Shift-Tab will bring up the in-game overlay, there’s a View Player button there and you can see the recents (you can do it outside game ofc).
If you’re an older gamer like me, yeah those days are long gone. I think they started dying with the proliferation of consoles and mass appeal and boost for video gaming, sharp uptake in the last 10-15 years. It’s a trade off I suppose as there are benefits with a much larger player base, it’s a huge industry now.
Honestly that can be fun for different reasons. For example in Back 4 Blood I would frequently queue up for missions/acts that I knew people struggled with and would help them clear them. I got a lot of thank yous for helping people get first clears. In other ways it can be fun to just be the transient player making the run more fun without getting overly invested in things. EG: Kerillian was sitting by a chest of trials in Vermintide. (Sit emote, specifically), I slowly trundled up to her and started holding my tome out to her and ‘reading’ her a story. I was joking with the friend I was queued up with that I was busy reading her a bedtime story while he and the dwarf cleared the enemies. At the same time in game elf hag told me to read her a bedtime story. (Word for word) It made both of us laugh that we were on the exact same wavelength. I’ll answer in game queries with the various prompts (“STOP SHOOTING ME SALTZPYRE!” → No. → MONSTER! on the command wheel), etc. It’s a different way of looking at it but can be fun/rewarding in different ways than getting attached to particular people. Be the random player people want in their group rather than the one flailing off into the sunset being useless, while trying to be more interesting than just purely methodical.
EDIT: It’s nothing major but it’s the only real clip example of what I mean: For example. (You can also see the bedtime story thing in chat for that matter) Similar sort of thing in Darktide where my friend and I just coordinated getting together for the song without prompting which amused the third player with us.
Oh, I guess both examples are songs. 
As a sideway question, if it’s an important aspect for you, I am genuinely curious to know : how would you enable more socialization in this game ?
Playing in lower difficulty is not a good substitute for me, so I wont go there. I’m up to socialize, and I also like challenge and polishing my skills.
Removing post match time limit and keeping teams in strike team chat by default would make it easier to keep or add people if previous run was enjoyable.
Having a mourningstar section with your own customizable cabin and access to strike team cabins would make it more cosy. Kind of a transition between VT tavern/keep and the global hub.
Timed community event with set goals (kill X emmenies in a week across all servers), or a guild/union group frontshop in the mourningstar ?
A teamplay penance valkyrie access, to facilitate penance obtention, with maybe additional team based penances objectives ?
A twitch mode may also help, now that I think of it. I have seen more interaction after twitch modes than in QP for sure.
i just hoped into the game and tried a cozy malice QP, also to check Psyker changes and ended up with a Veteran guy with bots speedrunning or lets say trying to speedrun for whatever reason.
I searched for materials and took my time, he left all boxes clsed and just rushed through the level while I dealt with hounds and muties alone, bb’d Crushers, Bullwarks, Dreg Gunners and then he got downed the first time by a horde. I rescued him, then he got downed by a hound and i rescued him, then he got downed by gunner fire and i rescued him and carried him further to the end stage where he got downed again with the first wave of horde. I rescued him once more, but wasnt able to finish the last stage alone - it was one of the more hard ones where you have to maintain several cogitators on 2 floors and having enemies coming from all sides - more or less alone, because he was down and the bots werent that much helpfull.
I may had been able to carry that on malice when i would not have paused for a week and my movement weren’t mixed up with Chivalry dodging - i have dodge on left ALT in DT, but in Chivalry you cannot do that, you need left ALT for alternative swings and dodging is on space like it normally is in DT. But for DT i changed that for good reasons and now i was again used to press space to dodge, because of playing chivalry.
Whatever, the experience with someone rushing ahead again and leaving all boxes behind and get down like 10 times on a malice match, made me quit again.
Sorry but not fun!
I need to find more likeminded people in PUGS or the game just isn’t for me.
I dont stress with RNG Shop or weekliey anymore if i play, but when i play caring for crafting, item progression or not i dont want to rush levels, but want to “explore” them, although they are more or less allways the same. But i enjoy to seek for the materials and open the boxes.
But if most people play this game different and have a different aproach i’m just not the one who fits in.
Sad, but therefore i asked for real solo mode with or without bots - i’d even like to truly solo without bots and think i can do that or they give us optional low intensity condition for that.
And therefore i also asked for checkboxes for QP that let you seek for teams that want ressources also and not rush and leave everything behind.
And before someone is offended. Everyone can and should play like he want, but then i’m in the wrong game or community/ playerbase.
My experiences from last week and this one mission today is almost allways the same and it’s not fun to me.
And it was the same with VT1 that i havent played much and therefore didnt even consider to buy VT2.
DT i played a lot because of the WH40k atmosphere, but i think the aproach of the majority of players just isnt for me.
I think you are totally wrong. People want to play a fun game.
Sadly, what can be fun for me is not what can be fun for an other player. We have seen people that are attached to “The Lore” and can’t believe we could make garbage weapon somewhat that can be used.
We see people that absolutely don’t want that we tweak their loved weapon, even if it is the more powerfull weapon. It can be understood.
For me, the fun is the possibility to renew the pleasure of the game and it comes by testing classes, configurations (feats) and weapons. I love to use different weapons.
But problem is that difficulty is scaled on the more powerfull weapons. That’s how things are done. So several say, go in lower difficulty. I can tell you that, when you usually do heresy game and begin to play on damnation, going back to malice is like playing an uprising game for a malice player… in other words… it is boring (and sadly the boredom can kill 
)
So, for me it is a cooperative game. But weapons too strong need adjustments and weapons too weaks need also. Like that we can use all weapons…
For “Lore” lovers, I don’t see why they are against making weapons they will never use better.
good question - i really dont know, like the post before there are things to do in the missions like search ressources, but almost every game i join people just ignore it.
There are penances that i said were maybe created to make people work together and step back to help a teammate, but people start rather cheesing it than to do it like intended.
Playing like intended is something a lot of gamers seem to work around, that is why i said in other posts there are players playing games and gamers gaming systems. And please i dont want to accuse someone - if you have more fun doing so, do it, but it’s just not for me.
Imo a lot of gamers dont like to play the games like they were intended but find ways to work around it. I for myself never understood speedrunning a RPG like The Outer Worlds for example, but there are people “playing” that game and complete it in 12 minutes 
This is also a competetive aproach for a single player roleplay game about story and immersion i never understood. But to each their own.
Maybe i’m also to old for all that.
lmao yeh ive heard the zealot sing and trail off once I felt kinda bad for him 
I only play in random public games. I went from one extreme (organised groups and meta comps etc) to the other I guess. I’ve never played in a proper group on dark tide where everyone’s doing what they are supposed to do heh. Just winging it with whatever people show up is alright. But that being said I’m mostly on heresy or malice so pretty casual I suppose.
Yeh I hear ya man.
I see. Now that I think of it, crafting materials are nice and all but they feel very generic. VT2 had also pieces of ravaged art disseminated through the level that people could tag to each other, to obtain paintings in game. It was not exactly core gameplay, but it gave a pleasant feedback loop of helping each other for those who wished to engage.
As a side note, I am by no mean trying to push you away. By the kind of post you make there is no doubt in my mind that you enjoy very much the gameplay loop and there is definitely a place for you in this community.
That being said… have you tried Deep Rock Galactic ? It is not as tactile as VT/DT, and also lower budget. But it is comfy, it can provide a challenge and it has in my opinion a lot of friendly mechanics that encourage team dynamic.
One thing you can be sure of another game will come along shortly. If what your looking for is not in Darktide I’m sure something will turn up that’s more to your liking sooner or later. For now though I’m just enjoying this game for what it is. At some point in the past probably on this forum I expect someone tried to tell me my expectations where too high or not right and I probably just rolled right over and carried on arguing
I actually play also like that, mainly cause social hub is really done badly.
We need to be able to find people (search field), we need to be able to see with who we played last mission, in the mission before etc… we need to be able to have notifications of friend that come online etc.
Nothing is here to permit us to really use the social hub.
About what you say… yesterday I did a game (hab dreyko) with players that were totally lost in the map (heresy difficulty).
I had to find all the samples, revive them several times and even liberate them… fun part was the last sequence. One said follow me. They camped the door waiting… I had to find the samples here again… finished by falling close of the end… I profited that they revive me (I was at 5 meters of them) to ask them if they knew that we had to use auspex… We finished the objectives. Then the extraction… they were taking their time… lol
I ended trying to run to the valkyrie, known it could not work to take its time. Unfortunately, I have fallen, but they were not close… so I died. I told them in the chat “Run to the extraction! don’t stop”.
And they continued to want to kill enemies… and they died…
More than 40 minutes in hab dreyko with a flamer (I used it few times) and a combat axe (I have spent 35 minutes at killing mobs with it). Good practice… however, I would have prefered to play with people that know what they have to do…
Another example, is demonic infestation on damnation difficulty.
There are people that think it is great to fight the enemies… and don’t understand that, on damnation, you need 3 guys to destroy the demonic infestation, one at each bulb to destroy it… the bulbs come back so fast that there is no other ways…
How many times I have died cause of this? cause of a simple lack of knowledge of what to do…
Precision, i am surely not the best player. I learn from others every days,and there are lot of people that are better than me… but I can’t be comprehensive when I see passive people that don’t try to understand what they have to do!
Oh yeh ive had my fair share of nightmares too. I try to remind myself ive got way more hours than them and not get frustrated heh.
I’ve noticed sometimes if its an all vet squad especially and I’m the only one with the pen gear and fancy portrait people can get a little erm over enthusiastic and “help” me finish my kills off a bit. Turns into bit of a competition sometimes but all good fun for the most part.
I was not frustrated… I have learnt a lot in this run.
Surviving hab dreyko, “alone” (off course they were here, but not doing objectives) in heresy… I did not think I could have done that… but I did.
It’s a crap shoot even on Damnation, maybe slightly less so.
If you have 2-3 matches in a row where you have a bunch of headless chickens running around it can be very annoying. One phenomenon I’m noticing is that there are far more people on Damnation the last few weeks that would likely find Heresy very challenging, maybe even Malice. Your 4 person group becomes a 3 person group, often 2.
It makes those objective based segments like Auspex, corruptor eyes, carry crap much harder than they need to be; is PTFO or GTFO not a thing anymore?
Those extremes you mention are very jarring.
Thanks for the reply and Feedback, i know DRG, but never tried it. Maybe i should, but i’m very much into the WH40k atmosphere, but i like dwarfs also 
To answer a question about what would Help me socializing is maybe some sort of lfg/lfm tool with various aspects like, speedrunning, Ressource collection, books, slow paced, fast paced Player etc.
I found out about that Vampire Game from Bethesda. Maybe this will be good and the setting sounds fun and immersive too.
But tbh WH40k beats almost everything
edit: I especially like the Solo Aspect of REdfall and how they describe it as some sort of exploration mode without bots and at your own pace, making tactical decisions how to aproach or avoid enemies.
Sorry if I am repeating anyone.
I personaly do like competitive part of this game, just saying.
I really do not really understand what do you mean competitive and skill based mindset and what makes it different to cooperative mindset especially in this game where equipment choice can greatly differe the outcome of the match.
About PvP and PvE. For me, I don’t really enjoy PvP games, they make me angry, and PvE games not, will not dive into details.
**
LONG OPINION ABOUT PURELY COOPERATIVE GAME
In my opinion to make purely cooperative game out of DT, they need to make some sort of puzzle game, where every character is a key. Such as Sniper counters shooters but can’t do anything to the hoard, specials or elites(like literally 0 damage), Ogrin kills hoards, Psyker kills specials, Zealot kills elites, also, every character can be picked only ONCE, so no cloning. It’s only one of the many way they can do this, just saying.
So this way everybody will know their role, and there will be no skill(well, besides coordination), only coordinated moves and no competition in parties, because there will be no one to compete with.
But this way they’ll make one off game, played once a year just because.
**
So, about socializing, that is a problem indeed, which was in vermintide as well. I really have no idea how to solve it other then to break the ice yourself. Also, in matches it’s really hard to start writing or talking with randoms, reasons you already know.
Storytelling is actually here but is mostly ignored by everybody.
Immersion is, also, here dudes call you useless, armory is not limitless, you fly to the mission, the mission board where they give a choice not you and other stuff like character dialog.
Sandbox adventure will probably never be here, but i’d like to walk around on the planet and do some stuff other then run from A to B.
So, as I understand, you wanted to talk with your team in character and to choose the way of action before engaging, I guess? Well, I can only guess how to make a game like this, but in duo situation on 5 difficulty, you would really want to talk to your last teammate >:) . Such fun stuff is near impossibe to find in this game where the end goal is go from A to B.
Well, another way to make this game more cooperative is to make it harder, remove the shop and make level progression unlock other way to play the game, like other classes.
No… level progression is the bad option.
It all depends on what players you play with and waht difficulty you mainly play on, the player base when in prime state is probably diversed enough imo.
can you explain what is the competetive part in a coop game?
i really dont see or get what it is or why it’s fun or even part of the game.
i then can maybe answer your question about what i mean with competetive and skillbased mindset.
But this stems only from my experience with PvP games, that i mostly play.
When i came here to DT for a coop game i had zero competetive things in mind and i came here for WH40k and cooperation to have something different than competition what i play most of the time.
I fully agree on your more calssed distinction to encourage a more cooperative playstyle, therefor i wanted to play Damnation more, because the harder difficulty punishs to play a lone hand.
Thing is i mostly end up teams that still rush and dont wait and therefor fail.
I really dont get why people dont care for their last member in the backline more and rush ahead more often to then die also because they are one or two man short.
eh no, not sure where that comes from