that was my concern in the other thread as well that a good portion of those “making due” drop out silently.
come to think of:
i literally took 4 weeks unpaid in addition to 2 weeks regular vacation and most of the time the modifiers in question were a “no-show”
and this was me having almost full reign over my spare time.
and to think that further i got a good slogan for a shirt:
i spent a month on atoma and all i got was this lousy modifier 
A very fair point to bring up!
As I said in the other thread, if you search the forums about mission selection you will find a lot of people that are no longer active
I say run an official poll. Run lots of official polls about things. Everyone knows about the 90-9-1 rule; 90% of users of a social media lurk, 9% remix, 1% create. Same applies to pretty much everything; the users of this forum, of the Steam forums (wretched may they be), of the Discord, are a small fraction of people with opinions.
Most folk don’t care enough to take the time out of their day to start or contribute to a discussion. They’re going to complain about it with their inner circle only and maybe drop the game earlier than they otherwise would have.
A poll, though? That’s a lot easier to interact with. Takes like two minutes tops to submit a response and get your feedback at least looked at, if not heard.
Take some notes, see what people are grumping about, try to get as accurate a picture as you can, then run a big freakin’ poll smack dab on the launcher and announce it everywhere to get as much data as you can. I think it’d genuinely help.
I think a map free for all will just mean that 90% of people run “The Screaming Bell” equivalent; e.g. TRS-150. Easily doable in 20 minutes.
Opposing view;
The map right now has no obvious meaning nor semblance that any cohesive strategy is being played out. So - an idea:
On the map 360 : allocate each level a specific SECTOR so it has a geographic placing on the map. We have this already based on the Habzones etc.
Different sectors will have differing enemy specials, weather conditions, high/low intensity activity. These are non-controllable by players; they’re determined by the engine.
Players can then choose which of the (4/5/6) mathematical sectors they want based on the conditions, then simply choose their skill level. Each sector would have Maelstrom conditions as the equivalent of “level 6” but the terms of each would be different.
The premise behind this is to mimic more realistic world conditions. Some areas might have a power failure. Some might have sandstorms. Some might be more important to the enemy.
Regardless; we have all the maps on the board, with pre-chosen conditions. But simply choose our level (1-5) going in to it.
Reason I suggest this:
Quite possibly I’ve overlooked something. But there you go as a starter for 10.
Sounds a lot like Deep Rock Galactic to me, but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Though, I’m more interested in what’s fun and being able to play what I want to play rather than any meaningful story tie-in here.
To me, what is most important is variety. Some people only care about playing Maelstorm or HiSTG, I would like more diversity in the modifiers and a torch for Ogryn to play blackout missions. Being able to select that one particular map is not so important for me, as long as I’m not forced to do it consecutively. (I never was).
An example poll has been appended to the post.
I want that pLaYeR aGeNcY that Fatshark was talking about a year ago.
Freedom to choose mission + modifier is always better than random only. Though random should be selectable also, like when you press shuffle when listening to music.
And if anyone thinks otherwise they are wrong.
Excellent post!
I’ve seen feedback about how the mission board was used to combat running the shortest maps on repeat, and to combat this is… Keep the mission board, but give them a bonus for choosing a mission off the board and a larger bonus for quickplay.
This let’s players see what’s on the board and decide if it’s what they want and if not they can play a custom game or quickplay.
Edit: also, it wasn’t an option in the poll but the only randomness I’d want in the custom game is the option to randomize modifiers. Like, I’d pick the mission and difficulty and then instead of customizing what modifiers i want, I’d hit “start with random modifiers” or something and then get put into the mission.
I like the randomness but just want more choices. Only 1 maelstrom mission is awful, there needs to be at least 2 or even 3 maelstrom options.
And normal missions are not random enough, most of the times there is only 3 different modifiers available out of 5? different missions…(if you dont count heresy)
The ideal map select for me would look like this :
Current system literally makes it so I can’t play with my friends because the stuff they want is at the mercy at the board so half the time our sessions are cut short because there’s no missions for them to play so yea me thinks missions select is VITAL, every other game has been able to do it why not darktide
it is the most gut wrenching feeling, checking dtfilter and seeing no I-II on a functional event spawn map.
This is a massive wall of text, so I’ll just save everybody some time and drop the TL;DR up here now. The mission board is not a substitute for good map and modifier design. Good map and modifier design is how you get people to play a healthy variety of missions and have fun doing it.
I almost always hit the quickplay button in video games when given the option, but I still notice there are maps and modifiers that are more fun than others. I enjoy playing a variety of missions and don’t want to play the same mission back-to-back, but sometimes on the mission board there is only one (or even zero!) mission that looks fun, and I end up manually queuing into that mission to dodge the particularly bad maps/modifiers (or just not playing). Then when I finish that mission, the mission board sometimes still hasn’t rerolled the missions, so I feel forced to manually queue into the same mission again. Ironically, the system designed to make sure players don’t play the same missions leads to situations where a player (who would otherwise just quickplay) plays the same missions.
I believe this issue is two-fold. One: the lack of player agency and only having a limited set of missions available means that missions people would rather not play get overrepresented. Two: there are maps and modifiers that people would rather not play or would rather play over all else to a significant degree. The first issue is directly caused by the mission board and the second issue is an issue that would occur regardless, as it is a problem with certain maps and modifiers.
I won’t touch on the first issue because I would just be saying things others have already said. I will talk about the second problem, however. Whether we have a mission board or mission selection, the maps and modifiers need to be fun for people to want to play them. If a map or modifier isn’t being picked because it isn’t enjoyable, trying to force somebody to play it doesn’t solve the core issue. In that case, you’d have to take a look at potential issues with it and try to solicit feedback on it to work with. Of course, the opposite problem could be occurring in that one map or modifier is significantly more fun than the others and you’d have to look into bringing the others up to par with it (or maybe even trim some fat with the excess modifiers, wink wink).
I’ve seen people bring up farming Screaming Bell in VT2, and I believe that is another consideration when designing a map and modifiers if you have varying rewards for completing them. If people trying to min-max rewards only pick one mission, it’s giving disproportionately high rewards for how easy/quick it is. As with mission enjoyment, the opposite issue can occur where a map and modifier combo gives disproportionately low rewards. Some may argue that the drive for playing at a certain difficulty should be solely a player’s enjoyment and players shouldn’t feel forced to go into a higher one for better/more time effective rewards, and I see the validity in that as well.
Another problem is, if there are builds that completely nullify a modifier, some players will abuse them and the players that want to experience the modifier don’t get to and thus avoid the modifier to avoid the disappointment. That is a conversation for a balancing discussion, so I’ll just mention it and leave it at that. A lot of issues tie in to each other when you take a closer look.
The mission board was theoretically supposed to fix this issue of people only wanting to play specific maps or modifiers back-to-back, yet it still rears its ugly head because it does not address the root cause of that problem. The mission board is not a substitute for well-designed maps and modifiers. Of course, you will always have people that only want to play one thing or min-max rewards, but you can minimize this with maps and modifiers that are all enjoyable.
Funnily enough, while the mission board is seen as a band-aid fix to this, I think mission selection would be a better band-aid fix, as the fun maps and modifiers will be more proportionately represented and it would give Fat Shark much needed information on what maps and modifiers need some development love based on what players pick or not (of course, player feedback would still need to be gauged, but it’s an extra [or more accurate] tool in the toolbox).
As for any specific suggestions for map selection options (and I am all for map selection, even as a quickplayer), keep quickplay and maybe add some filters to quickplay. I am willing to suck it up and play some maps or modifiers that aren’t particularly fun or fill up lobbies with missions that are less popular, but there are some even I just want to completely avoid (I’m looking at you; Lights Out, Vent Purge, and anything that doesn’t at least have high-intensity). Another suggestion is to have two randomization buttons for map and modifier where you can see what it rolled and decide if you like what you get for each. This would be for people who are looking for something in-between quickplay and choosing each detail of the mission themselves.
That’s way too complex and would dilute playerbase too much.
Im sorry, my idea is “too complex” but being able to choose any mission in the game with any number and mix of modifiers in the game is just fine?
My idea is literally the middle ground between the thing most people are asking for and what we have now.
There are now 10 000 average players online on steam alone, and with PS on the way. And ALSO i imagine the number will increase even further once mission terminal gets a rework.
There is no way it would “dilute them too much” as there is an abundance of players right now.
I would prefer full freedom followed by the more interesting difficulty modifiers from VT2 and Twitch mode.
The VT2 inspired difficulty modifiers / deeds should not be tied to random drops, but simply available at all times from a drop down menu.
But are diluting even more, not only choosing different missions but even the operators, plus starting a game should not require than one click.
Before i say anything, let me make sure first.
Do you belong to the major “i want 100% player freedom and want to choose anything and everything myself” faction?
Because you sound like you are, but at the same time you’re criticizing only my idea for things that the original idea is even more guilty of.
What exactly do you want?
I am literally just asking for 13 (20 if you include the heresy missions) different missions on the
auric mission terminal. The operator thing can be decided via a vote when the mission starts (pretty sure 90% of people will pick hadron and Kayex-8 anyway :P)
The people here, are asking for being able to choose any and every mission, modifier, operator and difficulty.
That is not 20 different missions, that is thousands of different missions. Thousands of people all picking and choosing different stuff and yet MY version is diluting too much?
To chime in here myself on the subject:
I’ve never really had an issue with the mission board. So many missions share so many parts of the same levels, and the names are all so cryptic, that I genuinely can’t keep track of them.
Generally when I’m looking for missions, I’m partied up with friends from a playgroup that I know well, and am picking a mission everyone will have fun with. There aren’t any missions I detest to the point where I won’t play them, or love so much that I want to run them all the time. Usually I’m looking at how long I think the run will take and if any modifiers are on the mission that may make it more or less fun, and often will toss a couple alternatives to the group to see what people want to play. I don’t really care about penances so typically I’m not choosing missions just for that, and I’m not actively avoiding or trying to play specific levels.
As such, the mission board works for me and the way I typically play. If just presented with a full menu selection of maps/modifiers/missions, that would be a lot of analysis paralysis that would probably result in people playing a lot of the same thing repeatedly over mixing things up. I do appreciate that aspect of the current system. Being able to tell the squad “hey we’ve got 3 missions up for the difficulty we want to play, here’s what they look like, which one of these three are people feeling?” is way easier than trying to build a consensus among up to 4 different people for which of the two dozen maps and seven mission types and 17 special condition or 15 Maelstrom modifiers people may want to play.
However, I do get that some people want to grind for penances, or who may really like or hate certain levels or modifiers. I particularly get it for people who tend to play the game more solo than with groups of friends. The mission board is another aspect of the RNG that got woven into literally every aspect of this game, and I get that can be frustrating on some levels.