Every DLC pack - except the cosmetic obligatory blood thing - adds something meaningful to the game, but never in such a way that you are forced to buy it. If you don’t like Skaven, for instance, you can just ignore their DLC. Your game is not diminished by that lack of a purchase in any way.
I love that their DLC add stuff in a way that expands the gameplay and makes me want to try and play new lords and new starting positions.
I worry about how many more hours they’re going to make me pour into this game series with TWH3.
Sorry to say, but you seem to be looking for an argument on points where there isn’t one. My objection is to the philosophy of relying on whales because it also takes advantage of (inadvertently or not) a not-insignificant number of people. You have every right to disregard them all you want, but that’s the only point of contention between us; I don’t choose to do so.
I was just having some fun, no need to be defensive.
WTF? Did you forget what thread you are in? The only appropriate response was:
My mistake; I miss humor when I’m swamped at work, lol.
I don’t really think the term “Whale” is applicable to CA’s business model. They aren’t hoping for a tiny percent of their playerbase to pay for 95% of the game. There isn’t a ultra-legendary creature you can only unlock by combining 3 ultra-rares only available from lootboxes where if you do the math will cost something like $5k on average to obtain. There isn’t a special starship you can buy for $10k. They are hoping a significant percentage of the playerbase will continue funding the game through relatively cheap DLCs. I actually think calling it a subscription based model is more accurate than calling it a whale based one. They average a DLC every 4 months or something, and the average price is $13.50-ish if you account for the ratio of lord packs to race packs. Substantially cheaper than an MMO subscription.
There are games where if you don’t have every DLC you feel like you are missing out on a feature. Stellaris is a great example, they bundle in some new unrelated megastructures or universal feature into every expansion. Diplomacy expansion? Well maybe you don’t care but here are some things you’ll also be missing out on. Paradox is the worst.
It’s also extremely helpful that almost every DLC has been better than the one before. Ok, Prophet and Warlock might technically have the most fun campaign in the game, and Shadow and Blade was a random kinda low point. But I think if we graphed out how the community feels about each DLC, you’d see an unquestionably positive trend over the timeline.
But as someone with over a thousand hours in WH2 alone BECAUSE of the DLC, I’m completely fine with it having costed 200, 250 bucks. What an incredible entertainment dollar/hour ratio. If you know a place where I can have a blast for an hour for a quarter, you go ahead and let me know because I’ll get in on that.
Tim_N
3093
Agreed, I like their approach of regular DLCs that add content for those who still enjoy playing the game.
Really not sure how that is any different. A patch alongside each DLC improves/fixes/adds things to the base game for free, and a DLC adds extra content for those that want it. You could make the same bad-faith argument about CA too. “I can’t play as the Chaos function unless I buy the DLC?”, “Oh, the new lord now appears in my single player game but I can’t play as them unless I buy the DLC?”… “I don’t have the Lord pack and I am playing lizardmen and they keep mentioning units that I can’t actually build because I don’t have the DLC, how is that fair I feel like I am missing out everything should be free?”
How’s it any different? DLC introduces new content and sales fund future development, and both companies also release development work for free in the base game patches.
It’s fundamentally different because Paradox gates major game features behind DLC. CA gates access to units and legendary lords only. The gameplay stuff is always included for free.
Imagine if you could only build tier 5 buildings if you owned “The Prophet and the Warlock”. That’s the “Common Sense” DLC in EU4. I’m sorry but there is a distinct difference to me personally. One model seems relatively benign and the other feels a bit predatory. But these are only my opinions.
Tim_N
3095
Interesting, I view it very differently. What is Warhammer gameplay beyond building units and smashing them together? The DLC adds new units for existing factions as well as completely new factions that appear on the map and you can’t play as them unless you pay. I started playing it again recently and got a bit confused when I was playing a faction and reading about units in tech trees that I wasn’t able to actually make.
Meanwhile, in Paradox GSGs you typically can play any nation on earth from the base game. The DLC usually adds flavour and minor mechanics that add some extra strategic depth. Usually big changes to the way that the game is played is included for free in the patches. Of course they aren’t perfect, developing provinces in the Common Sense DLC is a great example, the changes really made the base game worse. But when that happens they usually reverse it, which they did in patch 1.28.
I have no problems with either approach. Your perspective sounds a little too close to “any DLC beyond the base game should only be cosmetic” which you hear alot in gaming, but of course these are just my opinions as well and I understand there’s a balance here that developers need to strike and none of them are going to be perfect.
Honestly I haven’t reflected on why I feel the way I do about the difference in the DLC models between the two companies much. But thinking about it, I guess the bottom line to me is that I feel like there are a bunch of Warhammer DLCs you don’t need to own if you don’t care about the races associated with it, whereas with Paradox games if you don’t own one, you are missing something from any generic playthrough.
In truth I don’t even hate the Paradox model THAT much. I realize ongoing game development is not free or even cheap, and if I like a game I’m happy to subsidize it. But I do think that the recent quality of CA’s last few DLC’s has been incredibly higher than anything Paradox has released.
I mean I’m going to get a Beastman, Lizardman, and Dwarf campaign out of this DLC, minimum. That’s pretty cool. So it might just partially be that I think CA has generally been putting out really high quality products in comparison and that is reflecting a bit in my assessment of their DLC models.
Agree with MisterMourning.
If you’re not interested in Beastmen or Lizardmen, then you can ignore this DLC and never feel any poorer for it. You can play any of the other factions, and your playthrough will be exactly as rich as it would have been without. Contrast with the Throne room DLC coming in the next CK3, for instance. Playing with - or without - that DLC will essentially be two completely different games.
CA’s model is more akin to what Paradox refer to as “flavor packs”, such as e.g., Norse Lords for CK3. I have to say I much prefer that model for expansions.
Tim_N
3098
Imagine a Paradox game that only has flavour packs and no significant expansions. The model works for Warhammer because most of the game is the unit variety and seeing them fight, the strategy layer does not change significantly across either games or patches within a game.
It’s like you guys would prefer they make the DLCs more trivial. Paradox actually did have a game that was like what you’re describing: CK2. At launch you could only play a western lord, then they added DLCs to play Islamic rulers, then one for vikings, then one for republics, etc… They changed this approach in CK3 due to prior backlash.
It might actually result in better and more coherent games, so I’m not sure I’d mind it too much.
Stellaris is of course the best example of a Paradox game that starts out as one thing, and which gradually develops into something else as core mechanisms get ripped out and added. Or the mana thing. I’m a fan of iterative development. Iterative game design is not necessarily always a good thing.
In addition, as I posted in the CK3 thread recently - Paradox games always feel unfinished to me for at least the first 2-3 years. A bit like purchasing an early access game. And to be clear - I don’t intend to make value judgements of the different business model - but it is definitely very distinct models.
Wasn’t someone asking for a way to make resettling harder, because it reads as if they’ve provided the Beastmen with such a method.
Blockquote DEVASTATED BLOODGROUNDS
A Devastated Bloodground is a chaos-tainted, corpse-strewn hellhole which is very difficult for any non-Beastmen factions to function within. As long as a Herdstone remains standing, other factions cannot colonise any ruined regions in its associated Bloodground. The Herdstone can be removed by attacking and destroying it like any other settlement.
I’m torn between playing Beastmen or Dwarfs first.
I was just sitting here thinking the exact same thing. I do have a love for overkill via firepower, so I’m guessing it’s going to the new Dwarf campaign on Vortex first. But it may be a gametime decision.
Dejin
3103
I really like that the Dwarves have three different types of Post-Battle Options, depending on whether they just won a battle against Dwarves, Non-Hated Races (e.g., Humans), or Hated Races (e.g., Greenskin, Chaos).
I hope they port this to the other races. This part of the game definitely felt like something they had just grabbed from previous Total War games and stuck into Warhammer without much thought — you’ve just beaten an army of Skaven, would you like to Ransom any captives off? Uh, that would be no, when would that ever make sense in the Warhammer universe unless you were also a Skaven faction.
ShivaX
3104
A lot of the Game One races are screwed because their options are basically:
“Leadership or pocket change and you lose replenishment” and nothing else. Odds are you already had the Leadership buff for added fun.
I mean it IS weird to get replenishment from Skaven as a High Elf or whatever, but gameplay-wise it really sucks to play a race that doesn’t get that option. Because it’s a really strong option a lot of the time, often the best option.
That all said, I do like the Dwarf context-matters version quite a bit. Of course getting Oathgold is also far preferable to a lot of things, so that likely helps a ton.
ShivaX
3105
Everything is live. Don’t forget to hit up Total War Access for Ogres and the Great Bray Shaman.
I could add Ogres, but get an error for duplicate code when trying the Shaman.
