I Wish the Game Encouraged People to Merge Strike Teams More Often

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Trying to put my thoughts and feeling into words here and still not sure if I’m making my thought process clear, but hopefully it all makes sense.

So at least in V2, likely due to it being P2P, players are more likely to stay in teams throughout multiple maps because the game “forces” them to say in teams between maps. Even in V1 this was more often encouraged by having a map vote to retry or “go back to the inn.”

However, in Darktide, there really is no mechanic other than “merge strike team” to encourage players to do this. And if the onus is on the player, it is more likely something that players will not do, either due to feeling social pressure of “being the first” or “no one will want to merge”.

I have seen this in the case of someone hitting “merge strike team” and then seeing no one agreeing with that, remove the request. I think in all the games I’ve played, I’ve seen “merge strike team” voted on and accepted once. Rather, instead, you are put back into the Mourningstar to queue up again where either a) you get a new team, b) get the same people again because the player pool in that difficulty/matching setup is small anyways, or c) find no one and wind up by yourself.

My theory is that by encouraging teams to merge more often (obviously no penalization for leaving a team or not wanting to merge), it would:

  • Forge a stronger sense of camaraderie/community among players
  • Reduce the time of players spent in matchmaking
  • Encourage more map challenges
  • Encourage more communication and teamwork due to familiarity with each other
  • Reduce the amount of effort players spend finding “good players” in quickplay rather than waiting for someone to decide they want to merge a team (“I want to merge this team…oh…anddddd, they’re gone.”)

I’ve mentioned it before, but Darktide feels empty and anti-social in a way Vermintide doesn’t, both in environment and how players interact with each other. The “social” aspects of Darktide feel lacking to missing in some ways, which aesthetically fits, but as a quickplayer, feels less “cozy” mentally (and also somewhat painful waiting in queue after matches to find a new team).

Interested in hearing others’ thoughts.

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I agree.

Darktide’s social aspect is pretty much completely hamstrung by its random map pool and inability to develop story (since any mission could be taken at any time, they go into this vague limbo because nothing can be done ‘in order’).

It’s a game that’s, being charitable, built for premade teams.

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100% agree.

Sadly, each iteration of the social space in the 'Tide games has gotten worse. The Red Moon Inn was cozy and compact and players could get into mock bar fights and whatever. VT2 keep felt less cozy and was too sprawling, but at least had some interactive elements. Just returning to the keep and seeing your teammates and being able to jump around was great.

DT abandoned all of that. I really think they need to improve this aspect of the game.

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only time i remember merging was after an almost successful attempt at the twins secret hardmode.

guys were really up to snuff and the first try failed because of minor misplays.

merging then was a no-brainer and ironically 3 was the charm as in third attempt each of us got the golden cochones.

on the other hand i dont see content as hard as to maintain another match with the same people.

lets take two scenarios :

whatever the modifier roman stuff for gas (not J I II V, the other one) was, team failed hard.

not even a close call cause you couldn´t put them back on their feet fast enough AND play frontfeuerwehr to all the things biting your ankles.

why should i merge?

not that there was a single digit attempt number in sight for a positive runthrough AND the timer keeps ticking.

only so many attempts to get the map/modifier done.

second variant:

you breeze through with people knowing their stuff and see the ending screen in a pretty good time.

next modifier is likely to be easier so sticking together would make for a more “boring” attempt.

sure it´s rolling the dice every time but it´s a main factor to keep the game fresh.

if i had the luxury of 4 man premade i guess i´d be bored already for there is nothing to overcome with 4 players on discord and talents that complement each other.

as for a hidden “third scenario”:

i record every match i play and upload the stuff thats worth watching to my channel, small but mine.

while i dont get that many views, one factor of a never changing team composition would be who´d watch that stuff ?

one reason i started with my channel in the first place was watching myself on another ones stream and learned a few things from that perspective alone.

so after “it´s a wrap” with 3 dudes, the “job” is done, off to the next one.

only exception is my long time gaming and rl buddy who´s in discord with me.

know each other for decades so no one needs to watch language and stuff or step on the others toes when hard callouts need to be made precise not “nice”

not everyone likes a blunt tone when playing, suits us just fine.

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I’m almost exclusively a solo-queue player, and I also rarely see attempts to merge strike teams.

I think a significant contributor to this is a UI issue. I’ve missed at least a few attempts by a player to merge just because I didn’t see the check mark before it was too late. And I think making the UI more prominent would be an easy win for encouraging players to merge. A chat pop-up and a juicy sound effect (that you could retrigger, like readying up) would probably get some more folks to do it (or at least notice it).

But I’d wager that wouldn’t encourage much more merging. I think a bigger problem is the idea of going back to a hub at all.

If there was a guaranteed next step, and an immediate jump into another mission, I’d expect players would do it instead of going back through the whole hub-join-ready-go process. It’d mean you’d be guaranteed to start at the beginning of a mission, instead of joining mid-game. It’d cut down on load times. And, for people who view players as a liability and not the spicy variety they crave, it’d mean known-quantity teammates.

But without some mechanism to pick the next mission on the win/lose screen and jump straight to that, I’d really question if more players would be down to merge. Personally, I will almost never be up for going back to the hub with 1-3 strangers, where they could (as is their right!) spend many minutes reviewing inventory/build and checking shops. I don’t want to merge and then feel like I’m “in for a penny in for a pound.”

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Agreed, I think that’s the crux of the issue. In V1 you had multiple choices per vote:

  • Next map
  • Retry map
  • Back to inn

This could solve a lot of issues, imho. The game could even split them off into multiple merged teams, even.

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A more clear map progression would help with people wanting to team up more. Getting a good group and knowing there might be a troublesome map coming up soon, time to team up!

I feel the same can be said about friend requests and how they currently work ingame.

Unless you’d want to spend time creating actual social spaces on the Mourningstar (Bar, personal rooms and so on), you could just do another player reward in the form of more resources and xp/mastery, perhaps start off small and progress more and more for each sequent game.

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I wish i could skip the post-match screen as fast (or slow) as i want.
At this point, Merge strike team is a dead and useless feature, because steam social features integration exist.

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the matchmaking system is at odds with any any encouragement to combine strike teams, the more ranged-heavy ability focused gameplay pushes people into a solo mindset, and the morningstar’s function as a lobby for randos makes it unintuitive for communicate with the group.

darktide’s finally accomplished the goal the fanbase has asked for since the first vermintide of making the game a solo queue game where people don’t talk to each other, and like with everything i’ve seen the fanbase try to get i don’t think they had any idea why they wanted it besides being contrary.

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I miss the old VT2 days of being grouped by default with the people you plugged with /=

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I would like a mode that is similar to the Chaos Wastelands from Vermintide 2. Where me and my team (random people), over any number of maps with different modifiers(a very rough description of wastelands) play together.
Yeah, that would be fun.

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User experience (UX) in general leaves a lot of to be desired…A lot of critical mods basically fix or add functionality which should be in the base game. My mod list in 90% of cases deals with UX deficiencies:

ui_extension
animation_events
NumericUI
PingMonitor
LoadoutMonitor
ForTheEmperor
true_level
Spidey Sense
ShowMeRealWeaponStats
barter_with_hadron
hub_hotkey_menus
scoreboard
ovenproof_scoreboard_plugin
psych_ward
custom_hud
debuff_indicator
ChatBlock
buy_until_rating
show_crit_chance
creature_spawner
Healthbars
more_characters_and_loadouts
StimmsPickupIcon
MyFavorites
guarantee_weapon_swap
who_are_you
Disconnect

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Imo still one of the biggest push backs to this is a lack of a pre game hub with just the 4 people you are going to play with, with the ability to talk and change characters.

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I created this idea board for any and all suggested improvements to Darktide’s “social” aspects. I continue to regularly maintain it, but because it was locked due to inactivity any new suggested improvements must come to me through DMs.

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uh…

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The Red Moon Inn definitely had a certain charm Taal’s Horn Keep didn’t… but the Mourningstar’s an absolute travesty.

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Well that’s the issue, VT had more good team players, DT not so much, due to the broader appeal of both WH40k (ppl warned me) and shootery CoD/FN types.

A more in-your-face UI at the end screen would help for sure though, as well as a “retry” feature.

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Yes, this is it the main reason i think.

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Even without the merge strike team option, the current social UI is so janky you can’t find people you just played with most of the time.

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Almost every successful co-op horde shooter has a lobby system, whether it’s just a menu or a fully-fledged gameplay space.

The most interaction I’ve ever seen on the Mourningstar is people running circles around one another, and the odd conversation in cyrillic.

The Hangar should be made a(n instanced) playable space aboard the Mourningstar - you use the mission terminal - when you find a lobby, you meet your team there. When you complete (win or lose) a mission, you return together.

No 60s count-down that forces you to start the mission before you’re necessarily ready - you jump on the Valkyrie when you’re all ready. Maybe the mission could pre-load while you’re in there, and you’d have access to your inventory and such, and plenty of time to adjust your loadout based on the other players’. Could have target dummies like in VT2 as well.

FS still get to use whales as walking advertisements for cosmetics (and even better at that); It’d make things feel a bit more contiguous and immersive, and make the community feel less nebulous.

I also really miss being able to look at a server/lobby list - rather than rolling the dice on whether I’m going to join a lobby, or a mission that was just failed. I’d like to be able to make my own choice around that.

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