You are telling me as a solo player trying to clutch revive my team, i am suppoed to kill 10 self-healing bulwarks massed into a single blop?
inb4 skill issue and it probably is to some extent
is this another example of fatshark adding something “out of the blue” that nobody asked for?
does anyone actually want this and find it engaging in terms of “challenge”?’
(if yes, i rest my case, but if no, then i don’t see why it can’t be removed)
Having back track prevention is important, because otherwise you could always kite enemies away and kill them easily (if slowly). However I agree the current implementation of it sucks. It is exclusively a build check. If you brought the “right” things, such as Flamer, Trauma or Purg staff, Ogryn Taunt, Bull Rush, or Rumbler etc, it is incredibly easy and barely a speed bump. If not, it’s just an incredibly tedious waste of time (and feels unwinnable on Purple sometimes, as you mentioned).
I think a different enemy composition is what it needs. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a group of enemies that would make the aforementioned builds actually struggle, but something more fun for everyone else. Maybe just a Captain and a ton of Maulers and Crushers? I would hesitate to make them gunners because getting annihilated by a couple of reapers and gunners from behind with close to no warning is dumb and already happens too much in normal games.
Like Drago said, it was a 2.0 addition and, given the desire to juice Havoc, it was necessary. 1.0’s main play was to kite back, sometimes as far as a level allowed, to survive the push. This stopped that. It sucks, but is manageable when you learn the mechanic, rewarding game knowledge.
To my understanding, they only spawn if all (surviving) players retreat >50m from the farthest point reached, which is pretty generous outside of solo-clutch situations. It also allows 3 players to fall far back if one can maintain in that <50m area. Take that knowledge and figure out how to use it in your situation.
I think they just need to not make hordes exhaustible. This is primarily why backtracking is so powerful, you just eventually run out of enemies. If hordes could spawn on top of your hordes or behind you and you just have this mass of enemies that are following you and blocking you out of your kite while more dangerous enemies like captains and monstrosities following close behind, it’s pretty interesting.
You can still probably just stagger/kite your way through a horde of poxwalkers regardless with the right stuff. I rather the threat of going backwards means more stuff that I cannot clear without the cost of resources, and certainly not fast enough to give myself space, rather than bulwark armageddon, something that takes a ton of time to clear without free win buttons.
That punishment wave is also composed from the worst enemy Fatshark ever designed and implemented 
Sweden loves trollin.
Also I’m not convinced the triggers for that wave always work correctly. As anything else new in Havoc really.
tell me im wrong
but these bulwark waves dumbed down the game
before: opportunities for crazy elegant badass comebacks through skilled play (and good build abuse? lol)
after: if u dont have build for soloing bulwarks, then gg
what do we want?
we want build diversity! (right?)
i don’t see why this should not be a valid tactic
the game isnt shy about throwing multiple bosses+hordes+elites your way at once
if kiting isnt a legit strategy what does that leave us with? CC?
again further limiting possible builds
With enough map knowledge and class skill you can still do this. It just limits your area of movement (although it can feel very arena dependent sometimes).
IG “kiting” might not have been the right word. Because as of right now kiting is a valid strat and is really the only way a solo person can pull off a Havoc 40 clutch atm.
What I was more referring to in that reply is for every ambient spwn, every horde, and every boss trigger, the whole team will run back to an advantageous arena to fight everything. Backtrack prevention is neccassary to stop this type of play being the most optimal.
You could argue that when there is one person left trying to clutch it would be fine to turn it off, but thats a different argument imo.