Tyranids Popularity

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Woodenplank
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Tyranids Popularity

Postby Woodenplank » Sun 22 Jul, 2018 2:41 pm

Let me start this off by saying I do not personally find Tyranids imbalanced.

But I've noticed that through some 400+ hours of playing (I know that's little by Elite Standards...) I've noticed very few Tyranid players. Space Marines, Space Elves, Chaos, Orks and Imperial Guards seem much, much more popular. I see SM or IG in virtually every game, with Chaos, Eldar, and Orks close behind.
But I feel like I meet Tyranid players in 1/10 games (at best).

Ten games with one Tyranid could be a coincidence. A hundred 3v3s with only 10-15 Tyranids is a trend.
So this is not a complaint, but a question. Why do they appear to be so strangely under represented?

p.s. I realized they got a bunch of changes in 2.8 - but I haven't seen any notable increase in popularity yet.

---

I've personally played a bit of tyranids lately (I've mostly stuck to easier Commanders, mainly Plague Champion because I'm still a noob), and to me they're one of the most interesting factions - their units being much more varied and unique IMO. Their T3 is especially entertaining.
Where Chaos chooses between tank, super tank, solid-as-fuck terminators, or GUO (which is a fun unit) the tyranids have grealty varied options: A Lictor assassin, a spellcasting/ranged Neurothrope, the bread-and-butter carnifex with multiple playstyles/upgs, etc.

So what's the problem? Or am I completely off the hook? (as usual)
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TE | NoSkill
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby TE | NoSkill » Sun 22 Jul, 2018 3:32 pm

Tyranids are by nature an blob faction, coz of synapses. That makes them quiet easy to counter (in theory).

And many ppl wanna prolly kill the space locusts, coz their motivation is somewhat simplistic.
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Codex
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Codex » Sun 22 Jul, 2018 3:36 pm

Moved to General Discussions.
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Dark Riku
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Dark Riku » Sun 22 Jul, 2018 10:07 pm

In short: You don't 't see Nids because they are not popular. Not because they are supposedly bad, they are indeed quite strong imo.
It's just harder to want to play a hive mind. Not many people are drawn into that concept.
They rather be super human or something else they can more relate to. Unlike something that only wants to consume.

For Example, take 40K tabletop. Like 50% have Space Marines because they are the poster boys of 40K. Yet they don't perform super great on the table. Other races do better. SM just are more popular.

I'm kinda rambling on. It's late :) But I hope I made a bit of sense.
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TE | NoSkill
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby TE | NoSkill » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 1:22 am

Only hungry ppl play Tyranids












LOL
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SinisterLaugh
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby SinisterLaugh » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 9:55 am

TE | NoSkill wrote:Only hungry ppl play Tyranids

Like Atlas yesterday :lol:
And since he did gud, that concept is kinda proved.
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Schepp himself
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Schepp himself » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 11:05 am

I can only speak for myself being a Tyranid Fanboy in the tabletop game: I find the Tyranid playstyle I know and love from the tabletop sadly a bit lacking. In DOW2 you don't really have a swarm of weak units. So the playstyle for me wasn't that much different than Eldar or Space Marines which I play otherwise so I stopped playing them as a fraction.

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Paranoid Kamikaze
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Paranoid Kamikaze » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 3:52 pm

Maybe it's because it requires faster reactions to use. They have been super overpowered since the game released so it's not because they're weak.

I remember when I first tried them back when I was faster I could control them easily. Now though I'm too slow to use them properly.
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Rostam
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Rostam » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 4:24 pm

I think their main problem is
1-their t3 stuff (i will discuss it in detail)
2-Their bleed ratio in T1 and T2 in comparison to upkeep



1-
as you know most races have tanks and super units in t3 and in a 1v1 mu people tend to get tanks cuz of their superiority; speed,good dmg out put etc, Different tanks have different traits, for example Mok pred,looted tank,excutioner leman are best vs infantry while vanquisher leman, tzeench pred are good vs vehicles while fireprism is good for disruption and superior range is good to outshout vehicles

Now, about Nids, they have Lictor and a bunch of monstrous creatures namely carnifexes (which is perhaps the most popular choice and overall good purchase in most situations).
The thing about carnifexes; They are not tanks meaning they are slow as walkers, they cant be repaired and they are very expensive with their upgrades hence making them a big investment. That is the why they are kinda struggling vs other races in t3 especailly IG which have superior tanks to other races.

Now, there was an interesting option that some people discussed b4 2.8 ; it was to give zoan thropes an ability (i think symbiatic sth) to let them heal the carnifexes. unfortunately we didnt see it in 2.8 that might have been a good step towards making tyranids more popular.
mentioning good changes for nids i should also mention how helpful it is to have thorax swarm for warriors (practically heywire nades) it lets vanilla and barbed warriors to upgrade to gain access to vehichle snare which is very helpful for nids but aint enough



2-
About their bleed; we have races that are squishy infintry and bleed alot namely, imperial guard. but the thing about IG is that they have ways to control that, they have their sarg and comi leader which gives them more upkeep but also make them cost less for reinforcement hence they arent req starved to the breaking point (especially vs HI races)
About nids namely guants and gants, they have an upgrade in T2 which make them reinforce 2 at a time but the upkeep is so high that its not worth to get it and it is usually for that purpose that we see a unit like termigant squad become a capper unit in later tiers rather than being used in the main army.
Now i am not good with numbers but i have observed,played and discussed it alot ,I think scaling that upkeep to bleed ratio in t2 might also be a positive step towards making nids more popular
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Oddnerd
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Oddnerd » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 5:33 pm

Nids just don't belong in this game from a lore perspective. Small armies of squads that gain veterancy and retreat rather than being wiped is not remotely niddy in nature.
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Rostam
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Rostam » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 6:15 pm

Oddnerd wrote:Nids just don't belong in this game from a lore perspective. Small armies of squads that gain veterancy and retreat rather than being wiped is not remotely niddy in nature.


True to some extent, agree with it lorewise. in lore nids literally throw shit at a wall until it breaks, billions of casualties (Gaunts,Gants,Rippers...) is nothing to them and they dont bother retreating

On the other hand its a video game and game makers need to scale it down to this level some how which is hard. i would say they dow2 has done an ok-ish job in that department. All and all its a video game designed to entertain and sometimes it breaks the lore to that which is fine by me if it is not something like Dow3 (Angelos jumping in terminator armor) (Also another example would be in tabletop u can kill a demon prince with a gm or a marine with a grot sure is hard but doable yet still no way it happens in lore, bu that is just gaming)

that to be said It would make me really happy if nids could have the casualty rate of GM and could reinforce 3 at a time like comi+sarg gm squad; with the reasonable upkeep and cheep prices ofc

All and all would be nice to scale the game into lore if that is possible, but balance and gameplay should always come first :P

PS: really nice to have some tyranid talk in the community since most of the talk is over other races



Last edited by Rostam on Mon 23 Jul, 2018 7:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Broodwich
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Broodwich » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 6:26 pm

For me it's probably just that nids have no voice lines. One of the things relic nailed with this game was the audio, and the voice acting has been awesome (if cheesy at times (which makes it better)) Nids are obviously just a bunch of squeaks and clicking, with an announcer that sounds like its fucking your ear
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Rostam
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Rostam » Mon 23 Jul, 2018 6:43 pm

ye true they could have used a little bit more voice acting, they need more love and better voices on them bugs
in sc2 zerg have pretty damn good voices but in dow2 its not that good
same thing goes for necron which are practically robots, necron lord has no voice acting in last stand (same thing about necrons in dow2)

Atlas had some robotic voices for nids in his stream yesterday btw, that was interesting; mb he can share it here
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leon Tolstoy
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Atlas » Tue 24 Jul, 2018 8:47 am

Just check out the CR Voices Mod thread in the forum here and place the sga file in GameAssets-> Mods iirc and you're good!
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Black Relic
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Black Relic » Wed 25 Jul, 2018 12:39 am

If you don't have the voices I do if you guys need them. Alot easier on the ears and you can understand that your warriors are dying instead of hearing...

"AAAUGHTRSWARRIORSBLAAAAAAA"
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Asmon
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Asmon » Wed 25 Jul, 2018 2:08 am

Speaking about voices, is there any way to get to know all the voicelines of units? I would like to have all of them written down.
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Schepp himself
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Schepp himself » Wed 25 Jul, 2018 9:10 am

Rostam wrote:
Oddnerd wrote:Nids just don't belong in this game from a lore perspective. Small armies of squads that gain veterancy and retreat rather than being wiped is not remotely niddy in nature.


True to some extent, agree with it lorewise. in lore nids literally throw shit at a wall until it breaks, billions of casualties (Gaunts,Gants,Rippers...) is nothing to them and they dont bother retreating
[...]
that to be said It would make me really happy if nids could have the casualty rate of GM and could reinforce 3 at a time like comi+sarg gm squad; with the reasonable upkeep and cheep prices ofc [...]


While I agree with the things you said, I won't let you off the hook that easily and continue from your last thought:
It makes perfect sense lore wise that there is no way to win an attrition war against Tyranids. Even the Imperial Guard or the Orks can't win that way. Or haven't won that way that I know of.

So a logical change would be to make the little critters (Termagaunts, Hormagants and Rippers) very cheap, weak and easy and quick to reinforce. As you said.

Another thing that bothers me for example is that even Tyranids don't need to outmanoeuvre set up teams to counter them. I get that in DOW2 it's normal that you have a hard counter against set up teams but for Tyranids I would love to see Ravenours changed and not being the hard counter to set up teams. So that set up teams are a logical choice against Tyranids. What would happen then? To my understanding, set up teams hinder you somewhat in map control due to their clumsy nature which would give the Tyranid player an edge in map control. That is a rather fitting imagery when fighting against Tyranids in my opinion ("There's too many of them!").

I'm just riffing here, but I think that with some rather minor gameplay changes to the Tyranid race you could add a fresh style to the game and thus make them more desireable to play while in the same time increase the lore-friendliness.

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Rostam
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Rostam » Wed 25 Jul, 2018 9:28 am

Schepp himself wrote:It makes perfect sense lore wise that there is no way to win an attrition war against Tyranids. Even the Imperial Guard or the Orks can't win that way. Or haven't won that way that I know of.


lorewise; true about most races, but orks can actually kinda win in a war of attrition v nids.
also necrons have good symbiotic relations with nids! since they want all the bio gone and nids want to eat them!!!
Aside the necron joke talking of orks, There was an incident (i think siccarius wars) when an inquisitor kinda throw Tyranids and Orks at each other.

While Tyranids obtained lots of Biomass killing and consuming orks; Orks gained too much waaagh (the psychic power that unlockes more technology,will power etc for them) and since orks shed spores and have a quick production rate they have np with casualties (waaagh might even make it faster)
Red ones go faster!!!
At the end both Tyranids and orks in that particular system became stronger!
That is why I love 40k 8-)
Last edited by Rostam on Wed 25 Jul, 2018 5:41 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Rostam
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Rostam » Wed 25 Jul, 2018 5:38 pm

Asmon wrote:Speaking about voices, is there any way to get to know all the voicelines of units? I would like to have all of them written down.


This playlist is the voicelines of most units in dow1 and dow2 . if you want it written down it has subtitle in the video as well
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... wSeqhT-YlC
Also the voicelines for tyranids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtdHwUWmneI
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Asmon
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Asmon » Wed 25 Jul, 2018 6:40 pm

Yea I knew about those already. They're the voices from Chaos Rising. I'd like to find the Retribution's.
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Dullahan
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Dullahan » Thu 09 Aug, 2018 6:55 pm

Ever since Tyranids stopped being completely game breaking they have never been popular.

It has nothing to do with game balance. Tyranids have always been somewhere between overpowered as fuck and really strong.

SM has always been the most played.
Chaos is a close second.
IG is third.
Eldar fourth.
Orks fifth
Tyranids are the 1%
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kirbby
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby kirbby » Mon 27 Aug, 2018 5:57 am

if you want to make tyranids more popular you can make them like tabletop. massive army, even outnumber guardsmen and lots of melee barely any range. and i dont think they retreat since they have no problem by losses but this is game mechanic i think and is necessary :)
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Dark Riku
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Dark Riku » Mon 27 Aug, 2018 8:50 pm

They are like TT atm already.
Carnifex spam with 3 flying HT's
Or Zoan spam combined with tons of bodies.
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Telos
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Re: Tyranids Popularity

Postby Telos » Tue 28 Aug, 2018 9:48 am

The only thing I dislike about nids in Elite is how they must be balanced around synapse and therefore encourage blobbing and the scarcity of support abilities for squads from hero wargear and globals. I think the addition of capillary towers has really added to their flavor and feel that they're slowly consuming the battlefield. But I've liked the idea of space locusts for a long time, nids were my first TT army when I played.

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