Where's the Psyker hotfix

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
62

When you had a decent amount of quellspeed yes. If it was “a bad staff”, it was similar to passiv quelling on melee weapons.

Of course there was obviously. But if you just think about it, it doesn´t really make sense that non-force weapons are passively better than force-weapons, which are class exclusives and actually rely on peril.
If anything it should be the other way round since BB and force-weapons share the same peril-pool.

I get your thoughts about the “why”, but i personally disagree with the reason you claim behind your thoughts.
Yes feats about peril and quelling are useless with guns, but there aren´t many. The most work around the ultimate, BB and warpcharges. You can play pretty much everything on Psyker without much drawbacks or huge differences. And it´s highly welcome to me compared to e.g. a Zealot or Ogryn where the bleedperks are a predefined way to play and have a clear metachoice when we talk about the weapons.

That´s one of the reasons why i call Psyker a great but balanced allrounder with more variety than the others.

Yes pressing R will always be needed anyway, but i think too many poeple underestimate Quicken.

There is no extra damage or so, and yes you´ll lose your warpcharges. But the extra damage you lose is outweight by the amount of attacks you can continue to spam with your force weapons. And with Psychic Communion and Kinetic Flayer it´s not really hard to get your stacks back. Some BB inbetween on gunner or sniper will be a thing anyway.

Also it´s not just that you play around your peril with it. Used correctly then you´ve like the double amount of ultimates up per run. This is a lot of cc helping you to get out of trouble, helps your mates to push etc…

Poeple tend to forget the amount of utility coming with it while just looking at the numbers i guess.

Dunno why you would play FS with Exorcist while using guns tbh… I mean, i play FS with SMG so… there is absolutely no need to quell at any time unless you spam BB across Khasma bridge or so.

Otherwise yes, nothing has changed but it´s just about options if poeple really struggle without the passiv quelling from non-forceweapons.

I don´t want to convince you by any means. As i´ve said, it was just obvious to me that this can´t be intended, because it doesn´t make any sense even if i keep your gunpsyker thoughts in mind. It got fixed now and i´m sure we´ll see other fixes or changes in the future aswell, maybe even for dodgeslide.

And tbh… i tried it this morning with trauma and i think it´s fine. I can get that this is a mentionable change for poeple who´ve played this the last 2 months. But if you break it down, then you´ll only minor-adjust your gameplay, which either last in a bit more melee-combat or active quelling…
Don´t get me wrong, i do get your point, i mean everyone have to deal with one or another change in modern games. But i´m sure this change will become irrelevant in a week or so, especially since the circumstances ingame force you to adapt between melee / range differently from run to run anyway.

It´s just a change you think too much about right now and you´ll automatically adapt for sure.

(You can proof me wrong in the future if you want, but it´s normally the case with such minor-adjustments in games.)

63

The irony is that it’s precisely because peril comes and goes so quickly that non-force weapons aren’t all that attractive of an option.

It doesn’t make sense to make non-force weapons super good at quelling peril, because that still means you have to spam psy powers that generate peril some other way to take advantage of that aspect of them, and it penalizes people who want to go full force weapons by making them functionally worse at using the thing their character is specialized at.

The attractiveness of non-force weapons should be entirely in the fact that they don’t generate peril. But if the whole gameplay loop of the class is predicated on the idea that you run up your peril to 100% in five seconds flat and then dump it to 0% again five seconds later there is no real payoff to not engaging the peril system.

A mundane weapon should be valued for its consistency. It should be the fact that you don’t run up your peril and find yourself unable to attack without risking a detonation that makes it worth using. But because they made psy powers no stronger than regular weapon attacks and peril extremely easy to get rid of that simply isn’t a selling point.

There is no duality between a force psyker who unleashes a small number of extremely powerful attacks but needs time to cool off as a classic “space wizard” and a non-force psyker who is simply a solider like a veteran or zealot except instead of grenades, military training and fanaticism they punctuate their attacks with psychic trickery and brain bursts.

And then if you think about it, if there was that duality the ability to quell more peril should go to the psyker build that is all force weapons, because they use the same resource on two weapons. They would automatically be at a disadvantage if they didn’t also come with the ability to generate more of that resource.

(And sorry for replying two days late, my power went out right as I was typing this :sweat_smile: )

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64

I don’t think you get to proclaim what makes sense or not here, because very little of Psyker design or the way he interacts with force or non-force weapons make much sense. There are builds/talents that rely on being on high peril, and there are talents and builds that rely on dumping peril fairly quickly.

Also I’ll add, even just from a QoL perspective, it’s a given that there would be plenty of people who do not want to play at max peril constantly. The VX and the sound is oppressive and blocks out the game music and worse, critical game sounds.

Further, the damage talent that relies on high peril requires force weapons. It thus makes absolute perfect sense that force sword passive quells a lot slower than non-force. It is exactly what allows for different builds and playstyles.

There’s also the fact that nearly all Psykers were running Purge, which clearly indicates that other playstyles and other staves were in no way overtuned. The removal of quell for non-force has not touched the Purge people at all, it has only worsened the utility and fun of other playstyles. I have nothing against people who play Purge, it is simply incredibly boring to me, and I want to be able to play other staves. The only thing this ‘fix’ did, is make sure that any dynamic and agressive playstyle with Psyker now feels incredibly clunky and unrewarding.

There was no reason for it. It wasn’t overtuned. It wasn’t the most used thing. It was just a playstyle, which FatShark removed. Maybe they knew it existed, maybe they didn’t. Most likely they have no clue how any of their classes can be played - I am sure their incompetence isn’t limited to being unable to create compelling itemization and progression.

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65

The passive quell ratio should be determined by the quell value of your staff no matter which weapon is active at the time

66

How hard should it quell while holding a gun then?

67

More like one step forward 2 steps back, i think this should be Fatshark motto.

68

The thing is this: They copied the mechanic for the Psyker’s peril from Sienna’s heat. But Sienna doesn’t have the option to equip ranged weapons that don’t generate heat, nor does she have the option to equip melee weapons that do.

So, Sienna in Vermintide makes perfect sense. Staff attacks generate heat, melee attacks don’t, so you go back and forth between the two. That’s exactly what people were doing in this game and why they are complaining that passive quelling was reduced on non-force melee weapons.

The issue is that in this game you can equip a psyker with two weapons that generate peril or no weapon that generates peril. Neither of those configurations for your character engages well with the framework Sienna was meant to function in. You either have two weapons that compete for the same resource, or two weapons that don’t allow you to spend a resource you generate.

It really doesn’t make sense. There are a lot of games where you can focus your character on either abilities or weapons. Pretty much all of them use a system where an ability focused character can use more abilities to support their play style. Most games are deficient when it comes to making hybrid characters work. This game uses a bespoke system for hybrid characters even when you play as a specialist.

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69

Well now all but one melee weapon on Psyker is a wasted slot. Maybe if feats had been designed better this wouldn’t be a problem, but passive quell was a major incentive for taking 85% of Psyker’s arsenal. So even if the mechanic made some feats less relevant, this change has made drastically more weapons less relevant than it made feats more relevant. Nevermind the fact that feats are a goven and can be swappend at any time, while weapons are somewhat random and require grinding to curate.

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70

well when you’re using a gun, cause you feel like - hey being a gun psyker is a good idea - god knows why. then you would get the crappy standard passive quell we have now. Which is just logical cause you aren’t wielding one of those flashy psyker sticks

71

As been said, not every feats rely on force-weapons or quelling in general. The most are around BB, warpcharges and the ultimate, so srsly this argument is not really one. You can play any melee-weapon and any gun on Psyker. The only bad decision around it are the level 10 feats.

Weapons still have the same cleave, stagger, armor-piercing etc… Nothing change for them, the only change is that you´ll use your staff a bit less unless you start active quelling. It doesn´t have a real negative impact, it just tweaks the gameplay-circumstances into “use you´re melee weapon for a longer duration” or “use R”.

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So you think the nerf was justified?

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It´s no nerf, it´s a fix and i already told that it was obvious to me since it didn´t make any sense that non-force weapons quell passively faster.
And again, it just tweaks the times how long you use your melee weapon or to quell actively.

74

At this point I really hope dodge sliding is removed, and see if these people use the same arguments. It was obviously unintended, the mechanic is not mentioned anywhere in the game, it’s obvious damage avoidance and movement speed cheese etc.

It’s utter and total BS. The only thing the ‘fix’ did was to drastically limit playstyles that were in no way, shape or form overperforming. This game has no content. Removing content and playstyles is an incredibly bad idea. Not that FatShark has had anything but bad ideas with this game.

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75

Woops I accidentally responded to your post rather than Darth_Angeal’s response.

76

The passive quell should be made a feat if they don’t want to build it in imo

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As been said, not every feats rely on force-weapons or quelling in general. The most are around BB, warpcharges and the ultimate, so srsly this argument is not really one. You can play any melee-weapon and any gun on Psyker. The only bad decision around it are the level 10 feats.

And is that not a problem to you?

Weapons still have the same cleave, stagger, armor-piercing etc… Nothing change for them, the only change is that you´ll use your staff a bit less unless you start active quelling. It doesn´t have a real negative impact, it just tweaks the gameplay-circumstances into “use you´re melee weapon for a longer duration” or “use R”.

They’re still less relevant though. If fatshark had reduced the ammo count on the bolter would you be here talking about how all of its other stats are still the same?

78

Vet is legit the best designed class in the game lol

79

Not really here to start an argument about Vet but I will say they have nice feat variety for the most part. Noticeably overtuned class though. I’d prefer the other classes not be brought up to that level. Certainly a bunch of individual feats need tuning across most classes regardless.

80

I played psyker first time after the patch. The duellist sword builds suffered for sure: you lost mobility as you cannot kite whilst also losing peril as easily. So you actively quell instead…I apologised to the “Mind In Motion” talent, and started using it again. Sadly that alone won’t give you back the mobility of the duellist swords, so your ability to reposition and dps efficiently suffered.

There was at least one situation where I couldn’t kite and died due to the lack of quicker passive quell. You are forced to rely on melee more or your teammates. You spend more time quelling which isn’t great as psyker already spends quite a lot of time charging attacks and quelling.

I would also say all builds are more gear sensitive. You need high warp resistance and quell speed stats on staves more than ever. This isn’t unplayable, but the changes limited certain playstyles, undermined variety of playstyles.

This also means you have to think ahead more, quell more…and in some situations you could previously blast your way out are more difficult, if you are surprised upclose with high peril.

I would say these changes exposed the weaknesses of duellist swords, as their main advantage mobility doesn’t offer as much as previously.

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81

I feel sorry for Surge staff, from one of BiS down to PoS. So much peril and so much time on quell.

But lets be honest: Emperor hate psykers, Imperium of Man hate psykers, soldiers, zealots and ogryns hate psykers, even Fatsharks hate psykers… why shall we care for psykers after all?