Warhammer: Chaosbane overall analysis. Should you play it or not?
This is my 2nd foray into playing this game and I quit it once before for the same reason that I quit playing it the second time. I enjoyed the 1 week or so that I spent basically mastering the game in as much as that is actually possible to do. There is a reason why this game kind of went by without most gamers even knowing about the existence of the title but in many ways it could be considered a "hidden gem." I would like to detail both of those things so that people out there can decide if they want to bother playing it at all.
I hate it when people waster their time, after all.
srb
I'll talk about why the game is something that certain people should check out and how it might be a good game for some of you, first.
Pro: It is super easy to pick up and play
This has to be one of the easiest games to just start playing right "out of the box" of any game of its sort that I have ever encountered. Yes, it is a LOT like Diablo just like so many other games are, but it is significantly less complicated as far as "builds" are concerned but you don't even need to worry about that for the first several hours of play.
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The game slowly works you through an ongoing tutorial that makes the already rather simplistic interface even easier to understand and on the "normal" setting I find it very unlikely that anyone is going to find this game terribly challenging or even something they die in at all unless they simply stand there and allow enemies to attack them. I'm relatively certain this is by design.
There isn't a lot to learn: You run and gun and kill all you can and then pick up the items after whoever you were up against is dead.
Pro: 3 DLC add ons are included in the already free game
This game wasn't always free but I never paid for it. I am guessing there was enough interest in the story that they added several extension packs and as it is now, there are 3 add-on storylines that you can progress through where they don't add any additional perks or skills, but just new lands for you to conquer. This in my mind was fun even though after a while I started skipping a lot of the story and just enjoyed the new maps to explore.
*The Tomb Kings" takes us back to a almost Tomb Raider type of level where someone releases the power of an ancient pharaoh or something like that and as you might expect, it goes terribly wrong for them and now you have to clean it up. This is a fairly common storyline but that isn't what matters. All the enemies, the music, and the layout of the dungeons is changed and that keeps the game interesting for an additional couple of hours.
Pro: The loot system is streamlined
This is probably the part of the game that I enjoy the most. In games similar to this one such as Diablo and Path of Exile a ton of items drop from enemies that you just killed. I would argue that the loot drops are a massive part of why anyone even plays these games.
When I say that the drops are streamlined I mean that the items that drop for you while you are playing as a ranger, are only applicable to the ranger. You will never get shields and swords that were meant for the warrior nor will you end up with staffs meant for wizards. You ONLY get drops that you can possibly equip.
This is something that I get why they do it in other games such as Diablo - in order to put said items in a stash and share them with your other toons, but for me, this mostly just meant my inventory was getting filled all the way up with useless shite constantly.
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When you see a green or red light go up into the sky that means that it is one of the best items in the game and unlike it other loot-based games you already know that this is definitely something that you can equip on the character that you are using right now. In multiplayer online, the individual players don't even see that loot drops for you and everyone's loot drops are kept separate meaning that both of you will get drops that are only usable by that character.
I think this was done intentionally by the devs and it just makes the whole finding stuff after a kill a lot more worthwhile or at least, a lot more simple. For me, I hate digging through my inventory, using a ton of identifying scrolls and then just finding out that the item that dropped isn't even something I can use at all. Chaosbane did a good thing here IMO.
Pro: It's very very casual
Some people like hard and nails games but I am not normally one of those people. I have never enjoyed any "Souls-like" games and this is definitely not that. This is a game of very little strategy and certainly no pinpoint accuracy parries.
For days that you just feel like lying back on your sofa and doing something that isn't terribly taxing, it is a very good game for that. I rarely get frustrated while playing this game and I have only ever ONCE been stuck somewhere but that was just because I didn't understand that the boss I was fighting against wasn't possible to hurt until you killed his 3 generals that were in different rooms.
Big Pro: The entire game is free
It's not free-to-play with microtransactions built in, the entire game and all DLC is free if you are a PS-Plus member and to me, that is the number one reason to give it a try.
Now let's talk about why this game isn't a good game and why certain people shouldn't play it
Con: Endgame content is extremely repetitive
I suppose this is true in every game that is like this but in Chaosbane once you get to max level you are simply increasing your legendary rating which doesn't have much of an impact on your performance. There really isn't any reason to get excited when you go up a level in legendary rank.
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The levels are procedurally generated every time you enter a certain area so this means that you can't just rush to the boss, which I guess is good but at the same time the levels, especially the winter ones like pictured above, just get to be really grinding and not interesting. You do a lot of walking to get to battles that pose any sort of difficulty and for my high level mage, I don't even have to hit an offensive spell button unless I am fighting an elite enemy or boss. My passive spells that are always active will kill 90% of what appears on the screen even if I didn't so much as move.
Con: There is no pursuit other than getting higher level gear
This in a shell is the biggest problem I have with the game. The objective of the game as you are grinding through these repetitive and, at this point, quite uninteresting levels, is the hope that some green items (the best in the game) is going to drop. Sure you get a dopamine rush when you do see one drop but seeing as how there are hundreds of different top-tier items the chances of it being exactly what you were hoping for is very very small. I did dozens of run in a row without so much as anything that I needed or wanted dropping and at that point you need to go to the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself "why the hell am I doing this?"
You see, if you somehow managed to get every single piece of top level gear I suppose that would be the true endgame. There would be no reason to ever play the game again. I have completed one full set of green gear and it gave me a constant storm that happens around me while I am standing. It doesn't drain mana and in most levels I can simply stand still and it will kill anything that appears on the screen. That was really exciting for the first 15 minutes or so but then I realized that with this new ability, I was simply running through the same repetitive levels that I had been running through before I had this ability.
What is the point? You ask yourself as you go through another couple of runs anyway before eventually switching the thing off.
Con: Invasions are kind of irritating and dumb
Invasions were introduced at some point in the past as part of some DLC. I don't know when
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Invasions are basically the same levels you have already played but certain perks are given to enemies or debuffs are applied to you as you go through it. This makes the game harder which I suppose is fine and as you move through the little map of progression they, as you would expect, become more difficult.
While I suppose this makes the game a bit more interesting for a while there is something that happens in invasion mode that doesn't happen anywhere else in the game. It is called "corruption" and it constantly damages you even if you don't take a single hit from enemies. It is based on a percentage and as you would expect this percentage grows as you go further and further into the map. Until you get some sort of corruption resistance, there is really nothing you can do to prevent constantly losing life. Even once you do get all the possible corruption resistance, it will still be damaging you, albeit a lot less.
The worst part about all of this is that they reduced the drop rate of elite items in here during a patch so the only real incentive to go through all of this is for the sake of going through it. There are some rings and potion upgrades that are achievable by going through to the very end of it all but these are rather stupid and meaningless upgrades that most people aren't going to ever want to use anyway.
It also uses the same maps that the other levels of the game use and to many people that was a real reason to play it a few times and then get bored and walk away. Thinking of upping your HP pool so you can last longer? Corruption kills you as a percentage of overall health so it doesn't matter how high your HP is, taking away 5% of 100 per second takes just as long to get to 0 as taking 5% of 100,000,000 per second. Thinking of upgrading your armor or magic resistances?.... Corruption ignores both of those so this is also a waste of time.
Overall analysis
Warhammer Chaosbane is not a fantastic game in an overall sense. I did find it to be a great game to play online with friends where you want to be able to talk to the friends while you are playing, mostly about things that don't even have anything to do with gaming. This is because you will rarely die in this game unless you intentionally set up the difficulty level to higher than it should be and therefore you just run around killing thousands of enemies and having a laugh with your pals who maybe live thousands of miles away.
The joy you get from finding new gear is cool, for a moment, but since it doesn't change the way in which the game is played at all other than your damage output it really starts to feel like an MMO after a while. The only reason to continue playing is the pursuit of loot drops and while I fully understand that this is the point of all games like this, Chaosbane seems to have an extremely limited amount of actual story to keep you interested in any other regard.
I would say you can use this game to catch up with a family member or friend via a headset while playing a very casual game. This is NOT a game that is going to pose any sort of long-term dedication on the part of the gamer. This criticism that I am pushing out there is very common in the Chaosbane world and I think this is part of the reason why almost nobody plays this game anymore.
It has its place and for me that place it to spend an hour a night a couple nights a week talking to my brother while we ravage a few dungeons and eventually log off and don't play it all again again until the next time. For you the experience might be the same. This is not a great game, but it does serve a purpose.
I would say that if you have access to this game for free than go ahead and give it a try. I think you will tire of it in a week or so the same way that I did but for a bit of that time, you are going to have a lot of fun.