This is Catfish, Darktide Community Manager, here with another comm-link update! We established these comm-links to answer some of the community’s questions and to give information about upcoming patches. (For clarification, this Comm-link was posted on the 25th May on our forums - hence the incorrect date in the title and the graphics!)
Our next update ‘Rejects Unite’ will feature both a patch and a content drop, which we will release during the Warhammer Skulls Event, stay tuned for the release date! Here is some of what you can expect from it:
Missions We will release 2 new missions - ‘Archivum Sycorax’ an Espionage mission located in Throneside, and ‘Ascension Riser 31’ a Strike mission in the Transit Hub. Here is how they will look in game:
Archivum Sycorax
Ascension Riser 31
Archivum Sycorax will be available to play once the patch is live and players will be able find it on the mission board. Our intentions are to increase the frequency of Archivum Sycorax appearing on the Mission Board during the first week of its launch across all difficulties. There are some restrictions at play that we are attempting to overcome. We will communicate in the patch notes if we are successful in executing this. If so, you can also expect the same behavior on the Mission Board for when Ascension Riser 31 is unlocked. Ascension Riser 31 will be unlocked as a reward for completing the Community Event.
Community Events
Once the patch has been deployed we will also kick off our first of three Community Events in which the community will need to complete challenges in order to unlock rewards. You will be able to see any progress made towards each challenge on our website and on the Darktide Launcher, once a goal has been hit then the rewards will be available to all players! The first two rewards (a tattoo followed by a helmet) will be able to be redeemed through the Darktide Account Dashboard similar to the Warhammer Fest cosmetics. Ascension Riser 31 will be the reward for the third challenge, which will be to complete 1,400,000 missions.
Playing on higher difficulties will help you reach the goal faster, with sedition providing a 1x bonus, Uprising 2x, Malice 3x, Heresy x4, and Damnation 5x to any points acquired. Once this goal has been reached the mission will be unlocked in game for all players.
Chaos Spawn
We will be adding our fourth Monstrosity to the game, the Chaos Spawn - a frenzy Monstrosity. While it's not as tanky as the Plague Ogryn or the Beast of Nurgle, it has fast attacks and erratic behaviour combined with a grab attack that heals the Chaos Spawn if not interrupted. Changes from VT2 include a new leap attack to close distances faster, new combo animations to reinforce the erratic frenzy theme, tweaked existing attack animations to reduce some of the fast damage timings, and new grab animations to fit our Ogryns.
Cosmetics
As part of 'Rejects Unite' we have added a new in-game store, which will be known as the Commissary. Here you will be able to purchase earnable cosmetics with Ordo Dockets. The Commissary is based on the left hand side of the Mourningstar, where the Armoury Exchange was previously located. Alongside this the prices for the earnable cosmetics currently in game will change - there will be some increases and some decreases.
Alongside this, Commodore's Vestures will release new items for sale shortly (potentially a few days after release) after the update. As before, these cosmetics will be on a rotational system and Commodore's Vestures will slowly shift to its intended cadence of being updated every two weeks on a Friday with 3 pages of items available for each class. The store will temporarily have 4 pages available for each class, until we rotate out the oldest set of items. As items do rotate out of the store, they will come back with new rotations over time as the store updates.
Here's a couple of our favourites, with plenty more cosmetic options available for all classes!
From left to right we have:
Veteran wearing the Achlys Mk IIb Cyclops Helm, Armoured Combat Vest, LeatherTanker Togs and Mk IV Ahabian Prosthetic limb from Commodore's Vestures.
Ogryn wearing Knee-Smasher's Garb (XXXXL) from the Commissary
Zealot in Saintly Lazar's Vestments from the Commissary
Psyker wearing the "Penance" Redemptor's Veil, Black Medusa Psykana Collar (Morlox style regalia),"Penance" Psyker Trousers from Commodore's Vestures.
We will also add a tiering system for cosmetic items to be able to show the difficulty of cosmetics earned by Penances, or reflective of the prices in the Commissary. These tiers will be: Profane (gray), Redeemed (green), Anointed (blue), Exalted (purple), and Transcendent (orange).
This covers most of what will be included in ‘Rejects Unite’, but we will be sharing more information in the full notes on the day of the patch!
Content Drop: Rejects Unite - Announced at Skulls!
Our latest drop alongside its patch offer new content, including new missions, a new enemy, a community event, a revamped earnable cosmetics shop, and the reactivation of the premium store. Scroll down to take a look at main features releasing with Rejects Unite!
Content Drop: Rejects Unite and its Patch Include:
New Missions
Archivum Sycorax - Throneside : We are sending you into Habzone HL-19-24, "Throneside," to break into Archivum Sycorax. We suspect the Heretics have been getting help from inside the hive, and we believe there's sensitive information in there that could prove that.
Ascension Riser 31 - Transit : This mission is part of our first community event. Players will unite to achieve 3 challenges. Each challenge will unlock a reward; the last will be Ascension Riser 31. The Heretics are transferring a consignment of Prismata Crystals to their allies in the Hive. Head into the bowels of the Transit Hub HL-16-11, "Chasm Terminus," to intercept and seize the shipment before they can complete the transfer.
New Enemy
The Chaos Spawn - an old f(r)iend returns: The Chaos Spawn will now be roaming Tertium as Darktide's fourth monstrosity.
Cosmetics
New shop dedicated to earnable cosmetics: A new servitor is moving on the Mourningstar, taking the vacant spot left by Brunt's Armoury location change.
Additional earnable cosmetics: More cosmetics will be patched into the game for players to earn.
Lock & Unlocked Inventory view: Players will now be able to track which earnable cosmetics they have obtained, where they came from and how to get the most elusive ones.
Premium Store
After a break spent to focus on improving Darktide, we are re-opening the premium store, featuring new sets of cosmetic items.
Darktide is currently discounted at 30% during Skulls! Make sure to grab the game while the sale lasts!
Check our CommLink on our forums to deep dive into the features mentioned above!
Warhammer Skulls is Live! Darktide Discounted 30%!
Tune in to Warhammer Skulls 💀, TOMORROW, May 25th at 5pm BST / 9am PST. Hosted by Rahul Kohli. Make sure to treat yourself to some discount here, Darktide is currently 30% OFF!
Here are the notes for Hotfix 1.0.52 that just went live on Steam, and will be out shortly on the Microsoft Store.
Fixed an issue of missing animation package loading for cutscene characters.
Hotfix 1.0.51
Rejects!
Here are the notes for Hotfix 1.0.51 that just went live on Steam, and will be out shortly on the Microsoft Store.
Fixed an issue with the shader caching system (which caused the stuttering and hitching after the last patch).
Fixed a bug where some cosmetic items dissappeared, leaving empty slots on your rejects. this has been temporarily rolled back due to an unforseen issue
Penances that required other penances to be completed will now be unlocked and items rewarded as expected when you enter the Mourningstar. One such Penance is the Veteran Sharpshooter "For the Emperor" Penance.
Claim the Mancunio Campaign Cosmetics!
Rejects,
Warhammer Fest might be over but we do have some cosmetics to keep the celebration going in Tertium! Claim your helmets, trinket and portrait frame with the code WarhammerFest here: https://accounts.atoma.cloud/login
Code is available to claim until 18 May 2023
Patch #9 Garbs and Penances
Rejects!
Here are the patch notes for Patch #9 Garbs and Penances, which just went live on Steam and will be available shortly on the Microsoft Store.
Updated Features
We have added new sets of class penances, with tiered cosmetic rewards to go along with them. The new penances provide more straightforward progression goals and are aimed at reinforcing the class roles, rewarding playing them well without disrupting the game.
The old class penances have been moved to a tab at the bottom of the penance menu under ‘Redacted.’ We consider them to be more of “trick challenges, " often requiring the entire team's collaboration and a break from normal gameplay. This can be a lot of fun but should not be mandatory or forced upon unsuspecting teammates.
Some of the old penances have also undergone some number tweaking to make them more achievable as a solo player without interrupting your teammates. Also, we have added a private session requirement for some Ogryn, Psyker, and Zealot penances to clarify that they require full team collaboration to be completed.
We have also updated some of the existing penances. The Steam/MS Store achievements will be updated to have the same requirements as the penances with the same name.
New Penances
Veteran Sharpshooter
Stay Accurate
Kill 350 enemies with ranged weak spot hits.
Resupply Allies
Replenish 5000 total ammunition to allies using Scavenger.
Stay Alert
On Malice Threat or higher, kill 150 enemies that have been marked by Volley Fire.
Fire Down Range
On Malice Threat or higher, kill 100 enemies that are over 25 meters away.
Find your Targets
On Heresy Threat or higher, kill 2 Elite or Specialist enemies during a single Volley Fire, 50 times.
Be Methodical
On Heresy Threat or higher, keep Volley Fire active for over 20 seconds 5 times.
Psyker Psykinetic
Prioritize Targets
Kill 200 Elite or Specialist enemies with Brain Burst.
Master Survival
Use Psykinetic's Wrath to survive Perils of the Warp 50 times.
Power Up
On Malice Threat or higher, kill 100 Elite or Specialist enemies with Brain Burst while at maximum Warp Charges.
Unleash the Warp
On Malice Threat or higher, Kill 2500 enemies with Warp attacks.
Shoot Fast
On Heresy Threat or higher, kill 25 Pox Hounds, Mutants, or Scab Trappers using Brain Burst before they incapacitate you or an ally.
Keep Your Distance
On Heresy Threat or higher, complete 3 full Missions without being hit in melee by an Elite enemy.
Zealot Preacher
Control Crowds
Stun 1500 enemies using Stun Grenades.
Stay Strong
Replenish 7500 Toughness using Chastise the Wicked.
Find Their Weakness
On Malice Threat or higher, kill 75 Stunned enemies with Critical Hits.
Channel Your Rage
On Malice Threat or higher, kill 1000 enemies with Melee Attacks while at least 3 stacks of Martyrdom.
Master Your Tools
On Heresy Threat or higher, kill 75 Elite or Specialist enemies with Powered Melee Attacks (Chain or Power weapons).
Have Faith
On Heresy Threat or higher, using Chastise The Wicked, dash toward a targeted enemy that is wielding a ranged weapon 40 times.
Ogryn Skullbreaker
Help Everyone
Revive or Assist 40 Knocked Down or Incapacitated allies.
Keep Them Grounded
Knock Down 5000 enemies.
Clear the Path
On Malice threat or higher, knock down 3 Ranged enemies using Bull Rush, 25 times.
Cleave Them Down
On Malice Threat or higher, kill 2 enemies with a single Melee Attack 250 times.
Keep Your Friends Close
On Heresy Threat or Higher, complete 3 full Missions without any allies being Knocked Down or Incapacitated for longer than 10 seconds and without any allies dying.
Bring The Hurt
On Heresy Threat or higher, hit 4 Elite or Specialist enemies with Big Boxes of Hurt, without missing an Elite or Specialist enemy with a Big Box of Hurt 5 times.
Updated Penances
Ogryn Skullbreaker
Friends Will Be Friends:
Changed the required mission time that a player must be in coherency with an ally from 100% to 90%.
Gone Bowling:
Changed the number of enemies requirement from 70 to 60.
Heavyweight Champion:
Changed the number of Ogryns you must hit with Bull Rush from 6 to 4.
Don't Stop Me Now:
Can now only be completed in a private game.
Zealot Preacher
Just A Flesh Wound:
Can now only be completed in a private game.
Psyker Psykinetic
Going Out With A Bang:
Changed the number of elites you must kill from 3 to 1.
Pick n' Mix:
Changed number of enemies you must kill from 5 to 4.
Malleus Monstronum:
Can now only be completed in a private game.
Veteran Sharpshooter
One in the Chamber:
Increased the number of times you need to kill an enemy with the last round in a clip from 5 to 8.
Make Every Shot Count:
Changed requirement from 100% accuracy to 90% accuracy.
Balance Tweaks
Enemy Units
Changed spawn distribution for Heresy and Damnation, weight default population towards more Scab Maulers while introducing more variations of Elite patrols. Please note that the total amount of Elites and total threat value of all enemies spawned remains the same.
Made heavier stagger variations require more impact for Scab Maulers while tuning their walk switch distance and increasing their ranged stagger resistance. They should still stagger, but prefer the lighter stagger reactions. This makes them less prone to fall over with the rest of the horde and instead stand and take the pain.
Dev note: “The pacing director maintains the balance of all things. This change aims to provide more variation in the encounters by weighting away from ranged mobs and giving the melee guys more presence. By spawning more Melee elites, the director will spawn fewer ranged ones. By keeping Maulers on their feet, they’ll separate from the horde and stand out from the crowd.”
Increased hit zone damage and adjusted hitpoints on Plague Ogryn and Beast of Nurgle to reward weak spot and torso hit more.
Beast of Nurgle:
Melee weakspot multiplier from 110% to 150%
Melee head multiplier from 80% to 90%
Melee non-tail limbs multiplier from 60% to 70%
Ranged weakspot multiplier from 70% to 120%
Ranged head multiplier from 40% to 50%
Ranged non-tail limbs multiplier from 35% to 40%.
Plague Ogryn:
Torso melee multiplier from 75% to 85%
Head ranged multiplier from 80% to 100%
Torso ranged multiplier from 60% to 75%
Increased base Plague Ogryn hitpoints from 16000 to 19000.
Rebalanced monstrosity hitpoint pools over difficulties:
Sedition: decrease to 60% from 65%
Uprising: decrease to 75% from 80%
Damnation: increase to 300% from 250%.
Fixed case where the Daemonhost could stay longer than intended after players got revived during the fight.
Weapons and Blessings
Increased active duration of Rev it up Blessings (available on Cadia Mk IV Assault Chainsword, Orestes Mk IV Assault Chainaxe, and Tigrus Mk II Heavy Eviscerator) from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
Increased the number of tiers on blessing Power Cycler (Munitorum Mk VI Power Sword and the Munitorum Mk III Power Sword ) from 1 to 2, adding a tier below the previous.
Old:
Tier [4]: 2 extra hits.
New:
Tier [3]: 1 extra hit
Tier [4]: 2 extra hits.
Added 2 more tiers to Bloodletter and balanced values:
Old:
Tier [3] 8 stacks
Tier [4] 10 stacks.
New:
Tier [1] 8 stacks
Tier [2] 10 stacks
Tier [3] 12 stacks
Tier [4] 14 stacks.
Feat Balance
Dev note: “We're making a pass at feats with lower pick rates, buffing as we go to get the internal balance on a couple of tiers a bit more even.” Sharpshooter
Exhilarating Takedown
Increased Duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds
Increased Toughness replenished from 15% to 20%.
Deadshot
Reduced Stamina drained per second from 10% to 8%
Reduced Stamina drained per shot from 5% to 4%.
The Bigger They Are …
Increased the Damage Bonus from 50% to 75%.
Skullbreaker
Smash 'Em Good!
Increased Toughness replenished from 20% to 25%.
Best Form of Defence
Increased Toughness replenished from 20% to 25%.
Blood & Thunder
Increased Stacks of Bleed applied from 4 to 6.
Bloodthirst
Increased the maximum amount of Stacks from 5 to 6.
Preacher
Martyrdom
Increased Melee Damage per Stack from 5% to 8%.
Purify in Blood
Increased the Toughness bonus from 75% to 100%.
Fury of the Faithful
Increased the Duration from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Psykinetic
Community Comm-Link 27th April 2023
Rejects,
This is Catfish, Darktide Community Manager, here with another comm-link update! We established these comm-links to give information about upcoming patches.
In the first week of May we will release Patch #9 - Garbs and Penances which will feature tiered sets of cosmetics for each class that you’ll earn by completing new penances. These earnable cosmetics will work similarly to existing penance cosmetics, with several tiers for each class. The old class penances will be moved to a tab at the bottom of the penance menu under ‘Redacted’. Here you can see the Veteran and Ogryn’s final tier cosmetics!
As part of Patch #9 we’ll also have some changes to Blessings (including another tier of Power Cyler), balance tweaks and bug fixes. Full patch notes will be available once Patch #9 has been deployed.
Following Patch #9 we will be deploying a content drop, which will be coupled with a large patch. Here is a sneak peek of concept art from a new mission we are working on as part of the content drop, that will be located in the Throneside Zone.
Going forward the cadence of these comm-links will be changing slightly and you can expect the next edition to be on the 18th May.
We look forward to seeing some of you at Warhammer Fest this weekend!
Hotfix 1.0.48
Rejects!
Here are the notes for Hotfix 1.0.48 that just went live on Steam, and will be out shortly on the Microsoft Store.
Fixed issues with the text on various Blessings and Feats.
Fixed issues with Mutants being unable to grapple players.
Fixed an issue with Poxbursters sometimes being immune to pushes.
Patch #8 Notes
Rejects!
Here are the patch notes for Patch #8 which is live now on Steam and will be available shortly on the Microsoft Store.
Psyker
Raising Soulblaze’s damage vs. flak armour to 150% (was previously 100%).
Dev Note:"We have now separated the burning DoT and Soublaze DoT armour modifiers to enable this change."
Increasing the Psyker's "Wrack and Ruin" Feat number of Soulblaze stacks from 3 to 4.
Weapons
Tweaked the hit zone priority for Rashad Mk II Combat Axe.
M35 Magnacore Mk II Plasma Gun:
Venting damage is now absorbed by toughness at a 3x rate.
M35 Magnacore Mk II Plasma Gun now ignores hit zone multipliers for anything that is not a monstrosity.
Dev Note:"This means that the M35 Magnacore Mk II Plasma Gun can now damage Bulwarks through their shield, and body shots on enemies will not be able to be blocked by their limbs."
Enemies
Added lag compensation to Pox Hound pounce attack to make it easier for players with higher ping to dodge their attacks.
Reduced the pause between spawns of other enemies while Pox Hounds from the Hunting Grounds condition are active on higher difficulties.
Dev Note:“Specialists and Horde spawns are no longer paused on Heresy/Damnation difficulty, resulting in a higher possibility of a mixture of spawns when a hunting grounds event is active. The intent is to provide a wider range of challenges on higher difficulties instead of forcing the same behavior every time we spawn Hunting Grounds Pox Hounds.”
Reduced melee stagger resistance on Poxbursters during their lunge animations so that melee attacks can stagger Poxbursters more reliably.
Tweaked Poxbursters so that they reset their stagger immune time when they lunge at players.
Dev Note:"This should fix cases where Poxbursters sometimes ignored staggers when another player shot at it just before it entered its lunge animation."
Changes to Mutants:
Tweaked the Mutant charge turn values in order to avoid instant turns
Tuned Mutant navigation to be a bit smoother
Tuned Mutant rotation speed to be a bit slower, allowing for easier dodging
Increased Mutant stun time when hitting walls from 3 seconds to 3.5 seconds
Other Fixes and Tweaks
Implemented changes to the vote kick system:
This will now display as a notification instead of a pop-up
Added measures to counter players’ ability to spam vote kick.
Added full toughness recovery when players get revived from being knocked down in order for the rescued player to have some space to get back into the action.
Added a 5-second spawn grace when players spawn, where enemies can't see them, and they're invincible.
Dev Note:"This was added to make it less jarring to join an ongoing game and immediately get downed by enemies without giving the player time to react to the situation."
