Total War: Warhammer

CA don't have other active projects at the moment that can bring them profit. Pharaoh is a side-job and it will only come in October. Their other potential big projects will come next year at best and not guarantee they will suceed. So they won't can WHIII DL Cs like they did with 3K. But it is hard to say how they will adjust to this backslash.

Also, besides the price, content amount and tone-deaf reaction from CA, there are two more factors that enraged the public. Not something new but it added to the total result: bugfixing was really bad lately (they literarly had to fix a bunch of things this patch that they introduced with the previous one) and they did promissed factions updates with these bunch of DL Cs. People hoped for some rework like it was in WHII times but instead we got mechanics simplification and a bunch of really minor changes.

Edited by Nachtwandler on Feb 10th 2024 at 3:52:33 AM

Considering the utter lack of excitement around Hyenas, I'm not optimistic about that one, to be honest.

Which also plays into the discontent - from what I recall, CA basically reallocated a bunch of people to other projects (including Hyenas) after Warhammer 3 officially released, even though the game was severely lacking polish etc, leaving the DLC team to pick up the slack.

Neglecting what's basically your flagship title like that is not a good idea and it very much smacks of management wanting to chase trends (with Hyeneas being a hero shooter that will likely contain a bunch of microtransactions), with the devs and community managers being the ones left holding the ball.

It's not if you want it to actually work. CA isn't going to backdown from anything less, only maximal anger and attention (short of harassment/threats/etc) will get them to course correct. The drama is the best way for things to actually get better.

Also it's worth noting that this is not just about one DLC. It's about a uber-profitable company who refuses to do something as basic as hotfix their game, much less release timely updates. That's why we have a DLC lord (Nakai) who is broken and has been for months despite modders fixing it several days after release. And the more information we receive about 4.0 the more lackluster it seems.

CA has been continually dropping the ball from day 01, only Chaos Dwarfs and Champions of Chaos has stopped their record on Warhammer 3 from being a complete egregious failure. I would say that's something consumers absolutely should be angry about, and vocally so.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 25th 2023 at 4:02:11 AM

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nakai bug had been fixed internally at CA for a while as well. What it looks to me is that with the bug-fixing team being too small (if it's true that there's only a single employee on that), it's unfeasable for the Total War team to make constant patching to the game and they need to put updates in big patch packages, as they are doing for 4.0.

The introduction of Immortal Empires also went better than Mortal Empires in WHII despite the bugs. And people were happy about some other updates like them listening to make IE and DL Cs available for WHIII owners instead of only ones who own all 3 games.

Im general people were happy with what DLC team was doing with a game. They complained about bug fixing team, the requesncy of updates and the state intial main team released the game that caused a lot of further issues. But people at least were understanding that due to intial lack of communication between main and DLC teams the latter had to fix a lot of issues.

I do not know if DLC team was also pressured by higher-ups (as there was a statement from their leader also in the controversal reaction on the DLC price) but now even them are under heat.

And that's an issue. Paradox is big company that also milks their games with a lot of DL Cs. But they can afford to make a separate team that is concenrated solely on bug-fixing and reworking older things that either do not work or got outdated. CA on the other hand barely had enough people to do the bug fixing. And the situation was way better during WHII times. While some bugs still are in the game (and a couple of last patches resulted in some broken things or some cheeses that were solved pretty lazy way), there were still far less bugs and they had time for major faction reworks. Now they just don't becuse higher-ups cut the responcible staff.

Like just the latest example: a lot of heroes/lords are pretty bad in terms of not having enough unique skills to fill the increased 50 level cap. And they have promissed to address this a few patches ago. In the DLC they reworked a total of 1 generic lord. And their solution for the issue: you will stop getting notifications if you fill all of the skill line but still have points to add (thank you, damn, it does not solve anything, and you miss the fact that for heroes like third of the skills will be useless anyway as you either go their agent line or their combat line).

Edited by Nachtwandler on Aug 26th 2023 at 4:51:37 AM

Yeah, Stellaris' Custodian team is often cited as something CA should emulate.

I'd also like to point out that CA has said they wanted to patch the game more often because people were fed up with shit being broken for 3-6 months - this hasn't happened so far.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 25th 2023 at 8:16:49 PM

They had more regular patches during WHI, but because of this modders had to patch their mods as regularly, which was problematic. So they switched to 1 patch per DLC with rare hotfixes in-between.

The issue is that now patches are to rare and oftentime they do not fix enough to justify the wait.

Edited by Nachtwandler on Aug 26th 2023 at 4:54:09 AM

Yes, I know why they started patching less often - my point is that they did say they wanted to go back to releasing patches in shorter intervals again relatively recently.

Something that so far hasn't happened yet - and it really doesn't help that the last time they put out a path, it either broke a bunch of stuff or added additional broken stuff (Nakai being unable to recruit Kroxigors, dedicated WoC lords being unable to upgrade their daemon infantry to exalted, troths for damsels literally not working etc).

Also, if something big breaks, there should be a patch outside of that cycle anyway - remember how long weapon strength was bugged in Warhammer 2?

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 26th 2023 at 2:18:24 PM

4.0 patch notes are out.

The Shadows of Change dlc is fully out and available.

A Total Warhammer 3 mod: Lizardmen but you can get actual dinos

I like the one which looks like an Axolotl the best.

CA released a pretty substantial update patch a few days back.

Some highlights:

- Skill reset option

- Siege battle changes

- Slann Mage-Priest finally have access to all basic lores of magic

Also a funny mistake, they wanted to change Greasus' speed from 35 to 40, but accidentally put him at 400.

Now he doesn't actually go at 400 speed, there's an animation cap beyond which he can't go faster, but he still zooms around faster than the fastest cavalry in the game and that's hillarious.

Greasus Lightning

CA Blog- Message from Total War’s Leadership Team

TL;DR -

• Direct apology from CA;

• Shadows of Change getting a free update to content, intended for February 2024;

• As a consequence, Thrones of Decay being moved back so as to ensure they can give it more attention and don't make the "same mistakes", intended for April 2024;

• The hotfixing cadence is here to stay, with CA planning to keep to the hotfixing schedule of 1 roughly every 2 weeks, throughout 2024.

• TW: Pharaoh deluxe & dynasty editions being removed from the store, and partial refunds being given to all those that bought those editions. New RRP will be £29.99, and it will receive a free update in the new year, that had originally been planned as the first DLC. Still planning to expand the campaign map & add new cultures, but will need to assess appetite for it going forward.

• CA wishes everyone a happy holidays and will reveal more info in the New Year.

Well, that was unexpected.

Honestly, Thrones of Decay being delayed was the least surprising part regarding Warhammer. There was no way they could stick to their announced timetable and deliver a good product after the recent shake-ups etc.

I do wonder what they're gonna add to Soc, though, because apart from the overall content being somewhat lacking, it's also got bit of a thematic problem.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 16th 2023 at 3:45:25 PM

CA revealed the most played factions for different parts of the world.

Asia: Cathay

Europe: Kislev

North America: Kislev

Oceania: Empire

South America: Kislev

Africa: Kislev

Kislev.

Kislev.

(Asia preferring Cathay is probably the least surprising thing I've heard all day lol)

Old memes never die

Hotfix 4.1.4 was droped.

TW: Warhammer III - Shadows of Change 2.0 - Cathay.

TL;DR

No Hag Mothers for Kislev as a specific choice as Mother Ostankya is -the- mother

No beaks for Tzaangors

The new template for how So C & To D will be structured is as follows:

3 Legendary Lords

Gameplay mechanics for each Legendary Lord

3 Legendary Heroes - One per race

3 Lords - One per race

3 Heroes - One per race

5 units (Infantry/Cavalry/Monsters etc) per race

3 Regiments of Renown per race

1 FLC Character (Aekold Helbrass for Shadows of Change and a LEGENDARY LORD for Thrones of Decay)

Potential further content (New Spell Lores, New Mounts & New additional FLC dependent on theming)

With this new structure in place, 2.0 represents for So C an addition of:

• 2 Legendary Heroes

• 2 Generic Lords

• 2 Generic Heroes

• 6 Units

• 1 Magic Lore

• 1 FLC

Planned release for the middle of February, but could be subject to change. Deep dive article next week for Tzeentch additions, along with confirmation of release date.

Edit: Additional info

Lore of Hags is the +1 lore of magic

Free LC: Ice Court Sled for Katarin

Grand Cathay is getting a Legendary hero, a generic hero, a monster that can also be a mount option and a monster or mount option for the Celestial General.

B'aw, no beaked Tzaangors? That stinks. Nice to see they're turning this situation around though.

Games Workshop said no on the beaked T'zaangors, so not much CA can do about it.

That legendary hero looks fucking sick though. Giant mecha jumping over mountaintops.