I am posting this in General Discussions because, whilst I do highlight several issues and problems with this game, its main thesis is the community response to the new update. If this post needs to be moved, then I fully understand. In fact I am considering taking several of the points made later on in the post and expanding on them in the Feedback forms.
To further preface this post, I started playing Darktide in late April and currently have 320 hours in the game. I have not played Havoc as of yet, as I only have 1 friend who plays Darktide and they are not available consistently to play with. If that invalidates the points I make here to you, then fine, but I still implore you to at least read the rest of this post.
I’ve been mainly looking over the Steam Discussions since the new update dropped and a few of the General Discussions here. I’ve noticed that there is a sort of “we’re so back” attitude that has taken over around half of the community. Additionally, the criticism that I’ve seen so far is focused on the Arbite’s class, rather than the new update itself. I can understand why for a variety of reasons, but there isn’t a lot of critique I have seen regarding the update itself.
There are exceptions, but mostly people are treating the Battle for Tertium as a good update.
I partially disagree. This is a good update, but it’s more pertinent to treat this as a good first step.
The update addresses 2 key issues with the game. The new player experience and several balance problems, with nerfs to the Duelling Sword and Plasma Gun promised down the line. In both cases, however, it’s important to highlight the rest of the work that is needed to fully fix these issues.
THE NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE
The new campaign mode is a great thing to be added into the game. As one of the more newer players of Darktide, I felt somewhat lost with the general plot progression (outside of the cutscenes that play during certain Trust levels). I did not know that Dark Carnival takes place after the Orthos Offensive, for example. I ended up doing Dark Carnival first because it landed in the Standard mission screen, and the Special Assignment mission seemed like it was best left until I gained a few more levels.
That being said, one of the key problems that newer players face is build crafting, especially for weapons.
What’s the difference between Strength and Power?
How about Impact and Stagger?
What does Rending do? How is it different from Brittleness?
I know these things now because I looked them up on the internet. However, it’s a huge barrier for crafting your first builds. I had originally thought that strength only affected melee weapons (i.e. it was your character’s physical strength). Normally for these 4 player co-op shooters with character building, like Deep Rock Galactic and Payday 2, you know or can at least guess what a stat will do. In fact, Deep Rock Galactic has a guide book that explains the basic status effects of the game. This isn’t about the game telling me what the best choice is, it’s about the game telling me what the choices mean.
Now, you could argue that newer players should experiment with the Meat Grinder.
But if you’re trying to figure out what the weapon blessings do, then having to note down the damage/effects that occur, leave the Meat Grinder, go to Hadron, Re-Bless your weapon, and then return back to the Meat Grinder and do the process again (making sure no abilities proc that could inflate the damage numbers) just to try and work out the differences between them is an absurd amount of work, when a simple description of what each effect does would suffice much better.
Remember this is not about making it clear what the best blessings are, this is about making it clear what the blessings actually do.
GAME BALANCE
This section has been kept rather light, because, frankly I am not the best person to discuss the finer points of balance in this game. I can usually point out if a weapon is particularly powerful or weak compared to its counter parts, but I’d rather leave the details, and especially suggested changes, to the more experienced players who can properly articulate the problems a weapon has.
Recently, Fatshark has buffed a number of weapons, in order to make them more powerful and appropriate for higher difficulties. This is a good step, however certain weapons such as the Double Barrelled Shotgun are still not going to be up to par to the majority of the ranged catalogue. Additionally, there are other weapons that need improvements, an example being the Heavy Sword.
However, these are small quality of life changes compared to Darktide’s biggest balancing problem.
That being Veteran.
You could most likely fill a book with the amount of posts discussing Veteran and how underwhelming it is compared to the other classes, especially at the higher difficulties. Again, to reiterate, I am not the person who can detail every problem that Veteran has, nor make suggestions on changes and buffs. And again, it goes slightly outside of the purview of this post.
That being said, it does not take someone with more than 10 hours of playing the class to make some observations. Close and Kill is laughably useless when compared to Survivalist, or even Fire Team. Smoke grenades do not work properly, and even if they did, they are outshined by both Shredders and Krak grenades.
Veteran should be the top priority for future balance changes. An overpowered or underpowered weapon is not a good thing, but it is only one small aspect of a game. However, having one of your 5 main classes with these massive balance problems is a much more severe issue.
CONCLUSION
This all ties back to my first point. It’s important to treat this update as what it is. A good first step. By all means, delight that new players are coming in. Delight that players are returning. Delight at the clever names people come up with for their dogs. But don’t lose focus on how many issues are left to be addressed, and make sure to keep pushing Fatshark to keep up with these quality of life updates.
Have a good day folks!