Its pretty obvious to me that having a numbers advantage is just going to happen. period. When you give one race a legit free f2p option.

Ork boyz will affect the overall balance to the premium classes for Orks. Simply because they will buffer the game state of the Orks to a great degree.

More human players, even if they're bad give good players enough of a fulcrum/ handicap against other forces because those other forces will also have bad and mediocre players.

By bent of mass you will have enough aggregate better players, and enough of a handicap created by having scrubs distracting important enemy players.

Thats true even for the pro-Ork-boy players, but also especially true for the special ork characters.

I'd love to see any sort of discussion on this.

Already the Ork race is designed like this from the TT, the special orks are just ork boyz with things and maybe a disposition for using a type of thing, and then there's the Nob...but lets forget about him.

How will balancing the only free option's basic crappy free thing affect the special orks who are basically just crappy free orks (but they have some dakka, or w/e kit added to them) ? Whats the thinking about that and how you make those premium classes feel worth while, when you've got an easily accessible Ork boy you could be playing.

Should the premium classes be discounted for the orks to account for their weaker valuing, and to incentivize the cheap-o players to acquire them?

Are they going to be strong enough on their own to feel palatable spending money on them compared to some special unit in the other factions?

Whats the sort of thinking on this, and in general is any of this going to play out?

Am I just an arse thinking that the better ork classes are going to be the same baseline as the free option? I mean you can gamify anything so its not like it has to be like that.

What are the concessions to that gamification that you're planning on making for the Ork faction?
Also, hi, I like orks!

The problem is shooting needs to feel good in a shooting game.

So I think the balance is actually going to go more to effective power level, and not just straight up, gun things.

The inaccurate guns needs to happen, but it needs to be more of as a cosmetic thematic element, unless your inaccurate gun concept and your way to create that inaccuracy is going to be compelling and a fun challenge to work around, I don't see it being very fun at all to play with.

I mean shoota boys like shooting their guns because shooting them feels good, so maybe that works somewhere for the free class, because it creates theme and immersion, but for the pay-to-play classes you want some of that gun to actually do something. If for some reason the ork guns on the pay2play classes are more accurate you're creating a problem with inconsistency, unless of course you opt for the ascetic of inaccuracy and you fudge that a bit so it just looks consistent.

Shooting accuracy is easily managed, if you just give each race a circle style cross hair, have the shots land always in that cross hair but randomly in the circle area and the more accurate the race the smaller the circle.

All this would mean is that inaccurate races, such as Orkz will have to get closer to ensure that they will hit.

F2P boyz will be standard boyz with no upgrades, P2P boyz will get skill trees, unlockables, weapons and gear and horizontal advancement like the other factions.

There is expected to be approximately 1 Nob per 9 boyz in play.

I honestly don't see the issue.

My other thought is close combat balancing, by lore Orkz are terrible shots at range but very ferocious in close combat, if range attacks for Orkz are going to be adjusted downwards should close combat be adjusted upwards?

Orkz are as tough as marines in close combat (with the exception of the armour that they are wearing) and their choppas are as powerful as chainswords, they should be stronger than standard Eldar troops in close combat from the get go.

NOBS are tougher and stronger than space marines.
REGULAR ORKS are less tough and less strong than space marines.

I'm always interested in gamification, and seeing how balance is actually enacted especially when it also wraps around a thematic artistic appreciation of a concept. So, I don't think necessarily that the weakness of orks at shooting will relate to hugely inaccurate shooting.

I don't know how theme will affect it, I mean we could be seeing some sort of tf2-Heavy level inaccuracy and strength close up (although that negates the benefit of punching them). There's all sorts of room for this to wiggle around my preconceived ideas.

That would entirely depend on what part of the lore you look at, books based around telling a story about marine? Sure, books based around telling stories about Orkz? Not so much.

Look at the TT a standard marine has weapons skill 4, str4, toughness4, 1 attack. An Ork boy weapon skill 3, str3, toughness 4 and 2 attacks.

So they are just as tough, and just as accurate in close combat as a marine, have more attacks per round and a lower strength (which becomes irrelevant once you start using anything above a basic close combat weapon).