Future DW Ideas

[LiuBeiwasGreat]

This idea would work well in the Empires versions, something that I have wanted for a while to be honest.
In the main game however this would get in the way of most missions which are currently heavy with plot developments and mini missions.
In the last few games you are basically led by the nose by completing small missions one after another that lead to victory. Having the player modify army position, and strategy would destroy this stye of play. Which is why I suggested earlier in this post that your idea works very well for Empires mode cause it sounds good.

I agree. But then at least make the main game more challenging ever since DW6 and the AI has become so dump and I'm mainly talking about the soldiers here.
DW4 for example had actually some decent AI with soldiers following with their attacks especially on the Hard setting, the only thing that changes with harder settings now is how many hits soldiers can take and how many damage their hits make and there are some weapons that definitely need changing, Guo Huai's weapon for example.
The duels were also a nice aspect of DW4, it would be nice to have that back.

It would be nice if they made the higher difficulties more then just stronger versions of the previous difficulties but they have been doing that for years.

I would like extra reinforcements for the enemy on harder difficulties. New challenges that the lower difficulties don't have. This could not only provide challenge (if done right) but also create more replayability.

[greencactaur]

Some ideas I want -

More factions!
The factions Wu, Shu, Wei would still exist but I'd like them to get rid of Other, and instead add factions for
Liu Biao
Liu Yan/Zhang
Dong Zhou
Yuan Shao
Yuan Shu
Tao Qian
Yellow Turbans
Meng Huo/nanman

in samurai warriors 4 every officer had a unique look even if they were generics they were made through the edit mode so it'd be nice to have that in DW9.

Additionally for new characters I'd like the following
Shu - Liao Hua/ Zhang yi / Deng Zhi / Fei yi / Jiang Wan / Wang Pin / Ma Liang / Ma Su (even if he screwed up he deserves a unique model for that in my opinion .

Wei - Cao Rui / Cao Zhen / Wang Lang / Wen Qin / Xiahou Mao (it'd be interesting to see how the relationship between Cao Rui and him would play out)

Wu - Cheng Pu / Xu sheng. I can't recall many Wu generals off the top of my head

New modes I'd like to see added, for anyone that remembers destiny mode in DW5 XL, i'd like a mode like that in Dynasty Warriors,except a lot more detailed where it follows official history. There would be branching paths, and friendship between officers. You'd start off as a soldier, and work your way up towards general. You can choose when your birth year is and when you die, have children get married. It'd be like ROTK , but not as indepth, but it'd also have the Dynasty Warriors action combat.

Empires mode should be conjoined into the main game as well. I feel a lot of reason the series has seen a major decline in sales is because people are tired of purchasing the base game, Then an Extreme legends mode, and then a Empires mode. The game should be one complete package.

Bring back item farming too please! It was so much fun in DW4 and DW5 to get items.
Also I'd like for the new characters to not look over the top anime. The new designs look really bad =\. Why is Jia Chong such an important jin character, looking like a vampire? Also not every character needs to look like a model. I get you're appealing to the main crowd, but seeing as how major the series has declined I think it's fine to try something different. I also prefer if the weapons weren't so unrealistic as well. A person charging into battle with a paint brush doesn't make much sense!

[Dong Zhou]

I think DW should be careful and gradual which ones they expand, don't expand and which ones they bring in with the non-3kingdom guys like Yuan Shao

Yay Liao Hua, Zhang Yi, Wang Ping, Cao Rui. I think Wu might be better with Latter Eu adds

I did like Destiny Mode, was never too sure if the innuendo was meant

Empires mode should be conjoined into the main game as well. I feel a lot of reason the series has seen a major decline in sales is because people are tired of purchasing the base game, Then an Extreme legends mode, and then a Empires mode. The game should be one complete package.

I think so but koei would probably need to change their finical modelling

I also prefer if the weapons weren't so unrealistic as well. A person charging into battle with a paint brush doesn't make much sense!

I think the problem at this point is so many characters, the weapons are going to get... inventive

[DragonAtma]

Too many weapons? Then they could have weapon overlap, but with individual styles. You could have four officers with the same weapon, but one has a long line of normal attacks, one has a long line of combo attacks, one has a deep line of combo attacks, and one is an average of the first three.

Alternately, they can give different officers different weights of weapons. Sure, Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shu may use the same exact curved sword, but for Yuan Shu it's lighter, so it swings quicker but does less damage.

Finally, they could give everyone a minor weaknesses (say, Guan Yu takes +20% damage from blunt weapons, while Zhang Fei takes +20% damage from slashing weapons) -- and while every officer has a couple weapons to choose from and can switch on the fly, nobody covers all the types of minor weaknesses

[greencactaur]

It's true that if they combine both empires and the main game into one they would have to redo their forecasts, but I feel like instead of decreasing sales it would actually increase it. Consumers would feel like the game has more value and therefore pick it up. I think the series has declined majorly if we look at the sales of the PS2 versions, and than up till now.

Dynasty warriors 4 sold over 2.3m copies/XL sold 800k/ Empires sold 300k/ All together we have about 3.5m copies
Dynasty warriors 3 sold 1.8m/XL sold 1m/ about 3m copies
Dynasty Warriors 5 sold 1.4m/ XL sold 580k/ Empires sold 450k/ All together 2.5m copies
Dynasty Warriors 6 sold 1m + the 300k from the PS2 version / Empires sold 500k / All together 1.8m copies
Dynasty Warriors 7 sold 1.1M/ XL sold 270k/ Empires sold 140k/ All together 1.5m
Dynasty Warriors 8 sold 750k/ XL sold 460k + 100k from the Vita version/ Empires sold 300k, and lets assume the PC version did about 80k. All together about 1.8m

I feel like the fact that DW8 was on more devices was the only reason it didn't see the 500k decrease each iteration sees. That's why I feel like the formula needs to be redone to save the series as a whole. We have to keep in mind while the development cost of Dynasty Warriors may not be as high as other titles, investors as a whole want to see year over year growth. While Koei as a whole has seen YoY in their other franchises, Dynasty Warriors has since declined. That's why I feel like by adding more content into the box, it would help spread word of mouth that Dynasty Warriors is getting more innovative.

[Lucumo]

Dynasty Warriors 8 sold 750k/ XL sold 460k + 100k from the Vita version/ Empires sold 300k, and lets assume the PC version did about 80k. All together about 1.8m

Hm? Which version are you talking about?

According to Steamspy:
DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition: 176,274 ± 10,919
Dynasty Warriors 8 - Empires: 31,357 ± 4,606

Personally, I feel the declining sales are natural since you can only play that scenario so many times. A lot of older players won't buy the game a second, third or fourth time. Even if you "innovate", it's still the same officers, the same battles etc. And it's not like Dynasty Warriors 8 lacked content. I didn't even 100% it because it burned me out before.
The problem is attracting new players. How are you going to do this with so many games being available? You have to compete against all the small games which cost like 5€ and cater to the short attention span of today's age.

[Dong Zhou]

Greencactaur, moving Empires into the main game will please some existing fans but I doubt it will bring in any new fans and cost them the profits from the empire games. It would need the main game to do something to make up the sales.

[ivolga]

I hope in future installments Koei will add more fractions/storylines, e.g. Yuan Shao story mode which has already been discussed here, or Liang province fraction with Han Sui & Ma family.

I would like to have Dong Zhuo fraction story mode, with Guo Si, Li Jue, Cai Yong, Cai Wenji, Jia Xu and Zhang Xiu: from Dong Zhuo vs Han Sui to Zhang Xiu vs Cao Cao at Wancheng. I don't think I get my wish fulfilled though - Koei seems hell-bent on portraying Dong Zhuo as a caricature, and Dong Zhuo-centered fraction would work only if they choose a more serious approach.