Enemies are boring

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1

the enemies in Vermintide 1&2 namely the vermin, had personality, wanting to stab you.
being utterly over-confindent until their superior numbers don’t work out and they get fearful.

why are the cultist, so boring? in V2 the chaoswarrior alteast spoke corresponding to characters wich was something.

but DTs enemies are kinda boring, they barely say anything, the only type that stands out to me is the trapper, as they sound like they are salivating profusely at the prospect at Catching someone.
but the rest they are basicly, just random evil dudes…

and i get it that is what cultist are essentially, but just listen to what Dawn of war 1 did for these nutcases:

and with DT, they could go many routes, have some retain some tactical sense and doctrin, still reporting to their HQ with battle information, shouting they lost troops, or how they cornered the playes etc.

while others are batshit insane screaming they want to suck out your spinalfluid, while running at you,

yes they are grunts, but that doesn’t mean they literally can only grunt

how do you guys see this im curious, do you feel the same?
(im aware there are more pressing issues but spare us, there’s no need to make every post about it)

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It’s not a big concern for me personally, but I do think the scab shooters and gunners will talk back and forth while they are engaged in firefights, haven’t heard dregs do this though. The specials kinda have their own flavor, flamers being kinda crazy, mutant lost all sense and language and just screams, dogs… bark, sniper is quiet intentionally I guess, but their most recognizable sound they make is “ACK” and then bomber I agree is kinda basic.

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The Lords also talk, but we don’t hear them loud enough and quite a lot of people simply miss their voice lines, enemy voices should be buffed

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VT2 Stormvermin are missing like 8 minutes of voicelines they had in the first game, but still had enough heart to carry the cast in VT2, agreed. But because most of the other rats never spoke, lol. Globadier has like 12 minutes of voicelines entirely unused because the sound of his bellows-powered gas mask is cooler. Skavenslaves that were new to VT2 just yell when they rally in hordes (since they can’t be drawn as ambients). Gun rat has the faintest evil laugh of all you never hear over all the cranking and clanking of him moving around/fidgeting his gun or shooting it. Flame rat is literally ‘scream suffer surface-dwellers’. I think packmaster says ‘gotcha’ if he grabs you. Very limited rat dialogue compared to VT1.

Audio is a big problem in this game but I don’t think the lines were of poor variety. You just can hardly hear them even with sounds focused on those ques. I think its actually a bug with their ‘echo locating’ system they use that is supposed to prioritize that sound to your location at all times, but there are a lot of areas with buggy audio. Even some that deafen the game area outside a room completely, which is an obvious error.

My main complaint there would be ragers, they are absolutely silent most of the time until they’re right on top of you giving you that Fred Flintstone yell. They absolutely have audio but it is very hard to hear between the constant warnings of incoming fire and gunfire and most especially how bizarrely and clearly bugged and muted they are. Bulwarks used to be a lot louder in combat too, whenever they stun they make very loud oafish grunts but now you can barely hear that at all. I think its some kind of general sound setting for elites that is lowered because specials are fine.

Also how do you not love the scab flamer, he’s like the best enemy voice yet. Especially his ‘ready to purge!!’ and 'want ‘em crispy?’ lines.

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It’s been a long, long, while now since I last played Darktide so excuse my recollection if I’m fuzzy on the details; but from my limited exposure of the game I quite liked the enemy design of Darktide. The Moebian Sixth oozed so much personality with how they were depicted in-game. One particular instance that stood out to me is how their uniforms would change depending on the biome - for example, some enemies would wear brown outfits in desert zone and others would will wear green outfits. It kept things visually fresh when you see stuff like that. Vermintide didn’t have that kind of dynamic incorporated into its enemy design.

Additionally, the sound design complemented the enemies quite well. The immersive sound of lasrifles ripping over distance. The echo of enemy sniper rifle cracking. Of course I can not forget the diabolical sounds of all the different enemy special units. All of these components added to this dimensional soundscape of Darktide. An auditory fest for the ears!

No real complaints in that regard.

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Actually they do a lot of this but you just can’t really hear them most of the time.

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well i wasn’t really criticizing that they lack immersion or felt out of place, i just feel like they are boring compared to what cultist in 40k can be.

i thought the soundfile give a good picture of what i meant,
and i don’t really know what a specifically nurglite faction would talk about.
would they mirror the way of their patron? and actually don’t hate but rather try to convince of the love of nurgle? like a crackhead trying to convince us to try it just once? i don’t know.

but again apart from 2 specials the trapper and the flamer ( :wink: @MarxistDictator ) they are kinda just silent dudes that grunt and are evil, theres no connection to their patron, or any crazy chaos talk.

all i know is that in 10 years i won’t reference any voicelines of them as an example on how a chaos cultist should sound like :man_shrugging:

8

Hard disagree, they’re all really cool. Also, i swear i heard the enemy scabs say something like “they’re out of ammo, push up” after i said i need ammo with the dialogue wheel, which is pretty neat but i could have misheard what they actually said

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9

I’m more wondering about where are blightstormer and lich analogues? I can’t find excuse why there are no enemy psykers, witches for dregs, sanctioned psykers for scabs.

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They might not want to port them 1 to 1. Like Blight stormers on the Vt2 maps was alright cause there aren’t that many ledges/holes. But here…

But Psyker/Sorcerer Elites or specials, and also as Lords would be great

11

I have to say I find the sound design of our foes excellent. While I actually don’t remember particular voice lines (English isn’t my mothertongue and in the heat of the fight I need my concentration else where) I remember vague tactical chatter, short prayers to nurgle and moments of weeping where there former untainted selves shine through.

Could certain enemies be improved? Sure - there will always be room for improvement. But in general I‘m very happy and don’t see improvement in this area as necessary. Even the silence of ragers makes sense for me as these maniacs are so concentrated on hacking stuff into peaces that there isn’t room for banter. Ragers as an archetype don’t fit nurgle cultists in general as they are far to khorny but that is another matter :slight_smile:

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12

No, I’ve heard that too. Generally speaking, the Scabs sound very believable as an organized military formation (well, not counting their elites, who tend to be a bit more loopy).

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I think they missed the mark of using Loud Speakers throughout the Hive City, they could have orders spewed out creating some kind of identity for the Moebien 6 or whatever. There are even missions to turn off the corrupting speakers, but we never hear it until we are trying to turn them off. The patrols in Vermintide at least had their own version of a marching Rythm. The patrols in Darktide are quiet and boring, I dont even think players call them out as a patrol or anything anymore, Its just more blobs of units.

The main issue is the humor is gone from the enemies. Nothing will compare to rats flying across the screen screaming bloody murder but I think FS missed the mark (again) with Nurgle. They could of found a fantastic way of interpreting the gluttonous, bubotonous filth that is nurgle to make it a more interesting interaction when you approach them or engage in combat.

The Skaven will literally shidookie their pants when you surprise them, jump up and squeal and say funny things like “Whaaat? There not suppose to be here!!”

Nurgle has units that can be funny, nurgle does have an enlightened side, where the unending life of plague has blessed them to the point they become happy.

Halo had Grunts. Nurgle has Nurglings. Imagine Nurglings standing around, what would they chit-chat about? Im sure they would also be dying laughing when they had a chance to fight.

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I know what you mean - I even only recognised them as patrols after playing v2 a little. Unlike v2 the patrols in dt cannot be sensibly avoided and thus actually are just another group of enemies. However the way Darktide and it‘s levels are designed patrols don’t make much sense. In another kind of game where avoidance and sneaking would be actual options I imagine a patrol of moebian 6th moving like professional infantry,shouting commands and checking corners with flashlights could be awesomely terrifying. In a Game where a 4 warrior striketeam disposed of 1000+ enemies it‘s a different matter though.

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15

Yeah the Scabs have a lot of personality with their battle chatter and reactions, but the Dregs just scream generic “spread nurgles truth” one billion times.

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Regular shooters are the real stars of the show, since they have combat-relevant dialogue and a bunch of taunts and alerts. They’ll even taunt you for being out of coherency or on the ground, or when they establish fire superiority over an area. In addition to ammo comments (which there are a lot of, apparently the Moebian 6th and their allies all count shots and can recognize every weapon in the Imperium) they also have player health comments, as well as suppression-related lines about pinning down the rejects or calling for help from their allies when suppressed themselves. The gunners have more dialogue about moving into position, readying their weapon to fire and relishing in the stream of bullets. Shotgunners are kinda boring with elite-sensitive logic since they work the exact same way moving up to players and ignoring the cover system completely.

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17

i often saw, patrols roam and spawn behind the players, blocking the path back, but 99% of the time people don’t notice them, (and why would they) its not like backtracking is a huge part, but yeah when they infront, its too much of a hassle to try and pinpoint normal spawned shooters, who happen to sit next to a patrol, and get aggrod much further.

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18

Yes. Very much so.

I don’t think it’d be quite right to say that nothing that speaks has any personality, but almost all of it might as well be white noise for how much it engages me with the DT world.

I don’t hate the tactical callouts and stuff from enemy shooters, but they’re not the sorts that make me want to show them to my friends to get them interested in the game, like black rats were for V2.

19

Having such voicelines (backed by gestures and such) would be great.
But they are also boring in gameplay because they fight like IQ 10 guys, don’t really work together and they just waste their unholy lives. (ok, lots of players do that too, lol)

Like the gunner who guards two captured guys and decides to run around the corner where the other two team mates massacred everyone, to close combat them. Any dimwit with a big gun would wait and fire at everything that comes around the corner. Like the snipers usually behave. Like overwatch mode from any 40k game.

They are also very shortsighted and deaf. There is a big gunfight with explosions 50m ahead and they don’t care until they get shot.

And they easily sacrifice their best weapon for no reasons. Like there is a mob ob 5-10 shooters which can be quite dangerous and the easiest way to shut them up is to sprint forwards with a close combat weapon. Then they put away their rifle, which is exactly what I wanted, just to use their CC weapon. If they kept distance and shot me, I would be dead instead.

I also miss monster infighting like they had in Doom in the 90ies. Especially monsters could whack some cultists in their way, once in a while. So far, only the burster does splash damage. Imagine a plague ogryn stomping through a horde to reach the team first. But maybe that is too Khorne.

And they are never shooting at barrels.

Some at least alert their group, but only their squad, not everyone around. Say, there are 5 shooters, one is spotting me, he says “loyalists”, his squad looks and fires. While every enemy around them ignores what happens.

Ah, also funny: Poxers prefer to jump roll over small obstacles instead of walking one step around it. How does a stuntman walk around a standing car? He doesn’t, he rolls over the engine cover. A pretty complicated way to get stabbed immediately.

The game stops to be boring though when it suddenly decides to really kill the group by sending 10 snipers (I kid you not), a mutant, a dog, 3 bulwarks, 5 crushers, a horde from behind and a beast of nurgle against two remaining players.

I miss a proper pacing. You can have a mix of cannon fodder and more intelligent enemies from the front, sometimes a horde, sometimes a monster and a map finale. There players can play in a spectrum of relaxation and action and have a challenging climax at the end.
At the moment gameplay isn’t really clever.

20

Agree. The pacing through levels is currently is;

  1. Walk out of spawn for the minute “mission debrief/load level”.
  2. Pull a mix of chaff/elites standing around awkwardly to clear room. Move to next room/section.
  3. Repeat step 2.
  4. Wait for Monster que/special que or horde que while repeating step 2.

I don’t think this is bad, I’m actually ok with it. The layers added to this gameplay loop are objectives that replace step 2, like scan/carry/download/etc.

To get back on topic I think adding layers of interesting enemies with a connection to the world could add variety, instill pacing and immersion. For example two Scabs having their weapons on a table while they toss corpses into a pit. If you approach quietly you can hear a relatable conversation “i didnt sign up for this kind of work one liner”.

Maybe a poxwalker is sitting at a table while others from mobien 6 eat lunch and they wonder if becoming a poxwalker would be worth it. Or even just a traitorguard working on his rifle, still taking the task of cleaning and maintaining their weapon.

I could go on forever… my point being interesting enemies can also show us different things, show us they are living in the hive. More of this would be nice and would make the enemies less boring.

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