Maybe hordes could be times and the rest of the enemies remain with the progress spawns. Dunno.
I doubt any of this would matter if the enemies dealt out a bit more damage.
But you see, the issue with that is that their kraks will be useless. They are not named characters, so their attacks are beyond weak, and they can die from as little as one las shot to the gut. Hell, I bet that in canon, a Crusher (a whole ogryn made even more durable by Nurgle) could take a whole shell from a Leman Russ Tank to the chest and live.
Just stick to basic Damnation or lower? Auric and especially Havoc were designed to be more challenging to the point of ridiculous. Havoc is not the game mode you want to play if you want to chill.
Yeah, we had a chat about this today. With how aggressive Havoc spawns can be certain sections of maps, including their starts can basically guarantee a failed run. You can end up with no place to move, nevermind manoeuvre. Pushing out is often not an option. when a rotten armour wave floods through a narrow corridor or a door. and the same happens at the back or you basically have a dead end after a drop / elevator behind you.
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Itâs not just pacing but the tactics employed need a tweak, I think. Combinations of specials and elites should deploy in combinations to hinder players in specific ways, as opposed to all of them descending en masse continuously.
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I fear if they could, the devs would have gone that route long ago.
only the engine seems struggling at current numbers of more or less âbraindeadâ enemies, I doubt we even see half life bot level enemies with proper flanking and internal coordination at lesser density.
now fact is darktide needs mass for the tide, could that mean pox-chaff is stealing from the all over âbehavior-capacityâ for a lack of a better word?
I mean weâve seen good enemy ai in games 25+ years ago, just not on the scale of a tide game.
6 soldiers in a half life level or ctf in quake/UT with 15 bots is different from a chock-full screen, no?
When SnapJackalPop said that tactics employed need a tweak, he didnât mean changing the AI, but just making the AI director spawn specific Elites and Specials together to send at the players. This can be achieved alongside having the Tide in DarkTide, thatâs what the chaff enemies are for after all.
So itâs not something the devs gave up on implementing, they most probably just never thought of this idea or didnât decide to expand on it just yet. We already have modifiers that tell us weâll be facing âSpecialist strike teamâ but it just means the AI director spawning an amount of Specials in a quick succession. It can very much be expanded on by making the AI director spawn specific Specials and Elites at once and making them agroed on the players so they immediately start running at them the moment they spawn, giving a feeling of a coordinated attack from the heretics.
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I for one am very much NOT enjoying the current pace of Auric Hi-Int. The constant stream of non-stop spawn-ins means that if one person goes down, there sometimes is literally zero space to recover the mission, and the other 3 people go down trying to save the one.
And it very much feels like the sheer volume often breaks critical audio cues, either because too much is spawning at once, or spawning really close, even right behind you with basically no warning. Trap in the back with no warning, dog in the back, bombs on the downed players, snipers covering the pickup zone, spawning immediately right after killing them and going for a pickup.
Iâm not against hectic gameplay, I mean, thatâs why I like Darktide. Iâve been playing for years and have practically every Penance by this point. Auric and Auric Maelstrom is my jam. But it feels like spawn rate creep has been happening for awhile now, and the last update made it far worse, often to the point of feeling downright unfair.
IMO, The classes were relatively well balanced prior to the last update, with the Arbites being a bit overpowered. Now Pskyer & Arbites are both overpowered, and the spawn rate has gone way up to compensate, leaving the other classes, particular Zealot, lagging behind in terms of tools to deal with the changes.
The power creep approach (as in not nerfing Arbites enough, but instead buffing everything else) is imo causing cascading issues that are straining all the other game systems.
The missions, even on the highest difficulties, used to have a sort of ebb & flow to them that made the really tough moments stand out. And gave room for the VO performances to occasionally breathe, not to mention time to reload. Now itâs just wall to wall spawns, nonstop.
It also makes for less room for strategic gameplay overall.
There are also 2 behaviors of the âDirectorâ that really irritate me in general. One is immediately re-spawning something of the same type you JUST killed, right behind the first one, almost like itâs saying âoh, you killed my guy too fast, haha, have another.â
Second is constantly spawning one or two basic guys right behind you from the nearest spawn point, eternally. You can clear an area in order to buy some time to put shots downrange, switch weapons, and the immediately have to dodge and deal with something behind you that wasnât there until you turned around.
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I now recall being able to go take a leak/answer the phone/door in VT2 in some places while my team guarded my character from an occasional hookrat.
There is nothing like it in DT.
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current enemy numbers on screen or not, thatâs on the 3 dudes not reading the room and forcing the âpleasantâ thing over the efficient one.
the one common goal the team shares is a victorious match.
having all 4 in an upright position at this point is neither mandatory nor sometimes strategically sound.
apart from the disabler jank with dogs and nets out of sync(due to capacity overload no doubt)
a single experienced player can salvage 99%of auric maelstrom situations IF acting according to the situation and not the gut-feeling of a downed mate.
sure thereâs plenty situations where a quick rez cam be pulled and the people remaining are too cautious, but in a huge majority of cases iâve seen kamikaze rezzes which cascade into a whipe, cause those not going with that stupid move are still chewing on the spawns the leeeroy-medic just bit off.
stabilize a situation first with the ressources at hand, often times one less player isnât a loss in output quantity to proceed to a safe pickup spot instead of inside the mosh pit.
analysis of said situation, what have we left, what are we facing off, what obstacles to remove first.
cut your losses and proceed (instead of sacrificing it on the hill of âteamplayâ)
dogs hopping without prior load up animation is the worst if you try to put a sequence on 12 enemies in front of you 
all these âchessâ rules only feel fair if the rules themselves ainât warped or sped up, agreed here.
but there is.
current âsituationâ not withstanding, I enjoy having to make decisions faster than at release cause my own abilities outgrew âcarefulâ behavior and they by now feel like the complete opposite of whatâs pushing me further.
I do calculate in a sea of enemies to pick the trapper first, then the bomberâŚdog AFTER the flamer (cause the later could get said dog off of me)
which crusher has the first wind-up and his hammer comes down first
etc.etc
by now its just a reflex part and frankly the status I wanted to bring myself into all along.
not pondering for 10 seconds and arguing with a mate:âhey if we take that mutant next room with us, he might serve as a free airthrowââŚ.
get in, get it done in grace and a fluid motion and enjoy the carnage.
thatâs darktide the way I enjoy it.
yep if me ogryn could read a watch, I could time it so that after every big boom that clears a couple reapers and bulwarks, 1 1/2 times the amount hop down the corridors.
agreed here as well, thatâs jank and not a fair obstacle for âimprovementâ
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Havoc makes me feel like a digital drug addict.
I donât have a second to type.
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Generally I donât think spamming bosses, mobs, elites and specials is the best way to make this game more difficult and fun. Itâs not boring but itâs not a very next-gen design either. Aside from havoc 40 where you get clowned by 3 bosses and a thousand mobs in the starting zone, the game is easily beatable as long as the players understand the basic concept of kiting and clearing the almost 100% guaranteed horde that comes from behind to sandwich you.
Environmental modifiers and enemy-altering modifiers are more like steps in the right direction but a truly next-gen move would be to make the AI director have mobs work together even if it means scripting certain events and also focus on spawning mob types which work together in sync like having gunners and large packs of dogs spawn at the same time because the gunners would be able to shoot over the dogs unlike all other mobs, have hidden flamers and carapace mobs protecting gunners, have bombers, dogs and flamers spawn together with carapace clown cars. Have the director be more intelligent with how it spawns mobs too - have gunners on high ground/hard to reach places, have flamer and carapace spawn together from both sides - thus quickly sandwiching you in making a fiery death or get pancaked by a crusher/mauler etc, or both.
The constant drip-feed of dregs and similar behind the player does irritate me at times. As you say, clear an area, turn to move forwards and hear the âwhooshâ cue to block/dodge almost immediately. Bonus points if the enemy looks like they arenât actually in range for melee yet have shredded your toughness and taken a chunk of health.
Is it too much to ask for a moment of respite?
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I agree with some of your points.
I think the AI Director functions fairly well in Auric and Damnation modes, accommodating various playstyles and builds. However, it has significant issues in the Havoc mode.
When playing Havoc mode (usually beyond level 30), I find my attention divided between strategizing against the AI Director rather than fully immersing myself in combat. For instance, I might reduce my attack frequency to prevent the Director from raising the challenge level, or pretend to struggle with the current situation. If you eliminate too many enemies at once or deal extremely high damage in a short period, the Director assumes you need a higher difficulty level to match your skillâwhich may sound unbelievable, but this is actually a dynamic difficulty mechanism adopted by many games.
In Havoc mode, the AI Director feels overly arbitrary and lacks rigorâto the point where it almost loses basic fairness. Generally, high-difficulty modes test players based on skills, experience, quick reflexes, teamwork, and other such metrics to determine whether they clear the stage. But Havoc mode clearly doesnât work that way. Its degree of abstraction makes me feel like the developers didnât take Havoc mode seriously.
More than once, Iâve seen various enemies spawn directly behind my teammates and then collapse to the ground without warning. There are even situations where a group of Crushers cram into an area smaller than one square meter, spamming overhead slams. I experienced similar versions of this in WV2, and it has gradually made me lose interest in this so-called high-difficulty challenge.
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