How can you confirm that a bike wielding a single heavy bolter (and possibly a 2nd weapon for the driver to fire) has more firepower than a rhino that, according to TT, can mount up to 5 weapons, depending on the pattern, AND the passengers are able to fire their weapons while riding. I re-read Miguel's interview at least 4 times in the past day (cuz I get REALLY bored at work and keep coming back here), and here's the tone I got when reading his comparison between bike and rhino: 1. The bike is a very good example . . . it will not be available in-game, so how can I call [it] a side-grade? Meaning that the bike was not considered a sidegrade to the rhino. Its sounding more like a "pre-order bonus mount" at this point, which we have seen in countless MMOs before. 2. The bike is really lightly armored, has a good speed, goes quite fast, and has a heavy bolter. So its going to have low armor, low HP, a single weapon mount, and superior speed 3. This is the main battle tank for Space Marines, and it has more armor, has more weapons, can carry more troops, but is a little bit slower than an Attack Bike. He has more chances to stay alive than you and I, since they’re in a tank. We're just on a bike. Rhino will have more armor, more hp, more weapon mounts, more passengers (with possibilities of them being able to fire their weapons), and its only negative when compared to the bike is its speed. Not to mention there is a whole other thread discussing whether open-topped vehicles will allow players to be shot while riding a vehicle if their char model is exposed, so the rhino has that advantage as well. 4. But I can tell you something, you and I are going to look a lot cooler getting to the location on the battlefield on our two-seated Attack Bike than he will. That’s a very good example of a side-grade. Then, putting the initial quote that the bike is not a sidegrade to the rhino on the backburner for a second, Miguel instead uses the previous two points as an example of what the theory behind "sidegrades" will be, not that the bike is literally a sidegrade of the rhino. Take this information and apply it to other hypothetical situations, et voila. TLDR; We're gonna have to wait to playtest before throwing P2W around all over the place.
Something in another thread that came up was that the bike really isn't an example of PtW so much as a content paywall. I mean, in some cases it could be PtW, such as in a base with a lot of terrain where a rhino can't navigate, but a bike can freely rotate and decimate other vehicles lodged in the debris. But fundamentally, it's a totally different vehicle, with different stats, different situational advantages, and different cooperative play. So it's not PtW, at least not consistently. It's more of a day 1 gameplay content paywall, where they're charging you MORE for pre-existing gameplay after you've already purchased the game. And for the Founders case, they're restricting that purchase to the folks who choose the trust the game before reviews are available. It may not lead to the 2 seater bikes dominating everyone, but that doesn't mean it's a fair system.
So is it also a "paywall" whenever an MMO only allows players to have a special mount only if they were a part of the small crowd that pre-ordered, referred friends, resurrected dead accounts, etc. before the option disappeared entirely? I'm using vague terms because WoW, FF11 & 14, GW2, MWO, and plenty of other MMO games have also gone this route far before even THQ was dead. Another thing that's been peeving me is this supposition of "P2W in some situations". That should be a non-existent phrase because if you're 1v1'ing or 100v100'ing during a battle with the goal of eliminating the opposition, you wouldn't take an assault marine to a crowded interior battlefield, and you wouldn't take 50 2-seater bikes armed with heavy bolters to fight 20 Predators. To claim a vehicle/weapon as P2W, it needs to be superior in every aspect. Did Sun Tzu ever hear his enemies cry "that pitch you set on fire is P2W in this specific, drought-ridden field"?
Wait a second, what better weapon than a heavy bolter (on a bike) can a rhino have? We're not talking about a pred or even a razor back but just a rhino. Shooting by passengers, ok, as far as I remember in TT there was only one or two hatches to use by passengers (1 or 2 passengers shooting), theoretically there is the bigger hatch that could be opened to allow all passengers to shoot but to tell the truth I have never heard of such an option nor seen such a conversion of a model showing this, maybe it WILL be possible in EC but so far we know nothing about that and I hardly see it happen. Summing up, tell me please exactly in what way a rhino is better than a two seated bike with a heavy bolter (apart form having a better armour).
For me, PtW is gaining an unfair advantage over other competing players through money alone. I don't think it matters how that happens, though I'd contend it happens in degrees rather than the black and white scenario you describe. There are fairly benign cases of PtW, and there are freakishly extreme ones too. EC would fall somewhere in between with the current implementation. If a player owns a purchase-only flamethrower, and it beats out all other close combat weapons in enclosed spaces, it is entirely irrelevant that it sucks at long ranges. That paying player will simply use it in close quarters spaces all the time, and consistently win against non-paying players. That is a PtW situation. And if he gets forced into the open, he still has all the options available to the free players and will inevitably switch to a default weapon to put himself on a level playing field. And while I'm not very familiar with most traditional MMOs, I'm pretty sure that comparing a fast attack vehicle in a combined arms shooter with a transport mount in a vertically scaling leveling system is a false analogy.
A Razorback is built on the Rhino chassis, therefore it is a variant of the Rhino, or I should say it can be adapted as such for use in EC rather than having two separate vehicles that use the same chassis. I also mean a "Rhino variant" in the same way that we have been seeing Rhinos utilizing a "teleporter beacon" upgrade in the livestreams, which I speculate replaces the possibility for passengers to fire out of that hatch. Pretty much anything that uses a Rhino chassis is a variant of a Rhino in my mind, just like there are dozens of Leman Russ variants. Also, the Deimos pattern Rhino is equipped with 2 turret-mounted heavy bolters (or storm bolters, for some reason) with the additional option of pintle-mounted weaponry, while the more generic Mars pattern Rhino makes use of a single pintle-mounted weapon. AND my mention of the capability of a Rhino to have "better" weaponry than a Heavy Bolter would require a passenger to be able to fire their weapon, which will more than likely be more powerful than a Heavy Bolter. All in all, I speculate there will be tons of customization options, and possibly additional weapon options, in order to give the Rhino a bit more versatility since the SM & CSM motorpool isn't as varied as the Orky or Eldar motorpools. To each their own, but there is a whole series of games called Hearts of Iron. And then there's Knights of Honor, Dynasty Warriors (and all of its RTS/RPG variants), Sengoku (and all of the eras during Edo Period Japan), and I could go on. Factually, without military history, we wouldn't have military-based games, which would be less fun that throwing money at scam Kickstarters. Anyways, I've bowed out of this discussion 4 times already and keep coming back to the same "your ideas are wrong, I'm not answering your questions, and this 'discussion' means nothing to me" ridicule. Requesting to close this thread cuz its gone for 35 pages and 50 staunch opinions will never agree with each other.
C'moon, the Rhino is Rhino and Razorback is Razorback, they have different names for a reason, hell, vindicator is also on a Rhino chasis, does that mean it's a rhino? -No, it does not. Vindicator and Razorback are vehicles meant for different purposes than a typically transport Rhino, besides they are much more expensive in terms of points (in Ec these will be req points) while bikes are pretty cheap, more mobile...and they have a heavy bolter. Deimos pattern Rhino, if it ever appears in EC will definitely cost much more than a regular one too and so far we heard nothing of them. Well, without wars we wouldn't have military history...and the games .
Honestly there are many, many, MANY problems with the above statement. 1: He actually did try to use the bike as an example of a sidegrade, as evidenced by his poor attempt to present it as a equal alternative to the Rhino. The problem is it's not... one is an APC, the other is an FAV. Two completely different vehicles that fill completely different roles. Even if they ended up being "balanced", they couldn't possibly be sidegrades to each other. To use TF2 as a comparison, the Direct Hit is a sidegrade to the Rocket Launcher, but the Soldier is not a sidegrade to the Scout even if they are balanced against each other. 2: Describes a Fast Attack Vehicle, which highlights point 1. 3: The Rhino is not a Main Battle Tank. The Rhino is an APC that only has one weapon mount, which can only mount a Storm Bolter. This is like trying to compare a M113 to a FAV/DPV/LSV. Perhaps he was thinking of the Predator, which is an MBT, but even then an MBT is not a sidegrade to an FAV any more than a Soldier is a sidegrade to a Scout. 4: When trying to provide an example of something, you actually use a case that is representative of the thing you are providing an example of. Since bikes are not sidegrades to Rhinos, the bike vs Rhino comparison is not "a very good example" at all. The Behavior team seems to have a very poor grasp of the English language or something (though it might just be Miguel), because they have a major problem with using incorrect terms. Mixing up both "sidegrades" and MBTs vs APCs in this case, and also with their insistence on using "F2P" to describe what is really more of a free trial. This, at the very least, makes for bad marketing. They really need to work on using more precise language, and checking to see that what they're saying means what they think it means. It is not reassuring when a game's development team fumbles on what exactly a "sidegrade" is, or can't tell the difference between an MBT, an APC, and an FAV.
The simple fact is that Miguel did use the fast attack bike as an example of a 'sidegrade' comparing it to a Rhino. Another simple fact is that this is simply not a sidegrade due to there not being (as he said) another fast attack bike available for others. At this point the fast attack bike is now content behind a paywall and not considered a sidegrade as you cannot compare two different vehicles with two different functions. The ONLY way the fast attack bike could be considered a side grade is if there is another similar fast attack vehicle in game available for free.
