Hello, I’ve been thinking about the upcoming patch and wanted to share my thoughts.
Currently, each class has certain skills that feel almost mandatory to choose. What if these essential skills were made into core passives, allowing for greater build diversity?
Here’s my personal list of what I consider essential skills:
Ogryn: Smash 'Em!, The Best Defence, Heavyweight
Psyker: Soulstealer, Quietude, Warp Expenditure
Zealot: Until Death, Holy Revenant, Thy Wrath Be Swift
Veteran: Survivalist, Confirmed Kill, Determined
These skills really help define each class and significantly boost survivability, making them feel almost mandatory.
I think you know what would happen if these skills weren’t picked.
If these were provided as core passives, I believe players could experiment with more diverse builds and playstyles.
Playing Darktide, I always feel that these skills are so important that I can’t leave them out.
This forces players to pick certain skills, which reduces build freedom and makes the gameplay feel repetitive over time.
How about using the Ogryn patch as an opportunity to revamp the skill system in a big way?
(Please understand that I had to use a translator as I’m not fluent in English!)
That might require a full on rework of all skill trees, which i’m not against, but just giving all those perk/skills to players right now without any counter, it will be extremely broken.
I like this idea yeah, while I may disagree some of your choices are “mandatory”, they defenitely are choices that distinguish one class from another and I think that’s really cool
I hope this is done if they decide to rebalance all classes one day
I definitely think Survivalist and some form of Until-Death should be basekit for Vet and Zealot respectively.
Ogryn has at least two passives, one being able to revive teammates while taking health damage, the other being passive damage resistance (Used to be “Thick Skin”), and a third one on its way. I wouldn’t mind them replacing the first one there with “removing the movement speed penalties on heavies” they’re adding to No Stopping Me! (Replacing the effect entirely, or changing it to a small movement speed bonus while charging heavies. ) If only to spare New Ogryns the horror of reviving a veteran in fire only for them to instantly die. That can be a later down node, or added to one of the weaker middle-tree nodes. Maybe slapped onto “Feel no Pain”.
Psyker, I feel, doesn’t really need any since his only iconic if I recall was remade into a keystone, and a lot of psyker’s main mechanics are bespoke to them. Anything I can think of ventures more into “Gimmick” territory than “Essential part of class”.
I don’t think the toughness regen talents should be added. They are effectively tax nodes, and their location at the top of the tree is very much intentional.
However, I would prefer if tops of trees had more ways to bypass toughness regen. If I want to test my mettle, I would rather spend those nodes on fun stuff. The veteran tree does a great job of this.
Tangentially, fatshark NEEDS to redisplay the iconics (passives) for the classes. I think they removed them because a lot were turned into nodes, but some werent (Ogryn mainly) and they don’t want the other classes getting jealous.
I think it’s a real problem that some talents really just exist to be taken on every build, but I think fixing this would necessiate a rebalance because you can’t just give each class 3 more talent points without pretty severe imbalances in the trees. I mean look at any build you make, you can pick up one more gamechanger talent with 3 more points. It’d ironically end up making the builds more samey by allowing the same gamechanger talents on every build.
I think overall it’s just an issue with the format and fundamentally is hard to fix cause of this.
It’s a controversial opinion but I think I would have honestly preferred if e.g. Preacher Zealot, Purifier Zealot and Deathcult Zealot (or whatever the trees are called) were just their own classes with their own trees and passives so these considerations would be set aside and they had more freedom to design each classes strengths/weaknesses. Like, if you think about it, what do you actually gain from the tree being free and open? Everoyne just picks up until death regardless of build. Everyone just picks up sustained assault regardless of build. Everyone just picks up crit CDR regardless of build. I’m sure there’s exceptions but for the vast majority of builds it turns the tree more into a checklist than an actual trade-offs-and-strengths matter.
honestly, i feel like survivalist isn’t really essential. frankly, it barely even helps at all. 1% of total ammo isn’t very much, let alone helpful. demolition stockpile though? that one works better.
i mean, it’s much more helpful than 1% of ammo because it gives you a grenade every 60 seconds, that grenade can be used in a pinch if you’re stuck in a horde and need to clear enemies, to clear out enemies around tied up or downed teammates, it can even be used to get at a heretical idol or a far away sniper or something. and don’t even get me STARTED on how great it is when you have an enemy like a BoN or a PO or a CS. much more useful than just getting 1% ammo back.
I think this is a really good idea. Adding more attractive skills related to toughness regen would be a great approach as well. The veteran skill setup is really well designed
I think it’s a fundamental issue. You really pointed it out perfectly.
If the problem is that giving 3 extra points, what if we added 3 really attractive skills that are worth spending those 3 points on? That way, it would add more variety to builds and create stronger options, allowing players to approach it more strategically.
An alternative is taking previous must-grab talents and making them part of a Keystone or an Ability instead, so they can’t be taken with every build anymore and become part of a specific playstyle instead. Until Death/Holy Rev become tied to Martyrdom, Survivalist tied to Executioner’s Stance, etc.
Yes, but it makes sense… and even if sometimes I don’t take Until death/Holy Revenant.
What OP proposes would give each class a true identity.
So, perso, I think the proposal is really smart and makes sense.
Do I want it? No. Cause I want more contents and not a perpetual talent tree rework. The only rework I would like is the veteran and the actual keystones. I still cannot play with them… no way.
That’s right, I also think grenade skills are definitely one of the essential skills that can’t be overlooked, and I always take them as well. I also agree that 1% ammo is really low. How about making it 3% for the veteran and 1% for teammates?
Thank you for your response, it’s spot on!
And while talent tree reworks are important, the content updates you mentioned are also crucial. Especially more weapons, more maps…
As for the veteran, since it’s the character I’ve played the least, I’m not exactly sure about the issues, but I do know that skills like VoC and Focus Target! / weapons like the Bolter, Plasma Gun, and Revolver are incredibly strong. Without these, the gameplay feels lacking, and other weapons and builds just aren’t fun…
I think that even if the performance isn’t as strong as the skills and weapons I mentioned, it should still be unique and enjoyable. But right now, the veteran doesn’t seem to offer that. T^T
Bad list IMO, Ogryn Psyker just general toughness regens every class has or good damage syncs early in tree with little to no commitment costs.
Zealot: Huge crutches Until Death has made me a worst Zealot player playing extremely recklessly compared to other classes who do fine without it, it was tied to V2 Zealot who played more like Martyrdom and should be again…thy wrath be swift never touched my wrath is swifter fighting than running!
Veteran: Survivalist… not necessary ammo control and im good, Determined never take i shoot enemies before surpressed or get into cover like a sane person. Confirmed kill take sometimes just another toughness talent.
…Best case here would be to put “core talents” in central location as they are at beginning of trees. Specialist talents further down their branches making hard choices that’s where they should be and that’s where Until Death should be.
I’d be really surprised if FS wasn’t big enough a company to have the people making content separate from the people reworking talents. I mean, I would hope they don’t have level designers, animators and 3d modelers taking stabs at class balance (Although with some of the decisions they’ve made in the past, I’m not sure).
And clearly at least one designer/programmer doesn’t have enough work to do since they went ahead and made Havoc mode.
Same.
However, the experience has shown me that, something that you think would take them 1 afternoon to create/do/update/fix, usually takes 5 to 12 months to be implemented.
So, I would not bet on that…
