For the most part, what you do doesn’t have nearly as big of an effect on the overall feel of a mission as the map does. Each map is more than just a template for different visual appearances, they’re templates for the flow and pace of missions.
There’s a few isolated instances which give specific parts of specific missions their own identity, but for the most part, the map is what dictates whether a mission is enjoyable or not.
That’s just what happens when 90% of the map is either directly shared across multiple missions or is practically indistinguishable from other missions on that map.
Ultimately this is a subjective thing and depends on what a person focuses on. I, personally, don’t really care for events as much as the interconnecting gameplay. Going from Event A to Event B is generally much more interesting to me than what happens at either A or B.
I don’t think the maps affect anywhere near as much gameplay-wise apart from defining the visual theme and giving a small sense of location cohesion.
The map doesn’t define what gameplay elements of mid-mission or finale events or the interconnecting parts between are available. It’s almost purely visual.
While missions can share some segments in the same map, it’s rarer where you actually go through the same path in a shared segment (reversed or otherwise). It’s much more common in that you can see a shared segment, more often than not you’re taking a completely unique path to the mission through.
A corridor is a corridor, a bridge is a bridge, stairs are stairs. How they are arranged is what differentiates how fun they are, not how they look. The choice of map does not constrain how a map designer could arrange things in a mission.
If the maps were actual tile-sets and missions were procedurally/randomly generated from those segments, then your viewpoint would make more sense, as then the map tiles/segments would define what you would experience in a mission. But because the missions we do have are majority unique and handcrafted, the choice of map is more for aesthetics and a smidgeon of narrative justification rather than gameplay.
Personally, I think they shot themselves in the foot a bit having defined map locations. Because they are limited and static, it makes the hive feel so much smaller. We’re not fighting through a hive, we’re constantly visiting the same half dozen locales repeatedly for no good narrative reason. Repairing the power matrix for the umpteenth time just makes you wonder why you abandon it to the heretics immediately after repairing it. How many times are the PDF/Moebian 21st going to immediately lose Enclavum Baross? I feel the Fatshark tried to delink mission and narrative to fit the RNG mission structure, but still added enough that it feels disjointed and disconnected the moment you think about it at all.
There’s not even the tiniest amount of random routing VT1 and 2 had in their maps to even slightly affect the path you go that could help differentiate the feel of doing a drug bust in the Carnivale. Instead, we’re always just taking the exact same path every time. It’s an illusion of variety, but Darktide doesn’t even attempt that.
While we’re on the subject, does anyone else have nicknames for the levels?
For example, I separate the carnivals into Carnival 1 and Carnival 2 according to release date, and then Hab Dreyko is Nurgle’s Christmas Tree (an inside joke including only myself).
Map components (corridors, bridges, stairs, etc) are not uniform, isolated entities. They are different sizes, shapes and have different relative arrangements to other components. These differences have an impact on the flow and pace of missions, and implications for game balance.
The choice of map does influence the above, because maps are intended to have their own “identity” and they use the above to create it. It’s by design.
The visual theme has very little impact on how a map feels thanks to the 90% grey/brown/dark palette that the game uses. The sameyness of every mission due to this is a well-documented complaint.
We have barber, we have some sort of casino, we have tech-magic priest, we have traitors, we have lasguns, bolters, psykers, even girl that writing in scrolls what we do and what we already accomplish…but why the hell in 40k we cant just go to the library and read some information about monsters, maps, weapons, scins e.t.c.?
Imagine if they took a bit more time and actually animated every map’s intro to be unique and memorable. Instead, you always walk the same map essentially until you start to recognize the scenery later.
They start to make variations of intros in newer maps but they are still meh at best.
Imagine if starting in sewers for example, our characters had animations of cleaning their clothes and cursing/grunting in the spirit of the voice line “I will never be clean again!”.
What if instead of the constant annoying “hurr soldier why they stand here” we had a short animations of our rejects walking among these soldiers looking down upon them, pointing fingers whatever.
Smelter complex? Show how the characters are struggling with the heat visibly exhausted.
Trs150 our characters talk about heights? How about a cool zoom out to show just how high it is to give us context.
Chasm station? How about a quick show of these cursed railroads and maybe some trains??? Show how massive these railroads are and yet we only fight for the fraction of it.
Hab dreyko show the actual hab dreyko infestation level in quick glimpses idk
Lords’ mercy, l4d2 figured it out BACK IN 2009. Anything to make these levels more distinguishable from each other. That is not to start about mission outros…
Adding end game pictures as I get them. A work in progress.
Please feel free to DM me with better ones.
Also - still looking for succinct “Friends” style names for each level. Anyone good at this (SEO Content Editors out there ) please feel free to DM too.
I’m gonna start trying to put together some infographic maps of the missions, but this should be the corrected version of it viewed from top-down, rather than from below.
) please feel free to DM too.