As it should be.

And trading is a HUGE and MAJOR aspect of POE.

Devs say time after time this is no MMO. So keep the MMO mechanics out of this.

The thing I do not get is that people argue that handing good items out to "easily" will destroy the game and kill the motivation.

I have to disagree with that hardly.

It is true that a huge motivation in ARPGs is the aquisition of good items. Keep in mind that I am not talking about perfect but good items. I so far do not have anything I would consider perfect in this game, merely good - most decent at best.

So while people will invest time into getting good items, giving these items by means of crafting would not kill the game.

People stick around if a game is good in the first place.

Being able to take a shortcut it no detriment, but actually awarding the player for earning the materials etc. to take that shortcut in the first place. People SHOULD feel rewarded for what they do.

Take Blizzard for example. In WoW they had some of the most restrictive systems to get gear back then and people kinda licked that. Within recent expansions they managed to keep a healthy player base and turn the game more and more "casual" as others would say. Thing is: The playerbase is still there and people still seem to enjoy it given that getting high levels and good items is easier than ever.

The same went into the philosophy of D3. In D3 it is incredible easy to get good items. Spend one or two days with dedicated farming and you got all the sets for that class that you were farming or most pieces. Good items are plenty in that game and many would argue it is fun to play too.

So hiding good items behind some friggin long timers just to have a timer here, something that has NO relevancy to actually playing the game may not be a good solution here. People WANT good items. Why? Because people WANT to play the way they like.

So remember what I said about good items. Right. Those are NOT perfect items. People will grind hours on hours for perfect items but the entire thing will be more enjoyable if they get good items earlier. It should not feel like a pain to play a different build just because RNG gave you only decent items for that build.

Because what do we want?

Right.

Players that enjoy the time playing.

I'd like to start by pointing out that, well... that's what plasma and melta weapons are intended to do in the tabletop crunch. And the RPGs... etc. Eternal Crusade, and many other digital representations, have taken to turning meltas into shotguns and plasma into grenade launchers when they're MEQ/Dread/anti-tank weapons (the last being the purview of the melta). I assume it's expediency, though in the case of EC it could just be that the devs have absolutely no idea what they're on about in regards to the mechanics... given that the Melta is basically just a shotcannon, I tend towards the latter.

So I don't see a plasma weapon doing its job (nuking elites) as being a problem, myself--not when the plasma is kind of bad at other roles--as it should be. Remember that in filling a niche, some weapons will do very well at one thing--the grenade launcher absolutely mulches tarpits, but is abhorrent at taking down champions, nevermind trying to take on an Elite with it. So with that in mind, I don't see any one weapon as OP so much as it just fills a role, and does so admirably.

I do agree that materials are currently quite prevalent--and given the rate compared to other (completed) games I think we can expect to see that ramped down quite a bit towards the next major update and release. With that in mind, I still stand by the idea of either removing craft timers entirely, or nuking base craft timers to nothing and leaving Artificer craft timers in the 30-60 minute range--especially considering the fact that so far, there's no way to modify crafted gear (or found gear) to enhance it and I (currently) have no information on how modification will work when implemented other than "we're gonna add a way to mod your gear!"

Back to Grim Dawn, not only do I have to farm components and blueprints to make an item, I also have to then farm them again to enhance it with the stats I need beyond random rolls. In such a system, craft timers would be more forgivable (if dropped below the current absurd values of 60 minutes for a basic "worse than mission" trash item, and up to six hours for a purple that I will have already sped past by the time it's done crafting) if I could socket in the stats I needed reliably, perhaps by sacrificing T2 crafting mats to do it or crafting an item with a set, say... "Sanctified Plating: +3-5% DR, +5-7% block chance". Then I know I'm getting stats I need, I can modify the garbage output that I get, and having to wait for an item won't feel like nearly as much of a waste.

I would like to point out that part of this is coming from having spent sixteen hours on shields and finally finding an upgrade from a random CR1 mission while waiting at the end of that; and having crafted an artificer armor for my assassin and finding a vast upgrade to it within the first 30 of 500-ish minutes of the craft timer.

The rest is just sticking to the fact that even the devs state "this is not an MMO", therefore the MMO and Free to Play staples of timegating crafting/gathering have no place here, at least inasmuch as I am concerned.

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.

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!

So i'm not sure where the impression came from that i'm emotional or upset? - Not the case. I'm just here to try and stimulate some discussion as I have done for the past six months. Just this has been fruitless for me. 

Frustrated? - Yes. To me a discussion is the exchanging of ideas. I repeated a dozen times that I am not arguing for a weapon lock system and yet the only response I get to a simple question is that the weapon lock should be removed :D Perhaps it's a language barrier somewhere, perhaps my question is getting lost and misinterpreted who knows.. Anyway i'll leave this place in peace and another thread to articulate my concerns. 

Best of luck.

For me personally the crafting time increases make sense in a way, otherwise you could just spam crafting for top rolled gear and have it within a day, I know I had a few great rolls quite quickly and with short crafting times this also allowed me to craft and sell junk for extreme profit (has since been rectified and selling gear now nets less than cost to make it which makes more sense). Sure you now have to wait for an hour to possibly get a trash roll and some rolls currently do not make much sense but hey its still Alpha plenty to iron out and balance before full release.

This ease of access to OP weapons kept me to some extent from playing some of the other weapons/ weapon combos which leads me to the level capped/unlocked weapons, perhaps it was more toward getting us Alpha testers to try different load outs instead of remaining in a comfort zone and sticking with what we love?. Again devs are still testing the waters to see what works, what doesn't etc.

With the current balance sure it may not make much sense with the small portion of the game we are testing but that's exactly it we are here to play/bug test so that is what Ill continue to do, future balancing and removal/changes to level locked gear will obviously happen same for wipes and addition/ removal of liked and loathed content.

End of the day Id hate to see a game that hands you everything so to speak, you should have to put in the hours to get rewards, and decent rolled gear, the times currently sure for mere rares may seem a little excessive but before they were also far too low, a happy medium will take time to find.

Artificer and above gear again imo, should take a lot longer 24+ hours would be a good start but as a trade off should also benefit from feeling stronger than mere rares as well, perhaps a % base increase or higher min/max stat ranges... who knows I'm sure we will see something that is both reasonable and effective at full release.

To quote your own words Feiser - He seems to be referring to how things are now, not how they will be. It is a very reasonable point though. Hopefully when the grinding times are reduced in September the crafting will need to move down proportionately.

My guess would be 25-50% of the time it takes for a power level would be a good balance point for a decent weapon timer, if timers are to stay that is. The weapon is the single most important piece of gear for a player to look forward to, it would therefore make sense for a players get to use multiple progressive qualities per power level via some form of waiting mechanic (eg grinding mats, grinding recipe or simply waiting) instead of equipping a crafted BIS purple every time they level up.

Good post Sola

I still heartily disagree. The fact that you have to matgrind, you have to grind for cash, and you have to grind for blueprints... There's no breeze there.

Where my last post was more abrasive, I'll try a different tack here.

"It should be more beneficial to actually grind the game."

Neocore needs to appeal to the broadest possible audience. The vast majority of post release players won't be invested neckbeards. They'll be seeing a "different ARPG, cool let's try it". And casual players are almost always turned off by grind. Proposing more grinding, more stagnancy, will run counter to the ARPG formula.

While I hate crafting timers on top of inflated material costs, I'm perfectly capable of wasting six hours a night slaughtering the hordes of heretic filth for better gear. But... not everyone is (even in the alpha!)... and a lot of people simply won't be willing to.

You must be very careful when suggesting balancing early on, because if the barrier to entry is set to high, it will kill a game's market viability. There's a reason Dark Souls-style hardmode games are such a niche market--not all gamers enjoy hardmode permadeath input lag equals starting over from scratch.

Every now and then, I pull my head out of my rear and make a good point, before I go back to being a whinging neckbeard. :)

On topic, I would also like to see Tarot missions continue to be relevant--perhaps move the artificer blueprint drops into them entirely, or have them increase the T2/rare T1 crafting mat drop chance (on top of modifiers), have their rolls weighted towards the higher end of the spectrum, etc.

I have no issue with hardmodes, challenge dungeons, or anything like that--my concerns all stem from when a small group of invested players (of which I am a part, I love running the challenge missions with groups) push to include them as part of the core experience.

I despised the base defense quests in Van Helsing, but I loved the challenge content. Why? One was optional and gave concrete rewards that were generally better, and the other was (to me) a slog. It's part of the reason why I tend to avoid games where they introduce the challenge content clumsily, in the form of a story gear-check, rather than presenting it as an entirely optional but enriching part of the experience. Going back to Grim Dawn--their challenge dungeons can be quite hard, even in a well assembled group--but I've made it a build challenge to take each of my characters as far into them as I can to get better at the game and to see where my builds fail.

The opposite experience, then, would have to be Nekro (a dead ARPG). There was no real experience or gear grinding available at all, but the third or fourth level ended up being a challenge level to introduce their challenge content--while leaving you pitifully undergeared and underbuilt on all classes. It was a grind, a slog, and after about ten hours of ramming my face against it with every build possible I dropped the game entirely and walked away. Apparently I wasn't the only one, as the dev house shut down a year or two ago without any of us noticing.

So, to that end... make crafting more viable than investigation/random at-CR drops, and make at-CR tarot missions more viable than crafting gear, but keep it set up in a way to allow the player some flexibility--maybe they don't have time to run endless Tarot missions (I'm guilty of stretches of up to four hours at a time just burning my Fate with a group, and up to 10 hours total including solo) so the crafted gear will still be relevant, the missions will still be relevant, and the Tarot will still be relevant--without keeping craft timers and queues as a barrier to entry. You'd still have to run Tarots to get your purps and purple mats, you'd still get something out of crafting, and you'd still have a reason to do Investigations and increase your system rep.

Oh, my young warrior... I have tales of cheese to share, from an era before the NewKronz...

OldKronz were a rushed, unbalanced mess to the point where many refused to play them after sinking money into them. RezOrb Lords were the cheesiest, though there is something moderately entertaining about fielding only infantry, and using sheer attrition to make up for the fact that none of your units are actually suited for anything but shooting. Wearing out an entire full-strength squad of Khorne Marked lunatic assault marines with a mere eight Warriors takes a while, but was so broken... sooo broken.

The Space Corgis fell far from the heady days of 3rd, and we must speak no more of them lest their taint spread... though I would think that it would work better to be called "Fist of the Bork Star", but that's just me. :)

OldKronz weren't good, they were just utterly broken. The right builds kept you from having to think, you just slowly rolled over the board and won by virtue of being unstoppable. I don't actually think there was any balance testing done internally when the OldKronz codex was released, honestly--there's no way the rez-spam army build could have gotten past any testing phase without someone calling attention to the fact that it made a mockery of any other army out there.

And then once Ward took over, things just went... wonky. Between units being cannonballed into strength, monobuild holding sway, and goofy weird stuff like the Grey Knights becoming TEH UNSTAWPABBLE FARCE... I just couldn't even be bothered to really keep up on anything outside of the lore.

Seriously though, what the hell was his deal? Grey Knights... naturally immune to warptaint... killing a bunch of Sororitas in a weird Khornate ritual to paint their armor in blood to, what, become EXTRA immune? I'll be the first to admit that a GK army from the Daemonhunters codex was exceptionally cheesy for the points spent (so many weapon pieplates on assault rather than rapid fire weapons!) but somehow Ward managed to crank that to 11.

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.   

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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"

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."

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

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. 

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. 

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.

I only downvote my own post it's good form.

The format certainly does make it easier to keep track of points and respond to them coherently.

2. I don't care for the output, and I definitely find the one to six hour windows to be a stuffed-in free to play MMO mechanic--fix the former and the latter still exists, the only way it could be worse is if that timer only ticked over while you were in game. I can name a rather large number of games where you pay to reduce cost (usually time and materiel) as well, however almost none of them have timers on crafting--the few that do are in the Survival genre and the timers start small and after paying in become insignificant. To return to an oft-repeated statement, "This is not an MMO". So the root of the issue, beyond "garbage in garbage out", is the time, and how even after research it takes entirely too long to craft anything. As stated previously, if I were forced to be stuck with time I would vastly prefer 20 minutes max for artificer gear, with research dropping it to ten; and then 5 minutes max for green gear, research dropping it to 90 seconds. It's still a timegate, and it's still absurd in an ARPG, but that is the absolute limit of acceptable time spent crafting in a game that doesn't have a cash shop selling absurd boosters. I would much prefer to spend that fate and those thrones on research that felt more tangible, like opening up weapon varieties (instead of level-locking them), and having no crafting time but having to put in some effort to produce the high-value purps--find the blueprint, pay and wait for it to be researched/"sanctified"? Fine. Find the blueprint, wait for it to produce, and have it spit out gear worse than commons after six hours? Not so good.

3. I put in between four and eight hours a play session. I usually log off with around a thousand of each basic material and a dozen or so of the rares. I can convert them to optimizer mats... but that's wasted effort because as of now, the gear I craft without optimizers is effectively the same level of garbage output as the gear crafted without. Since I lose money on craft and sell (would make sense if it were instant, but is asinine with the timers this long), the output is reliably terrible so it's not worth craft and equip (which is the whole reason this system exists!), and I get less out than I put in (which makes sense for salvage so no issue there), just crafting for the sake of crafting is a waste of time and, again, feels like a shoehorned in feature (which I know is not what was intended, hence the raw tonnage of feedback). With play times that long, I see further into the curve for a casual player, and I see what grinders in other games see as well, and it helps formulate talking points. This being a rather stiff one and vital to address for the long-term health of the game.

4. With crafting being extraneous at the moment, the Uther's Tarot missions propel you far quicker through power levels and content than crafting would--and previously I pointed out that I think that should remain as-is. Crafted gear should be good, but not BIS (though the term BIS is problematic given that you can be viable with essentially anything). So, the crafted gear would provide an out for casual players who don't have the time or energy to spend several days racking up a thousand fate and then several hours grinding Tarot missions. While I find running with the crew I coop with a blast, not everyone can sit down and do the same thing for two or three days and feel like it's anything but a grindy timesink--and that leads to negative feedback. Crafting should be able to, more slowly of course, reliably raise your power level. That way it's useful to everyone in some way, casual players aren't forced into dealing with the gear-check mid-story by "well I have to grind Tarot with a group because it's the only way to advance and finish this stupid game", and the grindier players can continue to run Tarot missions to gear up faster because it's challenge content; and challenge content always rewards well to make up for being a challenge.

5. Yes, the potential for cheesing the leaderboard is an issue... just like it is in Grim Dawn, Diablo 3, and a dozen other ARPGs where you can more reliably farm epics/legendaries/set items--in fact, the first two hand that stuff out like candy to compensate. Now, you mention the crafting this way but you seem to forget that it's not just crafted gear that will be moddable. Those Tarot drops that I mentioned before? The "weight these to be better than crafted gear so the grind crowd feels rewarded just like the casual crowd"? Those will be moddable too. I'm willing to bet that the relics will as well, based on the research tooltips. So the crafted gear will never be BIS, and my suggestions will just reinforce that gap. If you want the leaderboard, you'll have to put in the effort--and like my commentary on challenge dungeons (never as a gear-check in story, perfectly ok as optional content), leaderboards fall under the "not vital to the core experience" blanket. Casual players won't bother. I probably won't bother, and I've been pretty obsessively grindy in Martyr.

You say "OP gear", but given the array of weapons I've used across the game there really isn't anything "OP". It would certainly seem that way if it fits your playstyle, but nothing vastly outshines every other weapon in every other role.

The term "OP" gets bandied about entirely too often, and results in nerfs for things that were just fine before. Doubly important to mention, in that if, say, you've capped your AoE tree anything with area of effect damage will seem overpowered to you... because you took the time to buff it well above and beyond the actual weapon's stat value. So have a care using that term, lest we find ourselves facing down a thunder-nerfbat.

As to the crafting times, Airsick Hydra mentioned in another thread that the craft timers were fine but... this isn't a Free to Play MMO, nor is it a mobile game. Literally no other ARPG (save PoE, perhaps, I haven't touched that in a couple years) in production timegates you that hard if you have the resources to create an item. None of them. And there's a reason for that...

Because without feeling like they're progressing, players will leave the game. I came close several times on my Crusader, and I'm a huge 40k grognard. Now think, really think, about what happens when less invested players come in, find out that to craft a disposable piece of gear takes 1+ hour, and five or more for artificer gear that will likely be thrown in the trash by the time it finishes crafting! They're going to see the crafting system for what it currently is--a timegate that does nothing but waste the player's time for results that are far less useful than what they'd get in twenty minutes of Tarot runs.

Now, if I launch Grim Dawn (or any other ARPG with a crafting system), and I have a blueprint drop from a boss... I go, I gather the mats. I go, and I hit produce. It's done. It still took me several hours (to get the blueprint), and several more (to get the mats). But the developers don't go "well what should we do, it's INSTANT PRODUCTION" because it's not. People keep forgetting about the time investment to get materials and blueprints, and just keep vocally supporting huge time sinks that, let's face it, are timegating for the sake of timegating.

I have to farm the thrones. I have to farm the mats. I have to farm the blueprints. For the love of the Emperor, stop saying that your crafting is instant and has no time investment just because it lacks a huge obvious timer. It's disingenuous, and has huge logical gaps.

The problem is that certain weapons do not fall into a niche Brother.

While Meltas are short range assault guns that turn a tank inside out, a plasma is, from a fluff perspective, the ultimatly firearm you could hand out to a soldier.

Its range is quite good, its stopping power is good and its armor penetration is very good AND it has quite some rate of fire.

With the fluff and crunch updates those guns are not even unreliable anymore unless you overcharge them, at that point they get a "bit" dangerous yet improve their fire power even more.

Some weapons in WH40k are just simply meant to be an improvement on other weapons.

Hellguns and hot-shot lasguns simply are an improvement on the regular lasguns while plasma guns are an improvement on pretty much ANY hand-held weapon out there. Plasma Guns are like the 40k assault rifles while lasguns and bolters are arquebuses and flintlock rifles.

So as long as skills are bound to weapons and all of those being intended to be sidegrades I doubt any weapon will compare to what it is supposed to be.

I would say that, functionally rather than fluff, the plasma weapon's stats make it far less "assault rifle of the era" and far more specialist DMR--because even after Cawl made them better, they still issue boltguns and lasguns. Fluffwise, they have a limited ammunition pool--photonic hydrogen flasks are rather large comparitively--and thus the healthy rate of fire is still limited (remember my use of the term DMR, I'll come back to it later) and restricts it to using on specific value targets... thus falling under the realm of the Designated Marksman Rifle.

The assault rifle role has always been, and likely will continue to be until we replace them with the next tech tier, a select fire weapon with light, plentiful ammunition pools allowing for a high rate of sustained fire to aid in assaulting a fixed position (hence, the name "assault rifle"). The boltgun, autogun, lasgun, etc all fill that role far more appropriately.

In Martyr, the overheat mechanic was rebalanced for plasma weapons and they fall rather nicely into that DMR niche--it's a specialist weapon with a decent fire rate, it is ultimately tooled well against champion and elite enemies, while it does have some failings in terms of handling tarpits. Oh you can do it, you can kite them, etc... but try adequately blasting 40-60 nurglings with one in a single overheat, as opposed to blazing away with a bolter/autogun/grenade launcher. Tarpits that, unsurprisingly, are better handled by the aforementioned assault rifles (or area denial munitions).

So to call it OP in-game is somewhat disingenuous, and that was the point of my statement. Mechanically, the reason tabletop doesn't limit their ammunition is the same reason that no weapon outside of single-use weapons have a limitation. When you're running a 3,000 point game, trying to remember if Squad A had used one or two of their five total flasks would slow down play. Fluffwise, they do reiterate that the one failing (even after Cawl) is the fact that there's only so much compression ammunition flasks can undergo; leaving a requirement for weapons with larger ammunition pools that are, again, filled by jack of all trades assault rifles in the form of lasguns, bolters, etc.

Of note, the laslock would be the flintlock of the setting. Just sayin'. Though I would also point out that the gap between modern and black powder is actually substantially smaller than people think, as well...

Edit: Also I'd just like to point out at this point, this discussion is straying into my real world profession--and I get a little abrasive when people misuse certain terms (assault rifle, for one) that are misused in entertainment media; so bear with me and I'll try to avoid being too abrasive.

The only reason Plasma Weapons are rare is due to the logistics and it thus being relegated to be a specialist weapon.

Fact is, that is does everything better as a general purpose rifle than all the other guns.

A DMR would be limited to take over the job of an AR for does different things, a Plasma Gun just does the same as any other Bolter or Lasgun - just better.

They are THE allrounder that does anything better, it just happens to be rare.

Same with the difference between a regular sword, chain sword and the actual power weapons. They are simply an upgrade in pretty much all aspects.

I think this may be another case of conflicting fluff.

As, even the Black Library novels during the Great Crusade take care to point out that the hydrogen flasks are bulky and carry far fewer shots than an issue lasgun power pack or bolter magazine, and far fewer than the drum magazines that bolters and autoguns can mount.

That's why I use DMR this way in this context. Strictly speaking, a DMR can be derived from an assault rifle (modern US issue DMRs usually share the M16 family chassis, for example, though the M14 is making a comeback due to the superior ballistics) with a longer barrel and dedicated optics, and will have a lower rate of fire to conserve ammunition--in the case of the M14 DMR variants, you have a smaller pool of ammunition and while you can fire them as rapidly, it's better served to engage priority targets with them.

When it comes to ranged weaponry, however, it's usually not as cut and dried as "can do it all better"--as the M14, SCAR-H, H&K417, etc can all "do it better" than the M16 family (due to improvements in all fields of firearms tech, and a "bigger boolit" to boot), but they have situations where they're not ideal.

One would think, based on gaming, that it goes pistol->shotgun/SMG->assault rifle->sniper rifle, but in reality each fills a role and a niche that 40k fluff does not always appropriately represent. Realistically speaking, they're all sidegrades. Much like the weapons in Martyr are.

Fluff in regards of ammunition is a real pain in the ass. Some bolter drum magazines may not even hold enough rounds to get more than 15 shots out for the scale is out of whack anyway. As for many novels, those Astartes blow more shots into the air than they could physically carry with them in regards of practical ways to store em. Kinda the problem if everything shots super huge demi-rockets.  

As for the flasks, it is true that they are somewhat bigger yet that does not stop em to reintroduce entire squads that are EXCLUSIVELY armed with plasma weaponry now (And they scare the shit out of me in the current edition^^). So that seems to be no big problem.

Especially not for an inquisitor like us that already has an unlimited pool of ammo anyway. (We cant argue for plasma ammo and ignore that every autogun may fire several metric tons of lead per mission)

The thing about Plasma weaponry is that it actually fall in that category you mentioned when you spoke about ARs being replaced by some new technology. Plasma weapons ARE that technology in 40k.

While a Car-15 mod is still comparable to a H&K416 a lasgun or bolter is not to a plasma gun.

They are just THAT much better.

Think of some random M16 and then think of an assault rifle you can use to shot and destroy heavy tanks with a decent fire rate that makes it perfect to take out pretty much any kind of infantry including guys that literally wear tank armor.

Plasma guns are just THAT much ahead, so much that you can even accept their only slight drawback that is slugging around all that ammo. But at last for something we need a power armor, right?

"conflicting fluff" Hah I love it 

Did their AP value get boosted a huge amount in the last couple editions? Last I checked, the plasma gun had an AP value that could knock out light vehicles, but not heavy tanks (and definitely not superheavies), so there may be another issue in terms of generational gap.

I would not compare it like a CAR-15 vs. a 416 (both fire the same piddly cartridge, the major difference being that the latter is open bolt and piston, vs. the CAR's running a closed bolt and direct gas impingement), I would... Compare it more like the difference between an M4 and a .50 Beowulf. The latter was designed to be an assault rifle with the capability to knock out light vehicles, but the ammunition load drops your magazine to fifteen shots (much like plasma gun vs. lasgun). Which may work better here than my previous post--the Beowulf would be the "better in every way" but real considerations involving logistics trains limit it to specialist roles even though ballistically speaking it's an absolute monster in the 500 meter engagement envelope most intermediate cartridge arms are currently designed around (though that range is expanding again, it's not relevant to the topic at hand).

Remember that GW "fixed" boltguns to a .75 caliber munition a few years back (down from 20mm-80mm depending on who was writing at the time), a munition which is clearly a straight-wall casing, so given the scale it's actually feasible now for them to run with 30 round magazines (though now they curve too much given that major curves in a magazine are there to handle necked cartridges) and 75 round drums (and explains why human-portable variants are still XBAWKS HUGE), so that issue is now less prevalent in fluff... though again, it's got a lot of "Brits trying to write firearms".

One of the primary issues is the issued-tech vs. extant tech--the "sci fi" caseless rifle has existed since the 80's in the form of the G11, but cost (and a few manufacturing/implementation issues) relegated it to the bin, like the Gyrojet (which inspired the bolter). SLAPs, frangibles, an infinite variety of munitions that can be fitted into a firearm to change its role, all largely unknown because the mass of entertainment only sees full metal jacket munitions, and uniformed services carry full metal jacket as a matter of course due to the accepted conventions of warfare.

There's a new SAW being run through its paces currently, using a partly polymer cased munition that drops the issue weight down by more than half... and there's a good chance that like several other revolutionary designs over the last thirty years, we'll continue to issue the same thing because of logistics, cost, and lowest-bidder-syndrome. That last one is why I laugh at any setting that claims to be able to "quickly" enforce a change in policy--the 1911 went out of active issue in the late 80's, and were still being issued in place of the "standard" M9 pistol up until 2001, when several branches decided "sod it, we're dropping the 9mm again" and started to re-issue the 1911; the new Standard Modular Pistol design that won the bid this year likely won't see widespread use for another decade at least. This is why Mass Effect 2 made me laugh and laugh, because they managed to implement, in the span of a couple years, a galaxy wide refit of every infantry weapon out there.

Edit: @Younad: yeah, we had an issue a few threads ago where we were both drawing from fluff sources that came into conflict, as GW has had.. issues... maintaining consistent fluff in places. Lots of issues. DAMN YOU, GOTO AND KIN!

8th Edition uses the System from 2nd Edition where weapon have an AP Value that degrades armor saves instead of a threshold that completely ignores armor values but would have to deal with the full save of every tier that was higher than it like in the last editions.

Vehicles now also having Toughness Values with regular saves instead of Armor makes Plasma Weapons highly effective against them for their strength is among the highest for regular ranged weapons that can also be used by infantry. Some plasma weapons even rival melta weapons at optimal range in AV duty.

So from being the dedicated anti heavy infantry light vehicle weapon plasma was promoted to anti-everything and we do have entire squads that bring plasma now. Even some squads that bring different variations of plasma.

This take back to second edition also comes actually somewhat closer so how weapons worked in the FFG PnP the devs mentioned as one of their references where AP was deducted from Armor instead of certain armors being ignored by some weapons and some not.

Ok, that does clear a fair amount of my confusion up. My little group refuses to use Wardian Heresy era rules (the 4e Charlie Foxtrot that was anti-air and flyers, for example), so we've largely stuck with 3e and kitbashed other things that were interesting without being unbalanced into it. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to do, too, given the digital tools at our disposal.

The one thing to note in the FFG PnPs is how limited your ammuntion pool is, there were a few things they got horribly wrong (maximum ranges being one, but "scopes ignore range penalties" was the biggest offender) and the heavy bolter's backpack feed inexplicably only containing about 200 rounds (for a Space Marine!) vs. the Black Crusade 100 round drums (for the same weapon), while you could carry as much ammunition for the bolter you were firing one-handed just based on the Three Reloads rule... and those rules precluded the use of plasma weapons as your go-to kit usually unless you were the group's specialist (looping back to the previous statements) because ammunition sourcing was a concern.

Armor was probably handled the best, as it's never made sense to me that platemail somehow makes you harder to hit rather than reducing incoming damage (see, almost all D20 titles, a good lump of indie titles, etc). Back before my tabletop company folded, we handled damage and armor that way ourselves because it's generally the simplest to work out mid-play (these things port over to digital content in a surprisingly straightforward manner); but I digress.

Though not all is wardian heresy given that second edition handled it in a similiar way. ;)

Another thing to keep in mind is that the FFG PnPs went through several edition. Black Crusade was a big cut that got solidified with Only War that revamped alot of the Rules and rebalanced them.

As for Deathwatch there were a few ways to add plasma to your standard loadout though if you intended to do so - same with power weapons etc.

The only thing that prevented you from doing so was pretty much XP and then Renown to actually get a rank to be trusted with such venerable technology.

That pretty much solidifies the rank of Bolters imho. They are nice yet still the stuff you hand out at everyone.

Plasma or Power Weapons are just the straight upgrades that is limited due to production and thus just given to people that have earned it. Pretty much how you get the promotion to specialist in the guard too.

As for the fluff plasma was always that efficient, in that regard the crunch just turned into better showing it. In the end you could rapid-fire small suns so that alone is quite the argument for how fancy those things are. If they could, the entire guard would replace its lasguns with plasma guns, there is no argument to be held about that. Sure, that would force them to hand out more ammo but the very fact that you wont need "50" lasgun shots to bring down that CSM but just one plasma gun shot would even it out anyway.^^

Oh, no doubt. Prior to Black Crusade, bolters and chainswords were the go-to for absurd crit-builds... I have a few stories on that in my collection. To be fair, while I dislike the removal of pieplates the fact that armor pen works somewhat more rationally is kinda nice--the majority of my commentary on crunch involve true Wardian Heresy era charlie foxtrots, like the Devilfish of Fury cheese that lasted well into... what, sixth edition?

Per the Deathwatch rules, I was more referring to the fact that the Rule of Three ammo setup meant you had perhaps a quarter of the ammunition of your bolter-bearing battlebrother (say that three times fast!).

When it comes down to it, a lot of my "it's still not an assault rifle type weapon" is just real world intrusion on otherwise enjoyable fluff. There's a reason nobody watches action movies with me anymore. :)

Fish of fury died at the start of 5th when they changed how that worked, pie plate removal overall is bad (esp for guard, a stock leman russ can expect to deal ~1.75 hits now). Top armies iirc were Daemons >= eldar >= SM (non gladius) > SM (gladius) > 'crons. Some of that depends on the mission type (i.e. gladius SM are bad in kill point missions, but fantastic in objective based games). Tau ranking as always been middle of the pack, but likie 'crons people hate to play against them because they're not interactive ('crons ignore damage, Tau just shoot and annoy people by attempting to wipe an army by turn 2 or 3 at the latest or losing for the most part)

You want real cheese? 7th ed eldar, early 7th ed 'crons, SM free transports, borkborkstar, and daemon summoning factory. Eldar had stupidly high damage and toughness combined with mobility, daemons just kept ramping up how many units they had, combined with the fact pink horrors were 90pt but split into an end result of 270points, all the while generating warpcharges for bigger summons like DPs, 'crons were more or less unkillable, and the SM gladius just swamped the board in obsec units preventing anyone but them from scoring objectives (as in, the type where you had to stand on them, not "slay the warlord!", etc). Borkborkstar was my fave tho, you got a buncha fenrisian wolves with a 4++ invul (before psychic buffs), rending, invisibility, hammerhand (+2S iirc, so S6 or 7), and then they hid a BUNCH of characters that had thunder hammers and the like to take down anything that MIGHT have slowed them down, like a knight, in addition to being close to 60-70 models moving 12" a turn plus some other various buffs so that they could get into CC turn 1 while covering the entire board basically. Ever see an entire army assaulted first turn while being covered with a 2++ save and invisibility? Yeah, crazy. (although, that's rolling really well esp on the charge)

Current meta (before the flyer FAQ kicks in for future tournies) is storm raven spam.

I know, I started in early 5th, late 4th, but I wanted to correct you on some points there. Plus, everything in 7th was turned way up. From what I've heard, only 2nd was a more unbalanced mess. On top of that, old crons weren't even that good. Durable yes, but nowhere near top tier.

So I hit power level 2 today - Gz me right? Managed to get a Purplez Boltgun recipe while levelling so I was pretty hyped about that. Ofc instantly went to the crafting desk and made myself 15 power level 2 boltguns. Naturally I had loads of materials because the game gives you a lot of purple items to level up because that's how levelling works. You know I didn't even bother farming them, just casually played the game. Just to make sure I even rerolled a few stats just to make sure I was guaranteed something really great. Swapped the enchant too because I waited a couple days to unlock that feature. What's totally awesome is that for the next few hours till I level again I won't have change or even bother looking for a new weapon! I just skip the loot screens tbh because I already have what I want - The really cool part, when I hit power level 3, I can do it all again! Then again at 4. Tbh there's no point doing anything else.

Taken from an inquisitorial log in 2018.

Surely this isn't rocket science guys - It doesn't have to be timers but something has to act as the blockade. Saying the timer is "pointless" it literally no different to saying "materials in D3 should have been limitless"

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.

Back to that argument again? You're ignoring the largest portion of the debate to go "it must all be instant and limitless!" Or did you not bother to actually read the thread?

WHICH IS NOT WHAT HAS BEEN ARGUED AT ALL, PLEASE STOP. WRITTEN IN CAPS SO THAT LATER POSTERS WILL NOT REPEAT THE SAME ARGUMENT THAT HAS BEEN BEATEN INTO THE GROUND, EMPHASIZED AND ITALICIZED FOR GOOD MEASURE.

The blockade, as I previously argued, should be what it is in other games in the genre. The materials and blueprints themselves.

When I spend two to four hours to gather the special materials, including enough of the T2 to "optimize" (which currently does not work) my output.. the fact that I have to wait up to six additional hours for an item to craft is inexcusable. This is not an MMO.

I REPEAT, EVEN THE DEVS HAVE STATED THIS IS NOT AN MMO. THEREFORE, SHOEHORNING IN MMO TIMEGATES GOES AGAINST THE INTENT INHERENT IN THE REST OF THE SYSTEMS IN THE GAME; AND AS IT STANDS THE CRAFTING SYSTEM IS A USELESS TIMEGATE THAT DOES NOT FUNCTION TO ENHANCE THE PLAY EXPERIENCE.

So for the love of the Emperor, stop parsing what is plainly stated as "the timers need to go, but the materials drops need to be retuned a bit" as "I want to be able to roll in items with no effort at all".

Go play a sword and board crusader, solo, using the garbage output shields and armor. See what happens when a gear-intensive (compared to the other classes) build is hamstrung by not being able to stack the two required damage mitigation features that are needed. Do that, without twinking your gear, using just the crafted outputs. Do that and tell me the system that is currently in place is, in any way, not a timegate that hurts the play experience.

For that matter, even builds that aren't gear intensive are hurt by this. I put a build order in for my assassin for an Artificer armor. SIX HOURS LATER, NOT COUNTING THE FOUR FOR GATHERING THE MATERIALS AND GOD KNOWS HOW LONG FOR THE BLUEPRINT...I got an artificier armor that was worse than the Common gear I started with on that character.

What we've been arguing here, is not this bizarre "gimme free shit" that everyone parses it as. We're arguing that the system needs to be fixed, because as it currently stands it is not, in any way, functioning as a mechanic that adds anything to the system. It currently detracts from the game. And that's a bad thing.

We want it to stop detracting from the experience. We do not want free oodles of loots. We want a system that is well thought out and works to enhance the play experience.

Note that I spent something like twenty hours in Grim Dawn to farm a specific relic blueprint that I needed for one specific gear... and I didn't complain about it--because that made sense. Adding that timegate, to a timegate that serves no purpose given that bought gear and found gear is inherently better in every aspect (every aspect), would have caused a huge ruckus for them. And so, Grim Dawn has no timegate for the crafting itself.

If you had to spend 2-6 hours in an MMO, for that matter, to make a single item and have it turn out to be garbage--literal garbage, worse than starting gear--that would cause issues. In any other game this sort of thing has been argued down and out, save the Survival genre because timegates galore exist there.

Timegates currently exist, and materials drop (IMO) far too frequently. That will need to be tuned. But as they've stated previously, this isn't an MMO. This also isn't a Survival game.

And to be blunt and harsh... Having timegates for the sake of pleasing the hardcore audience WILL result in steam user review bombing. Casual players do not have the drive we Founders do. And of late, that results in review bombing, which kills sales. IF NEOCORE WANTS TO BE SUCCESSFUL, THEY MUST APPEAL TO THE BROADEST BASE OF PLAYERS, NOT SIMPLY THE HARDCORE GRIND CROWD. That's all there is to it, and that has been why we've been arguing against the crafting timers. Because a casual player won't go "oh well I'll just try again" when their six hour, "supposed to be awesome" gear turns out to be worse than the yellows they started in. They'll turn around, leave the game, and rant about how terrible the crafting system is.

AND WE DON'T WANT THEM TO LEAVE. WE WANT PLAYERS TO LOVE THIS GAME, AS MUCH AS WE WANT TO SEE IT SUCCEED.

Jeez.

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.