I just wanted to share some feedback I have from playing several hours:
1: Toughness
So I have been a Ogryn Main for a vast majority of my time during Darktide betas and on launch. I decided to try out a Psyker and that was the point I realised that other classes cannot regain toughness by using melee attacks
I can see there is a clear pattern that each class is regaining toughness through different methods. Psykers way of regaining feels fine for me, with the feat of regaining it passively by peril cleansing. Zealots regaining it by having enemies nearby, as a few examples.
But I heard from a friend, that is a Veteran Main that they only regain toughness by hitting weak spots?
I hope other veteran mains can fill in on this one and let me know if this suggestion is dumb or would be a nice change: Veterans regains toughness REGARDLESS on hitting targets at ranged, with the amount being dependent on range and extra toughness gains on weak spots.
2: Being staggered when being shot without toughness
When the stagger mechanic starts to kick in? It kicks in HARD. Almost a bit too hard tbh. There has been multiple times when my toughness has gone poof and I get stunlocked by enemies gunning me down and I cant move a inch or respond to the gunfire. I turn into a sitting duck when the stagger starts kicking my butt. It would be a great change to either lessen the stagger mechanic, or put a stagger cap. For example only being able to be staggered every 3 seconds instead of being staggered continously and just locked in place.
3: Coherency radius and its effects
As a Ogryn main, I have tried to pursue the achievement for sticking around my teammates for a full run, without leaving the radius. This has proven to be a VERY difficult task, as I cannot tell WHEN I am outside it or WHEN it falls off. I can see the icon down in my screen, but I would rather have a small gentle visual effect letting me know “hey you left the raidus” or “you have entered the coherency raidus!”. Finally it would be an improvement for me that the toughness regen becomes stronger with more people being inside the coherency radius, to encourage to REALLY stick together as a team, to maximize it.
4: Scriptures and Grimoires
As of right now? It does not feel rewarding to run around hunting for these, especially the grimoires.
I would had prefered if Scriptures emitted a little light, similar to the grimoires to make them easier to spot, also make the rewards for gathering them MUCH more worthwhile, such as increased money gains and more exp gains. Perhaps throw some additional crafting materials in as a reward for gathering them?
Finally I would VERY MUCH like the constant drain of health removed from Grimoires, the set amount it drains is perfectly fine. But the passive drain just makes grimoires a annoyance rather than a added challenge for more rewards.
5: Make penances more reasonable and less “Solo mission” required
So some penances I simply just cannot wrap my head around on how to make them work for teamplay and how to complete them, without being worried that a teammate makes me actively fail it?
For example I dont know where on earth I will be able to find 6 ogryn enemy units to bullrush, with a single one. For me it feels like it has to be the perfect storm for this oppertunity to occur, and that I dont make a mistake when trying to achieve it.
I dont know how I will be able to manage to maintain 4 warp charges for 300 seconds, if there becomes a sudden lack of enemies to pop or if teammates are doing their part by killing enemies (effectively denying me head pops).
Most penances feels like it encourages doing missions on solo just to complete em, or have a whole team sit idle in a corner while you do the penance. In Vermintide, the achviements felt more fair, like “kill X amount of enemies with a ability” or “Kill X amount of elite units with this ability”, I would rather see more simplified achievements to be done.
For example “pop 50 elites heads in total across missions” or “Bullrush into 50 Ogryn enemy units in total across missions”, something that does not require you to solo bosses or hope that the planets align, its a full moon and the perfect oppertunity arrives to complete a penance.
I know you guys are hard at work adressing many issues as of right now with performance and such, I very much love the game for what it is despite all the perfomance issues (which I have managed to work around), keep up the good work done so far and I have faith in that Darktide will be uplifted to a good addition to the Tide franchise