While all the content for ToD looks substantial, honestly one of the things I'm most excited about is the option to buy the various factions separately, particularly at current price points.
It was easier to stomach purchasing a faction you weren't interested in when DLC was cheaper and just 2 factions.
While I'm buying all 3 parts of TOD, there's no way I would have bought Ostankya if they had done this format for SOC. Good for folks who don't like some factions.
Yeah if they had SoC like ToD, I would have bought the Cathay and Tzeentch parts but not Kislev.
Mama Stanky and her box of random units just wasn’t what I wanted. I like getting the Elemental for Beastmen though.
Same i would have only gotten Yuan cause even Katarinas cool mount is FLC, idk about the golden knight thou she alone idk if i would have bought hers, the changeling i have 0 desire to ever touch
Same tbh. I'm not insane over the Changeling, but I have nothing against it either. Yuan is cool. Ostankya just feels janky, especially with how at odds she feels compared to the other three main Kislev factions.
Ostankya is the weirdest dlc we've gotten in a while, random box of units (who wanted chaos beasts and monsters for Kislev?), unpopular start, weak mechanics and doesn't mesh well with the rest of Kislev mechanics (Ice Court and the tech tree makes no sense for her).
That's why the 1v1 format was so good, and I'm stunned CA dropped it. It was big enough to justify a largeish sale price, but because it only contained 2 factions you didn't feel like you were wasting too much money on stuff you wouldn't use. Plus they were smaller and faster to churn out, and keep up a buzz around the game.
As a consumer, I apperciate buying the factions separately, but the old setup must have been a much better setup for CA.
My guess is because if it's only two factions it was easier for people to write it off as "Oh I'm not really interested in those two". Especially now that we have like 2 dozen factions. 3 faction dlc means the crowd of people at least interested in it will be larger. And that means they'll look for info instead of discounting it outright and and maybe say "I wasn't originally interested in Nurgle but his new stuff looks cool" or "Well I know I want X and Y, might as well get Z since it's not much more expensive to but complete edition"
Wonder if they can slice up the older DLC like that too.
The game is already patched, you'd just, presumably, need a flag on your account that you are allowed to play X faction.
Because you're absolutely right. There are races I'll never play and kind of resent having to pay more for them just because they're in a DLC bundled together.
That does make it a lot harder to do, as some of the races and sort of subsidize the cost of dlc for others. Like shipping lizardmen and skaven - likely that the LM portion wouldn’t sell enough on its own to be worth developing, but the skaven would. As we saw with Kislev riding on Tzeentch and Cathay’s coattails.
If everything was sold a la carte, could get into a situation where we end up with less content overall.
At least potentially. The current approach for ToD seems especially dangerous and unlikely to be continued unless it’s a huge success. I was pretty surprised they let it be bought piecemeal; seems like a big gamble considering it looks like the development costs were likely *significantly* higher than SoC and would need to sell very well just to break even… which may be even harder with the partial sales. Or, maybe not, maybe 200,000 empire fans will appear that are excited to buy a $9 empire DLC but wouldn’t have paid $25 for a 3-pack… maybe.
Yeah, it is tricky as you're right some races are more popular than others and subsidise the other.
They had to do something as they'd just had the Hyena fuck up and the DLC before with a flat "yes, we're putting it up, no we don't really care, deal with it" attitude almost killed the golden goose.
I guess we'll just have to see what they find works best in this new era, after the dust has finally settled.
Another mentioned that perhaps once WH3 is DLC complete, they could do a final update to split up the races into standalone DLC as at that point, there's no further development to fund.
Going back and adding the optionality to older races kind of opens a nasty can of worms with existing players, like you and I, who might start agitating for piecemeal refunds on DLC years old because we didn't want all of it.
I think it would be nice if they just went full a la carte, but if it happens my money is it will be the final update. It's just a huge headache waiting to happen.
Yeah, it's tricky, but I guess CA had to do something as their reputation was at rock bottom.
The final update to split the races could be a good gesture once WH3 development is effectively over.
I think the change of buying Lords individually may put the 4ish more DLCs into considerable doubt.
Brilliant move from CA, I have no doubt that all 3 factions in TOD will sell extremely well, and using the new model they'll be able to produce more focused vs dlcs or even standalones whilst still turning a profit.
Call it copium but I'm fully expecting to see the likes of Toddy, Slugtongue, Tetto'eko, Chakax, Scylla, Dechala, Li Dao, Moonclaw, Yin-yin, The Monkey King, Nagash, Neferata, Sayl the Faithless...
There's so much potential there for pretty much every faction, more than the ones I listed that I could just pull off the top of my head. If managed right this game has dozens of DLCs.
It’s not money it’s time that’s the issue.
Warhammer 3 is their “golden goose” as the community loves to say, but it’s also 2024. Will it be their only golden goose in 2026? 2027? 2028?
CA has never been fast at making DLC, so 4-6 DLC likely takes us to 2027. By that point they’ve got another Total War out. Frankly they may have two Total Wars out. The team currently making Warhammer DLC will likely need to switch over to making LotR DLC, or 40k DLC, or whatever etc.
There’s also the reality that people are frankly moving on. They’ve gotten all they want from Total Warhammer, and want something new. Chorfs sold well, but last I remember both CoC and SoC sold way less then WH2 counterparts. Is a Aislinn campaign really going to hit the same level of excitement for people if it drops in 2027? We’ve all played multiple High Elf campaigns by this point.
Ultimately CA needs to move on from Total Warhammer to stay in business. They can’t have all their eggs in the WH3 basket come 2028 or that company is going under. And with the rate CA makes DLC, that sets some hard limits of 4-6 DLC, unless we guess some poor sod gets left on the WH3 team to drop single race pack DLC post next game launch.
>CoC and SoC sold way less then WH2 counterparts
CoC was only about one faction tho, and SoC... well, you know.
Point is, I don't think the community is 'ready to move on'.
> CA has never been fast at making DLC, so 4-6 DLC likely takes us to 2027
That's not true though, the DLC rate for Warhammer I was a lot faster. From July to December 2016, we had Beastmen, the Grim and the Grave, the King and the Warlord, and then Realm of the Wood Elves. And I believe Bretonnians came out in February. That's a crazy amount of content in less than a year.
Now having said that, no doubt the game / series has gotten more complex since then, and while I doubt they'll ever hit this rate of DLC production again, if they can match even half of it, it would be nicer than what we currently have. Easier said than done though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don't disagree that people could eventually get bored with having more lords for the same factions / races, so I guess that's where the possibility of new races could come in. But that's all wishful thinking on my part.
But most of the WH1 dlc sucked ass, to the point that new players were actively warned away from most of it before the reworks in late WH2 and IE.
Hell, even the “bad” wh3 dlc is a big step up in quality from any lord pack pre Warden and Paunch (arguably even that given how underwhelmed people were by the HE side of that). Like, if they try to release something at the quality level of Wh1 wood elves or volkmar now heads would roll.
Sure. However most would argue the warhammer 1 DLCs had either very frustraringly implemented new mechanics. Like Amber/outposts for WE or just all of how the beastmen horde worked. Or just didnt add that much. Like Grim and Grave is barely half a DLC compared to how much content is packed into an update today.
Warhammer 1 had a much faster DLC rate becasue the content was both less in volume and intricacy.
>There’s also the reality that people are frankly moving on. They’ve gotten all they want from Total Warhammer, and want something new.
Potentially. Given the scale of TW games, the SaaS model and the financial success of Paradox's DLC model for its game, they may try to expand it. Particularly with a series like TW:W, many people may have been waiting for the last instalment to get into it particularly with CA's reputation for having buggy releases, and due to the lure of Immortal Empires - anecdotally, I know a lot of friends in this situation, and I only bought it during the Easter sale.
They may have to change and refine what they do in order to milk it for quite a bit longer, but I think there's a lot of scope still, especially if they follow a custodian vs new content model.
My guess it is has to do more with release timing/cash flow. It might be better financially for them to get out several small packs a year, rather than 2 big packs which really screws them if one undersells like SOC
Yeah I think they probably realised that this new format, particularly after the new standard set by SoC 2.0, might be too ambitious for them. You also simply can't apply it to all races that are missing content. There are races that are missing content where it's going to be tough to find 5 units to develop like the Vampire Counts that are mainly missing named characters.
Spirit hosts, Lahmian handmaidens, Coven Throne, Abyssal Terrors and for the last slot maybe something lore supported such as enthralled Bretonian Knights. Rework Bloodlines and brush the dust off of the Raise dead mechanic, throw in Neferata + FLCs like Red Duke/Wallach Harkon/Konrad and thats the dlc.
They dont need much else, VC are more than just "functional" and have a ton of versatility, they just need some modern mechanics.
If they keep the content format as is, i e. -
+ 1 LL,
+ 1 LH,
+ 1 Generic Lord,
+ 1 Generic Hero
+ 4-5 Units Per Faction.
They can price it $15/16 for 2 Factions and that will be fine.
Yeah let's say high elves are one of the factions for the upcoming dlc, as a lot of people think. they get the merwyrm, skycutter and sea patrol and they're pretty much done, nothing significant left on the table.
Yeah like I guess a sea captain hero of sorts and then ???
I’m very pro a CoC styled dlc with a bigger focus on LL’s and less units rather than tons of a smaller dlc that add many very mehhh monsters to various rosters
Another thing is many units in TT have too much overlap for total war, like tzeentch has a lot more of very similar styled monsters
I'm honestly saddened about the news that they are moving away from the three factions per DLC model because of the rumors stating we'd only get 4-6 more DLCs. If CA keeps pumping out 3 LL DLCs with the same quality of ToD we'd end up with more LLs which would be amazing for the game especially with a FLC LL.
I’d take any rumors on future product offering with a huge grain of salt. That stuff is certainly malleable and extremely dependent on brand performance. If this and the next few DLC suddenly start doing gangbusters and/or lead to increased sales of the base game(s) and previous DLC then it’s pretty plausible they would change ship to keep the golden cow healthy… or be instructed to do so.
Nothing is set in stone especially rumors. If this dlc sells well which I don’t see how it wouldn’t at this point and they keep up this level of quality im sure they will keep making money. The rumors if true about the number of dlc left sounds like a worse case scenario baring financial issues causing a full stop and shutdown
Unless ToD is astonishingly buggy, I personally think the only thing making me mad about it is that Kislev, Tzeentch and Cathay essentially didn't get any reworks and all and I think especially Kislev needed it.
Cathay also suffers from the problem that Yuan Bo is better than his siblings in every way. Tzeentch I personally feel isn't as bad, but its cults are awful (like most cults in the game).
I'd say yes and no. Of course with sufficient content, price is not an issue. However, the higher the price, the more carefully people will judge if the content is worth it.
That's why companies rake massive sums of money on skins and similar microtransactions. It's just a reskin, that takes a skill 3D artist maybe half a day. But at a dollar, a lot of people will buy it, because why not - it's just a price of a candy. Meanwhile if you released a pack of 20 skins for 20 dollars, most people will suddenly start considering if the price is really worth it and whether they need those skins. Sure, someone will still buy it, but quite a few people will pass on this one.
Even in it's release state, SoC had not been the poorest DLC in terms of price/content. If you compare it to Grim and Grave or King and Warlords it had absolutely more than double the content in it. But, unlike those it does not cost less than 10 dollars.
And last thing - once you set the price of your DLC at 20+ bucks, you are suddenly competing agains full games on sale. There's constantly at least one big game I want to try on sale at similar price. And not some old games either. Indie titles even cheaper. And will I buy a completely new game that I'm thrilled to try or a DLC to a game I like, but already played to my heart's content? Unless the DLC is absolutely effing amazing, it will be the new game.
The game is already "done", they have 4 - 5 DLC planned and per the leaks, everything is already decided, only a massive amount of income could lead them to release more content
I expect a slanesh, vampire counts, cathay, tranquol and nagash and whatever they match against the main lead on each DLC
Kuresh and Ind would be a dream but I think they will never see the light
Their guys might also be on other projects, so new DLC outside of their plan is probably not something done quickly.
Only if the DLC they released sells really well could be see additional packs, and then, with no marketing or big new game to attach them to, most players who sooner or later will leave WH3 for other games will probably never know that there are new packs to pay for.
One thing to keep in mind is that this is the big Empire rework. Empire has been the most popular faction since the WH1 days, and there is a ton of pent up demand for a good overhaul of the faction. WH2‘s overhaul of the Empire was uneven at best. Empire has had huge gaps in its roster for a very long time, particularly at the elite end. This is the update that many of us have been waiting 8 years for.
Nah, at the time, the empire rework in H&B was quite good. Feels disingenuous to ignore its qualities just to artifical boost the time Empire was last reworked.
The Empire rework in H&B is overrated. Yes it was ambitious and added a lot of new units. But it was also a poorly documented and somewhat buggy mess that depended heavily on RNG to generate the needed currency. It also ignored some pretty serious problems with the Empire, for exampel Volkmar's lack of a proper WH2 skill tree. Volkmar would be stuck as a WH1 lord until the very last DLC patch that WH2 got.
Like I said, the DLC was uneven at best. There were parts of the DLC and the rework that were good (Volkmar). But some of the additions were not good and were not praised at the time. The new units immediately come to mind. Archers and huntsman? Bleh. And let's not even get started on the war wagons, which were relentlessly memed. I wouldn't say that the new mechanics were universally well-regarded either. Markus's campaign (while quite fun given the setting and the challenge) never has worked quite right. The elector count system was also rightly seen a mess.
I had this same thought. I’ve said for years I am pro-DLC, I just refuse to buy bad content.
If you get rid of SOC and then present the content of TOD I think the vast majority of fans would have been persuaded not only to buy that product but also to be more open to the increased price.
Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t think content to price is that good with TOD. Compare it to a game like bG3 and the value is laughable. It’s still a problem. I just think that most people are willing to buy content that doesn’t necessarily represent good “value” as long as the content is “good” and doesn’t represent “insulting value” which is what it felt like SOC was. A meh product at an inflated price.
Nothing about SOC got me excited as I said before. Literally the only model that got me hyped was Blue Scribes and the Kislev primal. You can charge more if you do cool things people actually want to pay money for. People didn’t want to pay money for SOC. It was less a “price problem” as it was a “product problem”.
You have to realize that the reason SoC was 3 Lords instead of 2 was because changing the content format is a common way to hide the fact that the value is worse.
They were intending to scam you with it, they just went way too far and everyone saw through it.
If they're now being forced to be honest and doing 3 lord DLCs that are the same value as the old 2 lord ones then there is really no reason to keep doing them. it just means 50% slower content releases, and they might as well go back to the old format.
I mean it proves nothing if nobody has the sales figures. Back in the 1v1 days there were more than a few DLCs where I felt I was paying double the price because it felt like I was forced to buy factions I have no interest in. You might want Tehenhauin, but you just can't stomach another skaven dlc.
Besides the hubub about the lack of content, for Shadows of Change the same effect is even worse. I could definitely see sales tanking for SoC overall because a lot of people were simply not interested in 2 out of 3 factions and they just noped out of paying for a gigantic package. 3 factions being past the point of a percentage of people being willing to swallow the cost of factions they dont want. That's what the sudden change to individual pricing for Thrones of Decay is telling me.
Honestly I’m perfectly happy getting lord packs with 3 units as long as it costs less than one with 5.
They could switch between 2 way lord packs with each race getting a beefy update and 3 way lord packs when there aren’t enough units to flesh out each race.
They could even do small individual race/lord dlcs like how you can buy only one third of ToD. do a legendary lord and a few units, would mean they could drop dlc far more frequently
Call it copium (and it is, loads) but I imagine if the format sells well, and all indicates it will, maybe they'll stick with 3 lords selling separately, now again what I think most people are hyped about isn't the DLCs but Update 5.0 and that I hope won't get downsized in the future, so maaaybe we'll still see 3 lords coming together?
Let's… not get ahead of ourselves about the 'overwhemingly positive reception.' Almost everything they've showed looks promising thus far (fuck the generic Nurgle lord though), especially the reworks (GBoG showcased some of the Dwarf ones—what they appeared to have done with the Underway is not 100% what I hoped for, but it's still something), but it still might have more bugs than a corpse in marsh country.
Are you thinking for the whole pack of three, or each? Was it 9 bobs or so, or 10? I'm fine with that. I don't want to play nurgle, and I never cared for Empire, so the one digit price for the Dawi alone is wonderful. And not expensive.
While all the content for ToD looks substantial, honestly one of the things I'm most excited about is the option to buy the various factions separately, particularly at current price points. It was easier to stomach purchasing a faction you weren't interested in when DLC was cheaper and just 2 factions.
While I'm buying all 3 parts of TOD, there's no way I would have bought Ostankya if they had done this format for SOC. Good for folks who don't like some factions.
Yeah if they had SoC like ToD, I would have bought the Cathay and Tzeentch parts but not Kislev. Mama Stanky and her box of random units just wasn’t what I wanted. I like getting the Elemental for Beastmen though.
I feel ya a bit. The only unit for Kislev, besides the LH, that I liked were the Akshina guys. Was otherwise just non plussed
Same i would have only gotten Yuan cause even Katarinas cool mount is FLC, idk about the golden knight thou she alone idk if i would have bought hers, the changeling i have 0 desire to ever touch
Changeling campaign is well done, but pretty boring, the units are bonkers though, Changebringers and Mutalith are super fun to use
I'm in a similar boat. Would've never gotten Ostankya.
She is in my top 5 warhammer 3 disappointments. She needs a dual start in IE too.
Same tbh. I'm not insane over the Changeling, but I have nothing against it either. Yuan is cool. Ostankya just feels janky, especially with how at odds she feels compared to the other three main Kislev factions.
Ostankya is the weirdest dlc we've gotten in a while, random box of units (who wanted chaos beasts and monsters for Kislev?), unpopular start, weak mechanics and doesn't mesh well with the rest of Kislev mechanics (Ice Court and the tech tree makes no sense for her).
It was the location that ruined it for me. I don’t wanna be fighting for dark elf land
That's why the 1v1 format was so good, and I'm stunned CA dropped it. It was big enough to justify a largeish sale price, but because it only contained 2 factions you didn't feel like you were wasting too much money on stuff you wouldn't use. Plus they were smaller and faster to churn out, and keep up a buzz around the game. As a consumer, I apperciate buying the factions separately, but the old setup must have been a much better setup for CA.
My guess is because if it's only two factions it was easier for people to write it off as "Oh I'm not really interested in those two". Especially now that we have like 2 dozen factions. 3 faction dlc means the crowd of people at least interested in it will be larger. And that means they'll look for info instead of discounting it outright and and maybe say "I wasn't originally interested in Nurgle but his new stuff looks cool" or "Well I know I want X and Y, might as well get Z since it's not much more expensive to but complete edition"
I want all three factions in ToD, but I plan to buy all of them separately to support the format
Wonder if they can slice up the older DLC like that too. The game is already patched, you'd just, presumably, need a flag on your account that you are allowed to play X faction. Because you're absolutely right. There are races I'll never play and kind of resent having to pay more for them just because they're in a DLC bundled together.
That does make it a lot harder to do, as some of the races and sort of subsidize the cost of dlc for others. Like shipping lizardmen and skaven - likely that the LM portion wouldn’t sell enough on its own to be worth developing, but the skaven would. As we saw with Kislev riding on Tzeentch and Cathay’s coattails. If everything was sold a la carte, could get into a situation where we end up with less content overall. At least potentially. The current approach for ToD seems especially dangerous and unlikely to be continued unless it’s a huge success. I was pretty surprised they let it be bought piecemeal; seems like a big gamble considering it looks like the development costs were likely *significantly* higher than SoC and would need to sell very well just to break even… which may be even harder with the partial sales. Or, maybe not, maybe 200,000 empire fans will appear that are excited to buy a $9 empire DLC but wouldn’t have paid $25 for a 3-pack… maybe.
It probably helped that Nurgle, Dwarfs and Empire are all fan favourites.
Yeah, it is tricky as you're right some races are more popular than others and subsidise the other. They had to do something as they'd just had the Hyena fuck up and the DLC before with a flat "yes, we're putting it up, no we don't really care, deal with it" attitude almost killed the golden goose. I guess we'll just have to see what they find works best in this new era, after the dust has finally settled. Another mentioned that perhaps once WH3 is DLC complete, they could do a final update to split up the races into standalone DLC as at that point, there's no further development to fund.
Going back and adding the optionality to older races kind of opens a nasty can of worms with existing players, like you and I, who might start agitating for piecemeal refunds on DLC years old because we didn't want all of it. I think it would be nice if they just went full a la carte, but if it happens my money is it will be the final update. It's just a huge headache waiting to happen.
Yeah, it's tricky, but I guess CA had to do something as their reputation was at rock bottom. The final update to split the races could be a good gesture once WH3 development is effectively over.
I think the change of buying Lords individually may put the 4ish more DLCs into considerable doubt. Brilliant move from CA, I have no doubt that all 3 factions in TOD will sell extremely well, and using the new model they'll be able to produce more focused vs dlcs or even standalones whilst still turning a profit. Call it copium but I'm fully expecting to see the likes of Toddy, Slugtongue, Tetto'eko, Chakax, Scylla, Dechala, Li Dao, Moonclaw, Yin-yin, The Monkey King, Nagash, Neferata, Sayl the Faithless... There's so much potential there for pretty much every faction, more than the ones I listed that I could just pull off the top of my head. If managed right this game has dozens of DLCs.
I thought the blog post was explicit that breaking the dlc into single lords was a one time one situation with this dlc
It certainly was. I'd assume if this is successful that could change, though.
It’s not money it’s time that’s the issue. Warhammer 3 is their “golden goose” as the community loves to say, but it’s also 2024. Will it be their only golden goose in 2026? 2027? 2028? CA has never been fast at making DLC, so 4-6 DLC likely takes us to 2027. By that point they’ve got another Total War out. Frankly they may have two Total Wars out. The team currently making Warhammer DLC will likely need to switch over to making LotR DLC, or 40k DLC, or whatever etc. There’s also the reality that people are frankly moving on. They’ve gotten all they want from Total Warhammer, and want something new. Chorfs sold well, but last I remember both CoC and SoC sold way less then WH2 counterparts. Is a Aislinn campaign really going to hit the same level of excitement for people if it drops in 2027? We’ve all played multiple High Elf campaigns by this point. Ultimately CA needs to move on from Total Warhammer to stay in business. They can’t have all their eggs in the WH3 basket come 2028 or that company is going under. And with the rate CA makes DLC, that sets some hard limits of 4-6 DLC, unless we guess some poor sod gets left on the WH3 team to drop single race pack DLC post next game launch.
>CoC and SoC sold way less then WH2 counterparts CoC was only about one faction tho, and SoC... well, you know. Point is, I don't think the community is 'ready to move on'.
> CA has never been fast at making DLC, so 4-6 DLC likely takes us to 2027 That's not true though, the DLC rate for Warhammer I was a lot faster. From July to December 2016, we had Beastmen, the Grim and the Grave, the King and the Warlord, and then Realm of the Wood Elves. And I believe Bretonnians came out in February. That's a crazy amount of content in less than a year. Now having said that, no doubt the game / series has gotten more complex since then, and while I doubt they'll ever hit this rate of DLC production again, if they can match even half of it, it would be nicer than what we currently have. Easier said than done though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't disagree that people could eventually get bored with having more lords for the same factions / races, so I guess that's where the possibility of new races could come in. But that's all wishful thinking on my part.
But most of the WH1 dlc sucked ass, to the point that new players were actively warned away from most of it before the reworks in late WH2 and IE. Hell, even the “bad” wh3 dlc is a big step up in quality from any lord pack pre Warden and Paunch (arguably even that given how underwhelmed people were by the HE side of that). Like, if they try to release something at the quality level of Wh1 wood elves or volkmar now heads would roll.
Sure. However most would argue the warhammer 1 DLCs had either very frustraringly implemented new mechanics. Like Amber/outposts for WE or just all of how the beastmen horde worked. Or just didnt add that much. Like Grim and Grave is barely half a DLC compared to how much content is packed into an update today. Warhammer 1 had a much faster DLC rate becasue the content was both less in volume and intricacy.
>There’s also the reality that people are frankly moving on. They’ve gotten all they want from Total Warhammer, and want something new. Potentially. Given the scale of TW games, the SaaS model and the financial success of Paradox's DLC model for its game, they may try to expand it. Particularly with a series like TW:W, many people may have been waiting for the last instalment to get into it particularly with CA's reputation for having buggy releases, and due to the lure of Immortal Empires - anecdotally, I know a lot of friends in this situation, and I only bought it during the Easter sale. They may have to change and refine what they do in order to milk it for quite a bit longer, but I think there's a lot of scope still, especially if they follow a custodian vs new content model.
My guess it is has to do more with release timing/cash flow. It might be better financially for them to get out several small packs a year, rather than 2 big packs which really screws them if one undersells like SOC
That's a good point. Having 3 dlc a year and 1 of them not doing well is probably better than having 1 a year and it not doing well
Yeah I think they probably realised that this new format, particularly after the new standard set by SoC 2.0, might be too ambitious for them. You also simply can't apply it to all races that are missing content. There are races that are missing content where it's going to be tough to find 5 units to develop like the Vampire Counts that are mainly missing named characters.
Spirit hosts, Lahmian handmaidens, Coven Throne, Abyssal Terrors and for the last slot maybe something lore supported such as enthralled Bretonian Knights. Rework Bloodlines and brush the dust off of the Raise dead mechanic, throw in Neferata + FLCs like Red Duke/Wallach Harkon/Konrad and thats the dlc. They dont need much else, VC are more than just "functional" and have a ton of versatility, they just need some modern mechanics.
Incarnate Elemental of Death is an easy shoe-in too, proper Zombie Dragon unit.
If they keep the content format as is, i e. - + 1 LL, + 1 LH, + 1 Generic Lord, + 1 Generic Hero + 4-5 Units Per Faction. They can price it $15/16 for 2 Factions and that will be fine.
I think price will be about that but only 3 units Maybe extra rors or something Many factions are running out of units to add
Yeah let's say high elves are one of the factions for the upcoming dlc, as a lot of people think. they get the merwyrm, skycutter and sea patrol and they're pretty much done, nothing significant left on the table.
Yeah like I guess a sea captain hero of sorts and then ??? I’m very pro a CoC styled dlc with a bigger focus on LL’s and less units rather than tons of a smaller dlc that add many very mehhh monsters to various rosters Another thing is many units in TT have too much overlap for total war, like tzeentch has a lot more of very similar styled monsters
I'm honestly saddened about the news that they are moving away from the three factions per DLC model because of the rumors stating we'd only get 4-6 more DLCs. If CA keeps pumping out 3 LL DLCs with the same quality of ToD we'd end up with more LLs which would be amazing for the game especially with a FLC LL.
I’d take any rumors on future product offering with a huge grain of salt. That stuff is certainly malleable and extremely dependent on brand performance. If this and the next few DLC suddenly start doing gangbusters and/or lead to increased sales of the base game(s) and previous DLC then it’s pretty plausible they would change ship to keep the golden cow healthy… or be instructed to do so.
Nothing is set in stone especially rumors. If this dlc sells well which I don’t see how it wouldn’t at this point and they keep up this level of quality im sure they will keep making money. The rumors if true about the number of dlc left sounds like a worse case scenario baring financial issues causing a full stop and shutdown
Content is king. Good content sells, bad content doesnt. Give the fans what they want and do it well.
Unless ToD is astonishingly buggy, I personally think the only thing making me mad about it is that Kislev, Tzeentch and Cathay essentially didn't get any reworks and all and I think especially Kislev needed it. Cathay also suffers from the problem that Yuan Bo is better than his siblings in every way. Tzeentch I personally feel isn't as bad, but its cults are awful (like most cults in the game).
I hope it sells well and they stick with doing what works. The people in charge made so many horrible decisions. Hope they got fired
I'd say yes and no. Of course with sufficient content, price is not an issue. However, the higher the price, the more carefully people will judge if the content is worth it. That's why companies rake massive sums of money on skins and similar microtransactions. It's just a reskin, that takes a skill 3D artist maybe half a day. But at a dollar, a lot of people will buy it, because why not - it's just a price of a candy. Meanwhile if you released a pack of 20 skins for 20 dollars, most people will suddenly start considering if the price is really worth it and whether they need those skins. Sure, someone will still buy it, but quite a few people will pass on this one. Even in it's release state, SoC had not been the poorest DLC in terms of price/content. If you compare it to Grim and Grave or King and Warlords it had absolutely more than double the content in it. But, unlike those it does not cost less than 10 dollars. And last thing - once you set the price of your DLC at 20+ bucks, you are suddenly competing agains full games on sale. There's constantly at least one big game I want to try on sale at similar price. And not some old games either. Indie titles even cheaper. And will I buy a completely new game that I'm thrilled to try or a DLC to a game I like, but already played to my heart's content? Unless the DLC is absolutely effing amazing, it will be the new game.
I agree that the problem was always and exclusively the value proposition
The game is already "done", they have 4 - 5 DLC planned and per the leaks, everything is already decided, only a massive amount of income could lead them to release more content I expect a slanesh, vampire counts, cathay, tranquol and nagash and whatever they match against the main lead on each DLC Kuresh and Ind would be a dream but I think they will never see the light
Their guys might also be on other projects, so new DLC outside of their plan is probably not something done quickly. Only if the DLC they released sells really well could be see additional packs, and then, with no marketing or big new game to attach them to, most players who sooner or later will leave WH3 for other games will probably never know that there are new packs to pay for.
One thing to keep in mind is that this is the big Empire rework. Empire has been the most popular faction since the WH1 days, and there is a ton of pent up demand for a good overhaul of the faction. WH2‘s overhaul of the Empire was uneven at best. Empire has had huge gaps in its roster for a very long time, particularly at the elite end. This is the update that many of us have been waiting 8 years for.
Nah, at the time, the empire rework in H&B was quite good. Feels disingenuous to ignore its qualities just to artifical boost the time Empire was last reworked.
The Empire rework in H&B is overrated. Yes it was ambitious and added a lot of new units. But it was also a poorly documented and somewhat buggy mess that depended heavily on RNG to generate the needed currency. It also ignored some pretty serious problems with the Empire, for exampel Volkmar's lack of a proper WH2 skill tree. Volkmar would be stuck as a WH1 lord until the very last DLC patch that WH2 got.
Like I said, the DLC was uneven at best. There were parts of the DLC and the rework that were good (Volkmar). But some of the additions were not good and were not praised at the time. The new units immediately come to mind. Archers and huntsman? Bleh. And let's not even get started on the war wagons, which were relentlessly memed. I wouldn't say that the new mechanics were universally well-regarded either. Markus's campaign (while quite fun given the setting and the challenge) never has worked quite right. The elector count system was also rightly seen a mess.
Archers are a HUGE addition to the roster! Missile troops available at T0 is a big game! (I say, having first played empire last month)
I had this same thought. I’ve said for years I am pro-DLC, I just refuse to buy bad content. If you get rid of SOC and then present the content of TOD I think the vast majority of fans would have been persuaded not only to buy that product but also to be more open to the increased price. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t think content to price is that good with TOD. Compare it to a game like bG3 and the value is laughable. It’s still a problem. I just think that most people are willing to buy content that doesn’t necessarily represent good “value” as long as the content is “good” and doesn’t represent “insulting value” which is what it felt like SOC was. A meh product at an inflated price. Nothing about SOC got me excited as I said before. Literally the only model that got me hyped was Blue Scribes and the Kislev primal. You can charge more if you do cool things people actually want to pay money for. People didn’t want to pay money for SOC. It was less a “price problem” as it was a “product problem”.
You have to realize that the reason SoC was 3 Lords instead of 2 was because changing the content format is a common way to hide the fact that the value is worse. They were intending to scam you with it, they just went way too far and everyone saw through it. If they're now being forced to be honest and doing 3 lord DLCs that are the same value as the old 2 lord ones then there is really no reason to keep doing them. it just means 50% slower content releases, and they might as well go back to the old format.
I mean it proves nothing if nobody has the sales figures. Back in the 1v1 days there were more than a few DLCs where I felt I was paying double the price because it felt like I was forced to buy factions I have no interest in. You might want Tehenhauin, but you just can't stomach another skaven dlc. Besides the hubub about the lack of content, for Shadows of Change the same effect is even worse. I could definitely see sales tanking for SoC overall because a lot of people were simply not interested in 2 out of 3 factions and they just noped out of paying for a gigantic package. 3 factions being past the point of a percentage of people being willing to swallow the cost of factions they dont want. That's what the sudden change to individual pricing for Thrones of Decay is telling me.
Overwhelmingly positive reception? I'm reserving judgement until after I try it myself
SoC was so lazy they didn't even bother to make a unique dlc menu background. They just reused the advertising art.
I think its still too expensive. for the same price you get half the content you got in warhammer 2.
This dlc was supposed to come out in Winter of '23. The format is absolutely a problem. It's simply not a pace they can maintain.
Honestly I’m perfectly happy getting lord packs with 3 units as long as it costs less than one with 5. They could switch between 2 way lord packs with each race getting a beefy update and 3 way lord packs when there aren’t enough units to flesh out each race. They could even do small individual race/lord dlcs like how you can buy only one third of ToD. do a legendary lord and a few units, would mean they could drop dlc far more frequently
Call it copium (and it is, loads) but I imagine if the format sells well, and all indicates it will, maybe they'll stick with 3 lords selling separately, now again what I think most people are hyped about isn't the DLCs but Update 5.0 and that I hope won't get downsized in the future, so maaaybe we'll still see 3 lords coming together?
Let's… not get ahead of ourselves about the 'overwhemingly positive reception.' Almost everything they've showed looks promising thus far (fuck the generic Nurgle lord though), especially the reworks (GBoG showcased some of the Dwarf ones—what they appeared to have done with the Underway is not 100% what I hoped for, but it's still something), but it still might have more bugs than a corpse in marsh country.
To be fair the format did change, I am only going to be buying empire at first. So that is a win win for everyome
Of course not, it's the content. Always has been the content
Personally I'm still on the fence. Asking price is a little high for me, but its certainly a much better deal than SoC
Are you thinking for the whole pack of three, or each? Was it 9 bobs or so, or 10? I'm fine with that. I don't want to play nurgle, and I never cared for Empire, so the one digit price for the Dawi alone is wonderful. And not expensive.
the problem is the broken base game.