Why did they get rid of races as a meaningful mechanic?

[CrabNicholson]

Look at what AOW3 had:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2282711443

Look at all these meaningful race/class interactions. Not only did each race have unique units, it also modified the shared units that were unlocked by class.

Where are the Dwarven Firstborns? Where are the Frost Tanks? AOW4 has none of these. Races no longer have any distinct identity whatsoever now. You no longer have these unique units and unit modifiers that give flavor to a race. It was traded away for generic modifiers like "+2 defense". These generic modifiers will be min-maxed at the start of a game and then forgotten about.

What was the point of this change? Role-playing? I hear that idea thrown around a lot but it makes no sense. You could already role-play as industrious elves or barbaric dwarfs. Just choose Elf Dreadnought or Dwarf Archdruid. Then, you would actually have a completely unique spin on the culture based on your race, which adds to the immersion. Each race had its own distinctive playstyle, like goblins having larger stacks and focusing on poison damage, to give the idea of a weak race that swarms opponents and fights dirty. While orcs were towering behemoths that dominated in melee. If anything, the role-playing immersion is broken by the fact that an equal number of scrawny, small goblins of the same unit type are exactly as strong as a squad of giant musclebound orcs.

So this change reduces the meaningful amount of customization, it is bad for roleplaying... it seems like it was just a cut corner.

[Anarchy Burger]

Originally posted by Butcher:

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

good thing perks aren't the only customization options

And those customization options can't give proper dwarves, both durable and having underground adaptation.

well adjust your concept of proper dwarves then I guess

[Anarchy Burger]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

I dunno is your entire ability to roleplay based around that?

You mean is my immersion based around cat people behaving like cats in some meaningful way?

I guess thats a yes

[Overlord Byron]

Loads of people were upset with any race being combined with Amy class in AoW3. Until the game came out and they weren't.

These are sacred cows up until the point where you kill them. In original D&D elves and dwarves were their own class. In Advanced D&D races and classes were separated, and non-human could pick from a smaller pool of classes. In 3rd edition class restrictions were removed, and any race could play any class. In 5E they further removed alignment restrictions for classes, race preferences for multi-classing, and racial penalties to ability scores.

I've seen initial push back to a lot of these choices, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was considerable critique of ALL of them. But the games came out and each of them enjoyed a greater of support than previous iterations. Critics adapted or got over it. A lot of the things people thought were extremely important, weren't.

[CrabNicholson]

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

Originally posted by Butcher:

And those customization options can't give proper dwarves, both durable and having underground adaptation.

well adjust your concept of proper dwarves then I guess

"You have so many customization options!"
"Can I make a basic dwarf that likes living underground?"
"No."

[Roderick]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Am I not allowed to have critical opinions on something? If I watch a movie and see aspects of the movie that are bad, is it my fault? Am I not allowed to point them out? Maybe I'm not allowed to dislike Matrix 2 and 3 because Matrix 1 exists?

I just try to get your point. Some series continue the faction of older installments, some factions get removed, some altered. I don't get your point of pointing out that the createable factions of AoW4 don't have the feature of factions from AoW III anymore.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

Originally posted by Butcher:

And those customization options can't give proper dwarves, both durable and having underground adaptation.

well adjust your concept of proper dwarves then I guess

Nah, I will just accept that at most we will get height-challenged humans.

With point buy you could make them durable and undergound adaptive, with drawbacks like reduced population increase and more expensive units. But well, I guess roleplaying lacks true freedom

[Roderick]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

well adjust your concept of proper dwarves then I guess

"You have so many customization options!"
"Can I make a basic dwarf that likes living underground?"
"No."

You are able to make dwarfs with underground adaptation. So that is a "Yes".

[Anarchy Burger]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

well adjust your concept of proper dwarves then I guess

"You have so many customization options!"
"Can I make a basic dwarf that likes living underground?"
"No."

Except you can?

[CrabNicholson]

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

You mean is my immersion based around cat people behaving like cats in some meaningful way?

I guess thats a yes

Generally, yes, my immersion is based around fantasy creatures behaving in a way that is flavorful and unique, like cat people behaving like cats, with abilities like being able to sprint and pounce, abilities like these go a long way towards establishing the setting and making it immersive.

When you see a fire giant on the map, do you think "oh, this is surely a weak enemy"? You are able to look at a giant, and understand the concept of a giant as a large and threatening foe.

The entire fundamental premise of fantasy is that is plays on subconscious archetypes like these.

[Anarchy Burger]

Originally posted by Butcher:

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

well adjust your concept of proper dwarves then I guess

Nah, I will just accept that at most we will get height-challenged humans.

With point buy you could make them durable and undergound adaptive, with drawbacks like reduced population increase and more expensive units. But well, I guess roleplaying lacks true freedom :FrogPepe:

cool meanwhile I'll have no problem playing some fun dwarf combos

[Anarchy Burger]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

I guess thats a yes

Generally, yes, my immersion is based around fantasy creatures behaving in a way that is flavorful and unique, like cat people behaving like cats, with abilities like being able to sprint and pounce, abilities like these go a long way towards establishing the setting and making it immersive.

When you see a fire giant on the map, do you think "oh, this is surely a weak enemy"? You are able to look at a giant, and understand the concept of a giant as a large and threatening foe.

The entire fundamental premise of fantasy is that is plays on subconscious archetypes like these.

welp time to broaden those horizons and stop judging a book by its cover

[Overlord Byron]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

When you see a fire giant on the map, do you think "oh, this is surely a weak enemy"?

I've played Master of Magic, so...yes.

As an aside, I believe the only cat-like inherent trait that Tigrans shared in their introductory game was Night Vision.

[CrabNicholson]

Originally posted by Roderick:

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Am I not allowed to have critical opinions on something? If I watch a movie and see aspects of the movie that are bad, is it my fault? Am I not allowed to point them out? Maybe I'm not allowed to dislike Matrix 2 and 3 because Matrix 1 exists?

I just try to get your point. Some series continue the faction of older installments, some factions get removed, some altered. I don't get your point of pointing out that the createable factions of AoW4 don't have the feature of factions from AoW III anymore.

My point is, that the distinctive unit combinations of AOW3 have been removed in favor of generic Stellaris-style stat bonuses which don't give any unique spells, or units, or activated abilities. In AOW3 everything had a very distinctive look and feel, and the gameplay mechanics were immersive and added to the idea of each race and class being distinct and behaving on the battlefield in a way that is characteristic.

Now, it seems like you can just stack together numerical bonuses, but all that original flavor is lost. I am not very familiar with the Tome system. I am assuming that all the spells/units/abilities were backloaded onto Tomes, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that you can start as a nature-loving elf faction and I can start as industrious dwarves, and we both end up with Tier V Nature Tomes because we both decided that was the best tome in the meta (hypothetically). So it just becomes a game of minimaxing without any flavorful distinctiveness.

[Anarchy Burger]

Maybe educate yourself on the tome system then before you pass judgement. Its very indepth

[CrabNicholson]

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Generally, yes, my immersion is based around fantasy creatures behaving in a way that is flavorful and unique, like cat people behaving like cats, with abilities like being able to sprint and pounce, abilities like these go a long way towards establishing the setting and making it immersive.

When you see a fire giant on the map, do you think "oh, this is surely a weak enemy"? You are able to look at a giant, and understand the concept of a giant as a large and threatening foe.

The entire fundamental premise of fantasy is that is plays on subconscious archetypes like these.

welp time to broaden those horizons and stop judging a book by its cover

Well I opened the book on flavor and it was blank inside, so that is a little concerning.