Hello Everyone,
We’ve long seen the comments from players saying they want more of a challenge from Darktide. Players would like to continually challenge themselves and improve their skills. You want to face the horrors of the tide.
We’re excited to announce the next major game feature we have been working on for Darktide: Havoc.
If you’re a player who relishes overcoming obstacles and seeks to measure and improve your abilities, then Havoc has been crafted specifically for you.
This dev blog is an introduction to Havoc and to answer initial questions. We’re still performing tests for it, and we’ll announce a release date as soon as we are confident! We will be following this dev blog up with another Q&A, similar to what we did with Itemization.
What is Havoc?
Commissar Dukane and the Moebian 53rd Steelheads have arrived on Atoma, keen to prove their mettle and quash this uprising. Havoc missions represent Dukane’s influence on the war for Tertium. She believes in firm, swift, decisive action, striking at the heart of the traitor forces and ensuring each mission takes the maximum toll on the enemy.
An uncompromising taskmaster, she demands the best from all her charges, rewarding those she deems worthy with yet more perilous missions, or as she might say, opportunities for greatness.
Let’s break this down further.
Havoc is a new tiered progression system we have been working on for Trust Level 30 players.* This system will consist of different levels, known as Order Levels. There will be 40 Order Levels in total for Havoc.
Each Order Level will incrementally increase in difficulty, with increasing negative modifiers and varying mutators. Players won’t only face increased hordes or enemies, they’ll also encounter 4 brand new mutators, including one the community has recently encountered: the Infected 21st Moebians.
** Only Trust Level 30 players will be able to access Havoc.
A player’s Havoc Rank is the highest level they’ve reached and successfully completed in Havoc.
A Havoc Order is the current mission a player is facing. Each Havoc Order is unique and personal to the player in terms of what mission and what mutators.
Key Features of Havoc
1. Tiered Challenges
There will be 40 Havoc Order levels for players to progress through for Havoc. With each level missions will become incrementally more difficult, allowing players to gauge their skill progression. To unlock Havoc, players must first complete an Auric or Non-Auric Maelstrom mission.
For each Order level, more negative modifiers are introduced. This increase is additive, meaning the previous modifiers will carry over to the next Havoc Order, plus any new ones on top of it. For example, if an Order level 1 reduces toughness regeneration, then Order level 2 will reduce toughness regeneration and another negative modifier on top of it. So on, and so forth until Order level 40 provides the most challenging content in the game.
A player will need to beat an Order level once in order to progress to the next Order level. A player will have 3 attempts to beat a Havoc Order level before being demoted down one Order level.
2. Personalised and Dynamic Havoc Orders
While the modifiers are pre-defined for each Havoc Order, the mission and mutators applied to each order level will be unique and randomized for each player. This means Order Level 1 for one player will not look the same as a level 1 Order for another player.
If a player fails to complete the Havoc Order after an attempt, the player can continue to attempt the same unique mission and mutator combination. However, the enemies and spawns will appear in different places throughout the mission, which brings a level of variety and unpredictability so no two runs are the same.
As mentioned above, players will have 3 attempts per Order Level before being demoted one level.
3. Fluid Ranking System
Havoc will update a player’s Order Rank on a weekly basis. If a player was unable to complete their Havoc Order before Havoc is updated for the week, they’ll remain at the same Havoc Order. But they’ll have a different mission and mutator combo to attempt.
If a player does not succeed in progressing forward in any Order Levels during the week, they will be decayed 1 Havoc Order the following week.
4. Cooperative Gameplay
Players are not alone in their journey. Havoc encourages inviting friends to help progress through the Havoc Ranks together. While using the Party Finder to form a team, players will choose which friends’ Havoc Order to challenge together. The only requirement is to be at least level 30. If players form a group, it doesn’t matter if one friend is Havoc Rank 1 and the others are Havoc Rank 20. They can all play together.
For example’s sake, let’s say we had a group of four players: Player A (Havoc Rank 20), Player B (Havoc Rank 19), Player C (Havoc Rank 19), Player D (Havoc Rank 1).
If those players formed a group and successfully beat Player A’s specific Havoc Order 21, at the end of the mission, all of the players will have a new Havoc Rank of 21. However, those players’ Havoc Order (aka the personal mission currently available to them in Havoc) will not change until the following week.
The following week, all players will be Havoc Rank 21 and they’ll have a Havoc Order level 22 to complete.
Players will always be promoted the following week based on their highest completed Havoc Order level the week prior. In this example, even though Player D started at Havoc Order 1, they are brought up to Havoc Rank 21 since this is the highest difficulty they completed the previous week .
5. Party Finder Integration
One of the reasons we wanted to introduce the Party Finder was specifically for Havoc. Because the difficulty is so high, it wouldn’t work to simply Quick Play into a Havoc mission. Because of the varying combinations of mutators and missions, and the increasing difficulty, players will want to prepare their talents and weapons based on the challenge they’re facing. Using Quick Play would not allow players to properly prepare for the challenge.
There will be a separate section in the Party Finder for players to create and join Havoc parties. You can create a party based on your own Havoc Order or join others. If friends are forming a party together, they’ll need to choose which player’s Havoc Order they’d like to attempt together.
Again, anyone can join any party regardless of their own Havoc Rank or the current level of their Havoc Order, so long as they’re Trust Level 30.
Missions, Mutators and Conditions
When Havoc is launched, it’ll have 8 missions in the mission pool. These were chosen based on a few criteria, like zone, mission type, win rate in upper difficulties, etc. Operations (like Rolling Steel) are not planned to be a part of this rotating mission pool at this time, due to them being different in nature to our other missions.
Havoc will introduce 4 bespoke mutators which players will only find in Havoc. Havoc Order levels will be able to have up to 2 mutators active at one time. The community has already encountered one of these during the latest event: the Infected 21st Moebians. We think you’ll enjoy the other ones we have planned. We’re going to keep them as a surprise for now and share them closer to release.
Conditions will also be a part of the mix for possible Order levels for players to tackle. However, not every Order level will include a condition. It’ll be more spread out, with a condition being present ~5 Order levels. This includes Lights Out, Ventilation Purge and Tox Gas. (Note: Ogryns soon will no longer be suffering from the dark.)
Future Content and Updates
In the future, we’ll rotate the missions that are available for Havoc. Also, any time a new mission is added in an update, it will enter the mission pool. (As mentioned above, Operations are not planned to be a part of this rotation.)
We also plan to add more mutators over time for Havoc. So let us know if you have any ideas that you’d like to see in the future.
Rewards for the Brave
You might be wondering, how will players be rewarded? Players will receive materials and Mastery XP. There will also be a cache based on your weekly progress within Havoc, where players can earn extra Plasteel and Diamantine.
Beyond materials, there will also be frames, titles and insignia to be earned throughout the Penance system. We’ll also be adding an all black Moebian 53rd cosmetic set, which will be earnable through playing. (Note: Players will not need to get to Order Rank 40 to earn this cosmetic set, don’t worry.)
Ready to Face the Tide?
Alright, that’s a wrap on the Introduction to Havoc. We’re working hard on testing and putting together the final touches for this upcoming game mode. Once we’re ready, we’ll be able to share a release date.
Similar to our Introduction to Itemization, we’ll be following this up with a Q&A dev blog to answer any player questions we see! Please stay tuned and join the conversation.
Thank you for your support.
– The Darktide Team