great game with lovely detail, but needs balancing - SPOILERS for usable Weapons

[John_Cyrus160]

Hi Folks,

first of all for me and my gaming partner this game is a love letter to the Warhammer 40k lore. The eye to detail is amazing and if you take your time you will find various small events happening beside the story.

But there are some issues that definetly need to be adressed. Please be aware that I am only interested in PVE modes and thus only played those modes, so if any PVP-Players have cons, feel free to add them to my list:

first of all private PVE-Lobbys - don't shut me down I know this is planned but I list it for completion.

Second the balancing of the PVE Missions is a mess - we are reasonably experienced and fairly good players but the way we get beaten up in the lowest difficulty is not fun at all. There is a skyrocketing jump from Campaign mode difficulty easy to threat level minimum.
If you get swarmed you have no chance of coming out alive. If there is no bug that messes with the difficulty during the advanced access period this needs adjustment, also there is just too small amounts of ammo and med packs espacially when you start (in Campaign) without any (med packs)

That brings me to the next point- armor and health:
I get that we have a class system with classes that excell in mobility and thus have to be balanced by giving them less armor, but the general amout of damage your armor can take is basically non-existent - even on lowest difficulty. Furthermore Astartes are known for resilience and regenrating powers so a passive healing when not in combat should be given at least at a low rate for the missing part of the health bar. The tanky classes like bulwark and Heavy should have armor class 4 instead of 3 and get boosted to 5 by item. If the armor gets a general buff this shoul be enough to balance this out.

Next up is weapon balancing:
Most weapons fell really alike and have no real difference, some of the Bolt Carbines are basically obsolete because thy have no real signature skill e.g. the Marksman Bolt Carbine that has no range, mediocre damage and low max ammo.

Speaking of ammo the general amount of max ammo is just too low. The weapons that suffer most are all kind of sniper rifles like the Stalker Bolt Rifle and Bolt Sniper Rifle, latter has a ammo cap of 18 rounds wich is basically nothing. the sniper like weapons should be upped (in PVE/Campaign) to 10 clips of ammo reserve so you start with 11 (so the Bolt Sniper Rifle had a Total of 66 and the Stalker Bolt Rifle 132 rounds) thinking of it this wouldn't hurt the other Primary Weapons eather.

Furthermore I do not understand why you did not add Combi Weapons like Bolter and Flamer combined - the mechanic is in the game you have a Bolt Rifle with a grenade launcher. So that woul be an idea to up the less interesting Bolt Rifles/ Carbines with an implemented auxillary firing mode like Flamer or powered down Melta.

Next up is the choice of weapons in PVE-Missions mode. I see that only the assault class gets the Energy Hammer but the Energy Sword should be available for all sword wielding classes. Furthermore should all classes have access to all sidearms because they are not that balancing relevant and more a kind of personal choice - they could use a new friend like a fast firing full auto pistol and or a Hand Flamer either.
The Heavy weaponary needs completion by adding a Laser Cannon as a Heavy Sniper Rifle and they all need - as said before - more max ammo (at least double). Furthermore the Heavy Bolter needs way more damage per shot - I am talking about Firepower 5+.

So much for my issues with all gameplay relevant mechanics.

I would love to see for Character customisation that all armor parts are interchangable for all armour classes or at least the same class e.g. breastplates of Bulwark and Heavy.

Those are the issues that need to be fixed to make this game the masterpiece it is teasing to be when you start looking at all the little details. For me - if those issues are fixed it is a more than worthy successor to the first Space Marine game and a really enjoyable game. All I need after those fixes is simply more of Titus' Story and more Missions.

After all my complaining I just wanted to say:
Thank you for making a great game and please keep improving it by listening to us.

Cheers!

[Xaimek]

Thanks for your constructive review. I agree with nearly all your points and would also love to see them fixed asap.

[Justin Itforthemen]

Very well said. Also I feel like ranged enemies (especially when you are clearing the campaign single player veteran+) do waaaaay too much damage. A couple of weapons need buffs and I would love to custom classes more and have more options for weapons.

[Medicles]

Originally posted by John_Cyrus160:

Second the balancing of the PVE Missions is a mess - we are reasonably experienced and fairly good players but the way we get beaten up in the lowest difficulty is not fun at all. There is a skyrocketing jump from Campaign mode difficulty easy to threat level minimum.
If you get swarmed you have no chance of coming out alive. If there is no bug that messes with the difficulty during the advanced access period this needs adjustment, also there is just too small amounts of ammo and med packs espacially when you start (in Campaign) without any (med packs)

Problem is, the game depends quite heavily on skill, that you are able to push the respective buttons when something flashy turns up and that alone can easily get overwhelming in stressful situations. I still agree that the balancing is off and not suitable for the casual community.

Originally posted by John_Cyrus160:

Speaking of ammo the general amount of max ammo is just too low. The weapons that suffer most are all kind of sniper rifles like the Stalker Bolt Rifle and Bolt Sniper Rifle, latter has a ammo cap of 18 rounds wich is basically nothing. the sniper like weapons should be upped (in PVE/Campaign) to 10 clips of ammo reserve so you start with 11 (so the Bolt Sniper Rifle had a Total of 66 and the Stalker Bolt Rifle 132 rounds) thinking of it this wouldn't hurt the other Primary Weapons eather.

The starting ammo is "too low", but can be usually enhanced through leveling up the weapons and frankly, there is more than enoughammo lying around and you get a big ammo box basically before every level event.

[SpockEndil]

Well written post.

I haven't had a big issue with most of what you listed, although I can see how it is a problem for a lot of people. In particular, I agree with your suggestion of some sort of passive regeneration. What's the point in having redundant organs if they're not allowed to actually do anything?

The one big problem that I have had with balance is the competence of the AI teammates. They're pretty good at shooting and killing enemies when that's the only thing needed for a map, but if an objective requires any sort of strategy, they're completely useless. That alone causes the difficult to ramp up tremendously on things like the infamous "antenna" mission, even on the easier difficulties. That definitely needs to be fixed somehow.

[John_Cyrus160]

Originally posted by Medicles:

The starting ammo is "too low", but can be usually enhanced through leveling up the weapons and frankly, there is more than enoughammo lying around and you get a big ammo box basically before every level event.

I'm with you but in my opinion the way to getting this far for a character can be discouraging for a casual gamer in this state, my wife and I literally died 6 times before we could finish the first mission. Maybe some skill issue but I'm confident that's not the whole story

[Meon]

Assault/Melee class sucks hard as well in PvE. Literally no time at all to dodge those ranged attacks, even while in execute animation you can still get shot at. It was so annoying to make Assault class works, combined with the long ass cool down of the jet packs does not really make the class any justice. I love going straight up thor or hulk those tyranids but man it feels bad.

[Davarey]

up. good thread

[Medicles]

Originally posted by John_Cyrus160:

I'm with you but in my opinion the way to getting this far for a character can be discouraging for a casual gamer in this state, my wife and I literally died 6 times before we could finish the first mission. Maybe some skill issue but I'm confident that's not the whole story

It sadly is, my man, and i am not talking from a high horse here. I am still playing minimal threat even though i have three characters at +10. I needed a damn lot of hours playing minimal threat to even get accusomed to the gameplay and feel good enough to have a 90-95% successrate.

It is sadly a damn skill issue, but i assume it has something to do with the many buttons you can and have to push during a fight and that isnt really that common in gaming anymore. If we take souls games, all of them can literally be played with just dodge, attack and heal. But here you have a parry for blue flashes, you have a dodge for red flashes but you can still dodge blue flashes for an easy gun strike and its usually just better than parrying overall, you have melee, which is rather tactical, and you have ranged. All of this stuff has uses during a run and its completely understandable to not push the right button in a stressfull situation and then get overwhelmed quickly, losing 3/4 of your healthbar in mere seconds.

The only suggestion i can give you is to choose characters with your wive that completment each other, I advice to Sniper/Heavy (to deal with Tyranid Warriors and Thousand Sons efficiently) and something melee like Bulwark/Assault/even Tactical to deal with swarms and help out, but usually to protect the Heavy. Just try it out until you have a good grasp on what to do, then change to other classes that fit you more.