The Prologue is awful

[Skyz]

As an experienced player i thought i would play the prologue to get the achievements, 20 minutes later i left and was back to my own campaign. It is so slow, it holds your hand wayy too much and doesn't really show you the proper experience. I hope new players avoid it, otherwise they may quit from boredom.

[Ogami]

Liked it way more then the godawful "Realms of Chaos" main campaign.

[Lost Latios]

As an experienced player, I knew it was a narrative driven campaign. It was also a tutorial for someone who has never touched a video game before, which is how you have to make those. It was slow, but in all honesty tutorials are always slow. They kind of have to be.

As for the mixing of a story with it allowing experienced players an enjoyable experience...eh...didn't work in this case. It did drag out for too long, but so does the campaigns you often play. I'd say it's quite accurate to how long a game can last.

[TneX]

I thought it was good. It was holding your hand, but gradually let it go as you progressed. Liked the heavy narrative elements, felt fresh for this series and reminded me of Warcraft 3 in a good way. People who never played a Total War game before will have more idea what to do once they start one of their "real" campaigns.

You said you were an experienced player, so of course you will find it boring since it teaches you things you already know, but to a new player it could be very helpful.

[Aleera]

That's because it's a tutorial.

It's not meant for people that know what they're doing. It's meant to learn complete and total newbies how to play.

I dare say it's so easy and hand holding, that even game journalists can finish it.

[JustaGamer]

it's too disruptive IMO. One thing that has been an issue for me is how the game just "lock out" all interaction when an advising box is opened. Also I don't know why they feel the need to "blacken" the whole screen when they want to highlight certain part of the UI. And it does both of these things very inconsistently.

[Buzzerker]

I agree, prologue is cringey trash. Your portrait is in 2D, what the hell is that all about?

[nocola5]

I had the game crashing at the end of battles as well on my very mediocre machine. Even though the game said it was already doing it, I had to manually drop 'Texture quality' to medium and I turned 'Shadow detail' off. No crashes since.

[SpeaksTooFast]

If you are actually a new player I think it helps a lot... but it is a prologue. It is not designed or expected to engage an experienced player. If you really want the achievements I'd recommend just playing through it in the background while you watch a movie or something on your off monitor or phone.

[sentry]

I think it would be cool if CA removed the hard-coding to "easy" for the prologue and scaled it based on difficulty like the main campaign, eg. Hard and above get extra quest changes for higher difficulty.

With that said I don't think this is a reason to label the prologue as "awful". It's a very well narrated introduction to TW for players that are mostly or completely new to the games.

[leandrombraz]

WHAT??? A tutorial that holds your hand? Quick, everyone, get the torches and pitchforks, that can't go unpunished!!!

[Donut Steel]

Some people are confused and I think I can explain.

Tutorials didn't used to be for 'just beginners', especially not those which were story prologues. The Warcraft 3 tutorial would take 20+ minutes for a beginner to listen, experiment and complete objectives. If you figured something out yourself though, you can do the whole thing in way less time because it isn't stopping you. For a game to teach you to be a good player, it has to allow you to be that from the get go.

It's frustrating when games restrict the player. There is no room for experimenting because of it: a control-freak game designer has decided for you how the game should be played, and how it should be learned. Listen and do objectives, nothing else. I groaned when it recommended bad play, whilst attempting to play it how older Total Wars used to work was always foiled by some nonsense like an invisible wall causing missile units to not shoot across a ravine(a good positional advantage, if it worked).

The first battle only even functions at all because like with 'survival battles' the enemy units are artificially weakened and you outnumber them. You are not taught how to beat a stronger opponent with tactics and position, because CA just don't think that's important in a TW game any more.

Unsurprisingly, it's not very good because it ignores that people have different learning styles. Even for adults, unstructured play and practice is the most widely-successful form of learning, and that's completely disallowed here.

[NightLizard]

Origineel geplaatst door Skyz:

As an experienced player i thought i would play the prologue to get the achievements, 20 minutes later i left and was back to my own campaign. It is so slow, it holds your hand wayy too much and doesn't really show you the proper experience. I hope new players avoid it, otherwise they may quit from boredom.

The only difference from tutorial to normal campaign you cant hide hud and need to fight your battles manually, if you think this is slow....well it means you skip most of battles on normal campaign. (imagine paying more than 100$ on this franchise to skip its good trait...)

[Donut Steel]

Origineel geplaatst door NightLizard:

Origineel geplaatst door Skyz:

As an experienced player i thought i would play the prologue to get the achievements, 20 minutes later i left and was back to my own campaign. It is so slow, it holds your hand wayy too much and doesn't really show you the proper experience. I hope new players avoid it, otherwise they may quit from boredom.

The only difference from tutorial to normal campaign you cant hide hud and need to fight your battles manually, if you think this is slow....well it means you skip most of battles on normal campaign. (imagine paying more than 100$ on this franchise to skip its good trait...)

Tell me you don't use hotkeys without telling me you don't use hotkeys.

The tutorial doesn't let you use them until it decides you are ready for the ordeal of making it easier to issue orders, sparing you from any freedom that you might find difficult to exercise.

If you have a disability that makes awful UI hard to navigate(like visual impairment, photo-sensitivity or chronic visual noise) and mouse-movement causes strain(Osteo, EDS, use a prosthetic hand), CA doesn't care.

[cb4n28]

Origineel geplaatst door Lex Looper:

Origineel geplaatst door NightLizard:

The only difference from tutorial to normal campaign you cant hide hud and need to fight your battles manually, if you think this is slow....well it means you skip most of battles on normal campaign. (imagine paying more than 100$ on this franchise to skip its good trait...)

Tell me you don't use hotkeys without telling me you don't use hotkeys.

The tutorial doesn't let you use them until it decides you are ready for the ordeal of making it easier to issue orders, sparing you from any freedom that you might find difficult to exercise.

If you have a disability that makes awful UI hard to navigate(like visual impairment, photo-sensitivity or chronic visual noise) and mouse-movement causes strain(Osteo, EDS, use a prosthetic hand), CA doesn't care.

Hey! Long time no see buddy! How you doing V?

[Zeek]

Origineel geplaatst door Lex Looper:

Some people are confused and I think I can explain.

Tutorials didn't used to be for 'just beginners', especially not those which were story prologues. The Warcraft 3 tutorial would take 20+ minutes for a beginner to listen, experiment and complete objectives. If you figured something out yourself though, you can do the whole thing in way less time because it isn't stopping you. For a game to teach you to be a good player, it has to allow you to be that from the get go.

It's frustrating when games restrict the player. There is no room for experimenting because of it: a control-freak game designer has decided for you how the game should be played, and how it should be learned. Listen and do objectives, nothing else. I groaned when it recommended bad play, whilst attempting to play it how older Total Wars used to work was always foiled by some nonsense like an invisible wall causing missile units to not shoot across a ravine(a good positional advantage, if it worked).

The first battle only even functions at all because like with 'survival battles' the enemy units are artificially weakened and you outnumber them. You are not taught how to beat a stronger opponent with tactics and position, because CA just don't think that's important in a TW game any more.

Unsurprisingly, it's not very good because it ignores that people have different learning styles. Even for adults, unstructured play and practice is the most widely-successful form of learning, and that's completely disallowed here.

It's for introducing novice players to the game/series, not ones who have bought and played all total wars for 10+ years out of some weird spite.

For experienced players, it sets up the story for the RoC campaign. You're not going to learn any advanced tactics or strategies....