With how the difficulty fluctuates between ‘a relaxing stroll through corrupted territory’ and ‘the pox bursters just won’t stop!’ while fighting 20 gunners and a never-ending stream of shotgunners, I find it hard to see this as a deliberate change.
The end result, I mean, not the attempt.
3 Likes
Wait, so it’s not that I’m inherently a Heresy scrublord, it’s that the game is in fact actually broken for the difficulty I used to be on?
Hooray! Validation!
2 Likes
I’m confident its way harder than it used to be because i have an accurate metric due to my solo melee challenge. @Nish is right. Having played some actual damnation runs with actual people instead of solo its definitely not auric. But compared to previous at my current skill level i was able to consistently make it through the mid-point on Damnation, solo, with nothing but a chain axe and gumption. Now i cannot make it past the midpoint. The reason is these big dumps of elites. Before hand I wouldn’t get like 3 crushers and a pile of shotgunners in the mid point. I might get one or two. Obviously I just need to get better. (its actually some sneaky low sound trapper that keeps killing me, because I’m busy with massed bruisers and carapace when her net shows up) But the point I am making is that I have a solid metric. Damnation is way harder than it was in Patch 13. Its not as solid of a metric but I did run this challenge in patch 12. I have gotten a lot better since then, but I was making it about the same distance then as I am now. So its plausible that @Nish is right and they have just re-balanced to the old difficulty levels.
Again - I like how auric feels. I like getting blown the hell up by massive nasty spawns except when they spawn directly in front or behind me…but in any case this game wasn’t just made for me so I am noticing something that might be very negative for other players and I wanted to call it out.
8 Likes
Its more how the elites are brought in. I really don’t like the ‘poof monster door/closet’ style enemy spawns, and the elites with their massive HP really highlight how it can be a dismal ‘get gud’ in a game based around minute to minute footsies positioning and decision making. Dumping a bunch of bulwarks/crushers on your flank, or ragers; inside of a horde is extremely build limiting. Most weapons have a ‘control first, filter down’ style of gameplay since they aren’t blessed with rip tear damage that kind of falls apart when you aren’t able to establish it.
This is also what makes Cataclysm in Vermintide 2 a lot more fair, while elites form the vanguard of horde waves they are not able to utilize horde spawn points. So while rats crawl out of holes in the wall and trees you can see the plague monks coming to bear, and plan accordingly. In Darktide its just so often a mess of enemies either utilizing out of bounds (often times groups even being stashed in there, as we all learned from 9 months of veteran wall hacks) and/or prat-falling on your head. The levels that involve vertical climbs can be a mess for this, with enemies falling behind you, patrols wandering out of bounds behind you and enemies still amassing in front. Like the Power Matrix ascent before the mid level event, it can be an absolute clown show.
All of it is fun when you win, but very erratic in difficulty curve and I think that it would be a lot better for skill expression in general if the elites were moved out of the hidey holes and made to approach the rejects where they could at least plan if the numbers are extremely limiting movement. Not ‘oops all ragers’ like the new map loves to do, since there are so many magic spawn doors in the first event you’re guaranteed to have them spawn basically on top of you.
8 Likes
I use a points scoring system to establish how far I have gotten in each solo run. If my average mission points has gone down then the mission is harder than it used to be, since I didn’t get any worse at this game. I appreciate you providing so much attention to my metrics, I don’t think I really needed or deserved such a large audience though. I’m really just interested in making the game accessible for players of a lower skill level than me. I’m satisfied with funny 20 man shotgun patrols pouring out of doors behind me.
2 Likes
I can handle Auric and I finished all the hard challenges… but yep, AI director is simply crazy
Really too many specials and elites all together
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Sounds like a gumption issue
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It does seem like back to back boss fights have been pretty common lately.
5 Likes
something definitely feels off
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Why did I get a 15 rager horde 2 minutes into the start of a normal Damnation
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Or simultateous bossfights. I used to think that was a Maelstrom thing.
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Plague Ogryn and Beast of Nurgle at the same time. On difficulty 3. Yep, something’s broken.
3 Likes
My mk2 thammer zealot has been feeling a little underappreciated lately so if you could just keep that on the DL for a few more patches…
1 Like
Damnation is way more challenging than it has even been. It feels like 25% of the enemies killed by the entire team are Gunners. Not just standard shooters, but full on rat-tat-tat for 15 seconds gunners spawning in waves. It’s really annoying and takes a lot of the fun out of going in as a melee build. Especially since 9/10 the gunner doesn’t stop shooting as you close the gap with them and thwack em a few times, they just keep rattling off their shots despite the tutorial basically falsely informing you that engaging shooters in melee should force them into melee or force them to run away. These gunners have Balls of steel, holding their ground and just never stop firing.
Doesn’t help their health is ridiculously high for what it should be either.
If anything the main problem I’ve noticed is the overabundance of gunners and shooters. Ai needs to chill on those.
I just had a Damnation match that felt like an Auric Damnation Maelstrom. We were literally getting pushed back on the map by the endless waves of Crushers/Hordes/Gunners/etc. but it was just regular damnation. The Ai director is definitely way more aggressive than its ever been lol.
5 Likes
This is just categorically false to me. Came back ~2 weeks ago after ~6 mo break where I’d run a lot (over a hundred) of damnation runs prior to leaving. So much has changed and Damnation is so much easier as a result.
Classes got skill trees → there are SO many builds with cc or support that trivialize scenarios which used to be sweaty. Tons of weapons got buffs and are so much stronger now. Didn’t they have to buff mob hp to compensate? The rejects on the whole are far, far stronger together than when I last played (barring marksman Vet if you want to split hairs, ye old 200 base toughness 75% resistance with orig powersword was ridonk).
I’m not saying the director is perfect or doesn’t need tuning, and I’ve definitely noticed the ‘spawns in front of you’ bit happen plenty of times, and sure perhaps there should be fewer gunners (honestly hasn’t bothered me that much but yes there are a lot of them at times) and I can throw a whole critique at the sound-mixing guys right now … but Damnation is much easier than it used to be in my experience.
@Reginald I’ll point out that what you are saying and what I am saying can both be objectively true. Stronger rejects → spawns buffed to compensate (still overall easier) → gumption + chainaxe runs harder. With all the cc/support the new trees bring it wouldn’t surprise if spawns were buffed.
1 Like
Just like before with 2 competent players you can easily carry current normal damnation or even auric, so i agree with you. With 4 players its quite manageable. However damnation has some pretty crazy spikes right now. I got a few friends together and 3 of us were competent players who regularly clear auric maelstrom without too much trouble. We were towing a low level character to power level them. Things were ezpz until we hit a 10 crusher patrol, as a horde spawned, and 3 trappers, 2 flamers, a dog and a swarm of dreg gunners and shotgunners poured out. Leaving aside the overlapping broken audio queues for various things it was actually just an insane difficulty spike with the density and concentration of elites and specialists. It was a fun loss but not what i expect out of damnation even in patch 12 and before.
Could just be a gumption issue tho.
2 Likes
I don’t think I saw nearly as many elites back in the day as I do now, to be clear and I do think there are bigger swings of challenge than there used to be. Definitely don’t remember rager or crusher packs being that large, and generally I remember there being fewer of all elite types. But the difference today is… take an auric dam hi-int this am with two smites, one chorus, one bubble. The only actual threat in the entire mission were the specials. 6 crushers and a bunch of ragers? cc’d. Horde + specials + mixed elite wave + monster? cc’d, picked off, melted, kited. Spread out shooters? Bubbled and picked off before they could do any real damage (no one walked headlong into the open like an idiot). It was shockingly relaxing even if I personally played like crap - blew myself up once, got sniped once, got trapped once. But aside from those mistakes, took pretty much no damage because every time a scenario started to get hairy it got locked down.
Back in the day the only tool to clutch a bad moment was the stun grenade. Now there’s a variety of tools to turn around a bad scenario, so the larger and more frequent packs of elites I’m seeing aren’t really intimidating. They’d be a lot harder to true solo, sure, but a solid team has an easier time with them now than they would have 6mo ago is my take. The big swings in difficulty might be by design given the tools that are now available to us.
To be clear - director still needs work, spawns popping up in face or insta-bursters popping out are bad. Sounds need work too, can’t hear a damn thing over mutants at times and crushers/maulers/ragers are whisper-quiet. But I generally object to the concept that damnation today is harder than it ever has been because the rejects are so much stronger now even if the spawns are more challenging.
2 Likes
There is also some ridiculous stuff with “speed run prevention”. On STG if thing are quite for 1 second and you want to push there is immediately multiple specials spawning in your face, and with the new spawn changes they spawn basically in the next corner, mutants in 1-2 second charge range, etc.
The difficulty is more akin to pre-patch 13, but god damn I hate it so much. I don’t feel “Wow so much stuff to kill” It’s more like “Let this f-ing stop already!”. Maelstrom maps with high-roll Director can get especially… cumbersome? IDK what’s a good word to describe it.
40min I-II-V-E-G, ~400 specials, 10 every minute on top of bosses.
34min I-II-V-E-G, ~340 specials, 10 every minute on top of bosses.
34min D-I-IV-IX-G (poxies + snipers), ~470 specials, ~14 specials every minute.
I get it difficulty is cool, and poxie + sniper means more specials, a lot more, but come on now…
I guess my problem is that there is no off valve in these maps, and it’s tiresome, and not enjoyable. There is no flow from “now it’s quiet” to “now it’s going really hard” and back.
8 Likes
I’d be fine with the amount of enemies if the spawning for them was better.
It’s so pathetic that enemies literally spawn in rooms you’ve been through, coming out of doors right next to you or drop down from overhead platforms you didn’t know existed.
The amount of bovine fecal matter needs to be toned down.
7 Likes
Never saw a triple sniper spawn until this patch. It’s not that I don’t like challenge, but spawning snipers during a horde that are 180 degrees from one another, then spawning a third a few seconds later isn’t counterable unless everything goes perfectly. How about a double trapper and a dog at 90 degrees from one another so they are unable to be dodged, plus a late pox burster while you are on the ground all during a horde. Now you could say hit the trappers and block the dog, ok, fair enough, but just how much practice and experience is a player supposed to have to win on damnation. More importantly how are they supposed to build that skill?
There are several issues at play. Build variety is a major problem. If you have shroud zealots or krak grenade veterans, what they can do is much different than a slightly different group. What if one had a flamer vs a revolver? What if you have two other veterans but they don’t have any rending nodes? The number of failure points and DPS changes dramatically. The point of the trees is variety, but unless you min-max you are just straight up screwed, and most players really aren’t in for that.
Second is a classic issue with horde games: difficulty scaling stinks. I actually wouldn’t mind the new ceiling if dropping down a difficulty didn’t put me into a coma. In this game, you can succeed on a lower difficulty by literally not using a game mechanic. Don’t need grenades one down, don’t have to dodge 2 down and so on. Assail is hardly viable on high difficulties, but it’s straight up OP on lower difficulties making the game pretty much play itself.
Finally is the elephant in the room: sound design. Regardless of when these things spawn, sometimes they spawn silently. This is a dark and dingy game with an interesting style, but that means sometimes you can’t see anything. Crushers and maulers can one shot, they should make noise. Ragers don’t make much noise either.
Are we supposed to be reliant on a superior team to even have hope? I posted a poll on Reddit and more than 50% of the people responding solo quick play on the auric board. Most of them, even though they would never admit it, are completely screwed, which is why we keep seeing these gatekeeping and black listing threads.
The most merciless enemy in the game is truly at fault: weapon blessings. Who cares about dropping down a difficulty? The blessing collection I am trying to build does.
3 Likes