Tagging and Player tracking outlines
Tagging is terrible, the dull red with too many effects actually somewhat obscures your view of the target. VT2’s simple outline is much better, and it was also good for when other players were not visible. The X-Ray thing should be optional, it’s a neat touch, but it’s much less informative compared to a simple outline.
Special/Elite Clarity
Although specials are very audible, compared to Vermintide 2, in Darktide, they are more difficult to track visually and the little bright glowing tech parts don’t quite do the trick. Everything starts to feel like a blur of glowing bits, plague flesh and rusted metal. I’m so often caught off guard by maniacs, maulers, and shot-gunners, and machine gunners appearing amidst the horde.
Visual Effects
The maggots and debris that pop out when fighting hordes is visually obstructive, and just as when a player is too close to the camera, they become transparent to avoid blocking your view, the same should go for any visual effect that gets too close to the player’s camera.
Really, even the special/elite visual has less to do with the specific character design for these, as much as the lighting, visual effects and hordes tend to blend everything together. There’s less visually contrasting features. It often feels like I’m playing the game through a crappy photo filter. Like some low quality fan’s ReShade preset. I’m often tinkering with my visual settings to try and get a more crisp and defined quality that makes things easier to see, or using mods that remove screen effects from the player’s abilities, particularly the Psyker.
Audio and Dialogue
The audio cues for taking hits are distinct and specials are noticeable, but the audio feels like it gets cluttered very easily. In Vermintide, when I hear 4 specials, I can kinda tell where they are relative to my position with headphones; in Darktide, I’m looking everywhere sometimes and it’s not usually easy to pick out the location, particularly up vs. down, or when behind objects vs. in the midst of a group of enemies.
Radio and constant companion chatter is too frequent often distracting amidst so much other audio noise, and it gets nauseating. I’ve installed a mod “ZipIt” which makes the game so much easier to enjoy, allowing me to pick and choose which kinds of dialogue are allowed. Instead of a long mission brief, I use a mod that allows me to see the mission objective and modifiers on the loading screen as I join.
In Vermintide the companion’s remarks on enemies is clear and easy to understand. In Darktide, maybe I’d need to be more of a 40K fan, but in a few cases, I’m not quite quite sure what the numbers the Veteran is saying mean, or the 3 or 4 different terms for the same special. “Tox Flamer” or “Poxburster”, that works for me.