Our ongoing chat coverage of Dawn of War II: Retribution continues now that I’ve been playing for about 6 hours and have something to add to my sister’s earlier comments:
Sonic Rob: It’s funny, you know Brotherhood and Retribution are both refreshes of previous titles more than new games or even proper sequels
Sonic Rob: I’m really finding AssBro more compelling, tho
Fyrehaar: more compelling than?
Sonic Rob: than retribution
Fyrehaar: ahh
Fyrehaar: I am now very interested in the single player
Fyrehaar: each has the same missions with different plots
Fyrehaar: I want to see what it is for each of them
Sonic Rob: so far I’ve mostly been playing the marines campaign
Sonic Rob: by and large I don’t give a shit about these marines
Sonic Rob: it is really frustrating not being Poopus
Sonic Rob: Diomedes is a goddamned moron
Sonic Rob: and he is running the show
Sonic Rob: not me!
Sonic Rob: I felt like Poopus was my avatar, you know?
Sonic Rob: that’s me, in the game
Sonic Rob: Diomedes and I disagree on a lot
Sonic Rob: and he’s the one who gets to decide even tho I’m the one who paid the 40 bucks!
Fyrehaar: that is true
Fyrehaar: do you think the ancient changes based on what attributes you give him?
Sonic Rob: oooooooooooooooh
Sonic Rob: that would be hot
Fyrehaar: I don’t think it does
Fyrehaar: but I’m willing to give it a shot
Sonic Rob: Thaddeus is not “ancient” by any count
Fyrehaar: neither really is poop
Fyrehaar: it’s avi or tarkus
Fyrehaar: it’s not jonah
Sonic Rob: I think it’s Tarkus
Fyrehaar: that makes the most sense
Sonic Rob: in missions he has the Tac symbol over his head
Sonic Rob: even though I made him a Devastator
Sonic Rob: have you played SM yet?
Fyrehaar: just a couple of levels
Sonic Rob: The Ancient has a special attack for every weapon
Sonic Rob: the plasma cannon one is sick
Fyrehaar: yeah
Sonic Rob: if I did marines again I would prolly make him an assault guy
Sonic Rob: it’s easy to add dakka to marines, adding punchiness is expensive and risky
Fyrehaar: I was thinking that
Fyrehaar: I only have the one melee guy
Fyrehaar: really, the harder it is, the farther away you want to keep the enemy
Sonic Rob: I am tortured by Cyrus every time I start a mission
Sonic Rob: if you don’t take him, you get a squad of assault termies with boosted stats that you can replace for free every time they die
Sonic Rob: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Fyrehaar: heh
Sonic Rob: I guess if you don’t have the time to be stealthy and you want to just hammer your way through the game
Sonic Rob: but I enjoy a bit of micro in singleplayer so I’m pretty much 2-manning it with Cyrus and a plasma cannon Ancient
Sonic Rob: absolutely hilarious
Sonic Rob: the AI in Ret cannot cope with super-long range attacks
Sonic Rob: they should come storming out to stop them but they just sit there
Fyrehaar: yeah
Sonic Rob: plasma is buggy, tho
Sonic Rob: sometimes when shots clip into the ground between the cannon and target, the shot just disappears without exploding
Sonic Rob: Ret has rough edges
Sonic Rob: I wouldn’t go so far as to call it unpolished
Sonic Rob: I haven’t run into soulstorm levels of crap
Sonic Rob: but it could have been better with more cleanup
Fyrehaar: it needs a patch for sure, but nothing too serious
Sonic Rob: and the load times
Sonic Rob: fuck me
Fyrehaar: right??
Sonic Rob: maybe it’s part of the move to Steam Cloud, I dunno
Sonic Rob: I’m looking at upwards of 30 seconds every time I start a mission and again when I finish and go back to the mission select UI
Sonic Rob: that is uncalled-for
Fyrehaar: oh it’s forever
Fyrehaar: takes forever after a multi match as well
Sonic Rob: yeah, if they could optimize that a bit I’d be pleased
Sonic Rob: I think they got rid of all the extra wargear because leveling is faster now
Sonic Rob: Diomedes levels every mission
Sonic Rob: you don’t need tons of white junk wargear to trash for XP
Fyrehaar: dude
Fyrehaar: I want my fucking loot
Fyrehaar: all those empty slots are mocking me
Fyrehaar: I can’t even fill them all
Sonic Rob: I’ve been running Cyrus with the empty sniper rifle slot all game
Fyrehaar: yeah, he’s got high power shot
Fyrehaar: one shot, one kill
Fyrehaar: or at least a hell of a lot of damage
Sonic Rob: yeah, you can’t top that shit
Sonic Rob: any non-boss infantry is dead
Sonic Rob: it’s also the best thing you can use for clearing a building until the PC comes along
Sonic Rob: frags have too short a range, same with flamers
Fyrehaar: if you use the plasma gun with the ancient he has light arty
Sonic Rob: the plasma gun special is basically a plasma cannon shot
Sonic Rob: the plasma cannon special fires five plasma cannon shots that arc up in the air over obstacles then come back down
Sonic Rob: it feels like cheating
Fyrehaar: oh damn
Sonic Rob: I haven’t taken Martellus on a mission since the honor guard became available
Sonic Rob: a techmarine is nice
Sonic Rob: but a free Venerable Dread is way nicer
Fyrehaar: all the free turrets you can handle, with missile upgrades
Sonic Rob: sure, but the ven dred can have the asscannon or the multi-melta
Sonic Rob: and he adds real melee in his vanilla configuration
Fyrehaar: sigh
Fyrehaar: so many options!
Fyrehaar: at least they gave us that
Sonic Rob: He and Diomedes can tie up almost anything while the ancient and a couple of Devs shoot them up
Fyrehaar: yeah
Sonic Rob: it’s funny, of all the add-on squads I prolly buy Dev squads first and most often
Fyrehaar: yup yup
Fyrehaar: best value for dollar
Sonic Rob: tacs are not that great
Sonic Rob: they cost the same as devs, but you just don’t get as much
Fyrehaar: roi
Sonic Rob: maybe once I have all the upgrades unlocked
Sonic Rob: but you have to burn a mission reward on unlocking flamers before you can get MLs, and one more to get plasma and the sarge, where it’s really at I imagine
Fyrehaar: that’s why I do all the optional missions
Sonic Rob: even so, this early I’d still rather unlock unit types. I have all but termies and predators
Sonic Rob: wargear rewards have been good, got a couple of purity seals and a good plasma gun
Sonic Rob: that I immediately replaced with a plasma cannon I got on the drop =P
Fyrehaar: coo
Sonic Rob: interesting note
Sonic Rob: Cyrus now wears power armour
Sonic Rob: so you can give him any armor you find
Sonic Rob: he looks the same, they just simplified it
Sonic Rob: but I’m imagining the “always infiltrated armor” is meant for him so he can spend energy on other things
Fyrehaar: except you can get him to the point where it doesn’t cost anything
Sonic Rob: I am thinking of giving it to Diomedes so he’ll be harder to shoot as he charges and then harder to hit in melee
Fyrehaar: although a warning
Fyrehaar: stealthed units don’t autotarget, so you have to constantly remind them to kill shit
Sonic Rob: hm, tricksy
Sonic Rob: might be worth it, might not
Sonic Rob: how about giving it to the Ancient then
Sonic Rob: infiltrated HB platform
Sonic Rob: then charge in Diomedes and the dred into the suppressed guys
Fyrehaar: sneak in suppression
Fyrehaar: and let er rip!
Fyrehaar: I do that with IG
Fyrehaar: it’s nice
Fyrehaar: just got to keep him working