Airsick Hydra Response

16

His video pointed out several areas where options and customization is limited in his video 'Rant-Character Build and Player Choice.'

This was my response.


For weapons. There is a solution. Eternal Crusade actually got it right-ish. Take the lore bound weapons systems and treat them as they are. They are weapon SYSTEMS. There is more to a bolter than just the entire bolter, there is the handle, barrel, muzzle, mounting points, ammunition types, magazine types and capacities, materials, lengths, handles, scopes, beams, dials..etc. Use those elements like gun enthusiasts do with their real world weapons to effect damage, accuracy, grouping, reload speed and other effects. I know the lore is strict, but it ain't the NRA.

Another idea would be a chosen couple weapon systems that levels with your character as well (melee and range). The more you use it the better it gets, or even better, depending on how rare of tough the kill is! Say your taking down rare bosses with your "chosen" permanent weapon that you always keep, and it has its own achievement system and upgrades where killing a variety of enemies allows you to  (wait for it) give your weapon a name like knights name their swords! There are too many directions this could go. It won't be magic, but there are still interesting and unique ways to customize weapons to fit a players play style and choice. I could go on, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

REPLY



Store Page
Share
16 comments
Airsick Hydra Response
Your Thoughts? Please login to place your opinion. Not a member yet? Register here and now!
6 years 177 days ago
KorbanGado

Give this man more internets.

6 years 179 days ago
+1
DeadCrom

Just thought I'd throw something in here - specifically bolt weapons would be easiest to do the "special bullets" thing to. Lorewise, they have an impressive array of specialized bolter rounds that do things such as airburst to help ignore cover, spray a mutagenic acid, punch through ceramite armor, deliver a chemical cocktail of flaming doom, steer towards a target, track a target, etc etc.  The biggest trick to ammo types though, is would it be a variable on the weapon or instead (and seemingly the better idea in my mind) would it be better as weapon skills that could be swapped out - such as replacing the targeted shot with a shot that cannot miss, or the frag burst of the bolter's #4 with an aoe burning barrage.


Even then, I still like the idea of taking Eternal Crusade ideas and applying them in - even if basic. instead of changing Rate of Fire or damage or any of that sort of things, I'd even be perfectly happy if each weapon had a number of "slots" for specific things, and those things then generated the stat bonuses on the weapon. So I put a purity seal on my sword/gun and it gives me one of the stats - such as +damage to skill tag or what-have-you. I feel it would be easiest to keep that sort of thing super simple  - even if they are all seals or "marks" or something ( to distinguish it from armor-slot purity seals). Having weapon-specific parts (engines, barrels, magazines) might get things a little too over-cluttered in the drop tables of loot.

6 years 180 days ago
+1
DeadCrom

Some very fair points :) 


Agree that there is some fair wiggle room, just don't envy the developers in trying to pull it off. It's a case of juggling the player's expectations, the lore's possibility and what makes for a good ARPG. Most of the stuff written for 40k was written for the sake of making a pretty story, not a pretty game :D so it's gotta be a bit more of a headache than just making a new IP from scratch, like they did with Van-helsing. 


Here's hoping tho!

6 years 181 days ago
Airsick Hydra

Airsick, it is I Tony Prime that made the comment on your YouTube episode about the issue lol. It is a pleasure.


On wards and upwards, 


with those lore restriction, we may not get everything we ask for, but there is IMO plenty of wiggle room.


 It's all about presentation. I can't say it enough: How you server the dish determines what people think it will taste like.


 If we come to this game with Magic elements you are right, big no bueno. Understanding this, part of the charm of 40K is that the characters are able to accomplish feats that are out of reality without the need to lean on a magical background to explain how it happens. IMO, 40K is an opposite equal to Fantasy J.R.R Tolkien style concepts. With these polar opposites, we have to break bad habits and adopt new ones which lead to my previous explanations. 


That doesn't mean we have to abandon all the good flavors that make other medium exciting. We just have to look at it from other angles than what we are accustom to.


Perhaps this will lead to developers coming up with new and interesting flavors of game mechanics that DO honor the lore as opposed to forcing historic ARPG elements to work. I only ask that everyone keep their minds open to possibilities.

6 years 181 days ago
DeadCrom

Had a similar debate elsewhere. 


Was suggested to me that guns in 40k aren't very limited. Now while I agree that you can play with
1 - Rate of fire
2 - Range of fire 

3 - Type of damage (Dot/Standard/Type)

4 - Spread of damage (different shapes!)


That's about it...


Whereas my point was with "magic" - You can shoot an arrow that bursts into 3x magic ponies that run around the enemy to tie them into a cocoon, then the ponies drink the blood of the victim. While that's somewhat hyperbolic, it's kinda true. There's no limit to most ARPG's in their skills, they can summon, they can cast, they can buff, they can debuff. Nothing really need explanation. Just "magic". 40k Has some flexibility sure, but it's not the same. Furthermore the more varied you make a gun the less iconic you make it. Once you get to the point that you have a long barrel bolter gun that is more like a bolt action sniper, is still still a boltergun in the eyes of a 40k player? The IP is something to consider.

6 years 181 days ago
BrotherLazarus

What I'm saying is, I think your looking into it way too deeply on a critical level that isn't. I would advise doing a search for the video I mention. I would cut and past myself but I'm no forum guru. In the video he commented on how he felt players don't have options to customize their character in unique ways due to lore. A Bolter is a Bolter is a Bolter, and the lore dictates its interpretation. I responded that there where areas to affect the characteristics of a Bolter without breaking lore. 


For ex. No bolter can have Ice bolts doing cold damage and magical properties. We could though reinterpret cold damage as "Shock and Awe" damage, where being hit would proc a freeze/slow mechanic because the enemy is 'in shock' at the impact of that specific bolters properties. Let add a fear mechanic proc too to make it more believable. Boom. Bolter with a proc chance to fear and petrify. 


No bolter can have straight fire damage and shoot fire balls in a magical way. I would even stretch that you can't even have incendiary rounds (for argument; I don't see why not). But, what if we re evaluate that damage type as 'tracer rounds' which are designed to "burn" to emit a tracer effect OR introduce a lore element in 40k History that says when your weapon had "Vulcan" or "Salamander" attached to its name, it has be told in legend to "spit fire"...and so it does


So that leaves electrical damage. Aside from the aforementioned, I'm gonna go out on a limb. "Reactive alloy" where the metals from whatever special alloy from some special planet/sector where combined by some special crafter (and I'm sure 40k has some, everyone does) to forge a sword/rifle that when it comes into contact with flesh or metal, it has a tuning fork property against armor and bones that "Shatter" and shock the enemy to death. Its not magical electricity, but it still gives us a classic that people can relate to.


I'm not being so specific to go all out milspec comparisons with 40k vs real world. Non of it is real. If my scope grants me a faster #2 skill stat for my 40k-IM Bolter: the aimed shot ability, then a win is a win. A new magazine of different ranks could fix the fixed 40 rounds for all ballistic rifles and bolters.


I may not have the best ideas, but they are ideas.

This comment was edited 6 years 181 days ago by DeadCrom
6 years 182 days ago
DeadCrom

Look, it's not that it's a terrible idea, but the core concept would introduce a ton of complexity if they were going to do it properly--and I mean even as reality-light as the material in the 40k Dark Heresy RPG.


I didn't catch the pre-edit response so I'm not sure what you started out with, but my post wasn't written to be a flame, just a breakdown of how the realities work and then a post-post cringe for humor.


Seriously though, real world ballistics are terribly boring. Translating any of the levels of that to a tabletop or video game is difficult, and trying to fit anything like that in Warhammer is... well. If you search my posts here you can see other comments worded with less potentially inflammatory wording that underline that.


Personally, my ideal in a game would be designing something from the ground up for my character to use, picking and choosing components like on a real rifle build (without all the time spent fitting them, because that'd just be dead space during play) from the lowly hammer spring all the way up to receiver options; but that's just way too complex to incorporate in a game, especially one with some fairly spirited back and forth on currently existing issues.

6 years 182 days ago
BrotherLazarus

...alrighty then.

This comment was edited 6 years 182 days ago by DeadCrom
6 years 182 days ago

A bolter is a bolter is a bolter, unless you take the eight-ish inch barrel and crank it up to the Stalker pattern's 24-36" (hard to scale given the inconsistency of lore for Astartes size), you're not going to increase damage noticably. This is more poignant when you consider that the terminal ballistics of a boltgun aren't from kinetic energy dump like a modern firearm, but from the variety of slug used either exploding inside the target or spraying acid/toxins/incendiary gel/fragments outside.


Real world modification isn't as clear-cut as "more barrel equals more accuracy/range/damage"--that has a lot more to do with the chosen cartridge and is very highly contingent on the cartridge chosen; eg: the 6.5mm Grendel vs. the 5.56mm NATO--the latter, while being of similar (relatively speaking) dimensions has a 600 yard engagement range and is light enough for the slug to be underwhelming terminally, while having an optimal barrel length that ranges from 8" for close (sub 200 yard) engagement to 22" for longer engagement. The former, meanwhile, has a great ballistic coefficient, very little drop at range, and is much heavier--meaning it loses that energy more slowly and is useful out to 1200 yards, with an average of 72" of drop at 800 yards (which is, point of fact, actually less drop than the 7.62mm NATO cartridge). All while being less sensitive to barrel length, allowing for 6-12" barrels that can still accurately deliver rounds at long (800+ yard) ranges.


Certainly scopes do nothing to affect the accuracy of the platform either--they aid the shooter, but do not magically improve ballistics. Neither do stocks, grips, bipods--those are all shooter aids that have zero effect on the mechanical accuracy and reliability of the weapon. Modern muzzle devices, similarly, have a very small ballistic impact on ammunition--the more precise machining techniques allow for suppressors that do not have a detrimental effect on point of impact or terminal ballistics, for example, some hold zero even when using supersonic ammunition.


Essentially, most of the idea of modifying a weapon with muzzle devices, stocks, barrels, etc. would end up requiring them to come up with penalties/bonuses that changed depending on your class--while a full size unmodified bolter would be taxing for a Psyker to blaze away with at full auto, they're fairly simple to use relatively accurately in full power armor, meaning that the muzzle brake and recoil reducing stocks would be dividing by zero for the Crusader.


TL;DR: please no, because it's physically painful as an armorer to see how badly people mangle the realities of this stuff.

6 years 183 days ago
ZetaFalcon

So from your idea what I am seeing are combo variations. If I wield a 1H sword I start off with a basic balances combo (Lets even add that timed L-Clicks grant different moves.) But I can also earn different combo sets depending on my play style. I would still have only 2 abilities because I have a shield (which needs some love in this game too) but I can earn different ones for AOE slams and swiped mixed in, one for single target DPS, Burst Damage combos, or quick attacks that do more status effects etc etc. 

I pick which ever suits my play style the best and use it until I want to try something different. And of course the skills have a tree. Every thing needs a tree. Cant have enough trees lol.

6 years 184 days ago
DeadCrom

Yeah i tried to make a lasgun/plasgun build but after some time i throw them away and got back to melters. I wish we had no useless stuff to skill dat hampers our build. Like look at the crit tree, we have one branch were we are forced to skill ranged crit and on branch were we are forced to skill melee crit. If you make a melee only build that's at least one point for nothin. Why dont they make such points optional? Like still there is the 2% ranged crit but optional you can skill 1% crit, two dashed squares besides each other and you can choose what way to go. There are a lot of skill trees that suck. On the other hand, if you never change up stuff like your build or weapons you'll never miss something ;).

6 years 184 days ago

You don't need to add more buttons per say just change up the variation in ability type, perhaps tying it to the make or as mentioned before the name of the weapon. This system would perhaps allow relics to stand out more. 

6 years 184 days ago
+1
Melivore

If you had a weapon named 'Skull Breaker the Immortal Hell Singer of the Emporers Fist' You earned the 'Skull' from an achievement, account lvl 10 you earned "the" for an extention and when you hit account lvl 15 you got "of the" for more stuff to add. 'Breaker' from a boss you took down during an event 'Hell Singer' from a difficult raid or whatever. Say each noun you earn grants a small stat bonus or something to sweeten the deal. Your personal weapon would have its own skill tree, customized colors,  parts, and bonuses you picked up and switch out every so often. That is my idea of 40k bling. The longer the name of your weapon, people just bow down and kiss the ring because they know you been through some shit.

6 years 184 days ago
Irrelewahnt

I see your future thinking at work. I am more worried about enthusiasts type players like myself. When I start a character I already know what I want to build and I pretty much stick with that one build. I think there should be some incentive to staying loyal to a specific weapon. At least one with its own perk tree and setting to play around with to help break up so much focus on the number of abilities or lack of.

6 years 185 days ago

They have a mechanic in mind to change at least stats on the gear afaik. We'll see what we can change with this in the future. At the moment we have 2 weapon slots with a 4 button template + buttons 3 and 4. Thats a total of 10 skills and thats a pretty good number in my eyes. In my eyes we should wait till we see the big picture and what we can do with the things they offer before we innovate new stuff. Dont get me wrong i love brainstoming but i dont know if this helps in those early stages of the game.

6 years 185 days ago

Some good ideas here to be fair and the naming of a wepon is just 40k all over so im well keen on this idea, the combination of each wepon part im a bit ya and na on this as with so many wepons would it be worth it but also it could be an awsom aspect.