A lot of these ideas sound good on paper. Anything to stay alive longer while wading into close combat would be appreciated. The current system of executions recovering shields instead of health just leaves us feeling weak and squishy all the time.

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ChrisOfTheDead wrote:

A lot of these ideas sound good on paper. Anything to stay alive longer while wading into close combat would be appreciated. The current system of executions recovering shields instead of health just leaves us feeling weak and squishy all the time.

The squishiness really took away from my enjoyment since I was really looking forward to an SM1 like power fantasy that pushed for aggressive, fluid combat. I appreciate the additional mechanics and layers added but as a whole, I didn't really feel all that powerful...just reacting, holding on. I'm able to move through encounters BUT the combat feels stuttery and counter intuitive​

For me, it's key to the overall problem statement that you're able to select proactively get an HP heal of executions...a heal post encounter at certain points doesn't fully address the issues with combat flow. The fun aspect is running into glorious melee and butchering Xenos in a bloody tug of war between losing HP & regaining it by bathing in the stinking remains of those damn Tyranids

An idea I read somewhere else, and enjoyed is, instead of flat HP gain with executing enemies, it could be contested health instead, so after an execution you still need to keep the pressure on the fight.

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Corsnake wrote:

An idea I read somewhere else, and enjoyed is, instead of flat HP gain with executing enemies, it could be contested health instead, so after an execution you still need to keep the pressure on the fight.

Downside: if you execute a Majoris enemy in a tyranid encounter, it deprives you of further targets for your wrath.

I absolutely agree. However, I would elaborate a little bit as to details.

The new Armor system is also interesting in that it encourages you to fight well even while at full HP, to avoid suffering the loss of precious HP which is harder to get back than it is to get back Armor.

Theoretically it is quite plausible to get the best of both worlds of these systems where Armor is much easier to get back than HP, by having more armor and easier to get back armor, while also having a small amount of HP being recovered in combat. Fighting well for a long period of time will slowly regain HP, and one mistake resulting in an HP hit would undo a lot of diligence about fighting well to get it back, but it should still be possible to get HP while currently you cannot.

Additionally it would probably be best to make executions give vitals to all teammates nearby, to remove the "execution stealing" issue where only the player who actually does the execution gets the benefit regardless of whether or not they need it. In practice it's just not reasonable to expect players to coordinate timings on such a short timescale of milliseconds. Just give the armor (and small amount of HP) to everyone nearby.

I could go one way or the other on the gameplay changes, they'd be fine but I don't think we suffer without them.

The health regen, however, is a must. Health is way too scarce of a resource in this game, we need alternate ways to regenerate it.

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ledarsi wrote:

I absolutely agree. However, I would elaborate a little bit as to details.

The new Armor system is also interesting in that it encourages you to fight well even while at full HP, to avoid suffering the loss of precious HP which is harder to get back than it is to get back Armor.

Theoretically it is quite plausible to get the best of both worlds of these systems where Armor is much easier to get back than HP, by having more armor and easier to get back armor, while also having a small amount of HP being recovered in combat. Fighting well for a long period of time will slowly regain HP, and one mistake resulting in an HP hit would undo a lot of diligence about fighting well to get it back, but it should still be possible to get HP while currently you cannot.

Additionally it would probably be best to make executions give vitals to all teammates nearby, to remove the "execution stealing" issue where only the player who actually does the execution gets the benefit regardless of whether or not they need it. In practice it's just not reasonable to expect players to coordinate timings on such a short timescale of milliseconds. Just give the armor (and small amount of HP) to everyone nearby.

I agree - Armor itself can continue to play a vital role in the tug of war. Armor IMO could be a consumable that adds a lot to your durability and allows you to initiate combat with ballsy plays....however it doesn't regen but is a pick up (basically role reversal with HP). The Armor is very durable but limited - if you play recklessly you lose it and now you're in a tug of war with your HP. Health is squishy BUT regained by the Player staggering enemies, parrying etc. to get strikes & executions....in order regen HP

Armor then becomes a key resource to manage and conserve WITHOUT letting successive encounters feel hopeless as you run into the fray with 25% HP...dodging and parrying hoping for gun strikes and playing it safe.....Emperor would be ashamed

I saw your message on Reddit, and that's what led me here to endorse your idea. The actual system is stressful and considering the stun lock you can be the victim of, it would be damn cool to be able to regen HP in battle and less frustrating mainly. The fact that having only 3 armor stacks at maximum, even on the Bulwark that should be 4 in my opinion, and that those stacks can be removed quickly by only three melee hits by the smallest ennemy in the game is way too much punishing. So, if there is not a deep rework of the armor system, such a way to regen HP could let players breath in the fray of battle.

sounds like a skill issue, the game is very easy, all the mechanics you need are there you just have to use them. Instead of complaining about the difficulty day one maybe learn how to play the game first. If it’s possible to solo ruthless operations with lv 1 characters then you should be fine with you max lv characters and relic weapons

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JohannaFRC wrote:

I saw your message on Reddit, and that's what led me here to endorse your idea. The actual system is stressful and considering the stun lock you can be the victim of, it would be damn cool to be able to regen HP in battle and less frustrating mainly. The fact that having only 3 armor stacks at maximum, even on the Bulwark that should be 4 in my opinion, and that those stacks can be removed quickly by only three melee hits by the smallest ennemy in the game is way too much punishing. So, if there is not a deep rework of the armor system, such a way to regen HP could let players breath in the fray of battle.

Thank you for taking the time out, I do appreciate it. The stun lock point you mentioned is actually one of the reasons why I harped on about stagger in my Idea since the Majoris enemies often eat my melee strikes and their animations aren't interrupted. There definitely needs to be a window where you can use a Heavy strike to open up light strikes or interrupt their attack flow - as of now, only Dodging & Parrying reliably open up this opportunity...inherently reactive things

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ledarsi wrote:

Cannot reiterate the importance of this post enough.

Space Marines are NOT this squishy. In SM2 right now, players are squishy and the enemies are bullet sponges. The Tyranids mostly feel fine, except certain enemies such as the Carnifex which are basically supposed to be bullet sponges.

But Chaos is another thing in this game. They are SPONGY and we players are SQUISHY, which seems ridiculous considering the chaos space marines are in-universe pretty similar to space marines.

It's so bizarre how every single game makes this same mistake and every single time players are rightly pointing out that spongy enemies are bad. And games that figure that out and fix it, do well, and those that don't, die. And next game release, spongy enemies again. Every. Single. Time. You would think people would learn. But I suppose it is just so much less effort to increase HP value than it is to design enemies any other way that this mistake gets made over and over.

It's particularly frustrating because this game clearly has the technical capability to have a large number of enemies on-screen, while not all do, and yet doesn't leverage that to avoid having spongy enemies.

I haven't even started fighting Chaos Marines yet...

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Senza wrote:

If not that, then everybody should be able to heal up at the drop pods. In lieu of check points, everyone gets a top up there and you can have less on higher difficulties.

Make it remove a mortal wound on lower difficulties, but only restore health on higher difficulties, easy 'difficulty' gate

Wounds being very difficult to restore is a second hard breakpoint if you take way too much damage and your HP actually runs out. Wounds are really the 'final' vital that you cannot get back, at all, except for finding a Guardian Relic.

Armor should be very easy to get back in combat. If you have 6 armor (currently 3 normally) this means you could have your armor go up or down during a fight much more than currently where your armor is either full, or gone pretty quickly. This could also be incorporated with armor damage reduction making armor better than HP are against light weaponry.

HP is your main vital, and in this game as opposed to SM1, is much harder to recover. But, it should still be possible to recover in combat even if that process is much slower than it was in SM1. Currently if your HP literally never comes back short of finding stims, then you are encouraged to never ever be hit in your HP and if you do not have armor your best move is to go full evasive and exploit dodge i-frames to avoid ever being hit until an opportunity to get some armor arises, such as an execution.

This means two things; 1) Armor is way, way too fragile (combat replenishable), and 2) HP is way too precious, since you are strongly incentivized to not be aggressive with it.