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Or "Joviwan Maybe Realises Something Fundamental About His Tastes, Perhaps."

So I got a copy of Dynasty Warriors 6 from Gamefly, because I'm very fond of a useless fanwhore who collects the series like baseball cards, and loaded it up to start to play.

And then something horrible happened.

It was different.

Oh, sure, mechanically, nothing was actually "different," per say. Things did what I expected, the gameplay itself has changed very little. But the game got an enormous engine upgrade (which is hilarious because there's still unit-popping) and a facelift. Every single officer got a complete and fundamental redesign, as far as I can tell, strange new mechanics that I couldn't look up were dotting my HUD (Stupid gamefly not including a manual...), and the level-up system now has you selecting what traits you want to improve. All of this exponentially decreased my desire to play the game in the first hour I played it. It wasn't until... Oh, right nowish that I think I might be interested in seeing what it has to offer, if it's done anything newish. But wow. Talk about a reaction I wasn't expecting to have to this game.

Was originally going to post this in testing, but I thought it might actually generate discussion, so I post it here. Share your experiences with DW6, belittle me for any multitudinous reasons, talk about other DW games, whatever.

I liked all the new stuff, but most of the DW problems are still there. Stat-scaling is horrible (ie the game is either ridiculously easy or you die in one hit because the way they do attack/defense is stupid), you can't control your troops (and don't even have a bodyguard anymore), and the pop-up and 'abstract' way combat is handled when you're not 'nearby' bears almost no resemblance to 'real' combat. The Magical Comm-link messages that pop up STILL don't show morale for the person speaking, so you don't know if someone is saying 'wah I'm dying' or 'oh dear I will lose eventually but am basically ok'.

Ironically, I poked around and most DW 'fans' hated the changes - they hated that swimming meant levels were less linear, they hated that the skill trees meant you had to make decisions, and they hated all the new versions of maps (which amusingly it'd be laughably trivial to have all previous map versions in every game, lol) and characters.

I think it's easily the best DW game (except the music has sucked since 3) it's just sad that for all the SUPERFICIAL changes it really is still the same attack/defence game with badguys who win by doing 2-hit kills instead of fighting properly because the controls are limited and the AI worthless. At least the skill trees mean characters are ACTUALLY DIFFERENT now, as opposed to everyone levelling up to being exactly the same. Gan Ning is ACTUALLY a good swimmer! Amazing. Ten years and still no multiplayer.

Stark wrote:Ironically, I poked around and most DW 'fans' hated the changes - they hated that swimming meant levels were less linear, they hated that the skill trees meant you had to make decisions, and they hated all the new versions of maps (which amusingly it'd be laughably trivial to have all previous map versions in every game, lol) and characters.

Which makes me want to hit myself, because in a series that's suffered stagnation since it's inception, change should be a good thing, and yet my first reaction was to go "OH GOD!" A day's reflection has me optimistic about exploring the changes, though, so I guess not all is lost.

except the music has sucked since 3

3 is actually where I started the series. Did it use to not be terrible 80's buttrock?

Yes. The 80's J-rock was fucking awesome. I don't want flutes and shit, I want POWER CHORDS.

It's just sad that Koei clearly doesn't understand mathematics - their stat system is so broken 'difficulty' is just a multiplier applied to att/def, which doesn't just 'make it harder' it makes it massively inconsistent (like the guys you chop at for 5m+ to get to 5% health and then they kill you in 2 hits). I believe the fundamental flaws in this system are why they never introduced adversarial multiplayer and why the game is basically wheat threshing with a few 'bosses'. It could be fixed, but that'd scare away the money cow.

I have to two in my two cents here because I love the idea of Dynasty Warriors, I just happen to loath the games.

So I'm a superhuman ancient warrior with a giant weapon of some kind possibly with gravity defying hair and possibly androgynous as all get out? Sounds like a fun time, who am I fighting? Hordes of easy to slay minions, dozens of harder minor officers and a few warlord's or high officers to have climatic battles with? That's sounds like a fun time for all! And the entire thing is done with my army fighting their army and I have the ability to influence the course of the battle? Excellent! Stat based gameplay with loot, so the more I play the more badass I become?
Sign me up!

But wait... it seems the hordes are endless unless I destroy the re spawn generators, and damn if those hordes don't pop up like a Playstation game... and it seems the minions have no AI at all. They don't attack and defend and I can find massive groups of them just standing their in idle animations waiting for more to charge in and kill them. They don't set themselves against my charge, I can't order my forces around and I can't really affect the battle unless you count me slaying a thousand footsoliders myself as "affecting' the battle. My enemies are brain dead and my allies are feeble. The stat system is horribly broken and the loot makes no differences except for fighting Lu Bu.

Fuck Lu Bu, just give him a lightsaber already. All the other bastards the game can stab me in the face with their swords/knives/flutes and my heath will drop like two inchs off my ten foot long heath bar, but Lu Bu? No Lu Bu gets a real Spear (Everyone else in the game using nerf weapons but you and Lu)that kills me in two hits and actual AI, fuck him.

So I love the idea of Dynasty warriors, hell I even vaguely like their take on the situation. But I want so much more out of the game then Koei is willing to put into it. They are content with making an arcade fighter where you must slay everyone who ever lived in order to win each battle, or just steal a horse(What is it with Koei and their hatred of giving the player a Horse? so every damn game it's either an unlockable or out-right requires you win the game before you get a horse to start each battle with...) and ride right to the enemy officer and kill him strait away.

There are no spawn gates in DW6. 6 also significantly reduces the whole 'unit xyz has 40000 guys lined up over here instead of actually fighting the enemy' thing. You also start with a horse prety early on.

The basic crapness of zero-threat badguys and one-kill wins against bosses that are way too easy remain, because the actual combat in the game is so simplistic and broken.

Stark wrote:There are no spawn gates in DW6. 6 also significantly reduces the whole 'unit xyz has 40000 guys lined up over here instead of actually fighting the enemy' thing. You also start with a horse prety early on.

It only took... umm 24 games if you count spin-off's and Redux's to get of their Horse Racism, thank Xenu to here that at least has been fixed.

Stark wrote: The basic crapness of zero-threat badguys and one-kill wins against bosses that are way too easy remain, because the actual combat in the game is so simplistic and broken.

Yeah I figured it was to much to hope for a improvement on that one before DW9

My complaints about the game weren't so much "They Changed It Now it Sucks" as it was "this change doesn't work as well as the original" (the "Renbu" fighting system and getting rid of the charge-attack combos) in some cases. I felt that DW6 took a step backward in gameplay in some cases, though the siege mechanics, the swimming, etc. were pretty cool add-ons (things like scaling ladders to get to the battlements of a fort, taking over or destroying siege weapons, etc.). I am admittedly ambivalent about the character re-designs, but my main complaint was diverging from the story-telling as it was in DW5 and the fact that so many characters were made NPCs or reduced to generic officer models/move sets (like Sun Shang Xiang and Yue Ying being the same basic female archer model) after being established characters for prior games. I can accept cutting unique models for, say, Xing Cai or Ling Tong (though IIRC one or both was removed from the game - keep in mind I haven't played it in a long while), characters introduced in DW5 or even DW4, but the reduced number of unique characters was a major turn-off factor for me.

I can honestly say that I had more fun playing DW: Gundam than DW6...

Mr Bean wrote:It only took... umm 24 games if you count spin-off's and Redux's to get of their Horse Racism, thank Xenu to here that at least has been fixed.

The pace of Koei development is actually TOO FAST for many of their fans. Amazing, no?