Survivalist Aura nerf is wrong for multiple reasons [UPDATED]

[weeping.moon]

@souI23

Do we want to play with definitions?

If you want to, you can go and check devs’ interviews, where they were talking about range-melee ratio how it was 50/50 in V2, and for DT it suppose to be more like 60/40. Or check the official site. Aswell as DT is a Tide game, and utilize Tide mechanics. Just like all Total War series has its DNA.

Summary

@souI23

Anyway, that a Veteran was enough to let the team to stop searching ammo and start shooting endlessly, is only imagination

No, it’s not. It was a common situation team jump in the valkyrie and drop ammo crate there, people don’t check boxes and just rush forward, noone cares about ammo was pinged and alerted in the chat, ogryn spam with rumbler and kickback, etc.

And with higher difficulty scaling was even worse, you could farm ammo on dogs and mutes waves, everyone knows it.

Now people use “i need ammo” on their social wheel finaly.

@souI23

Well, but Darktide is also a RPG… we have classes, builds, talents, weapons, equipment, a character to level (again: the definitions are vague)

It’s not, it has rpg elements. Do you find WoW raid a hybrid combat, cause you have tank, dd, and healer. Half life, cause you have crowbar? Arena shooters like quake or unreal, cause you have 1 melee weapons there? Doom 16, eternal?

While hybrid word doesn’t mean 50/50 ratio, it’s quite obviosly you don’t call 1/99 a hybrid, cause 1% is non existing thing here you can ignore, an error. To call thing a hybrid you need to have its elements visible and recognizable.

@souI23

If by choosing the Veteran I can shoot a lot (although, as mentioned, the melee part remains regardless)… even better, it’s fun, it doesn’t harm anyone: let’s let people have fun with a game

Again, you just drop general takes - fun, not fun, like, don’t like, there zero examples you droped.
Aswell as you completely ignore arguments that you have very specialized weapons, with different roles and damage profiles. That there are no complex gunplay mechanics like learning recoil patterns to justify more ammo for some of them

Let me ask you direct questions then, cause your position is very vague for me.

@souI23

if I have enough ammo, then the game doesn’t put enough pressure on me

• How are you gonna balance that for high damage guns, for versatile guns, for aoe guns? If you want to shoot 99% of the time? Do you think it’s ok to have nearly infinite ammo on rubmler, plasma, bolter? How you will create pressure and stress? Can you bring some completed ideas?

@souI23

If I choose to be a shooter, let me shoot how and how much I want…

• Which guns you are refer to, that are struggling specialy cause of ammo regen currently and you think you should being able to shoot them more?

• Do you think resource managment should be a part of the game and difficulty? How would you choose to motivate players for exploring?

[Crayvun]

I think a major point in WHY the aura nerf was a bad idea, was poor timing. Very, very poor timing. The game isn’t in a great place right now for many other reasons, and this patch slapped us with what can easily be seen as something anti-fun.

I also feel its wrong, because its poorly designed. Its just 5 seconds of cooldown, it does nothing to address the core issue, and is instead, at best, a band-aid solution. Its also a blanket change, that has no consideration for the various types of builds that may have relied on it. Why not rework the talent, or change it for something else? (the same can be said for other changes in this patch too). It feels like these changes were temporary or just rushed out.

Regardless of long term intent, I believe they could have done a better job of it this time, and in the long term they should have much more significant changes planned for the Veteran skill tree.

[weeping.moon]

@Crayvun

I think a major point in WHY the aura nerf was a bad idea, was poor timing

It’s partialy is. It would be much smarter to nerf things while game is in the dead state, because there is almost nooone to complain, and even then to pair it with some buffs. I mean there was some in the recent patch, but they are whatever. Survivalist was much more crucial how game works, those things they buffed are not on the same field.

Tho i strongly believe they buffed a chance to find crates, it’s also common for Fatshark not to mention some changes. Just like barrels ammount was increased, but it’s not a thing in the patchnotes.

And also they are balancing game like it’s some long caterpillar, people see its head, don’t see its ass. Who knows what they are planning further more, but so people have no fundament to speculate, and reacting only at the things they see.

[Crayvun]

Yeah exactly. We honestly have no idea what else they are up to, maybe this is literally in preperation for something? It feels anti fun, especially when some weapons are so whacked in terms of balance.

I’d like to think they have changes to weapons planned soon though

@weeping.moon

It would be much smarter to nerf things while game is in the dead state, because there is almost nooone to complain

Wait a second, we’re the goobers that suffer while the game gets improved, again? Maaan!

[souI23]

@weeping.moon

If you want to, you can go and check devs’ interviews, where they were talking about range-melee ratio how it was 50/50 in V2, and for DT it suppose to be more like 60/40. Or check the official site. Aswell as DT is a Tide game, and utilize Tide mechanics. Just like all Total War series has its DNA.

First of all, developers are human beings who can make mistakes… there is already a problem if they consider Vermintide 50/50 and Darktide 60/40. The numbers don’t add up. If Darktide is 60/40 then Vermintide is at most 25/75

Plus, nothing new, still like I was saying: a melee/shooter hybrid more focused on the shooter part, exactly was also before the nerf

Even pre-nerf, melee characters were fundamental and there were many situations where a Veteran had to switch melee

@weeping.moon

No, it’s not. It was a common situation team jump in the valkyrie and drop ammo crate there, people don’t check boxes and just rush forward, noone cares about ammo was pinged and alerted in the chat, ogryn spam with rumbler and kickback, etc.

People don’t care about pick-ups regardless everything, they are simply distracted. But “Veteran = everyone just play the entire map shooting” is false… or at least I disagree with you

@weeping.moon

Which guns you are refer to, that are struggling specialy cause of ammo regen currently and you think you should being able to shoot them more?

I don’t struggle with none weapon … I have enough experience and can play Maelstorm without taking out the ranged weapon… simply, with any weapon, I preferred the pre-nerf regen. It was more fun

I repeat, it’s not about “I can, I cannot”:.. it’s about fun and personal choices that don’t hurt anyone

@weeping.moon

Do you think resource managment should be a part of the game and difficulty?

First, resources managment isn’t only about bullets. It’s granade, health and boosters too

Anyway, speaking only about bullets, my answer is:

• for Veteran: nope, should not be part of the difficulty;
• for Others characters: yep, should be

Indeed, like written in the thread, I said I mainly disagree with the nerf to Veteran… if they had reduced the effectiveness towards other characters, I wouldn’t have said anything

I’ll tell you more. To me this aura should only work for the Veteran and should be a passive

@weeping.moon

How would you choose to motivate players for exploring?

I don’t care about exploring. Also in Vermintide I hate the books mechanincs

Anyway with books, plasteel, diamantine, health, boosters, ammo for other characters

[weeping.moon]

@souI23

I repeat, it’s not about “I can, I cannot”:… it’s about fun and personal choices that don’t hurt anyone

I didn’t say you personaly can or can’t or struggle. I asked your opinion about weapon balance, about ammo regen in particular and about specific guns. Wich weapons need more ammo regen and you can’t shoot them as much as you would like to? Like was there something ruined, that wasn’t bad before already?

Because i don’t understan your point “it was more fun before”, like you can’t spray brauto anymore? It’s 80% melee with lasguns now? You shoot 70% less with plasma now?

@souI23

for Veteran: nope, should not be part of the difficulty;

Again, for any weapon or what?

Especialy it’s strange to me when you are saying there always will be situations it’s better to swap to melee, but then you are saying about full range build and 99/1 is a hybrid still. Like how often those situations should be?

@souI23

Not to mention that, even if we had literally infinite ammo, there would always, always be times when it would be better to switch to melee weapons

@souI23

Indeed, like written in the thread, I said I mainly disagree with the nerf to Veteran… if they had reduced the effectiveness towards other characters, I wouldn’t have said anything

Why those talents wasn’t nerfed?


Well it was nerfed not cause of vet solely, but cause of the whole team ammo economy. They nerfed the AURA ability, a shared ability.

@souI23

I don’t care about exploring

Well the thing is maps are designed with exploration in mind. You can’t remove it, cause locations would be pointless, it will be stright A to B point run.

@souI23

ammo for other characters

But not for vet no matter the weapon, is that right? Like should plasma and bolter have no problems with ammo?

@souI23

People don’t care about pick-ups regardless everything

Well now they do, i wonder why. Except for some stimms still.

@souI23

But “Veteran = everyone just play the entire map shooting” is false…

I didn’t say everyone was only shooting. I said there was no ammo economy involved, no ammo economy means you don’t make decisions, means target priority is a lesser thing, so less thinking is involved. Wich career with what weapon was struggling on ammo before, if my take is not true?

@souI23

First of all, developers are human beings who can make mistakes… there is already a problem if they consider Vermintide 50/50 and Darktide 60/40. The numbers don’t add up. If Darktide is 60/40 then Vermintide is at most 25/75

Those numbers will not be accurate, when you have careers like GK or Priest involved. Tho it’s kinda clear what their vision is - on average it’s more shooty shooty, but not pure shooter with occasional melee or pure shooter.

[souI23]

@weeping.moon

I didn’t say you personaly can or can’t or struggle. I asked your opinion about weapon balance, about ammo regen in particular and about specific guns. Wich weapons need more ammo regen and you can’t shoot them as much as you would like to? Like was there something ruined, that wasn’t bad before already?

It was simply to say that I’m not talking about a particular weapon. With any weapon, you could shoot more before and I preferred it for the reasons already mentioned

@weeping.moon

Again, for any weapon or what?

Especialy it’s strange to me when you are saying there always will be situations it’s better to swap to melee, but then you are saying about full range build and 99/1 is a hybrid still. Like how often those situations should be?

With any weapon

Uhm, not strange to me. 99/1 is still a hybrid. And that was a general, hypothetical speech

In the game’s reality, the melee% is way higher than 1… because, even with infinite ammo, in many situations you need a melee weapon

@weeping.moon

Well it was nerfed not cause of vet solely, but cause of the whole team ammo economy. They nerfed the AURA ability, a shared ability.

Then they could have nerfed it in a different way

@weeping.moon

Well the thing is maps are designed with exploration in mind. You can’t remove it, cause locations would be pointless, it will be stright A to B point run.

And, like I was saying, there are more reason to explore even without ammo (and anyway, in my experience, Veteran =/= infinite ammo for everyone)

@weeping.moon

Well now they do, i wonder why. Except for some stimms still.

I didn’t notice any difference

@weeping.moon

I said there was no ammo economy involved, no ammo economy means you don’t make decisions

I disagree. Even if I would not be against, like written, to revert the nerf, make the aura a passive and make it working only for the Veteran itself

@weeping.moon

ho it’s kinda clear what their vision is - on average it’s more shooty shooty, but not pure shooter with occasional melee or pure shooter.

And, to me, before the nerf was exactly like this… without saying again why. Already did. But I can understand your opinion can be different

[weeping.moon]

@souI23

With any weapon, you could shoot more before and I preferred it for the reasons already mentioned

Well that the key point then i disagree. I don’t shoot less with Mg la or bolter (in the worst case it’s like 10% less shooting with bolter), i just loot more, so the difference is my ammo icon not white for 80% of the run, but orange. My friend runs plasma sometimes, he still spams it.

@souI23

With any weapon

And this is another one. We already have had that before patch 13, bolter vet pushing forward magdumping everything, other players are just spectators.

Tho it might be not a problem for other classes now cause they were buffed too. But having a team with more than one vet would be a problem, bolter or plasma will just push out lasgun/autogun vet from the niche it shouldn’t. Poor lasgun vet will be sweating trying to aim, while yolo plasma/bolter vet just poping all dreg stalkers, cause ammo doesn’t matter.

4 bolter/4 plasma vet team that doesn’t care about ammo would trivialise things aswell.

I would prefer to have big guns partialy ammo restricted, partialy wield wise, but not to have infinite ammo bolter/plasma (or melta if it will be there one day) that are completely unwieldy and annoying to use.

Even in pure shooters like Doom, you don’t shoot basic imps with BFG.

@souI23

make the aura a passive and make it working only for the Veteran itself

This point i kinda agree on.

[souI23]

@weeping.moon

bolter or plasma will just push out lasgun/autogun vet from the niche it shouldn’t

That’s an interesting speech

In my opinion meta weapons are plasma gun, autoguns and revolvers

Even before the nerf, the plasma gun didn’t overshadow nor autoguns nor revolvers, so there isn’t the need to balance it via ammo

Different speech about Bolter. At the moment, to me, it’s a weak option. It should have a faster draw time… then, if with a faster draw time became too strong, we could balance it giving less ammo (so aura would be less effective)

And lasgun too are just too weak. Before speaking about ammo, they should just get buffed

[weeping.moon]

@souI23

Different speech about Bolter. At the moment, to me, it’s a weak option. It should have a faster draw time… then, if with a faster draw time became too strong, we could balance it giving less ammo (so aura would be less effective)

Bolter (on vet) is near perfectly balanced, there are some wield restrictons, some ammo restrictions, it’s thematical for the weapon - big bulky gun with explossive rounds. Bolter problem is in junky ads, bolts basicaly fly in a random place, not where irons sight is pointing, so it causes wasting of ammo, artificially increasing ammo cap problem. And some slight damage buff vs human sized would be nice.

We already seen it before in pre skill tree era, when vet has insta swap to bolter and infinite ammo. That what is happening when you have low effort gun with infinite ammo - you get plasmagun, rumbler, pre skill tree bolter, pre nerf flamer, etc.

If you want for low effort gun to have an infinite ammo, you need to make it absolute ass to wield then, wich is just annoying.

@souI23

we could balance it giving less ammo

So it shouldn’t be infinite ammo for any weapon in the end?

@souI23

Even before the nerf, the plasma gun didn’t overshadow nor autoguns nor revolvers,

Plasma is the most broken weapon, there is no armor type it’s not efficient vs, and on top of that you don’t need to aim, regular shots can’t blow you up, penetrate trough the walls and through the god knows how many shotgunners (like 6 or 8), projectile has some sort of magnetism so you can kill snipers easier than with precise gun, venting just eating some toughness wich is non existant thing in the context of toughness reg speed.

@souI23

nd lasgun too are just too weak. Before speaking about ammo, they should just get buffed

Infantry lasguns have enough ammo even now. Their problem that marksman playstyle has no stats and inbuilt protection, low risk-reward ratio and very conditional playstyle.

Reccon on the other hand is another example of low effort gun, it’s just balanced via crap damage, and for that short period before it was a braindead weapon that melting everything and has infinite ammo.

[Ragnarok101]

@weeping.moon

Infantry lasguns have enough ammo even now. Their problem that marksman playstyle has no stats and inbuilt protection, low risk-reward ratio and very conditional playstyle.

Yup. You basically have to hang with your ass out in the wind for any poxwalker to delete your health for…the same general performance you’d get from any other class but with far higher skill requirements.

Psyker can do the same thing as a 1a vet by spamming Assail in the general direction of the shooter blob and will regen a pile of toughness.

[souI23]

I don’t want to go offtopic and talk about weapons’ balance, but I have to stand by my opinion: plasma, autogun and revolver are all mutually well balanced, with pros and cons and a precise niche. In another thread, I wrote in details why (obvly imho)

While many others weapons should be buffed, especially shotguns, lasguns, burst rifles… and Bolter too, it should have a shorter draw time

@weeping.moon

So it shouldn’t be infinite ammo for any weapon in the end?

Sometimes, instead of discussing the game, you seem to want to put me on trial :,(

Joking aside:

• when I talked about infinite ammo, it was a hypothetical speech to say that, even if you have infinite ammo, you are still forced to switch to melee weapons…
• …but yep, in general I think the Veteran (unlike the other characters) should not suffer the ammo’s attrition;
• but let’s not think in absolutes, there can always be exceptions and absence of attrition =/= literally infinite ammo;
• to me, pre-nerf aura + Bolter with a lil faster draw time, is perfect to make the weapon balanced… so nope, I don’t want it to have less ammo. It was only an extreme measure in case the weapon turned out to be exceptionally overpower (and therefore would fall under the exceptions)

[weeping.moon]

@souI23

Sometimes, instead of discussing the game, you seem to want to put me on trial

Exactly, cause it works when people speak in very general terms.

@souI23

plasma, autogun and revolver are all mutually well balanced

Nah, this is nonsense, sry. Plasma being a fair balanced was my initial thought on patch 13 release. But with time it become clear it’s a braindead weapon asks zero skill from the player.

Revolver is also too strong vs carapace.

But ok, i just fundamentaly disagree with your vision, i think that ammo restrictions should be a part of the stress with some builds even on vet, cause it promotes target prioritization and restriction adaptability to be the part of a player’s skill set.

Aswell as i see weapons not as homogenious boomsticks, but as tools.

Another thing i still don’t understand how would you create a pressure despite “there will be always situations”.

If you mean just via swarming, then i don’t see it as a good thing. More elites and specials means they are not interesting to fight and they can’t have somewhat complex mechanics, and so they should be simplistic in their core design, just like how Serious Sam enemies work. And i don’t think and don’t want for DT to leam more towards SS type of shooty shooty.

At this point i don’t think there is anything to argue, time will show what devs’ vision is.

[Palumtra]

The other two auras are still hot garbage compared to ammo regen.
The game spawns a lot of ammo but when it’s not distributed right…yeah, it can become problematic.

[souI23]

@weeping.moon

Exactly, cause it works when people speak in very general terms.

It’s necessary to speak both with general examples and by going into specifics. I believe I have done both, don’t blame me for your way of arguing

@weeping.moon

Nah, this is nonsense, sry

Fair enough. Like, for me, it’s instead wrong what you wrote… points of view. But yep, we’ll see what the developers’ vision will be (even if, in any case, no one can say if it will be the right one)

@Palumtra

The other two auras are still hot garbage compared to ammo regen.
The game spawns a lot of ammo but when it’s not distributed right…yeah, it can become problematic.

100% agree

[PathOfLobo]

If there is too extreme inbalance in regards to the ammo unsufficiency, it should not be solved on a single passive of a single class. Keep in mind that the power of some weapons is balanced around ammo inefficiency.

On the other hand the Survivalist is the only veteran’s aura that does something noticable. Despite aura being advertised by UI as something important or build defining, current aura bonuses are rather negligable. For example Fire Team provides as much power as a single minor travel node. Sure, it’s shared with other team mates, but the effect isn’t even noticable. In order to make the character customization exciting, player’s choice needs to have a noticable impact.

My two cents.

[souI23]

The main problem is that this nerf damages the most exactly what it shouldn’t be damaged… for example, the Exe Stance build, which was already niche before, certainly non the strongest, it’s precisely the one that was hit the most

[BizarreSalp]

Stop trying to make Darktide a generic shooter. There’s thousands and thousands of those. This is a 'tide game, ranged weapons serve a role - they’re not your bread and butter.

[BFCInsomnia]

Wanting the ranged class to do ranged class things =/= wanting DT to change genre.

It’s really not that hard to grasp, seriously.

[Eisenfaust]

@BizarreSalp

Stop trying to make Darktide a generic shooter.

Stop trying to make DT vermintide 3. there are already 2 out there - this is the only passable 40k fps around.

@BizarreSalp

ranged weapons serve a role

True - for a veteran of the Astra militarum (which is all about fire power and melee is to be avoided with anything that isn’t T‘au) this role is being your bread and butter, only meleeing if you have to.

Seriously though - there are great melee centric builds for all four classes. I don’t see why a ammo regen for veterans only would be such a big problem. There was already a great suggestion in this thread by @BFCInsomnia to make it a vet passive and replace the aura with something else.

The take that every build should be mainly a melee build with ranged as support is the wrong one in my opinion. Mainly ranged builds with melee as an emergency tool should be as fine.