Lone Wolf Return of Shadow Features
Expanding Command Point Limit.
A common feature in some RTS games but wasn't added to BFME.
Expanding CPL is unique to LWR.
When a player expands by building additional Outposts, Camps or Castles they not only gain additional building slots they also gain a higher CPL.
Players start with 500 CPL and with each additional base they gain 250 up until they reach 2000.
This was implemented to better incentivise expansion especially for more CPL intensive factions like the Deep.
Environmental Modifiers
Just as in real life the environment can influence a battle high ground improves sight, range and grants leverage, marshlands slow movement, forests limit movement and sight.
These features will be added into LWR.
A smart player will look to take advantage of the environment.
Larger Horde sizes
Another feature of LWR is the larger horde sizes.
Hordes that had 5 units now have 10, ones with 10 now have 15 and Orcs and Goblins now have 20.
Units have been rebalanced accordingly and combo hordes and formations have also been updated.
Damage rebalancing and Siege improvement
To balance out the larger hordes and for faster action most units, heroes and buildings do double damage to standard units.
Buildings, Monsters, siege and Heroes remain the same.
Buildings also now have higher Health points and stronger armour.
This was done to add some realism to the game.
Who's heard of a man taking down a Stone tower with a Dagger?
To balance this out Siege weapons do additional damage to structures and have better range.
Heroes still do the same damage to structures.
Expanded Spell Store
An old feature of LW still remains with LWR Skirmish spell stores have 12 spells instead of the default 8.
The new spells further enhance factions covering weaknesses or strengthening their core strategy.
Watchtower plots
Simple plots added to maps the will build a Watchtower.
Watchtowers are similar to regular Battle towers except they also grant a resource producing bonus to nearby allied external resource buildings like Farms and Lumber Mills.
Context Plots
Context plots will be specially added to some maps to allow players to take control of an element of the map.
This could mean a player could control a bridge, control a river or a gate depending on the map.
This adds a great deal of strategic importance to a map.
Improved Outposts
Outposts have been improved in 2 ways to further incentivise expansion.
Firstly Outposts are the only places a player can now build Siege Workshops or similar buildings like Workshops and the Mumakil Pen.
This also means that every Castle map will have at least 1 Outpost.
The second way is the addition of 3 Defence plots to each Outposts meaning that they can now defend themselves from smaller attacks.
Blood
New Blood FX have been added to the game.
Simple blood FX appear when a unit is killed to give a little Samurai movie blood fun to the game.
Graphical improvements
A great deal of effort has gone into improving the visuals of the game, higher quality textures, more detailed maps, improved special FX have all been a big focus for LWR.
Mapping props
One area LWR really shines is the addition of a huge amount of new Terrain and props to the game for map makers to use to create better looking, more detailed maps.
New things like a huge array of new Terrain textures of all categories, a whole lot of new Rock types, Trees, Emitters like fog and butterflies, new high grasses, shrubbery, critters, shine effects, atmospheric effects, Lilypads and floating leaves new structures like Bridges and even new civilian units.
LWR has the largest amount of new mapping content added to a BFME mod.
Improved AI
Instead of having the useless Easy, Normal and Hard AIs they are being replaced with AI playstyles.
Turtle, Rush and Balanced all improved the AI getting tougher.
So there's lots to look forward to in LWR as production continues and more to come.
