Beastmen on old maps - thoughts

I have to say that, besides many other issues, one of the things I’m disliking the most about this patch, is the addition of beastmen on the older levels. I’m not talking about gameplay difficulty, but story cohesion and immersion. It makes absolutely no sense. I could accept a few beastmen in athel, or in the herdstone section of Engines (if you are careful enough to remove the “we are lucky they are not here” line), but as it is it completely ruins the experience from a story perspective (mechanically they make the game a lot harder and confusing for new players).

More than a thousand hours into the game I mostly play it because the gameplay is as cool as anything, but for me immersion is still queen. I love how the new level is 90% beastmen, it’s what makes an otherwise bland map really interesting. I’d keep this cool, strong new race confined to it and the weaves (and future releases, if appropriate) or otherwise use them very, very sparingly.
(for example, i found them in the cave at the beginning of engines, and only there, in one run. It was kinda cool)

I love immersion, I beam every time I hear a new line of dialogue, but I won’t keep playing this as much as I am if it becomes just a messy gameplay soup.

PS regarding beastmen difficulties: I love how hard they hit. I kept in mind kruber’s line from the first game “The skavens are something else. The beastmen hit hard, but direct. The skaven are cunning, clever.”
I’d much rather have them keep their identity, and have you guys use them sparingly, to great effect, rather then add them, spam them, like a third ingredient to the chaotic soup the pact sworn might become if you do. As you said, you can see them being allied to the pact sworn, if the right circumstances are there, but they are their own men (or beasts). I think the beautiful scene with the dead rat ogre sums that up.

There was no time nor resources to create immersion.

Then if it is just a pre-release thing I have 0 beef against it (it actually enables you to get used to them without getting bored with D.O.)
But what if this is staying like this?
I wanted to voice my concern and ask for the community’s opinion abut this specifically, in as much a constuctive, clear-headed way as possible.

We had them on ALL maps during the beta to be able to test them, but the original design is to NOT have them on the Lord maps which are Skaven/Chaos only, but they can show up on any other if the game decides so.

I know. That’s exactly why I made this post. I don’t like that for the reasons I explained, and I would like to hear the opinions of the community on the matter.

All the people who constantly wanted a new faction, don’t care about immersion, IMO.

I fully agree Beastmen shouldn’t appear on Into the Nest, for example, but having beastmen show up in the same places a Chaos Horde does is fully lore compatible. I must admit I hadn’t played tabletop Warhammer in years (at least a decade, even), but weren’t they always able to field units of each other’s armies? Beastmen are basically mutated humans, and in a chaos army there is plenty mutation anywsys.

Lore wise? Maybe.
Story wise? Do they have beastmen in Norsca?

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I remember reading something about Ubersreik being harrased by beastmen. 2 v1 maps aknoledged beastmen presence but both of them take place in the forest. Can’t say anything about Helmgart on the matter. But it would be nice if they gave some lore justification for new faction appearance at Helmgart. Also it would be quite unfair if beastmen appeared at weaves and 1 new map exclusively.

Well, it’s a big Chaos Waste, wasn’t it? Near the Warp where Chaos enters the world (if I recall correctly?). So there’s bound to be loads of mutation going on there. Wasn’t the Chaos Spawn originally a Beastmen unit as well?

There’s also the fact that they weren’t there before. I’m more against them appearing in old maps than in the future. An alliance between nurgle cultists and skaven makes total sense lore-wise, but we still got to play Stromdorf - my fav dlc - for it. It wold have been sensible but at least a bit jarring to suddenly find them with no introduction (VT 2 prologue might have been enough).
So I think beastmen in old maps should feel like isolated groups, and i totally expected Dark Omens to be the reason why we’ll get beastmen within the pact now (maybe they got pissed by our destroying the stone?) but having them before is just jarring for me.

Take one run I did of Hunger in the Dark. That’s a location where a human nurgle cult has been messing with the trolls since way before the pact sworn invasion. You go there after the distruction of helmgart to stop further experiments/transmutations of the pactsworn. So how is it suddenly a beastman lair? we had beastmen (and little else) for the entire map, until the last event. It’s not a part of the story, it’s at odds with it, and as much as I love gameplay and gameplay changes I never could stand a retcon (and a messy one).
Lines, story, dialogues? Aknowledgment of the beastmen presence there, a reason for it? Call me game. But as it is, Ugh.

PS while we are at it, is it ever explained how or why do you survive the explosion at the end of DO, which was supposed to be in saltzpyre’s words “a good, glorious death”?
I ever so much miss oleysa’s post mission dialogues.

I would be incredibly disappointed not to face the new enemies on (most) maps. :s Beastmen are opportunists, and they typically show up if other Chaos forces do, even if just to take advantage of the confusion and loot.

In tabletop, Beastmen used to be part of the Chaos faction, they were the more common chaff, but later got split off. In lore, it’s still not clear-cut; while Beastmen wander around in the woods away from humans (and they are found all over the entire world, anywhere people get mutated and can hide away from those who would destroy them as corrupted), they still often mix in with the Warriors of Chaos, and there are a LOT of Beastmen and mutants among the ranks of any Chaos army.

But overall - I think gameplay should trump the other factors, personally. While Beastmen are annoying atm, I’m sure they (at least) will be tweaked properly, and I don’t want to only fight them on one map.

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Well, it seems that the Beastmen’s presence can be explained away, and really, it’s a gameplay thing. If they were only available in the new map (and Weaves), they wouldn’t really change anything about the game - and they were meant to be gamechangers. For that reason alone, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief.

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