A simple poll because I’m curious how people feel about this.
Would you like a difficulty level above damnation? Not a standalone gamemode like Havoc, but rather just a sixth difficulty level, one above damnation, to quickplay on the standard+auric mission board, with all maps with the standard modifiers + Maelstroms. If you played VT2, think Cataclysm difficulty.
Yes, I would like a quickplayable 6th difficulty above Damnation
No, I don’t care for it
0voters
Regardless of your vote, feel free to explain your reasoning. I personally would like it because quickplay with all maps is fun but auric damnation is a bit too easy, since powercreep made us too strong for it. I would prefer for powercreep to get addressed but I think they are not designing the game like that.
I would prefer the modifier system for Auric get an overhaul instead of an entirely new difficulty. Auric already is High Intensity, that would stay a permanent trait of Auric.
All missions would have one modifier selection from each category, with equal percentage between all of them for appearing.
Pus Hardened Skin, Mutated Horrors, Nurgle’s Blessing, Moebian 21st, None
Note:Yes, I’m aware HR has bugs and those should be fixed
Note:Scab modifier would replace BoN, Chaos Spawn and Plague Ogryn with Rinda and Rodin Karnak, who would each make one appearance alone before a 3rd appearance together later in the mission.
I want a “6th Difficulty” in the way that they bring everything else UP a Difficulty if that makes sense?
Make Damnation harder, Heresy into what Damnation is now, Malice into what Heresy is now, Uprising into what Malice is now and then keep Sedition as a “training Difficulty” for new Players.
Ideally, this new Heresy and Damnation would give you the same rewards as to discourage Players of lower skill from joining the new Damnation. As it stands, Damnation already has enough problems with “tomato cans” as my friend @Wahid calls them.
^ Yep, the poll needs the 3rd option. A bunch of us have been saying this for a while here. And as we’ve also said, it’s very likely easier to tone us down some vs inflating mob values and messing up more related stuff . Auric Damnation can effectively become Cata, and mob density can potentially be toned down too and still have it more challenging but less spammy.
This is funny, the “friend” part…JK OFC, I’m totally stealing and changing “tomato cans”, Crushers shall henceforth go from being “squirtles” to “tin cans”.
I think it would be better to rebalance the game using Auric Damnation as the baseline rather than creating a new difficulty level.
players are already split between Havoc and Mortis as it is
there are just too many game modes and difficulty levels.
the lower ranks of Havoc overlap in difficulty with Maelstrom and Auric HISTG, so I think Havoc should only include difficulties that are even harder than Maelstrom - otherwise, there’s no point in it existing.
a skill 6 quickplay mode would be what i’d play pretty much exclusively, yes.
actually, that would be how i would have designed a harder mode from the start and streamlined the mission board, instead of introducing havoc as a separate mode, because it seems more like reinventing the wheel to me and it also splits our already not that large community.
my take on today’s state of the game as i said a few times:
and
so take monstrous, add mutators like brutes and moebians, perhaps let them do more damage and limit the available meds and there you go.
now we have havoc already, what about that?
yeah, it has some issues, for me and many others: a) gatekept by party finder, b) deranking under 40, and c) 40s vs varlets, and d) reinforces the meta
a) i know not everyone is such a grumpy cat about it, for example @Badwin seems to enjoy it, in which case the party finding works as intended, and this is good for the game.
actually i consider the PF a useful tool and would definitely keep it as such, just not as a strict requirement to even enter a game.
i guess it depends on what one considers fun. you like playing up to mid havocs because they’re harder than auric but not too crazy? and you don’t care about going up and down a rank or two? well then there’s not much to go wrong. but:
b) deranking - yes it adds stakes to the game, and more often than not it leads to angry words and the carefully assembled party scattering after a loss. actually many feel cheated after having fought hard to get to 39 for example and then dropping back to 35 because the game says “now you lose” and there’s not much you can do.
c) no more deranking at 40. this separates havoc into 40s vs all the varlets below. so the ultimate goal is to get to 40 because only then you’re free to play as you want without the fear of losing valuable progress. and then deranking becomes frustrating, and assembling a party a chore when you just want to quickplay and relax at the end of a day.
this isn’t the fault of the players, but is rather a result a fatshark’s pervasive principle to limit player agency and use hamster wheels for more “engagement”. the old rng crafting system was a perfect example of this. now with havoc you have a given map pool and mutators, and you can’t even get into a game without somehow gaining the favor of others in the party finder. so limited agency. and when you derank, well there’s your hamster running.
d) lastly, havoc reinforces the meta instead of creating variety by throwing more enemies at you than the game can reliably handle.
but you can use non-meta stuff too? yeah… after reaching 40… hehe.
and here you’re back at a), because people tend to reject non-meta builds just to be sure they don’t risk demotion, and also try to police other’s builds, and depending on others to be allowed to play a game is a big no to me.
to sum it up, quickplay is the standard in darktide, it’s fast and easy if you just want to be able to go, bash heretics hard and also to leave the game without any “stakes and tension” many don’t like.
and with auric having become too easy with a competent team, darktide needs a skill 6 for the large player base, especially as it should be easier to add than investing into havoc with its hurdles and small player numbers.strong text
I haven’t encountered any toxicity yet around deranking. I’m sure it’s out there, just like it’s out there in Aurics and Malice and anywhere else. But I wanted to respond to this in particular, because with the new derank changes it’s not true.
Anyone can now play a Havoc lower than their current assignment without fear of deranking.
I intentionally left this third option out despite it being what I want myself because I think it’s fantasy at this point. I think Fatshark is for some reason (probably related to HD2 events) scared of making current base game content harder, be it via nerfs or by upwards adjusting it. Obviously that’s speculation but I do think if they were ever gonna balance the game, dueling sword would’ve caught a nerf a long time ago.
It’s fair though and as I said my own preference too, but I was really just curious wether people felt a sixth difficulty would be a good addition, putting actual balancing work on existing difficulties aside.
The nice thing about Cata was that it didn’t provide any additional rewards, which meant you would mostly play with people that didn’t care about winning/losing and where only there for the fun of it. Its very much the opposite of Havoc.
It does give quite a lot of plasteel, and people love cosmetic rewards of which it has a bunch. Titles frames badges etc
If they ever add a sixth difficulty for quickplay I would also prefer none of that so it would exclusively be for the people who actually want to play it rather than being the “new normal difficulty”. You can already see this effect with Havoc and people asking for weapons to get severe buffs to become capable of doing well on Havoc.
My point was that it wasnt the case for Cata, people would even be happy for the opportunity to clutch. That was my experience anyways and why I liked it so much.