I think that those founder stuff will only make frustration. Unless they can be bought even after launch (but then not very meaning full). One thing that make me reluctant to play Star Citizen is the huge advantage that their founders get because they were able to send in more money than I could afford at the time (there was 1 000 $ founder package). Ok those people help develop the game but still to give then such advantage that other player can no longer buy is frustrating. So I might give a try but I am unlikely to stay.

I stay in the line that if I give BE lot of money at start the best reward is some kind of money back over time (like an investment or loan). If you need money why not make a capital increase and direct it to the player? I am sure we can devise a finacial product that we can link to the success of the game.

Though the best way would be to give the founder a discount (or free credit each month) on future extension and the hatred cash shop.

Otherwise you have to go to somekind of P2W system (not a very unbalancing one) but to make people pay 500 $ for a game you have to give them content for their money otherwise you can just ask for donation (which is fair by the way) with only a cosmetic distinction for donator.

Best regards,

Skanvak Drakken
de la Maison des Drakkens

No, no, I think he's raising a legitimate point here. In a game of horizontal progression versatility is amazingly important. Not to mention that there's a difference between bringing in a few guys with AT weapons and bringing in a hero designed to take out tanks. We've already said that the heroes will be very powerful comparably, this means that the founders have access to a weapon that nobody else has, and it will be bigger and better.
This is why I've pushed so hard for purely cosmetic items in the Founder's Pack. Even with the bolter example, if the founders have a bolter that does 10 damage and shoots 5 times and non-founders have a bolter that shoots for 5 damage 10 times, then the founders have a burst weapon and the non-founders have a sustained weapon. Very different. Every shot counts more for the founders that way. If the non-founders only hit once it's 5 damage. If the founder only hits once it's doubled.

Everyone is assuming this, they said different not better, maybe the vanilla hero librarian uses Telepathy and the founders hero uses Telekinesis, the vanilla uses a bolter pistol and a force sword and the founder uses a 2h force staff. Again, I don't like that they put gameplay elements behind a paywall when we have to play for the game, but that doesn't make it p2w or turn it into vertical progression.

I was comparing the hero unit to a normal unit with AT weaponry. I was arguing using the example provided, and it is, definitely, bigger and better.

the important thing is that the founder bonus are flavour bonus, maybe little difference, (10 damage every 5 second and 5 damage every 10 second is not a small difference is a HUGE difference but is a n example i know), can be accepted: but the importance is about how the team manage that difference:

more weapon more skill more hero mean: harder time to balance all.
if the founder hero is a reskin well it's more easy for the team.

If the founder bonus have only little difference, and have only a flavour bonus is ok, but is really hard to create 2 hero with the same exact role and efficency (for example 2 support psyker hero) and make both usefull and not one better than other.

if base hero is better: founder feel like a waste of money: a nice toy, to watch a nice skin but they will never deploy (you cannot waste an hero cooldown of 24h for an useless skin).
if founder hero is better: people in all the web will scream another p2w garbage. (it's already happening ceck facebook page).

Going from that perspective the developers do have a solid argument.
Since basically a Chaos player buying the Possessed Founders class isnt gonna matter if he is a bit stronger (in certain situations) than a hero his fellow Chaos players can field. He cannot have an advantage over his ally, they are on the same team.

And we already know factions wont have carbon copies of classes (including heroes) and that you will have this abstract balance already. So from a perspective of a single faction looking towards another faction its basically just another thing the other faction needs to learn to fight. And the heroes not being only in 1 faction, every faction will need to learn to fight these unique heroes.
Kinda sounds a bit less intimidating to present to the masses i think.

Regardless of civil warfare, the idea remains. Versatility is king in the Horizontal Progression game and if we offer founders in-game differences then we are edging a very dangerous line. I again state, cosmetic differences yes. Mechanic differences, no.

Versatility is important, yes, but the assumption is that strength in one area is weakness in another. An elite anti-tank founder will struggle vs infantry, and they won't always be able to pick their battles. Whatever the versatility balance, it will have its good situations and bad ones.

It's only really an issue if the unique founder class is the only role capable of playing a certain position (eg no other anti-tank heros exist) or is better than all non-unique alternatives. Those are game balancing problems that could occur outside the founder pack, so I'd expect devs to be on top of it if that happened. It's a situation they've specifically said they don't want to happen.

Equally, most people have argued faster firing rate is better. You've given an example of how it might not be; burst classes like snipers, or a melee ambusher's sidearm where you might want a heavy initial punch so that your opponent doesn't get warning of your approach and time to react from a smattering of weaker bullets, or someone playing hide and seek vs a dreadnought, may value slower firing and harder hitting weapons. It's something that would need testing, but it's not inherently unbalanced in principle.

All that said, I'd also prefer not to have unique stat balances on classes in the founders pack (and I'm saying this as a likely founder), not because I think the devs will make a balls of the balancing, but because I don't think the perception will do the game any favours (e.g. I got killed by a founder hero, it has unique options, therefore it must be P2W. Stupid game. /ragequit)

You really things that a huge amount of different things can really be balanced? I am sure the player will find a way so that it will look unblanced in a certain way. Note that normally I don't care, I am against balancing thing. But as an exclusive unit, that will make people say "we want a found in our team to make the special tactics only possible with the founder". As balancing is impossible for me and should not be attempted(I have seen the pathetic attempts at balancing in GW2, which result in skill being change every 2 weeks making the game very hard to play for casual), I am affraid the exclusive heroes and the other heroes won't be balanced.