Chaos Rising Campaign: So far, totally underwelming and a bit irritating!

[Corvus Corax]

Maybe it's just my mood today, but I'm not really enjoying the CR campaign much so far. Granted, I've only completed the first four mission, so hopefully it gets better later.

My complaints:

1) I'm able to import all the weapons and equipment that were equipped on my squad during the last vanilla campaign mission. Wonderful, but since my guys were all in termie armor (and their super-great weapons only work with that armor), I can't use any of this stuff because the techmarine hasn't turned up yet to repair my "artificially" damage armor. When do I get to equip my stuff....on the second to last mission or something? What's the point of importing stuff that you can't use from the get-go? I'm stuck using a bunch of generic, relatively crap stuff.

2) The missions are, so far, so heavily scripted that playing the CR campaign is more like watching a movie than playing a game. I'm getting real tired of endless intrusive narrative and what appears to be the game taking control of my squad and running it around so that some plot-point can be made. I don't recall that the vanilla campaign was quite this bad in this respect.

3) The whole corruption thing: This is not actually a complaint, as I haven't really bothered to study the causal effects of corruption yet. I've avoided equipping tainted armor/weapons, but my squad is still getting corrupt. I've actually got to put some study into this new aspect of the game. Apparently, if you approach certain structures or areas in a mission....or don't do things in a certain way (more scripting?), you get corrupt.

[konfeta]

Funny. People were asking for a decently scripted campaign, and that's what we got.

You get Termie armor 'bout halfway through the campaign, or at 2/5ths depending on order at which you do missions.

[Latias418]

@#3: "baaaawwww, i don't want to bother learning the new game mechanics"

[Logan054]

Well i can see the logic in not being able to use terminators from the get go, it would be abit lame afterall if thats all you used from the get go, some of the later missions are pretty good, i found the Space Hulk missions interesting. I think the only thing the game fails at is the boss battle's, just seemed far to easy and drawn out.

The thing with corruption to me was it seemed like penalty for incompentence rather than making a poor choice, i seem to recall getting corruption points because i didnt have anyone who could jump in a certain mission.

[Corvus Corax]

Halfway through before I get access to my imported stuff! I'll probably find better stuff by then.

Latias, as I noted, #3 wasn't really a complaint, more of an observation instead. I freely admit to not having gotten a handle on the corruption feature yet.

Logan: On the second or third mission, the pre-mission brief recommended you take a jump pack. I ignored it and was still able to complete the mission without being forced to commit the specified act that would result in corruption. I just ran my FC on foot to the switch. Took a minute longer than if I had used a jump pack to reach that switch, but it achieved the same end without getting the corruption.

I'm not real big on "one-way only" missions in games and was glad to see the developers allowed you to complete this particular mission-goal without a jump pack or teleport.

[yetanotherplayer]

The thing with corruption to me was it seemed like penalty for incompentence rather than making a poor choice, i seem to recall getting corruption points because i didnt have anyone who could jump in a certain mission.

If you refer to the mission where you first encounter Chaos, there's a hint on the briefing screen warning you to bring a jetpack unit.

[Ifitmovesnukeit]

And Thaddeus tells you to bring jet packs/him as well.

Having said that, I forgot to bring them too. ;) My excuse is that I hadn't gotten used to my squads wanting to comment on a mission briefing at that point, and I managed to miss it on the briefing screen itself.

I guess to a certain extent they didn't want the missions to be too easy to start off with using uber termy armour. It was problematic for me though because paper marines in vanilla's primarch difficulty made me go shooty FC with a termy assault cannon, and I suffered in the first few missions because of it.

I also didn't find the cutscenes that intrusive- I think they start to decrease a little as the game goes on though.

And yes, there were one or two "incompetence"-styled corruption givers, but scripted corruption was mostly represented as disregard for allies/holy relics.

[Corvus Corax]

See my edited post above. You don't need a jetpack for that mission. You can reach the switch without a jetpack, so you don't have to do the act that'll get you corrupted.

[konfeta]

To be perfectly honest, I tried switching to Terminator armor when I got it, and promptly went back to my imported level 20 armors. Too fragile for what you lose, at least on Primarch (Blind Nades, Assault Jump, Neverending Hail, etc.).

[Arbit]

Thaddeus in terminator armor is quite awesome. The game interprets the short range auto-teleports as full fledged teleports - that means he is constantly triggering his "stun upon jump/tele" and "heal upon jump/tele" traits. Also, merciless strike turns into an avatar style stream of explosions and the thunderhammer equipped squadmates trigger their passive vehicle stun ability quite often. I tried out a 175 damage power sword I found but felt it was inferior to the 66 damage lightning claws he was using!

Anyway, it's a moot point: if you decided to use terminator armor on the final mission you're stuck with the shitty handout weapons it gives you until you fix your terminator armor. That sucks.

[Logan054]

The thing with corruption to me was it seemed like penalty for incompentence

I point to this in my post as well :P i did complete the mission, i did it the other way, i was actually going to take him but i decided what the heck, i want a lib, tacticals and dread :-/

I agree however Thaddeus is pretty damn awesome with terminator armour

[Corvus Corax]

How am I "incompetent" if I choose not to use Thaddeus for a mission? Is there only one way to do each mission "competently," i.e., follow the developers' arbitrary scripting? I thought "on-rail" games were something we'd put behind us some years ago, especially when it comes to an RTS or a squad-tactical shooter (which SP DOW II is) where there should be many different ways for a player to complete a mission.

I don't like Thaddeus so I never use him. Does that mean that I'm not going to be able to "competently" complete the CR campaign? Thaddeus can sit on the ship and go totally corrupt for all I care.

[JackCrow]

I see doubts in you battle brothers.
So far I have yet to find something bothering me except corruption and the unpure nature of those items I get.

However, if you play on a level i.e. Capitan or Primarch, green and violet items drop like crazy, even in one time mission, let alone the mechanism that people use and quit the mission and return again to mule the items.

The termie armor was removed and broken for a reason, o what fluff they created just for that part, and it would be stupid to run around in a tank at the beginning of the game.

It comes, termie armors too, new items, upgrading, one time items, plenty to look at the bright side at.

And though I like how it is scripted now, I sympathize with you guys that do not like that, but if you do not follow the script exactly, and you can do that, in your own way, it is too much fun.

Playing on a more difficult level is truly rewarding items and xp wise, so I sincerely recommend it.

Side missions are plenty and are different, so it is not as repetitive as DoW.

My advice would be to just enjoy it, and stay pure.

[Corvus Corax]

Actually, I see nothing at all wrong with running around in a "tank" at the start of the expansion. If my vanilla char has just finished the whole DOW vanilla campaign and is equipped with ueber stuff and if I can import him and his squaddies to the expansion then it's counter-intuitive to not have the stuff immediately available. Yeah, I imagine they did have to dream up some fluff to explain the "broken" armor.

I haven't played this game for, like, about 8 months, but, IIRC, enemies scale to your char, so what's the problem with starting out in a "tank." Besides, is termie armor really that ultimate? It has drawbacks and trade-offs when compared to standard armor.

As for Thaddeus: Now let me guess. If I leave him on the battle barge, he will eventually go completely corrupt, desert to Chaos, and I'll be fighting him in some future mission.....right? Why would his corruption increase if I leave him on the ship? I assume this corruption issue also goes for Cyrus, Jonah or anyone else who gets excluded from one too many missions. So if I want to remain pure, I've got to avoid tainted weapons, avoid certain mission actions, and rotate my squaddies to make sure they get their share of mission time. This is really getting heavily RPG'ish for a tactical shooter. If that's where the developers want to take us, I guess that's their call. I guess I just didn't really see it coming to this....but I'll learn to live with it. :-\

[JackCrow]

Actually, I see nothing at all wrong with running around in a "tank" at the start of the expansion. If my vanilla char has just finished the whole DOW vanilla campaign and is equipped with ueber stuff and if I can import him and his squaddies to the expansion then it's counter-intuitive to not have the stuff immediately available.

That would I imagine create an unequal opportunity for players against the AI, not to mention a problem developers need to handle separately, and create not only scalable AI, but missions that would have to be parallel but harder with wielders of such items.
So for every skill level you need to do a double work.
Traits and skills aside.

I also think the item transfer was the easiest solution to do, not thinking from what is better for us, but easier for them.



Yeah, I imagine they did have to dream up some fluff to explain the "broken" armor.


Quoting gejsiv:
game tells you that most of your wargear is lost or damaged as a result of the strike cruiser holding it getting nommed by the tyranid fleet in the last game. you should start with most of the gear you were carrying as well as a few others.

basically a fancy way of the developers saying "if we let you start with termie armor the game would be way too easy, so you're gonna need to earn them again".



I haven't played this game for, like, about 8 months, but, IIRC, enemies scale to your char, so what's the problem with starting out in a "tank." Besides, is termie armor really that ultimate? It has drawbacks and trade-offs when compared to standard armor.

Termie armor especially the ones dropping now are crazy, with items that drop too for them...

[Codex]

not that it would be too easy with termie armor, more like you would never see standard power armor. why give you the drops when you don't need them? it would render a large amount of gear essentially useless.

by doing this at least for half the game you will use power armor, and some of their power armor is actually so good that you prefer it over termie armor (i love fully upgraded blighted bolter and armor on tarkus a lot)

with regards to corruption, i didn't like how there were so many "fail time limit" corruptions. by all means, put them in, but also make corruption choices in those missions as well, lest you simply having to sit there really bored for 5 minutes like i did trying to corrupt on a mission.

also, the scripting brings a plot depth beyond "defend these generators". to keep people interested in longer missions, you need plot. for plot, you need script. it can be less intrusive, sure, but this way they have control and is the easiest way to convey it.

[Corvus Corax]

Well, I finally got my termie armor and associated weaponry back....so I guess I can quit crying about that now. :) I could have gotten it back a day earlier, but I chose to do an optional mission first.

[PenitentMan]

I tried out a 175 damage power sword I found but felt it was inferior to the 66 damage lightning claws he was using!

read the LC description - says it has an AoE!
Having said that the 175 damage sword is very nice on the FC. The limited invun bit keeps him standing a while

[Arbit]

Yeah, I knew about the splash. I still thought that the power sword would be better given it inflicts almost 3 times as much damage, but no.

The biggest issue I had with your termie armor being broken was with Avitus - since I had planned on sticking him in termie armor from the start, I purposefully avoided the "no setup time" trait while building him throughout the vanilla campaign. Then lo and behold, Chaos Rising arrives and he's back in regular power armor and stuck using weapons with setup times. He was stuck using an improved heavy bolter with ~22 damage for many missions.

Terminator armor is really a mixed bag for everyone except for Thaddeus. Since it's not strictly better than power armor they should have allowed it at the beginning.

[PenitentMan]

Terminator armor is really a mixed bag for everyone except for Thaddeus.

i really, really, REALLY suggest putting tarkus in termie armour and getting a close combat build on him. He becomes a damage sponge and will happily take down vehicles/walkers/boss mobs or anything if he gets a couple of mana regen. Only other problem with this is his speed which is depressingly slow but the cc taunt area is big

[Avatar 720]

Regarding Terminator armour and it's weapons, what's everyone's opinion of them? Should I stick TH/SS onto commander and Thaddeus or give either of them (or both of them) Lightning claws?

Does Avitus perform best in terminator armour with an ass-can (i've got a blue 'rending pattern' with 49 damage and a few extra stats from the vanilla campaign) or should I stick him into power armour (in this case, also a vanilla blue with 19% (!!!) to ranged damage) with the Neverending Hail?

Should Tarkus even have terminator armour if he's melee set-up? If so, should he have a storm-bolter or heavy flamer with his power fail fist that doesn't seem to scratch many mobs as much as my commander when he uses it.

Current stats are Commander going full stamina and full strength, same with Thadd and Tarkus. Avitus going full stam and ranged (so he doesn't need to set-up with his Neverending hail of awesome, and nor does he need to re-load), Jonah going full stam and strength (tried ranged last time and he just wasn't effective, I ended up dumping him for most missions... mind you, it's starting be that way now), Thule going ranged and stam (I prefer him ranged, standing back with Avitus and ground-pounding when melee mobs get too close to the devs whilst racking up a good few kills) and Cyrus going a mix of all 4, namely stam and strength (strength for the energy-based remote dets, which are a godsend!).

My main issues, though, are the Commander + Thadd terminator load-outs (claws or TH/SS?) and the avitus issue (TA + AC or PA + NHoD?)

[PenitentMan]

should I stick him into power armour (in this case, also a vanilla blue with 19% (!!!) to ranged damage) with the Neverending Hail?


DO THIS.
avitus with neverending hail sprinting to cover with no setup times. Add signum for garnish.
Sound like the same as me but your squads could do with more will. Especially the commander for aura of mana regen + the battle cry mana restore
Tarkus always starts in ranged mode (and sometimes flips back to it as well) so he ends up running a short distance away from the mob unless flipped to melee.

[Avatar 720]

They seem to already do fine will-wise. Avitus basically has unlimited will thanks to his Will4Kills ability (which fuels his Focus Fire) and the commander never runs out. The only problem is Tarkus, who drains it like crazy with tactical advance on, which is why I always take the energy restore packs with me if Tarkus is going to be tanking anything.

For the Space Hulk missions, though, is Tarkus best with a storm bolter or heavy flamer? I tried the flamer and he just doesn't fire quick enough to catch the stealers or hormies before they're in CC, even when the rest of his squad is firing he just doesn't seem to automatically pick up targets like he should. Same with the commander + assault cannon set-up I tried (I like to keep things space hulk-y on the JoC missions), he doesn't auto-pick up targets till he's in CC, and then it was a better idea to give him with TH/SS.

Thaddeus has his lightning claws which work like a charm, and Avitus has the NHoD, but seems to fall fast to venom cannons and mass CC troops which ignore all my other squads and swamp Avitus before he can fire many shots off.

[gimrah]

I thought I'd try not porting in my tyranid campaign and see what happens with the default settings on primarch. I've only done the opening mission so far and it was tough but I made it first time.

Does make it a lot harder though. Avitus' starting HB has 10.4 DPS. No wonder he didn't seem to kill much. But now hopefully I'll have the fun of finding and trying new stuff in new combinations, rather than just using the same old builds for each character. You can also reassign your experience points to try different builds. (I will try a melee tarkus build one day but it's such a wrench to not have him as a true tac marine.)

In terms of game enjoyment, I found termie armour fun initially but then less tactical and less fun as you don't have to worry about cover. And you have a more restricted set of stuff. And it got so that no enemy was really a threat to my guys except bosses and defence missions (which I got really bored of - my favourite missions in the first campaign were the ones where you had to clear out brood nests: the numbers of enemies made them really tough but the boss wasn't that much harder than a vanilla lictor/zoan/whatever.)

[PenitentMan]

if tarkus is str based he should have the melee upgrade on taunt to grab the stragglers off avitus.
HF or SB is personal. I never found a decent heavy flamer in chaos rising and with storm bolters you should fire off a couple of shots as you close but nothing major.

[Gorb]

Terminator Armour. Quite useful in the original Campaign, however it really limits your choices in Chaos Rising, especially because it locks out a whole load of accessories. I haven't bothered with the Purist achievement yet, and I only give Thaddeus the Terminator Armour. Why? Because Thunderous Teleport is hilariously silly (I cleared a Space Hulk level with this alone). The Corrupted version is even more overpowered, which I find even more hilarious.

Why not give the Force Commander Termie Armour? Firstly, I like having useful Commander items. Secondly? Some of the best weapons you get for the FC are Thunderhammers (two-handed) or Power Swords. Why we can't use Power Swords in Termie armour I don't know :( (unless we can and I've been oblivious for about a year and a bit).

Tarkus? I dunno. Depends on what your loadout is. On my pure runthrough I went for a shiny Plasma Gun, racked up the appropriate Ranged Trait that made Plasma Guns fire faster and used Taunt and Frag Grenades to lay waste to large amounts of enemy infantry. On my Corrupted runthrough he's currently got the Blighted Bolter, which I love because it's one of the few pieces of wargear that looks Chaotic, and it makes Tarkus semi-melee anyhow (especially if you get him the Trait which means Tactical Advance reduces melee damage taken).

As for Avitus, well, I generally find Heavy Bolters or Missile Launchers to be so much more effective than Assault Cannons. There is also a lack of decent AssCannons in Chaos Rising, while there are some fantastic MLs and HBs. Oh and before I forget, Lascannons. AoE beam that instagibs a lot of infantry and tears vehicles apart in a few shots? Oh my yes please. Terminator Armour? Nah, I've got enough health and I'm so, so far away from any of the combat that I don't care for additional protection.

--- semantic shift --

Secondly, on the subject of Corruption feeling like "incompetence". If you think about it, they're very closely linked in the world of 40k.

1. Allowing battle-brothers to die, sometimes unnecessarily? You are Space Marines. You don't take your time and let your brothers die. You take the fight to the enemy and attempt to preserve as much gene-seed as possible. Letting Scouts be fed into a Warp portal is not preserving gene-seed.

2. Destroying sacred relics and tombs that house remains of the Chapter's brightest and best warriors . . . well I think grave robbery is illegal in England and probably others as well, so that's a nice parallel to draw.

3. Not deploying a certain squad? You're going to refuse one of your sergeants an opportunity to set right an old score? Why? You're fighting Chaos (mainly), do you really think the powers of the Warp need extra resentment to feed off of? If your men start getting annoyed at your decisions, they'll be more easily tempted by the whispers in their heads . . . I mean, it's just their conscious talking. Right?

4. You're going to let the Imperial Guard, your allies who have stood fast in the face of the enemy, who have suffered traitors from their own ranks, be bombed to hell because you can't be bothered with a small detour. A detour which also happens to not only stop the enemy's bombing runs, but gives you control of the aforementioned bombardment? What more of a perk do you want? Permanent invincibility? You let Imperials die, you're going to be admonished. Refer to point 3. for Corruption taking hold in squads that get annoyed at your Commanders (or hell, Thule's admonitions).

[Demonhorde]

I think the campaign was pure ASOME! a tad irritated that no plasma wepon or good rocket launcher dropped though. Since it kinda sucked to not have proper AV.

[Avatar 720]

There's a lascannon you get from one of the missions (albeit white, but a lascannon nonetheless) which should've covered most AV quite nicely.

[konfeta]

Alternatively paying attention to your inventory would have sufficed. IIRC, both First Gift of the Artificers and Salvaged Weapon from the Techmarine mission give you an option for pretty nice AV guns.