which is to say, why must traditional "race" conventions be forced when they are possible in the game, but not mandatory.

#

Why can't you just let me have fun with my fire toads and muscle rats 🤓

raven pebble
#

we did address that though

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multiple times from different angles ;d

modest cipher
#

please let's not start this cycle again

proud nest
#

Like moving it to the lack of unique units etc

exotic reef
proud nest
exotic reef
#

Why tho xd it doesn't matter

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Like the form :v

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(joke)

pine glacier
#

evergreen

raven pebble
#

the main discussion was why they chose race instead of culture to be cosmetic

#

and I argued it was because of trying (and failing) to be politically correct

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I also asked why we aren't allowed to have the dark culture mechanics but look like high culture

harsh cape
#

that's why D&D did it not Triumph

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A Planetfall or AOW 2 race system allows for units with a larger difference in playstle than two classes (or two cultures)

pine glacier
#

they decided form was the better of these two to be customizable

#

i agree

harsh cape
#

I certainly see Dvar vs Vanguard as having more differences than Theocrat vs Warlord

raven pebble
pine glacier
#

👍

raven pebble
#

if something were to be only cosmetic at all ofc

exotic reef
#

At this I just can't you serious Lacrymas - you seem to jump 30000 topics just to prove something I lost track of and not really making much sense doing that

#

Cosmetics = bad, but it's okey if it's some other part of crafting the race than form

primal citrus
#

So in the demo, the Orcs that were found in a neighboring city were of the same race "Cannibal Orcs". If all the races are reflections of the rulers chosen factions, that's just setting.

In my playthrough the orcs of where I played were faithful crusaders. In yours they were frostling cannibals.

exotic reef
dense nacelle
#

Yeah you absolutely can have evil necromancer halflings and stuff.
Or pure good sorcerer orcs in AoW 3.

#

Looks like AoW 4 just goes step further

primal citrus
# exotic reef In your playthrough? Like in AoW3?

Sorry, talked about a hypothetical in which myself and the audience of my post are both playing AoW4 in the future.

I'm saying that Orcs are unlikely to be the same in two players games beyond appearance if they make different choices.

exotic reef
#

That's what Lennart (Game Director) posted on official forum

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That is my point of not understanding concerns about "race means nothing" arguments because there are crafted archetypes of races so it will feel like races from AoW3 (that's my belief) and some big mish mash of forms, traits and cultures

#

Unless i misunderstood your point, than I'm sorry 😦 not native speaker

fossil berry
#

The new definition of race is "form + form traits + culture + culture traits".

#

The "race means nothing" goes by the older concept of race, which has now been renamed Form.

#

(which has no gameplay consequences whatsoever)

shut tangle
fossil berry
#

No, transformations are global for a race.

shut tangle
#

yes, but that also is part of the new defnintion of "race"

fossil berry
#

Every transformation is always applied to literally every single race member.

#

So with or without transformation doesn't count as two different races.

shut tangle
#

Speaking of which.
At the end of the announcement stream the devs say that the "pantheon" means you can encounter rulers you played with in earlier games.
I wonder if they get a new race or keep the one you generated for them

exotic reef
exotic reef
exotic reef
# fossil berry The "race means nothing" goes by the older concept of race, which has now been r...

I don't think I can agree with that statement since older definition is not just a form, every race had some kind of traits but usually they got a little more to it than +1 melee DMG for orcs or armoured for dwarves. They had different basic units etc. So that's where culture in AoW4 comes into play and so on. I just don't think that's that simple connection than older definition is now useless form. Again not trying to convince but it just doesn't seem to compile in my head 😦

fossil berry
#

Yeah, but ALL of that is culture or traits now. If I make a goblin race, you can make an orc race literally identical in gameplay.

#

The basic units is now culture, and the +1 melee is now traits.

exotic reef
#

It is true that its a possibility

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But it's also true that its on the player to choose those things

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I understand where you coming from tho

dense nacelle
#

Older fantasy races was Duplo blocks for little kids, now we get to play with Lego when it comes to races 😄

#

You can still build old stuff with more complex and smaller elements

exotic reef
#

If I were to agree the best I can do is - how the form looks is indeed pure cosmetic. Race is a complex thing tho and I couldn't agree that race doesn't matter. With confirmation from the devs that you can stick to premade "archetypes" I don't support your opinion. If you want to make orc as a strong barbarians - sure are welcome to do so.

dense nacelle
#

In AoW3 you could have good spellcasting orcs, here you can fully commit to it.

fossil berry
proud nest
shy star
#

This was a concern for me as well. I hope the game will be balanced in that sense that there's not a certain meta that's OP in all cases.
I'm less concerned about races. There will still be generic races in the game, plus your customized ones. The pre-scripted leaders will have the base races you know and love.

tropic horizon
#

There will be OP and meta picks for MP 100%, any game thats has this many factors that impacts a units powerlevel will 100% have the "auto pick" tag if you want to win. Best is to have strong community rules against cheese or just play with a community that doesnt do meta picks

pine glacier
#

People are terrified of the idea that a meta might form

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It's the boogeyman under their bed

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With this many variations it's pretty unlikely that there will be one singular path to victory. Meta will probably be narrowed down to a small handful of good options, and a few more that will go undiscovered for a while because no one wants to try new things once a meta has taken shape

violet cedar
#

There was already very much a meta in the previous games, and greater modularity theoretically lowers the opportunity cost of building to counter a meta.

modest cipher
#

every multiplayer game has a "meta" obviously, some things are always going to be better than others. the question is if there are still a broad range of viable strategies and workable counters to the most popular ones

#

while it remains to be seen how it shakes out, it's possible the tomes will make it easier to counter stuff, cause you slot a counter tome into multiple strategies

uneven fulcrum
#

Just as there's meta with every multiplayer game, I think it ultimately comes down to post-release support. People are gonna math out the best paths for the strongest stuff without fail. From there it usually comes down to how devs support and balance the changes to the degree they want and what it shakes out to be

#

I feel like constant balance is not seen often in the 4x sphere, at least not compared to the level of top RTS games, but I could be wrong

modest cipher
#

yeah and Triumph is good at post-launch support

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like Planetfall's sector system got completely reworked in a free update because it was too clunky and convoluted to use

void coral
#

Race means less, because it'll represent a cluster of traits unique to the faction.

CULTURE though is going to have visual tells and be more important for determining what tools a particular faction has.

raven pebble
#

Planetfall had some very cool unit designs, especially from the Assembly, so I'm hoping we could get some unusual units in AoW4 too

rigid ore
#

I can 100% see where you're coming from as in dnd that is kinda what is happening, it is a difficult thing to answer, but I think people just like customization at this point and making the perfect thing, i can only wait and see how i play and i hope i won't get stuck in the loop of playing the same thing but with just a different coat of paint

pine glacier
#

given the number of gameplay affecting options in both race creation and tome selection, i feel like if that's the case it's probably on you choosing the same options every time

rigid ore
#

I am also sure there will be minmaxer, as there always are in games with customizable traits

pseudo grove
rigid ore
pine glacier
rigid ore
#

im fine with that just don't tell me how to play

sonic trellis
#

I often end up tweaking any builds I make to be slightly more optimized (i.e. swapping out stubborn for decadent in PF), but going out of your way to only minmax ever is just... eww...

rigid ore
pine glacier
#

continues to be a strange opinion to hold of hypothetical people who are defined by "trying to win in a game"

pine glacier
main cloud
#

Tbh I only care about minmaxing if it's to the detriment of the rest of the group. In pvp games you should play what you enjoy, but expect people to play the most optimal version of that.

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In PvE, you should have a general ballpark of what power level you wanna play at or the type of game you want.

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Off topic, but as someone who enjoys optimization and roleplaying, I like supportive playstyles in D&D or other tabletop games because if I'm too OP that just gets spread around making the whole party stronger.

raven pebble
#

In single player it's almost never about how good an option is, it's about how bad the others are

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I might like to play something more creative, but when the options are straight up bad then we have a problem ;d

#

Total War Warhammer is a great example

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You have these huge tech trees but the game is too shallow to support so many options, so 80% of the tree is just bad or useless

shut tangle
#

Balance in SP is about making options viable and interesting

proud nest
rigid ore
#

ya

balmy gale
# raven pebble Total War Warhammer is a great example

Those tech trees are about where you wanna go, rather than some of the individual techs. You go one route for a specific tech, or unit, or to use a faction mechanic. The rest is filler, why would you wanto to research reload speed? Tech as unit stat buffs is just a bad concept imo.

raven pebble
#

and because the other choices in the tech tree are either useless or bad

#

theoretically, I don't want reload speed to be in the tech tree and I'd rework the entire concept of the tech tree in that game, but that's neither here nor there

balmy gale
#

And still, it being a tech is silly.

raven pebble
#

most of what is in those tech trees is silly

balmy gale
#

You could crunch some trees into a dozen or so choices and call it a day

raven pebble
#

yes, that's what I'd do too

balmy gale
#

On topic, I too fear that customization being a focus, might lead to blandness not to mention jarring combinations.

#

Like a case of Potato Head

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We'll see

pine glacier
#

jarring combinations are a feature not a bug

#

i want to make the most off the wall, strange and questionable combinations possible

sonic trellis
#

mood

#

I love giving guns to Elves in 3, and I love taking Necromancers, Sorcerers and other typically spellcaster-type characters in Diablo-style RPGs and turning them into melee bruisers

shut tangle
#

unintuitive combinations are fun and especially if they become something unique

pine glacier
#

give me more things that i haven't seen before

balmy gale
#

To each their own I guess

fossil berry
timber void
raven pebble
#

Are we done being outraged by this? ;d

pine glacier
#

you necro'd a month old discussion to ask a question best answered by yourself

crisp turret
#

No

rigid ore
#

i mean like im half and half on this, would like to have some traits race specific, but atm i am planing to play as many different types of peoples and cultures

pine glacier
#

i think this thread is specifically about if the game will be bad as a direct result of this design decision

rigid ore
#

yeah but i think if we just say its bad and not go a tiny bit in to why we think its not fun for us there would be no point to it?

#

still will play the game and love 99% of what i saw