Havoc is Fun!

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
41

I disagree strongly. It’s a difficulty and power spike issue. I’ll post it again just because the simplest way to convey this concept is this graphic.

havoc 40 balance
havoc 40 balance1600×1200 145 KB

If these extremely powerful abiltiies and weapons weren’t so extremely powerful compared to everything else, if they were brought more in line, there would be far more variety. To further explain what I mean:

The way it works right now:

  • The meta top tier loadouts and stratgies are 500% effectiveness.
  • The non meta loadouts range from 90-130% effectiveness.
  • You create a difficulty balanced around the meta. What was previously 500% effective is now 100% effective. What was previously 90-130% effective is now 15%-25% effective (ignore the lazy math). Enjoy not using that trash!

The way it could work:

  • Nerf the meta top tier loadouts to not be so insanely busted anymore. Everyone has been asking for this for ages to reign in the powercreep.
  • The meta top tier loadouts and strategies are now 150% effectiveness.
  • The non meta loadouts range from 90-130% effectiveness still, they werent touched.
    You create a difficulty balanced around the meta. What was previously 150% effective is now 100% effective. What was previously 90-130% effective is now 60-90% effective.
    So people can still cheese it and overpower it a little with meta stuff (just like Havoc 40) but you would actually still have variety.

This is just an example. Maybe Havoc 40 should be tuned so it’s actually not possible to just “overpower” it with cheese combos. It would definitely be more interesting and a real thing to work towards if it wasn’t and encourage seeking new approaches. It’s not like this took anyone by surprise, anyone playing this knew exactly from the get go how good vets spamming VoC and psykinetic aura psykers spamming walls would be.

I think the whole Havoc concept is just unfortunately besmirched by how none of the OP stuff got addressed. It got balanced around a couple very power spikey things that completely trivialize content, instead of addressing these things so they don’t completely trivialize content anymore. Partially these abilities are literally so powerful that no amount of challenge could reign them in. What amount of buffs to crusher overheads could make them powerful for Havoc? Perhaps they should oneshot people? Oh wait, they do, but it still doesn’t matter because gold toughness is rechargable spammable gromril armor. But now they just oneshot everyone who isn’t running that. This is just plain terrible balance; it literally buffs the value and power of VoC even more. Same with psykinetic aura and the amount of elites. Why don’t these things ever get addressed? How is Ogryn gunlugger of all things catching nerfs while Psykinetics aura exists? I don’t understand how that happens but something is obviously wrong.

There’s totally a middleground which imo was the case in early damnation before the shooter nerfs. Shooters were dangerous, dangerous enough to impact your loadout choices, but not dangerous enough to kill variety in what can actually play the game as it’s presented. I say that as someone who remembers when Reddit was screeching about how “Ogryns aren’t damnation viable” and it was totally untrue. I even had a large amount of fun using the kickback pre-buff when all it did was stagger because the stagger was actually impactful. Powercreep just gripped this game and never stopped.

8 Likes
42

Gotta say I’m really enjoying how much teamwork comes out even with randoms. Everyone is pulling together and it has so far come out really positive for me.

That said I hate how oppressive the small shooters have become. They are far more threatening than bosses and special packs even, and for what I enjoy about the game that sucks in my opinion. I’m sure there’s no small amount of getting good involved, but I’ll always prefer dealing with interesting melee & specials to riflemen.

The mutation spam is awesome though!

4 Likes
43

Pus Armoured Skin + ranged units is such an obnoxious combination.

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44

It says a lot that they completely ignored responding to this but replied to everything around yours.

The argument that you can’t criticize a game if you aren’t a game dev is such an incredibly absurd one yet one that I’ve seen repeatedly over the years to try to shut down criticism.

It’s sad.

1 Like
45

No amount of buffing will change that VoC is a team wide buff that enables the other careers to have extra toughness. The amount of buffing needed to make Infiltrate, or Executioners worth it in Havoc is kind of unfathomable to me. Unless you absolutely murder abilities like Chorus, Bubble, or VoC, they wont make it in Havoc.

Executioners in particular is such a bad ability. Even the instant reload, and toughness bump on use many people wish for would not make it better in Havoc. Taking the ammo situation in the later levels into consideration makes gun abilities in general a tough choice.

Another point.
In normal Mael you see every Zealot run a different ability. Why? Stealth, Charge, and Chorus are all brilliant there, for one or another reason. Nerfing Chorus for Havoc will not offer more choices there. It will remove one.

It is kind of an intricate thing to balance those three abilities with each other too. Screw up one of them and you did not make the pool of available good builds broader, but laser focus on the one that still works.

Iam kind of amazed we do have three workable abilities for Havoc. Even the Talent trees are not as bound as I feared, and you will find variation wherever possible.

The part I dislike is how Ogryn got shafted. He is playable, but needs to jump many hoops and trust his mates to keep him covered when he screws up, instead of having the leverage of one ability shutting down Gunners. That is something fixable. Taunt or Charge can both buffed in ways that would make the impact in normal Mael minimal, but have a massive impact in Havoc. Like Taunt making Elites force to melee, like Chaff Gunners.

IF the Havoc changes were baseline ones, I would be on the ramparts. But it is not. It is just for one game mode with a very specific set of modifiers, that promotes a specific set of Talents.

(Btw. The reason the bubble is missing in your graph is probably because the size of the column would make the icons and text unreadable, right?)

2 Likes
46

I agree with you there, my point was that rather than buffing something else they should address VoC and bring it in line, and then lower the Havoc baseline a little to allow for more variety. Same with other obviously busted stuff, I’m just using VoC as a stand in for “thing that totally and obviously breaks the game and is unhealthy because it prevents any difficulty to arise”.

Part of what you’re describing is down to powercreep. Executioners stance used to be the hands down best ability in the game. It didn’t change significantly other than losing its instant reload. It did have high DR against ranged damage (or just DR? I forgot) but vet his toughness and more DR talents to compensate. I think if VoC wasn’t so obviously stupid busted it would be way more of a competitive choice already. I think even in current Havoc you can already make use of it, it’s just that the opportunity cost is crazy high. If maybe you could get just a LITTLE BIT more facetime with shooters without a psyker wall or gold toughness on, it would be a fine thing to pick. That’s where Havoc fails. You don’t, and you want either that wall or gold toughness.

I think Chorus isn’t inherently unbalanced, it’s CDR options that make it unbalanced. I agree the balance is intricate but I will say this would be very navigatable if Fatshark made an effort here. As far as I’ve seen they don’t really. The only broken unhealthy thing they’ve ever addressed was old veteran survivalist. It used to just give everyone infinite ammo and threw game balance for a loop as this affected other classes weapons too. The game is far better and it’s easier to balance ranged weapons now that it isn’t as significant of an aura anymore.

I definitely agree they shouldn’t just thoughtlessly slam these abilities, they need to view the deeper interactions. As it is, cooldowns on abilities don’t matter. If you have a psyker, the defacto cooldown on every ability is 15-20 elite kills. How can you ever balance this? How could a high cooldown, high impact ability like chorus ever be balanced like this? How can you ever add a challenge by adding more elites while that is true? This is the type of thing that needs to be nipped in the bud. Until then, “difficulty” as a concept does not exist in Darktide

I just couldn’t be assed to keep pasting images to be honest. It’s just supposed to be a rough concept of what I mean, the distances might be all wrong too.

Finally I agree it’s just a gamemode. It’s just a bit lame to get a gamemode that limits variety rather than making new things viable. Beacon is like the sole exception to that but beacon was already always kind of a sleeper pick. VoC spam already rocked aurics, now it rocks Havoc 40 too. Ehhh

2 Likes
47

Invocation of Death is another one they changed. They needed two passes, but they did.

I like Vet. I enjoy the team buffs you can provide via Survivalist, Field Improv, Focus Target, etc. The reason VoC is so prominent is not only because it is strong, but also because Executioners is a steaming pile of nonsense, and Infiltrator comes with too many hoops to jump through.

E.g. Demo Stockpile being right ontop of VoC, Survivalist being on the other side of the tree, having 15 seconds more CD, and having to go back all the way to the left side to pick up ammo, Shocktrooper, Sup Immunity, and/or Elite damage.

Infiltrate itself is not terrible, but unlike Zealot, who can bring whatever ability and keystone they want and still have some spare points, you get taxed the ever living crap out if you intend to run Invis.

Simply changing VoCs and Infiltrates spots would be a huge nerf to the ability, because of the way the tree is setup and the desirable Talents are placed.

That is why even if you put 15 seconds of extra CD on VoC, and make it only hand everyone half the yellow toughness, it will still be the Talent 90% of Vets will run because of that. Infiltrate either needs some buffs to be worth the extra points, like reducing its CD, or the Tree needs to get changed (again).

Loop back into Invocation of Death. The first “balancing” attempt killed the talent for the off meta slow swingers, and did change jack for the MVP. The knife. On the second try, which only followed after some severe backlash from people recognizing the hidden knife buff, FS managed to make it “right”.

My trust in FS being able to balance the Chorus, VoC, and Bubble triangle in a way that doesnt make it fall apart and leave us with less than we have now is… slim.

3 Likes
48

havoc fun
but i wonder why not all maps are in havoc though
some are missing it seems, unless they will put the other maps when they will put new mutators etc.

1 Like
49

While I do like the mechanics used with current IoD the numbers are still pretty wonky. Pretty easy 100% uptime on FotF attack speed, and generally cutting your cooldown down to 1/3 with an easy condition is pretty bonkers. It’s better than it was don’t get me wrong and it’s now in the realm of being easily fixed with simple number changes but still kinda crazy how strong it came out after two adjustments.

1 Like
50

Auric Maelstrom is the best mode that Darktide currently has, though, and the big reason for that is that Darktide is a casual game where the fun comes from players with over 1k+ hours getting paired with those with 30+ hours.

This creates an exciting gaming experience because there is an experience/game knowledge difference in the team, making games unpredictable because you don’t know what or how the other three people on your team will handle things if something goes wrong, and especially since you can’t communicate outside of pings and the dialogue wheel.

Darktide is also significantly better when players can choose their own loadouts without having to metagame due to modifiers killing specific weapons in Havoc.

The unpredictable element of other players will always be the best modifier that Darktide has, which is both why it’s so addicting to play and why I keep coming back for more.

There are particular games in which I like metagaming, but Darktide is not one of them, and I do not believe it is in Darktide’s best interests to become a metagame.

Darktide is the ideal game for dads with five wives, eleven children, and fifty jobs, and I believe it should remain that way while also allowing for additional skill experience, which it already does.

3 Likes
51

recently did another h40 for the next weekly cache (we won first try)
and 2 people using relic blades, one psyker using BB and it was all fine, cool when people use different stuff.

as expected it is also a matter of time where people will start to get used to havoc and play even with different stuff and not necessarily the same stuff. :smiling_imp:

i just wish a dedicated soundtrack for havoc, maybe unique maps for havoc (standard maps can spawn too), more mutators for sure (which may also fix variation with builds perhaps) while havoc is fun for sure, it is a bit of a downgrade from vt2 weaves imo.

after a while it feels the same, just with more difficulty. i wish there was something else visually too, in term of lighting etc.

1 Like
52

Awesome!

I have returned to Auric Maelstrom, where I can play anything I want, and I will only play one low (rank 1-10) Havoc match every week for 20 weeks until I have the 20 reward cache penance and the last number of played and assists Havoc penances.

After I have done those last penances, I think Havoc is over for me personally.

The new map is the best thing that came out of the update and I like playing it way more than Havoc.

4 Likes
53

hopefully more new weapons, and more maps :smiling_imp:
and maybe that tox ogryn boss that is sitting in the files in the game :laughing:
apparently seems to be the Stormfiend boss version of it

2 Likes
54

I agree.

So I appreciate your post and analysis and I think generally speaking that you’re more or less correct about the problems and even some of the solutions but I think the reality is that I’m right about the binary issue. Even old damnation had a lot of must pick talents or equipment because shooters were a serious threat. There’s always going to be “meta” options that are better than other choices. The best we can do is make the differences small enough between best and mid tier so that most choices can be tolerated by most players. If the game isn’t hard enough to make picks meaningful at the optimization level then the game is too easy. If the shooting enemies don’t make you seriously consider them in every loadout then they don’t matter. A player should be able to choose not to play optimally and suffer those consequences but not everything can be equally good into all situations or variety itself ceases to exist and we get grey mush balance.

Those can be fun games but that’s not at all my opinion of the optimal darktide experience. I would rather have challenges where a well lubricated team of experts is still struggling to win reliably. Losing frequently but fairly is what makes tide games good and Havoc 40 brings that back to the table.

4 Likes
55

Disagree with this, I never felt like I had to run any specific loadout on ogryn, zealot or vet (I didn’t play much psyker at the time so I’m not 100% on it) at all. There were a few totally nobrainer talent choices of course but it was more or less just because the others were bad. I was doing fine just running a shovel and a rumbler, for example, and shooters could be dealt with via intelligent flanking approaches and efficient ammo use (even without a vet)

This is imo the point that is currently messing with Darktides balance. It’s not really the case at all unfortunately. The best choices are just on a totally different level than the mid tier picks. You’re correct that buffing the mid tier picks would just equalize and turn the game samesy, the top picks need to be taken down a notch. Which isn’t happening though and I’m just disappointed it didn’t happen before Havoc.
Like I mean look at the balance here. Psykinetics aura is literally just an extra free aura psyker has. There is no opportunity cost with picking it other than not picking assail which isn’t that good to begin with outside of one specific build. AND it’s better than the just-for-himself ogryn talent version of it (which as you mentioned earlier is kind of OP to begin with itself). What the hell is even the design here lol. How this stuff isn’t getting nerfed to at least reign in the absurd powerspikes a bit is just not understandable to me at all.

3 Likes
56

In this case, because the game design is running counter to the accepted meta and everyone’s deeply upset at having to reverse their mentality. Most of the new modifiers are very clearly set up to punish rushing (corruption lakes pile up in front of you so you can’t run forward with melee and push your way through at top speed and live, shooters hammer the crap out of you so you aren’t going to win blindly running to melee them) and the playerbase at large has met with the game punishing them for their narrow accepted meta system with “well we just need to narrow down the meta more!” and having a very unfun time of it.

I’ve had an easy time of havok games where the players move at a comfortable clip and approach enemies tactically, and i’ve seen maps wipe because people rush ahead trusting to shout/shield spamming and get bodied relentlessly when they start to get spread out because things got sticky. The main problem of havok (Aside from the unintuitive party finder setup, dunno why it tries to match you to parties when you’re in-mission a half hour after you sent the ask) is that most of the players are trying VERY VERY hard to keep playing like the did in auric and not understanding fatshark set it up to make that fail.

57

So we’re okay with giving up a potential increasing playerbase to allow the so-called sweatlords to edge themselves in their little echo chamber?

That is why the Tide games have 4,000 concurrent players instead of 40,000, resulting in less money for Fatshark, fewer opportunities to hire people, and continued glacial development speed.

I do not agree with your point of view, but I do respect it.

2 Likes
58

I think one thing that’s unfortunate about the dynamic you and Reginald describe is that VT2 allowed you to just mod your game and play modded difficulties with friends that way. Impossible in Darktide. I respect that Havoc was added for that purpose to please that subset of players but I can’t help but think it would be a far better solution if they somehow allowed modded online play instead of spending dev time on a very small percentage of players that will actually regularily play Havoc going forward.
I’m especially worried with the implications of weapon balance going forward. You now have a gamemode that is sort of based on the current very powercrept balance. So to un-powercreep it, Havoc likely has to be changed too… I’m not a fan of the additional workload this puts on balancing the game. It means I’m less likely to ever see VoC spam or other things that completely ruin any tension in aurics addressed.

2 Likes
59

It’s just another fun element of Darktide. It is somewhat boring, being that the only thing that makes it challenging before 30-35 is the goop that gets spat and spread between enemies. Filthy heretics. But it really is a nice addition to darktide. You got fast paced trains. You got normal quickplay, sweaty quickplay. Maelstroms. Then finally you got Havoc. Looking from birds eye view, I really think theyre setting us up for something big here. The thing I do hope for though is that there still would be room for a Chaos Wastes type mode later down the road. But ooooooowee am I excited.

2 Likes
60

I’m still waiting for the post-Unlocked n’ Loaded significant balance pass, hopefully it’s a priority for next year. The enemy changes were really nice to see though, more of that would be cool too!

Any changes that move the game from scary peashooters to scary specials/monstrosities, I’m so for!

Optimistically more people may be burned out or skilled up in their anti-gunner department that Aurics see less VoC spam out of it :slight_smile: