Me, I am tactical cabbage… I just drop napalm… and more napalm… In fact, that is all I do… My friends know this… I napalm them too…
I love the smell of napalm in the morning…
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Depends on what you want out of it. It doesn’t really have the mechanical depth and challenge really required to fully supplant something like modded V2, or even Darktide. Nor does it really have the variety of something like DRG.
That said, it’s generally a good time with the boys. If Arrowhead can produce big, significant content drops that are good I can see myself regularly returning to it.
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Nurgle is my favorite Chaos God, and Death Guard was my first and largest TT army. Making normal SPM players mad when the objectively coolest Terminators in the game, Blightlords, shrugged off anti tank fire was absolutely amazing.
Personally based on some of the earlier trailers and stuff, I believe it’s because Nurgle is the easiest to add a sort of “horror” spin to a game. Disgusting, rotted, mutated cultists, fleshy growths overtaking parts of the architecture, a horde of zombies screaming and trying to kill you. A Plague Ogryn’s model is a lot scarier when it comes out at you from the dark in a Lights Out mission.
Could also be they could reuse environmental assets they had made for VT 2, and had expereince and the right tools to making some authentic feeling Nurgle enemies and maps.
Even though I love Nurgle, it is incredibly over used in Video games. Inquisitor Martyr, both Tide Games, Chaos Gate Daemon Hunters., and while it didn’t look like it I’m pretty sure in lore of the first SPM game the CSM were Nurgle aligned (even though they summoned Bloodletters…somehow…).
I really would’ve loved to see Khorne. I think Khorne would’ve fit the melee centric theme of the game more. Khorne is a close 2nd Chaos god and despite having a video game event named after him is almost completely absent.
Personally Chaos vs Imperium is my favorite match up in 40k, so I prefer to see it the most and am not tired out by it.
Other factions just don’t have the same gravitas or uniqueness behind them imo.
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I suppose that makes sense, although I do think it was misleading to market this as any kind of horror game, because it really isn’t. I think Khorne would have a better fit and would come with its own flavor of spookiness, complete with mutilated corpses and rivers of blood and all the rest. Only thing it’s missing (as far as I’m aware) is some kind of horde chaff entity like the poxwalkers.
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Yes I agree, the first trailer with 4 guardsmen walking around in the dark got me excited for a far different type of game than Darktide is.
All 4 Chaos Gods can be horrifying in their own way. And that’s something I really like about them. However it creatively takes a lot more effort to design something like Tzeentch to be scary then just throw flesh on everything in a dark room and call it scary.
Personally I never thought it was a problem. Just have indoctrinated civilians rush you with rocks, pipes, their bare fists, maybe empty guns etc. Pretty sure a very similar scenario is described happening on Vraks?
Again it would take some creativity. Maybe the groaner equivalents would look the same, but the poxwalker equivalents are a lot more muscular, covered in tattoos, frothing at the mouth, are a head taller, etc etc. But I do think it’s a big missed opportunity, even as a Nurgle lover.
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A weekend or two, and a friend or two that also have not tried it. Best to experience it with someone fresh.
As far as a recommendation, Its the most cinematically-explosive, well spent money I have ever give my dollery doos for in gaming history. Period.
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PSN stuff aside:
Between an active and nearly weekly updating continuous story, relatively tame monetization and some consistent and relatively painless core progression, two major different sets of enemy types, and non-linear maps, HD2 is a lot of fun.
Darktide is essentially the equivalent of going to Warhammerland and riding the Chasm Terminus or Hab Dreyko attractions in between hanging out to cosplay on the Mourningstar with your 40k nerd friends. There’s a lot of importance given to the lore and setting, the missions are on rails with points that most players memorize very quickly and that set the pace for the whole experience, and mission success is pretty directly tied to players dying. Your characters have deep detailed talent trees and lots of detailed gear stats and mechanics.
HD2 is a lot simpler in many ways, and more complex in others. You don’t have talent trees. Your weapons can’t be modified. However, you basically have access to an enormous arsenal of weapons, support fires, turrets, and other tools that enable you to mix and match your role and functionality per mission and enemy type. You don’t spec into anti-armor, you bring your anti-armor tools. The combat is almost exclusively ranged, you do not want enemies close, and movement is more realistic and less hollywood-ey than Darktide, so sliding and blocking and dodging aren’t really things, aside from hurling yourself to the ground to avoid bomb blasts or Chargers. On the other hands, enemies can come from almost any direction (including the skies), distances are comparatively enormous, nothing is on rails and you have to actively navigate a map and your mission objectives on a time limit, the maps are all procedurally generated, and you’ll face enemies that are literally the 40k equivalents of Bio-titans. Combat is less about movesets and detailed crunch numbers and more about shaping how you approach (or avoid) fights and what tools you bring. The way missions are set up, it’s usually much harder to outright fail a mission in HD2 than in Darktide, but you will be killed at a much greater rate as well, the difficulties are tuned such that if you’re making it through without player deaths you need to be playing something harder.
They’re both 4 person coop shooters using the same core game engine, so there’s a lot of similarities, most of the core game concepts are pretty identical, they’re just expressed differently.
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What he said.
Also, it makes dying fun. Each teamate has 4 respawns, pooled. Once you run out, you get a respawn every 2 mins or so. Ammo is replenished all over the map, along with a team resupply ever 2 mins.
It takes away the gripes of combat and just inserts fun.
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Easiest question would be “Did you enjoy the Mercenaries games and think it would be improved with 4 player coop?”
It has a shockingly similar loop of having to mix between evasion and using support powers to even up fights against a large imposing enemy. Only thing really missing so far is proper vehicles and such.
I’ve been taking a break to catch up on other stuff but every time i look back in there is either a new order, story beat, or thing released which is nice.
I would say the main important thing is that you character isn’t super human and will get flung around like a party favour at an alien birthday party so it’s important not to go in with the expectation that you will flatten everything like it’s the EDF games or an average power fantasy shooter.
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I hope EDF 6 gets a bit more traction with Helldivers 2’s success. Sure it’s got its own flavour of jank but it’s a similar sort of fun.
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Definitely a unique brand of jank and camp to Earth Defense Force.
I love Helldivers particularly because they’ve never pulled their punches when it comes to the political satire they openly wear on their chests and dorks with smooth brains unironically hail it as “an amazing game free of politics.”
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I play diff 7 and I rarely die. In fact I die in two situations:
- ran out of ammos
- killed by a teammate
Must say the second happens really more often than the first… However, what I like in HD2 is the fact enemies are the same across all difficulty levels.
This means that, at low difficulty level, you simply get a DIFFERENT experience. Not an easier one.
Less armored bugs by example… but you will still get the tiny ones.
So, this means you get a very different experience at low difficulty and when you pick a higher difficulty.
This leads to the main problem of HD2, something DT has not since patch 13 (for at least 80% of the weapons). Considering the difficulty, your best equipment will be totally different. At low difficulty, taking a quasar canon is useless. At higher, I advice you to have at least something to kill a bile titan or an automation tank.
This is the main problem of this game for me. I always use same weapons and same stratagems…and always hate same stratagems (mainly strikes 420mm or 120mm or napalm air strike etc. mainly cause people tend to send them just at your feet).
At the end of the day, HD2 could become repetitive as DT is… But, DT has lot of weapons you can use. No procedural map (and that’s a BIG problem). I plan to play again DT when they will put the bolt pistol. I just hope it will be a true bolt pistol.
So HD2 is not perfect. This is a good game and FS should look at it for several things: communication (my god, you cannot make worse than the present situation FS, no words at all until you launch a patch), fixes (they fix problem faster than DT… several days for HD2 against several months for DT), progression system (the fact that HD2 system is respecting player time), monetization (the cosmetic shop is really wrong… recolors are not acceptable especially with these prices), content (arrowheads already released more content than DT in its entire life), dynamics (war map is really a great feature… why we don’t see any change on Tertium map in DT?) and so on.
I told it numerous times, DT is a gold mine. Combat is absolutely fabulous. But they have chosen to make a game for hard core gamers, where HD2 did one for casual gamers and hard core. In fact, DT has pushed away lot of customers. If you add the monetization with these outrageous prices and recolors…
This situation leads to a game that survive, rather than evolving.
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Agree, AH decision to keep the HP the same across all difficulties and not turning the bugs/bots into walking sponges is one of the best things about the game.
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1000%. I really wish DT would have gone the same route. It might have helped with new ish people walking into damnation only to get relentlessly slapped to death by overpowered bruisers.
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They could have easily kept HP the same… If there was tighter control on damage in gear and talents. Which I wouldn’t be opposed to if breakpoints were a lot more curated.
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I remember playing some UFC fighting game at a friend’s house.
- But instead of increasing enemy health or damage output it added more range of tactics against you.
- It would also detect any cheese tactics or repetitive actions you use and completely change to counter.
- i.e. if you kept blocking same series of moves, it would suddenly alter into variations to get past your defence moves, if enemy failed it would change into other tactics and keep trying other tactics.
It made the enemy very unpredictable as it was continously changing the way it played. The higher the difficulty setting, the increase in variation of tactics used against you.
I remember being impressed the game forced you into visual cues from enemy, not just first strike but subsequent combo so you had to prepare and plan your defence sequence.
It is a game with very good enemy AI design. Difficulty didn’t increase their health or damage output, it completely altered tactics and variations by trial and error to get past your tactics.
Very good enemy AI design.
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That to me is the gold standard if you insist on having difficulty levels in any kind of video game. The AI should never be arbitrarily stronger to make them harder. That’s just it cheating and people don’t like cheating. Devs should either commit to making difficulty levels that are grounded in something tangible or not at all, in my opinion. The early 2000s have come and gone. We can think of better solutions to this.
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In DT - Some of the low tier ranged enemies actually retreat if you come at them, try to find cover and re-peek fire you. i.e. Dreg Stalker and Scab Shooter. If you catch up to them then they use their melee secondary, so they know when it is time to stop running, stop shooting use sword/bayonet. They have a sense of tactic and self-preservation to their own life.
With horde shooters i.e. Zombies, Bugs, Robots etc they are considered enemies that have no sense of self-preservation. They will come at you and not understand risk to themselves.
Understandable so it makes enemy AI design easier, to come straight at you.
If there was a coop game and your team are humans and you’re fighting humans - You would expect a scenario like below:
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You have long open sight line and easily picking them off at distance. They choose to go cover to cover military tactic left and right flanks to close the distance.
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They know if one of your team mates in worse position, away from team or even in trouble. They prioritise them first.
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If team mate needs reviving - It increases priority to finish them off.
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You try to flank them or they’re hurting bad, they will move cover to cover away from you and keep firing from cover only to minimise self risk.
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They will use their tanky buddies to soak your fire up close and distract you first.
I’ve just described Tom Clancy’s Division 2 human enemy AI behaviour. The game tries to inject acts of self-preservation to enemies, which makes it interesting.
Another good example is Mechwarrior 5 - Mechs piloted by humans. Each part of a mech has it’s own “health” bar, arms, legs, torso and back of them. If it is taking damage too much to one side, the enemy AI knows to turn away and absorb damage on a fresh side.
Can’t compare to DT enemies as they’re supposed to be mindless by nature. But just an interesting observation.
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I’m about to type out something VERY tangential but I think arguably the best game design for difficulties is the style that Fromsoft employs for their action RPGs. I know it’s a meme that these games “only come with hardmode” but that’s extremely far from the truth. The difficulty design is intentionally in your personal selection of a build. There’s ways to play a very easy game, usually when picking up magic, specifically with spells that let you avoid a lot of mechanics by just doing damage from afar without having to commit. Then there’s ways to play a very hard game, with low mobility but weapons that require you to be up close. It’s completely up to the player how hard they want the game to be, and the game itself is static.
I think this approach actually allows you to do the best sort of encounter design. You can now have AI that is the same for everyone but you can trick in certain ways if you want to.
Unfortunately this concept doesn’t really work in coop games since that’s not your personal choice anymore. You bet your ass if there was a mimic tear + homing crystal soulmass in darktide then every single person would play it in auric and trivialize every mission for you
Difficulty in a video game should be founded on the ease in which a player can learn and grow into the difficulty, and measured not by success but by engagement and absorption of information.
Having baddies doing the same damage, taking the same damage trains the player into absorbing this information and understanding how to defeat them. Involving those same enemies in increasingly stressful situations with the purpose of making the player struggle to develop the understanding into an instinct - that’s your gold standard to go for.
The specifics can be much as @Headhunter listed out above. Having key differences in the AI that dictate how hard they push on the perceived pressure points to ramp up that stress can further alter the gameplay feel, and all without ever changing a single byte of data within the internal structure of Crushers, Ragers or anything else.
“Easy mode” shouldn’t be about easy wins - it should be about producing an environment conducive to the player learning individual details, then each successive difficulty refines that process. Assuming that the developer has produced an underlying fun game.
That’s enough idle opining, back to my casket!
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