[h1]The game now has a full solo mode allowed, thanks to the Eternal League.[/h1]
So after all this time I can now recommend it.
We now have our numerous factions playable in numerous matches.
A lot of love has been put in programming this title, which we can see on the level of detail and polish on areas such as cheerleader animations and quality of detail. It was marred at release with some wrong business model! some of it has been improved now.
Eternal League has content: even if you play with 100% victories in solo, it should need more than 160 matches in this league to get all its trophies! wow! and this is in addition to a campaign (playable with any race!) which has been added.
We do have countless matches to play, and in addition I discovered how Community Content and contests are well integrated, proposing additional official solo competitions with entirely new set of rules . A great way to animate the game!
I do point out at the end of this message [b]how bad the AI is[/b].
It's neat to occupy you solo, blocking and making cages, giving block+dodge to its players. It can make players work a bit for their victories. It's also enough to cause you injuries. In some matches, such as one match in six, it will make you find it actually strategic.
But on the other end it usually is catastrophic on its own and never, ever makes a single pass. I will edit it out if once I reach the Pro league (in the Eternal League) if it changes script.
Still a recommendation because of its new solo features!
There is a lot of love put into other areas of this game, such as sportive UI, looks, atmosphere, content. Thanks to the eternal league, you can now play and with many trophies to collect needing 100+ matches.
I was one who was really disappointed in the lack of a solo feature, or "better solo features", but as you'll see below, the Eternal has lot of details and match variations, enough to keep me entertained while I explore it at least the first time.
I played five matches in the amateur league so far.
I noticed AI does use "the turtle" mode too often.
Aside from this there were a few good things it did.
[h1][b]Some good points:[/b][/h1]
There are a lot of end game statistics and saved history.
[i]Eternal League is created with a lot of fun elements and variations.[/i]
I started in the Amateur Autumn league and I could play between many different setups.
After I got 5 victories (last one was crazy) I earned the league badge. After that I could click again on Eternal League, and saw it switched to Winter.
It got a lot more options too:
I could play a normal [i]Amateur Winter League[/i], or play the "Agility Championship" - which was mentioned to have teams with a lot of dodge - or play the No Turnover Arena - which means there is no longer a turnover when failing an action! All these have their separate and own trophies. So I'll have to get through three winters to have them all, possibly!
Agility Championship, which I picked, is also played different, with a Round Robin.
Playing the Rookie Play-off is what allows me to go PRO but in that case I have to win three competitions, and so far I earned one.
I applaud these rules. I would have loved a world map, but aside from this, they got creative on this.
[b]BB3 rules compared to BB2 use the new edition rules.[/b]
In the main differences I saw, there is a Pass attribute and in some cases with a draw you can have an entire round of +8 turns, which changes how a faction should behave to preserve forces.
And XP can be spent either by choosing a skill, which adds more value to the champion and costs more points, or having it rolled randomly, which costs fewer points, adds less value, gives more varied, unoptimized but more fun cognitive content to handle on your players.
[b]Left problems are:[/b]
- commentators are the english ones and are not fun. They seem bored and the voices are a bit distant. They don''t have enough text to work with and the situational text is not always adapted to the situation, rather weakly delivered, and far, far too repetitive (such as having only a few ones for blocking). There is a clear lack of faction-related texts and jokes
- base cheerleaders are not faction related.
- there is battle pass and if you play up to level 50, you will unlock the faction DLC it contains for free! If you don't play it to level 50, you can purchase it (a faction costs about 10$ in currency).
I was wary of the cosmetics, but I see that overall, they kept developing new content thanks to this model.
- AI... well, made some interesting moves, but some far too many cages (about always). It also miscalculates when best to use their rerolls. However, I am still in the Amateur League.
[h1]Details about: AI[/h1]
[i]And now a bad point though.
I added this part to my review after playing against my first AGI teams and having 6 more matches.
And... AI really does not know how to play the ball. I don't know why the studio did not find the ambition for a real pass gameplay. Did developers ever play the board game?
I know I say it as a joke, but the AI behavior years after release is odd.
And by this I mean that it looks absolutely broken.
They do absolutely NOTHING with the ball and stay near a side line, waiting for a solution. they use dodge and sprint just to set up a cage, very often behind in their own grounds instead of going forward. This is really bad.
Strength teams, however, played rather ok, still the same issue with cages but they got the muscles and the way to score enough problems and holes in an enemy strategy, so with them it makes at least a bit of sense. Also on some matches, oddly enouhg the team covers more defense areas than others. But come on? is there only one AI script for the game?
I really want to send more lovely argument for the team and devs, and I do love that they added the Eternal League gameplay mode. So I keep my recommendation, but this AI needs work. There are people who did good AI bloodbowl scripts on their spare time for the java version.
However, I am still in Amateur league so maybe all of this is done to make sure player gets some victories first. I'll see how this plays out in later championships![/i]
So as pointed out, considering it never makes a pass (and I mean, with elf teams) and always uses the same cage strategy and same stupid dodges, it feels bad, bad enough to give corrupted thoughts toward whoever had the chaotic insolence to put it out. And be thankful for the ones who pressured to deliver this Eternal League very neat, comprehensive mode. It does not have the World Map of BB1 (I still miss that), but I find it better than the custom league of BB2.
About AI I know the comment comes as aggressive, but daring to make a BB game (and cyanide has done chaos league and BB for years) and not mastering or trying the science proves wrong skill on the engineering side.
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As I said, the addition of a solo mode really fixed the experience for me.
[b]I can finally enjoy Bloodbowl 3.[/b]
Albeit with some lingering issues.
That took time, but now that the Eternal League is there, I can at least play.
Even with 12 unlocked races, there are many many matches to play with it, and it's fun to play enough matches to unlock +1 race. I just hope they will upgrade the AI now, as a first priority! (maybe that was not conveyed clearly :D )
Oh, and I absolutely ADORE the menu music, and the sportive atmosphere the game puts ourselves into!
