In Dynasty Warriors 6 they tried to change the formula (and the characters were rebuilt from the ground up). It looks prettier and each character has it's own unique weapon back (instead of the bakers dozen who had moves that were each very similar). Zhou Yu no longer uses a sword for example, he got a staff instead... anyway.
Brass tacks Dynasty Warriors combat system was overhauled so that it didn't have the combo system we all knew and loved back in the previous games, instead they went with a "renbu" system which means that your combo is based around how much whacking you've been doing, you no longer have a bow and your charge attack is somewhat useless (except if you're one of those guys who gets REALLY deep in the game and has to do everything perfectly). The items were removed (you know, tiger amulet that junk?) so you can't level up one character and use those lvl 20 items on your next character and just wipe out an army.
With the rebuilding of the characters came a slash to the roster. I think the # of characters were cut in half compared to 5 and even then they put in cloned move sets for most of the characters you had to do special stuff to unlock.
They added a character class system. The only one I remember (it's been like a year since I last played) is that certain characters (zhou yu and Liu Bei for example) had speed, now basically you activate a special ability (like musou rage from previous iterations) and certain things happen, for speed your character takes off and runs, you steer your character and attack and slaughter close to 100 guys if they're packed densely enough. The other one I can recall off the top of my head was Volley, you activate it and the entire area around you is showered in arrows. Anything killed during these attacks will often drop XP boosts (the lowliest soldier drops five when these are activated, and everyone else drops one tier above their normal).
My biggest beef with DW6 is that it didn't take full advantage of the power of its system (XB360). They could have crammed ALOT more opponents into the maps and overall made the maps much more interesting.
However LuBu's musou mode final state is INSANE (You as LuBu take on everyone else that is even MENTIONED throughout the game in one massive orgy of murder.)
I think Dynasty Warriors is so attached (for good or ill) to it's gameplay style that if it were to change it it'd loose some of it's following and people wouldn't pick it up simply because they had played the previous games and thought it was the same. Kinda like Halo if it yutzed with it's shooty shooty gameplay and tried to introduce a character that wasn't a supersold- oh wait... bad example. I guess the closest thing to a "This is how the Genre and all it's bastard children should be!" in terms of gameplay would be Diablo. While it doesn't have quite the amount of ripoffs that Dynasty Warriors has, nor does it have as many sequels, but Diablo is held up as what all the developers are shooting for when they make that type of game. If they took Diablo and wrenched out it's guts to make it seem more innovative it'd probably loose alot of it's hardcore fanbase (just look at the outcry over the lack of a stats system and the auto level up for example, now take that and make it the entire player base and you've got what would happen if DW changed it's core mechanics). DW is so entrenched within the genre it can't pull itself out without a complete rebranding.
... That is all
Brass tacks Dynasty Warriors combat system was overhauled so that it didn't have the combo system we all knew and loved back in the previous games, instead they went with a "renbu" system which means that your combo is based around how much whacking you've been doing, you no longer have a bow and your charge attack is somewhat useless (except if you're one of those guys who gets REALLY deep in the game and has to do everything perfectly). The items were removed (you know, tiger amulet that junk?) so you can't level up one character and use those lvl 20 items on your next character and just wipe out an army.
With the rebuilding of the characters came a slash to the roster. I think the # of characters were cut in half compared to 5 and even then they put in cloned move sets for most of the characters you had to do special stuff to unlock.
They added a character class system. The only one I remember (it's been like a year since I last played) is that certain characters (zhou yu and Liu Bei for example) had speed, now basically you activate a special ability (like musou rage from previous iterations) and certain things happen, for speed your character takes off and runs, you steer your character and attack and slaughter close to 100 guys if they're packed densely enough. The other one I can recall off the top of my head was Volley, you activate it and the entire area around you is showered in arrows. Anything killed during these attacks will often drop XP boosts (the lowliest soldier drops five when these are activated, and everyone else drops one tier above their normal).
My biggest beef with DW6 is that it didn't take full advantage of the power of its system (XB360). They could have crammed ALOT more opponents into the maps and overall made the maps much more interesting.
However LuBu's musou mode final state is INSANE (You as LuBu take on everyone else that is even MENTIONED throughout the game in one massive orgy of murder.)
I think Dynasty Warriors is so attached (for good or ill) to it's gameplay style that if it were to change it it'd loose some of it's following and people wouldn't pick it up simply because they had played the previous games and thought it was the same. Kinda like Halo if it yutzed with it's shooty shooty gameplay and tried to introduce a character that wasn't a supersold- oh wait... bad example. I guess the closest thing to a "This is how the Genre and all it's bastard children should be!" in terms of gameplay would be Diablo. While it doesn't have quite the amount of ripoffs that Dynasty Warriors has, nor does it have as many sequels, but Diablo is held up as what all the developers are shooting for when they make that type of game. If they took Diablo and wrenched out it's guts to make it seem more innovative it'd probably loose alot of it's hardcore fanbase (just look at the outcry over the lack of a stats system and the auto level up for example, now take that and make it the entire player base and you've got what would happen if DW changed it's core mechanics). DW is so entrenched within the genre it can't pull itself out without a complete rebranding.
... That is all
