on one hand the scale looks fluent and epic, but
what's most annoying for me: the MOBA-Style close combat. For 2016 i want diverse and brutal looking close combat animations, not 2 guys standing next to each other, swinging around their sword left and right in the same manner until 1 life bar is empty. that's something already Age of Empires had 17 years ago.
It's sad, because We were on a good way with DoW1 and Medieval 2
but that's neither Relic's nor Sega's fault. It's the fault of the bs LoL and DotA community and firms
dow1 did exactly that though. they just swung their weapons at each other till one unit died and then there was a chance for a sync kill. the videos and articles make it pretty clear that dow3 is aiming for visual clarity and increased visual responsiveness, as well as more streamlined gameplay. having synced combat animations really hurts streamlined gameplay. for example, lets say i want a unit to disengage from combat, but theyre in the middle of a sync animation. what happens? does my unit just stay behind until the animation finishes? does it just cut the animation off abruptly? do squad members that are available to move move first and let the squad members in animation catch up? or do they just sit around until everyones ready to move? what about if squads in a sync animation are being shot at by ranged units? do they take damage? or should they be invulnerable?
in most previous Total War games they did have synced combat animations, and it was pretty cool, but a lot of people complained about the responsiveness of units and such. in the new total war warhammer, units just swing at the air, but people are generally really content with the way combat works right now.
im kinda disappointed about the lack of directional cover, i can understand why they got rid of it. imagine sticking large squads into pieces of cover. the problem was really obvious in mods for dow2 where they increased squad sizes.
also seemed like suppression isnt a thing anymore. in general the combat doesnt seem to be that deep, some vector targetting with the flamers and other abilities, but other than that the base combat seems to pretty shallow. i did notice that plasma guns seemed to overheat, and that entire tactical squads were equipped with plasma guns too. hopefully the base building and tech adds more depth to the game.
im not a big fan of the bright art style, but grime and dirt textures are something that can be added in layer, and even then im more concerned about the gameplay than the art style. one thing that really bothers me is how big the impact effects are. its a pretty vfx on the model thats getting shot at and its just visual noise that can be reduced imo.
also lmao at angelos jumping 30 feet into the air and twirlling his hammer while in cataphractii armor