Relic Needs to Communicate How to Reinforce on the Battlefield

SuperBumbleB

Something I noticed in the YouTube and Twitch streams is that players either manually retreat slowly all the way back to base to reinforce or they push forward with their weakened units whether because
a.) the base is too far
b.) They don't know how to reinforce
c.) What's Unit Preservation?

But I recall the Devs saying you could build bases all over the map to act as reinforcement points. And I have yet to see ANYONE do that.

I don't think the Devs even told their players that on/off stream. It seems like a lot of people disappointed that they can no longer retreat would be a bit happier if they knew that they could have constructed forward HQs so they dont have to walk all the way back or throw away wounded units to get new units.

You could also reinforce via Drop Pods too which I do think the community manager suggested to a player but he didn't follow up on that

I do think Relic needs to communicate better with the players at these events as I see a lot of people and YouTubers liking the game but lamenting the loss of the Retreat Function and the inability to reinforce on the battlefield. You can with the latter, but I don't think they know because it's not communicated with them.

This does bring up a question though... would building Forward Reinforcement Points be cheaper than pumping out all new units? I assume it would be cheaper and effective but I don't know as of yet.

SuperBumbleB

Yeah, I love-hate the retreat mechanic. As an idea, I love that you can have your units automatically retreat to base. It felt authentic and obvious as an option. And I guess you could say the retreating unit is evading the damage by running really quick But in practice, I found that it could be incredibly frustrating. A seriously weakened unit managing to escape a hailstorm of fire because of the Retreat buffs and RNG.

I'm not well versed in 40K lore but I will say that a Retreat mechanic seems to make more sense in the COH games then DOW. I dunno, heavily armored Space Marines and other huge intimidating entities retreating all the way back to base doesn't sound as fitting as regular WW2 infantry fleeing the battlefield. I would however adjust the retreat mechanics to make retreats less forgiving though in the COH games.

Wardonno

@MY_NAME69 said:
Building Small FoBs for healing and reinforcing is great.

I think they will add transports to the game to allow you to reinforce on the move. However i would liketo see the reinforcement rate to be halved to prevent those grindy wars of attrition that was DoW 1.

I noticed that the text description on reinforcing meants that it can only occur when a unit is near a builidng or a vehicle. Also if you notice the new eldar footages has vehicles wreaks that belongs to either Rhino or razorbacks.

Also adding a ability to deploy drop pods for SM and drop ships for Imperial Guard to maybe reinforce squads to half strength. Or 3/4 strength would be cool too.

They also mention that having gabriel angles deploy cause drop pods to heal your infantry upon landing.

Its gotta be tinkered with fer sure.

I honestly hated the retreat mechanic. It was such a flawed design. It could be super useless, super annoying, abusable if you had a beacon and frustrating due to horrible retreat paths. (Running through that melee blob from that one player that snuck around to farm kills? Remember that? Loved making people rage quit with that.

BlessedSpartan

I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

Zimbo123

@BlessedSpartan said:
I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

That's great to hear, much more realistic!

Apollyon

@Zimbo123 said:

@BlessedSpartan said:
I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

That's great to hear, much more realistic!

lol, no it isn't, its about as far from realism as I can think off, both in and out of universe

BlessedSpartan

@Apollyon said:

@Zimbo123 said:

@BlessedSpartan said:
I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

That's great to hear, much more realistic!

lol, no it isn't, its about as far from realism as I can think off, both in and out of universe

I'm a bit confused what you mean. TT and lore are different it doesn't make it any less relevant.

Secondly space marines setup forward bases and then reinforce with heavy support all the time or different companies.

Zimbo123

@Apollyon said:

@Zimbo123 said:

@BlessedSpartan said:
I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

That's great to hear, much more realistic!

lol, no it isn't, its about as far from realism as I can think off, both in and out of universe

I can see your point somewhat as SM's are only produced from gene seed and take time to mature and that reinforcing squads from a building way out in the map may be counter to that.

However, this is far more realistic than DOW I where reinforcements pop out of thin air (even when way out in the map and away from base).

DOW II was more realistic in this sense as you could only reinforce from your base or if you build a relay beacon from memory?

It could be argued that the production building has a teleport relay on it and therefore reinforcements can be teleported down to the planet from space (which is well within the lore), but this is just speculation on my side.

I'm not really sure why people keep saying 'out of the 40k universe' - yes all this seems over the top and unrealistic in real life etc., but that has never been the point of 40k. It has and is designed to be a fantasy world - but that fantasy world is still under laws and rules that govern it.

And in terms of being 'out of the universe' - look at the US army. It builds bases all over the world and reinforcements are either sent there or raised locally all the time (the US army did this when they went into Afghanistan and they trained the locals to combat the terrorists).

WoodsGore

@Zimbo123 said:

@Apollyon said:

@Zimbo123 said:

@BlessedSpartan said:
I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

That's great to hear, much more realistic!

lol, no it isn't, its about as far from realism as I can think off, both in and out of universe

I can see your point somewhat as SM's are only produced from gene seed and take time to mature and that reinforcing squads from a building way out in the map may be counter to that.

However, this is far more realistic than DOW I where reinforcements pop out of thin air (even when way out in the map and away from base).

DOW II was more realistic in this sense as you could only reinforce from your base or if you build a relay beacon from memory?

It could be argued that the production building has a teleport relay on it and therefore reinforcements can be teleported down to the planet from space (which is well within the lore), but this is just speculation on my side.

I'm not really sure why people keep saying 'out of the 40k universe' - yes all this seems over the top and unrealistic in real life etc., but that has never been the point of 40k. It has and is designed to be a fantasy world - but that fantasy world is still under laws and rules that govern it.

And in terms of being 'out of the universe' - look at the US army. It builds bases all over the world and reinforcements are either sent there or raised locally all the time (the US army did this when they went into Afghanistan and they trained the locals to combat the terrorists).

This is a video game after all. The lore is restricted to who made them up in the first place yaknow. But do keep it in the Lore criteria Relic. I don't want to see things jumping higher than Gabriel.

Xileh

@MY_NAME69 said:

@Apollyon said:

@Zimbo123 said:

@BlessedSpartan said:
I can confirm that you can reinforce away from your main Base by building a production building on the map. it's great after taking out a gate I built a tank factory thing and reinforced my squads

That's great to hear, much more realistic!

lol, no it isn't, its about as far from realism as I can think off, both in and out of universe

How is reinforcing units from a production building unrealistic. It definantly beats DoW 1 materialize out of thin air concept.

What he means with unrealsism in universe is, that after you deployed 1000 Space Marines you won't have any reinforcements left. A Chapter usually consist of 1000 Brothers.
When one dies its a harsh loss. And getting new Acolytes isn't always easy and infusing them with the gen seed takes time.
Thats why there are a lot of extinct chapters. And many more that just have a handfull of Brothers left, bordering on a sharp deadly edge to a chapter wipe out.
And any Geneseed lost without a chance to recover it adds to the odds.

But as it is a game and other races struggle with dwindling numbers too i can ignore that mechanic for gameplays sake. Exception Orks and Nids xD

Nautiloidor

@Xileh

infusing them with the gen(e) seed

MrBenis

By that logic it's amazing that Biel-Tan and Ulthwe even exist still after the gorillions of soldiers they sacrificed over the series haha

SharKnight

Hmm couldnt they just leave it like how it worked in dow 1? reinforcements and base building that is.

BlessedSpartan

We are playing a Base building rts. if relic decided to do a points system where you built up an army out of 1000 points or simular to battle fleet
then we could complain about units dying in the 1000s but we know what type of game this is. in Dow 2 scouts were more common on the field than tactical marines which is wrong. BTW didn't relic break their lore with Space marine. Sicarus is 2nd captain

SharKnight

@BlessedSpartan said:
BTW didn't relic break their lore with Space marine. Sicarus is 2nd captain

Hmm that depends.
Was it stated that titus was 2nd captain of the ultramarines? Because as far as logic goes I thought he was the captain of the Ultramarines Honor company or captain of the honor guard. Both which happen to have gold trims.

BlessedSpartan

@SharKnight yeah they called him sprain Titus. it's in their art book too.

what breaks the lore most is that the blood ravens make a cameo and then Titus mentions the Aurelian campaign

SharKnight

@BlessedSpartan said:
@SharKnight yeah they called him sprain Titus. it's in their art book too.

what breaks the lore most is that the blood ravens make a cameo and then Titus mentions the Aurelian campaign

This could only mean the events of Grai take place after Dawn of war II. Still the artbook really says he is captain of the second company? hmm I would like to think he is captain of the second company of the ultramarines honor chapter but... the honor chapter/company its only one single company no?

The only way to make things work would be to take advantage that they never mention ultramarines 2nd company in the game, so they can go that way, dismiss or retcon the artbook and such for it to work. I personally liked the idea that he was the captain of the honor company.