I’ve seen you use this Dark Souls vs Bloodborne example many times within this forum and it isn’t relevant in the context of ‘things Vermintide did better than Darktide’, as a matter of fact I feel a little perspective is much needed here. Before we begin, I’ll frame my view on the matter as thus: this isn’t a preferential discussion, as you so like to frame it, indeed these are changes that are well documented and can be proven to be irrefutable downgrades to the 'tide gaming experience - I suppose the subjectivity lies on how you interpret these ‘downgrades’ and whether or not you find the changes to be a meaningful divergence from Vermintide, however, I digress.
Nonetheless, to contrast your Dark Souls vs Bloodborne instance, the improvements made on to Bloodborne directly improved the Souls experience in meaningful ways. Unlike Fatshark, Fromsoft innovates upon its formula in order to alleviate the Souls experience to a higher form in respective to Dark Soul. Said innovations always inspire to move the formula forward in interesting ways facilitating a unique experience different from the prior game. From the first Dark Souls to Bloodborne, Sekiro, then Elden Ring. The key thing to note: Fromsoft excels at keeping the core experience familiar enough to its fans while also bringing about new changes that enhance the experience for old fans whilst inciting newcomers. It’s a great design. Monster Hunter employs this type of design as well - the main thing is not to alienate your fans.
In regards to Bloodborne, combat was made more fluid than Dark Soul through a variety of modifications to the Souls formula. Characters can perform fast dodging maneuvers within combat called quick stepping. Replenishing health was made faster, this served to not take the player out of the action, however HP gained back is slower. Weapon swapping was also heavily encouraged in order to execute parries or combos to break enemy guard. Additionally, switching weapons was fast, fluid, and didn’t impede on the flow of action. Another thing is that the player was incentivized to trade more aggressively with the enemy in order to get health back. This all meant that the game rewarded aggressive play over slow methodical play; in some cases it punished you if you were to play like Dark Soul, due to the simple fact that enemy attacks were faster and can easily overwhelm you, if you were not careful. The point in all of this is precisely that these changes didn’t impact the game in a negative way. The developer figured out interesting ways to balance out all of these new mechanics without impacting the player experience.
The Bloodborne vs Dark Souls form of argumentation is not applicable here because Darktide doesn’t really do anything that’s meaningful enough to diverge from Vermintide, besides being set in the 40k universe. We lost the in-depth melee system in exchange for a mediocre shooty shoot, that one can even argue isn’t as good as other fps games out in the market, and a slew of systems that don’t interact well with each other nor with the pre-existing melee framework.
Lastly, this specific quote stands out as baffling to me. As I mentioned, people have documented the downgrades from Vermintide to Darktide, more specifically the clunkiness associated with weapon swapping. See:
And:
It’s hard to take your comments on Darktide as genuine when you make these outrageous claims in defense of the game. I understand you like Darktide and I also understand that sometimes seeing someone criticize something you like isn’t great. However, it’s unbecoming seeing an individual suspend their critical thinking facilities to make silly claims in order to defend a game. Part of being a productive fan is to accept and acknowledge the faults of one’s favorite thing; not to hold it to some unattainable pedestal immune from criticism. This is the process of how we get better gaming experiences. This is how we improve. By poking at faults, acknowledging those faults, then giving feedback on how we can do better. Compromises then need to be made with that feedback in consideration while also managing to toe the line of design intent - whatever that may allude to.