Another nail (patch) in the lid

[Latifa]

Dear Fetshark, I’ve been playing your miracle game for a little while (sarcasm), and let’s subtly hint about numbers and realities.

The game was released - and a month later most of the players left.
Patch #13 (ONE YEAR LATER) aroused interest and brought back/added a new audience, and online grew to 20k+ stable.

The patch with Gemini - new bosses that were interesting and aroused interest until they were locked within one micro map, from the moment they stopped appearing on all maps, I went to this event 3 times, and I have no desire to go there. And after that I started submitting online, I can give you a link where to do this, if suddenly you don’t know where to track it.

By the way, where are any congratulations on the coming of the new year? Is it really that difficult to write a few words in the game?
Operatives, we appreciate that you have checked with us for another year, we are trying and continuing to improve our game so that you have an interesting and comfortable time in it. Happy New Year and Merry Christmas.
No gifts are needed, just congratulations, and not go on vacation and forget about those who can.

2 months have passed since the twins patch (almost 3), and what have you done to develop the game? A bunch more hot fixes (17th patch = hot fix 17)

If suddenly, you decided that I will describe what is needed to develop the game and return online and interest in the game, briefly and factually:

1. STOP RELEASING FIXES AND GIVE PRIORITY TO PATCHES
   2.NEW MAPS
2. NEW MODES (VERMINTIDE 2 TO HELP YOU ((WASTELAND OF CHAOS))
3. NEW WEAPONS (NOT RESKINS AND NEW MODIFICATIONS OF ALREADY EXISTING)
4. NEW DIFFICULTY (I’M PLAYING ON AURIKA MAEL DIFFICULTY 5 AND I’M BORED, THERE IS NO CHALLENGE)
5. OKAY SO BE IT COSMETICS: MAKE IT OPPORTUNITY TO BUY THE COSMETICS THAT WAS RELEASED, AND NOT JUST THE LAST 3
6. ADD REASONS TO FARM AND WHERE TO SPEND RESOURCES (UNIQUE COSMETICS, PORTRAITS, ETC.)
   And 2 points from me personally:
7. A WAR HAMMER IS A DISGRACE AND I AM ASHAMED TO USE IT
8. DEMONHOST - EITHER REMOVE HIM COMPLETELY OR MOTIVATE HIM TO KILL (AS AN OPTION - UNIQUE RESOURCES FROM HIM TO UPGRADE WEAPONS TO RED)

[Mayson]

@Latifa

Dear Fetshark, I’ve been playing your miracle game for a little while (sarcasm), and let’s subtly hint about numbers and realities.

The reality is that numbers constantly shift up and down. It doesn’t matter what gets released, the player numbers post-patch for a niche title like this will always taper off to some degree.
Exception to this behavior is big MMOs that shackle their players with a subscription and full “world experience”. But even those can struggle with numbers.

You cannot expect any game to hold release numbers stable or after a new feature patch. That’s just wildly unrealistic. And it also is rather irrelevant. Can you find a game right now? If the answer is yes, there’s enough players.

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@Latifa

By the way, where are any congratulations on the coming of the new year? Is it really that difficult to write a few words in the game?

Honestly, does that matter?
Most New Years Greetings from companies seem rather hollow like a cheap form of advertizement. I’m glad they say nothing when they have nothing to say (besides they’d have just gotten roasted for calling us “rejects” again).

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@Latifa

2 months have passed since the twins patch (almost 3), and what have you done to develop the game? A bunch more hot fixes (17th patch = hot fix 17)

A reasonable time frame for software development. I mean, people here are wailing on Fatshark for not putting out new stuff within 3 months (they’d get for free).
Meanwhile my Elden Ring bois over at From Soft be waiting 2 years for a paid DLC.

Also that patch was far from a hotfix. A hotfix is a patch rolled out a day or two after another bigger one with about minor fixes. This was more than that.

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@Latifa

1. STOP RELEASING FIXES AND GIVE PRIORITY TO PATCHES

Pretty sure they’ve got two separate teams for content creation and bugfixes. They’re not interrupting work on new stuff to do a bunch of fixes.

Look, I know you’re hungry for more content and hungry people get hangry. This really isn’t a good read, though. If I was the lead producer and I’d have to read that, I’d send everyone into 2 weeks vacations just to make you wait longer.

There is so many other good things to play, too. No need to focus on your attention on one singular thing, man. Enjoy your life.

[weeping.moon]

@Mayson

Exception to this behavior is big MMOs

You mean GaaS game. Wich DT is.

PoE - new league every 3 monthes

Non GaaS 4 coop games, all time high online less than in year after release.

DRG - uptrend

KF2 - not so gigachad as DRG, still slight uptrend with higher highs

@Mayson

I mean, people here are wailing on Fatshark for not putting out new stuff within 3 months (they’d get for free).

PoE again, any arpg with seasons, R6 siege

@Mayson

Meanwhile my Elden Ring bois over at From Soft be waiting 2 years for a paid DLC.

Non GaaS.

@Mayson

There is so many other good things to play, too. No need to focus on your attention on one singular thing, man. Enjoy your life.

It’s not how it works. When you make a statement that your game is GaaS you push some expectations there:

• there will be mtx
• constant updates

That stuff work in circle, keep players busy playing your game to keep cash flowing. So some poeple expect DT to be their MAIN GAME, that’s why there also were so many questions and complains about ENDGAME WHERE?

[dominikmadmx]

@Mayson

The reality is that numbers constantly shift up and down. It doesn’t matter what gets released, the player numbers post-patch for a niche title like this will always taper off to some degree.
Exception to this behavior is big MMOs that shackle their players with a subscription and full “world experience”. But even those can struggle with numbers.

You cannot expect any game to hold release numbers stable or after a new feature patch. That’s just wildly unrealistic. And it also is rather irrelevant. Can you find a game right now? If the answer is yes, there’s enough players.

The numbers are so low that repeatedly throughout the day several things happen. Get reconnected several times to the same game when trying to leave it. The amount of maps that are played to play half way with bots is enourmous. You constantly play with the same people despite not being in the same strike team. On auric levels almost always you get connected to a map already in play despite not opting for quick play.
To say that for a GaaS numbers are irrelevant has to be peak ignorance.
A 4 cop op game - Warframe has 60+k daily. Your argument is null and void.

@Mayson

Honestly, does that matter?
Most New Years Greetings from companies seem rather hollow like a cheap form of advertizement. I’m glad they say nothing when they have nothing to say (besides they’d have just gotten roasted for calling us “rejects” again).

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It does matter. It shows that someone is working on the game, planning for the one time of the year when there is actually plenty of time for playing the game. That is why every successfull game does it. Especially GaaS type of games.

@Mayson

A reasonable time frame for software development. I mean, people here are wailing on Fatshark for not putting out new stuff within 3 months (they’d get for free).
Meanwhile my Elden Ring bois over at From Soft be waiting 2 years for a paid DLC.

Also that patch was far from a hotfix. A hotfix is a patch rolled out a day or two after another bigger one with about minor fixes. This was more than that

GaaS. Learn the definition of this. Orthus offensive was/is insignificant, extremly short, unsatisfying, brings no rewards apart from a trinket and doesn’t insetivise in the slightest to replay it.
Again the proof is in the numbers of people playing.
Patch/hot fix… If you can’t decide what it is I will help. It is a hot nothing burger. This is the absolute bare minimum any game releases on regular basis. Nothing more. If anything the fact that we are looking at it only shows how much of a nothing FS releases.

@Mayson

Pretty sure they’ve got two separate teams for content creation and bugfixes. They’re not interrupting work on new stuff to do a bunch of fixes.

Look, I know you’re hungry for more content and hungry people get hangry. This really isn’t a good read, though. If I was the lead producer and I’d have to read that, I’d send everyone into 2 weeks vacations just to make you wait longer.

There is so many other good things to play, too. No need to focus on your attention on one singular thing, man. Enjoy your life.

This has to be the single stupidest paragraph I have read on this forum so far. Your defence running for FS is so pathetic it simply beggars belief.
Nobody cares what you think about people’s styles of writing, vibes or other “if you were”. You are not . You. Are. Not. And you are in no position to give people advice on how to write on this or any other forum.
Your entire contribution is “leave FS alone”.

[Mayson]

@weeping.moon

@Mayson

Exception to this behavior is big MMOs

You mean GaaS game. Wich DT is.

No, I don’t. I mean exactly what I say and that is MMOs.
Final Fantasy 14, World of Warcraft.

They’re probably the only games I know that had a strong upwards curve in player numbers post-release, with their release player numbers being the weakest. Most other games follow an inverted exponential curve, where the release is the absolute peak, followed by a very strong slope that becomes eventually a very slow downward trending graph with upwards spike on updates.

The two examples you posted follow this trend, too. If you were to zoom the graph out to the maximum time window possible, you’d get that curve. The all-time-peak is a multiple of what currently is active for both games you posted. Remarkable about DRG is the drop-off being much less severe from the usual, though. Only 2/3 of the playerbase disappeared post-launch. That is impressive. Usually the initial drop post-launch week is 90% and higher.

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@weeping.moon

@Mayson

There is so many other good things to play, too. No need to focus on your attention on one singular thing, man. Enjoy your life.

It’s not how it works. When you make a statement that your game is GaaS you push some expectations there:

• there will be mtx
• constant updates

That stuff work in circle, keep players busy playing your game to keep cash flowing. So some poeple expect DT to be their MAIN GAME, that’s why there also were so many questions and complains about ENDGAME WHERE?

That’s exactly how our world works. Don’t tell me you play one game exclusively.
As for GaaS expectation, yes it’s true. Darktide wasn’t really advertized as GaaS, but it does qualify anyway.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

The reality is that numbers constantly shift up and down. It doesn’t matter what gets released, the player numbers post-patch for a niche title like this will always taper off to some degree.
Exception to this behavior is big MMOs that shackle their players with a subscription and full “world experience”. But even those can struggle with numbers.

You cannot expect any game to hold release numbers stable or after a new feature patch. That’s just wildly unrealistic. And it also is rather irrelevant. Can you find a game right now? If the answer is yes, there’s enough players.

The numbers are so low that repeatedly throughout the day several things happen. Get reconnected several times to the same game when trying to leave it. The amount of maps that are played to play half way with bots is enourmous. You constantly play with the same people despite not being in the same strike team. On auric levels almost always you get connected to a map already in play despite not opting for quick play.
To say that for a GaaS numbers are irrelevant has to be peak ignorance.
A 4 cop op game - Warframe has 60+k daily. Your argument is null and void.

I can’t comment on that. That never happens to me at all, but I won’t discount your personal experience. Perhaps we play on different servers or times.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

Honestly, does that matter?
Most New Years Greetings from companies seem rather hollow like a cheap form of advertizement. I’m glad they say nothing when they have nothing to say (besides they’d have just gotten roasted for calling us “rejects” again).

---

It does matter. It shows that someone is working on the game, planning for the one time of the year when there is actually plenty of time for playing the game. That is why every successfull game does it. Especially GaaS type of games.

You really want that empty copy&paste “Merry Christmas / Happy new Year” e-mail?
Each to their own, but I always found that tacky and weird.
It’s extremely low-effort if it isn’t coupled to an actual event or such. But eh.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

A reasonable time frame for software development. I mean, people here are wailing on Fatshark for not putting out new stuff within 3 months (they’d get for free).
Meanwhile my Elden Ring bois over at From Soft be waiting 2 years for a paid DLC.

Also that patch was far from a hotfix. A hotfix is a patch rolled out a day or two after another bigger one with about minor fixes. This was more than that

GaaS. Learn the definition of this. Orthus offensive was/is insignificant, extremly short, unsatisfying, brings no rewards apart from a trinket and doesn’t insetivise in the slightest to replay it.
Again the proof is in the numbers of people playing.
Patch/hot fix… If you can’t decide what it is I will help. It is a hot nothing burger. This is the absolute bare minimum any game releases on regular basis. Nothing more. If anything the fact that we are looking at it only shows how much of a nothing FS releases.

And those numbers are pretty good for an AA niche title. There is a lot of companies that’d kill for those numbers. If you go just by @weeping.moon’s post above, you will see that Darktide clearly overshadows Killing Floor 2 for instance.
There is also nothing to decide about the patch, the definitions in the industry are pretty clear. Before you tell others to go learn something, maybe you should consider expanding your own horizont.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

Pretty sure they’ve got two separate teams for content creation and bugfixes. They’re not interrupting work on new stuff to do a bunch of fixes.

Look, I know you’re hungry for more content and hungry people get hangry. This really isn’t a good read, though. If I was the lead producer and I’d have to read that, I’d send everyone into 2 weeks vacations just to make you wait longer.

There is so many other good things to play, too. No need to focus on your attention on one singular thing, man. Enjoy your life.

This has to be the single stupidest paragraph I have read on this forum so far. Your defence running for FS is so pathetic it simply beggars belief.
Nobody cares what you think about people’s styles of writing, vibes or other “if you were”. You are not . You. Are. Not. And you are in no position to give people advice on how to write on this or any other forum.
Your entire contribution is “leave FS alone”.

I absolutely am in that position. As a fellow reader I can tell you that with each layer of increased hostility, you simply make people take you less seriously. We’ve had this discussion before and we’re not going to reach a conclusion to it here, either. Clearly you are of the believe that unloading in such a fashion is a good choice for rhetoric.
I’ve got field experience and can tell you it’s not. But not like you care (and neither do I about you).

[weeping.moon]

@Mayson

No, I don’t. I mean exactly what I say and that is MMOs.
Final Fantasy 14, World of Warcraft.

MMO do operate in GaaS model, that’s why i said “you mean”.

@Mayson

Don’t tell me you play one game exclusively.

I do. There is my main game that i play, till there will be some interesting singleplayer after beating wich i go back for my main game.

[Mayson]

Okay yeah, that’s not what I meant. Most people probably have a main game. But you eventually also have times where things go slow in your main game and you spend some time elsewhere.

For instance, Dota 2 follows “Valve time”. They had almost a year of nothing before they came out with the new substantial update and that game is also GaaS. Sometimes creative processes are just slow.

[Molonious]

Looking at DT’s player numbers, and those of some other popular 4 person coop shooters, I think we can definitely say something is wrong, and that DT’s player counts in general don’t look great. DT has lost players basically every month of its existence except for Patch 13, and went right back to losing them after that again. Other games either held steady or if they saw a patch peak their fall-off still resulted in net growth. Even though all have lost some players over the last 30 days (particularly post-holiday), DT is losing players fastest.

DRG is from 2018 and its more popular now than it was a couple years ago.

L4D2 is from 2009 with practically no new content in many years, doing better the last couple years than ever.

Payday 2 likewise holding largely steady and far above Darktide’s player levels despite being from 2012.

[Index]

nothing wrong with new content of any kind, the more the merrier.

but leave real life stuff out of my passtime, at least out of my face.

last year i enjoyed a wonderful day off in my favorite universe far away from any ho ho ho and was content smashing heretics to a pulp.

if warhammer universe has a similar thing, maybe make it an opt in, but i enjoy my games to get away from certain stuff and mainly endulge/immerse myself in things i find more appealing.

[dominikmadmx]

@Mayson

And those numbers are pretty good for an AA niche title. There is a lot of companies that’d kill for those numbers. If you go just by @weeping.moon’s post above, you will see that Darktide clearly overshadows Killing Floor 2 for instance.

Interesting interpretation of “clearly overshadows”

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@Mayson

You really want that empty copy&paste “Merry Christmas / Happy new Year” e-mail?

NO. The comment specifically says in game. Don’t twist what is said. Again. Successfull games do this.

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@Mayson

The reality is that numbers constantly shift up and down. It doesn’t matter what gets released, the player numbers post-patch for a niche title like this will always taper off to some degree.
Exception to this behavior is big MMOs that shackle their players with a subscription and full “world experience”. But even those can struggle with numbers.

You cannot expect any game to hold release numbers stable or after a new feature patch. That’s just wildly unrealistic. And it also is rather irrelevant. Can you find a game right now? If the answer is yes, there’s enough players.

Warframe has been doing this for over a decade.
I would argue that if this wasn’t 40k setting DT would already be dead. The IP is the only thing that keeps people in it.

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@Mayson

There is also nothing to decide about the patch, the definitions in the industry are pretty clear. Before you tell others to go learn something, maybe you should consider expanding your own horizont.

You are the one arguing the importance of it. I am arguing it’s irrelevance and meaninglessness.
It brought nothing of importance and as is being pointed out causes some other issues, so no, it is still you that needs to learn what GaaS is, and the patch is still a hot nothing burger that any other game does as bare minimum.

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@Mayson

I absolutely am in that position. As a fellow reader I can tell you that with each layer of increased hostility, you simply make people take you less seriously. We’ve had this discussion before and we’re not going to reach a conclusion to it here, either. Clearly you are of the believe that unloading in such a fashion is a good choice for rhetoric.
I’ve got field experience and can tell you it’s not. But not like you care (and neither do I about you)

Interesting. I never treat people that can’t do math, can’t read graphs, don’t undrestand categories seriously. And even less so if they are defending a producer of a crap product and argue with other customers constantly repeating “trust me bro I have field experience”.

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As a minute thing,

@Mayson

If I was the lead producer and I’d have to read that, I’d send everyone into 2 weeks vacations just to make you wait longer.

This is what I refer to when I said: You. Are. Not.
For you to make any comments later on about hostility or other behaviour is just ludicrous.
You constantly put yourself in some position of authority over other people’s behaviour or how they write and how their posts will be perceived. I deny that. Any degree of that.
Adress people’s arguments. Logically, with arguments. Leave judgement of how people behave or write or even how it is perceived. Not your place.

[Mayson]

@Molonious

Looking at DT’s player numbers, and those of some other popular 4 person coop shooters, I think we can definitely say something is wrong, and that DT’s player counts in general don’t look great. DT has lost players basically every month of its existence except for Patch 13, and went right back to losing them after that again. Other games either held steady or if they saw a patch peak their fall-off still resulted in net growth. Even though all have lost some players over the last 30 days (particularly post-holiday), DT is losing players fastest.

Summary

DRG is from 2018 and its more popular now than it was a couple years ago.

L4D2 is from 2009 with practically no new content in many years, doing better the last couple years than ever.

Payday 2 likewise holding largely steady and far above Darktide’s player levels despite being from 2012.

All three are wonderful and unique, legendary games.
DRG impresses by having the highest percentage based player retention.
L4D2 is crafted with a care and level of experience that is hard to find elsewhere.
Payday 2 on the other hand really knew how to capitalize on meme magic when they had momentum. They used it exceptionally and today their game is it’s own little portfolio with those 12 years of content they have.

All that said:
You did pick the most popular titles out there. Survivor bias means we are not taking those into the picture who didn’t make the cut or underperformed. We can find many of those counter-examples. Just Payday 3, Overkill’s follow-up title to Payday 2 has bombed horribly and has numbers below that of many single-player titles even.

This shows that while Overkill studio was great with Payday 2, they are for instance behind Fatshark when it comes to player retention from one release to another.
From VT1, to VT2 and now Darktide, the number of currently active players between all three titles has steadily increased. So that’s a W for Fatshark.

Here we also see the standard graph for most game releases that I was referencing. Sharp decline, followed by slow decline and then sideways movement.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

And those numbers are pretty good for an AA niche title. There is a lot of companies that’d kill for those numbers. If you go just by @weeping.moon’s post above, you will see that Darktide clearly overshadows Killing Floor 2 for instance.

Interesting interpretation of “clearly overshadows”

Look at the numbers you just posted.

Killing Floor 2:
Current players: 3.284
Average Daily: 3.485
All time peak: 69.987

Darktide:
Current players: 3.992
Average Daily: 5.417
All time peak: 107.450

Darktide 3.992 > 3.284 KF2
Darktide 5.417 > 3.485 KF2
Darktide 107.450 > 69.987 KF2

Playing this numbers game, Darktide comes out on top on every metric here, even by units sold on launch. What in Nurgle’s name are you talking about I don’t know math?

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

You really want that empty copy&paste “Merry Christmas / Happy new Year” e-mail?

NO. The comment specifically says in game. Don’t twist what is said. Again. Successfull games do this.

Not all of them, as Darktide is clearly a successful game and doesn’t do it.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

The reality is that numbers constantly shift up and down. It doesn’t matter what gets released, the player numbers post-patch for a niche title like this will always taper off to some degree.
Exception to this behavior is big MMOs that shackle their players with a subscription and full “world experience”. But even those can struggle with numbers.

You cannot expect any game to hold release numbers stable or after a new feature patch. That’s just wildly unrealistic. And it also is rather irrelevant. Can you find a game right now? If the answer is yes, there’s enough players.

Warframe has been doing this for over a decade.
I would argue that if this wasn’t 40k setting DT would already be dead. The IP is the only thing that keeps people in it.

Okay, so you found another outlier in the sea of games who prove the rule. Okay.
Yes Warframe is a good game and it took a few updates before it caught on. They have a very good service oriented operation. Agreed.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

There is also nothing to decide about the patch, the definitions in the industry are pretty clear. Before you tell others to go learn something, maybe you should consider expanding your own horizont.

You are the one arguing the importance of it. I am arguing it’s irrelevance and meaninglessness.
It brought nothing of importance and as is being pointed out causes some other issues, so no, it is still you that needs to learn what GaaS is, and the patch is still a hot nothing burger that any other game does as bare minimum.

There is countless people who were happy about the patch and whose only critic was that it should have come sooner.
Call it a nothing burger all you like, you can’t talk away the work that was done on that patch.

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@dominikmadmx

@Mayson

I absolutely am in that position. As a fellow reader I can tell you that with each layer of increased hostility, you simply make people take you less seriously. We’ve had this discussion before and we’re not going to reach a conclusion to it here, either. Clearly you are of the believe that unloading in such a fashion is a good choice for rhetoric.
I’ve got field experience and can tell you it’s not. But not like you care (and neither do I about you)

Interesting. I never treat people that can’t do math, can’t read graphs, don’t undrestand categories seriously. And even less so if they are defending a producer of a crap product and argue with other customers constantly repeating “trust me bro I have field experience”.

Very personal and emotionally charged, but it does not change reality. Darktide is a very successful and amazing game, with a few core flaws in it’s supporting systems. But nevertheless it is a unique game that is faring well.

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@dominikmadmx

As a minute thing,

@Mayson

If I was the lead producer and I’d have to read that, I’d send everyone into 2 weeks vacations just to make you wait longer.

This is what I refer to when I said: You. Are. Not.
For you to make any comments later on about hostility or other behaviour is just ludicrous.
You constantly put yourself in some position of authority over other people’s behaviour or how they write and how their posts will be perceived. I deny that. Any degree of that.
Adress people’s arguments. Logically, with arguments. Leave judgement of how people behave or write or even how it is perceived. Not your place.

You scream into the forest, but are repulsed by the echo. It is fascinating to watch.
I fail to see where I claimed authority. I am simply giving friendly advice, which is - The more you use populist rhetoric and aggression, the less you are likely heard. I’m not even egging you on here or anything, but you type yourself into such a fury (at least judging by tonality of your writing style).

[Mezmorki]

@Mayson

All three are wonderful and unique, legendary games.

Yes - and isn’t that what other developers and in specific Fatshark with Darktide should be aspiring to?

Here’s the thing… As a LIVE SERVICE game, even with just server maintenance costs and all the rest, you want the base of players to grow over time, at the very least remain relatively stable. You need that base to provide a revenue stream to justify the operating costs of the game, at a bare minimum.

Non-Live Service games can afford to have a big initial sales spike and let things taper away over time. Multi-player live service games? Not so much.

So yes - there is a “survivor” effect that is VERY relevant to conversation because if you’re game isn’t following a survivor trajectory there is a very real possibility of the game no longer being solvent and getting shut down. There’s plenty of example of that.

@Mayson

Payday 3, Overkill’s follow-up title to Payday 2 has bombed horribly and has numbers below that of many single-player titles even.

I guessed you’d post a reference to Payday 3. Yes, PD3 bombed. That isn’t a player base curve that we should be aspiring to.

I think those of us still here can agree on thing: we all think the core mission combat gameplay is amazing. I think it’s “legendary” even to use your words. They got the hardest part of the game design right.

There is NO REASON, given the exemplary gameplay, that Darktide shouldn’t follow the same base growth curve as DRG, PD2, L4D. The IP alone provides a limitless range of ideas. You could could have decades of content built out for Darktide. Yet here we are.

The reason Darktide struggles to grow a base and follow DRG, PD2, L4D trajectory is pretty simple:

1. Non-mission gameplay systems (e.g. crafting, item progression, the hub, load times) drive people away and inhibits people’s ability to nimbly play and engage others.

2. Bugs and stale balance undercuts the in-mission gameplay and doesn’t get fixed fast enough.

3. New substantive gameplay content (e.g. missions, new modifiers, new secondary objectives, new penances, etc.) doesn’t get released with any regular predictable cadence.

4. Fatshark can’t communicate effectively and is unable to build good will with the community (i.e. they give no reason for disgruntled fans to come back).

I want to talk about the legendary games with respect to these points (and they aren’t all perfect either!)

Left 4 Dead: Has no item progression or RPG elements at all, highlighting among other things that an endless grind or endless progression isn’t required for a game to be successful. L4Ds content pipeline is community-sourced, since anyone can design and release maps and content through the workshop, which greatly extends the game’s shelf life when modders can make content.

Deep Rock Galactic: Very few complaints about the non-mission system stuff. Progression loop is short and sweet so players can get on with fun stuff and can tinker with builds more effectively to keeps the game play fresh. Procedural maps combined with all sorts of primary and secondary objectives keeps things feeling varied and prevents burnout. Seasonal cycles provide new content and cosmetic sets to grind for, giving players a regular excuse to come back. Communication is excellent.

Payday 2: This game struggled mightily in its early days until Overkill made some significant improvements to the crafting, rewards, and other support systems (sound familiar?). Once those changes landed, the game’s base started to grow. They coupled this with being better communicators and focusing on providing a firehose of new fairly affordably priced content (yes, its paid content DLC. but clearly the model worked).

Why these games are successful is not rocket science. Fatshark is poised to follow a successful track too, they just need to decide that they want to make a change in how they deliver and I believe it could get there.

[Shaamaan]

@Latifa

STOP RELEASING FIXES AND GIVE PRIORITY TO PATCHES

I have to ask… what’s the difference between a fix and a patch?

[Molonious]

@Mayson

All three are wonderful and unique, legendary games.
DRG impresses by having the highest percentage based player retention.
L4D2 is crafted with a care and level of experience that is hard to find elsewhere.
Payday 2 on the other hand really knew how to capitalize on meme magic when they had momentum. They used it exceptionally and today their game is it’s own little portfolio with those 12 years of content they have.

All that said:
You did pick the most popular titles out there. Survivor bias means we are not taking those into the picture who didn’t make the cut or underperformed. We can find many of those counter-examples. Just Payday 3, Overkill’s follow-up title to Payday 2 has bombed horribly and has numbers below that of many single-player titles even.

Aye, Payday3 megabombed, total failure, no argument there. But PayDay 3 is by any objective measure a worse game with less content than PD2 that was marred by an unplayable launch, and is effectively dead. That’s why I also don’t find it a good measure to judge by, it clearly failed as a product. Those more successful titles are Darktide’s current competition, what we want the game to measure against and that did or are doing things right.

Fatshark seems to be able to generate spikes of interest sometimes with updates and new releases, but not consistently and don’t actually compel people to stay interested. People come back thinking the game might be fixed or something new and interesting added, and then leave just as fast, while games like DRG are able to retain and grow almost exclusively through seasonal free content and doesn’t have issues that leave the playerbase howling for months without comment or update.

From VT1, to VT2 and now Darktide, the number of currently active players between all three titles has steadily increased. So that’s a W for Fatshark.

Looking at current Steam charts for VT/VT2/DT, player stats appear to be down on all fronts of late that I can see. VT2 managed to quadruple VT’s peak number of players (though this peak occurred not during VT2s launch…but just before Darktide’s launch), but its avg active player count in Feb 24 is only about 1/3rd of what it was in Feb23 and is down nearly 60% over the last 3 months. Darktide’s peak number of players beat VT2, but only by 3% instead of the 400% VT2 beat VT by, and while DT active players counts are currently higher than VT2, it’s really all due to Patch 13, before that over last summer VT2 had actually overtaken DT’s active player count, and if the last 3 months of player decline rate continues, it’ll be back to that ~April-May.

[TakoyakiGremlin]

what i don’t get is how they’re still apparently making so much money off the cosmetics store when 95%+ of it looks objectively terrible lol who tf is spending that money on this still? the last time there was even hype for anything was the death corps line, and they botched the ever living f*** out of it.

i haven’t actually played this game for a few weeks now; probably coming on 4 weeks, actually, but that’s because there’s no reason to play it. the gameplay is generally fun, but the content is stale and there’s nothing to look forward to. i usually don’t mind the grind for resources or just playing through the same levels over and over again, but there are other games out right now that i’d rather be investing my time into.

just to touch on the weapon situation: it’s really lame how everything is just a variant of something that’s already in the game. there’s only so much to get excited over when a “new” weapon has a 3-round burst instead of a 2-round burst, but then the stats are whack af, and it turns out there’s no reason to even use it unless you’re a perfectionist that just wants god rolls on every weapon in the game.

[Ragnarok101]

@TakoyakiGremlin

what i don’t get is how they’re still apparently making so much money off the cosmetics store when 95%+ of it looks objectively terrible lol who tf is spending that money on this still? the last time there was even hype for anything was the death corps line, and they botched the ever living f*** out of it.

Whale hunting.

The cosmetics cost pennies on the dollar, a couple hundred idiots buying every single one is all they need to justify server costs.

And hardcore 40k fans are used to dumping hundreds on their hobby.

[dominikmadmx]

The fact that you don’t understand the figures and repost them as a success is just a tragedy of the education system.
Darktide has lost 90% of its players. Where the starting point was more than half of Warframe’s peak player count. Do you understand what 90% means? If you loose 90% of your money, you are broke. Completly and utterly. If you loose 90% of your customers, you are in debt. Not broke. In debt.

And you cosider it a success.
Yes I am comparing it to Warframe because Warframe had an incredibly rocky start, couldn’t rely on a popular IP and constantly relied on fan support. And it won.
Killing floor was not put in here as an example of success. It was put here as a reference point. One more month of losses close to 30% of players and DT will be Killing floor. And I am absolutely convinced that Killing Floor devs do not ever want to see a player drop off the size of DT.
You denegrade and downgrade what DT could be. Settling for the lowest possible bar. I am calling FS incompetent and lazy. You are flat out calling them idiots who are not capable of success.

@Mayson

You scream into the forest, but are repulsed by the echo. It is fascinating to watch.
I fail to see where I claimed authority. I am simply giving friendly advice, which is - The more you use populist rhetoric and aggression, the less you are likely heard. I’m not even egging you on here or anything, but you type yourself into such a fury (at least judging by tonality of your writing style).

You really can’t help yourself can you? You can keep repeating what you think of my language or rhetoric. I am here to argue the state of the game.

[dominikmadmx]

Exactly this. The game could literally be a money printing machine. Die hard WH40k fans literally spend 1000s . They just need to be given a reason.

[FASAStampede]

Schrodinger’s Darktide - a game that’s both amazing and a failure until an argument is presented. Built on years of experience and one of the most powerful IPs in nerdom today, and the mechanics and player retention of a cheap anime mobile game, depending on the context…

To summarize the above posts:
The game doesn’t receive any update (content or otherwise) for months - FromSoftware level of development!
Game drops an update (average FS update, fix something, break something else, first thing isn’t really fixed, some unintended interactions may or may not occur anymore) - game is niche, totally normal software dev cycle.
Game is filled to the brim with gacha - it’s GaaS!
Game doesn’t offer any meaningful content since Oct4 - it’s not GaaS, was never marketed as such!
Player Counts are low - better than the games that bombed!
Player Counts are high - best 40K game ever made! Killing it…!
Game has 700 more players today than another, released 8 years ago - dominating! Many others would love to have these numbers!
Any other game in the genre/field has better metrics - you picked the best out there!
Game hit 100k peaks at launch - best horde slasher out there, just tide! Nothing else like it…!
Game can’t retain 10k daily player for more than a month - completely expected, normal fluctuations, every game has them! Doesn’t matter what gets released!

All this constant adjusting of what is/isn’t has made me consider a new term for what DT is -

GaaS Light

[Headhunter]

DT is missing map variety. If we ignore “how many maps” but look at distinction of visual look per map. DT’s maps are very samey under the convenience it is because it all takes place in one location. VT2 map each one so distinctive you could tell what mission you were on and had more elements of platform jumping and little team mechanics during missions rather than just at the end i.e. escort sections, hitting switches etc. Let DT hit 2 year mark then compare to VT2’s state at that same mark too.

Don’t need 10 maps if you have 5 maps that are very distinct in look. Then 1-2 visually new maps per season/every 2-3 months to maintain interest.

The Warhammer name adds greatly to sell factor of this game. I mean look at Total War Warhammer series with DLCs. People who spend hundreds on plastic models, spending hundreds on digital ones. They constantly add to the lore in the form of new races and new factions to create variety then roleplay them all. Easy sell.

Yeah I know DT lore is based on prisoners. One can imagine if asked someone “Who would like to roleplay” - Space Marines…because we certainly love and get their weapons in DT. Although the problem I would foresee is that there would be lack of agility with slow lumbering marines compared to the dodge monkey john wick moves we can do right now.

There is a great imagination here that could of been tapped into a player’s power fantasy of what they want to roleplay as well beyond just prisoners earning rations. But alas the theme of DT is fixed now.