Fighting waves in Darktide feels absolutly diffrent than fighting waves in Vermintide and i suspect the problem is the behaviour of the individual enemy while in a wave.
In Vermintide 2, which i ofcourse played a lot of, most of the time a single player is able to stop a whole wave in its tracks, if the space is right. This does not seem the case in Darktide, atleast in my personal experience. In general in Vermintide 2 enemies would or could never run past a player in a confined space , unless the player moved past the enemy, the player pushed the enemy too far to the side, or the player was downed. If none of these cases applied the player holding the line would completly hold the line and seemingly (this might not be really true, the AI may have already decided on a nother target, but…) be the only target of said wave. Never would can i recall in recent memory, the wave not attacking the player but vastly ignoring him. In Darktide it is increasingly clear with more and more playtime, that all enemies, seem to only ever focus on their “preset” target and only them. This is incredebly obvious for disabler specials (On disablers) and seemingly for the wave as well.
Supposedly, the enemies work like in Vermintide 2 where each player has slots around him, where the enemies want to move to to attack. If enough enemies target one player the rest move on to the next, leading to enemies running past you. However the enemies ignoring the player holding the line, eventhough he is the closest and not fully sorounded, feel incredebly weird to me and my friends.
To reiterate my point in Vermintide 2 the wave would target you, and onyl move past you if you let them. In Darktide only some enemies in a whole wave seem to target you, while the rest only pushes past. I am talking about doors, or larger openings, small railings, gangways, anything where one or two people reasonably could hold the line. But it darktide, this feels way harder. In Vermintide one player could be a wall, holding back a wall of enemies. In Darktide the same player with a slightly diffrent weapon gets pushed back by what no longer feels like a coherent wave. They willingly push past you, eventhough you stand there not sorrounded.
Some may now say: That is more realistic, or something. But to me it just feels like some of the spirit is lost. I really feel like i am less able to hold the line. For me and my friends it really felt great to solo hold a whole corridor of enemies. I do not know what really changed, but it just feels less great.