[Feedback] General Feedback to Darktide

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Hi there Players and Fatshark-Team,

### First of all ###

i just wanted to give a feedback and my personal impression/opinion , after playing the game for a couple of hours.
Please note: I’m not at max level with my veteran and i didn’t parse through every little aspect of the game, but i wanted to give a feedback and a possible “first impression” new players could have of the game, when buying and playing it for the first time.

  • In advance: Sorry for my bad english, it’s not my native language :slight_smile:
  • TLDR at the end of the the review.

### Background Info: ###

  • Played both VT1 and VT2 games and really enjoyed them.
  • I’m a WH40k Tabletop-player, read books (most of it from Dan Abnett) and enjoy the lore, so i have a background in the 40k-Universe.
  • My gaming gear is OKish, i guess (3060Ti, Ryzen 7 2700x, 16GB DDR4, SSD).
  • I’m not a full time gamer, just a dude playing casually 1-2 times per week for a couple of hours.

### Feedback ###

Pro:

  • Weapons and ranged/meele combat feels and looks great.
  • the established L4D/VT-mechanics work just as well.
  • Design of the hive-city and the maps in genereal is atmospheric and beautiful.
  • i like the pace of the trust-level progression. It doesn’t feel too grindy.
  • i really like the fact that you can create your own character and individualize them even after the creation, so you can go with what you like at the moment (hair, face, etc. included)

Neutral:

  • The special enemies are a little too hard to detect and while the masses flood in it is really hard to detect and differiate them. I could imagine that this could be frustrating on high difficulty.
  • the ranged enemies are a little bit too overpowered for my taste. But that’s just my personal preference here, so…
  • i’m not a big fan of the weapon rotation, but it’s okay and not that big of a problem for me. In fact, it spices things up a little, but i can understand that it can be frustrating for other players, waiting for a certain weapon-type for hours.
  • same thing goes for the map rotation. I’d love to have a overview (just like in VT) over the maps i’ve already played (the low variety makes it hard to track your progress) and on which difficulty i did it. That would make the rotation of the maps much more bearable. Otherwise i’m just confused and don’t know, which mission i’ve played already.

Cons:

  • This is probably my biggest problem with the game so far: The maps and there design are beatuiful, but feel a little repetitive and one-sided, in terms of their scenic presentation.
    I know darktide takes place in a hive-city, but a little more variety in the scenes would be appreciated.
    A level that takes place in a huge greenhouse (for a little “jungle/forest” flair), for example or a a level in the outskirts of the hive-city (maybe in the upper districts of the hive-city, above the clouds or outside in a swamp-like environment that was created due to the sewage systems) would be great.
    Especially VT2 was so strong in its level-design and the variety. It felt like you were travelling and experienceing the whole world and it made every map highly replayable.

  • The story is kind of non existend. The beginning was promising, but it’s gone in like no time. I don’t know if i will “solve” the chaos-problem that has overwhelmed the hive-city.

  • The technical optimization is poor. It’s not on a BF2042 level, but it’s still poor. I can play the game on medium settings with around 50-90fps, depending on how much enemies are around or which map i’m playing.

  • In around 20 hours of playing, i experienced 4 or 5 random crashes of the game (but thanks to the reconnect-feature, it was okay. I could join the party again). Nevertheless, this mustn’t happen.

  • The ingame-currency is a joke. I don’t know if it is an arrangement from above that you, fatshark, had to commit to. Please make fair prices to the skins and, like in VT, make it possible to directly buy a certain skin. That would be a fair system.

This is just my personal experience and my personal wishes for the game so far. I really wish the game to be as good as VT2 is and hope you’ll listen to the feedback of the player base.
I know not everything is possible and you’re probably working hard to make the game as good as it can be. Thank you for your work! Keep it up, i really enjoy your games.

Cheers!

(If the thread is misplaced, feel free to move it to the right direction. Thanks!)

### TLDR ###
Great game in general, but the overall poor optimization and the low variety in map-design and enemy-types leave behind a (small but) bitter taste to this otherwise extremely fun and addicting experience.

My “wishlist” for the game would be:

  • better performance and optimization
  • more variety in map-design/scenes and enemys
  • more earnable cosmetics through playing (not shop only), maybe as a reward after mission
  • more/better trackable progress (maps/missions played)
3 Likes
2

There is a survey link in the game launcher, as long you rate specific aspects low enough you can provide feedback there also.

1 Like
3

Nothing against your personal opininon here, but i would like to know, what poeple expect to be “fair prices”.

I´ve played a bunch of games with cosmetical shops and:

  • Some offers only 1 skin for 35+ bucks, the color “black” for 3 bucks etc…
  • Others still lock them behind battlepasses and lootboxes.
  • Then we´ve games with similar prices, but way less efford put into the details.

And since inflation happened… the games with similar prices i know have become more expensive and “greedy”. Either a direct price-increase or less for the same price.

Looking across the average, i would say they´re already at the down end of it atleast for the set-prices. Single-pieces are definately too high compared to the set-price and that should change.

1 Like
4

You’re right, prices are purely subjective and maybe my statement didn’t come out right.
What i wanted to say is, that the system with the aquilas feels unfair to me:
You buy a bunch of aquilas in the shop. But if you want to buy a specific item (no set or more items) you’ll always have left some of the aquilas. You’re getting a feeling you wasted money, because you didn’t spend all the aquilas, so you buy more aquilas and items to “justify” your purchase of the first bought aquilas, and so on…

i know this is common practice in a lot of games. I don’t have a problem with a shop for cosmetics, but if there’s one, i’d prefer to be able to purchase one specific item i want, with a fixed price-tag on it (like it was in VT2).

Also i don’t want to start a discussion on MTX and Ingame-Shops in general. Fact is: There’s a shop in DT for cosmetics (totally okay for me, as i had to pay 40€ for the game and i want to support devs), but the pricing/purchasing-system is a joke.

5

Vermintide2 have what I would qualify as a fair price. 8€ per skin or 25 for a set of 5.

7

The problem is, that this game is still in early access.

Having a cash shop, while the game is still unfinished, is already a weird prioritization of what the game is about.

But then having such prices, is just a brazen insult to the fans.

Even EA refrained from such practice with BF5 or BF2042.

8

Sure, questionable decisions were made, but you can’t compare Fatshark (~90 employees) with EA (~13.000 employees). Fatshark has to take more risks in order to survive in the market, therefore there needs to be flowing income via extra-sales ASAP. I can understand that. There’s no Fifa in the back to save Fatshark.

The problem is not the shop itself, imho. It’s the rest around it, that leaves a bitter taste. FS should fix these, as fast as possible too.

But lets hope they’ll give us an update soon. Would be such a waste of potential, watching this game die!