Thinking of buying but have some questions...

[Teppic]

Hi all,

Hopefully you can help me decide whether this game is worth a purchase!

So looking to play this 4 player co-op, does the game hold up well with that many players i.e. multiplayer is designed in and not some afterthought to a primarily solo game?

If I buy the mercenaries edition do all the players need the same DLC or can they just have the base game?

If we just go with the base game can we add the expansions later and continue from where we are? Is any DLC only worthwhile if you add them in from the start?

Thanks in advance!

[Doom_Cookies]

This is long, but should answer everything in detail.

Fair warning that the way multiplayer save files work has been revamped recently, and this has purportedly introduced a bug that some players have reported which stops multiplayer saves from being loaded, which is obviously gamebreaking. I'm not sure if this has been fixed yet or not, or how common an issue it is.

Multiplayer in Wartales feels a bit janky, though fun all the same. I'd say it was probably tacked on to a singleplayer experience, yes.

This may have changed in the revamp, but as far as I know it has not: there is a host player who has the save on their computer locally. The save can only be loaded by them, meaning none of the other players can play without them. The host must be there. You also didn't used to be able to change how many players there were in a multiplayer save (or who those players were), so it used to require all the players to be there for the save to load, but I believe changing this was one of the key points of the recent multiplayer save revamp.

On the world map, you'll all show up on the world map when exploring, but you must all stay within spitting distance of each other, as the camera forces all of you to be on screen at the same time, so there's no individual exploration beyond what's immediately visible. If one of you enter combat or dialogue, then all of you do. For any of you to enter a town/location, all of you must be near it or the game will tell you that some people are too far away. You can all gather materials, though.

In multiplayer, there is still only one mercenary troop, but the mercenaries of that troop are split among each player. Each player needs to control at least one mercenary. Players will be responsible for everything with their mercenaries - levelup choices, equipment, profession (crafting and gathering) minigames, and combat turns. The other players don't even see mercenaries they don't control on their mercenary list (but can see them standing around in camp to inspect them).

Because there is only one troop, the entire troop shares inventory space, but not inventory. This sounds confusing, so, to clarify... Every player has a separate inventory, but all those inventories are added together to count toward the troop's total inventory weight limit. You cannot use items out of each others' inventories, or even see what others are carrying. Items can be "shared" by putting them in a camp chest, an inventory everyone can access. Items in the camp chest need to be withdrawn before they can be used, but it's the best way to store food for Rest and materials for crafting that you have on-hand, as there's usually overlap on materials between professions. Due to all this, coordinating your inventories is important.

In combat, in single player, you can choose to move any unit during a player turn rather than there being a predetermined unit turn order. In multiplayer, this is still true, and any player may start moving one of their mercenaries and "steal" the turn from everyone else, so speaking up if you want to move next is recommended.

For DLC, all players must own the DLC for the DLC to be active in the multiplayer save. If you all start a multiplayer save without DLC and buy a DLC later, it will become active in that save and you can use it as normal.

As for whether the DLC are worth it, I'll quote another post I made the other day which describes the ones included in Mercenary Edition to some extent:

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

Pirates of Belerion is an actual expansion to the world. A new zone, with all the trappings that you'll come to expect a zone to have from basegame, and a sailing gimmick as the primary method of travel with ship-boarding combat maps that have some unique mechanics to them. It's a lot of fun, and a nice change of pace from the main game without being something entirely different like the other two DLC that come in this edition. Also required to unlock legendary weapons and Arena specialization for the Pugilist class.

The Tavern Opens! is a crapton of convenience features pretending to be a tavern minigame. You can't really fail at running your tavern, so the enjoyment comes from maximizing your profits and the little bits of dialogue from NPCs of various factions. Mainly, though, it's for convenience. It allows you to reserve currently unneeded mercenaries at the tavern from any location, can be used as a source of combat experience, can be used as a source of profession experience for four specific professions, completely turns the game's economy and resource management systems on its head (though you can also do this without it), allows you to learn most of the recipes for the Brewer profession, and adds loads of food recipes to the game. And even more, if you use what the DLC offers you cleverly.

The Pits just adds five locations to the game that are underground fighting rings. Each location has five themed fights with unique gimmicks that can be done on Normal and Hard mode (the rules of the match changing a bit depending on choice), for a total of 50 fights. Each fight gives you 1 point toward earning rewards in a progression, and there are 50 points total for 50 rewards. In addition, each location completed gives you a unique piece of legendary gear, usually with a powerful, unique effect.

It's hard to say if it's worth it or not, as it depends on how you'll like these varied DLCs. I personally enjoyed all of the DLC aside from The Pits (which I enjoyed the first time around, but will surely feel forced to do for the cool rewards every time going forward), but many people dislike either The Tavern Opens! or The Pits. Most players like Pirates of Belerion, since it's just more of the same game to play, a proper expansion.

To add, I'm not sure how sailing in Pirates of Belerion works on multiplayer. I'd assume only the host controls the ship, or whoever controls the Helmsman mercenary, but I can't say for sure.

The new DLC, The Skelmar Invasion, is another legitimate world expansion like Pirates of Belerion, with a new zone with some new gimmicks and the like. I've really enjoyed it, just like I really enjoyed Pirates. And like Pirates, it's required to unlock the legendary weapons and Arena specialization for the Crossbowman class that came out at the same time as the DLC.

None of the DLC are only worthwhile if added at the start, though The Tavern Opens! can have immediate effects on the game's economy and resource management and all its convenience features can be nice. If you play on Adaptive mode (level scaling - the game was designed with this in mind, but it's optional), you can visit any of the DLC content from the get-go if you want to.

[Teppic]

Thank you for the exhaustive reply, I really appreciate it. Looking like i'll try to persuade the group to go in on the base game and tavern, potentially adding in more as we go along. Hopefully we won't hit that multiplayer bug though!

[Doom_Cookies]

Hopefully it's been fixed. Good luck!