Following the reduction in Crushers, Bulwarks have now been reduced as well, which I assume is part of a larger balance overhaul. However, Fatshark’s balance updates are far too slow, often feel incomplete, and come with little to no communication. It’s impossible to tell what their overall vision is or what stage of the process we’re currently in. It feels like we’re constantly walking through a fog.
At least the end goal should be clear: to undo the player power creep caused by the excessive spam of Crushers, Bulwarks, and Maulers, and restore a healthier balance to Auric and Havoc.
Havoc in particular has become a mode where 99% of players run nearly identical builds and weapons. No matter which stream you watch, the screen is filled with flashing yellow lights and blue flames. It’s the same Gold Toughness Bubble Inferno Simulator we’ve all seen a hundred million times.
High difficulty shouldn’t be about relying on a handful of overpowered builds or weapons. The higher the difficulty, the more the game should reward pure player skill, decision-making, and mechanical execution.
when they first made civii maelstroms (all scab, no ammo) i had a lot of fun but it felt pretty gimmicky. it was fun though cause it was so radically different from the normal game, liked bringing loadouts specifically for crusher and mauler killing, just added to gameplay variety.
balancing the entire game around that sort of experience though was obviously a mistake in my book. especially because it at the same time removes the possibility for such variety. i mean what kind of modifier can they even make nowadays that actually plays different from the usual power fantasy on aurics. no wonder only havoc gets new modifiers anymore.
That’s way off the mark. Crusher numbers were nerfed because it was unhealthy for game, where it just runs into anti-carapace meta every match and if you’re not running it you’re just kiting huge armor waves for 30+ minutes. This problem was at its worse with rotten armour as crushers just spam en masse with an effective hp of 12k before they changed the armor type to infested.
Enemies spam wasnt a thing at DT early life cycle and encounters were acrually fun and engaging before but when Crushers and Bulwarks were spamed to counter powercreep game became annoying and in the proces it make big chunk of arsenal useless.
You really miss that?
So yeah devs should reduce enemies spam, buff weapons left behing, nerd broken ones and nerf players power.
I don’t think anyone specifically asked to limit Ogryn numbers, we have certinely highlighted issues with edge cases, such as Rotten Armour spam, combined with other modifiers, and maps which were never designed with Havoc in mind. Maps where you are forced into dead ends after dropping down without ability to backtrack, or leaving an area through a door / elevator.
More than half of those are commonly known “meta” builds are the reason why the game balance is so sh…in the first place. Things which Fatshark failed to properly design & test to understand the impact on the gameplay flow. This isn’t variety. On positive note, things are “mostly” better than in early Havoc seasons. I personally would prefer few more Crushers, and less mualer / rager pack spam. Bulwarks should remain limited, because after so many years Fatshark still hasn’t figured out whey shield enemies in VT2 worked better, and that Bulwarks should occupy more space slots to prevent overlapping shield issues.
We are the point where if you want to have fun and challenging experience in a team of very good players, you have to gatekeep who you invite into your party. This is literally the only way.
The underlying issues are and REMAIN hyperdensity, which is actually more prominent with Bulwarks and Maulers and player power creep which allows players to wipe normal enemy waves too quickly. So Fatshark cooked up all those silly Havoc modifiers such as pre-nerf Rotten Armour, combined with clown cars of elites, gas giving enemies DR, stims giving enemies DR, modifiers giving enemies stagger immunity, and healing out-healing inflicted damage mid the same attack combo. We have seen some positive changes to those modifiers, and some questionable (like stagger resistance on Garden).
Hyper density remains unfixed, enemy elites phasing through you to get to some backline player who dealt damage to them first remains in the game. Maps not designed around Havoc reality remain in the game. Abnoxious amount of VFX and SFX pointless noise, and broken audio cues remain in the game. I don’t see Fatshark ever fixing any of those issues.
I love the game, the core concept is great, combat and intensity when those WORK are great.
Fatshark’s lack of attention to detail, lack of urgency when it comes to often game breaking issues, and apparent lack of willingness to balance broken “meta” picks put the franchise future in question.
Honestly the game is in heavy need of enemy variety and varied enemy behavior. There’s two factions in this game but they’re just copy/paste of each other with different armor and one faction does funny purple damage.
It’s not the fact that we’re loosing them, it’s the fact that we’re getting temu replacement versions for them that are ironically more annoying than the original unit.
But I want to bring a lasrifle and frag grenades with executioner’s stance. I want to bring a hellbore. I want to bring an auto rifle, a braced or vigilant autogun
I don’t want to bring the eviscerator or relic blade, I want to bring a chainaxe
I don’t want to bring a flame staff, I want to bring a revolver
I don’t want to bring charge, I want to hassan piker my dog
And now I don’t have to because “oops all crushers” spawning is extremely rare and unlucky so I’m not pigeonholed and forced to make builds. There’s always going to be more optimal but the ‘gear check’ is gone players can bring other builds that won’t drag everyone down.
How is an “ELITE” an Elite anymore if they have as much of them as Standard Infantry?
I really dont want to go down the Route of he said, she said, but even Gameplay Testers like “Reginald” despises them due to being abundant and too crazy with rotten Armor.
Back to Vermintide Rule with less but much more imposing Elites!
The real issue IMO is how the armour doesn’t really matter in the game, except carapace.
If armour penetration was an genuine variable for weapons builds then it could spice things up. e.g. if you chose carapace blessing then your weapon would be MUCH less effective against dreg infected etc. As it stands its mostly similar for armour types except carapace.
The difference between all armour types is not substantial enough. It should be meaningful to push more thought into weapon blessings.
If people want less enemies with more engaging and thoughtful battles then this will surely need to be a part of that gameplay direction.
Because no other armour matters. It’s all due to the same reasons I mention just above - where armour types are near meaningless. It boils down to ‘carapace armour’ and ‘non carapace armour’.
If other armours required perks like carapace then metas would be much trickier to work out, if at all.
I think the implementation of weapons is meant to balance things. IE, plasma gun is very good at deleting single specific targets, it’s not that great against a horde (assuming it’s not a corridor ofc), the combat axes are for single armoured targets due to the lack of sweeping attacks ect.
I agree with the frustration that the ‘25% more carapace armour damage’ feels mandatory .
?!
