Expedition Feels Like It's Missing the Core of Darktide

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
41

Lemme back you up here, this pickpocket nerf is terrible, and honestly one of the worst balance decisions since the ogryn rework.

People saying “it’s not a big deal” clearly don’t play ranged desperado builds. That perk was the glue barely holding non-meta ranged weapons together. It was already borderline functional, and now it’s straight meme-tier if this change goes through.

This isn’t just about having to “oh no I have to kill something in melee every 20s, despite my team needing ranged support and leaving no space for my non-specced-into-melee build to kill something every 20s”. For experienced players, that mechanic itself isn’t the end of the world. The real issue is that it guts the ranged playstyle fantasy and strips away its viability. When your team relies on ranged support, forcing a melee kill timer on a build that isn’t specced for melee makes the whole role feel clunky and counterintuitive, now you not only can’t really take shitty weapons like the freaking combat shotgun or revolver but you have to take meta melee weapon too.

Balance changes should preserve fun and identity, not erase them. This nerf doesn’t just tweak numbers, it kills the enjoyment of playing ranged desperado, and that’s why it’s such a bad change imo.

I wouldn’t be against it being put into vulture’s mark tho, as long as no other changes are made to it.

42

Seriously, I fear that the devs wasted AGAIN lot of time for something unwanted, unasked and not even promised.
And still I wait for a simple solo game mode, asked, promised and waited by a part of the players, when they waste their time on stupid game modes. At least, Fatshark, you should try to SERIOUSLY balance the game.

43

I honestly have forgotten Mortis Trail even exists. You are totally right when saying that combat is the core reason why Tide games are popular. I have no problem with side objectives and activities, but those just serve as an excuse for more combat and some teamplay.

I have seen sufficient amount of Expedition footage to be concerned about it being a bit of a snooze fest. I had multiple “Where are all enemies?” moments.

I hope we are going to get higher difficulty Expeditions, including Havoc rated, as it would be a shame to waste all those new environments.

44

Yeah, let’s waste more time at fixing something that cannot work…
Encourage them in their nonsense!

45

Next few months are going to be interesting lol

46

Sorry. I know, Badwin, that you always come here in good faith. And I must say that I like that.
However… where have they been going, seriously? Several months, now I think we have passed the year, where they are in their bubble.
They release things that make no sense instead of just fixing the game. THE GAME, so missions where we cut heads and shoot at things, THIS is what we want.
Balancing the game and the difficulties, introducing new maps, missions and enemies in this environment is something we care about.
Game modes that split the community… no.
For example, Havoc was a good idea on paper. However, it should have just been part of the missions. This derank system and EVEN the ranking system make no sense. There are static modifiers that are a good idea (horde, enemies hp etc) and some that are a really bad idea (ammunition). And they could have even introduced new behavior for enemies. This would have been better than the rainbow effects with enemies green, red, and even one day, pink!
I don’t understand their logic (Fatshark).
Here, they introduce an outdoor map. Great. So DO IT LIKE IN A TIDE GAME!
Let’s use the map to go from point A to point B with tons of enemies… I cannot believe they wasted their time on such a game mode.
And still I read players that say they may lack manpower to release the solo game mode promised in 2022.

47

Lots to respond to…I’ll do my best.

I think this update sounds like a huge deal. I’m not at all surprised about the negativity here, but the more I see the more excited I am.

I don’t think splitting the playerbase is a concern that ranks highly on FS’s list (and it’s low on my list). I think they’re much more concerned with growing the playerbase. And I think this will do that. There will continue to be normal mission content (through the existing maps and new Special Assignments system), along with the other stuff we already have, and another group of players will be attracted to this new mode.

I don’t think balance is a major concern for most players. And I don’t think some kind of Perfect Balance could be agreed upon, much less achieved. Even if it happened, if we had the “Every Weapon Feels Like The Best Weapon” patch…how would I get my Darktide-ambivalent friends to give a crap? It’s not that it’s not sexy, or important, it’s that things just really aren’t that broken.

People are playing Havoc, asking for more Havoc, etc. so I don’t get the impression it’s really been such a failure. Does not seem half as hated as Weaves to me.

Mortis I have less favorable feelings about (but of course no actual data, like Havoc), but I also don’t think it was a waste. It’s a nice outlet for lore, a rare and interesting carrot in games!, but I don’t vibe with the gameplay. Still, someone surely does/has…that’s gotta have some worth. And if not, then surely whatever the team built and learned during the process was worth something.

Oh, and I continue to want solo mode but continue to believe that it’s just not a priority…bums me out, but still hopeful it’ll happen!

48

This was my first concern when reading about the mode. It seems obvious that this mode would discourage the fun of sticking with your team and fighting off the ‘tide and instead encourage everybody to run off in opposing directions to collect as many tech remnants as possible. The timer doubles down on this

49

If I bring back a toaster for our lovely mechanical maid, will she give me a hell gun. ：）

50

This has been my summation from what I’ve seen! Unfortunately, Fatshark has this itch, this unrelenting desire, to add new game modes to a game that is unique in that it does not need that. In fact, it’s actively detrimental in many ways; it’s a waste of development time and resources, it’s going to split the player base, it’s got to be demoralizing for the dev team to see these lukewarm responses to all their work.

Meanwhile, no one looks at an update with new weapons or maps as dull! We ALWAYS welcome this.

51

Yeah, it’s strange how they seem to always want to reinvent their own wheel. They, and we, all know what they excel at so let’s get more of that. There is no need in muddying the waters with content no one is asking for and especially content that the core game is not even designed around.

52

They said they want players to make “expedition builds” and that would be a victory. Well, they’re probably going to be speedrunning builds with stealth, at least from what it looks like so far.

I suspect we’ll see people play as long as it takes to get the mid cosmetics, then move on.

53

I thought as much still am gonna enjoy it for what it is, then uninstall the game again until the next update cycle. In truth i like helldivers so am willing to give this a shot.

54

I guess new weapons would require some actual work and it’s only reserved for dlc classes so they can skip pesky balances

55

Tides overall can’t offer anything despite gameplay. Yet people spend thousands of hours in those game. FS themselves said they were surprised for how long people were playing Vermintide 1.

Back in the days people were playing games over and over, the games that had no any kind of progressioin.

Now i personally think progression adds a flavour. Just add housing in DT, so people can decorate their room on the Mourningstar. Add color palettes you can grind to recolor items, seasonal cosmetics for Havoc. Armor not having stats and shallow itemization for a third game is kinda lame, but whatever.

But itemization wise there is nothing you can spend resources anyway - 2 weapons, 3 curios. That’s it. They designed this game like a semi-mmo Destinylike, but there is no metaprogression systems evolved from V2.

Thus all they need is to keep updating core mode - new biomes like jungle, ice caves, new enemies - plaguebearers, enemy psykers and witches, new enemy variants like we’ve seen on concept arts, new factin, and obviosly new warhammerish hype weapons and classes. Some minor cosmetics grind system like HoUsInG (Outlast trials says hello), and photomode. Slap some QoL chnages, better tutorial, ingame glossary. And that’s it, you have a prosperous game. It’s not even that hard.

Noone was asking for Mortis, people were telling them it’s DOA. Noone was asking for Havoc specificaly, cause ladder progression mode was proved being trash in D3, and moged by PoE that offers player agency over end game. All that they should have to do is to provide twitch+deeds fusion you can tweak mobs’ and players’ stats and create your own crazy difficulties. Havoc is just a mode for a game that DT isn’t.

People said “remove locks” and when FS did after TWO YEARS, game’s average online went from 3-4k to ~10k. Imagine they did it in 6monthes.

I have a bad feeling about expiditions, almost all enemies in DT are close range oriented, designed to play against in tight corridors and small arenas full of obstacles. If the only thing about Expiditions is a different pacing, then the question is why can’t we have just a new maps for that in a core mode.

P.S. Based OP for being honest and have concerns, rather than staying silent like some good content maker boy.

56

What DO tech remnants do actually? I’ve only looked at a little so I don’t spoil myself too much but this part remains completely unclear to me

57

At the moment, Tech Remnants don’t have any other use besides unlocking locked region nodes on the Expedition mission board.

58

That’s a little underwhelming lol, thanks for clearing it up

59

Yeah, this looks weak. open area sounds interesting but its just going to make staying together harder and your going to have people run off to stealth objectives solo.

Think the big disappointment here is in the opportunity lost. Instead of a rogue lite chaos wastes which fits into the gameplay, we got the beige of the day extraction shooter that doesn’t.

Another baffling decision from team shark.

60

A fair question, if the mode was the sole means to say obtain lvl 440-500 ‘Archeotech Curios’ as low rate drop RNG rewards at the end of play, that’d probably act as decent motivation to keep playing the mode.

At 500lv - 20% Toughness curio?

25% Health?

5 Stamina?

2 wounds?

Maybe even a new one available no where else they pull out their behind like a ‘captains shield’ Gold Toughness curio?

Yes please.