Making playing ogryn even more unique experience

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Decided I’ll just post it here too. As people mention ogryn being in need of buff lately often, I thought may be I should throw in my 5 cents too. It’s not about buffing him though, don’t have opinion on that one; more like how to make playing the big guy more unique experience instead, without risking to overtune him.

  1. Give the dude ability to trample chaff lying on the ground by simply walking through them, killing them instantly (with a wet nasty “crunch” sound lol) and just moving through them, just a bit slower. So he won’t ever be blocked by some useless trash mobs that fell due to him dodging previously, giving him extra mobility and ofc that special feel of being a giant meat tank

  2. Give him a native ability to wrestle away dogs (I know about the talent, but its main purpose is different anyway, and this feels like something a giant meat tank should be doing by default); after all, he is a giant mountain of muscles, it’s comical a tiny dog can just pin him down like that. Make it a QTE mini-game (rather demanding) where you need to make special move to solve a wrestling-stylized puzzle within a limited time. If you succeed, the dog is thrown away, if you perfect it, you kill it instantly. But it still take some time, so if there are mobs around you’ll most likely die anyway unless helped by the team

  3. Turn his Sprints into weaker version of Bull Rush (when sprinting and ramming into a crowd). It’s just with Bull Rush you go through everything except monstrosities, but if you’ll Sprint into a crowd, you’ll be stopped by chaff already - while still applying a fair amount of stagger to them (if you aren’t out of Stamina at the moment of impact), throwing their first line to the ground, and pushing the 2nd line back; gunners will just be pushed away, and melee elites, ogryns and monstrosities won’t be affected at all. Can have some minor cooldown, like 5-10 seconds, and require you to sprint for 1-2 seconds before you accumulate required impact for it to trigger

  4. For the Slab Shield, when using its alt attack (the one that slamms the shield into the ground), allow him to lean out from behind the shield to fire his range weapon, if it’s one of those that can be operated with one hand (Kickback, Rumbler, Grenadier Gauntlet). It would be activated by you pressing and holding RMB at the same time (without releasing alt attack button) while using LMB to fire its primary attack (thus 3 buttons engaged at the same time, two of which are held). Until you keep holding RMB, if the weapon still requires reload to be fired, he will auto-reload it while keep blocking with the shield. A bit over-complicated, but it would provide a great new way for big man to express himself in combat. It hardly would be OP, as he is still at a huge disadvantage, staying in one spot.

  5. Make him being able to carry two large items (medikit, ammo crate, grim/scripture) at once perhaps? I mean, he is big and strong :wink: Then by pressing the large item hotkey repeatedly he’ll be able to swap them before deploying the one he needs

5 Likes
2

“Stoooomping snivellers!”

6 Likes
3

I want the shield plant replaced with power maul activation

16 Likes
4

image
image828×944 137 KB

11 Likes
5

I would prefer him doing what described though, why Arbitrators can do it even on the go - and ogryn can’t while being locked in place? For your idea though it would be better to make it another Mark of the same weapon may be? So there would be one which slams it into the ground and you can fire from behind it - and another one which gives you power maul special attack as alt attack. Or may be even add another weapon for just that, ogryn could use a new weapon.

6

One of the core challenges in Darktide is that FatShark has to balance two different priorities: staying true to in-lore power scaling and maintaining solid in-game balance. From a lore perspective, it’s not unreasonable to assume that an Ogryn-massive and immensely strong-should be able to throw a Hound off without much trouble. However, that runs directly against the Hound’s intended gameplay role, which is to function as a Disabler enemy.

If the Ogryn were able to wrestle free, even through some additional mechanic, it would fundamentally weaken that design. The moment a player can reliably free themselves, they no longer depend on teammates for rescue. That reduces the threat of being isolated and undermines the tension that comes from straying too far from the group. In turn, this pulls the Ogryn away from Darktide’s core design philosophy: CO-OP. The game is built around the idea that you either work together or die alone.

While it’s fair to debate how consistently the game currently succeeds in expressing that philosophy, it remains a guiding principle that FatShark continually aims to uphold.

To summarize: Even if it makes sense from a lore standpoint for an Ogryn to overpower a Hound and to do all these other thing you suggested, allowing that in gameplay would conflict with the Hound’s role as a Disabler and weaken the game’s CO-OP-focused design. Maintaining dependency between players and keeping the gameplay balanced is central to Darktide’s identity, and preserving those dynamics is likely why such mechanics are avoided.

1 Like
7

From the balance perspective, it wouldn’t change that much really. If you play game at Damnation+ difficulties, you are pretty aware that during a wave specialists come in squads. And when your ogryn is disabled, there is a flamer or burster or bomber nearby just waiting to finish him off. It happens literally in a few seconds most of the times, so until that mini-game takes more than that time to be realistically solved, you are still fried unless your team saves you.

So the only change it will bring is that ogryn will be able to free himself from some random mutt jumping on him between waves, or at the end of the wave when most of mobs are killed anyway. So no biggie really, it won’t affect higher difficulties almost at all, and tbh if it will make Heresy ogryn players’ life easier, it’s hardly a bad thing too, they play Heresy for a reason, let them have fun.

3 Likes
8

Just because there are moments where that mechanic would not help, it doesn’t mean that the moments where it does help doesn’t do what I already said it does.

Also, this isn’t really me telling you why I personally don’t want to see those mechanics implemented. It’s rather me explaining why FatShark won’t do it. As a player, it may perfectly make sense to you, and you might believe that it can only be beneficial, but that’s not how the developers, who are responsible for creating the game and have a certain vision of what they want Darktide to be, see it.

9

Yes, it’s just it wouldn’t help in like 90% of the cases, and even if it would help in the rest of 10%, ogryn is still far from being an OP class, it’s handicaped rather seriously. So I don’t see much harm in giving him those 10%

Think about it from this perspective: let’s suppose that mini-game would take 10s to solve, best case scenario. What is the chance your teammates prefer to just ignore a pounced ogryn, hoping he’ll free himself before being fried by a sudden flamer? It’s close to 0% really. Most of the times it will only happen in those rather rare cases when everybody died, and ogryn got disabled away from the group, with no mobs around, freed himself from the dog, and managed to rescue everybody. That’s absolute minority of the games already. So it just will give ogryn players a small extra chance to be a hero sometimes, it won’t have a dent on the balance almost at all. After all it’s his job, to be the pillar of the earth for the team.

1 Like
10

More marks/choice all around! you get a mark and you get a mark!

Ogryn probably wants a shield n shootah too… Shield n Rock?.. Shield n Heretic! (grab nearby heretic and throw)

5 Likes
11

Most of those would be very difficult to balance.

  1. Too strong, even if it is just continuous damage, or damage upon dodging and running, it should not be able to kill even chaff
  2. Strong, or at least, push toward skilllessness
  3. Not sure I see what it would bring
  4. The Slab Shield is not like the Arb’s shield and Shotpistol, if anything a better comparison would be the Arb’s shield and Shock Maul. Having the ability to shoot while holding the shield would require either creating a new weapon (or a whole kit), or make as many animations as there are Ogryn ranged weapons. Most of which kinda require the Ogryn to use both hands anyway.
  5. Console hotkeys already are struggling, and tbh, there aren’t that many carryable.

Most of these proposition are more about making the Ogryn easier than more fun to me. Which isn’t really what I’d be pushing toward.

12

If a pox hound pounce were turned into a minigame, exactly like the Data controller (having to wait for the right moment to press E), the Ogryn would still be pounced for a considerable amount of time, taking much corruption damage, and still no guarantee of completing it in time. This addition would simply add a chance* and not be game breaking at all.

Even with this mechanic implemented, Trappers still exist as an absolute disabler and are a much greater threat. There is no way out of a net.

Hounds can be dispatched just by taking minor damage, most times by enemy friendly fire (flamers, bombers), so it makes no sense why an Ogryn punch (that can now kill poxwalkers with viable damage) can’t do the same.

13

Exactly this. People lack critical thinking skills and fail to see this should the main reason for an Ogryn being able to free himself from a pox hound. Its rare, but when a run ends because an Ogryn got pounced by a 50 pound dog, its just not believable.

I’ve even been saved by flamers who shoot me while pounced and end up knocking the hound off themselves. The hound should not have the hold that is does on Ogryns. Its just common sense.

14

Immersion contributes to fun, which most of these points would bring. I agree that 4 would take a lot of time to implement from a technical standpoint and is the least realistic.

1 - could do without, seeing how some, if not most players would just spam sprinting in circles to kill a horde.

2 - This is a necessity, and something I’ve been asking for since launch. If you’ve ever played Ogryn and lost a run or even died to a prolonged pounce (10+ seconds), you’d know just how nonsensical it looks. Dodging skill issues aside, we all still get the silent pounce in Havoc when there’s a massive amount of enemies on screen.

3 - This would work especially well in Havoc during instances where you need to rescue a downed team mate in the middle of a giant trash horde. A depletion in stamina and speed from each enemy you knock back would be an even balance.

5 - makes sense when Ogryns are used sort of like pack mules, and their cosmetics reflect that. Scrolling through the equipment or hitting the 3 key to sort back and forth between a scripture or medkit would seem pretty easy to implement.

These changes (2,3,5) would make the Ogryn feel more unique as a class and just a tad bit more viable in Havoc (where he needs the boost) without making him OP.

15

Instead of being a naysayer and shutting down the entire concept, how about you actually refute what you disagree with?

Some of the points don’t seem viable, but others do. Constructive criticism.

2 Likes
16

then I made a mistake/misplay that should be punished exactly how a disabler is meant to work.

often times it was a valuable lesson. except for hunting grounds cause fk hunting grounds.

you don’t come 3 years into the game and say a certain pawn now can checkmate in a different way cause “immersive”, you set a certain rule that applies for everyone except the arbi’s dog and you stick to it, period.

otherwise what’s the point of having disablers that don’t disable characters based on whim x/y/z

shortly after that comes the vet :”but I can shout the dog off”

scum:”I send it trippin’, he be bouncin’”

zealot converts it to the choir

and psyker gives him wet dreams about a chaos b1tch (yes, female dog’s a b1tch, go sue me :face_with_tongue: )

no one needs a boost out of all things given the current “balancing”

if anything revamp havoc completely and nerf 70% of abilities and weaponries so players are forced to put in the same work as ogryn now.

they don’t like it? door’s that way, cry me a warp.

the one “unique” part about ogryn, and the irony is hilarious given the former “oggy :poop: ,oggy OP, oggy :poop: again”, is at least an ogryn player performing well is showing a level of skill and proficiency them crutchlings never heard of.

personally I enjoy that period, especially if I come out on top against scum and arbi at the end of a match despite their most desperate attempts to hog the killfeed :man_shrugging:

havoc? I’m sure there’s plenty “waterboys” around, I don’t give a flying :fu: what “role” a run-along rando “expects” me to fulfill as “role”.

auric maelstrom ogryn earns rashuns and don’t care for punies expectations :man_shrugging:

people tried long and hard for almost a year, fatshark’s answer? “we hear you want stronger characters”

at this point one can only sigh and wonder how in the world one could possibly find any pride in a game that’s been so “rounded and cushioned” a toddler couldn’t hurt himself despite his best efforts?

where’s the challenge when elements of the game that were there since release lose their effectiveness or are removed altogether?

wohoo, I won a bland match but “i” won ….right? right?

8 Likes
17

I’m not against giving more tools to a class, but at the same time, don’t see the need nor the proposition either feasible (The shield stuff, it’s really not as simple as one might think), or worthwhile.

Ogryn if anything has skill expression problems.

  • Automatic AoE Kill/Damage on downed enemies → Not pushing skill expression
  • Disabler denial → Not pushing skill expression
  • Sprint being stagger + pass through → Honestly depend, but would probably require some negative to it
  • Slab Shield → Not possible under the game’s mechanics
  • Carrying multiple objects → in a resource poor game, doesn’t really matter.

Possible increase of skill expression that could be thematic:

  • Increase cleave damage on weak spot attacks → Push player to aim at weak spots to increase their horde damage
  • Weak Spot Melee Special attack increase attack speed → Push to looping the special attack (would not work on certain weapons, but wouldn’t be the 1st talent)

Otherwise, just continuing on doing regular stuff and add more weapons and would love to see new branches too, but ain’t gonna happen though.

2 Likes
18

imagine the horror if shield planting would get incentivized

copyImage

“as if a million noobs put their shield down and were left behind”

4 Likes
19

I am very sympathetic to the complaints of trappers and dogs, saying that it sucks to be disabled by one is a grutting understatement, but they are necessary to keep ogryns (and everyone else really) in check.

6 Likes
20

it’s rules that make the foundation of the game since release.

annoying or not, take one away, the rest gets totally out of whack and promotes even sloppier and worse playstyles.

as one dude pointed out correctly, yeah I’ve been trappered and dogged countless times, but these mistakes are mine and it’s up to me to improve.

not wish for the obstacles to go away.

still get carried away trying for some “cool gameplay” and one man clutch scenes. if I overdo I rightfully get

copyImage

4 Likes