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[Folly]

Psyker felt pretty terrible day 1, compared to Closed Beta. Peril built up more quickly and purged more slowly. Both of those things were addressed in the hotfix today, and it feels better now. Though the Push having no damage and zero effect on heavier enemies still irks me.

[Mephansteras]

Got in one more match with the Psyker. Still not sold on it, but it was better this time. New gun helped considerably, since I felt I could actually contribute at range rather than just annoy enemies with the pistol. The starter sword is ok, but I am looking forward to trying out my new dueling sword on a mission.

Powers still feel a bit weird as a combo. I'm supposed to be looking for specials/hard targets for my Brain blast ability, but my force wave is only good for hordes, but I still feel super squishy in melee. I did do better this time around, mostly trying to be a support shooter/special watcher but rushing in to help with hordes as necessary. Also went down a bunch from getting ganged up on, which wasn't so great.

I don't know, I really like the Elf from Vermintide for taking out specials, but she makes it easy. The Brian blast is very, very slow so it's easy to get hit by a special before it goes off or get interrupted by a trash mob. It's strong, but just isn't easy to use. And a lot of specials really need you to act fast on.

We'll see how my opinion changes as I get higher level.

[nenjin]

Brain Burst is incredibly useful for things like Crushers, Bulwarks, Maulers, Ragers, Reapers, etc...They're good at taking out big beefy elites rather than specials. Brain Burst will usually kill them while the rest of the melee is wailing on them. In situations where there's just too much shit to going on to focus on the Super Heavies, Brain Burst really shines because you can just kite them while they die.

That said, Brain Burst is good for Bombers, since if you tag them, they run off and get squished. The Special killer really does seem to be Veterans. But you have to work for it, unlike Kerillian's Career skill.

Got the Recon Lasgun, and I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't do a ton of damage per shot and has no stopping power, but it throws out rounds so fast that when you're getting headshots guys just liquefy. It's also really accurate from the hip, and dead accurate even at high range when aiming down sights. The standard Lasgun still has better time to kill a single target, especially elite and up, but the recon is just a good all around versatile weapon and feels good to use.

Also got the Power Sword, and I'm kinda in love. It has the same attack pattern as the Catachan sword. But the weapon special makes it go through armor like butter, and has unlimited cleave while active, it feels like. If you just need to flail against the horde to clear guys out it's good, and if you really want to slay horde and/or armored, it's good too. Pretty much invalidates the other sword IMO. I think it'll end up being my preferred melee weapon for Veteran. The knife, axe, chainsword, shovel and chain axe don't really do it for me.

Still looking forward to seeing the Boltgun, Plasma Gun, Flamer and maybe? Melta Gun. I'm finding I like DT's guns the same way I liked VT2's melee weapons. And vicea versa. I was never too wild on VT2's missile weapons, and many of DT's veteran melee weapons kind of underwhelm me.

Also, protip on Maulers: only their head is carapace armor. When facing them if you just unload all your shots into their torso, melee or ranged, they go down much faster.

Looking forward next week to when they add more missions, and probably functional content updates like the Barber coming online.

[nenjin]

Game soundtrack. It's 2 hours long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olqaqM21Dro&t=7s

I won't say everything in there is a gem to put on your everyday playlist....but it may be one of the best 40k soundtracks I've heard since Dawn of War.

[nenjin]

Finally reached rank 30 with the Sharpshooter. I got the achievement for completing 50 missions as Sharpshooter on the same mission...so give or take a few missions and different difficulties, it's probably 40 missions to reach 30 on a character.

Got to finally use the Plasma Gun and Boltgun. The Boltgun is great, but it has a ton of disadvantages, like a small magazine, small ammo capacity and a pretty punishing ready up animation for a game where you weapon swap about 100 times per run. It hits like an absolute truck, does a lot of splash damage and only marginally cares about carapace armor. But its unaimed shot is a double shot which isn't super accurate, and when there's a ton of trash between you and the priority target that needs to die, its rounds in the mag really hurt it.

The Plasma Gun though may be my favorite Sharpshooter weapon. It also absolute wrecks whatever it hits, is incredibly accurate and has a charged shot that can do even more damage. It puts down big guys in a hurry with the Sharpshooter Career skill. But it's an overheat weapon, and there's a limit to how many times in a row you can shoot it in addition to an overheat meter that will blow you up. Using it really makes you slow down and consider what's worth shooting rather than just shooting what's in front of you, like you do with a lot of the faster firing weapons.

We almost beat a Heresy difficulty mission. They're pretty tough but doable with a good group with Rank 30 gear. The game really slows down at that difficulty, making you take each area and group of enemies tactically. Unlike Vermintide where the answer is almost always just "kill harder", Darktide requires you to make smarter plays. If you're surrounded and there's a bunch of other guys shooting you with this that and the other thing, you need to break out and fall back to a space where their numbers mean less and you can shoot back at anyone that's shooting you.

The game has some glaring issues at this point though they really need to get cleaned up.

-Crashes and networking problems are still happening for lots of people.
-Progression is pretty slow. You're pretty much wholly reliant on an hourly list of rotating weapons and curios for any new gear. When what you like using isn't coming up, it starts falling behind in damage.
-You rarely is ever get gear rewards for completing missions. Out of 50 successful ones, I maybe got a post game reward 8 to 10 times.
-For the end game players, the only way seemingly to get access to purple and orange gear is through the Requistorium. But what it offers you is also random, both in type and rarity. You might get blues rather than purples and oranges, and they may not be weapons you're interested in. That offering rotates every 24 hours, and the gear is expensive enough you need to several hours of play to complete the contracts that reward the currency you need, and those recycle every 3 days.

I know there's going to be weapon rerolling and yadda yadda, and that will help. But it's not a smooth layout of gear offerings as you level up. 50% of everything on offer for Veteran is an autogun or lasgun. The rest is split among all the other weapons they use. And of those, only a certain number are a certain rarity.

Without all the content the game has to offer there it's probably unwise to come to too many conclusions. But there's something kind of stingy and uneven about the way Darktide gives you rewards. Ironically almost all of the cutscenes you get as you level up amount to some character telling you that you "need to do more, show more, fight harder." The parallels are rather ironic.

What we were saying during the first Beta seems to still stand. The gameplay is great. But the game around the gameplay is kind of iffy.

[Knave]

Picked up the game and played a couple games as an Ogryn last night.

Had fun but man that starting ogre gun (basically a 1 shot mega shotgun) is soooo slow to reload. Do I really have to wait until level 11 before the store unlocks to buy more weapons?

[Mephansteras]

Picked up the game and played a couple games as an Ogryn last night.

Had fun but man that starting ogre gun (basically a 1 shot mega shotgun) is soooo slow to reload. Do I really have to wait until level 11 before the store unlocks to buy more weapons?

No, the primary weapon store unlocks at level 2.

[Knave]

Oof thanks for that! 
Weird that the basic weapons are off to the side, probably wouldn't have noticed for a while!

[Shooer]

As soon as you hit level 2 it gives you an objective in the lobby to visit the armory.

[nenjin]

Today's planned content update putting in new maps and other features...delayed until tomorrow.

I'm going to be brutally honest: I'm having a ton of fun in Darktide. Despite the small map selection, bugs, crashes, things not being hooked up, I'm still having a lot of fun.

But if you're not sure about this game....wait until after release. Give it a few days to see what's actually finished and what's not. I can't really predict what release is going to look like, but if I use the beta I'm currently playing as an example of what's going to be in the full release....it's going to be rough. Inconsistent networking (there's just short but but noticeable periods of the day where you can't reach the hub in good order, join a strike team or launch missions), inconsistent performance (as the person with the oldest hardware of my group I'm experiencing the fewest crashes.....), and unfinished content (progression balancing has issues, gear stats not tracking to reality, obvious bugged features) all add up to stuff that isn't going to magically be fixed by November 30th.

There's just lots of things yet to be hooked up for the full release, and if the stuff that was already hooked up prior to this beta still has issues, it wouldn't be reasonable to assume that unvetted content is "just going to work."

Like....you can attach little cosmetic items to weapons. Most recently I just tried to do this and it simply didn't work for the newest weapon I bought. Went in, played a mission, came out....and now it's attached.

If cosmetics are having synch issues like that, I can only imagine that the actual Forge for changing weapon stats and traits will have similar issues.

It's not that I don't believe in this game or am not having fun. But I think they're very behind schedule and that will be felt by players on release. If you don't have the tolerance for your typical big budget AAA release "get it as close as you can then clean it up after release" model, then I would give it some more time.

Truthfully if the gameplay weren't fun no amount of 40k trappings would allow me to recommend it. I may like 40k but I'm not going to simp that hard when there's so many glaring issues.

But the gameplay is super fun and crunchy and the flavor is 200% there. It's just the GAME around the GAME that is creakier than a beached ship in the Sahara. So this is my Caveat Emptor.

[Folly]

I love the Lightning staff. Great support tool. Instantly stagger anything smaller than a boss, especially dogs and bursters, making them easy targets for allies. Hits groups of enemies with no need to aim or worry about friendly fire. My biggest complaint is that it is very easy to overcharge and explode, which sometimes seems to happen instantly without allowing a chance to vent.

Currently using Voidstrike staff though. It shoots a bolt with huge piercing, and when charged enough will 1-shot a scab. Get them coming through a narrow hall and it just mows down entire crowds. Very effective.

The level 20 perk allowing me to purge while moving at full speed has really been a game changer. So much more casting when I can purge on the move without falling behind.

[nenjin]

I really like what I've seen of the Psyker attacks so far. Warp Lighting not only works really well, it looks fuckin' cool.

That said, the Warp Charge class mechanic seems dumb. Having to Brain Burst every 25 seconds to keep Warp Charges up for a measly 12% damage increase at max is just silly. I hope they rework that particular element of Psyker because it's dissuading me from even trying it.

[nenjin]

So we've started playing Heresy difficulty....

The shit is wild. You want that experience from Saving Private Ryan, storming the beaches of Normandy into the teeth of enemy gunfire?

Play Heresy.

It's hard to describe just how differently it plays from the lower difficulties. Sedition through Malice, the game is still largely about rushing. You take a few hits from lasgun, ignore it and wade into melee. Or stand there and return fire and eventually kill your opponent.

Not on Heresy you won't.

The lasgun and autogun squads absolutely MURDER you. A single foe with a lasgun can strip your toughness in a few shots. A squad of lasguns can take you from full toughness and health to dead in a single concentrated volley.

Multiple times now we've ended up completely pinned in cover by these las squads. We're barely able to peak out of cover without getting our faces shot off. And that's before you even get to the increased enemy health, the increased horde sizes, the increased # of elite spawns attacking you at once, and all the extra specials.

So Heresy difficulty as a whole means you have to play much slower and much much tighter as a team. You have to start using all your abilities in conjunction with each other to have a chance at breaking through. Some of the levels with bridge approaches are just murder, with spotty cover (that doesn't seem to work well) and long distances for the stupidly accurate AI to shoot at you.

Our last mission we played, there's a small hallway leading up to a much larger and longer hallway, where you have to jump down from where you are. We got there and had several teams of lasguns waiting for us. We tried everything; all our grenades, target marking, everything we could think of. And as someone would step to the ledge or corner of the wall to see what they could do, the lasguns would open up and frag their toughness before they'd even gotten a look around the corner.

The shit is brutal and obviously needs a balance pass. That said, it's kind of the 40k experience I've been looking for. Up to now, Darktide has more or less played like VT. You just push, push, push and shoot specials when needed. But on Heresy, you start having to move cover to cover and use flanking. Rushing just gets you killed. There are those on the forums who say they don't like this style of gameplay but frankly it's exactly what I've wanted coming from VT2. More thoughtful and mindful gameplay instead of just turning your brain off and endlessly cleaving hordes.

[nenjin]

Full patch notes from today:
https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/1-0-7-update-expanded-patch-notes-balance-tweaks/58673

And a video where someone starts trying to explain what the various weapon attributes actually mean or do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSXV4PxC8Ys

[nenjin]

Whatever else I feel about Darktide, the drip is on point. Legitimately looking forward to the (earned) cosmetics after launch.