Community Update #5: Week 2

[Aqshy]

Rejects,

Since releasing Warhammer 40,000: Darktide last week, Tertium has become a popular travel destination for many of you. It’s very humbling to see this level of excitement and know that we appreciate the support. That said, we also know that our launch was challenging for many players who had issues - some of which we are still working through.

Our commitment remains the same - for all players to enjoy our game. Our hope is that many of you can see the progress towards this commitment in the past few weeks, having released 8 hotfixes and updates since the pre-order beta launch - 4 of which were released since full launch last week. This isn’t to say we have addressed everything. In fact, we are not fully satisfied and still have work to do.

Our biggest update yet will land next week and will include further improvements, additional weapons, fixes, private sessions, and more.

In today’s update, we want to address a few questions from the community, as well as talk about what’s to come in our next community update on Wednesday, December 14.

More Weapons

One of the key things you pointed out to us was a desire for more weapons. We had planned to offer more weapons at launch, and are taking the first few steps in this direction by adding the following:

• Indignatus Mk IVe Crusher
• Achlys Mk I Power Maul

Commodore’s Vestures (In-Game Store)

We heard your feedback on the store loud and clear, and we are making adjustments to how Aquilas are packaged. We are working on adding an 2,400 Aquilas pack to the store, which will arrive next week. We will also add a 100 Aquilas pack within the next few weeks, allowing players to buy smaller fractions of Aquilas. In addition, we are also going to change other functionalities of the store over time.

Crafting System

In our next content update, we will add the “Refine Item” functionality to our crafting system. This functionality will allow you to replace one Perk on a Curio or a Weapon. The same Perk slot can be replaced multiple times, but will block replacing other perks on the same item. This is the next step in building out our crafting system.

Private Play (and Solo)

Starting next week, with 2 or more players in the strike team, players will be able to opt into playing privately via the mission board. This will prevent players who are not friends of a strike team member from hot joining the squad during a mission in progress.

If the squad is all disconnected and a player is left alone when the reservation time expires, the mission will become public.

As for Solo Mode, we are actively working on it. While it technically could work now, we are not happy with its state yet, and we want to ensure the solo experience lives up to your expectations. Right now, it does not, and we would do the game a disservice by implementing it.

Emotes

Many players have asked us for more interesting ways to interact with people in the Mourningstar. Near term, we will be introducing the ability for your characters to use an emote in the hub. Players will be able to customize this emote wheel in the cosmetics menu for their character.

Okay, but a “For the Emperor!” button…While we don’t have a “For the Emperor!” emote yet, we’re most certainly asking the team about it. You know, For the Emperor.

Progression Siloing and Shared Ordo Dockets

Since launch, we’ve seen feedback from many players requesting shared progression across characters to ensure a smoother progression loop. Our designers are taking this feedback seriously and are discussing how to best implement a solution that meets our players’ desires and gameplay goals while also striking a balance with the game’s design intent. This is a sizable endeavor, and its feasibility is still unknown, we hope to be able to share more information on its progress at a later time.

Penances

We’ve been working closely with our community support team on how you all feel about penances in the game, and some of the pain points surrounding them. There’s been a lot of feedback to pore through, but we’ve found there’s a disconnect between how we phrase the requirements of some penances and the criteria to achieve them, making them more frustrating for players than we intended. Based on the feedback received from the support team, we’re currently working through solutions to make penances smoother and more enjoyable for players.

This is far from everything - We will have a full list of patch notes and some more updates for you next week!

Thank you, Rejects.
The Darktide Team

[sign_up_sucks]

are you getting rid of timers? Because the timers and buy in bulk aquillia discounts need to be gone, otherwise it makes the shop more confusing not less.

[Warjec]

I’m just saying. A malice penance for Zealot to not using a ranged weapon during a map is nothing compared to exploding and killing three enemies as a Psyker. There’s a large difficulty difference especially when the explosion barely does any damage to these enemies…

[plaviout]

@Aqshy

Since launch, we’ve seen feedback from many players requesting shared progression across characters to ensure a smoother progression loop. Our designers are taking this feedback seriously and are discussing how to best implement a solution that meets our players’ desires and gameplay goals while also striking a balance with the game’s design intent. This is a sizable endeavor, and its feasibility is still unknown, we hope to be able to share more information on its progress at a later time.

can we please get a clarification about what is the intent behind not sharing resources between characters? What system would be broken/unbalanced by this and why does it not seem feasible?

[Fraktal]

Anything regarding the ability to change your operative on the mission ready-up screen?

[anon34938710]

long story short… a bunch of work in progress and 2 weapons that were supposed to be there at launch and private lobbies which should have been at launch and another piece of the crafting system which all of it should have been at launch werent for them scrapping the other crafting system they had so late in development.

Aight. So… nothing new per say. Still stuck in a RNG Rotation with nothing shared among characters like the other games.

[fjarl]

Just waiting for the update that’ll let me complete a single mission without crashing…

[Mutant1988]

“If the squad is all disconnected and a player is left alone when the reservation time expires, the mission will become public.”

Who wants this? What possible purpose does that serve?

If someone has set it to private, they don’t want to play with random people. They want to play alone or reserve spots at all times for friends to join.

“Commodore’s Vestures (In-Game Store)”

Get rid of the premium store timer too, please.
Store inventory should be available at all times and not pressure customers into buying things by invoking a fear of missing out.

[ZealotEnthusiast]

One of the key things you pointed out to us was a desire for more weapons.

That’s one way to say “The community noticed we promised 70+ weapons, delivered 65, and cut really good ones they know from leaks, including the ogryn power maul we actually showed in his trailer before cutting it.”

In our next content update, we will add the “Refine Item” functionality to our crafting system. This functionality will allow you to replace one Perk on a Curio or a Weapon. The same Perk slot can be replaced multiple times, but will block replacing other perks on the same item.

So we have to both get an item with god roll base stats, and get it to land at least one perfect perk roll, or it’s trash. Have you considered not pursuing this path, and making it so weapons can reach a state of perfection without sinking a ludicrous amount of time into the game, stalking the armoury refresh?

We heard your feedback on the store loud and clear, and we are making adjustments to how Aquilas are packaged.

Then you haven’t heard the feedback, because not having an Aquilas package of just the right size for the big ticket items is not the only complaint. Where’s the ability to earn the premium currency through regular gameplay?

And absolutely nothing about the horrors of the hourly shop, or weeklies across 4 characters, great. Guess those can just stay in and continue to be the worst things about the game for a month or two. That won’t have any lasting consequences.

[elliott500]

Thanks for the update Aqshy.

Unfortunately though, this post does not answer a large amount of the questions that I have seen directed at and acknowledged by CMs, such as:

Chaos spawn being missing
Flash missions being missing
Promised extra mission modifiers being missing
The whole devblog on classes being full of things that failed to materialise in any meaningful way

Are these questions ever going to be answered?

It also fails to acknowledge that we were, as customers, lied to. We were promised or led to believed that plenty of content would be available on launch that hasn’t materialised. It also fails to acknowledge the communication fiasco on launch day.

I really think there needs to be a reconsidering of the tone set with community engagement here. Please just be honest and open with us and take some responsibility as a company for the mistakes that have been made, then we can look at moving forwards for what I am sure will grow into an incredible game.

[cpt.xavious]

Are the weapons in now? I assume the powet maul is Ogryn’s? What about the other one? I’d guess a “Crusher” is an ogryn weapon too? Genuinely curious.

[Sleezy]

@ZealotEnthusiast

Where’s the ability to earn the premium currency through regular gameplay?

Why would they do this? The whole point of the shop is to provide income. They can’t pay employees with in game currency.

[ZealotEnthusiast]

Plenty of full price games with microtransactions do the same. In fact, having full f2p monetization in a game with a $40 price tag is insane.

[Kavrick]

The amount of corporate speak in this update does not give me any hope for things. The choice to specifically respond to certain things that are easy to fix and less outrageous speaks volumes. The lie on the discord where it was originally said the premium currency was going to be earnable and then was edited is completely disgusting and a spit in the face of your playerbase. Not delivering on multiple things that were promised on release and having an extremely expensive cash shop (£13 skins in a game that already costs up to £50 is disgusting) shows how little you actually want to make a ‘good game’. The way this game has released has proved that you put making money ahead of making a good game.

[BucketsKeebler]

@Aqshy

Progression Siloing and Shared Ordo Dockets

Our designers are taking this feedback seriously and are discussing how to best implement a solution that meets our players’ desires and gameplay goals while also striking a balance with the game’s design intent.

Look, thank you for the update, but this is baffling to me. Why this strict adherence to the original “design intent?” If the product was flawed (resource siloing) then odds are good that the intent is flawed as well.

I can’t pretend to know what the designers had in mind, and I certainly don’t condemn their intent out of hand, but I wish that they would signal more of a willingness to adapt and alter their “intent” in response to feedback. The way this message reads, its hard to imagine that all that much will change.

[heretic_soup]

Plenty of games do this. It is a $40 game with a free to play monetization scheme. That is absurd.

[Cloudo]

A good post that’s got a good spirit, but that said;

This functionality will allow you to replace one Perk on a Curio or a Weapon. The same Perk slot can be replaced multiple times, but will block replacing other perks on the same item. This is the next step in building out our crafting system.

Our designers are taking this feedback seriously and are discussing how to best implement a solution that meets our players’ desires and gameplay goals while also striking a balance with the game’s design intent.

Whoever is on your design team that thinks crafting and playing should be like pulling teeth needs to be (re)moved from that department. Why does that team think it’s even remotely acceptable to make crafting even more of a chore and less customizable? Who is this system for? Locking players out of one of the only real choices they have about their gameplay is insane and completely hostile towards the playerbase that just want to enjoy playing the fun game that’s buried under these awful systems. For every good will action taken(Adding weapons to ogryn, buffing autoguns, crash fixes) there’s at least 2 that scream “We don’t respect your time or how it feels to engage with the game”.

Please do what you can to pass along the idea that games should be FUN to the dev who thinks games should be frustrating until you luck into stuff you want after hours of tedius grinding and RNG shop browsing.

[Snead1776]

The entire crafting systems need to be gutted and reworked the whole game is not rewarding. we get nothing for completing missions (yes yes coins for the random rng shop that shows maybe 1 item a week worth buying for anyone with play time) grims and scriptures do nothing for loot, we cant craft the weapons ourselves and the materials take ages to grind. Honestly everything about this game feels like a step down from Vermintide 2

[heretic_soup]

I’d love to know what the plan is for the weapon shop. Waiting an hour for the small chance to get a weapon you want is not fun. It incentivizes players to not play your game for hours at a time

[zaygr]

@Aqshy

The same Perk slot can be replaced multiple times, but will block replacing other perks on the same item.

Why have restrictions on rerolling perks? Is it just to make rolling a weapon with all the perks you want effectively impossible?