Do you like embarking on grand adventures with twists and turns or the challenge of starting with a randomly generated character? Do you love immersive RPGs with a focus on strategy? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, you, my friend, will enjoy playing Wildermyth!
To help you enjoy the game even more, here are ten tips to help any old wanderer become a bona fide hero!
Explore the Overland Map
Like many other RPGs, Wildermyth rewards the spirit of exploration. Build defenses, gather resources, fend off enemies, and complete various side objectives as you progress through the story.
While linear play is a valid option, exploring every nook and cranny of the map will earn you more resources and open up more development avenues for your character. You also get to earn extra legacy points for completing various quests.
Nurture Relationships
You'll develop relationships with different NPCs as you progress through the game. Fostering these relationships is essential to your character’s growth.
Wildermyth relationships include Friends, Enemies, and Lovers. Each of these comes with its perks on the battlefield, allowing you to switch up your strategies from time to time. Friends adjacent to you can execute Stunts against an enemy. Rivals have a chance to counter-Stunt right when their enemy performs a Stunt. Finally, Lovers get a damage bonus against all enemies who target their partners.
Build Strategically
Defenses and Stations are an essential part of Wildermyth’s gameplay. Defenses help you defend against incursions, while Stations give you various resources at the end of each chapter, which can be used to upgrade your equipment.
Start your resource collection early and keep at least 1 Defense on each tile - this will come in handy in the later chapters and keep wasted resources to a minimum.
Recruit New Allies
As you proceed through Wildermyth's story, you'll find new characters to recruit to your team. An ideal recruit should sync with your current team, so picking a class for them is essential. Heroes can retire or die, so choose wisely.
As a general rule, recruiting pretty much everyone you encounter is a good idea. Having multiple parties means being able to tackle more tasks at the same time - a strategy that Wildermyth actively rewards players for engaging in.
Understand How Damage Works
In Wildermyth, combat damage relies on good old arithmetic - you calculate an attack’s total damage and any bonuses, then subtract the target's Armor or Warding from the result to get actual damage. (Piercing attacks subtract from the target’s armor or warding before damage is dealt with.) A target loses any temporary health before their normal health pool. Then, you add the remaining actual damage to the target's injury. If the injury equals or exceeds the target’s Health, the target is felled. If the target was a Hero, they may get a Mortal Choice, resulting in permanent injuries or even death.
Stunts are the equivalent of critical hits. This not only means extra damage but also additional combat effects in the case of Elemental Stunts.
Your character's Armor stat subtracts from incoming physical damage. However, if the damage is reduced to 0, the attack shreds 1 Armor instead. Attacks with Shred effects reduce your Armor stat after the damage is dealt.
When it comes to magical attacks, you’ll be relying on Warding. Each piece of Warding can absorb 1 point of damage before breaking, but all of it refreshes at the start of your next turn.
Keep Your Cover
Wildermyth's battle system works like a TTRPG - i.e., positioning is key. If you stand behind Cover (denoted by one or more diamond symbols above your head), you gain a bonus for defense during combat. In addition, two heroes standing orthogonally next to each other take one less damage from both physical and magical attacks. This is known as Walling.
Deal with Incursions
Most Wildermyth chapters contain an incursion, a timed invasion event that allows you to prepare beforehand. As an incursion begins, a small enemy horde marches towards your group. They destroy every tile in their wake, which includes resource buildings and towns. The longer an incursion continues, the more destruction wreaked by the horde.
Destroyed tiles revert to Wilderness tiles once the incursion is overall progress on said tiles is hence lost. To avoid this, make sure you have defenses laid out so minimal resources are lost - in other words, fortify your borders.
Modding is Good!
Wildermyth has a robust and active modding community. Mods help open up the game's potential for a better experience. Thanks to the Wildermyth Steam Workshop, you can play around with various mods that can tweak the way you play the game with new add-ons.
There are mods for
- Colour saturation
- New hairstyles
- New, unique, romantic quests
- New character traits
Mod your game how you see fit, or go the vanilla route - the choice is yours!
Mystics are Broken (?)
Mystics are unique and have an exciting play style. Their Interfuse power lets them manipulate objects and cast spells. A Mystic's environment determines the outcome of Interfuse.
Mystics can have a variety of builds, and while not big on damage (though they can well be built that way through pumping up potency,) they can provide some much-needed battlefield control by creating and manipulating hazards to control or restrict enemy movement. In general, keeping a fully kitted-out Mystic handy is a good idea.
Your Legacy Matters
Wildermyth's Legacy system maintains your characters and their legacy. Much like your in-game predecessors, the legacy you create with your story lives on.
Characters who retire or survive a campaign are automatically added to your legacy. If a character died during the final battle or if they died earlier but a tomb was built for them, they too are added to your legacy.
Legacy Heroes can be recruited in future playthroughs instead of random characters instead of Legacy Points. Characters can go through multiple playthroughs, and each time they survive or retire, they can be upgraded to the next Legacy Tier. In addition, any Elemental Weapons in their arsenal become available to craft in future campaigns.
Wildermyth is jam-packed with new adventures and rich experiences that respect player choice - so go out there, play how you want, and build your legacy in Wildermyth.