Time is everything to me, because it´s the only real limited ressource we´ve. But yet i still play the game. Why? Because it´s just fun to play.
Such attitudes like “The game doesn´t respect my time!” or “I need rewards to have fun!” are the real limitations players burden on themselves.
While i get your point as always, it´s all still highly subjectivey and player-made. Dozens of games have a healthy playerbase while relying heavily on RNG. DT is a joke against them.
And yes, not every game is made for everyone. Being like “Fix the problems i HAVE, make changes i WANT!” is kinda selfish. For every fix that caters you, someone else will might lose the interest into the game. It goes the other way round aswell obviously.
We still need a middleway. And that´s either a real progress-system with an endgame-loop that already exists in dozens of other games, or FS should scrap the itemization and stats, balance everything into the core and needs to focus on content-pushes to keep the game interesting in the long run.
I also don´t want to argue any further about this tbh… we already went through this often enough. V2 is different within some side-systems and still “failed” to achieve those big numbers poeple often talk about. Both games started well, dropped hard and found their loyal playerbase.
And how good the combat is, it´s clearly a thing that the whole series lacks in gameplay-diversity and content to attract players for years.
This example is about the artistic style of the game, which is an integral part and is not something that would reasonably be changed.
This example is about an unchangeable aspect of a person.
The things that are seen as problematic in Darktide, are not artistic choices or anything else that is an unchangeable and integral part of the game.
Gear acquisition can be changed. Many players have left because of the way it is (or was at the time they left), and it seems like most of the still active players want it to be changed.
Considering that i am not doing that, and that „my problems“ are problems that the vast majority of the playerbase seems to have, i have no idea why you would say that.
Crazy that if a majority of your consumers say “X will make your product more loved and accepted” they just ignore it. Especially when coding it is a simple change. Allow ways to remove or swap locks. Video games exist to make money, more people like it and give positive reviews, more money you make. The crafting system is objectively driving away more player than it brings in. Simple conclusion to me.
It is a strange thing that so many modern devs care more about short term profit than about reputation value. Maybe it’s because investors want money here and now.
Yes those things could be improved and then people would go back to the elephant in the room that is the stifling gear system that makes it an outright battle to find some weapon worth upgrading in a sea of trash only to lose it upgrading with terrible blessings/perks and locks. This is in a game already suffering variety. For some reason it makes sense for players to not be able to change builds comfortably for potentially hundreds of hours of play time, running the same 5 maps. There aren’t even any scenarios on the board that make that not monotonous.
Just the egregiously poor kit balance is stifling variety enough, we don’t need to make it statistically impossible to get viable versions of bad guns like the 2 burst HH, Columnus auto or Voidstrike.
No, the voice is something you can actually change over time (and also changes naturally). Otherwise, it might not be the best example, but “should you demand your friend to change in some way that makes his other friends like her less is okay or not” might be closer to what I wanted to say and I think the answer to that is no.
I passed on a lot of “Baldur’s gate” clones because they were turn-based instead of real-time with pause. RNG-based endgame loot grind might not be common in horde shooters, but you are missing the point that some might find that appealing.
I think @Darth_Angeal put it far better than I can compose my thoughts currently about this:
The current system isn’t good enough yet as an RNG system with “endless” progression. I want the current loot system to improve (and so far it did), I think there are several ways it could, but most of the potential conversations about this are drowned out by people who by improving mean swap it with a different one.
It’s literally just this. Investors want their returns as fast as possible and in many cases don’t care if the actual product is poor quality if they get the return by the end of their desired timeframe. The more money they invest, the more they feel like they should have influence over the creative process, and that’s how you wind up with gatcha mechanics and games becoming more like casinos.
Personally I think the money guys should shut up and let the people who actually know how to make the game make the game. Almost every time these people have too much control over creative decisions it leads to a worse experience for the consumer.
Since your example is about a person, one could say that the person should be how ever she wants to be, no matter if others liker her that way or not.
It would be her decision whether or not to change something about herself, in order to cater to a specific person. She would have to evaluate her own self image and what others like about her, in relation to how she would have to change in order to cater to that one person.
But Darktide is a product.
Darktide itself does not care about its own properties.
It is a product that is supposed to make money by attracting customers.
Attracting more customers (as well as making and keeping them happy) makes more money.
A change to the game, that would make more people like it (which means they would buy the game and then potentially buy skins), would mean that it makes more money and is more successful.
If the product has an aspect (itemization) that a vast majority of the customers find to be player unfriendly and disrespectful of their time, which (amongst a few other things) might cause them to stop playing (less money from skin purchasey by existing customers) and to leave a bad review (fewer new customers), that is something that should be changed.
You came in with making the argument that saying leave the product is similar to “dude just leave your wife”. I feel a bit of cognitive dissonance in reading your above argument.
I equated two cases of problems, where voicing a complaint could lead to an easy fix, in order to make clear how ridiculous the „just leave“ approach is.
You equated the casees of
a person having to change her personality and having to choose between pleasing you or her friends.
making a change to a product in order to appeal to more customers.
A person has a self image and does not value everyones opinion the same.
Not every individual has the same importance to a person.
If most people dislike something about you, but you and your friends like it, then it does not matter.
A product like this is supposed to attract customers.
Since this is not a product that is tailored to each individual customer, customers are not individuals, but a statistic.
It is not about catering to a few special individual customers, but about pleasing a large amount of them.
If most customers dislike something about a product, then it does matter and it should be changed.
I would not ask for any change to the game, that would cater to me specifically, while introducing something that the majority of players dislike.
And that is not what i am doing. I am asking for something that the majority of the players want.
I want the game to be enjoyable and to be as successful as it can be.
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Edit:
Aside from all that, it does not really matter if you like my exaggerated „Got a problem? Leave your wife.“ comparison.
I think it is quite obvious that my point was: If a problem can be solved, the problem should be dicsussed so that it can be fixed.
And your wife isn’t a product, and having a connection to products similar to the “love of your life” isn’t something people would consider healthy.
I agree that my example was bad due to being person/product difference. I wanted to make a person example because you made one.
It’s strange to hear this argument, it is usually frowned upon to get money into it over enjoyment. Grudgingly accepted at most.
While it is actually pretty wrong as a generalization (luxury product, whale bait games), I think that the aim for only popularity and money-making is kind of wrong. Gaming is wonderful exactly because you can find your own specific kind of fun. To be popular you have to balance different people’s needs/wants and keep them happy enough to play (meaning you can’t annoy them too much).
Usually, if games do their system well enough people will come. While the release loot system was a travesty and currently it needs help, and still has a lot of strange annoyances (perk reroll…), it’s clearly overall better now (as a long-term progression system). If the released system would have been the current one with some extra improvements (like no annoying perk reroll), a lot more people would have accepted it, and the conversations would be a lot different.
Saying people don’t like this kind of system because of the low player count, while the system is currently a bad example of its kind doesn’t seems to be logical to me, and I could talk about the numerous other problems the game had and those it still has.
Do you think the game could be successful with a few tweaks to the item acquisition system, QoL improvements, and a bit of balance to the weapons blessings, or is it your opinion that the game lost its player base and will not recover until they make gear progression non-existent (for long term players)?
This is the “doomsaying” echoed here, by you and others after the necro and I find it ridiculous.
Honestly, I trust FS more in making this system good enough (they already moved in a better direction), than to implement a good enjoyable end-game reward system. Based on VT2 good or interesting skins apart from recolors are out of the question, and I can’t think of anything else.
I’m also not convinced that giving everyone access to every item is long-term better than them showing that they can keep releasing content, and improvements at a steady rate, since the trust in that regard was clearly broken after the release.
I would rather have them improve the current system step by step while introducing bugfixes, balance changes, and new content, instead of
watering it down to be similar to VT2’s out-of-place crafting system and the game to have no long-term rewards apart from “enjoy the flow” or
taking (at least) 6 months of development time to try to make and implement a proper few hundred-hour progression system that isn’t just there to waste your time, and is enjoyable to interact with.
While I find it not very probable for FS to come out and say “we’ll do it this way” regarding this topic at least it would make this doom-posting bs appearing on every thread disappear one way or another and I would be happy.
It’s not arpg or mmo. DT is an ugly chimera - Left4Dead alike game but with Destiny hub. There is no activities or deep itemization system, we have just maps with few random modificators and 5 items with simplistic properties like +dmg vs/+dmg when/+dmg resist etc. They need to make quests, 20 more maps, raids alike extra hard activities, armor with stats and completly change perks. After this we can use “end-game” and “gear progressions” towards DT. Deep Rock Galactic has 30k online, and the only “end-game” there is cosmetics, well and overlocks that completly optional just for fun.
You can mix and match different systems, if you do it well enough it will be good. GW2 for example is an mmo but there is a finite gear grind even if new content is released top gear will be top gear.
I did not make a generalization. I specifically talked about Darktide and explicitly said that
I did not say that this is the only goal. But these are probably the two most important things that should be maximized while staying within certain bounds of what the game is supposed to be.
Correct. And if the majority is massively annoyed by something, then it is a problem.
People who want to experience the gameplay how they want, can not do so due to the current itemization system.
People who want to have proper gear progression, do not have that with the current itemization system.
People who like gambling, do have that with the current itemization system, but i would dare to say that this game should not primarily cater to gamblers, since they are a minority of the playerbase and do not gamble their real money into FatShark’s pockets.
Correct.
I did not say that the itemization is the sole or main reason for why most of the players have left.
I said that many people have left because of the bad itemization (among other things) and that (probably most) people who are still around, still are not happy with it and want to see it improved upon.
I think that there are a few things that should be changed about the itemization system, which could make it pretty enjoyable for a vast majority of the playerbase.
It would certainly have been better to have a good system at release, but fixing the system now is still better than never fixing it at all.
I do think that such an improvement would increase player retention (of the 5% of players that are still here). It would also make existing players more happy and in combination with more positive reviews, it would probably lead to an increased influx of new players.
However, no matter how good the game will get over time, i have no idea if the game can ever get to where it could have been, if it had been released in a great state to begin with.
No idea how the non existence of gear progression should help the game recover the player base.
I never suggested that this should be the case.
I think that there should be actual gear progression in the first place. It should be accessible, have as little necessary RNG as possible and have a realistic end somewhere.
What are you talking about?
I do not think that i have ever been a doomsayer on this forum.
I have criticized a few things but almost always in a detailed and constructive way, usually with a possible solution.
There are a few things that you bring up, which i never said, or clearly did not mean.
Some things (like you disliking my initial exaggerated comparison) simply do not matter.
If you are trying to argue with me, for the sake of arguing, please stop.
But Fatshark did it poorly, from mmo we have only hub, emotes and rng. Same talent system from V2, same 2 weapons + 3 trinkets from V2. And the only promise is 1 class every quarter. Well obviously will be more maps with reused segments. They need completly change DT genre, almost make it Darktide 2, to justify this ammount of rng and locks.
I think we reached what could be achieved with the argument. I will be just replying to a few of your points since I either don’t want to push further for the sake of our time, you talk beside ( or misunderstood) my point or I agree with you.
Endless progression systems even with heavy RNG aren’t about gambling. I’ve written something longer at first, but I find it tiring to argue about this.
You are usually pretty constructive. I’m talking about this:
I’m fine with you saying it wasn’t you parting in the doomsaying that game will fail unless progression is radically changed. I might have jumped on you too hard for this one.
Just answer me this since I feel like you dodged around it.
Do you think the game will not recover if the “kind” of loot system it has doesn’t change? Do you think the game will not thrive unless there is a clear end of the gear progression instead of a potentially endless system?
That was my point. It isn’t a problem in and of itself, FS doing it badly is the problem.
Edit: I’m not talking about making DT a mmo, if you don’t get it that parts can be mixed then fine. The game doesn’t can use a system from a different genre and be good or even better for some.
I still believe because of all the stuff and the chimera fact that before they ripped everything apart and remade the game it was going to be more of an mmorpg feel before the abomination we got.