The Disaster Of Total War: Pharaoh And The Total War Series - Luke Reacts
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- Опубліковано 5 лис 2023
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Imagine having Monopoly on a genre with a strong fandom and still fucking it up
Kinda explained there why monopolies are bad
Bethesda = Blizzard = Total War = Ubisoft seems all the big devs are fucking up this year.
Apparently Call of Duty did the same thing- released a DLC as a full price game.
That’s basically the story of Pokémon. Still no major competitor and the games are trash
It's about time for the whole thing to collapse on its own weight.If CA refused to 'repent', might as well start tearing the whole thing down to send a message.
Haha not gonna lie I had to practice the pronunciation of Suppiluliuma quite a bit before recording this video :D Aw man thank you for the spotlight that's a huge honour! Hopefully Pharaoh improves in the future and that CA turns the series around. Big fan of your content, keep up the great work! ❤
it won't, it's build on health bar combat with stat system with immortal heroes basically warhammer but with pharaoh units,till they bring hit point dice based combat from med 2? family tree old features etc it's gg for historical tw.
Never thought I would see a Luke Stephens Terminator crossover!
@@johnybravo4807 family trees like i 3k, the layt big historical title?
pharaoh is wh3 with pharaoh units? it is not. It pkays differently from warhammer.
the Generals are immortal since, due to setting and timeframe and faction design, they are the heart of their faction. They are however not superhuman.
@@undertakernumberone1 in 3k i just seen 1 hero destroying whole army when i see that in historical i just skip,there was family tree since rome 1 but i think it was best done in attila all though it suffer from health bar system compare to rome1/med2 hit point system combat it's something they did improve.
nope
Caesar in rome 1 ,attila the hun in attila etc were mortals and it was fine cause that's the point historical titles being realistic.
CA is in full collapse. It will be interesting to see if they can pull out. If they make a real total war game I think it will piss off all the Warhammer people. It will be too hard for them CA will just see it as A loss. Real Total war games were before DLC. They could make a game but inherently they would break it because they would want to sell the valuable factions for DLC. Without the valuable factions there's no point in playing the campaign. That's why they come up with gimmicks instead of having a real total war
Total war is my favorite strategy franchise of all time. I have been a fan since the early 2000s and these games are what actually got me in to strategy games as a whole, so needless to say Total War holds a special place in my heart. So when i say Pharoah is the first TW game i will not purchase, that is really big for me. I have bought every Total War game prior to Pharoah, but this has to be where i draw the line. They literally marketed the game as "the next major historical title" because that is what the historical TW community had been asking for. But it is nowhere near a major historical title either in scope, content, or features. As a historical TW fan myself it felt like a slap in the face when they market it that way to specifically take advantage of the historical TW community, without having any intention on delivering what we asked for. Fortunately, most people didnt fall for it but the fact that they still tried angers me. Then there is the over pricing of DLC and downward trend of releasing games that are not content complete or are simply too buggy. I still love the TW franchise but i cannot support the way CA is taking it. I truly hope they get back to making rich games like the ones that made all of us fans fall in love with the series, but right now its just not there, and it really breaks my heart.
Same here, unfortunately i just cant see that happening
I played Empire Total War but skipped Napoleon. Rome 1 is a timeless classic
So the WH3 DLC thing:
Usually a lord pack is $10. This most recent one is priced at $25.
Usually the DLC includes 2 Lords and the base game gets a free Lord when the pack is released. All three Lords were tied to the DLC this time.
Usually there’s a big patch with the DLC to improve QoL stuff and maybe overhaul a couple of playable races that were showing their age. This did not happen.
And the issue with that is that there is so much in the game that people want fixed (18mths after release) and every time they do any kind of release they seem to break more. So it’s very frustrating.
The base game released in a horrible state and only now (and with bugfix mods) is it of any standard to play.
Creative Assembly has being pushing out reskins of Rome 2 for the past 10 years lol
Yeah, that Total War: Warhammer DLC price increase wasn't, like, $5. It was going up 150% from $10 to $25.
I'm half Egyptian and I'm fully offended by this game.
I'm a African American Egyptian Trans Princess and i'm offended by this game.
My grandmother told me: " I don't care what they teach you in school. Cleopatra was black" 😂
@@Dystopian_Phantom_595 Apparently in reality she had a lot of Greek blood in her.
@@hiddendragon415 both statements could be true. Just look at Giannis Antetokounmpo
@@whoisthis4nah we know she was almost 100% Greek, they had a lot of incest to keep their blood ‘pure’
still waiting for a legit total war/lotr collaboration
CA still has good devs, it is just the management and the top executives which are completely disconnected from their community. Total War has one of the greatest communities of any game, the only other game series with such involved and caring community being for example the Arma series. But CA execs have been continuously sabotaging each release to be rushed, require ridiculous amounts of DLCs to feel like previous Total War base games felt like ON RELEASE! This has been going downhill for such a long time now (since Attila basically) that no one trusts CA's current management anymore and won't even get exited for the next releases, with Pharaoh as the main example.
As a consumer this kind of stuff pisses me off and it's what kept me from buying Paradox 4X games.
That said at the same time I wonder how hard it must be to price your product as a studio that makes these kinds of games. Total War are games that can (and a lot of the times are, according to Steam reviews) be played for anywhere from 500 to 2000 hours. So Creative Assembly has two options, they either release the game in a definitive vanilla version and never make a single DLC to support it, and get destroyed by fans because their previous games had tons of content, OR keep expanding their games forever and charging 10-20 dollars each time, and get destroyed by the fans because they're too greedy.
There's people that say "the amount of hours don't matter" but when one game has 10 hours of content and another has 1000 and both cost the same price, there's a huge disparity here.
I became cautios about CA after the release of WH1, when a year didnt even pass and they announced WH2. At the time Atilla was already released for a while but it was still really buggy which made me pissed at CA so I never bought a game afterwards from them. (Been playing every title since Rome1) Publishing unfinished crap that I know will be further monetized by predatory tactics furthers my opinion. I love playing Rome 2 and I dont feel like I'm missing out, because as you said, so little is actually improved from one game to another its just not worth spending 100$ each game (if you include at least some dlc) I will only ever buy a new TW game when I see a drastic change in both the companies attitude towards their customers as well as noticable improvements in their games or, if I feel adventurous, buying a new title on a massive sale
10:10 I think one of the big differences as a person that plays both is that Paradox has done alot of the bare minimum that CA hasn't bothered to do. They have custodian teams constantly patching the game and they run these games almost like live service. Some, but not all of the DLC packages have been pretty big free updates to the game as well. Stellaris is completely different from when it launched.
Hearing terms like "per customer spending basis needs to be increased" and they decide the best way to do that is charge you full price for pieces like this is the newest trick in the book. I laugh and pity the shareholders that put these executives in charge. Obviously misunderstanding the underlying principle or basis of moral and legit business.
Pharoah was design to be and should have been an expansion to Troy if it had been that and you had a combined grand campaign at $30 it would have sold 10x as well
false. it was not designed to be a dlc. It was originally PITCHED as an idea for troy but they decided it should be its own game. Maybe it was a choice between making Myth for Troy or pharaoh as a dlc.
Did not expect to see Stephens covering one of my favourite game series
gotta monetize on the hate train
They should have continued support for 3 Kingdoms, and Pharaoh should've been built off that game's foundation.
Exactly
You have to at least be fair and say that most of those DLCs were from Warhammer 1/2 but are now shown on the Warhammer 3 page because you can play the DLC characters from previous games in Warhammer 3.
They didn't strip it out, they supported those games for years with DLC which was great. The issue is the pricing for their latest DLC went through the roof without bringing any more content than before.
It looks like in order for dev companies to take risk, innovate and create new IP's they have to be private companies and not be beholden to shareholders, who don't even play games and execs that only care about profits and probably don't even play games themselves.
All we wanted was a med 3 or new gunpowder game like the good old days.
I wouldn’t trust em to make Empire 2 now :/ I’ll need to see reviews from Legend & Volound first
Bet they release the obviously missing factions through DLC
I am loving these video game related videos - they all have the exact same message - video games cost too much, are unfinished and monetized to death - so glad I don’t bother anymore Thanks
Nearly $300 just have everything to play? Are you sure Games Workshop didnt make that one? Eyyyyyyy
Imagine make an Strategic Game based on ancient Egypt without the units speaking ancient Egyptian.
'Eastern front' DLC, you can bet it's in the cards!
That was what happened with Tell Tale
The big problem is that this game was supposed to be a DLC for TROY and was then scrapped and sold as a new game.
indefensible. atleast add a lot more factions to make up for it
No it wasn't. You've either been misinformed or you're just making this up.
@@cowlick035 Yes it was creative assembly even said so them selves... most total war games usually starts off as a add on then becomes its own game.
@@cowlick035 am I? Please go inform yourself about the matter then we’ll see if I’m wrong or not…
it was NOT supposed to be Troy DLC. It was pitched as an idea for a troy dlc but quickly spun into its own game. Maybe the choice even was between the Mythos DLC or pharaoh for troy
Publishers' greed will be their own undoing. Instead of making a profitable product,they get greedy and decide that making millions of dollars on a game just isn't enough. They have to try and make ALL the money. They've gotten out of control.
You’re comment about loving the graphical presentation is spot on. I love the art style of Thrones of Britannia. Absolutely would love if they did an entire Medieval game in that style. Unfortunately, Thrones is otherwise extremely boring.
Creative Assembly think they’re Paradox
BTW they don't do anything as you're alluding to here with dlc, it doesn't get taken out or anything remotely close to such, they have a base game in mind and make it.... now execution of that has been all over the place though dlc doesn't get pulled from games like you're claiming is a thing.
terminator is a shill for CA, go watch Volound instead
I like both channels, Terminator is definitely turning against CA more. I’ve made comments on his channel before where I’ve straight up said stuff like “CA are cucks!” And he’s liked those comments, lol.
i came for the total war stuff, BUT tons more impressed by the lego titanic !
Sadly the whole issue with CA is complex and Pharoah is only the tip of the iceberg. CA is basically on fire right now and everyones expecting Sega to hatchet up to possibly 40% of CAs staff
The Sims 4 did this. Stripped the base game and sold the parts as $40, $20, $10, $5 DLC packs.
Its killer.. so much potential in that game. Really could monetize individual items for 0.99c and theyd make waay more i reckon but what do i know
CA's Hyenas cost Sega over $100 Million, with no return on investment (game has been cancelled)... CA is DONE (sadly)...
I swear they show that 1 v 1 encounter like 50 times during the video
I hear a lot of the arguments here, but I believe the crux of the problem is the monetization. I have played every TW title, Pharaoh included - every single one. I actually discovered TW through the original Shogun title. Having said that, I do not believe Pharaoh is more repetitive than older historical titles. If anything, the mechanics introduced do add variety. It's a fact also that player expectations have changed. Nowadays, the technical capabilities allow for much more nuanced mechanics than, say, back in the early 2000s or 2010s. The problem is - how do you actually innovate on mechanics in ways that actually make sense in the particular game setting context, all the while keeping complexity and balance to an acceptable range and making sure that you add something that will make the newer title feel and play different than previous ones? Not an easy feat.
I will be sincere, even though my unpopular opinion will be anathema to many people. At its core, Pharaoh is a well-designed game with the potential to become great. I feel sad that many people see their work getting trashed when it's actually quite good (maybe not as good as Troy, perhaps, but still). In my mind, 3 factors are driving the reaction, and they are more or less connected with CA's decision to dive into non-historical titles (i.e., Warhammer, a decision with which I have always been at severe odds):
1. However good any historical title might be, there is no way it will be able to encapsulate the variety and lack of constraints available to fantasy worlds. It's just not possible. And when you have a large fanbase that has been used to this variety (especially the people who got to know TW primarily via Warhammer titles), it's only natural that historical titles will feel repetitive by comparison. Troy somewhat addressed that by allowing mythological playthroughs to embed this kind of fantasy variety, but Pharaoh is not based on any such mythological background.
2. The issue above is further exacerbated when the historical context further limits that already constrained variety of units. I mean, what more can you have than spears, axes, swords, bows, slings, and chariots? Nothing. Yes, you may have flavors between factions and civilizations, and you can add variety with different bonuses, stats, gameplay mechanics, etc., but the core material is the same. At least in Rome or Attila, you have different army traditions, technologies, tactics, etc. The Bronze Age is just the Bronze Age. A bunch of people hacking and throwing rocks to another bunch of people hacking and throwing rocks back.
3. And then we arrive at the main issue: Monetization. The available faction options - with all the constraints mentioned above - feel rather underwhelming compared to huge titles like WH or even Troy at a nice and fat AAA-title price; and given the terrible reputation CA has made with monetizing its titles especially since WH, people rightly react negatively, because they know what's coming: 25$ DLCs per civ, to get to play the Assyrians, the Myceneans, the Babylonians, the Minoans and so on and so forth. I mean, there is a point when things just get ugly. CA seems to have realized that they are at an inflection point, and they refunded 2/3 of the price payed on purchase, promised the first DLC for free to all owners, and actually surveyed the player base on priorities for how the game evolves. Good first signs, but how they capitalize on those and turn the ship around remains to be seen.
This are not the DLCs for Game 3. its a Trilogy and all DLC from all 3 Games.
No wonder people use the Jack Sparrow Version instead of spending over €300.
An official Empire 2 is a game id pay $320 for
Creative Assembly should make another game like ‘Alien Isolation’! That was great
I’d be happy with a full fledged Song of Ice & Fire (Game of Thrones) game.
But GRRM doesn’t seem to want to do anything with the series or it’s millions of licensing opportunities.
Don't forget that you need to buy (and install) Total Warhammer 1&2 to access all the factions and play Immortal Empires.
this look like the mindset of okay ship is sinking lets just push for it and extract as much money as possible until it sinks ... like they are accepting it at this point.
Pharaoh a.k.a. Total War Troy DLC.
I wish total wars would get brought to consoles!!
it should have been a DLC for TROY ...IMHO
A bit of a rebuttal to Luke, whilst also being in agreeance to him:
Creative Assembly HASNT always been known for predatory monetization, it’s why Pharaoh failed. Prior to the Warhammer Games, they did release paid content packs that helped expand the already massive games- but the content updates were added onto already massive games and were always substantial in content even in base form. Where this game failed, is it was made like a spin off (Total War SAGA Games), with lacking features from a mainline title, by the Saga-Devs, with a Saga Game’s worth of Content, but still priced like their Mainline title games. It lacks content, suddenly has purchasable skins in a historical title, and has a high price point when compared to prior ‘Saga Titles’ (spinoffs).
The game itself isn’t bad by any means, but it is getting poor scores as it takes no steps forward, a few steps back, but comes at a premium that only the mainline titles would’ve warranted.
Also should note the Warhammer 3 DLC is also Warhammer 1 and 2 DLC as similar to the Hitman games, whatever DLC you have in the first 2 games will transfer over to the 3rd as you can combine all 3 games maps and factions into the 3rd game. You can totally get 100s of hours out of the base game, but they also ported all the prior expansions from the prior games into this one.
Overall, good studio and product, weighed down by Sega pushing for more profit - especially after the Hyenas cancelation which was made by the studio that usually does Total War’s mainline titles (hence this one being made by the spinoff studio but being labeled/priced as a mainline title)
Yeah agreed. I was super excited for all the DLCs for WH1 and WH2, as the quality and scope was great. But now it just seems like they’re doing the bare minimum to cash out on the goodwill they built up for the last few years.
Warhammer 1, 2 and 3 is a huge game it was never going to be just one game, there is a lot of DLC but this is spread over 3 games, the fact that there was 3 games that would combine into one was always the plan, Pharoah is a small stand alone DLC to Troy at a full price and this is the biggest reason why it was a complete failure, the DLC price hike for shadow of change for small quantity and poor content was unacceptable, but $300 for WH 1-3 is still actually good value for almost 90 playable factions @ circa $3 per faction, I’ve played thousands of hours playing TW 1-3 so put that into prospective, Pharoah has maybe 50-100 hours gameplay so in comparison is expensive.
Sadly seems like CA is ran by marketing heads and not lead game designers. They could make some blockbuster TW games if they engaged and worked with their TW community.
The difference between Creative Assembly and Paradox is that with Paradox the DLC is, for the most part, worth the amount you pay. Not to mention if you pay the money as they come out, it's not that bad. Totally worth keeping my favorite games up to date and supporting the devs that make the years old games that I play on an almost daily basis. I wish Creative Assembly folllowed this example
Paradox games are to complicated for beginners. Esp Pt2
If only paradox can release finished games lol
Paradox is even worse in this regard. What was the name of that DLC that broke EU4 a few years ago? LEVIATHAN?
My lizard brain is still convinced all of this is still off the back of the Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs DLC.
Someone just walked into an execs office, gets asked about Chaos Dwarfs, says people are really liking it, moneys coming in BUUUUUUT they could have made way more money from it
Still today Total War Rome II is the most played. Attila for me was the last good game they made, that one is from 2015. I know it was pretty buggy at first but got mostly patched later. It is a shame they push people towards pirated versions just for those prices which never drop.
CA should just use Unreal Engine and build a Medieval 3 from there, with new mechanics for the first time in a decade.
Great vid as always Luke. Now go change your pants 😂
Give me a game with various choosable aesthetics. Do i want to start as an egyptian 3000yrs ago, do i want to play pre- civilization as hubter gathers and slowly explore the territories, defending against raids and later armies. Just a whole bunch of evolution.
Release the base game with about 100hr of great gameplay with all the mechanics and systems there and then release dlcs offering fuether timelines and narratives to play - let modders have access to it and support them by allowing them to sell their mods on your platform and youtake no money from them - allow this group to develop the player base and further add interest things to the game - and try and capture major historical events - allow for sea exploration and sea/naval warfare. I want to feel like i discovered the americas on my own - not play a story game that pulls me through all these periods. Allow me endless hours of city building and let me watch as it evolves through the ages, all the territories and kingdoms i own. Definitely need to have the zoom in factor thats present in manor lords. Being able to zoom into first person view all the way feom map overview. Tech trees and the whole lot. Take away the stupid table top figurines- looks so dumb, let me see my troops to scale like total war or manor lords - ah man... then those story events from crusader kings ... i could literally spend the rest of my life playing that gane if it had the right mix of thede things. If any dev wver wants my master blueprint 😉😉
I think the priority for any company is the bottom line and the quality of the product does not necessarily translate to better profits. This is not to say there are no passionate dev teams that want to give fans a product with a high standard of polish and a satisfying game play loop but realistically in an economic system that emphasises growth over anything else there is always going to be this shady practice of releasing half-baked games that look to maximise user spending (even after the initial purchase) over user satisfaction. Perhaps some might think I am particularly pessimistic but the gaming industry is just the same as any other in that it is fundamentally flawed because the the motive of those at the top is money and profits above all else. I don't think this is going to change any time soon, so I think the best thing that can be done on an individual level is to stop pre ordering games and to stop playing games that you are not enjoying for the majority of your playtime. Great vid as always
Troy is also a Bronze Age game and Includes a lot of the land said to not be here. So pharaoh should’ve been 30$. And then CA made the most tone deaf comments about people who play their games. So a lot of people won’t play this no matter what.
For anyone interested in the TW franchise after watching this video, some friendly advice. If you like fantasy strategy games, buy TW Warhammer 2 or 3 (not 1, it was lame). If you like historical strategy games, buy Rome 2 and older TW games, of course based on what historical setting you like (Medieval, Rome, Empire or Shogun). Ignore all the Saga games cause they are all crappy crap and avoid Pharaoh as well. Only buy TW 3 Kingdoms if you're truely into the Chinese setting, but personally the routine system of needing a few generals in each army and each general only being able to field like 6 units under its command AND depending on the category of general, they can't even recruit all units types available to the factions..just made it a gameplay gimmick that didn't need to be included, just more micromanaging and planning out unit composition (it killed it for me). But i digress, follow this advice and you should be good to go. But yea not worth buying any new game releases from TW until they fix their deep issues. IMO.
if you buy into TW WH, you should buy wh1 because it unlocks stuff in wh3
also, Thrones is decent. Troy is good. And Pharaoh is a fine game as well.
also Fall of the Samurai is sold as saga and that certainly aint bad
Pharaoh is unfortunately a mod of troy, which was a mod of warhammer.... released as a full price game. CA Sophia is not to blame in my opinion, they're a smaller team doing what they're told. Upper management at CA has their heads up their ass with the decisions theyve been making.
Cities: Skylines does the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, Skylines is the most expensive game ever, if you buy all the DLCs.
You forget that besides 250$ in DLC + the 60 USD base game TW Warhammer III you also require TW Warhammer I and II and their DLCs to get the "Full" experience. What is that? Like 400$? It is just a joke at this time. I am perfectly happy staying with Shogun 2 and Rome 2 and never buy a new TW again. CA needs to stop treating their loyal customers like they are stup***, because we are not!
This is a tragedy unfolding before us. I hope CA can make some better decisions and turn things around because I love Total War
People buy it anyway. Just depends if the players keep playing it. But they always buy it.
the fact they released this game without a major historical civilization at the time (Mycenaean Greece) is absurd for $60. that’ll be a 20 dollar DLC. This type of stuff needs to stop. I did it with Total War Warhammer II because I was addicted to it. I’m not dropping another 250 for a video game. It’s also the same core engine so it’s basically Elves dressed as Egyptians now
lol, they’re doing what the Sims 4 does. That game has $1100 worth of dlc.
Kush, like in cannabis Kush?
If you want actual criticism of the game then look at volund or some of the other old fans, terminator is a mega shill that only changed recently because it gives more views now.
yep, careful man. I said the same thing on the Project Renaissance UA-cam community tab when the developer wanted to interview terminator the shill. I said it's better to interview Volound instead of that shill but I immediately get attacked by CA Shill and his Shilltube fans.
Just glad they opened immortal empires on warhammer 3 to all rather than owning all the games lol. I only bought like 1 2 dlc. Cheap....way to throw away all goodwill won with that move CA..
@Luke Stephens LIVE Glad to see you cover this issue ! CA deverse a lot of criticism and to be honest the hate they have going towards them, and yes I said hate (not of individuals but the company) and hte reason is : Its Toxic (as people love using this term nowadays) to squeeze more money for much less value intentionally from a captive audience just so they can keep having nice cushioned positions in their company. A few additional details clarifications :
* The fault isn't only a leadership only issue, yes leadership always takes a blame (the person who hires the fuck-up, fucked-up), that being said the devs themselves aren't free of any blame. The general atmosphere of CA is one of ridicule of the player base and fans (one that leads to this dismissive development cycle), like many companies but especially CA lots of devs are going in for a quick game release and experience and then move on - which means not many of them are actually caring for the quality of the product. They don't look for advice or criticism from fans who gladly poor their hearts and knowledge (which is greater than many of the devs as fans had been with the seires for 20 years and many of the devs are new).
* Many people tend to blame the publishers blindly, which sometimes like in SEGAs case is incorrect blame. CA both stopped trying to ask SEGA for greater expanses for TW (in order to grow it) and shifted by their own volition to annualized releases ... the same type that kill games everywhere in the industry (Call of Duty ...). With shitty underdeveloped undermaintanaced tools the whole games because a cumbersome project that only gets worse and worse.
* The real divide was never 'Historical' to 'Fictional' Yes many of the fans left with WH and many new joined but it was because the games had shifted over time from 'Simulation' to 'Arcady' (which can be seen in many other games in the market). TW used to be sandbox games which created their own stories, actions had consequnces and the fun was to know that losing was a possibility (in other words there was challenge). Systems like population, or connection between campaign and battlefield made those games unique and fun. but as years passed CA had disconnected this connection. Rome 2 in fact came out before WH and was one of the games that made many TW fans quit.
* If you want to point out CA's greed you don't need to focus on the DLC, Paradox DLC policy looks worse but its the finer details that truly reveal who is worse - which is obviously CA. Cause CA is very cynical with their DLC. DLC practices like releasing core experiences that fans expect of a game (like playing the selucids in Rome 2) or the Blood DLC. But to be honest the Greed is much farther than DLC which brings me to...
* The 2 steps back 1 step forward approach of CA, the big problem with TW and the real reason people got tired is that the franchise which has a double A budget but is sold for tripple A pricing is doing it in a nasty and disgusting manner - it develops games by mostly copy-pasting them (making them cheap to produe) and delivers subpar experience in different fields each time. For example one game can feature an amazing Naval combat (Empire) and the next game will completely remove it, Another game will have amazing Diplomacy (3K) that actually functions (AI and mechanics), WH3 added 8 players multiplayer only for it to be gone again in Pharaoh, and so on ... so the games instead of marching forward are zigzaging at best with minor improvements. Combined with the fact that CA upped the prices by reducing the content and delievering 'one time use philosophy development to sell more profitable DLC and the result is frustrated crowd. Pharaoh as being revealed from leaks (check out Volound he has some good stuff on it) is a DLC that was slightly more developed (still was really cheap to make) and was sold as a 60$ price tag !!!
* CA could have gained favor if they cared for criticism or had a good eye to recognizing what made their old games such a great hits for them to earn fanboys who defended them for years no matter how egragious their actions were but they only made things worse by playing into this 'Good will' by not supporting their product and often rereleasing the same game for almost full prices. So Empire was released broken but it had some good ideas, instead of fixing it the company released Napoleon which was an expansion pack but instead of tying the proejcts together and fixing Empire they left it broken. Same was with Rome 2 and Attila and so on ... WH while having much more development than all TW is still broken in design balance and other features and CA leaving it with no people fixing it.
Anyway there is much more to point out hope you can watch Volound video and maybe cover more - I think CA really need some people pushing against their acts and Pharaoh was the first time fans did for ages.
If the games had a superior quality that seemed to get better and with more innovation and complexity I wouldn’t mind paying so much for the games. I’d feel like the money I spent was being invested towards making a better product.
But every new game along with their respective array of DLC feels more rushed and barebones with each iterations.
Bellular mentioning psradox, they are dipping their hands in the Sims market so who is to say they wont try and carve piece away from total war at some point.
I bought TWW3, but zero dlc. Doubt I ever will. Mods extend the lifespan, but some require dlc.
I for one, am just enjoying the ride. Sucks to see all these big companies following the tech bubble trend and bursting, but I also cannot fathom the studio that makes strategy war games having 800+ employees and waging a mini war on their forums while trying to justify why expansions and DLC need to be priced higher to meet some new standard.
Best case, they change strategy and go back to their roots in the next decade. Worst case, they implode and Sega starts thinking about cutting them down and merging whoever they don't fire into new sectors. Then maybe we see more indie projects from ex-staffers who love the genre (or Paradox hires them to also be a megalith studio that competes.)
I loved Shogun 2 and enjoyed Warhammer 1, but Warhammer 3 is a bit of a large mess I can't concentrate on nowadays and it's hard for me to explain. Meanwhile I've finally broken the Crusader Kings barrier and have been enjoying CK 3.
If creative assembly want new players. They should try to branch out into consoles more. I'd love to total war hammer 3
It would be I nightmare to manage battles without a mouse! Ever tried to play an RTS with a controller?
Why is it so hard to make something like shogun 2 or Rome again, they lost the sauce
Rome total war 2 is my favorite.
Part of me understands the aggressive monetization when you see how much money those cheap terrible mobile games make with a constant stream of addicted players chasing dopemine, meanwhile we have teams of hundreds, probably thousands of people making objectively impressive games not even scrapping by. But this is really just an expansion of Troy that they sre trying to charge full price for...again. never played Warhammer, but sounds like that situation.
You have Prime Steakhouses and you have McDonalds. You have Ferrari and than you have Toyota. If your product is super niche, you can’t market it something it’s not. The mobile gaming a market is NOT CA’s consumer base. They’ll not only loose their existing consumers (which we’re seeing here), but mobile gamers aren’t ever going to pick Total War up EVER. It’s an extremely stupid thing to do as a business.
@@natedagreat19 I agree, but it's not just CA monetizing. It's almost every game that's come out in the last 5 years regardless of developers, they're all desperate.
@@WrathOfTheShaft sure, every company from every market has shifted to an incredibly aggressive business practice to chase the COVID boom that’s long gone.
CA has just been especially dumb, first blowing 100mill on a failed project and then offloading the expenses on their cash cow they’ve been milking dry for a while now. Mistake after mistake.
sims 4, hold my beer..
This is why fitgirl exists.
Man everyone is talking about it
Huge fan of older total war games. It is just such a waste that they ruined such a great series !
They should incorporate the story of CA into a book on how to ruin your monopoly for business schools 😂
Hopefully other companies will deliver a good alternative some day !!
CA spends more money on MARKETING TRAILERS than making the games.....every SINGLE DLC.....CINEMATIC TRAILER..... then you play it , and plays like a mobile game, the battle engine is from 2010, and they changed it to make games NOT MODDABLE.....PURE GREED...PURE ANTICONSUMMER COMPANY....Pharaoh is a full price mod from TROY.....$100 for the full version (if they ever release it)....
They also BAN EVERYBODY on STEAM, REDDIT, and OFFICIAL FORUMS
Luke you should try outriders again it is so much fun with friends.
I just want a 40K Total War.
There are multiple
@@nickutzig1157 no, 40K, not fantasy
That Warhammer 3 point was disingenuous and misleading. That's not content that was "stripped out," it's mostly the DLC from the two previous games. The Warhammer games have spent years building up to one shared massive map that has all of the factions from all games on it. People that bought the DLC for 1 and 2 can use it in 3. Since the games are all connected like that, they made the stuff easier to find and understand by putting all the DLC in the WH3 page. People didn't have a problem with it until recently when CA started jacking up the price and reducing the content.
DLC from the two previous games was content that was stripped out from the two previous games.
@@boynextdoor1951 Except for the preorder bonus of Warriors of Chaos from the first game, and Ogre Kingdoms that was preorder bonus from the 3rd game all other DLC was content they made after the release of the main games, with except for some exceptions was pretty good quality. Even the last DLC was not that bad if they did not overprice it so much. The second game DLC was Norsca which was DLC for the first game that they later added to the sequel in the mortal empires.
Total War fan here. They should have added this as an expansion to Troy. Total skip as a Saga game imo. They’ve PO’d us Warhammer players as well by milking us with price hikes and dribbling less content. CA has poop on their face and they need to own up to it.
All that stuff you showed with the full price of all the content for Total War games is why I stopped buying them altogether. I spend 0$ on Total War games instead of being milked for 200$ of DLC.
Sad how total war has invested in taking advantage of the fan base glad this one’s getting spotlighted and brought to everyone’s attention. This isn’t EA stop making like that😂
paradox at least gives free stuff and you can play the game without the DLC.
This was super obvious nya?
Eh. I'll just watch the prince of Egypt.
Difference between paradox and total war is total war will abandon the game after a year or 2. Stellaris has been going on for 10 years. Of course it will have tons of dlc
My boyfriend plays Honkai and Genshin Impact and spends a lot of time and money on those mobile games, but that’s all he does. I don’t see a problem with games that require that type of spending and dedication, they’re not my type of game, so I avoid them, but I don’t mind them existing.
I have that game and is actually a good game, but it feels incomplete and the battle engine is used from Total War Troy game and is kinda bad ...
Regarding Warhammer 3 - you need to clarify that its Warhammer 3, which means that there have been two prior games with multi-year DLC cycles. Its a bit unfair to call this one out in particular when there are far more egregious monetization in our community.
All of the DLC in that list was made available as individual DLC for WH3 - most people are expected to buy the ones they want as they came out during the 3 game dev cycle. it was never intended to be purchased all as one. The community petitioned for this change, because previously you would have been expected to buy Warhammer 1, 2 & 3 and all the DLC you want just to play Immortal Empires (the combined 3 game map)
Warhammer series is great value for money - there is thousands of hours of content here.
But lets talk about paid blood effects DLC which is truly predatory.
Or the fact that they abandoned a bunch of there games in TERRRIBLE states such as Attila and Three Kingdoms.
CA wont be getting any more of my money going forward sadly, which is a shame, because there isn't really any competition. Here's hoping that all the Devs that got fired in the last 2 weeks start a new studio and make awesome strategy games.,
Man, at this point I'll even take a 5-10 man team who makes a micro Total War-like without all the flair of Warhammer. I think 3 different projects are going on right now using Unreal Engine.
Hearts of iron 4 is amazing hard to play tho
Rob Bartholomew was the man behind the saga games and the small reskin approach and getting a 80% game, he is going/ gone, CA need to go back trying to produce a good quality game again and actually going back to the roots of what made the series successful I. The first place,. A h good medeval 3 and a warhammer 40k will sell and make CA a lot of money but only if they do it well and actually put 100% effort into the games, WH 3 is a good game, but not polished and has problems which wh2 didn’t have, it could and should have had an almost flawless release given ca have been developing it for years and it’s off the back of wh1 abs 2 and that would build up the player base, wh 3 should have 50k concurrent players on steam and it has 20k and it’s those additional players where the big profit is not fleesing the current dwindling player valse for every penny, this is something g Rob simply didn’t get
As a total war fan, the decline is sad. I really hope Paradox will enter the battle sim/tactical RTS genre so Sega/CA will get a kick on their collective asses.
Why? Paradox has arguably worse DLC practices
@@jawsofwar just so there is some competition & not a Total War monopoly like it is now.
I'm not saying pirate this game but.......