More enemy mechanics. I made a topic on December when I already beat all the maps on damnation difficulty. It’s some suggestions I had. Here is a link if anyone wants to look at it Higher Difficulty, More Enemy Mechanics ,
I would add more hp to the monstrosities because they die too fast. They’re less trivial now with all the recent buffs to multiple weapons made over the past couple of months. I also think adding more elite units (Like Bulwarks or Crushers) or even monstrosities in the events would make things more interesting. An example, I loved the events in V2 like Fortunes of War where it had 1 boss spawn and then if you didn’t kill that boss fast enough another boss would show up.
Another thing that would be really cool is to have double-modifiers. Like the new hunting grounds with the pox hound puppies but have that in the dark? That would be something cool to see.
I think Fat Shark has a lot of ideas and more stuff coming, but halted everything to address the community and rework their system. Which was certainly needed. They still have a lot to do, but I am looking forward to more content.
Every horde should contain a mix of maulers and ragers. Events should have bulwarks and crushers. Shotgunner crews should spawn in higher numbers. Every special condition should be double or tripled up. Low intensity should never be an option
By bumping up high intensity damnation a touch but I don’t think the servers will handle another level up, they melt often during high int damnation. I don’t think making enemies spongy will make it fun either, damnation damage model is in a good place.
Adding more maulers, ragers, crushers, and bulwarks and shotgunners would go down a treat.
Large armour patrols like vermintide 2 had would also be a welcome addition.
I feel there’s already enough shooters halting gameplay often enough.
I’d definitely lock it behind a paid expansion. Can’t see how that could possibly go wrong.
Seriously though, I’d increase complexity somehow. Adding more enemies or making them damage sponges just bogs down gameplay and hurts performance. Difficulty in this game is mainly controlled through the amount of factors you need to consider at any given time, so that’s where I’d look to make things harder. Everyone always says the game is harder at heresy than damnation because at heresy you often have to play around terrible teammates.
I think it’s not so much damnations easier it’s that malice doesn’t prepare people well for heresy while heresy prepares you well for damnation.
Heresy you get punished hard for you mistakes and your break points in malice let you just one shot everything with axes.
When you go to heresy you end up feeling like you don’t know how to deal with enemies that take multiple hits to kill while on damnation you know all you got to do is avoid getting hit and keep swinging while not backing your self into a bad spot.
Hordes always having some sort of mix of elites/specials in them would definitely spice them up without having to insanely increase the horde numbers/health pools.
Generally i would like specials and maybe some elites to have other thing to worry about them rather than just upping their numbers.
Maybe bombers threw 2 grenades instead of 1, or threw a grenade that slowed you instead of burning you. Snipers could shoot some sort of stun dart instead of just deleting you. I know maybe last one might be annoying but the point is give them some more stuff to worry about while still being somewhat readable. Yeah might not be the easisest thing in the world but thats what devs are paid for.
I personally don’t like the idea of just massively increasing numbers for the sake of it. It is surely something that can be done and even should be in moderation. But giving enemies more range of options is something i belive would spice up encounters.
You do have to be careful with rules like this, because that’s a fast track to making things really uninteresting (because every mission always plays the same).
Instead, you want:
each enemy type is just better at doing what it does
Hordes might attack slightly quicker, and/or push into the player closer, and might move faster.
Rager attack animation would take them slightly farther forward (too much would dramatically make them harder), and possibly have a certain attack sequence where they get more stagger armor than usual
Armored melee (flak horde) would attack a bit more aggressively. Honestly I wonder if these guys need a “lunge” attack in all difficulties to just better differentiate them from regular horde.
Shooters deal more damage, but I think you can’t tweak much else with them without feeling unfair. On all difficulties, the sound effect for ranged squads spawning should be emphasized more and treated a little more like a specialist spawn, and this goes doubly for if the squad spawns behind the team. (By having the sound be well-telegraphed, it opens the door for rear spawns feeling way more fair, and you might even have it happen more often on Diff6.)
Mauler I think need to feel a little more like Vermintide Chaos Warriors where their overhead is a bit more threatening (I seem to recall it carrying them forward further – forcing a horizontal dodge – and being more stagger-resistant). I also feel like Maulers probably need more health (maybe just baseline need more HP even without discussing a higher difficulty).
Crushers could get similar changes speeding up their attacks slightly, but I could alternatively see them emphasizing Carapace armor more. I think that just has to be more HP, because any version of it that’s like “if your weapon deals less than 18% damage vs. Carapace currently it deals half regular damage instead on Diff6” sounds like it’d make the game play pretty badly and be a balancing nightmare.
All specialists would move faster. (Except Trappers and Snipers when running away would move the old speed, and Trapper reload would still take the same amount of time.)
Monstrosities get somewhat more HP.
Beast of Nurgle would move slightly faster
Things I think they should look at for ALL difficulties:
Plague Ogryn more HP, but otherwise their attacks are already fun to interact with
Beast of Nurgle needs the most help, because the kiting player usually can’t deal good DPS to them (and often everyone else is stuck dealing with whatever stuff spawns). I’d love to see a frontal weakpoint and a mode where they make melee attacks (but they can’t eat people during this mode, which means players can actually get in to melee).
More enemies that encourage blocking. In this game like Vermintide 2 I feel like block is almost never worth it (compared with attacking, pushing, dodging, sliding) and just want a few key moments where it feels more important. I think ragers are the easy way to make that happen with the existing roster, where you can give them an attack sequence that’s real hard to dodge but where their attacks barely damage your stamina. Granted, this has to be done alongside some improvements to stamina, as I think it plays worse when it’s attached to Sprint than it did in V2 where you just always started every fight with full Stam.
Many of these ideas were thought up pretty rapidly, and I think the overall goal of not making missions take super long should definitely be part of it. So while things like “more horde” and “more HP for high-HP enemies” do emphasize the strengths of those enemies, I think subtle things elsewhere can give like still allowing a big gap in time between horde/special spawns (to let the team progression through missions between big fights more rapidly, as a way of trying to balance out the fact that during the fights things are extra intense).