@Kron said:
Well, that's a shame. And reminds me somewhat of Mass Effect: Andromeda. Both games were met with negative comments from the fans, and both were abandoned be the devs shortly after the release. Though ME:A was abandoned even sooner than DoW3. It seems like the will of the Dark Gods that we don't get a good RTS game in 40k universe.
lol yeah... WE WANT KOTOR 3! ok cool heres Mass Effect like you asked.. lolwtf?
Not suprised, but expected it. I didn't even buy this one after the wierdness in the reviews, DoW 2 was a large enough step away from the formulae for me.
Kinda sucks, might be the nail in the coffin for the series. I had my hopes up for a IV with a return to a RTS more similar to the first bunch. Don't focus on MP, Starcraft and DOTA got that nailed, don't want more of that, I would want more DoW (tretch to something like Total War:40K Epic.. :P).
@Kron said:
Well, that's a shame. And reminds me somewhat of Mass Effect: Andromeda. Both games were met with negative comments from the fans, and both were abandoned be the devs shortly after the release. Though ME:A was abandoned even sooner than DoW3. It seems like the will of the Dark Gods that we don't get a good RTS game in 40k universe.
Its not really as severe as ME:A, because EA did what EA does and not only killed the series, but also the studio.
EA killed what? 20 amazing dev studios so far, so they can pump more fifas and other loot box stuffed crap?
@AstartesUltra said: @r_bnb and Relic
So my proposal is simple, what do you think about opening a crowfunding which will allow to develop a dlc with the new race ?
It would be an opened subscription and people would give what they want. This participation would help to take in charge the cost due to developpment, the other part of the cost would be covered by dlc sales.
What do you think about this proposal?
Do you think this idea is realistic ?
Hey Astartes, that's not something we're thinking about at this time.
@Iatros said:
So the only question that matters is what Relic has learned?
I posted a similar response somewhere in here but to save you the search, our main focus has been making more room for user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in how we make games.
@Hirmetrium said: @r_benb
If it takes 6 months to make a new race, why were Necrons not delivered in October to an incredible amount of fanfare? I'd also like to point out that 6 months to create a race is... well its an awful long time. By that timeframe we'd never have gotten DOW1 with so many races (poor comparison when considering how complex essense engine is but still).
Combining two previous comments for you:
Based on player feedback at launch, we had to shift our focus to the overall health of the game (the foundation) rather than plowing forward on new content (the things you put on top of a healthy foundation). The main key issues (shown by in-game data) were that players weren't progressing very far in the campaign and weren't transitioning to multiplayer.
We tried a bunch of less obvious things to nudge these around for new players coming in after you. Things like difficulty tuning in the first three missions, UI changes to streamline multiplayer, suggested Vs. AI matches to warm people up to the competitive side of things, and even removing the skull system to encourage experimentation.
(I was to post the following the day this thread was started, but the spamfilter ate it, so appologies if it is somewhat repeating arguments that have already been exchanged. Thanks to Gorb for sorting the Spamfilter out!)
There are many lessons to be learned from this failure, but if you could only take ONE lesson away from the life and death of DoW3 it would be this:
You only ever get one launch. Dont screw it up.
This has been true for a long time, but over the last years the chances of recovering from a bad or mediocre launch have steadily decreased for all sort of games in all sort of genres. People's attention is moving too fast, too many great games are available, nobody really has a reason anymore to give a product that didnt totally convince at first try a second chance.
As you can not un-fu.ck a failed launch, making sure the product is GOOD and READY, and not just using a Beta as a glorified demo and hype tool should be absolutely common sense. Yet, you defered important changes to post-launch, failing to realize that post launch fixes are by definition too late in today's market. You can not afford to have bug fixes days after release, or balance fixes weeks after release, or content fixes(as defined by the fanbase) month after release. You extend alpha/beta, fix the stuff and release! And if Sega does not understand that is how it must be in the market of today... their death is also just a matter of time. The success of buggy incomplete early access games seems to contradict this trend, but it really is just the other side of the same coin. People very much differentiate between in-development titles and full blown (full priced!!!) releases, particularly from companies with a track record of delivering great out of the box products! You expect the full deal, now, not later. So there can be no exceptions, no excuses: If you declare you launch/release in today's game market, you have to deliver from DAY ONE. Blockbuster or Dustbin. One shot.
@r_benb , while I understand your tough decision to abandon Dow3, it won't negatively affect sales of your new and future projects, even if these turn out to be good for most people?
Not want to insult but I have a slight fear that we might not see Coh3 after AoE4's release due to damaged reputation because there were people who really liked Dow3, like me for example, even if it was a handfull of them and I'm worry that Sega wouldn't probably let you to make Dow4 after a predecessor's fiasco.
Would apprecciate that if you could answer to my question anyways.
so.. @r_benb thanks for all the responses you've given so far much appreciated. Do you have a date for the skins release? or are you waiting for April 1st to say April fools and give us a race?
We tried a bunch of less obvious things to nudge these around for new players coming in after you. Things like difficulty tuning in the first three missions, UI changes to streamline multiplayer, suggested Vs. AI matches to warm people up to the competitive side of things, and even removing the skull system to encourage experimentation.
I quite hated this change to the UI for the campaigns as it slowed down progressing towards the next mission. There's nothing worse than having suggestions/pop ups every time you do an task
@Draconix said: @r_benb , while I understand your tough decision to abandon Dow3, it won't negatively affect sales of your new and future projects, even if these turn out to be good for most people?
I'm not sure I understand the question but we know we have there's a lot of pressure on our next releases and we're changing up how we do things to make sure we deliver. You'll have to wait and see but we're looking forward to sharing more about those changes as the projects progress.
First, I want to say that as an industry professional, this takes a lot of courage and conviction to essentially stand trial publically on the forums for an arguably failed product. I know it's difficult, and I understand the pain.
I actually found out about this a few days ago while talking to some colleagues at work. Oh hey, HERO, you play DoW3 right? And then I got the news. I can't say I'm surprised really, the numbers just weren't there and the community feedback was extremely polarizing right from the get-go. I know I was personally pumped about the game, but after playing it for the first time, my perspective completely changed.
If I was to give you guys one piece of feedback during this difficult time, it's this:
Stick to your guns, but listen to feedback early.
The Dawn of War and 40K fanbase is very tricky. I've had quite a few talks with Jay, Andy, Josh, Jonny, and a few relic "old school" about this very subject. After all, we do play minis together and we're all 40K fans. This is because you're building an RTS game, which is in itself very difficult and complex, for a fanbase that is more of a beer and pretzels crowd who plays on the table rather than on the computer. The one thing that they share in common and doesn't have any form of segregation is the lore and theme. However, in order to penetrate this particular market, you need to be able to design a game that appeals to both crowds. This is a absolutely huge challenge, and something that will either work in its concept stages, or not work at all. Luckily, back in those days, I was able to contribute as a community balance tester and gave feedback on every DoW and CoH Exp after Winter Assault.
Thankfully, we've seen 2 (before DoW3 that is), very different games coming from two different visions. Jay's vision was a more traditional RTS while Jonny's came from the success and influence of CoH. Regardless of which you say was more popular, we can all agree that both were pretty solid in terms of RTS mechanics. Dawn of War, upon its creation was originally established as an RTS fundamentally. This is the balance of micro, macro, base-building and other elements found in games such as StarCraft or WarCraft. It also introduced some newer elements such as squad-based play, reinforcements and cover. DoW2 was more or less a 40K-skinned CoH (Jonny's gonna kill me if he sees this), but nevertheless, it was building off of something that was already universally accepted as an innovator in CoH (the original was a pioneer of the genre frankly).
My point is this: Dawn of War, the series, is an RTS. It started as an RTS, it continued as an RTS, but ended in a MOBA/RTS-hyrbid-thingy. I just wish you guys brought in some of the more old school players who really appreciated your games earlier in the development process to garner early feedback. Ultimately, it is YOUR game and you guys can choose whatever path you take, but I can't help but wonder if you were provided valuable, actionable feedback earlier in the development cycle; that things might have changed.
My question to you then would be this:
Has this been identified as a risk during your post-mortem?
Have you guys installed mitigation plans to possibly address this? (earlier community involvement and communication)
I wish you guys best of luck with Age of Empires 4, and I hope you guys bring to light the best in the Age of Empires series while keeping it an RTS game at its core. Again, please feel free to reach out to me directly by PM or LinkedIn.
The thing I don't get @HERO, given your extensive experience playing Relic games, is how DoW II still counts as an RTS, but DoW III is a hybrid? Would you be interested in explaining more of that?
Not interested in critiquing your arguments, just want to read where you're coming from there. I hold the opinion that any MOBA aspects laid out in DoW III had their direct roots in II (and in some cases have actually been toned down; no levelling or veterancy, for example). Years ago, there was a pre-release event where it was explained (by Jonny, though I doubt he remembers. Group of young nerdy folk in a game shop in London, haha) his very MOBA-esque aspirations for DoW II in general. Not so much in the "lanes" that people talk about the map design of, but in how the Commanders worked, how abilities play a prominent role, and so on.
@HERO said: @r_benb
My question to you then would be this:
Has this been identified as a risk during your post-mortem?
Have you guys installed mitigation plans to possibly address this? (earlier community involvement and communication)
The role of user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in our process has been a big focus. Even before the launch of DOW, our other projects have been introducing new ways of bringing this into the fold. We're looking forward to giving you more insight into that process later down the line but for now we're staying focused on the work itself.
@Iatros said:
So the only question that matters is what Relic has learned?
I posted a similar response somewhere in here but to save you the search, our main focus has been making more room for user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in how we make games.
Given the fate and results from CoH2 "illuminati" group?
Press X to doubt.
Relic is most definitely good at sending surveys, but after a couple of CoH2 closed alphas I've been into, listening to actual player feedback doesn't seem like a thing, given completely random changes no one asked for and not touching stuff community found problematic without even as much as giving out a post with developer reasoning.
As much as I want to believe Relic does community consultation, given my own experience, I simply can't.
@Gorb said:
The thing I don't get @HERO, given your extensive experience playing Relic games, is how DoW II still counts as an RTS, but DoW III is a hybrid? Would you be interested in explaining more of that?
Not interested in critiquing your arguments, just want to read where you're coming from there. I hold the opinion that any MOBA aspects laid out in DoW III had their direct roots in II (and in some cases have actually been toned down; no levelling or veterancy, for example). Years ago, there was a pre-release event where it was explained (by Jonny, though I doubt he remembers. Group of young nerdy folk in a game shop in London, haha) his very MOBA-esque aspirations for DoW II in general. Not so much in the "lanes" that people talk about the map design of, but in how the Commanders worked, how abilities play a prominent role, and so on.
Thanks in any case.
Opinion post.
No, it's fine, this is a good question. I don't want to type too long of a response, and if you'd like, I'd be happy to speak about it on Discord at a later time. In fact, if you read my first impressions piece on Reddit, I think the answer to your question is actaully rooted in there.
The gist of it is this:
There absolutely were MOBA elements in DoW2, such as larger than life heroes, hero customization, items, and so on. However, thinking back, would you consider WarCraft 3 a RTS/MOBA hybrid? The very idea of MOBAs in general, such as DotA came from larger than life heroes being introduced into the core mechanics starting with WC3. I wouldn't say that WC3 was the first, but they were definitely the first I remember that made it "mainstream".
However, however, the core RTS elements did not change. And this is where it becomes really difficult to explain. RTS players, want their decisions to be the end-all, be-all. Momentum and pacing matters a lot, and "being ahead" needs to be demonstrated clearly on the battlefield and in a player's mind. The battlefield needs to be clean to allow for the most accurate play, and every obstacle that can potentially confuse or put a player into an unrewarding situation has to be removed. God, I don't know how many times I've argued about this topic to Vindicare or other players.
If you dig up my post history, you can see me arguing about this quite a bit on these forums, especially when I was on my way out. However, I was told to essentially keep quiet and give it time. You know, experience really does matter in this respect. It's just a principle of every day life. I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two, and me telling you the same thing I said nearly a year ago is testament to that.
I just want Relic to recongize this earlier in their design process so hopefully their projects going forward will see more success. It's always tough to see something like this from another game developer, but I feel like this is a critical lesson to learn.
so, no balance update? why not nerf ranger and abusing bigmac?
you really think balance is ok?
plz think about crowfunding seriusly.
DOW3 fan need more 2~3 race and rework game(delete doctrines and core mode, add VP capture mode)
they will pay money gradly for dow3
I dont know what is relic's new project(maybe coh3) but most important thing is credibility
Dont lose your credibility and keep your fans
@HERO said: @r_benb
My question to you then would be this:
Has this been identified as a risk during your post-mortem?
Have you guys installed mitigation plans to possibly address this? (earlier community involvement and communication)
The role of user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in our process has been a big focus. Even before the launch of DOW, our other projects have been introducing new ways of bringing this into the fold. We're looking forward to giving you more insight into that process later down the line but for now we're staying focused on the work itself.
Thanks. You know where to find me, and good luck to future projects.
Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. I'm not sure how much I agree on myself, but I can't deny your views on the subject. A good read. It's hard for me personally to put into words that bit about the definition of an RTS (demonstrating what you explained, really). I think decisions do matter more, and that the core gameplay loop is "cleaner", in DoW III, than it was in DoW II. But I also prefer DoW II the most, out of all of the games in the franchise. I also seem to prefer the things in DoW III that a lot of other people don't like, hah.
After re-reading that reddit post, I have a feeling for what you mean there. There has been an emphasis on being able to "come back" at a lot of stages of the game in DoW III. Everything feels powerful. But to paraphrase Syndrome, when everyone is powerful, perhaps nobody is. I like the power, that feeling, how it impacts gameplay, but I also agree (though I do also say that the current game plays out a bit differently from release) that it creates an extended back-and-forth (if it isn't decided mainly by skill disparity in the first five minutes or so).
Anyhow, stopping myself here. Just wanted to explain a bit where I'm coming from, I rarely get the chance on here
@HARRYY said: @r_benb
is there a chance you give some more support than you expect now, when the player numbers still do fine in some sense?
Sure, that's a possibility.
Will you guys check the DoW3 balance mod made by Dullahan? If so can you please give us a slight support at least in terms of balances and perhaps at least one race? We already made a decision that we will pay any DLC if there is any (I know it's not going to happen but I still hope one day). I hope you guys regularly see our efforts in reviving the game. Also I'm looking forward for AoE4.
Hi, First of all thanks for your answers. I'm big fan of AOE and i know you can't share new info about that. ( But some clues would be very appreciate)
1) Will Aoe4 be more realistic than DOW3? (I'm refering to cartoonish style).
2) Are you going to use the Essence Engine? One of the best engine for era, in my opinion.
2) There're too many clues about AOE4's setting, including a recent leaked video (now deleted). I know (as many others users) that next Aoe4 Will probably come back to ancient or medieval times. Don't you think it's time to share with us something about that?
@HERO said: @r_benb
My question to you then would be this:
Has this been identified as a risk during your post-mortem?
Have you guys installed mitigation plans to possibly address this? (earlier community involvement and communication)
The role of user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in our process has been a big focus. Even before the launch of DOW, our other projects have been introducing new ways of bringing this into the fold. We're looking forward to giving you more insight into that process later down the line but for now we're staying focused on the work itself.
Hi Ben, I wonder whether at Relic you have discussed what role the single player mode in DoW III might have had in losing the interest of many DoW I and II players. While many conversations are had about the mechanics of the DoW III multiplayer, I personally doubt that this caused any unrecoverable problems for the game; even though certain elements were not to the taste of some players, this would not have mattered very much if the game had enough to offer to customers looking for a single player experience, and make up the majority of gamers in general and very likely a majority of Dawn of War customers. I don't know anyone who thinks the campaign in DoW III is enjoyable, let alone who would buy the game just for this, even though there is a huge market for DoW that would buy just to play offline. This lack of 'content' meant that if a player was not keen on a certain aspect of the multiplayer they had no reason to purchase the game, and because single player modes are very good quality in every other Relic RTS, I think lacking this gave a lot of oxygen to public distaste for the multiplayer mode (which I think is flawed but still in some ways the best in the series, particularly in 3v3 game mode)
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Comments
0riginal_z0M
lol yeah... WE WANT KOTOR 3! ok cool heres Mass Effect like you asked.. lolwtf?
Liljagare
Not suprised, but expected it. I didn't even buy this one after the wierdness in the reviews, DoW 2 was a large enough step away from the formulae for me.
Kinda sucks, might be the nail in the coffin for the series. I had my hopes up for a IV with a return to a RTS more similar to the first bunch.![:\](https://community.dawnofwar.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
Don't focus on MP, Starcraft and DOTA got that nailed, don't want more of that, I would want more DoW (tretch to something like Total War:40K Epic.. :P).
Thanks guys though for the time.
Illuminaughty
LOL
Katitof
Its not really as severe as ME:A, because EA did what EA does and not only killed the series, but also the studio.
EA killed what? 20 amazing dev studios so far, so they can pump more fifas and other loot box stuffed crap?
r_benb
Hey Astartes, that's not something we're thinking about at this time.
Hibou
hey @r_benb will we see skins today ?
r_benb
I posted a similar response somewhere in here but to save you the search, our main focus has been making more room for user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in how we make games.
Hibou
hey, @r_benb will we see skins today ?
r_benb
Combining two previous comments for you:
Based on player feedback at launch, we had to shift our focus to the overall health of the game (the foundation) rather than plowing forward on new content (the things you put on top of a healthy foundation). The main key issues (shown by in-game data) were that players weren't progressing very far in the campaign and weren't transitioning to multiplayer.
We tried a bunch of less obvious things to nudge these around for new players coming in after you. Things like difficulty tuning in the first three missions, UI changes to streamline multiplayer, suggested Vs. AI matches to warm people up to the competitive side of things, and even removing the skull system to encourage experimentation.
Wargrim
(I was to post the following the day this thread was started, but the spamfilter ate it, so appologies if it is somewhat repeating arguments that have already been exchanged. Thanks to Gorb for sorting the Spamfilter out!)
There are many lessons to be learned from this failure, but if you could only take ONE lesson away from the life and death of DoW3 it would be this:
You only ever get one launch. Dont screw it up.
This has been true for a long time, but over the last years the chances of recovering from a bad or mediocre launch have steadily decreased for all sort of games in all sort of genres. People's attention is moving too fast, too many great games are available, nobody really has a reason anymore to give a product that didnt totally convince at first try a second chance.
As you can not un-fu.ck a failed launch, making sure the product is GOOD and READY, and not just using a Beta as a glorified demo and hype tool should be absolutely common sense. Yet, you defered important changes to post-launch, failing to realize that post launch fixes are by definition too late in today's market. You can not afford to have bug fixes days after release, or balance fixes weeks after release, or content fixes(as defined by the fanbase) month after release. You extend alpha/beta, fix the stuff and release! And if Sega does not understand that is how it must be in the market of today... their death is also just a matter of time. The success of buggy incomplete early access games seems to contradict this trend, but it really is just the other side of the same coin. People very much differentiate between in-development titles and full blown (full priced!!!) releases, particularly from companies with a track record of delivering great out of the box products! You expect the full deal, now, not later. So there can be no exceptions, no excuses: If you declare you launch/release in today's game market, you have to deliver from DAY ONE. Blockbuster or Dustbin. One shot.
Better luck next time, R.I.P. DoW3
r_benb
Sure, that's a possibility.
Hibou
hey, @r_benb will we see skins today ?
Draconix
@r_benb , while I understand your tough decision to abandon Dow3, it won't negatively affect sales of your new and future projects, even if these turn out to be good for most people?
Not want to insult but I have a slight fear that we might not see Coh3 after AoE4's release due to damaged reputation because there were people who really liked Dow3, like me for example, even if it was a handfull of them and I'm worry that Sega wouldn't probably let you to make Dow4 after a predecessor's fiasco.
Would apprecciate that if you could answer to my question anyways.
0riginal_z0M
try a few more times, I'll help..
so.. @r_benb thanks for all the responses you've given so far much appreciated. Do you have a date for the skins release? or are you waiting for April 1st to say April fools and give us a race?
r_benb
@hibou @0riginal_z0M yep, skins are going live this morning (our time). Shouldn't be long now!
Robomate
I quite hated this change to the UI for the campaigns as it slowed down progressing towards the next mission. There's nothing worse than having suggestions/pop ups every time you do an task
r_benb
I'm not sure I understand the question but we know we have there's a lot of pressure on our next releases and we're changing up how we do things to make sure we deliver. You'll have to wait and see but we're looking forward to sharing more about those changes as the projects progress.
r_benb
Skins are up!
HERO
@r_benb
First, I want to say that as an industry professional, this takes a lot of courage and conviction to essentially stand trial publically on the forums for an arguably failed product. I know it's difficult, and I understand the pain.
I actually found out about this a few days ago while talking to some colleagues at work. Oh hey, HERO, you play DoW3 right? And then I got the news. I can't say I'm surprised really, the numbers just weren't there and the community feedback was extremely polarizing right from the get-go. I know I was personally pumped about the game, but after playing it for the first time, my perspective completely changed.
You can find my post on Reddit here after Kat gave me access:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dawnofwar/comments/6460ex/first_impressions_of_the_game_after_much_hype/
If I was to give you guys one piece of feedback during this difficult time, it's this:
Stick to your guns, but listen to feedback early.
The Dawn of War and 40K fanbase is very tricky. I've had quite a few talks with Jay, Andy, Josh, Jonny, and a few relic "old school" about this very subject. After all, we do play minis together and we're all 40K fans. This is because you're building an RTS game, which is in itself very difficult and complex, for a fanbase that is more of a beer and pretzels crowd who plays on the table rather than on the computer. The one thing that they share in common and doesn't have any form of segregation is the lore and theme. However, in order to penetrate this particular market, you need to be able to design a game that appeals to both crowds. This is a absolutely huge challenge, and something that will either work in its concept stages, or not work at all. Luckily, back in those days, I was able to contribute as a community balance tester and gave feedback on every DoW and CoH Exp after Winter Assault.
Thankfully, we've seen 2 (before DoW3 that is), very different games coming from two different visions. Jay's vision was a more traditional RTS while Jonny's came from the success and influence of CoH. Regardless of which you say was more popular, we can all agree that both were pretty solid in terms of RTS mechanics. Dawn of War, upon its creation was originally established as an RTS fundamentally. This is the balance of micro, macro, base-building and other elements found in games such as StarCraft or WarCraft. It also introduced some newer elements such as squad-based play, reinforcements and cover. DoW2 was more or less a 40K-skinned CoH (Jonny's gonna kill me if he sees this), but nevertheless, it was building off of something that was already universally accepted as an innovator in CoH (the original was a pioneer of the genre frankly).
My point is this: Dawn of War, the series, is an RTS. It started as an RTS, it continued as an RTS, but ended in a MOBA/RTS-hyrbid-thingy. I just wish you guys brought in some of the more old school players who really appreciated your games earlier in the development process to garner early feedback. Ultimately, it is YOUR game and you guys can choose whatever path you take, but I can't help but wonder if you were provided valuable, actionable feedback earlier in the development cycle; that things might have changed.
My question to you then would be this:
I wish you guys best of luck with Age of Empires 4, and I hope you guys bring to light the best in the Age of Empires series while keeping it an RTS game at its core. Again, please feel free to reach out to me directly by PM or LinkedIn.
Gorb
The thing I don't get @HERO, given your extensive experience playing Relic games, is how DoW II still counts as an RTS, but DoW III is a hybrid? Would you be interested in explaining more of that?
Not interested in critiquing your arguments, just want to read where you're coming from there. I hold the opinion that any MOBA aspects laid out in DoW III had their direct roots in II (and in some cases have actually been toned down; no levelling or veterancy, for example). Years ago, there was a pre-release event where it was explained (by Jonny, though I doubt he remembers. Group of young nerdy folk in a game shop in London, haha) his very MOBA-esque aspirations for DoW II in general. Not so much in the "lanes" that people talk about the map design of, but in how the Commanders worked, how abilities play a prominent role, and so on.
Thanks in any case.
Opinion post.
r_benb
The role of user research, early play-testing, and community consultation in our process has been a big focus. Even before the launch of DOW, our other projects have been introducing new ways of bringing this into the fold. We're looking forward to giving you more insight into that process later down the line but for now we're staying focused on the work itself.
Katitof
Given the fate and results from CoH2 "illuminati" group?
Press X to doubt.
Relic is most definitely good at sending surveys, but after a couple of CoH2 closed alphas I've been into, listening to actual player feedback doesn't seem like a thing, given completely random changes no one asked for and not touching stuff community found problematic without even as much as giving out a post with developer reasoning.
As much as I want to believe Relic does community consultation, given my own experience, I simply can't.
HERO
No, it's fine, this is a good question. I don't want to type too long of a response, and if you'd like, I'd be happy to speak about it on Discord at a later time. In fact, if you read my first impressions piece on Reddit, I think the answer to your question is actaully rooted in there.
The gist of it is this:
There absolutely were MOBA elements in DoW2, such as larger than life heroes, hero customization, items, and so on. However, thinking back, would you consider WarCraft 3 a RTS/MOBA hybrid? The very idea of MOBAs in general, such as DotA came from larger than life heroes being introduced into the core mechanics starting with WC3. I wouldn't say that WC3 was the first, but they were definitely the first I remember that made it "mainstream".
However, however, the core RTS elements did not change. And this is where it becomes really difficult to explain. RTS players, want their decisions to be the end-all, be-all. Momentum and pacing matters a lot, and "being ahead" needs to be demonstrated clearly on the battlefield and in a player's mind. The battlefield needs to be clean to allow for the most accurate play, and every obstacle that can potentially confuse or put a player into an unrewarding situation has to be removed. God, I don't know how many times I've argued about this topic to Vindicare or other players.
If you dig up my post history, you can see me arguing about this quite a bit on these forums, especially when I was on my way out. However, I was told to essentially keep quiet and give it time. You know, experience really does matter in this respect. It's just a principle of every day life. I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two, and me telling you the same thing I said nearly a year ago is testament to that.
I just want Relic to recongize this earlier in their design process so hopefully their projects going forward will see more success. It's always tough to see something like this from another game developer, but I feel like this is a critical lesson to learn.
blancat
@r_benb
so, no balance update? why not nerf ranger and abusing bigmac?
you really think balance is ok?
plz think about crowfunding seriusly.
DOW3 fan need more 2~3 race and rework game(delete doctrines and core mode, add VP capture mode)
they will pay money gradly for dow3
I dont know what is relic's new project(maybe coh3) but most important thing is credibility
Dont lose your credibility and keep your fans
HERO
Thanks. You know where to find me, and good luck to future projects.
ParanoidKami
Most of the MOBA hate for this comes from the Power Core mode and early on in the game when early-mid elites could wipe entire armies by themselves.
Gorb
@HERO
Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. I'm not sure how much I agree on myself, but I can't deny your views on the subject. A good read. It's hard for me personally to put into words that bit about the definition of an RTS (demonstrating what you explained, really). I think decisions do matter more, and that the core gameplay loop is "cleaner", in DoW III, than it was in DoW II. But I also prefer DoW II the most, out of all of the games in the franchise. I also seem to prefer the things in DoW III that a lot of other people don't like, hah.
After re-reading that reddit post, I have a feeling for what you mean there. There has been an emphasis on being able to "come back" at a lot of stages of the game in DoW III. Everything feels powerful. But to paraphrase Syndrome, when everyone is powerful, perhaps nobody is. I like the power, that feeling, how it impacts gameplay, but I also agree (though I do also say that the current game plays out a bit differently from release) that it creates an extended back-and-forth (if it isn't decided mainly by skill disparity in the first five minutes or so).
Anyhow, stopping myself here. Just wanted to explain a bit where I'm coming from, I rarely get the chance on here
AngelofDeth
Will you guys check the DoW3 balance mod made by Dullahan? If so can you please give us a slight support at least in terms of balances and perhaps at least one race? We already made a decision that we will pay any DLC if there is any (I know it's not going to happen but I still hope one day). I hope you guys regularly see our efforts in reviving the game. Also I'm looking forward for AoE4.
Legionario
@R_Benb
I'll try to ask:
Lude
Hi Ben, I wonder whether at Relic you have discussed what role the single player mode in DoW III might have had in losing the interest of many DoW I and II players. While many conversations are had about the mechanics of the DoW III multiplayer, I personally doubt that this caused any unrecoverable problems for the game; even though certain elements were not to the taste of some players, this would not have mattered very much if the game had enough to offer to customers looking for a single player experience, and make up the majority of gamers in general and very likely a majority of Dawn of War customers. I don't know anyone who thinks the campaign in DoW III is enjoyable, let alone who would buy the game just for this, even though there is a huge market for DoW that would buy just to play offline. This lack of 'content' meant that if a player was not keen on a certain aspect of the multiplayer they had no reason to purchase the game, and because single player modes are very good quality in every other Relic RTS, I think lacking this gave a lot of oxygen to public distaste for the multiplayer mode (which I think is flawed but still in some ways the best in the series, particularly in 3v3 game mode)