VETERAN needs a big rework; its AMMO economy must change too

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
122

My biggest gripe with the range gameplay is target selection by players.

In Vermintide there was friendly fire. Although I agree FF should NOT be in Darktide, this forced players to fire at appropriate targets. IE Snipe. Darktide doesn’t have snipers since shooting a teammate in the back has no negative effect other than wasting ammo.

Great call! This could be a solution to help ammo econ in Darktide. Headshots replenishing ammo can sustain and reward good play.

The answer is simple to me, clear as day. Which baffles me why it wasn’t implemented since Saltzpyre has the ability to dual wield.

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No weapon swapping, or the “secondary weapon” is a heavy gun. Vets should have the unique ability to 1h sword/1h pistol.

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This solves some of the vulnerabilities allowing vet to block while selecting targets with a ranged weapon.

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Sorry but that happens to be the point I am specifically talking about. You’re glossing over large parts of the game and saying “well you can just run up and hit it” :zany_face:

The fact that you can play 100% melee more easily than 100% ranged is kind of irrelevant. Naturally melee is going to be favoured in this scenario. Fact remains you’re putting yourself at a significant disadvantage because it’s a HYBRID game. If you melee 20 poxwalkers and shoot 1 flamer, is that 5% ranged weapon focus? Because imo the flamer is much higher threat.

Sounds like it’s just more melee-favoured than you prefer – which is fine? IMO this is the heart of the discussion, so…

Depends on the gun. It sounds like you are referring to specific instances or weapons where this holds true and applying it across every scenario. The logic just doesn’t hold up here.

Not in every situation. Honestly the reason I started to play Veteran was to annihilate all ranged enemies as vengeance for every tragic Zealot death (my first class from launch, many learnings since). Gunners are a threat, and you can’t always just run up and kill them.

Often you can, and I consistently get more ranged elite kills on my melee class because gettin’ in there against them is super effective (and satisfying). On the other hand, many wipes were caused by gunners getting in a good position and laying waste to the team. Just an example of how scoreboard or ‘how often you are holding the weapon’ doesn’t necessarily translate to value in-game.

Making slide cost resources (stamina/dodge) would help with this balance more than ammo tweaks imo.

On another note, I’m curious about the old (pre-13) Veteran de-aggro mechanic because I think it might solve some issues around increasing ranged weapon uptime. IIRC shooting enemies gave you aggro reduction for a time?

I didn’t play Vet at that time, but in my mind it seems like a good idea to help Vet players focus on ranged target priority without relying on a coordinated team.

124

Agree with the post except for this. Maybe it was just the activate condition, but it felt awful playing with a Vet, and suddenly all the shooters in an area would just switch and laser beam you down. On top of that, the Vet would be standing still in a corner, unwilling to move, until either a couple of poxwalkers or a disabler downed them.

Personally I believe the best way to help ranged gameplay is just nerf players and reduce the total number of spawns. Less armored elites means non AP guns are more viable, there will be less pressure on the backline, and less worry about ammo consumption. More threatening individual enemies means target prioritization will be more important for people who are shooting etc.

125

Do you remember what the ability was exactly? I’m struggling to find it online!

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Camo Expert

It shared the line with:

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Yes. It was called camouflage and it basically stopped enemies targeting you as long as you were standing still.

There’s already a bone thrown to that toxic playstyle through the infiltrate threat reduction sub node. The only reason nobody takes that is right side being too inefficient for your talent points.

128

Like combining a smyker with a stealther.

/shiver

129

Tbh i was the one who preferred unwavering focus over camo expert, but in current game situation camo expert certainly will be a good addition.

130

Unwavering focus was the talent that enabled terminator mode when you’re in Executioner’s Stance. Just keep walking forward and potshot everyone in the head.

131

Pretty much as veteran was supposed to.

132

If we’re talking about reworking the survivalist aura, I’d suggest looking to Vermintide 2 for inspiration. In it, ammo wasn’t restored to everyone. Killing a specialist gave one ammo pouch that only one player could pick up. In a game like Darktide, where ammo is more needed, said pouch just needs to restore more than one or couple extra bullets.

I’d suggest creating a special looking ammo pick-up created specifically by the Veteran. An ammo supply that gives more ammo than the small pickup but less than the big, red pickup. Because it would be just one, singular pack of ammo, while it would give more ammo than the survivalist aura that we have currently, it wouldn’t give said ammo to everyone at the same time.

And speaking from a perspective of someone, who wishes for Darktide’s gameplay to be slower than it is now, this change would force the players to stop and look to the Veteran if they would want free ammunition after killing an elite/specialist.

And I’d also either make the aura give ammo only after killing a specialist or increase its cooldown from 5 seconds to 7.5-10 seconds.

133

I don’t see the game or the spawns slowing down enough to make this a good rework.

And even of the game were to slow down enough to make this a good rework, the last thing I want to do is track another pickup.

It works well enough in VT2 bur DT would have to become a fundamentally different gane for this to be a good idea.

134

Just started reading the thread but this already itches me. No melee play is not inherently harder to master than range play. It always depends on weapon, class and setup. A light attack knife ogrin setup is as numb as an infantry las. If you however pick a hellbore you have quite the strategic game to play: when to swap to melee, when to poke, when to charge and finally landing headshots on very wiggly enemies. You have to learn walking patterns, stagger movements of eg. Bulwarks, quick scoping, accurate hand eye movement. In contrast to that short click long click with a bit camera swing for hordes and long click short click with out camera swing for everything else (shock maul) is quite easy :D.

In range you have to deal with most nuisances you have to deal with in melee but you do not have the tools: aka bursters/ hounds/ rangers. Yes you have a chance to kill them before they get to you but when they closed the distance you have to swap to manage them. In the meantime you can indefinity run around in melee untill you want to kill snipers.

I am definitely a melee main as gun play exhausts me too quickly except some nice spray and pray or psyker homing missiles builds.

135

It’s not because how the game is balanced. But there are more mechanics and it has more depth in its core, so potentialy it can be harder to master.

Look at some newer weapons like 2h force sword - slide attacks, sprint attack. And there are old techs like push, push attacks, chains, special actions, different attack angles, perfect block.

What do you have with guns in DT? Buttstock special attack, torch? Yeah, there are 1,5 guns with special ammo. But as i said many times, there are no recoil patterns to learn. There are no extremely fast enemeis that perform teleportation, twitchy moves or dodges or have a tight weakspot hitbox.

When you switch your main melee weapon, you go and check chains. Or when new melee weapon drops. You want to know efficient combos for solo targets and hordes, wich attacks you can skip, block cancel, etc. With guns you don’t relearn that much.

You can watch new players gameplay, noone struggles to understand how to use plasma, reccon, flamer or rumbler. Meanwhile melee combat and melee movement takes some time for it to "click”.

It’s just in DT, unlike in V2, your offensive melee capabilities are much powerfull. So you don’t need to utilize block and shove that much in precise timings mixing it with attacks. And some deffensive layers are also much more forgiving than in V2 - toughness, dodge distance. So melee in DT is more spammy and arcade-ish.

But fundamentaly there are more inbuilt techs and just input buttons combinations for melee you can use.

And it always will be like that, cause melee has 2 layers - offensive and defensive and it breeds insane ammount of variables. You can look at PvP gneres. You can jump on any modern shooter or oldschool arena shooter and be somewhat average player. And you will find that a lot of things you learn are not about guns, but map control and movement. And those things you need to train muscle memmory for - they are not presented in DT gunplay.

But goodluck to jump in Tekken or MK even. Fightings are much more hardcore and so they are more niche than your average COD.

Like i don’t hate shooting, one of my all time favorite game is Unreal Tournament 2004. And in DT i played vet more than zealot. It’s just gunplay in DT isn’t that advanced or interesting to justify making it even more presented, imo.

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Bro really thinks that adding one or two simple combos to your muscle memory if hard enough to put it above shooting.

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And the best ranged weapons (bolter, Pgun, flamer) usually have no way to block attacks, abysmall dodge count and distance, and make your character slow as molasses. Now some people are arguing that turning into sanic the hedgehog with the combat blade mk3 requires more skill than staying alive with a spearhead boltgun…

To make it more clear: If 15 Crushers are on top of you, would you try to boltgun them all? or use your knife to run away or even kite then? which sounds safer?

138

While I agree that the gunplay in Darktide is largely unremarkable, I do quite enjoy the Helbore. The charge time adds that extra layer of complexity that fits in just right without taking too much effort to distract from hitting shots. (However it does sort of exemplify a balance problem, when one of the only ranged weapons that feels good to shoot a lot has basically infinite ammo and really good ap, how are things like an Infantry Las or Vigilant/Headhunter Auto going to compete?)

As for the bolter vs knife comparison, the knife is going to be stronger but I would argue that it would still take more mechanical complexity to use it than the Bolter. Bolter you magdump, dodge back while reloading or switch to another weapon, run, reload, magdump, etc. While the knife you have to put yourself in danger, as one mistake and you will be fully dead in Havoc (or 1 health full corruption on zealot), know the Crushers attack patterns, know your own combos, and time your attacks and dodges correctly. Is it hard on knife? No, but it still requires learning and using more mechanics than using the bolter (I’m saying this as a bolter simp btw).

I think Purgatus exemplifies this perfectly, as you don’t even have to aim to screenclear everything except Crushers and bosses, and still do good damage to them. Zealot flamer is the same but not as strong and you have to reload. Ogryn Rumbler is aim in the general direction.

TLDR: while Vet ranged gameplay could definitely use some tuning up, imo melee combat is more mechanically complex than ranged and making ranged too strong, as it already is in some cases, is bad for balance and makes the game too easy without having the complexity it should.

139

Bolters have less dodge distance/count than a knife. How is using knife is more dangerous to stay alive? How is the bolter making you stay alive longer with “less skill”? Of course in this hyptothetical scenario we are implying you are either fully commiting to ranged or melee which we know is not usually how most real game scenarios go, but forget the bolter for a second, remember the thunder hammer? yeah, how thunder hammer stats require less skill to survive than a knife? The difference is the Thammer blocks, the boltgun magdumps, both take one million years to reload/charge/sertup depending on your build.

“ranged makes the game too easy”

By game you mean ≤auric I suppose, which would be a fair assesment, but how do you make the game (as in the whole game, not just a set of difficulties)

  • Fast Paced
  • Not too easy
  • Varied
  • Not artificially difficult
  • Not vermintide 3

?

140

I assumed we were talking about actually killing the Crushers not running away from them. Yes the knife is easier to run away from Crushers than the boltgun. The las pistol is also easier to run away from Crushers than the boltgun.

Thunder Hammer still has to contend with all of the other things I mentioned, while also having an egregious self stun. Boltgun does not, you can move and dodge while reloading. Again, I understand what point you’re making if you are only talking about kiting, but I’m talking about fighting and killing them. Las pistol and auto pistol are both ranged weapons, with the las pistol being really good, that are also great options for kiting.

I had a group of specific examples when I said this. I also said that Veteran gunplay does need a tune up, just that it shouldn’t be made too strong like the examples I gave.

Auric is just too easy in general, ranged and melee.

I don’t have a single answer for this. I do believe that lessened player power for less elites what be good for everything in the game, and would go a long way to make the game feel less artificially difficult and more varied, as weapons with bad AP would be more viable.

141

This video has some interesting ideas. I always like to hear from players who have the experience to see the good parts of weapons/abilities as well as the flaws rather than just saying “I am bad with this therefore it is bad”. Relevant stuff is in the first six minutes, after that it is just gameplay:

AI summary (please note they are the ideas of the video creator, not proposals I am personally making):

  • Context & goal

    • Focus: Havoc 40 lobbies; Veteran is strong but locked into a stale meta (Survivalist aura + Voice of Command, plus Weapon Specialist or Focus Target, and Bolter/Plasma).
    • Aim: leave meta options mostly intact (only minor nerfs) while buffing underperforming abilities, auras, and keystones to create viable alternatives.

  • Abilities

    • Executioner Stance

      • Buffs: ranged damage bonus 25% → 30%.
      • Gains +1% damage reduction per second while active (up to 30%).
      • Logic: rewards the ability to keep the stance buff rolling for as long as possible.

    • Voice of Command

      • Baseline tweak: replenish 50 flat toughness to nearby allies (not above max), stagger enemies, and grant allies 5s stun immunity.
      • Nodes: Only in Death Does Duty End loses its cooldown increase; Duty and Honor allows overcap toughness but +50% cooldown.
      • Logic: transfer the uptime penalty from the bad node to the OP node.

    • Infiltrate (major rework toward saboteur theme)

      • On use: full toughness, 8s stealth, +25% move speed.
      • While stealthed: grenades +50% damage, +25% radius, stacks with Grenade Tinkerer; throwing grenades no longer breaks stealth.
      • Objectives capture 50% faster; data interrogators reveal 2 lines.
      • 50s cooldown, 2 charges. Remove Overwatch and Low Profile nodes.
      • Logic: buff it but don’t copy zealot stealth, give it a playstyle.

  • Auras

    • Survivalist: unchanged.
    • Fire Team: now +15% ranged weak-spot strength.
    • Close and Kill: -15% talent cooldowns (does not affect abilities).

  • Cover peeking mechanic (Veteran-unique)

    • While peeking from cover: +50% frontal ranged DR and -50% recoil.
    • Logic: make this class-exclusive mechanic useful.

  • Talents / tree

    • No specific talent changes; restructure the tree for better flow and remove ~half of the 19 “tax” nodes.

  • Keystones

    • Focus Target & Weapon Specialist: remain strong.

    • Marksman Focused: make Camouflage effect baseline to ease stack upkeep.

      • New weapon-type effects per stack:

        • Las weapons: +7.5% rending per stack.
        • Bullet weapons: pierce +1 enemy per stack; at 10+ stacks, can pierce 1 carapace target.

  • Grenades

    • Shredder: no change; already versatile (especially with new Infiltrate).
    • Krak: replace underhand throw with impact detonation; remove stagger on impact to balance (less boss value, better responsiveness vs close Crushers).
    • Smoke: keep power; outside the smoke, vision is 50% blocked (not 100%) to reduce team frustration.

  • Weapons

    • Lasguns (all variants): +10 flat damage; add auto-fire option (no change in ROF just prevent irl damage to players’ joints).

    • Plasma gun: remove left-click “safety”; at 97% heat, firing overheats/explodes (≤96% safe), mirroring Psyker Peril risk.

    • Chainsword: +35 flat damage; Bloodletter becomes baseline.

      • Possible replacement blessings: stacking brittleness/rending the longer the rev is connected; or halve rev duration while keeping total damage.

    • Power sword: no proposal.

    • Shovel: fine as is.

  • Known issues (bugs and hidden effects)

    1. Executioner Stance currently grants full stun immunity while active (like Ogryn passive) despite no tooltip mention.
    2. Chainsword Bloodletter bleed kills don’t refresh Executioner Stance, but Shredder bleed kills do.
    3. Intermittent chainsword smoke cloud visual bug that persists over weapons until mission end (cosmetic but obstructive).