Truth be told, considering that Space Marines and Spiky Marines both use rocket propelled armor piercing grenades...it's no surprise that we die as fast as we do. If one were to pay a tad more attention to all of the fluff, he'd see that marines of either side didn't take too many shots to be brought down, their lives ending as swiftly as those of guardsmen. Now, both forces were smart and improvised by bolting on additional armor plates, increasing their chances of survival. But no matter how you look at it, the space marine weapons were made to deal with armor better than theirs. Their armor was meant to stop weapons weaker than theirs, because let's face it, they had the best weapons out there, no chance someone would get similar ones. Now with this in mind, let's look at the Bolts themselves. They are adamantine tipped rockets which explode once they penetrate armor. Yep, that's right, they go boom boom. So in all fairness, considering these, I believe that the space marine die sufficiently fast and can resist a fair amount of shells, all things considered. Now eldar pew pews tend to have grand penetration, once more rendering space marine armor obsolete, yet they tend not to go boom as they are tiny crystals if I recall correctly. Ork bullets, rayz and whatever else they might get their hands on will most likely have a harder time killing a marine as their penetrating power will be lower, for the most part. TLDR - Based on fluff, it's perfect.
TTK is fine, I want them to focus on imbalanced matche playercounts, buggy game mechanics, elevators, and the plethora of other work they have.
Except that Orks probably looted a bunch of Space Marine weapons and not to mention they like explosions almost as much as dakka, so if they will the bullets to explode on impact then they will do so.
My tuppence-worth is that we should increase TTK. Not massively, not to, like, 30 seconds, but maybe to 10 seconds one-on-one, in order to promote teamplay and focused fire.
Tbh, I don't recall a single case of orkz actually being in possession of bolters or any similar weaponry. Regarding what their own weapons are capable of...I doubt their bullets are capable of exploding, they can just strap rockets to their guns after all.
Basically it's to balance it. Dedicated melee weapons kill faster, but you have to get right up to a ranged opponent, who can start hitting you earlier than you can hit them. This is also in keeping with the 40k lore, where relatively common melee weapons are capable of slicing through power armor like it was butter, but boltguns have a tougher time piercing the armor and it takes something like an anti-tank missile or plasma burst to pierce armor as effectively.
We can make explosive bullets in real life, and have been able to do so for decades. We just don't use them, because they tend to detonate upon impacting anything other than air. Like leaves, for a common example.
We have also been capable of making rockets that don't explode as soon as you light the fuse since the Song dynasty in China. Orkz still haven't completely grasped the concept. The point is that if orkz don't need something, they don't make it. From what we've seen they'd rather strap rockets on their machineguns than add explosive bullets to them, since rockets do more of a boom either way. Frankly I consider it silly to compare what real life humanity is done with the technical progress of any of the races in the warhammer universe, humanity included, as after all, we don't have psykers, nor do we have demons lurking about and stabbing people for the funzies of it.
10s is just too much, anything around 2s is more than enough, you don't want to spend 10s trying to down a guy just so that his friend can pop him back up right after that. Then every match is just a stalemate where everyone shoots each other and no one dies.
The main reason we don't use explosive bullets is those pesky Laws of Armed combat that explicitly ban the use of weapons that cause undue pain and suffering, such as explosive, glass tipped, or hollow-point bullets. And organization like ISIS and other factions that didn't sign the Geneva Convention and other treaties don't use them because they (as yet) don't have the need to manufacture bullets and instead get them from major suppliers like captured/acquired Russian, Chinese, and NATO ammo, who do follow LOAC. Much cheaper to just use other people's stuff. Fortunately, no one in WH40K signed up to those, so we can get all the shooty stuff we want, and have our medics outfitted with chainswords! So, concur that we can't compare WH40k to real life. I also am of the opinion that we can't use lore as the guiding light for this game's mechanics because what makes a good story doesn't always translate well into a game universe. The game can borrow from lore, but I think it needs to take its own liberties for the sake of balance and sustainability.
