Tyrranids questline. What were they thinking?

[rman88]

Ok, i am just going to be blunt and say this. This is the dumbest thing i have ever seen. The third quest forces you to face off against an everspawning horde of Vaul sentries. And these things are no push over. No 10 armor, +33% range damage reduction. 100% accuracy on their weapon with high armor pen.

For a race that one could argue is fairly weak. This seems like a bit overkill if not a horrible bloody idea. As how the hell am i suppose to defeat these things? Warriors deal 3 damage per attack. biovores are able to do .4 damage...what the hell do i even do with this?

Also anyone know how to turn off quest. They are not worth it, the rewards they give are ♥♥♥♥. And they are just an annoying pointless addition that dose nothing but forces you to restart. Because the invasion decided to wait 10 turns until you get attacked by another nation. Then it decides to start spawning so you not only get to fight 1 overpowered army. But you now have to fight a second army as well.

This is ♥♥♥♥.

[Noodlesocks]

You can turn them off during game set up. There's a check box you can untick.

As for dealing with them, I usually just swarm them and heal with tervigon. Tyranid prime with feel no pain upgrade backed by tervigon heal is ridiculously tanky too.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by rman88:

For a race that one could argue is fairly weak.

Wut

[rman88]

Thanks for the info, i was never really that huge of a fan of these quest. As they were more or less very dull and generic. Go hear, kill thing, capture thing for hero upgrades. Heroes being not that amazing. More just harder to kill units.

regardless thou i think i will play without quest. As boy they are just not fun.

And yes i don't really feel like tyranids are not that amazing.

[Overread]

The main problem I find with this quest is more over-extending yourself when your main body of the army is far from the main hub of your base or is fending off another player/race. At that point the sentries certainly add a lot of challenge and can seriously stall or cripple you quite easily.

Personally I rather like the story elements since they add a wildcard that isn't just you VS the ai opponenets.

[rman88]

funny thing about this is....tyranids is a fast expanding race..that is their whole stitch....1 resource, small cities, low loyalty issues. They get colonizers at tier 2. So the whole idea behind this is a short but vast empire. If we go with the whole 4x terms.

that said the issue really dose not revolve around the race itself. Issue is what you are forced to fight. Which compared to the other invasions. Is kinda a bit overpowered if you ask me.

Vaul sentries are arguably teir 6-9 units. They have one of the highest armor rating in the game 10. On par with things like a baneblade,land raider, obelisk. Granted damage wise their pretty weak. Even thou their attack shreds non single entities.

And you have to fight a lot of them. all the while they are able to take out your armies quite fast considering the number that spawn. all the while being able to do little in the way of damaging them. Leading it to a battle of attrition.

Hell the final battle for the imperial guard isn't this bad. and to makes matters worse, this is the 3rd quest. If your dumb like me and decided to follow the story line you would just get your ♥♥♥♥ kicked in.

Also for some reason their was a delay before they arrived. which made things even more frustrating as they arrived right when i get attacked by a horde of eldar....so i got two armies to deal with and one is vastly more powerful then mine. As not going to lie i would have been fine dealing with the eldar if i didn't have to fight these things.

[Jey]

You're using Warriors and Biovores.
Of course Vaul Sentries will hurt you (though honestly, they still shouldn't be much of a threat).

They have high armor and high HP, so you should use stuff with high damage and high AP like Carnifexes.
Upgraded Carnifexes will annihilate Vaul Sentries effortlessly. Exocrines will also work wonder, but it's harder to have a critical mass of Exocrines early enough for this quest.

Do not use 3-models infantry with no AP (like warriors, raveners...) againt Vaul Sentries. They have blast, of course that's going to be a pain.
Biovores are also an anti-high model infantry. They are pointless to use against Vaul Sentries.

Vaul sentries are arguably teir 6-9 units.

Definitely not. With their damage output, they don't deserve such a high spot.
They're at best T5 units, on the level of Wave Serpent or so.

i was never really that huge of a fan of these quest. As they were more or less very dull and generic.

You should see quests as a mini-tutorial of the faction as well as a source of lore for the game.

[rman88]

Just going to be honest and say i didn't even have monsterus beast unlocked. Let alone had cities pumping them out to be much of a threat. As i got very lucky with the kill 3 kiill 3 units within another unit thing.

but ehh the main reason why i had these units to begin with was warriors are the only really good infantry unit. High health, can shred most infantry and has a basic synaps.. Biovores are just bad in general. Hell my newst game has me just spamming monsterus creatures and warriors. And i am pretty much wrecking the eldar. Thou i am avoiding the quest line like the plauge.

That said, it is just bad design that you are forced to fight such dangerous units so early on in the game. Hell this isn't even the endgame quest. This is the third one you get and it is just devastating.

Note, i don't view the quest as anything more then optional goals to complete. Most 4x games has these now to spice things.up. This game is no exception, but it lacks any real value. As the things you get are pretty worthless when it comes down to it. That and heros in general are not worthy caring about.

[Jey]

Originally posted by rman88:

That said, it is just bad design that you are forced to fight such dangerous units so early on in the game.

Vaul Sentries have low movement. It's fairly easy to run away from them, and they can't deal meaningful damage to mono-model unit.
They also come in waves, so it's not like you're suddenly overwhelmed by an important amount of enemy.
A Prime for example could kill them by simple virtue of being more tanky than them.

If I were to complain about a Tyranid chapter, it would rather be the one where three cities pop with an army each, including one with Hive Crones.
That one is definitely awful when you don't expect it and are a newbie.
Then again, you can learn and prepare better for the next time, that's how you get better.

warriors are the only really good infantry unit

Everyone is entitled to their opinion about balance, but oh boy are you wrong.
Raveners are better. So much better than Warriors.
They have 5 moves and move through cover.
So when your Warriors cry because "Oh no there are some trees in the way, now I only move 2 tiles", your Raveners go WOOSH, and surprise the enemy from the other side of a forest.

"BuT ThEy HaVe LoW ArMoR"
6 armor is low already. That's what Necron Warriors have. That's what Fire Warriors have.
Guess what: They get trashed by anything remotely serious. (And since Tyranids Warriors have a lot of HP, they are prime target for big guns who will completely ignore 6 armor, like lascannon)

"BuT SyNaPsE"
You have Malanthrope with 4 moves + move through cover + give 17% ranged reduction to allies nearby.
They are so superior to Warriors in terms of synapse that it's not even comparable.

"BuT WaRrIoRs ArE EaRliER"
Who cares? You don't have the biomass (nor the infrastructure) to build an army composed exclusively of Warriors that early anyway.

And if you have ophophobia, Lictors are very late (T6), but they have additional ranged damage reduction, ignore overwatch, 4 move with move through cover, the ability to overwatch with their MELEE WEAPONS.
They are so much better than Warriors that costing 20 additional biomass is perfectly fine. Because they DO STUFF.
And they have such a high morale that they don't care about synapse.

Biovores are just bad in general.

I really disagree.
While argueably, Raveners are perfectly fine to kill infantry, and they will do the job most of the time, there are times where Biovores are good.

-> You face an army composed mostly of infantry with range 1 (i.e you can't draw OW without sacrificing a tile) such as Eldars
-> You face a big army of infantry who has at least two lines and can provide a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of OW and you can't attack from the front.
-> You are in a chokepoint and you can't send too many units at once to kill the meatshield infantry
-> Jetpacks on water that cancel all melee weapons
-> You want to scout but you don't have termagants available (you don't use the biovores, but spore mines. Of course)

Biovores are really good at what they do. Don't underestimate them.

[rman88]

dude it dose not matter if vaul sentries have low movement speed if they are right next to your cities. Who do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damage wise as not only do they have 10 armor. They also has 33% range reduction. So my biovores were doing .4 damage a turn. warriors were doing 3 damage a turn against around 14 sentries with in the high 30s hp wise. While on average their able to do around 9-10 damage a turn. Hell they were wrecking the eldar that attacked me as well. So this is more of a balance issue then anything else.

2nd warriors are easy as spam. I have no idea what your talking about. Hell when i got swarmed i had over 12 warriors guarding my borders with 5 cities. I don't really know how your having issues with resources.

3rd biovores just don't do damage. They are pathetic against single entries and are as stated above worthless with dealing with high armored units. as .4 damage a turn is very very bad. Hell even spore mines they summon do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for damage. Making it better for me to just spam warriors.

Lastly, the issue with the eldar was not their speed. As warriors can tank like a champ. And are able to wipe out most early game units. 1 shooting guardians and bike squads and annihilating rangers. only thing they have issues with is wave serpants. But likewise they don't do enough damage to warrant any issue. The issue itself was the vaul sentries. They are just to strong of a unit. on par with teir 7-9 unit. only thing they lack is damage. as compared to those units their fairly weak. But meh if they did have the same damage output. It would make this quest nigh impossible to do.

Note, this is also the third quest you get. Fighting the final quest for the imperal gaurd. Where in the middle of your territory spawns a massive army of hydras and castalian robots. Is much more manageable then this. And also you get something useful out of it.

[Stardustfire]

the quests are a "do it or ignore it"
you can aim to win by focus on quest, or you can focus on fight the AI empires

for the "weak" : Tyranids got at least a little love in the patches and raised from utter crap to very strong. and you really lament about range dmg reduction enemys with a race that has many (and most of the stronget with them) melee units?

one good equiped alpha shred this things.

[rman88]

just going to be blunt hear and say. Pointing out that you can ignore the quest. is not much of an argument. As your ignoring the fact that it was made poorly. Which was the main argument to begin with. As vaul sentries are insanely over powered. Their on par with oblisk and lands raiders in armor. those are teir 10 units were talking about. Having over 90% damage reduction. it dose not matter if your using melee units or range units. These things are hard as hell to kill. only thing they lack is high damaging or multiple attacks.

Combine that with the fact that this is an invasion..which means they will just appear out of nowhere and attack you. meaning that alpha might just get 1 shotted by their high ap weapons. Before he even gets a chance to even attack.

So no i cant say i agree with you their. As in the end regardless if you think the tyrannids is good or not. This was not a great idea to begin with. Hell it is even lazy from a narrative stand point. As they just reused the relic model and gave it a necron attack.

So stop trying to defend it. I know you like the game. But come on, this really needed to be re-balanced. as sending high teir units after you early on in the game. Is not only unfair but very frustrating. as compared to every other race. You will never see anything like this to begin with.

Note, i am not saying this game is bad. I am just saying this quest was poorly thought out.

[GreenBeanN1]

The quests are editable in the xml. If you want it to be more fun just change it.

[rman88]

Dude....like i said before...not saying the game is bad. I am saying they messed up with this quest. I don't need to have the obvious stated to me. Because anyone can make the argument that "hey you don't like it, Fix it yourself or ignore it"

but in the end this is just deflecting the issue at hand. Which is vaul sentries is to over powered for this early in the game. If you want to tell me it dose not matter. That is fine, i wont respect your opinion. But hey it is your opinion and not mine.

That said, if you want to change mine. Your going to have to do better then saying i should either ignore it or mod it out. both of which are not amazing arguments to. Wow this was a bad design choice, it is incredibly unfair and frustrating.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by rman88:

I am saying they messed up with this quest.

And everyone else is saying "that's only in your opinion".

I suppose we just need to agree to disagree.

[GreenBeanN1]

Shrugs...From what I remember 1.5 years ago it was a great fight. But well after that there where many "balancing" patches. Not sure how it plays now (don't care either actually).