I love this game but it's lost it's way:

[Krude]

It feels like CA's current direction prioritizes catering to players who aren’t as invested in the depth of the campaign experience, those who prefer playing broken Legendary Lords or rushing through turns with minimal effort, rather than creating an engaging and balanced game for the wider fanbase.

As a long time fan who’s been playing since the first game launched, this shift has genuinely dampened my enthusiasm. Knowing I’ve essentially "won" a Legendary campaign by turn 20 is disheartening. Instead of being challenged or immersed, I find myself turning off my brain during campaigns. It’s starting to feel less like a strategy game and more like a time wasting simulator.

I recently played Warhammer 1 and 2 with a friend, and while those games weren’t perfect, the difference was night and day. The earlier titles felt more cohesive and challenging, whereas Warhammer 3 has become something of a mess in comparison.

Looking back, the decisions made around the launch of Warhammer 3, particularly CA caving to demands for easier gameplay, didn’t do the game any favors. For instance:

Issues aside, the Warhammer 3 base campaign lost its appeal once difficulty was reduced in a series of patches. The players who enjoyed the challenge were alienated, while those whom the changes were meant to please quickly moved on to other games/campaign mode.
The latest DLC is polarizing the community, with some overpowered LLs and campaigns that can be wrapped up in 20 turns. While this may be entertaining in the short term, it’s unsustainable for the game’s long term health.
Overused mechanics like teleportation, which now feature across 11 LLs, feel repetitive rather than innovative. Teleportation can be a fun mechanic when implemented thoughtfully, as with the Wood Elves, but the current overuse dilutes its impact and balance.
The lack of variety in mechanics, combined with the reduced difficulty, and rewards being thrown at you so early and easily, leaves the campaigns feeling repetitive and shallow. Legendary campaigns have become predictable flowcharts: battles shower players with gold and experience, trivializing the need for an economy or strategic planning, launching you within several turns into a state beyond the reach of other AI LLs. And with new LLs that allow players to teleport to objectives, the core gameplay feels skipped altogether.

This approach undermines the essence of what made the series great. Strategy games should challenge players to think critically, adapt to changing situations, and experience the highs and lows of careful planning. Without that challenge, the experience feels hollow.

CA once promised to do better, but the current state of the game doesn’t reflect that commitment. Mixed reviews, underwhelming DLC sales, and alienating features are clear signs that something isn’t working. Even the player numbers are significantly lower than they were for the much more positively received Thrones of Decay, a banger of a dlc that wasn't perfect but was clearly well thought out.

Right now, it feels like the game is designed to cater to the least engaged segment of the community at the expense of its overall health. What Warhammer 3 desperately needs is a creative leader with a strong vision, someone who can steer the game back toward being a challenging, rewarding experience for players who value thoughtful gameplay, because it feels honestly like CA's winging it while listening to a small vocal group of it's customer base forgetting those aren't developers of games, they are gamers. What they want isn't always what is what is needed, what is best for the game.

I'm sure there is someone out there that enjoys lootboxes and season passes, or something similar that would be horrible for this game, and has expressed it. Should they be listened to, and get what they WANT, ignoring what the game needs?

As things stand, it’s hard to justify continuing to invest time and money into a game that no longer challenges me or respects the depth of its gameplay and community. I hope CA takes this feedback seriously because, as a long time fan, I want to see this series thrive again.

But this dlc? it ain't it. It's a clear indication that CA have locked in on the wrong direction for the game. Which sucks to think about frankly.

[BigScug A.K.A Heroic Mr. Piss]

Not gonna read all of that tbh. It's just "I feel CA is trying to make things too busted and easy for new players so the challenge is gone" I assume. I think it's true, but I also think it's not necessarily bad either. Without noobs, games will die very quickly, so allowing them to have some fun is needed for the game. There is also many difficulty options in vanilla, mods to change up the game, and harder lords. Although people shouldn't have to choose specific characters they don't want to play, just so they have a real fight. I think instead of making characters busted for noobs, they should instead work on even lower difficulties so any lord can be easy, and any lord can be near impossible.

[Krude]

Originally posted by BigScug:

Not gonna read all of that tbh. It's just "I feel CA is trying to make things too busted and easy for new players so the challenge is gone" I assume. I think it's true, but I also think it's not necessarily bad either. Without noobs, games will die very quickly, so allowing them to have some fun is needed for the game. There is also many difficulty options in vanilla, mods to change up the game, and harder lords. Although people shouldn't have to choose specific characters they don't want to play, just so they have a real fight. I think instead of making characters busted for noobs, they should instead work on even lower difficulties so any lord can be easy, and any lord can be near impossible.

Not gonna read your reply if that's the energy you wanna bring mate. Happy holidays all the same.

[BigScug A.K.A Heroic Mr. Piss]

Originally posted by Krude:

Originally posted by BigScug:

Not gonna read all of that tbh. It's just "I feel CA is trying to make things too busted and easy for new players so the challenge is gone" I assume. I think it's true, but I also think it's not necessarily bad either. Without noobs, games will die very quickly, so allowing them to have some fun is needed for the game. There is also many difficulty options in vanilla, mods to change up the game, and harder lords. Although people shouldn't have to choose specific characters they don't want to play, just so they have a real fight. I think instead of making characters busted for noobs, they should instead work on even lower difficulties so any lord can be easy, and any lord can be near impossible.

Not gonna read your reply if that's the energy you wanna bring mate. Happy holidays all the same.

It is what it is. I do understand that "not reading allat" is usually just an insult/a way to get a rise of someone, but I just glanced over and decided just to respond to the first portion, and let you know, just in case in my response I made a mistake/covered something you already did. It was definitely rude regardless though.

[Da_Higg]

I would also ask are the mechanics overpowered at a basic level, or is it how players use the mechanic that leads to it being overpowered?

[Krude]

Originally posted by Da_Higg:

I would also ask are the mechanics overpowered at a basic level, or is it how players use the mechanic that leads to it being overpowered?

At a basic level for sure. Fundamental to the point it's damaging the foundation of the game I'd say.

Not just that but the games design philosophy around rewarding players has become too much. I was playing a campaign and thought about making some gold so I could then go on an offence with minus upkeep and the game threw me 20,000 early game as part of an "event" for doing something pathetically easy that you'll do anyway.

Then you got stuff like this:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fejj9kpk7a28e1.png

I was playing a campaign recently to give some advice to a new friend I was getting into the game, as skulltaker since he thought skullcape looked cool, playing it half assedly yet I ended up getting insane statistics, army abilities, passives, etc at turn 45 like here:

https://imgur.com/a/WHt7N4w

All in a legendary campaign where I for sure didn't do things optimally. I had to check if my difficulty reset in fact as It was like cutting a bridge of butter with a high powered military grade laser like that new uk one lol.

As the new ogre LL I was at 6 digits by turn 20 money wise with absolutely no sign of it slowing down, whenever AI threatened me for money I laughed clicking ok because it was whatever, money means nothing it seems... I know they nerfed that but tried it again and I still think it's a bit high lol.

Like a campaign like elspeth was OP, but it felt fine because yeah sure some people like that and you did have to work towards it initially. Like you had to collect these things to then invest them in unlocks for units as well as units themselves, as well as expendable spells that you had to buy again.

But this stuff with skulltaker is busted, you can take out half the new crap they added and it'd still be busted, it's actually kind of insulting.

This dlc outside the greenskin LL (Albeit I haven't played much of him yet unlike the others as I've been saving him for an mp campaign) has felt absolutely dishearteningly easy.

Here's a game with interesting gameplay where you need to make decisions and fight against other factions to win.... except here have the tools and exp thrown at you and rewards showered on you so realistically you can ignore actually having to play it????

[BadAssMilkDaddy]

I agree wholeheartedly. I just tried Greasus (not buying another overpriced LL) now that the ogres got their new rework and holy moly. By just placing camps near each other I've been generating thousands of meat every battle. I had a single fight where across 2 armies and a camp I generated 25000 meat, enough to fully upgrade 3 camps. From one battle. It was turn 30...

Now I'm sitting here at turn 60 wondering why I even played more. I won long before this. Not even at turn 30, it was more like turn 20 as you said. This isn't fun. Being a broken mess loses it's charm very quickly. I've never missed Warhammer 2 more.

[Athemus]

Install hecleas AI overhaul, Dynamic Disasters and never obsolate lords. There goes your challange.

[Krude]

Originally posted by Athemus:

Install hecleas AI overhaul, Dynamic Disasters and never obsolate lords. There goes your challange.

While I appreciate and may follow your advice which I haven't tried yet.

I don't really expect mods to be an acceptable solution to what is core game issues.

They are a temporary fix, made by subjective individuals who like things a certain way, who hold the ability to delete said mod at any time or change it in a way that doesn't reflect what was of interest at the time.

CA needs to make this a game again.

There is also the issue that some of us play mp campaigns a lot and some mods absolutely bug out sometimes in that.

[Da_Higg]

Originally posted by BadAssMilkDaddy:

I agree wholeheartedly. I just tried Greasus (not buying another overpriced LL) now that the ogres got their new rework and holy moly. By just placing camps near each other I've been generating thousands of meat every battle. I had a single fight where across 2 armies and a camp I generated 25000 meat, enough to fully upgrade 3 camps. From one battle. It was turn 30...

Now I'm sitting here at turn 60 wondering why I even played more. I won long before this. Not even at turn 30, it was more like turn 20 as you said. This isn't fun. Being a broken mess loses it's charm very quickly. I've never missed Warhammer 2 more.

But this is my point - you chose to place the camps so that their effect radii overlapped, you picked the options that increase the amount of meat you get per battle and are then surprised that you get a lot of meat from battles.

Skulltaker's cloak of Skulls requires you to choose to unlock the bonuses - you can ignore it and thus not be overpowered.

I don't understand why people choose to play in a way that removes the challenge if they are then going to complain that there is no challenge.

[BadAssMilkDaddy]

Originally posted by Da_Higg:

Originally posted by BadAssMilkDaddy:

I agree wholeheartedly. I just tried Greasus (not buying another overpriced LL) now that the ogres got their new rework and holy moly. By just placing camps near each other I've been generating thousands of meat every battle. I had a single fight where across 2 armies and a camp I generated 25000 meat, enough to fully upgrade 3 camps. From one battle. It was turn 30...

Now I'm sitting here at turn 60 wondering why I even played more. I won long before this. Not even at turn 30, it was more like turn 20 as you said. This isn't fun. Being a broken mess loses it's charm very quickly. I've never missed Warhammer 2 more.

But this is my point - you chose to place the camps so that their effect radii overlapped, you picked the options that increase the amount of meat you get per battle and are then surprised that you get a lot of meat from battles.

Skulltaker's cloak of Skulls requires you to choose to unlock the bonuses - you can ignore it and thus not be overpowered.

I don't understand why people choose to play in a way that removes the challenge if they are then going to complain that there is no challenge.

I'm so tired of this argument. People insisting that it's the players fault for engaging with the mechanics of the game as it presents them. Telling someone to intentionally ignore mechanics put there by the developers is like saying a board game doesn't suck because you can make up your own rules. I mean yeah, I guess. But shouldn't it on the developer to make a game with engaging mechanics that don't require the player to ignore them? It's like saying that you can have fun with a stick and some rocks if you just "use your imagination" . That might be compelling logic to a child, but I don't find it compelling at all. I would prefer my games be designed well regardless of my input.

[Krude]

Originally posted by Da_Higg:

Originally posted by BadAssMilkDaddy:

I agree wholeheartedly. I just tried Greasus (not buying another overpriced LL) now that the ogres got their new rework and holy moly. By just placing camps near each other I've been generating thousands of meat every battle. I had a single fight where across 2 armies and a camp I generated 25000 meat, enough to fully upgrade 3 camps. From one battle. It was turn 30...

Now I'm sitting here at turn 60 wondering why I even played more. I won long before this. Not even at turn 30, it was more like turn 20 as you said. This isn't fun. Being a broken mess loses it's charm very quickly. I've never missed Warhammer 2 more.

But this is my point - you chose to place the camps so that their effect radii overlapped, you picked the options that increase the amount of meat you get per battle and are then surprised that you get a lot of meat from battles.

Skulltaker's cloak of Skulls requires you to choose to unlock the bonuses - you can ignore it and thus not be overpowered.

I don't understand why people choose to play in a way that removes the challenge if they are then going to complain that there is no challenge.

I think you are assuming their intent a little too much.

But bro, think of the flipped perspective on this:

Why should someone be punished for using a mechanic as intended just because the devs can't balance challenge vs reward to save their lives? to point it ruins any semblance of difficulty, not just in avoidable player made ways like you've pointed at but also in unavoidable ways too?

Like how do I avoid getting given 20,000 gold for doing something I have to do early game in a skulltaker campaign? how much of the game must I sacrifice so that the game isn't a hot mess balance wise, difficulty wise?


You are straight up asking people to ignore content. Content they paid for.

People don't want to not use the mechanic, they don't NOT want to get an advantage.

However they want that advantage to not be so damn good it breaks any challenge the game has, on top of that, it's compounded by the fact it's not just one mechanic, it's a ton of crap that's been buffed, upgraded, added, changed, etc in patches.

The challenge of this game has been watered down and trivialised so much bit by bit that's it's like a thick soup that's now become simply slightly flavoured water.


Do I think having a ton of cool things is bad? hell no.

Do I think those things are cool if they impact the gameplay so hard that there isn't any meaningful gameplay or challenge left?

Do I think it's OK that most of this broken stuff is within the first 50 turns? no.

Am I OK that the player, for a lot of this stuff, can't actually avoid it and yet on top of that the AI doesn't benefit from it? ????

It's... just bad man.

And it feels you are trying to cherry pick that it's the player whose in the bad here. I don't think that guy was implying he was going out of his way to abuse camps, and if having two camps is abusing a system then... that's not on him, it's on CA.

I'll be honest, in warhammer 3... you don't really have to try hard to become busted, it just happens if you so much as attack a lot, so what? should we not attack anymore by your logic?

And then what happens when we do, and catch up to the ai, should we pause mid war to be like... oh no, i'm too strong now, gotta regulate my own advantage because it's not CA whose at fault here it's the player????

Should we not add points to skill trees? just not level our LL?

Come on bro, how much of the game should we sacrifice because CA can't develop a healthy game to save their life anymore....

whoever is their gameplay designer, needs to be replaced with someone competent because this is NOT a game indicative of someone who ensures that moment to moment gameplay feels satisfying and engaging, balancing challenges and rewards for us players to stay invested.

It's also not like they don't know, people been complaining for many months that the difficulty is non existent.

[Velber]

they are already going to nerf it
are you one of the ones that complained about Vlad and Malus being too tough and the AI hounding the player?

[Krude]

Originally posted by Pseudomonarchiadaiymo:

they are already going to nerf it
are you one of the ones that complained about Vlad and Malus being too tough and the AI hounding the player?

I like difficulty. Fighting games made me realise difficulty leads to growth and memorable moments in gameplay. You don't remember a generic easy campaign, you do remember the hard ones that gave you trouble.

If I complain about something, it's usually when it's physically impossible. And even then I try to find a way to beat it.

You are barking up the wrong tree with that assumption.

Tho if you mean the vlad not being able to be killed due to regenerating hp too much, I don't disagree with that nerf.

What was wrong with malus?

[Velber]

Originally posted by Krude:

Originally posted by Pseudomonarchiadaiymo:

they are already going to nerf it
are you one of the ones that complained about Vlad and Malus being too tough and the AI hounding the player?

I like difficulty. Fighting games made me realise difficulty leads to growth and memorable moments in gameplay. You don't remember a generic easy campaign, you do remember the hard ones that gave you trouble.

If I complain about something, it's usually when it's physically impossible. And even then I try to find a way to beat it.

You are barking up the wrong tree with that assumption.

Tho if you mean the vlad not being able to be killed due to regenerating hp too much, I don't disagree with that nerf.

What was wrong with malus?

good then, if you were one of those lot that complained both ways it would have been funny in a sad kinda way, as for malus, people complained about both his start position in regards to the Daemon prince AND his ward save(the big one of the two)
so they nerfed his ward save

[Krude]

Originally posted by Pseudomonarchiadaiymo:

Originally posted by Krude:

I like difficulty. Fighting games made me realise difficulty leads to growth and memorable moments in gameplay. You don't remember a generic easy campaign, you do remember the hard ones that gave you trouble.

If I complain about something, it's usually when it's physically impossible. And even then I try to find a way to beat it.

You are barking up the wrong tree with that assumption.

Tho if you mean the vlad not being able to be killed due to regenerating hp too much, I don't disagree with that nerf.

What was wrong with malus?

good then, if you were one of those lot that complained both ways it would have been funny in a sad kinda way, as for malus, people complained about both his start position in regards to the Daemon prince AND his ward save(the big one of the two)
so they nerfed his ward save

Oh ok, and yeah, I've noticed strangely a lot of people do similar. They don't really think about the long term, they just react to whatever is in front of them and voice it. Usually these days in a contrarian kind of way.

I'm sure many of us have had moments like that in life, I know a few life experiences really changed my way of thinking and promoted more critical thinking and self awareness. But I find that these days people are encouraged not to do that.

Before this thread goes back on topic; Merry Christmas/happy holidays.