And to reiterate: In TT Ork boyz and marines are near equals(if 'Ardboyz they're even closer lol, 1 armor point difference). In the fluff depending on whose fluff I'm reading everyone is godlike. I read Necrons, a single lord slaughters an Ork Warband for warm-up, I read Space Marines, 10 marines hold off a WAAGH! overnight and take out stompa's and Nobz left and right. I read Orks, suddenly we're carving our way through lesser and greater demons alike and Khorne himself thinks our Warboss is better than his greater demons. In game, I like the idea of F2WAAAGH! being slightly weaker, but once we get to, "each ork is weaker than a marine, no questions asked" we're in weird territory.
That's the way most media with a clear hero and villian goes, though - it might not make sense that one hero can beat all the villians, but he's the hero for a reason; maybe he's blessed by fate, or just ded 'ard. Who knows. In a game like Eternal Crusade, everyone is a hero and no one is a hero. All Players are equal (Though Founders are more equal than others in some aspects), and as such you cannot favour one side more than the other, no matter how much awesome lore you want to replicate. Wait, what was I talking about again?
So of course the Space Marine boyz are most likely going to outnumber the orkz come release, it may be pertinent to make the F2P orkz be comparable to other characters, just to create a closer balance of players on each side.. I don't know how the Eldar fairs on user backing, but it seems like they would be the ones truly getting screwed by all of this.
Well, I'd say all players should be equal in general - I wouldn't like to play as a dude who are significantly weaker than my enemy, and reliance on numbers (as in the lore) doesn't make up for that; you can't always have the mob on your side and pretty much any force can be powerful if there's enough of them. As far as I recall, the Devs have stated that the Free2WAAAGH players will be statistically as strong as any other, but with slower progression and less options for gear.
Well that makes more sense. I am not sure where I got the idea of the boyz being weaker than anyone then..
Just posted this in another thread but I think it could work for the OPs dicussion: They should have a sliding scale based on Ork population vs the Highest population (if not the Orks) that will reduce the Ork spawn times as faster based on the difference in said populations. They should also have some of the more mobile and numerous spawn points. This way even with smaller Ork numbers during those low player population times for Orks they can still simulate the unrelenting horde of orks through both freqency of respawn and proximity to the active battles. Oh and all locations, IMO, should have a "death" cap for all factions so it isnt always a race against time but force careful fights due to limited respawns at a location...IF that is added said Orks should also have a sliding scale of max deaths per player at that "spawn" node to further add onto the dynamics of the Ork Horde simulation. Quick respawn and quick run into battle will also be less frustrating for the F2Waaagh players who in all honesty will be limited in options when they do get killed. Make it less traumatic to hopefully convert them into paying players. Plus it be a more lore friendly and player friendly option instead of scaling individual ork power to exceed the normal balanced power of all factions base classes (non-heroes)
I don't agree. First of all, I don't like all the talk of "simulating the lore", because if that's the goal, this won't be an effective game at all - Might be effective at sumilating established lore, but the fun of playing agains't other opponents would be diminished, as it would force Ork players to use transports and large numbers to let their respawn time more workable. Second, if you allow what will be statistically equally strong players to deploy faster, it will completely overwhelm regular players on the other factions and will crush everything in their path through sheer aggression, which, while lore friendly, isn't the point of a somewhat competetive game like this. Allow me to, once more, illustrate how Planetside 2 deals with this problem - They simply don't. Pretty much any larger battle in that game is created when a small number of players go around and "ghost cap" unguarded territory, which of course will alert the enemy team and will attract enemy players for fun and giggles. Rinse and repeat, and suddenly you got a big freaking war going over important terrain. It might not be completely equal for both sides, but then again, when you have players act like they feel like that's to be expected. Thirdly, to jumb back to my answer, as an Ork Kommando (Sneaky Git) fan, reliance on the mob and on other players isn't attractive to me. It makes me unable to go fight where I want because I won't be strong enough to face off other players unless I get someone to go along with me, and getting players to hang out with isn't necessarily the easiest thing to do. So, to recap, I'd want something that rewards Orks for being together and doing things together (See the WAAAGH threads to read how I'd like that to work), but not penalize them for not doing so. Also, a Raptor Scout by the name "Crow". Awesome.
