TheMissingLink
Member
Played the tutorials and the first mission - PUMPED! And I sort of hate RTS games 
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Halo Wars 2 |OT| Warranty For Suckers
- Thread starter Tecnniqe
- Start date
The beauty that is Sentinels. I think I've found the Hawks of the golden age of HW1.
https://youtu.be/XI_lpmeDCmE
https://youtu.be/XI_lpmeDCmE
Well, I played a lot the last day, mostly 2v2 or 3v3 this time and finally put some more time in Deathmatch. Only two total disconnects on my teams, both the same friend. One caused a loss, still held on to the other. Really liking the game at this point, rare case where a game has as many varied modes and I actually like them all.
One thing playing more of the "real" modes had me thinking about is the change to the economy away from heavily diminishing returns on supply pads. Not sure if there are any at all right now besides the generator cost increase. Other RTS mine out resources and HW1 kept the economy artificially low, but HW2's infinite resource pads and high income makes late game armies feel pretty disposable and less of a big moment to take out. Also combined with the inability to produce units away from base the need for constant production limits how much micro I can take time to do.
But it has upsides too - keeps games in a more constant state of action, allows comebacks, etc. and obviously getting great army trades is still going to eventually win the game through taking out expansions, being able to use the extra money on more leader powers/tech/upgrades, just gaining a good position to take out their main base and such.
Also I teamed up in 2v2s with the first person to beat me in Blitz and that felt guiltily unfair vs lower level randoms, 6 shutouts in 7 games(last one was 200-50). But it was fun.
One thing playing more of the "real" modes had me thinking about is the change to the economy away from heavily diminishing returns on supply pads. Not sure if there are any at all right now besides the generator cost increase. Other RTS mine out resources and HW1 kept the economy artificially low, but HW2's infinite resource pads and high income makes late game armies feel pretty disposable and less of a big moment to take out. Also combined with the inability to produce units away from base the need for constant production limits how much micro I can take time to do.
But it has upsides too - keeps games in a more constant state of action, allows comebacks, etc. and obviously getting great army trades is still going to eventually win the game through taking out expansions, being able to use the extra money on more leader powers/tech/upgrades, just gaining a good position to take out their main base and such.
Also I teamed up in 2v2s with the first person to beat me in Blitz and that felt guiltily unfair vs lower level randoms, 6 shutouts in 7 games(last one was 200-50). But it was fun.
TheMissingLink
Member
Yes, working great! RTS games normally stress me out, but having someone else there is really nice.
Yeah coop is sweet.
Had a friend over during Christmas to beat the DE and had them over again on Friday for the weekend to play the continuation. It's a lot of fun, especially when you can slap each other around for losing an entire army to OPBeam
Campaign is good solo, better coop.
Now all that needs fixerupper is Firefight gains.
Leyasu
Banned
Now you say that. I have done 3 missions, and have not yet seen a cut scene
:O oh boy
Barrel Cannon
Member
Had the game DC me and my buddy yesterday during Blitz Co-Op Firefight. Was really disappointing as we were about 29 minutes 30 seconds in. We were still in party chat so we weren't sure what caused it.
Glad to see brute hammer units still do tons of damage and also glad to see properly macro'd wraiths can easily dodge them. I'm hoping the mid/early game meta for standard deathmatch hasn't changed too much in terms from the first game as that was one of the funnest parts of the first game
Glad to see brute hammer units still do tons of damage and also glad to see properly macro'd wraiths can easily dodge them. I'm hoping the mid/early game meta for standard deathmatch hasn't changed too much in terms from the first game as that was one of the funnest parts of the first game
This game on PC is really, really bad in so many ways. Finally figured out the escape menu was bound to... F10. Who does that? Bunch of other stuff. Really wish someone had sat down and walked them through UI, because it's atrocious. Basic clicking on things doesn't always seem to work right too. Like, jfc, guys, I just want to send units to part of the map by right clicking on my minimap, or hey, I just want to select one individual unit, how hard is that? apparently very hard.
wtf CA. You've made better games. How did you ship this?
No, having just finished Gears 4's campaign again the other day. Completely different in every way.
Very, Very Blur tho.
wtf CA. You've made better games. How did you ship this?
No, having just finished Gears 4's campaign again the other day. Completely different in every way.
Very, Very Blur tho.
to the bolded: it's an RTS standard, since esc is used for deselecting. it's been a standard for 20 years now.
I agree with everything else. The stuff that annoy me the most are parts where they completely shy away from RTS standards.
Ctrl-cliking not being a thing.
No hold position.
Shift+# adds units to the given control group. Awesome! It also removes units from the given control group. Not so awesome.
Macroing is awful (although it is slightly alleviated by using camera location hotkeys, which are a pleasant suprise in their own right)
Tons of stuff like this makes it difficult to play with a kb/m, especially since the game is actually pretty good and fun. Hopefully there will be a patch soon that fixes some of these issues
On top of this, they missed to recreate the HW1 controls on Console. Functionalities are moved/replaced from the HW layout, and they added a modifier layer on the unit selector Right Trigger. While this can be useful, it makes selecting between unit types clunky.
The Leader circle could be moved to D-Pad UP, and LB/LT could perfectly function as a layer switcher.
Not sure how useful the circle menu is on PC, but for controllers, it has a bit too many options to use it precisely. Even on screens, where only half of it is a real functionality.
My biggest issue is the transparent minimap that occur all the time on PC. The rest is clunky and frustrating at time but I can deal with it. The minimap however is crucial and most of the time takes multiple clicks or it simply selects things behind it or nothing happens clicking it at all.
Yeah that was disappointing.
Radial menus on PC are generally terrible. I haven't really had much problems with this one personally though.
Oh god, I completely forgot about the minimap being borked. I guess I'd just surpressed it :/.
Yeah, that shit needs to be fixed ASAP
Calm Killer
In all media, only true fans who consume every book, film, game, or pog collection deserve to know what's going on.
There are only 7 Blur Cutscenes in the game. You will go through the first 7 or so missions before you get another.
Leyasu
Banned
Lol. Thanks for clearing that up for me
lilojigsaw
Member
I was on the halo wars sub reddit and a person reinstalled and it fixed this exact issue. Might not be the same but figured I'd let you know
Diablohead
Member
Am I right in seeing that the sentinal rush shown here is over 19 minutes into a battle? yeah they look OP but it's taken 19 minutes to get there.
this isn't depicting a rush though, just a showing of how powerful they are
I could've gotten that out at 10-12 minutes. I was waiting to see what my teammate was doing and taking my time as they were low level. I know it's possible as someone did it to me at that 10-12 min mark.
The more fun thing is it confuses the ever living fuck out of someone when their fully upgraded base is trashed in 5 minutes. Made the other teammate rage quit lol!
Barrel Cannon
Member
Is there no keyboard shortcuts for the radial menu? If not that seems like a missed opportunity to give PC players more choice in how to control their game. Examples would be:
-6 keys for different options on the radial
-Independent buttons for different bindings
On 3v3 deathmatch we combine a 2player marine rush and 1p sentinel pump strategy. The marines rush aims to to eliminate one opponent early at the 5-7 minute mark (usually first target is always Anders or Atriox). Latest around minute 10 the marines are usually dead. But the sentinel army of p3 is at (almost) full strenght then eliminating the second player (best case). the other two team mates meanwhile switched to pumping vehicles to take on the remaining opponent then.
So far it works quite ok, but I am sure there are better strategies.
What's the best kind?
there are hotkeys for the radial menu, which is exactly why I don't have a problem with it in this game
.Considering the common I guess marine-cyclops would do the trick.
Cyclops are probably the biggest buffed unit compared to the previous games. Especially once you upgrade their weaponry they absolutely tear apart vehicles.
Still dunno why Cobras randomly got a rename, though.
Are cobras in the game?
Sentinels isn't all that strong vs marines + throw a few flamethrowers in vs banished as they lack some good early anti inf imo.
Cyclops are a good counter for vehicles of all sizes and shred them so an early scout to see if airfield, barracks or garage should show the pick of units.
Cyclops are a good counter for vehicles of all sizes and shred them so an early scout to see if airfield, barracks or garage should show the pick of units.
Had the same thing - I didn't check the numbers and assumed there was a "prologue" cutscene or something. Saw the last scene before I'd even started the game. Oh well.
Yeah lol, so stupid. It's not like the thumbnail is ambiguous either- it's a pretty clear spoiler.
Hawk269
Member
It is a known bug amongst many others. Not many game breaking bugs but irritating stuff like some units getting lost or nothe responding etc.
I am looking forward to the first Balance patch. Lots of nerfs needed as some thins are way over powered.
But Cobras were anti vehicle, aren't Kodiaks anti infantry?
RIP Anders
Caayn
Member
How are you supposed to get all bonus objectives in under the dark. You're not allowed to lose one Kodiak, but the AI drops their death beam on them no matter where you place them. Resulting in practical insta-death as Kodaiks aren't fast enough to outrun the beam and aren't strong enough to withstand one, even with lvl3 restoration drones on them.
The AI also seems to ignore cooldown timers and is able to spawn multiple death beams at once.
I also encountered this visual bug (action at 13 seconds in): http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/Caayn Dragon/video/27389482
Edit
I don't mind that there are less cutscenes, as the cutscenes that are there are longer. The cutscene at the end of under the dark is epic.
The AI also seems to ignore cooldown timers and is able to spawn multiple death beams at once.
I also encountered this visual bug (action at 13 seconds in): http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/Caayn Dragon/video/27389482
Edit
I don't mind that there are less cutscenes, as the cutscenes that are there are longer. The cutscene at the end of under the dark is epic.
Like with gold medals, I assume saving your sanity and doing it on easy or normal.
I think they're anti-infantry by nature (as vehicles), but by stats they're green against anything but air. I'm guessing they didn't want to repurpose Cobras, also artillery translates better than Cobras in these new maps with lot of verticality. I didn't like the removal of Cobras at first, as they were my favorite unit in the first game, but I see reason in it. Who knows, maybe they'll be back with a DLC. I still see other units shooting through ledges, imagine that with cobras.
On Easy they don't spam. I did all the bonuses, optionals and gold medals on that.
Anyone else unable to connect to Halo Wars services?
Caayn
Member
Did you try to restart the game? I have this as well sometimes, restarting the game fixes it for me.