Space Marine to receive no further updates

[Kalimac]

Just thought it was worth mentioning, even if we probably all knew it, so it won't really come as a shock to anyone. Sledgehammer confirmed via twitter that there are no further updates to Space Marine planned as of now. Most likely there will be no new content in the future either.

[Nasarog]

What a huge failboat.

[Pseudonymn]

Despite my widely publicized opinions regarding this game, I just want to express my disappointment at this news. I truly wish things could have turned out differently and for the better. The game was so close to being everything a 40K fan such as myself could have hoped for and I sincerely hope that Relic will find itself in a position to learn from this first attempt and try again to deliver something truly worthy of both the 40K franchise and our faith.

[GeoffS]

^^^ Who are you and what have you done with Pseudonymn?

Yeah, it's a shame that the game was never given the chance to be all it could have been. On the bright side, I guess this makes DoW3 more likely...

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Give us mod tools and open Steam Workshop and we'll have a blast with it.

[Gorb]

@GeoffS: considering the layoffs, I sincerely doubt it

[Pseudonymn]

In fairness, Geoffs, my issues were for the most part never about not liking the game (quite the contrary in fact), only that it didn't work as described on the tin. And I really am dismayed that it won't get the attention it deserves.

Humorously, after reading the news here, I was reminded of an episode of Ninja Warrior (Sasuke in Japan) the other day. I was immediately reminded of the performance of one of the contestants and I laughed and then cried a little inside at the same time once I realized the parallels, given all the hype and pumping this game received.

[Cyke]

That's a shame.

Pseudonym, I never read your earlier stuff.. what do you feel the game needed to have?
Longer campaign? More polished gameplay? Dedicated servers?

[fuggles]

A block button; better combat all round, online play that wasn't technically terrible, DLC that didn't split the fanbase, a final boss that you actually

Spoiler

fought

[Hirmetrium]

Sad, but pretty expected news. We could have a couple of farewell games I guess.

[Mirage Knight]

Sounds like a plan, Hirm. Feel free to invite me for a game

[Arbit]

Not surprising, with the way THQ is struggling and the writing was on the wall after DoW2 lost support. Really, once the Tau Commander was released as a The Last Stand DLC rather than as part of playable multiplayer faction, I strongly got the vibe that long term support was not in the cards for either DoW2 or SM. I imagine all hands are on deck trying to make CoH2 as good as it can possibly be.

For a hypothetical SM2, the element I'd most like them to improve is one-on-one melee combat. Basically, there wasn't any besides the warboss fight. Everything else (nobs, chaos champions, etc), you just backpedal and fill their face with lead, or you use fury and kill them instantly. Trying to fight them in melee was ridiculously impractical (hit once, roll away) or just downright impossible.

Also, less empty rooms and hallways.

[Kien]

I always felt this was kind of a low budget game that relic would not care about as much as DoW1 for example. Three expansions and probably more patches than this game it got. Space Marine gets some aesthetic DLC (which many consider overpriced, and can't be properly modified) and some stuff that too few players buy to make those who do buy it never able to use it, obvoisly I speak of maps and chaos extermiantus here.

There are some weird things of the game that needs fixing. Kick vote for example. Playing with inactive people in exterminatus (or novices) ruins all. A strange aesthetic issue is that only the host in exterminatus gets all the gore effects (melta turns orks to ash, bolter makes bodies explode) and vocals ("green tide!", "too much dakka!").

Mod tools would be cool yes, I keep thinking a lot about what stuff could be added. I just wonder if a multi-melta could be possible with all the problems the melta gun already has...

It's a simple, repetitive fun game in the end that I have played lots of.

[Maktaka]

Relic can only care about it as much as they can get paid to. THQ writes the checks, and those come from game and DLC sales of the title. If there aren't enough of the latter, THQ is going to stop doing the former. Relic's made two forays into third person shooters now and done pretty well both times, they clearly have the interest, but enthusiasm alone can't pay rent.

Although it didn't help that the expensive Homefront was terrible, THQ's board flushed a ton of money down the toilet on porting uDraw to the 360 and PS3 instead of making titles for the financially-sound Wii version, and the same fools decided that the next UFC game would need to ship more units than Final Fantasy or they'd sell the license to EA (guess who owns the license now).

[Pocktio]

I had much fun with you, beloved Space Marine. Let me remember the good times, and not any of your glaringly shit issues.

Seriously, fire the script writers, or turn them into servitorss. The story was Goto level bullshit.

[Pseudonymn]

The story was Goto level bullshit

Oh, wow, lol! And here I thought my opinions were harsh!

I didn't mind the story arc so much as that there were obvious parts missing throughout the campaign, the ending not least of which. I genuinely liked Titus' character and his voice acting was pretty good. He's no Gabriel Angelos, mind you, but he has a lot going for him. Give me Space Marine all over again and let me play as Gabe with a much stronger SP campaign ... and I might just forgive all the rest that's happened in between.

what do you feel the game needed to have? Longer campaign? More polished gameplay? Dedicated servers?

This is probably not the best place to answer those questions (in fact, experience has taught me that it definitely is not). You can find my thoughts on those issues elsewhere with a little searching. Be warned, however, as there are numerous and mighty walls of text to sift through.

I will say this, however, tying it in to my comments up above:

I do think Relic tried to do too much at once by taking on both SP and MP aspects of the game. I feel that they could have really blown the lid off this franchise had they first and foremost given us all a spectacular SP campaign. In comparison to other SP only franchises out there; games like God of War, Gears of War, and perhaps the king of all SP games out there today, The Elder Scrolls franchise; Space Marine seriously under performed given the richness of its host material.

They really needed to give us just one highly polished version of the game, not two half baked products rolled up into one. And it's my opinion that the best way to establish a franchise is to inspire people's imaginations first with a great story. All of today's biggest block buster MP games have their roots in single player entertainment.

And just like I would be very quick to purchase MP DLC installments for games like Oblivion or Skyrim at the right price, despite the flaws present on both of those games; if Relic had dazzled me with Space Marine's SP cojones, I probably would have beaten down the door to get an MP DLC installment after the fact.

[Kalimac]

All of today's biggest block buster MP games have their roots in single player entertainment.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true, however I agree that they probably should have focused more on either the SP or the MP. They kind of hit a middle mark, where the single player felt lacking in story/pacing/variety (or so I've read, I still haven't finished it) while the issues with multiplayer were more of a techical nature.

As a side note, I still play the MP about almost every night, still haven't grown tired of it.

[uncle_anaesthesia]

single player has some awesome moments with some mindless space fillers (dark tunnel marathon) and a crap end boss fight.
mp still good apart from the afore mentioned problems, im still playing regulary. just wish they would have patched the maps together for all and released mod tools or map maker

[Akranadas]

I hated the Orks so much, they were so... unOrky to me when compared to the DoW Orks.

[Pseudonymn]

The artwork was great, but yeah, the voice acting was not spot on the way DoW orks were. They seemed almost too civilized, too refined in the way that they spoke.

[Cyke]

Hrm.. Space Marine with a single player storyline with the breath and depth of Dawn of War I, where you are Gabriel Angelos.. and Orks as Orky.
That would be insanely awesome, agreed.
Hell, give us Gorgutz!

The absence of parrying and blocking is also strange.. sans jump packs, close combat is rather simplistic. I agree that this is rather disappointing, as the violence of brutal close combat is a very large part of the 40k universe.

The greatest disappointment of all comes from the fact that they've abandoned support and potential for future games based on the sales performance of the DLCs, which only didn't sell well because of their poor implementation.
The content of the DLCs themselves is not the real issue, it's how they were implemented.. and it would have taken so little extra effort to get it right.

Another thing that big publishers don't understand is that making a game easy to modify lengthens its longetivity, increases the number of late sales (long after release), and guarantees success of sequels. It seems that publishers tend to be business people that don't have a very good understanding of how long-term communities (of moddable games) work.

[Kien]

The absence of parrying and blocking is also strange.. sans jump packs, close combat is rather simplistic. I agree that this is rather disappointing, as the violence of brutal close combat is a very large part of the 40k universe.

I like the simplicity of the game. Adding blocking would require the need to figure out some rock-paper-scissor system to make it work properly. Like AvP3 where heavy > block > light > heavy.

Another thing that big publishers don't understand is that making a game easy to modify lengthens its longetivity, increases the number of late sales (long after release), and guarantees success of sequels. It seems that publishers tend to be business people that don't have a very good understanding of how long-term communities (of moddable games) work.

I thought only a tiny minority of players cared about mods for any game. Most players only bother with the single player part of games, not even going online.

What experience does people have with DLC maps from other games? I have only played AvP3 and like in Space Marine, no one had the maps so you never got to play them.

[Pseudonymn]

I like the simplicity of the game. Adding blocking would require the need to figure out some rock-paper-scissor system to make it work properly.

I would think that a CQC system rather like the one used in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time & Warrior within (Two Thrones threw the baby out with the bath water, imo) would have been a good place to draw inspiration from. Blocking was both simple and entertaining to use with a counter-attack system that, while not a required skill in all situations; it did add variety to the game and was challenging enough to keep combat a heck of a lot more interesting than simple button-combo mashing or, worse, quick time events.

I thought only a tiny minority of players cared about mods for any game.

Both the Oblivion and Skyrim communities would like to have a word with you. Just have a look at the Steam Workshop for Skyrim alone. That game practically pioneered a whole new distribution model for Steam all on its own. And Skyrim continues to be a top 10 seller LONG after its release. I would say only in the last month or two after the summer sales event did Skyrim finally fall off the top 10 featured games list on Steam's front page Skyrim content is back in the top 10 as of this posting and is being outpaced in sales by its first DLC package in the top 5 a month after its release.

Skyrim had hundreds of thousands of people playing it at any given time during the day for at least the first 4-6 months after release and still hasn't dropped below ~40K users. It continues to outpace the latest CoD clone. Not bad for a highly moddable single player game with DLC that sells like hotcakes, amirite?

Frankly, I'm surprised that more developers don't view the Elder Scrolls franchise as their go-to model for making piles and piles of money. Space Marine a-la Skyrim? I might never leave the house!

Regarding my experiences with DLC maps, I've only bad experiences with games that release DLC map packs/content that divide the community. BF2 had Special Forces and some other pack that I didn't bother with and can't remember now because they never, ever got used and/or would content-boot everyone from full servers save for the handful of people who were gullible enough (like me) to buy them. AvP3 had it's map packs as you know that were likewise worthless. Other than that, I've steered clear of MP DLC that is clearly divisive. Just about the only DLC / FreeLC model that seems to have had any success in an MP setting are TF2's hats and stuff or other cosmetic junk that people like to buy.

[Gorb]

Likely because 40k modding content would have to be supervised by Games Workshop. Oblivion is their own IP, so people doing whatever they want with Skyrim is fine by them.

[Pseudonymn]

Well, there's that. But I can still dream, can't I? Still, you've got to acknowledge that both Skyrim and its premium DLC are doing exceptionally well and would be worth emulating for any developer.

[Kien]

I would think that a CQC system rather like the one used in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time & Warrior within

I have no idea how it works so I can not tell how well it would work here.

Both the Oblivion and Skyrim communities would like to have a word with you. Just have a look at the Steam Workshop for Skyrim alone. That game practically pioneered a whole new distribution model for Steam all on its own. And Skyrim continues to be a top 10 seller LONG after its release. I would say only in the last month or two after the summer sales event did Skyrim finally fall off the top 10 featured games list on Steam's front page Skyrim content is back in the top 10 as of this posting and is being outpaced in sales by its first DLC package in the top 5 a month after its release.

Skyrim had hundreds of thousands of people playing it at any given time during the day for at least the first 4-6 months after release and still hasn't dropped below ~40K users. It continues to outpace the latest CoD clone. Not bad for a highly moddable single player game with DLC that sells like hotcakes, amirite?

Later elder scrolls games are famous for the modding. It's a big part of it and with this steam mod thing it's much easier to be aware of stuff than before. How big portion of players cared about mods for dawn of war? Sure plenty of people on these forums but most players don't care enough to even visit forums of their games.

or, worse, quick time events.

You think of SP executions?

Btw does anyone agree with me that space marine felt like a budget game?

[Pseudonymn]

famous for the modding

That's precisely the point isn't it? A previous poster stated that games with strong modding communities enjoy greater longevity and success than those that don't. Emphasis on "strong". DoW1 never really had strong support for its mods or its communities, certainly not in the way that the Elder Scrolls did. Granted, they're different genres, but that's not to say that mod communities can't find a home in RTS environments. Look at what DoTA has become today.

I guess I could also go back again to my previous BF2 example and say that there was one mod that I thoroughly enjoyed: Point of Existence 2. It had a significant following at its peak, although if you pressed me for precise numbers I'd be at a loss to provide any. I can say that it breathed new life into the stock game for me, which was shit imo after the patches butchered so much of what made the game fun, and kept me playing "BF2" for many more months than I would have without it. PoE2 was what imo stock BF2 should have been and, as seems so often the case with modern games, its success was attributable to the modding community that "fixed" it.

I enjoyed the executions in SP AvP3 but they were an absolute disaster in MP. The execution circle jerks were one of the most monumentally annoying mechanics I've ever had to contend with in any game. Space Marine's SP executions were largely well done, although I detested having to mash the button in order to execute Nobs. The first time was like, "OK, so this is test of strength, I get it. Neat animations!" But after that it just became meaningless busy work. More to the point, however, the kind of quick time events that I truly believe have no place in video games are those that we've seen in games like SW: Force Unleashed or the latest Prince of Persia games starting with the Two Thrones installment. I'd rather have a pure cinematic kill sequence that follows my actually having defeated the toon with my own input rather than have such inputs dictated to me on the screen.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true

Kalimac, I've been thinking about this for several days, trying to poke holes in my own argument. I even concluded that you might actually be right about it when I thought of TF2 and the success it's seen. Then I remembered where it all originally came from: It all started as a mod for Quake, a game that was for its time primarily a SP game that later moved into and basically launched the MP FPS scene that we know today with the support of GameSpy's server listing services. I also thought of Portal, but it too has heavy ties to HL2, also primarily a SP game.

Battlefield is perhaps the only legitimately pure MP game that I can think of that has enjoyed better than even modest success and stands apart from any SP campaign as a standalone MP game and franchise. If you can think of any others, I'd love to hear about them because this problem has been bugging me all week .

[Kalimac]

I think I might have misunderstood you there (read: I only, err, skimmed through your post). Like you say all succesful MP games do probably have their roots in single player experiences, although I'm not quite sure the SP element is that important in every case. It gets a bit blurry when you get to games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike etc. where the multiplayer aspect arguably is the major part of the game and many gamers buy them only due to this. In all such cases that I can think of there has indeed originally been a singleplayer mode, but it's difficult to say how this has contributed to the popularity of the game.

I'd say it's probably a safe bet to focus on the single player aspect of the game during development, but I'm not sure it is a necessity.

Sorry for causing you unnecessary inconvenient reflection during the week.

[Pseudonymn]

It gets a bit blurry when you get to games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike etc. where the multiplayer aspect arguably is the major part of the game and many gamers buy them only due to this.

See, this is where I think you're mistaken, especially with those older games you mentioned. What you have to remember is that most of those games started off well before the Internet had matured into the gaming medium that we have now and most of those spawned the franchises that remain popular to this day. Setting up MP rounds in any of those games back then was a tricky, tedious experience and was often beyond the reach of the technologically challenged (ie: anyone who was not a computer geek setting up lan parties and who knew the difference between IPS/SPX and TCP/IP networks at the time). For that matter, two of those games you mentioned came out even before 56K modems were available and received mainstream support.

With the original CoD, I don't think anyone bought it looking for an MP experience. The SP campaign was arguably a much better polished game than the MP experience was and, unless my memory fails me, all of the maps were almost direct ports from the SP campaign. Gamers who buy games strictly for the MP portion of a title is largely a phenomenon of the modern games industry where studios that publish games like CoD (or any sports franchise) do so mainly to reap the greatest financial benefits for their host publishing companies with the least amount of effort.

I get what you're saying though in the sense that modern MP games just as often started out as mods involving the original game's engine and assets; it does muddy the water a little bit. But just as I would never have been able to play PoE2 without BF2, neither would we have had TF2 without Quake. The fan base and market for these games was already built in because of the successes of the SP games that came before them. There are legions of people out there (Skyrim!) who want to be entertained by SP games with great stories and immersive environments to indulge their every escapist delight and they are more often than not easily converted into MP players (buyers) as an added bonus.

And who wouldn't jump at that chance to explore Skyrim with a buddy or two? And really that's all I'm saying; strong SP games beget strong MP games, not vice versa. In fact, to extend the argument a little further, let me turn it on its head: I can't name a single game that transitioned from pure MP to SP. There's just not enough substance to it.

tl;dr SP games may not be expressly necessary, but they sure go a long way toward acquiring loyal, long term followers who are easily converted into MP gamers.

[Gorb]

You did mention a purely-MP experience yourself, however, two posts up. A mapmod that became an online scene that is in turn producing a large amount of successor games and spinoffs in the newly-created genre.

DotA. Defense of the Ancients, a 5 v 5 multiplayer map modification for the Warcraft 3 game. There was no SP at all involved; it was designed for a bit of fun (which rapidly evolved into a competitive beast, if memory serves me correctly).

Of course, there is an exception for every rule, but DotA (and LoL, HoN, Guardians of Middle Earth is a new one, Rise of Immortals and obviously DotA 2 by Valve) inspired/created a rapidly-expanding online scene that is purely multiplayer.

@Skyrim and modding: of course, I don't think I ever denied the fact that mods help a game I am a modder myself, as most people know!

@Cyke/r.e. blocking in Space Marine: I was under the impression the developers tried it, or at least had it planned. In my opinion it would stall out combat far too much which would make it even more of a suicidal affair than it currently is in MP (compared to the slew of ranged weaponry). Melee combat in Space Marine needs to be fast because of the inherent lethality of the game.

[Pseudonymn]

If you're looking for a retraction of my earlier comment to the effect that all successful modern MP games owe their success to prior SP franchises, I believe I've already given it. BF2 is a very good example of one such game that dove straight into MP and thrived. But really, that only strengthens my earlier assertion that Relic and, by extension, all the rest of us would have been better served had they focused their attention on either SP or MP, but not both.

I will dispute your classification of DoTA as a purely MP game, however, because I can show that it clearly has deep-rooted ties to the kind of rich, highly moddable SP soil that now allows it to flourish in the manner that it has. Blizzard's elder games, being primarily SP player experiences to start with, brought with them a built-in community that boosted all of DoTA's modern development, distribution, and success.

Games like DoTA might not ever have been popularized without the single player games that came before and the communities that they generated around them. People didn't buy these games strictly for their MP elements or, for that matter, their moddability. It just wasn't a part of the gaming culture at that time, lacking as it did the infrastructure that we have today for mass communications via the Internet. DoTA's present-day success and rising popularity was spring boarded off of the strength of Blizzard's SP games and the franchises that they had built around them, up to and including WC3. Moreover, apart from its incorporation of WC3's hero RPG elements, DoTA is not particularly unique, itself being a derivative of the tower defense map mods from games going as far back as Starcraft and perhaps even Warcraft 2 (although I can't remember for sure if WC2 in fact had TD mods or not, I'd be willing to bet that it did). In that sense, DoTA, in concept, is quite a bit older than just WC3's most popular version (and there were imitators).

My original argument was that SP player games can be both monumentally successful (Elder Scrolls, Blizzard's stuff) and generate equally successful MP spinoffs with ease once they've captured the imaginations of their audience. WoW's success was driven by people who wanted to participate in the world and mythos that Blizzard had established in their minds on a more personal level. Blizzard offered people the chance to dive into the painted worlds that they'd created in exactly the same manner as did Bert and the Banks children, Jane and Michael, with the help one very magical Nanny. And who wouldn't leap at the chance to explore places that before were accessible only in and through the clouded looking-glass of their imagination?

Just to tie this all back together then, Space Marine could have enjoyed much greater reach and appeal had it first focused on delivering a truly epic painted mural of WH40K and the Ultramarines for us all to lose ourselves in. Space Marines MP scene would have been an easy sell after that and we might have been able to enjoy a product with much greater success and longevity. I'm not saying it would necessarily be an easy row to hoe or that it would be the fast track to immediate and unimaginable fortunes, but there are many strong historical parallels to support this belief.

[Arbit]

I think there's some truth to what you're saying. With both DoWII and SM, Relic has shown a trend to diversify at the expense of polish. Like, DoWII is still plagued with silly bugs but they were busy making that Kill Team game (or whatever it was called, the The Last Stand-ish console game), making the Tau commander TLS DLC, etc. While ambition is cool and all, trying to make a deathmatch/capture the flag/control point/take and hold (seriously never played this mode)/dreadnought/horde mode + single player was spreading themselves too thin. If you remember, SM was also supposed to be a squad-based and have RPG elements, too.

I wonder how much of it is THQ pushing them to squeeze every last dollar out of their games.

[Mac_Bug]

Kill Team wasn't made by Relic

[Arbit]

Ah, I didn't realize that!

Despite having leveled up a sorc to 18 over the past few weeks, I'd still trade TLS for a final multiplayer patch any day.

Of course lack of patch support doesn't keep me from binging on 3v3s until 2 AM once or twice a week. Where else can you see a Great Unclean One vomit all over some eldar, hurling them back and into an empyreal abyss?

[Pseudonymn]

I stumbled across an interesting article today over at Escapist Magazine. Spec Ops: The Line lead designer Cory Davis had this to say about injecting an MP component into his game,

[Multiplayer] was literally a check box that the financial predictions said we needed, and 2K was relentless in making sure that it happened - even at the detriment of the overall project and the perception of the game," Davis said in a far-reaching interview with Polygon. The multiplayer side of the Spec Ops coin was developed by Darkside Studios, who Davis said produced a "low-quality Call of Duty clone in third-person" that "tossed out the creative pillars of the product."

"It sheds a negative light on all of the meaningful things we did in the single-player experience. The multiplayer game's tone is entirely different, the game mechanics were raped to make it happen, and it was a waste of money," he continued. "No one is playing it, and I don't even feel like it's part of the overall package - it's another game rammed onto the disk like a cancerous growth, threatening to destroy the best things about the experience that the team at Yager put their heart and souls into creating.

source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...ncerous-Growth

I'm forced to wonder if Relic weren't similarly forced down the same murky path?

And apparently EA has plans to turn its back on SP exclusive games, a sad, sad day for a company that at one time believed that video games were works of art and their producers were rock stars. It'll be interesting to see how this little socioeconomic experiment turns out, but if the comments following both of those articles are any indication, EA might have stepped full point into some doodoo.

Favorite user comment so far (on the Cory Davis article):

Just goes to show: not all games need a multiplayer component, despite publishers saying otherwise.

Multiplayer dies over time, but a good single player story will last forever.

[Cyke]

The trend of executives pressuring smaller studios into making unsound decisions is really horrible. Do these decisions that end up angering their customers (and wasting all the creative potential on their payroll) end up being financially sound, in the end?
Or are they aware of the ramifications of their decisions, and deliberately attempting to quickly get short-term profits instead of building solid franchises that continue to reap greater rewards (but spread out over more years)? I don't really understand this approach either, because if you look at a lot of massively successful titles, they are actually sequels of older games, where the earliest games in the series were developed with little to no executive pressure. I don't understand the business reasons for their decisions, but from what I can tell, they should just let the devs do what they do best, THEN once the players are hooked, the execs can go ahead with all their money-grabbing shenanigans.
TLDR: Don't the fucking corporate fatcats want our money?!

I agree with Pseudonym that a strong single player core almost guarantees a populous multiplayer community (disregarding genres where multiplayer is impossible). Basically make a single player game so fucking awesome that people love the living shit out of it, then ask the players: "Would you like to do it with your friends?"
Releasing SDKs for modding basically then asks the community, "HOW would you like to do it with your friends?".. and then everybody buys the damn game, even long after its release date.

On another note, I'd like to make an addendum to the quote "Multiplayer dies over time, but a good single player will last forever."
Public multiplayer dies over time, yeah, but a game that allows local hosting never dies, even its multiplayer. You can find between one to fifteen friends to play with, fire up Quake 1 right now (and any of its hundreds of excellent mods, such as AirQuake), and have a blast.


Gorb: I see your point about the blocking, extended the duration of close combat melee engagements would make them even more difficult to use in a game where shooting attacks are so common.
On another note that probably shouldn't be discussed on this thread, I was thinking that it is the lack of friendly fire makes perfectly safe to fire into close combat. Having friendly fire on would actually make it risky to fire into close combat for risk of killing your teammate, or at the least, you might accidentally injure him and cause him to lose a fight (that he would have won otherwise).
Of course, for purposes of public games, friendly fire needs to be disabled to prevent idiocy.

[dirtyprotest]

Well timed stun/ stomp doubles as a block - reducing damage (but pretty sketchy given inconsistent connection quality).
CQC required rebalance, stun vs melta blast back.
Hopefully Relic can take what they've learnt to Dark Millenium multiplayer.