End of Map Commendations -- Different take on the score board

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Instead of displaying a bunch of stats, boil them down into ‘Commendations’. If conditions are met, you get a shiny star, some extra XP and bonus resources. In game lore wise, it’s the inquisitor hearing how good we did and giving us a little extra koodoos. There would be 2 types of Commendations, Personal and Team. Personal commendations are based off of stats and actions for the player (duh) and Team are based on the team as a whole’s performance (also duh).

Now I hear you: We don’t want a score board that’s 20 miles long, and players are just going to chase these like the green circles. Yes, but this can be discouraged.

I envision having a ton of commendation types, 30+ 50+, idk but more than you would ever want to display. Rather than having them all available per mission, only a small subset would actually be active and these would be hidden from the player. This means that a players can’t easily target the commendations because there’s a low % chance it will actually be award-able in a mission. They would feel like bonuses that just sorta happen.

Team Commendations Examples: Resourceful – pick up more than X pickups in a mission. Ogryn Smasher – kill a Plague Ogryn in under X seconds. Frugal – use less than X ammo on a mission. Never Give Up – Have more than X downs in a mission but still succeed. Etc. There are tons of possible Team Commendations.

Personal Commendations Examples: Deadeye – have an accuracy over X%. Head Popper – get more than X head pops. Clutch Recovery – Be the last player standing and get all players back up during an event. 2 Inches – Spend more than X% in coherency. Etc. Again, tons of possibilities. Each class could have some unique to them too.

From a mechanical stand point, it seems kinda weird, but from a game play stand point I think it’s really adds something. You get the call outs for doing things well, but you can’t farm it. If you don’t earn one, you don’t get called out for it.

TLDR: At the start of the mission, X Team Commendations, and Y Personal Commendations (per player) are randomly chosen and hidden from the players. Stats are tracked for each and at the end of the map if any are met they are awarded and shown. Awards include small amounts of XP, money and crafting resources. X and Y would need to be tweaked over time to figure out a good number so most missions get a handful awarded.

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I agree, the current end board is also super boring showing nothing really worthwhile, just a couple bars that get filled up.

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I think this would make an issue with Penances a more common problem. “Please don’t do X, I’m working on my Penance.” Only every mission for whichever Commendation the player wants.

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I was a little ambiguous. All missions have random Commendation’s. Players will never know which ones are available.

I think by removing the hard numbers and making them less frequent it should reduce the number of people grinding for them. There’s no hard number to try and beat/grind, you just get noticed by the Inquisitor that you were a good shot on that mission. And since you’re not even guaranteed to get noticed you can be a great shot on 5 missions in a row and not get the Commendation.

(I’m not a huge fan of the Penances system, I think it promotes selfish game play and can make players take risks at the detriment of the team)

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Or hear me out. Keep a system that people liked in vermintide. The scoreboard is the end game. The longevity of the game comes down to seeing your numbers improve.

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Nah that sucked

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Sorry your only green circle was damage taken but most of us actually used the scoreboard as a reference to if our weapons and spec were performing up to standard.

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I usually get the green circles and they still suck. It’s also a terrible way to judge how well your spec is doing due to a number of variables outside of your control. (The point of the AI director to give each playthrough a unique experience.)

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There really isnt much varience between games. Sure the enemies are different everytime but they really are not that different in terms of stats at the end of a completed level. Pretty sure you just didnt pay enough attention or you didnt play enough. Probably a mix of both

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Hear me out. The vast majority of the players who both want the score board back and have never experienced toxicity associated with the score board are the top 1% of players. They play at the highest difficulty with the other best players. I don’t think anyone believes there’s anything toxic up there beyond random isolated incidents.

The toxicity issue is at lower difficulties and it happens in the lower difficulties to new players. VT2 could have been a much bigger hit, but it has a problem getting new players into the game and the score board contributes to the issue.

You’re in a bubble at the top. It’s neat you haven’t had to experience the toxicity. But hear me out. The majority of the people who experience the toxicity aren’t here to respond, they left, they refunded, they quit… They told their friends it wasn’t fun, they told their friends it’s just a bunch of jerks dunking on the new players.

Every time I’ve tried to get friends into the game we end up matched with rando’s chasing green circles. They play like poop running off from the group, bitching the new players can’t keep up and generally ruining the new player experience. I haven’t gotten new players to champion before they’re sick of the bull poop before it starts getting really fun.

I don’t need a score board to validate my existence, but it seems really important to you. Maybe if it was only enabled on the top 2 difficulties or something. I’m just trying to improve the new player experience, cause it isn’t good in VT2 and the behaviors the score board fosters in the lower difficulties are not good for player retention.

Side note, the metrics on the VT2 score board are horrible for judging personal performance in a co-op game. Seriously, the objective is to complete the mission, not do the most damage. I’m getting a poop ton of kills in DT cause my buddy is setting up his shield for me to hide behind. I wish I could buy him stickers for his shield. FS, I’d pay like $3 to put stickers on the Ogryn shield.

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You are right it is very important to me. I would go so far as to say it is the single most important thing in this game to me so much so that i probably wont play it near as long as vermintide if they release some trash scoreboard. If they allowed modded realm i would only play on that with a scoreboard mod plus whatever difficulty mods they have if their scoreboard sucks like it does now. Why should a game have to cater to the people who will only play 50 hours vs the people who will play for thousands of hours.

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That’s one way to interpret the metrics on a scoreboard. Think youll find interpretations are toxic, not scoreboards.

*EDIT Agree to disagree, I will always be in the scoreboard is a feature camp (and in my case motivation and a visual indicator to get better (more efficient) and optimise my build and chosen role). Can argue point for point all year long. But if it is such a big deal, I see no reason why scored boards cant be private and show the collective stats of the squad to compare yours against. everyone wins.

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Haha indeed. Well said. The scoreboard is just numbers and numbers alone are not toxic nor do they make people toxic. Toxic people will always find a way to be toxic

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The numbers on the score board aren’t toxic, they’re just numbers. However a lot of new players interpret them in a which causes them to play in a toxic way.

Removing the score board is an easy fix, it’s not the best fix. I’m sure there’s a way to provide good feedback to players and discourage the toxic behavior the current VT2 score board promotes. Private score board and public team stats sounds like a good way too.

To be clear, I’m not against the score board, I’m against the toxicity it generates at the lower difficulty levels. I would leave it public on in the highest difficulties because I know there’s not a problem there.

I hope you can see why it’s an issue for new players and why it harms the new player experience.

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No I’m sure your point is valid. I personally just find the whole thing pointless. People have been and always will be jerks. The idea that someone I haven’t met, being a jerk in one round I played, that I could have chosen to mute or ignore ruined my game?. An indicator of how sheltered and soft people have become. At some point it needs to go the other way so people start to learn to be resilient and not let the conduct of some random NO body control their experience.

Like I said, just make individuals scoreboards private, but also show the collective squad tally break downs. That way If you want to interpret the data for your own benefit you can.

heck maybe just give players the option to make Profile private (can do as they please)

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I mean personally i like the idea of player awarded commendations, where you nominate another player in the team you thought did well or helped you out.

If you just get one commendation its a sign of appreciation, but for people who get multiple commendations from their team because they pulled a clutch rescue or something then they can get multipliers for their rewards or extra crafting materials or something.

Hard to make it toxic or whatever when its just a subjective opinion-based nomination, and id like a way to show my appreciation to people who make a good effort.

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The issue is much less people are jerks, and more the way the data is displayed makes new players want to chase circles and not play as a team. I’ve only had that kinda of jerky toxic stuff only a handful of times over the years. Mute/Block, Laugh, move on. The number of times I’m trying to get someone into the game and the randos are chasing circles at the detriment of the team is ridiculous.

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Love It!

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Yeah I like that Idea too. but gets abused to xp and crafting mat farm

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guess I have misunderstood what it is about the scoreboard that is toxic then. I had understood that people were getting in a huff about being flexed on from kills or lack of contritbution (that’s the usual complaint)

When I have been getting new friends into the game, it has not mattered 1 little bit what 1 or 2 randos are doing. I wouldn’t take brand new players above malice, and malice is easily carriable.