Dawn of War Codex

What is your opinion on playing retail? I feel like I personally would learn more from playing retail instead of ELITE for the first couple of weeks. I'd get more games in and I might actually win for a change. Though I feel like I would develop bad habits that would be a detriment when I switch back to ELITE.

Do not play retail, it's just an imbalanced version of dow2, while Elite is more balanced.
For exam FC Flame in retail kills a gen farm in 1 second, but in Elite, it doesn't
I have won a shitload of games just by abusing that tactic, buy fc flamethrower and then your opponent can't even buy 1 gen, because it would get destroyed in 1 second.

Just as i said don't play retail multiplayer, but if you want to play Last Stand you will have to use retail.

Play retail for a while then when you have some experience come to elite, most players here are experienced ones that you won't learn much from when playing against.

Plus there's a whole BUNCH of leavers, so you can forget about getting levels in the retail, while on the other hand Elite mod players know there's a "concede" button, or they play until one side loses.
Campaign and Last Stand would be the only two things which could possibly keep you interested in the retail version, although you can play Campaign in Elite, too. I didn't try it out, though.

It teaches rather bad tactics like 2x TCSM, 2x BL + PMs, which was just a silly generalist tactic used in 3v3 by each player on a team of chaos players that pretty much annihilated everything and doesn't work at all on elite. It encourages way more cheese, for example spamming shurikens vs IG since they have no hard suppression counter in t1. Honestly, once you play elite you will realise how horrendous retail is balance wise. Two catachan squads can solo the entirety of the tyranid t1.

I also disagree on the sentiment that you won't be able to compete with elite players. I've come across plenty of low-level elite players. One thing I've noticed though is that many of them discovered elite via Indrid's casts, and for that reason they are fiarly adept - especially for your level. I honestly feel the game is far more enjoyable and fast paced at a high level. If you want to improve your game watch the online casts by Indrid at the channel dowreplays.net and organise some games for your skill level in the elite chat and I'm sure people will be sincere enough to join you if they are around your skill level.

russthapuss wrote: although you can play Campaign in Elite, too. I didn't try it out, though.

Wouldnt try it.

I just looked into it once, and noticed that the TechMarines head is missing there.^^

Orkfaeller wrote:

russthapuss wrote: although you can play Campaign in Elite, too. I didn't try it out, though.

Wouldnt try it.

I just looked into it once, and noticed that the TechMarines head is missing there.^^

Yes some of the models are kinda messed up in the campaign, but let's face it Martellus might be more useful without his head.

Retail is full of people who just leave games and it also is full of OP stuff like big shoota spam, tcsm spam, catachan spam, etc.
Watching Indrid talk about stuff in his casts far more rewarding than playing retail.

Only reason I ever play retail is for rank searches, either alone for 1v1 practice or with people I know for team ranked search.

Public games in retail are a serious mess, what with inconsistent connections and leavers. I used to host games specifically for XP and still people would rage quit so hard I swore I could hear the baby jesus crying through history and time

Use the ranked search, or gather homies...and use the ranked search. Or get 5 other people you can trust to actually play and setup a room, but then you might as well just play Elite! You will get much better in elite, the pace is faster and players are much more skilled generally.

Xanthum wrote:What is your opinion on playing retail?

I think it's boring since it has been unchanged for a long time due to the dropped support.

After being beaten up too badly in ELITE, I sometimes go back to retail to pwn guys who picked up the game during the steam sale. Then, after doing so to regain some artificially inflated confidence, I go back to ELITE to have my ass handed to me again. Still, being beaten in ELITE is more fun than winning in retail. It might feel good for a fleeting moment when you get to the crush the (newb) enemy, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women, but learning from the many better players in ELITE is always more worthwhile.

I am only a moderate-mediocre player in the ELITE community.

FunkyMonkey wrote:After being beaten up too badly in ELITE, I sometimes go back to retail to pwn guys who picked up the game during the steam sale.

lol ... rly cool bro...

Yeah, I'll admit it I need to make myself feel good every now and then. The frequency of me winning in retail is a much, much higher than in ELITE due to the average quality of players in retail compared to that of ELITE. That's not to say that I win every game in retail, or an overwhelmingly high frequency of games, but considerably more often than not, I do. Like I implied, the win does feel a bit worthless and at times, pathetic of me seeing as how that like a common schoolyard bully, I need to resort to beating guys I feel I have a higher chance of winning against after myself being beaten badly by guys better than me and way out of my class. I'd say it's a natural feeling for some people: to enjoy the win, any win, even if only fleetingly before realizing its emptiness later. I have no problem admitting that I am one of those people.

Playing Retail makes me feel dirt.

However i still do it when thare is no 1 online to play the mod.After a few games some pice of junk fields 2x plauge mariens or some other dumb ass crap and i rage at them then cry myself to sleep.

Next day im back on elite begging for games

you only become better, when you play vs better players.

FunkyMonkey wrote:Yeah, I'll admit it I need to make myself feel good every now and then. The frequency of me winning in retail is a much, much higher than in ELITE due to the average quality of players in retail compared to that of ELITE. That's not to say that I win every game in retail, or an overwhelmingly high frequency of games, but considerably more often than not, I do. Like I implied, the win does feel a bit worthless and at times, pathetic of me seeing as how that like a common schoolyard bully, I need to resort to beating guys I feel I have a higher chance of winning against after myself being beaten badly by guys better than me and way out of my class. I'd say it's a natural feeling for some people: to enjoy the win, any win, even if only fleetingly before realizing its emptiness later. I have no problem admitting that I am one of those people.

I think I know what you mean.
I feel like despite the fact that I learn a lot from it - losing is very demotivating, especially if it's a running streak of losses. This is a lot more commonplace in Elite mod due to the average skill level.

I play retail in order to win in order to re-motivate.
I play elite in order to test myself and continue to improve.

I see nothing wrong with playing both. retail is a nice way to get better at the game. if u get good at retail and find ways to beat cheese u will perform tremendously in elite. i still spank almost any matchup with shitty retail apoth. micro is micro dont blame the game for u facing a bad match up and losing. its part of the game

I'd have to agree with few of the guys here. Yep, the retail is broken, yep it has a lot of things that are unbalanced and yes playing it is not the best way to stand up to established Elite Mod players, but also retail had more players and more of those who were of simillar level to mine, so therefore for a new dow2 guy, playing retail can be quite a good thing. I know, since I started playing multiplayer in June 2013.

That works well and all because most people on retail can't micro for shit :p

Maybe some advice from a noob who is started off in Elite instead of retail would be beneficial to you?

I, being fairly n00bish myself, fully understand the sentiment of playing games and having a first hand experience in what it means to get your ass whooped in Elite. It's a brutal way of learning, but it is learning. I watched a lot of the casts from Indrid well in advance before jumping into Elite mod myself, and even with a general idea of what units countered what and how to behave in x situation when y was applied - the reality of it was that I learned most of what I've been doing now from playing against players who are, in most cases, much better than myself. Learning what not to do, and being hyper-critical of your method of play is the best way of improving yourself (even in games where you win and think you've done well - you'd be surprised how many little mistakes you'll catch yourself doing when you record a match and watch a replay). I reckon you'll gain a lot more understanding from playing a few games of Elite with more expert players than you would playing in vanilla retail versus lowbies.

As I touched upon above, you should also consider recording your matches. I have several dozen matches (both wins and losses) where I re-evaluate myself in how I performed. You pick up a lot of mistakes and things you've been neglecting to do when you sit back and watch how things unfold from a spectators perspective. Even simple things that you can easily overlook can be picked up by running that 20 minute game you just lost (i.e as an IG player, placing a bunker down for an ally on the other side of the map so they can continue to keep up the pressure on their side of the map). Commentary also makes for great training, and whenever I find myself getting casted by indrid (a few times now), I try and take special attention to anything he might add about my plays.

As for players of the same level ... there seems to be a small influx of new players that join the community every so often, but I've also noticed that a vast majority of these newer players end up leaving shortly after. They're probably running into the same issues you are, and probably give up on the notion of playing. So, as much as I would like to say, "go ahead and find yourself some n00bie partners and set up some games," you shouldn't count on it for the majority of the time. It really comes down to whether or not these players end up being on at the same time you are. Otherwise, just stick to your guns and play a game with some of the older members. A good number of them are accommodating and as long as you're up front about being new, they won't mind and will probably go as far as to try and balance the teams to make it as enjoyable of an experience as possible for all the players in the match.

Overall, I'd like to sugarcoat the topic , but as you probably know well enough - don't expect to win a lot of games right off the bat. Even if we're not to consider general RTS experience with other games, DoW is very unique in and of itself, and playing Elite and adjusting to the various tactics introduced with the balance changes only makes it that much harder to grasp starting off. If you go off and play Retail expecting to do better in Elite, you'll probably find yourself poorly mistaken. As it's been mentioned by other members in the posts prior, the changes from Elite to Retail are quite considerable, and you'll only probably end up finding yourself readjusting to Elite. If you really want to play the game, do your best to stick with it and believe me, you will improve sooner than you think if you keep up the practice.

And the last piece of advice I'll give is that if you find yourself losing several games in a row and are finding yourself frustrated - drop the game for a bit, and just do something else. Get your mind off it, and come back several hours later or maybe just pick it up a day or two later. The more you hit yourself over the head, the more likely you'll make critical errors in your subsequent games. Try and approach it with a clear mind and be accepting of defeat and take it for what it is - a game.

Dark Riku wrote:That works well and all because most people on retail can't micro for shit :p

Riku, I don't think the newbs in retail even knows the meaning of 'Micromanagement'.

hmm i still play retail, and they are still players of 1500 1600 true skill calibre that play on there. as said before playing both cant hurt u. elite when theres pop retail when theres not.and i promise playing retail makes u better at elite by a large portion

Retail players are really in a poor state at the moment...

Mostly they aren't that good but there are still some skilled players remaining.

Hey this was to tune in with Ace (found this poem and striked a chord, wrote it years ago)
Made a vid for it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvfxDNaU ... e=youtu.be