Hello fatshark forums, mister E here. I usually keep my feedback to youtube, but figured it couldnt hurt to put my thoughts here as well. Who knows, maybe a dev will see it.
The biggest issue I have with this update starts with this right here:
FS seems to believe that new mutators (and maps??? why arent maps rotating??) will force players to “learn and adapt”, but it won’t happen. Why? Because the mutators and maps are irrelevant to the difficulty of the mode. The only REAL factors that determine which builds and classes will see play is the restriction imposed by emperor’s fading light and the reduction in health/toughness/ammo. Since none of those things were changed at all with this update, we will see the exact same meta evolve again.
Havoc sucks to play longterm because there is only a small fraction of the build diversity that the game has in aurics. Emps fading light/ammo reduction is acting as a SUPER selective filter, leaving us with only a handful of builds that can survive the ranged damage check. It also basically requires you to bullet slide everywhere, which is annoying and immersion breaking.
I am making this post here because I would really hate to see FS waste a bunch of dev time coming up with all these mutators to make the mode interesting, when they are not the functional challenge of the mode. The ONLY thing that matters (under the current system) is if you can dodge or negate ranged threats. So please, rethink the emperor’s fading light, it is such a bummer of a restriction to play around.
A good point here, feels like 90% of the difficulty is the result of 10% of the changes.
In fact, I wish they’d take a lot of those other havoc changes, and just move them into Auric. And move the modifiers into Maelstroms, at least!
I mean, for example, having assassination targets sometimes show up. Having double bosses (Although I’d like it to be more random). Bulwarks not leaving themselves open forever when they swing. and most if not all of those little itty-bitty tweaks they made to like, Elite health and Horde size/frequency because I can say, people don’t notice them in Havoc. It’s all static.
Some of the most fun I’ve had on Havoc didn’t even involve any ranged enemies but being sandwiched between two massive groups of flesh and armor and specialists and having to survive it against all odds. I live for that!
Eh, probably a bad idea (I got tons of those, coming out my ears even) that stems from my innate desire for a Havoc Quickplay and innate dislike of EFL, which should really be a rotating modifier (“Firing Line” or something) because, as you said, it really shapes the meta.
Last week was already only 2-weeks out from the patch landing. As much I support giving FS criticism, there is simply not the time available to implement any changes based on feedback ahead of the 25th.
The dev blog might as well be the patch notes. What you see is what we’re getting - all we can do is decide how we’re going to respond to it.
I know that, but they have said multiple times that they plan on iterating on this system throughout 2025. It might take them all year but i know that they can make this a system that people actually want to play and isnt build limited/frustrating
I seriously doubt of this…
Hidden modifiers are a good “idea” but they should never have been hidden and should not impact players. What impact players is seen as artificial difficulty.
They want to make something fun? make it a different darktide. Elites that are true elites (and with LESS spam fest). So a patrol would be a real danger and not just a breakfast. More hordes… this is good.
And I know I will shock… increase HP of the enemies considering all power creep we received.
Conditions are not bad. But I don’t like that there are so few and that they can impact too much your gameplay.
Anyways, I think that Havoc is not something for me. I am not in competition, I don’t care of in the top players… I just search for a difficulty I can play and that will give me adrenaline. Actually I play maelstrom (and today I was totally bad… but I must say I have made many errors cause I was looking my beautiful Darktide with everything maxed and at 180-200 FPS - Thanks the guy that explained how to use multi frame ;P)
But really, I doubt they will make it successful, especially cause it forces you into a competition and cause the game mode is made to be hard and push the player ot the limit. I don’t think that all players want to be pushed like that and like to loose more than what they can win.
And let’s say it… not everybody can play such difficulties. I did not even try to go for the lvl 40. I don’t know if I could clear it, I guess I could… but I really hate too much the game mode to spend the time needed for this.
Maybe in future… but really I am not sure I will cause the Fatshark proposal is not interesting me.
I mean, we’ve been giving them feedback since Havoc first came out. They just decided to not really address any of the major issues we had.
It’s like the landlord who instead of fixing the leaky roof or chasing off the family of feral raccoons living in the walls decided to spray some air freshener and replace a few buckets that have filled with water. And Like yeah, the buckets did need replacing, they’ve been full for months, but the roof’s still leaking so it’s kinda an empty gesture. And you don’t get to keep the buckets. And the air freshener’s only really makes the smell “Somewhat more tolerable” but does nothing about the raccoons. The landlord doesn’t acknowledge the raccoons at all.
They then raise the rent. Before you can ask why, they say it’s because one of the other tenants (whom you’re not sure even exists) said it’d be a good idea. You want to call them out on that but you also know some of the other tenants are freaks who think the leaky roof is just “free water” so who knows. They talk for a few weeks about great the new buckets are and advertise a new apartment building they’re going to rent out before disappearing for another three months, with the only sign they still exist being the bill they send every two weeks.
But the view’s pretty good and the neighborhood’s walkable so you decide to learn to enjoy the taste of roof water. Maybe they’ll acknowledge the raccoons next quarter.
As a side note WHY did they need to remove (even if temporarely) all the previous mutations
The Blight Spread was very bad that’s true that one could’ve been gone forever
And while I know the others aren’t that exciting (Because they give buffs to enemies when they spawn, vs the new ones we’re getting that enemies get stronger only after doing X thing), they were fine mutators
Stuff like cranial on a Rager/Crusher that gets mad when you crit them are the type of nightmares I WANT TO FIGHT
We could’ve had 7 total mutators by now but we’ll be forced to rotate among 4 other mutators…
Also as a second side note please remove Pox Gas from the optional mutators, that one doesn’t fit Havoc at all
this, tacking on “bragging rights” aka title, to a mode that is cheesed by number based talents rather than physical skill, is literally meaningless.
this isnt a card game where you conveniently pull an “uno-reverse” by going wololo with a book.
dartkide, albeit pve, has some beautiful combat flow that supports smooth movement, quick and complex thinking with a snap on aim unseen since quake.
not building on this very core and doing a cheap escape for certain talents is blasphemy
then we got the “gotten used to it factor” when, if you’ve enjoyed havoc for what it “could be”, everything else isnt even “stale”, it might not be there in the first place as a substitute
no, i’m not playing havoc <40 for “fun” cause there is no “fun” and every lower match could have been time better spend in the “real deal”
now, to remain “realistic”, my channel is nowhere big enough, still i am eager to provide entertaining content.
watching the party finder for 30 minutes sure as hell aint and when i see even havoc 40s on other channels not generating many views, anything “lower” i think “who’s gonna watch that stuff?”
peeps interested aint stopping by for havoc 20… they want the crazy stuff.
lower the amount of tries, how is one supposed to even generate content to fill a weekly upload with havoc
