So I’ve had a bit more time on the Dawn Of War 2 multiplayer beta, and some thoughts come to mind. I’ve written them up after the jump, and I’m fairly certain you’ll tell me whether or not you agree.
Different, and yet agreeably samey. Less of a battle and more of a brawl. That’s how I’m feeling about Dawn of War 2. I love the spread of options that the four races (and three hero-types per race) provide, and I’m also glad of the absurd Warhammer 40k bombast that was so perfectly pitched in the original. Fights are ostentatious, macho, and bloody. Not-quite-cartoon brutality that makes this entertaining even when you lose. Just the way we like it. The entire game is a little closer in, and much better defined. Everything, from the main menu inwards, is swathed in useful detail. It has a sense of purpose. I love the jungle map, and the Tyranids hiss and shriek just so.
Early on, I wasn’t so sure. The focus on your units, particularly your hero, rather than your structures, is a distinct and far-reaching change. And it’s blatantly clear that the game can be won or lost in the opening couple of minutes, which I’ve heard a few grumbles about. That’s true, but this does not mean that it will be lost in that period, which is quite a different conclusion. In actual fact, if teams manage to deploy fairly evenly in those opening moments, and keep their core assets reasonably well defended, then a proper scrap can emerge.
That’s not to say it’s quite what I wanted. I do miss being able to build a large complex of buildings, and especially turrets. As that kind of player I was, of course, drawn to play the defensive hero classes. The techmarine was particularly satisfying, and I managed to do fairly well in early games by spamming Tarantula turrets across my most sensitive areas. Immediately these kinds of units begin to reveal what is interesting about DoW2, with the techmarine levelling up, and the turrets suppressing enemy units. The heavy weapons really do feel heavy in this game, not just because of the suppression effect, which slows enemy assaults, but also because of the visual splatter of them. The effects rip across the map in a most satisfying manner. They are big guns wot shoot like big guns should
And assuming things don’t fold in the first few minutes, the game really does begin to open up in an interesting way, thanks to that levelling dynamic. The fights become fiercer, more likely to be turned by the sudden burst of a special power. (Possibly at the risk of there being too much micromanagement? I can’t tell yet.) This time the upward spiral of firepower is not simply thanks to base upgrades giving you more tiers of units, but in the clear focus on sexy equipment. Pretty much everyone can be upgraded, with the hero getting three slots for special abilities and additional powers. Once these are in-play then the micro-level of the actual fights become a good deal more compelling. Once again Relic have aced the fighting animations, and watching an Ork warboss beat the hell out of a Tyranid hive tyrant makes for happy nerding.
All this stuff benefits from the lessons learned via Company of Heroes too, with the use of both cover and structures. This I really do approve of. Dawn of War battlefields are no longer fancy, but essentially featureless, playing fields. Instead – as in CoH – the entire thing is enriched by their being made up of a network of possible chokepoints and entrenchment lines. This makes the battles feel far more malleable: you sense there’s more to master, and more options to play with. More to worry about, too. The cover system doesn’t always seem to work for squads, with one dude almost always standing out in the open, but it’s an addition that seems to genuinely rejig the way you have to think, if you want to win.
Of course, having been a complete junkie for hugely unit-rich base-building mega-battles in the original game, I do feel a little disappointed by the pared down, smaller feel of the multiplayer ways, and it makes me fear for the single player too. But that feeling is nevertheless offset by the general new-and-improved shininess of the game. This is one of the instances where a small step up in technology and design talent makes a rather major difference. They’re a couple of games wiser and smarter, and my newer, beefier PC is happy to shoulder the extra graphical load. The tigher focus seems to have brought some details to the fore, and make the large units all the more essential, and impressive.
Once again the Relic team seems to have captured what’s interesting about Games Workshop’s grim 41st century of Only War, and yet still made it colourful and approachable. So approachable, in fact, there’s something quite Blizzardian about it. It’s got that kind of sheen, which seems appropriate, given the history. And that user-friendliness will make the contrast with ultra-traditional Starcraft 2 all the more interesting. It does feel like Relic are making the bolder moves in the RTS world, but whether that will count for much in the race for sales and general acclaim, it’s hard to say. Maybe. I hope so.
We’ll be talking a load more about Dawn Of War 2, which is set for release on 19th/20th February, in a couple of weeks.
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“As much as I like the genre for single-player, I think that it sucks ass when it comes to multiplayer, but maybe I’m an exception.”
Count me in here — I love single player RTS games, but I find them extremely terrible multiplayer experiences. I should really, really try WiC multiplayer, as I’ve heard a lot of good things.
Even Starcraft puts me off, though, as build order/micromanagement trumps any tactical skill. Which is a shame, really, as the only ‘RTS’ style games I can think of that reward actual strategic combat thinking are the old Chaos Gate, and Close Combat series.
I’d wait until the Soviet Strike expansion comes out…might get a good package deal on the Steam.
WiC isn’t perfect, but it’s fun enough for my purposes. Pet peeves: infantry are a bit underpowered, servers generally hate artillery support players, and the rock-paper-scissors balancing relies heavily on teamwork, which is sometimes nonexistent on pub servers (if you run into your direct counter, say mobile AA as an air cav specialist, you’re boned no matter what).
Its greatest contribution, IMHO: bringing online FPS-style accessibility to the RTS genre. Games can have up to 16 players (8 vs 8) and can easily be joined in-progress. If someone rage quits or legitimately drops, no biggie. There’s even a sort of respawn timer: resources from destroyed units are slowly returned.
Demigod looks promising. Stardock and GPG say that their goal is to make it the Counter-Strike of RTS games. Indeed, there won’t even be a tutorial because it’s supposed to be easy to pick-up and play. Any beta testers care to comment?
Erlam:
Count me in here — I love single player RTS games, but I find them extremely terrible multiplayer experiences. I should really, really try WiC multiplayer, as I’ve heard a lot of good things.
Even Starcraft puts me off, though, as build order/micromanagement trumps any tactical skill.
Play Company of Heroes, for God’s sake. Really. It is a real dynamic shift in RTS gaming, and hasn’t yet been bettered. Multiplayer is an order of magnitude more tactical and cinematic than the singleplayer, what with the cover system and weapon teams and stuff like tanks being impervious to small arms fire. It’s like one of those Close Combat or Combat Mission games except with in-game training and the oppressively hardcore bits stripped out of them.
I was surprised that it ran on my ageing rig. Admittedly with everything but model detail and textures set to low, and at 1280×1024. I am really bad at the multiplayer side though. :P The new mechanics certainly make firefights a lot more interesting, and having a heavy bolter set up in a building was a laugh for all of 20 seconds, then someone destroyed it. I may even win a match one of these days…
addendum: I won! Twice!
To anyone playing with an old rig:
What are the actual specs on your machine, and how does it run when you try to play a 3vs3?
I like all the details fine, smaller maps are better so we can fight, not play risiko, heroes whatever.
But it’s too much children deathmatch for my taste, it’s too gamey and too little destroying of heresy. Yes it’s stuff for the single player… but i also want it in multi, k?
“Try going from StarCraft to SupCom to DoW to C&C…each one is totally different. I don’t have the time or patience to master each game’s esoteric interfaces and random damage calculators and build orders.”
I have what I call the 100 match rule. I think for any RTS it takes ~100 games for you to really understand the game and begin to play it well. Now of course some gosu RTS players will rise to the top of the ladder sooner but generally until they’ve played about 100 games it’s more of their micro skill than understanding the game and its details.
For casual friendly RTS games try out Demigod or DotA (its inspiration). DotA has a steep initial learning curve but once you get past your first dozen or so games you generally will know enough to play decently (in -em games at least). Fair warning the DotA crowd is one of the most caustic gaming communities around so you’ll need a fire proof-jacket (or a bunch of friends) to survive your newbie experience but the game plays like an RTS that’s more noob friendly.
Demigod should be another step in the right direction by having less heroes and likely less complex items/recipes to allow people to get into the game quicker.
“It’s like one of those Close Combat or Combat Mission games except with in-game training and the oppressively hardcore bits stripped out of them.”
and all of those bits were replaced with infuriating random chance :/.
(sorry to double post)
The random element is what makes CoH for me. It never feels unfair, it feels right. Whether it’s benefiting me or the enemy, it feels right.
I’ve been playing Company of Heroes since release and I don’t think DoW2 will replace it, just sit side by side with it.
“It never feels unfair, it feels right.”
It ‘feels’ fair and is great for casual play. Any person who wants to play RTS games casually should pick up CoH, like you recommended earlier. I completely agree with you and find CoH fantastic as a casual RTS.
But in reality randomness is never fair. By definition it’s random. Sure over infinite plays the randomness is fair but you never play the same person infinite times. So while random helps make games fun for casual play (see L4D, TF2, and CoH) it is a big hinderance to making the game fun for hardcore audience.
If DoW2 falls under the ‘random/casual’ umbrella so be it. I’m sure many people will enjoy the game as it seems to build a lot on CoH but it won’t be the game for me (or many competitive people I think). The more I read up the more Dow2 though it seems to be somewhere in the middle which could be a nice mix. If they can nail that middle ground right they’d have a game that’s viable for competitive play while being very accessible to casual players. When you do that and combine it with fast match times (which DoW2 has) a good spectator game is born. Easy casual play means it’s simple for people to learn the basics and get into the game and its MP scene. Good competitive play means that there’s depth and strategy to make tournaments feasible and interesting. Get the casuals watching the competitive people play and an e-sport is born.
I guess I’ll find out tonight/tomorrow how well DoW2 delivers. I can’t wait :P.
“RTS’es have never been about macro. As long as you have to watch the fights and order your units to move or attack, it’s micro. And show me a RTS where not doing those things was a viable strategy.
Urgh. Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation being the obvious ones. ”
Try playing those games competitively without micro then. :) SupCom is nowhere near the game of dots some people make it out to be and TA units need constant caretaking with such rompy terrain.
DoW II is ace, playing it more and more and discovering every race feature and every hero tweak is a great thing. It offers enough micro to be as rewarding as any traditional RTS and it’s easily more atmospheric than the ‘Craft games, just play with some Orkz and try to deny that statement, hilarious in some kind of TF2-way even. There are lots of issues still but they’re mostly not game-related, it’s mainly Live that is to blame or what Relic has done with it.
I love it.
I’m not very good at it yet, but I had the ‘pleasure’ of playing against someone who’d clearly been putting the Techmarine hours in (i.e. was at Rank 22 after about two days) who just dominated me tactically. All about garrisoning buildings near requisition points and setting up turrets, in his case. Was enlightening.
I’ve been playing for a bit now, but only against the CPU because, well, it’s an RTS, and I will get annihilated by someone who hasn’t stopped playing since the beta came out.
Some comments:
1) The A.I. is so awful it will lose you games. I don’t mean the CPU player, I mean the A.I. for your units. For example: my Devastator Squad is firing over a wall, comes under attack from behind. I have another unit melee the attacker, and tell my unit to shoot the enemy it was firing at over the wall. It un-sets up, and then moves around the wall. Dying, because it was in cover for a fucking reason.
2) I managed to destroy a heavy bolter squad by having my one-man scout squad dance around a rock. Yes, a rock. Because they couldn’t ’setup’ due to him moving, they just kept pivoting, and the scouts shotgun would knock down the non-bolter guy, making him useless. It took a minute or so, but 1 scout > heavy bolter? Uh, no.
3) I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had a unit (usually the Dreadnought) become stuck in an animation, and get picked off. It’s a huge problem.it will sit there, spinning, and never touch an enemy.
There are more things but I think my rant will end here.
@Erlam:
How did you get to play against the CPU? I only got to play against the AI when others were kicked due to lagging the game too much.
Just host a game and after picking your race, on the next screen change all the player slots to AI (click on each of them and choose).
I was so looking forward to this one. I loved the original but Relic have dramatically changed the game. Its simply not Dawn of war any more, but Company of Heroes in a DoW frock.
Trying to get a ranked game is simply a joke. Once all the hype has gone, it will take ages just to find one game. It takes forever already!
Despite claiming base building – there isnt any (apart from turrets and tunnels – wow!). Thanks to the beta, I have cancelled my pre-order
AWESOME GAME!
Easy to find a game, great that it runs on Windows Live, and finally we get Nids!
I must say this is a great game….if you have a gaming computer….regular comps just don’t do the game justice, oh and you need a close to perfect internet connection because from what i’ve experienced it gets really laggy
“Random chance = poor for competitive play.”
Tell that to Poker. Or Sports.
You know, those competitive things that were around long before the random-is-bad-bandwagon?
It really depends how the random element affects the game. If the game is designed to compensate for or to actually utilise the random element, it becomes an acceptable feature. If the design does not support it well enough, it becomes a bane in competitive circles.
In Sports:
Please give examples. In most cases the ‘chance’ will be affecting both sides equally (e.g. weather), and there are mechanics in the game that minimalise these effects (e.g. swapping sides halfway through the game).
In Poker
The random element is initial and is not exposed immediately. It is only exposed to one player privately and therefore the player can decide to play his own game irregardless of the hand he has. In fact, a lot of the time you play poker not according to the cards you have, but to the cards you think your opponant has. Depending on how good you are at reading the other player and how good you are at giving misleading signals, the cards you have in your hand don’t mean very much at all.
Crispy covered the case of competetive sport, but I’d like to add that poker works as a gambling game; it would be terrible as a competition-for-competition’s-sake game. (Terrible may be a bit strong, given that it’s possible to play for ‘pride’ and have a bit of fun, but in that sense it’s probably at a similar level to monopoly.) It’s not a coincidence that the deepest and, in a competetive sense, ‘best’ games (e.g. chess) are all deterministic. That last sentence leaves me rather open to counter-examples, but I can all but guarantee that any randomness present in a high-level competitive game will be fair, and either naturally or by human intervention will almost always leave both players equally ‘lucky’ within one unit of competition (i.e. one round of tournament play: this may be a single match, or a series of matches). Poker does not work this way, and an entire tournament can easily be won or lost due to luck alone. It’s very possible to run lucky or unlucky over what might seem like the long term, to the point of handing a profit to someone who ’should’ be a losing player, and vice-versa.
*competitive
:-[