Powersword makes all other melee weapons, as well as Zealot and Ogryn, irrelevant

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
83

The Evis is a decent weapon, it needs to be moved up to epic. The other chain weapons suck. Lot of prblems with all melee in this game but espeically the chain weapons.

Problem is that the chain weapons in the art wouldn’t work at all. IRL chainsaws have the chain on the outside of a bar and the chain is wider. Chainswords are usually shown with two bars on the outside which would get stuck on anything you tried to cut. Swords and other blades have a cross section like a boat to push cutting medium to the side, (is how they basically cut at all)

Chainswords are iconic, but need work to be even slightly possible, and fat shark might not have the pull to rework them to a place that could work.

During closed beta I made this image to talk about these issues.
chainswordconcept

In “Space Marine” Cap Titus uses a chainsword a lot, it’s only used like a saw in executions, because a sword needs to be fast in/out and executions heal Titus and he’s invulnerable during them. The rest of the time he uses the same moveset as the powersword (dlc for PVP.)

I love chainsword as a concept, and unlike most I think it’s a concept that could work because blades cut in the slice much MUCH more then on the push. Try it with an apple in your kitchen. Push a blade with no slice movement against an apple. Then do it again with a slice, and the difference is huge. That means a sword with a ‘moving serated edge’ could work as a weapon while a chainsaw won’t because it takes too long.

1 Like
84

Even though I find this cool. I don’t think it’s relevant to the gameplay. Doubt they will change an iconic weapon like the chain weapons to make them realistic. Gameplay wise they can cleave and pierce as much armor as they want it to.

The problem doesn’t depend on it working in the real world or not. And I think you will find it very difficult to convince Games Workshop to change their design. :wink:

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85

Wink all you want, it’s crap.
Base Chainswords in the game are hot garbage, chain axes are semi functional, and the evis is the only one that’s kind of okay.

Yeah, but they don’t. In the lore, they work great. In the game, they are trash, and they are trash because Fat Shark is in a bind between games workshop’s concept art and actually making the thing do -something- in first person.

They don’t know what to do with it and the artist looking at the thing in his editing window is thinking ‘damn that’s a weird design how the heck is it suppose to work?’

There’s never been a chainsword, and they only appear in cartoon movies and usually either are used as swords with a revving sound or as a saw with plot armor on the user. Now it’s first person and it’s a bad joke. This is likely why there are no chain weapons of any kind in a lot of other W40k games… and the ones that do have them are 3rd person single player, have it mostly sword and not saw, saw only in executions where (in SP) are not a massive downtime for the team/enemies can be paused for duration.

A chainsword needs to be a sword first and a saw last (if at all.) A sword needs to be fast in and out, not stunlock the user, not stay in the cut for too long, not saw slowly though a target. In game it needs to stagger a bit, cut a bit, and ‘feel good to use.’ The Cadian Assault Chainsword does none of that and the chain axe is pretty bad too, though the impact feels a bit more real, the model is even less real.

So we’re stuck with an icon that’s a complete dumpster fire and a complete unwillingness to part with the powersword, which ends up as the only w40k specific melee weapon in game that even comes close to what it’s suppose to be in the lore descriptions… and it needs on switch micromanagement as well!

TLDR As long as chain weapons suck the powersword will be master of the universe, and they do suck with the evis being just okay.

1 Like
86

Chain sword is not terrible either. Both Evi and chain sword are bad as a base weapon due to the number of enemies you consistently face in this game. It’s traits that make these useable (+200% cleave). You can easily do well with a chain sword, shovel, or combat sword on either zealot or vet. I do agree that the power sword still has the edge from the vet’s selection though. It also sucks that it could potentially get back to any of its beta power through traits (I don’t know). At the very least, the cleave one doesn’t seem to affect power sword. I have it on my 485 and the nerfs are still apparent on heresy (melee scabs not dying from cleave, only some dregs and all infested/unarmored). I’m guessing extra cleave mainly only allows you to hit extra enemies, which the power sword already doesn’t have a problem with.

87

Follow up. Look at the cross section. The profile isn’t too bad, but the cross section undermines itself as a cutting tool because it’s obvious it would get stuck.

ChainWeaponCross2
ChainWeaponCross21920×684 151 KB

Because of that, the artists and programmers who actually have to turn this into a useable weapon are trapped in a tug of war between the iconic look and the reality of how cutting works …and also economy of time in a fight.

…AND the lore on what these things are suppose to be able to accomplish…

…AND also the perceived need to keep the shovel viable when you can have a purpose built armor cutting super-sword.

89

The design of the weapon has no bearing on the programming of it. I’m confused about the angle on this. They could make a banana cut through steel like hot knife through butter if they wanted.

There’s no tug of war between programmer and artists. Stuff are designed as a package. Not by doing looks first and then look at it and work out the stats for it based on some logic on how it would work in real life. Especially with fantasy weapons like chain swords.

4 Likes
90

Love the idea of having to use special to time it on enemies. Sounds incredibly fun.

2 Likes
91

Chainsword with the stacking Cleave blessing holds up really well at horde control while still retaining the AP/stagger option.

92

A zealot with a power sword, sure, wouldn’t compare… but a vet with a power sword vs a zealot with eviscerator? The only way the vet wins is vs a hallway funnelled horde of only infested/unarmored.

Savage sweep is the good one. It goes up to 200%. The other one is a stacking one that only goes up to around 100% extra at max stats.

It definitely does compete with the meme knife/axes. You don’t need crit traits to keep that damage reduction up since the charge gives you a free crit to start fueling it.

2 Likes
94

Maybe. Seems like crap compared to a basic weapon when I’ve taken it out, and when you rev hit you get stuck. I see people get it, use it, and drop it.

Of course it does. That’s why we have the chainsaw special which is so bad. They are trying to make it do chainsaw things to conform to the design instead of trying to find a way to modify the whole package to a place that works.

Modifying the package is a sticky issue because of how much is established about chain weapons prior to darktide, but those established data points were at a distance and now we are up close and it’s a new situation.

No, The programmers and artists are together stuck between lore, established art, and in-game
function.

The chainsword has to be “X” but it can’t be “X” and still actually do “Y,” and it is required to do “Y.”

They have multiple requirements which are mutually exclusive and are trying to get all of them in and the result is nothing works well. You can play around it’s flaws, but it’s still a workaround of a bad design instead of a good design from the get go. It’s likely they could modify the design a tiny amount but not a massive amount.

The special should be default like it is in all the other lore, the thing should have it’s cross section reduced by about 70%, the side plates should be moved in as much as possible.

Hit animation should feel like it hits when you hit instead of feeling like it’s a wand being waved at the enemy, and it absolutely shouldn’t lock you into an animation while the cut happens slow like a chainsaw.

Chainsword needs to be a sword with a serrated moving edge, not a chainsaw at all. Once you dump the chainsaw aspect entirely and make the chainsword a sword, I think it’ll move from “trying to make it work” to actually popular.

95

May be able to get them both. That’d be pretty epic. But actually, there’s other traits you probably want to combine with cleave besides more cleave. IMO cleave + a toughness management one are BiS, meaning you’d want the min/maxed ones of each. Darktide is also still very vague with its wording though. Could be that the stacking one does something more, I’m not sure.

97

One thing that is worth mentioning is they actually DID do a bit of the design I’m taking about on the cadian chainsword. It’s not dramatic enough, but it’s there.

If you look close you see the side plates DO have a V shape with the teeth in the middle. This is an excellent move compared to the axe with it’s side plates so wide. Big positive step.

Imagine what we’d get if it was cut down for speed a lot more but still a chainweapon and still the same outline but a bit streamlined in it’s cross section. Less seemingly empty space inside and less overall displacement, but without giving up the chain or the side profile.

Chain1 - Copy
Chain1 - Copy533×752 42.8 KB

99

Other melee weapons need to be buffed instead.

Regular Chainsword and chainaxe should get the Eviscerator treatment.
Eviscerator doesn’t “bind” until you stop being able to cleave through something, which is usually an elite, then it deals extra ticks of damage that results in heavy attack 3-4 shotting a mauler on damnation.
(regular chainsword doesn’t do this and sounds like a hollow baseball bat while doing far less dps than eviscerator despite attacking much faster; chainaxe gets stuck on anything on light attack while heavy is the one that cleaves - making it very awkward to use)

Bad players will think that’s a downside, those who are experienced with the weapon will know it’s seldomly an issue. If you got savage sweep(up to iirc 200% cleave on multihit, which I assume is hitting 3 enemies in one attack), it will glide through almost any size horde.
Until you hit something armored, then again most melee including thunderhammer will get stuck on it, except eviscerator is one of the few that does more damage(meaning that elite is going to die faster and stop becoming a problem) when stuck.

If you had shred(level 3 or 4 anyway) you will begin to crit semi-consistently , with a crit/bleed/refresh build you can get ult back in 2-3 hits, which means lots of ult, which means lots of stagger to enemies(ult staggers up to crushers), which can mean lots of toughness regen to both yourself and team(+20% from feat), and more damage obviously.

This chain lasts indefinitely until horde is thinned too much; it is not something veteran crutchsword can do. No activation required. Only need to activate it to stunlock or do burst damage when dodging a mutant(very fun to do).

Crutchsword is too strong, but that’s because rest of the weapons available to vet are generally terrible.
(although tiny combat knife is great, ironically it’s the most well-rounded one with both good defense in dodges and good all-around damage due to easy headshots + carapace armor headshot damage, and a little cleave on light attack; ignoring the still bugged lacerate)

2 Likes
100

You could tie the special to some sort of cooldown or heat mechanic if the power budget has to remain as is. Personally i would just take away the ability to cleave everything to death with push of a button. It needs to have some better hard limit on how many enemies it can kill per cleave because currently the activation time won’t matter at all when you can clear screens worth of enemies and activate it again.
Even the stagger is probably bit excessive but i would not double nerf it without seeing how cleave changes affect it first.

You also cannot make every weapon the same power level as this thing full charged up. Diff 5 already varies from resident sleeper to decent difficulty depending how players are equipped.

101

Nobody said everything needs to be exactly the same power level as the current crutch sword.
It’s just currently they’re all too far below that level.

Chainsword very specifically sucks in both feel and power, which is unacceptable in a 40k game.

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102

Let’s just give everybody power swords, flamers, void staves, ogryn cleavers. Or let’s just remove all of those from the game and give everyone 100 toughness and 100 hp. Actually, let’s uninstall and go play Vermintide 2 instead.

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103

I feel what you’re trying to say here? But you’re also saying, ‘Nerf this weapon and take it away from this class because I want it and it’s doing better than I am with other weapons.’ You really shouldn’t suggest nerfing or removing a weapon because other people are having fun or an easy time using it, especially since it seems like a lot of people just want this weapon transferred to the class they’re currently playing. It sounds like, ‘That looks awesome! Why do YOU get to have it?!’ …which feels extremely petty.

2 Likes
104

Don’t think anyone really wants flamethrower(it doesn’t even crit, on a class that has build around crit).
People talking it up as if it’s good are just trying to pretend powersword is fine.

105

I do. I want flamer on vet/psyker. I’m sad it’s relegated to my least enjoyed class.

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106

psyker has flamer at home

For vet, it doesn’t crit so that’s a clown build

1 Like