Increased Stagger Thresholds Against Enemies Targeting Other Players

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Bugs
1

Issue Type (Required):

Enemy Mechanics

Issue Description (Required):

Enemies that are focused on other players have higher stagger thresholds. Here are some examples of how it effects gameplay:

Pox Bursters

  • Havoc 40 with a good team.
  • Hectic scenario, I see a pox burster running towards 3 of us.
  • I step forward, double push, back dodge.
  • Nothing.
  • I notice, step forward again, push again.
  • Nothing.
  • It blows all 3 of us up and we end up losing.

Maulers & Crushers

  • Playing Ogryn
  • See a pack of armor charging at us
  • Step forward to hold them back
  • Several unstaggerable maulers & crushers walk straight over me
  • They’re now attacking my team and I’m stuck inside a pack of unstaggerable armored elites.

Ragers

  • Playing Arbite
  • I spot a wave of ragers
  • They start attacking another player
  • I try to protect them by staggering the 2 ragers attacking them
  • Normally I can stagger ragers that are attacking me just fine, but…
  • Nothing, I bash the ragers over and over and then my teammate goes down anyway

Steps to Reproduce (Required):

  1. Attempt to stagger any Burster/Rager/Mauler/Crusher that’s targeting another player.
  2. You’ll notice that the stagger thresholds are significantly higher.
  3. Pushing Pox Bursters won’t work, Ogryn/Arbite cannot stagger Ragers/Maulers/Crushers that they normally could.

Reproduction Rate (Required):

Constant (100%)

Platform (Required):

PC - Steam

Player ID (Optional):

2

Regarding Pox Bursters, and Pox Hounds (while at it), both check if their current target is doing a push action when within a certain distance, with no angle restriction (yes, you can push without looking at them at all, and they get pushed away from you). If so, a stagger is forced and guaranteed.

As noted, they only do this with their current target though, which is the problem.

When this isn’t the case, they have to be pushed physically like any other enemy, but they’re somewhat resistant to stagger, so sometimes you could push them a bunch and nothing might happen.

EDIT: that said, it’d be really nice if they also had some sort of check for players who aren’t being targeted. Sometimes the Burster can switch targets mid-jump and ignore the player that’s closer to them for the guaranteed stagger. And bots also just don’t have logic to account for this stuff so they end up eating Pox Bursters while also not allowing players to do the guaranteed stagger either..

I’m unsure if the 3 elites you mentioned have any sort of stagger resistance logic like that when damaged by someone who isn’t their target, I’d say it’s not the case as I don’t remember seeing something like that in the code, but I’d have to verify it first to be fully sure.

That said, I do know that Ragers and Scab Ragers doing their combo swings attacks gives them stagger resistance, and the same applies for overhead attacks on both Maulers and Crushers (combine this with havoc 40 and all of its modifiers to both player and enemies, and you might end up not having enough impact to stagger these enemies in the middle of an attack as reliably).

There’s also a mechanic that grants stagger resistance (or reduction, don’t remember which, but I know they’re different things) to enemies like Crushers, and possibly the other elites too, to make it harder and harder to cause a stagger on them.

3

There’s definitely a mad stagger resistance ragers have when rushing into battle. Unless you use a guaranteed stagger effect (like a shout or dash ult) they take no stagger and keep going for their aggro’d target. You can explode trauma staff circles under their feet and they keep going. Its a really annoying ‘feature’ of these guys.

4

They do running staggers where they keep going, more often than other enemies unless the stagger is really heavy yeah, but it’s specific to them sprinting towards someone. And then there’s the combo attack where they don’t stop attacking which also gives them stagger resistance.

There’s definitely some weird cases mentioned in this report, but that stuff with Ragers is normal, same with Crushers/Maulers doing running overheads.