The change to make your aim bounce all over the place when getting hit in melee is supremely annoying and goes against the dominant playstyle of the game: swapping fluidly between melee and ranged combat. I don’t recall this being an issue before the Arbites release, so I assume it was added with that patch. The game already has the suppression mechanic to interfere with players’ aim. This “melee suppression” mechanic or whatever you want to call it is just not fun.
EDIT: This might be a result of taking health damage or something like that. It wasn’t from broken toughness. It’s been less of an issue as I’ve been playing more recently, so maybe I was just encountering it a lot on the day I posted this and it was just getting on my nerves in a big way. It probably doesn’t need to be changed. Sorry for the rant.
Bro, this has nothing to do with Arbites. That’s just the patch that the change was apparently made. And if you want to talk realism, getting hit by almost any enemies in the game would straight up kill the player. This isn’t a realistic game.
The mechanics should be designed in service of the core gameplay. Being engaged in melee and having to pull out your gun to kill a trapper or sniper is a basic part of the gameplay loop. I’ve been able to do that reliably for the past 2 years, but now my aim is bouncing around the screen because of a couple poxwalkers near me. This change is not an improvement.
but it already is, clear your own yard before you switch to ranged.
no one’s gonna go outta his way to take some measly poxers of ya just you can go bang-bang.
likewise if you’re standing in a mixed horde all of a sudden and your ranged aint cutting it anymore, such misplay should result in death/wipe.
where’s the stakes when there’s no repercussions?
especially arbites gives you many options to stun, cleave a path, switch to ranged for a brief moment and go back to whacking once your magazine’s spend, all while keeping pressure and forward momentum going.
Before, you said the stun from being hit in melee. That is intended. If you are being stunned by simple proximity to enemies, that is a bug and should be reported in the bug section. The bug hunter devs specifically monitor that section.
But if you are just trying to overcome the jolt after you are hit, there are already talents that remove all melee stun. There is also a dodge function that avoids not only the stun but also the damage. That is also a basic part of the gameplay loop. I recommend separating it from jump. I leave dodge on space and put jump on left alt as it is used less in this game. Or should be anyway.
It always been a thing if you’re playing class with no stagger resistance. It a punishment for getting hit, ofc you can’t aim properly when your skull get bashed in by a poxwalker.
Unless you’re trying to shoot in the middle of a horde you can still dodge around while aiming at priority target.
It just feels like FS is set on a quest to make shooting gameplay as miserable as possible in DT. Even for the “left guy” of veteran, who is supposed to be the dedicated range guy, it’s still freaking horrible.
It’s almost never the thing in this game, especially on higher difficulties. The game deliberately sends 1-2 chaffers every few seconds to harrass you. There is no point in killing them to “clear space” - the new ones will come in a few seconds. And your intended target will either be gone, or already will cause damage, or will be killed by somebody else (making you useless).
The current design is stupidly punishing for range-dedicated builds.
Yes, this is just how the game plays. Dodge the trash mobs’ attacks if you absolutely can’t afford to stop shooting.
I’ve never had a problem with this, even on builds that are more shooty. It doesn’t take too long to quickly switch to your melee and kill some guy before switching back (unless you’re using something with a long draw time like a Helbore or a Bolter, in which case a quick flick to the problem enemy is good enough, no headshot needed).
You can also, less reliably, trust your teammates to pick off the chaff that are bugging you, though in my experience it’s rare for someone to be paying attention like that.
You don’t seem to understand you’re kinda proving my point still, eh? If you have to constantly urgently swap out of your gun to be able to shoot things, or do some spasmatic dodging constantly to stay alive while shooting at a target far away, or suffer from constantly jumping crosshair from the blows that you are getting from behind because game spawned a bunch of one-hit chaffers just to not let you have fun shooting things - that IS a crappy shooting gameplay, pretty much.
You’ll be surprised, but if I’m playing Veteran, who is supposed to be a range guy, and moreover the left side of tree veteran, who is literally THE most range guy of the three - at least in this case I expect I’ll be able to shoot things to my heart’s content and have fun while doing this. It must be a process that brings joy, being the core gameplay of the class; not a constant irritation when you try to finally get to the freaking shooting part.
You can also, less reliably, trust your teammates to pick off the chaff that are bugging you
No you can’t, you are theory crafting at that point. Nobody cares, nobody will be babysitting you in a typical game, they all have their own roles and doing their part. Your part, as a range guy, to stay somewhat behind them and shoot priority targets. Which you can’t do because half of the time when such target shows up you can’t even properly aim at it, being harrased by some random chaff. So you are useless, and have to use all those funny “meta” builds where shooting comes as an extra, not the main thing.
Yes, this is just how the game plays.
Well, that’s just old good “that’s how things are, we can’t change it” trope - which is both not true and counter-productive. If something is not satisfactory, we absolutely can and should change it, not justify the crappy results and accept it as a given.
I don’t know how to drill into your head that Darktide is designed to be a hybrid melee/ranged combat game and that being forced into melee combat is perfectly normal and in fact should be expected. Just because you’re investing more into shooting does NOT mean you’re allowed to ignore melee combat.
Well, I personally find it satisfactory to be rewarded for situational awareness and good melee skill by remaining unbothered by melee enemies that only take a second or two to pick off. I’m not saying that it’s “how it always was”, I’m saying it’s how it SHOULD be.
Funnily enough this has come up a lot recently, and some clever sausage (not me) found the quote from the Fat Shark’s mouth. I think this might help you contextualise the “hybrid” combat system:
Because a lot of what you are saying is generally understandable, but in the context of the game it’s… well it’s THE GAME
Reminds me that Arbites can be knocked out of aim during Castigator’s Stance. It’s kinda funny that they scream how adamant they are, and take basically no damage from anything, but then can have their aim interrupted by a clumsy zombie slapping them (NOT that I think this should be changed, it’s just kinda funny).
On OP’s topic, it is annoying, but don’t some characters have talents related to this?
If you have to constantly urgently swap out of your gun to be able to shoot things, or do some spasmatic dodging constantly to stay alive while shooting at a target far away, or suffer from constantly jumping crosshair from the blows that you are getting from behind because game spawned a bunch of one-hit chaffers just to not let you have fun shooting things - that IS a crappy shooting gameplay, pretty much.
