“Just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it should”
Before I list my pains I had playing Havoc these last few days, I would like to preface my words by saying a few things. If Havoc persists in the game as one of its main attractions, you need to consider all player groups.
Right now you’re designing it for premades of OG players who have thousands of hours. That wouldn’t be a problem, if we had more updates for the game per year. But at this point, you’ve spent almost 6 months on expanding Havoc when the majority of playerbase can’t access it.
Also, people need to learn. And to learn, they need to play the gamemode. Most people don’t play it, and sometimes the Havoc matchmaking is dead for me, even though it’s a recent addition. You’ve already failed at the first step, because you made Havoc as unwelcoming as possible from the get-go.
Quickplay experience is absolutely awful at times, it feels like you’re punishing players who like your game and keep supporting it. I’ve had more leavers these few days in Havoc than I had in the entirety of Season 1 of the gamemode. Should player accounts be banned for abandoing their teammates in a semi-competitive gamemode then? Is it the direction the game is going? Because it’s not fun getting demoted because of someone’s griefing.
Havoc difficulty has increased drastically with Season 2, because people with thousands of hours felt the previous iteration got too easy and too stale, even though some of the same players abused bugs and speedrunning on maps, without playing it “the intended way”.
The problem is, as long as the game has any semblence of fairness to it, there’ll always be a bunch of players who can complete it, even through thousand retries. At this point it’s just an infinite arms race for you and this 1% of hardcore players.
But now Season 2 of Havoc is too RNG-based and has lots of poorly balanced things about it. I understand Havoc needed more content and more ways to challenge players. But this is just not it.
MY SEASON 2 PAINS
If there’s a demotion system in place that punishes player mistakes, there should be less “random bs” situations.
Right now the gamemode has the worst of both worlds. You get punished for playing with random players, punished for trying new builds and talent setups, and punished for trying to get better. You get punished for surviving the longest, while all your teammates are dead. The director doesn’t care if you’re the only person who is still standing.
Choose one please. You either make Havoc as crazy as possible with unfair situations for players to overcome but let people replay it as much as possible, or you let demotions stay and actually reduce the amount of unfair BS. Both is just bad design, disrespectful to your players.
Scab Captains should never get Encroaching Garden modifier.
This feels like a complete oversight on part of playtesters and Havoc design team. I honestly don’t know what you were thinking with that guys. Scab Captains spawn along the horde and elites, not to mention along with other bosses. In random teams it’s a death sentence, since you can’t make up a plan on the spot when some people on your party might not even hear your voice comms or might not speak English.
I had a game where Scab Captain spawned along with 2 bosses which they infinitely healed. You cannot take down the Scab Captain’s shield, because the other bosses cover them with their bodies, and you cannot deal with other bosses, because they get healed.
Ideally, no bosses should get this buff. But I’ll settle just for Scab Captain, because of their shield mechanic that prevents dealing damage to them right away.
Twins should never spawn alongside the other bosses, unless someone on the team is speedrunning and forces the spawns.
Spawning Twins in certain places on certain maps can be a death sentence. On many maps you have small rooms which you drop into with no way back. The next area might be crawling with elites and gunners, so you’re stuck in this small area.
We once had to fight FIVE bosses in the same small room, Twins and Scab Captain first, and after that, two more came. They were not weakened bosses, they were full HP ones. Yes, we killed them, because I was lucky enough to have a great team. But then I played the next Havoc map of higher clearance rating, and the entirety of that map was easier than THIS ONE ROOM in my previous game. Where’s the balance?
If my teammates were slightly worse or had non-meta loadouts, it would be a waste of 20 minutes, just because the bosses spawned in the small room with nowhere to go and not slightly before that. Rodin Karnak just keeps spamming his gas grenades, and you’ve got nowhere to back down, even if you try to clear them by detonating them on purpose. You also can’t progress to the next open space to kite them there, because it might trigger other event, like Daemonhost Ritual.
It’s a cheap challenge. Very few people can do this, and this basically requires golden toughness with no ifs and buts. What’s next? Are you gonna balance Havoc in a way, so that sooner or later only 10 the very best players in the world can complete it? Is it the endgame for this gamemode? So that the true 1% can have the bragging rights?
At this point make any special oneshot you if you get caught. After all, it’s your fault you didn’t dodge. Just don’t forget to ban Spidey Sense and Special Tracker mods, so that everyone in your community is one the same page, alright?
Hab Dreyko finale should have a fixed boss spawn in the tree room before the door opens, and NOT in the escape sequence.
Bosses spawning during the escape sequence should not block the exploding bridge that people need to traverse to finish the mission. It feels cheap when they just block the bridge with their bodies, while you get infinite hoard coming from both the front and the back.
Where’s the balance? So any time I play Hab Dreyko I should just hope they don’t spawn there at all?
How is it any different from some people playing only Archivum Sycorax 40 last season of Havoc? This is not challenge. It’s called luck of the draw. Stacking every advantage before the match begins and hoping for a good roll on the map.
Bulwarks Squads should not spawn randomly and/or should not get modifier buffs.
Squad of Bulwarks (~8 Bulwarks) spawning randomly is one of the most cheap ways to add difficulty in the current season of Havoc.
If you having Rampaging Elites, there’s a high possiblity most of Bulwarks will be enraged when you fight them, while hiding inside the bodies of their comrades which block most of your hits with their shields. SInce hitboxes are still finnicky on Bulwarks, even if you hit them sideways, the attacks don’t always register and Bulwarks just instantly reset their shield in place. Not to mention the increased stagger resistance from modifiers.
If you want Bulwark Squads, at least make them roaming elites which you can see before you engage, so that players can plan ahead and save their grenades/cooldowns. Ten Bulwarks spawning from the door next to you with barely any chance to react feels cheap.
Even in auric games, Bulwarks like to snap their shield occasionally, even when you flank them. But it’s not a big deal deal, even though it’s annoying when it happens. But when they spawn as a squad it becomes a huge problem, because you can only deal with them with a few tools.
Daemonhost rituals should prevent boss and specific special spawns for their duration.
As soon as ritual is initiated, boss and extreme special spawns should be paused until the ritual is stopped or the daemonhost is killed. It’s unfair that sometimes you can sprint towards the ritual with only roaming enemies protecting it, and sometimes you have to fight the boss and a horde, and a train of specials, while the progress bar fills.
On Comms Plex map you can get a double Daemonhost spawn where your team needs to split into two teams to stop both succesfully. I once had hound wave (hunting grounds modifier) spawn during the ritual and we couldn’t physically stop one of the rituals, because dogs were constantly jumping us. If all of the players focused just one ritual, we still wouldn’t get it in time.
Again, it’s basically random chance, since you can’t predict hound timings reliably. The challenge is not consistent, and you get punished for having worse luck. Why do some players get to clear the ritual unchallenged, and others need to beat the final boss of the Director to even get close to it?
