On November 02 2020 21:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: I can see MOBAs as a different sort of RTS, but auto battlers are not a type of RTS, as inherent in RTS real time and the ability to micro. Autochess is a turn based game, not real time; they are two different type of games.
That's true.....but for casuals, who aren't going to micro much, or even goes far as to say they hate micro, I think its as real time as it typically gets for them. They're not really interested in multitasking but building up armies and watching them clash in glorious combat. It looks just as real-time as it would to them playing age of empires/starcraft and just a moving, if that makes sense.
Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
Was Dawn of War 2 even successful as a game? I've always felt that Company of Heroes had the better squad based RTS, but maybe just bias on my part. Never picked up Dawn of War 3, but I guess there's a DoW3 and not a CoH3 so I'm probably just wrong here.
On November 03 2020 22:36 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: Was Dawn of War 2 even successful as a game? I've always felt that Company of Heroes had the better squad based RTS, but maybe just bias on my part. Never picked up Dawn of War 3, but I guess there's a DoW3 and not a CoH3 so I'm probably just wrong here.
DoW2 was pretty successful. DoW3 was one of the very few games where I asked for a refund.
It's a pity that THQ/Relic aren't really there for it any more but the community has been doing great with unofficial patches like Elite Mod which is being developed by top competitive players and they're still holding some events.
The main difference between CoH and DoW2 is that DoW is less spammy as you typically have fewer units. This also means that units have much more impact and preserving them is of utmost importance. You also get more interesting units because of the setting so you get your jump infantry, teleporting units, invisible units etc.
Like I mentioned previously, it's easier for the newbies because of smaller scale in general. Great for spectators since you get more flashy abilities and less stuff on the field making it easier to follow. At the same time it's really good for advanced players as you have to use the few resources you have to get the best out of them (and it's harder than it seems).
On November 03 2020 22:12 Manit0u wrote: Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
This surprises me. When I bought DoW2 back when it was released and played/watched some of it, I quickly concluded that it was absolute garbage. I never bought any of the expansions or DoW3 after that. Even years later when I tuned into an event it was utterly boring to watch. How popular was it during its peak and how long did it last?
On November 03 2020 22:12 Manit0u wrote: Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
This surprises me. When I bought DoW2 back when it was released and played/watched some of it, I quickly concluded that it was absolute garbage. I never bought any of the expansions or DoW3 after that. Even years later when I tuned into an event it was utterly boring to watch. How popular was it during its peak and how long did it last?
It was fairly popular all things considered. It's hard to judge it against the giants since it has always been rather niche series but as far as I know it is pretty highly praised and well received. Especially the expansions since Relic made the mistake of going double-DRM with initial DoW2 release (steam + xbox). It slowed down the patching (since all the patches had to be vetted by Microsoft and it was long and tedious process so they waited until more changes accumulated to do it in one batch rather than small incremental updates) and was annoying as hell. Expansions remedied it (and can be played standalone) and Retribution is pretty great. I play it from time to time to this day and have around 500 hours put into it which is quite a lot considering my rather casual approach to games.
Please just make sure it's predominantly a macro RTS (with only some micro incentives) and please balance for the top 1% of the playerbase, not bronze leaguers.
I played quite a lot of DoW (even tho I only joined the party with DC), but I never got into DoW2. It just seemed completely unacceptable that the game got rid of base building and I somehow never got interested in it (mainly due to most of my friends that I played DoW with really hating it during beta). Didnt know that it actually developed into a game with an active community or anything like that.
On November 03 2020 22:12 Manit0u wrote: Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
This surprises me. When I bought DoW2 back when it was released and played/watched some of it, I quickly concluded that it was absolute garbage. I never bought any of the expansions or DoW3 after that. Even years later when I tuned into an event it was utterly boring to watch. How popular was it during its peak and how long did it last?
It was fairly popular all things considered. It's hard to judge it against the giants since it has always been rather niche series but as far as I know it is pretty highly praised and well received. Especially the expansions since Relic made the mistake of going double-DRM with initial DoW2 release (steam + xbox). It slowed down the patching (since all the patches had to be vetted by Microsoft and it was long and tedious process so they waited until more changes accumulated to do it in one batch rather than small incremental updates) and was annoying as hell. Expansions remedied it (and can be played standalone) and Retribution is pretty great. I play it from time to time to this day and have around 500 hours put into it which is quite a lot considering my rather casual approach to games.
Also looks like competitive DoW2 is played with a third party mod for balance because the developers abandoned it. Very hard entry for players sadly.
Well, the publisher went bankrupt and the devs moved to doing different things so community took balancing into their own hands. I'm not saying to get into it now, I'm saying it used to be quite popular (we have to remember that this game is pretty old after all) and still has dedicated players who keep patching and re-balancing the game to keep it fresh.
On November 05 2020 00:47 Latham wrote: Please just make sure it's predominantly a macro RTS (with only some micro incentives) and please balance for the top 1% of the playerbase, not bronze leaguers.
Haha I want it to go in the exact opposite direction xD Lots of micro and skillshots. Base building no more than a Protoss kinda level. With Terran I get always supply capped cause I only send one SCV to build 6 depots ^^' Terran macro is definitely the hardest (for me).
I just hope they have a vision of what they want to do, while seeking community input rather than being lead by a community with vastly different preferences. Trying to be all things to all men and you end up not appealing to anyone.
On November 03 2020 22:36 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: Was Dawn of War 2 even successful as a game? I've always felt that Company of Heroes had the better squad based RTS, but maybe just bias on my part. Never picked up Dawn of War 3, but I guess there's a DoW3 and not a CoH3 so I'm probably just wrong here.
DoW2 was pretty successful. DoW3 was one of the very few games where I asked for a refund.
It's a pity that THQ/Relic aren't really there for it any more but the community has been doing great with unofficial patches like Elite Mod which is being developed by top competitive players and they're still holding some events.
The main difference between CoH and DoW2 is that DoW is less spammy as you typically have fewer units. This also means that units have much more impact and preserving them is of utmost importance. You also get more interesting units because of the setting so you get your jump infantry, teleporting units, invisible units etc.
Like I mentioned previously, it's easier for the newbies because of smaller scale in general. Great for spectators since you get more flashy abilities and less stuff on the field making it easier to follow. At the same time it's really good for advanced players as you have to use the few resources you have to get the best out of them (and it's harder than it seems).
My impression was that a lot of people played the single player campaign, which was pretty fun and maybe some survival and that the PvP community was very small to begin with. When I started playing it I initially thought that it was hard to get into, because there are ton of upgrades on your units and I had no idea which to get when and need to keep my units alive for the upgrades to do anything. That the game is really roundabout at getting a pve skirmish match started and that the pvp had nothing to do with the campaign and was a bit removed from the typical PvP RTS made the entry unnecessary hard imo. That the game is still somewhat alive is impressive though.
On an unrelated note I thought dow3 was still fun and did a better job connecting campaign and pvp. I think they tried to connect the more viewer friendly terrible damage with the dow mechanics, but the map pool was utterly awful at release and it has the typical "terrible damage means terrible snowball" effect, which means that early casualties 100% decide the match.
EPT
