Lower difficulties feel like what Darktide is supposed to be

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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TL;DR If anyone hasn’t tried making a new character and playing with them from scratch I highly suggest you do so. It shows you a completely different Darktide. A better Darktide. I could even say that this is the Darktide experience that the devs envisioned.

I’m currently leveling up a new Veteran character and let me tell you, the gameplay has never felt more engaging and intense. Every game was super fun but the best was probably the Consignment Yard in Meltafab (“Secure the train” mission). My Veteran was at level 8 so no talents that insta-regenerate toughness were unlocked yet so I had to be more careful with how I played. I also didn’t have Shout with Golden Toughness to back me up and single shooter on Malice could easily hurt me very badly if I wasn’t careful. I had to actively take cover, can you imagine that?

But most important of all, there was so little enemies on the map and despite this, the game has felt challenging in a very good way. My weapons were not fully upgraded (200 power for each and upgraded to color green) and that also made the experience feel very balanced and rewarding. Never have ever I had so much fun playing with the default Shovel and default Shotgun. And since everyone in the team was also leveling up, no one was ruining the fun by killing everything before anyone can do anything. And since there was so little enemies, I could actually hear everything that was happening around me. I could hear the Specialists coming. I could HEAR that Poxburster and that Trapper. It felt like I was experiencing Darktide’s gameplay as it was supposed to be.

To put it simply. If Auric missions had as small of spawn rates as Malice does but with tougher enemies that do more damage Darktide would be in a much, MUCH healthier state, gameplay-wise.

This really opened my eyes as to how awful the enemy spam is on Auric difficulty, not to mention when it has all those modifiers that only increase said spawns. Those games I played while leveling that Veteran up still felt chaotic when to horde came. None of these games were a snooze fest at all, but what they did had, was those quiet moments where the team could anticipate the moment where the next horde comes, and we would have to stand our ground and fight for our lives. Also, Ragers and Gunners were actually terrifying to face despite never showing up in numbers higher than 1-3 at a time max.

Please FatShark don’t ignore the Enemy Spam this year. I’ll say the dreaded word, but I Hope that this year we can finally see this issue at least partially resolved. Darktide feels so much better when you aren’t forced to fight all the time in a mission and are actually allowed to take in the world and things like map, lore and sound design of the environment, ambience, enemies, etc.

Again, if anyone hasn’t tried making a new character and playing with them from scratch I highly suggest you do so. Trust me when I say this: you’ll get to experience Darktide from a completely different side. A better side.

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Auric heresy was my favourite “chill” difficulty, had enough spawns to not feel empty but enemies were not so tanky to feel like sponges, if the team was lacking it was “easier” to clutch as well.

Auric heresy is gone.

3

I told you so! Darktide REALLY needs to slow down…

Anyways, I’ve finally gotten around to playing BG3. Do youse want to rate my Drow Paladin?

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What you’re SHOOT SPECIAL missing at higher SHOOT SPECIAL difficulties, with higher SHOOT SPECIAL spawn rates, is SHOOT SPECIAL increased variability in how SHOOT SPECIAL the mission might play SHOOT SPECIAL out. It’s less predictable SHOOT SPECIAL, moment to moment. SHOOT SPECIAL

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While I graduated myself to Auric Damnation over time, Auric Heresey was a big part of my personal skill growth.

I poured one out for all your kind that found it their comfort zone when they unceremoniously shuttered it.

I think I may even have gone back to that as my main for expeditions, at least for a while.

6

that’s how badly hard the current guy in charge of balancing dropped the ball:

when you’re at a point when all you can do is play arms-race with yourself you have to realize at some point you’re at a dead end and call it quits/ tear it down and rebuild it from the ground up.

improving yourself from malice to damnation shorty after beta felt like a rite of passage, finally having arrived among the “proper players” and see how much further you can take it from here.

HISTG was the be all end all and one was having plenty fighting to do, no matter the loadout.

auric maelstrom offered with I II / I II V E G and C I VI some welcome additions to change the pace, back when monstrosities were actually troublesome encounters and 2 bosses on screen meant trouble for all.

zealots brought the bonk stick and that was that.

fast forward to oh so wonderful havoc40 we get rainbow modifiers to compensate for over powerful everything’s or vice versa, who can tell the difference anymore ?

hordes are the bread and butter of what makes darktide darktide, I want and need the screen full of targets that demand split second decisions.

but stuff like ogryn enemies or even gunners were never meant to be chaff enemies a dime a dozen.

rather have 20 ragers in a horde of 100 poxers then wade myself through guts and gore to the one gunner nest at the end of the corridor than dodge sliding into 12 of them and two shot them as the meaningless wusses they are right now.

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I remember when Auric was literally just a superior version of what Havoc’s currently trying to be. It was CRAZY seeing two Monstrosities spawn in simultaneously for the first time without you needing to pull a Daemonhost whilst fighting a Monstrosity. Havoc spawns in, like, FOUR of them at once and it just makes you roll your eyes. It’s too much and just isn’t as engaging as pre-Patch #13 Auric was.

8

Pretty much exactly the reason why I occasionally play a permadeath character with the added condition of only using random weapons gifted from mission completions. Makes it feel more scrappy until you get to hi-int damnation where it turns into enemy spam again. Where it becomes less engaging again as you’ll likely be close to level 20 at that point.

Also fun thing, I’ve seen inferno psykers walking over damnation even heresy games so those games were trivialized. :slight_smile:

Harridas 9

1 Like
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It was kinda neat when leveling up hivescum and actually having to fight trash enemies instead of just instantly killing them.

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How’d you know?! Is it really so obvious what I am?! :sob:

0:15

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Yeah, it was really cool having to ACTUALLY engage in basic teamwork in order to advance through a Mission for the first time since 2023.

Being able to hear Enemy voice lines that usually get drowned out in higher Difficulties whenever I’m levelling up a new Class is also kind of nice.

It’s pretty cool to me that Scab Plasma Gunners call Plasma Guns “Sun Guns”!

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I do miss the early days of the game when the game play was slower and more tactical.

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The most noticable thing for me was how trash mobility roll on a weapon makes some enemies to become scary again, ragers in particular.

Low mobility roll dodge feels almost like V2 dodge.

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It’s almost like certain Weapons in Darktide have WAY too much Mobility as a baseline! :wink:

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I can’t inmagine anyone disagreeing with you. It’s something i do every couple of weeks, new character and enjoy the game and teamplay. im also just tired of the armored spam in high diff. makes every game the same

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Yes, but no to that:

I think the key is what you mentioned earlier:

This is imo the root of the problem. Toughness was never designed to be replenishable in seconds while having insane high pools. I could write a complete assay but let’s leave at that.

18

raises hand

Op has some good points (crazy spawn rates do not work well with some specialists), but I recently leveled a character and I found it a snooze fest and couldn’t wait to jump back to auric, were there was actually stuff to kill.

19

Preaching to the choir!

Enemies do need to be more dangerous individually in order for Auric to not be a hot steaming mess of missed sound cues and Ogryn clown cars.

Not boring HP buffs that reinforce the existing broken meta weapons. Actual mechanical changes, how they interact with players.

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I was never a fan of those nose rings that became so very popular these days, but apart from that, it looks superb!