Buffing Veteran Smoke Grenade

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
21

what “improvement” ? alms for the needy? charity talents for the “determinationally challenged” ?

lifting players above their appropriate station isnt “improving” the game.
its leading to shitty experiences for all involved, those that are properly suited for higher difficulties cause they have to carry each and every time thus making it a never ending chore instead of match among peers.
and those that are getting carried for i cant imagine it to be an uplifting experience for them getting, well…, lifted up every other room by players that rather have a bot aside them or none at all for that matter.

a well balanced game doesnt give a crap about the players “progress”, you either improve or accept your place on the scale, simple as.
balancing doesnt mean handing out equipment that allows players to bypass a failed skill check, it enforces said check and keeps those that failed there until they stop failing through their own power. not some talent or loadout.

they are most of the time cause if someone isnt able to assess his surroundings at first glance he’s ill suited to be there in the first place.

marking one priority target isnt an issue and can help in a hairy situation, lighting half the screen yellow is annoying as fk and people screaming “no sheeeet sherlock, guess what cluster of ragers im killing right now while you play traffic assistant”

use the time and effort to get stuff dead yourself instead of wasting those seconds to delegate the job to others :man_shrugging:

besides, like smoke, i have rarely seen a vet using the highlight talent and mostly due to the fact that if players are up to snuff the screen is empty in a heartbeat.

nothing fellow about someone using cheap stuff to compensate for his shortcomings :-1:

at release youd look left and right and say “yep, the vet/zealot (and even psyker) deserves this cause he truly plays good”
you had people covering you by well aimed shots and intelligent placing on the map/at chokes and you had to respect the performance this dude was throwing at you for getting you out of that pinch.

these were equals and welcome/respected players that made for a enjoyable experience, good flow of the match and even bits and pieces to improve upon by getting shown superior gameplay.

yes there it is, the unsuited one button presser that lives the illusion he belongs in said difficulty or even is a boon to his fellow rejects.

in every match at least one, green weapons, randomized blessings&perks, but hammering that ult like its a mobile game.

and you call that an improvement…

22

they took inspiration from some mods maybe :clap:

23

but yea smoke nades are S tier in havoc, and it’s up how veterans using them, you can throw them at distance to enemies which isn’t really efficient, or best usage is throwing them to yourself and to the team so that enemies have to push towards you, reducing the gap, especially disablers etc like trappers that are forced to come way closer instead of shooting the net from far away. they kinda require good tactical IQ when and how to throw smoke nades.

24

You know what I love about Darktide?

That players of every skill level can play and have a good time.

They all belong here, even if they’re playing on Malice. They all deserve to have a good time and enjoy good character balance for their tier of play.

I find your negativity and insults towards those “lesser” than you to be counter to the entire spirit of the game.

I’d rather play with someone I needed to carry than someone who drags the pleasure out of the game.

In short, your attitude sucks.

You don’t want upgrades to anything? Alright, your opinion’s been heard. Stop using this forum as a place to crap on lower skill tier players. That isn’t the subject and it’s not in the spirit that Fatshark set up these forums.

25

If you & team are hiding in the smoke it also causes the far away ranged units to advance towards your position unlike the bubble, making life easier for melee.

26

the “subject” is to not buff items further thus making the game easier.

you’re free to utter your opinion as i am to oppose it lest only the “buff” crowd get their happy cumbaya chair circle if only those voices are presented.

i aint talking about malice players playing at malice.
why the hell should i have an issue with that?

i give examples of malice level players trying their thing at havoc 40 or auric maelstrom and rely on overbuffed items in the hope these will get them somewhere, quite a difference.

right, so about that “good time” in the examples i wrote.
the rest of the team should sacrifice their good time so one dude has his power fantasy?

thats “the spirit of the game”?

tough luck, 30 years of pvp games im all out of candy canes to hand out when the game i like gets watered down more and more to suit “the masses”

if trying to keep the core and identity of the game gets called “dunking” on players, that doesnt get me any grey hairs either.
not everything has to be dumbed down to the lowest denominator to please the casual gamer.

as for your “malice players”, i doubt they’ll notice if something was to be altered about the smoke grenade, in auric maelstrom and havoc though it would erode the difficulty even further.

see, this i find particularly funny.
i got the game at beta, bought a new rig and played the hell out of it for it was the best since quake and sliced bread i had for a good 20 years.

now with all the buffs and power creep it gets worse and worse in my opinion.
not at the mid-levels for this audience particularly but at higher settings that in the early days required quite a different effort to be successful at.

“good time” isnt strolling through the map with a harhar humor and shooting aimlessly just as long as it feels like michael bay in 40k.

a “good time” just as well is having to give your best at every moment and feel like you’re improving and ready for a bigger challenge.

i dont play darktide for cheap fireworks and fun fair attitude but for the fast paced and demanding gameplay it offered… until the characters got buffed beyond reason.

the cascade scenario that ultimately led to stale hav40 meta aint what made darktide such a great game in the first place.
its the result of giving unreasonable power to items to please players that otherwise would struggle at certain thresholds, plain and simple.

this aint crapping on the lesser skilled, its calling a :duck: a :duck: , something thats “toxic” in todays soft culture.

and while we’re at it, i wasnt this negative around release and for the better part of a year.
in fact i enjoyed earning my keep through all settings until damnation HISTG was the be all/end all.

at that time there were very few occasions of feeling upset about a match, if at all, for every reject did his utmost to succeed.
something one has to respect.

couldnt name something that was blatantly op, zippy zealots came later and were often stopped at an airlock

(fun fact airlocks were added in relay station and hab dreyko way after release, what could possibly been the reason for performance was fine :thinking:)

and the most annoying psyker was the smyker and rather the laughingstock of the run, no flame staff obliterating everything at sight, no gun scum or arbi face rolling.

THIS was a better balanced game than we have now in my opinion, for i cant remember having any issue of the game feeling unfairly lopsided towards easier stuff being more rewarding than actual mechanical performance.

27

Id like to see the Vet to gain access to a grenade launcher, maybe not a main weapon but possibly replace the smoke grenade. You can load it any grenade via talent tree and by default shoots smoke to keep its tool.

28

yet again, the reminder that this is a coop game seems applicable. Your toxic attitude is what is keeping you from enjoying the game.

And it’s helping no one.

Yeah, you want to nerf it back to launch, I’ve heard. It’s one of the worst takes of all time.

do you want a cookie?

lol no, that’s YOU. You want to nuke everything back to launch to fit YOUR power fantasy. The VAST VAST majority of players love the new weapons, new skill trees, new classes. We love the options.

If anyone here is trying to kill the fun for their own power fantasy… that’s you, bud.

So, again, we’ve heard your opinion on the vet grenade. If you’d like to start a new thread that is just whinging about how everything new since launch sucks and how all the players suck and how all the new classes suck, but you are great… please do start that forum. I’m sure it’ll be a darling.

29

I think that’s a cool class-wide alteration. Default as a grenade launcher would be pretty neat. The whole class needs a rework and that would be interesting.

I would love shooting a grenade directly into something and the grenade knocking them down just off impact.

30

I have to strongly agree that powercreep is the biggest problem currently for Darktide. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t say that we should go back to release but pretty much anything that can screenwipe that isn’t the Ogryn nuke which is limited to 1 use should go. The game has improved in many ways due to new and buffed things but Fatshark clearly exaggerated with some stuff, mostly on Psyker and HS. Whether it’s Auric or Havoc, the game just becomes redundant because certain things are just completely overpowered and it overshadows the core game mechanics.

As for smoke grenades, they are just from their design in an odd position where they are basically useless when your team doesn’t play around them but if you use them right, they completely eliminate the threat of basically all ranged units and some specials. That’s why any buff to them could again cause them to being broken, which is the last thing we need.

31

@palarious the way you’re completely ignoring all the responses telling you it’s already strong in the highest difficulty and shouldn’t be buffed to instead have a pointless back and forth with Index is… curious to say the least.

Would you prefer to escalate a flame war and get the thread locked instead of acknowledging you may have been incorrect when you called it “too niche”?

32

Let’s see, the one who I responded to is Index, who spends his time dissing players and being toxic AF.

Anyone else bringing that energy? I’m communicating just fine with everyone else.

If Index wants to be butthurt every time someone calls him out on his nurgle nonsense, he’ll just have to add it to the list of crap he’s unhappy about.

He’s said his bit about the grenade. It’s his nastiness towards other players I have a problem with.

If he turns it into yet another flame war because that’s the only way he knows how to communicate, kinda on him, isn’t it?

So, yet again, he’s said his part about the grenade. Either time to let others speak up, positive towards the idea or negative, or he can decide to act like he has in just about every other thread I’ve seen him in.

And that’s their opinion and this is the place to say it. I’m not arguing with them, even though, as stated in the OP, I think it could be improved, which would lead to more people using it and improving the game meta overall, both at high level of play and at lower level of play.

And may I also point out that this community seems to have a bit of a blind spot towards lower level of play. A player’s experience is not more valuable just because he plays H40. The game is not inherently more important just because something is “meta” for higher levels of play. I’ve been at the bottom and I’ve been at the top and the game’s balance was just as important to those players as the ones I’m usually with now.

In fact, I’d wager there’s a hell of a lot more people playing Heresy and Damnation than Auric or Havoc mode. The argument that more people in the lower levels of play doesn’t mean that higher levels of play are inferior, either.

They are both worthy of good game design.

33

Balance doesn’t matter at the lower levels, but it is extremely important to make sure all levels of play have fun, ESPECIALLY the lower levels since these will be the casual gamers that are most likely to spend money

Fun should be prioritized for lowest diffs
Balance should be prioritized for highest diffs

34

In my experience, it’s a toss up. Yes, when they work, they’re great, like I said, but they don’t get used enough. They have downsides, like visibility, that lead a ton of players to avoid them until way, way later in their play.

I think that would be solved if there were clear synergy between smoke and Focus Target. More people would take it, more teammates would dive into the smoke.

additionally, it’s pretty well agreed that Vet is the class that needs a buff the most in general, lagging behind the other classes.

this would be a good improvement.

35

A fine aspiration, but the lower difficulties have zero use for utility items like smoke grenades. The only way to make them “fun” on those difficulties would be to pile on an absurd amount of buffs that would cause them to absolutely break the higher difficulties. This is exactly what happened with taunt, chorus, bubble, and, to a degree, has already happened to smokes previously.

There is no solution to this issue that can be found in the abilities themselves. It would have to come from elsewhere.

36

its called sticking to what you believe instead of turning your flag everytime the wind blows as long as its not “offensive”

guess you werent around back in the 90s, a brief glimpse can still be found if you switch the mic on in mortal kombat online matches :backhand_index_pointing_left:

still, back in the day one didnt shy away from calling out obvious stuff and didnt care for “feelings” but i guess everything besides a pat on the head and a “you’re doin great” is toxic these days :man_shrugging:

what bothers “me” is folk like you got the attitude of :“power to the people, I’ll make everyone a millionaire and do good by them”

no sht sherlock, the bulk of “players” like it cozy until they flock off to the next title and claim proudly “i cleared the content”

(also to get my point across, i dont need a “we” to feel better about my opinion, i say my piece and that is more than enough for me
some though need a “we” not only ingame but also for a dispute it seems :man_shrugging: )

that suddenly a loaf of bread costs a billion cause if everyone’s “a millionaire” no one is, comes like the most shocking thing no one though of before.

as in real inflation, this here power creep led havoc becoming necessary to compensate for the outlandish outliers and every mode below almost a default snoozefest.

but hey, as long as everyone’s a “winner” right?

my attitude may be rude towards certain topics and frankly i dont care much after the degradation i had to witness each major patch.
your “way” though leads even further down the hole towards a mobile idle clicker that once was the best first person 40k game in existence.

as for the “topic”, the player is already far too powerful for a meaningful challenge and inflated to the point it needs true solo runs to set yourself apart for even clearing havoc 40 is a normal monday morning.

therefore “no” to any further buffing until a severe rebalancing of the game took place as a “back to square one”

if that upsets those relying on those outliers, well i guess they’ll be off for fire team elite 2 or some other game of the month anyways soon :man_shrugging:

dlc tourist numbers aint keeping the lights on after all

please show me the secret technique of me preventing others to respond the way they want?
what you’d like is a “yessir” attitude of no one talking back… well thats not how it works though

i said my piece, so did you, guess this discussion ran its course :man_shrugging:

37

Index dude I usually respect your opinion but you could do with less walls of text and old man rambles with every post. Just get to the point of what you want to say.

38

im done anyways :+1:

stuff like this just get me tempers up is all

39

The problem why people are not playing around the smoke grenade anymore is because outside of Havoc ranged enemies have gotten so weak that people generally rush them, because even on Auric they are no threat anymore. I remember back then when gunners could stagger the player, they were one of the biggest threats in the game. This however I’m actually glad they nerfed about them due to some really unfair deaths.

However, I think they should indeed buff the ranged units a bit in Auric and get rid of the Gunner resistance from curios. Once you slap 3x 20% gunner resistance on them, you can just walk through the fire of a reaper and get into melee range. Gunners just lost all meaning.

I think the Vet is the most balanced class right now and that’s coming from a Vet main. The problem is that the Vet lost all meaning with the ranged enemies getting weaker over the years (They haven’t really but players got way stronger while they stayed the same). If they would be a bigger threat, ranged builds would work way better and so would smoke grenades.

40

And it doesn’t have to be. People come in here to express their opinions and most do it civilly. You don’t need to tear down “lesser” players to make your points.

I’ve lost track of the names you’ve called players who enjoy the new mechanics. If a new member comes onto the forum to express themselves and the first thing they see is everyone in their position being called a “button masher” that should “keep to their station,” I very much doubt most will want to deal with that kind of unnecessary conflict and drama. People have enough in their lives already.

So it has a chilling effect on conversation. I’d rather hear their ideas, too, not just the people yelling insults because someone dared to like the new classes.

One, stop giving us older gamers a bad name. We can communicate without insults. Second, age grants you no privilege except arthritis and incontinence.

I’m going to guess that, since money talks, they do. But that’s financial and outside the scope of this conversation.

THIS is what I want to say and, while I doubt you will take it seriously, I hope you do:

Consider that calling people who like the new classes and new mechanics “determinally challenged” is not only rude, but inaccurate. Maybe a ton of really skilled players enjoy the options given to them in a way you don’t and it’s not because its “insta win button.”

You can advocate for what you like without being toxic to people just enjoying a game and people enjoying the game differently than you doesn’t mean they are bad at the game. Also, people not being the best at the game does not mean their fun is less meaningful than yours.

I want to hear the opinions and feedback of Malice players as much as H40 players.