So I love the combat in Darktide. And I want to engage in the higher difficulty combat. . . however. . .
There’s no point.
Want to complete contracts fast? Play difficulty 1
Want to earn crafting supplies fast? Play difficulty 1
Want to speedrun to generate Emperor’s gifts fast? Play difficulty 1
Am I missing something?
Furthermore. . . why doesn’t the combat, which is great, earn you Contract Currency and Crafting Supplies? No, instead you have to play an infuriating ‘hidden object game’ throughout each mission and make sure you check all the possible spawn locations for contracts, grimoires, and crafting supplies - I don’t want to play a hidden object game - I want to play higher difficulty combat, and be rewarded accordingly for it.
This game is bizarre in that the core gameplay (the combat) is great, but you’re not rewarded for engaging in it. You need to waste time doing a bunch of nonsense. I hope the devs can fix this, otherwise I don’t think this game is going to hold my interest for long.
In Vermindtide it felt great! You just played the game, and earned gear at the end of each level. If you played on higher difficulties, you earned better gear. Stronger gear was also better for crafting.
It was simple, it rewarded you for playing at higher difficulties, and it encouraged you to work as a team to complete missions.
In Darktide?
You play missions to earn currency, which lets you buy store-items that update every HOUR. o_o
You have to scavenge for crafting materials, which encourages you to split up from your team (it also just slows down gameplay).
The best gear is obtained by doing tedious contracts to get a special currency which you can only earn ONCE A WEEK!
And all of this is FASTER to complete in lower difficulty tiers!!!
. . .
WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!?!?!?
I just want to play the game, work as a team to complete missions, and be rewarded for playing at a higher difficulty. q_q
your making it a job and theres no wage. this loot isnt that important, if your running t1 and its trivially easy your going to be wasting your time , its not going to be fun and your not getting paid to put in that effort.
your also ruining the experince for people earlier on that downward trajectory.
this games end of mission and end game cycles are not in it yet. i flat out refuse to believe there was a pitch meting where they outlined the current state of affairs and said yeah that sounds good! , this is placeholder stuff dropped in as they ran out of time.
so if all your doing is loot grinding, Stop. go play something else come back later when that part of the game is done.
Padds, I agree with all your points, but it kind of begs the question. . . is this game, in it’s current state, fun?
I mean the combat itself is, yes, but the core loop, which should be as elegant as: [Play Missions, Get Stronger, Play Harder Missions, Get Stronger Still] feels completely broken to me.
Currently it feels like [Play Mission, Get Currency, But why get currency? Everything in the Store sucks. . . have to wait an hour for new store. . . So maybe I’ll waste time doing contracts? . . ok, completed all contracts. . . But nothing good in contract store. . . Wait a day then. . . Oh, now there’s something I like in the contract store. . . but I’m 20 contract points short. . .huh, and there’s nothing I can do now to earn more contract points. . . so. . . I guess I’m just screwed?]
Fat Shark nailed the look and feel of 40k, they nailed the combat. . . but the actual gameplay loop feels awful at the moment. . . yes, it feels like a job, a very unrewarding one.
My biggest fear is they’ll eventually sell contract points / crafting resources - at which point I’m out.
well this is what we have to ask ourselves. for me i have stepped back a lot since the grinding of beta. but im still playing quite a bit daily just because im enjoying running missions on malice/heresy.
i imagine that will tail off a bit more as the days/weeks go by and go up as content gets added .
if you dont find what is there fun, then stop theres just no point pushing it.
it would be nice for FS to communicate a list of all the game parts/systems colour coded in red for needs complete overhaul, yellow some to majour tweaks needed and green working as intended or close to it. then we woul dknow at least how they see it.
yeah. same problem with vermintide.
so the reason to play high diff is generally only a challenge and gameplay itself.
tho it was enough to keep me in the game for more then 1000 hours.
but when you completing every mission on higher difficulties without problem. challenge of sheer completion fades, and you start to challenge yourself by pushing scores.
unfortunately it seems we will not get that option entirely in darktide.
Well, in Vermintide at least there was incentive to play higher difficulty, because there was better gear drops. In Darktide I really can’t tell what the incentive is for playing at higher difficulty. More Dockets and XP, sure. . . but because the store is 99.9% junk, Dockets are useless, and I’m already at level 30, so XP is useless too. . . The only way to advance my gear seems to be finding crafting supplies, and hoping for ‘Emperor’s Gifts’ with decent stats - both of which can be done a whole lot faster grinding away at difficulty 1.
The game feels like it’s got a good foundation. . . but the progression feels really half-baked. Between finding hidden objects during missions, putting a cap on how much you’re able to progress per week (contracts), and some of the other disagreeable elements, I guess I got concerns. Padds idea of colour-coding what is working as intended, and what needs an overhaul is a good idea!! I hope Fat Shark gets this game working good! : )
I dunno, I’m okay with lvl 30 characters playing difficulty 1 and 2. After all, I like helping players with leveling their low-level characters.
What I don’t like is that, as a level 30 character I’m incentivized to play at difficulty 1 for progression. A better designed progression system would incentivize level 30 characters to want to play at higher difficulty levels! When I played Vermintide I certainly never felt the need to play on the easier difficulties.