The other updates weren’t good updates, in terms of what people were looking for, but in terms of actual content volume U&L didn’t really deliver much more than either of the other two releases, and from that we saw a new peak in players that we hadn’t seen all year, and are still seeing double what we’ve seen on average the rest of the year. It’s the 2nd largest increase in player activity in the history of the game, substantially outperforming the rest of the year. Yes it’s leveled off, but it generated interest in ways new enemies, new weapons, and new missions on their own did not.
I dunno about you, but I’ve tried out more new weapons and builds since U&L dropped than I have since Patch 13. It’s just so much easier to do and manage than before, and without wasting weeks of play resources on a “good enough” weapon (much less what you actually wanted). It’s also not like people weren’t chasing the same weapon builds before.
btw, we had different blessings and perks when rng just didn’t give us what we wanted, and that was a dumb reason for diversity. making all blessings interesting enough so one can have different effective builds is a good reason.
I was partisan of a complete revamp of the blessings instead
Currently 90% of the blessings are simply pure trash nobody should use, being able to pick the two obvious optimal blessings instead is just band aid to me
But i guess that’s enough for the Darktide playerbase, the illusion of choice
Blessing and perk rework still need to happen, that’s for sure. Lots of “choices” but few meaningful options. They’re not making the choices very interesting.
There’s too much “extra impact on hit or repeated hit” which… why? Or “extra strength on hit/on kill”, which… again, why attribute two blessings to something that effectively does the same thing, just one with less hoops. I’m not saying those need to be removed (maybe consolidated), but it would be great to have more blessings that actually change the function of the weapons. Run n’ Gun changes how weapons function by giving users the chance to sprint and shoot, Ghost alters the weapons so that getting weakpoint hits protects you from ranged fire, Puncture/Flechette alter how the weapon impacts enemies and allows synergies with builds. More
Yeah, I know I said it before but as a returning player the balance is absolutely terrible. The number of players getting hard carried by how absolutely garbage the overall balance is by abusing stupid crap like deleting multiple crushers with a single mag of an automatic weapon or just… everything about smite is depressing.
Not to mention (and obviously this is anecdotal) the general skill level of most people I’ve seen is easily the worst of any L4D-like, and I’ve played pretty much all of them.
It’s to the point where I sigh in the lobby when I see dueling sword veterans/zealots or I see smite psykers and go “Oh no.” Fast forward five minutes in and I haven’t had fun yet as they just delete things until they get into a bad position with their complete lack of any game sense or skills and hard reliance on said obscene power creep and now I have a run I haven’t had fun with and it’s also one I now need to try and salvage when they inevitably go down in the worst spot possible.
EDIT: Honorable mention to the fact that clown car hordes from 5 feet away are still a thing, along with other stuff like dead stops faking you out and not actually dead stopping, not to mention the fact that the quick swap weapon bug (where it swaps back/doesn’t let you swap) is still a thing.
The itemization update was supposed to get me back into the game, not make me lose all hope for it.
On the other hand the game in current state is far more enjoyable for me as a returning player.
I’m hearing Specialist cues much more consistently (Elites can be significantly more quiet than they should and I enjoy being able to hear so I’m not going to further increase the volume on -my headset), the game’s fun to play apart from when 30 dreg ragers spawn and DGAF about being shot by anything other than a plasma gun.
I also have to laugh about forum posters constantly bitching about other players skill level… just play the game and worry about yourself. If you’re not clutching the game after their mistakes, then your skills arent up to your own standard either.
Hrm, you might be able to do this to 2 or 3 crushers with a full mag, at optimal range, landing mostly headshots, with a tuned weapon, and leaving lots of resiliency and utility behind in your talent build. That doesn’t feel terribly imbalanced. It’s not going to allow someone to clear through a difficulty they don’t belong in, nor is it going to carry a team on its own.
This also isn’t new to this update, you’ve been able to do this since the big class rework last year.
I mean, the dueling sword is excessive. Pickaxe and Thunderhammer have to pay postage on their attacks to mail it and by the time it reaches its destination the DS already poked 3 crushers and a pack of maulers to death.
LMB staff builds are not what they should be, either, and people are going to get RSI trying to copy what macro users are doing.
This stuff should have legitimately been caught before the update was pushed out.
I think that LMB change was worse because this seems to have been their idea to buff surge staff…like there isn’t really any abuser on its level, its approaching dumb otherwise. But it makes the already kinda useless shock even more useless and never used.
And yes I’m 100% convinced that internally they screwed up the names of the dueling swords and meant to give that 2nd buff to the kinda gimpy Mk5 instead. Nothing else makes sense besides that second buff into 900+ damage heavy headshots before nodes and blessings was surely an error and that they actually meant to give some love to Mk5.
that’s it. you have few choices that really change how you play. the most useful are the blessings that stack power, like headtaker or slaughterer, because damage = better.
tbh i’d rather have less blessings, but with more effect on gameplay, than meaningless filler no one takes.
also, the marks of a weapon: i know they’re supposed to have a light, medium and heavy variant, but in practice you take the one that does more damage, like the columnus 5 / now vraks whatever of all infantry autoguns.
tbh, there are plenty of folks that lack situational awareness, knowledge of the game and their surroundings… basically the types that have discovered a button that lets them run forward, so they can’t lose it if they keep it held down.
darktide makes you check at all time where you are relative to the rest of your team, what the others are doing and how you can help. it seems those players are so busy with minor obstacles, like keeping a horde at bay, that they can’t focus on the actual goal.
anyway, reworking smite into something different than “freeze the game” should make those psykers rely more on skills. and dueling swords were fine for them as they’re squishy, but for zealots and vets?
Or a trauma/conflag/voidblast (whatever you want to call it) staff, or a voidstrike/fireball staff, or ogryn slaps, or a rumbler, etc.
And there’s been a lot of silent specials, not to mention the shenanigans with the servers still being a thing. When crap hits the fan, audio cues get lost in the shuffle as it still isn’t great about prioritizing. This is something VT2 solved years ago. Having poxbursters be silent until it’s mid leap is some of the most annoying things I’ve seen. Not to mention some of the lovely bugs that are still a thing like insta kills.
I mean, I do have to clutch, and have. It also goes beyond purely needing to clutch, it’s also just less fun when you have to compensate for somebody’s poor positioning and whatnot constantly. Sometimes it’s fine. The entire run? No. I do just fine. (I even commented to a friend that I was just having fun dodging stuff, even if I could have bubbled) I was experimenting with true soloing prior to taking a break. (But got tired of a lot of the bugginess)
It’s also just lame as hell watching someone do nothing but spam smite the entire run and the times they can’t just faceroll with it they fall apart horribly, or seeing the veteran or has done nothing but run around popping things with his bolter just not able to handle getting aggro from a plague ogryn or something.
It’s one example. Watching someone chuck a grenade that kills three crushers, shank a crusher with the dueling sword in one shot, and then instantly pop two more with whatever gun isn’t exactly engaging gameplay. Bonus points when they’re combined with a smite psyker.
…I never said it was, I specifically said I was a returning player. Patch… 12? was the last one I played, IIRC.