Age of Empires have had “heroes” or named characters since the beginning. Biggest distinction is campaigns vs multiplayer, but they have always been there.
It is hardly “Changing AoE4”, as so far it is one civ and even if all the variant civs would have them. It would be 12 factions without “heroes” vs 4, and this is the worst case scenario. Khan and King, are barely “hero” characters, as one is exclusive to a landmark (and he ain’t too strong) and the other is a glorified scout.
People like to draw examples of Warcraft 3. Which is rather strange to think AoE suddenly becomes Warcraft, Dota or anything else. As that would include a few more things than just one hero (that functions at this point differently from those games, speculative though), there is a whole item-system that is quite important to Warcraft 3 heroes, you have several more heroes than just the one. Altar + Tavern heroes, quite a large difference.There are no tomes and no creep camps, which is half of the ‘leveling experience’. The point that ALL factions in Warcraft have heroes, which is another quite a large difference. You can play literally 12 possibly more civs without heroes in AoE4, so the mechanic is not forced upon you.
We don’t know much about Jeanne d’Arcs individual power, so that I guess remains to be seen. Probably not overwhelming and she’ll be balanced along with any other unit. I have a hard time seeing you rolling over opponents solo handed with Jeanne d’Arc.
Lastly she starts as a peasant and goes through several stages. which is not something seen in any Warcraft, League of Legends or other Moba. Hopefully she has similar counters as other units aswell.
I do hope she has some kind of punishing mechanic for losing her, so that she becomes a valued character and target for the opponent.
Please just shut up, stick to age of empires 2, aoe4 has completely innovated the civ and age up system compared to older titles, age 4 players like me wanna complain about this new bullshit hero system we can and will.
Its not so bad, i think it will make sense. Her abilities seems to be mostly summons and auras. I don’t think she will be near the strength of WC3 heroes of killing multiple units by herself.
I don’t think that other factions are based on heroes. They said they want explore different things with each variant civ, maybe saladin is a hero, but not hre or china.
Well, I have to say hero mechanism not that bad to me but the way dev implement is kind of context-wise dissatisfied. I saw a comment somewhere mentioning this mechanism could be implemented as a warchief of Aztec civ, sounds interesting. Of course, they need to invest assets for it, which means more cost. Hope the variant civs could be split off as a separate DLC, totally don’t want to pay for this.
I’m not against hero mechanics, although in general I would prefer the name “Generals”, in any case the fault lies with Age of Empires III, which introduced the “Hero” subtype to refer to scouts and Warchiefts, but in end, what is going to be done. In the Middle Ages many generals or great soldiers were heroes, so the subtype remains.
Of course, I would put some considerations for its creation:
That it is only for units that have a special importance for that civ to be considered a unique unit, such as “Khan”, and is not something common to any other army, such as “commander or general”, those are not units unique.
That it has historical references to justify its existence or its form of creation. At least the examples already happen with the heroes already present:
Khan was the leader of a Mongolian town, family or army, and it is part of his idiosyncrasy, in all armies there was always a khan, so it is good that it is a single Mongolian unit.
The English king represents precisely those kings who went to fight abroad outside the island while another king or duke controlled the country: (Richard the Lionheart, Edward the Long-legged, Henry V). Since that didn’t always happen, it is an optional Landmark.
About Historical Heroes as a Civilization
On the other hand, regarding “Historical Heroes as a Civilization”: I suppose it will be the exclusive and unique thing about the Joan D’Arc civilization. I find it difficult to repeat it, except for civ MODS made by fans.
One might wonder if this creation of civs that are different from each other reached a level where it is possible to innovate even a hero who levels up representing the increase in age. And apparently it will be.
This reminds me of when in the early stages of the game, the Mongols would lack age-up mechanisms, but since they saw that for balance this caused problems, for the final version they use “age-up” landmarks so that their troops balance with the rival, but in theory its architecture changes little or nothing as well as the design of its troops at veteran or elite level.
It makes me excited what kind of mechanism other civs will have like Zhu Xi Legacy or the Ayuubid, the latter I suppose will no longer have the House of Wisdom.
My opinion:
The way Jeanne is played is not AoE4 anymore.
She is:
tank unit
mobile with a horse
can summon units besides her while raiding
she can heal
she has abilities to deal damage
she even has an ultimate ability
If you kill it. She just respawns.
It’s not like the Khan, it’s way beyond that.
Khan is just a mangudai/scout that has some arrow’s ability to buff nearby units.
You can play Mongols and ignore your Khan.
If you don’t like it, just don’t play it
Not that simple. I don’t wanna play against that either!
That’s not AoE4 anymore.
That’s not a “unique” civ mecanic
That’s changing the core of the gameplay
How to balance that?
Today we have 10 civs, and the devs couldn’t find a way balance the landmarks.
You basically don’t have a choice. It’s always straightforward. Rarely you see somebody picking the “useless” landmark.
Now we are gonna have 16 civs, with totally different mechanics
Even changing the core of the gameplay.
I think hero units are, excusable at the very least. As long as they aren’t named from historical figures but from their ranks like Dux, Count, Kentarches, etc I’m totally cool for that.
What they did for Jeanne though is just a clear push from the devs (is there an agenda perhaps? I really don’t want to dig that rabbit hole). Can you imagine that she lived through 4 ages? If she dies, no prob she could just revive & go straight to battle again
Here’s what I did with my Magister Militum hero concept for the Byzantines, this is a year before this mess & I thought I made my hero concept too OP, guess I’m wrong now
It seems that the developers do not want to listen to the fans at all.
I hope that the heroes can be turned off and not play on them if you don’t want to. Let it be a separate hobby, just like freaks who like water maps.
Or we could have a separate mode with heroes like in SC2.
Rating games should remain only for real nations and civilizations.
I think it could be a compromise between those who want to play Warcraft 3 and real Age of Empires fans. They will just have four new civs like in Warcraft 3, as they used to play.
Or it can be compared to the Return of Rome to AoE2. There is a separate mode for antiquity and separate ones for the Middle Ages. They do not overlap and the feelings of the fans are not defiled, you can also do it in AoE4. A separate fenced area for fans of civilizations with heroes.
I really hope as well, but I don’t think they will even consider that.
Now I think the hit the fan. Too much development has being made on her.
She is a standalone civilization now.
AoE4 player base is split now.
Some fans really like it and other hated it.
I think I’ll just resign if I ever match against it.
hit the fan. Too much development has being made on her.