Darktides horrendous loot system by the numbers or Why we should demand some promises

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I have crunched the shop numbers in this post i made the other day and the numbers are so atrocious, i think we should demand some promises from Fatshark regarding pay to win mechanics, especially since they are part owned by Tencent and made the statements you see in the attached picture.

To highlight some numbers:

  • There is a 1 in 37,03 chance per shop refresh that a specific weapon will have a specific perk
  • there is a 1 in 28139 chance per shop refresh that a specific weapon will have a specific perk and be rolled 370+ base stat rating (top right corner in the “bars” section). With a 370+ weapon, you can still have a 50% damage roll.
  • there is a 1 in 9,6 chance per shop refresh that a curio will have 2 specific perks.

These are not even considering perk rating (for example, 2% crit chance or 5% crit chance). As the shop only refreshes once an hour, that is an estimated 37,03 hours played to obtain the weapon you want with specific 1 perk (still not considering rating). For curios you even need to upgrade from blue to purple rarity, to even see which 2 perks it gets.

Furthermore, this post by u/EndoM8rix tells us that emperors gifts are capped to 20 per week, account wide for some reason, hard capping the amount of loot you can acquire. With 4 hours played per day, for a week, you can get 28 shop refreshes per week (280 weapons per week), and it would then take 9,25 days to obtain 1 specific weapon with a specific perk, and that may be a bad one. Emperors gifts then increases that to 300 weapons per week, which is then 8,64 days. This is not an acceptable level of grind for gear progression.

So to reference the attached quote, where the hell is the player agency? how on earth do i target a build?

Either they don’t care about the average gamer, and only care about the addicts who stick around long enough to buy something from the shop and the whales. Or this all stinks of pay-to-win mechanics.

in light of this, i want Fatshark to at the very least make promises on the following:

  1. There will never be any pay-to-win mechanics in the game
  2. The entire loot system OR crafting system will get an overhaul to enable reasonable player progression and agency.
  3. A roadmap detailing what their plans are for all of this

So with all this, please help me get Fatsharks attention. u/Fatshark_Aqshy, u/Fatshark_Hedge, any comments on all of this?

If Fatshark think i got the numbers wrong, i would love to see the actual numbers and get corrected.

This has also been posted to Reddit

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Hey. We haven’t any plans, short or long term, to monetize power. Future careers are still on the cards but they wont be inherently more powerful by design, barring initial balance issues when they go from internal testing to the wider community. We managed it mostly ok with Verm 2 where we were close to striking a balance across the 4 released so far (SoTT wasnt perfect sure, but equally Engineer was below the line, but neither intentionally or to grab cash).

The designers are aware that finding specific items with a specific perk is a lottery. They had done the math too and when I suggested it was like a lottery I was told I was understating it. There are plans to make it have less friction. I dont know what those plans are and cant offer a timeline though. My understanding is they want to get crafting out to you entirely and go from there. What I do know is that the aim is for the perfect weapon to be an absolute treat, and far from the norm. Where we all can agree though is that right now its close to impossible.

As for a roadmap, we cant offer you one sorry to say. But we (Aqshy and myself) are seeking to provide you with more of the design intentions to chew on.

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Are there any thoughts about a higher tier of weapon?

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Thanks for the response. The devs are technically right, but only in that actual lottery odds are so tremendously and unfathomably terrible that Darktide gear looks peachy in comparison.

Not even worrying about the “perfect weapon” - right now even getting an “ok weapon” is a complete dice roll. I hope dearly for the RNG to be completely removed from getting a certain type of weapon with power appropriate for your level. The rest of the RNG surrounding Perks, Blessings, rerolls, etc. would sting far less if we could at least play with the weapons we wanted with the stats appropriate for the difficulties we are playing.

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Not in the near future but theres room in the rating sysyem as it stands so never say never.

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Thanks for the answer Hedge.

I really like replies like this, where stating that the developers are aware and understand the cpecific criticism, and giving a rational as to what the original design intent is. It’s nice to see that specific responses are being considered directly (rather than just a blanket statement) and it helps understand where things can go in the future. Specifically stating that the devs are looking to release all of the crafting first before tackling this issue also gives us a good idea as to where we’re at, which help give me reasons to be patient and understanding as opposed to just giving up entirely or having to rely purely on blind faith (which doesn’t feel good).

Hopefully we can have more open communication like this - I know that responding to everyone for absolutely everything isn’t feasible, but seeing more of this more frequently would go a very long way I think.

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Unfortunately I notice a total lack of acknowledgement of the issue EVERYONE has with the shop 1 hour timer in the reply here.

All the issues are extremely exasperated by this 1 hour refresh of 10 items. There should be like 5-10 of each weapon variation in the shop every reset!

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The Shop timer should be 30 mins IMO. That’s short enough for two Uprising-ish runs, 1 Malice run with a small wait time, or basically 1 Heresy+ run.

You could just say something like “after every run” but then you have people min/maxing trying to figure out how long they have to be in a mission to quit and get the refresh…

It feels like, all difficulties accounted for, the average run is around 20ish minutes give or take a few. So 30 minutes seems like the right place to balance the refresh at. Play a run, have a pee, grab some water, look at some stuff then check the shop and do another mission. Right now you complete a mission, do whatever, reflexively check the shop that isn’t going to refresh for 25 minutes and be on your way.

Consider also that the shop refresh is basically just allowing players to stockpile cash for eventually consuming the Blessings off the weapons they buy. I think that’s really why the shop is on a refresh timer, it’s preemptively attempting to balance something we can’t even do yet. There’s other knobs to twist to adjust that balance (cost to steal a blessing for example) that don’t directly impact such basic player desires like “have something to do in the hub after a mission.”

Put another way: If I had to choose between-

  1. Visit the hub up to 2 times between missions and see there’s nothing new.

or 2. Run an additional mission or two to get the extra mats for consuming a blessing

I’d choose #2 in a heartbeat.

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Why a timer at all, let it reset every mission you run…

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I’ll just quote myself. Having to design around min/maxers is more time and stupider than just measuring time. Otherwise you gotta be like “it’s exactly 12 minutes.” Or “after a mission launch.” Or “After a failed or successful mission.” It’s far easier to just balance a timer than it is to rework a new system.

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I know what you wrote, still why is that a problem.
Let ppl min/max if that is what they wish. I say if ppl are spending time with your game, no matter how (unelss braking it maybe) then that is fine.
I understand there is this mythical creation of “intended way”, but it simply does not work in most looters, ppl will always find a way to maximise rewards, optimise time in it etc.
It is like farming screaming bell in VT2… so what, if they want to play the same mission over and over that is their choice.

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Thank you for the answer Hedge! I have added it to my reddit post as well.

I really do appreciate P2W mechanics are not on the table, as that would be a deal breaker for me.

I will patiently await the updates, as well as news regarding the design intentions, but i really do hope you overhaul the current loot system or increase the possibilities with crafting, to reinforce player agency.

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Because you were at least playing the game.

If you load into a mission then just quit out so you can refresh the shop, you’re not playing the game. And at that point, you’re right? Why even bother? Why even bother having a shop rotation, just give it a refresh button? Why even randomize loot, just let us build our own? In fact, why even make us do that? Why not just type into a text box and say “Boltgun” and get a flawless weapon.

Get my drift? But the bottomline is one is literally a few minutes of work. Your proposal is more than that.

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You misunderstand, it is about concept tself.
Besides it can be made to count for completed missions.
If you think it is diffiicult or hard to measure/implement, I disagree.
Weekly contracts function based on that data.

As for the loot itself, I believe we should get more loot in general.
Minimum a gauranteeed for every completed mission, preferably a choice 1 out of 3-4.
The shop should be suplimentary, not replacing the loot drops, but that is just my view.

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Fair point. I feel a timer is ok because again, it’s just an even standard. Not all missions are created equal. I’ve spent 45 minutes in a heresy mission and 12 minutes in an Uprising mission. I don’t want the optimal solution be “mindlessly run the easiest missions to get the best shop turn over rate.” As a timer it doesn’t matter, it’s just 30 minutes and you do in that time whatever you will.

But again, what matters most to me? What is the fastest solution with the least amount of work effort that brings it into alignment? Because working in software, I can definitely tell you that’s their priority right now. If they can make a quick change that doesn’t need to be tested and then vetted by the playerbase versus one that does, they’ll take the faster option. And so would I.

For what it’s worth, I agree. I preferred VT2’s constant drip feed of loot. Although in truth after 200 hours, new loot barely mattered at all to me.

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Meanwhile in Psyker land

Secondary Psyker weapons
Secondary Psyker weapons1319Ă—1706 474 KB

A lot of my frustration is while vermintides crafting and loot system wasn’t perfect it is better than what we have in darktide. Being able to craft the specific weapon you want and then pray to the stat RNG Daemons is better than praying that the store actually has a force staff or force sword of any item level. Just my personal opinion…

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I’m still undecided, truthfully. I remember the last time building a new piece of gear in VT2 and having to re-roll for the 30th time just feeling terrible.

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at least you COULD reroll in v2

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There is this myth that in an expansion called Winds of Magic, where there was a crafting system that seemed almost like perfection to the general V2 player, fulfilling the dreams of many poor souls in reroll hell. Often the longed for panacea to the, even in V2, criticized crafting system and, one might think, the perfect basis to integrate it into a new game. It is unfortunately only available for an abandoned game mode that only a few people still give a glance to.

And now we are witnessing how all this feedback was received. Namely, not at all. Instead, it has become an even more absurd and, to top it off, completely pointless lottery system that, in my opinion, is completely out of place in a Tide title.

Thanks to @Fatshark_Hedge in any case for the openness and long necessary communication. Even if I could never understand the “design intent” regarding the itemization and can even less in DT.
I think I just have to live with the fact, that this frustration factor will never change… :pensive:

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Thanks for the reply and picking the dev’s brain about this.

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