They’re talking about the support and responses they give, not the actual bugfixing.
Sad thing is the game is fundamentally good. The gameplay, atmosphere, art, classes, weapons, music/SFX, etc are all phenomal and probably the best looking and feeling 40k game of all time. Unfortunately, they have incredibly talented people at Fatshark who probably have no say in the direction of the game. I feel bad for the ones who are talented at their job, they dont deserve the hel we give them. It’s probably not their choice on what’s prioritized to work on.
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Physically cringed at that comment, good job! 
Yeah, I have no issues with any member of Fatshark who posts publicly (especially the CMs), nor am I immature enough to hold some grudge against anyone else on the devteam I’ve never had any interaction with. It is refreshing that the people on the technical side of the game respond quickly and professionally, and have consistently done so for years.
I guess my point is just that the majority of people like to feel a connection to something they’re putting a lot of time and effort into. This is inherently true of one of these “live service” titles. Whether or not Darktide could ever be called one is debateable, but the core systems of the game are undeniably built around the intention to be one.
Small things, like having a face and a name the community can connect with, who we see actually playing and enjoying to play the game they’re hired to promote. Genuine enthusiasm. Genuine community engagement. Open dialogue about what to expect in the future and getting us excited for it, even if it’s a long ways off. This creates a certain attachment to a product that keeps many players doing the same repetitive task over and over and feeling good about doing it.
We stopped being Vermintide 2’s customers after the game launched. There was no cosmetics to buy; no DLC. In Vermintide 2, we were just the player base. With Darktide, we’re their customer base. Darktide intentionally has systems to keep people playing, yet doesn’t respect their time. They intentionally created a model requiring constant content updates, yet fail to deliver these or even communicate what we should expect in the future. There needs to be a different approach. No one has or is going to continue spending money on a game that shows such contempt for us.
Anyways, this has all been repeated ad-nauseum around these forums and elsewhere. None of it is a mystery, and anyone who actually engages with the community is well aware of these problems. There’s not much else to say anymore.
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Deja vu? I seem to remember numerous posts about this a few months ago. Seems we have come full circle yet again.
I think it’s pretty clear, Fatshark does not care about its community or its opinions. So just enjoy the game for what it is at this point, but don’t expect the game to achieve greatness with the current leadership at the helm.
I completely agree with what you’ve posted. I didn’t feel the need to make a single post in the VT2 forums after 200h, at which point I dropped the game for other games at the time. I always spoke well of the game, despite its share of strange decisions and held it up as a great example of creative design.
The difference - Darktide was promoted as a Live Service experience, with upcoming content based on their previous experience. Hell, at this point it sounds like a made-up story, I know…
The no-engagement policy makes sense and I respect it, as well as what CatFish has been trying to do from her end. My suggestions from this thread are fairly reasonable in this regard: Feedback - Request for a Roadmap
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Unless you back it up with specifics what you’re saying is unsubstantiated and essentially of 0 value.
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The only times I have an issue is when those responding in a blatantly tone deaf way, like Hedge did. They failed in such a spectacular way that they permanently attached negative memes to the company.
We were still VT 2’s customers though post launch. They still had plans for DLC and microtransactions even at launch. They just treated us as customers versus consumers.
Curiously, how do you differentiate between the two?
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I know the terms are very nebulous and ill-defined in general but I’ll give what I’ve been understanding those terms to be.
Consumers, well, consume products. They don’t need to be convinced to intake whatever the product is, they just do. There’s some complaining, some people being content, but those parts don’t matter because the product will still be consumed regardless.
Customers have to be convinced to intake the product. It’s not a guarantee that whatever is being put out is going to be taken in.
I’m not marketing or sociology trained enough to fully understand the why’s and the how’s as to how a group becomes one or the other (or how they can switch), but I do feel pretty confident that the expectations of how the end user interacts with the product is this way. A consumer is expected to take whatever is in front of them, while a customer is expected to be won over constantly.
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You could probably write an entire book on the differences. Personally I don’t have the energy at the moment. The simplest way I would differentiate them is this:
- A customer is a respected part of a business transaction. The seller doesn’t try to con or swindle them, and wants to offer the best product possible so that the customer will either buy more, or recommend the seller to others. If there is a problem, the seller will try to rectify it in as timely and effecient of manner to keep a good reputation.
- A consumer is an person that the seller is trying to get as much money as possible from them, through shady or normal means. Effort, production quality, and timeliness don’t matter. The only thing that does matter is that a product is sold. Ideally it is done in such a way that a repeat purchase is still a potential possibility.
This comes from time working from a factory, where I experienced both sides of both definitions. We had raw goods producers who gave us quality materials and gave replacements when there were problems, and those who just gave us whatever poor materials they had. Specifically when dealing with retailers we tried our utmost to make sure everything was up to standard with them, however to individual customers who directly bought from us I specifically remember a meeting where it was said that we were going to lie about our production times so we could get sales in during a busy time, knowing we would never finish by the timeline.
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How can there be any communication when all they see navigating the forums are insults and toxic behaviour, we need to be working with Devs, not antagonizing them.
If you want to play the game, THEN PLAY, stop worrying about having to have the best weapons to be able to play on damnation, stop feeling like you NEED something when you really don’t.
What you need is to chill the hell out. Play if you want and get the hell out and play a different game when you don’t want to
I get that you’re mad, antagonizing devs and toxic behaviour isn’t going to help anyone. If you need a break just play a different game for now, or play on a lower difficulty, Heresy or Malice
Nah 
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How bad is it when we can all just about tell that it’s just godawful dishonesty and mismanagement?
I hope the rest of Fatshark gets bought out by Microsoft. Earnestly. Clearly Tencent just wants the shares and Microsoft screws up everything they touch but it can’t actually get worse than this.
This is Halo Infinite levels of mismanagement and carries all the same hallmarks of the way that game was handled.
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I know you’re being a bit hyperbolic, and yes there are some posts that make things personal with respect to the developers.
But, there has been SIX MONTHS of many many people trying to calmly and rationally “work” with the developers by posting constructive feedback, well thought out comprehensive suggestions, and everything in between.
And do you know what the reaction has been from Fatshark to all of these attempts to work in good faith? Near total silence. Zero communications about addressing the community’s issues. And they have the audacity to keep pushing out update after update that doesn’t move the needle at all - and worst still spend time fixing things that don’t need fixing and pushing out features that few people are asking for.
It’s a very one-sided conversation we’ve been having trying to “work” with the developers for six-months and people are getting fed up. And to be clear, we do want this game to be a success, and there are amazing aspects to the gameplay, but there are other things that are just dreadfully off putting.
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The only time I’ve seen Fatshark aknowlege something on the forum, was when someone said they had Shark phobia and request to be able to skip the intro automatically.
Since then I don’t think I’ve seen them pipe a word anywhere on anything.
Even the “”“”“”““patchnotes””“”“”“” are too barebones to be called communication
Come on Fatshark. I’m a dev myself, and I know communication is two thirds of the job.
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Okay Hedge
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That video was a great fairly concise summary of the whole situation. Thanks for posting.
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Dropping the cashcrop_ in here, despite making a topic about it. I feel it belongs in this thread as well:
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