people on high havoc definitely care about loadout, a lot of matches there is a guy shitting on ohter guy for their build and using it as an excuse for something else, havoc 37-40
I personally don’t play Havoc because of the color-swapped enemies.
This destroys my suspension of disbelief entirely.
Same reason why I refuse to play any Auric mission with the “Nurgles Blessing” because it makes green-color-swapped enemies.
That’s exactly what Nurgle wants, fool.
most havoc 30-40 people rejects you if you ain’t running meta builds like chorus zealot or bubble psyker. Or they let you in then ask you to swap to bubble, gold toughness or taunt. "Bro I really want to reach 40 so plz don’t test your build here ". I bet more than 90% of em got that build and true level inspect mod lol. It’s a lie that people don’t care about builds. If a level 53 cloak zealot n a level 975 chorus zealot request to join your havoc 35 gang at the same time, who would most people choose?
when i host pubs i specifically do not accept pyskers of any kind or book zealots. The truly bizarre thing is how often we accept someone soley BECAUSE they aren’t a pysker and we’ve been waiting longer than we’d like, only for them to immediately offer to, or say that they will, swap to psyker. Can’t stand it.
to whom?
to you appearantly and that’s great, more power to you 
others? not so much cause fun isnt the same as excitement and at a certain moment stuff ingame only keeps interesting if its pushing you beyond your yesterdays mark.
the difference in approach? ambition.
some go to the gym and socialize with people hitting the treadmill for “fun” , a tiny few exceptions make it to the olympia stage and be remembered for being the best of their time.
former approach, fun is totally sufficient, the later is the quintessence of ambition become flesh.
and so is
art
music
sports
…
you are “just a human” etc etc.
so?
whats the official definition of being better than the faceless masses that roam the streets every day?
surely that dude on tv with millions in his bank account only yaps words in a microphone, its “just singing”
that painting in the museum that insurance companies wont touch with a tenpole?
bah, paint on a canvas, saw a monkey the other day wield a brush…
anyways you get the idea.
this heres the games forums, in here people care for what happens in the game and usually dont give jack 
for what you do “outside”
likewise a whole army of tiny 
review bombers got their reason for existence by faking performance through op stuff neutered, and are up in arms, go figure.
people get killed over a fking soccer match and you wonder why passion and the strive for being superior in any aspect of social interaction doesnt stop at a digital hobby?
difference in ambition and mentality rather, and thats fine.
but its equally amusing to read every argument “its just a” from exactly those that arent participating in the stressful part of the topic.
to you, sure, to others nope its far more than that.
personally i prefer the later, give it your all or don’t bother at all, approach in stuff thats worth putting ones heart and time into, otherwise many aspects of life would be pretty bland and boring.
you sure about that?
ever won a tournament and held that first place knowing you stomped everyone in that lan?
ever set a goal and surpassed it with shaking hands and shallow breath?
that adrenaline and dopamine, “fun” cant hold a candle to it.
if you’re happy with playing darktide that’s great and why usually someones around in the first place,
dont go and “assume” how people enjoy their hobbies though is all.
some dudes only have a kick left to feel when they hang on one hand from the highest skyscrapers 
then again those “roofing” vids on youtube make for a nice darwin award every time 
But its doesnt contradict what i wrote. I agree gettign better is essential for my fun too, but not your approach that only Havoc40 matters, that anything other isnt fun. This is just weird for me.
Actually i did a few times, and for me in the end, it doesnt compare to the journey, achieving something alwys ends up being less fun. Maybe its a falling of my character, that i cant really enjoy my achievements. I also subscibe more to the Goku then Vegeta view on improving : for Goku the goal was to get as good as possible for the love of combat, for Vegeta it was all about comparing to others and beating others. I like getting better, i dont specially care about getting better then others, comparing myself to them.
Sure as long as you dont assume how others should as well.
I think there can be a healthy balance. You can try to do something well, but not to the point you stress yourself out.
Totally agree with your point. I’m also a mid level enjoyer. My itch is being scratched by havoc 26 to 33. Frankly the “only havoc 40 counts” crowd seems to have some self esteem issues but that is just an opinion.
Appreciate the effort guardsman as someone who never bothered to even try Havoc as i feel its entirely the wrong direction to take the game. i do feel like pointing out a couple of things , first in your post you only said some negatives were not true , there wasn’t any actual pro havoc reasons to play it.
Reading through the responses to your thread 100% not your fault, but they haven’t made the sale easier 
am i having a stroke or is aboves post’s “hovercraft full of eels”?
Well i wasnt really trying to make a pro Havoc post, more wanted to clear the misconseptions i was seeing all arund.
For me it was a natural progression from normal modes. I wanted more, with the possiblity of it becoming harder and harder, and havoc is perfect for that. I think it also appeals to a certain type of gamers, who really enjoy the second to second gameplay of Darktide and want to get better and better, see how far they can go , who have most fun when they are constantly challenged. Despite its many problems, the Havoc ladder system fits that pretty well. On other hand i can imagine this might not suit everybody. Even for me, I often feel to tired for my top Havoc, and I prefer then enjoying a few less stresfull Auric games or join a signicantly lower Havoc. Hell soemtimes i feel so tired i prefer playing alone with bots, with the solo mod. Also some people are more about the experience as a whole (the story, the WH40 universe, the visuals) then about chalenging mechanics.
For a very minority of players, games are the only thing in their lives they can be proud of, which is why they act so extreme. But for most people, games are just one form of entertainment among many.
If you’re feeling bored enough, you can check out other players in a random public lobby and find that the vast majority either have a Havoc level of around 20 or have no Havoc level at all. Most people simply don’t care about it.
Whenever this issue comes up, I always like to point out that I always get back to my assignment rank 40 within a day of the start of new Havoc season. It’s dead simple, I just don’t have much patience for Havoc, especially the deranking system. If you can ignore that stupid system and just enjoy the game, you have my respect.
I hope Havoc can be improved so that more people can enjoy it this easily.
i can back this up. i always read here that everyone should be able to have fun on h40 but everyone when i quickplay is around 15-25. it seems people are perfectly fine not playing on the hardest difficulty so we really shouldnt act like only h40 or auric matters. there’s space inbetween and it’s perfectly viable to keep playing at whatever level is fun.
the only problem i have with the system is that i like quickplaying way more but havoc doesn’t allow for it. a lot of game design encourages quickplay. so I want quickplay to get harder difficulty too, and here again, not everyone quickplaying needs to play auric. malice and heresy are very populated with max level players
The base game difficulty from
Havoc 1 to 10 is Malice
Havoc 11 to 20 is Heresy
Havoc 21 and up is Damnation/Auric.
That’s why 20 to 21 feels like a huge jump. The enemy base health, base damage and density increases drastically. With that each havoc level applies more debuffs to players and buffs to enemies
I have seen that info many times and imho in practice it is not correct. I dont know what changes were made, but in practice its much harder.
I have been playing a lot of Aurics and Hasvocs around 20, and i got a comparison born out of experience. And Havoc 18-20 is definitely NOT Heresy difficulty, its abit harder the Auric Shock Troop Gauntlet.
It’s literally heresey difficulty you can hit tab to bring up the mission overlay and it will say heresy in the top left
My guess is 22 is aurics malestrom plus multiple bosses. If there isn’t a boss slayer on the team than it’s a wipe or a slow carry.
To me a havoc 40 and a havoc 22 difficulty wise feel the same. Because havoc 22 is easy to rush more bosses get triggered. I think because of golden toughness is broken op gameplay wise it feels the same.
What you will see in havoc 22+ is a arbite or ogryn with a shield sitting against a wall tanking a boss by doing nothing while a smite psyker is hitting the boss with a sword, while the zealot with thunder hammer has to help the vet clearing out the horde wave.
The difficulty mentioned isn’t the general feeling it’s what the match is set to and follows those settings as a base. And then there are buffs applied to the enemies and debuffs to the player.
This guide will explain it way better than I ever could
But basically debuffs like this makes Heresy feel a lot harder than normal Heresy. So jumping into a damnation match with those debuff is a gaint leap in punishment
This is just some of the debuffs. Funny enough the debuffs on a 21 is only little bit less player health, vent speed and ammo pickup compared to a 20. You can find these debuffs in the Hidden Modifier section of the steam guide. The ones in the screen shot is just some of them shown through the solo play mod
Havoc 20 is basically Heresy HI, but with four guaranteed difficulty modifiers, operative debuffs, and a whole pack of monsters/bosses (up to 12 in a single match, often including the Twins plus another — possibly weakened — boss). So overall, Havoc 20 is around the level of Auric HISTG, although Havoc 20 is a bit easier when it comes to specialist spam
Havoc 21 is already vastly harder than Auric HISTG. I had no fewer than thirty failed attempts in a row. If the team doesn’t have either a Zealot with Chorus or an Ogryn with taunt, the run is almost guaranteed to fail
You are telling me what the descriotion says, im telling you what the gameplay looks like in practice, out of personal experience with both Aurics High Intesity Shock troop and Havoc 18-20.