Does anybody have an idea why Fatshark is so minimal on communications with the community? I know a some of us have been absolutely toxic- but, why is it so hard to get a absolute answer on where Darktide is going, or addressing what seems to be the biggest gripe which is crafting?
EDIT: You guys are right
Not a lot of people are garbage
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Do not say that the majority of community have been absolute garbage, every opinion should be accounted for, because no matter how vile the comment is, if people agree, that means that the commenter might be onto something.
But I do not know why Fatshark do not want to communicate here more often, well they do answer questions on their Discord, but maybe they do not communicate because they think that every opinion that is not positive is absolute garbage, and people that say bad things about crafting are just wrong and are trolls.
In the end of the day, I am afraid for the future of Darktide, it might not be around in 2 years or so if they will keep making rather wierd decisions.
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Theyâre historically hesitant on news until itâs an almost 100% certainty due to backlash over Vermintide 2âs roadmap being dropped years ago.
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Thatâs a nice tad bit of history to know
I agree with Geadly that the community at large is not horrible. There are certainly people who are, but that should be expected territory on the internet. I believe their hesitation for communication (heh that rhymed) comes not from toxic responses, rather from negative responses. Take the recent update for example. Most of the comments under the full release notes arenât what I would consider toxic, but negative. And it makes sense that a company would try and limit their negative responses as much as possible, good or bad.
I am not blaming FSâs lack of communication on the community. They are right to display pleasure or displeasure at whatever FS posts. However I believe that FS could extremely mitigate their negative preception and even make it positive if they:
- Not only improved the rate of communication
- but also improved the quality of the communication itself
It seems with lots of things that there has been miscommunication between the players and devs for Darktide. Weapon Attachments, âlive service,â crafting, update speed, their comm link that got delayed for a week the day it was supposed to release and lying about why is my favorite, and others. This leads to confusion and incorrect expectations for the players, which leads to negative feedback. If they were more open, clear, and precise with their communication, they could avoid those and hopefully start receiving some more positive receptions to their posts.
But at the end of the day who am I to say? Iâm just a random person with no experience of the gaming industry or how Fatsharkâs internal systems work. It could be all that, or it could be as simple as them not liking to write comm links. I donât think weâll ever really know.
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Swedish tradition? Lol
Less stuff to call them out for.
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Maybe because the community almost crucified hedge for saying âdarktide isnt codâ
You want things to change? stop playing. If talking had any effect whatsoever on their decision making they wouldâve had done the changes we want months ago.
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This thread has been added the memorial archives, and @Milkshake_Actual has been conscripted to the wall.
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Not so much butt hurt bout the game, I have others I can play, just wondering if theyâve always been like this
- No communication = less stress for the team.
- They think they are absolutely right in every decision they make. If they listen to feedback it may cause âextra workâ. So no more listening to players either.
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They did sort their communication out for a while during VT2 development. Biggeat blunders as far as I remember were constant backend errors at launch (recurring issue) paired with a roadmap that they scrapped almost immediatly after releasing it. The error fixing and, possibly, Xbox release put a stop to anny content releases (sound familiar?).
Community trust and good will dipped even lower when they released Winds of Magic abd made major changes to the dodge mechanic and stagger (+broken beastie boys and underwhelming weaves). They lost plenty of players and it took a long time for the game to become enjoyable again for a large part of the remaining playerbase.
Eventually they sorted it out and gained a bunch of good will around the time they changed business model (premium cosmetics & free map dlcs). The main rhing they improves was the communication.
Iâm not aure exactly what turned sour after that but the stealthy release of Chaos Wastes was definitely a saving grace as their community trust, once again, was really low. Iâm pretty sure a lack of communication was a cornerstone that time around too.
Historically the community has been very forgiving and patient as long as the communication has been working. Then again, the release of Darktide is a new low. At this point Iâm not sure if it matters whether they lied with intent or just failed to communicate a change in direction and delayed features.
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Iâve tried a more customer oriented approach here: Feedback - Request for a Roadmap
While I completely understand FS not engaging with every vent thread, meme page or outright profane backlash, there are obvious pattern outlined and fed back constantly.
I wouldnât mind them coming out and stating theyâre not going to change anything further on the crafting, missions selection will come next year at some point, new classes are worked on with no ETA, the resource pooling was never intended and isnât a priority etc etc etc.
Iâll be disappointed, and my play time in DT will probably change very little. But then weâll know and make our decision with how much we play/whether we recommend/if and how much we spend additionally.
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Yeah, well, historically that kind of community engagement has benefited their community relations. They communicated more, gave more info about design intent, and avoided deadlines for the mostpart.
Problem seems to be that they didnât learn from those experiences at all. Just like they didnât learn any other lesson from VT2, despite claiming the opposite. I donât know if the company is suffering from a lack of leadership and direction, a lack of technical know-how, if the person in charge of communication is a habitual liar, or if itâs a conbination of the above. Either way, a lack of communication and trandparency is not going to help, but rather fuel all kinds of weird unfavorable theories.
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They need something like this. This is an example from another PvE Coop game.
The Division 2 Known Issues | Trello
So it can cover to acknowledge important issues, so people donât have to repeat ongoing in forums.
For other things like requests about crafting locks. Set expectations on when this will be looked into or simply state locks will stay as it is to end conversation once and for all.
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Essentially they have a track record of being completely unable to actually do anything they say they will do. From managing to hit even the most generous and tentative timelimes, to failing to implement entire features. Since they are almost never capable of doing anything they say they will do, they decided to just stop talking. Instead of fixing the actual internal problems that lead to their constant underdelivering and false promises, they did the âeasyâ fix of just never talking at all, thus they canât be called out on breaking promises.
This approach of course canât work before a release, where they actually do need to talk and hype up the game. Which is why nearly every interview and PR piece for Darktide is chock full of ideas, features and overall goals for the game that have in no way actually made it into the game. They are utterly and completely incapable of actually delivering what they say they want to deliver.
So, now that the game is released, they will say nothing and provide no roadmap, because then there is nothing to hold them accountable to. Simply not talking is far simpler than fixing whatever deep rooted issues exist in FatShark that make them so unable to deliver that everything they say ends up being a lie.
This is a company-wide thing, by the way. The private twitter accounts of regular FS employees were gushing about the game before release, and then went completely silent instantly the moment the game released.
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Or âImmeasurably complexâ? Or other statements that were just him opening his mouth and inserting his foot with extreme confidence that wonât live in infamy? Honestly his snide and condescending comments didnât exactly give confidence or spread actual information as to what they were working on.
I mean since the other CMâs took over, itâs not like they had a lot to give the community. Most of what theyâve been doing has been scrambling to make the game be in a state that it shouldâve launched in and working on the console port.
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Game is super fun and it just works, no gambling required, weapons are straightforward and useful, 16 player co-op with people actually using voip, the build/defense phase is cool and the extraction is a beautiful chaotic experience!
I look forward to itâs further development!
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