If you’re going to force everybody to the meta in order to survive with ammo starvation and overwhelming them with heavy melee, just get rid of the build system altogether. People that want some build diversity in the game have figured out a way to get around the problem.
They just play a different game.
If the build system is removed I will stop playing.
especially if it forces me to play the same weakling way.
going my own way and still get 
done where others fail despite the cheapest option is all the motivation i need to keep playing when content comes slow
I hope these kinds of threads never end
They’re too funny
Nobody is forcing you to do anything in this game. There are people in this community that put “sub-par” builds (sub-par to “meta” that is) to good use, so it is mindset driven.
That’s not to say the game couldn’t benefit from some of the best options being brought down alongside the gameplay slowing down with the amount of spawns that are thrown at players, but I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that removing “build system” - whichever part of it or the whole - is ideal.
I’m sorry, what ?
Is this advocating against the ability to make different builds or talents altogether (title), or for a push toward the balancing being set more around ranged combat than melee combat (body of the post)
If it is the second one: There are many more games that are ranged focused than there are melee ones. and one could argue that “Tide” games have been melee focused at base, with the notion that Darktide did establish being able to have a more balance toward ranged combat.
As toward Darktide needing to move toward a more ranged combat itself, I would like to point to another game, not a tide game, but outside of FS’s stuff, it’s one of the closest I’d say: Space Hulk: Deathwing. Now there are other specialities that matter, but one of the biggest one between the Tides and Deathwing is one being focused on having the ranged weapons the primary weapons and having the melee be secondary/back up weapons.
Accidental truke
I agree. Game was better before the clown trees were added. Need to go back to VerminTide 2 system.
BACK IN MY DAY… when no one had skill trees, we had to suffer whatever weapons and curio stats were given to us for 20+ hours or more, grinding our way to buy another sh*t curio/weapon. We still made it work and we still had fun. Honestly, the game is becoming more about min/maxing than actually having fun at this point and it’s largely in part due to skill trees and things like Havoc existing.
How often are you shooting your gun that you’re always starved for ammo? The tide games have always been a more melee-focused game, with darktide pushing range for a 50/50 hybrid gameplay; they never guaranteed range-only builds.
Almost any build can work for Auric(you can run 500 grey weapons), and you can theory craft builds for Havoc 40 granted you need to know the game in and out to figure out what works and what doesn’t, like Teleopots. The reason people push meta builds in havoc is that there is a deranking system till you hit 40, then people chill out when they realize they can’t derank anymore.
I’m the first to rant about how specific Havoc modifiers and their combos ruin build variety, but things aren’t that terrible, unless you like the idea of brining a Heavy Sword into a Rotten Armour missions. Sadly you often feel “forced” into some picks due to fairly unhinged Havoc modifiers.
Things are worse with some guns, which were already considered “meh” in Auric difficulties, especially with ranged enemy seeds. This is partially due to pretty terrible gun mechanics in Darktide. Partially because some of those guns were initially intended to be used as anti-horde ranged weapons…
In general unless you have a whole team of really ammo hungry builds, I find scavenging usually covers my needs.
True, yet I find that a lot of those people avoid specific Havoc modifiers like a plague, and I don’t blame them. I used to spend a lot of time with a friend bashing our heads against bad Rotten Armour combos, with not that optimal builds, because we simply like suffering. People have to vent.
Imagine if we could select what map with what modifiers we would like to play? Even outside this silly Havoc rank system.
It was fun because the core gameplay is fun. Old skills, blessings, lack of Brunt shop and crafting was a complete travesty and clearly done to inflate playertime for the retention reports.
Yeah, the game is fun DESPITE some of pretty questionable design decisions, some of the worst game systems I have seen when it comes to player agency when selecting maps / difficulty, hysterically bad itemisation (lucky, this is issue is mostly the past now), abusive monetisation practices and glacier speed of development, especially when it comes to bug fixes.
Also bless the modders. They continue to provide improvements which make the game playable for many of us.
I’m definitely a fan of Careers+Talents (Vermintide) over Class+Trees (Darktide), but it seems like OP wants neither (Left 4 Dead).
It wasn’t that bad, as the intent was that the class, “Zealot” for example, was a subclass/careeer, and they would add more. But given that didn’t happen the current system is definitely better
Yeah, I know I was there. 
Preach (Class as it used to be) would not have anything added to it, but we would have gotten Zealot → Banisher, and Zealot → Pious Stabber.
Tbh, I’m very glad that we don’t have the old Psyker, the whole intent with the Warp charges was not to my liking.
I know 
I was replying mainly for the people who either weren’t there, and for those who treat it as “we either got just the one talent tree or the multiple build options in the current talent tree” and conveniently forget that the classes were just subclasses to say “the new system is definitively better.”
Which is not what you were doing, of course.
