Hello, Fatshark. I really like your games and have been having a general good time playing Darktide. I have almost 100h played since the release of the Pre-Order Beta.
I understand that you must have a lot on your plate, but I feel the need to help give you some additions/changes that would make for a better overall gaming experience. As this is your game, you most definitely do not have to implement these suggestions, but speaking as a player with a lot of experience with FPS and gaming in general I think a lot of others might agree this would be something for you guys to work toward to improve the player’s overall experience.
So, here we go;
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There needs to be an ability to lock your items so that you do not accidently dismantle them. With the way the inventory is set up it is a bit confusing when you’re attempting to scroll through the wargear you have available. At best the only way to tell that an item is equipped is a white checkmark in the upper right corner of the window. It is difficult to notice it at times and is easy to confuse an item you aren’t currently using for the one you are – especially if you have more than one of the same type of weapon but with different stats, traits and attributes.
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Players need to have an articulated list/legend that explains each attribute in detail that might reside upon a weapon or piece of armor. For instance, I still have no idea what “Finesse” does. In addition, this would need to include a tool-tip of some kind that would also explain what all these different icons mean on weapons. If I were to mouse over them in the weapon inspection screen there is an audible sound effect as if this was intended to be this way already, but with the way it currently stands there is no active way to really tell what these icons really mean except to attempt to guess in-game while actively using the weapon.
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With the understanding that the crafting system is not fully implemented yet, I would still suggest that the shop should not update for the players once every hour on the turn of the hour, but after every successfully completed mission. While some might disagree, for those of us chain-running missions it comes across, at least to me, that our time is being wasted in having to wait for the shop to refresh so that I might have more items to choose from. Over the past week I imagine I have ended up waiting a few hours just because of 5-10m left on the timer. I think respecting the players time, in the end, would severely improve player retention.
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I would recommend removing the recent change to melee damage bleeding through toughness. The required training segment of the prologue even says that all damage goes through toughtness before affecting health and while this isn’t really a huge issue in the lower difficulties it starts to exponentially become an issue on Malice and higher tiers. If you want to regulate damage modifiers or put pressure on the group then there are plenty of other ways to do it; higher damage from mobs melee attacks themselves, ranged attacks, quicker corruption attainment…etc. Zealot play-styles themselves hinge on low HP playthrough and this is a serious detriment to the feel of that class.
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If you would not change this then I suggest giving the players audible footstep queues that people can listen for in-combat to allow them to be more aware of their surroundings. Getting blindsided because the infested don’t make a sound on their approach is one of the most annoying things to have to deal with in this game and it just simply isn’t fun. I used head-phones, I am accustomed to listening. I listen for where the gunfire is coming from, from where the mutants/hounds/traps/bombers are speaking or sounding from. Please give of something to work with here.
This is all I have at the time that I can think of that has been really bothering me. Thank you for your time and I hope this feedback leads to making Darktide an overall better experience.