Officially taking a sick leave

[Hank_jw]

@Index

design team cant get 10 new enemies in a year ?

That’s slightly more than a month for an enemy. They require concept art, 3D modelling, animations, voice acting, gameplay design, visual and sound effects, lengthy and thorough playtesting, bugfixing…

You think all of this can fit in slightly more than a month? This process takes multiple months, half a year or more, for a single enemy. And the staff members you need to do this are also working on animations for new weapons, or voice direction for the NPCs and player characters, SFX for new maps, etc.

Fatshark has about 180 employees total. You can expect fully half of those to be non-development roles like HR, project management, community managers, marketing, finance, etc. They self-publish so those jobs aren’t filled by a parent company. So maybe 90 developers and artists and programmers, but maybe even less.

Then you subtract the VT2 team from the remaining developer count, who are smaller than DT as per Aqshy but still sizable.

You aren’t left with nearly enough manpower to make that much content in one year. The team is much smaller than you think. And Swedish salaries are expensive, so don’t think they can expand even more than they already have based on the Tide game revenue.

People expect a live service or a lifestyle game but that’s not what Fatshark can deliver. They have quarterly updates of varying sizes and content density, and the playercount ebbing between them is only natural.

EDIT: that said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fatshark could be way more efficient with their development process than they currently are. But that’s beyond my ken. Just looking at the numbers game and having been part of playtesting, I understand why the content pace is the way it is.

[MunKy]

Further proof to me that people really dont see how much work it takes to make a game, nevermind a single, fully fleshed out, high quality, well meshed, HD textured, professionally voiced and/or foleyed character or weapon.

Thats before bug fixing for variables that appear when released to the general public with their millions of combinations of software/hardware that affects things in often unforseen ways. Then we have balance to consider which is like trying to add more weights on to a see-saw with 100 fulcrums that already has a variety of weights on it.

Then someone comes along and says “pfft, its not enough” or “you guys SUCK at making games” etc.
Its a wonder some Devs stay so calm with people. I know I wouldnt.

I applaud constructive criticism, but I also think peeps should give FS a break sometimes and leave their malice outside.

[Index]

@MunKy

you guys SUCK at making games

@Index

if anything this should be read as a love letter to a game that is so good (personally speaking) i want second and third servings

only thing i was pointing out is :modifiers isnt “content” to keep people playing for a longer time.

i’m sure single player games go a different route, then again witcher 3 had 2 good dlcs while it was “hot”.
and yes maybe 10 times the personel.

if you want a real self centered opinion i’d say “can” vermintide 2 for the time being and get all hands on deck for darktide, instead of splitting a not very big workforce.

there i could see “malice”…

@Hank_jw

People expect

personally, as stated above, i “expect” nothing and and am fully aware it aint gonna happen.
what i dont accept though is naming a number twisting mode “content” that gets longetivity in any ways.

[Unavailable]

this game needs more lvls to explore it has needed more levels to explore almost since it released. You can say whatever you want but that does not change the fact that the game will get stale if they dont turn out more levels.

All the other stuff they used dev time for was a waste if they dont turn out more maps. They shouldve been working on that from the start and never stopped… maybe then they wouldve kept more of the player base from release.

[Heretical_Cactus]

@Hank_jw

The team is much smaller than you think

And there might still be the possibility of longer duration works.

If we take VT2 as example, we have Chaos Waste which must have taken quite a long time, and was neither leaked nor announced until a couples of days before it officially launching.

Same thing for Beastmens.

[MunKy]

@Index

only thing i was pointing out is

I apologise if I appeared to be calling you out personally, Im not. Im more making a generalisation about the way some peeps on this forum and beyond make about games in general regarding their unrealistic expectations. Like I say, I personally welcome constructive criticism without malice

@Unavailable

this game needs more

All games need more shoulda coulda woulda.

@Unavailable

All the other stuff they used dev time for was a waste if they dont turn out more maps.

I dont agree. While I would love more maps, saying their time is a waste, to me, is quite presumptious. But you are free to have a personal opinion ofc! The devs are also free to ignore it. Not always the right thing to do, not always the wrong thing either.

[Unavailable]

they can balance the game into oblivion but it wont matter if nobody is playing it because there are only XX maps and its boring… hench WASTE OF TIME.

and nobody actually expects the devs to listen to common sense if they had they wouldn’t be in this mess. The community spammed them to death about fixing the crafting and they didn’t listen

Imagine if they had listened sooner

Just consider for a moment what could’ve been

*edit and btw they don’t get that much grief for screwing things up really… at least fatshark still exist they could’ve disappeared here and might still do /shrug by all means though protect their feelings. I’m sure they will ignore that too.

[Heretical_Cactus]

I’m sure putting the devs that are skilled in making weapons to work in making a new map would be the best way to make use of their skills

[Unavailable]

so why have they only got devs who "balance weapons " then why are there not more people employed at fatshark who make new maps

[Heretical_Cactus]

Because you think that the Map artist are doing nothing ?

Like Dark Communion was just discovered in a corner under dust (STC)

As I’ve said before, they might be under different work like how VT2 had with Chaos Waste.

And making a map as detailed as they want to do take time. Quite a lot of it.

[Unavailable]

the art style - amazing
the atmosphere - gritty dark love it
the gameplay - intense

the population -

its like watching ronaldo line up to take a free kick - everything is right its perfect and you know that guy is amazing here he goes running to take the shot and then

he misses the ball gets his toe stuck in the turf and catapults himself into the stands wtf even happend

/facepalm

[MunKy]

@Unavailable

they wouldn’t be in this mess.

What mess? Things arent perfect but what mess exactly? The games made lots of money, has a steady income from the ghastly MTX shop and has 87k mostly positive reviews on steam. Compare that to the widely praised SM2 with 109k very positive reviews, Id say DT isnt doing too bad. Regular income, regular dedicated playerbase, incredible game. Mess?

This is partly what Im talking about.
“Waste of time. Incompetent. Mess. Boring.”
I think your perspective is skewed sir. Im not saying dont criticise. But the words you use dont match with the reality that I personally see.

I expect my money in the post any day now Fatshark!

[Unavailable]

context matters.

You dont think fatshark F’d up then

@MunKy

I think your perspective is skewed sir. Im not saying dont criticise. But the words you use dont match with the reality that I personally see.

I remember before i pre orderd the game i saw an add on youtube - for the xbox release when the game came out it only came out on pc the xbox boys had to wait another year lol

When they first released the game it was a right state then they dissapeard on holiday for months the memes i remember the memes still

they had to work on the xbox release was the excuse they used for why they didnt fix the game we where playing on pc

[Heretical_Cactus]

Oh no FS mucked up the launch, they famously always drop the ball on launch, nobody can in good faith argue against that.

But the course that the game is taking is the normal cruise speed of tide games.

And tide games, like their far flung ancestor; Gauntlets; or their less old ones like L4D are based upon repetition.

Even if they dropped like twice as many maps per year the common day population would still float in the <10k.

---

Pointing to ranged only (Or 90% ranged) games is not really a fair assessment, and the map work needed for Arrowhead’s game is much lower, as it’s for the most part procedurally generated landscape.

---

Nobody is going to be happy with this sort of debate, but thing is that DT is doing fine, it’ll survive and things are just going to trot along, either enjoy the ride or liberate yourself

---

Don’t mention SM2

[Unavailable]

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Official Gameplay Trailer

here it is

I pre orderd and ive played a lot of hours but it will go down in my memory as a missed opportunity always and thats sad.

This game couldve been huge

the tune in that trailer is awesome btw whoever did that

[MunKy]

Yes they deffo dropped many balls. Iv yet to see a game that doesnt. By all means criticise the issues, the many issues. But maybe consider the language used?

Comparing games is useful for sure, but to use it as a metric between two successful games? I dont think thats fair.

How about this:

Darktide vs Boltgun

Damn, what a crap game! lol. 62 people playing. Incompetent failures! What a boring game /s

We could choose any two games and pick apart the pros and cons between each, how much better or worse the devs handles things, how many current or all time players they have etc.

As far as things go, Darktide has, objectively, been quite successful.

[Unavailable]

goodbye feel free to continue having your wrong opinion. I’ll allow it but be careful of your language young man. waggles finger

[MunKy]

I hope you continue to enjoy this great game in future. All the best.

[DanAphelion]

@MunKy

I applaud constructive criticism, but I also think peeps should give FS a break sometimes and leave their malice outside.

I firmly believe if only Fatshark started communicating better with its player base, they would probably dodge a lot of the flak they get. This applies to anything in life really; be honest and upright about things. If they really are overworked or are lacking resources to push out content within a healthy yearly cycle and so on and so on: let the players know.

It is challenging to extend empathy, understanding and patience to someone who doesn’t explain anything about why a situation is as it is.

Surely by the end of a year, they have production meetings about what the upcoming year should hold… dare I say the word. Yes I do. ROADMAP. Oh kark, I am in trouble now!

I am not talking about an extensive roadmap, but just something that could give us a ballpark understanding of what to expect throughout the year! And yes, I know most developers are scared of using a public roadmap feature because it puts pressure on their work, and if they miss a deadline, some people will be upset. However, I say there are different ways of approaching this.

[Cosmophase]

You do realize most people pay $70 for a game and play maybe 100-200 hours. You played $1400 worth of games in 2000 hours on this singular game. I would say you got your moneys worth.