New Player Review After 200 Hours

[ez14]

This is all just subjective feedback and based on an opinion, please read it as such.

The good:
It is a good game. Gameplay is fine. The concept works. Music is outstanding. Artwork in level design is one of the best approaches to 40k in my opinion. The theme of chaos and the inquisition is well presented compared to other games. Some scenarios have an immersive quality to them, which I appreciate. This whole idea of having automated chats between the characters works for me. Endgame has a lot to offer by exploring different playstyles and leveling up weapons. Balancing is overall acceptable, with veterans and psykers feeling a bit underwhelming to play or to team up with. I like the monetization concept with an affordable base price and lots of expensive skins. Overall I am happy to support the company.

The questionable:
I do not really resonate with this design choice to simply flood the screen with monsters. There is something about 10 crushers moving like a train that takes me out of the game. Immersion is important for my fun with a game and it is hard to feel, if the visibility is 50cm on my screen during the engagement.
Instead of spawning 30 more mutants and making this an arcade style jump and run game, harder bosses and enemies would be appreciated. Fat Shark could make theirs lives very easy by simply increasing the attack and move speed of the end game enemies to enforce teamplay and to challenge players.

Thanks for reading and have fun in the game.

[BatlordCarcas]

I appreciate you vocalizing the pros. The trouble with the cons is when there is lack of teammate attention to other teammates or evaluating if they should be saved or left in the rescue queue, when many get neglected after that determination despite a bad luck situation that was an rng pub moment of bad luck

[BatlordCarcas]

Although I believe there’s very good players there’s some people that love to throw this game in a tumultuous fail. So.e agents if discourse whom also Review Bomb games intentionally do it on purpose for clout and make the fail for the lack of team efforts together or anything just to call a game a bad game. They want their 5 Stars, but don’t want the 5 stars for the game that is really the game that is amazing on its own.

[JanZamoysky]

@ez14

I do not really resonate with this design choice to simply flood the screen with monsters. There is something about 10 crushers moving like a train that takes me out of the game. Immersion is important for my fun with a game and it is hard to feel that if I the visibility is 50cm on my screen during the engagement.
Instead of spawning 30 more mutants and making this an arcade style jump and run game, harder bosses and enemies would be appreciated. Fat Shark could make theirs lives very easy by simply increasing the attack and move speed of the end game enemies to enforce teamplay and to challenge players.

Similar ideas have been certainly voiced before. We call these situations elite clown cars, and frankly they are a result of Fatshark dragging their feet on certain weapon and class builds balance. Unless you run specific weapons you are a severe disadvantage, and the said weapons and certain over-tuned blessings trivialise armour.

The correct approach here was probably getting closer to balance before releasing stuff like Havoc or experimenting with melee only / Rotten Armour or similar modifiers.

If you don’t like the high intensity or difficulty spikes in general, just pick matches without the high intensity / shock troop /rotten armour / melee only modifiers. Keep in mind that the game has “tide” in the title for a reason. Enjoy your experience, its fairly unique. Market is full of horde shooter franchises, like Destiny, Division, Killing Floor, Helldivers, but none of them have any complexity when it comes to melee.

[Vertraxxx]

yes, at some point, Darktide changed its combat design, shifting its approach to increasing difficulty mainly by spawning large numbers of enemies. This has been pointed out many times, but as weapons and classes kept getting stronger, class balance collapsed and the overall difficulty dropped dramatically.

Normally, a major balance adjustment would have taken place at this point. However, whether because the devs were busy creating new classes or neglected the issue, they continued to flood the game with enemies to compensate for the excessive power levels. Crushers and Maulers now frequently appear in groups of 6 to 7, while Ragers and Gunners spawn in groups of 10 to 15.

This is clearly poor design, making enemies feel cheap and causing each enemy to lose its unique identity. In the past, when a Crusher appeared, players would respond by retreating or repositioning depending on the situation, and high-threat enemies like Crushers and Maulers served as key elements in the tactical flow of combat.

But at the current power level, they are barely different from regular mobs. Players just rush in and kill them without much thought. They are no longer a real threat, and the only slight danger comes from how many appear at once.

Many of the players active on this forum who deeply understand Darktide agree that classes and weapons need to be properly nerfed, and that the excessive power creep should be curbed.

[BizarreSalp]

Nice to see your take, thanks for sharing!

Yeah, I hope they lower some player outliers in power a bit so that Crushers can be threatening again and we don’t just faceroll them. Sometimes the number of spawns in high Havocs is just so crazy that you can’t even see, just masses of colors and movement that render it impossible to understand what’s going on.

[IGN_Vera]

@ez14

I do not really resonate with this design choice to simply flood the screen with monsters. There is something about 10 crushers moving like a train that takes me out of the game. Immersion is important for my fun with a game and it is hard to feel that if I the visibility is 50cm on my screen during the engagement.
Instead of spawning 30 more mutants and making this an arcade style jump and run game, harder bosses and enemies would be appreciated. Fat Shark could make theirs lives very easy by simply increasing the attack and move speed of the end game enemies to enforce teamplay and to challenge players

Word.

[Pirx]

How Enemy Spam and Bloat trivialize Darktide

i said this a few times: i’m for fewer, but more capable enemies rather than for clown cars of crushers. for example look at this damnation run with starter classes: [Beating Darktide's HIGHEST Difficulty with STARTER CLASSES !] it requires a surprising amount of cooperation because any mundane enemy can be a deadly obstacle. what i really don’t like about the game now is the visual clutter: it’s barely possible to distinguish between bunched up enemies, you get hit out of a blob…

one of my many posts on exactly this enemy spam instead of making individual enemies meaningful.

[IGN_Vera]

Yes, more threatening Elites but much fewer of them and Specialists on the battlefield is the most optimal way forward. Good post!

To anyone who may read this, please don’t conflate Elite/Spec density with general enemy density. Darktide can still have and should have the feeling of overwhelming enemy numbers as seen during the Unrelenting Hordes modifier which was very popular - it just should not be Elites/Specs because they all compete for sound cue priority, and sound cues functioning properly is critical for a positive player experience in a game where Specialists can easily end missions if not dealt with in a timely manner.

There are many ways this can be achieved:

-

• Nerfs: Dial back the outliers. Dueling Sword, Uncanny stack limit, Uncanny synergy with DoT tics, reduce Soulblaze DoT stacks cap to 16, tie Batter/Scourge to push attacks so Stamina limits how frequently they can be applied.

• Buff Elites: Make Gunners/Reapers more resistant to suppression - now they become more effective area denial obstacles, bake Final Toll into Ragers, create new Elites like Traitor Sergeant, Vox Operator, Plaguebearer that while not dangerous enough themselves to be high priority for sound cues, effectively make enemies around them more dangerous with obvious visual cues of their presence. (Vox - smoke grenades, enemy summon. Plaguebearer - impossible to not see. Sergeant - periodically pumps his sword in the air for rally)

• Buff Traitor Captains: Reduce the duration of their staggered state upon Void shield disable, give them distinct phases indicated clearly by two wounds, with different behaviors in each phase.

• Glitchlings and Cultist Psykers: Like the Traitor Sergeant and Vox Operator - not dangerous themselves, but dangerous in how they interact with enemies.

Cultist Psyker - Specialist that protects ranged enemies and forces players to consider an aggressive push into melee or reposition to a safer spot, out of Gunner/Reaper sightline.

Glitchling - Specialist that targets one player, then when in close proximity, randomly denies Blitz, Combat Ability or makes ranged weapon malfunction until killed. Attacks in melee, weak flurry attacks that deal minor corruption.

More posts

Meet the Plaguebearer

Moebian Domain, a New Mission Modifier

New Admonition Enemies? And others!

Some ideas for new flavours of heretic

[stqnislqs]

Thats why the game needs more variant of mobs with different weapons or abilities but FS refuses to disrupt their lazy approach and players are bored of killing vanilla mobs in mass.