Archon Prophecy next month? Anyone excited? Giant Kings ruled

>>2094459 (OP)
More story content, so I might actually play it for longer than have a match.

I still haven't played Giants. I heard the balance was fucked. Is it fixed?

>>2094498
The only real balance problems were with the Giant Kings themselves, who could casually hit a 200 damage area attack without even min-maxing. Also the rock-throw was stupid good. They toned that down a fair ways and they now comfortably go toe-to-toe with Dragon Lords as the joint strongest rulers. DL have ridiculous early-game clearing and some potent mid-late game builds while GK have a slower start but hit the biggest late-game numbers for any ruler very easily. Otherwise nothing else was particularly busted for once and the tomes they added/overhauled are doing a lot to make some sidelined builds/playstyles actually fun - such as underground empires.

I'm looking forward to the necromancy buffs and new culture in the next update/expansion though, they seem interesting at least.

massive patch notes https://steamcommunity.com/app/1669000/discussions/2/571510418608161579/

they fucking did it

>>2094984
A ton of good changes and I like how the new magic classes work but where the fuck is the dedicated summoner class
We got 3 kinds of demons, all the astral shit, and a bunch of other random magic origin stuff but no class that actually focuses on any of them

Might pirate it again, game even now is still shallow as fuck.

>>2094984
This is actually super cool. Love to see them lean more into the roleplaying aspect of the game instead of just lol everything's random all the time.

A lot of the new stuff is pretty cool but the new society trait looks like complete ass.

>Play beta
Play my Ice Elementalist Wizard Lizard King again
>Toll of Seasons Winter happens
>Win against crisis army
>Anticipate Uber Ice gaming
>Fey Fissures are bugged so I can't enter them

>>2095212
I haven't played in a little bit so correct me if im wrong but i thought either mage or ritualist rulers had buffs for them in the tree.

>>2095420
It might be broken as hell depending how it works in game.
>Turn 20 or whatever playing a heavy gold focused build
>Doomp all your gold into buying a bunch of buildings that give 100 knowledge each.

We finally >>2094984
have flaws again! Now we can min-max the fantasy expy without compromises

>>2096085
it's just one point though

i'm mroe excited about roleplaying my dwarves with wizard hats without needing to do it manually in game

i'm just glad i'm not autistic enough to need to make a full hero lineup for my entire pantheon

>>2095953
this is about the recent changes, summons are all over the place

but they also suck so i don't care, they'd need to improve them for me to care

>>2096261
>i'm just glad i'm not autistic enough to need to make a full hero lineup for my entire pantheon
Ahaha, yeah. Who would even do something like that? Certainly not me hahaha.

Unless they add a hard limit to the number of heroes and tomes this game will always be garbage. The way now heroes just spawn uncontrollably forever is horrible.

As usual, they tried to balance the systems around the 6 retards that play MP trying to turn it into the next DOTA and completely killed the game.

>>2096625
The fact that so many single player games still base their balance around MP concerns when they are a tiny, tiny fraction of the playerbase is truly irritating. The same thing happens in Total War:Warhammer, which is the entire reason ranged foot lords are so utterly useless, because they were "too good" in MP so they got nerfed to oblivion and now they are worthless compared to melee or casters.

>>2096625
Not sure why you're so convinced that not limiting the amount of heroes and tomes is a multiplayer thing (nevermind the completely retarded DOTA comparison) when it only affects singleplayer. Multiplayer games don't last 200 turns for this to become an actual issue, and endlessly spamming heroes is something that's only viable for the AI to begin with. The AI gets basically unlimited heroes (and free items to equip them with) because they'd be dead in the water after just a few fights if they didn't.

>>2096601
okay, i guess i might do it too, but i'm not compelled to do so immediately, i'll do it over time as i replay those rulers

anyway, i like the tome path feature too, if only to remind myself what my idea was for that ruler's tomes, so now it's time for a "you may only choose dual tomes" run

>>2096625
>>2096669
balancing for multiplayer is always the correct choice because it results in what can be referred to as some sort of balance

it's the same thing as why balancing for the top 1% of players is also always the correct choice

Elementalist and ritualist feel way weaker now. They have basically nothing going for them.

Spellblade is way stronger for pure magic nuking than elementalist. Makes me wonder how it'll be nerfed itself.

I'm pretty sure a level 10 ritualist hero will be on par with a tier 3 support unit at best. Maybe even less than on par. The healing they put out is pathetic.

>>2096959
we found the mp sweat

so wait, zeal's condemned double damage to the 2 or 4 points it does was changed to +10% to all damage done to a condemned unit? and people complain that's weaker?

>>2097069
cope, i literally haven't even tried mp in 4, last time in this series was one match in 3 when 3 was new

How do you deal with Umbral Dwellings in the early game? I build up a decent force and start to enter the Gloom, but the combination of the malady and the frequent spawning of invading forces means that all my stacks are below half health by the time I reach the dwelling. Then I have to leave and re-heal and there's another invading force and the cycle repeats. Are you just supposed to not attack the dwelling until you get void stones and craft immunity items?

>>2096959
>Balancing for multiplayer is always the correct choice
No it isn't, especially in games where the singleplayer experience and multiplayer experience is a completely different entity.

>>2097356
early game it’s easier to hold them at the portals rather than push through them
build up a defensive perimeter until you can actually support an invasion force

>>2094459 (OP)
While I appreciate not having to spam spells at every unit individually like in the old games, I wish unit enchantments weren't all-or-nothing. I don't need the tier 1 chaff I'm sending with my dragon king to serve as ablative HP and flanking prevention to pay upkeep for weapon enchantments, and I'm fighting at two fronts, and while searing weapons are nice against undead, they are actually a debuff for the forces fighting the fire resistant demons my other enemy uses.

I must admit, my enthusiasm for this DLC is hampered by the fact that the new culture seems to be strongly non-cavalry oriented. How many of their units can even wind up as cavalry if you take appropriate traits?

I want an expansion that somehow justifies Michiel van den Bos flexing his UT99 muscles again

>>2097645
I think literally just the supports

>>2097358
the only games like that are the games where they deliberately balance sp and mp separately

>>2094459 (OP)
real ones remember when they were called hymens

>>2097709
not the same thing

whats the best mystic subclass?

>>2098965
Probably Potential but IMO they're all good.

>>2098965
i like summoning

>>2098965
Potential is straight up OP in the late game, all spells are useful so there's no wasted research

>>2094459 (OP)
is the single player story campaigns worth palying?

>>2099494
I'd say so. It's really barebones compared to the campaigns of the older games and not particularly well-written IMO, but if you're interested in the game the story maps are at least worth a playthrough. They provide a decent challenge if nothing else.

I definitely wouldn't buy the game just for the story campaign though.

>>2099494
Not really, no. They completely phoned it in and the big, story rich campaigns of the previous three entries are nowhere to be found in 4.

Good gof! Now I have to go through all my custom factions and add city names, tome paths and heroes tot hem. This will take weeks!

>>2099522
>>2099620
>barebones compared to the campaigns of the older games
>big, story rich campaigns of the previous three entries
90% of the "story" in previous games was a short narration before and after each mission and the occasional pop-up.
I don't know what alternate fucking dimension you people come from but please share whatever versions of the games you have that lives up to your hype

>>2099921
They probably just mean narrative choices and branching paths. That doesn't exist in this one. I think the story is fine. You can play your own characters in it which is neat, but it does limit the story narratively, because each mission has to be written in a way that a new completely different character can be the main character in it, so there isn't a lot of connectivity between missions outside of the overarching plot.

>>2099470
>all spells are useful
Monstrous Rebirth.

>>2100058
The whole point of Potential is that you can turn your spells into money, and while you normally have to cast the spells to charge it up there's a spell that allows you to build charge passively.

>>2099494
Like other anon said, this game I would not buy for the story campaign.
It's there and it's more basic than the previous games
I didn't mind playing it since it's still an escalating list of challenges and seeing old characters from previous games has still been fun
>thought Grexolis was a nightmare i barely edged out with a victory
>Arcalot proved to be an even bigger ball buster of a map
>concern they're going to outdo that as well with what story maps may come with this DLC

Unfortunately, the very first AoW still has the best thematically-designed campaign.

i think the story maps + sppecialty scenarios you can place on any map are more than enough narrative content personally. i don't really play with them on usually because i like making my own custom maps with custom scenarios and factions, but the option is there

>>2100138
That's definitely true, though I think 3's campaign is quite good as well. The only issue is that most maps pretty much force you to rush or get rolled.

>>2100138
I'm so sad I didn't discover the series until I was in university. When I was a kid I played the shit out of Disciples 2 over and over again, so I would have loved this. I think I only played them when everyone was talking about 3 being announced.

>>2100138
Yeah, it does. It still baffles me that companies never manage to iterate and improve on things that were an absolute success in their previous efforts.

>>2100167
I personally feel some of 3's maps are too open, making chokepoints difficult to establish. The caverns and depths also suffer from this. AoW 1's underground could be downright claustrophobic at times. Having open maps feeds into the need to rush, or get overwhelmed.
Units always dealing a minimum of 1 damage (unless completely immune to the damage type) also makes some of the more fragile troops difficult to use, especially when fighting ranged enemies.

>>2100570
They've said the reason they didn't focus as much on the campaign in 4 was that their data shows that most people didn't play or complete the campaign in 3, with the majority of players preferring skirmish maps instead.

>>2100632
I've missed in my previous post (>>2100627) my biggest annoyance I have with campaign progression in 3:
Campaign research progress resets. In AoW1, you keep it throughout the campaign. In 2 you keep it throughout the campaign, until you switch spheres. In SM, you keep it throughout the campaign. In 3 (admittedly, I haven't played Golden Realms or Eternal Lords, despite having them) you reset whenever you change hero class, which is extremely often. Having to re-research every little thing every single mission is annoying, especially since the older games did things differently.

>>2100632
So instead of working on and improving the campaign in the sequel so it's worth spending time on, they abandon it entirely? Truly brilliant.

>>2100740
Except they didn't abandon it entirely. The game still has a campaign. I also don't think the problem was that the campaign wasn't good enough or wasn't worth spending time on, but that people just didn't want or care about a campaign in general.

>>2100773
I don't think you can reasonably call the disconnected scenarios that have no relation to each other whatsoever and no carryover in AoW4 a "campaign".

>>2101348
>that have no relation to each other whatsoever
They tell a pretty straight-forward story. Just because you (potentially) play a different character in every mission doesn't mean they're completely unrelated.

>>2101390
It's not really a campaign if there is no carryover, it's just a series of stand alone missions.

You can finally turn off the denouncement and "you have spells available" messages as well as anything else if you want

>new dev stream
>right at the start
>"in the past we've added a lot of varied races but our telemetry shows that everyone only plays humans and elves so we decided to just add prettier humans this time because that's what you all want"
wew

>>2102645
It went
>humans 1st
>elves 2nd
>lizardmen 3rd
Based on their 2yr announcement I think, wonder what's in 4th
>picked and play almost only goblins, dwarves, and halflings
So I guess I shouldn't expect anymore shortstacks for awhile
Ancients look cool though, I could make a mummy themed faction with them if I got the craving for it

>>2102811
My own top 5 right now, looking at my oversized library of custom rulers, is Elves, Goats, Wolves, Halflings and Frogs in that order.

>>2100118
If you research Monstrous Rebirth, you HAVE to turn off automatically casting spells when autoresolving.
If you always turn it off, it's no big deal. If you accidentally pick it up and you normally let autoresolve use spells, you are forced to turn it off or it just deletes your entire army over time.