Thought I would weigh in some after putting in quite a few hours in the mod--and a few with retail--in the last couple weeks (about 100 or so).
The mod is exciting and generally more fun to play by far, but it really is not balanced yet. This comes from a lot of time playing, playing with other decent to veteran players, and playing Space Marines plenty... but getting steam rolled very fast by a lot of various spam opportunities that seem to be cropping up in the mod.
Also, several players have commented on the fact that after reading the change logs and playing the mod heavily there seems to be an (unintentional) bias toward Chaos and Eldar getting more, or less, nerfs in particular ways. I will do my best to explain below.
Also there are some bugs I have come across that may or may not be related to the beta, so I am posting here to cover all of what I have taken note of. All of this is coming from v2.1 bet 3 to bet 5 game play.
First, bugs:
- Bug One
- Bug Two
- Bug Three
- Maps
- Retreat issues
On several occasions I have had squads return to HQ and attempted to manually reinforce them. The unit(s) have been idle, I have had plenty of resources, all models returned and plenty of pop cap was up but the reinforce button is inaccessible. This has not happened to me in retail, except maybe what could be a VERY short lived example...maybe. Is the mod putting too much stress on the engine and causing this to happen? Something else?
The most obvious case was plasma devs needing another model... it took close to a 45secs-1min to be able to reinforce them.
While playing a 2v2 recently against nids and SM Techmarine, for some reason only 1 model of all my squads moved from HQ to attack. I could not get them to attack as full squads until I retreated again. This is apparent in the replay and occurred again later on in another case, map was 2v2 Ashes of Typhon.
In the same match my tactical marine flamer squad 'faced' themselves to death upon a dev squad's many bullets. After I had capped a VP they were left idle for a moment. The Techmarine dev squad happened to be setting up just in range of the flamer (I guess?) and they took it upon themselves to move to close range and attempt flaming the heavy bolter nearly straight on. I know I did not touch the squad or make them move after the cap because I was too busy with the Tyranid Termagaunt spam on my side. Also, I would have engaged in melee since the forward flame unit managed to get outside of the setup cone. It appeared only 1 model of the squad was attacking yet again.
Further more, there have been a few other instances of odd behavior with the SM flamer tactical squad off and on. Several times I have found the flame squad idle after telling them to move somewhere (not 'attack-move', which is very buggy of course with the fog of war coming and going). Is it that they are trying to attack anything in range while moving, but then losing range or sight due to FOW (similar to attack-move idle state problem) on an enemy?
*the range seems good on the SM flame unit, perhaps a touch long considering garrisons are still meant to be part of the game.... correct? A suppression crew will most certainly have a hard time keeping the squad far enough away in a 1-on-1 contest. Seems too cheese to me, especially considering the static flame increase damage for garrisons in the mod, plus range and damage increasefor the flamer now--with a price reduction at that--the SM flame squad seems more like a patch to help SM's against infantry spam and other balance issues. And 65/15 is just a weird cost for something that is plenty powerful if you know how to micro and get the tacs in melee. Honestly, the retail flamer is plenty decent (does need range) but you gotta know how to micro and where it will be effective (e.g IG GM's or Banshee etc).
Argent Shelf redux seems great, nice work!
Armageddon River crossing is awesome, however: while crossing any of the middle bridges (either side) units oddly walk off the sides and appear to be in the water occasionally, . Plus, several times I have had units stand off to the side of the large building, not go in. Some sort of pathing bug I assume. Additionally, an ASM squad of got stuck trying to jump away near the mid VP and just sat there twitching and bugging out. I had to retreat them out through enemy units. Again, perhaps a pathing issue.
*Also, in the larger building in the middle of Armageddon River Crossing, units using the side windows seem to often lose aim. This was very apparent with the plasma dev squad I had in the building
**We need better or new 2v2 (redux) maps, finished and in the install bundle!
Similarly to the issue of not being able to reinforce units, pressing X and not getting a retreat seems to be an increasingly worse issue in the mod. I have selected a unit carefully and pressed X, then pressed it multiple times even looking at my finger pressing and releasing the X key and nothing is happening. Granted, players (myself included) need to learn to do better at not being in a crisis retreat situation under major battle conditions in the game. But I thought I would note that the known retreat 'stall/bug' seems to be getting worse. Perhaps it is a beta issue?
Second, notes (mostly v2.1 beta 3-5):
Gonna try to just make this simple and quick. Note that I am speaking more from a point and view of how games or matches play out NOT about the specifics of the numbers going on.
- Eldar
- Chaos
- Imperial Guard
- Tyranid
- Space Marines
- Orks
- Gay--I mean Greay Knights
- Summary
All too often Banshee live through waaay too much I am finding--even early on--and now with the 25 red decrease to purchase webway gates I am seeing lots of early squad wipes... especially with the way guardians are now. What has been done to 'shee? I know that to some degree they have been nerfed, but each model seems to be surviving too easily and/or for too long.
Guardians: because their grenade toss and retreat is so fast in animation, plasma nade spiking with retreat is extremely common. Even if I have clearly won a fight, pushed an Eldar player off and engaged the guardians in melee (with say, SM Tacs and FC) it is all too easy for the Eldar player to pull off an early game-changer and wipe my squad(s) with a plasma grenade spike or two (usually 2). Not only does this screw up a game, all too often guardians take far too little in losses now.
*all grenades should have a SMALL range requirement/minimum distance. Except for more elite squads (e.g. IG Storm troopers) Grenade spiking should not be allowed. Early on it plays out more like an exploit.
Getting LOS nearly anywhere on a map is very easy, especially in 2v2 or 3v3. Those webway gates should not be so cheap in red. 25 decrease is quite a bit for something that can be used to fully flank and possibly wipe armies in T1 (burrow tunnels also seem to be too easily placed at times)
Watched a Fire Prism reduce a Land Raider redeemer to ruble in about 4 or 5 shots also, no good there in resource and build-time cost vs. balance at all.
Having added raptors, Chaos's synergy and ability to just plan run over SM's in 1v1 and keep any map control down early on is pretty ridiculous in the hands of an experienced Chaos player...there is a reason jumping melee was not included for Chaos in retail.
The a-typical Chaos build against SM is usually: A Chaos Lord, 2 heretic squads (one grenade launcher, one AC later), 2 CSM's and raptors. Followed by Noise Marines and a CSM dreadnought in T2:
that makes for painful AOE splash/anti-garrison that takes little to no micro and that can sit outside of range/fog-of-war, then heavy melee suppression/jumping interrupt heavy melee, plenty of ranged CSM damage and of course the Chaos lord melee who walks through needed cover and suppression of any kind. Just in T1....
The only T1 melee counter is ASM's (unless you are Force Commander build, and even then you can dodge the FC special attack/interrupt with good micro, pretty easily). Thus, Chaos has the ability to easily counter necessary setup crews for SM, then suppress and overwhelm crucial SM's units who are melee-damage-weak. Sure, scouts with nades and shotty's are good, but can easily be interrupted and removed by so much melee. And by the time they have engaged so much to support, much of the map is lost because heretics are cheap and move reasonably fast.
Plain and simple, Chaos seems to be what all the other factions are catching up to... and after many many hours of Space Marine play in the last month SM's are a long way off. (read summary later for more)
Imperial guard seem great, but bunkers and Lord General retinue still all largely suck. Also, the mine drop ability synergizes far too highly with manticore strikes. I lost a full health lvl 2 Tac squad with sarge, plus a dev squad, all to mines going off from the manticore strike. Squads were at the fringe of the strike and only one strike was direct, maybe 3 or 4 mines in the area. Those mines are plenty effective on their own, and should not stack damage so heavily with the manti strike. A later strike removed a full health pred (with armor upgrade) and another squad of plasma devs, again maybe 2 or 3 mines in area; non-direct, nor were the manti strikes direct except 1 on the pred. And most of the mines went off while squads were in mid air...
IG are plenty synerg-ist already, what with easy and devastating vehicle counters, and lots of traps to interrupt or stun. The manticore is nasty on it's own, and with so much infantry able to smoke other infantry very fast in the later game (when a manticore shows up to add to the pwn'n). It is not hard to get the mines dropped in a common area and pull such a thing off, and yet veteran squads are wiped with little to no engagement cost or resource cost from the IG player (150 req? +little to no losses on field).
With the speed increases to vehicle rotation etc., the Baneblade looks more like a big, kinda sluggish, dune buggy rolling over everything. Too fast now.
*also played a game with 3 IG players who saved hard for Baneblades. The map was won and most resources were held or nuked by our team until Tier 3; we all had reasonably full armies as well. Yet 3 Baneblades showed up, with some repair bunkers put down nearby and there was nothing any of us could do to get in, decap/cap VP's or fight back for that matter. 3 BB's being allowed in a 3v3 doesn't work, nor are BB's supposed to be that common... manticore spam was ridiculous too. Ever think of limiting the number of Ultra's and/or heavy arty for 3v3 or 2v2 matches? Would balance things out some.
The match mentioned above (regarding the Nid and Techmarine) resulted in 4 squads of termagants showing up, with toxin sacs on all 4. Due to a Techmarine beacon nearby, there was near no way to ever keep power up or engage units effectively enough since the toxin sacs allowed for a 'rolling interrupt' and pin of crucial melee units, and if the 'endless swarm' of ranged nid juice did not do it then the SM had plenty of suppression and options as well. Even jumping melee from both me and my teammate could not get the job done because either the Tyranid player, or the Techmarine player, would reinforce at the beacon easily enough (with a defense bonus!). Stack with that the Hive Tyrant's ability to buff etc... I watched 2 squads of heavy shoota's take nearly no models off a termagant squad. Further, attacking the beacon or other suppression crews (Devs etc) only resulted in the terms using crippling poison and firing down on any units that could get close enough to engage with...well, anything. With a few exceptions (and NOT building power) there was simply no way to get a victory in a 500 VP game. Also, even just 3 termagant squads can remove a power gen in 5-10 seconds (maybe faster). Same for shoota spam and so on. Kinda lame when a balanced game requires gens to stick around with some consistency until T2.
Playing Tyranids I have found they are too cheap, upkeep is quite low and just too spam heavy. I understand Tyranids should be overwhelming in 'style of play', but it is not working out in 'balance by in-balance' just yet.
They need something more. Perhaps a (Hellfire?) grenade option for the Sternguard, or something more for T1? Perhaps a small decrease in Tactical Marine upkeep? And why remove the melee damage reduction in For the Emperor, for non Sternguard squads? Not like it is cheap or like you can't lose your sarge..
Going double Tacs is commonly only good for Apo in 1v1, or only something to do in 3v3. Otherwise the SM Econ is just too slow and SM combat options are easily countered and rendered ineffective against so many other infantry 'melee-swarm' options from other factions right now.
The FC chainsword and shield is very nice and quite boss. However, I still do not understand the need to increase FC wargear cost so very much. Also, the hammer really should have a chance to do some kind of lightening damage. The splash was ridiculous, but was largely left in to counter spam infantry in retail that attempt to overwhelm the less in number Astartes.... spam still happens plenty in the mod. So something like a 15%-30% chance of maybe an effect similar to the lightening claws in retail could be great. The hammer is supposed to be epic and is a huge chance not choosing the Fist, which gives great AV and generally good all-around damage.
Orks seem the best balanced of all in my experience, and play very 'orky'. Gotta love the Kommando now. But those Sticks... the increase in melee skill for stick bomba's currently means SM tacs and other ranged squads can't touch them (unless they want to take decent losses) except by ranged fire mostly...and staying at range they gonna die from the grenades quite heavily; a good throw means a wipe, especially with 2 squads around.Seems a bit too much in synergy in regard to an artillery-type squad being melee neutral to so many other squads or even melee heavy in the right circumstances. Perhaps the refresh rate on the sticks is a little fast now with the changes? Maybe make them tougher but with less melee skill or damage. They do fold to damage and lose models like so much cheap paper in a windstorm, but their ability to shred squads, do knock-back and hold off or pwn in melee seems a bit much for a T2 arty unit. Especially since Orks have tremendous melee damage potential over all, reducing ranged armies to rubble in mere seconds with a good 'drop' on an opponent.
Really enjoy the changes, but Psycannon nuke all now and can snipe vehicles super easy. I prefer them the way they were
. Lack of setup seems to be tricky for game balance when they can do so much damage to key targets and just retreat with no setup delay. I just don't think the lack of setup works out with how much ranged damage they seem able to take.The GK dreadnought is a beast, and even my FC assault termies--with a SM rocket squad in support and a heavy bolter dev squad--could not take it down without a model loss to the termies (nearly 2) and a tacs model before it covered some 50 yards of distance and got help. At least 2 sources of strong AV are needed to handle the thing, and it will own near all until removed. The only thing effective enough right away seems to be another dreadnought. The cost of the GK dready is not enough for something so potent. How about 500/135: Really gotta want that thing out there and have to take care NOT to lose it. (if that is a problem for the GK roster and econ, adjust elsewhere?) Damned thing is just a 'cherry pick' and can turn an entire match around on it's own against even 2-3 other players (unless all players happen to have a very solid balance of AV and even then must all focus on the GK dread).
Veteran players who are very good at a game are often not the best to consult for designing/balancing games. Great for stress-testing balance sure, but generally speaking 'elite' players have a very skewed view of how to balance a game. All too often vet players get into a view and discussion of hard numbers and hard 'micro' play as a means to balance; experts will always have a rather narrow view of just how to fix things the way they seem them (technocratic, technocracy kinda thing). This certainly feels to be the case somewhat in the mod currently.
Finesse--or 'good micro'--should be important things to achieve, like any other sport really. For example. I can 'good micro' my grenades, which is not hard at all and very devastating, but the other player needs to micro even better to dodge and also choose good tactics to counter. Thus, just because I can move fast and stealth my scouts into position for a good grenade hit, I should not be allowed to so easily reduce the match to a heavy advantage for me or my team in just the first minute and a half, all because I can do good micro. It should not be the end-all place to get.
I can figure out how to snipe a vehicle just fine with good micro. But is it in balance to allow for vehicles--that cost so much and need a lot of attention from the player--to be snared and damaged so easily? And to have those squads that do AV so well, also now be so effective against infantry? Vehicles in general deserve a little more survivability, not just movement speed increases.
All too often in Elite squads or vehicles are outright wiped very fast from some kind of 'micro-heavy' behavior. Sure, we all need to learn to pay attention, line up right, scout ahead, keep vehicles back, get spotters, not over commit, learn how the game is played and so on. But there is a limit to how much 'micro-heavy' play is balanced play for any game; there is a limit to how much 'good micro' should be allowed to exploit factors, or how much 'good micro' should be rewarded, even for the most experienced player. Good knowledge of the game, good tactics and a good build should be at the heart of balance. Right now it feels like either a good Chaos build and/or being very good at Eldar micro rules all in the mod.
Fin
Thanks for reading!
, thus good to know!
Probably best to clarify such things in (change) logs and wikia. Noob or no noob "inferno_pvp" sounds and reads like flamer being used on garrison etc/ Not anything having to do with MoT CSM or just against building structure.
