So I’ve been having an interesting (and productive!) private exchange with someone about the crafting system and specifically how our different perspectives and approach to playing Darktide have led to differences in how we respond to the crafting system.
I think it will be helpful to the broader community to paraphrase some of this conversation, because it might help us all understand one another a little better and maybe to understand what Fatshark might be grappling with.
First of all, my debate partner is a self-proclaimed casual player, and prefers to play the game on Malice difficulty. They have less than 200 hours at the present and aren’t interested in theory-crafting builds, don’t worry about collecting all the top level blessings, aren’t looking to be continually challenging themselves on higher difficulties. They have a handful of weapons they like to use on each character and ignore most of the rest.
For them, the crafting system as it’s currently employed feels “good” because (A) they don’t really care about getting a “near perfect” or close to perfect item and (B) they enjoy the thrill of crafting something or getting a mission reward that is maybe only incrementally better or just slightly different from what they were using before. Since they aren’t trying to build a specific item, there’s no sense of loss for crafting something and getting an undesired result.
Also for them, all the gear they acquire is potentially usable stuff. On Malice difficulty many of the ‘sub-optimal’ blessings or perks (from a damnation perspective) are perfectly fine to use. So for the casual player like them, if they get some intrinsic enjoyment from pulling the slot machine lever and will also get something that’s at least worth trying out (especially on Malice), then they don’t really have a sense of wasted resources because they didn’t have any particular item target/build in mind in the first place!
For me, I’d fall more into the hardcore camp. I play exclusively on damnation difficulty at this point. I think about potential build-combinations and am interested in figuring out how to make the “best” version of every type of weapon. I pay more attention to my own self-improvement and look to take on greater challenges whenever I can. I use the scoreboard mod as a way to garner some metrics on my own performance so I can think about how to improve or how a given build held up. Moreover, I actively want to mix up my playstyle and gameplay by trying out lots of different weapons and builds.
The motivation and desire here is to use the crafting system to build items to my specifications in order to try it out as part of a build. I also want to be able to share builds with/from others. I want items to be near perfect (defined to me as great base stats, two preferred blessings at least at tier 3, and 1 preferred perk and 1 useful perk) primarily so that (A) having an underpowered weapon isn’t a factor in evaluating my skill/performance; and (B) so I have a more consistent basis of comparison between builds with different weapons but at an equivalent level of power for their type.
Where does that leave us? I think the more casual players are probably more likely to be fine with the current crafting system as it is, whereas a vocal minority of hardcore players really, strongly dislike it.
When it comes to #breakthelocks, my casual debate partner feels that removing the locks would make it too easy for them to craft a more powerful weapon at will, and this would undercut the sense of reward and accomplishment they get from upgrading items or earning mission rewards. If they can turn a few weapons into near perfect, from their perspective what then is the point of even engaging with the crafting system or getting excited about mission rewards, since it they will frequently be relatively weaker items? And since they aren’t trying to amass a big perfect complete arsenals, it doesn’t leave them with anything to work towards gear progression wise. Could they live with the locks being removed? Yes, as there are other things to grind for (penances, cosmetics, etc.) but it would be seen as a loss.
Of course from the hardcore player perspective, we want locks gone ASAP. We want to get the near perfect arsenal so we can easily tweak and test out builds at the peak of their capabilities to see how they work.
The challenge here is that for every hardcore player, the reality is that there are probably 5-10 times as many casual players that are relatively happy with how it is right now. Look at the steam achievements. Only 30% of players have finished leveling up a character to 30. Only 11.4% have got two characters at 30. And only 6.8% of players have done a mission of each type at heresy level or higher. The hardcore players are a relative minority in the player base still - as shocking as that may seem.
So what’s the solution? We debated a few different ideas, and wanted to see if there was a way to keep both groups happy.
One idea was to have a special item upgrade, paid with a special currency obtained only in higher difficulties, that are fully unlocked items, but that can then ONLY be used when queuing onto Damnation difficulty (and maaaybe Heresy?). Or maybe there is a special PLUS difficulty mode, like Heresy+ or Damnation+ (we want more difficulty anyway right?).
Why this approach? The intent is that you give a pathway for hardcore players to get what they want: the ability to have unlocked items that they can experiment more freely with. But for the casual players they can retain the current crafting system experience and not have it undercut by themselves or others bringing in hugely min-maxed gear and trivializing the lower difficulties.
This could be a way to throw a bone to hardcore players and give them an outlet for their crafting desires, without breaking the rest of progression system for more casual players. Fact of the matter is that I can argue all day long for why we should have a more deterministic crafting system and why I feel it’s better for the gameplay AFTER you’re done progressing items, but for probably the majority of players (the more casual ones) they simply don’t see it that way and the numbers are probably against the hardcore players.
Hopefully Fatshark can find a way to better appease both groups, and provide a way to keep both engaged in the game in the different ways each group wants. From their perspective, simply removing the locks may very well be cause for concern for a large part of their player base. But if they can find a way to give both groups what they want, that would be ideal in my mind.
Cheers, and keep it civil.