The Road to Edain 4.4 - Denethor news

Rivendell will be the greatest but not the only change in version 4.4. We still constantly work on all facetes of the game to further improve the mod. On of these novelties we want to show you today:

Until now, Denethor basically wasn't badly implemented. It suited him well to reside at the balcony of the citadell, conjuring supporting skills. Unfortunately he never worked flawlessly like that. For example there could ever only be one Denethor in the game, even in multiplayer, because we had to implement a limit of only one citadell with Denethor – which affected every player but the alternative would've been that even a single player could recruit more than one Denethor.

These errors never could've been fixed to our satisfaction. For version 4.4 we therefore decided to turn Denetho into a regularly recruitable hero. This came with its own challenges: How would a moving Denethor act on the battlefield? Surely he shouldn't be a regular warrior like Boromir who fights at the frontline. Thus we gave him his very own, novel mechanism.

Denethor now is a ranged hero but he doesn't use any weapons. Instead he uses his authority as steward to summon four men of his life guard to the target area with each of his "attacks". These remain on the field for ten seconds and automatically attack nearby enemies. Thus, Denethor plays differently than any other hero and more feels like a general than a warrior. Only if he's forced into melee combat he draws his own weapon to defend himself in an emergency. Tolkien described him in the books as a man who, even in his advanced age, always carried his weapon.

From a strategic point of view Denethor serves as a counterpart to Beregond, a hero, that players may recruit if they want to play rather agressively than defensifely. He also takes Beregond's old role as Gondor's second ranged hero besides Faramir. Most of his skills temporarily grant strong advantages but often have some disadvantages too.

• Stances: Because Denethor doesn't attack directly, stances that raise or lower his damage don't serve any purpose. Instead his stances raise or lower his attack speed by 30%. This enables him to summon new guards more often. Because a higher attack speed also means 50% shorter range, he has to move further to the danger. With 30% lower attack speed he can controll the battle from a 50% higher range instead.
• Level 1: Seeing Stone: Denethor reveals a big part of the map and levels up by two.
  This skill stays mostly unchanged, Denethor gains "experience" by looking into the Palantir. Because he rarely attacks directly, he can't gain any experience by killing of enemies like other heroes.
• Level 3: Blinded attack : For 30 seconds allied units in the target area inflict 50% more damage but don't gain any experience in this timespan.
  A simple, agressive skill, although it hinders troops from better preparing for a future battle.
• Level 5: Abatement of tax: Economy buildings instantly bring in the income of the next three minutes but don't produce anything for the next four minutes.
  This skill of the old Denethor remains, because we always really liked it. It grants an instant advantage but in the long run it doesn't cover the costs. Because of that the Decree should be used with caution.
• Level 7: Emergency Mobilisation: For 2 minutes, Gondor's baracks train soldiers and pikemen for half their price but the trained units can't purchase any upgrades nor have any abilities
  Also an already familiar skill that supports an agressive but reckless strategy.
• Level 10: Captain of the Steward (passiv): Denethor now summons twice as much guards to the battlefield. Additionally there's a 33% chance to summon a Captain to the field who grants +15% attack and armor to allied units and remains on the field for 30 seconds.

We implemented the Captain differently than before, because the old Banner-Upgrade often caused errors too. Instead it seemed fitting to us to link him to Denethor's troop-mechanism and to let him support nearby troops like that.

Denethor's Arnor counterpart, the Seer Malbeth, has been changed to the new system too – but with his own set of skills, which are, as is the case with Denethor, partly based on his old skills. But we don't want to spoil anything here - some surprises should still remain for the game ;)

We hope Denethor's new concept awakened your interest and we look forward to your feedback!

Your Edain-Team