What will the gameplay be like?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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As Vermintide is closer to a melee version of L4D, but with added mechanics to give it a huge amount of depth, allowing players to survive almost forever if they’re good enough, it makes me wonder how this is going to translate into a FS FPS game.

Space Hulk: Deathwing, did the same as Deep Rock Galactic, in having guns that are a little awkward to use as to make it more difficult to deal with enemies. This is a frustrating way to cap player skill, imo, so I’m wondering how they might be balancing the skill/amount of enemies on the screen.

The ways of avoiding damage in those games was also a little awkward. In V2, you see them swing and then you can dodge the attack, similar to Dark Souls and Risk o Rain 2. Will this apply and work well with an FPS?

You also had the issue of the ‘ranged meta’ in V2, where ranged completely demolishes everything. So it will be interesting to see how enemies health pools and weak spots are balanced.

Will it be closer to L4D, or will it have climbing/mobility elements?
Will it consider how Overwatch plays as a PVE game (Ult combos, etc)?
Will it be similar to Quake/Doom, lots of movement, difficult enemies all with different movement styles and ways to kill them?

How much depth will the gunplay have?
Will the game have as much depth as V2 has to keep people interested, or is it easier/safer to code a more basic game?

With games like Doom, Overwatch, and the fact that FS are starting to use climbing mechanics for the V2 PVP, it made me wonder if it would inspire any gameplay decisions in Darktide.

My conclusion:

The thing that keeps people interested in V2 is the depth. It makes a PVE game endlessly fun, which is unusual to see outside of competitive PVP games. If you’re capable of making a PVE game with Battlefield 4 gunplay and the enemies of Doom (maybe movement too), Ult/ability combos of Overwatch, I think you’ll be on to a winner.

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Dude, what?

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Drg isn’t as tight feeling I think is what op means. To me playing drg after playing v2 it feels sloppy and less tense from beginning of a level to the end, which is fine and doesn’t take away from the game.

Its also the movement, blocking, tactics/strategy, enemy pathing, levels, customization, enemy moves, etc.

Compare this to a fps like tarkov and tf2.

I hope they lean toward escape from tarkov, cs, rainbow six for darktide and not toward deathwing, halo, overwatch, tf2.

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I speculate that there will be little to no gameplay differences to Vermintide 2. Maybe ranged weapons will be made a bit more complex (different fire modes, better iron sight, maybe different ammo), but I guess there won’t be much difference to V2 otherwise, FS won’t have changed that much in their engine.

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I personally hope they don’t add a lot of gimmicks - synch kills or “cool” things like that. They break immersion for me and usually look silly instead of awesome.

I presume the game will be a lot more like Left 4 Dead - many enemies will probably be melee-based and charge at you, while some rarer and more special enemies will have ranged weapons. Though it could be that we have to use cover and angles to push against enemies who DO have ranged weapons.

Overall; I’d love if it didn’t deviate that much from Vermintide 1/2. I’d just hope it launches with fewer bugs and better crafting. Either no leveling at all (other than just tracking your play time, essentially, as in VT1) or some kind of meaningful leveling that’s more complex than a “hero power” increase.

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Yeah.

I wasn’t dunking on DRG btw! Main mechanic I was pointing to was the ramp up, innacuracy and fire rate of some of the guns (the same as Space Hulk). They do this because if you had BF4 or CoD guns in a game like that, or even V2 guns, you would just kill everything. My point is that it makes the game less fun, but I understand why it’s done.

For me, it’s a tough one. V2 has great melee mechanics, but if you give everyone, say, Repeater Handgun, that can work on Hordes too, it’s going to be way harder to balance.

If it is more FPS focused, which I do want it to be, that means they need to either make enough enemies/give them enough HP/or use ‘awkward’ mechanics to make it difficult. The game is obviously going to have faster fire rates.

Awkward mechanics being:

  • ambushes
  • enemies spawning next to you
  • guns with handicaps (ramp up, innacuracy, ammo capacity, fire rate)
  • projectiles weapons

Would prefer it to land on the ‘more enemies’ and ‘more health’ side, offering crit spots, so there’s more skill depth.

Another mechanic that can be used to combat the game becoming and aim trainer is ‘incoming fire’, so you have to take cover, but I’m not sure if this is going to be that sort of game:

This could definitely fit with V2’s mechanics, if there were ranged enemies who functioned much like the ‘charging lasers’ of RoR2 and Zelda games, where there’s a visable charging up before the Weapon fires, causing you to dodge at the right time. This would make the game more bullethellish, though.

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V2 is blatantly unoptimized and is already struggling with handling the amount of enemies - see targeting and slotting issues -, they cannot ramp it up even more with the current engine - and I seriously doubt that they recoded, god forbid created a new one, lacking time to do it.
It will be better to wait until the guinea pigs provide info on the points that are killing V2.

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That’s the reason I think it’s important to discuss. If you added machine guns to V2, the game would be too easy.

If this is feedback they read, they can preemtively avoid some of the pit falls that will make the game annoying and opt for mechanics that allow you to spam shoot while not making the game too easy.

E.g. Four Ranged Careers on Legend.

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Imo it’s already too late for that.

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Ah, yes, I should have been more specific - obviously things will have to be changed so you can’t scythe down hordes. I imagine enemies will be tougher in relation to our ranged weapons, with less penetration (unless it’s something big).

Ahh, I just can’t wait to use a Lasgun to blast some heretics . . .

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Pretty sure it is. Regarding the fact that FS announced the game for 2021 it should be almost done in terms of basic mechanics atleast (e.g. the gameplay, but also maps, careers, skills, weapons, etc.). It’s nice to see ppl comming up with great ideas here in the forums but i honestly doubt it matters. FS is good at creating fun and engaging games but they really do not shine when it comes to service and communication.

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DRG is superior in this to V2. There you can decide how you want your weapon to behave and ALL choices are valid. Build for DPS, single target or AoE damage, accuracy, clip/ammo, and/or utility effects. Especially with the additional weapon cores.
V2 has some of it on the weapon - and let’s agree that very little traits and properties are useful in V2 - some of it disguised as career talents. You only have 2 choices, adding damage to reach breakpoints and - let’s face it - ammo sustain.

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It doesn’t mean it’s set in stone, and it’s yet to be tested by players.

Things like enemy attacks, spawns (type of spawns e.g. ambush or normal Horde- and elites/special density), enemy health, damage avoidance, ranged weapon effectiveness, have all been changed to varying degrees since V2 was released. These have all had an effect on gameplay, most notably the changes to Range.

Unless they’ve done some serious internal planning, testing and decided on everything in advance of production, which doesn’t sound like the FS I’ve seen, then I don’t think it’s set in stone, and I think the discussion can be valuable.

I think there’s tradeoffs which end up with the exact same outcome I’ve described. The point isn’t about DRG anyway, it’s about the idea of making Weapons or mechanics too awkward to limit player skill or effectiveness.

It does. V2 is supposed to be more of a FPM game anyway. My point is that good FPS players will make a PVE FPS game trivial, but that balancing it by too heavily making the shooting awkward (or the other examples I gave), can just cap skill in a way that doesn’t feel good.

The reason I gave DRG as an example, is that I could feel those limits as mechanics, e.g. ramp up time on the minigun vs enemies that are climbing from beneath you. Feeling that limiting mechanic too heavily can be frustrating.

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You want the cover system of GoW, with the enemy behavior of Halo, plus the weak-spot mechanic that DRG has, with the endless stream of enemies that Serious Sam has to offer.

Not with the V2 engine…

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I actually think making a Left 4 Dead first person game with heavy focus on melee is more difficult than just ranged gameplay like L4D focused on, so I have faith in FatShark. The balance works fine in L4D, doesn’t it? It’s obviously more barebones in terms of game systems, but I don’t think enough to make balancing that impossible.

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No I don’t.

I do too. One of my worries was that they may go closer to Spacehulk than L4D in terms of gunplay. Neither game had much in the way of ‘dodge’ mechanics that FS will hopefully keep.

@doom_hamster
I agree with everything you said.

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it is necessary to add difficulty that way, both to diversify the feel of weapons, and to make 4 players not obliterate everything on sight. Adding more enemies or increasing HP has its limits - because performance and bullet-sponges. But how awkward the weapons are - also has its limits. Its a complex and fine balance of every difficulty aspect.

good questions and i’m also really curious about this.

I’ve played a lot of L4D, Killing Floor 1-2, and from my memory, there wasn’t enough depth in gameplay, it was fun to play 1-2 hours, but after that it felt stale and less interesting. Contrary to Vermintide 1 and 2, which is very interesting because of gameplay depth, BUT it’s different because it’s melee focused.

Doing a PvE horde shooter is a dangerous route to take imo. Its hard to put depth in the gunplay and damage avoidance. Because: 1) you fight predictable AI; 2) they’re usually melee opponents. So the gameplay loop is basically just target practice while keeping your distance.

From here on i see two ways to make gunplay in Darktide interesting:

  1. incorporate PvP shooter spirit in the game with at least 40% of enemies using guns. You fire at enemies which return fire. Include tactics like using cover, flanking, positioning. Problems: its very difficult to make good AI for enemies with guns (good AI examples: F.E.A.R., Crysis series, Titanfall 2, Running with rifles), and its in contradiction to the horde shooter genre - it will require sacrificing the horde feel of the game, and doing map design with lots of cover, but with enough room to escape from melee opponents. So melee enemies and ranged enemies both work to make you switch your tactics on the fly. Its a hard route to do right, particularly how the ranged enemies work and how level design is made. But it could be very fresh, with lots of depth.

  2. go the route of Quake I, or new DOOM’s - also at least 40% of enemies are using guns, but to protect yourself you run and strafe incoming fire. No enemies should have hit-scan weapons, everything should be dodge-able with either reacting to incoming shot, or moving in a correct pattern (~90 degrees to incoming fire).

If there’s a minimal amount of ranged opponents (<20%) - then it would be like playing Verm 2 with a ranged career, me thinks. Would be fun, but not really something new. Devs would need to make really creative designs for ranged weapons, and how enemies react to them, to give ranged combat same level of depth, as for melee in Vermintide. Not just point and shoot like with modern guns. But also charged attacks, timed rewards, different ammo properties…

exactly my thoughts. It is very unusual to find Vermintide depth of combat outside of PvP games.

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Can you explain where the difference in depth comes from in your opinion? To me Vermintide and Left 4 Dead are almost exactly the same games. I still haven’t passed my total play hours from L4D1 and 2, to me the simplicity of the gunplay was one of the things I liked. I’ll admit a lot of that playtime was from the Versus mode which I felt really changed the gameplay up, which I am assuming Darktide won’t be able to do.

You are allowed a lot more diversity with weapon and talent choices in VT2, but in my opinion the game still just boils down to “get from point A to B while hordes and special enemies randomly attack you”. I don’t think melee vs. ranged combat really affects the depth, at least that’s my opinion. A lot of the melee and ranged weapons in this game still share the same moveset after all.

Plus FS said the game is still going to have a focus on the melee combat.

This would make me really worried that the game is going to be Beastmen archer gameplay the entire time. Getting shot at by ranged enemies spread out all over the map is one of the least fun things in VT2, at least for me.

Personally I am hoping they don’t stray too far from the Vermintide formula.

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sure. Vermintide melee has:

  1. a lot of defensive systems: dodging, blocking, pushing and staggering with attacks

  2. how strike hitboxes work - allow for 2 skills: melee headshotting, and swing extension (hitting as many dudes in 1 swing). In general this combat system gives more control, relative to a lock-on system like in Dark souls.

  3. melee weapon design. You can start with either light attack, charged attack, or push attack, and combo into one another. Even if we only take light combo, or charged combo - some weapons have different attacks in the chain (wish there would be more), for example halberd full light combo. Best weapon designs are those, which has every attack useful, which reward going through combos, and have a diverse, immersive feel.

  4. the diversity and complexity of enemies. The enemies really make up for 50% of combat depth. In melee, there’s infantry and there are elites, and they both work so well to make combat interesting. Everything has different stagger resistance and mass limit, so you gotta adapt to whatever situation, like changing position or using your kit differently. They have running&standing attacks, slot system or just falling into hyperdensity instead.

  5. melee teamplay. Sticking close together in melee fights - is skill and a reward. Its a dynamic, natural interaction - by sticking close you reduce the pressure that hordes do to each player, while keeping same or slightly increased damage potential of the whole team. And the specials with elites act to spread out your team - so the highest team skill is remaining together on the move, while dodging the gas, vortex etc.

that’s a huge difference! Without player specials, most of the difficulty is achieved by harder hitting enemies, which you just practice your aim on; more of a twitch shooter, than a tactical combat.

I’m more inclined to believe they said its a 50/50 melee / ranged.
I think they’re going for the same melee&ranged mix, as in Space Marine by Relic. Or more like in Vermintide 1, where every hero was a hybrid in Verm 2 terms.

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This is also true.

I think the Beastman archer is a good example for how not to do it, because they have barely any indication that they’re there, give no visual or audio indication of who they’re shooting at, and their projectiles are near invisible if you’re already fighting something (too much going on, you won’t see the little white streak).

When there’s one group of them and they’re stacked up, it’s not too much of an issue. You can avoid and dodge that by using LoS and fighting enemies there. I don’t think that will work for a Ranged focused game.

Here is the kind of thing that could:
The Stone Golem from RoR, there’s also versions of this style of charged ranged attack that can be dodged in Zelda: BoTW, Gears of War, Halo, for example.

They charge a laser, you dodge as it reaches the end of the charge, they shoot and miss.

I’m not saying they should directly copy this, but it’s a good example of how to do this kind of mechanic well, and to leave space for player skill.

Timestamped RoR2 Stone Golem attack, (try to imagine the teleport the player does as a Vermintide dodge instead):

Now comes the argument of ‘bullethell’ (games where there’s so much damage flying about that the game becomes more about dodging shots than dealing damage, e.g. high difficulty Path of Exile, RoR2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGmwWVq-ck):

I don’t think FS will be adding enough enemies for that to be an issue. Also they could add a cap on this kind of enemy. Entering the ‘bullethell’ part of the game will likely be behind mods, similar to Cata+ mods on V2.

This entire thread is just speculation though. I wanted to discuss some ideas from similar games and what might work or not work for a Vermintide FPS with shooting being the focus. We’ll have to wait and see.

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