This will be my last piece of feedback on Darktide. I want to showcase what weapon swapping looks like on Vermintide 2 and why it’s so beautiful as a system: 1) It facilitates the ability to react more easily to special units 2) it doesn’t break the flow of action 3) It enables smooth gameplay 4) It promotes the player to pull off interesting combos with weapons.
War hammer + Executioner Swap:
Let’s say for a moment, your using a War hammer to manage a horde with the huge stagger effect of the weapon. Then an Armored Beastmen, Berserker, or Plague Monk start charging at the party. The Voice Actors of Ubersreik 5 call out the enemy as an ally tags them. You see them coming straight towards a vulnerable ally that’s too busy dealing with the overwhelming horde. What do you do? Well, you swiftly switch to your massive Executioner sword. Wind a power attack up. Hold it as long as you can so you can carefully aim for the head. Then let go of your mouse button as soon as the target charges within melee range. Hitting the target’s noggin in the process. Like baseball where you hit ball with bat. If done correctly the high value target would be immediately beheaded and dispatched.
Sounds cool, right? Here’s what it looks in practice:
Notice how there’s no unnecessary delay with the action. The swap is done instantaneously, so much so, it feels like water - hence it being “fluid” to operate.
Halberd + Handgun Swap:
Next example, so the above instance was with melee switching. How about melee to ranged. After all Vermintide has firearms too! Consider this, you’re playing as a class that is a ranged dps specialist. You’re carefully analyzing the battlefield for disablers that may spawn whilst also dealing with enemy melee units. You see a packrat off the corner of your eye. What do you do? You can’t risk this packrat advancing any closer towards the party. However, you need to act instantly lest it’ll ruin your formation and possibly result in a situation where members become separated from party, are unable to reposition, get overwhelmed, and end up losing the run. So, you quickly switch weapons, aim, line your shot, then fire once you have a good shot. If in the middle of a horde rush and can’t line shots easily, you pop your ult which will facilitate you to better line shots.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
For those saying that they need to add some balance for heavy weapons. Well, Vermintide 2 already had that figured out as well.
Melee to Torpedo Gun:
Notice how there’s a little soft animation delay when Bardin switches to the massive gun and brings it up. However, it’s not a hard delay, I can still fire as soon as I swapped to the gun. Meaning it’s not as restricting that it prevents me from reacting to a situation.
Melee to Flamer Gun:
Same thing here. There’s a little soft animation delay when Bardin brings the weapon up but I can still cancel it and fire. Additionally, with both Torpedo and Flamer gun there’s a balance where both weapons take a bit longer to reload/cool off. That’s terrific game design as it balances the heavy feel of the weapons. Which is a point I’ve seen people bring up countless times in this thread. So you wanted know how it’s done, well, there’s your solution to a very simple “problem” that can be addressed without ruining your combat.
Then, on top of all that, there’s these cool little combos you can do with fluid swapping. See:
Doesn’t that look cool, doesn’t it look fun, doesn’t it make you want to do the same thing too? Think of the type of combos a player can pull off with this mechanic if they practice at it. I for one can attest that in my 1k hours of playing Vermintide 2 I got very good at reacting to Blightstormers, Packrats, Leechs, and special units because of this feature. I can also pull fun little combos too.
This is in part why I feel Darktide’s combat is such a regression to Vermintide 2.
The flow of action is predicated on how good it feels to switch between weapons on the spot. You can’t break the flow with these unnecessary delays that don’t add anything of value to the game, except for making the combat more clunky. It has to be snappy to switch weapons. It has to feel natural doing so. It has to not ruin the flow of combat or get in the way of it. This is essential stuff to understand when designing an action game such as this. It is bad design to create artificial mechanics which impose upon the flow of action; it’s bad design, in my opinion, as it prevents players from truly enjoying your fast paced game. Devil Mary Cry and Doom Eternal are perfect examples in this regard, as they showcase what good design looks like for fast games such as this.
Devil May Cry 5 facilitating different combos with weapon switching:
Doom Eternal’s snappy swapping:
Closing thoughts: this is of course just my opinion, as with all things, I’m not claiming to be an authority on how game makers should design or create their game. That’s for them to do so, after all, they probably have more experience at it than I do. In that regard, my opinion can be disregarded and thrown into the trash for all I care. However, it’s just how I feel about this issue and I so love sharing my opinion with other like-minded individuals who may appreciate it. I also very much enjoy reading their opinions too. It’s super stimulating to my brain when I do so. I hope the rest of you enjoy Darktide.