Recently, due to testing and investigating different aspects of the various utility nodes that each of the classes have access to, I’ve noticed a major issue w/ Suppression. This issue isn’t a bug though; instead it’s related directly to the feedback and value the mechanic adds to the game. And as you can probably surmise from the title of this video, that value is very underwhelming. As per usual, TL;DR provided at the end.
Suppression, like many mechanics in Darktide, is poorly conveyed by, seemingly, all official means and most third party resources. There are some resources that that break down the mathmatical details of Suppression and other mechanics more in depth, but for our purposes in this post I want to limit this conversation to Suppression as input, and the ways it directly effects enemy behavior. This post isn’t concerned with Nodes that add enhanced output for suppression. To put another way, the value of Suppression to Darktide as a whole isn’t determined by what some classes can gain from it. An Ogryn using the “Coward Culling” Aura may get a lot of value from increased application of Suppression, but that’s specifically because of the damage amp against suppressed targets that the aura provides. The damage amplification is an Output of Suppression, and only provides those benefits if you have an Ogryn on your team running that specific Aura. If you don’t, the benefits you could have from Suppressing enemies doesn’t matter.
When looking at the Raw Input of Suppression, what we are really trying to judge is Notable Interactions and/or Changes in Enemy Pathing or Behavior. Worth noting is also Suppression Decay, Suppression Immunity, and the unique interaction between Suppression and Stagger. With Suppression Decay, after a randomly chosen delay, the current amount of suppression on an enemy will start to decay by a specific amount at a specific rate. This is important for explaining the inconsistent amount of time that some units will remain in Suppressed states. Suppression Immunity is very simple, and is just the duration an enemy is immune to suppression after having recovered from being suppressed. This is important for noting why some enemies don’t seem to get suppressed at all. Meanwhile, the interaction between Suppression and Stagger revolves around enemies that do not enter specific Suppressed States. As example, Maulers do not enter the Suppression “Cowering” State, but they are suppressed. While Suppressed, they are more prone to being staggered. Suppression, in this way, acts like unapplied stacks of Stagger. The enemy isn’t staggered, but they are primed to be staggered.
While this Suppression and Stagger Interaction is notable, its biggest problem is that it’s entirely impossible to track in Normal Play. The only way you can tell that an enemy not in the Suppression Cowering Animation is in fact Suppressed is by attacking them and seeing if an attack that would normally only knock them around instead throws them back. You can’t realistically play around this without extensive coordination, and even / that, there’s nothing to indicate to the player whether or not the enemy they are attacking is Suppressed or currently immune to Suppression. Which leaves notable changes in enemy Behavior. Or in other words, the Suppression Cowering Animation.
These enemies are the only enemies in the game that can spawn outside of special conditions that seem capable of entering the Suppression Cowering Animation, and there are Caveats to this. Suppressed Gunners will typically remain suppressed for around 4 Secs. Newly and Armored Infected enemies can enter the cowering state, despite being melee enemies, but they will only remain suppressed for half the time. And Assault Units are seemingly immune to Suppression while they have their melee weapons out (defaulting to the suppression/stagger interaction), but if suppressed while their firearms are equipped, they will enter the Suppression Cowering Animation, and must finish it before switching weapons.
This is very underwhelming, as this means that Mauler, Crusher, Bulwarks, Ragers, Dreg Melee, Scab Melee, Pox Walkers, and every Specialist, Monstrosity, and Captain/Champion enemy is virtually immune to Suppression. Yes, those enemies are more prone to staggering, but w/ no way to indicate that they are suppressed, there’s no way to play around the effect. This means that aside from the 8 enemies here, Suppression does practically nothing to the other 15 enemies of the roster, not counting bosses and champions who aren’t a constant in normal play until the upper levels of Auric. While Suppressing Gunners is important, the fact that the status has no easily discernable effect on the rest of the roster of enemies is a problem. It inherently means that Nodes that increase or facilitate the application of Suppression (such as Veteran’s “Keep Their Heads Down!” or Zealot’s “Behind the Lines”*) but don’t include an amplification of player power or utility do effectively nothing. Regardless of the enemies who it makes sense not to be suppressed, in actual play Suppression doesn’t notably effect about 70% of the enemies you might be fighting.
[============================ Proposing Solutions ============================]
Generally speaking, my band-aid fix would be to take the Melee Attack Speed Penalty from Arbites’ “Fear of Justice” ability modifier node and including a movement speed reduction as well. “Fear of Justice” is a relatively weak node and is one of the weaker aspects of the “Nuncio-Aquilla” Ability that I would personally like to see buffed/replaced.
I don’t think the damage reduction from this node is necessary to elevate Suppression. Melee Enemies moving and attacking slower while suppressed would give an immediately discernable value to Suppression w/out stepping on the mechanical niches of Stagger or Stun. This solution has its own problems though. It works for the majority of enemies, but it’s too punishing for others. A 50% reduction in movement and attack speed on a Crusher would gut their ability to do much of anything. So for other enemies, a more comprehensive solution is in order.
But proposing more comprehensive solutions to this problem is…difficult. And that’s due in large part to an aspect of Suppression that we haven’t spoken about in detail: Enemy Animation States and Missing Animations. Some reader may have noted that I haven’t spoken about the “Micro-Stagger” that some enemies experience when Suppressed. And that’s because those enemies aren’t getting Micro Staggered. They are experiencing a missing animation.
If you’ve ever knocked over an enemy, then used some kind of CC ability only to have that enemy suddenly teleport to their feet, this is a missing animation. Effectively, it’s an A-Pose that triggers when the game detects a CC interaction that it does not have an animation for. If you want a fairly easy way to replicate this in live play, use an Arbites w/ the “Break The Line” Ability and the Maul and Shield. Use your ability into a large group of Elites and then immediately use the Shield’s Flashbang. If there are any other CC effects going on, you’ll get to see enemies suddenly teleport to their feet. And this, to my understanding, is the problem w/ Suppression. Plenty of enemies have specific thresholds for animations to play when they become Suppressed. But they don’t have any animation or change in logic when those thresholds are met, which results in the “Micro Stagger” and a return to the base set of animations and behavior.
The “easier said than done” option is actually providing those animations. I recognize that time for production and testing of these animations and the states they would put enemies into isn’t something that could just get knocked out over a weekend. But tackling this problem would provide greater effectiveness to Suppression and nodes that Invoke it, as well as generate greater diversity of experience from combat encounters.
- The suggestion for the movement and attack speed reduction works for a lot of the enemies who are practically unaffected by Suppression. Dreg and Scab Units in Melee, Poxwalkers, and most Specialist moving half as fast and attacking half as often would be a refreshing change.
Specialist like Bombers could have reduced throwing ranges and/or a chance of dropping nades at their feet. - Disablers like the Trapper, Dogs, and Mutants are a little harder. You could reuse the animations from Dogs being shoved or mutants hitting walls. Those enemies are meant to be fast so nothing should take them out of play too long. For Trappers, you could reduce the size of the Ray Cast of their net, making it easier to dodge or duck.
- Crushers could switch to using their weapon one handed, stopping them from doing their bigger attacks like the Overhead slam.
- Bulwarks could try and take cover behind their shields, taking a knee and not pushing advancing w/ the rest of the horde.
- Maulers could switch to a wadding animation, slowing their movement but maintaining their full moveset.
- Ragers could move faster, rushing out of the horde, but attack with a single weapon or half as fast.
- Shock Troopers (like Plasma Gunners and Shotgunners) are effectively immune to Suppression, and that makes sense (though I personally think it would be funny if Plasma Gunners fired slower and had a chance of detonating while Suppressed similar to how Player Plasma Gunners can).
There’s a lot that can be done. And it can be done with purpose. The Suppression Cowering Animation that Ranged Units do when their Suppression Threshold is met admittedly doesn’t work for all enemies. I can understand why FS would forgo giving every enemy that animation for their threshold break. But having nothing robs the effect of any meaningful CC or interesting gameplay interactions. Reducing the movement and attack speed for Chaff enemies allows them to keep advancing and posing a danger to teams, but it still provides some about of defensive benefit by giving players more space. Specialist enemies need to be a pressing threat to players, but Suppressing them could give players more time to eliminate them or otherwise make them less effective. Crushers, w/ their increased Health Pools and one shot potential are massive threats to teams. Suppression ensuring that you take away their most dangerous attack but leaving you with all their fast ones is an interesting counter balance. Bulwarks not moving means they’re easier to get around and they aren’t protecting hordes by running in front of them. Maulers being slowed down by their heavier armor means you’re more likely to duel them once you clear out other threats. And Ragers rushing forward feels incredibly fitting for a berserker enemy, as well as allowing you to fight them outside of the horde. If they only attacked w/ a single weapon, it would also make parrying significantly more consistent against them. All of this is ultimately speculative though. I’m quite positive that FS knows this is a problem, especially when they are creating new Talents that based around the effect. “Behind the Lines” (in addition to a lot of other aspects of the Zealot) is currently a very weak ability, but if these animation states existed, the ability wouldn’t need to be buffed to Stagger enemies instead of suppressing them to have tangible impact. But regardless of how long FS has been aware of these problems, Suppression has gone too long w/out updating, and it’s accumulated knock on effects that hurt the power of classes and weapons, variety of combat encounters, and the overall health of the game. That’s all I have for this post. As per usual, thank your for reading, and may your missions always end in glory.
[================================== TL;DR ==================================]
Suppression as a CC effect (w/out specific bonuses from nodes) is an underwhelming effect. Almost 70% of the enemy roster lacks any kind of trackable feedback to being suppressed, largely due to missing Animation States. This creates problems as the majority of enemies are virtually immune to the effect. Nodes that increase or facilitate the application of Suppression (such as Veteran’s “Keep Their Heads Down!” or Zealot’s “Behind the Lines”*) but don’t include an amplification of player power or utility do effectively nothing, creating a power drag on any classes with such nodes. All of this means that Classes w/ Suppression Applying Talents (but not Suppression Enhancing Nodes), Weapons w/ Suppression Blessings, the Variety of Combat Encounters, and the overall health of the game is damaged due to the lack of attention Suppression mechanics have received in the game. There is, unfortunately, no overarching fix for this problem. Units need bespoke animations and logic that they are presently missing in order to enhance Suppression. Some resources can be reused in order to save time and resources. Some animation changes are also viable across multiple enemies. FS should focus on animations that can be reused from existing interactions first, then move onto new animations that can be used across chaff enemies, before focusing on the development of bespoke animations and behaviors for Elites and Specialist.