So I’ve noticed a remarkable change in combat visuals on enemy models since the update. Personally I think they’re for the worse, but this is a short list I’ve compiled after playing for about 10 hours post-update: (playing on a series x)
-In general, most abilities that do not target a specific body part on an enemey result in zero dismemberment/gore. Decapitation animations have been dialed down to remove the “explosion” effect most psyker powers had on enemy character models.
-Blood removed from Assail crystals (why?)
-Melee power attacks targeting specific limbs rarely result in dismemberment. Previous dismemberment rate was pretty close to 100%.
-Decapitation effects have replaced about 90% of dismemberment effects in game (Why this was done, I have no idea)
-Warp lightning abilities from psykers no longer result in a full body explosion/decap explosion or “gib”. They are now a random dismemberment at best. I.e, a single arm falls off. 50% of deaths result in zero dismemberment/gore effect whatsoever.
-Smite no longer creates full body explosions on enemies, you will get random single limb or decap at best. 50% of enemies killed with smite have zero dismemberment/gore effect.
-Force Staves secondary attacks no longer cause a full body explosion or “gib”. They are now a random dismemberment/decap at best. 50% of my kills with secondary attacks using staves have resulted in zero effect on enemy models.
Why are none of these changes mentioned in the patch notes? Why were these changes even made? I had absolutely zero performance issues before the “new” gore system. It’s actually more difficult to tell which enemies are dead now, because they used to explode. Now they flop over. I just fired up Left for Dead 2 on steam and the gore mechanics are literally so much better. Why was this done?
I’ve also noticed that damage layer system has been dialed back a bit. There was a time where every single force staff LMB hit would peel away a layer, but recently it’s only every 4-5 hits. Same with plasma gun, but that kills most things in two hits so it’s less noticeable, but it’s deginitely blowing apart things as much as it used to.
I never noticed this because I use a mod that forces gibbing no matter what (For the Blood God)
But yea that’s absolutely terrible @FatsharkCatfish pass it along, we need a blood and gore overhaul, literally do what dead island 2 does what killing floor 2 does what l4d2 does, have blood actually stay as an option (I’m running a 4080 lol) https://youtu.be/8iVlI46W2yA show the dev team this video, this stuff is important for me because almost nothing in this game can be interacted with which sucks really bad but I can forgive lack of damaging maps and stuff because it’s a tide game but come on at least make the enemies visually reactive like the above games do it, if you want catfish I made a few threads before that no doubt have been archived that should still exist that had me write down in specific detail on what I need from this game, I’ll even shill out cash, I’ll even ignore the crafting and map selection issues if it means I can dynamically dismember, mutliate and obliterate every enemy on the screen
shotgun headshots are so pathetic, you will get a tiny toothpicks worth of bones that just vanish into nothing and a generic blood fountain that doesnt even stain the character or enviroment
For extra cursed knowledge just know that dismemberment works like vermintide because it’s the same system, the most satisfying kill effects are slicing guys in half with something like an evis, however tho you cant trigger that effect if they lose ANY part of their body (however if the ragdoll is perfectly preserved you can still trigger that effect and also if you keep hitting at the lower half you can accidentally still trigger arms to fall off even tho they are stuck to top part of the body) the most insulting part is the severe lack of ragdoll interactivity
These changes were implemented because they’re too taxing on consoles to render. And instead of giving PC players the option to keep these turned on, everyone has to suffer because god forbid they offer any kind of support to the playerbase that kept the game afloat.
That’s what I feared. On a series S and X, I’ve noticed absolutely zero issues with smoothness and speed rendering. The game runs fine. On the previous gen consoles Darktide has to be played through cloud storage, which doesn’t even allow you to install the video game directly to your hard drive. I’d suspect that’s where the functionality issues are appearing. Enemies just flop over now, whereas the used to explode. It seriously ruined the experience for me. I have been playing since October 5th, and it seems that Darktide has some of the worst player support service in the market to date. The community at large seems to be very tired of this.
I don’t know if it’s a performance issue, or if they’re dialing back the gore for a new market release (looking at you, Ch!na) but it was the only good thing this game had going for it. Now psyker powers and power attacks cause 0 body damage. It’s like I’m playing with a profanity filter on, which baffles me, because one actually exists! Why go to the trouble of making something unique to squash it and temper it down to be palatable for literal children? Because of the money that’s to be made! In less than a month my new favorite game has been completely bastardized over night. Got any other game suggestions?
Having full body explosions occur on every kill vastly overstates the power of the weapon while reducing visibility a lot for other players with the gore and blood clouds.
We are working to fix the bug so the damage and targeting of the Surge staff and Smite returns to normal. Alongside this we will add that critical strikes will guarantee that the enemy chest will explode, adding some of the gore back in.
Assail crystals and the Melee power attacks I will have to investigate separately
Why are the shards horizontally arranged and pointed forwards when walking,
but we hold one in our hand, and the shards are vertically aligned, pointing upwards when sprinting?
Maybe the logic is, that the shards go into combat mode when not sprinting and that is why they are pointing forward, but why do we hold a shard while sprinting, but not when standing or walking?
Wouldnt it make more sense if it was the other way around?
We sprint with empty hand and the shards align themselves horizontally to fly next to us „faster“.
We walk with shard in hand and the shards hovering with vertical alignment so that they are easier to grab for a throw.
Pretty sure before patch 13 I didn’t notice explosions from the surge staff? Hmmm. Maybe just the EP bug purple explode everywhere occurrence has clouded my memory.
I didn’t realize people were complaining about the gore clouds. If it was a rendering issue for previous gen consoles, then why not take the game off of cloud play, which is already notorious for performing poorly.
as for games? Starship troopers extermination is set to have a gore update at the end of its early access period (date tbd) and killing floor 3 is a thing, fingers crossed tripwire doesnt put the fun gore on an nvidia only setting that’ll just get abandoned after 2 years. Other than that there’s not really a lot of current gen games that scratch that itch, I mean trepang2 exists but the headshot gore is very weird and doesnt seem satisfying (having a brain come out completely untouched from a headshot kill is silly)
Yeah gore seems messed up now. I stuck a krak grenade to a crusher’s face the other day and his leg blew off with the rest of his corpse in tact. Extremely underwhelming.
Somebody added the surge staff gore effects to the patch notes finally, but my question remains. Why were these added in the first place? And if it’s for performance, you’ve ruined one of the only unique and cool things this game had going for it. You used to be able to cook waves of infested until they explode, now they literally just flop over or fall apart like this is Lego: Darktide. Should be a masterclass taught on how to torpedo a game revival in less than 24 hours.