Crafting in retrospect from Beta and a Suggestion

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1

Reflection of Warhammer 40K Darktide’s Crafting System

In the early days of Warhammer 40K Darktide, acquiring a transcendent weapon largely depended on luck. Players had to wait for Mel’s 24-hour cycle or hope for a rarest drop from the Emperor’s gift which wasn’t even guaranteed to be a strong weapon. There were no modifications possible; what you received was what you were stuck with. Owning the perfect weapon became a status symbol, elevating the gameplay and reputation of those few who possessed them.

Then came Hadron, who introduced the ability to consecrate weapons. Initially, her capabilities were limited; she couldn’t rebless or refine weapons, and curios remained unmodifiable. Despite these enhancements, acquiring the perfect weapon still involved a significant amount of randomness.

Evolving Modifications

As the system evolved, Hadron’s abilities were upgraded. Players could modify one blessing and one perk on any weapon, and one perk on a curio. The introduction of guaranteed golden weapons at the end of every Damnation run seemed promising, though outcomes were not always reliable.

Further upgrades allowed for more comprehensive modifications. Players could now adjust both perks, both blessings, or a mix of each on their weapons. Modifications to curios were also expanded, though players still couldn’t choose the value of the curio blessing. These changes have made the crafting system more balanced, offering a good mix between uniformity and the randomness that characterized the early game.

Impact on Gameplay

With each improvement, the endgame shifted. Hi Intensity Damnation, Shock Gauntlet Damnation, and other challenging modes are no longer the pinnacle of player achievement. Now, Auric Maelstrom, with its intense modifiers, blessings, and powerful bosses, represents the ultimate challenge.

Balancing Game Dynamics

The continual increase in player power, or “power creep,” is akin to seasoning a steak. While some players prefer their game unaltered, most are in the middle, others enjoy substantial modifications. However, too much alteration can dilute the game’s essence, making it indistinguishable from others similar titles, and necessitating new challenges to prevent stagnation. (EDIT: And completely unseasoned steak can reveal the (pardon the pun) “gameyness” of a beast. This situation pressures developers to continually create new content and refine systems to satisfy a diverse and vocal player base, who have so far made demands on all fronts, insisting that all demands be met at once including (but not limited to) talent changes (done), Multiple classes as seen in VT2 (kinda done), more weapons (more weapons came, but more or still wanted), balance patches (those keep coming), more levels (more have been made, but people want more.), more enemies (Chaos Demon and Pox Bomber, I think. Solid additions, but more are desired) more varied cosmetics (we get more, some are reskins, some are new stuff), new events (we have a new one), more plot (we have some but more would be great) … and so on… I think I made my point. Demanding all of these thing all at once all at one time. Man that’s rough.

Proposed Adjustments to the Crafting System

I appreciate the randomness of the current system and suggest maintaining some element of it. A possible adjustment could involve allowing players to influence the modifiers of a weapon to whatever degree they desire, with randomness determining potential drawbacks. For example, improving a modifier by a significant margin could introduce penalties to other stats, maintaining a balance and preserving the element of chance in weapon customization.

Or, I would say the more simple solution - make blessings buyable.

Closing Thoughts

It’s disheartening to see more focus on the negatives rather than celebrating the positives in game forums. Discussions often overlook the enjoyable aspects of the game, this can create undeserved animosity as your focus becomes more on what’s missing rather than what’s there. Despite its flaws, Darktide has compelling features that deserve recognition, without needing to mention what it lacks to spite the title. I believe that embracing both the good and the areas for improvement can foster a more balanced and enjoyable gaming experience.

2

The random system can go die in a fire. It serves no purpose beyond time-padding gameplay and covering for underpowered blessings.

Remove it entirely, allow perks and blessings to be selected at will, and balance accordingly.

13 Likes
3

Ok.

Since we know nothing of the coming rework to item acquisition, I’d say that we will most likely see some form of the current randomization to get the desired gear. If they let us break some/all of the locks, it will have some serious time investment behind it.

It feels like your saying that there are no praise for the good parts. People have always enjoyed the gameplay, visuals and music of Darktide. It doesn’t come up as often anymore since those things has already been mentioned a bunch of times.

5 Likes
4

If nothing else, darktide’s terrible RNG-hell crafting system makes me appreciate just how much better similar systems are in other games, especially co-op games, and that even if said systems aren’t great in some of those games, that they could be much, much worse.

You think the power grind (or grinding for reds I guess?) in VT2 is bad? It could be worse.

You think getting a specific overclock in DRG is bad? Trust me, it could be worse.

You think…uhh, I guess having to do stupid achievements to get certain weapon mods in PD2 is bad? Oh boy, you better believe it could be worse.

You think the engineering grind in Elite: Dangerous is bad?..Well, yeah it is, but somehow, it could be worse.

4 Likes
5

Just because you started your own thread doesn’t mean you can escape the same criticisms against your ridiculous and contrarian argument. RNG Crafting ruined this game for so many of us that only around 5% of Darktide’s total player count on Steam actively remains.

6 Likes
6

Na that’s bs you couldn’t even really see anyone’s gear besides melee and even then no one cared because it’s all random.

You get no status since no one can farm out a whole set of weapons sets like you can in say a game like MHW or a mmo since it’s not skill or time based it’s all just luck.

I used to say let us ajust but it’s not a good idea after thinking about it since almost every weapon you get is still unusable trash.

I say just remove this element entirely.
Then your weapon locks aren’t so terrible since you can just get 50 of the same base and waste all your resources getting the perfect roll.

Then you bring out reds with no locks you get from auric maelstrom and damnation auric board missions.

4 Likes
7

I don’t really understand the insistence that we need some amount of random. Why exactly? You say very often that “some amount of randomness is good” but that’s not actually an indisputable truth or anything. Some amount of random is probably the worst thing that could happen to a lot of things.

Why is some amount of random good for the darktide itemization system? Why is any randomness beneficial?

Also

If there’s a little bit of feces in your soup, just a small little chunk, then that’ll be what the waiter hears, not “the soup was mostly good”. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t good otherwise, but it’ll probably keep a lot of people from enjoying the soup anyway.
Also no idea what the hell you mean by the last part. How does forum feedback relate to the gaming experience

6 Likes
8

Your entire argument is flawed and false. It’s still orders of magnitude RNG to get a weapon with the blessings you want, never mind a good one. There are multitudes of people with over 1000 hours that are still missing some T4 blessings, and that only have ‘good’ items for a percentage of weapons across the classes.

The powercreep you speak of came with the talent tree. Not by the absolutely minuscule RNG mitigation they have done so far.

The power budget system, where having some stats high meaning other stats must be low, is universally hated and has failed miserably in previous games. Division 2 needed to redo their entire item system and provide enormous amounts of mitigations because of all the problems associated with a power budget system.

8 Likes
9

There are only two instances of proper RNG mitigation in the crafting that doesn’t involve RNG and that’s Brunt’s, which allows you to choose a weapon type in exchange for losing stat information so you’re buying blind, and the perk selection.

Everything else is still riddled with RNG. Even of those two above, Brunt’s is unsatisfying because of the large weapon rating range that you can get (300-380 compared to VT2’s 290-300 power) and usage of the perk selection usually only happens if one or two of the blessings are rolled properly or “good enough”. There are too many layers of RNG and interdependence between them too.

It’s not fun because you have so little control over what comes out the other end and there’s little you can do with a weapon that doesn’t turn out how you want it.

Even after hundreds of hours and thousands of rolls, there’s almost nothing there to help you along even a little towards your goal.

We already have enough randomness with the actual in-mission gameplay, but at least that’s fun.

5 Likes
10

Discord, Reddit, and Youtube have told different stories.

And what luck are you looking for, exactly? What are you not getting in the game that you want right now but haven’t been able to achieve by any stretch? What goal have you set for yourself?

11

You’re asking me a question which illicits a response based in subjective taste. There isn’t an answer you’d appreciate. Which is to say that its not that I lack an answer, it’s more that I lack an answer you would approve of; responding to your question is an exercise in futility.

The problem with your analogy is that for something be be disfavorable, it has to be universally recognized as the thing you describe. I don’t like feces in my soup at all, so I would not tolerate it. Therefore, your comparison is a large false equivalence that appeals to an extreme scenario which would likely never happen in the first place. Please consider rephrasing your analogy.

12

What is my argument, and in what paragraph are you referencing it from?

13

I suppose it depends on where your threshold for what is acceptable to you. I have some weapons that are base 360, but the primary four stats I care about have it where it counts. Mobility isn’t needed. For most of my weapons, there is a degree of diminishing returns for that last 10 percent that I don’t deem worthwhile pursuing. I decided that it’s not worth it to actively pursue a weapon to such extreme when instead I could focus on rounding out others. No one is forcing anyone to push their luck to roll the natural 20 on a weapon. It’s like slapping yourselves in the head repeated and complaining that you’re not getting that instance where you don’t feel the slap.

14

I already asked you once to stop bothering me, and here you are doing it again. There’s no need to strawman my post in saying I had the intention of “avoiding criticism” when this wasn’t the case. Thanks for asking what my intention was. I’m done speaking with you, I’m done with your hostility, if you’re not going to contribute in a meaningful way to this conversation, please find the exit door.

15

When people tell me they want the perfect weapon with the perfect modifiers, perfect blessings, and to make it a guaranteed eventuality which is gated by who has the most time to spend farming out the requirements reminds me of my final days in WoW when we were all given legendary weapons that had their own talent trees… Seeing every player with the perfect weapon gives me the same vibes here…

image
image495×1204 82.6 KB

16

It’s still random to have the stats line up the way you want with no control over the distribution at all. The random stats is the worst because you have absolutely no control over what you get and have no ability to change it at all. Even rolling for a “decent” 360 is a pain because of that.

And how do you round out others? By rolling more? What an engaging system.

Forcing individuality by deliberately impairing the item with no recourse is a horrible way to do it, it takes all the control from the player, breeds frustration because there’s no way to improve it, and finally, what benefit is there for item individuality in this type of game when it can impact performance?

5 Likes
17

False, you can modify the blessings and the perks.

Impairing? How? By hitting you in the dumpstat for the weapon you’ll get? The one you don’t care for?

18

I’m talking only about the weapon rating and stat distribution, of which you are also only happy if 4 of the 5 stats line up to what you want. Which the chance of it happening is lower the lower the weapon rating.

It’s the layer of RNG where you have no control at all.

3 Likes
19

You asked me to stop poking holes in your flawed arguments and I won’t. This is a discussion-based Forum and if you don’t want to actually HAVE a discussion the door is right there.

4 Likes
20

So what of my suggestion?