Yep. Notice how it’s not even called a crafting update. The terminology being employed is very specific in its context. They’re either trying to soften any potential blow back, or are getting ahead with shaping the narrative. Which confirms:
I am very much savoring the reception to this update.
nothing is being hidden, they never once said it was about crafting and it doesn’t seem to be so. the community just lept blindly after it having to be crafting out of pure unfiltered cope.
It was never called a crafting update
Aye, and here lies the issue with Fatshark’s PR.
People have complained extensively about crafting since the game’s launch. We’ve seen FS release several vague statements about crafting and RNG that largely turned out to be meaningless copy-pasta as updates double and tripled down on the existing system.
Fatshark came out with more vague copy-pasta about RNG, and promised an “itemization” update.
Nobody has any idea what that means or entails. There’s no hype or excitement to build, no good feelings generated. Instead we see lots of cynicism, coping, and confusion. Fatshark is clearly aware of that, and has made zero effort to address it.
i don’t read any problem there, aside from your massive coping over crafting not being what you want.
This is the issue. Darktide’s the green line at the bottom there.
Practically nobody is playing Darktide next to it’s competitor 4 person coop shooters, nobody in any of my gaming group is interested anymore (which means I’m not playing either), Crafting is a huge component as to why, and we can clearly see that bear out in play rates next to competition.
Jackal, we’ve also been over this before. Even you have admitted that the crafting system sucks, that despite Fatshark’s assertion that it’s intended to be a core pillar of progression, you have always told people they should only be interacting with it just enough to get a “good enough” weapon and then stop interacting with the system. Because it sucks.
That would be explained in the Dev Blog that will come.
And itemisation can be bothered either weapon acquisition (Melk, Brunt, Emperor’s gift) and modification (Hadron, commonly called crafting)
Your metrics for success may not be at all what FS’s are, and I don’t think that’s a controversial statement.
Thinking on the amount of time this has had in lead up, what im personally expecting is something comparable to the Class Tree rework in shape but for items.
By which i mean something that isnt just bolting onto the basic thing (like releasing new subclasses would have been instead of the Class Tree), but reworking the entire system into a larger format that connects into something that gives the players reason to engage with the game and provides depth/replayability.
The fact its been renamed as itemization for me seems to be suggestive of this - ie its not a bandaid on crafting (just removing locks), its a new system.
I’m expecting it to be something that a chunk of players wont like because its different than what they’re expecting - i believe this is an almost no-win scenario where a lot of vocal players already have “perfect” weapons that have taken them 1000+ hours to grind and this update likely has to either negate in some way which they’ll hate, or it has to not affect them at which point those players are going to be grumpy that this update didnt give them any new content to play.
My wish/dream would be for a system where after completing the 1-30 levels, players get to focus on one weapon and slowly gather materials for it that allow them to customise it visually (important) as well as upgrading it stats wise where upgrades give + to some stats and - to others. So that through playing the game they slowly end up with a unique weapon for that character that over time becomes their signature/heroic item that they feel connected to (before then getting to do it again for a different weapon). For me that is what would actually excite me in so far that its something in world, expands your character, and would feel rewarding as a new chunk of cheese to be chasing.
But all of that comes down to the fact im not a minmax player who gets a buzz from numbers going up or getting a perfect roll. I’m here to play with dolls and engage with character development / storyline and want a reason to earn more cool ways to customize my rejects and play the game more.
You’re right.
If I wanted to be bitterly cynical looking at the outcomes and current state of affairs, I’d say they released an unfinished product to rake in loads of pre-order cash and devoted minimal development to keep a drip of cosmetics revenue going as they check out and move on, and that none of this matters because sustaining a competitive product isn’t the business plan.
again, it’s never been named anything else and it hasn’t been said by the devs to be crafting, you’re just trying to make baseless claims.
It absolutely is a controversial statement when the end result is a lackluster product with incoherent systems that juxtapose against customer satisfaction and fun.
You know since reading through i gotta ask.
Why not get @brosgw if they were actually interested in getting a stark critic to play the community test?
To my knowledge he hasn’t been disrespectful, he actually put in the work of collecting data, he has been up to date with community concerns, and is actually you know, knowledgeable about what the community concerns are.
I get it, a lot of us can be inflammatory, some of us can have our moments, im personally in the “Don’t care, didn’t ask to be” catagory for community tests but if you were going to include anyone for it you think you would include the guy who has the longest running thread about the topic who has been present and collecting data for a long time.
TBH im going to assume the item update just based off the information provided is going to just be a big wet fart that doesn’t solve the base problems but just shuffles the cards around. Then it’s going to follow with another “We got it wrong this time, we will do better next time…after our summer vacation” statement.
Well,
From Crafting in Darktide
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.
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.
https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/whats-coming-up-in-darktide
Following this, we are working on an overhaul of our current itemisation process. With the new system we want to remove a lot of the unpredictable grind that came from an RNG heavy system whilst giving players more agency and a steady manner to progress toward specific loadouts, blessings, and stats refinement.
While they’re not directly using the word “crafting”, they’re using an awful lot of copy-pasta from their “Crafting in Darktide” page regarding “itemization”.
Yes the itemisation changes will change the crafting. But the change itself were never named crafting, but itemisation.
Nah. I’m not putting my boy on the spot by getting him involved in something in which he’ll spend a lot of energy in, only to have it ignored by Fatshark. My boy put a lot of effort in that crafting thread, not for Fatshark, but for US. It was a community service for all the naysayers back in “Beta” who kept downplaying our grievances with the crafting system.
That’s fair, I know the answer but it’s frustrating that we literally got that yes men quartet to be testers who are probably just going to just agree with the initial implementation so they can make a youtube video about it.
TBH the more i hear about the update the less I’m excited for it.
I don’t agree that the product is lackluster, and it’s consistently pulling better numbers than VT2 (which, although we of course don’t know, might be one of their measurements for success).
Looking at the Steam numbers, the only reason this is true is because of the Patch 13 (and smaller Patch 17) bumps, being nearly identical before Patch 13 and falling back to revert to VT2 levels after. Their numbers are far close to each other than they are to any competitor titles as posted above.
Considering a while ago VT2 had an unpopular balance pass that pushed a few dedicated players away, yeah I believe it; though after the recent update which added a few community requested things as well as adding new content to Chaos Wastes, the numbers are more or less similar (let’s circle back to this when Versus test comes back at the end of the month):
