i saw some test players clearing havoc 40 in duo.
this means the current maelstrom and its difficulty might not be that different.
of course, since it’s not released yet, i can’t say for sure, but if spam VoC or choruses using op weapons, it’ll probably be easy to clear.
what exactly was the “challenging gameplay experience” they wanted to provide? what does endgame even mean?
we might just have to hope they offer difficulty tiers beyond 40…
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This was expected with the current state of balance.
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I fear it’ll just be like release beastmen. Doable, but annoying.
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Maybe havoc itself is not that hard…
Maybe its because more lvls and modifiers we see in the future
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I never understood the hate for beastmen. What’s so bad about them? They add a nice variety to the enemy roster. The charger/flagbearer makes for a nice “must take out first as quickly as possible” enemy, the chaff are just normal and the archers make for a nice new threat to take you out of your comfort zone.
The hardest difficulty modifier is your teammates who die during the first horde and quit. Or rushers who shift + w, aggro a Crusher clowncar, then dump it on you while you’re fighting an ambush from behind. Havoc seems to finally punish that, so I hope garbos will be weeded out from it pretty quickly.
I don’t get that obsession with this pseudo hardcore backbreaking difficulty. Auric HISTG is already pretty hard with randoms, unless you’re using the super mix-maxed meta build. If you play with pre-made team, then any game mode will be easy, which was true at any point of this game’s balance by the way.
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At the release of Winds of Magic, the beastman chaff (ungors) had the health, hit mass and stagger resistance of Rotblood raiders, spear ungors had the poke range of charging polearm stormvermin (with the ability to attack you from behind other enemies) and the charge wind up of a slave rat (the hurtbox appears at the beginning of the charge attack animation). That was the chaff/horde unit, which spawned the same amounts as skaven hordes. They also spawned directly behind you and were completely silent.
The health and mass scaled up as you go through the other units (gors and beastigors). On top of that all the beastmen had a close range headbutt attack that had the windup and delivery speed of a chaos warrior punch.
They were severely overtuned; they were un-fun, rapid attack spamming, non-reactive damage sponges with little variety and it took many, many balance passes to fix them.
Swimming up a river of rats is pretty fun. Swimming up a river full of logs to hew through was not.
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Depending on who those testers were, they might be in the top 0.01% or so of most skilled players.
The degree of skill expression that darktide offers, is so high, that it is basically impossible to create a difficulty that is difficult for everyone.
Think of making an object that is expensive for everyone.
And then one of the richest men alive shows up and thinks „i am just gonna grab a few of those and not even think about it“.
That is how difficulty works in games with high skill expression.
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Also gor headslam attack was instant, without any telegraphing.
Pretty sure it might be possible where you achieve such damage output from enemies that it’s mathematicaly impossible to overfarm it in duo. Tho slide doesn’t cost anything and CDR scaling with more enemies is a big thing why it’s harder to achieve probably.
way easier than weaves in vt2 it seems
so it won’t be really an “end game” mode like they stated
just another easy game mode
no ds, knife balance changes (nerf) and other nerfs in general
and making some weapons left in the dust viable (like autoshredder pistol etc.)
nobody using eviscerators in havoc 
just the meta stuff, ds, knife. ez
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Why, there is the anticipated Ogryn nerf, I am so sick of Ogryns effortlesly steamrolling though the map /s
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Hope we will see huge nerfs, and early access peeps were just playing with current balance.
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Good… like that I clear the penances of Havoc and I can move to what I want…
Totally what I was expecting.
Tbh, I tried to bring an heavy sword yesterday in maelstrom. Totally viable, I was a little upset cause one guy was making one third of the damages we were doing… and then I started to be upset and then I started myself to play bad (but at least I was doing damages).
Must say, and that’s my conclusion, that the DS or a CA can make things really easier. I don’t say that HS is not good, but obviously there are stronger options. And DS is assuredly one of the strongest.
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Yes. Maybe. Duos might find their ceiling. Although afaik, there is a limit to how many enemies can be on the map at any time, so this might not actually be an issue.
Especially if they are good at moving around.
But consider this:
When using a flamethrower, almost every single teammate will still focus their attacks on the burning trashmobs instead of focusing down other enemies nearby, killing ranged units in the distance, or clearing carapace armor.
These teammates are literally worthless, while doing that. But they still do it. Almost every single teammate does this.
Now if they applied themselves properly, the power of the party would go through the roof.
If you have a party of 4 players that are good individually, have every scenario covered across their builds and perform well as a team, they can steamroll through most things that any other party would get stuck on.
Players who have mastered movement, can survive basically anything. If you have 4 of those in a party, you will have a hard time creating a difficulty that kills them.
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the limit is there because of console users
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Maybe. But it is there.
While it is, there is a limit to how much a player with good movement can get overwhelmed.
I remember my buddy and me testing the zealot invis, right after the talent tree update.
We just walked through the mission and after a while, all enemies were behind us. No more ambient enemies or anything in front of us.
This would probably be possible in havoc as well.
Invis + knife movement really is quite something.
That’s why i said about slide. Movement in DT is way too forgiving, slide costs nothing is weird, grants almost 100% defense vs range, but no resources needed. If there was some sort of limit how it’s with dodges, like slide limit = x2 dodge limit, then there would be more strategic thinking and skill involved. Dodges also too fast and long compare to V2.
And CDR scaling with enemy spawns makes increased spawns pointless, oh wow my vet shouts now every 3 seconds.
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If we’re going to start nerfing the player, mobility and authonomy should be the first to be axed. Nerfing rending is dangerous as long as Crusher/Mauler/Skab Rager clowncars exist.