Slitherine

Seems like the Ork's are so over powered in skirmish

As in player controlled or AI?

AI so far

Well, I make it through most missions without losing any squads. So I think there needs to be a difficulty button. Gonna plau the second campaign before I weigh in, but the AI Orks are so far really soft imo.

This is something we're currently looking at. We're going to continue to look at balance tweaks to the Campaign, AI and Skirmish in the coming weeks.

WolfMother wrote:This is something we're currently looking at. We're going to continue to look at balance tweaks to the Campaign, AI and Skirmish in the coming weeks.

In my opinion the Ork shooting is a bit better in the Sanctus Reach (SR) than in the Table Top (TT). For a simple example, using the boiled down rules set by the recent Warhammer 40K: Battle for Vedros miniature game, Ork boys only hit on a 5+ (on a d6) when shooting while a Space Marine tactical squad will hit their target on a 3+ (barring other modifiers, etc..) when shooting... and space marines can shoot 24" and rapid fire at 12" (shoot twice for each model). Ork boys can only shoot 12" and cannot rapid fire. Also the armor save for a ork boy is only a 5+ while the armor save for a space marine is a 3+. So basic space marines should wipe out basic ork boys when it comes to just shooting by a lot given average rolls for both sides.

But in melee, ork boys get three attacks each compared to just one attack for each marine in a tactical space marine squad, with both hitting on a 4+ and wounding on a 4+, so the odds are that the ork boys will cause much more wounds and defeat the marines in melee given equal numbers. (The space marines still get their 3+ armor save though). And those are the very basic rules from the Battle of Vedros miniatures game.

So with all that in mind, SR could probably use more balancing to reflect the TT game in terms of Ork shooting capabilities. But in melee, Orks should be at the top of their game. They are an assault based army and not a shooty army.

I completely understand that SR is not supposed to be a conversion of the TT but it is its own game, but dedicated 40k fans will be turned off by SR if the game does not corresponded with expectations set by the TT in my opinion.

Orks are definetly not OP, especially when controlled by an AI. Some units like warbikers, flash gitz and gorkanaut are oveperforming, but the space wolves have thier share of OP units as well.

Bersercker wrote:Orks are definetly not OP, especially when controlled by an AI. Some units like warbikers, flash gitz and gorkanaut are oveperforming, but the space wolves have thier share of OP units as well.

Ok, so you disagree. Thats fine if you dont agree with my assessment that the Orks are pathetic and their forces suck in comparison to the space marines and I walk over them every skirmish and campaign mission Ive played. There are players that share your view. In fact on the after action report here: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 58&t=75680 two players report the Hollow Hills Rhino Extraction mission to be too hard. I tried explaining to them its their tactics because if I can complete that mission and lose only one squad and they are getting slaughtered, well, they are doing something wrong.

And in a nutshell that's Straylight's problem here. They have to make this game fun for players that are lacking in skill and yet make it appeal to players like me who think the game is too easy. So how do you accomplish this wire-balancing feat? First you need to play balance the units. To do this, someone that is a tactics God who knows what the hell they are doing needs to play both Space Marines and Orks and evaluate the units individually, and work out their deficient AI, unit costs, combat proficiency, etc. and make sure both sides have an equal chance to win in multiplayer points wise. Once that's done we can move on to making this great game fun for players of various skill level.

So how do you approach balancing the game for players of different skill levels? Well obviously we learn from the After Action Report above that players come in two camps. Those that know what they are doing and those that are not familiar with how the units work. This game simply doesnt address this. There is no difficulty level. And there needs to be. So what would a difficulty level be like? How do you implement one and not have to recode the game? How do you make it work so the difficulty doesnt bleed into multiplayer? Well, that's something the devs will have to decide but I have a couple ideas.

The first is you add immediate or streaming reinforcements to make the game harder or easier. All the campaign maps would need to be redone and reinforcements would need to be added to every map to correspond with each difficulty level. So if there were 5 difficulty levels, there would need to be 5 campaigns (Easiest, Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardest) of the same campaign done each one either adding reinforcements for your side to make it easier or reinforcements to the enemy side to make it harder. The second method would adjust the Squads.csv or whatever file controls a units to hit percentages, health, unit cost, melee damage etc., and have that file redone for each difficulty level and make it easier or harder. The game would need to recognize the difficulty you select and pick the appropriate campaign map that corresponds to the difficulty youve chosen and do the same with the squads.csv that controls all a units stats.

TL;DR: One or the other can be done. I myself like the reinforcements idea the best. It sounds like the easiest to do. And if Skirmish missions (Not the campaign Skirmish, but actual Skirmish from the Main Screen) gave us more control over the parameters of the scenario, like precise control over our Force Organization with full army list select-ability and then also allowed us to select the specific units of the enemy forces we want to face off against, that would allow us to pretty much determine how difficulty the skirmish would be for us.

I think having that user control over all aspects of Skirmish and adding in a difficulty level that modified reinforcements and possibly also changed unit stats (which Im not a fan of) that would go a LONG way to addressing how players that are unfamiliar with the game can still enjoy it and how players like me that dont find it challenging enough can also enjoy it, because if nothing is done, no one will be truly happy. Thanks for reading.

Dizzy_slith wrote:

Bersercker wrote:Orks are definetly not OP, especially when controlled by an AI. Some units like warbikers, flash gitz and gorkanaut are oveperforming, but the space wolves have thier share of OP units as well.

Ok, so you disagree. Thats fine if you dont agree with my assessment that the Orks are pathetic and their forces suck in comparison to the space marines and I walk over them every skirmish and campaign mission Ive played. There are players that share your view. In fact on the after action report here: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 58&t=75680 two players report the Hollow Hills Rhino Extraction mission to be too hard. I tried explaining to them its their tactics because if I can complete that mission and lose only one squad and they are getting slaughtered, well, they are doing something wrong.

No, i was replying to the topic starter mostly. I don't disagree that orks controlled by an AI currently cant do much against the player. I usually finish all the missions without squad losses as well, though i didn't play the second campaign much yet. Just saying that in multiplayer orks definitely not that bad, though its usually down to who gets more OP units to deploy.

Dizzy_slith wrote: And in a nutshell that's Straylight's problem here. They have to make this game fun for players that are lacking in skill and yet make it appeal to players like me who think the game is too easy. So how do you accomplish this wire-balancing feat? First you need to play balance the units. To do this, someone that is a tactics God who knows what the hell they are doing needs to play both Space Marines and Orks and evaluate the units individually, and work out their deficient AI, unit costs, combat proficiency, etc. and make sure both sides have an equal chance to win in multiplayer points wise. Once that's done we can move on to making this great game fun for players of various skill level.

So how do you approach balancing the game for players of different skill levels? Well obviously we learn from the After Action Report above that players come in two camps. Those that know what they are doing and those that are not familiar with how the units work. This game simply doesnt address this. There is no difficulty level. And there needs to be. So what would a difficulty level be like? How do you implement one and not have to recode the game? How do you make it work so the difficulty doesnt bleed into multiplayer? Well, that's something the devs will have to decide but I have a couple ideas.

The first is you add immediate or streaming reinforcements to make the game harder or easier. All the campaign maps would need to be redone and reinforcements would need to be added to every map to correspond with each difficulty level. So if there were 5 difficulty levels, there would need to be 5 campaigns (Easiest, Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardest) of the same campaign done each one either adding reinforcements for your side to make it easier or reinforcements to the enemy side to make it harder. The second method would adjust the Squads.csv or whatever file controls a units to hit percentages, health, unit cost, melee damage etc., and have that file redone for each difficulty level and make it easier or harder. The game would need to recognize the difficulty you select and pick the appropriate campaign map that corresponds to the difficulty youve chosen and do the same with the squads.csv that controls all a units stats.

TL;DR: One or the other can be done. I myself like the reinforcements idea the best. It sounds like the easiest to do. And if Skirmish missions (Not the campaign Skirmish, but actual Skirmish from the Main Screen) gave us more control over the parameters of the scenario, like precise control over our Force Organization with full army list select-ability and then also allowed us to select the specific units of the enemy forces we want to face off against, that would allow us to pretty much determine how difficulty the skirmish would be for us.

I think having that user control over all aspects of Skirmish and adding in a difficulty level that modified reinforcements and possibly also changed unit stats (which Im not a fan of) that would go a LONG way to addressing how players that are unfamiliar with the game can still enjoy it and how players like me that dont find it challenging enough can also enjoy it, because if nothing is done, no one will be truly happy. Thanks for reading.

Yea, reinforcements could be a good idea, if the devs are going to implement difficulty levels. Giving a certain number of points each turn and allowing the player to choose which reinforcements he wants to get would have been ideal, as that would also add more "strategy" to multiplayer imo.

I don't think its a question of the Orks being over powerful, it's more there numbers. In a couple of missions I knew how Custer must have felt. They just kept coming!