You've got the same issue Zaeryn has, too many numbers without any actual meaning behind them, you've just arbitrarily converted values from table-top to barely usable stats for game development without explaining WHY that power needs to be brought into the game? or why the game should be set in stone to follow table-top, what is the issue with the developers utilizing their own interpretations (as there is no set-in-stone lore, according to GW.) and then improving on those as players request or complain. Table-top is just as unrepresentative of 40k as the books Black Library publishes, they get certain aspects "correct" by Games Workshop's definition but they also ignore a lot in order to make the stories and gameplay enjoyable, just to try and argue from this kind of mindset, you're ignoring that Marines are meant to be a hell of a lot stronger than humans, not by a factor of 1/3rd but more-so leaning towards Marines being the equal of twenty men if not more, this is something that Black Library and Games Workshop considers lore, so should we be aiming to put this kind of thing in? of course not because this game is aiming to be fun and balanced and not restricted massively by lore or table-top balancing. I've seen Zaeryn make this same point and just having more attacks isn't going to make it more fun, every class needs some level of skill, not a class that makes spam-melee a valid tactic. The asymmetric balance is already present on the founder's server, at a base Space Marines are the toughest, Eldar deal the most damage and Orks shoot the fastest with their heavy weapons, (shoota is bugged AFAIK) this is already in, wargear exists only to add more variety and let people customize their play style a bit further, if someone wants to play Ork then sure they should be tough in melee but a glass cannon? what? Orks are far from weak and this kind of system is far too restrictive, I'm all for asymmetric balance but not if it forces a faction to only play in one or two very limited play styles. Because rapid fire lascannons would be hilarious. You've got to be trolling here, go and play Relic's Space Marine if you want your lascannon cheese, it's not fun being sniped by a 1-hit kill weapon and the reason why the Bolter & Bolt Pistol have different stats is to prevent them being the same weapon, to add variety and also to balance it so that you don't have a back-up bolter with 10 rounds on semi-auto for when people's armour goes down or you run out of ammo, that shit gets cheesy insanely fast, if you want to do that properly you'd suggest mirroring Relic's bolt pistol whereby headshots to unarmored targets were an instant kill but difficult to hit due to the bolt pistol's inaccuracy. If the plasma cannon was wholly stationary it would be basically useless, this is a third person shooter and in a third person shooter people can react to things and gain map intel far faster and use it far more effectively than you will ever be able to on a table-top dice based game but just to entertain this idea, If the developers make the lascannon rapid fire as you would like to see it and also make the plasma cannon stationary, do you know what is going to happen? no one is going to use the plasma cannon. I'm going to stop arguing with you at the conclusion of this post because I don't believe anyone could think of that as a genuinely good idea, this has got to be a troll post. Causing a player to die from using his own weapon? no, not even if we could manage the heat, that shit is annoying as hell. This is a third person shooter whereby players want control over almost every action their character faces, no arbitrary instant deaths caused by a misfire or any other random reason you can come up with to make a weapon less enticing and enjoyable to use. On that subject though, overcharging any plasma weapon will deal self damage, it just won't kill you. Just to summarize this post, I feel like you're missing the point, in the same way that Zaeryn is, table-top is not the be-all end-all of game balancing for 40k and it is pretty much the least trustworthy source of 40k "lore" of how the factions engage eachother. I will also never be in favour of anything that massively restricts a game developer from their creative freedom to create the game they want to make for players, the developers are already adhering to the design of the factions in the game on the founder's server and I'd recommend waiting until that build is live to criticize the current method further, especially with such inane suggestions as making the game mimic table-top to a T.
If the devs want to be creative then don't make the money grab and license an established franchise. Create your own game from scratch. Be as creative as you want. You don't open McDonalds and server hotdogs.
They are taking the creative decisions necessary to make a fun game while trying to respect the IP, don't delude yourself by calling this a money grab while at the same time calling games like Dawn of War good, Relic didn't give a damn about the specifics of table-top and still made a fantastic game (series) with their own creativity.
I'm with you, Proteus. Increasingly I see developers swearing that they're "the biggest fans of the setting EVAR" as a quiet warning, and not just because I don't think anyone can truly be a genuine fan of everything in the setting. The DoW1 series had that working for it and so did Space Marine, but DoW2 was as basic a "this is all about one thing, only that thing, and entirely that thing" concept as could be. I think that because that's giving GW too much credit on numerous fronts with mechanics design being one of the most central. Doctrinal Purity is usually worthless, give me a cunning business person and a brilliant engineer over a prophet any day.
To be fair, the absolute core of this game (respawning as different classes) makes no sense whatsoever from a lore perspective. Presumably GW are happy to give them appropriate leeway to create a game that's actually good.
Balance > Lore Otherwise, players would be able to boost their speed for 1v1 ranged fights, making them even harder to hit than normal, with no drawback or way for the enemy to counter it. Yes, you disagree because I invalidate your points and like most people you can't just man up and admit you're wrong. I do believe my math models accurately account for the massive differences between TT and live action play because I am intelligent. You obviously underestimate me and that is disrespectful. Being nice is something stupid people do to hedge their bets. It isn't arrogance if you are right. If they, as trained developers, cannot understand numbers, they are in the wrong business. So that players can definitely say, "I am playing an amazing WH40K game" instead of "I am playing an okay game with WH40K skins". "Their own creativity and interpretations" involves turning breath attacks into lock-on beams and the like, completely butchering WH40K lore. Thank you for proving that the entire game is not cheesy and broken and that you specifically have to take steps to create such a thing. I will return the favor by educating you: did you know, when creating one thing from another, if the first thing was not completely balanced you can make changes to the new thing so that it is? I mean, it's like you don't have to copy the other thing 100%... Weird... Not re-inventing the wheel is exactly why you use something like this. Instead of starting from scratch you already have a wheel made. Now you just need a body(and at least 1 more wheel) to attach to that wheel so you can get moving. You actually can create non-arbitrary meaning(as only an idiot would arbitrarily do things) from rules from a TT and translate them to a real-time game. I've posted the stats that prove such multiple times over. Want me to do it again? There isn't much guess work or estimations. You use your eyes to read the information in front of you and your brain to comprehend and retain it. Bolter TTK vs Tactical: 1.75-sec, 8 Bolts, 0.25-sec Fire Rate Accuracy: 3.4-cm spread at 24-meters Major Damage Drops: 48 and 96-meters Storm Bolter TTK vs Tactical: 1.4-sec, 8 Bolts, 0.2-sec FR Accuracy: 3.4-cm spread at 24-meters(+66.8% spread width) Major Damage Drops: 48 and 96-meters Heavy Bolter TTK vs Tactical: 1.2-sec, 7 Bolts, 0.2-sec FR Accuracy: 2.9-cm spread at 24-meters Major Damage Drops: 72 and 144-meters Plasma Gun TTK vs Tactical: 1.05-sec, 4 Bolts, 0.35-sec FR Accuracy: 6-cm spread at 24-meters Projectile Travel Speed: 124-m/s Put it this way, two characters can have different physical strengths(I.E. once can bench press 250-lbs, the other 275-lbs) but still be within the same strength category, because the difference isn't significant enough to matter. If the developers are actually developers and have any sort of sense about balance they should be able to understand the numbers placed before them; otherwise, they're in the wrong business. A weapon that is ineffective at sniping and only 1-hit kills if it manages to land a head shot or shots a damaged target would not be a 1-hit kill sniper. The LC should be ineffective at sniping because of a delay before firing not a lock-on and only 1HK with a head shot or against a damaged target. The Bolter and Bolt Pistol should have the same damage, being different due to different firing rates, accuracy, recoil, bloom, range, magazine size, reload speed, etc. etc. Those differences cause them not to be the same weapon. The "cheese" you're complaining about is you not being good enough to counter what is completely valid tactic. If your main gun runs out of ammo it is generally faster to switch to your secondary than it is to reload, especially at close ranges. There is no need for the Bolt Pistol to 1HK a target with no armor using a head shot as it can instead deal the same damage as the Bolter but have differing fire rates, accuracy, range, etc. etc. I'd recommend you not pointlessly claim someone has said EC should mimic TT to a t as no one has said that at all. Yet it's possible that Relic could have made even better games if they had stuck a bit closer to codex. After all, the majority of people that still play the game play mods that have adjusted the game's balance and been made closer to codex than the vanilla. Strange, that... Exactly. For instance: SM Move Speeds Forward: 6-ms Strafe: 5-ms Back-Pedal: 4-ms Sprint: 12-ms Eldar(Aspect Armor) Move Speeds: Base / Fleet of Foot Forward: 7.5-ms / 9-ms Strafe: 6-ms / 7.2-ms Back-Pedal: 4-ms / 4.8-ms Sprint: 15-ms / 18-ms Battle Focus can work as reduced recoil/spread/screen sway when firing on the move as I feel all weapons should have some degree, no matter how small, of screen sway when moving. This, combined with higher-than-base recoil on the move results in less player accurate instead of less weapon accuracy. For instance, when C/SM/Orks move their recoil/spread could increase by 33.4 to 50% and their screen sway based on 25% of their base reticle spread; however, when Eldar move their recoil/spread would only increase by 25 to 33.4% and they'd only have 16.7 to 20% screen sway. By screen sway, I mean the screen would move when the player is moving in a sort of infinity sign pattern. Orks would need 'Eavy Armor to stand against Astartes and Aspect Warriors, giving them equal Armor but higher HP than Avengers, Warlocks, Banshees and Hawks, while having the same HP but lower Armor than Astartes. Despite having a lower Initiative, which in a real-time game should translate as a reduced attack speed, Orks greater number of attacks than Astartes can be translated to a permanent attack speed increase. Exactly. The asymmetrical balance should exist even with default characters, wargear allowing for the asymmetry to be strengthened or weakened. LCs can fire as quickly as a rapid fire Bolter on the TT because the Bolter use can move and shoot, while the LC user cannot. The Bolter user also gets an additional shot when within half its firing range, while the LC user does not. The LC also costs points to use, while the Bolter is a default armament. Gets Hot should exist for Plasma weapons but should only deal enough damage to Down the player and only if they had been damaged before hand. In the TT Plasma weapons have the same accuracy as the Bolter when in real life they would be less likely to score direct hits due to a slower projectile travel speed than a Bolt but have the potential for AoE damage against targets. Plasma is being heavily used because it deals too much damage and/or shoots too quickly.
I don't see your hold up about this. It's how they decided to implement the attack and honestly, it works. It doesn't take away anything from the experience because of a minor discrepancy in terms of lore. Did you know, when balancing a game, you don't need to copy and mirror game mechanics from a table-top game into a third-person shooter, if the first thing was not completely balanced you can make changes to the new thing so that it is? You're overly arrogant without any reason to be. You're not suggesting ways to balance the game that fit with the design philosophy and mechanics that are already in-game, you're suggesting a complete revamp of the game's balance so that it can for some reason play like an adaptation of the table-top experience in a third-person shooter. You're still missing the part where you explain why these are the numbers that should be used or even justifying it beyond your previous justification of that the table-top rules are about a decade old and as such, for some reason, hold any semblance of relevance to a third-person shooter. The weapons in-game for all of the factions while suffering from a lack of balancing as a result of bE not focusing on game balance at present are almost all unique and provide a different tactical aspect to the class using it, a Bolter is deadly up close to medium range and can force people to take cover due to the damage while a Stormbolter can tear things apart up close and a Stalker can rip things apart at range while a plasma gun is a mix between a Bolter and a Stalker. And the way I've described Marine weapons is mostly the same for all factions including Eldar & Orks, every weapon has a purpose and a role. None of these things require a complete rework to be balanced, you've misunderstood balancing and re-inventing the wheel yourself. The weapons in-game already function in unique ways, all they need is some balancing and not complete reworks like you're proposing. What, you mean mods like Ultimate Apocalypse, Firestorm over Kronus/Kaurava? Those are very well balanced! No obvious balance issues at all! Those mods are almost never played in an adversarial setting because they are horrendously balanced, despite being good fun to play versus AI with a few friends.
There is a Path, the Path of Translating GW Table Top Balance To All The Other Games, and some seem to have become lost on it, becoming Exarchs of the Table Top Balance. I would prefer if the development was heavily inspired but not limited by the table top game rules (which are not set in stone either!).
I guess I am just looking for a WH40K game not a game with WH40K skins. It works for whatever use they implemented it for; however, calling it the Stream of Corruption is wrong because the SoC is a breath-based attack, not a lock-on beam fired from the hand. That is a major discrepancy as well as a large reduction for the need for player skill being that a lock-on beam is easier to use than a reticle-focused breath-based attack. Did you know, when creating a game and using a pre-existing foundation you save massive amounts of time on development than you do when just starting from scratch? I'm suggesting ways to balance what existing portions of the game are proper and should remain, while suggesting changes needed to improve the game beyond what it is headed for. I'm suggesting for a proper WARHAMMER40K: Eternal Crusade in place of a Eternal Crusade w/WH40K Skins. The Storm Bolter's lower TTK gives it a close range advantage against the Bolter; however, it should have greater recoil and its lesser accuracy should cause it to miss more often, especially head shots. Spoiler ACC values are assuming close-range(less than 24 to 36-meters) combat. Bolter Body Shot TTK vs SM: 1.75-sec, 8 Bolts, 0.25-sec Fire Rate Bolter Head Shot TTK vs SM: 0.75-sec, 4 Bolts Bolter Body Shot 90% ACC: 2-sec, 9 Bolts Bolter Head Shot 85% ACC: 1-sec, 5 Bolts Bolter Body Shot 80% ACC: 2.25-sec, 10 Bolts Bolt Head Shot 75% ACC: 1-sec, 5 Bolts Storm Bolter Body Shot TTK vs SM: 1.4-sec, 8 Bolts, 0.2-sec FR Storm Bolter Head Shot TTK vs SM: 0.6-sec, 4 Bolts Storm Bolter Body Shot 85% ACC: 1.6-sec, 9 Bolts, 0.2-sec FR Storm Bolter Head Shot 75% ACC: 0.8-sec, 5 Bolts Storm Bolter Body Shot 75% ACC: 2-sec, 11 Bolts Storm Bolter head Shot 70% ACC: 1-sec, 6 Bolts Even with greater accuracy the close-range advantage still typically lies with the Storm Bolter as it should, while the Bolter's greater long range accuracy allows its user to damage/Down enemies before reaching close range more easily. The Heavy Bolter, despite being more accurate, should miss more often than the Bolter in close range due to the movement restrictions it places on the user and its greater recoil per shot. Times are not factoring a 0.2-sec hip-fire ready-up time. Heavy Bolter Body Shot TTK vs SM: 1.2-sec, 7 Bolts, 0.2-sec Fire Rate Heavy Bolter Heady Shot TTK vs SM: 0.4-sec, 3 Bolts Heavy Bolter Body Shot 75% ACC: 1.6-sec, 9 Bolts Heavy Bolter head Shot 65% ACC: 0.6-sec, 4 Bolts Heavy Bolter Body Shot 65% ACC: 2-sec, 11 Bolts Heavy Bolt Head Shot 55% ACC: 0.8-sec, 5 Bolts Of course, I have no idea if these are the general accuracy values we would see from players with the weapons designed this way but does show there is a high degree of balance that exists between the weapons should such accuracies pan out. Not focusing on balance from the beginning was a mistake. There are multiple ways to design weapons so one is best in medium range, one in close and one in long range; however, that does not mean that all of those ways will best represent the weapons in question or provide the same degree of fun as one another. The weapons function in unique ways but are misrepresentations of the WH40K weapons as many of them were/are implemented with well-known stats being wrong. The weapons need reworks to account for proper implementation of WH40K statistics like Armor Penetration, allowing weapons to penetrate Armor and deal damage through it directly to HP. There were no obvious balance issues at all with Dawn of Eldar. The mods that, despite your sarcastic claims of being unbalanced, are what the majority of Dawn of War players use are newer than the game and being developed by generally unpaid teams smaller than most actual game development/publishing companies, smaller teams that are still constantly updating and rebalancing the game to take care of those balancing problems. The majority of videos posted online in the past few years for either game have had vs matches consisting mostly of Ult Apo/Elite Mod with vanilla campaign play. If they are heavily inspired by it, as they should be, there are going to be limits because there are certain facts about the WH40K universe that they should have to adhere to such as standard magazine sizes for weapons and how certain Psyker abilities are cast.
You'll have to wait for a video game adaption of the table-top to come out then. No game development company is going to enforce such strict limitations on their balance team or their development team's creativity to translate and utilize the table-top's balance to the game whilst only substituting some of the mechanics, to make it playable to some degree. I can see where you're coming from but it's not an issue, short of a few people who get very stuck up on lore. The Stream of Corruption works fine at present, it's not overpowered and not underpowered anymore as they're slowly working on fixing (and have fixed, to some degree) the lock on through walls and around corners. Not really something I'm going to discuss further though, not a balance concern as much as it is a mechanical preference. Sure, if there actually is a foundation. Table-top is not a foundation for a third person shooter, not its rules and not its gameplay, none of it is translatable without serious mental gymnastics to try and 'justify' balance decisions. Again, I'm left asking why? Why is this the only way it can be balanced? Why, to you, does it seem like a game can only be a called a pure Warhammer 40k game if it copies the balance directly from the table-top and translates & converts it into a usable formula in order to balance the game? I can understand a desire to play an asymmetrically balanced game but this goes way beyond that. Do you consider games like Relic's Space Marine, Dawn of War 2 or even the upcoming Space Hulk Deathwing as less of a Warhammer 40k title and more of a Warhammer 40k "skin" for another because they didn't copy the balance from table-top? I don't think we're going to be able to come to an amicable solution to this part of the argument on this subject so I'll leave this here, we've said our pieces but I don't disagree some of these values could be used but at this point the weapons already function fairly similar to what you're suggesting, the Stormbolter outperforms the Bolter at close range and the Heavy Bolter outperforms both at long range. Unfortunately, the Bolter & the Stormbolter is currently in a situation where it's basically worthless in-game, no one uses it over a plasma gun. And this isn't because the Bolter is bad necessarily, it's because the plasma gun can fire to sniping distance when crouched, can fire faster & more accurately on the move and does a hell of a lot more damage. This is all stuff we're going to see resolved very quickly once balancing becomes bE's primary focus though. Not during this early stage of development it shouldn't, balance is important once a game is done, we're basically playing the in-house alpha of the game as a publicly released early access title and as such should see it as only that, honestly though, I think we're about to see a complete 180 in regards to balance once the Orks are done, I wouldn't be surprised if the developers end up turning the game's balance around completely in the near future and improve the gameplay for everyone. I don't disagree though, weapons shouldn't necessarily represent another weapon of the same platform because the game isn't trying to be realistic but at the same time, these weapons are trying to represent their weapons from the background of the universe and as such a Stormbolter shouldn't be a sniper rifle just as a Lascannon shouldn't be a rapid fire close ranged assault rifle. I disagree with this, not from a lore or necessarily balance standpoint but a gameplay one. A shield or armor stat in a game for most games from the last 10 - 15 years or so has always been a way to mitigate all damage and gamers are used to that, adding weapons that can suddenly tear through armour and deal direct health damage will very quickly become annoying and cheesy to fight simply because they will be the most efficient weapon to kill an enemy outright, which is what competitive groups will use practically non-stop. But as said, I don't disagree with this from a balance perspective so if the developers decide to implement something like this, I'll probably just grit my teeth and deal with it. Dawn of Eldar has been fixed since its original release but the cheesy strategies that once dominated online play are still prevalent in the original, Dark Crusade is slightly improved while Soulstorm just shits on everything and makes it barely balanced at best. Ultimate Apocalypse is also extremely unbalanced, there is no adversarial competitiveness. There are options in the game's settings before a match in order to better balance it according to a host's opinion but the balance is no where near ideal, Elite mod is the only one I will agree is actually surprisingly well balanced. Elite is pretty much the only mod for both DoW 1 & 2 that has any semblance of balance despite starting out as a bug fix mod as the original game has glaring bugs & balance decisions (Retribution's Force Commander can burn gen farms in miliseconds w/ terminator flamer and can wipe out entire armies as relic left him in an OP state when abandoning the game) What the majority plays is not necessarily the most balanced, Ultimate apocalypse especially is one of the least balanced mods I've ever seen, that mod exists to provide large and epic battles, not strategic or tactical depth.
