Okay firstly, I'm not the biggest 40k Nerd. I love the universe, its themes and ideas and I have the original Horus Heresy books that I haven't actually read. Secondly, I was part of the original beta users for Planetside 2 and played the game up until about a year ago.

Now, you see. I bring this up for two reasons.

The first is my knowledge is usually second hand and or maybe wrong in some form. And secondly that I've had to deal with this BS before. And I'll be upfront, there is a lot of BS going on right now with the way factions are balanced out. You wanna know how I know? Because I'm seeing recurring, community killing, game stifling, balance obliterating, mean spirited and accurately false/terrible posts about how one faction needs to 'git gud'.

I don't have a horse in this race, I'd rather be playing Imperial Guard. But of the 45 minutes of playing the game as an Iron Fist Space Marine, I can already see the dreaded New Conglomerate balancing on the Astartes Chapters. Let me explain what this for people who haven't played NC or Planetside 2. The New Conglomerate a faction that favors hard hitting slow firing weapons, and shotguns for some reason. And that's it. During the early beta they were considered incredibly OP due to the damage that each bullet did easily destroying enemies and their Vanguard tanks ripping to shreds, especially AP rounds, any of the enemy MBTs that existed in the game. However, I was part and I watch and listened to many NC players talk about strategies to deal with the higher rate of fire and the wins/losses was out of whack. What happened? Vanu and Terran players, rightfully, launched against the devs at the time demanding the game be balanced. And then the empire specific rocket launcers came out and the Striker was OP it was the NC and Vanu railing against the TR. And then it was the TR and the NC against the Vanu and so forth until every faction was the god damn same except for terrible cosmetic features that left the NC in the dust, mainly its rate of fire.

NC has always had a large player base, it was one of the lead devs favorite which mean that it had both veteran and newbie players. You wanna know what it didn't have? Bad players. Infact, most factions had an equal amount of terrible players. Terrible players don't care, they go to every faction. They're AIDS. But like AIDs, they don't differentiate.

NC was eventually nerfed and this had a drastic impact of completely fucking up the balance between all the factions, because now the NC not only couldn't output a competing amount of damage, it now couldn't fire fast enough to get damage down range. Sound familier? Now I wince any time I see a Vanguard roll out or a Reaver because I know they'll be blown up before they can even fire a shot; because the other factions have an innate advantage that can't be overcome without zerging. Again, sound familiar?

My point is that maybe, just maybe, in the foggiest of realms deep within the tight yet loose sphinctor of Slaneesh, that maybe just maybe, Chaos Space Marines and Eldar are unbalanced and for a healthier game they should be fine tuned. Eldar, canonically and in every game that has existed, have always been glass canons. You guys talk about tactics and communication so much, wouldn't this just mean you have to play to your innate strengths? Isn't that the point of assymterical balance? How in God Emperor's Green Earth are Eldar supposed to one on one a Space Marine?

Maybe I'm just shooting out in the air with this. This was a rambling rant but it had to be said because I want this game to be good. And stating, 'git gud' from players or developers is not the answer. Neither is unneeded and consistent balance changes just to feed some recent judgmental bruhaha. Maybe, we need considered, consistent and well designed balance changes so that every faction is as fun to play as it is to play against. As someone who(hopefully)will be playing one of the most glass cannon/weakest factions in the game I would love for it to be balanced before my faction joins so I can at least enjoy dying for my glorious overlord.

Well if you believe the Eldar's forum anti-nerf brigade(similar in size and disposition to the Mark of Nurgle forum anti-nerf brigade a few months back) Eldar by their very nature should have an advantage against any and all foes, but at the same time anyone who points out obvious flaws that contribute to the Eldar's current state as Masters of The Universe is obviously just bad at the game and needs to "Learn to Adapt" or "Use Better Tactics"- Quotes taken directly from Mark of Nurgle supporters in the Spring of 2016

The fact of the matter is, the hierarchy of current faction superiority places Eldar at the top, and a number of Eldar players want it to stay that way because they are terrified any attempts at balancing the Eldar will put them back to their status when they were first introduced as moving target practice. This is of course ridiculous.

I wish you were a bit clearer. Just say what you want to say, don't dance around the point.

On one hand you complain about homogenization, then you complain about the balance here?
Then you talk about a Faction that has no bad players and say it was bad they were nerfed, then you want Eldar nerfs?


Also, from what I can get from your post, you want Chaos and Eldar finetuned? Why not finetune SM and Orks up to the same level?

You ever have just one too many?

My point is that finetuning across the board is required. You can't just slap a nerf or buff on a faction. That'd be like using duct tape to fix a nuclear reactor.

Well, then just say that. I agree. Who doesn't?
You used a lot of words to state the obvious.

Its called story telling.

Which only muddles your point and makes things unclear.

the pendulum swings, confirmed.

I for one appreciated his little Planetside 2 metaphor. And I know literally nothing about PS2 except that the world map is made of hexagons

That said, I'm not sure if us all having gotten used to a "tl;dr" at the very end is something we can be blamed for or not

Honestly I don't think the balance is that far off.

I think LSM is losing more than others however:

1. They probably play way more games than any other faction, harder to keep positive win rates when you play more.
2. Probably the faction with the biggest batch of legit newbie players. Learning curves must be conquered.

Aside from this I think most of the factions are winnin/losing fairly decently. Chaos and Eldar have edges I think but not unbeatable. I'm sure some tweaks will come down the pipe line eventually though. Possibly a buff to LSM, either in Bolter damage or Shieldbro buff.