Profile of Hannibal

Not necessarily. It's a pretty random example I know, but in another, popular game I play called "Dead by Daylight", a premium cosmetic skin for one character costs 11€ on average while a new chapter -which includes two new playable characters and 6 new playable perks- costs 7€


Wait for the new CoH3 battlegroups and see how much they cost, and then let's complain afterwards if it's a rip-off

What you describe is really an exception. Most games shit their games with MTX. I don't see why I should pretend Relic would be the rare exception, given that everything - releasing a half finished game, prioritizing store over game fixes, fake currencies, token freemium model, similar behaviour in CoH2, even the publisher being SEGA - that they did so far points towards heavy monetization. There is no reason to give Relic the benefit of the doubt.

I'd almost bet that Relic intentionally overpriced their store to then go "whoops, we listen" while setting the pricing to the originally intended value. Would not be the first time we'd see this in the gaming industry.

But I really don't get where people are coming from with this "they prioritized the store over fixing the game or adding features!", like how exactly do you come to the conclusion that they pulled manpower & resources away from balance patches and features so that they can rush the store out? In fact, it is very likely that it's completely separate teams working on those things.

Whoever was put on "develop the store" could have been doing some other task. Some engine development, bug squashing, making the interface properly usable, working on proper friend invites and menu features, even making those shield icons and exchanging art that they embarrassingly reused from CoH2 (you don't need any programming or other vast technical skills for that) or whatever they're good at. There's enough missing and wrong in CoH3, they'll find a spot that needs work urgently for any developer in the company. I don't believe that they have a group of devs that have completely finishes their targeted milestones and have no better use than developing the shop.
And even if we stick to your "they're in completely separate teams" argument: Relic knew already half a year ago that the game is not ready and in a poor state. They made their business plan, they decided that the engine, UI, sounds, graphics, art, effects etc are all in good condition and that more money needs to be directed to develop further monetization and hired more people with the additional skill set of developing their shop. Problem is: Few things of the first parts have been well done. Even with this argument: Relic made a shitty business plan, shitty project planning, shitty money allocation. They should have hired anyone else instead the person that finally made the shop. They could have realized this problem surely one year ago, at the very least half a year ago when they realized the game won't be ready for the intended November launch. They did not change any of their plans substantially enough to release a game that you could call finished. If your project planning is so rigid that you cannot reallocate resources to fit your needs half to one year before reaching completion, you're really bad at project planning and really bad at setting correct priorities.

I will just say this:
The backlash from in-game shop and these currency shenanigans coupled with lack of polish and features that should be at release in Darktide resulted in the game being review bombed down to 22%, only that woke Fatshark devs up, they have adjusted currency pack prices, so if you wanted full set of cosmetics, you could get full set of cosmetics for exact price, no leftover currency, they have also put on hold all their planned monetization and got to providing players features that were missing on accelerated rate as well as other QOL changes, which pulled the game from attricious state comparable to one CoH3 is in right now.

However, something tells me the same review treatment would lead to abandonment of CoH3, DoW3 style, but also WH40k community is one you do not want to fuck with(bEhavior interactive even pretends they didn't made Eternal Crusade, that's how strong backlash about broken promisses and low quality were).

You can fight these things.
But this community won't, too many casuals and not enough vocal, butthurt players who know how to write reviews.

Yes, I fully agree, also on your gut feeling regarding potentially ensing the support of CoH3

This game had less players than CoH2 before the patch. The patch managed to undo the player loss of only a single week, so about 1500 extra players. All alarms for damage control should run constantly at Relic, yet they release their shitty in game store.

There are still many issues unfixed that I would have expected in this patch, like changing shield symbols etc. Really easy and quick stuff. Relic doesn't do it. The patch is not even THAT big, considering the state of the game and the fact that they had a whole month to prepare it.

Out of interest: How much Merot can you earn with their challenges, how much merit does a skin cost and thereby how long (in hours of gameplay) does it roughly take to be able to buy a skin (i.e. what is the earn rate of 'merit'?)

The preview of the store also confirms what I said before:
The fake currency will force you to always have some left over. They show prices of 600, 540, 360, 240. I would bet that you can only buy their fake currency in something like 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000 etc. This is forcing overpayment.
I just hope they stick to their cosmetics only promise, because we've seen plenty of companies rolling back on this type of promise already.