So, the Open Beta has launched, so I think it's safe to finally post my closed beta impressions. The CB was only 6 weeks ago, so I doubt much has changed since then, especially when it comes to fundamental gameplay mechanics. This should be interesting especially for those people that loved DoW1 and are thinking that this game is like that, especially when it comes to base building (to tackle that right away: it's not). Note that's also only for the Multiplayer, but considering the reviews mentioning that the SP is weaker than in DoW1 and 2 makes it all the more relevant:
----
Valtýr;234316215 said:
So it's more of a traditional RTS? That's too bad - I liked the *hero* stuff from DOWII. I may still play this tho.
It's basically Dawn of War going almost all out on copying Starcraft with MOBA style towers and camera controls (in closed beta the maximum you could zoom out was wierdly to close to the ground to get a good overview over a large battle like you could in the first game, while the units look super small, Starcraft style even if you zoom in really close (the non-hero unit models also have very little details compared to DoW2 or even DoW1, they look like almost exact clones and e.g. squad leaders no longer exist as far as I could see, nor the option to add a hero/support unit to a squad); and generally super simplified base building compared to the first game.
Buildings basically only serve as roadblocks to recruiting more units, there are no towers, no mine fields, no defense structures whatsoever, ork buildings with built-in rather weak guns aside. The building roster from DoW1 is massively slashed. For example the Space Marines have a HQ you start with (no option to and no point in constructing more anyway, you can't relocate your base or build a new base/outpost anyway with how limited the maps are in size and approaches and if your base defense is breached the enemy player will just focus fire your core and win while mostly ignoring your base), 3 buildings for units (infantry A, infantry B, vehicles) and a listening post for flags, that's it. There is one research building that only has 2 DoW1-esque unit specific equipment upgrades (power swords for assault marines, rather pointless mines for the quite pointless not-stealthed, non-sniper scouts), the rest is Starcraft-esque +10% HP for all infantry, +10% attack for all infantry etc. global upgrades. Together with the two HQ research tiers you need for better units and the vehicle building... that's it. Very far cry from the complexity of base building in Dawn of War 1. Placement of the buildings doesn't really matter either, as the base towers keep you save from any attack until their generators near the middle of the map are destroyed and if they do get breached the game is done for anyway, almost no chance for a comeback when your core gets attacked (heck, many players even just ignore your base and focus your core which dies in about 40 seconds under heavy fire). They might have just have used unchangable building slots without an option to manually place your buildings at all, it would have made rather little difference.
Meanwhile the units (at least in CB) do rather pitiful damage, it takes almost forever for standard infantry units to do considerable damage to each other, only heavy weapon teams like Devastator Marines buck the trend. It also makes hero units very powerful and quite able to slaughter the "creep infantry".
Meanwhile the units are still about as expensive as in the first Dawn of War, so conserving units is important, yet for whatever reason Relic removed the Retreat command from Dawn of War 1/2 and Company of Heroes , which makes retreating units out of a fight difficult and often pointless. Relic didn't really know how to mainstreamify the system either, they removed retreat and left the high per unit costs, with units often having a lot less individual soldiers than DoW1 too, yet they still have the "re-spawn dead troopers at listening posts/in the base for depleted squads" thing in there, but considering how hard retreating is and how the name of the game is mostly just spamming and throwing more units at the enemy.... why bother.
They also completely removed the morale system by the way which was great and one of the absolute highlights of both DoW1 and 2, now every unit fights to the death Starcraft style.
Most what's left from the old Dawn of Wars is the capture points, which are far more spread out than many feared and make the map not that linear even with the towers. The towers are quite nice if anything, they prevent early game overs from all-in base rushes and are basically little threat to a mid/end game push, if the defending army is dead they barely have an impact. Cover is in in the form of a few captureable spots on the map, yet they are too few and too static to be of much use unless the enemy absolutely has to walk past them. It is absolutely critical to defend those capture points with troops, even moreso that energy production is now rolled into them as well instead of having to construct generators (another reason why there is little point to destroy bases instead of focusing on the core) you need to upgrade them with resources to not end up getting left behind by the opponents in income, yet the armed listening posts are basically incapable of stopping anything more threatening than one or two units of the most basic of infantry and turrets and mine fields no longer exist either.
Kill-synch animations were a large part of what made Dawn of War so visceral, the fighting personal and differentiated the game positively from most other RTS and was a joy to watch especially with the big/giant units, now all gone. Troops simply hack at each other/shoot each other and fall over dead.
Flanking troops, especially heavy weapons, like you could in Dawn of War 2 is now pointless too, everything, even set up heavy weapons (a wierd design decision to keep set-up times considering how the game plays and the emphasis on spamming high numbers of troops), can instantly turn around and face any threat, while flanking from a different side of the map into an engagement offers little benefit and the limited routes often mean you end up walking past a base turret which can seriously hurt your army for little gain, so the game usually results in two army blobs meeting each other head on.
I was a massive fan of Dawn of War 1 and really liked DoW2 too (heck, the first game made me buy into the 40k tabletop and splurge about $700 on it over time as well as read dozens of black library novels), but I'll pick up this game in a few months and on sale, hoping that the single player campaign is at least somewhat good. The last thing I wanted was Dawn of War to massively emulate Starcraft and have an awful MOBA camera (which works when you control one hero... but not an entire, giant army, especially when units like Whirlwinds and Devastators have so much range that you usually have to move the camera quite a bit from the center of the battle to even see them). After 4 multiplayer matches with the Space Marines I had the feeling that I had seen everything the entire faction had to offer (which isn't much) and didn't have any motivation to pick them up again (unlike Dawn of War 1, played hundreds of MP matches), from my 1-2 matches with the Orks and Eldar it looked the same for them, particularly the implementation of the scrap mechanic was pretty bad (run units over random re-spawning drops in your base to upgrade them, then throw them at enemy). And the xp requirements to level up even one hero unit were hilariously high and the xp payouts for a match (especially considering matches take much longer now with base rushes being out of the question) being comically low, if they didn't change them we are talking World of Tank levels here, which has rather bad grinding for a
free to play game, mind. Yet one out of two "grand strategy" (either a big buff for the hero unit or the entire army) is locked at the far end of the grind tree of every hero unit. It played like a rather mediocre, run of the mill RTS with capture points and still more linear gameplay (even if not as linear as MOBAs, it does get rather close, especially with approaches to bases), something I'd rate 7.0/10 for the multiplayer, using the full rating scale, with DoW1 being a 9/10.
It is by far Relic's weakest strategy game without doubt.
As said, this was my impression from the Closed Beta a month ago, things might have been changed but I doubt it so shortly before release, with the game having gone gold and all.
Nooooooo
