Once again, you had it for a moment. A surge. 43K players as a result of the release of the Arbites class. But then you should have had a content release strategy that would hook the new and returning players to stay with the game for longer than just completing the new class, which you clearly did not. And if you say “Oh, but we did.”, then my answer is “Then I am dreadfully sorry that you have no idea how to keep players interested in your game.". How could you have ameliorated this situation? Oh, I don’t know. How about new missions? New maps? Contrary to what you guys might think or not, I am not trying to discredit the work you guys have done with the Arbites class - I am however going to once again point out how you are not utilising the momentum you gain in a good way. You had the momentum, and now it’s back to scratch again. I am also for the record one of those players who are not actively playing the game anymore because after finishing the Arbites class, there simply just isn’t enough fresh content in the gameplay loop to keep me interested because I have played every mission there is in this game at least a thousand times already and it’s getting a bit repetitive, no matter how fun things can be at times.
Overall, Magnuson’s happy: “Our philosophy is that, as long as you come back when we do an update, we’re happy. We don’t think it’s possible to have the entire playerbase playing the game forever, constantly, so as long as they come back, we’re super happy.”
Releasing a new class just to disappear for a month of mandatory government mandated holiday, thus postponing the necessary fixes to God knows when, was not such a good idea.
Not to mention the frankly ridiculous lack of cosmetics.
-So our characters have their own rooms in V1 and V2. Players can decorate their keep with arts and there is a trophy room. Should we expand this system for DT?
Along with the arbities they actually had a worthwhile event reward to work towards and then went oh wow look at the payers sticking around to complete it
I will rag on FS all day long, BUT I will say that thier support of modding is very good. They essentially allow you to do anything clientside. But what I would like for them to do is to possibly bring mod potential to console. Console players shouldnt be left in the dirt not being able to change thier UI or not have fun mods like FtD and Weapon Customization
Yeah I don’t know what it is with fatshark and dropping a good update that brings back players and just disappearing.
Exact thing happened when they added the carnival missions, weapons and stims. Big player spike, people talking about the game again, and boom vacation.
Crafting update that everyone liked and a new map, new weapon and havoc? Yeah let’s just not do anything with that momentum and disappear again.
Now we get the biggest player spike we’ve had since launch and we don’t even fix the keystone for the new DLC class.
Game is in a good spot right now (Besides maybe balancing) all it needs is consistent stream of new content (especially maps dear god we need more maps) but they’re sooooooooo slow at it, they can’t even add more arbites cosmetics like are we serious people are begging u to spend money how are we 3 store rotations in and we still have no new skins.
Player retention is when they release a game in a genre that has always had a way to play solo despite being coop focused, said “it’s coming” and then said “It’s coop focused. Screw adding solo mode like we promised” and then the game dies as updates trickle to a halt because it’s always online and if there’s no one to play with you’re stuck waiting forever for an empty match with basic ass bots you can’t customize because the devs refused to add solo mode like they promised years earlier? Like Exoprimal (except they never promised Solo Mode)? That player retention?
I don’t think Fatshark is dedicating the manpower they should be to the game at this point. They just…never really update properly. ‘Live service’ is not what they’re achieving at all.
Maybe it’s just because I’m old, and it’s nostalgia, but I think one of the best things about the Tide games is they have never done all this BS retention and engagement stuff, just fun games with intrinsic rewards you play because you want to when you want to, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t.
would be nice if they could fire out high quality content every hour but its just not how they roll
Fatshark is 180 employee, not devs, and I would love to see them grow larger (and maybe open sub studios in other countries like how Larian did to now be the size they are (400 something).
They’re just too small for the quality and quantity of things we want to see
I’d be playing it more if there weren’t hit registration issues. That’s really my biggest gripe. That and silent specials. I really only play it now if friends are in the mood.
Except it is a live service according to Fatshark. To quote Delrue, the senior marketing manager at Fathsark about Darktide monetization “Cosmetic pricing is always a balancing act, as a live service game we want to be able to keep working on the game while respecting what players feel is fair value”. It’s not coming from me or from anyone from the forums, this is coming from the marketing manager of the game
