Morning Discussion
Even in my current state of trying to save as much money as possible, I couldn't pass up Amazon's offering of The Wire: The Complete Series for a mere $82. That thing lists for $250, and even though Amazon normally sells it for $135, it's still one a hell of a deal.
Breckon, the Shack collective, and several others--yes Will, I'm mostly referring to you here--have been recommending The Wire for a long time, but I've never gotten around to watching anything more than the first episode. I guess that's gonna change here.
Also, glad to see I wasn't the only one that immediately thought Spore Hero was a Guitar Hero rip-off. Turns out it's more of a story-based Spore for Wii and DS. Neat?
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Good morning! Who wants to play DoW2?
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Nope - it's the same thing as xbox live, except for ur PC.
Not to mention all you pussies blabbering about how much it sucks - it works great as it is intended. Sure there are some things that need ironing out, but I enjoy it's functionality.
GFWL parties in the top right corner of my display
Steam parties in the bottom right corner of my display
It's all good.
btw I'm bellyitch on Live -
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LET'S TALK ABOUT STRATEGY (??)
after playing a few games last night, and getting curbstomped in the one game versus other people we played, I'm convinced I suck ass at this game - I don't know how to hop around really fast, and I always end up getting killed. Let's talk about general tips and things we've learned, though!
- Tyranid gaunt squads are AWESOME if you have them next to one of the big guys (warriors, hive tyrant, etc.) and though this should be pretty much automatically understood, the extent of the awesomeness goes overlooked, I think.
- putting your Force Commander into Terminator armor sucks, don't ever do it.-
"putting your Force Commander into Terminator armor sucks, don't ever do it."
Huh? Don't you realise that Terminator armour is fantastic battle armour, created in the Dark Ages of Technology. Also known as "Tactical Dreadnaught Armour" It is a development of the sealed environment suits used by spaceship crews for use in the high pressure casings of plasma reactors, and the extremely corrosive environments of bulk chemical carriers. It can even withstand the colossal impact of high speed orbital micro debris. -
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- Key to winning is staying mobile and minimizing losses in every engagement.
-Divide and Conquer is an extremely useful tactic. If you get major opposition at a particular point, divide your forces and either flank or attack another point and as the enemy moves to intercept your secondary force you can move in your primary. Alternatively, you can back out and devote all your squads to contesting points.
-Resource acquisition is key to maintaining a successful task force. Don't destroy enemy power generators-- capture the point and use them for yourself!
-Pay attention to all sources of cover; buildings, ridges, ruins, brush. All of these mitigate the damage your squad takes, allowing your guys to win/survive until reinforcements arrive.
-Use retreat liberally. A new squad will always cost you more than reinforcements. (reinforcements cost about 10% of original squad cost and are near instant)
-Understand the units you are using and what their purpose is. Slugga Boyz iz not for shootin' Termagaunts are not for leading assaults, guardians are not for frontline assault.
-Your Commander is there to help your army, not the other way around. Don't engage enemy squads with only your commander if you can help it.
-Jump Pack/Teleport units are for dismantling enemy formations (Heavy Bolter Devastator Squads, Lootas, Shurikens)
- Walkers are for destroying enemy encampments [turrets] (Dreadnoughts, Deff Dreds, Wraithlord, Carnifex')
- Tanks are extremely vulnerable to Walkers
I can't think of anything else right now
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^^These are all great tips here.
One thing I'd like to add is how to be faster at the start. When your game starts your commander is already bound to 1 and your first squad is bound to 2. Hit 1 then send him to a resource point, then do the same for 2 on another resource point. No need to send them both to the same point.
Then, hit F1 (base) and start pumping your prostate units.
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As some of you may know I am a designer on DoW2, if you have any questions about what some of the abilities/upgrades do I can probably answer them.
Many of the Tyranid mechanics aren't obvious as there is no help text / tutorial to support it. For instance if you like lesser Tyranids - rippers / hormagaunts / termagants increase in health as you tier up your hive. Rippers reinforce for free and all of the previously mentioned tiny nids automatically reinforce free of charge near a brood pool (built by the Hive Tyrant).
Synapse, however, is probably the least understood mechanic as it comes in several flavours:
Basic Synapse:
- Granted by Hive Tyrant, Zoanthrope, Warriors
- Gives lesser Tyranids (i.e. not other Heroes, Warriors or Carnifexes) the following:
+ Deal 25% more damage
+ Take 20% less damage
+ Harder to suppress (though only slightly)
+ Rippers are IMMUNE to suppression while in synapse
+ Behave more intelligently (i.e. Termagaunts in Synapse will find cover more intelligently and will often try and keep at range, out of synapse they are slower to respond, its hard to notice in the heat of battle)
Health Synapse (Hive Tyrant Wargear upgrade and Warrior Barbed Strangler Upgrade)
- Increases the health of lesser Tyranids
- These stack with HQ upgrades
Ranged Synapse (Warrior Venom Cannon Upgrade)
- Increases ranged damage by 30%
- Adds chance to knockback on hit
Melee Synapse (Warrior Adrenal Gland Upgrade)
- Increases melee damage by 30%
- Gaunts are now able to leap at their enemies and will automatically leap over terrain
Health Regen Synapse (Zoanthrope)
- Heals nearby Tyranids-
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How do you feel about the criticism (on the official Relic boards) being leveled at some of the design decisions Relic made? Even taking into account the "nature" of message boards, it's been surprisingly negative.
Specifically: the small-scale, the relatively slow speed of units and the lack of defensive structures for caps.
So far it sounds like it's radically different from DoW 1 and, while sharing the engine from CoH, not all that similar there either.-
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Well we definitely read the forums, though much of the criticism is valid my read through the big "reactions" thread has shown me that many of the people that dislike the game do so because it's not the same as DOW1. I understand how that would be a disappointment to them but I'm sad they don't enjoy it despite that.
Many of the criticisms pointed out are certainly fixable and the multiplayer team are looking at feedback, now that we have loads of it. To me what is exciting is that for once with our patching pipeline we will be able to react very quickly to feedback. I won't comment on anything specifically because it is not my place to!-
The way I see it, the horrors of the official DoW 2 forums break down this way:
- People who wanted / expected large scale battles like DoW 1 (as you noted)
- People who play the game during the first day and claim something is broken. It takes more than a day to make such a claim. You need to discuss, experiment and practice first.
Generally, the attitudes and behaviors on that forum are so childish.
Of course, based on the spelling and grammar I have seen, it may be that many of them are teenagers.
I am sure that there are balancing issues that need to be sorted out. I even have a few thoughts of my own. But I will wait for more experience before I declare:
"[unit X] Is broken / overpowered! You just lost a sale!" -
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I don't deal with that particular side of things so it's just an educated guess - but you'll have to re-download it. The beta is actually missing many of the assets required for the full game so it'd have to be a fairly big patch.
As with many steam games I believe you will be able to pre-load it prior to it's release.
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Could you mention what the Ravener Hero's synapes upgrade does, and if it only affects lesser Tyranids. Also, it seams that the Carnifex isn't getting benefit from any synapse (although tests by the players are conflicted on the Zoanthrope health regen affecting the Carnifex). Does the Ranged Synapse and Melee Synapse also only affect lesser Tyranids as well (it doesn't say).
A couple other things:
1) Zoanthrope Health Regen Synapse doesn't heal other Zoanthropes.
2) The Hive Tyrant upgraded synapse seams to give 50% increase in health, while the Barbed strangler upgrade seams to give a 20% increase in health.
3) Unique healing auras seam to overlap, but multiple auras of the same type don't confer any healing advantage.
4) Tyranid Warriors Barbed Strangler upgrade is increasing the Raveners health as well as lesser Tyranids. Are they considered lesser Tyranids?
This is the community consensus so far, but we couldn't figure out what the Basic Synapse did, so thank-you very much for that!
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Though some of you probably already know this - one of the big things that makes this game different is that melee units tie up ranged units. In most RTS with melee, the ranged unit will simply continue to fire it's weapon while the melee unit is chopping it in the face.
I.E. You can use a weak unit like scouts or guardians to engage a potentially very threatening plasma cannon or heavy bolter squad in melee by using the "Z" key and clicking on them. This will force your squad to melee them and although they may not kill them they will tie them up and prevent them from slaughtering your other units with their heavy weapons.
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Steam Group here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/shackdow2
It's public and easy to join right now. Hopefully, in the future we can use this to organize some shackbattles. And in making this I'm wondering if you can make groups in GFWL.
Also, msg me if you want to be an admin of the group. -
Cool tidbit here for those who play ranked multiplayer:
Gaining rank unlocks special aesthetic upgrades for your units.
I got Slugga Boyz Reinforced 'ard Bitz :D
http://dowcodex.com/Info:Ranks#Unlocks
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http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=19014614#itemanchor_19014614 ?
Yes, you need Steam to install the game and GFWL to play online. GFWL handles matchmaking, friends, inviting people, etc. There's no connection between GFWL and Steam, so you will need to re-add friends (though I still use Steam for out-of-game messaging).
Slightly annoying but I think they went GFWL for the matchmaking.
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GFW question
Anyone having any problems with getting a mic to work in Games for Windows? Voice threshold will not pick up anything I say no matter what I have it set to. Also I played with some guy who swore that he didnt have a mic and yet the whole game long he was sending out white noise.
Push to talk would of been nice. -
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This beta has been kinda frustrating because there is no documentation of half of the stuff you can do.
Earlier today I was telling the guys on my team to get my commander up. They just left me there, bleeding out in the middle of the battlefield. I know you need to go top, but it takes all of 5 seconds to save me a squad's worth of requisition.
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I don't know that it is all that easy to turn things around. If you reach the midgame and get your ass handed to you, it is difficult to find the time and resources to get back to where you were. During that time, the winning side is accruing resources and spending them too.
I have quit 1 on 1 games, when it became clear that there was no way to turn the tide. It is more of a surrender than a ragequit.
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