I’ve thought for a while that the weekly challenges are a bit bland and not very engaging, i thought they could be very easily and simply jazzed up by making a few simple changes:
Buy contracts you want to undertake - instead of being given 5 to randomly complete, purchase ones that you want for dockets. It gives them more of a function instead of just gathering dust in your wallet, you’re more engaged in game play and you get to work towards things you specifically enjoy and feel more immersed in the world. You could even give them time sensitive rewards if you wanted. “Do x within x time frame get extra”
You could make them more like the penances, or map based challenges - Kill X type of unit, Complete X type of map, Scan X amount of scannables, Complete X Auspex mini games etc, Assassinate X assassination targets - do it within X timeframe get X2 rewards or whatever.
I think it would be significantly more fun, more engaging, and give people more to do in what is a very small and closed gameplay loop with not much content as it is. Small change with big impact i feel.
This is just one change that wouldnt be alot of effort to implement, wouldn’t break the currency / reward system depending on what you get for completing the tasks so obviously that needs to be balanced however its seen fit to do so.
Obviously open to hear opinions as to counter points / add ons.
If they are worried about people over achieving and earning too many tokens also, you can do contracts for different rewards. IE only so many that give Melk tokens a week or whatever, only able to do x amount of them at a time.
There are loads of ways you could limit it so you’re not bypassing the grind they clearly want you to have to keep playing the game, but also not over do it so its boring as chalk like it currently is.
This way people get to do tasks and jobs revolving around how they wanna play the game, rewarded for their strengths, Headshots, Boss kills, Melting trash with the flamer etc etc, you could gear so many different little challenges towards the diverse playstyles for people and it would be so much more engaging and inclusive for people.
Currently i feel people are kinda penalised for having to go to work, or having a life outside of Darktide. You’ve only got so long to do the weeklys and earn some tokens and if you’ve got a wife, kids and a job, you stand little to no chance on completing most of the weekly challenges. If you could purchase challenges you wanted to do, when you were able to do them, and collect the rewards once you have finished said challenge however long that takes you to do, i think it would be better for the entirety of the community.
People who don’t have time can still achieve and work towards something and tailor their rewards to their strengths of gameplay, and those who have all the time in the world are more engaged and have something meaningless in the grand scheme of things to work towards and do instead of just running a map for the minimum dopamine reward of the base gameplay loop.
GREAT point! Having the contracts be persistent, purchasable things would fix this. And it’d feel a lot more fair.
And just not having an expiry timer on the current system would be nice…maybe if players could only complete-and-replace a contract once a week (to maintain the same frequency as the current system) that could work.
The problem is the frequency with the current system works for some and not for others.
If they don’t want you getting more Melk tokens than you can currently get then you can make more contracts with different rewards. Ordo Dockets, Plasteel/Diamantine, Blessings or weapons, anything really.
If they limited it to 1 contract at a time, then it woulnt really matter how many you can do because youd only ever get through X a week, and not ever end up with a surplus of Melk tokens. An lets be honest, Melks shop isnt exactly amazing, i buy 1-3 weapons a week purly for the lvl 4 blessings and cannibalise them, ive never once in the entirely of play time (which has been since beta i might add) bought and used a Melk weapon. Eventually im gonna run out of lvl 4 blessings to buy and just end up with a surplus of Melk tokens that i cant do anything with. So they aren’t exactly super important anyway.
I do like Darktide but i feel there is soooooooooo much more than could be done and tweaked with it to make a good game with a decent gameplay loop, a great game with fantastic replay-ability.
More interactivity between the resources (like buying plasteel with melkbuxx) and more ways to earn all of them (like breaking down weapons for plasteel) would be great!
Yes, being able to choose contracts would be much appreciated. There’s already too much RNG in all the out-of-mission systems and reducing that would lessen the frustration of not getting what you want in so many places already.