Greetings Godir and Mortal alike, I am Thomas Schuiten, Designer at Triumph, and today i finally get to show you the greatest post-release rework Triumph has ever done; The Hero Rework!
With the upcoming release of Ways of War on November 5th, we are as always including a free update, Tiger Update, which will strengthen the base game, this time focusing on Heroes, Governance and Ambition!
Likewise this too, is a story of Heroes, (attempted) Governance and certainly a lot of Ambition, so grab your astral dew, get your reading glasses out and join me as I attempt to explain it all!
Behold, the behemoth.
This board is where I compiled all the skills and designed the classes, origins, affinity skills etc. You will see the relevant places more up close further down, rest assured there is (some) order in this chaos!
The Problems
Heroes as they were at release were functional, adaptable and easy to expand upon. The open selection system has served Age of Wonders well in the past, but some of the need for that adaptability was lessened with the introduction of the Item Forge and with Tiger Patch a much smarter item reward system. However, much more importantly for our story today, it brought with it several problems, problems that could not easily be solved.
To start off the rework i collected feedback and combined it with our own observations to make a list of the problems we would seek to tackle with the new design, i have added in italics a quick summary of what part of the new design ended up addressing that point:
- Homogenization of heroes[list]
- All heroes have access to the same set of skills and can swap weapons at any time, contributing to a lack of identity.
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- Battle mage is considered weak compared to Warfare, and Support is very concentrated in a select few powerful effects.
- Randomization makes it hard to build character with these
- Small pool makes builds quite homogenous in terms of signature skills
- Internal balance is off and causes certain signatures to never be taken
- Often chosen based on the affinity reward on rulers
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- Heroes are meant as army leaders but are often easily specialized into being powerful combat units instead leading to them having less identity than hoped.
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- Heroes’ Identity is entirely carried by the background trait, which simply does not do enough on its own.
The Solutions
No single change could cover all of the outlined problems in one go, but we could be efficient with the design and cover multiple bases with each change. Here I will give a basic outline of the changes before going into depth in their own sections.
The major changes can be broken down into the following areas: Hero Advancement, Governance and Narrative.
Hero Advancement
Heroes will gain a set of Skill Trees from which they can pick their skills whenever they level up. The skill trees available to the hero will depend on 3 sources: Origin, Class and Signature Skills.
Each source adds a tree of options to that the hero may choose their skills from as they gain levels.
Origin would express the hero’s well… origin, it is what they are. This is meant to separate a Mortal Champion from a Dragon Lord. This meant that Wizard Kings and Mortal Champions would finally have their own unique skill set available only to them.
Class will express a heroes’ talents, each has a general direction but allow for further specialization towards particular roles within it. A Defender for example is hardy and dependable, but can lean into the role of an Infantry polearm hero or a shield that defends those around them!
Signature Skills are a big change from the past, these will now instead generally express the influence of the Empire’s Affinity upon the hero, rather than being randomized and for rulers doing the opposite. The hero will choose signature skills from options based on the empire’s affinity, each granting a boost to the army they lead and giving new hero skill options that fit that affinity!
Thanks to the skill tree structure combined with the class system we can really up the power level and specificity of hero skills, where previously having a hero gain a barrage attack would have a whole host of problems such as them not wielding the correct weapon, the ability not scaling as the game progresses and it being yet another ability on a hero that can get too many already, now it can be a unique choice that later skills can build upon to further empower it in unique ways and let it remain a valid choice for use in combat!
Governance
Heroes will each gain a Governance Trait, this determines the effects they have on their Governed City. This replaces the old hero affinity based income bonus with a more clear and noticeable effect.
These Governance traits would scale as the game progresses and the hero gains Renown.
Narrative
Heroes will now each have Ambitions, goals they seek to achieve, granting them Renown that improves their Governance effects. These Ambitions give a narrative expression of what the Hero personally wants, and give a unique hero skill when the major ambition is completed.
What is a Hero now?
As an overview, a Hero in the new system is made up of 3 factors:
- Their Class, which grants access to the largest “main” skill tree, the class of rulers is determined by their loadout choice.[list]
- Defender, defensive, melee only, supportive and hard to kill.
- Warrior, offensive, melee only, high damage and fast.
- Mage, magic damage at range, area of effect and control through status effects.
- Ritualist, (magical) support, buffing allies, healing and summoning.
- Ranger, pure offensive, ranged damage, skirmishing, disruptive.
- Mortal Champion[list]
- Specialized in Army leadership
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- Specialized in Spellcasting
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- Specialized in unique Combat skills
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- Specialized in strategic rituals and control
- For Champions and Wizard Kings these became Affinity Dedications[list]
- Heroes can pick affinity dedications that their empire has the correct affinity for. [list]
- They do not, themselves, grant Affinity.
- Dragon Lord heroes still gain access to the 2 affinity skill options, similar to Champions and Wizard Kings.
- Dragon Lord Signature skills do not have affinity requirements.
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- Eldritch Sovereign Signature skills do not have affinity requirements
There is a lot of detail to go into here so I will go step by step, starting with the largest component of a Hero: Classes.
Classes
When I began exploring the class concept I set a ground rule that each class should be able to be built to fill roughly two different “Roles”, this would help ensure the system isn't too restrictive and allow for creative builds within it.
The first step was identifying player fantasies for their heroes, what did players want their heroes to be? What could already be done and how? And what could not be done yet, and why not?
Having created what is effectively a pile of dorky fantasies, I grouped them based on the rough role they would have in our combat system. A knight would for example be a Shock Unit in combat, so whichever class was going to contain the Shock unit role would have to support Knight as a fantasy, while also accounting for the charging barbarian with a greataxe.
I will go over each class, what fantasies they were meant to embody, how they try to do so and maybe some interesting tidbits here and there too!
Defender
Expected Role(s): Polearm, Shield
Strengths: High defenses, high health, strong options for Retaliations and defending others.
Weaknesses: No Ranged attacks, low damage output
Weapons: Polearm, One Handed Melee (and shield)
The Defender was the first class I designed the content for, for the first iteration we tried to simply re-use existing skills for this. I knew from the initial design this would be unlikely to hold up all the way until release but it gave us a good guideline for what may work and let us test the system in its simplest form.
Like most Class skill trees I divided it roughly into 3 sections, a center section with generalist skills where most stat increases can be found, and the two sides, each hosting skills more suited to a particular specialization the class is capable of. In the Defender’s case these were “Infantry” and “Shield”.
The Infantry side specializes in retaliations and is more individual, leaning into the polearm role. While the Shield side specializes in the use of defense mode and holding formation with allies.
First iteration of the Defender skill tree, note the central column contains primarily stat improvements while the sides had all the juicy stuff in this version.
This design worked as intended and proved the concept could work, but it lacked the opportunity for creativity I wanted and feedback from testing showed it was definitely noticeable. Additionally it was simply too passive and lacked particularly exciting abilities that set the hero apart.
The creativity issue is visible in the “columns” formed in this design, it meant that often picking 1 skill just locked you in to picking the ones below it, which reduces the number of variants you could make within the tree significantly.
So after we got the other classes functional I had another go at the Defender with the aim to improve build options within it and allow for much more creative use of the skills. I also added more active abilities since the original version lacked these quite severely.
Current (final) version of Defender, Note that there is much more crossover between the sections and several new skills to help fill out the roster.
And here it is in game, as demonstrated on my Dragon Lord who is going hard into their Shield Defense!
There we go, that is a nice web of chaos! In the final iteration I allowed for much more connectivity between the branches which should allow for more unconventional builds. I also added three active abilities, one for each “type” of Defender;
A Pushing attack for defenders focused on damage, with specialization options to make it more defensive for those who want to use it while stuck in, or more aggressive for initiating combat or shifting the frontline!
Taunt is an obvious classic that was simply lacking in the first version, and Stunning bash fills the role of a shield bash, letting the hero contribute directly to the battle while still entering their empowered defense mode.
Warrior
Expected Role(s): Shock, Fighter (Damage)
Strengths: High damage, High mobility, individual unit power
Weaknesses: No Ranged attacks, low defense and resistance, no support ability
Weapons: Great Weapons, Polearms, One Handed Melee (and shield).
Warrior covers a lot of separate themes, the noble knight and the unstoppable barbarian both should be formed out of its components. It focuses a lot on the power of the hero themselves, eschewing any and all support abilities. They can be surprisingly hard to truly take down thanks to their access to health and self healing in combat. They always risk being focused down on their own however, lacking the access to Defense and Resistance that the Defender has.
The Warrior is subdivided into “Shock Trooper” on the left which specializes in enhancing charge attacks and the “Berserker” on the right side which excels in sustained combat and repeating attacks.
The old Warrior skill tree, very similar in setup to that of the first Defender.
Being designed second, this initial design had similar issues to the Defender’s first version, but had an even more extreme issue of segmentation, where players would pick columns instead of individual skills, which led to much less build variety than was acceptable or intended. This tree too, got a big pass once the others were completed, adding more active skills and rearranging it significantly.
Ah, now we are cooking, cooking spaghetti that is, but the tasty, enjoyable kind! Much more interconnectivity between the skills to explore, letting the hero be built in much more varied ways than before.
And here it is in game, this particular warrior is aiming for a build around an aggressive charge, quickly slaying their opponent with one swift strike before using second wind to recover and reposition!
The warrior, just like the defender, lacked active skills in their first iteration which was addressed here, giving them a bit more flash.
Second wind in particular is worth highlighting, as it is part of the “Streamlining” I have tried to do with hero abilities to address the ability bloat. Second Wind is a mashup of the old Sprint ability and Bloodlust (Barbarian culture), the effect of sprint was lessened a bit to move it out of the territory of the Skirmishers and make it a more versatile tool for warriors, the extra movement and slippery lets the hero lash out at a nearby enemy while the healing effect gain lets them stay in the fight longer.
The attempt to tackle hero ability bloat is more clearly exemplified in the next class, the Mage.
Mage
Expected Role(s): Battlemage
Strengths: Magic damage, Area of effect, Range, afflictions
Weaknesses: No melee, low Defense and Health
Weapons: Orbs, Staves
Final version of the Mage Skill Tree
Mage came third, and is a much more “specific” concept, spellcasting as a unit role existed before the hero rework, but they were one-off abilities that scale poorly as the game progressed. I wanted to strengthen the feel of a hero being a “Mage” by giving the unit abilities that they can then modify through their skill choices.
Mage is roughly divided into “Devastator” and “Warlock”, with the devastator side granting AoE magic abilities and focusing on damage dealing while the warlock side specializes in status effects and control.
The designer spaghett version
The Mage Skill tree is roughly built around 2 defining skills, the Evocation and the Curse, with specialization building upon those skills.
Evocations were in the game before, as separate abilities that did not scale well as the game progressed. Now the hero can choose to specialize in a Fire Area of Effect Evocation or a chain targeting Lightning Evocation. Each can then be further specialized, letting them focus on damage, disruption or even spreading like wildfire!
The curse ability is at its base a single target debuff that deals frost damage, it can be built to be even more powerful as a frost cure or as a plague inflicting AoE.
Ritualist
Expected Role(s): Support
Strengths: Support, Summons, Healing
Weaknesses: No melee, weak defenses, low damage
Weapons: Staves, Orbs
The final in-game version of the Ritualist skill tree, this particular hero focusing on area of effect and a druidic theme.
Ritualist is a particularly unique class, having to cover a wide set of themes and mechanics. At its most basic level it is divided into a Healing/support and summoning. But each of these has many flavors to cover.
Ritualist is the most ability heavy of all the classes, which leads to a rather unique setup compared to the other classes.
The Restore skill is at the core of the class, unifying the many heal abilities into a single powerful ability that can be built to be single target and extremely potent (and even revive!), area of effect or even quick to cast but weaker.
Additionally this class can lean into themes such as Druidry through the Conjure Wildgrowth skills, summoning through the Spirit Summoning skills and Necromancy through the raise undead skills!
There is much ground to cover in this class, but the skills were picked based on mechanical variance. Of course one would want summons for any specific unit type they happen to be building for but this is handled through other sources instead, such as hero items and the Affinity hero skills gained through dedicating the hero to the Nature affinity.
The ritualist skill tree design, note it is more segmented than others due to the many active abilities contained in the class.
Ranger
Expected Role(s): Ranged, Skirmisher
Strengths: High (ranged) Damage, Critical strikes, versatile
Weaknesses: Weaker defenses, lacking Resistance
Weapons: Ranged Weapons, Dual (skirmisher) weapons
In-game final version of the Ranger skill tree, this hero is functioning as a skirmisher, using Snapshot as an opener before diving into melee where they can finish the target off.
Ranger was a pain in the butt to design, Age of Wonders 4 did not feature many hero skills that actually fit with the ranged role appropriately, and for skirmishing there was even less. Thus the Ranger class had from its first iteration, the most new skills out of them all. Having practically all of it made anew to begin with.
The Ranger has, similar to the Mage, a choice of defining ability on the left side of its tree. Scatter shot gives an area of effect option to the usually single target focused role of ranged attackers, while True shot lets one make a true “sniper”. Snapshot lets the hero be built as a much more mobile unit, either for rangers who want to have a backup when forced to move, or rangers who want to add extra utility to their skirmishing!
The Ranger tree, a maze of delirium that nearly drove Tom Bird to madness… well, more of it anyway.
New item forge options!
To support the skirmishing role now being an option for heroes, we added additional skirmisher weapons to the item forge and as starting options for the Feudal, Dark and High cultures. Not everyone wants to be slinging magelock pistols after all!
Origins
Origins would be the second component that grants a hero more identity, this primarily affects rulers since heroes are usually mortals, unless they join from the Pantheon!
Each Origin has its own “niche” for which it provides skills the hero can choose to specialize further in. They are relatively small, intended to supplement the hero's role as provided by their class rather than supplant it.
Mortal Champions
Champions have suffered a bit as we expanded on AoW4 and added more ruler types to the game. They did not have too much to set them apart from those ruler types. So with the rework we gave them an identity of their own: Commanders.
The Champion was quite unfocused before, their ruler benefits have been simplified to be less economy focused and lean into the trope of the mortal hero.
Champion rulers now start with the command ability (veterans may remember this as “Spur to Action”), this ability lets them order another unit to move again at the expense of their own movement and can be upgraded as well.
The Mortal Champion Origin skill tree, notice it is quite wide rather than deep, this is the general norm for Origin skill trees as they are intended to be more supplemental than the Class tree.
Besides the command ability, champion origin rulers have access to other skills which boost their army both tactically and strategically. Though investing in these skills may mean forgoing potential personal power in their class or through the affinity hero skills!
Champions as heroes
All heroes found in the game that do not come from the pantheon, are Mortal Champions. With this rework we have set them apart a little from their ruler counterparts, heroes have their own version of the champion origin tree, one notably lacking access to the Command skill. Regardless they can still specialize between army leadership and their class just the same!
Wizard Kings
Just as the champion looked less and less appealing as the game grew, the wizard king similarly had some trouble truly standing apart from their mortal counterpart. Overchannel was an iconic ability, but had all of its power condensed into it from the start. To bring the Wizard king more in line with the other ruler types and allow for more build variety in their theme, the Overchannel ability was reworked into Channeling Ritual.
Channeling ritual, like Command for the mortal champions, is a starting ability, one that can be specialized into a quickened (but only useable once per combat) version, or a more defensive ritual, which heals the user and lets them enter defense mode, a potential combo with the Defender or Ritualist classes!
The Wizard King Origin tree in-game.
Furthermore the Wizard King’s skill tree features skills that grant more casting points, replacing the automatic casting point gain of wizard kings with a more intentional investment on the hero’s part to gain that power.
And lastly a set of skills which let the Wizard King gain strength as spells are cast and add an overcharge effect to particular spells whenever Channeling Ritual is used!
Dragon Lords
Big, stompy and terrifying. That is what dragons were meant to be when we introduced them in Dragon Dawn, yet in practice they were found to be easy to focus down, lacking the defense to withstand the damage their larger form attracted. In the end they were often relegated to something more akin to an artillery unit than a monstrous beast of war.
I decided that during a personal development day I would redesign the Dragon lord signatures, being a bit of a dragon nerd myself, I wanted to address their lacking survivability, the forced transformation and build variety.
Survivability I would address by having each of the dragon’s signature skills grant a stat boost, roughly equivalent to being 1 unit tier higher each time. This means that dragons can now keep up with the survivability of other heroes gaining equipment, without having to invest skill points into merely keeping up.
Dragon Lords have always had unique signature skills, divided into 2 levels, at level 4 they would choose their lesser transformation, and at level 12 they would gain a major transformation that modified their breath weapon. But at level 8 and 16 they shared the same pool as all other heroes did.
Behold the whole line-up of designs for the Dragon Signature skills.
In order to support the Affinity hero skills and open up build options I aimed to “fill in the gaps” and add 2 more signature skill sets, so that each signature skill choice now had unique options, these are grouped as the following:
Aspect selection at level 4.
Aspects (level 4 Signature skills) - a powerful stat boost accompanied by a passive effect that reinforces the affinity’s expected role. Order grants adjacent allies resistance, while shadow inflicts weakened for example.
Transformations (level 8 Signature skills) - These once more include the stat boost, but more importantly here the unit type changes are found. If you want to become a Fey dragon, choose the Nature Transformation and grow the wilds on the battlefield as you move!
This is where the major visual variation is now added, so in addition to the 6 affinity transformations there is a 7th option, Primal Transformation, this option grants a hefty stat bonus and Natural Regeneration. But more importantly does not change the Dragon lord’s visuals, letting them be a “pure” dragon. This transformation grants affinity skills just as the others do, though its affinity is based on what affinity the dragon started with.
Breath (level 12 Signature skills) - yet again the hero gains more hit points, but much more importantly this modifies their breath attack. These are streamlined to give a much clearer use case to each breath attack, Purebreath (order) grants the breath attack a heal and cleanse on friendly units, while Rustbreath (Materium) weakens and sunders defenses while cleansing the enemy’s positive effects instead!
Elder (level 16 Signature Skills) - an even bigger stat bonus than the other levels, keeping the dragon lord up to par with heroes who will have gained their armor by now. But more interestingly each affinity option here grants the dragon lord a unique effect, the Elder of Astral skill grants Wind barrier and a unique ability to remove pesky melee units from your dragon’s presence, while the Elder of Chaos grants a damage bonus that grows throughout the battle each time the hero slays an enemy!
Dragon Claws
Dragons have always had their own unique melee weapon in the dragon claws, but now that they can have class roles there were some options lacking. Which provides the perfect opportunity to add some new options here!
The new Dragon Claw options in the item forge.
There are now three variations of claw weapon:
Dragon Claws for sustained repeating damage, Armored Claws for more defense and a powerful defense mode and Warclaws for charging in and crushing your enemies!
Eldritch Sovereign
The sovereigns were largely untouched, having been a recent addition in Eldritch Realms. A distinguishing feature of theirs is that they have unique extremely powerful abilities gained through their signatures and Origin skill tree. But they do not have the same ties to affinities that the other Origins have, and thus do not gain Affinity hero skill options from their Signatures.
Additionally it is notable that Sovereigns can only be Mages or Ritualists, both leaning into their strengths as magic users.
Still as manipulative and controlling as ever… do not trust them.
It was at this point we realized we had hit the Steam word count and were only at 30 out of 45 pages. We still haven't covered Signature Skills or the new and improved UI yet, so...
Bonus Dev Diary!
Get Expansion Pass 2:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3181480/Age_of_Wonders_4_Expansion_Pass_2/
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