Expedition Has Real Potential, But It Needs More To Keep It Fresh

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1

The new Expedition mode is honestly the most fun I’ve had in Darktide in a long time.

No, it’s not Chaos Wastes. And I understand Fatshark probably doesn’t want to just copy Chaos Wastes 1:1. But Expedition has a really strong foundation, and with a few additions I think it could become one of the best modes in the game.

1. It desperately needs modifiers

One of the reasons Chaos Wastes stayed fresh was that every run felt different.

Expedition currently lacks that layer of unpredictability. The maps are fun, but after a while you’ve seen everything they have to offer.

Some of the existing Havoc and event modifiers could work really well here. Not the annoying ones that just make the game frustrating, but the interesting ones that change how you play.

Examples:

  • Wandering environmental threats

  • Random elite patrol modifiers

  • Temporary map-wide events

The tornado modifier already shows that Fatshark can create environmental hazards that are more interesting than “stand in poison cloud and die.”

2. This is the perfect place for the Rot Fly Boss

Expedition takes place in large open environments.

If there is ever going to be a place for a Rot Fly encounter, this is it.

Imagine a dedicated arena-style finale where the team has to extract while fighting a Rot Fly boss. It would immediately make Expeditions feel more unique compared to normal missions and give the mode its own identity.

3. Tech Remnants need more uses

Right now Tech Remnants feel a bit disconnected from progression.

I think cosmetics should be purchasable directly with Tech Remnants.

Instead of unlocking everything through penances, let the Commissary stock expedition-exclusive cosmetics that players can purchase.

Even better:

  • Buy pieces individually

  • Separate purchases by class

  • Include weapon skins, trinkets, portraits, and cosmetics

That way collecting Tech Remnants actually feels meaningful.

4. Expand the gear and tool systems

The new expedition tools are one of the best additions Fatshark has made.

I want more of them.

Go further.

Let us spend salvage during a run to modify our weapons.

Examples:

  • Temporary blessings

  • Increased cleave

  • Faster reloads

  • Better weakspot damage

  • Special weapon effects

Not permanent progression. Just temporary run-defining upgrades that make every expedition feel different.

5. More objective variety

This is probably my biggest issue right now.

Most objectives eventually boil down to:

  1. Find objective

  2. Attach servo-skull

  3. Wait

  4. Collect remnants

It’s fun initially, but repetition sets in quickly.

Add objectives like:

  • Escorting damaged machinery

  • Hunting priority targets

  • Defending extraction equipment

  • Recovering lost operatives

  • Activating multiple sites simultaneously

  • Boss hunt contracts

Anything that changes the flow of a run.

6. Lean into the roguelike aspect

This is where I think Expedition could really shine.

After completing an objective, give players a choice:

  • Three temporary buffs

  • Three temporary weapon upgrades

  • A blessing with a drawback

  • A modifier that increases difficulty but also rewards

Mortis Trials already proved that these systems are fun.

Instead of locking them away in a separate mode, bring some of those ideas into Expedition.

The best part of Chaos Wastes wasn’t the maps. It was watching your build evolve over the course of a run.

Expedition has the foundation to do something similar.

7. Add rare world events

One thing Chaos Wastes had was the feeling that anything could happen.

Expedition could use some of that.

Imagine a small chance for special encounters to appear during a run:

  • Beast of Nurgle hunt

  • Daemonhost outbreak

  • Rogue Mechanicus cache

  • Rot Fly attack

  • Hidden vault

  • Massive elite ambush

  • Distress signal from another Mourningstar team

  • Secret extraction objective

Not every run. Maybe 5-10% of the time.

Just enough that players keep thinking: “What if we get that event this run?”

Those kinds of moments create stories players remember.

Just to be transparent: the ideas and content are mine. English isn’t my first language, so I sometimes run longer posts through editing tools to clean up the grammar and make them easier to read. The goal is simply readability and not wasting people’s time. The suggestions, opinions, and arguments are all my own.

2

I’m going to be completely honest with you

I will be completely surprised and baffled if this first update for expeditions isn’t the last.

3

It’s the same sh*t they pulled on Mortis, drop a quarter-baked game mode in Q1, be surprised it doesn’t immediately attract attention despite offering nothing of real value to incenticize players beyond (highly temporary) novelty, drop the singular update they had preprepared for it and then stop caring because it is just broken and the investors will want something different.

It’s honestly kinda funny how underdeveloped both modes were and how broken Fatshark’s understanding of actual game design is.

4

The game will have a 15-20k peak in a couple weeks because all the tourists will want to pay/play Skitarii, and the lobbies will reflect that reality

You will be hard pressed to find a game that’s not regular play with 3-4x Skitarii every mission

That’ll last between 2 weeks and a month at most, after which the game will crash down to its usual 3-4k concurrent players spread across all the different modes

Expeditions has no place in any of this

5

Just my opinion but I really don’t jive with the format of Expeditions. The teamplay is just never there, or hardly ever.

In normal missions you’re all mostly going along the same corridor with a few forks here and there. If someone is lagging behind, all you have to do is wait a few seconds or sprint back a little if they’re in trouble.

In Expeditions you CONSTANTLY have to check on teammates to make sure they haven’t f*cked off to god-knows-where or that they’re intelligent enough to use a buddy system.

This mode will never get its hooks in me.

6

Their recent post talks about more electricity in the mode but there are strings for rotten armor and rot flies. I like the mode but it needs to come back with a focus on combat and not avoiding it. Remnants don’t need a purpose (score points can be for the point of points alone) but they need to scale on difficulty and objectives need to be worth more. Sometimes the caches that aren’t marked points, that don’t affect round tempo, can be worth 125 remnants (very close to the 135 average remnants found for doing an objective). As for game mode quality/player quantity, people forget Havoc is played by the same 200 gooners, most of which mald when you point out their mods play the game for you and tell you the game is simply too badly designed to not cheat. I personally hope Havoc never gets another season update, it was the biggest waste of resources thus far.

7

as i said somewhere else, expeditions requires a bit different skill or rather teamplay than standard missions. a group has to move together and do the objectives, because you lose when the timer runs out, no matter how much you kill. it’s a mode for premades or at least somehow coherent teams, just as havoc imo.

8

well for the time of toaster over-stimulus or what fatshark has for an idea of “gym january”, it could be a decent escape with a private and one or two buddies :man_shrugging:

kinda 40k’s step outside while the kids play with their robots

9

Personally, I’m just not a fan of the extraction genre. I’ll give expeditions another go if it gets updated but it’s not really what I’m looking for. I mostly play with 3 other players. We all have mics, and even with good communication expedition is just frustrating to play. I can’t imaging how much more difficult playing with randoms would be.

I’m just hoping they can use all the gorgeous new assets to make adventure mode maps set in the waste, and hopefully repurposed the ‘procedural’ map generation tech in expeditions into new adventure mode maps.

10

they run off to where the wind blows, get downed, and quit.

some scum and stealth zealots can manage alone, but go somewhere else on principle.

11

nah

12

evolve with broken boons which after a while were the same stuff, and in the shop was giving various one to choose and people were always choosing the same stuff cause broken.

and weapons with having random no sense stats because randomized = result people rerolling again just to find better stats.

at this point why even bother with rougelite aspect if people are going to play like this

13

Out of curiosity, did you also have this enthusiasm for hell divers?

14

could just balance it properly and not let bomb dupes work with morgrims, super simple stuff

15

Meh I just split from the team and solo the objectives with classes like Arbi, Scum and Zealot and I essentially won’t die because of how much survival these classes have while doing the same amount of objectives as the other 3 together

16

to be fair no one does this

and even if they did, that would be a good thing since you’re engaging in the system? It’s defenitely better than the shop system having the same 3 team buffs on a shop

17

Yes, I do not like the people playing Havok, very very toxic. The mode itself is fine, but the people playing it are so toxic, that I actually do not enjoy playing with them.

I think combining all three mods together can make it into something more interesting. Extensive open world like map with different objectives like expedition, but with more varied missions and more different map rotations. Adding in the modifiers from Havok, and mortis trials traits and buffs.

It could be interesting. as it stands its a bit bare. but i can definitely see the potential.

What are you talking about this is exactly the same format for Chaos Waste, the indisputable best addition fatshark has done in thier history. The only thing they have reportedly, done right. I am just porting that same idea to Darktide, and you cant reroll, its randomized - same as chaos wastes, you work with what you are given. You choose from a set of 3, ala mortis trials.

I do not play helldivers.

Specially the stealth builds - its the one place speed runners do well. Specially if the other three make enough noise and attract all the attention. Specially veteran stealth builds do really well.

18

if you got the skills to do so (and the class/loadout as an insurance) great.
by all means, play to your fullest extend.

the problem is people with no skills but same ego, watching some streamer selling shovels to frail gold diggers and promising to hit paydirt.

they are the majority and usually the ones running off the second someone pings an objective, rabidly towards the opposite direction.

then after a short while of stirring the pot they croak, agitated enemies in vicinity spill over and put needless chores onto the ones doing the stuff proper so far.

as for “doing as much”, again if you pull it off :saluting_face: , but end of the match usually all sites are done anyways.

whats left to do else?
that “penance” for spending scrap?

if i got nothing else to play for than some number pushing id rather rethink my motivation to play at all :man_shrugging:

bottom line fatshark should
a) give people the option to play expeditions solo
b) ignore those running off and failing by simply
shutting down the sanctuary door without any timer for a dude that wont come anyways

both ways people got agency to play how they want and not get in each others faces

19

Oi Mate watch your tongue with your generalisations. I may be a havoc gooner but I will never commit to mods.

20

I think you play it for the same reason as the regular game, only you have more control over the lever to create an interesting round than auric without the asspain involved in havoc (mostly party finder I already wasted enough time not playing in this game). I don’t think remnants need to do anything in the game, but it is funny that the dialogue box for the data reliquary says tech remnants are very valuable. They’re not.

Indeed that’s why I said most. But a lot of ‘havoc brains’ on this forum have started walking back their own mods mostly because the response to their clips is ‘wtf is this gameplay experience supposed to provide for challenge’. Its basically watching this, and then being expected to be impressed for them putting the right block in. Way to go you jumped out of the way of the giant flashing strobelight warning! Take a lap king! Be sure to tell us how little damage you took.

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