I never though Soulstorm was bad, it's just that unless your a Sister of Battle/Dark Eldar fan, there is nothing the Soulstom campaign does that Dark Crusade arguably does better, as the new air unit for each faction are largely worthless.
That, and the bugs and imbalances for those factions were cringeworthy, even by previous set standards.
Hey everyone,
You all probably don't remember me cause i haven't been around since just before "There is only war" update was released but anyway
I'm back!
With a brand new GFWL: Sparkbard (i know so creative i am, also i lost my email and password for my old one)
So add me :]
Ill creep my way onto vent every once in a while
or when anyones up for a game
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited November 2009
Finally got this for my new PC. Looks incredible on it's highest settings, and plays - for the most part - how I wanted the original game to play. No base building, limited resources, and your Space Marines really perform like the super human soldiers they're meant to be. But... no mid mission saving? That's irritating. And the game seems to be designed around having a Dragon Age/Baldurs Gate style pause action system. It would be enhanced so much by it, in single player at least.
Finally got this for my new PC. Looks incredible on it's highest settings, and plays - for the most part - how I wanted the original game to play. No base building, limited resources, and your Space Marines really perform like the super human soldiers they're meant to be. But... no mid mission saving? That's irritating. And the game seems to be designed around having a Dragon Age/Baldurs Gate style pause action system. It would be enhanced so much by it, in single player at least.
I thought you can pause it and issue orders though, can't you? It's been a while since I played SP though, so I couldn't say for certain.
Also, find someone to co-op it with. Seriously. It becomes so much more awesome when you're playing coop at the higher difficulty levels. Controlling all 4 squads and their abilities simultaneously on Captain is something I found a bit too much, I never really used everyone to their fullest. Two squads each feels just right, and you end up using your unique squad abilities a lot more instead of having the tendency to blob them together.
subedii on
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited November 2009
The only time I have trouble commanding all squads is when I'm fighting a 'boss'. Also, I don't know anyone with a PC that can run it and with a connection where they can play it coop.
So, I've played DoW and its expansions before, on friend's computers and stuff. Very on-and-off so I never got Soulstorm and such, just Dark Crusade and earlier.
But since it was all on sale on Steam I nabbed it. Some quick questions:
1) DoW II. GFWL, wtf? I have to sign in to play a campaign? How does this work?
2) I hear that Soulstorm is... bugged. Or so I'm told. Just how bad is it?
So, I've played DoW and its expansions before, on friend's computers and stuff. Very on-and-off so I never got Soulstorm and such, just Dark Crusade and earlier.
But since it was all on sale on Steam I nabbed it. Some quick questions:
1) DoW II. GFWL, wtf? I have to sign in to play a campaign? How does this work?
2) I hear that Soulstorm is... bugged. Or so I'm told. Just how bad is it?
1) I think you can play the Campaign without GFWL, but playing one-off games vs the AI requires you to be signed in. Its a free service and overall pretty handy for people that it works for. But if you are the 1% person who cant get it to work, it sucks.
2) Soulstorm had a couple of ways to cheat, and some balance issues. So depending on how you classify those, its either bugged or imba. The game itself was rock solid, I dont think people had crashing issues or anything like that.
So, I've been playing lots of Space Marine lately, and I can see why people who main them for multiplayer would be so upset with the balance.
It almost feels like each of their squads needs another model with the associated HP & DPS boost (and maybe up the initial req cost of only the scout squad to 300 to compensate). Because currently the entire army just feels like bit walking walls of HP that dont do enough DPS or special abilities to really worry about. The exception being the scouts that are really powerful but require alot of babysitting.
Gnome-Interruptus on
MWO: Adamski
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2009
Soulstorm is rubbish, it's a bit like getting the plague except you paid the rat to send the fleas to bite you.
1) I think you can play the Campaign without GFWL, but playing one-off games vs the AI requires you to be signed in. Its a free service and overall pretty handy for people that it works for. But if you are the 1% person who cant get it to work, it sucks.
You need to at least make an offline account. It won't sign in online, it just needs to be in either an active online or offline account to plat the single player.
So, I've been playing lots of Space Marine lately, and I can see why people who main them for multiplayer would be so upset with the balance.
It almost feels like each of their squads needs another model with the associated HP & DPS boost (and maybe up the initial req cost of only the scout squad to 300 to compensate). Because currently the entire army just feels like bit walking walls of HP that dont do enough DPS or special abilities to really worry about. The exception being the scouts that are really powerful but require alot of babysitting.
I actually like that about SM. The heavy armour means that in early game they're very durable, it's just that for the price you can't immediately get out as many squads as they can. When you've got two squads of Tacs and a scout sqaud though, you're doing a good amount of damage to whatever squad's attacking, and you've got the durability to stay in fire for a while. Once you hit T2, you've got plasma tearing things up, and rockets to scare away any vehicles.
Although in 1v1 the balance isn't there. They simply don't have the capping power of something like Eldar. From the start they've got 3 squads tearing around the map freely. Meanwhile you've got your Scout squad and your Tac squad, and you need to have them together in the event of any confrontation because his guardians will neutralise your scouts quite handily (my experience). It's even worse if he's gone WSE, since he can teleport around the map, and intercept your scout squad wherever it is. Once the squad's lost one member, they're done and need to retreat. And all this whilst you're having difficulty investing in power because of the heavy cost of your army.
Against most shooty armies, I find SM handle fine (sometimes you might need a Devastator squad if they're bringing a lot of forces to bear on one point), but I think Guardian spam needs a nerf.
1) DoW II. GFWL, wtf? I have to sign in to play a campaign?
It's because multiplayer co-op works via GFWL (you can invite someone into your campaign at any point).
Like the others have said, offline account works. You don't have to be online on either Steam (offline mode) or GFWL to play it.
The bad news is that you have to be online for multiplayer co-op. Offline LAN won't work.
Alegis on
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Alfred J. Kwakis it because you were insultedwhen I insulted your hair?Registered Userregular
1) DoW II. GFWL, wtf? I have to sign in to play a campaign?
It's because multiplayer co-op works via GFWL (you can invite someone into your campaign at any point).
Like the others have said, offline account works. You don't have to be online on either Steam (offline mode) or GFWL to play it.
The bad news is that you have to be online for multiplayer co-op. Offline LAN won't work.
Should also be noted that your GFWL and non-GFWL campaigns are stored differently, so if your save data "vanished" it's probably because you forgot to log on or off of GFWL.
So, I've been playing lots of Space Marine lately, and I can see why people who main them for multiplayer would be so upset with the balance.
It almost feels like each of their squads needs another model with the associated HP & DPS boost (and maybe up the initial req cost of only the scout squad to 300 to compensate). Because currently the entire army just feels like bit walking walls of HP that dont do enough DPS or special abilities to really worry about. The exception being the scouts that are really powerful but require alot of babysitting.
I actually like that about SM. The heavy armour means that in early game they're very durable, it's just that for the price you can't immediately get out as many squads as they can. When you've got two squads of Tacs and a scout sqaud though, you're doing a good amount of damage to whatever squad's attacking, and you've got the durability to stay in fire for a while. Once you hit T2, you've got plasma tearing things up, and rockets to scare away any vehicles.
Although in 1v1 the balance isn't there. They simply don't have the capping power of something like Eldar. From the start they've got 3 squads tearing around the map freely. Meanwhile you've got your Scout squad and your Tac squad, and you need to have them together in the event of any confrontation because his guardians will neutralise your scouts quite handily (my experience). It's even worse if he's gone WSE, since he can teleport around the map, and intercept your scout squad wherever it is. Once the squad's lost one member, they're done and need to retreat. And all this whilst you're having difficulty investing in power because of the heavy cost of your army.
Against most shooty armies, I find SM handle fine (sometimes you might need a Devastator squad if they're bringing a lot of forces to bear on one point), but I think Guardian spam needs a nerf.
Plasma has been brought into balance, so you really cant use it as a strength. Its only valuable as an upgrade if you are fighting alot of heavy armor enemies (it does the same DPS as the default TSM Bolter or just slightly more). Tac Squad have roughly the DPS of a Guardian squad, but no grenade upgrades, or Warlock embolden ability. The missile launcher offsets that a bit in later tiers if you are fighting a turret spammer or def dread spammer. The TSM Captain really only becomes valuable if your hero is Apoth. since without the apoth the ATSKNF wont charge without spending rediculous amounts of time regenning at base, especially after the base regen rebalance.
Space Marine pop cap is also pretty gimp. 2 Scouts, 2 TSM, 1 Razorback, 1 Predator. You are now at pop cap.
I dont think Guardian spam needs a nerf, I would say its about balanced with Shoota / Slugga / Horma spam. And about equal with Terma spam with BS WB.
The only balance problems I see nowadays is Tyranid tier 2 & 3, and SM tier 1.
Plasma does more damage per second than a standard bolter, against both infantry and heavy infantry. It's been brought into balance in the sense that it's not as overpowered as it was before. I could be mistaken, but standard Bolter does 25 damage per hit. Plasma does 70 (it used to be 90 back in 1.5). It's very valuable against all infantry types, partly because instead of chipping away at overall squad health, it does heavy damage to individual models, which tend to go down faster as a result. Two squads of Tacs with plasma is brutal against most shooty armies.
As for the sergeant, I'd say the Tac sergeant is useful regardless of ATSKNF, simply because of the extra model, squad health, and damage output. Though I'll agree that power rarely sees much use with me unless I've gone Apoth.
Pop cap, I'm a bit ambivalent about. I agree that I often want more units, but at the same time I can understand why their units are such high maintenance given how powerful individual squads are. I geuss I feel maintenance on some units could stand to be lowered, but I don't think there's ever been a situation where I've hit the pop cap and lost. If I can afford to be bringing out new heavy units at that stage, and have enough units on the ground that it won't let me, it's usually because I've already won. But then again, I also usually don't bother with Razorback as SM, unless I can depend on them not having AV.
Tac squads may have roughly the same DPS as a Guardian squad, but 1v1 the Guardian squad is always going to lose because of the huge advantage in health and heavy armour the Tacs have. They'll be fast losing members. The problem comes into play when you've got 3 squads coming in against that one Tac squad. They pretty much soak up any damage thrown at them, and you can't really send scouts or commander against them because they'll be torn apart. SM are more balanced if the enemy's got 1 Guardian and 1 Banshee squad on the field, but what you're seeing all the time now is triple Guardian instead. Might be similar with Orkz, but I've never really had a problem with shooty Ork armies. Most of the time, it's still preferable to field Slugga's instead of Shoota's against a Space Marine army
I don't know, maybe I should experiment more with the Tac flamer against Guardian squads, but I don't want to be left in the lurch against an army that has FoF, and when Warp Spiders come in. Either that or I need to remember to bring my devastators into play, more often.
The Plasma Gun/Rifle was changed from 90 to 70 AND it was changed to only do 70% damage vs Infantry. It also has a 50% longer cooldown than the Bolter. The bolter also does bursts of 2 with rate of fire of 2.
Those are changes I support, but they need to rebuff/unnerf Bolters now that Plasma Blobbing has been brought in line.
I also dont know why TSM are the only squads who's bolters do full damage, they nerfed scouts and devastator marines bolters to do only half for some reason.
8.75 x 5 Guardians (or 5.86 vs Heavy Armor)
vs
14.58 x 3 TSM
vs
7 x 3 Regular Shootas
20 x 2 Big Shootas
vs
3.15 x 8 Termagaunt
4.25 x 8 Toxin Sac Termagaunts
TSM are slightly underperforming, especially since I think Guardians are in the right spot at the moment when compared to upgraded Shootas or Termagaunts. The other option would be to buff Scout bolters to do full damage, so that they arent required to upgrade to shotguns if they ever want to get in a fire-fight.
From that, Tacs are doing roughly the same DPS as a Guardian squad. Only as you noted, Guardian / Shoota doesn't do as much damage against them because of the heavy armour. Combine that with the fact that they have more numerous but lower HP units (and bolters do more damage to individual units instead of firing rapidly but with damage spread across the whole squad), and I'd say that works out fine.
I think increasing damage on Bolters might actually bring Tac blobbing back again. What would you like to see TSM damage increased to?
Not a whole lot more, maybe an increase back to 27 (from current 25). Also removing the multiple different bolter types, so that all bolters give the same damage. No more Scout / Devastator squad bolters magically doing less damage than the TSM counterparts.
3 Guardians squads have the same DPS vs 2 TSM as 2 TSM have against the 3 Guardian squads. Costs the same popcap too. But the Eldar will only have 60% of the upkeep and 75% of the HP. Throw in grenades and the Guardians will edge out again. Or the Big Shootas which will easily out DPS the TSM squads with their upgrades, along with some suppression if they want to really throw the balance.
Yeah I wouldn't mind seeing Scouts get regular bolters again, but I think that's to prevent early scout spam (never tried it myself when it was happening). That and unless you're facing a melee squad, there might not be enough incentive to invest in shotguns instead of waiting for Snipers.
TSM bolter damage could maybe do with a minor buff like you suggested. I was thinking you wanted to add something more significant onto the damage, which could be problematic.
With regards to the Guardians, I was talking mainly early early game, where you've only got 1 Tac + 1 Scout squad on the field against their 3 Guardians. That can be a pain to handle.
Bigga Shoota's, well like I said, I probably haven't got enough experience with them. Most of the time anyone playing against SM tends to go Slugga heavy, and what Shoota squads I do encounter are usually dispatched quite fast. Although I do think that Bigga Shoota damage is a bit crazy at the moment.
My main irritation with Orkz isn't the Shoota boyz though, it's StickBommaz. In 1v1 it's not so much of an issue, but in team games, Two squads of Stickbommaz can pretty much drown you in grenades. With stunbombs available by default, they can chuck two sets of grenades one after the other, making 4 sets of grenades all in one shot. Insta-stun grenades with a range outside of FoV, followed up by two sets of timed grenades (or some other attack) is pretty brutal.
Not a whole lot more, maybe an increase back to 27 (from current 25). Also removing the multiple different bolter types, so that all bolters give the same damage. No more Scout / Devastator squad bolters magically doing less damage than the TSM counterparts.
3 Guardians squads have the same DPS vs 2 TSM as 2 TSM have against the 3 Guardian squads. Costs the same popcap too. But the Eldar will only have 60% of the upkeep and 75% of the HP. Throw in grenades and the Guardians will edge out again. Or the Big Shootas which will easily out DPS the TSM squads with their upgrades, along with some suppression if they want to really throw the balance.
If you're going to consider upgrades like the big Shoota/Eqiupment, why not consider the Flamer? It's designed to counter opposing ranged troops. It alone can kill a guardian squad in roughly five seconds if the guardian squad is in heavy cover. Outside of cover it still does more than a bolter as long as the troop has two members or more.
The only problem with the flamer is that you have to close with the guardians. That really isn't a problem though. It's something you generally want to do anyways. Once you knock out a squad or two from the fight the best way to deal with the pricks is just to beat them in the face anyways.
You might need to worry about grenades but personally I find them pretty easy to dodge.
Furthermore it gives you complete and total power harassment control. Bring the flamer out early if he goes triple guardians. Crush him in the early fight. Destroy his power before he can even get back. Even if he returns he has little to no melee power. Retreat is your most powerful defense. Do your damage and leave.
Two TSM with one flamer against three guardians with BE is something that the eldar cannot win unless someone sucks or the commanders are making a huge difference.
Corp.Shephard on
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Zen VulgarityWhat a lovely day for teaSecret British ThreadRegistered Userregular
edited November 2009
Two TSM with one flamer?
I did not know TSM had flamers now!
Zen Vulgarity on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
While the TSM squad is trying to close on the Guardian squad, they are only doing 50% damage due to movement. And they can only chase 1 squad at a time, unless the enemy is blobbing.
I think the TSM Flamer only covers half the area that the Slugga flamer does, but with 50% more damage. I've tried it out on power gens before and it really didnt feel to have the melting potential that I thought it would. Especially considering the upkeep and popcap that I'm sacraficing for a unit that will have to slowly chase other units at almost walker speed, and wont have access to the ML that comes in T2.
What is your build order when you go for flamer tacs? Do you go for Shotties or Sergeant with the scouts or both? Do you build a second scout squad or a second TSM squad or go for a Dev or ASM squad?
I'll try to upgrade with the flamer more often, it just never feels that useful for me, but that may just be me being unfamiliar with it.
Not a whole lot more, maybe an increase back to 27 (from current 25). Also removing the multiple different bolter types, so that all bolters give the same damage. No more Scout / Devastator squad bolters magically doing less damage than the TSM counterparts.
3 Guardians squads have the same DPS vs 2 TSM as 2 TSM have against the 3 Guardian squads. Costs the same popcap too. But the Eldar will only have 60% of the upkeep and 75% of the HP. Throw in grenades and the Guardians will edge out again. Or the Big Shootas which will easily out DPS the TSM squads with their upgrades, along with some suppression if they want to really throw the balance.
If you're going to consider upgrades like the big Shoota/Eqiupment, why not consider the Flamer? It's designed to counter opposing ranged troops. It alone can kill a guardian squad in roughly five seconds if the guardian squad is in heavy cover. Outside of cover it still does more than a bolter as long as the troop has two members or more.
The only problem with the flamer is that you have to close with the guardians. That really isn't a problem though. It's something you generally want to do anyways. Once you knock out a squad or two from the fight the best way to deal with the pricks is just to beat them in the face anyways.
You might need to worry about grenades but personally I find them pretty easy to dodge.
Furthermore it gives you complete and total power harassment control. Bring the flamer out early if he goes triple guardians. Crush him in the early fight. Destroy his power before he can even get back. Even if he returns he has little to no melee power. Retreat is your most powerful defense. Do your damage and leave.
Two TSM with one flamer against three guardians with BE is something that the eldar cannot win unless someone sucks or the commanders are making a huge difference.
Grenades are easier for me to dodge, but that's usually when I'm keeping my distance. It's really obvious what they're up to when a Guardian squad lunges out of cover and heads towards you. If you're right next to them though, they can drop that grenade and there's a lot less time to react.
You're right though, I tend to avoid flamers because I want to wait for plasma. If you can force a retreat with a flamer squad their power economy is effectively wrecked in maybe half a minute.
EDIT: @ Gnome, personally if I'm going flamer, I don't upgrade the scouts with shotguns. Scouts shotguns are best against melee units, and you don't want to use flamers against those. Scout sergeant + infiltration is always handy though.
The Burna is better for power harrassment still. However, the Flamer is still about as good as it gets for SM. It's pretty nice.
Flamer works pretty well with every commander, but it's not too shabby with the melee ones in particular. The enemy has to focus on something. If all three of your troops (TSM x2 + commander) are closing in on the guardians they're pretty much screwed. Who do they focus on? Maybe if you had an apothecary you could kill him. If that's the case you would change it up, let the TSM get into melee range with a heal then follow them in.
The basic balance of guardian versus TSM is not bad off in this regard. The eldar would want to pick up some bansees/shuirken to counter, you could pick up some shotguns/ASM to counter that, etc etc. Game works alright in this regard I think.
Personally I don't play marines a whole bunch. However, I do play eldar a bit and I do use triple guardian occasionally.
What works well against that when I'm playing is generally flamer+ASM with one or two scouts. This is a 2v2 situation, I haven't played 1v1 in a while, but basically you use the scouts to keep map control while your heavy infantry act as shock troops. Guardians have no real hope of escaping a flamer if they're being jumped on. Once the eldar is beat his power is at your mercy. ASM is a large power investment but if you're keeping their generators down and yours up it's not going to hurt you in the least in the long run. Props if you take your flamer to your ally's side and burn the shit out of the other power farm too.
I guess I'd say it's something like...
Tactical squad, Flamer, Power, ASM, Wargear? Maybe another tactical while power for t2 accumulates, hit t2, grab upgrades/ML as necessary.
The TSM sargent is totally worth it. More durability. More melee damage. You want to force those ranged units into close combat in many situations. Great counter to surprise suppression in ATSKNF. You always want to prioritize your upgrades based on the situation but I can't see someone ignoring him completely unless resources are really at a crunch.
Soulstorm is rubbish, it's a bit like getting the plague except you paid the rat to send the fleas to bite you.
I finished the campaign (heavily patched that is) as the Imperial Guard and I had a reasonably fun time with it. The voice acting was as horrific as ever, but there was something appealing about bludgeoning the enemies of the Emprah into oblivion with Baneblades, Kasrkins and Vindicare sinpers that made it worth it.
Basically, once you master guardsman spam and know how to efficiently tech up to get the good stuff, you can turtle or steamroller pretty much anything. It was just cool to see whole valleys and stuff lined with corpses. I didn't even need to attack on the Necron stronghold. All four jumped into the middle of my massed lascannon positions and barely had enough time to finish gloating before they were incinerated.
Best was the whiny Eldar in their stronghold mission.
So I got this during the big THQ sale, how's the online work? Enjoying the Campaign so far.
First off there's Co-op, which is awesome. It's also got a fairly substantial hurdle for a GFWL game in that you can only play games via invite, no searching for co-op games like you can with something like Gears of War.
Having said that, if you can find someone to team up with, the campaign's pretty awesome on the harder difficulties. Each player takes control of two squads, and it seems to work quite well since it gives you the opportunity to really maximise the effectiveness of each squad. I never really used to use Tarkus' Taunt ability, or blind grenades when playing SP, but in co-op you find yourself free to use all the squad abilities more freely, so you tend to use them more.
Multiplayer is VERY different from the singleplayer, so be forewarned on that.
Multiplayer is matchmaking based (although you can also have custom games), with 1v1 to 3v3 games (3v3 is the default mainly). Each team starts with 500 tickets. Scattered around the map are resource and power nodes, and three Victory Points. Control the majority of these points and the enemies tickets start counting down to zero.
Every player chooses a commander for their side before the match (e.g. Space Marines can choose between Force Commander, Techmarine and Apothecary commanders), and each one has different abilities and different wargear you can purchase, as well as slightly different global abilities. There's still a "base" as such for each player, but there's no base building. The whole process has been streamlined. Instead you've got 3 Tech tiers, each tier unlocking new units and abilities / wargear to invest in.
The multiplayer's fast paced and fun, and the balance is pretty decent now as well. Main problem for starters is the matchmaking. Since the system doesn't know how good you are, it sets you up against mid / high level opponents right from the start, in order to calibrate where you fit in. I still think it was a stupid thing to do, and probably scared a lot of people away from the multi. But if you can tough out the early phase then it gets better.
Posts
That, and the bugs and imbalances for those factions were cringeworthy, even by previous set standards.
Which is why I must play it for myself.
You all probably don't remember me cause i haven't been around since just before "There is only war" update was released but anyway
I'm back!
With a brand new GFWL: Sparkbard (i know so creative i am, also i lost my email and password for my old one)
So add me :]
Ill creep my way onto vent every once in a while
or when anyones up for a game
I'll be in the PA DoW vent channel.
Steam ID : JustPlainEvil
I thought you can pause it and issue orders though, can't you? It's been a while since I played SP though, so I couldn't say for certain.
Also, find someone to co-op it with. Seriously. It becomes so much more awesome when you're playing coop at the higher difficulty levels. Controlling all 4 squads and their abilities simultaneously on Captain is something I found a bit too much, I never really used everyone to their fullest. Two squads each feels just right, and you end up using your unique squad abilities a lot more instead of having the tendency to blob them together.
http://www.tackfilm.se/en/?id=1259307333187RA46
Thats alot of work for a pretty small amount of payoff :P
MWO: Adamski
But since it was all on sale on Steam I nabbed it. Some quick questions:
1) DoW II. GFWL, wtf? I have to sign in to play a campaign? How does this work?
2) I hear that Soulstorm is... bugged. Or so I'm told. Just how bad is it?
1) I think you can play the Campaign without GFWL, but playing one-off games vs the AI requires you to be signed in. Its a free service and overall pretty handy for people that it works for. But if you are the 1% person who cant get it to work, it sucks.
2) Soulstorm had a couple of ways to cheat, and some balance issues. So depending on how you classify those, its either bugged or imba. The game itself was rock solid, I dont think people had crashing issues or anything like that.
MWO: Adamski
It almost feels like each of their squads needs another model with the associated HP & DPS boost (and maybe up the initial req cost of only the scout squad to 300 to compensate). Because currently the entire army just feels like bit walking walls of HP that dont do enough DPS or special abilities to really worry about. The exception being the scouts that are really powerful but require alot of babysitting.
MWO: Adamski
You need to at least make an offline account. It won't sign in online, it just needs to be in either an active online or offline account to plat the single player.
I actually like that about SM. The heavy armour means that in early game they're very durable, it's just that for the price you can't immediately get out as many squads as they can. When you've got two squads of Tacs and a scout sqaud though, you're doing a good amount of damage to whatever squad's attacking, and you've got the durability to stay in fire for a while. Once you hit T2, you've got plasma tearing things up, and rockets to scare away any vehicles.
Although in 1v1 the balance isn't there. They simply don't have the capping power of something like Eldar. From the start they've got 3 squads tearing around the map freely. Meanwhile you've got your Scout squad and your Tac squad, and you need to have them together in the event of any confrontation because his guardians will neutralise your scouts quite handily (my experience). It's even worse if he's gone WSE, since he can teleport around the map, and intercept your scout squad wherever it is. Once the squad's lost one member, they're done and need to retreat. And all this whilst you're having difficulty investing in power because of the heavy cost of your army.
Against most shooty armies, I find SM handle fine (sometimes you might need a Devastator squad if they're bringing a lot of forces to bear on one point), but I think Guardian spam needs a nerf.
Like the others have said, offline account works. You don't have to be online on either Steam (offline mode) or GFWL to play it.
The bad news is that you have to be online for multiplayer co-op. Offline LAN won't work.
Or, in Cyrus' words:
"The Kaurava campaign was a mistake ... I will not speak of it again"
Should also be noted that your GFWL and non-GFWL campaigns are stored differently, so if your save data "vanished" it's probably because you forgot to log on or off of GFWL.
Plasma has been brought into balance, so you really cant use it as a strength. Its only valuable as an upgrade if you are fighting alot of heavy armor enemies (it does the same DPS as the default TSM Bolter or just slightly more). Tac Squad have roughly the DPS of a Guardian squad, but no grenade upgrades, or Warlock embolden ability. The missile launcher offsets that a bit in later tiers if you are fighting a turret spammer or def dread spammer. The TSM Captain really only becomes valuable if your hero is Apoth. since without the apoth the ATSKNF wont charge without spending rediculous amounts of time regenning at base, especially after the base regen rebalance.
Space Marine pop cap is also pretty gimp. 2 Scouts, 2 TSM, 1 Razorback, 1 Predator. You are now at pop cap.
I dont think Guardian spam needs a nerf, I would say its about balanced with Shoota / Slugga / Horma spam. And about equal with Terma spam with BS WB.
The only balance problems I see nowadays is Tyranid tier 2 & 3, and SM tier 1.
MWO: Adamski
As for the sergeant, I'd say the Tac sergeant is useful regardless of ATSKNF, simply because of the extra model, squad health, and damage output. Though I'll agree that power rarely sees much use with me unless I've gone Apoth.
Pop cap, I'm a bit ambivalent about. I agree that I often want more units, but at the same time I can understand why their units are such high maintenance given how powerful individual squads are. I geuss I feel maintenance on some units could stand to be lowered, but I don't think there's ever been a situation where I've hit the pop cap and lost. If I can afford to be bringing out new heavy units at that stage, and have enough units on the ground that it won't let me, it's usually because I've already won. But then again, I also usually don't bother with Razorback as SM, unless I can depend on them not having AV.
Tac squads may have roughly the same DPS as a Guardian squad, but 1v1 the Guardian squad is always going to lose because of the huge advantage in health and heavy armour the Tacs have. They'll be fast losing members. The problem comes into play when you've got 3 squads coming in against that one Tac squad. They pretty much soak up any damage thrown at them, and you can't really send scouts or commander against them because they'll be torn apart. SM are more balanced if the enemy's got 1 Guardian and 1 Banshee squad on the field, but what you're seeing all the time now is triple Guardian instead. Might be similar with Orkz, but I've never really had a problem with shooty Ork armies. Most of the time, it's still preferable to field Slugga's instead of Shoota's against a Space Marine army
I don't know, maybe I should experiment more with the Tac flamer against Guardian squads, but I don't want to be left in the lurch against an army that has FoF, and when Warp Spiders come in. Either that or I need to remember to bring my devastators into play, more often.
Those are changes I support, but they need to rebuff/unnerf Bolters now that Plasma Blobbing has been brought in line.
I also dont know why TSM are the only squads who's bolters do full damage, they nerfed scouts and devastator marines bolters to do only half for some reason.
When looking at HP, Req, Pop, Upkeep:
vs
1050 - 500 - 15 - 12.8 TSM
vs
600 - 270 - 10 - 5.1 Shootas
vs
648 - 270 - 8 - 2.6 Termagaunts
Then look at DPS:
vs
14.58 x 3 TSM
vs
7 x 3 Regular Shootas
20 x 2 Big Shootas
vs
3.15 x 8 Termagaunt
4.25 x 8 Toxin Sac Termagaunts
TSM are slightly underperforming, especially since I think Guardians are in the right spot at the moment when compared to upgraded Shootas or Termagaunts. The other option would be to buff Scout bolters to do full damage, so that they arent required to upgrade to shotguns if they ever want to get in a fire-fight.
MWO: Adamski
I think increasing damage on Bolters might actually bring Tac blobbing back again. What would you like to see TSM damage increased to?
3 Guardians squads have the same DPS vs 2 TSM as 2 TSM have against the 3 Guardian squads. Costs the same popcap too. But the Eldar will only have 60% of the upkeep and 75% of the HP. Throw in grenades and the Guardians will edge out again. Or the Big Shootas which will easily out DPS the TSM squads with their upgrades, along with some suppression if they want to really throw the balance.
MWO: Adamski
TSM bolter damage could maybe do with a minor buff like you suggested. I was thinking you wanted to add something more significant onto the damage, which could be problematic.
With regards to the Guardians, I was talking mainly early early game, where you've only got 1 Tac + 1 Scout squad on the field against their 3 Guardians. That can be a pain to handle.
Bigga Shoota's, well like I said, I probably haven't got enough experience with them. Most of the time anyone playing against SM tends to go Slugga heavy, and what Shoota squads I do encounter are usually dispatched quite fast. Although I do think that Bigga Shoota damage is a bit crazy at the moment.
My main irritation with Orkz isn't the Shoota boyz though, it's StickBommaz. In 1v1 it's not so much of an issue, but in team games, Two squads of Stickbommaz can pretty much drown you in grenades. With stunbombs available by default, they can chuck two sets of grenades one after the other, making 4 sets of grenades all in one shot. Insta-stun grenades with a range outside of FoV, followed up by two sets of timed grenades (or some other attack) is pretty brutal.
MWO: Adamski
If you're going to consider upgrades like the big Shoota/Eqiupment, why not consider the Flamer? It's designed to counter opposing ranged troops. It alone can kill a guardian squad in roughly five seconds if the guardian squad is in heavy cover. Outside of cover it still does more than a bolter as long as the troop has two members or more.
The only problem with the flamer is that you have to close with the guardians. That really isn't a problem though. It's something you generally want to do anyways. Once you knock out a squad or two from the fight the best way to deal with the pricks is just to beat them in the face anyways.
You might need to worry about grenades but personally I find them pretty easy to dodge.
Furthermore it gives you complete and total power harassment control. Bring the flamer out early if he goes triple guardians. Crush him in the early fight. Destroy his power before he can even get back. Even if he returns he has little to no melee power. Retreat is your most powerful defense. Do your damage and leave.
Two TSM with one flamer against three guardians with BE is something that the eldar cannot win unless someone sucks or the commanders are making a huge difference.
I did not know TSM had flamers now!
I think the TSM Flamer only covers half the area that the Slugga flamer does, but with 50% more damage. I've tried it out on power gens before and it really didnt feel to have the melting potential that I thought it would. Especially considering the upkeep and popcap that I'm sacraficing for a unit that will have to slowly chase other units at almost walker speed, and wont have access to the ML that comes in T2.
What is your build order when you go for flamer tacs? Do you go for Shotties or Sergeant with the scouts or both? Do you build a second scout squad or a second TSM squad or go for a Dev or ASM squad?
I'll try to upgrade with the flamer more often, it just never feels that useful for me, but that may just be me being unfamiliar with it.
MWO: Adamski
Grenades are easier for me to dodge, but that's usually when I'm keeping my distance. It's really obvious what they're up to when a Guardian squad lunges out of cover and heads towards you. If you're right next to them though, they can drop that grenade and there's a lot less time to react.
You're right though, I tend to avoid flamers because I want to wait for plasma. If you can force a retreat with a flamer squad their power economy is effectively wrecked in maybe half a minute.
EDIT: @ Gnome, personally if I'm going flamer, I don't upgrade the scouts with shotguns. Scouts shotguns are best against melee units, and you don't want to use flamers against those. Scout sergeant + infiltration is always handy though.
Flamer works pretty well with every commander, but it's not too shabby with the melee ones in particular. The enemy has to focus on something. If all three of your troops (TSM x2 + commander) are closing in on the guardians they're pretty much screwed. Who do they focus on? Maybe if you had an apothecary you could kill him. If that's the case you would change it up, let the TSM get into melee range with a heal then follow them in.
The basic balance of guardian versus TSM is not bad off in this regard. The eldar would want to pick up some bansees/shuirken to counter, you could pick up some shotguns/ASM to counter that, etc etc. Game works alright in this regard I think.
Personally I don't play marines a whole bunch. However, I do play eldar a bit and I do use triple guardian occasionally.
What works well against that when I'm playing is generally flamer+ASM with one or two scouts. This is a 2v2 situation, I haven't played 1v1 in a while, but basically you use the scouts to keep map control while your heavy infantry act as shock troops. Guardians have no real hope of escaping a flamer if they're being jumped on. Once the eldar is beat his power is at your mercy. ASM is a large power investment but if you're keeping their generators down and yours up it's not going to hurt you in the least in the long run. Props if you take your flamer to your ally's side and burn the shit out of the other power farm too.
I guess I'd say it's something like...
Tactical squad, Flamer, Power, ASM, Wargear? Maybe another tactical while power for t2 accumulates, hit t2, grab upgrades/ML as necessary.
The TSM sargent is totally worth it. More durability. More melee damage. You want to force those ranged units into close combat in many situations. Great counter to surprise suppression in ATSKNF. You always want to prioritize your upgrades based on the situation but I can't see someone ignoring him completely unless resources are really at a crunch.
I finished the campaign (heavily patched that is) as the Imperial Guard and I had a reasonably fun time with it. The voice acting was as horrific as ever, but there was something appealing about bludgeoning the enemies of the Emprah into oblivion with Baneblades, Kasrkins and Vindicare sinpers that made it worth it.
Basically, once you master guardsman spam and know how to efficiently tech up to get the good stuff, you can turtle or steamroller pretty much anything. It was just cool to see whole valleys and stuff lined with corpses. I didn't even need to attack on the Necron stronghold. All four jumped into the middle of my massed lascannon positions and barely had enough time to finish gloating before they were incinerated.
Best was the whiny Eldar in their stronghold mission.
"Must we fight?"
So .... no Slaanesh.
To be expected. All the more likely each Chaos MP commander will represent a god.
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First off there's Co-op, which is awesome. It's also got a fairly substantial hurdle for a GFWL game in that you can only play games via invite, no searching for co-op games like you can with something like Gears of War.
Having said that, if you can find someone to team up with, the campaign's pretty awesome on the harder difficulties. Each player takes control of two squads, and it seems to work quite well since it gives you the opportunity to really maximise the effectiveness of each squad. I never really used to use Tarkus' Taunt ability, or blind grenades when playing SP, but in co-op you find yourself free to use all the squad abilities more freely, so you tend to use them more.
Multiplayer is VERY different from the singleplayer, so be forewarned on that.
Multiplayer is matchmaking based (although you can also have custom games), with 1v1 to 3v3 games (3v3 is the default mainly). Each team starts with 500 tickets. Scattered around the map are resource and power nodes, and three Victory Points. Control the majority of these points and the enemies tickets start counting down to zero.
Every player chooses a commander for their side before the match (e.g. Space Marines can choose between Force Commander, Techmarine and Apothecary commanders), and each one has different abilities and different wargear you can purchase, as well as slightly different global abilities. There's still a "base" as such for each player, but there's no base building. The whole process has been streamlined. Instead you've got 3 Tech tiers, each tier unlocking new units and abilities / wargear to invest in.
The multiplayer's fast paced and fun, and the balance is pretty decent now as well. Main problem for starters is the matchmaking. Since the system doesn't know how good you are, it sets you up against mid / high level opponents right from the start, in order to calibrate where you fit in. I still think it was a stupid thing to do, and probably scared a lot of people away from the multi. But if you can tough out the early phase then it gets better.