It is explicitly mentioned in the devpost, that modifiers are NOT the aspect that is different for individuals.
Missions (maps) and mutators (high int, more specialists, hunting grounds, etc.) are what is supposed to be different per player.
I guess you understand, how it could make matchmaking difficult, when one player has “Enclavum Baross with High intensity” and an other player has “Magistrati Oubliette with snipers” instead.
Quickplay would work, but they explicitly said that they do not want to implement it.
Step 1: Wait for other players to work their way up through stages 1 - 40.
Step 2: Join a stage 40 lobby with a map that you think is the easiest.
Step 3: Get yourself carried through a single stage 40 mission to immediately jump to rank 40.
Gratulations, you have beaten the “progression system” of the havoc mode.
It worked so well for Weaves, waiting until it was out, I mean. Fatshark are obviously known for fixing poorly designed game modes post release. /s
Worth noting that the reaction to the annoucement of Weaves in VT2 was met with concern, and a great deal of feedback. None of which mattered anyway. So maybe waiting until the devblog is also a bad idea?
Assuming that the information in the devpost is correct, there are immediately multiple glaring issues.
No need to wait for the devblog. No assumptions or imagination required.
Those issues are very obvious and based on explicitly stated information. 100% real and certain issues, unless the information is flat out wrong.
It is explicitly stated, that you can be at any low rank, join any high rank mission and immediately jump to a high rank this way.
A very obvious issue.
It is explicitly stated, that maps and mutators are different per player, which is why those missions have no matchmaking and basically require the use of the party finder.
This is an obvious issue as well.
Keep in mind that Winds of Magic even had a beta that gathered massive amounts of feedback, only to be met with a dry “we know what you guys need, better than you do”.
If you want to specifically play that modifier, yes.
But I assume that if I just want some high difficulty match, I’ll be fine with whatever modifiers the host currently has active. I believe the lack of matchmaking is primarily because it adds 40 extra layers of difficulty in an extra, auric+ mission room.
Other than that;
Am I enarmoured with the whole thing? No. It sounds horribly clunky.
But I’m willing to wait it out. It sounds easy enough to implement (especially given it’s already been coded), that no matter my reception, future content will not be meaningfully impacted, and I have no idea how the pennances and challenges are going to be tracked, either, so I can’t yet ponder that too closely. Getting everything by “reaching level 40” sounds too dumb to be true, not that that has stopped anyone in the past.
I guess the penances could require
“beat stages 1-10”
“beat stages 1-20”
and so on.
But either way, if there is a way to access the highest difficulty easily (as they explicity said, they are planning), players will do it.
And they will suck and ruin the whole thing for everyone, unless players are using their own means of gatekeeping, such as a “proof of skill” via penance cosmetics.
But it’s frustrating that they always seem to prioritize crap no one asked for instead of addressing the issues that people are having with their games.
I think the idea is fantastic, the execution however is something I don’t agree with. Well, based on what we know so far at least, hard to say really.
It promotes endgame & familiarizes people with mods & challenges, adds extra difficulty and a whole new level of stacking mods so essentially a new game mode beyond Mael, while adding more earnable fluff etc. All of those are good things.
My issue is how it seems to favor premades. If premades can instantly powerlevel a Havoc rank 1 by passing a single mission while others are stuck climbing through pubs 1 rank at a time, that’s about as ridiculously unfair as things get. So we’re again stuck with a situation where a rank 10 pubber is likely 10x better than many 20-30+ premade players, except that rank 10 had to work 100x harder & longer to get there and barely has anything to show for it… while those others are drowning in flamboyant titles, frames & cosmetics.
I admit I’m biased as a solo player ofc, and it really is too early to tell. Still… that story up there is older than time. Depending on those rewards if Darktide becomes yet another MMO or Destiny 2 (expecting to use Discord & hassle to group up to even have a chance to access endgame content), I can tell you right now I’m out for good.
It’s so obvious an issue that they literally had to implement back-end infrastructure (the party finder) just to even address the problem they, themselves, created. Yes, I’m iterating your point, but it kind of showcases just how serious an issue they already internally see it as.
Honestly if that doesn’t show anyone how big a problem it is, I don’t know what will.
And the funny thing is, that this is completely unnecessary.
They created a big issue out of nowhere, by adding a factor of randomness that was not even necessary.
On the other hand, things being the ever-same was a big part of criticism for Weaves.
I honestly don’t see how to do the thing players frequently ask for, “let us do whatever map with whatever modifier”, without it being outside of regular quickplay.
