AS  per level games   you say like i am not 13 yest so i cant do that  Heavy boltor yet.  I much prefer the model where every level have a random generated  gun for it  so lets  say i have a artifact plasma  gun from level 10  then i  just get a new one at 12  the 12   will have  slightly better stats and damage for it being higher level than the  other.  This  may be harder in the current game to implement but it is better then saying i want that  best weapon  an then i never need to change it.  Also weapon degrade/repair  should be added  so that  players  don't just  sit on certain weapons they like  without   changing around or having a backup set.

The first 20 levels largely don't matter. From what I understand, they're there to give you time with the various tools at your disposal to figure out what you like (I still use a chainsword as the melee weapon for my tank) and what suits your playstyle.

I'd much rather deal with that than "well, I've got 20 more levels until I can use this rifle again because all of this level range doesn't offer it because this laser is intended for this level block".

Once you crack 20, weapons of all kinds are viable and obtainable, and you'll be able to run with whatever your heart desires.

Also, as per the Itemization post, currently crafting is borked so... don't waste your time with it, just level via Investigations and the odd Tarot coop run. Just let someone know you're looking to do a run and there's usually someone online that'll help you out.

To the OP

Yes the dev team has done good work on the art assets. This games atmosphere is taking a dark moody tone that fits so well for the 40k universe truly a job well done thus far.

I also enjoyed the old system that had all weapons available from the start of the game it felt more realistic to the lore of A 40k inquisitor.

Now it is locked behind tutorial levels that lower variety/build exploration at the beginning stages of player development & interest.

The original craft timers are more practical for re rolling items that on completion have random stats.

The current crafting system with its 60 minutes time gate seems fitting for items that would have fixed stats or the ability to alter them after completion.

I must say I have no excitement to wait 60 minutes  on A -green- item for it to have negative attributes.

Me being a player who does not have much time I may only see one crafted item per play session at this point when previously I could make multiple.

You might as well scrap calling it crafting and just make it one of your subordinates going to contact various rogue traders to acquire  armaments & supplies PER 60 minutes.   

Agreed. Crafting time is complelty unreasonable for me. Imho we could outright delete it.

As for the level requirement for weapons I also have to agree. To me it serves no purpose.

ALL weapons already are sidegrades. There is literally no reason to lock them behind levels other than to have something you can unlock.

Unlocking for the sake of unlocking something is more a COD Feature imho.

While I also find the weapon lock a little bit uncomfortable... To me there doesn't seem anything else they can use as incentive to level at this point in time. And by leveling I mean moving thorough the power levels and collecting new gear sets. 

Typically you would get one of the following..

1 New abilities - Only available via new weapons given the current system. Which for now lets assume they revert.

2 New enemies - Nice idea but not possible for hundreds of power levels.

3 Better weapons - Not possible every power level due to the intentions of the power level system.

You have to have one of the above as incentives to progress in a game or keep some form of tactile reward to the player. At the moment we get 2 and 3 every time we progress in a tier, which is something like 15 power levels. Now it's perfectly reasonable to say you don't want to have to wait to unlock new gear and ergo weapons / abilities with each power level.. But if not that then what would you want to work for? - I can't think of anything else that's possible. 

Another way to perhaps look at this is that a weapon is basically a skill set in any other ARPG, it's a "build" - a combo of skills. When you look at them like this its actually quite reasonable that they are staged and unlocked at different times as that's standard of the genre. 

Food for thought. 

Well we do level up to get skill points, to feel more powerful.

Weapons them self do not make us more powerful for they mostly are intended to play differently, not inherently more powerful.

That being said I would vastly prefer them to be there from the start - so you can actually pick the one you like or try them all out. 

The incentive to level up and play should be for the game is fun. It should be for you get more powerful.

I could kinda agree to weapons being locked it they were tiered into power categories or mostly cosmetic. But thing is they have the skills linked to them and some I do enjoy while playing and some I do despise. (Pretty much anything with the recharge mechanic)

I din't think it is a good idea to lock them away for the gameplay may suffer because of that. Do we want to force people to stick around with a very limited arsenal they now may "hate" just to "motivate" them to level up and unlock other stuff?

Imho motivation should not be about getting rid of something bad but instead of getting something better.

The issue is though for those 16 power levels x 4 hours each. What will you be getting from those 64 hours. Because the very nature of the power level system really means you won't be getting better in terms of equipment progression of gear is locked per Tier. The only thing you will be getting is a gradual trickle of skill points through time invested. 

To me at least variation is something that comes with progression. Sure, typically as you level in most ARPGs you get variation which correlates with progression, but that's simply because most ARPGs rely on power creep any anything you do as you play slowly gets stronger. It seems a little bit of a jump though to presume that because Martyr doesn't include power creep it should no longer provide a steady trickle of variation like other games of the genre. 

I'm totally accepting that having weapons shut out of a sandbox game might be off putting to some people. Just wondering what alternative there is as incentive. You can't honestly tell me with a straight face that you expect Martyr - an ARPG, will survive as a game by getting players to grind a gear set 15-20 times without any form of benefit to the player. Maybe it doesn't have to be unlocking weapons as you play, but it has to be something. 

I understand where Hydra is coming from, actually, but I don't entirely agree with it.

I personally take umbrage with the crafting times, but I don't mind waiting for improved gear... if it's an improvement. The gating in the game currently needs a large amount of work before it will feel at all natural.

As a lore-related reason, think of yourself (the account name) as a minor Inquisitor Lord, and the characters you roll as your chosen Inquisitors--they've just been raised up from acolyte status to fully-fledged throne agents. Sure, you could kit them out with archeotech... but that is rare and if they lose it nigh irreplaceable.

Honestly, the first 20 levels breeze by so fast there's not much reason to not treat them like the small tutorial gate they really are--it can be a little painful as a solo player, but there are folks online at most hours that'll be more than happy to run CR3 Tarots with you tagging along because everyone gets the increased effect--lowbies get a buttload more XP, a high chance at improved gear drops; while higher level players get an "acceptable" amount of XP (I've seen 20-60k depending on mission so far)... that got me from 16 to 20 in a couple hours with Pineapple and Hiazhel and a boatload of borderline heretical jokes.

Personally, however, I think that the gating should be changed later to be part of the tutorial process--perhaps set up in a way that strictly has you trying each variety of weapon on a "range" of sorts, so you can get a feel for them without feeling as though you're forced to stick with something for X hours just because.

Actually the Idea of treating the first 20 levels you may grind out rather fast to be some sort of tutorial for the career of Inquisitor would work.

IF:

- We would not command a friggin huge warp capable vessel, something most Inquisitors can only dream of.

- We had not a background in some of the most elite branches with wargear handed to us that just, uncontrollably, laughs at autoguns and laspistols.

- We would not inherently run around in said wargear by design (Such as Power Armor)

- We were not some mass-murdering maniacs that slaughter Chaos Marines left and right like this is Tuesday.

The Idea of us actually using low-tech weaponry like Autoguns is funny on its own, it gets more so when we think about this being our introduction to the Holy Inquisition.

Thing is, the Weapon Types being locked is relegated to character levels, this means we will unlock it fast enough to not be a "steady tickle" of variation for the time span of those power levels or anything else to be honest but it WILL take long enough to just feel annoying without any true purpose behind it.

My incentive is only to test right now. I sit at power level 1, not out of stubbornness. But just because I lack any reason to collect the next level of gear. If spending 4 hours gets me 1/20th of the way closer to the next set of the same enemies and a loot table bump. then the majority of the ARPG community will give up before even reaching that goal.

You seem to have mistaken that the point of my post was to say weapons shouldn't be available. My question was what is going to be "unavailable" instead?  What will make the fifth hour of play in that first Tier different from the twenty fifth. What is the player looking forward to. Getting stronger, better faster etc isn't happening.. Power levels don't involve power creep, ergo the first 64 hours of play (approx) will all be with the same effective gear and play styles.

Yes you can work to gear up your character for a few hours. But what about when you have gotten all the gear for that first power level? At least if you have unlocked a new "skillset / weapon)" then you can perhaps build your next set of gear towards another play style or weapon. Once more i'll repeat I don't think it's as encouraging as collecting a new shiny gear set that is better.. But that isn't an option to us. 

To address your points individually.

• When we asked the devs re weapon customisation we were told there is no intention to add this feature. Presumably due to the issue of balance control. So telling us that power creep should be the incentive to play just isn't valid. It doesn't exist. 
• Slight variation with enemies is always possible for some. Not for a development crew of 30 people. Fair enough with 1000 staff like diablo had then perhaps. Every Tier however? - Sure.
• Not sure to what you are referring with the diablo comment. Yes of course they have scaling and power creep which occurs at frequent intervals. Just on the off chance you weren't aware of this, inquisitor does not. The power level 1-20 gear sets will be identical in every way aside from their power rating. Only a tier will represent a bump in damage tables.
  
  

So this is why I asked the question, whats going to be the motivator for playing, what will we look forward to doing in 6 hours time that we can't do already? - I see exactly what players don't like the weapons being locked - It's an awkward attempt to try and motivate players to work for something in the absence of any other options.  

My personal thoughts would be that in Tier of content you would start of with a limited availability of gear and you slowly unlock it by progressing, each tier having a different rotation. As apparently lore is required to justify all game features - simply put when you get to a new sector you need a new standard of equipment and of tech. Getting access to that will take time, time being represented by progress in that area. Yes we have a spaceship but that doesn't mean we have everything in the imperium at our feet. This is purely something I personally would be ok with. I'm not arguing for it though. It's fairly clear how many players would feel about not having access to the specific build / gear and items they want. 

It is certainly worth considering that we haven't had the levelling update too. Where the entire process of grinding, along with the tutorials is getting an overhaul. So the experience of the first 20 levels might actually be very different soon enough. Hell we might even not get access to the galaxy map (and our space ship) till we are a decent level and the majority of weapons unlocked. I'm not saying it'll feel better then, I have no idea what the early game content will include. Just entertaining the possibility. 

You have made me realise how curious it is that most ARPGs start a player as an "unknown" or "exile" of sorts and you slowly find out who you are. In inquisitor it's fairly clear and you already have a history of being badass. Which is sort of needed to justify why we are walking around the galaxy as we please. Perhaps the narrative will be a little more humbling though, that perhaps we are experienced.. But does that really equip us for what we are facing? - That's the question. 

Also by the same reasoning we should have the best gear in the imperium. We should spawn with min/maxed gear straight away.  :D - For your point of purpose. You could make that point of any skill you unlock in an ARPG. For eg you could ask why can't you use every skill in diablo straight away? Many aren't more powerful than others on their own, they don't do more damage inherently - yet you have to play to get them. Again, i'm not trying to justify the roadblock - just pointing out the possiblity that what you feel as frustration, others might feel as incentive. 

I'm leader of Ordo Hydra, you didn't need a book to tell you that!

More importantly it does't say i'm wrong :D

His post A direct jab of the power fisted verity to your counter post yet you twist it as you are some how ...right... The warp has gotten to this one and his ordo of heretical fiends.

There will be another post and you hydra will yet again take the same stance as always bringing up frail & arthritic diablo talking points not even taking into account any of Neocores previous works.

Being the niche gamer you are I would expect nothing less. 

See, that right there is why I think that the account is the true Inquisitor/Inquisitor Lord, and the characters are all recently promoted Acolytes (both as a lore justification, and to explain why they have access to what appears to be a cruiser!!!). They themselves don't have this stuff, you're doling it out. It makes the most sense, especially given that they share the ship and stash. You're giving them orders and watching their progress, commanding them via direct vox-link on the ground, etc. It would certainly explain why there's access to all these obscure training programs to give to them as well--you see what they're good at (so to speak) and begin shaping them into what you see is their ideal role as the Emperor's scalpel, cutting out the tumor of heresy. We certainly don't start out with "badasses", they're just inexplicably geared better... and that strikes me as "the power behind the character" is the player his-or-herself, the shadowy Inquisitor Lord shepherding these souls through the crucible as your eyes and ears. These in turn have their own networks (which is why, to me, investigation reports use character name while other things use account name) that they use to follow your orders.

That's just how I've come to interpret it through my massive neckbeardy grognard-goggles.

The problem with this Brother, is that it has been repeated - even directly stated that "we" and our character are the inquisitor. I even asked the question directly to clarify. So while yes it might better explain in some views what is happening within the game, it still isn't the case. Personally I think trying to rationale this game constantly into viable lore, as if the game is itself somehow another book being acted out, will forever be very difficult.

Good lord, all i'm doing is probing for a better quality argument for why a feature should or shouldn't be removed. I've yet to be given that. The only thing i've been told is that holding things back from a player is pointless.
 
Should the word Diablo somehow offend you I can compare many other ARPGs from a vast range. You have to get to level X to get skill Y. It's more or less the industry standard. I'm not arguing for or against the level cap on weapons, just providing observations on it. It's good that you bring Van Helsing into this conversation to be honest. It helps to highlight my point. That games biggest weakness is not having any form of long term value or incentive. Myself and numerous other cabal members played it and funnily enough you know what.. using the same 4 abilities for 30 hours became tiresome. We had nothing to learn after the first hour of game play.

Feel free to try again at disarming any of my points. What you find is that frail things are easy to pick apart. And that people who resort to insulting the intelligence of others are usually guilty of the quality they make accusations of. 

Got that from devstream commentary, I take it? Good to know.

Honestly I'm not looking for it to be rigid, strictly by-the-book lore, just sharing how I personally have found it easiest to suspend my disbelief... granted, there were some things (like previously, a lasgun outperforming a meltagun because reasons) that were solved to my satisfaction, and some that still have issues that will be fixed in upcoming updates (as stated by developers).

I would however, like to point out that I am very much hoping this does not go anywhere near the CS Goto heresy present in the Dawn of War series. Backflipping Terminators and Eldar harvesting skulls to gather power (KHORNATE HERESY) should be the standard of what to avoid. And the easiest way to ensure it...

Plenty of feedback. All the feedback. Even if some folks are quick to point out that it's a game and not a novel, I will continue throwing out feedback so I can do my part to help ensure this game does not drop down the rabbit hole of many other promising 40k franchise titles.

Lest we follow in the footsteps of the Arch-Heretic Ward and his disciple CS Goto, in the Emperor's name I give feedback.

Yes - I made a point to ask on stream and direct to a staff member for extra clarification. Do my best to know what i'm talking about before I start talking. Despite what many think!

If it's of any reassure to you I have also heard the following quotes!

"there will be no my little pony tributes"

"no back flips"

"any humour will have to be delivered with great care"

"no twitch response lightning darts around map"

"no killing 500 enemies a second"

The thing is: Being just a new recruit of a more Powerful lord may justify us having a Cruiser - though that alone is quite a stretch given how most Inquisitors in Fluff are portrayed by traveling FAR more subtle and humble. Some of the most notable Inquisitors had barely more than what could be described as a guncutter.

Those Inquisitors that actually fly around in their own Ships, as a way of power projection, have left subtle means behind them for quite some time and to trust such an asset to a newly promoted inquisitor is VERY unlikely.

That aside: It still does not justify why we run around with autoguns and lasguns.

The Crusader Comes from one of the most elite orders of human warrior where you standard wargear consists of a power sword and a friggin STORM SHIELD. Power weapons are actually somewhat "accessible" for the higher echelons, heck, there are even some IG Sergeants out there with that kind of stuff. But Storm Shields thematically are indeed super rare and actually EXTREMELY powerful.

Same goes for the Assassin. We have no Idea what Temple she comes from but the very fact that we loot several Exitus Rifles, the guns that by design are supposed to be Unique and Gene-Coded for their respective Operative beats the Fluff into its cochones.

Linking the way what gear we have, how we get it and what it is to the Fluff simply does not work. Gameplay takes precedence here for the fluff goes pretty much against everything that is and will happen in regards of itemization.

Per the storm shield, I still find it strange that it seems to be functioning like a "normal" shield, when it's a shield that uses power field tech to basically melt incoming attacks the way power fields on weapons crumple armor--that's part of the reason I mentioned some of the talking points in my shield thread that I covered ( here ).

In what I was saying, it was not that your agents are trusted with the Cruiser, it was that you yourself had it and were deploying them from it--granted as you point out that's a rare Inquisitor Lord that will abuse his or her power enough to second a Rogue Trader's cruiser to their cause, but it's not unheard of. IMO the base building and such will probably end up providing a more "acceptable" method of justifying everything in terms of lore perspective...

But yeah, I have difficulty with the Exitus rifles too. Especially seeing how the last time I had access to one, it was worse than the standard issue Imperial Guard solid projectile rifle. Where are my turbo-penetrators strong enough to crack Titan grade void shields (as per Malcador's attempt on Horus' life during the Heresy, followed by the extreme overkill of a hidden LANCE emplacement)? I honestly can't see a good way of incorporating that off the top of my head, outside of "long CD, kills in one shot" that would cause more problems than it's worth.

Yea, that is my overall problem with how each piece of gear is supposed to be a sidegrade. That alone screws up a power balance that has been set in stone by decades and hundreds of novels/source books and even put in numbers by the crunch.

In other terms it is as if we had a modern military game where some makeshift bow and arrow is supposed to be as strong as a SotA 7,62 × 51 battle rifle.

With Stuff like the Storm Shield or Exitus Rifle it gets especially weird to treat them just like "some other gear".

That alone destroys any fluff explanation on how we get gear in new sectors and the like.

In theory the Exitus Rifle, as rare as its ammo is, should pretty much annihilate ANYTHING in this game. Yet it is balanced to compare to some "trash" you hand out to guardsmen.

From a game play perspective I can understand that, yet we should agree that fluff plays no role in itemization other than naming items.

With the proper arrowhead choice (certain broadheads and expanding heads), the terminal ballistics can be comparable between that and any 7.62x51 NATO chambered battle rifle with ball loads.

What we're comparing with the SP sniper rifle vs. the Exitus rifle is more the difference between a Dragunov 7.62x54R "designated marksman rifle" (which still makes me chuckle, the 54R is such an inefficient cartridge) and a Bushmaster 25mm Repeating Payload Delivery Rifle.

Realistically, outside of the Exitus rifle (and potentially boltguns, as some fluff has them represented as two-stage coilguns with gyroc ammunition), the vast majority of 40k infantry armaments aren't much better than what we have now--autoguns and stubbers are actually produced (canonically) in patterns designed now (such as the common 1911 derivative stub pistol and Mac-10 derivative autopistol), showing that outside of lasguns (which are Munitorum standard because they all eat the same ammunition in the form of power packs, and are vastly more standardized) almost all non-specialist weapons are... well... more of the same. In some cases, worse, as some of the sniper rifles have a range of less than a thousand yards which based on the size of the cartridges (in the .50 BMG range) means they've forgotten "how to ballistics"... or are loading super-dense slugs in an ancient casing design. Ahem. 

/Hammer mechanic meandering off-topic response.

I said makeshift bow and arrow for a reason; crude technology that barely works.

The other thing works of a completely different technology that has been refined and turned into a piece of deadly art by true artisans and modern ways of production.  

As for the ballistic weapons on 40k there is a friggin huge diversity. Some can be compared to the stuff we have now, some are the pinnacle of what simple ballistic weapons could be. In theory it goes up to cal 50 Assault Rifles that have enough shock absorbers to actually work out or some of the Arbites Shotgun patterns that are both, technically sophisticated beyond imagination yet also closer to frigging cannons than anything else. In that regard there certainly IS high technology and that is even produced in the 40kth millenium.  

The thing is just that other weapon technologies are just SO MUCH BETTER. The Lasgun packs as much punch as most of these weapons yet its logistics are just the wet dream of any military planer in history.

Bolters are a sophisticated jack-of-all-trades kind of weapon that can be optimized for pretty much anything.

And this goes on and on to the point where every guy hopes to just have a Plasma Gun as standard issue because it just does literally anything better than most other line-weapons.

And then there is stuff like the Exitus Pattern Weapons. A Marvel maybe even for the Days of the DAoT that gets produced as a pari, including rifle and pistol, on a personal scale for each individual Vindicare Assassin. An actually Temple Assassin, one of the rarest and most deadly killers that the Imperium has at its disposal. Those weapons have sensory arrays and actual machine spirits that would bring most other imperial technology to tears. And if that was not enough we add some of the most potent kinds of ammunition to that.

The tech behind the GM6 Lynx production rifle could, in theory, be used to produce a heavy assault rifle slinging .50 BMG munitions, so it's not really that far out (it's a fascinating design actually)... and we currently have .50 caliber assault rifles in the form of select fire (and issued) .50 Beowulf carbines--which uses a heavy .50 slug in a straight-wall cartridge--that are shockingly effective.

A lot of extant Arbites pattern shotcannons are little more than (minor) upgrades on currently available (though rare and all custom built) 8 gauge repeaters; while some of the rest are just straight across adaptations of 40mm grenade launchers firing buckshot tubes (such as one design that showed up that is based on a failed Vietnam War era pump action 40mm grenade launcher that held 3+1, but with a magazine feed to allow it to lug 8+ shells instead of an in-line tube under the barrel). 40mm buckshot tubes are an actual thing, too. As are flechette tubes, though those were phased out of main-line infantry service before the 80's.

Directly, though, the comparison was in approximate oomph levels compared to modern firearms, rather than stating that the Exitus was in any way ballistically similar (it cracked titan grade void shields, again, so that's definitely not a comparison) I was stating the huge difference in ballistic potential and payload delivery between two munitions.

In general, autoguns and stubbers are (canonically, it has been stated by actual fluff writers working for GW) largely approximate to modern technology--which is why illustrations exist that show what are clearly 1911s and Mac-10 machine pistols being carried by officers.

Bolters are just gyrojets ironed out, and writ-large. They're almost identical in terms of round fired, except they have a booster charge that eliminates the issues that the original 70's Gyroc had. Yes, they're based on a real (failed) thing, because Warhammer came out in the 80's and if it was "metal enough", it was added in for rule of cool. :P

Lasguns are, of course, the logistical planner's wet dream as you stated. All of them can eat the same ammunition, so they're far better than any amount of ballistic weapons--while they do in fact have slightly less stopping power (which is why the fans refer to them as an angry flashlight) than many other weapons at play, the humble lasgun is at least as powerful as any modern rifle munition--rifle, not intermediate rifle, because people tend to think more of the 5.56x45 and 7.62x39  than they're actually capable of.

The bow thing though, that was just me being a smartass.

It is true that somewhat technologies exist now that are comparable yet we shall not forget that the principle behind accelerating some sort of stone or metal through a tube with blackpowder is centuries old. The key technology never improved that much from that point onward but actually the many different aspects of how that technology was implemented did. We used new barrels, made those guns less prone to explode and at some point came up with bullet casings and then tried to get rid of those again. We invented shock absorbers to increase the payload and fire rate without the guy holding the gun flying backwards and so on. While the guns look the same, the technology they employ may be vastly different and more sophisticated.

Most of those prototypes did not fail because they could not fire up their payload, they did fail because they lacked in other aspects or were just to expensive to produce.

That is the aspect where I see the firearms of the 40k world being far ahead. They still accelerate some metal during a single stage with some sort of expansive explosion but then it gets fancy.

As to how weapons function... that alone is a nightmare for WH40k for especially the bolter seems to change its fundamental mechanics every five years from being multi stage gyrojets with a combustion stage to being partially mag rifles or having casings or no casings at all. They pretty much follow the idea of what the writer thinks looks cool and the black library did not notice to change. GOTO YOU TARD!

Especially the old illustrations - prominently of the rogue trader era - are a nightmare to draw conclusions from. Their artists had no guidelines at that point and they ramped it full of stuff that followed the sci-fi aesthetics of the time. Use those illustrations today and nobody would even think warhammer was a grim and dark universe but a friggin fancy childrens cartoon. Just look at the old bolters where the magazine sits an inch before the muzzle.

Some of the aesthetics we kept, some were thrown out of the window over time - for the better I may say.

<a href="http://imgur.com/ieOsZIP"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ieOsZIP.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

All the thrones for the old beakies illustration. ALL OF THEM. Neocore, give this man ALL THE THRONES! That and the Goto comment almost made me choke.

It's funny that we get to this stage in the discussion, in meatspace I'm working out a design that (hopefully) will improve upon a few things and get us out of the "ARs are the best thing EVAR" slump that's been around for about... twenty years or so; so hitting the tech comment hits close to home.

Generally though, my understanding of how the autoguns function comes from averaging out the lore--autoguns and stubbers are an odd pair of descriptions that have vast sub-categories that make it hard to make blanket statements outside of the obvious "stubbers are larger bore and 'lower tech'" (so to speak) while autoguns are generally smaller bore and close to modern cutting edge.

Rogue Trader, well... I never base anything on that other than my love for Squats. :)

- "funnily enough you know what.. using the same 4 abilities for 30 hours became tiresome. We had nothing to learn after the first hour of game play. " - 

You must find this game with it's 4 base skills tiresome as well :)

Not sure if that's you trying to be smart but you have helped stress my point.

Within VH once you invest in skills there's no encouragement to respec or try something new. It's very easy to complete the entire game without a single reminder that there are other options. Most games would give you via saying "hey you just hit level X - Here is something new to try"

I'd point out there is a vast difference between VH and IM in that you can "respec" within IM with 1-click. Not only that but Relic weapons and various other Holy/Daemonic weapons will provide some encouragement to change your 4 skills. So perhaps these will fill this gap and take the place of a standard ARPG "hey you just hit level X - Here is something new to try" - But will there be enough of them to regularly encourage players to change their build? I don't know - this is why I asked the question.

I'm sure I might be challenged on the notion that players won't swap weapons when they get bored. No. I think they will just stop loading up the game.. Why? Because currently we have the most die-hard warhammer fans as alpha testers and very happy to just explore the 40k weapons. Can you safely say this will apply to the average steam gamer? Will they be happy crafting their favourite weapon every time they reach a new power level and playing with the same 4 skills till they reach a point of boredom and give up? - Honestly you can agree or disagree with this and I won't tell you that you are wrong, but it's worth considering for a moment or at least entertaining the idea.

Therein lies the rub. The non-die hard 40k fans are probably going to boot it up, play for a month or two, and like many other games let it moulder until a major content update (like the kind teased by Neocore as being on the post-launch roadmap, IIRC). Not for any failing of the game, but because it's the die hard fans that usually make up the most sustainable portion of the population base. Not all of this post is in direct response to your comments here, but some of it is; some of it is just laying some things on the table I've seen over the last few years in pre-release alpha Foundings (and a bit from over a decade ago from closed alpha/beta testing).

It can't just appeal to us to the detriment of the non-die hards. That does mean some hard facts:

1. No casual player that isn't a "no lifer" like myself will have the patience to spend 60+ minutes crafting a single piece of gear, even after they un-[expletive deleted] the system. It's just not gonna happen. They complain enough when it's a major item for their character (such as, in Black Desert Online, they're crafting a ship and it's going to take several hours to complete). And face it.. a lot of the people that are going to buy this post-launch are probably going to be casual gamers interested in the motif (you can track it in responses to articles on the alpha fairly easily), rather than a flood of fans like us that are immersed in the lore enough to get into long debates about obscure plot points maybe a tenth of the entire 40k fanbase even cares about.

2. Expect the community to degrade. Greatly. I don't know if you've paid attention to Steam forums but over the past few years they've gotten... somewhat toxic. And a lot of that leaks into dev forums. And a lot of that will leak into our global chat, forcing a lot of the community that we've been building (I have yet to talk to a player I don't like, and I hate everyone) to disintegrate into small cabals, ignoring General as it turns into a cesspool of toxicity and stupid. Yeah.. I've done the alpha-to-final a few times. It's never pretty. And with that you'll see a lot of complaints about the itemization, no matter how well Neocore fixes things up based on all of our feedback here. I mean a lot of it. From "why isn't my laspistol able to kill hellbrutes" to "nerf refractor shield plx, haxxor killed me in pvp with it", and a colorful amount in between. Hopefully, our input tunes it well enough that Neocore doesn't cave to that or we'll see another Battlefleet Gothic: Armada where APM whingers from the starcraft community ruined the strategic pace of the game and turned it into a monobuild nightmare.

3. Expect the community to degrade. Seriously, this is worth two bullet points. I have to use two hands to count the number of times I've posted bug reports to game forums explicitly for that purpose and gotten a flood of responses that ranged from death threats to bizarre "ur gonna ruin the game [expletive deleted], stop posting this stuff". The latter I assume comes from people that don't understand how an alpha/beta works, but that's neither here nor there. Both of these bullet points directly feed into the next two.

4. The casual player will simply not want to do what we've been doing to progress. I've been having a blast in coop. I hate PUGs. With a passion bordering on neurosis. And yet I started running PUGs in this, and have been enjoying myself to the point where I don't even think of it as a bad thing, nor do I notice the time spent. But we've also spent hours and hours grinding tarot missions of higher power levels just to break into the next tier of equipment, and the casual player's time is incredibly finite--maybe an hour a night at most. This is part of the reason many ARPGs do hand out loot like candy, and give discernable progression in shorter chunks through the main story, leaving the super-grind of new game+, hard modes, veteran difficulties, etc, to those of us with the time to spare. So unless Neocore hands out gear choice spots during the story campaign, they're going to feel left out while those of us with the time and inclination to have a riot exterminating high level content in roving packs of murderhobos--I mean, Inquisitors--there will likely be some friction on that front.

5. There will need to be rebalancing on the solo content side. As stated above, I abhor PUGs and almost never form up with other players that I don't personally know. The community as it is now made that issue moot, as it's a huge gathering of fellow grognards with whom I already share a kinship with through the depth and scope of our gnarly neckbeards. That will change after launch. It will probably change as soon as this is available through Steam directly. And that shift will cause a lot of solo players to play alone, since 40k is a pretty niche setting and a lot people won't be able to guilt--I mean convince--friends into joining them. As it stands, CR1 solo content outside of the investigations is... stiff. If you're not geared and set up decently, it can be a godawful slog. In fact, even when I have around 25% block and 50% damage reduction (70% when my refractor is active), it can still be a slog for me, but I'm enough of a 40k nerd that I put up with it. I rage a little bit, get the salt out, and dive right back in. In titles that I have not had such a connection to, I've just walked away and not touched them again. A lot of us do. I don't want to see that happen to Martyr, not when it's already more solid than a number of games I own that are feature complete!

These are observations made both as a gamer, and as a former designer. The current climate is... shaky, and we ignore the casual with money to burn at our own risk. At no point do I think everything needs to be turned into training wheels only, but set the barrier to entry too high, and people will leave.

In closing, hopefully this leaves some food for thought. Unfortunately for me, it also leaves an itch to get back into the game instead of doing that sleeping thing I blew off in order to respond to this thread again with a relatively thoughtful post. It's thoughtful insomuch as I made an effort to not be as abrasive as I normally am, at any rate. ;)

Some fairly fair points although I don't think catering to the casual player base is always the same thing as being detrimental to the more hard-core and vice versa. What is certainly true though is you can never make everyone happy, literally every choice is going to annoy someone and this doesn't mean from one side or the other often people on both sides. 

Agree with your point on catering to the casuals though, for me there is some extra incentive because if this game is to survive financially and provide an ongoing stream of content  such as they intend they will need money and ultimately the money gained from the casual player base tends to outweigh the hardcore which is an important factor early on in a games lifespan. Although i'm not saying they should take priority given the points you made, their game time may well be temporary. Given the nature of the game though it's worth giving them every reason to come back or not loose them in the first place.

Curiously within this same forum I was being told only a month ago that it was is the Hard-Core players within most games who force content toward a niche view of the game style which drives away new players from joining a game! Not saying that's the case here but it's interesting how literally polar opposite views exist on these things :D

A question on crafting if I may.. would you be happy(ier) with an item every 10 minutes? - Pretty much ready for you after a mission.

Honestly? I'd be happier if standard materials were a little more rare, but I had no crafting timer. Then things like what just happened wouldn't happen an hour after I logged out.

So I hit PL2 defense. Awesome, put all the T2 gear I needed in to bake. Decide after watching your vids and such to log back in to equip my new sword and shield because hey, it's been 50 minutes so a few left... only to get a T1 sword and T1 shield from the queue. I can't tell if it only flags internally to allow it if that specific trait is up (which I cannot clear at all), while displaying T2 gear for both sides... or if I'm going to get T1 defense gear as well--in which case I will be mildly miffed at the crafting system. Again.

I will say that listening to hard-core players and ignoring new players (similar to how every game must be Dark Souls now and be permadeath hardcore masochism sims) is highly detrimental. For example, Curselove's posts saying "too easy remove the innoculator drops". Without innoculator drops, I wouldn't have been able to slog through the first fifteen levels worth of missions, and I probably would have left, even with the amount of 40k nerdery in my system.

Generally, my response is: "Challenge modes are cool. Making the whole game a challenge mode will kill it."

Changing material density is an option. Very difficult though given the advanced materials mean you need a huge number of lesser ones in order to craft an item. Raising the cost I guess would be a sensible alternative (cost in terms of materials) something to ponder over. 

For crafting, as far as I know the items will only craft at level 2 once both your attack and defence are level 2 although I could be wrong this was stated as the case in the past. Despite the tooltips displaying otherwise. 

Can certainly agree in a system where they expect you to progress every 4 hours, having a 4 hour craft time is quite bemusing, even one hour. But I would expect all this to change dramatically with the Sept overhaul patch which tackles progression largely. 

That is... telling, and actually makes it worse.

If the tooltip displays I can craft it but I can't actually craft it, that's another way to drive players off. Especially when we're frozen at one [expletive deleted] point away from that power bump.

That means I just wasted a lot of optimization items. Woooo.

if the tooltip says one thing and does another, it's a bug :D !-

Agreed. It seems asinine at worst, poorly thought out and explained at best. I don't have much room to talk there, you should have seen the original magic mechanics I worked out once upon a time when I was doing something interesting with my life... made sense to me, but the rest of the staff had to scratch their heads to figure out what the hell I was on about.

As for the argument that changing a weapon would be somewhat of a soft respec I have to disagree very strongly.

I personaly ALWAYS have to adapt my skills anyway if I change weapons. This does not just boil down to the different skills you  need for ranged and melee but also stuff like physical and heat damage. Some weapons have a completly different support for your survival that makes you spend more points into that aswell while others are more kiting relevant and thus have different needs.

Just switiching your weapons and calling it a day does not work. And if it would the skill system would be so shallow that we could stop at that point anyway.

Also keep the gear in mind. In theory we need entire sets of gear for some weapons for they are COMPLETLY useless with other weapons. Think of +Damage to channeling effects. Many weapons don't even have a single one. Or fleshbane and the like.

You completely misrepresent what I said. 

When asked why i'm not bored using 4 skills within inquisitor whereas 4 skills in Van Helsing. My point was that within Martyr every time you equip a new gun you change build, with a single click. "Build" meaning a collection of skills. Fair enough you have successfully nit picked and pointed out that it won't be optimised. My point was regarding being presented means or incentive to change skills, not the effort it takes to do it or to min/max it.

As a general observation - i'm a little disappointed by this thread and that others don't afforded the same courtesy I give them as when i'm presented with reasoning or debate I respond with the same. There seems to be an unhealthy amount of friction because I posed a simple question. 

If working towards new weapons as we level is pointless in your (pleural) eyes then what are you going to work for during the first 20 power levels or 60+ hours of gameplay - given there won't be power creep, what would you like to see?

 This question was intended at the time and still is meant to be an opportunity for people to think on the subject and articulate their views. Not attack me for holding my own. 

I would not call that nitpicking.

What you claim to be a build is "just" the collection of 4 skills.

For me a build is a tiny bit more than that. Not running around with now useless items is hardly "optimizing" but BASICS for a build for you build up something - and building something boils down to quite a few aspects.

What if people simply don't want to change skills? At the third time unlocking stuff they may already know what they want and as I told you, I for example hate an entire group of weapons. Why does the vague need to offer an incentive to switch skills because people are physicaly not capable to switch weapons on their own take precendence before the other vague need of players simply not liking to play with a spicific wargear?

If you want to use other weapons, or as you say "switch" your build - just do it. I don't get what is so hard with that. If it is frustrating for you to play the same gun - JUST SWITCH IT.

I on the other side can't do that for a mechanic prevents me from doing it if it is locked. You on the other side are free to pretty much do anything if it is not locked.

Is that the trend we should go for? To assume that the players are brain-dead and incapable of switching their own weapons when they get annoyed of the ones they have?

As for your question there were reactions to that and so far the overwhelming consensus seems to be that the proposal is not fun.

Also - there WILL be power creep. There always is.

-"This question was intended at the time and still is meant to be an opportunity for people to think on the subject and articulate their views. Not attack me for holding my own. "- 

Relax little fella it's banter~ 

Whatever you call a collection of skills is irrelevant. You can call it a pink muffin for all I care. All I have been saying is that within Martyr there is a very easy mechanism to swap between collections of skills. 

Yet again I repeat.. I did not say weapons need to be locked. So you can freely move on from defending this point. I don't know how many more times I must repeat this.

I asked what else you might look forward to while grinding through the power levels within a single Tier? Given that power creep does not occur on gear between power levels of the same tier. You can dispute this but it's fact, it's how the power level system works. The only thing that is different from P1 to P5 is your available skill points. Should that be sufficient for you then fair enough, lets leave it at that.

Now if you want to part by agreeing to disagree here that you expect players to actively find and seek motivation to play once they get bored, whereas I do not. Then let's leave it there. 

The Casual's Guide to Building Survivable Characters:

1. Build with only tank/survival passives.

2. Use whatever you want because nothing is optimized.

3. Join a group.

4. Smite the enemies of the Emperor by getting their attention and being largely forgettable damage-wise, leaving the others to cleave through their foolish ranks.

4. Profit!

Sure my damage output is atrocious... but as long as I keep viable gear on, my weapons are an afterthought and I'm free to switch my second set to whatever I please... and in the end it is often more important and useful to drop debuffs on everything anyway while the true combat monsters roll through.

/joke

To Hydra: Power creep already exists. Power creep is present realm of Nurgle units. Both their DoTs, and their ungodly regeneration. A creature of flesh, against a Fleshbane weapon that should by all rights demolish it should not outheal your damage output. Ever. Period.

And the higher the CR, the higher that gets, until they're outhealing a fully spooled up heavy bolter. Again for those in the back, outhealing a weapon that cranks up to something like 5 rounds per second. I've mentioned this before, and there are a few current ARPGs that simply do away with the monster type almost entirely outside of the rare "you might run into one of these as a unique, named monster"... largely because everyone hates them.

And then, here, they're being dropped into beginner investigations missions, well before the hour mark that any other game that includes them starts to incorporate those mechanics, forcing players to learn all at once what mobs to prioritize and "oh damn that guy can knock me down and wait is he outhealing my damage wtf aand I'm dead because I can't dodge around the other two that came up on me, they've locked me in place so I'm stuck, I have no idea why those are in the game but this class obviously sucks because nobody else is raging about these common enemies" is the end result. And that's if they've chosen a "viable" (read: not currently heavily gear/skill point dependant) class to build in the first place, as opposed to something (currently) difficult to get right.

And then, champion spam. I have difficulty remembering any ARPG I've played where champions spawned in clumps of fours and fives outside of challenge dungeons. Even then, it's usually two at the most because "champion" equals "tough opponent", not cannon fodder. This gets crazier as you increase CR, where you can run into up to six of those axe-dragging timegates while having twenty to forty ranged and melee trash mobs and several traitor marines to boot; turning Martyr into an impromptu horde game where it was intended to be a more thoughtful ARPG. As to this talking point, I'm not sure if they're drawing on their experience with Van Helsing and accidentally forgetting the "think, not spam) part, or have some issues with their spawn tables (it could be either or).

Let the downvotes roll in!

I took great care in being very specific when I said that "power creep does not occur on gear between power levels of the same tier." 

Noted that enemy regen does however have creep. Presumably to counter the small amount of damage creep we get via investing new skill points from time to time. That's not me justifying it - just speculating. My point was to bring awareness that if all you have to look forward to between power level 5 and 15 is the quantity of skill points you have, then is that really sufficient incentive to grind 10 identical gear sets to travel that road? - Hence me asking for ideas. It's not an unreasonable or offensive question is it?

With re to you referring to Marauders as Champions/Elites i'm not so sure that's their intended classification. To me at least they seem to resemble large unwieldy mobs you see within any form of top down game to provide some basic mob variety. We can agree though that the size of the packs, combined with the health pool and regen does make them feel more like an elite pack. 

Not quite sure why you are expecting down votes - it's acceptable to criticise the game in here and complain about frustrations. More acceptable than asking a open question regarding what motivates players to progress in a game. 

Thanks for maintaining the standard and contributing.

Largely at this point I'm taking the stance of devil's advocate--speaking from differing viewpoints that I've either seen or had myself in the past (outside of that $@#$ regen, that's totally all me), to spice the discussion up a bit and shed some light on things outside of the scope of the 40k fan viewpoint.

But it's a fast route to downvotes these days. At least here we're relatively civil, I can name half a dozen games where playing the devil's advocate actually garnered a flood of death threats.

Well if you keep it up you won't get any death threats here, but you will get constantly misquoted and your points twisted to the point people will think you are arguing for something that you are not. This weekend has been an enlightening experience.

To be fair, at one point the two of us were trying to make the same point but having miscommunication issues too... so we're definitely all guilty of it at some point.

Take my own posts across the board, for example. I'm naturally abrasive and unless I intentionally state "joke", my posts can come across as far more inflammatory than they're meant to be. Usually. Sometimes I needle, but it's for a good cause.