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My dream DOW
WelshBrok
I hope someone from Relic reads this. I know I'm just another singluar voice in a crowd of disagreement but hopefully someone can take some inspiration from the below and maybe DOW4 will be the game I wanted (its got to be my turn again since the RPG RTT/Twitch-moba/competitive crowds have been covered since Dark Crusade)
I know there's several very distinct camps out there with regards to their ideal DOW but ill throw in my vision for my ideal DOW below:
- All the races in the 40k universe
- Most, if not all codex units
One thing I have noticed that confuses me about DOW3 is that its meant to be the largest scale of the 3 games and yet it has the least field-able units. I know this is the first part of potentially many dlc's to actually "finish" the 40k universe this time round (we can certainly dream) but if you take into account the differentiation you were able to do on DOW1 units with upgrades, DOW1 has probably closer to double the "unique" (in DOW3 terms) units once you upgrade them with different weapons.
I haven't included builder units in any of the below and also couldn't work out if there were new units added in DOW2 chaos rising because I only bought chaos rising after retribution was out and they don't differentiate on the wiki. I haven't checked orks although I'm guessing it would be similar.
**Space Marines**
DOW1 pre-winter assault so original original release/pre-imperial guard - Space Marines
3 Heroes
13 units
DOW2 Chaos rising - Space marines
4 Heroes
12 units
DOW3 - Space Marines
3 Elites
10 units
**ELDAR**
DOW1 soulstorm - eldar
3 heroes
14 units
DOW2 chaos rising - eldar
3 heroes
13 units
DOW3 - eldar
3 elites
10 units
I'm sure this makes it easier to balance for competitive play but I'm not a pro-gamer, I've never watched twitch and I have no ambition to get to the top of any silly ranking ladder. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, which is fair enough. I just wanted to play 40k in real time in a game without having to buy a ridiculous amount of plastic and metal and take some form of strong hallucinogen. Its not so much that anyone said we would get full unit rosters finally and obviously there is a development cost to it, its more that we're well over a decade on from DOW1 and we seem to be losing far more content and mechanics than we've gained.
- In a way screw balance - I think the unbalanced nature of the 40k universe makes it interesting. If you can play a game with just placeholder unit graphics and immediately be like thats the shooter unit, thats the heavy anti infantry, thats a lower tier vehicle regardless of race, then what was the point in having different races in the first place. Why not just make one race/team/faction, it'd be super balanced and competitive and nobody would play it.
- I think Relic should have gone more extreme than even the DOW2 directional cover and had more densely populated maps like hive cities where instead of garrisoning in buildings your infantry move through them at a slower rate. Then relying more on a system of line of site and weapon range, you can ambush other players, sneak round and flank, fight gorilla warfare style or be ambushed yourself when moving into the building. Then you have vehicles that wont be able to enter the building but can demolish or destroy it, potentially revealing their location and perhaps requiring more than just knocking into it. Creating vehicle choke holds in the streets so you can ambush with infantry and play on the reduced mobility of the massive titan type units. The reason I'd like this system instead of the currently no cover at all, is I've read about 25 Horus Heresy books and generally very few races have the tactic of stand out in the open in a line facing the enemy while you both fire continuously at each other until one or both of you are dead, probably because other than the followers of nurgle they'd be wiped out.
- Personally i'd scrap doctrines, surely theres more strategy in choosing these in response to your opponents choices within game
- Id split elites into Titans and Heroes. Titans require huge amounts of resources each time you build them, because they would require a huge amount of resources to build and would still be capped (although optional). Heroes can use elite points or whatever to represent the scale of the battle drawing these more legendary heroes in. Recruited at buildings during the game, because strategy.
- Unit abilities, have less of them on basic units, keep em on elites and heroes. Bring back morale, being pinned by suppressive fire and add bonuses for attacking from behind and flanking. Basically make the ability of a unit be its micro instead of click button, aim, kill squad. Try to get away from move unit in front of enemy and start twitching abilities until one side is dead and have it more tactical and strategic. Before anyone says you can't keep track of that many units at once and it would be impossible due to scale, Total war.
- Surviviability. The game should be focused on the 40k armies and be supplemented by the super-powerful titans not based on capturing enough with basic units to begin the real battle between elites. Titans should have severe weaknesses and disadvantages for the amount of damage potential they bring e.g. slow moving, much more difficult to find paths, maybe something like concentrated fire from multiple units increasing the damage done or increased damage from behind.
- Move all non-unique units out of the elite system and back into the game. Cap them if neccassary.
- Have units gain a basic degree of experience (doesn't have to be too complex, maybe tier 1, tier 2, tier3) and apply bonuses based on the level. Then maybe you can promote a top level unit to First company or some similar title and have the unit graphic change so they can be picked out in battle. You could also have unit upgrades like the ability to use plasma weapons based on the units level or veterency. This all rests on units surviving for longer, which is absolutely key in this being a strategy game. If you build a unit send it to fight the enemy and its fairly instantly killed, your available strategies are limited to you either clicked the ability in time or not. If the unit can disengage and retreat or survive long enough to reposition themselves better you've just opened up a wealth of tactical and strategic options for every engagement. This in turn passes the skill emphasis from being able to click abilities quick (NOT-MOBA but twitch style gaming) to playing strategically in real time (RTS?)
- Game modes and options. Annihilation (turrets and other defenses should just be buildings), victory point and whatever that one is where you have to assasinate their General. I understand what the idea behind power core was but to me its annihilation without the ability to move your base. Up to 8 players, whatever teams you want and FFA. Be able to customise all the settings.
- Damage types. Im not sure how it works now but shooting a bolt pistol shouldn't do the same damage to a tank as it does to an IG soldiers head. Perhaps many many bolt pistols can slow and deteriate the armour until it can then be damaged in a similar manner. I think for light weapons vs heavy armour it should be a calculation based on the rate of fire from all attacking units, simulating a barage of fire weakening the armour making it easier to get through and maybe just the sheer amount of fire causing the heavy armoured units sensors to malfunction slowing them or locking them in place so you can flank with an melee unit.
- bigger maps and much more of them
- Buildings are a difficult one as demonstrated by DOW3 you can simplify it down to basically infantry/vehicle/hq/tech but then once built they have little strategic value. Maybe we could move to a capped by buildings approach where 1 infantry building will support 1-3 of the units it can produce. This means you have to build more of the buildings and protect them and also means you can attempt to attack these buildings to reduce certain types of enemy units. Have unit specific techs/doctrines here in a choose two of or something type situation. It sort of fits that you'd need barracks, armories and training centers to support the units anyway.
Comments
Dandalus
Try playing Firestorm over Kaurava mod for DoW1 soulstorm.
CANNED_F3TUS
Most of the stuff you are dreaming for is next to impossible to impliment in a RTS.
Also strongly disagree with your views on balance. It is very important for Strategy games to have atleast decent balance.
Lore doesnt make for a very balanced game nore does it make for a good game because people will play the strongest factions to win.
No DoW will ever start with all the factions and i do think that not all factions should be implimented. Relic should rather focus on bring in the races and know when to quit. We got 6 or 7 actual races right. Have relic focus on that and if balance can handle factions start adding factions like ad mech, SoB
WelshBrok
What exactly about any of the above is impossible to implement in an rts?
-In a way screw balance - I think the unbalanced nature of the 40k universe makes it interesting. If you can play a game with just placeholder unit graphics and immediately be like thats the shooter unit, thats the heavy anti infantry, thats a lower tier vehicle regardless of race, then what was the point in having different races in the first place. Why not just make one race/team/faction, it'd be super balanced and competitive and nobody would play it. Maybe I phrased this wrong. I don't mean make one race 1000 times better than another cos thats how it is in the horus heresy. I mean races should have their own strengths and weaknesses and that isn't as simple as if he attacks with this counter with this etc. I mean more like Total war, where vampire counts don't have any ranged units but are still mostly balanced. Maybe not screw balance, more improve differentiation. Make it really obvious you are using the quick glass cannon eldar or the more strength in melee numbers orks
-more extreme cover Again not sure why this would be impossible. Line of site/suppression/flanking and bonuses for attacking from behind have either been in a previous DOW or in the RTS part of total war. Its basically a combination of the shroud thing in DOW3 and garrisoned buildings in DOW2. The mechanics for vehicles being able to break buildings/cover was already there.
- Id split elites into Titans and Heroes. Titans require huge amounts of resources each time you build them, because they would require a huge amount of resources to build and would still be capped (although optional). Heroes can use elite points or whatever to represent the scale of the battle drawing these more legendary heroes in. Recruited at buildings during the game, because strategy. possible
- Unit abilities, have less of them on basic units, keep em on elites and heroes. Bring back morale, being pinned by suppressive fire and add bonuses for attacking from behind and flanking. Basically make the ability of a unit be its micro instead of click button, aim, kill squad. Try to get away from move unit in front of enemy and start twitching abilities until one side is dead and have it more tactical and strategic. Before anyone says you can't keep track of that many units at once and it would be impossible due to scale, Total war. in TW
-Move all non-unique units out of the elite system and back into the game. Cap them if necessary. possible
-Have units gain a basic degree of experience (doesn't have to be too complex, maybe tier 1, tier 2, tier3) and apply bonuses based on the level. Then maybe you can promote a top level unit to First company or some similar title and have the unit graphic change so they can be picked out in battle. You could also have unit upgrades like the ability to use plasma weapons based on the units level or veterency. This all rests on units surviving for longer, which is absolutely key in this being a strategy game. If you build a unit send it to fight the enemy and its fairly instantly killed, your available strategies are limited to you either clicked the ability in time or not. If the unit can disengage and retreat or survive long enough to reposition themselves better you've just opened up a wealth of tactical and strategic options for every engagement. This in turn passes the skill emphasis from being able to click abilities quick (NOT-MOBA but twitch style gaming) to playing strategically in real time (RTS?) was modded into DOW1 so definitely possible a decade later with a paid dev team
-Game modes and options. Annihilation (turrets and other defenses should just be buildings), victory point and whatever that one is where you have to assasinate their General. I understand what the idea behind power core was but to me its annihilation without the ability to move your base. Up to 8 players, whatever teams you want and FFA. Be able to customise all the settings. like DOW1
-Damage types. Im not sure how it works now but shooting a bolt pistol shouldn't do the same damage to a tank as it does to an IG soldiers head. Perhaps many many bolt pistols can slow and deteriate the armour until it can then be damaged in a similar manner. I think for light weapons vs heavy armour it should be a calculation based on the rate of fire from all attacking units, simulating a barage of fire weakening the armour making it easier to get through and maybe just the sheer amount of fire causing the heavy armoured units sensors to malfunction slowing them or locking them in place so you can flank with an melee unit. Basically a enhanced DOW1
-bigger maps and much more of them Impossibru
-Buildings are a difficult one as demonstrated by DOW3 you can simplify it down to basically infantry/vehicle/hq/tech but then once built they have little strategic value. Maybe we could move to a capped by buildings approach where 1 infantry building will support 1-3 of the units it can produce. This means you have to build more of the buildings and protect them and also means you can attempt to attack these buildings to reduce certain types of enemy units. Have unit specific techs/doctrines here in a choose two of or something type situation. It sort of fits that you'd need barracks, armories and training centers to support the units anyway. its a fairly simple tweak to the system used in DOW1. Instead of building adds to infantry limit just have it scout building allows 2 units of scouts. Then buildings would have a strategic role
The only other thing I have to say about balance, is why don't they basically take the codex values as a percentage of the highest possible codex value and just use that for everything in game. Then all you have to do (and it could be an automated process if GW gives relic CSVs of the unit stats) is work out each units ratio of the stats and if one number is changed globally then the values are changed based on the ratio, so a fast moving light armoured unit would have the same degree of speed to armour regardless of the high-level numbers needed to make the game playable. So if the movement is too fast lower the highest movement speed and then everything else will still be completely in line with how it is in the rules/lore/universe. Then its literally Warhammer 40k in a RTS, which is why I got DOW in the first place.
CANNED_F3TUS
Yeah and total war has no balance nor does it have decent race diversity with a few exceptions. DoW 3 can absolutly get more races its not a point i entirely disagree with you on.
Differentiating factions has been done in DoW 3. They just need to keep working on it.
>
Its impossible to impliment because it is too complex. A ++heresy redacted++ to code too. Why should devs go through the trouble for that.
Yeah i agree this is possible.
We have most of these mechanics you are talking about. We have suppression in DoW 3. TW WH is also alot slower paced than DoW games. Is easier to keep track.
Capping is lazy game design. Not happening.
Unit experience always was an overrated mechanic. And it was kind of unbalanced in DoW 2
Over complexefieng damage types has never worked man. Was bad for game balance and just amounted to cheeze.
"Stamped imposibruu"
Possible i agree.
Building are pretty darn important in DoW 3>
Lore books and codexes dont make fore good games. Thats why nobody in relic has dome it yet.
I gave up half way through. But still alot of your stuff wont work. Some of it has even been done before but was not good in practice. Some of your suggestions could work bbut are unlikely to ever be implimented
WelshBrok
-Yeah and total war has no balance nor does it have decent race diversity with a few exceptions.
Are we talking about the same total war? To be clear I was talking about Total War Warhammer's RTS part, which IMO I've found fairly balanced and diverse. There's not that much diversity in the historic titles though cos they all humans with variety's of pointy stick, bow and sharp stick, on or off horse.
-Differentiating factions has been done in DoW 3. They just need to keep working on it.
Think we actually agreeing here. There is some but not enough and maybe it'll become more obvious if they add more of the less bland races
-Its impossible to impliment because it is too complex. A ++heresy redacted++ to code too. Why should devs go through the trouble for that.
Maybe I haven't explained it clearly enough, cos I could probably code it myself albeit in JS. You use the current class from the shrouded/hidden non-bubble shield thing, replace the graphic with a building (maybe do some little animations if you have time and budget) and have them show up when in range of a unit looking that way (reduce the range of line of site behind the unit). The player controlling the unit sees it as a DOW1 hidden unit and can move it around at reduced speed while in the buildings. This is my dream DOW as per the title, so why should the devs go through the trouble = because it would make for a more complex and interesting game. That and its how battles in 40k are generally fought, between trenches or cities or ships with cover. Nobody stands there in a line firing continuously at whoever is directly in front of you while ignoring the fact you are being shot to pieces. Not a single fight/battle or war I've read from the black library sounds like combat in DOW and the before you say following the lore doesnt make a good game, even if you ignore the lore aspect it creates infinite strategic and tactical options where currently there are none
-We have most of these mechanics you are talking about. We have suppression in DoW 3. TW WH is also alot slower paced than DoW games. Is easier to keep track.
**Why is DOW a faster pace? Like for what reason? what exactly does that improve in the strategic experience? **
-Capping is lazy game design. Not happening.
Lol. They are already capped by the elite system itself? so already happened?
-Unit experience always was an overrated mechanic. And it was kind of unbalanced in DoW 2
I meant the one modded in to DOW1 possibly in UA so it probably wasn't even a rated mechanic let alone overrated. I'm not sure people overrating it is a reason not to have it though, its not going to be the focus of the entire game, it just adds depth and complexity and a reason for units to survive longer than spamming their CC ability a couple of times.
-Over complexefieng damage types has never worked man. Was bad for game balance and just amounted to cheeze.
Are you actually trolling here? Starcraft has damage types and is regarded as one of the most balanced games. Literally search most balanced RTS and its the first result.
-Lore books and codexes dont make fore good games.
Then why bother making a warhammer game at all? If rule books and lore don't make for good games, why even bother making games about the lore and units? Why waste the money licensing the IP? Could have just made up some generic races and saved a huge amount of time and money
Some of your suggestions could work bbut are unlikely to ever be implimented
In the title of this post i put my dream dow and then in literally the first paragraph "hopefully someone can take some inspiration from the below and maybe DOW4 will be the game I wanted" and then "ill throw in my vision for my ideal DOW". I clearly wasn't expecting it to be implemented in DOW3 or even at all
Honestly I don't mean to be a ++heresy redacted++ but I'm not sure you've made a valid point yet.
Katitof
1) Total war did NOT started with all races, that's one.
2) VAST MAJORITY OF UNITS are mechanically EXACTLY THE SAME with different skin and stats.
RTS factions are much deeper then that. You lack most basic understanding of RTS genre to believe what you believe.
Screw balance = dead game.
There is no argument that you can say that will have an actual weight here.
Because the game engine was build without these features in mind and does not support them.
If your oven is built to fit 50cm cake, it will never fit 100cm one, no matter how hard you try.
That's overcomplicating simple and clean system for no benefit.
I partly agree on the unit abilities here, every single unit in the game have at least one active ability, some have multiple, its not needed. Second part, you're as dead wrong as previously.
However you don't understand what morale did in DoW1. You could reinforce anywhere on the map, it was the only thing making you ever want to retreat from combat, model loses serve exactly that role in DoW2 and 3.
No, its your fantasy, not a good design.
Non functional pathing is not intended disadvantage ever, its flawed system.
That serves no purpose other then "gib moar".
That's completely not needed, overcomplicated and impossible to balance in a game where units are supposed to die and with the sheer amount you can pump in mid and late game.
Again, pointless.
PC is ranked mode, no other mode will be ranked.
Annihilation proved to be unpopular.
You have mods for other conditions you want, but relic would only waste time and money here.
Again, overcomplicating stuff leads to imbalances.
Its much easier and simplier to add specific modifiers to specific units then to flip whole system upside down for little to no gain and plethora of balance problems impossible to fix as proven by coh1, dow1 and dow2.
Bigger maps, sure, everything that discourages blob'o'doom.
Not really. It would only add to clutter and add nothing.
I'd like to see some more structures, but they should be utility focused.
Tabletop is turn based game, where there is no skill and the deciding and only factor is luck.
That's why its a terrible idea to pick anything from TT balance, which is also proven to be non existent.
TT is playable, but it was never and will never be balanced.
WelshBrok
Uggghhh perhaps my over use of bold is making it difficult to actually read the thread before posting guys. I posted my DREAM/IDEAL 4 ME DOW/Possible inspiration for 4, someone said it was impossible in an RTS, I said why its not.
1) Total war did NOT started with all races, that's one. cool, so why this relevant to an ideal/dream version of the game?
2) VAST MAJORITY OF UNITS are mechanically EXACTLY THE SAME with different skin and stats.
RTS factions are much deeper then that. You lack most basic understanding of RTS genre to believe what you believe.
I don't understand what you are even trying to say there haha. In total war you fight real time strategy battles with the vast majority of the units being mechanically the same with different skins and stats. "You lack most basic understanding of RTS genre to believe what you believe" lol, Im not sure ive even spoken of my beliefs here, i stated my dream ideal dow and then someone said it was impossible in an rts, so i went through and pointed out that none of it was impossible, why are we even talking about definitions of an RTS, are you literally just questioning whether it would technically be called an rts with all these features?
Screw balance = dead game.
There is no argument that you can say that will have an actual weight here.
Re-read the bold bit from what you quoted, that's not even the argument I'm making. I definitely should have said screw all the races being similar and bland with completely mirrored unit choices
Because the game engine was build without these features in mind and does not support them.
If your oven is built to fit 50cm cake, it will never fit 100cm one, no matter how hard you try.
Again you seem to have seen some of the words I wrote and not the others, my dream oven would be able to fit whatever cake size I dreamed of. Why does my dream or ideal have to use the DOW3 engine? Thats like saying you can't do elites in DOW3 because dow2 didn't support them?
However you don't understand what morale did in DoW1. You could reinforce anywhere on the map, it was the only thing making you ever want to retreat from combat, model loses serve exactly that role in DoW2 and 3.
I hadn't considered that to be fair and that does make sense for DOW1 / 2/3 comparison and why its not necessary for dow3, but I'd personally prefer (Again the whole threads about an idea dow) it if the units survived longer and ran away when out of morale. A grot would run away before a marine and then abilities to cause temp retreat through morale and stuff like that, not so much as an easy way for units to survive without you controlling them more to add to tactical depth (maybe I can force those Boyz to retreat so I can flank that tank)
Non functional pathing is not intended disadvantage ever, its flawed system.
I dont mean so they get stuck or take some stupid route, it would just be the equivalent of smaller units being able to move between the current lanes, only there wouldn't be lanes but larger maps with more buildings. Then you could potentially knock some or all of it down with vehicles or whatever, maybe having to fire at it, instead of actually just accidentally driving into it like DOW2. It would still be possible to get to every usable part of the map with vehicles, they might just have to take a longer route or alert nearby units to their position by shooting or smashing a building apart.
Again, pointless.
PC is ranked mode, no other mode will be ranked.
Annihilation proved to be unpopular.
You have mods for other conditions you want, but relic would only waste time and money here.
The point would be so you can play FFA with 8 players with different game types that I enjoyed from DOW1. Oh from what I've read on the forum here and steam, PC seems pretty unpopular as well. Regarding DOW3, although I prefer annihilation, I do see it doesn't quite fit the feel of DOW3
Not really. It would only add to clutter and add nothing.
I'd like to see some more structures, but they should be utility focused.
Yeah thats fair, it probably would get too cluttered, it was just an idea to try and add tactical depth to the building system so you could strike their titan forge or whatever so they couldn't replace their Titan or maybe it gets a penalty in some way because the facilities don't exist. Ooh also this is probably because I'm thinking of annihilation mode not PC
Tabletop is turn based game, where there is no skill and the deciding and only factor is luck.
That's why its a terrible idea to pick anything from TT balance, which is also proven to be non existent.
TT is playable, but it was never and will never be balanced.
I get what you are saying re-luck being the major factor in TT and it basically auto-balances the entire thing but there is still a tactical element and a little strategy to it with where you move your units and who you attempt to kill first and who you hold back to counter and stuff like that. You are right though that probability/luck hides all the imbalances and then even if you adjusted the values by the probability you'd then find the underlying imbalances. I wonder if there'd be a way to match the probability to hit and kill with skill still having enough of an impact.
Dandalus
The dream DoW is this:
Firestorm over Kaurava + Ultimate Apocalypse
Economy of Firestorm over Kaurava rather than UA.
Definitely not CoH&DoW2 economy.
Squad(infantry) movement from DoW2.
Vehicle movement from CoH2.
Dandalus
Building in areas from Firestorm over Kaurava.
IstCaptKandy
I would bring back the base building from the first game, the tactical cover from the second and the hero abilities from the third but enhance all of it.
Lets start with base building. Take the SM HQ for example. Level 1 it starts off as it does in the first game, with level 2 there will be a dug out trench around the perimeter with turrets on each corner and sentries patrolling the trench who react to enemy attack. Level 3 and the dug trenches are now deep 40k mechanical version of proper build trenches with squads now patrolling instead of individual sentries and the turrets have upgrades to towers with AA capability.
The tactical cover from the second game where the squads use cover but with the ability to switch to large scale melee combat much like the first game. A kind of mix between both.
The hero abilities I would like to be able to automate so the hero units use them without me having to click and tell each unit what to do, also if the basic marines could do the same with grenades etc, unless dictated otherwise by the player.
Also I want to be able to manipulate my environment. Creating trenches for defense which could connect to my buildings to building fortresses in mountains, it is 40k after all, for example.
I agree with the unit experience I think that would a cool feature. Make the players squads more valuable. I would like some form of overall battle doctrine so I can choose a focus depending on which faction im facing.
Dandalus
Abilities should rarely be auto cast only. Apart that I like your ideas.