hey short introduction,
i play V2 and DT both probably since launche, hundreds if not thousends of hours, big fan even with the botched launches, because at least for V2 Fatshark really turned the game around and made a gem out of it (DT seems to follow this path)
to my point, i dont know if i am the only one but for DT i get the feeling that to much attention is paid to “casual” feedback when it comes to balancing and difficulty. The reason why i dumped so much time in V2 is the challange of the game Cataclysm and Weaves were the thing that kept me playing because rarely koop games are a true challange. DT in the closed and open beta was challenging but more or less for buggy reasons, now after alot of fixing and balancing DT has become way to easy, in comparison to V2 Damnation High Int. + Condition feels like V2 Champion maybe Legend. This is true for all classes, maybe more or less depeding on which class you prefer but they are all pretty equal in that. You can make it harder on yourself using “off meta” weapons but that should not be the intent.
Make a Baseline difficulty around the meta.
Make the baseline hard and i mean hard, not everyone should be able to clear every difficulty from the start or with 30 min per week of gameplay. Half the fun of V2 is the difficulty and the challenge.
Start to buff the weakest things and nerf the meta until most are in line (there is no perfect balance).
All i want to say is that in trying to please the “average joes” you lose the “hardcore player” which also pays for skins and dlcs, give us Exterminatus difficulty 6
I get the sentiment, but you will always at some point eclipse the difficulty you are playing on atm and no developer will balance the game around an experience that maybe 1% of the player base is seeking. VT2 was not balanced around high level weaves either or modded content for that matter and the later has a very clear meta of what is viable. You won’t see people playing elven axe on dutch spicy for instance.
I do agree though that the game will eventually need higher difficulties or give players the ability to choose the modifiers they want (amount and combination) to keep things interesting.
Having said that…
No it doesn’t stop the cap. If you feel the need to overstate your case, it is likely you don’t have one in the first place.
I kinda feel this, especially since all of our weapons are locked at 80% with random rolls, if we ever get access to reds that allow 100% thatll only slant it towards easier content. Without having played the dual map modifiers I think something like that’s a step in the right direction but normal damnation feels like a legend equivalent, not a cata equivalent in vt2.
I find that damnation hi int is harder than legend personally. I found legend almost a yawn after a while but i’m far more hours into damnation and still whipe with some regularity due to one or two player mistakes that sometimes arent even mine.
A big reason for regularly failing in Darktide is that there is a lot less comeback potential. Like in V2 you can get a player back up relatively easily and the sizable portion of ults, which you can use to stagger while resing, is substantial. Darktide lacks that and has ranged stagger on top. Technically you have to deal with more pressure in V2 but you aren’t punished as much for missplays compared to Darktide.
I think they need a difficulty that doesn’t provide any incentive for XP or grinding for crafting. A cataclysm equivalent difficulty would be good… but with dedicated servers instead of P2P it’s a question of cost and sustainability.
Now if they reduced the RNG and allowed more players to play…
On those difficulties in V2, most if not all classes could 1 shot pretty much all specials and elites.
Good luck with that in Darktide.
In V2 you would get maybe 3-4 Chaos warriors at once, which could each be killed within like 2 seconds by a single person (some classes can insta kill 1-2 of them).
Also, imo the V2 melee combat feels much smoother and more responsive.
Cata in V2 was pretty easy, but in Darktide, it seems like most people that play damnation, are not up to the challenge at all. Especially because of ranged units and ogryn elites.
I personally do not mind higher difficulties, but the past few days, i had a successrate of maybe 30% or less in damnation missions (usually it is closer to 90%), because most players are simply not good enough. Even in the successfull missions, it was almost impossible to finish a damnation run without anyone dying.
Clueless positioning, bad use of their weapons…
Almost every single Zealot or Ogryn that i see, does not play aggressively and hides from ranged units instead of being on the front line and leading the attack by rushing into the ranged units before they even get to shoot.
Psykers that try to kill Crushers and Bulwarks with staff attacks instead of using brainburst.
People in general are not using their grenades, or they completely waste them in useless situations.
With premade groups, where everyone does their job, Darktide might be easier than Vermintide 2, but with randoms, the existence of ranged units by itself is enough to make it harder.
I absolutely despise how “difficulty” is acheived in this game. Spamming specials, especially since they’re more oppressive in VT 2, is so incredibly lame and boring, especially if you’re not in a premade group. Having to rely on pubs is worse because it becomes so much harder to clutch when you get spammed with specials. People say the harder difficulties are so easy yet I haven’t seen any of them in game.
most if not all classes could 1 shot pretty much all specials and elites
Eh, no? Only few of them can do it with stormvermins and even less with maulers or chaos warrios. Some only with crit headshot or ability. But the main thing is there stormvermins in V2, shittones of them on cata, and we have no such type of enemy in DT. Also shilded SVs and shilded horde mobs. While hordes in DT mostly trash.
3-4 Chaos warriors at once
With some maulers helping them. They also can punch, push or kick you pretty fast and it’s much harder to knock them off unlike crushers. Also patrols. But the biggest difference if you catch an overhead in V2 on cata you are dead, if you catch it in DT you will loose 0 HP because of toughness. Ragers just a parody on monks and zerks, they are much slower and easy to stagger, especialy midst combo. While to interrupt monks crazy slashes you need to reach some breakpoints, and they can delete your HP if you slow on block. THP is much less forgiving system than toughness.
I’ve got a feeling expirienced players moved to high intensity and special conditions.
In V2 elites are dangerous, for example such combo like shilded stormvermins+monks can cause problems for some careers and builds. Elites in DT don’t force you to make fast decissions or to be good at melee, they just slowly moving forward. It’s only special enemies who can cause wipe. You probably not gonna die from 5 maulers+4 crushers but from trapper+toxflamer combo.
“Champion maybe Legend”
Patrols are usually a joke and my buddies and i often pull them for fun.
But yes overheads on cata do hurt. They are also very easy to avoid.
Not really.
That is what i am playing and that is where i had the awful teammates.
Eeeeh…GK with exe-sword and specific talent can one-head-hit chaos warriors and maulers on cata, i don’t remember who else.
Rest of careers - shade, bountyhunter, they all should use abilty to delete CW in one shot/hit.
They are also very easy to avoid
So in DT, even easier cause of dodge distance+slide. You also can run in DT, but elite enemies move speed is near the same as in V2 (atleast it feels so). Yet again, no stormvermin alike enemy type, while V2 cata full of them and you need to pay more attention/constantly tag them to see their animations behind trashmob wall. And on the top of it full toughness that protects you from taking HP damage.
Patrols are usually a joke and my buddies and i often pull them for fun.
Are we talking about premade or pub games? Cause silent/accidentaly agroed patrol during horde, mixed with 2 blightstormers can cause some problems in pubs, depends also on compositon, but someone will take atleast some damage, while in DT you need to stay afk to help crushers and maulers. Sure there are Bardin with trollhammer, OP BW and also some specific stuff that makes any run a faceroll. But there also Vanguard deed for example that buffs elite.
Than it’s just spikes that happens after new patch, when seasonal players come back.
Nah this is an old take, they nerfed range enemies several times, they nerfed shotgunners, the only realy dangerous enemies were, and nerfed both stalkers in the previous patch.
Yes and pretty much every career can 1 shot almost every tagable enemy on champion and legend.
Meanwhile, in V2 it does not matter if you take HP damage (unless you get 1 hit) because you just temp hp yourself full on the next horde.
In the absence of ranged damage, the THP in V2 is easier to sustain.
How is it an old take when it still is the single thing that almost every group sucks at RIGHT NOW?
It does not matter if they got nerft or not.
They still attack you from range and can stun you. They can still easily prevent a revive.
In V2 you can kite your enemies around for as long as you want, and ranged units are pretty rare.
In Darktide, you can not do that unless you want to get shot to pieces.
Mind that i am not complaining about ranged units being too strong.
I am simply pointing out that the mere existence of these ranged units makes darktide harder than V2 for most parties, because they are an aspect that did not really exist in V2 and an aspect that many people suck at dealing with.
Depending on your class and weapon choice, there are many situations where you can get locked down in a corner by ranged units, and have no way to get out alife by yourself.
It’s not an “endgame” difficulties, so i don’t see why it’s matter, lower difficulties are for power fantasy playstyle. On Cata you can oneshot most part of specials and some elites only in head, and head hitboxes are pretty normal sized unlike in DT. Not even saying DT range weapons are far superior but elites are mostly the same as in V2, same move speed, same atack patterns, but even lower stagger resistance. Problem is Fatshark nerfing T5 in line with lower difficulties but as alternative give us only special condition with special enemies spam.
Meanwhile, in V2 it does not matter if you take HP damage (unless you get 1 hit) because you just temp hp yourself full on the next horde.
But damage in V2 works so that less enemies there around you the more damage each of them deal, so one slave rat can take away 1/3 of your HP with backstab and you must be agressive to restore THP which will decay with time if there is nothing to kill. In DT you can just retire from fighting with melee elite blob to restore your toughness. In V2 the more green HP you loose the more THP you need to farm, it become risky. How many HP you will loose if some groaner backstab you? zero. You get toughness damage you restore it with next kill. You can just abuse toughness system, that’s why there was a bleedtrough in early version, instead of moving it completly from the game they could leave it for t5 and make so only melee elites can deal it (also rework zealot feats)
Apparently you have not read what i said all along.
I replied to OP who claims that damnation high int is comparable to champ or legend in v2.
I cited that claim.
You responded to me citing that claim.
I repeatedly reminded you of “champion and legend difficulty”.
IF we could compare Cata from V2 to Damnation in Darktide WITHOUT ranged units, then i would maybe agree that V2 is harder. But still maybe not.
Yeah well that’s my bad, i lost my thread of thought when start thinking about cata.
What i’m trying to say It’s not just about difficulty in terms of winrate, but how it’s designed. Before crafting update game was more slow paced and tactical due to players were restricted in power. I don’t see any reason why Fatshark keep nerfing t5, just don’t touch it untill there will be t6 or more tools to modify difficulties.
Like was it necessary?
Changed the Bulwark shield push attack not to deal damage.
Reduced the roamer aggro range when hordes are triggered across all difficulties.
Sure it’s a subjective thing maybe, but when i play V2 with exe-sword merc build for example i’m both focused as under elite blobs/mixed horde presure so when i hear packmasters somewhere midst trashmobs. Yet in DT i see how bulwarks and crushers are lying on the floor constantly. There always callout about monks in V2, but noone cares if there any flak ragers near in DT. And it sucks, because DT isn’t pure FPS but a hybrid combat game as devs were constantly saying.
Imo it was not.
I liked the shotgunner nerf though, since sometimes they could just insta delete you out of nowhere. Aside from that, i think that damnation is completely fine.
I am glad they added combined modifiers as well, to make damnation harder.
They also increased the enemy spawn rate during events.
However, it seems that many of the players that queue for damnation, are not good enough for the difficulty.
I would like to see statistics in regard to how the players are distributed among the different difficulties.
If only a small fraction of the playerbas even plays regular damnation in the first place, maybe FS should focus on other content first.
If a large majority of players play damnation, it would probably be a good idea to add a diff 6.
Hi int damnation being comparable to Legend isn’t that big of an exaggeration. You’re very, very survivable on all classes and enemies are just not as aggressive and don’t spawn in compositions or quantities that justify how much raw power we’re dishing out.
Yeah i don’t know i’ve got a completly different expirience, hi t5 are mostly smooth. Maybe it’s a region thing or something, anyway no ingame winrate stats to prove.
My experience is different. T5 runs are usually way easier than T4 runs because people usually aren’t running off doing the sorts of stupid stuff you see in T4 and below. They’re also almost always using meta weapons and builds.
The game becomes too easy the moment you get a whole team who knows what they’re doing.