ShadowChorus talking to himself, but also to you!

[Shadow Chorus]

So in this thread I wanted to make a few potential suggestions to the dev team, but when I think of something I start arguing with myself on pros and cons, so I figured I'd present my internal debates to the forum and see what people thought about them.


1) New races - Balancing issue? dodge that shit.

I read on the FAQ that there wasn't a plan to implement more races because there would be an issue balancing each one out. I took that to mean that you want Space Marines to be balanced for fighting Tyranids, AND Chaos SM, Orks, etc etc.

Well then the thought hit me of 'well what if they don't do that? What if there are just certain maps that are Ultrasmurfs vs Nids, and others that are say, Orks vs. IG?'

Then I countered myself and said that that would require them to create two races at the same time.

"Well what if they just pulled assets from their old rival species 1 work?"

"Then they'd have to transfer them over to the new code though, and that'd be almost as much work."

Well you get the gist of the argument.

2) Chapter customization - Individual player choice.

I thought of suggesting that you allow players to choose what chapter their marine is from, as not everybody likes the ultrasmurfs, but then my inner critic spoke up.

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would Black Templars be out there with the Ultrasmurfs fighting Tyranids?"

"Shut up, it's fuckin' awesome."

"No you shut up, it's not fluff accurate."

"Well how hard would it be really?"

"Well they'd have to create a customization interface, and then create the different color schemes for the chapters they want to let players choose from."

"Okay. I'm sure they could do that, but I see why they wouldn't do that for something that isn't that important."

"Yeah. And don't you forget it."

"Fuck off. It's still awesome."

Yeah there were more cons than pros to that.

3)Chainsword vs. Genestealers - Space Marines need better melee

"Man, I can't even begin to use this chainsword effectively. This doesn't feel right. Space marines with chainswords are supposed to be able to cleave through flesh and chitin."

"Yeah well Tyranids are also supposed to outnumber Space marines Twenty to one."

"Yeah but this melee just feels so weak. Why do I even use chain/power swords?"

"I dunno."

"The veteran Plasma Pistol is pretty awesome, but the power sword isn't too effective unless you're hitting smaller targets."

"What about dedicated melee units?"

"So, up the power on melee guys, and make their pistols pretty shitty?"

"Yeah. Or give Assault marines Lightning claws and take away their pistol entirely."

"Assault Termies?"

"Fuck yeah..."


That's that one.


I keep making more arguments with myself when I start thinking of things I would like to change. There'll probably be more as the thread goes on. I just want to know what players/devs think about my ideas.

edit:

4) The Melta gun - not what I expected

"This beam. What's up with it?"

"It's a melta gun."

"yeah, but that's not how melta guns look."

"What do you mean?"

"Well the Codex says that Melta guns are assault 1, Melta, which means they're heat-based and get extra armor-pen against vehicles, and have high AP."

"So?"

"So the image that put in my head is that it's basically a heat rail gun."

"what do you mean?"

"Basically I figured it would be a single shot, FUCKYOU! gun that ate through armor like nobody's business and then needed to cool down."

"You mean like the Space Marine game's melta gun?"

"Hell no. Not like a shotgun. Just a single, one-person beam that eats through armor and hits really hard."

"So like a quake rail gun?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Yeah that sounds good."

[Valvatorez Jr.Commissar]

This why why I suggested in my Hive Fleet poll http://www.40ksource.com/common/smf/index.php?topic=2891.0 so players fight fight as Leviathan or Dagan nids,(ie they fought against, Elder, Orks, and Chaos) it's also why I think instead of one chapter we should have Deathwatch instead of Ultramarines. Smurf unique weapons are also melee based for some reason, at least with Deathwatch we wouldn't have classes that are just free enemy points.

For some reason very few people voted and I can't reopen the poll.

Chaos Marines require the least work for Chrome(their only coder) as their similar to the Space Marines.

One of the major problems of using Source is that who ever has the better guns usually wins, baring sniper rifles. So Black Templars would be nothing but cannon fodder for those with long ranged weapons(ie. Nids with big guns, and Chaos Havocs.) Without the ranged weapons such as the Plasma Gun, Rocket Launcher and Heavy Bolter. The Space Marine team is screwed due to Source not being a good engine for close ranged combat.



However the Assault Terminators as cannon fodder can be fixed by giving them teleport(fu Firefox that's a real word) homers, which requires coding so he isn't outright useless as the Assault class. Thrope, Fex and Warrior can just move backwards and just shoot him. Or give him Cyclone missile launchers. I have a gaming mouse, so shooting a Stealer is like firing at the broadside of a barn.
So would removing or nerfing the Pistols for the Vet, making him a outright useless class. Power Sword does work well against the Fex though, if your not playing at dail up modem speeds. Thrope and Warrior your supposed to shoot at or die.

Assault Marines don't get lighting claws unless their Sergeants, so he would be a super expensive class.

The only point that I can't dismiss as making certain classes useless that the Melta Gun does need changes to make it different from both flamer and plasma weapons.

[Shadow Chorus]

Most of that was me arguing to myself over certain points. The details are non-important so much as the ideas. The idea that SM melee is underpowered compared to 'Nid melees. The power sword is effective at killing Fexes damage wise, but typically the Fex will just shriek at you/claw you to death immediately unless you flank from behind. And claiming that Source makes melee underpowered compared to guns is rather innacurate. I don't know how many games have been won by lictors/Genestealers murdering marines that can't see/catch them.

The majority of it is me just rambling, and trying to make points. The specifics of what I said really don't mater so much as the idea behind it.

[Valvatorez Jr.Commissar]

Claiming that Source makes melee underpowered compared to guns is rather innacurate. I don't know how many games have been won by lictors/Genestealers murdering marines that can't see/catch them.

Stealer is pretty much based on luck and rarely how well the Marine player shoots(ie lack of player skills to deal with a fodder class), the Lictor cloaking abilities make him less useless then the Stealer and has a higher skill ceiling.  Tough your screwed if somebody has flamer/melta guns and fail to kill them. Which is how it should be, along with Fex unbeatable at melee range.



Source melee still sucks with Left 4 Dead 2, so this is something that one coder can't fix. Pure melee classes are just free points to the other team without proper guns to soften them up. Which is why Assault needs a hand flamer instead of the bolt pistol.

[Shadow Chorus]

A hand flamer sounds nice, but as I said in the first post, the Melta gun really doesn't feel like it should be a constant beam capable of mowing down light melee attackers. In fact someone using a Melta gun should be an easy target for groups of melee classes/single, quick melee players because what it should be is a slow, single-target hulk-dropper. Something to use against Terminators/Carnifexes.

[Valvatorez Jr.Commissar]

Chrome said that speed can only be class based. However it should be possible to code the melta to be more "fluff" accurate instead of another flame thrower, so should overheating though I don't remember a Source mod with a weapon that does.

[Shadow Chorus]

I'm not really referring to the weapon's speed as a whole, more to its functionality. In my eye, it should function something more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h07hMlU3cM8

But with a significantly shorter range of effective fire, and maybe a one or two shot clip before reloading.

This fits better to me as what a melta does. Every instance I've seen it described in says it's basically a lance of heat that strikes the enemy with full force. That doesn't say flamethrower/beam to me. Mind you instagibbing things isn't the kind of damage I'm referring to. Just the functionality of one shot that hits hard with a noticeably long interval between shots. It would be more effective against a carnifex than a warrior/genestealer because the warrior/genestealer would be on you faster than you could finish it, unless you're a crack shot with a great accuracy rate.