Its really not though.
How would you describe Bonesaw performance in H40 then? Or even just in the current event? Is it not
?
I feel like Iām being accused of Hyperbole when that is exactly how that and many other weapons are balanced. You have to try much harder and thereās not really any relevant payoff anyway. And I keep repeating itās not game ruining but we canāt say āitās not actually an issueā just because itās not game ruining. If a game has to be good DESPITE the balance it takes away from the whole.
I didnāt complain. Itās still a good weapon in Havoc 40 (other than against very dense armored hordes), just a bit underpowered. I like playing it in both Havoc and normal board. In that thread I was simply referring to forum people who play meta loadouts only and then scream how broken Darktide is. Yet there are lots of weapons and loadouts that are plenty challenging, showcasing the personal skill and not just āI won because i brought OP weaponā. I used Bolt Pistol instead of Needle Pistol in that build for that very reason, I didnāt want the Needle Pistol to muddy my experience with the bonesaw, I wanted to test its own power, even though some people might call Bolt pistol OP too
What about the relevant point of the question I asked though? Would you say the extra effort spent on using the bonesaw came with a gain?
You said:
So it implies there was some sort of payoff to putting the extra effort into the bonesaw. Yet Iād say it underperforms even if you do put the effort in. So itās actually got the exact same issue as those other games you described.
To be clear my issue is that I think those others games arenāt actually vastly more unbalanced than Darktide. I think they have very similar issues with effort:reward ratios. (And just like Darktide, thousands of players enjoy them anyway and are fine with the balance issues, so again, they donāt ruin a game but they do take away from it)
I think saying āBalance in Darktide isnāt that badā is a VERY different statement from saying āBalance in Darktide isnāt that relevant to my enjoyment of itā which I think is what the actual point of this thread is. Itās fair, but itās not the same thing at all
Yes the gains are less even though the effort is higher (if thatās what you want to hear), but not to the point of some other games where you queue up almost expecting to lose with certain loadouts or characters. And Darktide is still far from the game thatās unplayable unless you bring that 1-2-3-4 specific things on every class. There are problematic non-functional loadouts at the highest level of play, especially if you run no armor rend abilities and weapons, but thatās not gonna change even if they simply nerf outliers.
I think saying āBalance in Darktide isnāt that badā is a VERY different statement from saying āBalance in Darktide isnāt that relevant to my enjoyment of itā which I think is what the actual point of this thread is.
Well, if that would be the case, most of so-called high skilled players would abandon the game a long time ago, wouldnāt they? These problems linger from patch 13, and game had problematic balance cases even before that, yet people still keep returning to the game. I absolutely agree with @MunKy that if I had a binary choice between a couple new missions and nerfs to most outliers, I would never pick nerfs, because at auric level at least even the most annoying weaps like Hellbore can achieve incredibly high winrate in the hands of player like me (not āone of the bestā, but probably in the top 10% of the entire playerbase).
Which means that game has decent balance, far from terrible unplayable mess that Helldivers 2 was before they postponed all the content for multiple health patches with weapon buffs across the board.
Same as 90% of the game, it sounds like it sucks, because Havoc lacks a proper breadth of modifiers that actually forces different styles of meta builds and the way FS do them seems to encourage a select few meta builds. But really idk, I dont play Havoc at all for various reasons.
No, it is not. I main bonesaw on my chemscum build and I love it because it feels good and seems perfectly viable on Auric (which the game should be balanced around).
I guess that might be an unavoidable feeling when we are coming at it from opposite ends of opinion.
I guess our philosphy around the term ādespiteā might be different. For you it seems to be,
ādespite these many glaring balance issues, the game is actually still good but it affects my enjoymentā, whereas I say,
ādespite x, y or z weapon being poo or op or other small balance issues, this doesnt affect my enjoyment and I dont even think about it 99% of the timeā.
For me the game is fantastic and there are still weapons Iv yet to fully learn and appreciate. I actually like that some of these are a bit underpowered. I remember getting good with some of V2s weapons that I initially hated, some of which are pretty op like halberd and dual daggers, but some others take more effort to get good at like elven greatsword.
Iād say thatās just the result of those other games being PvP games, where youāre directly comparing to other players at (usually) your own skill level. Itās very obvious why the same balance issue has different implications in a PvE co-op game: You arenāt matched against players who DID pick the shivs and needle pistol. The root issue is the same though, skewed effort:reward ratios on weapons creating picks where you put in double effort for no reward.
How does that follow?
Doesnāt it though? wouldnāt you enjoy the game more if those weapons werenāt poop or OP?
I dunno, I would probably enjoy many things in life if it was more of what I wanted but sometimes Iv also learned that what I thought I wanted, I didnt.
I tend to deal with whats in front of me and take things at face value if I can which is why I dont use or like some of the OP stuff or, like with the flame staff for e.g., I simply dont build it in an OP way, not on purpose but because Im not really looking up how to do a meta build or its not how I enjoy using something. Im not very efficient though 
All Iām saying, if people only cared about balance, and truly thought that balance is that bad in Darktide and borderline unredeemable, I doubt theyād play the game. But you really see a lot of talking from the same people over the years, meaning they stick around despite all the issues.
I donāt mind balance changes either way, itās boring to play without any changes and some sort of yearly shake-ups are needed so things just donāt get stale, but itās not as dramatic.
I can maintain pretty high winrate in auric with almost any loadout, again, Iām not an absolute monster at the game, but Iām a competent player, and whatās more important, Iām a really good teammate to have (I care for my teammates and I know my role with each class).
Which means the game at least at auric and normal Damnation level is pretty well balanced for that kind of winrate to be achievable. I routinely play stuff like Exe Stance Vet with Headhunter Autogun and win almost every game, itās only Havoc where the balance becomes all over the place and it becomes hard to achive consistent winrate with random teammates (although I still have good enough winrate to get personal assignment 40 every season in a week or so).
People who claim that one flame Psyker or one Rumbler Ogryn is enough to remove all fun from their lobby ā I find these kinds of statements ridiculous, especially considering how 90% of playerbase still routinely goes down with the most broken builds ever.
Itās not really such an esoteric thing. If the game had more weapons that are well balanced Iād enjoy it more. Seems pretty reasonable and non-hyperbolic to say this and I find the insistence to avoid admitting this a little over the top.
But didnāt I just say balance is just one of many factors that play into how good the game is? Did I not say like 4 times that the game can have bad balance and still be enjoyable despite it? I feel like Iām saying A, A, A, and youāre going āthe problem with B isā¦ā
Or are you addressing a hypothetical poster that is presenting different angles from me? And while answering this, how hypothetical is this poster actually? Is it a fully hypothetical strawman? Because I genuinely donāt think Iāve read anyone on here say āthe game is not good, periodā beyond throwaway trolling because why would they be posting about it here after having played it and becoming impassionated?
Doesnāt Smite totally remove fun from the game if overused though? Iām not sure about all fun (I still have fun lighting barrels and messing around) but itās absolutely not a ridiculous statement to say that X is so badly balanced that it removes fun from the game for me and Iād rather not have it in lobbies, even for lesser balance issues itās a valid thing to say.
I think youāre vastly overrepresenting what people actually are saying and reducing it to āthey think the game is bad because X balance issueā when whatās really said is āthe game is worse than it could be because X balance issueā which I think is a perfectly legitimate statement, yet itās being challenged right now.
Itās irrelevant, they increased spawns all across the game cause of powerceep, not because someone at the office accidentaly pushed a big red button āUNLEASH CLOWN CARSā.
As a result combat became less engaging and more aoe/high cleave and ability spam oriented. Wich leads towards sound engine canāt handle cues, the whole screen is polluted in flames, gas, colored buffs, abilities vignette effects (you can remove through mods gladly). Any ability or weapon that asks for pre-charge, being deployed will never work in such balance untill you slap so many buffs they will either loose identity or become OP.
Itās impossible to read single mob attack animations in those meatwaves covered with all kinds of effects or to participate in prolonged duel with a singular threatening elite entity just because of their sheer numbers and because they canāt survive long enough in lower numbers. Those problems exist both in auric and in Havoc, cause they are following the same design mistakes. In Havocs they are just amplified.
You can remove havoc tommorow and abusrd stuff like infinite cleave purgatus, vet ability to regenerate nades, dodge being OP, boombringer, and plenty other stuff will still plague the game making itās impossible to create interesting combat scenarios because they ultimatively reduce gameās ability to punish players without throwing meatwaves and no enemy can counter players (wich they gonna address with ogryn pack master it seems).
Itās what happened with gunners. FS removed stagger on gunners barrage, wich was there to counter braindead rush. But they didnāt tune slide spam, so it ended up in gunners having higher damage and presented in bigger numbers. Then they added VoC, dome, etc, to counter gunners but melee enemies canāt counter high toughness refill, cause FS also removed melee damage leaking through toughness.
They are just slaping bandaids on a cracked dam.
Wellā¦ I donāt agree with OP really. I think Scum needs to be reigned in, in a few areas.
Or perhaps, āBalance isnāt so bad we immediately quit.ā
The central point of FSās next marketing push, Iām sure.
I have to say. Iām surprised even myself, but if I had to do give Darktide and Fatshark a negative review, it wouldnāt the state of balance, not even the fā¦audio.
I donāt disagree with your overall point but I will nitpick this one point a bit.
Most people around here who want outliers tuned down see that as a first step to tuning down armour spam, which would help low performance setups since in most cases the issue of those loadouts is being unable to deal with crusher spam.
So indirectly I think nerfing outliers could help underperforming, low carapace mod weapons.
and correcting the whole misshapen ādifficultyā of havoc from rainbow clown car number lottery to actual physical and individual skill traits.
but you got to start somewhere and as any good parent you start with taking away the toys 
No more ārockā for you, big man!
Only major gripe I have with the balance is the fast weapons ability to kite forever, and how centralizing carapace armor is.
jokes on you puny 
never use rocks.
you can have a whole quarry of it if you like 