Helldivers 2 isn’t particularly difficult. Compared to DarkTide, a level 10 difficulty doesn’t really require four closely coordinated players with fixed setups to complete. One or two experienced veteran players are enough to handle most problems.
To be fair if people already are saying “relic blade is overtuned”, that means they consider it a problem. A lower one, sure, but still a problem
Implying it’s not a problem right now it’s exactly like saying “Combat blade is not OP because Duelling Sword exists”
Even if something is not the best thing, it can be OP
On the good news however, Relic Blade is THE ONLY WEAPON where people here in the forums are doubting if it’s OP or not, everything else is crystal clear
There always was and always will be a boogeyman, it’s just this discussion all over again:
Alright let’s analyze each one of them
First one, it’s you making the statement that removing top tiers would mean people wanting to nerf the “best option” of the moment, assuming it’s combat axe
Let’s say all of the OP melees no longer exist, could you point at ANYONE in these forums who would say “Nerf combat axe”?
Second one, this person is mentioning mostly OP weapons for the most part (power swords, force swords, relic blade even though that one is still in dispute, voidblast staff [I’d like to add that on the case of voidblast, it’s not really THE voidblast what’s the issue, but how busted Warp Unbound / Scrierz gaze is in general]), and for the ones that aren’t (bolter and combat axe)
I make the exact same question. Could you point at ANYONE in these forums who would want to nerf Bolter and/or Combat Axe?
Third one, I brought this up in the past a lot, and the most common response was “We still believe knife is OP but we can’t name every single weapon that needs to be nerfed, so essentially when saying nerf DS, it also means nerf the other outliers”
Saying “Top players will always complain about meta” is silly in itself. It never was “what’s best is an issue because it’s the best”, but rather “what’s best is an issue because it presents a disproportionate amount of effort required to use the current easy OP meta vs using your average weapon”
I promise you that NO ONE will call for Combat Axe nerfs the moment the OP outliers get nerfed. I promise as well that NO ONE will call nerfs for Executioner’s Stance if one day Shout magically got nerfed to be inferior than Exec Stance
And for the 4th comment, we’ve spoken about the solution COUNTLESS AMOUNTS OF TIMESS. I don’t wanna be rude but why do people keep forgetting the ideal state most of us say here in the forums?
Yes, NERF the OP outliers, but after doing that, REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF SPAM THE DIRECTOR GIVES. This is important, because it will allow all other weapons to FEEL as good as these previous OP weapons, WITHOUT NEEDING to buff them
It is a stupid cycle that we need to break, and no amount of “but bad players won’t like the game if they don’t get tools that allow them to break through high difficulties easier”. We’d ALL rather have less enemies and nerfed outliers so every weapon is as good, than needing to buff all 90% of the things to match the degenerate 10%
It’s easier to fight a caricature strawman who just wants to nerf for no reason, one who just hates fun and is elitist
I’ve yet to see anyone who argues against nerfs in general address this. We buffed enemies to avoid nerfing the dueling sword, and it made a lot of melee weapons feel horrible. It seems like this is an MK ultra phrase that immediately makes them stop replying each time though.
In fact, I could point you 128 people in these forums who would say “Nerf next best thing”, so yes.
See, you are doing the thing, ‘X is OP, but Y is worse’ pivot, (although with gentler/sober words here). Let’s stick to one claim at a time.
Yes, I collect them like warhammer figures.
You did it again, You just said you “can’t name every single weapon” so “nerf DS” is shorthand for “nerf the other outliers too” That’s exactly the kind of shorthand that lets the conversation slide from one target to the next. If we want meaningful balance, can we stop using catch‑all phrases and instead agree on measurable criteria (clear rate, DPS, survivability) or list the specific items we want changed? And how much we want them changed? And by “we” I mean in general and moving forward, since you provided a benchmark yourself in this convo earlier, making the discussion more transparent at least in this individual instance.
I don’t really think you would find so much opposition to nerfs if you kept consistent like this from the start, What I mean with this, is, always try to be clear on what your intentions and have a clear goalpost. Is “nerfing outliers, but also buffing negative outliers too”? Then champion that, is it “reducing cara spam, we think nerfs are the best thing, but since it’s controversial there are these other proposals too:” (dorn did this in this thread and I thought he gave a good proposal), then make that clear and be direct about it and so on, instead of every other response to opposition being a variation of the three:
- “But “we” have an universal truth agreement here that was reached after thousands of discussions that nerfing player first before doing anything is the most correct path, if you disagree you are simply wrong…” close ears and start singing lala
- skill issue (and its variations)
- Your playstyle is “wrong” or “degenerate”.
Now I can pinpoint how each of the strawmen-ish responses I made for the sake of arguing above are an issue too. But I’m afraid this reply is already too long, so let me know if this needs elaborating from my end.
Now, I won’t blame you in specific if someone else keeps the “nerf the fun out of the game” narrative going (and neither I’m currently accusing you of it now) for other motives, since the community is not a hive mind, but this seems like a long-shot of a promise.
Okay I will elaborate on why this is a not an ideal hill to die on.
Claiming a thousand threads make ‘nerf-first’ the one true answer is dangerous. It replaces debate with dogma and makes balance decisions untestable.
You say ‘we’ve spoken about this countless times’, can you point to the specific metrics or posts that settled it? I’d like to see the evidence behind that consensus. I’m trying to provide receipts from my end so far to keep this back and forth factual rather than rhetorical. if I’m misreading the pattern, please point me to clear examples where the community argued for specific, measurable nerfs instead of using blanket shorthand to justify any and all future nerfs.
It’s not enough to say “director spams because weapon X is strong.” That’s a hypothesis, not evidence. Given how balance has been handled historically, I want a clear process: (1) propose the problem, (2) show the data, (3) try director fixes, (4) only nerf weapons if step 3 fails. Treating nerfs as the default is how we lose play options and leave the game in a miserable state for a lot of people.
You say we’d all prefer nerfed outliers and fewer enemies, what metrics would prove that nerfing outliers is the best first step? If the director is the issue, let’s try director fixes first and compare clear rates before removing player tools.
not at all
have you ever held a gun? typically index finger is on the trigger when you fire the gun
The “nerf the outliers” mantra is a lazy loop. It assumes nerfs are the only lever, when in reality spawn pacing, density, and reward scaling are far more effective tools for balance.
Strong weapons don’t break the game, they define the fantasy. If someone wants challenge, self-restriction is always available. Nerfs punish everyone else who just wants to enjoy the spectacle.
if reducing director spam already makes weaker weapons feel better, then nerfs aren’t needed at all. That proves spawn tuning is the real lever, not gutting fun gear.
Heck, the Hive Scum class already proved this is not the only way to make out of meta stuff to feel good, and you remember what happened after? Everyone started to ask for nerfs, which led to the pickpocket nerf, which gutted variety again.
Nerfs flatten variety and make the game feel mediocre. Smart design is about creating space for different playstyles, not dragging everything down to the same baseline. Buffs + difficulty scaling give both casuals and pros their lane. Nerfs just erase the fun.
that’s not the reality, especially when slot system is involved
you can have a billion trashmobs on screen and only a set number (up to ~9) will be able to attack you, everything else is just there to get in the way of your cleave(which 1. isn’t an issue for push, and 2. doesn’t work against weapons that ignore hitmass). Those slots can also be made unavailable by geometry (i.e. a wall blocking slots behind you) so realistically you would only get 4-5 enemies engaging you if you want to - which is a trivial thing with knife’s mobility letting people keep their backs untheatened.
smart design decision is to nerf knife and such to a point where they make sense, not buffing everything or nerfing the enemy composition.
empty platitude, strong weapons can break the game. Also silly to pretend that it’s not overall disappointing that the best weapon by and far in a 40k game is a shitty little toothpick sword
HP values are confirmed to get adjusted based on power output players have
It follows that, if elite HP keeps getting buffed, it would be because player power output was too high. Why is it too high? Analysis reveals certain weapons are overpowered, so called outliers.
How could buffing elite HP pools and thus making 80% of the weapon roster even worse be avoided? Nerfing those outliers so that all weapons are similar in power output. Why not buff the things that aren’t outliers? Because that’s 5x more work and balancing and potential messups.
Also, HP and spawn amounts can be abstracted to be average effective HP. In the end it’s an effective HP bar the team has to chew through to clear an encounter. It’s simple multiplication
Conversely changing the spawns and making the game easier without also addressing how much the outliers overperform would result in the game being so easy that it would also be in a miserable state for a lot of people
Lastly
The game is built around quickplay. You literally can’t play regular missions solo. I can’t even pick the missions I want, I have to suffer the random selection because it’s better for quickplay. But when I play quickplay and am annoyed by how the people on my team who pick the OP weapons make the game unenjoyable, my solution is to “self restrict” (i.e. stop playing quickplay as I can’t control what randoms do)
Not how it works. I want to play quickplay (the game is designed around it) and I want to have it be a balanced experience. There needs to be one difficulty available for quickplay in the base game for people who want a balanced experience. The power fantasy is possible on the ones below it. This isn’t an elitist “go play malice”, this is a “you have your preferred balance anyway, so why can’t I get mine too?”
Adding a sixth difficulty that is actually balanced properly and does not allow for “power fantasy” type things would be a great compromise. However, technically auric is already the sixth difficulty and was meant to be that. Now it’s ALSO just the power fantasy difficulty. The compromise is bound to not hold up because many people can’t accept not playing on the highest difficulty. It’s even happening to H40, as we speak. People feel entitled to beat it while chilling and feel powerful in it.
The amount of fallacies in this one. Not gonna engage much here..
Lets ignore the fact that darktide always has struggled with player retention and is on a downwards trend.
Too much player power can be fun, this is true, however it does not match the core game design of darktide.
Too much player power does not allow overwhelming odds.
Stop stating your opinions as ‘reality’
You’re able to justify stabbing someone with a knife in both hands and being able to wiggle your fingers into their pockets to grab 1-20% of the ammo you need for your specific gun, but can’t justify firing a gun with one hand at point-blank range and using your free hand to rummage through their pockets to grab 1-20% of the ammo you need for your specific gun?
Either you’re intentionally being obtuse or you have an unreasonable hatred for people using guns in melee range (the thing that Hive Scum was advertised as)
yes
because not all guns are fired onehanded
Either you’re intentionally being obtuse or you have an unreasonable hatred for people who understood the intention behind name of the node.
Hold a butter knife in each hand and try to grab your cell phone out of your pocket without dropping the knife. Now try to do it to a friend who’s moving. It’s doable, but it’s not easy.
So, if “not all guns are fired onehanded” is your limiting factor, then any 2-handed weapons or dual wield weapons should also be restricted from Pickpocket to make it match, how did you put it:
those dual/dualhanded melee weapons don’t have triggers
yes that’s how I put it but clearly you’re not able to keep up
And you don’t need 2 hands to fire a 2 handed gun, since it doesn’t have 2 triggers. I also never see my characters hands leave the 2h melee weapon, so when did they pickpocket?
You’re weirdly obsessed with realism in every case that doesn’t suit your own opinion. Having pickpocket work on ranged weapons when you’re in melee range would be an acceptable change that wouldn’t break the game balance. Especially when compared to pre-nerf. That’s all I’m saying.
I don’t think anyone but you would be upset by that change
shooting those one handed should increase your recoil then, but it doesn’t; so by default your character has both hands on the weapon.
You’re weirdly obsessed with making up scenarios that don’t actually make sense in every case that doesn’t suit your own opinion.
Just get a vet on your team and stop spamming guns 100% of time, nobody but you would have trouble with that. If zealot has to melee to get knife, you have to use melee to get bullets; it’s not rocket science.
You call it making up scenarios, I call it “playing the realism game” since you keep trying to use realism to justify game balance when Pickpocket is inherently unrealistic even with melee weapons. Again, you do you.
you are demonstrably unable to play that game considering you’ve been shut down at every turn.
pickpocket with melee weapon is inherently more realistic than pickpocketing with gun.
get your mum’s purse slashed sometime. the game doesn’t need your brand of “balance”
Again: Just get a vet on your team and stop spamming guns 100% of time, nobody but you would have trouble with that. If zealot has to melee to get knife, you have to use melee to get bullets; it’s not rocket science.