There’s so much to disagree about, some things like zealot dying out seems like entirely asian problem, i don’t have data, but from what i see within party finder on EU myself, average team is classic 4 classes. Zealots still chorus bots, only worse than before.
And thunder hammer is good if perfectly used? No, i no longer take zealots with thunder hammers to my team. Eviscerator way better, anything better.
You speak of data, but i doubt you have something beyond personal expirience and expirience of freinds and my expirience don’t match it.
Arbites with dog works out better for me than without and if your dog don’t do enough damage, it’s entirely your build problem. I do agree that arbites is worst team player of classes, his supposed team ability worst of all classes, his push actually gives more benefits to the team, i can’t count how many times i possibly saved someone from overhead because i pushed crusher(s).
More psykers on eu now use venting shriek, doing 2+ million of damage on average. You say that perfect team is 2 vets, psyker and ogryn and one vet is with smokes, so why psykers take bubble on top? Waste of damage potential. And if you really need bubble, switch veteran to one more psyker. I had wins with such composition.
Also a lot depends on what modifiers and map your get, what seeding of enemies you get, like ogryn with branx pickaxe against purple rotten armor? Great. Against stimmed dreg ragers and dreg seeding in general? Waste of a team slot.
Let me give you a crazy example: setting “Volley Fire” to grant gold toughness to surrounding teammates upon killing an enemy would likely spark a surge of creative builds.
I’m not suggesting that Fatshark should buff all skills and weapons to an overpowered level. Rather, I want to express a perspective I’ve held since Helldivers 2 and across all PvE games: if you want players to create innovative builds, then strengthen underperforming weapons and skills. I think Ghost Ship Games has done an excellent job in this regard.
You know what would do the same? Removing gold toughness altogether.
Then of course, balance the enemies around that. Buffing everything to shout performance leads to the stuff we see in Havoc. It’s an arms race without winners.
FS should do a company trip to GSG offices and take notes on everything they say and do.
Funny how devs only added Havoc to appeal to “auric is easy” crowd with lots of hours, who back in a day were the same people who complained about low-intensity modifiers “ruining” Damnation mission board, even though these missions were a nice transition point for many players climbing the difficulties, and you could bring any weapon to learn it in an environment not too different from the highest difficulty which doesn’t instantly overwhelm you, thus more people were comfortable running different builds, especially Psykers who nowadays can’t even play normal auric without inferno staff.
The devs released auric board, and the difficulty of shock troop gauntlet only challenged people for a couple of months, before all good players got used to the new spawn rates. The devs soon realized the difficulty increase was not nearly enough, and even if they released another difficulty mode above Auric Damnation, it would probably be not enough as well.
So they released Havoc which is basically 2-3 difficulties above Auric Damnation that buffs everything on the enemy side (damage and attack speed of shooters, spawn rates of bosses, beefier elites, challenging modifiers that require a specific new approach) and lowers player stats (toughness specifically). But since it was designed around the best builds from the skill-tree era, so that it was hard to play even with all the meta stuff (for the majority of players), the lower-end builds became unpleasant and unideal to play. Especially if you don’t have a premade, and strangers of unknown skill level depend on you bringing certain tools to beat Havoc.
I, on the other hand, has always liked this game for something deeper than “difficult as balls combat where you have to tryhard every second of match”, so I find all the complaining from forum players a bit cathartic.
The insatiable desire for “pro-player accolades” from elitist Auric Damnation players, which always tried to separate themselves from the rest of playerbase, led us to a point where Havoc is this crazy armored elite spam, and the playerbase absolutely shares the blame for everything that’s going on.
And now the same people who said “Crushers and Maulers die too quickly!!! We don’t get to interract with them!!!” complain about Garden/Rotten Crusher packs taking forever to kill.
In the end Fatshark are only doing what players want, while trying to balance different sides of the playerbase, but I guess it’s just a classic example of,
I don’t think players who see failure as a waste of time are suited for this kind of game.
Skill-based games, not just Darktide, are about improving through countless failures and repeated trial and error.
Personally, I find the most joy in moments when I can do something I couldn’t before, when I can feel myself improving.
And I believe that many of the players who are dissatisfied with the current balance feel the same way. They enjoy the process of getting better.
On the other hand, players whose only goal is to win, those who would instantly use any one-button god tool just to dominate, are not suited for games like Darktide or Havoc, where the core experience is about challenge and mastery.
That mindset is exactly why so many players immediately quit the game the moment they get downed or die.
They have no real desire to improve; instead, they just think, “Whatever, I’ll just leave and restart,” and as a result, they repeat the same mistakes endlessly and never truly get better.
Do you understand that nicknames above posts signify ppl who wrote it? Like in plural?
It turns out that different ppl have different options and if you unify their voice into one blob of information then they become hypocrites. Lmao
Some ppl suffer from increased armour spawns, but you can’t threaten me with a good time. It doesn’t only test your dps and cc. It also forces you to something you have to do when playing solo.
If you’re alone on damnation histg, you won’t have enough dps/cc to kill stuff so you have to kite and loop. It’s harder in h40 and as a 4 man random groups but it is possible. And if you’re good enough, you can manage quite a large mixed hordes without the meta dps options and this is what current havoc is trying to test in my opinion.
Since the release of the DLC classes, the number of new players has increased significantly.
However, many of those playing Auric or Havoc have limited experience with Darktide and little knowledge of the Tide series’ history, so they cannot really tell what a “balanced” or “unbalanced” state looks like.
As a result, they don’t understand why things like Gold Toughness or Smite are being criticized, nor do they realize that, given their current skill level, they wouldn’t be able to handle Havoc, let alone Auric, without relying on meta builds.
To them, Gold Toughness and Inferno have become the “standard” of the game.
I play Havoc 40 regularly, so maybe you misunderstand me.
While the current difficulty of Havoc is absurd (the same could be said about previous Havoc 2.0 major patch) and there are things about it which are not well thought-out, I still enjoy playing it. In fact, a couple of hours ago I’ve literary won two maps, one of which had Garden/Rotten modifier.
I just find it ironic that people who complained about lack of difficulty, are now complaining about Havoc being “a bother”. When it was them who constantly pushed to “up-the-ante”, so to speak.
Not really. The things is, FS first tried to up the difficulty by increasing special spam, then armor spam and player complained about that. So now they increase HP pools, but making enemies more spongy never actually feels good in a game.
The problem is that the meta-builds which provide gold toughness and AoE with infinite cleave will kill anything and the only challenge remaining is to just spawn multiple bosses and captains with countless specials.
And very few people think this is fun.
FS have painted themselves into a corner and people who want to buff other abilities to the level of Vet shout or Zealot chorus aren’t thinking it through. Where’s that gonna end? We have reached the limit of enemy spam and HP increase beyond the point where it’s fun.
I think FS needs to dial it down. Both player power (the outliers, infinite cleave, gold toughness and uncanny) and enemy spawns.
The only thing I wouldn’t mind seeing HP pool increase of is bosses. Make them faster. These should be a serious threat. I think toughness should never stop HP damage fully. Likewise, no enemy attack, with maybe exception of crusher overhead should drop you in one hit.
I don’t have the full answer either, but my point is that the current situation cannot be maintained.
I can’t imagine melee twin being even faster and balanced at the same time. This and flopping chaos spawn pushing you around with the collision box itself is the most dangerous part.
Also there’s a huge difference between fighting BoN with and without bubble, we don’t want to make it even more mandatory.
But increasing boss spawns only makes zealot bonking more viable so I’m not entirely against that.
If I’m understanding you correctly, what you’re saying is that the current Havoc Level 40 environment doesn’t allow you to play the way you want — so you’ve chosen to stop playing, right?
Then here’s my question: is it that you don’t want to, or that you can’t?
If you’ve actually tried and succeed to clear the current version of Havoc 40, and after countless attempts you’ve come to feel that the patch simply doesn’t let you express your playstyle freely — then I’d say you’re a skilled and strong-willed player who knows exactly what you enjoy.
But if your answer is that you can’t clear Havoc 40 your way, and you refuse to adapt to any method that can succeed… then I can only take it to mean that you’ve chosen not to overcome it — and that, honestly, it’s your choice, I won’t say anything about it, just feel regrettable for you.
Understand that I used to have real-life friends who played with me. They focused on playing Orgrim and Psychic, just like I focused on veterans, but they no longer play this game. To be honest, most of my teammates in this game met through forums and group chats.
I understand the situation you mentioned. In this rations operation, I was happy to be able to bring an automatic gun and infantry laser gun to cosplay a Cardian. However, in Havoc 40, many innovations and challengers still exist on the Hong Kong server and in my community, and there are many of them. They are just looking for like-minded people to work with. I have also tried using Lucius to complete it, but unfortunately, after four or five hours of trying, I proved that Lucius’ efficiency cannot be compared to plasma guns. So this is more like a consensus that innovation and imagination are not rejected, but not used in a public hall where everyone only wants to pass efficiently, because every failure is a waste of strangers’ time. This is very frustrating for relatively serious and challenging players, especially when they try their best to pass but their teammates are conducting whimsical experiments here.
That really just comes down to cultural differences and personal choice. In most Asian gaming communities, especially on the Hong Kong servers, people tend to be less proactive about breaking the ice or initiating teamwork.
A common situation is this: if you make one or two mistakes that cause a team wipe, about half of the players will just leave the lobby immediately instead of trying to communicate or coordinate with you. In their view, there’s no point in “teaching” or “talking it out” — it’s simply a waste of time and emotional energy.
That said, if you take the initiative to communicate — and you can speak Chinese while showing a cooperative attitude — you’ll still find that roughly half of the players are willing to engage and work things out with you. But again, that depends on whether they’re open to experimenting and trying new approaches.
You can’t really force players whose only goal is to clear Havoc or Maelstrom runs to participate in your experiments. From my experience, the moment you mention “I want to test something,” most players will just drop out — because they have no obligation to stick around for your trial-and-error attempts.
Unless you specifically seek out teammates who enjoy testing builds or experimenting, or simply play within your own circle of like-minded players, it’s difficult to expect strangers in a public lobby to do that with you.
I get what you mean. In our community, we usually call Dregs “Cultists” and Scabs “Traitor Guard.” And as you probably know, every mission in Darktide tends to follow a combat template — either Melee-focused or Ranged-focused. You can usually tell which one it is from the first wave you encounter, since that determines whether you’ll be facing more close-range rushers or ranged units for the rest of the run.
The dual Veteran setup I mentioned earlier is basically the perfect template for countering Corrupted Armor enemies, and it still performs well under Dreg-heavy templates, since those runs often throw a massive number of Armored Elites at you（No matterMelee-focused or Ranged-focused）. Right now, Veterans with the Weapon Specialist tree have really strong melee potential — with Battle Cry and Golden Toughness, they can clear elites effectively and essentially act as Zealot substitutes.
As for the conflict between Smoke Grenades and Psyker’s Bubble Shield, that’s definitely a real issue in theory — but on the Hong Kong servers, most players don’t bother taking cover. The amount of Suppressive Fire from Heavy Gunners is so intense that a single Psyker’s Bubble usually breaks instantly, and what follows is what we jokingly call “getting shampooed” — because the lasgun beams come down like a shower of lasers over your head. In those situations, Smoke Grenades become absolutely essential for survival.
Regarding double Psyker compositions, yeah, that’s quite common here too — though not as popular as dual Veterans or the standard four-class setup, it still ranks as the third most common team comp. Usually, one Psyker runs Soulfire and the Bubble Shield, while the other focuses on Lightning, serving primarily as crowd control to create openings for the rest of the team to deal damage.
Exactly. That’s why the game’s balance shouldn’t allow victory or defeat to swing drastically depending on weapons or builds.
If the outcome is primarily determined by player skill regardless of what weapon or build you use, then no one would feel that experimenting or testing different setups is a hassle, nor would there be any need to only gather players who use specific builds.
I think Season 2 Havoc was mostly peak when compared to current Season 4 and Season 1
Difficulty through rituals and elites who can’t be staggered was fun af, fresh air without DR spam (Orange was a thing but if anything that was just an FPS killer and made only hordes more resistant)
Purple + Red was the most fun combination IMO, no damage resistance but forces you to kill specific targets otherwise the tide will get too big and overwhelm you
Yes it did have its flaws, like unwinnable situations, still fun af
I still think that hopefully they could balance havoc out. A situation that has to rely on timed invulnerability isn’t the best game design anyway. Take the crusher example. It’s supposed to kill you - or at least down you. Having you survive that because a veteran shouted a few seconds earlier doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Given it’s fatshark we’re talking about it’s unlikely we’ll see a lot of rebalancing soon, and clearly havoc is going to be affected the most by any changes.
