While the store has mostly received a negative reception, I see some people (especially on the Discord) talk about how it “doesn’t effect the game” and it shouldn’t be a focus of criticism. And while I understand at least part of that, I still think it takes away from the game experience as a whole.
The biggest problem for me are the cosmetics you can earn from just playing the game, to the ones you have to buy. Almost all the cosmetics you earn through penances are just variations on each other, and the ones you can buy with dockets are only recolors, and you can’t even select the colors you want. For example, as an Ogryn, if you want to wear heavy armor (like in the promotional material I should add) you literally have to pay for it. The only other option for you are tank tops with various levels of equipment strapped on. I was extremely disappointed when I found out the docket shop didn’t have new cosmetics, only reskins of existing ones.
Weapons skins I think is another big one. Literally each weapon only has 2 BASIC SKINS you can earn in game. This is utterly unacceptable in my opinion, and the reason why I think this is the case goes into the last point.
While it’s true cosmetics don’t effect gameplay, lots of people do care about making their character look cool and unique (doubly so since its a custom character now), and other people having the cool store only stuff subconsciously pushes them to buy it. And in the flip side, a premium currency only store will subconsciously or not push devs to add the coolest stuff to the store to get more sales, rather than having it be earned through the game. Whats more noticeable and unique, the basic Guardsmen chestplate with more trinkets slapped on or an Armageddon Steel Legion Coat?
Sorry for rambling, I just wanted to try and explain myself fully for people who say “its just cosmetics, you don’t have to buy them.” Especially as a big 40k fan the cosmetics are a somewhat important part of the game and could flesh out the end game, instead of all being locked behind a premium shop.
TLDR: The best cosmetics and almost all the weapon skins are in the premium store instead of in the game, this would be alleviated if there was more cosmetics you could actually unlock in the game.
ive only visited the cosmetics store once and remember feeling really bored with it because the character who runs the shop didnt talk enough. perhaps giving her more voicelines to say while im browsing the shop could help add some character and flavor to the overall cosmetic shopping experience.
The best (worst) part is that leaks have shown they have dozens upon dozens of premium skins already made and ready to sell. All of it already made and done, none of it given to players by just playing the game, and all of it ready for release - which basically nothing else in the game was.
Perhaps if all those graphics artists had been working on maps instead of $12 skins, maybe the game would have actually had more than a couple types of repeated maps.
I would say the problem with designing extra maps is that additional coding would have to go in, and it wouldn’t be practical to add more coding work imo. When I’m fine with the artists having not much more to do working on cool cosmetics, its just more should’ve been in the base game as rewards to work towards instead of things to throw money at. (Although more maps certainly would’ve been appreciated.)
Fair enough, but if you’ve paid attention to the amount of repeated art inside each individual map (let alone across ‘different’ maps), I think more artist time could easily have been spent, without any coding changes.
I feel like she should talk for longer when you open up the store for the first time. What I really want out of Darktide is MORE time outside of missions.
My mistake, I thought you meant add entirely new areas, not add more variations to tbe existing ones. I agree that would’ve been a nice touch, however for the time being I am (reluctantly) holding out hope that next “season” we’ll see a full new rotation of maps, as I believe at one point they said that the maps are based around tiles so that they can easily make variations of the same map to add more variety.
Customisation matters, that’s why Fatshark advertised it so heavily before Darktides release. It’s part of the visual appeal the same as graphic fidelity is. In addition it is also important for character/ worldbuilding to have you know… things looking different?
Don’t know how else to put it.
Everything looking the same is boring,
not being able to customise your character is dissatisfying. I guess Fatshark really wants to push people to their premium shop, where they can fleece the whales.