Relic Explain The Logic Behind Dawn of War 2's Risky Changes

[Dynasty]

For any of you that have played the beta and had doubts about the game, read this, its kinda essential if you want to be swayed into it.

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1074

Its an interview with Relic's lead designer Jonny Ebbert, explaining in depth why base building was removed, future free and priced downloadable content that is already in the works, aswell as a patch being released on release day to alter AI, fix bugs and update maps...oh and why Steam is a requirement.


They seem to have done this knowing it could be a monumental backfire, and that the beta player numbers are more than they expected, with overall decent feedback.

It's funny. It's like... the way I've always seen it, and I could be wrong... people are controlling about as much as they were controlling in the original DoW, it's just some of the smoke and mirrors have been removed--some of the hoops.

So people thought that base-building played a huge role in the original DoW. It didn't. You built your barracks once, and you never built another. There was never that decision like you have in other RTS games where it's like, "Do I need to build a second barracks, or an armory?" You can only build one. You build your first three squads, maybe another one in tier 2, and then it goes unused the rest of the game. And if the enemy comes in and blows it up somehow, it's like, "Eh."

And the only thing--the base always felt out of place to me in CoH and DoW in that they were only there to keep you from getting stuff out too soon. It was purely a pacing mechanic. So I said, why don't we just remove that, and see if we miss it. And we didn't.

I remember at one point, we had a bunch of global upgrades next to your thing that you had to use to start unlocking units within a tier. And it was really hard to work out the UI for, and it was getting really irritating. Finally, one day I said, "You know what, let's pull it out, just for a day. Let's see if we miss it. And the minute someone says, 'I miss it,' we're gonna put it back in." And everyone was like, "Well you know it's gonna be back in tomorrow." And I was like, "Let's just see how it goes." [laughs]

And so we pulled it out, and nobody missed it. No one ever said, "What's wrong with this game?! We don't have these global upgrades." They didn't matter. And what I found was that, there's so much that you can be doing with your units, and managing them, we just kind of wanted to remove all the things that pull you away from that. Because nothing sucks more than going back to your base, and having your army die because you weren't watching it.

So we try to do all these things that allow you to stay focused on your units, control them very carefully. And I'm hoping it's more approachable. I'm thinking it might be a little less intimidating. But I'm not sure. We'll see.

Quite a big point, this is where the biggest bitching and moaning is coming from on the Relic forums regarding the feedback. Personally I never thought of it that way, but now ive read that, its just made me realise exactly what has changed. The inconvenient truth is that, pretty much nothing has changed, if anything its just the pace at the start that has changed.

 

[Pesmerga]

I don't disagree with their ideas on eliminating base building, but the way the race's units have been setup, it feels forced and calculated rather than believable. There's no real frontline (if you're smart about it) because there's no stationary defenses. I think the HQ needs to be redone, or just eliminate the unit building from the HQ and build it into the interface, and let units be spawned near the Commander. As it is right now, it's as slugfest with hardly any room for strategy or critical thinking. Units die too quickly compared to the rate of resource income. There's little room for unit customization. Ork transports are weird and slow. Environments are almost formulaic and way too symmetrical. No sense of "intense" fighting as promised. Units are hardly distinguishable from one another (this is especially true of Orks, who almost all look exactly the like no matter how different they are). I can't tell Sluggas from Shootas from Nobs or Lootas. Hell, even the commanders are hard to pick out from the mob.

Units just seem so damn small. It's not nearly as visceral as it was in DoW.

 

[Nibwoddle]

Apparently the game is really really good. PC Powerplay reviewed it and gave it a 9 and they say despite it seemingly lacking in content the focus and detail, as well as how enourmous and good the campaign is depite being Space Marines only, it makes you thankful that they focused it like that or it would all feel rushed.

 

[TwwIX]

I will wait for the full game but the beta hasn't impressed me so far. It feels like a watered down version of Company of Heroes. We'll see how the rest of the game turns out to be.

 

[Warbie]

The problem I have with DoW2 is it's more of a Benny Hill point run than anything else i've played. The charge a unit that isn't a hard counter, run away, rinse repeat gameplay is also quite dull.

 

[Dynasty]

DoW was like that though wasnt it? Especially as the Eldar, their whole mandate to win was based on that technique of falling back the whole time.

Anyway, I read a few reviews that said the campaign was laughably short, but im guessing they were based on the Beta, so people are just making stuff up.

 

[Reginald]

I suck at RTS games. I always lose and don't really have the multi-tasking capacity to make it work. But I really enjoy them. Playing Rise of Nations and Age of Empires and Red Alert 2 etc. are some of my favourite gaming memories.

My friend is amazing at RTS games. He always beats me when we play multiplayer. But we always have a laugh cause I put up a good fight.

We played DoW2.

He beat me.

I really didn't enjoy it because I couldn't afford enough units to break out and capture a point to make more units.

I assumed my friend was enjoying himself because he had near infinite resources and Carnifexes flailing all over the place.

But even he admitted he wasn't enjoying himself because if, on the off-chance, I got a scout squad to take a point halfway up the map, all he had to do was scooch a slightly more powerful squad up there and take it back.



It's not a tactical game at all. Just a race to get points.

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

my current comp. can't run this sadly....can't wait though.

I'm a big fan of COH and it sounds like they've moved it more in that direction, but I guess I'll have to try the game.

 

[B_MAN]

I will wait for the full game but the beta hasn't impressed me so far. It feels like a watered down version of Company of Heroes. We'll see how the rest of the game turns out to be.

my thoughts exactly
in fact, i'd rather play COH

 

[Dynasty]

Relic have released a patch, which is now live, making some fairly big changes to damage, health, costs etc, all based on beta-player feedback. My god, they actually listened. Go Relic.

http://community.dawnofwar2.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=8307