Can Repeatable God Powers Be Competitive? | AoM Retold Speculation
Вставка
- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- This is the big thing that I think most hardcore AoM fans are worried about. It's an amazing thing for casual players but can it work in a competitive environment. Lets do some brainstorming and see if we can work out which way they are going to go, and if it can work.
Let me know what you guys think
--- Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=32363240
--- Discord: / discord
--- Twitch: / iamboit
--- Merch: streamlabs.com/iamboit/merch - Ігри
They should have given God Powers charges instead, like the Atlantean powers. Great Hunt can have more than one charge, but gods forbid Ragnarök be used more than once.
Right 1 bolt every 10 min should be fine atleast in single player while building a new pair of underworld passages like zerg nydus canals would be rad. Just keep ults to once per game. 3 meteors is fun in single player but would suck in pvp.
This would incentive to use the god powers as soon as possible as BoIt mentioned, eliminating times strategies.
@@jesuschrist9677I disagree... charges on great hunt or Bolt would just create further imbalance in the game and "devalues" those god powers in a way by saying no worries, you can just use it multiple times
Maybe Rag will be different. Ppl see the CD rework for the old god powers but I am quite certain that if we really get CD god powers they will look at every god power and tune it to be more balance or maybe even completely different
i cant wait to see all my forests beeing completely burned by forest fire gp and lose in min 15 cause im wood starved, rly afraid of how this changes gonna be
Love the discussion videos. I hope we see many more of these as more information about retold is eventually released.
Do you like this style or the gameplay in the background style?
@@BoItTV this is style is better. Mostly shots of you talking, and sometimes showing gameplay clips or slides when relevant.
@@BoItTV this style is better. Easier to listen to. Also I might add more relevant content in the background. i.g. while you talk about a certain GP, you show footage of it.
I have been playing age of mythology since vanilla (not pvp tho) and one thing I find is I often don't use god powers much since they run out so I am curious to see how this new system will feel and be balanced.
This is a very valid feeling I'm sure many people share. If the system is balanced it can only be a good thing right?
I think this is very common among non-competitive players because frankly in a really close high skill fight the powers can be the difference between victory and defeat. But most casual players aren’t perfectly matched against specific CPU difficulties and when you’re just trying to have fun you’re more likely to choose CPUs slightly worse than you than slightly better.
@@BoItTV How’re you doing Boit?? Firstly I watch all you content and love all of them!! Quick question….are we gonna be able to play retold on voobly or just on steam?? Thanks in advance!! Keep it up mate!!
@@renatoalves2460 Probably just steam. I doubt voobly will be able to support it.
@@BoItTVthanks mate!! I appreciate it!!
I didn't think of it before, but they might choose to take a page from AoE3. Once you reach a certain age, the single use unit cards you sent from the home city before that point get refreshed.
I had that thought as soon as I heard Retold was gonna be in Age3's engine. As a Age3 player I have no problem with this, but I do understand if other players who aren't used to this aren't satisfied with it.
That would be nice. Reach Mythic age and your god powers recharge. Doesnt recharge mythic age powers because they are so strong. And you have to think to use the other ones before upping so that you can have the second charge
I mean when controlling myth units special abilities came up, I thought it equivalent to the explorers ability which also is manually controlled, I am cool with that.
@@TurboDiego37 the problem is some classical GP are OP against many strategies and completely counters Heroic and Mythic GPs.
And in team games, that will be really annoying (12 min of ceasefire)
I can see a sort of refresh when you hit next age
which means youd have access to a total of 4 archaic, 3 classic, 2 heroic and 1 mythic god powers
in my opionion this is one of the most balanced options since multiple mythic powers are broken
however, theyd still need to do some balancing...
Great potential options and ideas. My gut feeling is they’ll be on a cooldown like ultimates in mobas. As a lot of big games have something similar. Just higher cooldowns for each age
So many will need to be changed or reworked though. Looking forward to more info on it
I really hope we get more charges, just expand on Titans and buff Atlantean a bit.
If they make exceptions for some gamebreaking gps, cooldowns would probably be fine. And stuff like multiple meteors, earthquakes, implodes are not gamebreaking assuming they have sufficiently long cooldown. They should probably make it so that powers that give you some sort of permanent value are not affected by the cooldown changes. Also cooldowns should probably depend on power and not age because not all powers in an age are equal. Some aren't even close to others in terms of power level
Making GPs recasts require a wonder is tricky. You could deny your opponent's ability to recast GPs by rushing a wonder yourself and getting multiple earthquakes off throughout the game.
Imagine a 4v4 match with 4 Hermes team. Imagine ALL the ceasefires
A good way to balance that would be a ceasefire in a region. Not global. And a very long cooldown 🙂
If they strictly use cooldowns, I think the best way to do it would be to extend the cooldown with each use, up to three times. For example, Lightning Bolt might start with a 5-minute cooldown after its first use, 7 minutes after two uses, and remain at 10 minutes thereafter. it would still provide incentive to avoid overusing your powers early on, but wouldn't leave you completely deprived as the game goes on.
My preferred way would be a combination of cooldown and Faith. With this, there would be times where you're forced to think carefully about whether you want to use your Faith to create myth units, or to keep some on reserve for an emergency situation.
Increasing cost and or cooldown is a must!
The main RTS I've been playing recently has been Starcraft 2's co-op mode, which admitedly can get away with a lot since you're not fighting other players, but each commander gets a lot of powerful abilities that function basically the same way as god powers, and they all have different charge times or other limiting factors that balance them really well. Some of them cost resources while others have other ways of recharging faster if you lean into them more. Obviously a different game, but one I think can be a good inspiration for god powers.
I like the idea and i think it's gonna rework completely the powers. Like the skills in moba, 3 skills plus a ultimate.
Ult with a huge cooldown.
And for the price, the cooldown is already the cost.
I’m 90% sure that there will just be cooldowns for the powers of the gods. Some abilities (mostly economic ones) will indeed turn into spam on cooldown and will be balanced relative to this. For powerful combat options, it still makes a lot of sense to save them until the right moment. For example, if the cooldown of a lightning storm is 20-25 minutes, then it makes sense to wait for a good moment, since for most games there will be only 1-2 uses of tier 3-4 abilities.
@BoitTV I think the best solution woul be a mix between some of your proposals:
to keep everything simple: the first use of a God power in on the house (free) and it has a cool down (we do not want to spam God powers).
During the game you gather a new resource like "God Wrath" in the same way atti gets favor. it is just a timer, like 1resource/min, and it is not affected by anything to prevent abusing it.
If you want to reuse your God power you have to spend X "God Wrath", earliest God power cost less "God Wrath" around 5/6 (in order to recharge them every 5/6 min) and latest God powers costs more, around 25 (in order to recharge them every 25 min).
If a God power is to strong (i.e. Earthquake) they can increase their "God Wrath" cost.
In this way a player can decide if he/she prefers to use this resource "God Wrath" for small useful god powers (rain, Shifting sands) or to keep it for a strong power (Tornado, ...)
What do you think?
I think cooldowns have to be gigantic for them to make any sense with how the game works. Used your bolt early game on the enemy scout? You won’t get to use it until at least heroic or even mythic age.
Stuff like Earthquake and Meteor would be practically one use unless the game drags on for over an hour. I’m talking about 10 or more minute cooldowns.
Stuff like undermine and forest fire could have relatively lower cds, so that Boit won’t have to imagine anymore.
Plenty Vault or Son of Osiris, on the other hand would remain one use only
IMAGINE FOREST FIRE!!!!!!!!!
@@BoItTV I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.
I think a good idea is to make the first use of a God power really strong, so the player has the intensive to get value out of it. And after a cooldown, you get a weaker and more mundane version of the Godpower, or not at all for something like the Plenty vault or Ragnarok
Or maybe the longer you wait to use it after the initial use, the closer to original strength it gets?
RTS Games like BFMEII had rechargable powers and they were fun and balanced as hell. So I'm optimistic that after a period of adjustment it will feel really natural. The powers having cooldowns also didn't see the disappearance of timing attacks, since someone who used their power straight away would still just lose to someone who used their powers patiently and smartly
I've heard about BFME2. I think they level of power they brought was a bit lower though from my memory. I hope it works as well!
@@BoItTV bfmeii powers are about the same power level as AOM powers in terms of game impact. Just like AOM they have four tiers of power.
T1 powers are a bit weaker than archaic age AOM powers, mainly being scouting abilities or weak buffs.
T2 and T3 powers are equivalent to classical and heroic age powers, with their own versions of things like undermine, sentinels, summoned units. All things which can help you win a battle.
T4 powers are equal to mythic powers, but some go even beyond AOM mythic powers. E.g. you have earthquake or flood in bfmeii which is the same as in AOM. It can devastate bases, but as long as you upgrade your buildings you can survive the earthquake. But hten you have things like the Balrog, the dragon, the army of the dead that are just one-man-armies equivalent to summoning a Titan. But imagine having a rechargeable Titan summon!
One other thing that set BFMEII apart strategy-wise however, is that BFMEII powers were gained by killing enemy units & buildings. It was really genius for incentivising aggressive plays, whilst punishing you for being reckless (as the goal would be to do damage and unlock your own power spike to pull off a brutal timing attack, all whilst denying your enemy power points to nullify your attack/unlock their own timings).
One thing that may have also helped the balance of BFMEII powers, was that a lot of BFMEII powers directly countered one another a lot more readily than AOM. Imagine an AOM where you could use forest fire to "thaw" out frost? In BFMEII, environment-wide powers like freezing rain (global debuff), cloudbreak (global stun) and darkness (global buff) could all be cast over the other, canceling the other out. What if in AOM rain, ceasefire and eclipse could cancel one another out?
One last consideration I have is just story: it would be nice if getting your GPs back was tied into having the favour of the gods. Idk how you would balance it or what would cost what, but being able to spend favour on GPs or something like that would be really cool
***Oh yeah, and should also add BFMEII had "the ring hero." So if you managed to find invisible Gollum, kill him (incredibly hard), take the ring back to your base (also incredibly hard since the enemy can see the ring anywhere on the map too and steal it with powers) and spend an insane amount of money + time, you get Sauron or Galadriel, whose power level was far in excess of the game impact a titan would have in AOM. E.g. Sauron in AOM terms could summon two titans and have access to one army killing ability + two abilities which destroyed everything, buildings & units, like a son of Osiris on steroids. You could still win the game if the enemy had the ring hero the same way AOM you leave your SOO out in the open... Enemy can snipe it down
Not sure if it's been said already but I think it's gonna be a cool down after use but each time you use it the cool down time is increased so bolt after first use has a 3 min cooldown then after the second use 5 mins etcetera and certain God powers that place permanent things into the game don't start their cool down until that object is destroyed such as the norse healing spring I think that's probably the route we will see. I also think that the God power cooldown will be adjusted over time to become balanced alot like how aoe 2 has done for unique techs and civ bonuses. Anyways awesome video keep up the great content
I hope this release does numbers and your channel does too mate, you’re the only reason I’m any good at the game 😅
The simplest way to deal with this is each time the divine power is used the cooldown increases. Stronger powers scale the cooldown faster and weaker ones slower.
I think the best way to do this is to balance each power separately with different cooldowns depending on how strong each power is if they want to make all powers usable unlimited times.
Scary thing, it will make GP's less special. And as you said, in case of paying in favor for them, we won't see any myth units anymore :(
Its fine i think if they still have an option so we can play like we do now
Like I said in the video, I think this is a really bad idea. It's really important that the casual and competitive audience plays the same mode imo!
@@BoItTV Yes. This happens a lot in the AOE 3 community between the Supremacy players and the Treaty Audience. Toally different game modes but still the same units, techs and cards.
If it were up to me, I'd roll with a longer charge cooldown where each god power stores up to 4 charges and an additional shorter hard cooldown between uses. This would mean you wouldn't need to spam them off cooldown as much since you'll still need to wait for the longer charge cooldown anyway, eventually. For atlanteans, they could start with more of their charges right away. For a lot of god powers, they would certainly need balance adjustments and some might even need redesigns. Thor's Dwarven mine for example would need to be rethought how it should work since it can be used multiple times. On the other hand, something like spy would actually greatly benefit from this change. I think a controllable but much weaker tornado would be cool, an earthquake that weakens armies and buildings rather than outright destroying them would be more interesting, and a smaller, more consistent, meteor shower would be nice, and there's a bunch more that might be powerful, but could benefit a lot from a redesign while simultaneously rebalancing it for multiple uses. The ones that I think are the most tricky to change are powers like shifting sands and plenty vault as any adjustments could ruin the spirit of them quite quickly. With that being said, I also wouldn't mind new god powers instead.
I don't know if I have confidence in their team's ability to execute this god power reimagining, but I don't think the idea itself is inherently flawed. I'm cautiously optimistic, but we'll see. I think there's a real possibility that god powers become a lot better if they do it right. Here's hoping.
Having them each assigned a number of uses is best. Titans set up multiple God powers for the Atlanteans and they seemed well balanced.
Here is a quick thought on the number of uses for each GP along with cooldowns (stats could be slightly adjusted but I will try to imagine the GP as is)
- Archaic Age -
3 Bolts (6 min)
3 Lure (2 min)
3 Sentinals (7 min)
2 Vision (1 min)
2 Rain (7 min)
2 Prosperity (3 min)
2 Dwarven Gold Mine (2 min)
3 Spy (2 min)
3 Great Hunt (4 min)
5 Forest (2 min)
3 Deconstructions (4 min)
4 Shockwave (5 min)
- Classical Age -
2 Restorations (3 min)
2 Cease Fires (7 min)
2 Pestilence (7 min)
5 Plague of Serpants (2 min)
3 Shifting Sands (8 min)
2 Eclips (9 min)
3 Forest Fires (8 min)
4 Undermines (7 min)
2 Healing Springs (3 min)
4 Spider Lairs (4 min)
4 Valor (3 min)
4 Carnivora (1.5 min)
- Heroic Age -
2 Bronze (6 min)
2 Underworld Passage (9 min)
4 Curse (9 min)
2 Citadel (7.5 min)
3 Locust Swarm (8 min)
3 Ancestors (7 min)
2 Frost (7 min)
2 Flaming Weapons (9 min)
4 Walking Woods (3 min)
5 Traitor (5 min)
3 Hesperides (1.5 min)
6 Chaos (6 min)
- Mythic Age -
3 Thunderstorms (3 min)
2 Earthquakes (9 min)
2 Plenty Vaults (9 min)
2 Son of Osiris (6 min)
2 Hurricane (7 min)
4 Meteor (8 min)
3 Fimbulwinter (2 min)
3 Nidhogg (9 min)
2 Ragnarok (9 min)
2 Implode (2 min)
4 Tartarian (9 min)
5 Vortex (1.5 min)
I'm praying for Gods to get Finnish Mythology in Retold
Really good video and ideas man. Never really gave it much thought honestly.
I like the building/titan gate idea but I would also combine it with purchasing or gaining tickets for charges. So you would get your god power when you age up as usual but you also unlock a building each age or in the final age that you have to build that costs favour and resources and alert the opponent like the wonder and titan gate to its construction. It would then either provide tickets for the individual power or powers charge, or you select which power to cool down for a charge like the Chinese garden, or you purchase a charge like a tech, or you have a requirement like prayer for Greek. You could make each civ unique.
Greeks build an alt wonder in the mythic age and have to choose between villagers praying at the temple for a favour or a new build for a single selected powers cooldown tickets.
Egypt's pharaoh favour statues could be used to gain power charges according to the statue's age tier but the ticket cooldown needs to be activated by pharaoh empowerment.
Norse can be done by a new mythic building that passively cools down all powers but the powers need to be purchased after cooldown with a mix of favour and resource offerings.
Atlantians can build 1 shrine per age which adds to the cooldown of powers pasively but slowly each shrine, like favour gathering from town centres, 4 shrines total at one time at mythic.
This gives counterplay allowing the building to be destroyed. Cooldowns make them non-spamable and requirements make them valuable with trade-offs. Also, you get unique methods for each civ that fit their theme and can be balanced more easily. Plus if you add a warning system like Titan Gate or Age Up you give an advanced warning to the player that a god power or powers are being cooled down or a new charge is imminent. Additionally, the construction of a building adds some cost but not too much and age locks the cooldown ability or limits which power can be recharged with a trade-off or the rate of recharge.
Lastly, there should be limits to the number of charges banked. one charge per power at a time for traditional 3 civs and the same amount of charges banked as is the case now for Atlantians. Make the cooldowns relatively long as well after use so they become rare events in matches, length of cooldown/ticket gathering is extended per god power according to its individual power level in meta and age tier.
I wonder if the previous god powers get refreshed once you advance to the next age, so your first god power could be used 4 times but your mythic age is only once etc.
this is a really good idea I think, but It would also affect balance and make aging up way stronger. so aging up would have to cost more to balance it which is not a bad thing.
@@johanneskohn Thanks! And yeah, they'd have to balance it somehow for sure. Let's see what they do!
How do you think they’ll handle the population system? Keep it as is but bump house limit to 20 or remove it alltogether? Lower the pop cap to 200 but adjust pop cost of units so all humans only cost 1 but ships/myth/siege cost multiple? Some combination?
I think it is impossible to find balance in cooldowns if the current GPs stay the same way. I can't imagine a balanced game with GPs like Plenty Vault, Underworld, Nidhogg, Gold Mine, Son of Osiris, Ragnarok etc being used multiple times in a game.
They would either have to nerf the shit out of the GPs (which would kinda suck) or make the cooldowns long enough that the spam would be avoidable.
But let's not forget that they wanna increase the pop cap. That might also make the GPs weaker.
It is a reaaally tricky thing. If they do it right, the game is definitely gonna be improved. But I think it is so easy to go wrong with this one that i am really scared about this
IMO the best way to balance reuseable godpowers is to grant charges every time a certain amount of favor is collected. It would have nuance per civilization and require trade-offs for some.
Can't wait for the game to release. I love AoM.
It would be an option to refresh GPs upon aging up, but only if the GP was used so you cant stack them. This way it will be impossible to spam mythic age GPs since you wont get these again. Some age 1 GPs would need rebalancing tho, lure for example
Scaling power + cooldown.
Age up and you get access to power at 50%, gain x favor to charge up to max. After you use power there is a variable cooldown based on power level until reaches 50% power again.
Can use the power earlier in desperation or surprise, or time your attack to full power being usable.
Something like that could be interesting. Super short cease fires, underworld passage limited by distance, half power grandchild of Osiris, bolt that kills 50% of health. Imagine a three tree forest fire taking out a house.
I think random godpower relics should spawn on the map as soon as the heroic or mythic age is reached but not just randomly but in a specific location on the map with a timer until it spawns and when it despawns. This would be a great change imo because currently the major objectives especially in the late game to win games is pretty limited, usually to gold starve and getting settlements. This would also create the opportunity to use unique spontenous strategies like in team games with gaia forest, forest fire.
In theory, I like the idea of god powers simply having cooldowns, but it'd have to be like option number 5 with GUARANTEED single-use for Plenty and Ragnarok. But then, powers like Healing Spring, Hesperides, Tartarian Gate, Son of Osiris and Nidhogg become tricky to think about without some sort of hard cap (if you could place two Healing Springs or Tartarian Gates instead of one, that could be interesting while not being too excessive). I could see where maybe Son of Osiris and Nidhogg are given long cooldowns as well as a limit to one active on the field per player, so if you wait long enough (10 minutes, for instance) you could call them again if the game ends up going that long. Possibly even having the cooldown locked until Son of Osiris/Nidhogg die and only THEN it starts cooling down.
Obviously, we don't know anything yet. I just hope we have more insight on some of their thoughts on this principle before the beta.
Getting one more charge in previous god powers every time you age up could be interesting approach I think. Although from what they wrote it is implying that it's going to be a like atlantean one. Also about the last bit titans technically are god powers too, since you get additional charges when you use "DIVINEINTERVENTION" so maybe?
Maybe each god power could have a cost in a new resource which you acquire with favor and building new temples, while showing a message that your opponent has bought a recharge of a god power. Then you could set a dwarven gold mine to 100 of this hypothetical resource while underworld passage could be something like 500 and ragnarok 1000.
Would be interesting, could regenerate some God powers once you reach heroic or mythic, and have cool down as well once you hit the age. Might work. Would be good to see big mythic age gps repeatable after a time like 10mins. But then plenty vault etc would be an issue
Would charges work if you nerf the base 3 races god powers to Atlantean God power level
The problem with rechargeable god powers is the how some are really good late game or really bad.
Bolt can be amazing late game vs titan, myth or SOO, but Lure and Great Hunt are virtually worthless after classical.
plus set could do cheeky vision shifting sands raids over and over with even more population. Not to mention Underworld shenanigans.
even late game rain would be super op for eco boom and godpower block. Forest fire could also be super busted depending on cooldown.
I think they should be between the 40-60 minute mark to spice up a stalemate game, even then though still doesn't seem balanced.
I would like to see an exponentially increasing cooldown. For example, Tornado might initially be on a 10 minute cooldown, but after your second tornado it would be on a 15 min cooldown, then a 22.5 minute cooldown. If you know that using the third restoration in a long match will result in 30 mins before you can use it again, I think players will be more inclined to use them carefully.
How about buying favor with resources? similar to the market, you could buy favor in the temple for x amount of gold for example and then buying god powers with said favor.
I think that the Norse could thematically have their god powers recharge using unit kills (or possibly a cooldown reduction). That certainly could be an interesting option. I think also that having different cooldowns for different God powers would really change how the game works. It also might become necessary to rebalance some of the god powers (perhaps plenty vaults would give less resources, or maybe they'd have a restriction on how close they can be to each other, which would increase risk of holding multiple plenty vaults - having a higher pop cap might also help keep it from being too OP since a single plenty vault would provide less value compared to a normal economy). And there may be a few rare God powers that are judged so powerful that they remain 1-time use (Titan gates, and maybe Ragnarök - though with how all-in Ragnarök is, it probably wouldn't often see more than one use even if it was on cooldown). The way I see it, giving god powers cooldowns opens up more options for rebalancing them, so yes, they can be competitive even if they are repeatable.
I really like the idea of there being a 5th resource tied to favor which is kind of what you are saying in regards to Norse getting god powers for killing stuff. In essence you've solved the MU+Unique tech vs God Power problem!
God powers requiring a cost of sorts would definitely be needed I think.
Even of they overhaul/balance/nerf certain god powers?
I think a charge system is a better approach, and imposing a limit of holding a max of 2 charges per power kind of solves all problems and you have somewhat of a balance between effectiveness vs number of usages
I really hope the game Devs listen to your videos
They’ll have to do a combo:
- nerf the really strong god powers if they have a fast cool down (eg meteor only has 3 strikes, earth quake does less damage or is smaller area)
- make them cost favor
- boost favor production 10%
- change some god powers to make them more useful for late game (eg Lure would have to create animals, rather than just attract them).
- Other players see notification when god powers is available to use again
Yesterday I created a mod adding recharges to god powers. You can find it on the AoM heaven site. Did link it in a comment here but seems YT auto removed it...
Might save some coding! I'm adding something like that to overhaul! 😂
sure is a tough one! Hope they can get it right
Thing is, and you're 100% on the money, is balance. I've been playing AOM since it came out, and a change this big is going to be a big pill to swallow. Some god-powers can't be used more than once or be game-breaking in some way: Plenty, Son of Osiris and Ragnorak mainly. Plenty will snowball any greek faction, Ragnorak is essentially the death-roll gamble that has the gamble element taken from it as you can just give it another crack, while Son of Osiris takes away the importance of the unit itself (if it dies, no dramas, just get another). I can see the "Elemental" god powers like Earthquake and Meteor having multiple uses, but some God-Powers were simply not meant to have multiple.
I'm also a little miffed that the Atlanteans are losing a faction trait that made them unique.
I believe a combination-system would perhaps be most beneficial. All GP's have an unlimited use, with a cooldown period (except perhaps the three I said above, but that's open for debate/balance). The earlier GP's have a shorter cooldown period compared to the longer ones. However, there is also a cost attachment of ALL four resources. Earlier GP's are cheaper, Mythic very pricey. This adds the competitive and casual decision element as to what you're going to prioritise resources on, especially in the mid-late. For the Atlanteans, to retain their unique faction trait, they could still have their charge period - cooldown times are the same as other civs BUT they get a certain number of FREE re-charges, similarly to how they have multiple uses now, before they start having to pay for their GP's like the rest. As BoIt said, they have the weakest GP's anyway.
Just an initial thought off the back of their announcement. Open to suggestions, tweaks, constructive criticisms or downright rejection! Lets hear everyone's thoughts.
repeatable archaic GPs with exponentially increasing cooldown times could be a balanced solution. you could use non-gamebreaking powers multiple times, the base cooldown could be a balancing factor so for example you can't use rain or sentials as frequent as shockwaves, and you would still have an incentive to use them wisely. the only serious problem would be Thor and Poseidon, Thor benifiting too much and Poseidon benefiting too little, and potentially Gaia being able to seal large parts of the map off completely
I just feel like the god powers themselves need a rework or two in some cases, but the weaker ones that are good but just…weaker could get multiple uses to stack up to stronger powers
My take would be:
1. On Age up you get your God power for free (as it is)
2. When used it becomes available for purchase at the cost of favor
3. When you purchase a God power it goes on cooldown (balance point for the developers. They can increase or decrease the cooldown for each individual God power)
4. Each purchase increases the cost of select God power (another balance point, as the cost and cost increase can be adjusted for each God Power)
5. Eventually God powers become too expensive to purchase, as you are limited to 100 favor (except Zeus)
But that is merely a suggestion. I think a lot of weaker God powers can have nothing changed about them with this system. All they have to do to buff them is adjust the favor cost and cooldown, which are easy numbers to tweak. There may also be God powers completely unavailable for purchase (like Ragnarok or Plenty Vault).
It's a great idea. I always found the "mythology" component of the game was a little too under-utilised. There are some MU heavy strats like Centaurs & Frost Giants but for the most part MU's are too easily taken down by heroes so they're usually a small comp of the army & the GP's with the exception of the S & A tier ones are kinda just novelty and might turn the tide but don't factor much into the overall gameplay of a match outside of one moment. If you knew multiple Underworlds were coming instead of just one it would alter all of your plans. I think the extra impact of multi-use GPs will really spice the game up. Or if Pestilence was a constant threat, you wouldn't cluster forward bases together.
I think the idea of more God influence with rechargeable GPs makes a lot of sense. It will create new openings and a different meta. I do like the idea of needing favour or some commitment though. Even if you don't have to spend the favour, but just get one back after generating 100 favour or something like that so that if you want to spam GPs as your strat then your army/eco will suffer as a result.
As for balance, developers have 20+ years of experience since the release of AoM, & e-sports barely existed back then. Now it's a fully-fledged industry. So much has happened in the RTS world for them to learn from. I'm fully confident they will get it right, or at the very least after a few patches it will likely be more exciting than the original. I thought it was just a re-skin but the idea that they're trying to make a full-on e-sports title with massive potential is actually really exciting. It was always sad that AoM was forever in AoEs shadow, but it might actually shine like it should have (& BoIt TV can rocket to the leaderboards in viewership as well)
I am hoping they also just make a "vanilla" version with the new assets/remastered graphics for the purists as well.
Without watching the video, I think it depends on how they handle it. I can totally see multiple bolts, 2 restorations, triple plague of serpents, double undermine, heck even double meteor
But definitely not double earthquake, double frost, double fimbulwinter etc.
I love this update so much! If balanced right it will make a game way more dynamic similar to LOTR Battle for Middle Earth 2.
I think the Shrine should be able to be used to trade resources for favor so you get more favor for myth units and god powers.
And i suppose change some of the more broken ones like ragnarok to make only a certain number of vils change or make it like you did with the well of Urd.
And make the end game god powers cost a lot of favor in general.
Also think it would be fun to have neutral Gaia aligned myth units that reward a small amount of favor, like meeting a neutral frost giant in Midgard or whatever and getting 5 favor for killing it.
And i like the idea of relics giving a bit of passive favor too, instead of giving god powers, that might incentivize collecting the less "useful" ones too.
I hope they do something like making bolt a 100 damage gp that can damage buildings as well. For other powers like spy I dont see the rechargeable gps being useful
IMO More charges for all the god powers ofc balancing the ones that need but age 4 god powers should only be used once, things like serpents from the egy rlly need more charges also making the cd of the god powers tick thanks to having villagers praying on temples or a new building that way you will sacrifice economy for power i guess
Maybe a nerf to the god powers would balance this. If they want to see more god powers being used the coolowns will probably not be huge. Plenty vault giving resources of 5 citizens, not 10, earthquake not being able to destroy tc... idk
I think a HIGH cooldown of 10 min to first GP 20 to second ,so on could be balanced but must make some tests because 2 Frost and Flame weapons will be too strong, or instead make a Wonder to recharge GP it shold be Cool, or could make ramdon treasure guardians like age 3 and some recharge your weak GP
Maintaining the essence of God powers is crucial throughout the whole game. They're integral to what makes AoM unique and they shouldn't just be expended after a few uses(or one). These "abilities" are something that strategy games simply don't have(at least not to this extent) and for good reason but they can make it work. Here you have these almighty Gods that watch over your civilization and they live in this world. That's how I see them at least. Now we will feel their presence all the time and I love it.
Sure, playing neutral objectives so players can earn God powers could be fun but players have enough tasks to pursue already and it will be very fiddly in scenarios or campaign missions. The option of paying with resources will add additional choices and you may end up having to avoid God powers just so you can afford units/upgrades, this doesn't sound like good game design to me. God powers should work as an independent tool that enhances the experience and they must be as simple to understand as possible. I'd prefer they keep the rest of the gameplay as we know it. Because of this, they will most likely go with an option where God powers have cooldowns and maybe some kind of price that have to pay on top. It could be a new resource that's only used for God powers. This new resource could be earned depending on some conditions so it could add an extra layer to the gameplay. At least that's my assumption but it may be too complicated so they might also do something simpler. I want the 4th-age ones to feel like an ultimate ability without being too overpowered. If there is a resource to use for them they will just be priced higher so players will have to decide which ones to use. They should provide an advantage to close out games and prevent games from going into stalemates. This will also increase how often the outcome of games will be decided through the proper use of powers (which is also more fun to watch) and that does mean AoM will change, hopefully for the better. We have "game-deciding" ultimates in many other multiplayer games nowadays so we can expect some influences from them. In team games, some power combos will be quite interesting to watch but others will obviously need balance changes to avoid looking stupid (*cough* ceasefire).
When I am playing I try to use my powers as best as I can, but I probably don't use them that well. I'm not a pro so having more opportunities to make a play would be more fun for me and other players like me. In the original game, once the God powers are depleted I can easily forget about them and I have had matches where near the end it feels like I'm playing AoE with some myth units and heroes sprinkled in. Expanding on the use of God powers will ensure that AoM retains its identity even in lengthy matches. This way we will sense we are playing AoM even after 2+ hours into a match, and I'm all for it.
As long as we don't have multiple Titans simultaneously, I think it will be fine to implement a cooldown period between summoning him again if you lose him. The same can be done with Son of Osiris, Nidhogg, or even the Ragnarock warriors so even if your God power is up you won't be able to use it while the unit is still alive. I hope they do it this way.
Overall, it's a much-needed change to modernize and keep the game fresh and interesting for years to come. The devs' goal should be to ensure these changes enhance the game, attracting new players while keeping the existing community engaged. We all knew they would change how God powers in some way for the remake and I'm excited to see what they come up with.
At the very least, the earlier age God powers would likely have a much shorter clock than the late-age powers. Slamming down a plenty vault or Ragnarok as often as hitting a plague of serpents would be nuts. I'd guess the late-age powers will have very long cool downs such that we'll only see multiple uses in the super long grindy games.
Like you have said with plenty vault idk how it would work. I love heph when im playing greek and would hate to have them remove or change plenty vault. And agreed about atlantean powers. Thry are weaker already because they are reuseable. Unless they slightly buff atlantean powers in some way. Favor would be great to reuse GP, but would norse end up being absolutely broken in heavy fights. Loki with hersir just fighting and dying. Them beingbalive gains favor plus them fighting and dying gives favor. Loki could spam nidhogg or flaming weps while his hersir also additionally summon myth units. Gona take soooo much balancing
I'm a casual player so I don't know much about the Esports side, but when they said they got some ''pros" or whatever from the scene to try that, and those same type of people gave an OK to the Chinese before they came out and we know how that went in the end. Those types of people can be sellouts and say anything you want them to. So talk about this a lot because if this is not made the right way it can and will break the game in a very bad way.
ya... Who are these "pros" where are they in the pro scene advocating for this stuff? I haven't heard anyone.
I think rechargeable GP and more POP will be amazing for deathmatch and lightning
We already have repeatable god powers its called Atlanteans. It will be fine so long as cooldowns remain balanced. They have to find balance, the game wont be ruined if they give multiple uses of plague of serpents but like you said multiple plenty vaults would be broken.
I am pretty sure this game if done well will surpass AOE IV numbers and probably be on pair with AOE2 DE, after release they just need to keep the balance with small changes and create content for co op and single player to bring more players over time.. competitive should be a natural grow over time and it shouldn't be forced like age of Disney IV
clearly they did not think this thrue is like WC3 Reforge all over again
I'm more scared about the abilities of mythic units which you can activate now. Yes mythic units can now attack and aren't only moving hitboxes from now on, but that's the problem. You have to micro much more against a Battle Boar now for example. Until now you knew the first attack it will do will trigger it's ability. But now you have to perma keep an eye on it and try to not circle around it with your units all the time. How about Manticores? You always have to split up your units in battle, unless you want 3-5 Manticores annihilating your army when they engage in close combat. As with the Battke Boar, for now if they attacked their first hit was their ability, now they can fire all the time and if your units form a cluster they will be demolished in a moment.
It would be really far fetched, but I would love a system that lets the players create specific god power builds based on the civ/ major god they are playing
People who dont play AOM:
"Finally, thats always how it should have been."
People who do play AOM:
"Ermm... I'm not sure if I like this change..."
lol!
Let's hope for the best!
3rd (I think) option is my favorite. Make a statue for each minor god. Building the statue starts a timer for the specific god powers they offer. Destroying the statue stops the timer. Command and Conquer Generals did this with their superpowers and it was a great incentive to attack the enemy and break stalemates/turtling.
*Would also just be cool to have a unique model for each God similar to how cool Egyptian monuments look.
I think a coldown for all powers can be possible, but, at least for the most powerful ones, the coldown should be h u g e. Im talking about a 15 min coldown earthquake, or 30 min coldown vault. That, or mostly just give one use to the most game breaking ones, like Ragnarok or Vault. I feel like high coldown for powers in general would be a good idea, because you cant rely on "I will rush Frost to use it every 2 minutes" (imagining Frost will have a 15-20 min coldown). But still, im sure the team will be able to make a good balance with god powers
Honestly, all what they said on this interview kind of dissapointed me, im biased tho, I played this game that we all know for so long that maybe im too used to it, and im too afraid of any change that can happen, however I dont think theres a good way for them to balance it and make it competitive with the cooldowns, and not even the population limit, in this case looks like a case of less is more, when u have such a limited population like 160 every single unit is important, u put something else to the game which is the population control, that u dont rly have to care a lot in the other RTS, same thing about the godpowers, less u have them, more u care about how much value u gonna have when u cast the godpower, so 2 changes that im afraid of how they gonna make it, GREAT VIDEO, CYA AMIGO
I don't care at this point. Any change with this upcoming remake is a good thing. I just hope this will not become an absolute flop like WC3 Reforged has been.
I understand your point but it's not only 30 players who play competition that devs consider while developing the game. And if someone doesn't like what the devs build, people played this game on voobly for 20 years. Keep going.
Personally, I don’t want them to add this at all. I’m fine with the multi use god powers being shockwave traitor, and spider Lairs. I want the gameplay to be almost exactly like original aom but without tc glitching
what about XP system like AOE 3 ? maybe it could work for the GP'S .... as many XP you grant ... you can have access again to the Gp's
Another way i see god power balancing is that it could be balanced with population. The more units you have on the field, the less impactful god power is.
For example, we can look at the bolt and the lightning storm. When you use bolt at early classical age, its impactful because there are only like 3 military units on the map, but if you use it in mythic age (for argument sake lets exclude SoO, Nidhog and Titan) bolt doesn't impact game as much because there are a lot more units. However, lightning storm could be seen as multiple uses of bolt, and now you can hit more units with more singular bolts, and now it has impact on the game. So having multiple uses of god powers when population increases does make sense
But this also has a problem because there are god powers that are broken that you get very early (Ceasfire, gold mine, shifting sands etc.). Those god powers are always impactful no matter whether it is early, mid or late game or whether there are 10 or 100 units on map. And also there are god powers that are not impactful enough at any time (forest fire, pestilance etc.)
I really don't see any way of balancing multiple usage of god powers other than reworking god powers, but then you would have to rework whole game and at that point you are just better of putting AoM 2.
Could be Fun, if you get +1 charge on every god power +1 new, everytime you age up. 🙂
1st one is free the next you have to "reserch" with a long time so you can destroy the building for conter it
I think they should do like the atlanteans. Look what is strongest? Poseidon god power or Isis? But iff i add a charge in Poseidon's it will look more interesting... I think they should balance to make more funny, cause at launch they should attract more players and god powers is really attractive like WOW i meteor your base! It's what i think
Anyway this goes, balancing is going to be hell. Pray for that beta.
Extra GPs should be purchasable with favor. That way, you have to make a decision between myth units and GPs.
Be wary of Zeus mains with the double Favor capacity advantage
I can cite Dawn of War 2 as example in terms of the support power mechanic there
Honestly, this part of the announcement made me lose faith that they know what they're doing with the changes they're making. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm expecting EE all over again.
For real though, multiple plenty vaults would absolutely break the game.
So... They should either buff atlatean god powers or nerf the other god powers. But they should have charges like atlatean. And the amount should be for age, 3/2/2/1
Wall incoming sorry in advance!
Any thoughts on maybe the first god power from age up being free then each subsequent use taking longer to CD or costing more or both?
I have to wonder what the point of the god power change is. I can only see a few reasons.
1. easier to balance god powers. now you can change how long it takes to re use in addition to the numbers in the GP itself adding for an extra valve to turn.
2. More GP = more fun. Now this is only half true, because in order to have more GP uses it is more than likely they get weaker making it less impactful and therefore less fun. I believe it was in the "making of" for the original AoM that they tested having multi use GPs (which they later gave to atlantean) and realized that having one BIG moment of power was way more interesting and fun than say, 3 small moments of slight advantage. I wholeheartedly agree with this premise but am willing to see what is shown during beta etc.
3. Making GPs multiuse has the advantage of teaching newer players how they work in a less punishing way if they misuse their GP but this could be avoided by a more complete tutorial/campaign or even by creators like yourself making videos as you will, when the game comes out.
I do worry that all this drive to make the game more casual friendly is aimed slightly off course at the wrong issues and they are inadvertently making the things people STAY for less compelling.
As an aside, does anyone know if the Age team has asked pros/content creators/ tourney organizers their two cents?
My impression was that you would still get the first one for free, then a cooldown would be applied after its use. Similar to how Atlantean works I guess.
8. Citizen sacrifice
Multiple ceasefires... let's go.... yaay.....
Mhhh i doubt you can compare Son of Osiris and Titans. So therefore the comparison is not really there. Especially since titans are 1. no god power and 2. will get buffed. Also we don’t know if Son or Osiris will get changed. What I mean is maybe he won’t be able to enter siegetower or roc anymore (plus the vanilla not being able to get healed) so it’s more risky and more easy to lose them but instead you can cast the god power multiple times in an ordinary match.
No matter what they do, if they take the community advice seriously and actually try to balance the game, all will be good.
THIS SO MUCH
i think the God powers should both be on cooldown and require favors.
Yeah the balance might be broken after release for quite a long time.
I hope they rebalance the game and remove some units or change them drastically, so the factions will feel unique as in Vanilla.
But I don't have high hopes, especially after they seemingly dropped Chinese dlc and not mention it at all, instead of promised rework.
I smell disappointment
I suspect what is most likely, is that chinese factions will be released later as a paid dlc. Standard gaming industry move.
I'm actually relatively confident about the remake, although certainly still adopting a wait and see approach. I imagine it will end up rolling out similarly to AoE2 DE - with some things that worry people in the beginning, but a high-enough level of consumer interest to keep Microsoft and the dev engaged enough to tighten things up during the first year, and potentially onward after that. I suspect it will be better than reforged, as this particular dev has sufficiently proven their commitment (in my eyes) to do their best with the Age franchise over the past half decade. Sure some things were dropped a bit, like AoE1 DE seems to have been... but I have a feeling the hype around AoM will keep their attention a little better.
Chinese DLC for free or riot. WHOSE WITH ME?!
Cant wait to see who gets nerfed first. I have my ideas already😂
If they had charges (or cooldown) for GPs like meteor, earthquake, thunderstorm, it would make the game so bad 😅
WE NEED MORE TITANS
Titans that have varying stats and differ in attacks or specializations:
>melee tank
>ranged menace
>mobile factory, erh, super summoner
>flying superweapon, a.k.a the better Nidhogg