Havoc = objectively still wasted dev time

So, after months of work a big patch comes out.
Ogryn changes are nice, however other classes need the same treatment of bringing the extremes closer together.

Havoc exists because people you chose (who are the biggest sweats in the game) in your discord told you the game is easy.

So instead of looking at WHAT MAKES THE GAME EASY = several weapons+talents+blessings that have multiplicative interactions between them,
you pour god only knows how many thousands of workhours into creating a mode, where you are FORCED only to pick the most broken stuff.

I like to bring up Thunder Hammer -** THE quintessential anti heavy sh-t infantry weapon of the imperium, outside of explosives **
You turn a corner and there are 5 crushers - you activate the powerfield, charge a heavy attack, then charge enough stacks of thrust to reach a oneshot … and 3 are dead as dueling sword wielding friend already killed them.

A one handed normal sword, which is better in mobility, attack speed, crit fishing, WEAKPOINT HITS, instant stagger button, arguably even cleave is better.
IS ALSO better at dealing with super heavy enemies.

And when you saw this, the solution wasnt to look at the state of balance, you took the feedback “game is easy” and made a mode for dueling sword/knife.

And now again instead of looking at the objectively clear extremes of power you still continue to push havoc.

P.S. I know some people will come “but I seen/did H40 with shovel no talents true solo ..etcetc”
I dont care, we KNOW that overwhelming majority of builds use DS or Knife, and we also know why.

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you aren’t forced to do anything. you chose to do so.

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I do kinda have to agree. Havoc feels like an attempt to build a hardcore difficulty mode with ‘exclusivity’ rather than simply…reining in players, and letting Auric be its thing.

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The FS game plan seems to be to keep adding options for people, rather than morphing existing modes/difficulties into something else.

As long as the game only requires 2 people to start a match, and is available across 4 platforms, I don’t think there will realistically ever be a problem with that approach.

Yes, you arent forced to pick talents, you arent forced to pick good weapons etc.

Not my point.
My point is that this mode doesnt address the problem, it makes it worse

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Given that there’s literally nobody on the Party Finder for Havoc right now on NA for any difficulty, the morning after a major release update, it feels like a pretty wasted use of Dev time.

Fatshark feels like they’re obligated by contract to put out a new feature every X months, and they’re just comping up with stuff to fulfill a goal without really planning how it integrates with the rest of the game or how interested the existing playerbase will be in it. Havoc, Mortis, etc don’t feel like integrated continued expansions of the game, they feel like tacked-on gee-whiz features.

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8:30 AM PST on a Wednesday. People work, people have school, bad faith.

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Calling the new Havoc an attempt at a hardcore difficulty is rather disingenuous.

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This mode exists mostly for sweats who want to think they’re better than the majority of the playerbase.

Yes, it’s satisfying to beat the challenge of high Havocs with a good team, but I would rather main mission board get an expansion with new modifiers and mission types. The only reason I play it is because the game lacks content as it is.

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Well, can’t disagree with this. Dueling Sword is the jack of all trades currently.

OR… it exists for people who hunger for challenge. Contempt is a bad look.

It would be nice to get some of the Havoc modifiers mixed into Auric, could help bridge the gap for players who want to do Havoc but aren’t quite ready for Havoc

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Steamcharts is showing the average players online this morning as twice the last 30 day online average rate.

Sure, not peak play time, but higher than whatever peak we was there last week at any time.

If your new game mode with brand new features has literally 0 (zero, nada, none, a complete absence, etc) players in the party finder the day after an update, even at off-peak hours, it’s not bad faith to comment on that when Steamcharts is showing 8-9k people online.

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Double a tiny number of players when most people are at work or in school is still a tiny number.

Shocking.

Super bad faith.

Havoc gameplay changes are really fun. The changes to deranking are awful and put people off the mode entirely. Fatshark is trying to invent a “ladder grind” mentality in a game and playerbase that doesn’t have any. It’s not working.

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a mode thats supposed to be the be all end all should be available 24/7

usually i take vacations solely to play darktide all day, with the result now recording some 10-12 auric maelstroms and 0 havoc matches from 11 am to 24am german time / eu servers.

what more can one do? 2am play sessions in different time zones with crappy latency ?

nah thx.

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It’s only fair these people get this treatment for steering the game into this direction.

I don’t have any empathy for high level players that think the game should be balanced around their premades of good players where people optimize their builds.

The funny thing, I have 2.5k hours and I play as well if not better with certain loadouts than those content creators. But I actually consider the rest of playerbase, unlike them. My friends all stopped playing the game, because of changes made to appease this crowd.

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Homeslice, there’s more people on right now than there was at any peak time any day since DECEMBER.

So, pick your comparison to any point in 2025, there’s more people on now and still nobody in the Party Finder for Havoc (or at least wasnt when I posted a bit ago, cant login to check now).

When I was in yesterday at peak time posting here…there a whopping…two groups.

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Yeah, so now Havoc doesn’t appeal to it’s target demographic or the casuals.

Decision making really does give these vibes sometimes:

Bailout! - Find & Share on GIPHY

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There were double the number you’re referencing with launch of Havoc. So they lost 50% of interest.

Now compare to launch of Darktide. 10%.

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The core demographic wanted it to be harder, and from what I’ve seen it is, but also more interesting. Also lots of complaints about gunners severely limiting build variety for all but the sweatiest. FS addressed that too.

But no one asked for more punishing deranks, and it surely wasn’t done to attract casuals…same as all the other changes (adding twins, changing spawning, etc etc.)

It’s a niche mode, but aside from the derank changes, it seems FS is doing right by its target audience.

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