Is anyone excited about Space Marine?

[PeZook]

And "cover system..." what, exactly, does that mean? Does a game not have a cover system because there are no special buttons for interacting with cover? Why are such systems necessary? Can't a game encourage the player to make intelligent use of cover (such as kneeling behind barricades, or taking advantage of corners in close quarters fighting) without the need for a special "this button is for taking cover" button?

Look at the Call of Duty games, or at least the older ones, if you want to see how this can work- it's not hard.

It can work, but it's way more awkward than it should be. If a game allows you to get into cover,and lean out of it, fire,move to otherpiece of cover etc. with one button, it works more fluidly and naturally and allows you more tactical options.

Because if your character is just this upright dolt with three stances, then you usually have to expose far more body parts than would normally be necessary. In a real sitution your stance is far more fluid than stand/crouch/prone, and a well implemented cover system reflects that, making combat far more intuitive.

Infantry combat is always a dilemma.

Stay pinned down long enough and you become a target for enemy artillery if they've got any, which these orks did. Get out in the open and you're exposed. Usually, staying in cover is a lot better.

The calculations for Space Marines are a little different because of their armor. A pile of dirt may not actually have more stopping power than their own armor, to the point where any weapon that they need to take cover from is one that can blow the cover to bits, making it at best temporary concealment against antitank weapons, rather than "cover" in the sense the term is used in traditional infantry combat.

It's not hard to imagine a case where Marines might actually be better leaping out of their entrenchment now and charging the enemy force that's firing on them with small arms, rather than sitting in the entrenchment to hide from small arms (which they're immune to) until someone calls up antitank support and artillery strikes (which they're not immune to).

Except the orks had heavy weapons right there with some sort of rokkits (which they used to blow up the Predator) ; They were just unable to tag individual marines with them because they were concealed (yeah, in retrospect calling that little wall "cover" is a bit much).

If they charged right into mouth of orkish guns, they'd start losing soldiers fast and there were a total of five of them. Furthermore, a single marine has absurd firepower at his disposal, but throws this advantage away when going into melee: orks are supposed to be one of the few aliens that can actually fight marines hand to hand on somewhat equal terms, after all.

[Covenant]

And "cover system..." what, exactly, does that mean?

Generally, cover systems are mechanics designed to let you make special use of cover, like being able to stick to it and then lean out, fire over it, roll out of it, etc. A game without a cover system still allows for the use of cover by just positioning yourself in an area where the critters can't hit you, but it's not designed specifically to make it easier for you to cover.

Uh huh... so you hate it, think it is useless, yet use it anyway, just YOUR OWN way. But you are glad there is no cover system to rely on, even though you relied on cover in just two levels of a demo.



You guys are so full of shit.

No, I was pretty specific with what I said. I'm glad there's no sticky cover system because I dislike the sticky cover systems. I never said I have cover--what kind of a strange statement would that be? "All enemies must be arrayed on a flat plane for me to destroy!" I just hate the mechanical cover systems and find them annoying. Games like Metal Gear Solid which feature very complex cover systems see me using them like... I don't know, a handful of times tops, and usually just for novelty's sake or to slow my movements down when I need to walk quietly. It's like, I'm also glad that Space Marine has no stealth system either.

Realistic themed games benefit a lot from a cover system, but I have realism fatigue and enjoy the arcade feel of it. You're also wrong when you said I had to rely on it, because I did not. The only level with Rokkits were the jump jet levels, and even though I availed myself of cover I didn't have to go from cover to cover to keep my marine ass alive. That's what I mean by reliance--a lot of games force me to go from cover to cover, but this is freeform enough I can survive without it. I'm glad not to be pinned down.

Instead, I used cover to locate the Rokkiteers, then did my Jump+Right Button smash to obliterate entire hordes of them. Combine that with the slash-and-heal mechanics and you're no longer forced to stick to cover to survive, as you can quite successfully run-and-gun with your bolters and poweraxe while keeping your health high.

Anyway, don't be such an asshole Havok. If you can't distinguish "cover system ala modern games" from "cover ala Wolfenstein" then don't get all up my semantical ass about it. You yourself indicated that you knew this distinction because you said "What the fuck game developers, it is 2011. Cover System or your game is automatically garbage." Not every game is Gears of War, or should be.

[Simon_Jester]

And "cover system..." what, exactly, does that mean? Does a game not have a cover system because there are no special buttons for interacting with cover? Why are such systems necessary? Can't a game encourage the player to make intelligent use of cover (such as kneeling behind barricades, or taking advantage of corners in close quarters fighting) without the need for a special "this button is for taking cover" button?

Look at the Call of Duty games, or at least the older ones, if you want to see how this can work- it's not hard.

It can work, but it's way more awkward than it should be. If a game allows you to get into cover,and lean out of it, fire,move to otherpiece of cover etc. with one button, it works more fluidly and naturally and allows you more tactical options.

Because if your character is just this upright dolt with three stances, then you usually have to expose far more body parts than would normally be necessary. In a real sitution your stance is far more fluid than stand/crouch/prone, and a well implemented cover system reflects that, making combat far more intuitive.

I suppose this is true.

But when you start introducing a specific mechanic for something like that, you're strongly encouraging the player to use it, and the level design to focus around it. Some shooter games are very cover-centric, with movement during combat being very dangerous, timing being everything, and so on. This is highly realistic.

I'm not entirely sure, though, that it's desirable for a game that's supposed to emulate 40k Space Marines. Part of their appeal is that, strange and unrealistic as it may be, they really do stand tall on the battlefield a lot, and go into hand to hand with terrible monsters, and come out on top anyway.

If I want to play a game full of positional fighting where poking my nose out of cover at the wrong moment is a recipe for getting riddled with bullets and killed, I won't buy a game that has me playing a 40k Space Marine, I'll buy something in a more down-to-earth setting.

Except the orks had heavy weapons right there with some sort of rokkits (which they used to blow up the Predator) ; They were just unable to tag individual marines with them because they were concealed (yeah, in retrospect calling that little wall "cover" is a bit much).

If they charged right into mouth of orkish guns, they'd start losing soldiers fast and there were a total of five of them. Furthermore, a single marine has absurd firepower at his disposal, but throws this advantage away when going into melee: orks are supposed to be one of the few aliens that can actually fight marines hand to hand on somewhat equal terms, after all.

Eh, you're probably right.

I'm not going to defend the specific tactics of that engagement. But my point is that Space Marines have strong incentives not to fight the way that 20th century rifle infantry would, because they face a different situation on the battlefield: most of their enemies don't have the firepower to seriously endanger them, a few armed with heavy weapons and enemy vehicle support do.

[Stark]

Oh man, people with literally no idea what they're talking about rejecting a concept. :V

Attach-cover systems (for the mendacious) are used in games where position is more important than movement. They're common because circlestrafing is dead everywhere except COD. It's typical for such a game to feature a lot of splash damage weapons, long-range weapons, and high-damage weapons to encourage use, while providing special abilities around moving and manipulating cover. Cover basically replaces the Unreal Tournament ability to somersault sideways, double-jump, and use movement as defence.

All the childish macho bullshit around SM 'standing tall' and 'being tough' is not only irrelevent, it's stupid. Plenty of MACHO HARDCORE MCGRUFF games have cover, but since Space Marine lets you move in all four directions at the same speed and that speed is pretty high, movement is more important than position and (at least in the demo) everything is direct-damage and they use spawn waves. You can hang back and shoot (and I enjoy defeating the game desgn in this way) but it's an arcade slash em up, not a tactical shooter requiring forethought or cooperation.

most of their enemies don't have the firepower to seriously endanger them, a few armed with heavy weapons and enemy vehicle support do

SOMEONE hasn't played the game.

They really need to tweak the dives. Unlike in most other games, the dive will 'stop' if your hitbox clips anyone else's hitbox. Combined with narrow, feature-heavy areas, this makes diving less useful than it could be - and, again, is a concept Relic should have poached from better games since they have basically no idea what they're doing.

[Lord Relvenous]

Going prone would be suicide for the most part in Space Marine. Of course you can hide behind things. We are talking about the lack of a cover system.

And "cover system..." what, exactly, does that mean? Does a game not have a cover system because there are no special buttons for interacting with cover? Why are such systems necessary? Can't a game encourage the player to make intelligent use of cover (such as kneeling behind barricades, or taking advantage of corners in close quarters fighting) without the need for a special "this button is for taking cover" button?

Look at the Call of Duty games, or at least the older ones, if you want to see how this can work- it's not hard.

Back up, Simon. Read my second to last post. I don't want "special buttons for interacting with cover". No need to argue with me.

I am kinda bummed we didn't get to see other enemies from the game though. While the variation is Orks wasn't bad (basic Boyz, Grots, Shoota Boyz, Nobs, Rokkit carriers), I would have loved to have seen Marine on Chaos Space Marine combat. I have heard good things about the rest of the game from a friend who got early review access, and the game sounds like it does a good job of mixing things up. I chuckled that you can actually kill yourself with plasma weapons if you don't vent them. That's a nice touch.

[PainRack]

Board game wise, I do know from 2nd edt and 4th that Space Marines firing from cover is deadly, so. the whole "thematic" and "loyal to board game" doesn't make sense to me.

Seriously. In 2nd edt, where the point of the game was to break enemy squads, you're not going to beat the Soace Marines double tap when not moving and cover means you can keep spamming that until the cows come home.

In 4th edt, where the plethora of weapons has literally exploded, cover is life. Forcing the enemy to use a template weapon or some shit, to avoid the lascannon, IG massed plasma gun/lasgun barrage, cover became life. I'm also told that in 5th edt where they improved the resilence of vehicles, cover becomes critical because you need to find a sweet spot, either dead ground or providing cover to dump your troopers while they're vulnerable after unloading from your Rhinos. Its not as if you should dump them within assault range, because if you do that, they charge on their turn and well........ oops.

Holding on to objectives is the only time where cover becomes secondary, and that's because of the need to send in assault troops to secure it. Similarly, when defending an objective, cover isn't as important as numbers and killing off enemy scorers. Sweeping advance for the win so as to say.

Well, technically, I guess you could drop from above and pray the scatter dice and the armies roll right, but that's more because you can't really exploit cover in that tactic.


Seriously. Those who say that taking cover isn't being true to WH40k Space Marines should actually play the boardgame. I LOVED spamming a heavy bolter/rocket launcher at the wave of Orks struggling to charge my entrenched Marines in 2nd edt. Hell, I broke the entire Gretchin army once in the Armaggadeon scenario when my flamer/bolters screwed everyone:D Ah... good times. Run two turns, set up cover and play shooty with autoguns gretchin:D

[Cykeisme]

Firstly, it's well-established that for 40k, game mechanics of the tabletop game and the fictonal "fluff" material are two very disparate things.

Secondly, even in the incredibly simplified depiction of combat (and watered-down Space Marines), cover doesn't make any difference to the Marines except when the enemy has weapons that are AP3 or better. So while it does help survival against a heavy weapon or special weapon mixed into an enemy squad, it has literally zero effect against the massed lasgun or Ork shoota fire.

[Stark]

That's the sort of thing I'd have liked to see in the game; the disparity between low-end grunt weapons and Space Marines walking around one-handing crew-served weapons that explode tanks. It's a laugh that even Space Marine can't do waht Halo failed to do fifteen years ago; show that the heroes can save their friends simply by standing in front of them, and they dominate battle with their superior agility and far more powerful weapons.

Oh well. I'm sure it'll be a fun eight hours of bolt pistol cheese regardless.

[PainRack]

Cykeisme, I was actually referring to the IG platoon massing plasma guns or even meltas in their infantry platoons.

2nd edition was.... different. 3+ wasn't as important as LOS and target pirority, etc in preserving your 2 squads and that what cover did.

[White Haven]

And fluffwise, Pain, that does not happen. 'Massed plasma/melta guns' in an IG unit? Why not just give them Deathstrike missile support while you're at throwing incredibly rare and prized technology onto the table. Inquisitorial Stormtroopers use Hellguns primarily, as opposed to plasma/melta weapons.

[Kojiro]

Seriously. Those who say that taking cover isn't being true to WH40k Space Marines should actually play the boardgame.

I've played it plenty, and still own close to a battle company in MKVI beaky armour. This game isn't based on 2nd Ed, its based on the current 5th Ed. Cykisme is right, current 40k actively encourages marines to surge forward as melee is far more powerful and disruptive to your opponent. Cover is only so useful as in it convenient, which is exactly how Space Marine treats it. Why take cover when the mechanics of both games reward charging in far more?

[Dartzap]

Finally managed to play the demo - really enjoyed it. I found it challenging even on normal (this may be due to me being terrible) Anyway: I really enjoyed the first mission, especially getting my mitts on the poweraxe. Compared to the chainsword it really sped up the killing. Titus (who will most assuredly turn to Chaos due to the curse of Mark Strong) really feels like a tank on legs, the sounds really are top notch, with the slight exception of the Bolter, which could do with being slightly louder.

I'll certainly buy it, as I know I'll get a fair few hours out of the Co-op when that becomes available. Sure as hell won't be spending 80 quid on the collectors edition though.

[Rogue 9]

And fluffwise, Pain, that does not happen. 'Massed plasma/melta guns' in an IG unit? Why not just give them Deathstrike missile support while you're at throwing incredibly rare and prized technology onto the table. Inquisitorial Stormtroopers use Hellguns primarily, as opposed to plasma/melta weapons.

Not "massed" as such. You can only get one special weapon per ten man squad (three if you want to splurge on veterans); you can just take a lot of squads due to the platoon rules and them being fifty points apiece. (If you take a platoon in all six Troops slots and get the maximum allowed infantry squads in each platoon, you'd have thirty squads, though that's 1500 points by itself - leaving no room for the mandatory platoon command squad per platoon and single HQ, to say nothing of the special weapons you're after, in a standard game.)

So in 1500 points you can have twenty plasma guns (the most expensive special weapon) on two hundred Guardsmen, discounting the command squads (which can take a special weapon for everybody, but are only the commander plus four other guys, but at this point you only have enough points left for two more plasmas on all five command squads you've got).

If you want a higher concentration of special weapons per man, you want veteran squads, but they don't fall into the platoon structure - each takes its own force organization slot, so you can only have six, at three weapons each, for 18 plasma guns in your Troops (though they'll hit more often due to veterans' higher ballistics skill). This comes to 690 points in total, so in 1500 you have a lot of room left - but not a lot of force organization left to put bodies in. Two company command squads in our two HQ slots brings us to 26 plasma guns and 910 points, but also isn't particularly smart, given plasma's tendency to blow up on the wielder and Guardsmen's poor saves. Veterans and command squads can take carapace armor to increase their chances of survival, but at 30 points per veteran squad and 20 per command, that adds up quickly - doing it for all of them means you're spending 1130 points on this gimmick, and don't have a lot left to actually make a good list with - which you are so far failing to do, since while foot Terminators flee in terror, most people will have theirs in Land Raiders, which you have absolutely nothing capable of hurting thus far. With 470 points you could get some armor, but it's not even enough to get APCs for your troops. You could get three no-frills Leman Russes with enough left over for a lascannon, but this still leaves the problem of AV14, which only the single lascannon could reliably penetrate.

As to melta, they cost less than plasma, but they're also short ranged, and therefore make veterans with them suck even more without Chimeras (veterans not in Chimeras are sad veterans). Spamming melta instead of plasma with the same setup means you can lose the carapace (since melta doesn't blow up on you), bringing infantry costs down to 780 points (remembering that this is without any other wargear or doctrines, just veterans and command squads with meltaguns), so you could easily put them in eight Chimeras for 1220 points total and fill out the rest with heavy support. Which would be scary if you have that much money for models, but also makes you a bit of a one-trick pony - horde armies would eat this for breakfast, the dakka of the Chimeras themselves notwithstanding, and gunline armies like Tau or conventional infantry Guard - which tends to load up on autocannons and lascannons instead - will have a field day blowing up your transports as you traverse the table to melta range.

Of course, you could use your remaining 280 points for a Deathstrike missile. But only one, and they're too unreliable for me to want to lean on too much, and too expensive not to lean on them if you take them. But having one would leave you just enough points for MOAR MELTA in the form of a Devil Dog... hmmmm. You know, I might have to do some proxying in a casual game just to try this for the lulz.

ANYWAY, back to the demo. I've played through it a couple of times, and it was kind of fun once I got the hang of it. The only special weapon I've found so far is the power axe, though, and while I can switch between melee weapons (because the game explains it to you when you pick up the power axe), I have yet to figure out how to switch to my bolter. I know in the jump pack mission, at least, you have one because you start out the level holding it, but as soon as you press the melee attack button, out comes the chainsword, and there's no obvious way to get back.

[White Haven]

You press the 'fire' button. By default, that'd be the left mouse. You don't 'switch to a melee weapon.' You just press the melee attack button and...attack. In melee. And when you want to make with the shooty, you press the 'make with the shooty' button.

EDIT: Wait, you can get a Deathstrike missile, complete with vortex warhead, for the price of a few El Cheapo Guard APCs? ...That...makes...less sense than a brilliant pink football bat covered in three dollar bills.

[Lord Relvenous]

EDIT: Wait, you can get a Deathstrike missile, complete with vortex warhead, for the price of a few El Cheapo Guard APCs? ...That...makes...less sense than a brilliant pink football bat covered in three dollar bills.

Not Vortex, plasma warhead. Also, the Deathstrike requires a specific roll on a D6 to fire. You don't get to choose when to fire it. Also, it's just as easy to kill as a Chimera. In fact, the Deathstrike really taken that much.

[White Haven]

Eh, alright, not as bad as I thought. I was thinking the lol-archaeotech vortex warhead version, which would have been downright silly at that pricetag.

[Feil]

Keys 1 through 4, or mouse scroll, selects weapons, like most PC shooters. Left mouse, as mentioned, makes with the shooty.

[Rogue 9]

You press the 'fire' button. By default, that'd be the left mouse. You don't 'switch to a melee weapon.' You just press the melee attack button and...attack. In melee. And when you want to make with the shooty, you press the 'make with the shooty' button.

No, because that just shoots the bolt pistol that comes out with the chainsword. I want my boltgun.

EDIT: Wait, you can get a Deathstrike missile, complete with vortex warhead, for the price of a few El Cheapo Guard APCs? ...That...makes...less sense than a brilliant pink football bat covered in three dollar bills.

No, not complete with vortex warhead. That's Apocalypse only, and costs an extra 200 points in addition to mandating that you buy an infantry platoon and Lord Commissar with it for the specific purpose of guarding the damn thing.

[Vendetta]

You press the 'fire' button. By default, that'd be the left mouse. You don't 'switch to a melee weapon.' You just press the melee attack button and...attack. In melee. And when you want to make with the shooty, you press the 'make with the shooty' button.

No, because that just shoots the bolt pistol that comes out with the chainsword. I want my boltgun.

When you press melee with your bolter out you don't switch to the bolt pistol, you just start swinging your chainsword, and then go back to firing your bolter if you press fire again.

If this is not happening for you, Ur Doin It Rong.

[PainRack]

And fluffwise, Pain, that does not happen. 'Massed plasma/melta guns' in an IG unit? Why not just give them Deathstrike missile support while you're at throwing incredibly rare and prized technology onto the table. Inquisitorial Stormtroopers use Hellguns primarily, as opposed to plasma/melta weapons.

I know I should stop digging myself further in, but I was responding to throwaway remarks about the boardgame. I haven't seen a 5th edition game before so I concede on cover .
I have seen IG actually charge Space Marines before, with an Comissar attached, so that they can "stick" the enemy down.... Given the Space Marines relatively weak attack rolls or even initative against meelee orientated opponents(Harlequin, I'm looking at you), meelee combat as a space marine still doesn't make much sense to me, although the cover/invulnerable/armour save probably does change things a lot from 2nd edt.


Regarding the game.... here's the question. Console vs PC.... which is better at running this game?

[Rogue 9]

You press the 'fire' button. By default, that'd be the left mouse. You don't 'switch to a melee weapon.' You just press the melee attack button and...attack. In melee. And when you want to make with the shooty, you press the 'make with the shooty' button.

No, because that just shoots the bolt pistol that comes out with the chainsword. I want my boltgun.

When you press melee with your bolter out you don't switch to the bolt pistol, you just start swinging your chainsword, and then go back to firing your bolter if you press fire again.

If this is not happening for you, Ur Doin It Rong.

Oh, I found my problem. When you have the jump pack on, the chainsword stays out at all times and you fire the bolter one-handed. This confused me; I assumed it had to be the bolt pistol because of the one-handed firing thing and didn't look closely.

Edit: To continue on the tabletop tangent, Guard APCs aren't exactly El Cheapo; they're 55 points a pop, as opposed to 35 points for Space Marine Rhinos - but are much better armed, having a hull heavy bolter and turret mounted multilaser, as opposed to the Rhino's storm bolter. (The Chimera can also have a storm bolter in the commander's cupola if you want to pay another 10 points for it.) They also have heavier frontal armor, though their sides are weaker.

And a Deathstrike isn't quite as easy to kill as a Chimera; it's armor is 12 on both front and sides, as opposed to just front. The Manticore, which uses the same model only with different missiles in the rack, is 12/10/10 rather than 12/12/10, though. Go figure. I'd still never take one; a single shot weapon that I can't time the firing of for best effect doesn't interest me, no matter how powerful that shot is. (I might consider it in Apocalypse for the vortex warhead, but that's primarily because the rules for it also reduce the randomness of firing, adding +2 to the roll.)

[Feil]

I have seen IG actually charge Space Marines before, with an Comissar attached, so that they can "stick" the enemy down.... Given the Space Marines relatively weak attack rolls or even initative against meelee orientated opponents(Harlequin, I'm looking at you), meelee combat as a space marine still doesn't make much sense to me, although the cover/invulnerable/armour save probably does change things a lot from 2nd edt.

As long as you're bringing up rules from the tabletop game, don't captains in the tabletop game tend to be pretty awesome in melee? Captain Titus (the player character in Space Marine) is, as you may have noticed, a captain.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Co-op details:

http://www.spacemarine.com/forums/topic/3772

1.) Space Marine will have 4 player online Co-Op and will be FREE to anyone who purchases the game.
2.) Co-Op will be Space Marine vs. Orks & Forces of Chaos.
3.) All 3 Multiplayer classes will be available (Tactical Marine, Devastator or Assault Marine)
4.) Multiplayer Perks can be applied to each of the 3 classes that you have unlocked via Multiplayer progression
5.) Co-Op progression will apply to your multiplayer ranking (Unlocks perks & weapons)

6.) Co-Op will initially launch with 2 scenarios: Assault on Hab Center Andreas & Escape from Kalkys Facility. Each will include multiple arenas.
7.) Co-Op will be score based featuring global leaderboards. There will be score multipliers and dynamic challenges to help teams boost their scores.

[Stark]

You could have just said 'horde mode'. If the date is 'after Gears 3', that's quite a shame.

[DPDarkPrimus]

That you get to use your multiplayer characters in the co-op and that co-op accrues multiplayer experience are both good things.