The game should have been delayed again.

Kyler_883

If they delayed the game from February to instead the end of May or mid June, like when three kingdoms did the game would have been in a much better state for release, and the roadmaps distance not as long I don't think.

Instead the game was rushed out in the most playable way it could have been to generate money as fast as possible that's my own opinion on that side.

I'm aware the developing team doesn't get to make the important decisions like when the game comes out, that's the corporate side, the money grabbing side, but the corporate side is also, the very dumb side.

You want the game to be a cashcow, having the game release in a poor condition damages that prospect? The playerbase has dropped at a staggering amount, the biggest in total war history is it not? That's a lot of work to bring people back to your cashcow. It will, but it'll be harder to do so.

The February month release wasn't a good idea anyway? February was absolutely jam packed with huge releases to overshadow total wars such as the years first Titan game of the year in Elden Ring.

Releasing in May/June was better not only as an idea for the development team as it gave them more time to do more work which is always good, and the roadmap more immediate than such a trek. especially in today's gaming society where player's have little to no patience for more content, but as a business idea as well. It also is better to listen and work with your team than against your team? Push them sure it's how you get work done. But don't release something when it's not fricken ready.

You would have released in a more quiet time of the year to my understanding, not going to against a Titan. Thus people would have bought your game in more numbers as some people including me, only like to buy one game at a time and focus it than buying multiple and having one just sit there and being a waste of immediate funds.

What's everyone else's take on this topic?

Steph_F_David

What a great idea.

This way, instead of playing the game in February and giving feedback about the Soul Race, deployables, etc, so CA can realize their design was not perfect, and are now tyring to improve it, with hopefully something better for this Summer, we would have given this feedback months later... and maybe start to get something better in 2023.

NVNM

They needed sales before the end of the financial year.

Steph_F_David said:

What a great idea.

This way, instead of playing the game in February and giving feedback about the Soul Race, deployables, etc, so CA can realize their design was not perfect,

They still haven't acknowledged that the RoC system is horrible and unwanted by the players.

Steph_F_David

They changed it. With the possibility to almost ignore it.

Reeks

The design desisions would still have been the same, the state of the game would be pretty much the same

Thinking that CA are in possession of a Quality control department witch could handle the workload the devs left for them is naive, CA saves money on those departments because they rely on using the costumers in that role.

They stated so themselves that in house testing can´t compete with the feedback they get from thousands and thousands of players

Postponing it again would at best have made it a marginally better experience

No what they should have done was release the game in BETA state for all the people who pre-ordered/bought the game

That would have been the proper thing to do.

Darksteel83

Kyler_883 said:

If they delayed the game from February to instead the end of May or mid June, like when three kingdoms did the game would have been in a much better state for release, and the roadmaps distance not as long I don't think.

Instead the game was rushed out in the most playable way it could have been to generate money as fast as possible that's my own opinion on that side.

I'm aware the developing team doesn't get to make the important decisions like when the game comes out, that's the corporate side, the money grabbing side, but the corporate side is also, the very dumb side.

You want the game to be a cashcow, having the game release in a poor condition damages that prospect? The playerbase has dropped at a staggering amount, the biggest in total war history is it not? That's a lot of work to bring people back to your cashcow. It will, but it'll be harder to do so.

The February month release wasn't a good idea anyway? February was absolutely jam packed with huge releases to overshadow total wars such as the years first Titan game of the year in Elden Ring.

Releasing in May/June was better not only as an idea for the development team as it gave them more time to do more work which is always good, and the roadmap more immediate than such a trek. especially in today's gaming society where player's have little to no patience for more content, but as a business idea as well. It also is better to listen and work with your team than against your team? Push them sure it's how you get work done. But don't release something when it's not fricken ready.

You would have released in a more quiet time of the year to my understanding, not going to against a Titan. Thus people would have bought your game in more numbers as some people including me, only like to buy one game at a time and focus it than buying multiple and having one just sit there and being a waste of immediate funds.

What's everyone else's take on this topic?

Not sure if a delay would have made the game better. That really depends on the testing. And testers being able to report if a mechanic is fun especially when you play it multiple times.
Most of the bugs will be fixed with 1.2.0.

The problem for WH3 is more that the design is not fun for a lot of players.

The content creators that got early access also gave tips for improvements. But as far as I understood nothing has been done with those comments. As far as I understood they where not allowed to give negative feedback in public.

WH3 also has very good stuff

• The tutorial campaign.
  
• The Alliance system.
  
• The diplomacy rework. (that was one we expected because it was also in 3K)
  
• The race and faction mechanics are fun.
  
• The multiplayer changes also seem good. I haven't tried them yet.
  

But for me I the realms are not fun especially Tzeentch his realm.
I also don't like the sieges.
The rifts were also a miss before 1.1.0 because the really limit expending.
The combined issues now also cause a delay for IE. IE is the campaign most fanboys where expecting to be playing the most.

Testing if a mechanic is fun should also be done early. Because it is a lot of work to change it later.

drogarito92

The game should have been released in September. It looked unfinished in the gameplay trailers etc.

Valkaar

I agree that an additional Game delay would have helped.

But I also don't think it was a realistic option. Clearly there was pressure to get this thing out the door and start collecting returns on investment.

A delay would have been nice! But it's kinda water under the bridge at this point.

The unfortunate part is, the devs are now stuck scrambling to pick up the mess and catching all of the flak. The devs aren't innocent or blameless to be sure, but they're at least aware of the issues and attempting to fix them. While the people who actually rushed it out the door likely collected bonus checks off the high launch sales and didn't learn any particular lesson at all.

Like, to the investors who set the deadlines, they likely still think this whole 'launch it before it's ready' thing, was a 'good idea'.

Valkaar

Darksteel83 said:

Kyler_883 said:

If they delayed the game from February to instead the end of May or mid June, like when three kingdoms did the game would have been in a much better state for release, and the roadmaps distance not as long I don't think.

Instead the game was rushed out in the most playable way it could have been to generate money as fast as possible that's my own opinion on that side.

I'm aware the developing team doesn't get to make the important decisions like when the game comes out, that's the corporate side, the money grabbing side, but the corporate side is also, the very dumb side.

You want the game to be a cashcow, having the game release in a poor condition damages that prospect? The playerbase has dropped at a staggering amount, the biggest in total war history is it not? That's a lot of work to bring people back to your cashcow. It will, but it'll be harder to do so.

The February month release wasn't a good idea anyway? February was absolutely jam packed with huge releases to overshadow total wars such as the years first Titan game of the year in Elden Ring.

Releasing in May/June was better not only as an idea for the development team as it gave them more time to do more work which is always good, and the roadmap more immediate than such a trek. especially in today's gaming society where player's have little to no patience for more content, but as a business idea as well. It also is better to listen and work with your team than against your team? Push them sure it's how you get work done. But don't release something when it's not fricken ready.

You would have released in a more quiet time of the year to my understanding, not going to against a Titan. Thus people would have bought your game in more numbers as some people including me, only like to buy one game at a time and focus it than buying multiple and having one just sit there and being a waste of immediate funds.

What's everyone else's take on this topic?

Not sure if a delay would have made the game better. That really depends on the testing. And testers being able to report if a mechanic is fun especially when you play it multiple times.
Most of the bugs will be fixed with 1.2.0.

The problem for WH3 is more that the design is not fun for a lot of players.

The content creators that got early access also gave tips for improvements. But as far as I understood nothing has been done with those comments. As far as I understood they where not allowed to give negative feedback in public.

WH3 also has very good stuff

• The tutorial campaign.
  
• The Alliance system.
  
• The diplomacy rework. (that was one we expected because it was also in 3K)
  
• The race and faction mechanics are fun.
  
• The multiplayer changes also seem good. I haven't tried them yet.
  

But for me I the realms are not fun especially Tzeentch his realm.
I also don't like the sieges.
The rifts were also a miss before 1.1.0 because the really limit expending.
The combined issues now also cause a delay for IE. IE is the campaign most fanboys where expecting to be playing the most.

Testing if a mechanic is fun should also be done early. Because it is a lot of work to change it later.

Some stuff in WH3 was bad by design (popup towers for example).

A ton of it was GREAT by design (many of things you mentioned, plus new animations, coop, flying toggles, etc.)

With a delay, the great stuff would have remained great and the bad stuff would have remained bad. But with a delay, once the teams got the feedback on what players didn't like, they would have actually been in a position to fix it. As well as in a position to release new content sooner. Instead of what we have now, where it's going to take 4 patches over 7 months before the game's 'foundations' get repaired.

^A delay would have straight up eliminated certain problems. And the problems that remained, would have been way easier to fix much sooner after launch.....dramatically improving public perception of the game and player retention....which is important to this Game's long-term development.

John_Kimble

Considering how shocked and reactionary they have been post post release, and considering how they allegedly ignored all the feedback recieved from the early-access youtubers in regards to the RoC race, im pretty much 100% sure that 2-5-9 months delay would not have changed anything when it comes to the main critique. Sure they woudl've had more time to spit and fix numerous blatant bugs and tweak performance, but the core mechanic? Nop, they were quite confident in.

So no, a delay would not have changed the n.1 problem the game had on release.

Herr_Arnulfe

In hindsight I'm glad to have missed the first 1.5 months of glitches (because of a battle bug). Having now played the game intensively for 2 weeks it seems pretty polished IMO. So thanks to everyone who did the work of helping CA beta-test the initial release.

Arsenic

If we're talking should, then they should have devoted the time and resources to the game it needed and started development earlier, rather than fannying around with other projects.

Or they should have announced it as a Beta for a tenner less.

All academic now either way, let us be blunt.

Passthechips

The complaints about it being shipped early would be replaced by complaints about it shipping late.

I’m personally happy I have access to the game and the community can provide feedback as opposed to just waiting around longer.

Bayes

At least it should have been delayed for 1.1 . There were plenty changes and fixes they didn’t need our feedback to make. Launch would have gone much smoother without the terrible pathfinding in sieges, performance issues and stuff like the alt tab crash.

Pocman

Agree. The game is a disaster in terms of polishing.

Reeks said:

The design desisions would still have been the same, the state of the game would be pretty much the same

Thinking that CA are in possession of a Quality control department witch could handle the workload the devs left for them is naive, CA saves money on those departments because they rely on using the costumers in that role.

They stated so themselves that in house testing can´t compete with the feedback they get from thousands and thousands of players

Postponing it again would at best have made it a marginally better experience

No what they should have done was release the game in BETA state for all the people who pre-ordered/bought the game

That would have been the proper thing to do.

Nope. A lot of the problems with the game seem like the result of it being rushed. From building chains that make no sense, to recoloured units when we know for a fact that the original plan made them into unique assets, etc.

Reeks

Pocman said:

Agree. The game is a disaster in terms of polishing.

Reeks said:

The design desisions would still have been the same, the state of the game would be pretty much the same

Thinking that CA are in possession of a Quality control department witch could handle the workload the devs left for them is naive, CA saves money on those departments because they rely on using the costumers in that role.

They stated so themselves that in house testing can´t compete with the feedback they get from thousands and thousands of players

Postponing it again would at best have made it a marginally better experience

No what they should have done was release the game in BETA state for all the people who pre-ordered/bought the game

That would have been the proper thing to do.

Nope. A lot of the problems with the game seem like the result of it being rushed. From building chains that make no sense, to recoloured units when we know for a fact that the original plan made them into unique assets, etc.

Yeah

While some issues could have been sorted out if given more time many others would have stayed as they were at release(as they are now)

My statement above still holds true

dge1

Moved, as it's a business discussion.