The crafting system that was unfinished at release even by Fatshark’s standard? The one where the design goals they stated for the new crafting system were directly and fundamentally undermined by the Locks?
We have learned a lot from our previous choices and gameplay surrounding crafting offered within the Vermintide series. For Darktide we wanted to take those lessons to expand and improve in such a way that crafting would become a central pillar of player progression, while giving more impact and agency to you, the player in your preferred playstyle.
When it’s all built on RNG item stats and acquisition and Locks to intentionally limit options, it becomes a barrier to progression, not a central pillar.
Ol_Jakal, you cannot tell me you do not agree with the above take there, every time your advice is to get a “good enough” weapon and just…stop, that the crafting system makes you waste so much time to get something only better in only very minor ways such that there’s no point. The crafting system is in all cases the barrier to continued improvement, not a central pillar.
The nature of randomization and repetitive actions sometimes seen within crafting is something that we are steering to avoid in the crafting system within Darktide. Meaningful choices will be made with strategy and goals behind them, as you set your eyes upon that perfect combination of melee and ranged weapons for your class.
How do Locks help with this? Their existence is purposefully diametrically opposed to this goal.
Additionally, the crafting resources found within Darktide are now acquired in a completely different way than the Vermintide series. We opted to add these directly into missions as pickups to reward exploration, as well as rewards for completion of some specific objectives. We believe that this feels on theme to have players collecting these resources in the world, so keep your eyes peeled. You can currently find small and large caches of both Plasteel and Diamantine.
And here we might as well remove Diamantene and nobody would notice, Plasteel is always the throttle, there’s no balance here, there’s only one resource of value.
Soooo, why didn’t they came out and say “look guys, it was a mistake, we have never claimed to run such model, and aiming for regular updates, but without any schedule”, also why is there mtx shop right on release?
Well it’s not deflection, it’s miscommunication at a grand level by multiple parties. The media definitely ran with it, though. And Fatshark did nothing to stop them in their tracks. Still I wanted to see where it originated, so here my research on the amazing “Live Service commentary” Journey.
I tried to make it as readable as possible. It’s still some text, apologies:
Round 1 - Vermintide 2
The very first dance with “Live Service” as a comment we see Fatshark and an Interviewer dance together is in a discussion about Vermintide 2 in 2021:
“To be perfectly honest, we’re still figuring some of these things out. We didn’t really design Vermintide 2 to be a live service game. Personally, I am happy—and horrified—that people are playing for tens of thousands of hours. So we are looking for ways to improve the game in the long term, and satisfy those players who just want to play it with their friends, and those who want to grind for new items. Upping the quality of every system in the game.”
taken from here: Interview: Vermintide 2 Developers Discuss Chaos Wastes Tips, Lore, and More -gamerant, published 3. of May 2021
This was left mostly uncommented and has little to do with Darktide, but for completions sake I want to include it here.
Round 2 - Darktide Boogaloo
The next time we hear about Live Service and Fatshark is in the context of a Darktide pre-release interview between Alex Wiltshire and an unspecified developer from Fatshark. This is where the first fateful quotation originates stems from. And I must correct my earlier statement as these words were said by the Fatshark developer:
“Darktide’s storyline and missions will expand and develop after launch, ALMOST as a live service”.
-taken from Edge issue 372
No link or full citation, because amazingly I do not find it in Google anymore. This indicates it might have been scrubbed from the internet or hidden.
Clearly it is not stated as Live Service, but inspired by it’s continous updating nature. I wish I still had the full citation, because there the fatshark dev actually expands what they mean by that.
Regardless, after this interview came out, 2 other publications picked up on the interview and summarized it without anyone’s input or approval.
These reinterpretations then engraved the Live Service comment in stone:
The first one is still technical accurate and makes a direct citation with the following sentence: “Warhammer 40k: Darktide will have a character creator for players to customise their inquisitorial fighters, and its “storyline and missions will expand and develop after launch, almost as a live service”, developer Fatshark told Edge Magazine’s Alex Wiltshire in an interview published in Edge issue 372 this week.”
Nr 1: Source:
"Warhammer 40k Darktide has character creator and “live service” story, published at wargamer.com by Alex Evans, May 19, 2022
Now the second article is where the mess actually started. This article is entirely paraphrased and takes the Live Service comment further out of context by claiming: “Darktide has been designed as a live-service game from the very beginning, and Magnuson believes that it will be a more dynamic and replayable game because of it. He explains that the team took a modular approach to everything from VO to level design so that elements could be added, removed, and rearranged easily.”
Nr 2: Source:
“Darktide Preview: So Much More Than Vermintide In Space” published at thegamer.com by Eric Switzer on Jun 13, 2022
In conclusion, the dev who gave the interview served the Live Service comment as a comparison, but didn’t claim the game to be fully Live Service.
A third party journalist picked the story up and summarized too roughly and that quote from that journalist then got spread on Reddit, where it was engraved as the Live Service commitment we all expected.
TL;DR:
Darktide has no full commitment to Live Service from that interview, but anyone who believes it should be forgiven regardless because the falsehood was spread by an official looking source.
To me something that enforced this is how the game feels. To me, it gives off that feeling, although this was far moreso true at launch. Melk and Brunts rotating stores with no crafting? And the whole multiplayer hub with customizable characters etc. Maybe live service isn’t the right word: I’ll never stop saying that we’re playing on the remains of some Destiny type game that was remade into the Darktide we have now.
Either way I don’t think people would care at all if we got more regular updates, even if it was for things like balance, and less time between big ones. Again goes back to the post you made where marketing and speed are their 2 biggest and most important problems (although the version management is really annoying).
Oh I can absolutely see that. I just wanted to make clear where the quotes come from and that it was never fully claimed Live-Service, because it keeps being said.
I’d agree with this if the game didn’t cram in so many live-service elements…
I don’t care if Fatshark never intended to call it a live service product, all of the stick elements are in place, the only things it’s missing are ANY of the carrots to circumvent the sticks.
Let’s just agree to call a pig a pig instead of being distracted by the wig and lipstick.
Intention doesn’t matter if the execution is the same.
Don’t get mad at Community Managers, they’re just messengers, instead be upset with upper management. Those fat bastards are the ones who make the decisions, focus your ire on them.
CEO casually playing a game made by the studio he leads. I can’t remember the last time I saw that…
Meanwhile, at HD2 Discord:
An AHGS dev came into one of (if not the) most aggressive channels (The Armory, where people discus balance and gear) and just started flowing and replying to people. Gracefully, subtly, jokingly.
This heroic person dove in that cesspool of hot takes and reply chains and gave out humor, slapped down some fan theories, couldn’t answer some questions, even dropped some bombs. For about an hour and a half.
I’ve never seen the Armory so peaceful and jovial. The “balance” channel of the game that just received it’s first balance patch and the drama has been melting down, while also receiving its first new content after launch.
One dev. One hour.
Simple as.
These “little things” are fundamentally behind the success of the game. Which is still toping sales charts on Steam a month after release, it’s Super Citizen Upgrade is also in the Top 10, and the player base is increasing after month one…
So they have 2 months off then slide into an even longer slow period? Then slide into the holidays and 2 months off then repeat? This is on games workshop then.
This is the absolute pinnacle of government policy. How about we all just migrate over to the Apple troubleshooting forums or we pick some other random forum to complain about governmental tax code? High impact whinging.
Sadly FS is probably going to look at the few toxic HD2 dev interactions they’ve had with the community, ones that people will probably forget about come next week due to the positive dev interactions.
I’d like to present a possibly controversial opinion on this matter -
I’d prefer a dev to come out and tell the waah waah brigade to stfu (this being Reddit, those poor poor souls), prefacing their comment with the intent to stoke the flames, no matter how much it’s perceived to be “toxic”. Good on the lad! Take that 1-on-1 meeting the next morning and own it.
In the same vein - I’d prefer a dev whom I can present questions directly to, even if the answers are sometimes a quick “Can’t talk about this, sorry.” or an outright “No. This is not a change we’re going to make.”
This is respectable. Has nothing to do with feelings, perceptions or whatever warped social contract the boundaries of acceptable and not acceptable communication stem from…
One of the many instances that made me pay attention to Arrowhead’s communication was an early topic of PvP. The devs shot that down gently in Discord, but when the questions persisted, the CEO himself addressed the matter directly and openly. “No. Too toxic, not our thing.”
There’s been no notable mention of it since.
So, yeah - I’d like for whoever is the CEO of FS to step up and tell us:
What was the intent behind the Live Service mechanics in this clearly not Live Service game?
Was it wrongfully presented as such? Was it rightfully presented as such? Did the vision change along the way?
Is content being created on the go, or have there been plans since before launch?
What direction is being looked at broadly for the dev team - what’s their current focus?
How’s that retention going?
I’d appreciate that, and I’d respect it if this mythical entity prefaced their comment with "The following will stoke the fires of the Forums - " or something similarly “toxic”.
As it is, Mr. “I’m so proud of the work the team has done since launch!” is one video and (by attachment) one “We’re sowwy…” letter into it.
Hardly worthy of attention, even if there were more frequent attempts at communication…
Again, delicate balance. Remember that this attitude is what got Hedge and SisterSepticemia turned into memes - they had a habit of making these ‘off-the-cuff’ remarks and people hated that.
You can be direct and open, but being outright insulting is something Fatshark tends to do instead.
“not gonna happen, outside of the main game mechanics they don’t play their game” that’s you, that’s how you sound. so thirsty to be a hater you don’t notice you’re drinkin’ portajohn sludge.
What is that parroting, lmao. You drop ai generated takes?
Also, mr Ol_Jackal, can you enlighten me about your gaming experience, name 20 or more of your favourite/best games you ever played?
Wonder what kind of gamer thinking that gacha as a main gear source, sitting in alt tab waiting for map you want to play will appear (or maybe not), going through loading screen every time you want to test something in psykanium - are all pure fun player-friendly things, made by people who play games in their free time aswell playing their own game.
Also, speaking about being a hater - I have 300 hours in V1, 1500 h in V2, i bought every dlc in both to support them, and you barely can find my posts in v1, v2 subforums.
With DT they just crossed the line too far, unable to learn, unwilling to listen, that’s it
