Dawn of War 2

[Tessian]

What does everyone think? I've played a game with Bovine, and I know Shrin's on the fence... myself I haven't quite decided if I like it yet either.

When they talked about DoW2 taking focus away from base building I thought they were just talking about what has been the case in DoW1 and Company of Heroes-- control points instead of resources. But instead what you find is that your base now consists of ONE building for units. You have to upgrade it a few times, but no constructors, no nothing-- the game is totally focused on managing your units and keeping control of points around the map.

Scaling is different now too... in DoW you could build quite impressive armies, but in DoW2 your armies are MUCH smaller. We're talking 1 squad of marines where before you'd have 3-4. Almost all units have a variety of upgrades as well. Oh and you get a hero off the bat, pick 1 of 3 for any race but you never get to build more. Also every unit gains experience, not just the hero.

So it's a lot different than I expected... much more focused on battlefield tactics, unit selection, and control points than anything else. Oh and it is a beautiful game. I had to turn the settings down to medium to play smoothly (first time I've had to do that in a game with this PC)

[bovine]

I'm not sure yet either. I immediately loved dawn of war, but it took me to a while to warm up to Company of Heroes. I didn't understand the gameplay tweaks at first, but when I started getting the hang of it and getting into a tech tree building spree, I really started to love it. It's either going to be a similar experience here with DoW2 or I'm just going to dislike it because it doesn't feel as grandiose and brutal as two armies clashing in the original.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

It definitely feels more skirmish-y than big-battle-y. I like the unit focus: it really clearly differentiates it from every other base-building-focused RTS. And the base-building is usually my favourite part!

The unit selection feels a little limited. Three tech tiers, three unit types max in each? I know you can customise each unit but that's a pretty restricted set.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah, I'm thinking multiplayer will get repetitive rather quickly. They haven't put in my two favorite races yet (Imperial Guard and Tau) either. I feel like a very story-driven campaign would be extremely fun, though.

Units level now, and they kept the retreat thing that they had in Company of Heroes. The problem is I sucked horribly at CoH (I bought it and was so bad that I didn't tell Tessian that I had it haha) and I have a feeling that I'm going to be middling at best in this game. I actually lost a round with 2 computers on my side (one hard one normal) against three normals so that didn't bolster my confidence.

I'm sure in the final version they'll have more units and it will be more balanced. So far the game I played as Eldar was a LOT easier than the games (1 eldar, 3 space marine) I played as Space Marines. A lot of that is the fact that tier three for eldar seemed complete because the Eldar got the Avatar (super unit) and the Space Marines only get the predator, which completely sucks compared to the DoW1 version.

The new units were a lot of fun, though.

They also kept the "suppression (pinned)" thing from CoH which is pretty cool.

Heroes are still kinda super units but are much less durable if not brought in during the right combat situations. They also level which made me feel like this was going to be a Dawn of WarCraft3 game, but leveling doesn't give you access to new skills.

As much as I like about it so far, the fact that there's NO base building irks me very much. The closest you get is the power sources that you can capture can build at max three power generators. I see them releasing a game expansion that gives you both options of play at some point. If it sells. Please let it sell.

[Tessian]

All units level, and heroes are very dangerous but also very fragile. I've found out the hard way already that a little focus fire from the enemy can cause your hero's health to drop FAST.

I hope you guys are right and there will be more units in the full game... but I'm afraid that won't be the case. Isn't a MP beta designed to do some last minute balancing? How can you do that if you only give people half the units? Plus the menu doesn't appear like it can stretch much. I fear what you see is what we'll get in terms of units... we'll see. I still have to try out the Orks and insectoids.

I hope to play some more tonight, so if anyone's around look me up

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Hot damn, I am loving this game. Noah keeps interrupting me while I'm playing, though! That's the excuse I'm making for my win-loss record, anyway.

[Tessian]

Hot damn, I am loving this game. Noah keeps interrupting me while I'm playing, though! That's the excuse I'm making for my win-loss record, anyway.

Hahaha. It is growing on me for sure.. I'm pretty decent with Orks now. I've only genuinely lost once so far and that was against 2 level 10's (2nd loss was where we lost our teammate). Once you get used to the game mechanics there sure is something to be said about being able to focus purely on your units and nothing else.

[bovine]

it's out today. Who's up for the coop campaign?!?!?!

[Shrinweck]

I'd say yes but I have to leave for class in an hour and a half and won't be back until 3AMish eastern because I have to work.

[Eric]

I like it, but then I never played DoW before. Ignorance is bliss?

[Tessian]

it's out today. Who's up for the coop campaign?!?!?!

Give me an hour or so and I am

[Tessian]

I must say that co-op campaign is pretty nice and better than I expected... well that's a lie, I had no idea there was co-op until Bovine mentioned it today.

[bovine]

I had fun. I still don't understand why we need to capture those resources though.

[Shrinweck]

Well other than having a spot on the map to retreat to they do reinforce your units. I'm really loving the campaign. Have my force commander at level 13 and I have Avitus the suppression bolt dude with the upgrade where he doesn't have to set up his kit any more.

I finally got the walker but I'm finding it draws enemy fire like a motherfucker and just goes down too fast. My general set up has been the commander, suppression, the tactical squad, and the scouts. If you outfit the scouts with the flame thrower they have a trainable skill called immolate that does DoT over an area and takes out enemies faster than my fully upgraded suppression squad. I also outfitted my scouts with the medpacks and malta bombs - they're probably my most versatile unit. I would definitely have a lot more trouble with vehicles without those bombs.

My only issue is that some stuff you have to be at a very precise angle in order to attack. I did a mission earlier today where you had to destroy foliage because the boss would run into it and fully heal. There was one particular group of foliage that was impossible to attack and I ended up having to use a demo pack to destroy it.

I think I'm nearing the end of the campaign, I'll probably beat it tomorrow.

[Tessian]

Those damned malta bombs don't do shit... where Bovine and I stopped was the first mission you go up against a vehicle and I thought those bombs would do just fine but it was barely scratching the damned thing!

...or maybe it was a mini boss? It's the one where a fire prism is running around a town.

[Shrinweck]

Well during bosses the bombs are doing 8-10% of the health at best, but anything else vehicle-wise it's instant death.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

I found the meltas pretty useless in the campaign, but they're awesome in MP.

[Shrinweck]

Well the bombs are also fairly inaccurate so if the vehicle is moving quickly or changing direction the bomb will miss completely.

And yes that's three of my posts in a row that begin with the word well

Edit: Also I got to play my first coop game tonight. Tessian's going through the campaign on hard and it's definitely harder by several magnitudes than normal.

Going to have to express my love for Cyrus again but now I know why most people don't like him - you have to constantly babysit him for him to be any good. His high-powered snipe skill was incredibly important for some of the encounters. Tessian was using melee units (the assault marines and commander) so I figured Cyrus as a sniper and Avitus would be a good combination. We struggled a little bit but it was a lot of fun.

[Tessian]

good god, the hard difficulty is VERY hard. Had I known this beforehand I wouldn't have picked it. Playing co-op makes it somewhat easier, but it's insane. The units are made of glass... you're lucky to finish a level without everyone dying at least once. The assault marines are so powerful with their jump strikes... but I basically have to jump into a horde of enemies and then Retreat, else they get killed afterwards.

Loving the campaign itself though so far.

[bovine]

yahoo! they finally fixed that issue that caused my game to crash over and over and over.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/2285/

[Tessian]

yahoo! they finally fixed that issue that caused my game to crash over and over and over.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/2285/

No wonder I didn't have this issue... silly 32-bit Vista

[bovine]

When played under Vista 32, there's a crash bug that does much what you might expect. Trying to consume the game in cooperative mode with Kiko, we could not load the second mission without one or the other of us crashing. We've since learned that lowering the detail might help resolve it (among other strange rites), but I had this machine built expressly to pulverize today's entertainment software. So I shelved it, until such time as a patch was released.

Apparently my problem was not an isolated one. I need to get more problems that the big wigs have so they actually get solved, and quickly at that!