DoW lacks creative strategies

[NewbieGamer]

I played the game for about a week and a half so far, and I have to say that the game is lacking creative strategies to give it a long lasting appeal. I am hoping that this problem will go away as I keep reading the strategy forum.

Right now, what everyone seems to be doing is to get 1 or 2 squads, get a unique character and rush. At current state, the game does not allow fast teching since the base cannot hold on its own against 2 squads of basic units. I understand that the game concept is anti base camping, but this is forcing everyone to make basic units (with the exception of the eldar sc maybe?). Allowing stronger base defense at the beginning of the game would allow the player to make some choices (mass up basic troops vs tech up)! Also this would give the added benefit of bases lasting long enough in the late game, so that a patrolling army can come back and fight the attacking enemy before the base is blown up.

I sincerely don't know what else would make this game more appealing. I only played about a week and half, with a lot of fun and enthusiam, but already the game is not giving me the same fun I had a week ago. In fact, I am considering to play Rome total war instead.

For your reference, I am a decent player, although I don't play 1vs1. I play 2vs2, 3vs3 and have about 60% wins.

Is there anyone feeling the same way? Enlighten me!

[OjKa]

Creative stratagies? In the future people will play different. I never actually rush unless my scouts report of their units. Creative tactics though are beautiful. Few minutes ago i had an E v O and he was spamming out war trukkz and the only way i seemed to be winning was have 2/3 of the strat points. My army is beaten back and a squad of orkz are making their way to the middle strat. But wait! 4 Warp Spiders jump out and shoot them and the time goes :bandit:. Just play around with the units and stuff.

[Mister Sleep]

I don't really see it the same way. In the 3v3 and 2v2 games I've played, almost all have gotten to third tier units. I've been able to deep strike and orbital bombard my opponents and they have done the same to me. The games I've been playing have lasted about thirty minutes on average which is a decent length. Yes if you face someone much better or worse then the game will be over quickly. That's happened to me as well.

Personally I love the lack of insane micro that I've found you need in other games (at least with SM). The first five minute are usually the same, since you're both working up to the same unit and teching. I don't rush but I will use units to harass my opponent to gain and advantage, hoping to get in a position where I can tech while he's regrouping. To me it seems pretty balanced and allows people with a decent BO to fight off any rush and allows the game to go on longer.

[Gnug315]

Once you reach a certain level of effectiveness (and a balanced game - damn seer council), rushes don't work, so the games get longer, and the players are thus forced to come up with new ways of bettering their opponent.

Play better opponents.

[Navaros]

original poster is 100% right

almost all 1vs1 Ladder games of DoW are won by whoever gets out two heavy Inf squads first and then rushes with them and a Hero

there is very little strategy or tactics involved

[Fenris-X2]

only seems that way because the skill of the players are not the same so one player dominates and wins without having to tech. i had a 30-40minute vs ghostridah yesterday and we ended up using 80% of the techtree for ork and chaos. course if a good player screws up bad, the game will still end rather fast. i'm still improving my chaos everyday with new strategies on the rare occasion that I lose a game or struggled in a game.

[FM_Surrigon]

I agree with Fenris, but only to an extent.

I think that once the average skill level goes up things will become much more interesting. Right now my clanmates and I have been facing a lot of non-clanmembers because we don't have time to get a clan match going. So usually these matches turn out to be blowouts because our teamwork is obviously more cohesive than a pick-up squad. When we have been able to get some clan matches going we were climbing up the tech tree at a fairly decent pace. In 1v1's it may not be as obvious because you can't rely on teammates (something which is huge on the fun-factor of RTS's for me) to help you out. In 2,3, and 4-team person matches you find some people making a lot of military to cover for someone rushing vehicles or so on. In one 4v4 we played, 3 of us basically held off 4, slowly gradually losing ground while our fourth member was building generator after generator. With shared resources on this allowed us to keep pumping out vehicles and eventually we overpowered the opposition and won.

That being said, I think that your game needs to be at too high a skill to defeat even a mediocre rush. In any specific skirmish (not overall) the advantage should be to the defender. This sometimes just simply isn't the case. Turrets needs to be either more effective or cheaper, at the very least worth building. Defensive tactics need to be made a bit better.

[Fang]

I think what would have/would make/made rushing less useful, is if the strat points worked similiar to UT2k4's onslaught mode, Ie you could only take a point if you control the points linked to it, and the objective was to link to your enemies base, and blow it up, or just take over most of the points. This way youd have to focus on taking points near your base and such, before you rush across the map to own the enemy, also a rush would be unable to take your points till he connected across. So the battle would end up in the middle in the mid game phase of combat, allowing longer games and more teching..

[johnfloyd]

Like all games in such early stages, there is much balancing and tweaking to be done (not to mention they need way more maps) but in most games that last beyond the first rush I am able to try some crazy fun strategies. Among my favorites are massin Fireprisms and dancing around the enemies base, while my allie deepstrikes in his army behind the lines. (fun and death ensues). eldar seem to be the best for micro strategies right now, orks need some serious work (or more likely i just need some serious practice) space marines have some potential strategies with deepstriking, orbital bombardment, and the mix of units and upgrades. and chaos is chaos... possessed marines and defilers (seems to be the only thing i see ppl use with chaos. that should be looked into) The game is somewhat monotonous now, but as they patch it up, mods get released, and the map editor comes out, action will really pick up.

[BriusProlineus]

Yes, in a week in a half you have discovered all possible tactics and strategies that DoW has to offer. :rant:

Here's an interesting quote i ran across at http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/wh40kdawnofwar/preview_6105142-3.html



Jay Wilson
The hardest thing about balancing a real-time strategy game is perception. You can numerically assure that one unit is not greater than another or that one race cannot reach unit X before another race can effectively counter that unit, but what you can't control is what players will perceive is or is not balanced, based on their play experience and style.

Take the 400,000 possible combinations of weapons and units, and multiply it by the thousands and thousands of players who will interpret these options in different ways, and you are faced with a task so terrifying that most developers would be wise to simply avoid the whole thing altogether! But where's the fun in that?!

[xenite]

original poster is 100% right

almost all 1vs1 Ladder games of DoW are won by whoever gets out two heavy Inf squads first and then rushes with them and a Hero

there is very little strategy or tactics involved

I'm sure that the insta-rush often does make a win, but not always. I just had a game with an opponant (Space Marines Vv. Chaos Marines) where I cooked up 2 marine squads and a Force Commander, reienforcing and getting hvy bolters on while crossing the board. I hit hard but the Chaos counter offensive made my units ineffective.

I have had to fend rushes off as well. Holding ground and keeping your head can keep your ass out of the fire.

There are some good examples in the Battles Archive on how to fend off a rush. Cover helps alot.

[waren_alkar]

One thing that would've been nice to see is all Stronghold equivalent structures, and maybe even the barracks, equipped with anti-infantry weapons. And not just piecemeal stuff either. But enough to help drive back any early attempt at rushing.

Unfortunately that didn't end up in the game (unless you count Orks, and I'm unsure as to how effective they are). So probably the best thing to do is work out a fast build order, and always expect there to be a rush. Send out scouts early on to determine where the enemy is and what race they are, where you should set up a stationary defence, etc.

An opponent getting out troops quicker is always going to be a problem. So the only real way to combat that is choose your initial troops (and in the case of marines, their weapon load out) effectively and try to be as quick as they are. Also, morale early on can be a real boost to pushing back a rush. Especially if your fighting a race that suffers from a lack of moral lowering weapons themselves.

[First And Only]

The reason why you see what I call "Early Game Rigidness" (EGR) is because of the reinforcement rates of all units. Back in one version of the beta, there was reinforcement modifiers (all units reinforced 4x slower while fighting).

This prevented economy from dominating fights and brought new levels of maneuvering and early strategies, but Relic said they couldn't balance it in time for release, but they planned to bring it back later on (god willing).

So right now we're stuck with pretty much EGR without much flexibility until reinforcement modifiers are brought back, so that more options are available, and so that economy doesn't matter so much during fights.

[J23]

You know, slow reinforcing while in combat would really add to the game (and make perfect sense). Hopefully someone will mod this. :)

[Villiation]

No offence newbie... but you can be as creative as you want...
so my opinion is that you lack creative strategies yourself.
don't take this as an offence.

also when people get better and game times get longer, more interesting strategies will be developed.

[SubZero]

The difference is...

On closed-maps, where you are necessarily walled in, you will 99.9% advance higher in the tech tree.
However, on Open Maps, where your base is in the middle of a field, you can bet your life that you will get attacked.
In 2vs2 3vs3 4vs4, you can be assured that you will be the lucky one who gets rushed from all of the enemies at the same time...

[Gnug315]

Economy should matter during fights.

Slow reinforcing would not work.

If seizing a shared location early offers little advantage because your opponent just has to engage you to stop you from benefitting from your higher income during the battle in question, games would become more of a turtlefest.

Games are often decided in the first big battle, so rather than let your enjoy your higher income, your opponent just goes for the showdown as soon as you have the upper hand on the map - since with slow reinforcing, you wont benefit from your higher income.

Double Post

Also, a lot of RTS gaming is about outproducing your opponent. One does this by holding on to one's share of the map, and investing more in improving one's income - while managing to pull it off! Higher income is no good if your army can't hold of the attacks. So, one balances one's army and investment into faster income (in this case, listening posts and their upgrades, and faster global production rate research).

Again, your opponent would just be able to mount a larger force and attack, if you can't use your higher income very well to reinforce your squads in the heat of the battle. Lack of radar makes predicting assaults even harder.

[LORD ORION]

Heya 315 :D

I disagree with your idea of slow reinforcing. The problem with fast reinforce is that the winner of the 1st big battle gets his squads back to full power in your territory very quickly and you are usually done.

Things were better in the beta with slower reinforce, because your defences could actually hurt the enemy if you lost the 1st big battle and he pressed his attack on your base too quickly.

[NewbieGamer]

Games are often decided in the first big battle

Yes, I agree. Although DoW seems to be very forgiving in allowing a losing team to come back from its first big defeat (in warcraft 3, if you lose the big battle there is really a slim chance of coming back due to hero level difference). However the problem is when that "big" battle happens. Does it happen early in the game with 2-3 squads, or does the battle come at later stage after a couple of skirmishes?

Like someone mentioned in the post, I lack the expertise in DoW and especially in Warhammer 40k to pull out a create strategy. But when I see the units in the game, something seems to be a little off. For example, SM have their basic marine squad that is the "backbone" of their army. They are the first availble unit, but at the same time if they are massed it can be effective against everything. And that effectivness comes with only 1 upgrade of the command center (e.g. all weapons are availble). If a unit is effective throughout the game, shouldn't its added potential come at a the cost of teching? Allow a player to have access to the most powerful upgrade/arsenal when the command center is fully upgraded.
So i think it should be like: With armory: allow flame/heavy bolter. With first upgraded command center: stronger anti-infantary/vehicle upgrade. With last command center upgrade: Strongest anti-infantary/vehicle/building upgrade.

See how basic units will be effective taking out bases at the later stage of the game. Because as it stands now, within 5 minutes into the game, it is possible to get missile launchers that can tear apart any kind of static defense.

And the game should award better those who have gambled to tech up and get stronger units. Elite units as it stands now, seems to be a very specialized units that take too much food and weak compare to the cost. Add to this the lack of air units, strong support/combat enhancing units... then it seems to leave a small room to be creative.

As I said, I am no DoW expert (I even don't know how to play all the races), so my thought are not meant to cover all the races nor be an accurate description of what is going on in DoW. But as with any RTS, time will tell me if this is indeed a good RTS.

[Jack9]

:banned: 1v1's decided by the first person to mass 2 squads of heavy and a hero? Start playing ladder and learn how to play...sheesh.

Let's talk about what happends on deadman's. You have 4 strat points +relic with water. All you have to do is up the 2 frontal to turrets...lemme show you some simple math:

1 turret + 1 hero + 3 scout squads + 1 tac (heavy) > 3 tac (heavy) + 1 hero

If you started out with 3 scout squads you capped all your points faster (you have your relic already) since he has to have food for 3 tac squads he started with 2 scout and 1 tac. Your economy is stronger which MATTERS in battles no matter what the populist opinion on this thread may indicate. The 3xtac cant be reinforced fast enough and they die out while you're building a second squad AND finishing an armory in your base...here's how:

All marines start in ranged stance, so in battle switch everything to versatile and dance the scouts if necessary (should already be in cover) and engage a tac squad in CC with your hero if it goes into cover and has heavy weapons of any kind. Same thing with your tac squad if a second enemy tac is in cover with heavy weapons. Run broken units behind the tower, marines have the best morale recovery and bring em right back. Build plasma and rifles (rifles over plasma) and dont bother reinforcing the scouts unless you have the money. Battle will take about 3 minutes. If the battle starts looking bad (lack of micro, bad placement, whatever), you stop reinforcing the scouts, you up the relic post to turret. Watch the enemy FF and if your hero starts getting beat on either dance and attach to a scout squad (to keep him out of CC but still firing) or sack him if your second tac squad is popping. Heavy bolters dont last too long in CC so I always wait till plasma before equipping tac squads.

I dont know many RTS games that have a lot of early game options, but the OPs experience hasn't taught him anything of value and he proceeds to throw it up like it means something.
:duck:

[Weavern]

Start adding other victory conditions then complain about lacking strategy. If everyone only plays annhiliation then sure you can begin to complain that it gets boring. Attack kill base game over. There are many other victory conditions to choose from which dirastically change the way the game is played. Adding destroy HQ completely changes the format of the game as players go for the kill through all manner of underhanded tactics to eliminate you, especially in huge games where one side is crippled they can pop the hq and hazah! they now have a chance.

Or TnH guess what, you killed my army but you forgot to take that point back while we were fighting, game over. There are so many variations to complain that DOW is only about rushes is ludcrious. When the average skill level improves rushes will grow less predominant or better rushes will emerge which will spark a new round of copy cat rushing.

Right now if i'm playing a team game and the other team cant stop a simple 3 rine hero rush i dont want to waste my time waiting 20minutes to let them get on their feet. If you cant stop a rush try harder. Start every game off under the asumption you are going to be rushed and deal with it. If you dont get rushed you have a numerical and tactical advantage through your preparations which will allow you to get ahead.

Seriously if you people try to get to tier2 off the start as fast as possible and lose because you have one squad, some scouts and a hero and lose against 2-3 squads and a hero go seek sympathy elsewhere. Instead of 2-3 squads i could have 2 squads with armory weapons, or snipers backed up by a squad and hero to destroy a rush. Or even a single well placed mine to break the enemy rusher. There are so many variations to a rush it isnt even funny to consider them. You could immediatly go for assault marines using snipers and a hero to keep you alive, or tech to PSM with a hero. Get banshees and guardians, or even a SC, or with orks well more boyz the better. Any race can stop a rush you just have to be smarter and more creative. Keep in mind there are HUGE gaps in skill at the moment between the demo players, the beta players, the closed beta players and the retail players. You can guess which way those gaps cut.

[First And Only]

Economy should matter during fights.



I'm curious as to your reasoning for this. Care to elaborate?

IMHO tactics should be all that matters during fights, the only effect economy should have on fights is force disposition, and the possibility of new squads being produced and sent on their way to help. With reinforcement modifiers, you could still reinforce during combat, but NOT so fast that you're reinforcing faster than they can kill you. The ebautiful thing about modifers was that proper tactics could allow you to defeat superior forces, but without it, you can quickly achieve critical mass where your army is big enough so that no matter what your opponent does, he cannot make a lasting dent with the smaller force he has.

It worked wonderfully during the beta, and all polls and discussions had an overwhelming response in favor of reinforcement modifiers. The Relic team (and their balance team) themselves stated that they preferred the modifiers, they jsut couldn't balance it in time for release.

[GTez]

Right now if i'm playing a team game and the other team cant stop a simple 3 rine hero rush i dont want to waste my time waiting 20minutes to let them get on their feet. If you cant stop a rush try harder. Start every game off under the asumption you are going to be rushed and deal with it. If you dont get rushed you have a numerical and tactical advantage through your preparations which will allow you to get ahead.


Bravo man ... Its good to hear. The whining is getting annoying :P

[Gnug315]

I'm curious as to your reasoning for this. Care to elaborate?

IMHO tactics should be all that matters during fights, the only effect economy should have on fights is force disposition, and the possibility of new squads being produced and sent on their way to help. With reinforcement modifiers, you could still reinforce during combat, but NOT so fast that you're reinforcing faster than they can kill you. The ebautiful thing about modifers was that proper tactics could allow you to defeat superior forces, but without it, you can quickly achieve critical mass where your army is big enough so that no matter what your opponent does, he cannot make a lasting dent with the smaller force he has.

It worked wonderfully during the beta, and all polls and discussions had an overwhelming response in favor of reinforcement modifiers. The Relic team (and their balance team) themselves stated that they preferred the modifiers, they jsut couldn't balance it in time for release.
Well, it's a new game, so it's not like I've understood the balance anywhere near as well as the relic team, or even the hardcore beta testers.

I just figure, if you don't want economy to matter, why have any difference in income at all? Why not just give each side an army to begin with, and a set income rate that never changes?

There's a reason it's an RTS instead of RealTimeTactical game. Map control plays a huge part in the game, since it's the main way of outproducing your opponent.

If economy didn't matter in the big battles, there'd be little reason to hoard req in preperation for it, or seize an offensive portion of the map to begin with.

Don't get me wrong, I fully enjoy the tactical aspects of any RTS - I just think there's a balance to be found between micro and macro, and that the best players excel in both areas instead of just one. In other words, you can stuff those high apm's if you can't keep up with my production :P

[manakiin]

Imho this game needs experience. That's right...Units should gain experience and new abilities or get stronger whatevah. That way players would watch more carefully about their squads not being destroyed...

[Gridash]

Imho, the game starts to suck more every passing day. Specially with the lack of games on gamespy, lag, and seeing the same strat over & over. Makes me wish I never bought it.
Since the singleplayer part is rather poor compared to other games.. you'd say it would have a kickass multiplayer but it doesnt even come close to blizzard's battlenet service.

[Jaradakar]

Yeah, the reason someone is dieing to a "rush" is because you did not build enought troops. You have to expect the other player to build a ton of troops. You in turn should have a ton of troops as well. If you did, A) you would not die to a rush and B) would force the game to last longer, which in turn gives time for you both to climb the tech tree.

I highly recommend every player to play the computer 1 on 1 on the Harder setting. Do this till you can beat the comp every time. Then you will know the "basics" and will be ready to fight other live opponnets who will act and be more creative than the comp.

[First And Only]

I just figure, if you don't want economy to matter, why have any difference in income at all? Why not just give each side an army to begin with, and a set income rate that never changes?



Ok I think I didn't make myself clear as to what I meant. When I said that economy should not affect fights, I emant skirmishes, not the entire game.

To clarify, DoW is the ONLY RTS where economy affects a given fight within a game, this is because of reinforcing. This means that whereas in other games, having more map control and more money meant bigger and better armies, in DoW, it also means how much punishment your army can take/give.

So in DoW, the richer player has an enormous advantage. It also means that the poorer player needs to somehow maintain ana rmy large enough to make a dent in the other's army, because you cnanot make a lasting dent in the opponent's army once he reaches a certain critical mass, due to reinforcement. This is true in other RTS games, but the difference in DoW is that the gap between army sizes doesn't have to be as big in order to have a near insurmountable advantage if you're richer.

This is why the beta reinforcement modifiers were so popular with everyone, because it removed this and put more emphasis on better decision making, better maneuvering, and better use of resources before fights. Economy still affected fights but much less so, and the main use of economy was to build armies jsut like it is in other games, not win fights.

[Sanguinius_nz]

Creative strats exist, remember we are a 2-3 weeks into this game, christ new tricks are popping up for starcraft and thats 6 years old, give it time.

If you want an example. 1vs1 me = eldar vs orks (cant remember the map but its the one with 1 strat point in the middle in the big body of water with the relics at each end of the water) started the match popped out 3 squads and a bone singer build up my aspect portal generator and a wraithgate, after points started getting capped popped LPs on em, farseer is out by now, send one squad of fleet of footed guardians forward to poke at the enemy, find orks and run like a little girl.
Ok I know orks are known for large numbers and rushes, rein my guardian squads sit my farseer behind them as storm will be invaluable. upgrade the lps and build a couple of turrets. Ork player takes the SP I let him have it, first attack comes, manage to beat it off just with entangle and plasmas. Now there is no way im sending guadians into that water so I sit back bide my time, get some spiders out max em up. Timer hits 1:30. I attack, farseer pre empts with a phsy storm and the guardians pile in, wait till everything is enganged and drop the spiders on the flank, guadrians are getting nailed but the farseer is helping with teh orks and im keeping the mek entangled, pull my reserve guardian unit in from teh rear and nail the point then retreat mission accomplished. I know I dont have the forces left to win the battle. I pull back to my defences he follows and gets mauled. Orks cap the point again.
By now my guardian squads are maxed back out and I have a wraithlord I send him in, he was waiting rokkits fly everywhere and the wraithlord goes down like a tonne of bricks. he pokes at my defences and I drive him off with my spiders, next comes the big push 2 wraithlords as spearhead, 2 spiders waiting in the wings 3 max guardians and the farseer, again the wraitlords go down like a tonne of bricks while doing very little but its given the gurdians the time they need to entangle everything the farseer strikes with a phsy storm and the spiders warp in on each flank. The guadrians fold like straw hats but the spiders and dished out a lot of dmg he manages to take out one squad with some stormboyz but the other is nearly untouched. He Takes advantage and follows the fleeing farseer and guardian remenants his rokkits make short work of the defences and he storms in. Only to hit the 2 SC plats and reserve guardian sqaud I had waiting as backup. His force gets decimated wiped out to a man first prisim has just come out now and I advance towards his base line...... then the git leaves :(

Was quite the exciting match untill then. I think he wasnt very experienced as he built no where near enough waaagh banners and no vehicles at all before he diconned I think he might have been trying to swarm me but attacking through that water is bloody nasty.