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SlyFrog posted:Other than the ability to use mods (which I generally don't care about), do these things usually have the exact same functionality on consoles as on PC? I have Planetfall on both PC and PS4 and the game is identical on both as far as I can tell. (other than the mentioned UI/modding stuff) I was surprised at how well it plays on PS4, I didn't expect a 4x to be great on consoles but they made it work. That being said, I had a hard time reading the fonts when sitting on my couch ~10 feet away from the TV, but that's a problem I have with a lot of PC games ported to console.
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Apr 7, 2023 22:04
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BurningBeard posted:Holy gently caress goons I’m reading these dev diaries and I am not a hype person but this sounds incredible, head to toe. Like Order affinity, I’m thinking okay bog standard god bothering angelic good guys, until they go actually no there are portions of the order affinity that lean hard into subjugation and totalitarian shitbaggery, and I’m sitting here fist pumping going these guys get it! I think AoW is a little too high fantasy with a little too many funny cheesy bits to really evoke Cook. The Wizard Kings are definitely not as hosed up as the Taken, but if you squint a little, maybe there's a little bit of a flirt there. BC is famous enough in the fantasy world I'm expecting at least a few of the devs to have read them, and there probably is a cheeky reference to it somewhere in the games. Been a long rear end while since I read BC though, so maybe someone can point out significant parallels that I don't remember anymore.
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Apr 8, 2023 08:44
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Hawgh posted:Fanatical has the various AoW4 editions for 13% off. Yo, thanks for the heads-up!
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Apr 8, 2023 09:11
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Autsj posted:I think AoW is a little too high fantasy with a little too many funny cheesy bits to really evoke Cook. The Wizard Kings are definitely not as hosed up as the Taken, but if you squint a little, maybe there's a little bit of a flirt there. BC is famous enough in the fantasy world I'm expecting at least a few of the devs to have read them, and there probably is a cheeky reference to it somewhere in the games. Yeah you’re probs right. I just saw some throwaway line in their about a bunch of wizard dudes being trapped in hell dimension and going kinda nutty from that and back-biting each other for supremacy and it reminded me of BC a little but you’re totally right about the high fantasy not really fitting. Either way, those dev diaries are something else. I never do the whole company-sponsored pre-release media frenzy stuff but it feels like there’s something really cool and different going on with this one. I hope that whole narrative event setup is actually cool and emergent rather than being something that gets optimized into oblivion within a month. Also more developers should announce 3-4 months out instead of multiple years. The typical hype cycle poo poo is so annoying. This is so much better.
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Apr 8, 2023 14:08
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Like I said, if you squint a little. I don't really do pre-release hype but I'm enthusiastically looking forward to it. The AoW series is a particular niche that I've always enjoyed, the series has been consistently interesting and mechanically rich, and Triumph is a small studio that have always poured their heart into their flagship series.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:24
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My only big question rn is one that I’m sorta doubtful will be considered, but I would kill for some good accessibility options in a game like this. Even text to speech to read out the interface would be a game changer for me. I have really poor eyesight and I tolerate some degree of eyestrain for the right kinda strategy game, but it’s rare if ever that these things get considered beforehand. I wonder if that’s been a consideration since accessibility seems to have a higher profile these days than it once did. At least Xbox has a good magnification feature if all else fails.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:34
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I'm making my way through the original campaign. It has been pretty fun but I've had a lot of trouble evaluating secret techs and mods. Most advice I've seen suggests building a combo out of t1-4 techs. I'm wondering if that still applies for the campaign and what some of these combos actually look like. It has been a long time since I've played AoW3 but that mostly came down to spamming a powerful t2 or t3 unit, which was a lot easier to wrap my head around.
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Apr 13, 2023 00:25
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Sure it still applies to the campaign, there isn't that much difference between campaign missions and custom/mp ones except for some scenario specific map bits and some extra story objectives. When it comes to making combos it can probably help to think of Racial Techs and Secret Techs as bits that usually synergize with themselves, and either focusing on one primarily and using that base synergy, or mix and match a bit between the two where you like it. It doesn't have to be complex, it just needs to work (for you). Let's say Vanguard, first set of campaign missions for most: Troopers are basic gunline guys, nanostim to heal and give them protection if they get hit, maybe the armor plating against staggers, add in the nano support operation to make them obfuscated and you have a very sturdy gunline that'll do fine against the ai. Then maybe go down the firearms tech line for rail accelerators to increase your range (and damage and accuracy). You can win missions with just that. Promethean is available for the second Vanguard mission: Promethean Purifiers set things on fire, either shooting or with Plasma Bombs (that secretly have range 8 because of the splash) -- then tier 3 tech gives you Thermal Targeting mods for extra damage and accuracy against things on fire. Again it synergizes with itself. Mix in Purifiers with your Troopers and those range 8 Plasma Bombs force enemies straight into your gun positions, and you can give your troopers those Thermal Targeting mods for more damage and accuracy. Spice it up with the first laser tech which lets lasers set things on fire, now your PUGS and Assault Bikes are helping. Finally you could blaze down the Firearms tree again and pick up Fireburst ammo for your Troopers. Now everyone sets everything on fire (and you get those accuracy and damage bonuses). There's too many combos imaginable to give you something for every race and tech, but if you throw out what you are playing or what you are/were struggling with someone in the thread is bound to have something that'll help you out. Autsj fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Apr 13, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 02:32
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It's been long enough since I've played that I don't remember much, but one example I remember is making heal-spamming Aseembly/Xenoplague Scavenger squads There's an Assembly T3 mod that gives the a 4 HP heal on melee attacks, which is up to 12hp/turn restored Xenoplague T3 mod that lets them throw aoe bombs that heal allies (8hp) and damage enemies And a T5 Xenoplague mod that gives them a 30 hp direct heal that removes status effects Then once you get to higher research levels, both Assembly and Xenoplague have mods granting a passive 8hp/turn regen that you can swap one of the ability-based heals out for, the xenoplague one even grants regeneration to all adjacent allied units. Their only real weakness are high-tier units that can outpace their healing, or flying units - but they have shotguns for the flying units. They're particularly great early-game because they can mop around the map without losing units. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Apr 13, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 02:37
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KPC_Mammon posted:I'm making my way through the original campaign. It has been pretty fun but I've had a lot of trouble evaluating secret techs and mods. Personally I used the campaign missions to turtle and try a bit of everything. Just building strong T2/T3s works well in PF too, just throw whatever mods on so that you aren't wasting cosmite by stockpiling it. I don't know if combos work well in the campaign. In the campaign maps there might be some premade battle or something that you need to fight, it's not like a multiplayer game where you're racing to increase power faster than your opponent, some things are just preset. So an early game mp combo might not work well in every campaign mission, even though a late game mp combo might. Also a lot of mods are just good and don't need any particular synergies to work. + Stagger resist mods are always good for example, and every race gets one early on in their racial mod tech line. If you're Promethean then Purification Field is always good. Dvar trenchers can always use Fortification Tools. Anything that boosts your attack range is good, and anything that turns a regular attack into an area of effect is good. Anything that gives you stagger is good. If you absolutely, positively must have a combo and want an easy way of finding one, then try this: just look through the mods in one of your factions two weapon groups, and find two strong mods in that weapon group that work well together. Examples: One really good, classic multiplayer grade combo is Aether Storm + Focus: Venom on Syndicate Enforcer. Aether Storm is the most powerful mod in the Psionic Weapon Group and the only disadvantage to using it is we need to teleport close to enemy units, but if we put it on a melee unit like the enforcer that becomes an advantage. We can literally only combo with (one of) focus flames or focus venom, because none of the other mods in the Psionic Weapon Group actually do anything to improve our attack. Another classic combo is Rail Accelerators + Ammunition: Fire Burst. Rail accelerators just for the +1 range to firearms attacks. Then fire burst adds 75% damage to all adjacent units. So by force attacking a tile at our new max range of 8, now our Vanguard Troopers (or similar range 7 firearm units) can hit up to 9 tiles away like a sniper. If we put this on an Assembly Vorpal sniper now it can reach an absurd 11 tiles out. You can find this combo by just looking at the first 5 out of 7 mods in that single research line. I think every weapons research line has at least something like the above. There are other combos of course when you look at secret tech mods, units, and faction mods. Some Promethean mods that exploit burning can synergize with some laser mods that cause burning, for example (e: I don't think there's a good combo there, but it exists). But If you don't know where to start and just want something easy then you can always find something involving a faction unit and two mods from a weapons research line. Lowen fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Apr 13, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 04:32
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Lowen posted:Some Promethean mods that exploit burning can synergize with some laser mods that cause burning, for example (e: I don't think there's a good combo there, but it exists).  i think harrier riders and assault bikes would be the biggest use cases. arboreans probably don't dislike the combo. uhhhhh if you tech rush for laser tanks that's a decent low tech loadout for them? idk maybe an owl rush would have a good time with it
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Apr 13, 2023 13:12
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Owls with the 'inflict burning' mod are surprisingly solid in helping promethean modded Vanguard focus down tough targets. You can summon them remotely, making them a lot more expendable, and you don't need to invest a lot of cosmite in them for them to do their job. That mod is also not the worst thing in the world to have on a promethean PUG, so that it contributes something when it's not using an ability. It doesn't really need mods to do its job for the most part, and isn't enough of a straight up combat unit to justify a lot of damage mods. On a non-promethean PUG, I'd rather go with hard light systems.
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Apr 13, 2023 13:27
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But generally, in planetfall, modding units doesn't require too much thinking. Ask yourself: What am I using this unit for? And then apply mods that look like they'll help it do that. You can swap them on the fly if you want something else without losing cosmite, as long as you're not replacing them with a cheaper mod. If you're just playing through the campaign, you can pretty much never go wrong with equipping your units with the combo of their weapon line's first mod, your starting secret tech mod, and some early faction mod that strikes your fancy, and then just adding better units and switching mods around as you tech up. my dad fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Apr 13, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 13:32
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We probably balanced it out, but at one point you could get pretty far using only OWLs with laser mods. If you befriended the Autonoms to get access to their support bots you were pretty much unstoppable.
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Apr 13, 2023 13:40
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KPC_Mammon posted:I'm making my way through the original campaign. It has been pretty fun but I've had a lot of trouble evaluating secret techs and mods. If you have access to any of the heal + status effect purge mods (promethean's stands out, as it's a free action), those tend to be very straightforwardly effective early on for anything that isn't super liable to die in a single round. More cost-effective for naturally durable rosters like Dvar, but in general heal mods on units will vastly increase the survival and longevity of your early clearing stacks, esp. in autobattle. And they never really off in utility, either. Opportunity cost of better alternatives for the optimal loadout of a given unit pushes you away from sticking them on new things, but purging status effects is something that only gets better as the game goes on and does a lot for preserving action points against certain status effects Hiveminded fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Apr 13, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 14:26
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my dad posted:But generally, in planetfall, modding units doesn't require too much thinking.
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Apr 13, 2023 15:20
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Next AoW 4 dev stream is up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbVb8zQpXeI We get a shoutout for the discussion about AI units eating opportunity attacks in order to finish off an injured unit and the tactical AI change it inspired. I haven't been paying super close attention to the gameplay/tooltips because I just have it running while I do other things so I haven't picked up on any specific reveals of new info.
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Apr 13, 2023 19:05
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Do you happen to have a timestamp for the AI discussion? I don't have the time to watch the whole stream, but that's something I'd like to hear.
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Apr 13, 2023 19:14
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my dad posted:Do you happen to have a timestamp for the AI discussion? I don't have the time to watch the whole stream, but that's something I'd like to hear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbVb8zQpXeI&t=5149s
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Apr 13, 2023 22:24
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Thank you.
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Apr 13, 2023 22:38
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I would never have thought complaining on SA would lead to actual changes. Granted there was a user research test group that also pointed it out.
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Apr 14, 2023 07:04
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Only a few weeks to go 
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Apr 14, 2023 07:20
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The naval combat is... not great, but I guess naval combat was never a strong point of the series.
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Apr 14, 2023 07:57
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my dad posted:The naval combat is... not great, but I guess naval combat was never a strong point of the series. I wonder if the new reinforcements mechanic could be hacked up for this? Like having a carrier style ship in reinforcement range gets you reinforcements of their summons, or artillary ships giving operations.
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Apr 14, 2023 11:20
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I just love that the penguins and wave spirits are getting in on the sailing too
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Apr 14, 2023 11:25
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Naval units are more fun on ocean maps where everyone has to invest in them. Not much use when you just have some lakes and rivers.
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Apr 14, 2023 14:24
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the launch naval balance sucked, but the final balance they struck in planetfall where regular units were penalized, amphibious/aerial units were not (+strategic mobility), and naval units were just very cheap for their power level seemed to work pretty well.
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Apr 14, 2023 14:29
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I assume that penguins in boats is a bug, and that they are supposed to fight from the water, like other water/amphibious units.
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Apr 14, 2023 15:49
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:the launch naval balance sucked, but the final balance they struck in planetfall where regular units were penalized, amphibious/aerial units were not (+strategic mobility), and naval units were just very cheap for their power level seemed to work pretty well. My answers here are playing mostly on continents with a few dozen games: -How often did you make a clearing naval stack to defend your ocean provinces from wandering monsters and go beat up monster pickups/sites? (Most games.) -How often did you make a second clearing naval stack? (Some games.) -How often were your naval clearing stack(s) in position to prevent a naval invasion from an AI player? (A few games.) -How often did a couple rush build or randomly garrisoned naval units help strengthen a thrown together mishmash defense force to prevent or degrade a naval invasion from an AI player? (Some games.) -How often did your naval clearing stack pay for its production and upkeep cost? (I've never done the math, but I would guess a few games where I happened to have naval sites in places where I had cities that didn't have anywhere useful to expand on land. Probably a few additional empire maps where they helped get a pretty big chunk of cosmite with Black Market Connections.)
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Apr 14, 2023 17:34
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I think they did an OK job with the naval/land unit balance in the end, but it's still not quite where it needs to be. Having good flying/floating/amphibious units just seems like a strictly better option, and you can always just embark land units and take the penalty. On a water map the obvious best choice of faction to play is Shakarn, so there's no balance there. The fundamental problem is any water units you build are going to run out of stuff to do, or the game will end before then due to what your non water units are doing. They might be nice to have sometimes, but they're a dead end. I think if developers of this kind of game really wanted to make it work, then the way it needs to happen is, water units need to be in a completely different production queue from land units, and they don't even consume the same recruitment resource (like draft or production). They can cost gold to buy like any other unit, but it's just a deposit, there's a full refund if you disband the unit. Just embrace the temporary nature of the navy.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:06
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Bouquet posted:It was definitely better after the rebalance, but I'm still not sure it was in the perfect place. This is a pretty good breakdown. I would add that my own expansion into the water is almost always predicated on being able to get cosmite. The movement of barbarian forces in the water was always so big that they could roll into and wreck your expansion, so if I'm going there I'm going to need a Navy to defend it, and I'm almost always sure that other than giving me cosmite I wouldn't normally have, it's far slower and less efficient than just building on land.
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Apr 15, 2023 19:51
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Hryme posted:I would never have thought complaining on SA would lead to actual changes. Granted there was a user research test group that also pointed it out. Enough game devs became goons in their teens that every once in awhile you get one posting in the SA thread about games they're working on, and if the posters can restrain their bloodlust sometimes we can get edge cases someone has noticed polished down. The Age of Wonders thread has, I think, managed to never even browbeat Gerb into leaving the thread for awhile
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Apr 15, 2023 22:42
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Lowen posted:The fundamental problem is any water units you build are going to run out of stuff to do, or the game will end before then due to what your non water units are doing. They might be nice to have sometimes, but they're a dead end. Ehhhh that sounds pretty much like forcing the player to engage in the naval side-game. A ton of random poo poo from everyone and their dog, duking it out on the water for no real opportunity cost except having settled/taken a coastal city, and for what real end result after the sites are cleared? It sounds like nuisance fuel. I think just increasing the incentives for clearing and controlling the water works well enough. AOW3 did a pretty good job with this iirc, where water sites were relatively frequent, lucrative, and immediately useful to cities. Aquatic cosmite nodes are always pretty tempting, but some factions are better thaun others when it comes to actually fighting in the water. To give a different example, Endless Legend (which isn't really even the same type of the game except in the very loosest sense, but close enough where it counts for this comparison) has an insane amount of economic value locked up in its oceans with its naval-focused DLC. It's pretty much always worthwhile on maps with a decent chunk of seas for the player to go out of their way to get that poo poo locked down. Water being a piggy bank of rich sites you smash into feels better than water being an attention sink.
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Apr 16, 2023 13:03
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Just noticed the AoW4 steam page has the DLC mapped out already. 2023 Smaller DLC - Dragon Dawn Larger DLC - Empires and Ashes 2024 Smaller DLC - Primal Fury Larger DLC - Eldritch Realms
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Apr 16, 2023 13:40
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eldritch huh, maybe the demons and syrons will come back.
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Apr 16, 2023 18:04
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Here's the release with the descriptions of the new content.
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Apr 16, 2023 20:30
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Phetz posted:Here's the release with the descriptions of the new content. That description of Empire and Ashes sound a lot like it might have a culture similar to Dreadnought.
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Apr 16, 2023 22:02
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Primal Fury sounds perfect for a new Otter-kin faction imo.
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Apr 16, 2023 23:51
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Hiveminded posted:Ehhhh that sounds pretty much like forcing the player to engage in the naval side-game. A ton of random poo poo from everyone and their dog, duking it out on the water for no real opportunity cost except having settled/taken a coastal city, and for what real end result after the sites are cleared? It sounds like nuisance fuel. I think you missed a very important part of my post, it's at the very end: Lowen posted:...[naval units] can cost gold to buy like any other unit, but it's just a deposit, there's a full refund if you disband the unit. Just embrace the temporary nature of the navy. Your post makes zero sense as a response to mine unless you just didn't read that last bit. I see no reasons why my proposal wouldn't do a great job fixing the problems you claim want fixed. Do you still disagree? Also I think that the game design analysis you're doing is... not good. You start by saying that "forcing the player to engage in the naval side-game" is a problem you want to fix, and then you think a good way of doing that is by... Increasing the incentives for clearing and controlling the water? That's completely backwards. Everything you say is a good idea is completely contrary to the function you say you want it to have. Want to make something less of an attention sink? Give it less benefit. Want to make something more of an attention sink? Give it more. You somehow seem to think things work opposite to that. Personally I think my solution solves this fairly well, your navy gets created, does whatever job you needed it for, goes home, you get your money back (from the survivors) and can spend it on something else or keep it in reserve. Or if you have something else you want it to do naval wise you can keep the navy, there's still plenty of reason for you to make that choice if it makes sense. I've played so many 4X games across decades, and I've only played just one that balanced armies and navies well, so that they both felt like they had a unique, non time-sink purpose that fit together. Needless to say Imperialism 2 is a very different game from Age of Wonders. There are other ways to fix the issue in other 4X games, but they involve adding gameplay mechanics that don't exist in and would feel out of place in Age of Wonders. I am specifically talking about Age of Wonders or extremely similar games.
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Apr 17, 2023 01:06
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Alright. First: still disagree. To clarify explicitly, I think your suggested system of a new, separate production pool for naval has negligible opportunity cost and introduces by default a strong pressure to use that extra production. If there are things that need to be taken or objectives achieved on the water, sites or missions that provide energy/gold, then having a dedicated production queue for water units means there will be far more water units in circulation for every faction -- because, of course, more units means more clearing means more rewards means more units. (Unless the water is so completely barren and useless you wouldn't want to make any naval units at all in the first place, in which case it might as well not exist.) If there are tons of naval units on the waters and free production to spam out more, there will be a lot more naval poo poo going on across the board. This what I'm getting at by saying "forced to engage in the naval side-game." And the naval game is just inferior to the land one, on both the tactical and greedy-imperialist-that-wants-to-open-the-goody-hut/indie-site-lootbox strategic layers. Water is boring and pointless because there aren't any substantial stakes for investing the resources and attention to exploring and taking control of it. The sites and resources on ocean are mostly inferior and not as easy to capitalise on. Naval units can't be used to directly assault the big-deal objectives that are cities, either; their primary purpose really is just "efficient option for taking the one or two sites that are worth going out of the way to take." So where does this leave the naval mechanics of the game and the water map more generally? Empty space, literal desert but for a couple of valuable cosmite nodes and the rare instances where you *need* to traverse them because of dumb map settings or a weird expedient. These aspects of the game might as well not exist -- replace them with sandy land desert or whatever -- if there's no rewarding-feeling or interesting interaction they can offer the player. If naval nonsense exists as little more than setting set dressing for verisimilitude, it should just be removed if we want to scrutinise it purely from a game design standpoint. But, really, as someone that's also played way too many hours of these kinds of games, I prefer the feel of just having a richer map that offers more or unique rewards for spending your time on "separate" spaces like the sea.
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Apr 17, 2023 04:49
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