TLDR: The “Pox Gas” mutator makes it impossible for me to play the game and i don’t think i’m alone.
Full transparency - i’ve only played half a level with the “Cartel’s Favour” event mutator, after which i had to quit because my head and eyes hurt. Anecdotally it seems to me like most people playing the game at a high level are either on the autism spectrum or have ADD / ADHD. Due to the brain chemistry of autistic / ADD brains, we commonly experience sensory issues. In some cases, these can help. I for example can distinguish pretty much every spawn sound, no matter how distant or lost in the audio mix it is. While helpful, it can be overwhelming while trying to focus on moment to moment combat.
I already get overstimulated sometimes from the grating visual effects - when the screen is gray grom wounds, yellow from BoN vomit, broken from toughness breaking, pumping gas around the frame from a stim i took and shaking from recoil.
Pox gas (from any source) adds multiple visual and audio-effects:
health being corrupted / damaged
toughness breaking from damage
heavy breaking / caughing
pumping / swriling gas sound effect
limited visibility from clouds of gas
green screen effect
All these effects being added at the same time to all of the other effects happening during regular gameplay is the reason why i avoid pox gas as much as i can. I sometimes have to take a break from the game after playing a round where too many pox bombers have flooded the level with overstimulation-gas. It’s also the reason why i can’t play the pox gas mutator at all. My brain uses up it’s entire capacity twice or thrice as fast just to play at the same level i’m ususally playing at.
Due to this, i won’t be able to parttake in the event at all. Playing the game with the pox gas mutator is like having your desk/console placed in the middle of a mosh pit. Playing at lower difficulties won’t solve this problem either, since it’s not the difficulty that’s the problem, it’s the sensory experience of the game that become ubearable.
I know that most of my autistic / ADD / ADHD friends experience similar issues WITHOUT the pox gas mutator and that they would never post about it, so i wanted to share my experience and maybe it resonates with other people.
Who wants to play a game where you can’t see anything?
It would be ok of it was small pockets changing every now and then but it always seems to be HUGE areas as soon as you entire them. So essentially you’re just constantly surrounded by pox gas for the whole mission. Not fun at all.
Then mix in hardcore enemies that seem to have kept all the stimms to themselves and you have a recipe for a miserable time.
The thing I hate most about pox gas is they actually made a statement about spotting in it not working being a bug and they still haven’t changed it, after a year and change of this enemy. So I am 100% fine admitting I manually cheated this ability into the game with mods until the devs finally decide to let us see spotted targets in the still extremely blinding tox gas. Literally not sorry about it either. Fix it Fat Shark.
You don’t have to be on the spectrum ADD / ADHD to dislike the levels of visual and audio “noise” in Darktide. On the top of that I also dislike the colour pallet in the game, too many maps and enemies just blend together because of similar colours.
Purely from gameplay experience this is pretty bad. I want to see and be able to depend on audio, Fatshark. So does a large part of the community. Mods which remove the most obstructive visual effects, improve FoV, add working flashlights, and remove certain audio are pretty popular for a reason. All those mods give you a massive advantage.
All this default “noise” just adds to the game performance issues, which might be partially behind really low, for a first person “shooter” game, max field of view in the game. The game just runs like sh… on a lot of average PC hardware. SFX noise is definitely behind some of the audio cue issues, as “pointless” from combat perspective audio floods the audio channels with NPC and player character commentary.
Human and PC hardware level accessibility are definitely a factor how people feel about DT. It shows in forum topics here and on Steam, and in game reviews.
Lol the Carnival mission I ran last night with no less than 3 Pox Bombers at the same time lobbing grenades into the tiny Auspex hacking event room. Also a Psyker with a Crystalline Wound build just blowing through Wounds like no tomorrow to top it off . So many revives…
You also don’t have to dislike it just cause you’re neurodivergent, I have add and aspergers (I am the full spectrum warrior!) and the only thing that bothers me with pox gas is that alot of the randoms I play with are utterly terrified of it and don’t dare be inside the gas at all.
DT has screen pollution on the level of ARPG games.
You know how people like to bring FS nailed artdesign? GL to see it behind 40 000 colors of fire, gas, enemies colored buffs, and the worst of them are ultimates vignette effects.
I don’t know how it’s possible devs launch the game use Stimm supply or Rampage and think YEAH THIS IS PLEASANT TO PLAY.
TBF I think the real cause of this is the insane levels of never ending specials. Often 4 tox bombers, 5 flamers, 3 bombers, and 10 bursters all on screen at the same time.
If they buffed specials/elites and reduced their numbers (and made hordes even chunkier) then it would help with much of the visual noise imo
Not officially diagnosed but been told by people with autism and ADHD, and AuDHD (and a PhD therapist) that they strongly suspect somewhere on the spectrum with autism for me. But I love the over stimulation in general with darktide compared to other games in general. Not even just this event. As a pattern I tend to chase extreme emotions and adrenaline highs (I am straight edge though).
But anyways, I can understand having more accessibility options in games, though I think if you drop down in difficulty you will have less stimulations.
I completed the event on auric. Half with stealth relic blade zealot (A.A’s build) and the other half with scum (Rampage melee, desperado double barrel, and support stim supply). It’s a hard event and I saw a lot of deaths. Zealot with beacon of purity and stealth made it a lot easier.
I loved the challenge and the chaos though. But it is a very tough auric modifier.
. So many revives…
