Duty and Honor nerf is misguided

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see gold toughness being targeted as a problem and being nerfed, but I don’t believe this is the right way to go about it. The issue moreso lies in how gold toughness works mechanically, rather than the rate at which active abilities grant it.

Gold toughness currently nullifies ALL damage you take (that doesn’t just bypass toughness in the first place), which makes it really overpowering and cheap. There’s a lot of stuff designed to effectively bypass toughness and hit you for a lot of damage (or just outright instakill you) that gold toughness just ignores - crusher/mauler overheads, plasma gunner shots, snipers, poxbursters.

I think the 10s nerf is probably fine as is but I believe the effective invincibility from gold toughness needs to be removed. Darktide’s most threatening enemies shouldn’t cease to be a threat.

10 Likes
2

Without gold toughness, vet and psyker will be easily killed by a bulwalk or a crusher’s light strike in havoc(without hitting down). Talent strenth now suit with game mechanism. if we need to change one of those, the other one should be rework as well.

1 Like
3

I mean it’s always a balance between uptime and effectiveness. It’s genuinely fine for golden toughness to be this powerful as long as you can actually be punished for not using it at the right time. Is the duration nerf enough to achieve that? Probably not, but I maintain that keeping abilities powerful while limiting their use leads to more interesting gameplay than weaker abilities you spam.

9 Likes
4

Reducing CDR and now duration are good steps. I think it makes the ability require a little more awareness by the Vet for optimal usage and you can’t just shout, book, shout for permanent gold safety blanket. I’m okay with it being able to block HP damage but have it so that you can’t regen gold toughness after you lose it to damage. Basically tone down the amount of unga bunga it lets your team get away with.

5 Likes
5

I agree. Not being able to regenerate GT would do more to curtail its (over-)effectiveness than a duration nerf, and imo fits the expected usage.

It’s shouldn’t be: “have an extra layer of overshield for X seconds that you can replenish”.

It should be: “have an extra layer of overshield until it’s depleted, or X seconds have elapsed”.

4 Likes
6

Honestly, I think the invulnerability mechanic tied to Gold Toughness should have been removed before this round of adjustments.
The 15-second duration of “Duty and Honor” was clearly too long, especially considering VoC’s base cooldown of 30 seconds, so the nerf was justified.
What I personally find problematic, however, is that this effect applies to all allies.
If it were limited to the user only, it would still be reasonable — but as it stands, the entire team becomes effectively invincible on a frequent basis.

As a support skill concept, I think it would be much better balanced if the invulnerability effect were removed entirely, and instead:

  • The duration and cooldown remain the same, but Gold Toughness is granted only to the user.

  • Allies within range receive 25% damage reduction.

This is just one possible example, but I believe it would create a more balanced design.

1 Like
7

Darktide shouldn’t be balanced around Havoc, as Damnation and Auric are both superior candidates for such a distinction. Havoc can and should be adjusted in accordance with any balancing changes, not the other way around.

16 Likes
8

I like the idea brought up in the hotfix thread where toughness shouldn’t be constantly regenerating for those 10-15 seconds. Sure, still refill normal toughness and give the 50 gold toughness, but it goes away after the 10 seconds or taking a >50 dmg hit, whichever first, and toughness does not constantly regenerate for the duration, especially not back to gold.

The constant regeneration of gold toughness should be chorus’s niche since the trade-off is that you can’t perform any other action while channelling chorus.

3 Likes
9

Even then it’s not that big of a tradeoff. I keep hearing a lot of people say Chorus’ downside is that you can’t attack during it but its mass suppression and stagger means a lot of the enemies aren’t attacking either, so overall your team comes out massively ahead in terms of damage output.

1 Like
10

Gold Toughness should work as an extension of your toughness bar and give a temporary boost. It shouldn’t be a toughness bar for your toughness bar nor should you be able to regen it with regular sources of toughness.

5 Likes
11

if stacking numbers and talents is intended to beat a games mechanic instead of player skill, its the wrong mechanic in the first place.

one: if you play a squishy class, don’t get hit by such telegraphed attacks,

two: the fact that you need mandatory cheapshit just to stomach one hit is cheesing in itself at its best.

out of the box fair sustainability of each character out of himself should be the norm, based on player quality, movement aim, skill basically.

not who happens to cite some book or cast a space condom around you

12

You can go havoc 40 and play vetran without gold toughness, then you will realise what a joke you’ve just said. Those squishy classes even can hardly survive from few shooters without gold toughness and bubble. You are ogryn, of course you don’t know what other classes are suffering. Gold thoughness will disappear when facing berserkers and gunners, bubble can only exist six seconds in gunners shooting.

1 Like
13

Had fatshark ever nerf havoc enemy spawning? They had not. In this case, every nerf for players power will do no sence for low difficulty, but be destructive for high difficulty hard core players. Those core players are same important for DT and you have no right to negate their gaming experience.

14

well for once except psyker I play all classes albeit not equally as often.

what I dont consider “skill” though is relying on some talents or numbers, nor do I play “waterboy” for the team as “support”

hence this time I don’t play havoc at all cause I see no sense in playing buff-me-up and whack a mole at nausea.

if you enjoy a mode that has you rely on others or certain talents rather than raw player skill i’d say jokes on you.

:man_shrugging:

havoc isnt “hard core” it’s a rainbow colored excel sheet.

those “havoc 40s”?

we got bets on how fast they die and leave in auric maelstrom once no one’s watching his pecker :laughing:

15

You’d better try it, then you can give your advise. FS set this game mode cause they want it become a endgame gameplay, that is for players which want to become stronger and challenge themself. No matter how mess it is, people still keep working on it. Those ‘meta’ things can only be some ways to reach their target. With 1 ‘meta’ ability, they can try more kinds of build combinations. If there be no strong thing to support basic build logic. They will have no choice to try what they like, but just keep going on other ‘meta’ things after nerf.

2 Likes
16

i can respect this take, even if i dont agree balancing around havoc.

17

how many times should I still get the havoc 40 tag to decide its not worth it?

been 2x now, won’t be a 3th anytime soon

been carrying and clutching auric maelstroms when couple of them havoc peeps folded like paper bags, if that aint a challenge then what?

on the other side I can’t take pride in a result that’s based on mandatory talents.

18

You’d better try havoc 40 in rotten-purple, rotten-stim, purple-stim game. Then you may realise what FS did makes it nearly unwinnable. Auric maelstroms? Everyone can play it happily, that will be ok. If you think some strong players destroyed your gameplay. You can avoid them or team up with your friends. Cause maelstrom is only a daily game mode for everyone, nor a hard core choice. That’s even easier than mortis trials.

1 Like
19

Why are you telling him to lower the difficulty when you’re the one who needs to? lol.

20

maybe you’re not getting my point.

again, any mode that has me rely either on a team mates abilities or mandatory stuff that isn’t based on my personal and physical skill isnt considered “hard core” in my book.

havoc 40 solo with no encounter skipped, yep if possible that i’d call a superior player.

4 people buffing each other and proceeding (due to current modifiers) at a snails pace arent.

I played havoc 40, uploaded couple of them matches.

at no point did I use a “meta loadout”, my preferred class sure, nor did I care much for what the other folk were doing other than myself or them not messing up.

purely randos, no mic no callouts and it still was possible.

4 guys each skilled playing for themselves and getting it done.

again, I respect personal, individual skill above all else. If it’s only “possible” due to the contribution of artificial numbers of other characters(overtoughness, bubble etc) how can I take pride in my performance?

so, this one havoc modifier isn’t “harder” but more tedious due to having mandatory requirements

devs should make a higher difficulty setting without just shoving some numbers around

something that truly requires breakneck movement, good aim and physical skill.

Last batch of matches the first to die and quit were havoc players 35+

I can only guess cause they unlearned how to “solo” with 3 others.

no hand holding and down they go.

hardly, if anything I call the race on once someone tries to snack the whole killfeed :laughing:

getting “yellowed” in order to engage “blue” enemies isn’t my definition of strength