The Director is utterly relentless; played three rounds with absolutely zero downtime between waves.
Was difficulty modified in the new patch?
Edit for clarity: I posted more as a formal report, not a request for public commentary. I’ve been playing Auric Damnation exclusively for months. I know the tempo and feel of the Director at that setting, and am confident that something HAS changed. Previously, there was the occasional (and brief) lapse in waves, facilitating reactivating hacking tools or progressing through the level. They weren’t long, but they did exist. Those pauses are now gone, which matches the experience playing Maelstrom.
I posed a question in case the change was intended, but undocumented.
Sounds awesome.
Hi-int derrived auric games usually have little downtime generally and haven’t for quite a while and really shouldn’t. Auric is the hardest mode in the game. Downtime is more of a damnati on thing.
Yeah but keep in mind the player count is also rebounded again and many players are just throwing themselves in whatever again. There’s probably a good segment of people wanting those auric penances.
Its a really good time to have people spectate me play while I invoke the incantation of cryonic rod.
I can say I didn’t really feel a huge difference between normal Auric and Maelstrom. Although that was more the fact that we still breezed through them with not really a lot of issues. So I wouldn’t get your hopes up lol.
That is normal since a patch…whatever. I cannot even remember which one introduced elite patrols, it has been a while.
If anything I was under impression that the director takes a nap and fails to populate whole areas. This has been reported months ago, as it was clearly visible on the scoreboard. Certain maps in general have fairly low enemy numbers / low intensity and very predictable spawns which are prone to spawn camping by players, making the experience even easier.
Damnation Auric games should be harder, especially on high-intensity + shock troop. Nevermind even Monstrous. Other modifiers (hounds, snipers, gas etc.) already feel like a snooze fest and in my opinion should be always mixed with hi-intensity + shock troop. Something should be also done about how static a lot of those modifiers are. Hound, mutant, sniper wave spawns ared tied to certain map progression triggers. It just makes them totally trivial.
No you’re not imagining this at all. I’m in a similar boat, I’ve been playing for more than 1100 hours now and when you do something enough times you get a “feel” for when things are wrong or out of place. I get that a lot since the new patch. Auric damnation definition feels spicier than before, the spawn tempo is so high that you don’t get any breaks in between the action segments. Which actually ends up almost boring after a while because you experience the same thing for so long without any variety.
I’ve also noticed that auric games are prone to absurdly large “surges” of enemy spawns, even in regular high-intensity that should be a step below maelstrom. On the consignment yard map every time I get to the part with the smashed wall and locker room showers the game dumps two whole hordes on us from both directions with at least three patrols mixed in. Just a solid tidal wave of enemies that fills the whole screen.