I just went on a 10-win streak to climb up to Havoc 40 today. After the update, smoke grenades seem to be able to block all special enemies except for the Poxburster (the “mutant” enemy). Now smoke grenades are really gonna become an overpowered blitz option
I disagree that people in EU don’t emphasize on teamwork, as I said, people still tend to search for proper team setups, people still tend to use team abilities like bubble or vet shout, its a wrong assumption to think people here all play from “everyone is independant” view. The more players can actually act independant the more skilled they are considered, but it doesn’t mean that teamwork is neglected. When you see a 2 people come back from others dying, or even a single person, THAT is a way to prove person is reliable, but in general, when player cares for his teammates, quickly comes for saves, that is another way to call player reliable, and both of these skills are most welcome.
And when you tell me that people in Asia use ogryn drenade gauntlet special (or bleed chainswords), when I haven’t seen a single ogryn on eu actually do that, makes me wonder if … Meta really is that narrow that nerfs should worry anyone? You already explored into several options that EU people don’t use as much. People tend to hate rot armor specifically because it narrows out builds to few meta usage (and very huge increase in difficulty), while it seems Asian players have no issue with such thing cause they are ready to run same setups.
Im yet to see a single smoke vet on europe servers haha.
I don’t like that we can’t have “I want to win” and “I want to have fun” in the same game, if the game is like that, it is an issue. Off-meta should be close enough to at being viable so it can be applied for both, but, the time will tell how it works, if Darktide players are still reluctant to adapt even with buffs/nerfs, they won’t find good use-cases. You have emphasis on teamwork, it would make sense for a frontline person to have stuff like heavy sword for clearing hordes and maniacs, instead of dueling sword, but thats not how it works in game currently, because dueling sword does everything.
Thing is, fatshark doesn’t shake the meta to the point its no longer viable, not even to the point its no longer meta, so it seems to be the right direction for now. But if you think bad weapons could be buffed more it makes sense.
gonna branch a bit off-topic, that reminds me how 14 years ago, at age of 13, I got to gold rank in league of legends for the first time, and my last promotion game i played like 1 kill/10 deaths, and people have carried me through that match. Rank is a scetchy topic to be the actual consideration of player skill, it is an outline for sure, but winning and ranking doesn’t always mean you actually improved or did well, especially in team game. I can’t deny if thats what people at mass think though.
I learned a lot after I cleared havoc 40 for the first time, and became much better player since.
First of all, I hope everyone can set aside external factors unrelated to the game—including racial discrimination—when discussing game balance. I hope we can have a proper discussion about balance. I have seen many hostile and aggressive comments in other posts before; these only waste time and cause frustration.
I introduced myself in a previous post: I am a player with nearly 2,000 hours of gameplay in H40, having helped countless players clear H40. I am also an administrator of the Chinese community for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
I fully understand that players from different parts of the world may hold different views due to cultural differences, but that does not mean we cannot express our opinions. In Chinese culture, when two people disagree, we seek mutual understanding and strive for “seeking common ground while reserving differences”. We hope to resolve issues through reasonable and respectful communication.
Back to the game. I think the H40 difficulty is incredibly fun. Even though you may believe it is only for elite players, on the Hong Kong server, experienced players often help new players complete H40 runs. H40 is far more challenging than standard difficulties, emphasizing team coordination and individual performance. We genuinely enjoy this experience. In the Chinese Darktide community, H40 is even treated as a regular, normal difficulty level, although most players also play standard difficulties.
Regarding this balance update, I only want to talk about the Veteran—not just because I main Veteran, but because the Veteran was the only class nerfed.
The recent nerf to VOC has severely weakened the Veteran’s damage output. It drastically reduced the uptime of both Kill Zone and Marksman, and simultaneously lowered the entire team’s survivability.
I can tolerate this change to an extent, since skilled players with deep game knowledge can still survive using experience and map awareness. However, this nerf is devastating for new players—even though, from your perspective, new players are not supposed to attempt H40.
What I really want to address is the Veteran’s new trait: “+50% Ranged Penetration”.This ability is clearly tailor‑made for the post‑nerf Plasma Gun. The 50% ranged penetration boost does absolutely nothing to fix the issue that Boltguns and other ranged weapons still cannot penetrate large groups of enemies.
After testing:
The Plasma Gun’s primary fire has 18 penetration.
In H40, enemy mass is increased by 170%.
Calculations:
Against non‑armored enemies:
18 / (1 × 2.7) ≈ 6.67
With the new trait: 27 / (1 × 2.7) = 10
Against armored enemies:
18 / (2.5 × 2.7) ≈ 2.67
With the new trait: 27 / (2.5 × 2.7) = 4
(I will skip calculations for melee enemies with 3.5 mass.)
In practice, the Plasma Gun remains the best ranged weapon. Its primary fire can still kill specials hiding behind crowds of regular enemies.
This nerf only reduces how often players use the primary fire. In chaotic situations with many elites, players are forced to use the secondary fire mode, which consumes far more ammo (5 or 9 rounds per shot) and requires longer charge time. This mode is not practical in H40 and depletes ammo too quickly.
Fatshark did not buff the secondary fire at all—it remains exactly the same as before.
In my opinion, this new added trait can be summarized with a Chinese proverb:“Hit you hard with a stick, then reward you with a lollipop.”
Another fitting saying:“Tasteless to eat, but a waste to throw away.”
As a Veteran player with 1,500 hours since launch, the Veteran class has been repeatedly nerfed time and time again. This has left me feeling extremely frustrated and disappointed.
First, I apologize for my inaccurate wording regarding teamwork. What I meant is that players on Asian servers tend to build their loadouts to synergize more with their teammates. For example, combining the Gauntlet with Soulfire creates a “one plus one is greater than two” effect when facing hordes of armored enemies, and Smoke Grenades also pair extremely well with the Shield Bubble.
In matches, players on Asian servers also divide roles explicitly: Ogryns take primary responsibility for taunting and holding aggro on most high-threat enemies; Veterans, thanks to their talent that resets cooldowns on elite kills, handle most elite takedowns (though teammates will assist); Psykers serve as the primary damage dealers; and Zealots act as “firefighters” to cover crises.
Additionally, for players on Asian servers, Havoc 40 does function similarly to a rank—it can prove your skill to some extent, but not entirely. Only clearing it in a two-player squad is seen as an undeniable testament to pure skill. This is why they find the comments on this forum claiming that only the top 1% of players are qualified to clear Havoc 40 so puzzling.
I ysually agree with your takes on this forum, but this is not one of those times.
Who the ‘F’ cares about “e peen” in a PvE coop game that has no ladders, raids, challenge modes, mythics or similar?
Look, I used to take ‘World of Warcraft: BC’ raiding super serious back when I was a teen and raged out on my raid when they died over and over to simple mechanics because I had literally no other responsibilities in my life since I wasn’t an adult yet.
Gatekeeping people in a casual game like Darktide is super cringe and I’m saying that as someone who regularly get matched with (excuse my french here) absolute tomato cans in Auric Maelstrom.
The truth is that other players is just another difficulty modifier and it’s fun to carry or quickplay into a lost game and clutch.
And lo and behold, sometimes even I play badly for a day and get carried.
Do better! Help people improve!
Let me add one more point: it’s more of a rank against yourself, after all—this is a PvE game at its core
Alright, thanks for all the clarification.
Do you think it would be better for havoc 40 to be difficulty that proves skill, and meta being nerfed in the way so people have to solve more issues, and explore more team setups (would make it harder overall, but perhaps with fixes to fundamental flaws of havoc it could work). Or more weapons should be brought to power of meta weapons, which would lead to havoc 40 to be the “average player difficulty” but with more variety and less intensive on meta of what players should bring (would create a vaccum for final difficulty).
edit: (I might be digging a bit personally here, we are talking about overall people view, so, maybe those are not the right questions for me to ask)
There should be a proper balance between overall weapon power and difficulty. With that balance in place, I would lean toward the latter option—it’s a win-win approach. Less hardcore players can experience all the game has to offer, while hardcore players can push their own skill ceilings through self-imposed restrictions
From a Chinese perspective, hardcore players—who are fewer in number but more skilled—should (not out of obligation, but morally) look out for the majority of less hardcore players.
Besides, I don’t think our discussion is off-topic at all. The differences between player groups are a broad and meaningful topic, and my original intention in starting this thread was simply to “seek common ground while reserving differences” with those who hold opposing views.
I’ve also been thinking that maybe the gear/build options for Havoc aren’t as scarce as I thought. But since it’s a 4-player game, it’s hard to really gauge how useful a build actually is
Great, so self-impose a new (“European”) challenge on yourself:
- do not try use your community to mass review bomb the game because you don’t like balance changes
- do not claim you like a challenge and then do everything possible to prevent balance changes
- be more patient with Fatshark attempts to balance over-performing and over-presented weapons and talents in the game
- stop creating generalisations about the whole Western Darktide community based on your naïve assessment that everyone over here supposedly shares the same opinion about the game
Also to whoever marked my previous post as “offensive”…please 
I have a feeling that Chinese DT community is leaning on mmoish/arpg design where spamming cooldowns towards braindead meatballs is the way to play.
Wich is weird, because there was many chinese players in V2. And V2 is more “wasd+mouse” game with occasional using of strong abilities you need to make decisions about. Resource management is much more pronounced in V2.
By spamming VOC and dome you leave no room for the game to punish players for their mistakes.
Missused dome? Who cares. The only challenging combat scenario this game can create is via enemy density, wich ultimately means weapons and abilities that are not about AOE, cleave, insta use will be in the trash.
How are you supposed to play with Brainburst, for example, when there are 20 crushers and 20 flamers? Like you need to give it a chain proc wich will make it another AOE thing.
What many (or some) of us here on the forum wants is for enemies to become more dangerous per entity and so DT will turn back to be more action oriented game, rather than CD loop operating.
I largely agree with your point—this game shouldn’t rely solely on spawning hordes to increase difficulty, otherwise the value of AOE will only keep getting inflated. That said, from my own experience, the Hong Kong server meta is still a long way from being MMO/ARPG-like. Using those skills certainly helps with clearing stages, but it doesn’t mean you’ll automatically win just by spamming them.
But they must be spammable to win? That seems the not-at-all-hidden assumption held by those decrying the nerf. Then there’s conclusions about the new CDs not still being “spammable,” and about how winnable H40 needs to be.
From my perspective, the anti-nerf arguments rely on an extremely dubious framework. I’d say “mountain from a molehill,” but I don’t think there are even any moles in the garden, let alone mountains.
I’m really trying to avoid generalisations about whole “communities”. First, I don’t believe that a group of people from across the world who happen to play the same game are an actual community, even if they are from the same region. Second, we have already seen to what it leads from obvious racism (not from me afaik), to some randoms abusing the flagging system to hide posts they disagree with.
I seriously doubt every player from the “nation-we-shall-not-name” is a meta slave. Nor I doubt they all agree that the current meta weapons and class builds should be left untouched, in the name of limited playtime “efficiency”. Nor every “Western” Havoc player is supposedly less efficient and “less of a pro” than nationality-we-shall-not-name DT “elite”. The whole thing is just hilarious.
I absolutely take issue with this very clear attempt to bully Fatshark into not nerfing weapons and talents through review bombing and social media “campaigning” on some false premise that nationality-we-shall-not-name knows better because they perceive themselves as people who perform better in the game. This behaviour has been documented with the past social media “controversy” when Fatshark CMs in the “nation-we-shall-not-name” had to calm down and almost apologise for even suggesting they are considering changes to the duelling sword. Then we have that recent thread on this very forum which points out the obvious source of the very recent negative Darktide reviews, all focused on the incoming balance changes.
The whole affair is outrageous and hilarious at the same time.
I’m not making a racial thing here, cause I said there were (and probably still are) many chinese players in V2, my assumption is that it just happened with DT and considering arpg and mmo are popular genres there it might be that the average chinese player just doesn’t mind such approach.
Heck, before PoE2 got a separated client my every second trade was with chinese players.
Plus I said “I have a feeling” not “why are you guys like that”, so it wasn’t a judgemental 100% confident statement, more like a theory.
Honestly, I suspect this just an idea which probably comes from some specific Chinese Discord (or equivalent) server. The same way as we have certain zealot elitists memes over HERE, about how it is that “zealot is the only balanced” class and that if you play psyker you are clearly not part of the “elite” DT club. Just more young men with their ideas of identity and frankly delusions of grandeur.
By meme, I mean its original meaning:
Is it gatekeeping??
I’m not saying that people who dedícate themselves shouldn’t be able to get it
But the gamemode made as an endgame, which the devs wanted people to really try to win, should by nature filter a lot of players right?
For most players in Hongkong service,we doesnt think the Havoc is invincible.Chinese players take passing the Havoc40 as the ultimate goal.We have always firmly believed in the philosophy that man can conquer nature, while players on European and American servers tend to rely more on individual prowess and solo play. Due to the influence of Chinese and Western cultures, I personally think both sides have their own interesting aspects.The constant trolling and discrimination against hardcore players flooding the game forums is not something the developers or the general player base want to see.The root cause is the negligence of the Fatshark,they have neither addressed the needs of casual players nor accommodated the sentiments of hardcore players. By hiding behind the scenes and leaving the community to sort out the mess, they have only exacerbated the already contentious difficulty issues.Update again and again lets us to see how impenetrable fatshark is.Fatshark even cannot beat havoc 24,in this context, they keep buffing the Havoc mode while simultaneously nerfing the weapons players are accustomed to. The core issue here is that, aside from the so-called ‘meta builds and weapons’, completing a normal Havoc 40 run within 30 to 40 minutes—without using exploits to skip enemies—is actually quite challenging. When a game mode forces players into using a fixed set of weapons, it’s no longer a weapon problem; it’s a difficulty balance problem.The disappointing part is that instead of recognizing this, some players turn their hatred towards abstract weapon stats, completely ignoring the devs who created this mess. That’s a real shame. Let me put it bluntly: if you paid for the game, you’re the boss. Players who spend their money have the right to enjoy a smooth experience, not to be forced into the wild ideas of the dev team—especially when they’re actually pretty terrible at their own game.
No, it’s your choice to stick to the limited choice of weapons, and the reason why a lot of us ask for balance adjustments, is to ensure the list of “optimal” weapons and builds is larger, not smaller. That means more playstyle varieties opened up to more people. That means smaller gap between overperforming and underperforming picks, and as result more fun. This also makes it easier to balance enemies, this issue was fairly apparent with the recent elite HP buffs, which made the meta picks even more desirable, instead of addressing their power levels.
You / we aren’t the “boss”.