Is anyone excited about Space Marine?

[Stark]

Just... like... horde... ? It's 'score based' so it might even be a flat xp per round thing. Only... weeks after actual horde? :V

[Steel]

Just... like... horde... ? It's 'score based' so it might even be a flat xp per round thing. Only... weeks after actual horde? :V

Presumably the scoring would be similar to The Last Stand in DoW2 where you get score per kill, but each kill has a multiplier based on time in current round, how many objectives you currently hold and rounds without people going down and possibly something else.

I doubt it would be as trivial as:

WAVE 7 : SCORE 7

[Stark]

Id be surprised if score was equivalent to xp. Score is just for leaderboards ie useless.

[xthetenth]

Preload's up for those of you with steam. I'm talking about the cool kids in case you didn't guess. Oh who am I kidding, that comes with the blood ravens stuff.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I've always wondered about preload. Seems like it takes just as long to decrypt the files as it does to just download the damn thing.

[Steel]

Id be surprised if score was equivalent to xp. Score is just for leaderboards ie useless.

Other games like BC2 have score is xp. Already in last stand xp is on a per enemy basis, so if they want to have some more sophisticated system than the current one its not as if they have to do the impossible tasks of looking at someone else's game or market research, they just have to use their existing scoring system for xp too. I'd be surprised if they were too dense to put in awards for various special actions and achievements.

[Stark]

Uh, the BC2 horde mode DOESN'T. Please pay attention. It has 'points' that are the same as the xp you would get in a real match, and you don't get ANY xp. The 'points' are just for leaderboards, like I said.

If you can play 'exterminatus', get 200,000 points by cheesing objectives, and that counts towards multi unlocks, that will be frankly HILARIOUS. It's more likely there is a separate allocation of xp, like pretty much every other offline horde mode, because it's easier to farm.

You may not know this, but it's possible to score you 1,284,742 points in a match and give you 200xp per round. Or even 200xp +25xp per foozle and +10xp per thingy, without giving you 1,284,742xp and seriously impacting the online unlock system.

That said, since YOU don't get it, and Relic may well have no idea what they're doing, they might not get it either. It'd be a fucking lol; easy rank achievement/perk unlock!

[Ford Prefect]

It'd be a fucking lol; easy rank achievement/perk unlock!

I think I'd probably give a shit out the multiplayer if I could get cool stuff without investing a billion hours into playing a game full of assholes.

[Stark]

Do you think 'easier unlocks' means 'less camping/griefing/sploiting/glitching'? It would be exactly the same, even if there's a tiered unlock system; the unlock system would thus simply be irrelevant and so there'd be less to do in the game full of wankers.

You never play multi anyway.

[Ford Prefect]

I just like load-out screens.

[Stark]

EVERYONE likes load-out screens. It sounds like SM is focused more on skills and perks for unlocks, so maybe/hopefully all the guns will be unlocked immediately or quickly. It's not like 40k has nine types of lasgun or eight slightly different bolters, after all.

[Rogue 9]

It's not like 40k has nine types of lasgun or eight slightly different bolters, after all.

Actually...

[Covenant]

It's not like 40k has nine types of lasgun or eight slightly different bolters, after all.

Actually...

I think he was being sarcastic, because it literally does have those things.

I just count myself lucky that they haven't really included a billion different patterns of bolter and lasgun yet, but you never know. I think it's unlikely, but they really could have done that with a loadout manager and things like storm bolters being additional wargear you duct-tape onto your armor or unlock in multiplayer or whatever.

[Stark]

It'd be the funniest shit ever if they made 40k into a p-rail covered heartbeat sensor game with tactical hologram ammo-counters. And creatively bankrupt!

The older Transformers game managed to space out a set of characterful perks in the quite low-end of the levelling system (a few days play, tops) which gave people their level-up fix without giving very long-term players more of an advantage than they have already, and I imagine SM will be pretty similar.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Maybe you'll be able to progress quickly through multiplayer levels anyway because they know Gears 3 is out a few weeks later.

[Steel]

Uh, the BC2 horde mode DOESN'T. Please pay attention. It has 'points' that are the same as the xp you would get in a real match, and you don't get ANY xp. The 'points' are just for leaderboards, like I said.

If you can play 'exterminatus', get 200,000 points by cheesing objectives, and that counts towards multi unlocks, that will be frankly HILARIOUS. It's more likely there is a separate allocation of xp, like pretty much every other offline horde mode, because it's easier to farm.

You may not know this, but it's possible to score you 1,284,742 points in a match and give you 200xp per round. Or even 200xp +25xp per foozle and +10xp per thingy, without giving you 1,284,742xp and seriously impacting the online unlock system.

That said, since YOU don't get it, and Relic may well have no idea what they're doing, they might not get it either. It'd be a fucking lol; easy rank achievement/perk unlock!

What on earth are you saying here? Of course the different forms of play have to have their XP awards per unit time correctly normalised otherwise play is ridiculous. As long as doing very well in horde mode awards about the same xp per minute as being in the middle ranks of a deathmatch then people won't play the horde mode to gain levels and unlocks.

There is no reason that in order to maintain a handle on xp awarded per unit play time the ONLY system is to have a fixed award per round.

[Stark]

Maybe you'll be able to progress quickly through multiplayer levels anyway because they know Gears 3 is out a few weeks later.

Heh. I wonder if games have done 'xp events' really early on for these reasons? If they get the balance right any really long-term unlocks won't really be a big deal anyway.

Steel, I don't know why you're musing on how points might be acquired in coop play when there are so many examples of how games do it and have done for years. SM might be the first game to make coop competitive with competitive multi (they might feel this necessary since it doesn't ship with the game) but I don't see any reason to think they won't treat it the way everyone else does; an easy-farm option that only gives xp rewards at all because people like seeing little bars go up. It took a year for horde to give xp, CoD zombies didn't, WFC's 'cod zombies' mode didn't, etc. Horde 2 will because they learned people like it, but a round of horde pays about as much as a single kill, so it's there as a sap to people like me who hate Gears proper multi rather than a second option for power-levelling.

[Steel]

Maybe you'll be able to progress quickly through multiplayer levels anyway because they know Gears 3 is out a few weeks later.

Heh. I wonder if games have done 'xp events' really early on for these reasons? If they get the balance right any really long-term unlocks won't really be a big deal anyway.

Steel, I don't know why you're musing on how points might be acquired in coop play when there are so many examples of how games do it and have done for years. SM might be the first game to make coop competitive with competitive multi (they might feel this necessary since it doesn't ship with the game) but I don't see any reason to think they won't treat it the way everyone else does; an easy-farm option that only gives xp rewards at all because people like seeing little bars go up. It took a year for horde to give xp, CoD zombies didn't, WFC's 'cod zombies' mode didn't, etc. Horde 2 will because they learned people like it, but a round of horde pays about as much as a single kill, so it's there as a sap to people like me who hate Gears proper multi rather than a second option for power-levelling.

I just found it bizarre that the idea that the XP awards from coop play must either be separate from the standard MP xp/unlocks or a fixed tiddly amount no matter what you did in the match. All xp ranks in game really show is how long someone has been playing, if they want to grind a coop thing to boost a number thats their thing, they'll still be terrible in normal MP if they were going to be anyway.

Oddly, I now recall that in CoD:WaW while Nazi Zombies did not award MP xp, playing the campaign in coop in fact did.

[Stark]

I think I've been unclear. I dont' think any game has ever had separate coop unlocks; they generally just don't do it at all and War for Cybertron didn't even let you use multiplayer character setups, limiting you to premade characters. Horde 1 uses a simple flat rate simply because they hacked in the rewards afterward; horde 2 and SM will certainly have more mature rewards based on what you actually do. I just seriously doubt it'll be anything resembling the giant numbers you get as 'points' that score you on the leaderboards. I agree with you on how useless ranks are as a measure of skill, but most games dont' have unlocks all the way up their level ladder anyway (BC2 stops at 22 out of 50, for instance).

I think it'll become increasingly common to integrate mp unlocks/levels into all forms of play - several games out soon, including Gears 3, will reward players in the multiplayer way for any kind of play, rather than limiting it just to the competitive multi.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Halo Reach did the rewards system for any form of play.

[Steel]

Ok, I think we're agreeing then.

I think one of my housemates will pick this up on console so I don't have to worry about the steam clownery.

[Mr. Coffee]

56 minutes till FOR THE EMPEROR!

[Feil]

I have made a discovery!

Sprint towards a piece of cover that you think a Space Marine could reasonably smash through, and melee attack as you're about to run into it. You tuck your shoulder and smash straight through, just like in that one trailer. It's great!

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

56 minutes till FOR THE EMPEROR!

Please wait while Steam unlocks game files.

[Mr. Coffee]

Um,yeah... Took about five minutes for the full decrypt and install to happen. After that Ben, Fred, and me had a blast farming XP, achievements, and cool weapons/armor bits. Turns out you can just set up a private multi server and just farm this shit.