HW2 BETA Insight From 2nd in the world

Games Halo Wars Series
1

Hello guys,

Most of you won’t know who I am, I’m a huge RTS FAN, Ive played almost all of the big RTS’s competitively
Dune2
Warcraft 3
SC(B+ ICCUP)
SC2 GrandMaster 49th random
C&C TW 3rd in the world
Halo wars 1 1v1 -2nd in world for the entire first year, including first ladder reset. Gamebattles winner and 3v3 first year went 360+ wins, zero losses.
Halowars 2. Diamond Tier 4 would be higher, but you lose if your game crashes and it crashes often :slight_smile:
Have played many more, but you get the idea.

First of all like most of you, I’m disappointed how they have strayed so far from HW1, BUT this is a BETA and I have faith that all will be fixed, so I won’t go into that.

What I will quickly do is go into a few game mechanics, that I feel need to be addressed and I haven’t seen others post about.

  • CONTROLSMoving around the map:

When holding LB, the fast scroll needs to be increased drastically or even have an option to pick your speed in full retail version.

Control Groups
Great feature, but not needed, I’m sorry when I’m dealing with so few units, its not needed at all. This would be far more useful on a PC where micro/macro is far easier. This could be replaced with something else and free up some buttons for something more vital! - The option to hotkey or even use right on the dpad and it toggled through all your production buildings -Barracks, air pad and factory would be welcomed

ALL UNITS
LB AND RB needs to have their own separate buttons, are you guys MAD? THIS IS AN RTS, Waiting an extra second to highlight all units in a RTS makes a huge difference, It needs to be instant, thats why ALL units needs its own button. -(LB Local units and RB all units needs to return)

Player Gaze
HW1 you could see where your ally was viewing on the mini map, so you could see if he was aware of any threats, very helpful in un-arranged 2v2 or 3v3

Pinging the MAP
Needs to be much more noticeable!

Queueing units
Queueing units to collect minerals does not work! (Also please make minerals/supplies blue again)

Paint Brush
When holding down the A button, the paint brush is to big and makes it quite hard to select the units you want.

  • UNITS****HUNTERS - JACKALS - CYCLOPS all need to be tier 1
    This is to promote more opening strategies, I always know what to expect, because their are only so few units available tier 1. (note these were all available in halo wars and it worked fine)

Hunters/Cyclops
Are 100% needed tier 1 to deal with Brute choppers early game. There are ways to stop them, but nothing that doesn’t put you massively behind.
In the Halo wars 1 we had many units to counter vehicles available to us Tier 1. Brute choppers which can be pumped extremely fast out of the main building…
HALOWARS 1 We had:
Hunters Tier 1
Banshees Tier1
We had Leaders(prophet, arbiter & brute) Tier 1
Wraiths Tier 1
UNSC Didn’t have as many options, but the had spartans which came with Hijack and you build 3 of them (hw2 only 1 with no hijack ability unless upgraded) and of course they had Warthogs which were dominant.

As it stands right now we have zero counters! Either go choppers yourself if you are Covenant or if you are unsc simply just die because there is no unit which can stop them available at tier 1.

Flamethrowers
The DPS to Building damage seems slightly to high

Devours
are to slow

Snipers
Are very strong which is ok, but they need to lose cloak if they want to be balanced. If losing cloak is not an option, then their range needs to be nerved, or their stun. Stun,cloak and massive damage and range! is to much

Jackals/elite rangers
Need to be available to at tier 1, to be able to rival flamethrowers.

Jet Pack Brutes
mines upgrade is broken and far to strong (possibly the most op ability in the game.)

Tanks/marines
Something is wrong here, either marines get nerfed or tanks get improved, I personally would improve tanks.

Jackrabbit
I feel every unit should have a purpose, and these don’t to seem to excel or actually be good at anything. I’ve tried them quite a few games, because I actually love the unit it reminds me of a Vulture from Starcraft 1, except these Jackrabbits are utter crap and useless. Vultures were a very similar unit, cheap and fragile and very quick. They could mine defensive positions and their auto attack was very potent vs infantry units. I wish these excelled at something, they do little damage vs every type of unit and buildings, PLEASE reconsider these units and making them effective at something even if its vs 1 unit type

I would love to see their health dropped by half and there damage increased by 100% and they would still have water guns as cannons. If not used properly they would be destroyed easily one miss micro and you would lose half your army, but when used well they could make for some amazing gameplay.

Gravity hammer brutes
These units seem to run in circles and not attack units which are clearly in front of them, seems to happen more often the more you have

Health Bars
would be great to have an option to have these always showing. As microing on a console is already hard enough.

  • BASESBoth races suffer from not be able to tell if something is upgraded, (supply pads and generators) I have to look very closely to tell what is and isn’t, even then sometimes I’m wrong. These need to be drastically improved.
    -the worst offenders are supply pads for unsc and generators for Covenant

I’m not certain, but I’m nearly 90% sure, you have once again made covenant bases, LOW health again!!! Please bring their health up, I understand they have Shields, but they are forced once again to give something up (a turret spot) for something unsc has for free which is more health… UNSC have the radar, does that mean lower their sight radius? NO because thats stupid, exact same thing as far as I’m concerned. (I play UNSC, so this is not biased)
I feel if this changes is made and it should, that bases should be limited to 1 shield generator only.

Building Slots
With the introduction of Power/generator resource they now take up vital slots, which you previously didn’t need. This is a problem as we are so limited already.
There needs to be more base slots. Either make them smaller so you can fit more or make the base longer and wider so you can fit a few extra…

Barracks/glitch
units often glitch inside the barracks and don’t move to way points

Tech points/tech tree
The announcement needs to be more prominent when gaining a point.

  • MATCHMAKING****Matchmaking vs other players
    is fast but i have noticed there is no trueskill/MMR system of any kind behind it, Im constantly vs far lower rank then I am and its instant. Normally In matchmaking for an RTS it will spend at least 30secs -1min to match you vs some1 of similar skill, this just matches vs anyone.

Winning
If a Player disconnects from a 2v2 or 3v3 that player currently receives a loss. Currently you lose regardless if your ally wins the game. If your team wins the the disconnected player should receive a win if it is arranged team. I feel if its un-arranged the player who leaves should receive a loss, as random players tend to quit the second things are going bad and should be penalised for this behaviour.

Player Ranks MAKE THEM VISIBLE
This is why many of us keep playing over and over, you need to make them visible to everyone! I love entering a game and seeing, I have a decent ally or they have good players, I better sit up if I want to win.

This thread will probably get buried, but hopefully someone takes notice as these changes would really help the game. (continued page 3)

2

Good job , thats some really fair criticism. I agree with nearly all of it

3

My biggest gripe so far is not being able to queue troop movements, selecting all units, and not seeing all the health bars an option is things that I miss the most. Also being able to control how fast the screen is scrolling across the map is an issue.

Something that you didn’t mention that I’d like to add is whenever you’re doing the quick switch to get to certain bases faster, it would be nice to see a number icon so that way you won’t lose track of which base you are on.

4

Your points on controls I mostly agree with. They definitely need some improvement. They need to be snappier, customizable, have toggles, etc. The complete lack of an options menu is very strange even for a beta.

Movement queue-ing has taken a step backwards in functionality and needs to be fixed at minimum, but ideally improved over HW 1.

I expect that most of these shortfalls are due simply to this being a beta. A beta that feels like it was rushed.

5

> 2533274809541057;4:
> Your points on controls I mostly agree with. They definitely need some improvement. They need to be snappier, customizable, have toggles, etc. The complete lack of an options menu is very strange even for a beta.
>
> Movement queue-ing has taken a step backwards in functionality and needs to be fixed at minimum, but ideally improved over HW 1.
>
> I expect that most of these shortfalls are due simply to this being a beta. A beta that feels like it was rushed.

This could possibly be due to them not particularly optimizing the beta on the Xbox, since Creative Assembly usually creates titles on the PC, and with it also launching on W10.

Having also played a lot of RTS’ in my time and a good amount of CA’s titles, though, I can agree with quite a bit with your points, OP. Especially on “All Units.” and on having upgrades and such be a little more clear.

6

Good points!

7

I agree with most of what you have put and they’re good criticisms.

I agree the controls are odd, the fast scroll could be increased and I don’t like the idea of hotkeying units in a game like this where keeping a flow of units is more important than keeping squads moving independently. The original DPAD system of the first game had it down fine.

I do agree that the infantry balancing is really weird right now in both strength and their surprising amount of speed. Marines in particular seem to have a really strong potential and aren’t being countered by small numbers of enemy armor like they should be. Also finding the grunt squads are deceptively destructive when you tech into them and leave their mines all over the place it really seems like something that can be easily abused.

So far the vehicles feel too weak. I have not been impressed with the covenant vehicles’ presence, and the new Covenant heavy aircraft seems rather lackluster and easy to destroy. I haven’t found a situation where building either is ideal as it seems the anti-infantry rangers and massed banshees do the same thing but better.

And as you may have guessed I’m a predominantly Covie player, and I have to disagree with you on the building upgrades not being obvious to an extent. I can tell just by glancing if mine are upgraded usually, except occasionally the harvester I’ll have to look twice at. UNSC I’ll accept might be harder I wouldn’t know. I cannot tell if there is a difference between a base before and after final tech upgrade even though I wasn’t actively watching for one. There really should be some clear indication just by looking at the base to tell which tech level you or your enemy is at. I would take this a step further as well and point out that upgrades on the units themselves are totally unnoticeable. I never know if the enemy has upgraded anything because I simply can’t tell by looking. I wouldn’t be able to tell in regards to my own units either if I hadn’t done it myself because it isn’t immediately apparent that anything changed (talking ability upgrades like wraith burnout, banshee bomb upgrade, and veterancy unit type upgrade, etc)

8

> 2533274821180847;7:
> I agree with most of what you have put and they’re good criticisms.
>
> I agree the controls are odd, the fast scroll could be increased and I don’t like the idea of hotkeying units in a game like this where keeping a flow of units is more important than keeping squads moving independently. The original DPAD system of the first game had it down fine.
>
> I do agree that the infantry balancing is really weird right now in both strength and their surprising amount of speed. Marines in particular seem to have a really strong potential and aren’t being countered by small numbers of enemy armor like they should be. Also finding the grunt squads are deceptively destructive when you tech into them and leave their mines all over the place it really seems like something that can be easily abused.
>
> So far the vehicles feel too weak. I have not been impressed with the covenant vehicles’ presence, and the new Covenant heavy aircraft seems rather lackluster and easy to destroy. I haven’t found a situation where building either is ideal as it seems the anti-infantry rangers and massed banshees do the same thing but better.
>
> And as you may have guessed I’m a predominantly Covie player, and I have to disagree with you on the building upgrades not being obvious to an extent. I can tell just by glancing if mine are upgraded usually, except occasionally the harvester I’ll have to look twice at. UNSC I’ll accept might be harder I wouldn’t know. I cannot tell if there is a difference between a base before and after final tech upgrade even though I wasn’t actively watching for one. There really should be some clear indication just by looking at the base to tell which tech level you or your enemy is at. I would take this a step further as well and point out that upgrades on the units themselves are totally unnoticeable. I never know if the enemy has upgraded anything because I simply can’t tell by looking. I wouldn’t be able to tell in regards to my own units either if I hadn’t done it myself because it isn’t immediately apparent that anything changed (talking ability upgrades like wraith burnout, banshee bomb upgrade, and veterancy unit type upgrade, etc)

Yes I feel the same way about vehicles, the only time i find vehicles good, is when trying to counter something besides infantry, which is meant to be there main purpose

9

Bump. I wonder if they even see or reply to posts.

10

From one champion to another it’s a pleasure to meet you. (I was rather emotional after the reset lol) but this is a great analysis of the beta so far and I agree with you. The one thing I noticed was veterans display. I’m not a big fan of the new style with a marker above the unit. I like the star idea. It’s original and when I say " 3 star chieftain" or “15 star grizzly” people knew what you meant and where you fit in on the food chain. Now I squint and see that my spartan and marines are slightly stronger from killing other units, but necessarily from the upgrades. Thoughts?

11

> 2533274818404842;10:
> From one champion to another it’s a pleasure to meet you. (I was rather emotional after the reset lol) but this is a great analysis of the beta so far and I agree with you. The one thing I noticed was veterans display. I’m not a big fan of the new style with a marker above the unit. I like the star idea. It’s original and when I say " 3 star chieftain" or “15 star grizzly” people knew what you meant and where you fit in on the food chain. Now I squint and see that my spartan and marines are slightly stronger from killing other units, but necessarily from the upgrades. Thoughts?

The max Veteran rank for units seems to be rank 3, I would be happy to see brute and jerome reach 5 star

12

@Control Groups
I am more working with quick cycling trough my split groups with the dpad rather than using control groups:
Why not “autobinding” this: Your 4 biggest armies at a moment are accessable at LB+Dpad
That way we could quick access our seperate armies without spending time on setting up Control Groups, with the positive side effect that you free up Dpad Down for something else.

Maybe bind Dpad-Down on a “Unit Building Radial Menu”: So you would not need to go back to your base for building units but open a radial Menu with all buildable units on the fly while being on the battlefield?

@All Units
Think you posted a solution by mistake :slight_smile: Why not make “LB and RB” together the quick select All Units? This way it can be instant without sacrificing functionallity on other buttons?

13

All good points man, thumbs up.

14

> 2533274794693191;1:
> Hello guys,
>
> Most of you won’t know who I am, I’m a huge RTS FAN, Ive played almost all of the big RTS’s competitively
> Dune2
> Warcraft 3
> SC(B+ ICCUP)
> SC2 GrandMaster 49th random
> C&C TW 3rd in the world
> Halo wars 1 1v1 -2nd in world for the entire first year, including first ladder reset. Gamebattles winner and 3v3 first year went 360+ wins, zero losses.
> Halowars 2. Diamond Tier 4 would be higher, but you lose if your game crashes and it crashes often :slight_smile:
> Have played many more, but you get the idea.
>
> First of all like most of you, I’m disappointed that how they have strayed so far from HW1, BUT this is a BETA and I have faith that all will be fixed, so I won’t go into that.
>
> What I will quickly do is go into a few game mechanics, that I feel need to be addressed and I haven’t seen others post about.
>
>
>
> - CONTROLS
> Moving around the map:
>
> When holding LB, the fast scroll needs to be increased drastically or even have an option to pick your speed in full retail version.
>
> Control Groups
> Great feature, but not needed, I’m sorry when I’m dealing with so few units, its not needed at all. This would be far more useful on a PC where micro/macro is far easier. This could be replaced with something else and free up some buttons for something more vital!
>
> ALL UNITS
> LB AND RB needs to have their own separate buttons, are you guys MAD? THIS IS AN RTS, Waiting an extra second to highlight all units in a RTS makes a huge difference, It needs to be instant, thats why ALL units needs its own button.
>
> Player Gaze
> HW1 you could see where your ally was viewing on the mini map, so you could see if he was aware of any threats, very helpful in un-arranged 2v2 or 3v3
>
> Pinging the MAP
> Needs to be much more noticeable!
>
> Queueing units
> Queueing units to collect minerals does not work! (Also please make minerals/supplies blue again)
>
>
>
> - UNITS
> HUNTERS - JACKALS - CYCLOPSall need to be tier 1
> This is to promote more opening strategies, I always know what to expect, because their are only so few units available tier 1. (note these were all available in halo wars and it worked fine)
>
> Devours
> are to slow
>
> Snipers
> Are very strong which is ok, but they need to lose cloak if they want to be balanced. If losing cloak is not an option, then their range needs to be nerfed.
>
> Jackals
> Need to be available to at tier 1, to be able to rival flamethrowers.
>
> Tanks/marines
> Something is wrong here, either marines get nerfed or tanks get improved, I personally would improve tanks.
>
> Health Bars
> would be great to have an option to have these always showing. As microing on a console is already hard enough.
>
>
>
> - BASES
> Both races suffer from not be able to tell if something is upgraded, (supply pads and generators) I have to look very closely to tell what is and isn’t, even then sometimes I’m wrong. These need to be drastically improved. (quick note UNSC windmills? i think pistons moving up and down or anything, not windmills)
>
> I’m not certain, but I’m nearly 90% sure you have once again made covenant bases, LOW health again!!! Please bring their health up, I understand they have Shields, but they are forced once again to give something up (a turret spot) for something unsc has for free which is more health… UNSC have the radar, does that mean lower their sight radius? NO because thats stupid, exact same thing as far as I’m concerned. (I play UNSC, so this is not biased)
>
> Player RANKS MAKE THEM VISIBLEThis is why many of us keep playing over and over, you need to make them visible to everyone! I love entering a game and seeing, I have a decent ally or they have good players, I better sit up if I want to win.
>
>
>
> - Winning
> If a Player disconnect from a 2v2 or 3v3 That player should receive a loss if your team loses and receive a win if your a lli manages to win without you, currently you lose regardless if your ally wins the game.
>
> This thread will probably get buried, but hopefully someone takes notice as these changes would really help the game.

I agree with a lot of what you said, I am also a big halo fan, but I do not share your enthusiasm that they will bring back the core of Halo Wars. It looks like they are trying to play it safe and just be another generic RTS but simplified and Halo themed. otherwise you have pretty good feedback and I hope they listen to you

15

You mean Elite Rangers not jackals

16

OFF TOPIC, BUT IM NOW 4TH IN THE WORLD - Link Below
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/halo-wars-2-beta-leaderboard

17

> 2533274794693191;11:
> > 2533274818404842;10:
> > From one champion to another it’s a pleasure to meet you. (I was rather emotional after the reset lol) but this is a great analysis of the beta so far and I agree with you. The one thing I noticed was veterans display. I’m not a big fan of the new style with a marker above the unit. I like the star idea. It’s original and when I say " 3 star chieftain" or “15 star grizzly” people knew what you meant and where you fit in on the food chain. Now I squint and see that my spartan and marines are slightly stronger from killing other units, but necessarily from the upgrades. Thoughts?
>
>
> The max Veteran rank for units seems to be rank 3, I would be happy to see brute and jerome reach 5 star

I think the max veteran is higher. I have a few screenshot of my 6 and 4 star vultures. One spartan assisted. You think maybe it will be higher than HW1?

18

> 2533274794693191;16:
> OFF TOPIC, BUT IM NOW 4TH IN THE WORLD - Link Below
> https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/halo-wars-2-beta-leaderboard

Just saw it. Congrats that’s awesome bro! Keep it up if you got that kinda time on your hands. They should give you something as well when the finished version comes out for the game and not just the avatar like in Gears of War or other betas. Good stuff

19

It seems like bases and buildings have way too much health.

Rushing simply doesn’t work.

The maps seem really large too. Everything moves at a turtles pace and there’s way too much space for expansion. I don’t want a game to last for hours.

20

> 2533274804786783;19:
> It seems like bases and buildings have way too much health.
>
> Rushing simply doesn’t work.
>
> The maps seem really large too. Everything moves at a turtles pace and there’s way too much space for expansion. I don’t want a game to last for hours.

Halo Wars 1 might be more up your alley. One of the complaints I heard from Wars 1 was how rushing was fast and quite viable, so they slowed down the base resource gathering and added electricity to take up more spots and slow down initial unit production and stockpiling.