Has the Elite mod made DOW2 more like DOW1?

[welshy]

Hey!

I am in the midst of talking to the DOW2 community on the steam forums about the Elite mod. My discussion with someone goes like this,

Him/Her
"Don't like it for balance reasons.
It's a mod which tries to emulate DoW I's gameplay with DoW II's graphics and succeeded in this but I prefer to play at DoW II."

Me
"Nothing can emulate the defensive base building style of DOW1. In what way has the Elite mod made DOW2 more like DOW1?"

Him/Her
"It's a mix of many things: balance, introduction of DoW I's units, different damage calculators, extended structures gameplay, units preservation, maps and playstyle.
It's complex to explain.. and probably I'm not the most suited for this. I would rather suggest to play the game and experience it yourself"


The idea that the Elite mod has turned DOW2 retribution multiplayer into something similar to that from DOW1 is new to me. Can folks here understand and explain where he is coming from?

Thanks!

[Torpid]

Firstly they're talking nonsense.

Elite made DOW2 more like how DOW2 should have been in terms of balance - put simply, it streamlined the balance.

Rather than having a grand amount of disbalanced MUs such that if you went random the chance of you winning was roughly similar to that of elite - but once the heroes had been selected there was little room to win if it was a bad MU. In elite nearly every MU is imbalanced in one way or another, BUT, the imbalances are nowhere near as strong as retail. Furthermore there are no longer too many units that are blatantly overpowered such that it is a no-brainer to get them, there were many of these in retail - catachans, sentinels, the librarian, plague marines, the autarch, rangers, raveners etc etc. There's still some such as the Tyrant Guard, but for the most part the strengths of these particular units which most definitely did account for the overall balance of the respective races have been put elsewhere - IG now has spotters and their T2 has been gigantically buffed in terms of upkeep and costs across the board, plus guardsmen are way less upkeep intensive in T1. Eldar have got buffs to WG, and banshees in T1 plus DA in T1 as well as the addition of dark reapers and fire dragons in T2. Chaos didn't really get much to compensate for OP PMs but that's because chaos were always just OP tbh in retail - bloodletters got nerfed, csm got nerfed, everything got nerfed except havocs which probably got overbuffed.

Anyway, these are the main balance changes of elite mod. A matter of streamlining MUs and streamlining build orders such that the game becomes far more entertaining and competitive because there is a greater variety of legitimate builds available and merely the hero that you choose and are fighting against is far less influential in deciding the outcome of the match.

The extent to which damage calculators have been changed, things like melee resistance being added to new units (walkers and set-up teams [SUTs]). All of this has only occurred to allow for the above meta-changes to happen. It certainly isn't indicative of any aim to make DOW2 more like DOW1.

As well, the addition of so called "Dow1" units is for the same reason. And I have a problem with them being called DOW1 units... If DOW2 came out first, they'd just be DOW2, elite mod units, that were added to DOW1. Those units don't belong to DOW1 or DOW2, they're just units within the tabletop and the warhammer 40k lore. The Ordo Malleus as an individual faction certainly aren't in DOW1!

I have no idea what in the slightest all of this means - extended structures gameplay, units preservation, maps and playstyle - and I would ask the person you were talking to to explain it more because I can't fathom at all why unit preservation changes, map or playstyle changes would result in DOW2 becoming more like DOW1?

I mean, this can simply be a confirmation bias. If they define "DOW2" as everything which makes the vanilla game what it is, then any single change to the vanilla game is going to make the game less like "DOW2", because the vanilla game is DOW2, and since there's only one other DOW game, it has to make it more like that DOW game... Of course this is a highly fallacious and meaningless line of reasoning but it could very well be what's happening. People get very comfortable with how things are... if they have been playing a game a certain way for a long time they don't want to be told to "re-learn" a game because doing so will give them more joy, especially when they're having enough fun as it is...

There is also one way in which I could appreciate that it has become more like DOW1 - although, be warned, I was never half as good at DOW1 as I am at DOW2 - perhaps elite is more like DOW! simply because the variety of permissible army compositions is far greater than that of retail? If that's the only real similarity though then come at me bro! Let's be like DOW1 forever, because that's a good trait to have! It makes the game far more entertaining than seeing the same predictable shit every single game like retail IG and chaos >_>

[DandyFrontline]

"It's a mix of many things: balance, introduction of DoW I's units, different damage calculators, extended structures gameplay, units preservation, maps and playstyle."

- lel, did he even play DoW2 before ? Also "DoW I's units"? What?

For me he/her is from those ppl who know nothing but have his/her strong opinion about everything

[Lulgrim]

balance

No idea how Elite balance would be similar to DoW1, which is not even the same genre really.

introduction of DoW I's units

No idea what this means either.

different damage calculators

Elite hasn’t changed damage calculations, I don’t think we even could.

extended structures gameplay

Elite didn’t add any structures.

units preservation

I don’t see how Elite changed that.

maps

Elite is mostly played on the same old maps.

playstyle

Can folks here understand and explain where he is coming from?

No.

[Ace of Swords]

No, not at all, whoever said that is plain and simple retarded, considering how nothing he has said is true.

[Lichtbringer]

Maybe he did mean a different mod.

[Caeltos]

I can actually see what he might be coming from. Speaking on how the transition from retail to ELITE has introduced maybe abit more variety and spiced up the defensive/offensive turtle gameplay. Imperial Guard has the the easier way to utilize bunkers into their builds, turrets with upgrades(etc) , Chimera with mobile defence. All of those add an element of a sense of a 'base' to some degree. Whilst in retail, the turrets saw useage, bunkers as well. But they were abit harder to utilize in some senses. Due to economy restrictions and transitional useage.

Chaos is another faction that benefitted in some way. Specifically, I would say Tzeensch Shrines in particular. Their damage in retail was laughable, and now they're abit better in cementing some raw-damage output. So they are more likely to be used then they were in retail.

Tyranids with their infestation pillars also adds a layer of structures out on the field. (Slingshotting stuff to the field) so you'll really like to add those key-structures for as much pressure, as well as counter-pressure as possible.

Orks with Waaagh Banners is also a universal structure, rather then tied to the Mekboy now, which again - adds another depth of strategy and option to the player to opt-in for a strong area of buffs to your units & allies.

Those are just some examples, but I can definately see why he/she would say such a thing. But it's definately not base-building, I would say it's more tools to utilize that opts for a strategy that revolves around cementing some map control in some sense.

[Lulgrim]

Tyranids with their infestation pillars also adds a layer of structures out on the field.

Oh right, I forgot we did add those. I would hesitate to call it "extended structures gameplay" though...