While individual player skill certainly plays a role, I believe the perceived difficulty can vary drastically under the current balance depending on factors such as the presence or absence of Gold Toughness, the use of meta builds, and differences in class or weapon choice.
@FatsharkJulia @FatsharkKitefin Any chance we can get an update on this before your weekend starts?
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Hi! Yesterday, I shared your comments with the developers handling issues of this nature, and it’s being looked in to.
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Thank you immensely.
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More vibes based “proof” here.
Finally started leveling my space cop. Just hit Heresy and it feels appropriate for where I am in the leveling process, even with the OP new class. I am not running a particular build, mainly straight middle top to bottom. But I did Consecrate and Empower my weapons to max and put synergistic blessings on them and heresy just feels appropriate for where I am at raw numerical power and in spawn logic. In fact, it almost feels like bigger, more frequent hordes than my last Auric runs. And this is with my same quickplay, near exclusively story campaign, 2+ Arbites per mission, back fill experience.
So, in my opinion, Auric is 100% broken at this time.
When I read that STG and HI would be baked into Auric now, it sounded like they’d be consistently quite hard, which was nice, since those were my favorite modifiers, along with the monstrosity one, but it’s definitely felt like the opposite, and it’s pretty poor timing because I’ve been working at improving to get the Auric Exemplar/Auric Storm Survivor titles in QP before jumping into Havoc, and now it feels like I should maybe wait until they’re restored to their intended difficulty. Already got the Storm Survivor one, but wondering if I should stop playing until it gets fixed for AE.
If you seek the challenge for that penance to feel like you “earned” it, you have to, at the very least, not use quick play. It is plagued with people running the campaign right now (and unfortunately may be for some time). So, until/unless they acknowledge my request to have campaign out of quick play, starting a deliberate mission is the only way to go right now. But that has still been less than the old Auric (other than the current event).
any idea if the Auric Maelstroms also affected? Sounds like not by the campaign issue, since they’re a separate thing, but potentially in some other way.
And good looking out. I didn’t realize the campaign missions were easier, or that QP was plopping us in there. Wouldn’t have a problem with joining, except for the fact that they’re easier.
I very much do wanna feel like I earned them.
dont bother too much.
if anything it’s been a pariah since most of its wearers alt/f4 cheesed it and gave it a rather off putting tone.
safer route? pick one of the essentials, try for true survivor in 35+, at least it tells people you can stay on your feet 
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Correct, Maelstroms are not affected by the campaign backfill. But, in the handful I played before starting my space cop, they did also feel easier than pre-update, just like new Auric. Better than new Auric, but easier than old maels.
I’m surprised it’s not being talked about more. It’s much more important than any cosmetics stuff. I hope this bug is going to be patched out soon because idk why even play Darktide anymore.
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I would like to point out that even before the last patch we have been reporting issues with gameplay intensity in high Auric games. Broken spawns, poor pacing, empty of mobs areas. That was never fully addressed afaik.
I believe one of the ex community testers was pushing for this to get improved. I wonder if this has been abandoned, when he fell out of graces with Fatshark…
I realize this issue could potentially be solved in this hotfix. Just wanted to drop this reddit comment thread to further show I’m not the only one that’s been feeling Auric is off:
I look forward to testing if the hotfix made a substantial difference.
@FatsharkJulia @FatsharkKitefin
I’ve now played one of each Auric modifier and a campaign back fill QP after this hotfix and I can say it feels like it’s back where it needs to be, imo. If others feel differently and they can confidently say they didn’t QP into a story mission, then please speak up.
I, and the forum community, would still appreciate it if you follow through with the team regarding campaign back fill on quickplay and let us know their thoughts.
It is a growing issue that people don’t even seem to know is possible, since it really shouldn’t be, at least not without an opt-in setting.
With it presumably only having the new baked in hi-int, it makes these missions the least challenging possible, akin to old Auric Hi-int only.
The intent seems to be new Auric is always at least (baked) hi-int + modifier, which I think most Auric players prefer.
And, again, I opted not to play the campaign, so I’m not overjoyed that option was essentially taken from me if I like to QP my games.
Thank you
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Thanks for the update - I’ve shared your comments with the team and it’s under discussion.
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Thank you ma’am.
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Just another example of people not knowing about campaign back fill, not wanting it, not understanding what it does to Auric difficulty
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I think there is positively no way they’re going to do away with backfill for campaign missions. If you quickplay, you get what you get. And they’ve got to fill those missions for (likely new) players or they’re going to have a crappy experience.
I haven’t checked, but if you look in the tab menu in a campaign mission does it show the special campaign condition? I assume so, but maybe not.
And it’d be nice if they somehow made conditions/modifiers immediately more obvious when joining any mission.
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It shows the special event Inquisition “I” and each chapter has it’s own title. So, only those of us that know it’s not a gameplay modifier will really know it’s not a condition, I suppose.
Tabbing is also the only way to know, to my knowledge (aside from being able to tell it for sure isn’t normal difficulty).
How many people even tab in mission? There are constantly questions of how to see event progress every time one happens (separate issue).
I think my recommendation, which isn’t likely the best or one everyone would agree on, is just that campaign is only up to Damnation. I just really can’t see a huge overlap in people playing this game for the story but also needing it to be “sweaty” enough to do it all Auric.
And my biggest issue is that they offered me a choice. But it’s taken from me. I could literally not give any less of a shite about the narrative in this game. But I have to save others from their “crappy experience” of seeing this piecemeal story.
Not a fan and not sure there is a peaceful solution.
It’s likely one that FS sits on and it “sorts itself out” as the campaign is less new and fewer new players are around.
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