A while ago, there was an official stream in which the developers presented the first big show directly from playing the expected third Warhammer. You can see the recording of the whole stream here, below in the article you will find individual videos from it. In addition to samples, we also offer an insider’s commentary by the reader Jiří Neuberg, who is a big fan of the series:
Today’s stream featured, among other things, Frankie Ward, a gameplay trailer from the third sequel to the Creative Assembly saga Warhammer. The performance also included an ingame story trailer from yesterday. In terms of gameplay, I will focus on the analysis of today’s trailer: what he revealed and what questions are still unanswered – from the perspective of a critical fan of the series, playing only on the maximum possible difficulty (this is key see below) with the played time, which I would rather not to state.
At the beginning, just a brief specification of how to understand the obvious but hidden statistics affecting the performance of the battalions in the game. Each battalion is characterized by: the number of lives (in the order of hundreds of points), the number of units per battalion (on average around 100), attack points and defense points. I will stop here: attack points, for example 50, state that battalion units have a 50% (+ 20% to 30% basic, I have no idea the exact amount) probability of hitting the enemy and defense (eg) 40% reduces the probability of hitting by this amount. Furthermore, the amount of damage to the weapon, for example 30. Thus, for units in close combat, the damage is caused only by units in the first line of the battalion, which is a multiple of the damage to the weapon, with key consideration of the probability of intervention resulting from the amount of attack and defense of the enemy.
And now ATTENTION, if you play the tactical part on the highest possible difficulty (it is not legendary compared to the strategic layer of the game, but “very high”), AI gains a relatively low advantage on paper, which has a major impact in practice: most melee units is ineffective on the part of the player, especially lower levels, and difficult riding in the game becomes debatable, when thanks to the AI bonus in the meat (hidden statistics), it is impossible to apply hit and run tactics (riding is very difficult and at great expense detaches from the attacked battalion ). So when playing on the maximum difficulty of the tactical part, you focus mainly on shooting units (even in the popular chessboard) and because the damage is caused by the entire battalion due to mass salvo, so these units can cause the enemy 5 times more damage than units in melee combat. .
This is even more evident in monsters, where one of the least suitable legendary units, and a textbook example in the game, is the genre fanatas cliché – dragon: firstly, due to its size it is very weak against shooting units, but also against ground (the larger the volume units, the more units it is able to strike at one point), the relatively slow it is and the less profitable it is due to the ratio of the ability to cause damage and the acquisition price. And now to the gameplay trailer, which focuses on introducing a new regime, the gradual defense of the territory with the acquisition of gradual bonuses, to the final clash of elites. Surprisingly, I leave this aside and look at the following, which is hidden between the lines:
- At 00:28 min, a preview of the battalion cards is presented for the first time, when I was immediately struck by the fact that the melee infantry battalions are about 80 units and the shooting range is 90. So it is exactly the opposite of where the game should go in the balance – the only What this can fix are extremely good statistics of infantry melee combat units.
- At 00:55 the attack is followed by a ride, when again, if the ride is not significantly above average (at the level of the “Grail Rangers” Bretonnie), it will be a very expensive paid attack.
- At 04:33 fortunately for Kislev (the Slavs in the world of Warhammer, combining Russian and Polish realities) joined the fight battalion Ice Guard, a shooting unit with a decent defense against monsters and cavalry, which may be as crucial for the faction as the Asuras Sisters of Avelorn, or Defenders of Astaril, etc.
- At 05:50, an icy, elemental (above) bear is presented on the battlefield as the ultimate monster, here I will only remind you of the practicality of other monsters described above. Naturally, the above may not apply if the CA remakes the characteristics of the highest difficulty (which I hope, in this order, the game forces the player only into narrowly specialized tactics at the expense of variability), or the player chooses a degree of lower difficulty.
And now what we didn’t learn from the trailer: Will the siege battles be reworked? These are by far the weakest part of Warhammer I and II, where the player can make extensive use of the exploits in the game (through which the series permeates and only their description is on a few A4). What exactly will the strategic map of the world look like? Will it be possible to redistribute the experience points of individual characters, at least when gaining the hero of the confederations? Will a successful compromise of a substitute naval battle be maintained? Don’t really expect you in this work. A word in conclusion: Warhammer III promises to be the biggest game in the series to date – be it, in the concurrence of all three parts, it is highly probable, but only when the actual gameplay will reveal whether it will be the biggest game in the ability to fix key gameplay features.
The game is due out at the end of the year and you can add the Steam version to your Wishlist here.
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