No ammo pickup in Auric Maelstrom

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Dear Darktide Development Team,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on the recent update you rolled out with Patch 12, specifically regarding the Maelstrom mission type.

The Maelstrom missions have certainly dialed up the difficulty, presenting a gritty challenge. The idea of using gameplay modifiers to spice up the matches is innovative and keeps us on our toes.

However, I wanted to discuss one particular modifier that I believe detracts from the enjoyment of the game, the one that removes all ammunition.

As you know, the shooting phases in Darktide are much more integral to the gameplay than Vermintide 2. I feel that while such a modifier might have been a minor inconvenience in Vermintide, in Darktide it significantly hampers the experience especially for classes that are designed for ranged combat, such as the Veteran or ranged Ogryn. It limits the gameplay possibilities and seems to punish players for choosing a particular play style.

In my humble opinion, it would be more engaging if this modifier were replaced with something that adds difficulty without taking away from the core mechanics that make Darktide unique.

For instance, a modifier that prohibits any healing during a mission could introduce a challenging twist, encouraging players to adopt more cautious tactics without negating the roles of certain classes.

By maintaining the core fun and diversity of gameplay, even the toughest missions can be enjoyable and satisfying. Removing ammunition seems to restrict this diversity and could potentially discourage players from engaging with the Maelstrom missions as intended.

Personally, I never play Maelstrom when I see “No ammo pickup.”

Thank you for considering this feedback.

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The no ammo modifier is great. Everyone I’ve played it with so far enjoyed it massively.

It’s one of the few fun outliers and forces your team to coordinate their builds.

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It is just a single one of the many modifier combinations that are available.
And it only appears on maelstrom, so you can not accidentally quickplay into it.
If you do not like it, just do not play it.

“No ammo pickups“ only comes in combination with “only melee enemies“ modifier, so they do not shoot back at you.
You get a load of melee elites instead of being shot at.

To me, this modifier is a lot of fun. It offers a different type of gameplay than regular missions.
You can not just walk through the mission and blast everything with guns.
You have to mostly engage the melee enemies in melee.
If you want to shoot anything aside from specialists, you better bring a vet with ammo aura, and think about what you shoot at (or play a psyker). Or you purposely die, so that you get back some ammo when you respawn.

Players are being punished for not reading the modifier, not bringing a fitting build, and for wasting their limited ammo. That is completely fine.
It should happen a lot more.

There is also an “only ranged enemies“ modifier that usually involves players using their ranged weapons a lot, too.

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I love this game mode. Its a refreshing change of pace and its recent enhancement (aka masses of dangerous elites) is quite entertaining. It does require tweaking of loadout to beat it but its a good time. We had a plasma veteran with us for one run and he did extremely well. In another run it was a psyker, two ogryn and a zealot.

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You get swarmed by 10+ elites and have to deal with them (usually without shooting most of them).

I really like about this mode, that the ogryn‘s shield and his taunt abilities become incredibly useful.
Debuffing blessings are great as well, because melee elites are quite beefy and actually live long enough to make use of those effects.

When players can shoot the elites all the time, similar encounters basically never happen.

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Gotta agree with other commenters here. I think the condition is perfectly reasonable. I don’t think it forces your build anymore than EG monstrous specials does (bringing weapons with poor monster DPS there is a pretty poor idea).

Vet honestly is not punished so much as becomes an absolute god send giving the
team ammo regen while not having swarms of shooters to waste it on. Is it wise for a Vet/Ogryn to spec more towards melee for the condition? Sure, that seems very reasonable for a game mode that is the literal peak of difficulty on offer. With the talent tree rework you’re not hard forced into an ammo reliant build on any character. You have loadout slots for a reason. As has also been pointed out already, you can’t QP into it, so it’s not unreasonable to ask you to plan a little around what conditions are in play.

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That because you never tried to finish them.
They are extremely fun since you get like 500 elites in a mission but 0 gunners.
Last one I cleared I had one vet with ammo regen
Me as revolver throwing knife zealot
And 2 ogryns with lanchers.

We actually never ran out of ammo since there’s so many elites and we needed our ammo to knock down the big groups or pick off disablers.

You just have to play diffent and fight a billion elites.

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New modifiers? Yes. Remove any one of those we have? Nope. The reason for these modifiers to use different builds and weapons. Use the veterans 1% ammo back aura and your problem is solved.

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And personally, I’m having most of my enjoyment in maelstroms when this mod pops up.

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Talking from the point of view of a person who has been maining thunder hammer + flamer zealot, no ammo pick-ups condition is one of the most fun and challenging options for maelstorm right now.

The game mode forces your team to be a lot more aware of their surroundings and places that inherently will get swarmed by maulers, crushers and ragers alike. Being able to kite back with the horde and slowly chip away at their armor is extremely satsifying and shows how skilled you are in maintaining the melee fights when greatly outnumbered by a potential 1 shot from the big boys.

No ammo pick-ups condition also forces you to be able to predict whether the ammo usage for a specific fight is absolutely mandatory or not. If you can handle the horde, just keep kiting backwards and slowly kill the big guys.

Every time a player gets knocked down, it can have a huge impact on the team. Killing 5-6 crushers and 8-9 maulers stomping the person who is bleeding out is not easy without ammo expenditure, which further adds to how good of a player you are and the decisions you make.

The game mode does definitely force a bit more team builiding than usual. Having a psyker or ammo veteran is fantastic. I believe that one of them is probably enough because I did complete a maelstorm with 2 ogryns, 1 psyker and a zealot. Ogryns can also shine in this game mode with their bull charge providing massive amounts of CC through ridiculous amounts of carapace and flak armor alike which can buy just enough time for your team to stabilize the situation. Sure, a straight up gunlugger will most probably suffer but you can still have your melee and grenades.

I enjoy this condition so much because it poses such a different challenge compared to most of the other conditions in the game. People actually have to think, dodge and properly judge their engagements with enemies.

The only thing which is annoying for this condition is when the director decides to drop 6-7 snipers, which is kinda silly but hey, at least I have knives.

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