The difficulty/skill crux

[weeping.moon]

@Vodhawak

Snipers didn’t change much, only one sniper is very easy to counter

Not by itself, but you have a distraction in the form of other enemies and screen effects. And the counterplay was to pay attention to what is happening on your screen. That what was different about sniper, there was no need to drop a blob of them to chip away your health.

It was a completely different interraction from many other mobs - one foe pressence was changing how you’re apporaching current situation. It wasn’t just spam dodge/slide to counter 8 snipers. It was more hide-n-seek.

@Vodhawak

Yes but doesn’t mean that they are more interesting to fight, if anything in Darktide you have more options so it creates more interesting combinations.

It means, cause enemy design means more, weapons are just a tool via you interract with enemies. Either way we would play a shooting range game and shooting walls.

And on top of that we don’t have human sized shield enmeies, casters, banner/offcer type.

@Vodhawak

quality enemies already let’s have one with quantity

These things aren’t not oppostie, again. You have a horde enemies to fill the niche of meatwaves, and you have specials and elites to provide mon-e-mono quality fights.

If you aren’t satisfied with having only 2 horde enemies, it means there should be new enemies of this type, but it doesn’t mean specials and elites design should be shifted there to provide dumb button mashing.

Using your logic, we have Serious Sam games already, why should we convert DT to that?

Anyway, i will stop here, i just fundamentaly disagree that moving DT towards Serious Sam is fun.

[DiamondNova]

its DarkTIDE not DarkDUEL

Player TTK is super low for PvE game. Rager will melt you in 2 seconds (nevermind more then 1), crusher and mauler will oneshot you, shotgunners will oneshoot your toughness from 15m (without gunner resistance), even single shooter can deal 50% of your hp with just one volley.
Similar with specials. Sniper eats at least 1/3 of hp from the other side of the map, mutie will throw you into the mixed horde, dog will stun you forever if you are alone, and don’t even let me start on the trapper.

The reason why it seams not that threatening, is dodge and slide alone. With this super simple tool, we can null almost any danger in the game. Not even reduce it, just straight up nullify, from 100% to 0.
Increasing power of enemies won’t change this, as there is no difference if you dodge 250 damage or 750.

[Gunsang]

Purely personal position here, but while I think the modifiers are great there are two issues:

1. If you are not checking the UI / dropping into a random game, it is easy to be unprepared (and sure, this could be countered by being more careful, but I do think there is room for improvement).
2. Because a player cannot select specific mission conditions, there is a decrease in agency. This isn’t inherently bad (and may well be justifiable for design reasons), but it does add another compounding factor for overall difficulty. My personal preference would be to (as a default) offer as much tailoring as possible to the players. While it is true you can select from a few options per difficulty, sometimes it does seem as though all you get are “a certain type of modifier” which can be frustrating if you don’t fancy it.

My preferred approach to Darktide is that I typically want it to be challanging-but-not-overwhelming. That is to say, it will be close to the limits of my skill (so that I feel the adrenaline rush of overcoming something I find difficult) but not too close to the border so that the one-second error is the difference between win/lose (rather than win/punished). This is, of course, exceptionally difficult to balance (even ttRPGs, where you have a DM who knows the party well and is balancing in realtime, struggle with this). And I should stress that I wouldn’t ask for things to be tailored to my specific wants!

In short, I am someone who treats Darktide as a nice snack for whenever I have an hour to spare. But because I am not playing religiously, nor am I paying much attention to the updates, I do have the experience of “dropping in for a quick game” and finding that my “default difficulty” is now radically different to a few months ago, or even the last session 30 minutes ago! This means I can inadvertently play well above/below my actual skill level, and that it can take a while for me to rediscover it again.

I appreciate balancing is difficult (given the plethora of skills, weapons, etc. it must be a bit of a self-imposed purgatory now - but that’s an argument for another day!), and I certainly think Darktide needs to adapt to the players. But I suspect that the combined changes, lack of agency over difficulty modification, etc. does make it a bit hard unless you are really paying attention.

Were I to make a grand sweeping change (from my position of extreme ignorance!), I think I would try to “fix” the difficulties (probably by having increments of frequencies of attacks, number of specials spawning, etc.), and maybe introduce more selection over specific modifiers (so you can add a “increase frequency of specials spawning” or “increase frequency of attacks” modifier, as well as additional hardcore modifiers at the end “you are being chased by an indestructible Karnak twin” or “monsters divide into two upon death”, etc.).

I think this would actually make balancing a bit easier as (a) players have more choice over what they want, (b) you can add modifiers without changing the raw numbers so much, (c) you have more feedback on the popularity (e.g. how many people are chosing the “infinite wave” vs how many chose “no health-packs only health stims” modifier on each difficulty level), and (d) you can…er…modify individual modifiers rather than grand sweeping changes (for example, you can make the raw spawn rate of specials X, and the “increase snipers” Y, but change Y non-linearly vs. difficulty while maintaining X).

Again though, this is just from my position of ignorance and there may well be very good reasons this is a very bad idea!

[Jonboy]

@MadMartigan

I think more challenging enemies should be introduced at higher difficulties. Like auric maelstrom should have a unique enemy almost as powerful as a DH, but obvs more regular than a DH, and shouldn’t be encountered on other difficulties.

I’m not sure about that one ? Do you not think that will encourage players to play above their level far earlier on? If you think you’re being kept from fighting the good stuff ™ then, well if it were me, I’d be going for that as soon as I could. Whereas my DT experience was a patient working up through T1/T2/etc. maps, initially learning what the enemies were, then how to handle them.

Anyway.

No golden bullet solution to setting difficulty. I do sometimes wonder though; I found VT2 harder, in general. Granted I’ve waaaayyy more time in DT than I did in VT2, but even so. I wonder if it’s because DarkTide’s dodging system is so effective? Is toughness too forgiving (vs temp HP) ? Three med stations too generous?

I don’t want any more ‘elites’ or specials. Hordes are trivial right now, and I want more of that kind of fighting but at a slightly harder level.

[Vodhawak]

@weeping.moon

Using your logic, we have Serious Sam games already, why should we convert DT to that?

You keep making this weird analogies that don’t make sense, Serious Sam as about as much similarities with Darktide as it has with COD.

[MunKy]

@Jonboy

I found VT2 harder, in general.

Imo V2 is deffo harder. Id actually intended to make a thread on this asking peoples opinions the other day but got distracted

Calling Tide vets - Which game is hardest?

What game do you think is hardest, especially at the top vanilla difficulty? poll

[Jonboy]

Actually - scrap that. Now when I click I’m taken through to a new post

[Gunsang]

So, here’s my (probably very silly) idea. Were I able to make big changes to Darktide (which, thank the Emperor, I cannot, because I am An Idiot), here’s the approach I’d probably look into taking:

With the (hopefully) decreased RNG coming after the crafting update, I suspect we are going to have more Dockets than we can shake a stick at. So, why not put these to use?

1. Keep Difficulty levels relatively stable increments (maybe even increase the number of difficulties just to introduce a bit of granularity), and no-longer have mission modifiers.
2. Introduce a Dockets-for-difficulty-modifiers system (perhaps you could make this thematically linked as donating to Sister Prine for “prayers to the Emperor”?) which are “slotable modifiers”.
3. These modifiers could be straight up multipliers (e.g. increase health of mobs, increase frequency of snipers spawning in, etc.), conditions (e.g. lights out, more pox hounds, etc.), elite challenges (e.g. you are being chased by an indestructible plague ogryn, which you will have to periodically defeat to gain time), etc. Possibly you can generate a slotable modifier by adding up to several of these conditions. These might (or might not) come with increased rewards (e.g. more diamantine, etc.). I appreciate all this would need to be carefully balanced!
4. For Auric missions (for example), at the start Players can propose their “slottable modifiers”, and all players can vote on which (if any) to accept. If one has enough votes, it is accepted and applied to that mission.
5. when game finding, it provides a list of games “in progress”, along with approximate completion and any modifiers applied. Someone can then chose that (or not).

I imagine that there is (similar to L4D) an AI director, who modifies things during the mission to try to keep things playable-but-exciting. This could still occur, but in a more limited fashion within the boundaries of the base difficulty (that is to say, for example, it has a +/- 5% increase in “base spawning”, which it can apply depending on how the players are doing, but it can’t suddenly triple the number of crushers).

Again, this is all just my nonsense, but the intention would be that the “baseline” is fairly stable (enabling more subtle tweaking), and the modifiers provide flexible adjustments. This way, people who want to “play at their skill” can join their preferred difficulty and be reasonably sure it is pretty much the same. Those who want to can apply whatever modifiers they want – even completely unbalancing the game with the more extreme ones (infinite waves of enemies, etc. etc.). This would also have the (possible?) benefit of deconvoluting everything, so FS can see what players choose (e.g. if 90% of the players are choosing “yes please, more difficulty” that says something different to if only 1% do). It also would make it potentially easier for FS to introduce more modifier variety (each new one one just be added to the list) and control how these interact (e.g. if they have rules to avoid balance issues, these can be applied to modifiers individual - e.g. you can’t pick “fog” and “in the dark” for the same “slotable modifier”).

Just my random thought, though – I’m (clearly) not a game designer!

[Orome]

@Gunsang

at the start Players can propose their “slottable modifiers”, and all players can vote on which (if any) to accept. If one has enough votes, it is accepted and applied to that mission.

If i understood what you meant correctly this is far worse then what we have now.
Right now i can see every modifier and can pick which mission i can go to. But with your idea this would be entirely blind until the mission actually starts.

Say you start a mission alone (loading screen), you’re hoping for high gauntlet, but the 3 other players have a hankering for vent purge, so they outvote you and you’re stuck in a mission you hate. So you leave (loading screen) Start another game, (loading screen),then the next 2 people want bursters hounds and mutants, the 3rd person wants no modifiers and you want gauntlet, so you’re outvoted again so you leave again (loading screen) and search for another game again (loading screen).
And on and on and on and on.

@Gunsang

Introduce a Dockets-for-difficulty-modifiers system (perhaps you could make this thematically linked as donating to Sister Prine for “prayers to the Emperor”?) which are “slotable modifiers”.

What if i like to play on hardest possible difficulty but just spent all my money building a new build and are completely broke? so now i cannot play the game i want because i’ve to pay to play the difficulty i want? Thats bull$hit…
You forget that most people arent darktide obsessed freaks with 1000+ hours put into it. Normal people dont have billion dockets just sitting around.

[Gunsang]

Well, I certainly wouldn’t say “I have the perfect solution which FS should definitely implement now” (I thought I was pretty clear that this is just a random thought). So, y’know, it’s fine to say it wouldn’t work well for you.

If i understood what you meant correctly this is far worse then what we have now.

Well, that’s your opinion - fair enough (happy to hear feedback). Personally, I would say it would be different – perhaps worse in some ways, perhaps better in others. But that’s just my opinion, of course!

Right now i can see every modifier and can pick which mission i can go to.

Er, no. Right now you have a bounded choice – if Darktide isn’t offering the modifies you want, then you are out of luck.

Moreover, the selection of modifiers is very small compared to the totality of modifiers come and gone (a lot of pretty cool ideas I’ve seen in the past aren’t around any more – and that’s fine, of course, but it does seem a bit of a pity that people who want to push the limits or stay in their comfort zone have little agency to do so).

Say you start a mission alone[…]And on and on and on and on.

Well yes, tyranny of the commons is an issue, though I can’t say I noticed it much in A:FE. Certainly someone actually seriously proposing this idea (as opposed to just vaguely gesturing in the direction as I have done) would need to think about how to implement. But firstly, I would have the voting happen before the mission starts (I think it would not be impossible for someone to backout after voting but before mission starts, given that people can currently leave while the time is ticking down). Maybe there could even be an option whoever starts the game could tick a “only my modifier allowed” box if they want, so that potential joiners could choose whether or not they like it? Just a thought. Again, my suggestion is not “this is the best way to achieve player agency”, but “it seems to me lack of player agency is a bit of an issue - here’s a thought about something that might help and worked well in another, similar game”.

However, as a counterpoint to your point: at the moment, if you want to play high gauntlet and Darktide is not offering high gauntlet, you can (a) wait until Darktide does offer it up, which could involve waiting hours for it to turn up on the difficulty you want or (b) quit and play another game. So, while I certainly wouldn’t say my suggestion is ideal, I would say “far worse” might be just a little of an overexaggeration.

You forget that most people arent darktide obsessed freaks

OK, maybe tone the hostility down just a smidge? I think you can probably express your objections without getting insulting.

I wouldn’t characterise myself as “darktide obsessed” (I play it casually, as a light snack when I want to play a game for 30 min or an hour), but it is true I have quite a lot of Dockets in the bank. However, going from memory (so don’t take these numbers as exact), but IIRC a single Heresy run will net you ca. 15000 Dockets.

So, just as a hypothetical example, let’s say Each modifier you add to your “card” costs 5000 Dockets (I’m making this up, and would certainly suggest it would actually need balancing, but this is just as a hypothetical exercise). So if you wanted to run a “Shock Guantlet + Lights Out + Being Stalked” combo it could cost you…the grand total of one “non-modified” Heresy run.

Now, is it possible that there are players who are (a) so elite they want to play on Damnation + 3 modifiers, (b) so poor they have spent their last 15000 Dockets, and (c) so desperate they can’t stand the idea of a single unmodified Damnation run? I mean, I guess so, but I would respectfully suggest that it isn’t so common as you believe (particularly, bearing in mind, my qualifier that if the new crafting system reduced RNG there would be a lot less to spend Dockets on – of course, if that isn’t the case I would suggest removing any cost).

Again, this is just a general handwaving thought, and not intended as “here is my perfectly statted 3000 line spreadsheet showing this is the optimal solution”, and I’m perfectly happy to accept there may be a lot of issues (perhaps even unsolvable issues) or design reasons that it would be A Bad Idea To Implement. But I think you can probably express your criticisms of my idea without needing to criticise me personally, no? I’d certainly appreciate it if you tried.

[Orome]

@Gunsang

You forget that most people arent darktide obsessed freaks

OK, maybe tone the hostility down just a smidge? I think you can probably express your objections without getting insulting.

Im not being hostile, if you find being called “tide obsessed freak” insulting then thats your problem.
Personally i am a necromancy obsessed freak. I am so obsessed with it i bought diablo 4 full price because there was no other game that offered necromancy that i havent already played to death (pun intended).

[NihilistZealot]

Pretty sure Ogryn was the only class that I had the confidence to play T5 VERY early (started at 15 with grey shield as my crutch)… and that’s only because I had experience playing other classes, so I knew where my skill level was.