Something that pretty much bothers me is how game slides into the hole on eternal melee.
What do i mean? Look at certain havoc and auric modifiers like “No ammo pickups” or “Pus-harderned enemies”. Both of them are rendering ranged weapons ineffective, making melee-only builds relevant.
And i’m not even mentioning that increased amounts of enemies will devour your ammo so fast that you won’t be able to sustain it even with shocktrooper survivalist vet, if you go ranged-only run.
As someone who have played since beta - i want to remind that ranged-melee ratio was supposed to be AT LEAST 50-50, ranged classes, that shoot everything, instead of meleeing are supposed to be a thing. But now game turns into vermintide with simplified melee and this is a problem that should be adressed.
Here i offer you guys to give your thoughts and ideas how this problem could be fixed.
My ideas are pretty simple:
There should be weapons with infinite ammo reserve(Like pistols in Left for Dead), or Bardin’s pistols from VT2(No ammo but overheat mechanic) on non-psyker ranged classes. Of course they are supposed to be less effective than weapons with limited ammo.
This should fix boring melee and change aspects that are making melee the only relevant option.
Game ought to always favour melee. There are plenty of ranged favoured game out there and changing to promote ranged over melee would be detrimental to the game (See Outcast Engineer or worse cases like Space Hulk: Deathwing).
No ? Even in the case of a melee set that has a pistol they should give it an ammo system.
There isn’t really any that would make sense as such.
Fighting in melee brings more risks and requires more “skills” than just shooting everything from afar.
That’s why hardest content pushes more for melee fighting.
DT isn’t being advertised or sold to people as a hack-n-slash, the game is portrayed and advertised as an “Action Shooter” on platforms like Steam and Xbox Live, and its primary selling point and gameplay differentiator from the 'Tide series other titles is the much heavier emphasis on ranged combat. There’s a fair point that if people want a game that’s mostly melee, VT2 is there, and that DT’s Sweatmodes shouldn’t be overfocusing so much on melee when the ranged combat is in fact the selling point over the other Tide games.
Darktide desperately needs more ranged, and has been forced more and more into melee by enemy density being increased to match obscene levels of player power. The old ADS Vet days are long gone.
And I think that’s a mistake. The melee is really solid but the increasing focus on it (probably because the experienced devs are drawing off VT2 experience) is pushing it in a direction that feels less and less fun imo. I liked the feeling of claustrophobic firefights where cover mattered and zealots and ogryns would have to use charges or flank to get to an enemy gunline and start swinging.
I’d also note that the one time they did improve shooters a good chunk, only to undo it, that brief period in my experience had a LOT more cohesive team play, forcing the team to stick together and fight more efficiently, including giving the vets breathing room to counterfire the shooters shutting down a push.
Dream Maelstrom modifier: stronger ranged enemies (all stalkers and shooters fire more often with 30% increased damage, reapers and gunners fire faster), bigger hordes, infected moebians, enhanced ammo pickups (clips = 20%, bags = 75%).
I love melee, this game’s biggest strength is the depth to the melee combat, but I would like a mix-up because the guns in this game are cool.
Melee isn’t exactly deep in DT. It’s a simplified version of VT melee. Push works at all directions at the same time. Weapon size also means nothing and your big sword won’t get stuck in the doorway mid-swing, preventing you from hitting the enemy.
And this simplification seems fair since now you have also to deal with the promlem of mass ranged enemies so having extra troubles in melee seemed superfluous.
It’s still a great deal deeper than ranged combat with the combos, move techs, and hidden mechanics.
I don’t want to get in the weeds on another balance discussion, but ranged play’s complexity has had the edge sanded off and everyone here has an idea about why that is.
Current mechanics that mean nothing when 30 crushers and 3 captains are on screen: suppression, cover, armor zones, accuracy bloom, recoil management, weapon swap speed, reload speed
It’s funny, because these systems are exclusive to DT and very interesting compared to VT2’s “decide on a breakpoint to deal with specials”.
or worse cases like Space Hulk: Deathwing).