Achievement for killing 1 million enemies

Don’t you think this patch just devalued this achievement for the players who completed it?
Personally, I’ve killed about 700k enemies so far and I was trying to get this achievement as a sort of “I love killing heretics!” tag, you can call it bragging, whatever you want. Now, I got this frame for 500k… I feel disappointed.
I’m wondering how players who have killed 1 million enemies feel at this point?

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Literally made a post about this and then saw yours. I have the 1 mil penance and am a bit upset about this change. I spent days pushing the last 100k kills and feel that my servitude to the emperor was a bit demolished with this update. It would be nice if they make a new frame or something to take that place.

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Speaking as someone who did, I don’t really care that much TBH. But then again, I’m not much of a completionist to begin with. The players who are might feel differently.

It’s not a bad idea to have penances that take a lot of effort to get. There has to be something for people who put in a lot of hours. Devaluing those things does come at a price, and you’re potentially pissing off the people who invest the most in your game. It’s a small thing, but still not a smart move in my book. Feels like a very Fatshark thing to do.

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I’ve killed at least 1.5 million enemies, which does make the penance seem less worthwhile, but I don’t wear it very often, penance isn’t the most important part of the game, it’s the fun that matters, and what makes me most unhappy with this update is the ammo issue, not the dispensable penance.

I feel like Fatshark just shoved a fat dong in my a*s after reading this change. I had some level pride of getting 1 million kills. Now there is absolutely nothing to show for.

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Funny thing: I was joking about this exact thing going to happen with the update to some Darktide buddies. They did it before with the “redacted” penances and they will probably do it again.

I kinda understood why they did it with the redacted penances: They kinda had to. It was a way to unlock probably the coolest cosmetics you don’t have to pay for. So they felt somewhat forced to do it, to quell the constant (and well deserved) criticism for their ingame shop.

But this time, I don’t really see any argument for their behaviour. The penances for “1 million heretics purged” and “250 missions of x mission type played” don’t unlock anything but portrait frames. Their only reason of existence was to show a players dedication to the game and by that give a sense of achievement, pride or prestige. Why take that away from these passionate long time fans of the game?

Somehow this leaves me with the feeling that we, those fans, are taken for granted. And that does not feel right to me.

So this update finally made me cave and I stopped bothering my friends to play some Darktide with me.
So bought myself Helldivers 2 with the steamcard I had set aside for the new cosmetic rotation, I expected to come with this update. That for me personally is the good thing about all of this: Helldivers 2 is quite fun with them so far.

fully agree on that, but do the math.
How many had it and felt proud and how many would never be able to get it and felt bad?
Easy Solution, p!ss of 0.1% and make 50% or so happy.

And everyone should remember that fun playing the game is the only real reward, everything else is just pixels and ePeen sweat behaviour.

did you exploit penances at launch?

Well, I don’t really understand that logic.

Taking something away always leaves some bad after taste.

And I don’t think your math checks out.

Most players will never stick with the game to even come close to 500k kills. According to global steam stats only 16,3 % have unlocked the “Purge the heretic” achievement (40k kills).
So I think this change is only a shortcut for some newer, but highly dedicated players.
I know quite a lot of them via discord. Most of them, who were on the way to their 1 million killfest anniversary were disappointed as well. They as well feel “robbed” of their sense of accomplishment. Even if it was still a few thousands (or hundred thousand) kills away.

But I don’t want to argue with you. I really want to love this game, have defended and praised it for over a year to my friends, but I am finally done with that.

You are totally right, it is just a game and it is there to have fun. But these constant disappointments with Fatsharks vision (or in many cases lack of) have slowly sucked the fun out of the game for me.

I might stick to Helldivers 2 or go back to Vermintide II (btw a game with ridiculously tough challenges and rare trophies compared to Darktide’s) or something entirely different.

Well, sure. I don’t doubt that the people who had the achievement was in the minority before the update, and probably still are now. But it all boils down to whether you want the game to have some rewards for people who play a lot. I think it’s in everyone’s best interest for those rewards to be there, because it helps retain the players who invest the most in the game.

If that isn’t important, then by that logic we might as well make everything easy to get, and the people who put in a lot of hours will have literally nothing left to do. But if we do want to have a few things that motivate those players, then sometimes the majority are just going to have to settle for the next best thing and let the minority have a few shinies that they don’t. And that’s not a bad thing.

I’m afraid that’s just not how this works. That’s like saying that people who enjoy collecting achievements are having fun the wrong way. You can dismiss them as ‘ePeen pixels’ if you want, but for some people those are fun to go after. They’re called achievements because you’re meant to feel like you’ve achieved something. It’s not a bad thing to have something in the game for the players who care about that.

Whether you personally think achievements are important or not, every time Fatshark suddenly gives away existing achievements for a lot less effort, the people who already invested a lot in getting them will be left with a bad taste in their mouth. And the higher the difference in effort required, the worse that taste will be. There was no need to do that here. It’s an entirely unnecessary own goal.

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but it has nothing to do with the game itself, it’s only pixel rewards that aren’t really important.

i’m close to 1000hrs and still not have it with the nerf/ buff to the penance.
i dont care!

People who are dedicated and play a lot need no extra rewards. They have fun playing, enough rewarding imho.
who needs some pixel medals to show off?
I know some need it and then bragg with “but i have…”
I still means nothing, not even how much hours you have put in.
some of the class penances got exploitet at release.
95% of players got their cosmetics to show of by exploiting.
Not sure it’s possible for this penance and reward, but we all know if it is possible people do it and so it means nothing.

I dont share the idea of dedicated players more worthy or whatever than less dedicated, casual or a player who only tries it for a weekend and then quit it again.

all fine, i already said it’s a questionable decision in another thread

So there are about 300 penances that everybody can do.
There are about 10 penances that are kinda difficult or take a lot of time and effort.

What kind of moron would honestly think that it would be reasonable to take away the only few difficult ones, just to give an irrelevant extra amount of penances to some loser who can not live with only getting casual penance rewards for playing casually?

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the one who wants to please more “losers” to earn more money.
hard truth, but simple

edit: this sort of horizontal progression system is ok to have and even better than vertical progression systems, but imho it’s nothing really needed or adding to the game.
It’s like having collecting cards with cereals, it’s a bait only.

Thats just me, i know plenty of gamers like it and are achievement hunters in the firt place.

You think 3% additional “achievable” penances for casuals are worth removing ALL content for long term players?

There are multiple players (that i personally know of) who have played hundreds of hours extra, ONLY because those penances existed.

How many players do you think have quit the game because there was a 1million kill penance in the game, that is entirely optional?


Edit:
There certainly are quite a few people who are mad about the high end penances effectively having been removed.

I am wondering if there has ever been anyone on this forum, complaining about a 1 million kill, or 1500 missions completed penance existing.
Probably not.
Even if some people have complained, their complaint would be entirely based on envy and entitlement. Complaints for such reasons should always be ignored.
Once you start catering to such people, there is no way to win unless you give everything to them for free.

edited above.

well i’m not into marketing psychology or whatever had made them do this decision.
Maybe they just want more “dedicated” players have it, but see the amount of dedication rather ends at 500k than 1 Mio.?!?

I see your point.
My answer is: I dont know :slight_smile:

would be interesting study if more people give up and quit over “not reachable” compared to “i got it and now lit. everyone can get it more easily”.
How many times in gaming we have seen that?
Well like i said, i see it for 20 years happening “all the time” in many games.
What was hard to get and rewarded, became easy to get.

The year one Pirate Legends in SoT are still roll over in their graves :smiley:

Just to throw in an opinion to the mix, i don’t care in the slightest about the reduction in required kills.

Also didn’t care when they adjusted make every shot or on overwatch, didn’t care if someone cheesed either of them just because i didn’t, and won’t care if they adjust something like flawless execution (3) down the road.
To mention one i didn’t get around to myself, i also don’t care about people getting the hard mode twins penance with cheeses even if i don’t have it myself and want to finish it “proper” one day.
(if i can ever get enough of my friends back to run it outside of a couple of pug attempts on launch day)

Personal opinion only, but i do penances/challenges in game for a personal challenge/out of boredom/variety and not to measure or begrudge anyone else that didn’t do them backwards, barefoot, and uphill in the snow like i did, so if someone gets an easier ride, genuinely good for them.

And probably worth mentioning, if i was going to get twitchy about a penance adjustment, it probably wouldn’t be over a penance that’ll pretty much complete itself based solely on time spent no matter the skill level involved, but to each their own.

It does seem pretty bizarre they didn’t just create a new frame for a “half way” penance. Literally a day to create a frame image then done. They didn’t need to touch the existing one. It’s a strange one for sure.

I’ve not done the penance yet but I’d be fuming if I’d racked the kills then it was halved. It’s fair that people want it reverted. Such a simple thing to fix.

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I’ll wager that less than 1% of the players had a million kills (this is after a year and a half of being out). By changing it to 500k, it’s probably less than 5% now. I just got to 500k kills last week and I’ve put 1,300 hours in the game. While a new banner for 500k would probably have been just fine, you’re only really upsetting a subset of people (the hundreds that actually got it and of those, how many who actually care).

So, to sum up your oppinion:
Only a marginal percentage of people got screwed over and you benefited from it. That makes it fine.
Did I get that correctly?

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