Scab Flamer Damage Type

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Bugs
1

Issue Description:
Scab Flamers appear to incorrectly have their damage location type set to Maniac instead of Flak Armoured. The enemy model is clearly wearing as much if not more scab flak armour than the Scab Bomber standing just behind, who does correctly have his damage location type set to Flak Armoured.

Steps to Reproduce:
Enter Psykhanium
Shoot Scab Flamer
Note damage location type
Shoot Scab Bomber (or most other scab enemies)
Note damage location type

Mission Name (If Applicable):
Psykhanium

Platform:
Steam

Player ID:
N/A

Approx. Time of Issue & Timezone:
N/A

Reproduction Rate:
Constant (100%)

Upload Supporting Evidence:
[Screenshots, recordings, links to Twitch VODs, etc.]

Upload Console Log & darktide_launcher.log:
[Instructions: How To Provide a Crash Report, Console Log, or darktide_launcher.log]

2

Multiple specials are designated as maniac, although they look like they are wearing armor.

Pretty sure that is not a bug, but a way of making maniac dmg a bit more relevant.

1 Like
3

Rule of thumb, if they laugh giggle and sound like they are salivating at the prospect of hurting/catching you, they are maniacs (with appropriate armor type)

1 Like
4

Examples?

Trapper doesn’t wear armour, is maniac type - fine.
Sniper doesn’t wear armour, is unarmoured type - fine.
Dreg Flamer doesn’t wear armour, is maniac type - fine.
Burster doesn’t wear armour, is maniac type - fine.

So which ones am I missing?

As I suggested in the original bug report post, we also have the bomber, who is lumped together with the other maniac specialists, as I think you gesture toward, but is correctly set as flak-armoured instead of maniac damage location type. This would tend to support my interpretation more than it does yours.

Correction: the scab trapper appears to wear more or less the same armour coverage as the bomber, but while one is marked as flak armoured all over (which in itself is wrong - arms and upper legs and head clearly should be set to unarmoured/maniac), the other one is marked as maniac all over. Similarly with the scab flamer, it’s marked as maniac all over in spite of it clearly sporting a few flak armoured locations.

With that in mind here are some more correct damage location types for the three specialists in question:

Bomber
Head - Unarmoured or Maniac
Chest - Flak Armour
Hands - Unarmoured or Maniac
Haunch - Unarmoured or Maniac
Shoulder - Flak Armour
Lower Legs - Flak Armour
Upper Legs - Unarmoured or Maniac

Trapper
Head - Unarmoured or Maniac
Chest - Flak Armour
Hands - Unarmoured or Maniac
Haunch - Unarmoured or Maniac
Shoulder - Flak Armour
Lower Legs - Flak Armour
Upper Legs - Unarmoured or Maniac

Scab Flamer
Head - Flak Armour
Chest - Flak Armour
Hands - Flak Armour
Haunch - Unarmoured or Maniac
Shoulder - Flak Armour
Lower Legs - Flak Armour
Upper Legs - Unarmoured or Maniac

I’ll point out that other specialists like gunners or maulers do have more nuanced damage locations set for them. It’s the maniac specialists that appear to have had their damage locations carelessly bucket-filled with a single type, possibly by an intern or someone in a rush, instead of set with reference to the actual character model.

The question we need to ask is what kind of enemy does the maniac damage type represent. Does it include the regular traitor guardsmen specialists, or is it meant to represent roided up freaks like the mutant and rager and such.

If the latter, I would argue that the three scab specialists under discussion, the bomber, trapper, and flamer, should more properly have their unarmoured damage locations set to Unarmoured type, like the scab sniper. If this makes them too easy to kill, the solution couldn’t be simpler - raise their hp values. If the former, setting their unarmoured damage locations to Maniac type would seem to be more appropriate.

5

Those are elites, not specialists.
And as i initially said:

Also, giving specialists the same health type across the full body, makes damage dealt to them more consistent.

6

nope its because gameplay, its important that players can spec to have specialized capabilities against these specials, if you had hit zones with different characteristics you also would introduce variance in TTK, wich is unwanted for specials but not elites.
consistent TTK is a necessity because the specials are the enemy number one in regards to run ending factors, and if the amount of shots needed would differ on random hit zones you end up with a frustrating system, where dying players would blame random hits to lesser damaging hit zones
rather than being presented with a situation that was entirely in their hands.

its exactly how they handled V2 elites/specials hitzones as it has the same limitations

7

Which is inconsistent with the way damage locations are implemented on most other enemy types. “Specialists” aren’t some special snowflake unique type on their own, following their own rules, they’re just an arbitrary enemy category. And as such they appear to have been hastily and sloppily implemented without regard to model-accurate damage locations.

The likely scenario is that most of the implementation workload fell to staff following best practices, and implementing of some of these “specialist” enemies with model-inaccurate damage locations fell to a team member who for whatever reason wasn’t following or wasn’t aware of best practices used to implement most other enemies in the game.

Even with my proposed fixes to damage locations on several “specialist” enemies, Maniac damage is still more relevant than carapace damage. Or should we randomly be giving enemies who are unarmoured or flak-armoured carapace damage locations so the damage type is “made more relevant”? Of course we shouldn’t.

Why are “specialists” so unique in that regard? What is the fundamental qualitative difference between a scab flamer and a scab gunner? Again, if “specialists” need to take longer to kill for gameplay balance reasons, increase their hp pool instead of making their damage locations unintuitively model-inaccurate. Which, again, is most likely a result of sloppy implementation without awareness of best practices, and not a deliberate balancing decision. If it were the latter, there are cleaner and more consistent ways of arriving at the same outcome, such as the ones I’m bringing awareness to.

Your argument is immediately defeated by the fact that a) you can inflict critical hits, and b) you can inflict weak spot hits. Both of these cause variance in the TTK, and yet neither of these cause players to gnash their teeth about the TTK being inconsistent when they crit or get weak spot hits.

The complete contrary is true, in that having model-accurate damage location types would encourage more tactical play in trying to hit enemies’ less armoured locations, which is exactly what players already do in trying to hit weak spots.

8

Specialists ARE special snowflakes that follow their own rules in multiple ways.
So the category is not arbitrary at all.

9

Scab flamers are tagged as flack armour in the Psychadium as far as i can remember.
But they are tagged as Maniac here in the, so… not a bug and I’m misremembering?

10

They are not.
All of their bodyparts as well as their overall health (aoe dmg/dot) are maniac.

Out of all the specials, only bombers are designated as flak, and they are designated as flak armored in every single location of their body (even their naked arms and head).

Trappers are wearing the same breastplate and steel boots as bombers, but they are designated as maniac in every single location of their body.

Scab flamers are wearing armor (dreg flamers only wear cloth and a hard face protection), but (both flamers) are designated as maniac in every single location of their body.

Snipers wear a breastplate, but are designated as unarmored in every single location of their body.

Definitely not a bug.
All specialists simply have a single health type across the entire body.

1 Like
11

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.