I am not here to stir up trouble with this post, but I really dislike how hordes, and I think it may have been nerfed with the Xbox port, to the point of being just boring and zero threat.
I refer to Auric Damnation Hi- STG.
They no longer spawn all at once, often right on top of you, but are now split into four parts, which just makes the hordes boring because it now takes forever to kill them all because they spawn so slowly.
While I understand the argument that this might have been the compromise to make Darktide work on Xbox, unfortunately it also took a big part of the challenge out of the game.
Hordes in and of themselves have never been a threat, but when they spawn all at once and with mixed elites, Disablers and Flamers come into the mix, these encounters really became more hectic.
What we have now is a snoozefest where I sigh in relief when the horde is gone. Not because they are difficult, but because the tedium of killing one group at a time is finally over.
I still have some group of teammates overrun by hordes, but you’re definitely right they are more spread out. I think part of the problem is also weapons like the Voidstrike staff, Smite, and Assail being top tier horde clear AND still good at most armored targets. Many of the less viable weapons have been buffed making them decent at clearing hordes (chain axes and autoguns come to mind).
I believe the game has a simple algorithm to spawn enemies, and it tries to spawn things that are dangerous. Like you said, Hordes ARE NOT dangerous, Hordes PLUS other things are. It could also be algorithm issues not counting the Hordes as Horde PLUS enemies, so it does not realize they are a challenge, it just thinks the Plus is. If I think off all the Auric missions I’ve played recently it very rarely spawn large hordes with the exception of what are probably scripted locations like defense objectives. There used to be passive hordes of poxwalkers just chilling in your way, and while they were not a ‘challenge’ they were fun to clear imo.
I think the players and the game agree that hordes are not real challenges for Auric level operatives. The challenge of the horde is to keep moving WHILE killing them on Auric or else you’ll get stuck and suffer more waves of specials chipping away at your resources.