I can foresee that in high‑difficulty content, because some ways of dealing with Vanguards are obviously far superior to others, players will naturally gravitate heavily toward builds like the grenadier Ogryn. That’s just common sense—the designer creates a puzzle, and players choose the easiest solution to get through it. However, if the difficulty gap between different solutions is too large, it will lead to an imbalance in build pick rates. If we want a healthy, balanced environment, I’d argue that the current design carries a huge hidden risk. So how about we first adopt the traditional design from Vermintide—where shielded grunts have normal HP, their shields can be quickly broken by heavy weapons, and they can be staggered out of their guard? Let’s first put that proven design into Darktide, which has a rather different environment, and then make further adjustments from there.
Ah yes let me just select the havoc difficulty that is freely available to choose for every mission and game mode.
Sorry, I’m not quite sure what you mean. For me, Havoc mode is basically just as you described. There might be some map and modifier rotation that takes time, but generally I can play the Havoc I want. What do you think needs improvement?
Also, if everyone agrees that Havoc is hard to form groups for on your servers, then we should consider whether Fatshark’s nerfs have made it a bit too difficult. Using powerful builds to fight against waves of enemies with various modifiers is a big part of the game’s fun; the clash of strong against strong has always been a topic that humans enjoy discussing. But if powerful builds are nerfed, it becomes a struggle of the weak against the strong, and not everyone has the energy and willingness to repeatedly try in a game. I’d like to say to those friends who want to play Havoc but struggle to find teammates: perhaps Havoc could have had a much larger audience, but Fatshark’s suppression of players has scared away these potential players?
Genuinely, the main problem I have with Havoc is that you cannot choose anything in it. Can’t choose what map, what difficulty, the modifiers, the game mode. Havoc’s difficulty is entirely self contained and not available anywhere else. So any discussion around difficulty should imo never take havoc into account.
…But the moment I read your comment, I started darktide and opened havoc party finder. 12 teams founded, assignment rank from 8 to 40. Mostly 40, but lower rank players are still easy to find teammates. Maps include Sycorax, silo cluster, clandestium gloriana, warren 6-19 and many more. Press the R button to refresh and I immediately find other completely different 7 teams.
“Can’t choose what map, what difficulty, the modifiers, the game mode.”
I really don’t get the point about that. As I said, “There might be some map and modifier rotation that takes time, but generally I can play the Havoc I want.”
Party finder is no alternative to being able to choose for yourself
I’ve never really considered the idea that people would want to choose every single map and every single modifier manually in Havoc. I don’t recall any similar tier‑climbing game that gives you that kind of freedom. Maybe StarCraft II’s co‑op mode comes close, but even that’s far from the same thing.
I think that Darktide just doesn’t having enough Havoc players mainly affect the community atmosphere. If there were a large enough player base—like in WoW with keystones—then even though I couldn’t pick a specific map directly, I could still easily find any particular map I wanted to play through something like a party finder system. As for why Havoc has so few players: first, Darktide itself doesn’t have the player count or operational support to compete with big titles like Helldivers, so the overall player base is small. Second, as I mentioned above, the nerfs have made Havoc harder, which in turn has driven away even those potential Havoc players within the total player pool.
On the other hand, just because you don’t play Havoc doesn’t mean you should stop others from seeking better balance in that mode. You may not play it, but there are still plenty of active players in party finder who do.
I often feel discouraged by the discussion culture in this community. Whenever someone argues that a certain weapon or class is underpowered and deserves buffs, someone will inevitably pop up and type “lol skill issue”, claiming the only reason it feels weak is poor gameplay.
These people, whom I have no wish to insult, casually flaunt their unfounded superiority and then vanish without further debate.
In truth, many balance problems can only be spotted by skilled players under high-pressure combat. Those who only play on low difficulty are often blind and out of touch. They post shallow remarks and deliberately stir up arguments on the forum.
Oddly enough, even if you vastly outmatch them in skill—for example, clearing their regular difficulty effortlessly without any talents—you still cannot fire back with “skill issue”. Hiding behind such unmeasurable personal ability is neither rational nor ethical.
Not writing this to blame anyone in this post. Just feel frustrated.
I swear FS just needs to make a new difficulty and call it ‘Power Fantasy’. Havoc 40 enemy density but everything has 10% the HP…
Put a competent grenadier Ogryn in your strike team, and this game becomes ten times wilder and more mindless than your so‑called power fantasy. So your idea is really unnecessary.
They REDUCED the amount of Cruhers
They’ve always has carapace heads
I mean what are these weapons that are unusable at killing plasma gunners and crushers?
At most I can think Heavy Sword, Devil’s Claw a d Assault Chainsword in the melee side, so if you’re using any of these 2 then get ranged that can deal with Carapace or abilities/blitz
Except the nerfs really don’t matter on difficulty 4 since they really don’t change the breakpoints of enemies
It do be funny that people come to the forums and Say “now THIS REASON is why people are leaving” meanwhile a lot of people who came only to play Skitarii would’ve not stayed even if Vanguards and Plasma Gunners didn’t exist
Reminder that Vanguards are Bulwarks replacements, and let me tell you it’s a lot easier to deal with Vanguards than Bulwarks
??
better aim
faster movement
quicker assessment of engagements unfolding
profound map knowledge cause someone actually learned it by heart…
all pretty measurable and defining the superior player, not some “build” that may make up for deficiencies in some or all categories 
pulling an ult at the right time doesnt define the quality of a player, only that he learned to play by pavlovs whistle.
salvaging situations by himself when all around him fail because they rely on the talents to solve problem for them, thats the player you want at your side and makes for a quality run no matter the mode/loadout/build.
no “let me pick my veteran”, just hit play with whatever and get the job done.
darktide wasn’t until the diarrhea that is havoc,
isnt practically cause havoc40 means little if players wearing it drop like flies in lower settings and
shouldnt be so one can pick freely at what conditions he wants to perform that very moment.
pre havoc and player-buffs you were considered top notch to carry an I II V E G or C I VI.
why? cause the standard team consisted of less then stellar players that clearly where lacking and no weapon or talent could cover that fact.
some awesome clutch videos back then.
which brings me to
yes as in individuals that are far superior to everyone else and pull off stuff mere mortals wont reach, ever.
these players in question are “strong” because they come from a long fps background, have an inheriting understanding of learning a map to a t , meticulously learn the enemy ins and outs, aim like a god and twitch reflexes of a meth addict.
not who took a talent that allowed him to do more damage against “x”
and most of all no mmo-garbage 
thats mutual playing the game since beta and watching what it has become at the moment.
wish it’d go back to “solo with audience” instead of “bring blue or yellow or we wont start”
no one should be forced to even care about whos on a team, just put 3 peeps in already and let me play the game
if you mean malice + heresy and then i agree. if you mean damnation then i sorta disagree, i think heresy should be the last difficulty where it can be mindless fun, with a fully maxed out loadout. damnation should be decently challenging for a maxed out loadout, and auric should be challenging for a maxed out loadout piloted by an experienced player
that way there’s something for everyone. i also think fatshark should rescale the rewards and make it so malice or maybe heresy gives the same rewards as everything above it, to further the concept that it’s a player choice, not a natural progression
if it was implemented along the lines of what i am describing then i very much agree with your main point. i am a player who wants aurics to be very challenging but can 100% see your angle on this.
it’s probably a very difficult balance for fatshark to strike though, they want mission board difficulties to be a gear progression AND a skill progression which is what introduces these problems
should be the base experience earning ones keep and climbing through the difficulty settings.
whereas some “builds” and classes promote
make darktide great again 
should already punish absolute dropout behavior though cause if someone has wrongly learned bad playstyle by then its almost impossible to beat it out of him by auric maelstrom, he’d just try harder his same attempts in the hope of a different outcome.
malice is the getting warm and testing phase, heresy should introduce mass encounters and resulting f-ups under pressure and damnation timed engagements and selective pickings of key enemies in a certain order as to learn proper placement and hierarchy of threat analysis.
that’d be my measuring tape for if someones fit to step up a notch
malice: overwhelmed by everything
heresy: overwhelmed by mixed hordes and large numbers of elites/specials
damnation: overwhelmed by not prioritizing the bomber that cuts off the retreat > allows for the flamer to further push you into a corner > one dude gets trappered and the rest roasted by yolo rezzing attempts.
come damnation one should hold people to a standard of understanding the game past basics
The problem is more if they keep buffing everything player-related it makes havoc 40 too easy too, so we have nowhere to go.
But I agree that vanguards are more on the annoying scale of making it more challenging than the fun side. I want the game to be harder but not in ways that aren’t fun mechanically.
Granted, the bug where vanguards’ shield goes inside them is making them even worse, but I do agree on the hp thing, I don’t understand why they aren’t elites statted as they are now.
Was duelling sword nerfed? I remember they gave it parry which I’m not sure is a nerf…
I do find it more satisfying dealing with bulwarks than vanguards though, if I’m being honest, at least rn.
The dueling sword had its damage multiplier slightly reduced. If you strictly look at it on its own, trading a bit of multiplier for a parry function is probably indeed not a nerf. However, the impact of Uncanny Strike is too great, making me subconsciously feel that it has been weakened a lot. That nerf to Uncanny Strike has had a significant influence on weapon choices. For example, with my melee Hive Scum character, previously I used dual daggers about 60% of the time, and chainswords, chainaxes, or tactical axes the other 40%; now, the pick rates for various weapons are almost even. From a macro perspective, it’s good to keep the usage rates of different weapons from differing too much. But deep down, I just prefer class‑specific weapons and hope they are stronger than universal ones. After all, exclusive weapons are the hallmark of each class, providing a class‑specific experience and maximising differentiation. If every character just swings a tactical axe around, what fun would that be.
Ah, I’ve gone off on a tangent again.