I think it more or less comes down to the difficulty you’re playing on. In damnation you generally don’t see the “speed runners”. However if you are doing Sedition, Uprising or Malice then yeah, you will see this a lot. Granted, I think this has more to do with lack of game content than people trying to be an arse about it.
Currently, for day 1 players that are still active, most of them already have everything (gear wise). So you will often see them in lower difficulties speed running for penance/achievement unlocks. I can’t even really blame them to be honest. I mean, what else is there to do at this point? They can’t play with new builds without it being tied to RNG, so I can understand the penance chasing. To me the RNG grind is this games main drawback. It prevents reliably trying out new things due to the randomness of it all; and pretty much leaves only penance chasing for the long time players to complete.
Overall I think “speed runners” are a consequence of bad game design. With so much in this game tied to RNG there is really nothing else for a player to do after they have managed to grind out a decent build besides chasing achievements at this point.
It’s true. Dudes playing Damnation like it’s Malice are primary reasons for wipes, I see. They rush ahead of the team and literally never support those behind them. Disengaging can be difficult and often bounding cover fire is needed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve helped someone disengage that’s beset or pinned by enemies only to have them leave me fighting as hordes continue to roll in from the rear. All team members should be, IMO, moving back and forth between their front and rear. It keeps momentum while maintaining cohesion and allows the team to hold or fall back to advantageous positions when needed.
Acting as if cohesion and materials aren’t part of the game is ridiculously selfish gameplay IMO.
From my own experience taking it slow as a team usually makes runs much easier to handle. It’s a lot safer to take a step back and risk an additional special spawn, than to go forward and risk pulling in ogryns, shooters and poxwalkers from another room.
I really like slow and steady group where nobody runs, except in an emergency.
On the other hand, I would love to see a team of four Ogryns that run shoulder-to-shoulder to the next elevator without even stopping to kill enemies. If they keep bull rushing in rotation to open the way through thick patches of enemies, I think that could work.
I don’t think anyone was arguing that people should litterally crawl around the map. That’s just a strawman if there ever was one. The point about not rushing ahead like a lemming is to bring group cohesion and coordination when dealing with major threats, or dealing with a area tricky mob groupings, or simply waiting for people who broke away to grab mats/supplies, etc.
For example, just finished a pug where everyone in the group agreed to just fall back to a previously cleared area to deal with a beast of nurgle in a efficient manner. Had anyone in the group ignored the player who said, “Fall back a bit” and ran forward they’d into a adjacent area they’d of pulled a group of gunners, maniacs and a couple of crusher and bulwark ogryns.
A group we dealt with after the beast of nurgle was dealt with at the time. Sure we had the game spawn a dog, two mutties and some random melee scabs during the battle but it was all manageable because we didn’t rush forward ignoring the threat we heard coming and focused on clear that out before pushing forward. Also yes, part of the game is looting the map of mats because that’s a big reason to run damnation maps for most players.
This is pretty much the only reasonable thing to do when a boss spawns, and i do not think that really anyone would disagree with this.
This discussion is more about the general behavior of people running too far ahead, or staying too far behind, and which approach (going fast vs going slow) is the more reasonable one.
I’ve yet to encounter someone below level 30 in Damnation and Hersey it may have been less then 5 people that I’ve seen below 30. Maybe they are around but they are the exception not the rule.
That sucks but that’s an issue with FS not having level, or item level, restrictions, with match making. In other words it’s a easy fix for a problem that should of never been allowed to occur in the first place.
Here’s how you should play the game, from those who are very good at it. Evidenced by the fact people in Damnation generally look out for the team, whereas that is usually not the case even in Heresy, which results in equal chance of success in either tier (i.e. more difficult vs dodgy team mates).
Prime tip #1
Haven’t been on Heresy personally in a while but from what I hear it’s a poop show.
Forgive me for the broken record rant, but Dangnation took a big hit in quality since they boosted the end rewards and crafting mats. People that would stay on malice or heresy are now in Dangnation looking for a free lunch, so I wouldn’t count on a great deal of teamwork or smarts there either.
I see a sizable proportion of people who would find malice challenging just being “there” in damnation, and damn near all make zero effort to learn or contribute to the team, “where’s muh Emprah’s gift?” seems to be their mantra.
The next time you see one of them, offer some sincere helpful tips and let me know how it goes. As an experiment I tried it again tonight with my buddy there to witness it, it did not go well. People were much more open to advice, learning, sharing tips&tricks, contributing and teamwork in VT2.
This game on the other hand, largely because of the broader appeal I suppose, is sorely lacking in those departments.
I don’t seem to remember as many actively anti-team players in VT2 in Legend or Cata compared to this game.
No wonder it did not go well, it’s alway a toss of a coin, when you try to give people advice, they did not ask for.
They might hate it because they sure they did nothing wrong and it is your fault that they died.
Some will take the advice and be fine with it, I even saw this lately.
And some are probably like me, doing stupid stuff while well knowing its stupid, but doing it anyways for the sake of fun or whatever.
Thus I don’t like unwanted advices because I already know what i am doing wrong.
I genuinely find Damnation easier than Heresy difficulty, especially if we’re comparing just the straight difficulty levels with no modifiers for high intensity, gauntlet, etc.
Damnation players have better game sense, situational awareness, and desire to stick together and work as a team. Every Heresy game I play seems to have someone just Yolo’ing off ahead on their own without a care in the world.
I was leveling up another character for the heck of it and I couldn’t get to get a weapon with decent enough damage so I could up to Damnation, even though I wasn’t max level yet. It was still easier than Heresy despite being only level 20 and having mid-level gear.
I mean you can play the “what if” scenario dozens of times in your head, but this was a very clearly new player with random gear with random blessings from vendor (blue melee), this is quite typical even in Hi Intensity.
Every engagement of a handful of zombies out went all their zealot grenades, so after the 3rd time I said something when there was a lull, nicely too I might add. Said player then proceeded to lose their mind and purposely type during spikes at puzzle event etc. etc.
To OP’s point, all those “run ahead” players have zero incentive to play as a team, or players like I mentioned to do so as well. They are rewarded constantly for their anti-team behavior, up until recently partly due to stupid voting messages, and the community has this obsessions with carrying team members who show zero willingness to participate in a team.
I’ll say it again, the end rewards need to be capped at Heresy, it would cut down on some anti-team behavior or at least make it easier to mitigate.
P.S. Personally I think at least Damn Hi Int matches should have level and and modest gear requirements. The amount of white/green/blue random store stuff you see new players looking for boosted end rewards on Hi Int matches is shockingly high.
