So I know Fatshark has received criticism in the past regarding how certain things in the Vermintide series were handled, but for the most part they seemed to have made a massive leap in quality from VT 1 to VT 2, despite that launch being kinda rough.
However, it seems like Darktide had a LOT of hype surrounding it prior to launch in a way Vermintide 1 and 2 never did, and the team was out in full force to really market this as a refinement in everything they have learned from the previous two games.
What we’ve received is a game missing a lot of features, performance and stability problems for a lot of people, and concerns that they’re going to lean in heavily to paid cosmetics.
I don’t like to be paranoid, but Tencent having their fingers in this also is causing some people to stress out that the company is going to be focused way more heavily on trying to squeeze all the money they can out of the playerbase, rather than prioritizing actual content.
I really like the game, and I’m excited about the potential, but I can’t stop myself from having this gnawing feeling that priorities have shifted and we’re going to see an upswing in an angry playerbase, and defensive devs (the CM on Discord seems to already be getting frustrated and making responses that are immediately plastered all over Reddit).
That scares me, because this has been a game I’ve been waiting for ever since it was announced. I’m 40, and I’ve been through multiple game hypes that turned into flops, so I never allow myself to get too excited before I get my hands on the actual game, but I was having a really good time with the pre-release “beta”, but was getting more worried about what the finished product would be because I also know you can’t have a real beta a week before release that will magically fix all the issues.
Well, it seems things got worse for a lot of people, myself included (I have a beast of a PC, but I took an FPS hit after release) as well as the game missing a lot of features.
But hey, they were sure to get that cash shop in ASAP because that’s obviously what everyone wanted.
The fact that the crafting station isn’t complete leads me to believe that they didn’t even start it as a feature until people brought it up in closed beta as something they were looking forward to. The fully functional microtransaction store being in at launch shows that this game was missing major game play loop features, but their priority was making sure they could cash in on the extremely overpriced cosmetic items on top of the retail price for the game.
Heck they didn’t even make sure that the imperial edition cosmetics matched up to what they advertised. The psyker cosmetics are literally clipping through themselves and the helmet clips through the character’s head when they move. They couldn’t even be bothered to get their cash grabs right, let alone the game.
Honestly, I think people just don’t remember. I do, so let me shake up that memory of yours.
Because so far all three Tide releases were exactly the same in execution:
The base game launches with very promising gameplay and presentation, but a plethora of bugs and technical issues hold it back.
Everyone acknowledges the potential, but is disappointed / angry at the state of things.
People flood all the forums with (partially justified / partially hyperboled) outrage.
The Team doesn’t want to deal with it, go silent and quietly continue work on the game.
The community “dies” (the playerbase shrinks to the niche core audience, the rest stops playing).
Time passes. The casual community has moved on. A few months go by. Everybody forgets about Tide.
In the meantime many small patches and fixes come out here and there.
Suddenly a pop-up on Steam is displayed for everyone: “The New Big X Content Update is here”
People reluctantly redownload the game, then a surprise: “Hey, this is pretty good fun and the issues are also gone”
Everybody forgets about what happened on release. “It’s great now, it’s redeemed! This game is amazing!”
Game strides on until eventually it’s time for Fatshark to release a new title to breathe new life into their cash flow
→ Begin at Step 1, cycle repeats
Every. Single. Fatshark. Release.
Let me remind you to some of the classics that VT1 and VT2 suffered from on release:
→ Falling through the map at random points because someone on the level design team forgot to place geometry
→ Objectives not spawning, falling through the map or disappearing
→ Next objective not loading, making everyone stare awkwardly at a closed door and forcing mission quit
→ AI Directors going ABSOLUTELY BONKERS flinging so much at you it was unplayable
→ AI Director doing the opposite and not feeling like it, spawning absolutely nothing at all or not what’s intended
→ Special enemies having weird attack or interaction ranges - Such as Hookrat 5 meter grab or assassin becoming a bald eagle flying through the map just to get you
→ Many crashes of various kind
→ Many weird FPS drop causing issues and graphical glitches
→ Completely busted talent trees dominating the meta with no alternative
→ Talents outright not working, not triggering or giving weird unintended benefits or penalties
→ Many more I cannot even remember
TL;DR: Relax, it will be fine. If you’re not happy, come back in a while and you’ll see that the game is amazing. But they got to fix it first.
Yes, the state of things is not amazing. But it’s also not absolutely terrible as everybody says. It’s okayish. It’s a Fatshark release.
They always give birth to their most precious baby in a mud pit.
I understand all of this, but again, my concern is that they’ve released two games prior and don’t seem to have learned from these mistakes, as well as this weird penchant for nerfing things no one is complaining about, which is irritating.
But my concern comes more from what they’re prioritizing because of the fact that Tencent picked them up. Tencent has a long history of forcing devs to prioritize MTX and adding in all kinds of extremely grindy and obnoxious decisions that try to figure out ways to keep people just invested enough to get them to buy more.
I wouldn’t care so much if it didn’t also seem to potentially lead to sacrificing content and enjoyable gameplay features.
They already launched the game without features while ensuring the mtx shop was ready. It is not “potentially sacrificing content” it IS sacrificing content
Fully understand your concern, especially about the Investor that they pulled.
In my opinion the stock market and it’s influences is a misguided grift created by established forces ensuring their control over the economy in a non-traditional way. A cryptic tool overcomplicated on purpose to blindside the common man from the reality, that nothing has really changed all that much from the olden days after all:
That there is the rulers and the ruled over.
But that’s maybe a bit off-topic.
Regardless, I will enjoy the game as much as I can regardless. If it really goes down in flames eventually, so be it. At least I had a good time. I don’t think it will, though.
Things in our world have a funny way of inheriting a lot more longevity than people initially assume, despite often being more brittle in other ways that are unexpected.
This phenomenon is everywhere.
Those declared dead often live on and on.
Those declared too big to fail suddenly implode completely.
The Tide games and Fatshark belong to the former group, because they usually have a small core audience that they take “nourishment” from.
That’s one way to see it. Still, I find myself liking this game and what the team is trying to do.
Darktide and Vermintide 2 had the same peak numbers, but DT doubled VT2 for actual launch. There actually was a surprising amount of hype around VT2. And yes, Fatshark killed the community quite rapidly with strange patches focusing on (what the community thought) was the wrong stuff, and of course not a lot of communication.
So basically the same situation, regardless of Tencent now, aside from a skin shop at launch instead of added 2 years later.
To be clear. I do not think the product is doomed. I don’t think it’s unplayable nor unenjoyable. I DO think that the way this product was launched and the way they are handling the mtx shop is scummy
I will be honest: Even without any hiccups the numbers would similiar.
Not only is player retention something that only MMOs are good at (Almost every multiplayer and singleplayer release tapers off really quickly after launch, then sees bumps in players on big updates), but the Tide games also are very inaccessible in how they handle and feel to the average player.
As a result, the curve will always be a high peak on release with a brutal drop soon thereafter.
Can’t disagree much with this, but I still think the Microtransaction store is far from the worst I’ve seen. But I’ve seen some stuff so yeah…
Hi! As a imperial edition owner, i find it highly disturbing, that upon “full release”, i still dont have access to everything i paid for. I can’t play whatever mission i want, on whatever difficulty i want, when i want with whoever i want. I find it disturbing, that they introduced crafting system, from which 75% content is missing. I also find disturbing, that upon questions like: “Where are the promised weapons (reffered to just with content i paid for)?” dev representatives play dump, and answer with: We are investigating…" On the top of it, they introduce absolutely unfair microtransaction system in a form of foma style cosmetic shop, while my overall experience has worsened, in a form of rapid fps drops and game crashes i didnt suffer from 2 days ago in open beta. I feel scammed, and even though as a long term fatshark products consumer, wanting to continue my support, i will not pay the company any money, until i get all the content i already paid for.