Hi folks,
after playing the game for a couple houndred hours i want to give some feedback/suggestions,
maybe some of this stuff will fall on open ears.
prelude:
first i´d like to take a little detour to explain as from where my motivation for the game stems
or simply put what gets me going for „just another round“.
back in the days of doom there wasnt a great many things you needed to enjoy a game. xp, lvls, loadouts or whatever didn´t distract you from the core gameplay, as long as the action kept you hooked you enjoyed the title. granted, this was due to the simplicity and freshness of the genre and one was almost yearly supplied with upcoming titles.
still only a few of those really stood apart through the decades and those ultimately had their motivating gameflow in common.
i´d be hard pressed to even guesst the thousands of hours my buddies and me put into doom alone, almost daily we had coop sessions, starting with doom/doom2/tnt/plutonia (apart from the first 32 maps each) and rounding it up with the odd mega wad like hell revealed.
even if we could draw each map blindfolded after a while there wasnt a dull moment, just the spur to perform better, faster next time. every enemy, item, weapon, even secrets were memorized by heart, no surprise left and still we kept on playing.
few games had that over the years for me, mostly id software titles.
(i got to add though that the older titles were kept fresh by community made 32 map megawads as far as content goes)
but all had something else in common apart from the gameflow itself.
if the artistic setting of a game doesnt grip me right away, no matter the rest, i can´t get into it.
main “rant”:
so fast forward the odd 29 years and i´m having a blast in darktide. didn´t have a clue about warhammer but the fast paced action combined with a nice gritty setting and graphics got me hooked instantly. even upload my matches, something i never thought i´d do no matter the game.
there´s something uniquely enjoyable that clicks, from the first heretic that gets his head bashed in to being back on the mourning star hitting just another “join match”.
now i get why nowadays one needs a carrot on a stick ingame to keep people playing and when it´s in the game i´d lie to say i don´t enjoy seeing my character go up in lvl or get a better weapon.
but at the end it´s the gameflow that keeps this hamster running happily in his wheel.
i don´t claim to have any grasp of the amount of work it takes to deliver new content such as weapons, maps, enemies on a “regular” basis but ultimately i´d wish for steady supply of those rather than changing the odd perk, blessing, 2% here or 5% there.
in the end it won´t change anything about how i enjoy the game, from the loadout to my playstyle, when i found something i like, i stubbornly stick to it.
for me to continue being motivated it´s not so much the “how” but the “what” to keep things from becoming stale.
one new map every so often or 2/3 new enemies would spice things up significantly more than dealing 20 dmg more with a certain blessing or perk, again i get it´s far easier to tune a few numbers than doing modeling and map design.
having gotten into the warhammer setting only recently i don´t know whether perks and blessings a “really” a thing when it comes to manipulating the performance of objects.
from my point of view i´d rather see options such as changing the caliber, barrel or type of ammunition.
and before the whole “this ain´t COD” argument comes back up, i wouldn´t so much need it in terms of visual customization rather than changing said performance of the weapon in question.
if additional visual treats could be implemented all the better, still not a priority.
so for example as a mainly ogryn player i could pick between a ripper with slug ammo rather than whatever is “normal” in the warhammer world for a shotgun this size, the other would feed on something akin to dragon breath magnesium type shells. larger caliber, less ammo and vice versa could be thrown in as a variation as well.
if visuals could be tweaked, sawn off barrel, long barrel, bayonetted barrel etc. would be a nice option too, change between short and long range efficiency.
make the weapons perform based on their physics and let the curios do the space mumbo jumbo, emperor knows we already got chests full of those.
so this was the “how” part, but as i said the “what” makes up a much larger part of my motivation for the game.
as of now i play auric damnation histg and maelstrom exclusively and as fun as those rounds are, given the random nature of public teams, the amount of maps are by far my biggest concern for the game right now.
darktide does a good job of randomizing the number of enemies, their types, placement etc. but at the end of the day, if i close my eyes i can point out every corner, corridor, staircase etc
and even if i wager the majority will frown upon the concept of procedural map design, it could be one solution to providing tangible content with less effort.
the designers do a tremendous job of making every map seem believable and lived in, gritty, dystopian, one of the reasons i enjoy the setting so much, really.
but at the same time i think therein lies the problem of creating such new content every so often.
maps already share a good part of each other, opening at different places depending which map we choose. why not add a few more options into randomized areas, merging at a fixed final section for pickup point.
this could also deliver an option for an “endless” mode, where one could try how far into tertium one could wander against ever overwhelming odds.
not every round has to be limited to 30 minutes, sometimes i´d like to spend a couple hours,progressing that is, not stagnating at a point because my team decides to put up tents.
for this mode there could be a “cash out” option for those having enough, being replaced by quick match new joiners. round would end when the rest calls it quits simultaneously.
as for resource management, maybe let an ammo crate spawn on one player every couple sections, med stations should be easier to implement into procedural sections i´d guess.
another important part of the “what” would be enemies.
being a horde shooter, those fill a certain role for sure, but that doesn´t mean there can´t be some variation, different breeds of mutants, hounds, shooters with different types of rifles maybe bolters or plasma you could use for “friendly fire horde clear”
again i´m only getting into warhammer lore but from what i´ve seen so far some of nurgles creations would make up for quite some fun variations, nurglings and all.
now for the obligatory carrot on the stick and optical bling bling, fashiontide and all.
what if we could get some loot from crates that visually add to the cosmetics we are wearing.
like the little thingies we put on weapons we could take some skulls from a special plague ogryn and add it to shoulderpads, make the smaller version of a scab boss dangle from your belt.
heck even split it into fragments, components whatever just as long as in the reasonable end (4-5 fragments make one item) you´d get what you are hunting for guaranteed. pick from a “hunting list” first then certain bosses drop certain fragments.
could go for weapon appendices as well as the game progresses.
and i say this as someone who likes to spend money on the odd cosmetic if it tickles my fancy.
additionally i combine my hobbies if possible so i already bought a “few” mcfarlane figures just because “warhammer” and enjoy greatly building a larger sized diorama.
so i do understand the “physical” appeal of your character and the incentive to make your character your own by looks.
still i think at least addons to these cosmetics should be achievable by playing the game, giving you some carrot should you want it.
you don´t need to make it a looter shooter but in the end right now bosses feel rather anticlimactic, rather a pebble on the road than a boulder in your way. not counting the weakened versions in maelstrom missions.
now, this already being a wall of text and taking longer than planned to even remotely putting into a cohesive rambling i call it quits and see whats in store for darktide in the future.
kind regards