I wanted to share some suggestions and feedback on the Looting, Crafting, and the extra Mission Objectives. I know some of this has been talked about a lot, but I want to put my thoughts up front, because these i
Automatic Material and Ammo Acquisition: Running around to open boxes for materials and ammo can be a bit disruptive to the flow of the gameplay. I propose that materials and ammo should be automatically gained upon enemy kills. This change would streamline the experience and keep the focus on combat and teamwork. As it is, the team often gets divided by the course of action that an individual feels the need to focus on, whether that’s collecting materials, or collecting ammo. On higher difficulties, there are many players who don’t grab crafting materials; there are builds not reliant on ammo which will often to be careful not to leave an ammo collector behind. The current design leads to conflicts of interest. Also, Medipacks and Ammo Crates could likewise drop on Monster kills or rarely on certain elite/special kills; perhaps with a cooldown so that 1 will only drop occasionally if the mission modifier has tons of specials/elites/monsters.
Streamline Crafting System: The current crafting system relies heavily on RNG, which can be frustrating when trying to create the perfect item. Instead, consider replacing RNG with a system where players can purchase the exact stats, perks, and blessings they want for their gear. This would allow for more strategic and intentional character development. The current system leads to burnout when players get stuck with only a few viable builds for playing on higher difficulties.
Special Mission Objectives: Co-op play is the crux of Darktide’s appeal. However, playing with random players can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and disagreements, especially when it comes to loot and Grimoires. To foster a more cooperative environment, as mentioned earlier, materials and ammo could be automatically distributed to the team, and the Grimoires could be replaced with more mission modifiers, similar to deeds and Chaos Wastes curses from Vermintide 2. These changes would encourage teamwork and minimize potential disputes over what objectives to focus on. The most fun mission objectives are ones that add a reward and difficulty modifier that makes for a fun challenge, not stuff like Grimoires on Auric where players are divided on whether to take them or not. Tomes are somewhat less divisive, but even still, nobody likes to have to focus on looting in the middle of a mission.
As time goes on, the majority of players who stick with this game will want to play on the most rewarding difficulties and if the crafting system is holding them back from experimenting with more viable builds then it will lead to burnout. Additionally, those who have all the materials and loot they want will always be at odds with those who do not want to loot; simply making pickups for loot tied to killing enemies automatically fixes that issue and if Grimoires/Tomes are replaced with more exciting mission modifiers and objectives, then it will further alleviate the issue of players having conflicting goals.
If these three issues were fixed, I would probably be playing Darktide more and recommending it to others, but as is, for now it’s just me and my two others who’ve played a lot longer and now only play semi-regularly and I can tell from their constant frustrations and venting while playing the game, it’s leading to burnout.
If everything was acquired automatically, there would be no reason to get off the direct path through the mission, except for evasion of shooters or fire.
Instead of exploration in every match, there would be no exploration as soon as you know the shortest path through the map.
Large sections of all maps would be wasted.
Splitting up and searching for ressources and ammo, is part of the gameplay and part of the difficulty, because it is a potential risk.
Ammo being a collectible (as it is now) also comes with the benefit of being able to choose when you pick it up, as well as being able to choose who picks it up.
Players are rewarded for their awareness.
It also makes ammo management more interesting.
If the team’s focus is to get as many materials as possible and they automatically drop from enemies, then ignoring large swaths of the map would lead to less materials; so it doesn’t make sense to me that you’d see that as an issue.
Splitting up and searching for ammo and resources doesn’t add much to the game at all for me. Sticking together and focusing on an objective is more cohesive and leads to less disruptions.
Ammo distribution on kills or headshots can be tied to talents or weapons to alleviate the need to constantly run around grabbing things disrupting the flow of game play and without having to choose who gets it and when which can also occasionally lead to disputes and disruptions when playing with randos in quick-play.
Having gameplay that incentivizes the team to seek out different objectives is not great for co-op play to me.
If you consider pickups a “fun challenge” and not a tedious minute action that has to be taken amidst the main fun: killing waves of enemies, then I think there are a lot of games better suited to someone who gets a dopamine hit from grabbing bits of loot.
Ah, another “you should be playing the game only this way” thread.
Your ideas are all about cutting everything from the game that you don’t want.
You’re claiming burnout problems, but no games (and no session-based games too) are endless, you play it when it’s fun and then you don’t when it isn’t. That’s all there is. Reshaping a game to be viable “endlessly” either caters to very exquisite tastes and to a minor amount of potential players or protracts its real length via grinding or virtual casino (or both at once).
And I’m really glad DT isn’t going the latter way. The former it simply won’t go, no respectable game designer would cut out parts of its own relatively popular game only to make a 1-2% of current players potentially go “squeee” for a time (and likely not even that).
The burnout was talking about is related to grinding for viable builds do to the RNG crafting which is extremely unpopular.
None of what I said is an attempt to make the game an endlessly playable game for a minority of players. By making a co-op game less divisive by shaping the missions around objectives that all players can focus on together, I doubt will sap any of the fun you’re having away. I don’t understand the appeal of having an excessive amount of little pickups to have to search for. To me it’s busy work and this argument to keep it on the basis it makes the game more challenging and not tedious just comes off as contrarian.
That’s hypocrisy since you’re telling me I should play with the game as you desire it to be; I wasn’t telling you how to play, I was suggesting that if looting adds so much to the game for you, perhaps there are games you’d prefer. I’m asking to shift the focus from loot searches more to the combat aspects of the game. To me that’s where the challenge and fun is.
Let me ask, is there a middle ground here? Would you be okay with less looting by consolidating more of it into fewer pickups or splitting it between enemy drops and pickups?
This is definitely going to be the hot button issue of this thread, so I’m going to go over your other 2 points and then come back to this one:
I think 95-99% of people agree with this, and I am one of them. @brosgw is this brave soul already amongst the list of martyrs?
I really agree with this. I really don’t like the Tome/Grimoire system and I didn’t like it in VT 2 either, although it was so much better because they were in predetermined spots. I think just changing the Grimoire debuff to a modifer with increased rewards would be much better and would let people either opt in or out from the get go.
I’m not going to ramble on for too long about this, however I agree with you 50/50 on this. I don’t think crafting materials should be scavenged for, or at least the majority of them. Having a base rate of what you get at a mission completion amd maybe being able to find some small extras in the mission seems much better.
As for ammo? That’s a completely different story.
You already have the Vet Aura which regenerates ammo for your team and yourself. So on that front your idea is already in the game. However ammo is incredibly powerful in the right hands, and is a team resource. Having to coordinate ammo usage and pickups is a large part of the game and imo removing it actually reduces some of the teamwork. If I’m a zealot with a las pistol playing with a vet with a plasma gun, I’m going to prioritize giving “my” ammo pickups to them because they need it more and are more effective with them. If all ammo was generated automatically, then you couldn’t have this dynamic of certain players “giving up” their ammo share to players who can use that ammo better.
However I will say for Ogryn Gun Lugger, especially the Burst Limiter Overide keystone needs a way to generate small amounts of ammo for itself. If you make a full ranged ogryn build, but run out of ammo at the end mission you are completely gimped and are just playing a bad melee Ogryn. I don’t think it should be anything insane, just something to keep their ranged weapons relevant the whole game.
I did prefer the crafting resources being an end of mission reward like in VT2 cause the number of pickups in Darktide seems excessive compared to Vermintide.
I’d also like more ammo blessings and talents like Vermintide’s weapon traits and some of the career talents.
I think Darktide’s number of pickups is a bit excessive and tedious.
#2- 100% #3- Yeah I don’t like grims and scriptures much, but especially grims. Something to replace it like chests of trials or event random events like DRG would be cool. We could have it be a modifier but it seems like there’s a lot of em already.
#1- Yeah I don’t like rummaging around for ammo and crafting too much. I understand the concerns of ammo and ammo regen and scavenging. I will say when I play psyker I definitely look in boxes a lot less. I would say for this one we could keep some of this but change the spawn rates/amounts. Don’t add so many yellow containers that are empty. Maybe reduce the amount of stuff to pick up but increase their value.
This would be a reasonable solution as well. Hurts going off the beaten path to find a 3 wide chest, open it up and have nothing, or even worse 1 small diamantine cache. Because it’s insulting how useless it is.
I 100% agree with this, but I find using Stamina to sprint about looking at the floor isn’t really enjoyable. Especially if you’re playing a Class that doesn’t have much Stamina. Then you have to watch other people ignoring loot and get it yourself, but in slow-motion.
Part of your ability to craft is dependent on other people doing something in the match, or getting left alone and dying, because you have to do it yourself.
If there was some other reason to go into those areas, then it would be good.
You could have a horde of enemies surrounding a hoard of loot that you have to kill. Elites specific to gathering mats. Bag Rats from V2 come to mind, but an enemy that could fight would cause those areas to be used for longer durations.
As a newcomer to DT, I dislike pretty much every part of the gearing system, including the looting process.
E.g. Currently the halloween event on Vermintide 2 has summoning circles in a certain part of the map, where a Mini-Boss is spawned if you disrupt them.
Yeah I mean, even just for the systems to make more sense and be less “gamified”. Rare resources like ammo, crafting, and grenades the heretics would want too. Maybe not med packs or medicae since pappa Nurgle probably doesn’t want them healing that way.
Like, would the people of tertium and the heretics who have moved in suddenly leave grenades and ammo in unlocked crates strewn about? They would probably stockpile them similar to ammo crates from VT2. Seeing heretics dragging a crate of ammo would be interesting. Pox walker hoard toying with grenades and chewing on them in the dark. They could probably do more interesting and engaging ways of grabbing loot. Do the heretics craft gear and care about plastic and diamonds? Or do they just dunk their weapons in sewer filth and pray so hard it comes out better?
