That’s a copypaste of my previous post of the same title. With few additions.
I come back from time to time to check is DT balance good, but it’s still trash. Fundamental core problems weren’t addresed still.
So few additions before i will vanish again.
Enemies dictate a narrow spam and aoe meta
The game can’t kill a player without spawning 40 000 crushers with 40 000 HP/armor pool. And the same ammount of specials.
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There are no quality enemies, only quantity. Enemy moveset and mechanics are simplistic and rdudimentary.
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When a game balanced around quantity, all aoe/infinite cleave/no enemy cap/dps oriented weapons and blitzes will have their favoritism. It also makes game to be vfx polluted as hell.
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Anything that needs to be aim precisely, deployed, charged, channel will not be vaible untill it’s absurdely broken or generaly versatile. Wich leads to everyone is playing run’n’gun no matter the staff, gun, melee you’re using. Identity can’t survive here.
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Slower tanky bonker class fantasy, tacticool sharpshooter, etc. can’t be viable under the constant assault of 50 crushers.
Why should i bring anti solo target tool like Boom Bringer, when a boss can’t cause wipe or drain team resources by itself? When crushers aren’t scary in lower ammounts? Are you gonna make it another aoe gun? Like rumbler+nuke? Or plasma+nuke?
The tighter packs the more aoe i want, this is an arpg approach, except arpg’s have rare/unique mobs asking either to perform a combo or utilize solo damage skills.
Toxande scales its effectivness absurdly well is hilighting that density problem.
Enemy design doesn’t match player’s gameplay. We are playing a modern action FPS with slides, vaulting, cracked movespeed, long ass dodges. Enemies are playig V2 still. Devastating range weapons play their role aswell here.
The idea of enemies should try to counter players ability and create a challenging scenarios isn’t there.
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Some of regular swarm enemies need to become a higher treat rather than just adhd itch pleasers and toughness farm source.
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Non-armored enemies should be another type of treat, instead of just a low level treat.
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The most important thing enemies need is a proper mechanics and complicated movesets.
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New enemies asap. Plaguebearers elites that puke and regenerate like the Bile Troll from V2. Enemy psyker/witch can cast heals, protection bubbles, cursed areas/totems canceling toughness regen, etc.
No taxation, free power, spoiled skill reward reality
DT has no tradeoff system. The only tradeoff you make is skill tree structure, wich in case of only 30 talents doesn’t rly work. To some degree it’s the weapon stat modifiers roll can’t all be maxed but there should be a dump stat, but h in many cases is whatever.
With small tree you want every talent to be impactful and meaningful. Wich means i can grab a lot of strong stuff. You either have skill tree bloated and boring or every builds end up being too versatile.
This is not how things work in PoE for example where you have 120+ points and nodes leading you from basic stats towards thematical clusters of more impactfull notables.
What about my loadout? I can take the strongest weapons both melee and range. How are you gonna restrict my power level if there is no strenght requirement for bolter and agility for DS?
Most action games have either weapon weight system (Killing Floor 2), blessings/talents have cons (DRG overlocks, some SM2 perks).
Weapons that are easier to attack with - no aim needed, no recoil, autoaim, shouldn’t be the ultimate tools. They should lack in resource management, mobility or in any other way.
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Weapons with hard recoil patterns (we don’t have such) complicated comobs should reward players.
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Why arbites shock mine is so effective while automatic? Either make two modes - remote control one you need to manualy activate for the best effect, so players need to perform gotcha with proper timing and prssing buttons. And the second one is automatics, but much less effective. Why i don’t need to press buttons in my videogame?
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Dog needs some stances modes you switch manually to increase effectivness, some micromanagin proxy mechanics.
The weird extremes and lack of imagination
Why if there is a crowd control ability it’s always big aoe stagger that turns off enemy ai?
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Why there are no minor effects like reducing enemy movespeed/attack speed/damage?
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Why when it’s toughness reffiling ability it’s always about replenish in chunks, not regeneration type?
It’s always “all or nothing” with no nuances or status effects subtypes.
How would a proper designed Smite work - you channel it applying stacks to enemies. Max stacks needed is lower for smaller enemies, more for bigger ones. While not max stacks applied enemies are slowed, when max stacks applied it causes stagger, removing all stacks from the enemies.
You implemented toxins, and nothing rly unique about them, it’s just dot again.
Mobility. Full of hot takes
It’s too strong. Enemeis can’t counter it. It asks no investements and it’s devaluating roles and abilities.
Specialized frontliner or stealth infiltrator, be it zealot/ogryn with charge or vet/zealot with invis. They are loosing their value, cause even if i run a heavy weapon like bolter or plasma i can just spam slide towards a gunners blob and lock them in melee.
My build doesn’t matter in this regards cause it’s about spaming slide wich can be performed with range focused build just as with run and gun and so it makes so many things meaningless.
Why would i run lasgun, autogun or shotgun in this case? Considering that already has been said about armored elites is the main treat (aside from trapper). You will end up slaping rend on every weapon, buffing armor pen and weakspot damage, just to increase the ammount of crushers you spawn.
Ranged enemies can’t zone you out even if you have no any specialized ability.
Why shotgunners swap on melee if they don’t need to reload?
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Slide spam is too strong. Slide either need to have limit counter. Or use stamina, wich will make stamina curios and +stamina perks more valuable. More additional stamina sources if needed.
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Locking range enemies in melee should be prerogative for a dedicated frontliner/infiltrator builds. It should be much harder to perform if you haven’t invested in mobility and melee but in range.
Dodge is way too forgiving. Block and shove barely have any place. Melee gameplay is heavily on offensive side wich leades to spam mouse button to win. Generaly high attack speed probably plays its role here aswell.
Attrition element
Doesn’t exist. Mainly cause of how toughness works. In L4D, or V2, you are loosing your effective HP pool slowly. Pills, THP. Those mechanics force you to be fast/aggressive but cautious at the same time. Your effective health is ticking out the more you make mistakes. So you either need to move faster through the map, or farm THP, but at the same time there is less room for mistakes. It’s a snowball system.
In DT corruption is suppose to take the role of attrition element i suppose. But it doesn’t work that well. We have plenty of tools to remove it easely. In DT you die only with sudden spikes.
Your team can run the whole map flawlessly and then one mistake and half of the team are knocked. Wich is fun, and hardcore cause git gut and do no mistakes. But it’s the only way the game kills you, wich feels like a weird rollercoaster.
Have some shame and fix that trash balance that plaguing the game for 2 years already.
That’s my couch game designer TED talk#2, time to play PoE2 0.4 soom. Plus i’m employed now sadly. See ya later.
