Dawn of War II: Another Look

Now that I have clocked some thirty plus hours into the Dawn of War II beta, I have some stronger opinions on it, both good and bad (Mostly bad).

Warning: Lots of tl;dr

First, while I think three versus three is enjoyable, one on one matches are very lackluster and extremely repetitive. Dueling matches usually involve control and good use of cover with suppression units. Translation: Lots and lots of fucking camping everywhere. I play space marines and aside from my commander, 2 units of scouts, and a unit of assault marines, the rest of my units are basically camping around the cap points that I have already took over. Dug in extremely well with redundant suppression bolters as well as a cannon defense and a tact marine squad or troop transport, the real pacing of the game slows to a crawl. Even if they somehow overwhelm my group, my mobile units who are normally about capping resources can easily flank the unsuspecting enemy and it becomes a game of cat and mouse except the defender (mouse) has so much more versatility. Games pretty much all end this way after rank 3 or 4 matches.

Now the second problem is debilitatingly (not a word I know) awful matchmaking with the games’ one fun mode, three versus three. Matchmaking is terrible and as I have said in the previous post, lag is a constant issue and unlike most other rts with a fair range of lag problems, having a lag free game in DoWII is like a gold nugget in a pile of shit. More often than not, the time frozen in lag is twice or three times longer than the actual game play which tends to drag out the supposed 10 or 15 minute games into long 40 minute struggles as the only spikes in APM in the game are during times of frustration. Another problem is in the matchmaking system itself. Since it matches players according to rank but also lets people take two friends into their team, playing as random more often than not ends you up with a couple noobies who just started versus a team of three players who are already friends and know each others’ tactics.
So similarly to the dueling matches, three versus three can be more or less broken down into a set play-by-play motion.

1. Cap point and hold point while scouting out opponents
2. Wait for teammates to take their point
3. See as teammates get wiped due to simply running into machine gun fire.
4. Try to take another cap point if the enemy has not been dug in yet
5. Realize it has become a three versus one and either resign in defeat or wait until the enemy come in with a large army and either run over position with brute force or be smart and outflank the position.

I have tried playing with some teammates that I recruited on a DoW II fan site in which we procedurally won nine games in a row versus both noobie teams as well as other formed parties.

Now there’s a few easy ways to remedy the three versus three games.

1. Don’t allow friendly teaming especially since they are ranked matches. If someone wants to play with their friends, they can go make a fucking custom game.
2. Fix the netcode. I’m not sure what the problem is but consistently playing against players who have over 2000milliseconds of ping is not my idea of an enjoyable gaming experience. Even more so when that said player is on your side and disconnects after a minute and you give a sigh of relief to be released of the lag only to realize that a possibly competent player has been replaced by stupid computer (although to give credit, computer is often better than many players).
3. Better ranked matching. Pitting three Rank 6 players versus three Rank 1 players is not my idea of fair play.

Until these remedies have been implemented, it will always be a love-hate relationship with DoW II and will still suppress my desire to actually buy the full game.