What you describe is exactly what it’s meant to be doing. Knives are hit and run weapons, the mobility is supposed to afford wielders the opportunity to get in, attack and duck out to safety.
So, again, back to the “only identity” it has.
There’s bumps like this every major update, if you actually look in details it’s the weakest playerbase bump has had in its lifetime updates, and it has already lost half of its momentum not even a month later
That’s not “the market approves”
That’s tourism
Demonstrably false btw, i don’t know what’s the point of making that kind of stuff up except coping
Okay if that is the case then I guess I just don’t like that specific playstyle in comparison to the normal playstyles but then again we do need more variety. Maybe we should give other weapons a little more mobility instead of nerfing the dagger itself
1 Like
We didn’t see such a bump with Path of Redemption in April.
We didn’t see such a bump with Secrets of the Machine God in June.
We see that cycle with most updates with most such games, but in this case we’re still at sustained numbers basically double what average numbers were through most of the rest of the year to date. The only other update that’s made as big of a splash was Patch 13 last year, which likewise most people thought was overall a great move forward for the game (even if said momentum was subsequently squandered).
2 Likes
Not a bad call. Vet and Psyker could both benefit from more mobility options as right now it feels like it’s Duelling Sword Dagger or bust to be able to actually get around the field effectively.
And it might serve to get daggers out of hands… I know I stopped heavily using the dagger with the Duelling Sword coming to Zealot. I’m also enjoying the Shock Maul. Tac Ax is great, but given it’s fast attack speed emphasis on single-target attacks, you’d think it’d offer more mobility than it does.
Darktide has had no major update in a year, the ones you mention don’t qualify for that
Even your screenshot shows it was just as “healthy” in January as it is today, and literally nothing was happening at that time
So by comparison to the previous actual major update, patch 13, yes it’s in a much worse situation, since that one peaked at around 35k, higher average (more important than the peak) and longer retention
Darktide will be back to its average 3k players in about a month
It’s normal for updates to bring players in waves, but Darktide has major retention issues, because ultimately it tries too hard to appeal to a fickle playerbase that’s more likely to go check out the latest trending game their favorite streamer told them to play, like Helldivers 2
Which they also proceeded to Yelp bomb because muh fun i no leik nurfs
Believe you me Fatshark saw that and thought they should double down on their efforts to please these scrubs
And here we are
Game is in a much better spot in terms of gaining proper gear. What we need now are some patches dedicated solely to map expansion, new types of missions (chaos wastes), and the reward/cosmetics system needs a huge overhaul.
We need either a new type of currency or the currencies that exist need to have their uses expanded upon. I mentioned it in another post but we need to be able to buy things with ACTUAL meaning when using dockets/diamantine/plasteel. Sure, we upgrade weapons with that stuff. What if we already got the best weapons though, then what? Our dockets/plasteel/diamantine become completely useless.
Yes, we have a cosmetics store that gives us very, very limited options. The weapon cosmetics are some of the most uninspired I have seen in gaming - every single one is just a bland recolor. 5000 penance reward? You mean the blue camo reward that should cost 5000 dockets but instead costs minimum 100+ hours of your time?
Definitely need something similar to the deed system from V2 but in this we can use our materials to buy items that alter mission difficulty/etc. Or we use a certain amount of materials to progress a weapon from level 1 cosmetic to level 4 cosmetic, each level gaining better looks.
1 Like
Perhaps adding the ability to choose your mission and the modifiers (including enabling all of the ones currently in the game at once) would be enough to provide more challenging content for high end players, without mixing up the balance for more casual players? Twitch mode would also be nice, a lot of high end ratgame players play that with constant, short duration votes to just keep the hits coming.
1 Like
I’m not saying that’d be bad since it’s QoL, but what mission difficulty you play has nothing to do with challenge anymore, since the last batch of buffs since patch 13 has given players so many tools to trivialize anything the game throws at you
Nowadays you lose missions because
a/ Your other three teammates are fresh lvl 30 controller players who jump directly in Auric Maelstrom
b/ Your team is full on main character syndrome with absolutely no cohesion, which is rare but worth mentioning, and generally that’s Zealots
And then occasionally you get downed because the game spawned 3 silent Trappers on top of each others behind the pebble right next to you
Everything else you just hold LMB and stuff immediately dies for 25 to 30 minutes
That’s the state of Darktide at max difficulty
edit - And i just want to add that no, an additional difficulty with more HP / more enemies is not the solution, since it’ll just make the best trivial options even more prevalent
We need nerfs
I do think some nerfs are absolutely needed, chief among them the game breaking mobility that knife and dueling sword provide, and the revolver basically cleaving through everything short of carapace in a straight line. Not sure if we need much more beyond that on the weapons front, I know Psword is brought up a lot but it feels like wading through molasses to use, I’ll take a shovel any day.
We have two other named updates this year with permanent content additions, including enemies, weapons, maps, and reworked and updated game systems (not including Patch 17 that was exclusively bug fixes). They weren’t the updates most people were looking for (which was crafting), and that’s why they flopped as far as playrates go, but I’m not sure by what other criteria we wouldn’t consider them just as “major” updates as Unlocked and Loaded. If we’re not going to consider them major updates, we’re going to have to be clear how we’re defining major updates. Changes to a lot of the weapons in question in this discussion happened over these other updates too, stuff like the Recon lasgun updates didn’t come through with U&L, that was the June update.
The crafting update wasn’t huge in terms of fundamental changes to the game itself as a product, certainly not appreciably moreso than something like Pennances. There’s not much new that one couldn’t do before with Unlocked and Loaded, it’s just orders of magnitude easier and less frustrating as far as itemization goes. I don’t think we could say that the Mastery UI and rejiggering Hadron’s interactions was more work than Hestia’s whole experience. People just didn’t care as much about cosmetics and stances, as about making the weapon builds they wanted to try out.
2 Likes
Yah, chaos warriors in vt2 don’t constantly come in packs of 8 unless there’s a cata patrol or you’re playing twitch mode with 2x spawns, and it’s usually a deciding point between a wipe and a successful run for most people if u agro a chaos patrol. In darktide, that level of elite mass comes multiple times in every horde wave in the “mostly melee” auric maelstrom modifier. It’s kinda apples-oranges. There are also people that play vt2 and have no issues with that level of mass and can similarly trivialize a pack of cws. If they do something to make crushers more difficult to deal with, they’ll have to similarly tone down spawn density and make them more like a mini-boss than a typical elite.
I agree. As a full time Ripper Gun Ogryn I have recently found more utility with the Heavy Stubber, less/skip reload, more damage, more ammo, more dakka, more fun.
This doesn’t bother me, just look at the floor.
I tried the Ripper on the train mission and it cannot keep up compared to the Heavy Stubber. I have thought about using the free reload and range tree for the ripper to be sure, but I am hesitant as the ammo runs out fast.
The current Psyker M1 staff spam… is impressive. I get the feel that the beta testing on the psyker’s tree rework might have been a bit rushed.
If you truly believe these were major updates, and just to be clear i disagree, then it’s even worse than i say, since both barely made a dent in the player drop
A “major update” bringing a couple thousand players around for two weeks is a catastrophic failure, because that’s what it has been like this year
Making exactly the same weapon as literally everybody else is going to get boring real fast for a lot of people, in fact that has already started, since we already lost half the returning players in 3 weeks
I have to interject and say that the mk4 is amazing paired with shred, it’s a great alternative to the knife with a little more stagger power and it’s pretty good against armor.
Wait Graia? Graia Mk of what gun sorry? Trying to think what you should be talking about that should be mentioned in the same breath as those other guns. I know you ain’t talking about the brauto from personal experience.
Taxe is funny but definitely garb on armor. If they wanted it to be more like a knife they’d let it fence even 1/4 as well - the knife strikes are massively long ranged. Taxe strikes are extremely small and short distanced. Though I think knife (and dueling) have a bit too much range more than the taxe being too short. Its possibly a little shorter than a hachet should feel. But the butterknife has the swing coverage of a sword.
1 Like
Agreed.
I don’t understand the point of your interjection since it addressed nothing about the mobility which was the only concern I cited.
This is where I feel the Combat Blade needs to be hit. Reverse the hitboxes for the knife and tacax. I’m not taking it into editing software and comparing, but one 6/8inch combat blade compared to an ax blade on the end of a stick probably totaling 10-12 inches or so makes the tacax a weapon that should have longer reach.
Except having a functional crafting system makes every future patch that much more appealing. Let’s not forget the Emperor-forsaken RNG system that caused many to drop the game entirely.
And for people who consistently find enjoyment in the game, it’s still here.
I know what you’re talking about but the flip side is that you get to make exactly the same weapon that you want. Even so I’m still finessing the few weapons I like to use, so I don’t see this as an L at all.
It does make me recall all the (gross imo) “use this weapon/build and you’ll be OP” Elden Ring content that completely circumvents the fun build craft aspect of the game, but there’s no denying there’s a market for it…
So yeah, if people are boring themselves then they’re gonna get bored and I couldn’t care less 
1 Like