The Orthus offensive? I absolutely despise it. Should be renamed the awful offensive.
It’s a total cakewalk until the end and then it’s just a total mess with no tactics or anything that can be used. The twins are too fast so it’s just ‘attack them and hope that a silent dog or silent trapper doesn’t get you’. Team can’t work together because it’s so intensly messy. Just one giant free for all.
I’m just playing it to get the long overdue penances and I wish I’d done it before the buffs and specialist overkill spawns where added.
Every game today, all teammates have died in that room and it’s nigh on impossible to have 1 millisecond of a breather to revive any of them.
So every game we have died in that room. Dying at the end of a match over and over and over again and getting pittance rewards is actually the most unfun thing I have ever done in this game.
Luckily I got this dlc in a deal when I bought the game but I’d be so upset I’ve I’d paid for this. honestly I never ever want to play this mission ever again once I have the penances. If anyone finds this fun then I’m gobsmacked.
Did you get lucky with team mates who can stay alive in that end room? No? Then have barrels of fun replaying the same goddamn thing over and over again against 2 bosses with near endless health and toughness.
I dont hate it. Its not something I click to play after beating it a few times tho.
I do like that they facelifted a map to introduce new areas, Included new story elements and had a boss with actual mechanics involved. This is all good IMO.
One requires only 3 mines to be set off in that final battle. Yeah OK THEN. that sounds like a reasonable request (sarcasm if none detected). Can’t wait to play with randoms and do that one add the “kill them within 5 seconds of each other” penance to the ‘super reasonable request that relies entirely on teammates’ pile. Utter swill.
Then there’s the secret puzzle. Not one person today has known where it is. A bit too secret then.
And the ‘The Bell Tolls for Thee’… Is that the bit at the start that teleport you to the end? If so I just did that on damnation and it didn’t f*cking register it.
It’s nice that it exists for storytelling purposes. It’s just like a strike or something in Destiny, except I can choose not to play it as part of my weeklies.
Although I usually do use it if I need to grind out the “Finish X missions” really quick. That teleport bell is so nice.
the mechanic and idea behind it, i absolutely like. the hunt for clues when it was fresh reminded me of finding out fatalities in mortal kombat 2 when the “internet” wasn´t a thing commonly available and pages from gaming magazines sold for 0.1$ with the character you wanted.
good times.
engagement itself is fine as well, didn´t have to much trouble getting used to the patterns etc.
sure you wipe now and then but that´s the game.
the idea behind a really demanding boss fight and not just some pushover after 30 minutes so people don´t get mad at a busted run is good.
i can still remember ultimately wiping in raids after 5-8 hours so pain is relative to 30 minutes “wasted”.
nooooow comes the other side of the coin, shocker: randoms.
the idea behind the twins is tailor fit for premades and i bet they got tons of fun getting different loadouts to work.
but randoms not even able to agree on wether they do hardmode or not is a pain in the butt and literally worse wasted time than throwing a round.
i lost interest the moment more people were either clueless or indecisive about doing hardmode or not that i burned out on trying.
even helping my buddy get the tags resulted in multiple wasted matches back to back even after explicitely calling it a hardmode run.(and getting a “yes” in return)
and not having 3 guys on speed dial all evening for darktide means randoms.
so my verdict is :
orthus offensive/mechanic/boss fight/secret mode
not being able to pick hardmode as a fixed setting with no “opt out” or “going for a stroll” option
you play a “normal” mode (usually i take damnation) and hit the bells across the map in the right order. beat the bosses to make the match count.
after that you start damnation again but each player hit the left( gotta check that though, long time no play) bell right at the start.
you should teleport right to the final room where the additional modifier is a downed player can´t be rescued(shouldn´t come to that in the first place but that would be a giveaway)
after beating the twins there (another clue is alot more enemies like crushers and disablers)
you get your golden balls.
So I never rang any bells in any of the games I played today, except for the last one where they were just there at the start. I had assumed I’d just run past them before.
I hit the left bell and we teleported. We won the match… But I only got the single damnation badge/penance for it.
There are two bells: one for a normal fight and the second for the hard mode. The second bell is unlocked after you or other player in the team have completed a puzzle with bells on the map.
I really enjoyed it…the day it came out. My friends and I spent the afternoon beating it, unlocking hard mode, and than beating hard mode. Was a fun challenge, however it has no longevity. I thought the boss fight itself was fun, but I haven’t played with the new spawns yet.
Imo the biggest thing for me is Rinda. She’s a very fun enemy, you can learn her attack patterns, which way to dodge, when you can sneak attacks in, how to capitalize on her shield being broken etc. And I wish there were more enemies with that level of depth to them.
Removing the Twins ambush from the game was one of the worst things FS has done with Darktide.
Imo I don’t think they would be good for that sort of thing. As Nurgle demons they would be the same as Crushers and Maulers, very slow and easy to dodge with limited movesets. I think Scab Lieutenants or Cultist Champions would have a lot more potential to be these single strong enemies with interesting movesets.
I still think the best way to go about is when an ambush happens it’s lead by 1 strong enemy, not a mini boss but still a single big threat.
Plaguebearers would be better as either a Mauler or Bulwark (health tank instead of shield tank) equivalent for the Cult of Admonition.
add the “kill them within 5 seconds of each other” penance to the ‘super reasonable request that relies entirely on teammates’ pile. Utter swill.
