That’s what got them into this mess. Fatshark should take the opinions and data from all players to find outliers to what they see the baseline as, and then make balance changes. By trying to appeal to everyone and find a middle ground no one is happy.
To say it more clearly, Fatshark needs to have an internal, company designated baseline of player power and what they want the average player to complete, whether that’s H40 or Heresy, and balance the game around that difficulty and level of player power. They can then use usage data, player reports, and general discourse to find outliers (both Overpowered and Underpowered) and rein those in. If they decide that H40 is the baseline difficulty and players are upset there’s nothing harder? Tell those players “Too bad, it’s our game motherf-ers.” If they decide it’s Heresy and players are upset that Damnation is too hard? Tell those players “git gud.”
Edit: I’m being silly at the end there, but the point is that FS needs to define the baseline for player power and what difficulty they want the average, casual player to complete. Not the playerbase.
Maybe I should explain in more detail. As I mentioned in other replies, our differing views on Havoc Mode stem exactly from Fatshark’s unclear positioning of it, both in-game and out.
But the reality is that we already have disagreements, and Fatshark cannot ignore those dissenting voices. Even if they want to adjust Havoc back to their original intended design goals, they should act more carefully and thoughtfully.
Alternatively, they could introduce a new, more clearly defined high-difficulty mode.
And I believe that Havoc 40 is already a well-established brand for the most difficult game mode, and it should remain the most difficult. The imbalanced talents and weapons need to be nerfed to such an extent that the average player from Hong Kong cannot complete any difficulty level above Heresy
This method won’t work, because the average player from Hong Kong, who plays once a week after a long day at work (and without even warming up on easier difficulty levels, as I understand it?), will consider themselves entitled to be able to complete it as well
The only compromise any normal dev should seek is between creating the game they want to play themselves and feedback that provided by the people who happened to stick with the game cause of shared preferences.
Trying to seek a compromise between two drastically different visions will create a chaos spawn.
Or they have and we can witness it, but they don’t want to make it clear cause sitting on two stools at the same time is more comfortable.
Adepticon in a few days, surely there will be Darktide 2.0 update that will fix 90% of the game’s problems.
And what if those players want to use strong weapons because they like them? Do they just have to sit there bored because the weapons they like make the game too easy?
At that point you start telling the devs to nerf your own gear because something that clears the hardest difficulty to the point it’s ‘too easy’ is a problem.
Which is what most of the actually skilled people (rather than the AI translated ‘IMMA HAVOC FORTY GET ON MY LEVEL INFERIOR WESTERNER’ types spamming this forum) seem to want. They have the maturity to recognize their power is too great and want to restrain it for the health of the game.
It’s not unclear…it’s an end-game challenge mode created explicitly for its difficulty, positioned above and beyond the game’s existing “hard” modes, offering nothing to players except difficulty. Havoc offers no exclusive loot, content, story, etc, just challenge.
That’s what Havoc is already.
Again, the game’s “default” Hard Mode is Damnation.
Auric is “Harder than Hard”, a mode already intended for well-geared and experienced players.
Havoc is “Even Harder” with 40 levels of difficulty.
How many difficulty levels does a game really need?
It seems like Knights entire point is “Havoc offers material rewards, therefore it should be farmable by everyone.”
Easy fix? Remove all rewards from every Havoc tier from 1-40. It’s a challenge mode meant to challenge you. Add some Portrait Frames ala VT2 Weaves and voila, Havoc is no longer “content to be farmed” but “Content to be cleared for the challenge and/or the cosmetic reward.”
I will note that I, although an American player, am not terribly tolerant of losses - which is why I mostly hang out on Damnation difficulty. Isn’t it great how we can choose difficulties that will provide our preferred play experience?
The notion that H40 should be reliably farmable if you use exactly the right things and nothing ever changes is just another sad reiteration of the truism that gamers will optimize the fun out of anything.
Why the game should be universally ballanced around players who enjoy losing games? Why they cant self impose rules and challenges? Why they have to gatekeep higher difficulties and use balancing around auric as a scapegoat for nerfing everything?
Your argument here goes both ways.
Game is too darn easy? Play havoc, play with randoms, restrict your loadout, play the true solo mode etc etc. You have agency over this.
The problem goes far beyond this. The difficulty across the levels of the Damnation mode is highly inconsistent. In reality, the only meaningful difficulty spike occurs at Level 30; the numerical differences between all other levels are negligible, to the point they do not constitute distinct difficulty tiers. Moreover, the randomness of modifiers and enemy spawns can often make higher levels easier than lower ones.
Compounding this are the penalty mechanics: players lose progress if they do not complete weekly challenges, and defeat results in a level drop until they reach Level 40 (or conversely, the reward of no longer de-ranking once hitting Level 40). The entire design effectively forces all players to grind their way to Level 40 just to secure stable progress.
In short, the current Damnation mode still falls significantly short of being a genuine endgame experience built for hardcore players centered on pure, skill-based challenge.
Actual player agency involves being able to play any part of the game on my own terms without restricting myself and still being able to play with friends
That’s because Damnation isn’t a “hardcore endgame experience,” Damnation is “Legend,” Auric is “Cataclysm,” using VT2 difficulties.
Using FFXIV, Damnation is “Normal Raids” and Auric is “Savage Raids.” Damnation is a challenging difficulty that’s doable by an average player. Auric is significantly harder and requires better skill/gameplay than an average player has (or they get carried), then Havoc is the challenge above that. It starts easier than Auric (from what I hear) and ends as the hardest content in the game where skilled premades or op meta builds are the only way to clear it for the vast majority of players. Or it should be like that. There should be challenge for every type of player. The game should be balanced around Damnation, with Auric for above average, and Havoc for the sweats who are only in it for the challenge of it.
Is this how it’s working now? Kind of but not really, because Fatshark is trying to please everyone because they don’t understand game design
