Gameplay balance should be reverted to closed beta state

[Antilus]

Its funny how you devs put so much effort in balance and then you get these games

the virgin 2000 hours Veteran ‘‘learning how to melee’’ on one side, and the chad 200 hours Ogryn holding left click for 33 minutes straight with this

he didn’t even care about running out of ammo, he would just let himself killed so he could get half his ammo back and hold left click for 5 more minutes

i’m not even dissing the guy he was a great team mate to have at your side i even died at some point and he rescued me saving the mission, we won the game and brought home the loot just fine

Going back to the title of the post, Darktide is not a competitive game, it doesn’t need to be perfectly balanced, it was meant to be a coop game with progression

you would start at level 1, and grind you ass off to unlock the better guns to be able to complete the higher difficulties

it was like this in closed beta and it was the best beta i’ve ever played:

your starting weapons would become wet noodles on Heresy+ and you wouldn’t be able to get to the first airlock (unless you was a psyker just popping crushers with brain burst but thats a side story)

i think the game would benefit if you would just drop this balancing bs, and to just rework everything so that a flashlight does what a flashlight is supposed to do, and a heavy weapon does what a heavy weapon is supposed to do (taking in consideration the damned talents obviously)

back in the beta days i was getting kicked for bringing laspistol on heresy mod, was that toxic? maybe yes, but that was great at the same time cause this is how good games are made, they give you the freedom of challenging yourself so that you would either suck, or get good enough to become a legend, that is what defines fun to me

Now? i see somebody with small arms i just assume its meta now, there is nothing extraordinary in it, everyone is the same, if they good at dodging attacks you can’t tell if they are some OGs or some random with good reflexes without using a mod

but sure, have it your way, nerf old vet skills is fun enough i suppose, next on the list are grenades, if you need help to keep track with the community goals

[weeping.moon]

Kickback is basicaly ogryn equivalent of plasma currently. That pellets count chnage was insane, and kickback was good enough pre buff. Fatshark in its classic manner nerf and buff things via some insane numbers, not just slight adjustements.

[Antilus]

ye but it should be the eqivalent of mg1a since its your starting weapon, (not the current mg1a i’m talking about the pre patch 13 mg1a)

@weeping.moon

It’s just if you take shotgun - play in short range/run and gun style.

Very short runs since you might want to grab Deadshot

[weeping.moon]

I don’t think that fact weapon was a starting one should affects the balance. It’s rly just about how pellets count on kickback works, and because of that range doesn’t matter, add here somewhat good ammo capacity and here you have shotgun-sniper rifle that oneshots everything at any distance.

It’s just if you take shotgun - play in short range/run and gun style.

[Ashrad]

Ahh, the memory of Vet being able to clean room and face tank everything while having Execstance active is coming back.

But I don’t miss shooter stagger though so ehh, maybe it’s better rn.

[Antilus]

call it the real name at least, Volley Fire, and it had nothing to be ashamed of

and whats the difference now? he can just clean rooms with ‘‘Endless’’ frags with bleed effects and with even less skill required

(that is how you clean rooms in real life by the way)

[Ralendil]

There are several weapons and talents totally OP…
I would quote revolver and plasma gun used by a veteran.
The kickback is great against horde. It should be nerfed on its cleave effect.

Many weapons (including the two I have quoted) have a cleave problem. When it is combined with a good build (like on veteran) it makes several weapons totally OP
I suspect Fatshark doesn’t know how to fix the situation as it implies talent tree, blessings and weapons…
However, it ruins the fun when you get in your team someone that “steal” your kills. For me, I begin to pay less attention to the mission and then, when the guy does an error, the entire team wipe or is close to wipe (happens lot of times)

[Antilus]

i think patch 13 was a mistake, they wanted to give the players the cookie of getting new stuff, but then they completely broke the balance and since there are so many talent paths choiches they just can’t be bothered testing those

so they await for our feedback here, so this is exactly what i’m doing, giving them feedback on how to do their job, it seems to be the best thing one could do

and what’s crazy is that they don’t want to sacrifice ANYTHING of their work, they keep every little stupid filler talent just because in their heads ‘‘more choiche = more happyness’’ but with talent trees the whole deal need to be curated, and they just won’t cause they don’t want to work on this game too much

but the reality is that the game was perfect at the start, they just had to add new weapons and new maps (and copy paste the crafting system from the older games, cause crafting should NOT be the main thing of a videogame ever, unless the videogame is about crafting)

for start i’d remove all the rending talents, they just make the low tech op with 0 effort by the player

and thats it folks the deal is done

not really but it would be a good start

simplify, that is the correct word, they need to simplify their maths, if they don’t want to put effort in what they do, at least with simplified math they can make proper changes

problem is they can’t touch anything because they know if they do they break all the blessings, its a real mess they gotten this game into

[weeping.moon]

@Antilus

problem is they can’t touch anything because they know if they do they break all the blessings, its a real mess they gotten this game into

They can’t touch cause without crafting rework it will brick player’s items he was grinding for ten hours.

@Antilus

Very short runs since you might want to grab Deadshot

Well yet again, I think game just needs talent tags. So some talents should be weapon specific, like gems in PoE. So talent A works with revolvers, shotguns, talent B with infantry las and auto, etc (we have that in rudimentary state)

When everything works with everything it just seems to be good, but in reality it’s not, without some restrictions it will be a balance mess.

@Antilus

for start i’d remove all the rending talents

Basically yes, it kills indentity. Weapons that make sense to be efficient at dealing with armor should be in that niche. Same for the weapons that make sense to be efficient at killing regular humans. And blessings should either provide utility, or alternate how weapon works.

And I think it’s good when blessings has cons, like overclocks in DRG. It’s just more agile system when you have tradeoffs.

[Antilus]

@Ralendil

However, it ruins the fun when you get in your team someone that “steal” your kills

not my fun, nope, it just tells me i’m dealing with competent people for ONCE, and i can rest my joints

i already know i’m the best at what i do i really don’t need to prove myself to anybody really

but of course its not just about my fun we are talking to, i think what brings value to the game is to do things that makes sense, if one wants to be silly and bring smallarms in heresy+ he should be able to, but also he should face a bigger challenge that he is facing in the current meta i think

@Ralendil

Before patch 13 80% of blessings were useless, after 20% are still useless.

with ‘‘mistake’’ i don’t mean that things got worse for the players, i mean that things got worse for the devs when they have to balance the game (when they have to balance veteran)

@Ralendil

They reduced blessing effects and the gap between blessing levels. That was the right things to do.

and here i was talking about the 30/40ish extra blue talents the veteran tree has in respect to the other classes that have lower amount of talents but seem doing very well on their own

[Ralendil]

@Antilus

i think patch 13 was a mistake, they wanted to give the players the cookie of getting new stuff, but then they completely broke the balance and since there are so many talent paths choiches they just can’t be bothered testing those

Sorry I disagree about that.
Before patch 13 80% of blessings were useless, after 20% are still useless.
Same about weapons…

But, I also think that they are slow on balance patch… they take their time. However, it ruins the fun by the (long) time they don’t balance things.

@Antilus

and what’s crazy is that they don’t want to sacrifice ANYTHING of their work, they keep every little stupid filler talent just because in their heads ‘‘more choiche = more happyness’’ but with talent trees the whole deal need to be curated, and they just won’t cause they don’t want to work on this game too much

They reduced blessing effects and the gap between blessing levels. That was the right things to do.

@weeping.moon

Well yet again, I think game just needs talent tags. So some talents should be weapon specific, like gems in PoE. So talent A works with revolvers, shotguns, talent B with infantry las and auto, etc (we have that in rudimentary state)

This could work…
Anyways, they should do something, cause a veteran with a revolver can one shoot everything, and more often now that they buffed this build …

[Ashrad]

Tbh, the ‘one shot everything’ build required both Execstance and Markman’s Focus. It would be pretty underwhelming if it didn’t when you sacrifice all comfort for maximum damage.

I hardly see anyone Vet run Execstance anymore let alone Markman’s Focus, although the new buff to MF might change that.

[weeping.moon]

Vet tree is still very bloated. And left branch provides no stats. Almost all TDR and toughness farm is in the middle path.

Left branch is also weakspot damage heavy. Like infantry lasguns have meh body damage, ~170 flak for mg la (don’t remember precisely) and barely you can buff it via skill tree.

So you have a scope gun with the same mobility as bolter.

And on top of that you need to go ads, it takes animation and decrease your fov making you vulnerable.

Tl;dr: no stats, conditional damage, risky unrewarding playstyle.

Tho I think one little detail could make it immensely better: increased cleave (so +1 more target for human sized enemies) for Exe stance or Marksman’s focus, it will just buff every aspect - more damage, easier to stack buffs.

[Tamren]

@weeping.moon

Fatshark in its classic manner nerf and buff things via some insane numbers, not just slight adjustements.

It feels like they keep falling into the classic egotistical gamedev trap of nerfing things that are used the most in an attempt to “encourage” players to engage with other content rather than presenting us with a list of options and allowing us to pick the one we find the most entertaining.

[Ashrad]

Isn’t that’s the point though?

The ‘entertaining’ option for most player are usually the one that are the most powerful because ofc people like to kill thing, by presenting more of as powerful option you’ll risk turning the entire game into cake walk.

Maybe it’s egotistical or maybe not but it’s better to keep to the game’s vision rather than let things go wild.

Weeping moon’s point still stand though, they totally killed shredder pistol the last time they nerfed it but then somehow make Columnus IAG as equally or even more OP than it ever was. Lmao

[omar_uav]

Please dont remind me of the “Golden Era of Technology”

[Crayvun]

I’ve thought about this a lot too.

If you think about it, the weapon designers did a great job, likely in a seperate area from the guys doing overall balance and difficulty.

So you have this weird situation where a gun is designed, and then goes through several types of adjustments. From the variants, to the random stats, to even something like how fast they decide to make them shoot, different fire modes.

To me it seems like, once upon a time, there was one Variant of each weapon, and they were perfect. As close to 40k as they could get.

And what we got was chopped up, cannibalised, reversed and adjusted until the power sword had a 3 second uptime before needing to be reactivated

[Ashrad]

Well, tbh half of it is supposedly a bug. IIrc Volley fire’s description only state to reduce range damage but somehow it also reduce melee damage too so Vet literally could stand still shooting at elite enemy to regen toughness while horde are bonking him in the head.

[omar_uav]

true it was shown as 75% ranged damage resistance but even saved you from pox bomber. Average FS: Hey it was a bug that we did? okay lets remove the whole feature, make you unable to return fire.

[dragomusic]

@Ashrad

Weeping moon’s point still stand though, they totally killed shredder pistol the last time they nerfed it but then somehow make Columnus IAG as equally or even more OP than it ever was. Lmao

I can tell you, with certainty, none of the infantry autos are nearly as strong as the shredder auto pistol at its peak. It was nuking packs of maulers in under a magazine, with no support from ultimates or talents. The only thing that could stop it was Crushers.

Also Shredder Auto is fine. Its decent enough at headshot horde clear and specialist clear. I use it occasionally for the classic preacher auto pistol and chainsword loadout. Just because it’s not insanely op doesn’t mean it’s bad.