This will be a bit of a ramble, critique, and wishlist from a very enthusiastic player who is a bit mediocre and spends most the time playing with their family. I love the game and want to see it succeed and keep being fun. Forgive me for getting a bit longer winded. I’ll try to keep things organized and to the point. Yes, I am aware this is a novel and some if not most of this is wishful thinking. If you’ll indulge me.
Weapon balance is a good place to start.
Las vs Autoguns. In universe, Las weapons are used for their ease of logistics and ammunition capacity. Autoguns are noted for their ammunition types. For consideration, in Rogue Trader the TTRPG, they don’t even have an armor penetration or damage difference, just ammunition capacity and range, of which, Lasguns have twice the capacity and 10 more feet.
I feel like Autoguns are getting left in the behind. Personally, I think Las weapons should focus on Weak Spot Damage, Critical, and large Ammo Capacity. I think it suits Las weapon’s lack of any major recoil and rewards good shot placement. Autoguns and by extension other ballistic weapons should focus on elemental damages (Bleed, Fire, Chem, etc), armor pen, and raw damage (to keep up with crits of Las); but be lower ammo capacity. The raw damage being high enough, with armor pen, plus DoTs I think would give Las a run for it’s money damage-wise. Autoguns could be flat consistent damage, but doesn’t reach the high end of skilled Las weapon enjoyers and gasses easy due to ammunition. Bolters should turn that up to 11, being the versatile one of the “heavy weapons” with things like Krak and Fragmentation rounds. If Hellguns are introduced could be a nice middle ground between Las and Auto doing burn and armor pen. It even fits with the canon and makes my tism happy.
Something that might help balance things out for player’s preference is different fire selection, ammunition, and modes. Autoguns could do the traditional semi/burst/auto, and rather than having Autoguns Marks vary on fire selection and ADS, you could alter them to line up with a Carbine and DMR role than the Lasguns do with Recon and Hellbore. Ammunition could be Blessings, but personally I’d like them easily swappable, and limited to maybe two types on mission. Maybe with the exception of shotguns, because they should be king of ammo variety. This is all assuming a more in-depth weapon customization comes along. Las could make up for the lack of ammunition types by having alternate fire modes like rapid fire or safety override for fire rate and damage plus burn respectively, in exchange the Las weapon uses more ammunition and starts behaving like a Plasma gun. Whether it explodes, causes self-inflicted burn, or exponentially burns through ammo I guess is up in the air. How doable? No idea, but it would give more power to the players on what they want out of their weapons.
On that note, Plasma and I’m sure the eventual Metlagun. Plasma is good, and just needs pistols. Meltaguns would inevitably compete for Plasma’s spot, and to differentiate them, I think Plasma could splash with AoE and electrical, and have a rapid fire mode. Melta could be a limited range, target penetrating, and armor pen that does burn with a beam and cone like blast setting. Between Flamers and Melta, I think Melta should do raw hit damage, and Flamers need to be able to coat an environment and do multiple stacks of burn quickly as to not be left behind in the meta.
Secondary weapons, hear me out, because I’m about to get weird with it. We now have multiple weapons that could fit a secondary role for most classes. There wouldn’t be a big shake up with masteries and there would be more room to utilize weapons that would be nice as a backup, but struggle as a primary.
Ogryns, for example, if you made shields a secondary, you could start using Grenadier Gauntlets and Power Mauls with Slab Shields like you see in all the artwork of Bullgryns. How it would effect animations, if a shield can always be on, or if it’s even doable, no idea. I just think with them separated shield from their weapons it opens up a lot of options for mix and match play. Shields can have the predominantly wide attacks, with alt fire still being block, and then switch to a Power Maul for single target damage making Ogryns super versatile in melee combat.
When I first thought about a secondary for Ogryn, what would be canonical? An oversized Hand Cannon? But, the more I thought about it, the more I fell in love of the idea of a secondary. What about a giant Mark I Meat Haunch they can nibble on to recover health? Maybe a Mark I Kegger of Rotgut the Ogryn drinks for Damage Resist, maybe even a cheeky toss when it’s empty. The Mark I Ogryn Arm that let’s you pick up and hulk smash enemies, throw them into other enemies, and all while still letting you block charges from Mutants and Hounds, but not bullets. Imagine, alley ooping a Pox Buster back at the heretics. It’s always irked me that Ogryn gets manhandled by a Mutant, but can do no manhandling in return. You could even wield them Akimbo and go fisty cuffs. How about the Mark I Bone ‘Ead that is literally just him headbutting things for incredible single target, armor penetrating, and damaging stun. Or who could forget the venerable Mark I Rock. Then you could open up a spot in the skill tree for say, a Melta Bomb. Can you tell what my favorite class is yet?
Other classes like the Psyker could have a myriad of new spells. The Arbites could have a wider selection with their sidearms for the shields. The Zealot can use the Flamer with a solid backup and you could transfer throwing knives to a secondary too, opening up for another grenade for them. Veterans? Functional Backpacks, additional grenades, or just plain more dakka.
This might be a pipe dream, but. I would like to see armor be wearable with stats and blessings. I know they’ve been cosmetic, but you I was thinking the cosmetics we’ve invested money in could be an over layer for the armor that overrides it graphically. That way you don’t have to trash the armors we have now. There’s apart of me that thinks weapons have offensive orientation blessings. Curios are kind of in an odd spot of being defensive and being mission bonus stuff. With armors it could solely be defensive, and curios could handle rewards, have flexibility offensive/defensive perks, or even add additional talent points so long as they’re equip.
Lastly, I’d had some thoughts about the classes and a wishlist for new classes.
Veteran I’m going to slice up a bit, to fill it back out. Personally, if you introduce Ratlings, then they could take up the stealthy Sharpshooter class. So, maybe no Sniper or Long-Las for Veteran? I’m also surprised Veteran doesn’t have something to do with a Stubber or similar to a gunner, considering it’s depicted in his art on the talent tree with an Auspex. Maybe it’s just knit picky, but imagine using Executioner’s Stance and letting it rip with a Stubber. Speaking of which, you could technically get something to the effect of a Commissar class out of the Voice of Command. Instead, he could go Grenadier section and get a Grenade Launcher to boot.
The Ratling I think could be a Sharpshooter, Saboteur, and Trapper. It would be neat to have something of a trapper class, so long range, stealth, traps, with some support options I think should be his wheelhouse.
As for a Commissar Cadet, they could be all about auras, orders, staying close to the fight, and switching between melee and range. Kind of like a merger between Arbites and Zealot.
Death Cult Assassins I think could fit right in and take up the more stealth stabby part of the Zealot, or be a hybrid between Zealot and Hive Scum. Poison, Crits, and Weak Spots sound right up their alley.
Now, hear me out, I’d want a Servitor class over or before a Tech Adept. It could be locked into one of three tracks right away, determining your Servitors model. One sub-class being a Tech Thrall, another being an Arco-Flagellant, and the third being either a Gun Servitor and we could bring heavy bolters, autocannons, and heavy plasma to the field or a Remidium Patter Medicae Servitor that in the spirit of Edward Scissor Hands is more slicey dicey with surgical instruments, but can dump medicae and stims on the team.
To finish up, if there is a Tech Adept, I’d love to see it a play like the Arbites but with battle automata, sentry emplacements, gadgets, etc. Maybe an arm or two that has a mind of it’s own that automatically shoots at the heretics when they get too close.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading this novel of feedback and happy holidays!