The arbitrator class design is pretty aggressive low toughness resistance but a tons of toughness generation you have to hit, shoot kill things to stay alive and encourage an agressive gameplay. We can all feel it every run. You need to hit things shoot, kill specialist elite to stay alive and stay buffed. When a poor specialist show up he receive a 4000 dps in 0.2 sec from ex shotgun, Arbites maul, dog. And I really want to know how the “kill count” work if I reduce the health of an enemy from 100% to 25% and another player just shoot the last 25% I have the kill or not ? When the buff are based on elite and specialist kills this become important. 4 maulers blob I stagger them all and damages them for 60% and start to kill them the dog come finish them all in 2 sec is that’s correct ? Is the kill count as I have kill them or the player who’s just let the dog autoplay ? Or is the player who’s just finish the enemy even for 10 damage who’s get the kill ?
Don’t feel sorry for them, you can get good with a controller if someone sucks it’s simply because they suck.
In this exact case - they pretty much are.
If you let vet take all talents he needs without wasting points onto some useless bs for pathing - vet would be much stronger. Not arby or ogryns level, but still.
oh, a redditbird.
that’s exactly their cycle. why learn to get better with what they got, or excel with even less powerful alternatives. it’s like substance abuse, they need more for less effect.
i like when streamers just can make any build useful.
actually some people seem simply allergic to learning. no matter how many times you put them back on their feet, they repeat whatever got them downed. now if the OP crutches they’re using get nerfed, they have to figure out alternate ways, but that’s uncomfortable and not just, since they deservedly won before, right?
some might be stubborn out of spite or that “don’t tell me what to do” mentality, even if it’s being helpful. had a few of these too, i put markers on the objectives and messaged “follow me”, only for them to run into other directions that had no relevance, go down and ragequit.
Please regale us if you find the time and desire. I genuinely would love to read on the subject.
Ammo. Just mag dump and go hunting for more and suck up boxes. No learning lesson for target priority to conserve ammo as team.
Med stims/Medstations - Good player can avoid getting hit. Another bounced around like pinball, can heal back to max again and again thinking that is normal. That’s no learning lesson.
Death has little consequence, damage has little consequence. Hence the speed running behaviour in Quickplay as they know they’ll be back in the game very soon, then do it all over again.
The human behaviour in Darktide…got no words.
I considered making a full blown post but guess I’ll just extend this thread since it’s related.
This game is dying a slow death for me. My desire to boot it up is waning. I believe the state of balance since Arbites is the underlying cause.
My last two missions reached a boiling point.
-
D-III-VII-IX-G Maeltrom - Me as Arbites, TL ~330 zealot, 2x ~45 arbites
Multiple solo clutch situations for me as the team just constantly kept splitting and overextending - all three of them. Knock down, drag out, but I pulled them kicking and screaming to a win. Not so much as a “gg” at the end. -
Auric Hunting Grounds - Me as Ogryn
QP into lobby with just me and a lvl 27 Psyker before getting 2 TL ~45 cops a few seconds later. Ask how the psyker even got in the lobby at 27 without a buddy - No response. Load in anyway, and RP telling the sparkhead to answer me - nothing. one of the cops says “warp magic”. Psyker goes down at first contact - still no comms. All 3 go down at 2nd contact, get thanks from cops, still nothing from psyker. Get to first airlock of Hab Warren - psyker refuses medicae with 2 wounds. say in chat “no comms, no heals, looking for a carry I guess.” No response. I think there was 1 more solo clutch along the way, with psyker constantly downing. Get to the end, no “ggs”.
What happened to the etiquette of the community? Before the player boom, teams would hype you in chat and congratulate on clutches. I’m not looking to be fellated, but not even a “gg” after that?
I also am not good enough to consistently clutch, yet these happened and I only sort of sweated as the cop in the maeltrom. I find myself clutching a lot more since Battle for Tertium and I don’t think I should be able to. Another anecdotal point for the overall difficulty nerf.
Balance is f*kd, it’s entitling players, it’s birthing bad habits and etiquette and it’s wearing on me.
These tourists won’t stick around forever. Maybe they drop FS enough money they are the attractive dollar to chase.
But to go from being a game I was considering breaking my MTX principles for to one I’m not sure I’ll be playing in a month’s time is…an accomplishment. GG fatshark.
There is no courtesy left. sharing, appreciation for rescue etc
Speed run, running off. Player too strong and didn’t need team assistance, even in Maelstrom.
Human behaviour is a problem - But can add/change mechanics to encourage and reward positive behaviour very easily.
For now it is a melee game, run as fast as possible, loot everything, leave last person behind to their doom, usually Vet. Keep going faster.
Same maps, same class, same weapons, same speed run style. Repetitive more than ever.
Will I stop playing Darktide. Nope. Just occasionally, never bought skins.
The imbalance in the game is continuously outpaced by new broke things discovered like it will never catch up due to glacial updates or none at all to address them.
Now set my expectations it will be like this going forward.
A friend of mine with TL1k+ on his main recently told me that, for the first time, he could “see the end” of his time with the game.
Autopilot gameplay, the ability to skip to the end of the difficulty progression and “complete” the game, pressure to use a smaller and smaller selection of weapons. It adds up.
He doesn’t feel powerful when he kills a crusher in the same time it takes to kill a poxer. He no longer feels anything at all.
Well, that killed my mood…
Or not looting anything, not helping when disabled because they have no idea we don’t all have a dog. Not dodging not using meditation because they feel so confident… the level is at 0,0001% actually. But when there is a lil problem like two maulers or crushers in close combat boom dead.
Often it’s 4 players solo’ing the round with occasional teamplay assistance with a disabler. I think this style of play has been encouraged for a while. In part by the game enabling this sort of thing through strong builds that can just deal with any threat solo, which then has a knock-on effect of players expecting their teammates to also be running similarly powerful builds on the highest difficulty. Arbites just takes it to another level. The most fun I’ve had recently is specifically running builds that can’t deal with Carapace. I actually get to “fight” crushers most of the time. Until the Arbitrator walks over and 3 pieces them with his maul.
Fight carapace ? I only have time to hit one time after they are dead.
Yeah, I just crested 900 hours, so I got my money’s worth. Probably even with space cop, though the “already fixed” “hotfix” we’re waiting a month for prevents me from the fun build crafting I was doing. But anyway…
The adrenaline from A5 and Maels is gone. The camaraderie from a good team is gone. The satisfaction of personal skill growth is gone.
It’s guesswork for us, but I assume, like most, retention is a key driver of sales. The longer I played the closer I got to spending more money in that god forsaken shop. I know there are plenty of players that are far less resistant than I. Are the tourists coming in an dropping enough to outweigh long-time whales that will drop off? Guess so.
All I know is this is the last FS title I play for probably a decade at least, given the lessons I’ve learned.
Doom wads will still be there when I wake up tomorrow.
I don’t think disparaging other players, be they on Reddit or anywhere else is the way to go. These balance changes were made by Fatshark after all and while I get there’s been Steam negative reviews bombs (I entirely disagree with this approach), creating this divide leads nowhere.
Both side of the playerbase want fun, sometimes there’s no way to keep both sides happy easily, as it’s obvious here. You need to realize not every player has the ability to reach the top, some do not have the time or ability to. Not everyone can consistently carry a mission gone wrong or perform well consistently in high Havocs.
Not every Arbites can just play an Auric duo and just have the dog kill everything, if you think this is somehow the norm you are mistaken. Sure it makes it easier in some ways, but there’s no point is exaggerating it. It needs some tune-up but it’s not the end of the world.
The way to go is probably so design new enemy types for higher difficulties like we talked previously, and leave the lower difficulties as they are. Havoc should receive more effort and a better party finder that also allows better selection of players for those who want that, like seeing their builds before accepting them.
We should ask Fatshark to do better here too, after all it’s their decision in the end. They picked the easier route to difficulty by just amplifying so players adapted in turn by relying even harder on meta. Players will never just give that up unless suddenly they have other similarly fun options, that Fatshark needs to give us and make for us.
Just chiming in to say how busted the Vraks autogun is on Arbites with the +25% ammo reserve and the +15% clip size. Just mag-dump that $h!t anytime, anywhere. A boss spawned in ? Oops it’s dead because I held down M1.
Braced agri is also nasty as hell on arbi
If one side of the players demand to be able to clear the highest difficulties with putting the least amount of effort they’re not being very reasonable.
pretty convinced that myself, @Amelia and @EggFever could do a h40 with dodge and sprint unbound on arbtities with ease.
Here I am, solo clutching Aurics and knowing, or at least thinking, I shouldn’t be able to or wouldn’t pre Arbites.
Here they are expecting to get H40 by holding W and having a dog.
I am totally, utterly unreasonable. I am the problem.
I thought it was just okay. Get to pretend to be Arnie from Commando with Castigator stance up to 10m. And beyond that I get to pretend to be an Ogryn using TLHS pissing ammo away.