Eternal News & Rambling II

Yeah, yeah...I really need to do actual video updates on the factions themselves, but the mod changes so much that thus far the three videos put out don't even share a version. You can actually see this in the latest development video as during the segment where I'm playing as the Imperial Fists, you'll notice they have no global abilities and the resource counter has smaller text. You'll also notice during the brief segment right after I go "Moving onto the game," as I'm playing the IG, the population counter is different because I implemented an experimental dynamic point-based popcap system (which may not stick cuz the AI is having a fit with it). This mod changes so much that any video I make is outdated before it even releases.

Not going to lie, that makes me mildly terrified for the rapidly approaching public release because I know for a fact I'm going to go "well maybe if I just add this one thing too, maybe nobody's downloaded it yet..." and then we end up with sync errors and all kinds of trouble because I have to be VERY consistent with version number changes both internally and visually to the end-user to prevent that, and right now I'm not too great at that.

But we're closer! Celt's done an incredible amount of work on the Eldar to get them more ready, although we're not certain how we're gonna pull off a bonesinger or some kind of builder yet despite the placeholder builder being called a "bonesinger". Meh. The Eldar are the only faction that still needs to reach a 'semi-sorta-nearly-kinda-complete' stage to publically launch this thing with the initial three factions - not to say there isn't more work for the SM and IG, but I don't think the remaining work on them prevents them from being playable and giving a good representation of what they should ultimately remain. Unless I become indecisive and totally change major aspects of the balancing again...or it turns out that it's just not fun.

Also to be fair, going back to faction videos - I kind of just want people to play it. What's the fun in playing something you already know too much about, you know? Making overviews after the mod is out, sure. But prior seems excessive. I think. Look, I really just want people to play it because especially with the SM and IG right now, I don't think there's much I can do without player feedback to give me an idea of which direction they should be balanced - I'm CERTAIN something's broken but I flat out don't notice a lot of broken stuff because I'm a developer...which makes very little sense but somehow basic stuff just flies right by me.

I might make articles detailing the factions, though. Or at least what makes them unique rather than rambling about changes made from dev versions you would know nothing about like I did last time. These don't take long to write as you can imagine.

Also, there's a bug with the fx that I can't for the life of me figure out causing a bunch of stuff to show up pixelated. Observe:

This is affecting all kinds of stuff and it's annoying. Idk if I'll have it fixed by 0.5 but I'll try.

So let's talk about the future post-launch!

Oh right there's three more factions aren't there?

We literally do not know what order the remaining three factions will be added in and we've done, as mentioned before, literally like...no work on them. There's a very large chance they're busted due to balancing changes made with the other three factions in mind, but I do play against them as AI now and then and like...the Orks work at least!

So what sort of brainstorming have we even come up with?

I will preface this by saying that, unfortunately due to the nature of modding, the SM have by far the most custom models available for use (as a reminder, I am not a modeller and the act of adding models to DoW 2 is insanely difficult). If the number of custom models turns out to be too low to properly create a subfaction, I'll begin diving into unique technologies and such in much greater amounts to fill the gap rather than so much on units since I want everyone to have a level playing field.

Chaos

"Represent the four chaos gods!"

There's only three slots for subfactions man. I haven't looked too thoroughly through potential chaos models yet, but I will say I don't want them to just be 'evil space marines' - at least not entirely. I plan on adding a new 'daemon' armour type similar to how I've added a light vehicle one for the IG's chimera-class vehicles. That will give more use to weapons like flamers and 'holy' weapon types used by the Imperium (i.e. librarian abilities) beyond low-level crowd control, and make daemon-type units - of which there are admittedly like two in vanilla and idk if there's any good models to add more - more resistant to standard weapons fire rather than being treated as infantry.

Chaos marines will be buffed to be similar in power level to space marines and also similar in cost, meaning you won't be getting out a CSM squad 30 seconds into the match. With the SM, I've improved the versatility of scouts to compensate for this, and with the CSM i'll be adding Renegades to bolster the early-game unit count. Whether or not renegades will be a unique unit to a subfaction I do not know, only that their inclusion is a fairly big no-brainer since you really just need chaos colored guardsmen to fill the role.

Oh right. Also the current plan is to stick with the three most-represented chaos gods as the subfactions, which will be Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeentch.

Tyranids

Swarm tactics are something the old Essence Engine utterly hates. That's not going to stop me however - even if I end up having to drop down the collision box of tyranids to make it happen! Tyranids in my opinion should have an unbelievable ability to create loads of extremely weak swarm units that get mowed down by other factions, giving a sense of spectacle to both sides. I may even make it so base buildings produce certain units for free periodically, so you just set your rally point and ignore it. If only I could make the rally point be an attack move instead of regular...

As for synapse warriors, funny enough the plan is actually to buff up the individual units rather than make bigger squads. I think the numbers should come from the swarm, not from the big guys, giving more importance both to the swarm as a meat shield and the big guys as being useful from the back with better synapse effects and such.

The tyranids are, unfortunately, also very heavily hit by a lack of custom models. Expect a lot of tech-based stuff filling the 'subfaction' role rather than unique units, but if we can make it happen we do want to have a sort of 'genestealer cult' subfaction - problem is that will require new, Eternal-specific models as currently there aren't really any options.

Orks

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No, really, I got very little. Celt's got more ideas than me though, might have them talk about it.

I do want orks to be more powerful in numbers with better 'waaagh' effects, so to speak. I'd love to introduce some sort of scrap mechanic ala Dawn of War 3 as well, and I do wonder if I can have the orks do banner construction as their form of teching up rather than your usual tech tier stuff.

More than anything, ironically, I have ideas for the custom soundtrack for the orks.

Necrons? Tau? Other new factions?

Still not on the table. Current goal is just to get all six base game factions done, by which point the mod will be considered 1.0.

To that end, I should make a roadmap, and here's one I'm going to cobble together right now as I'm writing this based partially on what we've already brainstormed and what's left.

I can't think of anything else major that needs to be shared right now except for actual, like, faction stuff. Anyway, hope this just gives a bit more info - I'll consider putting together a proper roadmap and slapping it into the main description of the ModDB webpage.

Also, y'all like the new look for the page? At the time I posted the previous article, I don't think I had done any major style changes to the site itself. Since then, learned a very basic amount of CSS to get this done - I'd love to end up with a webpage more in line with, like, Sins of the Prophets, but that requires knowledge far beyond anything I could come up with right now and frankly the website isn't high priority atm. You may have seen stuff changing if you popped in here from time to time or didn't catch the old article right as it launched.

I'll see you guys on the battlefield soon I hope! I'll keep you posted if anything changes.