Ranged enemies changes (not HAVOC)

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

While I read these changes in the patch notes, in the midst of trying havoc, their real significance flew past me.

  • Increased damage falloff:
    • Dreg Gunner increased from 15m to 30m.
    • Scab Gunner increased from 15 to 35m.
      • Lowered reduction from 0.6 to 0.5.**
    • Ogryn Reaper increased from 15 to 25.
      • Lowered reduction from 0.6 to 0.2.**

After returning to auric I noticed the toughness bars would vanish at a much faster rate than usual, making me wonder if they accidentally brought some of the havoc modifiers there by mistake.
But it’s just that what those patch notes mean is - very broadly - that shooters do twice the damage they did before at common engagement distances.
In general I really dislike these changes, as they effectively turn the game into a (poorly designed at that) cover shooter: that’s the same critique of havoc, to a smaller degree.

I’m sure this thread will devolve pretty quickly in an argument between the players that say the game’s too easy and those that disagree, but I wanna focus on why I believe this is not a fun change, and suggest some fixes, as gunner tuning is definitely something FS is trying to do (first adding, then removing pushback).

I’m not sure if this applies to stalkers as well, but I find myself having to pay more attention to these types of enemies than specials and 1HKO melee enemies, and while that makes some sense, it’s not where the fun of tide games lie (I’m reminded of early days ungor archers feedback).
It’s not like we don’t have some hard counters (bubble, chorus etc) but gunners where already a high treath, this just makes the game feel more oppressive.

Here comes the constructive criticism:
Their shooting on the move’s good!
Mass changes are good, I think.
Removing pushback from shotgunners is also good, it made the game feel too much like pinball, to quote the patch notes.
I’d reapply it to gunners though, it made sliding into them head on a riskier move, and I think that makes sense.
I’d remove the remaining gunner changes though (and to stalkers, if it applies to them as well).
The Reaper part is better though, they were too much of a joke. I’d definitely keep the dropdown distance change, heck, I’d even increase it, but I think the damage behind that distance is too severe atm. Those are not accurate weapons used by highly skilled veterans.

EDIT: also, on the matter of differenciating scabs from dregs, 5 meters is not gonna make a noticeable difference, have scabs have twice the effective range of the others, now that’s noticeable (considering the rest of my post though I’m not sure how I’d wanna do it, maybe tweak the damage dropoff instead)

2

This is my fave change with them, but Im less keen on the increased damage falloff distance.

3

The enemy changes were Ws across the board in my opinion. From my perspective, the REAL problem is that the Director often opts to spawn too many Gunners, spamming them to an unreasonable degree.

I am actually EXTREMELY glad that players are now being suitably punished for barging mindlessly into clusters of Ranged Elites, instead of taking cover and/or retreating back to the previous area.

4

Kinda agree here, less gunners would alleviate the issue somewhat and still keep them as dangerous.

5

AND it’s breaking my immersion! There’s no way that the Moebian 6th have this many Volley Guns in their arsenal when they can’t even afford to supply all of their regular Guardsmen with Infantry Lasguns. :joy:

6

Maybe they have a bit of orky influence? Yknow, if you believe enough that this metal pipe is a gun, then it is so!

7

They got that “WAAAGH!” in them. :skull:

8

:star_struck: brilliant!

9

They’re better than the gunner changes we had last time at least. But yes, I agree having fewer more lethal ones would be more entertaining than sh*tting out 100 of them at a time.

Only gives you two options, going sicko mode and getting carpal tunnel or slow ass cover hugging.

10

Their shooting on the move is just predictable strafing. Nothing special. Their stunlock should remain removed but their dmg fallbacks etc. need to return to what it was before, additionally they should be able to run while shooting, take cover, blind fire and get smarter like flanking you, rather than having just x amount of dmg now. It’s shoddy and lazy coding.

Why do every single game company thinks “hard=more dmg taken”? What happened to smarter AI design?

11

more difficult to program. When you consider the current IA in the game, I would not expect something on this field from the devs.

12

In general I‘m very happy that ranged enemies got more dangerous again. I really enjoyed the early days of DT when actual fire fights with the enemy were a common thing and I as a zealot had to utilize cover to close with the enemy and regularly participated in shootouts before charging with eviscerator blazing.

So increasing enemy firepower and making shooters a bigger threat is a benefit in my book.

However I absolutely agree that the current spawn behaviour is a problem - at least in unmodified missions. Methodical firefights can be fun, but not if melee trash is always spawning in your back. And when elites and specials engage in large waves it breaks immersion. If this spawn behaviour was tied to modifiers it would be fine - but in general I dislike it.

And I‘d wish the enemy would mainly aim at the chest so that headshots would only occur sporadically so that cover would work better.