Warhammer 40k MMO balance issues?

[jim1398]

The biggest problem is Necrons: Their goal is to end all life and thus destroy the warp. Okay there's the stuff about the machine god being a C'tan and similar theory about the Hive Mind and the eldar laughing god. But still they opposse everyone. Necrons should not be playable.

Tell that to Matt Ward and his 'Gehenna campaign'. Christ, I hope they don't let him anywhere near this. If he does get involved then I'm expecting Space Marines to be able to one shot everything in the game and anyone who actually manages to take one down (assuming they can get 40 other players together to do so) will be instantly banned from the game and said Space Marine player will be given a lifetime subscription as compensation for the inconvenience.

 

[Neverhoodian]

The biggest problem is Necrons: Their goal is to end all life and thus destroy the warp. Okay there's the stuff about the machine god being a C'tan and similar theory about the Hive Mind and the eldar laughing god. But still they opposse everyone. Necrons should not be playable.

Tell that to Matt Ward and his 'Gehenna campaign'. Christ, I hope they don't let him anywhere near this. If he does get involved then I'm expecting Space Marines to be able to one shot everything in the game and anyone who actually manages to take one down (assuming they can get 40 other players together to do so) will be instantly banned from the game and said Space Marine player will be given a lifetime subscription as compensation for the inconvenience.

Ah yes, Matt Ward. One of the biggest butchers of fluff since C.S. "Multilasers" Goto:

 

[Testosticore]

Orks can be corrupted by chaos just like everything else (except those who have survived a corruption and the sons of the Emperor but thats another story for another day). White Dwarf even had a segment on chaos orks.

Think you can site a source? Im having a hard time finding any definite article on Chaos Orks and Im interested on reading in on it.

 

[gideonkain]

If the races weren't balanced wouldn't the 40,000 year war be over? Why would there be 6+ playable factions, etc.

The problem with a Warhammer 40k MMO is that the universe is about squads and armies, not about the individual -- it would be like a Starcraft MMO where you can play as a Zealot but you get owned by Marauders

 

[Sangnz]

On a side note I would suspect Nids and Necrons will NOT be playable, they don't side with anyone and its fairly impossible to be a heroic badass individual when your part of a hive mind or a mindless robot

Best guess:
Imperium
Orks
Eldar
Chaos
Dark Eldar
Tau

Dark Eldar and Tau may be a stretch.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Orks can be corrupted by chaos just like everything else (except those who have survived a corruption and the sons of the Emperor but thats another story for another day). White Dwarf even had a segment on chaos orks.

Think you can site a source? Im having a hard time finding any definite article on Chaos Orks and Im interested on reading in on it.

Same here. It was my understanding that Orks used to cooperate with other factions at times and could be corrupted by Chaos on occasion, but GW retconned it out later on (like the Squats). After all, Orks used to mate in early iterations, but now it's stated that they just reproduce via spores.

 

[Testosticore]

If the races weren't balanced wouldn't the 40,000 year war be over? Why would there be 6+ playable factions, etc.

Well theres the thing standing in the way of any one army getting ahead is A] how expendable their troops are and B] their goals in the galaxy. See not all of them are can deploy millions of over powered troops, and not everybody wants to CONTROL the galaxy.

Orks, for example, are next to impossible to actually defeat, are all passively psykers, and are insanely powerful/durable. They would have steam rolled the galaxy right now if they actually WANTED to. Orks just like fighting. They fight humans, they fight nids, they fight choas, they fight each other. Their just not happy unless something is getting punched.

Space Marines want to conquer the galaxy, sure, but their mainly lookin out for mankind. If a system is in danger, they respond. Leave MOST of the invading to the IG and such. Even then, they are EXTREMELY valuable, because if even one is killed, it takes YEARS to replace him. And they can only REPLACE, but not mass produce because they cannot make any more of the Gene Seed that it takes to make Space Marines.

Eldar dont even like fighting. They make others do it for them. They are a dying race, so every Eldar is treated as precious and every life lost is a tragedy. As well, they focus on keeping them selves alive, not command and conquer.

its all these things that ensures nobody actually get the upper hand and drags the war on and on.

The problem with a Warhammer 40k MMO is that the universe is about squads and armies, not about the individual -- it would be like a Starcraft MMO where you can play as a Zealot but you get owned by Marauders

Warhammer 40k definitely focuses on individuals as much as Warcraft does, and Warcraft made an MMO.

 

[A-D.]

So far the only confirmed Faction is the Imperium as playable. Given that the Imperium will be playable, then we can be pretty sure that Chaos Marines would be playable as well, including heretics and the like. They are the same thing just on the other Side, hence the most easy to balance against each other.

Not sure how they will deal with the other Races though, i doubt Tau will be playable, same goes for Necrons and Tyranids, partially because they cant be easily balanced and, in case of the latter two, they are gamebreaking in terms of Balance. A single Necron Warrior can kill a Space Marine in record time due to Gauss Weaponry and the inherent "cant really die" part.

So a given imho is Imperium and Chaos, then potentially Orks as well as Eldar. After that they might add more Races and Classes, i.e. Grey Knights, Adepta Sororitas, Demons, Dark Eldar etc as Expansions similar to how WoW did it.

At least i recall having read ages ago when the Info about the 40k MMO first dropped that they are planning on having 4 Races playable at first. Even if thats false, 2 can be considered as garantueed, i.e. Imperium and their exact opposite Chaos. At least i think they will include Chaos being as its Lore-wise the biggest direct Opponent and they are easy to balance as a Race against the other.

 

[lordlillen]

They have stated that order and destruction will fight amongst each other on a small scale. (I hope they go through with that statement)

About balance: The old republic had a good idea of sticking true to the fluff of jedis and what not while having non force users compete. A jedi starts the game as a novice and the troopers, smugglers, bounty hunters and agents start out as elites.

So a space marine would start out as a scout before specializing (Apothecary-Healer,Techmarine-Support,Devastator-Range DPS etc.) An imperial guard would start out as a veteran and an ork would be a young nob.

This does make pvp a little funny though as armies of elite crack soldiers go at each other with no light infantry supporting them.

even though no classes have been released, what would you guys want to play?

(Apothecary btw)

i would like to play as an angry marine librarian
FIGHT HARDER YOU F*CKS!

 

[lordlillen]

unless they solve all these problems that have been mentioned here it'll just be another wow ripoff and like most of the 40k video games i'll just pretend it isn't cannon.

This is going to be a 3rd person shooter with lots of vehicular combat and god damn SPACE MARINES! It might be poorly balanced, but it's definitely going to take a few steps in a new direction.

Also, DoW2 is pretty damn close to Canon. Space marines kick ass, nids are without number, orks are gud 'n orky and Eldar are fancy.

Haha, just sayin, brother. I dont think you can make a 40k game identicle to WoW even if you tried.

Dawn of War 2 was a pretty good game, and many things about it did fit in what I would expect of the 40k world. However, it felt like almost every other rts game i've played. and that is the problem with most 40k games in my opinion. take Fire Warrior for example; it took the cool backstory, detailed social structure, and awesome technological power of the tau and made it into a generic fps with terrible controls, god aweful writing, and that completely ignored everything that made the tau interesting in the first place.
I won't be the first person to mention that the new Space Marines game seems to resemble Gears of War. and that brings me to the point of this little rant: Warhammer videogames are dumbed down so they're not as big a risk. they are made to resemble the more popular games in their genres. Fire warrior=COD, Space Marine=Gears, Dawn of War=generic rts. I'd love it to not be so, but if the pattern continues than 40k online=WOW. the people making these games don't care about warhammer. they care about the money the name can bring in.

actually warhammer 40k space marine looks almost nothing like gears (maybe the shooting camera) there is no cover mechanic what so ever and you regenerate health buy kicking the ever living crap of every ork you see with special moves, also you can switch between fluid hack'n'slash action and blasting orks to bits with bolters, in short it looks awesome and people are yust being childish when they say it looks like gears (btw gears looks like warhammer)

 

[Kratenser]

Im curious about the chaos army personally. If you read up on chaos lore, pretty much everyone who joins the chaos army does so because they want infinite power, and usually to become a daemon prince too. It would be interesting to start as a chaos heretic, and could slowly work your way up to chaos warrior, chaos lord/sorcerer and then daemon. The only problem then would be balancing daemons because, even though they're supposed to be a formidable force of death, going up against an army of them would be ridiculous.

As for space marines, I like the idea of starting off as a basic human and having to work your way up to a marine. I'm almost definite that it will be one hell of a grind but, one which you can be proud of when you see the end result.

 

[sosolidshoe]

I imagine it will rely on balancing similar to what Warhammer Online did. None of the classes are the cannon fodder or mooks from the tabletop game and they are instead drawn from the elite and specialized units.

And we all know how well that worked out for them; mass server closures, near-total alienation of those most likely to support the game(Warhammer fans), and a game that now putters along largely because you can play the first ten levels for free, forever.

I said it the moment they announced there would be a 40K MMO; if they try to go the route of adapting the tabletop game to the MM format, it will be at the least a terrible Warhammer 40K game, and quite likely just a bad game full-stop. It's particularly annoying that they have chosen to take that route because, unlike Fantasy which would have had to take the pen&paper RPG as a basis otherwise, 40K has the Inquisitor system to draw from.

A narrative game, focused on elite individuals forming small groups to fight hidden enemies, vastly powerful enemies, or each other. Sounds a lot like an MMO, no? Inquisitor allows for races other than Human to be included without gutting the fluff(with some common-sense restrictions), it allows for significantly more character customisation, both in terms of appearance and abilities, and it would give players a game with a much richer story and world.

Instead, it appears we'll be getting "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning - SPHEZ MARHINZ EDITITIONZ!!!11". I'll pass thanks.

 

[Testosticore]

unless they solve all these problems that have been mentioned here it'll just be another wow ripoff and like most of the 40k video games i'll just pretend it isn't cannon.

This is going to be a 3rd person shooter with lots of vehicular combat and god damn SPACE MARINES! It might be poorly balanced, but it's definitely going to take a few steps in a new direction.

Also, DoW2 is pretty damn close to Canon. Space marines kick ass, nids are without number, orks are gud 'n orky and Eldar are fancy.

Haha, just sayin, brother. I dont think you can make a 40k game identicle to WoW even if you tried.

Dawn of War 2 was a pretty good game, and many things about it did fit in what I would expect of the 40k world. However, it felt like almost every other rts game i've played. and that is the problem with most 40k games in my opinion. take Fire Warrior for example; it took the cool backstory, detailed social structure, and awesome technological power of the tau and made it into a generic fps with terrible controls, god aweful writing, and that completely ignored everything that made the tau interesting in the first place.
I won't be the first person to mention that the new Space Marines game seems to resemble Gears of War. and that brings me to the point of this little rant: Warhammer videogames are dumbed down so they're not as big a risk. they are made to resemble the more popular games in their genres. Fire warrior=COD, Space Marine=Gears, Dawn of War=generic rts. I'd love it to not be so, but if the pattern continues than 40k online=WOW. the people making these games don't care about warhammer. they care about the money the name can bring in.

actually warhammer 40k space marine looks almost nothing like gears (maybe the shooting camera) there is no cover mechanic what so ever and you regenerate health buy kicking the ever living crap of every ork you see with special moves, also you can switch between fluid hack'n'slash action and blasting orks to bits with bolters, in short it looks awesome and people are yust being childish when they say it looks like gears (btw gears looks like warhammer)

I'd have worded that a little more politely but, never the less, true is true brother. Personally, I'm very excited for Space Marine to be released. Finally, a Warhammer 40k game that I can play with my Meat Head Console Playing friends. Woe is the life of us elite few PC gamers.
Haha, I kid of course.

 

[Craorach]

I'm.. sceptical.. about the 40K MMO.

I get the horrible feeling its just gonna be WAR with a 40k skin.

The whole setting is incredibly dark, violent and hopeless. Every single race is xenophobic, violent and hateful, with each faction at the other's throats even within a race.

There are no good guys, and rather than being shades of grey it is more shades of gore covered black.

And that's without even getting into the Tyranids (not even individuals per se), Necrons (robot, emotionless, killing machines) and Chaos... which I don't believe can truly be represented in a game without a Mature rating.

As a setting it is also HUGE. 40k to me isn't about one world, at the very least it is about a system... more likely entire Sectors, not to mention the Warp space between.

To make a popular MMO this is all going to need to be toned down and sanitised. Unfortunately, nothing I've ever seen has been able to really make a toned down, sanitised, 40k without making it utterly unlike the proper thing.

Edit: In addition, the GW worlds have some major problems, that have been present for years, in encouraging a wider audience to pick it up. As a company, they almost solely direct their products and promotional materials to young males with disposable income. I've known many female gamers over the years who feel, very strongly, that GW is incapable of creating interesting female characters or including even that basic diversity within their races and factions.

One of the requirements GW has of video games companies is that they make their character models as similar as possible to the models. Look at WAR, and DoW, and you can almost see those characters as models.. if you took a screenshot you could even make people think it was a model if you set it up well enough. For fans, this is awesome.. for Jane Public it just makes her say "Why can't I make a female Chaos Warrior?"

 

[Elijin]

Personally I'm more concerned about the factions in the game. An early press release stated that allegiances would be split down two ways, Order and Destruction. This caused my inner 40k fanboy to rage, as alliances between factions is nearly unheard of. Yes the Imperium has joined forces with the Eldar and Tau on occasion to fight a common enemy, but once that's taken care of they go right back to slaughtering each other.

Especially with the races who's prime goal in life is 'Extinguish all other life'

Im looking at you Necrons and 'Nids!

 

[Yokai]

They made it pretty clear you can't be a Space Marine from the get go, and if you play as the Imperium you start out as a regular human.

Woah, I mustve missed that bit. Thanks for the update.
Anyhow, youre telling me that space marines, the poster boys for the entirety of Warhammer 40k, are unplayable?
Wait, what about in the Trailer where they show space marines trudging around blowing shit up? Have I been LIED TO?!?

I'm going to assume you can probably choose to upgrade to space marine once you've reached a certain level. Yeah, it's screwing with the fluff, but unless your character starts out as an adolescent and you spend 20 levels going through initiate training in a scout squad, it's pretty much the only way it'll work. This is GW, though, they're not going to let a game get by without featuring their poster boys front and center.

 

[Testosticore]

They made it pretty clear you can't be a Space Marine from the get go, and if you play as the Imperium you start out as a regular human.

Woah, I mustve missed that bit. Thanks for the update.
Anyhow, youre telling me that space marines, the poster boys for the entirety of Warhammer 40k, are unplayable?
Wait, what about in the Trailer where they show space marines trudging around blowing shit up? Have I been LIED TO?!?

I'm going to assume you can probably choose to upgrade to space marine once you've reached a certain level. Yeah, it's screwing with the fluff, but unless your character starts out as an adolescent and you spend 20 levels going through initiate training in a scout squad, it's pretty much the only way it'll work. This is GW, though, they're not going to let a game get by without featuring their poster boys front and center.

Yeah, I've got to agree on that, brother. They'd stick Space Marines on just about anything if they thought it would sell better.

 

[Gromril]

Why, for the love of all that is holy, did they not just make all playable characters inquisitors?

They fight each other all the time, and you could have something resembling factions as players either act as the puritans the emperor would buy a drink and hang around with grey knights, or enjoy a happy fun slide into radicalism, and the usual deamon/heretic clusterfuck it entails?

 

[EvilEggCracker]

Because one of the main draws of 40k is the massive amount of factions? There are so many races and themes in the fluff that it would be a real shame to simply say "You're an Inquisitor. Fighting other Inquisitors." Not really unlocking the potential of franchise, eh? Don't get me wrong, I love playing Dark Heresy but I can understand how it wouldn't be viable to set in an MMO - a single-player RPG, yes (I would have preferred that over "SPHESS MARINE"), but not an MMO.

Personally, I'm hoping that the Imperium faction includes an Imperial Guardsman class. Keep Space Marines separate - have them start as Scouts, don't make them a normal human to begin with. And frankly, in any 40k game the Space Marines always get downplayed (let's be honest, Space Marine fluff is just silly) why wouldn't they do the same here? Orks do kill Space Marines. Even on the table-top (although not very representative of fluff) Orks CHOW through Space Marines in close combat.

 

[Acaroid]

We've all heard about the MMO in development based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and I think it would be fair to say that alot of people are excited about it. Me especially, being the Ork-Pajamas-Wearing-Fanboy that I am. But I fear the worse when the topic of Race Balance comes up.

If youre familiar with the universe, you know that Space Marines are genetically perfected war machines that wear armor that can take more damage than most tanks and weapons that fire miniature missles. Their reflexes are honed to such an extreme, that their accuracy is matched only by that of the eldar. You also know that Orks get so excited about punching things, that they often forget they even HAVE a gun, much less know how to fire it in a straight line. Even then, one on one, a space marine can take down an ork without even trying [unless its a Nob or something].

All I'm saying is that one of two things have to be brutally murdered for the sake of the game. Either the Canon is being stoned to death [in the biblical sense, you high-ons] and all of the races will be more or less equal for the sake of the game [but you give the finger to the fanbase], or balance will be crucified in the sense that Space Marines will be beat the snot out of most orks [but then people will only play as the most overpowered race, and then no ones having fun anymore].

What are your opinions, you extravagant beasts?

It would be interesting that in single player you do not notice the difference between races as your fighting scaled AI but in pvp the game is balanced so that instead of being 5v5 it is in fact different numbers depending on what races are vs each other so space marine vs chaos is 5v5 but orc vs space marine might be 8v3 as a random example. Or just like in 40k have a "points buy" system based of levels, equipment and races. So they can keep the fluff and the balance.