u/_Banter_Claus

I have just finished a round of w40k: darktide, which is quickly becoming my go-to horde shooter over helldivers. Why? Because you actually need your team to win.

I'll avoid jargon to make this post more accessible, but in short darktide is a horde shooter/hack and slash which follows the typical formula of 4 dipshits vs insurmountable odds.

In this match: one teammate with a build designed for boss killing, was separated from myself and other two teammates and was quickly killed. Our team then ran into a boss spawn, leading to myself and another teammate being downed despite a noble effort. Because we lacked the single target damage, we were punished naturally by the game for our earlier mistakes.

Our lone survivor, through a massive reliance on stuns due to building his character around holding the front line against melee enemies, managed to fight for minutes and escape, with the boss hot on his heels.

He rushed to the downed trio, now savable in a later area in the map. With his last stun, he managed to revive me, who was running a front line buff/support build. With my ability stunlocking the horde chasing our savior, our team managed to get to full strength.

Finally able to clean house, we reached our final target, a *proper* boss. The boss killer who was downed way back when then tore him to pieces and we triumphed.

This match showcased that the importance of teamwork does not stifle individual skill expression. All 4 of us had a part to play to claim victory.

I believe that hd2 gave too much freedom to players when the developers clearly originally intended the players to use combined arms and strategems to win.

After buffdivers, thermites, ultimatum, and buffs to primaries, etc., hd2 no longer became a team game. It became a game of four individuals who could do it all by themselves even on the hardest difficulty. The meta for the hardest difficulty isn't even based around strategems and loadouts anymore, it's splitting up so you can go home faster. This is NOT a healthy state for *a co-op horde shooter*

Although I appreciate AH's ambition to make a team based shooter with an emphasis on sandbox mechanics, it wrongly set expectations for the wave of casual players that joined the hype train when it released.

This class system would *only* affect available strategems. You could still customise armour and general load outs to your heart's content. something like horde clear, anti tank, objective demolition, and support being possible roles.

Some strategems could be available for multiple roles, such as the Eagle Air strike both being a good horde and objective destruction tool.

Obviously I haven't fully thought this out. But that match of darktide gave me a feeling I haven't gotten from helldivers in well over a year, and probably never will again.

Tldr: wahhhhhhh arrowhead bad buffs bad waaaahhhhhhh 😢😢😢😢