Dogs of War Online

I've not particularly played the game a lot; I played for nine hours and then uninstalled the game. Not because it was bad, but because I didn't want to waste anymore time on a company that will inevitably be wiped.

The highlight of the game for me was the battles themselves, the animations and sound effects, for the most part, were crisp and visceral. The combat between the units is satisfying and there is a reasonable amount of depth within the battles themselves in terms of the three modifiers off of the top bar, and the various terrain types etc.

The visuals for the models are a bit, frayed at the edges almost, but still good. I thought the visuals for the maps themselves were great.

It reminded me somewhat of http://www.tacticsarena.com/ which is a good thing.

For me though, the metagame is where DoW falls on its face.

While I'm waiting in queue there is nothing worthwhile to do.

The Missions (reward timers essentially) look like they've been straight lifted from a MMO Web Browser game (where they very much needed to stay) and they are horrible. I'm not sure who thought that this would be a good idea, I've really got no clue. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's literally:

Click a Button
Click a Button
Click a Button
Wait 15 Minutes -> 1 Day
Read what happened
Receive Loss or Penalty

Just because it happens in browser games, doesn't mean you should add it. Those are totally different games with no active elements of game play. Clock-watching timers are not a good gameplay mechanic.

Maybe my particular view on that is pretty savage, but I'm not sure who would enjoy it. I'd rather you just rebalance experience/rewards so that the missions weren't needed at all (if they are).

The shop, rankings, and the like, all fine and serviceable. The tutorials were good, the Training is fine the first time round, but after that a little pointless.

But, that leaves little other than the PvP to keep peoples interests. Which would be fine, but in my view though the fundamentals of the system are fine, and the balancing in terms of AP, there are some unit trees that are wonky, some units that are made multitudes of times better, yet the AP cost only increases by 30%.

Which is the kind of system that makes unleveled units grievously worse than their leveled counterparts, which is fine I suppose, but I don't really see the point of such handicapping game design. There shouldn't actually be a need for the vanilla units to be useless, or disproportionately costed in terms of their usability. You can still have progression without that.

There also seem to be some units that aren't worth using, which is worrying in a game with so few units.

In my view this game either needs a more refined unit system, a greater variety of units, or some sort of meaningful PvE, otherwise I don't see it lasting particularly long.

I did play PoxNora for years which is a similar game, though grown convoluted and soon to die. That didn't have PvE, but what it did have was a considerably complex unit management system, a wider variety of units, a wider range of abilities and spells, and ultimately more varied gameplay. And, also, a cool lobby where you could observe peoples games.

I like TBS games and MMOTBS in particular, so I hope that this game succeeds. It's good, but its not great.

Thanks for your feedback and we are glad you like the game. I will try to answer some of your points

Jayaris wrote:I've not particularly played the game a lot; I played for nine hours and then uninstalled the game. Not because it was bad, but because I didn't want to waste anymore time on a company that will inevitably be wiped.

You can always try an other one, you can wipe and restart with a basic company as much as you want !

Jayaris wrote: While I'm waiting in queue there is nothing worthwhile to do.

Do you have exemples of games that gives you something interesting to do while queuing ? I don't play enough online games to compare. The only exemple I have in mind is Starcraft 2, and even as a AAA title, there is nothing worthwhile to do, mostly because it's really hard to do something cool with so little time to spend on it.

I think the issue is mostly linked with the lack of players online at certain time of the day. When the game goes to open beta, it should be much less of a problem.

Jayaris wrote: The Missions (reward timers essentially) look like they've been straight lifted from a MMO Web Browser game (where they very much needed to stay) and they are horrible. I'm not sure who thought that this would be a good idea, I've really got no clue. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's literally:

Click a Button
Click a Button
Click a Button
Wait 15 Minutes -> 1 Day
Read what happened
Receive Loss or Penalty

Just because it happens in browser games, doesn't mean you should add it. Those are totally different games with no active elements of game play. Clock-watching timers are not a good gameplay mechanic.

I will let the Devs comment further on this if they have time, but for now I will simply give my point of view on the matter.

The core gameplay is of course the battles and the team management, so you can see missions as an addition, but no one forces you to use them if you don't like it.

I think the missions are there to provide some possibility to get gold and Xp when you don't necessarly have time to play. It also gives an opportunity to obtain xp/gold that is not skilled based, which can prove to be useful for new players or less skilled ones in general. I'm not sure we could obtain the same intended result just by balancing the victory/defeat reward.

Jayaris wrote: But, that leaves little other than the PvP to keep peoples interests. Which would be fine, but in my view though the fundamentals of the system are fine, and the balancing in terms of AP, there are some unit trees that are wonky, some units that are made multitudes of times better, yet the AP cost only increases by 30%.

Please feel free to point at particular units so the devs can see it and we can discuss it. Players with more experience may have different opinions. Also, the balance is clearly work in progress, but I doubt there are many units which you would require to have their AP cost multiplied that much. There are counters to few units comps.

Units skill trees are getting better, some clearly aren't just there yet but feedback greatly helps and improvements have been made with every patch.

Jayaris wrote: Which is the kind of system that makes unleveled units grievously worse than their leveled counterparts, which is fine I suppose, but I don't really see the point of such handicapping game design. There shouldn't actually be a need for the vanilla units to be useless, or disproportionately costed in terms of their usability. You can still have progression without that.

Agreed on this one. The intent is not to make Vanilla units level useless to favor upper level ones, devs are trying to reach the right balance.

Jayaris wrote: There also seem to be some units that aren't worth using, which is worrying in a game with so few units.

In my view this game either needs a more refined unit system, a greater variety of units, or some sort of meaningful PvE, otherwise I don't see it lasting particularly long.

Again, this is a closed beta and the balance will improve as time passes. Moreover, some units are sensibly harder to use effectively than other, which is why you see them less often. A typical exemple are assault units, such as the lion, or support units, like the sparkling of light.

Some other unit tend to reach their real potential only after a certain level cap, which is a problem and need to be balance in term of AP cost. But they are not useless.

No plans for PVE, but more units for each race and other races will be added later on.

Izno wrote:You can always try an other one, you can wipe and restart with a basic company as much as you want!

Yeah, I meant playing a hundred games kind of thing and building up a company that wouldn't carry past release. I'll probably pick the game up again when it releases, or when Open Beta starts.

Izno wrote: While I'm waiting in queue there is nothing worthwhile to do.

Do you have exemples of games that gives you something interesting to do while queuing ? I don't play enough online games to compare. The only exemple I have in mind is Starcraft 2, and even as a AAA title, there is nothing worthwhile to do, mostly because it's really hard to do something cool with so little time to spend on it.

I think the issue is mostly linked with the lack of players online at certain time of the day. When the game goes to open beta, it should be much less of a problem.

A very fair point; it probably is because of the lack of players on and I'm just spending more time than I usually would in a queue.

Izno wrote: I will let the Devs comment further on this if they have time, but for now I will simply give my point of view on the matter.

The core gameplay is of course the battles and the team management, so you can see missions as an addition, but no one forces you to use them if you don't like it.

I think the missions are there to provide some possibility to get gold and Xp when you don't necessarly have time to play. It also gives an opportunity to obtain xp/gold that is not skilled based, which can prove to be useful for new players or less skilled ones in general. I'm not sure we could obtain the same intended result just by balancing the victory/defeat reward.

Though I'll agree that the scenario could pose a problem, I think that people with limited time might struggle refreshing a 15 minute timer. If someone is losing (less skilled) increasing the gold for a defeat for newer players would achieve a similar effect.

You're right as well that I don't need to use it. It's just a pet peeve.

Izno wrote:Please feel free to point at particular units so the devs can see it and we can discuss it. Players with more experience may have different opinions. Also, the balance is clearly work in progress, but I doubt there are many units which you would require to have their AP cost multiplied that much. There are counters to few units comps.

Units skill trees are getting better, some clearly aren't just there yet but feedback greatly helps and improvements have been made with every patch.

The main culprit for me was the Magician for the Lion Folks (as you can see my memory of unit names is exemplary) but the first tier caster for the good guys if you will.

You can increase his mana regeneration near up to 300%, making him multiple times better than the base model, and his cost isn't greatly affected.

Izno wrote:Again, this is a closed beta and the balance will improve as time passes. Moreover, some units are sensibly harder to use effectively than other, which is why you see them less often. A typical exemple are assault units, such as the lion, or support units, like the sparkling of light.

Some other unit tend to reach their real potential only after a certain level cap, which is a problem and need to be balance in term of AP cost. But they are not useless.

No plans for PVE, but more units for each race and other races will be added later on.

I see your point, but I haven't played enough games to give any feedback on the balance with any confidence. I'll play more games once the Open Beta begins and the queues won't quite be so long.

Thanks for the reply.

Thank you for the answer and for your feedback, Jayaris.

I must admit Izno wrapped it up pretty clearly !
I do agree with the vast majority of his statement, so there is not much I could add...

About AP costs:
There seems to be a consensus about the fact that vanilla level units are far more powerful that they should be (AP wise), but that it can only be seen in the long run.
Our position on this is that it all depends on the unit considered. All are unique.
Some are designed to deliver pretty soon - and sometimes, not evolve in great ways like some other apparently "useless" units do. Some are designed to deliver at all levels - but we're making sure that their price do match their power at all times (or at least, we're trying to).

We are still considering very carefully every of our moves with AP costs, because this is not an easy matter.
However I do agree that Wizards and Faithfuls do get a fairly great amount of power as levels go by, greater than most units.
That was the whole point of their hard-acquired knowledge, but like you we feel that maybe, the most powerful wizards should have a slighty more expensive AP cost when reaching the maximal level, in some very specific builds though.

But as always, we do not neglect some other leads, as well as the things that are still to come and that you can't see for the moment, so that might not be the wisest way for us to balance this.

Balance takes time, but rest assured that it always was our top priority, and still will be in the months to come.

Edit : ... As for the solo, while this is clearly not the point of this game, we do plan to change a thing or two about this soon. Changes that turned out to be very interesting for us these past days, so we're hoping that you guys might take interest in them too.
Stay tuned