Now that Havoc’s broken and I played some Aurics, it really highlighted how actually stupid balance is on Aurics.
Aurics are devoid of difficulty or enemy density, comparatively. While I don’t like the shooter balance on high havocs a lot, they’re way too weak on aurics, to the point of being kind of a joke. Ammo is so plentiful that if you have even a single ranged build on the team, he’ll just be blasting at every single enemy on the map, further sapping the fun out of the game because the few enemies that do spawn just get blasted by a bolter/plasma/whatever before you can get to them.
As for the whole mission dynamic, it feels like either you have a team of good players and you just walk through straight to the exit without the director ever throwing a curveball, or your team is inexperienced and just stands still so they can shoot enemies better whenever spawns happen, making it into a boring slog in a different way.
The few plus sides are that weapon and build variety is intact, and that all the missions are available. Plus stuff like Monstrous Specialists is just fun after all. These actually do cause some interesting difficulty spikes.
I rambled a bit, but my point is that I really think Darktide needs a difficulty setting above Damnation if they won’t balance the game to be more interesting on Aurics. Havoc really highlighted how badly I want a difficulty that is actually challenging and not braindead, although Havoc has a whole host of inherent issues (mostly variety being limited for many reasons: less maps, less viable builds, less modifiers, deranks make everyone use the safe builds 24/7) that make it not a suitable solution.
to be honest, when havoc was announced (and i didn´t play vermintide, nor had i any “interest” in reading into the weaves-thing) i thought it more akin to a sort ofbuffet, where you could host any map with any modifier and depending on how much simultaneously you could beat, you proved to have “the longest”.
like picking a map, stacking stuff like I II, nurgle and moebian spawn etc, sprinkle some crazy stuff on top and see if you can do it.
that sort of wishful thinking was unrealistic of course and we ended up with having the party finder that rather prevents one from finding parties…
For me playing Aurics highlight how tedious Havoc missions are. The slow methodical carpal tunnel inducing crawl is certainly difficult, but also not fun.
I’d like it if they could add another difficulty level to the standard mission board without resorting to ‘gunners 1-shot you’ style gameplay. For example I’d like to see more of the captain mid-bosses in the mix, or maybe even a new enemy or two that only shows up on higher difficulties.
Going back to Aurics after Havoc just further highlighted to me how little fun/repetitive Havoc is.
Havoc shooters also feels like playing Warframe with how much sliding you have to do. Didn’t like carpal tunnel there, don’t like it here either.
And as you said, build variety is non-existent unless you are the top .05% of players that can take a rat on a stick, call it a flail, and still win the mission.
But I don’t disagree that they could add more challenge via either a new difficulty, better AI programming, etc as has been discussed in the past.
Yeah I definitely didn’t mean to say Havoc balance is actually good, I’ve made another post on the topic at some point and I think it’s best off staying a quirky side gamemode. The direct comparison simply highlighted that it actually has difficulty spikes and balance tuned for 4 active players in a mission. Both of which are needed on regular missions imo. Aurics honestly feel like duo or even solo content sometimes which is lame on a 4 player coop game.
It made me realize that most of my time on aurics is spent racing for kills, rather than actually surviving and struggling, since there’s nothing else going on.
Playing havoc made me realize how trivial ammo is for guns like the plasma gun for havoc. It also made me realize how pathetic combat shotguns are in contrast. It is honestly just sad.
Havoc made me feel that a weapons balance pass is beyond necessary at this point. All other guns exist solely for flavor in auric. They’re fun, and they work, but they don’t shine.
Recon lasgun can be solid, but the sound of it annoys me.
Las pistol is okay.
Bolt pistol with puncture brings a nice dot.
Agripinaa slugs are not bad for knockdown but are lacking on consistent damage without Deadshot.
Revolver is strong but lacks in ammo economy.
Plasma has the best of every world.
Ammo economy.
Penetration. To the point of going through cover.
Suppression (no need for Deadshot for plasma, just spam mouse 1, so you can spec into even MORE suppression)
The magazine for plasma is so huge your reloads are rare.
Other guns really need to be brought up to plasma’s level imo.
very much this. havoc feels like they gathered some ideas how to make it difficult for popular builds (and fk ogryn if we’re at it), plus some measures to prolong the campaign artificially, like mandatory party finder, weekly updates and demotions.
simply letting people play what they want and how they want, just with more dangerous enemies, was apparently too straightforward to consider.
I wish that they would have made two versions of Havoc. One for quick play and one for party finder. In short my suggestions where:
Quick play version would be gatekept, have base modifiers to set the new difficulty level with, and then add random modifiers (the ones currently in havoc, auric and maelstrom missions, perhaps even some from vermintide) so it would in effect be a “maelstrom” board.
Party finder version would have base modifiers but open slots where one could choose which extra modifiers to add in yourself (freedom of choice to play what you want, with whom you want). Here you could just keep it as it is currently, people can choose to join or not to join any given party so no real reason to make it as gatekept as with the quick play version.
Why we have normal mission with various modifier combinations, auric missions with just more modifiers being stacked, maelstrom missions with an expanded set/pool of modifiers, and now havoc with not only it’s own party/group system but yet another set of different modifiers… all of this… is beyond me to understand how and why it happened like this.
Havoc mode should’ve just been an expansion and rework of Auric. Push the “normal” auric high intensity modifiers down to the normal mission board, do away with maelstroms, and then pool ALL the expanded modifier ideas together (base + maelstrom + havoc) and have Auric Damnations with 1-3 modifiers in effect and then a new difficulty 6 Auric’s with some baseline havoc-like changes (stronger/faster gunners, etc.) with the ability for 1-3+ modifiers to stack on top.
Devise a rating system so the hardest difficulty 6 auric mission is basically havoc rank 40.
Have all of this work through the normal mission interface so you could quick play into different tiers of auric missions if you want.
Then … finally… add a button to pay melk money (so it has a use) to craft a custom assignment that stays available to you once crafted until you complete it.
Chance of a rework happening is near zero of course.
which should be a thing in auric too because it’s just too empty, where sometimes taking horde clear weapons is just pointless when hordes don’t spawn because of weird bugs.
people often go speedy just to force spawns and making harder on purpose which is one of the way to enjoy the game because otherwise is just too chill
Between the Auric Board, Maelstrom missions, Twins, and now Havoc, FS has put out a lot of “hardm0de” material above the game’s base game difficulties, material which is already beyond the skill level of the average player and bulk of the playerbase, and which stress and break talent/item/gear balance that exist at the “normal” difficulty levels (e.g. PG’s don’t feel so insane when you aren’t getting a dozen Elites spawning on a single spot to blap all at once, and enemies don’t all have extra-hardened durable skin).
People complained voluminously about a lack of build variety in Auric missions before Havoc mandated metabuilds for progress. If a new difficulty is just making enemies hit harder, have more HP/armor, and more numerous, would that really help much? It feels like that would get conquered in short order by the crowd clamoring for it, and would further reinforce current high-difficulty metabuilds.
Maybe if there are different things like time pressures, more capable enemy AI (e.g. dodge or seek cover when aimed at, parry/block attacks, focus vulnerable state players, etc), or other such methods, but otherwise the way FS does things it’s hard to see where yet another Hardmode is going to add much.
I think I’m qualified enough at this point to count myself as one of the people who is genuinely good at this game and my position is definitely not that the game needs “harder” difficulties. To go down a path where you are increasingly appealing to a smaller and smaller demographic is not a sustainable path for any dev studio, least of all FS.
There is such a thing as something difficult becoming something easy (or easier) as you get more skilled. That’s normal and that’s fine. I don’t find Auric especially challenging unless my team is grossly underperforming but I am aware that that is not true for the vast majority of the playerbase.
We don’t need more and more niche game modes, there’s enough of them. The only thing adjacent that should be added is the ability to choose missions and modifiers and that’s it.
The game needs rebalancing and content expansions more than it needs one, two or three more difficulties above auric. Most people that play auric already can’t. If you think it’s too easy then just take pride in your skill and leave it at that.
I think where the game is difficulty wise is currently fine. I have about 1600 hours in game, and want to believe I have just enough skill to finish the hardest content in the game. Though I remember the time I would struggle to do Heresy back near launch. I find myself going back to Auric Maelstrom, which I used to dread doing, and enjoying the balanced compared to hours of lvl 35-40 Havoc.
I agree with AlphaOmegaMan’s post.
Personally, I don’t think FS should chase the “Hardcore” demographic. It’s a ever dwindling minority of players. It be a waste of time and recourses to keep trying to cater to such a small amount of players who are more likely to come to forums like this, reddit or steam to voice their displeasure of how easy the game currently is. More maps, and expanding narrative content in line with the difficulty we have would be preem. I’m sure adding more unique enemies and modifiers will come down the line too.
even if the game might be unbalanced, if there was more content would be good, cause more engaging and not boring at least. but sadly no content and gameplay becomes a bit boring after a while.
i’m using anti meta builds, weapons that nobody would ever take, and the game it is what it is, being still easy. the game needs more content which is always better. the fact it is unbalanced perhaps it can be fun for some players so i don’t mind about balance, but i do mind when there’s lack of content. also still lot of mistakes in the talent trees and things put randomly without logic.
modded realm would been better to have cause increased difficulties such onslaught damnation 3 and deathwish etc. fixing stuff as talents, or adding even new to add more content etc. which is way more fun with friends. but they ditched that for no reason.
which is one of the biggest thing that players could get in games like these. l4d2, drg, vt1, vt2 have it, darktide doesn’t have it. which makes the game way more stale.
I agree. Worse than that it separates players from each other through artificial walls, which is bad for the game overall. Party finder was supposed to alleviate this, but it does a bad job, because it doesn’t give players a “looking for group” option. Players need to apply to every group and hope they meet whatever hidden criteria the host is seeking.
Most people work jobs, just want to come home and jam out with friends or some randos for fun. That’s what I see the most of. The goal should be connecting players, not creating boundaries.
I’ve seen artificial boundaries kill games before. I repeat the cautionary tale as often as I can because I feel like fatshark falls into the trap too often. Too many game modes murdered space marine 1. They created a system where players had access to too many game modes and they simply could not find each other. It made a game that had a seemingly healthy population for a time seem barren. It’s currently something that is hurting vermintide 2, but I doubt it will be acknowledged.
Think about how obscene the boundaries are in VT2, you have 5 difficulty levels for the standard game, you have weaves, you have 5 difficulty levels of chaos wastes, you have versus now - then take all of that and sprinkle of gaming population of less than a thousand that is separated heavily by region. It is not a good combination.
Having multiple game modes is totally fine, but the biggest priority needs to be connecting players first.
Density has always been my biggest gripe with DT. it’s just so bare!
It’s also why I ADORED the limited time Moebian hordes and wish they had kept them as a regular modifier. Swinging my pickaxe into a sea of enemies made me happier than a pig in ****.
Then it went away.
Lower difficulties should still have lots of enemies but just vastly weakened. It’s not like we have meaningful 1-on-1 combat with a single combatant for 10 minutes. They’re all fodder so give us MOAR fodder.
Density in havoc has felt much better in general at the higher levels. Now we can’t play that anymore. Sigh.
I disagree with this complaint though. Build variety in the context of Aurics is fine. You can run whatever off meta thing you want and still do fine if you got the fundamentals down. I think the actual legitimate complaint is that the meta overpowers aurics too hard whereas the lesser stuff is closer to matching it. I’m not saying that build variety in general is fine btw. It’s a class/weapon design issue rather than an issue with aurics though.
Yeah it would essentially be playing into powercreep. I think rather than too many stat changes it should just bring more chaos and more density. I still wanna be able to bring my shovel, but I want it to be challenging on a fundamental level, and things like better AI etc like you mention would be a part of this. Stuff like captains spawning as bosses is a fantastic concept for varied difficulty.
I would rather they finally nerf weapons and talents that deserve it to make way for actual difficulty, but alas this sets off the IT’S A PVE GAME DONT NERF STUFF sentiments and causes the games review score to go into the red, so I’m not really seeing this happening.
didn’t get downed once.