Been a while. Just wanted to add some feedback, and wanted to keep it in one thread instead separate topics.
Arguably more of a technical issue than a gameplay issue, but I’m posting it here anyways: Poxbursters and Trappers, arguably the most important specials to hear, have very inconsistent sound. I suspect that there’s a sound priority issue, so when lots of sounds being played like poxwalker groans, environmental sounds, etc., the trappers and poxwalkers just don’t get their sounds played at all. Been noticing a LOT of silent spawns, no movement/proximity sounds, and the attacks sometimes have no sound either. Increasing their sound volume by 10% and prioritizing their sounds within the engine so they’ll always play would be a good step towards improving gameplay feel and reducing negative player experiences outside of their own control. I put this suggestion first because it’s a common complaint and cheat mods that always point towards those specials are almost mandatory for high end gameplay because of this exact issue. I would rate this as a critical issue that needs immediate attention.
Almost certainly a technical issue, but it has a drastic gameplay effect so…:
Daemonhosts don’t render while in the sleep state. I’ve encountered this. My girlfriend has encountered this. Countless randos I’ve played with have encountered this. Sometimes you can hear the daemonhost but the model and particle effects just dont render until after the host goes into warning state. This seems to be fairly rare, but I’ve seen it happen enough in the past month that I figure it’s worth bringing up. Similar to trappers and bursters. I’ve personally had it not play any sound too, until fully alerted. Fortunately this has resulted in wipes maybe half the time, and the other some truly spectacular and hilarious clutches. I happy to report that there seem to be a lot of players with a pretty good handle on how to handle a daemonhost if agro’d, at least. Still a critical issue, in my opinion.
I think the veteran’s volley fire/executioner’s stance ability still needs some work. You need to spend 4 points on it just to make it worthwhile, and voice of command is STILL the objectively better option, regardless of build. I think Relentless needs to be in the base node at minimum, and I would argue that Enhanced Target prioritization should be also be included in the base node, then that would leave the players with a choice between ogryns or lesser ranged enemies for their upgrade nodes. This would provide a viable alternative to voice of command at higher levels of play, and provide a team benefit like voice of command.
All lasguns except the Recons need a serious buff. Between class reworks, enemies being a little tankier, and new weapon releases, a very very distinct autogun meta has emerged. At this point, there’s a huge Time-to-Kill valley between Kantraels/Hellbores and your pick of autogun, with the Columnus very clearly on top. I’m not saying anything needs a nerf, as I think everything but those lasguns feel very rewarding to play, but those lasguns definitely need a huge damage buff. As it stands now, in the meatgrinder, it takes 7-10x the time to kill an enemy with weakspot hits only using the Kantraels and Hellbores vs the autoguns and recon lasgun. This results in players feeling like they’re throwing a game by simply choosing a non-meta weapon. Frankly, buffing the lowest performing weapons to at least Recon Lasgun levels would help people play to their own style, and reward player agency instead of play the meta or you’re wrong.
As it stands, revolvers, bolters, plasma guns, shotguns, and the columnus autogun feel great and play great, but are presented as the only meta options. People will accuse you of throwing a game just for picking something else, which is not a healthy place for a game, gameplay or community wise.
Level gating difficulties needs looking into. I don’t know why, but I keep seeing people in Heresies (4pip) and Damnation (5pip) who agro daemonhosts, shoot bursters in teammates’ faces, charge over ledges ahead of the rest of the team and die, stay behind on ledges to get dogged or netted when the rest of the jumps down, run ahead to agro all the things then run back to the team while they’re dealing with hordes and specials, or play psyker and repeatedly pop themselves over and over. When called on it, it’s always the “I’m new” excuse. Assuming they’re being honest and not just griefing… I consider 4pip and up to be the “hardcore” mode, for players with a grasp on the game’s mechanics. 1 & 2 pip are tutorial mode, and 3 is to get players practice for higher difficulties, yet I see players hopping into 4pips and up, getting absolutely wrecked, then complaining that they’re new. Why are new players even in these harder difficulties? That just ruins everyone’s experience.
I’m generally more annoyed by otherwise arbitrary mechanical gates on difficulties, as I tend towards enjoying high-skill very difficult gameplay myself, and get frustrated with being locked into gameplay I find boring and unrewarding… but there are just too many newbies who dont even know the mechanics ending up in the higher difficulties that it has become quite a problem. Definitely need to look into raising the level requirements for 4s and maybe put some sort of higher requirement for 5s.
Finally… We need data feedback. A scoreboard with granular data. For example, I made a crit zealot, played a few games, and wondered why I wasnt getting the damage I was expecting. I downloaded a scoreboard mod with some plugins and it turns out that my weapon selection just didn’t match the build. I was getting 12-20 crits over the course of the entire mission. Switching weapons up, I was getting 100+. In vanilla Darktide, there’s just no way to get that feedback. I understand that scoreboards can result in sticker-chasing and toxic behavior, but without any data, players have no feedback on what to improve in their builds and gameplay. New and poor players don’t know what they’re doing wrong in higher difficulties, and have no road to improvement to survive 4s and 5s or even Aurics. They have to go and download a mod for that data, which they probably don’t even know exists. A scoreboard and dedicated stat-tracking would be super useful for players looking to improve their gameplay and Git Gud, and provide valuable feedback to players who are underperforming so they have objective data on why they need to be practicing on a lower difficulty, and what they need to be practicing (blocking/pushing/not pissing off the Daemonhost).
Bosses need to provide reward bonuses like in Vermintide. A team should be rewarded for surviving a Monstrosity, Daemonhost, or Assassination Target, just like in Vermintide. More crafting materials, and a better rating on the end-of-match drop would probably be the easiest to implement.
All in all, I still love the hell out of darktide and it is one of my all time favorite games. These are just the biggest pain points that I think need work.
