Active players down over 95% from peak, Crafting thread has 2,000 comments but no dev response, No significant content since Patch13, Studio vacation has been over for months with no product updates. Has Fatshark just moved on?

[Molonious]

So, Darktide’s player counts don’t look so good. Darktide only beat out VT2’s peak player count by about 3%, at launch, and it hasn’t come close since, with average player counts now only at about 5% of that peak. Last summer Darktide actually had a lower average player count than Vermintide 2 did. There was an uptick in players with Patch 13 in Oct and the release of full talent trees (essentially bringing the game to a real “launch” state as opposed to the Beta we got in Nov 22), but it’s fallen off again right back to where it was since then, and about the only new stuff we’ve gotten are shovels and the full Twins encounter, and we’re now into March. Patch 17 was both unannounced, and nothing but bug fixes, a literal straight up old school software patch, not a real product update. Darktide has done nothing but lose players month over month, even over the holidays.

Yikes.

Meanwhile, looking at other 4 person coop shooters, we can see them going strong, even increasing their playerbase over time, despite often being many years old.

Left 4 Dead 2 from 2009, has more players now than when it launched, and more players now than when Darktide launched.

Deep Rock Galactic from 2018, declined slightly over the last year, but more popular now than at its launch and has 2-3x more average online players currently than DT does.

And of course, the new hotness, Helldivers II with 90x as many active players at this moment as Dartkide and 4.5x the peak players, note that the 24 hour peak is within 10% the all-time peak, and current players within 15-20% of that peak. Yes it’s new, but DT never had that consistent staying power even at launch.

So, it’s clear we have a problem with retention. There is absolutely demand for 4 person coop shooters, and Darktide’s core gameplay loop and 40k immersion are amazing, what’s the problem?

Across every single community interaction platform, be it here, Reddit, Discord, Steam reviews, or elsewhere, RNG itemization and Crafting has been the single biggest source of feedback and complaints. There is no thread on this board anywhere for any game that has more interaction, replies, or views than this one, or even comes within an order of magnitude.

Nobody from Fatshark seems remotely interested in discussing this topic in any capacity however. At all. Not here on the forums, not in a comm-link, not as any sort of news or announcements, nowhere. The customer base is screaming a single coherent message and Fatshark is pretending their hardest to ignore it, with visible results and outcomes in player retention. We have no idea why nobody at Fatshark wants to talk about Crafting and RNG items, I don’t know if that’s a special obsession of a C-suite or senior Dev or what, but they make it real clear that it’s not a topic of interest.

When people ask about future plans, what to look forward to and get excited about for Darktide, we get basically nothing. The best we get are responses like these.

@FatsharkCatfish

As i’ve said in other threads, It’s barely been a month since most of us got back from vacation so we are a little ways out yet. But be assured we are working on the next updates currently, just aren’t ready to communicate on them just yet!

@FatsharkCatfish

I understand completely. I have seen a lot of feedback asking for something along these lines and have fed this back - I am working on trying to make it happen even if it’s something very high level.

Now, I’m not trying to actively bash Catfish here, I apologize if it comes off that way because I’m addressing FS as an entity, but these kinds of responses are extremely disheartening. I can’t imagine an industry where I’d be able to tell customers that we have nothing to share because our vacation only ended a month ago, especially when the last real new content was released months earlier, and the vacation post was made only about a week before Patch17 dropped with…no announcement.

If no developer or marketing head can be bothered to promote even the most vague picture of new plans, features, or updates at the start of the year for a live-service game months after the last content update without a forum CM having to drag them out kicking and screaming (and so far unable to do even that now that we’re into March), either someone literally isn’t showing up to do their job, or there are no plans. Of late, stuff just gets pushed live without any announcement or news or fanfare, and what’s getting pushed isn’t much content.

So, with all that said, are we to conclude that DT has basically entered “Maintenance” mode already? Given the active player distribution over time, did Fatshark just take all the pre-order/launch cash and just move on to the next project once it got the game to a certain state? Does this product have a future?

[banan]

I’ve been playing the game since beta and have accumulated approximately 1500 hours, but I feel like the developers have abandoned it. The announcement by fatshark that they were working on PvP for Vermintide 2 was the last straw that broke the camel’s back for me, but I have to take a vacation at this time and I’ll return if a content patch drops.

This, in my opinion, indicates that they are giving other games more priority than Darktide. I believe they will discontinue long-term support for this game and release a sequel to Darktide that addresses all of the main problems.

[anon51247782]

I saw this funny image about the community team

[brosgw]

Thread, assimilated.

[Enclave]

You know your running great community engagement when your community are questioning if you’ve completely abandoned the game or not.

This is truely peak community engagement, fatshark should not try and do any better than this utterly amazing community engagement strategy.

[Mayson]

Four thoughts on this topic:

1. Peak player numbers dwindling strongly post release is normal.

2. Helldivers has excellent numbers at current. Let’s see how it looks in April.

3. Crafting painpoint is absolutely legit. It’s the big elephant in the room and for God Emperor knows what reason they just refuse to address it.
   Crafting fixed would easily take one of the strongest arguments against playing Darktide out.

4. Lack of communication at this point is also a big missed opportunity and I don’t see why Fatshark is so quiet. They have good content in the pipeline and the game itself also offers plenty of content to do commentary on.

[Unskinner]

For now this feels like a deja vue. It was exactly like this with V2. I’m honestly just waiting for the… dunno “Warp of Psychic Powers” (or w.e. is the equivalent to winds of magic in 40k) DLC atm.

[Enclave]

Helldivers should look great this month and next because
They literally have monthly content updates (woah imagine that)
And drivable
Mechs
Jeeps
Apcs
In the pipeline
Along with new enemies, call ins and weapons

And this isn’t speculation this is content that is pretty much finished and being shown off in random matches and actively recorded and released on YouTube to see.

As for darktide content pipeline we have a whole load of nothing, not even communication from the company. Addressing crafting and gear progression criticism nah, player loss nah, anything nah.

[BensonWinifred]

Fatshark has a fundamental problem at the process level. This is management/executive responsibility now, not devs. : Vermintide

[FASAStampede]

I was literally looking for this thread while you posted it

Yeah. That. Written 5 years ago…

I also feel this needs to be said again (and repeated as many times as needed) - no, losing 91% of your initial player drive after your first month off launch is not normal or expected.
No, having zero communication with your player base is not for the benefit of employee mental health, nor is failure to keep up with your own promises any reason to keep quiet.
Yes, you can have overwhelmingly negative views on a game you’ve played for 100, 200, 300, 400 or 2000+ hours.
No, having that many hours in a game that only cost 40 money doesn’t automatically equate to a great investment into your entertainment.
No, FS won’t begin to systematically address the issues you think are important, even if thousands of other people think they’re important.

But most importantly:
It’s ok to learn and practice respect for your own time at any time, DT is a great starter in that regard.

[Bababoofa]

After playing a lot my only real complaints now are.

Weapon stats not locks.
You remove stats you got tons of viable weapons to just roll what you want instead of tons of garbage.

Leveling should just be removed and you just get 30 talent points from character creation.
It’s the main reason I can’t get any friends to even play it or if they do they get one to 30 and leave.

You start at max power and only gain skill and weapons it would be much more accessible for people to actually pick up.

This isn’t monster hunter world where you got a clear path to power.

[Mavrik]

Darktide literally has less active players concurrently than most single player games that are more than 4 years old. For example, Farming Simulator 2022 and Subnautica have more daily players than Darktide. Anyone who doesn’t think this game is dead is absolutely delusional.

Fatshark should be bending over backwards trying to boost player numbers, but the fact they haven’t cared basically tells you all you need to know about the fate of this game.

[Enclave]

Oh magic shark. What should we do to restore community faith in us and boost player numbers?

[jesper]

@Mavrik

Anyone who doesn’t think this game is dead is absolutely delusional.

It’s absolutely not dead. I can log in and get a game without a problem. You can’t do that with a dead game.

As for their not responding. It’s probably better for them to keep their heads down until they have locked down what they are actually doing. People want transparency but also come down hard on any “broken promises” when plans change. You can’t have both.

I’ll check back when the crafting system gets revamped. If it’s good I’ll come back to play, if it’s not I won’t. I really don’t care what the devs communicate or not. Fix the game. that’s communication enough for me. Until then I have better things to do. Like trolling these forums.

[Headhunter]

Acknowledgement, Communication, In Progress, Fix Ready for next update, Upcoming update what to expect and when.

Issues progress board and road map.

Here is an example of another PvE Coop game where they use trello to perform this function. Saves people raising the same thing over and over then they can check progress themselves.

https://trello.com/b/F2RU9ia9/the-division-2-known-issues

[Ragnarok101]

@Molonious

So, with all that said, are we to conclude that DT has basically entered “Maintenance” mode already? Given the active player distribution over time, did Fatshark just take all the pre-order/launch cash and just move on to the next project once it got the game to a certain state? Does this product have a future?

My pet conspiracy theory is that their ‘we have different teams for different projects’ claim is almost entirely without substance and the few competent devs get shuffled from team to team to make sure what they want to release actually works, causing massive delays.

@Mayson

• Crafting painpoint is absolutely legit. It’s the big elephant in the room and for God Emperor knows what reason they just refuse to address it.
  Crafting fixed would easily take one of the strongest arguments against playing Darktide out.
• Lack of communication at this point is also a big missed opportunity and I don’t see why Fatshark is so quiet. They have good content in the pipeline and the game itself also offers plenty of content to do commentary on.

Fatshark is like this and will always be like this because people keep buying cosmetics. They don’t want to promise anything, because they might actually be asked to uphold those promises. So they refuse to say anything of substance, and when people get mad about that, they go radio silent.

Meanwhile, Fallout: New Vegas, a single-player game from 2010, has 25% more players than Darktide.

[Enclave]

The day I stop counting days without farshark communication

Is the day my world will end

[MunKy]

I really thought FS would learn from the previous two games and not repeat many of the same mistakes. Instead, they appear to have actually doubled down on some mistakes for DT!
I have no words, or too many words, to describe how I feel about this.

The only thing I can do is wait for them to slowly knock the game in to shape which I have every confidence they will do… eventually. Its uniquely frustrating.

I very much doubt they have abandoned the game. I would even bet money on it.

So here, one million, million, million million million internet points slapped down on the table. Any takers?

[derpherp]

I suspect a big update is coming down the pipe… eventually it will get here…

I’d say there’s a fair chance that update will be a crafting overhaul, which will f*cking finally be the biggest community complaint addressed and would give people hope.

I guess we will see what happens.

[Ragnarok101]

I refuse to hope.

Mostly because if Fatshark wants to adopt the ‘toddler response’ (as another user put it) of ‘if I say nothing I can’t get in trouble’…yeah, they deserve to have their game fail. They attempted to put out a live service when they’re completely institutionally incapable of supporting one, this was a bad business decision and anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see that.