I also think some maps should have unavoidable guaranteed bosses, including demonhosts.
I would absolutely support this on Auric missions - on regular missions, new players already have a difficult enough time just clearing damnation games that I wouldn't feel comfortable throwing them into an unavoidable DH fight halfway through the mission. I think it would be an interesting modifier to have multiple guaranteed bosses spawn on a mission depending on your progress (say, 33% and 66% through, or 25-50-75% though). I do agree with you that there are bad spawn locations for the DH, but even on normal gameplay it isn't uncommon that I encounter reapers and gunners standing very close to the DH.
I kind of think that preemptively taking out a DH in order to avoid a sticky situation is a good dilemma to throw at players.
True, which is why when I do trios with friends we usually do this. Unfortunately, it's hard to get that kind of coordination in pubs, which sucks because killing the DH is pretty fun. I personally would like to get better at soloing Daemonhosts.
The columnus just got nerfed.
The most recent change I can see to the Columnus is from last month: "Autoguns - Lowered the amount of hits that do increased damage on a critical hit string: Columbus Mk V Autoguns from 4 to 3". Sure, it's technically a nerf, but this change means practically nothing in game when the Columnus still shreds down specialists and elites without needing any special perks, blessings, or talents to do so. In my opinion, something more significant needs to be changed about it.
Rending is a crap mechanic too, don't get me started.
Agree with this. It's only impactful for DoTs like bleed and the non-braced autoguns, but even then it's still really not worth taking. Wish it was implemented better.
shout is better than executioner's stance anyway.
Agree with this too, though most games I play with plasma users who are absolutely demolishing everything in sight are using stance. Maybe my observations are just biased.
More weapons should be like the knife. It's one of the only melee weapons that have the feel and complexity of a VT weapon.
So full disclosure, I've never played the VT games. I have VT2 in my library, but I've just never gotten around to trying it out. I wouldn't mind weapons having the complexity and feel of VT weapons if that was something widely desired - frankly, the knife is very fun to use, though I personally enjoy playing with the Devil's Claws a lot more. The issue with the knife is that it is just so much better than the other melee options available, which discourages people only following the meta from experimenting with the other melee options. Perhaps the solution would be to buff/change the other melees to be more in tune with VT's mechanics instead of nerfing the knife?
The worst thing in the world is a trauma staff user who has no idea what they're doing.
Amen.
On an unrelated note, anyone playing the game may have seen an influx of players who don't have any clothes on, save for whatever head cosmetics may be equipped. Normally, you can make yourself "naked" by using the For the Drip mod, but the changes would only appear clientside. However, there is an exploit, which was and is still heavily gatekept, that allows the changes to appear serverside so that everyone else sees you as naked. According to a friend of mine who has the mod, some literal tranny named "Daisy" leaked the way to do the exploit on Reddit, and although the post was deleted in a few minutes, it was still long enough for the exploit to spread around. Naturally, this has caused some drama among the more dedicated Darktide players who originally gatekept the mod as having it was typically a way to indicate that you were a skilled player. Honestly, it is pretty disappointing now to see a naked level 60 zealot join your game only to get immediately overheaded by a Crusher and spam ping as they are dying, so I can see why they would be upset. Moral of the story: never give something being gatekept to a tranny unless you want it to get leaked.