Finished the first sesh.
We had a lot of crashes from our friend with a weaker computer + internet instability on the hosts end, seems like a weird load issue because it was fine for the first 3 hours before dying.
3060 ti and 3700x with mid graphics and some hand done tweaking was a smooth sixty, sometimes tanking on background heavy portions of maps or when enemies filled the screen
Veteran toughness bug obviously impacted our play, that needs to be fixed ASAP.
Store still sucks, please for the sake of the throne make it 15 minutes at most rather than a whole hour. It’s exhausting playing and stacking cash only to have nothing to blow it on other than goofy things like cosmetics that I don’t care about.
Played a lot of difficulty 3 and it felt rewarding even though we were underleveled, but difficulty 2 feels like it’s barely worth playing due to the lack of reward in any real aspect. In my opinion it could see more Diamantine drops and a touch more Plasteel. Difficulty 3 is a significant spike in difficulty, but Difficulty 2 really feels like it doesn’t do enough to prepare you for it. It’s easy enough that you don’t really have to pay attention, but at least needs the level 5 talents to make a win happen consistently early on. I think it could be valuable for early level farming before you’re level 3 capable, but as it stands it feels like I have to play it on an underleveled character rather than wanting to play it.
Difficulty 3 is hard. I really dig it because you have to be paying attention to protect your randoms, while also juggling increased spawn counts and much more aggressive AI. It felt like the way the game is intended to be played, but I found myself wishing that I had been properly prepared. This is mostly support for my statement on how Difficulty 2 is lacking.
The Daemonhost might be overtuned for shock value, but as it stands it has a little too much HP for something that, effectively, forces a 3 man DPS check. I like the idea of a Witch type enemy, but it feels like we just need to avoid it rather than set up a strategy to kill it.
Secondary objectives still feel half baked. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for full book runs from VT2, but I feel no risk or reward for completing book objectives. They don’t give anything other than XP and money vs. VT2 which had actual rewards connected with what you got via the post-game lootbox. They just don’t feel worth the effort, even if they alleviate some of the level grind. Which is a perfect segue for:
The level grind is pretty miserable. Levels take a while to chew through, which isn’t the worst thing. Really I’m saltiest about my Psyker, which felt like it started being worth playing around level 8. My Ogryn and Zealot were fun all the way up to level 11 and 7, respectively, only getting more exciting as I leveled. Psyker on the other hand, felt like a worse Veteran in any way that counted, up until I got the first force staff at 8. I touched on it earlier, but I think it’s mostly to do with how Difficulty 2 feels pretty lame. On a personal level, I’d like to get into 3 as quickly as possible with decent gear, even if my talents aren’t quite there. In the current systems, neither’s really possible.
Speaking of Psyker, people complain a lot about how hard Psyker got nerfed, but I really enjoy the way it plays now. I just wish I had more staff options earlier, to continue enticing me to play it vs. just being content with a sword and a revolver. As it stands it just resides in the background until 8, which out of 30 doesn’t sound like much, but with the length of grind at low level I straight up had to power through the suck. It was taxing leveling Psyker early on without any real benefits to the class, especially since the machinegun headpop playstyle got nerfed into the floor.
I’m going to get more general, because my biggest criticism is in the lack of subclasses. I get that the subtrees have been more fleshed out to allow flexibility within the class, but the lack of variety is still a bit of a sap on my willingness to keep playing. At the end of the day 15 is a lot more than 4, even if the four Darktide classes don’t have 4 overlapping passives per. The thing that keeps coming to mind is Bardin Ranger vs. Bardin Slayer, two extremely different styles of crowd control/elite busting. Half of the passives might’ve been the same, but the F’s were different, and that’s what mattered.
I was prepared to write a big long paragraph on information obfuscation with weapon bars, but you guys unfucked that, so two thumbs up.
I’m pretty disappointed that crafting isn’t fully in. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that it should be a high priority to get all the game systems in place before adding a mtx shop, in fear of sounding bitter. I know it’s coming soon but damn dude, it really sucks not being able to get the things I want because I have to wait for the shop to refresh instead of just rerolling the blues and purples that I currently have. Did I mention how the current store sucks and how a 1 hour refresh timer is the biggest reason why?
The gear acquisition really needs a tune up. The store, the store, the store, and the store are the four worst ways of gearing up when you compare them to VT2’s system. VT2 directly rewarded you and how much you put on the line, the store just asks you to show up with the gold required and tells you to leave if it doesn’t have what you want. The lack of crafting exacerbates this, because I have to have the prerequisite amount of boxes and tubes to make a white weapon in the profile I want the actual weapon I want. In VT2 I felt like I could get ahead of the curve through strong play and book gathering by juggling upgrades from my boxes, but in Darktide I just feel like I have to wait for the shop to roll over before I can make progress. Crafting mats aren’t exactly hard to come by, but I’d rather blow them on upgrading weapons I want to try vs. waiting for the one that’ll be a direct upgrade. I don’t want to sound like an armchair game designer, but I really do think a new (and decent) weapon or curio every other round would go a long way to smooth this over.
I really wish that we shared money and materials between operators. I get why we don’t, but man it sucks leveling knowing that I could have all these cool, low level blues and purples, but we just get screwed on it.
Optimization feels obvious. I’m not going to presume that it’s a low priority issue, I just feel the need to mention it because I jumped from a 1060 to a 3060ti and have only been able to experience smoother frames at medium settings. It’s lacking at best, but I’m also making the assumption that the patch rollover and increased player load has something to do with it.