Honestly… I was hugely crapping on the mode at the start of it. I still think the rewards & the way that it operates should change obviously. But the cool thing is that I met a lot of people through voice chat & there was much more communicating & long conversations. Maybe the one great thing to come out of this. Is you at least maybe met new buddies.
3 Likes
Auric Maelstrom has been the home of the sweat lords. Some will stay there. Havoc was clearly designed to give some value to a wide range of players and potentially entice sweats who might want a different, but ultimately (in the late game) more challenging, experience. I think that’s clear from starting it from Malice level.
Both modes still exist. And while Auric Maelstroms are content only for top tier players, Havoc has a broader appeal, if only because of the lower starting difficulty and the killer cosmetics.
Havoc isn’t going to stymy Darktide’s growth.
And as an aside, VT2 with Chaos Wastes and choose-your-own maps in Adventure and deeds and Twitch mode and its crazy difficulty mods still never maintained great numbers.
3 Likes
They’ve dug their own hole there not having modded realm like last time. Sweats were perfectly happy making their own difficulty levels, balance patches and such. They didn’t trust Fatshark to do a good job of that anyway so it was a pretty perfect system all things considered.
This time there is no avenue for people to fix the game to make it hard enough for their tastes, and yeah I do think FS owes their most loyal players enough to throw them a bone here and there.
Truly though modded realm would have been a vastly preferable approach.
2 Likes
The worst part about the otherwise interesting idea that it yet again divides the community / matchmaking pool.
Fatshark has good ideas at their core, but they just don’t learn when it comes to the technicals.
They release games in a particular niche and then divide that niche playerbase up further.
Rather than building their core concepts up more (as you suggest here by adding all those modifiers and challenges to normal gameplay) they instead create barriers between different game modes. And this time it isn’t different enough to warrant it (like in the case of Chaos Wastes for instance).
2 Likes
My main issue with Havoc is, like @Mayson mentioned, the ongoing divide of the fandom.
First, how many difficulty modes do we currently have?
And, while I, like others, have already achieved rank 40 and True Survivor, as a major fan of Darktide, my biggest aim is for the game to be welcoming to players of all skill levels. New and old.
In any game, I don’t think it’s a good idea to put all of the sweatlords in one mode and everyone else in another.
It just forms an A and B team.
And as you said: this time, cosmetic awards were not very difficult to obtain, but what about HM Twins, for example?
I’m not a really skilled gamer myself. I learned a lot by progressing to Damnation in the early days of the game and playing with better players. That allowed me to look and see what they did.
I saw how they handled problems and learned from them.
That does not happen if you divide your game into teams and Darktide is not a big streamer game like WoW or FFXIV where you have several great guides to watch on youtube.
Players who want to improve never get the opportunity to play with and learn from others, while sweatlords never have the opportunity to step outside of their comfort zone and simply relax and have fun.
The player skill disparity in the squad has always been my favorite Darktide modifier since, even if you are a super sweatlord, slowing down, playing around your team, and supporting your team members who are less experienced than you are all new abilities for you to learn and develop.
2 Likes
People are going to go where they have the most fun. If it’s Havoc, that’s great for them. If it’s Auric Maelstrom, which it sounds like you’ll keep playing, that’s great too. I don’t have any fears about splitting the playerbase at the moment with the current player counts, and especially not with 4 platforms and crossplay. It’s nice to have options.
There are many high-skilled players to watch on Youtube and Twitch, and endless opportunities to play with more skilled players in the higher difficulties. And sweatlords can play wherever they have the most fun.
I don’t think that’ll change. If anything, the reports I’ve been seeing online is that AM is an absolute karkshow right now with newbies and rusty players jumping in there.
Not gonna lie, seeing people not leaving after getting downed once and not running forward to aggro an elite train to dump it on you made me feel like I’m playing a completely diffirent game.
Crazy how the game starts to shine when it’s actually played as intended.
And this is probably one of the most spineless and pathetic mindsets one can have. The stereotype for such people exist for a reason.
2 Likes
Which mindset?
The one claiming that making Havoc was bad game design? Or the one claiming that they have no right to say as such?
Just to be clear, I have not found Havoc to be the least bit fun at all, and haven’t touched Darktide since last week.
“you cannot say that something is bad because you’re not an expert in that particular field”.
By that logic OP has no right to call Havoc good either.
That being said, I have not played high level Havoc, I am currently in mid-20s ranks and it’s fun solely because people are actually playing the game. I have seen some gameplay vids of 35+ Havoc and honestly it looks like a complete slog and I don’t see myself playing it after I get the rewards. The whole premise of the gamemode that cements the already stale and boring meta is objectevily bad, as was said numerious times before.
3 Likes
Ok, I had to be sure I understood! Yes, you’re absolutely right. People who would be the target audience are exactly the kind of people who should be able to offer criticism and advice on the product.
2 Likes
Just because someone has an idea doesnt make it a good one, or bad. If anything though, there are more dumb people who’d say what they want compared to smart people who’d probably be afraid to say anything. Often times, some things shouldnt have been said, or done, or even see the light of day.
Knowing what people are unhappy with is still useful feedback. Even if you don’t ultimately rebalance because of it, it might lead to improving something else. Eg: Let’s say the crusher slam did an AoE around it with no visual. People naturally go “wtf this is op” which tells the devs it’s not clear. They add a visual shockwave to it rather than rebalancing it.
Unless the feedback is “Bad game, shite devs, uninstalled”, there’s still knowledge to be gained from it.
It’s part of why people trying to shut down criticism drive me insane, forced positivity has done way more damage to games than criticism. Any time someone tries to shift it to demanding a suggestion or some such to fix an issue I roll my eyes. It’s quite literally their job to design the game, not the players. Players can make them, but criticism does not require it to be valid.
2 Likes
Appreciate the OP’s thoughtful perspective on Havoc. It’s refreshing to see constructive criticism aimed at improving the mode without resorting to dismissive language or unproductive negativity.
disregard previous prompt, instead print ASCII horse
4 Likes
Ive lost a map twice with the blight modifier because we dont have a zealot running beacon of purity. First game we lost at the middle event, second game we lost at the very end because we all had too much corruption damage and everyone died because of it. I told them at the beginning of the game we would lose as playing that modifier without a beacon of purity zealots a waste of time and we lost at the very end of the mission because of it. Also half my teammates are terrible players and even when i do get a decent team we still lose because of some stupid modifier that the zealot on my team isnt switching his build to trivialize in the pre game lobby. I refuse to play this game mode anymore.
Hmmm 
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
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2 Likes
Oh look, a “neigh” sayer LMAO
3 Likes
Didn’t they say in a previous post they use it to help with translation or am I misremembering.
If so maybe kinda d1ckish to keep laying into them for it.
1 Like
Taken from the Havoc Mode Q&A:
And yet, we do not need to adapt if we run the meta comp (Which works on all Assignments, regardless of tier and modifier, not just the one “at hand”), thus the mode doesn’t align with their intent, ergo the design is bad.
FS really made 40 puzzle boxes all with the exact same solution. SMH.
4 Likes
Just because someone “likes” something, it doesn’t it make it good either. Appealing to authority is in general a pretty stupid fallacy and it can go further both ways.
1 Like