Feels very late in the day for DT to make such huge changes. Why even bother when I’m sure the vast majority of players have already unlocked most things and are just frustrated at lack of freedom to play with the weapons blessings? Just unlock all the blessings and locks and keep the new itemisation for the inevitable DT2. Simples.
Then FS can spend that time on fun new gameplay content such as maps and weapons and we get to have much more ungrindy fun - which our hundreds of hours of playtime each proves…Absolutely no one is putting in hundreds of hours to grind the RNG system so clearly the gameplay is fun AF. We just want more gameplay (eg maps etc).
If that’s too simple (it’s not) then extremely simple options are available that they could implement in less than a day:
A) x10 on all future plasteel/material rewards and remove locks. This is so simple and obvious that it’s actually ridiculous.
B) greatly reduce the cost of hadrons services, and remove locks.
C) Melk no longer sells weapons. He now has all the weapons blessings on a nice big chart. You get to spend your melk currency on unlocking whichever you choose. They are much more reasonably priced than current nonsense prices. Any new blessings will appear in his blessing store. Then go to hadron and use them. His contract list is more expansive/fun and refreshes upon full completion. Remove locks.
D) allow buying of materials with dockets. Remove locks.
E) get rid of materials and use dockets for changes at hadron. Materials in maps now become packs of dockets. 3 random chests in each mission could be “golden stash” (x0.5 docket multiplier per golden stash found if you complete the mission). Would encourage looting. Remove locks.
I could keep going with these but they would all work and don’t need some fancy grind system.
Whatever you choose FS, please be less “scrooge mcduck” with materials costs in your game. The materials cost of changes in Hadron is so grossly unproportional to how much we earn from playing the game for huge amounts of time.
Remove locks.
TL;DR: Remove locks, give us loads more materials, and save the new itemisation for DT2 whilst making more maps/weapons for DT1.
Game is very likely launching on PS5 soon. There won’t be a DT2 for ages.
Removing locks would still mean RNG for blessing acquisition, which is about as poor a progression mechanic as you could ask for. It’s outside of the fun of the game, totally independent of skill, and can theoretically last forever with no way to mitigate. New weapons would be new pain.
Contrast that with the new system’s progression: new weapon comes out, play with it to make it stronger and unlock everything for it.
The itemization update, in concept, is there for new and returning players to get to the point where they can start getting to the fun bits of the game and for veterans who have been slogging through the atrocious crafting to get to that point quicker.
We know, based off of their statements and actions throughout the 'Tide series, that they have no confidence in their gameplay, audio, or level design to hold players. They hold onto grind and RNG like it’s the only thing keeping people playing and (more importantly to the company) spending.
As long as the time to get to max isn’t atrocious and the contributions for ‘veterans’ are reasonable, this new system will be a net positive. I’m not convinced though that Fatshark are able to do that though. All we can do is wait and see.
Not if they just made all the blessings available as per my suggestion, or my other suggestion where melk has a whole chart of them and you use his currency to buy the ones you want, when you want. His contracts would be improved oc.
Even if they were still RNG - that’s my reasoning to requesting x10 materials rewards which is 1 line of code change. If we had loads more materials then the RNG pain would be insignificant.
What I can’t understand is that you came up with some actual lazy suggestions after FS came up with their own solution to the itemization problem with 2 years worth of feedback behind it and then think that they’d scrap it because one guy claimes that “we would’ve been happy with less”
I have unlocked everything I could want and I’d not be happy with less.
My 8 friends that quit over the itemization being nothing but pure BS were never going to return with less.
If you are adamant about your suggestions being solid, you must not understand what the actual problems were.
So instead of telling me to be quiet, have some introspection.
If your 8 friends said my suggestions wouldn’t bring them back then I guess it’s game over for me.
Maybe get off your high horse and reread what I actually wrote in the OP.
I have unlocked mostly what I want and whilst I thought the new itemisation was cool to begin with, after lots of consideration (and listening to others’ opinions) I believe it’s a misplaced energy when the problem (caused by grind) can be easily solved, allowing Fs to focus on true fun like maps and weapons.
The unfortunate truth is that it’s not so much “late in the day” as “this game was dropped several years early in an unready state to cash in on pre-order sales and is actually still under development”.
As has been noted, some Dev manager or C-Suite at Fatshark has a deep fetish for RNG and appears to believe that pulling slot machine levers is the only way to generate continued engagement, and nobody seems to get it through to them that generating that kind of Gacha-induced frustration is not an asset in this type of game.
Totally agree and by that distinction, it would be logical to assume that they want to keep RNG included whatever happens.
The easiest way to do this is simply to make the current system waaaay cheaper. So the horror of RNG grind is replaced with mere inconvenience - to have to roll lots (affordably) then delete the unwanted.
Loads more chances to win the good stuff via RNG is the easiest and quickest fix imo. Just give us loads of materials and we can play with the weapons blessings much easier and get on with enjoying the game with the weapons we want to use.
And remove locks so once we have a nice base weapon we no longer need to keep rolling weapon bases.
Edit: and by the sound of it, base rolls for weapons might still be RNG even in the new system.
JohnFatshark doesnt enjoy darktide and can not fathom the idea that people would play it for more than 50 hours thats why they keep force feeding us carrots and sticks
what’s the reason for having 4 currencies anyway? we rejects get paid dockets for missions, the plasteel and diamantine loot is converted to dockets that buy us shiny stuff, melk takes more dockets for his bling shop. done. will melk have any role after the rework?
Getting rid of materials all together and replacing crafting costs with dockets would really clean it all up a lot.
RE Melk - he barely has a job as it is. For me, he is just a blessing farm. If I see a blessing I need then I buy the weapon. I think this is likely the case for most people so why not just make him the blessing shop, and hadron the blessing applicator. He could have a nice blessing UI and his contracts could have a bit of TLC and refresh more. When new blessings are introduced then they’d simply be new additions to his shop, readily available to purchase.
Meatgrinder should have all blessings and all weapons available for testing at all times imo.
Naturally I did not ask my friends wether those changes would make them come back or not but I can tell you that they wouldn’t.
And I know this because your changes boil down to “just make everyone rich enough to allow them to gamble more!”
When the problem has always been that nobody (me, my friends and 500+ people in the most popular thread in this forum) wants to have to gamble.
Like I said, you missed what the actual problem was the entire time.
I also can’t understand the whole attitude of “it’s too late for universally beneficial and good changes”, it makes no sense.
Even I, who’ll likely have everything unlocked once this change comes around, will eventually benefit from it in several ways. Once my friends come back, I’ll have someone to play with again. When new content (here: weapons) drops, I have a far better experience getting and leveling them.
Even if in the current system I can likely throw enough resources into the grinder and get (close to) what I want, it still sucks that I have to do it this way.
What FS is doing is better than your suggested changes.
It is weird that they’re working on a critical core system this late into development. This should have been done on day one or the game should have been delayed. This late into development people would want maps, weapons, new classes, and so on. Just a reminder, here’s a timeline of content releases between Vermintide and Darktide:
^something went very, very, wrong with Darktide
The worst thing is Fatshark isn’t doing this because they care about the game or anything, they’re doing this because of the Playstation port; it’s cynical as heck, man.
