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If you want to be a wizard focused on ice, using you know, basic ice based attacks? You need to be a Dark champion. Or you need to play and finish a handful of completely unrelated games first, to gather enough points to unlock the ice staff. Can't do it as a first playthrough (unless you play a Dark champion) no,no,no. You wanted an orb? Too bad.
If you want to focus on fire? You need to play an Industrious champion, because only those get fire orbs and staffs, to get it as a wizard king, you have to use mods...
But you are in luck if you wanted to focus on spirit. Feudal and High champions get spirit orbs and staff, the Wizard King still gets the staff. Order based Industrious champion? No such luck.
And what do you get for ascending? The leader you played as is going to turn up again at some point, but not as they were when they ascended, no, from before you started playing them...
Without the transformations they had, any of the experience they collected, the equipment they had... Not even visual or name changes. What you thought that beard did not fit? Well you need to delete them now and play and win again with the new beard.
So the game you played did not matter at all in the end. Not for the pantheon anyway. Might as well just play 1v1 on a small map and get vassalized for a quick ascension. Does not make a difference.
I'm sorry, but I can not see any appeal to this.
The Empire mode in Planetfall did it right. It is a separate mode, which does not take anything away from the normal selection of options (which always included one weapon from your secret tech choice, the equivalent of tomes in this game, with further choices unlocked by research in game), and you had actual progress between maps for your selected group of heroes. They would slowly level up, and the more you played with them the more established and powerful they became. Getting attached to my heroes because I played them over multiple maps and saw them grow? Wow!
To balance this out a bit, the planets you played on could get more and more dangerous, way past what you could get outside of empire mode. But with the unlockable relics you could also get access to things you normally could not, like NPC faction units. Those were rewards you got for winning on a planet with a special modifier that was connected to the relic.
A thematic connection between what I played and what I got? What is this sorcery?
Also you could have multiple empires saved, with their own flag, name, description, hero roster, and history. It was a way to play even longer games over multiple maps, but still connected. Without impacting the base game.
Oh and you could edit your empire heroes at any time between maps. Did not like the look of this outfit? Just change it for the next time. Had a typo in the name? Oh well, happens, just change it. You want to add a scar to the heroes face, to commemorate a tough fight he was involved in on the last planet? Have at it.
Now we can change all that while playing, but it does not seem like the game likes to remember that.
It was a mode to have more fun in an already fun game, not a carrot on a stick dangling minor cosmetics and basic choices in front of us locked behind collecting points by playing.
Oh yes, and overpowered society traits. I guess that part stuck around, but is not nearly as interesting this time as being able to build RPR units.
Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying AoW4, but some of the design decisions are just baffling to me. I can not see anything this pantheon system brings to the table that could not have been better as just a basic choice.
Want customized heroes? Have a hero editor, that lets you do that. I mean we already customize our leaders, its not much difference is it?
Want custom leaders as opponents? Well you already have that. So why add it again locked behind finishing a game? Whats the point?
Why not just have "hero" and "leader" checkmarks next to every custom and premade leader, so you can just choose who gets to appear in your games and how?
Want more starting equipment choices? Have a choice fitting for the first tome you picked, as in the previous game. Like fire orb and/or staff being unlocked by choosing the tome of pyromancy. And here is a crazy idea, have higher tier tomes unlock some equipment too... Just as an optional alternative to scraping the map clean to find a useful equipment item, while the AI gets them mass produced.
Want more cosmetic choices? Why not just have them available? Whats the harm in someone choosing a nice outfit the first time they play?
So what is the benefit of it exactly?
"Persistent progression"? Which just means if I ever install this game on another computer, I have to also transfer my save files in order to have access to the things I am then used to having. Instead of just playing the game because all the progression is in the game. Or I have to spend an hour or more exploiting vassalization to get my pantheon unlocks.
Anything else?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976747649
If you like the Pantheon, you should check out how Wildermyth is doing it which focuses a big portion of their game on such. While I think Age of Wonders 4 did something with the right idea, it is lacking in so many ways that I wonder how much it was a good idea actually.
There is simply too much wasted potential on its usage.
Not going to debate you. You disagree, and that's fine.
But this last part makes no sense... unless you are not playing AoW 4 on Steam. Also, many other games feature persistent progression. Not sure how your concern in that regard is valid.
I do play on Steam, that does not mean that I want to use the Steam cloud which messes up my files for all games, and delays every game start and shutdown. And the only step this would skip is putting the files on a stick or my own cloud.
It does not change that they need to be transferred somehow, if I want access to the unlocks without either replaying hundreds of hours, or using an exploit to "quickly" unlock it. It also does not change that I don't like having to keep the bloat, when I want to have a fresh installation, just to have access to some basic choices.
You know, like the previous AoW games, where I could just install the game on a laptop, without transferring any saves and settings, and just start playing how I want, because I have access to all customization options from the start.
Yes, other games have it. So I have to like it in this game? That does not make sense.
Why even bring up other games? Some people like football, so I have to like it too? Some people watch TV all day, so I have to like that too? I would assume you have your own opinions and preferences, right? Or do you always choose to like what someone else likes?
I would also not call this "progression" in the first place, whether its persistent or not. Its just basic choices locked behind a "have you played the game often enough yet?" gate.
I'll ask again: Does the pantheon give you any actual benefits? Or is it just that "Number goes up" makes you feel good for some reason? I would like to hear what makes it such a great idea, compared to just having these options from the start, in your opinion.
We don't have to agree in order to exchange arguments or opinions.
1. Utilizing Steam eliminates and has eliminated care & concern for porting over savegames and config files. Period. If you are using Steam in some way that eliminates this dispensation with a headache of yore... ok.
2. Plenty of games feature grind, progression, and unlocks. Long-term. It is indeed an "open treasure chest" psychopathy. When I say plenty of games, I'm talking like 99% of them, from Diablo skills & equipment, to Payday 2 weaponry & cosmetics, to a bazillion other games.
Having this in an AoW game is indeed a bonus. A plus.
You say the point about countless other games featuring such is irrelevant. Alright. Obviously I disagree strongly.
Persistent progression of some sort is a (positively!) addicting trait, most exemplified by the entire genre of reverse bullet-Hell shooters out there. If you prefer the purity of a contest, also... ok.
I do not. I enjoy such qualities in the games I play. Especially in the long term.
3. Your complaint about progression enters a strange philosophical realm. So to you is real *progression* only the defeat of enemies? Advancement to a next level? The unlocking of equipment, traits, abilities or aesthetics to you is **not** progression? Honestly, I don't care. Rhetorical query, since I like what I like and you like what you like. Hopefully the devs expand and expound upon what they have already implemented.
And there's no way to edit them at all once they're in the pantheon.
And there's no way to configure leader personalities and spell priorities, so often they have really weird alignments and racial transformations, and you have no way to choose which racial transformations they show up with or avoid.
So like that evil dark elf you created to do a demonic ascension and razed enemy cities with will show up as a good aligned diplomat with leafskin or something.
And I don't play most of those games. Precisely because most of them focus too much on that, instead of on making the game fun to play. I liked Diablo, it was fun sometimes. I don't play the newer ones.
I don't like grind in games, period. I don't get paid to play, I pay to play. I don't want to pay to work long for small rewards. I pay to play for relaxed entertainment.
I don't think I have ever played a "reverse bullet-hell shooter". I have tried some bullet-hell shooters...
I am not saying it can't be done well, though I usually prefer systems that enhance the game instead of trying to make me addicted to it, by locking away options. "Fun" is more addicting to me than points or unlocks. It may be a strange concept nowadays.
Ok, some examples of what I consider progression vs what not (rhetorical or not, maybe I should clarify):
+ Upgrading my city to tier 3 to access tier 3 units is progression (though of course this is not the persistent kind).
- Play X amount of games to unlock a new hat is not.
+ Finishing the first story realm before getting access to the second, and so on, is progression (this time a persistent kind, at least in this game and some others).
- Having thematic starting equipment taken away, and given back piecemeal after X amount of games, and/or DLCs is not.
+ Playing with a leader/hero for several games, and them growing stronger from it, and keeping at least some changes on the way (like in PF empire mode), is progression.
- Having to finish a game to have your leader join you in the next as a worse hero than those you get anyways, or as an opponent which he could before you finished that game, is not.
I too hope the devs expand upon it though, believe it or not. In a way that does not lock more basic choices away, but in a way that makes it feel like actual progression.
You can also found cities then release them as vassals, and since the AI cheats, they start generating income for you rather quickly, and with Covenant of Faith from the Beacon tome you can also get +5 prestige points from every vassal, and can use their Rally of the Leiges for recruitment without reduced unit upkeep.
If you play on a huge map (with the official mod) and do this you get a LOT of Pantheon Points this way. You can get almost half your pantheon upgrades in a single game this way.
But of course once you're past all the progression you start noticing the problems I've complained about.
Just about this,
Vampire Survivors.
A reverse bullet-Hell shooter is the opposite of a bullet-Hell shooter. The latter is you in a storm of bullets, the former is you *producing* a storm of bullets. Vampire Survivors spawned an entire genre, and there are now likely a HUNDRED such games out there now.