A trend that has been going on for awhile, but has become more and more apparent, is that additions to the game (be it new factions or reworks to existing factions) introduce new features in an additive manner rather than holistically. When a feature gets added, it (seemingly) has not been done with the consideration of what already exists and how that race or faction operates. This leads to cases where the race or faction is often a much easier or overpowered experience.  

Here are two examples (of many) of these additive situations:

1.) DLC Faction - Yuan Bo. Yuan Bo, for all intents and purposes, is a strictly more powerful Cathay campaign with access to an incredibly powerful mechanic on top of  Cathay’s existing features, with the exception of losing the Great Bastion downside mechanic. Theoretically this was supposed to balanced by a dual start position, but this doesn’t play out in practice.

2.) Reworks -The Dwarfs. The Dwarfs have had several reworks, or rather mechanic additions, over time. Between the Forge, the Age of Reckoning, and now The Deeps, the Dwarfs have received several mechanical additions, and each of them are essentially agnostic from each other and provide their own rewards. The AoR system for the most part has no interaction with the Forge nor does it with the Deeps (except for a minor after the fact bandaid).

The problem here is that these races were already more than capable of winning campaigns before these features were introduced. These features, while increasing player interactivity, were not at all counterbalanced and have mostly served as successive power boosts to races that already could succeed on the campaign map.

Instead of additive designing, additions to factions and races really should be done in a holistic manner. By that I mean if a feature that introduces power is added, it should be counterbalanced with some sort of cost, downside, restriction, or replace another feature. When a feature is added it should also be integrated into other systems in a way that can introduce meaningful cost or choice. I believe that there was an attempt to this with some of the Dwarf features, but the choices given didn’t actually play out or weren’t stark enough to prevent players from just having more power to what they had already.

Anyways that’s my little rant.

I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this? Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances? If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

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mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:
I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this?

By changing the numbers of old mechanics, introducing offsets to new mechanics in the form of downsides or additional challenge. 

Yuan Bo for example could have had a campaign mechanic that made him to take the dual start and have to care about the state of Cathay (through a mechanic similar to Imperial Authority) while also progressing through his goals in Lustria. The extra challenge would facilitate and necessitate his extra power given through the Matters of State mechanic.

There have been DLCs that have done this, like Tehenhauin having to use Skinks but getting extra buffs to compensate, or Eshin having to use Eshin units. This seems to have fallen out of favor for just raw power.

mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:
Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances?

Yes. Ideally old content should be updated and balanced.

mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:

If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Even then we’ve had power differentials for different races and factions for years. Ikit Claw being head and shoulders more powerful than the rest of the Skaven since his introduction.

mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:
Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

It’s far from too late. We’ve seen multiple Dwarf updates in a row that could have addressed the issues I’ve brought up. There are more people complaining about the feature and power creep than there used to be.

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Passthechips#4366 wrote:

mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:
Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances?

Yes. Ideally old content should be updated and balanced.

I know this makes me sound like an old man. But any media production of quality possesses integrity - i.e., a sense of wholeness. Once, video games were released when they were complete - the devs did a final pass over everything they had added to the game over the course of their 1-3 years working on it. They tweaked and balanced everything as a whole - because that was what it was. A whole they had worked on and completed. Then they released the game and moved on to another game.

The industry has moved on from that practice. You can make a lot more money, and a lot more predictably, and cumulatively create something on a larger scale, if you stagger releases of various portions of a game, inflate player interest by gauging reactions to each release, and so on. 

It seems to me pretty unlikely that the game we have now would exist if this hadn't been the modus operandi. 

However, it comes with costs. One of the costs is that the game is not made holistically. That means balance between factions, but it also goes for overall vision for what CA wants TW:WH to be. Tellingly, the only thing CA has publicly declared here is that it wants to include as many characters from Warhammer as possible in the game. That is merely a claim to want to make as much money as possible. Fine; they're entitled to that. But the old man in me misses when games were made with an integrity of vision that all excellent games possess.

I thought of the Civilization series—since we already have tech points, maybe we could use culture points to unlock mechanics. This would help regulate the strength progression of mechanics. However, the downside is that the early game would feel less engaging, and faction differences would become smaller. Additionally, if a player prefers the enjoyment of battles over management, they might not like this approach.

Sadly it seems that these balanced mechanics are very unpopular. Since Warhammer II they have been severely criticised and subsequently toned down to almost extinction. Granted, CA had implemented them very lazily, but I think that over-powered features are simply more popular and thus profitable. I don't see CA changing course, busted buffs is what gets them the sales.

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Sheikh_Nimr#9382 wrote:

Sadly it seems that these balanced mechanics are very unpopular. Since Warhammer II they have been severely criticised and subsequently toned down to almost extinction. Granted, CA had implemented them very lazily, but I think that over-powered features are simply more popular and thus profitable. I don't see CA changing course, busted buffs is what gets them the sales.

Sadly, this is probably true.

​Well that's an issue with the player base who kept asking for new & pretty UIs harboring "click & win" mechanics instead of actually interesting stuff.

And the message was sent loud and clear with the "Forge of Daith" debacle and due to people wanting "Ikit Claw workshops" everywhere (see also "please add a Grom Cauldron to X"). I'd say the whole "Malus' mechanic has downsides" debacle is also to blame.

The only really interesting mechanic I have seen since then is Gorbad's mechanic and maybe Yuan Bo's Jade vs. Stone mechanic which both involve some sort of balance.

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MalalTheRenegade#5644 wrote:

​Well that's an issue with the player base who kept asking for new & pretty UIs harboring "click & win" mechanics instead of actually interesting stuff.

And the message was sent loud and clear with the "Forge of Daith" debacle and due to people wanting "Ikit Claw workshops" everywhere (see also "please add a Grom Cauldron to X"). I'd say the whole "Malus' mechanic has downsides" debacle is also to blame.

The only really interesting mechanic I have seen since then is Gorbad's mechanic and maybe Yuan Bo's Jade vs. Stone mechanic which both involve some sort of balance.

CA always go the hard way for a mechanical rework take the dwarves for example, they gave them higher growth and added AOR that gives massive bonuses.

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Neversetcrazysun1#7505 wrote:

​The root of the issue lies in the imbalance between resource investment and returns. If the resources spent on building two settlements yield similar rewards to constructing one city and one Deep, the system is fair. However, if the difference in value requires additional conditions, such as waiting 30 turns, it doesn’t count as true progression because you’re still losing the original rewards and their opportunity cost.

The core problem is whether the original rewards are too weak, making any alternative automatically feel like an upgrade. For example, gaining 100 experience points is nearly worthless when a single battle can provide dozens or even hundreds of times that value. Most players would never choose this option, and if the AI does, it creates a fundamental gap that prevents it from ever surpassing the player.

If a faction replaces this weak effect with a more useful mechanic, it will inevitably become stronger. Therefore, balancing the game requires raising the baseline value of these effects to avoid situations where simply discarding them becomes the optimal strategy.  

If a short-term challenge allows for the restoration of base mechanics along with additional mechanics, I believe it would still be popular. For example, despite Tehenhauin's early challenge, his faction remains well-loved by various players.

Players are willing to endure the early struggle as long as the rewards are satisfying and the faction's mechanics become more enjoyable and powerful afterward.

Oddly enough the Skink-Moses campaign is a shining example of what happens when they release a tame DLC. The Tehenhauin of now is the polar opposite of the original Tehenhauin experience. The rewards were extremely disappointing. The pinnacle reward was insultingly bad. It took years before its campaign felt like a rewarding rather novel experience. CA is notorious for leaving bland and forgettable content to just rot in a pile on the fringes of the city. I don't think that we have the luxury of waiting years in order to get mediocre to broken content up and running to the game's basic standards. 

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MalalTheRenegade#5644 wrote:

​Well that's an issue with the player base who kept asking for new & pretty UIs harboring "click & win" mechanics instead of actually interesting stuff.

And the message was sent loud and clear with the "Forge of Daith" debacle and due to people wanting "Ikit Claw workshops" everywhere (see also "please add a Grom Cauldron to X"). I'd say the whole "Malus' mechanic has downsides" debacle is also to blame.

The only really interesting mechanic I have seen since then is Gorbad's mechanic and maybe Yuan Bo's Jade vs. Stone mechanic which both involve some sort of balance.

I believe what players want is a more diverse army composition. To achieve this, units that perform well in PvP but struggle in the campaign need to be buffed. In PvP, there is a single army gold limit, but in the campaign, there isn’t — the only restriction is the 20-unit cap. As a result, campaign players expect each unit to receive sufficient buffs in their respective themed DLCs to perform at a level that matches the era in which they were recruited. 

The most well-received DLCs are those that enhance multiple units across different armies, while DLCs that only improve lords and heroes tend to be less popular.

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mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:

I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this? Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances? If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

Cathay harmony got nerfed.
 

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:

I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this? Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances? If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

Cathay harmony got nerfed.
 

It was OP but it made sense lore wise for Cathay to be obsessed with harmony.  The problem came with harmony bound to characters and technology and it made it a chore to keep it aligned. The rework to province wise did fix it but made harmony pointless and the further rework to add nerfs to the faction was a bandaid. I`d rather kept the old system but fixed the ways to align harmony and give unique  bonuses and maluses  for yang and yin harmony and making harmony less strong early on (fixed by tech).

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dogoska#1535 wrote:

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:

I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this? Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances? If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

Cathay harmony got nerfed.
 

It was OP but it made sense lore wise for Cathay to be obsessed with harmony.  The problem came with harmony bound to characters and technology and it made it a chore to keep it aligned. The rework to province wise did fix it but made harmony pointless and the further rework to add nerfs to the faction was a bandaid. I`d rather kept the old system but fixed the ways to align harmony and give unique  bonuses and maluses  for yang and yin harmony and making harmony less strong early on (fixed by tech).

It's loreful to train mental math when playing Cathay. 

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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dogoska#1535 wrote:

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:

I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this? Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances? If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

Cathay harmony got nerfed.
 

It was OP but it made sense lore wise for Cathay to be obsessed with harmony.  The problem came with harmony bound to characters and technology and it made it a chore to keep it aligned. The rework to province wise did fix it but made harmony pointless and the further rework to add nerfs to the faction was a bandaid. I`d rather kept the old system but fixed the ways to align harmony and give unique  bonuses and maluses  for yang and yin harmony and making harmony less strong early on (fixed by tech).

It's loreful to train mental math when playing Cathay. 

It is just an overly radical way to fix problems, I never got why Cathay's disharmony gave bonuse and maluses from the get go and harmony the balanced way to play. 

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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mecanojavi99#6562 wrote:

I mean, I get what you mean, but how exactly do you propose CA does this? Not to mention that what happens to Races that have already received reworks? Do they get nerfs and counterbalances? If not then they will clearly be in an advantage compared to new additions that get your proposed approach.

Overall this seems like something that should have been done from the start but now it's way too late to do it, without a clear outcry for CA to do it.

Cathay harmony got nerfed.
 

Yes, and so called 'Great Bastion' mechanics is a joke.