Just wanted to follow-up on my last poll.
- I LOVE this mode
- I’m just happy to have free content
- I don’t have a strong opinion either way.
- I kinda dislike it
- I really find it annoying and unfun
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voters
It literally disconnects every time what a waste of time. Also everybody splits up and gets bodied
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It’s just, meh to me. The disconnects are off the chats though. Literally, you do a super long mission only for it to abort because of error 2014. Peak Fatshark. It’s not 2014 Fatshark, fix your fking servers.
I didn’’t like it.
Gonna continue playing normal auric missions instead. I have far more fun there.
Yah. Holding off on judgment for a few days … literally had our team all booted as the extraction ramp was opening on the valk yest on our last run, was mind-boggling. At least 4 runs ended by 2014 or some other random crash yesterday.
Maps are gorgeous, really would like to get further into the nodes to the higher challenge areas but it’s a bit difficult when runs are crashing so often.
Ed: TBC, I had fun, but definitely a shot to the balls every time a mission disconnects and you waste 20+ min and slow your progression to the higher nodes.
The biomes are at least cool. Because it’s so open running from objective to objective, there’s not much in terms of combat in between. Like the only way you’re actually fighting is when you’re holding off an area doing the puzzles. I just don’t really care for that aspect. Like, you could just possibly cheese the missions running around with 4 scums or something, which would pretty much negate the mode. Plus, the currency should do a bit more than just unlock missions & gain health or ammo or whatever it is. It feels a bit meaningless. Not trying to be a bummer, just being honest.
They need to stop wasting time developing new game modes and instead develop new maps, story stuff and weapons for the actual game.
What is even driving such nonsensical decisions?
Probably people who want to create new things to pad their resume, because apparently “reworking and maintaining existing systems” is unpopular and doesn’t carry the same glitz.
And also people who for some reason seem absolutely terrified to have anything even seem to be under the shadow of Vermintide 2, which is why we keep getting problems that were previously solved.
It’s got some problems but overall I’m actually really enjoying it, but just like havoc, the level of enjoyment lays almost entirely on teammate RNG. If you get a good team then it’s a blast. If you get a bad team then it’s hell.
The biome looks cool AF though ngl. They’ve done a good job with the art.
It feels a bit unfair as ogryn as it’s very open and ogryn gets easily stuck on quite a bit of geometry or can’t scale some small ledges etc, but I’m still enjoying it (when I get a good team).
If one person takes up the mantle of leader and pings where to go then it makes things flow much better
I’ve not voted in the poll because the “I’m enjoying it despite it’s flaws that I hope will be ironed out soon" option isn’t there 
I like it. It has a nice, wide map, an incentive to explore, enough enemy density to make it fun, and a time constraint to incentivise decision-making and prioritisation. It has a nice pace to it; here we have high-intensity objectives and low-intensity traversal between them, so it gives you breathing room (unlike Havoc). The environment has a feeling of randomness to it, which is good.
Why do I think it is a strong foundation and not a failed side mode like Mortis? Well, obviously it has one problem, which plagues all of Darktide: it can be kited and speedrun by stealth Zealots with mobile weapons. Although the objectives themselves are quite long, and for some of them you need to stay in a very small room to complete them the fastest way (very smart from Fatshark, really). But when you play normally and try to maximize the loot, usually staying on the objective 2-by-2 or all 4 together, it is pretty neat. There is plenty of shooting, plenty of blasting, and pretty hectic moments where you need to hack and you need to do it fast.
So, unlike Mortis, this game mode actually has all the elements of DT intact, and even gives out one more (the very long range combat)!
Exploration: It has exploration (which Mortis obviously doesn’t), where you MOVE through a level and anticipate GETTING STUFF. It makes it much more akin to regular missions where you look for and go for objectives or loot (resources, temp buffs, and ammo) - cool. Did Chaos Wastes do it better? They didn’t have randomized maps, but they had ammo, nades, upgrades, and weapons right on the maps. Expeditions kinda has this via scrap, but finding scrap is not as exciting as finding a cool hammer&book.
Can it be upgraded upon? Yes, by adding a mission modifier where instead of scrap, you pick up the stuff on the map that you usually buy for scrap. That would be an interesting condition. Adding more Chaos Wastes elements would also be cool; the foundation is there. Adding more incentive to collect data fragments? Yes, that would also be cool!
Enemy density and pacing: I think it’s nice. It could get very hectic at times (although that might be because I average 40-50 FPS on a low FOV and 1600x900 resolution, not my H30+ goto Havoc setup, xD). Unlike Havoc, which is just a constant crawl through enemies with boring event objectives (because nothing happens there, it would be cooler if the “nothing happens” stuff was between them), Expeditions have it the right way. There is much less enemy density between objectives, and a nice amount while you’re doing them. Cool. There are bugs, like when you split up into two, the other part of the team just doesn’t get enemies to play with. 
It is also boring on anything lower than Auric (a general statement about DT tho). It has much less rabid and exhausting special spam, unlike Maelstroms or Shock Troop Gauntlets, where I feel like I am playing “Special Tide” instead of Darktide - it’s not hard, it’s just not that interesting.
The environments and maps are very cool. The hacks and objectives are good. They can easily fit more new ones, but what we already have is good enough. Again, a solid foundation that can be improved upon by adding new biomes. Why can’t we go explore some giga-big grotto? That would be cool and might even have room for some water or flora. Or I don’t know, an ice cave, because somewhere a cooling system was broken like in Gloriana. Again, there is room for creativity from FS, and the foundation is good enough.
The mission modifiers: I saw two, the night one and the tornado one. The tornado is cool, hands-down a fun modifier. I wouldn’t mind a thing like that being put in Havoc - genuinely, a slow-moving disruptor as a modifier would be cool. With the night one, I am not sure about one thing. It’s not really dark out there at night, but is it dark in more secluded rooms? Like rooms that have a roof on top? If yes, then it’s cool. If not, it would be cool if there were pitch-dark rooms at night so you still need a torchlight or have deprived vision, but it’s not as oppressive as in regular maps. Again, a good foundation, more fun stuff can be added here.
The new enemy, the Packmaster: The guy is just a bum. Idk, he dies so fast I don’t even feel his presence. It feels like he just has a little more health than a Crusher and that’s all. The guy needs some milk, because he’s barely present for 10 seconds.
Disconnects and bugs: The gate from the saferoom bugs out a lot! Pls fix, Fatshark. Had some guy constantly disconnecting in one of the matches. Pretty much that’s all.
Performance is surprisingly not that bad on my cheap-ass laptop, better than Havoc.
Time limit: I have no idea why people are crying over it. Time limits are cool because they incentivize decision-making, and you can’t just farm the whole map at once, bloating the mission to an hour long. They give just the right tension. Is the current exact implementation good? Idk, I have no issue with it. There is a longer type of mission, maybe it’s more fun - haven’t unlocked it yet. Does it incentivize speed running? Yeah, kind of. You still have a lot of objectives to do regardless and want to loot as many as you can, and some of them pin you down to a small room. I think it’s not as egregious as an Archivum Sycorax with knife zealots running stealth.
Overall, I think it’s good enough. It’s better than the Mortis trials, in which you SIT AROUND and look at the scenery for 30 minutes. You have exactly 12 waves, so you always know when the enemy comes. The single most interesting part of that game mode were the waves where objectives incentivized the team to go to a place and do something together, making it so that we can’t just stand at the dead center of the map and shoot stuff. It also had zero exploration, except for the boons. Which are cool and all, but you get them from a pop-up screen and not by finding a cool boon in a chest or making a decision that will stay with you for the rest of the many rooms.
It is far from perfect, and it isn’t Chaos Wastes - which I was disappointed about because, given all the assets the game already has, it would have been a no-brainer to make a continuation of such a popular game mode from VT. But well… nevertheless, Expeditions in my opinion IS a solid foundation. It’s a good start that Fatshark can expand on in the future, maybe even into something like actual Chaos Wastes. They have all the systems in place; they just need to put it all together and call it, I don’t know, “Mortis Expeditions” or something, where we go not outside the hive, but into a Chaos-ridden hive city or planet. We could have all sorts of warp magic and boons there, and also randomized loadouts, which would just increase the enjoyment and replayability of such a game mode. Also, we have so many good maps that are divided into segments. I think it would have been pretty nice to have some sort of system where we could be put in a random section of the regular maps via warp magic, again to save up assets and increase replayability alongside the open area maps.
Hopefully, FS can expand and upgrade on it in parallel to the regular game mode and Havoc. So none of them gets left behind except Mortis trials - idk how that game mode can be saved by itself, it’s just not enough. Maybe some day, all these gamemodes that we have will lead to the spawn of proper Chaos Wastes, that would combine everything we have in the game into one tight experience. It would be cool.
R&D, building portfolio, fostering talent, perhaps - apparently they can do it.
I’m not a fan of how the poll is structured towards these opinions, so I’ll say this: It’s OK. It’s got some tactical depth to it and I can see why some builds may be good on it, alone on the merit of being strong against tightly packed patrols of enemies.
This is like a master class in biased poll question construction
very much this, as i posted here:
considering how many teams can’t stay together for the sake of their lives in normal games, letting them roam free works just as expected.
tbh, i’ve never been good at open world games, and sure i know how to use the compass, but it isn’t that simple when a lot of upset cultists are interfering… and then there’s more auspexing and a new minigame, which i leave to someone who is better at that while i bash some heads in.
so far i like the open world because it’s new, but i’m not thrilled. i have to get more familiar with this mode for an opinion.
The new items and coins in the store have no meaning and lack rewards. Anyway, I wouldn’t go to an open flat ground to be a gunner’s moving target just for a few insignificant achievements.Fatshark brings you a plate of poop, and when you finish it after putting in a lot of effort, Fatshark is happy and offers you a bigger plate of poop as a reward.
The new mode is fine because it offers a fresh new perspective on gameplay, rather than a linear progression or little arena from mt. There are plenty of enemies and encounters, just like on regular maps, even if you try to avoid patrols. The timer is generous, giving enough time to check almost all the points (Maybe I was lucky with a random teams, since at auric level there was only 1 fail out of 10 successful attempts).
I don’t quite understand the global point of collecting technologies. Yes, they unlock new areas (modifiers), but what happens when you unlock all the maps? There needs to be some kind of extra incentive to motivate to collect as many as possible.
I encountered a new enemy, an ogrin with dogs, twice in 10 tries, and he died so quickly that I didn’t even have time to examine his model, nor battle patterns.
And yet, I really miss new normal maps. If at least one new normal map in this biome had come with Expeditions, that would have been perfect. Right now, though, it feels like this update, while big, is a separate mode, additional stuff of lesser importance, while the core game remains essentially the same (gaining advantage of new classes, weapons and maps, not the modes).
I can’t understand why people can’t learn what to do…it’s bizarre. On the 3rd map (which takes quite a bit of playing to unlock)…people are running off on their own and then trying to extract when there is over 5 mins left on the clock etc. like, how do you not know how to play this mode by the 3rd map?!
Smoothbrain teammate RNG is particularly spicy on this mode.
Poll options aren’t great, but I like the new mode.
Just seems like it one’s enjoyment from it will depend on whether or not you have a premade or are willing to actually use your mic in-game with PUGs.
Considering the number of anti-social people you can find on this forum as well as those that aren’t having fun unless they are playing ball crusher difficulty, the reaction isn’t surprising.
I think it will be good for retaining the more casual friend group audience at least.
Funny you mentioned that. The in-game VOIP does not work for me mid mission, it dies as soon as we leave the lobby.
Either way, no strong feelings. As someone described it recently, the main source of engagement in Darktide is combat, and SO FAR I feel there is less of it in Expeditions than in Auric level HISTG missions. It could be I simply had no luck, and the AI director was sleeping during me few games. I really didn’t expect this to be high Havoc intensity, it just a bit to chill for my preferences. It could be that because how quickly some players move between POIs, intensity has no time to really build up? For now I will give a chance to form a proper opinion.
The fatshark special does also impact enjoyment on different aspects of the game, this is true.