​PREVIEW – Upcoming Balance Changes     ​

Warband! As part of the upcoming Depths of the Damned Free Update we have a balance update. Our focus has been on improving the base classes talent trees, overall class balance, weapon balance, and addressing Golden Toughness and its impact on both player builds and our overall design space for the future. Since we are making changes that will affect all players, regardless of class and loadout, it’s important for us to go through our thought process.The original four Classes are receiving several changes to their talent trees, with a particular focus on reducing the number of stat nodes required to complete your build, and improving the paths through the trees with the intent of providing more interesting choices and improving buildcraft. We are also looking to reinforce what makes the Veteran and Zealot stand out from the other Classes, by taking a closer look at their themes and mechanics. The Skitarius has now had some time to settle, so we are also going over its talents and abilities and making some targeted adjustments. NOTE: Since the changes affect the layout of the trees, your loadouts may need slight rearrangements to amend broken connections or reapplying of points to make up for removed talents. Rest assured that these are only partial resets.Several Melee Weapons are receiving changes, with the Thunder Hammer in particular getting some extra attention. Finally, we are taking a closer look at Golden Toughness. In May, we outlined our intention to improve combat balance by addressing some of the outliers in player power, and took the first steps by adjusting Carapace Armoured enemies and the players tools to deal with them. You can read that balance dev blog here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1361210/view/699890007742088260Our commitment is still to preserve the intensity of the combat, while making it more stable, more readable, and more supportive of different builds and loadouts. Adjusting Golden Toughness is another step towards that long-term goal.Golden ToughnessGolden Toughness is one of the more disruptive mechanics in Darktide. By changing the way damage and toughness interact, it can obscure some of the core rules of combat.Many players are naturally guided towards abilities that provide Golden Toughness, and these abilities can be highly effective even before a player has developed a strong understanding of the mechanics they are intended to learn, e.g. positioning, and how to engage each type of enemy. This can allow difficult situations to be bypassed or diffused without engaging with the underlying threats, making it harder for players to build that understanding through the intended learning curve.When Golden Toughness was first introduced to Abilities, Darktide was in a very different state. Since then, the overall difficulty and complexity of the game has increased, and the value of Golden Toughness has increased alongside it. As its value has grown, it has also become increasingly difficult to balance