@BaronXIII Concur, that is what is going on right now. I was under the impression based on previous dev comments though that that was a temporary situation due to the developmental status of the game, and once it progresses to a different development phase, it would change to be the tiered system like the OP suggested.

Perhaps at one time they were going that direction, but for present and future (as far as I know), items won't be restricted on a tier system only loadout points. I assume there may be some exceptions (for example they may make powerfist unable to be carried by JPA) but that generally isn't the way they will be going forward.

The long story short of it is this, if players don't get to play their favorite weapon the majority of the time, they won't play. If they don't play, obviously game dies.

People are fickle, if not outright childish, and if they can't carry their favorite "Plasma Gun of the Kill Everythingicus", their "Power Fist of Smashington Mk. III", or the "Ancient Chain/Power Axe of the Ruinous/Virtuous Powers of Confusion", they get pissy and don't want to play. If players were actually restricted to mostly Bolters and Chain Weapons instead of their razzle dazzle gear, there would be a riot on the forums.

So, instead of a tier system that would restrict said weapons (and piss off the playerbase, even if they are being fickle), it will instead be on a loadout points system that will allow one to carry their favorite weapon and be weaker in other areas.

Sidenote: This is also the reason why the Powerfist isn't as strong as some people want it to be, or the melta, or the plasma weapons, or (other rare weapon here). It can't be as strong in lore, and as widely available as it is now. On the other side, it needs to be widely available. People want their cake and to eat it too, it's like that in every game though so, this is really the lesser of two evils.

Fair point i guess it comes down to preference really and i can see that your likely right that the Load out points with watered down equipment would be more popular than a system like i suggest because everyone wants to feel they are different from everyone else while not actually being that different.

While i personally would prefer such weapons like plamsa and powerfists and so on to really stand out on the battlefeild and be incredibly rare also i can see why that system would not be liked by a few people.

Id like to explain that i disagree with this statement strongly in fact one of the reasons i was thinking so much about a system that could limit high end gear was specificly because of the bolter and the eldar if the majority of people in a match are basic marines shurikens and bolts should not be having as much trouble as they are now.

While a marine is as standard tougher than a eldar the shurken catapult should not be struggling as much as it does against a basic marine with current relic armor and toughness seals.

A shuriken weapon has a penetration value of 80, compared to the marine's toughness of 100. This means the marines will still be mitigating some part of shuriken's damage. A Bolter has a penetration of 80, and three Eldar classes (Banshee, Dire Avenger, and Swooping Hawk) have 80 toughness, meaning they will not mitigate any of the damage of the Bolter at all (the other three classes will though). So already, you're going to be at a disadvantage in toughness, though it will be less than currently.

Though then you also have to remember, if you're going to take marine weapons away (like plasma, melta, etc) then they would have to do that to the Eldar too. This means any weapons that are "Exarch" weapons would have to be taken away. This means the Dark Reaper would lose the Tempest Launcher and Shuriken Catapult; the Dire Avenger would lose any melee options as well as the twin linked ASC (I believe); and so on and so forth. In fact, all Eldar (if I am correct) would even lose the fusion pistol (except maybe the Fire Dragons). etc. etc. etc.

Now, my first post wasn't accusing you of favoring Eldar or anything. I was just pointing out that if we did that, Eldar would eat the bullet alot harder than the marines would, and considering how bad they're already eating it, I really wouldn't be up for making it worse on them. The fact that Eldar can take their toys, is the only thing keeping them from being so hilariously rick rolled that all the Eldar rage quit instantly forever.

Copy @BaronXIII, got it. But,

What was the source?

The devs have a lot of involvement and push out a lot of information via the forums, twitch, and other avenues. I freely admit that I can't keep up with it all. I apologize. Even a "the devs said they are scrapping the tiered system in the twitch 3 weeks ago" would be helpful. Before a certain someone comes along and says, "Search broken again?". No, but the closest I could find on the topic was Brent's 14 July post in the Game Design Update thread, where he says, among other things,

"For now you are still able to equip pretty much everything, but that will change in future updates as we tune the weapon costs and add weapon mods."

Words like "for now" and "but that will change" jump out at me. Perhaps I am missing something.

My concern though is that the scrapping of the tier system is a misinterpretation or rumor being run with.

After all, if you read some of the postings, you would think the release date is set, for next week, the game will be released in hard copy CD only, at launch all the devs will be executed and their computers scrapped preventing any updates, and bE will be gutted down to 2 accountants and "the suits" who will be perplexed as to why they aren't millionaires and how those pesky gamers saw through their clever rouse to scam them out of their money.

As expected, people are replying with "it's just alpha" to everything.

Yes, we all know that the point costs will be tuned. No shit. That is not the point. The point is the design of the game. There is no global resource system planned or even considered. So if 20 out of 32 players want to rock Heavy Plasma weapons, they will always be able to do so - even if they have to wear weaker armor or forfeit their trinkets to do so.

Weapons and gear will be balanced against one another, on a strictly personal level. This is how the game is designed to be. This has nothing to do with "alpha" or "it's just alpha" or "they will magically fix everything before the release (a release that doesn't matter and is just a formality, according to them)".

Also about Veterans or Heroes, who knows? Information is scarce. They are still too busy with the core mechanics of the game.

Still waiting for the answer to my question on when the developers said that they were scrapping the tiered system, with weapons that must be earned and unlocked. With how passionate folks seem to feel that it is done, it should be a pretty easy thing to find as one would think the scars would keep it fresh in the mind. I'm not saying, "It's just Alpha", I am asking for a pointer to where the statement was so I can educate myself on it as opposed to potentially propagating bad information and rumor. Closest thing I found was, granted, an open ended statement from Brent that seems to indicate it is still in the works.

Concur Savij, if everything is available to everyone at all times, then yeah, those powerful weapons will be balanced, and to the point of uselessness well below what they are in the lore. That is why I want to get a clear answer because it is pretty important to the topic at hand.

Right now Everything is available to everyone for the statistics. Once orks and other things required for balancing are in, stuff will be nerfed and buffed accordingly. The more powerful weapons will be more powerful, but cost more points, forcing you to have less to make your guy harder to kill. The customization of the classes will have more lethal, more survivability, or more versatility.

The lethality will be the weapons plus mods, increasing dps. This will cost a lot more points and limit, if not remove, the ability to increase health and such. Your powerfist or pimped out stalker bolter/plasma gun(which hopefully will be more powerful than a bolter) will let you kill things faster and more effectively but you wont be able to equip gear, like armor or iron halos and such, making you very killy but killable.

Survivability will be points spent in better armor, more health, and other things to help survive a battle. You will, however, not have enough points for a stronger, more expensive weapon. i.e. you will have to take a bolter or chainsword so that you can be tankier.

Versatility will be balanced choices, like taking the bolter with only a scope or better ammo but be able to take the better(not the best) armor and a few trinkets, allowing for a bit more killing, like faster reload or something, and maybe faster armor regen. This will allow you to be more effective at surviving and killing, but not as much if you focused on killing or taking bullets to the face.

There will be a continuum of letahity at one end, versatility in the middle, and survivabilty at the other end. Players will pick their playstyle and weapons using this continuum. All players, at launch, will have the basic weapons and none of the better ones. They will unlock them, sort of like Space Marine. After a few battles they will have some more trinkets, wargear, and maybe be able to access some new weapons, being able to equip a plasma gun or melta gun, but none of the others in the beginning of their career. The more veteran players will have more things to choose from. Veteran classes will be for those who have fought very well for a while, from kills, cap points, vehicle kills, etc. They will have more of an advantage than other characters with more LP than basic classes, allowing them more choices and be able to spec more towards their playstyle. If you like killing players fast then you will spec for lethality. If you like being tanky, you will spec survivabiltiy. If you like being able to change your playstyle depending on the situation, while still being able to hurt others but at the same time being able to get shot a bit more, you will spec for versatility.

The skilled and tactical players will advance faster and have an edge over less skilled, less experienced players. Someone who gets on average 6000 points compared to someone with an average of 2000 will have a lot more things to use than the 2000 point average player, even if they played the exact same amount of games. The better you are the more specialized you will be able to make your load-outs while the less skilled or newer players will get the basic stuff.

Trinkets, mods, wargear, and armor will allow for specking. Right now the game does not have enough things to allow for specking completely one way or another. The allowance of everything is so the devs can get the numbers they need to decide how to balance everything. They need to know how the maximum and minimum of health, armor, and damage to allow for specking each loadout