Wartales Remastered is an overhaul for Wartales game, it changes and remasters many game aspects. The Companions, battles and strategies are now perceived differently: there are many new skills, new classes, new tools, craft items etc.
The following has been reworked:
- combat parameters, stats and strategies;
- all main classes (+new classes), animals and all related skills;
- fractions, their composition;
- professions, many quest rewards;
- weapons, armor stats;
- tools;
- craft items;
Details: The Concept
This overhaul includes a lot of changes, to make it short - below are the main ideas and concepts underlying Wartales Remastered:
- each class is unique and has its own style/gameplay (see “Details” sections below);
- all gameplay mechanics should matter and be useful;
- new abilities per each level, way better animals, creepers and more options to combine combat units;
- there are non-combat human companions (not prisoners) and animals (they do not impact scaling of enemies);
- there should be variability in the game, and quest choices matter, many new quest rewards are unique;
- all the classes have abilities to be played in different roles, 3 natural archetypes (aka tank, damage dealer and support) are presented, most of them have overwatch-style abilities;
- new fully functional classes and more interesting options when hiring NPCs;
- means to play the game again;
Details: Mechanics
The idea behind Wartales Remastered is to provide familiar mechanics working (!) at the new level, all introduced features should be meaningful and important at some point of the game. The mod attempts to create fair balance and combination-based play style for each class/unit/companion. There are no overpowered or cheat-like features. That is why access to Inspiration is very limited and weapons alone do not provide enough power. At the same time the mod does not try to make the game more difficult and gives many new options to play with.
Overall, the mod pace is faster than in the vanilla game, levels 8+ require much less XP.
Details: Statistics
One of the main changes in Wartales Remastered is value of an aptitude (attribute) point: 1 point of Constitution gives 20 Health for both human and animals; 1 point of Strength or Dexterity give ~3x damage (depends on an ability). Weapons, on the other hand, provide way less power than in the vanilla game. Such changes bring variability in the game and force a player to think the strategy through, especially in the early game. Switching between professions for extra stats can be really helpful.
All main attributes provide secondary effects during combat, check their descriptions for more details. Willpower 15 does not provide any special bonus any longer and can be leveled up like other attributes. Builds based on Health or Willpower (or even Armor) are viable options now. Also, each main class/subclass has a tooltip about its basic features/default attributes' scaling.
All human classes/specializations in the game are divided into 3 groups depending on the armor: access to heavy armor gives no additional stats. On the other hand, light armor gives more power. Medium armor is somewhat middle ground. The rest of the attributes are standardized for all the classes. The same approach goes for NPC factions and animals. See the optional files for more details.
Bosses are exception to those rules, they have their own parameters and scaling.
Details: Roles
The mod forces players to have units of different archetypes: tanks, damage dealers and supporters. But at the same time the list of skills allows players to find/build their own style. Moreover, new type of units is introduced in the mod: non-combat workers and animals. Workman is a new class available at the merchants’ group, it has its own skill line, has a salary and is not considered as a prisoner. A workman can be hired in taverns or via ‘Human Resources’ menu like other classes.
Basic wolves, boars and saurians are pure non-combat animals in the mod, when captured they always stay in the camp. They have corresponding non-combat skill lines and can be really helpful. Horses, like in the vanilla game, can be both, War Horses can wear armor and fight, while Work Horses carry more and have non-combat skills. The rest of the animals are combat units with different roles, skill sets and ways to handle fights.
Non-combat animals and workers do not impact scaling of enemies when playing on Adaptive difficulty. Workers can be used as team member in Rouste matches.
Details: Main Classes
Skills of the main classes (including the crossbowman) are standardized and split into logical groups:
- Specialization;
- Valor Points generation;
- Shared non-combat passive skills;
- Offensive passive skills;
- Active unique skills (3 for each class);
- Defensive passive skills;
- Traits-related;
- Shared Tactical skills;
- Ultimate;
Each level opens access to one of the groups listed above. Most of the skills can be improved with “Skill Mastery” books presented in the game. Almost all the classes have overwatch-style abilities with different functionality and effected areas.
Among the main classes: 2 new combat classes and 1 non-combat worker. Soldier – tank/support oriented, can wield sword/axe/mace; mercenary – damage dealer, can wield only 2 handed swords/axes/maces; workman – fully non-combat unit with unique skill line, has salary like other companions.
Also, there are 22 (including animals) unique NPCs for hire – they can be found in different locations of the Five Kingdoms, usually they are part of a quest or an event.
Details: Fractions and NPC
NPC Factions were adjusted, each of them got 3-5 additional units to spice it up. NPCs have access to oils: the first one is applied when they reach level 5, the second one - at level 10. All human enemies have access to several shared skills like ‘Intervention’ or ‘Anticipation’, they gain one of them at levels 7, 10, 12 and 15. Some of them are too stubborn to die and learn ‘Rougneck’ skill at level 12. Level 15 enemies can be dangerous, be careful.
Civilians also got 2 additional passive skills to make them more interesting in workers role.
Details: Animals
In Wartales Remastered animals and animals-related items got huge buffs – now they can be truly called Companions. At the same time, they are not over-powered, to make them work a player has to build the proper setup - many human-classes skills are related to animals now and they are needed to make animals really shine.
In the mod all animals can be executed for resources by default. In general, capturing them first is more profitable than slaying them in combat. Starting from Wartales Remastered v4.0, almost all combat animals have access to some sort of a weapon – fangs and claws: they are placeholders for oils and some of them provide special skills.
Unfortunately, there are several in-game limitations to animals that are not so easy to bypass:
- No profession – only Crawlers-type creatures are exception to that;
- Few tools to assign – only Strategy table, Camp Fire, Helmsman and Overwatch are available;
- Have no skills to search the way out in lost villages – the skill is added by the mod to animals, when a human uses it for the first time in the encounter;
- Cannot wield a torch – now several animals have Night Vision trait by default;
- Cannot capture enemies in combat – in the mod wolves have access to such ability, also there is special tier 2 strategy;
- Have no armor – few animals now do have some armor by default + almost all collars provide some protection too + new capes allows to use armor layers even on animals;
Details: Quests and Rewards
The mod restores 4 Paths quests originally presented in the game. There are fully voiced but there are some minor defects that cannot be fixed at the moment. They are available at the very beginning of the game and they grant new unique rewards. Have fun!
Other quests rewards have also been adjusted – now a player cannot collect everything within one playthrough. In Wartales Remastered taking sides matters. Many rewards are truly unique and logically distributed through the quest lines. Moreover, most of the weapon items obtained via quests are upgradable.
Also, one of the Seasoned weapons was changed into a Fist Weapon so the punchmen do not feel deprived when playing in the starting regions.
Details: Other Changes
These were just the highlights of the changes made by the mod. There are a lot of small tweak in professions, traits, starting bonuses, food, oils, names, descriptions, camp tools etc. The list of changes will be too long and boring to read.
Regardless to the amount of changes the mod does not fix:
- Trading path is being way too strong and easy to master in comparison with others, trading routes give a lot;
- Punchman is being OP. Multiple attacks with oils do way too much damage;
- Many hardcoded base-game defects, there are lot of them with no tools to fix them;
Details: Defects
The idea of Wartales Remastered came with the need to fix a lot of issues presented in the game. It is expected that some new ones are born by the mod itself. Most of the tests have been done on previous versions of the game on Master/Adaptive difficulty, please provide feedback and let me know about any defects found (proper description is required). Co-op is not tested and no changes made to this part of the game.
There are a lot of issues in the game specific to translations. So far only English and Russian versions are corrected/supported by the mod. Let me know if any names/descriptions/texts need to be fixed/corrected.
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