I think what many are forgetting or ignoring is the context around both cases.
Helldivers 2 came out the gate so strong and from jump the dev team has been highly communicative. You don’t really need to look far for most answers and you generally know where they are going and where they are coming from. A little bit of balance growing pains can be forgiven because the everything else is so good. In addition they are stil very clearly working on the balance in meaningful ways and even outlined how they are trying to fix some of the discomfort. It helps when your game is not only a smash hit but a completely unheard of level of success smash hit.
Darktide came out in a terrible state and a lot of even basic QOL or just basic functionality features were missing. Heck on launch it’s not even like we had a ton of maps even. Many of the maps and areas we take for granted: hour glass, throne side, several others were all post launch content. I think when your game is already not in a great state and you have people being off the cuff and dismissive, ESPECIALLY for an issue that you yourself caused and alienated probably your most loyal fans (rip to all the poor rejects who ordered the deluxe edition) then it’s a very different story. Keep in mind as well a lot of the good will awarded to Fatshark was already pretty eroded so the X-Box stuff on top of the extremely slow content cycle put a bad taste in many players mouths.
As an extra note this is all over funny money, which Helldivers 2 just…gives out for free. The important thing to remember is that none of these reactions and general attitudes from the player bases exist in a vacuum.
Well, if anything. The existence of this thread means people still care about the future of Darktide. It would be worse if no one posted on the forums.
The truth in its plainest form is always the best approach, especially when it’s an uncomfortable one. There’s a reason no one speaks corporate to people in the real world when they want to be understood. It still applies here.
Now, if speaking the truth is so off-putting because it would make you look bad, then you have bigger problems. However, those problems will not benefit from further suppression and avoidance.
it wasn’t an advertised feature, an interviewer made an assumption and redditors instantly took it as fact. hedge was correcting them on that and they went feral. the “gun attachments are part of a weapon mark’s core build” thing was probably always in the design plans.
What Hedge explained in that thread (which was not the part that was shared around) is that while they wanted to have weapon modulable attachements they couldn’t make it work well enough for most weapons so they had to stop that idea. The CoD comment was a response to someone in that thread that refused to accept that yes, while CoD does have attachments, Darktide isn’t CoD and that CoD doesn’t matter here.
You took my words right out of my mouth (or grubby Skaven hands rather) as I was about to type them.
Hedge tried to go the “casual roasting” road and he got lambasted with hate like he shot their pet dog and buried it.
I know he wasn’t always correct or careful in his words, but they also got taken and interpreted purposefully in most worst possible way. And the dude was rather chill honestly.
Throwing some shade and being outright hostile are two different things. We all carry hubris with us and we all deserve to have some shade thrown occasionally. Doesn’t mean he was generally hostile.
There were many instances where his presence was uplifting, many simply chose to ignore it to continue their own narrative, which developed from their own first bad impression.
The question you are refering to specifically for example was very passive-aggressive. In all honesty it way too hostile, even for a disgruntled gamer.
How he could have asked: “Hey Hedge, what happened to feature XYZ? You guys said it would be in the game. I am very irritated about this! Why is it not?”. How he did ask (paraphrased): “Man Fatshark sucks. Are you guys literally too stupid to add feature XYZ? Every other game known to man has it”.
Now yes, a Community Rep has to be able to eat some pellets on the occasion. Yet still what do you expect?
If someone constantly leads with negative emotions, it’s likely they will get nothing or perhaps negative output back.
Leading with neutrality / positivity or a diplomatic expression of your anger, you eventually might find a reasonable answer. Of course that answer might still not be to your liking and it’s okay to dissatisfied with that then.
But when someone sets a conversation up from the get go in such an awful way, simply nothing good can come of it.
A bit of culture shock may be also involved here. The customer service culture many people are used to is mostly a uniquely American thing. In Europe there is a different sentiment towards customer relations and it shows. It’s very casual. “I don’t have to be nice if I don’t want to, it’s just customers”. Sounds a bit weird, but if you were ever to a German, French or Nordic post office you’ll know what I mean.
Some soulless employee-worker man-thing stare-looks you with dead eye-eyes in face, yes-yes.
Very non-chalant short-tempered. Skaven feel right at home-house!
So I think that also plays a much larger role here and it has slipped past a lot of people.
It was also a guy stirring the pot a lot. I’ve always maintained that there is nothing wrong with being a thrill-seeker, but then one has to be prepared to endure. The CoD comment wasn’t even that harsh. Very light jab territory. It got honestly blown way out of proportion.
The alternative bits and pieces are still in the game and accessible via modding, so while I don’t think we’re gonna be seeing weapon customization soon, I could see it being a thing in the distant future.
Tbh it was a lose lose situation for Hedge, either he blocked that person from responding, cue someone claiming censure over diverging opinion or he left that person alone to very much pollute the discussion and stopping what other people were saying, like where Hedge was explaining what the Variants were gonna be if I remember correctly, as well as what they wanted to do for Ogryn weapons
Hedge was funny. Claims the game isn’t CoD and that’s why there aren’t weapon attachments even though marketting material claimed there would be
extra funny because CoD now does WH40k Crossovers
Regardless of online idiots being butthurt and frothy, at this point Fatshark’s marketing team has effectively just stopped showing up for work.
Literally the only communication we’ve had in weeks aside from unannounced hot fix drops is a CM from a different Fatshark product popping in to hold water for this game’s team, who seem to be wholly uninterested in any sort of communications at any level. It’s now halfway through March, the last major content addition was October aside from the Twins optional encounter and new Shovels. Every community interaction and review platform has been screaming at Fatshark about RNG items and Crafting nonstop and nobody at Fatshark wants to acknowledge that. The most communication we’ve had about Darktide, weeks ago now, was a CM saying “I’ll try my best to get something vague and high level about game plan’s out of a Dev…at some point” like that shouldn’t be a routine core responsibility of a Dev Manager for the product.
If card game spinoffs, Displate giveaways, and hotfixes is all the playerbase is getting, then it should be no mystery when the new competitor is routinely hosting literally 100x as many online average players as Darktide is, while engagement with this product continues to decline.
I’ll be the new CM folks, don’t worry. I’ve even got an audition tape ready to showcase exactly how I’d deal with any and all voiced concerns by the player base:
