Surveys
I have added some surveys to this thread. Once you read it, please come back to the top and give your thoughts.
Do the melee weapons accurately represent your expectations of 40k melee weapons
- No
- Yes
- Kinda
Do power weapons feel good in Darktide
- Yes
- No
- Kinda
Do power weapons have a clear place in Darktide
- Yes
- No
- Kinda
Do chain weapons feel good in Darktide
- Yes
- No
- Kinda
Do chain weapons have a clear role in Darktide
- Yes
- No
- Kinda
Which powersword change appeals to you most
- Rework 1
- Rework 2
- Rework 3
- Rework 4
- Just revert the nerfs
- Other (explain)
Do you like the proposed powermaul changes
- Yes
- No
- I have a better idea (explain)
Do you like the proposed chainweapon changes
- Yes
- No
- Kinda
- I have better ideas (explain)
Do you like the proposed shield and maul changes
- Yes
- No
- Kinda
- I have better ideas (explain)
I have been planning this thread for a while and the need for it was made more plain after the latest batch of melee changes. Some dire, some excellent.
First of all Iām going to say two and a half things.
- I love this game, and I think its generally speaking pretty excellent.
- I love the melee and ranged combat in this game and I think they are both pretty excellent.
1/2. I try to avoid unnecessary negativity and just go with a reasonable approach to improving things. I am going to try to do the same thing here.
The ranged weaponry design in Darktide is excellent. Broadly speaking it captures the look, feel, sound and gameplay that I would expect from the various 40K weapons and manages to tread the line of balance vs lore/setting accuracy. There are some problems there, usually there is only one good mark for each pattern of weapon. But each pattern of weapon usually has something about it that makes it playable and fun to use and totally viable. Some things are better than others but thereās rarely a weapon I would say just totally blows or totally misses the mark of having some value. Critically they managed to do this while managing to really feel like 40k weapons. The Lasgun is an effective anti-infantry weapon that is ammo efficient and easy to use. The bolter is hard to use, slow, and suffers from powerful recoil, but is powerful in exchange. A hierarchy naturally exists and is well executed in which the most powerful and iconic 40K weapons are the most powerful weapons in game but have logical drawbacks that make them not always an ideal choice.
Melee weapons have not hit this high standard. Quite the opposite really. Melee weapons, while extremely fun to use, are all over the place in terms of design and viability. Many of the most iconic 40K weapons are dumpsterbin weapons that only crazy people (like me) want to play with. Many of the best weapons are quite literally plain jane pokey metal, thatās ok in the same way there are several excellent and powerful autoguns. However the problem is, fundamentally, that 40K iconic weapons should match the lore and the pre-existing crunch but instead they seem to lack a clear vision. The internal balance of the weapons between one another lacks a clear vision. Thereās no reference in Darktide to the obvious heirarchy one can extract from the lore or pre-existing tabletop crunch. Thereās no obvious heirarchy a player can extract from the look and feel of the weapons. Something being good or bad is totally divorced from what a player might naturally expect when just looking at the games visuals, level progression or audio-visual feedback. My evidence of this is all the friends I have that are not 40K nerds who look at the weapons and then are deeply confused by why one thing blows like a beast of nurgle and another weapon is awesome.
All of this, in summary, is to say that melee weapon design in Darktide has failed. It is incoherent in a number of ways despite many weapons feeling great to actually use. The good news is It can be fixed! In fact the foundation is extremely strong and I do not think it is very far away from perfect. But it definitely is in a bad spot right now. Iām going to highlight some key points of failure and propose how to work on them as well. I welcome discussion and debate.
1. VISION
Ok, so the ranged weapons have a natural heirarchy formed by lore, design and crunch. From weakest to most powerful and an imposed balancing dynamic from least cumbersome to most. They are also generally informed by Crunch from the table top and probably influenced by Dark Heresy. I will use the same general idea to rework a number of weapons and categories of weapons.
My vision is as follows:
Mundane weapons are to all be usable and viable. They should be flexible and easy to use without high skill floors. Iconic 40K weapons are generally ābetterā, but have drawbacks making them less easy to use. Chain Weapons will be stronger weapons with higher skill floors, generally more cumbersome to use, but dealing more damage than their purely mundane counterparts. Power Weapons will be the ābestā weapons but what best means will need to be defined on a per weapon basis as their game design and use cases vary widely. In all cases there should be a reason why a player might choose a mundane weapon over an iconic weapon, but in the same way I choose the shotgun for my zealot over the bolter, its not because shotguns are stronger weapons.
2. USE OF 40K RULES TO GUIDE DESIGN
Let me take a moment to explain a crunch to gameplay translation Iād like to use to inform my logic in these weapon balance disussions: In 40K we have rules that are long standing, with some recent updates. These rules define Strength which can roughly be understood as ādamage scaleā and Penetration which is the ability of a weapon to penetrate armor and recently added a Damage stat that determines how many wounds a weapon deals per attack that succeeds. Pen does not translate to damage and should not for converting to game rules. These three rules in Table Top are in opposition to Toughness, Save and Wounds. In Darktide we have armor classes and health pools on enemies. This is roughly equivalent to Save and Toughness+Wounds. The Strength of an attack is calculated against the Toughness of the enemy. In tabletop terms this means when you hit an ogryn with a shovel you have something like a %13 chance of harming it at all, if you succeed you deal one wound. Ogryns have like 3 wounds. In game terms this means you do like 100 damage and it mostly shrugs it off.That makes sense. in 40K if your weapon doesnāt penetrate Carapace and you hit an enemy wearing it they have a 50% chance of ignoring the damage all together. In gameplay terms this means my lasgun basically does a pittance of damage to carapace. This makes sense. Infested might be imagined to have a Feel no Pain save rather than an armor save, but the effect translated to game terms is they feel tough and hard to kill even to weapons that might kill flak easily. But flak can feel similarly tough to kill to weapons with weak armor penetration values. What this means is in 40K games a low strength weapon has a low chance of harming a tough enemy even if it can penetrate the armor, and a high strength weapon with low armor pen might not kill a weak enemy due to its armor save. Two examples of this for you:
Heavy Stubbers are S4 AP- so a generic flak wearing cultist is injured 66% of the time but has a 33% chance of outright ignoring the damage.
A Power Sword swung by a guardsman at a space marine has a 33% chance of wounding the space marine (50% in recent codices), but can penetrate the ceramite armor the Space Marine is wearing and so may get lucky and hurt the space marine anyway. Space Marines do not die to a single attack (anymore) in most cases. So he would live but be injured.
Briefly - I will try to avoid being too precise with my numbers. Its more ballpark stuff since I have not memorized all the tables or break points.
3. WEAPONS REWORKS
Power Weapons
One of the first complaints everyone had when Darktide was brought to market was toggling power weapons constantly for a few swings. This violates lore and feels bad to play and isnāt cool. Herein I will propose a number of changes based on the specifics of each weapon.
1. Power Swords
In lore this weapon is a powered weapon that is only turned off to preserve its power pack between battles. Once battle is joined it is activated and used that way for the durration of battle. In recent years power swords have started to add +1 strength to the base profile of the model, but for several decades it was +0. So a guardsman using one was just a guardsman. I believe power swords should be powerful weapons that represent the pinnacle of imperial melee equipment. More suited to finesse than brute force they should be quick weapons that feel good in the hand and allow you to duel enemies effectively regardless of armor. They should be handy for horde work as well with a good cleave profile. They are not high damage weapons, but high armor pen weapons. And they should always be on. I will propose 3 solutions, starting with my preference. The power sword shouls be the ābestā at versatility, able to kill anything.
Rework 1: Flat Profile w/ overcharge special
Effort Guestimate: low
- The power sword is always powered on when drawn and makes a power down sound when holstered
- The damage profile to enemies is flat. It does the same damage to crushers that it does to basic infantry. It can be used against any target with the same effectiveness.
- It has similar cleave damage distribution as it does now.
- Exact damage numbers can be played with for balance, but I am thinking in the range of 200 for heavy and 100 for light.
- Special action overcharges the power sword. The subsequent swing will be a thrust or overhead depending on pattern, dealing greater damage base (400?) intended for single target work.
Rework 2: Battery Mechanic
Effort Guestimate: High
Described by several other persons:
Rework 3: Enhanced Flat Profile w/ Overcharge
Effort Guestimate: Medium
Same as rework 1 but is intended to slightly strengthen the power sword at a cost of lower usability
- Flat damage profile has slightly higher base numbers
- Slightly reduce swing speed of the sword to compensate
- Add a mechanic such that the power sword is drawn from the hip in an unpowered state and must be toggled on manually by the player. If not toggled then it will use normal unpowered swing damage tables
- Once powered on the special action converts to an ovecharge mechanic as in rework 1
- The powersword is automatically powered off when holstered.
Rework 4: Revert & Change swing combos
Effort Guestimate: Medium
Proposed below
- Revert the changes to power charge
- Change all attacks to favor less horizontal patterns
2. Power Mauls
These weapons are slower and more unweildy with modifiable power levels that range from stunning and bludgeoning a foe to powerful blasts of energy that crush through armor and stuns tough foes. The damage profiles of lower power mauls in my Rouge Trader book are quite similar to plane jane mundane weapons. So our rework here is very easy. The power maul should be the ābestā at staggering anything.
Rework 1:
Guestimated Effort: Very Low
- Ogryn power maul should receive light increases base damage to all standard attacks.This should bring it to parity with the Crusher
- Power mauls are always on, in the ālow powerā mode. Their damage against armor types should be gently flataned out for normal attacks.
- Audio-visual work to add powerfield damage to gore decals on targets and the glow to power mauls at all time
- Special action remains identical to current, serving as āsetting to high powerā
- Audio-visual work to create some kind of āMOREPOWERā effect.
- Ogryn special action has its weird movement penalty removed
3. Thunder Hammer:
This is in a pretty good place right now. It is an adequate melee weapon on its own but exels at elite, special and armor busting. The Thunder Hammer should be ābestā at killing high value targets.
Rework 1:
Guestimated Effort: Basically nothing
- just make the power button a toggle like how it is on chainswords.
Theres no reason for me to have to repeatedly stroke my long hard weapon haft just to get it to go boom at the right time. Its weird. Weāre in public.
4. Power Axes
Donāt lie, I know theyāre coming. The power axe is generally a strong weapon that excels at killing single priority targets. Not as strong as a Thunder Hammer these weapons are effective against many targets and faster and less unwieldy than gargantuan two handed weapons. It should be the ābestā fast single target killer.
- Always on
- hits harder than Antax for all attacks
- swings slower
- has over-charge attack that really slaps for excellent damage OR high damage + good cleave. Depends on pattern and design.
Chain Weapons
My views on Chain Weapons have already been thoroughly documented here: Chain Weapons are just wrong
I am not proposing anything truely significant for reworks. However the power weapon changes proposed above, especially the power sword, give the chain weapons an opportunity to shine in a new role. I propose that Chainswords and Chain Axes be re-statted to be more single target oriented, with less cleave, hitting harder and dealing bleed stacks naturally, while also being less wieldy than mundane weapons.
1. Chainsword
These weapons are iconic and need a place to shine. I believe the best place is for them to do more flat damage on normal attacks while not being able to easily penetrate exept with special attacks armor. As a consequence of their generally higher damage over mundane weapons they should have reduced swing speeds. Hitting hard but being unweildy, as the bolter is to the lasgun the chainsword is to the sword.
Rework 1:
Guestimated Effort: very low
- Bleed stacks are naturally applied with light and heavy attacks and special attacks, more stacks are applied based on the type of attack in the order listed.
- Chainswords do more damage on light attacks.
- Chainswords do more damage on heavy attacks. Clearing 200 on first target for heavy attacks.
- Chainswords gain access to the slaughterer blessing to replace bloodthirsty being integrated
- Chainsword light attacks should have little to no cleave
- Reduce swing speed for all attacks
- Do NOT reduce stamina, dodges, mobility
2. Chainaxe
The chain axe should outpreform mundane axes in damage on single target but be inferior in handling and cleave.
Rework 1:
Guestimated Effort: Medium
- Bleed stacks are naturally applied with light and heavy attacks and special attacks, more stacks are applied based on the type of attack in the order listed. Remove bloodthirsty blessing.
- Increase light attack damage so total dealt exceeds 200, eliminate hitmass calculations causing the attacks to slip off target without latching on next target
- Remove cleave from heavy attacks
- Increase heavy attack damage significantly
- Improve heavy attack visual/audio special effects to be more chainsawy
- Light swing speed is already limited by its latch effect, heavy attacks are already slow. this is probaly fine.
- Do not reduce mobility stats. Unweidliness for chain weapons should be focused on swing speed. Make them feel kinda fat and slow.
- Add Deathblow blessing
3. Eviscerator
This twohanded great weapon is supposed to hit a lot harder than it does. It is heavy and slow as it is, though not unusably so. It needs to feel impactful to make up for it. It is also entirely iconic and one of the most 40k weapons in the game.
- Bleed stacks are naturally applied with light and heavy attacks and special attacks, more stacks are applied based on the type of attack in the order listed.
- Remove bloodthirsty blessing.
- Its base heavy attack damage needs to clear 300. It should always kill a poxwalker or groaner on first target.
- also increase light attack damage moderately.
- Improve the light attack sound and visual design for better rev effects while swinging normal attacks.
Mundane Weapons
Generally speaking close combat weapons come in all shapes and sizes. Iād be happy to see even more mundane weapons of various types. Even spears and glaives! But my theory for their placement should be easy to use, high mobility, flexible weapons that strugle with higher tiers of armor in general and donāt deal quite as much damge as a chain weapon or power weapon or have the flexibility of a power weapon. On the whole I would say they are in a pretty good place and I have tried to construct my weapon reworks with them as the center. The heavy sword and antax serving as my anchors for the rest of the weapon design.
Axes
I believe the axes are in a good place. I believe the combat axes are slightly too strong. SLIGHTLY. no one panic. I do not have the numbers on hand but I propose very simply that the axes as a class have a slight reduction in damage to carapace. Thatās it.
Force weapons
Iām going to speak to these very lightly because they are not my area of expertise. I believe these are in a good place and are generally quite fluffy. They have force attacks that are cool and unique. They have generally good usability and decent damage. The deimos might do a touch too much damage on headshots with unimbued attacks but I wonāt go hard on that point. The illisi appears, from a brief test I did today, to feel a lot better than the power sword to swing in an unpowered state such that it doesnāt feel like it needs to be consntantly charged up to be good. It isnāt fluffy to have cleave on a force sword like this, to my knoweldge, but RULE OF COOL demands I support this and so does the Lex Imperialis. If anyone wants to make a proposal within the paradigm Iāve tried to outline please do!
Ogryn Weapons
Most of his weapons do not hit hard enough. It would feel better if his melee weapons had better first target damage in general. Just let the big man kill squishies a little better. But the big enemy of the Ogryn is the Shield. This thing desperately needs a rework. Just 100% garbage.
- Shield and Maul
Rework 1:
Guestimated Effort: Medium
- Turn his maul into a power maul use the same paradigm as described above
- increase light attack damage to match new power maul light attacks
- Heavy attacks remain shield bashes. Invert the pattern so that it is shove then edge bash.
- When using shove attack he is counted as blocking for ranged and melee attacks
- Remove stamin drain for blocking ranged attacks
- Remove the plant
- New special is an overcharge attack, this would require the user to swing a light swing to discharge it
Thatās all I have. Thanks for reading.
