How Ammo Regen will affect meta Rumbler builds – Breakdown and Feedback

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1

Extra ammo for Rumbler Ogryns sounds bad for balance, so I’ll try to break it down to see just how much it’ll benefit the meta builds using this gun.

Breakdown

Ogryn’s Ammo Regen Talent

So, first of all: getting +1% ammo doesn’t equal +1 free bullet for Rumbler.

This weapon can have a max of 34 ammo, so that will be my point of reference.

When Ogryn gets +1% ammo, it’s only +0.34 of a single round. Naturally, this means no new ammo is received yet. Only after this bonus triggers two more times (+0.68 of a single bullet) will the Ogryn get one free round for his Rumbler.

So, on his own, the Ogryn will get 1 free round every 45 seconds. That means on average 20 minutes of gameplay (one mission), he’ll get around 26 free rounds.

That’s a lot of ammo. But now, let’s address the Plague Ogryn in the church: Veteran.

Ogryn’s Ammo Regen Talent + Veteran’s Survivalist aura

If there is a Veteran on the team, this means an extra +0.5% ammo per Elite or Specialist kill, every 5 seconds. Given that Ogryn will now have a passive +50% bigger Coherency radius, he won’t have to be close to the Vet to benefit from his ammo aura.

On average, in Auric games, Elites are not always spammed, Havoc style; and when that happens, said Elites can all perish before the Survivalist aura gets to trigger more than twice.

So, by generalising the numbers, I’d say that, on average, with a Vet’s Survivalist aura, Ogryn gets +2% ammo every 15 seconds, and that’s +0.68 of a single bullet for Rumbler = +1.36 free bullets every 30 seconds = around 54 free rounds per mission.

Table with both scenarios laid out

Scenario Percent Gain Rate Ammo per Proc Full Round gained Rounds gained / Mission
Solo Ogryn Passive +1% every 15s +0.34 Every 45s ~26 bullets
With Veteran Aura +2% every 15s +0.68 Every 30s ~54 bullets

This already starts to feel like too much for me, but we are talking about Rumbler builds, so now we also have to take into account:

  • Ammo that naturally spawns on the map: other players could take it, but on average, Ogryn will always manage to snatch some for himself;

  • Lucky Bullet Keystone: every shot has a 15% chance to not consume the fired bullet;

And since Rumbler has only 1 round per magazine (IIRC reloading takes 2.33s):

  • Keep Shooting talent: 20% reload speed when reloading an empty clip (that’s 1.94s);

  • Point Blank Barrage Ability: in its 12 sec duration, it gives +65% reload speed (that’s 1.41s, and with Keep Shooting it’s1.26s) and returns 50% of ammo that was spent during the ability’s runtime – more can be fired, more can be returned.

Conclusion

I don’t think I even need to make a table here. Rumbler is already a dominant control tool. Adding up to ~54 free shells per mission – on top of Lucky Bullet and Point Blank Barrage refunds – completely eliminates the need to conserve ammo and allows for even more mindless spamming than before.

Feedback

All in all, there is a lot of room for concern. FatShark will have to look at the Rumbler eventually. I feel like decreasing its ammo is the best way of making Ogryn players stop mindlessly spamming and actually start paying attention to their ammo count. That and maybe even increasing the reload speed so it can’t be fired so quickly.

Edit:

Thanks to people in the replies, I now know that the Rumbler also has Infinite Cleave. This is ridiculous.

I guess this also means that every explosive has it, and I don’t think all explosives are getting reworked any time soon. And nerfing this feature in only one weapon would damage the game’s consistency. But if sacrificing consistency is for Darktide’s health, I’ll fully support gutting the Rumbler in that aspect.

2

I think that giving Rumbler some actual directional Cleave limitations (as @Agayek was tech savvy enough to demonstrate) would GREATLY mitigate the issues related to Rumbler spam.

HOWEVER, I wouldn’t be opposed to Rumbler getting an additional nerf to its Ammo Reserves with these new balance changes in consideration. It’s a good thing that Vet’s Survivalist is being nerfed for Teammates, at least.

3

Address the root cause: infinite cleave

It shouldn’t exist. Damage should drop off severly after the explosion went through an enemy.

This probably requires a complete rewrite of explosions and fire weapons, but I’m sure the frontier LLM’s can do it.

4

I understand that the shooter Ogryn was once the least popular choice, due to the ability being designed as a “panic button” – greatly increased DPS that quickly burns through ammo. Yes, some tweaks were necessary, but they’re already approaching infinity.
The ability’s cooldown time has already been reduced twice.
The “lucky bullet” chance (free shot) has also been increased twice… well, once for sure.
After firing in activated state, some ammo returns to the reserve from “nowhere.”
Now there’s also constant free regeneration.
I won’t argue, it’s a lot of fun to fire a dual machine gun and all other weapons that require at least some aiming. Even the gauntlet. But the Rumbler is a different matter. Does anyone remember the old glitch where spamming the left mouse button could trigger a lucky bullet even with a completely empty magazine? It was fun for the “cheater,” but not fun for everyone else. And now, it seems, this situation is being implemented officially.

5

I’ve already done all the work for this and done a little write up for it.

Inferno/flamer version is here: Inferno Force Staff: The Design Problem

Rumbler/explosion version is here: Rumbler: The Design Problem. A.K.A., Addressing Infinite Cleave Pt. II

6

Excellent. I said this for a while, but you did an extensive write up with good solutions. Gave them both a like.

7

One of the reasons why for me personally, when I’m assembling a party in Havoc, Rumbler and other PBB builds just went straight to the OP-LOL-WONT-FIX Jail. Even on melee builds its often a red flag. Too many people use Rumbler spam to compensate for their poor footwork in melee :neutral_face:

I want to be able to interact with the game, unless we are rank climbing, we don’t care that might result in far worse win-loss ratio.

8

Ogryn ammo regen is pretty absurd. I don’t even want it for the weapons the regen talent was probably meant to benefit the most (Ripper, Twin stubber, Heavy stubber). The Vetgryn memes will be so real lmao.

It’s such a Havoc 40 shaped talent.

9

its darktides equivalent of dooms “too young to die” difficulty and snivelers are outing themselves using it :squinting_face_with_tongue:

anything that forces people to put in the works by crutch removal is long overdue at this point.

seems from what inoffensive language the devs used in their post at least they start to act upon that.

lets wait for the patch and the obligatory hot fix a couple days later, maybe they agree with the rumbler issue in time as well.