Disablers should STOP focusing on frontliners

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I think that disabling specials (Poxhounds, Trappers and maybe Mutants) shouldnt be focusing their attacks on the player which is closest to the ennemy line. I main zealot, and have also played quite a lot the other classes. Disablers are somewhat meant to be the sneaky infiltration units that prey on backliners and stragglers, by “sneaking behind them” undetected. I makes no sense that those units are just mixed with the main regiment of troops, on the frontline. When you decide to take a risk and brave ennemy fire (stalkers, shooters, reapers etc) to go tie up some of the firing squads, already being focused on by a huge amount of firepower - I mean it’s literally one of the main purpose of the zealot class - you shouldnt be just instant canceled by a disabling unit spawning out of nowhere, on the frontline, in the “no man’s land”, disabling you where you teammates absolutely cannot reach you. I agree that the purpose of disabling unit are to increase team cohesion, to force you to do more teamwork. Taking risks for you team, using the strengths of the specialization you have chosen to move forward with the mission, and being instantly put out of the game by some disabling unit that have nothing to do here in the first place is one of the most frustrating experience I have faced in this game.

Edit: I’m also figuring that those are to punish people who try to speedrun maps, not waiting for their teammates and all, but there are “elevators” which kinda fulfill this goal already, forbidding progression if all 4 crewmates aren’t in the room

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I think I’d agree that, yes, a melee class closing with the enemy should not actually be penalised, although actually coding a set of parameters for how it evaluates that could be difficult.

There’s a lot of problems with the way the coherency system evaluates and punishes things; if three players run on ahead and leave one player with a gaggle of leftover enemies that they cannot actually turn their back on, then the game thinks that the player who’s been abandoned is the one who deserves punishing.

I’ve had a lot of circumstances like that, where the rest of the team run off before the area is clear, and I have to panic my way through trying to kill the last of them before the pox hounds get there.
Coupled with how broken pox hound dodging is (the very last game I was in, there was a point where there was no fragging way the pox hound actually pounced me, but no, it teleported on top of me anyway), siccing them on lone players is really unfair at times.

At least with mutants they throw you and you can try to finish them off, and the trappers don’t do all that much damage on their own, but pox hounds being extremely hard to dodge and permanently pinning you is an unfair penalty.
(Also, I seriously struggle to believe that several hundred kilos of Ogryn or psykers who can throw around entire hordes with their mind cannot possibly get free of a hound).

Speaking as a psyker main, these rooms mostly mean that instead of people running ahead, some people will not get in them and think the fact everyone else has to wait for them means they have time to loot every corner of the room. My warp charges are trickling away here!

(And many of the elevators are so slow that you’ll have at least a couple of warp charges trickle away anyway before you get to the next engagement, even if one player wasn’t dawdling. I only eventually managed to complete the penance for maintaining my warp charges at maximum on Enclavum Baross, the one mission with no airlocks or elevators).

As such, I don’t think they’re a great anti-speedrunning solution either.

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If this is some kind of post about a player who runs a whole room in front of team you deserve to be netted. Thank good knife zealots aren’t a thing anymore.

I don’t get this whole post btw. If you are front lining and get hit by a dog/mutant you are way better off than if you are doing overwatch or was left behind. It’s also better for the team since you don’t have to abandon the position you held to help your teammate. The trick is you should always be in LoS of the teammates when disablers come if you play “engage heavy”.

The only problem is currently the dogs are super buggy. All other disablers can be easily avoided (dogs could be too if FS would fix them)

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Playing aggressively is great and running ahead to clear ranged units before they get into cover and start shooting, can be a valuable play, but it can also be risky.
If you fail, your teammates might not be able to revive you.
You should always play in a way that is adequate to your own capabilities at the time.

If you are playing zealot, are on low hp and have your passive on cooldown, it is not a bad idea to lay off the risky plays and to stick closer to the teammates for a while. And like Nish said, maybe stay within direct line of sight of your mates.

When you have a bunch of health and got your passive ready to go just in case, you can run ahead a bit further.
If you get disabled, at least your passive gives the teammates a few seconds extra time to free you.

As long as disablers are your nemesis, and they get you quite often, you should try to stick closer to your teammates when ever disablers are around.
Especially when ever it seems like your teammates are not high on the „awareness scale“.
If you are aware of your surroundings, a disabler should never surprise you (unless it is during a horde), and when playing a mobile frontliner, you can usually relocate to a place that allows you to deal with incoming disablers (including dogs) quite safely.

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My experience is less of “they focus the one fighting the enemies”… it’s more like they suddenly turn on the player payibg the least attention.

It’s very often a thing that i hear a disabler, turn around and they run straight up to me just to turn on someone else who is in range puts the back to them.
And i’, here and there that guy aswell… i’m fighting but know the team is close behind me, but the hound just jumps throgh the team on me.

Dunno if they’re really that smart coded, but it feels like it and it’s good that way.

The stealth-feat of Vet might have an impact on them aswell.

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Yeah. In VT2 slaver rats move through enemy frontlines but they have a distinctive and continuous sound cue, and tagging it makes it easy to dodge their attack.

When dogs decide to go jump on you while you’re busy holding the frontline, just pray to god that your teammates got you or tag it… Otherwise they just move too fast for you to plan anything :roll_eyes:

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To be fair there is also a SFX for trapper moving around, its just no where near as distinct as the bone rattle. And hard to hear with the distinct incoming damage woosh and people/enemies shooting guns all game. They make rubber squeak noises as they move in addition to their VOs.

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My biggest issue with Trappers is that they are able to shoot their magical net through a whole horde while they cannot be hit back by standard rifles in such a situation.

Same with hounds. On top of that hounds are simply bugged. They still get you even if their jump was a meter off to the left or right from you.

On topic; as others have mentioned I don’t think it would be good if specials always came from behind. It would actually reward those reckless players who run from one ambush to the next, while those who try to clear that mess in the back get punished for it. (And I’m saying that as a Zealot main.)

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Stop running ahead and then crying when you get punished for it. A special shouldn’t be redesigned just because they dunk on your bad plays all the time. The real solution here is get good.

Fix dogs though. Their coding is objectively awful.

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It’s probably just dogs tbf, I never seem to have problem with trappers, the teleporting-dogs can ruin a game oh boy

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YES. Or fences. Railings…etc. there’s a column on the midpoint of chasm logistratum that i once tried to use as a physical barrier and the net went straight through it. Its not that hard to dodge trappers but the net interactions are HEINOUS CRIMES.

And yes, dogs are sin. A maelovolent entity that should be reskinned as warphounds so at least it would feel fluffy when you cleanly dodge to the left and watch it whizz by your peripheral vision only to have it phase through time and space to consume you from the inside out.

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It gets even more egregious playing with the third person mod. I can see how far they missed by, but nope, not good enough.

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That’s the point. If you’re out of reach you’re in constant danger, AS IT SHOULD BE. And an AI director WILL spawn disablers for you, specifically. Be prepared or don’t stray from the team. That’s the risky part of “taking risk”.

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While they can focus different people, there is a bias that has them track the people with the least toughness IIRC.

They also take your distance to your group as a parameter.

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No, no. He has a point here. Each person here saying that he should stick with the team probably haven’t played L4D clones who did it better than Fatshark. If the game is properly difficult, this shouldn’t be an issue anyway, you should be getting overwhelmed. If the only way the game has to defeat the player is by exorcising control of the game from them, then it’s probably not a very good game to begin with.

In Damnation, one of the highest threats is a squad of shooters rolling up unmolested and unnoticed to wipe everyone out. We can argue how unsatisfying that is but that does make perfect sense and awareness is something you can improve on. But that does make it required to engage them. What does not make much sense is that in a 5 foot square there’s 30 dudes and a net nestles between to drop you - or a 5 foot dog lunges through that and topples a 10 foot 1 ton block of muscle.

Frontliners should have some sort of defense against being disabled, where it be breaking out of it on their own or ignoring the first instance of it every something minutes. This is especially true for the Ogryn imo who just does not look that CCable.

When I said games have done it better, World War Z has multiple classes that have just this very thing and somehow have done shields better than FatShark ever has. That game has very similar disablers, as do most L4D clones, and has ways you can circumvent them manually and also perks to circumvent them on a cooldown. Just because there is one doesn’t mean you can’t have the other. Meaning just because you can dodge a pox hound or trapper net, etc doesn’t mean you can’t also have these options. I don’t understand why the lazy feats in this game aren’t complained about more often. Power sword has gotten more discussion than the lousy mission select. Complaints/requests like these are the perfect things to have as feats for the players that want to take them. If you don’t like it, don’t take the feat, take something that makes you slightly more effective.

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Disablers should focus on the team member that is the easiest to disable, or the biggest detriment to the team. That’s what the disablers are for and that’s what they should do. Frontline, or rearguard is irrelevant. They should take down the player that will hurt the team the most, or easiest.

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Disablers should just be mean and as harmful as possible and its the party’s job to sort it out.

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