What will the gameplay be like?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
21

I see a lot of references to DRG or Left 4 Dead and how the gunplay is pretty shallow and maybe not what we’re hoping for for Darktide.

Let me introduce you to Payday 2.

Payday 2 is 95% ranged combat for you and the enemies, and the game is every bit as punishing, challenging and skill intensive as VT2 on the highest levels. The games various perk decks (closest analog to classes) offer a huge range of play styles each with really specific mechanical demands. Juggling armor recovery, health regen,
the press of enemies, ammo management, dealing with specials. It’s all there and really freaking hard on the highest level. There is a ton of nuances to learn in order to succeed. And I’ve only managed about 2/3rds of the heists in the hardest difficulty despite over 700 hours with the game.

Payday 2 is the reference point I’d suggest.

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22

I agree.

Thanks! I have played it, but not enough to use it as an example. Hopefully it will be more like that.

It’s why I was hinting at BF4 style gunplay (obviously ignoring some some of the issue with lag and random bullet deviation in that game, which wouldn’t be as big of an issue in a PVE game anyway).

23

What I feel might happen to make melee favorable to use as potentially main weapon is the current VT2 temp hp system, where you can get THP by melee only.

I would like to see some possible melee attacks using the ranged weapons as well, be it a bayonet on las rifle or using autocannon (assuming we get an ogryn character) as a heavy bash instrument.

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24

I’m expecting/hoping the mobility isn’t drastically different from V2, with a slightly more rewarding gunplay. I’m hoping breakpoints cease to be a thing (or is at least reigned in) and the enemy roster is vast and balanced out enough to counter gunplay so melee is still a necessary tool to master.

The skies the limit as long as ammo resupply is conservative, the melee fun and rewarding, and the meta doesn’t get held hostage by ammo regen and breakpoints.

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25

If you don’t have something like breakpoints how do you think they should manage equipment or progression?

Could reaching the breakpoints early on be the answer to this?

The reason I ask is because of downtime, and FS needing to add enough depth and longevity to mechanics to keep people interested.

It’s why Overwatch PVE is boring after 2 rounds.

26

I think the necessity of breakpoints in V2 is overdone.

Pardon in advance if I’m blowing it out of proportion, this’ll be a rant that goes everywhere; I think some balance problems are the direct result of how certain classes can reach 1-hit breakpoints on particular weapons or how the dlc end game is so tight that it causes balance problems in base game difficulties, creating a weird experience. Ranged weapons in V2 go through bizarre phases because ranged classes will take weapons into the stratosphere, which then led to weapons getting weird changes. Not all were terrible, shotguns, repeater handgun, bows, and staffs are fun to play, but then you have the terminally broken repeater pistol which will never be good because a single class can make it strong enough to delete chaos warriors. Melee weapons don’t suffer as much, but there’s definitely issues because of how one class can take certain weapons way above and beyond anyone else, like xsword, I’m actually all for the xsword nerf, but there’s definitely loads of peeps upset about that weapon being brought in line when it was the only good weapon for Kruber for so long.

Breakpoints also dominate builds. It’s easy to accept because why wouldn’t you want to kill high threat enemies like specials as fast as possible? But why does something like stagger breakpoints have to exist? The game still punishes tank or support builds by locking stagger behind breakpoints as well. There’s almost no room for builds as a tank class. It sucked while leveling up and feels bad hopping in game with footknight and being suddenly unable to control hordes because you have the wrong charm on in order to get a valuable 1-hit breakpoint for handgun. Doesn’t make sense to me why tanks should be forced to following the same breakpoint style build just to be able to CC enemies.

The secretive nature about them is also a headache.This probably sounds crazy, but I didn’t feel like I was getting the “real” experience in this game until after I had reached Legend difficulty and grinded out red gear, spent hours trying and failing to figure out builds and then more hours just reading guides because how nuance V2 is, honestly, a little psychotic and requires reading a book of meta info collected by people who actually cracked the files open to understand wtf was going on in game. End game after reading through guides written by data miners is so so so much more fun than early and mid game! I don’t really see why weapons can’t do what they’re supposed to do as soon as you equip them. Yes, there are some incredibly rare, niche breakpoints in the game and I’m sure the few people that found them felt awesome, but those niche builds ended up just not being useful; curiosities to be highlighted as meme builds.

One more thing, because of how breakpoints were handled we got to sit through that complete disaster of combat 2.0. 1-shotting enemies in melee was a bad one day, so damage was gated behind staggering an enemy first, and then augmented by talents meant to compliment playstyles and weapon choice, but ended up being such a convoluted cluster that the only good stagger talents turned out to be anything that lets you ignore the stagger system completely. A bunch of weapons just up and died and were never brought up back to where they needed to be until modders took it on themselves to fix them.

IMO, I think weapons should just do what they’re supposed to do. Builds shouldn’t be enslaved to hitting breakpoints so weapons can fulfill their purpose. If anything I’d rather the focus of builds be to allow weapons and skills do new or different things instead. Especially since 40k has more diverse and fantastical weaponry, it would make even less sense if all of those machineguns, meltas, flame throwers, and chainswords were still stuck in the same 1-hit breakpoint rat race.

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27

V2:

While I agree with you on:

  • Vagueness of stats
  • Ranged Careers/Weapons becoming insane
  • Trying different mechanics instead of breakpoints

I tend to like the way they work in V2, but I rarely go for them unless it’s a Ranged Special Kill or a specific Elite 2-shot.

Chaos enemies have more HP and are harder to deal with, and there’s 3 other people in your group, so getting exact numbers seems pointless to me in the long run, and stacking Chaos + ‘x’ seems the way to go, since Skaven are so easy to fight. I’d much rather focus on what the Weapons are good at and not whether or not you can Cleave one more enemy.

So overall, I never saw breakpoints as an issue. The only things that made them frustrating was a lack of clarity and the crafting system.

If they were clearer about damage in Darktide, do you think this would help?

Dark Tide:
As you pointed out, and in my opinion, the main issue with breakpoints, is Ranged. In a more ranged-focused game this can become extremely difficult to balance around, as people will have differing levels of skill.

I do however think that Breakpoints on Ranged will be easier to balance for than in Vermintide, because of the lack of Stagger mechanics. It’s just straight up:

(Accuracy vs Fire Rate vs Ammo Capacity vs Ramp Up Speed vs Projectile Speed vs DPS/DPM) and then all of that VS Career mechanics. This then informs the TTK and Cleave, they should have.

Compared to all of that + Stagger mechanics, positioning, damage avoidance, Attack Speed, inherent Crit, etc, in V2.

The game is going be more balanced towards Ranged and so will the Talents/Leveling mechanics, most likely. So I don’t think damage on larger enemies should ever see a reachable breakpoint, unless it’s multiple shots or a long time damaging.

It’s just too easy for 4 people to blow something up with Ranged. Look how fast Ranged Careers melt a Boss that’s far away in V2.

Aiming and shooting something is easier than getting damage off in V2, so something should definitely be done to mitigate it. Having one-shot breakpoints can suck the fun out of the game.

E.g. BH/Zealot, whichever is the better Special killer right now. lol

My argument for breakpoints or damage modifiers would be what I said before about depth and longevity. Maybe they could do your suggestion and use a different leveling/gearing system, but my main argument is that FS take so long between updates that the gameplay needs as much depth as possible to fill the gaps between. Gearing and leveling is probably the best way they can do this.

Damage limitations can also be used as another tool for balancing, as they inform Fatshark on the most popular builds and whether they’re overperforming, underperforming, or performing well where they shouldn’t be.

There has to be some kind of tangible progression or the game will just become boring, and the other way I can see that happening with damage is with Chance on Hit mechanics.

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28

It is the age old problem. It must be simple to pick up, hard to master.

Problem I think is, solutions are a bit stale. Have some extreme target zone on a boss to hit> imaging ONLY causing damage if you hit the packmaster on the back of the Stormfiend. Extreme example I know, but having invulnerable bosses apart from hitting in EXACTLY the right place is annoying.

Make them massive damage sponges> We end up with an uber version of the Tank from L4D2 - damage sponges are tedious.

Erratic behaviour to confuse players? Can get infurating.

So - I think the solution lies with the omnissiah. Imagine the Anathor with various W40k gadgets instead of weave-bonuses you can fit to your guns that kind-of replicate some of the traits in VT2. Increased damage, increased crit chance, increased vs %ages and so on.

If we look at the tools FS have in play currently scattered across the various modes of VT2 we might get a clue. Omnissiah Shrine to upgrade/tinker with your weapons(Anathor) , Classes to offer changes to a characters playstyle, and more options for traits.

The gameplay will likely be 60% shooting, 40% melee.

I’m hoping for some enemies that have hard counters for the players actions. A psychic shield that blocks or ricochets almost ALL gunfire so players must engage in melee to cut down the psyker. Stimm enhanced enemy elites that can shrug off pain long after their brethren die. a Psyker who freezes a player (like the psyker in the fan-made Astartes holds the Marine in place). Grenade Launching Enemies that scatter the players, Gun emplacements that must be flanked. A massive end-boss Chaos Dreadnought…

Stealthy missions, Run-n-Gun missions. A race to an extraction point, and so on.

The main point being, skillful gunplay should be rewarded - and NO I don’t mean bouncing a knife off a wall to kill someone in a meme.

Ok. Getting a bit carried away.

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29

yeah with gunplay its that.

I think the weapons mechanics are as important, if not more so, than making enemy design (enemy weakspots, counters etc).

I’ve remembered Unreal Tournament lately, namely the ASMD Shock Rifle. Damn thats a very fun weapon to use because it has a shock combo: alt-fire launches a slow moving ball of shock, hit it with a hit-scan primary fire to detonate a powerful AoE explosion. Its hard to pull of if you move & dodge, but oh so satisfying and devastating.

I really want these kind of combos in Darktide. It’s like adding another layer of depth to gunplay, same as having combo chains for melee in our Vermintide.

Other notable stuff from UT are Pulse gun, Flak cannon and Rocket launcher - they have 2 very distinct firing modes each.

In comparison, i hope most ranged weapons in Darktide are at least as complex as Empire Longbow.

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30

If the extraction point isn’t a dropship you can fire out the back of while flying into the scorescreen I will be big sad.

The good thing about 40K is the lore for weapons is deep and broad with room for creative liberty. The bad thing about 40k is GW is strict with their IP. So, we might get stuck with the same 5 trademark 40k guns, or we might see interpretations of neat stuff that exist in writing only, a plethora of underhive weaponry running the gamut of garage built stubbers, pre-Imperial artifacts, black market xeno tech and Heretek tampered equipment, Ogryn Rippers, or anything from an Inquisitorial arsenal.

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31

Its probably going to be Vermintide 2 but in the spess, Melee still looks like a big part of the game (in fact they said it would be) but there will probably be dedicated ranged careers like the Karskin we saw in trailers who would probably function similar to say Bounty Hunter. If we want to draw potentially guestimated comparisons, the priest prolly functions similar to Zealot, ect.

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32

Yeah, from the gameplay it looked very similar.

I was expecting more range, but hopefully the weapons are tuned so that it feels like there is, but it isn’t as strong.

My friend’s discussion have just been “What if it’s V2, but with hitscan automatic guns?”.

Also, they’ll have more single target Ranged Weapons and not AoE spam, like Sienna.

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33

This is a big question I also find myself asking. I don’t want it to be a carbon copy of Vermintide but I also don’t want it to lose the skill based, addictive, adrenaline inducing combat either. If it is just a reskin of Vermintide i’d still buy it and play it endlessly but I’m hoping for something a bit different. If Bardin Engi is a taste of the future than that future looks very exciting to me.

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34

The big advantage in ranged combat we got over v2 is that

  1. they already know what to definitly avoid (thanks to v2) and
  2. with a lot more guns of which probably most can rapidfire there is more to balance around then the one repeater gun in v2

I really hope breakpoints arent a big thing, but since many of the guns are (more or less) rapid fire the whole baseline setup is probably different

what also might be intersting what was basically nonexistant in v2 is stopping power (which is logically a counterpoint to pierce)
In v2 ranged weapons usually were brought to the point where they could one-shot all specials and most elites
if they didnt the enemy was usually staggered - but the bullet often went through enemis with low mass
even shotguns which are traditionally famous for their stopping power werent much different then other weapons

but in darktide the point might be that guns either stagger or pierce well
guns with high pierce are better against hordes of ‘low value’ targets to deal maximum damage (or to take out that pesky elite hiding behind the mooks)
while high stopping power slows down the horde (they stagger, get slower, slow down their allies) or single elites (good luck getting close when you are showered with ‘blunt’ ammunition)

and of course we got explosive weapons (among others the (in-)famous bolter) which deliver low pierce but aoe damage and high stopping power

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