It occurred to me the other day that the damage scales on weapons are completely irrelevant since all enemies of a given type always have the same fixed amount of health and all that matters is reaching the breakpoints, having weapons that deal a little bit more first target damage or have a little bit more cleave make no difference.
What if enemies of every type spawned with a random amount of health set between upper and lower limits depending on enemy type, so that some would be tougher, some would be weaker.
This would make weapon damage much more dynamic and further specialize horde clearing vs single target damage.
It could also be coupled with a visual cue like having a height slider for each enemy type that is bound to their health level, so that tougher ones are a little bit bigger.
Imagine being cornered by an especially large and stubborn mutant and shouting for help.
No thanks.
Building towards breakpoints is a type of skill which is integral to the tide games (and one of the few things where applying your brain outside of missions can actually improve your performance).
Why would you try to eliminate that?
Your suggestion would only really have any noticeable effect on the first target of each attack, and only if nobody else attacks the same target.
Aside from that, it is pretty much completely pointless because you would now try to get breakpoints for the new max hp of the enemies.
Meanwhile, weapons with fast attacks, that do not really care about breakpoints anyway, would basically not be affected by some randomness in enemy hp at all.
Weapons with relatively slow attacks that are now no longer able to reach certain breakpoints half of the time, would be massively nerfed by this.
Of course, you could now try to go for āenough damage to 1 shot the enemy 80% of the timeā.
But even then it would still be about reaching breakpoints. Nothing would change in that regard.
I think maybe some āeliteā variants would be cool to have that but you could argue those are new enemies. Maybe more people would use the health bar mod to see. I can see potential in implementing it (although I do like theory crafting and building for breakpoints)
I donāt think this fixes really anything. It will just move the breakpoint to the new potential maximun HP value instead that will get targeted by those players who actually want to aim for breakpoints.
And if for some reason you cannot hit that breakpoint consistently (like 90% of the time its 2 hits nstead of 1 hit) it will just make the choice even less relevant because no one wants to RNG their damage.
You would have to massively increase enemy hitpoint amounts for breakpoint game to go away. As long as you can make hits go from 2-1 or even 3-2, its relevant to aim for those points.
Then again i donāt think many are interested to see 10 hit poxwalker enemies.
Maybe if damage on weapons also worked on scales of lows and highs and randomness (aside from crits). Not sure what this adds though.
Well that would certainly make it more āinterestingā i guess ā¦ but it would still be the case of rolling that damage to make the minimun roll as low as possible while maximixing that max roll.
Now saying that outloud i think it would just make damage stat even more important.
You could have variety in the amount though. Some weapons are closer spread with minimum/maximum damage values, some with much wider spreads. Maybe some with none.
Personally I just prefer modular damage. Body parts having different health and receiving more or less damage depending on types of damage.
Yeah and at that point we get to complexity where casual player has finally lost that last bit of sanity 
The game is already annoying enough for even long timer to understand what exactly impacts stuff like stagger and damage with all the armour/armor penetrating and range mechanics on ranged weapons.
So while these things work in more of an say path of exile type of game, fatshark is notoriously bad at giving out information even to our current mechanics.
Modular damage sounds interesting i will say that.
I like the idea
You shouldnāt.
Because the goal of the idea is to dumb down the system to a degree, that any understanding of anything is pretty much irrelevant.
Aside from that, the idea is so much against the core of what the tide games are, that the thread might as well be put to the grave right now.
What is next? Random amount of ressource production and consumption in strategy games, with the goal of preventing people from properly planning their build order or something?
I can only imagine this working as special condition related to Tzeentch and his eternal scheming as additional challenge.
Frankly, I am not a fan of this idea. Important factor in the āTideā combat was always making decisions in the thick of the fight. Should I ult now or save it? Should I risk it and swap for ranged weapon to down that special? Should I drop that grenade at that pesky elites now or later? Random HP for enemies would take out consistency and predictability from your decisions.
Imagine: you play as a psyker and notice a shotgunner coming towards you in the thick of the horde, you start dodging like Neo in Matrix with the brain burst charging, aim at his headā¦ and he survives with 1% hp left because RNG. Your stamina is low, dodges need a while to recharge and youāre a sitting duck. Analogous scenario would occur always, when you just need that breakpoint and game has different opinion on it in that moment. I can only speak for myself, but I would consider such occurrences extremely frustrating.
Last but not least: Darktide has more than enough RNG. Break the locks!
Thatās not cause a previous game has been made like that, that it should not change.
I like the idea cause of the surprise, cause you cannot know if this enemy can be killed by a one shot or noā¦
But, like the demands about removing the locks, donāt worry, it wonāt happen.
Adding more layers of RNG to the game is the last thing Iād like to see. Would rather see more content and crafting features and balances and fixes before considering this.
Maybe as a mission modifier.
I feel like people think I mean some poxwalkers should have double the HP, I mean minimal differences.
So that if you have a sword with slightly better first target damage, it would actually make sense to aim for the bigger guy in the crowd to reach his breakpoint, or a weapon with a higher cleave stat that sadly has a bad damage roll would still be good at clearing out the trash in the hordes so the psyker with the deimos sword knows who to aim for.
I just thought it would make some of the current weapon stats actually mean something and give otherwise ātrash weaponsā that didnāt get that perfect roll you were looking for a use.
I donāt think it would be fun to just make everything random, thatās not the point, breakpoints will always exist, itās the question about single target vs cleave damage that already plays a central part in the game but is answered very poorly with the current weapon stats system.
It would also make combat more dynamic since in hordes, the weakest walkers would always die first and leave the tougher ones that need a extra hit, or they could be engaged with a different attack pattern from the start to take them out immediately, something to give weapons with non-horizontal attacks a use, make the light attacks on the eviscerator or crucis relevant, that kind of stuff.
I donāt think itās a ālayer of RNGā, at the end of the day itās just more enemy variety, thatās all.
What if it only applied to non-specials & elites, just scabs, dregs, & poxwalkers.
More enemy variants would be better than RNG enemy stats. Having enemy variety, even if itās just a slightly different trapper or poxburster or mutant, would add exponentially more variety than an enemy having Ā±300 HP.
The reason I donāt like this is that a sheer amount of enemies can appear in a given situation, and having those variables would complicate the game for most players, while Ā±300 HP wouldnāt matter to skilled players.
Breakpoints arenāt the greatest game design, surely, but the crux of the gameās design is maximizing breakpoint effectiveness. You always want to spend the least amount of time possible per enemy to continuously deal with threats, so you want to spend the least amount of hits per enemy.
Poxwalkers only have, what, 200hp on heresy? Iām talking like a 10%-15% variance, so they would range from 170-230 hp, thatās not so much that it completely ruins building for breakpoints, it just makes the small 10% differences in weapon stats we have actually mean something. (And not so much that it would make special attacks / brainburst any less effective!)
Remember, half the enemies would be weaker than usual statistically, so of all the enemies coming at you, half of them would die faster and easier, leaving less to be dealt with.
The idea just sounded like it would make combat a lot more interesting & fun in my head instead of just having a bunch of walking breakpoints coming at you that have to be dealt with with the same meta weapons & attack patterns by everyone every single time, just gets monotonous.
Honestly with how RNG crazy fatshark seems to be surprised itās not implemented already.
While i get your idea and think it could mix things up or make the existing weapons-range more reasonable, poeple would either stay under your 170hp breakpoint to bring something different on top and live with consistent 2 hits, or try to max out the 230hp for oneshots.
It just shifts the design a bit, nothing else. We would need a bit more than that.
ItĀ“s actually more skill to adjust to given circumstances ingame like āOh sheet, the boss has 50% more health.ā or āThe Crusher is smaller, so the weakspot is aswell and heĀ“s way faster in movement and attack-execution.ā or āThe Mauler has carapace-bodyarmor, while Rager has different bodyparts armored!ā, etcā¦
It would mix things up by miles and force the player to react in different ways ingame and while preparing their gear. In comparison reaching a breakpoint is just simple math or testing. In the worst case datamining or using mods.
In my opinion the critchance is enough RNG in damage output for me.
Visually different elite enemy types would be ok - but actually new enemies (tyranids) would be even better.
But while carapace is mentioned: scap gunners should be carapace armored as they are clearly designed as moebian stormtrooper equivalent similar to Kasrkin or Death Korps Grenadiers.