For those who don’t own Space Marine 2, that game recently had a new weapon added: the Neo-Volkite pistol. It’s essentially a laser beam weapon that does continual damage to a single target, and while we can’t use that particular pistol ourselves, we could potentially have a two-handed rifle version that zealot and veteran could wield. It could basically be Darktide’s version of VT2’s beam staff.
I don’t think they’re going to give penal troops or even Inquisitorial agents Space Marine weapons.
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There is no Neo-Volkite pattern made for a human.
There are the Volkite, but 1. They’re rare. 2. They are exclusive to the Admech.
If we want to see beam weapons, the best choices would be either the Melta (Whild some are Plasmified matter, other are Rad flashlight) or having the Psyker use a Molten Beam staff
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We got 3/6 of these weapons, so I’m assuming unless Melta and Longlas got totally canned (probably for longlas unless they make one with an option to not use the scope like canted offset sights or something) we will get some form of beam-y weapon from melta. Since that seems to be how Space Marine and most Warhammer media does it…
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I wonder if the Melta will be lore accurate and have a short range,
but a great punch against armor.
For those who don’t know:
Think “Anti-Armor Beam(Slug) Shotgun” and you are close.
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The Long-Las COULD work if two conditions are met.
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Fatshark needs to successfully bring enemy/player balancing back to pre-Class Overhaul levels.
Example: Fewer but more individually threatening Ranged and Elite/Specialist enemies. -
Whoever designs the Long-Las needs to think outside of the box.
Example: Ideas like the one that you had here…
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Could also have multiple weapon family for thr Melta, seeing as its a quite esoteric and varied technology.
And with actions, could see them have both a beam, and a cone/hest venting attack
Doing that would not be something I would be arguing in favour of, if that is required to introduce a Longlas, I’d rather not see the Longlas
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This just means that you and I’ve got a fundamental disagreement regarding the ideal nature of Darktide’s enemy/player balancing. Much to my pleasure, Fatshark’s indicated that they share my philosophy at least in part with the enemy changes that we saw in Grim Protocols. I hope that they continue this trend of making enemies feel genuinely fun to fight.
Fighting trained Traitor Guard in Darktide doesn’t really feel like we’re fighting trained Traitor Guard. Scab Shooters are glorified Groaners with dinky Lasguns and even they don’t deserve that. The same can be said of Scab Stalkers, but they use dinky Lascarbines.
On the other hand, Gunners currently have insanely high spawn rates despite being a great enemy mechanically. I also just refuse to believe that the Moebian 6th have this many Volley Guns to spare in their arsenal when they can’t even afford to supply all of their Lasmen with Lasguns. I can’t really speak for the Cultists’ supply situation because they’re… well, Cultists.
Fatshark’s initial approach to post-Class Overhaul player/enemy balancing was “just buff Elite/Specialist spawn rates by an insane amount then hope it works” and, in my humble opinion, that was a huge L. This opinion’s one that I hold VERY staunchly both with or without considering the Long-Las.
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But they would have to lower the enemy density to have a Sniper weapon be usable
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Yes, elites were rare and more of a threat on an individual basis but there were also more mobs. Quite a few more. It’s speculated the change was partially driven by the introduction of console cross-play at the same time and the consoles have trouble with that high of an entity count. So it’s unlikely they can roll it back as long as cross-play remains a thing.
In any case, more melee horde and fewer elites sounds like a worse scenario for a sniper. I’d think you’d like fewer mobs trying to spank you and more high-value targets.
I remember absolutely hating anything with a scope in AFTE and, if I had to guess, it’d be even worse for this game as you have no alternate ranged weapons. But I personally wouldn’t mind them adding one here except that the forums would get flooded with complaints about it ruining their situational awareness.
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Ranged mobs simply don’t punish you enough. If you buffed, say, Scab Shooters and Scab Stalkers for example, they’d very quickly become priority targets that you need to take out from a decent distance. People are so used to being able to just mindlessly bum-rush Ranged mobs and this needs rectification ASAP.
I never asked for “more melee horde”, only stronger Ranged mobs, Elites and Specialists that are fewer in overall numbers in order to make up for the fact that they’re a significantly bigger threat to the players than current iterations. As for the Long-Las… as long as it doesn’t have the equip time of a Helbore, any struggle with current Melee hordes can be chalked up to skill issue, poor positioning, lack of situational awareness, or any combination of the three.
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Unlike the most Warhammer weapons (like Hellgun, Meltas, Needlers, Autocannons, etc) contrarian lorelets are arguing against, Volkites are actually one of those super advanced weapons which are not issued to normal humans.
I’d like to see Inferno Pistol as an alternative though!
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Thus far, Vet weapons have largely been limited to what one could find in a bog standard guard Infantry Squad, with Darktide’s current lore largely describing supply of weapons to Grendyl’s warband largely being salvage from dead Guardsmen.
While this can include Power Swords and Plasma Guns, Volkite weapons are typically remnants of the Heresy or even older, almost never seen beyond the AdMech or a handful of Astartes relics, with the tiny handful of new production Neo-Volkite pistols currently only available to a small number of Space Marine commanders.
There’s some issues with some of the other weapons that have been suggested as well. It’s difficult to see what role a Longlas would fill that a Helbore currently does not, particularly in a game where any shot over 12.5m is considered “long” range and LoS much beyond 30-50m rarely exists. Meltaguns (if relatively faithfully ported and not radically re-imagined as in SM2) feel like they would largely just act like an overcharged Plasma Gun with half the range and rate of fire against the kinds of targets present in Darktide (e.g. there’s no battle tanks or anything tabletop 40k would consider a legit Monster for a Melta to really shine against).
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Speaking of the contrarians XD
Hello, we have the actual anti-tank grenades available for the veteran which are used against armoured enemies. Meltas can be used against everything, especially considering carapace armour spam on the Auric and Havoc.
Melta weapons are dramatically more powerful than Krak Grenades. A Krak Grenade is useful against light armored vehicles and heavy infantry, but isn’t something you’re going to stop a battletank or monstrous creature with. Carapace armor likewise isn’t the type of armor that you answer with a Meltagun, that is exactly the type of thing a Krak grenade is solid against, or that you bring a Heavy Bolter or Autocannon to perforate. You bring a Meltagun to deal with heretic Leman Russ Tank or turn a power-armored Space Marine into a puff of red steam.
To illustrate the scaling issue, in current tabletop terms, a Meltagun isn’t going to kill typical Guard-equivalent infantry (that comprise 90% of Darktide’s enemies) any better than a Krak Grenade will (they’re both going hilariously overkill such combatants), while a Plasma Gun will be killing twice as many weeny dudes as either. Against a typical carapace armored Ogryn, a Meltagun will inflict an average of 1.6x the damage of what a Krak Grenade will do, but a Plasma Gun will do 2.4x as much damage as the Krak Grenade with twice the range of the Meltagun. Against a Chaos Space Marine Predator Tank or Tyranid Trygon, a Meltagun at optimal range will output nearly twice the damage of the Plasma Gun, and over 4x the damage of a Krak Grenade, but Darktide doesn’t have any foes of that scale, even the bosses are just renegade Guard officers with refractor fields or something akin to extra-beefy Ogryn.
Now, SM2 addressed this by turning the Meltagun into a AoE blast weapon that shoots an energy cone, but it’s not how such weapons are described or used in any other representation, and FS hasn’t thus far tended to radically reinterpreted such weapons. Hence my concern that if FS added Meltas more closely adhering to the typical Tabletop representation, they’d just end up being a shorter ranged and slower firing Plasma Gun.
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This isn’t a tabletop simulator. Nobody used kraks to kill infantry on the tabletop (IIRC you couldn’t even use it on something without armor). Your point is completely moot.
Sadly, one of THE rarest weapons in the Imperium as their construction is lost and only relics remain. Or at least, that’s how they used to be. I’ll admit I’m still kinda running on 7th ed lore.
I’ll grant you, as members of an Inquisitorial warband and guests on a Rogue Trader’s vessel, there is no weapon within or without the Imperium that they could not believably produce and make a vailable to us in-game when it comes to lore. But they have opted not to do that and instead equip us with relative dregs from the battlefield (psyker’s force weapons not withstanding). And, unfortunately, it makes sense as to why. Their weapon balance philosophy, where all weapons remain useful and viable and nothing is just a pure upgrade over another, can be difficult to maintain at any time but especially in 40K with it’s great disparity of technological levels, from nearly-caveman to super space wizardry in one breath. It was much easier in VT2, where all the weapons were roughly late medieval/renaissance and many had even naturally co-existed on the battlefield in real life with the inherent trade-offs they possess (apart from the magical stuff, of course).
40K is completely different. In other types of games, like the TT war games or RPGs, they can be balanced simply by being an expensive pick or, especially in RPGs, by narrative means, like requiring a heavy power pack, long recharge times between battles, being very noisy and a poor fit for sneaking, or even just being too lethal (in Dark Heresy, non-lethal takedowns were important for questioning suspects). Few of which we give a crap about in this game. So they have to balance weapons that SHOULD be an outright upgrade for us, such as a power sword over a regular sword, by kinda artificially gimping it somehow, much as they did with the power swords, or just not even introducing it into the game at all.
So yeah, I’d love to see all the awesome esoteric Inquisition stuff, the more exotic Imperial weapons, all the funky AdMech armoury, and even major and minor xenos weapons limited only by the devs’ imaginations but if even the standard Imperial armoury stuff doesn’t fit into their balance, it’s probably better if we don’t see it. Though I get that any discussion of weapon balance while the duelling sword exists in its current form might ring a bit hollow, I’m sure they’ll get around to cutting it off at the knees and bringing it back in line with the rest. Any day now . . .
Seraphims can take Inferno pistols and hand flamers. Not even their sergeants, lol
The simplest implementation would probably be to make it have the functionality of a Helbore while trading the bayonet for faster equip time.
The Lexicanum:
Seraphim are the most elite warriors of the Sisters of Battle alongside Celestians, and select only the most talented and experienced Sororitas to join their ranks. To become a Seraphim, a Sister needs a level of skill and control that borders on the divine.
The Lexicanum:
Inferno Pistols are pistol-sized melta weapons of highly specialised and ancient technology created by Artificers. They are close to impossible to recreate and are rarely used as only a mere handful of them may exist in each Sector of space.
The seraphim are pretty elite even within the SoB who already get lots of cool stuff by virtue of the Ecclesiarchy’s power. The Inquisition, even Rannick’s cut-off and poorly-supplied part of it, could likely outfit a small group of fighters with the very best but, in keeping with the whole penal conscript theme, we are not them. Even when we do get cool things like power swords and thunder hammers, we get the broken down versions that barely even work anymore.
(As an aside, this is one reason I kinda liked -back when the game was new- that they had the excuse of having Auric-level Operatives out there who were getting all the good stuff and doing all the actual important missions. When they launched the higher tier for us players, it should have been Argentum- or even Cuprum-rank so they still had the excuse of all the actual weapons and ammo going to the Auric guys. Now we are the Auric guys and they had to remove those lines from the game because they don’t make sense any more. We’re Auric (supposedly) and we still don’t get crap.)/rant
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