I may be in the outliers here but Fatshark I think this Havoc mode, was really bad idea and waste of your development time and resources on this, new feature. I don’t think this will keep players engaged for long periods of time, I don’t think this will increase player urgency or immersion, I don’t think this will encourage enough new or old players to keep playing but HERE’s a “short list” not including bug fixes of things that that might, ANY or all of the things on this list would be great additions to your product and add immersion which would help keep players about. Some of which are long overdue, like a scoreboard, weapon attachments or cosmetic colour dyes so you can change the colours of your Armor.
• New bosses
Since the games release only two bosses exist that you HAVE to fight other than on kill missions and to make matter worse both those bosses are very simlair and require pretty much the same tactics to kill, we saw with the special event bosses the Karnak twins that you can make multistage diverse boss fights please do more of that cause I really just cant express how GREAT that battle actually was, I never expected to find a Elden Ring lite, multistage boss fight in Darktide.
Fun and Fear of having to learn when fight, when to run, what mobs to focus on, when to group with my squad to hold the line till we finally killed the last of Ragers, then desperate last charge to kill of the last of twins before their reinforcements could arrive and wipe us out. I could really feel just how much effort and time when into designing that experience and really made me smile from ear to ear. PLEASE DO MORE OF THIS!
• Immersive control/world map and missions
Taking a page from helldivers here, if you want to get more players more invested in the game, give us more reasons to care. One way to do that is to have missions that have 3 setting/scenarios which change based to how many players complete said missions.
Example scenario 1 map control heretic
Chasm Terminus
If the Heretics have control of this area more enemies will appear but everytime a strike team successfully completes a mission in this area the amount of control the Heretics have will weaken and scenario will change from 1 to 2.
Example scenario 2 contested map control/neutral
In this scenario the strike teams have push backed the overwhelming control of the Hertics which means less enemy patrols but as a result more enemy specialist will be waiting a choke points in the map, to increase their chances of failing the mission. If enough strike teams are still successful then scenario changes from 2 to 3.
Example scenario 3 allied map control/imperial guard
In this scenario the strike teams have successfully pushed out the bulk of Heretic forces and now Imperial Guard/Friendly AI defend choke points on the map, diverting away a small portions of enemy hordes and giving ammo and meds to strike teams near by, you can also fight alongside imperial guard so long as strike team stays within the aoe/ choke point in certain areas in the map.
Ideally this would create a narrative that would encourage players to play just to make the games easier and to have interactions with Imperial Guard elements. Not to mention that the Hertics would also have same mechanic where they would focus the bulk of their forces in certain areas.
You could build on this feature/concept further by giving players buffs to skills or certain weapons while they have control of certain parts of the map. Ie scenario 3
• Scoreboard
• Colour dyes for cosmetics
• Remove the rolling store, replace with cosmetic’s/skin catalogue
Players are sick and tired of this awful store, tired of the terrible, predatory business practices REMOVE THEM. You want people to buy your amazing skins which you put so much dam effort into, then please don’t put artificial timers on them. Create a skin catalogue where people can see all the skins amazing you’ve made so far see how they look, try them on and then decide whether or not they want to buy them.
Keep the option to buy them individually or to buy them as set and pity sake if they been playing since launch give them a discount for their first purchase as a gesture of good faith and thank you for sticking around. Hell give the shop holiday sales or something to get people more interested, players are more likely to buy if they can get it at discount.
Then to build on this feature and add player engagement add the options to view unfinished/work in progress skins and let players vote in game! on what skin they want Fatshark to make next. That way you do not waste resources making skins that the majority of people wont buy.
• New Classes
• Ways to earn skill points by completing the hardest content
If players prepared to grind and get good they should be able to have or use more skills. increasing the skill points from 30, to 34 by allowing players to earn more skill points by completing the hardest content should not be a problem. I know adding more skills would make the game easier for most players but that isn’t a bad thing because this is a PVE game and I think have more skill points only allows more flexibility and more fun.
I would implement this by make sure that first time and ONLY the first time you completed a heresy mission you get an extra skill point instead of a new weapon/item. This would also apply to damintion and auric missions as well. Remember it would ONLY be for your first successful mission and any mission after would only grant you standard rewards.
• Stop giving people of high level, mission rewards that weaker than the gear they have equipped
• New enemy faction/ Genestealers / Drukhari maybe even Necrons but something
• Weapon Attachments
For the love the throne I am sick and tired of having terrible iron sights for nearly every ranged weapon in the game. Weapons attachments is a must for any shooter, cause very few iron sights are decent, that said if you at least made iron sights themselves illuminated it would be a big improvement.
Any weapons attachments/illegal modifications should need to be tied to trust with Inquisition and combat experience just like how players earn unlock more advanced weapons as you progress.
I am still waiting for the day I can gain access to a fire select switch so I can switch from single shot to charged shots on my Kantrael rifle and replace my actual flashlight with a bayonet.
Any of these Ideas will improve the overall experience of the game. Cause I think the game should be about having fun and not just challenge. I love the work you do Fatshark but after so many years this game is still lacking so many feature and still has a lot of bugs. Please take a few pages out of Arrowheads book and maybe more players will return to this game and then support the devs by buys more cosmetics.
Still keep up the hardwork.
PLEASE read this.
