Gameplay thoughts

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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So, before we get started, I will claim no particular proficiency at being the psykinetic. This is purely based on my gameplay experiences and understanding of 40k’s internal lore.

Psykers for fun and balance

Currently, psykers face gameplay concerns that no other class faces. Their primary gameplay loop centers on Warp Charges, which are built by Brain Burst (unless you have certain feats, which the sufficiently foolish would argue offsets these concerns, while disregarding that this means you are acknowledging the character cannot function without these feats, which implies a design failure in the core gameplay loop.).

As solutions to this particular concern, I propose the following changes, either individually or together.

  1. Have Brain Burst give preferential targeting to Elites and Monstrosities. Oftentimes these are buried within a trash mob, and given that the general consensus is that the Psyker is the party’s “elite buster”, it makes sense that Brain Burst should be able to target these before going after piddly little shits.
  2. Remove Quicken’s boosted Warp Charge buildup boost, and instead give it the ability to trigger a half strength Brain Burst on every target struck by the Psyckinetic’s Wrath.
  3. Make Brain Burst an instant activate, with a 4 second cooldown between uses.

Force Staves
Given the attention to detail in so many areas, it’s unlikely that the devs were unaware, but the Force Staff is, mechanically, identical to a Force Sword in tabletop. Given limitations of the game format, I do not begrudge them adding additional psyker powers to different staves, but what I would propose is make the Force Staff a melee weapon, but mechanically akin to the Ogryn Gauntlet. Primary attack are staff swings, secondary being the spell effect, and the special attack being a Force Weapon charge up.

This would give it a unique role as a melee weapon for the psyker as it would be better at crowd control, while also retaining the alpha strike power of a force weapon, but in exchange for giving up the Block and Push abilities of the sword. The latter being the primary reason I propose it as a melee slot option rather than retaining it as a ranged slot, like the Ogryn Gauntlet is, in that it requires taking greater risks, but in exchange for having a significantly improved ability for crowd control. It also gives the psyker more reasons to use ranged weapons that are not a Staff.

Boltgun

The biggest concerns I have with the bolter stem from the mistaken interpretation that a boltgun has a blast radius, when they do not. The round does have an explosive charge, but it’s meant to detonate inside a target, causing massive internal trauma. It is not a grenade, able to hit a half dozen proximate enemies at once. Changing this would better specialize the weapon, thus justifying the truly absurd damage it deals to heavy enemies.

Additionally, boltguns traditionally were burst-fire/full auto weapons. I would propose changing the current configuration to have a 3 round aimed burst mode for its secondary, thus reducing its capability as a high damage sniper weapon, while improving it’s capabilities as a close/mid range elite killer.

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I agree on this.
Iirc, this is actually how it worked at some point during the beta.
I have also suggested this preferential targeting a few months ago, but it is probably not going to happen.

With some practice, you can usually lock onto elites and specials even when they are surrounded by trash mobs, since most tag-able enemies are a bit taller.
Due to the additional practice, i do not see it as nearly as big as an issue as back then.

I would assume that the non preferential targeting is going to be kept in place as a thing for players to get better at.
I would be completely fine with that.

A cooldown on all casts of the ability would be a massive nerf to brainburst itself and to the psyker as a whole.
At the same time, turning the ability into an instant cast would remove the awareness and skill required to properly use the BB ability while enemies are around.
Also, it would remove the ability to change your mind regarding your current target.

The left click cast should stay the same as it is. It requires situational awareness and skill from the user, while allowing you to constantly BB if you want to.
Although it could be a reasonable option to change only the right click variant to be an instant cast with a cooldown of something like 10 sec (which only applies to the right click, but allows you to keep casting your left click BB).

The insta cast right click with 10sec cooldown would allow you to:

  • instant BB a target when it comes into line of sight (This is the only role that the right click BB currently has. Instead of pre charging when you hear the enemy coming, you would now stop using the right click so that the cooldown is ready when needed).
  • build up and maintain Warp Charges by insta brainbursting fodder enemies once in a while
  • sometimes instantly delete a weak priority target
  • sometimes deal high burst damage to a strong priority target with 2 BB in about the time that it usually takes to cast 1 BB

This could be implemented in two ways (i prefer option 1):

  1. You always use left click to cast your BB, but can right click (with 10 sec cooldown) at any time during an active BB cast in order to instantly finish the cast. (This way you would also be able to react to your current target suddenly becoming a danger, by instantly finishing the cast to stun or kill it.)
  2. Left click and right click do not interact with each other. You aim and rightclick to instantly BB a target (hopefully the one you wanted).

Resulting user experience:
Especially newer players often struggle to finish a brainburst cast before someone else kills the target, which feels pretty bad (I see this issue with my buddy who just started playing psyker, and i also remember it from my own early psyking days.).
The ability to instant cast once in a while would serve to make the psyker more accessible and massively reduce the frustration of new players, that comes with feeling useless because teammates constantly focus down your glowing BB target before you finish the cast.

The option to instant cast BB once in a while would additionally add an other ressource to skillfully manage and use at the right time (the right click is currenly pretty nieche in its use).

That said, i think that the Psyker already is in a good place right now.
Adding this instant cast is not direly needed, but would still be appreciated by new players as well as experienced psykers.

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