General Feedback regarding Space Marine 2 Operations game mode

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Aldrig

1v1?

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Aldrig

1v1?

6 300g2g pts

8 months ago

Sep 10, 2024, 12:59:58 AM

Hello!

This is going to be a long post, describing my general impressions regarding Operations. I do not expect everyone to agree with me, but i hope there would pe people who are equally constructive about some gameplay moments that can genuinely be improved. Space Marine 2 feels like a product of love, but nearly every aspect of game loop, at least in Operations, feels like it lacks some QoL features or things that would be otherwise standard for games of it's genre.

Please not that everything stated is most accurate for difficulty levels Average and Significant, where most of my experience comes from.

Health and Armor system

On paper, this looks great and logical - Armor acting as a primary layer of defence against attacks, allows player to partake in active combat and being agressive while taking some occasional hits from swarming enemies and Majoris threats, regaining armor in the course of combat, meanwhile health acts as a heavy to replenish resource that doesn't allow player to act too careless against significant threats.

On practice, this barely works like i assume it was intended to.

Armor

Armor severely lacks in durability, especially against melee attacks from both Minoris and Majoris enemies. A melee hit from a gaunt will take more then half a chunk of your armor, multiple hits or being in an average chaos of combat in this game means that you armor is not a tool that can be relied upon to act as your primary "health". It gets stripped too fast in melee combat, and you not always can reliable avoid melee damage - swarm targets are relentless in their attacks and even if you are not surrounded by enemies chipping at you (most of the times you are), there are occasional strays that can still attack you with no indication. You can regenerate you armor using finishers and shot counters, but they also have their downsides, and armor that you managed to regenerate will most likely be gone in some next few moments. Armor doesn't regenerate fast enough. 25 seconds is a very, very punishing timer and doesn't allow for a respite or taking cover to regenerate.

I think armor needs to be significantly buffed mainly against attacks from Minoris enemies most of all, where each bite would take around the same or twice as much at max of what armor damage you get from average individual ranged projectile hit from non-sniper enemies, difficulty being taken into account. Armor regen timer needs to be lowered from 25 to around 10 seconds, 7 seconds with perk (or even less).

Health

Health also lacks in durability, but it's partially, albeit poorly, covered by armor. While whether there is a need to lower damage of enemy attacks on health is a subject of discussion, my main critique of health system comes from regeneration. Grey health as a regenration method akin to games like Bloodborne is a good concept to promote retaliation against an attack, but first - Grey health dissipates too fast on it's own without taking damage, i think the grace period isn't longer then a couple of seconds, which doesn't even theoretically allow you to copensate received damage in some situations. Second - the amount regenerated from hits is too low. Ranged health regen is practically non-existend, but that might be considered a gameplay choice if you still want "ranged" classes to partake in melee. Often even when killing minoris enemies in close combat you can't offset the damage you receive in a skirmish, meaning that in most situations, at least from my impressions, you cannot feel yourself confident in a melee swarm combat even when reacting to threats adequately and thinning trash mobs. You still lose more health then you regenerate while killing enemies. This is the end result of grey health vanishing too fast, not regenerating fast enough from dealing damage? and a lack of reliable method to control your battle area and secure your flanks due to how enemies spawn.

I suggest multiple ways how i would like to see this handled:

1) Add more ways to regenerate health. Make finishers regenerate not only armor and grey health, but also some amount of health. It doesn't need to be a massive amount, half or a bit more then half of a bar would suffice considering how often these finishers occur. Regular kils or hits should regenerate more health to allow sustenance in combating trash enemies.

2) Make Grey health fade much slower, after 5 or 7 seconds.

3) Change how Grey health fades. Make each new damage received during regeneration timer period after initial timer have started (it counts 5 or 7 seconds mentioned at the moment you receive your first chunk of Grey health) to not lower the Grey health bar, but to convert the amount of damage done to your health and add it to existing Grey health bar. Combined with better regen from kills and hits that would allow to come oput on top from potentially fatal duels by playing accurately or agressively.

4) Why does Space Marines start with no stim packs on their missions? At least make 1 stim pack a standard starting loadout for a player, and each loadout pod should give back 1 stim pack on top of what you already have if they are not at max.

5) Loadout pods should regenerate all missing health whenever changing loadouts. These are equpment drops with all resources needed, ammo and medications most of all.

Enemies

Tyranids looks great, sound great and act great to combat against. Chaos forces are not per say to my liking, so these section will mostly talk about Tyranids.

Enemy Health and proportion of enemies on higher difficulties

I have a strong impression and opinion that increase of enemy health on higher difficulties is too steep, particularly for Majoris threats. Such drastic increase have a negative output on efficiency of most ranged weapons, and some classes with particular weapon choices suffer greatly from it. Exemple - Heavy class with Bolter or Heavy Plasma Incinerator. On difficulty 3, you need around 50-70 rounds from Artificier Heavy Bolter to deal with a ranged Warrior, and multiple hits to deal with minoris threats, making a weapon rlient of laying devastation fire form a stationary position suffer from both melee and ranged enemies. This is universal across most weapons. While the increase of Minoris enemies health isn't that drastic, and they steel feel like, well, trash for the most part, enemies like Warriors are simply far too durable. Combined with how amount of Majoris enemies increase on higher difficulties, even high damage output classes feel like they don't have enough damage to simply hold the line against Majoris enemies and situations where layered and non-chaotic defense is possible are very, very rare.

To that i propose lowering health boost amount received across all types of enemies on higher difficulties, but most importantly - for Majoris enemies, еhey are simply too dгкфиду against average tiered weaponry, especially ranged guns like bolters. I also propose changing how amount of enemies increase with difficulty - lower the amount of additional Majoris threats spawning, while increasing the amount of trash enemies. Instead of 4 Melee Warriors, 4 Ranged Warriors, and 20 gaunts there might be 3 Melee Warriors, 1 Ranged Warrior and 40 gaunts.

Tyranid Melee Warriors

Mostly good, moves are easy to read and react to appropriately. Most problems come fromstun spams, but this will be adressed later. Total ranged immunity from the front is too overpowered. Either blocking warriors from the front are completely immune to regular ranged weapons, or that shield is so strong that i never managed to break it.

Make their block stance breakable after receiving some amount of damage. Players on Heavy with Heavy Bolters shouldn't feel like they are shooting rubber bullets at a tank. Make their head a vulnerable zone even in block stance for Snipers or Tacticals.

Tyranid Ranged Warriors

Their concept is good, but they are too spammy and accurate (that is also the case for ranged Minoris enemies by the way). Despite having some arc and slower speed to their projectiles, they are very, very accurate even over significant distances or while in the move or dodging from hits or ranged fire.

Make their accuracy range and situation dependent. Firther you are away from them, less accurate they are. They also should not stand there and just soak incoming returning fire from heavy weapons shooting back with ideal aim like they are on the range. Proposing adding suppression effects from heavy weapons. If they are dodgin, they also shouldn't be able to jump and shoot back at the same time or immediately aftet dodging. Combined with highened durability, fighting ranged enemies on range-oriented classes like Tactical and Heavy is somewhat unsatisfactory. Not only they have a very significant amount of health, but they can dodge multiple times without loosing too much in their accuracy.

Ranged mines that release a damaging and effect applying field are an absoulte menace. Every combat results in the ground being littered with these things like it's candies on Halloween. Limit the amount of such mines that singular Warrior can produce to lower amount (i've seen one shoot 4 or 5 in a row) and lower this ability's range, so distant enemies can't just spam you with these mines from an unreachable position. Make Tyranid Warriors staggerable from hitting their head or from getting hit by a heavy weapon a certain number of times.

Tyranid Snipers

Again, too spammy. They must be a high-priority target that appears in limited quantities but pose significant danger, being naturally vulnerable to some counterplay, and not being just another type of Ranged Tyranid that exhibit the same behavior of non-chalantly jumping around and soaking hordes of bullets while just spamming whoever they see with laser beam fire result in you just evade rolling more often. I would like to see them firing less regularly, taking a stationary stance aking to how Heavy class does before firing, dealing bigger damage but aiming for a longer time and appearing in lesser numbers in more interesting positions such as roofs, railings, and not among regular forces, sometiems even in the same group.

Lictors

I am pretty sure they teleport. So why does a tutorial for a Tactical asks you to mark one with Asupex if you don't actually need to track it cause, well, you can't. It just appears afterwards whenever. Also aside from being invisible before making a first hit behaves himself awfully like a Tyranid Warrior - soaks ton of damage from gunfire, doesn't stagger, partakes in aggressive melee after making one dodgable hit from stealth. He should be less durable and much more reliant on his camouflage, making swift and fast strikes, going back into shadows, and not act like a regular berserker mob after exiting stleath.

Raveners

Despite specifically beinf stated as less durable form of Tyranid, they show the same behavior as other type before, but not in such an overt way. They often burrow underground amidst combat or when being attacked in some occasions, in other they just, again, engage in relentless melee soaking tons of damage until dead. Have a grab and unique from the ground attack. I would only wish they expand their combat arsenal a bit and do something more with their burrowing ability, like for example laying a trap or ambush (jumping out from the ground and grabbing a victim) in a particular spot which needs to be detected by a player.

Weapons and Classes

Not a lot of criticism here, except for a few outliers.

"Heavy" Plasma Incinerator

I am not an expert on lore accuracy of this weapon. Is it supposed to fire like a very sad grenade launcher? Either way, i find it nigh unusable for most combat situations. Ammo supply is ridiculously low for a supposedly high damage weapon, which it somewhat is on difficulty one. On high difficulties, it lack in damage an utility. Projectiles are slow and have a very steep arc trajectory. You can't reliably kill doding enemies like Warriors or Zoanthropes. Damage and splash isn't impressive either. Regular shots sometimes fail to kill two trash mobs with minimal distance to each other, charged shots do a decent AOE damage, but heat up your weapon too fast. Enemies are clustered in multiple big groups, and this weapon can't effectively deal with them either way. Charged attacks are too time, ammo and heat demanding, and regular shots aren't powerful enoug.

Heavy Class

Classes using Phobos pattern lightened armor have 2 armor bars. Classes uysing regular Tacticus pattern have 3 armor bars. Why doesn't Heavy Class using reinforced Gravis pattern has 4? Also, other classes have multiple varied ranged weapons option for close, intermediate and long ranged combat. Tactical and Vanguard have Melta, Sniper has regular bolters, why doesn't Heavies have acces to Heavy Bolt Rifle existing for Heavy Intercessor in lore, using the same armor, considering Tactical has access to it?

That is mostly all questions and my thoughts that i've managed to gather so far while playing this beautiful game. I am fully open to criticism and other ideas for the betterement of one of the best Warhammer games out there, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.