Warhammer Dawn of War 3 - DAMNATIO MEMORIAE

[thesheeep]

55% steam reviews still.

 

[Martius]

Apparently someone in Relic decided it is a good idea to force people that only care for MP to play SP as well. How? You need skulls (ingame currency) to unlock Elite units and many army doctrines. Just playing MP you will get some of these. If you spend 12h playing SP you will get huge amounts.

Thats sounds similar to unlocking units in Command and Conquer 4. Maybe some at Relic is a fan?

 

[decaf]

There's something fucky about the graphix. The units kind of blend into the terrain. Plus all the glowy shit and smoke.

No wonder they mentioned needing the units to be more bold and colorful, you can't see shit.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I've heard there is no morale/suppression in this game. Is this true?

 

[mutonizer]

Took me 30 seconds during open beta to realize it was designed by absolute morons, even before starting an actual game (where it got worse). Might have been changed now but you had to choose your elites and doctrines BEFORE knowing the map and the races of your opponents. It's like they put features in because "that's what people do" with no clue whatsoever as to what they are used for.

I have been watching people play MP after release and you can switch your elites or doctrines after you know your opponents race and map. Game gives you 1 min for that.

Glad the SP is shit as well though, feeling good about not buying that shit for once.

I've heard there is no morale/suppression in this game. Is this true?

Again, might have been changed now but no, no suppression, just, I think, slow down movement.
No actual cover either, which was a pretty cool system before I thought, just some non-sensical gamey "this pixel makes you totally invisible", "this pixel blocks everything but melee attacks".
No retreat system either which means every single engagement is a all or nothing one.

 

[Delbaeth]

Age of Empires 2 HD
Age of Mythology HD
soon we'll get Brood War HD

Don't forget Cossacks HD 3.

Oh wait.

Edit: Well, is Armageddon good? I know it's W40K in Panzer Corps, but at least, there isn't DRM in it, while I don't trust Sega to skip DRM anytime soon.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Well, is Armageddon good?

Nope.

 

[Delbaeth]

Oh sorry, thanks.
Oh well.

So Fantasy Battle is dead (Age of Sigmar is unappealing to me), Games Workshop is in full decline regarding miniatures' distribution, and now the whole licences are dumbed down in video games...
The end of an era.

Though, I can't say I'm surprised.

 

[ArchAngel]

There's something fucky about the graphix. The units kind of blend into the terrain. Plus all the glowy shit and smoke.

No wonder they mentioned needing the units to be more bold and colorful, you can't see shit.

TB's review mentioned something about AA being shit in the game and making everything blurry. He had it turned off.

 

[ArchAngel]

Took me 30 seconds during open beta to realize it was designed by absolute morons, even before starting an actual game (where it got worse). Might have been changed now but you had to choose your elites and doctrines BEFORE knowing the map and the races of your opponents. It's like they put features in because "that's what people do" with no clue whatsoever as to what they are used for.

Glad the SP is shit as well though, feeling good about not buying that shit for once.

I have been watching people play MP after release and you can switch your elites or doctrines after you know your opponents race and map. Game gives you 1 min for that.

I've heard there is no morale/suppression in this game. Is this true?

Again, might have been changed now but no, no suppression, just, I think, slow down movement.
No actual cover either, which was a pretty cool system before I thought, just some non-sensical gamey "this pixel makes you totally invisible", "this pixel blocks everything but melee attacks".
No retreat system either which means every single engagement is a all or nothing one.

Game is mix of Warcraft 3 and Dota. Only thing it kept from previous DoW games is squads instead of single soldiers and resources being all over the map that you need to fight for.
I spent couple of hours now watching MP, I think it is cool.. if you like something that is also similar to Blizzard games. But for 60$ it is not worth it.
EDIT: And you can retreat often if you played smart and you got good APM. There is just not a button for it or whatever, it takes skill and knowledge to do it well.

 

[Suicidal]

So is this like Command and Conquer 4 all over again?

 

[ArchAngel]

So is this like Command and Conquer 4 all over again?

I never played it and never read any reviews. I just heard it sucked so never bothered to learn the details.

 

[Suicidal]

So is this like Command and Conquer 4 all over again?

I never played it and never read any reviews. I just heard it sucked so never bothered to learn the details.

They turned a perfectly decent RTS series into a 1 unit spam control point capturing simulator with the complexity of a flash game you can play in your browser, just with fancy graphics and with an unlockable system which forces you to play games in order to get access to more units. While some people already gave up on the series with CnC 3, I personally enjoyed it, it just wasn't my favorite, but at least it was a fucking RTS game compared to whatever the fuck CnC 4 turned out to be.

It's just all this talk about unlockables and MOBA elements in DOW 3 gave me painful flashbacks of CnC 4.

 

[ArchAngel]

So is this like Command and Conquer 4 all over again?

I never played it and never read any reviews. I just heard it sucked so never bothered to learn the details.

They turned a perfectly decent RTS series into a 1 unit spam control point capturing simulator with the complexity of a flash game you can play in your browser, just with fancy graphics and with an unlockable system which forces you to play games in order to get access to more units. While some people already gave up on the series with CnC 3, I personally enjoyed it, it just wasn't my favorite, but at least it was a fucking RTS game compared to whatever the fuck CnC 4 turned out to be.

It's just all this talk about unlockables and MOBA elements in DOW 3 gave me painful flashbacks of CnC 4.

OK, that sounds different than what DoW3 has. You start with access to all units and 3 elite units and 0 doctrines. You use skulls to unlock new Elites and new Doctrines (each faction has I think 4+ elites to unlock and 40+ doctrines). You can unlock a few relatively fast, if you read which ones are the best you can just unlock those but if you are learning yourself and want to try out different ones then you are kind of fucked trying to unlock all of them. The biggest problem is that some doctrines are locked behind needing to get specific Elite units to specific levels. Some of those are significant bonuses.
Doctrines are like passive or active skills for certain unit types. The idea is to find units that you like to use and then use a doctrine that makes them better. Of if you figure out certain units work better in certain matchups you will want to use doctrines for those units.
Also some doctrines are useful for any tactic, but those give lesser bonuses. Like buffing buildings you will always use and such.

 

[Maculo]

In a moment of weakness, I bought the game (I just wanted an RTS). I am currently going through the campaign on hard, and it certainly is a mixed experience. The first mission actually exceeded my expectations. On hard, you have a handful of space marine squads against multiple waves of Orks. It felt good having to survive the onslaught, and keeping squads alive mattered simply because you had so few to begin with. I used every stun/slam ability on cooldown to keep my squads alive. I was upbeat, and then I got to the Ork and Eldar missions...

The Ork mission was okay, I built up a decent size army only to have it die in a few seconds when I was careless. Without going into spoilers, let's just say you need to defend an objective that moves incrementally. At a certain point, I just spammed the basic melee fighter and won (this is on Hard mind you). It was an okay mission, but nowhere near as exciting as the Space Marine mission.

The Eldar mission is just straight up tedious. The tension in the first mission is gone. I feel like I just build up forces to suicide them into bases. A skilled player could do better, but it is not like the enemy AI attacks you. In fact, I am not even certain it reinforces its forces.

I am sure there are plenty of missions left. The annoying part is that I can see decent ideas, just weird or half-baked execution.

 

[AngryEddy]

So is this like Command and Conquer 4 all over again?

dude, its fuckin terrible. eldar guardians have more staying power than assault marines lolol.

not to mention you have to grind for (((skulls)))

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Is there an extended demo? I want to play 40k SP, no matter how shit it is goddamnit

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

nope. at least not for now.
if it's denuvo, you're not missing much. exactly like starforce 3, it can be hardly cracked but it's used to protect only the worst horrible shit you've ever seen.

edit:

Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Denuvo Antitamper

as i said, the worst horrible shit you've ever seen.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Apparently someone in Relic decided it is a good idea to force people that only care for MP to play SP as well. How? You need skulls (ingame currency) to unlock Elite units and many army doctrines. Just playing MP you will get some of these. If you spend 12h playing SP you will get huge amounts.
To make it even worse, the Elite unit you get during the Campaign get XP and level up and that is carried to MP. But if you only use them in MP they level up super slow, probably 10x slower.
So someone at Relic was on some hard drugs when coming up with this terrible system.
This is even worse than later ME games forcing players to play MP to get a perfect score in SP.

This reminds me of console fighting game ports in the past where they forced you to grind singleplayer Arcade mode to unlock characters for Versus play. For example, Marvel vs Capcom 2 on Dreamcast was particularly egregious.

 

[Maculo]

I have not had much time to play due to work, but I got to the second Space Marine mission. Once again, the Space Marine mission seems superior in terms of challenge. You are swarmed by Eldar from multiple attach points, and with only a few squads to fend them off with. The Eldar can shred tactical marines and Angelos easily. Thankfully, you get a dreadnought which can practically hold off a side by itself. Moreover, you start with just enough resources to decide whether to buy more units, tech towards weapon load outs, or reserve requisition for reinforcements (the game suggests you build devastators, but I think that is a bad idea due to how easily banshees can swarm them).

Another nice aspect of the Space Marine missions is that you can see Imperial Guard units getting wrecked, and your squads are the only thing that can stand in a fight against the xenos. Even then, you are outnumber and outgunned, and so you have to get a little creative. The Emperor would perhaps nod approvingly.

Strangely, in the Space Marine missions you see the strengths and weaknesses of Orks and Eldar better than the actual Ork and Eldar missions. In the first Space Marine mission, the basic Ork melee fighter can swarm your forces easily if you do not use flash grenade or Gabriel's abilities. That mission forces you to separate your forces and try your best to control where the Ork fighters go (did I mention Tactical Marines are like tissue paper?). In the second mission, you can see how Eldar can use webway portals to ambush you from high ground or simply how much damage their ranged units can do. In contrast, the Ork and Eldar missions do not give you situations that play to those strengths (or at least, you can 1a2a3a with a blob).

My initial impression is that the small engagements are actually satisfying. A mix of a Deathwatch Team elite, upgraded Assault Marines, and Scouts make for a fun fight. Honestly, I would like to see a game mode where you have a certain allotment of resources and elites. Once my armies grows large, however, I have trouble tracking what the hell is going on. There is so much AoE and abilities that micro management becomes hectic. Granted, this could be because I am slow and my computer is on medium graphics.

The gameplay is also..."gamey" or arcade-ish. I am not sure what word to use. For example, if you field Angelos, your units receive health regeneration for a short period after you you use Drop Pods. There is no real reason why it does this, but it is a nice ability to rely upon on a push. Another example is the battle standard cooldown for Space Marines. You drop a battle standard, which gives your units a boost. The battle standards sounded goofy to me, but it can win you a battle if you use it right.

Edit: You guys remember the part of the DoW III trailer where the Space Marines get swarmed by Orks jumping from the statue of the Emperor? Little did we know that is an actual representation of what it is like to purchase Tactical Marines. Be prepared to watch your Tactical Marines die, die, and die some more.

 

[Neanderthal]

Think i'll gi this a miss, based on watchin a few playthroughs an your lads comments it dunt seem my cup o tea.

Actually havin a lotta fun playin original Dawn of War in Soulstorm engine thanks to a mod, got some deleted contents re-implemented an difficulties nicely ramped up, it lets you play Winter Assault an all which i'm gonna have a go at next.

 

[Norfleet]

So it looks like in the grim darkness of the far future, everything is shit then.

This is a surprise? Everything was shit back during Roman times, which is why they gave us the eloquent saying, "Omnia merdae sunt". Since the entropy always increases, things have only gotten worse. In the future, they will be even worse still!

 

[groke]

Oh sorry, thanks.
Oh well.

So Fantasy Battle is dead (Age of Sigmar is unappealing to me), Games Workshop is in full decline regarding miniatures' distribution, and now the whole licences are dumbed down in video games...
The end of an era.

Though, I can't say I'm surprised.

Games Workshop has gotten worse every single year since 1992.

 

[Norfleet]

Decline is inevitable and inexorable. Entropy always increases.

 

[Maculo]

As ArchAngel mentioned earlier, your elites level up from campaign missions and you receive skulls. It is weird because I do not know if the unlocked passive effects and doctrines apply to the campaign missions. If elite upgrades and doctrines do not apply to campaign missions, then why would they show it after missions?