I think it’s a little bit of a different dynamic. Havoc has some things that require pretty specific counterplay, and it’s more of a versatility check than just straight up “how well does this weapon cleave” or “how does this do against 10 crushers”
Basically, letting Ogryns engage in full team strategies in Havoc a bit more would not necessarily make them any more powerful in Aurics, which don’t present those challenges in the first place. It’s kind of why nobody ever used chorus in aurics. Not to say it’s not silly how strong chorus spam is on Havoc, just drawing the comparison to the design principle
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This, that’s my idea as well. I think Havoc can be used to find ‘outiers’ for sure, but I don’t think it should be entirely used as a gauge for the normal games balance.
Something that works when you pick up 3 bullets per ammo pick up and halve 50% HP and Toughness to your name is DRASTICALLY different than things that work when none of that is a factor. I basically never used the Flamer in my life without just wanting it on as a meme in ‘normal game’, cut to 40 havoc and I’m running that with flame grenades and chorus because getting 2 bullets per survivalist proc means I don’t need to pick up any ammo cases outside of maybe one tap of the crate toward the end and I can leave it all for my Vet running the boltgun, while still being able to wipe waves with a mag from relative safety/push through puss hardening with DOT, while also picking up grenades that still give me a full 3 to do the same thing.
If you look at havoc and suddenly go ‘dang, the flamer should be nerfed’ I start heavily asking questions of the design team xD.
The game mode is just that, a game mode. I feel modifiers should be tuned for it, I feel weapons that dominate it for clearly ‘busted’ reasons can be looked at (And same with abilities), but using it as the only metric or trying to scrape stuff off the top end ‘just cause it’s doing well in havoc’ is bad, no good, do nottttt.
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Interesting question. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Probably because it’s not exactly the same and I never thought to compare.
But for me, it essentially boild down to this;
And Ogryn doesn’t provide anything in that regard which you couldn’t do better on a different class. He just does damage and if you take taunt, he has the worst version of VoC or chorus, in terms of how useful the ability is for havoc. Additionally, he’s not so much more tanky that his increased stats are useful. He dies to the same misstakes, even if it takes a few shots more.
That’s a nice example, yes.
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aehem, if not i might quit darktide altogether, its either ogryn or nuffin and if havoc peeps decide the later i’ll spend my time elsewhere 
for me the game’s only motivating getting the most difficult stuff done until it becomes my warmup routine and steadily increase ever upwards.
having tasted havoc auric maelstrom feels like grandpa’s socks
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just an odd disparity, the majority of people feel havoc should not be used as a metric to balance weapons, but most seem to feel it should be used as a metric for balancing the archtypes, hence all of the “ogryn is bad for havoc” posts.
the duality of the statement feels off, but I don’t know enough about ogryn to speak to it better.
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simply put it prevents me participating in the game on my own terms/time cause some “mandatory” talents the game lacks.
now if i was 25 years younger and i my “competition” phase, 3 peeps on speed dial at 3a.m would be a no brainer.
as things are now, darktide is/was my pleasure game after getting home from work and getting the juices flowing again.
these “times” vary daily sometimes, nothing 3 other would commit to.
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I get what you mean. Havoc has it’s own meta where ogryn is just not as useful as other classes.
I feel like the idea of having to use specific weapons in a meta is fine. The idea to where every weapon should be equally as useful is not particularly realistic or even desireable. Plenty of people were against “grey blob weapon designs” and asking for the entire arsenal to be useful in the challenge gamemode, would be akin to asking for grey blob weapons.
When it comes to classes, you can try to make the equivalent argument of “if ogryn isn’t meta and you can play something else, pick something else, no problem”
This no longer works because some people don’t play a different class.
You can chose to bring a different loadout if you only play one class, you can’t pick a non-existant 2nd class.
I’ve said it a few times now, either ogryn needs some different talents to be an equal pick or there needs to be another set of modifiers in which ogryn can shine.
If the hidden modifiers only affected him by 50%, that would make him a much better choice f.e.
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I think there’s a genuine internet slap fight to be had about Havoc leading people to takes like “Chorus is on par with Shout and is OP” and “I’d rather an Ogryn in Havoc 40 because Chorus Zealot’s are bottom bitching in the scoreboard every game.”
Absolutely not. Havoc doesn’t represent normal gameplay at all, especially at the highest levels where most people are pigeonholed into certain skills and weapons.
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obviously not, it shouldn’t be used as basis for weapon balance
but if nerfing things keeping in mind of auric board gameplay, then havoc could be different
so they have to keep in mind balance for both game modes
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When they will achieve a balance for havoc…
And I don’t call “balanced” the current state of this mode that invalidate so many builds…
i didn’t call it balanced
but also if everything would become viable in havoc, not ironically would mean that is a cake walk
just like in auric board you can bring anything, even bare hands and would be still easy
to me is fun that a game mode meant to be hard, you have to focus on certain stuff that works best because of the mutators, which are downsides and malus, and thanks to builds you can mitigate, just like it was for weaves a bit too but there was also more various
you can still bring builds you like anyway in havoc, if you are forced to play meta stuff cause you think so, then there is something wrong. of course way easier, but if you are good, it is fine to not bring crutches.
many people doing havoc without the crutches as expected like without golden toughness and other stuff.
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Wouldn’t be much if a challenge mode if it didn’t.
Not that that’s a good thing but it’s far more realistic of a reality than making a new mode as difficult but allowing you to win relatively consitantly with randomly generated builds.
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I don’t think there’s a way around this. Especially day one introduction. But it can be reduced without overbuffing everything too. We can also look to nerf insane overperformers. Ideally most stuff would be viable AND havic 40 would be insanely hard. I dunno what fatshark is going for as ive said before. We’d have to ask them. But in my dream view havocs win rate is very low, but losing is still relarivelty fair.
To answer Ryshek’s quesrion though Havoc is not an appropriate mode to balance around. Its a niche game mode for weirdos (like me). However it does need consideration at least and it can expose obviously trash equipment. Thats part of the value it brings i think. When you stress test something and it can’t hold up at all thats a good sign its too weak.
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No. Not at all. Not now not ever.
I’ve been through that “balance everything around the top” circus more times that I can down drinks and it NEVER works. Period. You know why? Becaues as soon as it starts everything that isn’t deemed “optimal” gets reduced to garbage. Then some faction of sweaty-palm tryhards will cry about boring games, leading to nerfs to the current “meta”. Which then leaves everything in flux for a week or so until the bean counters-in-training can find the next build that has the maximum cheese then that becomes the new meta until it too gets nerfed, and so on. All the while the things that aren’t “meta” become functionally useless due to neglect as all resources are spent in an unending buff/ nerf/ rebuff cycle of trying to please things can are never happy.
Frankly Havoc could walk its happy rear into a Death Korp firing range and hold up a sign saying “Screw the Emporer, Chaos for Life” and this game would be better off once the gunfire stopped.
What pains me personally with this topic is that not many people acknowledged this is a VERY good question - @Ryshek, just brought to forum.
Seems some took it like personal attack for some reason.
With FS lack of communication in terms what the end goal is supposed to be (IMPO), we seem to not have a discussion what level of challenge should be base - where all weapons, trees builds and playstyles (whatever hides under this one) are viable.
It used to be Malice or low intensity Heresy, at least that’s how I saw it in my first 100 hours. Anything above I’ve considered beyond Inquisitorial warband capacity - time for Sisters or 2-3 squads of Astartes to mop up this groxdung.
Lore related rant - skip
I do not believe all melee weapons could be balanced the way they are right now.
Piece of metal should never be more viable than power, force or chain weapon. Period.
Of course prevailers of gameplay balance are not gonna agree and they have their right to not to. It’s not worth the effort to force feed steak to vegan (I can be a vegan or the man with the steak in this parable - which ever offends you less).
Ranged weapons? You could try to balance that with accessibility of ammunition. Our enemies are mostly using autoguns and lascarabines - ammo for those should be available in excess.
Bolters? There is no enemy that uses boltgun - what you take with you is what you have.
We are on world with manufactorums, there could be some bolts (right size bolts mind you) available for the bolter users… but would they? Could be… we still don’t know what was the “Special Ammunition” we’ve secured on two separate occasions. But would they be accessible on all maps? Don’t think so. There aren’t many heavy weapon emplacements (used by enemy) where we could find some spare ammo for more unusual weapons.
Same with plasma (although there are captains with plasma pistols).
But then you have to remember we have also ogryn weapons - and the whole shebang about ammo falls apart. Unless Ogryn is munition carrier for the team (and himself) I don’t see how that could work. Interchangeable ammunition for kickback, rumbler and grenade gauntlet? Not happening unless Traitor Ogryns are armed with the same (they are not).
Also grabbing ammo from enemy should corrupt you - oh a powerpack with eight armed star? Sure, sure put it in you Omnissiah blessed gun what could possibly go wrong?!
Yeah… I’m gonna end here, I’m starting spiralling there a bit.
Anyway those thoughts (level of balance) are from way back when all we’ve had was Damnation as highest rank (Tertium is pretty much damned). Now we have Auric Maelstrom and Havoc.
Should the balancing be set on AM?
I’m not sure, maybe? As an example - balancing skills which give perks for fast elimination of elites/specialists would most certainly have very big impact for levels where they (elites and specialists) are not as prominent (heresy/malice). I don’t think FS can handle that with proper care.
Havoc? Absolutely not.
Havoc is and supposed to be the end game. And to be honest? For me it is:
It’s unforgiving - all mistakes will bite twice as hard as in Auric Maelstrom. Loosing 1/4th of teams fire power will start gorxdung slide without stops.
It teaches you patience - I still do not believe how that one psyker managed to outmanoeuvre Captain and Beast of Nurgle and free 3 of us to finish them off, but it took him 10 minutes to run back and forth through 1/10th of the map. It was awesome and I’m glad I saw that.
Sometimes it’s taxing - you have to spend some points on to produce a moment of respite (f.e. psykers bobble) or corruption removal (zealot). Even meta builds cannot output enough damage to eliminate all threats - mobility/kiting/falling back is necessary to survive.
I’d like to think havoc forces us to utilize all of our skills and even then plain back luck can kark you over. I like that.
Any way - Merry Sanguinala Ya Karkers!
Verba Scriptum: Meta for Havoc weapons should be different :P.
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Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Merry Rowboat girl-y-man day!
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I actually like that top tier havoc pretty much requires 1 of each archytpe and I kinda don’t mind that it requires meta builds. It’s meant to be the ultimate challenge and if that requires meta then kinda makes sense.
I think regular damnation should prob be used for balance as that strikes me as the truest middle of the difficulty scale (when including auric and havoc)
Personally I don’t imagine they stick to 1 difficulty for balance anyway and likely balance each level individually (some more successful than others oc).