The Kickback is too powerful and needs to be adjusted

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

The Kickback is simply too powerful.

I play the Ogryn as my main class, and it far outshines every other weapon that the Ogryn has in its ranged arsenal. And the specific reason why it is too powerful is that it allows for the Skullbreaker to become an even more powerful talent tree than it already is. I think that most Ogryn players who have taken a hard look at the trees recognize that the Skullbreaker is far and away the strongest tree we have due to the enormous melee damage, toughness refunds, and damage reduction, and it can be made even stronger if instead of taking the Skullbreaker’s keystone perks you take the Bullgryn’s for additional (virtually free) Damage Reduction and Toughness gain.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t seem like a problem on its own. As, in theory, the Gunlugger would balance this out because the Gunlugger tree would present players with a different sort of playstyle focused on elevating Ogryn ranged weapons to a degree that neither the Skullbreaker nor the Bullgryn could do; but that is simply not the case. I greatly enjoy Point Blank Barrage, it is a fantastic ability, but the Gunlugger’s tree is not very good, and as a consequence, the ability cannot take the Gunlugger style of play to where it needs to be.

And that all leads back to the Kickback.

Since the Kickback is a single-shot weapon, and it already reloads very fast, and you can increase its damage for a single talent point, and it is extremely accurate (Ogryn players will confirm that it can outsnipe any other weapon in the game instantly), and its damage fall off is not great enough, and its ammo pool is very large, and so on, it leads to a situation where a player who goes down the Skullbreaker path and makes use of the Kickback is just better at both melee and range than either the Bullgryn or the Gunlugger. I love shooting enemies with the Stubber or the Ripper, and using PBB, but I know that they cannot hold a candle to the average Skullbreaker who just constantly presses M1 with their Kickback with no care for aiming or ammo conservation because they receive so much ammo back from mags, or Veterans running Survivalist (which they all do).

As much as I enjoy blasting huge swaths in hordes, parting the red sea like Ogryn Moses, it doesn’t feel right that I can do better at everything than the class meant to be better defensively (the Bullgryn), and ranged offensively (the Gunlugger) all because of one weapon. I know that retooling the trees this early is too large of an ask; so instead, I will simply make some suggestions for the Kickback:

  1. Increase its reload time by 25-30% so people cannot rapid fire it without Point-Blank Barrage.
  2. Increase its damage fall off by 30-40% so it cannot outsnipe Veterans.
  3. Reduce the amount of damage it does to Maniacs and Flak so people need to take more than two shots to kill anything that isn’t a Monstrosity or a Crusher unless they specifically take perks to equalize this.
  4. Reduce its total ammo pool by 25-30% so players have to be more selective in its use.

I know that is very controversial, but Fatshark, I know you guys collect a ton of telemetry on this game. I know you can see the ranges of the kills that this gun is currently making. I suspect you can even see how many Snipers they have killed. I am glad that you increased the base damage of the weapon, sincerely, but you accidentally overtuned it in such a way that it synergizes far too well with one specific tree that causes it to leave all other trees and weapons in the dust.

2 Likes
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Jesus christ, the kickback was mid for a solid part of the year. Among all the broken stuff the kickback is hardly the outlier here. Let people have fun.

34 Likes
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It should remain “mid” unless it is in the hands of a Gunlugger. That’s sort of the point of the Gunlugger: to make your ranged options better. The Skullbreaker is meant to be an offensive melee class, and nothing more, but the Kickback makes it so that the Skullbreaker is the de facto melee and range setup for the Ogryn. The patch has been out for a week and it’s already enormously tedious to see every Ogryn running Skullbreaker bleed/DR/Heavy builds with the Kickback.

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4

why always nerf? Can’t you just buff other weapons? I think it still has the room for improvement.

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A single shot weapon with a very slow reload? Don’t do this to me :sob:

I don’t have any comments on the other feedback (I don’t play enough with the Kickback), but I think reload time should be left alone - most of your active time with the weapon is already spent reloading as it is, so I don’t think it needs more

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Sure, why should other builds have access to good weapons.

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I don’t think you realise how staggeringly overtuned ogryns are atm. Buffing everything else up to oggy standards would be a tremendous amount of effort that fatshark doesn’t have to spare.

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You are missing the point. The Kickback does not become better if you use it as a Gunlugger. In fact, it kinda becomes worse because firing even faster than you are already is mostly pointless as a result of the weapon clearing most threats in one or two shots; you don’t need to rapid fire it as a result of the overwhelming damage and distance it can reach out and kill targets. Thus, when combined with the Skullbreaker it becomes the best in slot range weapon for a class that already has the best in slot melee weapon functionality. If the Gunlugger could make the Kickback even better, I would still be saying it needs a nerf; but it doesn’t. And as I stated in my post: I feel it is wholly unrealistic for FatShark to either buff the Gunlugger tree (this would require a rework - think about it), or just the other range weapons (the Skullbreaker still benefits since the Gunlugger isn’t made better).

So, making the Kickback less optimum evens things back out between the two sides of the playingfield. The Skullbreaker is still great at melee, and the Gunlugger still holds the distinct advantage at Range. But in a perfect world I’d just fix the Gunlugger, but again, that isn’t feedback that I believe FatShark would entertain at this time.

1 Like
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There will always be a best in slot range weapon, just because the kickback got its time to shine does not mean you have to kick it in the teeth immediately. All of the ogryn range weapons are strong right now, if you nerf the kickback you just remove weapon variety for the sake of it.

The kickback shreds targets up close, sure it can kill a sniper from quite far away with crits but i’d attribute that more to the fact that snipers are made of wet paper and most guns in the game one to two shot them anyway. The kickback cannot deal with armor and high density packs of elites to nearly the same degree that the ripper gun or rumbler can.

After the buffs the kickback finally delivers on the fantasy of the big sod-off close range boomstick and you wanna take that away for the sake of ‘balance’. If the game is too easy for you then it might just be you played it too much and you’re on a higher skill level than 80% of the playerbase. I can guarantee you most players wont be able to utilize most weapons in the game to the same degree of effectiveness you can.

Basically, my point is don’t call for nerfs and let people have fun. All of the classes have loadouts that can shred high level content and i don’t think you have to go around and nerf everything.

6 Likes
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Eehh. No. Don’t agree with any of those changes.

I’ve used kickback since release since it’s always been the best/most useful ogryn weapon imo. And as Norris points out, kickback isn’t suppose to be a gunlugger weapon, it’s a quick swap weapon for a melee focused ogryn, like skull breaker.

I would agree though that the big dmg boost mightve been a bit much, but… Enemy hp lvls were also increased, so it makes sense to buff it in order to keep it’s place in the ogryn arsenal, since it doesn’t need to be nerfed.

What is needed though is more weapons for ogryn.

6 Likes
11

By this, I’m just assuming that you are infact refering to Lucky Bullet keystone, as it is not that good and gives way to little as whole. A rework, or just a larger base chance for it to happen would be great. I’d like to see one of the keystone modifiers to grant a power increase, doesn’t have to be that great. But like +10% power for 6 seconds on Lucky Bullet hit, stacks 2 times. And another modifier could be reworked to grant some form of toughness regen or toughness damage reduction on Lucky Bullet hit, such as 15% toughness replenishment and 5% toughness damage reduction for 6 seconds, stacks 2 times. The cooldown modifier could stay, maybe lower the bonus it gives if the chance for Lucky bullet is increased.

Are you saying that the melee focused talent tree is better at melee damage then the “tank”/support talent tree? Loyal Protector activated ability needs… more, for it to be good. Lowering the cooldown, increasing the base range would be a good start. Adding a toughness bonus, such as vet shout or zelot chorus would be good or having allies gain more toughness from killing enemies under the effect of taunt, maybe have that count as the other effects for an “overcharge” of toughness, for you allies.

Most of the things that was given a buff in the last patch is slightly overtuned, I’d say that the ammo count needs to be lowered atleast.

1 Like
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This. Last few patches where there has been major changes to blessings and weapons has made it painfully obvious that the Ogryn needs more weapon options.

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What they need to do is reign in the Far Infested ADM as well as reduce the min pellet count by a third. There, done. No need to gut it.

The issue isn’t with the kickback it’s with the ammo aura.

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Kb still weaker than revolvers. if you think so, you are just force all ogryns use grenade launcher in auric.

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15

gollum-leave-now

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The only thing I would tune down on it is the range, and even then I’m not sure it needs it. Actually being able to reliably 1 shot mutants with it feels amazing and is something I always wanted.

All in all we’re in what I would still consider the “honeymoon phase,” of this new patch. Before we make anymore large balance changes I want to give some more time to see how things feel after a bit.

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17

the kickback is garbage on damnation / auric.
Its useless so I really do not know what you are talking. I main ogryn as well.

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18

I disagree!
The Kickback is quite nice to kill stuff!
With Point Blank Barrage (Fires included) it really melts everthing.
Wirhout that with pinpointing target you can really kill a lot with one shot besides carapace.
Without Pinpoint you also only need an average of two shots for nearly everthing beneath the carapace threshhold - your meelee would need to compensate that shortage.

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19

You might be thinking about the wrong thing. The Kickback is the single shot, breach loaded shotgun and doesn’t have Pinpointing Target. The Grenadier Gauntlet is what you are think of I believe.

I heavily disagree. Even before this damage it had a legitimate use case just for throwing elites and specialists around like children. Now? Especially with it’s exceptional reserve ammo? Anything besides Crushers and Bulwarks withing 30m is at your absolute mercy. Good Ogryn kickback players can realistically get max damage and ranged kills with it, without running any gun lugger talents besides reloaded and ready.

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20

Leave the kickback be for a while, let the single shot, long reload grapeshot cannon cook for a bit. It’s fun as hell, but the delay means that it doesn’t break encounters where you are being attacked by a wealth of heretics without being a gun-lugger ogryn.

And, y’know. They had to pick specific talents to be able to do that.

2 Likes