About Havoc difficulty

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I just wanna say, regarding the complains about high rank havoc being too easy, that I think those rumors are quite unfunded.
I am used to play auric maelstroms, but today I’ve seen the face of hell:
it was rank 22, we’re playing with severely reduced toughness, faster enemy shooter, reduced ammo return and i’m not sure what else (i suspect extra monsters, unless the double monster spawns and the many lords are scripted), the map was tox gas, tentacles and the blight spreads.
It was quite absurd, and we’ve just barely entered damnation. We did it, but that’s a glimpse at how crazy things can go.

It’s just ridiculous that the modifiers are hidden, and the way matchmaking (doesn’t) work(s).
Other than that, I think it’s a fair statement that - rage at starting at malice aside - players asking for harder content than this would be in the last percentile of players.

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I’ll add some additional thoughts:
I find the mode to be hard, but not in an overly fun way (the same problem encountered with weave).

Let me clarify using a comparison with versus, which I’ve been enjoying a lot:
To paraphrase FS: “the challenge comes from having to fight more clever enemies, not more enemies”: in versus ambient enemies are negligible, the challenge comes from the players:
I think the success of this idea (well, for me) is that it uses what I call the VT1 route: fewer enemies, but each one is a threat. Heroes have limited ability and somewhat clunky weapons.

What we have in VT2 and DT is the opposite: heros are very powerful, well-oiled death machines, and the chief way of challenging players is overwhelm them with numbers.

Now, as annoying as they are, Havoc’s hidden modifiers are a way of challenging this premise, making enemies tougher, faster, a bigger threat overall.
The problem, as I see it, is that havoc piles everything together, doing player nerfs and enemy buffs while increasing the intensity at the same time. While this makes sense for the absolute last ranks, I think the mode would better serve as a fresh challenge if they would alternate missions were the difficulty is due to increased spawns - like multiple simultaneous monsters or the tox gas condition- with missions where the difficulty comes from reduced hero power/increased enemy and ambient danger - for example deadlier ranged enemies and darkness or ventilation purge.

The absolute mayhem that ensues when you pile everything together, that is to say: the current state of Havoc is something that requires the strictest meta builds if not overly cheesy strategies: which is precisely the problem weaves encountered, and that’s part of the reason why that dead mode is almost universally considered unfun.

Moreover, some of the modifiers kill careers almost outright, further restricting the meta, and that would be acceptable only in very few puzzle-like missions, and only if advertised, not hidden.
Ammo nerf is a prime example of this.
Pus-hardened skin (like the rampart mark from CW) is the most misguided of the mutators and the only one I would remove, doing what Nurgle’s blessing already does, but worse.

TL;DR:
Hero nerf runs, in dangerous maps? Sure, cool!
Op enemies? Bring it on.
Bonkers spawns? Yes please.

I can’t be the only one that loves fighting a lord and a beast at the same time.

There’s a lot to be lauded about havoc, and I think with a rework - or if it allowed players to choose their mutators - it would be universally loved.
The main problem it currently faces is that it does everything at the same time.
That and that it does it in a frame - matchmaking, ranking - that almost nobody asked for or wants.

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While I agree with the concept of having different difficulty than just “moar of everything”, the amount of random bold text in the OP is kind of grating.
I don’t think anyone (or only a statistically irrelevant amount of people) likes the team finder.

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It’s not random, I made it so if you read only the bold parts you don’t lose much of the post.
But I hear the feedback.

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People whose sole purpose in life is having their nuts crushed are always going to say they aren’t being crushed enough. Gotta take it with a grain of salt when you hear from those people in the same way you have to tell super casuals to either put on their big kid pants or lower the difficulty.

There’s a reason FS dialed back on those shooter changes a few months ago (which players would maybe have gotten used to, but they certainly weren’t fun changes) and introduced these new enemy changes, which are good. I quite like strafing gunners that are a bigger threat further out and no more shotgun pinball :raised_hands:. Plus, scab ragers aren’t total chumps anymore.

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At 35+ I think the entire difficulty stems from gunners and shooters. I don’t feel particularily challenged, it’s just if you don’t go extremely methodical you get deleted by a single shooter in a corner. The really thick enemy masses are fun though

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I agree with that. I was referring more to the shooter being speed up here though (and while we are at it, they overdid it. A single stalker shoots like a gunner to the point that the sounds gets a bit comical. But I didn’t want to get stuck on detail :wink:)

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Fair, I was basing my post mostly on your thesis statement of

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I don’t think its fair to say that people who wanted harder content would have ever asked for this abomination.

I don’t even want harder content, but them I’m in the minority I suppose. I want more fun things to do and engage with. The kinds of things “game devs” are usually good at.

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