Re-rework veteran?

[Tempest_yo]

@BongoSkaggs

I don’t hold soloing as an acceptable yardstick for how good something is overall. Handmaiden in V2 is one of the best solo careers due to her extreme mobility and general ability to just ignore enemies while progressing objectives, but best career she is not. Doesn’t have the damage of many other careers and the vast, vast majority of players simply lack the knowledge and understanding required to truly leverage her unique perks for the benefit of a team.

I agree with you, or I would agree with you if damage was an issue with dagger zealot like handmaiden had in comparison to the other Kerillian careers, and if I was just getting by killing things Eventually™, but I’m not killing things Eventually™. I kill things Right Quick ©, or F*cking Fast ®.

Handmaiden was not a top damage career, but Zealot 100% is while being undeniably harder to kill to boot. I wreck bosses, specials, and basically anything that dares to exist within the reach of my dagger.

Uncanny strike was a mistake, and even without it existing doesn’t change the fact that I could just use Bolter (though not for the true solo melee only runs ofc) since I really don’t need a ranged weapon to do anything.

[Molonious]

@BongoSkaggs

To me it sounds like you’re more concerned with the uptime on the keystone buffs than anything else. All three vet keystones reward you for doing things you generally should be doing anyways: shooting heads, marking targets, and swapping weapons as needed. I do not find them altering my playstyle in any egregious ways. Talents like deadshot and grenade regen 100% alter my playstyle more than any of the keystone builds I actually use do.

Ill be honest, most of my builds dont use a keystone period. I can’t imagine doing that with any other class.

Meanwhile, my Psyker build can trigger its keystone doing literally nothing itself (Warp Siphon) and it applies to literally every attack and action I make, and can keep it up for several minutes at a time. Similarly my Zealot, I can kill literally nothing myself and have Blazing Piety proc and itll work on every attack I make and not just headshots or marked targets. Lucky Bullet and Feel no Pain are even easier, dont need to wait for allies to proc them, theyre just always on.

Yes you should be trying to get headshots and marking things and swapping weapons, doesnt mean these things really work organically with the keystones instead of being awkward and hamfisted in their execution, or that they do t have a much higher skill floor and lower return than other classes keystones.

[PathOfLobo]

@IshanDeston

And i found that the only way i can make Marksman work is in combination with Infiltrate and Low Profile. Infiltration allows me the chance to draw the Helbore and snipe a Special in the distance. Something i can’t do with Executioner’s stance.

I came to the same conclusion with the infantry lasgun.

[Ol_Jakal]

it’s not the gameplay punishing the vet’s gun heavy playstyle, it’s the community’s terrible “meta”.

[IshanDeston]

Can you elaborate?

[Ol_Jakal]

the current views in most of the community’s “higher tier” players is that speed and breakpoints are the ideal build angles to push- if enemies die fast enough who cares what they could do (plus it lets them chase states with their scoreboard mods which is a toxic issue for someone else). this falls mostly in line with VT2’s community mindset but largely ignores that the enemies have a LOT more ranged in darktide which means engagement starts much further off.

the vet has the somewhat inenviable positon of dealing with shooting around their teammates, who are in front of the enemies and constantly weaving into whatever firelanes the vet is using, or rushing in with them and sacrificing most of their advantages to be a softer, lesscapable version of the zealot to avoid being isolated when enemies swarm them from the other direction.

this isn’t because of the core gameplay, it’s because the community’s view of the meta is tortured into a weird positon of “if we can dodge them and close, we must, if we can’t we hide in the corner to limit visibility to force them to melee” which is effectively refusing to engage the game on the intended terms. the darktide community is really godsdamn weird. the few times i’ve gotten a good team in auric instead of metaslaves, it was slightly slower and vastly more effective and the vets contributed a huge amount to that.

[zaygr]

Most of the time if the next room is messy with lots of shooters I can convince my team to back up a bit into the closest doorway, no issues with that, but it might be a region thing (playing on Asia/Australia).

[PathOfLobo]

I think majority of players don’t care about some kind of meta. I don’t even know what that means. But the thing is, if you’re playing alone in public, you probably want to use some kind of all-rounder build to be able to solve all kinds of situations. And that’s what makes Exec’s Stance so bad. It incentivize you to play a single role in an environment where you often have to substitute for something else. It’s great if you have a premade party that takes care of you or if you’re lucky to get to play with players who understand your position. But I still believe that the Exec’s Stance should be more versatile. Simply increasing base duration to give you more time to do other stuff when needed imo should be the first step.

[Flawless]

@PathOfLobo

meta. I don’t even know what that means.

Meta is supposed to mean:

Most
Effective
Tactics
Available

Basically, in 99.9% (number pulled out of my ass) of the cases where the word is used, the person using it, does not actually use the word correctly.
People usually use “meta“ to refer to “the popular thing“.

[BongoSkaggs]

@Flawless

Meta is supposed to mean:

Most
Effective
Tactics
Available

That’s a backronym. Meta is short for meta-game, literally “a game about the game”, where players use their knowledge of the rules and mechanics of a game to conceptualize strategies to exploit those mechanics for their benefit. See: all of the billion named chess plays.

In the context of Darktide the metagame is about combining the tools the game gives you in ways to get maximal value out of them. Like taking advantage of the recon lasgun 6d’s high fire rate & long crit chains to double up on veterans rending talents in order to shred armor, which of course got that gun nerfed into the ground and exploit weakness changed entirely. But it also applies to other strategies like “the whole team goes to the left train first on chasm terminus” and even non-map specific strategies like “don’t stay at the top of a one way drop down when the rest of your team has moved forward.”

@Flawless

Basically, in 99.9% (number pulled out of my ass) of the cases where the word is used, the person using it, does not actually use the word correctly.
People usually use “meta“ to refer to “the popular thing“.

Your ultimate conclusion is correct though. The colloquial definition has drifted quite a bit, as these things are wont to do.

[IshanDeston]

@BongoSkaggs

Meta is short for meta-game, literally “a game about the game”,

Since we play the “Well, actually” game, let me join in.

Meta refers to “knowledge not contained within”. Its the ancient greek word “after” or “beyond”. So meta knowledge would be hindsight or knowledge obtained in external ways.

In terms of video games it would be knowledge obtained from “beyond” the game. Knowledge you got through reading a forum or a wikipedia article, watching a youtube video.

And while that is where meta originally stems from, today it simply means a popular build or strategy. Usually derived from someone that crunched numbers and people go “checks out”, upvotes or sheer influencer popularity.

[alsozara]

@BongoSkaggs

That’s a backronym. Meta is short for meta-game, literally “a game about the game”, where players use their knowledge of the rules and mechanics of a game to conceptualize strategies to exploit those mechanics for their benefit. See: all of the billion named chess plays.

Beat me to it. Cheers. I hate seeing that backronym spouted as a definition. Clearly meta-physics means most effective tactic available physics

[Flawless]

@alsozara

Beat me to it. Cheers. I hate seeing that backronym spouted as a definition. Clearly meta-physics means most effective tactic available physics

Yeah…
Just ignore the relevant context and point towards something that is irrelevant to this case…

What is next? Are you gonna tell me that “physics“ means something different in the context of a game, than it does in the context of the natural sciences?
Who would have thought.

[alsozara]

I mean you’ve had the etymology explained so I don’t know what battle you’re really trying for here. Meta in the example I gave and the context of gaming both derive from the same place and share similar meaning, in neither case is it an acronym.

It’s fine I get it language evolves and to many your explanation is what it means, I do think the original meaning has nuanced differences to the acronym you gave for reasons made pretty clear in Bongo’s post so yeah I’m defending using the original meaning of “meta” rather than the backronym and I’ll openly admit that is partially just me being a stickler for preserving the intended meaning of words. Anyway that’s a pretty fruitless argument beyond this point so I really think we should just call it quits here. Feel free to get the last word in if that matters to you

[Ralendil]

@Ryshek

too bad they built an entire keystone around that concept

here why I can’t approve the vet keystones…
Only one that is interesting is the one that permits you to mark enemies.

I have lost the interest for the veteran with these keystones… however I tend to come back to it from time to time. Actually, this evening I plan to play the vet with the revolver… but without any keystone.

Not moving to get a bonus is so stupid… and the worst is that you can’t even know how much seconds you can move before loosing stacks (but even if we could see an indication, the keystone is too bad to be interesting).

Must say that I don’t use any keystones but tend to pick everything interesting in the bottom part of the vet tree.

@BongoSkaggs

To me it sounds like you’re more concerned with the uptime on the keystone buffs than anything else. All three vet keystones reward you for doing things you generally should be doing anyways: shooting heads, marking targets, and swapping weapons as needed. I do not find them altering my playstyle in any egregious ways.

You can get better bonus without the keystones… and if the triggers are against your way to play, then the keystones are useless.

I don’t switch my weapon, unless it is NEEDED. So the third is totally a waste of point.
I rarely stand up to aim an enemy. In fact, less I play the veteran, more I see that I move constantly when playing (zealot incitates to that, and I don’t like psyker, think ogryn is too easy and so boring, vet not great now… in other words, I play the major part of my time the zealot). So the 1st keystone is useless for me. With a revolver, you can aim, dodge and, by the same time, shooting in an head with some training… you don’t need to stand up and aim for that…
The only one interesting is the one that permit to mark enemies. But… this is not something I want to play every time I pick the vet.

So… I opted for no keystone and points used to unlock the talents I want in the bottom of the vet tree.
But, let’s be honest. Without keystones, the gameplay feel less interesting or “special”. Means the vet is less interesting in my opinion (but again, due to my personal vision, vision that pushes me away of this game day by day…)

[Ryshek]

@Ralendil

Not moving to get a bonus is so stupid… and the worst is that you can’t even know how much seconds you can move before loosing stacks (but even if we could see an indication, the keystone is too bad to be interesting).

It plays so clunky. I tried to make it work but it just feels so weird.

[CopperBack1]

Veteran is fun, the Shroud ability feels lacking though, Maybe just rework that ability and its sub talents

Tactical Roll: Roll in current direction and gain 2 second stealth and 100% Crit for next attack. 2 Charges 20sec cooldown

SubTalents
-Increase stealth duration by 100%
-Increase Crit for next 2 attacks
-Double amount of charges held

[IshanDeston]

@Ryshek

It plays so clunky. I tried to make it work but it just feels so weird.

It does work, if you take the Talent where you get stacks for not moving. In combination with Weakspot hits you can get max stacks quickly enough to make it worthwhile.

It still does require a lot of “reading the flow of battle” and map knowledge, as well as positioning. I find the skill floor very high and the rewards you get from actually using it doesn’t make it worthwhile.

You also need unwavering faith in your teammates and yourself. Know and understand just how long it takes you to bring down the enemy and run the analysis if you can maintain the stance, or risk eating a hit or two and go into melee disadvantaged.

The problem is the rewards for your hard work and dedication to make it work aren’t that great. Sure, it is great to hear your premade team go like “man, i could never do that”, but at the same time i know it is solely dogged determination that makes it work.

@CopperBack1

the Shroud ability feels lacking though, Maybe just rework that ability and its sub talents

The only ability that needs work is the Executioner’s Stance. Infiltrate is fine as ability as it is. It serves it’s purpose very well and in quite a different fashion than the Zealot’s stealth.

And a “Combat Roll” is a terribly idea, in my opinion. It’s a sure way to get you killed in Real life. If anyone tells you that it’s a “legit tactic” then it is a sure way to tell that they are BSing you. It ranged right up there with Spinning Attacks and anything that causes you to turn your back to the enemy.

So for the love of the Emperor of Mankind, no Combat Roll. Physics defying slides are egregious enough.

[Reginald]

@alsozara

Clearly meta-physics means most effective tactic available physics

Rods from god is an effective physics based weapons system

[zaygr]

Rocks are NOT ‘free’, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the Tech Priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthiness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrapers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the Tech Priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the Emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still many weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact the planet (assuming that the Emperor’s ship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:

Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials

Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI

Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI

Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI

Paint, Titan class warship: 2.5 MI

Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI

Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasted with the following:

5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI

One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI

One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI

Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI

Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same result with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His Office of Imperial Outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administratum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,

Bursarius Tenathis,

Purser Level XI,

Imperial Office of Outlays.