As someone coming from a large RTS background I have to say “OMG CREATIVE ASSEMBLY!”
The moment I saw that they we’re making this game I knew I’d love it and I do. THIS is what i wanted Halo Wars 1 to be not the slumping bore fest that it was. Well to an RTS fan it was which was the most annoying part of the game. it was an RTS game made for FPS gamers and they thought it was real but by RTS standards Halo Wars was one of the worst ideas ever only surviving off the Halo name.
HW2 on the other hand is coming out swinging. While I do agree with the criticism of Domination shouldn’t of been the BETA’s way to show off it doesn’t really matter to me all that much mostly because it’s fun.
While this gamemode isn’t for Turtle’s it’s certainly the mode for all other strategist to play but also that’s why we have this BETA. A playstyle shouldn’t be excluded and we can voice our opinions on the matter to help the game later. Any angry turtle player would request that the timer move slower so they could have a chance, but then you’d screw over rushers. As much as I hate rushers they too are apart of this family and shouldn’t be excluded. I’ll leave it for CA to figure out since this is a feedback post.
Love the old Snagheili designs coming back (I really hated the new look) and I’m curious about well everything mostly those structures the Banished use. Those things really draw out some questions about who’ever is arming them.
Balance wise I most things seems alright I haven’t really gotten a chance to test everything yet but it seems like the jet. Brutes and Warlord don’t do much damage. I expected them to be heavy hitting anti ground units but they we’re quickly stomped out by everything. The only time i saw the Jet Brutes being useful is as meatsheilds. For some reason people focus on them but their lack of damage just makes them tanks despite them being one of the most fearsome enemies in Halo’s lore.
Hecking Jet Brutes with hammers, lol not even once. Their Y is pretty good thought, so I guess that’s the balance so I’m not sure.
I’m not sure if this is a bug or not but commander powers don’t seem to accurately display what you can buy from what you’re able to buy…Hmm let me explain. When you get your command points you can get one of X powers which leads down a branching tree. Different starts allow for different trees to be opened but the issue is that the game doesn’t tell you “Hey you can’t buy this yet.” Instead the trees you’ve unlocked will look as if they’re available for purchase which is a bit confusing, especially if you’ve been fighting and you’re trying to quickly get through the upgrades.
I’d say make them blank if you didn’t go down that three, make the ones you have green and make the ones which tree you’re going down but you can’t buy red until you can.
I feel like that explanation didn’t help so… sorry.
The Rock paper scissors seems to be working fine but only for the UNSC. I’ve yet to see much success with the Covenant infantry doing well against air units. Another thing to note is how despite infantry being deigned to combat air, most infantry units actually can’t defend themselves against air units.
Snipers, Hunters, Hellbringers, Suicide Grunts, Jet Brutes and even the warlord have no way of attacking air units and The Rangers are anti infantry so the counter balance for that power is reduced damage to armor and air. I say allow snipers and hunters to attack air units and give suicide grunts, jet brutes, hellbringers and the warlord extra defense against them so they can do what they please without being absolutely crushed.
Lastly while I agree that resources and power come up slowly I don’t mind it because you’re main infantry comes directly from your hub base. You don’t need a barracks or raiding camp to make grunts and marines. This is good because warthog rushing was stupid and is a nice balance call since you don’t need a barracks to form a powerful army. Fully upgraded Choppers and Grunts present just as big of a threat as anything else.
So that’s really all I have to say about the BETA that isn’t bug related since it seems most of the bugs are obvious right now. Actually there is one more thing. Vultures but not scarab, come on guys really? It not being in the BETA was a bit of a let down mostly because it looks very different and I hope it has some sort of special abilities tied to it.
P.S. Something my friend just pointed out is that music is pretty good. While I don’t think the beats HW1 so far which IMO was the best part of the game it’s a different sound for a different theme. HW1’s music needed to show the emotions of fighting in the Human-Covenant War but Halo Wars 2’s music is setup for a whole different tale.