I have been spending the past few months basically onboarding new, more casual players among my friend group.
As a result, I’ve had the opportunity to see the systems Fatshark has created through their eyes.
And let me tell you: it’s all overcomplicated horsesh*t.
Okay, levelling up is simple. A skill tree is not too difficult and it makes sense. One level, one talent point, follow the shiny lines. This one, they understand and follow.
Everything else…not so much.
Take weapons, for example. Random stat distributions, empowerment, final stat levels, item tiers, the mastery system - it’s all pointlessly overcomplicated for something that could and should be as simple as ‘this gun does x damage over y shots against z armor, put part 1 and 2 on it to achieve effect ! and @.’ Instead we get four tiers of blessings, a grind system, sacrifices, blessing unlocks being restricted to tier unlocks, and other random nonsense to get in the way of the basics.
This is not a difficult thing to do. Weapon systems, weapon customization, and stats are simple. They’ve been a solved puzzle for 20+ years of game development. But Fatshark INSISTED on overcomplicating it so we’re left with a nonsensical result with no onboarding for new players and no point to it beyond elongating a grind.
Want to know what the new-ish, casual players I hang with do with this overcomplicated system? They ignore it. They’ll find a weapon combo they like and never let go of it because the whole grind system is too much to bother engaging with. The more experienced ones with a bucket of resources MIGHT try something new via force-levelling but they’ll ignore 90% of the system. Melk scarcely exists to these people because he never offers anything and his currency is weird and separate.
Then there’s missions. Equally overcomplicated, equally pointless. I’m babying these guys through quickplay, but even the ones who hit 30 don’t want to deal with Havoc mode and it’s morbillion tiers and are ambivalent to Mortis Trials and its random psyker-jar-memories. Story? Story doesn’t exist because it’s fed in disconnected segments through a RNG mission board that has no reason to exist and some cutscenes that are an active insult to our intelligence. Orthus Offensive? Not on the mission board, doesn’t exist to these people.
Cosmetics? None of them are happy with the FOMO and the fact they can’t buy, say, that cool flame sconce backpack. They barely engage with penances as it stands. They don’t seem to really know the commissary exists.
Darktide’s systems are reinventing the wheel pointlessly, is what I’m trying to get at. They don’t DO anything, and they’re overcomplicated to the point of turning away players.
Weapons should be simple. They should have no ‘stat bars’. They should do a set amount of damage in a set way that can be boosted by perks and blessings that are equally set and not in nonsense tiers.
Missions should be simple. There should be a set campaign of linear, chronologically connected campaign missions. There should be quickplay. There should be a single hard mode. There MIGHT need to be an arena mode like Mortis, but it is an optional addon. There does not need to be 50+ different types of difficulty, most of them generated in the ‘ubersweat’ mode solely to create grind.
The store should be simple. There should be a single premium currency, one that can be earned as well as bought. Cosmetics should be in a catalogue. The commissary should do something worthwhile.
