Criticism: economic and progress system, lack of information, mission design

  • The really worst and overwhelmingly named as negative element in our player groups is defintitively the economy and progression system in Darktide. It is incomprehensible to all of us how you managed to take a mediocre system like in VT 2 as a model and make it even worse. Since the system is so heavily criticized, I’ll try to make a start.

  • All progress is related to the character and this should be changed directly.

  • All progress should count as account progress, this should include all currencies you come up with that are already in the game.

  • The exp rate per successful completion needs to be increased, it takes way too long to level up a character because the real game doesn’t start until lvl 30.

  • Including the collectibles in the game world is an absolute cheek and belongs in a MMORPG and not in a game like Darktide. It only leads to the groups splitting up to search every nook and cranny for the stuff. The flow of the game is lost and what matters is to complete the mission. There are also far too few materials, even when everything is searched. And then there are also 2 different materials that you need and drop independently or lie around in the world. Ironically, you keep your crafting materials if the mission fails which also rewards bad play and makes the game a grindfest. This is by far the biggest bummer you guys have come up with, besides the fact that we also have to collect the stuff extra with each character we create.

  • If you want to reward us with crafting materials, give them to us for leveling up above lvl 30, like the crates in VT2, for defeating bosses like the loot cubes in VT2, a large amount directly for completing the mission and a smaller one for the side objectives. Possible would also be from Lvl 30 Exp directly into the crafting materials to convert.

  • In general, everything we get should be done AFTER successful completion of the mission, anything else encourages bad play. Except for exp that can still be granted proportionally.

  • It’s nice that you do without lootboxes to introduce a fixed currency, but it should be possible to acquire something decent from the currency. You can’t really buy anything from gold because of the high random factor at the merchant. From the currency for the weeklys there are high quality items, but even here, due to the high random factor, you usually do not find anything you need if you want a certain item.

  • Then, after the mission, every now and then there is a random item that is also mostly junk.

  • The high random factor is generally a huge problem, it is demotivating to wait again and again until a new offer comes in, this is in most cases bad and then you wait again. The question is how do I get my armor? here we are at the next point.

  • Lack of real crafting! Because in VT2 I could craft every weapon as a basic version, then level it up to red quality, and this had guaranteed the highest values in all areas, which I then had to re-roll until it fit. In Darktide this is completely missing, which is an absolute flaw in the system.

  • The red items are missing ! Fatshark, why do you take away the possibility to have items with perfect stats at the end of the game? Do you want us to grind even more than we already had to in VT2? Because that was already unnecessarily much there. For the most difficult content you need the best equipment, but getting it will probably take years, because high random factors together with low changing offers and the missing possibility to get the best guaranteed stats means a huge time investment. Add in the fact that the process has to be repeated with each character, and you get nothing but hate.

  • There are players who play the game for the challenges, not to get loot, because the loot should be the means to achieve its goal, with you in Darktide it becomes the end, which I categorically reject.

  • I personally would even be in favor of you abolish all currencies except for one and from that can be purchased EVERYTHING in the game. Gold to reroll, to buy items, gold for weeklys and to buy skins, etc… Why have extra currencies for everything? The only reasoning is you want us to farm more and get frustrated. Otherwise it makes no sense Fatshark.

  • Let’s move on to the next item on the agenda, lack of information:

  • There is almost no information in the form of numbers or writing about the talents and their effects, about weapon stats, the perks, etc.

  • Finally show numerical values on all the bars of the weapons, so we can see what is improved and how much.

  • Give us a manual, something like the mods in VT2 the Bestiary and Armory, where we can see exactly how the mathematical values of the weapons, the enemies etc. are.

  • Explain your own vocabulary that you introduce in the game.
    Show the effects of all the things, with pictures or videos if you want. So I can see what exactly brings me more cleave or what you mean by mass.

  • Where are the thresholds ? When does an improvement bring me something? Professional players need this information to master future difficult content. You can already work out the basis and try it out.

  • Now we turn to your mission design:

  • In VT2 you could choose from all available maps and assign them with different mutators, the Deeds, or Twitch Mode. Why is that not possible in Darktide?

  • We want a system where we decide which missions we want to do and not a random based system.

  • Or the random based system you have now can stay as a separate area, but then manually createable missions should be available in addition. Let us decide how our missions look like, and give us more mutators to combine freely.

12 Likes

Each of these points has been mentioned in one way or another on the forum before, but nonetheless - great summary! Agree with all of the above.
Although all of this would probably get completely ignored by FS in favor of carebear anti-toxicity measures, an in-game cosmetic cash-shop, general optimisation, re-introduction of QoL features that were in VT1-2 since forever, and whatnot, until engagement metrics suffer for it eventually forcing them to deal with it somehow.
Let’s not get our hopes up, shall we?

A second all of this.

So much of this game’s design reeks of “player retention”, “time gates”, “monetisation”. And all of those right now feel pretty much anti player.

1 Like

I agree, though my current main gripe would be the split resources between characters, which mainly punishes those who like to either fill different roles or enjoy playing different characters once in a while.

  • Since I am currently hoarding the crafting materials, I can’t speak to their rarity or usefulness and I am not that against the different crafting resources, though having to scour each level can go against the “we should stick together and are rewarded for teamplay” principle

  • As for the lack of red items, I sincerely hope that this is simply something that will be added to the crafting before or at launch, since there is enough rng to go around

  • I would also welcome an item after each mission, or maybe just after a level up when they are unlocked, even if they are junk, this would at least allow you to test a new weapon type without buying another bad one in the store

  • lastly, while I am currently content to play the randomized missions, I hope that we will be able to modify missions to our specs

in the end, I can say that I enjoy the gameplay in the missions, but the connective tissue in between seems a bit lacking

1 Like

Technically, red items are now orange and the old oranges are now purple…
VT had 5 item rarities, and we still have 5

I agree that there should be more centralized progression, but, personally, I’m all for mid-mission loot opportunities. I’d even like to see it expanded. Deep Rock does exactly the same thing with all its own loot, and it’s one of the reasons why it’s so much fun; exploration, finding secrets, and feeling like you’ve got more means to improve your rate of progress.

A game doesn’t need to be just about beating it. Journey before the destination, and all.