Foreword:

Hey! I've been told this is the best place to submit gameplay-related feedback, so I figured I'd throw up a thread/post. 

As a preface, I've put over 100 hours into the game since early access dropped. Outside of a full clear of the campaign, all of that time has been spent playing the operations game mode at every difficulty and on every map currently available. I've also pushed Vanguard, Bulwark and Tactical to level cap, playing both in teams with friends and via the public matchmaker with random players. In that vein, there are some things I'd like to state and get out of the way.

1.  All of my suggestions will pertain to PvE, and are made from a position of feeling very passionate about the game. I love it, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here.
2. I firmly disagree with and will never advocate for nerfs to player power.  As the Devs have said, it's entirely okay for players to be/feel powerful, and I'd like to see them lean more into buffs than nerfs.
3. I consider myself decent at the game, and want to preserve the concept of there being a skill curve. I'm not a master by any stretch, though I don't think you need total mastery to appreciate where the game excels and where it falls a little short. 
4. I feel that certain topics, like the state of Assault, have already been thoroughly discussed and are not something I can contribute meaningfully to. As such, I will be omitting them here. 

With all of that settled...

1. Armor Recovery

Suggestion: I think gunstrike kills and executions should grant more armor pips based on the tier of enemy killed rather than the current fixed amount. One for Minoris, Two for Majoris, three for Extremis, Four for Terminus, functioning like an armor booster for classes without an innate three pips. 

One of the biggest differences between the game's four difficulty tiers is the scaling of enemy damage. At substantial, nearly every unit in both faction's roster is capable of shredding even a full four pips in moments, effectively creating a form of diminishing returns on the armor recovery of executions and gunstrikes in the midst of facing off a horde. While I assume this is a deliberate choice to encourage skillful use of parries and dodges to mitigate damage altogether, there are significant issues with the way enemies interact with both in volume. In no solid order, I believe this is due to: players being unable to animation cancel, unit attack tracking, muddied or outright missing parry/dodge notifications from certain units, and the prevalence ranged damage. 

Currently, players have no means of reactively cancelling the vast majority of animations once they've committed to them, and this ranges from parrying to gunstrikes to hitting objectives like buttons. This is only compounded when facing multiple majoris enemies at one time, as not only do most of them have very long attack chains that can cover a big swath of distance, they're also prone to staggering their attacks. Committing to parrying one to open it up for a gunstrike/counterattack can result in being stunlocked by others attacking at a delay. This is an issue that also affects dodges, as enemies are also capable of making last minute adjustments to track players on the move. Dodging from one may very well put you in the path of another, usually resulting in stunlocking/massive damage. Gunstrikes are a pretty reliable means of disrupting enemy attacks, but the lack of iframes is a big problem when doing so in the midst of a horde as it leaves you animation locked and vulnerable to damage. I've also noticed, personally, that certain enemy types (mostly standard Rubrick Marines) are capable of firing off unblockable attacks with no notification, though this appears to be isolated to specific units (again, mostly Rubricks). Lastly, the worst and most consistent source of unavoidable damage is by far ranged units. Not only are they capable of firing through hordes, there's quite literally no counter to being shot at (sparing Heavy's iron halo) other than shooting back or putting some form of terrain between you and the enemy (which doesn't always work, since they're capable of shooting through objects like the big computer on the elevator in Vox Liberalis). 

My point being, and to loop this back around to armor recovery, is that it's almost impossible to avoid taking damage in a fight—especially if you play aggressively, where you're reliant on mechanics like contested health and gunstrikes/executions to keep your momentum when the game invariably forces you to trade taking hits for dealing damage. I mention this because melee weapon perks seem to reinforce that mentality with a prevalence of 'executing x action makes you immune to stuns/stagger for 5+ seconds' or 'you're immune to stun and stagger while doing x combo' in conjunction with nodes that restore more contested health on hit/with specific combos. In line with this, I think that executions and gunstrikes should restore armor based on the tier of enemy killed rather than a fixed amount. 

2. Health and the Bulwark Apothecarium

Suggestion: There should be more sources of contested health. Mechanics like perfect parries and gunstrike ripostes would be my recommendation, though I realize that this might be a difficult thing to balance in practice.

Piggybacking off my previous point, being that there are a lot of circumstances that make taking damage/trading with enemies impossible to avoid, I think there need to be more sources of contested health. One of the biggest opportunities, I think, is medkits. The diminishing returns on their effectiveness based on difficulty tier could be supplemented by having them also give a set amount of contested health, preserving the current risk/strategy of using them cleverly but giving players an opportunity to recover more if they're able to capitalize. I believe something akin to this is already in the game, but I've not seen it consistently enough to feel certain, so I'm adding it to this list. Another two places that I feel would benefit from awarding a bit of contested health are perfect parries and gunstrike ripostes, since they currently function as a means of not only countering an enemy but also disrupting them. A change like that would really lean into the concept of creating an opening to retaliate, and I think it'd result in a fun feeling of back and forth with enemies in a wave or horde. 

This is a point I make because it's a very, very large part of why Bulwark is currently as popular as he is. The ability to grant all allies a full bar of contested health with your banner is game changing in the current vaccum of viable recovery options, and it genuinely feels like the game gets substantially harder without a Bulwark on your team. This highlights what I consider to be a golden rule of thumb: high volume of enemies and high damage is fine if players have a reliable means of recovering from or mitigating the latter. Without either, enemies become oppressive and frustrating to fight against—and both conflict with the power fantasy of being a big stompy space marine. 

3. Factions

Suggestion(s): Chaos needs a roster-wide health or damage reduction. Tyranid snipers need a limit on the number of Stranglevine pods they can fire off. 

I'll be up front in saying that I love fighting Tyranids and loathe fighting Chaos. Tyranids, given their focus on melee and close-range units, have a satisfying ebb and flow that makes them a (mostly) fair but challenging foe to fight. Good fundamentals (dodging, parrying, positioning) goes a long way against them, and wading through hordes of 'gaunts to duel it out with a warrior feels amazing. Additionally, mechanically representing synaptic links bakes in a degree of strategy to fighting them and ensures that ranged classes feel just as impactful as melee against waves/hordes. My only complaint about the current state of the Tyranid faction is that stranglevine pods do far, far too much damage for the amount the sniper units spam at you in one go. 

Chaos, on the other hand, is a lot more of a mixed bag. As a whole, I think their entire roster is far, far, far too durable. Tzaangors are capable of eating entire magazines if the shooter cannot reliably headshot them. Shield variants are capable of blocking successive melta blasts before their shields ablate. Both have incredibly accurate tracking on their melee combos, and will actively follow you through dodges, making them difficult to evade effectively. Rubrick Marines (both the standard and icon of flame variants) can withstand being hit with entire heavy attack combos from power weapons, nearly entire magazines of melta rifle blasts, and multiple charged shots from plasma weapons. While this applies to Tyranid warriors as well, Rubricks are ranged units that can teleport at will. In practice, this results in recurrent scenarios where a player can catch one out of position and wail on it only for it to punish them by blinking away to shoot at them safely. Worse, Rubricks have a habit of spamming unblockable attacks. Playing as a Tactical, I've had as many as three teleport to me with kicks and flame bursts at one time. As mentioned above, they also have a habit of shooting off unblockable attacks without warning. I've had standard Rubricks point blank me with their three tap with no indication whatsoever. Cultists are markedly easier to manage, but the las sniper variants can snap to a player in the last moment of charging up their shot. On substantial, not only does this inflict a lot of stagger, it also chunks massive portions of a player's armor and health bar. I'm actually more or less okay with the state of their extremis units, because Scarab Occults are fairly easy to overwhelm and sorcerers aren't terribly threatening on their own.  

In simpler terms, Chaos feels overtuned. Their units are very durable, and this in concert with their emphasis on ranged damage and the crazy amount of mobility inherent to being able to teleport around makes fighting them incredibly frustrating because it feels like there's a lack of counterplay. You have to be aggressive or they'll just keep shooting you, but chasing a unit down means exposing yourself to unrelenting gunfire you have no way of mitigating.

4. Weapon Stats

Suggestion: Clearer presentation on what scaling values like piercing, range and cleave potential actually mean. 

This one is short and sweet. I'd like to have more concrete figures for what values like those listed above actually mean in a gameplay sense. How much additional range per shot do I gain taking the melta rifle variants with increased range stats? What do the differing values in piercing across different weapon types mean? How much difference does having a high or low cleaving potential on a melee weapon make? Some of these can be roughly sussed out through gameplay, and the general concept of bigger number is better applies, but it'd be nice to know what these stats mean when I'm putting together specific loadout/perk builds. 

5. Perks and Leveling

Suggestion: Shuffling around some of the nodes in class trees like Bulwark and Vanguard to make them a little bit less backloaded.

This is a relatively minor issue comparatively, but I generally feel like class perks are very, very backloaded. While this does make reaching high level feel very impactful, it also means that just about every class feels really bad to play until they hit a certain threshold, which can be a bit of a negative when each one requires a not insignificant time investment to level and kit out properly. I think spreading out the 'x makes you do y 10-25% better' type nodes in favor of seeding more impactful nodes earlier into trees would be a positive change. As it is, I feel like Tactical and Vanguard really don't come into their own until around level 15+, and even then, most of their best/highest impact perks are relegated to the 20-25 range. 

6. Interaction Priorities and Team 'Damage'.

Suggestion(s): Adjust the priority of certain actions when multiple conflicting options that share a keybind exist on the screen at once, and revisit opportunities for players to disrupt their teammates unintentionally. 

Or, in other words, the game currently prioritizes certain actions over others when they're relatively close to one another. Executions take precedence over picking up supplies or interacting with objectives. Gunstrikes take priority over firing your weapon if the reticle is on your screen. This can be particularly frustrating when you're attempting to coordinate with your teammates, as for example it's entirely possible to steal an execution an ally needed because attempting to resupply from an ammo box shares the same keybind. Likewise, while there isn't true friendly fire damage in the game currently, player grenades, assault's jump pack, and plasma weaponry are all either sources of or succeptible to unintentional griefing through teammates. Player-thrown grenades stagger teammates as well as allies, and can absolutely leave you vulnerable to enemy attacks. Assault's jump pack also applies stagger to nearby teammates, achieving similar results if timed poorly. Teammates can eat shots from plasma weaponry wholesale, preventing any damage from being done. While this emphasizes good shot placement when supporting an ally in melee, it also means teammates can and will eat charged shots by accidentally crossing your muzzle.

I, personally, feel that none of these contribute anything meaningful to the game and should either be heavily reduced or outright removed. I've lost runs due to the former two, such as being stunned into a hit from the Hive Tyrant on decapitation because an ally threw a Krak grenade, or stunned into missing a parry because an assault decided to take off next to me. It's one thing to encourage teamplay, and another to punish players for doing what they're supposed to be doing. 

7. Sentries and Sorcerers

Suggestion(s): Prevent sentry units from calling for reinforcements and sorcerers from channeling resurrections if they're somewhere a player cannot reach or shoot. 

Another short and sweet suggestion. At present, it's not an uncommon occurrence for sentry units to call for reinforcements in locations where players cannot disrupt them. This applies to the Thousand Sons particularly, as Rubricks will often teleport away from players to begin their channel, which can include locations players cannot reach or return to (such as over or behind a ledge after players have dropped down/checkpointed themselves). I've similarly had sorcerers spawn at earlier checkpoints and spam back-to-back resurrections on Rubricks regardless of distance. In either instance, I think the AI should be forced to relocate to a position within a player's reach (be it line of sight, line of fire, whatever) before being allowed to initiate channeled actions. 

8. Bots

Suggestion: Have AI teammates use the lobby host's loadouts. 

Not much to add here. AI teammates contribute very little to higher end missions in large part because their equipment is barebones and they offer no perk-related buffs to the team they're on. A simple solution to this (in part, as I believe there are other issues endemic to the bots' intelligence/decision making) would be allowing players to equip them with whatever gear they've accrued and with perk builds, in effect turning them into a buff/stat stick with decent firepower. I mention this because substantial difficulty and higher become noteworthily harder with an absence of dps and especially team-related buffs and utility.

9. Melee Charged Attacks and Combat Flow

Suggestion: Re-work the current charged attack mechanics on melee weapons (chainsword, thunder hammer, etc) into a combo. I'd have it be the final attack in a heavy combo for relevant weapons, functionally building up power to deliver a final crushing blow. 

It is my current belief that the game generally punishes/outpaces mechanics that require players to remain static and committed to an animation. Enemies are anything but stationary, often dodging, positioning or outright blinking around if they aren't on the offensive. This works at cross purposes with one of the Chainsword's capstone perks particularly, giving the weapon a charged heavy attack that gains power the longer it's channeled. While it's a fun gimmick and visually satisfying to pull off, the only use case I've personally been able to find has been using it to initiate on a horde—this is because it's barely stronger than simply throwing heavies if not fully charged, because spending time channeling leaves you vulnerable to massive amounts of damage, and because the conditions needed to make the most of it rely on AI to oblige you and your team to leave targets standing long enough for it to accomplish anything meaningful. Worse, having to react in any way (dodging, parrying, etc) cancels the attack altogether, dealing no damage and wasting all the time you spent trying to line it up on a target. Thunder hammers at least have the benefit of a wide-range AoE, but they still ultimately suffer from the same problems and setbacks. Swinging a combo of lights or heavies will usually yield similar or better results, and they don't punish you for having to respond to something an enemy does. 

The game's pacing simply does not reward being slow in melee. Baking charged attacks into heavy combos leans more into the constant motion of gameplay, and it offers a rewarding incentive to master landing full combos on a target or targets while also preventing situations where the fight's over/your targets are dead by the time you're done charging. 

Input Reading

Suggestion: If this is a mechanic, remove it. It's frustrating and virtually impossible for a player to anticipate. 

This is ultimately an anecdote because I don't have irrefutable proof that enemies do input read in a fight, but the impression is there and I've seen pretty suspect behavior on higher difficulties. Certain ranged weapons, like the Plasma Incinerator, Plasma Pistol and the Las Fusil, either require charge mechanics to fire or offer players the opportunity to charge up a shot for extra damage. In either case, I've directly observed majoris enemies dodge both at the moment of firing, at times doing so to multiple shots consecutively. It's a regular enough phenomenon that I've developed a habit of putting charged plasma shots into the ground near warriors and rubricks to set them up if they're particularly flighty. 

If this is an actual mechanic, I would advocate for its removal ASAP. 

Conclusion:

Thank you for reading this, if indeed you did. I'll make additions to this list if any more come to mind while I play. As above, these are the observations and suggestions I've come to after a ludicrously large amount of time investment and what I believe would improve the game. The intent is to be productive, as I firmly believe this game has years of potential longevity with proper support.

For the Emperor, Brothers. 

The critiques and suggestions you mentioned are spot on. I particularly agree with the chaos enemies portion. They are far too durable and feel unfair compared to fighting the Tyranids. Especially the cannon fodder Tzaangors with shields. I get that they were trying to go for a tougher version of them like they did with the Termagants (basically a ranged version of the Hormagaunts) but the fact that they can take endless amounts of light attacks without breaking their guard is insane. When swarmed with 10+ of the shield variants and other enemies it becomes almost impossible to break their guard with heavy attacks and still manage to block/parry/dodge effectively. Honestly, I feel that it should only take one or two light attacks to break their guard and then finish them off with a light combo or one heavy attack. To me that feels fair since they are basically just part of the trash mobs category of enemies. I mean you can't even lock-on to them to fight them like any other enemy that is capable of blocking. Whatever they do, I really hope something is done to fix the chaos enemies' overwhelming advantage in ranged and melee combat. As of now I try to stick to the Tyranid missions because I dread the Chaos ones...

Agree with most of the points here, particularly the part about sentries. It is such a 'feels bad' moment when a sentry calls for reinforcements from a point nobody can even get line of sight to; Why are we being punished for something we can do literally nothing to prevent?

Chaos I can kind of understand being more durable than Tyrannids (I mean, they are supposed to be the more "elite" faction)? But overtuning aside, I feel the problem is that they don't trade anything over tyrannids for their extra tankiness/tzeentch shenanigans. I think for how durable they are they should be reduced in number. It would at least help sell that they're supposed to be the more "elite" faction of the two.

Also agree that the perks could do with a bit of tweaking/jigging about on some classes. I remember that even just going up to Substantial difficulty with Tactical was such a slog, because the class feels like it's still lagging behind where it should be at that point (keep in mind substantial is recommended lvl 10).

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Barricade133 wrote:

You forgot that all melta and plasma weapons due to enemies being so clustered together and piercing through all of them via their aoe, enables your contested health to overflow and actually restore your actual health back up to full. No other weapons allow you to do this and it's what's letting people cruise through Ruthless and making it waaaay easier than it should be (I don't think doubling enemy health and damage is fun in the first place but I digress). Bolt weapons due to not being able to take advantage of this and not being able to restore your contested health fast enough to abuse this bug is leaving them in the dust and renders build variety non existent ad forces you to use only melta and plasma weapons. They need to remove the bugged contested health and buff Bolt weapons and tweak many other things.

Maybe there should be a cap on the amount of contested health that can be restored with a single hit/shot.
So even if a Melta would blow away 25 Gaunts in 1 hit the contested health regained would only trigger from, let's say 5 of them.
Then people wouldn't be able to "exploit" the AoE to regain contested health instantly.

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Barricade133 wrote:

You forgot that all melta and plasma weapons due to enemies being so clustered together and piercing through all of them via their aoe, enables your contested health to overflow and actually restore your actual health back up to full. No other weapons allow you to do this and it's what's letting people cruise through Ruthless and making it waaaay easier than it should be (I don't think doubling enemy health and damage is fun in the first place but I digress). Bolt weapons due to not being able to take advantage of this and not being able to restore your contested health fast enough to abuse this bug is leaving them in the dust and renders build variety non existent ad forces you to use only melta and plasma weapons. They need to remove the bugged contested health and buff Bolt weapons and tweak many other things.

Good to know. I wondered why my melta Vanguard would sporadically shoot back up to near full health, and that clears it up pretty nicely. I'd agree with certain weapons needing a buff, but I don't think it has as much to do with melta guns being secret medkits and more that they're just kings of wave clear. There isn't any other gun in the game that's capable of one or two blasting 25+ minoris enemies and staggering the hell out of the majoris units leading them. Focus could nerf them into being incapable of restoring contested health altogether and they'd still be a top pick. Hell, they could nerf the ammo reserves into a fifth of what they currently have and they'd still be a top pick. 

Plasma Guns are excellent for priority damage (and pretty good at biting through a horde abusing the aoe on normal shots, no doubt), but their main value is their stagger. A single charged shot from a plasma gun, be it the incinerator or pistol, is enough to knock a sentry out of calling for help, or to open up a warrior with bone swords to being headshot/hit when they're in their block stance. I don't... really see these as being a causal reason behind boltguns lacking popularity.

All of that said, I do absolutely agree with the call to buff boltguns. I haven't and don't really feel like bolters are terribly weak, mind you. Just... bland and not as versatile. A concept I've been debating suggesting is to give them specialized ammo types to pick from, perhaps through perks (since the majority of gun-related perks at the moment pertain to more cowbell and reloading) as starter or capstone options. Say, dumdum rounds for less penetration but more stagger, krak or turbo-penetrator rounds that allow players to punch through guards/barriers at the cost of massively reduced ammo reserves, toxic or incendiary rounds for debuffs/dots on hit, and so on.