Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin Beta impressions

I feel the need to admit right up front that Dawn of War 2 is one of my all-time favorite games. Whether it is technically speaking a “real time strategy game” or a “real time tactics game” is immaterial to me. Its combination of focus on combat, territory control, Warhammer-themed unit design, mutually exclusive upgrades, Red resource system for support powers… I found it quite enjoyable to play. Actually, Dawn of War 2 is one of the first games I ever wrote about and was one of the games that began my passion for RTS design writing in the first place (along with StarCraft 2).

So, when I saw Frontier Games seeming to be looking to riff on its formula with the fantasy-flavored Age of Sigmar Warhammer universe, they certainly got my attention.

1. Introduction
2. Summarizing the game
3. Starting with the good
4. Rearing its ugly head
5. Conclusion

Introduction

As I assume is the case with most people, I was immediately struck by how pretty the game was. This sort of thing tends to not age too well (I’m sure in a decade or so we’ll have so far surpassed the visuals of this game that the assertion that it looks good will seem laughable) but honestly for an RTS the detail and fidelity are very impressive. Certainly, it seems to present itself better than Company of Heroes 3, which looks good enough but which many players feel doesn’t elevate itself to the heights expected of Relic’s flagship RTS.

(I might be slightly biased in thinking Tempest Rising looks a little better but I’m emotionally invested in it, being the lead designer on the game, so please take my impressions with a grain of salt!)

Whether or not the argument about COH3 holds true, we can definitely agree that Realms of Ruin does itself look good enough at this juncture to be pleased with what we’re seeing. Though, as I’ve seen online, the very existence of Age of Sigmar over the classic Warhammer Fantasy Battle is itself slightly controversial (though I will not be addressing this in this article).

Honestly, graphics don’t matter that much to me personally – I’m happy to play games with a wide array of graphic fidelity and art styles. Looks matter in this case because they’re one good way to get people to sit up and notice your game, which I think Realms of Ruin is currently doing quite well. You’ve got our attention, Frontier. I have embedded the reveal trailer below as a reference.

From there, the next thing that immediately becomes obvious is the game’s relationship with Relic’s Dawn of War 2. Or Dawn of War 3, which is another matter entirely and is a bugbear we might address somewhere below. However, I will say that if Realms of Ruin does end up doing well for itself, it might be in part due to the need for a new Dawn of War-like game after the gap left by Dawn of War 3.

And this actually brings me to the next topic I want to address: the actual gameplay. Per usual for my article format, I’m going to look at the high level baseline gameplay first before diving into the good, the bad, and the ugly. From there I’m going to close out with personal and professional takes on the current state of the game, a wishlist for what is going to happen with the gameplay for launch, and that should just about do us for this overview.

Let’s get on it.

Summarizing the game

As I mentioned above, one of the first places my mind went when I first saw the gameplay footage of Realms of Ruin was Dawn of War 2. And this bears up when you get into the game, as well. The game is definitely a riff on Relic’s formula, and is most similar to Dawn of War 2. For those who might not have played, or need a refresher, this is the basic rundown:

Realms of Ruin is not a “classic” RTS in that it features virtually no base building or swarms of worker units gathering gold or minerals or Vespene on the map. Instead, it’s what I’d consider a “Relic-style” or “tactical RTS” – The game features a home sector with a portal for summoning units and a separate base building which controls your faction’s overall tech level. This command post building also attacks. As in Dawn of War 2, there are 2 upgrades to this structure, each containing additional unit types (it also unlocks the next tier of tech unlocks, I’ll get to that in a minute).

Also popularized by Relic, units are organized into squads of 1 to 10 or so “models” so you’re controlling probably… 50 or so models organized into groups of mostly 3, 6, or more. Right now, ROR has a total limit of 16 “squad points” with many squads taking up 1 or more of those points. So you’re usually controlling about 10 or 13 total squads by the later stages of the game.

Units can contest points on the map by moving next to them. Once captured, territories “fill” in over time. This is important – critical even, because the fill level of a territory dictates the resource income that territory provides you. This way, players can harass each other just by standing within their opponent’s territory uncontested. This is, in fact, one of the best things about the game and an innovation in the world of tactical RTS games. I hope to see more games copy this system.

Sort of like Dawn of War 2 (it’s far easier to talk about ROR in this context) there are 2 resources: I took to calling them Blue and Red, though their actual names are Command for the blue resource, while the red resource is called Realmstone, I’m pretty sure. I believe that most squads cost only Command, though it’s possible some also cost Realmstone as well? Many abilities and upgrades also cost Realmstone, and it’s the resource you use to increase the tech level of your command post.

I’ll talk more about Realmstone in a future section. Its impact on the game is immense and it deserves a deep dive into its implications. Almost every ability and upgrade costs this resource, which is fascinating but can hurt since tech is very linear, and your command post’s level controls how many squads you can train. There is also a pretty big power jump as you tech to your T2 and T3 command post. So in the early game, using unit abilities can slow down your ability to improve your units (upgrades) or your whole faction tech tier, which can lead to some tough decisions.

Capturing territories grants the player increased Command income, and there are structures you can construct on top of any Territory’s control point – these are called Bastions in the game’s parlance to add things like a forward healing and reinforcement point, or a defensive structure, or Realmstone income, or vision in a wide area (see the image above to see what a control point looks like). I’ll also talk about Bastions more in a bit – just have to get through the basic introduction first. In the beta, Bastions are so hard to kill that they functionally lock a territory to one owner at least until a player reaches Tier 2 and can bring out more powerful units.

Unlike in Dawn of War 2, there are only 2 point types: regular control points, and Victory nodes. In Dawn of War 2 there were regular points, Power nodes, and Victory nodes. This makes each sector in ROR more uniformly important than control nodes in Dawn of War 2, for both better and worse.

Retreating costs a small amount of resources, so retreating can put you mildly behind. This is an interesting choice which I was at first unhappy with. It feels like you’re being punished (again) for losing a fight. But… I’m still ruminating. See, in Dawn of War or Company of Heroes, reinforcing a squad costs resources. This is not how it works in ROR – the command post or a reinforce point will heal and add squad members for free (I’m pretty sure, anyway?) So, a nominal cost to retreat a squad, keep it alive, and heal it over time for nothing isn’t actually that bad of a deal. I think. Still, there’s a bit of a psychological road block to being charged extra for the privilege of running away.

Maps also have 3 victory nodes on the map. Critical locations, whatever they’re called? Holding more of these than your enemy depletes their victory point store, and running out of VPs loses you the game. Interestingly, VPs deplete quickly, and these territories are very quick to change hands, putting a lot of pressure on players to contest these regions and try to recapture them quickly if they lose one.

OK, we’re getting to the end of the basic gameplay description. Only a couple more things to touch on. There is a “swamp” terrain that slows units moving through it, but it’s hard to tell when this is happening and the swamp is kind of hidden right next to some walls, would be neat to be slightly larger/more prominent and more noticeable. I also hope they expand the terrain types: this is a nice little touch, given that there seems to be no stealth brush, defensive positions or cover, or garrisons in the game at this point. More terrain interactivity in a game like this is definitely for the better. One of my favorite things about Relic’s games are how the terrain changes over the course of a match.

In the next 2 sections, I’m going to break out some of the stuff ROR does well and follow it up with a closer look into what it… well, what it currently doesn’t do well, and possibly how it could improve. Fortunately, a good percentage of their outstanding issues seem more or less easy to solve.

Starting with the good

I said this before, but it bears repeating: Realms of Ruin is a pretty RTS. I also found the game (for the most part!) to be really performant given how good it looks. I use a gaming laptop and am used to making some compromises in terms of visuals to get the best performance. And aside from some stutters which might have come from networking issues, the game ran really well for me. Overall on this front I was really pleased with performance and visuals.

Also, given how striving for high detail tends to hurt readability, I found ROR to be very readable. Some units might have issues telling them apart from their peers (some of the hero-like units in T2 and T3 have a bit of this) but it’s mostly decent actually. Now, there are some performance issues that I’ll talk about in the next section. In particular, there is a notable delay when you order a squad to do something which is really less than ideal.

While I will address the downsides of the Territory system below, I feel the need to reiterate that the part about territory “fill level” equaling territory income (as well as larger territories providing more income than smaller ones) is just all the way down a great system. It adds a lot of nuance and importance to things that often don’t have a lot of nuance and importance in tactical RTS. It’s really well considered, for my money.

I also am quite fond of the global upgrade system. While it is tucked away and a bit hard to navigate to in the HUD (I will discuss the idiosyncrasies of the HUD in the next section in more detail), I like that it gives the player a decent amount of choice in terms of how they want to play.

Lastly, I want to just call out that there are some fun units at T2 and T3, particularly when upgraded. The “hero” units in particular are enjoyable. While these might not be the best designed units in all of RTS, they definitely engaged me enough to look forward to more testing.

Rearing its ugly head

OK now it’s time for the tough love. For all that I’ve been relatively positive on ROR up until this point, the game has some serious issues that are standing in its way. Many of them seem relatively simple to change, but I’m unsure where Frontier are in their production pipeline or how their leadership structure might want to stand by things that are already implemented. I’ll try to talk through the practical implications of each topic I cover in this section, as well as best and worst case scenarios for the final game.

One of the first things you notice in ROR is that units don’t really respond instantly when ordered to do something. Not that they have acceleration or momentum or something, which they do. It just takes them a significant fraction of a second to even begin to respond when ordered to do something. This makes units feel muddy to control, and makes it feel like they don’t really do what you want all the time which is frustrating.

While it’s possible that this input delay was something related to the test itself (network issues, possibly, or needing to increase server resources?) it’s critical that this delay be addressed. It’s one of the largest technical issues with the game itself and is really jarring to the new player experience, as well as for reaction times for more competitive players. Definitely a big one, possibly hard to take care of, but really important.

One of the other big things the game shoves in your face good and early is that units in melee get locked into combat and can only sit there or choose to retreat via the retreat command. This is somewhat reminiscent of Ancestor’s Legacy with a couple key differences: first, unit ranges are much shorter than in that game, and also Ancestor’s Legacy had 2 retreat options: a “tactical retreat” that let a unit get out of melee, and a full on return-to-base. Without that tactical retreat option, combat can feel sluggish in ROR since you can’t move a squad from fighting one target to fighting another, can’t free up a ranged squad, can’t even reposition your units.

Now, this one is probably a lot easier to address, and many other games have implemented things like: units in melee lose access to ranged weapons and move slower. A similar effect but much freer in terms of gameplay expression. Or at LEAST some increased ability to push units away or otherwise disengage from the melee lock would be vital. Melee lock is very painful, particularly in the early game, and also leads to a feeling of lack of control over what’s happening that I think is likely to turn people off.

Next up is the topic of Bastions. While it is nice to feel like you have some choice on how to build up your holdings, Bastions really slow down the core gameplay of contesting control points. Early game, Bastions are so hard to kill that they functionally lock down a territory until a player can get access to Tier 2 units or upgrades which help take out buildings. This is true to the point where my main strategy against other players in the beta became taking the mid-line territories early and then building Bastions on them. This strategy really locks down the map and prevents the enemy from reasonably contesting what should be simple zones to fight over. While Bastion health and damage vulnerability is a very simple value to tweak, I also think it’s really important to actually having the game be enjoyable to play.

Ok. Above, I promised to talk about Realmstone. This resource is a really cool idea but its implementation in ROR is downright frustrating.

First off, using abilities actively delays your tech. This wouldn’t possibly be a big deal if you spent a little Realmstone on most abilities, or if tech were purchased piecemeal, but you need a ton to get to your next tech level. And it’s not just that, since tech levels are really pivotal points in the game. Being significantly behind in tech is brutal, since each tech tier comes with a higher squad cap, and the newly unlocked squads definitely escalate the power level in the game, to the point where T1 units don’t feel useful in the later game when better squad types are available.

So all that to say, Realmstone is a big, complicated thing, and using too much too early can really slap you in the face. And then, in the mid/late game, its importance plummets since mostly you’ll have a ton to spend on abilities and upgrades. So it’s really in the early game that it’s so perilous to use wantonly (or much at all to be honest). At a minimum, Frontier will have their work cut out for them balancing that system. But it feels kind of bad to put yourself behind trying to win fights. It’s a bit of a sticky wicket.

ROR has several bugbears, but a big one is its user interface. It rather clearly sems to have been designed in an attempt to work with console controls in mind (though many other console RTS have done better; Halo Wars 2 comes to mind) and this left me feeling really cold. It took me way longer than it should have to figure out how to even train units, and up to the beginning of working on this article I’d forgotten that you have to hit “F” in the upgrades list to see what upgrades even do.

And the game is full of this sort of thing from the custom games menu to the upgrades menu, to ingame unit abilities, which don’t show even a tooltip unless selected. And, all unit abilities must be activated twice: once to select the ability, and once to confirm its use. This takes a bit of getting used to and is not really ideal for PC players at any rate (and, I’d argue, console players either). This is a tall order to tackle, but I hope they work at least a BIT on smoothing out the rough edges of the UI/HUD because it definitely impacts the game

One other, semi-final quibble is that the units’ tag (each unit has an icon over its head associated with its health bar identifying its squad type) cannot be used to select the unit, which makes picking one squad in combat a bit tricky at times. This should be easy enough to resolve, hopefully.

Oh, also you can’t navigate the map using the minimap. This is a straight up crime and I really hope this is reconsidered in the PC version of the game, at least.

Conclusion

Wrapping it up, where does that leave us with Realms of Ruin? In spite of the issues, I personally enjoyed my time in the beta. It reminded me sufficiently of Dawn of War 2 that I was charmed, and the tactical/combat focus is just what I feel like sometimes.

That being said, without veterancy, without garrisons, without defensive barricades or much else in the way of terrain considerations, with the frustrating durability of Bastions on control points, with the clunky HUD getting in the way of gameplay, and squad response delays and melee lock, there is a lot to frustrate the player right now and honestly less to recommend this game than Dawn of War 2. I hesitate to make that sort of comparison, but… there it is.

I really hope they manage to smooth things out, since I think there’s a fun game in there.

Thanks for reading.