A new direction for Dawn of War 3

Glad to hear it. I didn’t earn any when I played a skirmish game, but maybe that’s just a facet of the review build?

-Tom

No idea. Maybe the magic skull server has to be turned on at launch? They seemed to want folks to not have a head start from any of the beta events. Or maybe they lied? ;) Let me know if you want to hunt skulls for the Emperor at some point.

Edit: In the beta event you didn’t earn skulls if you didn’t kill or lose a core. I.e. If you quit early, you didn’t earn skulls. This was actually an issue as there was no surrender option and some folks seemed to milk a winning lead to play with their top toys.

Who has this and should I buy it? It’s officially out today. I’ve got way more than enough gaming on my plate, and not enough time, but lately I’ve been late to the party on strategy games, and I feel like it would be nice to get one on release. I liked DoW2 fine, but never got good at it (honestly, as much as I love the genre, I’m not very good at RTS). I’d play the campaign and try online and skirmishes. What do you guys think?

Never mind. Boughten.

Heh. I’ve sort of accepted at this point that RTS is a young man’s game. Still, I love Warhammer 40k lore, and more specifically what was done with it in both previous games that were wildly different from each other. So, I plan to badly play some old man, low APM RTS…and have a grim dark good 'ol time doing it. :)

They do have some kind of match making though. So I managed to hold my own enough of the time in the MP only beta to feel competitive. Where my age fails me, I lean on seasoned strategerie. Plus, there is AI and campaign in the release.

This Chaplin will be leveling his Chaplain tonight!

Unpacking it now, freaking 20 minutes to go…

Wow, it’s getting hammered in Steam reviews. Sitting at 52% positive.

I bought this, I will be terrible at it. I can’t click fast, nor am I particularly sophisticated w/ my strategery.
I simply dig the WH40k universe and aesthetic, art direction, etc.

I am not getting any Elite xp from bot stomps as feared. You get skulls to buy doctrines, but can’t level up your elites without playing other people.

Can you get stuff from the campaign?

Do you know if it has to be vs other people, or does coop comp stomps count?

Played a online comp stomp, me vs 1 AI. And I did earn Elite XP and Skulls.

Proofs:

Overall, I am liking it. :)

According to RPS, you should earn as long as you are connected to the internet. If you play offline, you do not earn any rewards.

That might explain why review builds didn’t earn skulls if the servers weren’t ready yet.

I want to be excited for this, but bits and pieces I’ve read here and elsewhere make me think skipping it, at least for now, is the better play.

Besides, I have Zelda to keep going with - two weeks later and I’m just as eager to dive in after work as I was the first day I hooked the Switch up.

EDIT - Read some Steam reviews. Yikes. This one was particularly poignant.

And the multiplayer? Woah. The clearly forced it to be an esports game, by limiting themselves and limiting the fun of the game.
There is only one single mode, which is inspired by DOTA: a core for every faction and few towers defending it. To destroy the towers - and the core - you need to destroy a shield generator first.
The maps also have lanes (2-3 lanes depending on the number of players) and bushes, and are ALL mirrored and VERY small. Eldar can’t stealth their structures, you can’t relocate your HQ or build another one, you can’t rush (who remember the Tau Rush?). It’s not a strategy game, i admit is “different”. But “different” doesn’t always mean “better”. Every game ends in being slow and repetitive.

So I guess

The reviews tend to be low play time and one of:

–It’s not DoW1, I hate it.
–it’s not DoW 2, I hate it.
–It’s a MOBA, I hate it.
–It only has three factions, I hate it.

I think any of these arguments are a bit colored by bias.

The MOBA comparison stuff is insane, but I guess some people think a map objective equals a whole genre. Forget the squads of units, base building, control groups, tech ups, or any of the actual stuff HAPPENING on the map, it’s a MOBA…cuz core. The way they borrowed from MOBA maps (turret and core) actually work well to create a bit of a comeback mechanic and keeps the fight going back and forth longer than most RTS games. Granted, some hardcore RTS folks (like that reviewer perhaps) prefer the traditional method where if one side gets an upper hand, they crush or pull the GG out of the other player then re-queue. I’ve had some amazing comebacks in the beta that never would have been possible in a base/peon rush RTS.

Lanes…there are only “lanes” if you see it that way. DoW2 had lanes, I guess. RTS map have always had routed movement. Usually with cross pathway options. The same is true here.

Heroes? The elites are strong with micro focus. Sure. All three games have them. When the enemy has an elite, it feels like fighting a game ending monster. When you have an elite, maybe even the exact same one, it feels like active skill bait that dies in seconds to line units. They are as they have always been, heavier single units that cycle in and out of the fight.

Like I said before. DoW3 splits the line across many ideas inside and out of the franchise. As such, there is a lot of opportunity to hate something. How does it sit as a product on its own? I don’t know, I have not had any time with retail and only some with the beta. But I do think the gut check Steam reviews that fit the above templates are not the most open minded of reactions.

I completely agree. I tried it out briefly and was really surprised that “MOBA” was the takeaway for a lot of people.

I agree, I feel no MOBA in this game.

I am enjoying the larger army feel, compared to small squads in DOW2.

I’m glad about the lack of a MOBA feeling you guys are reporting - I just couldn’t get into any of the MOBA’s my friends were playing and feel like that kind of gameplay is just something I’ll never get into. I’m still too busy to dive into this day one, but I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread for impressions, screenshots, and videos so feel free to post anything like that.

I thought they were going to have other multiplayer modes at release. Is it really just Power Core?

Played a couple levels of campaign and so far i am not impressed as a big fan of the previous 2 games.

Removing cover and replacing it with shield zones was a dumb idea, removing one of the core components of DoW.

Performance is also lower than i would expect for a game that looks like this. Frankly i expect to be able to run this game at max settings with a 1080 and get 100 fps.

I suppose i knew going in to it that there were major questions about it though so i can only blame myself and hope it ends up being worth what i paid for it (which was not $60 thankfully).