I took a look at my match statistics and discovered that out of the last 13 Maelstrom missions, 12 were successfully completed. Moreover, in none of those successful missions was I killed. So right now, I’m on a streak of seven Maelstrom games without a single death — five of them were played as Zealot with Chorus, and two as Zealot with Shroudfield. So it looks like I’ve already exceeded the ASS.
In my last four Maelstrom games, I wasn’t knocked down even once. But it’s not because I’m so good – it’s because my teammates deal damage like crazy. I rarely even get to the enemies in time; I mostly end up swinging my relic blade at thin air and roasting the same air with my flamer. All I have to do is periodically pop Chorus to refill my teammates’ toughness, or use invisibility to pick them up from knockdowns in time, depending on which build I’m playing
But Havoc is a completely different story. Out of 24 games at ranks 30–33, I’ve only successfully completed five (Zealot with Chorus).
So Maelstrom is just an absolute joke compared to Havoc, even if it’s only ranks 30–33.
Regular Auric missions have also become pretty easy. I played as a squishy Psyker, and all seven games I played were successfully completed, despite the fact that I was knocked down at least once in each of them (and usually more than once, and usually not just knocked down, but killed outright).
Right now, it’s easier to wipe on Damnation than on Auric or Maelstrom
You obviously play this game a lot so I don’t understand why you would make this post. There are good days and bad days, just like anything else. Sometimes I hop on and clear a few missions easily, other days I hope on and the entire team gets wiped within minutes. You also admitting to using two of the most broken skills in the game doesn’t help your case.
If chorus/shout/shroudfield were removed tomorrow it would be a huge benefit to the game. All three of those give a complete false sense of security - not to mention one of them completely breaks the AI of enemies and shouldn’t even exist in this type of game.
I still remember when Veterans were wiping just as much as Psykers. Yet after talents released, Veterans very, very rarely go down because EVERYONE and their mom is using shout which is honestly goes against the original theme of the game I paid money for. I spent a lot of hours getting GOOD, practicing in malice/heresy/damnation - being stuck with trash weapons and curios because that’s what we HAD - no talents, trash weapons and yet we still managed.
Now? Maxed out weapons, maxed out curious, talents that provide gold toughness and insane stagger - and we got people complaining about difficulty? lol. How about you actually make the game difficult for yourself and don’t use shroudfield or chorus? Use some obscure weapons that don’t provide the same killing ability as what you normally use and guess what? BOOM! There’s your difficulty!
“I shouldn’t have to cripple myself for the game to be difficult” except sometimes that’s the case. Given the chance, players will optimize the fun out of EVERY GAME. It is a very prevalent theme amongst current gaming and it’s been true with so, so many things in recent years. Instead of enjoying the journey, you want to get to the destination as quickly as possible. Then once you’re there, you complain about there being nothing to do. You missed the entire point of the journey, and it wasn’t the destination.
It’s not that Maelstrom is easy; it’s simply that the players are just too strong
With OP instantly killing Crushers and bosses, and Gold Toughness making the entire team practically immortal at all times, how are you supposed to lose?
When OP are nerfed and Gold Toughness is removed from the game, the game will regain its original difficulty.
we live in a temporal loop where the game always been easy since patch 13 and we need to nerf ourselves or doing challenges just to make the game balanced just to have fun, while awaiting for fatshark to add the last final battle royale game mode, since the extraction based helldiver like game mode didn’t work out, maybe this one will do. while of course disregarding any development toward maps and the main plot (captain wolfer enjoying his summer holidays)
meanwhile in vt2, people with 5k hrs or more, still finding cataclysm still challenging, heck, even legend in some circumstances due to the specials being actually a real threat, and not being a game overly unbalanced. where actually being the last stand man it feels a struggle unlike in dt.
I think the Maelstrom modifiers are due for some updates. Half are them are just tweaked versions of the same modifiers we get randomly on other missions: pox gas, pox hounds, specialist spam, lights out, etc. I’d like to see a little more creativity here. Adapting the Ransacked Routes event into a Maelstrom mod would be a great start. I feel like weakened monstrosities and probably HISTG should just be baked into Maelstrom as well, and have the modifiers be other things on top of that. Nurgle-blessed enemies and Moebian 21st could be baseline too.
Power creep is, of course, the core issue with why Maelstrom is too easy now with a decent team. Who knows if or when that will be truly addressed though. Updating the modifiers seems like an easy win in comparison to rebalancing the whole game.
The existing modifiers I’m happy to see on the mission board:
I-II-V-E-G
C-I-V-I
D-I-IV-IX-G (meme-tier but kinda fun)
With competent players and especially certain builds (probably the possibility of using certain mods should also be taken into account) = 99% chance of winning. This is definitely not “survive as a team and reach the end,” it’s “compete with others for targets”. I’m usually happy when someone leaves the team and there’s no replacement. With 3 players on the team, AM feels much fairer.
I cannot play Havoc for various reasons that are I hate it and this game mode is empty… I won’t spend more than 2 minutes to find a game…
If players use OP builds, and you use not the best weapons, you can get a walk simulator in Auric…
But Maelstrom, I would say that you usually find targets to kill.
Must say that it is the main reason why I pick it. Under Auric Maelstrom, you often get boring games.
However, I am tired of the speed run attitude of Auric and would prefer what is described as the typical behavior for Havoc… But I hate fundamentally the Havoc conditions that are created to make shining few builds and I hate the ammunition penalty, that is made exactly to restrict ranged builds.
this, and the main reason those “cheapos” are hated this much.
being the pure opposite of a needed addition, certain classes/builds and loadouts are literally freeloaders on stuff you could do yourself and with ease.
back at release one didnt differentiate between who was in the hangar, everyone was a step towards the exit.
now these are potholes that stain the enjoyment of a run due to the lacking challenge said run poses for one let alone four rejects.
but yeah, auric maelstrom would benefit from a reduced number of players in a match, id say a duo queue (open, not locked behind a private match) would be a challenge again for most.
mere fact one “needs” the approval of randos to get a team is the main factor i seldomly bother with havoc.
they are “there” and replace a bot, end of story.
that story is even shorter in games that allow to deactivate the presence of others altogether, see space marine 2.
private match on , dudes that want to tell you how to play off and lo and behold solo goes pretty well there, as countless examples of absolute solo runs show in sound and picture
even the devs are confident enough to have challenges based on solo clearance for certain cosmetics.
those wearing it truely have a badge of honor unlike “complete 25 times x”
I mean Auric/Mael have always been “easy”, the hardest modifier is bad teammates.
Overall I can’t say it’s easy because if it was, half of the backfilling wouldn’t load you into the defeat screen and an average game wouldn’t cycle through multiple teams of ragequitters who leave after going down to 3 Poxwalkers.
With random teammates… the perfect team is rare.
However, you cannot find a team (or VERY VERY rarely) without OP builds. There is always a skitarii with Arc rifle, a psyker (psyker is OP by nature) etc.
Luckily, having an OP build doesn’t mean you know how to play.
Were the havoc and maelstrom games played with the same team? If you are playing a support role you are much more dependant on your team mates pulling their weight. I’ve been in a group that failed an H25, then after replacing one weak player, we won the next few games then cleared an H40 on first attempt. Just having a team that can play together and understands the flow of havoc makes a huge difference. Conversely one bad player can cause bad situations that massively bump difficulty (starting rituals early, running ahead triggering bosses & hordes, going down in a bad spot creating dilemmas, walking into DH, shooting bursters/barrels near team). Havoc seems pretty hit and miss recently with pugs in H30+, it could be you are getting much higher quality players in maelstrom.
That’ll just push people harder into spamming gold toughness, bubble, and infinite CC builds. And the ones that can clear it will still clear it no problem.
What needs to happen is gold toughness needs to stop acting like virtual invulnerablilty, infinite/spammy CC needs to be restricted, and player damage needs to be brought down. In addition, player mechanics that invalidate enemies need to have their duration nerfed. Players should be fighting enemies and not be a lawnmower encased in the Emperor’s golden power armor.
