How to Improve Dawn of War 3 to get from "mixed review" to "mostly positive".

Akfiz

I'm a fan of Warhammer 40:000 lore and games. I have all Dawn of War games with their expansions except Dawn of War 3. I played Space Marine, Regicide and other Warhammer 40:000 games.

Some of you may ask: how dare you make suggestions about Dawn of War 3 if you didn't even play it? I didn't play it myself but I looked at the gameplay and did my research about the game and came to the conclusion that it's not worth buying in the current state it is.

The failure of Dawn of War 3, let's be honest, the game was a failure, it didn't sell well and has mediocre reviews, the point of admitting is that you can improve on your mistake, was that the Dawn of War series was never supposed to be a MOBA, anything similar to a MOBA or attempt to be a clone of Starcraft 2.

Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2 are fundamentally different. Dawn of War 1 is focused on base building, management and picking the right units for the right job while Dawn of War 2 is focused on frontline combat and unit-based tactics. But they are still at their core strategy games with a lot of maneuverability. Dawn of War 3 on the other hand has lost that core, it feels more like a MOBA and indeed the multiplayer maps are structured like that of a MOBA game. Not saying this is bad, it is bad because there is only this, there's not much content apart of that.

The main problem is: There isn't any other way to play Dawn of War 3. There isn't much content apart the Power Code mode with moba-like lanes maps. It breaks the experience for players who just wanted a strategy game with more freedom, familiar to Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2. Classic game modes, open maps, multiple teams. And possibly even a Last Stand mode.

This video summarises it well, while I will explain the solutions to all of these:

• It's great that the game has no always online DRM.
• For a game of 60$, it doesn't have that much content. Your sales policy is yours alone but at least part of the failure of Dawn of War 3 is that many potential costumers simply didn't buy it when they saw a price of 60$. It's better than free to play and microtransactions though, or if you make microtransactions, at least make them cosmetic only that doesn't break the game into a pay 2 win or pay 2 have an advantage one.
• There is only 1 multiplayer mode. I was shocked by this first, what? how is that possible? prior to lauch, Dawn of War 3 was announced to be a multiplayer-focused competitive game, and on launch it has only 1 multiplayer mode? It should have at least: Power Core (that already exists), Annihilate (to the death), Control Area (control over 66% of Strategic Points for 3 minutes), Destroy HQ (destroy only the base building), Assassinate (kill the commander), King of the Hill (hold the middle of the map for a total of 10 minutes). All of this with various team setups: Free For All, 2 Teams, 3 Teams or 4 Teams. This alone will make multiplayer more fun as you have more options.
• Keep the lane-based moba-like maps only for Power Core mode and make other, more open maps, for the other game modes.
• Add defensive structures in the game, such as turrets, you can ban them in Power Core mode but they are must for every other mode.
• The biggest issue beside the price, more than the map design, more than the game mode, are the skulls. It's absolutely terrible when you have to keep playing the game to quote "get better" at it. Mobile phones do this but competitive games such as CS:GO, Dota, SMITE don't do it. You have everything 100% from the start, if anything you should be able to buy abilities in non-competitive modes such as a Last Stand, nobody would care there, or keep the skulls economy system but only be able to buy cosmetics, things that don't really force you to play more and more and more so that you quote "get good", you don't really get better, you just unlock new abilities. It just isn't fair. Grind is not for competitive games, grind if for MMOs and mobile games.
• The comparions between Dawn of War 3 and League of Legends is not even fair. In League of Legends when you unlock a champion you have all that champions' abilities and possible masteries from the start, where as in Dawn of War 3 you have to unlock the abilities. And yes, as mentioned in the video, League of Legends is free.

In summary: fun game, fun multiplayer, crap multiplayer, crap in-game currency, not worth 60$.

Solution: add more multiplayer content, specifically:
1. More multiplayer game modes: Annihilate (to the death), Control Area (control over 66% of Strategic Points for 3 minutes), Destroy HQ (destroy only the base building), Assassinate (kill the commander), King of the Hill (hold the middle of the map for a total of 10 minutes).
2. Various team setups: Free For All, 2 Teams, 3 Teams or 4 Teams.
3. Open maps like in Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2, unlike the moba-like maps we currently have.
4. Add defensive structures in the game, such as turrets.
5. Add a Last Stand mode and maybe a co-op campaign.
6. Get rid of the griding economy.
7. If possible, drop the price and if you have to make microtransactions, make them cosmetic only.

Keep the game's lane-based moba-like maps for Power Core mode, but apart of that, make proper strategy game maps and game modes, shift this game's focus from a similar to moba to a proper strategy game, it has potential, otherwise I wouldn't have made this topic. Get rid of the grinding economy, this is the worst. And if you want to go the extra mile, copy Dawn of War 2's content model of Last Stand mode and Co-op Campaign.

Thomasagray

My main suggestion would be Relic to turn over DOW III license to another company. They could give improvements and appease the playerbase.

makemap

Remember when they say "don't fix what is not broken?"

They broke every single one of that. Dawn of War 2 came out everyone was already complaining lack of buildable units.

The game completely failed because base building is nothing like DoW 1. Super units are elite units. I mean being heroes units is okay, just like other RTS games like Spellforce. But, having them as elite just throw balance out of the window. The Maps were tiny and not fun at all compare to DoW 1. The only issue that DoW 1 had was walker super units can't walk over hills which is from a mod. They are working on AoE 4 right now, you have to remember they are the same publishers that made Age of Mythology where they had Titans you had to fight the size of a mega unit in C&C3. I don't get how Relic screw that up with tiny maps. The only thing good is Campaign.