Make the game less frustrating

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I really like Darktide, i got 670 hours in it and reached havoc 24. However this game can be incredibly frustrating and while a certain amount of frustration is unovaidable in a hard game, the level of frustrating mechanics in Darktide is incredible. A game can be hard and not that frustrating, i have played VT2 before, and VT2 is a far less frustrating game.

1- The amount of spawn points. Basicly there is never something as clearing a space in Darktide. Every few meters there is a door, a palisade, or the mob can drop from above or come out of the ground…So you must all the time dance around like stimmed up psycho with ADHD, because you might have looked a way 1 second ago, but it was 1 second ago and now possibly a Crusher is behind you trying to whack you. Imho there should be considerably less spawn points , so if you clear a room without a spawn point you know its safe. Mind you the bombers and flamers can still get you there, so imho it wont make things to easy.

2- The weird acceleration of enemies if you arent facing them. The enemies seems to be able to transform into speed demons when you are not facing them, or are a bit away. So again even if you looked one way, 1 second later mobs can whack you in the back. Its like the AI director has a plan to corner the team somehwere and it speeds the enmeis to ridiculous levels so they all arrive at the same time, and so you never have 5 seconds without enemies around you.

3–The AI director seems to have a coded logic to exploit the weakness of the team in the worst possible way. IF you try to help someone who is down, be sure 95% of the time there will be suddenly a burster charging, a flamer or a traper to get you. IF you are the last person left, be sure that just hwen you arrive to the spot the team is waiting for rescue, a wave will spawn with a monstrosity. Imho these arent good things. It makes comebacks very difficult and feel incredibly frustrating.

4- IF you get separated from the team , you are usually as good as dead. Suddnely the enemies will spawn all around you. You will dodge 2 dogs, 1 traper, kill a crusher , but now suddenly there is a mob wave and a flamer behind it pining you in space. I understand punishing goup sepearation but maybe make it a little less harsh or scale it up gradually.

5 - The random and uneven difficulty levels - be it normal game modes or Havoc , the game seems to have very random difficulty levels spikes. One day its what you would expect at that level, another there is unending wave of bombers seeting aflame everything and everyone dies feeling powerless. RNG is good and needed so it isnt stale but imho there must be limits on those extremes.

6-Overall the AI director seems to react to the team instantly, spwaning instantly enemies all around. Imho it isnt realistic, and it doesnt feel good.

Im sure there will be many replies “git gud” but imho the game can be hard and be less frustrating, if those mechanics are improved in some way.

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1 - I think fewer spawn points would lead to more spawn camping, which is still prevalent in certain parts of certain maps. Not a big fan!

2 - Might be an engine limitation, I think it’s called the ‘tether’ system but I’d be willing to accept that as a technical limitation. Like so many other things it would be incredible to learn about this formally rather than have to figure it out yourself or be told.

3 - Kind of yeah, but it’s also on the player to clear threats and not tunnel vision on revives.

4 - Yeah, and honestly this is a perk. Don’t get separated! And if you are, be prepared to fight for your life…

5 - Agree.

6 - Well they still come out of the doors so I’m not sure what you mean. You lost me at “realistic” though :grin:

Just my two ordoes. More explanation of mechanics and better tutorials has been a frequently requested feature over the years (goodness gracious). I think git gud takes a back seat to how tf is a player supposed to intuit this crazy complex system that explains itself very little. I’ve got about the same hours as you, and only the research I’ve done on the side has allowed me to grok many of the more obscure mechanics/interactions…

And I don’t say that to excuse any of the more… frustrating ones…

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1-What do you mean by spawn camping?

4-IF you are with decent poeple its not a problem. IF you are with poeple who race ahead and deosnt give a damn about others, you cant even loot boxes or go back to heal, becasue it will take to long… And unfortunately racing ahead poeple not looking where are other team members are most common…

6- I meant realistic in the way that your brain got certain patterns for things, that makes you feel that certain things in a fantasy world feel either realistic or ridiculous

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Spawn camping is when you are able to sit on top of where the enemies come from (door, etc.) and murderate them before they are really on the map. Anytime you’ve seen players brutalise a door to rack up kills, that’s spawn camping :laughing:

FWIW I’ve always thought coherency was a underutilised mechanic to benefit players operating more like a squad. I absolutely feel you on this. It’s a massive issue that touches on many aspects of the game, from director spawns to matchmaking to balance. The best solution I’ve come up with (outside of premades) is to play harder difficulties where it’s less common for players to be able to solo content. Not really a solution though!

Gotta say not sure what you mean with 6 still.

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The number one source of frustration for me is the karking barrels, in particular how random explosion easily insta-kills you bypassing all the usual wounds mechanics, due to enormous kickback it has, sending you into some pit half the times. Stupid, unfair thing that doesn’t fit into the core game’s design at all. It’s as if some cubicle “game designer” who doesn’t even play the game on difficulties above Heresy thought it would be cool and added it immediately to the game, without any playtesting.

The second to that is being netted/dogged through a solid wall of mobs. The rest I can tolerate (or avoid, like in case of Fart Gas, or Havoc in general lol).

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consignment yard, auspex area, door opposite of health station = free real estate :face_with_tongue:

often times get more enemies behind this wall than the 3 others of the group combined.

then again, if fatshark put in real physics aka weapons bouncing off of walls/solid objects in general, the sheer floodgate a door spits out couldn’t get camped, go figure :man_shrugging:

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My assumption, but it may be about the fact how it seem to instantly react when you are really good at disposing threats like specialists. Like, when you kill a specialist the moment you get line of sight to it (because you heard the sound cue, and you knew where they come from, and you waited for them), it immediately spawns another one, often at the same very location - and then again, and again :slight_smile: It’s as if those who coded it were really insecure about players winning the match lol, and did all they could to add that “nah you won’t” middle-finger kind of response. So you don’t feel rewarded for your effort and being good at the game with creating a breathing space for you team for some time, your effort is straight away getting devalued.

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i think a part of the reason the game is doing this is because we as players have continued to get stronger and stronger overtime, its why there were enemy hp buffs not long ago, the game has to send special after special after special in hopes that the player makes a mistake and goes down, requires help from the team, etc

pretty much the reason ive stopped playing maps with shock troop gauntlet/waves of specials modifier, with some maelstroms as exceptions, the amount of special spam just gets tiring

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I disagree about having fewer spawn points, but outside of a horde enemies shouldn’t be able to spawn within a certain “soft” radius of the center of the group. This means the further out people are from the center, the more likely enemies would be to spawn near them. Have the spawn chances increase the further out you go and you solve two problems at once. Enemies are prevented from spawning too close to the group while still punishing players for running off on their own.

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1- Specials will always keep spawning behind you. On shock troop gauntlet this will feel never ending. I think the games identity and core is to never have a “safe space” or feel safe. You can pull enemies back and there likely won’t be new waves of elites, so it can be cleared in that sense (roaming enemies killed). But new spawns, especially specials, will always keep coming at you from all directions. Fewer spawns or not, it won’t create safe spaces.

2- I have 2,000 hours and I don’t notice this. The enemies seem the same speed whether I am looking at them or not? And yeah there are enemies always around you at high levels. If you do high int that’s just the feel. Unless you’re talking about another difficulty or mode.

3- Yep, I think that’s coded. If you go off alone from the group, they will spawn more dogs and trappers. If you all stick together and bunch up for too long too much they’ll spawn specials that throw bombs at you. I like it though, makes it challenging. Apparently the loner keystone reduces the AI sending disablers for you if you break off from the team. It’s also important to note specials spawn “FOR” a player, they’re louder for the player they’re targeting and will ignore other players in a way, unless you draw aggro away. Which is why it can suck if you don’t push a burster that’s “for you” and is quieter for your teammate. But again, I like the challenge.

4- I don’t know, you watch the havoc 40 solo players, true solo’s, duos, all the clutches people do. That’s one of the most exhilarating moments in the game, everyone else is dead and you’re fighting bosses, specials, mobs, etc. and you manage to rescue the whole team? Such a rush, one of my favourite situations to watch or play and pull off. I honestly want more excuses for those moments, and going off on your own can do that, especially with how fast people can kill stuff these days.

5- Yeah this I can agree with. Shock troop gauntlet is like the hardest for most people. Pox gas can be very punishing if you aren’t built for it.

I think to understand your situation better and to assist with context, what classes are you playing/maining and what difficulties and game modes are you playing? Which builds? I think, and I am making an assumption here, that you’re maining a ranged play style like veteran and are looking to disengage from melee more and stay at the back, knowing it’s safe.

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Isn’t this what a Surge is?

The director keeps spawning specials for 30s until it’s maxxed, and if you kill any special during that time, another one instantly spawns to cover their spot

If I remember correctly Special Squads can trigger a Surge (I think in Havoc it’s 30% of a squad becoming a Surge, but I don’t know how much this is in Auric)

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2 could be caused by the lock on slide that is infinitely annoying

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But that’s also why we have difficulty levels we can change at will. So there is nothing wrong with game being easy for you at the current difficulty level - you can just increase it next time. It’s much worse when you deliberately go into a game at certain difficulty expecting it to be not too sweaty - and it starts to throw this crap at you out of nowhere, bypassing the very system FS designed. It’s the same issue as with their events all over again - you queue into Quickplay at, say, Damnation expecting Damnation’s level of challenge, you get into an event match and suddenly play something comparable to Auric HI. That never must be like that, it makes the whole idea of difficulty levels obsolete, irritating and alienating players for no reason.

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There is plenty of things to be frustrated about in Darktide: input issues (weapon swapping / ability activation), missing audio cues for specials when they are moving between A and B, terrible Image contrast thanks to poorly chosen colour pallet, and overreliance on image up-scaling for performance gains.

I get your complaint about positioning of some enemy spawn doors next to player respawn / medicae areas, especially with troll PBs which love to spawn in those areas. Everything else…that is just the Havoc intensity scaling. It’s designed to overwhelm. Havoc is not a normal game mode, it’s supposed to be super challenging higher you get. At some point it filters out a lot of people, and that’s fine.

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What’s the lock on slide? Like, there’s a lock on us sliding, or the enemies are locking on to us while we’re sliding? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Dodging/running away from enemies, from groaners to crushers, such that you’re WELL away from their attacks but they just slide right up into your butthole DMs and hit you anyway.

I could see someone looking behind them, running away from the 1-2 enemies thinking they’re good, then taking damage and thinking it was an invisible speed boost.

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My assumption, but it may be about the fact how it seem to instantly react when you are really good at disposing threats like specialists. Like, when you kill a specialist the moment you get line of sight to it (because you heard the sound cue, and you knew where they come from, and you waited for them), it immediately spawns another one, often at the same very location - and then again, and again :slight_smile: It’s as if those who coded it were really insecure about players winning the match lol, and did all they could to add that “nah you won’t” middle-finger kind of response. So you don’t feel rewarded for your effort and being good at the game with creating a breathing space for you team for some time, your effort is straight away getting devalued.

Exactly what i meant.Another example if somebody goes down in a trapper net, be sure out of the blue flamers and bombers will appear to make his rescue very hard…The way i would see it as reasonable if the enemy reinforcement would spawn some distance away and had to move into positionat normal speed.

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For me i would prefer to be as much enemies just not spawning on top of the team, they could spawn some distance away and move into position.SOmetimes its the case, many other times they come out of the woodwork on top of the team . For me it would make the game feel much better and less frustrating.

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A lot of this is knowledge checks and probably bad situational awareness. If you notice yourself in these positions a lot and very often, you can usually fix them by not being there. Even in some really terrible areas like the start of relay station can be beaten entirely if you just simply walked forward and skip doing all the garbage so you get to the actual good spots that are less annoying to deal with.

In terms of like team management and cooperation, sometimes you got to bait an idiot so you can get things done. Teammate on the ground and need a res? Don’t be the idiot that grabs them, tell someone else to do it while you get the specials or kill/pull elites off them.

being separated from the team is a mixed issue. Sometimes it’s skill issue, sometimes you’re just being flooded with specials. Either way, just get back to them in those moments then go back out. You’re probably either dealing with a horde spawn or a special surge, and either way, once it’s over you’re good to loot.

This game has no balance aside from difficulty spikes. You can’t have an even stream of enemies pouring out at you because you just need one psyker with a staff and it’s all dead. If you send 1 billion crushers at the team, though, they’re probably all dead because the game sucks. So, in order to balance these 2 harsh modes of play, you have tiny hordes of nothing and then a room that is nothing but elites from sea to shining sea. The psyker gets the fun of everything dying, and then the team gets the fun of having to actually do something with themselves up until the psyker kills everything. Fun times.

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3 - just a quick note: expect that. it’s swedish troll design. if someone is netted, expect a flamer to follow immediately. if you help someone, expect a mutie to pull you away the next moment. if you’re on a ledge, expect bursters to knock you away. so play accordingly. dodge the mutie, then help. push the burster, then advance. don’t fight a plogryn in a place where you can be knocked off. and so on. always expect getting trolled. you’ll notice a pattern.

4 - if you’re separated, try to rejoin them before fighting alone, not after. i’m saying this because i notice many players being so carried away with their own fight that they forget about the group, or the objective. they might look well when fighting few enemies, but under pressure their teamplay falls apart, they end up fighting alone and getting picked off one by one. they forget they can also run backwards and kite. they have this urge to run forward or to rush to save someone in a dangerous position and get downed themselves (often by said troll design). they do things like running out of a chokepoint, or kiting enemies away from the toxin pool the scum just created. the enemy AI is braindead, but people fall for it.

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