I’ve worked my way up through the difficulties since the 17th.
And now that we’re doing Heresy, I feel like I need to say that enemy damage on las rifle and autogun squads is just too much.
I don’t want this game to be easy. But groups of las gunners have brought my entire group to a standstill for minutes at a time. There are several reasons for this.
-Each member of the group can burst fire their weapon. That’s two shots per guy that chooses to shoot. In a group of 10 to 12 las or auto gunners, even 4 of them shooting at you feels like you’re pinned by a machine gun.
-Just one las gunner on Heresy is enough to tear through your full toughness with two volleys. Multiple that by 4 and you will have your toughness stripped and your HP shredded in their very first volley. I.e, if the first time you realized they were there is when they started shooting you, then you’re already screwed.
-Their shots clip through cover. I’m not even talking the barricades, sandbags or aegis. I’m talking about their shots clipping through edges of solid walls. So when edging up close to a corner so you can maybe peek out, you start getting shot before you’ve even looked.
-Their shots are stupidly accurate. If they weren’t restricted to 2 round bursts, they’d be more deadly than reapers or gunners.
-The stagger and knockback means you can’t advance, and the suppression means you struggle to return any sort of accurate fire (and get your face shot off in the process.) Flank, you say? Cool. What about the beginning of half of the missions that are either huge open rooms, or bridge crossings? Flanking works when the terrain works. But it’s not like they only show up where there are convenient flanking paths.
I don’t know if the LOS or shot clipping can really be fixed. Vermintide is notorious for “I can hack you apart through this wall and you can do the same to me” collision detection. But for a game about guns, it’s pretty embarrassing that the edges of walls and corners and cover essentially don’t exist. But their accuracy, damage and willingness to focus fire a target can all be adjusted.
(I just played a game where the entire group was together, moving down some stairs. Everyone in the front engaged in melee. And then the las gunners spawned and all fired directly at me and I went from full health and toughness to basically dead in their very first volley.)
Auto guns don’t seem as strong as las guns in the hands of the enemy, but even then a couple of them shooting at the same target is enough to immediately strip a player’s toughness.
Like, if Heresy is this bad, WTF is Damnation like? Does the red flash before they actually shoot you strip your toughness at that point?
Malice difficulty felt like a pretty good balance. You took maybe 1 or 2 hits to your toughness from a single guy, had some left and promptly sought some cover. If you dawdle or don’t take it seriously, you get taxed. On Heresy though, it’s like if you’re getting shot by even one guy, you’re already out of toughness.
Las and autogun squads are by far the thing I fear most in Heresy now. There’s plenty of other horrible stuff like turning a corner into a crusher and a reaper at the same time, or getting dogpiled by bombers and snipers and flamers and hounds simultaneously. Those suck but are manageable. But a 12 stong las squad brings the entire group to a halt. We’re all for slow and tactical play, but getting our asses shot off when we even try to see what we’re up against is just too much.