I've got to say that this update feels pretty disappointing to me. There are a few efforts to balance out the administratum background, a lot of book-keeping and common sense clarifications (changing table entries, etc.), a reversal on the Storm rule, and some nerfs to the worse fear effects.

What got left out?

The backgrounds are all still unbalanced due to how skill oats can differ, along with starting skill, talents, etc. The Mystic and telepathica background are still weird. The differing fate points among home planets is still present. No mention of the very cool idea of adding a fourth layer to character creation. I feel like for this having been the beta period on character creation that a lot of the important issues with it haven't really been addressed. I hope that future updates or the final release do a more thorough job with this.

Well they're obviously listening at least, as the Storm quality is back, rather than being integrated into each storm weapon individually (Nimsim - I'm not quite sure what you mean. What is the problem with the original version - genuine question).

Administratum background just became significantly more appealing (+10 availability is very nice, imo)

Second question - am I going mad or is there not a Vengeful weapon quality as referred to under the edit for Mono. Probably being dense but for some reason I cannot find it.

Other than that it seems to be all along the lines of tidying up oversights and minor errors rather than balance or rules issues. Either they're keeping big stuff back from this update, or they reckon they're in the final phases of corrections.

EDIT: Ah-ha! I've found "Vengeful". It's in the last update. Yes, a better fit for Mono weapons than Sapping.

Good eye. I went back and re-read and thought the new storm rule limited hits to the RoF but I see the original did that as well. So yeah, storm didn't need any change. The admistratum had that power to start, though, this is just a rewording for clarity.

They are going to focus on skills and talents for update 3 I believe.

I hope that would include the starting skills and talents of the backgrounds, but I'd think those would be part of this update. There's also the matter of some of the special abilities of the various options being unbalanced (bonus to zero gravity for void worlders; is games workshop forcing them to keep this in?).

"Replace the entry for the Adeptus Mechanicus Background

Ah good. The Storm Quality has returned. Hopefully Update #3 will see the restoration of the Smoke Quality so that weapons and equipment in future products that also act like Smoke weapons won't need to constantly repeat the same set of smoke special rules over and over again.

BYE

The changes to availability (for Administratum and Mechanicus) is just a rewording of the original bonus.

Weapon mods no longer being limited to 1 per item is interesting, gives some incentive to a 'best' quality weapon (but then again, who really needs 3 mods on a single item?)

Starting weapons now have spare clips, but (as far as I can tell) not items requisitioned at character creation.

Yeah, but the rewording means there's no longer anything to indicate it doesn't affect character generation. And going by a little bit of correspondence I've had with FFG over email, they were considering changing the rule specifically to accommodate starting acquisitions, so I think this may well be that.

The Arbitrator background still sucks a bit. Needs Weapon Proficiency (Shock) added in.

That Update was much poorer than I was afraid it could be.

Makes me wonder if they really read the posts here at all...

I really hope that this lack of development is due to gen-con-business, and will be improved for Update 3.

Update 2 so far is something which could also have been posted in a short note in the forums.

I mean, honestly guys, thats 2 weeks of development and improvement...?

I really really hope this is just a one-time gen-con effect.

No kind words from the commissar today.

Weapon mods no longer being limited to 1 per item is interesting, gives some incentive to a 'best' quality weapon (but then again, who really needs 3 mods on a single item?)

That's a very good thing. The 1 per weapon thing was an extremely arbitrary limitation that didn't make any logical sense. With any hope they'll soon allow us to wear backpacks and webbing at the same time, like every soldier ever.

BYE

With any hope they'll soon allow us to wear backpacks and webbing at the same time, like every soldier ever.

That'd be nice.

Maybe some people's expectations with regards to the BETA test are a bit unrealistic. They are not going to do a complete re-write any time soon. Look at the changes in the update and in previous games' errata. That's the kind of thing I am realistically expecting. Not sure how much time from end of beta until submission for finalization though...

Anyway! Skills & Talents, let's get it on!

Alex

I wonder, how long between Only War's beta ending and the book getting printed was there? That'd give us a good indication of how much work goes in after the beta is concluded.

As far as I can tell, four months between the last update (14 August 2012) and the book being released (17 December 2012). Bear in mind there'll be time needed to have the thing printed and shipped.

That's why it's called beta. Fine-tuning. They'd re-schedule only if some MAJOR issue would arise, right?

Alex

Sadly it would appear that Dire Avengers are once again an absolutely terrifying enemy to face. A 180m range Spray weapon with Storm?!

At least there is now clarification that Fear is just 1 Fatigue. DoF Fatigue was kind of interesting, but pretty quickly crippling for a party.

Midnight Visitations is still essentially a death sentance for characters. A high enough ISB and the character might as well be written out of the game. Fatigue is too common to have a chance to never be able to recover 3 or 4 points of it. Yes, reducing it from a multiple of ISB to only +1 on stacking helps, but the core problem is that these never go away, and cannot be mitigated. The next 3 higher Mental Traumas are nowhere near as bad. Maniacal Phobia has character, and is a matter of not being exposed to that trigger. Wracking Agony is kind of funny, but once again, the sources of Toughness tests is quite small. Mutterred Appellation is also funny, but a pretty minimal negative on a test. But Midnight Visitations? You're toast. You're already permenantly halfway to fatigued.

The updates change for Phantom Malady is also missing a few key words. Does it increase or decrease the Fatigue Threshold (from "Permanently this character's faituge threshold")? I have to assume increase, as otherwise, decreasing the threshold, while increasing the fatigue gains is rough. It should also clarify what "that amount of Fatigue plus 1" means. Is that the CB +1, the 1d10 result +1, or the base amount of fatigue +1. If its anything but the base result +1, this has the interesting chance of resulting in less fatigue than what would have been gained.

Hoo boy on the balance changes of removing the Reduced Action Points for novices. That'll mess with the metagame a good bit. Not sure what I think. I liked how 3AP meant that the mooks wouldn't be dodging all day, but I recognize it was kinda OP to use techniques that would affect their action economy (i.e. because they already had fewer APs to start with, it was very effective to force them to suffer effects that made them spend their AP).

I love the new Item Status based upgrading mechanic. I do kinda wish there was a way to add more upgrades (e.g. splitting out weapon sight upgrades from others, and allowing at least a sight + other modification), but this works well too.

Past that, it is sad to see so few changes made to chargen. I guess they're still mulling over the suggestions made.

Personally I'd say Chirugeon should also swap their Toughness advance with Agility (if Agi is still going to control First Aid). High Toughness medic types have always bugged me because there never is really that much reason for it. Then again, if the stats fell in line with making the character good at eveything they need to do it would get messy.

Maybe some people's expectations with regards to the BETA test are a bit unrealistic. They are not going to do a complete re-write any time soon. Look at the changes in the update and in previous games' errata. That's the kind of thing I am realistically expecting. Not sure how much time from end of beta until submission for finalization though...

Anyway! Skills & Talents, let's get it on!

Alex

Some really good ideas can be implemented without changing everything from bottom up.

And if you are not ready to make changes on a bigger scale, you do not need to make the effort for a beta at all.

In my oppinion, it is in their own hands to use the Beta as an instrument to develop a good product into a fantastic product.

If someone starts expecting not much, not much is what he will get. Go for gold and you at least get a medal at all.

I am very impressed by many of the good ideas that were brought up in this forums by several people, some are really genius (and I am not talking about myself...well...not only).

Ideas that could be implemented quite easily and give a huge benefit.

E.g. it would be so easy to introduce 1 or 2 additional layers to the character creation.

A short chapter with an Ordo to chose from, another with a motivation why to work for the inquisition.

--> a very motivating feature, maybe 4 pages of text and it would even grant starting characters a little more abilities

I would be really disappointed, if so many loyal and loving fans give so much input and heartfire, and are just being ignored like "oh yes, looks nice, but...you know...maybe what we have is already ok so far, so lets just skip it".

Well, first, we needed all those tidbits, so it's good that they're in. Number of clips, little details like that that were forgotten.

It seems bulging biceps no longer makes you immune to lack of bracing. Not entirely sure how I feel about that - see, Suspensors were already usually "the way" to get the thing safe to use without costing you XP, so that's an extra tick against bulging biceps once again. Perhaps if we added another little boon to what it offers, so that it's not ONLYl a weaker version of an equipment upgrade?

REALLY not sure about the status thing here for item mods. I'm worried it will vary too much, especially if things are supposed to naturally degrade from being shot at, used in combat, etc etc. Care to explain why a weapon would suddenly REGAIN HALF ITS CLIP SIZE AND GROW TO TWICE ITS SIZE AND WEIGHT just because it took some damage? The Expanded mags are just reduced to normal size -WHEN A POWER SWORD SLICED YOUR POWER PACK IN HALF-?

Things don't work that way. Let people have their reinforced compact pistol with red-dot and a suppressor, it's less trouble than the alternative it seems.

Weapons are still costing multiple AP to pull a trigger, and do not let you aim or the like while said lasgun is supposedly in its charging cycle. That system still needs quite a bit of reworking. AP has potential, a lot of potential, but right now it's ill-executed.

Still, you guys are giving it a good work over, so we'll keep crabbing at you till you get it right so we can pretend we're helpful!

Yeah, a few weapon mods don't really work well with the concept of breakages. There's potential in maybe giving each mod a brief sentence explaining what happens when the modification is damaged, instead of the modification being outright removed.

I can understand a scope getting shattered, but most of the updates there do not make sense.

Rather, have specifically fragile mods destroyed only if the weapon's brought to 0: you'll need to get it back into working order and replace the optics then.

I'd do the mod limit by weapon category [say, 3 for las and las basics automatically come with a bayonet slot, or something like that, while Plasma only has room for two, or one if fed externally... you can vary by category so as to make things interesting], and separate optics [One scope per weapon] and backpack [external feeds] from the actual changing of weapon capabilities/internals. Similarly, if you've got a Bayonet lug on there, you probably shouldn't be worried that because you stuck a mono-knife instead of a normal knife on there, you can no longer customize the grip. Treat that as a separate weapon.

Thinking more on the idea I posed up there, I'm thinking it could be interesting. If weapon mods had significant drawbacks when they're damaged, it's make modding the hell out of your gun much more of a risk/reward situation. I'm thinking things like backpacks leaking ammo (double ammo expenditure without actually firing any extra shots), sights screwing up and actually making it harder to hit, stuff like that. Coming up with an effect for every mod would be difficult, though, some of them are kind of hard to reconcile with the breakage concept. Compact definitely comes to mind.

.

E.g. it would be so easy to introduce 1 or 2 additional layers to the character creation.

A short chapter with an Ordo to chose from, another with a motivation why to work for the inquisition.

--> a very motivating feature, maybe 4 pages of text and it would even grant starting characters a little more abilities

I would be really disappointed, if so many loyal and loving fans give so much input and heartfire, and are just being ignored like "oh yes, looks nice, but...you know...maybe what we have is already ok so far, so lets just skip it".

I think the number of pages in the book has a very hard limit and that the devs need to make some very tough decisions on what to cut and what to keep. A paragraph or two is probably a big deal, let alone extra pages.

I agree with you that another layer or two would really give some meat to character generation but I feel you're being disingenuous the way you describe the development process. Cut down on the hyperbole a bit.

There's a lot more that the devs need to consider that we never become aware of.

I don't want to become an appologist for the devs but you're laying it on pretty thick.

If you want them to add significant new portions or re-writes to the beta you not only need to come up with something cool, you need to blow their minds. Everything else is fine tuning.

You sound like a lawyer but please dont mystify the development process.

I didnt say that everything is easy. But thats why they get paid. And we don't. If we look at it closely...we are even the ones who pay.

If you are more easy going and just take what you get, thats fine. I am not.

The layers where just an example, not something I am fixed on specifically.

My prime concern is that making a beta which keeps a lot of guys busy and excited and cfeates great stuff, should be used to its best extend.