Does Fatshark Actually Consider Havoc Mode Finished?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Havoc mode is in dire need of a rework.

I have 9.2k hours in Verm, and 1.7k in darktide, but at this point I can no longer continue to play the game with the current state of havoc mode.

The previous rotations completely killed my enjoyment for this game by forcing blight spreads for months on end, forcing Chasm Station and Chasm Logistratum into every map playlist which are all extremely limited in the first place, and balance changes displaying a complete lack of understanding of game balance by the developers.

The game has been out for full release for years now, I think it’s finally time to revisit havoc mode and consider providing loyal and endgame players an enjoyable way to experience your game.

I have a few suggestions for havoc mode that are not perfect, but would be VERY EASY to implement for Fatshark, and would be an objective upgrade to the mode that I think any endgame player would agree feels quite undercooked:

  1. Open all maps in the playlist. This should have been done from the start. By providing a very small limited pool of maps for havoc rotations, you effectively force the people who spend the most time on the game to have the least varied experience while playing the game. The design is baffling and unless there are severe technological issues preventing this from happening, this should be implemented ASAP.

  2. REVISIT HAVOC MODIFIERS. - The modifiers for havoc are a failure in design. No havoc players search for specific modifiers or log on to have fun with specific modifiers, modifiers serve as an annoyance and players often interact with modifiers by avoiding the bad modifiers or prioritizing the least annoying or least intrusive to their gameplay experience. While I know revisiting modifiers is likely too much to ask (I assume doing ANY amount of work with this game is too much work at this point with my current faith in fatshark), an alternative would be to OPEN ALL MODIFIERS during each rotation. This would allow for many more combinations of modifiers and prevent the current situation where 4 players will often have 2 or 3 people with the exact same map and modifiers. This would also allow for interesting modifier combinations and make the endgame experience feel much less limiting.

There are many glaring issues with the game and with balance, but I think tackling the issues above would actually help give some goodwill back to the endgame players who feel completely neglected and disrespected by the current handling of havoc mode. I think these would also be extremely easy to implement from a technical level, and I’m curious to hear from the community how they would like to improve havoc mode or the overall endgame experience.

2

The overall game balance needs to be addressed before Havoc.

  • Reduce the excessive spam of Elites and Specialists.
  • Buff underperforming weapons and nerf OP ones.
  • Rebalance OP abilities such as Gold Toughness and Smite and DoT damage.

Making these changes alone would make Auric, especially HISTG, a difficulty aimed at roughly the top 5~10% of players, with Maelstrom serving as an even greater challenge above it.

As a result, it should be obvious that Havoc doesn’t need 40 difficulty levels. Five would be more than enough.

Once the overall game balance has been improved, Havoc can then be redesigned around that healthier foundation.

3

Im going to keep saying it, like it or not, Havoc realistically is the game, after the beginning difficulties ending at auric.

The basic difficulties are balanced and are fun to play occasionally with randos, But I think things should be balanced around havoc, since long time players are only playing havoc.

4

been playing since first day of beta, 2.2k hours, wont play havoc unless renewing my eartag to shut up the naggers.

after that its “free for all” maelstrom instead of bubble&cuddle havoc.

so no, long time players are NOT only playing havoc, if given the chance id only play solo though :man_shrugging:
that is full progression etc instead of “just the mod”, which is fine for what it does though.

5

The game really feels so much better with the fading light modifiers. They should just make havoc 29 and 40 into quick play difficulties.

6

Why Havoc should not be used as the baseline for balance has been discussed countless times on these forums, so you should look through the previous posts.

The reason Auric feels easy is because there are currently many overpowered weapons, builds, and abilities that allow players to effectively skip the intended difficulty. Winning because of your weapon or build is not player skill.

This game, or rather, the Tide games, are not games where you optimize your weapons and builds to achieve victory. They are games where you become better by playing repeatedly and building up your knowledge and experience.

For reference, one of my friends bought Darktide during last year’s sale. At the time, he mainly played Zealot and was only around level 60, yet he had already cleared Havoc 40 and earned the title.

I then asked him to play a Damnation duo with me using FOTF, a Combat Axe, and an Infantry Lasgun. As I expected, he went down many times. We also played vanilla Auric, and he could barely do anything.

Most likely, he had simply cleared Havoc by doing nothing more than spamming Chorus.

His actual player skill is below Heresy.

And this applies to the majority of current Auric and Havoc players.

The longer you have played this game, the more you should understand that this is the reality.

7

I mean, if the to-do list wasn’t so long for the core format, I wouldn’t mind Fatshark spending some developer resources on this.

We need a balance patch (a big one too, scum especially needs significant nerfs). We need new maps. We need new weapons. We need a rework of quickplay. We need cosmetic support for DLC classes. And that’s just off the top of my head.

But sure. If the core format is receiving the improvements it needs … then by all means rework havoc all you want. As long as it doesn’t affect auric (or below), frankly I couldn’t care less.

Evidence please.

3.7k hours here, and I’ve never set foot in havoc.

8

Modifiers for maps are such a fantastic idea, one that I suggested should be added since VT2, but the ones they’ve done are just not fun.

Hunting Grounds - Everyone is tired of this. They’ve gone on about it at length. The bugginess of dogs doesn’t help. I do feel it could get an update where there’s increased chances of Pack Masters spawning, aside from normal Monster spawns. Sort of make it a mini “Monster Specials”, which would be fun.

Power Supply Interruption - Anti-fun and literally gives me, personally, a headache from eye strain. I would be happy if I NEVER had to play this one again, and it’s the only modifier that will make me leave games sometimes. I get that it wants to be moodier, and I think it succeeds in that! But it’s just so dark, and so you literally just see darkness in front of you the entire match until enemies appear there. Especially when someone is abusing the Flame Staff, that’s when the contrast of light and dark really starts to hurt my eyes.

Pox Gas - It’s a good idea, but the implementation is awful. It drags matches out because you inevitably get stuck waiting for cycles of gas (that last far too long) and then when they’re gone you get hordes that prevent pushing. It also severely punishes some classes more than others.
The fields of pox gas are also sometimes insanely large, covering huge areas.
These need to be sporadic and have pre-set layouts that differ. They should force players to use areas that are typically bypassed.

Ventilation Purge - This is not a very fun one, but it’s not that bad. Hordes of snipers can create situations that feel unwinnable (which is, admittedly, a team comp and skill issue), but I have less annoyance with it than others.

The last three have another major problem; if you spawn into a match in darkness, tox gas, or sometimes the fog, you can be completely disoriented on where you are in the map or even which direction you’re supposed to be going. And since you’re often filling in a slot, that means that the situation is bad. You always inherit the god-awful bot’s conditions, so you’re likely to be at a quarter health on your last wound, sometimes without grenades or even a loaded ranged weapon.
And then you don’t know where you are! Just a sea of green, since besides the Tox Gas anuses that fart everywhere there are probably Tox Bombers that no one is killing covering the entire map in toxins.

The game would be a hell of a lot better if these issues could be connected not to the whole run but to AREAS of the map. “Oh no, this area has some toxic-gas spewing anuses! We’ll have to be careful!” Or the power is out in a specific area.

There are some good ones. Monstrous Specials is something I love to play, along with the “no ammo pickups, only Scab” mutator. It can be fun to take your chunkiest build and grind your way through them.

Events have produced some interesting modifiers, too. I would love to see those return and appear randomly. Random side objective of destroying a cultist pillar that summons a boss or Captain. A box of extra stimms for everyone!
Free the modifiers!

9

I’d love if Fatshark could make any kind of announcement about what’s going to happen to Darktide moving forward.

Havoc or not.

Personally, I don’t find all these DLC classes to be that engaging, and I’d rather know if Fatshark intends to expand on the narrative and eventually pit us against Wolfer and then the Admonition, as well as what their plans are after that point.

Vermintide 2 is finished in terms of campaign, story, class evolution, and narratives, and everything feels like it fits perfectly over there.

Sure it took years to get the game to that point, but Darktide is also starting to show it’s age by this point.

I’m not sure where Darktide is headed - we’re no longer rejects, which feels like a copout to me, and the reject angle didn’t work out the way Fatshark hoped - riding the Suicide Squad high, which died in other media pretty fast after the initial hype.

I’m a little soured on Darktide’s failure to reach it’s potential, the gameplay is responsive, but the spawn vomiting and mostly ranged combat is not as fun as the slower and high stakes gameplay of Vermintide 2, and Fatshark can’t seem to get the game to reach that “finished” state or maybe that’s not even their end goal since Darktide is live service?

10

sadly we are at the generation “instant gratification” and the moment one needs to put in the effort he looks for a shortcut or easy way out :man_shrugging:

even sadder that developers cater to such demands instead of telling them off "nope that aint the game for you, mobile’s that way :backhand_index_pointing_right: "

saddest is knowing what the game was at release and what was demanded of players when there was no 30 talent tree, blessings&perks were stuck at 2 rerolls and the weapon itself far from op.

seems like fatshark designed their game backwards with regulating how difficult something was in comparison to the weaponry/talents that now they are stuck tossing even more rainbow stuff against a number neutered player when all it took was getting rid of said op blessings/talents in the first place.

total rollback to early 2023 in terms of item/talent power, 5 at that and see who’s clearing auric maelstrom let alone lower havocs then :face_with_monocle:

that’s the thing, as long as every one sniffs each others rectum close and deep, they all somehow “fail upwards”, learning nothing in the process, much less fundamentals and situational awareness.

the moment you play auric maelstrom with them and everyone goes his own way cause technically you don’t need a full group anymore to clear, he haa nothing in his arsenal to hold his own.
no aim, no movement, no map knowledge.

heck ive seen havoc numbers getting lost on maps.

how the hell can you not know a map inside out by the time you play havoc ? :man_facepalming:

if anything it brought back that mmo crap :“doesnt matter if i suck, i got that item last raid and its gonna make me wolololo…”

11

Being a VT player for years (I was in the first closed beta for 2, had a lot of hours in 1 as well), I think the thing that has hurt this series the most is adding in stuff like talent trees and power scaling on players.

It’s just too much to balance even for game companies with far higher resources. We can see this in any MP game, where they will struggle for the entire lifetime of the game to make balance (and, well, we can’t overlook the trend of intentional imbalance as a cheap way to create more engagement over time).

It also widens the gulf between optimized builds and inefficient builds.

Which, in some games, optimizing your build almost is the gameplay. World of Warcraft is the pre-eminent example across gaming, in my mind.

The 'tide games, since VT1, are about teamwork and individual skill expression in the gameplay loop.

In a future 'tide-style game, I would hope to see no talent trees and no power scaling with leveling/gear. Customization being relegated solely to loadout (with minimal modifiers on them, simply well-developed movesets) and cosmetics.

Then, focus on allowing players to tailor difficulty, scaling health, spawn numbers, harshness of the director . . .

But some IGN reviewer would probably go “uh there’s no sense of ~progression~” because they’re talentless hacks. Just like after the first VT.

12

My unpopular opinion: beside the addition of talent trees and power scaling being a balance issue, the mobility tech introduced in Darktide, allowing us to sprint faster than enemy units, sliding, introducing a lot of player AoE, player high stagger, and player cleave, has made the Tide series going backwards (IMO).

I’m not a super good Vermintide 2 player, but the fact that I still get a bit nervous when the forums start to roll and I hear the shriek of four Plague Monks appearing in a sea of slaves/clanrats and a pair of Shield/Storm Vermin is peak.

Take the same situation in Darktide, and I don’t really care because I can run away, have on-demand non-ult infinite stagger, and endless cleave, and ranged penetration.

Outside of Havoc, there are no true dangerous situations in Darktide where your palms get sweaty because it is so easy to outplay the AI due to how broken and OP the characters and our weapons, and abilities are.

13

not as unpopular as you might think.
im a quake/doom guy through and through and even i am annoyed by the mandatory sliding.

its not like the engagement is satisfyingly “fast”, try quake live for comparison, its the one movement kind that needs to be used for almost the entire match if you want to play efficiently.

strafe jumping in quake felt organic, this sliding is a 700lbs dog with worms coming out his ass so he’s scratching it on the floor consrantly.

14

I couldn’t help but laugh at your description, that’s funny as hell (not sarcasm).

That said - I think the slide is pretty cool. I mean, we do have problems with your mobility being greater than enemies. I think that the problem there is that enemies don’t have any counters to it. I know that programming them to be super-agile could be difficult, but there are other ways. Like how Chaos Spawn can leap to cover distance, or Plogryn can do its charge to catch up. Not to say these are all great, I think the stickiness of the Melee Karnak Twin is kind of lazy, since it’s so instant and so perfect that there is zero counter-play if you’re, saying, trying to rez (OTOH you can get a brief window if you break her shield and stagger her, this is nearly impossible to do in a Havoc-type situation without luck, though, I feel).

But we have nothing like teleporting enemies, very few that slow us down (and I think their tuning is . . . well, it works at its job but it’s also kinda poorly tuned), or flying enemies.

I digress; the slide is cool, adding a way to avoid ranged fire is a great idea, I think, that helps the ranged fights require consideration and compromise. The problem is just like times in VT2 when dodging had too short a cooldown; you just kinda do a repetitive dance in certain scenarios instead of really consider when is the time to do it.

With some tweaking, I think it’d be a great idea that would improve a lot of shooters that aren’t trying to be more realistic.

15

Just make a Havoc 40 quickplay with all maps and no modifiers (besides fading light) and that would solve most of the issues of Havoc for me.

16

well one “swedish workaround”, albeit i bet an unintended one, is the rubberbanding some enemies pull off when the server decides its their turn to close in.
most often either rear spawns or enemies in general from the back, theres a recent post about it being more prominent as of late too (iceskating)

“best boy” be crusher thats been 10 meters away last time you looked and pulled himself towards you instantly the moment you turn around :joy:

it is, but unless strafe jumping that became the norm for traversing the map with all the enemy density we got now the once ever so often slide, when used permanently, feels rather stiff.

plus the fine line between enjoying the immersion and full game-mode, at least for ogryn id wish me a short dash instead. him in constant russian dance pose looks quite off to fit the atmosphere.

or go all the way and grow some swedish meatballs and add outfit damage models to the game.
you slide on your ass for half an hour, your buttcheeks should show and raw at that :rofl:

hope mommy hadron has some iodone for desinfection later :smile:

17

Something that at least looked like the Roadie Run of Gears of War, where you duck low and sprint like your life depended on it would do the job just as well. The slide can sometimes look a bit funny.

18

Oh, there was an FPS rogue-lite, Roboquest, which had some nice movement mechanics for speedrunning that were kind of fun.

19

most movements mechanics feel the part when in first person.

but when spectated from a third person ?

i cant unsee those speedy gonzalez legs :joy: