Where does the grenade utility come in? Or is that covered by moving that role to another unit and/or simply relying on their melee-based knockback (which is unpredictable and also reliant on them reaching melee).
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#151
Where does the grenade utility come in? Or is that covered by moving that role to another unit and/or simply relying on their melee-based knockback (which is unpredictable and also reliant on them reaching melee).
I am an Iron Warrior! Iron Within, Iron Without!
I don't know why grenade launchers aren't on the IG's list of weapon upgrades. Cultists get them ffs, and so should GM. They're in the dex, and they're fluffy as weapon upgrades, and they aren't any more OP than cultists getting them. The catachans could simply become a veteran squad with shotguns, snare mines, camo cloaks, det traps etc... they could fill a role similar to scouts/kommandos and do a lot of sapper-type work. They could also get carapace armor and more hp since that's in the dex too, and would further set them apart from vanilla guardsmen.
I agree with ogryns t1. Only then I can't justify catachans existing. Ogryns are more ridiculous fluffwise currently. Cans just need fine tuning.
Ogryns beat worshipped bloodletters. How cool is that.
Which breaks their balance, because if they are a decent T1 counter to Chaos and SM squads doing melee_pvp, they completely wreck Eldar, Tyrandids, Orks and IG.It isn't fluff rape because you can represent their great strength with high normal melee damage and knockback hits, while keeping SM and other heavy inf somewhat resistant to it by virtue of their armor/physiology and the fact that ogryns don't have power weapons to negate those things.
Catachan weapon damage is balanced currently because it allows IG to have a counter to a tac-heavy SM T1 or CSM-heavy Chaos T1. They also synergize well with Sentinels against the other races, giving a melee screen, and helping disrupt setup teams. Your hangup is on the damage type, which is a balance and not fluff issue, since Relic could just create a melee_catachan_PVP type that does the same damage(because they have poisoned daggers or some fluffy thing). Would that be a solution?
#155
The lord general can get them. Adding them to regular guard squads is gratuitous and harms unit distinction. Additionally, grenade launchers are roled as anti cover/garrison/HWT - guard have more than enough anti-HWT tools as it is, and guard squads already have an anti cover/garrison upgrade.I don't know why grenade launchers aren't on the IG's list of weapon upgrades.
Remember: you're a blogger. Pretense is your co-pilot.
Which is funny since Choko and I discuss balance quite alot, and the things he brings up are concerns both him and I talk about. But thanks for tkaing a wild guess. He has even admitted that he is somewhat bias to eldar, and I'm more a generalist rather then a specialist in terms of balance, but he is quite good at listening to other peoples feedback nontheless. More or less, internal balance discussions are always brought to you by someone from this chat, eventually:AFAIC, Choko makes more objective observations and balance suggestions than Caeltos.
But I think you already know. But me & Choko discussed balance way back already in Chaos Rising, but this is more or less to confirm what he's saying occasionaly these days are related to our internal discussions.
Flamers and plasma rifles, they could made guard nade launchers just for disruption purpose like in dow 1 but that over lap what catachan do as an ability. I'm still in favor of giving gms power setting high ability which i explain before. If no on remembers its basically, temporally turning up gm damage for a few seconds, but after the ability is done it leaves the gm squad ammo dried up and they are unable to shoot for a few seconds.
oh Nice picture Caeltos
Edit:( oh for those asking why give them such an ability, well i notice a lot of the time they hardly do model kill off( not always but just happens frequently), at times a whole squad of units will take 90 percent damage and yet not a single member dies off. The ability more or less to at least pic off a unit model before they retreat.)
Last edited by CommissarRezail; 15th Feb 11 at 12:08 PM. Reason: Info
No qaurter back men, only forward or we will hold this line forever!!!
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Row Row Row Fight the Powha
#158
Again, they don't. Catachans can only beat ASMs when they outnumber them more than 2 to 1. This is the usual case in a game scenario (compare squad sizes), but isn't this also the usual case in fluff? Space Marines are individually stronger than anyone else, but their numbers are limited, which is their (only) mitigating weakness.Originally Posted by Gabriel Gorgutz
What happens when you pair up ASM's with an Apothecary or FC, vs the Catachans and their Commanders? I would say the SM would win in melee in a situation like that, yes?
#160
The ASM easily wins in that situation, yes.
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Steam Account: DucusSumus
Catachans were a bad choice for a unit. The unit you're looking for from the codex/fluff is the Veteran squad. They can get Grenadiers, which gives them shotguns and carapace armor (not grenade launchers, oddly), Forward Sentries, which gives them camo cloaks and snare mines (which would actually be pretty cool for a kommando-like sapper unit), and Demolitions, which gives them melta bombs and det packs (another good idea for a stealthing IG squad). However, it seems that relic mashed some of the Veteran options together with ridiculous melee prowess to make the "catachan" squad. I would've preferred a more creative approach to the veterans squad, myself. They can get the same spec weapon options as IG squads, plus they can add a heavy flamer.
A stealth unit with det packs and snare mines that can get shotguns and a heavy flamer trooper with immolate would've been a lot cooler than the chuck norris wife beater catachans.
#162
they are the veteran squad, obviously - they have a mix of weapons and special equipment. i think theyre even called deathworld veterans.
a heavy flamer would be redundant with guardsmen flamers
and they dont need any more av than they have
To me Relic makes a great RTS engine, the greatest IMO, CoH being the cream of the crop, still beating DoW 2. Yet they suck at balance and representing fluff properly for such a unique and diverse universe as 40K.
DoW1 was a joy to play for the first 2 pathces, and as soon as they went to 1.3 it started to go down hill. Winter assault was a disaster IMO, with Dark Crusade lifted its head only slightly out of the gutter of imbalance.
I played the DoW 2 beta for about 10 days and have not returned; I just can’t play it due to the horrible balance and misrepresentation of the universe. Firestorm Over Kronus, DoWXP, and DoWPro saved DoW 1 for me. I can only play DoW 2 now with the Codex Edition Mod and the SP mods out there.
I think Relics flaw with DoW 2 MP was first, they built a RTS game around the SP as the foundation vs the MP like all their other RTS games of old (this is per the devs themselves.) Second, they tried to create a hard counter system where each race has a particular unit with a set function and no overlaps allowed. IMO you just cannot do this to the 40K universe.
@ Pocktio,
Your accusation of GG wanting to buff every SM unit or nerf their enemies is highly ignorant and leads me to believe you are basing your argument more on emotion than logic and playing his mod. You might not like his mod, but from an unbiased standpoint SM are not unbeatable or super superior as you are so inclined to state in his mod. Making remarks like “No one taking GG seriously” is pretty childish dude, and makes you come off as the one that should be taken less seriously.
And yes SM are the worst race represented in terms of fluff with DoW 2. The SP is even worst IMO.
Keep up the good work Gabe, even in the face of all the hateful nay-sayers, lol
I challenge anyone to play the CE mod if you have not already tried it
#164
Why exactly are Catachans a bad choice for a unit? In fluff they're presented as being pretty much as bad-ass as baseline (i.e. unmodified/augmented) humans can get, why replace them with a veteran squad which would just be regular Cadians with shotguns and a bit more armour? It doesn't make for a diverse and interesting game experience when you've got guardsmen, then veterans who are just guardsmen with slightly more armour and different weapons and then you have stormtroopers who are veterans with slightly better weapons. Talk me through why you think generic veterans with shotguns would make for better and more interesting gameplay than Catachans because I would honestly rather play with a squad of Rambos than a squad of slightly more accurate and tougher guardsmen. As for Catachans being awesome in melee, the fluff states that Catachan is entirely inimical to human life. They have bugs the size of tanks (the infamous Catachan Devil) which is so lethal that the Adeptus Mechanicus thinks it might be a Tyranid vanguard organism that went feral. These people survived to adulthood in a place where everything is trying to kill them every second of the day (kind of like AustraliaCatachans were a bad choice for a unit. The unit you're looking for from the codex/fluff is the Veteran squad. They can get Grenadiers, which gives them shotguns and carapace armor (not grenade launchers, oddly), Forward Sentries, which gives them camo cloaks and snare mines (which would actually be pretty cool for a kommando-like sapper unit), and Demolitions, which gives them melta bombs and det packs (another good idea for a stealthing IG squad). However, it seems that relic mashed some of the Veteran options together with ridiculous melee prowess to make the "catachan" squad. I would've preferred a more creative approach to the veterans squad, myself. They can get the same spec weapon options as IG squads, plus they can add a heavy flamer.) so why can't they be good at close combat? You complain that they used to be able to take out Terminators, which they can't do any more, and that they can go toe-to-toe with Assault Marines but conveniently ignore the fact that in order to do so they have to outnumber the Marines two-to-one.
In Soviet Russia, forums moderate YOU!
Veterans are fufilled by the Stormtrooper role, they even have some of the upgrades you mentioned. Besides it's a pretty boring way of representing IG when you have named equivalents to spice things up.
Last edited by Pocktio; 16th Feb 11 at 1:29 AM.
Knife King of Doltland
I'm not surprised. Anything within three feet of you seems to end up full of knife shaped holes.
It probably would of been safer fluffwise having the catachans as veterans in the sense that we dont know (yet) how the Catachan VII regiment are tied to the sector. They fit the bill perfectly in the sense that they are experienced in warfare against nids, chaos, orks and eldar. But to create such a specific reference to a fluffy part of the IG is what GW originally wanted relic to steer away from (hence the creation of their own chapter). They definitely are bad ass, and considered to be tenfold more effective than your run of the mill GM, but possibly far too specific of a reference?
Cadians are similarly elite, just in a different way. Catachans are famous for their lack of adherence to the tactica and primer. I mean they aren't designed with fighting works on a deathworld lol. They only.get away with it because the powers that be know how ferocious and loyal they are.
Cadians are the polar opposite. They embody the best of the doctrine the Imperial Guard is founded on. They are just as ferocious and loyal they are just much more obviously so compared to the stuffy catachans.
/End fluff
That kind of independence makes them perfect for the unique role they have in Dow2.
#168
Oh God GG has a twin God have mercy on our souls.
Honestly, if you think Dark Crusade was more balanced than Winter Assault and/or Soulstorm (barring lolbayonets), then we can presume your grasp on balance is just as tenuous as Gabriel's is purported to be.
This is not a "why I agree with Gabriel Gorgutz" thread, nor is it a "this is why I don't like DoW II and I'm posting in the DoW II subforum to tell you this" thread (not a bright idea at the best of times anyhow
Anyhow, your points. DoW II MP is not based around the SP Campaign at all. I don't even know how you reached that assumption.
Secondly, there is a difference between "hard counters" and units having unique roles. A unit can be both disruptive and decent in melee (thus having a unique role), but it won't be a melee "hard counter" . . . it will be a "soft counter" to dedicated melee units due to their disruptive tendencies. Introducing a second disruption unit in the same Tier for a similar cost is pointless because it overlaps with the role of the first.
Thus, function != counter.
I really think if relic want a neutral balance they get people who is not invested in the dow2 community as a player. I would suggest looking at pure statistics first win / loss ratio what wargear is used and to what effect. What is never built, is there special builds and hero wargear that is broken in a matchup for example, kill count effect by that wargear, any insta win matchups for example chaos vs eldar (non farseer) etc. I firmly believe that feedback is nice, but people who play competitive always gravitate towards the way they play and winning strats game and in doing so might not be the best balance tool. A pro player almost always have a favorite army / hero and will be biased due to the fact they only see the holes from a serten perspective. Examples could be taken from SC2 and the way some matchups made other matchups completely useless. This was mostly due to the fact blizzard listened to much to sc2 ladder people and did not for see the impact of sad changes. The buff to protoss air units for example was just ?mark. Sure it gives them edge in some area but also opened up the 4 phoenix voidray. That said I'm happy with relic's balance for the most part but they really need to look into how they add elements to the game. For example in team games a inqusitors cloak ability can really give edge. Cloak as ork is global but for inqusitor he gets this for free. To me this makes little sense from a game design point of view since its so hard to even out. Also detectors in this game is cool and all but they really should give that aspect a overhaul. Some units grants squad based while other unit based. Look into making each army have a similar possibility for detection would be nice. Some armies have multiple detectors while some just have 1 and that also require upgrade etc. Time invested to make a detector vs stealth should be a balance focus I believe.
#170
You can't get balance from people who don't play the game against people who know how to play the game.
So... basically you just supported what I said, with elaboration/explanation. Thanks. (Minus the "Relic couldn't get a hotfix out" portion ofc, in the case of DOW2.)TS: I liked Korbah, I relied on him for balance insights into the actual game aside form his changes in DoWpro... because he had a really good sense of balance AND wanted to change things. The reason people were hostile toward the mod was because it was actually pretty good and his team was responsive when Relic couldn't get a hotfix out the door in under 6 months time. Why would that make people hostile? Because in every thread about the basic game, 4 or 5 DoWpro players would come sniffing around trying to peel off players to go play the Mod with them.
It was annoying to have DoWpro players constantly harping on why DoWpro was the way to play when we were talking about something else... and the fact that many people don't bother with mods because the balance is sketchy based on the tiny player pools that they support.
Ok, so, basically without knowing anything about GR internal politics beforehand, I "made a wild guess" and am nevertheless justified in my personal opinion that I take his balance opinions with more weight than yours. Thanks for the clarification.Caeltos: Bla bla on GR internal political structure.
Dude, your gross immaturity is showing.Gorb: Oh God GG has a twin God have mercy on our souls.
DC was not balanced, but it was indeed a better game than WA ever was. The man said nothing about SS; that's your own fabrication to try to embellish your ad hominem attacks.
It's really not up to you what this thread is about. As long as the post content adheres to the thread title, and makes a point, it should not be ridiculed without reason.
Lastly, you are deluding yourself if you think DOW2 has not been mutated into a game centered around hard counters. I believe Relic's "epiphany" happened in the first major patch... There Is ONly War? Basically the patch where Scouts became SM melee counters. Even the post-patch loading screens clearly demonstrate Relic's intents at creating a hard counter game. Relic, as said, creates great game engines... but it simply doesn't have the talent or resources to balance a game based on roles and functions. That's HARD. Balancing a game based on hard counters is much easier, and Relic wouldn't have such trouble with that if it didn't have to also worry about fluff vs game design vs balance. This shows through in both DOW1 and DOW2.
It irks me the way people here are trying to catch GG on balance minutiae, in order to find something they can ridicule him with. Stop it. Okay, so he doesn't realize that DOW2 CR ASMs are borderline OP, and completely OP with Apo... that does not mean that his opinions on Sents and Cats are wrong, nor does it mean that his mod's ASMs (and his SM in general) aren't balanced. Nor has he ever said that if you have less than 60 Guardsmen, a lone HT will automatically rape your base. Think about it logically. It's obvious that what he's saying is ***if you have less than a 60 Gm mass, you cannot force a HT to retreat with zero micro on your part, before it even has a chance to charge across the screen. You would need micro to force a HT to retreat, if you only have 2 to 3 T1 range squads.*** But, with blatant lawyer-speak, a lot of you have already maneuvered him into trying to back up the 60 Gm bit. Give it a rest.
No surrender, I will try to go point by point through your post and explain why I think that catachans as envisioned by relic are not a good choice for an IG unit instead of a veteran squad.
Catachans are Guardsmen, plain and simple. They are a different regiment, and they certainly would get better melee resist/melee dps than Cadians for example, but they are still unmodified/unaugmented humans, and need to rely on firepower and maneuver in order to prevail over things like SM/CSM, Tyranids, and Orkz. SM Scouts, for example, are raised on deathworlds no less tough than Catachan. Cretacia, Baal, and Fenris are at least as harsh and the human stock is at least equal to Catachan stock. Plus, they are genetically augmented and given better weapons and training. You could make the same argument for giving SM scouts super melee power, and it would make more sense since they're twice the size of catachans, and have a super-dense skeleton and musculature. Yet scouts in dow2 are the worst melee in the game, and catachans are one of the best, if not THE best in T1 right now. Does not compute.Why exactly are Catachans a bad choice for a unit? In fluff they're presented as being pretty much as bad-ass as baseline (i.e. unmodified/augmented) humans can get, why replace them with a veteran squad which would just be regular Cadians with shotguns and a bit more armour?
A veteran squad could perform largely the same functions as the scouts (stealth, shotgun blast, knockback) AND catachan squad (grenade launcher or melta gun, set traps) and get better survivability/melee resist due to carapace armor. They don't NEED power weapon melee, any more than SM scouts need it to do their job.
Also, Catachans are their own regiment with their own heroes such as Iron Hand Straken and Nork Deddog. Catachans have regular GM squads, Veteran squads, and HWT's just like Cadians do. Why is there only vet squads attached to a cadian regiment? Where are the cadian vets and the kasrkins? We got Catachan vets attached to a Cadian unit, but no Kasrkins? Again, does not compute.
You could say the same thing about the SM list. Why have devs or asm when you have tacs? Devs are just tacs with a heavy bolter or lascannon, and half their hp (for some reason). ASM are just tacs with jetpacks and chainswords. Why not just have those things as upgrades for the tacs, instead of units in their own right? Well, anyone who knows 40k knows that the army lists are designed this way from the get-go. It's not boring or redundant to have different SM squads who are armed differently for different battlefield roles. It's also not going to be boring or redundant to have Cadian Vets with the Cadian Regiment instead of Catachan Vets. If relic had included a Cadian Vet squad instead of Catachans, I guarantee you'd have no problem with it and no one would wonder why they hadn't mixed Cadians and Catachans, just like no one wonders why they don't have Blood Angels ASM and Imperial Fist Devs instead of just ASM and Devs from the same chapter on the SM list.It doesn't make for a diverse and interesting game experience when you've got guardsmen, then veterans who are just guardsmen with slightly more armour and different weapons and then you have stormtroopers who are veterans with slightly better weapons.
Well I already gave you several points above, and if you wanted to play as squads of Rambos then we should just re-skin the Cadians with Catachan skins and you can play as a Cadian Regiment. This is being done for Krieg by Shuma, so someone could just make Catachan skins as well. There's no reason to believe that Catachan is worse than Baal, Cretacia, and Fenris for example, all of which are SM recruiting worlds. So, the SM recruits are also fellow death-worlders PLUS they have huge physical advantages and state of the art power armor, and in the case of ASM, chainswords as big as the catachans are tall - and yet an un-augmented catachan kicks them to death with their boots while weathering numerous chainsword hits to the face? Does not compute.Talk me through why you think generic veterans with shotguns would make for better and more interesting gameplay than Catachans because I would honestly rather play with a squad of Rambos than a squad of slightly more accurate and tougher guardsmen. As for Catachans being awesome in melee, the fluff states that Catachan is entirely inimical to human life.
Again, they can be good at close combat with out being LOLridiculous. Catachans should be able to take out other light infantry and shooty squads in melee. They should lose to heavy inf and melee specialists. They don't need Chuck Norris melee any more than SM Scouts do. They get shotguns, shottie blast, nades, and they also get a det trap. That's plenty. As it is, just counting their weapon/ranged knockback stuff they get more than SM scouts do, and all the forum nazis seem to think that scouts do their anti-melee job with shotguns "just fine." Any excuse to give catachans super melee powers and extra weapons are = valid for SM scouts, and yet no one wants to give this stuff to scouts. Why is that? Well, they are defending relic's strange decisions, and logic can go to hell. Does not compute.They have bugs the size of tanks (the infamous Catachan Devil) which is so lethal that the Adeptus Mechanicus thinks it might be a Tyranid vanguard organism that went feral. These people survived to adulthood in a place where everything is trying to kill them every second of the day (kind of like Australia ) so why can't they be good at close combat?
Yes they did take out termies, I wish we had the replay still to prove it. They should stand no more chance against ASM than guardians do. I would give Catachans melee resistance so they last longer than regular guardsmen once under attack, but their melee damage would only be really good against light infantry. If they could take on ASM two-to-one with no melee weapons, then just imagine how they would massacre whole SM chapters if THEY were the ones with the chainswords! Ridiculous.You complain that they used to be able to take out Terminators, which they can't do any more, and that they can go toe-to-toe with Assault Marines but conveniently ignore the fact that in order to do so they have to outnumber the Marines two-to-one.
They would be able to melee the enemy shooty units, but they are still unaugmented humans. Also, the whole ork hunting thing is based on the Catachans' tactical mastery of ambushes, traps, and close ranged firepower. While it's not inconceivable for a catachan to kill an ork in melee, orkz are still physically superior and mass great melee hordes, and Catachans do not meet the waaagh head on in melee which is the orkz' strongest advantage. They use fire traps, explosives, and other ambush tactics to cut the orkz down, but they are "capable" melee fighters if they have to be. That's about as good as it ever gets for unaugmented humans in the 41st millenium, and they need genetic modification and/or cybernetics if they want to regularly tangle with giant xenos monstrosities toe to toe, as it should be.
Last edited by Gabriel Gorgutz; 16th Feb 11 at 7:17 AM.
Sorry in Regards to my assault marine post, was a late night and not thinking right, ill re-write what I meant to say in the suggestion box
Wrong, Catachans are by far not the best melee units model for model.
I agree with your overall point about them, though. Relic has already handled implementing anti-melee abilities without giving a race a powerful melee unit in T1 (Scouts). I don't get why couldn't they do this for Catachans.
IG as a race should be vulnerable to melee builds, IMO, and focus on snaring/slowing the enemy while unleashing superior firepower upon them. Instead, they are the race that you simply don't go melee against, in fear of their mighty scouting vehicles and uber action movie heroes.
#175
Yes, but scouts are recent inductees which means that they're in their teens or early twenties so even though they have the genetic modifications, they don't have the experience of hardened Catachan veterans. Scouts might have the physical attributes of a Marine but that doesn't mean that they have the ability to put those characteristics to use so soon after a massive physical transformation. Think of it like teenagers being clumsy and uncoordinated during puberty if you want, only much, much, worse since the changes are much, much, bigger. The whole point of posting initiates to the scouts is so that they have the time to get used to their new bodies and pick up some combat experience without putting them in as much danger as a tactical marine.SM Scouts, for example, are raised on deathworlds no less tough than Catachan. Cretacia, Baal, and Fenris are at least as harsh and the human stock is at least equal to Catachan stock. Plus, they are genetically augmented and given better weapons and training. You could make the same argument for giving SM scouts super melee power, and it would make more sense since they're twice the size of catachans, and have a super-dense skeleton and musculature. Yet scouts in dow2 are the worst melee in the game, and catachans are one of the best, if not THE best in T1 right now. Does not compute.
Actually, Characters like Iron Hand Straken are an interesting point to consider. Here we have a Catachan Colonel who is so decked out in bionics and he's literally tougher than a space marine and could punch out a Terminator with his bare hands. We also have Guardsman Marbo who runs around with an AP 2 pistol and a huge poison knife that wounds 5/6 times. We also have Sgt. Harker who can carry around a heavy bolter and can move and shoot with it at the same time - something not even Space Marines can do. Catachan produced all of these soldiers, and whilst not every one of them is quite as badass, why is it implausible that two Catachan veterans can take down an Assault Marine?Also, Catachans are their own regiment with their own heroes such as Iron Hand Straken and Nork Deddog. Catachans have regular GM squads, Veteran squads, and HWT's just like Cadians do. Why is there only vet squads attached to a cadian regiment? Where are the cadian vets and the kasrkins? We got Catachan vets attached to a Cadian unit, but no Kasrkins? Again, does not compute.
As for why there's Catachan veterans attached to a Cadian regiment, I refer you to page 40 of the current IG codex where it states that sometimes only a few squads are left from a depleted regiment and these are amalgamated with another regiment, sometimes of a different world, in order to retain combat effectiveness? Why must every Cadian unit have Kasrkin attached to them? The Kasrkin are trained and indoctrinated in the preservation of Cadia itself, it makes sense that most of them would spend their time on Cadia while regular Departmento Munitorum Stormtroopers are attached to regiments serving off-world. It's well established in the fluff that Stormtrooper Regiments are broken down into squads and distributed to support actions that require their presence, why would a Cadian unit be shipped around with its own integrated unit of Stormtrooper equivalents? Even if a Kasrkin regiment was shipped off-world from Cadia it would still be scattered about the sector at the behest of the Departmento Munitorum, not following around other Cadian Regiments.
Part of your issue with the current arragement seems to be that you think Cadian regiments should only ever work with Cadian veteran squads - a point that is explicitly contradicted in the IG codex. Veterans from the same regiment would be problematic because they'd be extremely visually difficult to distinguish from the other vanilla guardsmen (and before you start about how Space Marines all look the same except for their weapons I would point out that there are much fewer Space Marine models out at any given time so identification between squads is less of an issue when you don't have a huge blob of units). Besides, if there had be Cadian veterans who could out-melee ASM two-to-one then it would make even less sense since Cadians aren't known for their aptitude at melee whereas Catachans and their massive poisoned knives are. Finally, to address your allegation that Cadians kick ASM to death, if you watch closely a portion of them do actually pull out massive knives in melee, if it bothers you that much mod the game so that everyone pulls out knives instead of kicking. Simple.
Basically it all comes down to your perceptions of how a Cadian regiment is run. You think that Cadians should have Kasrkin whereas the fluff says that they might not. You think that Cadian veterans make more sense whereas Catachans make more sense as melee units AND the Codex says squads and regiments are amalgamated all the time. So maybe the problem isn't with the game, it's with your interpretation of the fluff because GW certainly went through this game and vetted it for consistency with their universe. If they say that Catachan squads can be attached to a Cadian regiment, who are you to claim otherwise?
I think the whole Catachan's are OP thing is blown out of proportion a lot, they're good in melee but everyone seems to ignore the fact that they have so little HP that they drop like flies to ranged firepower, let them melee your guys and just shoot them to death, and if they go after the guys shooting at them his guardsmen are unprotected and vulnerable
Malachi, I meant they are the best t1 unit. Sorry for the misrepresentation, I edited/corrected it. I still think they are way too good in melee though.
Shuma, why make counter-intuitive guard units at all? A super melee guardsmen unit makes no sense at all. Also in metagame terms, the IG race is the strongest anti-melee army in the game. Melee should pose a significant threat to the IG faction, and one that needs to be dealt with via good micro and well-chosen weaponry. Guardsmen have the strongest t1 melee units, as it stands right now. What can stand before sentinels and catachans in t1 melee? Nothing. Stomp plus chuck norris melee will counter almost any melee unit in the game. I wonder if you stomp ogryns and let cats have at them if the ogryns will shake it off and come back in time, or if chuck will roundhouse kick them to death before they come to their senses.
#178
"Dude", Trouble spent the time explaining why GG shouldn't bring up his modification, why he shouldn't go on about his own personal issues with the game, and so on. This guy comes and starts the whole debate again. I realise this was partly down to me continuing it, however.
The latter is a fair point . . . the former is nothing but your opinions. Some people prefer WA to DC, some people prefer both, some people prefer DC to WA and some people hate them both. However, if you honestly think that WA balance was worse than DC 1.0 (and even 1.2, if you're going to compare WA 1.51) then you're even more of an Ebbert-hater than I first took you for.DC was not balanced, but it was indeed a better game than WA ever was. The man said nothing about SS; that's your own fabrication to try to embellish your ad hominem attacks.
No, it's up to Troubleshooter. The thread starter. Who already laid down why the topic of conversation that GG started/continued on with was inappropriate. And now we have GG's friend bringing up the same debate.It's really not up to you what this thread is about. As long as the post content adheres to the thread title, and makes a point, it should not be ridiculed without reason.
Note that GG has since moved onto another topic of discussion which is both engaging and somewhat interesting. With my help, I might add.
You missed the part where I was talking about the difference between unique roles in design and hard counters in the metagame. KPMaker was getting his terminology confused in an attempt to prove . . . something. I was clarifying why what he was saying didn't really make sense.Lastly, you are deluding yourself if you think DOW2 has not been mutated into a game centered around hard counters. I believe Relic's "epiphany" happened in the first major patch... There Is ONly War? Basically the patch where Scouts became SM melee counters. Even the post-patch loading screens clearly demonstrate Relic's intents at creating a hard counter game. Relic, as said, creates great game engines... but it simply doesn't have the talent or resources to balance a game based on roles and functions. That's HARD. Balancing a game based on hard counters is much easier, and Relic wouldn't have such trouble with that if it didn't have to also worry about fluff vs game design vs balance. This shows through in both DOW1 and DOW2.
I never said the game didn't revolve around hard counters.
Yes it does, that's what Catachans are meant to be, they're even referred to as "baby ogryns" in fluff and they're supposed to be deadly in melee and it's said that each catachan is worth ten guardsmen from any other regiment, fluff wise it makes sense for them to be dangerous in melee and jack of all trades while still being humans, their low hp+their melee skill reflects this perfectly in game. They may need a few nerfs here and there but right now they're pretty well represented.A super melee guardsmen unit makes no sense at all.
If the Ig have the best "anti-melee" units in the army it's precisely because they're the most vulnerable race in melee, stomp is imo kind of OP at the moment with the stun, but the ability is so obvious(what with the giant mechanical chicken suddenly running at you and lifting one feet 1 meter above the ground for like 2 seconds) that it's also very easy to dodge, and let's not forget that sentinels are also pretty weak so you're putting the sentinel into a lot of danger by moving it forward like that even when it has back up, as an example tactical marines 1 on 1 will take out a sentinel pretty fast unless it runs away or it has support.Also in metagame terms, the IG race is the strongest anti-melee army in the game. Melee should pose a significant threat to the IG faction, and one that needs to be dealt with via good micro and well-chosen weaponry. Guardsmen have the strongest t1 melee units, as it stands right now. What can stand before sentinels and catachans in t1 melee? Nothing. Stomp plus chuck norris melee will counter almost any melee unit in the game.
In a real game things are not so simple you have to consider the fact that Catachans have no durability and cost a lot and when you get down to it model by model they're not better in melee than anything else, and let's not forget that guardsmen suck so much in melee that ANYTHING will kill them in melee, they're never safe because even assuming catachans engage assault marines in melee to stop them from butchering everything else, Tactical marines can also move in and bash guardsmen in half with their bolters and another thing is that while i haven't tested it i have the feeling that tactical marines+assault marines vs Cats will win in melee, and then the guardsmen are screwed. And if you jumped with the ASM and a sentinel stomped them that means that the stomp will not be happening on your commander or other units, which again can easily end with the IG dying horrible.
There's a lot of variables and Cats are not the best melee unit, simply because they cost so much, Heretics and sluggas are probably better but that'd be a balance discussion and doesn't have a place in this thread.
Scouts who are on the verge of becoming battle brothers have had decades of experience in being scouts. They are not teenagers/20-ish dudes who have just been accepted. By the time you're a full-fledged scout deploying with an elite detachment of your chapter, you have had long years of training and experience. I hate it when scouts are portrayed as being very "green." Also remember that they were accomplished warriors and very tough deathworlders BEFORE they became initiates. So take your standard catachan-level soldier and then turn THAT into a space marine, minus the power armor, and that's a baseline scout. They are definitely superior on a model for model basis to any guardsman, including catachans.Yes, but scouts are recent inductees which means that they're in their teens or early twenties so even though they have the genetic modifications, they don't have the experience of hardened Catachan veterans. Scouts might have the physical attributes of a Marine but that doesn't mean that they have the ability to put those characteristics to use so soon after a massive physical transformation. Think of it like teenagers being clumsy and uncoordinated during puberty if you want, only much, much, worse since the changes are much, much, bigger. The whole point of posting initiates to the scouts is so that they have the time to get used to their new bodies and pick up some combat experience without putting them in as much danger as a tactical marine.
The tt game has very difficult rules to put into an RPG or a RTS setting. There is not much fine tuining possible with unit stats, as it's based on six sided dice, chance, and broad stats (the difference between s3 and s4 is huge in gaming terms, and there are no gradients for anything in-between for tt characters). That is why I like to use FFG's 40k RPG line instead of the tt game for a good baseline of comparison for units in CE. I call it Codex Edition because I'm trying to add all or most of the army lists from the codices, but I've made it clear that tt rules are based on chance whereas a system with hp and damage tables is based on attrition, and the two do not really intersect.Actually, Characters like Iron Hand Straken are an interesting point to consider. Here we have a Catachan Colonel who is so decked out in bionics and he's literally tougher than a space marine and could punch out a Terminator with his bare hands. We also have Guardsman Marbo who runs around with an AP 2 pistol and a huge poison knife that wounds 5/6 times. We also have Sgt. Harker who can carry around a heavy bolter and can move and shoot with it at the same time - something not even Space Marines can do. Catachan produced all of these soldiers, and whilst not every one of them is quite as badass, why is it implausible that two Catachan veterans can take down an Assault Marine?
IG heroes have higher stats becasue you can only field 1 of them. GW themselves have said that SM are not represented in a fluff-accurate sense in tt because it would be very powerful model-for-model (and thus you wouldn't have to buy very many SM models to max out a 2500 point army list). Also it would be hard to balance with points cost compared to other armies with a luck/chance rolling system. Regarding Straken being tougher than a Space Marine, take a look at the "just for fun" movie marines codex Sergeant, that's a fluff-accurate Sergeant for you. WS9, S6 T5 and his botler is assault 4 rending, or something like that. Most SM melee attacks ignore armor saves and their weapons also have extremely high stats, I think the SM plasma was S9 and the Heavy Bolter was S7. This obviously isn't the standard tt stats, but it's VERY similar to the balance on Deathwatch RPG space marines and chaos space marines. Normal human weapons do about 1/2 the damage of Astartes weapons, and SM get to double their strength and toughness bonuses BEFORE adding any bonus for power armor. Enemies are ranked as hordes (fodder), elites (MEQ) and masters (takes a kill-team of 4-5 DW marine players to defeat). Now we can begin to see that with an attrition system with RPG type stats and hp and the like, we can more properly represent SM power levels as individual troops. I wouldn't make Straken stronger than the Termie Force Commander, but he'd be powerful and have a strong melee retinue made up of Ogryns. That is a plausible melee commander choice for a Guardsmen army list, doesn't violate fluff, doesn't trivialize the iconic Space Marines, and also doesn't make light of the Guardsmen's general fragility.
As for why is it implausible that 2 catachan vets can take down an ASM? For starters, they aren't armed for it. They have no weapon capable of overcoming power armor. Even if they did, ASM physiology and offensive power would make quick work of humans, even if they DIDN'T have power armor on. That chainsword is as big as the catachan vet is, and the guy swinging it has 50-100 years of practice with it. Why are you kicking him again?
Regarding the rest of your post about composite regiments yes, I am aware of that, but it would be better for a dow2 army if we had Cadians all together, Krieg all together, and Catachan all together, to give each army and their commanders more personality. Take a look at the mishmash of chaos, you've got Khorne demons being summoned by a Tzeentchian sorceror supported by Slaaneshi noise marines and a big fat Nurgle GUO. Not impossible to imagine, but not the best way it could've been represented. Why not give each commander his own specific demons and greater demons? Yes I know, the dev team "didn't have time" to model and animate all those different creatures, and they derp'd when they realized that 3 commanders wouldn't allow all 4 gods into mp with that arrangement either. The simple solution would be to add a 4th commander slot, at least for chaos, and add all 4 gods' demons in. Instead, we get a lot of unorthodox/un-fluffy combinations based on the rock/paper/scissors rts that relic imagined before they realized they had to slap 40k stuff in there, and this is the result.
#181
You seem to be under the impression that MP is designed to be "fluffy" before it is "balanced".
I find all this talk about Catachans being OP to be over exaggerated, I amit I haven't played much of the beta but when I did, they just dropped like flies, for a while I didn't even notice they were good in melee lol. But anyway here is my view on them:
Fluff wise - I think there just fine tbh
Gameplay - I don't find them OP at all, in fact at first I avoided them, for their cost and the fact they have little health there fine how they are for the game. They are a kill or die unit, and lots of game have them.
KHORNE - When life gives you lemons.......BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!!!!
Gorb, my entire "thesis" in all these arguments is that it IS possible to give a pleasingly accurate representation in a 40k war game/rtt like this, and still make it balanced and competitive.
We may bicker over specifics, but you must admit - on a lot of the 40k representations in dow2, it's like relic didn't even try to care about lore/canon. They just came up with a hard counter based generic rts, and slapped some 40k artwork on it.
Why does tabletop, the entire point of the universe, get a pass while DoW2 does not? Or do you go around posting how TT should be completely changed as well?
Games Workshop themselves have announced that tt stats for SM models do not reflect their "true" stats in fluff and thus tt stats are moot by default.
Just for fun, GW released "true" space marine stats in their movie marine article in White Dwarf, and not only would it be hard to balance in tt, since the stats are so limited in scope compared to the depth and detail that an RPG or Video Game format could provide, but they make a lot of money off of the sale of SM models - right now you need to buy quite a few to field a competitive army. A "true" or "movie" marines army would not take many models to fill out a 2500 point list. So I understand why they "nerfed" their own SM for the purposes of table top.
In a game like this, as in 40k Roleplay, there is MUCH more room for fine-tuning stats and a more epic representation of things like SM/CSM and Nid Warriors. DOW2, like Deathwatch RPG, HAS THE CAPACITY to give us a fluff-accurate and pleasing representation of the IP for 40k fans to enjoy, in an attrition *(damage tables and hp/armor values, etc.) based ruleset that CAN be balanced using DOW2 game mechanics. The mechanics of tt don't allow this for reasons I already specified, and GW freely admits that "you can't judge the awesomeness of Space Marines by the nerfed version that is used in the tt game." Therefore comparing DOW2 balance/Deathwatch Marines to tt stats is a non-argument.
#186
For the MP, I would agree, but that's purely because balance makes a mockery of a lot of things. Fluff adherence in DoW II MP is done far better than in DoW I MP, and I would go as far as to say that it is an improvement on the Tabletop model.
For the SP . . . no, no agreement there. Especially with Retribution around the corner . . . I can't think of a set of Campaigns that have made me feel like I'm playing the heroes of the 40k universe more. vDoW and WA had a decent plot but little flexibility (though they had the added bonus of ushering new players into the MP game by teaching them how to progress through the respective factions), in my opinion, however DC and SS had less plot/complete absence of plot (barring a few scripted NIS sequences) at the expense of more nifty game mechanics. DoW II brought the best of both worlds together along with the feeling that you are Space Marines taking on hordes of aliens.
Having played Retribution, I can honestly say it's the best yet (though I was a massive fan of the CR SP Campaign, purely for the Corruption mechanic if nothing else) out of all of the DoW games, at least for me.
So, if Relic announced that DoW2 is their adaptation of the universe, which I believe they've done, like GW, it'd be okay then? How is there more room in a video game for fine tuning stats? Just make every marine model 500 points. Or 432 points. The stats (and pretty much everything) are entirely made up (like the 40k RPG!), there's no special effects or animation or graphics requirements for TT. The people who play TT are also much, much more likely to know about the fluff than the average DoW player.
Screw DoW2, let's join forces and take this to a TT forum so that we can bitch at GW and their fluff raping policies directly.
If they announced that "dow2 is not a serious interpretation of 40k and that it isn't really based on the IP, but just used the images/characters for marketing purposes for what is essentially a generic r/p/s/ strategy game," then yeah, I guess. But that would leave mods like CE as the ONLY outlet for 40k fans to get their rts gaming fix.
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Gorb, we were mainly discussing MP. The SP campaign had some issues with it as well, such as guardsmen having 923432 hp and calling arty on their own heads, and SM heroes ganging up on a single unarmed human taking way too long to kill him, etc. but at least it gave a better feel than the MP. I will say this, however: random tyranid gaunts dropping master crafted dreadnought assault cannon relics is by far the strangest thing in SP or MP. They could've had a system where you buy all your access to relics and better gear from the chapter armory by gaining Honor Points in missions or something. Having them as "drops" diablo-style was incredibly silly and I don't know why they went with that.
#189
So you're discussing adherence to fluff in an environment where Relic have specifically stated they have had to make severe concessions for balance?
What concessions are you referring to? We've already established that MP can be both fluffy and balanced. It can adhere to 40k lore enough so that it is pleasing to diehard 40k fans and yet balanced enough to make for a good, competitive game.
Are you talking about the campaign? The campaign doesn't have nearly the balance issues that mp does as far as game design concerns. You can make the campaign do almost anything you can imagine, so I don't see how they had to make guardians and guardsmen come out of the gate with 9234256 hp and take ages to beat down. Now THAT kills immersion by turning the supposedly grimdark violence of 40k into a looney toons beatdown lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBzJGckMYO4Now THAT kills immersion by turning the supposedly grimdark violence of 40k into a looney toons beatdown lol.
Didn't know porky pig was in 40k. If only i can micro away from his aoe drum buster technique.
I don't think micro is gonna cut it, commissar. That drum buster is clearly OP.
Uh, the movie marine rules were a joke intended to model the space marines off of action movie hero tropes. They weren't intended to be a serious fluff representation at all. There was a Stunt Double rule, where you get to switch a model with a "stunt double" before rolling. I don't see how that's representative of the fluff at all.Games Workshop themselves have announced that tt stats for SM models do not reflect their "true" stats in fluff and thus tt stats are moot by default.
Just for fun, GW released "true" space marine stats in their movie marine article in White Dwarf, and not only would it be hard to balance in tt, since the stats are so limited in scope compared to the depth and detail that an RPG or Video Game format could provide, but they make a lot of money off of the sale of SM models - right now you need to buy quite a few to field a competitive army. A "true" or "movie" marines army would not take many models to fill out a 2500 point list. So I understand why they "nerfed" their own SM for the purposes of table top.
#194
I kinda must have missed the part where "fluffy" and "balanced" goes hand-in-hand.
Adherence to fluff breaks balance because the fluff is
a) contradictory,
b) favours whomever the protagonist(s) of the novel is (are), and
c) has a complete disregard for balance. Examples include Haegr, GIANT SPACE WOLF THAT CAN BREAK DOWN DOORS EVEN REGULAR SPACE MARINES CAN'T, Mkoll, the IG Sergeant that is actually a ninja-psychic-superpowered-Superman-from-an-alternate-dimension-who-isn't-weak-to-Kryptonite, and many, many more. The fluff revolves around special characters that achieve the impossible and defy the odds on a day-to-day basis. The redshirts, the mooks . . . these guys die without so much as an afterthought. How is this anything approaching a form of faction-based balance?
Thus, you cannot have a game that is balanced if it adheres to the existing fluff, because the fluff itself isn't balanced. Even the Codex entries for each particular race favour the race whose Codex it is (predictably), and the victories seem to be getting larger and larger each time (3ed Chaos Codex, the Daemon Prince Periclitor killed an SM Chapter Master and a few million humans. 5ed Space Marine Codex, Marneus Calgar saved the Imperium a coupla times. Subsequently - in the 5ed Tyranid Codex - the Swarmlord beats Calgar into paste. Yes, my friends, power creep defines Codex-based fluff).
It isn't, but the point still stands: regular tt marines are deliberately underpowered for the sake of the tt game and for the sake of model sales. The point that "real" marines would have much higher stats and better gear, and thus require fewer models and be harder to balance on a scale that really only comes down to various takes on a 1-in-6 chance, kind of renders moot any argument using tt s4 t4 space marines as a good "fluff" standard.
I don't put forward the WD article on movie marines as a gold standard for fluff balance, only that it's "in the spirit" of what fluffy marines might look like in tt terms. I said many times, that the FFG 40k Roleplay system is the best place to look for "believable" stats for SM, guardsmen, and the like, and we can adjust from there to make our "fluffy" rts game to fine-tune it to our tastes.
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Emperor H. Christ guys, you've made enough straw men in this thread to field an entire PDF with.
1. I don't use the novels as the basis for my fluff/balance points.
2. I don't use tt stats, rather the units/army list from the codices to include things players want to see.
3. If you want to see where I get my baseline/rough draft reference points for balance, look at the DEATHWATCH RPG FROM FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES. And then I take into account the video-game factor and try to represent these things as best I can.
The whole idea that fluff and balance are mutually exclusive is what I'm against. The idea that we need to allow ridiculous things that are counter-intuitive and downright silly because "fluff doesn't matter at all when it comes to balance" is a pet peeve of mine. It would take some more work and research, but I contend that you absolutely can have a grimdark, fluff-friendly, balanced MP game that looks and feels like 40k without resorting to the "safe" formula of a generic r/p/s rts game and without resorting to fluff rape for the sake of balance.
#196
You yourself have a strawman. Which has been addressed already:
1. "why does TT abuse the fluff?"
2. "oh because it's allowed because GW said so"
1. "then what's wrong with DoW II abusing the fluff?"
2. *silence*
Honestly, if you come up with an RTS game that doesn't sacrifice fluff for balance, feel free to make it yourself or at least to pitch it to a gaming company. You should make a fortune
The P&P RPG isn't a good point for balance. It's not engineered for competitive multiplayer in the way that DoW and TT is. The rules are there to show what actions the players are allowed to take, and what the DMs can do with monsters and other events. Practically, this means that a player party can take on an entire hive fleet and survive, because the rolls are good, or the DM allows it.If you want to see where I get my baseline/rough draft reference points for balance, look at the DEATHWATCH RPG FROM FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES. And then I take into account the video-game factor and try to represent these things as best I can.
That type of balance just doesn't apply to competitive multiplayer games like TT or DoW. P&P makes the players powerful. DoW needs to make the players equal. The two aren't really compatible.
It gives you a baseline for comparison and than you can adjust from there for video gaming purposes. Under no circumstances would ANY of those sources have normal humans in fucking boots beating Astartes in power armor with chainswords. If you still don't get it, you never will.
Could we knock it off with the "CE, DoWPro, and et cetra would be the only outlet for 40k fans to get their 40k RTS gaming fix" lark please? The whole reason I play Dawn of War is because it is an RTS game that is inspired by the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. Relic Entertainment are not faultless and their 40k games could be more accurate to the setting, but it is not like those of us who enjoy 40k and the tabletop game cannot enjoy what Relic offer us. I do not play ranked games in Dawn of War 2 so I care not quite so much about balance, I'm more inclined to care about how enjoyable the gameplay mechanics are. I do like a bit of adherence to the setting - as much as fluff can be a fickle beast, a few Deathwing wiping out a whole Genestealer infestation seem balanced to you? What I want first and foremost is an extremely enjoyable RTS experience, Company of Heroes springs to mind and people even complained about realism in that, any resemblance to tabletop rule-sets or fluff is an appreciated bonus. I do not mind sacrificing some fluffiness if the end result is an engaging and enjoyable gameplay experience. Optimally nothing would be sacrificed to - but why else do people debate over fitting stories around gameplay, or gameplay around stories other then the fact that the law of averages says that usually one must be sacrificed somewhere for the other in the current world of game development.
There has to be a financial realization that Relic Entertainment have a duty to firstly produce a commercially successful game for THQ, which hopefully introduces new people to 40k and makes them customers for future 40k products as Games Workshop desires. As much as Relic Entertainment have been seen as innovators in the RTS genre as one of the main studios for THQ these days they are unlikely to take on too many risks lest they develop a commercial flop which then hits THQ in the back pocket (shareholder hate that stuff). The whole idea of having an RTS based on the 40k franchise is to introduce new people to the franchise so that GW, itself a business, can grows it's bottom line not to appease people's desires for a more fluffy game (unless they happen to be the buying majority). Sure Relic Entertainment probably could improve the adherence to the 40k setting in their games but unless you need to do so to grow your sales it happens out of passion for 40k and the fluff fitting in to your game design, and so takes a backseat to finding ways to increase the appeal and sales of your games.
Now feel free to bash the hell out of my argument because it offers a conflicting point of view that upsets yours, or whatever other counter points people can think of.
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Seriously. I guess most people just don't care as much about fluff as you do, GG. Relic has made a fun RTS loosely based on 40K and that's enough for me. If you can't enjoy the game because catachans beat unsupported ASM in melee, that's your loss.
Enjoy making your mod.
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