Lost motivation to play campaign because of DLC

[Kraut and Tea]

Started a Vandal campaign not to long ago and have finished the campaign as Visigoths, Huns, ERE, WRE and Sassanids.

But this time, in the middle of my campaign after sacking half of Gaul, sacking Northern Italy and settling in 2 provinces in Southern Spain I have completly lost all motivation to continue this campaign of mine. The reason for this being the upcoming DLC. I never had this issue in Rome 2... yes essential parts of that game were also strips off before release, but during campaign I never had the feeling that one faction was actualy completly missing from the game. Now in my Vandal campaign I feel that through the Celts missing, I am missing an essential part of the expirience.

When the game was released the first campaigns that I finished was the WRE and Sassanid campaign. My reasoning for that being that the WRE campaign would get significantly harder in the future due to more hostile barbarian faction being unlocked via DLC and receiving the major faction buffs. So when I played through the WRE campaign in the first week after release I didnt have to deal with powerfull central Germanic Kingdoms such as the Alemans, I didnt have to deal with a powerfull Suebians faction, the Celts werent as threatening as they probably should have been, only one nomadic faction truely represented a thread and I didnt have to think much about a potentialy threatening invasion from Africa.
I had similar reasoning behind playing the Sassanid campaing through that early. Once more eastern factions will be made playable via DLC the Sassanid campain will become alot toughter to beat. Once the Armenians receive major faction buffs they will probably declare independence and so will the Parthians. Abasgia I believe will also become a major faction and will as such make the Sassanid campaign aswell as the Alans and ERE campaign harder. Adding to that there are the Magyars who has a nomadic faction are obviously going to made playable and are obviously situated and positioned to initialy spend the first 30 turns of the campaign raising hell in northern Persia and the Caucasus.

But now with the Celtic DLC approaching I am just thinking "Wait... This is not supposed to be how things work!? Hell, I am using DLCs to cheat!" And yeah. Thats ritty much the way it is... The Celts, the Nomads, Armenians, Africans, Suebians and you name it. With all of them being bland and unthreatening an essential part of the game expirience is missing. And weirdly enought this is the first time I feel like this. I played Shogun 2 without DLC and it was just as fun in those first months after release than it is now with all DLCs.
There is an inherint design flaw here through the concept of cutting things out of development for the purpose of properly integrating them later: It feels incomplete.
I would usualy be angry about so many DLCs in the first few weeks of a game, but the reason I am looking forward to them here is not because I like this DLC policy, but because I want a completed game expirience that I feel simply isnt there yet. And that really bugs me. I actualy feel like quiting the game and returning to playing it once all DLCs have been released.

And I think CA should seriously reconsidere it`s DLC policy. If you sell a game that feels incomplete because some that are factions meant to be made playable via DLC are not even fleshed out a bit for the purpose of encountering them as an AI faction it really doesnt satisfy and motivate to continue playing. I am only one consumer, but I cant be the only one who is currently considering if he should only buy a future tw game 5-8 months after release so he can have the full and complete game expirience.

Your thoughts?

[Humble Warrior]

Well I stopped playing around a week ago as the game is obviously still bugged up, not due to any DLC. Now there is defintely no point trying it until the Patch is released next week, especially if you use Mods.

[Darios]

I agree. My Alani campaign is really hard to enjoy because the Anteans/Sclaveni are Germans, the Iazyges are Huns, the Caucasian factions are Persians, and my own faction is a weird Germanic/Hunnic mix.

I am looking forward to playing a Saxon campaign and conquering Britannia once the Celts DLC comes out but I don't plan on trying the Alans again until the situation in the East has been fixed with DLC.

You know why CA did this right? There were legions of people whining about "paying for content that was already in the game" when they released cultural packs for Rome 2. To be honest I really cannot blame them for this. I get the feeling that Attila Total War is CA's reaction/revenge for all the whining and moaning we did about Rome 2. We thought that R2 was too easy of a game - "fine, enjoy having the AI chase your migrating hordes to the depths of hell." We didn't like paying for in game content - "Fine, have fun with Nordic Celts until we create 'real' content for them."

[crucify_ego]

I agree. My Alani campaign is really hard to enjoy because the Anteans/Sclaveni are Germans, the Iazyges are Huns, the Caucasian factions are Persians, and my own faction is a weird Germanic/Hunnic mix.

I am looking forward to playing a Saxon campaign and conquering Britannia once the Celts DLC comes out but I don't plan on trying the Alans again until the situation in the East has been fixed with DLC.

You know why CA did this right? There were legions of people whining about "paying for content that was already in the game" when they released cultural packs for Rome 2. To be honest I really cannot blame them for this. I get the feeling that Attila Total War is CA's reaction/revenge for all the whining and moaning we did about Rome 2. We thought that R2 was too easy of a game - "fine, enjoy having the AI chase your migrating hordes to the depths of hell." We didn't like paying for in game content - "Fine, have fun with Nordic Celts until we create 'real' content for them."

Nail. On. Head!

[Humble Warrior]

I agree. My Alani campaign is really hard to enjoy because the Anteans/Sclaveni are Germans, the Iazyges are Huns, the Caucasian factions are Persians, and my own faction is a weird Germanic/Hunnic mix.

I am looking forward to playing a Saxon campaign and conquering Britannia once the Celts DLC comes out but I don't plan on trying the Alans again until the situation in the East has been fixed with DLC.

You know why CA did this right? There were legions of people whining about "paying for content that was already in the game" when they released cultural packs for Rome 2. To be honest I really cannot blame them for this. I get the feeling that Attila Total War is CA's reaction/revenge for all the whining and moaning we did about Rome 2. We thought that R2 was too easy of a game - "fine, enjoy having the AI chase your migrating hordes to the depths of hell." We didn't like paying for in game content - "Fine, have fun with Nordic Celts until we create 'real' content for them."

Oh, so now we must hostage ourselves to CA`s good moods? Weren`t you one of those bitterly complaining against CA way back?

R2 was crap, we were deceived every early on, had to wait over a year for a half-decent game, then some of us paid again for better? And you now talk like it was OUR, the consumer`s fault? Oh, that`s rich. People were right to complain and complain hard. We PAY hard-earned cash - we have every right.

Of course you`re putting guilt-trip words for yourself in CA`s mouth, but if CA did do this for some kind of revenge, then they should be castigated even more so. If you want to feel guilty for being a `bad` customer to CA, then have at it, flagellate yourself with a cat `o nine tails outside CA`s office. Perhaps then you`ll feel better?

[Darios]

Oh, so now we must hostage ourselves to CA`s good moods? Weren`t you one of those bitterly complaining against CA way back?

R2 was crap, we were deceived every early on, had to wait over a year for a half-decent game, then some of us paid again for better? And you now talk like it was OUR, the consumer`s fault? Oh, that`s rich. People were right to complain and complain hard. We PAY hard-earned cash - we have every right.

Of course you`re putting guilt-trip words for yourself in CA`s mouth, but if CA did do this for some kind of revenge, then they should be castigated even more so. If you want to feel guilty for being a `bad` customer to CA, then have at it, flagellate yourself with a cat `o nine tails outside CA`s office. Perhaps then you`ll feel better?

I neither condone or criticize what CA is doing here, mere stating that I understand. The only logical way to end the practice is to end the practice of DLC all together. You and I both know that SEGA is pulling the strings here and telling CA to "find 6 things to cut from the game so we can later sell as DLC" and here we are. CA tried doing it one way for R2 (leaving non-playable factions with somewhat accurate rosters then selling them to us) and are trying another tactic (completely building faction rosters once they are sold as DLC) for Attila. Who am I to judge which is better?

[Viva Espana!]

I agree. My Alani campaign is really hard to enjoy because the Anteans/Sclaveni are Germans, the Iazyges are Huns, the Caucasian factions are Persians, and my own faction is a weird Germanic/Hunnic mix.

I am looking forward to playing a Saxon campaign and conquering Britannia once the Celts DLC comes out but I don't plan on trying the Alans again until the situation in the East has been fixed with DLC.

You know why CA did this right? There were legions of people whining about "paying for content that was already in the game" when they released cultural packs for Rome 2. To be honest I really cannot blame them for this. I get the feeling that Attila Total War is CA's reaction/revenge for all the whining and moaning we did about Rome 2. We thought that R2 was too easy of a game - "fine, enjoy having the AI chase your migrating hordes to the depths of hell." We didn't like paying for in game content - "Fine, have fun with Nordic Celts until we create 'real' content for them."

What kind of shill are you? Previous total war games would have this content SHIPPED WITH THE GAME, without the consumer having to needlessly pay extra. They're withholding content to make a quick buck off gullible people willing to spend money on "culture packs" when mods are going to make better/more accurate racial units anyway.

[AnonMilwaukean]

First of all, I feel the same way you do. I have this whole weekend free, and I am not playing Attila despite kind-of wanting to, and it's because I know Tuesday there will be a fairly major change to the campaign roster balance, and I don't want to start a campaign only to have to re-start one to get the Celts into it.

Secondly, and the only area I differ from you in, is that I have finished just one campaign in my 100 hours, and it's with the Sassanids. What I mean by this is: you already finished 5 campaigns, so maybe some of this is just burning-out for a little?

Started a Vandal campaign not to long ago and have finished the campaign as Visigoths, Huns, ERE, WRE and Sassanids.

Seriously, to have beaten Visigoths and Sassanids wouldn't have taken so long, but WRE, ERE, and Huns are all pretty substantial campaigns from my trying everyone out a bit thus far (played pretty much every faction for at least 75 turns each, except for the Norse tribes and Franks).

But back to agreeing with you: leaving the Celts out was just bad on CA's part. I had expected maybe just the Picts would be in at launch while the other groups would be unlocked via DLC (which would have still been lame, but at least not campaign-changing). But to leave them out entirely, with place-holder Norse-Germanic units or whatever? Instead of having, oh, I don't know, an Eastern DLC Pack right away, or an add-on DLC of extra Nomad factions to play as (in addition to the Huns that we already have), they instead thought that they should just leave the Celts out of the base-game entirely to do a DLC at the 1 month mark? Just stupid. So many better directions, and they took the one rather dumb one.

My thought on this is that CA sees the Celts as the new 'Sparta', thinking that the name alone will sell the DLC. And to protect it from being modded right away to allow people to play as the Celts prior to the planned DLC, they just left them out of the base game entirely, even from the CPU rosters. The only other option, and one that I barely consider, is that they honestly ran out of time and are actually adding something they had to finish in the month after release. But I hardly consider this plausible given that Attila re-used a ton of assets from R2. I mean, I hear speech clips that reference Parthia when I am controlling my Huns. And a number of units were re-used, even Falx unit types that don't feel overly historically plausible (Thracian Oathsworns with falx weapons?). So, my willingness to consider that they ran out of time and had to use placeholders for the Celts is virtually non-existent, given that they knew the Celts would be popular, and used R2 elements to greatly expedite the development process.

Honestly, best explanation is that they flat-out cut the Celts. Had it been a lesser-known group that got place-holder rosters, fine. But the Celts? Just no way I can be convinced that they didn't finish the Celts because they were too busy finishing up Norse rosters, or whatever.

And like the original poster is saying, the announcement of the Celts DLC basically took me to zero motivation to play Attila until the patch comes out. Just no reason to play when in several days a huge hole will be filled with an actually Celtic roster for existing factions that currently are in the game. Moreover, now I feel obligated to get the DLC because this means I'll no longer be able to hold out hope about getting the Picts via mods, as I'm sure the same deal is in place with mods that R2 had.

But the worst part really is that there are so many better options than to have done a Celts DLC... more Eastern factions would have been great, especially since they have the Sanitation ability. I would have bought an Eastern DLC without a complaint so long as I had at least the Picts to play as from release. Or do Bulgars/Magyars, or do break-away factions from the WRE that start later on in the campaign, or do a mini-campaign set entirely around the re-conquering of Italia by the ERE. There really are so many options for stuff they could have added, but the option they took was to omit an entire roster from square one. And yes, I get that the Celts were hardly a major player in the overall fall of the WRE, but what if Russia in the Grand Campaign of N:TW had been programmed to use Austrian units until the 1-month mark? Sure, if you play as some of the factions, you might not interact with Russia very much, but depending who you play as, it might become a bigger deal faster than you'd expect.

As I said on other threads, it's not like the Celts DLC was a shock. I guess I'd just thought that maybe they'd throw us the Picts as a Free-LC and move on and not do any DLC at all for the Britannic Celts. But I always knew this was 99% guaranteed to happen. But really, when you clearly omitted an entire roster from even the CPU's control, then I sort of think maybe offer at least one of the factions for free, you know? I'm not as miffed that they didn't have the Celt rosters enabled for human players, but to really go and omit them entirely from the game, period, is pretty silly, even if it was only for a month or so.

In the end, Attila as-a-game is way, way better than R2, but the DLC policy for it is already worse (3 DLC in about a month for Attila, and the pre-order freebie was probably not taken up on by nearly as many people since the R2 debacle still looms in the backs of many minds).

[veverčák]

Or perhaps the CA just miss the deadline. Colosal Order miss the deadline with tunnels for Cities:Skylines and Crusader Kings 2 come up with Arabic portraits for Mali and Ethiopia rulers or Starcraft 2 WoL was realised with wrong folder path to maps as it was not able to register á,é etc., so the game would be unplayable for Czech and Swedish users of XP Windows OS for almost year. happens.

[Garensterz]

Or perhaps the CA just miss the deadline. Colosal Order miss the deadline with tunnels for Cities:Skylines

Even though Colossal Order have some lacking features from launch but at least Koriina confirmed that tunnels for the game will come as a patch, not as paid DLC.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

This is a major problem for single player games that are released in bits and pieces with the DLC marketing system, as in single player you don't have anyone else to compete with but your own enjoyment of the game and it feels as if the world is incomplete everytime you hear that something will be added for 8euros.

In multiplayer games frequent patching is almost always a great thing, but it almost always ruins single player experience as these are the games that are mostly based on immersion rather than competition....


Imagine for example a WW2 Total War game, Having the Americans, the British, the Germans, the French, the Japanese and then the entirety of the rest of the world were Russian. No italians, no Greeks no Africans. etc

If that was a multiplayer game nobody cares as you play for the high score and to climb a ladder and be the best, but if single player is the target then instantly immersion is out of the window. Sadly.


DLC mini campaign installments are a great way to use the DLC feature to keep interest in a game alive and have more money flow in the coffers,as they are adding something entirely new and oftentimes interesting but obvious missing content such as the celtic factions being represented by the norsemen forefathers is too much.

[AnonMilwaukean]

In multiplayer games frequent patching is almost always a great thing, but it almost always ruins single player experience as these are the games that are mostly based on immersion rather than competition....

[...]

If that was a multiplayer game nobody cares as you play for the high score and to climb a ladder and be the best, but if single player is the target then instantly immersion is out of the window. Sadly.

To be fair, it doesn't work much better in the multiplayer-focused strategy games I play, either. Company of Heroes 2, which shares a publisher (SEGA), is just as bad with DLC, if not worse: some units are available only on specific 'commanders', which are basically load-outs of abilities and units that you can use in addition to the standard ones of each faction. Of course, the most unique units and/or powerful units are on 'commanders' that you pretty much have to buy (though they thankfully added a loot system for stuff, with drops akin to TF2 and other games). But the balance of the game is sometimes pretty badly broken when one of these DLC commanders comes out, because of course they want to see it sell well, so often these commanders have elements to them that are imbalanced.

DLC is a fact of video-games, now. I agree that it makes a single-player world feel somehow emptier to know that new content is coming. But it's not just a problem with TW games, nor is it even specific to strategy games. It even happens when the content update is a free one that just won't occur for a while, like with Kerbal Space Program (a space-exploration game) adding moons and planets, or Terraria adding new bosses.

I think the Celts DLC is harder to stomach, though, because it isn't so much adding content as it is fixing content... it's not like the Britannic Celts were left out of the game, after all. They were simply put into Attila with a Norse roster that doesn't make that much sense. So not only is it like finding out the game world you currently have is smaller, but at the same time being told that it was intentionally taken down a notch in quality to sell you something later. While having Sarmatian tribes use Hunnic units is a little less noticeable and a bit more believable in terms of thinking CA ran out of time to maybe give them their own unique detail, it's much harder to imagine that they didn't bother to correctly implement the Picts, among others, who they probably assumed were more popular.

I typically try to stay away from conspiracy theories and give the benefit of a doubt, but with 3 DLC being sold in 1 month since release, it gets kind of hard to sit back and think they really did the work for the Celts after release as opposed to before.

[Kraut and Tea]

A guy on the official forum nailed it by comparing: "Imagine if the Russians in Napoleon Total War had Austrian units until a patch and DLC one month after release".

[veverčák]

A guy on the official forum nailed it by comparing: "Imagine if the Russians in Napoleon Total War had Austrian units until a patch and DLC one month after release".

I really disagree. Celts are in this time period mostly irrelevant to bigger picture (Fall of Rome, new powers in Europe etc.) and not spotlight faction like member of several coalitions against the main villain like Russia is in Napoleon. Comparing Russia and Celtic factions is just not possible due to huge diferenc in importent level. Of course the game would be better with Celtic roster on day one, but it is not that big deal as having no roster for Germanic factions, or Romans, or Sasanid, or Huns.

[Kraut and Tea]

I really disagree. Celts are in this time period mostly irrelevant to bigger picture (Fall of Rome, new powers in Europe etc.) and not spotlight faction like member of several coalitions against the main villain like Russia is in Napoleon. Comparing Russia and Celtic factions is just not possible due to huge diferenc in importent level. Of course the game would be better with Celtic roster on day one, but it is not that big deal as having no roster for Germanic factions, or Romans, or Sasanid, or Huns.

Ok. Let me change it somewhat.

Would a comparision of saying that the Ottomans start with Austrian units in Napoleon until DLC be more correct? Or the Dutch starting with French units?

Or how about comparing it by stating it would be the same as if the Seleucids had Macedonian units until they were made playable?

[veverčák]

It would be annoying and I would be hoping someone would fix it - moders or CA. Just like the current Celtic situation. Btw. do we even have a case for discussion? We can all probably agree upon the Celts with Nordic units are annoying, they will be probably fix with new patch and dlc and the CA should postpone they dlc half year after the realised of the main game I guess. The only disagreement come from using metaphor, which I found broadly inaccurate.....Hmmm.... Perhaps I am little pedantic after all?

[Riekopo]

I stopped playing because there are way too many bugs. I end up spending half my time reporting them. As usual we got a beta product.

[LinusLinothorax]

I stopped playing because there are way too many bugs. I end up spending half my time reporting them. As usual we got a beta product.

Thats your own fault if you buy a TW game at release.

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

Thats your own fault if you buy a TW game at release.

Yeah i dont understand some people, Complain about bugs and stuff but still buy it on release or after one patch.. Just wait like me for a christmas sale and buy it patched and with DLCs for the same price as release only not get the anoying bugs and problems plus then there are plenty of mods to use. Why support a company that works this way and just throw money away' Get out of your basement or play other games that keeps you happy!..

[veverčák]

Yeah i dont understand some people, Complain about bugs and stuff but still buy it on release or after one patch.. Just wait like me for a christmas sale and buy it patched and with DLCs for the same price as release only not get the anoying bugs and problems plus then there are plenty of mods to use. Why support a company that works this way and just throw money away' Get out of your basement or play other games that keeps you happy!..

So true. I have bought Rome I and Barbarian Invasion for 559 CZK (Czech Crown, currency unit in my country) and all patchs instead of 1099 CZK for Rome I alone and no patchs. All those fools who bought game on realise must be tearing their hairs and scream in agony!