I finally know whats bugging me about this game.

[FluxX]

Its why I find it so irritating to loose. Why I find the game irritating, and frustrating. And why I get defeated in landslides (often when I start winning, I still slip up loosing my Heros and dieing :( ).

Its the micro of menus and builds.

And by thins I do not mean skilled microing and gameplay. I mean unessary micro.

I loved the C&C series, and HW2.
I was not the best at HW2, but I found it fun, and easy to play.

What do these games have in common that DOW does not have?
A unifeid menu!

To build or research in HW2, I have 1 menu, 1 cycle and I can click away.
In DOW I have to move my map (loosing concentration on the battle, or loosing units) find the building, click it, and select the build.

I notice I either win battles, and loose to tech, or loose battles and over tech. As I can only be in one place at a time (my base, or the battle). :errr:

This is purely my gameplay preference, and not a whine at the game. I loved TA, and in that you needed to select not only individual buildings, but also individual build units (although, it was more like the HW2 system, then the DOW IMO). But in TA I never played MP, thus I had the time (and pause button ;) ) to just cycle through buildings/units to find what I want.

I would love this game if I had a unified menu (hey, the quick hero select is great, as I can never make out whick flying bodie is my hero, amdist 3 unit types and a load of enimies fighting :-/ ). On a side note, I used the unit overlays in HW2, so I know what was what. In dow, I only see a bunch of bodies, hey, I get Marines and Scouts muddled up in some colour schemes (mind you, my low gfx settings may not help).

So, unless someones able to give me some pointers, on keyboard shortcuts for build orders ect, I will probably not get any better than my current 50/50, and even thats dropping fast!

[Bentusi]

tips and tricks.

1) learn your hotkeys. Definitely help when your focusing on microing during a battle.

2) Assign numbers to buildings (select the building, hit cntrl+ any number 1-0 ). Definite help when you need to build another squad during a battle, just hit the key, que the squad, and deselect. There, your building more troops without your screen even moving. Also works very well with teching, simply use the technique and you work more efficiently.

3) Assign groups according to weapon type/counter group. IE I usually set ranged inf to 1, vehicles to 2, heros and cc specialists to 3, artillyer/grav platforms to 5, etc etc.
I find it helps me find the units I need in a specific situation much better.

[ilia]

What Bent said.

I assign 1 to my 2 servs, 2 to Rax, and have the rest somehow forgotten :p

Also, nice thread, as each member can post here what is his general weaknes in the game.

Oh wait.. maybe it should belong to the private section? ;)

[DrunkenUno]

tip 4) Dont play DoW.

[FluxX]

Oh thanks... your so helpful Drunk. I love your enthusiasm for a game you put so much of yourself into.

I'd hate to know how you act when you actually like a game!

Thanks Bentusi!

I usually use groups for attack, but ill try it for buildings to.

[McFodder]

I assign 1 to my 2 servs, 2 to...

I forget what it is, but I'm pretty sure there's a button to select builder units.

Or maybe just cycle between them, but still - they're generally in about the same place anyway :)

[vacio]

okay, there are buttons for cycling througth buildings, builders, and military units. . . .builders = '.' military = ',' building = 'i'm not sure'

I may have builders and miltary backwards.

[The Fell Hand]

Yes, good idea flux. Unlike games with individual unit control etc, hotkeys, at least for units, can cover a large swathe. I personally tap 9 as my servs, 0 as my barracks, because they don't have to be accessed all the time. 8 is assigned to machine.

1 is my ranged, 2 is my fc and eventually lib, 3 is my fast attack when I grab assaults or speeders. 4 is my heavy support, typically dreadnoughts. 5,6 and 7 are typically what I assign to my scouts, although heading into a large engagement where the clicks will be fast and furious, or when I produce artillery and other units, I simply aggregate them all into ctrl group 5. So I have 6 and 7 for ww and other support units like ml squads.

This is all ideal though, if facing a slugga rush or something of the like that will require the best micro you can squeeze, I will typically hurriedly assign each squad a ctrl group, and I might overwatch my barracks depending on the situation. Overwatch is also a handy tool. Sure you'd love to manage your eco perfectly, but when the fighting is intense, especially in 1v1 where you've GOT to win the first engagement, things like overwatching re-in or new squads when you've got your hands full and the pressure is on, is a valuable asset I find.

[Erik_Firewolf]

I should learn the shortcuts =/

I think using dvorak on a qwerty keyboard is what's stopping me - unless I have my fingers on the two knobs (F & J or U & H for us l33t people), I don't know which key is which.

[The Fell Hand]

HAHAHA that's a great sig. I've ALWAYS wondered why people say "loose" in place of lose. Is it really a spelling mistake? I've been mystified by this for a couple years now.

[ilia]

Ctrl R. Cycles through any building with a RESEARCH option which is currently AVAILABLE to you.

That said, A rax with a frag nade will count as one, but a rax with the frag nade already researched will NOT be included, becuase the other research at the barracks - the melta bomb hasn't been available yet (until you build the armory, that is).

[Psy]

What should be bugging you about this game is that is developed by :


Retarded "we will hold a closed than open beta but not fix anything big"
Egomaniacal "QUOTE-we have the best 3d engine on the planet"
Lazy "nevermind we made typos those take a month to fix"
Incompetent "we fixed it!, ummm wait, my bad..we will fix it!..ummm soon anyway"
Cunts "R+E+L+I = Money grabbing pathetic little cunts hiding behind a pretense of "comunity"


EDIT: Confirmed. Tests show the Conceal helps the SC not a bit. I'll all for giving Relic the benefit of a doubt, but this is awful shoddy. Posted in the bug forums.

I for one will wait one more patch but regardless of the outcome will NEVER again buy a relic game, infact I will STRONGLY recommend EVERYONE against it.

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=46412


Last but not least. Eldar plasmagrenade2 still inherits marine frag grenade instead of eldar plasmagrenade. As an eldar player i am bit disappointed in this. As all of these 3 bugs i have reported here were known issues and even had fan made patches. Still they are broken after patch.

[Mistress Crystal]

Dude, bugs aside, and bad decisions aside, Relic has made at least 3 of the games that TLSC seems to be based around. :P

I'm very, -very- pleased with Relic just for Dawn of War, it's an absolutely amazing game. And it's still a baby. The first -real- patch fixed a lot of things...

And I'm sure the Gamespy decision was based upon a low budget/time constraints.

Don't forget there's two gaming companies on this one... THQ, also, could be considered to blame for a few of the on going foul ups. :P C'mon Psy, you play the game as much as I do, give them a break. It's an absolutely amazing piece of software from a life-long, 28 year old gamer's perspective. You're almost as old as I am, don't forget we grew up with Atari, gun slinger, pac-man, Mario, and Gauntlet :P DoW rocks my panties... So Relic must rock my panties as well. ;)

Mistress.

[Psy]

The first -real- patch fixed a lot of things

The point is, in reality patch fixed only HALF of what it claims to have fixed. In effect they lied!

That pissess me off especially since they could have gotten help. They did have help. Conceal fix was available 2 weeks prior to the patch. They simply couldn't be bothered to copy-paste one line of text. Instead they deleted the ability.

If that is not incompetence and plain ignorance I don't know what is.

I like this game a lot too, but I am also very brutal in my opinions when it comes to having it done right.

[Mistress Crystal]

I don't think Relic wants the bug to stay broken.

I'm sure there must be a reason for it. Just relax, babe :) It's not -that- big of a deal.

[Psy]

Ok neither was a concealed council rush then so why bother ?

And it won't stay broken now that their "conceal fixed" lie has been exposed, but it will take another month if not 2 to get it fixed.

[Mistress Crystal]

lol It was broken before with them being immune. They're not immune anymore. :P

I don't know what the problem is? Their conceal feature doesn't take off enough damage anymore? Well that's fine... another few months won't be a big deal... you got along fine without them before. And going against them shouldn't be a problem either.

[ilia]

LOL @ Psy.

What, EA is better in terms of support?

Edit:

Psy, relax. I dont give a shit what relic did or did not do. The most important fact is that now every race is OFFICIALLY balanced. That means that Eldar can now be safely played. Remember this this is a TEMPORARY patch that is supposed to give TEMPORARY solutions to the critical problems presented before. If things would be that easy as you present em to be, wouldnt you think that they would have been fixed stright away?

Cmon now. Relic isnt lazy or shit like that. If they cant do stuff, that means they either dont have enough budget, or that the stuff they try to do takes a LOT of time. Im certain that of all the greedy gaming companies, Relic cares most about it's consumers. Im not speaking here as a Relic fan, but as someone who has been at RN for a while, and saw the devs speak on a lot of things.

Fixing a game is NOT only rewriting some lines of code. This patch was 19 MBs. Even if the new maps that were added weight 15 MBs, thats >4 MBs worth of coding text. And thats quite a lot. Besides, seeing as they made this spectacular well polished game, I am astounished that you can call em "lazy".

[FluxX]

No, the Seer Councel is BROKEN YET AGAIN due to A SPELLING MISTAKE!

Conceal does nothing, as it is not activated!
THEY ARE BROKEN.

It is not a fix, but the fix that failed!

[ilia]

Ok. I understand. But at least, it is no longer immune.

*ilia1986 promises that if anyone dares to call SC underpowered....


Besides, as I said before, this is sorta an "emergency" patch Relic had to make b/c of the huge pressure on it growing from day to day..

Have patience. Its all gonna be just fine in the end. :)

[Erik_Firewolf]

I wonder what Andy Chambers is thinking about all of this, since he left cash cow GW to work at Relic on DoW (and possibly other 40K type games...)

If you don't know, Andy Chambers was one of the primary designers of 40K while he was at GW.

I'm fairly certain that these problems will be sorted out.

[Psy]

lol It was broken before with them being immune. They're not immune anymore. :P

I don't know what the problem is? Their conceal feature doesn't take off enough damage anymore? Well that's fine... another few months won't be a big deal... you got along fine without them before. And going against them shouldn't be a problem either.


no crystal - it is taken out as in IT DOES NOT APPLY


AT ALL

research does NOTHING


etc etc etc


Relic isnt lazy or shit like that

yes they are, not just lazy to do it themselves but too lazy to even copy a fix allready avialable. How long did it take? How long does it take you to copy paste a line of text?

nuff said. relic = shittiest dev I have ever seen all the more sad considering the wasted potential that is apparent. At least other people suck obviously from the get go. relic is famous for making a fucking fighter jet and then equipping it with NERF guns. Pun intended.

[Mistress Crystal]

Wow... shittiest developer you've ever seen. That's a strong endorsement. How long have you been gaming?

Who can say for their reasons why mistakes are being made...

You naturally assuming that a mistake is lazy based is as ridiculous as me naturally assuming that Relic doesn't want to trust outside sources for their "official" code. Either one may be plausible but it's ridiculous to just assume something.

C'mon, man. :P Lighten up... As much fun as we have together in this game, a spelling error in a unit you never really used before shouldn't be the end all, lose all.

:/

[Psy]

I assume that because relic was given a working fix for many of the issues they chose to ignore. they have the fix they chose not to fix it.

[vacio]

forget lazy, i tend to agree a bit with psy and i understand a lot more issues than a normal person would. here's how i see it, relic pushed the release, ANYTIME you push a release their is going to be bugs. now, it is released, the majority of the copies that will be sold are sold, so they have an idea of the profit margin they have to work with and how much they can invest of fixing their shit. now, in a normal large development they assign a team to work on the fixes, but at the same time everyone on that team will be working on something else also. pc games have a LOW profit margin and a company generally can not afford to assign peps just to update fixes for an already release piece of software, this is b/c in order to produce that software they had to get an advance on their paycheck and after the release they now have to pay it back. . .so what's all this mean. . . .

shitty release, always going to be lotsa bugs, get used to it b/c it won't be fixed fast and any company would be about the same unless they have a large profit pool somewhere else they can invest in the fixes

[Psy]

I still say it is inexusable to have a solution, available, implimented, working, and yet chose to ignore it.

really shows where their priorities are.

[Mistress Crystal]

This game has to be one of the best I've ever played for sheer fun factor. Some games I play for skill, CS... Unreal 2004... some I play because they're just absolutely gorgeous builds... SimCity 4, Suikoden 2, WarCraft 3, Unreal 2004... Some I play for sheer fun, and the absolute joy of demolition lol... TFC, Twisted Metal 2, Dawn of War. I think Dawn of War is one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've ever had for sheer fun factor.

I support Relic whole heartedly for that, a few balance issues and mistakes made aside... This game has been totally worth it for me. :D

Mistress.

Maybe I'll donate a few thousand dollars to their development team so you guys will stop squawkin about everything so much. :D

[Psy]

hell no, donate them to me I'll fix it :P and pay billz in process


Squawk!

[Erik_Firewolf]

THQ is the publisher, they are the ones who would have pushed for a premature release. Relic just makes the game and hopes a publisher will pay them for it. Therefore, don't blame Relic for a rushed release, they're most likely not the ones at fault.

[vacio]

yeah, whoever pays the pay checks gets the blame but to agree with psy some, to have a correct working modle and not use it is amounting to sheer stupidity

[ilia]

Psy.

Send an E-mail to Relic and attach the modified lua script w/ the SC conceal fix. ;)

[DrunkenUno]

Relic is absolutely horrible at supporting its own games.

I refer the jury to exhibit A, Homeworld 2, which recieved ONE patch, which came 4 months after the game was released, and the delay of said patch drove away many who purchased the game, leaving a tiny online community.

[laserflip]

and tip #5) dont play EVE either. its teh gay

[Weavern]

Eve is a fun game if you can sink ludcrious ammounts of time into it, or you become adept at PKs thus living the life as a pirate. I never had the stomache for eve as my eve playing constituted days of mining and ferrying cargo around only be be attacked and have my full load lost. :thumbsdow