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Halo Wars 2 |OT| Warranty For Suckers

Lucifon

Junior Member
Yesterday Halo Wars 2 decided to redownload completely. Supposedly others are getting that glitch too. Kinda annoying.
My friend had the same issue, ultra annoying. Prevented him from being able to play with us for a couple of nights and also massively hit into his download cap for the month.
 

AYF 001

Member
Please be mecha-Johnson Please be mecha-Johnson Please be mecha-Johnson Pleeeeeease be mecha-Johnson... *Crosses fingers and prays to several gods*
It'll probably be that hunter leader they teased in the Kinsano trailer. Besides, there are already 2 UNSC DLC leaders.
 

Phloxy

Member
game is downloading now on the windows store, any tips for a beginner?

Yes, don't expect to find matches on PC. Without crossplay this game is dead online for the PC. And not being able to get XP from custom games or Firefight means no way to get packs or level up and do anything. They need to do something to give it a shot in the arm. But they won't, because it's 343.
 

Voho

Member
Well, there was that Steam stuff found in Halo Wars: Definitive Edition. What if MS release their titles on steam in a staggered manner and add Steam/Windows Store crossplay? Early birds give them their full cut on the Windows Store, Steam gives them a broadened audience that wouldn't have bought it on the Windows Store, and makes the windows store version more appealing with Xbox crossbuy and PC crossplay.

/End crazy theory that probably makes no business sense.
 

Anion

Member
Started up my Xbox one and there is an update that is 29.37 GB! I wonder if this is a glitch as my Xbox took unusually long to turn on and the external HDD was recognized seconds later

Maybe it just assumed it wasn't downloaded?

Ughhhhh NOOOOOOOOO
 

FyreWulff

Member
Next leader is the Hunters, "Colony"!

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/leggo-my-lekgolo

looks to be a DAMP/aggro based leader

also:

decimus buff in next patch
jackrabbit nerf (cost increase) and their healing debuffed
seasons are four weeks long

allies view on minimap slated for next update


also

goliathhunter_1120-c83665b4e1af4f26bfdbc78553ff1247.jpg


latest


+

0DPnYnZ.jpg


GOTTA GET MY HUNTER PUMP GOIN BRAH
 

Akai__

Member
It's a pretty cool idea to expand on the Lekgolo, I'll give them that.

But I want to know more about the Campaign feedback they are gathering and of course about the actual Campaign DLC.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Next leader is the Hunters, "Colony"!

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/leggo-my-lekgolo

looks to be a DAMP/aggro based leader

also:

decimus buff in next patch
jackrabbit nerf (cost increase) and their healing debuffed
seasons are four weeks long

allies view on minimap slated for next update


also

goliathhunter_1120-c83665b4e1af4f26bfdbc78553ff1247.jpg


latest


+

0DPnYnZ.jpg


GOTTA GET MY HUNTER PUMP GOIN BRAH

Yeah compared to the Hunter Captains the Goliath look a little "DEUS VULT" for me, but I imagine if we see them anywhere else in the franchise in the future (why not?) their design will be a little toned down compared to the exaggerated look that all the HW units have.
 

Rarius

Member
Currently playing the first game. What is with this Scarab mission? It just stops targeting anything except for the front of our base even if I basically run distractions. It genuinely feels like a bug
 

FyreWulff

Member
Currently playing the first game. What is with this Scarab mission? It just stops targeting anything except for the front of our base even if I basically run distractions. It genuinely feels like a bug

The one where it sweeps back and forth? Yeah, that mission basically has an invisible time limit. You take out the power nodes to slow down the sweep and then mass units on the scarab itself to destroy it. When it's destroying your base it's basically "time's up"
 

Fuchsdh

Member
27GB "update." Again. What a mess.

Welcome to next gen.

Also, this is perhaps the greatest random bug I have ever heard of in a Halo game:

And now for something completely different:
-Fixed an issue where Grunt Squads turn into Grizzlies after the player kills them in any mission when loading a save file with the skull ”Grunt Birthday Party" active from a previous release
 

Akai__

Member
Why are Kinsano and Forge not playable anymore? They are showing a locked symbol and I can't use them. Reinstalled both of them and they just don't work anymore...
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Any impressions on Colony?

I like him. I'm much more a UNSC player than Covenant, but Colony's leader powers are really interesting. I've been testing out the skitterers in Skirmish and once upgraded they are remarkably powerful, plus with the passive healing and Engineer call down leader powers you have some serious staying power in fights, especially countering enemy leader powers—I sat in a glassing beam and let my engineers keep my fighters alive.

We'll have to see how he fares in Blitz—I've found that I tend to like different leaders for that than regular skirmish and multiplayer.
 

m23

Member
I like him. I'm much more a UNSC player than Covenant, but Colony's leader powers are really interesting. I've been testing out the skitterers in Skirmish and once upgraded they are remarkably powerful, plus with the passive healing and Engineer call down leader powers you have some serious staying power in fights, especially countering enemy leader powers—I sat in a glassing beam and let my engineers keep my fighters alive.

We'll have to see how he fares in Blitz—I've found that I tend to like different leaders for that than regular skirmish and multiplayer.

I usually stick with Atriox or Forge, will try Colony tonight. It's funny, with Wars 1 I stuck with UNSC, with Wars 2 I use the Banished more.

The skitterers seem interesting.
 

Werd

Member
They added leaderboards, build orders and some graphs to the game history on waypoint, that's pretty cool. Leaders delayed and lots of bugs and such but they've at least done a nice job of adding supplementary stuff. Blitz games stats are still way off though.

Blitz is now 1v1 ranked, 2v2 ranked, 3v3 unranked which is pretty much what I wanted when they first revealed the ranked playlists, aside from having unranked be 2v2/3v3 perhaps. Although now by switching after the fact they break up people who did go ahead and form some teams and are mad about it, bit of a can't win situation since the population is low and can't support too many playlists. No rewards for season 1 ranks, would have appreciated a few packs or something. Was high up on Blitz and snuck into the end of deathmatch champion.

Only tried Colony for a few games, was disappointed in his wall ability which is hard to place (touchy with the terrain/units) and easily broken but otherwise seems pretty cool. Overall it's really just all the launch problems, Blitz card leveling system and some continued bugs that disappoint me on the game otherwise I think the game design is an improvement over HW1 and a good game. Too bad it doesn't appear to have done very well, guess we won't be getting long term DLC or HW3 any time soon. I hope later this year they release a version with all DLC included and Blitz packs removed on Steam for an attempt at a second life on PC.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
They added leaderboards, build orders and some graphs to the game history on waypoint, that's pretty cool. Leaders delayed and lots of bugs and such but they've at least done a nice job of adding supplementary stuff. Blitz games stats are still way off though.

Blitz is now 1v1 ranked, 2v2 ranked, 3v3 unranked which is pretty much what I wanted when they first revealed the ranked playlists, aside from having unranked be 2v2/3v3 perhaps. Although now by switching after the fact they break up people who did go ahead and form some teams and are mad about it, bit of a can't win situation since the population is low and can't support too many playlists. No rewards for season 1 ranks, would have appreciated a few packs or something. Was high up on Blitz and snuck into the end of deathmatch champion.

Only tried Colony for a few games, was disappointed in his wall ability which is hard to place (touchy with the terrain/units) and easily broken but otherwise seems pretty cool. Overall it's really just all the launch problems, Blitz card leveling system and some continued bugs that disappoint me on the game otherwise I think the game design is an improvement over HW1 and a good game. Too bad it doesn't appear to have done very well, guess we won't be getting long term DLC or HW3 any time soon. I hope later this year they release a version with all DLC included and Blitz packs removed on Steam for an attempt at a second life on PC.

Eh, it's not setting the sales charts on fire but it was a sequel to a game that shattered RTS records on console by selling (gasp) 1 million units. I think as long as it sold decently and brings in some long-term revenue via card whales MS will be happy. With respect to the game in some ways it feels distinctly cheaper than Halo Wars, and I think that was intentional given projections.

Mostly it's just dumb they're hurting its population more by not allowing cross play at least socially.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Eh, it's not setting the sales charts on fire but it was a sequel to a game that shattered RTS records on console by selling (gasp) 1 million units. I think as long as it sold decently and brings in some long-term revenue via card whales MS will be happy. With respect to the game in some ways it feels distinctly cheaper than Halo Wars, and I think that was intentional given projections.

Mostly it's just dumb they're hurting its population more by not allowing cross play at least socially.

In this case I'll give them the excuse, since Wars 2 PC runs 60fps and Wars 2 Xbox runs 30. Since RTSes uses a form of lockstep networking, this would mean that Wars 2 PC players would be forced to play at a slower game update rate, even if they figured out how to make the Xbox and PC versions have the same deterministic outcomes. I'm not sure how well that would go over.

This is actually why RTSes have/had the "Game Speed" setting.. it was to accomodate older PCs who literally could not update as fast as everyone else in the game, so you were essentially given a control to manually downclock the game. On some of them the highest speed was actually "uncapped update speed", so if you try to play Command and Conquer '95 on a modern PC at the top speed the mission ends in about 30 seconds, and the post game stats say you just took 3 hours of in-engine time to finish it (heh).. so you have to select the next-to-fastest speed to be playable, because it puts a cap on the update rate :)
 

Fuchsdh

Member
In this case I'll give them the excuse, since Wars 2 PC runs 60fps and Wars 2 Xbox runs 30. Since RTSes uses a form of lockstep networking, this would mean that Wars 2 PC players would be forced to play at a slower game update rate, even if they figured out how to make the Xbox and PC versions have the same deterministic outcomes. I'm not sure how well that would go over.

This is actually why RTSes have/had the "Game Speed" setting.. it was to accomodate older PCs who literally could not update as fast as everyone else in the game, so you were essentially given a control to manually downclock the game. On some of them the highest speed was actually "uncapped update speed", so if you try to play Command and Conquer '95 on a modern PC at the top speed the mission ends in about 30 seconds, and the post game stats say you just took 3 hours of in-engine time to finish it (heh).. so you have to select the next-to-fastest speed to be playable, because it puts a cap on the update rate :)

Eh, I think even with that caveat it would have been fine. Obviously all the ranked stuff was going to be walled off for competitive reasons anyhow. Oh wells.

Hadn't really thought about game speed being relevant to processing, interestingly enough. I managed to play StarCraft of a 66MHz PowerMac back in the day, but cinematics wouldn't play video on the tray-and-caddy CD-ROM drive and adding triggers in the scenario editor took two minutes before the system would respond.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Eh, I think even with that caveat it would have been fine. Obviously all the ranked stuff was going to be walled off for competitive reasons anyhow. Oh wells.
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Hadn't really thought about game speed being relevant to processing, interestingly enough. I managed to play StarCraft of a 66MHz PowerMac back in the day, but cinematics wouldn't play video on the tray-and-caddy CD-ROM drive and adding triggers in the scenario editor took two minutes before the system would respond.

Personally I'd be fine with it. But "60fps or nothing" is all the rage on PC right now so.. yeah.

We used to play Tiberian Sun on a 233mhz P2 with 32MB of RAM. Needless to say people never had high gamespeeds with us in MP matches.

And Command and Conquer / Starcraft having video was actually considered a near miracle when it came out, so no surprise there. Video was intense as hell for that era. Editing the maps also required a lot of memory due to how they had to load in and out all the map data when you made changes, which is why normal gameplay is faster.

It's also why in the latest Starcraft update after it goes free, they're gonna patch the game to have the LAN update rate over the internet. The networking overhead for modern PCs in SC is essentially lost in the I/O itself now, and of course internet connections got more reliable and faster.

edit: ps note: You could also have the PC version continue to refresh/redraw at 60fps, but all the in game state updates would have to stay in step with the 30hz of the Xbox version.
 

Spasm

Member
You guys needing to re-download the whole thing - are you on PC or Xbox?

In an odd reversal, PC was an 11.85GB update, which took about 30 minutes. Xbox is 27.25GB, and is at 6% after 3 hours. FiOS 100/100 here.

Edit: Also, my Xbox is on the latest Insider Alpha, which may have something to do with it possibly maybe conceivably. The Prey demo, which I was DLing first, was going about the same clip before I cancelled it for HW2.
 

m23

Member
Seems like a late game type character. If you unlock that last ability that gives you constant health - that is huge. Even heals your buildings constantly.

Still playing around with the skitters

Yeah seems like it. I think the skitters beef up choppers quite a bit at the beginning as well.
 
I bought an xbox one s 1tb halo wars bundle from gamestop. It advertises on the box, play on xbox one and windows 10.

There's a disc in the box.

I contact gamestop support and its a wonder they figured out how to use a phone. No help."Playstation 4 games only play on playstation 4 system sir".

So I chat microsoft support - they first told me to put the disc in my computer which obviously won't work.

Then they said if I played the game on xbox one it would automatically appear on my windows store library to download on pc.

I'm currently downloading updates and installing, but I'm extraordinarily skeptical that this will be the case.

How can gamestop sell a console that says the bundled game works on windows 10, then stick an xbox one disc in there because they're afraid of game downloads?
 

m23

Member
I bought an xbox one s 1tb halo wars bundle from gamestop. It advertises on the box, play on xbox one and windows 10.

There's a disc in the box.

I contact gamestop support and its a wonder they figured out how to use a phone. No help."Playstation 4 games only play on playstation 4 system sir".

So I chat microsoft support - they first told me to put the disc in my computer which obviously won't work.

Then they said if I played the game on xbox one it would automatically appear on my windows store library to download on pc.

I'm currently downloading updates and installing, but I'm extraordinarily skeptical that this will be the case.

How can gamestop sell a console that says the bundled game works on windows 10, then stick an xbox one disc in there because they're afraid of game downloads?

You need a digital licence of the game to be able to play on Windows.

You have a pic of the box?
 
You need a digital licence of the game to be able to play on Windows.

You have a pic of the box?

The box says "Full game for both XBOX ONE AND WINDOWS 10 PC"

It's the same box available at retail everywhere else.

http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-one/consoles/xbox-one-s-halo-wars-2-1tb-console/142072
The Xbox One S Halo Wars 2 Bundle (1TB) includes a full game of Halo Wars 2: Ultimate Edition for both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC

I have had both microsoft support reps and gamestop support reps tell me if i put the disc in my xbox one and then sign into my account on windows store i can download the game there. I know that's false.
 
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