Suggestions on how to make the Chaos Warriors campaign more fun. (poll included)

Bhering · June 2016

TLTR: Just some suggestions on how to improve the Chaos Warriors campign-gameplay. Also a poll to gauge player opinions on the matter.

In the interest of seeing what the player-opinions are for CW campaign gameplay I'd really appriciate it if you answered this straw-poll. It could well be the CW have an audience that are quite happy with them, for all I know.

How do you feel about the Chaos Warriors campaign gameplay?:
http://goo.gl/JJ3lWJ

Results:
http://goo.gl/PwVebe

I posted this in the feedback & suggestions part of the forum, but I feel it has a place in general discussion aswell. I hope the double-post is acceptable.

I don't feel like the Chaos Warrior campaign is working. Maybe I'm wrong and it has an audience who likes it, but it seems to me like it's just a string of battles without the variety of custom battles. I kind of feel like they failed entirely with the campaign-mode for this faction, if the goal is to have fun playing them that is.

In the interest of offering some alternatives that may or may not make them play better..

Management

I feel the management part would need to be entirely different. It would need to be a mini-game in itself where the number of options would rival the entirety of the non-horde factions when a mid-sized empire is achieved.

Perhaps a mini-game that expands as a function of razed cities and corruption. Perhaps management that ties more into demonic worship and weakening the weil between the physical world and the warp than physical buildings.

Infrastructure

Horde infrastructre would feel way cooler if it was organizational rather than buildings. Various cults of followers, philosophies, showing favour to one cult over another could all take the place of the current horde buildings.

I've heard you currently loose all infrastructure if you loose a horde. What that makes sense with the current physical horde buildings, it makes no sense from a game-play perspective. Having the organizational infrastructure instead would allow it to follow the lord and not be lost (if that is actually the case).

Horde Mechanics

While the horde infighting sounds fun in theory, it currently just seems unappropriate mostly because a "Horde" is limited to a single stack. That's not much of a horde at all, just a mid-sized army. If feels about as appropriate as if dwarf units had zero armor-value.

An alternative would be to allow for a high number of stacks in a single horde, where unlike waaagh stacks you'd instead have to pay for the extra stacks just like normal, but they otherwise behaved like waaagh-stacks with following the leader. The extended horde would be slow on the attack, but absolutely overwhelming when faced head-on without lightning strike to whittle them down.

Raid-Attrition Upkeep

Further the current upkeep system seems entirely out of place. The whole point of a horde is it's organization. The lord doesen't pay them as if they were a professional army. They "get payed" from the loot of raiding, sacking and razing.

There could be a system with severe attrition that increased with the size of the horde (symbolozing ppl leaving the horde to plunder on their own), every turn the horde didn't raid, sack or raze. It would make the horde appropriately slow except when it's pouncing, friendly to lore and fictive realism.

To counter-balance and simulate the slow growth of a horde, the cost of getting units in the first place could be multiplied a number of times, making every new addition feel like a meaningful upgrade, a small cult of following in themselves. A horde should take relatively long to get traction, but once it does upkeep should not be an issue and it should be difficult to stop. Once it's destroyed however, it should take long to regain traction once more.

Representatives of the Gods

Chaos Warriors lack some important thematics. While it's very cool to make them chaos undivided, it feels out of place that all followers should be aswell. How much resources would it have taken to make some reskins of the current chaos warriors, to get some dedicated ones following the horde?

They could be slight varieties. Example, khorne ones dual-wielding for frenzy and anti-infantry but severe melee-defence penalties. Tzeentchians with halberds, good melee-defence, a model that looks like a sorcerer, a spell-like CD, but melee attack penalties. Nurgle warriors with high HP, poison attacks and a CD or passive debuff (nurgle rot). Slaneeshians with extra speed (or something, if speed on warriors is out of place). Etc. Limit them to one per horde (not per stack), and suddenly the chaos horde starts to feel more like just that.

Tilt

Even with all this Chaos Warriors wouldn't be quite enjoyable. It needs something unique to its gameplay. Chaos corruption is not interactive in a way that make CW meningful and fun to play. You have the option to awaken tribes, but there is no sense of purpose to it. Maybe you can get something out of it once you have plowed through Norsca several times, but its way to little way to late.

To me CW feels directionless, like I'm just wasting time no matter what I do. Something needs to happen. Something meaningful needs to happen everytime I direct my attention to stuff like awakening, and there need to be a worthwhile long-term purpose to it aswell.

Ah well, just some thoughts. As it stands now CW is not worth the time spent playing in campaign-mode for me. Could be the things I suggested wouldn't make the game enjoyable either, but I think it's somewhat meaningless to complain about it being booring if I don't have suggestions on how to make it not so.

But the CW faction still makes a nice addition to the custom battles. So worth getting for that.

PS: Feel free to add suggestions in this thread if you feel like me, that campaign-gameplay for CW is really bad. Also feel free to discuss CW gameplay in general. Please refrain from discussing CW balancing in this thread, as there are plenty other threads that does that and it would likely derail this one.

Setrus · June 2016

Honestly, only thing I'd do would be to switch the gains from sacking and razing.

Silvetica · June 2016

Playing chaos atm.
Seems a nice change of pace from the other factions with some cool mechanics.
Just being chased by 3 stacks of *event* and 5 stacks of empire atm. Fun times.

endur · June 2016

I voted best campaign at launch. I like the other campaigns too, though.

What I really miss is Shogun 2 style general speeches at the beginning of every fight (not just quest battle speeches).

Commissar_G · June 2016

Give us the bird as a general?

On a more serious note my issue with it was it took me 200 turns to defeat the norscan tribes... They're the strongest races is the entire game by 10000 miles. 9 stacks? Nah we'll field 12.

Bhering · June 2016

Wow, thanks alot for the feedback guys! If the results so far proves representative (and I have no reason to doubt that they are) I have been dead wrong in my assumption that an overwhelming majority of players think the CW campaign is boring. I guess I overinterpreted the numerous rather vocal threads about how boring it is. Maybe I just didn't follow them for long enough to see the counter-points..

Really glad I made that poll. Would have turned out a really silly thread if my assumption hadn't been corrected.

If the poll is any indication to player-opinions, CW should remain largely as it is. People like me can just find out fix in mods instead.

Aragorn1ring · June 2016

I've played several hours as Chaos. I didnt really find it as compelling as the other factions. I spend most of my time running away from multiple stacks after having been wiped numerous times. Also, not sure why Tzeentch wants me dead as my faction leader is supposed to be chosen by him. *shrug* Not really what I had in mind for Chaos.

Nitros14 · June 2016

I've been having fun.

After uniting Norsca as my allies I've been having to fight a string of hilariously unwinnable battles to crush the Empire. And due to Horde infighting and the hilarious upkeep costs I basically have to do it with one army.

shinros · June 2016

I shall re post this from another topic since this is relevant.

I personally believe part of the reason is that they made warrior's of chaos undivided. There is no flavor to them if you place mark of slaanesh your chaos warrior don't look any different.

What I think they should of done is make the various god's task you with certain missions like taking and sacking certain provinces or slaanesh wanting you to spread a certain amount of corruption and give appropriate marks when you complete them. Then if you use a certain mark on a unit they change accordingly.

It does not feel all that should I say rewarding? To play chaos plus as I said I don't think it helps that the chaos god's basically have zero presence in the warrior's of chaos.

Nitros14 · June 2016

I'm hoping now that the main game is developed when the sequel comes out with Daemons of Chaos we'll see a lot more God specific stuff. Daemons are far more specialized along god lines than Warriors of Chaos.

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Suggestions on how to make the Chaos Warriors campaign more fun. (poll included)

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