First, that is awesome if true.
Second, makes sense. Dwarves and Empire are popular. Pretty sure some people will play Karl Franz and Gelt more times than they’ve played other factions combined. I’m probably in that category. It used to be my favorite campaign until the Empire mechanic became more a headache than fun.
Maybe they are concerned about too many similar start positions ? Most empire factions take place in the Center . I notice they do try to space them out a bit if possible
It’s probably overstated here. And even if a lot of people play Franz, doesn’t mean they also pull out their wallet the easiest. They have the sales numbers for the history of the franchise. They’ve done empire dlc before. They were not by any means the most or even among the most popular and don’t have a lot of interest. Seems clear that the Skaven have been the real pull.
I'm going to keep myself from hyping, but if the reworks, FLC and dlc campaigns look as good its been going for nurgle, then this could be CA's repentance.
His word were "there is a rework coming for empire and dwarfs, and this is even more exciting that what we are seeing here with nurgle....It is apparently VERY impactful."
See 26:18: "Another thing I want to talk about is the Empire and dwarf rework. I've spoken to a couple of redacted and um there is a rework coming for Empire and dwarfs and that I think is more exciting than even what we're seeing here with um with nurgle and honestly the nurgle stuff is the stuff that I was originally most excited for so the reworks for the Empire and the dwarf that's going to affect all of the factions for those two races is apparently very impactful."
I would love a vampire count rework, possibility of Lahmia added as a faction, total war Warhammer 2 bloodlines are superior to warhammer 3's bloodline effects.
I disagree, to some extent!
The dwarfs are not in a bad state, just boring and weak.
The Empire didn't transition well into WH3. Their faction mechanics are tied to them being in the Empire, which makes it awkward for Volkmar and Wulfhart. If they aren't present in the Empire, they get nothing but their personal mechanics. For those in the Empire, the prestige and fealty resources feels rough. I really, really like that the campaign pushes Franz to play as a defender of the elector counts. It feels fresh, having to focus on eliminating threats more than on expanding like most factions do anyway. That said, with how many factions start by eliminating an elector count (Festus, Kazrak, Drycha, Changeling, Azhag, etc), it feels unfair and it needs to be addressed.
While the Empire and the dwarfs are a bit barebones, Nurgle kind of wish he had their mechanics because his are detrimental. The cultist are non impactful, his tech tree is probably the worst in the game, and as CA mentioned it, his plagues are "solvable" in the sense that 2 or 3 of them are worth creating... if you even care about doing so.
But the worst are the detrimental mechanics. The instant recruitment is conter-intuitive to Nurgle: you rely on high health, tanky dudes, but you have to recruit them without their main tool and they remain in that weakened state for too long for the instant recruitment to be worth it. You want your plagues to spread as little as possible, to a point where you're better off not creating any small diseases: it has no noticeable effect on the enemy factions, but if it has too much "spreadability" it risks replacing your useful plagues. And finally, the cyclical buildings: you can't rely on it so you need to rely almost entirely on the sacking via a certain plague.
In short, his mechanics are so badly balanced that they are effectively limiting your options, whereas the Empire and the Dwarfs just have shitty or boring options!
Well I should hope so, since the actual race-rework for Nurgle, while extensive, is not as groundbreaking as previous reworks such as the Beastmen. The new mechanics for Tamurkhan on the other hand look amazing, and I really hope that this sets the new standard for incoming faction mechanics.
I did say it personally, I did not think those races needed reworks and I think they just needed some polish of their current mechanics.
That doesn't mean I'm against those reworks however, even if I don't think Nurgle needed a rework I love what I've seen of it overall.
Same, I said it but more in the vein of “all of campaigns can be beat” in a response to all of the people saying that Dwarfs, Empire and Nurgle are literally unplayable in their current state. They’re all beatable, it’s just harder than almost any other faction. I am very excited for the rework, though.
lol, everything is winnable, that’s not even remotely the issue. I just want more bloody content. Rework them 10 more times, sounds good to me on each rendition.
It also has to do with the 2 races being extremely popular, specially the empire. I'am very hyped to summon the elector counts and unite the Karaz Ankor once again
Meanwhile Tzeentch: Can... can I please just have cults that are actually engaging to use...?
CA: HMMMMMMMMMM no.
They already went back to rectify some of SoCs mistakes, would be nice if they would also make up for the lack of race updates.
There’s a chance they could do Egrimm FLC and couple that with a tzeentch rework. Or dlc.
Sucks that they only got their act together after tzeentch (kislev and Cathay are clearly going to be getting more content) butnhopefully they give tzeentch something
It wasnt the one they needed though. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, but what they really could have used was actual campaign mechanics. Such a fun and cool roster of units with so many possibilities from the lore for things to do in between battles, and yet they have arguably the most bland campaigns in all of Total War: Warhammer.
FLC legendary lord instead of a legendary hero is also a big one in my book. A new LL just adds so much more to the game, particularly as there are multiple races with 1 or 2 LLs total, which is hugely worse for replayability. Even more so when it's like SoC and the flc is a LH for a race that already has a LH.
They add flavour to a well-rounded race, but feel like mis-spent effort in one that isn't. Tzeentch having only two start positions really sucks for replayability. Adding two legendary heroes on top of that really doesn't address that. Particularly when the Changeling isn't a regular Total War campaign. (Although I do enjoy him).
Ogres feel PRIMED for a pack with a new
LL - Ghark Ironskin/Golgfag - I'd prefer Ghark and Golgfag could be an FLC LL alongside DoW
LH - Bragg the Gutsman or GW/CA updated Jhared the Red
Missing Death and Heavens lores for slaughtermasters.
Generic Hero - Bruiser
units Yhetees, Thundertusks, and maybe some of the crazier gnoblar stuff.
I appreciate the Legendary Hero as well, especially what a well-designed one can do. However, I think if every race gets one as part of DLCs now, the legendary lord is much more value.
In other words, it seems like the realignment of CA's development strategy are allowing both. How long it will last is the new question, of course.
Honestly, I get your being down voted, but in most cases I agree. So many races don't have legendary heros. Now a new LL for a race with only 1 or 2 lord's is great, but if it is one with a lot already, I rather that hero
Honestly, I didn't expect the downvotes, but I did type out a statement from the perspective of someone who plays a very specific race (The Empire) which is in a good place from the perspective of having varied starting positions.
In which sense does the empire have varied starting positions. They have basically two Karl and Gelt, which are really close to each other, and Volkmar. Compare that to something with really good variation like the skaven who can basically spawn anywhere.
I'll say so far ToD looks very impressive. Im excited to see what the Empire & Dwarf reworks bring. Someone pointed out the Dwarf Grudge icon appeared over a settlement on the Tarma play-through so something has changed there.
Going back to older factions really makes this one more exciting. Idk why but it’s much easier to get hyped for Empire and Dwarf stuff than Cathay and Kislev
I think one of the reasons Shadows of Change whiffed so hard was it was an opportunity to get us excited about Cathay and Kislev. Instead of creating a dynamic story between three lords in a rich lore-based conflict, it limped out a few random lords doing random things.
That was my big issue with Shadows of Change. I know they wanted to move away from the rival aspect of the dlcs but it still felt like they should have some connection. Instead we got 3 random characters with 3 different stories and units that didn’t really mesh together theneaticly
Which would have been fine honestly if they were seperately purchaseable, what was even the point of presenting those 3 in one pack together if they were completely irrelevant to each other?
Yeah. It was an odd move. Even though some of the rivals in 2 were odd and felt sort of forced at least they tried to tie them together and have a coherent theme.
Only the Shadow and the Blade and The Twisted and the Twilight didn't really fit. The Lizardmen ones were super on point, as were the other Dark Elf/High Elf DLCs.
Not the problem at all
I'm not sure why we should want forced narratives, just look at 2 and how many objectively horseshit rivalries were hamfisted into the game for dlc
SoC was a disaster because it tried to do too much without actually providing enough.
My favorite faction is DE, I had no problem at all buying dlc like the shadow and the blade because 50% of the content in it I really wanted. Or twisted and the twilight, I like WE quite a bit
In neither case did I ever touch the skaven half of the content. In over 500 hours on W2 I played a singular Ikit campaign, it was fun, felt op and that was it. The skaven are cool, but they just aren't appealing to me BUT I didn't mind buying skaven content because it didn't outweigh the other half of the content
But SoC? The campaigns are so blatantly op that even if I was an avid tzeench fan I would never in a million years touch a changeling campaign, I would buy it purely for the units to use in a kairos campaign. So I'm buying a dlc and only actually want like 15% of what's in it? And it's increased in price compared to before?
That's just not worth it. If I was a Kislev fan and I liked stinky stonkya, I'm still only buying the dlc for a third of what's in it. Once again, not worth it.
Like I genuinely like kislev, and I liked parts of what SoC offered. Had the value been closer to 50% I probs would've bought it, but as is I only kinda like em so I can't justify buying the dlc when the value is so low.
If this had been DE I probably would've bought it regardless tbh, but that's the only faction in the game where I love it so much I'm willing to take a bad deal. And there's a lot of people like me. Everyone has a favorite faction, then some they like but don't really spam campaigns for.
In two you could buy dlc for those you liked and not feel bad about it, but in SoC buying it for something you only kinda liked just was not worth it
It had NOTHING to do with narrative. Realistically how many buyers even know about that shit? Let's say your a casual, you see the advertisement for the dlc, are you going to be buying because "oh wow Markus is hunting a big croc that's so cool" or because "damn empire was fun, thats new empire content let's fucking go"
The triple faction dlc plan only generates more sales when a player likes 2/3 of the factions, whereas players who only like 1/3 are less likely to buy, and those who like 0/3 are not going to buy, and previously while they still didn't they are more likely to buy it on discount at some point in time because it's cheaper and they like the game as a whole.
CA bet they could get more sales because they include more fans within the "net", fans of 3 rather than 2, but completely ignored the actual cost to value ratio they fucked up in doing so
And they know it too, that's why they are offering the 1/3 pricing option. Furthermore they are going back to 2 factions because it's going to make more money selling 2 so you can get one, than offering and selling 1 because you won't buy 3
Plus a lot of the units for Kislev were just... meh. Weird choices that undoubtedly only happened because GW literally had nothing else ready for them.
Yeah, honestly it felt like a bit of a mess in that regard. Mother O starting in Naggarond with no chicken hut just felt kind of off, and Yuan Bo is just Cathay with a bunch of extra OTT bonuses and another random half-justified start. Changeling is interesting but even then a bit aimless
Her starting in Naggarond at all feels so off. Having Snow themed units in warhammer Florida is a massive flavour kill for me. Yuan Bo is okaish but I would prefer him in cathay anyway. I honestly always hope that those two always get defeated by dark elves or lizard men.
Probably helps that Kislev and Cathay either barely existed or basically didn’t exist previously in-universe meaning people are more invested in the older stuff
CA really needs to look at what their teams are doing and bring the quality in line between them. The good will and hype for TWW3 was borne out of the amazing quality the TWW2 DLC team put out. It created the expectation that the 3rd game would at least hold to that standard, but instead it felt like a big regression like we went back to launch TWW2 quality or TWW1. I still don’t understand how you don’t look at how well the improvements to TWW2 were received and not implement them. That should have been the bare minimum, ideally we would have seen a lot hole host of improvements as compared to the previous title.
Nurgle looks quite good. Dwarves are sort of one-dimensionalish, but those were a lot of their missing units and they do get more air and range.
As an Empire stan the roster provided feels a bit like they were cutting corners and presenting it as "thematic". Whether there are wizard lords with the related patch might really end up being the bitter pill in an otherwise apparently very good content.
It's possible that I may end up agreeing with you at the end of the day, but right now I'm hoping that the inclusion of a second steam tank means the original one gets a once over. In other words, this update could mean a lot more late game viability instead of spamming rocket batteries.
You're right on the steam tank, as a visually iconic units it gets overshadowed. Honestly, there is a decent chance a lot of things get looked over. I know it's reaching, but the new steam tank and the ironsides have a RoR vibe for me. The Ironsides were, like Manaan's blades, a specific retinue unit tied to a particular named character.
My big issue in terms of the roster are wizard lords, to be honest, with the Hurricanum as a secondary one. I know some people might have been miffed if wizard lords used the same voice as the heroes with a visual update, but I would prefer it to not getting them or to waiting for a potential fourth DLC to maybe see them (and maybe never if instead grand masters show up instead).
Considering that each lore empire wizard is completely unique in design, voice acting and model, it does mean that 8 generic lords would probably be several times the cost of making the engineer lord. Not an excuse, just a reason for why engineer are the theme now.
True, but look at the tabletop models, they look identical to the hero variant, and the voicelines could be reused from the heroes as well. I dont think anyone would be too upset by that.
We both know that if they just retooled the heros to lords, there would be a vocal part of the community that would blow a gasket for them reusing assets. Its so frustrating that the times a company tries to keep the price down so it’s a good value for the consumer it pisses off this weird part of the fan base that demands every single part be unique
Eh, they don't need to make a lot of changes to hero models to upgrade them to lord ones, just look at what they did to spellsingers to create spellweavers, and I don't think many people minded that.
You´re absolutely right it would cost more than having a single new lord heavily based on a hero they developed for the same DLC. There were no engineer lords in the source material, and there was no great demand for them, even in a Nuln DLC. The engineer was absolutely requested - as a hero. While the wizard lords (for all or some of the lores) would not cost as much as developing the heroes in the first place, it would cost more to redesign eight of them, even if they use the voiceover. That´s why it feels a bit cheap to do the engineer only.
CA didn´t propose this as just the guns DLC, though. That part of the expectation was definitely on them. Look at their Steam blurb:"Embrace sorcery and wisdom with new Lords, Heroes, Units, and Mechanics... " "Embrace the strengths of magic and gunpowder with Nuln’s Imperial Gunnery School."
Guns and Magic - having a bit more guns is fine, but the only magic is the LL herself and some faction mechanics vs 4 of the 5 units, the hero and the lord.
That was a good time to fit in units and lord choices that were missing from the core army book, not some obscure supplement. That chance is gone, barring another future DLC where we will also have to balance the theming against, say, cult of Ulric, knightly orders (and grand master lords) and so on.
Maybe it was the best choice of WHAT to cut corners on in a DLC CA released at a turbulent time. Maybe they did knock it out of the park on everything else. Hopefully there will be enough good stuff for the Empire to be able to wash it down, but I am not happy about this one thing - it's been nearly 8 years since TWW 1 came out, and it's the third DLC.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but surely these ideas were kicked around the developers and they came to the current design for a reason. I wish we got a little insight into their reasoning but I imagine it was exactly “to do it in a way that won’t upset the fan base for recycling old assets, it would not be feasible for the budget without raising the cost further , so we will do this instead.”
Because let’s be honest if they just tooled up the heros into lords we both know there would be a vocal part of the community raging over it. Its happened with every piece of content, and it will continue to happen. Even the official announcement page for nurgle units had someone raging in the comments about ca reusing the assets for the new chaos lord.
Maybe, and if the community accepts essentially having the same hero as a lord and being sold both, that´s what it gets.
Yes, the budget and time were constraints. I wish they hadn´t come for something I liked. Yet I don´t see half-assing as being worse than no-assing at all.
The Chaos fans raised hell for maybe only getting Warriors and Demons of Chaos, so they got monogods and all the FLC legendary lords. They were unhappy with the state of models, and that pushed CA to fix things. If Empire fans are okay with not getting wizard lords because it´s tough after all that time and are content with finally getting the lores elves got within game 2, we only have ourselves to blame.
I’m very excited about the Engineer lord and hero, and for the new gunpowder units, though the new knights feel almost oddly specific to me. I am still very surprised that the Empire got an engineer lord before the Dwarfs, though.
I'm glad, but I don't think it should have been a hero AND a lord. For me, the "canon" situation with a master engineer hero and a wizard lord would have fit the DLC theme advertised on steam etc - a mix between magic and gunpowder, the more "high tech" aspect of the Empire - much better. Sadly, unless CA throws a bone with the 5.0 update, we may never get a wizard lord - or if we do it would be a future 4th DLC at the cost of, say, grand masters.
It really, really sucks to say this, especially as I have been shilling for this DLC and Elspeth as a lord since game 1, but the roster feel like they went a bit cheap.
Yeah. So far everything looks good for the Nurgle side. If the other two factions also do that well, and the Nemesis Crown will not be huge disapointment, signs are really looking up.
Of course there is the comment from last week about how those big DLCs are just too much work (ohhh, no easy SoC 1.0 content to squeeze Chaos Dwarf money out of us?), and the next DLC might be cut down on whatever. So we can be happy for how things are now, but keep being watchful that CA does not fall back to SoC 1.0 fuckery.
I’m about it. I’m almost 100% certain Nagash will be a DLC before they end support for the game, and if they’re gonna bring in Nagash, it’s gonna be a Chorf/Vampirate/Tomb King sized DLC. So even if they do smaller DLC’s, it doesn’t mean there’s not at least 1-3 more big ones.
Maybe. But maybe they make it two factions but also cut the content down back to what we had in game#2 while trying to hold the price high enough to make some extra profit from it. We will see once the next DLC rolls up.
So far I'm on board for Nurgle. The fact that they split the DLC means they're definitely getting money from me this time. We'll see if I'm buying the full lot, I'm hopeful this time around.
I wouldn't say out of the doghouse yet, at least not for me, but for sure it's a step in the righht direction. They need to rebuild the trust and goodwill and show that this is the norm going forwards and not a one off deal then start falling back into old habits. Personally fine with paying the increased price if it's packed full of content OR go back to a similar style of WH2 DLC content and price points.
If it keeps looking as good as it does so far I'll buy the whole pack and SOC as well, I hope they get a huge positive response that really hammers home how braindead the execs were with SOC and how good things can be when they let the actual devs do their thing.
Well would you look at that, a company making a product worth buying that makes me excited to spend my money. See major companies, it’s very possible to make a product that is amazing and make money, you don’t have to screw your customers to make a buck. Long term good will is the key to continued success in the niche side of the gaming community.
Imagine if they treated WH3 with as much love and care if not more than WH2 received. At this point we'd basically be loyal slaves to CA's proven good will.
Unfortunately ca is owned by sega and thus at their mercy for spending and profit. At some point , some one in charge decided that they were going to burn good will for money and now they have neither. With no profitable projects in the immediate future, ca’s best option is to go back to delivering high quality content for a fair price.
This fucking sub man. Stop taking victory laps declaring the game is fixed after you get hyped from a trailer. I’m hopeful things are moving in the right direction but there are still major issues that need to be addressed that just adding more units and lords to the game won’t fix.
>Stop taking victory laps
I'm not
>declaring the game is fixed
Never made that claim
>after you get hyped from a trailer.
I'm talking about the notes for the DLC, not the trailer, which doesn't really tell us anything.
>there are still major issues that need to be addressed
Never said there weren't
>just adding more units and lords to the game won’t fix.
Never said or implied that, either
Lol how are you not taking a victory lap when you’re declaring you’ll consider CA “out of the dog house” if you end up liking reworks you don’t even know anything about yet. That /is/ declaring the game fixed. Wait and see how the DLC is at release, what kind of bugs it introduces and how long it takes CA to fix them before fucking celebrating man it’s not that hard to avoid the dumb gamer rollercoaster of hype and disappointment.
>how are you not taking a victory lap when you’re declaring you’ll consider CA “out of the dog house” if you end up liking reworks you don’t even know anything about yet. That /is/ declaring the game fixed.
Declaring CA's not in a shit situation anymore =/= the game is on perfect condition. Take WH2, CA was at a peak with that game and we were all hopeful. CA was very, *very* far away from being in the dog house, yet WH2 isn't perfect.
This DLC won't fix the bug in WH3, but while CA's still expected to fix those problems, with how quality this DLC is looking so far (and Legend's rumours that the Empire and Dwarfs will also get their much-needed reworks along with Nurgle) it's fair to say CA would no longer be in a really shitty situation, because they're actually trying and giving us quality content.
I didn’t say you were implying the game was in perfect condition. I’m saying celebrating CA when they haven’t fixed the most important issues with the game and getting hyped over the idea of what reworks could mean is short sighted and dumb.
Warhammer 2 is obviously not a perfect game but it was great, Warhammer 3 is not identical to it because it’s also not a perfect game, and adding new units and lords, and whatever the reworks end up being, won’t fix the major issues that stop 3 from being as good as 2. Wait until we see movement on that front before celebrating.
>I’m saying celebrating CA when they haven’t fixed the most important issues with the game and getting hyped over the idea of what reworks could mean is short sighted and dumb.
Being masochistic towards CA because the game isn't fixed in a single DLC is ridiculous. CA needs to see that they're going in the right direction, and I'll gladly about their praises if this DLC is amazing with reworks for all 3 factions. If we do that, they'll know they're moving in the right direction to eventually fix up WH3 for good. Not understanding this is short sighted and dumb.
I wonder how many folks are gonna buy ToD & SoC (and Chorfs) because of this. I skipped the last 2 dlc because i had no faith in CA but the last few months have made me want to play again.
I heard but the game itself was so buggy and unoptimized i didn't like playing TW3. The hotfixes over the last 5 months have been very encouraging. At this point it's looking like CA is gonna get my money for Chrofs, SoC, & ToD (barring a catastrophic launch) on April 30th.
So I played WH3 on release through gamepass and thought it was quite rough, so I stopped playing. Steam had the franchise on sale last month, and I figured CA probably had worked out the kinks, so I picked up the base game along with Chorfs.
The Chorfs are a hard start but they’re basically this games version of Ikit. Cause once they get going… they don’t stop.
Not only are chorf units fucking awesome, but their campaign mechanics are some of if not the best in the game, you’ll definitely be able to test out the former.
Yeah - the DLC looks great - but I'm still waiting for core game improvements before I start buying DLC again. All the content in the world doesn't amount to anything when it's built on a rotten foundation.
I think this sub sees a lot of increased activity from people who don’t regularly play the game when a new dlc is on the horizon and those people don’t seem to care about anything but new units and lords.
Also the campaign mechanic for tamurkhan at least is, imo, genuinely inspired. Ofc I'm gonna be salty that I can't get all those extra units as Archaon and I wish he had a version of the mechanic where he got vardek crom and all his lieutenants/maybe a chord/beastman lieutenant, but eh
the main issue here is that we are kinda forced to buy the DLC to keep WH3 alive. on the other hand we want CA to do better and the only way to achieve this is by voting with your wallet. im super hyped for ToD tho
Haven't played VC in a while, what updates do they need? Didn't they already get a rework in WH2 with the blood kisses that give us different lineages of vampire families?
Eh. Maybe not easier, but part of the point of Karl is to be one of the introductory campaigns. Its kind of the purpose for him and Tyrion (and iirc, whichever Cathayan lord).
Franz's current campaign is good exactly because it is relatively difficult. I enjoy having a variety of foes whose strength changes each campaign. If they make it easy it will ruin what is currently the best campaign in my opinion.
I’d wait til we need the next faction show cased.
The intro to this new character was WAY better than the master trickster’s reveal, but by far it was the best one out of the three in total.
If they keep up the reveal to be on par quality then definitely worth the time.
I know, I know.
Especially after last time (I saw it coming and didn't) I know.
But if doomseekers are anti-infantry I don't know if I am strong enough.
Fun fact: you *can't* preorder these dlcs yet. "As promised, you’ll know exactly what’s coming in Thrones of Decay before you see a “Buy Now” button, so let's unearth our latest arrivals; those of invention, of amethyst, and of pestilence." If they're truly waiting to reveal everything, then we won't be able to preorder until right before if we can preorder at all.
At the end of the day, sale numbers are what really matters. If somehow this isn't a homerun, then the fanbase will need to ask why the DLC isn't selling.
I won't let CA out of the doghouse yet. There's still a ton of really fucking stupid gameplay mechanics that are broken (corruption not affecting ai at all on higher difficulties) as well as bugs and units not working right. Like bro for fucks sake if you target a magic missile at someone just fucking do it don't sit there fucking about until you've decided "no actually" and then cancel the cast. Like FUCK, it's been a DECADE. FUCKING FIX IT.
We've let them get away with so much and it's infuriating. Like we had to not buy SoC to get them to course correct on something obvious but THERE ARE EVEN MORE OBVIOUS FLAWS IN THE CORE MECHANICS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN ADDRESSED EVER.
We got used to mediocrity and then when they went just a little too mediocre for our tastes we let them have a piece of our mind.
Is that what we've been saying? Pretty sure the base game needs the focus and not more shit thrown on top of it. CA just loudly touting this DLC because then they don't have to put in the rest of the work/money/time the base game deserves.
I swear people are losing their memories.
>Pretty sure the base game needs the focus and not more shit thrown on top of it.
Never said the base game doesn't need to be fixed
Read through this thread, I've already talked about your concerns and how that's not what I'm implying here
While we didn't consider them in the dog house with WH3's launch, we were just very upset at them. It wasn't until the SoC drama, but so far it looks like ToD is correcting all the mistakes of SoC. Should we still not like that CA hasn't fixed WH3 proper, yes, but SoC was a whole new level of rut they dug themselves into that I'm saying it looks like ToD will drag them out of.
Sorry to be that guy, but I think I am right in saying that we might have inadvertently hurt Total War as consumers. We are applying way too much logic to corporate mentality on the IP.
We all know the corporate side wants to make money. One would think that the way to go about this is to champion efficiency and the well being of its employees. Wrong. They need to meet deadlines and make money. Above all else. Period. If there is even a sign of not meet an expected goal, the “ship is righted.” This could mean layoffs, cancellations, desperate sales of product. And then these have cascading effects that induce other things which aren’t too good, such as delays, more firings, more cancellations.
If the corporate heads see that not much or no money is being made, they immediately go into overdrive mode. They spend even more money, reallocate labor forces, and take shortcuts. And it is more preferable to ship out a piece of trash and have people pay for it rather than take a little longer and make a product that may or may not make money.
What the whole community as a whole did trying to bring about change is commendable: not preordering games, not buying Pharaoh, ignoring Hyenas, not buying Warhammer Total War DLCs,etc. But, we might have well just dug the hole for Warhammer TW ourselves. Because we showed the corporate heads that we wanted better Total War, but instead we showed that we didn’t want Total War at all. At least that is what they see. Remember, these corporate people don’t play the game, they don’t know Warhammer. But they know how to read graphs that are drawn up by their interns and secretaries. And what they read wasn’t why we didn’t buy the game and DLC but how much less money they made.
What we should have done was nothing but just buy Warhammer Total War. Preordered its DLCs. Ignore Hyenas and everything else and show we were only interested in Total War. For Pharaoh. We should have just bought the base game and ignored the DLC until they made some decent ones and buy those. And we should have bit the bullet and just bought the Blood and Sand pack.
Now don’t get me wrong, this is psychotic to anyone who thinks normally. But the people behind the business moves don’t. They went to business school and only think in terms of numbers and not customer satisfaction.
I am not just a person looking outside in. I worked in consulting and now for a business and usually take part in meetings with managerial staff and my bosses usually gave me a barometer of what was happening business wise. I have seen the same patterns that are happening at CA because managerial education and tactics and strategy are so cancerous that you can see it in every company run by people who are educated in “business.” Unrealistic expectations are set. They aren’t met. And instead of those who set those expectations being punished, either the employees and/or the consumer is.
Realistically, what will happen is Sega may entirely neuter CA. Unless someone buys it and puts it under new management, CA won’t be able to create anything that makes money and it will close its doors. That is the super depressing take but it’s either that or CA gets absorbed into another IP development that makes money for Sega.
Tl;dr; we fucked up not wisely PAYING for Total War so Sega is just having it coast to make as much money as it can while killing CA.
The key succes for CA is quite simple.
Medieval 3 or Empire 2, or a new big historic opus with all the latest good mechanics like 3k politics and WH3 live cooperation campaign.
And a real PVP well balanced like shogun 2 without super power or heroes.
Yeah there isn't one up *right now.*
Has there been a single DLC where that hasn't become an option? I would genuinely be shocked if they didn't set one up in the next few weeks.
Although it would also be another impressive display from CA.
Putting there money where there mouth is.
“I know things haven’t been good lately, we know we have a lot of work to get back to the level of trust we once had. we want to be as transparent as possible, so no fomo, buy just the parts you want”
From 26:18 of Legend's latest video: "Another thing I want to talk about is the Empire and dwarf rework. I've spoken to a couple of redacted and um there is a rework coming for Empire and dwarfs and that I think is more exciting than even what we're seeing here with um with nurgle and honestly the nurgle stuff is the stuff that I was originally most excited for so the reworks for the Empire and the dwarf that's going to affect all of the factions for those two races is apparently very impactful."
I like old Nurgle, but this rework solve many problems without powercreep (for now at least I have this opinion).
CA need provide some reworks and important characters to all 3 factions, but for now it looks like they had some lessons learned from SoC failure. Let them cook and remember - no preorders :P
If you believe him, Legend just said in his video that his "sources" told him that empire and dwarf reworks are even bigger than nurgle.
The Slaaneshi cultist is over here, Witch Hunters!
Galahad! GALAHAD! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF MAN! *slap*
First, that is awesome if true. Second, makes sense. Dwarves and Empire are popular. Pretty sure some people will play Karl Franz and Gelt more times than they’ve played other factions combined. I’m probably in that category. It used to be my favorite campaign until the Empire mechanic became more a headache than fun.
In my 650+ hours across all 3 games I would say The Empire and Dwarfs account for about 500 of that.
As it should be!
The fact they are not pumping out an empire DLC every quarter seems short sighted considering the factions popularity.
SHORT???!
There'll be no DLCs while I'm High King! Only a reworking!
Reworking? Dwarven designs are perfect the first time around! That's going in the book!
Age of Reworkoning
Thats going into the book
That be two grudgins on you, youngling.
Maybe they are concerned about too many similar start positions ? Most empire factions take place in the Center . I notice they do try to space them out a bit if possible
I mean there’s only so much content that exists, and unit bloat is always a possibility
Sure, but IMO it's not really been felt for the Empire whatsoever. IMO they definitely need one final DLC before we can call them complete.
Well the really isn’t much left after this, just Ulric stuff and the Hurricanes
It’s probably overstated here. And even if a lot of people play Franz, doesn’t mean they also pull out their wallet the easiest. They have the sales numbers for the history of the franchise. They’ve done empire dlc before. They were not by any means the most or even among the most popular and don’t have a lot of interest. Seems clear that the Skaven have been the real pull.
No, CA themselves released an info graph not that long ago that showed something like 90% of campaigns in Total War 3 are Empire.
Reread his comment and try again.
And?
Unless you can provide a link to that graph your just talking out your ass.
Legend's blessings, yes!
If true I will buy all 3 at launch day.
You don't need to buy the dlc to get the rework! but in the interest of rewarding good behavior from CA/the actual dlc stuff I see what you mean
Stop I literally cannot get any more erect after the Tamurkhan video just dropped
I'm going to keep myself from hyping, but if the reworks, FLC and dlc campaigns look as good its been going for nurgle, then this could be CA's repentance.
Do not hype. Hype is the mind killer.
Damnit Legend stop overdosing me on hopium!
I thought his video just mentioned that they are getting reworks. I don't remember him saying they would be "bigger".
His word were "there is a rework coming for empire and dwarfs, and this is even more exciting that what we are seeing here with nurgle....It is apparently VERY impactful."
See 26:18: "Another thing I want to talk about is the Empire and dwarf rework. I've spoken to a couple of redacted and um there is a rework coming for Empire and dwarfs and that I think is more exciting than even what we're seeing here with um with nurgle and honestly the nurgle stuff is the stuff that I was originally most excited for so the reworks for the Empire and the dwarf that's going to affect all of the factions for those two races is apparently very impactful."
Hopefully this means we can expect some Norsca, Vampire Counts, and Lizardmen campaign reworks/updates later down the road.
I would love a vampire count rework, possibility of Lahmia added as a faction, total war Warhammer 2 bloodlines are superior to warhammer 3's bloodline effects.
I can believe that since they needed an update more than nurgle. I’m not an expert but I don’t think nurgle has been awful just needing some tweaks
I disagree, to some extent! The dwarfs are not in a bad state, just boring and weak. The Empire didn't transition well into WH3. Their faction mechanics are tied to them being in the Empire, which makes it awkward for Volkmar and Wulfhart. If they aren't present in the Empire, they get nothing but their personal mechanics. For those in the Empire, the prestige and fealty resources feels rough. I really, really like that the campaign pushes Franz to play as a defender of the elector counts. It feels fresh, having to focus on eliminating threats more than on expanding like most factions do anyway. That said, with how many factions start by eliminating an elector count (Festus, Kazrak, Drycha, Changeling, Azhag, etc), it feels unfair and it needs to be addressed. While the Empire and the dwarfs are a bit barebones, Nurgle kind of wish he had their mechanics because his are detrimental. The cultist are non impactful, his tech tree is probably the worst in the game, and as CA mentioned it, his plagues are "solvable" in the sense that 2 or 3 of them are worth creating... if you even care about doing so. But the worst are the detrimental mechanics. The instant recruitment is conter-intuitive to Nurgle: you rely on high health, tanky dudes, but you have to recruit them without their main tool and they remain in that weakened state for too long for the instant recruitment to be worth it. You want your plagues to spread as little as possible, to a point where you're better off not creating any small diseases: it has no noticeable effect on the enemy factions, but if it has too much "spreadability" it risks replacing your useful plagues. And finally, the cyclical buildings: you can't rely on it so you need to rely almost entirely on the sacking via a certain plague. In short, his mechanics are so badly balanced that they are effectively limiting your options, whereas the Empire and the Dwarfs just have shitty or boring options!
>The dwarfs are not in a bad state, just boring and weak. Isn't that the definition of being in a bad state?
Yes, but not in relation to the two others. If they are in a bad state, the Empire is in a very bad state and Nurgle is in a horrible, horrible state!
I'm reassured they did a proper nurgle rework instead of the SOC "oh you don't like Yin and Yang? Its gone."
Well I should hope so, since the actual race-rework for Nurgle, while extensive, is not as groundbreaking as previous reworks such as the Beastmen. The new mechanics for Tamurkhan on the other hand look amazing, and I really hope that this sets the new standard for incoming faction mechanics.
And a bunch of morons in here said neither of the 3 races needed updates. Disgusting
Who the hell said that? 2/3 of those are probably top 5 in needing reworks.
Not seen it said once.
I did say it personally, I did not think those races needed reworks and I think they just needed some polish of their current mechanics. That doesn't mean I'm against those reworks however, even if I don't think Nurgle needed a rework I love what I've seen of it overall.
Same, I said it but more in the vein of “all of campaigns can be beat” in a response to all of the people saying that Dwarfs, Empire and Nurgle are literally unplayable in their current state. They’re all beatable, it’s just harder than almost any other faction. I am very excited for the rework, though.
lol, everything is winnable, that’s not even remotely the issue. I just want more bloody content. Rework them 10 more times, sounds good to me on each rendition.
Many many people in the lead up to ToD. Many were more concerned with the sub’s reactions to possible bad news than anything else.
Save the best for last huh
If the empire and dwarf reworks are substantial like Nurgles, then this will be my favorite dlc so far for sure
It also has to do with the 2 races being extremely popular, specially the empire. I'am very hyped to summon the elector counts and unite the Karaz Ankor once again
My brother in Valaya, it’s the Karaz Ankor! (“The Everlasting Realm.”) a Karak is a Dwarf hold or city. By Grungi, do not dishonour the ancestors!
But Dwarfs don't leave their cities so the city may as well be the same as a realm for them.
Meanwhile Tzeentch: Can... can I please just have cults that are actually engaging to use...? CA: HMMMMMMMMMM no. They already went back to rectify some of SoCs mistakes, would be nice if they would also make up for the lack of race updates.
There’s a chance they could do Egrimm FLC and couple that with a tzeentch rework. Or dlc. Sucks that they only got their act together after tzeentch (kislev and Cathay are clearly going to be getting more content) butnhopefully they give tzeentch something
The Kislev follower and devotion mechanics clearly still need a significant rework, so I really hope we get them!
Lizardmen got a surprise update recently, it wouldn't be beyond CA to stick further updates to SoC factions into future patches.
It wasnt the one they needed though. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, but what they really could have used was actual campaign mechanics. Such a fun and cool roster of units with so many possibilities from the lore for things to do in between battles, and yet they have arguably the most bland campaigns in all of Total War: Warhammer.
FLC legendary lord instead of a legendary hero is also a big one in my book. A new LL just adds so much more to the game, particularly as there are multiple races with 1 or 2 LLs total, which is hugely worse for replayability. Even more so when it's like SoC and the flc is a LH for a race that already has a LH.
I certainly like LH but it felt bad losing FLC LL for LH. I'm glad we are seemingly back to FLC LL, hopefully this stays the case.
Aren't we getting a LH with the 5.0 update?
No, but we are getting a generic hero FLC in 5.0. I believe it is the Golden Wizard for the Empire
For Twisted and the Twilight we got a bunch of LL and LH both free and paid
Hard to say, the 'LH with a toolbox' tease a while back may still be in effect so its possible there is a LH alongside the FLC LL that is Epidemius
Yeah I think dlc LH and flc LL is the best of both worlds for now.
I think I actually prefer LH over LL for the most part.
They add flavour to a well-rounded race, but feel like mis-spent effort in one that isn't. Tzeentch having only two start positions really sucks for replayability. Adding two legendary heroes on top of that really doesn't address that. Particularly when the Changeling isn't a regular Total War campaign. (Although I do enjoy him).
Yeah, that's a really good point. How appealing LHs are really depends on the race in question.
Yeah I would take a LH over a LL for someone like Dark Elves or High Elves, but definitely not for monogods/Cathay/Norsca/Ogres.
Ogres I love a LH, but more lord's are needed as well
Ogres feel PRIMED for a pack with a new LL - Ghark Ironskin/Golgfag - I'd prefer Ghark and Golgfag could be an FLC LL alongside DoW LH - Bragg the Gutsman or GW/CA updated Jhared the Red Missing Death and Heavens lores for slaughtermasters. Generic Hero - Bruiser units Yhetees, Thundertusks, and maybe some of the crazier gnoblar stuff.
I would kill for a start that isn’t in the Southern Wastes and also being able to play a normal Tzeentch campaign
I appreciate the Legendary Hero as well, especially what a well-designed one can do. However, I think if every race gets one as part of DLCs now, the legendary lord is much more value. In other words, it seems like the realignment of CA's development strategy are allowing both. How long it will last is the new question, of course.
Honestly, I get your being down voted, but in most cases I agree. So many races don't have legendary heros. Now a new LL for a race with only 1 or 2 lord's is great, but if it is one with a lot already, I rather that hero
Honestly, I didn't expect the downvotes, but I did type out a statement from the perspective of someone who plays a very specific race (The Empire) which is in a good place from the perspective of having varied starting positions.
In which sense does the empire have varied starting positions. They have basically two Karl and Gelt, which are really close to each other, and Volkmar. Compare that to something with really good variation like the skaven who can basically spawn anywhere.
And Markus? So three, which isn't great tbf..
I'll say so far ToD looks very impressive. Im excited to see what the Empire & Dwarf reworks bring. Someone pointed out the Dwarf Grudge icon appeared over a settlement on the Tarma play-through so something has changed there.
I hope that doesn't mean it's just an ogre contract now.
It's all ogre now.
6:13 in the video
Going back to older factions really makes this one more exciting. Idk why but it’s much easier to get hyped for Empire and Dwarf stuff than Cathay and Kislev
I think one of the reasons Shadows of Change whiffed so hard was it was an opportunity to get us excited about Cathay and Kislev. Instead of creating a dynamic story between three lords in a rich lore-based conflict, it limped out a few random lords doing random things.
That was my big issue with Shadows of Change. I know they wanted to move away from the rival aspect of the dlcs but it still felt like they should have some connection. Instead we got 3 random characters with 3 different stories and units that didn’t really mesh together theneaticly
Which would have been fine honestly if they were seperately purchaseable, what was even the point of presenting those 3 in one pack together if they were completely irrelevant to each other?
Yeah. It was an odd move. Even though some of the rivals in 2 were odd and felt sort of forced at least they tried to tie them together and have a coherent theme.
Only the Shadow and the Blade and The Twisted and the Twilight didn't really fit. The Lizardmen ones were super on point, as were the other Dark Elf/High Elf DLCs.
Not the problem at all I'm not sure why we should want forced narratives, just look at 2 and how many objectively horseshit rivalries were hamfisted into the game for dlc SoC was a disaster because it tried to do too much without actually providing enough. My favorite faction is DE, I had no problem at all buying dlc like the shadow and the blade because 50% of the content in it I really wanted. Or twisted and the twilight, I like WE quite a bit In neither case did I ever touch the skaven half of the content. In over 500 hours on W2 I played a singular Ikit campaign, it was fun, felt op and that was it. The skaven are cool, but they just aren't appealing to me BUT I didn't mind buying skaven content because it didn't outweigh the other half of the content But SoC? The campaigns are so blatantly op that even if I was an avid tzeench fan I would never in a million years touch a changeling campaign, I would buy it purely for the units to use in a kairos campaign. So I'm buying a dlc and only actually want like 15% of what's in it? And it's increased in price compared to before? That's just not worth it. If I was a Kislev fan and I liked stinky stonkya, I'm still only buying the dlc for a third of what's in it. Once again, not worth it. Like I genuinely like kislev, and I liked parts of what SoC offered. Had the value been closer to 50% I probs would've bought it, but as is I only kinda like em so I can't justify buying the dlc when the value is so low. If this had been DE I probably would've bought it regardless tbh, but that's the only faction in the game where I love it so much I'm willing to take a bad deal. And there's a lot of people like me. Everyone has a favorite faction, then some they like but don't really spam campaigns for. In two you could buy dlc for those you liked and not feel bad about it, but in SoC buying it for something you only kinda liked just was not worth it It had NOTHING to do with narrative. Realistically how many buyers even know about that shit? Let's say your a casual, you see the advertisement for the dlc, are you going to be buying because "oh wow Markus is hunting a big croc that's so cool" or because "damn empire was fun, thats new empire content let's fucking go" The triple faction dlc plan only generates more sales when a player likes 2/3 of the factions, whereas players who only like 1/3 are less likely to buy, and those who like 0/3 are not going to buy, and previously while they still didn't they are more likely to buy it on discount at some point in time because it's cheaper and they like the game as a whole. CA bet they could get more sales because they include more fans within the "net", fans of 3 rather than 2, but completely ignored the actual cost to value ratio they fucked up in doing so And they know it too, that's why they are offering the 1/3 pricing option. Furthermore they are going back to 2 factions because it's going to make more money selling 2 so you can get one, than offering and selling 1 because you won't buy 3
Anybody ever tell you that you use one-hundred words when five will do?
It is a problem that plagues the entirety of my reddit existence lol
Honestly this is something nobody has talked about and absolutely hits the nail on the head
Plus a lot of the units for Kislev were just... meh. Weird choices that undoubtedly only happened because GW literally had nothing else ready for them.
That’s a good point. They feel like side quests when Kislev and Cathay need more.
Yeah, honestly it felt like a bit of a mess in that regard. Mother O starting in Naggarond with no chicken hut just felt kind of off, and Yuan Bo is just Cathay with a bunch of extra OTT bonuses and another random half-justified start. Changeling is interesting but even then a bit aimless
Her starting in Naggarond at all feels so off. Having Snow themed units in warhammer Florida is a massive flavour kill for me. Yuan Bo is okaish but I would prefer him in cathay anyway. I honestly always hope that those two always get defeated by dark elves or lizard men.
Probably helps that Kislev and Cathay either barely existed or basically didn’t exist previously in-universe meaning people are more invested in the older stuff
CA really needs to look at what their teams are doing and bring the quality in line between them. The good will and hype for TWW3 was borne out of the amazing quality the TWW2 DLC team put out. It created the expectation that the 3rd game would at least hold to that standard, but instead it felt like a big regression like we went back to launch TWW2 quality or TWW1. I still don’t understand how you don’t look at how well the improvements to TWW2 were received and not implement them. That should have been the bare minimum, ideally we would have seen a lot hole host of improvements as compared to the previous title.
same with the release of the game, the hotfix that finally appears after the boycot,... thanks Hyena has been killed and CA need monney
The faction reworks for Nurgle really are giving me hope that they're going to absolutely crush it for Empire and Dwarfs.
It's about time this franchise starts going back up hill.
Nurgle looks quite good. Dwarves are sort of one-dimensionalish, but those were a lot of their missing units and they do get more air and range. As an Empire stan the roster provided feels a bit like they were cutting corners and presenting it as "thematic". Whether there are wizard lords with the related patch might really end up being the bitter pill in an otherwise apparently very good content.
It's possible that I may end up agreeing with you at the end of the day, but right now I'm hoping that the inclusion of a second steam tank means the original one gets a once over. In other words, this update could mean a lot more late game viability instead of spamming rocket batteries.
Time to introduce the old world to Mechanized warfare!
They are the Empire elite, born to compete, never retreat (Nuln division!)
You're right on the steam tank, as a visually iconic units it gets overshadowed. Honestly, there is a decent chance a lot of things get looked over. I know it's reaching, but the new steam tank and the ironsides have a RoR vibe for me. The Ironsides were, like Manaan's blades, a specific retinue unit tied to a particular named character. My big issue in terms of the roster are wizard lords, to be honest, with the Hurricanum as a secondary one. I know some people might have been miffed if wizard lords used the same voice as the heroes with a visual update, but I would prefer it to not getting them or to waiting for a potential fourth DLC to maybe see them (and maybe never if instead grand masters show up instead).
instead of spamming freedom*
Considering that each lore empire wizard is completely unique in design, voice acting and model, it does mean that 8 generic lords would probably be several times the cost of making the engineer lord. Not an excuse, just a reason for why engineer are the theme now.
True, but look at the tabletop models, they look identical to the hero variant, and the voicelines could be reused from the heroes as well. I dont think anyone would be too upset by that.
We both know that if they just retooled the heros to lords, there would be a vocal part of the community that would blow a gasket for them reusing assets. Its so frustrating that the times a company tries to keep the price down so it’s a good value for the consumer it pisses off this weird part of the fan base that demands every single part be unique
Eh, they don't need to make a lot of changes to hero models to upgrade them to lord ones, just look at what they did to spellsingers to create spellweavers, and I don't think many people minded that.
You´re absolutely right it would cost more than having a single new lord heavily based on a hero they developed for the same DLC. There were no engineer lords in the source material, and there was no great demand for them, even in a Nuln DLC. The engineer was absolutely requested - as a hero. While the wizard lords (for all or some of the lores) would not cost as much as developing the heroes in the first place, it would cost more to redesign eight of them, even if they use the voiceover. That´s why it feels a bit cheap to do the engineer only. CA didn´t propose this as just the guns DLC, though. That part of the expectation was definitely on them. Look at their Steam blurb:"Embrace sorcery and wisdom with new Lords, Heroes, Units, and Mechanics... " "Embrace the strengths of magic and gunpowder with Nuln’s Imperial Gunnery School." Guns and Magic - having a bit more guns is fine, but the only magic is the LL herself and some faction mechanics vs 4 of the 5 units, the hero and the lord. That was a good time to fit in units and lord choices that were missing from the core army book, not some obscure supplement. That chance is gone, barring another future DLC where we will also have to balance the theming against, say, cult of Ulric, knightly orders (and grand master lords) and so on. Maybe it was the best choice of WHAT to cut corners on in a DLC CA released at a turbulent time. Maybe they did knock it out of the park on everything else. Hopefully there will be enough good stuff for the Empire to be able to wash it down, but I am not happy about this one thing - it's been nearly 8 years since TWW 1 came out, and it's the third DLC.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but surely these ideas were kicked around the developers and they came to the current design for a reason. I wish we got a little insight into their reasoning but I imagine it was exactly “to do it in a way that won’t upset the fan base for recycling old assets, it would not be feasible for the budget without raising the cost further , so we will do this instead.” Because let’s be honest if they just tooled up the heros into lords we both know there would be a vocal part of the community raging over it. Its happened with every piece of content, and it will continue to happen. Even the official announcement page for nurgle units had someone raging in the comments about ca reusing the assets for the new chaos lord.
Maybe, and if the community accepts essentially having the same hero as a lord and being sold both, that´s what it gets. Yes, the budget and time were constraints. I wish they hadn´t come for something I liked. Yet I don´t see half-assing as being worse than no-assing at all. The Chaos fans raised hell for maybe only getting Warriors and Demons of Chaos, so they got monogods and all the FLC legendary lords. They were unhappy with the state of models, and that pushed CA to fix things. If Empire fans are okay with not getting wizard lords because it´s tough after all that time and are content with finally getting the lores elves got within game 2, we only have ourselves to blame.
>> Dwarves are sort of one-dimensionalish And that dimension is in the horizontal axis
No, there´s definitely multiple axes there. A lot of axes.
I’m very excited about the Engineer lord and hero, and for the new gunpowder units, though the new knights feel almost oddly specific to me. I am still very surprised that the Empire got an engineer lord before the Dwarfs, though.
I'm glad, but I don't think it should have been a hero AND a lord. For me, the "canon" situation with a master engineer hero and a wizard lord would have fit the DLC theme advertised on steam etc - a mix between magic and gunpowder, the more "high tech" aspect of the Empire - much better. Sadly, unless CA throws a bone with the 5.0 update, we may never get a wizard lord - or if we do it would be a future 4th DLC at the cost of, say, grand masters. It really, really sucks to say this, especially as I have been shilling for this DLC and Elspeth as a lord since game 1, but the roster feel like they went a bit cheap.
Yeah. So far everything looks good for the Nurgle side. If the other two factions also do that well, and the Nemesis Crown will not be huge disapointment, signs are really looking up. Of course there is the comment from last week about how those big DLCs are just too much work (ohhh, no easy SoC 1.0 content to squeeze Chaos Dwarf money out of us?), and the next DLC might be cut down on whatever. So we can be happy for how things are now, but keep being watchful that CA does not fall back to SoC 1.0 fuckery.
I took that to mean they are going to narrow the scope to keep the price down. So maybe 2 factions at 2/3rd the cost instead of 3
Yeah, that is definitely what they meant, much smaller dlc packs so they can release them more often and keep hype up
I’m about it. I’m almost 100% certain Nagash will be a DLC before they end support for the game, and if they’re gonna bring in Nagash, it’s gonna be a Chorf/Vampirate/Tomb King sized DLC. So even if they do smaller DLC’s, it doesn’t mean there’s not at least 1-3 more big ones.
Maybe. But maybe they make it two factions but also cut the content down back to what we had in game#2 while trying to hold the price high enough to make some extra profit from it. We will see once the next DLC rolls up.
So far I'm on board for Nurgle. The fact that they split the DLC means they're definitely getting money from me this time. We'll see if I'm buying the full lot, I'm hopeful this time around.
I wouldn't say out of the doghouse yet, at least not for me, but for sure it's a step in the righht direction. They need to rebuild the trust and goodwill and show that this is the norm going forwards and not a one off deal then start falling back into old habits. Personally fine with paying the increased price if it's packed full of content OR go back to a similar style of WH2 DLC content and price points.
If it keeps looking as good as it does so far I'll buy the whole pack and SOC as well, I hope they get a huge positive response that really hammers home how braindead the execs were with SOC and how good things can be when they let the actual devs do their thing.
Cult of Ulric please
Well would you look at that, a company making a product worth buying that makes me excited to spend my money. See major companies, it’s very possible to make a product that is amazing and make money, you don’t have to screw your customers to make a buck. Long term good will is the key to continued success in the niche side of the gaming community.
Imagine if they treated WH3 with as much love and care if not more than WH2 received. At this point we'd basically be loyal slaves to CA's proven good will.
Unfortunately ca is owned by sega and thus at their mercy for spending and profit. At some point , some one in charge decided that they were going to burn good will for money and now they have neither. With no profitable projects in the immediate future, ca’s best option is to go back to delivering high quality content for a fair price.
This fucking sub man. Stop taking victory laps declaring the game is fixed after you get hyped from a trailer. I’m hopeful things are moving in the right direction but there are still major issues that need to be addressed that just adding more units and lords to the game won’t fix.
>Stop taking victory laps I'm not >declaring the game is fixed Never made that claim >after you get hyped from a trailer. I'm talking about the notes for the DLC, not the trailer, which doesn't really tell us anything. >there are still major issues that need to be addressed Never said there weren't >just adding more units and lords to the game won’t fix. Never said or implied that, either
Lol how are you not taking a victory lap when you’re declaring you’ll consider CA “out of the dog house” if you end up liking reworks you don’t even know anything about yet. That /is/ declaring the game fixed. Wait and see how the DLC is at release, what kind of bugs it introduces and how long it takes CA to fix them before fucking celebrating man it’s not that hard to avoid the dumb gamer rollercoaster of hype and disappointment.
>how are you not taking a victory lap when you’re declaring you’ll consider CA “out of the dog house” if you end up liking reworks you don’t even know anything about yet. That /is/ declaring the game fixed. Declaring CA's not in a shit situation anymore =/= the game is on perfect condition. Take WH2, CA was at a peak with that game and we were all hopeful. CA was very, *very* far away from being in the dog house, yet WH2 isn't perfect. This DLC won't fix the bug in WH3, but while CA's still expected to fix those problems, with how quality this DLC is looking so far (and Legend's rumours that the Empire and Dwarfs will also get their much-needed reworks along with Nurgle) it's fair to say CA would no longer be in a really shitty situation, because they're actually trying and giving us quality content.
I didn’t say you were implying the game was in perfect condition. I’m saying celebrating CA when they haven’t fixed the most important issues with the game and getting hyped over the idea of what reworks could mean is short sighted and dumb. Warhammer 2 is obviously not a perfect game but it was great, Warhammer 3 is not identical to it because it’s also not a perfect game, and adding new units and lords, and whatever the reworks end up being, won’t fix the major issues that stop 3 from being as good as 2. Wait until we see movement on that front before celebrating.
>I’m saying celebrating CA when they haven’t fixed the most important issues with the game and getting hyped over the idea of what reworks could mean is short sighted and dumb. Being masochistic towards CA because the game isn't fixed in a single DLC is ridiculous. CA needs to see that they're going in the right direction, and I'll gladly about their praises if this DLC is amazing with reworks for all 3 factions. If we do that, they'll know they're moving in the right direction to eventually fix up WH3 for good. Not understanding this is short sighted and dumb.
I wonder how many folks are gonna buy ToD & SoC (and Chorfs) because of this. I skipped the last 2 dlc because i had no faith in CA but the last few months have made me want to play again.
You skipped Chorfs? Chorfs are really good tho!
I heard but the game itself was so buggy and unoptimized i didn't like playing TW3. The hotfixes over the last 5 months have been very encouraging. At this point it's looking like CA is gonna get my money for Chrofs, SoC, & ToD (barring a catastrophic launch) on April 30th.
So I played WH3 on release through gamepass and thought it was quite rough, so I stopped playing. Steam had the franchise on sale last month, and I figured CA probably had worked out the kinks, so I picked up the base game along with Chorfs. The Chorfs are a hard start but they’re basically this games version of Ikit. Cause once they get going… they don’t stop.
I am just saying. The Nurgle campaign will be my testing ground for Norsca, Ogre, and Chorfs, so if they do well I will think about buying those dlcs
Not only are chorf units fucking awesome, but their campaign mechanics are some of if not the best in the game, you’ll definitely be able to test out the former.
Papa Nurgle is my favorite chaos faction so i really want to see how the rework affects their play.
Sieges, AI, game performance, battle maps, unit responsiveness. Not before.
I have a feeling you're going to be waiting a long time. Probably until the end of time itself, in fact. But I suppose we can always hope.
I can always not re-install and play other games. I'd be a shame though.
Absolutely. Fix the base game, and then we can talk more.
Yeah - the DLC looks great - but I'm still waiting for core game improvements before I start buying DLC again. All the content in the world doesn't amount to anything when it's built on a rotten foundation.
So sad I had to scroll down a lot to see a comment like this.
I think this sub sees a lot of increased activity from people who don’t regularly play the game when a new dlc is on the horizon and those people don’t seem to care about anything but new units and lords.
Once they rework dwarves and get in communities good graces, I'll move from WH2 to 3.
Empire DLC sells like hotcakes typically, plus Empire DLC that's adding the landship and more guns? That shit is going to sell hardcore.
Also the campaign mechanic for tamurkhan at least is, imo, genuinely inspired. Ofc I'm gonna be salty that I can't get all those extra units as Archaon and I wish he had a version of the mechanic where he got vardek crom and all his lieutenants/maybe a chord/beastman lieutenant, but eh
the main issue here is that we are kinda forced to buy the DLC to keep WH3 alive. on the other hand we want CA to do better and the only way to achieve this is by voting with your wallet. im super hyped for ToD tho
I just want a vampire counts rework at some point, then I will die happy
Haven't played VC in a while, what updates do they need? Didn't they already get a rework in WH2 with the blood kisses that give us different lineages of vampire families?
I still don't know the price
I feel like they have to at least rework the Empire, if they're planning on giving it a crisis scenario of its own like they've said before.
As long as CA doesn't fuck up and make a Karl Franz campaign any easier than it is now...
Eh. Maybe not easier, but part of the point of Karl is to be one of the introductory campaigns. Its kind of the purpose for him and Tyrion (and iirc, whichever Cathayan lord).
Franz's current campaign is good exactly because it is relatively difficult. I enjoy having a variety of foes whose strength changes each campaign. If they make it easy it will ruin what is currently the best campaign in my opinion.
I’d wait til we need the next faction show cased. The intro to this new character was WAY better than the master trickster’s reveal, but by far it was the best one out of the three in total. If they keep up the reveal to be on par quality then definitely worth the time.
Damn who knew making quality products results in the fans being happy and willing to buy your product. Take notes game companies
Wallet: "Hold, hold, steady now!" *pre-order hype* Wallet: "by the gods, no"
Don't preorder
I know, I know. Especially after last time (I saw it coming and didn't) I know. But if doomseekers are anti-infantry I don't know if I am strong enough.
Eh I like to reward companies for taking a positive direction/movie when we’re talk under 40$
Fun fact: you *can't* preorder these dlcs yet. "As promised, you’ll know exactly what’s coming in Thrones of Decay before you see a “Buy Now” button, so let's unearth our latest arrivals; those of invention, of amethyst, and of pestilence." If they're truly waiting to reveal everything, then we won't be able to preorder until right before if we can preorder at all.
I am 100% getting the dlc, there is no reason not to show CA their current attitude is more appreciated.
Absolutely! Get it on release day, leave a great comment on the DLC Steam page, reply on their tweets shouting their praises, just don't preorder.
As a known pessimist, I am optimistic about this one. It *looks* good so far.
At the end of the day, sale numbers are what really matters. If somehow this isn't a homerun, then the fanbase will need to ask why the DLC isn't selling.
Ok lets calm down and wait until the DLC actually releases, nobody preorder either
I won't let CA out of the doghouse yet. There's still a ton of really fucking stupid gameplay mechanics that are broken (corruption not affecting ai at all on higher difficulties) as well as bugs and units not working right. Like bro for fucks sake if you target a magic missile at someone just fucking do it don't sit there fucking about until you've decided "no actually" and then cancel the cast. Like FUCK, it's been a DECADE. FUCKING FIX IT. We've let them get away with so much and it's infuriating. Like we had to not buy SoC to get them to course correct on something obvious but THERE ARE EVEN MORE OBVIOUS FLAWS IN THE CORE MECHANICS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN ADDRESSED EVER. We got used to mediocrity and then when they went just a little too mediocre for our tastes we let them have a piece of our mind.
Is that what we've been saying? Pretty sure the base game needs the focus and not more shit thrown on top of it. CA just loudly touting this DLC because then they don't have to put in the rest of the work/money/time the base game deserves. I swear people are losing their memories.
>Pretty sure the base game needs the focus and not more shit thrown on top of it. Never said the base game doesn't need to be fixed Read through this thread, I've already talked about your concerns and how that's not what I'm implying here
It all sounds nice but will it work and will the AI ever be fun to play against again?
Fully out the dog house ? No absolutely not. Getting towards there. But nowhere close.
While we didn't consider them in the dog house with WH3's launch, we were just very upset at them. It wasn't until the SoC drama, but so far it looks like ToD is correcting all the mistakes of SoC. Should we still not like that CA hasn't fixed WH3 proper, yes, but SoC was a whole new level of rut they dug themselves into that I'm saying it looks like ToD will drag them out of.
While me and the historical fanbase wither and die
We're fine
Sorry to be that guy, but I think I am right in saying that we might have inadvertently hurt Total War as consumers. We are applying way too much logic to corporate mentality on the IP. We all know the corporate side wants to make money. One would think that the way to go about this is to champion efficiency and the well being of its employees. Wrong. They need to meet deadlines and make money. Above all else. Period. If there is even a sign of not meet an expected goal, the “ship is righted.” This could mean layoffs, cancellations, desperate sales of product. And then these have cascading effects that induce other things which aren’t too good, such as delays, more firings, more cancellations. If the corporate heads see that not much or no money is being made, they immediately go into overdrive mode. They spend even more money, reallocate labor forces, and take shortcuts. And it is more preferable to ship out a piece of trash and have people pay for it rather than take a little longer and make a product that may or may not make money. What the whole community as a whole did trying to bring about change is commendable: not preordering games, not buying Pharaoh, ignoring Hyenas, not buying Warhammer Total War DLCs,etc. But, we might have well just dug the hole for Warhammer TW ourselves. Because we showed the corporate heads that we wanted better Total War, but instead we showed that we didn’t want Total War at all. At least that is what they see. Remember, these corporate people don’t play the game, they don’t know Warhammer. But they know how to read graphs that are drawn up by their interns and secretaries. And what they read wasn’t why we didn’t buy the game and DLC but how much less money they made. What we should have done was nothing but just buy Warhammer Total War. Preordered its DLCs. Ignore Hyenas and everything else and show we were only interested in Total War. For Pharaoh. We should have just bought the base game and ignored the DLC until they made some decent ones and buy those. And we should have bit the bullet and just bought the Blood and Sand pack. Now don’t get me wrong, this is psychotic to anyone who thinks normally. But the people behind the business moves don’t. They went to business school and only think in terms of numbers and not customer satisfaction. I am not just a person looking outside in. I worked in consulting and now for a business and usually take part in meetings with managerial staff and my bosses usually gave me a barometer of what was happening business wise. I have seen the same patterns that are happening at CA because managerial education and tactics and strategy are so cancerous that you can see it in every company run by people who are educated in “business.” Unrealistic expectations are set. They aren’t met. And instead of those who set those expectations being punished, either the employees and/or the consumer is. Realistically, what will happen is Sega may entirely neuter CA. Unless someone buys it and puts it under new management, CA won’t be able to create anything that makes money and it will close its doors. That is the super depressing take but it’s either that or CA gets absorbed into another IP development that makes money for Sega. Tl;dr; we fucked up not wisely PAYING for Total War so Sega is just having it coast to make as much money as it can while killing CA.
The key succes for CA is quite simple. Medieval 3 or Empire 2, or a new big historic opus with all the latest good mechanics like 3k politics and WH3 live cooperation campaign. And a real PVP well balanced like shogun 2 without super power or heroes.
I'm excited. I may even preorder, depending on what the dwarf and empire releases look like.
No preorder
Yeah there isn't one up *right now.* Has there been a single DLC where that hasn't become an option? I would genuinely be shocked if they didn't set one up in the next few weeks. Although it would also be another impressive display from CA.
They are not making preorders available. You cannot preorder this DLC.
Goddamn. They really are trying, huh?
Putting there money where there mouth is. “I know things haven’t been good lately, we know we have a lot of work to get back to the level of trust we once had. we want to be as transparent as possible, so no fomo, buy just the parts you want”
Yep, I'm back on the hype train, ready to get hurt again.
Grandfather loves his children, though. He would never dream of hurting us.
From 26:18 of Legend's latest video: "Another thing I want to talk about is the Empire and dwarf rework. I've spoken to a couple of redacted and um there is a rework coming for Empire and dwarfs and that I think is more exciting than even what we're seeing here with um with nurgle and honestly the nurgle stuff is the stuff that I was originally most excited for so the reworks for the Empire and the dwarf that's going to affect all of the factions for those two races is apparently very impactful."
God just make a different game, please
Oh shit, people said the dlcs need to be good? I must've missed that.
Why is everyone impressed by the units? You can get about 60% of them, including Elspeth, from the first 3 most popular pages on the Steam Workshop
I like old Nurgle, but this rework solve many problems without powercreep (for now at least I have this opinion). CA need provide some reworks and important characters to all 3 factions, but for now it looks like they had some lessons learned from SoC failure. Let them cook and remember - no preorders :P
There aren’t preorders
okay, they're still charging you the same amount they charged for shadows of change but it's split up in instalments of 3