[QOL] Bolter is super powerful, but is very frustrating to use

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
21

Ehh kinda disagree here. I find the Accatran a match for the bolter, ridiculous ammo (98/800 ish for me) 1 shot per cell ratio with a half dozen or so to kill typically . The difference is the Accatran, when selected is readied almost instantly. The bolter ,is generally 1-2 shots per kill apart from big beasties, but you have to plan to use it. So both have different use cases for ideal use.

Lasguns ammo capacity goes up further down the line, and if you are comparing a typical lasgun to a bolter, make sure you are doing so at comparable levels (not comparing a level 20 bolter, to a level 1 kantreal) I’ve seen Kantreals with over 100 cells in the mag, making it over 30 shots to the reload.

If a weapon in the game needed a nerf, the power sword is the one to go after. This is almost a straight upgrade of the fang and chainsword.

4 Likes
22

It is not a mistake - the bolter is one of the most powerful weapons in the game and the slow draw time is a necessary part of its balancing, which is primarily its difficult to use when getting overwhelmed, particularly when you’re not using it on Veteran with the quick reloading feats.

Incidentally, to those saying it’s just the animation that’s unnecessary, if you instead replaced the racking animation with slowly pulling the weapon out over the same period of time, it would feel extremely sluggish and bad, so I understand why they went with the chonky rack, instead.

3 Likes
23

Based on what evidence exactly? That aside, it’s still a terrible design decision, imo. There are enough drawbacks to the weapon that it doesn’t need that unnecessary animation that makes no practical sense, unless you plan on ejecting a round every time.

Low ammunition count, very high recoil, almost impossible to do accurate sustained fire, slow reload time. The damage is only worse the higher in difficulty you go.

24

Yah, it feel nice to have a faster draw and reload, but it also be overpowered as hell. Guns in an overtuned spot already and you’re asking for buffs for sake of fluidity when its already fluid. It seems you just want to revolver pull that gun and blast everyone.

25

It’s necessary to balance the weapon with something, but it doesn’t have to be a slow draw animation

1 Like
26

Based on what evidence exactly?

  • I’m making an observation based on every weapon having variable draw times for balancing purposes. Ultimately we’re both guessing, but I don’t see any evidence that points to it being a mistake since ranged weapons have different draw times and many - but not all - use the priming animation to make it more a more fluid experience for the player.

unless you plan on ejecting a round every time

  • “Realism” and video games are often at odds for balancing purposes.

Low ammunition count, very high recoil, almost impossible to do accurate sustained fire, slow reload time. The damage is only worse the higher in difficulty you go.

  • I think we may just be playing different games. It has extremely high magazine and reserve ammo for what it does and I feel that at least the reserve ammo should be reduced. To go back to the admittedly moot realism point, I do find it a bit silly that when I’m running the revolver, I bring a pocket full of rounds with me, yet when I bring the bolter I bring a hiking backpack full of magazines with me.

  • The recoil should be high, but even then it’s very manageable even out to medium range with both ADS and hipfire and mine has about yae [-----x—] stability. The reload should be long for how powerful it is, but if you’re playing Veteran you can take both reload talents and get a 50% reduction on almost every reload, largely negating it.

  • Every weapon’s damage proportionally reduces the higher in difficulty you go. Given that the bolter 1-shots most enemies on Malice, most specials will only require a single extra shot to kill with many still being 1-shottable on Damnation, particularly when Volley Fire is running if playing Veteran.

27

They should speed it all up but make it hurt the operator whenever they shoot it, as it was not designed for use by anyone not in power armor

28

Heres the argument and testing to counter all your statements.
ITS LONG, but thats because I test nearly every relevant gun (around same power level just to note)
Low ammo count is just not true. You aren’t talking about revolver. It has same ammo as nearly all the guns or a damage # that makes the ammo count basically equal. I hate when people state misinformation so much because of feeling. So lets actually pull the numbers out with testing. Below i’ll be testing ammo, reload, and draw time. I’m not list damage, but it will be referenced throughout

Ammo count

NOTE: I’m doing this on VET so this technically includes the 40% increase.
Bolter: 127 rounds
Helbore gun(the other decent one): 793 and then each shot takes 12 to charge which is what you are going use. We can even round it unrealistically to 6 because you halfed it for no reason if we want to be nice. Dividing by 12 is 66ish shots and unrealistic with 6 per shot is 120ish. Notice how even with unrealistic Bolter still has more ammo?
Bracer Autoguns have 447 the autogun with largest pool of ammo(i think). Has the issue of not being to actually ADS, but this is an ammo count test. Solid gun. 3.5x more ammo count.
Revolver: Has a lot more ammo over this. Revolver has 49 shots.
Plasma Gun: lol who uses this. But anyway 203 shots that use 3 per charge at lowest so 67 at best.
Infantry las gun(the semi auto one): 739 ammo. 3 per shot so 246 ammo. Same argument as Autogun, 1 bolter does well over 2 las gun shots. But technically yes it has 2x more ammo I guess.
Damage.

So from what we see here there are two types of guns with 2x or 3.5x its ammo, autogun and infantry las gun. Autogun ammo being 3.5x more doesnt really mean much since bolter does more damage in general. 190 damage at a decent range (not close range) and bolter does 500 plus. So damage wise its near equal and then all the benefits that bolter has in paragraph below.
You could make an argument for Infantry actually having more ammo actually. It surprisingly does rather well 290 per shot and has all benefits of a bolter except for the full auto, shield break and aoe stagger

So how exactly do we say that this gun that has Low ammo count? Lets ignore that it is one highest damage gun if we ignore the couple second 12 ammo charge helborne. Also lets ignore that it has massive aoe stagger, long range capacity, can shield break bulwarks, can full auto in panic, and a realistic reload time.

Reload time

Yes a realistic reload time, Bolter takes 3.43 seconds with the 30% reload buff and 4.36 reload time without it, you want to know what reload time is for a normal assault rifle in real life around 3 seconds. You’re reloading a rifle that’s firing explosive kinetic rounds. But lets check the other guns.
Helborne reload is around 3.43, so its a 1 second difference, which isnt even terrible. Test it by reload with a phone timer + spam clicking mouse to fire it.
Infantry is 3 seconds.
Revolver is 4.46 (yah this thing is slow and has no ammo lol)
Bracer Autogun pew pew of west its fast 2.36 reload speed normally.
This is the only gun I could see it feeling slow compare to a bolter, but like…the argument is too weak for me to be convinced.

Lets also ignore the instant reload perk because some other people grab the other one (fair enough)

So how exactly is the drawbacks of this gun besides a draw time of pulling out a heavy ass weapon like it should be. Not every gun should draw like the revolver.

DRAWTIME and then ADS
For this test we’re going drawtime and then ads because most people aren’t going hip fire.

Bolter 1.82 seconds to draw and ADS

Braced Autogun (Yah it doesnt have ads technically, but we’ll count it) 0.94 seconds

Heborne 1.54 seconds

Revolver 0.5 seconds probably faster (fast) I actually can’t even accurate time this to press the pause button because its so fast. I cant even click the end timer lol.
If only you weren’t garbage now my sweet prince :pray: rip old revolver damage, its dodge, and its ammo count you will be missed.

Infantry rifle 0.9 Seconds…this gun is actually not so bad stat wise

So we can conclude that its yes 2x longer to draw than most weapons here. But a singular 1 second draw doesn’t feel too terrible for all the benefit it has.

TLDR: Yah of testing gun’s overtuned, ammo count excuse is a lie, reload isnt even that terrible in reality.

Personal note: I would personally also like a faster draw, but the gun is way too overtuned to even justify it from testing. I mean real talk why hell can we only hold 49 revolver shots and 129 heavy ass explosive kinetic rounds? Devs?

Edit Note: I’ve been told the accatran is decent, but I dont own that so maybe that could counter arguments made here but I dont know.
(won’t lie testing infantary las gun, it actually seems a lot more solid then I remember)

1 Like
29

I will have to look at that later. I dont realy use the accatran as the no recoil felt super weird to me like something wasnt right. It might be better than I last remembered.

I totally agree on power sword. That weapon is too overtuned.

30

y’all really need to look up lore more. The Sisters of Battle are human women wielding smaller versions of the space marine bolters.

31

Let’s not get carried away, now. Plasma is incredible, extremely well-balanced, and furthermore it goes vwoomp.

And I still love my revolver and its glorious ability to penetrate a room full of dudes to knock down the scary dude behind the dudes, not to get overtly technical.

…but I do wish it had more ammo.

32

To be honest, most guns have clunky design animation parts that are just here for making them slower to use on purpose without rational reason.

Oh and no optics whatsoever along with bad iron sights.

33

The rational reason for making them slower is balance. In the context of video games, giving weapons weaknesses allows you to give them more varied and interesting strengths.

And I have a hard time imagining what you would consider good design animations if you think the ones in Darktide are “clunky.”

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34

You forgot to read the parts part.

35

I’m fine with reducing/removing the stagger and limiting the AOE just to damage in a small area around the target.

36

I just want the two round burst removed.

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37

Yeah, I’m not a fan of that either.

38

The time it takes to pull out the weapon almost makes me not want to use it. I’m use to being in melee most of the time, pulling out my ranged weapon to take out a priority special when it shows up. If it takes me 2 seconds just to pull the dang thing out and fire it, then it won’t work for me.

39

Idk, if you make it less “clunky” it becomes too powerful.
It’s benefits are balanced by its drawbacks.
Though I still don’t get why pple are so smitten with it.

3 Likes
40

I can go through a map using this weapon 90% of the time, but the game wasn’t really designed for that, imo, with how hard you’re pushed to melee. People are eager to say you’re not contributing when you do that, too.