Reactions to the Beta.

[Gabriel42]

Does exactly what it says on the tin . I wasn't able to play against human opponants tonight, preferring to comp-stomp. I found normal enemies much easier than dow 1 - my first impression. My second was that it does seem good fun, but something - perhaps the general insanity of dow seemed to be missing slightly. I feel rather as I did playing COH for the first time. Didn't see any sync kills - possibly just unlucky.
The Avatar is a beast!! Also, heroes tend to be weaker than you'd think, but well worth the investment. I liked the farseer, FC, and WS exarch muchos .

[mp0wer]

Most of us tonight were able to sample the Beta. What was the first thought that entered our minds as we hit the scoreboard after or first few matches..

Keep it simple, remember: First thought.. not a review.

I'll take the honors:

-That was the quickest 3v3 is have ever played... in any game.. YET, damn was it tense.

[Ap0k]

Come on guys, there's a beta section. It's clearly labelled and it's right at the top of the forum. You can't possibly miss it.

[streak]

My reaction to the beta was *holy shit there's so many people online. Hopefully this keeps up, and doesn't drop odwn to the 200 or so people max. online on weekends on Soulstorm

[Alegis]

-Games for Windows Live doesn't like my NAT. If it has the same problems as the Xbox Live where it is incompatible with the NAT shape of my router I am screwed.

-Battles look intense. Assault marines also rape devestators. Heroes (FC) Wasn't that powerful at all, which fits what Ebbert & Co described pre-launch.


Going to try to fix my Live NAT problems and give it another go tomorrow

My reaction to the beta was *holy shit there's so many people online. Hopefully this keeps up, and doesn't drop odwn to the 200 or so people max. online on weekends on Soulstorm

Currently 1000 players on the beta

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Click View players per Game

[4Servant]

First look
Its better then I expected from a first look but not a great wow factor either just the middle ground so far. Eldar seems troublesom but I only played 5 games so far and im gona sleep now.

[Weavern]

On first impression cant say i'm to terribly impressed or blown away.

Current experiance is about a half dozen 1v1s. While playing as 'nids combat seems rather flat and much harder to control then in CoH. I cant seem get too interested in the battles. Perspective also doesent quite give the same feeling as CoH or DOW, similarly waiting for resources to respawn heroes is dreadfully boring. Going to switch races to see if teh game becomes any more enjoyable.

[Shaitan]

I played two games so far an not surprisingly I have no idea what is going on. I won one and I lost one. I think this will take a bit to really understand like I get CoH.

Being so used to CoH I don't really like the health bar displaying numbers and I also dislike how vehicles seem to get damaged by at least some light arms? It's pretty cool though. Like I said I can't make a comment on the gameplay for a few days.

[Burnie08]

I've never played COH so as you can imagine i have never been so lost. Looks really good though, and Tyranids on any day is good...
Im frustrated by the lack of buildings and such. Obviously it not what I was expecting but no worse for it.

[LordZon]

Wow, so far this complete rocks. The Eldar are sneaky and powerful. I like the energy shields the Guardians can put up.

[SSSlippy]

I found nids terribly boring and the creatures way to slow. I do like how the warriors and gaunts have leaping.

I really enjoyed the space marines and found their variety quite nice however I find most units seem to die waayyy to fast in the open. Cover is very heavy and I liked how heavy weapon teams automatically setup and how they ripped it up.

Getting the heavy bolter in tier1 really was impressive with its suppresion. Only one heavy bolter in the squad but it was impressive.

The assault marines really ripped it up with the ability to jump pack into combat. They really disrupted combat and was great at preventing the enemy from capping. Jumping into units attempting to cap really gave them hell.

[Eblake]

Looks good, but I was a little lost during my game. I really need to practice a lot and familiarize with the tech trees & abilities.

It was fun.

I need to reduce some graphic settings to kill some lag I think.

[Goliath]

its certainly a fresh take on the genre, but as it is its a bit slow paced for my liking, may cancel my pre order.

[Inst]

Feels as though the game lacks depth. There's no strategic options whatsoever.

Hopefully they'll add more units as the beta progresses.

[Mokino]

Inst, this is the complete army list for the full game. There won't be new units.

[frankencowx]

feels very stripped, hardly any units

[Mokino]

Not much less than vanilla DoW. We've just been spoiled by having 3 expansions add units to each side.

[FuriousAbyss]

My jaw dropped when I saw the Tyranids. Beautifully done overall. Plus, Techmarine! Yay!

[Atro|Hypernia]

Boring. Slow. Too much visual content for an rts. Thanks.

[Surrealitycheck]

It's pretty much as I remembered it, having a ball with the 'nids.

[kasrkinsquad]

It has dethroned CoH.

Now I just hope they remove vehicles taking damage from small arms.

[Surrealitycheck]

Now I just hope they remove vehicles taking damage from small arms.

Which small arms are you thinking of?

From what I have noticed so far it seems that moderate weapons like marine bolters do 1-2 points of damage a hit to some vehicles but stuff like termagants do zero?

[archaon376]

First of all, vehicles taking light damage from bolters is completely understandable, considering bolters are weapons that launch mini-explosive rocket projectiles.

Second, I've been having a BLAST! Loving the play style of the Space Marines. Love having my Tac. Squads set up a solid front line and then having Assault Squads jump over and take out their heavy weapons. Techmarine seems to play a huge advantage against noobs and for taking map control and denying enemy movement.

I just had my first ranked match against an Eldar player, and while he was really good, he neglected the VPs so I managed to get him down to about 50 while I was still at 500, then he started dominating the map when I made some stupid mistakes (hardware related mostly, not my fault). My mouse sensitivity was too high and it was a little choppy at points and I couldn't always click the retreat button. Lost about a Dreadnaught, 2 tac squads, and an assault squad because of this. :\
Eventually he won the game. Good to know outplaying your opponent can quickly turn the game around if he starts slacking off.

[nobdoor]

I found communicaton difficult as there is no sound indicator for allied messages or map pings (that i've heard).

Pathing is not natural to me yet. Micro is difficult as stopping (by pressing S) results in my troops standing around doing nothing half the time. I suspect they have no line of sight to the enemy. LoS is a pretty hard thing to judge from a 3rd person perspective, so I hope that's not the problem.

[Wintermute]

This sounds about how CoH was received initially: Some people loved it, and for others it was just too different. If you're finding the game too slow at first, try a different race. Remember this is Beta; things like game-speed can be adjusted.

[LTSearchEngine]

The maps are too small. I like the cover and suppression mechanics, they are VERY powerful and rightfully so... but there is not enough room for flanking. I feel like a kid playing with legos, smashing them together and going "kpish! kapow!" The swampy map is big enough, but it has such a dull layout to it that I am instantly bored while playing on it. The others have such tight chokes and corridors that one MG from each player can almost lock down 2/3 of the map.

I know there are going to be plenty of ways around it, even early - nids with tyrants or ripper swarms, jump infantry, I don't know what for orks. So, maybe I am dead wrong, and suppression will be useless. We'll just have to see.

Nid swarms get too strung out, in this respect, because a whole swarm will be suppressed even if only one gaunt is hanging out in the AOE. Nids in general are very unwieldy. They path slowly and strangely, where they should horde together, crawling on one another.

Edit: Also, I love that the cover mechanic is so exaggerated. Get caught by a chaingun out of cover? Buh bye. Unscouted infantry advances and poorly prepared defensive positions are going to be massacred by heavy anti infantry weaponry.

[HauptmannOx]

personally at first i didnt like how fast it was but as soon as i played a 1v1 instantly fell in love with it.and at first i didnt think the armies would be different at all but when i played orks and then space marines i find they are completely different. now if they can get 3v3 lag down path and fixed this will be the mother of all games.

[Rondo]

So far so good, possibly a little bit too slow, but like the guy said above, that can be adjusted. Definitely like the strong hardcounters, get some Nid Warriors with the adrenal glands, and the Tyrant with the crusher claw, and those vehicles go down very quickly...

[Dazz]

I quite like it although everything dies really quick, tanks etc can take maybe 3 hit's. Terminators are awesome massicar troops and takes out tanks in no time flat with their power fists. I find HTH with dreads, fex cans to be slow due to the time it takes for them to turn, venom cannons are awesome so perfer them to HTH for a fex.

[TimW]

It's a little slow and units seem to lack punch.

Like the rest, so far.

[Steel*Faith]

because a whole swarm will be suppressed even if only one gaunt is hanging out in the AOE.

Having synapse will counter though, from what i've read. Tyranid swarms without a synapse creature leading them are drastically weakened.

Slow paced sounds really good to me, I thought it was going to be fast. I'm very methodical when I play an RTS game.

[FluidLung]

I only had enought time to play a quick 1v1 against a comp due to work , it will take getting used to but so far i think the game is fine its just a unique learning curve which is always good.
i agree with LTsearchEngine i love the cover system and how if you squad is out in the open it gets turned into mince meat its awesome. The way DoW2 has been done is exactly how i imagined it when i read the books and play the TT Relic has done a wonderful job of creating a living breathing 40k universe.

[LTSearchEngine]

@ paladin_might

I don't think so, for gaunts. It might slow the suppression, but it still works VERY fast.

This is coming from the suppressor, nor the 'suppressee', by the way. The gaunts appeared to be moving alongside the tyrant.

[streak]

The controls are definitely not as responsive as I'd have liked. Partly lag, partly feels clunky. Stuff gets stuck in terrain (or in transports), and units with setup times seem to always unpack and repack if I give them an attack command, even if the target is within their radius.

[Bowkers]

It's like sex in a game. No I am serious. Thus far, I've played one game, I've loved it Of course there may be problems, but I am enjoying it massively.

[scoiatollo]

7am here, played that game for nearly 4hours (well I needed ~1h to sort out my problems to run that game...^^) and I'm pleasantly surprised. Heros turn out to be okay, supression works perfectly and the game is rather quick.

Things I miss: My good old Guards, and more than one building I think I found a replacement for CoH^^

p.s.: Eldar are still IMBA

[LordZon]

What exactly is slow? You dally for any length of time and your commander is toast? Does he run too slow? Try a diffrent hero. The Eldar all have Fleet of foot, and some nids have fleet of claw.

[TimW]

I take it all back. Game's great. Roll on February.

[CustomESP]

I played for a few hours and tried all the races/maps out and cant help but feel I'm not playing a RTS game but some sort of Diablo RPG/Warhammer RTS Hybrid... and thats not a good thing. The whole one building mechanic screams one dimensional and so do the lack of identity in all the races... they all feel the same. At least it runs smooth and has high production values... Its just not the same fun I remember from the original DOW beta from years ago.

[ÜberJumper]

Support units are key I find.

First game I played, I got OWNED by an Eldar player. He was dicing my units and I thought "OMG ELDAR OP!". Then after playing a couple of games, I realized that units like a tac devastor squad with a heavy bolter are simply freaking devastating against infantry.

Two devastator squads out first with overlaping cones of fire and look out. Poor 'nid player :-(

[SubakuGaara]

As a game, much much slower than DOW. Plus feels like its too easy to run around capturing and uncapturing points. Not thrilled, but maybe its just a first impression.

[Ace651]

a friend said it was a LOT like warcraft3... i didn't think so so much but it sortov is in some obvious ways

[ÜberJumper]

Yup, leveling units does a lot of good. But there's nothing to creep against except the enemy :-)

[Skunkee]

From what this player notices, there are a lot of balance issues. Wraithlords are overpowered as all hell right now. A buddy of mine took one of them, and was able to take down a killa kan, a looted tank, and 3 squads of orkz pretty much at the same time. Their health regeneration ability needs to be tweaked, or their damage lowered.

Another issue I noticed is that defensive commanders are nowhere near as good as offensive commanders, at least from a 1v1 perspective. Turret building is a cool novelty early game, but it quickly wears off once vehicles are achieved. Not sure how this plays out in team games, but for 1v1 it's fairly bleh.

Space Marines are pretty much the end all race in the 1v1 game. I was able to drop my buddy quite easily with them while he was playing Eldar, Nids, and Orkz. Every time. No challenge. Assault marines ground and pound the hell out of whatever they're on, and the force commander is just overpowering once he gets a few upgrades. So far, I've yet to see him die with the Iron Halo, the Thunderhammer, and the armor of alacrity. He outruns Eldar with the sprint ability active.

All in all, I'd say it's a fun game but it needs a lot of balance tweaks to be good. The graphics are amazing, as are the sounds. The removal of base building...I have mixed feelings about. I still prefer the style of the older DoW games, with listening posts and tech trees and base building. However, I do enjoy the new style as well. It's more Company of Heroes-ish. Once they fix some balance issues I think this game could polish up very nicely.

[LordZon]

I thought Wraithlords are weak. I lost two very quickly to a techmarine army. Very nasty.

[drcole]

I have to say listening to feedback so far I'm not impressed. I won't be involved in the beta as I'm too busy the next few weeks but was hoping for some glowing reviews to get me excited. I know it's early days but I have to say the feedback from posters who's opinion I actually value seems to be pretty underwhelming so far.

Comments like too games playing slow / very small armies / maps too small and how the lack of base building has dumbed the game down are very concerning.

One comment I have seen a lot is "This doesn't have the flavour of DoW1" - very disappointing for those of us that absolutely loved DoW1, and couldn't care less about CoH.

[ÜberJumper]

I love CoH and didn't like DoW that much, and I'm finding this is much more like DoW than CoH.

The neat things about CoH are there though, firing arcs for support weapons and turrets being the obvious ones. The unit retreating is a good idea as well.

But the rest... its like DoW... minus the listening posts :-)

[matariel]

in all honesty i thought it was pretty magic. I was in love with dow 1 for the longest time and fairly recently ive been into competitive starcraft and I have to say that this game feels a lot more like sc than dow1.

small unit sizes, extremely important positioning, variety of options what with drops healing etc, vehicles being key support units, theres a lot there that would allow you to be clever with what you want to do.

I can see this game doing very well and so far I'm very impressed.

[Troubleshooter]

Well, its new... and as such its going to miss expectations one way or the other.

Don't get wrapped up in the commentary with only 5-6 hours of noobing around, even the long time DoW players are bound to have a learning curve.

I'm only concerned about the speed... from the Vids I've watched, certain units that I imagined being faster seemed slow on their feet (Tyrant springs to mind)

I think its funny that for every comment made so far, there has been a counter comment from someone else. I think that proves that the game is just different enough from expectations to keep the beta experience interesting.

Keep the commentary coming, those of us frozen out are eager to hear you're stuff.

[SteinerNein]

A few points:

Where is the chat log function?

Why isn't there a hotkey for reinforce?

Why isn't there a damage/armor value listing ?

Why isn't there a hard descriptor?