A noob's opinion on Rewards and Crafting (they suck)

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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First of all, Merry Christmas.

Well now. There has been much discussion about what actually turns players away from Darktide, and I would now like to illustrate my personal opinion.

Let me start by saying that I am not a pro: in fact I am a mediocre player, and what’s more, I tend to sabotage myself with my obstinacy in using inferior weapons and talents for stupid reasons (e.g. because they look cool). However, I played the first two Vermintides; also, I’m a very long-time player of Dark Heresy, Deathwatch and Only War: so you can understand why I rejoiced when Darktide was announced (albeit with a certain caution, because Winds of Magic had burned me quite a bit).

Let’s get to the point. Personally I abandoned Darktide in February for many reasons, but the main three were:

  1. The lack of rewards and character development;

  2. The lack of content (maps, enemies, weapons);

  3. The lack of a general finish of the game, with too many elements abandoned halfway (e.g. the Requisitorium).

And where is the infamous crafting in all this? In the first item of the list, because crafting is an integral part of the rewards system – system which, in Darktide, lies in a sorry state.

Simply put: once a player reaches level 30 with his favorite Classes, and once he has completed all the Achievements that interest him, what is left for him to do? The possibilities are:

  1. Try to perfect his arsenal as much as possible;

  2. Play Darktide for the pure joy of the challenge;

  3. Abandon ship.

And here’s the problem.

In the first case the player will come up against that kick in the teeth that is crafting: and I won’t dwell on this, because the forum is full of threads that reiterate how this system, simply put, does not work.

In the second case (playing for the pure sake of the challenge) we have a legitimate situation, but one that shouldn’t apply to a game like Darktide. It pains me to say it, but we are faced with a desert of ideas here.

On the one hand we have a serious lack of “post-promotion”content. Once you reach level 30, it’s over. Is it so difficult to implement a system like that of Payday 2’s Infamy or that of Deep Rock Galactic’s Promotions? My brain may be the size of a walnut, but I find it very satisfying in Deep Rock Galactic to promote my favorite Dwarf to ever higher levels and earn a Badge that testifies to my dedication. Am I an Ogryn who likes shiny medals? Likely. But I don’t think I’m the only one in here.

On the other hand, the rewards of the missions, Auric and otherwise, are so miserable that they are not even worth undertaking (except, of course, for the pure pleasure of the challenge or because you are immersed in the vicious circle of crafting).

And here the discussion is linked (tragically) to that of crafting. The rewards are miserable because they are wasted for a system that is neither rewarding nor satisfying. In essence, the incentives are few and useless.

I repeat: playing for the pure pleasure of the challenge is fantastic and legitimate, but if that’s only thing left to do, you exclude a large portion of potential players who are also interested in obtaining some type of reward, even if it is a shiny medal.

And if a player no longer finds pleasure in playing (perhaps because all his other friends have gotten bored), or if he doesn’t want to try the casino experience of crafting, what is left for him to do? The third option: abandon ship.

Which is what I did in February. I then returned in October, after the update of the Talent trees, following the advice of my friends; and since then I have been playing solely for the pleasure of playing in the company of friends. I pretend that the rewards don’t exist and Hadron, if it were only for me, would starve. But I predict that, even so, without further content, I will get tired again.

I don’t understand how this can be ignored by Fatshark. We’re talking about integrating a system that allows you to get more players, and more loyal players, which means more purchases. And you don’t need strong intelligence or the opinion of a “silent minority” to affirm that the current system, rather than rewarding players, punishes them.

Well, I’ve said my opinion, and I’ve said it while mumbling and blathering, now Christmas lunch awaits me. Greetings everyone.

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Wow, it’s funny how people come here every now and then, and say something about crafting/progression.
It’s interesting

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Even funnier is that we have extremely regular feedback by tons of players and 99% agree that the current crafting system sucks and FS remains adamant that a gambling system of several layers of RNG is enjoyed by a silent majority.

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Huh, it’s almost as if the game was designed in such a way that beyond character level there was no genuine thought given to sense of progression or meaning.

“Please, engage with our Skinner box”

“The box doesn’t reward us for engaging with it”

“We will do as little as possible to insure that your time spent engaging with the box is as meaningless as possible. Also: here’s a fully functioning over-costed cosmetics shop we’ve also put minimal effort into”

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I cast @brosgw on a 5th level and end my turn

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That’s part of the issue with the “silent majority” thinking. If there’s a silent majority loving the crafting system there’s a silent supermajority that just abandoned ship and aren’t being counted.

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This is why i abondoned ship december last year, and i had 180 houers from nov 17-dec 30 (Which is a lot in my case, full time student, working 20 houers a week and very social).

I am back after patch 13 as well, i have played many houers now as traitor curse and talent update had some fun stuff (and player agency), but interacting (with yes) the crafting system (or lack there of) has made me not try many of the new weapons. So the only new stuff to me are the maps, talent trees, stimms and two new weapons which i got throgh melk (duck you brunt, i am not tutching your garbage).

So i am doing step 3 within the end of december! This game is not worth my time (beacause the lack of respect for the players time) or money (even though a few of the new skins look amazing!) when i got studies to do, beers to drink and tabletop 40k to play.

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Totally agree with the OP. The reward loop and how it ties into a sense of progress with respect to the crafting system is just an utter failure.

Fatshark created such an addictive and fun core combat system, yet the reward-crafting loop remains an activate detriment to the game and something that actively pushes people away from it. That Fatshark seemingly still doesn’t get the problem is one of the gaming workds greatest mysteries.

I can’t think of a single instance in my 30 years of gaming where there as been such a passionate outcry about a game’s system that has fallen in such deaf ears. It’s truly mind boggling.

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My money is on one of three things:

  1. Flat hierarchy means that whoever is ‘in charge’ of this particular section of Darktide can’t be overruled and, like many pustulent little pricks, is refusing to change it because they can’t possibly be wrong!

  2. Papa Tencent demands something to satisfy ‘metrics’. RNG is metrics, right?

  3. Flat hierarchy again but it’s just that they literally have nobody willing to fix the thing or change it and nobody to make the staff fix it.

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Of course there’s one common denominator across all three: leadership.

Fatshark clearly has had a serious leadership problem for a while. There’s an overtone of arrogance and condescension that permeates much of the company IMHO. The off the cuff remarks of CMs over the years, the tone of important letters to the community, the weaselly answers to tough questions, etc. it all related.

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@brosgw another one for the wall

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This is me in a nut shell. I want something to work towards. Crafting has made me leave the game. In VT2, where I had all the weapons I wanted, I just grinded 500 deeds, or the weird challenge runs that most maps had. These things are amazing fun to me. Fortunes of War on Cataclysm was also something that I loved doing, but I could not get my friends to grind towards.

I am a simple man. I like to see number go up, but I want something to work towards. The crafting system actively lets me not do that. I don’t mind grind as long as the game is fun, and Darktide is fun, but the grind must be predictable and working towards something. No the RNG nonsense that they had again.

You mention WoM. I loved WoM. I loved the weaves, and in particular I loved the loot system even if it was simplistic. This is what I want out of Darktide’s loot. Give us one type of each gun and let us grind to obtain upgrades. I don’t mind if it’s ridiculously hard or requires challenge runs, or full book runs, or whatever. It can also take time. However, once I have grinded for my upgrades, slotting them in and out of my guns must be as easy as changing talent points.

The system we have now is just garbage. If you must do the weapon diarrhoea fountains of games like Borderlands and Diablo then at least have the decency of providing a solid UI so that we can compare and get rid of trash. My inventory is full of guns that I will never look at because even the act of getting rid of them is too much of a chore.

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We have no way of knowing, and it’s not relevant to the discussion how many people we guess like or not like something. Our arguments stand well on their own, and the internal metrics we’re not privy to.

The only thing for sure is that we on these forums are a very vocal minority. Wether or not our views gel with the player base as a whole… I would say it’s likely, but I don’t know, so I’m not going to dwell on it.

I speak only for myself. Fix the crafting or I will not be coming back. I have countless timed laid out from my single point of view what I don’t like about it, and they can do with that what they will. Either my ideas are good, and they implement them because they are good ideas (not because of some perceived notion if others agree or not) or they don’t, in which case they lose me and possibly those that think like me as customers.

I can say, from the people that I play with, that one is back to V2 (he really loves that game) and the other two have stopped playing. We all play BG3 now, which admittedly we most likely would have done anyway, but Darktide is out of the rotation when we are not a full group, when it should be at the top of our list.

I will never presume to speak for anyone but myself, nor try to pad my arguments by saying that X% of people believe A or B (we all know that that’s not true). Fix the system, or lose one customer - this is the only thing that I personally can promise - do with that what you will.

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My bet is the management suffered a deep narcissistic injury during the abismal launch year seeing the player base dwindling down to measley 2 k player tus seriously ruining their monetisation sceem.

The reason why they dont “listen to the player’s” is simple… They are afraid of receiving a second narcissistic injury wich is doing exactly what the player wants but the player’s never returning so all the effort would be wasted… And frankly why should the player’s return ? The first impression was sith and DT is old news now, furthermore far superior entertainment software already on the market…

FS management know this so they are settling down with a mediocre product and a lukewarm 10-20k player base and cleaning their buttholes for the xbox player retention just for the chance to maintain a stable whale farm…

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We have. FS just needs to make poll. But they dont want to as poll results will force action from them.

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Welcome #481. You and your thread have been added. A Festivus for the rest of us.

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That’s true, we can’t know for sure why people no longer play and we can’t speak for others with any authority. But that said I don’t think there’s any need to overthink it. It’s not a leap to assume that most people who don’t like the game are just going to drop it. We can’t know for sure why so many people have quit since launch any more than we can know if the bulk of players who don’t post like the crafting system.

The game is pretty easily reducible into two layers: the action and crafting. It’s very clear that Fatshark’s passion was put into the action side. Every patch contains tweaks and adjustments to the action but almost never anything for crafting. In other words if people left because they don’t like the action then it’s moot because FS is already doing everything they can for them. That just leaves everyone else.

I should note that I don’t really like term “crafting” as a complaint because it really incorporates so many of the game’s issues: Lack of player agency, lack of stakes, lack of a progression system, lack of respect for players time. It could be that the game needs a third layer to address some of these but for now I would still lump that under the crafting problem since that’s all we’ve got.

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If you look at other games in the genre (DRG, Payday, etc) that have progression, it’s not hard to see how the progression systems in those games work as an incentive to keep people playing.

All the other successful games have a bit of a grind as well, but that grind is towards a reliable and regular player-driven goal (edit: and there are usually a lot of goals!!). If I do 10 of mission X I’ll get some credits to spend going down the cosmetic tree to reward ABC.

The rewards feel in reach for players, even if only playing casually. And once you get one reward, there’s another just a little bit further.

These games keep people hooked because there is always something achievable to work towards, which keeps people interested in playing (beyond the fun and challenge of missions themselves).

Complimenting this, If there’s a new character build idea you want to try, as long as you have a modest stockpile of resources you can probably spec into it and give it a shot. This keeps the actual gameplay fresh and varied and keeps players from being bored in pursuit of a reward.

It’s pretty basic game design stuff.

Fatshark seems to have decided that none of the above was important, and that instead having the possibility of an infinite grind for a perfect weapon was what everyone wanted. So they designed a system around a theoretically endless grind.

Except this of course isnt want anyone wants.

Hardcore players that want to tinker with builds at the highest level of challenge would rather be done with the grind just want to be challenged and play for that intrinsic motivation.

Casual players stay hooked from a regular dopamine hit for being rewarded and making tangible progress. Once casual players hit level 30 and the wall of crafting, the pace of reward and sense of progress falls of a cliff. So they shrug their shoulders and say “I guess I’m done” and move on. There is nothing in reach to keep encouraging them to play.

This has all been said before by countless others of course. I have no faith that this state of affairs will change, but I’d love to be proven wrong some day.

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Thank you all for the replies and valuable observations!

Honoured. BTW, I really appreciate your choice of the Memorial banner: Degenesis is such a wonderful RPG, and the Spitalians are coincidentally my favourite faction.

I remember reading somewhere (but I don’t remember where, so I might be making a mistake) that the original idea was precisely this: that is, to ensure that players could not have a perfect weapon and were therefore forced to do, so to speak, trade-offs.

I admit that on paper I found the idea interesting. I imagined something like Deep Rock Galactic’s Overclocks, or a system where the player could choose whether to have, for example, a maximum score in “Number of ammo” instead of “Damage” and so on. In any case, I imagined that it was the player himself, once he obtained the red weapons or their equivalents, who chose which trade-offs to make. For example, for a longer mission with a larger number of hordes and basic enemies, the player could have decided to sacrifice damage for more ammo etc.

But no. What we ended up with is a system that gives us neither the ability to have a perfect weapon, nor the ability to choose the trade-offs to make (unless the RNG is really in your favour).

I repeat: it may also be that I misremember Fatshark’s statement. However, one thing is certain: even if the original idea (if there was an idea at all) could have been appreciable, the execution is simply terrifying.

I completely agree with everything you said in this thread, but this in particular is the truth that Fatshark should once and for all wake up to.

It’s a surreal situation. Hundreds of people provide their feedback regarding a clear flaw in the game – not out of malice or boredom, but because they would like to invest more time and money in that game – and the very people who would be most interested in hearing this feedback turn a deaf ear.

Is it a problem specific to Fatshark or is it a broader problem in the gaming industry?

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