Last time they snuck in chemdogs this way ^^
4 Likes
Being very cynical hereâŚ
âŚbut these hotfixes feel like they are all tied to things people are demanding/threatening to get a refund over. Game crashes in basic inability to play for some leading to refund requests. Likewise, Iâve seen people even publicly on the forums ask for and be granted refunds for premium cosmetics that are not problematic and glaring wrong.
So the focus seems to be on fixing stuff that literally translates to them loosing out on money or having to process refunds. Which is a bad sign if thatâs all were hearing about.
8 Likes
I mean, if these things are handled by two different teams then its not a bad sign, just makes sense to fix what should be simple clipping stuff. Wheres the more complex fixes (sound cues etc.) might take longer but donât actually result in âbuyerâs remorseâ on their MTX side, so its a balancing of money-in and resources, like anything else really.
2 Likes
i am once again asking the zealots to heal before the absolute last millisecond.
While I would like gameplay fixes and content as much as the next person, these look mostly like a few background-logic fixes and a bunch of cosmetic adaptions, meaning, something thatâs probably part time work for 2 artists and two programmers.
It just isnât the patch for big changes, and it wonât meaningfully slow down the next bigger patch, either.
Of course, chances are, some of those will be unfixed on the next big patch.
I get the general emotional state, but saying âwhereâs the things I care aboutâ on every patch that doesnât contain them doesnât make those things happen any sooner.
This would be fixed if Fatshark had an actual schedule or something to tell the playerbase so that we know what to expect.
As it stands, we only have the actual output. Which is not much.
6 Likes
Literally all Fatshark has to do is take any one of these hotfix announcements to say:
âHello Varlets - we know you are all eager to hear whatâs in-store next for Darktide and that itâs been a few months since the last big patch. Weâve heard the concerns raised about sounds, music, gameplay issues, etc. and please know that we are looking into these matters. We plan to provide a more detailed comms-link/community update about the next substantial patch in X-weeks. Please bear with us as we get geared up for 2024 and thank you for your support.â
That took me 2-minutes to write and something like the above would do SO MUCH just to let the player base know that theyâre being heard and valued (like, at all). This is basic communications and respect for your customers/supporters at this point.
7 Likes
Unfortunately it seems like Fatsharks communication policy is to⌠not have communication.
13 Likes
looks like they are still on Holiday honestly
fix the gunner stun please, why not mix that in with your MTX store fixes
1 Like
There is no way this is the only thing you post after a 1.5 month break.
10 Likes
Because MTX is the #1 priority at FS⌠Thatâs the only consistent content we get these days.
7 Likes
yeah how is this still broken?
clipping on payed stuff is annoying but this skin makes it wors.
pls fix this fatshark
You mean actually do work that requires a systemic approach and does best when thoroughly documented? You seem to be forgetting that this is the era of âmove fast and break everythingâ - studios donât fix stuff promptly unless it directly and immediately affects the bottom line. Like say crashes that keep people from going to the shop to buy the latest FOMO item. Notice what got fixed first? Yeah - the stuff that might bug people enough to not spend money on some pixels. Mind you its not just a management issue either. Its mental rot that affects all levels of a business.
Management doesnât want to spend a dime that doesnât produce immediate return. So teams that canât show how they make directly make money (QA for exampleâŚ) get axed to the absolutely minimum and decisions are based on âwhat makes the maximum profit nowâ instead of âhow do we make a steady profit for the life of the gameâ.
Developers refuse to admit that their âbright ideaâ is a glaringly bad piece of junk. Players up in arms over a decision? Oh no, it was a good decision and they just donât understand why it was made. Doesnât matter what evidence is presented or how reasoned the argument is. Their minds are closed off to the possibilty of being dead wrong and anything to the contrary just makes them dig into their hill harder.
Community managers are too busy chasing likes and affirmation from fanboys to actually concern themselves with actually listening to the players. Especially when the players are truly upset (much less angry) with good reasons. Nope, theyâre too busy chasing closing threads that veer into areas like âresponsibilityâ and keeping the players divided enough to avoid the sort of massed action that causes certain events to happen. Events like âshareholder proposal for new managmentâ, âaudit by investorsâ, and in the worst case âhearings before a government bodyâ.
The sad truth is that we are seeing the new ânormâ for game developement from large studios. Push out the lowest quality that will sell for the lowest possible cost, drain as much as possible as quickly as possible from whales using MTX, then ignore the game and work on the next title. And its only going to get worse as long as the creature known as Idiotus Oblivius subspecies Fanboyus has money to throw at their current obsession.
The only light in this tunnel is the oncoming train and FatShark is still debating when it would be a good idea to talk about jumping off the track.
4 Likes
Iâd straight up like to see the bottom line and the sheet above it on this game, because Iâd bet their failure to respond to the community is costing them plenty, but the ah, new owners, for some reason wonât let them do what should be done, and being absent, are only seeing occasional reports and doubling down on the wrong choices.
Skull fest(?) fiasco say something to you ? They literally didnât have anything for it and delayed the previously announced comlink just to save face at a corpo shill event⌠before that they announced the next date of announcement just to buy timeâŚ
The previous year âcontentâ actually the was the scraps which does not finished it for the botched launchâŚ
TL;DR i dose not except anything until may or june cuz fatshark literally donât have anything done, they know we know so they are remaining silent about itâŚ
Live service starts and ends at the fomo rotating MTX shop!
5 Likes
Oh definetly its costing them big. After all, its not just the money that the lost players would have spent after their initial outlay didnât spend, but all the sales lost because they convinced friends, family, etc to not buy the game. There is a reason retail teaches (or used to anyway) the rule that one legitimately upset customer that leaves was $30,000 US in sales that just walked out the door. No amount of advertising carries quite as much impact over decisions as a trusted person saying âdonât buy it, I did and wish I didnâtâ.
However it is also something that can easily be handwaved away by most business-related people. Just need to cherry pick a suitable âfocus groupâ, manipulate some data, and a few lies (âits normal attritionâ, âthe silent majorityâ, etc) while being hard to prove. After all, guess who has the contact info for the players who quit? Exactly - the people who have the absolutely fewest reasons find out why said players left and a whole lot of reasons why the official line needs to go unchallenged. Then again this game isnât even two years old at this point and its already having the issues that most only experience after two or three times that long or just before going into maintenance mode. That alone should be raising massive red flags among literally everyone invested even slightly in Darktide. That it self is something I find even more disturbing. That people are so accepting of what is clearly a not-good situation or actively oblivious to the issues.
At this point Iâm just keeping tabs on things to see how bad the train wreck is and what sort of collateral carnage it will produce. Iâm betting that when it all settles ObeseTubaFish will find itself starving. Aside form subcontracting it seems that most of their revenue is directly linked to one IP - Warhammer. An IP whose ultimate holder has been known to not renew a license when they deem it necessary to protect their chief moneymaker from reputational damage.
3 Likes
Polish those turds!
VERY true. I was thinking along the same lines.
Some time ago, Fat Shark was acquired by a certain company that has a certain reputation.
That company, being the ânew bossesâ could easy end up being absentee bosses who have specific requirements of subsidiaries which Fat Shark must fulfil, but which Fat Shark is aware are harming the product. Protests made up the ladder fall on deaf ears busy with other things. But the bottom line drops, the product suffers, reputation suffers, players leave. The good are trapped between the boss yelling at them for not making money and the players yelling at them for not being allowed to deliver the product.
Toxic death spiral.
Alternately, the problem might NOT be the new bosses but someone in the company who has been there a long timeâŚ
All of this is speculation as I have no insider information.
That said, Iâd love it if an investigative journalist went looking for a leaker, as Iâm really interested to find out.
2 Likes
Someone decided the game needed to be released in November 2022, and it really had no business being released then.
MAJOR features of the game were just flat out missing on release and by many peopleâs comments still arenât in an acceptable shape. The XBOX release and class-rework released in October 2023 is closer to what the actual release shouldâve been.
The impact of this decision is that the dev team had to maintain a live version of the game (consuming tons of resources to keep up appearances) while simultaneously developing a totally different version for xbox release that included more of the features they really intended from the onset (i.e. the class system).
Itâs not at all surprising, especially given FSâs generally poor version management, that this âactualâ release reintroduced bugs and issues previously fixed in the live/early launch/test version. And itâs not surprising that they are moving so slowly because of the inefficiencies resulting from developing two instances of the game. They lost out on key opportunities to iterate on gameplay systems (i.e. crafting) and are now locked into a less desirable situation given their players are already so invested in the crappy RNG hell they didnât exorcise earlier.
I still love the core gameplay. But I still wonât recommend and I struggle to get new players to break into the game because the time investment to get good gear and be able to not be a burden on damnation+ difficulty is too much - specifically because of the RNG system.
I have friends that are VT2 vets with 100âs of hours that stopped DT in Frustration because they came on board late and couldnât grind fast enough to feel like they can play with those of us who have been playing longer. Itâs a real barrier to growing the player base that we donât talk about enough. Established players that want to recruit friends and family to play either have to spend dozens of hours playing âdownâ many difficulty levels to play with their friends (and be bored in the process) or tell their friends to âlevel & gear upâ on their own for 50 hours until they can play on Damnation/Auric properly. THAT is a sucky proposition that fixing crafting is an opportunity to reverse.
8 Likes