I'd like an explanation behind the crafting system, please

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Hiya, Fatshark. Long time, no talk! I came back for a sec this Winter and still pop in intermittently, but so far you guys havent earned any more of my money since beta and I’m still actively steering people away from purchasing your game. Normally, I’d say something like “fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you,” or something like that, but moreso I think “fool me once, fool me twice, neither one was very nice” because so far there have been two glaring dishonesties that have really been grinding my gears about this game that I’d like to mention, with one I’d specifically like to bring forth as a point of discussion.

The first is the Halo Infinite style “beta”, which was really just a Call of Duty style “Pay now and play early” disguised as a beta to hide the poor state of the game at release. I dunno if that’s how it was sold internally over there, but that’s what it was and I won’t open a proper discussion about that topic because Catfish can either say nothing about it or respond and get reprimanded at work for having the temerity to actually address player concerns, which is what Fatshark tells us she is paid to do.

The second is crafting.

There’s been a longstanding article we all reference detailing a crafting system that never came to be which differs very greatly from the crafting deep dive Fatshark wrote up about its current systems in that the devs interviewed in the former article are very candid not just as to the function of said system, but the goal and design philosophy behind its implementation.

We have a long article detailing the what behind our current system, but we don’t have an article detailing the why, which is strange because one imagines Fatshark is proud of everything else in the game they’ve opined over in their extensive devblogs.

I know you arent going to give us a roadmap, Fatshark. If you aren’t fixing the underlying structural issues with the game’s itemization and just adding content, then you’re ignoring the greatest issue we all have with the game and it’ll continue to hemmorhage players. If you are fixing crafting, it’s a mea culpa that management’s ego can’t afford.

But I’d love to offer the benefit of the doubt. If you can’t tell us what’s coming, you can explain why we have what we have and why it was the right decision for Fatshark and for us, your players.

I don’t want a roadmap from Fatshark because we can trust that roadmap as little as they do. I don’t want to hear about plans made by people who have no faith in them. I want to hear about why the decisions made were good ones by the people who made them.

Don’t release a roadmap, Fatshark. Instead, release a devblog on the philosophy behind progression and itemization. If you believe in the longevity and philosophy behind your own systems, talking about that to us will go significantly farther than offering plans you don’t have any faith in anyways.

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You already know the rationale behind the game’s crafting and you already know they’re never going to publicly state it.

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If they want the game to survive, they’ll eventually have to change it. If they’re proud enough to explain the “why” behind their other design systems because they know it’ll sell their game, they can explain the “why” behind itemization with the same enthusiasm.

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would like an “ignore topic” button.
not that he’s wrong, but i’m tired of passive agressiveness and rhetorical questions that arent questions, but venting disappointment and other feelings.

The philosophy is: You dont know what is good for you and you dont know that you want it the way we have created it. Marketing Psychologist 101

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Not even frustrated with this comment, guy. I’m a proponent of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” but I also understand frustration with seeing it over and over.

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Crafting system objectives:

  • keep you in game at chaining missions to get materials
  • burn money and resources
  • sort of end game

Do players like this RNG? no
Will it change? no

FS, at the very least, fix Brunt… enough of Brunt that gives weapons with modifiers at 300…

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bought one weapontype for 500k od, 2 crappy 360ies, some more crap 350ies and a load full of 300-350 rating.
no money left, but at least i have some plasteel for the next 2 or 3 not so crappy 360+ weapons to get crap perks and blessings on them :smiley:

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Can also block people and afaik you can’t see their threads anymore

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‘Player retention’.

Seriously, you’re never going to get an actual explanation for why they failed so hard, because game companies cannot admit that they’re just trying to screw over the players.

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Crafting is a “fix” to an unfixable issue, namely “How do we keep loot relevant”

People in VT2 did complain after a while of getting chests but after a while not having any use for them

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Let me dig up my older idea - let us use mats for special ammo:
Hotshot powerpacks,
Manstopper rounds,
One of 20 types of bolts.
And so on and so forth…

You start mission with “better” or more specialized ammo and one ammo box just for your private use. You use that up and all pickups within the mission are just plain ammo we use as standard.
Would this trivialize gameplay or allow you to shoot your way through mission? Maybe.
Could it be forbidden for some Damnation or Auric missions or as a special condition? Why not.

Or use mats for any other type of consumable. Maybe use them in some sort of social setting (Mouringstar Pub or R&R facility)?

Or… weapon degradation.

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I’d say the question is real. The reason it comes off that way is you know the culprits are hiding.

If you can’t answer, news blackout.
If you are caught red handed, play stupid.

It’s everywhere these days and it’s demoralizing as hell.

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As I said… I would have preferred a system where you can decide freely how to build your weapon with its weakness and strenght (so a sum of points to use) and that would decay by time.
So you would need material to craft what you want and to repair what you use.

Off course the balance between the decay and resources collected would be the most important point.
Too much decay and you cannot play at all. Too few, it has no impact.

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Honestly that would be nice. Be able to optimize my guns for sniping for vet, or dakka for zealot…yeah. Would be fun.

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I previously was not so open to the whole “and flaws” part, because I was hoping it would be already integrated as it is now (RNG be damned, more dodges for some, less for others).
So you could max out the weapon eventually…

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But now I’m getting more open to the idea.

Regarding balance. Maybe to give some less unfortunate players a life line - two lowest danger levels could have degradation disabled? Or there could be “give a gun or stabby-stick to less fortunate program” (we could dump our excess Big-E gifts in there in exchange for something for example).

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Degradation is bad, I’d prefer to stay away from that… or make it minimal to the point of being trivial… but the specialized ammo would be cool… Dunno how that would balance with staves.

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Crafting is for making unusable weapons functional, not for building perfect weapons that can be instantly rebuilt to top-tier every balance patch. That was always the stated purpose, it’s the conceit of the playerbase to twist it to “anything not perfect IS unusable, why can’t they see that?”. They’ve told us this plenty of times (although they’re polite and i ain’t) but as a rule this community doesn’t listen to being told their vision is wrong.

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The itemization in this game makes little sense.

Everything is RNG. RNG availability, RNG acquisition, RNG stats, RNG perks and blessings (with RNG levels of each), etc. Lots of design effort and programming went into designing that RNG system.

This is basically the Gacha-arcade/Mobile gambling system of item acquisition. This is typically designed around frustrating players to some extent, getting people to bypass that frustration and invest obscene resources (through extensive play and interaction with the game/service, encouraging people to play a lot) or cash (creating a revenue stream for the creator) to get the item they really want.

The problem here is that the balance with in-game resources is way off kilter (e.g. Plasteel vs Diamantene), and there’s no bypass mechanism. The Locks ensure you can only invest a relatively small amount of in-game resources for any one item to get what you want, severely limiting potential, and there’s no cash option. This means it generates lots of frustration, but without any way outlet for it except to be mad at Fatshark. The whole model is only partially implemented, like FS got halfway through it and then just…stopped.

As a result this actively discourages player time investment and continued play, generates lots of frustration directly at Fatshark’s developers on a personal level, and all around just drags the whole service down and detracts from the hard work everyone else (art department, music, etc) put into the game.

A system like Deep Rock Galactic has, where you grind each weapon and upgrade with XP, would have made way more sense for this game. It actively encourages continued player interaction, does something with all that XP that continues to accrue (but otherwise do nothing) at 30, and accomplishes all goals the Gacha mechanism does without the player fury or gambling/RNG aspect.

It feels like this system was forced onto the game by a manager or C-suite who doesn’t actually really understand it but fell in love with the concept after attending some sort of conference before it turned into a quagmire for the game, really doesn’t want to back down at this point, and especially has no desire to talk about it.

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You won’t get an explanation. You seem to want some form of vindication but you won’t find it here. I’m sorry.

They won’t admit or deny anything beyond to say that they are working on things behind the scenes.

We’re left in a lurch here, playing with these awkward and hopeless systems, hoping they’ll get better. But don’t expect vindication from this post, you won’t get it /=

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