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

[gooseman]

Well, most coop shooters are different enough to not be compared to L4D2 (a comparison they'll likely always lose). I liked DRG and Payday 2. But Vermintide 2 was bugging me, it was practically an L4D2 clone, most of the design is very similar, but none of the gameplay "clicked", like it does in L4D2. There was something missing. Balancing? Better designed maps? AI? Sound? I don't know. I vaguely remember enjoying VT1 more, but I haven't played it since 2018.

 

[Average Manatee]

VT2 unfortunately takes quite a while to get going because its only on higher difficulties where elites and specials are prevalent enough to make the gameplay feel different from a very casual shooter, and those are locked behind grinding character levels/equipment power. But Darktide is just as bad if not worse on this front.

 

[Harthwain]

There was something missing. Balancing? Better designed maps? AI? Sound? I don't know. I vaguely remember enjoying VT1 more, but I haven't played it since 2018.

For me the defining moment in Vermintide 2 was which perks to get for each class. Without the game wasn't nearly as fun.

 

[Reever]

It's still extremely fun despite it's flaws. You can fault Fatshark for a lot of things but the combat is still it's strong point. The patches have been hit or miss for me but the one that revamped the class trees was good. Still surprised they haven't added a new class yet.

 

[randir14]

how about they let me put a goddamn optic on my goddamn lasrifle? goddamn.

There's already a mod for that, but it sounds like it's crashing in the latest patch and needs to be updated.
https://www.nexusmods.com/warhammer40kdarktide/mods/277

 

[Utgard-Loki]

i already tried it. it crashes the game since the patch before this one.

 

[gooseman]

What about networking? Lag? Desyncs? Disconnects? Unavailable servers? Queue times? Is this another one of those always online games that they can just flip a switch and kill overnight with no hope of it ever being playable again? Especially since there isn't even a singleplayer mode. Maybe mods could fix it, idk.

 

[gooseman]

So, I bought the game. Took 40 minutes to get to mission selection and set up the game how I wanted it. Steam needs to raise the refund timer to 4 hours. For some reason with FSR framegen and vsync on the game runs at 0 fps. As soon as the prologue mission loaded, the game crashed with an out of memory error. I have 32 gb ram and 16gb vram. People say this is unrelated to hardware.
It's so MMOified. Unlike vermintide, they now force you to make a character and each of them has their own progression, like in WOW. 2/3 games I played I was thrown into teams of people who just rush everything, because they played it for 100000 hours, wasn't fun. There's random people running around my lobby like in some MMO hub. It even gave me an AFK warning while I was typing this. Feels like playing with bots, NO ONE fucking talks, they barely even use voice reponses. It's so impersonal and soulless. Other games suffer from this to a degree, but this game seems to actively encourage this. The only thing missing for full MMO experience is the trading spam in chat. I have no idea what benefit this could have and from my experience this has always been the case with fatshark games.
In L4D, you play maps because they are fun. Here, you play whatever others are playing, because of the matchmaking wait times and for skinnerbox rewards. Level layouts and objectives aren't very interesting either.
The game itself seems fun, though I expected a bigger focus on ranged combat over Vermintide's melee. Ammo runs out quick and there are many trash mobs that aren't worth killing with guns. Some levels look really good and graphics in general are nice. There seems to be a lot to do with the unlocks and stuff like perks and weapon upgrades.
You really need friends to play this, but it's hard to convince people to buy a game that's become what it should've been at release only after 2 years, and it still has issues. Not to mention it's always online so it could be completely killed at any moment.

 

[Sweeper]

There's an excellent game hidden somewhere in here.
Shame it's always online. Guess I'll just have to content myself with endlessly listening to the Jesper Kyd's masterpiece on jewtube.

 

[ADL]

Hey Everyone,

We’ve been cooking for you. We’re ready to announce our next major update, Grim Protocols. It will be released on 3 December on all platforms.

This update will include:
New Game Mode - Havoc: Think you’ve mastered the threat over Tertium? Think again. Havoc is a new end-game experience that will test the resolve of the most seasoned operative. Be ready to face daunting challenges and earn new cosmetic rewards. We’ve posted an initial dev blog about this, and we’re working on finishing the Q&A post to follow.
New Mission - Dark Communion: Return to the Carnival and explore its darkest corners. Steel yourself as you face hordes of cultists who will stop at nothing to achieve their Dark Communion. We are working on a dev blog for this.
Three New Weapon Families: Tear through waves of enemies by wielding the destructive might of the Two-Handed Force and Power Swords, and the Ogryn Heavy Stubber. We are working on a dev blog for this…but here is a sneak peek:


Two-Handed Power Sword (2 Marks) - Zealot:
A massive, high-damage melee weapon with wide, sweeping attacks.

• Munitorum Mk X Relic Blade
• Munitorum Mk II Relic Blade

Two-Handed Power Sword - Unique Features
:

• Heat Activation Mechanic
  : Generates a heat gauge, building over time. Reaching the limit locks activation briefly (overheat mechanic).
• Special Attack
  : Sprinting Heavy stab attack for unique engagement tactics.

Two-Handed Force Sword (2 Marks) - Psyker
: A finesse-oriented weapon combining melee and psychic powers.

• Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword
• Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword

Two-Handed Force Sword - Unique Features
:

• Force Cleave
  : Special attack releases a psychic cleave with scaling based on charge power (three stages).
• Smooth Flow
  : Psyker’s psi-assisted techniques make the weapon feel lighter and more agile.

Heavy Stubber (3 Marks) - Ogryn
: A heavy, precision-support firearm for Ogryns, blending suppressive fire with marksman capabilities that will keep the darkness at bay.

• Krourk Mk IIa Heavy Stubber
• Gorgonum Mk IIIa Heavy Stubber
• Achlys Mk II Heavy Stubber

Heavy Stubber - Unique Features
:
Primary Fire: Heavy, slow automatic fire for suppressive roles.
Alt Fire: A more precise, single-shot mode for longer-range accuracy.
Flashlight: Included to assist in low-light environments.

Anniversary Special Event: To celebrate the second anniversary of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, the game will host an event that will reward players with a unique weapon trinket.
And more: Including the expansion of the Penance progression track with new challenges and rewards, as well as quality of life improvements such as an extension of the Party Finder feature and idle animations to Stances.

We look forward to sharing more about this update with players in the coming few weeks. We’re finishing up dev blogs on the new weapons, the new mission Dark Communion, and more. Stay tuned!

– The Darktide Team

btw Darktide was in this month's Humble Choice and cheap keys are floating around.

 

[Steve]

I hate how their content is just reskinned weapons with shuffled attack patterns. Havoc might be fun but I'm afraid it'll just push people into metafaggotry and autokicking everybody with "suboptimal" playstyles.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Feels like playing with bots, NO ONE fucking talks, they barely even use voice reponses.

welcome to online gaming since the last decade.

 

[gooseman]

Yeah, because they replaced server browsers with matchmaking, made dedicated servers rarer than unicorns and censored the shit out of everything, because snowflakes couldn't find the mute button in source games all those years ago.
Impossible to make friends now, everyone is a non-verbal min-maxing autist rushing through a map with their "meta" build (because they are bad at the game and lose otherwise). Communities are dead. No fun allowed.
The game is still fun, despite the total overall decline of online games. I got a friend to play it too, but it sucks that there's no way to downscale characters and gear, or something like that. New players cant play higher difficulties (cant even try, they are locked), their gear doesnt deal enough damage. Higher level players will be bored, because there are fewer enemies and no challenge and rewards are low.
Some things I said originally weren't correct. Ranged is completely viable and ammo is fairly plentiful, depending on the weapon/class/perks. There are enough players to play any map, although the selection is abysmal, you only get 2-3 options per difficulty, and only one or two difficulties will interest you. There was a mission I only got to play for the first time after dozens of hours. And there was another that I played about 5 times in a row, because there was just nothing else to choose from. You should be able to pick whatever mission you want, or at least have more missions to choose from. The overall count of missions is also quite low and they get very repetitive after a while.
I do love the combat, it's good. There's real variety in builds and weapons. And enemy traits combine pretty well for tactical challenges. Unfortunately, there's an issue where special enemy cues just don't play (and a separate issue where they just get lost in the mix) that they haven't fixed since probably 2 years ago, typical fatshark. There's some kind of cheat mod that straight up points arrows at specials because of this.

 

[Latelistener]

Got this from the recent Humble Choice. If you're interested, you can get the key relatively cheap (it was $6, but now it's $7.5).

I have played Vermintide extensively, so I would say I have some expertise, but I didn't get the chance to play Vermintide 2 properly.

- Whoever was making this game clearly loves Warhammer and this is probably about as low-key as it can be in this setting. You aren't a Space Marine and you aren't fighting an epic battle, you're just a small cog in a giant machine and the game makes it clear.
- At the same time, the characters become very powerful lore-wise (to the point of not being lore-friendly), but I would say it's a plus for me.
- Combat is extremely good and satisfying and the addition of automatic weapons not only didn't brake it, but made it even better. Ranged weapons have a great sense of impact and they sound really nice.
- A huge amount of different weapons and there is seems to be a decent build variety, but that remains to be seen (I'm not that far into the game yet).
- For example, Psykers aren't limited to staffs. You can use rifles and make a build out of it.
- The audiovisual part is top notch. The lighting is this game is superb and many objects in the game cast shadows. It clearly shows how a proper PC game can look. And Jesper Kyd still has it, even after 30 years or so.
- For the level of visuals, the optimization is good. 3070 Ti performs great in this game, but I do have some drops during intense fights. I do play at a higher resolution than 1080p.
- Despite not actually having a proper story, there is a lot of stuff going on in the background if you're interested in it, and there is a lot of interaction between characters depending on their class and background.

- Unfortunately, it's always online and there are still some issues with the servers depending on your region.
- Weapon upgrading system is somewhat convoluted, but it's not that hard to understand once you're into it. Some in-game tutorial would've helped though.
- The game is still behind Vermintide 2 when it comes to the amount of maps. Base Vermintide 2 had 13 maps, this one had 16 on release. Now there are 21 or so, but Vermintide 2 is way ahead of that. However, while level design is more or less the same, Darktide maps are much more detailed.

Overall, I'm really enjoying it and currently I think it's a much better game than the recent overhyped Space Marine 2, not that they could compare. Combat is this game, same as Vermintide, is just on next level with all its small intricacies like different weapon stats and builds, combos, armor penetration, attack angles, crowd control, suppression, etc. I just hope they will continue updating in regularly.

 

[ADL]

 

[Reever]

Gave the update a try. Tried the melee weapons in the meat grinder and they seemed fun. The mission is fine, although a lot of it is rehashed. The Havoc system I only tried once and that will probably be it unless I really want a difficulty bump. Got a few problems with the lobby/matchmaking system so we had to go with a bot (And since it uses the party system, no one else could've joined). The system seems not only a bit confusing but also kinda boring. You need to finish an auric maelstrom to gain access to havoc, but the first few havoc tries feel like the third difficulty level with some mods slapped onto it. My mission was an absolute bore with the "highlights" being the special condition enemies which took an entire mag to kill. fun.
You only get your rewards at the beginning of the next week and the rewards are just your usual crafting components. In addition, you only gain havoc rank if you start your own party. If you finish a havoc mission on somebody else's lobby, your rank will only be updated next week. And you also lose a rank if you don't participate for one week or if you lose 3 missions in a row.
In my opinion, a horrible system where they tried to replicate M+ from WoW but instead we're getting Weaves 2.0.
And to add to the shitpile, since the requirements for havoc are auric maelstrom, and people want their cosmetics from havoc, auric matchmaking is somewhat flooded with people who never played those difficulties before trying to gain access to havoc.

 

[Wild Slop]

Since I never did a Auric Maelstrom before I didn't think I could ( also it was a rank 5 one). I thought I would test doing a normal Maelstrom - and it worked. Apparently also doing a normal ( non-Auric) Damnation will also get you in the Havoc door.

A benefit of going the hard way is it auto places you at ( as of now) Rank 16 in Havoc.


Currently I am Rank 17, and since like I said I never did Auric Maelstrom I don't know how that compares in terms of difficulty.

 

[Turn_BASED]

The higher Havoc levels are insanity. Funneling into doorways is absolutely mandatory. Gunners are super dangerous too. This is the most hardcore mode I've seen from any fatshark title.

Here's a taste of Havoc 40:

 

[Tyranicon]

So is this finally good? Should I re-download now?

 

[Reever]

So is this finally good? Should I re-download now?

If you liked the gameplay before, it's still there. The crafting is mostly improved with the addition of masteries. A few new maps and weapons and the improved penance system. I'd say give it another try The additional difficulty modes are also welcome since I think that's what makes the gameplay enjoyable.
Additionally, not sure if you tried it after the talent tree update but that is probably the biggest improvement they game had imo. Plenty of cool builds and abilities to play around with.

 

[Tyranicon]

So I got back into it. Way back when I stopped playing around launch, I was using an OP zealot knife build.

A bunch of updates later and a total revamp of what looks like the entire character building system... I am still running an OP zealot knife build. Except now I'm invisible.