Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 11.0 Update Adds New Content, Increases Netcode Damage Cap Despite Devs Knowing It Will ‘Open a Huge Can of Worms for Gameplay Balancing’

Assault – New Feature

Added a set of Jump Pack Dash attacks for Assault, that are much quicker and responsive than normal sprint attacks. Dash attacks should be affected by all perks that affect Sprint attacks as well.

🟡 Change from PTS: Jump Dash attacks deal 50% more damage

💬 We are going to continue expanding and improving sandbox gameplay for all classes. After Assault, it’s going to be Tactical’s and Vanguard’s turn, however those changes will not be in Patch 12 as we would like to focus on Tech Marine.

Melee

Power Axe:

• Chained Whirl Slash now can be performed after Overhead Strike.
• Overhead Strike damage is increased by 50%.
• Perk “Riposte” became a default behaviour – After performing a Power Backstep, hold attack to perform an Overhead Strike.
• Perk “Riposte” is changed – Overhead strike damage after Backstep is doubled.
• Blocking versions can now enter Power Stance.

Heroic Double Edge Relic (Chainsword):

• “Trampling Stride” Perk now works with a Heroic Perk Combo.
• Double Heavy Combo now can be performed after a Whirl Slash sprint attack.

Heroic Power Gladius (Power Knife):

• Damage buff now lasts for 1 second after the first instance of damage instead of being wasted on a single enemy.

🟡 Change from PTS: Fixed issue where damage buff lasted indefinitely.

Firearms

Heavy Bolt Rifle: Base damage increased by 13%.

Heroic Combi-Melta (Bolt Rifle): Increase damage by 15% for both Bolter and Melta firing modes.

Multi-Melta: The change allowing the player to shoot from the standing position immediately after firing from the blind (removing the previous delay) has been reverted. The interval between shots is now enforced when transitioning to the standing position.

🟡 Bolt Pistol: Base damage increased by 13.5%.

🟡 Volkite Pistol: Base damage and volkite explosion damage increased by 10%.

🟡 Patch 11 Heroic Weapon Changes from PTS

🟡 Heroic Heavy Bolt Pistol:

• Increase Gun Strike damage by 20%.
• Add 6 ammo to max capacity.
• Heroic perk will now instantly kill enemy enemies that are calling for reinforcement.

🟡 Heroic Sniper Bolt Rifle: All ammo restore perks will not trigger when using this weapon.

💬 While it was clear that its a very powerful weapon in PTS, we don’t want to reduce its effectiveness, but we do want to raise its skill cap.

🟡 Heroic Thunder Hammer: Assault’s Ground Pound will also spawn a shock zone.

🟡 Heroic Power Fist:

• Damage bonus for light attacks is increased to 200%.
• Increase radius for heroic perk activation to 15 meters.
• Issue Fixed: Sometimes perk didn’t activate properly.

🟡 Heroic Heavy Bolter:

• Works like a fencing weapon as originally intended.
• Fixed UI display of accuracy value.

Classes

Tactical

• Signal Jammer: The perk has been reworked.

Old: “Enemies marked by Auspex Scan cannot call for reinforcements and automatically explode upon attempting to do so.”

New: “After marking an enemy with Auspex Scan, other enemies cannot call for reinforcement and automatically explode upon attempting to do so for 90 seconds.”

Sniper

• Precision Targeting: Now perk works against Extremis and Terminus-level enemies.
• Guardian Protocol: Removed cooldown.
• Ambush: Now also slows down nearby enemies for 10 sec.

Bulwark

• Emergency Countermeasure: Cooldown is decreased from 90 to 45 seconds.

Vanguard

💬 For too long, Vanguard’s role was to be a vessel for the squad’s healing perks. With these changes, we want to reinforce ranged/melee hybrid playstyle for him. But we are not entirely done with Vanguard changes. We would like to take a closer look at his ability.

• Grapnel Launcher damage now scales based on difficulty.
• 🟡 Retribution: The perk has been reworked.

Old: “After you are grabbed or knocked back, you deal 30% more Melee Damage for 20 seconds.”

New: “When your Ranged weapon’s magazine is empty, Melee Damage increases by 25%.”

🟡 Change from PTS: Damage buff increased from 20 to 25%.

• Moving Target: The perk has been reworked.

Old: “Each Melee Attack you land reduces the Ranged Damage you take by 5% (up to 30%). If you do not land a Melee Attack for 5 seconds, the effect ends.”

New: “Killing an enemy at a range of 30m or more restores Ability Charge by 5%.”

• 🟡 Tenacity: The perk has been reworked.

Old: “After killing 10 enemies within 5 seconds, Diving Kick’s Damage increases by 40% for 15 seconds.”

New: “After a Ranged kill Majoris-level or higher enemy, Diving Kick’s Damage increases by 130%. Cooldown 15 seconds.”

🟡 Change from PTS: Fix interaction between Shock Wave perk and Tenacity caused by double damage scaling.

• Collateral Damage: Increase damage by Diving Kick to 50%.
• 🟡 Inner Fire: Now works according to description.

Assault

• Act of Attrition: The perk has been reworked.

Old: “Enemies hit by Melee Attacks take 15% more Damage for 3 seconds.”

New: “Enemies hit by Damage from Melee Attacks executed while sprinting or dashing Melee Attacks take 25% more Damage for 5 seconds.“

Battlefield Conditions

• Great Responsibility: Increased HP bonus from 100% to 150%.
• Retirement Barge: Reduced HP debuff from 66% to 50%.
• Poorly Fit Suit: Reduced damage by 33%.
• Equipment Malfunction: restricted from appearing on the Exfiltration mission.
• Surgical Strike: Buffed damage by 15%.
• Extreme Challenge: Increased Extremis enemies spawn cooldown.

Gameplay QoL

• Increased netcode damage cap.

💬 This change is going to open a huge can of worms for gameplay balancing, but it has to be done. The game damage numbers should not be restricted by net code and should be accurate all of the time. We will be monitoring which builds and perks combinations will become problematic. It’s pretty clear that some damage buffs combinations from multiple sources are already insane (looking at you Blocking Power Fist). For now, have fun.

• Sniper damage buff from Cloak Ability lasts a little bit longer to fully affect entire burst and full auto weapons.
• Improved sound indication for unparriable attacks.
• Pyrecannon Heavy Stance behavior with sprint now matches other heavy weapons.

AI

• Chaos Spawn: Fixed headshots not registering for client side hit detection weapons.
• Vortex Beast: Added headshot area.
• Lots of minor fixes with animations.

CUSTOMISATION

• Bots use player class customisation.
• Added sorting armour parts by rarity.
• Fixed: Black Templar Champion now chains his Power Sword properly.
• Lots of minor customisation fixes.

LEVELS

• Lots of minor fixes with level geometry.

GENERAL FIXES

• Fixed: Vanguard – The ‘Restless Fortitude’ perk does not activate when finishing off an enemy with the Grapnel Launcher.
• Fixed: Sniper ability stops recharging and working completely until the end of the match after getting hit during its activation in rare cases.
• Fixed: Player can’t use gun strike on Lictor after perfect dodge in some rare cases.
• Fixed: Assault’s class perk “Overcharge” does not increase the damage of charged attacks for any weapon except Thunder Hammer.
• Fixed: Combat Knife – “Combined Onslaught” and “Heavy Onslaught” perks do not apply to dash attacks.
• Fixed: Combat Knife – “Shadow Stab” is affected by the “Combined Onslaught” perk instead of “Heavy Onslaught” despite being a heavy attack.
• Fixed: Combat Knife – “Combined Onslaught” and “Heavy Onslaught” perks do not apply to dash attacks.
• Fixed: Power Sword – With Speed Restoration perk equipped, contested health restoration values are swapped between power and speed mode’s second hits in a combo.
• Fixed: Power Sword – Power restoration does not apply the restoration bonus to the 4th attack from Slashing Blade perk.
• Fixed: Power sword – The 3rd attack in the light combo misses in some cases.
• Fixed: Thunder Hammer – Assault’s class perk Overcharge doesn’t buff second ground slam attack when Seismic Chain weapon perk is picked.
• Fixed: Thunder Hammer – Assault’s class perk Overcharge doesn’t give a 25 percent buff for aftershock attack when Aftershock Improved weapon perk is picked.
• Fixed: Thunder Hammer perk After Aftershock doesn’t give a 10 percent melee damage buff when Aftershock Improved perk is picked.
• Lots of minor bug fixes.
• Lots of minor localisation bug fixes.
• Lots of minor UI and sound fixes.

TECH

• Memory optimizations.
• Crash fixes and general stability improvements.
• General connectivity improvements.

If you’re hunting for the best offers this week, we’re actively rounding up the strongest Black Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full Black Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.