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Dawn of War III - Review Thread

zoukka

Member
40k or totally wouldn't work with Total War as Total War is all about formation warfare. As such the "most modern" the series ever goes is early Victorian era when units were still fighting in gunline formations and using slow loading rifles, with a very few semi-auto weapons thrown in (sure, Fall of the Samurai had Gattlings, and they were completely overpowered).

Now Creative Assembly doing a new Strategy IP that focuses on Total War or Tabletop (thinking 1500-2000 pts) sized fights with it's own unique gameplay and mechanics?
Hell yes, I would play the shit out of it.

Well DoW did take plenty of freedom to modify the stats of 40k lore so the game was balanced. They could do the same for TW.
 

Stig_92

Neo Member
Glad I played the Beta, I've cancelled my pre-order and I will wait a few months before it is properly fixed and balanced.
 

Feeroper

Member
Disappointed to see the user reviews here from the open beta. I really wanted to get this game as I really like DoW 1 and to a lesser extent I liked DoW 2 as well, but this doesn't look good. It looks like its going to be drowning in DLC as well. Its a shame if so.

Well, I suppose I save money this way.
 
They literally took the scrub/bushes from League of Legends and plunked them into Dawn of War, they work exactly the same and are actually even worse because units can shoot out of them while remaining hidden, unlike League.
Forgot to list that in my "things they took from MOBAs" rundown post, don't blame myself for forgetting because the list was that long already.

From the moment they said they were taking inspiration from MOBAs that was cause for concern. In the past on other sites when i've mentioned how i was worried about the game being heavily influenced by MOBAs which would probably take away from the experience i've just had it all thrown back at me with excuses of "It's not MOBA-like, it's just an RTS with more emphasis on the heroes!" and people saying there's not that much of a difference between the two. Now that it's playable though, it's even more clear how close to an MOBA it is and i don't see how that benefits the game at all.

I'm wondering, what is that storm attack the Eldar get? It seems to last a very, very long time....
 

zoukka

Member
TBH I don't see any MOBA qualities in this. It's just something people blurt out when they see the core that you need to kill. The map control is similar to DoW2 in the sense that capturing and harassing points is the core of the match. But the elites and the map design seem to make the matches long stalemates. In Dow 2 the tickets would just tick down and end the match.
 

Beepos

Member
Wow, this is a great blend of Moba and RTS. Sure it's way different, but I am actually enjoying the strip down raw essence of it. Def better than DOW2 anyways for me..

Game would be so much better with 3 - 4 extra races. Pseudo Moba / RTS I can totally dig it.
 
TBH I don't see any MOBA qualities in this. It's just something people blurt out when they see the core that you need to kill. The map control is similar to DoW2 in the sense that capturing and harassing points is the core of the match. But the elites and the map design seem to make the matches long stalemates. In Dow 2 the tickets would just tick down and end the match.
I am just going to quote myself from earlier in this thread:

Actually I play a whole bunch of League/LoL and I enjoy MOBAs in general quite a lot.
DoW3 definitely has a whole bunch of elements lifted straight from MOBAs:

-Extremely powerful hero abilities that work like skillshots in MOBAs (so lots of active abilities you need to aim with templates/cones). Compared to that, non Psyker units in DoW1 primarily had more passive buffs and served to support your army, now those skillshots can easily devastate entire squads/groups of regular troops.

Also several of those active abilities are downright exact copies of active abilities that exist in League and DOTA2, for example Jain Zar is effectively an Eldar skinned version of Ahri (League), with the her Glaive ability being exactly the same as the Orb of Deception and even the Dash ability being essentially the same as Ahri's ult. The only difference is that they switched out two of Ahri's active abilities (one of which wasn't a skill shot anyway) for passives. They literally put a League character with little alterations into a Dawn of War game, that's telling.

- The camera is taken straight out of a MOBA game. Camera zoomed in rather close to the ground, limited ability to zoom out, not being able to change the camera angle to be able to see more in a certain direction, having to move the camera a whole lot because many units have a firing range or abilities that far exceed the camera window if you center in on a battle, you have limited ability to track what happens at the fringes of a battle. Works well for MOBAs where you control a single character and have to keep a limited number of characters in view, works really badly for a mass battle RTS.

- While I like that the base towers prevent early base rushes and matches being over too quickly, they extremely limit the size of the map, the number of approaches (in a 3vs3 match there being 3 approaches to a base, 4-5 often narrow passageways to navigate the rest of the map at best, that's how 1 vs 1 maps in DoW1 looked like, 3vs3 or even 2vs2 maps were massively more open than that). Also the 'destroy Generator->Tower->Core' gameplay is basically the same as e.g. Leagues 'destroy Tower 1 -> Tower 2 -> Core' gameplay. In Dawn of War 1 you actively built smaller base defense turrets and minefields to protect your base while building smaller bases/outposts at different parts of the map (e.g. something you can also do in Starcraft) was always an option, now there is no point in building anything outside the safe base bubble provided by the uber murder MOBA towers, because if they are breached the enemy player(s) will just focus down the core and win anyway.

- Non-hero units are small in size (3-6 soldiers per squad, max.) while having an extreme lack of details on their models compared to even Dawn of War 1 (not even to mention DoW2), every member of a squad is basically a literal clone of each other. No squad leaders, nothing. No unique animations, they shoot/swing at their target until it's dead or they get killed. Coupled with how weak infantry and most regular vehicles are against hero units (which are mostly single model units) and how susceptible they are to skillshots/active abilities, they share all those traits with creep units in MOBAs.

I love playing MOBAs and unlike popular opinion they easily have as much depth or complexity as an RTS in different ways (e.g. the whole item/equipment system in League is incredibly deep and complex and has a very high learning curve, without reading guides you don't get far), but it's not something I want in an RTS, especially not Dawn of War which had so many elements differentiating it from more regular RTS, such as the focus on few squads, extremely detailed unit models if zoomed in, animations and melee combat as well as a complex morale system (even DoW1 literally being an RTS with 60% Company of Heroes in it, Relic basically took DoW1's squad/squad upgrade and morale systems and retreat functionality and was easily able to turn it into a squad based tactics game in the form of CoH). I definitely have to disagree with the notion that DoW2 was 'closer to a MOBA', it didn't share most of the above mentioned traits and those it did to a much lesser extend than DoW3.

And that's with leaving out above mentioned stealth scrub/high grass and the fact that standard units are much smaller in size and bulk than infantry hero units, something that makes sense in League (the creeps are essentially goblin sized in the lore as well), but not for Space Marines or Eldar, especially from a lore perspective. Size was still accurate in Dawn of War 1 and 2, with hero units and leaders being the same size as standard troops, unless they were much bigger in the tabletop as well (e.g. Orks or Tyranids). Also just like creeps in League all models in a standard unit also shareEXACTLY the same model and textures, they are literally identical clones, something that absolutely wasn't the case in DoW1 and DoW2. Here are some examples:

hBF261GzzBn2KVbh-92b404e556588ced6c1acd4ebf053f6809f73a93.png

ldZwfiDWLIpwqKlO-92b404e556588ced6c1acd4ebf053f6809f73a93.png

Similar to League, DoW3 has coloured unit outlines and is also much brighter and uses vastly brighter colours than the last two Dawn of War games and well, pretty much any Warhammer 40k video game , that made use of more muted and gritty colours and filters. 40k is supposed to be grimdark and gritty after all, not cheery and colourful.

The thing that hit me the most though was still that they literally copied one of the more well known and fan favorite Champions from League and put her into the game as hero unit with an Eldar skin. They probably took several other active abilities and skillshots from other LoL and DOTA2 characters for other hero units as well.

Those things are very apparent to anyone who ever played League (and likely DOTA2 as well) to any extend, that you didn't notice those rather obvious elements makes me question whether you ever played one for any considerabel stretch of time.
 

Beepos

Member
I am just going to quote myself from earlier in this thread:



And that's with leaving out above mentioned stealth scrub/high grass and the fact that standard units are much smaller in size and bulk than infantry hero units, something that makes sense in League (the creeps are essentially goblin sized in the lore as well), but not for Space Marines or Eldar, especially from a lore perspective. Size was still accurate in Dawn of War 1 and 2, with hero units and leaders being the same size as standard troops, unless they were much bigger in the tabletop as well (e.g. Orks or Tyranids). Also just like creeps in League all models in a standard unit also have EXACTLY the same model, they are literally identical clones, something that absolutely wasn't the case in DoW1 and DoW2.

The thing that hit me the most though was still that they literally copied one of the more well known and fan favourite Champions from League and put her into the game as hero unit with an Eldar skin. They probably took several other active abilities and skillshots from other LoL and DOTA2 characters for other hero units as well.

Those things are very apparent to anyone who ever played MOBAs to any extend, that you didn't notice those rather obvious elements makes me question whether you ever played one for any considerabel stretch of time.

Is there anything anything inherent wrong with this being a 40k "Moba". Sure it's way different, but so was DOW1 to DOW2. This is Relics way of getting into the Moba space in a Pseudo RTS. Honestly, it's not how I would of envisioned DOW3, but at least we have it, and I am sure they will add to it hardcore (Races, Elites, Doctrines etc.)
 

nkarafo

Member
Performance looks very bad from some videos i see. Looks like you need a 1080 card to hover close above 60fps @ 1080p in many instances. Game doesn't look that good to justify this monstrous requirement.
 
Is there anything anything inherent wrong with this being a 40k "Moba". Sure it's way different, but so was DOW1 to DOW2. This is Relics way of getting into the Moba space in a Pseudo RTS. Honestly, it's not how I would of envisioned DOW3, but at least we have it, and I am sure they will add to it hardcore (Races, Elites, Doctrines etc.)
There are few series where going in a radically different direction from the critically acclaimed older games in the series with stripped out well liked features and simplified and closer to 'whatever the non-hardcore mainstream is currently interested in even if it is from a completely different genre'' gameplay where the gamble paid off. You anger the established fanbase (doubly so with how lore inaccurate DoW3 is even compared to the first two games, and lore adherence is serious business for hardcore 40k fans which make up a serious part of the Dawn of War fanbae), create bad word of mouth (and how much anti-hype and sales impact that can cause was recently demonstrated by ME:Andromeda) and usually you can't bring enough more mainstream players that weren't interested in older games in the series on board.

And why should mainstream MOBA players that weren't interested in RTS (which especially in those times is a rather small niche genre) before pick up Dawn of War 3 exactly? League and DOTA2 have massive established fanbases and don't have a $60 price of admission because they are free. The gameplay experience is also more focused and refined and both games have years of careful balancing, marketing and community building behind them. Because of the 40k theme? Well good thing the game has somersaulting Angelos in Terminator armor that is ridiculously oversized and tactical Space Marines that get outgunned by Dire Avengers and everything with cheery bright colours for those people that like 40k and it's lore, or Emperor forbid, the tabletop game with all it's detailed and unique models.

Sega could have easily paid for the development of a free to play 40k MOBA without having to use the Dawn of War franchise for that and charging 60 bucks for rather little content.
 
The way they've decided to do heroes and elite units really makes no sense to me. In DoW1 Heroes were more of a powerful support unit for your army. In DoW2 they were something to build your army around, but not to the point where they'd win fights by themselevs and they allowed you access to more abilities and units depending on what you chose. Here though, they're just extremely powerful units that can fight off large groups of units by themselves and some of the Elite units are things that should be a standard part of your forces like Assault Terminators. The army doctrines are abilities that should have either been upgrades or things that you should have anyway, it's like they removed all the non-stat increase upgrades and just stuck them in as army doctrines yet you're only allowed 3 of them now.



Is there anything anything inherent wrong with this being a 40k "Moba". Sure it's way different, but so was DOW1 to DOW2. This is Relics way of getting into the Moba space in a Pseudo RTS. Honestly, it's not how I would of envisioned DOW3, but at least we have it, and I am sure they will add to it hardcore (Races, Elites, Doctrines etc.)

I think there's a big difference between this and what DoW1 to DoW2 did. In that situation they tried to improve core aspects of the game; cover and unit positioning, for example. It was a change in scale and overall gameplay but they were actually trying to improve it. Here though, they haven't really added anything and the change in gameplay is the result of them just removing what made the first two games what they were. I'm not saying they didn't work hard on it but it's sort of like it's only different because it doesn't make as much effort as the previous games, in a way. They've stripped out all the features of the previous games to go for a different type of player, how is that a good thing for fans of the series at all? How does it do anything better than DoW1 or 2, even if you find it more fun personally? The units have less detail, the combat has less weight and impact, the maps aren't as well designed with the MOBA lanes, the voice work is lacking, the bright art style doesn't fit in with W40K, the heroes/elites and army doctrines don't live up to what the previous games had and there's far less content (units, gamemodes, abilities, buildings, races).
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
There are few series where going in a radically different direction from the critically acclaimed older games in the series with stripped out well liked features and simplified and closer to 'whatever the non-hardcore mainstream is currently interested in' gameplay where the gamble paid off. You anger the established fanbase (doubly so with how lore inaccurate DoW3 is even compared to the first two games, and lore adherence is serious business for hardcore 40k fans which make up a serious part of the Dawn of War fanbae), create bad word of mouth (and how much anti-hype and sales impact that can cause was recently demonstrated by ME:Andromeda) and usually you can't bring enough more mainstream players that weren't interested in older games in the series on board.

This is almost an exact copy of how people talked about Dawn of War 2 in comparison to 1 when DOW 2 was released. Relic reinvents this series with each release.
 

Kalnos

Banned
Honestly with how poorly RTS games have performed in recent years it seems logical that companies are going to take cues from MOBAs and it's only natural that the two genres will directly influence one another given their intertwined history.

'Stealth grass' is a LoL thing, not a MOBA thing, and has been tried before in RTS games like Starcraft 2. Heroes can trace their origins to Warcraft 3 (maybe earlier?) and that's an RTS. The genres will continue to borrow from one another.
 
This is almost an exact copy of how people talked about Dawn of War 2 in comparison to 1 when DOW 2 was released. Relic reinvents this series with each release.
Dawn of War 2 still had:
- morale system (and the impact of that alone can not be stretched enough)
- extensive squad system with various squad size and equipment upgrades
- retreat functionality and the importance of keeping a limited number of units alive and healthy rather than spamming new ones
- early game units that remained relevant for the rest of the match instead of turning into cannon fodder
- Deployable defensive structures such as turrets
- was closely inspired by Company of Heroes which in turn took the bulk of it's core gameplay from Dawn of War 1
- detailed melee combat animations and kill-synch animations
- Varied and detailed and properly scaled models even for standard units, as well as squad leader characters/sergeants
- Limited number of vehicles but very powerful and quite counterable for infantry with the right specialist equipment
- Heroes being powerful but essentially support unit that needed support from standard troops instead of all-destroying murder machines that wipe the floor with normal units
- Very accurate and faithful to the 40k universe and lore
And those are just the things that immediately come to my mind.

If anything it was much closer to DoW1's core gameplay than DoW 3 is. Also Dawn of War 2 came out before League of Legends even originally released, soooo....

It runs actually quiet fine on my 1080 @ 1440p. Everything is set
DoW 3: Bad decision making, the game.
If anything is commendable about the game then it's that it's really well optimized (it run great on my laptop at near max settings even during CB), it should easily run on weaker systems. They went for Cell Shading-style visuals similar to League, those usually tend to run really well even on old hardware.
 

ISee

Member
Performance looks very bad from some videos i see. Looks like you need a 1080 card to hover close above 60fps @ 1080p in many instances. Game doesn't look that good to justify this monstrous requirement.

It runs actually quiet fine on my 1080 @ 1440p. Everything is set to max but AA which is at medium. And that's one of the problems why people report about bad performance: What is medium AA? Low seems to be FXAA, high is probably msaa, but at what factor? I don't know. Also what is the difference between high, higher and max Image quality? Just the shadow resolution? Why don't you tell me Relic? Who designed such stupid, half baked and meaningless graphic options? How are people supposed to figure out what to use or to deactivate? We're talking about a PC exclusive release from a well know PC Studio and they weren't even able to design reliable, self explanatory and helpful graphic options.
DoW 3: Bad decision making, the game.
 

Kalnos

Banned
My friend was running the beta on a 1090T and a GTX 460 which is effectively ancient now. Looked like shit but it worked.
 

Beepos

Member
Eh I'm finding it it way better than DOW2 at least. There is a small tech tree and decisions still need to be made (e.g. do I go barracks or not, both valid). Sure it's not what I wanted overall, but I am still getting a kick out of out micro'ing my heavy bolters and watching them slay everything. I don't even feel heroes last nearly as long as some people make out, unless they are the big 10 point ones.

In some ways it reminds me of WC3 and that is only a good thing.

(I think Retreat would of still been a good thing to have in this).
 
This is almost an exact copy of how people talked about Dawn of War 2 in comparison to 1 when DOW 2 was released. Relic reinvents this series with each release.

DoW2 was a change in direction but it didn't feel like that was the result of them just removing features, though. There were noticable attempts to improve things with DoW2, to me though DoW3 is a change in direction the ends up not doing anything as well as either DoW1 or 2, or even just DoW1 on its own with the combat and scale. There are just so many things in DoW3 that take away from the experience rather than add to it, like the lack of a retreat option when you're supposed to keep your units alive or army doctrines consisting of things that should just be upgrades. I don't see how this improves on any of the things the previous games did.
 
Performance looks very bad from some videos i see. Looks like you need a 1080 card to hover close above 60fps @ 1080p in many instances. Game doesn't look that good to justify this monstrous requirement.

I'm running a 1070 and 1440p and the game has been running very very well.
 

zoukka

Member
I am just going to quote myself from earlier in this thread:

I can see some of your points, but a lot of it just comes down to MOBA's not inventing stuff that is in the game. They didn't invent smaller unit sizes (since the whole scale of DoW3 is different, not just the early units), nor stylized graphics. Heroes and their abilities were absolutely crucial in DoW2 and they did have skill shots. And you are completely incorrect about building placement, you definitely need to build outside your "safety bubble" to get units and reinforcement earlier.

And if anything DoW2 heroes had more MOBA-like abilities and upgrades. Here they are very bare bones.

In conclusion DoW3 is a 2017 game and naturally takes influences from any successful game that is even close to the genre, this includes mobas, but the outcry over it is ridiculous.
 

a harpy

Member
The thing that hit me the most though was still that they literally copied one of the more well known and fan favorite Champions from League and put her into the game as hero unit with an Eldar skin. They probably took several other active abilities and skillshots from other LoL and DOTA2 characters for other hero units as well.

Those things are very apparent to anyone who ever played League (and likely DOTA2 as well) to any extend, that you didn't notice those rather obvious elements makes me question whether you ever played one for any considerabel stretch of time.

You're really misrepresenting this game. You have been for pages now, and it's incredibly frustrating because of quotes like above.
 

Fronzi

Neo Member
You're really misrepresenting this game. You have been for pages now, and it's incredibly frustrating because of quotes like above.

Well this is a convincing post. He described a specific hero from LoL, Jain Zar, not to mention the problems with the camera and the creeps...I mean units.

If he is misrepresenting the game, explain how.
 

Jinaar

Member
I totally agree with anyone stating this is not Grim Dark enough. I have figured out a way to make it more Grim Dark by punching my eyes with my own fists severely enough to limit even the hint of light thru to my retinas, bringing down the brightness of my monitor, turning any lights off and boarding up all windows. (Do all these things first before punching your eyes to a pulpy mess. I got the order wrong... made everything else afterwards alot harder to accomplish)

Doing this, all the unappreciative colors seen in the game are removed. Just darkness... and blood. I can't see well with my own blood caking my face. Feeling light headed...
 

Lorcain

Member
This thread motivated me to reinstall DoW2 and Retribution. The attention to detail in DoW2 (and DoW1) is really good, especially as a 40k fan.

My dream Relic 40k game would've been a SP campaign like Dark Crusade with all of the factions playable, with some (persistent) base building and the tactical focus of DoW2.
 

Puru

Member
You know a gendra is dead when the major complaint about one of the rare new titles giving another shot at it is it sharing similar features to a gendra that ultimately was given birth by the now dead gendra, especially when most of those are nothing new to rts to begin with, in that case rts > moba > rip rts.
 

Jinaar

Member
You know a gendra is dead when the major complaint about one of the rare new titles giving another shot at it is it sharing similar features to a gendra that ultimately was given birth by the now dead gendra, especially when most of those are nothing new to rts to begin with, in that case rts > moba > rip rts.

The circle is completed! The Ninth Layer of Hell is open to us!
 

Dylan

Member
I honestly don't mind the alleged "Moba-like" additions to DoW3, but I really really do miss the physics and cover system. To me, that was the magic of DoW2 (and CoH).

That said, even though I like this much less than DoW2, it's still a fuck ton of fun, and there really isn't any other game that serves this style anymore.

Unfortunatley, given the sheer amount of amazing games available to play, spending $72 CAD on DoWIII is absolutely not something I'm prepared to do. I'll happily pay $40 or so whenever it hits that price.


Until then.. ...anyone wanna play some DoWII?
 

Berzerkiymc

Neo Member
I honestly don't mind the alleged "Moba-like" additions to DoW3, but I really really do miss the physics and cover system. To me, that was the magic of DoW2 (and CoH).

That said, even though I like this much less than DoW2, it's still a fuck ton of fun, and there really isn't any other game that serves this style anymore.

Unfortunatley, given the sheer amount of amazing games available to play, spending $72 CAD on DoWIII is absolutely not something I'm prepared to do. I'll happily pay $40 or so whenever it hits that price.


Until then.. ...anyone wanna play some DoWII?

saw it going cheaper on green man gaming. pondering sniping it there.


Anyone else buying for sure?
 

wrongway

Member
I didn't get to play much between the last closed beta and the open beta, but what I played never really grabbed me.

I don't think I'd call it a bad game. I thought both prior games were fun in their own ways, so I'm not someone who feels burned by DOW3 not being enough like one or the other. And I'm not an anti-moba person (though none of them have stuck with me long-term), so I don't mind moba-like ideas being experimented with. But each time I finished a match I found I wasn't really inspired to turn around and play another. It's just not very engaging to me for whatever reason.

Oh well. I'm already juggling too many games, and I still need to get Nier too, so no great loss I guess. :\
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
I played the multiplayer beta 3v3. I have no previous dawn of war multiplayer experience at all. The match time got to roughly over an hour and I feel like it was still at a complete stalemate. I don't know if it was just cause of 6 noobs with no experience or if matches usually take that long but man, I couldn't finish it. That thing might have gone another hour.

Despite that endurance slog, I thought the game looked cool and the carnage was excellent. Still in for the campaign, and hopefully there's some multiplayer options to shrink that time down I just can't commit 1.5 hours per match. Or maybe that's an anomoly and I just suck.
 

Karak

Member
The critical points in the narratives of the early reviews don't seem to match the higher scores. Based on the review narratives this effort seems like a significant departure from what fans of the previous games loved. It sounds like a MP focused game with some MOBA elements, minus many of the hallmark features that made the first 2 so good.

I'm waiting on Karak to do the ACG review (hopefully he does one).

I sadly just dont have the time
 

a harpy

Member
Well this is a convincing post. He described a specific hero from LoL, Jain Zar, not to mention the problems with the camera and the creeps...I mean units.

If he is misrepresenting the game, explain how.

As for Jain Zar, those heroes share one skill (which is neither unique to Ahri in LoL, nor a unique skill at all - it's a boomerang). That's it. The other skill (which is a dash, "like" Ahri's ult) has a totally different function in the context of DoW 3, not to mention it is also a huge leap that slams the ground and knocks units up. Ragnar Blackmane said they literally copied Ahri and reskinned her for Dawn of War 3.

The line of sight blockers do work like the magic bushes in LoL, but LoL is not the only game to have line of sight blockers. Still, that comparison is apt.

I don't know what it means to say the camera is taken straight out of a MOBA game since MOBAs got their camera from RTS's that preceded them, and the two biggest MOBAs have cameras that differ from eachother.

I don't really get your joke about the units you build and micro and upgrade being "creeps". Ragnar's comparison to MOBAs in that regard doesn't really make sense either. They share similarities to units in many RTS's, and still manage to have unique properties.

The colored outlines are not unique to MOBAs (or even RTS's) and exists for a very specific reason - visual clarity. It's modern design, and it makes more sense for DoW 3 than the solutions other popular RTS's use because of the way your squads can be split up and broken.

The game mode that is shipping with Dawn of War 3 does have a specific objective that is inspired by (lifted from) MOBAs. DoW 3 still has a very unique flow of gameplay when compared, but as for the objective itself, that's absolutely true.

As for things like building placement and hero management, zoukka already addressed those in the same way I would.

I don't agree that the vivid colors of the game are lifted from LoL but you can see for yourself.

QIi6c3e.jpg


If someone does not like the game, that's fine! It's apparently a niche entry into an already niche series (in a somewhat niche genre these days). I'd just rather the conversation focus around what Dawn of War 3 actually is. Similarly, if you do not like it simply because it isn't like Dawn of War 1 or 2 enough in the way you want, that wouldn't bother me. That doesn't stop the game from being good at whatever it is trying to do, though.
 

wuth

Member
After playing all day Saturday and Sunday, I'm certainly feeling the disappointment that many other people in this thread and elsewhere are.

My grievances, however, have less to do with art style, MOBA elements (attack the core might be my favorite new addition), or the lack of cover.

This game is very, very hard to play... at least, I found it difficult after years away from RTS games. I am just not used to the Starcraft level of micro necessary succeed in this game. DOW2 was a fast game, but the flow of combat through cover, buildings, and hard counter units slowed things down from other RTS contemporaries. That is all gone in this edition.

Things I struggled with:
- Losing center resource points in the opening moments of the game to listening post spam. Early game resource lockdown was common in DOW2 (Heavy Bolters in buildings and what have you) but the listening posts are very risky to push against for some army builds. Access to listening posts at tier 1 makes contesting them very hard until tier 2 or 3, and by that point your opponent(s) have amassed a much larger army. Perhaps the balance here is to be found in leaning into your backfoot and turtling behind shield generators, but I found that games in which I lost my early game resources were also games I lost.

- Insane micro necessary to keep giant blobs alive. This game lends itself to amassing giant numbers of units and pushing against heavily fortified foes. Attacks are already disadvantaged pushing against a heavily entrenched forward base, but hero units and orbital strikes make every push and every mismanaged unit a gamble. Yes, you can micro away from an electrical swarm or a meteor shower, but to do this while also fighting a turtled foe is painful.

- Race balance based on early, mid, and late game. Perhaps I'm off base here, but it seems to me that the Space Marine late game is just far too powerful. I've seen lots of talk about how sturdy Dreadnoughts and Predator Tanks are- these rumors are founded.
Trying to counter the spam of either of these units is very difficult. Obviously, I should never allow that many units to ever get fielded, either through resource denial or striking an early victory, but in a game with very good early game defensive options that can be an impossible task.

Yes, I'm aware that the Farseer and Wierdboy are great and many other elites outclass the SM, but if the SM can get their foot on a middle resource point early in the match they will have little trouble defending it until they get their walkers out.


All in all I actually enjoyed the game, but it's not my cup of tea. I just don't like smashing giant armies together in confused, bloody mosh pits. I liked the small scale of DOW2, and even COH1, to this system. If anything, I suppose you could say that I'm just not the RTS player I used to be and this game just plain isn't for me.
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
There are few series where going in a radically different direction from the critically acclaimed older games in the series with stripped out well liked features and simplified and closer to 'whatever the non-hardcore mainstream is currently interested in even if it is from a completely different genre'' gameplay where the gamble paid off. You anger the established fanbase (doubly so with how lore inaccurate DoW3 is even compared to the first two games, and lore adherence is serious business for hardcore 40k fans which make up a serious part of the Dawn of War fanbae), create bad word of mouth (and how much anti-hype and sales impact that can cause was recently demonstrated by ME:Andromeda) and usually you can't bring enough more mainstream players that weren't interested in older games in the series on board.

And why should mainstream MOBA players that weren't interested in RTS (which especially in those times is a rather small niche genre) before pick up Dawn of War 3 exactly? League and DOTA2 have massive established fanbases and don't have a $60 price of admission because they are free. The gameplay experience is also more focused and refined and both games have years of careful balancing, marketing and community building behind them. Because of the 40k theme? Well good thing the game has somersaulting Angelos in Terminator armor that is ridiculously oversized and tactical Space Marines that get outgunned by Dire Avengers and everything with cheery bright colours for those people that like 40k and it's lore, or Emperor forbid, the tabletop game with all it's detailed and unique models.

Sega could have easily paid for the development of a free to play 40k MOBA without having to use the Dawn of War franchise for that and charging 60 bucks for rather little content.

Well written.

Relic has a dedicated fanbase, yet they do their damnedest to alienate us, by these sweeping gameplay changes.

DoW3 is simply not what the hardcore 40K RTS fans were expecting. You could reskin the art and give it a different name, and no one would be the wiser.
 
There are few series where going in a radically different direction from the critically acclaimed older games in the series with stripped out well liked features and simplified and closer to 'whatever the non-hardcore mainstream is currently interested in even if it is from a completely different genre'' gameplay where the gamble paid off. You anger the established fanbase (doubly so with how lore inaccurate DoW3 is even compared to the first two games, and lore adherence is serious business for hardcore 40k fans which make up a serious part of the Dawn of War fanbae), create bad word of mouth (and how much anti-hype and sales impact that can cause was recently demonstrated by ME:Andromeda) and usually you can't bring enough more mainstream players that weren't interested in older games in the series on board.

And why should mainstream MOBA players that weren't interested in RTS (which especially in those times is a rather small niche genre) before pick up Dawn of War 3 exactly? League and DOTA2 have massive established fanbases and don't have a $60 price of admission because they are free. The gameplay experience is also more focused and refined and both games have years of careful balancing, marketing and community building behind them. Because of the 40k theme? Well good thing the game has somersaulting Angelos in Terminator armor that is ridiculously oversized and tactical Space Marines that get outgunned by Dire Avengers and everything with cheery bright colours for those people that like 40k and it's lore, or Emperor forbid, the tabletop game with all it's detailed and unique models.

Sega could have easily paid for the development of a free to play 40k MOBA without having to use the Dawn of War franchise for that and charging 60 bucks for rather little content.

I didn't get a chance to try all the unit/factions in the game, what sort of lore inconsistencies does DoW3 have other than those 3 things you mentioned? Really, the justification they gave for the bright colours was absurd. They said it was because they wanted it to look like the tabletop game, ignoring all the subtlties and changes real-life lighting makes to them and how they're not actually going to look like that in the universe (compare the art to the models and there's a huge difference), like how they're not even the right scale.

Something i've not really seen mentioned is the initial trailer they had and how that sort of showed they might not understand things too well now; they went for thin and tall Space Marines. It's something that on the surface seems inconsequential, but anyone who understands W40K should be able to realize that the whole idea goes completely against the setting, what Space Marines are should be able to see why it's just a bad idea to represent them in that way. The whole point of them is that they're these huge, tank-like Superhuman warriors, but they have unnatural speed for their size and weight, something you wouldn't expect from looking at them. To decide to go for unnaturally long/thin, agile-looking Marines suggests they really don't understand that despite it being one of the core aspects of W40K. Fortunately it was just for that trailer although there was concept art of it as well, but it was something that decision shouldn't have been made in the first place.
 

zoukka

Member
I didn't get a chance to try all the unit/factions in the game, what sort of lore inconsistencies does DoW3 have other than those 3 things you mentioned? Really, the justification they gave for the bright colours was absurd. They said it was because they wanted it to look like the tabletop game, ignoring all the subtlties and changes real-life lighting makes to them and how they're not actually going to look like that in the universe (compare the art to the models and there's a huge difference), like how they're not even the right scale.

Something i've not really seen mentioned is the initial trailer they had and how that sort of showed they might not understand things too well now; they went for thin and tall Space Marines. It's something that on the surface seems inconsequential, but anyone who understands W40K should be able to realize that the whole idea goes completely against the setting, what Space Marines are should be able to see why it's just a bad idea to represent them in that way. The whole point of them is that they're these huge, tank-like Superhuman warriors, but they have unnatural speed for their size and weight, something you wouldn't expect from looking at them. To decide to go for unnaturally long/thin, agile-looking Marines suggests they really don't understand that despite it being one of the core aspects of W40K. Fortunately it was just for that trailer although there was concept art of it as well, but it was something that decision shouldn't have been made in the first place.

They are not making these games just for tabletop fans. And they already changed proportions and lore for DoW 1 and 2. I don't see any problems with the visuals in DoW3, it's one of the areas they did really well.
 

Dylan

Member
They are not making these games just for tabletop fans. And they already changed proportions and lore for DoW 1 and 2. I don't see any problems with the visuals in DoW3, it's one of the areas they did really well.

Agreed. I personally think the game looks great. Graphically and stylistically I have no problem with it. Though I do wish the units were easier to differentiate on the field. Didn't DoW2 solve this by adding icons over each type of unit?

As far as staying "true" to the 40k aesthetic, I never understood arguments like this when applied to fiction. Warhammer has always been fucking ridiculous. I don't see why changing anything about the lore or the style is a big deal. Every franchise goes through these types of changes.
 

zoukka

Member
The incredible voice acting made all the units in DoW2 memorable and badass. It's not bad here either, but not great.
 

Effect

Member
You know a gendra is dead when the major complaint about one of the rare new titles giving another shot at it is it sharing similar features to a gendra that ultimately was given birth by the now dead gendra, especially when most of those are nothing new to rts to begin with, in that case rts > moba > rip rts.

That's kind of been the wtf moments for me here as I read this thread. Not only are some of these elements from RTS first but I'm sitting her asking myself why that's a bad thing. RTS as a genre has been on the decline for a long time. Adopting more of it's elements since the moba genre has overtaken it or really grew out of it isn't that surprising.

I honestly don't know maybe it's me but didn't expect a game released in 2017 to be exactly like a game that was released in 2009 which also wasn't exactly like the first game that released in 2004. Also I could have just kept my expectations low. AllI wanted was a strategy game in the Warhammer 40K universe where I commanded units and had an interesting story. The details of how I expected it to play didn't even come to mind since there were so many ways of doing RTS. The only expectation and demand I had was that it ran well and had polish. It seems it does so I'm happy from a technical standpoint. I'll just learn the game and see how I liked on it's own merits tomorrow I guess.
 
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