Probably the best and the most accurate feedback of the state of the game I’ve read in a while.
I’ll like to add that when comparing difficulty in Vermintide vs Darktide is like:
In Vermintide you do battle parkour, “plan ahead”, dodge accordingly a sort of dance.
In Darktide difficulty is doing parkour while wearing a 20kg backpack (enemy bloat) and being shot with a spam of easily avoided darts, hoping one of them will get you (special spawn)
I don’t think trivialise is the word you want to use here, especially after you in between the lines are saying T5+ gameplay is too hectic / difficult.
Dialing back the extreme stacking of modifiers and abilities would give the game a more authentic, satisfying identity.
You won’t find much sympathy here. A lot of us here are for that high you can get from challenging gameplay. DT achieves this through gameplay intensity, constant enemy spawns and difficulty modifiers. VT2 simply does that differently.
In the long run this doesn’t matter much. There is enough variety in the game modes that you can find your niche which is closer to your expectations.
There is nothing grounded about VT2. There. I just added another unquantified opinion.
I screenshotted for the endorsements.
yea, all of the enemies in this game are made of paper
LOL the usual suspects indeed:
I think for balance we need an entire reset and philosophy across the board. But maybe people will complain and want to feel like they’re slaughtering waves. I do think VT2 was better at balance. Not perfect but a lot more controlled.
I’m not sure a DT Big Balance Beta is even on the horizon TBH given they gifted DS to the other two archetypes when it was painfully obvious it was going to be even more OP AF on them.
Maybe there’s a desire but no resources? Management blocking ? Personnel reshuffling? Who knows, with everything else that’s been going on over the last year it’s hard to get a read on what’s going on over there but between the lack of content, timely bug fixes etc. a balance reset seems to be a pipe dream ATM. It was nothing short of a miracle we got an ogryn re-work after a year+ of singled out nerfs.
But holy cow there seems to be a lot of foot shooting going on over the last year.
I’m sure there must be people at FS who are just as frustrated as we are but their hands are tied for one reason or another.
That’s not what I’m saying; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. The game throws more enemies at you because players have access to such powerful blessings and builds. If you’re an ego player, then sure, having an overpowered build that demands “clown cars of Crushers” with Trappers mixed in might feel satisfying. But that’s a specific kind of fun.
As I originally said:
To put it simply: quality over quantity.
I don’t play just for the gameplay either. I find it visually and aesthetically obnoxious that in order to challenge a level 30 player with a solid build, the game resorts to Auric Maelstroms or Havoc with cheesy modifiers like the ol’ Emperor’s Fading Light.
Read the forum man. I’m not looking for sympathy. I’ve clearly laid out my reasons and preferences, and it seems I’m far from alone, even if not everyone agrees with every point.
Overwhelming hordes and visual clutter can be fun, but that kind of chaos feels more appropriate for mods or special game modes, rather than the core experience.
Also, I’m not expecting the game to change drastically. If there were a change, I’d personally prefer for the standard ‘Malice through Damnation’ experience to offer enemies that are individually more challenging and satisfying – perhaps with new attacks or variants introduced at higher difficulties to keep things fresh. That kind of dynamic escalation would feel more authentic than simply ramping up enemy numbers or applying absurd modifiers. Though, somethign would need to be done to curb the player builds. I like the video the @Pirx shared where a team with no talents and a standard load-out attempts damnation; though I’d prefer more dynamic enemies as opposed to bloated health bars too keep the mission pacing from getting slogged down too much. That’s why I don’t often play Vermintide 2 with C3DWONS on modded.
Fair enough, the power creep is hard to deny, especially after Patch 13 talent tree changes and weapon rebalances. Havoc would be far harder if certain weapons and class builds were nerfed, instead of Havoc throw endless waves at you with some pretty silly difficulty modifiers. Fatshark could have gone 2 different ways really. Nerf bats would however find it hard to accommodate the power fantasy associated with all those relic weapons, or being a psyker or an ogryn.
I personally have no problem with Darktide being different. VT2 can be difficult for other reasons.
Havoc was not created for everyone. If you want more chill experience just pick a standard Damnation game.
I also find annoying stuff like visual clutter, poor choice of the colour pallet which makes everything blend together, semi-broken audio engine and the inherit mob hyper-density issues. All that stuff becomes more apparent with high intensity game modes.
I was thinking, maybe if they added difficulties beyond Damnation that don’t necessarily increase the numbers, but rather increase the difficulty of individual enemies. That, in tangent with better management of how buffs and talents work so that they aren’t so ridiculous.
A better mode for OP buffs and large numbers would be a rougelite mode with a reward/risk element. I hope Mortis Trails goes well. I’m looking forward to that being the case.
A simple custom game mode would more than enough. Pick the base difficulty T1-T5, pick map, pick extra difficulty modifiers …oh wait that is immeasurably complex, it would never happen 
Bloat has always been a problem. Due to a combination of issues its more expedient for developers to react to increased player power by increasing numbers and adding multipliers into lines of code than to make opponents more crafty. Its even worse when the developers are too inept to come up with their own ideas but too prideful to ask for others help.
A smart fix would have been to ask their local military unit (maybe the Life Guards?) to wargame out how they would defend and/or assault each map. Then take those results and use them to create a bunch of scripts that the mobs execute depending on how difficult the mission is set to. Then they could dial back the modifiers & elite spam while making them more terrifying. Imagine walking unto that bridge in the torrent and being met with a hail of gunfire from gunners to the front and sides, stuck dealing with the horde of pox walkers that came from behind halfway through, then a squad of ragers drop right on top of you. Lot harder to deal with, and exactly the sort of coordinated defense that someone with training (hint Mobian 21st?) would do.
Will it happen? No. As always too many egos that will be bruised if its not their idea that gets used and too much short term “needs to cause immediate uptick in sales or not good” thinking.
I enjoy the direction the game has evolved in. I’m not here for a tight military sim, I’m here to juggle 10,000 burning chainsaws and manage waves of emergent crises. Fewer tankier enemies is less interesting than more enemies that require different responses but can die quickly if you also can die quickly when you slip up. Darktide is a task management murder cartoon and it’s all the better for it.
Yeah, seems to be an unpopular opinion on the Forums (given it’s full of a bunch of old heads that came from VT2 as can be seen, along with generally just being people not actively playing the game just talking about it a lot), but I actually live for the enemy density. This is one of the only games on the market atm that both gives you tangible buildcrafting and high levels of power, but also balances it against consistent waves of threats that NEED to be dealt with (fast or not) or else you get dropped rather quickly. This is meant to be a bunch of rejects being thrown at suicide missions after all, we just happen to get through by the LITERAL intervention and will of the emperor randomly channeling through us and it feels exhilarating in the top ranks to pull through by the skin of your teeth against the overwhelming odds.
And the OP says it himself, VT2 gives the slower, more measured experience if you want something more ‘grounded’. DT just pushed in a direction more ‘space marines’ esk to give itself it’s own identity separate from that. Both now exist, one can very much just go play the one they want to. I feel forcing DT ‘back into the box’ doesn’t really make sense at this point, nor do I think it necessarily ‘breaks immersion’ for it to get as ridiculous as it does. As the OP again states, the leveling of characters showcases a really good ‘fight against the odds’ as you’re rising up the ranks, until eventually ‘you get noticed’ and suddenly get the opportunity to get ‘well equipped enough’ to actually do the missions you where sent to do. Then you get let into Auric missions, then the emperor see’s your deeds and channels microseconds of energy through you to extensive effect. Now you’re able to take on proper hordes, which then rush to meet you as they see you as the proper threat you’ve become. And you plow through them anyway with noted skill, capability, and blessings of true potency, thriving in the heat of it all as you tear down the masses in wild abandon.
As an ‘Destiny 2 refugee’, I thrive off this. Heavy amounts of build variety, power no matter how you want to play, so long as you have the skill to back it up. It’s delightful, and about the only times I find it annoying is when 3-5 tox bombers spawn and make the game unplayable, or a similar event happens with trappers and does the same. Beyond that? I adore Darktide for what it is, and feel the constant need to switch between the tools you brought along to deal with the threats quickly and efficiently in front of you is what keeps it free flowing and engaging. Can’t exceed that ‘5-9’ maximum if you’re killing them as fast as their placed in front of you. I had to bring it up, but it does truly sound like a ‘skill issue’ if there numbers are exceeding your ability to keep track of them, seems like you aren’t dealing with them quick enough, while also somehow saying ‘games not hard enough’. I feel these statements do not match together, at least from my own personal experience. I know I tend to ‘compartmentalize’ mentally all the threats to ‘gunners shooting me from X direction get behind over so they aren’t a threat while I deal with X horde in front of me as a collective unit until it dies, with interspersed ‘armor hordes’ and ‘rager hordes’ flying in with their own attention as well, and thus it’s all kept track of outside of special spam here and there’.
AAALLL that being said though, I would take some dialed back numbers IF it was balanced with threat. Crushers and Reapers (and Bulwarks to an extent) I feel are the main example, I feel these should be mini bosses in their own right, but currently get dropped just as quickly as anything else, thus get spammed like a line of gunners and Maulers. I feel in this specific case, doubling their HP (as a hypothetical), then force limiting their spawns to ‘one group on field at a time’ and limiting said group to ‘up to three’, would be a nice change of pace and add some ‘larger threats’ intermixed with the ‘quickly dealt with ones’. Each of them already have their ‘deadly but fast to deal with’ counter parts in the way of Maulers/Gunners, so just make the Ogie’s proper threats again and I feel there’s little other issue. Do said ‘limiting’ technique to drop the number of bombers/trappers/bursters/maybe flamers too down to one on field at a time I think would help this notion as well, limiting the amount of AoE on the field narrowing one’s field of focus to allow for continued varied responses to the threats in front of a person. And the one ‘good’ think I can say about Mortis Trials is the fact that Monstorsities there do seem to last a pretty good amount of time. I’m not sure if this is due to players in Mortis just being bad and I tend to be soloing them a lot of the time, but they seem chunky and don’t drop nearly as fast to my boltgun barrage, often requiring multiple clips into their thick hides to take down, and I’d absolutely enjoy having Monstrosities also get that effect again and become ‘continual lasting threats’ within a fight again with such health values (assuming they are indeed increased in Mortis) verses being melted so fast they need 3-5 on field at a time to feel threatening. These are supposed to be ‘the largest threats we could ever possibly handle’, pushing their survivability values back up to being that would be fantastic.
But yeah, I think that would be my main ‘limiting’ technique. I otherwise think ‘the spam’ is fun and exhilarating, and learning how to deal with it is engaging and exciting. Like a ‘lone guardsman squad constantly hitting high rolls on the dice and somehow dealing with something they never had any right to’, and I don’t think limiting that is needed when VT2 exists. I just think certain specials should get limited, ‘mini bosses’ should be a thing, and bosses for that matter should be a thing again (thus also being limited as they are build to actually take the punishment the player can give them), and then the game would be ‘quite fine’ to me (and likely not run into nearly as many engine issues too as it’s not trying to play 15 specialist sounds constantly and can just focus on ‘rager scream, ONE trapper clicking, A poxburster ticking, and a single Crusher grunt’ etc).
I get preferring the enemy spam, but the game engine literally cannot handle it anymore.
The players who enjoy the current enemy spam will soon be the only ones left. This game is going through it’s lifecycle faster than Vermintide 2.
The majority of the player base isn’t regularly running Auric-level 5s or Havoc difficulty. Player numbers have dropped to what Vermintide 2 saw about a year ago; right around the time it was entering the final phase of its lifecycle.
I’d really like to see the core difficulty tiers (1–5) expanded with more nuanced options. Instead of just inflating enemy health and damage, introduce higher difficulties with meaningful variety, like new enemy types or different weapons for existing ones.
Alternatively, nerf the power creep from talent trees and blessings so that Damnation difficulty feels closer to Vermintide 2’s Cataclysm. I enjoy horde games, but Darktide gets old fast when my only options for a challenge are Auric and Havoc.
Really hoping the Rougelite game mode goes well. That’s primarily what I play in VT2 despite it bieng more chaotic, and imperfect; the risk/reward factor might make Darktide’s extreme blessings, hordes and modifiers more interesting.
i didnt even report your comment but it seems like there are more people sick of you constantly whining than you think
Average concurrent player counts (people putting in time all day every day) are fine and stronger than almost any point in VT2’s history. And that’s not even considering crossplay, which VT2 doesn’t have.
