Firstly, I love the redesign of the final area. It definitely feels like you’re entering the nest now. I’d love to see more maps like it. The characters go on and on about Nurgle corruption but rarely do we see an entire environment warped around it. As someone who’s first experience with 40k was Darktide, this really sticks out in my mind as a good representation of the battle against chaos. Just you and your squad in an infested hive, screaming and letting loose flame on the rot.
Secondly, I love the finale spawns. The arena being tiny + very close drop spawns makes for a really dense, hectic fight. I’ve only rolled boss Hab once but a Plague Ogryn and Beast of Nurgle in there was hell (in the very best way).
Thirdly, letting the spawns actually get in the way during the finale run is awesome! Before they just trailed and it was punishment if you were slow. Now it’s actually something to engage with and have to overcome.
So yeah, really good job on the redesign! Very fun, very memorable ^.^
This whole idea about nurgle infestation transforming the environment with it’s warp-corruption made me realize we need a psyker/sorcerer enemy specialist, possibly even a boss ala plague-ogryns/other monstrosities, that is a powerful psyker using plague-magic, biomancy, and other forms of foul sorcery, which can some times spawn.
I recall there was a plague-sorcerer specialist that could spawn in vermintide 2 and I feel like enemy sorcerers are missing in Darktide.
I’m also sad that the Karnak twins don’t seem to be a recurring map condition on auric/maelstrom levels, so we occasionally get to fight them when it comes up in rotation. That’d be nice.
We need enemy variation. More specialists, more sorcery/psykers.
How about a new boss that is like the “mother of the plaguehounds”? Maybe a map or a mission built around it, “Mission: Where do those damned dogs come from?” and you have to find and kill the packmother or something to that effect. An oversized, stronger, faster, and more detailed, more brutal chaoshound, counts as a monstrosity, that can spawn if the condition is Hunting Grounds too?
If they add Blightstormers to Darktide I will never forgive you.
On-topic, Papa Nurgle’s Christmas Tree is definitely a lot better than it was before, but I still think it’s overtuned compared to the rest of the finales. The amount of enemies it barfs at you is insane and really difficult to handle without Psyker shields or Ogryn taunt, especially when you factor in the new bombers and Snipers on the far side being hard to hit.
I’ve also seen an issue where players are too busy killing random trash mobs in a corner somewhere instead of doing the objective. Players need to cover the other guy doing the hack, and when they don’t, it’s really annoying.
Thematically, it’s great - now I feel like I’m actually doing something important instead of just scanning some gunk and bouncing. I also hate the nobility of Tertium with my guts and I hope they die soon enough.
I wish the mini game locations weren’t so exposed, especially with the amount of ranged elites and specialists that get thrown at you, but besides that it’s a lot of fun.
I personally hate the changes because it was by far the best finale before. Hectic, actually difficult, and non stop action and spawns. Plus actual teamwork was very much encouraged because of how the scanners work and how many enemies there were.
Now it’s sort of boring. You just stand at the door and kill stuff until the waves give you a break, then you do the gameboy thing, then you repeat. It’s now as boring as all the other “stand at position and shoot waves” finales, which is very boring. Finales should be hectic and difficult and where missions fail imo
yeah this change might have made the map more story significant and the tree getting wounded is cool (if yet another effect that is way too loud/long seriously in limited visibility maelstroms these kinds of things are bad, but separate issue) but the change is seriously boring and just throws the end event into the scheme of servo skull maps, but worse. because unlike the standard event that is at least randomized in duration there is absolutely no reason not to mash click and cycle without even checking the screen here. I’ve seen people drop the terminals even faster than if they’ve used ‘Decode Helper’ mod (which doesn’t do anything but show the next slot(s)). The events need to be more dynamic like the air handler gauntlet in Sycorax. There could have easily been scanning re-used at the end event, possibly to match the plague tree samples, and then a single decoder style crash to satisfy both worlds. But nah lets just turn Hab Dreyko into yet another servo skull decoder enemy hold-out, but the decoder game is far worse designed and even simpler…
People are still afraid / unfamiliar with the new hacking “mini-game” so yeah, it can get quite hectic there due to time and attrition. I wish more events had that feeling of intensity. Too many events can be completed too quickly / easily.
The AI director in general doesn’t ramp up enemy spawns, doesnt spawn specific enemy type at all. Also there seems to be a bug which results in even less enemies being spawned during events, and as roaming / ambient enemies than usual. It has been like that for months now, it has been reported. Its crazy this hasn’t been fixed@FatsharkJulia