Sweeping balance changes need to be more commonplace with the gap between patch notes
Last patch notes with the Arbitrator on June 30th changed:
Devils claw sword - still mediocre
Tactical Axe - Pretty good actually
Eviscerator - Good changes, but not enough; still mediocre
Helbore - Wield time still slower than Plasma? Why?
The balance patch before this was on March 25th with the Ogryn rework:
Havoc 2.0 - Many shadow changes not shown in the patch notes that still plague Havoc to this day, ie. regen stacking mobs with huge hit mass making infinite cleave a necessity, Bosses being able to have the regen buff for whatever reason, heinous rituals still being broken, ie being able to start it’s spawn behind elevators, spawning directly on top of another deamonhost. ‘Spawn Tiles’ around the map that just spawn a zerg of elite mobs and bosses that can spell the end of a number of runs simply due to bad RNG. These said spawn tiles directly punishing aggresive playstyles, Silent as hell poxbursters (bursters are overtuned, fight me), Bulwark shield snapping back after they attack since Havoc 1.0 (no way this is intended I refuse to believe it to this day) Demoting being a thing, and the disparity between the devs who balance havoc, and those who are part of player balance. I could go on but this is already getting long.
Sweeping Ogryn changes - Actually good, we need more of that. Even if it’s just weapons and not talents.
Psyker Changes - Decent. Changes like this should be expected on every balance patch for all the characters.
Veteran Changes - Similiar to when zealot was buffed, this doesn’t really fix anything. Underperforming talents are buffed but they’re in such shitty spots no one is picking it up anyway.
Zealot changes - Buff to chorus and that’s it?
Autopistol - Still bad
Devil’s Claw Sword - very timid changes for such a bad weapon. Still bad to this day.
Relic Blade - Buffed the useless Blessings no one will use anyway because their design is bad.
Small balance changes like these would be fine if the game didn’t have such a balance disparity. These changes are so timid and slow and don’t really solve any of the issues these talents or weapons actually have. All of the chain weapons are being powercrept to hell especially, that shred animation on the special or on the Eviscerator heavy attacks just need to go. Chainaxe is unique enough to where that shred animation could probably stay however.
PSA to Overweight Niuhi - Being review bombed by some neckbeard cave dwellers for a couple of weeks won’t ruin your game; it won’t ruin your playercount. If you keep letting idiots like these review bombers control how you balance the game that just shows them how effective it is and they’ll keep doing it, and letting them control you to this degree is a cowardly disservice to your game and it’s playerbase. The Power Sword crap that happened years ago is a non-issue and shouldn’t remotely be a factor in the game’s balance going forward, with how much the game has changed since then. If this is seriously still a problem then the game will never come close to its full potential.
This is one I genuinely don’t get. For whatever reason FS seems to think this thing needs to be painfully unresponsive for reacting to threats, despite the existence of charge-up time for any shot worth taking and garbage LMB damage output. The draw time is absolutely unnecessary.
we also don’t want them being able to use it quickly because of its power
therefore we make it slow to pull out
and to avoid frustration we give it a bayonet to clean up trash mobs
Which… would KINDA work in launch DT where Vet had busted regen, and the game didn’t throw elites at you…except for the fact the sights are so garbage that people don’t want to use it AT ALL.
For starters they can buff autopistol in a way that isn’t lazy and tacked on. Finesse multiplier buff on an autogun that doesn’t have a scope and is meant more for running and gunning isn’t a good look.
Yes however that would require FS to attribute more than like what…3-5 Employees…to work on Darktide
Like if you look at the Note of the Grimoire Protocol Update when it was released it clearly says it was one single dood working on the Weapons which took him multiple months…even tho FS has almost 200 Employees…Tencent as Parent Company…more than Studio behind Wukong…and yet treat DT so badly when it could make them so much more Money and so many people wanting it to be good…theres probably only like one person working on the balancing too…
I’m like 80% sure that the reason DT’s development went to hell is because instead of the more traditional Fatshark Cycle of ages past, the people who were working on ports got reassigned towards New Game rather than going back to actually developing the current one.
That or they’re so catastrophically mismanaged that everything gets put through one guy’s work in the pipeline slowing it down to how quickly he can check code.
Seriously, there is no excuse for ‘I changed the numbers slightly, it does x on y build now, which is what we want’ to not be a biweekly thing.
Hard to believe they’d work on a new title shortly after the big talent rework update that made Darktide pop off. I actually forgot about that snippet of one person working on the weapons though, maybe they just left out some context and he did get help here and there, who knows.
I think the helbore is great. Not S-tier but it’s really strong. The sights on the Lvl 20 Mastery skin work perfectly fine for me. You can just keep shooting the whole round with Ammo Aura and Lasgun Crit not consuming ammo, you literally will never hit yellow ammo in a whole round. Just stand behind your frontline and shoot. If a couple enemies break through, bayonet them; it does a butt ton of damage. You cannot keep shooting with Plasma like you can with the Helbore and you also get to do it for free. Wield time being buffed was necessary but idt it needs to be buffed anymore.
I will note that with a functional sight it’s insanely cracked, but without that I keep getting that stupid broken-mesh bug that makes the sight useless.
Yeah, I have a Helbore enjoyer in my havoc gaming buddies friend list, and you have to admire the guys dedication to that weapon. Helbore power itself just doesn’t justify how clunky the gameplay with it can be. In the current state of the game, precision weapons just don’t really have a solid role anymore.
