Heya,
This has issues.
The performance I was getting out of this was not good. Not at all to my satisfaction. For context, I disabled Ray Tracing and all that other stuff, put everything on low and or turned it off, set worker threads to 18 - still, I couldn’t get the performance I desired. Which is 100 fps. In contrast I’m able to consistently maintain a steady 140+ FPS for Vermintide 2 (with small dips during hordes) on low settings utilizing dx11. Similarly, in Deep Rock Galactic, however, unlike Vermintide 2, I can maintain a buttery smooth 140+ FPS with graphics set to their maximum value utilizing dx12.
This is super important to get right. This isn’t a single player game, or walking simulator, or an isometric RPG. Where it’s okay to have expensive details at the cost of performance. This is a challenging fast paced cooperative game where you’re expected to play your best in order to succeed at higher difficulties (lest face getting kicked). Someone whose accustomed to playing at 100 fps will struggle at a lower fps that isn’t consistent, thus they won’t be able perform mechanically as well as they need to not hold fellow players back. “Tide”-games aren’t that type of game where it’s okay to have expensive visual fidelity at the cost of performance. I can’t stress that enough.
I play my first person shooters comfortably at 100fps with low settings ; read not medium, not high, not ultra high; just super low. If you can’t hit that generous benchmark we have a serious problem.
On that note. The graphics setting page was not as robust as I had hoped. Didn’t allow me to truly fiddle around as much as I’d hope.
Now I am going to share with you my PC specifications then share two videos I’ve recorded with fps counter enabled so you can see for yourself how the performance is, and judge if this is adequate.
My computer specs are as follows:
- Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 Ti
- 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-12700KF, 3600 Mhz, 12 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)
- 32 GB RAM
- 453 GB SSD
- Windows 11
I’ve also downloaded and installed the recent driver for my GPU: version 526.98
If you need additional information on my setup don’t hesitate to ask.
First video is me walking around the hub base after finishing the prologue:
Second video is actual gameplay (frame drops during hordes were down to 50s that is unacceptable):
I personally didn’t find the performance acceptable for a First Person Shooter such as this. So, besides that, how did I like the game? Well. I can’t say my experience was enjoyable. My feedback will be categorized into three main sections: Worst, Annoying, Mildly irritating. Let’s start with the Worst:
The gameplay is most certainly not as fluid as Vermintide 2.
- Dodging is very awkward compared to Vermintide;
- Weapon switching isn’t as “snappy” as Vermintide;
- Melee felt unsatisfying as did ranged;
- Pushing through blocking consumes stamina;
- No function to lean out of cover;
To elaborate further on the above, the dodge range with certain weapons felt very inconsistent and quite frankly, clunky to operate. Certain melee actions consuming stamina is bad and just serves to limit the player. With the presence of this system. The fluidity of the combat system which was achieved masterfully in Vermintide is lost on this game. Additionally, and this is the most grievous of problems for me, there is no function to lean out of cover. In a game where cover utilization is used to defend against heavy enemy fire: you can’t peek out of cover to line shots. F.E.A.R had this. As have multiple First Person Shooters that use a cover system.
Vermintide 2 at least had the good excuse of granting certain classes the ability to stealth in order to quickly line shots up during horde rush. For instance, Huntsman and Ranger. What’s the excuse here?
To put this into perspective, I have over one thousand hours in Vermintide 2:
Beat every single map on Cataclysm with random people. Got every hero to their maximum level cap. Completed all Chaos Waste trials on Cataclysm. I’ve been playing that game since the day it first launched.
The reason why I brought that up isn’t to stroke my ego, no, but to quickly invalidate any mentions of my concerns being a skill issue. I’ve seen both developers and players use that card to dismiss legitimate issues when they’re brought up in such a manner. This is bad. Let’s not do that. My concerns are legitimate.
So with that in mind. How is combat in Vermintide and why do I feel Darktide is a regression. Well, Vermintide has this rhythmic approach, where you side step enemies, weaving attacks in-between, watching out for specials that may spawn during the incursion; quickly switching to ranged in order to dispatch special units within a timely manner; while dodging in between to avoid enemy attacks; it’s this exquisite, exotic, dance of death that not a lot of games can boast. It’s both fluid to operate, satisfying to play.
I got none of that in Darktide. That’s not good.
Moving along, the Annoying:
- Keybindings were reset after I finished prologue;
- No ability to modify crosshair;
- Third person in hub;
Some details I’d like to add. Vermintide 2 gave you the ability to disable crosshair for melee and ranged, or leave melee off, and ranged on, or turn them both off. Whichever you desire. Can’t do that here. I hate that. I don’t very much enjoy having a stupid dot in my face when I’m in melee. It ruins immersion and gets on my nerves. I usually like it off during melee. Though, I do like having it on for ranged weapons since it makes hip firing more accurate. The ability to tune this is important to me. Third person in hub - again, why? I hate that too. Operating the game in third person feels very awkward and super annoying. The character uses a whole different movement scheme than that in first person. Let me use first person. Or give me the ability to switch between the two with the press of a button.
Lastly, the Mildly Irritating:
- No scoreboard;
- Ugly Faces;
- I miss Ubersreik Five;
How in the year of 2022 do we not have sliders to sculpt our own character models? You made a big deal about us creating our characters. Yet you provided us with your own presets instead of letting us create our own characters. Speaking of which, those presets aren’t satisfactory. I was looking at the presets and I didn’t like them. None of the presets were good enough for me to truly call my own. All the female faces looked like men. Ew. I ended up rollin’ a dude in this. At least the dudes look way more cooler than I thought they’d be. Could have benefited from some more super manly beards and Warhammer like hairstyles though.
Finally, to wrap this up in a neat package. Bring the Ubersreik 5 back! Their voice acting is phenomenal. The synergy. Flavor. Banter. The quips! God the quips! The Enthusiasm. Party dynamic. It’s just not the same in Darktide. Darktide’s feels so dry and boring; like white noise to brain organ, which is to say, it’s quite forgettable.
While I could hear remnants of Ubersreik 5 cast in Darktide. It’s just doesn’t convey the same character. I fell in love with Saltzpyre, Kruber, Bardin, Witch, and Elf. I’ve memorized their lines into my brain banks. I adored how they’d banter with each other. Their interactions with each other. Each line of dialogue a masterclass of both good writing followed by phenomenal voice acting.
Sometimes the voice actors would even inspire me during boss fights or horde rushes. Pushing me into a frenzy where I get super excited and start laughing like an absolute maniac as I hack enemies down. I had none of those feelings from Darktide. Heck, I can’t even remember one dialogue bit, other than that embarrassing, “we are warriors” segment from prologue - no offense I didn’t like it.
With all of that said. I did have one crash during opening cinematic. I was fiddling with Afterburner to get fps data and the game crashed. Crash log:
GUID: 2d211408-4130-4720-867d-ca1efa45cd51
Log File:
Info Type:
[-----------------------------------------------] ← I put brackets 'cause it looked weird on here
[-----------------------------------------------]
Crash Link:
crashify://2d211408-4130-4720-867d-ca1efa45cd51
Also. Not sure if I missed it, but I’d like the option in setting to make my character build private. Vermintide 2 had this and I greatly appreciated it. Also an option to disable text chat too.
K’ thanks bye
Sincerely,
Headphones that rest on Asuka’s head