Changes to Havoc - Derank - Comms

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Announcements
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Hey! Apologies didn’t mean to be confusing. I double checked just now with the team.

Yes. Because Assignment Level 40 players no longer lose charges when attempting their Assignment, it is not re-rolled after losing 3 times.

A new Assignment will be given after a player a) wins the Assignment 40 or b) the Weekly Reset the following week (given the players interacts with Havoc at all in that previous week).**

** By interact with Havoc, I mean the player needs to attempt at least one Assignment. It doesn’t need to be their own, and they don’t need to win, in order to avoid the decay of (1) Assignment Level.

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Gotcha!

This makes sense, although I think there’s a decent argument to be made for rerolling another 40 after 3 losses; namely, it maintains a sense of tension but also is a pressure release valve for a particularly annoying combo of level/modifiers that doesn’t require a “price” (potential derank) by busting down to 39.

But I also see the flip side: that at 40, you’d maybe want infinite tries on the hardest mission you can get and there’s no other mechanism to get that.

Thanks for the clarification!

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W…why can’t it just be…hard?

This is a lot of dev effort, community angst, comms, and revisions related a single feature in Gigasweat game mode that doesn’t seem to do much other than add some additional tension that is secondary or tertiary to the primary experience.

Much like Patch 12 and the Shrine of the Omnissiah just put lipstick on the Crafting pig for another year, this feels like much the same thing.

Aye, I feel this 100%

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This is a confusing and nonsensical system that’s more complicated than just letting people choose their havoc rank within a certain range above their current one, and removing deranking entirely

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The tension is the point of course. It’s rewarding to push through the higher levels and see number go up, and that’s why the difficulty starts at Malice-ish level.

I think there’s also a desire to add a mode that fosters more of a community feel (keeping parties together, encouraging people to help each other with the penances) without removing the quickest-of-play regular mode.

The fact that number can go down is frustrating, and I don’t think it’s totally necessary, but these changes alleviate the real issues I had with derank.

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Thank you StrawHat! And for further clarification in response to Badwin’s post. I think the upcoming changes to the system will be more than workable for most of us, but I do hope to see refinements in the future!

For what it’s worth, I do think we should maybe re-roll the assignment after 3 losses. Beyond the reasons outlined in my first post, it would just help keep things fresh. Imagine rolling a Pox Gas modifier on your 40 and being unable to get a team through it for the week. To me, that sounds repetitive and frustrating. Of course, you could just queue on other people’s Havocs, but I feel that shouldn’t strictly be necessary.

Of course, this is all speculative. Can’t wait to see how the new system pans out!

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Tru guess we just gotta see how it works huh it didn’t say it can’t change just you can’t derank

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Conceptually I can accept that, but there’s plenty of ways to add tension, I’m not sure what deranking does that raw difficulty does not aside from spike frustration? Nobody is de-ranking on the Malice ranks, it’s when they bash their heads in failing on the 25/30+ levels multiple times, or have to go do real life stuff for a bit and can’t consistently play, neither of which would seem to incentivize continued play.

If this is the case, it hasn’t been communicated anywhere. Likewise, there are other, better ways to manage that, usually positive reinforcement (bonuses for playing multiple missions with the same party for example), while you risk dramatically more toxicity and drama with deranking.

And this was my primary point, deranking doesn’t feel like it’s necessary, and even if this update alleviates most issues people have with it, if it’s not adding much of value and can still tick off players then it’s still probably better if it’s just…not there, instead of tweaking it repeatedly and spending lots of effort and comms trying to make it “work”.

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You need to get rid of the derank system entirely and not just for havoc 40 players. Oh hey guys were getting rid of the derank system but only for havoc 40 players and only if youre playing a havoc mission lower than yours. Yeah sorry but thats another bandaid fix for a bigger problem. If im havoc 28 I should not for any reason derank to 27 because de ranking at all is what makes havoc so toxic and its also why parties dont stay together. You lose one game and parties instantly disband because people dont want to derank. Just get rid of it its a horrible mechanic that serves zero purpose. Playing with randoms and trying to climb is already difficult but deranking makes it ten thousand times harder. Just let me sit at 30 until I beat a 30 its really that simple. Stop punishing players for losing runs when were playing with randoms and a game can end in 5 minutes in the second room.

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and much better ones.
playing from an all random-pool, all demotions do is create weariness or anger.

for being pitted against the havoc factors AND the unpreparedness of your potential mates, some runs are doomed in seconds without a thing you can do.

that aint tension, thats resignation to yet another failed attempt without you doing anything wrong.

so yeah i like the changes mentioned here.
now its “arschbacken zusammenkneifen” (clench your asscheeks)
and once you’re there you just shrug off random-behaviour like you do in auric :smile:

much more relaxing :+1:

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Sure some people are. Havoc isn’t just for the top 0.01%. And for people who are new to the game and learning/improving Havoc is meant to be a long-term goal. The ladder up is a challenge, and deranking is part of that. And that’s why they’re iterating on the idea instead of trashing it outright

The issues with deranking in my mind, which are all solved now imo, were:

  1. The 0.01% wants to slam against H40 over and over and they should be allowed to.

  2. Deranking on lower Havocs discouraged helping others and filling lobbies down the chain.

  3. When only the host could rank up or down, everyone was incentivized to play their own Havocs (which the helms penance was meant to address but was an incomplete solution for) and the stakes for off-host players being zero meant they didn’t have to take things seriously.

Not everything has to be explicitly stated. There are plenty of design considerations we aren’t privy to. This one feels obvious to me.

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Awesome! Thank for listening to feedback :+1:

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@FatsharkStrawHat

First off, thanks for going through feedback and making some changes. I really do appreciate the effort in going through a sea of criticism and trying to make things better. The effort you take in communicating with us is truly admirable.

However, these changes still largely only affect the fringes of Havoc - we can help lower ranked people now and those who finally climb the mountain can finally relax. These help, but that said, climbing the mountain is still an experience brimming with toxicity. The core of the Havoc experience still breeds gatekeeping, distrust, and a general disrespect of player’s time.

“We want to ensure we keep the stakes and tension of climbing the ranks in Havoc, meaning all other aspects of ranking and deranking will remain.”

This kind of “stakes and tension” only puts players at each other throats when things go wrong - i.e. toxicity. This is a team game, one person’s effort cannot carry high-level Havocs in all but the most rare situations. Currently, a failed mission creates “tension” in that everyone starts pointing fingers at each other; “Why aren’t you running this in your build!”, “Your damage is too low!”, “You were focusing on the wrong threat!”. Teams disband even if it was a good attempt because sliding down the mountain means time wasted re-doing what a player has already accomplished.

The sheer difficulty of Havoc is all the tension needed to drive players forward. I promise you that it is a good enough reason to climb the mountain for the majority of players who wish to engage with Havoc. The stakes of about an hour of a players life per high Havoc is plenty motivation for most to put in the best effort to succeed. Time is the most precious resource we have - we choose to spend it on this game and I personally don’t appreciate it being wasted in the name of well-documented toxic retention methods.

The actual difficulty, which is what most Havoc players are here for, is unaffected by deranking. H40 is still an incredibly tough experience only the hardiest players can endure. I just want to engage in the hardest difficulties without being punished for taking a chance on other people. Let people just prove they can handle the next difficulty (i.e. go up a Havoc rank after completing the previous difficulty), and then let them keep trying without having external pressures that make people distrust their fellow players.

It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. People who are here for high Havocs will continue to engage with the system because the game flow is fun - you don’t need a stick when playing the game is the carrot itself. It’s mind-blowing how much you guys are trying to bog down the system that players are really here for, a game that is staggeringly fun to play with other people. Gatekeeping other players from playing with each other, be it through collective punishment or otherwise, is a sure-fire way to hinder that fun.

Look, I’m just tired in a way I’ve never experienced before in this game. It can easily take 30+ minutes to find a decent group; I no longer feel a drive to get back into a game after a loss, I only feel dread as my rank decreases. I’m tired of feeling disgruntled at my companions when they go down early in a level. I’m tired of players accusing me of not having the exact abilities they wanted despite having proven my build at the highest levels (and I still generally run builds that support others). I used to enjoy playing the game with random people, but now I can only dread that they won’t be good enough (or even that I slip up) and my successes become overturned.

I can get to the top of the mountain and this won’t be a problem anymore (something I’m not currently too far from)…until the next season resets me again. You made it better once the mountain is scaled, but climbing the mountain, itself, still sucks and divides your players. That and you intend to make players climb the mountain over and over again leaves me incredibly concerned for the future direction of this game.

I took a small break away just to get away from the toxic environment, and I was extremely surprised at how much better I felt. This is my most played game at 1,000+ hours, this game was my go-to to have a good time while having a challenging experience. Now, if this is the path for your most challenging content, I’m seriously wondering if its worth the mental fatigue.

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I’m not sure if what I see is a result of time spent in the game by myself (at 4k hours) and in-game friends, my play region , or luck, but this isn’t what I observe in the vast majority of havoc I play or watch. Quite the opposite. I see it bringing people together to fight cohesively and overcome the challenge of the game mode.

The only disrespect of player’s time I see are server disconnects, in particular when it leads to a mission fail.

This I can relate to, but I don’t think this is havoc’s fault. There is likely more going on than just a difficult game mode causing this. You’re always welcome to play with our little community if you want a more chill high havoc experience. Discord @ Rawk's Sanctuary

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There are many factors that affect this, and there is a lot of useful strategizing that occurs at this level. Pre-made groups particularly aren’t affected as much; that said, I don’t think it is a stretch to say while there being groups, many of them close-knit, that can approach Havoc without toxicity, there are many groups, pick-up groups using the player-finder in particular, that experience the toxicity that is more intrinsic to collective group punishment. One doesn’t have to look farther than the deluge of posts on this forum indicating as such.

Havoc is by no means the only means for experiencing toxicity in-game, but its elements simply encourage player tension via collective punishment. I’m no stranger to playing with other people at the playtime I have. Failing before Havoc simply meant trying again which most teams are willing to do. Now with the threat of a stick looming, players are just more scrutinizing, open to criticize, and generally less trusting even in many Discord groups that previously were much less discerning.

All of the strategizing and camaraderie for H40 would likely still exist without deranking - the sheer difficulty has lit a fire under many players to improve. I just don’t see the need for FatShark to use a stick when the carrot is already there.

Thank you, though, for the kind invite. I might take you up on that offer sometime.

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step in the right direction, now we need improvements to the partyfinder so it’s acutally possible to communicate with the people you’re trying to get into a difficult, meta oriented game with and talk to them.

to clarify @FatsharkStrawHat it’s really bad that there’s no way to talk to people before they’re in a party, and then once they’re in there’s no way to remove them without remaking the entire party. the fact you can’t ask people a basic filtering question (such as even just “will you bring flame staff?” or “do you know how this modifier works?”) coupled with an invite being irreversible makes the party finder dynamic way more toxic than it has to be: it both discourages actually organizing teams sensibly, while at the same time it encourages never inviting someone who seems off meta even if he could adjust.

you guys dont want it to be quickplay/content for full random with no plan and i understand why. but then these features are required.

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We need an in-game lobby where people can wander around in character, chatting and organizing Havoc runs, and where a Commissar enters occasionally and executes somebody you hope is an NPC.

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yeah i agree fleshing out the morning star system would be one option to do it. this game still has so many unfinished concepts that need to be fleshed out fully

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also here is another thing re: havoc I have been thinking about

the gamemode is clearly being balanced around at least partially. a lot of the ogryn buffs make no sense other than viewed through the lens of havoc 40 for example. this can be fine but i think it’s starting to affect the base game negatively, auric missions become easier and easier with every balance patch.

vt2 had this partially solved with weaves: it had its own progression system so there was no need to change how the base game weapons worked to accomodate for high ranked weaves.

i would love if fatshark implemented something like this for havoc too, so they could actually keep the two gamemodes balance seperate. right now i feel like it’s really hurting replayability for the game, because havoc inherently isnt a very replayable for fun gamemode, whereas aurics have lately become so easy that it’s boring

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I know we’ve argued in the past, so let me just say that I don’t think Fatshark should focus on either the top 0.01% of players or players like me who have 3k hours.

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