The New Shield Enemy Is Overtuned

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

I really like the idea of adding new enemy variety, but the new Vanguard shield enemies feel massively overtuned right now.

They just feel annoying. They interrupt the flow of combat constantly, especially in mixed hordes, because one tiny shield suddenly stops your cleave and turns a smooth fight into you standing there bonking a random common enemy for way too long.

They look like regular scabs or dregs that picked up a scrap shield, but they tank damage like mini-bulwarks or maulers. The visual design does not match how durable they are at all. If they looked like heavily armored elite units, fair enough, but right now they look like normal chaff while eating an absurd amount of damage.

The shield is also way too durable. It should be much easier to stagger them, push them, or force their guard open. Their shield should break or open up much faster, especially if you hit them from the side, behind, or with heavy attacks.

And once the shield is gone, they should not still have a ridiculous health pool. That should be the reward: break the shield, expose the enemy, kill them quickly. Instead, even after you get past the shield, they still feel weirdly tanky for something that is supposed to be a common mob.

Right now they don’t really add a new gameplay. They mostly just slow the game down. They aren’t scary enough to feel like proper elites, but they are durable enough to be more irritating than fun. They also show up commonly enough that the annoyance stacks up fast.

I think they would feel much better if:

  1. The shield had much less health.

  2. They were easier to stagger or push open.

  3. Attacking from behind or the side was more rewarding.

  4. Their shield hitbox was less oversized.

  5. Once the shield breaks, they died quickly.

  6. Their base health was closer to a normal mob, not a mauler or bulwark.

As they are now, they feel less like a fun new enemy and more like a damage sponge.

They are annoying as hell, not fun.

2

From which difficulty do you base that Feed-Back? And what weapons? Because I tried auric yesterday with a tac axe setup and I did not feel a difference. Shield was down in one hit and the mob behind it in two. Nothing spongy about that…

3

Yeah their HP is insane and even after they have dropped their shield. It’s like they’re wearing carapace helmets and suits but they’re wearing cloth! Takes multiple hits to the head to kill them. Very bizarre

4

They have different hp? I never understood the idea behind having an Armor system and then additionally fine-tuning hp values between different versions of the same enemy… Isn’ t that what the armor is supposed to solve?

5

That’s a good thing IMO.

Until now we have been able to keep cleaving and mowing down big hordes like butter unless there was a Crusher or a Bulwark in that sea.

The problem that I see with the Vanguard is that it feels like they are a bit too tanky even when losing their shield.

IMO the shield should be their whole thing, and when they lose the shield, they shouldn’t have more HP than other mobs that use the same model.

It’s somewhat of a balancing issue because as usual; Purgatus Psyker’s are just going to do their thing and clear the screen without ever engaging the Vanguard’s as intended.

6

Reminder that Vanguards exist to spawn less bulwarks

When you put this into consideration, you realize it makes sense why they are this way

What doesn’t make sense is why they’re not as durable against AoE, they need a buff against that

7

Their basic health is already almost triple of the bruiser.
In addition to that for some reason their head has 0.5 damage multiplier making their effective head hp to be around 1.6-1.7 of their faction rager.

8

Fatshark only has to make them like in Vermintide 2 and as usual failed at it.

9

Remove the headshot resistance and dial their hp down a bit and they should be fine. I like the idea of them is sound, but the answer to the “shielded enemy” puzzle should logically be either an anti-carapace weapon to break the shield, a high-impact weapon or shove to stagger them into dropping their guard, or flanking. All of these disrupt the waveclear meta in some way, to varying degrees, which is the intent.

Making them arbitrarily resistant to weakspot damage even when their head is exposed was a mistake.

10

There’s a couple of weird things I’ve noticed with them beyond just the absurd amount of health they have behind their shield (which I think needs to be changed; either they need to Look like a completely different, stronger enemy of the same size, or they need to act like the enemy mobs they already are visually identical to once their shield is broken)

  • The shield hitbox seems larger than the shield itself a lot of the time. I’ll make a side swing at them that Should hit their side, but it brings up the blue hitmarker instead, and because they have so much more health than they should I have no way of knowing if it’s just a visual bug or an actual gameplay bug. I’ve also found myself hitting them while they’re facing someone else, and unless i’m at the very back, I’ll clonk the shield somehow? It’s weird. Perhaps it’s their helmets? The weakspot damage needs to be re-tuned, by the way.
  • They are Completely immune to Psyker’s brain burst. I know the brain burst blitz is kind of a joke and its main purpose is to either dish out a lot of damage on a boss, or to get the free special/elite enemy kills every 12 seconds, but I decided to try using the blitz on Vanguards because their durability is that frustrating. I found that, no matter what, you CANNOT hit them with the brain burst blitz. You cannot use the primary attack mode on them as it does not lock, and you cannot unleash the secondary attack mode onto them despite their heads lighting up as it does with other enemies. It is very strange and very frustrating that the most fun way to bypass armored enemies (popping their squishy brains with my incomparable mind) just doesn’t work at all on them. I hope this is remedied, if nothing else is.

Edit: Also, to add: They should count as elites or specials for the sake of buffs/talents. They are far too tanky right now for them to not be. Unless they get nerfed, in which case, wonderful. Don’t worry about it.

11

I like em

12

Vet’s probably my main, I’ll add I’d like it if you could headshot them if their noggin is poking over the shield. It would reward precision shooting and force veterans to pause to aim instead of magdumping their lasrifle into an oncoming crowd.

edit: to be clear I like them as a concept, especially if they turn up on lower difficulties because then new players instantly understand what a bulwark is and how it works when they do encounter one.
I think they need a bit of tweaking that others have already mentioned (readability, visual feedback/weird durability for the appearence, shield hitbox) but I believe most of that is ‘lever pulling’ where you adjust some numbers, not rework the enemy.

13

That’s part of the issue though, you can already shoot them in the head since their shields don’t cover them, but Fatshark had the great idea to punish precision for some reason with the 50% damage reduction on the head on the release implementation of the vanguards. It’s a bit better now, but they still are trying to punish precision by having arbitrary DR on their heads (25% for dregs, 35% for scabs) that you can’t counter except for outright more damage.

14

i speculate that they came up with the DR concept because people were oneshotting them with every meta weapon when they had “just bruiser” stats.

so i wouldn’t be surprised if it was just the same old “let’s just punish everyone instead of nerfing outlier weapons” concept again

15

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Wonderful these arseholes take more punishment than a bulwark most of the time an other horribly implemented idea from Fatshark.

At least make them elite enemy. Since they take more punishment.

16

No need to. Just make them die like regular trash (or let them have 2x HP of regular trash) after shield is destroyed / they get heavy staggered, or when you hit them from behind or flank them. And make them resistant to DoTs and any other damage (except the one that negates the shield) while they maintain their defense stance. So you still need to play around the shield - just don’t waste tons of time on each and every trash bugger in the crowd.

17

Encountering bigger group is such a pain honestly. They suppose to replace bulwarks, but bulwarks were never this common and they at least triggered elite kill talents.

The main issue is their resilience when hitting them to exposed parts not covered by the shield.

18

Here’s my issues with vanguard.

  1. They literally cannot be staggered. They have no stagger animation even after losing their shield.
  2. Their HP pool is insanely high.
  3. Shield has weird hitbox.

I’m pretty sure an attack that knocks the heaviest ogryns into floor should be sending these shieldboys into the air, but they must be heavier and stronger than crushers and bulwarks to withstand such high staggering attacks.

Idk what kind of Nurgle juice they’ve been taking to bulk up without changing their physique.