Never worked in a big office, I take it?
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Itās a shocking response and Iām quite glad to see the reaction to it in the Update thread has been overwhelmingly negative.
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I waited until now before reviewing the game on steam and just gave it a thumbs down.
It doesnāt matter how great the in-mission game is, everything around that is absolutely terrible at the moment. Stability, Performance, Mission selection, Gear generation, Gear Acquisition, Resource gathering, Player Progression, Connectivity, you name it is all badly designed
What made me bite the bullet was the way the latest update was worded. It was very condescending, treating things as trivial or misunderstandings, being vague and silent on other things
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Well in positive news Vermintide 2 is giving out free stuff:
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In positive 40k related news.
Space Marine 2
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Excited! Space Marines are the best. I donāt care what anyone says. Them and Sisters of Battle.
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This Patch preview leaves me totally whelmed, nothing elseā¦
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I wish Iād refunded after launch when i saw that nothing extra was being added following the beta.
This game needed another delay and a lot more work.
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Iām so sorry for you. I managed to quickly refund when I still had a chance at it. Even got a couple of personal friends to not buy Darktide - just can not recommend it in good conscience. The real kicker though is the tone deaf communications weāve been receiving on this forum - none, itās none. People have been raising and continue to raise complaints about the game, while also giving genuine feedback; and itās being met with dead silence. Anyways, Iām sure if you write to steam in support ticket while elaborating on your grievances, they might still give you your money back.
In all my years, I have never, ever, worked with a developer that is this frustrating. Most that Iāve worked with are quite receptive towards genuine feedback, as they see it as a means to overall improve the game. After all, itās all about giving your players an enjoyable experience. Thatās the point of an entertainment product: to entertain. If it doesnāt do that, whatās the point?
Everyday I log into this website, as itās the āofficial forumsā, I expect a response to the many, many, problems that people keep bringing up, and I see nothing. I question what these developers are doing. Do they laugh at us? Do they joke about the feedback we give? Do they hate us? Or do they simply not care? It is a mystery with how obtuse Fatshark is being at the moment. I ask why do we have an āofficial forumā if none of the developers will make an earnest attempt at dialogue. Is the āofficial forumā just a means to isolate the āangryā players so they can be ignored? It is a mystery.
Oh how I wish I never got into the Vermintide games. Darktide made me into such a fool with how I told my friends, family, about how awesome itāll be. Only for it come out and for it to be this.
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Yeah, itās really sad the crafting system didnāt come out with release, I think nobody is defending that.
But for me, I never got the impression from the videos that a Modular Weapon Crafting would be a thing, they just showed of some different weapons, or I donāt remember it at least, do you have any specific vids/statement which you can share?
What I did expect was kind of what they are trying to do with the coming crafting system, so yeah adjust perks/blessing/rarity and maybe stats. The re-roll just one perk part yeah agree thatās annoying.
But sure overall, I agree, could have been a nice feature.
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I agree with everything, but this. The point of producing an entertainment is extracting profits. Iām sorry, but we live in a capitalist world. What is supposed to be entertainment for some is just a tedious stressful job for others.
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I guess an example world be all the German sim games. Forklift sim etc
If Fat Shark are indeed saying they are the rng grind heavy horde game equivalent of these niche titles then thatās fine but i think making a live service out of it has been a disasterous move.
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god i hope is better than the last, which i did enjoy but it wasnt without its problems.
a new company taking over the Spacemarine brand does have a feeling of change but also uncertanty.
im withhold judgement until it comes out,
If it has horde deffense mode and pvp with a great campaign i can see my self playing this and rouge trader until darktide finally gets its act together
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Fatsharkās implementation should be called at-least-several-months-late-service
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They both had it in trailers
And promised it in community updates:
I am livid over this
Boycott the game. Scream at the sky until FatShark delivers on things they promised us.
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Just an attempt at an in-depth perspective from one of those filthy casuals (though a gamer of the Amstrad vintage to present) who saw it on Gamepass and played 40k back in the day i.e. oh that sounds good, click. I expect outside discord and forums thereās a big silent majority in that camp, the fact Iām even here and have been on the more invested side of gaming in the past probably puts me outside that criteria though. Semi-casual if you will.
I found it really interesting reading this thread coming in completely new to Darktide and having never played a horde shooter let alone VT as well. I donāt like hectic and twitch generally, Iām a slower turn based strategy and RPGs type. Biggest thread on the forum so I took a look and most of my wider knowledge on the game now comes from here.
TL:DR: As long as gameplay is fun and content / longer term progression keeps feeling good (i.e. no P2W / dedicated gamers so far ahead as itās pointless) I stay. The output / content from devs and game experience matters and all the rest I donāt give a toss about, as most wonāt. I worry that this will go down MMO / F2P dopamine drip model rather than core gameplay to keep me engaged. Iām self-aware enough to get out when itās ācontentmentā not āenjoymentā. Problem is most casuals arenāt. Contentment is easier and itās good business even if bad game design.
Anyway ā on the above:
The cash shop gave me a solid āwhat the hellā when I realised I couldnāt earn those credits in game. Given the games I play seeing that type of thing in a retail game was a shocker. However it didnāt give rise to any strong feeling, as noted above, Iāll personally just ignore it as it isnāt P2W I donāt see the issue. As a new casual, no idea that time would have been spent on it to the detriment of other features (crafting).
Progression, stats, upgrades etc. - Coming from a RPG background mostly this felt empty to me, but from the shooters I have played it was a shrug as I didnāt really expect much depth there.
One thing Iāve found (nearing 30 on my one char) is there is definitely a feeling of emptiness on progression though and a bit of frustration at the randomness (i.e. am I going to get an item at the end or not? knowing the shop likely has nothing for me). I donāt need a big shiny Borderlands / Diablo style loot explosion, or even anything monumental at all, but I really do miss the āfeelingā each session that itās progression to a wider goal. When I cap XP and finish off my last few sharpshooter Penances that will go into overdrive. Even if I could just see my stats going up, maybe a 0.1% increase in damage per over-level or getting a single item guarantee but low chance of it being anything worthwhile gives meaning to every session.
Penances, good to see acknowledge some have a problem (most I enjoyed and are fairly natural though). I feel like crap trying to go for one with randoms and, as one with no friends playing, the need to group up and play the game outside a normal style to cheese one. I canāt see myself shitting on people at higher difficulties where it really matters and given Iāll be playing with randoms it will kill my enjoyment if my rare chance at heretic is tanked by a sharpshooter emptying ammo. I donāt mind if not having a group with good comms in a co-op game makes the tougher difficulties hard / impossible, or if there were some penances you need that for (Damnation difficulty etc.) that I may never get. Those that mess with natural playstyle though are just annoying.
On Fatshark, Tencent, delays, lack of comms etc. etc. There was a time Iād be where you all are on this (good old MMO days) and fully invested, but to be honest I do not care. This isnāt going to impact the majority of the playerbase in my opinion. Content and enjoyment will. If the game gets tired or developments donāt come, I move on. (So some impact there, keeping highest level the āthis is coming soon!ā or ācome back for this!ā comms will impact me.) The worry is thereās a horde like me who leave if the window is missed and youāre left with small bitter playerbase with it tough for new players to even come in (e.g. if you face guys speedrunning on the 5th char).
The big problem is that this - anything just to keep people in the game, is the focus. It sounds great but there are two very different ways to achieve it, and one is much easier. Pushing engagement / not respecting time and getting people to play longer just for money is not good, to put it mildly. They are a business after all but this type puts off your more serious gamers and does not cater for them. You make gameplay objectively worse with structures and metrics (that most casuals donāt even notice / know could be different) Say you grind like hell to max gear but the goalposts are moved / time-gated to keep that dopamine carrot there at the level enough for casuals to keep chasing, then the hardcore leaves. You go the other way and make everything extremely tough but bring in P2W for casuals or catch up. (Think - Buy a full set of red āmythicā gear at the new expansion cap - vs 40 hours grinding).
It used to be youād have games trying to balance the quick rewards / progression for casuals with an overlay of longer-term goals / exponential or non-linear decreasing benefit for the dedicated gamers in such a mix as it keeps the playerbase as a whole coherent and happy. (get the balance wrong and you essentially split the base as Casuals canāt play with the dedicated gamers). Think - pretty easy to hit cap and gear up for most difficulties (if we call that 100% of power, say 30 hours), the next 30 hours might see you hit 120% through over leveling, gear grinding etc. New content hits and both then have something novel / enjoyable to play through.
Itās so much easier to have an āunfunā game, with dopamine carrots keeping people playing and the money flowing, than it is to have a game that is genuinely fun enough to play to keep people there. Think of all the folk out there grinding at MMOs as much as a second job for years. Get that ādingā, feel like you have achieved or progressed something, keep going. But is it fun? Would you drop in for a single session if all that progression left and you just had the core mechanic? If you took a game (like Dakrtide) and removed all the leveling and just let people pick their perks, weapons mix / stats etc, and let them loose would it still work?
I termed this as contentment vs enjoyment back when MMOs were first getting into this, pre the mobile game explosion that really weaponised it. You put in 1000 hours over years and get that ādingā ādingā but the game itself becomes a vehicle for this. Darktide, objectively, is still far, far from this. When you distil that model down to get (and these exist) just clicking games with nice noises and stats to release that dopamine. Add in a shop ā10,000 instant clicks for $19.99!) and people buy it. Add in a leader board and whales will buy thousands. Add in randomness and get engage the gambling aspect. At the pointy end itās pretty disgusting. Psychological manipulation and addiction akin to an abusive relationship.
Itās a spectrum though, most games have, and warrant, an element of that as an aspect of enjoyment, our brains crave that sense of achievement and progression and they can and will gobble it up even if itād nearly the entirely of the content. RPGs have leveling for a reason, long, long before any of this psychology became big business. In live service / MMOs you need enough of this to keep people on board until the new content arrives too. (even if this is, nominally, a detrimental to gamers and game design, I would note it is needed as you donāt want everyone to leave, many wonāt come back). I can see the difficulty in business choice / risk. Reducing reliance on this metric and rolling the dice of in-game content and new content carrying things, and carrying them for long enough, when you can just ramp up these mechanisms and almost guarantee a certain mindset / playerbase will stay (with the attached $s).
The trick IMO is to make it enjoyable rather than somewhat of a chore. Contentment vs enjoyment again. Iām not sure Darktide has this right, Iām not deep enough in, but I feel not. Waiting for a weapon refresh, wellā¦no, I donāt even bother, Iām casual. At current rates / logins I may never see one I need or want and may never get one in a mission drop. Grinding materials (again casual, I wonāt have many), Grinding weeklies (again, losing casuals). Youāre locking me out of content and progression, it wonāt keep me here. Slow progression fine. Slow and I just get less chances for the absolute best or have slightly worse gear than dedicated gamers get, also fine (as long as I can still scale somewhat close to them so we can play). Sow progression (as a casual) where I get so few chances to roll what I need that i may never get it? No.
If I could slowly build up over-leveling experience / benefits then great, always a reason to play. Maybe, instead of random blessing needing many rolls and grinding mats and itās either what I need or nothing (mostly likely nothing, as I will have few mats / rolls and you need to balance the % chance with your dedicated gamers), slowly let me improve my blessings for certain - well, yeah.It could be finding mats, it could be experience, it could be weapons need a certain number of kills or elite kills etc. to hit the next % increase (weapon penances that are coherent with natural gameplay?), whatever. I might hit 105% compared to base before a new cap / content. A dedicated gamer might hit 120%, weāre both still progressing with smooth progression / achievement ādingā, we can both still play together on a similar level, every session now counts and offers something of a goal, and no gambling / FOMO / envy. You get that engagement, you donāt crap on people and disrespect their time, people notice they are being āmanagedā less. Make the increases diminishing returns and itās endless. Another problem in the random model is when you get the BiS perfect roll, youāre now done, so what is the point?
Anyway ā back to being a casual. That is it for me in Darktide though, the gameplay is good enough that I am, and will continue, to play for now regardless of progression. The artificial n walls put up to slow that / gate then are fine, endless / mindless grinding needed less so (could be poor design over conscious choice to be predatory) progression is something that is enjoyable in games, you need it for when novelty wears off until new content hits, casuals get through it slow enough that this works, longer term progression helps engage dedicated gamers. Wish fulfillment and sense of achievement are a central pillar of why we play. However you can get the focus / balance of that out, the game can feel like a chore and yet people keep playing because you weaponize psychology. Good for $, terrible game design. If it canāt stand without that, not worth it. I may know that from bitter experience, most casuals wonāt and get roped in and all the metrics and KPIs look great for fat shark when dedicated fans are hating the gameā¦ but often still playing!
Main point from me though, gameplay is what hooked me. Being able to drop in for 15-30 mins and blast through a mission (or a few) when I have time after the kids are down for the night is still brilliant fun. Malice with random keeps it tense for me at the moment as doesnāt feel inaccessible to a slow twitch slightly older gamer (player a sharpshooter) wither average gear and game knowledge. I can hopefully see myself at Heretic in orange gear (even if not optimised) and not being a drag to folk. Unless there is a longer-term progression system (not just gear) and some more variety though I reckon that will wear out for me, personally, around the 50-60 hours / second character max mark. Thatās probably a couple of months.
I wonder how you hook me, and other casual, into the long term before that happens. I hope the focus is on more content, not on mechanics external to the core gameplay to manipulate people to play. The latter is also much easier to do than the former unfortunately.
One person anecdotal 2c.
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You make some good observations and points. It I think you must understand where more dedicated players are coming from-
Thereās a lot of content that was implied to be there that would have really fleshed out the bones of what we expected from darktide: as an example of that
weapon mods and real- attachment based customization would have added HUGE amounts of depth into the game, we like investing; be it in our fashion, our abilities, or our weapons. Having a lasgun that was truly yours would have also created a sense of specialness to it
better penances would have made the secondary hunt for the cool bragging rights armor more fun. And those armors would have created a reputation of positive team play and overall experience
Actually now that I think about it- those are my two only real complaints, I thought I had a third but really they stem from a bare bones weapon system that was advertised to be far more depthful and a achievement system that encourages fun-factor
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Great post and analysis above.
I liked the comment where you posited āwould the game be fun if you just unlocked everything (weapons, feats, etc) for everyone all at once?ā
Hereās the kicker. I think the game would be significantly MORE fun if they did that.
I put 700 hours into Vermintide, the vast majority of that AFTER I had leveled up every character and got basically every piece of equipment that I needed. What was I doing in all that time? There were tons of achievements to do (with cosmetic rewards or just because). Iād spend dozens of hours pushing myself at higher difficulties and trying out different build combinations.
Devs talk about āengagementā and āmetricsā ā¦ but as a player I think about replayability. New challenges and things to try, different builds to tinker with, skills to develop further, etc. All of that is enabled by having less grind. We joke with new players that Vermintide didnāt really āget funā until after you hit level 30. Why even have the grind?
In payday 2 I was driven at one point to do the achievement for having 1,000 achievements. It was a hell of an undertaking, done well past the point where I had everything in the game unlocked. It was awesomely fun. Deep Rock Galactic has a very quick progression arc, and enjoyment derives from the replayability you get from the variety of mission conditions and parameters. Every run feels exciting and different. Plus they have a great seasonal system geared around cosmetics.
Darktides progression system just needs to just get the hell out of the way so players get on with playing the game on their own terms, tinkering with builds, pushing their skills to higher levels etc. But instead we have about the worst system imaginable. So bad that it creates a barrier to the enjoyment of the core game loop for many people. Sure - I can stick my head in the sand and just have fun with individual mission runs, but itās frustrating knowing I could be having MORE fun if I was able to tinker with my gear more freely, experiment, and challenge myself.
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I agree, real player engagement is when the player wants to involve himself in the mechanics of the game, not when he must
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