Seems a surprisingly common opinion that the pacing of enemies, feel of the combat and progression for classes feels inferior to the previous beta. All in all less fun.
The lack of breathing room for casual players is understandably frustrating, the number of endless horde moments and increase it seems to horde size puts allot of pressure on players defensively (good to do at times but do it constantly and it is draining and unfun).
I’m not a casual player per say since I have around 2k hours in Vermintide 2 and played 1 extensively as well but even I noticed there is less room for disengaging from melee, saving allies or feeling as much impact from abilities.
The combat feels like a slog, at times this is fitting but constantly it is once again unfun and draining. If hordes are supposed to be as common and large as they are then reduce the kill time by at least one light attack.
A heavy attack should one shot the first struck regular horde enemy and with headshot line up being enough to kill two with most weapons.
Ranged enemies do too much damage, just outright, the balance was fine in the September beta no change was needed.
Especially snipers that can one tap 1/4 toughness but full health allies even on uprising difficulty.
Snipe laser line only appearing before the shot by a regular delay would help alleviate and get people used to timed dodging/sprint sliding to cover.
General game performance and stability are low but that is of course something that a number of games struggle with before launch so I won’t judge harshly there.
No private game setting, why? This has been asked for by many people here and elsewhere.
Darktide looks and sounds fitting to the thematic, design is to be applauded in tone and map design in general.
However this makes expections to that stick out, the voice acting of the inquisitor Zola I think her name was, was flat and uninspiring, the chant of ‘who am I?’ “I am a warrior” felt like a weekend fitness instructor that the class isn’t really behind.
Also an odd chant in general that undermined the otherwise fine tone the tutorial had going.
If it had faded out after the holo servitor speech it would have been fine.
A bit more gravitas on the “In the future there is only war” would be good too.
On the visual side it is fitting the way to levels look, the right gothic architecture the cramped rooms and state of dissaray but there is a downside on the gameplay side, being nurgle faction based most of the enemy tones are muted colours that blend in almost too well with the levels, meaning slower times to pick out enemy types, more spacial confusion in general and not as much visual spectacle.
A hard problem to address though I will grant considering the colours are on point for hive and nurgle alike.
Nurgle being often overused in 40k it would have solved this issue to use a different faction but here we are.
I could cover a few more points but I feel this is enough of a wall of text for now.
Curious what people agree and disagree with outside of the dozen or so people I have talked to and my own impressions.