A new direction for Dawn of War 3

So you guys really don’t see the MOBA components? It controls like DOTA 2 when using your hero, or at least that’s what it looks like from all the videos I’ve watched.

I didn’t play much over the beta weekend, but I can’t say it felt like a MOBA to me.

That’s cool, I’m mostly just curious. It kind of makes me think of Diablo III

What makes you say this, though? This is me just being curious as well. Granted, Heroes have abilities, but that’s been the case since games like Warcraft 3 and the like.

The only thing that I can think of is that they standardized the hotkeys (thank Christ) so they’re always QWER. I don’t know why so many RTS games lagged so far behind in that sort of thing. Don’t make me hit “B” to Bombard with one unit, but “P” to Precision Strike with another similar unit. It’s much better just to know that Ability Slot 1 is bound to Q. That way my hand can be left at the WASD position at all times. It’s 2017, we’re not fucking savages anymore!

The keys and the way the characters work. I mean, yeah, the characters have had abilities forever. It’s the QWER thing I guess. not like the original DOTA where everything was willy nilly.

I play on 1440p but the textures seem very blurry to me. I had to double check and make sure my resolution wasn’t accidentally set wrong.

Gotcha! Yeah, that doesn’t translate to MOBA in my mind. That’s just a common sense interface improvement, in my opinion. When I was hearing complaints (or comments) about MOBA, I was expecting lanes and minion waves or a shop you upgrade at, something like that.

Whoa, hey, wait a minute, say what? They got Diablo 3 in my Warhammer?

… tell me more.

This isn’t the droid you’re looking for, unfortunately. Because that would be cool. :)

Watching this campaign video is what does it

Would be beyond cool, such that I can’t believe nobody’s thought of it. Still, I’m curious what Jason means.

Edit: too slow, will check out the video

Eurogamer recommends the game.

[quote]Come the late-game and, as you’d expect, it’s time for the payoff from all that early squabbling and mid-game decision-making. Whether or not you’ve spent Elite Points on balance-tipping early Elites or saved them and ‘teched’ towards a late-game nuke of huge walkers like the Morkanaut or Imperial Knight - or faction abilities like my own use of the friendship-breaking Orbital Bombardment in that first game - will have a significant impact.

What elevates this to such fantastic, hang-wringing intensity though is the fact that so often, like the very best strategy games, you’ll have to discard your original tactics and adapt to what’s been thrown at you by the enemy.

Abandoning hope, in a split second decision, for the nine point walker unit you were counting on all game and gambling five on an easily-missed Orbital Bombardment instead is exactly the kind of anxiety-inducement I need from an RTS. I want my hopes and dreams shattered, my heart and soul put through the most heretical wringer as I shout at friends, frothing at the mouth and agonising over what to do next, how to respond to this traitorous xeno filth attacking my flanks. Yes, I can’t help but lament the loss of those classic, arcadey, eight-player free-for-alls. And I do cast a wistful gaze at even Dawn of War 3’s campaign maps, which look perfectly suited for just such a game. But in moments like this all of it is very much forgotten.[/quote]

The “Rise of” games used that configuration, didn’t they?

I actually used to play Company of Heroes with a mod so that it worked that way – makes a whole lot more sense.

That is the first mission, and is more about learning how to control your hero and then assemble an army. Each of the races has a mission like that at the beginning.

The game just plays like a fairly micro heavy RTS to me. I mean, against the AI you can probably just blob it up and attack move, but micro will clearly be very important in multiplayer.

Here are the MOBA bits I can see:

  1. The multi map is divided into lanes, sorta. Your home area is unassailable at start, but that doesn’t really matter because if you lose everything else you’re done anyway. It does mean no base rushes if you wanna put your stuff back there, but then you are far from reinforcements.

  2. Unit abilities, hero included, are important. They cause a lot of damage.

  3. Uh.

I dunno, it feels kind of Warcraft 3 ish? But you don’t even start with a hero in multi I don’t think, you gotta save elite points for it. I really think the whole MOBA comparison is way, way overdone.

I failed the first mission yesterday, AFTER I got the mission success screen. All because damage apparently still gets dealt after the success banner pops up. And my hero Gabriel Angelos who I admit was low on HP, took a few pop shots to the back as he was celebrating. He died and I lost the mission!

I claim hax!

So can you reload or do you have to do the entire mission again?

I only saw an option to play the first mission again. :(

It was late and I was tired. I think I’ll drop the difficulty down to normal, as I am a bit rusty at RTS.

Eh. What you are seeing in that video is the time honored RTS tradition of using a campaign mission as a tutorial. That mission, the first mission, has a lot in common with those old commando missions in CnC. Basically the mission gives you your main character, prompts you to use his abilities in useful situations, then also gives (and takes away) certain Space Marine units and abilities to also show you how they work during the mission (blind grenade, drop pods, stealth, snipers, banners, healing building reinforcement, etc.).

There is NO diablo to be found here. Sorry divedivedive.

This feels like a “life’s too short” type of situation.

[quote=“Mark_L, post:193, topic:65100, full:true”]
Your home area is unassailable at start, but that doesn’t really matter because if you lose everything else you’re done anyway. [/quote]

So here is when someone claims MOBA foul… I had a multiplayer game where my team got crushed. They had a huge army and anything we sent was toast. Their army was slow and ponderous though. So as they chewed through one side of our base, I built up some Speeders. My ally was doing a suicide push with his last elite (Kill Team Ironmaw squad) and some troops rather than die in the base. Speeders are made of tissue paper, but hit really hard against armor and buildings if you upgrade them with melta cannons.

I upgraded each of them as I flew across the map (speeders fly over terrain). My ally had managed to push the turret and was feebly pinging their core, but when my Speeders showed up, there was enough tank in the troops to make them a serious game ending threat. I had basically no army: just these few hit and run speeders. Kill Team also has a special ability to let elites be called in near them (usually you need a structure). So I added my elites to the push to tank more for the speeders. This forced the enemy to hit the recall button which is an ability on timer to pull all troops not in combat back to the core. As their force was superior, they annihilated everything. But they were slow. So the slowly walked across the map again.

Both my ally and I built a few more speeders. Then we skirted all contact as we crossed the map. Once the enemy was back at our base we were back on their core nibbling. Speeders die fast to core shots, but if you spread them out, it shoots rather slow. They panicked and recalled again. But with the loss of pressure at our front, we were then able to drop pod a few dreadnaughts in. These added just enough focus fire to the speeders that it was enough for the win.

It was a glorious Core suicide run. Economically we were beat. However, we used the Marine faction abilities of deep strike and fast attack units to beat the slower larger force. Maybe they could have split their force to defend. Maybe they could have not just globbed up around their ponderously slow large Elite behemoth. But then, maybe we could have been able to hold a front line rather than a Core rush. The comeback was real.

Oh well, I’m still interested just maybe not feeling it quite so urgently. I’ll sit back and see how you all are finding the experience.