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 Post subject: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-07 01:46pm 

I'm think of the engine from Space Marine, a third person shooter with cover but with you as a squad Sgt of either regular guard or inquisition storm troopers. And all the insane stuff from the codex's. Weirdboyz absorb too much energy, fucking boom. Chaos bezerkers have a chance to hack down there own men, plasma guns can overheat and kill the user. Etc.

Possibly with a leveling system that grants access to carapace Armour and the like. For people who want their 40k serious, there can be an option to turn off the fun fluff.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-07 03:38pm 

Plasma guns are already modelled pretty well in the way they can hurt the firer. I don't think it needs much adjustment.

Doing a Guard-style leveling/perk system would be pretty cool. Start with a lasgun, give it some bayonet, power pack, scope options, or move on to a nice sword or chainsword, and so on up.

The main issue would be the rebalancing the entire feel of the game. The "Unstoppable Juggernaut of Murdering One Million Dudes" obviously isn't appropriate for a Guardsman player and squad buddies. Special powers should be focused around calling in artillery bombardments and such rather than personal warrior-god type things.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-07 04:09pm 

Cover system ? :3

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-07 04:14pm 

Yeah, you know, hiding behind stuff so you don't get shot.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-07 04:43pm 

So, something like Gears of War's cover system with higher lethality for enemy weapons? And maybe this time levels could have somewhat destructible cover? I'm thinking of "Black" where you could hide behind, say, a concrete pillar, but it would be whittled down by enemy fire until you had to find a new hiding spot. I feel like I'm describing something that might be a chore to play.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-07 05:03pm 

Certainly, when a rockcrete barrier gets hit with a melta blast, I want it vaporized. Capture the lethalness of the setting.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 07:56am 

If it wasn't Relic you could even get some decent art that doesn't look like a child's cartoon in there. Maybe even weapon variety that isn't from 1998 and crazy things like tactics etc.

Even if you just took Battlefield and made every weapon amazingly powerful it'd sell the setting; you'd have lulls in the action followed by entire areas being leveled. It'd be hard to avoid the horrible special forces wank and get any actual large scale operations, though.

Using constant ditching of weapons might work to capture some feel; lots of games don't have you treasuring each gun; you use it until it fails, breaks, explodes or runs out of ammo then you throw it away. Setting a plasma gun to high power might actually mean something if you're risking losing all of its ammo in a malfunction and they're not common on the battlefield.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 07:59am 

Actually a Guard setting is perfect for large scale stuff, its in the books all the time.

Now avoiding customer expectation of it is a different animal. And yeah, no Relic.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 08:09am 

Yeah that's what I mean; people expect shooters to e able ELITE SQUAD with IMPORTANT MISSION and not platoon five million in the two thousandth front of he battle for empty desert Antioch.

Man imagine the sweet ass tank shit you could do in battlefield 40k.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 08:16am 

A battlefield style game with the variety of vehicles would be interesting. I wonder if there is a way to have things seperated into sectors so you could see others in the distance and what their doing, as a way of sidestepping the player limit on 360.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 08:35am 

I'd split the upgrades into two paths, a Guard veteran path and a Stormtrooper path. The Guard veterans get firepower, things like the real heavy weapons, sniper rifles big platoons to back you up, vehicles and are powerful, but to get the most out of them you need to set them up, so they are slow and imprecise. Stormtroopers get not much more than short range man portable weapons like meltas and hellguns and operate on their own in small numbers but are fast moving and accurate, getting equipment upgrades that make firing on the move easier and all their weapons can be fired on the move, so they are vulnerable if caught out of position but can be devastating if you use proper hit and run tactics with them.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 09:29am 

Good ideas. The guard vet path also opens things up for silliness like penal troops and commissars.

But we're rapidly approaching a strategic component. Which might not be bad, depending how your squad performs, you might have things imposed on you from higher.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 02:58pm 

I'd just go more of a RPG-shooter path and have there be differnet kinds of guard 'classes' and cover everything from your basic grunt (of varying types) right up to tanks and other vehicles and psykers.

I mean variety of units (and lots of them) and access to vehicles are the big thing about the Guard.

I'd also opt for as much of a weapon customization system (for lasguns at least) more than different 'models.' A magic raygun would just beg for customization. (if you want other 'gun types' you can have autoguns, shotguns, plasma and melta, etc. filling in niche roles.)

The big question is how to deal with combat vs things that are more powerful than IG: renegade Astartes, Tyranids, Orks, Necrons, etc. Another part to cover is the combat dynamic of 'regular humans suck compared to everything else.'

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 03:55pm 

"Guards never fight alone", right ?
Only problem I see with such an idea is that it would suppose a good squad command system AND good teammates AI so you don't have to perpetually micromanage you squad members. Also, your squad-members being more or less normal humans, there's going to be losses, some are going to die. How would you go about implementing reinforcements in the gameplay flow ? What happen when you're in a phase of the "story" where you are cut from your lines/reinforcements ? No doubt it would had another layer of tension into the game...

Plus, if people are going to fight with a squad anyway, it offer a golden opportunity for co-op gameplay.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 04:53pm 

If you're too stupid to avoid puttin the players in situations where they can't win you're too stupid to write a videogame. It's fucking trivial to place weapons, uplinks, and badguys to avoid this.

Unless you're so stupid you'd have a setpiece of two guardsmen vs a dreadnought with swords or something. Regular games have players defeat enemies far more powerful than them as a matte of course. Don't invent game flow problems that just don't exist.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 05:01pm 

*shrug* I am very conscious of that. I was, in fact, trying to point out some of the things a game/level-designer would have to take into account when creating the game.
It may seem obvious, but we aren't all hardcore vidjagame veterans, you know ?

But thanks for writing what I was trying to say in a clearer way.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 05:06pm 

It wasn't you're idea, don't worry. It's just absurd. It's like saying 'how can players defeat an enemy their guns cannot affect' like its some impossible problem in video games and not something done twice every game for twenty years.

It's a bit sad people are just 'gimme mah unlocks' and 'level up to plasma lameness' though.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 05:42pm 

Sure.

Hey, Connor, I was thinking... isn't weapon customization seriously frowned upon by the Munitorum ?

Like, you would have the commissar looking at you strangely if you were to have too much custom equipment.


And as for "fighting superhuman enemies", there's always tricks :

- A wild Chaos Space Marine appear ? Melta the fucker into oblivion (melta-gun or -bomb).
- A Big Ugly & Nasty Tyranid monster ? Call-in artillery support / airtstrike from the Navy fighters.
- Enemy has psychic abilities ? Do you have a psyker of you own or some scavenged artifact you had to grind through a whole chapter of the story to recover ?


Where the Space-Marine would just plow through the opposition like a God of the Battlefield, the Guard would have to be a bit more cunning, and use its wits and a -bit- of external help to win the day.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 05:44pm 

On that front, see the next game that Fantasy Flight are releasing in the 40K series http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3185 Only war where you play a squad of Imperial Guard.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 06:05pm 

If it's sanctioned by the machine god, it should be cool. Various novels have troops carrying customized weapons, targeters, hotshot packs etc.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 06:25pm 

I might actually buy that, looks potentially interesting. Lifer in a penal legion perhaps?

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 07:41pm 

One million Ork jalopies on the dunes.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 07:42pm 

From what I heard the Only War stuff is basically Deathwatch light. Which could be good or bad. I think it depends alot on the themes and ideas they focus on, but if they're going to do 'war RPG' without astartes a separtae line kinda makes sense. Of course they could have made this tie in with rogue Trader and Dark Heresy/Deathwatch (they already half do that with most of them already) but I guess this way makes more money. Deathwatch seemed kinda meh to me, so we'll see how it goes.



Yeah. The idea of the Guard (at least if you go by much of the fluff and codexes) is faceless guys with numbers. It's not impossible to have some sort of single 'uber-guy' doing everything the way you do in some other games (like Space Marine.) Maybe as a 'temporary' boost mode (BLESSED BY THE GOD EMPEROR) but that's about it, and that would really be something more like sisters of Battle anyhow.

The big thing about the IG is that they're not noted for taking punishment the way Orks, Necrons, Space Marines, etc. can, and they don't have fancy technology to help them out (like a Fire Warrior might. ) If oyu play as an officer you might have a magic shield or good armour which could 'act' as health, but that wouldn't work for a single guardsmen.

As you and Aaron and others said, a cover system is going to be key for the Guard.



Yeah if the Commissar or the Techpriest caught you you'd be in shit, but there's plenty of examples of unofficial modding or enhancement, and as Aaron says if it is 'approved' (EG if the AdMech decides its okay) then thay can be allowed.



Well I think the actual idea of an 'anti-Space MArine' game would have lots of potential to be inventive or original in the gameplay precisely because your average guardsmen (at least if you want to go by teh fluff) is not normally a massive punishment sponge. Large HP and shield bars really aren't fitting in with that theme, even if we aren't talking with super-powered enemies. If they took hits from Eldar guns, or Ork guns, or Space Marine guns, or Tau guns, or Necron guns - they're going to take damage, and any sort of system the game used would have to reflect that. The use of a squad, cover, etc. all can probably reflect that. There are other options of course.

Edit: One option is some sort of 'storm shield' analogue for the guardsmen. I think the FFG material and a few other sources hinted at the guard having access to something like that. and if they don't in fluff, who cares? That would work as some sort of temporary protection against higher yield enemies (at least from a single direction - which actually isn't a bad thing, having to be aware that you might be vulnerable form the sides or behind might actually be useful.)

As far as taking out enemies there are always other ways. Vehicles for some - as Stark said there's a shit ton of Imperial tanks (or other vehicles) that could be used.

Or access to heavier weapons (even just krak grenades or meltabombs being saved would work. Or maybe an underslung grenade launcher.) Or as Aaron said there are things like hotshot power packs that could help.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 08:28pm 

You know how xcom had you rotating guys in and out as they got injured and healed? You could do that, could even be part of a character arc. Start off as section 2IC and oops, Sgt got it in the neck, now your it.

 Post subject: Re: Let's make "Imperial Guard"

Posted: 2012-04-08 08:42pm 

That could work. If we're focusing on a squad a sa whole then it could be that no one particular character is 'yours' but you're responsible for the whole squad (or unit, or whatever.) Taking losses and injuries migth even be part of the game that you have to plan around.

Another thing that I was wondering about, as well as medical stations, I've been thinking about the flak armor. I wonder if you could somehow work removable 'trauma plates' as protection against a lucky hit or two, and then being able to scrounge them in the field (either from stockpiles or dead troopers/enemies or something, depending on circumstance.) That might work at least for low-powered weapons.