Hello FatShark Forums! I wish to talk about the issue with enemy spam in Darktide, give constructive feedback and provide possible ideas for the developers to fix this problem.
After patch 13 happened and talent trees were introduced, a problem with balance arose as players became too powerful. The developers decided to balance it out by increasing AI director’s enemy spawn. This, while effective at first, caused issues that are still present to this day:
-Too much enemies can prove to be too much for players computers, causing a drop in frames and game’s performance;
-Too many enemies is too much for the game’s engine, which leads to things like silent specialists, which no one likes or wants.
This problem can be fixed or at least improved, though, and I think the way to do it is to increase the power of some enemies and in turn decrease their spawn numbers. I wish to go over every enemy that I think could use this change and what would it do for them and their place within Darktide.
Enemy Ogryns
Enemy Ogryns are supposed to be Chaos Warriors and Bulwarks from Vermintide 2. On paper, they should be a type of enemy that is very dangerous in 1 on 1 battle and that the entire team should focus on to take it down as quickly as possible. However, in Darktide that is not the case at all. Enemy ogryns are too weak, and because of that, the AI director needs to spawn them in ridiculously high amounts for them to be threatening.
Crushers, Bulwarks and Reapers all have the same 2 issues:
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They are too easily staggered. There are too many ways to immobilize them, which allows players to kill them before they can even do anything. There’s no need for teamwork because one reject can easily stagger them for 2 seconds with things like a special attack to the head from some weapons. The ogryn class is the worst offender of that issue, being able to heavily stagger them with even as little as one light hit from some weapons.
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Enemy Ogryns have too little heath. Even in the Auric difficulty, some weapons can kill them in 1–4 hits. Yes, not all weapons are as powerful as the Dueling sword or the Knife, but the point is that the majority of weapons allow a single reject to easily deal with any type Ogryn in a matter of seconds without needing the help of their team, rendering those enemies as completely harmless.
Case in point, Ogryns as enemies do not have enough health and get staggered way too easily. So, in order for them to be threatening, the AI director needs to spam those enemies in high numbers to make them be able to do any kind of damage.
To make Ogryns be more on part with their Vermintide 2 counterparts, so we do not need to fight 4+ of them in every fight they appear in, I’d suggest two buffs:
- Increase their stagger resistance. Things like:
-explosions from grenades, barrels;
-impact from Friendly Rock to the head;
-Veteran’s Voice of Command;
They should stagger enemy Ogryns, but not knock them over. Though, abilities like the Ogryn and Arbites charge should still be able to do so. I also think that weapons with a special attack that staggers smaller enemies should be able to cancel the attacks of enemy Ogryns, but not immobilize them for 2 whole seconds, like they do currently. Additionally, in my opinion, the Ogryn class should still be allowed to heavily stagger these enemies with his attacks. It should just require more hits from him than 1–3 hits to the head.
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Increase their health. Since the idea is to see them in smaller numbers, having singular Ogryns be able to tank a lot more damage is the direction I’d aim them in. If we’re talking number I’d go as far as giving them even +100% more health since the result is to work with your team to kill them.
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Make Ogryns be able to launch players in the air with their upward attacks, just like Scab Capitan’s knee jump-kick. This one is a bit specific, and it honestly isn’t really 100% a necessity to make Ogryns more threatening, but an additional thing that, in my opinion, would communicate to the players how powerful this enemy is. I got this idea from Chaos Warriors from Vermintide 2 since they can do exactly that.
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*Special addition to Bulwarks only: Make their shield have a stagger meter that, when filled up after enough attacks, breaks their guard, opening them up for attacks. Since, with increased stagger resistance, they would not be able to get staggered so easily anymore, it would make them much more annoying to deal with. Adding this mechanic would fix that issue. Bulwarks in Vermintide 2 work in this exact way, and they fill their role as a challenging enemy.
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*Special addition to Reapers only: Increase their damage and suppression resistance. Those buffs would significantly increase the danger that Reapers are and would, in turn, make them a much higher priority when they appear on the battlefield. Additionally, it could also incentivize players to use cover when they know they won’t be able to stop the Reaper from shooting.
Not only those buffs would allow for much less of these enemies to be present in every game, but I believe that it would also fundamentally improve and underline the core of Darktide’s gameplay: Teamwork.
In Vermintide 2 Chaos Warriors and Bulwarks are enemies that are encouraged to fight with a team. Even the characters within the game itself underline that part. They say lines like “Chaos Warrior! Maybe don’t fight it alone!” or “Riot Shield, work as a team!”. If Darktide’s counterparts can be at a similar power level and would spawn in way smaller numbers, it would encourage players to essentially gang up on enemy Ogryns which, in turn, encourages teamwork between the players.
This kind of dynamic already exists in Vermintide 2. Once a Chaos Warrior appears, the majority of the time, the whole team starts attacking it to quickly kill it. It makes random players share a common goal: killing a dangerous and tanky enemy. This encourages teamwork between the players, and it’s something that, I think, the developers should always strive for. This dynamic already exists with bosses in Darktide and I think that the changes I proposed would allow Ogryns to become that as well.
Dreg and Scab enemies
When I say “Dregs” and “Scabs” I’m referring to every enemy that is not an Ogryn. I’ve been thinking what can be done to both normal and elite enemies to make them more dangerous but, in turn, require less of them on the screen. I’m pretty confident that I’ve found a solution that not only solves this problem but additionally makes these two groups have their own special traits that make them more special and different from one another.
- Increase the movement and attack speed of the Dregs. Specifically, I mean that Dreg enemies should get:
-Faster walking, running speed;
-Faster attack speed;
-Faster recovery from attacks;
-Faster recovery from being staggered/knocked on the ground;
-Faster reaction to seeing the players approach;
-Faster swapping between weapons (from ranged to melee and vice versa).
This would make things like Dreg Rager’s attack combo a lot more threatening in higher difficulties, which, in turn, would require less of them to be spawned in the game. I’m also including ranged attacks with these buffs so that would make enemies like the Dreg Shotgunner and Dreg Gunner give out more damage than their Scab counterparts and, in turn, require less of them to spawn and remain just as dangerous.
- Increase the damage reduction that flak armor provides for Scabs. I am not familiar with how much damage reduction the current flak armor provides, so I will not be able to give any numbers. However, what I can say is that, in my opinion, it would be worth to increase the flak armor value just enough, so even a regular roamer enemy like a Scab Bruiser would require at least one additional bodyshot to kill. This would make every Scab enemy more tanky, but slower in comparison to the Dreg enemies. And of course, it would make it so we can have fewer enemies on the screen, and they will remain just as threatening.
Maulers
Maulers are essentially a smaller version of a Crusher. They have a deadly overhead attack, but aside from that, they have don’t really have anything interesting to offer. The AI director spawns a horrendously high amount of these enemies at higher difficulties because they die even quicker than a Crusher and are even easier to stagger.
I’ve already talked about my idea to make Scabs have a buff to flak armor. That alone would already make Maulers more Tanky, but I think they could still use one additional buff:
- Increase their health. It will make them even more resilient, and it would allow the AI director to spawn much less of them in game.
Ragers
Ragers have a bit more to offer than Mauler when it comes to their attacks, and they also suffer from being spammed by the AI director.
In my opinion, the buff to the flak armor for the Scabs and the buff for the speed of the Dregs is enough to decrease Ragers spawn numbers without any additional changes.
However, if changes to the Dregs and Scabs is not the route the developers would want to take, then my suggestion to the Ragers is to:
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Increase their health. To make them be able to take more hits before death and not die in one hit from some weapons.
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Increase their stagger resistance while in their combo. This is a feature that was, once again, already present in Vermintide 2 with Savages and in that game it worked well so it could work well in Darktide as well.
The Ranged enemies problem
The main goal of ranged enemies is to be threatening at range. That isn’t really the case in Darktide because players can abuse the slide mechanic to be able to constantly dodge their shots.
The way I see it, is that the slide mechanic is a large part as to why the AI director spawns so much ranged Elites. The more ranged enemies, the more health they can take away from the spam-sliding player in the small time window that they are not sliding and capable of taking damage.
In order to make ranged enemies more threatening, something must be done about the slide mechanic first. I don’t think it’s really possible to fully solve the issue of spam-sliding. However, in my opinion, there are two changes that can be implemented to how the slide works that would make it harder to abuse:
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Make slides become ineffective against ranged attacks when the stamina bar is depleted. To slide, a player needs to be running, so with each slide a player looses a bit of their stamina. This would make it so that when the player wants to spam slide, they will be aware that they can’t do it forever.
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Adding to that, make slides consume a bit of the player’s stamina. Making it so both running and sliding would consume stamina would simply decrease the amount of time a player can spam slide.
Again, I admit those two changes wouldn’t really fix the problem. However, it would force the players to be more aware of their stamina and would also discourage them from sliding through the entire level, simply because constant sliding would no longer provide safety from ranged attacks.
Gunners
The already aforementioned changes to the slide mechanic and Scabs, Dregs buff would already make Gunners more threatening. I however would still propose buffs to those enemies to make them even more threatening at range and higher priority.
- Increase their damage and suppression resistance. Just as with Reapers, this change is not only to make Gunners more dangerous, but to also increase the incentive to use cover when they start shooting. Using cover is a mechanic that is very rarely used by players in Darktide. This buff aims to encourage people to start using cover more often when fighting with ranged enemies.
Shotgunners
Just like with Gunners, Shotgunners don’t need many buffs. They are already completely immune to suppression, so there’s one thing I would do to make them more dangerous.
- Increase their damage. Them making more damage means there can be less of them. Simple as.
And that is all I have to say. This is just my opinion on how I would approach the issue of enemy spam. I know that I took a lot of inspiration from Vermintide 2, but that does not mean that I want Darktide to be Vermintide 3. It’s just that those features are what makes these enemies be so fun to fight against in Vermintide 2. That is why I think taking said features and adding them to Darktide’s enemies would make them much more fun to fight against. At least, in my opinion, it is more fun to fight against 2–6 Bulwarks/Chaos Warriors in Vermintide 2 than it is to fight 4–15 Bulwarks/Crushers in Darktide.
Thank you for reading through this lengthy post of mine. If you have any questions about something I wrote, want to add your own ideas or just want to have a discussion about the issue I spoke about in here, I’m more that happy to talk about it.
Cheers!