The Hero Rework - Age of Wonders 4 (MP) Basics

[@wepg]

Oh, also apparently an aux cable was loose for like the first 8 minutes of footage so that tiny electrical crackle you hear isn't just a figment of your imagination or spiders in your walls this time

[@wepg]

"Walker you could just rerecord that section" "Do... do you think I write scripts?"

[@roboticbears]

Thanks for the heads up; I really thought it was the spiders

[@wepg]

@roboticbears me too at first

[@vaevictusasmadi84]

Thank you for this nuanced strategic overview. I've found other guides either too simple or too stat-focused, but your explanation actually gave me insight I felt I was missing. Cheers!

[@blackleon1708]

That's why im subscribed, top tier content

[@wepg]

vibes

[@mithrals6659]

A friendly tip for video's like this where you look at abilities and talent trees; Let your mouse pointer rest on the thing you are talking about. Take your hand off the mouse while talking. Otherwise, good insight. Love it.

[@wepg]

Nah, frantic mouse movements are effectively my version of gesticulation. I tried to work on it, but it makes content creation impossible and also doesn't hurt anyone.

[@FullMoonAbove]

@@wepg I will second Mithrals statement and add that it does hurt people :)

[@wepg]

@@FullMoonAbove I'm not unsympathetic to the requirements of the average neurotypical, but as a neurodivergent content creator who has kinda taken a step back from human reality partially due to abuse *by* neurotypicals, I really can't make myself excited to put effort in on something I think people can just be empathetic about. I get too excited recording videos to want to control myself, and this has been an issue for two years, but I think largely people are willing to vibe with it and let me have fun. If it really bothers you, I think my videos work *perfectly* fine listened to as almost a podcast while playing the game. Visual aesthetics are really only one part of what makes content useful (hopefully). tl;dr - I really have tried to work on it but am 100% too autistic, if it drives you insane just listen to me in a tab (that's how I'd recommend most people who value their sanity interact with my content anyways- if you watch 100% of any of my videos you honestly had better explain yourself because they are my SECRET JOUIRNALSSSS *hissing sounds intensify*())))

[@ciscoytube5352]

Walker, thank you for your video. I almost didn't want to start a new game until you put something out about it. Looking forward to more.

[@wepg]

Glad I could help! It's a good patch.

[@daniebelle22]

personally loving ranger. starting with crow bow and then building to gun. think its dps together with the champion command abilities, and its ability to reset cool downs on kill, is a pretty fun combo. wllowys u to play with your banners more like one big unit. lot of bouncing back n forth between units on turns but been pretty fun.

[@wepg]

@@daniebelle22 100% I see how Rangers can be fun, but I think there's a way to make them fun for manuals vs AI (which I think should be the "balance" focus there) while also making them mechanically function in autos/PvP (which is where mechanical balance rather than fun balance should come from). It's delicate, but I think most people will find ways to have fun in manuals anyways, so I tend to focus more on "what is good" and Rangers don't work very well outside of manuals vs AI mechanically at the moment.

[@andrewwilson201]

Always enjoy your insight man. I’m pretty stoked about the dragon ruler changes. I’m not a stream watcher so I appreciate the YT love.

[@wepg]

Glad to hear it!

[@WinSlayaGaming]

Love it! Im going to watch this while getting my next aow4 video ready

[@wepg]

Bring Popcorn or an insanity filter

[@tharpin]

Really good video thanks !

[@szemyah]

i play a ranger and think with the skirmisher weapon, snapshot and immobilizing shots i have so much utility. being able to completely shut down a single melee unit and a second every other turn has a lot of value, at least for me. love it more than i thought i would. i was able to completely nullify 2 bone dragons in 2 fights on brutal difficulty in the early game. they did not get a single point of damage out on my units. in another fight i kept the enemy charge warrior hero out of the fight while wittling it and a second unit by myself, buying so much space for my other units.

[@wepg]

Yeah, the issue is precisely that- Rangers *look* like they function if you do manual fights vs the AI, but that's the worst case scenario for testing something to see how well it really functions. Basically *everything* functions when you are fighting against the AI, so it's impossible to assess balance. Autoresolves and MP are much, much better for checking to see how well something really beats, and in autos Rangers drastically underperform all other hero types until they get to like level 9 at a minimum, at which point the economic value of recruiting a hero (making your army stronger to clear things faster) has already been lost. I promise Rangers suck, I really don't think I could convince myself to lie to you for content even if I wanted to.

[@szemyah]

@wepg thanks for the reply, yeah i am sure you know what you are talking about. i was just surprised how good the ranger felt compared to my 2 ritualists. but i am just a casual pvai player and havent played any other heroes till now. will take a look at warrior and defender next. very informative video btw.

[@wepg]

"I kinda want to play a drinking game where I drink every time I say "I don't want to waste X's time," it sounds like it would be almost as much fun as the Shyamalan Avatar drinking game where you drink any time anyone mispronounces a name." "Walker go to sleep."

[@yeeterbohlen282]

Return of the King

[@SkyForceOne2]

i meeeaann... in CIV6 your army generates value for you too ;) capturing cities and especially pillaging (which can let u surpass the lategame 1-tech-per-turn restriction) is a vital strategy for lategame (and early/mid game, but thats quite more rare since u will fall behind)

[@wepg]

Yeah, I've conquered a lot of cities in Civ and built at least a few pieces of infrastructure in AoW4, but one of them is definitely more Khorne-coded and it's not Sid Meier's.

[@SkyForceOne2]

@@wepg yeah but i think your "3.5X" designation was a biiit harsh on CIV :P

[@wepg]

@@SkyForceOne2 Eh, I *hope* I made it clear from my admission that part of my procrastinating was jamming a bunch of Humankind that I love both 3.5x and 4x games. They just are *really* different in how you generally approach your economy and empire building, and Civ rewards pretty wildly different play styles from AoW4.

[@TheIlluvatar619]

Hello, nice video! note on eternal one: it is pretty bad in term of gameplay/impact, for sure. BUT it is pretty good in term of fantasy. It embrace the Liche fantasy, and its perfect for a solo run, as, your hero is the unkillable liche, whether it is good or not in term of metagaming, it is good in term of flavour.

[@wepg]

@@TheIlluvatar619 I think there are ways to make a Lich in game that would be both thematically cool as well as powerful, but the biggest problem there with just saying "flavor" is that it is the skill associated with Shadow capstone. You only get one, it should be flashy and cool, and instead it royally sucks in like 99% of battles.

[@TheIlluvatar619]

@@wepg you might be right. maybe adding to it "summon a zombie close to you every turn" (like the staff) would be better. or even, you get a phylactery, a unique item with special property. yea mb, was a too quick comment

[@wepg]

@@TheIlluvatar619 Yeah 100%, I think Gravecalling just being slapped onto Eternal One wouldn't even be impossibly powerful. The base skill mostly is flavortext from a game balance standpoint, and it would give me more zombies which is really all I want out of my Shadow affinity max skill anyways (either that or a skill that allows you to do *true* necromancy on a corpse that has been destroyed or consumed, but that might be mechanically impossible in game).

[@AeciusthePhilosopher]

15:00 I kinda consider that like "better resurgence" since you get heroes with it that die back if you win the battle. So if you win you get your hero back guaranteed; if you take a bit longer to win you get them back during the battle so they might still be able to contribute something. And since I already have the option to put grave caller on an item, infinite better resurgence is not bad.

[@wepg]

Yeah, but hero resurgence is just not a good ability. Casual players will play with hero resurgence always on during autos and sweaty players will tell you that if you *win* the big manual PvP battle, casualties are typically unimportant. Eternal One is not sweet.

[@gundalf1067]

Not sure if Defensive Master is the be all end all for Defender builds, because Pushing Attack, Stunning Bash and Rallying Cry already end in defence mode. The first 2 also only have a 1 round cooldown.

[@wepg]

Yeah, I kinda went back and forth on how to recommend building defenders precisely for that reason. Ultimately, though, I think that a.) basic taunt doesn't give defense mode and you basically always want it and b.) you really will get items and stuff you'll want to use in lieu of a meaningful number of the activated abilities anyways, as there are some really, really awesome things you can graft onto your hero via the item forge these days. You are 100% right though that it was one of those things that kept me up until 4 am last night. But really only a *small* thing.

[@cinderheart2720]

I've noticed that its a lot harder to increase hero's base stats now from leveling up, but I suspect that the item forge is meant to fill that void now, yes?

[@wepg]

@@cinderheart2720 Yeah, though there are still a ton of skills that have +random HP/def/res on them. Very important skills to be on the look for after your core power skills imo.

[@SkyForceOne2]

with all the new dlcs and updates, I just hope that the game wont suffer from "PDX Interactive Disease", namely taking out mechanics, mildly revamping them, and selling them back to you so you end up with 30+ DLCs for a total of 300€+... but so far, the update content seems to be well removed from the DLC content (mechanics and scalign wise), so it's atleast not as bad as it could be.

[@wepg]

Yeah, honestly so far my biggest gripe with Triumph is that Alchemy is almost a prereq for competitive (Corruption is sometimes still banned) but effectively everything else in DLCs isn't pure Pay-to-Win. That's excellent design space in my book.

[@Skull.man00]

Hey. The video takes a 1 hour to watch, so I will watch it step by step, especially cause the Tiger update is a little confusing because of all the stuff that was added. Besides that, if you have Empire & Ashes dlc, try: -race with arctic adaptation -reaver culture -society traits: reclaimers and merciless slavers - champion as leader equipped with sword & pistol - tome of cryomancy. During gameplay raid and raze every city you encounter, craft tier IV equipment, and go into every tome of shadow that does not require souls (there are four, one for every tier beside tier V). For second tomes go into the ones added with empire & ashes. Or second idea: -go high culture. Also arctic adaptation -pick wonder architects and scions of evil society traits. - champion as leader, equipped with sword & shield - tome of cryomancy for start and go into tomes of shadow that does not require souls to use. -as second tomes, go into order tomes, but only those that unlock stuff like zealots of inquisitors. When time comes go into tier V of order tome. -once you unlock the required tome, spam Inquisitors and awakeners/sun priests. I created two factions like this. Eflkin with dark greyish skin as race. If you want try it out. In my experience both of them are op since turn 15-25, depending on how you play.

[@wepg]

Do you play manuals vs the map? Largely my content is geared more towards people who are on autoresolve-only or MP, which condenses the meta pretty significantly as your economy *needs* to allow for losses in combat.

[@Skull.man00]

@wepg I'm only playing offline, and for the idea with high culture I can't really say that the stuff you pointed out really apply for them. But for Reavers idea, if there are free cities on the map somewhat near you, then you can get both money and forge essence pretty quickly. On top of that, having merciless slavers as society trait can really boost up your cities population. It could maybe work really well with both merciless slavers and chosen destroyers, but I never tested it. In theory, this would make a true warmonger race. I'm usually playing on auto resolve since manual battles take too long. So yeah, for bigger economy, Imo Reavers would be good. But yeah, you would need to test it yourself. Btw. That's only a idea/recommendation. In my experience both of them are quite op, so I thought, what if someone else would try it and see it for himself if its actually good.

[@NightWhisper8462]

Prospector is still a selectable ambition for your ruler, it's odd that it isn't on your screen as it should be between Raider and Privateer.

[@wepg]

@@NightWhisper8462 I think you are on an older patch, it should be unavailable.

[@NightWhisper8462]

@@wepg Just verified my files and I can still select it for my rulers

[@wepg]

@NightWhisper8462 which beta branch?

[@NightWhisper8462]

@@wepg None, I generally just play the base game so maybe if you're on a beta then that could be the reason, maybe it's planned to be removed.

[@wepg]

@NightWhisper8462 so Triumph did something weird this patch where they actually released an *older* patch with the DLC while they continued to work on the open beta, which iirc is supposed to merge with the older "base" patch today at some point. Keep an eye out for it.

[@geoffreyromain]

insanely low quality thumbnail is craZy

[@DenverZenn]

It's unironically why I found the video. I didn't even know they were doing a rework.

[@geoffreyromain]

@@DenverZenn SAME lol

[@wepg]

My thumbnailing is designed to emulate as much as possible the experience of the Avatar in the Lost Library of Wan Shi Tong- *extremely* unhelpful in one dimension, and precisely useful in another. If someone out there is an artist and sends me an email offering to redo thumbnails, I promise I'm not trying to be rude when I don't reply, but if you think I'm trying to *optimize content views* on this channel you have absolutely no idea. I'm just trying to mask off "what happens when an autistic boy who refused to learn how to tie shoelaces until he was 8 because it seemed like a waste of time because flip flops are the superior footwear and now he has a channel."

[@geoffreyromain]

@@wepg Amazing show

[@knowonewillknow7080]

I see they copied the research notes from Dnd class system with the ranger of being a bad class 😂

[@wepg]

@@knowonewillknow7080 Yeah man, though I do think that this one is pretty easily fixable with a few upgrades here and there.