Simple changes that could make the campaign better....

[Steel*Faith]

I seriously think the SP would've been much better if they simply added in more enemies to fight. I was really happy with the Ork fights in the campaign for the most part - although some parts could've used a lot more variations and numbers of greenskins.

When it came to the Chaos chapters, I thought there was a severe lack of Heretic Guardsmen to fight in most parts, and there could've been way more variety to the Chaos Marines - most of the time it felt like it was just some heretics, bloodletters, and plasma havocs. There should've been more havocs with heavy bolters, lascannons and autocannons. As for heretics, I think we should've got to fight large waves of heretics, and have them entrenched in heavy cover with heavy weapon teams. I was particularly disappointed with the Chaos Marine tacticals; I think there should've been more variety of them using different combos of chain axes w/ pistols, chainswords w/ bolters, meltaguns etc - there jsut seemed to be a severe lack of Chaos Marine melee fights, except for the Maulers which were pretty fun, but rare to encounter.

The game runs very smooth on the Ps3, so I wish they could've added way more enemies on screen at least, or at east more waves in certain parts - the game felt way to barren in many parts unfortunately.

[Gorb]

Increasing the number of enemies necessitates lowering the lethality of said enemies. Which, especially in the case of Chaos Space Marines, would undermine the experience Relic has tried to craft (in that they are a challenging, elite foe more than capable of smacking you down).

Unless of course you don't mind dying more or consider the game to be a cakewalk even on higher difficulties. These are likely viewpoints; I don't mean to portray them in a negative manner

[Demonic Spoon]

well no, his point is not that you should fight waves upon waves of Chaos Space Marines...But that each encounter with CSM should be somewhat different. Right now you mostly run into the same couple types of CSM when they could differentiate the encounters a bit more.

[Gorb]

I read the parts where he asked for more variety. I also read parts like this one:

The game runs very smooth on the Ps3, so I wish they could've added way more enemies on screen at least, or at east more waves in certain parts - the game felt way to barren in many parts unfortunately.

[Steel*Faith]

Yea, meaning why not have more enemy encounters and more fighting? There were large parts of the levels that were just running through cool landscapes, but no enemies to fight. I think there could've been more to fill in the gaps. As for adding more numbers of enemies, I was thinking more along the lines of adding way more heretics per encounter. There were fights where there was maybe 8 heretics, 3-4 bloodletters, and a chaos marine - I think fights like that could've been improved and made more challenging - like adding 20+ heretics, and a couple more Chaos Marines at least.

[Shuma]

The game runs very smooth on the Ps3, so I wish they could've added way more enemies on screen at least, or at east more waves in certain parts

Well... It runs smooth precisely because there weren't many enemies on the screen. That said, we should've had more on the PC, take Devil May Cry 4 for example, on the PC there's a special game mode not encountered on the console versions that multiplies the enemy count by a lot, and i do mean a lot, most of the time the screen just gets swamped.

Anyway, simple changes to make the campaign better... I honestly don't have many ideas that Relic doesn't have, i mean we all know they know and understand the franchise so it's not like they don't have ideas on how to make it better, i think the whole customization aspect would've made the campaign much better, much more enjoyable, why it was dropped is beyond me, although i assume they figured it was better to have it there for the next game so that they had something big and meaningful to add to the next campaign. And along with that obviously comes the ability of playing like whatever the hell you want, in the campaign you're pretty limited, basically you play as a Tactical marine or a Sarge, there's very few times when you get to play as a Devastator or Assault Marine, and when they come they're pretty short, if there's one thing i definitively disliked about the campaign was that, you get this cool toys and then the game just goes "fuck you, that's enough" and takes them from you, that's not a good thing.

I understand why it was done this way, this way you can really experience the power of the weapons, and if you could keep them the whole way they could make the game unfair or too easy, but for starters the whole idea of the game is to make you feel like an unstoppable killing machine, but the game very rarely delivers on that, and when it does, again, it's short lived. Not to mention that other stuff could've been added so that the game wasn't too easy if you had said weapons, for example if the enemy had used lootas/havocs and stormboy/raptors then they could counter your jump pack and heavy weapons respectively.

Another thing i felt is that Chaos Marines don't feel like Chaos Marines, in fact your ally Space Marines don't feel like Space Marines either, they just randomly wander around at a snail's pace shooting their bolters, now that's understandable for your allies for a multitude of reason, but the Chaos Marines should be on you all the time, instead they just stay away and take pot shots at you, it would've been nice to see them grab chainswords and just run at you, the only ones who do this are the champions and you fight i think, 5 in the whole game. Another thing is like Steel said, lack of enemy variation, and that's as simple as lack of weapon variety among them, especially on the Chaos forces, all heretics use the same weapons, Chaos marines have i believe only like 3 different weapons, bolter, plasma cannon and maul, and i think that's it, oh they also have lascannons, sometimes, but other than that they got squat, where are the meltas? Where are the Plasma guns? Or the stalker bolter and Storm bolter? All of this weapons are in the game, so why don't they have them in SP? Not to mention the Heavy bolter and the complete lack of Raptors.

Only reason i mention this is because they're things that are in the game, yet are missing from SP. If i went on to think on all the ideas i had on how the campaign could've been better i would be writing here for hours. But i'll just summarize on what i think was lacking and should be in the next one.

More enemies and enemy variation, especially on Chaos Forces, why does Nemeroth only have Bloodletters as demon allies? he's an undivided Sorcerer, what, is he an Undivided Sorcerer... Of Khorne? Again?
More weapons.
Vehicles.
Better environments, ok, i understand it's a forgeworld, i also understand it looks right, it's how a Forgeworld should look, unfortunately Forgeworlds look boring.
CUSTOMIZATION. This cannot be stressed enough, it's a big part of 40k, it should've been in the campaign, even if it was just Cosmetic, doesn't help that the Characters look boring, especially Titus who is probably the only captain in the whole galaxy who doesn't wear a cape. I know people are thinking "again with the capes..." Well i'm sorry, but Space Marines use capes, especially Captains and high ranking officers, go through GW's pages of Space Marine miniatures and you'll quickly notice it's easier to count HQ characters without capes than ones with capes, hell, Sicarius and Calgar both use giant capes. And either way, there should be more customization in the campaign besides cosmetics, remember all that about the bolter being upgradable and about combi weapons? Yeah, give us that.
And this is an important one, a better melee system, you got ranged combat perfectly, now it's time for melee combat, more weapons, more combos, more moves, more everything.

My biggest problem with the campaign in Space marine is that it got tedious, boring and repetitive, a lot of people say that 10 hours was too short, i beg to differ, considering the game mechanics and the poor variation of enemies in the last part of the game, i said it was more than long enough. In other words, anything to stop the next one from being repetitive and tedious is good, in other words, more weapons, more combos, more enemy types and customization.

[Jaimas]

I want to know why the crap we ONLY saw Plascannon Havocs in single-player when that's the one heavy weapon Chaos Marines don't get. I also want to know why we saw no Raptors and no special weapons for either the Guardsmen or Heretics.

And why the crap there was no Flamers, while I was at it.

[Gorb]

Just because it's not Codex, doesn't mean that they can't have them. I have nothing against Chaos Marines getting plasma weaponry in all of it's forms.

As for Flamers, I dunno. Obviously it wouldn't work in MP (oh hey you are tickling me, this is fun watching you tickle me), but perhaps it overlaps too much with the Meltagun's usage?

[Shuma]

I think his point was "why is the only weapon they have the one that they rarely have".

About the Flamers, i don't know, i myself would've loved to see Flamers but yeah, i don't really see much use to them in MP, unless of course they're better than i think, let's see what Lexicnaum has to say about holy Promethium:

"Flamers are flamethrower weapons, unleashing a liquid incendiary chemical that bursts into flames as it leaves the weapon. Similar flame-based weapons are used by several races and armies. They are valued for their ability to destroy many enemies at once, regardless of any protective cover. Both flamers and the more compact hand flamers are considered assault weapons due to their relatively short range. "
- http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Flamer#.ToxZXbLJmXs

Wow, it's fucking nothing.

[Gorb]

Shuma, his wording was precisely "when that's the one heavy weapon Chaos Marines don't get" (quoted). Please don't misinterpret what he meant

He was probably referring to the tabletop Codex, hence why I said what I said. That said, they have been able to use Plasma Cannons in the past, and I'm pretty sure Obliterators get them now as well (in that abomination of 4ed). But hey.

[Mirage Knight]

As for Flamers, I dunno. Obviously it wouldn't work in MP (oh hey you are tickling me, this is fun watching you tickle me), but perhaps it overlaps too much with the Meltagun's usage?

I'd rather replace the Melta Gun with a Flamer to be quite honest...AoE damage, lingering DoT applicable to surfaces and enemies alike for a short time, and target blinding. Wishful thinking though.

Obviously it wouldn't work? Tickling? Gorb...I'm a bit disappointed in you for making such a narrow-minded assessment. The only reason a Flamer would be that rubbish is if, as a dev, you intentionally it that way. Done right, a Flamer would absolutely rock and still be balanced.

Last I heard Flamers did the same amount of damage per shot as Bolters in TT. Certainly they don't have the range of Bolters, but they can fire on the move with no penalty, have that lovely template thing going for them that allows them to hit multiple targets at once, and lastly the ability to say "nice try, now fry" to units in cover. Also, Assaults and Tacticals get to play with them

[Shuma]

Last I heard Flamers did the same amount of damage per shot as Bolters in TT

In TT, but what about fluff? Do flamers even work on Marines?

[Gorb]

I'd rather replace the Melta Gun with a Flamer to be quite honest...AoE damage, lingering DoT applicable to surfaces and enemies alike for a short time, and target blinding. Wishful thinking though.

Obviously it wouldn't work? Tickling? Gorb...I'm a bit disappointed in you for making such a narrow-minded assessment. The only reason a Flamer would be that rubbish is if, as a dev, you intentionally it that way. Done right, a Flamer would absolutely rock and still be balanced.

Last I heard Flamers did the same amount of damage per shot as Bolters in TT. Certainly they don't have the range of Bolters, but they can fire on the move with no penalty, have that lovely template thing going for them that allows them to hit multiple targets at once, and lastly the ability to say "nice try, now fry" to units in cover. Also, Assaults and Tacticals get to play with them

1. If the Flamer blinded a target, Blind Grenades would become less useful (and I consider them to be the best-balanced of the three types of special equipment). AoE damage is all good and well, but the disadvantage would be the range, and the inherent lethality at having to get that close to a target. There's a reason Meltaguns have such high damage potential, and that's so you have a chance to kill before you are killed.

2. The assessment wasn't narrow-minded, I would've thought anybody familiar with the fluff behind the 40k universe would realise that something that required excessive damage over time to even harm the target wouldn't have much of a place in the gameplay of Space Marine.

3. Meltaguns can fire on the move with no penalty. The problem is the damage output is too low considering the range of the weapon. Bolters have range (and perks), hence the ability to get kills. Meltaguns have the damage (and perks), hence the ability to perform kills in close proximity.

Flamers have neither range nor damage, and short of inventing a "super duper promethium fuel that somehow burns hotter than regular promethium" perk, you're not going to get a perk that's really that useful (reload time perk? Useless, flamers traditionally have a decent burst length - if you shorten that in the default version you're making the weapon even less attractive).

[Zallis]

The fluff is often variable about the effectiveness of flamers against power-armoured soldiers. It generally says that they're not terribly useful - it's like trying to set a tank on fire, without the possibility of the fire getting to the engine. Conversely, there are instances where the flames are quite effective because the jounts and seals (like over the abdomen) are not shielded adequately from the heat.

In short, it can be as powerful or weak as you want it to be.

[konfeta]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD89Z0_Rav8

Flamers would be pretty cool as a medium range weapon (yes, the footage shows a tank mounted one, but what are spess mareens if not walking tanks of the grimdark future?). Not sure what would be their proper niche, though, Stormbolter seems to be the medium range gun.

Though, shouldn't this be more of a "Campaign would be improved with Flamer use against Orks" rather than "Meltagun vs. conceptual Flamer Multiplayer balance" discussion?

[Gorb]

Well that's what I was trying to get at with my original post, but we got sidetracked somewhat

And I swear, if Flamers were ever implemented with a "medium range", people complaining about three-man Space Marine squads in DoW II would be nothing compared to my wall of texts on how it's even more "fluff rape" and how the community is hypocritical for proposing such a suggestion while ranting at Relic for the most minor of fluff transgressions

[Calax]

I could see a quick boost to the number of guardsmen unleashed on the planet, while making them weaker.

After all, the entire point of the guardsmen vs Marines fight is that a marine will stomp his way through a pile of guardsmen until their laser pointers become concentrated enough to actually scar his armor. And yet right now one or two can stop you if they work hard enough (I think... I haven't done the guards levels in a while) and only show up in smaller squads and ALWAYS have some backup.

[konfeta]

And I swear, if Flamers were ever implemented with a "medium range", people complaining about three-man Space Marine squads in DoW II would be nothing compared to my wall of texts on how it's even more "fluff rape" and how the community is hypocritical for proposing such a suggestion while ranting at Relic for the most minor of fluff transgressions

I'll take a non-video game bullshit ruined flamethrower over the collective mountain of twisted panties belonging to fluffnerds.

[Danustar]

Ok, shoot me in the face for missing this but was there talk about a co-op campaign at some point?

[Jaimas]

Ok, shoot me in the face for missing this but was there talk about a co-op campaign at some point?

One of many things initially announced and then redacted.