This times a thousand. I was completely dumbstruck at how they could take 1 step forward in one area and 2 steps back in another.
If they decide to release another game with combat in the same vein as this one and it (the combat itself) ever slips up or changes drastically, that’s it, they will have no playerbase. The games are completely carried by the moment to moment combat.
edit - in hindsight this wasn’t fair to Jesper, the art team, and voice actors. They do some fantastic work too.
This used to baffle me too. It still sort of does. But, as time has marched on, I’ve simply learned that institutional knowledge utilization is more rare than common. I’ve watched my other favorite games have the same issues porting lessons learned forward. And I’ve also seen the lack of it in the professional world. It’s just one of those “common sense isn’t common” things.
Most likely blame can be given to management more often than not. Everyone has to “make their mark” to prove their worth, outcome be damned.
Fatshark just isn’t big enough for gaming “journalists” to switch to subservient mode.
The game has improved a lot since 2022, that’s true for sure, but just like a property renovation this process never ends, and tends to be weighed down by past design mistakes.
Heck, let’s talk the story mode.
It’s having to piece together a pile of different cutscenes intended for completely divergent purposes (because half of them were trailer-based hype and the other half were the disastrous ‘story’ of launch) and while it kinda works and is functional with the new post-mission scenes to stitch them together, it’s still very obvious where the seams are. Cutscenes are shot in slightly different ways, events don’t quite line up, etc.
I wish I could say I was surprised. It’s a pattern that had already carried over from VT1 to VT2, painstakingly solving most of the big systems issues only to start at square one again in the sequel with horrendous grind and RNG loot absolutely nobody liked. Though the severity of the rng itemization issues in release Darktide were probably worse than even the most cynical of FS vets would have guessed.
Somehow the worst release state for itemization that we’d ever seen. To somehow go backwards from an awful literal end of level dice roll (VT1) is a feat in itself.
It’s also my personal guess that the people making decisions want to have the RNG grind and horrible systems out of sheer stubbornness - there was mention, iirc, of ‘factions’ in VT2’s development slowing down the implementation of features requested since beta because some of the devs just straight up hated ideas that weren’t theirs.
Taken in that light, the RNG definitely feels like a single or small group of individuals who really, really, REALLY insist that games need to be as grindy as possible.
Yeah it was clearly all done on a budget, but I “personally” couldn’t care less about that aspect. I don’t really buy Tide games for the story, even if atmosphere, and environmental story telling are quite appreciated.
I still don’t think the step from VT1 to VT2 was as bad, or if it was then I just never noticed, because the problems either didn’t effect me or were in more subtle areas.
Still cannot get over how some people were saying old crafting in DT was somehow better than VT2. 
I mean it wasn’t. As I said VT1 to VT2 was more like back to square 1. Though VT2 release was extremely spaghetti, most noticeably with hero power scaling literally not working for weeks without the Devs realising because it was working properly on their test branch.
VT2 to DT wasn’t back to square 1 so much as leap frogging over square 1 into negative progress on key systems.
OMG what a bunch of dirty lies
At release all the VT2 veterans were saying “DELAY” and opening threads like this
while the green horns wanted the release to happen due to dopamine from the beta, not caring/ not able to see the enormous issues lurking behind.
You are almost alone in that.
For years we had an incomplete beta test, with placeholder mechanics.
it has always been a fun game, nobody disputes that, which in some instances it may also be seen as even worse: cause it leaves the door open for the “what ifs”
What if FS released a complete game, what would the player base be?
Closer to the few thousands we see today or to the 100k we saw at release?
I am most certainly not, because:
Naa, you are reaching.
Fun has nothing to do with releasing an half-arsed version with missing features.
It sugarcoats the pill but does not change anything.
I would have been happier with a more complete product 1 year later, regardless of fun.
Nah. Even when the game was in a bad state, half of al the Steam reviews were positive. Not everyone has the same attitude towards or relationship with video games.
I was present during VT2’s quite chaotic release, and I knew before DT’s release that it would go through the same process, so I was not so in favour for a delay, cause I feel like release FS and support FS aren’t driven the same way.
And that having the game release earlier mean it’ll eventually get fixed earlier than releasing later but still with major problems.
He takes it for granted.
They are lucky there is no competitor in that niche. If there would be a studio that can recreate that Dark Messiah+L4D mix, then FS is cooked.
Steam reviews are not a good indicator, by your same logic, the game would be in the same state as at released, given that it is still “Mixed” today.
It’s overall mostly positive today (70.39%).
And I don’t think it’d be in the launch state even if it had been overwhelmingly positive at launch. It’s been a common refrain since beta that FS would “eff it up then fix it.” You can see that sentiment everywhere, it’s what the director was talking about in the interview, it’s even in this thread.
The game was always going to get polished. It’s cool that you would have preferred it bake for another year, but I don’t feel the same.
The thing is you can’t make gunplay nuanced and deep while keeping it arcady and not turning it towards Tarkov.
But for melee you can put a lot of moves and mechanics without turning it into medieval fencing simulator still.
Those are not the same thing and you know it
I am not “almost alone” in being happy the game came out when it did. If you actually followed this conversation in the interest of maybe having something tangible to add, you’d see that was the claim I was responding to and that the other poster went on to say:
Which is fine for him to feel, but absolutely not how I feel.