Maelstrom difficulty please

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1

many people enjoy the chaotic nature of Maelstrom as is, and not fighting damage-sponges like in high havoc means many builds can actually work very well in Auric Maelstrom that simply are locked out of high havoc due to lack of dps.

thus: could you Fatshark please make Maelstrom it’s own actual difficulty, where we could have Mael regular, Mael+ and such?

i’d love a more intense Maelstrom honestly. while some mutator combinations are quite tough, others are way too easy in comparison. especially if all 4 ppl know how the game works, and we don’t have an Arbites in auric mael that doesn’t even know so you can’t block a Crushers’ overhead attack…eh that’s not the point. but yes it is actually the point, if all 4 ppl know the game, Auric Mael can actually be rather boring sometimes.

Sometimes even just a single dude can turn Auric Mael into a walking simulator i.e. a Voidblast Psyker in “Mostly Melee no Ammo”.

2

i wanna add some more input to this.
Arbites and Hive Scum are both heavely overtuned.
Before i quit darktide the first time around, i got tired of having lone-wolfs in every match, including auric maelstrom. now you have either arbites or hive scum, or worse both.
when we actually have a nice classic grp (no dlc pay2win crap), everyone is required to play the actual game. the moment one such dlc classes enters the team, it’s basically no more necessary.
sure there are some mutator-combinations for auric maelstrom that may still require it, but for the most part, having those classes in your team turns the game into a walking simulator.
even just a Force Greatsword (when not played pure glass-cannon) completely trivializes a lot of maelstrom-content, but an entire class? let alone 2?

however: fatshark most certainly will never balance those pay2win classes, and soon we get yet a 3rd pay2win class (Skitarii). so if we can’t at least have a more difficult Maelstrom, there’s just no more appeal to play the game honestly.

so many runs end in a walking simulator despite the team never actually grouping up.
i even have been told by some Arbites players so their class is “supposed to hold chokepoints away from the team”, literally denying the entire fundamental basic concept of the entire game. and it still was a boring mission, despite said players. it’s just mind boggling and boring af.

edit: and the worst part of this is, so Fatshark deliberately breeds lone wolfs, because team work is no more required. this is very unhealthy for the game and community as a whole.

3

strongly agree with more maelstrom missions up at one time, i dont even care about how it’s implemented

4

I get the feeling there’s far more people playing regular auric than maelstroms, or they would indeed do this. I guess it depends on what the spread looks like, and if they feel people would actually play maelstroms.

I think the better thing to focus on in terms of difficulty is making the progression better, so people don’t reach damnation still thinking the game is meant to be a total cakewalk.

5

That highly depends on the class you play. Vet is a vastly different experience than ogrin in terms of difficulty and amounts of going down. Especially when leveling

6

I’d like to harp on it again, that simply allowing us to pick and choose all the maps and mutators in private games would solve a lot of the friction on this.

It’s not fun “running out” of challenging maps, and was made worse by the lowered mission expire time that allowed them to be played with mods.

7

Basically what you’re asking for is this :

8

indeed actually.
i’m just worried there’s no good option honestly, except balancing the entire game including paied DLC and old stuff to make it as equal as possible.

both the “free the mutators” and “increased maelstrom difficulty” basically will end up forcing even more pay2win classes to appear in these modes. people will feel like “it is mandatory to run op stuff” because “that’s how the game is” but it shouldn’t be this way honestly.

ah idk, other than Fatshark actually balancing the game, i see no good solution, it’s just bandaids to have “better than nothing” which is still bad :frowning:

edit: i guess there would be another solution actually.
give us a “legacy mode” where people are locked out of the new shiny fancy stuff (pay2win classes, relic blade, force greatsword and such). but that equally is never going to happen for the exact same reason Fatshark will never balance said power-creep stuff:
Fatshark values “presenting spectacle to a newcomer” and “those folks that play a game for 50h and then move on” >>>>> “customer retention”

9

aint rocket science but appearantly some suit optimization plan for shareholders revenue seems to forbid what i hoped for havoc to be before it was released:

a menu with each modifier as a base option to stack on each other with a multiplier for enemy numbers and composition on top.

that would have given ultimate freedom and a fresh experience every time while having an open end sort of summit to climb and test how far you could push it.

what did we get?
hard coded color counters that make certain loadouts mandatory and reward turtle style gameplay :man_facepalming:

the appeal of maelstrom was being challenging without needing to care who’s on your group at the moment.
as long as an additional set of hands was messing with the numbers of enemies, each player had a free way of going ham and follow his personal playstyle.

it enforced a modest amount of “stay together” without getting pushy cause, lets be honest here, contrary to a premade you dont really care about some strangers.

and why should one in the first place?
everyone keeping the mininal modicum of not getting in each others way or throwing the match on purpose, the mandatory social obligation is fulfilled.

anything above that is for associates/buddies/friends to be had, end of the match no one cares for who was on it come the next hangar anyways.

why was that social contract broken to the point one sees the other rejects as parasites on ones killfeed?

increase in characters abilities to the point it exceeds the players and lets him slither into settings he has no business being at based on his abilities alone and the snowball effect that was neglected for far to long.
cashed in upon even by the dlc characters.

solution?
cold turkey in one fell swoop.
dont “adjust” op talents/weapons, remove them altogether in their current form and replace them with what was considered “max” pre power creep

if it turns out it cant be salvaged, cut of the leprous limb rather than let it fester, remove it from the roster and make for a proper replacement.

if ults remain cheesable through stacking certain talents, scrap both and rebuild the character from scratch proper.

its a grueling workload i wager and the bandaid solution is even more lucrative, yet from a players perspective its what i’d support monetarily even if fatshark would fulfill their part and give us back the darktide of old.

10

i strongly agree with that, the issue basically boils down to:
releasing power-creep stuff → allows new players to “finish the game on the hardest difficulty” and then move on, solely because they didn’t die in auric maelstrom they think they did “beat the game” completely oblivious to the fact so they don’t even understand the basic fundamentals. i.e. arbites thinking they are supposed to not be in coherency because “that’s how this class works bro” → this is the definition of anti-customer-retention. this breeds lone-wolfs that just wanna “achievement hunt” the game, and then move on to the next game.

it’s the literal catering to “addictive completionists” despite being a complete contrast to the games fundamental nature.

edit: i do disagree with “who cares about strangers” tho. it might just be my main-support brain, but i actually enjoy tight teamwork also with 3 randos. it’s not just how the game is supposed to work, the chaotic mess is precisely what can make one care about strangers, going through hell together and coming out alive on the other side is a great feeling, also with complete strangers!

11

Regen Krak
Hive Launcher
Rumbler spam on full range node build, which can refill simply from ammo
Regen Volt mine
Smite

Dozen blitz refills on map to cover all armour packs and bonus extras for trash mobs.

It does not auto win Havoc, but it has simplified Quickplay mode. A mode that most playerbase use.

Game mechanics should be based on complexity, risk vs reward.

AOE stun/boom is simply press F from distance. Low risk, low complexity and maximum reward.

So now FS adding new class that has such choice options. AOE auto-stun, boom nade, personal shield and assistant that follows around.

New class DLCs in future will be like reskins. Different looks, different animations, different tools, but same effects. AOE stun and boom. Power sells.

12

except in the case in question “he” didnt complete anything, the artificial attributes got him through something he couldn’t with a “lesser” class.

i can beat jesse owens on the 100 meters run with a speedbike as well, doesnt make me gold medalist :man_shrugging:

theres a huge gap with players that were there from the start and took every step up as a rite of passage and made sure they pulled their weight and the “fun crowd” that now surf on the back of dlc classes and op talents.

shame the later bring in briefly more cash than the core base, which keep the lights on in the long run.

13

briefly more cash

i just wanna highlight the briefly so no decision-taker can just skim over it thinking “then all is good” which it obviously isn’t.

long-term customer retention also means long-term funding of a corp

14

so far there seems to be one dominant decision making mantra : cash/crash/burn repeat.

bought the first 2 dlc classes cause they felt novel at the time, shelved each after a short time for how cheap they felt.

skitarii will be the first im doubtful spending my money on for various reasons and i spend “some” on 40k since darktide got me hooked on it.

got no illusions though tin can being so popular (for reasons i cant understand :squinting_face_with_tongue: ) it has to be a newb-carriage to make it “worth the purchase”

15

Hmm…I wonder why that might be…hmmm

16

mission board could defo use some newer difficulties, havoc shouldn’t be the only hard mode in this game