Steam
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Steam
Follow these steps -- http://community.dawnofwar2.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=3649
Originally posted by BackFire
All you can play in the beta is MP or a skirmish, so yes, it's pretty slow. I have a feeling the game won't be great in vs mp. But I could see the style working well for the campaign mode.Frankly, the game is extremely dumbed down. Not many units available, not that many upgrades. It feels like they tried to do RTS for the masses, which is fine, but I would have prefered some more complexity.
Could that just be the beta part of the game?
It certainly takes some adjusting to- which is an immediate negative compared to DoW original which, despite its changes from regular RTSs, was an immensly accessible game. Mind you, the beta does dump you into full on skirmish with no instructions and no tutorial, so it is hardly a gentle curve.
I disagree with BF about unit count, which minus builders is very similar to original DoW- with modern DoW there have been three expansions which beefed each side considerably, not to mention the extra factions added; the original had the same number of units as this one does. For example, the Marines have three commander types, Scouts, Tacticals, Heavy Bolter Squad, Assault Squad, Plasma squad, Standard Dreadnought, Better Dreadnought, Razorback, Predator, Terminators, Assault Terminators. That list looks fine by me!
If you have never played, or worse never read about, the mechanics from Company of Heroes, than lacking a tutorial you are in trouble. Suppression will come as a shock to you, and even as Marines your expensive units will be wiped off the map in seconds, meaning you've thrown the game almost at once. Also trying to work out what points you need for what is a pain, how the upgrading of them works, why req points cannot be held with a structure (which means they get re-taken all the time- annoying) and if I had not seen a video with the victory mechanic explained I would have been ages working that out too.
So it's a really hostile beta for the casual player, I must say (and from the 28th it becomes available to all Steamers, not just Soulstorm owenrs). And it's hard to tell if this is actually going to be a great game yet. But there is definitely a list of positives:
1. Base building is not missed at all. All that happens is that you get into action inside 30 seconds rather than a few minutes; using seperate buildings for research or troop production seems silly in retrospect
2. Once you work out how the fighting works, combat is actually rather awesome. Your heavier weapon teams need to be set up in good positions with firing arcs, and the complications of melee on the basic CoH firefight system means there is a hewck of a lot of tacgticval thought to put into each battle
3. Allocation of resources is an intelligent challenge- where to spend and what on. This is a 'hard counter' game, which is to say that if you don't have the right counter for a unit it is more than inconvenient, it is devastating. You can be king of the map having worked out great arcs of suppression fire backed by melee attacks and a hard-as-nails hero, but two dreadnoughts turning up can then tear your army to shreds because you've not brought a tac squad with a missile launcher or brought a plasma team out. The only option? Run back to base- hit the retreat button and get out of there. This game does not go easy on people who stay in a fight they cannot win and die- you can lose the game like that. You kust pull out when things look bad, and they have given an effective 'retreat' option to make it work.
4. It looks nice (though that said, you feel a long way from the action, and adjusting tio slow movements of many troops is hard).
So the jury is out. They've had a lot of good ideas, but we have to see if they've hit the magic game factor of awesomness, because all the good ideas in the world still depend on a good basic set-up to apply thre to.
My biggest bone really is not 'no securing of req points' thing. With victory locations it is fine, there are only three of them to fight over. But there are so many req points that you cannot cover them, and as just one enemy unit can wonder behind your lines and take back all of them quickly is... annoying as tyou have to hop around the map all the time to get them back.
Better if they could be secured with a listening post, even an unarmed one as CoH had it.
In contrast, the Power points CAN be secured with a structure.
Very. Just this moment finsiehd an Annihilation battle with a friend and the enemy buildings are exceptionally durable, even against heavy firepower. The turrets that cover them mash most early game units too. In short, you have to have totally devastated your enemy to realistically trash his base. makes for longer games.
so adding up comments the game is slow, it takes forever to destroy the enemy base even when youve got the big guns and theres a small selection of units (personally this one does not look too bad) alhough theres also few upgrades according to Backfire, making the game simple, slow etc etc
Ill still get it simpl becuase its DOW 2 ,but It could have been better imo.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
My biggest bone really is not 'no securing of req points' thing. With victory locations it is fine, there are only three of them to fight over. But there are so many req points that you cannot cover them, and as just one enemy unit can wonder behind your lines and take back all of them quickly is... annoying as tyou have to hop around the map all the time to get them back.Better if they could be secured with a listening post, even an unarmed one as CoH had it.
In contrast, the Power points CAN be secured with a structure.
Ah man, I hate that.
Playing COH, I hated when the computer would start to cap a point behind your enemy lines. It was better that you could put posts there but when your skirmishing, its hard to use the resources for those structures.
Hopefully in a patch they fix that.
Not being able to build something securing req points is annoying, but an easy make-shift solution is to pick the techmarine as your hero unit and have him build turrets that watch over a few key choke points or req points, helps a lot.
Ush is right, I actually missed on the ability to call in terminator squads. You can only get them through drop pods, so that's nice.
And I do like that you basically get another currency for each race by killing enemies, which you need to build up in order to use some powerful abilities/units (like dropping in terminator squads). Problem for me is with the small unit cap by the time I build up enough killing points to get them my unit cap is already reached and don't have room for them.
The thing is those turrets take up pop cap. Fine for defending victory point locations, but no way can you afford to cover each req point- too many.
The game really is good. But I do worry about it not having that instant 'wow' factor the original did, which is ironic as one of their objectives was to make it more accessible. If anything, it is harder to get to grips with. The first time your troops get wiped you are left wondering what the hell happened, and it is not as if I've not played an RTS before. For RTS newbies... geez!
But I guess it is unfair to judge the accessibility of a beta. The full game might be much more suitable for learning the ropes.
Originally posted by Smasandian
Ah man, I hate that.Playing COH, I hated when the computer would start to cap a point behind your enemy lines. It was better that you could put posts there but when your skirmishing, its hard to use the resources for those structures.
Hopefully in a patch they fix that.
Getting a lot of demand, that- but patching in an entire new building type that changes the way the game works... well, I'd be surprised if it comes soon.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Well they have clearly intended the game to be played without Listening Posts- an intentional design deciison rather than an omission- so that's a much bigger thing to change than, say, changing unit stats or req rate, which is the type of ting you expect to change from a beta.We can hope though.
From a beta, definitely. In a patch, I can see it happening if alot of people don't like it.
People seem very focussed on destruction.
Just won my first ranked game which I ahd no right to. It was a 3v3 and due to one of the players on the other team laggign terribly, both my allies dropped before that guy was kicked. AI filled in, but I was left as the sole human player on my side, vs. two remaining humans on the other. I did alright, though once more just one or two cock ups playing as Space Marines and you absolutely cripple yourself as getting your guys back is hellishly pricey.
But we won, and why did we win? Because once my human foes had got an advantage on the battlefield they insisted on tryig to trash my base. This took them so long that I won via the victory points about five minutes before they would have finished. I never shoud have bveen able to hold those points but they were thinking too much about trashing me.
They must have been extremely pissed off when they lost- I think they hadn't noticed how close they were to being counted out.
Serves them right though- they only held the vote to kick their lagging player AFTER my teammates dropped out. Hmmm!