I already made tons of negative feedback about state of Zealot so I want to know make more nautral/positive feedback about Veteran, currently the most solid class in Darktide, but not without it’s issues. Please understand I only leave feedback here because I love tide games so much I want to make them better and more fun. I am maining Vet now and I had my fair share of Diff 4-5 games with my V2 team.
Before I dive in, to sum it up: the problem of Veteran is that 70% of his good stuff is his passive baselie. The talents you get during level (90% of them) are bland, have almost ZERO impact of how you feel your gameplay has changed, give no additional impact or feedback of your gameplay, do not significantly change your power enough to feel like it’s a capstone in your leveling progression and many of them have LUGHTABLE numbers behind them. Those talents need complete rework.
So first of all, lets talk about passives:
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Ult. It’s great, that’s it. BUT it should not rely on talents to add more enemies being highlighted. It’s a waste of talents space and talent selection. Ult should be default highlight every elite + special enemy in game. Period. You can be way more creative with talents than this. But overall Ult is great, I love it.
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40% more ammo. Too low for dedicated range class. It should be 50% minimum. 75% was MAYBE little too high in CB, but think of it this way: the more passive he has here the less he needs ammo around map so other classes with lower ammo count can get more ammo. It’s more co-op friendly to give him more ammo passive. Since Veterans shoot the most during match, they also in the end need almost as many ammo boxes as others. More passive ammo makes other classes play better. Also if you have couple of Veterans in team, more passive ammo will also make ammo management during map better.
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15% more headshot damage. It’s solid. I like it. But imo it should be 20% to promote more precise shooting on targets. It’s SHARPSHOOTER. The more passive to weakspot damage you will give the more you will engage players into learning precise shooting. Make it 20%.
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Ammo back on kills. Would be nice to see PRECISE % number here not “small amount”… what’s that? Be more precise. But it should be like 10% ammo back so players can also feel it at lower difficulties where there is less elites/specials.
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Frag Greande. Good stun and AOE.
Now. Talents. Talents in same rows in games should be AS COMPETETIVE AS POSSIBLE. So it’s actually hard to chose right one OR to put it better: some talents should work better for some scenario/loadouts so you need to jug around them. Right now, there is like 1 okish talent in each row and rest is garbage. My below proposed talents are just guides what mindset you need behind talents. They should offer competetive choices. Not fillers.
So talents level 5:
- Confirmed Kill and At Arms Length are both good. I like to be more in front and melee more so Confirmed Kill is better for me. AAL is better for those that sit more behind and just shoot and it’s pure passive. But 8 meters on some maps is way too big. Should be 6 meters in my opinion.
- Exhilareting Takedown is little too weak. It’s not bad when you kill trash with weakspot shots when you are in “cover shoot game” with range enemies. 10% toughness back is sadly not enough for higher level difficulties for how much damage their shots do. 15% would be better than that on Diff 4-5 with how much range squads there is there. I would also add stronger suppression here but I don’t know how it’s calculation work. But overall level 5 is his most solid row.
Talents level 10:
- Sniper is great. It actually impacts how you play game, it boost what you shoul do (snipe) and promotes taking targets out before they can get close. Very good talent.
- Tactical Reload. Not competetive enough. 20% reload? This talent should be something like “Deal 15% more range damage to carapace and flak armor enemies”. Now it’s competetive with Sniper. More open map? Sniper. More closed map? More armor damage.
- 1 Grenade per 45 seconds. Not worth it. However “increase grenade impact radius by 100%” or “Increase number of grenades you can carry by 100%” is way more impactful. So more/stronger grenades for extra control/stun or more long range damage or more armor damage? Now we start to talk about choice on this level.
Talents level 15:
- Bio-Optic Targeting. Garbage filler. This should be built-in Ult. Don’t waste talent slot for something like that. What we should have here is maybe something like “Increase magazine size of all weapons by 50%”. That’s impactful. That’s a good progression feeling. More selfish while other two are more team-based.
- Demolition Team: first, it’s 8% per Elite Kill. That’s way too low. It should be 15% per Elite/Special kill and then we would check how it goes and adjust if needed to be higher. It’s good talent concept but numbers are too low.
- Covering Fire. Just bad. 4% toughness? Seriously? Where one enemy lasgun volley takes away like 50% of your toughness on Diff 4-5? No. How about we go with “You and all allies in Coherence have 30% faster reload speed”. Check and adjust that % number after testing. Better shooting experience for everyone. Now that’s impactful.
Talents level 20:
- Unwavering Focus. Good talent. Synergizes well with refresh talents at level 30. Solid.
- Duck and Dive. Bad talent. If you are ADSing and dodging enemies fire you don’t need stamina. It’s not like you stand in the open and shoot, since that’s stupid. Sprinting to avoid fire… when enemies fire cancel your sprinting… is it a joke? Change it to something like “Swaping to range weapon (also by using ult) after killing enemy in melee is now 50% faster and first shot deals 30% extra damage in next 5 seconds”. Now that’s impactful capstone for dedicated range class. Swapping to range when in melee to deal with special is essential gameplay loop. Enchancing that makes for really good experience. So this talent is better for more front-line Vet while first one for more back-line vet.
- Camo Expert. No. Standing still in Tide games is mostly suicide. Besides when you move it resets so it has limited usage. How about Skull Cracker: “First Headshot will always fully stagger elite/special enemy”. This makes for really good impact when you have something like mauler/rager/crusher on your face or Reaper/Gunner firing already or staggering runnig dog/bomber or grenadier. First headshot will always stagger them (next will not unless its high stagger weapon already like bolter or shotgun) giving you room to finish them or to stop their combo/volleys/movement. It requires precision too and it helps team as staggered enemies takes more damage. Also makes more range weapons impactful at higher difficulties.
Talents level 25:
- Frag Storm. Bad. 2 damage per second from nades? It’s bad. Unless you will buff bleeding by a lot, this talent sucks. Besides make it cooler. How about “Fire Storm”? “Your Frag grenades now explode with fire, dealing additional fire damage for 10 seconds but stagger is reduces by 50%”. You already have incendiery nades on enemy grenadies so it should be easy to implement. It also gives much bigger “visual impact” for a talent so you actually see that your progression gave you something cool. Bleed on nades are not even visible. So less control but more DPS. Fair trade.
- Deadshot… What the hell is “Alt fire”? Secondary Action ADS like it’s shown in weapon stats? Alt fire like special attack? Just make it “25% critical chance adn 60% sway reduction while ADS but lose 10% stamina per second”. That’s it.
- One After Another. Not good enough for level 25. It should feel cool. How about “25% chance to replenish magazine size on Elite/Special Kill”. % number to test and ajust. But that’s impactful, that’s visible. Good feedback. Better the higher difficulty goes.
Talents level 30:
Overall all are good, but again don’t make highlighting enemies a talents/part of it. Bonuses feel good here so far. Each one has impact on overall gameplay.