Issues I Believe Need to Be Fixed First for Darktide’s Long-Term Health

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Hello everyone,

I usually don’t post much on the forums and mostly just read, but after seeing many of Darktide’s long-standing issues remain largely unchanged, I felt frustrated enough to finally write something.

I don’t know if this post will ever be reflected in an actual patch, but I believe that speaking up is better than staying silent.

This post does NOT discuss class balance.
Instead, I want to focus on more fundamental issues that affect the overall player experience and should be addressed first.

1. The leveling experience up to level 30 needs improvement

The leveling process, especially from level 1 to 30, feels unnecessarily slow and unengaging.

I stream Darktide in Korea, and when new players visit my stream, the most common questions I get are:

  • “How should I spend my skill points?”

  • “Which weapons should I use?”

Most experienced players, myself included, end up answering:

“Just use whatever gear you get and focus on reaching level 30 first.”

That alone shows how little meaningful choice exists before level 30.

The real problem is that the journey to level 30 simply isn’t fun.

  • Low-difficulty missions often fail to match with real players, so new players are stuck with bots

  • Bots perform poorly and don’t help new players learn the game

  • After spending nearly 30 minutes in a mission, you gain only 1–2 levels

  • Your gear is still mostly unupgraded white weapons

One of my friends started as a Veteran, played several missions shooting the default lasgun alongside bots, got bored, and quit the game entirely.

Whether a player is brand new or doesn’t already have a level-30 character,
the early leveling experience needs to be faster and more enjoyable.

Possible improvements could include:

  • Significantly reducing the XP required to reach level 30

  • Unlocking all weapon types from the start (without upgrades, just for experimentation)

Even changes like these would likely help new players stay with the game longer.

After the recent update, I tried leveling Hive Scum using shared upgraded weapons, and even then it took several hours.
Personally, I found the experience exhausting and unpleasant.

This leveling issue should be addressed as soon as possible.

2. Server stability issues

Server problems have been reported since launch, yet they are still very noticeable.

  • Missions abruptly ending for unknown reasons

  • Frequent disconnects with error codes such as 2001, 2014, and 3013

  • Server-side calculations causing weapon swaps to fail, attacks to be ignored, or combos to behave inconsistently

These situations are especially frustrating because they are not caused by player mistakes, yet still waste time and effort.

Given that these problems have persisted for years,
server stability clearly needs more attention.

3. Performance and optimization

This is, in my opinion, the most serious issue.

  • Even on high-end PCs, frame times are unstable

  • Lowering graphics settings often does not prevent stuttering or frame drops

  • Performance issues become especially noticeable during large enemy waves in Auric or Havoc missions

Despite applying every known optimization tip since launch, the improvements are minimal and feel more like temporary workarounds.

Additionally:

  • “Out of memory” errors occur even when plenty of system memory is available

  • Players are forced to add launch commands via Steam to mitigate this issue

Considering that the game struggles to run smoothly even on systems that meet the recommended specs,
optimization is an area where Fatshark should invest significantly more effort.

4. Forum bug-report visibility

This point specifically concerns the bug report section of the forum.

  • Even when a report is marked as acknowledged, there is no way to tell whether it is actively being worked on

  • Some bugs take months to be resolved, if they are fixed at all

It would be very helpful to have a public status board showing:

  • Bugs currently being fixed

  • Bugs planned for later

  • Bugs acknowledged but not scheduled

This kind of transparency would reduce frustration and improve trust between the developers and the community.

12 Likes
The Book of Grudges: Because Fatshark Won't Listen
The Book of Grudges: Because Fatshark Won't Listen
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Yes, also Backfill & Audio issues are at the top of the list for me still.

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just one of my posts on leveling a new character and doing the mastery clicktide. it’s really tedious for advanced players.

as for the audio issues, realistically i don’t see them changing the sound engine, so issues will probably remain as long as the game spawns so many enemies because they’re killed in an instant.

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Veteran players should be able to play future classes at level 30 from the getgo.

4 Likes
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I remember I got the game at launch but never really played until much later when the initial talent revamp launched. If leveling didn’t take long I’d probably have actually played for a good while longer.

1 Like
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Give all difficulties the same xp and crafting material reward as auric, incentivizing people to play harder difficulties just for rewards instead of for the challange is a bad idea anyway.

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thats the only issue I have with “faster leveling”

even by today’s length of reaching 30, the majority in auric maelstrom is clueless even about the basic map layouts.

if it’s the first character, the game (instead of prolonging the lvl up process) should have mandatory “balance checks”

*find room x on map y in z minutes

*block, parry, dodge x times in a row

etc

to show you at least got the fundamentals down before joining others on a level you’re potentially unfit for.

after that the new guy in question, if not 100% in control of what his character and loadout could put out, is following the main momentum without being a roadblock ever so often.

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