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Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising Update
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Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising Update
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Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising Update
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03-10-2010, 04:18 PM
Post: #1
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Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising Update
2.1 Patch Notes
Melee/Ranged Toggle w00t!!!!!! Quote:=============================== ![[Image: ProtectorateEngineerSignature.png]](http://files.projects.samods.org/public/ProtectorateEngineerSignature.png) Wartide Lead Designer |
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03-11-2010, 05:06 AM
Post: #2
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RE: Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising Update
So you see the change log above, and you think you *know* Chaos Rising now, don't you? Well let me tell you, you don't KNOW Chaos Rising yet (unless you've played it in MP, then maybe you do). But, I have just acquainted myself with it. And it's complete win.
Here's how win it is: WarCraft 4 can go take a hike- it never needs to happen because unless Blizzard goes back to making the series like WarCraft 2 (but why would they? StarCraft and StarCraft 2 already have that style covered) then Relic is already doing a much better job at WC3-style/inspired gameplay, and if you don't like sci-fi in your fantasy then just someone give Relic the Warhammer (not-40k) license and boom- better game and probably better story to boot (WC was awesome until WoW and that kinda ruined and trashed its storyline =( As well, I haven't spent a single SECOND since this update came out playing SC2 Beta, reading SC2 Beta coverage, or watching SC2 replays (I did briefly tune into Whiplash's stream though to watch him face a mutual acquaintance and then I stuck around to see that apparently Siege Tanks ARE still viable in TvP). I would almost tell SC2 to go take a hike but it's a completely different game and still fun in its own right. Ok, so now... why is it win? And furthermore, why is it eating into my SC2 time? Isn't SC2 the heir of the most popular esport and one of the most acknowledged competitive games on the planet? Yes. And wasn't there a consensus from pro players that DoW 2 is not and could not be an "esport"? Yep. So wut? Relic has gone to great lengths it seems to vastly improve performance and fluidity (really, this is by far the best I have ever seen any iteration of Essence engine performing- there are just no stupid slowdowns at all that I have witnessed yet which is just amazing to me; DoW 2 now runs better than SC2 Beta and looks better too; granted SC2 is in Beta but meh), and that carries over to unit responsiveness. Relic seems to have recognized that auto-cover and auto-chase and etc... should have some restraint. And now they do, courtesy of Relic tightening up when units look for cover and by offering the new Melee/Ranged toggle. Don't want your Farseer with 1hp to dash into that melee brawl that's a few feet from her? Set her to ranged and she'll sit there and quietly support as best she can. But the Ranged/Melee toggle, for me anyway, has done way more than the above. I'm going to have to pull out an example to explain the direct utility of this. So Ork Slugga squads, melee powerhouses, can be upgraded with Burna weapons. This increases their health (for some reason) and, well, gives them Burnas. Previously, this basically meant that Sluggas would do a little more damage as they charged as their opponent and it made them much more effective at hunting down retreating squads. However, it was mostly used just for the health boost. Now though, if you get a Burna and swap your Sluggas into ranged mode, they will use the Burna as a ranged weapon. How/why is this useful? Well, there are six members of a Slugga squad (seven if you upgrade them with a Nob Leader), but most of the squads they'll be dealing with have way less than that. Melee tends to be a 1 to 1 affair, so if you've got more than one Slugga squad... but never fear, you can now slap one into ranged and have it use its Burnas to inflict some serious DPS (Damage Per Second) on the squad your other Slugga squad is mauling in melee. Still not convinced? Let's look at the relationship between Ork Sluggas and Chaos Heretics. Chaos Heretics are a melee-focused unit, but really they're terrible at it. If they engage a ranged-focused squad like Shootas or Guardians in melee, they can do something, but against a *REAL* melee unit they don't do much. However, they can suicide themselves at enemy squads. So if you let your Sluggas get into melee with them, they can just start blowing up (cheap) squad members and all of a sudden you just took a lot of losses you didn't need to. The solution? Well, you could use Shootas but if they do get into melee, they're more expensive to replace and they die faster. So the *better* solution is to slap some Burnas on your Slugga squads and set them to ranged. Have them stay just far enough away from the Heretics to just keep burning them down without allowing the Heretics to get into melee or explode on you. It takes a lot of micro, but it's insanely effective- and better yet, it REWARDS that micro much like StarCraft does. Furthermore, if you're trying to deal with Heretics and Chaos Space Marines, you can pull some even more insane micro to dance between flaming Heretics in ranged while switching to tying up Chaos Space Marines in melee. So what of DoW 2's other issues? There still isn't anymore base-building than there was before, but Relic is increasingly making that less and less of an issue. Power generators are extremely vulnerable targets and courtesy of amped-up power costs and increased effectiveness of Tier 2 units (hell, just look at the fact that EVERY new unit Relic added to the existing races was a Tier 2 unit), power is an even bigger factor now than it used to be. And power is every bit the macro component that Minerals and Gas are in StarCraft, and the ability to destroy generators and overall screw with the enemy's power intake is just a consolidated method of harassing the opponent's economy and attacking their tech structures. And beyond this, base-building is present in every unit. Every squad, every vehicle, every commander is its own base. Every time you invest in an upgrade or wargear or etc, that's base-building under a new guise. The macromanagement is still there, it just doesn't take insane multi-tasking to deal with anymore. That Relic has added even more upgrades and gear for players to spend Requisition, Power, and Opportunity on just deepens DoW 2's macro that much more (total side note, but very rarely now do I get to Tier 3 and I am sitting in the end-game and I just have more power than I know what to do with; there's just so much more useful stuff to spend power on now it's almost always a factor which means that harassing generators and etc is just as vital then too and it's not just early-game). And 1v1 versus 2v2 versus 3v3? Well, they've added FFA and Team FFA to the mix, but either way the improvements that Relic has made previously and that they made in 2.1/Chaos Rising just continue to make DoW 2 a better and better 1v1 game. Ebert is gone and it seems to show as the game has been continually retuned and refined to work well for 1v1 and 2v2. And all of this is not to say that 3v3 isn't outstanding all its own either. In fact, Relic really seem to just be amping up quality across the board here. My personal favorite is 2v2 because I think it offers the perfect mix of head-to-head clashing and situational/partner awareness, the latter of which adds just that extra bit of strategy that I crave while the former is delivered usually in a bit more of a straightforward/compact space so you get more clashes consistently occurring between mean forces instead of side skirmishes. Still, the amount of skill required to 1v1 at a high level is incredible and Chaos Rising just pushes it that much further, adding more micro and macro depth and bringing multi-tasking to a new level. As I've said before and I'll say again, my APM in DoW 2 is significantly higher than it is in StarCraft and StarCraft 2 because there is just a shitton of constant micro-management multi-tasking to do (and it's fun and mostly combat-related as opposed to multi-tasking like, "remember to train new units every 30 seconds") and it has meaningful tactical and strategic impact. For reference, when Whiplash tried to play DoW 2 he was actually overwhelmed with the amount of multi-tasking required- this coming from one of the best SC2 Beta players around currently and a very experienced StarCraft player (a game that can find a meaningful use for 500APM and beyond). So what else has Chaos Rising done? The new unit additions so far seem to be great. Personally, I absolutely love the Ork Weirdboy. Before playing the game, I thought that he might have only one useful ability, Over 'Dere, and that would be it but good enough. However, I was proven dead wrong. ALL of his abilities are useful. Zzap! can be microed to counter Scouts and Guardians and etc from tossing grenades on your Ork blobs, to bring enemy heroes down a notch or to partially nullify them, or to head-off all sorts of other potentialities. It's very much like EMP on the Science Vessel in StarCraft 1- it's your first and oftentimes last defense against screwage (in StarCraft's case, EMP is huge for countering Protoss Arbiter's whose Recall and Stasis abilities can turn the tides of battle vastly in Protoss favor). Over 'Dere, Foot of Gork, and Warpath then all have interesting uses, and I won't expand this wall of text elaborating on them, but they're each as useful as Zzap! in their own way. For other races, the Librarian seems like a great addition to Space Marines. Personally, I haven't had an issue countering him so far because the Weirdboy just offers such a great way to do that, so my fears of the Librarian making Space Marines unstoppable against Orks was unfounded. For Eldar, the Wraithguard don't seem like much, but they offer a unit that can take an absolute beating and still stay standing which they just didn't have until now. Furthermore, it's the closest they have to truly mobile anti-vehicle and an interesting alternative to the D-Cannon for crowd control. The Tyranids got shifted around a lot, getting synapse revamps, losing their Tier 2 Carnifex to be shoved back into Tier 3 (but improved) but gaining the Tyrant Guard in Tier 2 (I will say this about the Tyrant Guard- it has caused Ghilgamesch to switch back to Tyranids from Space Marines and he absolutely loves his Tyrant Guard, while on the other side of things I have been able to counter them with some extreme micro so I have no issue with them) and Genestealers are great mid-game/late-game units that can take some of the load off Hormagaunts and just offer a really interesting, Tyranid-y way to handle various things. So I really feel that the new units (and other changes) have added a lot to DoW 2 in a very positive way, and Chaos Rising I really think has *made* the game. 1.5 There is Only War salvaged DoW 2 from falling into an abyss of failed RTS games. 1.8 Last Stand refined DoW 2's resurrection from 1.5 to just work better and also added Last Stand, a venerable co-op mode that is significant in its own right. Now 2.1 Chaos Rising has stepped in and added a new race to the fray while just improving everything across the board, even inter-racial relations courtesy of the new units. And it really has amped up the skill factor. Side note, there are some additional changes not specified in the change log above. I, myself, caught that Ork Nob Leader for the Nob squad now costs 150 requisition and 35 power instead of the usual 75/25 that all other Ork leaders cost. Wartide Lead Designer |
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04-12-2010, 02:59 AM
Post: #3
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RE: Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising Update
2.2 was released on Friday and from the... decent amount of hours I've put into the game since... it seems to have fixed most of the immediate, glaring issues that 2.1 introduced. Given that 2.1 fixed more things than it broke, that's awesome news (although it broke a couple of things really badly).
Anyway, really the only remaining thing I see as a big issue is that despite the slight nerf Wraithguard received, that are still over-powered for their cost. I didn't really see this initially because with the addition of the Weirdboy to the Ork arsenal, beyond tier 2 Orks transition their core army from Sluggas and Shotoas to Nobs and possibly Kommandos. Nobs can shrug off Wraithguard shots pretty nicely and can then follow that up by getting into melee and massacring them. That Wraithguard kill off Sluggas and Shootas left and right isn't much of a problem because when Wraithguard start coming out in sizable enough numbers is well after you have an upgraded Weirdboy and right when you start getting your Nobs out so the combo of Nobs and Weirdboy is really potent against Wraithgaurd. However, for races that rely more heavily on tier 1 and tier 2 units (such as Space Marines), Wraithguard are really devastating. Otherwise, balance seems to be the best it's been in just about forever and the game continues to play extremely well. Currently, imo, it's more fun and possibly deeper/better than StarCraft 2 Beta. That comes with the caveat of that SC2 Beta obviously has more macro depth. You may now commence streams of "wut" and "you're insane". Wartide Lead Designer |
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