Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - co-op action from Vermintide devs

[Harthwain]

I haven't played much since launch but just got back into this. I can't tell what has been changed balance-wise but I think most people are still complaining because the loot system is still really bad. I think that FS missed that what people like a lot from VT2 is that the loot never really mattered.

It is less that it didn't matter and more that you can't really get what you want, because you're entirely dependent on what items will appear in the shop, so some people couldn't even PLAY with certain weapons, because they literally never dropped for them. In Vermintide 2 you could simply craft a desired item and then try to upgrade it.

With VT2, there was a clear "best class" (Waystalker basically), but you were limited to one of them per team, and the other choices for elf were also really good in their own ways. The way that this is set up, there is one strong class, one OK/situational class (zealot), and a couple semi-broken classes.

You could also have fun with sub-classes. Here you are pretty much limited to a single class and talents aren't diverse enough to compensate for that (otherwise it wouldn't be a problem, if there were much more skills to pick from to customize your character).

 

[copebot]

I haven't played much since launch but just got back into this. I can't tell what has been changed balance-wise but I think most people are still complaining because the loot system is still really bad. I think that FS missed that what people like a lot from VT2 is that the loot never really mattered.

It is less that it didn't matter and more that you can't really get what you want, because you're entirely dependent on what items will appear in the shop, so some people couldn't even PLAY with certain weapons, because they literally never dropped for them. In Vermintide 2 you could simply craft a desired item and then try to upgrade it.

With VT2, there was a clear "best class" (Waystalker basically), but you were limited to one of them per team, and the other choices for elf were also really good in their own ways. The way that this is set up, there is one strong class, one OK/situational class (zealot), and a couple semi-broken classes.

You could also have fun with sub-classes. Here you are pretty much limited to a single class and talents aren't diverse enough to compensate for that (otherwise it wouldn't be a problem, if there were much more skills to pick from to customize your character).

One of the changes has been that you can buy a reasonably on level gray item of any type and then upgrade it. However, because of the weird way they designed items, it's still bad because you just buy and rebuy the item you want until you get an acceptable damage roll, upgrade that, and hope it has good secondaries.

 

[Zombra]

Oh man. Even if you buy weapons, their stats are still random? Of course they made luck of the draw and chasing more drops insanely important in this new version of the game. There's a whole chapter on gambling addiction in the Predatory Developer Playbook.

 

[Average Manatee]

Somewhere, deep inside, there's a decent game trying to get out from being buried by every gacha mechanic that a meeting of a dozen 50 year old men in suits can come up with. But yeah, of course even when you buy something you still have to gamble. Isn't that fun?

With VT2, there was a clear "best class" (Waystalker basically), but you were limited to one of them per team, and the other choices for elf were also really good in their own ways. The way that this is set up, there is one strong class, one OK/situational class (zealot), and a couple semi-broken classes.

Granted I didn't play Darktide much, but is monster killing not a big thing? I will say that in my experience on the earlier difficulties that it never felt that important but I never played enough to reach the higher ones. When it came to VT2 that was the one thing Waystalker really didn't do that well outside of like one build (which few people run despite it being the best). And you really needed to pack in the boss killing on 1-2 characters because on Legend/Cata the bosses will last forever and getting a horde at a bad time during them is the hardest thing in the game.

 

[copebot]

Somewhere, deep inside, there's a decent game trying to get out from being buried by every gacha mechanic that a meeting of a dozen 50 year old men in suits can come up with. But yeah, of course even when you buy something you still have to gamble. Isn't that fun?

With VT2, there was a clear "best class" (Waystalker basically), but you were limited to one of them per team, and the other choices for elf were also really good in their own ways. The way that this is set up, there is one strong class, one OK/situational class (zealot), and a couple semi-broken classes.

Granted I didn't play Darktide much, but is monster killing not a big thing? I will say that in my experience on the earlier difficulties that it never felt that important but I never played enough to reach the higher ones. When it came to VT2 that was the one thing Waystalker really didn't do that well outside of like one build (which few people run despite it being the best). And you really needed to pack in the boss killing on 1-2 characters because on Legend/Cata the bosses will last forever and getting a horde at a bad time during them is the hardest thing in the game.

There are only two monsters still. I think Chaos Spawn are coming in the next patch. Unlike VT2 in which there were lots of boss missions and Chaos Wastes special bosses that benefit from a boss killer like Shade, GK, or BH, only the random bosses appear. Both of them are a lot easier to fight than even a rat ogre in VT2. The Beast of Nurgle is also very easy unless you get terrible luck on where he spawns. That being said, I have over 360 hours in VT2 and less than 40 in DT (most of those from last year) so maybe I am missing something.

I was being a little facetious saying Waystalker was just the best class. It's the best class at getting green circles by just killing everything really fast with ammo refill, but it's definitely not the best elite killer or boss killer.

The hard counter to everything in DT is veteran with bolter and the talent that refills ammo on elite kills. This also takes away from the good thing about Zealot (that with the right weapons it can kill elites very well).

 

[Average Manatee]

I was being a little facetious saying Waystalker was just the best class. It's the best class at getting green circles by just killing everything really fast with ammo refill, but it's definitely not the best elite killer or boss killer.

Ehh, depends. If you can get a str potion (guaranteed with GK) its among the best and easiest both for CW patrols and monsters. Though I will say that when it comes to clutch soloing its still behind Ranger Veteran for me.

The hard counter to everything in DT is veteran with bolter and the talent that refills ammo on elite kills. This also takes away from the good thing about Zealot (that with the right weapons it can kill elites very well).

Yeah, seems that way.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

new dev blog:

Spoiler

Devoted Rejects,

In this dev blog we are going to dive into three topics and upcoming changes that we will be making to them. The three topics are the Mission Board, Crafting, and Currencies/Resources within Darktide.

All the changes that we will be discussing in this dev blog have been in development, and are being prepared to launch in Patch #12 (1.1.20). These changes mark the next step in our support to the game, we will keep on monitoring feedback and evaluate future changes.

For clarity, these changes are not the only changes currently in development and being worked on by the team. We’re also still hard at work on Darktide for Xbox!

Mission Board
We’re making some key changes to how the mission board generates its missions, while also expanding upon the available content. We are going to cover the details further into the dev blog, but for those of you who want a high level summary here are the changes that will be made:

Maelstrom Missions
We will be introducing Maelstrom missions, which are a set of new Conditions with a mixture of new modifiers and existing ones in many different variations. Most of them will be explained through a string of modifiers. For example: waves of Specialists, hunting grounds, waves of mutants and players have 20% reduced ability cooldown.

These Maelstrom missions should be approached with caution as some of them can be quite challenging! As a reward for completing these challenges, both XP and Ordo Dockets will have a higher payout than usual. They will be accessible through a unique slot on the mission board, which is available at all times so that they are easy to find and try out.

Auric-level Operations

We are introducing an additional mission board for players that will consist of a set of high difficulty missions that will always have a condition applied to them. You must be level 30 to play these missions (sidenote: the numbers of missions available for Auric-level operations in the above screenshot could be subject to change). This board will also sport Maelstrom missions, a few of them will have unique conditions variations that are inherent to the Auric-level board.

With the changes we made to the dynamic system we have made the Auric-level operations favour High Intensity conditions, there will be no Low Intensity conditions active in these missions.

Quickplay Bonuses

We are adding bonuses through use of Quickplay as we want to ensure that you are rewarded, should you choose to lend a helping hand by filling an empty spot in a strike team.

Experience, Ordo Dockets, Diamantine, and Plasteel will be bonuses upon receiving these rewards when a mission concludes (sidenote: quickplay bonuses numbers displayed in the screenshot could be subject to change by the time we deploy this patch).

Matchmaking & Server Selection
For further flexibility with the matchmaking system we have added the ability to set the servers used to matchmake with. Darktide has always used the best latency servers you can connect to for matchmaking, however we realise that some players in the world may need to connect to different servers in order to find a larger pool of players. In addition, we regularly review and update matchmaking rules to provide an improved matchmaking experience.

Changing the servers can have an effect on the gameplay experience through the added latency, and we’ll present the latency values in the server selection so that you can be aware of them.

Changes to the dynamic system of the Mission Board
The mission board on the Mourningstar shows the emergent threats throughout Tertium Hive. Functionally these threats are uncovered by the board through use of two systems, a dynamic system and an event driven system. The dynamic system generates content based upon a set of rules, meanwhile the event system acts as an overriding system that will then substitute its ruleset over the dynamic one.

We have made several changes and added functionality to the dynamic system to give much more refined controls over the content generation. The dynamic system refreshes far more frequently (approximately every 10 minutes) and we can now set an individual weighting to each condition per difficulty level.

For you the players, this will mean a more varied amount of conditions available across the mission board. There is also now control for us to weigh certain conditions for certain difficulties differently. As an example, you will see much less frequent occurrences of Low Intensity conditions on Damnation, while lower difficulties like Uprising will have less frequent occurrences of High Intensity conditions. The intent is for new players to have a smoother experience at the start while also providing a challenge to advanced players with harder conditions.

Our aim in these changes is to refine the emergence aspect of the mission board with further variety and the ability to adjust the board as needed.

Crafting
Let’s now talk about crafting, and some of the upcoming changes you can expect. Item Refinement, or previously known as Perk re-rolling is the main focus of our changes.

Ability to select the exact Perk when refining an item

You can now select the exact perk at any tier that you wish for an item (weapon or curio). There is one direct cost to be made for each refine action. This cost will remain flat throughout refining and will be reduced for lower level characters

As with the other actions at the Shrine, the amount of required resources will scale both depending on the base item rating of the weapon and on the tier of perk being selected to refine into.

Two Modifications for items

You can now modify two different aspects of your weapon (be it perks and/or blessings) locking out the other options, that being said, you’ll be able to change the two aspects you have selected as many times as you want. This means that you can choose to modify a perk and a blessing, or two perks, or two blessings. This increases the potential permutations of the item that you want to modify. The perks or blessings that you have chosen to modify will be indicated now in the item card.

Change to Curios

We have extended the ability to make two modifications to Curios, specifically you will be able to modify two Perks.

We are aware that the changes mentioned above do not give unrestricted freedom to all aspects of an item. To do so would have a big impact on item acquisition in Darktide, and we want to explore different paths further down the line.

Currencies & Wallets
And for the final chapter in this dev blog, we’d like to discuss the changes we will be making to the currencies & resources in Darktide.
In short, all character bound currencies are moving towards an account bound wallet where access is shared across all characters.

Migration of currencies
After careful consideration and review of how these systems are working and what value that you the players receive out of them, we decided to opt for moving everything to a single unified account wallet. Now you can choose any character you have created and with the currencies you get as rewards, you can now choose how to spend those freely.

With the next patch, after you login to Darktide you will go through an automatic migration process where the character wallets of Ordo Dockets, Ordo Ingots, Plasteel, and Diamantine will merge into one unified account wallet. These currencies will no longer have any character based wallet anymore.

An explanation of this process will be presented at the Main Menu / Character Selection screen, as well as a “Receipt” detailing the balance of the wallets for your characters and the total merged result for the account.

Additionally, the Account Wallet will now be displayed on this menu and show all the aforementioned currencies & resources as they are now shared.

The next Patch #12 - Into the Maelstrom (1.1.20)

All of the above changes are being prepared for our next patch to Darktide, which will release around mid-August. As part of this patch there will be a maintenance period in which you will be unable to log in into the game, we expect it to last 3 hours.

We will continue to iterate on these features and more, in part through community driven discussions and topics that are presented to us by sharing your thoughts and comments on both our Official Discord or Forums.

Thank you for reading, and watch each other's backs down there on Tertium.

tl:dr crafting locks still in, fuck you

 

[copebot]

I don't think the crafting really matters that much because even on the hardest difficulty with the high intensity modifiers, the game just is not that hard. Most of the melee weapons are basically viable. Balance is kind of all over the place with the ranged weapons, with some of them just being a lot better than the others, but even that does not matter that much. Basically all of the psyker staves are good. The game's bigger problem is just a lack of maps and fundamental class imbalance. On my level 30 veteran, I can kill a whole map of ranged enemies while being basically invulnerable to ranged fire in a single ult. On my zealot, he's just a little better at melee and has an OK melee ult, but he is not actually that much better up close than the veteran. The psyker has some good unique abilities and can utterly demolish hordes with some of the weapons, but nothing really compares to how broken the vet is. The only thing that makes the vet not obviously way better than all the other classes is that most of the player base picks stupid talents, but even with stupid talents it is still way better than the other three classes.

Ogryn would be useful if the enemy spawning was more like VT2 with patrols and elite spam. Then, their stagger and their heavy weapons would be more useful. As it is they are just there for funny voiceovers.

 

[Average Manatee]

Almost a year of time and the devs have finally gotten around to *checks notes* making currencies account-wide. What the fuck.

In the same time Vermintide has gotten 5 free levels. Which I think is roughly the same amount of content that Darktide has. Mystifying why they are supporting a 5 year old game better than their most recent release.

 

[copebot]

Almost a year of time and the devs have finally gotten around to *checks notes* making currencies account-wide. What the fuck.

In the same time Vermintide has gotten 5 free levels. Which I think is roughly the same amount of content that Darktide has. Mystifying why they are supporting a 5 year old game better than their most recent release.

My best guess is just that the high level of art fidelity just makes everything way more labor intensive. Some Swede business guy is looking at the average revenue per user for Darktide, comparing it to VT2, and is having trouble justifying to his boss why they should spend millions of dollars on more content for the new game. The other hint should be that they have barely released any cosmetics for DT.

 

[Average Manatee]

I can't imagine that it's so much more difficult to make levels for VT2 compared to DT. Especially when every level reuses half the assets from other levels

 

[Groover]

It's utterly tragic that they've left Vermintide 1 in the dust in the pursuit of a brain-dead, Dynasty Warriors-esque power fantasy. The rats in the first game are considerably more intelligent and dangerous, the environments are crafted with much greater attention to detail, the characters are more defined and believable (versus the flanderized bullshit you get in V2), the combat has far more heft with tighter sound and weapon design, and you don't have nearly as many get-out-of-jail-free cards in the form of ults. I still regularly play V1, and it's amusingly depressing to see V2/DT players get absolutely pounded into submission, unable to both adapt to the smaller yet deadlier hordes, and coordinate with the team.

It's important for a game to punish lousy, sloppy play because these games are building subtle life-changing habits through repetition and dopaminergic reward systems.

 

[ADL]

Almost a year of time and the devs have finally gotten around to *checks notes* making currencies account-wide. What the fuck.

In the same time Vermintide has gotten 5 free levels. Which I think is roughly the same amount of content that Darktide has. Mystifying why they are supporting a 5 year old game better than their most recent release.

They're too busy working on the Xbox port to release actual content for their game. Vermintide 2 was the same way for its first year.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[SpaceWizardz]

VT2 talent system is being scrapped and replaced with Borderlands/Diablo-esque skill trees.

skill tree

 

[Harthwain]

How incredibly linear. This game keeps on disappointing, even when you think you are beyond that.

 

[ADL]

Assuming those minor nodes are minor how is this different from the current specialization system? It's the same shit just vertically formatted.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Assuming those minor nodes are minor how is this different from the current specialization system? It's the same shit just vertically formatted.

Article suggests full class reworks:

Under Darktide's original class system, you unlocked a new perk every 5 levels up to the cap of 30, and had three options to choose from at each milestone. That system is going away, being replaced with a more RPG-esque skill tree peppered with those same abilities and a ton of new ones. Fatshark says that each skill tree has three main branches, with one branch essentially representing the existing options and the other two representing new ways of building out each class.

In between the major nodes are passive skills and modifiers, and you'll get a point every level to work your way down the tree. If you carve a straight path down one of the branches, you'll hit the bottom before spending all 30 points, encouraging you to experiment.

One of the Psyker's new abilities in action(Image credit: Fatshark)


"It's a plethora of new avenues that players can use to not only choose how they want to play, but express themselves as a player and their playstyle," said executive producer Juan Martinez. "It's a cooperative game, so any increase in options, you multiply that by the synergies you create with other players."

A few examples of the new skills Fatshark showed me:

• A new shield ability the Psyker can deploy (further down that branch, this two-dimensional shield can be upgraded to a full-coverage dome)
• A more crowd-controlling Psyker branch lets you blast out psychic shards instead of brain bursting (think the whistle-controlled arrow in Guardians of the Galaxy)
• Instead of brain burst or the shards, the Psyker can also go full Sith with a Force Lightning-esque smite ability
• The Ogryn can now choose to throw a "Big Friendly Rock" instead of a grenade box (with the advantage of the rock going on cooldown, rather than requiring an ammo pickup)
• The Ogryn also gets a gigantic grenade as a second alternative
• Ogryns can now pick a taunt over upgrading their charge attack, or a big reload/fire rate buff designed for mowing down hordes

 

[Harthwain]

Assuming those minor nodes are minor how is this different from the current specialization system? It's the same shit just vertically formatted.

Frankly, I see it as a waste of a rework. They could and should have gone much bigger with the changes. This "rework" sometimes allows for picking between two choices at most. In Vermintide 2 you had subclasses and could pick any skill you wanted from any particular row, which allowed freedom in mixing up skills for any class and subclass. Locking a player in a "tree" is still a regression from that when they could've expanded Vermintide 2's system.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Modders have reenabled the weapon customization systems we saw in some of the earlier trailers:

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Stuff!

Devoted Rejects!

A promise is a promise here is our deep dive blog on the talent trees. We figured you might want to enjoy a studious weekend, dissecting each class and getting ready for the launch of Patch #13 and Xbox on October 4, 2023.

Make sure to check out our previous dev blog on the design work of the class overhaul patch! Quick disclaimer; in this blog, we will cover Combat, Blitz and Keystone abilities. We will let you explore Aura, Talents and Stat Nodes once you jump into the game.

Veteran

When we first released Darktide we wanted to provide a solid template background striving to capture the core of the guardsman experience, encompassed by the Veteran Sharpshooter. A soldier with a rifle. Simple and approachable. Equipped with a frag grenade, it allowed for a ranged focus playstyle that could circumvent challenges by simply headshotting efficiently.

We wanted to expand the build space into more support roles, using the leadership and officers of the Astra Militarum as inspiration. There were early prototypes of a squad leader subclass based on the original release format lying around, so scavenging some abilities and the odd Krak grenade implementation was a solid start.

We also wanted to allow Veterans to lean into the more aggressive, close to melee range, assault infantry power fantasies. On what started to be known as the ‘commando’ side of things, ambushing and smoke-grenades were added to allow the players to get stuck in and disrupt the ranged enemy domination.

Initial designs for the Veteran talent tree included weapon-specific Keystones, with the plasma rifle, bolter and power sword as first set. The idea was to create specific bonuses for different play styles while introducing mutual exclusivity between them. After multiple iterations and some closed testing feedback, we ended up removing the weapon specific keystones. In the end, any weapon specific node ends up either offsetting the entire balance of the particular weapon or becoming a mandatory talent tax. Neither were impressively interesting.

We've ended up with a Veteran talent tree that provides a suitably rigid layout with three clear lanes. We have tuned the tree to allow for flexibility, where zig-zagging across the different lanes is not just an option but encouraged. There are clear tinkering spaces where talent options and stat nodes enable builds ranging from pure ranged damage output, suppression immunity and resilience, melee loadouts with stamina configurations and plenty of others in between. The staple features of ammo management and extra grenades are still present, and are integrated into parts of the tree. Creating a well rounded or very specific build for your Veteran is up to you, with clear and straightforward build options available and lots of tinkering hidden in the talent clusters and bridges between lanes.

Combat abilities

• Executioner's Stance:
  Enter Ranged Stance for 5s. When in Ranged Stance you instantly equip your ranged weapon, deal +25% Ranged Damage, +25% Ranged Weakspot Damage, and your Spread and Recoil are greatly reduced. Elite Enemies and Specialist Enemies are highlighted for 5s. Base Cooldown: 25s. This is an augmented version of Volley Fire.
  
  
• Voice of Command:
  Replenishes your Toughness & Staggers all Enemies within 9m. Base Cooldown 45s.
  
  
• Infiltrate:
  Replenish all Toughness and enter Stealth for 6s, gaining +25% Movement Speed. Leaving Stealth Suppresses nearby Enemies. Attacking makes you leave Stealth. Base Cooldown: 60s.

Blitz abilities

• Shredder Frag Grenade:
  Throw a frag grenade that explodes after a short delay. Applies 6 Stacks of Bleed to all Enemies Hit, causing Damage over time. This is an augmented version of Frag Grenade.
  
  
• Smoke Grenade:
  Throw a grenade that creates a lingering smoke cloud for 10s. The cloud blocks line of sight for most enemies and reduces the sight range of enemies inside it.
  
  
• Krak Grenade:
  Throw a grenade that deals devastating Damage. Sticks to Flak Armoured, Carapace Armoured & Unyielding Enemies.

Zealot

The original class was designed to showcase the melee gameplay and provide a familiar home for our Vermintide veterans. Equipped with a stun grenade and a charge ability, it allowed for an aggressive get-stuck-in melee play style that could bypass the ranged combat and lock the heretics in glorious melee combat.

The first thing we set out to solve was a realization of the bolstering prayer fantasy. The ability to act as a solemn anchor for the team. The source of faith. The reminder that the Emperor protects. Providing players with the opportunity of supporting and buffing the rest of the team - quite a challenge from a design standpoint. In one fork of the tree we landed on Zealots having a classic ability, and buffed the impact of it to allow for better control, including staggering of monsters.

On the other side of the tree we just went full stabbing. We made a stealth and backstabby talent tree that leans into those tropes, fully equipped with throwing knives you can quickthrow while wielding any weapon, a stealth ability very reminiscent of the Vermintide shade, coherency while-not-in-coherency talents and mutator packages focused on mobility, headshotting and dodge-dancing. Playing with a stabbing zealot changes the way a team works its way through the mission. The sudden appearance and disappearance of one or more team members becomes a flow that the team has to adjust to. One part acts as the anchor, drawing aggro and directing combat, while relying on stealth build players to strike from the shadows, make that clutch revive or complete the objective utilizing their unique skills.

There are three different keystone sets at the bottom of the tree, all unlocking different core passives that are foundational for a build. But plenty of key talents are found higher up. “Until Death” together with “Holy Revenant” makes up a pair of talents that enable the Zealot to avoid death should it occur and regain health based on damage output for a duration immediately after. You’ll find stat nodes for toughness and wounds, talents that provide damage mitigation based on wound thresholds and plenty of either close range or melee focused damage buffs within the tree. The tinkering space also features plenty of tweaks to your ability suite and hopefully encourages tinkering for synergies with the complete loadout chosen.

Combat abilities

• Fury of the Faithful:
  Dash forward, Replenishing 50% Toughness & gaining +20% Attack Speed for 10s. Your next Melee Hit gains +25% and is a guaranteed Critical Hit. Base Cooldown: 30s
  
  
• Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude:
  Wield a holy relic that releases pulses of energy every 0.8s. While channeling, Allies in Coherency have Stun Immunity and Invulnerability. Each pulse Replenishes 45% Toughness to Allies in Coherency. If the Ally is at full Toughness they instead gain +20 Max Toughness up to a total of +100. 60s Base Cooldown.
  
  
• Shroudfield:
  Enter Stealth for 3s. While in Stealth gain +20% Movement Speed, +100% Backstab Damage, +100% Finesse Damage & +100% Critical Chance. Base Cooldown: 30s

Blitz abilities

• Stunstorm Grenade:
  Throw a grenade that stuns all Enemies within its blast radius. This is an augmented version of Stun Grenade with +50% blast radius.
  
  
• Immolation Grenade:
  Throw a grenade that leaves a layer of flaming liquid, Burning and Staggering enemies, and barring their path. Most effective against Unarmoured Enemies.
  
  
• Blades of Faith:
  Throw a consecrated knife to deal high Damage to a Single Enemy. Very effective against most Enemies; less effective versus Carapace Armour.
  • Quick Throw
  • Killing Elite & Special Enemies in Melee replenishes 1 knife
  • Ammo boxes replenish knives

Keystones

• Blazing piety:
  +15% Critical Hit Chance for 8s when in Fury. Fury is triggered when 25 Enemies have died within 25m.
  
  
• Martyrdom:
  Each missing Wound grants +8% Melee Damage, up to 9 missing Wounds.
  
  
• Inexorable Judgment:
  Moving grants you Momentum (Stacks 20 times). When you Hit an Enemy, spend all Momentum, gaining +1% Melee Attack Speed, +1% Ranged Attack Speed, and +1% Damage per Stack. Lasts 8s.

Psyker

Mechanically, the release version of our Psyker leaned on controlling the overcharge mechanic of Perils by providing dynamic buffs and abilities granting better management. The Brain Burst blitz encapsulated the design principle of pushing Psyker utility towards the extremes of our design space. The ultimate single-target remover of problems, disregarding armor, line of sight or anything else standing in the way of a kill. The design was all about enabling the use of force powers and the interplay with managing your Peril meter. A true mastery of the warp, walking a fine balance between suffering its perils and unleashing its powers.

The new Psyker talent tree was envisioned as the most tinker-friendly. The shared resource between weapons and blitzes tie everything together, and since there’s plenty of talents that scale and interact with Perils it makes build choices for the Psyker a bit more involved and interesting. Enforcing a layout that encourages this and invites exploration and customization rather than straightforward progression was the initial goal.

On the Blitz side, we have the old Brain Burst, mainly intact with some balance adjustments and finetune improvements. We have added two new ones, one for crowd control and one for those easily mesmerized by the twirly spectacle that is our true flight projectiles. The new Smite blitz is our crowd control one. A chain lightning that allows the Psyker to stunlock large populations of enemies, holding them in place and pushing them around at will. For the last Blitz we did implement an ammo loop in the end. Warp infused homing missiles that will track and pick targets based on what you're looking at, have a self-regenerating ammo cap built in. There are modifiers that allow you to lessen the limitations that come with the ammo loop, but at its core they work best as a burst of extra damage.

Perhaps the biggest news with the biggest impact on the whole game loop is found in the Shield ability available in the Psyker talent tree. It’s a simple concept: place a flat shield that blocks enemy shots but lets yours and your allies' shots pass. It can be played purely defensively, as part of a push or more tactically to ensure objective completion. The modifier layer allows heavy customization too. There are options to deploy multiple shields, to have specials stagger when trying to pass through, and options to exchange the wall for a dome.

Combat abilities

• Venting Shriek:
  Unleashes a wave of warp energy that Staggers Enemies in front of you. Quells 50% Peril. Base Cooldown: 30s This is an augmented version of Psykinetic's Wrath.
  
  
• Telekine Shield:
  Spawns a psychic shield in front of you for 15s. The shield blocks Enemy Ranged Attacks, while you and Allies can still shoot through. Base Cooldown: 40s.
  
  
• Scrier's Gaze:
  Triggers Scrier's Gaze. When entering Scrier's Gaze you gain +10% Damage and +20% Critical Chance. For every second in Scrier's Gaze you gain +1% Damage up to a maximum of +30%. This effect lingers for 10s after leaving Scrier's Gaze. While in Scrier's Gaze you build up Peril. Build up is temporarily slowed down by enemy Kills. At 100% Peril, Scrier's Gaze ends. Base Cooldown: 30s.

Blitz abilities

• Brain Rupture:
  Charge up your Psychic Power and release it to deal immense Damage to a Single Enemy. Effective against Flak & Carapace Armoured Enemies. This is an augmented version of Brain Burst dealing +50% Damage.
  
  
• Assail:
  Throw swift, homing projectiles formed of psychic energy. Less effective versus Carapace Armoured Enemies.
  
  
• Smite:
  Unleash a torrent of Bio-Lightning. Using primary fire to instantly deal damage and impact to an enemy on release, spreading slowly between multiple enemies. Charge up the attack to have it spread between enemies faster.

Keystones

• Warp Siphon:
  Killing an Elite or Specialist Enemy gains you a Warp Charge for 25 seconds, stacking 4 time(s). Your next Combat Ability spends all available Warp Charges to reduce the Cooldown of that Combat Ability by 7.5% per Warp Charge.
  
  
• Empowered Psionics:
  Kills have a 7.5% chance to Empower your next Blitz.
  • Empowered Brain Rupture:
    100% Peril Cost Reduction 50% Cast time Reduction +50% Damage
  • Empowered Smite:
    +30% Damage 25% faster spread between enemies
  • Empowered Assail:
    100% Peril Cost Reduction. Base Damage increase from 100 to 150. Does not consume any charges.
  
  
• Disrupt Destiny:
  Every second, Enemies within 25m have a chance of being Marked. Killing a Marked Enemy Replenishes 10% Toughness, grants +20% Movement Speed for 2.5s, and adds a Precision Bonus for 15s. Each Precision Bonus grants +1% Damage, +2% Critical Damage and +2,5% Weakspot Damage. Precision Bonus Stacks 15 times.

Ogryn

Ogryns are three things: brawlers, bodyguards and bringer of big karking guns. The core Ogryn experience of the Skullcrusher that was part of the release was already there. Big, strong, melee powerhouse that relies on heavy attacks and massive health. Ignoring the stuns and staggers the little ones suffer, with “charge at the problem” as the go-to solution for anything.

To create a strong bodyguard, protector of friends, the Ogryn needed to be able to draw aggro. A taunt ability was nothing new, we have those in the Vermintide game. Making it work in the hybrid combat of Darktide is trickier. The Taunt is one of those abilities that changes how the team plays. It is good for the Ogryn player,as it helps control the fight - but it’s very good when used with the team, putting the Ogryn at the core of any squad.

We also added the Point-blank barrage ability which is particularly good for Ogryns that like to lug around big guns. It brings up your ranged weapon and reloads it whenever you use the ability and it also makes guns shoot faster and reload faster for 10 seconds. It’s great fun with a Rumbler. Sometimes the team says it’s like it’s raining grenades, but most use it with a heavy stubber or a ripper gun. It’s like you can shoot twice as much.

Ogryns get some nice end nodes. The three keystone talents at the end of the talent tree. You can only pick one of them, but each has a bunch of more modifiers after - and they’re not like the ability or the blitz, you don’t have to do anything to use them, they are just always there if you pick them. Getting all the way down to one of the keystone talents is good as most Ogryn builds need one. There are lots of talents on the way there, so once you have all the talent points you can pick a bit from each path and make a good build that way too.

Combat abilities

• Indomitable:
  Charge forward with great force, knocking back Enemies and Staggering them. Gain +25% Attack Speed and +25% Movement Speed for 5s. Charge is stopped on collision with Monstrosities. Base Cooldown: 30s. This is an augmented version of Bull Rush with an increased charge.
  
  
• Loyal Protector:
  Taunt Enemies within 8m, making them attack only you for 15s. Base Cooldown: 45s.
  
  
• Point-Blank Barrage:
  Swaps to and reloads your Ranged Weapon. You have +25% Rate of Fire and +70% Reload Speed for the next 10s. Base Cooldown: 80s.

Blitz abilities

• Big Friendly Rock:
  Toss a big rock or hunk of junk at a Single Enemy. Reduced effectiveness against Carapace Armoured Enemies and Unyielding Enemies. You pick up a new rock every 60s and can hold up to 4 rocks at a time.
  
  
• Bombs Away!:
  Throw a box of grenades with great strength and enthusiasm to deal high Damage to a Single Enemy. Hitting an Enemy causes the box to break open, releasing 6 grenades around the target. This is an augmented version of Big Box of Hurt.
  
  
• Frag Bomb:
  Throw an Ogryn-sized (the only proper kind!) frag grenade with a 16m blast radius, dealing increased Damage at the centre.

Keystone

• Heavy Hitter:
  +5% Damage for 7.5s on Heavy Attack Hit. Stacks 5 times.
  
  
• Feel No Pain:
  You are blessed with 10 Stacks of Feel No Pain. Each Stack grants +2.5% Toughness Replenishment and +2.5% Damage Reduction. Taking Health Damage removes one stack. Stacks are restored every 6s.
  
  
• Burst Limiter Override:
  5% chance of triggering Lucky Bullet and not consuming Ammo when making Ranged Attacks.

The Darktide Team

 

[ADL]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1361210/view/3743111208726626651?l=english
Class overhaul is out. Any impressions would be appreciated.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Any impressions would be appreciated.

Good update. Lots of new toys and some much needed buffs (Eviscerator), performance is noticeably better, and bugs-wise nothing other than some item text was broken and I got thrown through the map once.
Gear progression is still AIDS though, they really need to do something about that. Remove the locks fatshart!!

 

[Reever]

Yup, enjoying the update a lot. Psyker in particular got a lot of new toys to play around with both in terms of damage and utility. Assail especially feels busted and it's probably going to get nerfed soon.
I think the only one that got shafted was the Veteran but I am so tired of seeing parties full of veterans that I don't even consider it a downside.

 

[None]

I enjoyed it before and I enjoy it still. New talent system gives more choice. All the crafting mechanics seem to be in. The game now feels finished, in a way.

My only complaint is that the thunderhammers still need some buffs, but I'll keep using them because of cool factor.