A new direction for Dawn of War 3

That makes DoW2 more moba-y and DoW3 less, and the whole discussion was if having the heroes made it moba-y.

That was just a joke about RTS games being just for the kiddos :)

As an ancient (40) gamer, didn’t see anything wrong with your post… :D

But You’ve got a point there. I don’t know if it’s my clicky finger or just generally being so easily distractible, but I can’t hang, like competitively. Luckily I feel absolutely no shame in dialing down the difficulty on games these days.

For me the MOBA stuff is more on how the multiplayer structure works - in DoW2 you were holding victory points and while you held them, earning points. Get enough points, you win. No lanes, no throw away units - every unit was important and losing an upgraded Terminator Squad for instance, could be devastating. Sounds like DoW3 is more MOBA-like.

I really have to disagree. Granted, DOW2 was about holding victory points and had fewer units, but if you’re using those as points for why DOW3 sounds more MOBA-like, I think you’d also have to say that Starcraft is also MOBA-like. Which clearly isn’t the case.

This doesn’t play as a MOBA to me at all. It plays like a typical RTS with hero units, a la Warcraft 3.

Let me ask this - at any time in DoW3 are you pushing a specific, under defended-lane?

EDIT - I’m also basing a lot of my admittedly knee-jerk reaction on having read this last month:

EDIT 2 - I am also curious why some people are so against the idea DoW3 could be at least MOBA-Adjacent, like being a MOBA is some sort of Bad Thing™ - in my eyes it’s just a new direction for the game. However, it’s a direction I don’t like, as I was hoping for more of what I liked with CoH and DoW2 and I don’t like MOBA’s at all.

I may still pick this up at some point for the single player.

Not really. I mean this was the 2v2 map I played.

Granted, some maps are 3v3 with symmetrical “lanes”, but once more this is no different than many maps I played in Warcraft 3, Ashes of the Singularity, or whatever.

I’m not against the idea that DOW3 could be MOBA-Adjacent, like you say, I just think people are really, really, reaching. “Oh, the hotkeys are QWER, it’s a MOBA!!!” and “Oh, the map is symmetrical 3v3. MOBAs have 3 lanes. It’s a MOBA!” are just silly.

Here’s a Dawn of War 2 map. I certainly wouldn’t call DoW2 a MOBA ahead of it’s time or anything.

I feel like that’s the level of reaching going on. Sure, I guess there’s some similarities, but considering MOBA is a breed of RTS that should be no surprise. It just doesn’t feel any more MOBA to me than other RTS games with heroes I’ve played. The MOBA-est aspect I can think of is the idea of the shield generator and turret, but again, even than is reaching.

EDIT: Certainly not laying down the gospel on what DOW3 is or isn’t of course, I’ve only played a couple games. I’m just not seeing the MOBA thing at all, and I’ve played a few MOBAs (and don’t dislike them).

But… DoW2/CoH are unique in that regard, actually. In traditional RTS games you win by attacking the enemy base. Which is what you do here, except only need to destroy one tough building instead of several small ones.

What I didn’t like in my time in DoW3 is how they say it’s a mix of DoW1 and DoW2… but isn’t really?? I thought that would imply they removed several features of DoW2 and put in exchange features of DoW1, but they barely did it. They just increased a bit the average amount of units you usually have and they have made them more expendable (easy to recruit a full new squad), that’s it. The base building is very bare bones, space marines were 4 unit producing buildings + 1 tech building, from what I remember. In fact that was the same scheme as in CoH1.

So in the end it feels like a diminished DoW2 game, but more spammy in units and in super powers.

And despite I only played a handful of times, it felt as if the novely was going to be short-lived, because matches felt samey.

Space Marines are the most vanilla. Their main deal is that they can put troop or vehicles into drop pods to remote deploy all over. Eldar can move their builds all over via warping them. They also create fleet of foot zones along with shield recharge centers. Orks are the most weird. They upgrade via populating towers all over, have temporary buffs via buildings, and need to maintain scrap counts (from their own buildings or from destroying units) for like a million things.

There is a lot more to be said. I really like the differences in the factions here. They are not just numeric shifts about this one is more hearty, but that one moves faster or whatever. Each faction has a lot of unique tools and toys. Plus you get to shuffle it all up with Elite choice and doctrine loadout to create a sort of build-your-own sub-faction deal. I like how much they have put into the three factions. It only means better things for fully built out future factions.

I’m 42 and right there with you. The less units and no buildings was preferred by me greatly. I also would love a Kohan wrapped in WH40k :)

Hey guys, guess what happened?

At some point, someone had to have this conversation at Relic:

Dev 1: This always online thing- what if the net goes off in the middle of a single player mission? So the player doesn’t get any experience or skulls or whatever?

Dev 2: Yeah.

Dev 1: But… I mean, why not let them get that stuff anyway?

Dev 2: Well, then they could come up with some kind of offline hack, and they’d get all the stuff unlocked without working for it!

Dev 1: My God… what a nightmare. Surely our non-hacking customers wouldn’t mind losing the fruits of all of their efforts if it was to stop THAT!

Dev 2: And if they do, fuck 'em.

Dev 1: Yeah. Fuck 'em.

Well, I had issues installing the game. I had to reboot the computer about 5 times. The download would hang, so I’d have to reboot, restart steam, continue download.

Eventually working.

And, one campaign mission in, I like it.

It feels quite fun, a bit like DoW2 imho, in that your hero unit is doing all the work.

One thing I think they could have done better is add more lore, e.g. to the various elites. The more info question mark just tells me the abilities and stats. I think they assume I know what Dreadnoughts are (I do) but this is, imho, a missed immersion opportunity.

Plus I finished the first orc mission (great fun) but got no skulls and no gorgutz experience…:S?

edit: one skirmish mission done, normal difficulty, non optimal play, still won fairly easily.

20 skulls earned, but no elite points, despite using all 3 of my elites?

Still, I managed to fight off an ork waagh with their music blaring etc. Was fun. Sp[ace marines are…strong it seems. But the right kind of strong.

more edit: I think they could have dressed up the powercore mechanic in more lore, e.g. the SM version would be a holy relic, and if destroyed then gg.

Would have added more variation and defused much of this moba accusation stuff imho.

You have to make sure you are playing an online skirmish, so you earn Elite XP.

I’ve been doing Online skirmish and sometimes I early Elite XP, sometimes I don’t (I always get skulls though). It’s pretty weird.

Yes, I think there was a missed opportunity to put some lore in the “Codex” area. That said, the codex tab tells you a lot of interesting things going on in the game mechanics. It is worth a read.

I had the same thing happen on the Ork story mission, but noticed experience was reflected in the elite screen. I think it was a bug. One other time it failed to show the bar counting up, but just showed the end point of the experience so it looked like my Chaplain didn’t accrue any. Otherwise, as lordkosc indicated, watch what mode you play. It seems “solo” doesn’t reward the same as “custom” or “multiplayer”. Campaign should give you rewards (and more for higher difficulty), but at least in the one case it didn’t show it on the post game screen.

The more I play, the more I worry Tactical Space Marines are a bit weak. They have “normal” armor just like everyone else and actually do less ranged damage than other faction’s ranged units. I can’t tell if there is an accuracy stat though. Their melee is weak, but better than other factions ranged unit’s melee. They have more HP, but less units per squad. Plus they are rather expensive. Still, they can get flame throwers or plasma guns.

Yeah I find Tac marines with plasma guns fun, and I use them as a type of shield to let the devastators do their thing. Seems to work.

There is a bug in my game though, in that the game won;t save my campaign progress UNLESS I save inside each map. Once I log out, and log in, it wants me to start a new campaign.

So the workaround is easy, just save in the campaign map, but it shouldn’t be there. Something is borked.

And sometimes I get skulls etc, and sometimes nothing.

I have started mission 5, and so far it seems like standard 40k fare, storywise. Nothing amazing, but serviceable.

I know I’ve been a bit down on this game but I wanted to give credit where it’s due- it looks like it has a crazy high skill ceiling and can be tremendously fun to watch if the players are talented.

I just watched a player, VindicareX on twitch, smash an attacking wraithguard force by trapping them in a spell cast by his librarian, blinding them with a second spell, and then enfilading them with a summoned elite and a drop pod on their line of retreat. I was in awe.

The wraithguard had seemed so strong before that; they appeared completely insurmountable, particularly paired with banshees and Jain Zar. But that engagement turned it all around, I was practically cheering in my seat.

Oh yeah. VindicareX is really good. I just watched a game of his where he perfectly danced like one of several kinds of units to perfectly mix their strengths and battle exposure while maximizing unit abilities. I sure can’t play that way, but it is pretty amazing to watch. There is definitely a high skill cap ceiling in this game.