Hive Scum Pickpocket complaint

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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While the nerf is understandable, what it feel like is it ruined all ranged HS playstyle EXCEPT for needle guns (which I think was the target of the nerf).

Reasoning is that most needle gun use is as a secondary to a melee or at least hybrid build.

As a result, most if not all HS trees that spec into ranged damage either gets massive uptime reduction (needing to pull out melee) or the HS hurts the team by taking ammo from the map (bad in havoc but that’s a different issue if balancing around standard games).

Securing a melee kill is also not easy since you end up competing with the team or yourself, in the case of chem toxin or other DOTs.

I have 2 suggestions (or 2.5):

Need melee kills, but higher or no cap on the amount of ammo that can be recovered. Reduce ammo recovered to compensate. Sub: add a talent to increase HS ammo capacity (HS surely can make local dealings to get more ammo);

20% ammo recovery (up to 20% of HS reserve) on elite, specialist or boss death within close range. (i.e. anyone can kill, HS gets ammo, within 12.5m). Or I suppose since we want to nerf it, 5% ammo recovery instead, up to 30% of HS reserve.

I feel like the 20% was kinda ok (rubbish for bolt pistol), but could be better for smoother gameplay.

P.s. I hate having to compete with team mates in a PVE game. but maybe i just suck.

If anyone wants to complain about ‘infinite ammo’ and ‘not switching to melee at all’, we might need to look at veteren and psyker reworks too.. :confused:

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as team mates hate to compete with gun-scum that got more kills for less effort so far, your point?

pve doesn’t mean you’re happy for someone hogging the killfeed, it means there’s player controlled tools to aid you in your mission.

everyone’s out for himself for the biggest chunks though.

the secret is keeping this competition fair for everyone lest it creates resentment towards slackers

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Picking up ammo is always an option.

If a playstyle needs infinite free ammo, it is not a good one.

Also, by saying that a meelee kill is too hard (lol) and that you have to compete with the teammates, you acknowledge that it means that when you shoot your way through the map, all your teammates have to compete with you, therefore you are a problem for 3 other people.

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People have a genuinely uncool reaction to this; they really seem to just look down on the concept of a ranged-only class, whereas I wish FS would lean into it MORE. This talent should have been a capstone and allowed players to bring two ranged weapons without a melee and had Pickpocket as a sub-node.

Pickpocket in this scenario, in my mind, brings a damage reduction with it - and/or a reduction in cleave to reduce the ability to just delete everything. Preferrably this should be balanced so that it’s still possible to kill Crushers, just takes a long time.

(The thought here is that the Scum is using whatever cheap ammo that the cultists are using that is probably built within the Hive in illegal labs, and therefore has worse performance)

As for Pickpocket, keep it the same as it was before nerf, except make it require the kill be at Close Range.

Infinite ammo in a game like this is far from a strange thing, and just like melee-only classes in VT2 could definitely be a thing. L4D, after all, had infinite ammo on its basic pistols.

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Hm. Maybe a “hazardous” mechanic like peril or plasma could work? out of meta weapons would suffer the most from the “bootleg bullets” with the damage nerf proposal.

Heck, would be cooler to go all in on bootleg weapons with enhaced bullets that might explode. And “fits thematically” with the monkey paw design on other talents, even tho I dont love it, (should be an optional thing if ever added)

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that’s the thing so few players understand.

granted in my younger years there was hateful envy for everyone surpassing me.

in hindsight and now I see em as valuable teachers that helped me grow as a player, especially in the days of pvp.

there the mutual competition is the very nature of the game, here in pve it only works when it’s balanced.

getting rooms cleared with little effort makes for weak and lazy playstyles, whereas putting in the works and showing “how it’s done”

a) reliefs the team of pressure in an honest way people can respect

b) provides valuable footage for others to improve upon in the future.

it’s a win-win situation if you can put jealousy aside, pride and “envy” though is part of process and few can put those aside.

I mean why should I cheer on random joe for killing enemies at the push of a button whereas I have triple the effort getting my melee hits in?

winning isn’t the metric after a certain amount of playtime its doing the content better than before and feel improvement.

seeing someone go brrrt with little risk from the background, I stop holding the aggro and let him have his fill, he seems ravenous after all.

usually it ends with someone on the floor and melee getting the kills before picking dakka dude back up.

maybe in a premade people allow others for the sake of “team effort”, randoms serve as modifiers to keep runs fresh.

IF ranged combat would require an respectable performance like constant spot on aim and punishment for sloppy spray n pray, id be fine with ranged.

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I dunno if it would be needed, if we’re already reducing damage/cleave?

But if you went with explosive bullets (or maybe a chance of explosive bullets?) with a chance to jam or something would be interesting. Could be another node off the theoretical capstone talent.

This is true, can’t really do a lot about it besides buff underperforming weapons to be on a more even keel with the others - and granted, bullet weapons are pretty weak to begin with, generally.

This is an example of what I’m talking about - people seem to be unable to think, on this topic, that the issue is a balancing one, not something inherent. Playing Darktide as an FPS changes up completely how you approach a lot of problems. It’s stronger in some ways and weaker in others. It was definitely over-tuned, but there’s zero reason it can’t be tuned.

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simple “fairness” when dealing with people, whether in games or at work, you feel treated unfairly you answer with anger.

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It’s funny you say ‘I hate having to compete with team mates’ while running the build that basically shuts off melee for your teammates.

It’s especially galling for Ogryn and Zealot players who end up dying from bleed through cuz Scum players can’t help but start blasting the poxers they need to whack to regenerate toughness.

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that’s when I completely ignore the clusters of enemies scum’s spraying at and look for my own refill station

gun-ho cracking under pressure then aint my problem either :man_shrugging:

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Yeah but then you have to swing back to pick them off the floor where they got smeared from a poxwalker that snuck up behind them or the smite psyker :stuck_out_tongue:

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12

Yes please

13

Maybe that’s going a little far…

This is just my experience, but this nerf has barely changed anything for me. I mostly play Auric with either a ranged Stimm Supply build or mixed melee, and there’s just so many elites and specials running around, I activate Pickpocket often without even meaning to. Or if I see my ammo going into the red, I leave my last gunner just barely alive to quickly kill it with my melee instead. No Desperado necessary.

3 Likes
14

Yeah, i proposed that against the damage nerf you proposed, both would be too much. And yeah, “overcharged weapons” sounds fun if added as optional node.

15

Assuming you mean raise/remove the cap on when ammo can be recovered, this makes sense to me. Why do I have to wait until my ammo is low to get the proc? It’s clunky.

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I have to?

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serve me emprah :check_mark:

killing heretics :check_mark:

earning rashuns :check_mark:

sah, not seeing carry snivelers, me implant must mal-func-shun

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17

If anything pickpocket should he Desparado upgarde not separate talent.

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Hah!

19

Okay, well that’s understandable but makes your feedback unreliable.

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I mean given that was the entire point of the change, not that surprising. I feel like it’s very on-brand for the high-energy razor’s-edge gameplay that Scum promotes. They also have good weapons for nailing a single target in melee – shiv heavy, bone saw heavy, crowbar single target… Heck use a Chainaxe!

It was fun while it lasted, sure (for the Scum). It was hopefully not a deliberate ploy by FS to dangle ranged-dominant gameplay with infinite ammo to sell more DLC, too.

The infinite ammo guns (not incl. staves) also dealt very little damage, so you are incentivised to use almost anything else. Using a valuable slot for a crappy gun with infinite ammo may not be a compelling tradeoff in Darktide.

Still, 40K pistol + rapier from VT2… I could get behind.

Again, just feels like a strong stylistic choice to get the blood pumping. You have near-unlimited ammo, but only when you’re low on reserves. That’s cool.

% ammo on elite kill? That’s just Survivalist.

3 Likes