Big talk: how do you see the future of the CORE game in DT?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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First of all: I don’t see Havoc as the “endgame” in DT, more like a weird PvE competitive mode of play for those who are into such things. For me, endgame in DT ends with Auric - and it’s a big gross cliffhanger as such.

As any competitive mode where you need to struggle to climb some ladder, Havoc will always be too rigid and obsessed with meta. It never will be about fun, in contrary - it will hate fun and those who seek fun (you can see hateful remarks Havoc players leave about “casual players” coming to their missions all the time). Havoc is not about trying fun builds, it’s about repeating the very same mission dozens times over, playing a few viable builds, until you master each and every timing, combo pattern, positioning etc; and if you are here to have fun and experiment, you’ll be hated and banned from joining most of the squads. So, overall, it’s something entirely different from what majority of gamers expect from their games.

What a general audience wants from endgame is, generally speaking, “more of stuff”. More weapons, enemies, factions, classes, items, weapons mods, new gear grades and cosmetics to grind for, new maps and missions etc. Some additional challenge, sure - but also additional tools and power ups that partly compensate for it and help the lower bottom of the skill distribution chart to still be able to play and have fun. And some sense of continuation, a development of things over time, so that they could feel they achieved something, even if their skill hasn’t increased a bit - grind for new gear and customizations gives you that, but as well as some global map of the war effort we are all part of, which you can influence by doing missions, or completing more objectives within your current mission.

In other words, it’s about the same difference as between professional sports and some casual thing you do with friends in your leisure time (which still can be full of passion and have quite sophisticated structure, but still mainly done just to have fun and have good memories after).

That other part is mostly absent in the current DT. It looks like bits and scraps that never were put together. That said, here is how I personally see its final form, something I would like this game to provide:

  1. New gear grades with stats going up to 100%. To make it more interesting, may be only allow 1 of them to be at 100%, or 2 be at 90%, or something like that. So that people could find some sense in a hunt for the most optimal stats for their build

  2. New crafting system which would allow you dump some resources (or even items) to some RNG cauldron and try to get a better stat distribution on your current weapons (with a chance to actually make it worse). Only works if the new gear from item 1 is made sufficiently rare - then there is a sense in investing efforts into upgrading or mutating it. Gear modification is another thing that could blend in nicely. Take how it’s done in Deeprock Galactic - weapon mods often drastically change how a certain weapon functions, making it more specialized, but weaker in other departments. Curious mods could enhance certain your core properties while weaken some other, or add completely new propoerties unoabtanable in other way.

  3. New types of items that you could bring on missions and/or find during it (then you have to use them during the mission, you can take it home with you).

  4. More random encounters and power ups during a mission. Like, a chance to stumble upon a band of rogue orcs or tyranids, or some other alien faction, defeat them and pick up some unique rare item you can use during the mission (or may be in your next missions?) Or a chance to use static weaponry against the hoard, if you’ll manage to find some codes, or ammo for it.

  5. More secondary objectives that actually make sense. The current ones (find scriptures, destroy idols) doesn’t at all, for example, you get nothing of value from it, really, so people just ignore them almost all the time. The Daemonhosts are great addition - but no reward for defeating one? That’s sad and again just turns them into yet another punishment for players, with only reasonable option is to avoid them. Instead, completing those (including killing all those randomly encountered extra difficulty enemies ) could give you a chance to get better and/or unique gear, rare expendable power up items, additional mission completion points that contribute to the war effort and help you to advance some global counters, influencing where the overall plot of the game is going, and which new regions of Tertium (or even Atoma itself) we’ll see next.

  6. New enemy factions (genestealer cults obviously, blends into the general theme perfectly; but other cornerstone alien races should make their arrival too), new missions, new maps - that’s a given

  7. Some global map for the war effort on Atoma, showing its current progress - and updated accordingly as players make a contribution in various ways to it, up to FS actually choosing where the plot goes depending on what objectives players decide to pursuit and where they’ll be contributing their time and effort most.

  8. A new iteration of Chaos Wastes from VT, but made better, with more variety and meaningful rewards (including unique ones, only farmable in this mode of play). To those who are not familiar, it’s a mode with maps generated randomly from some pre-defined blocks. That would at least partially help to battle the overall staleness that dominates your experience in DT past the first 100hrs. Constantly replaying the very same missions with very same battles gets old, sooner or later. The game needs a mode which will bring some gust of fresh air finally. And no, Mortis Trials is not it, it’s a fine distraction, but nothing more. It needs to be something that actually feels meaningful and is part of the main campaign and contributes to it (as suggested above).

That’s about it. Share your thoughts, like it or hate it :smiley:

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Yep. The Mortis trials feats are kind limited in number and scope but could be expanded upon to create a similar experience to Chaos Wastes (though I’d appreciate shorter runs because the Tower of Eternity runs take like 50-60 min and that’s really long)

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Categorical no. Do you remember how hated the RNG crafting was before Unlocked and Loaded?

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i get the urge to finally see a “full” weapon upgrade, but IF it ever came that way it should be after the games rebalance since powercreep would only get amplified by more powerful weapons.

maybe its just me but “stats” i dont care about, i got a loadout like the weaponry 1-7 in quake and the 2 i pick stay the same for eons if they suit my playstyle.

no boredom here.

what i´d like would be an auric maelstrom+ , a castrated havoc so to speak without emperors fading light, no ranks and no demotions.
play without party finder/job application for you and yourself alone ad nausea, test your builds/loadout and no one bats an eye.

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To me, the future is simple.

  1. More maps that push the narrative forward. Thats it. New biomes.

  2. The wild take from me is to take a page out of Olesya’s book from V2, (use Sefoni) and have the missions we already completed (or new ones going forward) be Stefoni’s “dream missions.”

— Doing this solves a few problems with the narrative and CORE gameplay. It shows the players that the first time we completed the mission are the most important. You can still have the same dialogue for missions and insert Sefoni to remind players that this is either a training exercise or some part of the narrative to why we are looking around the same places.

It’s still not clear why we keep running the same routes over and over again, extracting the same thing/disabling the same devices again and again. Sure more supplies, sure behind enemy lines and chaos “retakes the fort”. What happened to all those squads who came in to secure the area? Its just sloppy narrative when you start to replay the missions and pull strings.

Having a changes like Sefoni “dream missions” can also include What OP said . Changing maps slighty , adding new penances , rewards, etc.

The only thing I would ask is for slight changes in current maps. (more nurgle growth/ maybe the path turns left instead of right). Show us the war is changing.

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Well, I’m pretty sure it’s planned to happen, that’s why it was left like that, in the first place. And I don’t think it will even be an issue in the “core” game, if you’ll check the detailed stats on weapons now, it actually shows you the maximum it will reach at 100%. And if you compare the current maximum at 80% to that maximum, you’ll see it’s not that big difference, at best 10% of extra damage, or even 5% (can’t remember). And if we only will allow one or two stats to reach 100% at best, it won’t create substantial powercreep on itself.

Then ofc all others items and new power ups will contribute too - but again, what they will need to do is to may be add one or two extra difficulty levels above Auric - and may be 5 levels on top of Havoc. It’s a fair price for a more diverse, fun gameplay for majority of the playerbse.

maybe its just me but “stats” i dont care about, i got a loadout like the weaponry 1-7 in quake and the 2 i pick stay the same for eons if they suit my playstyle.

Sure, it’s not much - but people like numbers, and they like grinding numbers, it gives some sense to the time they spend in game. For different players it’s different kind of numbers, like really good players are grinding Havoc levels and damage output records on some post-mission dashboard. Most players though, they are not so good, and won’t become better actually. And they need something more reachable, an assured sense of progress they can still get by simply playing the game. That’s where those small improvements to stats on your gear start to make sense. It’s small, but it gives you some pleasure when they grow.

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It doesn’t make any sense though. Like, it’s literally a game inside game, a simulation that serves almost no proper purpose. People won’t take it seriously, it must be something “real”, something that makes them feel they contribute to the overall war effort on Atoma.

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I think it makes sense, Olesya used recreations of maps in V2 to have us find clues to help her magic stuff. The runes I think.

Olesya used the magic for Chaos Wastes. The dream missions can be explained. It’s still the Warp so it would very much be real, and potentially be far worse than going in without Sefonis help.

Players are still playing the same mission again, maybe not calling it a “dream mission”. to confuse anyone. Narrative can explain why we’re playing a mission over again, Like Mortis Trials, that’s a Sefoni creation. FS already has the groundwork to move her narrative forward.

My idea gives more purpose and narrative to replaying missions, that pushes the core game forward IMO. Its also easy for FS since all they have to do is dress up current missions, which they have shown they like to do with the Inferno events and Twins boss missions.

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Continuing the discussion from Big talk: how do you see the future of the CORE game in DT?:

Back to Ubersreik is indeed a Ritual that is set in a dreamscape to stop some nefarious activities by some Rotblood Sorcerer iirc.

Toward the general topic, there really isn’t really any point to adding new “end game”, as it would pointlessly be reached the moment it is added.

A new difficulty could be introduced (thus leaning toward also increasing Havoc to 50) but other than that it’s not really needed for most of the player base.

→ for what purpose would those be suited for, 1. & 2. Would just be return to pre-Unlocked patch or be buffing the players (which is hardly needed rn. 3. is difficult to really respond toward as it isn’t quite clear what would make much sense to add.

→ Sadly that hardly seem feasible, both narratively (how did Orks/Tyranids get inside the Hive without much bigger implications) and dev wise (though enemy vs enemy Tech exist, making some that aren’t able to be set as a whole faction would end up uneven)

→ Deamonhosts are meant to be avoided. They’re punishment if you wake them up (à la Witch from L4D), or don’t interrupt the Ritual.
As for books they should introduce more types of pickups to introduce further varieties

→ New content is hardly end game stuff, and sadly FS is just to small for the appetite of some, stuff is being made and maps are being added already. For a new faction I doubt it would be one that is anathema to Chaos, as they wouldn’t make much sense for most of the map objectives.

As for Chaos Waste, it’s the only sensible use for the 2nd Hive. So I bet it’ll come at some point.

As mentioned before, FS is just to small to realistically fulfill most of the stuff people want to see in shorter time. But Vt2 has survived and improved for 6 year and for most of that time the studio was quite smaller.

So stuff will be added, as usual/expected without them being foretold far in advance most likely and we have no choice than being patient.

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Oh I hope this is what they are working on!!!

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That combined with new demon enemies - Plaguebearers, Glitchlings, Rot Flies would go a long ways to shake things up. The time has come for Wolfer to successfully weaken the barrier between the Warp and Tertium. The story must progress!

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At the moment where I see the future is unfortunately continued power creep that increasingly destroys my desire to even start the game up. Actually that’s basically the present.

If anyone else finds a game with a similar core gameplay and developers that aren’t determined to destroy everything good about their game please send me a recommendation :folded_hands:

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No more RNG loot rubbish, please. Just keep up with balance, some maps, weapons, maybe Chaos Wastes, more balance, please balance the game, and people will come.

With the immediate success of Arbites, maybe we’ll see the business focus on more classes. With the extreme balance disruption of Arbites, maybe we’ll see some rebalancing?

That would probably be enough for me – keep the game fun and challenging, and no extrinsic rewards are necessary!

also add custom lobbies and browser for more re-playability

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won’t touch that ever again.

you can make stuff expensive, but not giving it to the player because the stars don’t align is utterly frustrating :ox: :poop:

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More variety of missions. RIght now missions can feel like the entirety of the war is just four of us and the entire planet.

For example;

  1. Defense mission, where you defend an area and gain items to build prefab stuff like turrets, defenders, traps, cover etc

  2. Punching through an enemy line with a lemon russ at the head.

  3. High speed train defence where you defend the train and its cargo against marauders on the surface of the planet to a location. Unique train defences like gun emplacements a must for more fun.

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More maps would be good, but the mission select is still overall rubbish and broken.