I'm going to straight up live the dream, and post my dream pitch.



Have grots be easily killed, fodder, absolutely totally not exactly good in a decent way.

Heres the thing. The respawn rate for them is better, and or they spawn closer to important objectives.

The thinking here is that there would be area terrain and rubble, and that the orks/grots begin looting these places to explain this the Orks kick out/ kill the grots, and the grots flee the rubble. Grots stream out of these rubble piles and orky looted bits in the terrain, and they're placed closer to objectives that you need to cap.

The objectives have implaced and other sorts of auto weapons that if the grots survive to make it there... basically amount to a heavy bolters and the grots can use them/ destroy them.

The rubble piles are things that the Orks create by destroying other objectives, and can be completely destroyed by enemies who cleanse the sight reducing it to a crater/slagg.

So Ork boyz are still important, and grots have an important function as well as create diversity for the freemium players.

The march of death is cool, and there are routes to the major objectives like trenches, this would be sort of like a death race...but with grots, and players killing them. So its like almost like the crappy fighting power isn't even a problem for the feel of playing the grot, because they're like this racing mini game.

The players that finish the death race get rewards, like maybe there's a grot model that acompanies their Ork, as a cosmetic item.

There are really cool rewards and achievements for any grot who makes it to an objective and caps it (they become a cosmetic item!) Maybe they get new paints dunked on em, that modify their speed or 'luck' maybe a spare round from a bolter only grazes the lil dude because he's blue, or he runs faster because he's red, or he finds more campaign objective loot because he's yellow.

To make the routes an almost non balance issue, the craters, rubble would be relatively small compared to orks, and wouldn't be good cover (Not that cover would be too important anyhow...orks charging in and what not)

Auto turrets defend against the swarms of grots, and orks, and focus who's closer, if grots are streaming in, like the fodder/distraction that they are, the turrets switch to them and the ork players don't have to worry about them, and the racers get their challenge no matter if the players ignore them.

The rubble piles would be some sort of semi important resource denial thing for enemy players, so they would have some reason to destroy them and get behind enemy lines. Reducing the amount of players siphoned off of the more important Ork class.

So as a natural balancer if the Ork players suck, the Grot mini game ends the rubble gets destroyed as the enemy pushes forward, and you get more free players pushed back into the Ork role as the racing game ends.

***

Maybe there are ai runtherders that choose randomly which paths the grots have to take, and kill any grots who don't go towards the objectives. Sort of like a more strict limiter for cheezing the racing paths.

3 for 1

In this suggestion, I'm presenting a concept where the grots are just single grots. You're a grot. I'm also presenting the role they'd play in this specific concept, and how grots as terrible terrible fighters get to take part in a more mini-game like portion of content, that also pushes an objective, and has a real effect in a fps game.

Thats pretty frigging cool eh.

This is my alternative idea to the 3 grots stuck into one bundled unit idea, because I think it would be too costly to iterate on because of the resources the models take up, and having to fiddle with 3 animations, and a camera, and how you'd balance them as a unit, and make them 'feel' right...let alone how you'd make gear and advance them through some form of progression. Also would it really be thematic for you to try and just be three grots, doing things, and actually achieving anything?

That's unfortunately what killed the dream of them ever being an important class.

I still have hopes for a runtherd class, but that also has problems, but a much more approachable role that fits in with them existing in an mmo fps concept.

Its an mmo so the server latency issues presented by the multiple bodies is probably just too much, add to that how latency issues could negatively affect the animations themselves...and its just a long shot that that all works out to be good.

I think the mini-game like portion to how they fit into the game fills an important niche, and also adds a lot more value, then what implementing the bundled class would add.

the gibllerling are from allods and is a mmorpg and are a single entity non three sperare things.

I think the transition from rpg to third person shooter is what killed the concept to me, thats a lot more movement animations, and the models themselves now become negatives because of hit boxes, and then there's straight up 'feel' problems.

Unless you're a grot with a kannon how are you going to do anything? Grots are useless fodder. Even if you found a way to make them important, you're asking for a straight up class, and if the ork boyz are supposed to be fodder already, and they're already balanced to be weak, how are you going to 'feel' playing grots.

Honestly I think kannons are too good, but too hard to execute conceptually, compared to say...just having ai grots man cannons after you get somewhere.

Slogging around with a kannon would probably be un-fun and in general mmos like these suffer from travel times. You want to get places, do things, and have that battle... if grots are carrying this cannon quickly, to make that all 'work' there's a lot of animation speed transitions things like that probably to make it feel compelling.

Probably just too much stuff to do, to much design work to fiddle with, to ever make a class of grots that do things effectively, and in a fun compelling way.

The value you get by giving your free content more work, and by adding minigames to an already compelling third person shooter concept, is beyond the bounds of just too cool.

I mean a 40k mmo is already too good to be true, add in a grot death-racing minigame as free content to convince new players that the games diverse fun and worth sticking with... I think is way way way more valuable then tinkering with the 3 stuck together concept.

I mean the death race content alone writes itself.

Orks gambling on who wins the race with teef... it creates interesting objective placement design, and terrain decisions for you.

That tightness of concept I think is missing with the random-y three grots together concept.

I mean you could still do three grots together in the deathrace idea, I guess, but the main concept that makes that work is the deathrace itself.

It gives them a role, in the design of the game and how it approaches new players with shiny content, fleshes out their role in battle and makes them an actual component to Orks, and not just ai filler.

Thats a lot of value imo...for very little conceptual planning. Compared to trying to make a string-less grot concept which has a fair few problems.

I say grotz and boyz should be playable f2p classes. That way f2p accounts can choose which class fits their preferred playstyle, without having to be killed a whole lot.

I say add to the cannon fodder, me boys can walk in be'ind all t'em dead orks and get real nice and close.

Well your bog standard Boyz are armed with choppa/slugga, right? Close combat, in your face, making your Emperor worshipping days miserable right? And historically grots have always been better at shooting than an Ork boy... So why not have one option for each, for the free to play crowd? Back in the old days of the TT, a grot had the chance to bring down even a might Leman Russ... With a lucky shot... They are currently the highest BS skill in the Ork book too... Though a death race minigame in concept does sound fun...

I'd prefer grotz to either be cosmetic "items". They are to small and diminutive to make any sense as player-controlled entities, and I really, really dislike the idea of multiple-model entities for players.

a grots worth is in his shooting so grots might be for more defensive players and the kannon travel could be sped up by ork players helping push and a kannon would be high priority target so the orks can defend while the grot fires and the grots would probably be driving and piloting things so they would be cheeper and faster and it would be pretty funny being a grot surviving a crash and trying to make it back to the base for another trukk or somthing