I want to see Arbites with cyber mastiff. A dog animations are already in the game, but even if they will add it, than it probably will be junky and buggy.
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Junky and buggy but present is better than not there at all! Most of the time.
In the lead up to DT I was actually expecting Tech priest to be a playable class before psyker. Really hope theyāre included at some point, Iād love it if we got a buildable turret guy or some kind of servo skull team buff class.
I think we can assume that Grendyl is at least somewhat radical, recruiting a bunch of prisoners to help purge Tertium is a bit unorthodox, and the game acknowledges it, but yeah Iād be shocked if we ever got reverse engineered xenos weapons in anything but a Deathwatch or Rogue Trader game.
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So we both get that we wonāt get many additional archetypes in the future.
And I understand that you want to see an Arbites, a Sister of Battle and many more things in the future right.
So lets take all the Archetype candidates in the same way.
- What make them into what they are ?
This is the 1st question, that get expanded upon during the next few questions
- Is it weapons ?
Do they have weapon that should be exclusively available to them, or available only through them. And if not could those weapon be made available though some mean or another
- Is it skill, ability or something of the sort ?
This can count for anything that is knowledge, like Admech Technica, Warp Power of the Psykers, the Faith abilities of the Sisterā¦
- Is it armour/Look ?
If yes, would those armour be able to introduced by cosmetic packs (Same way VT2 introduced cosmetic that the U5 wouldnāt be able to have)
Now we take the Arbites.
If we get it as a Class, it would most likely fall on the Zealot
We give the Penance cosmetics a distinct Enforcer feel for the 1st level Penance set, and then a more Arbites like for the 2nd set, and at the same time they show some more of the voice lines theyāve made, picking some that are more Arbites/Enforcer like
So this is only about Feel and look. This would I feel be a good way to have the Enforcer/Arbites filled in a way that make it work, without costing it a whole Archetype.
Now that look/feel can be accomplished we have to look at what we can do with it.
Option 1: āHardcaseā Mastiff
Taking the Mastiff idea that @weeping.moon and quite a few other people have asked on the Discord
| Aura: | Voice of the Law | You and allies in Coherency generate additional Toughness on Elite kill |
| Iconic | Law made manifest | Lower stagger and damage from ranged attack |
| Exaction Squad | Tagged Enemies will take 30% more damage, does not stack |
|
| Hard Case Mastiff | The Enforcer/Arbites is followed into battle by a Cyber Mastiff, the Cyber Mastiff has protocoles available, passive and actives |
|
| Ability | Lex Imperialis | - If Cyber Mastiff is alive: send it toward the targeted enemy and create a suppression Aura and deal damage to target - If Cyber Mastiff is dead/injured, call it back to the Enforcer |
| Blitz | Hard Case Mastiff | Control mode for the Mastiff, letting you order it toward defending you and your allies, or using it offensively, additionally has a special action costing a grenade charge to give it a suppression aura |
Option 2: "Grapple Hawk"Familiar
| Aura: | Voice of the Law | You and allies in Coherency generate additional Toughness on Elite kill |
| Iconic | Law made manifest | Lower stagger and damage from ranged attack |
| Exaction Squad | Tagged Enemies will take 30% more damage, does not stack |
|
| Ability | Grapple Hawk | Send Hawk toward enemy, causing targeted enemy to get great damage and suppressing enemies in area |
| Blitz | Grenade | Maybe the Nightmare grenade or something else |
Additionally, the Enforcer could introduce a few new weapon patterns and use most of the already present ones(For those where it make sense for it):
- Shock/Power Mace (Though leaked)
- Shock Flail (Working like a cross between Siennaās Fire Flail and Slatzās normal Flail)
- Mace and Suppression Shield: Work like VT2ās Mace and shield, special action is a shock suppression attack(while blocking, if possible, having a second special attack while not blocking to use the Shock Mace)
- Dum Dum Revolver: Reuse the Revolver (Share blessing), exchange the rapidity for larger calibre and Dum Dum rounds
- Bolter Variant āEnforcer Boltgunā, lower mag, and lower rate of fire, but better range and reload speed
- Autopistol variant āManstopperā higher RoF and Ammo but lower pen and damage and āFrag roundā higher Pen and damage but lower RoF and Ammo
Iāll come back later to flesh it out more
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Best way to doom this game to a short lifespan imo. Refusing to expand on the archetypes, especially when thereās obvious demand for a few specific ones like Techpriest or Arbites would show such a lack of ambition on FSās part and really confirm that they donāt care about player feedback.
Maybe I just donāt play high enough difficulties (Mostly stuck on haz 3 because haz 4+ games are hard to find and load times eat up enough of my patience already) but all of the classes feel really samey so far and I hardly ever feel the need to use their specials. The fact that there are also so few class specific weapons doesnāt help. Iām desperate for some more variety.
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Iām 100% sure that this is part of the ādesign intentā. Youāre more likely to buy expensive skin packs if you donāt have to choose which character to buy it for. Also explains the super grindy weapon system and (until recently) the super grindy weeklies.
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Even though weāre also meant to be running the gauntlet every 3 months with a new class.
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Maybe if youāre a corporate suit with a brain the size of a walnut (this isnāt intended to insult you, but dumb execs who donāt understand their own product). Nobody wants to buy cosmetics because theyāre convenient. People want to buy cosmetics because they are selling a visual aesthetic and (even more so) a role play opportunity. This is a 40K game. 40K is jammed full of interesting options that people want to pretend to be. The smart thing to do is to give me shared resources across classes, you can skip credits if you want, but shared mats for crafting. Then pump classes and cosmetics out like CRAZY to lure in people like me. I love my zealot and all but I actually have other things Iād much rather play if they were in the game. They just arenāt.
And take note fatshark, if you try to make minor variations within an archetype the way youāre doing with weapons and call that content your game will flop harder than a pod of hippos dropped into a lake from a helicopter.
I think we will not. I advocate that Fatshark change course on this. Make it a priority to put out new archetypes and new classes. But I doubt they will. So in light of reality I like this go-forward discussion.
I would actually say this makes more sense as a Veteran. I like your analysis, a lot actually, but I want to add to the conversation the systems we KNOW they built as flexible systems:
- Modular voice packs
- Modular interactions
- Classes
- Archetypes
- Weapons
- Modular cosmetics
- Character slots
- Body types
I suspect each class will be a new character and NOT follow the current hot-swap paradigm of Vermintide. I think this makes sense and gives more freedom of design so thatās not a bad thing (as long as I donāt have to pay for slots, I WILL NOT, and I have the money). But it does demand shared mats or it will be hell. Hope they figure that one out.
Now I, personally, would love to see a class for whatever archetype of Enforcer/Arbite with a voice pack or modified current voice pack. With some special weapons and abilities, etc. But an alternative road they could take here is produce and provide a cosmetic pack for the upcoming Veteran Sergeant class (or whatever it is called). Iāve seen leaked images of Commissar style hats for it. A Sergeant or leader type class for veteran is going to typically be more melee and pistol oriented in weaponry design. with abilities centered around leadership. That suites an enforcer just fine frankly. Just push out some cosmetics and a voice pack for it and you can muster a two birds one stone situation. All the better if when wearing the cosmetics characters refer to you as an enforcer instead of a veteran (which one of the psyker voice packs does to everyone).
Not saying its what I want, just saying its an option that would be acceptable. As long as it plays decent.
One other thing I forgot to add. Everyone thinks Ratling Sniper has to be its own class/archetype. But it doesnāt. It could just as well be a body type within the Veteran archetype. They donāt use smaller than baseline weapons, to my knoweldge. Give Sharpshooter access to the stub rifle and long las and DONE. Ratlings. Would, ideally, have its own voice packs.
Yes. Exposure to a thing increases the likelihood of purchasing that thing. Itās a basic marketing tactic thatās been known since the 60ās and has been getting tuned for more effectiveness ever since.
3 months of grinding time on a new class, when everyone else is doing the same, is a fair bit of exposure, wouldnāt you agree?
Then after another 3 months, we can do it all again 
Archetypes mean that we have to get 3 or 6 new Voice actors, this is costly, and it would take much more time, their initial plan was 1 class per quarter, 1 Archetype per quarter would never be supportable, both on the short run and the long run.
While having Classes that play and use Voice lines that arenāt released yet can make it work enough. Take VT2, Archetype is basically a new character, do the different classes belonging to the same character not play differently enough (Eg: Bardinās Ironbreaker vs Slayer)? Classes have the opportunity of giving the same values that Careers did.
Look at the career in VT2, itās the same thing. And some Darktide future classes were datamined, and from what weāve seen they would be quite different from the current ones.
But new archetypes take time, Class much less. So Class as priority yes, Archetype no. Just have the classes have good indentities
Seeing as we have 5 slots only atm, and they people have been quite adamant that they donāt want to have to re level and re grind weapon, for each of the classes, I expect them to implement a system letting you change the Class of your character (Inside the same archetype). And donāt even have it be in lore, but rather just have it be set on the gameplay.
Class based Voice lines (Like in VT2), and we already have helmets that change the voice tone.
Ralting would need to be a new Archetype, like the Ogryn couldnāt be in the same archetype as a normal human class. But I will say that using an additional Archetype slot to have Ratling would be somewhat of a waste (Also Longlas was already leaked too)
But still, Class can have much more influence than what youāre thinking, and are much easier/cheaper/faster to produce than making a new archetype all the times.
But there are archetypes that would need to exist because they canāt be attached to the current 4, like an Admech one.
I mean yeah, realistically it could be more like one per year and Iād be fine with that. Would probably be a good way to get a quick cash/new player influx to feed the live service model, assuming FS is still even sticking to that.
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Totally valid point i was neglecting.
I as a product manager that runs a dev team i actually do not see it that way. What do you need for a new archetype that you wouldnāt need for a new class?
- New voice actors (3)
That is actually all i can think of. Otherwise the list is the same. New cosmetics, new weapons, new feats, etc, all are centered on a class which can be pretty broad as you pointed put. The archetype is the biggest category of course but its mostly just a bucket for personality traits that boil down to voice actors. Maybe for some types of character that doesnāt share enough similarities that could not be bridged without a new voice actor. Come to think of it the cadian background unlocks a voice pack for veteran in any case. I think archetypes might unironically just be boxes to stick thematically similar things in.
So really a new class is the big thing and what bucket its in doesnāt matter.
Going back to your own checklist above what exactly seperates a veteran sharpshooter with a longlas from a ratling sniper? I donāt think thereās anything. The only issue is that ratlings might not fit well in other veteran classes down the road. Obviously the cosmetics would not be shared. But the weapons and playstyles would and an origin based language pack is totally viable within an archetype. Body Types donāt have to be Sex, they can be abhuman too for all it matters. Might be a cool way to get ratlings in with a much smaller lift.
Body type, so point 4
In this case, those armour/look canāt realistically be given to the Veteran.
So like Zealot/Psyker/Ogryn/Veteran.
So like Zealot/Psyker/Veteran for certain of their weapons.
Iām not sure I understand what you mean by that.
Do you mean that Ratling should be introduced by re-using the Personalities, but making them into a Pseudo separate archetype (Body type) ? And have access to the same classes or separate ones ?
Because that could end up being hell to balance.
New Voice actors is the main thing that they need to bring in theory, 3 or 6 as we have now, unless they go cheaper and do just 1 or 2, which would be the worst imo. But it still mean having to record all those voice lines, implement them and stuff. So itās possible to do it, but we already have 21 Voice Actors with load of Voice lines already recorded, and most likely prepared with different classes in mind
This, like going back to the Admech and the Arbites Archetypes and classes.
None of the Voice lines/personalities at the moment are Admech Themed, neither in specific voice lines (Tied to the Abilities) nor in random conversation. So using the Veteran Archetype to implement Skitarii-like class would make it weird. This would lend to having the Admech be an archetype dlc
But for an Enforcer, you would need some new voice lines, but there are voice lines in the game already that the Enforcer could use. With the Zealot you have Judge, Agitator and Fanatic, sure would work better than other sure, but they would work.
And let us play with new classes faster than if they had to remake new archetype each time
Given the description of the highly modular system they built I think that is less of a lift than it sounds like. Itāll require administrative resources, and limited dev resources. Thatās precisely the kind of thing i would want to do to give players content without expending the most precious resource: dev hours.
Honestly its an unproductive conversation for us to discuss what is and isnāt easy for fatsharkās team to achieve. Neither of us has a clear window into the talent nor distribution of resources. I can speculate because I have familiarity with the dev cycle in games and in enterprise but thatās not really that solid. Rather than that lets focus on what weād want to see in the game and how it would be minimally acceptable. Thatās a much more productive conversation from a design standpoint.
I think archetypes should be paid content and classes should be free. Just a point of order on how I would monetize it. This would encourage a greater diversity of included things and compensate the expense of making those more out-there additions.
I cannot fathom why. Thereās actually no reason I can think of. The cybernetic eye cosmetic that is already shared amongst the humans should work just fine on a ratling model. Some cosmetics would have to be different, of course, but thatās not a problem from a architecture standpoint. Just a cosmetics development standpoint, but its equally an opportunity. The ratling sniper is not gameplay wise distinct from the veteran sharpshooter in a way that would be meaningful. The only possible limitation some people mind find is that Ratlings arenāt going to have many sub classes. Ratlings basically are only sharpshooters in the lore. (to my knowledge). But maybe that doesnāt matter so much. Just let the players that want to be a ratling be a ratling and if thereās another class that comes along later that suits them within the veteran archetype let them do that one too.
Ultimately Ogryn had to be different because everything about it is different. The weapons are all different. Thatās a LOT of different. And itāll have its own subclasses. But Ratlings? Theyāre aā¦hairy footnote.
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Werenāt there supposed to be New Classes, at least one per Quarter, released as a āLive Serviceā? And did anyone ever get a definitive answer as to whether or not that would be costing more money?
No information yet on whether they will be free or not yet, and yes they are supposed to be released quarterly, but itās under the delay like the rest of the content.
So Ratling shouldnāt be a new Archetype, but they could become Class for the Veteran ?
Iād rather keep the classes for fun mechanical stuff, same way for the Archetypes
Iād prefer it if they greatly fleshed out what they already have, by adding more onto that and making them new exciting.
Canāt even imagine how itās painful could be to make mastiff work properly and interact with different enemy types and how it should work against horde.
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o7 Appreciate it
Actually, they could copy most of the current Hound behavior, but instead of grabbing enemies it does damage on charging and knocks enemies back.
But yeah, a lot of work to implement for something that at best turns out gimmicky and at worst underutilized because nobody uses it. Agreed.
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