Blood Bowl 3

[Grunker]

They were forced to develop these three Blood Bowl games as a result of a lawsuit settlement, nickle and diming on the dlc front was the only way they made any money out of the ordeal. So yeah not shocking how low they've stooped to try to milk/generate whales.

just curious..how do you 'force' somebody to make a game? Especially a good game? Usually making a decent game requires some sort of passion. If you are being forced, why not just push out some stick figures running back and forth? I suppose there could be clauses, but still it feels like you would then have to write up some insane detailed contract and because programming is soopaque, how would you really check the actual details, would seem like a nightmare...

Unless the company being forced is also the one reaping most of the monetary benefits of the sales, but then why would they be being forced?

Read my review of BB2. No details of the settlement were released except that Vyanide committed to making the three games.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

And so Cyanide steps into the 21st century 22 years too late. Hopefully fleecing that skin-hungry miniature doll-painting customer base will make this game more economically viable and thus easier to support than the first two games.

Autistic Correction: We USED to throw lots of money at GW for new hats for our minis. But then two things happened in rapid succession, GW got greedy, hostile and beligerant to it's fans at the exact same time resin 3D printers started coming out at competitive and consumer orientated prices. GW have had record losses this year and whilst they and the shills they employ on You Tube won't say why. We all know why. I am printing my own hats for my minis now. And sometimes just outright printing minis. I even got a comission for Blood Bowl minis the other day.

 

[baud]

And so Cyanide steps into the 21st century 22 years too late. Hopefully fleecing that skin-hungry miniature doll-painting customer base will make this game more economically viable and thus easier to support than the first two games.

Autistic Correction: We USED to throw lots of money at GW for new hats for our minis. But then two things happened in rapid succession, GW got greedy, hostile and beligerant to it's fans at the exact same time resin 3D printers started coming out at competitive and consumer orientated prices. GW have had record losses this year and whilst they and the shills they employ on You Tube won't say why. We all know why. I am printing my own hats for my minis now. And sometimes just outright printing minis. I even got a comission for Blood Bowl minis the other day.

they must have lost wheelbarrows of cash this summer and autumn, then. Because according to their latest financial report (published in July 2022 and freely available as GW is a traded corp), they had a profit of more than 100 m£ between June 2021 and May 2022. Note that I don't disagree that they're greedy, belligerents and have likely no clue on how to deal with the emergence of 3D printers, just with the idea that they're losing money.

 

[Galdred]

So yeah not shocking how low they've stooped to try to milk/generate whales.

This makes no sense, since this is exactly what they haven't done despite the obvious potential. BB2 even launched with a skinshop and a faux ingame currency, it was just so halfassed 99% of player probably didn't even notice it existed. Minitature Warhammer people throw insane money at this kind of customization, yet Blood Bowl 3 will be the first game to actually tap into that.

The fuck do the rest of us care as long as it's cosmetic. We had to pay for additional teams anyway, and the rest is just more money into the game we play. A lot of shit worries me about BB3 - Cyanide finally deciding to make their games economically viable does not.

From the developers I talked to at various conventions, Cyanide doesn't really care about making most of their game economically viable, because they print money with their yearly Cycling manager games. That might also be the root of their "good enough" culture.

 

[Serus]

BB2 technically has FUMBBL beat on single player content but who the fucks plays this game single player

I did. It's good for learning how to play the game in general and for learning how to play with specific teams. You can also playtest various builds for players that way. Granted, it won't be as good as playing against real people, but it will give you an approximation of what you can expect without having to rely on pure theorycrafting.

Learning the game - fair enough - but I disagree as far as approximation goes. Once you learn how the AI ticks you can beat it every single game and it doesn't play anything like an normal player would

You can beat the AI every time because the AI is brain-dead in this game(s). But since it a sort-of sports game where two more-or-less equal teams play, you can't go the easiest path and just give AI numerical advantage. Which most games do. It would require a lot of work to do the AI even remotely competitive and the devs are too lazy for that (=they think it wouldn't bring any money probably). Possibly even too incompetent to do it. But it COULD be done.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[thesheeep]

Seen some streamers playing this.

... why do developers of games like this so often mess up the visual clarity?
Stuff like floor tiles showing rolls, which units are selected, which units are yours, etc. were all so much clearer in BB2.
Now, depending on the field you are playing on, you can't even properly see all the "in-game UI".

One streamer was playing Skaven vs Skaven and it was very hard to follow which units were his.
Outlines, man! Games figured that stuff out over 20 years ago...

 

[Lucumo]

Seen some streamers playing this.

... why do developers of games like this so often mess up the visual clarity?
Stuff like floor tiles showing rolls, which units are selected, which units are yours, etc. were all so much clearer in BB2.
Now, depending on the field you are playing on, you can't even properly see all the "in-game UI".

One streamer was playing Skaven vs Skaven and it was very hard to follow which units were his.
Outlines, man! Games figured that stuff out over 20 years ago...

That's just one of the many, many issues this game has. Basic functionality is missing and it will only be implemented in six months. Lots of stuff is broken. Ridiculous cosmetics restriction etc etc etc. It's an utter shit show and the devs got deservedly shat on during the dev stream.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

has cyanide ever did a single objectively decent game in their history?

 

[Grunker]

has cyanide ever did a single objectively decent game in their history?

If BB2 after 8 years and 19 patches doesn't count, ya got me

EDIT: Actually I forgot that Game of Thrones-game from 2012. It's pretty good

 

[Teut Busnet]

has cyanide ever did a single objectively decent game in their history?

Their Cycling Manager is indeed unique and interesting. With a bit of polish and development it would be great.

But of course, for over a decade now, they release yearly sequels and the only thing that changes is the date.

They're probably the worst dev around.

 

[Modron]

But of course, for over a decade now, they release yearly sequels and the only thing that changes is the date.

They're probably the worst dev around.

In case you were unaware they made a game that was Blood Bowl in all but name https://www.mobygames.com/game/17615/chaos-league/ and part of their settlement agreement was being obligated to make 3 Blood Bowl games hence the tons of dlc to each one probably the only part they make money on. (on an unrelated note holy shit what did they do to mobygames?)

 

[Teut Busnet]

But of course, for over a decade now, they release yearly sequels and the only thing that changes is the date.

They're probably the worst dev around.

In case you were unaware they made a game that was Blood Bowl in all but name https://www.mobygames.com/game/17615/chaos-league/ and part of their settlement agreement was being obligated to make 3 Blood Bowl games hence the tons of dlc to each one probably the only part they make money on. (on an unrelated note holy shit what did they do to mobygames?)

Ah, another genius move by GW to ensure quality videogames using their IPs.

I did indeed not know that. I do think it's insane, though.

The state of BB 3 probably gives GW enough reason to sue again, so we'll and up with 6-7 more Cyanide Blood Bowl games!

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

In case you were unaware they made a game that was Blood Bowl in all but name https://www.mobygames.com/game/17615/chaos-league/

oh, i recall this. i also recall cyanide as the staforce 3 standard bearers, long after it was officially aknowledged as a mark of infamy, the seal of shittitude, the digital plaguebearer, they kept it into their games.

 

[Grunker]

The state of BB 3 probably gives GW enough reason to sue again

It's no worse than BB2 or BB1. In fact, it's better in some aspect. Which should tell you alot

 

[Black_Willow]

But of course, for over a decade now, they release yearly sequels and the only thing that changes is the date.

They're probably the worst dev around.

In case you were unaware they made a game that was Blood Bowl in all but name https://www.mobygames.com/game/17615/chaos-league/ and part of their settlement agreement was being obligated to make 3 Blood Bowl games hence the tons of dlc to each one probably the only part they make money on. (on an unrelated note holy shit what did they do to mobygames?)

Chaos League was a fun game TBH.

 

[Harthwain]

It's no worse than BB2 or BB1. In fact, it's better in some aspect. Which should tell you alot

It see they did improve the UI since beta. It was my biggest disappointment as it was such a mess that it was hard to understand even by Blood Bowl veterans (including previous Cyanide games).

If you want to know the differences between Blood Bowl 2 and 3, here the best guy I can think of:

 

[Bigg Boss]

Who is getting this?

 

[OSK]

They changed the rules!

Oh shit, they nerfed my high elves. And all the elves. And all agile teams...

 

[Elttharion]

has cyanide ever did a single objectively decent game in their history?

The styx games are good imo

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Strange Fellow]

Who is getting this?

Not me. The launch looks absolutely disastrous, with missing skills, tons of bugs, lack of visual clarity as mentioned above, severely lacking matchmaking and league functionality, the list goes on. Even if it were perfectly playable, the small number of teams compared to Blood Bowl 2 is reason enough not to get it for a while yet. Personally, I don't like the updated rules anyway, so there's absolutely no reason for me to get this other than the handful of new teams (which admittedly look pretty cool).

Maybe once Blood Bowl 2 dies, but certainly not right now.

For more, here's the review currently rated most helpful on Steam:

Preface: I have nearly 2000 hours in Blood Bowl 2 and about as many across the various BB1 editions. I’m an admin for one of the largest BB2 leagues, I’m the guy who helped make BB2 and BB3(!) modding possible, despite Cyanide doing nothing to support it. Importantly, I’m also a professional game developer, so I do actually have working experience of how difficult game development really is.

In over 30 years of purchasing video games, Blood Bowl 3 is simply the worst launch of a game I’ve ever experienced. Here’s the *main* problems:

• Some skills aren’t implemented (e.g. multiple block, bombardier). This is after a TWO YEAR delay from the original intended release date. Who could allow a game to launch - not an Early Access launch - with some of the skills still not implemented? Many skills (far too many to list) cause the game to glitch out, crash or lock up. These are basic use cases of the skills rather than some rare interaction which might not have been picked up on in testing. Using Shadowing at all currently always soft-locks the game into an infinite loop. It genuinely feels like things have simply not been tested to even a basic level.
• There were MANY problems highlighted in the betas across the last year or so. Some community members put a lot of time and effort into collating this information for Cyanide to use to fix up the game before launch. It seems that the only major difference between the beta access and now is that some more teams have been added, and all of the development effort has gone into the microtransactions store for cosmetics. It feels like all the previous community feedback went straight in the bin.
• The microtransactions are extremely predatory and scummy. Many people have bought the so-called “Deluxe” black orc or imperial nobility editions of the game which promise extra customisations for those teams. It turns out that it’s enough pieces of customisation (6) to add to ONE player, across your entire account. It would have been reasonable to assume that purchasing (for real money) a customisation item for your team would allow you to use it on any eligible player, but no, you are purchasing *one instance of a piece of customisation* for *one player*. They promise that once the player is killed or removed you’ll get it back, but, SURPRISE, there’s currently a bug where deleting a team with paid cosmetics will completely lose your access to those cosmetics. This alone on a game being sold for a premium price rather than free to play would have warranted a negative review, but oh boy is there more wrong with this game.
• While the basic green grass pitch is fairly legible, practically every other pitch in the game makes it extremely hard to make out both your and especially the opponents’ players on it (as for some reason the opponent’s players aren’t highlighted like yours are). Worse, many people have reported feeling nauseous just from looking at these pitches, especially with the wacky events on like maggots raining from the sky and puddles oozing about on the Nurgle pitch. There’s even extremely glaring design failures where some pitches like the Chaos pitch are separated into slabs matching the tiles of the play area (great!) except these slabs extend beyond the edge of the play area by a couple of tiles making it extremely difficult to tell where the sideline is, which is extremely important to actually be able to play the game. It seems that the current solution to this problem is they’ve simply removed all of the other pitches from use for now (perhaps to be sold as cosmetics later).
• If you do manage to complete a two hour match with no crashes or game-breaking bugs, the results of matches are often lost into the void and don’t count the experience towards your team. Even when they *do* work, being able to see your previous match results and statistics simply hasn’t been implemented yet (many, many of the expected features from Blood Bowl 2 have not been implemented yet, at this, the not-early-access launch).
• Communication from the developers has been close to non-existent throughout, and there’s a lot of anger in the community at the state of the game which could have been better handled with some expectation management. Instead, it is only the actual launch and 48* hour early access which has let us discover the state of things. This prompted(?) a developer stream to “address issues” and lay out the roadmap for the future. That roadmap (currently accessible on Twitch though I don’t think it will live long, they don’t seem keen to actually share this on social media or youtube, I wonder why) just lays out how every 3 months will introduce a new season pass, team and cosmetics to purchase, and also extremely basic features we expected from BB2 such as Resuming the game after a disconnection coming in 6 MONTHS TIME. How could they possibly think a turn based game which takes around 2 hours to play was fine to launch without this most basic of features, and worse, still not planned until 6 months from now?
• League management tools are simply non-functional. Despite some rare communication/videos before launch saying how we’ll have league tools, including in developer interviews saying we’ll have tools at least as good as BB2, the state of the league tools currently is that it is simply impossible to run a league of any sort of size. There’s no mechanism to administrate a match or roll a round robin without everyone having played their matches. You can’t invite someone to a league unless they’re in your friends list. Maybe for a small group of friends this is fine, but any slightly public league will have matches missed. Well, as things stand, nothing can be done until those matches are played. There are many other minor details missing from the league tools, but suffice to say you won’t see any scheduled leagues for a while, which is where most of the online Blood Bowl community plays. There isn’t even a mention on the roadmap for the rest of the year when we might expect these tools to at least work well enough to run a league. Perhaps Cyanide thought they’d be able to force everyone to use their official ladder instead, but oh, turns out even the official ladder doesn’t start for another 3 months (see the roadmap).
• UI menus in-game all communicate with the server. On. Every. Screen. So every transition between menus has a little running goblin animation while it either loads from the server or times out. Worse, the layout of the UI is pretty poor and nonsensical and it can take literally minutes to do anything in-depth.
• The servers have simply died under the load of just the brutal edition early access for a couple of days. It seems there was no thought given to load testing or scaling of the servers for numbers they could have expected for launch, and this is just the most expensive edition pre-orders, never mind the main body of players coming with the actual launch. I’m writing this review a couple of hours before launch and the servers have been offline for the past hour.
• Want to play single player? The AI is genuinely far worse than it was in BB2 or BB1 and even in those games it was terrible. That’s when it’s working, most of the time the AI just times out making a decision, leaving you sitting there waiting for *several minutes*. Everything is online so you still suffer with all the connectivity problems even in SP. Or you can try the offline mode, but that is completely and entirely separate from your main account - no sharing of progress or anything else between them. Somehow, worst of all, anything like the eternal league single player mode from the previous games is (of course) missing.

And here's the developer "roadmap":

6 months until you can reconnect to a game in progress.

 

[Raghar]

What was a point of Blood Bowl 3?

 

[Humbaba]

What was a point of Blood Bowl 3?

New rule set and new teams. But no Chorfs still, so 0/10.

 

[Raghar]

has cyanide ever did a single objectively decent game in their history?

They made some cycling games. Don't know about quality because I'm not into cycling.