Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

Voidstrike Staff seems to be the winner. Trauma Staff seems to be the weakest. Voidstrike does what Trauma does (knocks guys down) except Voidstrike just kills them too, while Trauma just seems to annoy them.

The CC on the Surge Staff is good but I feel like it doesn't hit enough targets. Hitting 6 guys in a horde of 50+ is like.....again, why not just use Voidstrike and nuke everyone in front of you?

Have enjoyed Psyker more than I thought I would based on other's descriptions. That said, man, I get my ass kicked a lot. It's like playing VT2 but never taking out your melee weapon. So you constantly get backstabbed or ganged up on in the middle of your casts.

[nenjin]

So, generally speaking....

I think things have been "ok to good" with the release. There's still plenty of bugs, crashes, failures to connect to the server here and there but it's mostly improved across the board for my friends and I.

Perhaps the two biggest black eyes of release are:

-The full crafting systems isn't like yet.

-The cosmetic cash shop is.

People are giving the game shit for two reasons. Firstly, that a core component of long-term gameplay progression (optimizing your gear) isn't live by release. And with the Cash Shop being functional, it rightly seems like their priorities are out of whack. And secondly, people are pissed at the design of the cash shop. Classic MTX currency with a pricing schema where you can't quite afford what you want in one package, timers on available cosmetics to buy, triggering people susceptible to FOMO impulse buying.

Fathshark responded to the criticism here: https://www.gamesradar.com/we-got-that-one-wrong-darktide-devs-promise-to-tighten-microtransactions-amid-player-backlash/

Basically saying that a) it wasn't their intent to be predatory and b) that one specific currency package wasn't in the game by mistake that fit in the current scheme to give people fairer options.

I have two thoughts on this whole thing.

First off, it is a pretty bad look to open your cash shop for business on release day when you're missing core parts of your game still. Should FS punish themselves financially for the sake of saving face? I think so. While it's only mollifying a small % of their playerbase that has an opinion about it, I think it would have acknowledged that, yeah, maybe the game has other priorities right now other than selling cosmetics.

To the second issue, how those cosmetics are being handled, I think people are largely getting bent out of shape over very little. I may not like these practices but they are bog standard, even for a game you have to buy first. Carnival money MTX currency, timers on available, pricing packages on currency that are obviously structured to get more out of you....for items that are purely cosmetic. Sea of Thieves has this same model. Warframe, a F2P game, has had all this for like 8 years. Grimrock Deeprock Galactic has a huge offering of both free and MTX cosmetics, many of which I've never even bothered to look at.

So they definitely have the egg on their face that I was expecting, and then some more to boot. The game currently keeps vacillating between positive and mixed ratings.

Personally, I know that given time, the game will finish with the core outstanding items fairly soon, and then from there it has a lot of room to grow in many directions. After some balance changes to toughness and ranged and spawn behaviors, Heresy is hard as balls but a ton of fun. You really gotta work as a team and take your time or die screaming. Runs are anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes depending on the level and your team.

I'm really excited to see where the game can go from here. But for now, they absolutely have to get the crafting finished and working, not first pass buggy BS, soon. I'm just stockpiling resources and crafting materials against the actual release, but it basically means I have nothing to really currently look forward to as I play. Which is fine, most of Vermintide 2 is and was like that.

Just a damn shame really. I'd have easily been happy to wait until 2023 for the game. It's a great game and has a bright future, I think. Just would have been nice to not punch itself in the face like this.

[Dostoevsky]

DRG's handling of cosmetics is far, far better than this, but DRG is in general better than this so...

The core gameplay of Darktide is pretty solid, but. The balancing is rather jank, it's fairly buggy, the process for getting new gear is straight up bad, and there's basically nothing but the core gameplay. The rando experience (the only way I've played) is very 'pick up and play', but ultimately I'm not sure if that's actually a better experience than DRG's setup.

Man though, the way of getting new items. In my process of leveling up psyker I had situations where I'd unlock a weapon and not actually get my hands on one until 5+ levels later. That, plus the stat system on gear + gearscore, is just a massive crapshoot.

Also no cheer button. At least I haven't really run into any toxic groups yet.

[Egan_BW]

DRG's handling of cosmetics is far, far better than this, but DRG is in general better than this so...

Hey look, someone said what I was thinking!

[scriver]

I'm thinking "what is DRG"?

[nenjin]

Deep Rock Galactic.

DRG has a fairer cash shop. But I think it's not exactly fair to compare a game that's been out for years in terms of breadth of content and options. The future just depends on the split the end up with between free content and paid.

lol, did I really write Grimrock Galactic? >.>

[scriver]

That's a double lol on me because I knew it was called Deep Rock but when I went back over the last coupla posts to find any hint to what DRG could mean it still didn't register

[Mephansteras]

Personally, the cosmetic cash shop doesn't really bother me since those require no balancing and are just art assets. I doubt the art team has much to do in the way of correcting the stuff that's still a bit broken or in implementing/balancing the upgrade system.

But I get why people might be a bit bent out of shape about it.

[Dostoevsky]

Deep Rock Galactic.

DRG has a fairer cash shop. But I think it's not exactly fair to compare a game that's been out for years in terms of breadth of content and options. The future just depends on the split the end up with between free content and paid.

lol, did I really write Grimrock Galactic? >.>

Even straight on release DRG's cosmetic shop was pretty solid. There were... 2? 3? paid DLC packs each of which offered a set of models & skins for all 4 classes for roughly the price of one of the high-end armor sets for a single class in Darktide. Given the different styles and whatnot I don't think a straight price comparison there is very valid -- but DRG also had, on release, a wide variety of free (well, in-game currency) customization options both as you leveled up and at endgame. The free seasonal model they adopted in the last year (or two?) helps fill that out even better, though that was a pretty far post-release sort of thing.

Really what bothers me about the cosmetic shop is the pricing structure (i.e. the classic fake currency with bad conversion rates) and the potential FOMO (have they even said what happens after a week? I assume they'll rotate, but...). But even then the cash shop is more a salt in the wound thing given the overall state of the release and some of the backsteps from VT2.

All that said, I'm still having some fun for now with it. Just... once I've had a chance to try out the various weapons, I don't think there will be much more to hold my interest for a while.

[Folly]

I've settled on the Heavy Sword for my Zealot, even though it seems to be by far the least popular option.

Knife is the common choice for bleed-builds. But I'm just really underwhelmed by bleed dps against bosses; and on common enemies, if I'm engaged in melee then I really want them to die when I hit them and not just tap them and hope they go down before they have time to hit me back.

Eviscerator seems the second most popular choice. The cleave against crowds is really underwhelming in my opinion. The special attack is decent against armored enemies, but not great, leaving Evi feeling like a versatile weapon that really doesn't impress anywhere.

Hammer just feels like it's knocking everything down without killing much. I'd rather not risk enemies who appear dead then standing up behind me and stabbing me in the back.

Heavy Sword gets bonuses to cleave damage and cleave targets, meaning that it can sweep through crowds without stopping and most targets stay down. Also the highest tier of Heavy Sword can chain horizontal heavy strikes forever. To me this feels like the ideal option for melee-focused Zealots who love being in the middle of hordes.

[Dostoevsky]

Based on discord discussions, when it comes to psyker it's basically 'spam staff, non-force sword melee backup when needed, Brain Burst (BB) is useless above hazard 3'. Which is honestly kind of bland, but make sense based on my experience at hazard 3.

BB is pretty amazing on difficulty 1 & 2, but its power isn't quite sufficient at 3 and up, especially given the charge time. And shared Peril (the winds of magic thing from VT2) between staff and BB means you're generally better off using the staff abilities to begin with. Force sword is... kind of crummy, unfortunately, as the non-Peril attacks are mediocre and your Peril passively decreases much faster if you equip a non-Peril weapon. So ideally you want at least one non-Peril weapon on hand, but staves are far more useful than the force sword.

Meanwhile the staves (well, some of them) are quite solid. So one builds around the staff at this point, despite many/most of the feats centering on BB. Which is... a problem.

Since I'm only playing at difficulty 3, which feels like a decent setting for rando pub play, I can enjoy using BB + gun gameplay, but I can definitely feel it's non-meta.

As for zealot, I've seen most running heavy sword or Eviscerator. Supposedly there's a crit chance + knife build that's viable? Which could be neat, since I do very much like the feel of the knife animation set.

[candlebury]

Yeah I love this game. Plasma gun is amazing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[nenjin]

Based on discord discussions, when it comes to psyker it's basically 'spam staff, non-force sword melee backup when needed, Brain Burst (BB) is useless above hazard 3'. Which is honestly kind of bland, but make sense based on my experience at hazard 3.

BB is pretty amazing on difficulty 1 & 2, but its power isn't quite sufficient at 3 and up, especially given the charge time. And shared Peril (the winds of magic thing from VT2) between staff and BB means you're generally better off using the staff abilities to begin with. Force sword is... kind of crummy, unfortunately, as the non-Peril attacks are mediocre and your Peril passively decreases much faster if you equip a non-Peril weapon. So ideally you want at least one non-Peril weapon on hand, but staves are far more useful than the force sword.

Meanwhile the staves (well, some of them) are quite solid. So one builds around the staff at this point, despite many/most of the feats centering on BB. Which is... a problem.

Since I'm only playing at difficulty 3, which feels like a decent setting for rando pub play, I can enjoy using BB + gun gameplay, but I can definitely feel it's non-meta.

As for zealot, I've seen most running heavy sword or Eviscerator. Supposedly there's a crit chance + knife build that's viable? Which could be neat, since I do very much like the feel of the knife animation set.

BB is plenty useful in 4. 4 is where "one hit should kill stuff" stops being true. That's just the nature of the beast in FS games.

BB kills ragers, snipers, bombers in one hit. They finish off dogs easily. The right trait gives the enemy +15% damage from all non-psychic sources for 5 seconds, which is basically the shrapnel trait from VT2 except on command. When the entire group is pinned by range guys, both rifles, elites and heavies, it's real nice to have an ability to pop in and out of cover with and deal damage without even having to look at your target. Behind an Ogryn with a shield up in a doorway, you can blindly spam BB and pick off targets more or less safely. It staggers and interrupts important targets that you can't kill in one hit. It has a lot of uses beyond "it just doesn't kill in one hit." I don't think it's the perfect ability. Way more should play off it for AoE type effects. But it remains useful even when the game scales up. It would just be nice if it's damage did too in some way.

The Force sword is a single target weapon through and through. Its Special attack will wreck most things including Mutants in one charged attack. Maulers in 2, Ogryns in 3 usually. I can duel Bulwarks and Crushers on Heresy thanks to that move. You just have to be mindful of the timing on hitting them because of the channeling portion of the attack. But it's still fast enough to stick and move.

I don't find Quelling Peril an issue as long as I have the Quell While Moving trait. Even average quell speed means it takes like 2 seconds to Quell enough Peril to go to town again.

[Dostoevsky]

BB kills ragers, snipers, bombers in one hit. They finish off dogs easily. The right trait gives the enemy +15% damage from all non-psychic sources for 5 seconds, which is basically the shrapnel trait from VT2 except on command. When the entire group is pinned by range guys, both rifles, elites and heavies, it's real nice to have an ability to pop in and out of cover with and deal damage without even having to look at your target. Behind an Ogryn with a shield up in a doorway, you can blindly spam BB and pick off targets more or less safely. It staggers and interrupts important targets that you can't kill in one hit. It has a lot of uses beyond "it just doesn't kill in one hit." I don't think it's the perfect ability. Way more should play off it for AoE type effects. But it remains useful even when the game scales up. It would just be nice if it's damage did too in some way.

I do agree on most of these points, which is why I picked the class and still find some fun from it.

The Force sword is a single target weapon through and through. Its Special attack will wreck most things including Mutants in one charged attack. Maulers in 2, Ogryns in 3 usually. I can duel Bulwarks and Crushers on Heresy thanks to that move. You just have to be mindful of the timing on hitting them because of the channeling portion of the attack. But it's still fast enough to stick and move.

The single-target damage feels really unreliable to me? I dunno, it works fine in the testing arena but in an actual game I've had mixed success at best using it against elites. I'd rather just stick to BB and pick a more generally useful melee weapon.

Supposedly there are more force swords that haven't been released yet, so hopefully that'll make the sword v. staff debate a bit more substantive.

I don't find Quelling Peril an issue as long as I have the Quell While Moving trait. Even average quell speed means it takes like 2 seconds to Quell enough Peril to go to town again.

Maybe it's the rando pub experience, but in my experience I only have time to quell if there's no pressure - if there are mooks nearby, being able to quell while moving is going to get me clobbered just as much as quelling while shuffling. Additionally, every second of helping handle hordes helps and it's good to do something during all the peril recovery periods.

[nenjin]

It's just about finding the space to do it. I'll usually be right behind my squad with Voidstrike. I'll get off maybe 5 or 6 half charged blasts, quell for a few seconds and go right back to blastin'. It's not feasible when you've got your back to a wall pinned by melee, but otherwise it does me well.

I don't know if there's more patterns of Force Swords to release or not. I kinda doubt it?

The Weapon Special on the Force sword works as long as you don't back out of range too far after it connects. The blade has to hit then you have to wait about 1 second before he does the little palm gesture. It's essentially just BB, does about 1000 damage. But in essence faster than an actual unbufffed BB.

All that said, I'm struggling on Heresy some days. I just seem to end up taking way more damage than anyone else. Toughness gives you the illusion of durability in combat but all those little hits to the back really add up. It's not uncommon for me to look up from a fight and see I'm missing half my health. Grims also really push me to the limits of my survivability.