Fatshark, we need to talk.
Your design decisions for Darktide so far has been abhorrent and anti-consumer from day one.
Today’s topic will be your idea of a crafting table system.
I will be direct on this issue: Remove any and all notions of placing a lock on blessings and perks on any and all weapons and equipment. There should never be a lock.
Placing a lock on a randomly rolled blessing or perk on an item that is also randomly generated is inherently, grossly anti-consumer– because failing to get the item/perk/blessing combination you want forces players to spend possibly hours of grinding to try and get the same weapon and try again. This is a sickening game design decision and you should be ashamed for doing so.
Whoever decided that this is a good decision for your crafting system should take a good, hard look on the reviews for this game. The people involved who are responsible must be completely tone-deaf and blind to the criticisms this game has received.
Be fully aware that locking blessings and perks will only lead to more players quitting the game in frustration. This isn’t how you retain players, this is how you chase them away. Fatshark, be better. I know you can be.
You might as well go outside and have a chat with a fence-post for all the good it does. Fatshark simply DNGAF about their players.
They don’t have the content to do what needs to be done because fixing the locks will make it clear as day that even after the weaposn get fixed, there’s still no end game.
We can only hope, but it’s not looking good. After losing the vast majority of their players, after being dragged over the coals in steam reviews, in youtuber reviews and comments, and now in more and more reputable gaming journo sites, after taking over a month to supposedly rework their system… They double down on RNG and systems that are actively trying to stop players from enjoying the game.
At this point one can only assume that FatShark management is irredeemably infested with a lethal combination of greed and incompetence.
It’s especially soul crushing on Curios. 2 perk locks mean that the chance of getting a proper good curio with 3 good perks will take ages and it’s gonna be soul crushing each time you upgrade one and it turns crap. Let’s say you get lucky and buy a +21% curio from the shop. Well good luck ever crafting a descent one and min max your character. I wish this system was reworked alltogether.
It’s like they designed the entire gear system backwards of what it should have been.
Perks and Blessings are part of the item’s functionality. Not being able to get the exact ones you want doesn’t simply mean your item is slightly less powerful, it full on means you don’t have access to the character build you are trying to create. That’s why they should be open for the player to pick as they see fit.
Bar stats on the other hand increment all the way up from 0 to 500. That’s a lot of room for small improvements that don’t interfere with the fundamental functionality of the item, but simply make it stronger in small ways. That’s where you have room for an in depth and lengthy progression system that doesn’t take away people’s ability to make the build they want.
It is designed exactly how they wanted. Pointless RNG to artificially pump play time and feed into the FOMO. The focus of this game wasn’t to make an outstanding horde shooter, it was to make a profitable GaaS, full stop.
Completely agree. FS has already made a RNG free loot system which works awesome and it’s even in VT2, buuuut it’s restricted to a dead game-mode so nobody uses it.
You mean the Weave right?
They allowed players to fully customise their gear as they see fit-- I have no idea why they didn’t keep this system for base VT2 and Darktide going forward from that point.
No locks means you have practically perfect gear in less than 6 hours after hitting level 30. At this point they could just scrap the entire crafting system and let you choose blessings and perks because it would be pointless otherwise.
Imo it would be much better if weapons had one more perk and blessing with one of each being locked. Not only would that feel much better than the current system, it wouldn’t break the entire crafting system. Would it ruin the balance? To some degree, but not by much.
Curios could stay the same but only 1 perk should be locked.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being able to get perfect gear.
Locking perks and blessings will never be acceptable.
You want to work for your perfect gear, don’t put it behind RNG and a lock and call it a day.
Have players collect resources to forge their own blessings and perks. Make them work for their gains, and make those gains attainable and predictable.
The materials for endgame gear could be locked behind level 30, meaning that you’ll only be able to craft these items once you’ve hit level 30.
That way players would have something to work towards even after lvl 30.
The high base stat weapons you would want to treat this way are rare. If you ignore the browser extension to check the shop it will take you ages to find a single one.
Once you got that thing you still have to have the upgrade materials to upgrade and roll the weapon. Depending on difficulty and luck of the draw this takes some hours of pure gameplay. The time it takes to roll the stuff you want on the weapon is another sink I probably don’t want to talk about.
And guess what will happen if you find a better base weapon? Or what happens if you wanna try out a different Blessing? You certainly wont screw around with your favorite one and will want a second one anyway incase you like the new combination.
If FS is just scared that people would get their wanted weapons too quickly, all they need to do is either make unlocking the second perk/blessing extremely expensive, or board it up behind something else that is either manageably time intensive, or plain difficult. (e.g. being able to remove one lock every X level ups, playing X damnation maps)
Locking certainly achieves one thing. Discourage to interact with the system as a whole. That doesnt exactly push my interest in the game in the direction FS wants it to be pushed.
(I much enjoyed that you could create a weapon in the modded realm of VT2 and it did not hinder me playing the game for countless hours after switching there. Actually it was exhilarating. No more lifetime wasted staring at a screen shifting numbers. Five clicks to test something probably stupid. Some maps to test it. Go back to working one, or repeat.)
