Imperial Guard and how to make them work

freakishbean

The devs have stated that certain factions would be tricky to implement, name dropping the Guard and Sisters of battle. So let this be a thread on how we can handle these particulars! 

 

Ideas are flung about how Guard should be a F2P race, and in certain circumstances I can agree. I, however, believe a different approach is necessary in regards to classes for the Hammer of the Emperor. Namely, a standard Guardsmen is as one would beleive a typical human to be in the 41st millenium - supremely inconsequential. An Ork boy can rip a guardsmen to pieces. So, having said that, how do we handle the Guard? My ideas on classes:

Sergeant: Controls an AI squad of 5 guardsmen that can be upgraded with better armor and weapons. Grenade launchers, heavy bolter crews, rocket crews, etc. The player directly assumes control of the Sergeant, kits out his character as normal - weapons, armor, buffs, etc. That is the character the player directly controls. The player can then direct his/her troops to engage targets - naturally, they may not be as accurate or powerful as the player, but they can supplement additional firepower/melee on more powerful characters. This leads to a sort of balance. Troops can be upgraded from guardsmen to Karskins (stormtroopers with hellguns). I like this idea namely because it puts a *lot* of Guard on the field, while being individually weaker then an Orkboy, but in groups can be devastating.

Commissar: You know him, you love him. The Leash of the imperial guard. Whats his role? He can use more specialized weapons and can boost the Sergeant and his squads abilities. He can improve guardsmen accuracy and abilites by (and we may love/hate this one) executing a soldier in the Sergeants squad, thus making the rest (uncluding the Sarge/player character) to fight harder. A cool-down for this ability can keep him from simply killing all the troops in a squad.

Ogryn: A big nasty melee oriented brute, has heaps of health and can carry larger, more powerful weapons. Should speak for itself.

Catachan Jungle Fighter: For a stealthy class - won't have the health of an Ogryn, but can Rambo non-the-less.

Psyker: Your typical sanctioned Psyker. Group damage and typical buffs for allies.

And we all know the vehicles that the Guard bring to bear. Leman Russ tanks, Baneblades, Chimeras, and assorted troop transports.

 

*Also, they shouldn't really have their own faction. Rather, they should take the Space Marine and Guard factions and place them into an Imperium of Man faction. It has to be a very good reason for Space Marines and Guard to be at each others throats.

irpugboss

I had actually hoped for a similar system for a 40k mmo across all classes and races.

 Reason I wanted something similar is to make all battles seem massive even if its only a handful of players, and it could make wholesale slaughter easier without making the player get the one that dies instantly.

 Instead of building a single character you make a squad (Size varies on race and squad role). Then as you progress you get access to a better armory for your squad...oh and permadeath for squad mates that you must replace. Unfortunately I dont think my specific concept would sit too well with many mmo players

However, I think the idea of squads controlled by a specialized character as you suggested would work great for IG to represent the sqishiness of each guardsman and reflect their power in numbers.

It would even be nice if when you start the game you get to choose to become a commander class or elite class...where commander lets you build out squads to control, while elite lets you play the beefy individual "classes"

Example: Space Marine Commander Role starts with a scout fireteam and builds up to a veteran team maybe termies by endgame. Then the Space Marine elite starts as a single scout and progresses up the chain to become the specialized roles like Chaplain, Librarian, TechMarine, etc...

TheMaahes

Originally posted by freakishbean

Sergeant: Controls an AI squad of 5 guardsmen that can be upgraded with better armor and weapons. Grenade launchers, heavy bolter crews, rocket crews, etc. The player directly assumes control of the Sergeant, kits out his character as normal - weapons, armor, buffs, etc. That is the character the player directly controls. The player can then direct his/her troops to engage targets - naturally, they may not be as accurate or powerful as the player, but they can supplement additional firepower/melee on more powerful characters. This leads to a sort of balance. Troops can be upgraded from guardsmen to Karskins (stormtroopers with hellguns). I like this idea namely because it puts a *lot* of Guard on the field, while being individually weaker then an Orkboy, but in groups can be devastating.

 

*Also, they shouldn't really have their own faction. Rather, they should take the Space Marine and Guard factions and place them into an Imperium of Man faction. It has to be a very good reason for Space Marines and Guard to be at each others throats.

 

I like this idea and makes me think of aspects of Kingdom Under Fire and Mount and Blade: Warband, as well as to a lesser degree Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor.

 

And I really agree on the last point, I'm getting sick of 40k video games constantly putting the two against one another.

Nonderyon

Originally posted by freakishbean

The devs have stated that certain factions would be tricky to implement, name dropping the Guard and Sisters of battle. So let this be a thread on how we can handle these particulars! 

 

Ideas are flung about how Guard should be a F2P race, and in certain circumstances I can agree. I, however, believe a different approach is necessary in regards to classes for the Hammer of the Emperor. Namely, a standard Guardsmen is as one would beleive a typical human to be in the 41st millenium - supremely inconsequential. An Ork boy can rip a guardsmen to pieces. So, having said that, how do we handle the Guard? My ideas on classes:

Sergeant: Controls an AI squad of 5 guardsmen that can be upgraded with better armor and weapons. Grenade launchers, heavy bolter crews, rocket crews, etc. The player directly assumes control of the Sergeant, kits out his character as normal - weapons, armor, buffs, etc. That is the character the player directly controls. The player can then direct his/her troops to engage targets - naturally, they may not be as accurate or powerful as the player, but they can supplement additional firepower/melee on more powerful characters. This leads to a sort of balance. Troops can be upgraded from guardsmen to Karskins (stormtroopers with hellguns). I like this idea namely because it puts a *lot* of Guard on the field, while being individually weaker then an Orkboy, but in groups can be devastating.

Commissar: You know him, you love him. The Leash of the imperial guard. Whats his role? He can use more specialized weapons and can boost the Sergeant and his squads abilities. He can improve guardsmen accuracy and abilites by (and we may love/hate this one) executing a soldier in the Sergeants squad, thus making the rest (uncluding the Sarge/player character) to fight harder. A cool-down for this ability can keep him from simply killing all the troops in a squad.

Ogryn: A big nasty melee oriented brute, has heaps of health and can carry larger, more powerful weapons. Should speak for itself.

Catachan Jungle Fighter: For a stealthy class - won't have the health of an Ogryn, but can Rambo non-the-less.

Psyker: Your typical sanctioned Psyker. Group damage and typical buffs for allies.

And we all know the vehicles that the Guard bring to bear. Leman Russ tanks, Baneblades, Chimeras, and assorted troop transports.

 

*Also, they shouldn't really have their own faction. Rather, they should take the Space Marine and Guard factions and place them into an Imperium of Man faction. It has to be a very good reason for Space Marines and Guard to be at each others throats.

Buffs? no, they are not magicians, when they are on battle field the standard guardsman think twice when fall back, or disbehave, best moral boosts when they are on the battlefield, especially the Comissar, who have the right to headshot anyone with his/her bolter who think deserve it (like falling back, do coward things, ashame the regiment name or the emperor).

Put this in game is hard, because what you said, regular guardsmen are weaker than orks phisicaly, in weapons they have the advantage compare to orks, but i say the main weakness of the guarsman is the moral what is hard to implements any game.

Another thing: just hink about when a player Comissar shot you down = rage starter...and when you are a high ranking officer and your "players" men says, no, we think that target is better to storm" instead your order...

 

flexo565

If the Imperial Guard get a specialization to control NPC Guardsmen, it'll be like Christmas. Especially if through a Commissar route, I'd kill (heh) for the ability to sacrifice my own NPC Guardsmen for various temporary perks and boons. 

Nonderyon

Originally posted by flexo565
If the Imperial Guard get a specialization to control NPC Guardsmen, it'll be like Christmas. Especially if through a Commissar route, I'd kill (heh) for the ability to sacrifice my own NPC Guardsmen for various temporary perks and boons. 

i  can imagine  system like this: every "normal" beengs (gretchlings, humans...etc) have a moral value, and thats change according what happens around them(like 30 meter os something), like when a tank apphere or more guardsman or an officer have a positive impact on moral, give them more accuracy and rate of fire or something like that, same goes with negative impact, when more enemy around them than friendly, or officer die...etc, and that means got some random negative effect like struggle with fear unnable to shot 5sec, or can move, or start shoting random direction...etc.

Savij

having squads would be cool but there are some downsides

the AI have to be good couse not all players like to do direct attacks, some may love to sneak somewhere unseen and the AI would maybe run stupid or just shoot at something

or get shooten by some other AI bot which squadleader have not even seen you

 

but i agree there should be a class who use a squad^^ would be totaly cool to equip your squadmates and specialice them

freakishbean

It makes up for the power gap for the guard though. Basicially, when the sarge (you) gets a target in your sights, you press a key (q, for example) to issue firing orders. Lasguns are stupidly weak against power armor individually, but en masse or acting as a supplement can be deadly.

Savij

hm ya that’s really hard to balance

having bots is so tricky is the aimbot to strong it gets to easy to play with if it is to low it is just useless

maybe the IG bots could have a % chance to hit an enemy and that % is affected by the aimingskills of the leader of that squad (the player) so it would be kinda skillful to play that squad

(well we still would have a problem if the player have 100% aiming cause he just shoot once and hit the target ^^)

but it would be so cool to have a squad to command about and to evolve it more and more by changing there equip or changing them for some supportsoldiers

i think that should be tested when the time has come^^

they could make their moral very fragile so that when some squadmembers get killed their aiming gets worth

to counter that you need a commissar which can raise the moral by jelling at em ^^

Gholos

I really would like to see Imperial Guard at the game release.

For the normal guardsman, it could works like the ork boyz (FTP) cause they are supposed to be weaker than a space marine and more numerous...as advanced classes i would see: Commisar, Ogryn, Kaserkin, Sanctioned Psyker.

I particulary like to play an Ogryn Bone Head with rippergun, as i do in Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy...someone else here that like Ogryn?                

freakishbean

Originally posted by Savij
hm ya that’s really hard to balance

having bots is so tricky is the aimbot to strong it gets to easy to play with if it is to low it is just useless

maybe the IG bots could have a % chance to hit an enemy and that % is affected by the aimingskills of the leader of that squad (the player) so it would be kinda skillful to play that squad

(well we still would have a problem if the player have 100% aiming cause he just shoot once and hit the target ^^)

but it would be so cool to have a squad to command about and to evolve it more and more by changing there equip or changing them for some supportsoldiers

i think that should be tested when the time has come^^

they could make their moral very fragile so that when some squadmembers get killed their aiming gets worth

to counter that you need a commissar which can raise the moral by jelling at em ^^

Well the idea behind having the guardsmen isn't such that they do their own damage against the target - rather that they supplement the sergeants firepower. The better their eqiupment, the more damage/survivability of the player's sergeant. When he takes damage, his troops die. It's like assigning wounds in tabletop - the most powerful is always the last man standing.

Dihoru

I hope Imperial Guard make it into the game... if only to have the option to play a Ciaphas Cain-type Commissar with the special ability: ADVANCE BACKWARDS MEN! FORWARD!

BeerSamurai

Eh the more I think about it, the more I like the concept of some unaltered human being the Imperium's F2P player.  But instead of giving him a squad why not just make him a regular guardsmen, or perhaps PDF of the local sector the setting takes place in?  Let me explain that.

 

The Orks get da boyz, who will die if they go toe to toe with a marine on their own so no solo work.  Instead they need to rely on having some other gitz to back them up if they want to stand a chance in the battlefield.  In other words the player needs to learn to play the characters' strengths.  In this case, it's numbers.  More to the point, melee in numbers, since your average ork couldn't shoot a tank from the inside. 

 

Likewise the guardsmen would be the same case, different strengths and the player needs to learn what those are if he wants to spend more time playing and less in respawn.  A guardsmen is terrible at melee, but a decent shot.  The point being a guardsmen would have his lasgun(or long-las, autogun, or hellgun if he plays long enough) and would have to rely on that, keeping the enemy in range so he can take them.  A bayonet or combat knife will give him a little chance in melee but his best hopes are to stick with other players and lay down a line of 'pew-pew' before the boyz, or anyone else gets in range of 'chop-chop' .  To keep it from conflicting with the lore of existing Guard, they could easily make up their own regiment thus allowing them to make up their own rules about how the guardsmen function.

 

This also gives Chaos access to its own F2P soldier: the traitor guardsmen.  Same loadout, same equipment except more spikes and viscera on everything.

 

Eldar could have guardians who are basically citizen militia, which kinda puts them on the same level as guardsmen in a way I'm not to sure about.

dinams

Originally posted by BeerSamurai

Eh the more I think about it, the more I like the concept of some unaltered human being the Imperium's F2P player.  But instead of giving him a squad why not just make him a regular guardsmen, or perhaps PDF of the local sector the setting takes place in?  Let me explain that.

 

The Orks get da boyz, who will die if they go toe to toe with a marine on their own so no solo work.  Instead they need to rely on having some other gitz to back them up if they want to stand a chance in the battlefield.  In other words the player needs to learn to play the characters' strengths.  In this case, it's numbers.  More to the point, melee in numbers, since your average ork couldn't shoot a tank from the inside. 

 

Likewise the guardsmen would be the same case, different strengths and the player needs to learn what those are if he wants to spend more time playing and less in respawn.  A guardsmen is terrible at melee, but a decent shot.  The point being a guardsmen would have his lasgun(or long-las, autogun, or hellgun if he plays long enough) and would have to rely on that, keeping the enemy in range so he can take them.  A bayonet or combat knife will give him a little chance in melee but his best hopes are to stick with other players and lay down a line of 'pew-pew' before the boyz, or anyone else gets in range of 'chop-chop' .  To keep it from conflicting with the lore of existing Guard, they could easily make up their own regiment thus allowing them to make up their own rules about how the guardsmen function.

 

This also gives Chaos access to its own F2P soldier: the traitor guardsmen.  Same loadout, same equipment except more spikes and viscera on everything.

 

Eldar could have guardians who are basically citizen militia, which kinda puts them on the same level as guardsmen in a way I'm not to sure about.

 

Except that

Guardsmen arent good shots either, nor their weapons are good lol

Seriously, the only thing going for IG is numbers and vehicles  with the occasional specialized unit here and there (like the catachans, karskins, tanith first and only etc..)

If your average cadian trooper dont outnumber the enemy on a 2:1 ratio (and that is with a good comissar/morale) , equipped only with a las "flashlight" gun and the kevlar vest, they are royally screwed

 

The problem is what the IG are up against,  95% of the freaking xenos/heretics/daemons out there are tough or have tough armour

BeerSamurai

Originally posted by dinams

Originally posted by BeerSamurai
clip

 

Except that

Guardsmen arent good shots either, nor their weapons are good lol

Seriously, the only thing going for IG is numbers and vehicles  with the occasional specialized unit here and there (like the catachans, karskins, tanith first and only etc..)

If your average cadian trooper dont outnumber the enemy on a 2:1 ratio (and that is with a good comissar/morale) , equipped only with a las "flashlight" gun and the kevlar vest, they are royally screwed

 

The problem is what the IG are up against,  95% of the freaking xenos/heretics/daemons out there are tough or have tough armour

That's why I said they can use their own Guard regiment that follows a different kit.  Like in Last Chancers, the specialized Ork Hunter Guardsmen never used lasguns and instead favored precise shots with autoguns because they did equal to more damage, and generated a lot of noise when fired, which helped demoralize orks(accordingly orks like loud noises but not so much when those noises come from the enemy).  Creating their own regiment allows them to give the average grunt enough oomph to stand a chance one on one with any other F2P player from a different faction and keeps the company from messing with established lore of other regiments.  Like Relic did with the Blood Ravens.

 

Because Guradsmen gun damage isn't very high, this also encourages F2Players to stick to groups instead of going alone which seldom helps a team in ANY PvP game.  Much like Ork boyz need to stay in groups to deal enough damage to down enemy players that pay, Imperial F2Players should stick together to do the same thing.  Even a tiny bit of diddle multiplied by several times can be lethal.  Keeping them as individuals instead of a squad will also prevent a surge of players going to the Imperial side and zerging the map with mass npc squadmates.

wghtopside

Bots? No. I'd rather stick with action-based combat, and, since bots aiming wouldn't fit in it (even with accurasy chance, just imagine how much resources it will take to process all that) I'd make them f2p.

I think every side of the conflict has some "zerg" units: Ork boyz; Imperium guardsmen; Eldar guardians; Chaos cultists; Tau... hm maybe kroot carnivores? I'm not sure on this one. And so on, if you feel that certain races dont have weak units, there may be a way to avoid f2p for those. But guardsmen only really fit like a f2p unit for IG.

Bots? No, srsly.

mintyc

i do hope they find a way to get the IG into the game and make them fun, but i dont think AI pets are the way as this rasies some very nasty technical problams.

 

battles in this game are going to be BIG and by BIG i do no mean 64 vs 64 i mean hundreds of players from multiple factions all trying to kill each other in a common play space. so this all means that hundreds of players could be on screen at any one time and if the IG have AI pets they have to be redered to which could mean that thousands of players and AI pets could be on screen at any time and thats going to kill anyones framerate if not blow up you GPU.

 

50 IG players onscreen with 5 AI pets each = 300 characters to render

100 players = 600 characters to render

200 players = 1200 characters to render

crondom

Really nice idea, i would like to see imperial guard in the game.

Gholos

_{Hehe lets do a petition to have Imperial Guard at release}

BeerSamurai

Well not just guardsmen, but each race can have a F2P soldier.

 

It allows people who wanna join their friends but strapped for cash to stay in the same faction.

Valrak40k

Originally posted by Gholos
_{Hehe lets do a petition to have Imperial Guard at release}

I'd rather not, let them focus on the 4 main races first - they've stated that they will add factions like Guard, Tau etc in once the game releases. Lets not over burden the DEV team with too many tasks, that's how you get under achieving games.

BeerSamurai

Well certainly.  I'd rather they make what they wanted to begin with, and add that stuff later.

 

But even then I don't want them to be as ambitious as to make additional factions oh now.  The balancing issues of adding an entire new faction'd be a nightmare.  I'm just hoping they extend the F2P accounts to all existing factions AFTER initial release. 

BeerSamurai

Originally posted by quotheraving

Originally posted by BeerSamurai

Well certainly.  I'd rather they make what they wanted to begin with, and add that stuff later.

 

But even then I don't want them to be as ambitious as to make additional factions oh now.  The balancing issues of adding an entire new faction'd be a nightmare.  I'm just hoping they extend the F2P accounts to all existing factions AFTER initial release. 

Sort of a first rung on every ladder?

Sure that'd work with some factions, Imperial guard especially, maybe chaos cultists as well, but I don't think a free to play Space Marine, even a space marine scout would really work, for all the reasons they've used to explain why it would work so well for Orks (number, poor discipline e.t.c.), not to mention that every additional 'free to' player on a different race would be one less for the horde race-s.

 

But I can totally see where you are coming from.

 

I think they mentioned that there will be several tiers of content.

You could buy the game and have access to all the races.

You could just pay to unlock one race. or

You could play Ork Boys for free.

 

So even the less well off should be able to play with friends, providing their friends stuck to one race that is.

Well like I said before, you could have guardsmen fighting FOR Space Marines.  They don't have to be marines themselves, just part of the Imperium.  SM gets guardsmen, CSM gets cultists.  It plays into lore that both those kinds of units rely on numbers to get the job done.   I'm considering that each faction can get a horde-based F2P class so friends don't have to be split up if not everyone wants to play da Orks.

XavianValakhir

Originally posted by BeerSamurai

Well like I said before, you could have guardsmen fighting FOR Space Marines.  They don't have to be marines themselves, just part of the Imperium.  SM gets guardsmen, CSM gets cultists.  It plays into lore that both those kinds of units rely on numbers to get the job done.   I'm considering that each faction can get a horde-based F2P class so friends don't have to be split up if not everyone wants to play da Orks.

This is a good point, actually. Especially splitting up friends who are F2P. I've not seen an argument I agreed with for F2P unit option for each faction until I saw this.

Savij

how about this:

the war council of the IG faction can invest into an army of bots and into upgrades for them

then they can send them to capture structures or to defend something. they will not walk to their destination, they will drive there by trooptransporters

and they will not pop out at once, more one troop after another and they will get into formation just before the attack on a structure

the real players will be supported by this troops but can also act without them if they want to

 

this way we can leave the guradsmen weak as they are and have the special units controlled by the players and maybe some special units will effect the bots in some kind

wghtopside

I am not from dev team, but I think any idea in which bots are involved is not going to be realized. Just forget about it.