Look, I’m sure that HL-70-04 and HL-16-11 mean something in the 40k universe, but it’s just noise to me.
Then we have map names which hardly ever say anything about the location. What is Vigil Station Oblivium? What is a Consigment Yard? What is Comms-Plex? Enclavum Basoss?
In V1 and V2 I was quite quick remembering all map names. There were two I used to mix up, but that’s it. Now after 200 hours in Darktide I hardly ever know the map name of anything.
Like literally any opinion you can have, someone will come in here and tell me the map names are good, because of lore, but that is meaningless to the majority of players.
I feel like I would 100% remember the names of the maps more if I could actually pick the map I wanted to play. Right now, I just see the funny picture in the mission selector, click on it, and click start.
Yea, totally agree with the OP. I have over 700 hours and if you showed me a random image from a level, I could probably draw you a map of the rest of the level but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what’s called. In VT2, where I have about the same amount of hours, I’m pretty sure I could name every map from memory.
I recently tried introducing DT to a few people and they all bounced off it hard. One comment struck me, when after a mission someone just said, “it’s all so noisy and chaotic.” The name and purpose of the mission is unclear, then you have the mission giver on the vox blathering on about who knows what and none of it makes sense. And then the dialog between players is even more of it. The entire “narrative layer” of the gameplay just has no tether that people can relate to. It’s all random chaos and noise and so people don’t really get drawn in. These were VT2 vets by the way.
The meaning behind the names is obscured by the more esoteric use of English crossed with psuedo-Latin, which is standard 40k.
Vigil means to look out for or keep watch of, and a station is a central point, so its watching out for stuff (data collection).
A consignment is a shipment of something, so it is a collection and shipment point.
A communications complex.
An enclave used in the context of a neighbourhood or area, named after Enic Baross, an apparently famous Atoma military person.
Not that I am aware of, I think this is just how FS and Abnett (if he was involved in this part) created their nomenclature for the areas and missions taking place within them.
On the whole, I do agree with you that the naming is strange and it takes time to comprehend it. At least, it took me a long while to get the hang of it, but I never remember the XX-doodly-doo bits, only the mission names. They do fit for 40k’s theme, but FS should have taken a moment to explain the naming system somewhere because I was forever confused, knowing the missions only by short-hand in my head.
They can do it, as we got Rolling Thunder, which sums up the train mission as a rolling road setup.
I’m at 2.8k hours and I too barely know what each map is called. The ones with clear names like “Enclavum Baross” I can remember, especially when they talk about it using the name quite frequently throughout the mission dialogue. But if half the name is all numbers, forget about it. I just go by the pictures 99% of the time.
And yeah I get the comment RE “noise”. I’m not all that fussed about the narrative myself as long as it’s having fun killing enemies and doing "gameplay objective X” so I’m not so bothered by the soupy narrative but understand if people want a tighter mode.
As it’s a horde game with map rotation, the best way to do this would probably be to force new players to go from map to map in a particular order during their 1-30 xp journey.
This way people could place a map within the timeline in their head.
I entirely agree. I am also using the “Zip it” mod, because I honestly can’t stand most of the chatter going on. It’s all so immature, wanting to be quirky or something. Basically everyone from Mourningstar is insufferable. If these people were in an army of sorts in real life, they’d fail hard.
The playable character dialogues are great by the way.
It’s not your fault really. The original maps all tend to blend together because 1) they use obscure names 2) the map sets use the same texture set and 3) the sets tend to use the same location with a directional change. To this day I can’t name any of the surface/desert maps even though I’ve been playing since release.
The newer maps either contain a significant event that sets them apart (for example, completion of commsplex end event washes out the map in green light for a bit) or just are unique, so it makes them easy to remember. They still don’t escape the problem though, I still don’t know the names of the carnival missions, and just call them by what the end event is (i.e the stadium one, the stimms one, or the new one).
I think that all of these valid complaints stem from the fact that FS doesn’t seem to have a pragmatic approach when creating their game.
They suffer from a magnifier effect that made them focus on some aspects of the game, at the detriment of global coherence.
For example, definitions suck. If you are a random player with other interests than the game, and perhaps less passion than most WH lovers, you will not search and dig, or install mods, to understand what Bristleness is, or what Finesse truly does.
In short, fixing these issues will never be done by FS because that would mean to revise their entire approach of game design.
I believe it’s also a cultural issue within their studio, which terribly lacks of pragmatism.
Unless the head of FS changes, you will never have transparent map names, clear effects’ definitions or tooltips for your skills.
Sadly.
I can remember the region name and mission name for maybe 50-75% of the maps. Probably closer to 50%.
Past that, even at >1000 hours all I can do is describe each of the maps (well enough to tell them apart), but not name them.
I consider myself to have a decent mind for (useless) trivia as it relates to my hobbies. Like how I could tell you that Jango Fett’s father figure’s name was Jaster Mereel.
But in the same way I couldn’t tell you what the exact make and model number of every single ship that appeared on screen is, I sure as sh*t don’t remember a mission name like “HL-60-K4RK-70UR531F”. Especially when they are just different pathways through the exact same map.
I get why they re-used the same maps for multiple missions, but they should come up with way more unique names or monikers for missions as they relate to the objectives that are completed.
New ones are fine but the old ones really highlight how they thought it’d be a good idea to make all the areas indiscernible mishmash thematically. Coincidentally we’ve also been getting more unique maps without reused map parts (well, other than Dark Communion)
It was a total mistake to try and represent the vastness of the hive city via “you can’t tell one mission apart from another and you keep coming across the same places” because that is literally what makes Tertium feel so small. Fully unique stuff like Clandestinum Gloriana make Tertium feel huge
The problem runs deeper than maps just not having particularly memorable names.
A fair number of objectives are reused on maps.
Nearly all of the maps the game shipped with had rooms repeated between them.
It was intentional and the devs did not hide it. They mention it specifically in the now ages-old level design dev blog. It was supposed to help them release maps at a much faster pace.
Not sure what happened to that, but that was the idea.
As far as the names go, I never had trouble with them. You ignore the first bit, the jumble of letters and numbers. It’s the location’s address inside the hive if you are really interested and you can see similar designations on wall stamps and and signage throughout the levels that would be directing foot, car and train traffic in more ordinary times. But the actual names are all pretty unique once you drop that bit off.
I like the mundane naming of the maps, its true to the grim dark aspect of industrial outposts that serve no purpose other than its production, but for casual/gaming experience, yea they are terrible.