Darktide is a great game to hop on to blow off some steam, there is really nothing else like it, extremely cathartic game to play.
But I often feel I don’t want to because of the amount of time a mission takes, which I usually feel compelled to see through to the end which typically means 35-45 minutes depending on the map and difficulty.
The train mission is fantastic for this hop on and blow off some steam style of playing, but I rarely see it on the mission board.
I’d like to see more shorter missions in general, not just the train mission.
I’d guess the map makers might appreciate this too as it means they don’t need to construct quite as much map.
yeah I also find that I kinda wanna swap loadouts more when playing nowadays, which feels like you do a lot less of in long games. you get a couple rounds total unless you play late, so you gotta make hard choices (if you like playing everything in the game and not just x weapon or y character).
this is also a better candidate for seperate queues than stuff like the twins imo, maybe throw them in there too so they could actually get played.
This mainly, about the only time I see a mission approaching 45 minutes is the times where I actively get 3 additional rejects on my team in Auric Damnation (3 fresh level 30’s with no idea what they are doing) and I’m dragging them kicking and screaming to the finish line in the Smelter Complex or similar style ‘wide open end area with little cover that tends to eat people less experienced alive’.
A vast majority of my games are 20-30 minutes, often landing somewhere in between. With how OP we are these days, steam rolling through has largely become the norm, and on lower difficulties one can force that time table even more just by themselves if they are wanting it.
About the only difficulty that actively always takes this or even greater amounts of time is high level havoc, which is anything but cathartic or chill so I just assume this isn’t what the OP is refering to. If it is, then I do suggest just playing Auric Damnation’s or Heresy’s (depending on skill level), and one should probably see not nearly as long clear times more often than not.
Though, all that being said, a few shorter maps that don’t have a timer on them doesn’t seem like a bad idea either. I’m just in the camp of ‘I hate all the dang load screens and only getting a youtube video length of gameplay between each one makes me mald’, so I’d prefer such a thing come with some optimization changes. But we all know that isn’t happening/the devs are in to deep with these tide engines already and are very unlikely to ever pull their way out, so getting to actually ‘play the game’ longer is my preferred. I feel Mortis Trials was likely meant to be this kind of ‘quick finish’ mode based on breaking the characters even more and the speed run penance, but all the pauses and waiting for further waves I don’t think helps that/is conducive to that much.
Tbh I’m rather adverse to this, ideally seeing Rolling steel being reworked into a 2 segment mission (Locating the train and boarding it, and the current Rolling Steel mission.