@GuruSkippy said:
Is that intended that Lifta Dropa deals so little DPS vs buildings ?
It's 7DPS true damage when it lifts a unit, then there is a big damage spike when the unit is dropped, don't know what the number is.
Problem is, buildings can't be dropped, so they don't receive the big damage spike.
I think the fact that it can reinforce itself more then compensates for that.
Its literally elite version or trukk with crapload of utility.
I'd say we just need a common sense here, not official answer.
You've said it yourself, its damage is done when it lifts and drops stuff and it can't lift buildings(how hilariously bad that would look like?).
Its also pretty interesting attack type asymmetry I can see here, where units attack is amazingly effective vs other units, but bad against structures and objectives.
Just wanted to mention that Scout Strike doctrine turned a bit of pale. It's just don't feel like a worthy pick anymore, because it doesn't do too much of damage relative to infantries current HP's.
@Ololo111 said:
Just wanted to mention that Scout Strike doctrine turned a bit of pale. It's just don't feel like a worthy pick anymore, because it doesn't do too much of damage relative to infantries current HP's.
Have anyone picked it since the patch yet?
I did. It still gives off a strong punch for surprise attacks.
thanks for great patch!! I like the game even more - line units changes are awesome (also I was not disappointed with the game when it was released)
New skin for Diomedes is badass
Please keep supporting it! (also apart from races, minor things like free cam rotation and zoom, we need it
They should allow the ability to lift and launch could also be used on enemy units to disperse them at a time when the Orks receive a lot of enemy pressure ...
In addition, you should shoot down the enemy units on which the dropped object falls or at least, if the object thrown is blunt, since it does not make sense to drop a Dreadnought (weighing tons) smoothly without creating any effect and some ASM knock down everything on their landings.
Oh boy. Just had an epic 3v3 battle on Da Extractor. Lost the match but got a good play around with WraithSeer Kayduin. He's an absolute beast. The Immolate ability has a shortish cooldown and heals the unit itself so you can keep it alive to cause carnage. The duplicate shot move does big damage and 3 uses of his other move is awesome. Love the update!
Great patch, but what is going on, my units reacting only after 2-3 seconds and also lags in every game even when my connection is good. In short videos of Wraithseer Kayduin were some inrtresting music, is it possible to see new songs in future ?
By the way, I tried new Custom toggle options and it is a interesting feature. But I noticed that, even with Elites and Super Abilities toggled off, there are still Elite Points nodes, but without Elites and Super Abilities to use, these nodes basically becomes useless, unless there is a resource node in it.
So I'm asking you @Kat_RE , it is possible to replace Elite Point nodes with Resource Points in future if both Elites and Super Abilities get toggled off? Or not so much?
@Ololo111 said:
Just wanted to mention that Scout Strike doctrine turned a bit of pale. It's just don't feel like a worthy pick anymore, because it doesn't do too much of damage relative to infantries current HP's.
Have anyone picked it since the patch yet?
No one picked it ages ago, literally since Tacs got buffed. It works best when you can actually spam unit, so it does some serious burst damage, but it was still tricky if opponent heard about workers and stealth. When they upped scout price and nerfed nade, they didn't scale doctrine with dps buff, so it was already very useless, now there's entirely no point. Tacs outdamage Scout in cost/quantity terms by miles, scale great for late game, have CC (which is buffed in last patch) and much harder to kill. I honestly don't understand why Relic reinforced already braindead SM meta... Also, some folks said that Tacs moving faster with Tireless, I think I noticed this as well, is that a thing or not?
I hate to be THAT guy, but I find the hp change in practice to be effing horrendous and it has completely sapped my interest in the game. I'll explain.
First off, let's just admit that this hp change is ultimately Relic's attempt to mea culpa the fundamental unit balance of the game. The proposal goes, or so I've been led to believe, that line units are vastly inferior to Elite units in performance and thus Elite units dictate the flow of the game. Following that, early Elites are thus overly impacting the game and early game is overly influential which causes snowballs to form easily.
Alright fine, I can dig that so far. But the problem is that the way this is implemented through this patch causes a TON of other problems now. The damage adjustments don't do nearly enough to offset the swing in power in the early game from the Elites to the line units among other things. 30% free of charge is a massive swing, no matter how you look at it. I would have been far more comfortable with just a 15% to start. It has made blob counters extremely weak in comparison, and there is very little control in DoWIII armies to begin with.
What this patch has done is expose the underlying weaknesses in DoWIII's design, and it touches on several aspects but I'll try to be concise and stick to one. The most basic is that DoWIII doesn't know what scale it wants to be. DoWII was small scale, and focused on managing a small amount of units in a constant ebb and flow of combat. It's mechanics reflected that with the retreat feature, limited base building and the victory condition being based on map control. DoWI was large scale, and focused on coordinating high amounts of fairly dispensable units. It's mechanics had a macro focus with major game decisions being based on build order, unit variety and strategic positioning of forces and defenses.
DoWIII is constantly trying to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to be small scale early, but the escalation system ultimately renders early game impact (if you managed to get to late game) almost moot as resources literally come in too fast to manage and just turns into blobs slamming on each other. It wants to be large scale late, but gameplay is still focused on map control, early hyper aggression, objective destruction snowballs and up till now Elites.
TL;dr is that large scale games tend to have their mechanics focus on macro and small scale on micro. DoWIII is just confused because it lacks design clarity and tries to mix elements from both to create a mess. Because of this, the feel of this game will constantly vacillate whenever a patch affects on particular time-frame of the game until the foundation is on solid ground.
Relic, decide what the focus of DoWIII is and EFFING STICK TO IT. From what I see as a general trend, this game is moving more and more towards the large scale side of the spectrum. In that case, you need make changes something to the idea of:
1)Remove the escalation system.
This needs to go no matter what direction it goes, because it is a massive copout and screws with every part of the game. DoWII lategame works fine with the upkeep system, and doesn't fall apart. DoWI early game works fine without the need to refund units. This needs to go PERIOD as the escalation system is a massive cancer that is mucking the cogs of every facet of this game. 30% hp bonus to line units gives no excuse to players who can't keep their units alive early and you can actually make the resource node upgrades far more relevant than they are now without getting handed free income bonuses. Relic has written earlier about the need to keep different cogs as independent as possible when they made base turrets specific to doctrines, and they need to follow that thinking by removing an aspect of the game that literally affects every part of it at the same time.
2)Strengthen the ability to counter unit masses.
Large scale games revolve around units in numbers and the ways that the opponent can deal with units in numbers. Currently, the balance of this game is skewed WAY too far towards the offensive part of this equation. Minor LP/Turret/Sniper damage increases simply do not cut it. A game like Supreme Commander works because attackers need to deal with defenses that far outstrip them. DoWIII defenses and skirmishers simply don't. Snipers need to be more effective, setup teams need to transition away from high damage dealers to more control focused, turrets and listening posts need to pull their weight more especially when LPs no longer benefit from escalation. Armies need more tools early on to deal with the newfound strength of line units.
3)Remove the resource bonuses granted on objective destruction.
This one is another that is often mentioned, and it needs to happen on a macro sense. Large scale games need to have a proper balance between early aggression and tech superiority. As it is right now, early aggression outstrips tech superiority quite easily and only reinforces the advantage the aggressive player has. Let the aggressive player gain his advantage through the map control he got by pushing the objective rather than benefiting from both the map control and the objective.
4)Elites now cost resources to summon and respawn.
While this change might seem unrelated to the other ones, there is a clear connection. Elite units are ultimately so powerful because they are free of charge, NOT because they just gib everything. What this means in practice is that you could field a huge army and a power Elite for no extra cost. In order to make Elites actually work from a macro perspective, there needs to be some opportunity cost BESIDES not being able to summon other Elites. Elites could actually have a function as a counter measure towards large armies this way, instead of being a simple augmentation regardless.
Anyway, that's all of it as short and focused as I can. I really like the new Elites and maps but I'm finding the state of the game now going in the wrong direction if it's left just like this. Ty for the patch Relic!
@Atlas I just want to point out that with the HP scaling line infantry will actually be weaker in terms of HP in the late game because they health upgrades are less effective. I feel like the health increase has done a good job to slow down the early game and make it feel a bit less hectic and more enjoyable from a casual players perspective.
With regard to your proposed changes, I agree with all of them but 1. I think this patch was a step in the right direction and I hope they continue to make tweaks to the game.
@Atlas
Something I agree on, something I don't, also noticed some contradictions in your statements, namely:
The damage adjustments don't do nearly enough to offset the swing in power in the early game from the Elites to the line units among other things. 30% free of charge is a massive swing, no matter how you look at it. I would have been far more comfortable with just a 15% to start. It has made blob counters extremely weak in comparison, and there is very little control in DoWIII armies to begin with.
I think real problem is that all adjustment been made are not enough to reduce early Elite pressure even a little bit. If they would go with 15% it would have absolutely no impact at all and would be pointless. But gotta agree on general point of post that they clearly don't know where they want to take DoW III, otherwise changes should've been more impactful or none at all. Now changes are there, but they literally didn't address any issues this game already had. Also not really clear about blob counter statement. Can you please elaborate? Because from what I've seen so far, about x2 well placed Heavy Weapons can stop any blob assault dead in their tracks, as well as 3 pt Elite nukes still wipe out blobs, almost like before.
Now to the points:
1. Completely disagree. I think concept of Escalation phases is marvelous, it just doesn't work right. If tweaked correctly, it might be best invention in RTS genre in years. Main idea is to help control income/upkeep (which simply doesn't work) in more accurate manner, plus make ultra-smooth transition into late game. For example, how it should've been: when player goes T2 early for vehicles, they give huge upperhand letting player come back from weak T0/1 phase. But at the same time, with escalation it can preserve going fullblown into vehicles only because infantry simply falls off by levelling the playfield. Right now, when vehicles come, they don't provide any sufficient strength, and in lategame just become almost obsolete. This is a big headache of RTS which features distinct unit classes like that, and Relic came up with brilliant idea to balance it, but couldn't execute it...
I do agree that roles of specific units aren't fleshes out well enough. Units who suppose to be good at something are not, and completely fall off meta. But I don't think any drastic changes needed here, its a matter of balancing, but first and foremost Relic really need to understand what kind of RTS DOW III should be.
One word: Annihilation, it has non of these. Those issues will always plague Power Core mode. It is very awkward mode for RTS and will always feel wrong, no matter how you trying to enhance it.
Train of though is correct, can't argue here, but I see two ways, one is that you pointed out, and another is just to tone down Elites mass kill capabilities and make them more of support role for the army. In that case Elites will be much easier to balance and will become actual choice, not mandatory pick. Anything that has huge power spike will always be very hard to work with in terms of balance, and with this, there would be nothing wrong with current system and no need for big overhaul. Somehow I'm pretty confident that by shifting focus from Elites to armies will generally be more fun, definitely for me, and hopefully for all other folks, because, let's face it: every DOW was about army, almost every RTS is about army, not some free units with super powers...
P.S. That being said, I'd hate for developers (if they read our feedback) to think that changes they've made are bad, NO! Changes are good, as many others say, at very least they are moving in the right direction, and I'd hate for these changes to be reverted, but to be crystal clear: it would be great if Relic will take it a few steps forward, make changes more impactful, and finally consider what they want DOW III to be. And it would be especially great if they would share their vision with us, like... MORE often.
I don't mind the changes but I'm not keen on them. I really enjoyed the lethality of DoW3. It made a refreshing change to the overall grind of a lot of RTS games and rewarded good execution with quick and clean squad wipes and engagement turners.
It's fine how it is now and ultimately I think DoW 3 needs more players beyond anything else (and this is widely well regarded and appeals to newer players) but I do find a lot of the engagements trend towards the same set of plays and counter plays.
Before hand you could wipe a devastator or 2 before a drop pod or pods could plonk on top of your initiation force. This was great as it kept players on their toes and vastly increased the variety of ways an engagement could go....this excess HP though feels like treacle slowing everything down and nerfing these high precision strikes.
The same goes for sneaky strikes on the back line - now if you want to engage on one front while assaulting your opponents resources on the backline you are going to take x amount of time longer to do it due to the extra HP.
One thing I will say is the new 1v1 map is brilliant and does a lot to help balance this as there is plenty of room to maneuver.....however the extra HP (in my opinion) does homogenise matches in the direction of direct meatgrinding conflicts and away from highly dynamic engagements and feints....in my opinion at least.
It has made blob counters extremely weak in comparison, and there is very little control in DoWIII armies to begin with.
Sorry, but blob-managing is more affected by the number of models than total health of the squads. If stormboyz were previously wiping the whole Sniper squad on the suicide attack, well, they would leave you a single model right now.
It's just like HP reduction works in this game and why there was another flamer nerf after the first one - because perverted faeries got ~66% of their health in shields = receiving full aoe untill it's depleted.
On these very flamers you can see how it's changed (when aoe\overkill caused by the squad's abilities, not models in that very squad): previously, you got TM's with the flamer icon on the fornt, and it got wiped in seconds when there were 4 ranged squads or more. Now, you have TM's squad casting it for the longer span, while your opponennt has more time to cancel it. If he can.
So, it's just turned a bit from more instanteneous decisions toward pre-calculated ones in this regard, mostly.
@Stoner said:
No one picked it ages ago, literally since Tacs got buffed. It works best when you can actually spam unit, so it does some serious burst damage, but it was still tricky if opponent heard about workers and stealth. When they upped scout price and nerfed nade, they didn't scale doctrine with dps buff, so it was already very useless, now there's entirely no point. Tacs outdamage Scout in cost/quantity terms by miles, scale great for late game, have CC (which is buffed in last patch) and much harder to kill. I honestly don't understand why Relic reinforced already braindead SM meta... Also, some folks said that Tacs moving faster with Tireless, I think I noticed this as well, is that a thing or not?
Well, actually, I used scouts\snipers build with Scout Strike and Overwatch + Orion's command by some reasons even after 50R "nerf"
1) Fully charged Overwatch were penetrating basic shield and could had killed 3 models of DA, add here 2 scouts strikes and it's a wipe (worked really good on Khomets' Pass), while 3 were nearly penetrate this very shield.
2) A single doctrine-enchanced Blind Grenade had provided that 30 HP gap 2 sniper's squads on TM's were lacking up untill 2 models left.
I guess, it's not like scouts are totally useless even now as to be comparred with TM's, because, well, it's the only, but ASM's with leap, unit that can run away and help others to do so from Eldars and can tie multiple DA's\Lootas in melee with 1 squad, but this is not enough of reason to build them with just that. I think, they are kind of Snipers with First Strike equipped and should be rewarded accordingly
On TM's - it was funny to abuse it, untill I've run into some Korean player. Indeed, they've got the old +2 with Tireless and are as fast as DA's right now. I guess, there might be some number in-between of the previous value and the current to compromise on (if Speed could be real, of course).
Yep, and why TM's doctrine-provided knocback is counted as "CC", while Scouts' Blind is out of the league?
@Stoner said:
No one picked it ages ago, literally since Tacs got buffed. It works best when you can actually spam unit, so it does some serious burst damage, but it was still tricky if opponent heard about workers and stealth. When they upped scout price and nerfed nade, they didn't scale doctrine with dps buff, so it was already very useless, now there's entirely no point. Tacs outdamage Scout in cost/quantity terms by miles, scale great for late game, have CC (which is buffed in last patch) and much harder to kill. I honestly don't understand why Relic reinforced already braindead SM meta... Also, some folks said that Tacs moving faster with Tireless, I think I noticed this as well, is that a thing or not?
Well, actually, I used scouts\snipers build with Scout Strike and Overwatch + Orion's command by some reasons even after 50R "nerf"
1) Fully charged Overwatch were penetrating basic shield and could had killed 3 models of DA, add here 2 scouts strikes and it's a wipe (worked really good on Khomets' Pass), while 3 were nearly penetrate this very shield.
2) A single doctrine-enchanced Blind Grenade had provided that 30 HP gap 2 sniper's squads on TM's were lacking up untill 2 models left.
I guess, it's not like scouts are totally useless even now as to be comparred with TM's, because, well, it's the only, but ASM's with leap, unit that can run away and help others to do so from Eldars and can tie multiple DA's\Lootas in melee with 1 squad, but this is not enough of reason to build them with just that. I think, they are kind of Snipers with First Strike equipped and should be rewarded accordingly
On TM's - it was funny to abuse it, untill I've run into some Korean player. Indeed, they've got the old +2 with Tireless and are as fast as DA's right now. I guess, there might be some number in-between of the previous value and the current to compromise on (if Speed could be real, of course).
Yep, and why TM's doctrine-provided knocback is counted as "CC", while Scouts' Blind is out of the league?
Problem I see with Snipers that they:
Cost energy which is priceless and only 20 req cheaper than Tacs
Don't scale very well in late game and require a lot of baby sitting
Completely not self sufficient, if you don't have some Tacs or ASM to soak damage, they're done for
Are very fragile, can be caught and murdered real quick, anything can in fact, but Tacs are just more resilient and can take punishment, which is priceless in this game
If I get Snipers out, I'm pretty much trading armory, because by having Snipers and armory + upgrade is way too much energy. SM is the race that needs T3 ASAP if match drags out for longer than T1 or you won't survive. Ideally another meta should have been ASM supported by Snipers and Scouts, but it gonna drain so much power, it's simply not worth it, especially since there's no way to prevent ASM bleeding and reinforcing them will destroy your economy real hard. You can tie up two ranged squads if your opponent is blobbing on purpose and never heard about spacing. ASM are slow, they can't cover longer distance than 1 meter, especially post-nerf. Also if your opponent isn't dummy and heard about Workers, you can shove your Overwatch deep into the ++heresy redacted++. Tacs just bruteforce through everything. So I'm not keen on hope that another player is unable to perform simple counters. That considering he will know 100% what I'm gonna do in the match and can prepare accordingly.
Scout nades are out of the league, because stun duration got nerfed, and their price increased, which means you won't have enough to dish out serious damage as well as not enough to effective stun lock opponent to prevent heavy Scout bleeding, because they can't trade. When Tacs hit with frag, they deal ton of damage to disabled opponent, can stand under fire and don't bleed as hard, also can't be completely deleted by nuke. I hate this meta, but I have tried (and still trying) many different strats I can think of, nothing works as good as this brain dead meta. I have been playing more Eldar lately, and tbh it's pretty sad sight as well...
They're frontloaded DPS that benefits from range / having a spotter unit ahead of them. When I say "frontloaded" I mean the bulk of their DPS is done upfront; they're not a significant "damage over time" unit nor do they really have sustained fire. They deal periodic bursts of high damage. This is a role. Any upgrades that are applied to them, any Doctrines they benefit from . . . they can all be designed around this role.
@Gorb said:
They're frontloaded DPS that benefits from range / having a spotter unit ahead of them. When I say "frontloaded" I mean the bulk of their DPS is done upfront; they're not a significant "damage over time" unit nor do they really have sustained fire. They deal periodic bursts of high damage. This is a role. Any upgrades that are applied to them, any Doctrines they benefit from . . . they can all be designed around this role.
Opinion post.
which is not helpful in large battles at all. They´re barely worth the cost, cause the enemy always breaks through!
They excel against a variety of targets. They're good at taking out models from high-model-count squads (as those models tend to have lower health), they're great at harassing single-entity units (i.e Elites) and anything that deals damage to squad-based Elites (like Terminators) is a good thing.
Positioning is key.
Them "not being worth the cost" is a balance argument. You said they had no role - I replied to that, and that alone.
@Nassir_Amit said:
Snipers just don t have an role, thats the problem!! They can t kill units fast enough, don t have controll and aren t anti cover like in DoW 2
Long range poke, which punishes passive play and hugging objectives and forward structures.
They provide safe bleed and long range sight, that's their role.
Snipers don't have a role?! That's a bit silly. They can be an invaluable unit to poke and harass, or do ranged focused bursts of damage against units or nodes.
try playing against a 7 ranger spam early on in an open spaced map.... you get slaughtered and you have no way to reach them . especially with fleet of foot they just dance around your tacts. even 1-2 assaults cant kill them in time.. only solution is wirlwind or marine sniper spamming...
@Kat_RE
Being that the majority of my content and some others that utilize the replay functionality, I have a few questions.
Will there ever be a real-time aspect to it, with rewind and fast-forward, I have heard that the current engine does not allow that, would like some confirmation on that.
Is it possible to implement CHAT in the replays, seeing what people are saying to one another will not only show what teammates are talking about but it allows the viewer to understand what the players are planning or not agreeing on. This could be used as an educational element, revealing and showing what strategies are shared, and yes....trash talking is wanted.
Ty for the responses so far! I'll try to clarify what I meant earlier.
Yes, I'm aware that the HP upgrades now scale differently from what they used to be, and that ultimately line units start better but end up worse. However, what I've ultimately argued is that the changes to compensate this new curve are inadequate to match the newfound strength of early Line units and that the result is just going to be games ending earlier than usual on average. Not enough was done to ensure that blob counters can keep up with blobs, and thus early infantry plays are still overly potent and can only be countered by your own early infantry plays.
I define a blob as a collection of units that have similar ranges and behavior. 1 TM squad is not a blob. Neither is 1 TM, 1 Scout and 1 Dev squad. But 3+ TM squads is definitely a blob. Basic units in particular like DA/TM/Sluggas are super easy to blob and you can field a high number of them quite early in the game. The reason why blobs are bad from a pure design standpoint is that blobs have almost no reward for micro and have relatively little strategy involved. TMs just do better if their firepower is all put on a target, no real magic there. But a diverse set of units should countervail that because different unit profiles force the player to deploy them differently if they want to be effective. Blobs naturally go against many of the tenets of strategy games and often result in very same-y looking games where two sides just set up a forward base and they stare each other down until a mistake is made.
To deal with that, blob counters exist. Blob counters, like blobs, are units that are particularly effective at handling some mass of units that have similar behavior. Some do this through area of effect, like setups, or through some specialized profile, such as snipers. Ideally, these units would help break up blobs and reward a player that can adapt to an enemy's composition.
The problem is that the balance between units that typically blob and blob counters has now been sent way off keel to the side of the blobs. The changes done this patch asymmetrically affects these units. For example, all Line units have been given a 30% hp bonus in the early game. However, Scout Snipers have only been given a 20% bonus to their initial damage. This has resulted in a 10% loss of efficacy early on, and Snipers already cost power and thus more time to deploy. You can see this same pattern more or less throughout all the units, though some have managed to be brought up to snuff. But the point that blob counters have lost a lot of their strength as a result of this patch should be pretty clear.
Before you interpret me to be arguing simply only for more damage to units that deal with blobs, no, that's not quite what I suggest. What needs to happen is that blob counters need to be better equipped to deal with blobs. The offense/defense equilibrium of this game is skewed far too heavily towards the offense, and thus the defense vs a tac blob is more often your own blobs of das/shootas/tms than it is building devs/dr/lootas for instance.
For example, can we please tune setups more towards a control focus than what they are? Right now they are basically siege tanks that deal high amounts of damage and slow. Again, a confused design that translates into a confused mess where they are either too strong or useless. Make setups control focused or damage focused, not both. I could make a similar argument with other types of units, but you get the point I think. Useless units will simply never get built, which is what we're starting to already see on half the units on each faction's roster.
The escalation system is another such instance where haphazard implementation is causing problem, only even worse. The offense/defense equilibrium is all but impossible to get right if the basic conditions of the game constantly change automatically. How are you supposed to manage making sure a unit is effective throughout the game when their attributes change off of an abstract measure of time and not player input through things like upgrades? Why should an ASM squad be successful early on in killing LPs and then, because 20 minutes have passed, the LP now suddenly is easily capable of handling them? It's just stupid and screws with everything because the basic balance of power keeps changing to very little benefit.
Again, Elites requiring resources to spawn is another aspect that needs to be included because right now, they are just an automatic addition to forces. Elites could be used as an answer to deal with blobs but, as they are now, they once again reinforce them.
This patch needs serious iterations because, as it stands right now, it simply reinforces the pretty stale and boring meta of spamming early infantry backed by Elites. If Relic wants to make this game more strategically interesting, they need to first lay a solid foundation by removing the escalation system, create an economic balance between Elites and line units and strengthen the ability of blob counters to handle blobs.
Menu
Comments
Katitof
I think the fact that it can reinforce itself more then compensates for that.
Its literally elite version or trukk with crapload of utility.
GuruSkippy
As you said, Lifta dropa has enough utilities to compensate, but that's not what I'm asking.
Only someone from Relic can answer.
That wouldn't be the first time that Relic releases something with unintended things.
Katitof
I'd say we just need a common sense here, not official answer.
You've said it yourself, its damage is done when it lifts and drops stuff and it can't lift buildings(how hilariously bad that would look like?).
Its also pretty interesting attack type asymmetry I can see here, where units attack is amazingly effective vs other units, but bad against structures and objectives.
GuruSkippy
Again, if it's intended, it's totally fine.
I just want to know if that's intended.
And if it is, people need to know that lifta dropa should never be used to focus a structure in a fight, because you lose a ton of damage.
That's all.
Ololo111
Just wanted to mention that Scout Strike doctrine turned a bit of pale. It's just don't feel like a worthy pick anymore, because it doesn't do too much of damage relative to infantries current HP's.
Have anyone picked it since the patch yet?
jonoliveira12
I did. It still gives off a strong punch for surprise attacks.
BlackLotus
thanks for great patch!! I like the game even more - line units changes are awesome (also I was not disappointed with the game when it was released)
New skin for Diomedes is badass
Please keep supporting it! (also apart from races, minor things like free cam rotation and zoom, we need it
salvasc
They should allow the ability to lift and launch could also be used on enemy units to disperse them at a time when the Orks receive a lot of enemy pressure ...
In addition, you should shoot down the enemy units on which the dropped object falls or at least, if the object thrown is blunt, since it does not make sense to drop a Dreadnought (weighing tons) smoothly without creating any effect and some ASM knock down everything on their landings.
IntoTheRainbow
Oh boy. Just had an epic 3v3 battle on Da Extractor. Lost the match but got a good play around with WraithSeer Kayduin. He's an absolute beast. The Immolate ability has a shortish cooldown and heals the unit itself so you can keep it alive to cause carnage. The duplicate shot move does big damage and 3 uses of his other move is awesome. Love the update!
Hibou
Great patch, but what is going on, my units reacting only after 2-3 seconds and also lags in every game even when my connection is good. In short videos of Wraithseer Kayduin were some inrtresting music, is it possible to see new songs in future ?
Draconix
By the way, I tried new Custom toggle options and it is a interesting feature. But I noticed that, even with Elites and Super Abilities toggled off, there are still Elite Points nodes, but without Elites and Super Abilities to use, these nodes basically becomes useless, unless there is a resource node in it.
So I'm asking you @Kat_RE , it is possible to replace Elite Point nodes with Resource Points in future if both Elites and Super Abilities get toggled off? Or not so much?
Stoner
No one picked it ages ago, literally since Tacs got buffed. It works best when you can actually spam unit, so it does some serious burst damage, but it was still tricky if opponent heard about workers and stealth. When they upped scout price and nerfed nade, they didn't scale doctrine with dps buff, so it was already very useless, now there's entirely no point. Tacs outdamage Scout in cost/quantity terms by miles, scale great for late game, have CC (which is buffed in last patch) and much harder to kill. I honestly don't understand why Relic reinforced already braindead SM meta... Also, some folks said that Tacs moving faster with Tireless, I think I noticed this as well, is that a thing or not?
Wargrim
Only got a few matches so far, but Snipers seem to counter early game Elites pretty hard now. Which i think is a good thing.
Atlas
I hate to be THAT guy, but I find the hp change in practice to be effing horrendous and it has completely sapped my interest in the game. I'll explain.
First off, let's just admit that this hp change is ultimately Relic's attempt to mea culpa the fundamental unit balance of the game. The proposal goes, or so I've been led to believe, that line units are vastly inferior to Elite units in performance and thus Elite units dictate the flow of the game. Following that, early Elites are thus overly impacting the game and early game is overly influential which causes snowballs to form easily.
Alright fine, I can dig that so far. But the problem is that the way this is implemented through this patch causes a TON of other problems now. The damage adjustments don't do nearly enough to offset the swing in power in the early game from the Elites to the line units among other things. 30% free of charge is a massive swing, no matter how you look at it. I would have been far more comfortable with just a 15% to start. It has made blob counters extremely weak in comparison, and there is very little control in DoWIII armies to begin with.
What this patch has done is expose the underlying weaknesses in DoWIII's design, and it touches on several aspects but I'll try to be concise and stick to one. The most basic is that DoWIII doesn't know what scale it wants to be. DoWII was small scale, and focused on managing a small amount of units in a constant ebb and flow of combat. It's mechanics reflected that with the retreat feature, limited base building and the victory condition being based on map control. DoWI was large scale, and focused on coordinating high amounts of fairly dispensable units. It's mechanics had a macro focus with major game decisions being based on build order, unit variety and strategic positioning of forces and defenses.
DoWIII is constantly trying to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to be small scale early, but the escalation system ultimately renders early game impact (if you managed to get to late game) almost moot as resources literally come in too fast to manage and just turns into blobs slamming on each other. It wants to be large scale late, but gameplay is still focused on map control, early hyper aggression, objective destruction snowballs and up till now Elites.
TL;dr is that large scale games tend to have their mechanics focus on macro and small scale on micro. DoWIII is just confused because it lacks design clarity and tries to mix elements from both to create a mess. Because of this, the feel of this game will constantly vacillate whenever a patch affects on particular time-frame of the game until the foundation is on solid ground.
Relic, decide what the focus of DoWIII is and EFFING STICK TO IT. From what I see as a general trend, this game is moving more and more towards the large scale side of the spectrum. In that case, you need make changes something to the idea of:
1)Remove the escalation system.
This needs to go no matter what direction it goes, because it is a massive copout and screws with every part of the game. DoWII lategame works fine with the upkeep system, and doesn't fall apart. DoWI early game works fine without the need to refund units. This needs to go PERIOD as the escalation system is a massive cancer that is mucking the cogs of every facet of this game. 30% hp bonus to line units gives no excuse to players who can't keep their units alive early and you can actually make the resource node upgrades far more relevant than they are now without getting handed free income bonuses. Relic has written earlier about the need to keep different cogs as independent as possible when they made base turrets specific to doctrines, and they need to follow that thinking by removing an aspect of the game that literally affects every part of it at the same time.
2)Strengthen the ability to counter unit masses.
Large scale games revolve around units in numbers and the ways that the opponent can deal with units in numbers. Currently, the balance of this game is skewed WAY too far towards the offensive part of this equation. Minor LP/Turret/Sniper damage increases simply do not cut it. A game like Supreme Commander works because attackers need to deal with defenses that far outstrip them. DoWIII defenses and skirmishers simply don't. Snipers need to be more effective, setup teams need to transition away from high damage dealers to more control focused, turrets and listening posts need to pull their weight more especially when LPs no longer benefit from escalation. Armies need more tools early on to deal with the newfound strength of line units.
3)Remove the resource bonuses granted on objective destruction.
This one is another that is often mentioned, and it needs to happen on a macro sense. Large scale games need to have a proper balance between early aggression and tech superiority. As it is right now, early aggression outstrips tech superiority quite easily and only reinforces the advantage the aggressive player has. Let the aggressive player gain his advantage through the map control he got by pushing the objective rather than benefiting from both the map control and the objective.
4)Elites now cost resources to summon and respawn.
While this change might seem unrelated to the other ones, there is a clear connection. Elite units are ultimately so powerful because they are free of charge, NOT because they just gib everything. What this means in practice is that you could field a huge army and a power Elite for no extra cost. In order to make Elites actually work from a macro perspective, there needs to be some opportunity cost BESIDES not being able to summon other Elites. Elites could actually have a function as a counter measure towards large armies this way, instead of being a simple augmentation regardless.
Anyway, that's all of it as short and focused as I can. I really like the new Elites and maps but I'm finding the state of the game now going in the wrong direction if it's left just like this. Ty for the patch Relic!
PhilthyPhilPhD
@Atlas I just want to point out that with the HP scaling line infantry will actually be weaker in terms of HP in the late game because they health upgrades are less effective. I feel like the health increase has done a good job to slow down the early game and make it feel a bit less hectic and more enjoyable from a casual players perspective.
With regard to your proposed changes, I agree with all of them but 1. I think this patch was a step in the right direction and I hope they continue to make tweaks to the game.
Stoner
@Atlas
Something I agree on, something I don't, also noticed some contradictions in your statements, namely:
I think real problem is that all adjustment been made are not enough to reduce early Elite pressure even a little bit. If they would go with 15% it would have absolutely no impact at all and would be pointless. But gotta agree on general point of post that they clearly don't know where they want to take DoW III, otherwise changes should've been more impactful or none at all. Now changes are there, but they literally didn't address any issues this game already had. Also not really clear about blob counter statement. Can you please elaborate? Because from what I've seen so far, about x2 well placed Heavy Weapons can stop any blob assault dead in their tracks, as well as 3 pt Elite nukes still wipe out blobs, almost like before.
Now to the points:
1. Completely disagree. I think concept of Escalation phases is marvelous, it just doesn't work right. If tweaked correctly, it might be best invention in RTS genre in years. Main idea is to help control income/upkeep (which simply doesn't work) in more accurate manner, plus make ultra-smooth transition into late game. For example, how it should've been: when player goes T2 early for vehicles, they give huge upperhand letting player come back from weak T0/1 phase. But at the same time, with escalation it can preserve going fullblown into vehicles only because infantry simply falls off by levelling the playfield. Right now, when vehicles come, they don't provide any sufficient strength, and in lategame just become almost obsolete. This is a big headache of RTS which features distinct unit classes like that, and Relic came up with brilliant idea to balance it, but couldn't execute it...
I do agree that roles of specific units aren't fleshes out well enough. Units who suppose to be good at something are not, and completely fall off meta. But I don't think any drastic changes needed here, its a matter of balancing, but first and foremost Relic really need to understand what kind of RTS DOW III should be.
One word: Annihilation, it has non of these. Those issues will always plague Power Core mode. It is very awkward mode for RTS and will always feel wrong, no matter how you trying to enhance it.
Train of though is correct, can't argue here, but I see two ways, one is that you pointed out, and another is just to tone down Elites mass kill capabilities and make them more of support role for the army. In that case Elites will be much easier to balance and will become actual choice, not mandatory pick. Anything that has huge power spike will always be very hard to work with in terms of balance, and with this, there would be nothing wrong with current system and no need for big overhaul. Somehow I'm pretty confident that by shifting focus from Elites to armies will generally be more fun, definitely for me, and hopefully for all other folks, because, let's face it: every DOW was about army, almost every RTS is about army, not some free units with super powers...
P.S. That being said, I'd hate for developers (if they read our feedback) to think that changes they've made are bad, NO! Changes are good, as many others say, at very least they are moving in the right direction, and I'd hate for these changes to be reverted, but to be crystal clear: it would be great if Relic will take it a few steps forward, make changes more impactful, and finally consider what they want DOW III to be. And it would be especially great if they would share their vision with us, like... MORE often.
MaxwellsDaemon
@Atlas
I don't mind the changes but I'm not keen on them. I really enjoyed the lethality of DoW3. It made a refreshing change to the overall grind of a lot of RTS games and rewarded good execution with quick and clean squad wipes and engagement turners.
It's fine how it is now and ultimately I think DoW 3 needs more players beyond anything else (and this is widely well regarded and appeals to newer players) but I do find a lot of the engagements trend towards the same set of plays and counter plays.
Before hand you could wipe a devastator or 2 before a drop pod or pods could plonk on top of your initiation force. This was great as it kept players on their toes and vastly increased the variety of ways an engagement could go....this excess HP though feels like treacle slowing everything down and nerfing these high precision strikes.
The same goes for sneaky strikes on the back line - now if you want to engage on one front while assaulting your opponents resources on the backline you are going to take x amount of time longer to do it due to the extra HP.
One thing I will say is the new 1v1 map is brilliant and does a lot to help balance this as there is plenty of room to maneuver.....however the extra HP (in my opinion) does homogenise matches in the direction of direct meatgrinding conflicts and away from highly dynamic engagements and feints....in my opinion at least.
Ololo111
@Atlas
Sorry, but blob-managing is more affected by the number of models than total health of the squads. If stormboyz were previously wiping the whole Sniper squad on the suicide attack, well, they would leave you a single model right now.
It's just like HP reduction works in this game and why there was another flamer nerf after the first one - because perverted faeries got ~66% of their health in shields = receiving full aoe untill it's depleted.
On these very flamers you can see how it's changed (when aoe\overkill caused by the squad's abilities, not models in that very squad): previously, you got TM's with the flamer icon on the fornt, and it got wiped in seconds when there were 4 ranged squads or more. Now, you have TM's squad casting it for the longer span, while your opponennt has more time to cancel it. If he can.
So, it's just turned a bit from more instanteneous decisions toward pre-calculated ones in this regard, mostly.
Ololo111
Well, actually, I used scouts\snipers build with Scout Strike and Overwatch + Orion's command by some reasons even after 50R "nerf"
1) Fully charged Overwatch were penetrating basic shield and could had killed 3 models of DA, add here 2 scouts strikes and it's a wipe (worked really good on Khomets' Pass), while 3 were nearly penetrate this very shield.
2) A single doctrine-enchanced Blind Grenade had provided that 30 HP gap 2 sniper's squads on TM's were lacking up untill 2 models left.
I guess, it's not like scouts are totally useless even now as to be comparred with TM's, because, well, it's the only, but ASM's with leap, unit that can run away and help others to do so from Eldars and can tie multiple DA's\Lootas in melee with 1 squad, but this is not enough of reason to build them with just that. I think, they are kind of Snipers with First Strike equipped and should be rewarded accordingly
On TM's - it was funny to abuse it, untill I've run into some Korean player. Indeed, they've got the old +2 with Tireless and are as fast as DA's right now. I guess, there might be some number in-between of the previous value and the current to compromise on (if Speed could be real, of course).
Yep, and why TM's doctrine-provided knocback is counted as "CC", while Scouts' Blind is out of the league?
Stoner
Problem I see with Snipers that they:
If I get Snipers out, I'm pretty much trading armory, because by having Snipers and armory + upgrade is way too much energy. SM is the race that needs T3 ASAP if match drags out for longer than T1 or you won't survive. Ideally another meta should have been ASM supported by Snipers and Scouts, but it gonna drain so much power, it's simply not worth it, especially since there's no way to prevent ASM bleeding and reinforcing them will destroy your economy real hard. You can tie up two ranged squads if your opponent is blobbing on purpose and never heard about spacing. ASM are slow, they can't cover longer distance than 1 meter, especially post-nerf. Also if your opponent isn't dummy and heard about Workers, you can shove your Overwatch deep into the ++heresy redacted++. Tacs just bruteforce through everything. So I'm not keen on hope that another player is unable to perform simple counters. That considering he will know 100% what I'm gonna do in the match and can prepare accordingly.
Scout nades are out of the league, because stun duration got nerfed, and their price increased, which means you won't have enough to dish out serious damage as well as not enough to effective stun lock opponent to prevent heavy Scout bleeding, because they can't trade. When Tacs hit with frag, they deal ton of damage to disabled opponent, can stand under fire and don't bleed as hard, also can't be completely deleted by nuke. I hate this meta, but I have tried (and still trying) many different strats I can think of, nothing works as good as this brain dead meta. I have been playing more Eldar lately, and tbh it's pretty sad sight as well...
Gorb
They're frontloaded DPS that benefits from range / having a spotter unit ahead of them. When I say "frontloaded" I mean the bulk of their DPS is done upfront; they're not a significant "damage over time" unit nor do they really have sustained fire. They deal periodic bursts of high damage. This is a role. Any upgrades that are applied to them, any Doctrines they benefit from . . . they can all be designed around this role.
Opinion post.
Gorb
They excel against a variety of targets. They're good at taking out models from high-model-count squads (as those models tend to have lower health), they're great at harassing single-entity units (i.e Elites) and anything that deals damage to squad-based Elites (like Terminators) is a good thing.
Positioning is key.
Them "not being worth the cost" is a balance argument. You said they had no role - I replied to that, and that alone.
Katitof
Long range poke, which punishes passive play and hugging objectives and forward structures.
They provide safe bleed and long range sight, that's their role.
IntoTheRainbow
Snipers don't have a role?! That's a bit silly. They can be an invaluable unit to poke and harass, or do ranged focused bursts of damage against units or nodes.
AlienHack
try playing against a 7 ranger spam early on in an open spaced map.... you get slaughtered and you have no way to reach them . especially with fleet of foot they just dance around your tacts. even 1-2 assaults cant kill them in time.. only solution is wirlwind or marine sniper spamming...
2Sk3TCHY
@Kat_RE
Being that the majority of my content and some others that utilize the replay functionality, I have a few questions.
Will there ever be a real-time aspect to it, with rewind and fast-forward, I have heard that the current engine does not allow that, would like some confirmation on that.
Is it possible to implement CHAT in the replays, seeing what people are saying to one another will not only show what teammates are talking about but it allows the viewer to understand what the players are planning or not agreeing on. This could be used as an educational element, revealing and showing what strategies are shared, and yes....trash talking is wanted.
Any thoughts?
Many thanks.
Martin
@2Sk3TCHY
I have viewed replays that had chat messages in them, seem very rare though. So it is just buggy or unfinished implementation.
Atlas
Ty for the responses so far! I'll try to clarify what I meant earlier.
Yes, I'm aware that the HP upgrades now scale differently from what they used to be, and that ultimately line units start better but end up worse. However, what I've ultimately argued is that the changes to compensate this new curve are inadequate to match the newfound strength of early Line units and that the result is just going to be games ending earlier than usual on average. Not enough was done to ensure that blob counters can keep up with blobs, and thus early infantry plays are still overly potent and can only be countered by your own early infantry plays.
I define a blob as a collection of units that have similar ranges and behavior. 1 TM squad is not a blob. Neither is 1 TM, 1 Scout and 1 Dev squad. But 3+ TM squads is definitely a blob. Basic units in particular like DA/TM/Sluggas are super easy to blob and you can field a high number of them quite early in the game. The reason why blobs are bad from a pure design standpoint is that blobs have almost no reward for micro and have relatively little strategy involved. TMs just do better if their firepower is all put on a target, no real magic there. But a diverse set of units should countervail that because different unit profiles force the player to deploy them differently if they want to be effective. Blobs naturally go against many of the tenets of strategy games and often result in very same-y looking games where two sides just set up a forward base and they stare each other down until a mistake is made.
To deal with that, blob counters exist. Blob counters, like blobs, are units that are particularly effective at handling some mass of units that have similar behavior. Some do this through area of effect, like setups, or through some specialized profile, such as snipers. Ideally, these units would help break up blobs and reward a player that can adapt to an enemy's composition.
The problem is that the balance between units that typically blob and blob counters has now been sent way off keel to the side of the blobs. The changes done this patch asymmetrically affects these units. For example, all Line units have been given a 30% hp bonus in the early game. However, Scout Snipers have only been given a 20% bonus to their initial damage. This has resulted in a 10% loss of efficacy early on, and Snipers already cost power and thus more time to deploy. You can see this same pattern more or less throughout all the units, though some have managed to be brought up to snuff. But the point that blob counters have lost a lot of their strength as a result of this patch should be pretty clear.
Before you interpret me to be arguing simply only for more damage to units that deal with blobs, no, that's not quite what I suggest. What needs to happen is that blob counters need to be better equipped to deal with blobs. The offense/defense equilibrium of this game is skewed far too heavily towards the offense, and thus the defense vs a tac blob is more often your own blobs of das/shootas/tms than it is building devs/dr/lootas for instance.
For example, can we please tune setups more towards a control focus than what they are? Right now they are basically siege tanks that deal high amounts of damage and slow. Again, a confused design that translates into a confused mess where they are either too strong or useless. Make setups control focused or damage focused, not both. I could make a similar argument with other types of units, but you get the point I think. Useless units will simply never get built, which is what we're starting to already see on half the units on each faction's roster.
The escalation system is another such instance where haphazard implementation is causing problem, only even worse. The offense/defense equilibrium is all but impossible to get right if the basic conditions of the game constantly change automatically. How are you supposed to manage making sure a unit is effective throughout the game when their attributes change off of an abstract measure of time and not player input through things like upgrades? Why should an ASM squad be successful early on in killing LPs and then, because 20 minutes have passed, the LP now suddenly is easily capable of handling them? It's just stupid and screws with everything because the basic balance of power keeps changing to very little benefit.
Again, Elites requiring resources to spawn is another aspect that needs to be included because right now, they are just an automatic addition to forces. Elites could be used as an answer to deal with blobs but, as they are now, they once again reinforce them.
This patch needs serious iterations because, as it stands right now, it simply reinforces the pretty stale and boring meta of spamming early infantry backed by Elites. If Relic wants to make this game more strategically interesting, they need to first lay a solid foundation by removing the escalation system, create an economic balance between Elites and line units and strengthen the ability of blob counters to handle blobs.