Because I’m raving mad about dogs. Dogs are broken and not in the fun way.
They’re not untennable and they’re usually controllable, but the issues with dogs drive me up the wall sometimes. Let me do this as concise as possible:
Dogs can sometimes be interrupted with things like Ogryn/Zealot charge mid pounce and sometimes that doesn’t work
Dogs can sometimes ignore pushes via super armor due to how stagger resistance works and that shouldn’t be a thing at all. Unless that’s not a thing and somehow my push that registered on a dog at maximum stamina at +5 is somehow not enough
Dogs movement is… Special and no amount of pattern recognition in the world is helping you anticipate who this is jumping towards.
There’s other things which I don’t have footage for
Dogs shouldn’t push back and interruption all besides their pounce target before the pounce animation starts.
Dogs push should only apply when they successfully land on a target (afterall, how does that push me away but a roided up mutant running off with my ally does nothing to me?)
Dogs shouldn’t still have the AI where they wait for you to walk past a spawn ceiling before dropping down. (The number of dogs I’ve killed in roofs is insane)
Dogs are unrealistically difficult to sidestep on Damnation for whatever reason unless you’ve got a maxed out good mobility dodge distance weapon.
That’s all I’ve got. With good play you’ll STILL never get pounced on. But their existence as currently implemented is one of my pain points.
Just attack. Take your melee weapon into the hand and attack when you want to dodge, or do both. I really had it never happen that the dog won´t get staggered by my melee weapons. You could also hide a bit around a corner, so the hound will stop for a moment before jumping and that´s your chance.
They´re not much different than assassins from V2, harder to dodge which might be a issue with the server-connectivity, but easier to to catch since they don´t jump from everywhere.
Gutter Runners in VT2 (post bug fixes) unless they’re jumping from point blank jump further back, have no in transit aoe knockback, didn’t just become immune to pushes because of hit registration, had better directional sound, were easier to spot (due to their tendency of choosing high points to pounce from). Relatively they were also easier to hit from longer distance jump arcs and sidestepping them was relatively easy. If you sidestepped at all once he revv’d up the jump, VT2 gave it to you.
The biggest issue I have with dogs is that even if you properly push them mid air you can STILL get knocked back if it wasn’t jumping towards you even AS the push is registering. This is a ridiculously unsatisfying feeling.
Not to mention the general resignation most people have in regards to dogs where everybody on damnation now that don’t have weapons that for free staggers them (i.e shotguns, flamers, surge, purgatus, and trama staves) just hugs angles so they can kill the dog before it engages with it’s mechanic. They’re not a fun enemy type. I record nearly all of my games now just so I can add to my “dog ignores push/hitreg issues” collection.
I agree that they´re not immune to stagger and other stuff, but the sound and that they´ve been easier to spot? Dunno… might be more map-related or so. Hounds just can´t come from “everywhere”. They´re grounded and i think that poeple get a little knockback is fine and somewhat more realistic.
I don´t have issues at all with sound, but that might be some hardware-difference or so dunno.
I do think that hounds would be too easy to get ride of since they only can come from the back / the front, if you could them hit and stagger that easy from distance. They´ve to work difference since they just can´t hide / come back from any angle and don´t have 50m jumps.
Also as i´ve said, it might be up to your server-connection. V2 is easier in every way if you´re host, but as client it´s also up to your connection to the host if you get random hits or how easy it´s to dodge disablers in time.
I get your point, and that´s why my advice is still attack. Push and dodge doesn´t work very well, but a timed attack (+ dodge if you want) does a lot to stagger a hound. And it works on every melee weapon, even knifes.
Dunno if it´s a design-choice away from ping-related stuff, but i´m fine with it. No need for stamina or so.
It’s a combination of directional sound (gutter runners will nearly never spawn and pounce before you’ve had time to be aware of their location) on top of a distinctive color scheme (so they don’t blend in with a dusty desert background). Dogs can move and jump through other enemies. If you’re in a horde mixed with some elites it doesn’t matter if the dog has LoS of you or not. It can jump through enemies.
That’s a tiny bit misleading. While yeah bad connection hosts impact your performance (dramatically in regards to stray hits) specials like for instance the hookrat, if you sidestep on your end, that hook will pass through you, shake the screen slightly, and VT2 lets you have your evasion.
I don’t agree with this being the proper solution. And due to aforementioned linked webms in regards to hit registration and stagger resistance sometimes isn’t EVEN a solution at all. Most people hug angles or close doors. Especially in hordes. When I’m saying it flat out shouldn’t be this way.
As for the CC on non targets we’re going to have to agree to disagree. But a dog doing a pushback originating from itself even BEFORE it’s left off the ground (as it triggers when it decides to attack, not when the animation matches up to it’s leap) I’m never going to be satisfied with.
We had one the other night Spider-Dog it by jumping 20ft straight up on the ceiling while we were all shooting at it (it was still alive, we had to shoot it down.) They warp from one target to the next mid jump. They ignore melee and ranged hit registration all the time. Their sound cues randomly don’t function. Most of these problems are intensified during intense engagements with a large number of enemies. It’s just a trash coded enemy.
I get that they need to be sturdy for their intended functionality of being a ground bound disabler that has to charge straight in, but that only holds up if they function properly, which they do not.
I love blue heelers. Also I love slamming Darktide hounds into objects and corners, because their “AI” is as complex as complaints of the wannabe psyker “mains” on this forum.
I mean, yes… but that´s nothing packmaster, gutterrunners or leeches didn´t do. ^^
Never had issues with sound on hounds so far tbh. There was not any moment in my games where they spawned directly behind me or so. But trappers… they´re a different story spawning directly behind you or being silent ninjas.
I can just say “try it”. As i´ve said, i really don´t have issues attacking them to force them down. No staggering issues, no hitreg issues. But i´ve the same issues that dodging is not consistent as much as pushing is pretty much useless.
So i would say that attacking with a melee-weapon will work in 95% of all cases to everyone, if not 99% to some.
There are a lot of people who are having inconsistent behavior coming from them, it’s cool that you’re not seeing that, but FS needs to take an extended look at them.
I know their behavior, i just said that melee them works pretty much every time to me and its the thing i would recommend to everyone instead of dodge / blockpush or trying to kill it on range.
Ofc the massive stagger-resistance even against ultimates or while sitting on another player is ridiculous as some crazy movement turns.
No it´s not. They can´t to much but running straight onto you and maybe dodging range-shots with their crazy movement. Catching them once with BB to oneshot them would make them pretty pointless most of the times.
Tbf if i´ve the same issues with timed dodging etc, which sometimes seems impossible to do, but not with staggering on melee-attack when they jump on you. So it seems to be either the wrong timing or a bad connection since i highly doubt we play different games.
I don´t have noticeable hitreg-issues and other stuff aswell, just twice enemies spawned directly in front of me. Region EU and no fiber-internet btw…
So i tend to say it´s either a local server - issue in another region or up to the provider, routing etc from players who seem to have huge issues with it.
Half of the issues can be blamed to servers derping, like the inconsistent dodging/pushing. Especially noticeable on the higher difficulties.
Other half just makes no sense like them gaining infinite stagger resistance if you happen to burn/shoot them in an akward timing.
I’l take gutter runner from vermintide any day over this.