I’ve tried queing for the high radiation map, waiting the whole minute, nothing, made it to the second area, piggybacking both reliquiaries, still no-one joined. I downed in the second area, something like 10 minutes in, a player joins (with virtually no health) only when the game was doomed. I tried it again, downed midway though the first area, still no player. I didn’t try a third time.
While the mode isn’t all it promised to be I think it’s not that bad. What’s your matchmaking experience?
Speaking as an early expedition enjoyer and as someone who, while acknowledging its myriad flaws, defended it from the unfair criticisms it got instead of the legit gripes: yes, it’s dead, let it die.
It needs too much work to make it something worth continuing to play after you chase the cosmetics, if you even want those.
Reposting this from the other thread basically about the same thing, since it’s relevant:
When I played Expeditions, it just made me sad. It felt like Fatshark had lost confidence in their original (and IMO best) game mode and was instead chasing trends that Darktide wasn’t really built for. Like they didn’t feel like they had the ability to bring new life to the normal game mode and make it better.
I hope they take a lesson from this, stop making new game modes that most players don’t really want, and instead focus on adding new and better maps with new content to the original game mode. That mode is where Darktide can really shine, not by trying to be something it’s not.
I have no interest in Expeditions and never have.
It really is sad but I think you’re right.
I felt this way about Versus in VT2 as well. While it was impressive that they pulled it off… it’s just so counter to the GOOD parts of VT2 that it was originally built for. And as Ch3DD4R noted..
Same thing again for Versus. It really did have potential but Fatshark didn’t address the big problems and so it died.
Heck, they even did the same thing before that with Weaves 
Played like 2 runs. Temu chaos wastes. RIP.
Put a check box on online missions allowing one or two people to drop in as rats. That’d be awesome.
that’s sorta what i wanted out of it too, would’ve been better as a dark souls invasion concept than a competitive asymmetrical pvp concept
I think that we need not be quite so down about it. Fatshark’s bottom line is not simply about selling product to us, consumers, it’s also a great deal about getting further investments that will enable them to continue working on the project.
And that, I think, is what Expeditions was. “Hey, look, investors, this game is doing SO WELL that now we’re going to release a full-fledged new GAME MODE chasing the HOT TRENDS that you guy love!” It almost doesn’t matter if it succeeds or fails with us - I think for certain they did hope we’d like it, but probably a lot of them knew it was not going to be a hit. We won’t know if it succeeded with investors, but given that investors tend to be morons, it probably did.
New maps, new weapons, new enemies, these are things we want but don’t necessarily create heavy income returns. New classes certainly make bank from us, and complete the other half of success at the investor level. “See? We did x and made a big bump . . .” They just can’t put out a new class every quarter.
From that perspective, yeah, this definitely screams investor speak:
I may think he’s incompetent at managing this game, but I don’t think he’s stupid.
I don’t think remnants need anything to do, I’m an old enough gamer to remember playing for the simple love of seeing number go higher. Go watch King of Kong for more info… The problem with the mode is that its divorced from what makes Darktide fun. They should change up how remnants are obtained so that a team that rushes all the objectives and kills little gets the same score as the team that hits up most of the map, but is in a constant fight from start to finish. There should also be difficulty scaling and some kind of reward for each gate affecting final score as well, like a multiplier for each stage hit. By going back to combat focus they could make the map more interesting, like Houndmaster should literally be roaming the game at the start not waiting sometimes 7+ minutes for a single boss add. And rewards in objectives are simply too low, if I see the point and holds that only do 2 chests I will literally skip them 100% of the time. There are some randomly spawned unmarked chests that will be worth more than that, and all you have to do is walk up to it and interact with the chest or in 3/9 cases an alarmed door. With how ridiculously oppressive the timer is outside the 30m zone, you’re basically forced to do that.
Which brings me to the main complaint, the timer is simply too short. I don’t like reading the dev blog where they wanted it to be bite sized or whatever, just allow players to select Rolling Steel if you want 10m chunks available. You have the technology. You can already end the game in Expeditions whenever you want, would it not be better to allow players to play longer if they want to? I’ve noticed each grid refresh they make the timer rarer and rarer, though I suspect they’re aware of the terrible server stability as instances go on in Expeditions and have cope-fixed by making the timer extender very rare. Which just makes the gameplay even more unsatisfying when you scrape together a ton of salvage while purpled at 99% corrupted only to see The Most Ass Items Ever in the store again and struggle to spend even 100. I wanted 5 more minutes. If the devs haven’t noticed, the only mission that gets played on Auric is the 30m one. That should be pretty crystal clear data that the timer is too short.
Perhaps, maybe, somehow the most disappointing failure in translation from blog to gameplay was not being able to bounce out of a round as individuals.
IDK if they have data saying the overwhelming percentage of their players are premades, but there is simply no world in this timeline where you can coordinate properly with your average randos if you just want a short run or vice versa.
well when they decide to separate chaos wastes in 3 different play mode, some mode are dead or die soon
To “die” they had to be alive in the first place. There was no demand for this sort of game mode so it had extremely small uptake with the playerbase.
This game needs more maps and missions for the MAIN GAME MODE. Not new modes like Havoc and Expeditions.
I mean I think it works well enough, you just have to think of it more in terms of “the new map” rather than “the new mode”.
I can see myself playing this, or I could if matchmaking still worked.
Here’s hoping they at least reduce the insane 100k salvage penance to a reasonable 25k or we’re never gonna see that completed, the way things are going
Yeah that’s a great idea, at the sanctuary they could give a ‘return to Morningstar’ function and let the player leave with credit for the run up to that point.
That’s what it sounded like it was going to be, in some form. They really need a better translation team or technical writer.
This is a big issue with Expeditions. It’s too open ended for PUGS, heck, it’s too open ended for my normal group of 4. I hope the QoL tackles that.
Yup.
I am on the US West Coast and i couldn’t even find another person during weekend just recently.
Not even the cosmetics they stuck behind this unwarranted mode were enough to entice people to play it.
I don’t blame them. It’s as lazy as Mortis Trials and just so god damn uninspired too.
Lazy, some would say. I’d agree.
I want the expeditions suit in black, but need 18 zones completed for it. Sucks if expeditions is dead before I get there.
it dead, i played a bit of it, been playing since aphla, the games changed the devs are doing their best but they don’t know which direction they want for this game, it could have been alot of things they could have introduced, Expitions are fun, but reseting them is a pain in the arse. loosing all access or progress, I know this is a seasonal game but still it demanding a bit too much, the next phase is that the they should have done it strighth and went for a V2 Choas waste repeat rather then doing it different. as it like choas waste but with no of the random elements in it. Playing on Auric the game doesn’t actually provide any more of a benefit vs playing on Heresy. Challange is good but unlike Choas waste where you got to keep any gains made here you basically loose everything.
they started showing a lack of confienence in the product when they introduced Havoc. Mortis trails is like Fortune of war But better. and More varried, (i Frequently just do it for a good way for Matt Grind). but again not many players. While people are playing the main mission modes it needs a Different way of untaking it, or a differeent perceptive. Some of the Maps in the Expendtion could have been dones with a Chmira Transport or a Tourax. you could be Doing a Point defence or a Raid base mission Capturing enemy ships that break for Orbit, there are alot of different mission, modes and way to actually increase the Interaction of the games. but the thing is the player base is leaving for Sm2, or hD2 or anything else really as WHile I am a Die Hard ADmech Fan i can only say that it will keep me egnaged for maybe another 100-200 Hours, you need a group of Friends who are willing to play the game. to keep it fun, random while fun is a hit and miss depending on Localilty, Occenia has a Decent player base but really varies in time.