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Seriously, those games are horrible imbalanced and terrible matchmaking makes it even worse.
I played DoW2 for 2 years pretty much after I was dont with Company of Heroes it was the only RTS I tried and I stuck with it even tho the game is fun,( WHOOOOOOOOSH assault marines) I couldn't even face playing it after I started to play SC2 beta.
You can play 15 games before you actually get a decent opponent, how are you supposed to improve when all you are doing is bashing nubs all night?
Relic make fun games, but balance is a secondary concern. Thats why they dont really have an competitive scene.
Think of a nydus that builds in 1 second and you can unload your entire army instantly from, that sound even remotely balanced to you? 
<Edit> Also they are free </Edit>
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On September 13 2011 02:28 hotbreakfest wrote:
[...] when there are MANY small system-generated random factors it can definitely make an impact on who wins. The better player will still win the majority of the time, but he/she could be winning more if it wasn't for all those little random factors.
You can go ahead and call me an AoE/SC elitist, but the amount of macro in Relic RTS games is as minimal as it gets. Don't get me wrong though, Relic games still put an excellent emphasis on zoning (map control), well-timed pressure, and positioning, but removing a lot of macro also removes depth. You claim that the DoW and CoH systems make turtling obsolete. That is removing depth, because turtling is a legitimate strategy. Fighting turtles can definitely be boring and annoying, but removing them takes out potential options from the game. You can turtle in both SC and AoE and it won't always win you the game, but it's still a viable option that can save you by playing your cards right.
When going against the randomness factor you shouldn't really make the point of "people could be winning more if it weren't a factor" because they could just as well win less. Randomness goes both ways and its influence on your skill and performance diminishes with the number of games played.
This random factors also provide a very interesting process when it comes down to critical thinking when in game. Often you will see 2 great players playing with odds and taking risks they wouldn't if not for this random factors (2 low units battling it out and players not retreating them in hopes of getting the special attack, possible outcomes when not retreating: wipe or glory), this makes the game more entertaining both to play and watch.
I don't really get the argument about macro either. Who said you need macro to make a successful and competetive game anyway? There are many mechanics in DoW2 that provide sufficient action sink, if you'd add macro in the most common meaning of the word the game would suck because the physical demands it would put upon you would be unconquerable by people with below 400-500APM (and even then I'm not sure it would be sufficient). As it is, in a well-developed game between good players you really need Boxer-like multiple drop micro and multi-tasking. While it may look so, this game is pretty challenging. Especially if you're matched against a good opponent, there's just so many things you need to be mindful about at all times all over the map...
And another nice thing about this game is that it scales well into games involving more than 2 players. WC3 was probably the only game so far I've seen do it well before CoH and DoW. I might even go as far as saying that it's more entertaining in 2v2 than 1v1 (just like WC3 was in my opinion), without it being broken like BW or SC2 where 2v2 is pure bullshit.
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Here is some matches between really top players. VindicareX is auctally such a nice guy. Helped me with my Choas when I was playing. Auctally was playing decently.
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=808609
This thread is making me reinstall. Gotta get some DOW2 in.
I think the main thing holding the game back is the lack of major funding. If a good sponsor came in and promoted the tournmanets and such. The scene would be huge.
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I think the main thing holding the game back is the lack of major funding. If a good sponsor came in and promoted the tournmanets and such. The scene would be huge.
Hmm I don't know about that, CoH still has money tourneys and a thriving Game Replays community, I doubt Relic would want the more successful CoH to have competition from DoW2.
I could never get into DoW2 after the original, it's so boring to watch in comparison.
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On September 13 2011 05:52 Laids wrote:Show nested quote +I think the main thing holding the game back is the lack of major funding. If a good sponsor came in and promoted the tournmanets and such. The scene would be huge. Hmm I don't know about that, CoH still has money tourneys and a thriving Game Replays community, I doubt Relic would want the more successful CoH to have competition from DoW2. I could never get into DoW2 after the original, it's so boring to watch in comparison.
They still support DOW2 heavly relic does. I think if a company (not relic) came in a ran tournaments (think like ESL or Zotac, or even craftcup (they hold cnc4 and fifa stuff too)) There scene would go by a lot. ESL has held some DOW2 tournaments but not many, what they have done has been succesful and really popular iirc.
GR has a big community that supports COH. But they also support HoN, LoL, and DOW2 as well. DOW2 has almost the same amount of stuff going on in the GR community as COH just its not all as high profile.
The need for more tournament runners to make DOW2 stuff is the key to its success. about 2000 people are online most of the time afaik. And it had more people a few months ago but has declined due to lack ot intrest. If the scene were to grow and people were to plans tuff. We could see some really amazing games and a great scene that can sustaine itself.
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I've played Company of Heroes a lot before I switched to SC2, and I still do from time to time. Its a great game with (sadly) great flaws at times.
The "randomness" is not really the problem though.
Judging a situation correctly (depending on cover, distance, weaponry, hp, with vehicles even penetration and angle) becomes a essential skill. You can always estimate whether you'll win or lose a fight from the current situation, except if its rather close and micro gets involved.
And while there is a margin of error, this allows "greedy" play in those mechanics. You can choose to let a squad stay longer than "safe" in a battle to finish of an enemy squad and sometimes its like a game of retreat-chicken where the winner keeps the territory.
Think of poker: Sure, its all about random chances, but good players know to judge their chances very accurately, especially taking into account the game-situation. They can't predict a single flop of a card, but they know when to be greedy and when to play safe.
Also, there are often many engagements at once, and jumping between these, judging and adjusting the situations to your favor and not missing any key moment (like a nade being trown, cover being blown, positional changes etc.) is essentially the "macro" of CoH.
The problem about CoH lie more in some of the design-choices (imagining fast-flying bunkers in sc2). Relics seems like they want "awesome" things, reward people who spend more money, but got no experience in whats needed for a game to be balanced and fun for all sides in the long term.
The new factions of the expansion weren't balanced well, the whole buy-another-tiny-expansion-for-more-imbalanced-units-thing was ridiculous and even with the newest balance patch, it doesn't feel as if evenly skilled players got even chances with all races. Players who play extremly abusive can pretty much ruin any good match, although its less of a problem when the expansion factions are not involved.
On the other hand, its just ridiculously fun to play CoH, often more than SC2 to me. Good planing and micro pays off, battles are intense (and you *have* to watch them :D) and there are lots of different strategic possibilities.
I played Dawn of War 2 in the beta, hoping for a good alternative to CoH, but the mechanics felt much more "mushy", you had even less base building and fewer number of units. Everything felt watered down. It just didn't appeal to me any more, although I still love CoH.
If you want to see some CoH in action, watch some Tales of Heroes episodes. They originally got me playing CoH online:
Tales of Heroes
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@ Tabularasa: DoW2 has gone a VERY long way since beta. It's like a completely different game now. Units work differently, special abilities are different, resources have been revamped, blah blah blah. DoW2 beta seems like it didn't even stand on the same shelf in the shop compared to its current state.
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Ok... compared to Starcraft, it doesn't have a pro-scene and because of the 6 or 5 depending races, balance is really iffy. It's the same with company of heroes, i loved the game, but the multiplayer was absolutely retarded compared to BW or even WC3. (gee i hope this mortar round doesn't miss 5 times in a row or else i lose the game). So in context of what the OP asked, I guess I can't really comment on how "active" the communities are, but last I heard they were nearly dead. The rest is my opinion, but it doesn't hold up to Blizzard's RTS franchises.
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On September 13 2011 09:11 Endymion wrote:
Ok... compared to Starcraft, it doesn't have a pro-scene and because of the 6 or 5 depending races, balance is really iffy. It's the same with company of heroes, i loved the game, but the multiplayer was absolutely retarded compared to BW or even WC3. (gee i hope this mortar round doesn't miss 5 times in a row or else i lose the game). So in context of what the OP asked, I guess I can't really comment on how "active" the communities are, but last I heard they were nearly dead. The rest is my opinion, but it doesn't hold up to Blizzard's RTS franchises.
Thats stating the obv though. Of course its not going to be as good as bw or wc3 (maybe sc2) But as a RTS in its own right (or RTT if you pefer) its pretty darn good.
I would say DOW2 needs more game sense and map awareness than sc2. Seeing that you have to keep control of points and also keep map control (map control=victory) The miss and hit mechanic is auctally a lot of fun. There is a lot of pre judging before getting into a fight. the random aspect makes the game mopre skillful, as you can't just run a unit of space marines into another unit of covered choas space marines and expect them to hit every shot and win. So micro and taking care of your units is much more important. Cause a one sided fight can turn around and you lose all your stuff if you are not looking.
think of it like banelings chasing after a group of clumped marines. Its rather random how many the baneling hits because of the aoe. It might hit 10, it might hit 5, and the difference between 5 and 10 is big. or even like a fungal or storm. There is a lot of randomness to how many units the storm or fungal hits, you can't say "my storm will hit 30 marines all the time," cause there is unit movement and such.
So it doesn't take the same skill as sc2 to play DOW2 but it takes a different skill set. It does have a high skill cap because of all these things and it never comes down to (gee i hope this mortar round doesn't miss 5 times in a row or else i lose the game). If a game ever comes down to that, you lost way before that moment. Because
1, You're unlikely to miss 5 mortars in a row.
2, If you only have 1 mortar unit, you have lost the game already cause you should have more than 1 squad on the field
Like I metioned eariler, There is somewhere around 2000 people on most of the time. With it chaging due to time and such ( would expect to see 5k people on during peak hours) so it isn't dead. But not the 750k that sc2 has (average) also keep in mind that dow2 has no ums or anything like that except for last stand. So those 2k people are either idling in the game, playing campaign, or on mulitplayer. Where as the sc2 numbers are people on Bnet (not sure if just global or NA, would assume global) and doesn't account for people playing ums or idling.
Auctally there are a number of sc2 devs who worked in DOW2. I think 2-3 once DOW2 released started to work in sc2 (so around 08 ish) and one is afaik the senior designer for sc2.
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 04:41 Manit0u wrote:
When going against the randomness factor you shouldn't really make the point of "people could be winning more if it weren't a factor" because they could just as well win less. Randomness goes both ways and its influence on your skill and performance diminishes with the number of games played.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 04:41 Manit0u wrote:
This random factors also provide a very interesting process when it comes down to critical thinking when in game. Often you will see 2 great players playing with odds and taking risks they wouldn't if not for this random factors (2 low units battling it out and players not retreating them in hopes of getting the special attack, possible outcomes when not retreating: wipe or glory), this makes the game more entertaining both to play and watch.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 04:41 Manit0u wrote:
I don't really get the argument about macro either. Who said you need macro to make a successful and competetive game anyway? There are many mechanics in DoW2 that provide sufficient action sink, if you'd add macro in the most common meaning of the word the game would suck because the physical demands it would put upon you would be unconquerable by people with below 400-500APM (and even then I'm not sure it would be sufficient). As it is, in a well-developed game between good players you really need Boxer-like multiple drop micro and multi-tasking. While it may look so, this game is pretty challenging. Especially if you're matched against a good opponent, there's just so many things you need to be mindful about at all times all over the map...
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 04:41 Manit0u wrote:
And another nice thing about this game is that it scales well into games involving more than 2 players. WC3 was probably the only game so far I've seen do it well before CoH and DoW. I might even go as far as saying that it's more entertaining in 2v2 than 1v1 (just like WC3 was in my opinion), without it being broken like BW or SC2 where 2v2 is pure bullshit.
However, the lack of macro and heavy focus on heroes in WC3 made me quite disappointed with it. That's another can of worms that I don't really want to debate. 
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On September 13 2011 10:03 hotbreakfest wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 04:41 Manit0u wrote:
When going against the randomness factor you shouldn't really make the point of "people could be winning more if it weren't a factor" because they could just as well win less. Randomness goes both ways and its influence on your skill and performance diminishes with the number of games played. In a system with less built-in luck, the better player will win more, because more skill will be allowed to shine through. There is absolutely no good argument against this. + Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 04:41 Manit0u wrote:
This random factors also provide a very interesting process when it comes down to critical thinking when in game. Often you will see 2 great players playing with odds and taking risks they wouldn't if not for this random factors (2 low units battling it out and players not retreating them in hopes of getting the special attack, possible outcomes when not retreating: wipe or glory), this makes the game more entertaining both to play and watch. Random factors can make the game more interesting to watch, but it's not a good thing for competitive play. The top players are playing to win. They shouldn't care about making their games interesting to watch and only focus on getting 1st place prize. They would definitely take risks even without the system randomness, because humans are also very random. A player with a slightly smaller army can pull off a favorable trade if he can get superior positioning for his units and outmicro his opponents bigger army. Crossing your fingers and hope your dying unit pulls off a special attack does not promote good decision making.
If a top player is relying on luck to win a game. They won't win. The top players know when to go in and when to not. Its not an aspect of, if these guys hit I lose/win. If it comes down to a single unit, you're playing the game wrong.
Also I don't have it quoted but in regards to macroless RTS' are dumbed down RTS' is wrong in every sense.
RTS games auctally have little to do with Macro. Thats why they are not called RTEM or RTM. They are RTS for that Stragety in them. Macro doesn't really add or take away from the complexity of a game. Just make it a different RTS.
SC2 doesn't have control points, doesn't have cover, doesn't have hero units. Does that make it a dumbed down RTS from the point of view of a DOW2 player. No, not really. Just makes it a different RTS with different ways to play the game and a different skill set to play it and play it well.
A top sc2 player isn't going to be good at DOW2 just because he has superior macro. and vice versa for DOW2 player in sc2.
Both games require a lot of skill to play at the top level.
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There are some luck involved in bw and even more in Sc2 too. Imperfect information ( FoW ) sup ?
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 09:48 masterbreti wrote:
I would say DOW2 needs more game sense and map awareness than sc2. Seeing that you have to keep control of points and also keep map control (map control=victory) The miss and hit mechanic is auctally a lot of fun. There is a lot of pre judging before getting into a fight. the random aspect makes the game mopre skillful, as you can't just run a unit of space marines into another unit of covered choas space marines and expect them to hit every shot and win. So micro and taking care of your units is much more important. Cause a one sided fight can turn around and you lose all your stuff if you are not looking.
The random aspect only makes players more worried about being randomed out than getting out-played. This system-generated randomness doesn't trump over skill, but it's still important enough to shape the outcome of the game.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 09:48 masterbreti wrote:
think of it like banelings chasing after a group of clumped marines. Its rather random how many the baneling hits because of the aoe. It might hit 10, it might hit 5, and the difference between 5 and 10 is big. or even like a fungal or storm. There is a lot of randomness to how many units the storm or fungal hits, you can't say "my storm will hit 30 marines all the time," cause there is unit movement and such.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 09:48 masterbreti wrote:
So it doesn't take the same skill as sc2 to play DOW2 but it takes a different skill set. It does have a high skill cap because of all these things and it never comes down to (gee i hope this mortar round doesn't miss 5 times in a row or else i lose the game). If a game ever comes down to that, you lost way before that moment. Because
1, You're unlikely to miss 5 mortars in a row.
2, If you only have 1 mortar unit, you have lost the game already cause you should have more than 1 squad on the field
You're definitely likely to miss 1-2 mortars in a row. If you and your opponent are on match point in grand finals, then this could definitely fuck things up. I don't think it's fair that you had enough of an advantage to lockdown your opponent and grab the $2000 prize, but your mortar squad could not hit your opponents stationary AT or machine gunners in time. Why do you deserve to lose your advantage, because the game already decided that for you? You didn't lose it because of your incompetence, you just got unlucky.
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I have never seen a game where a single mortar shot or a single unit would gain that big of an advantage just purely based on luck. I never see a caster go "well he got unlucky with those shots and it cost him the game,"
In general the miss feature hardly even make a dent in a close game. Cause guess what? He has the same thing. He can miss some machine gun shots etc..
The randomness isn't really a problem. If anything it makes the game more exciting to watch. The top players don't go by luck. If it comes down to luck. Then you have lost already. Don't rely on luck to win you game, and don't rely on getting lucky to not lose a game. You never see top players get unlucky and lose due to randomness. Its a factor in their decisions and they play accordingly. If they have a smart prediction that they will miss a shot. They won't engage a machine gun because the risk would outweigh the possible outcome.
In that sense I think the game has great potentital to be a esport. Just needs the right support.
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On September 13 2011 10:51 masterbreti wrote:
I have never seen a game where a single mortar shot or a single unit would gain that big of an advantage just purely based on luck. I never see a caster go "well he got unlucky with those shots and it cost him the game,"
In general the miss feature hardly even make a dent in a close game. Cause guess what? He has the same thing. He can miss some machine gun shots etc..
The randomness isn't really a problem. If anything it makes the game more exciting to watch. The top players don't go by luck. If it comes down to luck. Then you have lost already. Don't rely on luck to win you game, and don't rely on getting lucky to not lose a game. You never see top players get unlucky and lose due to randomness. Its a factor in their decisions and they play accordingly. If they have a smart prediction that they will miss a shot. They won't engage a machine gun because the risk would outweigh the possible outcome.
In that sense I think the game has great potentital to be a esport. Just needs the right support.
I have however seen multiple instances where the retreating squad glitches out and gets killed for it, or a sync kill goes off and hugely lowers the amount of damage that could have been done.
There are a lot of small things that could be adjusted with a mod and some polish in order to make it competitive (Hell if they did it with L4D they can do it for anything).
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 10:24 Boblion wrote:
There are some luck involved in bw and even more in Sc2 too. Imperfect information ( FoW ) sup ?
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 10:21 masterbreti wrote:
If a top player is relying on luck to win a game. They won't win. The top players know when to go in and when to not. Its not an aspect of, if these guys hit I lose/win. If it comes down to a single unit, you're playing the game wrong.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 10:21 masterbreti wrote:
Also I don't have it quoted but in regards to macroless RTS' are dumbed down RTS' is wrong in every sense.
RTS games auctally have little to do with Macro. Thats why they are not called RTEM or RTM. They are RTS for that Stragety in them. Macro doesn't really add or take away from the complexity of a game. Just make it a different RTS.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 10:21 masterbreti wrote:
SC2 doesn't have control points, doesn't have cover, doesn't have hero units. Does that make it a dumbed down RTS from the point of view of a DOW2 player. No, not really. Just makes it a different RTS with different ways to play the game and a different skill set to play it and play it well.
DoW doesn't have different skill sets and I've already explained why. If I missed something, then explain to me what these hidden skill sets are exactly. Cover mode isn't too much different than making photon cannons or bunkers with a bit of army support, because all of these are good, semi-static tools for controlling space. SC2 does have control points and they're called expansions.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 10:21 masterbreti wrote:
A top sc2 player isn't going to be good at DOW2 just because he has superior macro. and vice versa for DOW2 player in sc2.
Both games require a lot of skill to play at the top level.
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 10:51 masterbreti wrote:
I have never seen a game where a single mortar shot or a single unit would gain that big of an advantage just purely based on luck. I never see a caster go "well he got unlucky with those shots and it cost him the game,"
In general the miss feature hardly even make a dent in a close game. Cause guess what? He has the same thing. He can miss some machine gun shots etc..
The randomness isn't really a problem. If anything it makes the game more exciting to watch. The top players don't go by luck. If it comes down to luck. Then you have lost already. Don't rely on luck to win you game, and don't rely on getting lucky to not lose a game. You never see top players get unlucky and lose due to randomness. Its a factor in their decisions and they play accordingly. If they have a smart prediction that they will miss a shot. They won't engage a machine gun because the risk would outweigh the possible outcome.
In that sense I think the game has great potentital to be a esport. Just needs the right support.
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On September 13 2011 10:24 Boblion wrote:
There are some luck involved in bw and even more in Sc2 too. Imperfect information ( FoW ) sup ?
How is imperfect information luck, exactly? It's your own fault for not scouting.
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Well, if i had to commend DOW 2 for something its the fact that there is little Blob like behaviour. Oh sure you do benefit from having most / all of your troops in one basket but atleast you can fan them out, use different squads on different ridges and not worry too much about exhausting all your 1-9 hotkeys on 5 different hatcheries. >BD
Units having vastly different ranges, supression and stealth mechanics, heroes with spells and wargear upgrades, nades etc. Its all fun and the different races makes for a great atmosphere.
Id suggest getting everything. The first two campains (vanilla and Chaos rising) are better than the last but Retribution is still kinda cool if you fancy Orks.
I prefer it like this rather than the old games where you actually had a base building aspect / macro.
The limited amount of units and the fighting reminds me somewhat of the table top game (that i have never played ;P ). The game modes are nifty tastic (last stand and 2v2,3v3,4v4).
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 11:07 Percutio wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 10:51 masterbreti wrote:
I have never seen a game where a single mortar shot or a single unit would gain that big of an advantage just purely based on luck. I never see a caster go "well he got unlucky with those shots and it cost him the game,"
In general the miss feature hardly even make a dent in a close game. Cause guess what? He has the same thing. He can miss some machine gun shots etc..
The randomness isn't really a problem. If anything it makes the game more exciting to watch. The top players don't go by luck. If it comes down to luck. Then you have lost already. Don't rely on luck to win you game, and don't rely on getting lucky to not lose a game. You never see top players get unlucky and lose due to randomness. Its a factor in their decisions and they play accordingly. If they have a smart prediction that they will miss a shot. They won't engage a machine gun because the risk would outweigh the possible outcome.
In that sense I think the game has great potentital to be a esport. Just needs the right support. I have however seen multiple instances where the retreating squad glitches out and gets killed for it, or a sync kill goes off and hugely lowers the amount of damage that could have been done. There are a lot of small things that could be adjusted with a mod and some polish in order to make it competitive (Hell if they did it with L4D they can do it for anything).
This is fair. There were quite a few glitches in Retri and also the style of game and a bit of imbalance turned people off. However the glitches and imbalance have been sorted out a lot and the community is growing and feeling positive. Space Marine has took some (about 1/4) players away last week but they will be back, and maybe more. hopefully it still gows. people want to play this game but some bugs just break immersion and it's easy to say "screw that I'm going to SC2". By the way I think the lack of bugs in SC2 for a major release is one of the main factors of its popularity, Blizzard nailed that.
There was a glitch where a SM casting unit could keep firing like a mini psi storm (Librarian Smite bug) without losing energy or without cooldown if they cancelled the action during animation. This and others sent the GR community crazy which ended up with Relic coming out being honest saying what difficulties they have and now they all worked together to fix most things. The main balance designer is now very active in the community and after Space Marine release they are pushing Retribution again. If they do things well there could still be a long life left yet. OK it will never be as big as Starcraft2 but you don't really need that if you enjoy the game. You can still compete and get involved at any level.
BTW you can download demos on Steam for all 4 DOW1 games vanilla, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade and SoulStorm. Each has tutorial and like 1-2 hours of campaign content and you can skirmish vs AI on 1-2 maps. They are well worth looking at.
DOW2 vanilla has a demo on Steam with the first 3 campaign missions but i wasn't impressed by that. the early missions are a bit dull to be honest but get great later. Multiplayer in Retri is quite different to that campaign mode.
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